THE WOLF INCIDENT
an excerpt

CHAPTER 1

I am being consumed by the green fire in the wolf’s eyes. At the moment I most need my body, it betrays me. My God! I am intellectualizing a wolf attack. It’s copper iron breath is on me and I am thinking of Aldo Leopold, father of ecology. He once wrote that is was poor life that did not know fear- fear of the June lightning hitting the rimrock, setting a tree splinter humming like a tuning fork. The wolf is looking around now. What is it looking for?

Before Aldo had his farm in Sand County- he could always read nature like a book- he worked for the forestry service hunting wolves, until the day he shot a mama wolf and watched the green light go out in its eyes. That day he knew deer, wolves, mountains, men, women even, and words- all were connected in a whole greater than the sum of its parts. He founded the first wilderness in the Gila forest in New Mexico.

Perhaps I am being consumed by my own mind. My God! How can anyone intellectualize a wolf attack. Is this a wolf attack? Why won’t it continue its attack then? Well, as I lived so shall I die, I guess. I have always survived by intellectualizing. It is what I do. I am a therapist. Words are my defenses. Will they serve as weapons against a wolf?

“Shhhh, Wolfie, idz okay,” I tell the wolf, slurring the words. I always speak to him, since he was a pup and brought to us for rescue. It is difficult to speak now.

Today something went wrong. Wolfie has been sick and not eating. I cut up some meat, although we are all vegetarians on the Farm, our commune, my experiment. Normally our animals have to make do with soy and such. Wolfie is an odd exception to all our rules. He is too big to be kept but cannot be released. He is lonely. No doubt about it; he is getting mean. Today something is wrong.

I am bleeding from my leg where Wolfie bit and held me while he waited for the Alpha male to come deliver the kill bite to my neck. No Alpha male came. Wolfie is alone. What will be his next instinct?

I am oddly unconcerned. He attacked me once before. Not this bad to be sure. If I may tell the truth, however, and I suppose I may- I must- then let it be known at last that I have lost the will to live. What a cliché! Even more cliché is the reason. I have lost the ability to give life. I am menopausal.

Funny thing: I cannot get up. I thought I was just mesmerized by Wolfie’s eyes seen from ground level. Now I fear that I have fallen wrong or lost too much blood or pinched a nerve in my leg or back or neck or head or something. I cannot stand.
I wondered why I felt no pain.

When I was a teacher resource on the Navajo Nation, the white Superintendent of schools gave a speech once at new teacher orientation telling us that there were some exciting new techniques coming from research on brain based learning and that we could tell which cortex the kids were accessing- memory or creativity or whatever- by watching their eyes. What cortex is Wolfie accessing?

These brain based learning techniques were not new to anyone in the field but the superintendent. Nor were they of much use to any classroom teacher with thirty sets of eyes to scan. And they were of no use at all with Dine- or Najavo- students since those kids show respect by never looking an adult in the eye. Most teachers- almost all Anglos- call it apathy. They refuse to extend wait time after asking their inane questions even when told that the reason that a Navajo student will not answer quickly is that there are no take backs in Dine language- no easy way to apologize. Dine language is a holy rainbow tongue given to the people by

Fuck!!! Ouch- owowowow- that I can feel! Black! It is black! I am losing all feeling now. I can barely hear the chewing. I cannot feel my own heartbeat- or breathing. Am I breathing?

CHAPTER 2

Is it later?

“Can you hear me? Am I making any noise? I cannot hear anything! Wolfie, honey, go get help!!”

What was I saying? Where was I?

“You again, Douglas, my son. Just in time. I think I am going- away now. There are things I need to tell you. Come closer. I cannot see you. Hold my hand.”

It is ironic that I may be dying from loss of blood when it was the loss of my monthly loss of blood that I was grieving. If I could move my hand, or feel with my fingers, I would like to touch the trickle on my leg.

What shall I say to my only son, estranged from me now for- how many years?? Since he was seventeen, no wait- sixteen- no,no, it was seventeen. Oh, what does it matter?
Of course I know he is not really here. Where is here? In a hospital? In the morgue? On the wet ground? In Wolfie’s belly?

“Dougie, my dear! I miss you! I bless you! You were a blessing to my life!!!”

That is what I want to shout. How can I explain my life in the last seconds. How can I make it better for those who remain? Oh, who am I kidding. I still want to make it better for mememe right to the end.

I want someone else to explain my life to me. What was its meaning? Strange that I should have no thoughts about the after life or lack thereof now that the questions is finally pertinent. I have had so many idle opinions thereon through the years. Instead I wonder if I left the lights on in the kitchen, as if I had just gone out for bread!

Douglas loved bread as a boy. He liked crusty bread- baguette. No need cut crusts off white bread for my wonder boy. We gave him pate de foie gras and camembert instead of PB&J. Or intention was not to spoil him. We wanted to cultivate him. That is what Robert, his father, had said anyway. That was our excuse for our coldness. Our child was a project for us. We did not have him to save the marriage. The marriage was beyond saving. Did we want a pawn to argue over when we finally split? No, we wanted to stay together and suffer and we wanted an audience for our suffering. It was horribly bourgeois but we thought it was grand! Voltaire told us to cultivate our garden so we had a baby. We did not raise him candidely however. Our philosophy was anti-Panglosian. All was for the worst in the worst of possible worlds.

Then Robert left. A girl helped him go of course. I did not mind that. I was relieved to think he would have a new pet to care for him in the way to which he had become accustomed- with the same level of sympathy that I had provided as I liked to imagine, with the same mixture of concern and malice.

The problem was when he left little Douglas with me. He was supposed to take the boy off my hands. I wanted to begin my all women commune, to test my therapeutic theories in a ‘living group’ of women. We had no room in the vision for kids, or at least I did not. The state saw things differently. I argued that I had had affairs myself. I claimed I was a lesbian sado-masochist but the state was unafraid. It seems the mother’s rights to her child are almost inviolable. Even later as the commune got stranger and stranger I could not get Robert to sue or have me investigated.

I was struck with Dougie. I would never tell him this of course. I did not even tell myself. But I felt stuck. No chld is a dumb albatross of course. He was smart. He kept quiet. But he knew.

“You knew, didn’t you, Doug?”

Some have imagined from the honesty I have come to use in describing all things- even this- that I did not love Douglas. That is untrue! I loved him soooo much that I knew I was bad for him, just as I had been for Robert. I blamed Robert but I never blamed Douglas. He was a kid! But then he got to be a teenager. This was right when we were developing our methods of honesty and we said some very truthful things to Doug. Some of the women did not like men at all. I tried to shield Doug from some of that which I felt it was not his burden to carry. But he was undoubtedly becoming a man.

“Remember I caught you experimenting with the dog?” Why do I pathologically speak out the most embarrassing bits Doug hates?

So he went to live with his father. But he was soon back.

“To visit!” you said. That broke my heart. Tell me I did not love! You risked your father’s wrath for time with me. He had given an ultimatum, promising not to take you back in if you set one foot on the farm again in life. Yet you came. I cannot pretend it was a pleasant visit. We fought. You were a teenager. They are all buggers! And I had gotten used to my independence. I spoke my mind more after you left. All the ladies remarked it.

And I admit it was a mistake to counter ultimatum with ultimatum. When you wanted to return to your fathers and I told you never to return to the farm, did you take me seriously? I know I told you to always take women seriously. But I was upset! We all get upset. That is okay. I taught you that. Just breath before reacting. It is not simple. True, I did not accept your call later. I have always wondered if your father had not taken you back in. Probably it was just to say you had arrived safely. I trained you well. You even sent the Farm sisters a thank you note for the visit. You kissed me through them in the P.S.!
Surely your father took you back. You were still a minor and someone would have called me if not, right?

I guess I will never know now. Until you die. We will be reunited! Does time work the same after death? Will I wait long? Do you have children of your own? Do not hurry to see me, my love. But it is not so bad. It does not hurt. It is just black. I wish I could tell you.

I think maybe I am not dead yet. When will someone find me? Am I already en route to hospital? I admit I am tired. Funny: I can feel tired although I cannot feel. I feel so

CHAPTER 3

The horse is so much bigger than me. I am very afraid. The bow is still on its neck. The mane is very short, in dressage style. I have been riding for a while, but now I have my very own horse! It is too big for me. Mother does not know how to pick horses! The trainer looks worried, but I just have to ride her. Wait, let me see- it is a him. Well, it used to be a him. It is a gelding. That was funny when I found out about how all that works!

“Annie, help me up will you?”

Annie looks unsure. Mom nods yes. Annie does not always do what I say. In fact she is the bossiest servant we have. But she always does what mom says. I think they pay her a lot. Annie wants to be my friend, maybe. Mom says do not make friends with the staff but I am not so sure. Annie is actually really nice. She is seven years older than me. She can ride like the wind! But she is so strict.

There are all these rules to riding horses. And it is a lot of hard work! You have to bathe and feed them and take care of the saddle and stuff. At first I was not sure I would stick with it. Mom says I never stick with anything. But I stick with horses. I like them better than people. From the first time I rode I was hooked! Now Annie lets me run the horse and ride at a trot alone or full gallup with her on her horse by my side. I have proven myself! Take that, mom!

Maybe Annie is my friends when she says stuff like that. But I am not liking the looks of her now, taking forever checking over the horse.

“Come on!!!”

I think I will call her Whitie. My first horse!

“It is a very big horse, Mrs. Roben,” says Annie, “perhaps we should wait…”

“Maaaa,” I whine.

“It’s okay, Annie,” mother to the rescue, “I will take responsibility for the risk.”

“Very well,” Annie agrees.

Up I go with Annie’s help! She is still adjusting straps as I kick Whitie just a tad. Whitie it turns out is a nervous horse. I am little but he can feel me good. He spurts forward right away. I hold on but have to giggle.

“Wait!” Annie and mother both yell.

I give it a thought but decide I can handle him. Whitie and I have an instant bond. I pull myself up into posture and set him at a trot. He is very well trained. As soon as I feel her is in a good rhythm and responding well, I decide to go for the gallop. There is a stretch of road right heading to the track in fact. I will gallop him there- I can tell he wants to- and then wait for Annie to come and see and no doubt tell me w look okay to hit the track at a trot.

“Just a trot,” I imagine I can hear her yelling now.

Whitie runs fast! But flat- smooth- no trouble to hold on to. I fell the power underneath. It tingles all throughout the horse’s body and mine. I feel funny between my legs. It is the best feeling I have ever had. I decide to go for the track but the gate is closed. If I stop Whitie to open it the others will catch up. I don’t ever want them to catch me again.
Just me and Whitie in the world!

I jump the gate. Annie has never let me jump before. Even though I won ribbons at dressage shows. I knew I was ready. Without even knowing the technique! The horse knows. Just hold on! We are rising rising. Whitie is flying. Wings unfurl on either side. I am holding on for dear life, laughing and looking down on the oval of the track. I cannot see mother or Annie or the house. We are in the clouds now. Whitie is so beautiful. He is glistening.

I notice I am wet everywhere. We are in the rain before it rains.

CHAPTER 4

It is still dark. Is there someone there?

I can no longer tell when I am dreaming. It seemed so real.

Whitie was a stupid name for the horse I admit but I was so young then, and he was my first. Soon I had a stable full. Dad outlasted mom but I never visited him. When he died I only found out because he had left me the house. I am an only child but I was surprised. He had been religious, the hypocrite. He needed forgiveness from someone I guess.
I thought of refusing the house or donating it to some woman’s charity. It was too far out in the country for me to keep a private practice there. My patients were city neurotics or suburbanites dreaming of being Bovary and would not drive even the four miles of our private drive let alone the highway out there.

In the end I decided to make the Virginia horse farm into an all women’s commune. We were supposed to be non-hierarchical but let’s face it. I was their therapist and owned all the land and house and farm and stable and car and tractor. The idea was that if I had my patients 24-7 I could really treat them. Later when I realized what a pain they were 24-7 I changed to letting the animals heal them. We took in rescued animals and nurtured them. This in turn nurtured us into healing. We nourished ourselves and the animals with what we could grow- organic food to eat and cut flowers as a cash crop was the idea. It failed. We grew food and flowers but every year my investment kept us afloat and well fed. That is how we escaped collapsing like all the hippy communes. I was always glad I kept all the assets in my name although some called me capitalist pig. I was no guru but I was no idiot either. I kept us alive!

“I started fighting mother younger than when you started fighting me, Douglas.”

No, he is not here again!

“In fact that is why she bought me the horse, after our first fight.” I had not told mother about dad. He began interfering with me even before I began puberty. I did not think it was a big deal at first. Until I got my period! I thought dad did something wrong to me then. But would nerve tell mom anything. I might have told Annie but she left after I rode Whitie off. She warned she would not be responsible. But I never had hard falls. I was fine. I am a survivor. Or was. Am I alive? I think so. I don’t want to be. Anyway the new horse girl- what was her name?- and I nerve bonded. So I never told mom but she knew.

Mother and dad never fought. They would have to speak for that. They communicated to staff- his for the business- hers for the house- and with me through notes mainly. I still have some. I hope those are not found now.

Mother told me always wear clean underwear just in case… Now I do not even wear underwear. Ha!

But mother started in on me soon after dad. Guilt? There are as many theories as there are therapists. I think she saw me as a rival. She threw water on me at dinner one night. I ran to my room before I could be ordered there. I stayed there longer than they would have grounded me for whatever my offense could have been. I stayed silent longer, without food longer… Only Whitie brought me out of it. I did not forgive mother. I pitied her that gesture. Kids understand more than we think, even if they do not verbalize it. No, it had nothing to do with dad. I only started hating dad after he stopped coming for me. Figure that out! Weird world, eh?...

“Why did you leave the first time, son?”

I will not say it was Mensa. I always say it was Mensa. He hates that.

“It’s complicated,” he tell me.

I cannot tell if I am dreaming. I cannot tell if he is speaking. I cannot tell if am thirsty. I can only tell that I am I.
Unfortunately.

I think it was Mensa. We decided to stop using feminine products for a while. Blood was everywhere around then. It was an experiment that did not work out. We laugh about it now. Right around then Dougie left. We did not fight about Mensa though. I cannot say that. I wanted that fight.

Douglas and I were fighting for other reasons. He never said he missed his father. He understood there was another woman. I had other women too! Did he understand? He did not seem to need to understand anything except himself, his body. He wanted a basketball hoop. We got him one. Nebbishy Carol of all people played with him- her mitzvah I suppose- and I was jealous. I could not be interested in sport. Robert was so competitive he would yell every time he made a scrabble or broke 300. He said he was joyous, not competitive. I consider sports a step to war, not innocent. Robert agreed. He liked books like me. Where did our son get this love of sport?

Douglas’ fantasy world had spells and swords and elven lore and poems and mysteries. He created a world nobody ever explored. We lived too far out for friends to come to play the role game Dungeons & Dragons with him. Doug said that had nothing to do with sports. Sports helped him forget the world completely. He saw nothing but a ball. He liked rules all his life. He obeyed until the day he left.

Why do men need to forget the world? My job was to prepare him to face it. I told him the myths and meanings behind fairy tales. When Sleeping ‘Beauty’ pricks her finger that is a symbol for onset of menses. Fairy tales were designed to help children enter the moral world of adults. But most tended to rope us into strict gender roles. I wanted Douglas to chooses carefully, not blindly. I taught him the Jungian hero quest type script. We were even going to do a coming-of-age ceremony for him but he did not tell us what kind he wanted!

“That is why I left, okay? To avoid that!”

Why did you never ask me why your dad left? I should never have let you take his name. Ten was too soon to choose but your school needed it, they said for some official reason. Hyphens were not in vogue yet. If you had chosen your own you had been Doug Wandwielder or something!

I did not take Robert’s name. That is not why he left. His name was so Jewish, he thought that is why I did not want it. He accused me of being able to pass: Roben. As if the whole damn Virginia militia county did not know the rich Jew farm on the hill the Rosen’s had had for generations! They hated us even before they started having to invite us places- for profit- well before the law said so. The Law!

The Law tried to change my name. No way! I was not proud to be a Roben. Might as well be Nightingale, Raven, Wren, Turkey, Cock…

“Could be German,” your dad said!

I was not proud of Roben, not even proud of Janet- of me- but it was me, my name. I always identified with words, my words. Why should I change? Did he? He did change, later, but not his name.

I think he left rather than read Simone de Beavoir. I read his damn Transactionalist tracts. That was his latest thing he said was his be all end all. I read it. Crap! But would he read Second sex? No go. He said it was the existentialism he hated, not the feminism. He did not hate women, it is true- only one: me! He loved his mother, his sister, his exes, his whores… And he hated –isms. Any but his own. He had one at a time. That’s how his mind worked. When we met he was Communist. I stayed utopian socialist. He became a Behaviorist. We split over –isms. Isn’t that sad? We had no heart. You had heart, Doug. I hope you still do, my dear, dear boy. I loved you for it even more than I loved you for leaving me and giving me my freedom. Your dad loved sex, someone to use or need, and adoration, any high, passion he could not himself maintain. In the end it killed him. He OD’d on cocaine. I almost came to the funeral. Just to see you though.

Who will come to my funeral?

CHAPTER 5

Wait! This is not my funeral. I am here!

How can I be at my own funeral. Am I a ghost? No, they are hugging me. I can feel!

I can see! But the coffin is closed. No headstone in sight. Whose funeral is it? We are behind the herb garden. Julie is in her colorful priestess robes. Her minister’s license is from some New Age church from the back of Rolling Stone magazine she borrowed $50 from me for- swore she would make money for us performing marriage ceremonies! Far as I know the only marriage she ever performed was George and Carol’s- Carol and George’s I should say. And that was bogus! I mean the marriage is legal. Julie’s minister’s license is legit. (Thank god ‘ministress’ is one term we are not saddled with- mainly because they do not ordain us, not because god is a woman as some say- that is one sin not pinned on us- lese majestey!) And I myself am a notary public. That is all one really needs to be married in the eyes of the state of Virginia- if it has eyes. The marriage is bogus because George is Julie’s ex and is only marrying Carolina the Spaniard to make her a U.S. citizen (god should forbid!) so she can stay with Moon, the theoretical lesbian.
I say theoretical because Carol should be getting married to stay with all of us, the whole Farm. FARM stands for Females Armed with Reason and Morals. I almost left Morals out because it smacks of the good manners we women were- or are- supposed to display at all times. Note that it does not stand for Against Men as our accusers (and one of our own women once or twice I admit) have claimed.

“And what’s wrong with manners?” Angela would ask. She is from the South.

Morals means we follow precepts like the Bhikkhuni (as a Jew I always want to ad a ‘m’), one of which is chastity. (We allow self-pleasure only in moderation.) Therefore Carol and Moon are not really together, technically, just like Julie doesn’t sneak off to see George all the time ‘strictly platonically’ ever since he moved his ‘pottery studio’ (apartment) nearby ‘just in case’ they questioned the marriage to Carolina.

I have to be flexible since the community is small. Moon is much younger than Carol, who initiated her into feminism and the love that dare not speak its name when Moon was studying in Spain. Carol had been a patient of mine when she was in the States studying architecture. We had stayed in contact and she wanted to join the community. Moon is the only member who had not been my patient previously.
She is sweet though, too sweet.

I am intellectualizing again. Something is wrong. This is not about the wolf. There is a policeman.

“Why is there a policeman?”

“They have to investigate,” Angela stops hugging me and looks at me quizzically, “make sure it is suicide. There was no note.”

Suicide! Where is Krista? I cannot see Krista.

She was there this morning in the kitchen with me as I cut the meat to feed Wolfie.

Where is she?!

CHAPTER 6

I must have dreamed again.

“Are you there, Doug? Are you there, you who are not Doug? Am I here? Please communicate to me somehow. If you are keeping me here, stop!”

I am not in any physical pain. This is not a reason to prolong life. What is life? It is pain!

Krista was- IS- my menosister. We are going through menopause together. Unfortunately she will not accept my prescription to help her battle the depression. She says she takes some Saint John’s Wort that Julie gave her, but we all know she self-medicated with booze. She has been mentally ill for a long time. She was one of my first patients. It is hard to get her to take pills. She was shocked as a girl. We had to hospitalize her once. Normally she is not so bad. But now she is menopausal too she is borderline suicidal. I have been watching her carefully.

Her white skin is even whiter. Her red hair is thinning. Her face is pulling down. Her eyes are bright, then dull. She will not read. She has always been a great reader. I stopped giving her psych books to read. I am trying poetry, plays, novels, anything. She does not sleep. She stares at the ceiling, listens to opera. She says she feels phantom pulling below, and cramps like she is still having her period.

This morning she looked better. Was it this morning still?

“I miss Wolfie,” she said.

“Come out and feed him with me,” I said.

“Whose on the roster for your chore partner?” We decided chores were easier done with a partner.

“Moon but she is a no show again. At George’s I bet. There will have to be a consequence.”

“You can handle it alone. You’re tough as nails.”

“I need you. You know that. Some air will do you good.” We had decided a new safety protocol also that nobody should feed Wolfie alone after he attacked me last time, bit my hand. I chose not to mention this to Krista though because she fought against the need for safety. We run on consensus but I bullied her into agreeing. Before he had been free in his yard. Now he was chained. He was getting too big to chain almost.

Krista in her typical passive-aggressive way took Wolfie off the chain sometimes and around for walks even. We complained. She cared for Wolfie a lot when he was a sick pup and often ill. She had a way with all animals. It was amazing. But if he got loose and on others, or animals…

Krista offered to care for Wolfie alone and even still do her other chores but I vetoed it. It was better for everyone to know how to do all tasks, in case one member gets ill or leaves.

“I will take a walk with you later, unless… No, nevermind, I need to go back to sleep, sorry, I had nightmares.”
Krista left me. I took the meat out. I always did Wolfie first before my other chores. It was my way, to do the unpleasant thing first. Otherwise I stayed anxious, preoccupied. I was thinking how angry I was at Julie when I entered Wolfie’s pen. How could I get her to commit to the Farm more than to George. I felt we were losing her as we had Mildred.

What does it matter now?

It matters!!! If I am gone- I think I am alive, but hope to die soon, what then will happen to the Farm? I willed it to the girls but will they stay on without me there?

Can I panic if I have no body? I can! I have a body. I felt a real flutter then- in what’s left of my guts.