On Mount Corcovado overlooking Rio de Janeiro, January, 1956
(excerpt from Razor Blade)

Dark loses its hold on the plummeting slopes as dawn creeps down from the top of the mountain. The scent of her dead body wakes the iridescent butterflies carpeting the eastern bark of the pomegranate trees. Soon, the scent tantalizes the butterflies to flit up the amber shafts of early morning light. Streams of them slice through the dense undergrowth along the narrow road up to the towering statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Mount Corcovado.

Her scent is so attractive that the butterflies come out of the mountainside jungle in shimmering swarms. It is as though the mato itself exhales plumes of glittering aquamarines into the flame-colored dawn.

There are enough butterflies for a favelado to make a killing on those cocktail trays that the Americanos love to buy – the exotic trays skinned with their plucked, opulent, turquoise wings, and then lacquered, and lacquered again, to prevent damage from over-foamed whiskey sours, or from discarded Maraschino cherries.

Two butterflies, awoken in amorous embrace, leave their crevasse in the tree bark to join the morning swarm. He heads north with the rest of the migration, assuming she is with him. His descendants will return to that very bark, and his future generations will love again right here in Rio de Janeiro.

The dead human’s scent, however, lures her away. Its intoxicating pheromones mix with her already charged hormones, and she veers out of the migrating swarm to the body impaled on the tree. She drinks from the alizarin crimson liquid that drains down the alabaster body.

Sated and half-mad with passion, she yearns to join her mate to share her high. She can still smell him, but his scent is growing faint. She flaps her wings to leave, but her feet stick in the drying blood. She flaps harder, but this mires her turquoise wings in the drying crimson.

She is not alone, though he is now. Her wings join the others that blanket the body to never see the bottom of a cocktail tray. Five meters further down, human blood drips into a shallow scar in the stone mountain. A pack of scavenger rats claims this treasure shortly after dark, when the dead woman’s blood is still fresh.

At the Longacre’s reception for Vice President Nixon, January, 1956, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
(excerpt from Razor Blade)

Roger Trimble comes over, fronting for Nixon. “Are you ready for the Vice President? Do you have the questions we discussed?” But they don’t get a chance to respond as Nixon himself has been listening.

“Roger here tells me you are the Chama family, one of Brazil’s oldest and proudest landowners.”

“Yes, Mr. Vice President. I am Carlos Jorge Belaflores da Silva e Chama. And these are my sons – Flávio, the oldest, and Pretonho, the younger but already razor sharp. My wife, Maria Isabela. The Chama family welcomes you to Brazil, sir. We do much business in addition to land leases. And other wealthy families listen to us. We welcome you. We welcome American business investment. With the right incentives, we make paths for American business and policy, no?”

While Belaflores speaks, Nixon takes a long pull on his Tom Collins, clinks the remaining ice cubes and drinks the last of it, chuckling as he hands off the wet glass to Roger. “Yeah, I understand what you mean by the ‘right incentives.’ By U.S. law, technically we can’t play those games, Mr. Chama. Mr. Longacre, American Steel doesn’t play those games, do you?”

“Of course not,” says Rick. “We stay within reasonable limits of hospitality and gratitude. We throw parties like these and give away promotional trinkets. But of course, we’d never go beyond such reasonable gifts.”

“But American policy, on the other hand, also calls for us to respect local customs,” says Nixon as he rolls up his sleeves. “Ike and the military boys are keen these days to put up a missile-tracking station on the island of Fernando de Noronha up north. A particular issue of mine is that I want to help American companies like Rick’s prosper abroad, as that will strengthen capitalism in the face of the communist threat.” Nixon pulls out a damp handkerchief to mop off his forehead. “So I think you will find Ambassador Dunn here and his men open to discussion, shall we say. But we can’t get involved in outright bribes. Who’s this other American?”

“Sorry, sir. Allow me to introduce Samuel Merriman, host of the Merriman Mystery Hour. He is in Rio to record another series of his national radio broadcasts.” Nixon and Samuel shake hands.

“This is a memorable moment for me, Mr. Vice President. But carry on with your business. I am here only because Rick and I are fellow school alumni, and Rick’s wife invited me to come.”

Nixon studies Samuel, even though it means looking up. “Pat’s a big fan of your show, and I love real life mysteries. Whadja think of the Rosenberg trials? Wasn’t that a corker of a mystery with a great high wattage finale? Shows what we do to commies.”

Samuel runs his fingers through his wheat-white hair and looks down his aquiline nose at this sweaty man with the crumpled hair. “I think she was framed, sir.” Roger Trimble goes ashen, and withers to the side.

Nixon blinks and turns on Roger. “Get rid of that empty glass and get me a full one.” Nixon turns back to Samuel, “Which network produces your show, Merriman?”

“I’m independent. Sir.”

In Harvard Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts during the tear gas riots on April 15, 1970
(excerpt from Tear Gas)

Her eyes sting. Her eyes have been blurry often lately. She finds blurry better than clear. Blurry is nice, softer. Blotter acid paired with a couple of Quaaludes. All those vivid colors. But this gas is sharp and stings.

The helmeted faces marching toward her distort into cherry red and cerise pig masks. Very scary, yet she giggles.

Nearby, a huge raven claws the metallic foil wrapper off the trashed heel of a meatball sub. It jettisons the inedible wrapper and flies off with the tasty crust. Pendulous streetlights towering overhead like giant fern fronds splay orange light on rust brick walls crawling with ivy tendrils. The shadow of the black raven flying home climbs the brick wall. Under the orange lights, the nasty white fumes flow toward her. Tangerine trees and marmalade skies. She’s the girl with kaleidoscope eyes. Kids run yelling to each other. Tee hee. The raven caws at her to turn back, but she’s gone.

The line of advancing police splits Mass Ave up the middle, pushing her to the Harvard Yard side. She side-steps the cops’ formation and dances over a sewer grate to land on the rock-strewn sidewalk. In passing, she showers the men in ultramarine with rosy magnolia petals. Mid-April. She is Botticelli’s Springtime. Everyone smiles as she drifts by the flowers.

Mass Ave expands as it widens into Harvard Square. The crowds run ahead of the troops, as they do fleeing ahead of the bulls in Pamplona. The protesters make their stand in Harvard Square. Pity the bank’s windows, soon smashed with cobbles. The mob echoes the megaphone chants which bounce back from the surrounding brick and stone, “Hell no! We won’t go! We don’t want your fucking war!”

She craves water and heads deeper into the Yard in search of a water fountain to wash the sting out of her eyes and slake her thirst. She floats onto a bridge by a fountain, past the flowers that grow so incredibly high. The crowds are behind her now, and lonely shadows loom ahead, so she pokes through her clamshell purse to find the MDA pill the Russian guys gave her in trade—the upper will let her climb back in with her head in the clouds. Where’s that water?

On the other side of Mass Ave and the advancing police, a pale figure wearing an ivory skullcap crosses to her side, ahead of the dividing line of cops, and follows her through the gate into Harvard Yard.

Another volley of tear gas canisters sets off a billow of white fog that swirls around the Out of Town News kiosk in Harvard Square before wafting into Harvard Yard.

Her eyes sting again. Her throat rasps. The MDA kicks in with vivid tracers, lines of red and purple darting among the ivied buildings. She claws through her clamshell in search of a hankie or something to cover her nose and mouth. They are killing her.

She flails alone in the fog of tear gas. Somebody calls her. She answers quite slowly. A familiar face holds out the wet handkerchief she yearns for. But its fumes are much worse than the tear gas. Its fumes are so much worse that she bites hard the hand that holds the handkerchief tight to her nose. She throws her clamshell purse at her attacker, but misses, and then she passes out.

Seduced by the fish-scale glints of the purse’s sequins, the raven dives through the noxious tear gas to claim the prize. Only once back up above the tear gas does the raven smell the plunder, and immediately drops it—its fish scales are fake, and it smells like poison. The clamshell purse falls a hundred yards away from her lifeless body.

The raven flies home. For now, its nestlings will have to survive only on the crust of bread.

Sheila Merriman and her Uncle Henry at the Myopia Hunt Club, north of Boston, Nov, 2019 (excerpt from Tear Gas)

Henry notices the drone making a beeline toward them, so he lifts his head, smiles and waves at the camera, assuming the drone will soar overhead at the last moment.

I have my doubts. I don’t see a camera, but I do see its four sharp propellers turn the drone into a flying buzz saw heading dead on to my Uncle Henry. Even Sonshine is shying away, but Henry’s still smiling and waving until it’s too late and he tries to cover his face with the reins in his hands.

I hurl my broken mallet head at the diving drone. It twirls through the air, stick over hammer, and cuts through the drone’s path inches before Henry. The rotors gnarl the mallet and toss it across the field, but the mallet has done its damage, and the drone veers safely off to plummet into the grass.

Henry’s first thoughts are for Sonshine, but I can see that he is shaken. Both of them are. So am I for that matter. Why would a drone attack us?

Another bee behind us, two of them, which I point out to Henry, who adds, “And a third drone up front. They’ve triangulated us.”

“They’re coming closer.” As I pivot to assess our chances and possible cover—both close to zero in an open field with three buzz saws coming at us—I see dust rising from the gate far at the other end. The lanky guy with the polo helmet is coming, but he’s a long way away, and these drones are picking up speed.

“Separate!” Henry yells, and we put ten yards between us, but some invisible tether keeps us no further apart. After tossing the reins back over his mane, Henry slaps Sonshine’s hind quarters so that he canters off a way to safety, but the horse also stops, turns and studies us.

The three drones, vectoring at us, stop for a moment, then with new commands, two head toward Henry and one towards me. Well, at least I know who is more important.

Henry whips his leather belt around him with the metal buckle glinting in the sun. Once the first drone comes close enough, he lashes it with the buckle end, but the drone’s motors are too powerful, and one of the rotors grabs the belt whirling it around like a spiral whip heading toward Henry, while the second drone buzz saws towards his face.

Facing my own drone coming from behind us, I’m planning on feinting right, then diving left at the last moment, but in the next instant, it is too dusty to see my fate cutting toward me. In the dust cloud, I feel thunderous hooves and sharp clacks as the polo player gallops through us, swinging his mallet with Olympic skill to down all three drones—whack, whack and whack.

As the dust clears, I see the field around us littered with dead and dying drones. One of the drones, hit square with the mallet, lies in scattered pieces linked by the belt it stole, which Henry retrieves. Two have flashing lights but are silent and still, but one—mine, of course—still hops around trying to take off on two rotors while beeping loudly.

The polo rider calms his horse and pats him before turning him back to the littered battlefield. I see that it is the tall, lanky one Henry hugged. He rides over to the hopping drone and puts it out of its misery with a well-placed mallet whack that silences the scream and stills its last rotors.

“Bertil, you’ve saved us!” cries Henry. “No other player could have done that.”

“It’s not me, padre, it is Esmeralda. No other pony could get here that fast and pivot among the drones. Are you OK? And you, señorita?”

“Bertil, I’d like you to meet my niece, Sheila Merriman. Sheila, I’m pleased to introduce Bertil del Fuego.” With first a glance to Bertil, Henry continues, “Bertil is my ranch’s lead rider, though he also rides for other stables.”

“You always have first choice on my season schedules… Señor Gammel.”

I am standing, still a bit shaken, looking up at this new man seated atop a sweating, panting horse. My eyes are level with the top of his black riding boots, where his camel-colored jodhpurs start. He’s wearing a bright white linen shirt, crossed diagonally with a black stripe across his chest. His polo helmet is also black, but I can see that it is lined with red silk, framing a full head of black hair that curls out from under the helmet. His crystal-clear blue eyes—a surprising color in this otherwise classic Latin head—look down at me in concern.

“Are you all right, señorita? You seem a bit unsteady.”

“I’m fine. I suspect you’re…it’s just a passing fancy. Though this sun does feel warm.”

“Sheila, it’s November, and there’s now a chill in the air. Let’s get back to the stables,” says Henry.

We turn toward the group waiting for us at the fence, except for Sonshine, who turns the other direction to watch the Ryder truck still parked with its doors open at the other side of the field.

As we walk back to the stables, the cold gusts turn into a steady wind, whistling in our faces, drowning out even the insect chorus. I know it is the 21st century and I shouldn’t be saying this, but somehow, I feel more comfortable and protected with Bertil on his horse on my left, and Henry walking on my right. They’re larger that I am.

We still have a football field to cross before we reach the group at the fence. They are pointing at us, so I wave back, but I notice two of the hands fan out along the fence, stop, and aim their shotguns at us. The wind in our face is now fierce, so they don’t hear my shout.

But it clicks. I turn and see what they are seeing—a black drone the size of a motorcycle but silent as a snake coming in low behind us with a kind of throbbing hum. The skeet shooters at the fence are aiming at the drone, not us. But they need us to put some distance between us so they can shoot behind us.

Henry and I break into a run. It’s a long sprint and the black drone is already halfway toward us, about where Sonshine stands. Sensing the danger from the drone, Sonshine gallops toward us, outrunning the drone to give us a few seconds. Sunshine nudges Henry to mount him and get going. As for me? Bertil reaches down from his saddle and sweeps me off my feet.