No Simple Highway

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

The Hood

Visitor of My Dreams

Inner Sanctum

Inner Light

Black Knights

Déjà Vu

Crisis Interruptus

Invitation to Chaos

Xian

The Aboriginal

Summit Meeting

Bobby

Revelations

MIA

Rosie

Simone

Meanwhile

Graceful Exit

School Daze

Night of The Ninja

Melissa

Unbridled Joy

Mosaic

Night Sweats

Everyday Chaos

Troubled Sleep

Real Cool

Mom

Flow

Cupid

Parkour

Connection

Tony

James

The Secret Chamber

Hamp

No Turning Back

Simpatico

Fusion

Catastrophe

E.R.

Twisted Coincidence

Murphy’s Law

Gordian Knot

Homeward bound

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

A real community is a living, breathing, evolving organism, but this novel is about an imaginary community in an urban ghetto. It is a work of fiction, and none of the characters or institutions described in this book is real. Similarly, while the Vietnam War was all too real in terms of loss of life, the war episodes in this novel are fictional.

I am grateful to Dr. Howard Lambert, Dr. Frank Benison, and Dr. Timothy Patrick Dea, all colleagues and good friends, who read the rough draft of my manuscript and offered encouragement and constructive criticism that helped make NO SIMPLE HIGHWAY a better book.

I’d like to give special thanks to my biggest cheerleader, my wife, Carol, an accomplished author, a master teacher, an awesome proofreader, and someone whose formatting skills saved my derriere on more than one occasion.

Thanks also go to Bill Vidal, who explored the highway before I did, and who showed me that potholes are often opportunities for personal growth.

Finally, thanks to the team at iUniverse. I couldn’t have turned out this creative endeavor without you.

To Mental Health

Anytime,

Anyplace,

Anyway . . .

"There is a road, no simple highway,

between the dawn and the dark of night,

and if you go, no one may follow,

that path is for your steps alone."

The Grateful Dead

No Simple Highway

Prologue

I am not who I appear to be. There are only a handful of people in the world who know this to be true, and that number now includes you. Why should you care, you might ask, and I would reply the answer for now is that this story is as much about you as it is about me.

When one looks directly at me, my eyes appear friendly, warm, and brown. Should the sunlight suddenly illuminate my irises, though, an olive green depth is revealed. Only the faintest hint of light brown would remain, ringing the pupil. It is as if muddy water had instantaneously cleared, except that in my case the sediment settles at the center, mysteriously layered on the edge of darkness.

If you met me at the medical center or the community clinic, you would be struck by my professional appearance, conveyed by rimless glasses, French blue button-down shirt, paisley tie, Harris Tweed herringbone patterned jacket, and gabardine pants. The shoes might throw you. They look well made and comfortable, but you would actually have to see the treads on the undersides of the soles to know that the shoes were made for running. If the opportunity presented itself to observe me through a one-way mirror as I worked with psychiatric patients, you would feel the compassion and understanding with which I held their space. You would have no inkling that two years before, on special leave from my psychiatric duties at an Air Force base in Florida, I was running for my life through the jungles of Vietnam. Nor would you know that I had killed three men in order to survive. You wouldn’t imagine that at night I still occasionally sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, screaming as an emerald-green pit viper slithers across my chest and out of my nightmare. I have my flaws, as you will discover.

I’m quite athletic and have excelled in team sports, but I’ve always preferred individual endeavors. I run, backpack, and rock climb, and I’ve mastered a diverse array of martial arts. The main disciplines that I practice are Tai Chi, Aikido, Kendo, and Bagua Zhang, and they are the result of a most unusual and rigorous training that I received during childhood and adolescence. The teaching was as mystical and meditative as it was methodical, and for that I am grateful. As part of my personal practice, I work out for at least an hour every day.

So I’m not sure why I look shorter and weaker than I really am. Maybe it’s because I slouch a bit at the shoulders or that I try to get down to eye level with people when I talk with them; possibly it’s the salt and pepper patina that glosses my jet black hair; perhaps it’s the deceptive clothes, they hide the physical facts. When I look at myself naked in the mirror, I see rippling muscles on sinewy limbs, rock hard abdominals, and no observable body fat on a one hundred seventy five pound, six feet tall frame. Clothes can make the man; they can also cloak the truth.

Women tell me that I am attractive. I guess it’s the piercing eyes, the slightly wild long hair and moustache, the high cheekbones, and the full lips that give a sensual and yet determined set to my mouth. I claim no credit for these features, though, for I am just the beneficiary of ancestral genetic gifts.

Oh, there is one more facet of my experience that you should know about before our journey together begins: I am a trained assassin!

The Hood

An early morning mist crept through the streets of Denver, Colorado, and rubbed cold against the dilapidated buildings of the Five Points neighborhood as I parked and locked my car. Here and there, streetlight antennae peered through the smoky vapor, but revealed only an occasional four-wheeled bug groping its way along Twenty-Eighth Street. It was the beginning of autumn, 1972, the Vietnam War was winding down, and I was starting a new job as a community psychiatrist immediately following my honorable discharge from the Air Force. The sun looked down momentarily from a leaden sky and then disappeared behind its cloudy veil, as if it did not wish to witness the human drama that was about to unfold below.

I was eager to begin my first day of work, yet it was with some trepidation that I started walking through the infamous Five Points area toward the Northside Neighborhood Health Center. This area of Denver, just north of downtown, had been a musical Mecca for Black musicians the likes of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and had nourished the beat soul of Jack Kerouac when he was on the road. However, time and crime, along with the debilitating cycles of lack of economic opportunities and the numbing effects of drugs and alcohol, had made the neighborhood an unhealthy and a dangerous place in which to live.

I had been told when I was hired that it would be safe to work at the health center during the day, and I had accepted that assurance without asking when the day began or ended. Still, I was aware that I was anxious. I was mindful of that, and I was just beginning to process the realization that the anxiety seemed to have more to do with performance expectations than it did with personal safety when a different perceptual awareness ignited inside of me. It was subtle, total body awareness, rooted in the distant past as well as in the here and now. Later, when I had time to reflect, it was fascinating to see that so much information could be experienced and integrated in a moment fraught with danger.

I hadn’t seen the gang loitering on the front porch of a boarded up, crumbling, red brick building as I walked toward the clinic, but they must have perceived me as an easy target. As I’ve mentioned, my physical appearance isn’t particularly imposing, especially from a distance, and the briefcase that I was carrying suggested academia rather than athleticism. The hint of wildness, in my full moustache and slightly longer than fashionable hair, would have been easy for them to miss in the lingering haze. Also, I couldn’t have known, in that moment, that the gang had been out all night drinking and doing drugs. Yet, I was instantly aware that a malevolent force had entered my energy field. A distinctive voice from the past firmly whispered, "You will be able to feel a destructive influence when it touches your presence, and you will know what to do when that time comes." All of this was happening, and I had taken only fifteen steps from my car.

The hair on the back of my neck actually bristled as I heard a rush of air behind a hurtling, heavy object and the accelerating thumping of multiple footsteps. Instinctively I crouched and pivoted in one swift motion, left hand open in front of my face, right hand open in front of my chest. A baseball bat was revolving horizontally ten feet in front of my eyes! With an instantaneous reflex action I reached out and caught it on the trademark. Visions of catching flies one handed and then releasing them unhurt, an ancient martial arts training technique, flitted into my consciousness, dissipating immediately as I listened intently.

Watch out, man’s got quick hands! exclaimed one of the shadowy figures.

Another young man, the apparent leader of the emerging gang of five, shouted at me with clearly intended derogatory sting, What you think you doin’ here, boy?

Through kendo trained eyes I held the gaze of the leader with a riveting focus. He seemed to be a tall, shimmering, finely chiseled ebony statue, except that he had graceful movements, which made him come alive. He was more like a panther, a Black Panther, I thought wryly, flashing on the eponymous name of the militant group. It’s odd, isn’t it, that even when one feels focused, extraneous bits of information can surface like so much flotsam and jetsam and, at the same time, be amusing despite the gravity of the situation.

I could sense that a frontal attack was imminent and was gauging my assailants with a meticulously ingrained Musashi strategy, but I decided to try a reasonable approach first. Wait! I implored. I’m a new doctor at the health center. That revelation was greeted by impassive silence. Maybe they are listening, I thought. Do you know James Wander? James was a Black friend of mine who was the leader of the community mental health team at the center. His name worked no magic either, though the leader’s eyes showed a flicker of recognition. Finally, grasping at straws, inappropriately trying to be hip, I said, Hey, man, I’ve come here to try to help people in the hood, not fight with you. As if on cue, the gang advanced menacingly, and I took a quick step backward, wondering if I had inadvertently insulted them.

Old pictures fast-forwarded through my mind; the ego in its nervousness couldn’t stop the psychologically dynamic history that breached the surface defenses from deep within the unconscious. Déjà vu? I saw myself back on the south side of Chicago at age eight on the way home from Hebrew school. I was crossing a vacant lot when a Black kid demanded the stick that I was carrying. I refused and had to fight for it as a result. I could still feel his left jab flicking my puerile face at will, and the everlasting shame from finally having to leave the stick and run away to protect myself. Then, for months, I lived in terror of being attacked again. I was not going to run from this one, though, because now, in this moment, I had some positive life experience upon which I could draw, and I was no longer an insecure, defenseless little boy.

All five rushed at once, yet two of the youths to my right precipitated the movement by a fraction of a second. I had no choice. I had to fight even though I was out of practice and not in combat shape. I threw myself sideways while swinging the bat low, taking out the legs of the two on my right flank. Bouncing up, I thrust the handle into the epigastric region of the third member producing a satisfying oooff! as his diaphragm contracted. The leader and his remaining accomplice were on me then. Reacting without thinking, anxieties and inhibitions evaporating, shouting a powerful blood oath, I went wild. Strength flowed from a hidden reservoir that I had once feared I would never discover, and adrenalin propelled me into the kind of action of which I ordinarily would not have been capable. Set free, the essential flow guided me to repeatedly deflect blows and instantly counterattack—cloud hands warded off fists—parry, thrust, kick were second nature again.

I grabbed the leader by the foot as he jump-kicked and used his momentum to throw him violently to the ground. He was so surprised that I was able to pounce on his chest and hit him in the face with three sharp blows before the fifth gang member tried to drag me off. I was not trying to kill the tall young man; I could have done that, but I just wanted him out of the fray. I controlled my murderous impulse, and had started to shake off the one standing attacker when suddenly I heard again the sound of rushing air. This sound was quieter yet quicker than that of the bat, and had a whirring quality that I had heard years before on a distant continent. I ducked, but not quite fast enough, and was knocked flat by the forceful impact of a glancing blow to the back of my head. As I fought to stay conscious, blinded by the searing pain, I heard one of the young men calling to the leader, Are you all right, Tony, are you all right, man?

As my vision cleared I could see that Tony was in better shape than I was, although my punches had cut him in a few places and blood trickled down his face. He laughed derisively and seemed to be debating about how to finish me off. I braced myself for the onslaught and was desperately trying to think about my next move through the fog that was now in my head.

I heard the faint reverberation of shoe leather on pavement before Tony did. Then I saw his facial expression change from animal anticipation to frustration and disgust. Little man, that’s it for now, he said softly, but I’ll find you again. Count on it!

The members of the gang disappeared as silently as they had appeared, filtering back into the early morning mist. As I lay crumpled up and bleeding on the pavement, I took solace in the fact that all of the gang members would be licking their wounds, too. Then I felt myself slipping slowly again into what seemed like a mental mist, yet at the same time I was dimly aware that the pounding of a single set of footsteps was getting closer to me. The last thing that I remember was realizing that the footsteps had something to do with the gang’s precipitous retreat.

When I came to, I was looking into the blue-green eyes of a beautiful café au lait complexioned woman with sensual African-American facial features and wavy reddish-brown hair.

I was groggy, disoriented, and I had a throbbing headache, but her lovely vision was like a siren call to consciousness. I’ve always been able to kibitz in a friendly, funny way to relieve tension or ease conflict so it seemed natural to banter with this unknown young woman.

Have I died and gone to heaven? I managed to say, ending with a crooked grin.

If you had died, you never would have gotten through the pearly gates lookin’ like you do, was her quick rejoinder. What’s your name?

Good question, I responded, vaguely cognizant that she was probably doing a mental status on me—a reasonable approach as I was having some difficulty coming up with it. Oh, Aden Echo, I said with some relief.

Lord have mercy! Now what did you have to go get yourself beat up for? We need a psychiatrist, not someone who’s goin’ on sick leave his first day on the job!

Her chiding humor had its desired effect, and I momentarily forgot both my pain and to ask how I had been brought into what I imagined must be the health center. The muscular middle-aged Black man standing unobtrusively in the back of the room seemed to be part of the answer.

I’m not about to go on sick leave, I said with what little enthusiasm I could muster. Who’s the first case?

You are, she easily retorted, and we’re goin’ to attempt to haul your pitiful body back down to the first floor to get some x-rays and medical advice. Then, leveling me with her aquamarine stare to let me know she meant business, she added, And don’t you be sayin’ no! Seamlessly changing gears, she addressed the man in the back of the room, saying, Hamp, you found Dr. Echo and carried him here; will you carry him back down to the ER?

No, that’s ok. I can manage myself, I offered woozily, thinking, I’ve got to impress this beautiful angel. However, as I staggered to my feet I felt Hamp’s strong arms propping me up and then draping my arm over his shoulder. I allowed myself to be led out of the room the way a punch-drunk fighter is led from the ring. Halfway down the stairs my legs buckled and I blacked out again.

I awoke an hour later, after drifting in and out of consciousness. The nametag on the immaculately pressed white lab coat read William Webster, M.D. The officious internist wore his white lab coat as if it were regal ermine and all who were confronted by it should bow down. He greeted me abruptly, sarcastically emphasizing certain words. You suffered a moderate concussion, DR. ECHO, and now YOU could use a HEADSHRINKER. The only good news is that you don’t have a BASILAR SKULL FRACTURE. Here, look at the x-ray.

Thanks Webster, you sadist,—although I was thinking, asshole—haven’t you heard of empathy? I shot back.

Yes I have MY BOY, that’s why I’m admitting you to the HOSPITAL for observation.

As I exhaustedly resigned myself to the wisdom of his authoritarian edict, I thought, this is my first day in community psychiatry, and I didn’t—the thought was fading, and instead, flashback images of jungle firefights were superimposed. Then, the words transposed to, have the chance to complete my mission . . .

Visitor of My Dreams

I am running through tangles of backyard bushes, the thin branches mercilessly whip across my face and bare arms leaving red welts that look worse than they hurt. Yet, tears are streaming from my eyes because I am afraid of what’s behind me. I am seven years old. In the background I hear eerie music from the Sorcerer’s Apprentice becoming louder and more frenetic. A grotesque giant dressed in animal skins is crashing through the underbrush brandishing a huge, spiked club. He has a featureless face and he is relentlessly chasing me. I feel trapped as I seek refuge at the little pond filled with koi in a neighboring yard. Magically, the kindly gardener, who takes care of the yard and the pond, appears from behind a large boulder, but he is not dressed in his work clothes. Instead he is wearing the all black fighting garb of a martial arts master. The clothing is loose fitting black silk, which allows free flowing movements. Suddenly but gracefully, almost as if he were dancing, he thrusts a strong wooden staff in front of the giant’s face. The monster shrivels up into a pile of brown leaves that bursts into flames and then disappears into smoke and ash. The master takes my hand and I feel comforted and safe. We sit down beside the pond and meditate.

Tranquility turns into chaos and I find myself running again, this time at age thirty-one, through a mosquito- infested jungle in South Vietnam. There are eight to ten Viet Cong—I can’t tell exactly how many— hunting me down, intent on killing me. I am the prey, the odds are against me, and the fear of the hunted is palpable in my chest. I press on through a kaleidoscope of lush green vegetation, clinging vines, and rare orchids. I long to stop and touch their beauty, but time has now become more precious than beauty. A sinking feeling pervades my belly as I realize that even the densest greenery won’t protect me from a step-by-step search. I’m running blindly, I can’t see a way out; I don’t want to die, and I hate the fear that seems to be all I’ve got to propel me forward. The voice of my teacher forcefully taps me in the middle of my forehead, awakening me from the miasma of anxiety. Focus Aden! Courage is the antidote for fear. Sense your courage; sense into the red of the heart center. I reconnect with the red and leap forward into the unknown. I hear my pursuers coming closer as I desperately struggle down into a shallow, fern covered ravine. The voice of my teacher comes to me again, arising this time from the ground. Water is your friend, remember this always when you have to escape. I hear no flowing water, but as I scan the trench-like undulation in the jungle floor I notice wet, muddy ground at the far end of the gully. I hurry toward it and my hopes soar as I see that the ooze is actually seepage from a small swamp. Black water and pond scum never looked so good. There are hundreds of reeds growing in the shallow water, and I hurriedly cut one below the water level so as not to expose its end. As I lift the severed reed out of the water, a seemingly incongruous experience pops into my head. I hear the wailing of Rumi’s reed flute as it sings of the separation of the soul from its essence. I stop myself short—no time for musing now—and I ease myself into the warm, brackish water. Fortunately it is stagnant enough that it is murky, so the fact that I have only about three feet of breathing tube is less dangerous than if I were hiding in clearer, moving water. Trying to protect myself further, I slither on my back along the muddy bottom looking upward for a change of clear surface to algae covered surface. I take care to leave only the thinnest reed track in the green surface, and I nestle into a bed of reeds and wait, and pray.

I have unusually keen hearing and even underwater I soon hear several voices shouting to each other in Vietnamese. I understand French but not Vietnamese, though it is clear the guerrillas are debating about my disappearance. Suddenly the water explodes all around me as three clips from AK47’s are emptied into the swamp. Miraculously I’m not hit. I wait until I can no longer hear the voices nor feel the vibrations from the receding footsteps. Then I wait another ten minutes. Slowly, ever so slowly, I sit up and allow my head to emerge from the scum-covered water; it feels as if I am moving through molasses. I release the reed and inhale a grateful breath of air, but my relief turns to horror as I realize that I am looking at the black clad back of a soldier, who is quietly smoking a cigarette on the bank of the swamp not five feet from where I’ve surfaced. He hears my breathing and turns toward me, and now his face expresses horror as if I might be some kind of supernatural, wraithlike swamp deity. Taking momentary advantage of the young Viet Cong’s fear-induced paralysis, I leap out of the water, my mud-and-algae-covered visage lending credence to his belief that I am an apparition. I knock him violently to the ground, and now he knows that I am real, but before he can fight back I sever his carotid artery and trachea with one well-aimed stroke of my knife. As his blood and air leave his body, he is unable to utter an intentional sound. Quickly and as quietly as I can, my arms and body shaking, I drag him out to the middle of the swamp and hold him under until the bubbles stop. I feel exhilarated to have survived mortal combat for the first time, and yet, simultaneously, I feel a deep sense of remorse at having taken someone’s life. I stare numbly at the blackness of the water before beginning to backtrack through the oppressive jungle.

The black water morphs into black macadam and I am once again grappling with the gang on Twenty-Eighth street. As I am pulled away from the gang leader, Tony, by the fifth assailant, I break free and whirl around him in an elusive series of kicks and punches. I become the lion, the bear, the snake, and the crane, shamanistic predecessors of modern day martial arts movement. Out of the mist comes the faint whirring sound but just as I instinctively duck my head, I feel the impact and the pain. The approaching sound of someone running and the blurred vision of the gang retreating come through to me as I sink to my knees. This time, though, my teacher appears, mysteriously hovering above the fog. It is as if he is in the dream, but somehow outside of it. He speaks to me, calmly as usual, yet commands my attention at the same time. Aden, the gang is dangerous but undisciplined, and they fight for pride, for territory and without weapons. The vicious one, the killer, is the one you never saw. Look at what hit you, it’s a boomerang decorated with a jaguar design. Truly Aboriginal? You will have to discover that on your own. There is another problem; a more subtle one. Beware the men in so called high places; the ivory tower is made of white plastic. Master Xian chuckles as he dematerializes, and I frantically call out his name, Xian, Xian, come back . . .

Xian, Xian, I awakened with a start, crying his name, struggling to make sense out of what had just happened. For an instant I thought I was back in the hospital at Cam Rahn Bay, where I had recuperated from my ordeal in the jungle. I dismissed that idea immediately as the sterile reality of the A.G.H. hospital room was coldly reflected back to me from the white sound-absorbing ceiling tiles and the silver aluminum bed railings. That’s right, I remembered, yesterday I got up and walked down the hall and my mind cleared enough to talk with the nurses. What just happened with Xian, though, I wondered?

I had done enough dream work to know that the flashback episodes and their details, real and symbolic, represented past and recent trauma in my life. Yet as the dream details receded back into my unconscious, the feeling in my heart was one of connection. It felt as if my teacher’s appearance was some sort of mystical event. There was a quality in his advice to me that was non-dreamlike. It was a presence that felt real, full of contact, and coming from the hospital room rather than from inside my head.

Then it hit me, and I knew in my heart that I was right because he was talking about a visual detail on the weapon that I had only heard, and he was also talking about the future! Freud notwithstanding, I had heard about teachers returning to their students as some form of guidance and after long absences as well. I hadn’t talked with Xian face to face in twelve years! His advice in Vietnam had saved my life, but that felt more like an ingrained teaching. The contact with him in the hospital room was different, it was palpable; and yet I had no idea where he lived now, or even if he were still living. I tried to analyze the dream further, but simultaneously I knew that I was somehow hoping to regain my connection with Xian. I shook my head back and forth to clear my mind, and instantly became aware of another presence in the room and it wasn’t my teacher.

Who’s there? I almost shouted as I quickly sat up in the hospital bed. All of my senses were on alert and my muscles tensed, ready to do battle.

Easy, Doc, don’t freak out, it’s just me, Hamp. Haw, haw, haw, he said with a guffaw that seemed like a practiced joviality.

Hamp was sitting in the shadows of the back of the room, balanced on a metal chair that was tilted at a forty-five degree angle against the wall. He looked relaxed, dressed in grey, athletic sweat pants and hood, his running shoes dangled freely in the air. Still, the size of the man—I guessed that he weighed about 220 pounds—and the obvious muscles that not even baggy sweats could hide, gave me the impression that it wouldn’t be difficult for him to vault into action. I wondered if his overly friendly manner was his way of trying to mislead me into accepting his presence without question. I didn’t buy in.

What are you doing here, Hamp? I asked with more than a little annoyance in my voice. After all, I wasn’t sure how much of my dream I had revealed, and I didn’t like his hearing me call out for my teacher. It also bothered me that no matter how hard I tried to get away from my past, it kept rising up and informing others about parts of my life that I preferred to keep hidden. Hamp had, I surmised by now, seen me fighting the gang members; his were surely the footsteps that had scattered the five young men.

Easy now, Doc, Simone told me it’d be better if someone watched over you for awhile. You know, helped you get home and all. Unless you got family here in town.

I don’t, I replied darkly, not mentioning that I had no connection with my family anymore. I didn’t want to be plagued with any family thoughts, not now. So to help dissipate the past I suddenly and aggressively started questioning him again, a role with which I was more comfortable. Who’s Simone?

She’s the woman that you saw at Northside when you first came to.

Simone, I was listening to the sound, Simone, what a beautiful musical name. The allure of her blue-green eyes and full lips came back to me. I felt a sexual stirring in my nether region, and was momentarily grateful for the sheet covering me, although it was reassuring to feel alive again down below. I wanted to know more about her, yet I knew that I was also succumbing to the old siren call of sex and relationship addiction. I hid my fantasies behind another question. Do you always do what Simone tells you to do?

Haw-haw-haw, the laughter exploded from Hamp’s mouth. "Doc, you must