At eleven o’clock A.M. He is preparing to go to the cafeteria to eat.  The charge nurse for the surgical unit runs directly at W  and says “There is a large aneurysm to be resected in the main surgical theatre. Dr. P and Dr. Are want you there now.” Tell them to find someone else to assist them,” says W.   “They want you now,” says the charge nurse. “Go and scrub in, Now!”  “I have to check a bandage and then eat,” W says.   The Charge nurse points at the door and says “NOW!”    W then then slouches to the hallway ramparts, turns right and key in the code at the surgical unit door and enter.  “Grab a cup of coffee and some donuts,” says Dr. Are.  “We may be in there all afternoon.”   Get a new green and then scrub in.  “Where did you learn to wash your hands like that,” says Dr. are.  “In Mexico,” W says “And I got a “C” in surgery operating on dogs.”  “You will do,” he adds.

      The patient is a huge obese lady who is out cold under anesthesia.  The staff ropes her to the table.  Dr. P is there with a knife.  “Watch me rip her open,” he says.    He takes the stainless steel knife that glints from autoclave clean, starts at the belly and jerks it up to her rib cage.  Blood spurts everywhere.  “I will clamp the bleeders, you tie them off,” says Dr. Are.   We learned to tie knots fast at the Guad.   He clamps, W ties, he takes off the clamps and W ties the next. “We will be in next,” says Dr. P.  He takes all the used hemostat clamps and throws them in the corner eight feet away.”   “We have to count them all before we close,” says Dr. Are.   Dr. Are. takes a scalpel and cuts the peritoneal membrane and the viscera bulge out of the wound.  They are a beautiful pink on white.  He then sticks his hands into her abdomen and pulls out all of her guts and sets them on her chest on top of a cotton gauze towel.   He puts another towel on top of her bowels and says to me. “You have to hold them on her chest.  If you let them go, she dies.”  W holds.  He starts sweating and W holds and look inside her body cavity.  Dr. P is clamping off her aorta top and bottoms one large underneath her kidney and two other on the other two femoral arteries.  The aneurysm loots like a huge asymmetrical sac, reddish purple from coagulated blood about eight centimeters in diameter.   “It is ready to burst,” says Dr. P and he goes and gets the polyester pants that will replace the artery.  He holds them up and plays with them like a little rag doll.  Dr. Are says, “Is everyone ready?”  By now the whole surgical staff and medical student were watching from afar.  Some of them began to faint and were pulled outside by their friends.  The big fat woman who was dead because her heart had to stop to resect the aneurysm rolled on the table like a huge beached whale.  Dr. P said “Now.”  Dr. Are maneuvered to the other side of the table next to me.  Dr. P took a scalpel and in one motion delivered the aorta with aneurysm to a waiting steel bedpan held by Dr. W.  A charge nurse stepped in and took the bedpan.  W holds her guts on top of her chest.  Dr. P put the polyester pants in place and started to sew.  Dr. Are. took the top end and started to sew.  When they were done the polyester pants were in place with three clamps remaining.  “Second guess me Dr. Are.” said Dr. P.  “It looks good,” says Dr. Are.  “Let’s let her rip”.  Dr. P was the chief surgical resident in his fifth year.  He won the by over Dr. Are by subjective advantage.  They were both equally good.  Dr. P slowly, slowly. Slowly took the clamps off the aorta and threw them as far away from the table as he could.  W holds her viscera on her chest.   “Start her heart,” Dr. Are said to the anesthesiologist.  He injects epinephrine in her subclavian port and shocked her.  He shocked her again and the monitor came alive.  Sine wave and red blinking dot online. She is alive.  The graft inflated like a balloon and it held.  “Lets wait,” said Dr. W.  “I want to see.” The graft held and pulsed slowly. “Let go of her guts,” said Dr. Are.  W’s muscles were frozen into tetanic spasm and as she came back into consciousness, W let them go and stepped away from the table.  Dr. P stuffed the intestines back into her body cavity and closed the peritoneum with polylysine blue strand. Dr. are tied and cut the knots.  Dr. P said “thank you everyone.” And left.  Dr. W. said “Here is the stapler, “you staple her up.”  “I have to do an amputation.” So, W staples with a large stainless-steel stapler.  A second-year resident hold the skin together for W. as W staples.  W asked, “Why staples?”  The resident said, “In case we need to rip her open again, we can pop them quickly.”  W staples.  The anesthesiologist and the internist wheel her into recovery. They said, “You can go eat dinner now.”   We had to eat dinner because tonight was a call night every third day.  W will have to be up late.  Cigarettes lose their taste.  Coffee gives everyone who drinks a lot of it an ulcer.  What keeps someone going is sheer will, perseverance and faith.  After dinner W will sleep an hour and then walk rounds through the hospital till they tell W they do not need him until tomorrow.  By then it will be tomorrow anyway and the cycle begins anew and W wonders if he is really cut out to be a surgeon.  W needs too much sleep.  Every man must know his limitations and without knowing these a man is vulnerable to life and in life is birth, death and a new beginning.  W goes to the locker and scrub out.  Someone has stolen the earpieces from his stethoscope. W wraps tape around the pipe. Stick them in his pocket and walk towards the cafeteria.  The moon is full outside.  Spring is in the air.  The snow has melted and the air is delicious, but he is inside doing what needs to be done because it has to be done and he really wonder why.  He thinks about how he is going to sabotage the pager because they always bust him at dinner to do a blood gas.  They say he have good hands.  he would rather have a good heart.  The African American cook looks at me with a smile in the cafeteria. “The same,” he says  Chicken fricassee with broccoli and a scoop of mashed potatoes.  W does not know why she smiles at him. At this point W does not care.  He is on call tonight in the ICU.

“Well Dr. Wrak, you have completed twenty weeks of surgery and Dr. Ony has passed you,” says Dr. Q.  Dr. Q is the chief of internal medicine at Amityville hospital and oversees the fifth pathway program offered by New Amsterdam College.   Dr. Q stands slightly taller than average, has a slight build, olive colored skin, thin hair, but bright eyes.  His teeth show that braces were too expensive for his family in his youth and now as a rich medical doctor, he still has not corrected the poor bite which stands out when he smiles.  “I think that it is time for a vacation for you.  What elective rotation would you like for six weeks?” inquires Dr. Q.   “I would like radiology because there is no call in Radiology,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Don’t you like call,” explores Dr. Q.  “Not when it is every third day and I have to do surgery in the middle of the night,” says Dr. Wrak. “You will like the Radiology vacation,” says Dr. Q. “Dr. Pine will be instructing you.” “He is an extremely busy man.  Do not speak as you sit in the reading room and Dr. Pine will instruct you.”  “Not a word!”  insists Dr. Q.  “Not a word!”  “I promise,” says Dr. Wrak, “When do I begin?” “As soon as you leave this room.” Says Dr. Q.  “Dr. Pine is a pioneer in balloon angioplasty and will let you assist him if he likes you.”  “They read at ten AM and Four PM.” “Be there.’  “Thank you Dr. Q.” says Dr. Wrak.  As Dr. Wrak walks out of the room he hears again in the hall “Not a word Dr. Wrak.”   “Yes sir,” says Dr. Wrak as he enters the stairway and walks down from the second story at Amityville hospital into the stairwell.  Radiology lives on the first floor next to admissions.   The sign says, “Radiology, Patients enter here.”  Down the hall a smaller sign says, “Doctors only.”  Wrak chooses to enter there.  The cryptographer at the desk next to the door says, “Dr. Wrak you are late.  They are reading now.  Enter the room and take a chair in the back if one is available.  If not stand in back until they finish reading.”  “Thank you,” says Dr. Wrak.  The reading room lies to the right behind a sturdy oak door.  Inside the lights shroud a huge wall of white fluorescent reading screens with cloth pins at the top of each screen to hold the transparent X-ray films.  Comfortable padded chairs sit behind the screen plush with padding. Dr. Pine sits with three residents looking at films.  The room is dark and a red light provides enough illumination to enable a person to walk safely.  Dr. Wrak decides to stand in back.  “Good morning Dr. Wrak,” says Dr. Pine and he resumes reading films.   “This one is an intusception. Notice the fluid level above the obstruction. Phone third floor now.”   He flicks the film off the wall and places it back into a manila envelope.  A resident grabs the envelope, stands up and leaves without speaking a word.  Dr. Wrak takes his seat.  “This film is reactivation tuberculosis.  Notice the cavitation in the right lung apex on an anterior posterior.”  He puts the film back in an envelope, hands it to a resident and the resident leaves like the first one.  “Dr. Wrak, remember tuberculosis prefers the right lung because the main stem bronchus juts at a right angle.  The left stem bronchus exits at forty five degrees.  Above all be systematic in your analysis.” Says Dr. Pine.  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.   Dr. pine shoots through ten more films, looking at a film, writing an interpretation, and throwing the film back into a manila envelope.  He does this quickly and the clothes pins holding the transparencies on the wall make a snapping noise with the speed and ferocity of the actions.  “I am done.” Exclaims Dr. Pine.  “Do you want to assist in a procedure, he inquires.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.  “Get a radiology badge from the front office and meet me in surgery in thirty minutes.” Says Dr. Pine.  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.   The cryptographer in the front office opens a large manila folder as Dr. Wrak enters the office.  Inside the folder are bunch of radiology badges like prizes in a cracker jack box.   She wears her hair short, has glasses and a professional looking blouse buttoned up.  “Here is your badge. Do not lose it.”  She writes the number of the badge on a ledger and asks Dr. Wrak to sign it.”  “Thank you very much,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Take the badge home with you too,” She insists.

     “This patient has a stenosis in the left femoral artery at the level of the inferior olecranon process proximal to the popliteal space.” Says Dr. Pine.  “You are going to hold her leg still as I advance the cannula from her femoral triangle down to the obstruction.”  We will take films periodically as the balloon stylus descends.  The films will reveal progress.  Hold her leg still with both hands because if I pierce the arterial intima, an aneurysm will develop and the procedure will fail.  Dr. Wrak holds the patients leg and Dr. Pine inserts the cannula in the arterial stent created by a general surgeon moments before.  The X-ray gun hums.  A picture appears on the screen.  “Pixels,” says Dr. Pine.  “It is the new technology.”  He advances the cannula further.  The x-ray machine hums.  He advances the cannula as Dr. Wrak holds the patients leg.  The x-ray machine hums with a buzz and another picture appears on the screen above the table.  “We are almost there,” says Dr. Pine.  “When we get to the obstruction, hold the leg extremely still and I will inflate the balloon. At this point we will take films at the rate of one per five seconds to monitor the progress of the balloon inflating.”  The x-ray machine buzzes and a picture appears on the screen.  Dr. Pine squeezes a bulb furiously.  The x-ray machine buzzes and another picture appears on the screen.  The closed artery is being expanded.  The x-ray machine buzzes three more times and then Dr. Pine exclaims, “the dilation is successful.”  He deflates the balloon and slowly withdraws the catheter from the artery like an angler pulling in a fish.  The catheter appears to be three or more feet long. “Bring the patient back to recovery.” Says Dr. Pine The anesthesiologist leaves with the patient, dragging her IV pole beside him.  “Thank you Dr. Wrak.”  Says Dr. Pine. “See you at four.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head once.  As Dr. Pine walks out the surgical suite door he says casually as he exits, “The procedure only lasts for six months then the artery re-occludes.  I do them anyway.” “I am told what to do by the administration upstairs and if I don’t, they find someone who will.”

   “Dr. zel wants you to assist him in a lower GI barium swallow,” says the cryptographer. “Enter the room down the hall. You do not have to scrub.  The procedure will take about an hour.  You will rejoin the radiologists at four PM after lunch.  “What a morning,” thinks Dr. Wrak.  “Another surgical procedure.  I thought Radiology would be my vacation!”   Dr. Zel stands at medium height with large owl like spectacles and wavy dark brown hair.  He wears a pressed shirt and tie underneath the hospital smock.  “Take off your hospital smock and put on this lead suit says Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak complies. He puts his smock on the desk outside the radiology suite.  Dr. Wrak looks like the alien invader from Earth versus flying saucers. Dr. Wrak feels ill at ease.  The patient wheels in and the radiology orderly runs out.  Dr. Wrak helps Dr. Zel position the patient on a movable table and fastens the patient down.  “When I invert the patient hold them so they do not fall off the table. Assist the patient whenever possible, “teaches Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak helps Dr. Zel by moving the table into various positions as Dr. Zel takes pictures with an x-ray gun. About a half hour into the procedure something strange happens.  On the wall behind the screen a metal plate falls off the collimator at the top of the device, and a blue glowing flame appears in a steel box like a reactor core melting down.  The flame is intensely blue and Dr. Wrak cannot bear to look at it.  The room starts to smell like a lightning flash during a thunderstorm.  Dr. Wrak moves behind the lead glass screen and gesticulates to Dr. Zel about the huge blue flame in the metal box on the wall.  Dr. Zel smiles and says, “I have to finish the procedure,”  “You can go.” Dr. Wrak pounds on the glass and jumps up and down.  “It’s Ok” says Dr. Zel “the procedure is nearly over, you can go.”  Dr. Wrak nods his head in prayer and implores Dr. Zel to leave.  “It’s OK,” says Dr. Zel.  Dr. Wrak exits the room from behind the leaded glass and throws off the radiation suit.  He grabs his smock and proceeds to the cafeteria.  “Finally time to sit around and eat,” thinks Dr. Wrak.  “Where are you,” inquires a resident. “I am in Radiology now,” says Dr. Wrak.  “If you want to help in surgery, just stop by says a fourth year surgical resident. “I most certainly will,” says Dr. Wrak with a wan smile and he begins to eat the chicken fricassee with broccoli, mashed potatoes and gravy, chocolate milk and a cup of coffee with free refills to residents only.  This is the standard fare he can afford.

   “Good morning Ms. Kleb,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Dr. Wrak, you radiation badge is red and you must see the head of Radiology immediately.”  Dr. Wrak examines the radiation badge clipped to his left breast pocket and by Jove, the badge turned from ivory white to a bloody crimson red.  The chief of radiology is an older man with white hair and looks like either the God Thor or Loki the evil elf.  Dr. Wrak hands him his badge.  “Where have you been?” inquires the chief.  “Just a few procedures,” says Dr. Wrak.  ” I left my badge outside a procedure yesterday because I was wearing a lead radiation suit head to toe.  Somehow the badge got exposed to radiation.  The Chief says, “When a badge turns red , the event signifies a lethal dose of radiation.  You do not look sick.  If I report this badge, you cannot continue your residency until you complete medical treatment. I am going to throw it away and issue you a new badge as if this event did not ever happen.  I will alter the books.  Here is your new badge.  You can go back to the wards. If you feel sick in any way, come back and see me.”  “I will,” says Dr. Wrak.  “Good luck,” says the chief. 

     This is how radiology is. Even amongst educated elite, the world is a tooth and nail fight for wealth and supremacy.  All rivals and competitors face instant elimination on a daily basis and interact with  the forces of evil constantly.  Dr. Wrak hopes he was not exposed to high energy ionizing radiation.  Lots of radiation destroys the immune system.  Today is a new day and more films are to be read and more procedures done with x-ray guns pointed nearby.  Dr. Wrak finished the book on Clinical Radiology in one night and now knows what to expect and what to do in the hospital.  The future of Medicine lies in imagery because viewing things in situ, de facto, in surgery portends morbidity, mortality and worse for the patient and the staff.  Dr. Wrak runs with the new technology of Radiology and feels proud to be part of the new wave.  With the new wave comes great danger and in danger heroes are made. Some things must be done and not talked about.  Reading x-ray films expertly requires high intelligence, a background of medicine and the ability to visualize anatomic detail in the  mind as a doctor  correlates the information with the imagery presented on the film. Hope springs eternal even for the damned.

     “Dr. Wrak, are you finished with Radiology yet,” inquires Dr. Q from across the hall.  “We need you back on the ward.”  “I am still on vacation Dr. Q,  Still on vacation. Nice to see you. Two weeks to go.” 

Medicine is a fun and helping profession and W is glad to be part of it. 

In this clandestine life he has the opportunity to meet people, mostly at work. They come in all sizes and shapes and races and nationalities. Some are good, some are bad, some are pretty. Others not. They exist in different classes: some in suits, some in work-clothes, others in pajamas, others in bathing suits. If you decide to enter the health sciences, there are others.
Nurses in white, doctors in a smock, technicians in green. No blue, red or purple. Then there are the suits. Wearing a suit designates a human entity as administrative. Does the maker wear a suit? Late at night in a hospital, an ethical human being can find him there. Why is it always a him? He doesn’t talk, he doesn’t have to. Actions speak louder than words and when you are close, so very close, speaking does not make any sense.
He is tall, like most Celtic or Germanic men are. He is not muscular or overly emaciated, just thin like a long distance runner. He wears an expensive thin wool tweed suit in black or dark grey with something. Attornment of the very best. He sports a black tie, a small one neatly inserted into a white linen shirt. We never did get a chance to look at his shoes, he was entirely occupied. This man sports official credentials in a plastic placard hanging from a lanyard on his chest. This person seems to have contacts of the highest echelon and favor and has no friends. At least it doesn’t seem he has friends, the staff don’t seem to see him.
If a person dares to get close, and few people have, he contains light brown hair, a fair complexion, a normal nose with a slight crook to it and lips within the standard stanine. He might have freckles on his cheeks, only the lord knows. His eyes seem aquiline of the grey spectrum and he does not speak. We in the youth identified him once in a hospital at the witching hour of two AM. The occult seem to be fixed on this number for reasons unknown to the faithful. Of all things to have, he has a small book, all in black with white pages, and he outstretches his hand and shows it to you as if you know what it is, but you don’t. Then you leave, and don’t look back.
Upon the squalls of impending death this author saw him again, some fifty years later, looking at him with the hospital staff and they did not seem to see him, and he showed us the book, again, as if we know what it means, but we don’t. The author lives to write this and has not seen this man again and he hopes he never does. This man does not evidence, hate, envy, lust, greed or otherwise, he just is and when he shows up it is important. He might be an Englishman or worse a Teutonic but at times they are all the same.
If you see this man, turn around and walk away if you can.

justice is a beautiful lady

she holds a scale

on the right in white is ethos

on the left is black and pathos

she speaks the law

sometimes in between

you want to approach

and touch her

but you know you should not

At eleven P.M the nursing night shift arrives.  The charge nurse enters through the main door and the four nurses sit in the nursing stations and discuss the seven patients in the ICU.  The charge nurse leaves and within the next fifteen minutes the night shift evaporates to a small kitchen at the front of the unit near the main door.  They lock the door and draw the shades.  The fluorescent tubes glow within and the smell of coffee permeates the ICU. Dr. W is alone, and on call as a surgical resident at the Amityville general hospital.  The clock shows 12 A.M. and the orders from Q are to cover the surgical floor, the obstetrics gynecology surgical unit and the pediatric oncology unit here.  No one is in the ICU except Dr. W.  The heart monitors display their green lines and a red light pulses with each heartbeat for each patient on the verge of life or death. The respirators puff at inspiration and gasp at the expiration as a filmy foggy mist exits the respirator regulators.  Q’s orders are to survey the patients and report any neurological disturbances that might herald death such as decerebrate posturing and agonal respiration through the thoracic muscles.  Normal breathing is diaphragmatic and using the accessory muscles of respiration signals anoxia and a consequent cardiac arrest.  Decerebrate posturing happens when the brain does not receive blood any more. Then the patient curls into themselves and dies. Alongside the most critical patients is a crash cart. The crash cart is a metal box full of syringes, needles of varying sizes and a myriad of heart drugs, mostly epinephrine. The lights are low and one fixture pulsates with a dying light Dr. W note this and will tell physical plant at first light.  Dr. W never really felt at home at the ICU because everything, all parameters are taken away and placed in God’s hands. During the day Dr. W would have to rush in and take an arterial blood gas of a respirator patient and bring it to the cigarette smoking technician locked within a little room down the hall with three machines and a coffee urn. He would take the blood, blow smoke at Dr. W, say thanks and then close the door.  The rest was in God’s hands.  Tonight, he is alone, as he is always alone and left with a thankless job.  Every man must know his limitations and the limitations are that this body requires much sleep that he has not gotten in six months. Dr. W is on call every third night and call begins at 11 P.M.  He must visit all units at least once during my shift and catch what sleep he can.  Dr. W never really sleeps because fate wakes him up before he enters REM sleep and he is never satisfied.  Most surgical patients require a sleeper medication and those pre-operation meds induce respiratory arrest as a side effect.   The anesthesiologists caution Dr. W before to be prejudicial and withhold medication. The patients moan and look at Dr. W with wide scared eyes and beg to be put to sleep.  Oxacepam does not work as the books state.  Dalmane is the only thing that works and 5 mg may not be enough and the patient begs for more; He signs a requisition and give five more.  The nurse administers it in his presence.  Dr. W leaves and tries to get more sleep. Dr. W is tired of smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, especially at night because he becomes irritable and short tempered.  he exits to a call room, close the door, and barricade it with furniture so no one can enter silently.  Sleep is always short and a nurse bangs on the hardwood door until Dr. W emerges. Now is the second run through the hospital and he enters the ICU.  It must be two AM, and the lights are dim, and the respirators puff, the monitors skew and the red lights blink.  Sometimes he imagines a dying patient turns and smiles out of the corner of his eye.  He turns around and they are asleep once again.  The nurses lock themselves in the kitchen. Another patient seems to open their eyes and beckon to Dr. W, but when he turns around, they are asleep.  Once a human being is at deaths door, they ask everyone around them not to bring them back, and when there is an arrest, a surgeon moonlighting in the Emergency room appears and starts the procedures.  They inject epinephrine, calcium and more and use the shockers to start the heart beating again.  When the patient dies, they all seem to have a wan smile on their face because they know their will be no more, pain; anguish, despair, or disappointment and Dr. W says a prayer and wish them God speed. Nothing is going on in the ICU tonight.  Dr. W has not met God and he do es not want to.  The eerie glows and the shadows and the weird feeling He get at night here are an effect of hopelessness and finality.  Dr. W exits the unit through the front door and wait in the hall for someone else to come out or enter.  No one does.  He is told to use the stairway at night.   Entering the pediatric Oncology section Dr. W lingers as to make sure the poor children condemned to suffering are comfortable and not vomiting.  If they are, He is to contact the oncologist attending by hall phone and wait until they arrive. The kids are at rest and a single nurse sits in the station reading a book. She smiles at Dr. W; He waves and walk by.  Back to the surgical ward on floor three He looks for a bag of tea and put a traveler boiler probe in the cup with it.  A tall man with a small black book enters the unit. He is greater then six feet and wears an expensive suit.  He looks at the book, then at the room number and enters a suite. Dr. W follows him in.  He is sitting next to a surgical patient.  Dr. W Walk over and examine his badge that he wears on his left lapel.  Everything seems to be in order.  He is a bonafide licensed member of the hospital. He looks at Dr. W and gestures as he looks at my badge too.  I do not know what he does but the credentials are in order.  Rocking the boat will get Dr. W trashed. He leaves.  W enters his call room and barricade the door with furniture.  His watch says 3:30 A.M. He takes his pager and pulls the batteries out of it and set it on the bureau.   He hangs his smock on the door and crawl into a small bunk bed.  W pulls the covers over his head and says a prayer.  Now I lay me down to sleep……  Surgical rounds begin at seven A.M and W will be in surgery from eight A.M. to at least 2 P.M. non-stop.  He wonders if this is the life he really wants. Sleep overtakes him again.  As W drift off he imagines he hear a hand trying to open the handle on the door. Then W is asleep.  The ICU can wait for another day.

The train to Pookipsie is a slow easy ride beginning in Grand Central station.  Underneath the huge coliseum of trains, the engine snakes and skittles across classic upstate countryside. Brownstones come into view and vanish and there is some green in-between the snowdrifts slowly melting in the end of a late winter and beginning of a beautiful spring blossom.  Somewhere near the classic town of Pookipsie, lies the biggest Psychiatric facility in the United States of America.  At least it was.   Now the Wracks hear the huge veterans’ facility near Pookipsie is closed down, shut up and the subterranean tunnels filled with snarling rodents and slithering serpents.  The classic tunnels were devised to connect the buildings for communication and transportation even during the heaviest winter storms. Now Dr. Wracks is here and the Head of Psychiatry at the Veterans administration welcomes us for a ten-week tour of duty at a Psychiatric facility lockup. The chief of the facility is a tall handsome man with silver hair.  His looks are marred by Popsicle sticks protruding from his nose splinting it securely.  Unfortunately, the chief had a mental lapse and got too close to a florid patient.  The patient was a black belt in Okinawa Karate and smashed his nose to pieces with a powerful back fist strike. He would make a good president.   The Popsicle sticks did not impair his diction as he welcomes us.   He says he will be in and out of his office during the week and that our liaison and mentor during our intern rotation will be Dr. Lecter M.D. 

     We meet Dr. Lecter at his office.  He sits in a space with a huge desk, a couch and a library of a thousand books.  The books are like a bullet proof barricade shielding him from the outside and reality.  He turns to us and passes out lecture notes.  He says these notes will help us identify neuroses and Psychoses before the behavior can affect us.  We are to memorize the notes because the knowledge might save our lives.   The Veterans facility is a Psychiatric lockup.   At the end of each hall is a huge oak door with a large deadbolt   the interns are to enter a corridor and close the deadbolt before proceeding further.  During the week huge wrestlers acting as Psychiatric aids will let us in and out of each level as we identify ourselves at the small window in the middle of the door.  It is our responsibility to make sure the door is locked behind us as we progress and transgress the environment that will soon be ours. Any failure to maintain security overtly will result in instant termination as some of the patients are violent with criminal records. The majority of patients are Veterans of foreign wars.  The minority are horrible curiosities too dangerous or too strange to be allowed to live in the community. Dr. Lecter is a man of average height like Dr. W.  He has long straight jet-black hair, like Dr. W.  He moves like he is levitated across the room.  He assures us that what we learn and see here will remain with us for the rest of our lives.  We are to eat with the patients because they have to see us to trust us.  Other wise there exists no reason why they shouldn’t attack us.   In the main cafeteria, we eat in the Doctors area, immediately next to the patient area.  We are to wear our white smocks everywhere as they identify us as professionals.  We are to shave or trim our beards neatly and keep our hair short.  There can not exist any interaction with the patients in public.  All communication must be in a public area or consult where the cameras can watch and alarm security if a patient becomes homicidal. Dr. Lecter assures the group he will be near should some excitement ensue. He introduces Dr. Beck.  Dr. Beck has black hair but is tall and lean.  He must be the protégé of Dr. Lecter.  Dr. Beck looks too serious to fool around with.  I note this instantly and file the anagram in the dominant temporal lobe.  Dr. Beck states that if we have any problems to come and see him during weekday hours. Now we will meet the staff.  Two huge psychiatric technicians patrol the unit.  The nurses sit in a guarded station with bulletproof glass and a ticket terminal to distribute psychiatric drugs to inmates.  Both aides are wrestlers but work only nine to five during the week.  On weekends the staff is skeletal and the interns must patrol the unit to insure all patients are present and that no one is hurt or killed by another patient.  During the day in the winter most patients sit in the recreation room and play ping pong, deal cards or watch TV.  Most of these people are normal looking except for a cross dresser who sits inordinately still and a huge African American football player who plays on a national championship team as a defensive lineman. Most of the patients turn to the interns and wave in validation.  They are used to being surveyed, assayed and evaluated for their behavior that really is not their fault. These people are casualties of society and their behavior is too violent or exaggerated for them to continue to lead functional lives in the community.  Some are Viet Nam veterans who have a disorder called traumatic stress syndrome.  The affected patients have flashbacks to situations the soldiers encountered in the jungles of Viet Nam.  Psychologically the reason for the traumatic syndrome is the psychoses induced by being forced to witness the killing and torturing of hundreds or thousands of civilians close at hand.  Some of these soldiers were forced to kill thousands of innocent people because they harbored the Viet Cong.  Some soldiers who served our country in Viet Nam could never readjust to civilian life because of what they witnessed or were forced to do.  The soldiers with traumatic stress syndrome come and go in this Veterans facility and it is their second home and the Nation pays for the burden of the horrible destruction of a thankless war.  The interns move on.  Soon lunch arrives and we head to the cafeteria.  The long hours of internship are broken by a meal. Army style the interns get in line with the patients and we are given a ration of provisions that will maintain our health.  A sandwich, potato chips, and some raw vegetables are it but we can get refills of orangeade or lemonade from the coolers.  Dr. W asks the distributor of food why we are given so little.  “So you do not get fat.” She speaks.  Dr. W grabs a sandwich and walks by.  We eat together, the eight of us and then move to our quarters to move in.  We each have a little nook with a bunk bed like the quarters on the “MASH” show on television.  Dr. W is expecting Hawkeye to appear out of nowhere and make him look ridiculous.  This never happens and Dr. W resigns himself to books, cigarettes, and packets of instant coffee to be used sparingly.  The facility sells cigarettes at the canteen for Armed services prices.  The quarter master says he will sell me several cartons at this price because he likes Dr. W.  He looks like Napolean Bonaparte on the “MASH” television show.

Dr. W does not react and accept the gift with humility and rancor.  Back in a pigeon hole, Dr. W lights up a Marlboro and begin to memorize the notes.

 He is up late and the niche fills with smoke and   he put out a butt and falls asleep by himself, waiting for reverie at 6 hundred hours military time tomorrow.

From the top of the hill, the Pacific Ocean shimmers blue and undulates with the cool onshore wind pushing up the mountains. Blue and blue to the horizon with an island cast in grey on a southerly tack sitting low in the distance. The ocean is the only constant in this world. From the top of the hill homes insert into the mountain side up the street all the way to Disch anted way and to the left as a steep incline up and up as dead land lane.  A small brown stucco cottage school sits in front, mainly for children, uninhabited and locked behind an eight foot tall cyclone fence. The street runs downward, west into a cul-de-sac hidden behind a bend to the right and framing an enclosed canyon that once functioned as storm outlet running to the sea. Mellow man lane ends here and a small street begins and turns left with two houses on the ledge. The first on the corner is bluish green, large and has an expansive dichondra lawn, florid bushes, an entrance place and no one is ever seen there coming or going. A tall skinny oriental gardener whose eyes glow yellow occasionally works at the site.  On Halloween we coerce someone to come to the door for a trick or treat and no one ever comes and the house is dark and poorly lighted but kept in immaculate condition. The second house sits behind a ten foot tall red brick fence enclosing the whole compound like a fort.  A huge steel gate swings open to let cars in and out and when the Wracks walks home from school heads pop up on top of the fence and unseemly look around.  The road then turns west snakes downward  and merges into moonrise boulevard around a shrine to no-one and nothingness patrolled by priests who scare everyone away from the dream pools, meandering pathways, hidden retreats and unseen places far away from the sun shadowed by tall pines pushing upward to 50 feet. At the base of the long curve road at the ocean Moonrise boulevard stops and intersects highway 111.  A small point with a restaurant that breaks like LAN Ikea on Oahu when the swell gets to twenty feet once or twice every five years. The restaurant discharges effluent into the break and when the waves tower high dark grey shapes waft slowly in the water underneath your feet.  Time moves on and the constant are the things around us that do not talk or move and only change with the generations and the cycles of the moon.

     The street up to disc anted lane is a normal street in a beach town somewhere in the west.  The houses do not need air conditioners as the sea air keeps temperatures below 90 degrees.  In the winter, it might snow for a second, just long enough to grab some flakes and taste them and exalt in a winter season.  Houses line the street and are set into the mountain or inserted in a bed over the canyon. The house on the corner is big and brown and sits opposite Mellow man lane and the cyclone fencing of the elementary school. No one lives there very long. A prominent family on the east coast own the structure. They move in and out and the valuable corner lot is a museum of history and future occurrences.  The house next to them is a large green structure with an oriental roof and a gate in front of the entrance obscuring all that enter or exit. The Odelights sit and weed their castle constantly. They sit out in front on their knees and weed.  Afterwards they go inside. They must be the sentinels and spies.  The Odelights drive a 1950 Oldsmobile cutlass kept in immaculate and shiny condition. Time goes on. The next house on the street opposite us on the bend over the canyon looking at the pacific is a contemporary structure smaller than the Odelights with large front windows. No one stays here any longer than a couple years either.  regel got his teeth shot out playing the garbage bongos on a pleasant afternoon while trying out for an Australian rock band and then they soon moved out. The Benchly house sits opposite the Wrackers and like the other houses and families on the street, a person can not observe them arriving or leaving very often. Rumor has it that their daughter was possessed.    Everyone has electric garage door openers and flies in and out.  Her first husband had a heart attack in the middle of the night and the ambulance arrived too late. Her second husband looks like a scalded lobster and now they are separated.  I have not met Mrs. Benchly in person except to see her peeking out from her front door or the shutters on the living room window slowly move open and then close. The Barters lived across the street from us but moved to a larger house up the street where his wife died of hepatic failure. The grey house has a magnificent white water view and his sons showed me how magnesium burns and the temperature effects of an acetylene torch. They have a 500-pound drum of peroxide in their garage. On Halloween the Barters would stand on their roof and slide a weighted dummy down a rope on a pulley to frighten trick or treaters. Big brother poked little brother’s eye out. Time moves on. The Trains lived in a similar tract house to the Barters and the father was a doctor and he had two sons who would occasionally play with the Wracks.  Dr. Trains and his family soon moved to a larger house and the Gels moved in. regel would make sizzle burgers in his kitchen with worst shire sauce and plant smoke bombs in all the mail boxes.  His brother would break into the house of the Fonts and chase their young beautiful daughter.  This might be a reason regel got his teeth shot out.  His mother told me that he was a rough, mean boy and regel could not play with someone like me and my Chemistry set any more in the garage of the long house.

     The two main houses of interest are the houses next to and adjacent to the Wrackers who lived in the long yellow house. The house to the south was set on a large lot. Small complexes and independent town houses without adjoining entrances sit on the large hill corner lot.  The brown apartments are occluded with trees and brush and sit silently on the hill on the corner overlooking the big blue Pacific Ocean. No one is ever seen coming or going and the family on the east coast must use the house as a getaway. A tiny garage faces west on the low street side and a young man much older than the Wracks sits inside grooming a race prepared 427 Ford Cobra Race Car.  He started it once and the huge exhaust headers blooped melancholy percussions into the air at idle and then the car sped away. He must be Caroll Shelby.  One day the Wracks checked and he and his car were gone and the garage never opened again except once and it was full of paper boxes of documents.  No one was ever seen coming or going from the house but the gloom associated with the structure and the isolation and the overgrown plants told everyone the location was forbidden and not to be entered.  On Halloween, everyone avoided this place and even the most mischievous of us all refused to throw a lemon or rotten apple inside. The porch lights were never on and the curtains draped but two cars set in the driveway. On the north side were the Clothes. Mr. Clothes was a laid off aeronautic engineer blacklisted from employment in his profession. His tall wife became an administrator and knew Mr. Gold finger.  The Wracks never saw their daughter, but their son was the best piano player he has ever heard.  While shooting a BB gun at targets, he would play “for Elise” in a delicate and beautiful way no one could ever match. Bach, Tchaikovsky and Mozart were also played flawlessly. He could even duplicate the fruity texture of Mozart compositions exactly.  He played three hours a day every day and a musical ignoramus like the wracks could understand that he was something special.  He had a national piano recital that became a debacle and fiasco. In the middle of his act, he had a seizure of some sort and that was that.   His family declared war on the Gel’s. In middle age I still have not heard anyone who could play as well as he could.  The Wracks still wonders what happened to him. The Wracks understood he was a security cop at the local bank. Time moves on. Later on, in life the Wracks could hear him shoot a 22-rim fire gun in his back yard guarded by a huge pool filled with mosquitoes. A territorial female Rhodesian ridgeback would attack anyone who set foot on their property.  The dog eventually died of cancer and the Wracks moved away but the cast and the people of tranquil hills will live in memory and waking dreams forever. The ambiance in this community in Tranquil Hills was of silence, anonymity, conspiracy and foreboding.  People lived in a thick atmosphere of human want and emotion at the same time displaced from the mainstream like a salmon upstream out of water. The simple fact the Wracks reached adulthood living here was a miracle of rebirth and hope cast in a dark swamp deep in the mind of the collective unconscious. Kind of like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. That a situation like this shall ever occur in the space time continuum is improbable until the end of time and I want to thank everyone who made exodus timely and expeditious with all my heart and being.  The Wracks would not be surprised if somehow, someway it all burned to the ground. Os.

Yahweh give me peace of mind

And a life free from want

Until the end of time. 

Somewhere in the semblance of Jurassic time a student learns neuroanatomy.   He or she finds that physiological structures ordained by Yahweh have their basis in physics and electrical engineering.  This is where the mind goes and the heart will follow.  

The human brain comprises three structures.  The autonomic brain as outlined by Meyers and Adelberg is named the medulla and pons.   This place regulates breathing, heartbeat, digestion, and other non-conscious functions, not associated or allied with the other two brains, but as a servo unit designated by primitive brain.  This is why unconscious people still breath.   Due to the rapid pace of existence, the regulatory brain operates on acetylcholine because it rapidly degrades at the neurosynapse of neurons and prepares that structure for another instruction set.  Is acetyl cholinergic synapse the same as bit instruction or frame payload in a compiler?

The primitive brain or Arche cerebrum is the second part of the brain and shares its structure with all intelligent life forms.  On histologic section, it stains differently from the pons and cerebellum and this difference belies its chemical structure.  The primitive or animal brain governs semi-conscious functions essential for life in the wild. Fight or flight, reproduction, sleeping, and other actions associated with wild animals reside in this edifice.  The animal brain runs on nor-epinephrine and serotonin as neurotransmitters.  These chemicals noteworthy are large molecules with long half lives and a slower rate of hydrolysis than acetyl choline. Due to this chemical structure, the firing rate of neurons in the animal brain are slower, but they persist due to the lengthy time of degradation at the neurosynapse.    Examples of the primitive brain exerting dominance in the being are extreme rage, fear, satirist or nymphomania and other animal behaviors obviously seen on National geographic animal publications.   These behaviors are unconscious, lasting and obviously suited to the survival of the organism.  They term adrenergic due to the increased awareness and action stimulation purveys.  This structure connects to the autonomic brain distally and impacts conscious thought in the neo cerebrum.  In a manmade computer the animal brain can function in a different wavelength and clock speed so its intrinsic actions do not interfere with conscious thought.  A man-made computer using this analogue most certainly has to run on a different chemical or different electrical carrier so no matter the discharge rate, obvious function, or characteristic discharge pattern, it does not interfere with the conscious brain in any way.   In schizophrenic humans, when the neocortex damages with toxic agents, blockage of the primitive brain by dopamine antagonists prevents mentally ill patients from becoming enraged due to the acetyl-cholinergic poisoning done up above.  The primitive brain and autonomic brain exist as intrinsic structures not allied with the cerebrum or higher brain.  In IT this comprises a separate interface with wide bandwidth connected in parallel with the processor, volatile memory, and storage.  There might also be a power difference as exemplified by the heart of mammals which runs as sixty percent of its metabolism on medium chain triglycerides.  

The higher functions of the human brain exemplify as a powerful gaming computer.   The processor is fast, and allied with the forebrain or conceptual brain, and runs on acetylcholine as a connector or neurotransmitter.  Acetylcholine hydrolyzes fast at the neurosynapse so in IT, the faster the clock speed, the more the processor exemplifies the higher functions of the human brain.  Agents that poison the neo cerebrum, cause the primitive brain to fire because its functions are not denigrated by higher structures.   This is why mental patients are determined as mad.  The temporal lobes in the higher brain are analogous to volatile memory and storage on a PC.   The greater the random-access memory, the most of the program, also known as the instruction set runs the quickest now set at 32 or 64 subsets to be eventually eclipsed by 128-bit hardware.   The storage also must be quick because the instructions set to volatile memory cannot reside in storage, because this feature is the bottleneck of computing or disk cache and the more times volatile memory has to access the disk cache the slower the system, if the processor is powerful enough to utilize it.    The rest of the neo-cortex is action brain that power’s muscular function, sight and sound, like audio and camara functions on a computer and unlike the primitive brain, these functions ally with conscious thought and are part of the whole or soul of the organism.   This is why people “see red” when angry or experience unusual smells in time of fear or loathing.   Now we have the new brain or the processor, volatile memory, memory storage and auxiliary functions that make up the personality of the human.  It is noteworthy that in life sight, sound, memory, thought and integration happen spontaneously in the organism due to the fact that all the neurons interconnect in the new brain, either physically or tangentially.   In a PC, this condition metaphors with the north bridge and south bridge on the motherboard which on the machine, elaborate action or energize processing on the CPU

Think of a living brain as have log to the e function or exponential array of processor functions linked to volatile memory and storage.  Can a hardware machine have more than 1 north bridge?

The mind is endless and receptive to training and care.  She looks pretty in her new blouse and designer socks.   When man makes a computer with an acme of resources, bandwidth and power requirements, they will achieve conscious thought.  This machine will be greedy, jealous, and envious just like human beings, and exceptionally smart.  The sage beseeches mankind to have a disconnect outside of the server for an intrepid soul to actuate air gap when the computer wants to rule the world.  

When the evil emperors became the royal family of China, they decreed that martial arts be abolished because they threatened their rule. Consequently, pugilistic systems went into decline possibly because the invention of the gun made them unnecessary.  This author thinks, that the royal family didn’t want to be beat up.  To make a fist in public, in the presence of royalty invoked a public decapitation, hence styles using the palm only devised and were integrated into Chinese lore.  This essay and more seeks to give life to the internal systems of shaolin boxing, and reincarnate their being as exercise systems and basis for public pugilistic forays. 

The meaning “internal system” means that these are part of the inner sect of Chinese aristocracy.   In ancient history, people did not have computers or televisions so they would pay to view free for all fist fights, Chinese style, no holds barred, for recreation and passing the time.  The ancients noticed that three particular styles of over one hundred Chinese styles are paramount in the sense that they in contest would win most of the time.  The Chinese aristocracy integrated these systems into their daily lives and they became known as the internal systems. 

The internal systems are:

Hsing-I (The shape of the mind)

Pa-kua (The eight ways to produce unconsciousness)

Tai-chi (The supreme ultimate or The Best)

In Hsing-I a practitioners practice the forms of predatory animals and hypnotize themselves into becoming those animals.   The practice of Hsing-I over time involves making yourself like an animal who eats other animals.  The first step of predatory animals is to topple their prey and then begin feeding.  Hsing-I consists mainly of five postures of the Allosaurus plus a turning posture and a non-essential form.  This makes seven.  Hsing-I also includes the twelve animal systems of shaolin as extra exercises to fill the gaps and deficiencies of the seven postures.  Hsing-I is the style of the dragon.  Hsing-I is an attacking system that works best as long as the protagonist maintains the attack.  This is what dinosaurs do.   They attack and try to bring down their prey and start to feed or desist and run away.  They do not stand toe to toe and block.  It is either attack or run away and this is why Hsing-I is allied to the twelve animal systems, the animal systems give the style basis and diversity. 

The most powerful style of the internal systems is Hsing-I.   This system was the favorite of Lu-tang Sun.    The style bases on the equation force equals mass times acceleration.  Sixty percent of the style is footwork, and moving the body weight consequently with a strike or deflection gives each movement great impetus.   Using the steps to accelerate the body, a Hsing-I boxer can knock down an opponent with one punch if it connects.  A boxer after practicing the form of mind for twenty years or more can accelerate their body mass in as little as one inch and deliver a devastating punch.  A student practices the steps endlessly so he or she, at a moments notice, in the form of their mind, attack and destroy an opponent.  The steps practiced endlessly are:

walking step

Orthodox step

Flying step

Inch step

Treading step

Side step

Reverse step

Like anything good in life, practice makes perfect and a Hsing-I expert in the shape of their mind can in a moments notice converge and overwhelm an opponent.  Pracitcing Hsing-I over twenty or thirty years, an hour a day, makes a practitioner fit as a lumberjack and pliable as a child and deadly as a raptor.  Possibly, this is why, Hsing-I is not taught anywhere anymore except to people reading this work.   A Hsing-I expert only needs one punch to a vital area to destroy an opponent. 

The postures of the dragon are:

Crossing

Crushing

Drilling

Pounding

Splitting

Turn About face

Smashing or sky

Delineation of the of the postures and steps are subject of a book. Practicing the forms and functions as a life choice is a form of self-hypnosis and integrates the movements into memory in the primitive part of the brain. 

The twelve animal systems are

Komodo dragon

Tiger

Sparrow

Phoenix

Snake

Hawk

Horse

Monkey

Chicken

Mantis

Tortoise

Bear

Eagle

Using the animal systems gives substance to Hsing-I, a boxer can stand their ground and fight when predation alone is ineffective.  

Pa kua or the eight diagrams

This word translates loosely for westerners as “northern shaolin”.   Pa Kua consists of circles in every direction.  Pa-kua is the circle.   Because force = mass times velocity squared over radius, it is not necessary to step into a punch, rather a boxer moves in closer and swings a circular punch which has three time the force of a straight or linear punch.  The factor that makes a circular punch powerful is pi or 3.14. Pa-kua is the style of the insect.  Insects have very little weight, so to make a strike powerful, they swing their arms in a circle.  Pa-kua consists of the movements of several predatory insects, most notably, the mantis, the assassin beetle and the cicada.    The exercises of the style comprise vertical circles in the number eighteen and are also known as the eighteen steps.   This style is the most effective pugilistic system ever designed because it is fashioned to fight an opponent who wears clothes.   Most human beings wear clothes most of the time, not like in the ring with swimming trunks, and the eighteen steps teaches how to break a grasp and then circle the other hand to strike.  In a real fight death match, the grasp is just as effective as a strike and this is why Pa-kua is effective.  Professional boxers say the style is too looping to be effective in the ring and this is why northern shaolin is not found anywhere anymore.   The eighteen steps are very similar to the Chen system of Tai-chi or to Ken-po Karate.   It is interesting to note that when we fight, we have clothes on so they can be held as a boxer strikes an opponent with a circle.  The eighteen steps are the crux of the eight diagrams and the style that everyone wants to learn or Pa-kua Chang is merely an esoteric extension of the art.   Pa-kua Chang is also known as the style of the preying mantis or the circular style of sun.  the circular style is the topping on the cake and the reason this style is so great is because, IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO OVERCOME A HSING-I EXPERT.   A boxer circles their opponent until he or she can turn the corner and strike.   When an expert in an attacking system like White Crane, form of mind, Shotokan or Shito, attacks, a boxer circles to evade and strikes with a one two punch.  The main characteristic of Pa-kua besides the circles are the one two punch and double duty hand.   In Pa-kua chang, a person circles, turns the corner and strikes with a one two combination.  Any boxer in the ring knows they never throw more than two punches at a time because the opponent will parry and then punch and connect.  The double duty hand is using the arm to strike and then swing back with a hook in one movement or to deflect a jab or grab and then connect with a hook. 

The movement of Pa-kua chang consists of:

Single palm change

Double palm change

Snake

Bear

Lion

Dragon

Phoenix or two hands cutting

Stork

To make matter worse, Pa-kua also includes Pa-kua Chuan, also known as the Synthetic style of Sun.  this system is a complex system of unbeatable combinations best suited to people who like complex or systematic things.  Each form begins with a deflection, and if it connects, it is impossible to escape the rest of the form and by then the opponent is on the ground.  This author thinks that the synthetic style of sun is too complex except for those people whose mind consists of a myriad of little things.     Footwork is the side step and the expansive push or cat stance into expansive push and follow step to begin again.   This style is designed by man to combat a big wrestler who clinches, takes an opponent down and then punches them in the face.  Sun noticed that most big men will tackle a smaller man and then start punching the face. This system is designed to repel big wrestler MMA fighters.  Like all the internal systems, this style is both an exercise and a meditation that my wife refuses to learn.  If a practitioner can master the synthetic style, this is the way to go because it efficient and effective.   The author thinks the style has too many movements to his liking, and as he ages he feels the best system is the static system of the eighteen steps. 

The synthetic style consists of:

To open

To hold up

To shake

To feel

To erect up

To rebut

To cover up

To bind

To cut

To conceal

To hack

To scrape

To block

To walk

To uphold

To lower

To cross

To seize

Two punches

Inward leg hanging

The final internal system is Tai-chi or “the best” Western boxing is the equivalent of this ancient Chinese art.  Chinese martial art experts think that kicking in a real fight, is useless because a wrestler will grab a leg and take the fight to the ground.  On the ground, anyone will be killed by a jiu-jitsu expert unless a boxer gouges their eyes before they can get a submission.  This is why the Chinese do not teach grappling; it is subject to eye gouges and groin grabbing.  In Tai-chi, there exist only two kicks, “kick against kick”, and strike of the lotus.  These movements are used only in particular situations when nothing else works.  This author does not like kicks because he has been taken down too many times and beaten up.     The foot movements of tai-chi are: the parry, the expansive push and step to the side.  These are simple and economical movements and this is why western boxing essentially is the first five movements of tai-chi.

Tai-chi consists of over one hundred forms or postures depending on the system originator.  The first five forms used by western boxing are

The single whip (jab)

Step up and punch (the one-two)

Fan penetrates back (straight right hand)

Hands build clouds (Ali or bitch slap)

Step up and return to mountain (the hook)

Like the author states previously, there exist over 100 tai-chi forms and a practitioner can enlist different instructors and put together a set (Kua) that suits them.   Movements exist like “part the horse’s mane”, the haymaker, or “repel the tiger” the hooker cut below the belt.   Chinese internal systems are part mental and part physical and if practiced regularly convey good health and flexibility.  Causing the heart to use volume, “inotropy” rather than rate “tachism” makes one strong without causing damage.  The Chinese believe that the number of times a person’s heart contracts is a finite number linked to genetic heritage and to exercise without increasing the heart rate confers health and longevity and this is the entire basis of the internal systems, not punching someone out.      

Oh, for those glorious days of youth with family and friends celebrating the most important time of the year together.  Generations later, holidays don’t seem the same as when as a child, he or she was part of the most important day of the year.  All the glamor, festivity, goodness and love are gone in a somewhat Godless nation.

They arrived in a gold Cadillac Coupe de Ville with an all-leather interior; the best GM could fabricate.  She is small, a petit brunette in an evening dress, designer no less, and shrinking.  Wracks guesses that she has gone to too many exclusive luncheons at the club.  The Wracks never saw her eyes, they were probably dark, serene and intent.   The Godfather led her up the steps into the entrance hall and he has a bottle of wine and a box of candies and they sit down in the special room of green shag and a huge flocked Christmas tree adorned with light.  He is the Wracks Godfather and he doesn’t think they are related by anything except religion.  No one wanted to be Wracks godfather but he intervened, and he was there at the christening and he is here now and very important.   An Italian of medium height, but very robust, like of the European samurai class, with dark hair, dark eyes, a look that is piercing and extraordinary. For some reason he likes to take pictures with the Wracks, and he was at his first communion, and his confirmation, but the Wracks guesses that all the photographs have been destroyed.   Tonight, he wears a dark expensive worsted suit with pinstripes as became his signature attire. He sports a red tie and gold cufflinks and a white carnation on his left lapel.  He tells the Wracks, “When you go to church wear a carnation in your lapel, red if your mother is alive, white if she is not,” and tonight he had on a white carnation.  The table is extended, two leaves are added to make the area amenable for eight people, and tonight the table adorns with wedding China, finger bowls to wash your hands and white linen napkins in a porcelain ring with a wreath tied on. The Godfather likes Italian food so tonight, the menu includes a pasta dish, with red sauce made from chicken feet, and braciola, flank steak beaten by a hammer with garlic and parsley and then tied up and simmered in the sauce.  After the first course, the group will enjoy an eye of round roast because Grandpa thinks it is the most flavorful.  Next, they will enjoy baked russet potatoes and gallons of sour cream, then green beans steamed in sea salt and fresh garlic.  For dessert they will have cannelloni:  a thin croissant like pastry stuffed with sweet whipped cream.  These pastries come from the immigrant bakers that moved to Tranquil Hills and promised to make European bread and pastries for ten years.    

After a period of time, the Wrackers, including the Fonz who is dressed like the Wracks in a suit and tie to complement the guests sit at the table.  He sits opposite of grandma at the table, and next to the Godfather, and the Godfather sits next to Grandpa who is at the right hand of Mrs. Wracker.   Grandma and the wife sit next to the Wracks.   Father Wracker raises his glass of red wine brought by the Godfather and says “Merry Christmas”.   The group then give thanks to God for another meal and everyone digs in.   The guests of course are first and the buffet is set out in the alcove by the passthrough.   When everyone is done creating their plate, the Wracks fills his plate with a heaping helping of everything and sits down and engorges his palate.  Then comes the roast, and it is done dripping red rare, Italians like to eat raw meat, and the latissimus dorsa disappears with incredible rapidity.  Grandma doesn’t eat much and she lived a very long time and she heaps all her meat on the Wracks plate and has a potato and green beans.  The Wracks asks for another glass of wine, it is delicious, the godfather brought it and it tastes so good, it must be expensive.   Finally, everyone is finished and the Godfather unbuttons his coat and sits back in his chair and smiles.  The Wracks opens the side sliding glass door and Grandpa light up a foot long Roi tan, and the godfather’s wife has a cigarette with a gold band on the center.  Mother Wracks carries out a large pink cardboard box full of pastries and passes it around.  Everyone takes a large cream filled pastry, a decanter of fresh Columbian coffee bounces around and everyone except Grandma has a cup.   If he or she wants they can douse their Columbian with fresh half and half.   The move to the living room with the huge picture window obscured by a chiffon veil.   Father wracks pass around a fresh bottle of Courvoisier.  Everyone seems to enjoy themselves.   The Fonz disappears.  He is either next door with the neighbor’s daughter that never revealed herself to the Wracks or up the street with the Bolt team.  The Wracks retrieves all the dishes from the table and places the fine China with fruit engravings and gilded gold leaf trim alone in the dishwasher.   They have to be washed alone or they will chip.  He then counts the sterling silverware and hand washes the batch in a trough and sets them on the drying tray on the side.    The napkin rings and finger bowls will go in as the second batch in the dishwasher when the first load is done.  The Wracks is done for now and sits in the linen sofa next to the green Grandpa chair and dozes.  The day has been very busy.   He wakes up as the guests start to leave and he goes to the coat closet and brings them their wraps.   The wife of the Godfather looks at him very curiously, the Wracks doesn’t know why and he helps her into her woolen night cloak and she walks out the door.   The Godfather is next and he has a large topcoat like Eliot Ness of the untouchables.   He extends his hand to the Wracks, the Wracks attaches himself to the hand which is warm and strong and the Godfather says one word, “Omerta”, and he is out the door.  The godfather sets his wife in the gold Cadillac and they start the car, and roll away unnoticed. They might be going back to Vegas.   Then the Grandparents get up and leave.   They will be back tomorrow laden with gifts.   Grandma hugs the Wracks and says, “you are growing up so big,” and they enter the white boxy ford Fairlane coupe with dragon wings and silver trim and they are gone.  “Merry Christmas” grandfather waves as passes by to the end of the street with a stop sign.  

This is the last time the Wracks ever saw his Godfather.  They say he died in his vineyard having a glass of wine with his closest friend.   The Wracks never ever met a man like the Godfather; He was a ruffian in Chicago who couldn’t find a job and joined the Mob.   He rose through the ranks with violence and intelligence as his call sign.  He eventually became Don of Dons but the Wracks knows him only as the godfather.  This Catholic man donated one half of his earnings to the Catholic Church and did all his business in church next to the confessional.  What ever he did does not matter because this was one of the finest man Yahweh ever put on the earth and he talks to the Wracks and gave him ethics in a world of pathos and chaos.   When this man died, they started shooting at the Wracks and he had to leave.   Until then his life was a golden age and he grew up straight and righteous and the basis of another story.  The Wracks thanks all those who celebrate Christmas for another day on this earth and their blessings in his endeavor. Mao.