Jason Yeager found himself in a singularly unusual position; at the relatively young age of twenty-seven he was, for all practical purposes, retired.

Jason awoke, without the aid of an alarm, at a little past seven o’clock in the morning, the same as he did every day. As soon as his feet hit the floor he was on the clock. It took five minutes to brush his teeth and shave. His shower took another five. It took seven minutes to towel off and blow dry his hair. It took another three minutes to dress and put on his glasses; the late August weather was still warm enough that a T-shirt and shorts were all he needed. After he was dressed he made the bed, happy in the knowledge that when the day was done he wouldn’t be climbing into a messy bed.

Jason’s cats, Mr. Misty and Little Bear, were waiting for him when he got downstairs. Mr. Misty was a long-hair brown tabby and Little Bear had short black hair. Jason opened the pantry and scooped a cup and a half of dry cat food into their food dish. Then he rinsed out their water dish and filled it with fresh water. His responsibilities for his cats completed for the day, he poured himself a bowl of bran cereal and picked up Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, his current paperback. After breakfast he put his cereal bowl and spoon in the dishwasher and carried his glass of juice and his book into the living room. Stretching out on the couch he read while Mr. Misty and Little Bear took turns climbing up on his chest to get their morning attention. They entertained themselves by trying to distract him from his reading.

At nine-thirty Jason, basketball under his arm, unlocked his big two-car garage and wheeled out his 10-speed. He strapped on his helmet, stuck his sack lunch and Palm Pilot hand-held computer in a little bike pouch between the handle bars and put his water bottle in its holder. The basketball he bungeed to the back of the bike. He cycled to the end of his block, then took a right onto Washington Avenue, the major artery in the small college town that was Rainbow Creek, Iowa. Riding past "Old Botany," he took a right onto the bike path that would lead him to his destination: Walter H. Williams memorial park.

Jason arrived at the basketball court a little before ten o’clock. He leaned his bike on a sturdy oak and took off his bicycle helmet. He placed his sack lunch into his helmet and tucked them both in the shade. He took the basketball in his hands and stepped onto the court.

Pulling out his digital pocket watch from his shorts pocket, he noted the time: 9:56: a few minutes early. He stretched and looked at the basketball court itself: run-down, cracked, un-cared for. Those were its distinguishing characteristics. Perfect for Jason’s purposes. Because of the dilapidated nature of the court he knew he wouldn’t be bothered for the rest of the day.

It was time. Jason clocked in. He stood at the faded and cracked paint of the free-throw line and took his first shot. Swoosh. The ball bounced back to him and he took a second. Swoosh. He continued to shoot and continued to score, missing only occasionally. He kept count of his success rate mentally. As he continued to play he would pause at the end of each hundred-shot count and enter his success rate into his Palm Pilot. A month ago his miss rate was eleven percent. Today he would average seven misses out of every hundred shots. He was certainly making progress. He could picture the graph in his mind.

At one o’clock Jason took a twenty-minute break for lunch. He sat under the oak tree and ate his ham and cheese sandwich and thought about its cost: forty-one cents, including tax. He pulled out a plastic sandwich bag filled with generic barbecue-flavored potato chips. The cost? Twenty-three cents. Total cost for lunch: sixty-four cents. Yes, Jason thought, it did pay to buy in bulk.

At three-twenty Jason clocked out for the day. The time held just a little irony; Three-twenty was the time classes ended when Jason was in high school.

He strapped on his helmet and headed east, toward downtown. Today was Monday and his day to go to "Myriad Mary’s," the local used book store.

"Hi, Jack," Mary hailed as he walked in. "What can I do for you this week? What’s on your list?"

Jack pulled out his Palm Pilot and tapped the screen with his stylus twice. "I’m looking for anything by Jack Finney. What do you have?"

"Yeah, Finney," Mary said as she rounded the corner. She walked with a bit of a limp, but she was still pretty spry considering she was in her mid-seventies. "I was wondering when you’d get around to him. Do you want something from early in his career or something a little more recent?"

"Maybe one of each, I think."

Mary walked toward the back of the store, Jack following. She went to the Science Fiction section and looked up at the second shelf from the top. She looked over the selection and pulled down two books. "Here you go. I think these will get you started nicely."

Jack looked at the covers: The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Time and Again. Jack held up the first book. "I think I saw this one."

"The black and white version or the one with Mr. Spock?"

"The original, I guess."

"What else are you looking for?"

"I don’t know. I’m going to look around through the new arrivals. You get anything good this week?"

"With your taste in books it’s mighty hard to tell. Better see for yourself -- you know where they are."

Jack walked over to the "new arrivals" bin and started looking through the books. It was his habit to buy four books every week, three fiction and one non-fiction. In addition to the two books he had, he added battered copies of Stephen King’s The Shining. He also found a very new copy of a book called Advanced Topology: Numerical Methods and Algorithms.

"So, what did you think of Something Wicked This Way Comes?" Mary asked as Jason walked back to the cash register.

"It wasn’t really what I expected. The writing style was kind of weird. I liked it, though. I’m most of the way through Dandelion Wine now."

"Both good summertime reading, don’t you think?"

"Oh, yeah. Perfect."

Mary looked through Jason’s selections and rang up his total: four dollars and twenty-four cents. A dollar apiece plus six-percent sales tax. He handed over five one-dollar bills, took his change, thanked her and left.

When Jason got home he locked his bike away in the garage and walked into the house. "Get off the counter!" he mock-growled at Little Bear, who pretended not to know what he meant. Jason carefully lifted her off the kitchen counter and dropped her on the floor (not too hard). Then he bent down and scratched her behind the ears. Jason pulled out a large pot from the refrigerator and put it on the stove, turning it on to a low flame.

Walking into the downstairs guest bedroom, he opened the closet door. Inside the closet a shelf had been built into the closet on the left side. It was the perfectly logical space for hiding a computer and that’s just what Jason had done. He turned on the power for the computer and waited for it to boot up. On startup, the computer had been configured to load and run a utility application automatically.

The utility program was named (and versioned) "LifeBalancer V1.2." Version 1.0 had been written by Jason on a sleepness night ten months before. Jason synched his Palm Pilot to the database, which entered his expenses for the day and his shooting average (ninety-three percent) from his 5 hours on the basketball court into his program. LifeBalancer was, in fact, Jason’s primary tool for maintaining – as the name suggested – a sense of balance in his life.

His data entry (the names and cost of the books he’d bought) only took a few minutes and then he powered down the computer and went back out to the kitchen. He stirred the pot of beef stew he’d mixed up the night before (total cost: four dollars and twenty-seven cents), put Linda Ronstadt’s What’s New CD (covers of old torchlight songs) in the stereo and poured himself a glass of red wine from a large bottle. He ate dinner listening to music and reading Dandelion Wine.

After dinner, Jason bookmarked his page and stepped through the kitchen door onto his back porch. The sun had set a half-hour before. It was dusk, the end of a day that had been pretty good. From a crumpled pack, he took out and lit his one and only cigarette for the day. Then, as he inhaled and exhaled his first puff, he looked out on his back yard and watched the late summer fireflies as they danced their ancient bioluminescent dance.

***

***

It was nine-thirty on a Tuesday night. For the most part the only people in O’Doole’s Tavern were the regulars. Although the bar featured live music on the weekends, it was a good quiet place during the week. A good place to meet and talk.

"Jason! Over here!" Dennis waved Jason over to the booth. Dennis had apparently come directly from work; he was still dressed in his suit and tie.

"It’s good to see you again, man!" Dennis said, grabbing Jason’s hand. Jason sat down and a waitress walked over. He ordered a pint of light beer and a basket of potato chips. Dennis ordered a whiskey sour.

Dennis eyed Jason expectantly. "So, what’ve you been doing?" he asked.

Jason settled into the booth. "Nothing really special. It’s more or less the same as the last time I saw you."

"When was that?" Dennis asked. "Back in April or May?"

"April I think."

The waitress brought over their drinks.

As Jason reached for his wallet, Dennis waved him off with his hand. "Here, let me get this," he said.

"Thanks, I appreciate it." Jason took a sip of his beer. He smiled at the waitress as she turned to leave.

"Well, you shouldn’t be such a recluse," Dennis continued. "We go back a long way, man. We ought to try to get together for lunch or something."

"I don’t know," Jason said hesitantly. "I’ve got myself on kind of a schedule. I really hate to mess it up."

"Yeah, I guess not. Anyhow, you really should get out more, you know?"

Jason felt that he got out plenty, and in ways that were more meaningful than ‘doing lunch.’ "I don’t know," he said. "I think I’m doing okay. What did you want to talk to me about?"

Dennis took a sip of his drink. "Well, mostly I wanted to see you and see how you were doing."

"And…", Jason said. He was suspicious. With Dennis he had good reason.

"And… well, maybe see if you had the time in your busy schedule to do a little consulting work. Not too much, maybe twenty hours a week or so."

Jason smiled. "Uh, Dennis, I’m really not interested in doing that. I thought I’d explained all that to you."

"I know, I know," Dennis said. "It’s not like the old days."

"No, it’s not," Jason said. His expression suddenly became more serious.

Dennis kept pressing, not registering the change in Jason’s demeanor. "But I thought you might be interested. I mean we’ve got other consultants I can use, but I thought I’d give you first crack at it, you know?"

"Yeah, I truly appreciate it. Thanks."

Again, Dennis missed the subtle sarcasm in Jason’s tone. "Are you positive you’re not interested? Because if you’re not I can completely understand that and respect it."

"Believe me, I’m certain," Jason said. He took another sip of his beer. He hoped Dennis would drop the subject before he found himself saying anything he regretted.

Dennis nodded his head and said, "Okay, okay." He looked back toward the bar. Seeing their waitress he waved her over and ordered another drink. When the waitress left the booth, he suddenly snapped his fingers and his face brightened a little. "Oh, there was another thing I wanted to tell you," he said.

"What’s that?" Jason asked, worried that it involved another business opportunity.

"Leslie and Jim are having a party at their place Friday night. When I mentioned to her I was meeting you for drinks she asked me to invite you along."

Jason looked hesitantly. "Gee, I don’t know…"

"Come on. It would be good for you to get out for a change. And besides, everybody would love to see you and see how you’re doing."

"Yeah, I’m sure they would," Jason said. He seriously wondered whether they’d want to see him ever again. The idea of going to a party the party at Leslie’s, and seeing her and everybody again, made Jason nervous.

"No, they really love to see you," Dennis continued. "Everybody’s been wondering what you’ve been up to. You really ought to go."

"You think I should, huh?"

"Sure, why not?" Dennis said.

"I’ll tell you what -- I’ll think about it," Jason half-promised as he drank his last swallow of beer.

***

***

Wednesday morning Jason woke up and started his morning routine. He left the house fifteen minutes early and on the way to the basketball court he took a short detour. He rode south until he hit the old airport road, then headed east.

The three-story structure stood apart from the other buildings in the office park. Its gray exterior seemed cold and heartless. They had laughingly called it "The Monolith" and Jason had worked within its walls for seven and a half years. This had been the first time in months Jason had been by the building. The parking lot was full of cars and Jason thought about Dennis and Leslie all the other people hard at work inside. Going about their business. Sitting in meetings. Dealing with all the minor emergencies. The steel and concrete and glass building held a lot of memories and surprisingly strong emotions. Anger and bitterness and resentment and…

Jason looked at the building from the safety of the road. He didn’t want to get any closer.

***

***

Three-twenty. Quitting time. Jason entered his seven percent miss rate into his Palm Pilot. Then he cycled over to the video store. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Mike’s Video Spot rented old movies two for a dollar, and Jason liked to take advantage of the bargain. He rented four videos which wouldn’t be due until Saturday at noon. Mostly he found himself watching the classics. One evening he’d written a program that compiled a database of "really good" videos. Jason was slowly working his way down the list.

At home he put on the stew pot and synched his data with LifeBalancer. He poured a glass of wine and scooped up a bowl of stew. Shooing Mr. Misty off the couch, he sat down to watch a young Jack Lemmon and an even younger Shirley MacClaine in Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

It was after ten o’clock when Jason got to Leslie and Jim’s house. From the sounds inside, the party was apparently well under way. Before Jason could ring the front doorbell, Leslie opened the door.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed, "Dennis told me you might come, but I didn’t believe him. Come on in!"

"Thanks," Jason said as he stepped in the front door. "It’s really good to see you again. Here, I brought this." Jason handed Leslie a bottle of Merlot. "Dennis didn’t tell me if I should bring anything or not."

"Oh, thank you, sweetie!" She gave him a hug. "Hey, everybody! Look who’s here!"

Several familiar faces greeted him. As he shook hands and exchanged hugs, he was taken aback by how genuinely happy most of the people seemed to be to see him. Several people wanted to know how he was and what he’d been doing since leaving the company. A few people were surprised to learn that he was still living in town.

After the novelty of his surprise appearance died down, Jason found himself sitting in the living room listening to a conversation between two of the managers, Ted and Jerry, about recent market trends in the on-line technology industry. After awhile Ted asked Jason what he thought.

"Oh, I don’t know," Jason replied. "I really don’t follow that kind of stuff much anymore."

"Yeah, I suppose you don’t need to. So, Jason…"

"Yes?"

"I was wondering. How is your retirement treating you?"

The word surprised him. "Retirement? Is that what people are calling it?"

Ted smiled. "Well, you know what I mean."

Jason took a sip of his wine. "I guess it’s okay. Nothing really exciting to report I suppose."

"Really? No big secret projects in the works?"

"No, nothing like that. Excuse me, I think I’m going to go get some more wine."

"Sure, buddy."

Jason wound his way through the rooms of the house back toward the kitchen. He stopped in the entryway and overheard a woman say, "Six straight months of guitar lessons and then he drops them. What was that all about?"

Jason stopped. They were talking about him. It made him uncomfortable but a little curious.

"I’m sure he had a good reason," he heard Leslie say.

"It’s just a little strange is all. I mean, God knows he can afford to do anything he wants, right? But it’s just kind of odd. Don’t you think he’s acting a little weird tonight? He doesn’t seem like his old self at all."

"Well, maybe he’s not the same person he was," Leslie said, a little protective anger creeping into his voice. "And thank God for that. You don’t know what it was like there at the end. You didn’t see the kind of pressure he was under. I did. I don’t blame him one bit for leaving. I really don’t."

So Leslie was defending him. Jason decided it was time to stop eavesdropping. He set his glass down on a nearby bookcase and left by way of the back door.

Stepping onto the porch he saw he wasn’t alone. A short woman, a brunette, was standing in the shadows, smoking a cigarette.

"Hi," she said. "You must be Jason."

"Uh huh," he replied.

She stepped over closer to him. "You smoke?" she asked.

"Sure," he said. She pulled out a Newport and offered it to him, along with a lighter.

Jason lit the cigarette (his second of the day) and took a drag. "Thanks," he said. "My reputation precedes me, huh?"

She nodded with a smile. "By the way," she said, "my name’s Kathy. I’m an old friend of Leslie’s."

"Nice to meet you, Kathy." Jason shook her small hand gently.

"From what people have been saying, I get the impression you’re quite an interesting guy."

"I don’t think I’m all that interesting," Jason replied, a little embarrassed.

"Actually, people seem to have all kinds of different ideas about you. I have to admit I find it somewhat intriguing."

Jason pointed to the house. "Is everybody in there talking about me?" he asked.

"Just about."

Jason leaned forward against the porch railing. And looked up at the sky. "That’s terrific," he said. "I’m glad my appearance here tonight has provided so much entertainment."

"The really don’t know what they’re talking about, do they?" Kathy asked carefully.

"No," Jason replied, "They don’t."

Jason finished the last of the beef stew and put his dishes in the dishwasher. It was after seven o’clock in the evening and the rates were low. He picked up the telephone and dialed. His sister answered the phone. They talked for a little while about her husband Phil and their kids. Jason’s nephew Gerry had just won first place in the second-grade art fair.

"You really ought to come down for a visit," Harriet said. "Maybe come down for a week or two. Enjoy the pool, you know?"

"Yeah, that would be nice," Jason said.

"So, is there anything going on in your life?" his sister asked.

"Well, I went to a party last night and met a woman. Her name’s Kathy Gibbs and she’s a friend of Leslie’s."

"Ooh, this sounds interesting. Are you going to go out with her?"

"As a matter of fact, we are. Tomorrow night."

"Did you ask her or did she ask you?"

"She asked me."

"Sounds like you."

"Yeah, I guess. It’s just that I don’t know if I really want a relationship right now. I’m pretty happy with things as they are."

"It’s not a relationship, Jason. It’s just a date. But who knows? I think a girlfriend would probably do you good, depending on the woman."

Jason took this comment to be a reference to Tina. "It’s just that it’s hard to explain things. You know, how things are with me. The party was weird."

"In what way?"

"Most people can’t seem to accept what I’m doing. Hell, a lot of the time I don’t understand it myself. I know it’s uncommon, but they treated me like I was some kind of escaped mental patient."

"Jason," Harriet said, "I have a question to ask you. Are you happy?"

"Yes," Jason said.

"That’s all that’s important."

"Lately I find I have this sense of peace, which is really wonderful. But I don’t think most people can identify with it."

"Most people, most people. The right people will understand and will get it. I sure as hell get it. I’m just thankful my little brother is alive and happy and healthy."

"Thanks, Harriet. I appreciate it," Jason said. "Listen, I’m thinking about the offer to come down there. Do you know if there’s a park or something with a basketball court?"

"That’s a funny question, but yes, there’s one a few blocks from here."

***

***

Jason picked Kathy up at her apartment a little before eight o’clock. It had been the first time he’d driven his car in three weeks. Sometimes he entertained thoughts about cutting back on expenses even further by selling the car, but figured it was good to have it when he needed it.

Jason took Kathy to a nice restaurant downtown and they had a pleasant dinner. Kathy had a nice sense of humor. It turned out that she and Leslie were roommates in college and had kept in contact ever since. After living and working in Chicago for five years she’d moved back to Rainbow Creek to take a job at the university as a senior administrative aid to the provost.

After dinner they went back to Jason’s house to continue their conversation and share a bottle of wine. Following a short tour of the house – Kathy thought the computer in the closet was a little weird but a great idea – they settled down on the couch to talk. Kathy was especially curious about what happened after Jason left the company.

"The first month it seemed like all I did was catch up on my sleep," Jason said.

"From what Leslie told me, it sounds like you were overdue," Kathy interjected.

"After about a month I started to go a little stir crazy. All I did was sleep and eat and read. I found myself becoming kind of depressed. Sometimes I would wonder if I was doing the right thing or not. On the one hand I was committing career suicide. On the other hand I had enough money so I wouldn’t have to worry about work."

Kathy smiled. "Jason, don’t take this the wrong way, but just how much money do you have?"

Jason took a sip of wine. Talking about the specifics of his financial situation made him uncomfortable. "Let’s just say that I have enough to live off of for the rest of my life, but I have to be careful."

"What do you mean by careful?" Kathy asked.

"After I… made the decision to stop working… I sat down one night and built this mathematical model, projecting it out over my lifetime."

"Okay…"

"I determined that if I lived under certain budgetary constraints and watched my expenses I could make it work. It’s just a matter of discipline and making a commitment to sticking to my budget over the remainder of my life. Based on my projections, the next fifteen years are critical. For every dollar I spend now it means about forty to fifty dollars I won’t have when I’m seventy."

Kathy laughed. "In that case I really should thank you again for buying me dinner, shouldn’t I? But seriously, isn’t it hard, living like that?"

"For a lot of people I think it might be. I came to the realization that -- for me, anyway -- happiness isn’t something you buy. It doesn’t come from having expensive possessions. Once I saw that buying stuff and spending money was just a big trap, and that what was the most valuable thing to me was really my peace of mind, well then…"

"I guess going on safaris and traveling around the world is out, then?"

"Yeah. The same goes for buying new cars or big screen TVs or expensive suits."

"So what, you shop at Goodwill?"

"For some things, yeah."

Kathy thought about this. "You know," she said, "in all honestly I was wondering if you were some kind of a kook."

"That’s nice."

"No, really. I was wondering if when we came over here if you were going to be some kind of crazy eccentric."

"And now what do you think?"

Kathy smiled. "I don’t think you’re the best housekeeper in the world, but I don’t think you’re crazy."

"Thanks, I think."

Kathy continued. "But… I don’t really understand how much longer you can really live like this. I wonder if it’s realistic to stick to the kind of… monetary abstinence… that you’ve set up for yourself."

"I see."

"I think for the most part you’re pretty normal, but I can’t help but wonder if this isn’t just a temporary reaction to burnout. Five years from now are you still going to be doing this? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a phase you’re going through. I would think that after awhile it would get boring and you’ll naturally gravitate back into doing something more… professionally meaningful."

Jason was surprised by her candor. The honesty was refreshing and she wasn’t saying anything he hadn’t thought about already. "I can see how you might wonder about that," he said.

"I mean, I would be lost without my career. Rightly or wrongly, I get a lot of my sense of identity from my work."

"A lot of people do. But does that make it right?"

"I don’t know. All I can do is tell it the way I see it. Tell to me more about this basketball thing. I don’t think I get that."

"I know it seems kind of strange, but it’s not at all. It’s perfectly logical."

"Okay, so try to explain it to me. Use simple language so I’ll understand. Was there a ‘mathematical model’ involved?"

Jason laughed. "No, there wasn’t, actually. It’s very simple. The key is self-discipline. What I’m doing is teaching myself to focus on one thing at a time. And the essence of my plan is to devote myself to a single endeavor for six months at a stretch. It used to be there were a hundred different things I always wanted to do but never had the time. This way I’m not trying to do a whole lot of different things and not doing any of them really well."

"So the guitar lessons was your first trial run."

"Yeah, and it worked pretty well. I’d always wanted to play the guitar, and back in high school I managed to teach myself a few chords. But I never really applied myself. It was like everybody I met who could really play had gone through some kind of period in their life when that’s just about all they did."

"So now you can play the guitar pretty well, then?"

"Uh-huh. I took one-hour lessons down at the guitar shop on Main street and then I would come back here and play for four hours."

"Every day."

"Monday through Friday. It became my job. It was hard to keep going for the first couple of weeks until the calluses developed on my fingertips, but after about three months I could see my system was working. All I had to do was focus on one thing. It was great."

"So, how much longer do you have with the basketball thing? When are the six months up?"

"September thirty-first will be my last day."

"And then what?"

"Well, the plan in general is to alternate between indoor, more intellectual pursuits during the winter months, and outdoor, more physical activities when the weather is nicer. So the next item on the list is watercolor painting. I’ll start on Monday, October third. Then I’ll be taking classes at the community center starting on the seventeenth."

"And what’s on the program after that?"

"Running."

"That sounds nice and healthy. And after that?"

"Writing… Short fiction."

"And after that?"

"Baseball."

"And after that?"

"Art history."

"And after that?"

"Tennis."

"And after that?"

The sky was clear on the drive down to Saint Louis. Mr. Misty was curled up on the passenger’s seat and Little Bear slept in the back window. Jason could have found someone to take care of them for two weeks, but he felt better having them with him. They were good travelers; after meowing for the first fifteen or twenty minutes, they’d settled in for the trip.

Past Des Moines, the interstate traffic wasn’t too heavy. Jason listened to a few CDs he’d brought along and after awhile decided to give the radio a try. He found a nice jazz station just before the Missouri border and followed the sound for as long as he could, finally losing John Coltrane to static about fifty miles from his destination.

It was early evening when Jason pulled up in front of his sister’s house. He stepped out of the car and his nephew Gerry came running out to see him. Jason picked him up and gave him a big hug. It had been six months since the last time he’d seen him. Harriet threw her arms around her brother as they walked in the door. She showed Jason to his room and then he went out to the car and brought in his luggage and the cats. Little Bear hid in the closet of Jason’s room, but Mr. Misty, the more adventurous of the two, went off to investigate the big house.

Gerry had a new game for his Nintendo system, and rejoiced in demonstrating it to Jason. Jenny, Harriet’s four-year-old sister was shy with Jason at first, but warmed to him after awhile. Her way of demonstrating approval was to introduce Jason to all of her dolls, which she marched out one at a time. Jason sat on the floor of the rec room and played with the video game and met Jenny’s dolls until Phil came home.

Working on Saturdays was just something Phil did, and he seemed to accept it as an immutable fact of life. He and Jason didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things and Jason doubted they ever would.

Over dinner Phil once again told Jason he "didn’t understand how somebody could throw so much potential down the toilet." Harriet cringed but didn’t come to her brother’s rescue, which Jason really appreciated. They just exchanged a private look over the spaghetti and salad.

Later, after reading Gerry and Jenny to sleep, Jason kissed them both on their little foreheads and went downstairs to his room. He changed into his swim suit and grabbed a towel. Walking through the living room, he told Harriet and Phil that he was going to go for a swim. Phil’s attention never left the baseball game he was watching and Harriet said she might come out after awhile.

It was a cloudless night and the stars shone like freshly-polished diamonds in the sky. After finding the switch for the pool light and turning it on, Jason took off his glasses and put them on a small table next to one of the pool chairs. He stepped carefully into the pool, but found it was still warm from the solar radiation of the day, even though the night air was cooling off.

He went into the water up to his neck, then ducked his head under to get his hair wet. He swam for half an hour until his arms and legs couldn’t take any more. Then he just floated on his back, looking up at the sky. There was a sensual quality to the way he felt. So whole. His aching arms. The feeling of being immersed in warm liquid. The delicate dancing patterns of the reflected blue light from the pool. The crescent moon shining up in the sky. It all felt so nice and peaceful and alive.

***

***

"What are you doing out here, Jason? Anything you shouldn’t be?" Harriet’s voice found him as she walked over to the pool.

Jason splashed as he turned in the direction of her voice. "Nothing much, just taking it easy. Come on in, the water’s still warm."

"That’s okay, I got some swimming in this afternoon."

Jason swam over to the side of the pool and boosted himself out. He walked over to his sister, who’d taken a seat in one of the pool chairs. He dried his hair and body off with the towel, then pulled on his T-shirt. Harriet had brought out two cans of beer. She handed one to him.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked, opening her beer.

"Dad. I was remembering coming to see him right before he died." Jason sat down in the chair next to his sister. The combination of the cool night air and his wet body sent a shiver through him.

"Want me to get a robe?" she asked.

Jason shook his head. "No. I’ll dry off soon enough, then it’ll be okay." He took another swallow of beer. He usually stuck to wine, but the beer tasted good, and somehow more appropriate.

"I think about dad a lot too," Harriet said. "We should just be thankful for the time we got to spend with him."

"But I wasted so many opportunities."

"We all did. So did he. That’s a part of life. But we can’t go beating ourselves up over it." She made a face like an old man and said, "That’s called guilt and it’s strictly for losers." It was a bad imitation of their father and made her brother laugh.

Harriet smiled, then said, "You know, Phil doesn’t understand you at all. It’s kind of funny, actually. I think he just can’t imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes. It’s a problem he has. He can never see anything from another person’s point of view. He just thinks about what he’d do in your situation and what you’re doing just makes no sense to him."

"I guess that’s too bad," Jason said.

"Remembering what I was saying about people understanding? Phil is a good man and a good father, but it doesn’t matter one damn if he ever understands you."

"It would be nice if my brother-in-law approved of me," Jason said, "But I guess I can live without it. The problem is, it’s not just Phil. It seems like lately I’ve had to deal with so many people who don’t get it. I feel like I’m starting to develop some kind of a complex."

"It’s not like you to care about what anybody else thinks," his sister said.

"I don’t. It’s just that everybody seems to think I’m some kind of damaged goods or I’ve got some kind of weird syndrome or something. I’m not that interesting. I’m not that complicated."

His sister looked at him.

"Life doesn’t have to be complicated," Jason said. "I think it’s just that for some reason people tend to make their lives unnecessarily hard."

"Maybe they do it so they won’t get bored." Harriet offered.

"Yeah, maybe. But that’s a pretty stupid reason. It’s like they buy into this stupid game and they play it and even if they win they’re still losing. But it’s all about this superficial crap like going to see the latest movie or buying the latest trendy clothes. Then they spend their whole lives chasing after all this meaningless stuff and they lose sight of what’s really important. That’s what I’m fighting. I’ve decided not to play the game and it makes me feel like some kind of a freak."

"I know," Harriet said. "You don’t have to convince me. I get it. I truly do. It sounds more like you’re trying to convince yourself than me."

"Well, maybe I need to keep doing that if I’m going to make it all work."

Harriet reached over and took his hand and gave it a squeeze. "Then keep doing it."

Jason put on his glasses and looked up at the stars. His sister looked up too. After awhile she spoke. "So you never told me. How was your date?"

"It was okay," Jason said. "Not great, but okay."

"Are you going to see her again?" Harriet asked.

"Probably. She seems nice enough. It’s funny, but I just realized a lot is riding on whether or not she can genuinely appreciate what I’m doing."

"So what you want is a woman who really understands you,huh? I remember when you were in high school and all you wanted was a girlfriend with big tits." Harriet laughed.

"Was I really that shallow?" Jason asked.

"No, silly, I’m only teasing. But let’s get back to this woman. Do you think she’s got the potential for this profound understanding?"

Jason shook his head. "The jury’s still out on that one. I don’t think she herself knows whether or not I’m some kind of nut."

"Well, just be sure to give her a chance. Don’t scare her off, okay? You know, if you want to call her from here that’s fine."

"I know," Jason said.

On Monday morning, Jason got up bright and early. It was seven o’clock, but he knew his brother-in-law would already be at work. It turned out the only other person in the household awake that early was his nephew, who he discovered in the kitchen trying to feed part of a pop-tart to Little Bear. Jason fixed himself a bowl of cereal and sat down with Gerry and watched Pokemon on the big screen TV in the rec room.

"Say, Gerry," Jason said, "Your mom tells me there’s a park near here with a basketball court, is that right?" Harriet had given him directions the night before, but he thought it would be nice to have his nephew’s company.

"Sure I do," Gerry said. "Do you want me to show you where it is?"

After the TV show ended, they went back to the kitchen and fixed a matching pair of sack lunches and filled two plastic cola bottles with water. Gerry insisted on packing strawberry fruit roll-ups for them both. By the time they finished, Jenny had gotten Harriet up and Jason explained what they were going to do. "I’ll bring him home if he gets bored," Jason assured his sister.

"Don’t you dare. It’ll do him good to spend the whole day with you. I’m sure you’ll figure out some way to make watching you shoot baskets interesting for him."

Outside in the driveway, Jason opened the trunk of his car and got out his worn basketball. Taking his nephew’s hand whenever they crossed streets, they walked together to the neighborhood park. It was a beautiful, warm, late August day. The summers lasted a little longer down south than they did back in Iowa.

When they got to the park, Gerry grabbed the ball and ran out ahead to lead his uncle to the court. Jason was happy to see it had a reasonable amount of shade cover and there was a swing-set close enough for Gerry to play on when he got bored. Standing on the free-throw line, the ball in his hands, Jason looked down at the freshly-painted court markings. Then he saw a crack in the concrete with a yellow dandelion growing out of it. A little outcropping of personality. The court wasn’t as run-down as the one back home, but Jason thought it would do just fine.

-End-