Road To Redemption

From the R.M. Dolin novel, “AN UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE – The Book of Darwin“

Regardless of what cynics say, place really does provide context for mood and thought, which is why each time Darwin lumbers up to his high-mountain meadow, he’s overcome with the powerful burden of consequence; compelled to revisit the causal factors behind how he came to be here, how he walked away from a life that was so damn hard to set up because that provides the context for what happens next and ‘next’ seems extra loaded with drama and complexity as he considers all the ‘what’s and ‘whys’ of all those things that matter.

Slow rolling his rust-riddled pickup to just beyond where the rugged mountain road opens to lush calcium-rich meadow grass waking up from its long winter slumber, Darwin considers his cascading list of ‘whys,’ coupled with how being in his wilderness setting is a direct consequence of what began that brutal morning back at Berkeley, which in turn is a consequence of his decision to pursue a PhD at Purdue rather than Harvard because he wanted to accomplish something meaningful with his life rather than coast to a collection of connections that would ensure his future wealth without requiring the need to make contributions. And that decision is easily traced to his lesson of the rabbit at adventure camp when forced to face for the very first time the consequences of what he’s capable of creating and why now he must adhere to the strict discipline of his self-imposed exile.

Life has a way of consolidating into the movement of moments stitched together like a quasi-connected ice flow working its way down Kismet Creek in early spring or the way left over aspen leaves blow about base camp like discarded shapes of a jigsaw puzzle revealing the mystery of just how far fate reaches back when turning pieces into possibilities waiting to be realized. Calvin Kincaid’s death on the very spot Darwin builds his base camp beside the aspen grove is the result of a principled man standing against corruption, which is made possible by tales of Arabian nights protecting him from the profoundness of kismet until fate’s ready to reveal its path. One can’t help but wonder if a crime scene connection can be made between what happened at Berkeley and the many tragedies tied to Marquez Mountain because Darwin surmises as he gazes down his meadow and across the Rio Grande valley to the mystical Jemez Mountains on the far side, whatever happens on his road to redemption ripples in consequence not only for the rest of his life, but for generations to come, just as the consequence of Calvin Kincaid continues to litter Marquez Mountain in tragic melodrama.

Darwin sits in his pickup marveling at how the incredibly bitter winter has laid the groundwork for spring’s rebirth. Frustratingly, he lingers longer than Murphy can reasonably be expected to remain calm so, rather than wait for his door to be opened, he hops out his rolled down window so he can be about the business of chasing whatever is out there that needs chasing. In no hurry to work his way down to base camp, Darwin continues his thought experiment: if his logic’s valid, he’s part of Anso and everything that’s happened on Marquez Mountain before and after him. He feels it, even hears whispers of Marquez Mountain ghosts whenever he walks up Kismet Creek tracing it to its source, a place he’s certain is somewhere close to where legend maintains a Free Mason carved his vault into mountain granite so Calvin could secretly stash the fortune he made selling meat and lumber to miners.

On his slow promenade to base camp Darwin considers if it likewise means whatever he does next, the legacy he leaves behind, the progress he makes on his road to redemption, provides the context for whatever fate awaits whomever follows after him, because the one singular certainty etched in time like an unwritten tombstone is there will be someone who fate chooses at the designated moment for this predestined deal. “Is that my deal?” Darwin stops to ask the Appaloosa stallion who steps out of the aspen grove to see who’s trespassing into his kingdom. After four seasons the Appaloosa allows Darwin unencumbered access to his meadow, in part because Darwin respects his authority and also because he’s learned to tolerate Murphy; some days it even seems he enjoys, “horsing around,” with the dog who’s way too playful to pose a threat.

Darwin steps onto base camp’s timber cut plank platform setting his beer cooler on the large centuries-old table in the center positioned between two lodge poles holding up the three-sided tent. He studies multiple inscriptions he long ago memorized that were carved into the two-inch thick ponderosa pine tabletop by Spanish conquistadors and wonders if it matters that he never bothered to learn Spanish. If it does, why would fate not put him on a path to master a language so common in Northern New Mexico he hears it every time he wanders into Red River or Questa but not so much in Taos because that’s New Mexico’s other trust fund town.

What if the answers to all his questions are contained in the wisdom of the conquistadors and fate is simply waiting for him to get off his lazy ass and learn enough Spanish to decipher their inscriptions. Is that how it works? Did Calvin, Carmelo, and Jorge have control over their fate or was it sealed long before they each met their violent doom. Darwin wonders to what extent he’s the master of his redemption or is he merely a passenger on a train rolling along a singular track whose destination is not his to decide? It is the quintessential question, it’s why he came to the Northern New Mexico wilderness to live a self-sustaining life, why he still has so far to journey.

Darwin worries it’s a question that can’t be answered as he plops into the Adirondack chair. He hauled the chair up last summer after commissioning a Taos carpenter to make it from a ponderosa tree he harvested on the lower part of the mountain after it was split in two by a bolt of lightning during monsoon season. If you look closely, you can see how intense electrical current flowed along sap lines through the wood burning crevices like little rivers the carpenter filled with clear epoxy he mixed with turquoise dust to provide a brilliant blue pattern against the natural white pine that looks like veins running around the chair. Darwin is convinced the turquoise pattern holds a meaning he’s thus far been unable to decode that, nonetheless, provides countless hours of contemplation. If he were to ever decide to invite someone to his mountain meadow, he’ll let them take a crack at deciphering the blue-vein pattern, who knows, perhaps nature has captured the wisdom of the conquistadors, or would that be vice versa?

From base camp’s location beside Kismet Creek at the lower edge of the aspen grove overlooking the valley below and the mystical Jemez Mountains to the far-off west, Darwin sometimes feels like a mighty king sitting atop his blue-veined throne surveying the vastness of his empire. He’s always humbled by the realization that a good king can’t buy his way to worthiness, it must be earned by acts of courage and valor and thus far his road to redemption lacks both. But rather than jump down that rabbit hole, he opens his soft-sided cooler and pulls out a bottle of Old Milwaukee deciding all of that’s pretty dang darn deep for a guy who came here drink beer and take in today’s exciting Chicago Cubs baseball game. He flips on his solar powered satellite radio that’s preset to the Cub’s broadcast and waits for the announcer to run through today’s starting lineup.

Darwin quickly wishes he’d done things differently because after his beer’s been cracked and the lineup announced he laments not having just stayed home and found something productive to do because the guy on the mound today has an ERA in double digits and only averages a measly four innings of work before getting pulled for someone in the marginal bullpen skilled at squandering leads. He thinks back to the times when he and Vincent were down to Murphy’s pub along Chicago’s North Shore when everyone had an excuse for why the Cubs insist on filling their roster with pitchers who can’t pitch; it’s a tradition as old as the ivy growing on Wriggly’s outfield walls. That tells you just how bad Cubs baseball is this year, but hey, it’s still a ways before the all-star break and anything can happen so, he decides to stay. The Cubs manager has been bringing up kids from the Iowa farm team to try out for roster spots and who knows, maybe one or two will stick and then things will turn around.

With his first beer in the books Darwin reconsiders going home, he knows once he cracks the next old Mil, he’s committed to the full nine innings because you wouldn’t wanna skim down Marquez Mountain with diminished reflexes. He looks over at Murphy wondering if he might care to weigh in and finds him chewing on the ear of a newborn colt who’s trying to roll in a small mud puddle left over from last night’s rain. The colt enjoys Murphy’s attention and mom is okay with their playing, but she keeps a watchful eye in case she needs to step in. Murphy has good rapport with the mustangs, sure he chases them around from time to time but what he doesn’t know is that they’re screwing with him by running just fast enough so he thinks he has a chance but each time he closes in on a pony, the mustang darts into the heart of the herd where Murphy loses track of which horse is his; then the game starts all over again with a new pony until Murphy just tires out.

Darwin settles in for the full nine, who knows, maybe today’s the day pitching’s gonna surprise him. It’s been awhile since he’s been to Wriggly and with Vincent and Ilene coming in October, he needs to get up to Chicago a couple times this summer to spend some quality time with little Issac who’s finally old enough to start his Wriggly apprenticeship; probably not so much to appreciate baseball, but start his indoctrination into the frustrating fraternity of being a die-hard Cub’s fan. With the announcer going on as only he can do about who knows what and Murphy content to play with the mustang colt, Darwin allows his mind to drift over other off-ramps on his road to redemption that he’s been purposefully avoiding. Even though he’s no longer a technologist, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t pay attention to trends, innovations, and breakthroughs, and lately there’s been some concerning chatter about the two areas of research he planned to delve into before things went south at Berkeley: virtual reality and artificial intelligence.

The alluring compulsion to go back to technology is difficult for Darwin to defeat, sometimes the desire’s so strong he’s not sure he can resist. Like any recovering addict he knows he must, some people just can’t be trusted with that kind of power and responsibility. That doesn’t mean he can’t ponder what would be waiting for him back in California or what he could do if he returned to the boiler room world of developing capabilities so fast, they can’t be reviewed, so innovative few are able to see the implications, so replete with unintended consequence they can’t be constrained. He’s better at seeing the implications now; from start to finish he considers all the unintended consequences, not because he’s some sort of savant on the spectrum but because he’s had four years to travel his road to redemption and he’s learned from his mistakes. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t make more if he got back in the game but from the sidelines, he can see what he sees his former colleagues missing and that causes considerable consternation. It even sometimes makes him mad at God for gifting him with the burden of brilliance and commingling it with the ability to see cause and effect, then holstering his ambition in penance and reconciliation.

That exit ramp is always hard leave; his soul was made to live there, every fiber of how he thinks, how he filters life, how he looks at the future, is made for defining a world of tomorrow that looks nothing like the world of today. That’s why he came to the Northern New Mexico wilderness, to live in a world removed from temptation, to wake up each day able to resist his nature, able to conscientiously decide today is not the day he stumbles.

Another off-ramp on his road to redemption is way more outside his logical mind’s comfort zone. Anna’s been spending increasingly more time in his life, it’s not that he minds, he just doesn’t know what it means and how he’s supposed to respond. While he never took a vow of abstinence when he left California, he did sort of decide he shouldn’t be involved with anyone, not because of his journey but because he’s not sure he’s really over Becky. He hasn’t seen her in four years and yet because he never formally closes that door to his heart, he never really stops loving her; and before Anna, never has a reason to stop either. Darwin knows things with Becky are over but it’s a long way from things being over and things being forever over and he hasn’t crossed the forever barrier; not because he thinks he shouldn’t but because he hasn’t been forced to. Call it a perk of off-grid living, a necessary part of wilderness survival.

That doesn’t mean he pines for Becky, not really; okay, maybe a little and certainly if things could go back to how they were he’d give it a go, but it’s a long way from he’d give it a go if he could and thinking that’s ever gonna really happen. And yet, he hasn’t closed that door because there hasn’t been another door he cares to walk through; until Anna that is. He’s not saying Anna is the one or that he’s ready to re-embrace what it means to be in a relationship; it’s a long way from wanting to spend time with a wonderful woman and being ready to accept the drama, demands, and difficulties of being in a relationship.

He enjoys spending time with Addison and even Skyler before he made the mistake of introducing her to Mateo, in part because they’re both fascinating and beautiful women but, gun to his head, the real reason is that they never pressure him into starting a relationship, never say they need more, never ambush him with commitment. Addison calls what they share a “dynamic.” Darwin isn’t sure what that means, other than she has no expectations he has to worry about fulfilling and as far as he’s concerned at this stage of his redemption journey, that’s about as perfect as what they share can be.

Darwin did invite Anna to last week’s annual remembrance dinner that he holds on his mom’s birthday; it’s the first time he’s ever had a “special” guest for this event, and he spends the evening thinking about how, if his mom were still here, she’d approve of Anna. In the interest of full disclosure, he tells her about the purpose of his special dinner and is pleased when she understands, she even said she tries to do something special like that on her mom’s birthday. They had a most pleasant evening, and he didn’t even mind that she interrogates him about virtually every aspect of his life. The only question he doesn’t fully disclose is the one about why he came to New Mexico, after all, as Anna points out, a man of his means can live anywhere, and the Northern New Mexico wilderness seems a bit out of character from the way she perceives him. Although, she does caveat that by adding that the way he came to her rescue that afternoon in Red River when those three Texans were taking too many liberties, certainly does trump anyone in the valley who might say he’s not a native New Mexican.

While Darwin has many faults, being naive is not one of them, he knows the way valley locals talk about him, he sees it in the hushed whispers of wait-staff when he’s eating, the way baristas tentatively hand him coffee at cafés in an odd mix of fascination and fear, and who can blame them, an strange looking outsider living alone as a wilderness hermit is bound to seem unsettling, especially since he’s the antithesis of everything Taos and Red River Anglos present. What bothers locals most about the hermit they call “the mystery man of Marquez Mountain,” is that while they toil endlessly just to have a few coins to rub together in the hope of occasionally allowing themselves morsels of luxury, here sits this eccentric millionaire shunning all the comforts and conveniences they can only dream of, and for what, to haul water in a rust-riddled truck with his only companion an over-anxious dog that never leaves his side. How is that supposed to be something to aspire to?

Escaping valley judgment is partly why Darwin prefers to grocery shop in Red River, at least Texas tourists in the former gold mining town don’t notice him and when they do see him sitting on a park bench eating ice cream, they write him off as some sort of out of luck prospector who’s foolishly wasting his life trying to find his fortune along Claim Jumper Creek. The more compelling reason Darwin shops in Red River though, is Anna. Even before they formally meet, he knows her from his trips to the grocery store where she works. Darwin can tell right away Anna doesn’t judge him and is confident she never gossips about him, never wonders what secrets are so severe they drive him to such an unworthy existence.

Anna doesn’t wonder because Anna doesn’t need to know, she sees him, sees past his unkempt exterior, not to the person he’s become, because she can see that he’s not the person he’s in the process of becoming. No, Anna can already see the man who’ll someday reach the end of the road he’s traveling. She sees a man confronting some sort of tremendously unspeakable demon unafraid to take it on despite the odds, someone willing to poke the dragon everyone else is afraid to wake and for that, Anna sees a man she most certainly admires.

Darwin foolishly believes he successfully hides the part of his soul burdened by consequence; he actually thinks he presents himself to the world as a normal Joe who just likes being alone. He’s convinced himself that he’s sold that persona to Addison, Skyler, Victor, Mateo, and most of all to Anna. The reality though, is he’s fooling no one even though he fools some more than others and each in different ways. Anna sees most clearly through his facade, she sees the pain he keeps buried deep inside, a pain that when exposed to Gwen that Thanksgiving back in Chicago, caused her to draw back in fear, but not Anna, the more she peels back each of Darwin’s complex layers, the more she comes to cherish the man who bravely came to her defense that afternoon in Red River when she worried she was in real trouble. There’s an uncensored gallantry in how men like Darwin slay their dragons that sends shiny shimmers of hopeful light into the world. It’s the courageous chivalry of Sir Galahad mixed with the unabashed idealism of Don Quixote that marks this man as noble.

Maybe because she grew up with art and an artist dad skilled at peeling back the layers of protection people paint themselves with in a vain attempt to escape from having to see who they are and the truths coloring their world. Isn’t that the purpose of art; to show people what lives on the other side of darkness so they can see a wonder without having to suffer the journey? Anna’s drawn to men like Darwin who forgo the splendor of art for the barely navigable necessity of the journey.

Anna sees in Darwin someone willing to confront his demons and there’s a clarity in that few have the courage to face. It’s not the false flag of a tormented rebel most women admire who write poor poetry and pretend to be driven by passion, it’s the humble willingness of a man who owns his mistakes and accepts the suffering he must endure to right wrongs he knows he must, to embrace being a Quixotic romantic jailed in a personal prison that lies unseen below the surface of life, the part men like Darwin shelter to protect others. Anna sees the war Darwin wages with himself in silence, one whose outcome is far from certain yet she’s certain he’ll emerge triumphantly on the other side, and that endears her deeper.

For Anna, Darwin’s a complete man, one that can’t exist because men like Darwin don’t really exist, how can they when the burdens of his world cruelly crush the soul of anyone daring to decide everything doesn’t have to be as everything is forced to be. And that is why Anna knows, Darwin needs her, and why she also knows he will push her away, because men like him foolish believe the dragons they must slay, they must slay alone. And Anna knows, she must let him.