The Fires of Orc

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character

from persistently following his temperament

than from persistently following his principles.

Friedrich Nietzsche

We are all of us prisoners of the mind, our thoughts, opinions, beliefs and desires the myriad jailers that enforce a life sentence. We dream of a world without fences or borders but inside each of us is a person incarcerated, held in the custody of a restrictive mind. What ideas we maintain about our own will are as the beat of a sparrow’s wings. Born on the air, they carry us from moment to moment without leaving a mark. We move on in our paradigms from cause to consequence and spin fables for ourselves to explain what needs no explaining. Our paths are what we make them but we tell ourselves otherwise.

I am not the product of my mind’s pre-ordained course, we say, then we head straight into the face of the fate that awaits us as certainly as if we were wound-up and aimed by the occult hand.

But I have principles, we tell ourselves, and then we forgive ourselves for breaking them, rationalizing in each situation a self-interested course of action.

Yes perhaps, we say, but if push came to shove I would fight for what’s right even if it weren’t in my interest. But we would not. We would wish things were better and excuse ourselves for not making them so and all the while we would remain caged in our own skulls, our groundless ideas beating away at the untiring wind.

In August, three months before the election, we were alive and credible and pulling more than twenty-five percent in nationwide polls. If the campaign ended then, those of us in leadership positions could have gone to work for any candidate, anywhere, anytime. It was a masterful campaign, defying all expectations and exceeding all predicted outcomes. My satisfaction in the work comforted me and allowed me, little by little, to push my desire for Lydia into the back of my mind, whence eventually I could stuff it down into a blurred past, never again to torture me.

One Thursday night my phone vibrated on my coffee table at home while I watched the pundit panelists on a news channel. I answered casually, inattentively.

“It’s Lydia,” she said.

And so it was.

“I know it’s getting late,” she said, half apologizing, “but I was wondering if we could get together tonight.”

“Of course,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“It’s not about work,” she replied to my great delight. “Are you at home?”

“I am.”

“Would it be okay if I came over?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there in a half-hour.”

Times test men. Few men are born wicked but most have known wicked times. Faced with the option of righteousness, all men have opted instead, at least on occasion, for a wicked choice. We are lower than angels, not far above beasts. We must not be blamed for our natures.

Lydia arrived earlier than expected and I showed her in. She sat on the couch. I offered coffee, which she declined.

“So what is it?” I asked, trying not to convey my anticipation.

“First,” she said, “it’s really important to me that I thank you for the respect you’ve shown me since that night. I appreciate you treating me professionally. I feel much more comfortable at work than I feared I might and I owe that to you. I’m very grateful and I want you to know that.”

“Well think nothing of it,” I said, pushing for what was coming next.

“Anyway,” she went on, “that’s probably the most important thing. I should have told you that a long time ago. I mean it and you deserve to know how I feel.”

“Sure,” I said, “but you said ‘first.’ Is there something else?”

“Yes there is, and this is hard for me,” she said, clasping her hands tightly. She sank into the couch, shrinking her already small stature, almost disappearing in personal obscurity. “I feel like I can trust you. I really hope I’m right.”

“Of course you can trust me,” I assured her. “Tell me what’s on your mind. I can see that it’s hard for you. It’ll be easier if you just get it out.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, “but I’ll tell you anyway. You see, the thing is, I could really use a friend.”

“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I don’t mean I could use a friend right now. I mean I don’t really have any friends and before, well before that night, I don’t know… I guess it felt like we were becoming friends and I hadn’t realized until recently how much I miss that.”

I pressed, “So what are you asking me?”

“I’m asking if you think we could try to get closer, I mean as friends. I want to be able to relax around you. I want to talk without censoring myself and I want you to be yourself, not the person you think you need to be to respect my wishes. I want us to connect like we did before. The campaign is nearly over and when it’s done I want us to stay in each other’s lives. I don’t know anyone else like you and I’m willing to humble myself to say I want to be your friend. Is that a weird thing to ask?”

“It’s not weird,” I insisted. “Are you saying you’d like us to be like we were before?”

“Yes,” she brightened. “That’s what I’m saying.”

I fidgeted. “So I assume that means you’d like us to go on as if that night didn’t happen.”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “I don’t regret that night. It was nice. But right now I’m not looking for that kind of future with you. In fact I’m not looking for it with anybody. But I would like us to be closer.”

“You want me to be your girlfriend,” I quipped.

“Is that what you think?” She steamed and I sensed I’d been too direct. “If I say I don’t want to sleep with you, that means you’re not a man. Are you that shallow? I’m here, willing to try this because your friendship means something to me.”

“No, no,” I interjected. “That was a poor choice of words. I mean you’d just like us to be close, and open and friendly and interested in each other and share what’s going on in life but without the expectation of anything else. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. I think that’s it,” she said.

I had redeemed myself but inside I boiled. To me what she wanted meant she had tried the main course, found it lacking, and decided to have appetizers anyway. I raged behind a false smile and hated her behind the small talk that ensued. We talked about things I had encountered on the road, things that happened in the office during my absence, funny things, light-hearted things, easy things.

How I detested her naivety that night. I’m sure that’s all it was. If not naivety it would have been deliberate cruelty, a brutal denial of the fact that she could not see how the nearness of her merely compounded the distance between what is and what would be if I could bend her to my will. I would try, I assured her, to be as natural and unguarded as possible and I hoped, so I promised, that I would be the kind of friend she deserved. She left after an hour.

The night consumed me, swallowing me whole into the black, sour morass. In the depth of Abaddon I breathed anguish, afloat in the flowing mercury of hate. I hated my impotence to make reality conform to my blueprint. I hated that people lived and loved and went about their lives without the torment I endured. I hated her, but I wanted her more than ever.

Morning came drearily and unwelcome.

As usual, Lydia was in the office well before I arrived. I took my coffee, ascended the stairs, breathed deeply, stitched a smile to my face and went in practically bounding with feigned enthusiasm for our new friendship.

“Good morning,” I nearly sang.

“And good morning to you,” she answered. “You seem full of pep.”

“I am indeed,” I answered, “and I’m ready to get down to business. Let’s win this thing, shall we?”

“You bet,” she said, adding as she passed me a stack of reports, “here are a few things you’ll want to deal with before lunch.”

I dealt with them giddily enough and by outward appearances one would think all was right with the world.

So it went the rest of that day and for the next two weeks. I assumed by day the air of a carefree professional in a meaningful friendship with a colleague. Sometimes our friendship extended into the evenings. One night we got Chinese take-out and went back to her place to eat and work on an email blast. A few other nights we stayed late and finished with a cocktail at the hotel bar where our first night turned magical. There was no re-awakening of that magic. Each time, as the hour grew late, she excused herself with a friendly hug and headed home, leaving me to my inner turmoil.

I will keep this up, I told myself, for a bit longer at least. But I will break her. She will be mine. I was in fact no friend at all. I wore the mask of friendship and said friendly things. I asked what friends would ask and told a friend’s jokes. It was all by design, the design of a scoundrel. For that is what I truly was in those late summer days and nights, a scoundrel. I played a part intent on accomplishing my real ends. That night months before, in my bed, she called me a scoundrel. Had she but known she’d have run swiftly away without looking back.

I realize the wickedness of my intention and too the smallness of it all. I could not be a friend to her because I cared more for my urges than for her welfare. I committed a crime of the heart and there was no one even to accuse me, no judge, no jailer, only myself. And for that crime, for my scandalous design, for my assumption of vanity I still some days accuse myself, since no one else will. For my treachery, for her virtue exploited, for my rebuke of friendship’s trusting hand, can I owe nothing in reparation? Must I live forever and be guilty only to myself? A man of stronger stuff would fain avoid the way of the scoundrel for that way lies horror.

And didn’t they used to whip scoundrels like me? Didn’t they use to stick me in the dock and flay my back and brand my forehead? Wasn’t I, in nobler times, sent into exile penniless, my head shaven? Didn’t I scavenge among the wild hounds and seek sanctuary from the winter’s wet in some hovel, cast off by God and men, desolate, thrown down into the pit? And didn’t I deserve it and didn’t my craving for that unfound better state burn still?

And wouldn’t I then be at least besmirched in the minds and mouths of honest gentry? And wouldn’t my ignominy suit the lowliness of my choosing and wouldn’t I be truly foul and fit the ugliness of my soul to my blasphemed body and wouldn’t it be as it should if I were cursed and beaten and damned?

In other times, by better men, mightn’t I be shot? Mightn’t I be dragged into the night through mud and brush and bramble and mightn’t I hear the stallions snort and stamp the ground blue and flare their wild eyes red and frenzied heed their riders’ whoops and pull me by my bloodied wrists to some hidden glade where I might be strung up, my heart cut out, my face broken, a hand-scrawled sign hung round my stretched neck?

And in more civil times mightn’t I be brought before the bar and be found wanting, and mightn’t I be forced into a life of disgraceful service for what alms I could glean from the mean tasks befitting a scoundrel like me, spurned by all things good, bespattered by the mud of disdain, forced to scrabble from soot and filth the means of base existence? Mightn’t I be friend to none, reviled by all, scratching with the drunks and whores and goblins of the night in some darkened doorway for a clutch of stale, sour victuals?

None of that will come to pass. I’ve already escaped any judgment that might ever have come due. And reduced to the solitude of great age I know there is no redemption in store. I’ve already looked for it everywhere. Besides reading my treasured books, looking in vain is all I still know how to do.

So enough of an old scoundrel’s lament. There is still a story to tell and what I was then and how I am now have little to do with the important facts. It was autumn, 2028, and election night drew nigh.