Forward

 

CHAPTER FIVE

Poul found the artist a few hundred miles west of where he had left him. It had taken several months to pick up the paper trail and collect the material that led to the man.

Now that he knew the man's location, Poul doubled back to make sure he hadn't missed any papers. As he continued his search, he thought about introducing himself and telling the fellow his songs were selling fast and that patches of devoted, almost fanatical followers were springing up around the country, trying to establish the identity of the mysterious, faceless, nameless genius.

In fact, that's what Beasely was worried about. "In everything, there is a void,” he told Poul at dinner one night. “If you don't fill the void with what you want, others will fill it in, and in every case, it won't be what you want. Good marketing is creating an image and filling the void with it, then convincing people they need or want it. In this case we don't have to convince them. But you're killing me Poul, with this mystery bullshit."

Maybe he was right, but Poul had no choice until he could figure out an alternative. To him, taking the songs uninvited was ethically questionable, but manageable. He would not take credit for another man's work, however. He was tempted, certainly, but the image of the horrible Miss White loomed in his mind. Getting caught was the most humiliating thing in the world.

He thought of introducing himself to this crazy guy, but he didn't. If the man was happy with his work, he wouldn't be throwing it away, Poul reasoned. There was also the very real possibility that if the artist learned of his success, he might just stop writing and enjoy his money and fame and be ruined. Or the sudden shock of the success, coupled with the culture shock of re-entry into society might even mentally impair the man, who was obviously high strung, sensitive and half crazy anyway.

Poul shuddered at the thought. Yes, the man might very well fall over the edge and kill himself. Artists did that, Poul knew. He'd heard stories of artists, wiping their brain slate clean with artillery, leaping with a single bound off tall bridges, spilling their guts with Hari Carving swords.

They were a strange bunch. It must be hell to be an artist, Poul thought. They didn't need religion to give them a Satan. They were their own worst enemies. No, he

kept concluding, scratching his neck and shaking his head with a mature air of responsible deliberation. To tell the man at this point about his success could ruin both their careers.

There's a time and place for everything.

***

His bag hanging heavily on his slightly stooping shoulder, Mendel continued westward. To any of the few strangers he met, Mendel was simply a hobo, a ragged anachronism looking for a bowl of soup and a slow train.

He wandered seemingly without direction, his tattered, colorless clothes flapping freely about him. The feature that distinguished him from other wanderers was the large, dark eyes that fastened their gaze upon their subject with undisguised curiosity and total concentration. The many people who briefly saw him in early years remembered the eyes. Later, when Mendel's fame had spread, these people described him to reporters, collectors, and bounty hunters as a man who just was. They spoke of his gentle, quiet countenance that contrasted almost unnaturally with the powerful eyes that bore into subjects with an innocent but intense openness. A few of the more highly-strung witnesses said that after talking with them for just a few minutes, Mendel knew their very souls.

Once his supposed powers were amplified and reported on, thousands of spiritually undirected souls would seek him out. This would cause a natural backlash of spirited egotists to also search him out. Both groups would want something. The first would want his words; the second would want his life.

Mendel stopped in the Midwest and listened to its music. He lay for weeks on the grassy plains and absorbed the grumble of the huge tractors in the cornfields, the laborers' grunts and the sound of the farmer's hand brushing the sweat from his forehead.

He took particular notice of the children's playful yelling in the fields and on the one-and-a-half lane dirt roads. The sounds were rich and full-bodied, flowing outward until they disappeared into the expansive sky. What a contrast, he thought, to the yelling of children in cities like Chicago. Their sounds rang sharp and hollow and beat themselves to cacophonic shreds against the concrete that closed around them. Mendel gathered choruses from the stout, middle-aged housewives fixing supper, and the music of the clean wind that whooshed in a sonorous sighs over the wheat fields' amber waves. He gathered the men's curses that sprang from their lungs in earthy rhythms, and swirled with the sad bawling cattle and short heavy grunts of pigs snuffling through the world with snouts groundward.

He listened to the sounds of the Methodist ministers who spoke of Heaven in quiet, gentle voices, and to the hymns that wafted from the small white churches and rose upward with an age-old confidence that goodness is, after all is said and done, its own reward.

From these notes he wrote strong, clean songs full of clear rhythms and coursing blood, the acrid sweet odor of dark manure mingling with the heavy dampness of springtime sod, the sound of ebullient oaths ringing pure in the unpolluted air, and the simple blessing spoken over the supper table heavy with food.

The songs were his best yet, he felt. He had paired the richness of human blood with the soil's deep texture. He had fused the cold clarity of creek water with the steaming pungent piss of the horse and cow. He had captured the tension of the hand's muscle as it gripped the tractor wheel that directed the plow -- now and generations ago. "Seeds and sweat," he wrote in his notebook.

One day he passed an old farmer taking a break to have some ice tea from his thermos. Mendel wrote down the man’s summation of his life. "Drink, sweat and pee."

He spent weeks in an abandoned barn full of soft sounds of pigeons and worked on the songs, loving the land and the people and the songs' essence so much that he was tempted to stop writing, give his brain a pat on the rump and send it out to pasture. He would spend the rest of his life working with his hands and trusting to nature for the rest, just like his father had.

Poul spent his nights shivering in the sprawling cornfield that Mendel was now forming into poetry. The sword-like leaves rattled against each other like an endless graveyard of hyper tense skeletons. Poul's enthusiasm for his prey was about as bubbly as a dust bowl.

"What the hell am I still doing here?" He muttered at the ears of corn. The top of his head was freezing. He had read somewhere that 60 percent of your body heat goes right out the top of your head. Why he didn't bring a hat was beyond him. The few hairs left on the top were going to freeze and fall off.

"What's he doing out here? Batch of smelly farmers cussing out animals, pouring that sickening slop in trays for a bunch of pigs. Real pigs for Christ's sakes. What kind of man spends his life serving a pig? He stopped. Christ, he was picking up scraps left by a man writing about men who waited on swine. Life was too absurd.

"Beasely's going to be sorely disappointed with this batch," he thought, "If the madman ever lets them go." He pulled his coat up around his neck and shuddered each time the corn rattled. "I hate dirt!" He scratched his cheek. He had shaved off his beard in New York to look civilized again. Now it was back and itching constantly. "I hate dirt and everything that comes out of it . . . except food. Jesus, what I wouldn't give for some ham and eggs. . . ."

That night Poul developed a theory that he would amend, improve upon and resort to in distressful times throughout his life. It was this: Eden began in fact as a lovely resort complex with revolving bars, room service and heated pools, all surrounded by geometric concrete walks, streets, courtyards with a tasteful few plants for effect, and no weather. When Adam and Eve received their walking papers, they were sent from Paradise into nature to sweat their asses off in this God-awful dirt. Sex being their only pleasurable diversion from work and toil, they begot some troublesome kids who begot others, who continued begetting until they worked their procreative tricks down to Miss White and this crazy, song-flinging fool who was now holed up in a barn writing about animals.

How far we have come from Eden, he thought sadly.

Well, as for himself, he would simply send his mind back to his snug little Eastside apartment and look out over the city while he sipped his wine and listened to the music of the traffic and sirens and fully appreciate God's concrete beauty. He fell asleep and dreamed.

The wind-driven rain was tearing down in oblique gray sheets when Mendel woke. He was glad for the crops, which had been begging for water. He felt good with himself, too, having nearly captured to his satisfaction the songs of the land around him. Nearly.

He spent the day going over the material, shaking his head and driving himself into a bad mood. It all seemed so fresh and full when he first wrote it. Now almost everything seemed, if not shallow, then anemic compared to what he had felt and what he heard in his mind when he wrote it.

He felt as if he were on a road, both sides of which were bare and it was up to him to create the Everything on both sides, and though he had done his best, there were still large chunks of nothingness. Some areas were gaping holes that laughed with wide, toothless mouths at his lack of experience and his inability. Some gaps -- like a missing fruit fly or a fallen raven feather lying half buried in a rusting sluice pipe -- just seemed too endless to ever fill in.

To make matters worse, some of his created parts were misshapen, deformed, mangled from birth by a rushing creator who had neither the microscopic nor the sweeping vision of natural design to complete the structure. Nothing he did met the expectations of his mind. Nothing he did matched the intensity emotions he felt when he wrote it. Drivel!

He jumped up, and for a moment stared at the barn boards, shiny with years of scuffing leather boots, sliding, bristly hay bales and brooms pushing loose hay to bawling black and white Holsteins. "Damn it!" He yelled. The pigeons in the loft whirred about the barn's top with the explosion of his voice. He pushed open the barn door and stood back as the furious wind blew the papers around the empty mow, sucking them haphazardly into the vast storm outside. He picked up some that the wind missed and tossed them out the second story door, wishing he could throw his tears and this insane drive into the wind with them.

Later, when the rain stopped, he stepped outside and watched a page somersault across the grass and impale itself on the rusty tine of an unused hay rake. "Who am I kidding?" He wondered. "Everything is a song and nothing is perfect."

He picked up a rock to heave it, but was captured by the pink and silver speckle of the granite chunk. He ran his fingers over the coarse skin of a broken side and for an instant felt its pulse and breath in his hand.

He pictured the millions of atoms inside the rock that moved so much slower than his own. Time, for a rock, moves slowly, taking millions of years to form and millions of years to decompose. He found this rock in the middle of its million-year instant in eternity. He felt as frail and fleeting as a bubble rising from a rushing stream and popping in the air. Ha! To the rock, Mendel's entire life was an eye blink, his grasp

on it nothing more than the merest tip of a fleeting shadow of a buried memory. Who was he to hurl this stone, which, in its age-old wisdom had watched all life come and go? Rocks don't hurl things in rage. Only man disrupts the world in vain efforts to quell the disunity of his inner world. Mendel laid the rock carefully back in its place.

Later, a patch of sun broke out over the area. He glanced up at the sky and saw a group of swallows, tiny and black in the distance, soar in inexplicable, magnificent unison over the fields. Each had a motion of its own and all had one motion. He packed his bag and followed the cloud-mottled sun on its silent path westward.

***

Hundreds of crinkled papers fluttered like shell-shocked seagulls, flapping in fright with every minor movement of the breeze. And Poul danced in rage. "Damn damn damn! They were in a barn! A safe, dry barn! Why did he have to do that?" He fell on the muddy ground and beat it with his fists.

Later, when he knew the man was long gone, a soaked and miserable Poul scuttled in widening circles, plucking papers from the cornstalk leaves, tree limbs, and mud holes. "Bastard," he mumbled. "Dumb bastard. Shouldn't have a right to pull this crap. He could have cut me a break this time Spoiled damned kid is what he is. . . ."

By the end of the week, Poul was too exhausted to even curse. He had to save all his energy for his work. By day he concentrated solely on the paper chase. At night, however, he allowed himself the luxury of a new and favorite mental picture. It was of himself, good old Poul, standing squarely behind the eccentric ragamuffin. When the picture was solidly formed in his mind he smiled and gave the guy a good swift kick in the ass.

He had hoped to have all the papers collected within a few weeks and head back to the sanctuary of Beasely's office and his new apartment. But the wind and nature seemed to agree on making him work overtime for his money. He followed the papers into barnyards and sported with sows while rummaging for worn, pig spattered sheets of music and lyrics. He chased them into chilly farm ponds full of sickening mud and slimy things that slithered with cold-blooded depravity up his pant legs in the dark waters.

He chased them for 16 months, running from Kansas to Minnesota to Illinois where he spent four hellish winter months trying to spot the graying paper in the blinding snow. He rushed through Iowa and finally landed in a farmer's chicken coop. According to his calculations, the coop or its vicinity should hold the last sheet. It should be, he figured, the missing page four of the third group of songs. He wanted desperately to say to hell with it, but he didn't dare.

He searched through the close, musty half-light, plucking scores of white feathers until he spotted the tip end of something that reached out forlornly through the squishy grayish glop that layered the floor. He dropped to his knees in the chicken shit and dug, ignoring his utter hatred of the smell, sight and cackling sound of the place. It had to be the song. It had to be it, he told himself. It had to be --

"Whatarya doin', fella?"

In a minor but extremely frightening moment unity, Poul jerked his head up to find his eyeballs perfectly framed by the end of a double-barrel shotgun. God, it was big.

He hauled up a swift silent prayer. "Oh Lord, not now, not in middle age when I'm about to become a respected millionaire and a damn fine person. If I live I'll be generous and kind and You'll be so proud of me. Don't let my brain be shot out in a chicken coop.”

"Uh. . . don't shoot," he said gently. "I'm a good Christian. I fear God . . . and you." The farmer behind the long gun was small and built solid, with a gray stubble of whiskers poking out his hickory bark cheeks, one of which bulged with a wad of tobacco. His worn overalls were spotted with chicken shit and tobacco juice.

"Yer breakin' my eggs."

Poul looked around cautiously, his small weasel eyes darting about for injured merchandise. The man was right. Shit. He looked up again, slowly, and fought the furious urge to scratch his head while he still had a head to scratch.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean --"

"Yer trespassin', too." The farmer flipped the wad inside his cheek with his tongue. "I could shoot ya fer that. It's all legal as long as yer whole body's layin' on my property. That's the law." The man's deadpan expression didn't change except for a slight eyebrow raise on the word "law." Like a visual period. Law. Period. Boom. Dead. Bye-bye Poul.

Poul had always had respect for farmers, figuring anyone who worked in all this crap to grow food must have some good in him. But this guy appeared to be a dispassionate killer.

"Don't shoot me," he said gently. "I was just chasing some music. I lost it, you see. Look." He dug the paper out of the dung and held it up. "See?"

The man turned his head and spat out a huge glob of brown saliva. "You broke my eggs and yer trespassin'.” He paused. “And yer crazy."

Poul nodded as he carefully raised the paper.

"See? It's a song. I had to find it." The farmer cocked his head as he studied the paper. Slowly he lowered his gun. Poul was so relieved he jumped up, frightening the hens who cackled and fluttered, falling from their perches like lopsided bowling balls. More eggs spilled from the nests and smashed on the floor. The farmer set his gun against the wall and ran to the chickens. "There there. Bebe, Ethel, Francis, Gertie. Settle down. Nice girls. Maybelle, Tootie, come on now. There there."

He quieted them and returned to Poul who stood proudly holding up the brown, torn page that dripped with raw scrambled egg. The end of a long search.

"I got a good mind to blow yer empty head off, friend," the farmer said through is clenched mahagony teeth.

"No. No need for that," Poul said, scraping paper. "I'll get out of here. Sorry about the mess."

The farmer stared at Poul and rubbed his jaw with a red, calloused hand. He knew that no matter how hard he studied, he would see the same thing: a bald, bearded nut from some city standing in chicken shit and raving about a hunk of paper.

"Listen, I owe you some money for the eggs, and for scaring the, uh, girls."

The farmer nodded and spat again. He rubbed his chin and thought it over. It seemed to take forever to Poul. "I figure about three bucks for the eggs and fifty for the stress on the gals. They're nervous types. Might need some counselin' . . . and I'm sure they ain't gonna lay right for a week or so." He thought a minute. "Kick in a few more for me storin' that page for ya."

Poul nodded. "Fair enough. He dug in his wallet and pulled out three twenties. He had five of them for emergencies. The farmer took them and nodded with a faint smile. "If you think you ever might have more papers in here, come to the house and knock first. I'll give you a hand." Poul stared at him, realizing finally that the man was making a joke. He laughed politely. "Must be one valuable piece of paper, eh?"

Poul nodded. "It's worth what I paid."

They shook hands and Poul left to get back to New York, dump the songs and see if he could find the crazy composer. They had been separated nearly two years. The last Poul knew, the man was heading west. He wondered how many dozens of songs the artist had thrown away since he last saw him. Wearied by the question, he erased it from his mind.

As he wandered, he often made himself sick to his stomach wondering if the music’s popularity had worn off by now and Beasely on to other projects. No. Beasely knew his field and said the songs would keep growing in popularity. Beasely knew. Poul patted his bundle of songs. Everything would be okay. He had his life, which could have been lost back in the chicken coop, and, yes, he had almost forgotten. He had a little gem worth, heh heh heh, a major fortune.

He found it a year ago along a dirt road. It was a little piece of paper, a letter, or part of one. It said something about searching for songs and that his quest continued. It was signed "Mendel."

Nothing more.

Just Mendel.

The madman had a name.

CHAPTER SIX

 

J.W. Beasely’s ‘composer,’ if he is a real man, is a genius, who, though early in his career, can be compared to Shakespeare for the depth and breadth of his vision, to say nothing of his almost mystical understanding of nature.

 

Beasely laid the article down with a worried half smile. Gray smoke slowly swirled around his head as he walked over to this desk and pulled up his data base. Although the figures showed Poul's music at the top and holding fairly strong, it was past time to make a new move. He paced and worried about the composer for over a year. The idiot had just disappeared! Then Beasely received a telegram saying a new collection would be arriving shortly. That was seven months ago.

Here he was publishing material, finding the just right recording artists, overseeing the arrangements and sessions-- all for a composer who was like air! His stomach felt queasy a lot anymore. He began to have blood pressure problems. He drank more at night so he could sleep, but even in sleep the skinny man haunted his dreams.

Beasely puffed on his cigar. The company's strong position in the market would weaken soon. The three albums, "Nature's Violent Whisper," "Springtime," and "Soaring", had done very well, especially "Soaring," which shot six singles to the top five on the Adult Contemporary, three of which crossed over to the Top 40. He had never seen anything like it. No one else in the industry had either.

Critics hailed the music as the work of a genius, of someone who would take a secure place beside Wagner, Beethoven, Leiber and Stoller. Another, after a long analysis, threw up his hands, said the music transcended all classifications and should be enjoyed for the singular art that it was.

"Soaring" was voted one of the top five songs of the decade.

And Beasely Publishing had broken into the Fortune 500 List.

He stared at the charts and poured a drink. He nodded to himself, knowing he couldn't wait any longer. The anonymity had worked like a nice mystery story, whetting the public's imagination until the suspense was almost unbearable. Each album held only its title, the song titles and production credits. Not even the musicians were listed. Writing credits said simply: "By an American composer." Americans take their entertainment seriously though, and listeners, critics and journalists were now demanding

information. The Enquirer offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the composer's identity. Other media quietly investigated nearly every angle of Beasely Publishing, hoping to find a clue. They found none and Beasely knew it was just a matter of time before there would be a backlash.

It was time to create a story. He would call in his artists and have them re-create Poul, give him some hair, flesh him out and have the PR department write up a couple mock interviews.

The strategy would have to be very carefully executed so that the real Poul would be kept out of sight forever. Beasely shook his head with a smirk. Who would think that

scrawny bald guy with beady eyes, a bad smell and that damnable need to scratch his body would ever be capable of creating the century's greatest music?

The plan should meet with Poul's approval, Beasely thought. After all the guy didn't want to be in the spotlight. And that was fine. This would give him more time to create. How many artists had succumbed to public attention and let their art fall apart?

Whether or not Poul showed up, Beasely planned to introduce him to the world shortly. Sorry Poul, he thought. Business is business.

***

Shades of red pulsed in the rocks and sands of the Arizona twilight. Mendel sat cross-legged in the stillness. The red-rimmed boulders and glowing sands radiated an energy too subtle for man to see, but not to feel. Mendel had spent the past three months here learning stillness, learning to feel the quiet vibrations of an invisible life, a past life that existed all around him.

He had written little. He had done almost nothing but learn to exist in this sparse land of old prayers and dormant, whispering gods. Dusk. Crimson fading to black like sun the dried blood of 10,000 fallen warriors. Finally he heard the beat, faint, like a newborn's heart, then he saw. Shadow forms of ancient tribes danced to the muted drums that thumped like mastadonian heartbeats. Men danced and droned prayers, accepting energy from the flaming deity that ruled the land.

He was suddenly overcome with fright and loneliness. He drew his knees up to his chest and swayed slightly to the beat. "I'm alone," he thought. "Alone in the desert, alone among echoing spirits in an empty burning land. There is nowhere to turn. Redness and blackness. Red turning black. Black consuming red. I'm surrounded by spirits but alone."

Fear burned into his mind like the radiation of an exploding sun as the forms of men became solid and danced around him. They saw him; he could feel it. They saw him!

He wanted to jump and run, but he knew he could not escape the wrath of the copper-hued presences. The faster he ran the faster he would burn, crackle and sizzle into a smoldering cinder in the sand's omniscient fires. He was alone in the world with no exit. All paths led in concentric circles back to the self. His mind bounced from hugeness to minuteness, back and forth until he felt himself pulsating like the dark energy flowing from the throbbing drums. He fought to keep from screaming, knowing if he did it would only amplify the madness that beat with unrelenting rhythm against his brain, that another scream would follow, and another, each growing louder and more desperate until he tore at his throat and choked on his own thickening shrieks.

His head grew lighter and lighter until he became weightless and slid out of himself, leaving the emotion-ridden shell that holds the mind heavily to earth. He floated upward and looked at his body without compassion.

Freed of the physical, his mind lost its fear. He turned from body and began searching. He watched the men beneath him passionately enact ancient rituals that he dimly recognized somehow, somewhere in the prehistoric pockets of a mind liberated from the narrow focus of consciousness. The campfire flicked on the burned faces as they danced in the moon's chilly glow. Silver and red. Red and black. Stark lands with sharp edges. Dark forms gathering a deep, rich nocturnal mother energy that swelled upon itself. If he returned to his body at this moment, he would go mad with terror, for he suddenly realized the truth of it all.

He was looking at his own mind.

A huge bird, hovering in the black sky, fell to the earth in carmine flames and exploded with a screaming hiss. A silver serpent with ruby eyes grasped its tail between travertine fangs and spun with a granite grin, lighting the heavens with a circle of white fire. The drums increased tempo and volume driving into his soul. He felt joyfully alive with terror for an instant that seemed to last forever. He was alive as never before staring into the face of myth given flesh.

The serpent faded quietly into the moon and despite himself, Mendel was drawn back toward the body that lay crumpled in the cooling sand. His dispassion for his body gradually became a concern as he re-entered the still form cell-by-cell. He struggled to breathe in this heavy sad clay form and forced himself to lift his hand that seemed like a leaden albatross.

He concentrated hard on his hand, knowing that he must pull himself fully back from this other consciousness. There was no halfway. It was truly do or die. The cliché amused him and the fact that he felt humor strengthened his return. Dark-haired maidens warm with lust swayed at the sides of his vision begging him to turn his head, to just release himself and go with them. They promised to show him a song of love, formlessness and freedom. He held his gaze on his hand, studying the fingers, the lines on them and the bits of dull red dust imbedded in those lines. He felt another presence above him. It was a tall, strong man holding a scroll, and on the scroll was a song. "Come," the man said in Mendel's mind. "It may be the song you're searching for."

"It's only part of it," Mendel thought while trying to grasp this new dimension.

The man smiled and nodded. "Yes, but it may be a very important part."

Mendel felt his grasp on himself slipping with the temptation. "All parts are important parts," he said in his mind.

"I don't have time," the man said, losing patience.

"There is no time," Mendel answered.

The man seemed to swell to twice his size in magnificent anger before he burst out laughing. With a mighty heave he hurled the scroll into the starlit heavens. Mendel could not tell whether the scroll with the important song burst into flames or whether he was seeing a falling star. The man smiled, like a teacher proud of his student. "You are wiser than you think, Mendel. There are no unimportant parts."

Without knowing it, Mendel began writing. He was back. He was writing. That's all he knew. . . .

He awoke the next afternoon and looked over the songs. He felt twinges of the terror he had experienced. He felt the excitement of his brush with the living myths and a little feeling of humble victory in resisting temptation.

When he finished, Mendel sat back, vaguely satisfied with the songs, but feeling distant from them as loneliness began filling him again. God, he had spoken to no one in months. He had had no real relationships in what was probably years.

He suddenly grabbed his notebook and began writing. "I'm alone because I chose to be. All of us are alone and no number of friends or loved ones can enter that aloneness. They help us hide it from ourselves, but in moments, in dreams, we know we are alone. We know."

He gathered up his things and walked. Being alone is neither good nor bad, he thought. He stopped and shook some sand from his shoe. As individuals, we create our universe by what we accept from the world's infinite offerings, and by what we reject. There is no other truth, no other way.

He knelt to put his shoe on and gave way to tears. No amount of understanding or realizing could erase the fact that being alone is the hardest thing a human can bear. Pain can be suffered. One can blame other humans or gods for frustrations and failures. But when one feels his aloneness, the world is a mirror reflecting a tiny, naked individual.

He closed his eyes and followed his loneliness until his mind focused on a dot encompassed by fleshy blankness. The dot grew and assumed shapes for him until he realized its message. "I am the continual creation of myself," he mumbled. He said it over and over in a quiet chant, and with each footstep the song of the ancestors faded back into the stillness of the softly shifting sands.

Behind him, the rejected papers clung to the bushes and cacti like manna shards.

***

Poul was nearly a scarecrow. His sunburned skin hung like loose red rubber on his small bones and his bald spot peeled in hunks. The Gucci shoes Beasely picked out for him flopped loosely, their shriveled tongues wagging in weary desolation. Poul mentally kicked himself for miscalculating Mendel's intentions by about two hundred miles and wasting a month in New Mexico. He had trudged across plains, around some desolate mountains where Billy the Kid caused so many problems, and even climbed a mile high volcano to survey the flat, beige land below him. No Mendel.

He veered south, giving himself one more week and that was it. "To hell with him. I'm a busy man. I've got money to make, places to see, women to meet," he told himself.

What he finally found made him sick. He snatched a piece of paper wrapped with weary masochism around a small cactus. Suddenly feeling tired, lonely and weak, his hands started shaking. "I can't take it," he groaned. "I just can't." He jammed the paper back onto the spines, impaling his finger in the process. He screamed in pain, then quickly looked around to see if anyone heard him. He shook his head at the pathetic joke. Who would hear him? This place was barren! Why the hell Mendel would spend time here was beyond him. It didn't matter. To hell with him. "To hell with you, you bastard!" He screamed. "I can't take anymore!"

He picked up his bag and headed out as fast as the frazzled Gucci twins would allow.

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

"You're alive! Oh, Christ it's good to see you, Poul!" Beasely rushed over and threw his arms around the emaciated song-gatherer, then stepped back. He shook his head. "I don't know what you do or where you go, but it sure doesn't look good for your health. Aren't there better surroundings to find your inspiration? Jesus, man, you look like you've been in a concentration camp!"

“That would be easier than living the free life in America,” Poul said. He dropped his bag on the floor and his body in the leather chair in the corner. He glanced with disgust at himself in the mirror. He was caked with mud, dust, sand, and the residue of chicken coops, pig sties and forests. He was a walking collection of America's waste.

"I’d like food, lots of food, and a cold beer, Beaze."

"Sure. Yeah, you look like you could use a good steak. Maybe two." He turned to the telephone, glancing at the bag. No, control yourself, he thought. There's time.

"Aren't there restaurants outside New York?" He asked lightly.

Poul rubbed his eyes. "There isn't anything outside New York. Just dirt in more forms than you can imagine."

He opened the window and took another deep breath of New York air. He listened to the music of the low growling tractor trailers and wailing sirens. He studied with love and appreciation the gray concrete and plate glass windows of the high rise across the street. “God is concrete,” he said to himself.

When the food arrived – del Monaco rare, lobster swimming garlic butter lightly seasoned with garlic, a cup of artichoke soup garnished with curled parsley flakes, and steamed vegetables-- Beasely sat back and lit a cigar. Poul had aged considerably. The lines on the man's face had deepened. He had lost more hair and gray threaded his beard. "Your choice of locations appears to be killing you."

Poul chewed the steak like a starving beast and swallowed. "You're telling me. I don't know how much more I can take."

Poul offered nothing more and continued the steady process of cutting, biting, chewing and swallowing. Beasely puffed his cigar and stared out the window at Manhattan, his Manhattan. He loved it more than any woman he ever met. He looked far below at the limousines against the curbs. Manhattan was power, money and movement.

Finally, Poul sat back, full. He lit a cigarette to visions of the papers lying in the desert. He burped and tried to put them out of his mind.

Beasely turned back from the window and smiled, excited. “Lots of news, Poul. You've had eight songs go Top 40. Three of them are gold. Gold!" He waved his cigar and looked at the ceiling as if he could see the gold spread across it. "Can you believe that? Critics are calling you a one-man phenomenon -- you. No," he corrected himself, rubbing the wet end of the cigar thoughtfully against his lip. "They're calling the `faceless writer' a phenomenon. Which is the reason --" he hesitated and cleared his throat. "Which is the reason we've got to enter the next marketing phase." He glanced at the confused Poul and sped on before he lost his momentum and courage.

"We're going to release your name." He held his cigar up for silence. "I know you don't like it. I know that. But hear me out. The moment is right. Actually, I have to admit, it worked like a charm keeping you anonymous on the first three albums. But now we have to go for it. You'll be --" Poul raised a scrawny, quivering hand, knowing he might be signaling financial suicide.

"You can't," he said quietly.

Beasely nodded. "Poul, I understand your feelings, but it's too late. We've already --"

"I'm not --"

"Started the strategy--"

"The composer."

The silence was so sudden it startled both of the men. It was a great line that could only have worked with these two men at this particular moment of all moments in history. Poul had been waiting for two years for it. He had dreaded it as he savored it. He had rehearsed it. He had played the scene a thousand times in his mind. To have it finally done, in reality, gave him a feeling of relief and freedom he would not have traded for anything.

Beasely's face was blank and white. He stepped in a daze toward his desk and put his hand out to steady himself. "Not funny."

"No joke." Poul felt somehow in control of the scene now. And in fact, as he realized months ago, he was in control. And he would explain all this to Beasely, who would have to accept it. "I'm serious, Beaze. Another man writes the songs and throws them away. I collect them and bring them here. You arrange them and make recordings. People buy them and everybody's happy. It's really as simple as that." He sniffed. "Crazy, maybe, but simple.”

His head now shaking slowly, Beasely poured a large drink to stop the Coltraine rhythm of his heart beat. "Everything I've worked for," he muttered hoarsely. Christ, even his voice didn't work. Nor did his hand, which was ambushed by a palsy. Poul jumped up and held the glass of liquor up to the publisher's mouth.

"Everything you worked for is just fine," Poul said soothingly. He was afraid Beasely was going to have a heart attack and then all would be lost. "Take a deep breath and another drink and we'll talk this little problem over."

When he had regained his composure, Beasely sat down. When he found his voice again, he began the questions. Poul explained in several different ways what he told Beasely at the beginning. Poul willed himself to be patient. He knew there’d be some kind of scene.

Now, with a couple stiff ones inside him, Beasely puffed at his cigar. "I don't believe this! I just don't. No. No! It's so preposterous that I have to believe it." He turned to the weathered figure still in the chair. "But either way, Poul, you're a goddamned liar. If this is the truth, you’re a goddamned liar.

Poul stood up. He took a deep breath but his patience had been exploded by the accusation. He stepped over toward Beasely, his small eyes bright with anger. "Don't you ever call me a liar, you son-of-a-bitch! I let you believe what you wanted, but I didn't lie. I've just told you the whole truth --"

"Out of fear!"

"Out of a sense of what's right!"

Now Beasely was up and they confronted each other face-to-face. "What's right is the truth!"

"Up till now there was no truth," Poul said. "The songs existed by themselves. You're the one who wants to attach a name to them! Why? To meet a demand and sell even more!"

"I think you bought into that concept, too."

Poul threw up his hands in frustration. He nodded. "I did. . . but they’re not my songs and I won't take credit for them."

"But you'll take the money."

Poul sighed. "I can't explain it. This all got much bigger than anyone planned. All I know is the composer must be left alone."

Sensing his partner's weakness, Beasely quietly pounced. "I should have you arrested."

It was, of course, the wrong thing to say.

All the months of traveling, the loneliness, the emotional highs and lows, to say nothing of the damned weather, all came together in an adrenalin power surge that threatened to explode. Poul grabbed Beasely by the shirt with a strength that both surprised and frightened the publisher.

More frightening was the strained smile, and in the beady eyes the glitter of madness. "Arrest me, you damned fool. I bring you the greatest art of the century, so you've been telling me, and make you 'king of publishers,' or whatever it is that's so important to you. I go out there in that damned dirt and sleep with things you've never even heard of. I bust my ass gathering up these, these scraps, and your lousy thanks is to threaten me! You stupid, self-righteous son-of-a-bitch!” He leaned in until their noses nearly touched. “I'd say you have some key decisions to make real soon, partner."

Poul released his grip. The two stared at each other until Poul finally turned away. Beasely nodded to himself, knowing that Poul, indeed, did hold the cards.

One of the great questions of Beasley's career presented itself and demanded an answer. Beasely had prided himself on his honesty. Some employees might think him cheap and competitors felt he was ruthless, but no one ever questioned his integrity. Now he found he was in partnership with a thief --obviously one of the best in the business.

But Poul was the key to the composer, at least for now. Maybe the story was true, surreal as it appeared. Beasely, Inc. was moving upward at a healthy, steady pace. He couldn't take a fall now.

If the true artist found out that Beasely had been getting rich off his songs, then the publisher would work out a fair settlement and a contract future material. He'd set Poul packing with a healthy severance check. The attendant publicity would boost sales more than ever.

Ok. Everything was alright. "You're right, Poul. We're in this together."

Poul looked at Beasely, lit a cigarette and smiled. "You're a hell of a businessman, Bease." They shook hands, cautiously, quickly. A truce.

That night at dinner Beasely sat fascinated as a cleaned-up Poul regaled him with the story of his discovery, his adventures and the description of this oddball genius composer. With the large meal and three glasses of wine, Poul had forgotten the recorder that was taping his stories. Beasely would turn the tapes over to the PR department who would shape this wonderful legend -- hell, an entire myth. He would absolutely rock the music world with this bombshell.

"So anyway," Poul continued. "The first couple years I couldn't have told you the guy's name if I had wanted to. Then, in the Midwest, Idaho, I think --ha!--who'd ever think you could make a significant discovery in Idaho, even if it is kind of pretty -- for a rural area. . . .Anyway, I was picking papers by day and putting them together at night and found this."

He pulled a hunk of paper, taped in the middle and carefully folded and handed it to his colleague. Beasely opened it, his mind filled with images of this possessed artist. The paper read: ". . . life. But still searching. There is nothing else in life but the search. Love, Mendel."

Somehow, holding the letter written in a hasty, graceful scrawl, the man came to life before him. Beasely blinked away tears.

"I figure it was a letter he was writing to someone," Poul continued. "Like everything else, he was dissatisfied with it, tore it up and tossed it. Or maybe he realized he didn't have a stamp. The guy doesn't have a damned cent, judging from the rags he wears."

"Mendel," Beasely said softly. "Mendel. . .Mendel.” His tongue savored the name. “It has a nice ring. Easy to remember. He’s real. . . ." He rubbed the butt end of his cigar lazily across his lower lip. "Tell me again what he looks like. Everything you can."

Poul nodded, understanding. But as he thought back over the countless hours he'd spent watching the man, he realized he'd never seen Mendel up close or from the front. He was always on the guy’s backside.

"I'm guessing at a lot of it." He scratched his thigh thoughtfully and Beasely again counted his blessings that he wouldn't have to use Poul's homely mug for the promotion. As he recreated and created Mendel's image, Poul almost believed that he was absolutely accurate. "His eyes must be fairly large and gentle. He has a lot of compassion."

"There must be some anger there too," Beasely added. "Judging from the wildness of some of the material in the Nature and Bird albums. He's angry and driven."

"Yeah, but remember, there's some gentle stuff too. Hell, there's a 15 minute number on the travels of a slug or something."

"Grub."

"It's small and slimy," Poul shuddered.

They continued to create the man's image until Poul could think no more. They took a cab to Poul's apartment. "Get a good night's sleep, partner,” Beasely said. “You deserve it." Both men smiled and shook hands, this time more warmly.

Beasely, feeling more alive than he had in years, returned to his office and called his public relations director, not knowing or caring that it was 1 a.m. "I need you right now, Bob. If my hunch is correct we're going to have to double your staff and you're going to head one of the most spectacular campaigns of this century."

He hung up and gazed out the window at the city. Before he's even unveiled, Mendel is the most listened to and talked about songwriter in the country. A publisher's dream and it was all happening to him. He thought of his father and brushed away tears. "Ah, Dad, if you could only see this."

He poured a drink and waited for Bob. As large as his dreams were, Beasely, like Poul, had no idea how the announcement of Mendel's name would change the world, or how Mendel would change them.

***

Poul awoke again with images of the Arizona papers, cactus-crucified, bird-pecked and sand-buried. They filled his mind with paperwork no pencil-pushing bureaucrat could ever handle. When he'd first found the material in that awful, silent land, he'd convinced himself that they would weather fine in the dry air. He would spend a month or so to recuperate and then return for them.

But Beasely informed Poul that the songs to date had made him a millionaire. The release of the new material would multiply his earnings. That meant the Arizona papers were worth -- it was beyond imagining. They fluttered in his mind now, gasping with pleas for rescue from the wretched red dust.

Shit.

***

"Poul, this material is great stuff! Maybe the best yet, in a different kind of way. It's rich, deep, pure!" Beasely paced excitedly in the smoke-filled office.

"Great. You sit in your nice office listening to music while everyone else does the work. I'd be happy too, if I were you." Poul bit his lip and his face reddened as Beasely's angelic smile melted into hurt. "I'm sorry, Bease. It's just the last couple years. . . and I've got to leave. There are more papers that I left in . . .uh, left behind. If I don't go now, they're going to disappear."

Beasely nodded, happy to hear there was more. He tried to cover his feelings with a look of concern for Poul. "I understand."

Poul studied the publisher. "So do I."

Beasely shrugged it off.

"Listen, if you can, get back for the announcement. It'll be a major event. I don't want you to miss it."

"When is it?"

"In four weeks."

"I'll try."

"Can I send some people to help you?"

"No!" Poul was surprised at the speed and intensity of his answer. "No," he said more quietly. "I'll be okay." He stood up and they shook hands. He grabbed a handful of cigarettes.

"See you as soon as I can."

Beasely nodded, his mind on the announcement.

Poul wondered why didn't he allow Beasely to form a team to help. Hell, he had enough money to hire the National Guard to pick up papers. No. He didn't want anyone else in on the deal.

But, that wasn't all of it, he knew. It was more than just money now. It was a need to finish something that he'd started for once in his life. That was it. He itched his nose. That was part of it. All he knew was that it was the white papers that infested his

dreams lately, not the greenbacks. And maybe it was Mendel himself. Mendel had him hooked. The bastard really knew how to make Poul's life miserable.

***

California's energy drew him like a gigantic magnet. It grew stronger with each step until he finally stopped to control this crazy pull. He rested at the perimeter and let the energy into him a little at a time, building an osmotic psychic balance. What a place! Highway madness! Humans speeding about like mushy cannonballs. Colors, sounds and shallow thoughts all packaged in a whirling energy of new colors, sounds and smells. People here were born in motion, sped through their lives on eight-lane highways and attended to their dead at quick-stop funeral parlors. The art of the state was pit-stop tacos and packaged prayers, generic enough for everyday use and a minimum loss of time. Whew! No Indian ghosts here. . . .

* * *

It was worse than he had feared. Poul shook his head and slammed his bag down. "God, I'll be months." He walked, kicked the sand for buried sheets and checked every cactus until his hands were swollen with their poison. The Palo Verde and cholla were the worst, literally entwining the sheets in their spines and refusing to let go, as if they recognized the hymns to them and clutched the sheets as their own.

Lost in fantasies about developing an electric machete, Poul reached for a sheet wedged under a rock. The stone buzzed, which puzzled him. He knew little about nature, but he was fairly sure stones couldn't buzz. Then in horrible recognition he jerked back as the rattlesnake lunged upward, its fangs narrowly missing his hand. "Vicious little bastard!"

Shaken, he smoked three cigarettes until the quivering subsided. Then he then marked the rock. He gathered more papers until nightfall. In the morning, while the snake was lethargic with the cold, he cautiously removed the paper.

"You sneaky little side winding son-of-a-bitch. It's mine now!"

***

Beasely worked 18 hours a day to meet his deadline. The moment was vital. He timed the announcement down to the minute, knowing that the afternoon papers would want to print the news the day of the announcement to compete with the broadcast media. Then they’d put it on the website for the rest of the world.

If everything was synchronized, it would go off without a hitch. And if it did, with the new CD hitting the stores in the next two days, he would have on his hands the largest first-day sales in history. And it was all up from there, snowballing on itself. The strategy was a top secret, with only Bob, his PR man, in on it. The rest of his top level executives, confused by his secretiveness actions and maybe a little jealous, spread the rumor that he was losing his sanity. The crazy fart was working all hours, sleeping in his office, having changes of clothes brought to him. The word filtered down through the ranks of Beasely, Inc. His office, it was said, had turned permanently blue from the cigar smoke. Empty scotch bottles rolled out into the hallway. His blonde hair was turning white.

Not all of this was true, of course.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

 

At first, California seemed to Mendel like a songwriter's dream. So many bits to find and translate! He picked up the sensuous physical song of the warm Pacific, the constant sunshine and groomed, tanned bodies. Nowhere else had he found such vitality and exuberance, all revolving around sun and self. He listened to the honking boats in the San Diego harbor and absorbed the brilliant primary colors of the succulents that set the Spanish style houses aglow.

He sucked in the wisps and textures of the Indians and the aggressive echoing spirit of the early Spaniards who left their names scattered on oceans and boulevards. He caught the vibrations of the song of the Mexican. He walked north and tried capturing the celluloid melody of Los Angeles that roared in a garble of millions of dream songs. Some even sounded familiar, almost as if he'd worked on them at one time.

Without realizing how he'd arrived, Mendel found himself in Disneyland.

Wandering around in this new world, he felt like a child again, recalling the Mickey Mouse Club on his parents' black and white TV. He remembered watching the opening of Disneyland and his childhood dream of someday being here. Here he was now in a world of happy dreams, Redenbacher popcorn and Mickey himself who posed for pictures with visitors from around the planet.

Children laughed, parents smiled. Age became what it truly was, an artificial line of demarcation that turned deadly when people stepped back into the daily world and believed in it. This was a dimension that existed somewhere between Christmas and nirvana. For the first time since he had begun his quest, Mendel hummed a song not of his own creation:

M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e

Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse

Forever we will raise our banners

High high high!

He sat down to watched the crowds move from one land to another. Someday, he thought, a thousand years from now, an archeologist will dig up a statue and announce to the world his discovery that the 20th century's god was a rodent with white gloves, red shorts and a happy grin. Obviously he was a friendly, down-to-earth god. Continuing the research, theologians and historians would find that the rodent was indeed the most popular god of all time. They would find that billions of dollars and megawatts of energy were spent recreating the Mouse's likeness in dolls, books, movies and pictures.

They would find that people sang songs to the Mouse, wore watches, necklaces, T-shirts and underwear bearing his happy face, and that generations of children wore hats with mouse ears.

Researchers would find that the Mouse Religion brought more joy and happiness to people than all the other world's religions. No one fought wars over him. No one conquered others and forced the fallen to worship Him. The Mouse demanded nothing of his flock except that they laugh at his antics, gasp at his adventures and sing his happy song.

He started making notes when he was interrupted by the popping of pistol shots. Women's screams and scuffling chaos told him the gunfire wasn't part of any act. He followed the crowd to the buildings containing the various specialty shows.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Somebody shot Abraham Lincoln," a man said, shaking his head in disbelief. Mendel looked up at the sign that advertised President Abraham Lincoln giving the Gettysburg Address. He had heard others talking about the Lincoln robot that stood on stage and talked and was so lifelike it was hard to believe he wasn't real.

“Hell, this Lincoln’s more more alive than any of the past three living presidents,” one man joked, “and more interesting.”

A jagged space opened as the crowd made way for security police who hauled out a struggling, screaming man. "I shot him! I shot Lincoln! He deserved it!" As he disappeared, the large block began moving, disintegrating into individuals who particled from the crowd body like ants off a cookie. Soon only a few moving crumbs were left.

Mendel stepped into the arcade where men, women and children stood scattered in the dimly lit hall. They stared like zombies as grimly efficient Disney employees swept up the hundreds of bits of hair, clothing, fleshy plastic and pieces of circuitry and wiring. Off to the right, an arm twitched and smoked. Cameras flashed until three security men appeared saying, "No pictures. No pictures please." Some people took pictures of the security men. The Disney employees picked up the body and walked slowly off stage.

"Jesus, what a shame," someone said quietly.

A sudden feeling of unreality, of not being able to distinguish the fantastic in the real world from the intrusion of reality in a fantasy world, swept over Mendel. He staggered back into the poster sunlight to regain some balance.

On his way out of the park, he passed a young, pretty blonde newswoman speaking grimly to a camera.

"A man with a 'Saturday Night Special' today tried to repeat history and shot the likeness of President Lincoln in front of scores of witnesses." Mendel heard the confusion in her voice.

By the time Mendel was across the parking lot, the stage was clean and a new Lincoln waited for the next performance. A new crowd gathered, ignorant of the violence a half an hour before. Lincoln stood in the spotlight and with sad eyes looked down at the reverent crowd. He began to speak: " Four score and seven years ago, our forefathers brought for on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty. . . ."

***

At 2 p.m., J.W. Beasely stepped up to the microphone covered podium. He wore a Navy blue suit to add a formal air and height to his five foot five frame. He carefully surveyed the room full of journalists who would, following the news conference, spread his words across most of the civilized world. Whether he would be believed or not was another matter. But whether or not the press or the public believed him, the record sales would skyrocket in the wake of the publicity.

He cleared his throat. "Good afternoon and thank you for coming." He looked out at the print and broadcast reporters. "Most of you have been pestering me for years for a certain name." The journalists laughed quietly, some nodding. "I'm going to give that to you today. I am also going to give you one of the strangest success stories of this century. I will give you all the facts I have and answer any questions I can. Beyond that, all I can say is that often truth is stranger than fiction."

Beasely reached behind the podium and pulled up the Soaring album cover. "The man who gave us this, one of the best selling albums of all time. . . the man's name is Mendel. M-e-n-d-e-l." He waited a moment. “Pronounced Men-del. He paused again. No need to rush.

"That was the easy part. Of the more than two hundred million people in the United States, no more than ten know Mendel personally -- to my knowledge. Many have met him briefly because he travels by foot across the country to gather material for his art, an art that has touched, in varying degrees of intensity, more people than any other composer in the history of music."

He looked about the crowd again, seeing what he expected-- a few puzzled faces, some cynical, some nodding, waiting for more. But not even the most hardened journalists looked bored. Truth or fiction, they knew this one hell of a story. They also knew it was just the first chapter.

"It is ironic and probably hard to believe that I have not met the man who, frankly, has made Beasely Inc. what it is today. Maybe I'm being too candid, but the reason I never released his name before was that I didn't know it myself until recently. Check and see if that isn't a first in a business relationship." Mild laughter rippled through the room.

"I'm thankful that we have had the good fortune to obtain the material and to share it with the world." He glanced first to the left, then to the right, sharing his attention with everyone in the audience. He was informal but businesslike. He showed no signs of nervousness. Beasely was a pro and the journalists knew it.

"I can't tell you how we get the material. But I can show you what Mendel looks like, based on eyewitness descriptions." He waved his hand and the large curtain behind him parted revealing two ten-foot pen-and-ink drawings -- one full face, and one profile.

Beasely's artists, with the help of Poul's descriptions and corrections, had captured a close physical likeness of Mendel with his long, graying beard, the proud nose, and gentle haunting and haunted eyes. More importantly, they had captured the spirit, the restless, tireless energy that infused lines of wear in the intense, gaunt face. Driven artists had captured Mendel’s drive, his ability to peer into other dimensions and his will to pursue that vision at all costs.

Perhaps as Poul described Mendel, the artists saw themselves in his image and the pen drew the lines that connect all men who strive to transcribe to others the messages of the spirit . Beasely recognized this and approved the drawings at once, insisting that no alterations be made.

Beasely held up his hand when the clicking of cameras commenced. "There's no need to take photographs. When you leave, you will be given packets containing all the information that currently exists about Mendel, and glossy prints of the art that you now see. In addition, there is a reproduction of the man's only known signature. You now have, ladies and gentlemen, all that I have." A low buzz of voices in the crowd increased, like a growing fly.

He held up his hand and the buzzing faded. "I also admit that I cannot supply any absolute 'proof' that a physical being named Mendel exists." He looked around at the faces of people who were used to people trying to bluff them. "I ask you to simply take my word for it. I have worked hard to earn a reputation for honesty and integrity. I want, today, to simply share with you the knowledge I have and share with the world the man the world loves." He paused, then added quietly. "I want you to know that I stake my name on these last five minutes."

He bowed his head slightly, then lifted it, signaling another pronouncement. "To show my sincerity, I add this: If anyone can prove that I have given any false information, I will not only welcome it, I will relinquish all future profits from the Mendel albums to the charity designated by the party with that proof."

There was a large, unified gasp. He could almost see the headlines forming themselves in balloons above the reporters' heads. His PR staff had told him not to take this last step, but his instincts told him otherwise. To leave the media with such a thin story would get headlines for a week or so. To give the world this challenge would guarantee stories, controversies, eyewitness accounts, accusations, speculation and opinionated observations for weeks, maybe months. A good news story, he knew, feeds on itself.

A myth is timeless.

So long as the public was hungry for information on this mysterious man, there would be new stories. So long as there was information in the media, the public, knowing it was important because it was in the media, would want more. This circle was the basis of the whole game, and so long as the game was played, the records would sell. Beasely nodded. "Thank you." The room broke into a half-controlled cacophony of feet, hands and high-pitched voices as the reporters rushed for the door, grabbed the packets and sped to their offices.

Back in his own office, Beasely had only two thoughts. One was that the press conference was a success. The second was: "Poul, damn your skinny ass, you'd better have told me the truth about every detail."

He stared at the framed drawing of Mendel that set on his desk. Nobody would be more written about or sought after in the next few weeks than Mendel. And nobody would be more closely scrutinized than J.W. Beasely.

***

He had gathered just about the last of them, he was sure. It was a ragged batch. Some pages were marred by gouges and tears. Some songs, obvious to even Poul's trained eye, were unfinished. What the hell, he just picked them up.

"Don't know why in hell old people want to move to Arizona. Goddamn heat's enough to cook you down to the size of a bean." He kicked a small rock to the side and plucked a paper it had been clutching. "There. Done! I'm take a frigging vacation after this. Haven't had one since I started this job. Millions of dollars rotting while I'm frying. Damn sand. . . . "

That night he pulled out a scrap of paper with one line scribbled hastily. He read it over and over. Finally he folded it and tucked it in his billfold. He would keep this one and ponder on its message.

***

Before he had left for Arizona, Poul once again made Beasely promise that he would in no way mention Poul in any publicity. Anonymity was a wise choice. The day after Beasely's conference, Mendel's face was on the pages of every paper in the free world. It was the lead story for the broadcast media which ran and re-ran clips of the conference. The Internet exploded with Mendel chat rooms, blogger sites and fan pages. Young people became obsessed, creating maps of his travels and speculations on his location.

Within a few days the media mushroomed with print and broadcast stories of places where Mendel might have been -- a scene always located in the local station's viewing area . "He could have written 'Squirrel Song' here in this very forest," said a pretty reporter into a microphone at the edge of the woods in Kentucky. “Squirrel Song is now scampering to the top of the charts and Mendel remains a mystery.”

A New Yorker writer sniffed at the whole affair:

It is patently ridiculous that a man named Mendel even exists. Why would work so assiduously on something he seems to care about, only to cast it away? How are these songs so mysteriously and systematically ‘found?’ The American public, again, is being duped. People have no one to blame but themselves. But if it gives them pleasure, then J.W. Beasely continues to laugh his way to the proverbial bank.

Beasely's employees were questioned, and offered money for information. The few who had any information gave away nothing, knowing there was a healthy incentive plan for silence, and immediate dismissal for talking. Beasely had thought of everything.

Within a week's time there was barely a man, woman or child in the world who did not know of Mendel, the solitary genius. Mad Mendel. Mendel the Unseen. Mendel the Mighty. Mysterious Mendel. Etc.

Synchronicity's invisible seed had grown and blossomed around the world.

***

One morning Beasely's door crashed open. Poul appeared and flung his bag down with his customary sudden entrance. "Jesus, Beaze! Isn't there a tribe of headhunters in the Amazon you may have missed? Christ, everywhere I turn, the guy's face is staring at me!"

Beasely laid his pen down and smiled. "Good morning, Poul. Coffee?" He buzzed his secretary. "Nice tan. Been out West?" He grinned like a man riding the crest of his dreams.

Poul scowled and bit his lip. I was in a tanning salon in the Bronx."

“What’s it been? Two years?”

Poul shrugged. “I lose track time. You’re the time and money man.”

Beasely nodded and looked at the bag. If Mark Twain had learned that God had lost a strip poker game to Satan, he couldn't have been more delighted than J.W. Beasely at this moment. He couldn't produce enough albums to keep up with the demand, and now Poul, right on cue, had appeared with more material. God, life was magnificent!

"Beaze, there's a certain location -- and believe me, I know about locations -- where you can stick that idiot grin." He slumped into what was by silent mutual agreement his leather chair as the coffee and pastries appeared. He idly watched the secretary leave and thought about offering her a thousand dollars for just a kiss. He erased it from his mind by scratching the back of his head.

He’d get cleaned up and find a thousand dollar lady for a whole evening.

He picked up a donut and poured a coffee. "Yeah, I got a tan. And now I'm taking a goddamn vacation to get rid of it." His head jerked about. "Where are the cigarettes? Oh, I see them. Never mind." He took a swallow of coffee and shook his head thoughtfully. He lit a cigarette, inhaled and held it. It was the first one he'd had in months. "If Jesus himself had a promotion team for the Second Coming, he couldn't have made a bigger entrance . . .or done it with more schlock."

"All I did was repeat to the world what you told me." Beasely flicked a cigar ash from a tan lapel. "And if you didn't tell me the truth, we're both done."

"I did."

"I figured."

Poul took a large bite of donut. "So how much money have I made?" Beasely shrugged, displaying the dispassion for money that Poul had for the songs. "Many millions. I can check."

Poul nodded. "Do that, Beaze. I'm curious. Whatever it is, I earned every frigging cent of it. And I'm taking a vacation."

Beasely couldn’t take his eyes off the bag. "Okay."

 

 

CHAPTER NINE

 

A blonde woman who could have stepped out of a designer's damp dreams strode down the sunlit street wearing sneakers, faded jeans and a t-shirt bearing the now familiar face. Beneath the beard were the words: "I Believe in Mendel."

Cars and trucks passed her sporting a variety of bumper stickers: "Mendel is God"; "Mendel Sings Truth," and of course, "Mendelites Do It Better".

There were others, such as "Mendel is Evil," but they were in the minority so far. His image graced bright posters, coffee mugs, buttons, rings and even children's lunch boxes. They were eating out of the psalm of his head.

From each item sold, the royalty buck was passed to Beasely, Inc., and Poul received his cut.

As his popularity grew, a line of Mendel clothes appeared, consisting of colorless worn shirts and ragged jeans, a style described and approved by Poul. The Mendel walking shoe was also a hot item, though Poul admittedly never took notice of the composer's feet.

Beasely prepared the fourth album, "Song From Earth," based on the Midwestern material. It would be released at the height of Mendel Mania, a phenomenon so named by the media which helped create it.

Beasely had never been happier, working seven days a week, often 16 hours a day, steering his company upward. Soon he would slow down, he told himself, but inside he knew he wouldn't. He loved the business and the more successful it grew, the more driven he became. He was like a dog chasing an old bone attached by a string to the back of a bicycle. As soon as he neared the bone, it transformed into a t-bone attached to a car. Once he neared and sniffed the t-bone, it miraculously assumed the form of a fresh sirloin hooked up to an Indy 500 champion racer. Private sport gave way to a long-run exercise toward suicide with thousands of spectators watching in bemused silence.

Poul, on the other hand, took his success in a more rhythmical stride. He moved to a larger apartment, ate in fine restaurants, made a quick trip to Paris in the company of two female consultants, and spent his spare evenings with a new hobby -- mystery stories. He enjoyed pitting his wits against the leading writers. He also saw himself -- the only man who had the ability to track the mysterious Mendel around the country -- as a colleague of Holmes, Poirot, Spade and the rest.

He chortled with scorn at some writers' attempts at clues. "Ha! You never look at a broken twig as a clue to somebody's direction. To hell with the minor stuff. You get to know the hunted, the length of his stride, his endurance, his mental workings. You learn to goddamn breathe like he does. Then he'll never escape.” Actually, there were only two areas you needed to know about any man to own him, Poul knew --his dreams and fears. A man's life, and therefore his every movement, is created by his desires and his fears. Nothing else matters.

He had a good idea what Mendel's dreams and fears were. And he knew his own. His desire was money and he had it. He was a millionaire many times over. His fear was losing it.

And that fear made him itchy whenever he was at home too long. There were more papers to be gathered. As Mendel had written in one of his rejected notes: "Man seems capable of nearly everything but extended happiness." After a few weeks the apartment felt confining. Poul gained weight again and felt slow and heavy. With the exception of a few intimate moments with one of his consultants, Poul carried Mendel with him constantly, like a spiritual wart.

A lovely young blonde emerged from the bathroom. “Poul, honey, you’ve been moping for days.”

He shrugged. “Guess I’m bored. . . or something.”

She smiled and came up behind him. She reached down and caressed him but nothing happened. “I don’t appeal to you anymore?” She whispered in his ear. Ah, at one time a woman’s warm, intimate breath, the perfume, the caress, would have him tearing her clothes off.

“I’m just out of sorts.”

“I heard you used to have a different woman every night. You couldn’t get enough.”

He sniffed. “I’ll be leaving on a business trip soon. Why don’t you just take care of the apartment while I’m gone.” He was embarrassed to realize he couldn’t remember her name.

Outside Poul's apartment, Mendel’s face popped maddeningly from books, newspapers, subway walls, billboards and the material covering people's bodies. Only the blind were safe from his image. And only the deaf and blind were safe from Mendel overdose.

Inside Poul's mind, Mendel took up all the available space. The composer had become the entirety of years of Poul's life. At every moment he wondered where Mendel was and if new songs were being written and blown away before he arrived to retrieve them. The manic side of him wondered if Mendel had met with sickness or injury or even death. He wondered if Mendel had quit writing. He was forced to remember with each bite of filet mignon, with every sip of wine, that Mendel was solely responsible for Poul's wealth.

With all the publicity now, it was only a matter of time before someone else began finding the papers if Poul wasn’t mindful. As greedy as humans are, Poul thought, they'd be damned quick to cash in on Poul's territory.

He packed his bag, mumbling curses, knowing it was his lousy fate to follow the artist until no more songs came forth. “Ah, Mendel. Before you I had no life. Now I have one and it’s not mine.”

At the same time, a tingle of excitement brought his fattened body alive. No matter how he hated foot travel and raw earth, it was an adventure.

Outside he hailed a taxi. On the way to the airport he idly looked out the window at the men and women in business suits rushing, talking on cell phones, looking at their watches. He looked at the gangs and the homeless, elderly people who shuffled and coughed. The air smelled dirty.

Poul landed in Tuscon and took a taxi to the end of town. He then walked, readjusting himself to the silence, the vast silence, the dust and the sense of stillness. Nothing moved in the hot, dry air.

Who in America had adventures like Poul? What wide-assed executive wouldn't trade his entire retirement pension to be in Poul's shoes? Who else in the world had claim to Mendel? What some people wouldn't give for just a glimpse of Mendel . . . Beasely included. But he realized none of that was important to him. Mendel was, to him, still a raggedy, crazy artist.

Beasely had made him a desirable image, a wanted commodity. It was the songs that mattered. They had to be gathered. Money had to be made.

No. The songs had to be gathered. He didn't need more money. It didn't matter.

They had to be gathered. Before anyone else touched them, he had to gather them.

***

 

There was a handful of people in the country who didn't read newspapers, watch TV or listen to the radio, who didn't know about Mendel.

Mendel was one of them.

He sat on a deserted beach between Los Angeles and San Diego, at the end of the country, looking outward, listening to the song of ocean breath. In . . . out . . .in . . . out. . . He studied the sibilant music of salt water slapping and slurping on hard-packed sand as he listened to the nearly inaudible inhale of the ocean, rushing back into itself in a long smooth gasp. With a guttural roar, it spat itself forth again, offering, taking away, in a smooth, unending cycle of lovemaking between water and earth. He wrote a song in minors, with rich, thick chords and gliding notes that filtered themselves out into the sky, and inward beyond time and reason.

He worked for weeks trying to capture the haunting, velvety sounds of liquid timelessness. One of the few humans in this isolated stretch was a middle-aged beachcomber who made his rounds each morning, shuffling along the water's edge, seemingly without a care or deadline in the world. When he came upon some sea-washed article, he picked it up, studied it quickly and either tossed it into his bag or back onto the sand. Each afternoon he made the rounds again. Soon Mendel looked forward to seeing this coastal nomad who lived off the ocean's droppings.

One day the beachcomber veered off his regular path and sauntered over to Mendel.

"Howya doin' there, friend?"

Mendel nodded, his head bent nearly straight back to take in the six-foot-two inch frame capped by a huge head of wind-swept silver hair flecked with diehard red strands.

"Fine, thanks. You?"

"Ha! Good as a gold tooth in a rich whore's mouth!" He had a deep laugh that rose from the soul. He sat down with a bearish thud. His mouth was shaped in a natural smirk, and his blue eyes radiated devilish vitality. Nothing bothered this man and Mendel felt good just sitting beside him,

"Seen you sittin' here the last few weeks and wondered if you mighta got yer

ass stuck in the sand."

Mendel laughed self-consciously. He had had almost no human contact for years, let alone a conversation with such an imposing and boisterous individual.

"Uh, no. I've been writing."

"Writing. Mmmm." He nodded. "Hmmm. Writing." He shrugged. "My

name's Harry." He stuck out a large calloused hand that resembled a hickory stump.

"I'm Mendel."

"Glad ta meet ya."

Uneven rows of broken yellow teeth, like old cornstalk stumps popped through his grin. "So what’r ya writin', Handel?"

Mendel ignored the mistake and cleared his throat, slightly intimidated by the man's directness.

"Songs. I'm, a songwriter.. . or a kind of songwriter, I guess."

Harry stared at his new acquaintance, thumbing the corner of his lip. "Seems like I heard yer name around somewheres. You from around here?”

“No.”

“Hmmm. You ain't done nothin' to git yer name on the radio or nothin? Robbed a bank or raped a goat? Hmm. Musta been somebody else." He shrugged and squinted up at the sun. "Time fer lunch. How about joinin' me, Handel?"

Harry didn't look like he had anymore than Mendel, but before Mendel could shake his head and politely decline, Harry slapped the sand. "Aah! You ain't gonna tell me no. No way! Here, I got lunch right here." He plunged his arm like a harpoon into his bag and pulled it back with two fingers hooked into a six pack of beer. "Here." He yanked off a can tab and shoved it at Mendel.

"Thanks." It had been years since Mendel had had a beer. It was cold and lively, like a million happy insects filling his mouth and stomach. Harry snapped the top off his can and in one swoop lifted it, turned his head upward and drained the contents. Mendel stared in awe.

"Close your mouth, friend!" Harry laughed. "You'll git it full a sand." He popped open a second can. "Mix sand and this rotgut horse piss and yer stomach'll turn into an oyster!" He sat back and laughed so hard the gulls fluttered away in disgust.

Mendel laughed quietly and drank the beer in small sips. He hadn't eaten since yesterday and his heart quickly pumped his booze-infused blood to his brain which welcomed this mandated mellowness. His mind had been overworked for too long, and now, given a furlough, everything felt fine.

"Have another, friend." Harry had drunk four and reached for the last one.

"No," Mendel said quickly. One is fine.” He shook his head to clear it. “You drink it."

"Take it," Harry demanded. "I'll git more." He jumped up, his massive body creating a shadow the size of a cloud. "It's all over the place, free as the salt water! Ha ha haa!" He lumbered off like a big bear. A few minutes later he was back and settled in beside Mendel with another six pack. Mendel didn't recall any store around the beach. "Where zyou get those?" His face reddened slightly as he realized his tongue was acting up on one and a half beers.

"Those nice folks over there." Harry smiled and aimed his can toward two young men and two women who lay on a large towel staring at Harry and Mendel. Harry waved and nodded his thanks.

"Friends of yours?" Mendel asked.

"Never saw 'em before." He chugged the contents of a new can. "But I ain't the purtiest creature in the world. When I ask someone real polite for a couple of beers, most of the time they don't refuse. I ain't never robbed nobody or stolen nothin' but once in awhile I ask folks to share a beer or a samwinch." He shrugged. "That's just bein' neighborly. We've lost the spirit of sharin', ya know? I'm tryin’ ta git it revived."

Harry's explanation was so natural and unassuming that Mendel simply smiled and nodded. His whole brain seemed to be smiling right now. He hadn't felt so good in years.

"So what kinda songs d'ya write?"

Mendel thought lazily about this. "Just songs. Whatever comes."

"Ya sound like a collector." Harry finished the can and crumpled it with two fingers as he continued his unbroken scan of the beach. "Like me. I pick up whatever comes t' me." Mendel nodded. His eyes were half closed and a simple grin was pasted

beneath his beard. His mind was empty of all but Harry's words as they blew from the large man's mouth to his ears. "It's all about the same, I guess."

Harry swallowed the rest of his beer and crushed the last empty can. He shook his head so that his silver mane, like an old worn broom, waved around his ears. "Well, pal, it's time you took a vacation. C'mon with me." Mendel started to protest but Harry stood up and brought Mendel up with him. "I told ya, friend, it ain't healthy to argue with an ol' crazy ass like Harry." He laughed as they picked up their bags and walked down the beach.

A natural talker whose words flowed as smoothly --and as incessantly-- as the ocean waves, Harry told Mendel how he had worked as a sideshow strong man, "Harry the Caveman," for 25 years, snarling, bending steel bars and leering at the women. "Funny thing was, the men loved me droolin' all over their women as much as the ladies liked it. Funnier though, was that both pretended t' hate me and be offended! Ha!" Mendel could barely picture this freewheeling friendly bruin acting crazy and vicious.

"Lotta women discovered theirselves after payin' a quarter t' look at me," Harry continued, pushing a muscular thumb against his chest. "Come night time there'd be a dozen or so little ladies around my trailer. I was the closest thing to a wild man they'd ever witnessed and they wanted a first-hand crack at the whole beast!" His laugh was infiltrated with nostalgia.

"Some of 'em was housewives, some college girls, some single wimmin --ah hell, it was all kinds, you know? They was lonely and . . . shit, I don't know, all tight and bound up from livin' in a closed-in world with too many rules. They told me a lotta things late at night --when they found out I could talk like a normal man. The girls knew they had t' grow up 'n find a decent man with a good job. Heh heh. The housewives found their men and felt a little cheated. Cheated, yeah! That young girl's dream wasn't all it cracked up to be. Hah!" He shrugged. "Turns out decent men with jobs are borin'. I don't know. I ain' never been one. Neither've you, I 'spect. The single women, some homely as a ass-kicked hound dog, some crippled, they was the saddest. They didn't even have a chance to get their dreams mashed with a decent man." He shook his head sadly, then brightened. "But I treated all of 'em with respect, `n they appreciated that . . . a lot."

He looked over at Mendel as they walked. "And you know what? Once

they hopped inta the sack they was all the fiercest little wildcats that ever clawed up a man -- all of 'em! Wild Man Harry didn't have no rules or expectations. He didn't have no pretty language to take away from a simple act that's as old as an animal. What's all this wine and song and manner shit when ya got a down-and-simple need? Ha! Nothing, that's what! Wild Man Harry didn't waste valuable time talkin'. He just growled and gripped 'em and let 'em know he wanted 'em -- really wanted 'em, wanted their bodies, their selves, whatever they were and no matter who they were. And they wanted the body and energy of a raving wild man. It was the pleasantest barter ever invented."

His sigh was like a wind current. "Damn! Those were the days. I freed a lot of ladies, Handel. Gave 'em a moment of some kinda dream. And they did the same fer me. A little moment that didn't cost nobody nothin' and made for some memories they'll have when they're gramma's! Ha ha!" They walked on in silence.

"So why did you finally give it up?" Mendel asked. “The carnival, I mean.”

Harry shrugged again. "Cause one day I got up and had t' grunt just a little harder to bend that damned steel bar. And then a little harder yet. Ain't nothin' more humiliatin' than a wild man gettin' tamed by age. So I knocked around a little and landed here. The beach is my family. He chuckled again with the easy sound contentment. "I ain' got no complaints, just like you prob'ly don't -- no legitimate ones at least."

Mendel nodded. It was true.

That night by a fire, Mendel told Harry of his travels across the country, the songs he had written and thrown away. "I keep finding that every song I write is just a piece of a greater song," he said, staring into the flames. "Every living thing has its own song and that's what keeps it alive and makes it what it is. When the song stops. . .so does life. Just like your footsteps. You always have to be one step short of where you're going and one step ahead of where you've been. If you’re not, you're dead."

Harry burped and nodded. "Ain't that the truth." He raised the stolen half gallon jug of wine to his lips and drank.

"I keep trying to capture the individual songs and I keep finding that within each is a greater one, a melody that runs throughout every being and gives it the --I don't know-- the tones and notes, to create its own songs." Mendel threw a stick into the fire and ran his hands through his long hair in frustration. "But no matter how far I reach, I can't get hold of the greater song." He stopped with a look of mild surprise on his face. "This is the first time I've ever said these things out loud and they sound . . . crazy."

Harry laughed and scratched at his massive stomach. "Ah, yer tryin' too hard. You git so involved in tryin' t' git where you wanna be that you don't appreciate what you got where you are." He took another long plug at the wine and sighed philosophically. "We each got our own ways, I guess."

Mendel nodded as he stared into the black spaces between the orange flames.

Harry studied the now motionless Mendel and felt a chill run up his spine. It was the same kind of chill that Harry had sent into countless spectators during his carnival

years --a tingling sensation one gets when one confronts the unknown in one's self. There ain't anything those eyes don't see, he thought. He don't look at things. He looks into 'em."

He pulled his blanket over him and laid down. "Sleep, friend. Tomorrow I got just the ticket for ya. Yes sir." His hair splashed in silver streamers over his collection bag that he used for a pillow. "Heh heh. Ol' Harry'll help ya out. Life ain't just for writin’ songs."

Mendel broke from his spell and smiled at Harry. "You're probably right." He waited for Harry's rhythmic snoring, then pulled out his pencil and paper.

***

A trio of shiny switchblades poked at Poul's chest. The concrete wall at his back wouldn't budge. "Come on, dude, you know the routine. Hand over the wallet. Slow."

Poul pulled his wallet out and handed it to the teenager on his left. There were five of them altogether. “Anything else in the pockets?”

He shook his head, like they were waiting for him to do something so they could use their knives. “Let’s carve him up,” one said.

The leader looked at the others then rammed a fist into Poul’s stomach. Poul fell, unable to breathe. Someone kicked him in the head. As he lost consciousness, Poul pictured Mendel. "You're gonna be the death of me yet, damn you." He didn't know how lucky he was in these Western streets not to have any of Mendel's songs with him. They were a possession that in a future synchronistic moment would prove fatal.

***

A few couples danced while others sat in the dim bluish haze around tables in the country bar. The lean, slightly drunk rhythm guitarist in the five-piece country band was singing "I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry." Mendel, sitting in a shadowy corner, nodded at the beautiful simplicity of the three-quarter beat and the surreal-earthy mixture of the lyrics.

Of course no one ever saw a robin weep, but somehow Hank Williams, a simple, uneducated country boy, took the elements, the very atoms of the emotion, and built a feeling that goes beyond the consciousness into something so solid no one argues its reality or beauty.

He thought about the silence of a falling star lighting up a purple sky and knew

he had to return to the country. No one will ever find the perfect song, let alone true love and beauty, in the urban areas, he thought.

Harry leaned back like a king in his palace and grasped the bottle of beer like a burnished bronze scepter. "Drink up, friend! This is life!" He turned the bottle upward, emptying the bubbly gold into his gullet.

Harry ordered three more, two for himself and one for Mendel. "This is where yer song is, friend. Fellas lookin' fer a girl fer the night, girls lookin' fer fellas, everybody's gittin' t'gether fer a little romp and be on their way. A little pleasure while we're here. Heh heh."

The band moved into “Proud Mary,” a country-rock tune, and the floor filled like imploding buckshot with couples who swayed and bounced to the sliding hum of the bass guitar and the guitar's banshee whine.

"Look at the babe in the tight blouse over there," Harry yelled into his friend's ear. "Hoooeeee! A prowlin' bobcat if I ever saw one!"

Mendel smiled as he watched the girl, hypnotized by the writhing hips veneered with achingly thin pants and the soft, controlled bob of breasts unhampered by a bra. Her dark hair swayed heavily, in slow motion, around her gracefully muscular shoulders.

As the music continued, her image changed. She floated in the clouds, dressed in a flowing white robe, then fell, descending with graceful swiftness into a chasm where she lured lost men with a lonely song of sensual beauty. She withered into a yellow-toothed hag who has defied death too many times, then burst this disguise to become a sexless, kindly fairy queen overlooking all men. Mendel's chest tightened with conflicting feelings of repulsion, ecstasy and fright. He held tightly to the table to resist the temptation to rush to her arms, or to hurl his bottle, like a poisoned dart, at her breast.

Harry sighed when the music stopped. "Ah, boy! I didn't realize how long it's been since I stuck my plow inta some fertile ground. Hoooo! "

He ordered another beer. "Don't worry about the tab. Sam keeps track a my drinks and I clean the place and do a little wood butcher work fer him. Works out real nice. Don't have all the fuss and bother of money."

He rubbed his chin and stared thoughtfully at Mendel. "What d'you suppose I'd look like with a beard? Somethin' like yers?"

"Like a large wild man!" Mendel laughed. "But a distinguished one."

A hard hand clamped Harry's shoulder and stopped their easy laughter.

"Me and my friends don't appreciate being embarrassed like what you did to us yesterday." Two men behind the young man speaking nodded in agreement.

Harry chuckled easily. "Sorry about that. Just me and my friend was outa beer. Let me buy ya one now."

The young man backed up, and glanced back at his two friends. "It's going to cost you more than that, gramps."

Harry shook his head. "Save your strength, boys. If it's yer girls yer worried about, I'll go over and apologize, tell them ya scared the shit outa me and made me realize my evil ways."

One of the men threw the contents of his beer glass into Harry's face. "We ain't worried about nobody, asshole, except you and your geeky friend here." Harry sniffed and, with a weary expression of an actor recalling an overworked scene, knocked over the table and his chair as he rose like a great whale from a stormy ocean. Mendel grabbed his drink as it slid down the falling table.

The young men's stiff, defiant glances loosened somewhat as the glue of their team courage melted slightly. "Cute move, gramps, but it's past your bedtime," the first one said.

Harry nodded. In the slow wafting stratas of tobacco haze, Mendel watched Harry grow even larger. The sinews in his massive arms tightened and his eyes took on the tight, distant expression of one who has seen dying. "Son, I've killed three men twice yer size, and I've crippled a bunch more. Git back to yer girls while ya still got usable equipment."

"You cocky old fart!" The first man hissed. A knife suddenly glimmered dully in the heavy air. With a speed and grace incongruent with his bulk, Harry grabbed the man's wrist and twisted. The man screamed as the knife flew upward and then clunked to the floor. The two behind him rushed at Harry, only to find themselves dangling in the air. He pulled the one in his left hand toward him and bit the man's nose so hard Mendel was sure he was going to tear it right off. Now it was this man's turn to scream.

Harry looked at the third member who had tears of terror in his eyes. "Back off! I'm sorry!"

Harry nodded, still holding the two men. He clunked their heads together like a musician crashing a couple cymbals, and dropped them to the floor. Mendel was thinking about Darwin's ideas when he spun to the crash of a bottle and saw the first man start toward Harry gripping the neck whose jagged ends dripped with bloated white foam. Harry's eyes were frighteningly cold. "Touch me 'n yer a dead man." Perhaps it was the solid way Harry stood, or maybe the young man was just not a gambler. Perhaps a guardian angel jumped from its rocking chair in the personal unconscious and sent the young man a quick message: "This big guy is crazy and never tells lies. Don't be an asshole. He'll really kill you." The man slowly lowered the bottle neck and dropped

it as the other two men stood up slowly, groaning. Without a word, the three men hobbled toward the door.

"Just a minute!" The bellow silenced the place and froze the men . Harry picked up the table and set it upright. "Ol' Harry don't want nobody's night spoiled, 'specially mine. You guys sit down here. The next couple rounds is on me 'n we'll fergit everything."

He motioned them. "Come on, now, don't be strangers."

The baffled men traded shocked stares. "Come on," Harry urged. "I kinda blame myself fer startin' all this. Here, git a chair. No time t' be bashful. Heh heh. Right. Ginny! Bring a bunch of 'em here! Tell Sam I'll fix that roof he's been pesterin' me about! Now, where you boys from?"

It took about half an hour of Harry's carnival stories, bawdy jokes and laughter to put everyone at ease, especially the man with the teeth marks in his nose, but by closing time they all parted shaking hands and laughing. Friends for life.

"I don't believe it," Mendel muttered as they staggered back to Harry's campsite. Those guys tried to kill you and you wound up great friends."

"Just havin' a good time while we're all here," Harry said, finishing off a bottle and tossing it into a nearby can. We ain' built to last that long. Ha! Put that in a song. "Nothin's built to last that long, so Mendel catches it for a song!" His deep laugh fought with the ocean breeze.

And won.

CHAPTER TEN

 

Mendel bent down to pick up a small onyx-colored shell as they made Harry's morning run. "And what if you knew you'd die tomorrow. What would your life have been?"

Harry shrugged as his eyes stayed on the sand for treasures. "Don't know. I guess I'd jus' say I rode high on life, fell down a few times and got back up again." He walked on. "To hell with what it meant." He bent down to pick up a piece of driftwood. "Look at that. Ain' no finer sculptor than nature. Takes her time and never makes a failure that's noticeable."

When Mendel laughed, Harry came out of his reverie, puzzled. Then he understood. "You've thought the same thing. Ha! Maybe I'm a poet!" They both laughed. Yes, Mendel thought, Harry was true poet.

***

Amidst the early sun bathers and athletes, a skinny bald man in torn jeans and a battered jacket watched the two figures along the shoreline like a hungry wolf watches a sheep walking beside a koala bear. One he recognizes as his prey; the other is strange and foreign and the wolf is disoriented into immobility. He was not programmed for this new being. It perverted the very laws of nature and therefore his own instinctive movements. Hmmm.

Poul spent nearly a year to locating Mendel. LA was full of false leads, to say nothing of his stay in the hospital for the concussion from the muggers, then trying to explain his way out of the homeless shelter where the hospital had sent him.

The first sheet he found was "Assassination Song," which, he concluded, was a bunch of crap filled with gibberish and a sign that Mendel might be losing his sanity. "Assassinating Lincoln! Jesus. He's just a few years late." He found a few other bits and pieces which at first glance he also felt were useless. But parts were missing and probably gone for good. Nothing is sacred in Los Angeles, he thought. Especially art.

He headed south where he finally picked up the trail with a batch of papers in a little alley used by prostitutes and drug addicts.

Now he stood in shock at the sight of Mendel actually walking around with another person. It was out of character, though Poul realized it was to Mendel's advantage in this populated and pop-crazed area to be with someone else. The growing legions of Mendel Hunters were looking for a solitary individual. No one gave this pair of ragged bums a second glance, and no one was going to approach that walking bull with the stubbly face. God, he was big. No, everyone knew Mendel walked alone. Fortunately Mendel's face had not yet made its appearance on beach towels.

Even though Mendel was better off with this big guy, Poul felt a twinge of jealousy.

He wanted to tell that hulking beach bum that Mendel was his friend and that he, Poul had suffered some goddamn hardships over the years, following Mendel, picking up after him, and making him an international star.

Instead he walked to a nearby stand and bought a coffee and a hot dog with some change he had panhandled. "Crazy artists." He bit furiously into the hot dog and took a large gulp of the tepid coffee. "No damned appreciation. All I've done for him."

***

"Uncle Harry!" The children ran toward the two men, howling with joy.

A little blonde girl, maybe seven, Mendel guessed, leaped upwards, entirely confident that Harry would catch her.

Harry laughed and bounced the girl on one arm. "Hey, you kids! It's Saturday already?" He reached down the gentleness of a Buddha after a weight lifting program and picked up two more children with the other arm.

"Hoooeeee! Time do fly, don't it?" He wiggled his large broken nose and stuck out his bottom teeth. The kids laughed. "Hey! This is my friend, Handel."

Mendel flushed with embarrassment.

"I saw you in a store," a red-haired girl said.

"I don't go shopping much" Mendel laughed.

"No, on a picture or something, a book or something, there was you. I saw you there."

Mendel shook his head. "No, it must have been somebody else.”

"He had long hair and a big beard," the girl persisted.

"Uncle Harry's got a scratchy face," another said, rubbing his hand over Harry's stubble.

"My winter beard!" Harry laughed.

"Did you find anything good?" Another asked.

Harry brought his eyebrows together in exaggerated thought. Then his eyes brightened. "I almost did! You betcha! I found a pearl the size of a frisbee! If we coulda took it to a store we coulda traded it for enough money to buy a million suckers and eleventy thousand milkshakes." The children's eyes were wide, some with amusement, some with suspense. "I had t' wrassle a shark mosta Tuesday night t' git it outa his mouth, he liked that pearl so much. But I got it, I did, and just as I was swimmin' inta the shore, almost dead from bein' tired cause it's hard work wrasslin' a shark -- ain't it?" He looked around and each child nodded in solemn agreement that it was hard work wrestling with a shark.

"Jus' as I was comin' in, the biggest ocypuss you ever saw in yer life reached up and caught me by the throat." He grabbed his throat and squeezed to show the struggle. The children stood silent, listening to the gasping sounds coming from his mouth and

watching his face turn red. Even Mendel found himself picturing what Harry might have looked like being strangled by an ocypuss.

"Wal, kids, the only way I could git loose was t' stop strugglin'. But when I stopped, I knew I was gonna drown, cause you can't breathe underwater 'less yer a fish or a mermaid. So I thought it over and I figgered out a solution." He leaned slowly down to the kids. "And d' ya know what that was?" They shook their heads as he leaned closer. "I reached out, real real slow. . . and . . . " he raised his hands . . ."and tickled his armpits!" He grabbed a boy and tickled him, then reached for another. "All his armpits!" Harry yelled, reaching for another kid. They screamed and laughed and clustered in to make sure they received their share of joyful torture. "And that's how I lost the pearl," he panted as they finished.

Later, Harry passed out trinkets he'd found during the week and had tossed into his bag for the kids. At lunch, the children went home, making him promise he'd be there to see them next Saturday.

Mendel spent several more days with Harry, learning as much as he could about the man, soaking in his sense of life and happy energy. If God ever incarnated to have a good time on earth, he would pick a body and brain like Harry's, Mendel thought. No, not someone like him. He would pick Harry.

"So sing me some a them songs I been hearin' about," Harry said one night by the fire.

"I don't really have too many," Mendel apologized. "I throw most of them away." He wished now he had saved a few whole songs rather than just parts here and there.

Harry studied Mendel in the firelight. "I thought you was just kiddin' about that. Why, for God's sakes?" It was against Harry's nature to throw anything away.

Mendel shrugged. "I wasn't happy with them,"

Harry shook his head, as if wondering what to do with a problem child. "How 'bout sellin' 'em?"

Mendel stroked his beard and stared at his bag. "I don't want to, even if I could. "I'm looking for the perfect song. When I find it, I'll be happy, and if I'm happy, I won't need to sell anything."

Harry scratched thoughtfully at his growing beard. "Handel, at one time I had a mind to be an artist. Never did no art, but I did a lotta readin', y' know. From what I understand, the good artists worked a damn long time 'fore they whipped out a masterpiece here 'n there. And the thing is, all those little drawings and paintings leadin' up t' the big one, they're valuable too. They're good by themselves, but they're also little pieces leadin' up to the Big Picture. . . "

He struggled for the right words. "They're . . . little souls in theirselves. Yer gonna find yer song, but you could be sellin' some right now. Yer starvin' cause you want to."

Mendel took a deep breath, finding himself angry with his friend who pretended not to understand, when in fact he did. Hell, Harry lived the same existence as Mendel, except that Harry's purpose was freedom. But the lure of money bends people, turns their heads, twists them from -- or maybe toward-- their true selves with that wicked promise of an easy life, or power, or whatever it was that made people love the idea of money. Now even Harry was falling for its temptations. Sure, he was playing a game, but how long before it stopped being a game?

"I'm not starving and I'm not doing it for money,” Mendel said quietly. “You, of all people know that."

Harry looked at his friend and wondered why he was so angry. He laughed. "Yeah, I know that. Don't take things so serious. You'll git a heart attack 'fore you find that song a yers."

Later they opened a bottle of cheap whiskey Harry copped from Sam's. They swapped the bottle and drank in silence, listening to the waves. "I'm goin' down t' Mexico for a few months and work the coast there," Harry said quietly. "Like t' have some company." He took a slug and stared at the ocean. "Whaddya say?"

Mendel's stomach tightened. He felt weary. Earlier in the day he'd seen a lone gull soaring over the water. He had shielded his eyes with his hands so that all he could see was the brilliant white feathers against the royal blue sky. The gull was an angelic speck in a vast, infinite breath, hanging weightless, without direction, between the blue depths of the sky and ocean. There was no beginning and no end.

He looked into the ancient security of the little fire before them. "I can't." The little flames licked outward at the night's blackness and the ocean's roar. The darkness and the ceaseless, pounding waves filled the void in their conversation. The fire flickered inward toward its death, as if the blackness were eating away at it, swallowing all in the world but the constant, ominous sound beyond them

"Didn't think ya would," Harry said nonchalantly. He took a swallow and burped. "Where ya headed next?"

Mendel made up his mind he would never make any more friends. It was too hard to part. "I don't know. Somewhere."

Harry grunted and finished off the whiskey. "It don't matter." He laid down. "You got the song yer lookin' for. Someday when it's ready, it'll come leakin' out like a new spring creek. Yer pen won't be able t'move fast enough t' catch it all. You'll scribble yerself right inta full blown frenzy and back out again!" His laughed rippled outward, cheering up the night, and Mendel laughed too.

***

The young DJ had a loud, clear voice that soared out through the station’s 50,000 watts. "That's right folks! Ten thousand dollars to the person who provides WSIC with the clue that leads us to the mysterious Mendel. The contest of a lifetime. . . keep your eyes open and your ear tuned to his song. And now, to help you, here's a cut from his latest disk, "Firestorm" by the hot new group of the same name, one of the brightest groups on the scene today. Let it scorch your brain!"

***

A website dedicated to Mendel had a new speculation. “Based on the location of the songs and the direction he seems to be taking, it’s fair to speculate that Mendel is now somewhere in the Southwest. LA? Utah? All indications are that the elusive composer is indeed on the west side of the United States and continuing to write his songs."

***

A pale, lean young man with long black hair sat in a battered chair of his single room apartment. He stopped the CD, hit the back button, and played the passage over and over. A song about all life being under construction, holding the seeds of its own destruction, but even after being destroyed, life seeds itself to begin again.

The young man listened to the passage into the night, until he understood, until the lines and Mendel were part of him. Then he walked over to the large black and white poster of Mendel on the wall. He absorbed the image --the large eyes that saw through him even though they were paper; the sensitive, sad mouth nearly hidden beneath the gray beard.

The young man nodded as if in a trance and with a serrated kitchen knife slashed the poster to shreds. Then he sat down at his computer to continue his own private quest.

***

Mendel sat on the beach, reliving moments of the recent past, trying to write and feeling nothing. He caught himself envying the young people in the distance swimming, playing frisbee and tanning their lean bodies. He shrugged off the feeling, though, glad they could live this fleeting moment in life. To live simply and continue his quest was all he cared about. Somehow everything else fell into place. The most complex problem

was to remain simple and natural.

Maybe Harry was right; Mendel was trying too hard. The soul can't be pushed. It moves and grows and finds answers at its own pace. He tossed away dozens of scribbled sheets, closed his notebook and shut his eyes, letting the sea roar fill him with its heavy salt rhythm.

As his mind relaxed, it gave him the image of an old man he once saw sitting on a nursing home bench in numb loneliness, waiting for death because there was no one else. The image was followed by a Fourth of July parade, full of high-stepping baton twirlers, high school band members and a Neanderthal float holding a snarling, chest thumping wild man. Men in the crowd chuckled and pointed, women smiled nervously. The wild man captured everyone's attention. His mind skipped back to the dying old man and he knew with quiet certitude that Harry would not live to be old.

Tired, he pulled out his pencil again.

 

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

 

"In his songs, Mendel espouses and at times meticulously describes nature with a sensuality that echoes the celebrations of heathens. He has written songs that promote paganism and violence!"

The minister looked out over his congregation. "This man stands in the path of all that Christ worked and died for. He is slowly, in the alluring guise of art, destroying the minds of young and old alike. Our young people cannot be held responsible for their actions, for they have not yet, perhaps, seen and felt Christ in all his glory! But you, the parents, the working Christians, you who have felt Christ, and perhaps even have seen Satan in his shifty machinations, you can and will be held responsible!”

The man at the pulpit held up his Bible in a hand quivering with passion. "Mendel is an agent of Satan and must be fought with all the powers Christ has given us!"

***

On a college campus a group of students campus played Mendel's music and discussed the symbolism of the grub in the wilderness.

“He’s saying man is like a grub, slowly making his way through the wilderness of life.”

“Yes, and we're slimy!” Laughter.

“But no, seriously, aren't we all small, slow moving creatures trying to find our way?”

“Yes, but he hides from life under a rock –

“Not from life but from death! Remember the bird overhead? Play that passage again. . . .”

***

In another part of the country, in a small apartment, a young woman stared at Mendel's portrait and listened to the Spring Songs. She lay back on her bed and gave herself to the music, letting the rhythms at times gently, at times roughly, caress her into realms of sensual pleasure that gave her a brief warmth in the loneliness that defined her life. Her dark hair spread loosely across her breasts that rose and fell to the music of rhythm and love and blossoming spring. The warm, damp earth, the rushing joy of the seed, the love of the seed in the fecund earth. What she wouldn't give to see him in the flesh for just a second, to hear his voice, to touch him. To touch him. . . she would without regret give her life. . . .

***

Mendel watched the sun set in the haze of the cloudless horizon and followed the full moon in its slow ascent through the glowing mist. He closed his eyes and looked down at the ocean from the moon's perspective. For an instant he understood his human consciousness in a world of nature. He was a speck beside an all-consuming ocean, a speck that could be crushed and swallowed by a small wave.

Yet his mind contained all that the ocean did, and more, didn't it? The feeling of being a god came and went, leaving him with the knowledge that he had the power to create a sand castle and destroy a seashell. He could create the ocean in his mind, and then erase it. Even greater, he had the power to gather nature's spirit and create a song -- and destroy it. . . .

Once more he felt despair. He had created and destroyed equally, leaving nothing in the world but forsaken half lives. As he stood up, he gathered a handful of sand. He studied it, then let it flow through his fingers, watching the rough palm full of seemingly solid mass scatter into a million parts to become one again with the ground.

A grain, a handful, a beach. A cell, a man, a universe. The scabbed, skinny prisoner locked unjustly in dark confinement and seeing the speck of light through a pinhole crack would have understood the black, uncontrollable rage that suddenly filled Mendel. He felt as if he could explode, and in his violence take the world with him. He kicked the sand, feeling a minute joy in the blasting disruption of the grains so neatly packed and designed by the wind and water. If he could only lift the whole beach and heave it into the heavens! If he could grab the moon this instant, crush it into blobby silver shapelessness and drop it among the withered starfish!

He pulled out his pencil to capture his feelings, but stood paralyzed. He snapped the pencil and threw it at the star-cluttered sky. "Damn it. Damn it!"

He was powerless in this rage that tightened every muscle in his body. The stars twinkled at him mockingly. "I damn you!" His body shook as images of exploding planets and shrieking souls warred in his mind. If it were in his power this instant, he would set fire to the waters, drown the stars, create chaos, then sit back and laugh from the core of his demented soul! He would bring such disorder to the universe that synchronicity's mainspring would snap and even Satan, angel of chaos, would weep with jealous rage!

But he couldn't destroy the universe. All he could destroy was his pencil, and his songs. "I can't take anymore," he mumbled. The mumble welled into a scream. “Strike me dead, you Divine Bastard! Hell will give me more peace than this life!" Panting with rage and exhaustion, Mendel walked to the ocean's edge and waited. The fringes of the waves lapped and swirled about his feet, washing the sand from them. As he stood shivering, he realized he was composing a song and damned himself for it. He fought to erase it and concentrate on dying, but lines and melodies floated through his overtaxed brain.

Feeling mildly like a fool, but primarily concentrating on the song at hand, Mendel slowly returned to his bag, knowing he was little better off than a toy soldier whose owner insists upon playing with it gain and again until its arms and legs fall off with wear.

When he finished writing, he lay down beside his bag and closed his eyes. Images wandered through his brain as casually as Sunday visitors through a rickety old museum: a man with a noose around his neck smiling tranquilly; a woman in a field in the pain of birth; another woman offering fruit to a shadow; a man shouldering a fold-up plastic cross; a child running, falling down, standing up, running, falling ,standing, over and over. He forced himself up and began writing again: “We are all immortal, for the moment never ends. There is no death for the moment never dies.”

He pictured a human figure as a moment, expanding outward and wrote what he saw—the grace the fall, the glory of the rise. . He saw the countless moments in eternity and eternity in the moment. “The most beautiful song to be sung is singing now,” he wrote. “Forever.”

In the coming weeks the songs poured forth faster than he could write them. Maybe Harry was right, he thought. Like an overflowing spring, they poured from him.

He wrote a tribute to Harry the Beachcomber, stealer of beer, pacifier of violent men, lover of men, of women, of children, the natural artist who seeks and saves nature's lovely castoffs. He wrote of Harry-with-no-last name, the only free man he’d ever known.

Abruptly the songs ceased. Mendel looked them over, saved a few and left the rest. He headed East again without looking back. The roar of the ocean faded with each step until finally it was gone, and his footsteps once again became his rhythm.

***

"Ah, Jesus, come down and kick my ass for staying here. I don't need this." Poul's back hurt. His legs ached. The new sunburn on his bare head drove fiery needles into his brain, though he had tried to soothe it with lotion, then with salve. He even tried cold hamburger grease, but it turned rancid and drew flies. One day he found a cowboy hat rendered shapeless with wear and weather. "Fate!" He exclaimed, grabbing it and easing it onto his head. "This hat's gonna be as permanent as a goddamned roof!"

He was now in his sixth month of searching. As nearly as he could tell, he had only two pages to go. He had no way of knowing that Harry had happened across one of Mendel's early castoffs and jammed the page into his bag, happy to have the souvenir from his friend.

"Two lousy pages," he kept mumbling, scratching his beard and keeping his eyes on the beach, waste cans, and picking up everything from hot dog wrappers to love notes. One day, just before breaking for lunch, he spotted a crumpled sheet floating about twenty feet from shore, like some fragile, lost boat forlornly heading out to sea. Years of experience and a now finely developed instinct told him it was a Mendel page.

"Stay where you are!" He yelled, splashing with gangly legs toward the paper, holding his bag with one hand and his hat on his head with the other. He was about ten feet from the paper when a gull --a greedy, piggish, narrow-minded species of bird he'd learned to hate above all others --swooped down, snatched the paper and soared in an upward arch toward the beach.

"You bastard!" Poul made a quick, clumsy turn and fought the heavy water as he stumbled back to shore. He ran across the sand as fast as his aging legs would take him, keeping his eyes on the gull above. "Land, you brainless parasite! And don't eat it!" The bird seemed to know it was the object of aggression and stayed airborne. As Poul ran, he pictured himself clutching this useless white bag of feathers and shaking it by the neck.

His lungs burned, his legs weakened and he was soon puffing too hard to curse. The gull glided to the sand about thirty yards ahead. Strengthened by hope, Poul sped up, planning to descend upon the nasty little wretch and terrify it into dropping the page.

Someone yelled: "Watch out!"

Poul looked down just in time to catch the blur of two children diving out of his way an instant before he stormed through the center of an intricate sand castle. He tripped and landed face down in the sand. When he regained his breath, he slowly hoisted himself to his knees and blew the sand from his nose. The children were crying.

"You broke it. You broke our castle, you big asshole!" Before he could pull his hat from his eyes, Poul was jerked to his feet by what felt like flesh-covered vice grips.

"What's the idea, buddy?" Against his will and better judgment, Poul

looked up to find himself matching pupils with a man who, with no visible exertion, was able to hold him up in the air. He felt sick.

"He broke our castle, daddy. Smashed it to pieces!"

"I know, baby." The man appeared to Poul to be a TV wrestler or someone who kills elephants with his bare hands. "What's the big idea, buddy?" He also appeared to have not more than a token vocabulary.

Poul spoke in gasps caused by a fairly equal mixture of exhaustion and fright. "Sorry. . . was chasing. . . seagull. . . .stole my paper . . . I'm a poet." The man dropped Poul with disgust. Poul untangled his arms and legs and got to his feet. He reached into his pocket. "Here, buy them an ice cream or something." He handed the man a twenty and turned to the children. "Sorry kids."

"Idiot," one mumbled as they began working on a new castle. Poul counted his blessings to have wired Beasely for more money. As he walked away he heard the man say, "Crazy pervert poet." He also saw the man stick the money in his wallet and knew the children would never see the ice cream.

Poul found the paper where the bird had landed. It was indeed a Mendel sheet. Knowing he couldn't take anymore, he decided to return with what he had and tell Beasely to work without the missing page. Chances were, he told himself, that if it hadn't been picked up and thrown away, some drug-crazed teenager had probably smoked it.

He wondered how many years he’d been gone. It was impossible to guess with this year-around sunshine.

"I'm going to devote the rest of my life to discouraging young artists," he told himself, heading east. "I'll give them grants to practice carpentry or shepherding, have them do anything but be weird artists. Even religion. Hell, if they want to be creative, I'll give them money for a pulpit.

"Goddamn Mendel, thinks he can just gallivant around the country and

run my ass off. I'm going to show him one of these days. Somehow. . . .”

***

A few weeks later Poul stood at the edge of the city. He no longer kissed the sidewalk. Instead he just stood, letting his body and mind adjust to the shock of noise, rushing, and the massive sense of self-importance swirling through the air.

“Keep moving, pal. Keep it moving,” a passing cop said. Poul nodded and headed into Manhattan.

***

There seems to be no question that whoever Mendel is, the man is real. The songs, while varied, are consistent, and they, like the man, continue to grow in substance as the writer travels, seeks inward and outward, and shatters boundaries. His record sales are now at an astounding 500 million. Just as Elvis ushered in a new lifestyle, as the Beatles created a new music, fashion and way of life, Mendel has waved a magic wand over society. The magic wand of music.

Beasely tossed the Rolling Stone article on his desk and rolled his cigar between his thumb and index finger. "There's never been anything like it in the history of music! He just keeps breaking records -- no pun intended." Despite himself, Beasely chuckled at the pun. "Anyway, Poul, I'm glad you're back. Let me fill you in on what's been happening."

Poul sat back with his coffee and cigarettes while Beasely paced around the office, waving his cigar intermittently to make a point. "And we're picking up a whole new audience generation. I don't understand it." He shook his head, then stopped and grinned like a little boy, "But I love it!"

Poul removed his shapeless hat and scratched his head. "You mean kids are picking up on that Midwestern stuff?"

Beasely nodded and stopped to pour a drink. "Yeah! We divided the material into two CD's. Part Two was released 11 months ago. Next month the spooky stuff goes on the racks.

Poul stubbed out a cigarette. "Spooky stuff?"

Beasely nodded. "That mystical material. From the west."

"The Arizona songs." Poul shuddered at the thought of that barren, hot, dead land full of cactus and mean tempered snakes.

Beasely waved his cigar and nodded. "Yeah, the 14 to 25 market will get

into that. Once the critics get hold of it, there'll be stories of Mendel on drugs and all that crap, I'm sure."

Poul nodded absently, reflecting on Mendel's simple life and how he never touched anything stronger than mint tea when he found the leaves --except this past year with that big guy who drank like a whole school of fish. Mendel knocked down a few beers. But other than that -- externally at least -- the composer led a boring life, just walking and writing, with time off for occasional tantrums.

"The drug stories wouldn't be right,” Poul said. “It's not true."

Beasely studied Poul a moment and shrugged. "Ok, so we'll deny them."

Poul exhaled a stream of smoke and didn't argue. Marketing, promotion, publicity. He looked at Beasely who had grown grayer and paunchy. Lines sank deeply into his forehead and around his pale blue eyes. "You've been working pretty hard, Beaze."

Beasely studied his cigar and nodded.

"Yeah, I guess," he said quietly. "Beasely Publishing is the number one house in the world. In the world." He sat down and swiveled around to stare out the window. Poul looked at the publisher's desk whose three corners were stacked neatly with correspondence, plans and other paperwork. In the remaining corner stood a gleaming gold lighter in the image of Mendel. Poul shook his head. What do you buy the Mendel Publisher who has everything? A solid gold Mendel icon, of course. Suitable for every cigar smoking, Mendel-crazed billionaire.

Beasely was still gazing out the window at the Manhattan skyline. His hair was thinning too, Poul noticed with satisfaction. "Yeah, I thought if and when I hit the top, I'd be content," Beasely said. "But now I'm working my ass off to stay there. . . ." He swiveled back around to face Poul. "But what the hell, I love it." He stood up and poured another drink. He was uneasy. Something was going on, Poul thought. He could feel it. "Drink?" Beasely held up the bottle. Poul shook his head. He lit another cigarette. . Years of tracking Mendel had forced upon him subtle levels of perception and his intuition told him something big was happening.

"What's up, Beaze?"

The publisher looked at him, trying to mask his uneasiness. "What do you mean, Poul?" His voice was quiet, caressing.

"I'm not a patient man and neither are you," Poul answered. "Forget the con and tell me what's up your sleeve this time."

"Mm." Beasely cleared his throat and put on his business smile. "TV series," he said nearly under his breath.

Poul sat forward. "A what?"

Beasely pulled at his tie. "Uh, we've been thinking of a, uh, TV series about Mendel. It can't lose. In fact it has the potential to be one of the biggest --"

"How the hell can you do a TV series?" Poul fought to control his voice. "You don't know a damned thing about Mendel except what I tell you, and I don't know that much. Jesus Christ, I don't believe --"

"What could be simpler?" Beasely had regained his composure and began selling. "Man in search of something great, something almost godlike as he travels across the greatest free country in the world. He travels alone, suffers, has adventures, pursuing something out there. Meanwhile he writes some of the greatest art of the century. Doesn't take much imagination, Poul. It's all there. And we'll have approximately 100 million viewers counting the days or hours until each show."

Poul shook his head. "Where in the hell did you get such an insane idea?"

"From the Mendel comics,” Beasely said very quietly, quickly sipping his drink. Poul felt dizzy. His face drained of color. "The what?" His voice was reduced to a squeak.

Beasely had regained his confidence and nodded matter-of-factly. "The comic book. 'Mendel The Wanderer.' It's the biggest selling thing on the stands. Kids love him, and it's huge on college campuses. We're in negotiations now to start a syndicated strip for the Sunday papers. That's why the TV series --"

"But what the hell do they write about?" Beyond shock now, Poul wasn't sure if he was outraged or just dead weary. A thousand questions arrowed through frantic, confused mind.

"Adventures. Like I said, the guy travels, writes great songs, throws them away. They're picked up by an equally mysterious man --

Poul groaned and fell back into his chair. It was over. The whole show. The fat lady's coming out to sing. She’s really fat and has a huge voice. Poul makes his farewell bow. "I'm done. Beasely, you silly, selfish, no-good son-of-a-bitch. You've got pig's knuckles for a brain."

Beasely waved his hands. "No, no! We've changed the name and your looks. I know the dangers involved. God, give me some credit. I told the artists you're shorter, well-built and good looking. Full head of blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. The Nordic look. Balances with Mendel's dark features."

“Mendel is gray!”

Beasely nodded. “We’ll age him as we go.”

Poul rolled his head back and forth against the leather chair. It was all too much to comprehend -- and all coming at a time when he wanted to quit thinking. He felt overcome with shock, outrage, and . . . hurt.

Beasely seemed to read his mind. "I'm sorry, Poul. It's a lot to take in. But as far as the comics, you know how it has to be. The characters have to be gorgeous: Handsome, virile men; sexy women. And it's of utmost importance that you're not recognized."

"Me! What about him? I don't know you anymore, Beasely! I thought you,

of all people, had some, some ethics!"

"You're getting your 10 percent royalties," Beasely interrupted indignantly. "It's not the money! The guy's out there killing himself writing songs. And that's what he wants to do. And millions of people buy his songs. And that's what they want to do. All the rest of this is a lie!"

Beasely squeezed his cigar between his back molars until brown juice

from its saliva-soaked butt gathered at the corner of his mouth. Christ, every time Poul returned, they wound up arguing like a couple of aging fags. He was doing what was right for the company. It was growing and so was Poul's bank account. Damned prima donna.

He walked around to the front of his desk and faced Poul. "Listen. Artists, good ones, live like shit. I know that because I've worked with them all my life. You know it because you've been living with one, in a sense. If the artist is truly in quest of great art, he sacrifices almost everything. He lives like a dog while he works to create. His life is outwardly bland and inwardly a living hell." Poul nodded, mildly surprised at Beasely's insight.

"That's right, so leave him alone."

Beasely shook his head and waved impatiently. "Let me finish. The writer sweats, shits and bleeds his art. Does the public believe this?" He paused, as if he were in a lecture hall.

"No. The housewife who changes dirty diapers, the guy who works eight hours a day at something he probably hates, the old people who have no more dreams, the kids who have dreams they're sure will come true --they're not going to believe the artist lives like them, that he's a regular flawed mortal like they are. They're getting from that artist something greater than what they have at the moment. He's giving them the visions they don't have the guts to pursue by themselves. And they want some kind of glamour to surround this person bearing these incredible gifts. Even if it's the glamour of poverty and suffering. At least he's living his life for a cause. In Mendel's case, it's the perfect song. He's a horseless, ragged Galahad searching for the grail, a wonderful, divine, but impossible quest."

Poul rubbed his eyes and sighed.

"People want and need a realistic illusion to accompany the art, which is also an illusion," Beasely concluded. "It's my job to give it to them."

Poul gave no reaction. He was weary, beaten and confused. Mendel drove him crazy, and Beasely aggravated the insanity. Beasely's argument was nice but there was a bottom line. Always the bottom line. He stood up. "I've got to go, Beasely. I'm tired. I've been on the road for years."

Beasely took the lack of argument for tacit agreement. Now, strengthened by his lecture and loosened with drinks, he held up his hand. "There's one more thing before you go." He cleared his throat. "A couple of people in the industry want to put together a concert of Mendel music in honor of his second generation of fans.

Poul nodded. "Fine, honor your asses off."

"They'd like Mendel to make an appearance."

Poul froze. His nervous system couldn't take it.

Beasely rushed on. "All he'd have to do is be here, say a few words of

appreciation, then poof! back into the woodwork. No pun intended. Uh, at first I rejected it." He rubbed his chin. "Then I thought, hell, with the promotion we would give that, it could make TV history." He rolled his cigar between his thumb and finger thoughtfully.

"Granted, it might be a shock to Mendel when he learns of his popularity, but he's seasoned enough to handle it. I think. I'd let you handle that part. Afterward, he could return to the hills and keep writing." Beasely's blue eyes sparkled with excitement. "A perfect climax to a distinguished career not half over."

Poul's face was blank. Beasely was unbalanced. He'd become distorted. Pulling Mendel in would be like throwing an eagle into an airtight cage. If the bird somehow survived the ordeal, it would never manage freedom again. He looked at the man before him and wanted to spit in his face.

"No." He put his hand on the doorknob. "Don't ever mention it again." Beasely nodded and blew a thin stream of smoke from his pursed lips. He smiled politely. "I thought you'd say that. But think it over. The whole world wants to see Mendel, to hear his voice, watch him breathe and move. They want -- just for a moment -- to see the man behind the art."

"On a TV screen?"

Beasely nodded. "That's today's reality. Poul, the public has made you a rich man. You owe them something. Think about it."

Poul leaned against the door and scratched his thigh. He was beyond thinking.

With unsteady legs, he walked over to the cigarette box and lit another. "What about your cute little philosophy about the artist remaining exotic and larger than life?" Beasely shook his head, causing the sagging jowls to wobble like pudding in a little earthquake. "He'll remain larger than life. We're just establishing him as truly real."

Poul bit his lip and held himself from taking Beasely's throat. "Your power and greed have gone to your little brain, Beaze. Never happy with what you have. You always want more. You said it yourself. Forget it."

"You've been alone too long," Beasely said, his voice taking on a steely edge. "The rest of us are in the real world, and millions of real people want to see Mendel . . . including me."

"You just want to stay number one," Poul hissed. His small eyes glittered like an angry ferret. "You want to display him like a freak in an international side show and add award plaques to your walls." He crushed the cigarette. "You're sick, Beaze. And I'm sick of you." He grabbed the bag of songs and started again for the door.

"I was afraid you'd say that too," Beasely said almost too casually in this mental poker game.

"Well, pat yourself on the ass. You were right. Buy yourself a Mendel doll. See you --"

"That's why I've created a Search Force to begin hunting for Mendel."

Poul froze. His very guts felt like ice. He forced a deep breath into his lungs to break the arctic paralysis. He saw himself killing Beasely. Surely a judge would understand. A man had grown so powerful that he could set up men to track down a fellow human like a hunter stalks a rare animal. Instead of putting the trophy on the wall, he places it on a stage for all the world.

"You fool. You rotten, greedy, egotistic fool." He had no desire to mask his

hatred.

On Beasely's round, innocent face, even evil smiles appeared as mischievous grins on an aging imp. "Maybe, Poul. But I've had a team of young computer geeks doing studies, following the path of the songs, feeding the information into a specially developed software program and extracting some general information on a pattern. Fascinating program. It's all based on a linear progression of his material. From that we extract the essence of various aspects of his personality and project what he might be searching for next -- and where. In a few weeks, we should be able to come within, oh, 50 feet or so of his location."

He sipped his drink and smiled as Poul seemed to shrink. Beasely hated to put his friend down this way, but it really was time to bring the artist forth and herald his years of achievement with a good send-off into the future. And he himself wanted to meet this wonderful man whose songs never failed to score with the public and the critics. It was ridiculous that a company president was not allowed to meet his star client. He smiled at Poul's sagging, defeated features.

Poul nodded, as if in a trance, as he set the bag down. He opened it and reached in with what appeared to be the slow action of a man handing the spoils to the victor. With the precise mechanical movements of a primitive robot, he pulled out two sheets and walked stiffly over to Beasely's desk. He picked up the gold Mendel lighter. Despite Poul’s obvious intentions, Beasely, slowed, by shock and dulled brain cells, didn't react in time.

Poul held the papers in front of the motionless publisher. "I wish to note that I have no idea what two papers these are," he said in a monotone. "They are possibly central to a song, possibly a whole song. Maybe they are crucial passages to one of the most important songs he has yet written. We'll never know." A flame shot from Mendel’s little golden mouth and set the corner of the paper ablaze.

"No!" Beasely hurled his drink at the fire, missed, and drenched Poul's beard. "Fool! Stop!" His eyes bulged in terror and Poul wondered if he might have a heart attack. "Poul! Put it out!"

Poul dropped the paper before the flame reached his fingers and ground the warm ashes into the carpet. "Would you like to see it again? It's a simple trick." He held up the second paper.

"No! You're crazy! Don't!" Beasely's usually round face was lopsided with horror and disbelief.

"Sit down." Poul's voice was calm and authoritative. He did not itch himself. Beasely obeyed. "That's what will happen to the songs --these and the ones in my apartment. Then there the songs I’ve hidden for insurance. And after that there are all the songs that I will gather and burn. And after that there are all the songs that will never be written if you bring Mendel in, although I doubt if a force of a thousand computer geeks could find him because you are all mindless barbarians. You are all -- even the ones out there hunting him now --greedy animals. You are not men."

He looked squarely at his partner. "But if you did find him, you would interrupt his purpose. You'd unbalance him and ruin him and you'd never see another song -- not a damned one. You'd not only lose your shirt, Beaze, you'd be known as the fool of all fools. You would be remembered as the narrow-minded power monger who ruined the man who made the music. That's a hell of a legacy."

Beasely swallowed and Poul could see he was sobering up at a considerably faster than normal pace. There was no sound in the office except the click of the lighter as Poul lit a new cigarette. He studied the little figure, noting that the nose was too small and the features too full and rounded. All that resembled the real Mendel was the hair and beard. And these bumbling idiots think they can find Mendel, he thought.

"He's a human, Beaze. A man with a purpose, and it would be worse than murder for anyone to break his search --worse because millions of people take energy from him and they would be deprived, too." Beasely swallowed again, appearing each moment smaller and more frail. "Touch him and it's the end -- for everybody."

Beasely took a long, deep breath, exhaled and closed his eyes as he leaned back in his chair. Poul waited for him to say something, but the small man appeared to be unconscious.

Still numb with anger, Poul picked up the bag once more. "I don't like you tonight, Beaze. You make me sick. Sleep on it and see if you're any different tomorrow."

The publisher remained motionless long after Poul slammed his office

door. The single, small tear that idled on his eyelid could have been an excretion from a newly dead man.

***

 

The girl who loved Mendel knew she would never touch him. She would never walk with him on a beach beside the rhythmic waves of the ocean or watch a sunset holding his hand. She would never make love to him. She poured her longings and frustrations into poetry and after years of submissions became published. After several more years she became recognized and respected in literary circles. She found a teaching job at a university and published volumes of poetry and never married.

***

Mendel moves in silence . . . hmm. Interesting. He shrugged and kicked a stone. True, too. Mendel walks in silence. . . no. Mendel floats in . . . no. The first is best.

Mendel moves in silence to the music of the years. Hell, I'm getting poetry. Me, a goddamn layman. Ha, who needs you, Mendel? I’ll be a writer myself!

 

Mendel moves in silence

To the music of the years

Through winds of golden laughter

And storms of silver tears.

 

Poul laughed again. At the same time he was deeply moved. It was the first time he had ever thought of poetry. It had come to him, just come to him, almost naturally or something. For the first time in his Mendel career, he pulled out a pen and pad which he usually used to note direction or chalk up pieces of collected paper. He wrote down the first stanza, then added:

 

Mountains rumble inward

Lizards swiftly fly

Mendel searches, earthbound

Reaching toward the sky.

A god in ragged clothing

Avoiding noisy throngs

Not knowing he is worshipped

As a song-creating song.

 

He shrugged at the absurdity of his writing poetry -- especially stuff that actually rhymes, he thought. He pocketed the lyrics and continued on. It had been weeks and he had not picked up any clues. The feeling of some sort of impending doom gnawed at his stomach. "Where in the hell is he?"

There was no sign of Mendel in Colorado. No trace in Wyoming. He found

a song in Nebraska. "One song. One damned song! What's he doing?" He studied the area and concluded the song had drifted southward, so he turned north. Near autumn he came upon a campsite. It was not much more than a couple weeks old. "Either my radar's fading or he's getting haphazard as hell," he mumbled.

He quickly turned east, forgetting food and sleep, wanting only to find the writer so he could gather whatever he could and get back to New York.

There are times when even synchronicity can seem a little out of synch. Poul felt like an unbalanced pinball chasing a more unbalanced and faster pinball in a tilted machine placed on a fault line.

He finally breathed a sigh of relief when he found Mendel in Illinois. He sat down for a leisurely supper and opened the can of Spam he'd been saving for this special occasion.

The nomadic shadow life was having its effect on him. His back was bowed from constantly stooping to pick up songs over the years. His eyes were sunken and watery from keeping a constant watch before and behind him. He moved now with the slightly hunched stealth of a hunted animal, though he was the hunter.

Or was he? He lived continually on the lookout for Mendel so the composer wouldn't spot him, and he felt a real need to hide from other eyes. He'd been questioned too many times, mistaken for an escaped robber, murderer, rapist -- any man whose picture in the post offices resembled him.

Many did.

The years had worn on him and given him a shifty, seedy, hardened appearance, hardly the look of a man with millions in the bank and investments around the world.

Though it meant he had to watch his every move now, Poul felt a great relief, almost at home now that he had Mendel in his sight. He lay down after supper for his first decent night's sleep since the last time he was with Mendel. It was peaceful but not comfortable. He lay his head on the nearly empty Mendel bag and tried not to think about his aching back. He wished he had a bottle of wine. A variety of bugs

persistently explored his skin, even though one or two of their comrades were slapped to death. But at least Mendel was near.

As he relaxed, his mind wandered to the soil. "Damn. I wonder if I have enough money to cover up all this dirt? Strikes me as a fine project. Move all the farmers to the Midwest, fence it off and macadam the rest of the country." He made a note to ask Beasely about funding when he returned. He ran it over and over in his mind, trying to bulldoze the dirty, black feeling in his gut that something unpleasant was lurking in the future.

It was huge, dark, and unstoppable.