What does one say to a bunch of slimy globules in a pond?

"Uh, my name is Jim. Jim McGuire."

"Oh, yes, introductions. You can call me Pinky. The others here have asked me to speak for us. I won't bother to introduce everyone here--"

"Pinky?"

"Yes. Pinky. Oh, I guess you expected something more ominous. `Creature from the Dark Lagoon', perhaps?"

"Well, I wasn't expecting `Pinky'..."

"I thought it would be easier to handle than Mensaplasm Prototype C-71," explained Pinky.

"Hmm, I see what you mean."

Jim was beginning to relax. Who would feel threatened by anything called `Pinky'?

"Um, I don't know how to ask this..." stuttered Jim.

"Go ahead, Jim. Don't be shy. Spit it out."

"Well, I was just wondering...where you're from..."

"Corbeil Corners."

This made sense. Corbeil Corners was just upstream along the Russian River from the McGuire estate.

"No, that's not what I meant. Where are you from originally?"

"Hmm. Tough question, Jim. I wonder if any of us know where we're from originally."

"What I mean is...have you always been from here?"

"From Gopher Brook?"

"No," stammered Jim, shaking his head. "Have you always been from this planet?"

There, he had asked it. Perhaps they were a life form that had escaped detection for eons. Even scientists don't pay much attention to slime; they consider it the exclusive domain of politicians. But where else could these beings come from? It didn't appear likely that they were capable of interstellar flight. Nevertheless, the question seemed to cause some consternation among the entities. Individual cells throbbed and quivered, as if formulating a collective response.

"Another tough question, Jim," allowed Pinky. "We don't mean to be evasive, you understand. If we told you that our ancestors have been here longer than yours, would that answer your question?"

Pinky's was not the dramatic tone of someone meeting a stranger. It lacked the formality of an ambassador speaking to one group on behalf of another. On the contrary, Pinky spoke as if he had known Jim for years. Not just a friend; a bosom buddy. This familiarity was, in and of itself, disconcerting. For a few moments Jim thought about his next question.

"How many of you are there?" he asked.

"Well, you have to understand," started Pinky, "that we're single-celled. We muliply by division. We have 251 different prototypes. But each prototype may have any number of clones."

"So there's more than one of you," Jim wondered, searching for clarification. "More than one Pinky."

"Thousands," responded the mensaplasm.

"And what do you guys do?"

"Well, we do a lot of thinking. We play a lot of word games. Ghost is popular. Scrabble tournaments. Crossword puzzles. Debates. One of my clones is the resident Boggle champ."

"Boggle?"

"Making words out of scrambled up letters. It's by the same company that put out Monopoly. Of course, the way we play it is slightly different. We allow words from any language. It gets complicated. There's a lot of disputes. We have a court to settle disagreements. All very civilized."

"A court?" asked Jim incredulously.

"Of course. We have to have some way of settling our differences."

"Makes sense, I suppose," concurred Jim. "So that's all you do? Sit around, playing word games?"

"Well, we hold court, too. But I guess one might consider that just another word game. We do other things. A few years ago we discovered a way to receive and interpret radio and television signals. `The Royal Canadian Air Farce' is a radio favourite here. Jeopardy and Celebrity Squares are popular television shows. CNN is a big hit, too. Crossfire. Comedies. MASH reruns. Star Trek, new and old. Murphy Brown. We're also great sports fans. I won the betting pool on last year's NFL season."

"Congratulations," Jim proferred. These guys are couch potatoes, he thought to himself.

"Yeah, you could say that," agreed Pinky.

"Say what?"

"That we're couch potatoes," contawued Pinky.

"But I didn't say that," Jim stated. "I was only thinking it."

"Jim, you do know that we don't have ears, don't you?"

"Yeah, so?"

"We're sensing your thoughts, not your speech," the entity explained. "We pick up your thoughts through your nervous system. We hope you're not uncomfortable with that."

"You mean I don't even have to speak?"

"That's right, Jim."

Jim pondered this for a moment.

"Please, Jim, you needn't be so afraid."

Jim withdrew his hand, breaking contact with the entities while he appraised the situation. This intimacy was unsettling. What if he had a disparaging impression? What about his revulsion at the entities' form? Pinky and the others would be aware of it. How would they react?

Jim rolled over on his back. This was too much to handle. He would have to discipline his mind to avoid insulting the group. But how? It was relatively easy to avoid expressing an insult verbally. Bite your lip. But how does one avoid having a derogatory thought in the first place?

Concentrate!

Jim turned onto his side and placed his hand back into the pond.

"Jim, please, don't be scared. You needn't be so guarded. I promise you that we won't be offended. We know this must be very difficult for you. We know that we're a little strange to you. That will pass with time."

"I'm just not used to someone being able to...read my mind. It takes some getting used to, you know?"

"Believe us," chuckled Pinky, "we understand. We live with it all of our lives."

"Yeah, I guess so," concurred Jim, trying to envision a life without any vestige of privacy.

"Privacy is not an issue with us, Jim. What we've never had we never miss. Besides, when you have nothing you have nothing to hide. And without each other, we have nothing. Can't play scrabble solitaire."

"Well, I'm not sure I follow all of that. I'll have to think about it. In the meantime, I've got a couple of other questions. First, what do you guys call yourselves? Do you have a name as a group?"

This was a source of mirth to the entities. Jim could sense ripples of laughter.

"You mean like a nationality?"

"Well, no," stuttered Jim, aware that the question might seem absurd. "I mean how would someone refer to you collectively? Other than as Mensaplasm Prototypes; that seems quite a mouthful."

"Do you mean do we have a generic name?" giggled Pinky, obviously amused by this line of query.

"Yeah," insisted Jim.

"Well, someone once called us the `mind slime'. You could call us that, I suppose."

"Doesn't sound very flattering," observed Jim.

"No, I don't suppose it was meant to be," chortled Pinky. "But if you could think up another name for us we'd be happy to hear it."

"I'll have to give it some thought," Jim deferred. "I have another question: why have you bothered to contact me?"

The question was very blunt. Direct. But under the circumstances tact seemed pointless. The abrupt course served to end the tittering among the mensaplasms. The small globes huddled together, formulating a representative response. Jim's mind was flooded with a multitude of opinions as each prototype expressed a different point of view. The word "family" came up many times in this discussion. Jim thought he heard the word "kiyataga" mentioned. There was talk of "culmination", "legacy", "identity", and "dreams". At the end of this confusion emerged a consensus involving writing.

"Jim," declared Pinky, "you're a writer, aren't you?"

"Yes," exclaimed a surprised Jim. "How did you know?"

"We know a lot about you and your family, Jim. That is one of the many reasons why we're here. For now, we'll focus on your writing."

"Well, there isn't anything to focus on then. I haven't written a word in a year. Haven't published in almost three."

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, it's been hard since my grandfather died. Talking with him used to give me a lot of ideas."

"Hmm, maybe we can give you a few ideas."

"I don't know," stalled Jim. "It's not like he would give me suggestions directly. I mean, he wouldn't just tell me a story and then I'd write a book on it. No, no. He was always telling me a bunch of silly poems or fables. Then I'd turn around and write a book about spies. It's just that...hearing him tell stories made me think how nice it would be to, you know, hold an audience the way he could."

"Is that what you want. To hold an audience?"

"Well, sort of."

"We're an audience, Jim. Why don't you tell us a story?"

"What? Just like that? You want me to tell you a story?"

"Sure."

"I don't know. Let me think..."

"Any story. It doesn't matter."

"Alright. Is it okay if I tell you one of the stories that Grandpa told me?"

"Sure."

Jim chose an old standby: the dragon and the knight. At first he stuttered and stumbled along, awkwardly covering the abduction of the princess and the prince's mobilization. Warming to the task, Jim's voice grew more confident as he spoke of the neutral townspeople. He became excited as he demonstrated the dragon's attack on the town. He punctuated the snap of the dragon's tail with a loud "Crack!" Similar sounds emanated from his throat as he describe the final battle. He roared as he described the dragon's death. Myriad details of the post-war partying poured out of his mouth. Jim delivered the knight's final speech in a deep, thundering pseudo-baritone. When he came to the end, recounting the princess' continued imprisonment, he swayed as he chanted: "SVAH-BOH-DEH! SVAH-BOH-DEH! SVAH-BOH-DEH!"

Jim checked himself. He had told the fable exactly as his grandfather had first told it to him when he was seven. He had forgotten himself for a moment. Had he made a fool of himself?

"Freedom," said Pinky matter-of-factly.

"What?" asked Jim, regaining his composure.

"Freedom. Svabode. It means freedom."

"In what language?" wondered Jim. Pinky and the other mensaplasms seemed taken aback by the question.

"Why, Polish, of course."

Jim excused himself, once again withdrawing his hand from the water. Finally, after all of these years, he understood the fable of the dragon and the knight. Why had his grandfather never bothered to explain it to him? Was it fate, kiyataga, that the mensaplasms would come to make this meaning clear? If so, did Grandpa know that it was fated? How could Grandpa know?

Only one thing was obvious. The answers to these questions, if such answers existed, rested with these strange entities. In the water. Jim dipped his hand into the pond once again.

"I guess I didn't tell the story as well as my grandfather could."

"Nonsense," corrected Pinky. "You did just fine. And you certainly didn't have any difficulty holding our attention."

There was a lull in the conversation. Jim's thoughts returned to fond memories of his grandfather.

"Jim?"

"Yes?"

"We sense that you miss your grandfather a lot."

"Christ!" Jim cursed with as much comic bravado as he could muster. "If I ever missed him I'd reload!"

Pinky and the others did not laugh. There was dead silence. The joke fell flat. The mensaplasms were waiting.

"No," confessed Jim, "that's not true. I guess I do miss the old guy. I just don't like to talk about it, that's all."

"Is this a privacy thing?"

"Yeah. It's private."

"We're sorry. Maybe we shouldn't have brought it up?"

"No, no, it's no problem. I don't mind talking about him. I just don't like to talk about...how we got along."

Again the globules remained silent. Again they waited.

"You know, sometimes I would get the impression that Grandpa was trying to tell me something. No idea what, mind you. Sometimes I'd get frustrated. I mean, Jesus, if the guy had something to say why not just spit it out?"

"Indeed," concurred Pinky.

"Grandpa was crazy. Long before the Alzheimer's, I mean. Crazy. All of his life. Damned near drove me around the bend, too."

"Oh? How so?"

"With all those stupid parables. House guests dropping in at all hours of the night. Like this was some hotel, for Christ's sake. Teaches me LOOP, then I find out we're the only ones that speak it. And then we have his `adventures'..."

Jim pronounced the word with disdain.

"Adventures?"

"Yeah, adventures. That's what he called them. Fucking guy would drag me out of my bed in the middle of the night and force me to drive him to God-knows-where. Chicago. Washington. Ottawa. Once the old coot made me take him to Vietnam. Vietnam! Jesus H. Christ, I didn't think we'd survive that one. Pow-wows. Peace rallies. Political conventions. Any time more than three people got together to talk about anything Grandpa would be in there like a dirty shirt. And, sure enough, I'd have to go with him."

"But why--"

"Because he wanted to make speeches and--"

"No, no, Jim. Why did you have to go with him?"

"What?" Jim was stunned by the question. It was something that he had never contemplated.

"Why did you have to go with him? You could have refused, couldn't you? Or did he twist your arm?"

"No, no. Gramps never forced anyone to do anything. Why did I go with him? I had to! Someone had to drive him..."

"He couldn't drive? He didn't own a car?"

"Yeah, yeah, he had a car and everything. But...he needed me to look after him. Keep an eye on him, you know."

"He needed you to look after him?"

"Well, not really," conceded Jim. "Actually, I don't know why I agreed to go along. Don't even know why he asked. Maybe he was trying to show me something. Make some kind of point."

"What kind of point?"

"No idea," Jim shrugged. "That was how Gramps was. Always tilting at windmills."

"Fighting in the shade," corrected Pinky.

"Pardon?"

"Not tilting at windmills, Jim. Fighting in the shade."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"Perhaps we can illustrate. Wait a second, will you, Jim?"

"Sure."

Jim felt a buzzing sensation in his hand. The prototypes were organizing themselves in preparation of some kind of presentation. Suddenly one of the globules attached to Jim's hand turned a light shade of red.

"See this, Jim?"

"You mean the one that's glowing?"

"Yeah. That's me. Pinky..."

Suddenly hundreds of the mensaplasms turned the same colour.

"...and these are my clones," explained Pinky. Soon some of the spheres turned purple. Others became green, blue, orange. Every colour Jim could imagine.

"Oh, I get it," divined Jim, "each prototype is a different colour!"

"Very good, Jim!" Pinky congratulated. "Now, I'll be the narrator. My friends Whitey and Blue will do the character voices."

Slowly the colours took shape. Jim could sense a lot of background "noise" in his palms as the mensaplasms co-ordinated their positions. It reminded Jim of college football fans holding up placards, forming a picture or a message in the stands. An image slowly came into focus.

"Wow!" gasped Jim as he looked down at a picture of an ancient warrior wearing a leather uniform and holding his helmet to his right hip. Bright red plumage and gold shoulder insignia suggested that this might be a leader. The man's eyes glowed as he stared into the distance. Pinky began his narration.

"King Leonidas of Athens stands at a small mountain pass near Thermopylae. His men have formed a stop-gap there, preventing the advance of the Persian army. Leonidas has decided to send the bulk of his army back to Athens and Sparta to organize a defence. Three hundred men will sacrifice themselves here at Thermopylae in order to buy time. Leonidas defies his advisors, insisting that he will stay at Thermopylae with the three hundred."

Having taken shape the image now took action. An advisor in a plain white toga--civilian garb--came into view and tugged gently at the warrior king's arm.

"Come, my liege, we must leave for Athens," pleaded the advisor. "We must get you to safety and organize a defence."

Leonidas looked at the man and shook his head.

"My place is here," he insisted, "with my men."

"But, your majesty," warned the civilian, "the enemy are so many that their spears will darken the sun."

Leonidas smiled wanly. Then he turned to his aide-de-camp and declared: "Tell the men that I have some good news. We'll be fighting in the shade!"

The image froze, faded and then disappeared as the mensaplasms returned to their normal translucent state.

"I had never thought..." Jim let his words trail off.

"Maybe it's not a matter of thought," allowed Pinky. "Maybe it's a matter of perspective. If you saw your grandfather as a silly old man everything he did and said would seem silly. But if you had seen him as his admirers and friends saw him..."

"Yes," countered Jim defensively, "but they didn't live with him. I did. They weren't brought up on stupid stories and--"

"Those `stupid stories', as you call them, were his legacy. Your inheritance. They are all that is left of him now."

Pinky's "voice" betrayed his shock at Jim's characterization of Jason's parables. His tone was mildly scolding.

"What do you mean `legacy'?" asked Jim. "What kind of `legacy'? A bunch of fables?"

"A legacy like this is a mirror," explained Pinky. "If you were to look carefully you might see yourself reflected in it. What you will not see is that it is a two-way mirror. On the other side, looking through, are your ancestors--including your grandfather. And someday you may be on the other side, looking through at your descendants."

Jim felt increasingly uncomfortable. A change of subject was in order.

"I thought I heard one of you use the word `kiyataga'. Can you guys understand LOOP?"

"Pardon me?"

"LOOP. The `Language Of Our People', as Grandpa used to call it," expounded Jim.

"Oh, that. Why, yes, of course. We understand all languages."

Fascinating! Jim had never met anyone other than his grandfather who spoke the language. He would not let the opportunity wait another second.

"Do you study the language as carefully as you study other languages?" he inquired in LOOP.

"Naturally," came the reply.

"Do you speak it as well as Grandpa did?"

"Better," answered Pinky flatly. There was no hint of boasting in the mensaplasm's voice. It was a simple acknowledgement of fact.

"In that case," Jim guessed aloud, "you could tell me a little about the language. You know, like, where it came from?"

"Why, it came from your people, of course,", observed Pinky. "It's the language of your people."

"Gee, thanks, Pink," thought Jim to himself. "Tell me something I didn't know!"

"I'm sorry for stating the obvious," Pinky apologized. "But this language is part of that legacy we talked about."

"Yeah, but how come nobody else in the world speaks this language?"

"Perhaps all of the other people in the world who speak the language are dead."

Jim had hoped for a much more elaborate answer. After all, this was a question that had haunted and taunted him all of his life. As a child he had tried speaking LOOP to native children at pow-wows, only to meet with blank stares. As a teenager he wrote to foreign embassies, hoping someone could recognize the language. In university Jim met discreetly with some linguistic scientists. Even they had never heard of it!

Were the mensaplasms being evasive? Only a blunt, head-on approach would flush them out.

"So who are my people?"

The question took the mind slime by surprise. For a moment all of the background buzzing and whispering stopped. Jim's hand stopped tingling. Pinky said nothing.

"That," said a feminine voice, "is another reason why we've come."

Now it was Jim who was stunned and confused. That voice! Jim could swear that he had heard it before, yet he couldn't place it. Odd!

"Who is that?" stammered Jim in English.

"You may call me Rose."

"Uh, where's Pinky?"

"I'm here, Jim. Sorry about that. I was just a little discombobulated for a while there."

Jim accepted the apology but wondered if the protoplasms weren't trying to distract him.

"My question," he persisted. "I never got an answer to my question."

"Your mother. Your grandfather. Your great grandmother. Your ancestors. They are your people," Pinky said.

"One more truism," Jim vowed to himself, "and I'm gonna puke."

"Not in here we hope!" joked Pinky. Again Jim reminded himself that his thoughts were not his alone.

"How is it that you know so much about my family?" Jim asked.

"How is it that you know so little about them?" volleyed Pinky.

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you ever ask your grandfather about them? About your mother? About his mother, your great grandmother? About your father?"

"My father was a drunk who left my mother before I was born," Jim interjected. "There's nothing else about him that I care to know."

"Your father? A drunk?" interrupted Rose again. "That was not his kiyata."

There was that word once more: kiyata. Why was he hearing and remembering that word so much lately?

"Alright," conceded Jim sarcastically, "so maybe my father wasn't a professional drunk."

"Your father was a patriot," intoned Rose solemnly.

Jim ignored this remark. Nevertheless, his tone became more whimsical.

"You know, sometimes I feel like a drone bee. I saw a show on PBS that said drones have grandfathers but no fathers. That's me: a drone. And when the Queen Bee is through with the drone she abandons him..."

"Jim," Pinky intervened quietly, "it's getting late. Perhaps we will discuss your parents tomorrow."

Jim looked around. It was late. With no moon in the sky darkness draped the back yard. Light from the kitchen window extended only a few feet outside.

"But before you go," added Pinky seriously, "there's something else we'd like to ask you. Can you spare a few minutes?"

Of course he could. After all, it wasn't like he had a board meeting to attend.

"Jim, imagine if your two best friends hated each other. Imagine if someone told you that they'd signed a suicide pact. Mutual murder, you might say. They agreed to rid the world of each other."

"Okay. Sounds unlikely, but okay. So what's the question?"

"The question is simple. Would you try to do something about it?"

"That's the question? Would I try to stop them?"

The question was idiotic. A better question might have been what to do about it.

"Of course I'd try to stop them. I'd talk until I was blue in the face."

"Jim."

"Yes?"

"Wouldn't you be afraid that others might think you were tilting at windmills?"

"No--"

Jim stopped. He was beginning to understand the point of the question.

"Jim."

"Yes."

"Would you stand in the line of their fire to dissuade them? Would you risk your life to stop them?"

"Of course," said Jim. This was simple arithmetic. Risk one life in the hope of saving two. Wasn't it obvious?

"You see," intoned Rose proudly, "he really is Wintaka!"

The entities buzzed for a moment and then fell silent for a moment. Finally Pinky spoke.

"Sleep well, Jim."

Jim felt one last tingle--a sharp one--in his hand before withdrawing it. He groped for the two manuscripts at his side and stood up.

Dizzy! Perhaps he had stood up too quickly. Or perhaps it was the realization of what had just happened. He, Jim McGuire, had just contacted a hitherto unknown life form. Who would believe it? Who could he tell?

Loaded down by the weight of the moment Jim staggered toward the light. The events of the day swarmed like fireflies in his mind. The LOOP manuscripts, the entities, the parable, the question.

His heart! Jim clutched at his chest and dropped to the ground. A sharp pain seared through his chest as he fought for air. His left arm and shoulder went numb as he rolled onto his right side. An exposed root of a nearby willow tree dug into his ribs.

Jim struggled to remain conscious, to keep breathing and to calm himself. His heart pounded blood through his system. He felt his carotid pulse as he had never felt it before. Breathe! In! Now out! Don't forget to breathe out! In. Out.

"Don't let me die!" he pleaded. "Don't let me die now!"

He rolled onto his back, scraping his left shoulder on a sycamore sapling. As he fought to regulate his breathing Jim saw the stars beaming above him. Relax! The stars were still shining; still dwarfing the concerns that were causing his heart to race.

Five minutes after collapsing Jim could feel his heart rate stabilize. He knew better than to try to get up. For almost half an hour Jim lay on the ground, breathing deeply and thanking the stars for an extension on life.

Jim focused on the immediate as he heard a knock on his door. Groaning loudly, he climbed to his feet. As he steadied himself he could hear Kevin Morley's voice.

"Jim? Is that you?"

"Barely," Jim muttered.

"Jim? Are you okay?" This voice was Tate's.

"Hardly."

Jesus! Was it Friday? Jim paled as he realized that he had forgotten the bi-weekly Friday night poker game.

"Jeez, Jim," cursed Tate as he stepped around the corner of the house into the back yard. "You look like shit!"

"You're no Mel Gibson yourself!" countered Jim.

"Come on. Let me help you get inside."

Officer Tate--Terry Tate on poker nights--threw an arm around Jim and guided him to the porch. Kevin swung the door open and turned on the light.

"Hell, Jim," Kevin asked, "how long have you been back there?"

"Oh, I was just catching up on my reading this afternoon," Jim explained, pointing at the manuscipts after laying them down on the coffee table. "I guess I must have fallen asleep."

"You must be a restless sleeper," Tate opined, gesturing at the grass stains on Jim's slacks and the tear in the left shoulder of Jim's shirt.

"Yeah. I must've had a heavy dream or something."

Tate sat Jim down on the couch while Morley went to the refrigerator to get him something to drink. Kevin opened the fridge door and stooped to see its contents.

"Jesus, Jimbo, didn't you buy us any beer? All you've got is that horse piss you drink."

Kevin grabbed two bottles of beer and then scoured the kitchen for an opener. With none in sight he rested the bottles against the edge of the counter and pounded the caps off of them.

"That's great beer," attested Jim. "I have it trucked here all the way from Quebec. It's good for you. Puts hair on your chest."

Kevin handed Jim one of the bottles and took a drink from the other. Immediately he lurched forward in a dramatic gagging gesture.

"Good for you!" he parroted. "This stuff isn't good for anything but birth control pills!"

Kevin offered the remainder of the bottle to Tate and withdrew to the bathroom. The officer shook his head. Morley set the second bottle in front of Jim, motioning his host to finish both bottles.

"Sorry, guys," Jim apologized, "to tell you the truth I forgot it was my turn to host the game. In fact, I forgot about the game entirely. Been busy lately."

Tate stared at Jim intently.

"Listen," Jim glanced at his wrist watch and continued, "Kev, you phone Steve. He should be just closing up shop now. Give him a shopping list. Some beer, chips, pretzels, cheesies. Coke for Horton; he should be here any minute. Coupla new decks of cards. Tell him to get a receipt and I'll pay him when he gets here. In the meantime, I've got a little work to finish up outside. I'll be back in a second."

Jim strode over to the kitchen counter and pulled a flashlight out of the drawer. Tate followed him as he stepped out the door. Walking to the back yard he asked his host if anything was wrong. Jim sighed, stopped walking and put his hands on his hips.

"Wrong? Well, maybe. I'm having some breathing problems."

"Breathing problems?"

"Yeah. You know, shortness of breath. A few chest pains."

"Hey, Jim, that sounds like it might be serious. Maybe I should take you into town to see the doc."

Jim switched on the flashlight and wandered into the underbrush. After a short search he bent over and began plucking up some plants.

"No, no. It's nothing that serious," he assured his friend. Jim meandered on a few more steps and pulled another plant up by its roots.

"Jim? What the hell are you doing here?"

Jim staggered out of the woods and moved towards the weeping willow tree at the far edge of the yard. He enlightened his friend as he picked some willow leaves from the branches and stripped some bark from its trunk.

"Grandpa was into herbal medicine. Taught me all about it. Put a lot of faith into it. I don't know whether I'm sold on it but it always seems to work for me. This should do the trick."

"Herbal medicine? I didn't know you believed in that bullshit."

"Well, maybe it only works if you do believe in it. I don't know. I just don't see any percentage in not believing in it."

"Well, if believing in this stuff keeps you from seeing a doctor--"

"What if you don't believe in that bullshit?"

"Doctors cure people."

"And so do these," concluded Jim, waving the handful of plants in front of his friend. "You'd be surprised what this kind of thing can do. Cures all sorts of things. Even cancer. Makes you feel better. In fact, some of it can even simulate death; puts you in a coma for a while."

Tate narrowed his eyes, staring at his host.

"Oh, by the way," Tate said, changing the subject, "I couldn't find that guy."

"Who?"

"The truck driver. The guy that was following you this afternoon."

"Oh, yeah, him. Uh, well, I guess there was no harm done."

The two men returned to the house. Jim washed his greens, peeled some sap from the bark and ground the roots down. He threw everything into a salad bowl and added some croutons and dressing for taste. Back on the couch he washed the concoction down with his beer. Kevin emerged from the bathroom looking quite relieved, patting his stomach and claiming that he had given a new meaning to the expression "four-flusher".

"How come we're starting so late?" Jim asked. Tate and Kevin looked at him blankly before Morley responded.

"The game, Jimbo. Remember? Jays-Twins? Didn't you see the baseball game on TV?"

"Uh, no. I missed it. Busy. Who won?"

Tate and Morley exchanged glances without answering. At this moment there was a knock on the door.

"It's open!" the trio shouted.

It was Ed Horton. His huge bulk filled the doorway as he entered. His lucky Milwaukee Brewers baseball cap and "Aw Shit" poker shirt hinted that this was not a social visit.

"Deal them pasteboards!" he bellowed. Jim gobbled up the last of his salad as the others scrambled to claim the favoured seats around the kitchen table. Jim and Steve would have to sit closest to the fridge, obligating them to get the drinks and snacks all evening. Jim produced an old deck of cards and sat down next to Tate.

"This is the only deck you have?" wondered Morley as he pawed the flimsy cards. "My dick is stiffer than these things!"

"Then this is a historical moment," joked Tate. "Mark it on the calendar."

Horton won the right to deal the first hand. He announced the game.

"Chicago stud, high in the hole."

"Better watch your language around Morley," chided Jim. "He's already excited."

The game proceeded along a familiar pattern. Ed Horton sat up in his chair impatiently whenever he held a good hand. By winning only small pots he lost money in the long run without understanding why. Tate's approach was very orthodox, following a strict betting strategy based on his holding. Clearly, the police officer valued consistency over results. Years of exposure had made Morley and Jim familiar with Tate's style. Kevin devoted most of his attentions to finding new and wittier ways to describe his bad hands.

"I've seen lepers with better hands," was Morley's best effort on this particular evening. Later Jim called one of his bluffs. Morley tabled his hand, claiming to have "five of a kind-- five cards, all of them equally worthless!" Of course, this complaining made Morley the most transparent of all of the players. If Kevin wasn't griping the others folded.

Poker was Jim's game. His utter lack of anything resembling a personality made him impossible to read. The flow of money ebbed from moment to moment but its overall direction was unmistakably towards Jim.

Steve's appearance on the scene was cause for celebration. His arrival was feted with shouted cheers and opened beer cans. To bring in all of the groceries took two trips from his truck. Steve knew enough to include the beer in his first trip. Tate heralded the insertion of a new deck of cards into the game. Jim paid for the groceries out of his winnings. This upset Ed Horton, who admonished everyone to hurry up and return to the table. Ed was losing patience as quickly as he was losing money.

Steve added a new dimension to the game: abject stupidity. Unable to read his opponents Steve would fold whenever the majority of others did. It was difficult to know by looking at him if Steve held a good hand since Steve himself usually didn't know. Was a straight a good hand if there were wild cards? Was three of a kind good if everyone was betting like lunatics? Steve's curiousity inspired him to call every bluff. This, combined with his phenomenal luck, made Steve the biggest winner on most nights.

Tonight's game went true to form. Inexorably the stacks of change and bills in front of Jim and Steve grew while others diminished. Steve had not grown up in the area as the others had. As an outsider, he was happy to be accepted as one of the gang. Without doubt, the man enjoyed these get-togethers as much when he was losing as when he was winning.

Jim was equally oblivious to his success. When Grandpa had been alive these games had been a "reality check" for Jim. They had served as a statement that a McGuire could actually participate in a prosaic social event without politicizing it. Lately, though, Jim was beginning to view these gatherings as trivial. Irrelevant. Wasting time. This disaffection was particularly strong this evening.

"Jimmy," said Kevin as Tate dealt a hand of Acey Deucy, "I saw your performance at Kelly's this afternoon. Two drafts in fours seconds. That's a record. Are you getting to be a drinking man?"

Jim snorted at the question. It brought to mind the night from their high school days when he, Kevin and Tate borrowed some I.D. and went over to Teaser's Tavern in Perth County to watch the exotic dancers. The three proceeded to get roaring drunk. The manager asked them to leave when Jim stood up in his seat and started tearing off his shirt. Tate insisted that Jim drive them all home via the back roads to avoid the highway patrol. Kevin got sick and left a trail of vomit from Teaser's to the Twin City turnoff. Twice the group had to pull Grandpa's car out of the ditch. After dropping the others off Jim parked the car in the McGuire driveway and crept into his room without encountering Grandpa.

Grandpa woke Jim up early the next morning.

"Gramps, it's Saturday!" he moaned. "What time is it?"

"Six thirty."

"A.M.?"

"Yes."

"Geez," Jim moaned, complaining about the early hour, "we'll have to cue the birds to start 'em singing!"

"Come on, get up, lad. We've got somewhere to go."

"Later," Jim begged. "Much later. Like Tuesday, maybe."

"Nope. Gotta go. Now. Come on. Get dressed. We don't even have time for breakfast."

Just as well, thought Jim. Any food sent down Jim's throat right now would be on a quick round trip. No, breakfast was not high on his agenda at the moment.

This was the only adventure on which Grandpa McGuire drove the car. Jim slept in the passenger seat until they reached the Carlton Psychiatric Institute in Meredith County.

"You giving a speech here?" wondered Jim.

"No," Jason answered quietly. "There's some people here I want you to meet."

The elder McGuire escorted his grandson from one unit to another within the facility. He described the problems each patient faced. Many of them were heavily sedated. The McGuires visited with a patient. Then the two visitors would step outside, where Jason would inform his grandson of how the patient acted when not on medication. Three of them had tried to kill people. One had succeeded. Almost all had attempted suicide. Depression was a recurring theme. So was child abuse. The patients were a suspicious lot. They didn't seem to be able to talk about abstractions such as sports, partying or the future. Life was very real and very threatening to these people.

Jim remembered the last patient they visited. He even remembered the diagnosis: hebrephrenia. A thirty year old man sat on the floor in the middle of the room, naked except for a diaper. He gurgled at his visitors, barely aware of their presence. The man's eyes opened wide as he scanned around the room. Seeing no nurse, the man started crying. When Jim touched him on the shoulder the man cried louder, tears streaming unchecked down his cheeks.

Grandpa said nothing to Jim until they were back in the car. Rather, he thanked the staff and management for allowing the visit and left.

"Did you know any of those people?" asked Jim from the passenger seat.

"No," was Grandpa's reply. "Did you envy them?"

"What?" The question came from left field.

"Did you wish you were one of them?" continued Jason. "Did you wish to be like them?"

"Of course not!"

"Perhaps you could be like them for a while. Would you like that? Be like that for, say, an evening?"

Jim was about to reiterate his refusal when he stopped himself. Grandpa had made his point.

No, Jim would never become a "drinking man".

As he drew his cards toward his chest the irony of Grandpa and the hebrephrenic struck Jim. Grandpa couldn't know that one day he himself--

"Earth to Jim. Earth to Jim," interjected Tate. "Sorry to cut in on your daydreaming but do you want a card?"

Jim apologized and folded his hand.

"Jimmy, you don't seem to be in the game tonight," observed Tate. "In fact, you're acting a little--"

"Weird," Kevin contributed.

"Yeah," chimed Horton. "Even for a McGuire."

"Just a little preoccupied," allowed their host. Jim would have liked to cut out but feared that this might break up the game. Play went on as Jim took his turn to deal.

"Seven Twenty Seven," he announced, "under beats over, high beats low, closest to your own."

Jim won the hand and passed the deck on to Steve. Seven Card Stud. Steve claimed the pot after a four player showdown.

"Dealer wins," chortled Steve.

"As usual," cracked Kevin.

Tate stared at the pile of cash mounting in front of Steve.

"I don't know how he does it," Tate complained, shaking is head. Steve responded by trying to uncover the secret of his success.

"You see, you guys don't believe in luck. I do. I think Jim does, too. It's a matter of streaks on the one hand. On the other hand you've got the Law of Averages. Then you've got the odds. Mathematics. Understand?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tate retorted.

"Okay. Imagine I toss a coin a thousand times and it lands heads each time. What are the chances of it landing heads the next time?"

"Fifty-fifty," stated Tate flatly. Kevin and Ed Horton nodded agreement. Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"You see, that's your problem. If you believe in the odds you say fifty-fifty. If you believe in trends you'd expect heads. If you believe in the Law of Averages you'd say tails. All three answers are wrong."

"Wrong?" spat Kevin contemptuously. "All three answers are wrong?"

"Yup, wrong," concluded Steve. "The correct answer is: let me see that fucking coin!"

Jim exploded into laughter, clutching his stomach and falling out of his chair.

"I toss a coin Heads a thousand times and you guys don't get a little suspicious?" asked Steve. "Geez! And you guys think I'm dumb?"

Jim's hysterical laughter redoubled in fervor. Again he had to remind himself to breathe. In! Out!

"That is the craziest bullshit I've ever heard!" pronounced Horton.

Jim's diaphram ached from convulsing in hilarity. He began waving his hands, begging for mercy.

"Christ, Steve," Kevin conceded, "you've got me baffled with that bullshit."

Red-faced, short of breath and weakened by mirth Jim crawled into the living room rolled onto the couch. The players surmised that he would be sitting out the next few hands.

Steve punctuated his dissertation by winning the next three hands. As the grandfather clock in the living room struck one Horton, Tate and Morley decided that they had had enough. They filed past Jim like visitors in a cancer ward, thanking him for everything and bidding him farewell. Steve took a few seconds to pocket his money and finish his beer before departing.

His guests gone, Jim gathered his strength and staggered into the kitchen to collect his winnings and clear the table. He was still chuckling at Steve's sermon from the mount when a sobering thought struck him.

If his chest pains returned he might die in his sleep tonight. And what would people say about James Kolry McGuire? That he won $93.50 playing poker?

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