Planning Warhol in Prague: Part II

Kafka & The "Refounding" of the Prague Culture House
About two weeks after opening day Rik and I arrived at Asylum to discover, along with Jason, an enterprising, energetic Australian and one of Asylum’s two founders, that the entrance locks had been changed. It’s probably not too difficult to imagine the consternation we all felt.

Who was it? The police? The neighbors? It turned out to be the theatre school, DAMU, that held the lease on the space with the assistance of the police, but we only found that out much later. At the time we had no clue. No one was there to meet us or confront us. No one was there to tell us to go away. There was no sign of a hostile presence. The locks looked just like the ones that had been there the night before. Nothing at all particularly looked much different. But put your key in the lock and try to twist it. You couldn’t. Give it a little yank; maybe it needs a little grease? Still nothing. And then a little twist of the eyebrow and you understood. It wasn’t a sudden light bulb kind of understanding. Nor was it a languid Homeresque rosy pink fingers of dawn kind of understanding. No, it was definitely a twisted brow kind, the kind of understanding that has to knot its way around the bridge of your nose and over your eyebrow into consciousness. Quite simply and quite inexplicably the locks that had been in place the night before were no longer the locks that were in place today.

To put it succinctly, we were freaked out as hell.

Look at an old 19th Century Italian landscape painting and you might think “Wow! What unique vision those Italians had! Look at the gem-like fragile clarity of the leaves and their sparkling translucence. Look at those elongated spidery trunks! ” Then you go to Italy and look at the actual landscapes and the actual trees and you realize those painters were simply painting what they saw. That’s what it looks like.

To read Kafka is a similar experience. “The Castle” and “The Trial” are not the twisted mad ravings of a genius, but simply faithful recordings of the daily Czech experience with authority. That day was the first, but certainly not last, day I think I truly understood that. Rik felt it too. And that understanding came upon us this time not in a twisted brow knowledge kind of way, but more in a brown coal smog, nowhere-to-get-away-from-it, kind of way. Except that instead of being everywhere all at once, it’s nowhere all at once which is so… Czech. So… passive aggressive.

But that nowhere-ness is no less terrifying for not being actively aggressive and no less felt as an ominous presence for not being something you can touch or breathe. In terms an American might more readily understand, take away Freddy Krueger’s razor-bladed claws and press start on the Elm Street Nightmare pinball game of the imagination, and you’re starting to get close. The danger flashes and flickers and flits through awareness, and it lurks around every cobble-stoned corner, within every darkened building corridor, and beneath every Skoda (“It’s a Pity”) car like some half unfinished “Boo!”

Understand that Kafka-esquean ethos, a generalized existential dread, generally all the time, 24/7, inescapable, mostly vague but sometimes pointed as a migraine headache, and it’s not such a difficult matter to understand and forgive [redacted]’s reaction to the whole episode, namely, to hop the first stagecoach clanging, caterwauling and galloping its way out of Dodge. Not only had he and Karel Umlauf, a Czech theatre student, been the ones to break into the Asylum space, but they had also had the temerity to take a sledgehammer to a wall and break through to an adjacent empty room in the building next door. It’s no accident we referred to the café fondly as our little “hole in the wall”. That’s exactly what it was. Karel, meantime, had already left for a job in New York City at the U.N., so [redacted], not unreasonably, feared he might be left alone holding the bag.

The only problems were that, first, in his haste, [redacted] neglected to tell anyone he was leaving, and second, presumably under the impression that the gig was up for Asylum and that he himself was Asylum, perhaps confusing, understandably so, personal risk with ownership, [redacted] also had with him the entire Asylum bankroll when he left. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough, representing two weeks worth of work. Apparently, at that moment in time [redacted] failed to understand in a light bulb, Homer, twisted brow or even brown coal smoke kind of way, that he had played a critical role in giving birth to something that was now larger now than just him. An entire community and an entire set of ideals were at stake.

That’s something I think [redacted] came to understand only later on, when he returned to Prague during the Spring and Asylum was still going strong. Once he realized that, I don’t know if he was more nonplussed coming to terms with the circumstances of his departure or the fact that Asylum could function without him. Either way I think he was justifiably proud of the fact that he had been the driving force behind the creation of something truly beautiful and communal. Any mistakes aside, without [redacted]’s entrepreneurial spirit, Asylum never would have happened. I believe also that exactly what Asylum became is exactly what [redacted] had dreamed of having it become, but perhaps doubted it could.

In any case, all intrigue aside, the one indisputable fact is that upon [redacted]’s departure Rik and I were left, almost by default, as the caretakers of Asylum. As many people as were involved, there was simply no one else left around to do what needed to be done on a day to day level. Yet we knew we couldn’t do it alone.

Almost immediately, subsequent, of course, to changing the locks back again (ah the defiance of youth!), we called an emergency meeting of all those who had shown consistent interest in the project to that point. As an aside, I don’t know why, or why this seems at all relevant or worth mentioning, but for some reason I have this odd memory of it being a Tuesday. Strange, isn’t it, the things we remember and the things we don’t? Anyway, Peter Dubois, who staged Asylum’s first dance movement piece, Bez Masky (Unmasked), was at the meeting, along with his Danish performance partner, Morton Nielsen. Brits Clare Godard and Victoria Jones, co-founders of English language theatre company Small & Dangerous were there also, along with perhaps one or two others. At that meeting, held in the space heater-warmed, chilly, but cozy hole-in-the-wall confines of the Asylum café on a bitterly cold night in January 1993, we agreed, via a process of consensus, upon an organizational structure going forward.

Our own prior issues with [redacted] played a large role in Rik’s and my approach to that meeting. Before the lock-changing incident, [redacted] had expressed his desire to financially structure Asylum in such a manner that only he and no one else received a salary. That notion was one that Rik and I, who were putting in just as much time as he, quickly disabused him of and he backed down. But only to a point. He offered Rik and myself a share of the profits, but no one else, maintaining, not without merit, that the work we three put in was equal to that of everyone else put together. Rik and I accepted his offer as far as it went, but under protest, and with a high degree of uneasiness. We felt, not that his position was “wrong” in any objective way, but that it was wrong based on the spirit of the enterprise.

Our uneasiness was not simply “do-gooder” ideology. We felt, in a very pragmatic way, that a collaborative enterprise could only be as good as those who chose to be involved in it. We didn’t feel you could sign people up for what seemed like a purely communal undertaking, as had been the case before, and then shift the ground underneath their feet without them noticing or minding. Pay some people and not others without even asking if it was okay and, no matter the rationale or intent or justification behind it, people would feel increasingly suckered and become less and less inclined to get involved. And make no mistake, idealistic, artistic folk are very sensitive to this idea of being taken advantage of, if only because they so often are.

Bearing all that in mind, Rik and I made what we regarded at that time as a business decision, idealistically inspired as it may have been, to try to push for the restructuring Asylum in accordance with a business model founded upon a spirit of inclusion, the expectation of shared reward for shared effort, financially as well as spiritually, and a desire to create win-win situations. We proposed that the cafe each night thereafter have two managers and a bartender. At the end of the night inventory would be taken and the profit calculated. Of that profit, 1/2 would go to the theatre and one-half to pay "salaries;" salaries we thought of as more thank you than anything else, but they were not bad by Czech standards, and we felt they would go a long way towards building the collaborative environment we sought, not just in principle, but also in actuality. Not surprisingly, we didn’t have much trouble at all getting other people to go along with the idea.

I don't remember what the actual manager teams were, but pretty much all who were at the meeting became managers and remained involved with Asylum to the very end, albeit with varying degrees of commitment and dedication. Rik and myself, who had been running the café every night to that point along with [redacted], reduced our role to three nights a week, not just to share the “wealth,” minimal as it was, but also at least in part so that we might have time to address big picture issues such as legalizing Asylum, programming events, dealing with planned renovations, bringing in other stakeholders and the like.

On the Czech side of the equation, we enlisted the support of a number of English-speaking Czech student journalists involved with the European Journalism Network (EJN), founded by Scott Alexander, who had been a classmate of mine at Vassar. With respect to what it did to support the development of a free press in Eastern Europe, EJN, is probably worthy of an entire book all by itself. I don't know the figures, but EJN, funded by conservative American-based groups such as The Heritage Foundation, established student newspapers in just about every state formerly within the sphere of influence of the former Soviet Union. In so doing, EJN did its hefty part to train an entire generation of journalists. A clear victory for the right, which if you know my progressive tendencies, that's saying a lot for me to admit that.

But their victory was our victory as well. Essentially, what Asylum did was to tap in to a network of super smart, on-the-ball, extremely motivated students that Scott had put together. In spite of Scott’s reservations -- he was more than a little concerned that his staff’s interest in Asylum might spread them a bit thin -- the EJN office became the de facto Asylum office. We used their computers, printers, telephones, etc. as Ground Zero in our bid to turn Asylum into a legitimate legal entity.

In any case, any issues of thinly spread talent aside, morale and dedication markedly improved almost immediately once the number of committed stakeholders increased, and a renewed sense that people were building something together emerged, a spirit that Rik and I had observed coming under increasing siege in the form of behind the scenes grumbling and complaints by Asylum volunteers prior to the lock-changing episode. On some level, one could argue in retrospect that it was at that meeting that night just after the changing of the locks, that Asylum, if not founded, was refounded.

more to come...

Planning Warhol in Prague: Part I

The Asylum Culture House & The Warholesquian Sensibility

Rewind memory back to Winter and Spring 1993 and fast forward the mind’s eye across the wintry waves of the Atlantic, the snow covered slopes of the Alps and the viscous chilling pour of the Rhine. Keep right on going until you spot in the distance the brown coal smoke hovering lazily above the gently rolling landscape. A hundred or so miles into the haze the shimmering outlines of a thousand Gothic and Baroque spires emerge slowly into view. Pass above the ankle deep shattered New Year’s champagne glass and spent bottle rockets coating the main square and circle around to make a final sweeping approach from the North, following the twisting, turning banks of the Vltava River and come to rest in the heart of the sodden gray but always Golden City of Prague, capital of the newly established Czech Republic.

There, behind an unassuming black door, a mere stone’s throw away from one of Europe’s oldest bridges, Karluv Most, built by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV in 1357, you will find Asylum, a collectively run squat theater, café and art gallery that arose Phoenix-like from the ashen cinders of a dead totalitarian state betwixt and between the crumbling concrete and brick facings of a long abandoned Salvation Army outpost.

The Asylum of cultural myth, for those who were in Prague and in the sub-cultural know during that winter and spring of 1993, lingers in memory as a crazed Bacchanalian Warholesquian happening, even if, public nipple piercings and simulated urination aside, a generally less explicitly sexual version. One minute you might go into the café, a smallish cave-like hole-in-the-wall we always thought of as the Soul of Asylum, and there would be a bongo, guitar and violin foot-stomping Celtic jam. Ten minutes later there might be a cultural film about Rodin flickering across the wall, and another half hour after that you might find a wanna-Kerouac poet spouting Beat banalities or diamonds across the room and over the cheers or heckles of his temporarily captive audience.

Cross the hall to the art gallery on any given night and you might find unframed paintings and drawings taped to the wall or moody black and white Czech student photography. Head on down the broad steps into the cavernous theatre space with three-quarter concrete balcony and you might encounter anything from the haunting zen koan wailings of a Didjeridoo to a black-panted, white-masked dancer bathing his feet in a pool of rippling, sparkling water, to a nurse sticking his tongue through a condom to teach a Czech/English audience about safe sex.

But, paradoxically, a lot of hard work went into giving people precisely that experience of creative freedom and anything-can-happenness. That kind of controlled chaos doesn't just happen by accident. Just staying open as long as Asylum did, about half a year, was a huge achievement in and of itself that required not just the constant bobbing and weaving through a Kafkaesquian bureaucratic landscape so bizarre that according to city records our building didn’t even exist, but also demanded the contributions of a multitude of people with competing desires, goals and ambitions and competing ideas and notions of how things should work.

Erica “Rik” Soehngen and I, as Co-Directors of Asylum from two weeks into the project until the end were really just that; we were directing and orchestrating all these different stakeholders, doing our on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown bests to keep the whole whirling dervish of an enterprise from imploding. Those efforts, at times, got us a bit into trouble, because despite our best attempts to generate consensus, there were some who viewed us a bit as dictators.

The list of operating procedures we gave managers is one example of something many didn't like. To some this list of "rules" seemed antithetical to the experimental vibe we were trying to create. The point was made on more than one occasion that we should just let whatever might happen, happen, let the cards fall where they may, even if that meant getting shut down. I can’t say the people who felt that way didn’t have a point.

At the same time, however, an awful lot of people liked Asylum and wanted it to stay open, and that the hedonistic impulses of a few could have spoiled everything for a lot of people much sooner than turned out to be the case. To this day, I feel bad for the kids at Skola Hrou who had a big Children’s Art exhibit planned for June. “No, I know we promised you we have permission to be here and the Children’s exhibit will definitely happen,” we told the two teachers who were organizing the event, “but it can’t happen after all.” The memory of their disapproving looks still sting to this day. At that moment in their eyes we may as well have been the Grinches who had stolen Christmas.

And if you want to avoid moments like those -- and I’d give ten to one that even the most entropically oriented of the Asylumites would have gladly avoided such moments -- you can’t, for instance, have people using the street outside as a bathroom. That’s a problem. You’d think that would be common sense, but you’d be awfully surprised how uncommon common sense actually is at times. So, at least until we got a toilet installed, about a month and a half in, we had to make it a policy, for instance, to have managers direct people to a pub one block away or, and I kid you not, at least to the conveniently located construction site at the end of the street.

Or, for example, there were those who viewed Asylum as primarily expat-run and thought, well, since the Czechs aren't getting involved, we should really cater more just to expats, not understanding that the proverbial "bridging of cultural barriers" was as seminal a mission of the enterprise as providing space to disenfranchised groups, and that, anyway, from a pragmatic standpoint, without Czech support we would be doomed to failure.

It was all pretty exhausting and draining, truth be told, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and as a consequence of that, Rik and I were actually somewhat relieved when the whole tenuous house of cards the Asylum enterprise was balanced upon came crashing down. The shy side of half a year may not seem like a very long time for a venue to exist, but if you consider the whole of Asylum in some sense as one long staged Happening, then it’s no wonder some of the historical retellings of Asylum have extended the duration of its existence to as long as three years. It feels that long in memory.

In any case, given the psychological, if not the actual, fact of a three year experience compressed into less than half a year, it also ought come as no surprise that while Rik and I were disappointed to be sure, knowing we had given Asylum our best shot, we were not at all beside ourselves at the prospect of moving on to new and different things. We were just kids ourselves then practically and we felt as if we had been playing chess against a far more experienced shadowy Grandmaster coalition opponent comprised of dark Knights and Queens of the old order, a King who kept hiding by handing off his crown to the other pieces, and a legion of pawns cast in our own youthful and enthusiastic, but also collectively clueless and self-destructive, images. In all truth, Asylum was probably in Czechmate from the start and we were just too dumb to know it, but it was a hell of a fun game while it lasted.

I wonder at times: Does the actual Warholesquian myth itself have a similar reality, an underlying intelligent design lurking behind the historical hyperbole of mad chaotic experiment? I can’t say for certain. I wasn’t there, but I can’t say as I’d be surprised if it did. For my part, I can only say I’d love to talk to those people who made it happen in a pragmatic way on a day to day level, if they existed; and I’d love to learn a thing or two from them to understand better just how they played the game and how it is they were able to stay in the game so long.

Yes Virginia, there is still a Santa Claus

Dear Virginia,

I am writing you now in response to your recent email inquiring as to whether or not there is still a Santa Claus. By way of answering you, I'd like to tell you a little story.

My father is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Idolizing him as I did as a child, it was natural that I also idolized his home town sports teams. I was passionate about the Steel Curtain Steelers of Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, John Stallworth, Franco Harris, Mean Joe Greene and Jack Lambert. But it was a toss up if I loved them more or the "We Are Family" old-timey outfitted Pirates of Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Kent Tekulve, Ed Ott, Omar Moreno, Phil Garner and all the rest. I'm still a Steelers fan, but the Pirates lost my undying allegiance one day, twenty-seven years ago at Three Rivers Stadium. That day, standing in the first row near third base during batting practice as a fresh-faced ten year old, was the day Willie Stargell tossed a souvenir baseball not to me, but to that sickeningly cute seven year old kid standing next to me.

Interestingly enough, I think that moment bothered me more than -- sorry to blow the lid on this Virginia -- finding out my parents were Santa Claus four years previous. On some level I already knew Santa was a fraud even before Brian Kux, my red-haired neighbor two doors down back in Washington D.C., cemented into eternity my collapsed North Pole house of card illusions one Christmas Day. Playing outside together with our new toys, he told me with an almost conspiratorial glee that he had seen his parents putting presents under the Christmas tree the night before. It didn't come as much of a surprise and, although he was a full year older than me, I didn't need his wizened input to immediately understand the exact implications of what that meant. The writing had already been on the wall for some time now.

After all, Santa looked different every time we met at the shopping mall and sometimes he was in two places at once; I would see him again on the way home from the mall collecting money for the Salvation Army on a street corner, the helicopter he'd come to the mall in nowhere in sight. And didn't Santa use a sleigh anyway? I knew there was something fishy going on by the time I was four.

But Willie? He was my hero and he was still as real and certain to me at ten years old as my conviction was at three that one day I would be older than my six year old sister. I'd seen him hit towering home runs over the fence in center field for crying out loud! You couldn't fake that! I'd seen him swing the bat with such vigor that his body had windmilled around to a point where his knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground in an over-sized brown, black and gold heap. And when he got up, his sheepish grin was visible even to me 20 rows back in shallow left field. To this day I know Willie Stargell bats lefty, if only because I can still play that swing back in my head as easily as one might hit the review button on a DVD player .

Then came that fateful day at the stadium in 1978. Willie had been warming up over by third base, playing catch with some other long forgotten player, and I was there cheering his every throw and catch along with about 10 other wild-eyed, adoring fans. But then it was getting close to game time and so it was time to head over to the dugout. Willie caught the ball one last time and gave his mitt a ritual slap of finality. Then, glove in hand, ball in mitt, he half-ambled, half-trotted toward us. Twenty feet away. Fifteen feet. Ten. Five feet away! I had never been this close to him!

Effortlessly and almost lackadaisically, he scooped the ball from the mitt. We all knew exactly why. Ten high-pitched voices were screaming at him in cacophonic unison to "throw me! me! throw it to me!" the ball. But I knew I loved him more than anyone else. I was sure he would be able to see that. How could he not? Our eyes made brief, fleeting, contact. How could he not see such devotion? How could he not see I didn't live in Pittsburgh and this might be his only chance ever to give me such a coveted trophy? At that moment I was sure, I was utterly positive, that Willie would toss that ball to me.

And then he paused. He hesitated. For about a half second his eyes darted hoppingly from one kid to the next. And then he flipped the ball. He flipped it. Right to that kid, that seven year old kid standing next to me; that kid, who, even if he loved Willie as intensely as I did, could not possibly have loved him more, if only because I had loved him longer.

I was devastated.

It was the first time a hero of mine ever let me down. I was still a Pirates fan after that and sang We Are Family as loudly as anyone else the next year when the Pirates won the World Series against my almost-home-town Baltimore Orioles. All the same, something had been lost. Now it was only winning that mattered, not believing. To be certain, I still played at believing, just as up to the age of eleven or so I still sometimes fancied hearing Santa's sleigh bells tintinabulating across distant rooftops in those anxious moments before sleep on Christmas Eve. But it just wasn't the same. I've never been much of a Pirates, or Willie Stargell, fan since.

Oddly enough, there's a coda to that story. About five years ago, just after my grandfather died, I was in Pittsburgh and told that story to my great uncle Bill. As it turned out, he had some connection to the Pirates and, although I laughed at the offer, he went ahead anyway and put in a request with the organization to get me that ball twenty three years later. This time, though, autographed. Autographed by none other than Willie Stargell himself.

The organization said no.

I know that Willie himself probably never even saw the request, nor would that baseball mean as much to me now as it would have then, so I didn't even think twice about it. Still, as I reflect back on that episode five years ago, I am struck by a nagging sense of melancholy surrounding it. I don't know which is sadder, that that baseball was denied me yet again, or that this time it didn't bother me.

The moral to this story? Perhaps it's just that we shouldn't place too much stock in childhood illusion. Or maybe the story simply highlights in a pointed manner the unfair pressure we put on our heroes to live up to a different , more perfect, standard than the rest of us. Or perhaps, maybe, just maybe, the lesson is a bit darker, nothing more than a cruel recognition that no matter how much you love, it might never be enough, and it might never be returned, or returned only for a time. With that recognition comes what might just be my least favorite part of growing up, knowing enough to expect so little that disappointments cease to disappoint.

If nothing else, Virginia, I wish I had been a little older before learning that lesson. If nothing else, I realize that Im disappointed after all that the Pirates said no to my Uncle Bill. Not because I particularly want that ball any more, but because I would love to be able to tell some ten year old kid somewhere this same story and have the ending be a hopeful, happy one.

I am sorely disappointed that I can't. But the very fact of that disappointment also makes me hopeful. Hopeful if for no other reason than because enough childhood illusion remains within that I can yet experience such disappointment.

Which brings us full circle back to your inquiry regarding Santa Claus. Does he still exist? My answer to you, Brian Kux be damned, is that, yes, Virginia, Santa still exists. He exists at least as much as he existed when first you asked that question of the New York Sun a little more than a hundred years ago. He doesnt live on the North Pole, though. I was right about that. No, Virginia, he lives in your heart, in mine, in all of ours. He was in my parents hearts when they put those presents under the tree each year. He was in the hearts of all those fraud Santas flying about in helicopters and standing on street corners. And he was even in Willie Stargell's heart that day so long ago when, unknowingly, he broke my heart, but gave to the least amongst us, that seven year old kid, a thrill and a souvenir he probably still treasures to this day.

And how do I know that? I know it always by the childlike faith I cling to that yet makes tolerable this existence, and by the intensity of the disappointment I still feel when that faith is injured. For me at least, Santa Claus exists not just as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, but perhaps even more so. In fact, it may just be that Santa and the childlike faith he gives us are exactly what make love, generosity and devotion possible in the first place.

I hope this answers your question, Virginia. And I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, and an even happier New Year.

Sincerely Yours,
Raphie Frank

Harry Crosses America

When Harry set out to cross America alone, on foot, it was with the intention of proving something to himself and to the world. He brought with him only the barest of necessities. In his pockets were ten dollars, a jacknife and a rabbit's foot, and on his back he wore a knapsack of reinforced nylon with a change of clothes, a rolled up windbreaker, a lighter, water bottle and a few candybars, a small assortment of toiletries, and, finally, extra videocassettes and a battery charger for the Hi-8 video camera he would carry with him to record his experiences.

At first glance, nothing in Harry's character would have led one to presuppose in him a tendency toward such romantic, adventurous and even reckless behavior. Twenty-eight years old and employed as a tax preparer at the nearby H&R Block on route 26 he was, in the universal sense, a nameless, ageless, occupationless sort of guy, ordinary and unremarkable in every apparent way. He was bright, but not brilliant. Not displeasing to the eye, but neither was he someone to turn heads. But one singular characteristic, indeed, did separate Harry from the indistinguishable and moribund mass into which he otherwise blended so well: He was possessed of an almost unshakeable faith in the higher nature of the human spirit.

In a nutshell, Harry believed that all people are fundamentally "good," and that beneath the socially propitious surface of greed, cynicism and despair they truly desire nothing more than to be able to show this and act on it. Though Christian by upbringing, he had renounced that religion's tenets from the moment, long ago in Sunday school, he had been taught the story of Adam and Eve. He simply could not accept the premise that man was inherently evil, much less that he had become so by dint of his own free will. The mere thought of it was anathema to him.

Instead, Harry adhered to what he fondly referred to as a "bruised apple" perception of the world. His logic went something like this:

When Adam ate the apple he took into himself the source of all knowledge. With knowledge comes perfection and with perfection comes goodness. Logic dictated, therefore, that Adam must have been good. And by extension, then, if Adam was good, contrary to the doctrine of Original Sin (one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the human race, Harry felt), as his descendants, so too must we all be. Wasn't it self-evident? Yet, Harry was no fool. Obviously there is evil in the world - this was where the "bruised" part came into the equation. In Harry's view every soul was as a seed, and contained within it the promise of absolute knowledge and perfection, like the idea of an apple before it is planted. But somewhere along the path to adulthood life's hardships and a general psychic negativity beat people down piece by piece, bit by bit until they grew into maturity with only the faintest resemblance and connection to the glory promised by the original seed. Bruised, then, we are, but not beaten. Within each individual, Harry was certain, lies a dormant, broken, suffering soul with no greater desire than to prove the good, the fundamental idyllic good contained within.

Not surprisingly, his friends, homogenously ordinary and unremarkable in their own right, mocked what they deemed to be a pathetically naive and unrealistic Weltenschaung. Of course they didn't call it "Weltenschaung" nor did they analyze it in a particularly sophisticated manner - they were far too ordinary and unremarkable for that. Rather, they fell back on ad hominem arguments over cards and beer at Peter's Place, the local hangout since it was the only bar for ten miles in any direction, in which they called Harry a dope, a moron, chronically stupid and told him to get A) real B) with the program, or C) a life. In a particularly lucid moment Peter, whom the others called Plato because he had once read "The Republic," although it was actually just the Cliff notes version, said to Harry,

"Forget this bruised apple bullshit Harry. What you have to understand is that Adam ate the apple because he was bored, see? Goodness is boring and Adam didn't like that so he ate the apple even though God told him not to. As a matter of fact, he probably did it solamente because God told him not to. Forbidden fruit, see what I mean? So that's that - and to tell you the absolute truth I would've done it too."

Harry responded with his own well-thought out ideas about the apple. "C'mon Plato," he said, "that can't be so because the apple was all knowledge, so even if he was wrong to eat it in the first place, afterwards he knew better. A truly knowing person can't possibly choose evil. The apple was what made us good..."

Plato cut him off. "Yeah, Harry, sure, but get with the program, because..."

"Because what?"

"Because, well, maybe it was an orange."

Plato's argument troubled Harry. One could even go so far as to say it rocked his world. That is to say, suppose they had gotten it wrong and Adam had eaten an orange instead of an apple. Suppose he didn't have complete knowledge, afterall. Then wasn't it quite possible that man didn't have it within him to choose good over evil on a consistent basis? What followed was a tortured period of reflection and reassessment in which Harry questioned the very foundation of his cherished belief system, a period that threw him into an intractable depression from which he emerged only once he had resolved to test his assumptions once and for all, for confirmation or destruction, in the barebones laboratory of life and the Road. Solitary and vulnerable, with almost no material possessions to ease his way, Harry would throw himself into the belly of the beast - he would cross America and his only salvation would be other people.

Preparations ensued - planning a tentative route, deciding what to bring, notifying friends and the press, and numerous other small details. Finally it came to pass that on a spring morning, the crow of a rooster from next door rebounding wall to wall through his open window, Harry awoke at the crack of dawn on this the day he would embark upon his great journey. He sprang eagerly from bed and went to look outside. The sun, though low on the horizon, was shining brightly and scattered cumuli wafted gently across the sky. The rooster, planted stoically to one spot inside his fenced-in pen, continued to crow. In times past Harry had resented the creeching barnyard animal, but today he welcomed it; as if in his persistent squawk the rooster was sending him a personal message, as if he were bidding Harry, "Tread not softly upon this new ground you walk, but seize it; take it boldly and make it your own. Make it yours and the people of the ages will thank you - for you will be making it theirs also."

Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath of fresh air, and let rays of sunlight wash over him. All in all, he thought to himself, a promising beginning.

Dressed still in his underwear, he started outside to pick up the morning newspaper. His golden retriever, Jeremy, whined sleepily in the living room as he walked past. Fifty feet or so from the front porch, by the side of the highway, lay the familiar tabloid. A car zipped past as he bent to pick it up. Startled and slightly embarrassed at his state of undress, Harry hurried back toward the house. Once inside, he paused to remove the paper from its plastic wrapping. There it was, on the front page, bottom left, but front page all the same: "Local Man to Cross America to Show People Are Good."

Harry was ecstatic. He leaned against the jamb and clutched the paper to his chest. Visions of cheering crowds danced through his head. He saw himself standing on a podium, microphones thrust at him by all the major networks and national press. In the crowd he was able to pick out familiar faces that had once ridiculed him but now stood together with the rest celebrating him. "Tell us!" they cried, "Tell us!" A shriek rose above the maelstrom, "Harry, we love you!" He began to speak. He said, "You tell me you love me, but I say, love yourselves, for you are the true heroes here. I have shown you what there is inside, but that is only what was already there, what has always been there, and what will always be there!" The crowd cheered wildly. He continued. "I say, my brothers and sisters, be not afraid and be not ashamed! From this day hence fear and shame no more!"

Harry showered and dressed quickly. He fed the dog and breakfasted on cornflakes and orange juice. Then he packed. It didn't take long - he had laid everything out the night before and there was, afterall, very little that he would be bringing with him. He opened his wallet and took out his Mastercard, American Express and all the money but ten dollars. The rabbit's foot was an afterthought. When he reached into the top drawer of his dresser to hide away the credit cards and currency, he saw it there in the midst of a stack of socks and underwear. No harm, he reasoned, taking the charm and putting it in his pocket, in giving himself a little edge.

At 8 o'clock Harry was ready, except for the small matter of taking Jeremy across the way to drop him off with his neighbor Judy. A divorcee in her mid-thirties, whom Harry knew from Peter's Place where she was the regular bartender and on whom he had long since had a secret crush, Judy had promised to take care of the dog while he was gone. Harry lingered momentarily, making sure that he hadn't forgotten anything, and, then, satisfied that he hadn't, he hoisted the knapsack on to his back and strapped the booksized video camera around his neck. He called for Jeremy to follow and then, turning off lights as he went, Harry made his way from the house. Optimism notwithstanding, he locked the door behind him.

The dog scampered happily in front of him. Impulsively, Harry toyed with the notion of bringing him along, but the thought quickly passed, not only because he feared for Jeremy's safety, but also because he welcomed the opportunity to see Judy in a personal setting without a transparently manufactured reason. What's more, he reasoned, by leaving the dog with Judy and having her get to know him, he might be able to establish a point of connection that could be used in the future to enhance their relationship.

Judy saw Harry coming up the driveway and came out of the house wearing a loose-hanging bathrobe. Harry blushed. She noticed his discomfort and cinched the garment more tightly around her waist. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey." Harry's half-averted eyes were stuck somewhere between staring and abashedness. The dog played on the ground around Judy's feet and she reached down to pet him. Her cleavage, visible now from above, made it impossible for Harry to say anymore without further prompting.

She spoke. "So, you're really going to go through with this thing, huh?"

Harry gulped. "Guess so." He paused, not knowing where to look. Judy stood up and Harry was able to sputter out another sentence. "So, you'll take care of him?"

"I said I would didn't I?"

Harry shuffled uncomfortably. "Yeah, guess you did... Thanks."

"Besides, I can use the company. Hell," she laughed, bending down again to hug Jeremy and receiving a lick in return, "I bet your dog here could give me more satisfaction than my ex ever did." An embarrassed smile played across Harry's face. "Oh, don't you worry," she reassured him, I won't so misuse your poor innocent puppy dog." Then, by way of apology, she added "Look, you want some coffee before you go? I've got some brewing inside."

Harry was grateful for the reprieve, but didn't want to embarrass himself any more than he already had, so he politely refused her offer. "No thanks," he said, "I, you know, have a long road ahead of me."

An awkward silence ensued in the six foot space that separated them
Again it was Judy who provided the way out. She shook her head as if in disbelief, but she smiled also. "You're just about the darndest fool I ever met, Harry," she said. Bridging the gap, she came over to him and kissed him on the cheek. "That's why I like you... Be safe, okay?."

Harry was jubilant for the second time that morning. He started toward the highway with a rubber-band knotted around his insides. Then he stopped suddenly. In his excitement he had completely overlooked the public relations aspect of the moment. He wheeled around and saw Judy already walking toward the house with Jeremy. Briefly, he considered whether or not to call her back - the way they had parted just now had been so perfect it bordered on sublime - but this was business. "Hey, Judy," he shouted and held up the videocamera, "I almost forgot. Do you think you could -?"

"Sure, Harry, sure," she answered, with that same bemused smile. Harry retraced his steps and gave her the camera. Not missing a beat, she turned it on and began to ask questions in mock interview style. "People everywhere want to know, Harry Peterson: Why?"

Although caught off guard, Harry's previous shyness was nowhere in evidence; he had spent days practicing his response to just such questions. "Well, Judy," he replied confidently, "I'll tell you. You see, I've believed for some time now that institutional forces, the popular news media, and other sources of information and learning in our society have engaged in a concerted, if not purposeful, attempt to vilify and devalue the human spirit. Unfortunately, it seems, we have come to believe ourselves that this ostensible truth is actual. My goal here today and over the course of this impending journey, is to prove the falsehood of that contention and in doing so to have some small part in restoring to the people of the world their faith in themselves and in those around them."

"And how will you do that?"

"As you can clearly see, I'm traveling light." He twisted to show his knapsack to the camera. "I will be depending, for food, shelter, and the relief of any other needs that may arise, on the kindnesses of people I meet along the way. When people do good, they feel good and when they feel good, they do good - people do unto others as they've been done unto, and that sort of thing. It's just a beginning, of course, but one must start somewhere."

"Thank you, Harry. The world waits eagerly on the successful outcome of your quest."

"No, thank you, Judy." Harry emphasized `you', then pointed into the lens and spoke to an imaginary audience, "And thank YOU."

The `interview' finished, Harry quickly taped goodbye reaction shots of Judy and Jeremy waving, then he had Judy shoot him walking away and waving back at them. All in the name of posterity, he reasoned to himself, feeling guilty at the cinematic deception. He said goodbye again, this time remembering Jeremy as well, and finally he was off.

An hour later, the sun halfway to its zenith, found Harry at the point in the road where it divided, branching east and west. He turned on the camera and pointed it down at his feet as he went, then he panned it upwards to the split in the highway. "Our experiment now begins in earnest." he announced, again with his future audience in mind. But he wasn't satisfied so he repeated the procedure. This time he quoted Robert Frost. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," he recited with feeling, "and I took the one less traveled by." He pressed the `off' button and walked silently for a short way, then he began to whistle and skipped a couple of times as he veered left and westward.

As midday approached, Harry had as yet had very little contact with people. Occasionally, a car speeding past him on the highway would greet him with a honk of the horn, but other than that there had only been the odd wave here and there to a child playing in a far off field or a farmer on a sloth-like tractor. It was an exceptionally warm day for this early in the year and sweat dripped down Harry's forehead and into his eyes. He wiped away the wetness with the sleeve of his shirt and chided himself for not having had the foresight to bring along a bandana or handkerchief. There was a small embankment directly to his right and Harry sat down to rest. He took off the knapsack and removed the water bottle and a Snicker's bar. As he snacked, he surveyed the scene in front of him - a few trees, a meadow, cows grazing in the distance, the road disappearing arond a nearby bend - and that pretty much summed it up.

For the first time, Harry considered the possibility of a wholly unanticipated, though not unpredictable, component of his endeavor - complete, unmitigated boredom. As a diversion he trained his camera on the cows. "John and Jane Cow," he asked them rhetorically, "any sentiments on the dilapidated, forlorn and pathetic state of human existence?" The cows, however, were too far away or too disinterested to respond, so Harry did it for them. "Well, Harry, I feel we, and I think I'm speaking for Jane Cow here as well, can pretty succinctly answer that question with a heartfelt `Moo'"

He fell backwards to the grass with a sigh. Clouds passed overhead and he tried to pick out shapes for a short while. Then, overcome with a renewed sense of mission, he sat up, finished the candybar, took a final swallow from his water bottle and, throwing it back into the his knapsack along with the candybar wrapper - he didn't want to litter - returned to the road.

He passed time by mulling over his accomodation options for the evening. He had planned his route carefully so that he would pass through many towns and populated areas and, in keeping with the spirit of his mission, as darkness approached he would go from house to house asking for a place to spend the night. He would happily settle for a barn or the basement of a church, he wasn't proud, and he was more than willing to perform services around the household in return for his keep. If worse came to worse he could sleep by the side of the road or even venture into the woods and, if it were cold, fashion a makeshift lean-to and blanket from leaves and fallen branches - he'd read how to do that in his survival handbook.

The issue of food was another matter altogether. Harry didn't place much stock in his ability to capture wild game, survival handbook and all, nor did he have great optimism as to his ability to distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous wild berries, mushrooms and the like. For food, at least, short of going through garbage cans or stealing, he would be almost entirely dependent on other people. Of course, there was always the good old "I Will Work For Food" sign and then one must always keep in mind...

When Harry emerged at last from his reverie, it was already late afternoon. He calculated he had come about twenty miles since the morning and his knowledge of the area told him he must be approaching the next town. Lost in his thoughts, he had forgotten the heat and only now began to notice it again. This discomfort, compounded by thirst, hunger, and a pain in his feet, led Harry to the sudden realization that he was absolutely miserable. He paused for refreshment, but found his water bottle had not been closed properly and all the water had leaked out. He looked around. No houses or streams were in sight, so he would have to wait to refill it. Disgusted, he put it back into his bag and took out another candybar. To his chagrin he found the heat had melted the chocolate so completely that he had to lick it off the wrapper.

Half an hour later there was still no relief in sight. Limping now, Harry wondered if he would even be able to make it to town. Amazing, he marvelled to himself, how distance expands when travelled on foot rather than by car! He had driven along this same stretch of highway, what, dozens, hundreds of times? Always it had seemed a quick jaunt through a teeming suburbia. Instead, he found himself in a vast and endless desert and all that was missing, as far as he was concerned, were the vultures. How wretched to set out with such high hopes and aspirations only to be utterly defeated the very first day!

His spirits revived, though, when he rounded the next bend. Up ahead he saw a bridge and a soft murmur hinted at water running underneath. A hop, skip, and a hobble later he was dunking his head and soothing his blistered feet in a cool, stone-littered stream. He started to laugh and for the third time in a day Harry was overcome with joy - a joy that came not only from the water, but also from his realization that the evils of man could scarcely match in severity and callousness the brute indifference of nature. And clearly, as regarded that, he had shown his mettle. He felt invincible, blessed. Still, the sun was getting lower and he had yet to secure food and shelter for the night. Blessedness aside, Harry didn't expect any loaves of bread to fall from the sky - not yet, anyway - so he cut short his enjoyment, quickly filling his water bottle, putting on his shoes, and climbimg the fifty feet back up to the highway.

He was halfway across the bridge, when he saw the pick-up truck approaching from the opposite direction. It's broken muffler, actually, announced it well before it came into view, wobbling slightly and moving slower than its rumbling engine led one to believe. Inside he saw three men squeezed together on the front seat. He waved to them as they roared past. A squeal of brakes startled him and he jerked round as the truck came to a sudden stop. It shifted into reverse and backed up. At the wheel was a mustachioed man dangling a beer out the window and appearing a little perturbed. But the man next to him leaned over and smiled broadly at Harry. "How you doin' today?" he shouted.

Harry felt a quiver of excitement. Finally, he thought, my first contact! Events certainly seemed to be taking a turn for the better. Maybe he would even be able to finagle a place to stay for the night. Well, perhaps not - they seemed to be headed the wrong direction. Nevertheless, it was contact all the same. "Just fine." he answered. "And yourself?"

"Fine. Fine." The man let out a short guffaw. He jostled the driver. "Yeah, we're just fine today, ain't we Percy?" Then he turned to the right and muttered something to the third passenger, a large, bearded man with a red face, who also

Percy grudgingly acknowledged Harry with a raised beer can. "Yeah, that's right... We're fine." he said, and, as he spoke, the large man eased himself out of the passenger side door and lumbered around the front hood of the pick-up. He had a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a newspaper in the other. He raised the paper up and gestured to it with the neck of the bottle.

"Hey, boy, you that guy crossing America to show that people are good?"

Harry beamed with pride. "Yes. That's me."

"Well, hell, boys," the man said to the other two still inside the cab, "we got ourselves a real celebrity here! It's in the paper even. Just imagine that." He started towards Harry. "C'mon boys, come on out and meet the man!"

Percy grimaced. "Aw, Gabby, let's just get on down the road. We got the girls waitin' there -"

"Percy, you ain't never no fun," interrupted the man who had intially greeted Harry. He started to push a reluctant Percy from the truck. "Now go on like he said and meet the man!"

Harry felt uncomfortable being so directly the center of attention, but, he figured he'd have to get used to it. However, he didn't want to be the source of any friction between people he might meet. Best to be friendly and diplomatic.

"Look," he said to Gabby who was almost upon him, "I sure don't want to make trouble for your friend there. If you've got someplace-"

Gabby wouldn't hear it. "Hell, you ain't makin' no trouble boy. It's a pleasure, a real goddamned pleasure to make your acquaintance." He casually tossed the newspaper to the ground and put a greasy hand forward to shake Harry's. Harry reciprocated the gesture and immediately felt his knuckles crack.

He stifled a cry and managed a reply. "Likewise," he said, and tactfully tried to pull away. Seemingly, though, this was the other man's cue to squeeze his hand even tighter.

"Gabby's the name," he said, "and let me tell you, I'm just tickled. I ain't never met a real live celebrity before."

Harry winced. His arm swung through the air like a wet noodle and tears welled up in his eyes. He knew it wasn't either manly or polite to ask for his hand back; nevertheless, he was on the verge of doing so anyway, when inexplicably, yet thankfully, Gabby released him from the vise-like grip. Harry shook his hand and breathed an obvious sigh of relief, but this was as lost on the big man as had been the look of pain on his face just moments before.

The other two men by now had also made it across the road. Gabby introduced them. "These are my buddies, Percy and Bob," he said. "What'd you say your name was?"

"Harry. But I didn't"

"What's that?" asked Bob, eyeing his video camera.

"I didn't... Say my name that is."

"Well, don't that beat all," said Gabby. "I guess you didn't." An unmistakeable undercurrent of hostility shot through his voice. Harry wasn't at all sure he liked the way this encounter was shaping up. He forced a smile. "Yup, that's me. Harry. Harry Peterson. I'm not really a celebrity, though. I'm not really anybody at all to tell the truth. But it sure was nice of you guys to stop and say hello," he said in that kind of tone one uses when one is trying to say goodbye. It soon became clear, however, that noone was going anywhere just yet, so Harry resigned himself to continued conversation. "You know," he went on, "you're the first folks I've even talked to."

Gabby was back to being friendly. "That a fact?" he asked.

"You bet."

Percy swallowed the last of his beer, wiped his mustache and threw the can off the bridge. Harry started to say something, but thought better of it as Bob, still eyeing the camera and now the knapsack as well, put his arm around Harry's shoulder. "You really that guy crossing America?"

"Yeah, that's me," answered Harry, flattered despite his reservations about the situation.

Gabby gave him a playful punch. "You know what, boy? You're just about a hero, a real hero."

Bob echoed him. "That's right. A hero." He gave Harry a squeeze. "Say, what's that you got around your neck there? Looks like one a them video cam-thingamajiggies."

"Sure it is," said Gabby. "`Ol Bobo's got one a them. He showed me how to use it even."

"That right?" Bob laughed. "Makin' yourself a documen-tarry, Harry? Maybe put it on TV?"

Harry shrugged with an edge of sheepishness. "Maybe."

"That'd be fine. Hey, I got an idea. How about you take that thing off and give it to Gabby here and he can take a picture of you and me."

Harry hesitated, remembering what Gabby had done to his hand and imagining his camera in a similar state. Percy seemed to read his mind. "Now Bob, can't you see the boy don't want to give over his camera to a red-neck like Gabby? Hell, he just about squeezed Harry's hand into pumpkin paste a minute ago."

Harry was shamed by the truth in Percy's words. He felt like a traitor to his own cause. Why was he here in the first place talking to these people if all he had to offer was suspicion and mistrust? It occurred to him that this was a test no less than his physical suffering had been earlier. And if so, to this point he was failing it miserably.

"Oh, no. I don't mind. Really," Harry said to Percy, and he meant it. Taking the opportunity to shake loose from Bob's arm, he took the camera from around his neck and gave it to the bear-like man in front of him. "Go ahead, Gab, man, give it your best shot." Gabby fumbled with the controls, which were dwarfed by his huge paws, and, a bit worried, Harry added, "Just treat it like you would a woman." Bob and Percy both snickered and Harry, not sure this had been the best suggestion, modified his request. "Or, well... like you would a truck..." Then seeing the battered pick-up across the road, he tried again, "...or a favorite shotgun."

"Don't you worry, Harry," Gabby reassured him. "We got it all under control here." He put the camera to his eye and aimed it at Harry. "Pow!" he cried, and snorted. "Shot you. Get it?"

Harry laughed to show he had gotten it. Gabby, surprisingly agile for his size, began to move around, pointing the camera in all different directions - first at Bob who made faces, then at Harry again, then at the pick-up truck; next he moved to the railing and shot a bird's eye view of the water, then he had Percy in his sights looking inattentive and picking out earwax with his finger.

"So," asked Harry, loosening up a bit. "Where are you guys from?"

Gabby ignored him. "Whoowee, boy," he said, zooming in on Percy's finger in his ear. "This is a heck-load of fun. I gotta get me one a these."

"Give me a try with that ya hog," demanded Bob. Before Harry could stop him, Bob had the camera and was holding it upside down.

"Here, why don't you let me show you how to use it," offered Harry, moving towards him. "If you're not careful -"

"Aw, shut up Harry. It's upside down on purpose."

Harry stopped in his tracks, taken off guard by the sudden rudeness. "I was just trying to help," he managed feebly.

"Don't," snapped Bob. "Taking that goddamned condescending attitude with me. I know upside down when I see it. Here, take back yer damned toy. Ya ruined it for me." He threw the camera back at Harry.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

Gabby interceded, putting on a front of joviality. "Don't pay Bob no mind, Harry. He's just funnin' with you."

"Yeah?" Harry was hopeful again.

"Yeah, that's right," Bob said, "I'm just funnin' with you." He threw a look at Gabby who responded with a raise of the eyebrows and an affirmative nod.

Off to the side, Percy was getting impatient. "We goin' yet?"

Bob answered. "Sure, we're going... But, you know what?" he said as if just remembering something. "We didn't even get poor old Gabby here into your flick. Let's get a shot of him so he can be famous like the rest of us."

"Of course, I'd like that," said Harry. Although it was quite clear that he and these men would never become fast friends, he was hoping they might at least part on a positive note.

"Thanks, Harry," Gabby said. "You're a real sport."

Harry checked focus through the viewer as Gabby waved and smiled. "By the way," he said, not expecting much, "you folks wouldn't have any ideas about where I might put up for the night, would you?"

"Sure," Bob replied, a little far off sounding. "I think we oughta be able to rustle you up a place."

Only moments before Harry would have flat out rejected the notion that anything good could come from this encounter, but now, through perserverance and good faith, he had extracted the first tangible confirmation of his bruised apple theory. Excited, he lowered the camera. "Really?" he asked, but Bob had disappeared. He looked to the left. Nothing. He looked to the right. Not there either, but Percy, eyes averted, had a pained look on his face. Harry wondered why, but only for an instant, for, just as he twisted his gaze a third time, his field of view was filled by a fist hurtling through the air. It caught him full on the nose and Harry felt himself falling backwards over a body kneeling on all fours behind him. The last thing he thought before he hit the ground, ludicrously enough, was that at least now he knew where Bob was.

In a semi-conscious state Harry felt tugs on his body and knew that his attackers were pulling his knapsack off and emptying his pockets. He thought he heard faint echoes of laughter and he was able to make out a few words "... fun ... dumb ... rabbit's ... luck ... swim," in what was otherwise an indistinguishable babble where all sound ran together. The world went black for a moment and Harry was back again with the cheering crowd and microphones.
"Tell us! Tell us!" the people wailed and a voice exclaimed, "Harry, we love you!" This time he looked closer and saw it was Judy who had cried out. She was naked except for a fig leaf that covered her private parts. Harry's heart ka-thumped and skipped a beat, then he heard himself speaking. "Fear and shame no more!" he was saying. "Fear and shame no more!"

The tugs intensified and pulled Harry away from the crowd. He was back on the bridge. Before him, suspended in a tangerine haze, the sun floated over the horizon. Suddenly, he had a sensation of freedom, like he was flying almost. The laughter and voices faded away and were replaced by a soft murmuring. He was in a garden, a soft stream trickling through. There was a luscious red apple in front of him - it had a bite missing. Knowledge and a placid calm engulfed him.

He never felt the rock that bashed in his skull when he hit bottom.