Dreamtime: The Enlightened

By Robert Byron

A group of "enlightened" people gather in a small mid-western town to discuss the coming cataclysm: the capsizing of the earth and the end of life on earth as we presently know it, including specific instructions and training in survival tactics for such a dire event for those that do survive, and suggestions of how life might continue on the "new" earth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635680133

Book preview

Chapter One

Honey, I found it!

What’d we lose?

Red Cloud, Sugartit!

It turned to rain and disappeared?

No, silly! The geographical center of the country!

That’s good, sweetie. Now you know where in case it ever gets lost again.

Just like that palm reader told us at the carnival!

Sweetie, you can’t be serious!

Oh, yes, we are!

She made up that name just like all the rest of it—plain ole carney fun and nothing more. I mean, for a whole dollar a throw, no self-respecting psychic would be caught dead at our annual Fireman’s Carnival of Harmony Ridge! That’s about like MayMaw’s ole friend Granums from the astral plane showing up like an ole gypsy gazing into a crystal ball. And I’ve seen her too, so don’t give me that thought, big guy!

Hon, I didn’t say a word!

You didn’t have to, sweetbottom! ‘Two fun-filled days and nights.’ Ha! Someone else can have my place in the booth next year. We’ve done more than our share for the last four, and it’s time to give someone else the opportunity. And here I am all dressed and ready for the VFW’s Saturday night dance, and you haven’t even started! LuAnn sped Parker through his shower and sat on the throne, watching him shave. I’ve never known two men to shave alike.

And just when did you conduct your survey, hon?

Smartass, my granddaddy used a straight edge just like Daddy does, but my three brothers are modern men. Your hairy buns are just sooo tempting. And she pinched his naked butt.

Ouch! You almost made me cut myself! Women and men’s butts!

And why not? We’re the first to clean ’em, bathe ’em, kiss ’em, and spank ’em! That adds up to the world’s foremost expert and authority!

And pinch! he retorted. Don’t ever say anything to me about men always playing grab-ass with each other!

"That’s different! Grown men acting like boys… Of course, that’s why you’re always called boys—no matter how old you get!"

Ha! You’re right about shaving—except for the twins in my outfit, and they did!

You mean, they each shaved alike?

Yep! Couldn’t tell one from the other. Even their prick looked identical or damn near, and I never knew such a thing was possible—that every pecker was different!

And when did you conduct your survey, sweetbuns?

Sugartit, when you survive going through a whole war of nothing but men, there’s nothing about all men you haven’t seen or come to know—good, bad, or indifferent! ’Course—and Parker chuckled as he splashed aftershave on his face and wiped his large hands all over his hairy body—one of the twins always boasted his was a whole inch longer and thicker than his brother’s was. Only you never knew which one was bragging! They even died together the same as they’d always been in life. And he fell silent, remembering. I wouldn’t’ve been a bit surprised if they’d been lovers as well, but I’d’ve been the only one with such a notion as the two of them were nothing but all male and could fuck like minks!

Just like you, sweetie. Thank God for your great big favor. She put her hands between his legs, and Parker jumped.

Thank God I was finished, or the whole town would have heard how I slit my throat today.

And LuAnn saw that familiar shadow flicker across his handsome face.

You know, some of them did in Basic. Two-thirds of the guys I knew signed up for the active reserves after we got out. Survived World War II for a reason… to die without one in Korea. Parker struck the wall with both fists.

Your square dance outfit is on the bed, LuAnn said lightly, trying to prevent the onset of another black depression. "Sitting here on this throne, looking at your big body and that juicy, hairy butt… maybe I got dressed too soon. Wanta fool around, big boy?"

Parker caught her to him and pressed his "I luv you on her mouth. Thanks, hon."

She kissed him back, tickled his balls, and ran laughing out of the bathroom door as he lunged for her and missed. I’ll bet you plum forgot you’re calling the first set for the square dancing!

Parker groaned, No rest for the wicked. And he got dressed.

Driving along in the pickup, with LuAnn’s hand resting between his thighs as usual, Parker suddenly picked up her hand, exclaiming, I’ll be damned! You sure can turn my head from what we were talking about, LuAnn!

"What you were talking about, sweetie, not me, she said serenely. All part of the mystique of being a woman, just like MayMaw taught me about handling little boys and grown-up ones!"

We’re gonna finish what I was saying about Red Cloud! And going!

Parker, honey, believe me, any poor ole crone can tell anyone about the line ‘Your missing beloved of the family is alive and has been a prisoner of the Red Chinese Infidels.’ And she bit her lip and blinked her eyes. And with all our psychic knowing for others, me and MayMaw don’t know for us about Junie.

Parker was instantly consoling as he squeezed her hand. "Honey, your youngest brother can still be alive. We can’t give up hope. Junie was missing in action and, after two years, presumed dead. Not outright! If it was really true, MayMaw and you would both know, but neither one of you has had that knowing yet!"

LuAnn tried a smile, patting his thigh. "Like I said, him and 8,500 others, except he was gonna come home. As many times as he wrote it and probably to himself. Sure!"

But not as the man he was or the brother you knew, Parker said softly.

Shoot, shucks, and shinola, Park! You weren’t the same when you came home. Why should Junie be any different? If he is still alive and ever comes home. Hellfire and damnation, he’ll never be the same again like all the rest. You still have your awful black moments—nightmares—and those moods when you are somewhere else in time where I can never be with you or even help you!

Thank God, he vowed as he slipped his hand in her blouse, cupping her full right breast, intent on steering the subject safely back to Red Cloud and the First Earth Movement Conference open to the public. After telling you the great gift that would come upon you in the midst of strangers you’ve known for eternity, she kissed your hand! How about that!

Either you caress that nipple one more second and we pull over to the side of the road and screw each other half to death or you put your hands—both of them—back on the wheel, get your mind on the road, and get us to that dance!

Oh, no, you don’t, Parker said with a laugh. Not twice in one night, lady. We’re gonna dance our asses off, fuck like minks when we get home, and after church tomorrow, we’re gonna finish this discussion and work out this little side trip to Red Cloud entitled ‘How We Spent Our Summer Vacation’!

And they did exactly that.

Chapter Two

Granums felt a familiar tug, and the dreaming memory snagged another waiting consciousness. Granums felt LuAnn’s passage on the astral plane and smiled, You’re the sweetest gal!

They grinned at each other and waved.

Granums, I’ll check on Mr. Lyman ’cause I know you can’t. But almost!

Granums continued on. She watched the silver cord like a wisp of smoke still holding her fast to the container far below her that she would soon discard, and then she was engulfed in a blinding radiance of love.

Her four-year-old great-grandbaby rocked in the tiny, miniature replica of Granums’ rocker. She ‘watched’ the disappearing astral form with wide brown eyes, waiting for the expected voice of her aunt who was about to say, Look at Granums, all dressed in her Sunday best like she’s going to church, and it’s only Saturday. And she’s sound asleep in her rocker! Pralena chile, you look so somber like you’re going or coming from a funeral. And she sat on the top step, fanning herself. Old people blink on and off like lightning bugs in a summer night, dozing and waking.

Little Pralena knew she was hearing words only ‒ that her aunt really didn’t know she had just described every man, woman, and child or baby in the whole wide world just as she saw them do, just as she knew the blinking slowed, like a clock running down, getting slower and slower. Pralena knew the time was at hand for her Granums. This one last and final time would end this life with her last journey. Red Cloud was a right pretty name.

Lordy, what put that thought in my head sudden-like, but I can still see it, Aunt RaeLouise said, freshening a rub of snuff very daintily, then touching her apron hem to her lips. Your mama finally pushed you out. You just made a little sigh, sorrowful-like, and then opened those huge dark-brown eyes of yours, and I looked at all the sorrow and grief the whole blessed world ever knew.

Granums got up, washed her poor, gnarled old hands. ’Course, she’s been old people long as I remember her—and strange as can be. She was more like mumbling to herself than any of us there for your coming, and she smiled and nodded like she’d just silently talked with you or you to her and said, ‘Well, she’s come. Now I can get ready to go.’ Like the two of you were changing places—a tiny baby and a little-older-than-the-hills black lady almost slipping through the cracks of time, like the two of you arranged it. Only she didn’t go nowhere ’cept go sit down in her rocker just like she’s doing now, all dressed up, going no place."

She’s back… from her nap, Pralena caught herself.

She’s awake?

The child nodded solemnly to her Aunt RaeLouise the truth of her question, knowing where Granums had been as well. After quickly checking the road below her for the car that would take her clear to Red Cloud, Granums returned to her waiting body.

Where you going all dressed up, Granums? Aunt RaeLouise asked softly with a smile.

Red Cloud, the old lady answered clearly as the rocker resumed its pace to nowhere.

Yeah, ’bout like I’ll be on the moon tomorrow, sweet love. I’m gonna fetch you a nice cup of tea.

Granums nodded her thanks and casually mentioned to no one in particular—except Pralena, The car is coming. She’d ride out in style and projected the thought for RaeLouise to bring along her carpetbag from her room and Pralena’s.

RaeLouise stopped midway between the rocker and the front door, thinking she’d humor the old lady with that bag for Red Cloud, who kept talking about her time at hand, just like Jesus did—and no one believed him either, unless Mary did.

RaeLouise was also unaware she’d presently be taken with a fainting spell. Granums couldn’t figure out any other easy and safe way RaeLouise had never experienced in her life. Shortly after putting the carpetbag down beside Pralena and handing the last cup of tea Granums would ever sip under that old tin roof, RaeLouise sank slowly into the blackness. Granums knew she had two simultaneous thoughts flash in her mind: If I am, and that baby is no way gonna fool him into thinking it’s his, he’ll ’bout beat me to death.

Granums knew it didn’t matter what color skin she selected to come back in. She was still star-crossed with the same man who’d eventually find her again, picking that way to go. She sure wanted to fathom that one finally, to pass on the knowing in a dream to Pralena to help that poor soul of RaeLouise to break that cycle of wasting such precious time when she knew she could do so much better if only she’d try.

Just a little harder, chile!

Then Granums sipped her tea and smiled, thinking of Red Cloud and who was going to be there waiting for her—Lyman, her soul mate. She saw the small cloud of dust far down the road and felt the tug of her great-grandbaby she knew so well. She followed, taking her cup with her, thinking of how it was truly overflowing, and held on with her other hand to that tiny hand with the other dragging her carpetbag to the side of the road. They waited for the car to appear, for the driver, Ruck Baer, to ask directions.

Chapter Three

Earth miles away in diminishing time, a stately old gentleman bought a ticket at the bus depot. One way to Red Cloud, please, he said with a quivering voice, finally knowing why he’d kept hidden, almost praying, that exact amount of money that none of his sons or daughters or anyone at the home knew he had—except Alpha, bless her heart. Not one penny more, and not, thank God, one penny less. It was the miracle of his life at the end of it, the one thing he knew for certain when nothing else was. Soon he would be free.

He tried to remember what he couldn’t. So far, the only dreadful moment in time was the young woman selling tickets, looking like the whore of Babylon with all that paint on her face. She asked him, Red Cloud what? I ain’t heard of that one, mister.

He nearly chuckled to himself. That makes two of us. But remembering for some reason he mustn’t draw attention to himself, he stood there. That answer he had to remember. They’d find him gone, come get him, and then find out about the money for the bus ticket, the only wealth left to him.

They took the social security along with all the rest, including what his children constantly reminded him they had to cough up every goddamn month. And wasn’t he ready to die yet? How could one old fart keep on breathing in and out with absolutely no reason but to plague them!

When? he did wonder. Why indeed?

His secret money made him serene and restored the confidence he’d always had—before they stuck him away in the home, waiting for him to die. He was sure going to fool the hell out of all of them.

He thought of how they tried to pry his granddaddy’s railroad timepiece out of his hand that first day and of that kindly young colored gal who told them, After he fell asleep, I’d be sure and get it for you.

None of them saw the knowing wink she gave him. Their kind was just about the only kind I’ve ever got to see around this hellhole! At least I can help a few old folks off to what only can be better. God knows it positively can’t be any worse! She was the only kind one there, the only one he thanked and said good-bye to, knowing his bus trip would be their last secret together.

And now no longer needing to know the time, he gave her his only other treasure he had to give. His only gift for all her kindnesses in all those years. Alpha was her name. He told her thirteen years ago his was Omega, and they’d have made a wonderful pair. She brought him a laugh when everyone else handed him a bowl of grief. Alpha had made the mystery of Red Cloud her very own cause ever since the first time he dreamed it. He guessed it was a dream. If he was ninety-three, why did trying to remember his own life have to be so difficult? Here he’d been carrying around the mystery in his own pocket for fifty years and didn’t remember how the back flipped open.

Alpha discovered it for him, and there it was as big as life itself when she read the words inside: Red Cloud, Nebraska. It was where the railroad company gave it to his granddaddy for seventy years of railroading. But the trains weren’t running there anymore. He’d have to ride a smelly old bus on his way home to die in Red Cloud, which must be why, he figured, he was going there. It wasn’t his home, but he couldn’t remember where that was either.

That is, unless there was another reason—a rendezvous with time. He just couldn’t remember, except for every now and then almost remembering the most important reason of his life. It was like knowing you had dreamed a wonderfully beautiful, glorious dream that made sense of everything—your whole reason for being. Then all you had left was the feeling—and a hard-on as usual—when you woke up, but the dream was gone except for the haunting that was almost known.

He tried so hard to dream it again, but if he did, he couldn’t remember. Now he could educate the ticket seller and told her where, not what. He was as certain of anything he could be that he had never been to Red Cloud—at least, not in this lifetime—and wondered what he meant by a thought like that if ever there was another. But at the end of his life, that was where he must be going because that was exactly how much his money came to.

The young woman counted out loud every last cent. He needed no luggage because everything he needed must be already there.

Dying required very little actually… or should. Alpha sneaked him a shoebox full of food and even a jar of water to soak his teeth in at night or whenever. He’d blushed like a schoolboy when she kissed him good-bye, whispering, The coast is clear. Walk straight, casually, to the depot the way I told you, and don’t look back. Pray that damn fool bus isn’t early or, worse yet, late. Ride away just like a cowboy into the setting sun.

He got on the half-empty bus, settling ninety-three years beside a window, and hoped Red Cloud was the reason and meaning of his endless and wasted life. Someone long ago, he almost remembered, had told him what he was going to do, and about the only thing he did well was in bed. He must have done a good job of it too, with all the kids he sired. Since he had been wanting to forget for so long, maybe he had finally succeeded. That was a dubious accomplishment. Maybe the rough ride and bouncing down the road as they were starting to do might jog his brain, and he’d remember why… or what he didn’t want to.

The ride wasn’t quite rough enough. He dozed off as usual, like he’d done maybe his whole life, but that much he could remember. This time, he did not have to dream himself being in Red Cloud; the noisy, smelly, bouncing, jarring rattle of the bus was actually taking him there, mile after mile.

As the sun began to seek its rest, Lyman was the only one dreaming, not remembering that the astral plane too could be a form of dreaming. All the other passengers on that bus knew exactly why they were there. Red Cloud was far more than a speck on the map Alpha showed him. Red Cloud was destiny itself. The beginning of the fulfillment of each one, they knew, including Lyman. Like everything else, it was simply a matter of choice, being centered in so many altered states or having to be aware of simply one. It was as if none of the rest existed or shared the same moment—a blink of time—being self-deluded that there was only one reality perceived and only one consciousness.

Even in his dream, the old gentleman clung foolishly as ever to that absurd notion as the bus did indeed ‘disappear’ into the setting sun. The other passengers on the bus meditated, sending vast waves of psychic energy to sustain the old man, to ensure he kept his date with the destiny of Red Cloud.

Back at the home, Alpha closed the watch with a snap and left it snug in the concealment of her very ample bosom that all the dirty-minded sons of the old boy hankered with their eyes. They licked their thin, mean, stingy lips and mentally pulled on their peckers like long, fat, pale slugs, yearning to leave their dirty footprints on her soul.

Life sure had its mysteries… and chances, if there was such a thing. Was it only the Lord who moved in mysterious ways when we went through life, trying to fool ourselves? Whatever happened, didn’t everyone always say it was meant to be, like the way you were born or how you died? Like the soldiers always said, The bullet with your name on it. The only sure thing was that no one ever got out of this world alive even if you didn’t pay taxes. Enoch was the only one who ever walked home to God, and that was a neat trick! It was almost as good as the Immaculate Conception—fucked by the Holy Ghost.

Alpha laughed out loud, remembering that one old boy she helped—in a very different way—get back to his Maker, wanting his old ding-dong to go cold in her hand when that one last hard-on killed him dead with joy. Life sure was funny. Only a fool could take it seriously. That was God’s colossal, hilarious joke—everyone being scared to death of dying and going to hell when all of us were already there, with having to die as the only way of getting out! Come to think of it, that would really be funny. With a sense of humor like that, God might just be A-OK after all!

On the astral plane, LuAnn grinned. She liked Alpha; she might be mired up to her butt in shit, but her head was wrapped in rainbows. She was just like Ruck with the mystery force he was utterly unaware of right now as that was coming to light in Red Cloud, where she would greet him in the flesh instead of some dreams sweet Granums shared with her, and he soon would meet all the others in Red Cloud.

Chapter Four

Ruck Baer was a star. He had always been a star since that day on the school yard when he was nine years old and finally beat the piss out of the thirteen-year-old undisputed playground bully, an absolute bastard from South Philly who definitely did not become his best friend as a result of his very public humiliation. Arnie Simpson was his one true and best friend. Mickey Vitcow was going to be something else with his nose bleeding, one eye already swelling shut, an ear pummeled and smashed, his mouth bloody with the loss of two teeth; he vowed one day to get even… when he came to.

This was also the occasion of little Ruck Baer’s first intoxication resulting from the waves of awe and adulation from his classmates, laughing and pointing at the vanquished. All witnessed Vitcow’s awesome defeat and the adoration shining in the eyes of all the little girls, even some older than him. He gave his hand to his enemy to help him to his feet after the threat—not in kindness and good sportsmanship, but rather to demonstrate his newfound, dearly earned superiority and complete disdain for such hollow threats.

The third time had been the charm… after he started to learn what the ‘art’ of street fighting really meant! He chose not to recall all the other dreadful defeats that finally brought him his first sweet taste of success. From that moment on, Ruck Baer decided he was always going to be a star. Thus began his career of being voted class president every year, being a straight-A student, and maturing into captain of the basketball team. Even though he was the shortest on the team, he was the fastest guard who always scored the highest.

Ruck accomplished the same in time as captain of the football team as well. Naturally, he graduated with top honors and such a winning smile. Everyone loved Ruck Baer, whose name was invariably pronounced as one name together, like bread and butter. He and Arnie went together the same way, which they always did, as you never saw one without the other. Big Arnie was also a star but more than happy to stand in Ruck’s shadow as long as they could be together.

Everyone remembered only that Ruck Baer had always been a star… except Ruck, who painfully remembered all the other times before he became a star. The weight and power of his aggression and accomplishments were necessary to bury once and for all what had really happened to him the first day of school on that same playground; he had run home, crying to his mother.

Bloody, clothes torn, dirty, and sick, Ruck Baer suffered his first experience of pain and humiliation bestowed upon his small seven-year-old frame and face, which Vitcow had ground into the school yard dirt during the very first recess. And no one had ever called him a turd.

Tearfully searching throughout the mansion for reassurance and consolation, he did not find his mother but encountered his father, who, for some odd reason, was not at the office of Baer Mercantile Companies but emerged, buttoning his fly, from the room of his mother’s personal maid. Ruck Baer had far too many tears blinding his eyes to observe this flurry of action, but he was overjoyed to see his father, whom he saw very little of generally. He rushed against him, his small arms nearly around his father’s solid-feeling very long legs, and cried out his awful devastation.

His father, for the moment, appreciated the timing as ten minutes earlier would have been a major annoyance; this was but minor by comparison. That particular conquest had required careful manipulation of the entire household and office schedules, as well as his wife’s, to bring about the consummation of a mutual desire that exceeded even his wildest imagination.

With the satisfaction of the pleasant prospect of much more of the same, he led his small son by the hand into his bathroom first to be cleaned up, wiping away all traces of an obvious defeat.

Stop that crying, he ordered.

Returning to the large bedroom suite of his parents, Ruck registered fear and disbelief as his father commanded him to drop his first pair of long trousers. He removed his belt and received the first and only whipping he’d receive from his father.

The purpose of the strapping was twofold: the first for having lost the fight, and the second for not having fought back but running home instead. As an afterthought, he was told never to bring home shame and disgrace to his mother, whom he would not inform this time unless he wanted her to weep endlessly for having produced a coward instead of a prince. Ruck Baer was promptly dispatched to finish his first school day.

On his way back to the Baer Mercantile building, A. Helms Baer, president, thought of making arrangements with his new young chauffeur and all-purpose man, Dusty Doyle Flanagan, in time to teach his only son the manly arts and whatever else was necessary to nip a potential sissy in the bud and start him on the road to manhood. He would also that very evening stop his happy childish singing, of which his mother took such pride. No more such entertainment for her friends as singing like a girl would eventually only cause the boy further confusion.

Ruck’s mother never knew he almost failed to qualify as the family prince and heir. Forever after, just hearing the word sissy gave Ruck Baer a funny twinge, causing his full and sensual lips to draw into a sneer. After his voice changed, the clear, high, sweet tenor was another something forever to be kept secret, and Ruck Baer became known as the strong, silent type.

He was also ashamed of his speaking voice. It was the exact opposite of his teammates, and they never knew how he envied their rich baritones or the deep, rumbling bassos that made him want to weep. Because he had so much to hide and be ashamed of, he polished his star with even more determined dedication and continued to soar with the wings of achievement, forever proving and improving himself.

His grade school litany, a small boy’s I’ll show him by the first year of high school, became I’ll show them! Only the cheering, shouting, and applause could steel him for the agony of the shower room afterwards and having to strut about naked with all the other guys. As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was the additional brutality of the invigoration of a manly, freezing-ass-cold shower that made what little there was between his legs even less!

His lack of endowment was propped up like the head of a bullfrog peering through the small thatch of brown pubic hair above balls far too big for such a little bit of peter. Without a string and one more icy blast, the most severe bane of his entire existence would totally disappear.

Ruck Baer had to keep trying harder and harder or otherwise simply die of total despair for everything he was not, having arrived on earth with a permanent little-boy prick. Maybe it would have been easier if, in the beginning of his agony in the ninth grade, he had tried so hard not to look.

He burned inside with self-hatred when his just-plain ole hazel eyes betrayed him at last, knowing in advance they would reveal his awful weakness. Straining against his will, those fucking hazel orbs would gaze fleetingly upon what the other guys had—all of them but him—dangling between their legs! However, using his fake voice (make the fucker at least sound low), Ruck Baer appeared just as casual, cool, ever-confident, and at ease, playing grab-ass with the best of them.

Flicking his towel with a vengeance (trying not to), shouting, and snapping it the loudest, he was the star they all loved. Ultimately he became so adroit, with the ease and grace of a ballet dancer, at keeping his towel so well employed hardly any of the guys or coaches ever got a really good look at what almost wasn’t there between his legs! But having to whack some big hard-on just like everyone else was agony. Having to be a regular guy! What he really wanted to do was grab it and hold it. He hated himself even worse, hating them all for having a cock that big and with balls just the right size!

All those big dicks, and his was so little it became an actual physical pain that made it difficult at times even to breathe. Almost as bad were all those hairy legs he envied so much. The hairy covering of some of those perfectly molded chests could actually make him weak in the knees. His only visible body hair was on his armpits, crotch, and very hairy bottom.

The one picture in his mind’s eye no amount of control could eliminate completely was his first vision of Dusty Doyle stark naked. Of course, whenever he needed to punish himself he could pick and choose at random, producing the pictures in his mind to scourge himself body and soul.

His early surprise and delight with an erection and the pleasant sensation produced by his left or right hand had become—after his very first comparison—a compulsion to jerk off really hard to punish it for being so fucking small! However, since no amount of pulling, yanking, or beating his meat made it one iota larger, the early pleasure soon turned to further self-disgust. He couldn’t enjoy the usual, normal playing around with one another like the rest of the guys because they’d laugh at him and tell him to go find someone his own size to play with—another little boy. If they ever got a really good look, they’d be pointing and hooting.

Then everyone would know his awful affliction—the whole school, all the girls who adored him, unaware of his awful shame. This was the secret despair of Ruck Baer. His dearest and best friend, Arnie Simpson, would never laugh and jeer like all the others. Because of his dreadful fascination and compulsion, he even harbored the self-horror that he might be queer—whatever that meant! With the ever-increasing betrayal of his plain, uninteresting damn hazel eyes, his mind was imprinted with endless images of sheer torture.

His mother vainly attempted to stave off his father’s intended total male dominance, knowing she was doomed to fail. She surrendered her charge with exhausted relief when he was eight, and Dusty Doyle—ten years older—took over her son’s life. Dusty Doyle showed him more than boxing and wrestling and the sublime art of street fighting. He provided Ruck Baer with the vision of the biggest, uncut, grown-up penis and hairy body the likes of which he had never beheld in his young life.

A few years into the future and his best friend and bosom buddy, Arnie Simpson, would betray him by growing up the very same way into all that furry glory. He loved and envied him outright. Honest as ever, he caressed that big hairy body, and Arnie thought he would die of sheer bliss and joy. He worshipped Ruck Baer even more, and his idol was totally unaware of standing on a pedestal in his eyes—almost forever. Arnie longed to lay down his life and do anything else Ruck Baer might ever want of him.

A. Helms Baer, who was never called by name, not even by his wife or by his all-purpose man for all the years they would be together, sentenced his son in the beginning to four hours a day immediately after school as part of his training to become a man first and, ultimately, the highest pinnacle, a man’s man! He was his prince and heir, who one day would assume his throne in the world of business and finance.

He was the king of Baer Mercantile, which was now large enough and was still growing to become by his assumption incorporated. Companies had become the past with the erection of two more brand-new and even taller buildings with the entire top floor of one—and the most expensive suite—for the corporate offices of his ever-expanding empire. America was indeed the land of opportunity!

Dusty Doyle was paid considerably more, additionally, to punish him for the originally required hours a day and then all day Saturday as well, except for the games of which he was the star. The hearty, charming eighteen-year-old Irish lad, strong as a bull and quick as a cat, became his instructor as well in ways Ruck’s father was completely oblivious.

Dusty Doyle became the big brother, mentor, and model Ruck had never known. He worshipped Ruck’s father himself. Ruck became like his son as part of his worship of the father. As Ruck began to develop into an athlete, practice time came first. Workouts became the all-day Saturday ordeal that grew into something eagerly anticipated. Ruck Baer learned quickly and lastingly all the lessons Dusty Doyle taught him with such case and fervent dedication on the part of both.

In time, he also arranged for Master Ruck to sample his first beer in a saloon, participate in his first boxing match, and experience his first lay, secretly observed to correct or improve his performance should it be necessary. Dusty Doyle also took him to other than the family physician to cure him of his first dose of clap.

He reveled in the family box seats with the boy for every basketball, baseball, and football game of the season except the ones he shared only with his own mentor himself! Then as a part of his coming of age, Ruck Baer sat between the two men and yelled his lungs out! In the course of his unusual education, he secured the knowledge that his educated tongue could drive a woman into a frenzy.

His father gave him his first job in one of the warehouses and told everyone in his employ to bust his balls like anyone else—not as his only son and heir. They did! His mother took him to his first opera, symphony, and ballet. Dusty Doyle taught him how to dance and French-kiss. Dusty Doyle would also take to his grave eventually the secret that even when Ruck Baer’s prick was hard as a rock, it was still only five and a half inches long and the same circumference—plus the missing other half inch. He was also the only man (aside from his father and Arnie) Ruck Baer never hated as he strode through life so easily with big-cock confidence even when his fate was to fool the whole world for the rest of what would become his enviable life.

Ruck Baer in time also learned to hate Jews and niggers, except for his black teammates who were, of course, part of the team and were just regular guys with even bigger dicks than their white counterparts, increasing the weight of the cross Ruck bore in silence. Then the usual wops, spicks, chinks, etc. fell into line casually without any intense emotion from him actually, which was far from the case of the hatred and never-ending contempt his father had for Jews. If they offended himself, Dusty’s loathing had to be even more flaming. He was not only vastly loyal, loving, and protective, but he also was inclined to being very possessive. These attributes afforded Helms no end of pleasure; he was much the same.

Hatred for Germans and Japs happened in the historical course of events. When Helms first laid eyes on Dusty Doyle, being RC never entered his mind. Like the problem of a loving headhunter, there were things that simply had to be overlooked! Except for the RC jokes both of them cracked, religion was a problem only to the people who made it one as any fool knows. Dusty Doyle became for Ruck a joy of lifelong hero worship, an adoring big brother, and a substitute father.

He helped him comprehend and survive his first devastating experience of puppy love by teaching him instead how to become a real lady’s man and, just like him, have any woman he wanted anytime. He even taught him how to deal with his sister, PoorEsther (as in one word), a constant source of embarrassment the entire family shared, especially his father! Then one day, the solution appeared like a gift from the gods. Some friends of his mother recommended a wonderful almost-out-of-state boarding school for those kinds of girls who simply could not fit into their family image or expectations. PoorEsther was one of those.

The face Ruck Baer presented to the world became very pleasant to look upon as his friendly and engaging smile was accompanied with creases, dimples, and a handsome cleft chin—just like his dad. Ruck Baer was very manly, as were his smooth-shaven, heavily bearded cheeks and firm square jawline. His hair was sandy brown and defied the well-groomed look that invited touching and straightening. He had surprisingly very dark sweeping eyebrows and long black curling lashes, which made his otherwise common hazel eyes fascinating and full of mystery with an intense look of still waters that run deep. Many women delighted in his muscular, very well-developed smooth body, unblemished by hair but for the bushy loins, and his hairy athletic butt they could not resist.

Ruck Baer had died a thousand deaths when he learned he had been voted by the girls as having the cutest ass on campus, which couldn’t show in the yearbook. His teammates loved it and never let him forget it. Arnie had started the tradition in the locker room of all the guys cupping and feeling his hairy ass for good luck before every game. For extra luck, they rubbed Arnie’s hairy bottom also and then anyone else who was still exposed. They lost very few games of any kind which was why the tradition continued long after Ruck Baer and Arnie Simpson graduated. They were a legendary pair with a plaque to prove it.

Ruck Baer walked like a combination of his father, Dusty Doyle, and his best friend, Arnie—almost, but not quite. He had just a hint perhaps of a swagger, striding through life with the same big-cock confidence. He was, as everyone knew, the man most likely to succeed, the most popular, the catch of any season, a prince of men whom others dreamed of having a son or son-in-law of their own. His star shone even more brilliantly when he worked his way to the top of Baer Mercantile Inc. He knew every employee by their first name from top to bottom and was still a humble man available to all.

Except for Dusty Doyle, A. Helms Baer was approachable to no one but highly respected nonetheless. When his son took over, his door was never closed to anyone. Everyone called him Mister Ruck and even a close group the old way, RuckBaer. He was the success in his family’s business he knew he always would be. His father’s greatest pride, in addition to all the rest of his being number one, was that he could out-Jew a Jew.

Ruck Baer never stopped working on the illusion that his world believed in—that he led a charmed life, capped by a lovely bride who was as pretty as she was pleasing and did not flaunt her intelligence and education. She was the only daughter of an old-line family, and her adoptive parents (very few were privy to such knowledge) were naturally top-drawer.

The disclosure did come as a great surprise to Ruck Baer. Marcella, having accepted his ring, casually informed him of this simple fact of her birth and being.

Darling, you are such a dead ringer for your mother; no one would imagine in a million years that you’re adopted, he assured her.

Of course, any fool looking at her or meeting her for the very first time could only realize that blood tells, as they say in the South, to explain her obvious class—that poise and serene confidence. Ruck Baer had the world by the tail; life had been very easy for the fairy-tale couple… until the night his father died.

The combination of his awful secret and fear was the only thing that made his father survive as long as he did with the cancer eating him alive and what happened when the morphine was no longer effective against the pain. His body had become the temple of the guilt passed on for three generations in America. Death was at hand. The pain was beyond bearing; the agony of his guilt was even worse, and finally, in his desperation, the rabbi came at last. Ruck Baer discovered his father was a Jew. Begging for forgiveness, Helms turned to the rabbi for comfort.

Chapter Five

Time stopped, and Ruck Baer found himself wandering through a rain-soaked night with one thought ringing in his head. His whole life was a lie because of what his father was and what he had instantly become. Gradually, going from one bar to another, he vainly sought the comfort of Dusty Doyle; two men could grieve together and comfort each other as only another man can offer at such a time.

Then a realization began to form in his stone-cold, sober mind.

PoorEsther. What would have blinded his father that no one else could see was why he couldn’t bear the sight of his only daughter so late in life, which was anything but a comfort. Indeed, it was worse than any cross possible! Suddenly, Ruck Baer saw through the eyes of his father the significance of the face of his sister ten years younger and knew why she had been hidden away from the world and out of his sight.

It went far beyond the attempted corrections of the surgeon’s knife—the two alterations of the unsightly large nose reduced in size as well as the ears or the braces on her teeth that she wore for years, even through college, and all the rest of it. His father’s aversion shuddered through him; the mystery he had always sensed about his father was now exposed for all the world to see, laugh, point, ridicule, and revile.

For a moment, he hated PoorEsty! It seared him, blazed, flared, and then dwindled… a glaring throwback. Then he was engulfed by a wave of pity he had never felt for his sister. The one thing the knife could not alter and disguise were her huge dark eyes, bulging with the pain and suffering of all the Jews since the world began.

The face of Israel looked at her father, silently proclaiming his monstrous guilt, the guilt of his