The Lion Trees

By Owen Thomas

What if survival required you to unlearn who you are? How far would you fall to save yourself? Sometimes happiness is a long way down.

The Johns family is unraveling. Hollis, a retired Ohio banker, isolates himself in esoteric hobbies and a dangerous flirtation with a colleague’s daughter. Susan, his wife of forty years, risks everything for a second chance at who she might have become. David, their eldest, thrashes to stay afloat as his teaching career capsizes in a storm of accusations involving a missing student and the legacy of Christopher Columbus. And young Tilly, the black sheep, having traded literary promise for an improbable career as a Hollywood starlet, struggles to define herself amid salacious scandal, the demands of a powerful director, and the judgments of an uncompromising writer.

By turns comical and poignant, the Johns family is tumbling toward the discovery that sometimes you have to let go of your identity to find out who you are.

The Lion Trees has been honored by ten internationally accredited book award festivals: The Eric Hoffer Book Award, The First Horizon Award, The Beverly Hills International Book Award, The London Book Festival, The Southern California Book Festival, The Hollywood Book Festival, The Great Midwest Book Festival, the Amsterdam Book Festival, The Pacific Rim Book Festival, The Great Southeast Book Festival.

“A sweeping literary saga in the tradition of Dr. Zhivago, Gone with the Wind, and The Thorn Birds, this book has it all, including scandal, aspiration, treachery, and reinvention. Thomas’ fiction has a fresh feel—original and stirring—delivering a tale of monumental family dysfunction, which captures interest through numerous plot shifts, quickly alternate between poignant and humorous. By turns exhilarating and exhausting, Thomas creates compelling, rich characters. The ending is just as satisfying as the beginning.”—The Eric Hoffer Book Award

“[5 STARS]... Owen Thomas’ Lion Trees... can be anointed any number of superlatives to showcase its brilliance; highly addictive, spectacular, and mind blowing will have to suffice. Thomas is a wizard of fiction, and his novel a captivating gem that engulfs the reader from the beginning.”—US Review of Books

“[A] cerebral page turner...a powerful and promising debut.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[4 Stars]... In its structure and nature, [The Lion Trees] reminds me above all of John Updike’s wonderful Harry Rabbit novels and their ability to summarize the essence of change in American society across a decade at a time.” – BookIdeas.com

“[5 Stars]... [A] powerful, gripping and realistic story...The Lion Trees does what so very few great novels can: it will take a lot out of you, but leave you with much more than you had when you began.”—Pacific Book Reviews.

“[5 STARS]... “Every now and then, seemingly out of nowhere, a new voice comes along and knocks your socks off. Owen Thomas owns that voice. . . . . Intoxicated by his prose, you gorge upon chunks of passages and while awestruck by the language’s majesty two discordant thoughts course through your brain: why is the book so long and then, superseding that sentiment, please don’t let it end. It is not often that a book like The Lion Trees graces our lives.”—The Anchorage Press

“[5 STARS]... I’ve been an avid reader for well over thirty-five years. I’ve been a reviewer for over a dozen. I’ve been bombarded by today’s cookie cutter story assembly and I despise it. There are times when I just don’t think I can take another pre-fab book. Then, someone like Owen Thomas comes along and reminds me what the book world CAN offer, what a story CAN be. It reminds me of the reason I fell in love with reading in the first place and what a magical world the art of storytelling is.... If I were going to write a book myself, I would want it to be something that changed the world of the person holding it, and this book does that exceedingly well”—LiteraryL

• Language: English
• Publisher: Owen Thomas
• Release date: Oct 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310106873

Book preview

PART I: UNRAVELING

PROLOGUE - Matilda

Bitches and sirens. Don’t they just always get the attention? Damnable storm. Everyone recognizes her now. Katrina’s mother. That’s some real star power for you.

And there’s really no doubting where she’s headed. She’ll be there soon enough and not the least bit tired for the journey. Two more days at most. Everyone has been waiting for so long – sixty years! Imagine that. And soon she’ll be there, at last, with her arms flung wide and her capes in the wind, gliding in through the front door as if she walked on water. She’ll set down her wet bags and sing of her arrival. And when they hear her voice, all will weep at the sound.

She is coming to kill them, of course. All of them if she can. She will bludgeon and drown and choke them with mud until they are all dead or gone or so stricken by her diluvial terror that they are left hollowed out and floating like empty gourds. She will submerge the entire body of the place, snapping the arteries of oil like twigs and popping the eyes of commerce and gouging her wet thumb into the brass and reedy windpipes of Louisiana. She will make her daughter, little Katrina, seem merciful by comparison. They have all been waiting for her.

That, anyway, is the news about the weather. It plays over and over and over from the Magnavox Holostand in the corner of my room. I have not always been unconscious in this bed. I know what that contraption looks like over there by the windows. But if I have to be here with that thing blaring its hysteria, then I am much happier to be unconscious.

Technology has managed to bring affordability to the broadcast of a third dimension. Television personalities can now almost come out of their box and breathe some of your oxygen and walk around and see how you live. Progress of a sort, I suppose. But the eggheads have done precious little to improve the programming content. Content! We could do with a little third-dimension intelligence. The older I get, the more I sound like my father. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take, for example, the twenty-four-hour news that they never seem to turn off around here. Never have so many different people said so little so continuously. Never mind meteorological science. Never mind the already daunting challenges of orderly evacuation. One would think from even a small sample of viewing that the network’s effort was not to inform or to educate, but rather to whip up such a gale force of panicked madness as to create a second hurricane, one that might go out and greet and guide in the first hurricane. The one that they have taken to calling Katrina’s Mother. Hurricane Katrina should be delighted to learn that after sixty years, she is not forgotten. We should all be so lucky.

I can hear the nurse eating her snacks in the chair next to the respirator, filling my lungs with its calm, mechanical breath. She sits there like that, all crammed in, so that she can quickly strike the pose of tireless invigilator and take sudden, careful note of my vitals. Just in case her supervisor comes looking. But there is little danger of that happening. It is slightly more likely that Katrina’s Mother will extend an arm past New Orleans and swat us up here in Columbus, Ohio just for the malicious fun of it.

It is a daily routine of hers. Hiding out in my room, eating from a cellophane bag and watching the holographic news.

Of course, she thinks it is no inconvenience to me. The comatose are always such an agreeable lot. Science still has not illuminated much of this dark, still world. We are liminal, to be sure, but only like dead, not actually dead. We have stopped our physical functioning, but not our perceiving. Perception is greatly dampened, but not gone entirely. I can feel your touch. I can smell your breath. I can hear your crunching. I have simply, tragically, lost the wherewithal to object.

It is not all so bad. Soon Sadie will be here. My grandniece, a lovely rascal of a girl who is as kind as she is stubborn and waggish. She is newly sixteen and believes that the world is a place with room left yet for optimists. She is so like her grandfather in that way. Not the sort of panglossian optimism that marks the fool, but more of a point on the compass by which to navigate. For North is not always so magnetic.

Sadie will come with her homework and her stories of school and boys and she will confide in me believing in the slimmest of chance that there is some sentient cognition left in my still form to hear her. Here’s to incurable optimists.

For I do hear her. And while I cannot see her, I can imagine those intense little eyes looking at me as she talks, those nimble fingers twirling her brown hair or absently fondling the necklace I gave her on her ninth birthday and that she has never removed. It is a simple thing, that necklace. A leather thong threaded through a hole drilled in a chunk of aquamarine. It was a gift to me from a friend, a very long time ago.

My, how the world does turn. Rolling on its arc like a chipped marble.

To think of those years is scarcely different than dreaming up one of my own books. To look at me here, like this, all glaucous and withered, depredated by time, you would certainly think it fiction. Or dementia.

But I am not so far gone as to have misplaced the facts of my own life. I am the sum of all my experience. It is all still down here in the well with me.

When Sadie comes, she will continue reading. She will pick up where she left off, with Colonel Ivanova and Lieutenant Miller leaving Earth for a faraway planet as poor Jules dies in her bed from poison. She is a good reader, my Sadie. She doesn’t race through the words. She takes her time. She knows that this is a slow, careful story. She knows it is my favorite. Of all of them, and there have been so many in my life, she knows The Lion Tree is my favorite.

And she knows that it is true.

CHAPTER 1 - Hollis

Hollis Johns contemplated the tree, raking the line of his jaw with his fingers. He raised his blade to the base of the lowermost, ancient and gnarled branch, positioning it carefully between the trunk and the scalloped oval knot. His muscles tensed and he was, at last, ready to sever the old limb from fifty-eight years of growth.

Then he thought better of it, again, and returned the shears to the desk.

Another slug of wine and some more contemplation. Deeper this time. Much deeper. The Tao of the bonsai was patience. Discipline. And wisdom. Great wisdom.

Hollis?! His wife’s voice was thick and muffled and distant, burrowing its way down two floors into his leather-appointed basement study. His sanctuary. His retreat. His bunker. Hollis?! She tried again.

Sighing, Hollis swung his left arm over the back of his chair and reached for the volume knob of the stereo with two fingers. The room swelled like an orchestral lung.

It was Schubert tonight, but anyone would do, really. Susan would eventually get tired of calling out his name and would come down to fetch him. She would be wearing that look of labored marital decorum – a thin, elastic politeness stretched over her face like overtaxed sandwich wrap, her muscles straining to contain exasperation and anger and decades of complaint. A supremely unconvincing façade that, Hollis knew, she meant to be unconvincing.

And he would be equally unconvincing. Oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you, was all he needed. Schubert would do fine.

It was a shame, he thought, that these pretensions, his and hers, were necessary at all. This was not the way he wanted to relate. He hated that word, relate. Communicate. No, he hated that word too. Interact. Yes, this was not the way he wanted to interact with his wife. Why? Because directness and honesty in all things were greatly preferred.

Another swallow of wine and a one-quarter turn of the potted tree before him. The sides of the octagonal planter were a slick, dark green, like wet evening grass. Through his fingertips, he felt the roughened porcelain bottom of the planter scrape against the wooden desk. The lowermost branch of the old tree rotated into the pool of buttery light beneath the desk lamp. Hollis narrowed his eyes and laid the branch across his outstretched palm. Then he sighed.

The Japanese understand.

They understand what it means to live an honest life. That is the benefit of such an ancient culture. Wisdom is a crop that grows very, very slowly. It thrives only in old, mature soil. Americans are such an infantile culture. We cultivate infantile crops. Not small. Infantile. Big and loud and brash and self-satisfied and unruly like hyper-fertilized weeds growing in an undisciplined crawl-out of the gardens and across the floors and up the very walls of the republic. We are so slavishly obsessed with youth. We eschew anything and everything that is around long enough to have any value. Why keep a veteran of the loan department when you can have the slick kid with a flashy smile and a head full of hair and an MBA for a diaper? The older you are, the less value you have. That’s all there is to it. Wisdom cannot flourish in our culture. Our soil is too alkaline.

Hollis?!

And without wisdom, there is no honesty. The wise man knows that pretensions deceive the self as well as others… No, that’s not quite right.

With the flesh of his thumb, Hollis stroked the branch, twisted and bent with age at an angle irregular to the rest of the tree.

The wise man knows that pretensions deceive the self and that what others believe about us does not matter. That was really the key, he thought. Why do we care so much about what others think of us? Why was that so important? That conceit – that the opinions of others matter – was at the root of all pretension. The honest man, the wise man, just does not give a damn about how he is perceived by others. He is who he is. He is a scoundrel. He is a knave. He is a hero. He is a bastard. He is a regular old chap. But he is not a fool who, for the sake of another’s impression, ultimately deceives himself into believing he is somebody he is not. He is honest and forthright in the world only because he has freed himself from the burden of giving a damn.

"Hooooollllliiiiis!" Susan had now crossed the threshold between a beseeching summons and a domestic yodel and this prompted in her husband a heavy sigh and another swallow of wine, two acts that experience had honed into a single almost elegant process: exhaling through the nose directly into the glass and a simultaneous draining of wine over the tongue.

Akahito Takada was such a man, he thought, refilling his glass.

Old enough to be wise. Wise enough to be honest. Honest enough to not give a damn about what anybody else thought of him. Even his family.

Hollis had only known Akahito Takada a week. Six days, really, living as a guest in his magnificent Tokyo home. But the intensity of that exposure had been ample.

Akahito Takada was a real Japanese man. Very modern, yet strong with tradition and imbued with the wisdom of old. President of a huge international bank – Hyakugo Bank could have swallowed Ohio First Securities and Credit like a little sushi roll – and yet, a man who meditates every morning and evening; a man who cultivates his own garden; a man who speaks very little and even then only in a soft whisper of a voice; a man with a beautiful and intelligent wife and daughters who respect his authority – not in a dictatorial sense, not out of fear – out of respect for his undeniable sagacity. Akahito Takada did not have to endure daily tests and petty challenges to his place in the family. Izume Takada clearly loved him and he her. They had been married, what? Forty-five years? And she was no dullard. God, no. Izume was a doctor for Chrissakes. And yet she respected Akahito’s place in the family. It wasn’t about dominance or subjugation. Or sexism. It just wasn’t. It was about respect. Respect.

Hollis gave the tiny, old tree another quarter-turn, inspecting with a fingernail the pits and crenulations along the trunk near the base where it fanned out into roots slipping beneath a plot of mossy soil. The difference, he thought, was not so much in the families themselves. Susan was not a doctor, but she was smart. And she was a damned good woman. He had married her thirty-eight years ago and he would do it again. Sure he would. At the drop of a hat. Right this instant, if need be. Seriously.

Hooooollllliiiiis!

He had never met Akahito’s daughters. One of them was going to school at – he forgets the name. The Japanese equivalent of Harvard. And the other – Suki or Yuki or something like that; he could still remember her photograph – was clearly sharp as a razor. Not terribly unlike Tilly or David. Well, there was Ben – she was different from Ben; but everyone was different from Ben. To a certain extent, kids were kids. So, no, the difference was not so much the rest of the family.

The difference was between Akahito Takada and Hollis Johns. Not in who they were – for they were actually very much the same in most respects. Weren’t they? Yes. Yes, they were. Akahito was older and far more successful. But still. When you get right down to it. Very much the same. The difference was in how they carried themselves. Hollis had made the mistake of caring too much. Akahito Takada simply was. Akahito Takada did not ask permission to be himself. Akahito Takada did not compromise his integrity. Or his wisdom. Akahito Takada offers himself up as he is – no wheedling, no back-paddling, no counseling – and he lets the world, including his family, take him or leave him. Like him or don’t. There is no other option. And because there is no other option, the world accepts Akahito Takada as he is.

In the entire six days of the conference – in the evenings at the Takada home when it was just Akahito and Izume and himself drinking tea or sake under the paper lanterns at the end of the garden by the lotus pond – had Izume ever challenged her husband? Even once? No. Not once. Had she ever tried to embarrass Akahito by explaining that something he had just said was contrary to something he had said a week earlier, or that some prior conduct known only to her suggested he was being insincere? No. Had she even once hinted that Akahito Takada had had too much to drink? No. When Akahito asked Izume to excuse them so that they could talk about matters of business and banking, did Izume object or protest or even look wounded? No. Because that’s Akahito, and Izume accepts him as he is. She was the perfect picture of grace. Beautiful and delicate and soft and, in her own way – in her acceptance – very wise.

Hollis?!

And what about Akahito’s daughter – Yuki or Zuki or something like that – do you think she ever felt free to refuse to come home until they acceded to her demand – her demand! – that her parents see a marriage counselor? Of course not! The very idea! That is not acceptance. That is not wisdom! That is petulance! That is the height of arrogance and disrespect to one’s parents. Sweet little Yuzi or Luki, or whatever, would never dream of such tantrums. Not because she isn’t capable of them. All children are capable of tantrums. But Zumi – whatever – knows, deep in her marrow, that such conduct is hopelessly ineffective with the likes of her father, Akahito Takada. She knows her father is too wise to be manipulated in that way. She knows that her father really does not give a damn what she thinks she knows about the state of his marriage. She knows enough to accept what she cannot control and she is wise. Akahito had taught his family well.

Hoooolllllliiiiis!

And that was really the problem, wasn’t it? Hollis Johns had failed to teach his family. He had unwittingly cultivated a belief that they had a say in who he was; that they had a right to bargain about his opinions and his intentions and the meaning of his own experiences. Like they were entitled to own and control a piece of him. Well, not Ben. Ben accepted him completely. He challenged nothing. Ben respected him. And wasn’t that fucking ironic. The wisest one in the family was the one that was developmentally impaired. The rest of them should take a clue or two from Ben.

Well, there you are! I’ve been calling and calling!

Oh. Sorry. I didn’t hear you. You know… the music.

I called upstairs, and then I went to the bedroom and called and called and then outside in the driveway because I thought you might be watering the plants.

It’s the music, Susan.

You don’t need to get testy. I’m just asking. Because I was calling. And calling.

What do you need?

Maybe you should turn the music down a little so in case someone needs…

What do you need, Susan?

Should we invite the Blomfields to Tilly’s party?

That’s why you’ve been calling me for the last twenty minutes?

Yes. I thought you didn’t hear me.

"I… Didn’t you just say that you were calling me?"

I didn’t say I had been calling for twenty minutes. You clearly heard me.

"Susan, Tilly won’t even be here. Why are we inviting anyone? How many people are you planning to drag over here?"

"Drag? They’re all dying to come. Jesus, Hollis. Tilly has been nominated for a great honor. Don’t you even care? You can bet Tilly cares. You can bet David cares. There should be some recognition, don’t you think? I know there is this thing between you and Tilly, but still, Hollis, can’t you put that aside even just for this one accomplishment? Don’t you care even that much?"

He listened as if at the other end of a long tunnel. He watched her lips move, wrinkling the sandwich-wrap façade. It isn’t their fault, he thought to himself. It isn’t their fault. Not really, anyway. He would take responsibility. This was ultimately all his doing. Unknowingly, by caring too much about what they thought of him over the years, he had nurtured a belief that the question of Hollis Johns was always up for debate. And that must be very frustrating for them. Because the question of Hollis Johns is never up for debate. There is no question. Hollis Johns is who he is, take him or leave him.

No. I don’t care, Susan. Not even that much. You do whatever you want to do. Invite the Blomfields. Or don’t. I don’t care. Invite all of Columbus. Invite all of Japan.

Japan? Honestly, Hollis. You need to turn off the music and come up out of your cave and rejoin society. You’re becoming crotchety before my very eyes.

Well, you can get emotional about it if you want. But you might try thinking this through.

That again? I’m not thinking enough for you? You do all the real thinking? Is that it?

Susan…

Just because I fold sheets and cook food and raise children rather than go to an office…

We both raised our children…

"… doesn’t mean I can’t think things through. I have a brain. I’ve always had a brain. Valedictorian in my high school and very close to the same in college… Oh, did I say something to amuse you? Did I? Hello?"

Yes?

Why are you smiling?

Hmm?

Why are you smiling?

Just am.

Was there something in what I just said that you find humorous? I did a hell of a lot better in college than you did.

If you say so.

I’m not having this ridiculous discussion. Can we just talk about this party?

No.

Will you either talk louder or turn the music down? It’s really hard to hear you.

No.

No what?

No to everything.

This is the wine talking again. You know it and I know it. I’m inviting the Blomfields. Ruth will be insulted if I don’t, even though she’s not a big fan of Tilly’s. Then why invite her?

What? Hollis, you’re almost whispering. Why what?

Nothing.

No, you said something.

No.

No what?

No to everything.

His wife closed the door with a tautly stretched smile and a wave expertly crafted to tell him that she had had it and was terminating the skirmish before it got any worse.

Hollis emptied his glass and reconsidered the tree. Suddenly it was so clear. The muscles in his hand pulsed around the handles of the metal pruner like a heartbeat.

Snip. Clunk.

Patience, discipline and, above all, wisdom.

CHAPTER 2 - Susan

"Oh, well isn’t that lovely!"

What’s that?

The painting. Over your desk there. Just beautiful. Beautiful.

Thank you. A client of mine actually painted that for me. A long time ago. Please, have a seat.

Thank you. I don’t know why I’m so nervous.

There’s no need to be nervous. I don’t bite.

Oh, it’s not you. I’m sure all psychiatrists probably make me nervous.

I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m a psychologist. Just think of me as Beverly.

Thank you, Beverly. Oh, it’s really just lovely.

Thank you. Umm… Susan?

Yes, Beverly?

Why don’t we get started? Come on over and have a seat next to me.

Oh, I’m fine standing. Really. Go ahead, I can hear you.

Susan.

Yes?

It may work for you, but it doesn’t work very well for me. I… I really can’t talk with you if you’re… well, pacing behind my desk. This is a very comfortable little sitting area. I promise. Come put down your purse and have some tea.

Am I pacing? Goodness, I’m sorry. I’ll stop. There.

Susan.

Yes, Beverly?

Come… sit… down.

Oh. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m not very comfortable, I guess.

I understand. But you have nothing to worry about. Okay? I’ve got jasmine. I’ve got chamomile.

What’s this one?

Let’s see. That’s orange spice.

I’ll try that one. No, I better not. Chamomile.

Sure?

Chamomile.

Okay. Now. Just relax. Let’s put down the purse. Good. Now, why don’t we start, Susan, just by telling me why you are here.

I was referred to you by Richard Lenz.

Yes. I know Richard well. He is your marriage counselor?

Yes.

Are you having problems in your marriage?

Yes.

What does your husband do?

Hollis is recently retired. He was the Senior Loan Officer at OFSC for years.

How long have you been married?

Thirty-eight years.

Well, tell me as best you can, what seems to be the basic problem with the marriage?

I… I don’t really know. It’s like he doesn’t see me. Doesn’t value me. Like he’s forgotten who I am. Which is a silly thing to say, because I don’t even know who I am anymore. I used to be…

What, Susan? You used to be what?

I used to be… I’ve become this… this… I don’t know. I’m sorry.

That’s okay. That’s okay. Don’t look so chagrined. Marriage is complicated. Maybe it’s adjustment to retirement. That can be difficult. Particularly for men. What sort of things are the three of you working on in your sessions?

Nothing, really. It’s just me and Richard.

I’m confused.

Hollis won’t go. He refuses.

I see. He hasn’t been to any of the sessions?

No. So I guess we’re not making a lot of progress. Richard won’t see me any more until Hollis is willing to show up. He – Richard – thought it was a good idea if I came to see you.

Whose idea was marriage counseling?

My daughter. She lives in California. A couple of years ago I was trying to get her to come home for Thanksgiving. And she said she wouldn’t come home until Hollis and I went to see a marriage counselor.

I see.

Actually, she and my older son – his name is David – have each encouraged me to see someone. I hate that they see us this way. That’s not the way children should see their parents. You know what I mean?

Parents are people too, Susan. And children are very perceptive. There’s no hiding the facts.

I know. They’re just concerned. David is so sensitive. He teaches children.

So, both of your children are out of the house?

Those two are, yes. My younger son is at home. He’s special needs, so…

Oh?

Yes. He’s a Down syndrome baby. I had him pretty late, so…

Okay. And so are you at home most of the time then?

Yes. I’m pretty much home all of the time. Yes.

No work outside the home? Are you involved in any, you know, extra…

No, nope. Keeping up with my family is a full-time job.

Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all. That’s a lot of work.

Oh, I enjoy it. And without me nothing would ever get done, so…

I’m sure that’s true. And so your daughter lives out of state?

Yes.

So how are your children, the two that are out of the house, how are they getting the sense that things are going wrong in your marriage?

Well… I don’t know. I guess I tell them. They ask me. I don’t want to lie. You know.

Mmm.

Anyway, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go see a counselor so I went.

And your husband?

Hollis just got angry about the whole thing. Very angry. He refused.

So, then, is your daughter coming home for Thanksgiving?

Oh… No. That’s not very likely. Hollis and Tilly still don’t talk very much.

And why… wait. Tilly? Your daughter’s name is Tilly Johns?

Yes. MmmHmm.

"Well, that must get interesting."

Mmm, oh yes. Wait, what do you mean?

Well, I have a daughter named Monica. And during the whole Clinton fiasco… you know, with the thong underwear, and the cigars and the semen stain, I found myself strangely relieved that my last name was not Lewinski.

Oh.

"Every tabloid, every news broadcast – Monica Lewinski this and Monica Lewinski that. And sometimes it felt like they were talking about my Monica. So I can only imagine. Does that wear on you sometimes… having a daughter with the same name as this latest little biscuit that’s all over the place?"

Well, actually…

"Hollywood these days turns out more sex scandals than decent movies. I almost know more about who that little trollop is bedding than what movie she’s in. You know? It’s enough to make you want to turn the fire hoses on her, isn’t it? Spritz her with a little disinfectant. You must want to tell everyone in the world, you know, same name—different person. Not my family."

Um, okay…

Because when you’re in line at the… grocery… Susan? Hey,? Hey, Mrs. Johns? Wait. Sit down. Where are you going?

CHAPTER 3 - David

Who is the most important historical figure you can name?

They stare at me, bright and twinkling with attention. Soaking me in. Assessing me. Measuring me against the others. And I am ready for them.

I sit on the edge of the desk and swing my leg, looking from face to face, letting them take stock before getting down to business. The first-day energy is palpable. Fresh, young, hungry minds. I roll a stick of chalk from one palm to the other like dice. They blink at me.

Don’t be shy, folks. No judgment here. Who do you think is the most important historical figure of all time?

Swing, swing, swing. Roll, roll, roll. Blink, blink.

Anybody. Anybody at all. Don’t all dive in at once.

Blink, blink.

How about you… over in the back there… what’s your name? I look at my seating chart. Ashley? What do you think, Ashley?

She is startled. I smile and nod. I am reassuring. I am encouraging. I am everything a teacher must be. A guide. A shepherd. I turn to the virgin green board behind me with a quickness and uncoiling energy that makes them jump. Beneath Mr. Johns I dramatically click chalk to slate, poised to write. A display of trusting servitude. A humble scribe.

I wait. I wait.

Madonna, she says, finally, with a pop of gum for punctuation.

M… I write the first letter and turn. Mother of Christ? I ask, hopefully. I am an optimistic person.

Ashley screws up her face, rapidly cocooning her forefinger in a spiraling strand of purple glop. Huh?

So maybe I’m not an optimistic person. I think of myself as an optimistic person, which is really very different than actual optimism. The irony is, my self-concept as an optimistic person may be the only true claim I have to actual optimism. Every morning I come to consciousness with this belief – this understanding – of who I am today. I stretch and I yawn and I swing my feet from the bed to the floor and so it begins. I am an optimistic person. I feel optimistic. People are basically good. My life is a communion with well-intentioned souls. Everything is, more or less, as it should be. Yesterday did not happen. History is a fiction. Each day I am reborn.

Reborn, apparently, into a life plagued by some cruel, recurring amnesia. Because yesterday did, in fact, happen. And so did the day before yesterday. And the day before that.

You mean… Madonna… the, um…

Yeah. You know… Madonna. Ashley says this with enough self-evident incredulity to level mountains. Her neon-frosted eyes roll over and down to a girl in the next row – Brittany Kline, according to my seating chart – who shrugs back at Ashley uncomprehendingly.

Okay. Madonna. The name goes on the board. I am unfazed. I am young and hip and rolling with it.

Why Madonna? I roll up my sleeves and cross my arms. I am in the trenches. On the front lines, making a difference.

It’s not like I listen to her now or anything cuz she’s totally old and everything, but she like totally opened a lot of doors for women in this culture and around the world by empowering them to express their sexuality and taking a stand and everything like that.

Bad start. That’s all. Luck of the draw. This will get better. I keep moving.

Okay. Okay. Fair enough. I arch the chalk through the air from left hand to right. "Let’s get some more names on the board. Give me someone important that goes way, way back. Let’s go waaaaaayyyyy back. Pull out all the stops. Whaddaya got? Mr. Onaya, go for it. Who’s your favorite historical figure?"

George Washington.

Yes! Bam! On the board! I’m rolling. Who’s next? Ms. Kent. Lemme have it.

Abraham Lincoln.

Okay. Good. Good. Next. Alicia, who’s your favorite?

George Washington.

We already have him.

Yeah, but he’s my favorite.

Okay, good. But give me some other important historical figure I can put up here so we can talk about what makes them influential today.

But I like George Wa…

"You don’t have to like the person, you just have to think they played an important role historically."

Abraham Lincoln.

I underline the name that, like George Washington’s, is already on the board. The pressure between my molars is beginning to show in my temples. Try again.

Indiana Jones.

My theory is that all optimists are, of necessity, historically challenged. Optimism is a kind of dementia caused by a weakness of memory. A pleasant byproduct of a serious mental deficiency.

Optimists are not to be admired or emulated. They are to be pitied. Wiley Coyote was an optimist.

Okay. Indiana Jones. Not a real person, but what the hell.

Indy goes on the board in a hard, sharp fray of fractured chalk next to the name that does not refer to the Holy Mother of God.

Who else? Let’s just go down the seating chart. Brian? Give me your best.

George Washington.

Dean?

Abraham Lincoln.

Kevin?

The Pope.

Which Pope?

I thought there was only one.

My problem is that I have too good a grip on the past. This is probably why I am a history teacher and certainly why I am an optimist of the ephemeral, masochistic variety. This is why Tilly tells me I need to learn to let go and move on. This is why every day is a new day only for a little while; like a rental sprayed with that new car fragrance certain to wear off in a couple of hours. The smell of cigarettes and body odor is in that thing to stay. But such is the stench of history.

"Why don’t I just put down Pope as a generic title rather than as a particular person. Kashawnda Davis, you’re next."

Jesus.

Francis?

Jesus.

Bill.

Yeah. I’ll have to go with Jesus too, Mr. Johns.

So, in a way, getting up in the morning believing that you are willing to start clean is optimism. It is a tiny, highly perched, crystalline sort of optimism. Bright, precious and exceedingly delicate. Please, no touching the optimism! Back away from the optimism! I wake up feeling good about the world and about me in it. Maybe for about an hour-and-a-half or so. While I take a shower and drink my coffee and feed my fish and drive to work.

Then I start coming into contact with other humans. That is when everything goes, inevitably, straight to shit.

Dirk?

Michael Jordan.

In the end, optimism is simply faith. Not faith in God so much as faith in the living. And faith – in the living or in God – requires more patience and suspended disbelief than my battered psyche can possibly endure.

Sean.

Burt Reynolds.

Shannon?

Gumby.

It is 10:37 in the morning on the first day of school. They are young and perky and brimming with the future of our species. One by one, I want to rip their hearts out of their little chests.

Did I say crystalline? My optimism is not crystalline. My optimism is origami. And reality, my reality anyway, is a hurricane.

Brittany? Yes, you.

Mozart.

Excuse me?

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Hmm. I turn and write the name and then turn back. She is smiling. Attentive. Beaming at me. Her friend Ashley – of the Madonna Historical Society – is amused, twirling her gum. But this one – Brittany, was it? – There is something different here. There is a connection between teacher and student that I have not felt anywhere else in the room. She is tall for her age. A breadth of shoulder is developing. She stands out from her peers in all directions. In the face there is just a hint of the coming woman. And yet, she is all girl. There is a violin case beneath her desk.

Mozart. Interesting. Why Mozart?

Because he was a genius.

Okay. So? Being a genius automatically gets you on the list of important historical figures?

No. It’s not what you’ve got, Mr. Johns. It’s how you use it. The class picks up on her, presumably, unintended innuendo. She does not react or break her gaze. I silence the sniggering with a hand.

And how did Mozart use his genius, Brittany?

To make the world beautiful in a way no one ever had before.

She is honest and clean and eager. She smiles a purity of potential that is the reason I get up in the morning and come to this place. She makes up for all of them. My God, how hope does spring eternal.

* * *

Shepp drops by over lunch. His room is at the other end of the school. I have survived three classes and I am famished. I am sitting with my feet up on the desk mowing through a PB&J and an apple. I haven’t seen Shepp in months. He’s got his good-looking, tanned, surfer-dude thing going and I secretly envy his whole laid-back air. Always have. Must be nice to be so relaxed about… everything.

Yo, Shepp, I say, chewing. Dave.

Good summer?

You know it, man. You?

A question not susceptible to a concise answer. I shrug and take another bite of apple. Shepp slaps me on the back and continues his unbroken glide into the room, somehow finding a way to fold his six-foot frame into a desk directly in front of me.

I see they’re already giving you apples, he says wryly. Let the bribery begin.

The ones that aren’t willing to give me money for a grade give me fruit, I tell him with my mouth full. It’s a guaranteed ‘C’ in my class.

A cloud of concerned incomprehension takes over his face as he reads the jarring train wreck of names on the board behind me.

Michael Jackson… Benjamin Franklin… Little Joe Cartwright… George Washington the 8th.

No. I scold him with my half-eaten apple. That’s eight George Washingtons, Shepp.

"Richard Nixon… Harry Potter… Does that say Gumby?"

Yep.

I give up, man. What the hell are you teaching these kids?

Lessons in humility.

That would make you the…

Student.

Right.

Welcome to Academic Sadomasochism 101.

Shit, dude. I dissected frogs all day.

God, you actually give these monsters scalpels? Do you have to tell them not to grab the pointy end?

Ha! This is a post-Nine-Eleven, post-Columbine world, my friend. Even in biology. No more scalpels. I do all the cutting, they get the forceps.

That’s rich. They don’t need scalpels to kill you, Shepp. They have this terrifying ability to open their mouths and suck all the oxygen out of the room. You need to worry about suffocation every bit as much as laceration. Give me the frogs, you take the kids.

You don’t give ‘em enough credit, man. Little sponges, remember? Shepp flips his blond mane outside of his collar and leans forward, arranging his fingers as though he were grasping something very, very small.

Little sponges.

Whatever. Their historical knowledge and overall intellectual functioning is roughly equivalent to that of tiny sponges. So yeah, good point there, Shepp.

Someone needs to get laid. He reclines again, letting each arm flop over the neighboring desks.

You always say that.

Because it’s always true. You still playing chopsticks with that Buddhist bombshell?

Mae is not a Buddhist.

Not the point, dude. Chopsticks?

Yeah, sure, if you must know.

Good lookin’ woman, man. Lucky bastard.

Oh give me just a small break, Shepp. How many women are you doing right now. Four? Five?

Numbers… they’re so… cold-sounding. He examines his fingernails and pretends to look offended.

Shepp. I look at him with a weariness that simply picks up where we had left things in the spring. He looks back with an over-the-top earnestness. His teeth and eyes are shocking.

"Okay. By doing, do you mean seeing in a romantic way or do you mean, like, something offensive to Baptists?"

Please. Do you ever see anyone in a romantic way, Shepp?

Just about everyone.

Cut the shit. Do I have to ask you directly?

Oh… you mean am I still having…

Yes.

Sex…

Yes.

With five or six women…

Yes.

At the same time?

Yes.

His smile is positively shit-eating. "I just love your round-about sort of directness, Dave. What do you have against the whole group thing, anyway?"

Same thing I have against sharing needles.

Really? So it’s a health concern?

Well, yes.

So, what, there’s something magic that happens bacteriologically when there are more than two people in the room?

"Being in the room is not the issue. In the bed is the issue."

We never do it in bed.

I don’t answer.

Okay. Think of the last five women you’ve had sex with.

I take another bite and chew at him thoughtfully. I look at the ceiling and pretend to sift through dozens of mental images, sorting them chronologically. Against my will, I end up with a disturbing mélange of sexual history sloshing around my brain in vivid color; different girls and women from different eras of my life, some I had slept with, others I had dreamed of sleeping with and still others that terrify me to this day, all mixing together like dangerous and unstable chemicals that should not be in the same beaker at the same time. There is a reason that personal history is linear and that women, like increments of time, are meant to be experienced seriatim.

And?

And did you engage in unsafe sex with any of them?

No.

Now imagine them all in one night. Same conduct. No difference. Wear your little condoms. No less safe. See?

Just how simple are you?

Dave, why spread out over years, one relationship at a time, what you can do in one night?

What… this is all about coital efficiency? There is some sort of orgasmic economies of scale involved here?

"I see you’ve really loosened up over the summer." He rolls his eyes dramatically and I instantly want to kill him.

What kind of woman does this, Shepp? I am actually something close to angry and this surprises me a little. Who is it that makes a date for sex with three or four other people one Saturday night like she is going to a pizza party? I mean really. Who the fuck are these women?

"I serve pizza. They bring their boyfriends. It’s a great party. Why don’t you and Mae come over on Friday?"

There is a quiet, serious moment in which I have no earthly idea of how to respond. Then Shepp laughs so hard I think he is going to cry. I am determined to assist in this emotional transition. The Red Delicious catches him squarely on his beautiful forehead.

* * *

I am not home again until 5:30. First-day administrative crap. Teacher orientation. Meet the new Principal. Then briefing on the new security protocols. I sit in my driveway skimming a list of new rules printed in large, bolded, and italicized type.

PROBLEM: BOMB THREAT EVACUATION.

There is a ten-point protocol. Number six wins for its sheer absurdity.

WORK IN TEAMS OF TWO TO COVER EACH ROOM, INCLUDING ALL HALLWAYS, CAFETERIA, LIBRARY, GYMNASIUM, AND RESTROOMS (FACULTY MAY NOT ENTER OPPOSITE-GENDER RESTROOMS WITHOUT FIRST KNOCKING, IDENTIFYING THEMSELVES FROM THE DOORWAY AND POLITELY ADVISING ALL OCCUPANTS OF THE NEED TO EVACUATE).

I imagine myself knocking on the door, trying to follow these instructions in the face of a credible bomb threat. Anybody in here? Hello? This is Mr. Johns. I’m a teacher. I am also a man. If you wouldn’t mind terribly, I really need you to finish your business, get your things together and follow me out to the northeast… I know for a fact that it will never happen that way. It is far more likely that I will dispense with the knocking entirely, kick open the door and yell at whoever is inside to get off the toilet and run. I mean, really. Who do these people think I am? Have they even met Ashley? Uh… like, what kind of bomb, Mr. Johns? Will it like totally explode and everything like that? Believe me, I am not wasting a single fucking second.

PROBLEM: HOSTAGE-TAKING BY STUDENTS, FACULTY, ADMINISTRATOR OR OTHER ARMED ASSAILANT.

Protocol Number Four boldly declares the obvious:

IF THE OPPORTUNITY PRESENTS ITSELF, LEAVE THE BUILDING CALMLY AND QUIETLY THROUGH THE NEAREST EXIT (WINDOWS PERMISSIBLE).

The packet goes on for twenty pages, each in the same bold, all-caps, italicized scream.

Enough. Enough of this. I climb out of the car with my high school security briefing and head inside, relieved to know that I have permission to calmly dive through a window in the event little Ashley shows up one day with a Glock 9.

The house is empty. Eerily so. I am still not used to Mae’s absence. She has left before. Twice. The whole production. Clothes, cosmetics, leftover food crammed into suitcases. Snot, tears, shattered porcelain. Black rubber scars on the driveway. But I always knew she would come back. Her absence always seemed somehow temporary.

This time… not so much. The silence in the house has that permanent ring to it. At some point I will have to tell people that it is really over. Shepp. God, my parents. They’ll beat it to death. Maybe I can keep it quiet for a couple of years. Mae sends her regrets; it’s the flu again. Mae would have come but she’s in intensive care. Mae can’t make it; she’s been kidnapped. Shit. Sooner or later. I banish the thought with a shudder.

There are no fewer than five messages on my answering machine. I dump my stuff on the couch and grab the fish food. I sprinkle over the bubbles, listening to the robotic voice that is a poor substitute for Mae’s delicate accent.

"MESSAGE ONE… NINE FIF… TEEN… A.M. Hi, David! Mom here. I know you’re in class. I hope the first day is going terrific. Well, not your first day but… well, you know. First day this year. For your students. Oh, never mind. I just had to call you and share the good news. I just know you’ll be so surprised. Can you guess? Call me back when you get home and I’ll tell you. See if you can guess! It’s just so exciting! Bye, David!

"MESSAGE TWO… NINE SEVEN… TEEN… A.M. Hi, David! It’s me again. Mom. I can’t stand it. I’m having a meltdown. Are you ready? Here it is: Tilly’s been nominated for an award! Ha! An Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize! At Sundance! CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE THAT? Your sister, David! YOUR SISTER! At Sundance! That’s Robert Redford’s thing, you know. Robert Redford! Your father is pretending not to be so impressed or surprised, but I know better. And Ben has been dancing up a storm all afternoon. Oh, this is so excit… Ooo… call waiting! Bye, David!

"MESSAGE THREE… NINE TWENTY… ONE… A.M. Hi, David! It’s me again! Your mother. Sorry. That was your uncle Wilson. Tilly told Bev and then she told Stan and, well, you know how it goes out there. Suddenly they’re all interested in Tilly’s career and want in on the action. They haven’t even seen the movie. Well, I guess neither has your father but that’s just because, you know, he likes to think he’s above it all. I’ve seen … BEEP, BEEP, BEEP … Hello? Hollis? … BEEP, BEEP … Hollis? Hello? What? I’m on the phone with David. Oh. Hi, David. No, not really on the phone, Hollis, I’m leaving him a message. Well for… Susan, you’ve been on the damn phone all morning. I need to make a call! Listen, Hollis, I don’t need the tone right now, okay? I’ll be off in minute! Susan… the boy isn’t even home. You can talk to him – in person – later. Hang up. HOLLIS… I… SAID… I… WILL… BE… OFF… IN…

"MESSAGE FOUR… NINE TWENTY… FIVE… A.M. Hi, David. It’s me again. Your mother. Sorry about that. Ugh! Your father. He stomped off in a huff. I’m sure that means he won’t talk to me for three days now. He’ll barricade himself in his study with a bottle of wine and we won’t see him for a week. He’s just too much. The man has no patience and, frankly I’m very tired of the drinking and he just treats me like crap anymore. He can find his own damn phone. Can you just imagine the reaction if I interrupted one of his calls! Oh, we’d never hear the end of… Oh, just a second David. YES, AS A MATTER OF FACT, I AM STILL ON THE PHONE! I WILL BE OFF IN A MINUTE! Sorry, David. Anyway, look, I can talk to you tonight when you get home. We’re having a party for Tilly this Saturday so mark your calendar. Just a few friends. The usual suspects. We’ll get Tilly to call in and put her on the speakerphone. You don’t need to do anything. I’ve got it all covered. Oh, but tell Mae that she should make some sort of pasta dish. Your sister’s a star, David. A STAR! Bye!

"MESSAGE FIVE… FOUR THIRTY… ONE… P.M. David. This is Tilly. Jesus Christ. Will you go over to the house and rip the fucking telephone out of the wall. She’s killing me. Please, David. Please. I beg you. Seriously. Lock her in a closet or something. And take Ben to a movie. Get him outta there. Bye.

"END OF MESSAGES."

I watch them swimming and eating. And pooping. In streams that waft behind them in disgusting diaphanous trails that catch the neon light streaming out of the plastic chest of pirate booty. Swimming, eating and pooping. Swimming, eating and pooping. God, if you are up there, please, please, please… turn me into a fish.

CHAPTER 4 – Angus

The Lion Tree, by Angus Mann

He did not like the pleading in his own voice. Elle?

That betrayal of undertone. The sound of a small, wounded eyas careening limply into tall grasses. A muffled thud and a quavered warble of pain.

Elle, what are you…?

You will address me now as Colonel Ivanova.

Elena…

Lieutenant. You will address me now as Colonel Ivanova. Is that understood?

The sky was uniformly oppressive. A melancholic dome of dingy gray cotton. They might have been two pills alone at the bottom of a medicine bottle.

Yes. Okay. Whatever. Just…

Light, as always, came from everywhere and nowhere, whitewashing like a bleaching vapor. The air itself could luminesce and scour. Behind her, the barracks squatted at attention in decorous rows of scrubbed mushroom brown. They could have been anywhere, and yet…

Things are very different now, she said.

Different how? he asked with more force.

Different in every way, Lieutenant Miller. Let’s go.

She spun on the heels of her boots and began to walk. Her glare lingered for a moment behind the taut rotation of her shoulders. Her eyes had not changed. Her hair was also the same, the way it softened her bones and clung shyly behind her ears.

And yet, she was suddenly an entirely different person – hair, bones and eyes – different than she had ever been. Different than yesterday. Different than this morning. At least to him. Different. Her head snapped forward, back in line.

She left small gouges wherever she stepped. The soil sprayed in front of her in spongy, orangish-pink plumes like little fleshy explosions.

This is hurting me, he said at the back of her head, his words much too earnest. She pretended not to hear him and stepped rigidly through the field toward the barracks. Her uniform puckered and creased over her body as her arms swayed to balance her weight over the rows of useless young corn.

I said… he stopped himself. Colonel Ivanova!

She stopped sharply, her metronomic hips frozen in mid-stride. She did not turn. He approached her slowly and then said it again in the wounded voice he hated.

I said, this is hurting me.

She turned on him coldly, holding his eyes in hers but conceding nothing.

She spun him around by the shoulders and adjusted the hand restraints so that they were not cutting into the flesh of his wrists. Twice he felt her skin touch his; incidental and entirely mistaken. Surely regretted. Once her thumb to his palm. Once her palm to his thumb. Both exquisite, even now. And it relieved the pain a little.

But that was not where he was wounded.

CHAPTER 5 – Tilly

I first met Angus Mann in Africa when I was twenty-nine years old. When I think back to our beginning, when I open up all of the little boxes in my head and examine those memories, I re-experience Angus more than simply remember him.

My career was on its way up. His, almost an afterthought.

Although, to be fair, the decision of BrightLeaf Films to option The Lion Tree was an unexpected shot in the arm. The Lion Tree, as a motion picture, gave Angus more public recognition in the eleventh hour of his career than did all of his preceding works combined; just as I told him it would. This was a victory I lorded over him mercilessly, until the very end.

Angus would undoubtedly object to the term career as a characterization of his life’s work, connoting as it does a prolonged exchange of effort and personal sacrifice for financial return. And, of course, he would be right about that.

Angus never wrote for money, and for most of his life he never had much of it. He wrote words in exchange for oxygen. He wrote to live. He wrote because emotionally, constitutionally, he had little choice. Angus Mann wrote in his own blood. To call it a career misses the point.

But back then, I was all about career – the prolonged exchange of personal sacrifice for financial return. I was then a comely sprig of single-minded ambition tempered by emotional immaturity, disgustingly poor judgment, low standards, delusions of grandeur and a tragic blind spot for irony. In short, perfect for Hollywood.

And while I had little grasp of just why I was perfect for Hollywood, I knew in the pink of my marrow that I was perfect. I either sensed that I had all of the runaway narcissism and other tragic self-delusions required of the Hollywood perfection standard, or I believed that I had no self-delusions at all and that Hollywood would reward me for my unique artistic talent as an actress; which, of course, is seriously delusional and narcissistic. So, either way, I was perfect for Hollywood.

I met Angus on location filming The Lion Tree, about two weeks into the shoot. We were in Tunisia working on what would be the first of three efforts to get the safari wildlife shots right. Blair Gaines directed and co-produced the picture; a first-rate movie maker and, not by coincidence, a first-rate, hot-headed prick. I vowed in the middle of that film that I would never work with Blair again. I have broken that promise twice.

I never actually had a role in any of the safari shots, but Blair was pushed for time. He wanted to work with me on my part of the script, which was in constant evolution. Angus had written Colonel Ivanova as a multidimensional character; subdued perhaps, but multi-faceted. The screenwriters, I cannot remember their names – Frick and Frack – could not settle on just how to boil Ivanova down, to congeal all of her richness into a flat, marketable attitude that they could slap onto a poster. They kept tweaking and rewriting and my part kept changing. Ivanova the siren. Ivanova the bitch. Ivanova the victim. Ivanova the scrupulous interrogator. Blair finally lost his patience and the arguments were daily and epic.

The rapid deterioration in that relationship is ultimately what led to all of the mid-production industry gossip about Blair firing the screenwriters and reworking the script himself. Not exactly true. What Blair actually did was hire Angus, already a consultant for the project. Frick and Frack quit in a huff to see their lawyers. The truth is that Blair always seemed to be in danger of shooting a scene that had not yet been fully scripted.

So I spent a couple of weeks in Tunisia and Kenya, working on my part. I flew out with the crew and met Blair who had flown over early with the advance team and the gaffers to scout the shoot. I spent most of my time sweating beneath a tarp the crew had draped over the tops of two of the larger trucks Blair had rented. Tough as I was in every other respect, I was still a girl from Ohio who had barely managed to acclimate to Los Angeles. I was certainly not prepared for the Kenyan climate.

I spent my days swatting at flies, preparing for my evening sessions with Blair, and staring out into the savannah, watching them try to shoot this single scene – an enactment of the allegory that Ivanova offers to Lieutenant Miller as a way of summing him up, before imposing his sentence – which was in many ways a centerpiece of the film.

On each day, our window of opportunity was only about three hours. Lighting was crucial and Blair wanted the sun to be in a particular slice of the sky. He wanted these shots to have an underexposed, sepia flavor, like an old memory burned at the edges. He wanted the savannah scenes to have some visual resonance, albeit in contrast, with the scenes set under the enormous synthetic dome on Rhuton-Baker, the planet where Elena Ivanova interrogates her lover. The Rhuton-Baker scenes were deliberately washed out and overexposed, to suggest sterility rather than age. Truth over memory.

Nothing cooperated. The insects got in the way. In Kenya the wind came in unpredictable gusts. We had generator problems. The lions were difficult. The wild lions were, ironically, far too diffident for the mood Blair was trying to capture. Zoom lenses brought them in close but did nothing to agitate them into ferociousness. The captive lions, on the other hand, were so agitated at all the heightened attention that their handlers could not give them any workable direction. The zoo shots were, without exception, disasters. We kept having to leave civilization to find these cats in their natural habitat where they were simply too content to seem wild.

But Blair got his shot. He always does.

We did most of our script work at night in hotel courtyards, first in Tozeur, then in Mombasa, after Blair had worked through the dailies and lined the cast and crew out for the next day’s shoot.

It has been so many years now. I have never been back to Africa and it is certainly out of the question now. But I do remember it vividly. I remember the night air was sweet and still and heavy and so hot, boiling up from the ground; it was hard to concentrate. It was as though the sun, baking the people having lunch in a park on the other side of the planet, was burning directly through miles of darkened earth to reach the soles of our feet.

I remember that Angus was always nearby, always underfoot, with his tea and his cigarettes. He carried around a ragged copy of his story, either stuffed in a back pocket or rolled up like a paper scepter.

He was quiet and distant much of the time, as though he were politely laboring the pain of some internal wound. Often, Angus was silent for hours on end, standing and watching or sitting