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On several
occasions following the evening court session, I had tried to get in touch with my
journalist friend, Mary Streeter. The only contact I was able to make was with her voice
mail.
The first
time the recording came on I decided not to leave a message, hoping instead, to be able to
speak with her directly later in the evening. When I was unsuccessful the second time as
well, I left a message indicating I was calling from Chicago and I would try to make
contact with her on Thursday morning, before she left for work.
After a
night of what seemed like dreamless sleep, I awoke around 7:00 a.m.. I became busy with
the morning rituals of preparing for another day and was ready to call Mary around 8:00
a.m..
Hoping that
I would neither be waking her nor catching her in the middle of a shower, I placed the
call and waited to see if she would answer. A few seconds later, she had picked up her
phone.
"Hi,
Mary, its David Phelps," I said.
"Good
morning," she responded. "I got your message last night. I'm sorry I missed your
call.
"For
the last several weeks, I've been engaged in doing some extended research and interviews
for an upcoming series of articles on a variety of ecological issues. Consequently,
lately, I've haven't been spending much time around the house."
"Not to
worry," I assured her. "I hope I didn't wake you or that I'm not calling at an
inopportune time."
"Your
timing is impeccable," Mary informed me. "I was just about ready to get busy on
my day's itinerary and would have left in another five minutes or so.
"In
fact, I was looking at the phone just now wondering if you would call" she indicated.
"Therefore, I'm completely yours for all of three or four minutes.
"By the
way, what are you doing in Chicago?" she inquired. "Are you attending a
conference or something?"
"Or
something," I replied. "It's kind of a complicated story.
"If
possible," I added, "I would like to be able to get together with you on, maybe,
Sunday night or Monday, sometime, and tell you more about it. This may be premature on my
part, but there could be a story in all of this for you.
"However,
whether or not there is a story, I think I need some help from you. Unfortunately, by the
sounds of your hectic schedule these days, maybe my timing is not so impeccable after
all."
"As a
matter of fact, David, you are on a bit of a roll," Mary corrected me. "Around
one o'clock, or so, on Monday afternoon, I could manage at least an hour. Do you think
that will be enough time?"
"I'm
sure it will be," I replied.
"O.K."
she confirmed, "why don't you pick me up at the office and I'll let you splurge all
of seven or eight dollars on me in a sandwich shop somewhere."
"You
ink-stained wretches of the newspaper business are always looking for someone else to pick
up the tab," I complained.
"You
are going to have update your insults David," Mary advised me. "We work with
computers these days."
"Don't
you need pens to take down notes?" I countered.
"Sorry,
David," she said without sympathy, "we use miniature electronics to look after
such mundane tasks. I hope your courses at the university are more current than your
information about the world of journalism."
"I 'm
beginning to wonder about that, actually," I responded. "Look, Mary, I know you
have to make a getaway, but before you go, there are a few names which I want to leave
with you, and anything that you can find out, might be of use to me."
"Go
ahead," she said.
"Is
your tape recorder on?" I asked.
"No,"
she answered, "I'm on a manual back-up system, sometimes referred to as a
pencil."
I proceeded
to list the names. "There are two organizations in which I'm interested- namely, The
Bettinger Foundation and Futures Unlimited. The latter organization may have some kind of
research center in northern Maine, and it may, or may not, have some kind of religious
affiliation.
"In
addition, see if you can come up with anything on a group known as the Botclofots. They
may be associated with a community center, of some kind, located on St. Jude in Boston. I
have a funny feeling you may come up empty on this group, but give it a try anyway.
"Finally,
several years ago, I'm not exactly sure when, but, probably, within the last six or seven
years, a guy by the name of Brian Idaho was convicted of murdering an FBI agent on an
Indian reservation in the Mid-west. Recently, he has turned up missing at the federal
facility where he was being housed. I don't know what you can find out about the case or
him, but, again, I would be interested in whatever you might come across.
"Don't
spend a lot of time on any of this, Mary. You probably don't have it to spend in any case.
"What
I'm really hoping for, I suppose, is for you to make a few discreet inquiries with some of
your journalist friends around the country concerning the names I've given to you. If I'm
lucky, maybe something interesting and useful may fall out if someone shakes the right
tree.
"A word
of caution, though, Mary, on all of this. Be careful about whom you contact or how and
where you make your inquiries.
"Quite
possibly, there already are two people who are dead as a result of something that is going
on in connection with the situation in which, quite inadvertently, I have become
entangled. In addition, there have been several abductions, or, at least, one abduction
and one attempted abduction in connection with this thing.
"I
wouldn't want anything untoward to happen to you. In fact, if you want to back away from
this, I would understand."
"Are
you kidding?" Mary asked incredulously. "You've been ringing all the right bells
that, like Pavlov's dogs, make any journalist worth her or his salt begin to salivate in
anticipation.
"Sorry,
David, but I have to get going. I'll see you on Monday around one. Bye for now."
I hung up
the phone and looked at my watch. If I hurried, I could squeeze in breakfast and get to
the courtroom in time to grab a seat for the morning session.
The court
proceedings for the morning session ended a little after twelve noon. I was feeling quite
hungry and decided to visit the restaurant right next to the hotel that, among other
things, served some delicious fish dishes.
After
consuming my meal, I returned to the hotel and wondered what to do next since I felt that
I had reached my saturation point with the technical discussions of the trial. During
lunch, I had checked over the schedule of programs for the afternoon and had decided there
was nothing which struck my fancy.
I was
beginning to wonder just when and how - or if - I was ever going to meet the person about
whom Rip had told me during the last part of our conversation at the community house on St
Jude. He had indicated that events would overtake me, but I was becoming impatient to be
overtaken by these elusive events so that I could get on with things and, maybe, find out
about what the meaning was of all the mysterious events that had been taking place in my
life recently.
I went up to
one of the lounge areas adjacent to some of the rooms in which symposium meetings, of one
sort or another, were taking place. Perhaps, some great inspiration would come to me while
I relaxed, and, as a result, I would be pointed in the direction of a constructive course
of action.
The lounge
area was moderately large. In fact, the area was big enough for me not to feel like I was
intruding on, or being crowded by, what appeared to be a group discussion involving six or
seven people that was taking place in the corner of the lounge area diagonally across from
me.
The
combination of size, carpeting, drapes and ceiling materials seemed to absorb much of the
sound in the area so that very little of the discussion was able to carry over to my area.
Whatever sounds that did reach me from the group were very muffled and indecipherable.
For awhile,
I watched the group from afar, attending, to some extent, to the frequency with which
different people seemed to participate in the on-going discussion. I wondered, in a rather
disinterested fashion, what was being discussed and tried to use various clues of body
language as a gauge that might indicate whether the matters being addressed were important
or incidental issues.
Eventually,
my attention wandered inwardly. I found my thoughts running in cycles that went from
Jennifer, to Ken and Pam, to Rip, to Beth and Brian, then back to Jennifer again, ready
for another cycle to begin.
Warren Idaho
was thrown into the mix every so often. I didn't know what to make of his 'missing in
action' status.
Was the
inability of Warren's friends to contact him in some way connected to Brian's
disappearance from prison or Beth's abduction? Or, was Warren simply in transit and would,
at some point, surface wondering what all the fuss was about?
As I was
reflecting on these matters, I suddenly realized someone had approached me and was
standing in front of me. The individual was a short, bearded man who looked to be in his
early to mid-thirties.
He smiled
and gestured vaguely over his shoulder with his left hand in the general direction of the
group behind him. "We saw you from across the way and decided to ask if you would
like to join us," he informed me.
My initial
reaction was to decline the invitation. I didn't know if I was up to a discussion,
especially if it concerned issues in which I might have little, or no, interest.
However,
remembering that just a day ago I had been wondering how to go about getting myself into
circulation and, in this way, be in a position to contact more people, I resisted my
inclination to stay removed from the group. Assenting to the invitation with a nod, a
smile and the verbal confirmation: "Sure, why not," I arose from the couch and
accompanied the man to the lounge area in the corner across from my former place of
repose.
Having
exchanged introductions on the way over to the group, the man who had extended the
invitation, and whose name was Vince Ardello, said to the others who had been waiting for
our arrival: "Everyone, this is David Phelps from Boston." Vince, then,
proceeded to quickly go around the circle and mention the names of each of the members of
the group.
I remembered
a few names and was able to match them with the right face. Three or four of the names,
however, had failed to register in anything beyond short-term memory.
Fortunately,
with the exception of one of the participants, the people were wearing name tags.
Unfortunately, the person without the name tag was also one of the individuals whose name
had escaped me.
Hopefully,
someone would mention her name during the course of the discussion. If this didn't happen,
then, if required to do so, I would have to figure out some way to address her without
embarrassing either of us.
Once Vince
and I were settled, the woman without the name tag said to me: "David, we've been
having a fairly free-form discussion about a variety of issues concerning spirituality and
secularism. Just before you came we had begun to explore Joseph Campbell's approach to
myths and mythology and what, if anything, he has to say about the nature of
spirituality."
"Well,"
I said, "I know a little about Jung's treatment, and understanding of myth, but I
know very little about Joseph Campbell except the bits and pieces I happened to catch on
one or two of the shows in Bill Moyers' PBS series. I'm afraid I didn't learn enough from
my limited exposure to really figure out what Professor Campbell was all about."
"You're
in good company," she replied. "There is considerable debate about whether he
was a mystic, a romantic, a philosopher, a psychologist or something else.
"Certainly,
more than a few people have categorized him as some sort of Jungian. Maybe, you would care
to share with us something of your understanding of Jung's conception of myth."
"I've
only been sitting for sixty seconds," I observed, somewhat nervous about the prospect
of having to sound intelligent, "and, already, my seat seems rather hot."
"I'm
sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to put you on the spot.
"You
didn't," I responded, "I'm just trying to figure out how to jump into the
conversational waters when my normal style is to let the waves of the discussion wash over
my feet for a while before I wade in further. Furthermore, you probably all know much more
about this than I do."
"Maybe,
but I doubt it," she suggested. "We all have our strengths, I'm sure, but we
are, by and large, just interested amateurs in most of the things we have been discussing
up to this point."
"If you
promise not to quote me," I stated, "I suppose there are a few things about myth
and Jungian psychology that I could say which, if nothing else, might be slightly better
than dead air-space. Although I hope you won't throw this claim back in my face if it
turns out that after I'm done, you would have preferred dead air-space."
"David,"
Vince assured me, "you should treat us as people who have just come out of a long
session in a sensory deprivation tank and are starved for stimulation. We are hungry for
whatever you may have to offer us."
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