King of Shards

By Daniel Peterson

Walter was always running away from something—a broken heart, shame, the truth. He was also unknowingly pursued by something sinister, and, when he finally held still too long, it caught him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ephat Books
• Release date: Feb 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9780985495763

Daniel Peterson

Daniel Peterson is a writer and consultant specializing at the intersection of neuroscience and sports performance. He combined twenty-five years of technology management experience with his second life as a sports dad and coach to explore how athletes make decisions. Now, ten years later, as cofounder and director of 80 Percent Mental Consulting, he works with coaches, trainers, and teams to understand and improve their cognitive game. Dan and his wife live outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, patiently waiting for the next generation of Peterson playmakers.

Book preview

King of Shards

KING OF SHARDS

by

Daniel Peterson

With editing assistance from Mary Foster

Copyright © 2013 Daniel Peterson

First Electronic Edition

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the written permission of the copyright holder.  For information about this book, e-mail [e-mail] and write King of Shards in the subject line.

ISBN:  978-0-9854957-6-3

PART 1

Walt stared at the phone.  He supposed that a world can end unexpectedly with erupting volcanoes and crashing asteroids, but his world ended quietly, with a call from his friend Roland back in Flagstaff.  Walt's girl, the love of his life, the foundation of his universe, Cadi, was pregnant.  This would have been happy news, except that Cadi had never let him pass second base.  The child was not his.

In the spring of 1991 Walter graduated high school and slid into an idyllic summer with Cadi.  They swam, they sunned, they sketched out their future together in the sands of that summer and parted in August, she back for her senior year of high school, and he to his first year of college at Arizona State University.  He took courses in business management, just like everybody else, and a couple of introductory courses in anthropology.

Now, near the end of his first college semester, one phone call tossed all of his happy plans out the window.  Defenestrated:  The word came to him, a word he had always loved until now.  His plans had been defenestrated.

Walter must have spoken the word unconsciously because his dorm-mate, Kamol, looked up from the text he studied.  You okay?  Kamol asked.  You look like you've seen a ghost.  I hope nothing's happened to your family.

Worse, Walter moaned.  Cadi doesn't love me.

* * *

Walt had always been an optimist, and cheerful, with a skewed outlook.  He refused the post-script 'junior' and called himself 'the second', Walter Winslow II, because he fancied the resulting initials WW II.  He assured everyone that there would be no WW III, so they should breathe easily.  He was six feet one inch tall, and weighed about one-seventy-five when he started college, not rugged but with a firm jaw, dark hair, magnetic smile and a sparkle to his also dark eyes which enticed women to glance his direction at least twice.

Considering his nature, Walter reacted much worse than expected to Cadi's betrayal.  He could not be encouraged to study for finals and had to be pushed to even show up for them.  It was no surprise that he barely passed the exams.  And then he refused to go home for Christmas break between terms.  He did not want to risk encountering the heartbreakingly pregnant Cadi, nor deal with his family in his present state.  It was all he could do at the best of times to tolerate his annoying, thirteen year old, nerd brother, Jordan.

Kamol's family lived in Thailand, so a trip home for him during break was impractical.  On the eighth day of watching Walt's dirty laundry grow and begin to mold, he finally had to speak.

Walter, he said.  I know that your heart is broken, but even a brokenhearted man should bathe.  And wash his clothes.  You're stinking up the place.

Walt looked up from his bunk.  He blinked at Kamol.  He shook his head to clear it.  You're right, Kamol.  The body needs to get on with life even if the heart doesn't want to.  Then he rolled from the bunk and trudged to the shower.

Later, watching clothes revolving hypnotically in the dryer, he reassessed his future and decided to dig out the college course book if he could find it in the disarray on his side of the room.  Why was he fooling around with business courses?  Anthropology had fascinated him since a middle-school field trip to ancient Anasazi ruins.

But it was not that easy to come out of the funk.  Despite his new anthropology courses, it was difficult for Walter to concentrate on school.  Friends set him up on a few dates, but nothing clicked.  Worse than not clicking, or even distracting him, these encounters with pleasant young women reminded him of who they were not—Cadi.  This perpetuated the self-pity.  He spent too much time staring at television in the dorm lounge with his hand buried in a box of Cheez-Its.  His grades suffered and his waistline blossomed.  His depression continued a downward, self-stoking spiral—every low emotion spawning two more.  As the end of the school year approached, he weighed two hundred twenty, and he began to dread the coming summer with its hazard of seeing Cadi walrusing around Flagstaff, a monument to his shame.

* * *

A cluster of his classmates muttered around the bulletin board in the lobby of the anthropology building.  Walter stopped and asked a woman whom he knew slightly, What's up?

The list for internships at summer digs.

Walter froze.  Here was his answer to a dreaded future—a summer elsewhere, any elsewhere.

He knew that it was a long-shot for him to get on a dig.  He was a freshman.  His grades were crap.  Nobody believed a freshman could be so firmly on course for a degree as to justify an internship, and, even barring that hurdle, he would fall at the bottom of a list of upper class and grad students.  But it was worth the try.

* * *

Professor Kondo, assistant dean of anthropology said, The need varies with time and location, but right now all the slots are filled. We just have too little funding.  He looked at a paper in his hand.  And your grades are less than sterling.

You're sure?  Walter asked.

Yes.

Is there a waiting list?

Of course, but it's long.

Well, Walter sighed, Please add my name.  At least it's a chance.  Thank you.

He stood and turned toward the door.

There is another possibility, if you're that determined,  Professor Kondo said.

Walter stopped.  Anything.  What is it?

Almost any dig will welcome competent volunteers.  You pay your own way, and bust your butt in god-awful conditions for the privilege.

Walter looked pensive, weighing his college fund against the importance of this diversion.  He smiled at the dean.  It's doable, he said.  Sign me up for Oaxaca.

During Walter's call home his mother, Jade Winslow, fretted about her son venturing into foreign lands but Walt senior thought it would do the boy good to spend this summer getting a taste of the real world; he could settle back into school then with focus.  So they offered to front the full amount of cash he needed.  The college fund would remain for his return.

We'll write you a check when you come home, Walt senior said.

Can you mail it?  I won't have time to get home.  We meet at the dig only four days after end of term.

On the other line his mother exclaimed, No!  You have to say goodbye!

Sorry, Mom.  I'll call you before my flight leaves.

Walter and the rest of the team met with Professor Reginald Oort who would be leading the school's efforts at the Huijazoo archaeological site near Santiago Suchilquitongo, Oaxaca.  A tomb had been found there just seven years before and he had permission to study it and the surrounding area.  Professor Oort was also hoping to test preservation methods he had developed to protect the vibrantly colored, delicate pigments on murals and bas relief figures.

Dry, wool socks, Prof Oort said, "will be your best friends.  Pack two pairs for each day for a week.  And foot powder.  We'll be there through the wet season.  We take a day off every week for personal needs, like worship and laundry, so plan for that.  I suggest well ventilated rain gear, two pairs of tough rubber work boots and a broad-brimmed, water proof hat.  Bring clothes you can layer; mornings  are cool.  No polyester; you'll stink.  Bad for group harmony.  We get housing in town, so don't bring camping gear.  Food is cheap.  Pack Imodium and make sure your vaccinations are in order.

Here are maps and directions from the Oaxaca airport.  See you all there in three weeks.  Be sure to sign your waiver before you leave this room, or you'll be on your own when you get there.

* * *

Walter boarded the flight with an anxiety that dissipated at each mile southward until it spiked again during the descent into Mexico City when he realized he was no longer in the country of his birth.  The airport itself was reassuring, only marginally different from Phoenix, but the close fog of incomprehensible speech sharpened his sense of his foreignness.  He located the boarding gate to Oaxaca and squeezed into the small, full commuter plane for the last leg.

That evening in the Oaxaca airport, with difficulty, he found public transportation, deciding to splurge on a taxi rather than await the next shuttle.  A bewildering drive around the airport and through the suburbs into the city of Oaxaca delivered him to the bus depot, where he discovered that the next bus north to Santiago Suchilquitongo would depart in the morning.

Dispirited, exhausted, he turned from the counter and surveyed the harshly lit, sharp-edged lobby.  He trudged his bag to the furthest, dimmest corner to sit and consider.  He walked back to the counter and asked, Does this station stay open all night?

Si, yes.

Can I sleep on that bench over there?

You're welcome to try.

Walt smiled wanly.  Thanks.

A drizzling rain began outside as he tried a variety of arrangements with his bags and his coat on the formed plastic bench.  He reclined as comfortably as he could.  He watched headlights flash by the terminal in growing puddles while he willed his brittle exhaustion to transform into sleep.

Lights flared through the front windows, then a small bus, prominently labeled Aeropuerto, pulled up to the entry.  A shuffle of people carrying bags decanted through the bus door, into the depot.

The action drew Walt's empty gaze as the bunch dissolved, leaving a lone figure dragging to the counter as he had just done.  Walt's eyes lit.  He knew this woman, or at least recognized her.  She had been one member of the small team gathered for that last briefing three weeks ago.

While she confronted the scheduling dilemma with the clerk, Walt noticed that she had a squarish but nicely balanced face, small, confident breasts, was overly broad in the hips and overly long in the torso with proportionally shorter legs.  She had hiker's calves and expressive dancer's arms.  She was a bundle of mismatching features which, counter-intuitively, gave her notable appeal.

The clerk's mouth formed the word manana and the woman's shoulders slumped.  She asked him something and the clerk shrugged, then looked in Walt's direction, nodding toward him.  The woman turned, looking into Walter's eyes.  A hint of puzzlement flitted over her face.

She hoisted her bag and crossed the lobby to stand in front of Walt.

You going to Huijazoo?

He nodded.

Me too.  Looks like we're stuck for the night.  Mind if I join you?  Company in misery, right?

Sure.  Take any bench.  They're all uncomfortable.

He liked her confidence.  He liked her straightforward manner.  She stood five feet seven inches tall and appeared twenty four years old, five years older than he.  Up close he could see that her eyes, behind square, rain-specked glasses, were soft blue, and her abbreviated cap of  hair a dark blond.

I'm Janice, she said sticking out her hand.

Walt jumped to his feet to shake the offered hand.  Walt.

Sit, Walt, sit.  She gestured him back down.

He reclined back into his nest.  She studied the nest arrangement, nodded her head at the logic of it and began emulating it on the next bench.

When they were both settled she joined Walt in watching the show of dancing headlights on deepening puddles.

Well, she said after five minutes.  I'm too wound-up to sleep.  How 'bout you?

Same.  Despite this great bed.  Where you from?

Tulsa.  You?

Flagstaff.

They compared hometowns.  They compared schools.  They discovered a mutual disinterest in school sports.  They compared the pathways that led them to be sitting here together.  She was working on her masters in anthropology, writing a thesis on the timing and fluidity of the shifts between Mixtec and Zapotec cultures related to climatic change.  Walt reluctantly told the story of his broken heart.

Janice laughed.  So you joined the French Foreign Legion!

Walt blushed at this novel interpretation.  I guess I did at that.  He looked around the bright, harsh bus terminal, a thousand miles from home, and shook his weary head.  "My god.  I'm an idiot.  An unoriginal idiot."

Janice smiled sympathetically.  I can think of easier ways to get over a broken heart.  But, hey, make the best of it while you're here.  This could be a defining moment in your life.

Entering the path to Hell is a defining moment, too, he said but laughed.

She chuckled, then they quieted again to watch the puddles for a time.  He heard her breathing change and saw that her eyes were closed.  He shut his own eyes, finally drifting into sleep.

* * *

At three-thirty in the morning diesel engines roared to life in the back lot.  Walter and Janice blinked awake with grimaces and a smacking of nasty-flavored lips.

You go first, Janice said, nodding toward the toilets.  I'll watch your stuff.

Thanks, he grunted and opened the top of his day-pack to dig out toiletries.

In the restroom Walt peed, stripped off his shirt, hurriedly scrubbed face and pits, air dried as well as possible while brushing his teeth, re-dressed, combed his hair and admired the dark circles under his eyes.  Coffee, he thought.  I need coffee.

Janice carefully passed him a paper cup full of steaming black liquid when he sat down.

Thanks, he said.  You're a mind reader.

No, just a fellow human.  She lifted her own cup.  I'll be back in a trice.  She left for the toilet with coffee in one hand and small bag in the other.

Trice?  Walter thought.  That's a new one.

By the time Janice returned, first buses had started pulling out.  Clatters and odors issued from the cafeteria promising food soon.

Walt stretched.  This bench put kinks in me.  I have to get out and move.  Can you watch my stuff?  Gladly do the same for you.

Sure.

Walt pulled his crushable, broad-brimmed hat from the top of his bag, opened it up and flopped it onto his head.  He gave Janice a nod, stepping away toward the door.

Don't get lost, she called.

It was good to get outside, even in the rain.  There was no breeze but the precipitation had knocked the diesel soot to the ground, freshening the city air.  The overcast sky was just beginning to lighten with the coming dawn.  He was juiced with coffee, beginning to come alive, and felt an exhilaration at walking foreign pavement.  Running away from a broken heart was stupid but there were compensations.  He was young and healthy and beginning a new adventure.

Walt crossed through the empty car parking lot to a broad street.  There was an industrial district on the opposite side but, even if it had appealed to the casual pedestrian, there were no crosswalks anywhere near.  He turned left along the street, noting that this was not a neighborhood designed for foot traffic.  The station was a central depot where people arrived and departed by bus.  It was not intended to be accessed by walk-ins.  He made do by making a semi-circuit of the huge, he now realized, block that the depot occupied.

He wondered whether continuing the Mexican adventure was his best option.  But he had come too far to turn back now.  The embarrassment he would face at an abrupt return home made the inconvenience of a lost love seem minor.  He'd made his uncomfortable bed and he would have to lie in it, barring some unexpected reprieve—maybe his annoying brother could become ill.

The return stroll along his track also failed to inspire.  But he felt better by the time he found the entrance and shook water from his hat as he walked over to Janice.

How was it? she asked.

Dull, wet and dark.  But I feel better.  You want a turn?

She shook her head.  I'm good.  Looks like the cafeteria is serving.  Let's eat.

* * *

Walt only realized that he had dozed off when he jolted awake at Janice's nudge and