The Writers' Circle

Early spring in Northern Utah is a magnificent reminder of promised sunshine, but especially this year after an unusually mild winter had nevertheless deposited the usual measure of snow in the mountains, but had not brought the unbearable cold that accompanies the soul piercing winds when they race out of the funnel-like canyons.  It had been a good winter for the house, at least in terms of not too much cracking from the ice nestled unnoticed in the ever-deepening crevices in the bricks, now emptying with each upward step of the thermometer.  Still, there had been problems with the old transformers that hung slightly sideways on ancient poles clutching desperately as if trying not to fall.  The electric cooperative had promised to replace them last summer, but as with most rural cooperatives, time and promises made were unrelated.  Six times the power had gone out, the last time for over two days, leaving the house without lights and water because the water well operated with two submerged electric pumps.  The backup generator that, luckily Jack thought at the time, had been bought on the Internet for a few hundred dollars only put out a maximum of 500 watts; not even enough to power up the kitchen microwave when the pumps were turned on.  He hadn't been able to find any deals on a 15,000-watt home emergency generator that would automatically switch on during a power failure, so Jack had ordered one through the Farmer's Co-Op in Tremonton.  He could have waited until next fall, but by then prices would have reflected the demand of the season, and he is, if nothing else, a bargain shopper.

It is Saturday, Jack's day to enjoy the peace and solitude of driving into town, a drive he makes alone every Saturday, weather permitting, to rub elbows with other men, share male banter, and rejuvenate his beleaguered testosterone, as most days the Tahoe is packed with overexcited teenage girls catching up on all events since they talked last night.  His daughter Jacey, who just turned fourteen last September, hates to ride the school bus and without fail manages not to wake up in time to catch it.  Jack adores his youngest daughter and admittedly spoils her much to the chagrin of her older sister, Sally, whom he equally adores and spoils, though she does not acknowledge that small detail.  His wife, Lisa, just acts the bemused spectator to this wonderful circus of father and daughters.  So, without fail he drives his two daughters and his next door neighbor's two daughters the 11 miles to school every day.

But, this Saturday, his eleven mile drive of meditation and peaceful thoughts of fixing the problems of the previous winter has been abandoned, not by choice, but by self-preserving acquiescence to the coaxing of his wife and daughters who for some unexplained reasoning felt this was the perfect opportunity to tag along.  He is euphorically happy with these three women in his life living on 30 acres of magnificent meadow snuggled up against the foothills on the eastern side of the Wasatch mountain range outside of Tremonton, Utah.  He lives the life he always dreamed of, in the place he always wanted to live, with the only woman he ever has and ever will love.

"Daddy?" The word floats softly forward from the backseat of the Tahoe, drawn out lazily for the sweetness it is intended to convey.  "Yes, Jacey?" Jack lengthens the "yes" into a six second word mimicking his youngest daughter's more than practiced approach to asking for something she really wants, acknowledging he knows what is coming next.

Even softer than the "Daddy" comes the question, "Can I get a new CD?"  "How much money do you have?" Jack asks coyly, hoping this is an opportunity to teach an all-important monetary lesson.  "Well, I have $32 dollars, but $12 has to go to Syd for the party on Friday since her mom has paid for everything already, and I promised Michelle I would pay her back the $5 dollars she loaned me last week for lunch by getting her some new eye shadow like Kristen has, but I want some too, so that will be $10 which leaves me only $10 and the CD I want costs $14, but I need the $10 for lunch money this week, so can you buy me the CD?" 

"You borrowed lunch money?" he asks with that lost in space quizzical look accompanied by the slow side-to-side headshake whenever his daughter informs him of something she shouldn't be doing. "What happened to the money I gave you that was supposedly for lunch this week?" craning his neck upward and peering into the rear-view mirror hoping the displeasured look on his face somehow ricochets into the back seat. 

"I had to buy two books to read for Utah history or else I would have gotten a C on mid-term", comes the I had no choice but to spend my lunch money on something else reply.

"Ever heard the term "library book?" so easily comes the sarcasm; and, he wonders where she got the smart-ass attitude. 

 "Yes, I have heard the term. And, for your information both books were already checked out until next month" said in her best highly offended, indignant voice. "Would you rather I get a C or spend my lunch money?" Jacey asks her father already knowing that she has him swinging in the wind like a kite without its tail.

He exhales slowly, deeply, emptying his lungs of any trace of air that might have enabled him to utter another disastrous word thereby extending the lost debate.  "Ok, you can have the CD, but next time before you spend your lunch money, come ask me to buy the books.  I don't want you going without lunch again.  Are we clear on this?"

"Yes, we are clear, but I didn't go without lunch, that's why I borrowed the $5 from Michelle," she says in her weren't-you-paying-attention tone.  

"She is so much like her grandmother it makes my teeth hurt."  Jack whispers to himself, the thought winding its way through his brain slowly, painfully, again leaving its trail of memories littered with wistfulness and sadness and melancholy.  Smiles do not come to him easily or often when he thinks of his mother.  Through her lineage, Jack's ancestors received a land grant from the Mexican government in 1823, legitimizing their presence on the banks of Oyster Creek, a tributary of the Brazos River near what is now called Sugar Land, Texas, since they had already settled there 2 years earlier.  They had made the hard migration from Virginia in a wagon train with 37 other families, hoping to find land to call their own, since there was none available in Virginia that wasn't already owned, spoken for or passed on to heirs.  They were made part of the original 300 families that Moses and Stephen Austin had convinced the Mexican government were vital to the growth of the Texas territory.  These were tough, freedom minded people of Scottish and Celtic origins.  They had endured much harshness at the hands of the Virginia landowners, who boasted of good English Christian ancestry, yet still scoffed and spit at the Scots and Irish workers as though the revolution that had guaranteed freedom and equality for all only applied to the landowners.  They hoped for a better existence in another country just to the west of the United States.  They had no loyalty to a country that promised freedom but delivered more oppression.  The Original Old 300 of Texas they were called; it was their toughness that gave Texas its reputation as a land of hard men and even harder women.

One such Texas woman was Dorralie Ross, Jack's mother.  Dorralie didn't let anyone tell her what, when or how to do anything.  She was high school and self-educated, having read every book in her father's library collection, a history professor turned prison warden when the private college where he had tenure went broke; and, by life on a farm next to one of Texas' state prisons, whose trustees worked the farm her father owned, one of the perks of being the Top Man in that part of the Texas Penal System.  She talked with and gave orders to any trustee that came close enough to hear her voice, walking alongside convicted murderers, rapists, and thieves, black or white or brown, never once fearing their violent natures, for all trustees, and for that matter, every inmate in Sugar Land Prison, knew her father Benjamin Wade Ross and the suffering he could impose on a man who crossed him.  All knew that being in the deepest, darkest hole in the ground would be a heaven compared to what Ben Ross would do to the man who laid a hand on his daughter or uttered a foul word in her presence.  Nothing bad could ever touch her on the farm.  It was their home, their sanctuary and inviolate space.  No one came onto the farm uninvited without regretting they had done so.

Dorralie married Dean Wright just after being mustered out of the Navy at the end of World War II.  She had served honorably as a Wave, enlisting right out of high school, and breaking her father's heart.  She was twenty-two, beautiful and head strong, jet-black hair and dark eyes, with a smile to melt a man.  He was a tall, blonde, good-looking, slow talking Chief Petty Officer from Oklahoma who had been a yeoman to two admirals.  Both had been stationed at the Naval Air Station in Norman, Oklahoma soon after the war ended to help with the closure of the base.  He had seen heavy action in the Pacific; she had seen heavy action in New York City.  They had three children, Deanne, Jack, and Wade, and then divorced.  The Texas woman was too much for the quiet Oklahoma man.  Dorralie and the children went home to Sugar Land, back to the safety of the farm.

Jack, the middle child and eldest son, attended Oklahoma University.   A die-hard Sooner fan bleeding Crimson and Cream when cut, after five years working nights at a campus convenience store he had earned a Summa Cum Laude degree in Business Finance with a minor in Political Science, thinking one day he would be a lawyer.  But, succumbing to the sirenistic lure and promised riches of the fledgling computer industry, he began creating business software for International banking corporations becoming an Internet junkie along the way.  He met Lisa Anna, a student in Political Affairs at Rice University, while on a skiing trip to Utah two years before graduating.  Oddly, she had grown up in Alvin, just 30 miles from Sugar Land down Highway 6, the middle child of a middle income Hispanic family trying hard to fit in with middle class Texas, speaking only English at home, but not forgetting how to cook rice and beans the traditional way.  She was brought up with strict Catholic values, fiercely loyal to her family and more stubborn than a Texas mule, or as she now insisted, just very focused and determined.  They fell completely in love within 30 minutes of sighting each other and were married a week after Jack graduated.

As average as they may have appeared, extraordinarily normal described their lives.  Walking down the street, no one would ever notice them.  So un-intrusive were they upon anyone's senses that what they began no one who knew them could ever have imagined.
 
"Drop us off at the drugstore, ok?  And remember to meet us at the café around noon.  Don't make me come looking for you!" Lisa said with that smile that had melted him instantly years ago but always seemed like yesterday, playfully threatening him, then kissing him on the lips as she stared straight into his eyes.  "I love you Jack Wright.  Say hello to Bobby for me.  And don't forget to ask him about the turkey fertilizer for the garden, assuming you still plan on growing the "mother of all tomato gardens", and pick up the bulb catalog, ok?" 

Not waiting for an answer, out the Tahoe doors the three of them went, Sally waving over her shoulder.  She had been quiet the entire drive into town.  She had just turned sixteen two weeks earlier, failing her first driving test when she tapped the bumper of the car in back while endeavoring to parallel park.  She was exactly like Lisa: failures hit her hard, but never knocked her out.  She would turn inward, steeling herself with a formidable determination, never quitting until she either succeeded or died.  Jack was more than a proud and adoring father as he gazed at the back of her long dark hair walking into the drug store: he was in awe of his oldest daughter.  In his mind, there was nothing Sally could not accomplish.  She was a brilliant student, president of the state champion debate team as a junior, a national essay finalist, played left wing on the soccer team, and could shred the slopes with the best of them.   They discussed and debated politics constantly.  Her beliefs were strong, her integrity stronger and she loved her family above all else.  

It was Sally's love of politics and debate that was the root cause of the only noticeable sign of uncomfortable ripples in their lives.  During a debate in her Modern Government class, she had enthusiastically defended the actions of an Islamic cleric, living in Vermont and a United States citizen, accused of funneling funds raised for a registered charity to bank accounts in London registered to another Islamic group that was suspected of supporting a suspected terrorist.  After being detained for several months by the Justice Department for questioning, denied legal counsel, having all of his records and possessions removed from his office, his house searched without a warrant, and other legitimate rights ignored, he was released without charges ever being filed, with no explanation given other than "he was detained under provisions of the Patriot Act".  The cleric filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the United States government.  The lingering echoes of Sally's zealous defense of the cleric had seeped out of the cracked plaster walls of the Modern Government classroom and into the school's narrow hallways, tickling the ears and coating the tongues of her less than admiring fellow students.  The black spores of rumors began to sift through the drafty cracks of the old high school halls, catching the winds of fear and landing on the fertile ground of an isolationist and paranoid small Utah town populace.