Cisco

Women. Traveling. Life. Writing. Motorcycles. Books. Tequila. Supporting Barack Obama for President and stopping this damn war. Not necessarily in that order. I mentioned women, right?And get paid for...Sometimes the good guys WIN..."The Healer""Now, when your uncle starts to die," the silver haired man said, his black eyes focused on his blunt brown fingers as he began to make a cigarette, "you're gonna have to move fast."He finished tapping tobacco into the thin dark paper. He set the leather pouch against his thigh on the couch. The big fingers of both hands gently held the paper, as though it were a dried flower. The thumbs pressed an indentation in the center of the tobacco, folding the paper around it at the same time, carefully rolling it.Jamie McPherson, in the desk chair at the recording console, watched the silver haired man's hands. Big hands, like bear paws, with thick veins running back to the wide heavy wrists, and Jamie wondered how the sliver haired man, whose name was Rafael, could roll that smoke with such - what - delicacy. Jamie frowned at the word, but yeah, that was it.When he finished building the cigarette, it was as pristine and perfect as a Pall Mall from a store bought pack. Rafael licked it, then stuck it in a corner of his mouth. He patted the pockets of his jeans, denim shirt and black leather vest."What makes you think" Jamie snapped, "my uncle's gonna die?"Rafael found his Zippo in a vest pocket. He snapped the flame to life, exhaled twin jets, his eyes on Jamie. He clicked the lighter shut."Ain't no 'think' about it," Rafael said, holding the cigarette between thumb and forefinger. "I'm leaving. Or hadn't you noticed?"Jamie flushed, his pink face glowing red. That was the thing, Jamie thought, see, that right there: This guy's - what - arrogance, maybe. That really pissed Jamie off. Damn smart-ass, he was never off-balance. Made you feel like a fool alla time.Rafael. He didn't look like no Rafael. If he was Mex, he was a tall one. Over six foot. And most all the big Mexicans Jamie ever saw were fat, too. This Rafael, though, he was lean, raw-boned. His dark face seemed carved from wood, with that jutting axe blade nose and those coal black eyes.This Rafael didn't talk like a Mex, either. No accent. He had one of those deep, gravelly voices wrapped in whiskey and cigarette smoke, same as that cowboy actor Jamie remembered in "The Big Lebowski" - really funny movie - with the big moustache. Yeah, Jamie thought, if Rafael had a big moustache and a white cowboy hat, he'd sound just like that guy.But no, Jamie hadn't liked this Rafael from jump, renting out his Uncle Charlie's back bedroom. Jamie never felt comfortable around him. He wouldn't be sorry to see the back of Rafael.On the wide sofa across the tiny apartment, Jamie's Uncle Charlie moaned in his sleep. He twitched, turned. The single lamp shone down on his gray face, the deep hollows black around his eyes. His shrunken walnut face was covered in a wispy beard, like dark moss growing from a tree.Jamie turned in the chair to stare at his sleeping uncle. He said, "When's he gonna die?""I don't know," Rafael said, looking at Charlie Bellweather. "I'm not a prophet. But when the time comes, and it won't be long, you gotta move. And be resolute. Get an ambulance here. He won't wanna go. Make him go. That, or he'll die on you, right on that sofa."Rafael flicked his eyes to Jamie, staring at his uncle.What's the point of this, Rafael thought, taking a drag on his cigarette. The kid won't do it. True, he could do it. He's a big strappin' kid in his late 20s, muscular from working construction, and he looked imposing enough with his military buzz cut and dim blue eyes. He could pluck up Charlie Bellweather like a tea bag and tell him, "Uncle Charlie, don't mess with me, I love you and you are going in the hospital."Could, but he won't. He'll let Charlie argue him out of it, or he'll become disheartened and just walk away.Then one time Charlie Bellweather will stretch out on that sofa and never get up again.Rafael saw it all when the kid arrived a few weeks back, with a duffle bag in one hand and an 18 pack of Miller Lite in the other. Jamie's father, Charlie's brother-in-law, had thrown him out. Here he was on Charlie's doorstep. Time to party.Charlie was delighted to see his nephew. Now he had someone to party with.Party they did, jamming their guitars together through the day, or staying up all night to play computer games, vast fantasy games, the keyboard lit by the single lamp, all the while, between cat-naps on the two couches, cracking open fresh beers and chasing the cold brew with burning velvet shots of Canadian Mist.Alone in the back bedroom, Rafael didn't much mind the noise, the giggling guffaws from 48 year-old Charlie and his almost-30 year-old nephew, the whoops of delight or howls of despair at the computer game, as they lost a magic potion or destroyed a lumbering monster. Rafael would slide on his earphones, and dial up the jazz or classical music inside his mini boom box. He'd open another library book. He could tune out the noise. No problemo.But the incessant popping of Charlie's beer cans - Rafael heard them even through the headphones - they sounded like pistol shots. The pop-pop-pop from dawn to late night angered and saddened Rafael. He understood the message behind the pops.POP - Time to go.POP - You're done here.POP - Move on.POP - You failed.POP - Time for you to go.To Rafael, when the kid showed up with his duffle bag and 18 pack, he might also have been wearing a sign around his neck that yelled, LEAVE!Not that it was the kid's fault. He didn't understand his role in all this, how Charlie had conjured him. Hell, Charlie himself didn't understand it, he had no clue that that's what he'd done. None of them ever did. They're clueless, Rafael thought, watching Charlie Bellweather twitch in his sleep.Time to move on, Rafael thought, and now, it was almost midnight, and Rafael would soon be out the door.Jamie McPherson watched his uncle and said, "If you're so sure he'll die when you leave, why you leaving?""Beacuse it's time..." Rafael said, then stopped.Rafael cocked his head at Jamie and said, "He didn't tell you about me. Did he."Jamie's eyes darted right-left, combing his memory. He shrugged."I don't know. No," Jamie said. "He just said you were a friend, needed a place to stay."Rafael slowly nodded. His silver hair fell over his forehead and he wearily swept it back. He sighed out smoke.Maybe he should explain things to the kid. No, what was the point? No, maybe he should. It might help, when the time came."OK," Rafael said, leaning forward, elbows on knees. He said to Jamie, "I'm a healer."Jamie blinked at him a few times."A shaman," Rafael prompted. "A medicine man?"Jamie's head twitched. He didn't get it, and, Rafael thought, why the hell should he? He wasn't truly a shaman or a medicine man, though their anicent rites and practices were a part of what he did. But there was no other way to even begin to explain it to this kid."You are a healer," one of the Wise Women back on the rez told Rafael when he was 17. "That's why they seek you out.""They" at the time were his buddies, when they'd scored some weed or wrangled a six pack. They'd find Rafael, then all go down to the river and watch the stars, or the clouds sail past the moon like ghost ships."They know you know more than they do, though they don't know why they know it," the Wise Woman had said. "You must always listen with love and compassion. With an open heart. You're not here to judge. Listen. You'll know when to speak. Your wisdom and power will only become stronger as you age. If," the Wise Woman smiled wispily, "you don't screw it up. It's also why," she added, "you can't stay here."Rafael understood. There was nothing to keep him on the rez. He'd been too young to heal his alcoholic father or nervously silent mother. They were both long dead, and the aunt and uncle he lived with had six other children of their own. Everyone understood that Rafael would leave as soon as he could.As he waited for the bus on the side of the road that last morning, the Wise Woman told him, "This won't be fun. Much of this you'll do alone. Most won't understand. You'll have what you need. You'll have enough. Listen always with love and compassion, with an open heart."She hugged him and, as the silver Greyhound loomed on the horizon, kissed his cheek, and brushed back from his forehead a wing of black hair."I'll see you again," she said, "on the other side."At first, it was good. The Hippies venerated Indians, even tried to dress like them (or what they thought Indians dressed like). The weed was plentiful and the girls pretty (and plentiful).When Rafael wanted money, it was a cinch to find work or a construction site or oil rig, washing dishes or tending bar. He wandered from Maine to Colorado, from Texas to Missippi, from Montana to California, and the Wise Woman was right: He had what he needed. He had enough.But listening to your average everyday people with an open heart, with love and compassion - that was the tough part. No, this wasn't fun.They were at best inarticulate, a symphony of sadness; angry, bitter, disappointed, dissatisfied. Whatever they had, it wasn't enough. They were a cacophony of cries and whispers. They were unhappy. They could be happy, they claimed, if they just had... more.And, to hear them tell it, it was always someone else's fault.Rafael did what he could. He listened, and he talked when the time was right. But they didn't want to hear that what they sought was inside themselves, not in some mysterious out there. When their listening ceased, Rafael's healing powers would stop. Then it was time for him to move on.As Rafael aged, the world seemed to darken. There were more and more of them who needed healing: war veterans, homeless, deeply troubled children, alcoholics and crack addicts.He wondered sometimes if he'd ever truly healed anyone.No, he thought, watching Charlie Bellweather twitch in his sleep abruptly on the sofa, moaning softly, no, there had been some. Maybe many.He'd found them where they'd taken refuge, up in Oregon or Washington State, in Wyoming or New Mexico. They'd found the ways of the world wanting. They were on a spiritual quest, they embraced a "New Age."Rafael always smiled at that. "New Age." There was nothing new about it. The Hippies had touched it 40 years ago, but it was all much older, older than the Grandfathers, older than recorded time.Rafael taught them what he knew, what he'd learned from the Wise Women, and what more his wanderings had taught him. When they parted, it was with love and respect. There'd been a melding of souls, of spirits.When Rafael rolled again into Los Angeles, he had a couple grand in his kit from working construction on a housing development in Utah. He'd also been living with a woman, a beautiful Irish-Arapaho who waited tables at the little bar where the construction crew had beer.Her hair was black as starless midnight, her dark eyes glowed when she talked to him, and they both understood they were not meant for forever. They knew he'd one day leave.When the job ended, he did. They hugged each other warmly in the chill morning at the door of her little house."We'll see each other again," Rafael whispered at her ear.She held him tighter, nodding against his shoulder.Rafael stepped down from the bus at the Greyhound depot in downtown Los Angeles, 7th and Alameda. He pulled his field jacket closer around him in the chill night wind. He tugged down his black felt cowboy hat and thought, it's good to be back in L.A. It had been a wonderful six months in Utah, but with all the craziness in Los Angeles, this was a place he always felt needed. People packed their dreams in suitcases and brought them to Los Angeles. They morphed into alien creatures. Craziness.That first night, Rafael stayed in a stripped-down little motel on Franklin Ave. in East Hollywood, but he knew it was only for one night. He'd have to live on the streets again for awhile. Whatever he was supposed to find next wouldn't come knocking on his motel door. It didn't work that way.He slept, for a week, on city buses and the subway. He shaved and cleaned up in the vast crowded men's room in Union Station.He divided his day time between coffee shops, the public library, and a little neighborhood dive bar on Hollywood Blvd. near Vine.But, as his second week on the streets began, Rafael was growing weary. Where was he, or she, or whoever-the-hell-ever it was going to be this time? He was, he thought, getting too old for this. Maybe should've stayed in Utah. No, Utah was done. You know, he thought, when it's time. You know when to follow your instincts, and where to follow them.Yeah, OK. I'm supposed to be in L.A. With winter approaching, and it's damn cold here at night. So come on awready...That was when Augustino the bartender said to Rafael one night, "Hey Rafael, joo wanna job?"Rafael still had plenty of the Utah money, so that wasn't the issue. But Rafael felt the "click" in the middle of his chest, the cosmic "ding" that always signalled, "Here it comes! Heads up! This is part of the puzzle you need to piece together."Rafael slowly lifted his cold pint of draft beer. He said to Augustino, "I'm always looking for something, sure. What'd you have in mind?"Augustino leaned forward over the bar. He said quietly, "Well, you know, this fookin' guy supposed to work the door. He don't call, he don't show up. Again! That's enough. Adios! You wan' de job? Check IDs, help me clean up at the end of the night. I pay joo outta my tips, couple nights a week.""And," Rafael said, "throw out a rowdy drunk when they need it?""Well, yeah," Augustino smiled, shrugged. "But joo been hangin' out here, joo know. That don' happen much."True. Rafael had worked as the bouncer in much tougher places, on the Baltimore waterfront, when the merchant sailors roared into town after three months at sea with their pockets stuffed with cash."You thin' you could handle that?" Augustino said, but he knew the answer. He'd watched this tall quiet Indian. He was friendly enough, but aloof. He had an ice core no one could touch. Augustino had been a bartender 20 years: He knew a good door man when he saw one."When," Rafael said, "would you want me to start?"Augustino looked out over the heads in the packed saloon.He said, "How 'bout now?"Rafael slid the half-full pint glass across the counter."Dump that," he said. "Put some coffee on. I don't drink when I work. You need anything, yell. I'll be on the door."Now that he had a job that kept him around people, Rafael eased up on himself. He found a cheap residential hotel near Hollywood Blvd. The yellow walls were water stained and bugs chaed-chaed through the cinder block shower, but it was only $125 a week. He picked up an ancient hot plate and a battered microwave from the Goodwill on Vine St., so he could make some food for himself, but he didn't plan to load himself down. He wouldn't be in this room long. When the time came to move, he didn't want to lug a lot of stuff.He'd awaken each morning, sit cross-legged on the bed, lay out the contents of his medicine bag in a circle on the blanket, and softly chant his prayers, offering up his acknowledgment to the four directions and his thanks to the Creator, asking for wisdom, patience and guidance for this coming day as part of the Earth.One night, after he and Augustino finished cleaning up and locked the bar, Rafael decided he was hungry. He walked through the black palm tree shadows of Vine St. down to the all-night Denny's at Sunset and Gower.Marvin Jackson, huge and resplendent in a glowing purple suit, waved to Rafael from a booth.Marvin J. MCed Karaoke nights in a little Korean place, across the parking lot in Gower Gulch. He was wedged into the narrow booth, and he had a big basso profundo not unlike Paul Robeson's (who he also resembled), and a searching eye much like Rafael's.After they'd ordered breakfast, Marvin J. stared at Rafael and said, "You don't mind my askin', where you livin' these days?"Rafael told him."And," Marvin J. said, "they chargin' you what for that?"Rafael told him."Man," Marvin J. said, "for that shit hole? Look. I got a friend in my building, just around the corner. He's got a room he needs to rent, maybe 300 a month. You interested?"The waitress set two steaming plates of breakfast before them. Rafael, his eyes on Marvin J., held out his coffee mug. She refilled it and went away."I think I would be," Rafael said, sipping his coffee. He felt the "click" in his chest. "When can I see the room?"The next afternoon, Marvin J. met Rafael in the driveway of a squat two-story stucco building that looked like it was made of toasted marshmallow. Marvin lead the way up a black iron staircase.At the top, Marvin paused to catch his breath before a brown door with a brass 6 on it, held in place by only one nail. Rafael noticed the other nail was missing."This is it," Marvin said breathlessly. "He's expecting us."Marvin twisted the knob and they stepped inside.Charlie Bellweather sat Buddha-like in a black high-backed office chair, his legs crossed under him. Over his bony frame was draped a big pale blue T-shirt like a shroud, the front emblazoned with "Keep Austin Weird." From a sharp point on his forehead, his long black hair was pulled in a pony tail that hung half-way down his back. His tiny head was covered in a beard that grew wild as black weeds. One eye stared over Rafael's shoulder. The other looked at Rafael."Pleasure to meet you, man," Charlie said after Marvin J. did the introductions. He extended a bird-like claw.Rafael took Charlie's hand. When they shook, Rafael felt there was no strength in it - it was like touching brittle bones."You wanna beer?" Charlie smiled through his beard. He popped a can of Miller Lite. He lit a long Marlboro 100, and brought the can to his mouth with a trembling hand.Rafael sat on the sofa. He tilted back his cowboy hat. He began to make a cigarette."I'm good right now, Charlie, thanks," he said. "So," he lit his cigarette, "what's the deal?""I got this one bedroom here," Charlie said, waving his cigarette at the back of the apartment. He had a gentle Southern drawl. Texas - no, Rafael thought - Tennessee. "It's all furnished. Got a computer back there, and a TV and everything. A'course, you got full run of the kitchen, too. I sleep out here, on the couch. Gawn, have a look-see."Rafael nodded. He stepped through the tiny apartment, which was lined with guitars like small trees.The bedroom was empty white walls, but the plaster was pocked with gouges like bullet holes. A big bed with a maroon comforter on it. A tiny TV, the screen the size of a large greeting card, and an ancient desktop computer, but Rafael didn't care. He never watched TV, and knew nothing about computers, and didn't care to learn.Rafael returned to the living room. Marvin J. had vanished."Said he'd leave us to talk business," Charlie grinned, his one eye looking at the wall while the other was fixed on Rafael. "What you think?"Rafael sat again on the sofa, started to make another cigarette."Marvin says you're looking for 300 for the room," Rafael said."The last guy was paying four," Charlie said. "You're Native American, right?" Charlie poured a shot of whiskey with a dead-stady hand. He slugged it back, chased it with cold beer."American Indian, that's right.""Me too!" Charlie said, but Rafael doubted it. Except for the long straight black hair, Rafael saw nothing of Charlie Bellweather to suggest he was anything but a Southern white boy.Still, Rafael thought, you never know..."Who are your people?" Rafael said."How's that?""Your people. What tribe?" Rafael grimaced at the word."Oh yeah. Well, Choctaw. I think. My mother was part Choctaw."Rafael smiled down at the floor. He wanted to ask, "Which part?" but he didn't.Choctaw, Tennessee, that would make sense, though most of them, along with the other four "civilized tribes," had been marched off at the point of Andy Jackson's bayonets to what eventually became Oklahoma. But some Choctaw, and Chickisaw and Cherokee, managed to escape and remain behind. It was possible.And Rafael thought, if there's any truth to it, it could make this easier..."You like the room?" Charlie asked."It could work," Rafael nodded. "But how much did you say...""Sure you don't want a beer? Or a shot?""I'm good for now," Rafael said."Yeah, well, like I say, the last guy, I was gettin' 400," Charlie said. "And I've got a couple other people interested."Rafael knew all that was nonsense. The tiny bedroom wasn't worth $400. The "last guy" had skipped without paying Charlie anything for two months - so said Marvin J. - and "other people" would take one look at the room, then at drunked-up little Charlie Bellweather, and quickly lose interest."Marvin had said 300," Rafael said. "Even so, that's a little steep for me. Tell you what. I can do 250. I'll give it to you right now, move in over the next few days. What do you think?"Charlie Bellweather hung his head to the side. One reddened eye blinked at Rafael, while the other stared past his shoulder."I like you," Charlie said slowly. "You get a feelin' about people, know what I mean?"Rafael nodded."OK!" Charlie announced. "Gimme 250 and the room's yours."Rafael reached in his jeans pocket. He peeled off two hundred and fifty dollars in twenties, tens and fives, and handed them to Charlie."And in that case," Rafael said, "I'll have a drink with you.""Ah, that's what I'm talkin' about!" Charlie's face beamed like a happy child. He set another shot glass on the table and poured two drinks, spilling some of the whiskey.Charlie and Rafael toasted."Welcome," Charlie said."Salud," said Rafael.They knocked back the shots."And here's something I'll add to the deal," Rafael said. "To balance things out, I'll buy all the food and do all the cooking.""Well," Charlie said, as he dribbled more whiskey into his glass. "I don't eat much."Eat, no: Charlie Bellweather existed on a steady intake of beer, whiskey and cigarette smoke.Rafael learned to make small portions for Charlie. Even those went virtually untouched, except for a bite or two. Charlie would then push his plate aside on the coffee table, light another cigarette, and dig out a can of beer.When Rafael was at work - he was on the door at the bar six nights a week now - he'd think of little but how to heal Charlie Bellweather. He'd pace, hands buried deep in his field jacket, black hat tipped down against the chill winds, and think about Charlie, who he'd been brought back to Los Angeles to save.Rafael figured out that the first step was to sit up and drink with him. Booze was the key, currently, to Charlie Bellweather. Charlie's whole world revolved around getting drunk, coming down from being drunk, then starting the cycle all over again.Rafael would come home from the bar betwen three and four in the morning. There in the big black office chair, in front of the computer game, legs tucked under him, would sit Charlie.He always smiled when Rafael came through the door."Hey!" he'd shout in a too-loud drunk's voice. "There he is! C'mon in, man. You wanna beer?"Rafael really didn't, but he'd nod, "OK," flop down on the sofa, wearily push his hat back."Wanna shot?" Charlie would hand over the beer, and quickly unscrew the cap on the whiskey bottle."Sure."They'd talk until the cold dawn coated the windows silver.Charlie, under Rafael's gentle questioning, was happy to talk: About his three marriages and three kids (who, he sobbingly confessed one night, he hadn't seen or heard from in years); his time as promising back-up guitarist in Nashville (Charlie played for Rafael some old tapes of those sessions, two decades before - the lyrics were awful and the singer hauntingly nasal and flat, but the guitar work was intricate and melodic); of his 15 years in Los Angeles, a city he claimed to hate; and of his desire to quit drinking."I just gotta do some things first, then I'll quit," Charlie would say, pouring another shot, some drops missing the glass, splashing on the coffee table."Like what?" Rafael said.Charlie had plans: He's form another band; he'd buy a van, drive up to Oregon and take care of his mother."Charlie," Rafael finally said one morning, "you can't take care of yourself. You can't get up and down the stairs of this apartment house. You can't do a damn thing while you're drinking.""Yeah," Charlie said sadly. "I know. I gotta quit. I just gotta do some things first.""No," Rafael said, leaning forward on the sofa. "First, you quit. You're an artist, a musician. The Creator gave you a gift. You're mocking that gift and destroying it, and destroying yourself. You want to die?"Charlie looked even sadder, like a tiny whipped dog. "Who would care?""If you don't care, why should anyone else? Stop wallowing in your little puddle of self-pity. You want to quit, I was sent here to help you."Charlie's head came up. His one eye narrowed at Rafael."You were?""I was. And I will. If you want it."Charlie said, "I can't just quit. I'll have a heart attack!""So the more you smoke and drink, the better to prevent a heart attack? Hang on a minute..."Rafael stood and went into his bedroom. He plucked his leather medicine bag from the bedside table. He opened the drawstring and dug inside, lifting out the black granite stone."Here," Rafael said to Charlie back in the living room, holding out his hand. "Now I realize why I've carried this around all these years. It's yours."Charlie's trembling claw reached out. Rafael placed the black rock in Charlie's palm. Charlie"s good eye blinked at the white silhouette of a wolf's head, blasted by lightning into the stone's black center."Close your fist around it," Rafael said. "Feel its power. You have the wolf spirit, Charlie. You can travel alone, and you can lead others. Learn about the wolf, Charlie. I can teach you. The wolf spirit has great power - but not if you don't use it."Charlie's bird-like fingers closed around the rock. His eye came up to Rafael."I feel it," he said softly. "It... It's warm in my hand. It's getting hotter.""Sure," Rafael nodded. "This is your power. I found it long ago. Now I give it to you. But you have to choose to use it. If that's the choice you make, I'm here to help you."Rafael stepped toward his bedroom."I'll drink with you no more," Rafael said. "Let me know what you decide."Three days later, Rafael stood over Charlie. Charlie looked up from the sofa. The hollows around his eyes had blackened. In a voice like sandpaper, he said, "Get all the beer and whiskey out of here. If Marvin J. doesn't want it, throw it in the dumpster. I've had my last drink."Rafael nodded. "You'll need water. And food. I'll do that too. Sleep all you can. Tell me what books and movies you want from the library. When I'm not at work, I'll be here. Tell me anything you need."Charlie nodded, his hands twitching atop the blanket."You'll do this, Charlie," Rafael said.Charlie closed his eyes.And do it, he did.For the first week, Charlie mostly slept. When awake, he read the sci-fi novels Rafael brought him from the library, or watched movies. He drank bottled water by the gallon. Rafael cooked his favorite meals, slowly increasing the portions, and Charlie ate more, and more often.The tremors in Charlie's hands slowed, then stopped. The black circles faded from around his eyes.The second week, Charlie took a shower. He trimmed his beard down to a handsome goatee. He would walk, slowly, to the corner Rite Aid for his daily pack of cigarettes.And when Rafael would awaken in the afternoons, he'd hear from the living room the lilting strains of Charlie's gutitar. He was playing again."You're doing it, Charlie," Rafael said one evening in the third week, as he headed off to work. "You're doing it all on your own. You should be very proud."Charlie just nodded, his thin arms draped lovingly over his wooden folk guitar."Those books are due back at the library soon," Rafael nodded at the stack of novels on the coffee table. "Let me know the ones you've read. I'll renew the rest and get you more.""Yeah, man. OK.""See you later," Rafael said, and went off to work.So it was, for 23 days.On the 25th day, when Rafael came home in the middle of the night, Charlie sat with his legs folded under him in the black chair. On the desk beside him was a filled shot glass, an open bottle of Canadian Mist, and a popped can of Miller Lite.He looked up at Rafael with that oh-so-sad whipped puppy expression, the pleading look of a pathetic child.Rafael gently closed to door. He said quietly, "What in the blue roaring hell do you think you're doing?"Charlie flung up a hand. "Don't lecture me!" he said sternly. "It's personal." He reached for the whiskey bottle. "Wanna shot?""I told you, I wouldn't be doing that anymore." Rafael moved toward the bedroom. "Good night, Charlie.""G'night, man."Rafael closed the bedroom door. He threw his hat and coat in the closet. He started to undress.Well, he thought, why are you surprised? Charlie Bellweather is only one of the many. He'd had a brief moment of clarity. He'd looked into his own heart and soul, and Charlie had seen clearly that he could do, and be, anything within his power that he dreamed.And it scared him. Scared him so much, he ran screaming away from it. He chose to listen, instead, to all the voices that had ever told him, no you can't, no you won't, no you don't deserve...Charlie grabbed for the safety of the whiskey bottle's neck. In there, the voices - no you can't, no you won't, no you don't deserve - roar loudest. Voices everyone has heard. Charlie had chosen to believe them.Rafael wearily laid down on the big bed and pulled the comforter over him. It was getting light outside the windows. He closed his eyes. The last thing he heard was the POP as Charlie opened another beer can.But this time, Rafael heard the message clearly. POP! You failed. Time to go.Soon after, nephew Jamie showed up with duffle bag and 18 pack of beer in hand.Rafael had to marvel at Charlie's power. He had the wolf spirit, all right. Charlie had, without even knowing it, conjured exactly the right person to party with, to get drunk with, to allow him to live in the past. The ideal enabler.And the kid didn't even realize it! Nor, of course, did Charlie.Mighty impressive.Now, on his night off from the bar, Rafael had packed his kit. He reminded the kid what to do when his uncle started to die, but was pretty sure he wouldn't. Didn't matter. The end would eventually be the same. Charlie Bellweather had made his choice.Rafael ground out his cigarette. He stood, and pulled on his hat. He grabbed his bag and moved to the door.Jamie looked up at him from the desk console and said, "Where you gonna go?"Rafael glanced at the restless sleeping form of Charlie Bellweather."Dunno," Rafael said. "But something will present itself."Rafael opened the apartment door. He turned back to Jamie and said, "Good luck."He went out into the cold winter night, closing the door firmly behind him.Rafael walked up to Sunset Boulevard. He looked east and west at the hard sparkling lights of Hollywood. Which way? Didn't really matter. Something would present itself. This wasn't an exact science. Never had been.Maybe, he thought, he'd check in to that little Motel 6 up on Whitley. It was clean, warm, cheap and comfortable.He hefted his bag and walked west on Sunset. The chill night wind tugged at his field jacket. He zipped it closed, pulled his hat lower.Yeah, a couple days at that Motel 6, until the next whoever/whatever appeared. He hoped it would be soon. It was cold on these streets.He was weary, and saddened. He walked on. Yeah, he thought, let's make it soon. He said a prayer to the Creator that it would be soon. He was getting too old for this.He walked on and thought, no need to be sad. You learned long ago: You can't save them all.