re: Assembly

The trio got a tongue-lashing. 'We only wanted to buy stings' Carol chimed, which was true since the trio were also a Trio. But the music was only a gentle reminder of the vaunted pasts of their parents and grandparents, and Carol's mispronunciation at best a token to Kyra's slang, since she rode comfortably. True reminder especial for Aina, who lived with her elder sister Dora and Emmie in a lazy, even sometimes chaotic warren of what was one of the few standing tenements in a neighbourhood that had seen them decay and be replaced by the meanest sort of house with wire fencing, perhaps a lock on the gate. Those people were called the middle class. Kyra lived with her family in the tenement. They owned nothing and most of what Kyra wore, Aina wore too, since what was Kyra supposed to do, wear rags?

They had it grand with chandeliers in upstairs hallways that had sixteen foot ceilings. Aina remembered not the gracious lifestyle, although she was born entirely under its roof. So too Dora, and her father. Her grandfather had built the house. If Aina wanted to, she could walk over to The Boulevard and follow it all of the way up to where the house and its property were now occupied by a dozen luxury homes.

The three of them were stuck in the front foyer of the police station, having been ordered to stay there. After a while, a corporal leant over the counter and told the girls to go home, that the next time it happened, they would be held for an evaluation. Who would want that. I expect that the corporal didn't. It wasn't the first time that the girls had busked without a license.

It didn't matter. Nobody wanted to punish a bunch of kids, so even evaluation, which meant detention, wasn't held as much of a threat. For Kyra, anything constituted a form of charity and she knew that she would get more calories on the inside than she would tonight at Dora's table. The girls were tall and thin. All had the agility of a 21c. chic. slender form, none ate abundantly, though Carol did the best, and she was certainly the healthiest in appearance, although the health differences between the girls were few, and all were lucky. All three had come under the savage ministrations of Dora, who insisted upon certain precautions where matters of the changing environment were concerned.

Even the middle class people with the cars and the fenced off driveways with shitty little bungalows, or five story townhouses as wide as a twin bed. These people faked eating well, but what a bunch of shit they looked like. They went everywhere inside their locked cars and they were fat and had a bad smell, even to kids who washed from a basin, or cleaned their hands by pouring water from a bottle over them. Actually, another kid pours and since water is not an easy thing, it is used sparingly. Except by the middle class who have steam coming out of their bathroom windows and the hot tubs that some boys would piss into from overhanging trees.

Watering the neighbours' pool was kicks. The homeowner might rush out, perhaps with a shotgun. But the middle class was afraid to use the shotgun. Maybe it was only a BB gun. Laughter and later on, another vicious barking Kazak would fill the puny backyard of the monster home and then the kids would pelt it with earth pellets. Never stones. It was more fun to watch the dirt explode in the stupid dog's mouth.

Kyra had the kind of natural agility with sports that made this sort of thing an easy outdo for her, but she never encouraged it, and thought nothing of it when hers set the example and did so with a measure that was the equivalent of her own intelligence. The trio, all musical, strings, frequencies, all smart also. But Kyra was just that much more excellent. It was their intelligence that kept them together at the same school, across the river, 'in the city,' where Carol lived a life that was a pared down version of her grandparents' 20th century lifestyle. She could have had lessons in horseback riding, as had her mother, but had yet to go anywhere else on vacation or to visit beyond a regional distance. She wanted to feel the water of an unspoiled beach, but instead made do with what she was given, which was the finest vacation beach a subway ride away. She didn't even have to change stops, and she could come along with parents and catch a free ride.

Aina, a miracle child, was the chance of fate that caught all by surprise. Complications of delivery left Dora a surrogate at an age when she should been only starting to think about having a social life. She found herself imprisoned by her fate and ill-equipped to understand the world of interpersonal relationships. When Dora married at twenty one, it was to the only man to have breached her barriers. There weren't any that time. And she was fortunate in her good judgment because the man she chose accepted anything she lay on him. Nicked Eminence or Emmie, or any number of other accepted teases, he stood before Aina as the only measure of sanity, the basic connection of family, the only person that she felt happy with at a level that approached the affection that she felt for her dearest friends, mostly Kyra. That was it. She never expected to feel as close to anybody as she felt to Kyra. She felt very sated, sufficient to give her the resin that it took to cope with Dora. When she took to destroying something, she held back, because it was what her sister did when she got angry. She would feel herself start to perspire, but she would place the object back where it belonged, and walk out of the room. And she would smile and for the life of it, Dora never would know how her imperialism had shocked and bothered her and any number of other people in her line of fire.

The two did everything together. If you were to ask them, they would not remember the first time they got together. Fly on the wall that I am I recall the time for I am Emmie, caretaker of Dora, guardian of Aina, buffoon to be certain. It is I who notice their attributes (the trio, that is,) and comment. It is very comment-worthy to declare that Kyra is about twice as smart as the average person. Let me say, for instance that the average is 100. Double that value and you are looking at Kyra. She has no trouble with any subject. Her academic grade is bound to be found between above 95%, 99 per cent of the time. Her even temper to boot drives my kind of person wild because it's rare to find a person of that level of intelligence without some sort of difficult neurosis or two. Not Kyra. She is all sunshine, and will look at you with troubled eyes if you try to tell her that she is smart. Then Aina will find some pair of pants with a picture of Einstein on them and that's Kyra for you.

Living with a person who speculates upon the subject of intelligence, you might expect that Aina would be exceptional like Kyra. No. She is, like Dora, Carol, and Emmie, somewhere on the continuum between 135 and 155. Good indeed. Enough to get up into the 90% grade range 98 per cent of the time.

The future depends on these girls. You see, a healthy woman is a vital factor to an impregnation that, in term, produces a healthy child. If men weren't needed to do work around the place, we could get by with less testosterone and cancer. A lost breast unhinged Dora more than anything else that she faced growing up with a baby sister to hold. I cannot forget the sight of Aina at four, huge grey-blue eyes fired up, so much like her sister's, herself eighteen. Her slightly bothered attitude informed much about the nature of the relationship between the sisters before we exchanged a word.

Although I came to be Aina's principal supporter when things mattered, I hardly dared to pass judgment on any aspect of Dora's meticulous approach to raising Aina. In any matter of importance, Dora declared, and then I did, which amounted to accompanying Aina about her life, which was and continues to be a fundamentally important support role for parents to play in the lives of their children. Invariably, everything to do with Aina could be extended to include Kyra. To say that we adopted her family is not an exaggeration. In a city filled with vacant apartments, it's easy to overlook one or two or maybe a few more soon, squats.

It is easy for a decaying building to become a dominion to squatters. Moreso when the neighbourhood is as squashed and brick smashed as ours is. Vacant lots pass slowly though a cycle of decay in and around our apt. Some carry the look of a lot in look of a buyer, whereas the ones on either side of our tenement are the bricks of the buildings once standing. I never saw the street when it was lined, sardine style, with six story efficiency tenements with lots of plaster lath. The building we occupied (one that Dora and Aina owned) was called Charlot, a play on the name of the street that the tenement had for an address. 119 Charlotte.

We moved into the half-empty building to practice what Carol's family does on an ongoing basis. Be economical. Threadbare on my academic salary, scraping something out of Charlot, it is possible to do about as well as Carol's, while supporting an extended family, or Dora's loyal subjects. She treats them like slaves, engaging them in dubious agriculture in soil not much better than a brownfield. Since she is a riddle player and the minions are getting to be post-verbal, they equate her ridicules with funny television and even seem to get the time to laugh right, because she is satisfied that they appreciate her and Emm here can silently breathe. I'm not much of a talker.

For all of the joy that we get from the tending of Kyra, we are also the beneficiary of the largesse of Carol's family. Since the three girls play together, it's natural for all of them to stay in the city, sometimes for as long as it takes. Carol's father is my head of Dept. Lucky me. For all the aspects of my life, the knowledge that A&K are with C, comforts me. And it gives me the chance to do something which I have to do from time to time, which is to be really cruel to Dora. I can barely detect the value in doing so, but not doing it at all is folly. It comes under the category of your obligation to keep your partner up to date with the old thing called boundaries. Like homeostatic boundaries, but in actual person-to-person terms that can be related.

You have to be cruel and shout. All sweet Dora hears is The Concorde flying by.

How happily I tell you that it's not always this way.

***

'No, I don't think so. It's never immediate. That's why faith healing is a crock. God doesn't offer instant results.' Dora on God at work. She was picking at peas, all she would allow us to eat. 'God isn't instantaneous because of nature.' Dora faced the impertinent unnamable depending on her mood. 'Sweet, yes. But love, dear, is instantaneous which is the only thing that is faster than the speed of light. That's it. Oh, Kyra. You sweet thing.'

'By gee and jay, I think she has something,' sister chimed. 'You're too young to use such sophisticated words.' She turned to me. 'If something is instantaneous it must be faster than light, catch?' 'I haven't said anything.' 'That's because you don't know.' 'Why should I? I'm a sociologist by training and shit, if I'm not lousy at my job. Any knowledge that I have about the nature of the universe has been gotten in brick-laying-discussions.' 'You always bring up bricks. You would think that the presence of so many in your midst would give you peace. But don't worry about my proposition. I think it's Asimov.' 'Simultaneity, yes, in a way. But he proposed bridging distances with it, and I don't think that day will ever come.' 'But it works for thought.' 'Yes, I believe it does.' 'Let's try.' 'What, telepathy?' 'All of us.' 'Why don't we just ask the kids. They hardly talk. And Carol, she mutes too, when she's in the company of the other two.' 'That's natural. It's the music. It gets inside you, and when you play together, you come together, like the Beatles song.' 'Curious choice.' 'Don't be so obscure.'

***

Dora was restrictive, but she boasted of being permissive. In an odd way this was so, for as soon as she was certain that her charges were able to fight as a gang, she let them do what they wanted to. But she controlled things that mattered to civilized life. We weren't permitted to eat meat because it was all bad unless you kept a cow in your backyard which had to be big enough to prevent a local tragedy of the commons, a private one. She wanted to place lots into cultivation, but it was mostly a ridiculous proposition, since the foundations were wrecked and some sort of ecosystem based on the good earth was gone short for soil. Dora had everybody stealing mud from Crotona Park and she even tried to entice the homeless people who lived in the park to become her slaves. But even the hobos eat better than Dora's captives, myself included. We are all skinnies and damn, if I don't look bandy. I'm afraid I look better with my clothes on.

For all or our daily animosities, you would think that Dora was generally disagreeable. But that isn't very true. She doted Aina, and by extension, Kyra, treating them less like little sisters, but hardly as charges. If Dora was spending money, it was probably something for Aina, and she made little out of it, saying that everything that was hers was Aina's too. She was also nice, in an absent way to the women who formed the front line of her slave coterie. In exchange for food and a shamble palace to live in, these women tilled, hauled water, and made and repaired garments. Quite happy were they, these ersatz peasant women. Even the childless ones had their children asked after. Dora was so inclusive. Naturally, she assumed that they were all mothers, and that like Kyra's mother, had boys packed away in reform school or jail.

Kyra's brother Devon was, like Kyra, an operator of something or another. He got caught once too often. Now he came home on the occasional weekend, whenever he had managed to score enough good points to merit a weekend pass. On these occasions, Kyra and Devon would disappear to a fire escape or the roof, or to the city. On these occasions, Aina would be left to her lonesome, and when that became too much for her, she would beg me to take her to visit Carol. Aina never went anywhere alone and if Kyra wasn't around, I knew that I would be Aina's surrogate whenever she came to me with a couple of subway tokens for me to use to get there and back. This was as much as an order from Dora. Empress.

Why Dora? Because she chose me. Me, a penniless grad student. She, an apparent poverty case in the company of a living doll so perfectly presented that I knew her own shabby garb was the affectation of a woman so astonishingly beautiful that she took your breath away no matter what she wore. That was ten or so years ago. I was slim and a looker, but poor, and clinging to a ticket which saw me teaching first year undergraduate students about computers and consciousness, the latter which interested me, the former damned me.

Why be a sociologist? I might wonder that. I was bent by the gravity of my situation at a young age. My only hope was academia. Who would hire me? It wasn't like I knew how to do anything except, I suppose, think. And think big -- until I boozed my way into the decrepitude that finds me less a doctorate, more or less of a mope at the mercy of my thesis supervisor and the course director of my bread-and-butter. Computers and consciousness. Riding in a busted up, half-empty subway car with the afternoon sunlight blasting me in those places where no building obscured it. Aina clutching my arm with her head on my shoulder. Violin in it's case.

Aina and Carol, both afflicted with musicians disease would in Kyra's absence, play duos. So capable had they become in the ten years that they had received instruction that their hands were like Tesla coils holding great arcs of lightning. Dora's madness for music, not matched by any talent, made a regular meal out of the frequent occasions when the girls all together would fill the whole tenement with the sheer sound pressure of their playing. On the more numerous occasions when Carol wasn't to be found, Aina and Kyra would play duets. Aina always found a chance to keep in practice this way. Of course, Kyra didn't need to work very hard at her violin. Like just about everything else that she put her mind to, the violin was to Kyra a simple matter of successful finger placement with a touch of bowing. A native talent, she always knew exactly where to place her fingers. She got her start when Dora discovered her vast aptitude and started to treat Kyra differently from any of the other kids that Aina played with.

We stood in front of Carol's house. She kissed me, then embraced Aina. 'Will you come back to dinner?' I assented, and kissing Aina on her forehead above her right eyebrow (out of custom), I turned to venture somewhere, or nowhere in particular, until dinner. I often thought of Kyra as I kissed Aina, for in a way, I'm kissing some remnant of her. She bit Aina years ago when Nell, the wife of Dufferin Haven's estate manager offered Aina a bon-bon only to discover that she had none to offer Kyra, who ran into the room too late for first try. She suggested that they share it, but Aina refused. A fight ensued, and seven year old Kyra got her candy and eight year old Aina got a lesson in which of the two was the strongest. Kyra even looked a bit like a boy, and she put her looks and attitude to work to defend Aina, or Carol. Those two were all girl. You could not mistake them. Kyra, mud faced, could give you a hard look that would make you wonder what you were up against. A beauty contest-winning cop with a hand on the violins.

Kyra could play any instrument. Like Mike Oldfield without depression, she could manipulate her private collection of machines to make her own compositions. Her latest, a compromise for the other girls, was nicely tonal and had a humorous dénouement that set Dora to laughing when she heard it for the first time.

Walking back from a nap in the park, I thought about my trio of girls. Carol, who grew to resemble my mother more with each day is my child. No, I did not sleep with Mulligan's wife, who at the time was a grad student, like me. No, I was the surrogate there, too. 'I'm dry as a stump' he said, checque on the table in front of us. A second daughter, two years later, was by another father. Later, a third. All IVF. I refused the second time, but it didn't matter. Mulligan had his eye on another donor at that point. Three daughters bothered him not at all, and no effort had been made to tailor the outcome. Three daughters is as obvious an indicator that the outcomes of the biology tends toward female embryos.

Nobody outside of the interested parties knew anything about it. It all happened before Dora came into my life and persuaded me that I could do no worse. Damnable grey hairs on my temples are indications of my own lack of certainty, but I am fortunate enough to be able to think about it reflectively, and to laugh when I think that I could have my Ph.D., and still be patching walls as they cave in.

In fact it was patching walls that brought my salvation, for Dora permitted me a study, and having done so, she declared that I could do what I wanted. So I patched the walls, painted, got some bookshelves, and built myself a retreat where I could play my old records, smoke some of the green, and fall asleep. More sleep. Dora didn't sleep much. So, I catnapped. I would grab some sleep around four, just after the girls got in. When the dinner bell rang, I would venture down the long hall between my study and our flat's dining room. We ate at a glorious table the same glorious victuals that Dora fed her slaves. Painful, drab food. Beans of some kind. A bit of that. Etc. And then the skinnies would slink out and get some local junk food.

It is, therefore, with some pleasure that I found myself seated in a home holding some semblance to a great lifestyle, most particularly in this instance, food to savor. Sauces, oh, this is killing me. I must stop remembering these moments, for they torment me as I sit here with a collection of pits in my stomach. A half-finished meal of something left on the table. There will always be somebody to eat those beans as refried and refried, mixed with water into some sort of past. Feed it to the brick-sorters in on of the skeletal fields of tenement remnants. Much of the land that stood unused belonged to landlords that had cut deals with the municipality to slowly convert them to other uses as it became possible to attract people to resettle the lands. It wasn't easy to do this, and the city would write down large taxes to keep some tax revenues flowing. The city wrote down unoccupied apartments as well, cutting the basic taxes on these units to encourage the landlords to take the steps necessary to return them to fuller occupancy. It was a deviation from the practice that led Dora's lawyers to demolish buildings that were too expensive to manage. Often landlord walked away from these properties, but Dora inherited all of the real estate, a city block's worth on the south side of Charlotte Street. Prior to its development in the 1930's, the land had been used for farming. Dora's grandfather had bought the land during the depression with money he had taken out of Europe. Dora and Aina were heiresses. I don't know how wealthy the girls are, but it's only an affectation that keeps Dora from that lifestyle.

Aina has already decided that when she has control of her share, she will move away and live a nice life somewhere nice like where Carol lives. She has told me that I can come to live with her when the time comes. I can be her chauffeur. Kyra can be her bodyguard, as usual. Dora can shout at her minions. But we will be far away. Sometimes I wonder how real this is. I would gladly be Aina's servant. She's so cheerful, how bad could it be? I have plenty of experience as her servant, for Dora's word stands and who could say no, anyhow. 'Sure, I'll ride the subway with you. I will wake up in the middle of the night to fetch you. Yes, a car would be nice.' It goes without saying that I would drive Aina from coast to coast if it was decided that it was the thing to do. I do it for Dora because that is my life. I do it for Aina because I would lay down my life for her.

I love her to distraction. And on a lumpy, grinding subway ride home (on which occasions I require that Aina wear earplugs -- music thing), when Aina locks her hand in mine, hat pulled over her eyes, I know that she owns me, and that she may claim me as her own in the possessive way that she once did as a child. She only shared me with Dora, perhaps, and as she became a woman, her own sense of personal forcefulness might surprise Dora, even me.

***

When Aina and I returned from our visit with The Mulligans, we discovered that Dora in one of her moods. This time it was all about the quality of light and what made it one way or another. Diffuse or specific. I was with the wine and had little to say. Dora prodded me. She wanted a scoop. 'My eyes are tired just thinking about it.' 'Sunlight, the light of a match, flame of an oil well.' Pause, pirouette, blocking my passage in our hallway cluttered up with Dora's "small furniture." Thundered. 'These are examples of undifferentiated light. The light of a laser is specific. What about a kinematograph? Does the lens make it specific. What. Hey.' 'Let me wash my hands first.' 'Of what? Did you do something?' 'No, I just feel like washing the street off before I place my hand around your throat.' 'I feel so threatened.'

'Fasten it.' Shock. 'Shut up Dora. I won't live with you any more. I'm getting tired of listening to you. If you want to bother Emmie, do it when I am somewhere else.' Aina, by this time, was standing inches from Dora. Eye to eye. Dora was afraid. 'Sorry. I know that.' Dora turned away. Dora would have warned impertinence even months ago. The same aspect that had permitted Dora to actually let go of Aina sufficient to allow her some sort of life in the City. But Aina's own sensible nature had proven the key to the extension of the first, adult freedoms when she turned thirteen. But Aina wasn't much of a solo act, and Dora knew that she would be safe in the company of her neighbourhood kids, or the "accelerated" kids that she attended school with.

Aina stuck to her plan to move into one of the empty apts with a view. There were a few, since the sightlines were clear since no buildings stood on either side of 119 Charlotte. Nor the rear for that matter. The block was rubble and weird plants that Dora fancied. The girls opted for a unit facing west that overlooked Crotona on one side, and had a view to the south of the City. Well chosen. I set to work with them, doing a complete rewire, and new appliances and a top to bottom restoration of the facilities with a set of porcelain that I had refinished. All of the trim, the walls, the floors, new windows, anything Dora could think of to do to delay the inevitable. Eventually, the girls took up residence, and bless me if Dora didn't save me from nighttime hallway misery by donating large amounts of her best furniture. It belonged to Aina too. It had come out of the home in the other Bronx where the girls had been borne into life. That is to say, a doctor came to the house. The Frenchs did not go to hospitals. The house went when Dora faced the question of which assets to keep, and which ones to sell. It may be that she was motivated by her sense of cheapness and couldn't think of continuing to maintain a household large enough to require a staff. I don't know what her motivations were because she never chose to share that kind of information with me. The family may have fallen into a kind of fiscal decline that attends the lack of interest held by the aged patriarch.

Whatever other factors might have been extant, it happened that when Dora came to look at Le Charlot, the first child to come up to her was Kyra, followed by Devon. They were fascinated by the sight of a car on their street, a mean street as any. Kyra gave the smile that she reserves for people that she wants to like. I thought that Dora was going to fall, so much trouble did she have getting out of the car, and the very cause of that tension had come up to steady her arm. That cemented a bond that would see Kyra's life change in a profound way. It took the relocation of the family unit to Charlot for the change to begin in earnest for Kyra. That took Aina. The pair could tear terror through the hearts of the minions. The older ladies, busy at their knitting and sewing, would glance out the windows and yell at the girls to take care. 'Don't get your shins scraped, girls.' The boys of course, were not only expected to to scrape themselves up, but to boast about it. You could see it happening. The jean jacket with no sleeves, the tat, the scrape, the scarify, scared iffy. The older ladies shook their heads and pecked. For them, the matter of girls playing in the ruins was a folly. Dora thought so too, and insisted that the girls stay well covered up. But Kyra likes to play soccer, and what are you going to do. Aina wears the protective gear when she goes blading. I should, but don't. I'm an older version of the kids who get scars on their legs. But unlike today's youth, I forewent any sort of body treatments. Both of my ears are pierced. I went there. I haven't worn a ring in years and the holes have closed up. I have long hair. Amazing rich brown hair and blue eyes. I'm certain that Dora chose me because she thought that I was the nearest thing that she had encountered to her ideal man. Somebody who would look nice beside her in pictures. Had my hair been blonde, my eyes brown, my skin different, I would have been little more to her than a teaching assistant with a clever sort of mind.

The Frenchs migrated from Europe in 1932. It should come as no surprise that the family went into real estate and construction, since both were booming as agricultural remnants within municipal boundaries were pushed into residential development to house the crush of immigrants. Charlot was a winning horse. French kept horses. He kept a stable of them up in Canada, on a Laurentian lake near St. Jovite. Other tenements on the street were also named after winning horses. French bought the lots because he liked the street name. His main concern was the kind of buildings he could erect. After that, it didn't matter. French had other streets throughout the City. They are all gone now. Charlot and undisclosed sums, the evidence of my eyes. Plus the European money. And, as it happens, Dufferin Haven. These days, it is covered by townhouse cottages so prevalent, and sensible shoes. The house stands, as do the stables, and the trophy house. The grand stable, where the horses were kept, houses a tennis court. The greenhouses, gone since the 1970's, had served as the foundations for the first clusters of townhouses. The work buildings all remain, as do the two lodges that housed the site's workers. And if you go up the hill to a higher plateau, there remains a large area of land in open cultivation. Forlorn, to the side, are the tarpaper shacks that housed the summer workers. They are mostly in collapse, but continue to exist. Dora sent the girls to Dufferin Haven for the summer, where Nelli looked after them. She had six children of her own, but all had long since left, but none went too far. Nelli would tell the girls, as she put margarine on bread and placed an icing layer of sugar on top that she had spoiled Aina's father and her own youngest son, making the sugar snacks for them to enjoy as they played Beatles records on a record player. I think that those summer months that the girls spent with Nelli were the best moments that the girls ever had as children. It was so because life there was so plain and ordinary, the water in the lake so pure. I expect that all of Kyra's global consciousness grew out of the flowers that Nell still cultivated in the small greenhouse that had replaced the several large ones.

But it was with the arrival of the Mulligans that Nell discovered, in Carol, the hands of a maker of things, a grower of flowers, a crafts artist. Carol made her first acquaintance with the craft of joinery in the carpentry shop at Dufferin Haven. Nelli's son Kaas explained to her how the machines worked, even how to adapt two building structures into one. He did this in choppy English so different than what Carol found herself accustomed to that she barely understood him at first. While Aina and Kyra were off to the side, fencing with newly made swords, Carol listened as Kaas explained the qualities of different wood, how lignostone was the hardest of all, how maple was one of the best construction materials of all. How poplar would disintegrate quickly, along with birch. Kaas discovered in Carol a desire to know a lot about things like wood and clay, how glass broke, how combustion worked. Carol wasn't simply a tomboy. It was clear that she wanted to do different kinds of things with her life than most other girls did. Kass explained to her how buildings were constructed in thin air, using a different sort of joiner. Carol, like me, is earthbound, and refuses to fly. Still, she listened attentively as Kaas described how bridges were made. How men could trot across a thin steel beam hundreds of feet in the air without even a rope to stop the fall that never came. They could walk those beams with their eyes closed. Not Carol, she would shiver as Kaas talked about heights. He, like the Mohawk bridge builders that he described, had very few fears of an outward nature. His fear was failure, and he worked like a herculean character to assuage this rather unreasonable fear. In that way, he differed from the Mohawk builders. They have no fear at all. They don't even fear God the way Dora secretly did. It would get in the way of the love.

Kass, ten years older than me, has the nic Casey. I remember hearing a story about the time that Dora had tried to set the mountain on fire. All of the other local kids were standing around, saying, 'I don't think so...' as Dora used two matches. Casey came shortly to the calls for help from his youngest brother Ricky, a terrified kid. There was Kaas, running down the side of the hill with a fire hose in hand. Dora was begged with to not do that again. Nobody had ever received instructions to discipline her. What else could they do? She was ten. Dora shook her head when she told me about it. She did not expect it to burn. She had wanted to merely scare the other kids with her boldness. When I visited the location with her on my first visit, I told her that she needn't have worried, the forest wouldn't have ignited, but there might have been a grass fire. But, that too, would have been stopped by the road that descended, serpentine fashion, to the lake. 'The fire got bigger than that.' She replied.

Back when we spoke these words, Dora was a somewhat different person. Her basic character was set, but had yet to be hardened by the ravages of her cancer. She contracted the illness at an age when most women would be looking around to get hitched. But everything was accelerated for Dora. Her biggest sadness was leaving Aina and Kyra behind. And me too, but I'm a distant third. She wants me to accompany her on a companion trip. I don't intend to oblige, nor do I intend to let her stop fighting for every breath. We can't stand each other, but sum for all, she is the best company that I have ever kept and I do enjoy our intellectual games. Aina is showing the same brand of fire as Dora, but her character is ebullient and perceptive, and wonderfully friendly, as opposed to wickedly so, for Dora, who has a touch of mischief that most women don't have, or don't allow themselves to manifest. Perhaps it was all the Seinfeld episodes that she loved watching. I won't name her favorite character. Think nemesis down the hall.

In terms of how she built her life, Dora also liked to preserve things, including Charlot, it's handful of tenants, and its multitude of transients that became Dora's property and stayed. Charlot was in fact, as a friend of mine once said, the kind of building that older women moved out of on a stretcher. And that sort of thing was possible, because in this case, idle time made hands busy by edict, and the older people got, the more there was that was done on their behalf by older people still healthy enough to do so. It was a co-operative that existed with some direction from "His Eminence" (on account of my heavily embroidered tweed jacket), but mostly took form on its own, as these people were all friendly, secure, and happy to do whatever Dora wanted them to. I am the head minion, I suppose. Aina would laugh and tell me that I would have to go down to Broad Street to find that person.

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