WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

From the R.M. Dolin novel, "An Unsustainable Life - The Book of Darwin."

Chapter 17: Where Time Stands Still

Deep in the shadowless domain of dusk, the rust-riddled pickup lumbers to its spot along the left side of the stucco shop Darwin built to replace his weathered festival tent. To neither his nor Vincent’s surprise the Cubs didn’t win their afternoon matinée against the Milwaukee Brewers but the long, rugged ride up Marquez Mountain to the wild mustang meadow has value. Along the way they’re treated to a large black bear scurrying her cub across the road to the safety of a steep arroyo filled with crisscross dead fall making any kind of pursuit improbable. Further up the mountain, Murphy, who always rides with his head out any rolled down window, aggressively alerts on a long lanky mountain lion who’s putting a sneak on an unsuspecting squirrel. The squirrel would have been toast if Murphy hadn’t insisted on barking. He didn’t see either the lion or squirrel at first, but given the hostile ferocity of his alert, he definitely smelled the cat.

The drive down Marquez Mountain is equally entertaining, especially the first steep descent with its sharp left turn right where rugged mountain terrain trades places with thin desert-dried air. Blasting down the descent with nothing but blue cloudless sky ahead feels like taking off from the deck of an aircraft carrier as solid steel runway trades places with a horizon filled with nothing but vast ocean waves. Vincent’s panicked reaction to the rapidly approaching edge of the sheer four-hundred-foot drop-off with no guard rails and little room to misjudge the hairpin turn is priceless. He shouts so loudly for Darwin to stop, the truck seems to do so on its own; and luckily it does just as the passenger tires cling to whatever granules of gravel are left. After catching his breath and allowing his heart to come somewhat back to normal, Vincent declares with absolute certainty he’s gonna walk the rest of the way down the “God-damn mountain!” The drama only escalates though, when he opens his door and comes face-to-face, or should we say toe-to-toe, with the fact there’s literally no ground beneath his feet.

Scrambling to claw his way back into the cab while frantically grasping for anything his hands can clutch, Vincent manages to get in enough to strap on his seatbelt in a beguiled belief that when they go over the edge, which it certainly seems they’re gonna, that’ll be the difference. Darwin quietly waits for his brother to regain his composure before calmly saying, “see what I mean about needing to fix washouts after a rainstorm.” He grins just a little as he jams his pickup into second gear to resume their descent. “And you scoffed at my tractor.”

Darwin and Vincent drive in silence until nearing the next steep descent with another hairpin left at the bottom. “Probably as good a time as any to tell you we got two other suspect spots to traverse.” Darwin causally runs through his safety briefing like an airline steward who long ago memorized the preflight script. “They aren’t as intense as that last one, but they always seem to be in greater need of repair, so keep your seatbelts fastened and remember, your nearest exit, as you recently learned, is not necessarily your safest.”

Folks who trek around remote mountain roads quickly learn that climbs are not near as treacherous as descents. Going up provides driver control over speed and acceleration letting you decide how fast you’ll go, how solid you’ll brake, and how best to navigate washouts, berms, and depressions. Going down is an adventure totally in gravity’s favor where braking is usually not advised and when possible, is impossible to control. Guiding two-and-a-half tons of metal momentum down a steep incline doesn’t allow you to use brakes whenever you want, especially on loose gravel or soupy mud, there’s just no telling how a vehicle will react. All you can do is rely on lower gears while waiting for a safe place to regain modicums of control. For the uninitiated, what presents as a madman possessing a reckless desire to die is really a skilled technician applying solid mountain maneuvers. Of course, you can never satisfactorily explain that to the poor frightened soul clutching his passenger seatbelt in the misguided belief destiny comes with options.

Other than those moments of adventure, the rest of the day in the high mountain meadow is as placid as any day involving a Cub’s game can be, especially after they blow a two-run lead in the late innings. One comical aside is the way the Appaloosa stallion spends the afternoon deciding whether he should tolerate Vincent’s presence. While Darwin and Vincent keep to the lower end of the meadow at base camp, the Appaloosa keeps his mares in a tight bunch at the upper end of the meadow. He mindfully watches these would-be intruders from the quasi concealment of the aspen grove just above base camp. Murphy does as Murphy’s do and quickly finds his favorite colt to “horse-around” with. As usual, mom makes sure the boys don’t stray too far from the herd or get into too much mischief. As everyone heads back to their pickup, the stallion closes in making sure they know, as do all the satellite stallions watching, he’s the one deciding it’s time for them to leave.

Darwin pulls his keys from the ignition, tossing them in the ashtray. He grabs their gear from the pickup bed and ushers his brother toward the hacienda with Vincent continuing his interrogation. “Clearly your trees are too dense and the majority of them are, as you said, stunted and weak. There’s so many it’s hard to even know where you’d start to thin.”

“They say prior to human intervention trees in my forest were so tall, healthy, and spread out you could run a horse at full lope and now wildlife can’t even venture off game trails it’s so damn dense. I considered starting a sawmill; I’d employ locals to help with selective harvesting but it’s a huge undertaking I’m not willing to devote bandwidth to. If someone came along with a conservationist business plan I think we’d come to an arrangement. I’d have to give them the trees so they can make a profit but what the hell, I’m already giving away a hundred grand in elk tags every year, so, what’s another million in lost profit.”

“What about firewood?” Vincent asks. “Ya always see guys selling firewood out of their pickups along the highway and in parking lots.”

“It’s certainly a solid way for locals to make mula. A truckload of split wood goes for like three hundred. Piñon gets upwards of four depending on where in Taos they sell. Unfortunately, those guys are like loggers, they want large diameter trees to split. They will take dead fall though, since it’s already dry, but only if the termites haven’t chewed on it too much. The problem is firewood harvesters get permits from the state for free. The good they do cleaning-up state land, however, doesn’t keep pace with what nature produces. It’s gonna take a commercial enterprise to make the kind of impact needed to fix the forest.”

Darwin holds the hacienda door as they step into the kitchen. “I’ll get going on dinner,” he tells Vincent. “You go make nice with your wife who you abandoned all day.”

“Only because she wouldn’t come.” Vincent defends.

“Yeah,” Darwin teases. “Like that’s gonna matter. Tell her about the mountain lion.” He rummages around the fridge for dinner possibilities. “That was really something, it’s like only the third one I’ve seen in the last five years.” He pulls stuff from the fridge. “They say for every one lion you see, a hundred have stalked you. Just think, three hundred near death experiences I was clueless about. That’s why mountain men have dogs. You saw how Murphy reacted when he sniffed out that cat.”

Uninterested in mountain lion small talk, Vincent heads for the guest bedroom. Darwin goes to his utility room to assess his sun monitor and battery bank gauges to see if he’s going to need the generator later. It’s been a spotty sunshine day on account of fall weather building toward something, probably tomorrow if not later tonight there’ll be a storm. Having guests means he can’t just turn off the fridge and walk around in darkness like he usually does on low bank days, which means at some point in the evening he’s going to have to run the generator. He returns to the kitchen just as Vincent rushes in.

“She gone!” Vincent shouts.

“Gone where?” Darwin asks while sorting through his refrigerator items trying to figure out what he’s fixing for supper. He’s yet to make the critical connection between the information Vincent conveyed and the note his brother is clutching.

“Home. Back to Chicago.”

“That’s a mighty long walk,” Darwin quips. He carries an arm full of things to the counter.

“She says she misses Issac and he needs her. It’s just bullshit. I already know this is my fault.”

Darwin sets his supplies on the counter next to the stove and digs out a frying pan. “What’s your fault?”

“Whatever the hell caused her to suddenly up and leave. It’s always my fault.”

Darwin lights the burner under his frying pan, he studies his supplies still uncertain how the contents on the counter will miraculously become supper. “How’s she getting there?” he asks not really caring. “It’s not like she can fly the Mooney.”

“Apparently,” Vincent states, “Your little Miss Sweetie-pie drove her to Santa Fe.”

“Huh,” Darwin says to himself. He shuts off the burner and turns toward his brother. “Why would she do that?”

“I gotta go!” Vincent shouts.

“She’s a big girl,” Darwin counters. “Anna will make sure she gets on the plane okay, then it’s a direct shot to O’Hare.”

“You don’t understand. I gotta go. This is all tied to the troubles I told you about. If I don’t go, things only get worse.”

“Well, that’s damn disappointing, you just got here. But I get it, if ya gotta go then you gotta go. I can run you up to the airport first thing in the morning.”

“It’s gotta be now. Otherwise, this whole damn disaster just blows up on me.”

“I hate to break it to you, compadre, but that donkey’s already left the barn. It’s getting dark and you haven’t even filed a flight plan. Plus, you’re in no shape to pull an all-nighter. Are you even instrument rated for night flights?”

“Passed my instrument test last month and can file a flight plan at the airport.”

“It’s like a thousand miles! Even if you average two hundred an hour, by the time you refuel in Kansas it’ll be after three when you land. Best to wait till daylight, you’ll be more alert and thinking straighter.” Darwin continues working through the logistics. “If Ilene catches the five o’clock to O’Hare, she’s on the ground by eight, let’s say it takes ninety minutes to get her luggage and grab a cab, that puts her home around nine-thirty. We can have nice supper, drink a couple beers, and you can call afterwards to talk things over.”

“NO, No, no!” Vincent shouts. “You don’t understand. I can quote you exactly how that conversation goes, but I won’t in the interest of time. I need to be back in Chicago tonight. Whatever we have to say, has to be said in person.”

“I’m not gonna argue even if I think you should take a breath and chill. It’s not like you ever listen to me in the first place.” Darwin looks again at the random pile of food on the counter unsure if he should start supper or put it away. “If I know anything about you, it’s that once your mind’s made up that’s it, so, no point beating that dead horse.”

“Give me five minutes and we can leave.”

“I assume you’re at least planning to grab something to eat on the way to the airport.”

“Make some sandwiches,” Vincent shouts as he heads to bedroom. “And a thermos of coffee.”

All the way to Taos, Darwin tries convincing Vincent not to fly home in a hurry. He argues for a while that it’s best to give Ilene a day or two to think things over. That has little effect. He then leans into spending the night in Taos, drinking at a plaza bar while telling war stories. That holds even less appeal. As a last-ditch effort, Darwin suggests Vincent stay until at least after tomorrow night’s Cubs game, which maybe could have worked if the Cubs were ever going to be relevant this late in a season.

Instead, Darwin stays at the airport helping where he can as Vincent frantically files a flight plan, fuels his aircraft, goes through preflight checks, and loads the plane; including the cooler of elk Darwin insisted he take. As the Mooney taxis down the runway, Darwin lingers long enough to wave good-bye before walking to his pickup to let Murphy out to nourish some trees. Unsure if he should call Anna to get to the bottom of her duplicity or just go home, he decides he doesn’t want to deal with her right now given his uncertainty about how he feels about her inserting herself in his family drama. He asks his trusted companion to weigh in and the answer’s the same as always; there’s no place like home.

It’s deep into the dark and despondent dead of night when Darwin’s rudely awakened by a loud persistent banging on his front door that’s further amplified by Murphy’s aggressive reaction. It takes Darwin a minute to get dressed and ready the 9-millimeter pistol Victor insisted he get from his cousin Palo, because it couldn’t be traced. Darwin’s still flushing cobwebs from his head as he stuffs the loaded weapon behind his waistband startled by the cold metal pressing against his back. He cracks the door open slightly making sure his foot’s firmly planted behind the door to prevent further opening while his right hand grips the pistol. “Oh,” he says seeing his visitor. “It’s you.” He takes a moment to decide between closing the door and going back to bed or letting her come inside. As he opens the door further, he immediately sees the sheriff’s patrol car and understands completely what this is all about.

Rather than enter, Anna stands in the doorway staring at Darwin with a solemn sadness confirming what he doesn’t want to hear. “I wanted it to be me to tell you.” She tearfully begins. “Mateo’s cousin Manny, who works at the airport, got the call. He calls it in to his cousin Dominic at the sheriff’s office who then calls Mateo who calls Victor, who calls me. Dominic’s here because this needs to be official, but he’s agreed to stay in his car.” Anna struggles in her search for the next set of just-right words. “Even though he frequently makes these calls, I think it’s something he’d rather not do.”

Darwin looks at the patrol car without expression. He turns around and walks to the kitchen, pulling whiskey from the pantry. He pours the first of what’s likely to be multiple rounds. “Give it to me straight,” he tells Anna who’s followed him into the kitchen.

“What we know so far is Vincent’s plane didn’t reach Kansas City for his scheduled refueling. Transponder data shows he went down over Raton. You know how those winds can rip up the mountains when weather takes a drastic turn. Crews are trying to get to the last known location. It’s not good, Darwin. Transponder data shows a rapid decent in a near vertical direction.” Anna stares at Darwin but he’s not looking at her, it would be hard to say he’s looking at anything. “I’m so sorry,” she continues. “They’ve already declared it a recovery rather than rescue.” It’s a struggle for Anna to continue but she does. “There’s fast moving weather and these early fall storms pack a lot of punch. Even if he survives the crash, it’s unlikely he can make it through the night in a subzero temperature.”

Darwin stares at his bourbon glass before refilling with a fast pour. “He insisted on leaving,” he mumbles. “Not sure he even looked at the weather he was in such a damn hurry. Said he had to get home to fix whatever was broke between him and Ilene.” Darwin glares at Anna with an intensity she’s never experienced. It’s like the look of a cornered convict needing to make what’s happened be on someone else. “I wager you know all you need to know about that from your drive to Santa Fe with Ilene.”

Rather than engage Darwin in a senseless blame game Anna continues her field report. “Ilene’s plane was delayed in Santa Fe, some nonsense about a coffee pot not working. She’s not due into O’Hare until after midnight. I doubt she knows any of this yet.” Anna pauses uncertain how to proceed. “I’m not sure if you want to be the one to tell her, but it should be you and it’s not the kind of thing you do over the phone. You need to go to Chicago Darwin, to be with her. Let me drive you to Santa Fe, there’s a six AM direct to O’Hare that Dominic’s trying to get you on.”

Darwin downs his bourbon and immediately pours a refill. He stares past Anna into infinity; to the place where Einstein postulated time stands still. “Yes,” he says, still in a quasi-comatose stupor. “I need to be in Chicago. I need to be there before Ilene finds out. I need to be there for Issac.” He’s not so much talking to Anna as he is informing fate of his intentions. He looks at Anna. “Can you facilitate that?”

Anna desperately wants to provide comfort and compassion but knows what Darwin needs is for her to stay strong and focused. “Dominic will escort us to Santa Fe, so we get there in time. He’s getting you an emergency boarding pass. I’ll come back here once you’re gone to square things away and of course to take care of Murphy.”

“Yes,” Darwin mumbles. “Murphy needs someone to take care of.”

“I’ll stay here until you get back. Take as much time as you need, I’m not going anywhere.”

After a drawn-out measure of silhouetted silence, Darwin pulls the pistol from his waistband and sets it on the counter beside the nearly empty whiskey bottle in a bizarre metaphor for the moment. He reloads his glass while staring at the weapon. Anna gently reaches for the gun and carefully glides it to her side of the counter, checking the safety before tucking it in her coat pocket. “Yes,” Darwin mutters. “I need to be in Chicago.” He pushes his unfinished bourbon to the center of the island and starts for the bedroom.

Dominic escorts Anna’s car through Taos Canyon at speeds so fast that it seems his flashing blue lights barely have time to bounce off the shear canyon wall on one side of the road before being absorbed by Rio Grande rapids on the other side. Dominic doesn’t slow down as they barrel through Española and past the Pojoaque Pueblo onto the newly constructed Santa Fe bypass built so nuclear waste from Los Alamos won’t have to transit through down Santa Fe on its way to the Carlsbad waste repository. They reach the airport just in time to make the six AM to O’Hare. Both Anna and Dominic refuse to leave Darwin’s side until he’s securely on board. For added measure, they remain at the airport until the plane has safely departed.

The six AM to O’Hare arrives at the terminal slightly before nine and because Darwin doesn’t check luggage, he’s hailing a taxi by nine-twenty-three telling the driver there’s an extra forty for him if can navigate the Dan Ryan like Mario Andretti. By ten-fourteen Darwin’s standing in front of the door he’s passed through so many times it’s almost home; only now, it’s a home drawn silent. He gently traces his fingers along Vincent’s name plate and taps on the door uncertain the people on the other side are aware of the realities ready to storm their world. He’s about to knock again when Gwen slowly opens the door. Her red-flush face, swollen in tears, tells Darwin he’s arrived too late.

“Oh Darwin,” Gwen cries as she throws her arms around him. “It’s so devastating.” She buries her face in Darwin’s shoulder continuing to cry. “It’s all so hard. Ilene’s in shock. Issac can’t process what’s happening. I know it must be horrible for you as well.” Gwen withdrawals her embrace wiping away tears as she tries pulling herself together. “Come inside.” She leads Darwin by his hand into the apartment.

Ilene sits on the sofa with her arm around Issac, whose face is buried in her lap. There’s a nearly empty box of tissues on the couch with spent ones scattered all around the floor like flowers floating on an abandoned pond. Darwin stands in the center of the living room where he’s stood through so many celebrations and altercations. He knows he should say something but knowing something should be said and knowing what that something is, are vastly different. Surrendering to his silence, he sits down next to Issac putting his hand on his nephew’s shoulder before reaching for Ilene’s hand. Ilene looks at Darwin through tear-filled eyes and breaks down all over again. “Why Darwin?” she moans. “Why did he have to fly through a snowstorm at night? I keep asking myself why this happened. Why did it have to happen? Since God won’t tell me, maybe you can.”

Darwin replays how everything unfolded, how he pleaded with Vincent not to fly at night, how he should have tried harder to convince him a phone call home was sufficient. “I don’t know.” Darwin finally responds. He takes a moment to compose himself. He doesn’t really remember much about the high-speed ride down Taos Canyon, of boarding the plane in Santa Fe, or even the daredevil drive down the Dan Ryan. He’s so caught up thinking about the many ways he must now step up and take care of things he doesn’t have time to allocate personal grief. Now though, sitting beside Issac looking at Ilene, the utter reality of the sudden void in his world hits him full force. “I’ve asked that question so many times for so many different reasons, at so many different moments in my life, and the answer’s always the same.” He squeezes Ilene’s hand. “The silence is the answer, Ilene. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but Vincent’s passing puts a silence in the world that can never be re-echoed.”

“He’s gone Darwin.” Ilene manages to say through tears that have forgotten how to stop. “My husband. Issac’s dad. Your brother. One minute he’s here and we’re living a magical life and the next he’s gone.”

“I want you know,” Darwin states. “I will be here for you and Issac. We’re going to get through this. I will always be here. Whenever you need me, I’m just a phone call away and coming is no big deal.”

“I know,” Ilene answers. She forces a smile she can only hold for a micro-moment. “Vincent always said not to worry if something happens to him because you’d step up. He always knew that.”

The next few days are beyond hard. There’s so much to do and Ilene’s in no condition to manage any of it. Her focus is on Issac and helping him come to terms with how his world has suddenly turned inside out. With never before demonstrated command, Gwen steps up to handle funeral arrangements. She knows where to go and what to do as she recently helped Ilene get through it with their parents. Darwin focuses on practical matters, like getting necessary legal documents arranged and contacting the insurance agency about Vincent’s policy. Then of course, there’s the matter of getting Vincent home. He gets mired in a bureaucratic federal aviation administration investigation with all their unanswered bullshit questions in search of blame.

Vincent’s laid to rest beside his parents. The wake is well attended by close friends, colleagues from the hospital, and former patients who were positively impacted. The service at Saint Stanislas is led by the same Priest who married Vincent and Ilene, and baptized Issac. Attendees’ comment on how powerfully beautiful his eulogy is, but neither Ilene nor Darwin remember it. Gwen’s wonderful in the way she helps Ilene with her emotional trauma and Darwin does what he can to help Issac make sense of what’s happened. They go for walks and spend hours talking about the different ways Issac must help his mom and how he’ll need to buckle-down even harder to stay on track for his future college career. Better men with dad credentials would have no doubt found better ways to connect with Issac’s grief but Darwin is foremost an engineer and all he knows when it comes to crises and interacting with the world is identifying a problem and coming up with solutions. What life keeps unsuccessfully trying to teach him though, is there are no solutions to most difficult problems.

As days turn into weeks Darwin finds himself lamenting his inability to connect with Issac the way he knows he should. It’s a long way though, from knowing you need to change your approach and being able to rewrite years of filtering the world on pragmatic problem-solving terms. In quiet moments he allows himself to consider how, if he were back in the technology game, he would develop a capability to help people work through grief in painless ways on a truncated timeline. He even goes so far as to map out a general framework visualizing how Tien and the rest of his old crew would tackle the mathematical and programing challenges convinced this is how he would apply AI’s rapidly evolving capabilities.

Each brainstorm session though, arrives at the same certain outcome as multiple scenarios emerge for how his efforts to do good would eventually be corrupted. People are inherently evil, he tells himself. It’s the most resilient part of human nature that can’t be overwritten. While most successfully keep the evil lurking within them in check, many cannot and humanity always descends to the lowest common denominator. Besides, Darwin rationalizes, grieving is a process that should proceed at its own individual pace on its own unique path. Becky’s prophetic words echo through his mind, ‘who is he to pretend to be God?’ Isn’t that the lesson of Berkeley? Isn’t that what he’s been trying for years to reconcile?

That’s pretty much how Darwin leaves Chicago, which is why he knows he’s failed. It doesn’t matter that he promises Ilene and Issac he’ll be back often, what good is being physically present when you don’t know how to fix someone’s pain, loss, or sense of emotional emptiness. At the same time, he realizes he’s failed himself, that his efforts to help Issac and Ilene were just acts of avoidance. As if time stood still since the moment he opened his door in the dark dead of night to find Anna standing there with her grim news, here he is, back on a plane heading to New Mexico with no way to escape the utter loneliness he feels, the self-imposed isolation he’s flying into, and the devastating loss he’s so successfully delayed.