Table of contents | Previous chapter Introduction | Cast of characters   Playing with Fire A novel by Scott Lazenby   Chapter Ten ovember and December seemed filled with the kind of tedious tasks that take time with too little to tell for it. There were personnel rule amendments, grant audit reports, meetings with state legislative candidates, responses to citizen complaints, staff meetings and employee brown bag gatherings, and slow progress on a dozen projects.       Mary and Trixie’s winter break started a week before Christmas, and I was ready for some time off too. Mary had driven to the airport to pick up the Andersons, who were flying in from Colorado to spend the holidays with us, and I tried to clear my desk so I could get out by five.       Ken and Betty Sue had put together budget forms for the departments to fill out over the next four weeks. They had included instructions on how to prepare the material, but they wanted a cover memo from me. It was a dismal task. I tried to hold out optimism that things would turn around in the long run, and challenged the staff to be innovative, but the message was still a negative one. I struggled to find words for a closing paragraph.       Jake Wildavsky came in and slumped down in the chair on the side of my desk. He waited until I was finished writing.       “We finally got the Rich Martinsen case wrapped up,” he said.       “Oh. Good job — that means you avoided a messy court battle, huh?”       “Yeah. It wasn’t a bowl of peaches, though. His attorney dragged in the Bureau of Labor and Industries and some snot-nosed bureaucrat hounded me for weeks. He got high and mighty about good management practices, but I doubt he could manage to tie his shoes. For those guys, good management really means covering your ass, but I can’t live my life that way.”       “No, I don’t see that as one of your weaknesses.”       Jake looked at me with an eyebrow raised. He said, “At one point, the BOLI guy asked me where I kept the recordings of phone conversations that Rich and the other customer service staff had. Recordings? He said we couldn’t show that Rich was rude if we didn’t hear both sides of the conversation. I kind of felt that having two other staff members overhear Rich telling a customer to go to hell was proof enough — I didn’t give a shit what the other half of the conversation was. I told the ferret-faced bureaucrat that — ”       “In so many words?”       “Well, sure, I suppose so.”       I laughed.       “Anyway,” Jake said, “it seemed like he was from some other planet. But the guy was such a moron that Pete called the labor commissioner herself to complain about him. They assigned somebody else and I didn’t hear much more from them.”       “So what happened? Did the whole case go away? You said before that the insurance company was getting a little soft.”       “Yep, they caved. Settled for $19,000.”       “Huh? They couldn’t have bought that multiple personality disorder story.”       “No, they didn’t, but they just didn’t want the time and expense of a court trial. Figured it was cheaper this way.”       “But all the insurance company would have had to do was get their attorney to start pushing Rich’s buttons on the witness stand. He would have blown up in front of the jury, and it would have been all over for him.”       “Well, I don’t think the trial would have had a jury, but we did talk about that. They figured Rich’s lawyer would have coached him on it, and he would be on his best behavior.”       “So he can pick which personality inhabits his body, eh?”       “Funny thing about that, isn’t it?” Jake leaned back and put his hands behind his head. “After the settlement, he shows up in a new red Corvette. He was using his happy personality then. And in spite of his disorder, he didn’t even have a handicapped tag on his license plate. Must have been an oversight.”       “Ha.” I sneaked a peek at the clock on the corner of my computer monitor, but the screen saver had taken over. It was pitch black outside, but that didn’t mean anything. Night came pretty early in northern Oregon at the winter solstice. I guessed that Kate and her family would be at our house by now.       “How’s Megan doing?” I asked.       “All right, considering. She had her first chemo session on Monday. But you hate to see your kid have to go through this.”       Jake’s four-year-old daughter had been diagnosed with leukemia a week ago. I tried to put myself in his shoes, but it was hard. We had been lucky with Trixie. She had had her share of bumps and bruises, but outside of that, she rarely had as much as a cold.       “How are your boys taking it?”       “Well you know, they’re sort of spooked. They’re old enough to know that this is serious, and it’s definitely put a damper on their holiday spirit. But the side benefit is that they’ve been real good to Megan — we haven’t seen a fight all week.”       “Well, if there’s anything I can do, let me know. And take any time off work you need to.”       “Thanks. But I can’t do that — somebody might stumble across my ’Escape to Argentina’ fund that I’ve been accumulating. Can’t have that.”       I laughed. Jake had to go to his office manager just to get a pencil to write with. Financial manipulation wasn’t his strong suit.       I finally turned back to the budget message. I thought about a quote to end with, but the only thing that came to mind were the words of Solomon: “This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Not exactly the inspiration I was looking for. All I could come up with in the end were a few sentences thanking the staff for their hard work and positive spirit. I consoled myself with the fact that few of them bothered to read the message anyway.       I carried my briefcase and an umbrella, but it wasn’t raining when I got outside. Our downtown was glowing in the lights from the buildings and cars and on the Christmas wreaths that were hung on the telephone poles. My footsteps made an even rhythm on the sidewalk, falling in time with the song that was playing in my head — “Good night, America, how are ya? Don’t you know me, I’m your native son ... I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans ... I’ll be gone five hundred miles before the day is done....” The cold air frosted my breath, making me a two-legged steam engine.       The homes in our neighborhood sparkled with lights, and the Christmas trees inside cast soft spots of color on the drawn curtains. My pace slowed as I got to our house.       I opened the front door and stepped into a pool of brightness and warmth and the music of laughter and chatter. They were all crammed in the kitchen, where Mary was stirring a pot of clam chowder. I shook Gordon’s hand and made some inane comment about the balmy Oregon climate. Kate’s eyes twinkled and she gave me a quick hug. •      •      •       The next morning we loaded our ski gear in the cars and headed for Mount Hood. Gordon rode with me, and we talked about our work, and about the prospects for the Seahawks and the Broncos. We pulled over for donuts and a pee break at a small town halfway to Mount Hood. Gordon and Kate switched places.       Kate leaned over the seat and asked Trixie about school. The answers were cryptic — typical of a junior-high kid. I put in a tape — Crosby, Stills, & Nash — and Luke and Trixie complained about my selection. Luke said he preferred Barenaked Ladies. I heartily told him that I did too. Kate noticed that amidst the natural beauty of the trees and mountain streams, people had scattered cheap houses surrounded by rusted cars on blocks, broken fences and piles of junk. Typical of the western frontier attitude that land was free and plentiful and ours for the taking. Snow started falling as we drove between the towering cedars of the Mount Hood National Forest.       At the ski resort, the three kids strapped on snowboards and disappeared. Gordon and Kate got plenty of skiing in at Breckenridge and Keystone, and I wondered if I would have trouble keeping up with them, but they seemed content with our pace. The snow was light and dry — unusual for the Cascades, especially that early in the season. We floated down the side of a canyon, hooting as the sides got steeper and the valley floor rushed toward us.       A two-seater lift took us out of the canyon. Gordon and Mary went ahead. I got on with Kate. We sat in silence for a few moments, catching our breath. Kate leaned back to catch a snowflake on her tongue.       “So how are you doing?” she said.       I looked at her, but her eyes were hard to read under the tinted goggles.       “Fine. Sort of rusty on the skiing, but having a great time.” In my mind I was answering a different question. How am I doing? I love hearing your laugh, I love seeing your eyes, and I love watching your body move. But I can drink deeply from that cup without asking for more, so I guess I’m just doing fine.       Kate swung her skis and the chair rocked. Below us some teenagers carried their boards up a ridge so they could track up the fresh powder under the lift. Kate put her mittened paw on my arm. “Life is complicated, isn’t it?”       “Yeah,” I muttered, not knowing exactly what she was referring to. “Speaking of which, we’ve got a gal in the police records office in her late fifties who’s had all sorts of boy trouble. She goes out dancing with a guy and the next thing you know, they’re married. Then a month later they split up and she goes on a binge and we don’t hear from her for two weeks. She’s fine for a while, and then the pattern starts over.”       “I’d fire her ass.”       “Man, you’re cold, Katie. I’m only telling you this story to ... uh, what was the point I was trying to make?” My heart rate was still up — probably from the unaccustomed exertion of Heather Canyon.       “I don’t have a clue.”       We laughed. A gray jay glided down into a tree well in the snow.       “Where are we going now?” she asked.       I thought about that for a minute.       “How about going over to see if the Cascade Express is open?”       She turned her goggles toward me. “All right,” she said.       Later we came across the kids, sitting in the snow with other boarders. They all wore baggy clothes in dark shades of brown, green, and gray. They reminded me of a group of walruses lying on the rocks of an offshore island. Occasionally one would get up and scoot to the edge of the half-pipe, then plunge in. The others would lean back on their elbows and bark approval.       Back home we took showers and made a feast of cheese fondue, fresh French bread, slices of apple, white wine and hot tea. We talked the Andersons into joining us for the candlelight Christmas Eve service at our church, which was a hit for Josh and Luke since they got to play with fire.       Later, after we finally got the kids to bed, we stretched out on the rug in front of the old stonework hearth with a bottle of red wine. The embers bathed us in warmth, Christmas carols played softly on the stereo, and I felt a comfortable drowsiness.       Mary leaned against me. “I wonder when the kids are going to get us up in the morning,” she said.       “Too soon,” Kate said. “Let’s just ignore them. We’ll just say, ‘Go ahead without us — tell us when you’ve got all the presents open....’ ”       “Well, it’s worth losing a little sleep to watch them,” Gordon said. “I really think I like seeing them open presents more than I like getting them. Of course, the ones I like don’t fit under trees any more.”       “Like what?” I asked.       “Oh, you know — cars, a new house, maybe a small plane — ”       “Speak for yourself,” Kate said.       “How’s that?”       “Well, a diamond would fit just fine under that tree.”       “Dream on,” Gordon said.       “So would one of the Chippendales,” Mary said. “But the box would have to be pretty big, with air holes.”       “Why would you need air holes for furniture, or whatever it is you’re talking about?” Gordon said.       “Ha ha.”       I closed my eyes. I tried to pick out the words to a Celtic carol that was playing on the radio, but couldn’t.       Mary asked how they liked the candlelight service. I doubted that Kate and Gordon had been inside a church much since their wedding.       “It was good,” Kate said. “No long sermon. That’s how they should all be.”       Gordon leaned over and slid another log on the fire. A cloud of sparks swirled and flew up the chimney. Kate uncurled and stretched her legs over mine. Her cheeks glowed in the reflection from the fire — maybe it was windburn.       “It’s good to think about things like that sometimes,” Gordon said. “But I have a hard time picturing God as a baby in a barn.”       “Hmm. Then how do you picture God?” Mary asked.       “I don’t know. Not so much like a person. Maybe more like fire. Something that’s powerful, even with the potential for destruction, but usually good. But definitely different from us, and too hot for us to touch.”       “Uh huh. That metaphor isn’t bad — it’s used in the Old Testament a few times,” Mary said. “But I don’t think it’s the complete picture.”       Kate yawned. “At least it answers my concern about how we’re going to toast marshmallows in heaven.”       “But I have to admit,” Gordon said, “as screwed up as the world is, sometimes I have to wonder if there really is a God. I just don’t know.”       “Well, fire itself is a good enough argument,” I said.       “Huh?”       “Well, here’s how I see it. We’re surrounded by stuff that burns really well. Wood, paper, plastic, cans of gasoline. And we depend on it. Where would we be without fire?”       “Vegetarians,” Kate said.       “Yeah, I suppose. Except for nuclear or solar power, we need it for everything we do. But the temperature of the earth is balanced at the precise point where things don’t quite burn by themselves, but they’ll burst into flame with a little nudge. Any hotter, and all this fuel we’re living around would take off in a chain reaction. Any colder, and it would be too hard to do the things we take for granted, like lighting candles or smoking cigarettes.”       “God created the earth so we can smoke cigarettes?” Gordon said.       “No, but you get my point. Do you really think the earth reaching this perfect temperature balance just by itself, by random chance? What are the chances of having all this fuel lying around — wood in the forests, and oil in the ground — at just the right temperature so it won’t quite burn without us adding a flame to start it? It just seems to be too good to be true. To God, we probably seem clueless if we can’t see this.”       “Well, thank you, Professor Cromarty,” Gordon said. “But I don’t know if I buy your argument. Absolute zero is only around minus 260 degrees Celsius, so we’re about halfway between absolute zero and the temperature where paper burns. And the climate varies by around fifty degrees Celsius in there. It isn’t that big a trick.”       “Still, it seems too convenient to be pure coincidence,” I said.       “Well, you could be right. But you started this, Mary. What’s your version of the great Fire Maker in the Sky?”       “Well,” Mary said, and paused for a moment. “I see God as someone who will take care of and protect me. Someone who will hold me in his lap when I need it, but also someone who will give me a push and make me grow, too. I like that image. Before he was arrested, Jesus was praying and said, Abba, Father, take this cup from me. I think ‘Abba’ means something like ‘daddy.’ Isn’t that a great way to see him — daddy?”       “A little more personal than fire, huh?” Kate said. I could feel her legs move a little when she talked.       I tried to put together a coherent thought. “Lao Tzu said, ‘The Tao that can be told of is not the absolute Tao.’ I think there’s a lot of truth to that.”       “So you’re a Taoist too, huh?” Gordon said.       “No.” A gust of wind rattled the windows and sucked at the flue. “The Bible says the same thing: ’Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?’ “       “I’m not sure I agree,” Mary said. “Maybe we can’t understand everything, but that doesn’t mean God is unknowable. Here’s another metaphor I like; it’s one that C.S. Lewis used. God is a lion, strong and powerful, and like Gordon’s fire image, sometimes fierce. But the lion says, ‘Climb on.’ And when I get on its back, I have to hold its mane with both hands, because it takes me places I would never have the courage to go on my own, and at speeds that take my breath away. He doesn’t try to knock me off, but I still have to use a lot of energy to stay on. And I fall off a lot, but when I do, the lion paces and pushes until I get on again. But the effort’s worth it, because together we experience things that I couldn’t even fantasize about. And when I’m on that ride, my senses are much stronger — colors are brighter, everyday sounds seem like music, I savor the spice in food, and simple pleasures make me laugh inside. So I guess to me God isn’t some kind of mystical creature to contemplate, or even just to worship — that’s too passive. I don’t see God as an indifferent, unapproachable entity at all. But peace and comfort aren’t the first adjectives that come to mind when I think about a relationship with God. Maybe security — in the same way that an F-16 pilot can feel secure in the cockpit of his plane. And maybe peace too, in the sense of being at peace with yourself and not feeling agitated. But not peace like floating in a calm lake — it’s more like riding a waterfall in a raft. And ... well, I’m not sure any of this makes any sense...”       The others were silent. I put my arm over Mary’s shoulder and rubbed her neck. She looked at Kate and said, “So, what’s your opinion?”       Kate laughed. “I can’t keep up with you philosophers. My opinion is that I need more wine.” She rolled over languidly and crawled over to the wine bottle. I felt the warmth on my legs where hers had rested, and watched her silhouette in the firelight. Her hair was dark with a hint of red, like the Merlot in her glass. Outside, the storm picked up force, but it didn’t bother me. Not much could, then. •      •      •       As our week together drew to a close, I realized I had been kidding myself when I thought that I had gotten over my infatuation with Kate. If anything, it was only getting worse.       One evening, Gordon and Mary took the kids to the mall and left me alone in the house with her. We played a few hands of double solitaire to pass the time. I wondered if Kate knew what was on my mind, and I struggled to keep my voice normal. She seemed especially cheerful and talkative, as if she knew she had to fill the void with something. The problem was, I could hardly concentrate on my cards, and my heart was pounding so hard I was sure it was making my hand shake.       After a half-hour we attempted some small talk, then just sat in the living room within three feet of each other reading our books. At least I assumed Kate was reading. I could hardly see the words, and I ended up slowly turning pages, pretending to read. After what seemed like an eternity, I couldn’t take it any longer, and sneaked a long gaze at Kate, half hoping she would look up. She read with her hand on her chin, and occasionally her eyelids dropped in sleep. How could she be so calm? Couldn’t she hear my heartbeat, as loud as it was pounding in my ears? It began to occur to me that the attraction was probably one-sided, which only caused depression to mix with frustration in my cauldron of emotions.       But I kept it all corked up, and tried to stick to my internal commitment not to burden her with any of it. •      •      •       The next morning, I sat with Mary over breakfast, reading the newspaper. We had taken Kate and her family to the airport the night before, and my soul was filled with a dull ache. I replayed in my mind the moments we had spent together, and wished they had lasted longer.       “I bet you miss Kate,” Mary said.       “How’s that?” I asked, startled.       “The crossword,” Mary said. “She helped you with the crossword puzzle every morning. Now you’re on your own again.”       “Oh. Yeah, she’s pretty good at puzzles.” Next chapter: budget realities Copyright © 2001, Scott D. Lazenby. Reproduction in any form without the written permission of the author is prohibited. Illustration: Paul Salmon