22 comments/ 42729 views/ 14 favorites The Dividing Line Ch. 02 By: Adrian Leverkuhn October 7th Ed MacCarley is sitting in the watch commander's office of the Central Division sub-station; there are knots in his burning stomach, a tight-acrid sensation boiling up from deep within his gut to his chest. The watch commander, a Captain named Thomas Hardy, has been in the department for almost thirty years, and is an even older man than MacCarley. His close-cropped hair is almost solid silver, his stomach is as flat as a board. Both men look very careworn; there is a large bottle of antacid tablets on the watch commander's desk next to a cluster of photographs of a woman and several children. On the watch commanders lapel is a small pin that states in bold letters to "Try God." The watch commander has a file folder open in front of him on the chipped plastic-laminate desktop; a cigar smolders away in an gleaming amber ashtray off his left hand. He continues reading the documents in the file, occasionally back-tracking to a previous page to double check some fact or other bit of information. There are moments when he stops reading to rub the bridge of his nose and his closed eyes. The files detail an incident that had happened the day before. MacCarley had responded to a call in a well-to-do neighborhood to back up a unit on a suspicious persons report. He had arrived just moments after the first responding office, an old friend named Alan Simpson. There had been three very sweaty and very dirty Latin American men standing by the street, their hands in the air. Alan had his Sig-Sauer P-226 drawn, and he was yelling at the mute and visibly very cowed men. It was pretty obvious that the men were mowing a nearby lawn, yet Alan had been treating the men as if they were subjects of a felony drug bust. There were also several women standing in the doorways to their houses looking on with barely sated satisfied curiosity. MacCarley was off balance as he watched Simpson; he must have missed something that had happened before he arrived, but what!? His training explicitly told him to back up his fellow officer, no questions asked. But MacCarley was concerned that the level of force on display was getting excessive, perhaps out-of-hand. Simpson holstered his weapon, but he swung his night stick out of the loop on his belt with his left hand and moved toward one of the men. MacCarley acted instantly. He jumped between Simpson and the man, who by that time had backed down and was cowering on the ground, crossing himself and crying "Madre de Dios" over and over. MacCarley looked into Simpson's eyes and saw blind rage: it looked like the depths of hell boiling to the surface of some private inferno. In a guttural whisper MacCarley said, "Simpson, get it together. Alan! Get the fuck out of here. Now!" Alan Simpson pulled back from the edge; he shook his head, cleared the fog, and walked back to his squad car. Simpson then tore away from the scene in a hail of flying gravel and exhaust fumes. MacCarley had checked with a few witnesses - the women in the doorways - then let the men resume mowing lawns and picking weeds. He had called the on-duty watch commander on the telephone a few minutes after he cleared the scene, told him what had happened. The commander told him to come down to the station and write up a detailed summary of the event. That had been yesterday afternoon. Now he was back in the W/Cs office. "Anything you wanna add to this, Ed?" the watch commander asked. "No, sir. I think that about covers it." "Well, this is a goddamned mess. Lots of civilian witnesses came down to fill out complaints. Even so, it's probably going to have to go to the DA, civil rights violation alleged and all. It's good you came to me with this stuff when you did. If you hadn't, you'd burn to." "Yes, sir." "You know there's gong to be some pretty heavy fallout headed your way. Lotta the guys aren't going to like you for doing this, not at all. Don't get me wrong, Ed, it was the right thing to do. Just watch your back for a few days, OK?" "Yes, sir. I knew this would happen; it always does." Ed MacCarley stood to leave. "Thanks, Tommy." They had been friends for a long time. "Yeah, OK Eddie. I mean it, watch your back." * It was a little after eight in the morning. A trace of cool just edged into the air, stirring faint echos of autumn into the still city air. Ed MacCarley walked around his squad car giving it a once over, to check for any overt exterior damage, then he began checking the Remington 870 pump shotgun to see that it was loaded and had a shell in the chamber. There was another much younger officer walking around the black and white Chevrolet behind him, looking as though he was taking mental notes and not just a little perplexed. The young man with Ed MacCarley was that most dangerous of all creatures on Earth, a rookie police officer - just out of academy. Ed continued to point out things in the car to check for, like the correct functioning of the lights and siren, spare rounds for the shotgun, and the proper operation of the radio. Tire pressures, fuel gauge, cones and flares for accidents scenes. Ed asked the rookie if he had his clipboard and enough report forms to get through the day. And of course the rookie didn't have squat, and had to be sent back into the station to retrieve his equipment. Ed just shook his head and opened his briefcase, took out a bottle of antacid tablets and unscrewed the lid. As a training officer it was his job to get the rookie up to speed fast enough to be useful but not so fast as to make the rookie more dangerous then he already was. The long favored method of breaking in a rookie was ridicule and derision, then build them back up after you'd broken through the macho he-man gotta badge and a gun mentality. He brought the bottle of antacids to his mouth and poured several tablets into his mouth and started chewing. 'Ah, breakfast...' he thought as he crushed the cherry flavored chalk with his teeth. Ed strapped himself into the passenger seat and started getting settled in for the days work. He turned on the radio and set the frequency to the division primary, checked the tactical and intercity frequencies for normal function. He logged into the computer, checked the secure computer-to-radio hookup. He picked up the radio's microphone from the console, and pushed the transmit button on the upper side of the mic. "2141, radio check," he said into the microphone. "2141, you're five by five. 2141, are you in service yet?" Ed looked around and saw the rookie headed out of the station, back to the squad car. He wondered what the rookie would forget next. "2141, 10/4." "2141 10/8 at 0817 hours. 2141, signal 4b, 3601 Hollandale, see the resident." "2141, en route." "2141 en route 0818 hours." MacCarley scribbled notes on his DAR, or daily activity report, then yelled out the window to the rookie, "C'mon, Meathead." Rookies were really a pathetic life-form, he thought. "Let's try to hit the streets sometime today, OK?" The rookie got into the car. "What, we got a report already?" When he saw his training officer nod his head he said, "Aw shit, man, that stinks." To which MacCarley replied, "Well, Meathead, when you live in a sewer, you'd better get used to the stink." "C'mon, Ed. Do ya have to call me Meathead?" "No, meathead, I don't. But you don't want to deprive me of one of this jobs few pleasures, do ya?" MacCarley turned his head and smiled at the vacant stare hanging in the air. "And I'll tell you something else, meat. You call me Ed again today and we'll have to go to county to pull my boot outta your ass." "Yessir," Meathead replied as if at attention. "So, 3601 Hollandale, sig 4b. Remember what a 4b is meathead?" "4b? That's a rape?" "No, meathead. But you're getting closer today. A barking dog call, Meathead. Quick, hit the lights and siren!" As the rookie reached to switch on the lights and siren, MacCarley swatted the kids hand away from the switch, shook his head. 'Pathetic,' MacCarley thought to himself. "Well, meat, sometime today would be nice. And I don't feel the need to run code 3 to a barking dog call, OK?" He paused to let the deliberate sarcasm sink in. "Hollandale. Well, meat? Think you can find it?" The rookie started the squad car and swung it out of the station's lot northbound onto Grand Avenue. MacCarley sat in silence. Hollandale was south and west of the station. 'Oh God,' he thought, 'it's going to be one long mother-fuckin' day.' * A little after five thirty that afternoon MacCarley and the rookie walked back into the station and turned the day's reports into the evening shift sergeant. He sat with the rookie while the sergeant checked the reports for errors, then they headed back to the locker room when they got a thumbs up. MacCarley felt the chill from the sergeant, went to his locker; there was a piece of paper taped to his locker door that had"Pig Fucker!" written across it in big red letters and had several - apparently used - condoms stapled to it. MacCarley left the note taped to the locker door as he changed out of his uniform and into his jeans and golf shirt and sneakers. He put his gun belt in the old academy gym bag he'd been using for almost twenty-five years, and zipped it shut. He walked out of the station and headed off toward his apartment. He never looked back at the rookie who sat dumbfounded in front of his own open locker, looking at the stapled rubbers like they were a dead dog hanging from his training officer's locker door. * Ed MacCarley climbed the steps up to the apartment building's long wooden balcony, and went to door number seven and slipped the key into the lock. He turned the doorknob quietly and opened it, walked into his apartment, the apartment which until so recently had been such a dim, lonely place. As he turned toward the living room he heard and felt Sara Wood running toward him, felt her leaping through the air for him. He turned in time to catch her in his arms, gave way a little bit under the momentum of her impact. He felt her legs wrapping around his hips, her arms around his shoulders, her hands in his hair. He turned more and pinned her body between his and the wall, put his arms around her waist, and their faces met in an explosion of hot breath and wet kisses. It had been almost the same every day since that first weekend they had been pulled together in June. Ed MacCarley had thought that the force of her love for him would diminish, but it hadn't. He had felt that her thirst for intimacy would diminish, but it did not. And Ed MacCarley had for a while lived in fear that this miracle of God named Sara Wood would simply vanish, that the whole miracle of her smile and laughter would turn into a vicious dream. But it had not. Every minute of every day that he spent with her was a gift, a priceless bestowal. Such is the nature of destiny, the measure of love's hold on the human heart, that Ed MacCarley had committed himself to this dramatic course of action. Ed MacCarley ran his hands down Sara Wood's lithe body, and he smiled inwardly as he felt the lingerie and the stocking tops with his starving fingertips. He kissed her with even more passion, felt the room around him dissolving into sweat-filled mists of open mouths and healing hearts. He fell under the weight of their combined need, the burden of her escape from poverty by now a cold memory that played on their heart's strings only when one was gone from the other. He fell under the weight of destiny's undeniable call to love Sara Wood, fell slowly to the floor as he cradled her in his arms. He fell in weightlessness through mists of hope and fear, came to rest on top of her, between her legs. They seemed to kiss for eternity, his hands moving over her every feature, finding her hands, holding them as in the forge of his redemption. She rolled on top of him, laughing with a child's joy at the conjoined mystery of his need and the salvation of his offering. She felt him growing under her frail weight through the rough fabric of his jeans and reached down to release him. As she fumbled with his jeans Sara laughed and kissed his face; she grew more aroused and in love with each breath she took. She was so hungry for Ed MacCarley's love that food had become unnecessary when she was with him. And then in sudden silence, she was poised above him. Poised above the arrow of his need, her lips brushing the tip of his cock as she slid lightly back and forth, teasing the head with each grazing stroke. She kept her hands flat on his chest, her eyes languidly locked into his. As she danced above his need she could feel the warmth releasing from deep inside her belly and spread slowly within her loins. The heat and the wetness coated the walls of her womb, rolled down on to the straining cock below. She lowered herself gently on each successive stroke, controlled his entry with her descent. He could feel her warmth covering his need as she lowered herself. He took her hips in his hands and began to guide her motions. Forward, back, and twisting; he moved her from front to back in motive bursts. Sara began to gather speed, her up and down stride stormed toward the full fury of release. Soon two bodies were fused in the abandoned rhythm of their heat, each building toward a single release, a fusion of fear and desire. After they had spent themselves, and were lying quietly in each others arms, only then would the uncertainties flood to the surface of Sara Wood's consciousness. The call of her past was a vast shadowland, a huge swath of fear and hiding that would overcome this new feeling of knowing where her next food was coming from, what clean sheets felt like, and how good it was to smell clean hair and skin. Sara Wood lost focus on the present, on the here and now, and was soon confronting images of other cocks in her mind's eye, other tongues probing her womb in warped desire. She looked up at Ed MacCarley then and knew that she was not worthy of this class=Section2> man and his love, and with this thought she began to fall into the depths of her sundered hopes. With the peak of her ecstacy receding in an instant, she suddenly felt implosively empty, and began to cry. She had found the darkness of the shadowlands again. Ed MacCarley felt Sara unravel in his hands in that shattered instant, and he met the extremity of her need with insight born of years on the street. He held her. He let her go to the darkness and despair, visit it, touch it. And just as quickly he pulled her back, let her feel only the vague outlines of her fear. But he kept it from consuming her. He pulled her closer to him, held her tightly, told her that he was with her, and would be with her for as long as she wanted him. He felt her relax. "Want you!?!" she cried. "All I want is you. I die every morning when you leave, Eddie. Want you? I get so afraid . . ." "Tell me what you're afraid of, baby." "That you won't come back. That I'll be alone again. I don't want . . . I can't . . ." and she broke down again in to the music of her private symphony of despair. "You'll never go back there, darlin'," Ed said in velvet soft whispers of reassurance. "You don't have to worry about that anymore. I've taken care of all of that, Sara. If I die tomorrow, I'll still be able to keep you from going back there. But, now listen to me honey, I'm not going to die tomorrow. I'm not even going to work tomorrow. As a matter of fact, darlin', I've got a pretty big surprise for you tomorrow. But part of that surprise? I'm not going to work for almost three weeks; you and I are going to be together all that time, and I'm not going to leave your side for one second. Not even when you take a shower. And guess what, that's where we're going right this red hot minute." class=Section3> Sara climbed off of Ed, and jumped up and down, laughing and crying at the same time. Ed got up and laughed with her, then held her in his arms again. His penis was caught between her body and his, and as she continued jumping and squirming he felt himself responding to her again. She felt it, too. "Eddie! Again?" "Let me tell you a little secret, Sara. Showers can be real fun . . ." * October 8th The little tangerine colored Triumph roadster bounced down the interstate, the top down, Sara Wood's light red hair streaming out over the trunk of the little car. Ed MacCarley held the steering wheel in his left hand and Sara's hand in his right. She would sit quietly for long stretches, looking out at cows in fenced pastures or at an airplane flying overhead. Then she would turn her eyes to Ed. "Thanks, Eddie." "For what, Darlin'?" "For all this," she said, waving at the sky. She began to tear up and laugh. "This is such a nice way to live. So far away from . . ." Ed could just barely imagine what her life had been like, and a part of him wanted to shut that part of her past out. But that wouldn't be true to her grief, and to the world he wanted to make for her. To hide from her past would cause her to feel shame for her past, shame for something that had not been her fault. Running away from her wounds would build a wall between his love for her and her acceptance of his love, would root their relationship in a lie. In Ed MacCarley's world, lies were the foundation of hatred and violence, of recrimination and accusation. "You know I love you, don't you, Sara?" She nodded her head. "Eddie, I've thought about this a lot, what I feel for you, what I think you feel for me. I don't think I've ever felt these things before, Eddie, so I don't know what it's supposed to feel like. But I know how I feel when I'm with you. I know that when I'm with you I feel like the world is going to be alright, that I am going to be OK. I feel all warm inside, Eddie, does that make sense?" He nodded his head. Yes, it did very much. "If you feel anything like what it is I feel, then I know you love me," she said as she squeezed his hand and looked away, not wanting him to see her tears again. Always ashamed. Always afraid. Had it not been for a prayer? * They crossed a very high, very long bridge, and in the distance off the left side of the car Ed pointed out the ocean. Sara's eyes went wide with astonishment, almost fear. There had been many unknowns in Sara Wood's life, and she had been pretty good at confronting them when she was physically able, but she wasn't prepared for the immeasurable blue-green infinity that defined the western horizon. The little Triumph exited the highway and turned toward the ocean. Ed steered the car toward a forest of white trees that lined the ocean just ahead of the car. Sara had never seen anything like it. Shiny white trees! Ed pulled into the parking lot by the trees, up to a restaurant and other colorful buildings that sat between the parking lot and the trees. They put the top up on the car; Ed didn't have to help her with that little chore anymore. He got out and went around to help Sara out of the car, however. He wanted her to feel that someone should and would go out of their way to do little things for her. He wanted her to appreciate other people who were nice to her for no reason, that life wasn't always a calculation of fight or flight. They went into the restaurant, and it smelled like nothing she had ever experienced. They were taken to a table on an outside deck that overlooked - not trees, but boats! Sara looked out over a vast island of sailboats, their white or blue hulls gleaming in the clear, bright sunlight. She heard the sounds of a working marina for the first time in her life; the slapping of halyards against masts, seagulls wheeling through the air. She looked at families coming and going up and down the docks, mothers and fathers and children who by and large looked happy. She took in the scene with a sense of jealousy and sorrow, but also with wonder in her heart. The Dividing Line Ch. 02 "I would have given anything..." her voice trailed off. She pushed down the anguish that wanted to flood out of her dark place. "Well, Eddie. You sure know..." her voice trailed off again. "Hey darlin'. Let's eat, then we'll take a walk, maybe go down to the water or something." "Would you order for me, Eddie?" "Do you want to try fish?" "Had tuna fish before, a sandwich. Will it taste like that?" "No, probably not, at least if we're lucky it won't. Leave it to me, darlin'." Sara watched the boats putting up sails and catching the wind, heeling over, and soaring out over the water like magic birds. There were a handful of boats running toward the distant horizon; these Ed MacCarley watched intently. * After lunch Ed took Sara down to the main marina walkway, and they meandered slowly along, drifting in their own currents among the rich and the not so rich, the pretenders and the old salts. Ed pointed out this type of boat and that type of rig; he knew it meant nothing to Sara, but he wanted to fill the silence that had enveloped her; keep her mind focused on the present. The piers that went out to the boats were behind locked gates. Sara wanted to look at some of the boats, pointed to one every now and then, saying they were pretty or cool or "wouldn't that be nice..." Ed just held her hand in his as she rambled, then he would tell her what kind of boat it was, read the name on the transom aloud. Sometimes he would have to explain what a name meant; and there were names he had to admit he had no idea what they meant. They came to a spot where they could look down at a pier, and Ed pointed out a nearby white sailboat that had a deep green stripe along the top of the hull. There was gleaming teak all over the boat, and it had teak decks that made it look like a little ship, brass portlights in sleek oval shapes, and green canvas over the sails and on the cushions in the cockpit. "What do you think of that one, Sara?" Ed MacCarley asked. Sara Wood stared at the little ship, at all the gleaming brass and chrome and the glowing teak that accented the lines of the boat and covered the deck. "Ooh, Eddie, ain't it pretty. What's it called?" "Well, lets look at it for a second. You see the letters on the side, near the back? See if you can say them along with me. A- W- A - K - E - N. That spells awaken, which means to wake up after sleeping, or to be reborn out of an insane existence. Kind of a neat name for a boat, huh?" "Ooh, I wish we could see it inside. I wonder what looks like inside there." "Well, let's go and see if we can take a look." He walked down the ramp toward the gate and took out his keys; then he opened the gate. Sara Wood looked truly lost as she followed Ed MacCarley down the ramp. "What are you doin', Eddie? You're not, you didn't pick the lock, did you?" Eddie was now holding the gate open for her, and he motioned her through. They walked to the boat; it was the first one on the pier, and he stood there looking at her, a quiet smile of private amusement on his face. Ed MacCarley walked over along the side of the boat until he came to a gap in the lifelines; he un-clipped the line blocking the way and let it fall. "Eddie, Jesus, what are you doin'? We're gonna get in trouble." Ed MacCarley stepped on board. He held out his hand to Sara. "No way, Eddie. I ain't going to jail." He just kept his hand out, enjoying this little moment completely. "Come on, honey," Sara Wood looked at Ed MacCarley. Suddenly, she got it. She flew across the space and into his arms. "Welcome to my home, Sara Wood. Our home. Sara, my love." He held her trembling waif-like frame in his arms and accepted the gales of kisses that flew into his soul at the speed of a sigh. He whispered, "Oh, God, Sara, I love you so much, so much..." into her ear over and over. The young woman in his arms went very quiet and still after a moment, then looked up at him. "I love you to, Paul Edward MacCarley." "Then spend your life with me, Sara Wood. Marry me." Sara Wood recoiled from the shock she felt. Ed just held her, caressed her face, watched in awe as a tear formed in her eye, watched the tear swell and roll down her cheek. He moved his face to hers and kissed away the tear, held her face in his hands, smiled into her eyes. He took a little light blue box out of his pocket and opened it up, showed her the simple white gold wedding band he had chosen for her. "Marry me, Sara Wood. You'd make me the happiest man that ever lived." "I...I'm not...good enough...for you...Eddie," she said as a wave of tears engulfed her. He continued to hold her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks and her tears with his thumbs. He looked at her with a different expression, spoke in a different voice, "Sara. Listen to me, listen very carefully. When two people say they will marry one another, it is a solemn promise before God that they will protect one another, that they won't run away from one another, or do anything to hurt the other. That's what I'm promising to you, Sara. That I'll always be here by your side. That I'll never leave you. That I'll love you as much twenty years from now as I do right this very moment. And one last thing." Ed was visibly shaking now. "There is one thing in the world that I am afraid of, Sara. That's the thought that I might wake up some day and find that you've gone, that you've left me. When I think of that, Sara, it feels like I can't breathe. If you leave me I think I'll die... My love, you are the most important person in the world to me, oh my sweet Sara. I just love you with all my heart." Ed MacCarley was crying now. Sara Wood clung to Ed MacCarley through the gales of his passion, felt him tremble as he came to blows with his own doubts and fears. "Oh Eddie, oh Eddie," she said as she felt with her own awakening sense of wonder the power of love to rule the human heart. "Eddie, I love you too. I do. You've been my savior, my..." Ed MacCarley pulled away from Sara Wood, pulled back far enough to look into her eyes. "Oh, Sara, I don't know how to tell you this...I'm not your savior. You are my savior...you saved me from..." He fell to his knees, hugged her thighs, his face buried in her hips. He felt the release that comes from understanding a critical event in life, of moving beyond the pressure of doubt. "Oh, please, God. Sara, don't ever leave me." She felt his hold on her heart and she embraced it. She knelt beside him, cradled him, rocked him in the sway of her body. "Oh, Eddie." She kissed the top of his head. "I'll never leave you, Eddie. If you really want me...Oh, Eddie, I Love you and I'll marry you and I promise I'll never leave you." She felt his shaking sobs throughout her body. 'How did I save him?' she thought to herself, lost in the terms of the equation. 'That doesn't make any sense at all...' They sat in the cockpit of the little sailboat for hours, holding each other tightly. As evening returned the man held his woman to his breast, cradled her in the warmth of his need and his passion. As darkness enveloped them, he opened the companionway that led down into the little boat, into their home. * October 9th Awaken motored out from behind the stone breakwater and turned into the breeze. Ed MacCarley quickly hoisted the big main sail above the cockpit and cleated it off. He turned off of the wind a bit as he shut down the engine, and Awaken bit into the wind, heeled ever so slightly to the gentle breath of the Earth. Ed next unfurled the big sail, the genoa, on the forward part of the boat, and just as suddenly Awaken bolted as if she had been spurred in her flanks. She heeled dramatically and tore into the wind. Ed dashed back to the wheel and took the helm. Sara Wood was huddled in a calm corner of the cockpit, wrapped in a cocoon of sweatshirt and fleece pants. Her arms were outstretched, holding onto grab-rails, but she was laughing with the sudden exhilaration of flying. She stood up, holding on to the railings which seemed to be everywhere, and stuck her face squarely into the full force of the breeze. Her red hair stood straight out from her head, parallel with the surface of the sea, her eyes began to swell with tears, not from anguish or joy, but from the simple force of the wind. Awaken dove down into a trough between waves and threw a huge wall of spray into the air. Sara watched the airborne water arcing through the air as with outstretched arms, daring it to find her. This was not, however, a particularly wise move, as the wall found Sara with little problem. Ed heard her squeal as the water cascaded down onto her, into her clothing, drenching her almost completely. Ed laughed as she turned around; she looked both surprised and happy, like a wet floppy-eared puppy. He bore off the wind a bit, ease the sails out, eased the motion of the boat. He switched on the autopilot and dashed below to grab Sara a towel and a fleece lined wind-breaker, he wanted to keep her from getting chilled. Sara toweled her hair as dry as she could, and wrapped the towel around her neck. She sat back again, looked out over the rear of the boat as it danced away from the shoreline. Ed kept the autopilot engaged, magically produced a mug of hot chocolate, and handed it to her. She took a sip, surprised at the heat of the liquid. "What is this?" she asked. Ed hid his surprise, but caught himself. "Special sailor's brew, darlin'. Secret recipe. We call it hot chocolate." "It's a secret? Why, Eddie?" "'Cause every body would want to drink it all the time, darlin'. But don't worry, we got plenty." He remained at a loss sometimes at her vulnerability to humor; what might have been funny in one set of circumstances to one person could be painfully uncomfortable for her, bring on the set of reactions that would unsettle her. He despised the paternalism of his lie now, tried to will his own shame away at the innocent deception. Sara sipped the hot chocolate, lost in the complexity of the brew and the world around her. It was all so unreal. One day slipping from the shadows, taking care to remain out of sight as she dug through garbage cans looking for food or some useable piece of clothing. She remembered one day, the day the pissy-smelling guy had tried to beat her, the guy whose shrimpy little dick had stuck in her mouth as she fell. She had gone to the hospital, then to jail. Then she was back on the streets, and all she knew was that an Officer MacCarley had kept her from going to prison. She had gone from police station to police station looking for him, but had never found him. She had slipped back into the shadows by then, slipped back down into the world of hunger and dumpsters and the prison of the shadowlands. And how all of a sudden he had been there, right in front of her, and then he had taken her to lunch. Oh, sweet Jesus, she thought. How could she ever explain to him that she been searching for him all over the city, walking, looking, hoping. She had felt his caring embrace as she wretched and heaved her guts up in that alley, felt him pick her up and carry her to the ambulance, how he followed her to the hospital, saw to it that people helped her. He had cared. Cared - for me?! That's what it feels like! She thought of sleeping on the streets on summer nights, how she would look up at street lights, watch bugs circle the pale yellow glow. That's what being cared for was like. Once you had felt it you were drawn to it like those bugs. She looked at him sitting beside her in the little world of his sailboat, felt her love for him, saw his love for her in his every gesture, in every thing he did. He had tried to explain to her last night, but she couldn't understand, really, why he thought of her as his savior. What had he meant when he said he had lost his humanity, that he had lived in a sewer for too long, and that he would have fallen into darkness had she not come to pull him back into the world of the living. It hadn't made sense, but she believed him. Then he had made love to her so tenderly, with such soft reverence, she had felt her soul glowing, she had felt her body dissolve. In the warm glow of Awaken's belly she had felt the ropes of her insane existence fall apart. She had felt some new being emerge from within her, felt an awakening. "Eddie?" "Hum?" "Why did you name the boat Awaken?" He nodded his head, thought a while. "You like music much?" "I guess." "Awaken is the name of a song, a pretty old song I guess, by today's standards. From the 70s, by a group from Britain called Yes." "Why that song? Why not, like, a Beatles song, or, well, I don't know too many music groups. One of the foster homes I lived in, well the mother played Beatles songs all the time. I remember a song called The Long and Winding Road, she played it all the time. I can still hear the music." "Oh, Sara, I'm not sure I can explain it. There was a time when I believed in the goodness of men, and that song seemed to explain all of the infinite possibilities of what our world could be if people embraced love, explored the connections we share with everything in the universe. Anyway, the song lasts forever, and you know, most people just loose interest in a song after a couple of minutes. Awaken was to me like a sailboat; it drifts along through currents of time, and then it builds into this explosion, pulls all of the various themes within the song back together, makes it whole. I kinda hoped this boat would be that song for me, that she would help me pull all of the pieces of my life together, make it whole." Sara thought a minute. "I think you explained that real good, Eddie. Sometimes when you talk to me it sounds like you're trying to protect me from something. You don't have to, you know. I'm pretty strong." "I love you so much." "Could we listen to the song?" "Yeah, I'll play it tonight. Sometimes the words are kinda hard to understand, you need to be in a quiet place. And you have to play it kinda loud." He just smiled. * They sat in the cockpit, watching the sun set through a wall of distant purple thunder heads. Awaken sat at anchor in a small secluded bay; there was only one other boat sharing the little hideaway. Ed had made a dish he called spaghetti carbonara, made with eggs and bacon, and cheese and cream, he said, and she had wolfed it down. She sipped her first glass of wine, a sweet wine from Germany. They sat after dinner playing with their wine, taking small bites of apples and cheese. Soon Sara leaned back, leaned so that she was using Ed as a chair. He enfolded her within his arms, and they sat in silence as the sun crept down toward the sea, as the air grew cool. Little darts of lightning shot across the distant clouds. Ed and Sara had come to that special place lovers share where words lack the capacity to convey the specificity of meaning within a sigh - but the soul understands perfectly. They had found the place where you go when you lean against your lover's back and feel their heart beating through your chest, feel the pulse of life beating through the airs of time. Oh, just in silence, silent waves curled through time in abeyance of their love. Ed pulled a blanket up over her dreamlike form, felt her breathing slow as soft darkness made it's way into the heaven-sent air. He felt her relax, fall, fall deeply into sleep. He felt the tears building in his heart, felt his prayer reaching from the depths of his soul toward the heavens. 'Thank you God. Thank you for bringing her to me." A little before midnight she stirred, woke up. She looked up into the night and gasped out loud, waking Ed from his light cops-sleep. "What is it, honey?" he said, his voice full of sleepy concern. "What are . . . are those stars?" Ed sat up and looked at the dome of the heavens. It was totally clear; the distant thunderstorms had evaporated with the setting sun. High in the October sky the Orion constellation blazed in distant fury, Betelgeuse and Rigel like fiery beacons reflecting off the still waters of their little secluded bay. "Yeah, darlin'. Those are stars. And a couple of planets, too." "Really!?" He started pointing around the night sky, took her to Jupiter and Mars, showed her the big dipper and Polaris. Finally he guided her to Orion, to his belt, and he described the sword that hung from it. He pointed out the huge fuzzy patch in the middle of the sword, and described the violent birth of hundreds of stars that was happening right before their eyes, deep within the Orion Nebula. "How far away is it, Eddie?" "Real far, darlin'. It would take billions of years to get there if we walked! If we could move as fast as light moves, it would take 1,500 years, maybe more." "It must be cold out there," she said. "Uh-huh." "But I sure feel warm right here with you. I guess that's all that matters, Eddie." She turned around on the narrow cockpit seat and kissed him. They sat huddled together cheek to cheek, occasionally kissing, for several minutes. "Eddie?" "What is it, sweetie?" "Could we listen to the Awaken song, now, and then would you make love to me?" * They sat down below, within the cloudy nebula of Awaken's belly, her wooden interior barely glowing from the single oil lamp that burned in gentle refrain. Sara Wood sat inside Ed MacCarley's warm arms, the side of her face rubbing on his shoulders. She jumped as a burst of piano music shattered the darkness, then felt her body relax into the gentle voice that sang of the sun, of being, and just as suddenly the music dissolved into chaos, music from a different time, a different place. The music was jarring, unsettling, like a storm tossed dream. The music rolled through valleys of touch, crashed in sudden shifts within the dream, then seemed to end, only to be reborn, and build again in other distant dreams. Soft interludes lapped at the shores of the song-dream, then folding in on themselves, they gave way to more violent spasms of, what, a nightmare? The music went toward the light, building towards its awakening, and exploded like an orgasm as light and fury poured into her imagination, only to once again fall into the soft gentle voice . . . The Dividing Line Ch. 02 No, what concerned Ed MacCarley most was that Sara would be unjustly branded with shame by these self-serving hyaenas, that she would feel pain as a result of not knowing any better. There was, MacCarley knew, no better victim for this society to attack than a truly innocent victim. Especially if the victim was helpless. So until Sara could make these distinctions on her own, Ed felt somewhat comfortable with the paternalism of his choice to protect her. She was a primitive in her way, certainly not by choice, but a blank slate nonetheless. And while he felt confident in his ability to lead her to a place where she could stand on her own, he was not at all sure of her ability to stand up to people who would only too gladly shove her back down into the darkness of their apathy. And so, on the way back to the city, MacCarley was facing the music of choices, choices that were the consequence of his actions - but shaped by his understanding of societies aboriginal hypocrisy. When you stripped away the veneer of civilization, what grew visible within the grizzled flesh of humanity was truly vast and horrible in it's capacity to inflict pain. In this juxtaposed and angry frame of mind, he sat lost in thought, but very much aware of the gentle-fragile life next to him. Every protective instinct Ed had was focused on her survival, and the role he would play in her rebirth. He guided the little Triumph through the heavy traffic on drizzle-slick asphalt until he reached the apartment. As he turned into the parking lot he noticed immediately that something wasn't right; warning flags started popping left and right. Ed unzipped his gym bag as he parked the car, picked up the little stainless Walther PPK/s he carried as a backup, leaving his holstered revolver inside the bag.. He looked around, noticed a car out of place, a man in the bushes. "Stay in the car, Sara," he said as he opened the door. He stepped out into the drizzle. Almost immediately she heard an angry man's voice yelling. Yelling at Ed MacCarley, and she saw an older man step out of the bushes. She saw the gun rising in the man's hand . . . saw the drunk hatred oozing from his eyes . . . hear him yelling "they fired me, you mother fucker" as he pulled the trigger. Sara Wood saw flame barking from the man's big steel pistol. Ed MacCarley had seen his old friend Alan Simpson emerge from the bushes, and had momentarily relaxed. In that infinite moment of uncertainty - the uncertainty that averts its eyes to betrayal - Ed MacCarley lost his edge. He hesitated. He heard Simpson's yell, but could not understand the words - time had slowed so dramatically in the milliseconds of dawning awareness that only instinct had time to command reaction. His little Walther rose to meet the challenge. Ed MacCarley could see Simpson's pistol recoiling, see the flame as it boiled out of the barrel in slow motion. He could see the bullet spiraling in toward his chest. Days later, it seemed, he could feel the burn spreading out across his left shoulder as the bullet tore into his flesh, could feel his body spinning under and away from the devastating impact. He felt his head bouncing off the pavement, could see the vibration of the world as his head came to rest. Ed MacCarley watched as his friend Alan Simpson walked toward him, watched him as he lifted the gun up, up toward his head. He tried to say hello, but he felt light-headed, sick to his stomach. He watched, fascinated, as his friend continued to yell at him. 'I wonder what he's saying?' Ed MacCarley thought as the brightness settled in all around him. Alan Simpson knew his enemy was dead when the first bullet struck, but he wanted to finish the job properly. As he walked over to Ed MacCarley, he was focused on the revenge he had been planning for days. He did not see the young girl in the car, did not see her digging around on the floor in front of her seat. He did not see her as she flew out of her door, or as she leveled the huge Smith & Wesson 44 magnum at his head. He never heard the hammer as it arced back under the pull of Sara Wood's finger, or as it slammed home, igniting the cartridge in the cylinder. It is doubtful he ever heard the roar of the gun, or felt the silver-tipped hollow-point bullet as it tore into the left side of his neck. Maybe he heard a fragmented voice off in the distance, heard the fury of the girl's words. Heard her calling him a mother fucker again and again. By the time the girl fired the remaining five bullets into pulpy mess of the man's head, there was no Alan Simpson left to hear or see or feel or hate or love. There was no sun. There was only darkness. Sara Wood dropped the gun and flew to Ed's side, cradled his motionless head in her lap. She looked up at the sky and screamed. She was screaming as the ambulance arrived. Screaming as paramedics ran to Ed's side. She screamed as they pushed her out of the way, back into the shadows. She screamed as hundreds, thousands, millions of police cars and ambulances arrived. She was frantic. She couldn't remember the words. 'High vibration go on . . .' 'And you were standing next to me' She watched as the men over Eddie tore away his shirt. One of the men stuck a huge needle in his arm. 'And you were standing next to me' She stared in mute horror as another man took a knife and stabbed Eddie in the chest, then stuck a pair of funny looking scissors in the hole he had made, leaving a long rubber tube dangling from his chest. Another man was putting a mask on Eddies face as blood gushed from the tube. 'And you were standing next to me' "And you were standing next to me," Sara Wood yelled. "Eddie! I'm here! I will never leave you." She ran after him as they lifted him into the helicopter that had landed in the street. * October 28th The department Chaplain stood outside Ed MacCarley's hospital room with Thomas Hardy, Ed's friend and watch commander. They talked quietly about the old days, about honor and hatred. About life and death, about all the funerals for officers and friends they had been to. And the funerals yet to come. Ed sat up in the hospital bed, a tangled mass of tubes and leads sprouting forth from every arm and leg, from his penis, and all over his chest. His eyes were half open, and he breathed on his own today, after seven days on a respirator. Sara Wood sat in a chair next to the bed, asleep, her head almost face down on the bed, next to Ed's hand. The last words she had heard from him were to 'stay in the car'. That felt like a lifetime ago. She had been sitting in the chair next to him since he had come out of surgery, which had lasted almost fourteen hours. At some point in time over the last few days she had stopped crying. She had held his unresponsive hand in hers for so long it had started to cramp, and a nurse had rubbed the cramps away for her. Hardy had brought her a little machine that played music, and he had shown her how to play songs on it. She had learned quickly, and learned how to use the uncomfortable things over her ears, as well. She only listened to one song. "Oh, Eddie. Come back to me," she whispered. "I'm here, Eddie." She felt his fingers lift off the bed, find her hair. She froze, wanting to believe what she had felt, afraid to find that she had imagined it. The distant fingers rose into her hair, drew closer to the infinity of chance. He felt. . . what? Her hair? He felt her hair, knew the texture of it in his heart. What is that smell?! God, my mouth is dry. It's too bright, can't see. He felt the world move, and then she was there. She was looking at him. "It's O.K. Eddie, I'm here. You've been fighting real hard, but you're gonna make it." "Hey, partner!" Is that Tommy? What are you doing here? "Man, buddy, you've given us one hell of a scare. But you're doing better, ya know, its gonna get better every day." It's O.K., Tommy, just relax, willya? "I'm going to leave you two together now, partner. But I hope you know she saved you, Ed. She's just been an angel. Now, get some rest, I'll bring some of the guys down tomorrow, OK? And, hey, Meathead sends his love." He looked up at Tommy as he left. He drifted in and out of the currents of time, floated as a waterborne leaf down a gentle river. He felt something slip over his ears, something warm. He felt his soul come alive as the piano burst into his ears, heard the voice. As involuntarily as he now breathed, he felt the tears of remembrance dance across his eyes. Sara Wood watched as the music played across his face, watched as he drifted into that place he went. She watched the music of his life play across the love of her life, and she now knew that with love comes pain, but that it is through both love and pain that we grow. Ed MacCarley drifted through the music of that special life, soared through the peaks of human experience, glided on sun-swept airs of sweet sleep on the gentlest of wings. He held himself to the warmth of that love he felt, to the light in Sara Wood's eyes. He could hear the music of her smile, feel the touch of her skin on his. He felt the dream yield to the rush of music, felt the moment of his birth among the stars. He felt the moment of his awakening. It was when I saw you there, curled up on your side, in that alley. He looked up into her eyes. They glowed in amber light. How did you know I needed to be saved? And I would never have guessed you were an angel. Oh, my love. * December 21st The little orange 737 touched down in Las Vegas, and two souls who had been lost once upon time walked through the terminal, and out to the street. They walked to a huge flaming pink Cadillac, and crawled through the parted front seat into the back. The two souls talked to the man and the woman in the front seat as they headed off into the city. They soon came to a little chapel. The two souls and the man and the woman walked into the chapel, down the aisle as music payed. They came to the end of this road as two, and stood before the Man of God, waiting to be united. The Man of God was wearing a huge-collared white leather suit, his big, black hair slicked back, standing there in outrageous sunglasses and platform shoes. The Elvis-God read the words of passage, and the two souls repeated the words, looking into each others eyes, looking to the eternal innocence of pure love as their salvation. They kissed, they looked at the man and woman, their friends in this life. "Thanks for doing this, Tommy," Ed MacCarley said to his friend. "Wouldn't have missed it for the world, Ed." The two men shook hands, hugged one another. The women hugged for what seemed a long time, and the older woman kissed the younger woman on the cheek, told her to "take care of that man." Two souls - now one. Lost to time's embrace, setting out on their journey together. Hand in hand, they walked toward from whence they had come. "Wait, Eddie, I wanted to thank that preacher," Sara MacCarley said. Ed looked over his shoulder. "That ain't gonna be happening, darlin." "Why not, Eddie?" "Well, because, darlin'," Ed MacCarley said, "Elvis has left the building." * * * The author wishes to acknowledge the lyrics to Awaken, by Yes, from the recording Going for the one, copyright 1977. As an aside, the author thanks all those who have written to him over the past few weeks concerning the original story, The Dividing Line. He would like those who might be interested to know that for some strange reason his wife is many years younger than he, but that she really enjoys living on a sailboat. And yes, he was a cop, once upon a time. And do you really have to ask what the sailboat's name is?