If you need to get back to the Introduction, just click here.

 

It was right back to work with no KP duty in the garage. I am kind of glad of that because my email has nothing but static from Clay's family. His mother is angry at me that I "encouraged him" to go to Turkmenistan. She thinks he's in Iraq or Iran. His sister thinks he's in Somalia training warlords and Ethiopians. My money is still on Turkmenistan.

 

Either way, they are angry because wherever they've deployed Clay is not as safe as Diego Garcia and I told him that if he wanted to volunteer there, I understood. I've been in the service long enough to know that you either sit on your rear rend marking time or you buck. I'm bucking for a ten right now. There is a fat chance I'm going to get it, but I'm trying.

 

Clay wanted more than the dull routine and his buddies were going to the secret location. Now he's in Central Asia and it's a more exciting posting. The work is more complicated. Clay is a radar technician. He stays at base and doesn't fly missions. I'm relieved that way. Yes, this is higher risk, but not totally dangerous and volunteering for a more challenging deployment sure beats being bored.

 

Of course Clay's parents and sister understand none of this. His sister even asked me in an email if I love Clay. I told her I surely did, but that I also underserstood what it was to be in the service. It means serving one's country and doing one's best and being one's bravest. Is this something about which civilians are in the dark?

 

I'm glad I got to drive today. I picked up my payload in Yankton at 0800 hours CST. There were three foster kids bound for Rosebud. All were fairly clean. They were sixteen, ten, and six. None of them were related to the others. That is all I could say about them that was good. The sixteen year old wouldn't stand either gahzals or nursery rhymes and had no CD's of her own. She proceeded to whinge away complaining that nursery rhymes which she herself did not know were dumb. I told her that gahzals sounded better than her whinging. Needless to say, Erin, the sixteen year old whinged all the way to Rosebud where she is now gratefully someone else' problem.

 

At Rosebud, I got my second payload, a female BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) employee who was plump and sad faced and a five year old foster female whom someone had not bothered to make presentable. I got out my toilet kit and had her wash her face and hands in the office bathroom, giving the social services beuarocrats dirty looks. Getting fosters presentable is easy most of the time. Stick foster child in shower. Give her soap and shampoo. Get her to wash or wash her if she is very young. Give foster clean clothes to wear. Wash clothes if no clean ones are available. Most fosters have something clean in their sacks of clothes. Clean fosters smell better and look better and generally are more congenial.

 

Tonight at Rapid City, I helped Amber, my dirty five year old foster kid passenger get cleaned up. Silla, the adult passenger just shook her head. I had to launder Amber's clothes but she has half a dozen presentable outfits now, and even some undies that are not tattered. We ate at the motel restaurant tonight which I loathe but which Silla liked. Amber even ate a full plate of food and kept it down. I was afraid that kid would eat herself sick.

 

Amber and Silla are sleeping now. I'm up with the lap top dealing with Clay's family in triplicate. I've decided to ignore their emails for a while. Silla is Cheyenne and Amber is half Cheyenne and half Lakota. That means our next destination is Lame Deer and then it is on to Boseman and then to Missoula before reversing this trip.

 

I don't know what to tell Clay's family except I think that Clay did the right thing. Can any body on the Telegraph help me with this?

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

American Inn

Rapid City, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

Amber cried in her sleep. It woke up both of us, those sad little kid sounds coming from the roll away in the motel room here in Rapid City, South Dakota. Silla said that Amber was afraid from (I can't pronounce it or spell it) but it was the Lakota word for the wind monster. The wind was blowing pretty badly. In fact, blow is not the right word. It howled.

 

Even the carpet felt cold under foot. It was well below zero farenheit outside. I tiptoed to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Some time after I got done writing my letter last night, a raging blizzard camae barreling over the northern plains. The van was a lump of white snow and a huge drift bisected the motel parking lot.

 

At 0330 MST, the order came through. It was a DNP which stands for Do Not Proceed. I was not hit by snow mid trip and there was no point in having me rescued as long as my payload and I were in a nice comfy motel.

 

As soon as we had daylight I organized digging. Silla refused. It's not what she gets paid for. And if you are curious, yes, I brought the digging supplies and brushes in to the motel room. That's standard operating procedure. I belivee in the five P's: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Silla believed that she was happier doing nothing and whinging.

 

Amber is too young to whinge. She's just an unhappy five year old foster who is only marginally happier for being clean and well fed. She asked when the restaurant would be serving breakfast. I told her there was no breakfast until she helped with the first round of digging. Silla got angry. I told Silla to shut up.

 

Amber and I worked on teh van. A five year old can not do much but she can brush windows and shovel a bit. Then we had breakfast and we dug out the van again. We'll do that every hour or two. Once they plough the parking lot and the roads, I'll contact base again and see if we can make any time at all. We might make Lame Deer if there is somewhere I can stay there that night. I've never been to Lame Deer and don't really know what to expect. A remote Indian reservation in winter must indeed by a bleak place.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

American Inn

Rapid City, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

We have an extra night at the beautiful American Inn which is the motel where we nearly got stranded by the blizzard that came through in the early hours of the morning. The roads were not clear until 1400 hours, so base told us to wait it out one more night before proceeding to Lame Deer. There are either no accomodations there, or else, the government does not have a contract with them.

 

I was able to get to a supermarket this afternoon to replenish the food box. The government has been excellent with vouchers for everything. I am grateful for that. I explained we would be leaving at 0500 hours tomorrow morning and that meant no breakfast at the motel.

 

Tonight, I'll brew tea and give some to Amber. Silla detests hot tea. Silla has begged to use my cellphone so I let her have it so she can whinge to her family in Lame Deer. She called them and could not get through. Later she got through and I got to watch her whinge away.

 

I've found out that Amber is my best friend if I feed her Cheez-its, little orange cheddar flavored crackers that come in a red box. I bought her her own box. She is now a fairly happy foster kid. She is going to another foster family and doesn't even know who they are. No one even wrote down the names so she is heading to complete strangers. This happens sometimes. Alcoholism and joblessness make for poverty, neglect, and abuse on the Indian reservations. The result is work for drivers like me.

 

I managed to work up the courage to write to Clay's parents. For the first time they too have stopped whinging about their son being deployed in to Central Asia or Iraq or Somalia. I don't know where they've deployed him. He sent them email and seems happy enough and not in immediate danger. Clay's mother said she had to remind herself that in nineteen months this is over and Clay comes home. She does not know that Clay plans to follow me back east. I'll wait a while before I break that to her.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

American Inn

Rapid City, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

We left Rapid City, South Dakota at 0500 hours MST as promised. The roads were clear though there was no daylight. Later the sun dawned bright and frigid. Fortunately, even little Amber had a coat. She practiced her nursery rhymes and ate Cheezits. I was glad I had duplicate nursery rhyme CD's with me. Little kids like Amber have to begin somewhere.

 

I even introduced Amber to tea. I swigged it from the cup in the cup holder as the road entered in to snowy wasteland. These are badlands when the weather is good. In the winter they are just endless snow. Even the buttes and mesas which I guess we have this far north are like chocolate cakes covered in snowy icing.

 

At 0930 hours we arrived in Lame Deer. Lame Deer is a town of 4,000 souls. That makes it as lonely and isolated as Enceledus. Our social services person and the relative who was supposed to pick up Amber was of course no where to be found. There is no social services building at Lame Deer, just a kind of town hall or tribal town hall if you prefer. All the buildings are built of wood and under winter skies, everything up there looked brown and sad. I took Amber inside with me. Silla's ride was waiting and she was mercifully gone to whinge with others who were perhaps a better audience.

 

Amber was stir crazy from the ride so she spun around and danced and treated the entire office to the half a dozen nursery rhymes she had just memorized. Then she went in the office and washed her hands and face. The kid was one very quick study.

 

A half an hour passed and Amber's new foster mother still was not here. No one bothered to make a phone call. The nice lady behind the desk explained that many homes on the reservation did not have phones and often cell phones did not work in weather where day time tempoeratures hovered a few degrees above zero farenheit.

 

Meanwhile, I had business to do. I took out the faxed form which asked for Naama's request for Kelli Ann Jackson's support money to be included on the agenda at the next tribal meeting (Indians are master beaurocrats. They learned it from the federal government). Naama faxed this to Vermillion when she learned that I was going to Lame Deer. I also gave the beaurocrats copies of Leanne She-Elk's deposition about consenting to her grand daughter's move to Ithaca, and Kelli's proofs of residence including copies of her Ithaca High School ID and registration forms.

 

It took a while to get all this filed and in to the right hanads, so Amber entertained us some more.

 

"I had a little nutmeg and nothing would it bear," she sang. "But a silver nut tree and a golden pear. I had a little nutmeg and nothing would it bear, but a silver nut tree and a golden pear. Nutmeg, nutmeg, won't you come out? Nutmeg, nutmeg, I chase you all about. I had a little nutmeg and nothing would it bear, but a silver nut tree and a golden pear."

 

The nutmeg song was not one of the ones I learned from Alise who learned these from tapes and from school and then taught all the rest of us rhymes at our "rhyme school" in her parents' apartment back in the Bronx when I was in kindergarten and first grade. Naama Roth taught me the nutmeg song. Her mother and grandmother taught it to her. Naama says the tune of the song is Ha Tikva which is the national anthem of Israel. Naama also knows a different version of the Lady Bug poem, but I didn't teach that one to Amber.

 

"What's that?" asked the beaurocrat who right now was getting sick of both of us. I was not leaving Amber until I saw her get passed on to her new foster parents. Given the condition in which I received her in Rosebud, I wanted to make sure she got delivered safely.

 

"It's the nutmeg song," I answered.

 

"I've never heard it."

 

"It's East Coast," I said.

 

"Where you from?"

 

"The Bronx but the girl who taught me the song is from the Upper West Side. That's Manhattan. She's also from Westchester. She's a senior at Cornell now."

 

"So they sing that at Cornell. Isn't that some snooty Ivy Leagues school?"

 

"Yeah," I answered. "I was supposed to start studying architecture there. I have two friends who go there. One got drafted like me and she's in Virginia."

 

The beaurocrat shook her head.

 

"I had a little nutmeg and nothing would it bear," sung Amber oblivious to and bored by grownup conversation.

 

"Fuck the nutmeg!" growled the beaurocrat and she said something in a language I did not understand but whatever it was, it could not have been good. "Fifty cents!" I decided but no one was charging for epithets today.

 

"Do you know any Cornell songs?" she very sweetly asked Amber who blinked.

 

I said that I knew some. Again, I learned these from Naama and Unity and several others. Cornell has lots of songs.

 

"Far above Cayuga's waters," I began.

"With its waves of blue." I let my voice rise to the top of its lungs.

"Stands our noble alma mater.

Glorious to view.

Lift the Chorus

Speed it onward

Loud her praises tell...."

 

By now a male beauocrat had entered the room. He was an older guy who reminded me of a sun tanned and healthier version of Tom Ratty Eagle. He stood there bug eyed as I finished.

 

"Hail to theee our Alma Mater

Hail to thee Cornell....

 

I broke off singing and felt my face flush hot. I was messing up Kelli and Naama's case. I was no longer just dropping off a foster kid. I had the whole office disturbed.

 

"So you are one of those people sent far away from home on National Service," said the male beaurocat. I nodded. I introduced myself. I hoped he had no plans to write me up. "I'm impressed," he answered instead. "Is there more to that song you were singing?"

 

I found my voice again and finished:

 

"Far above the busy humming

Of the bustling town

Reared against the arch of Heaven

Look she proudly down

Lift the Chorus

Speed it onward

Loud her praises tell....

Hail to thee our Alma Mater

Hail oh hail Cornell."

 

My face was flushed with sweat. "Interesting magic," answered the beaurocrat. "Do the people you work for know you practice magic?"

 

"I do what I can to entertain the children," I sputtered. "Often they don't know any stories or rhymes or songs. I just know the ones I learned in school or other people taught me."

 

"May we talk in private?" asked the beaurocrat.

 

"Ah," I thought "He wants to write me up without embarassing me."

 

We went out the back door of the tribal office building. The cold hit me like a slap in the face. "Not used to this climate are you?" he asked.

 

"I'd lke to get my coat," I complained. He let me go get it and then we stood there. I was ready to be humiliated. I deserved it.

 

"I'm Jacob Fat Year. I'm a medicine man though I make my living working for the tribal government. Your magic impresses me."

 

"That's just songs."

 

"But there's something in them. Something you understand. I would also guess your dreams let you see more than most...do you consider yourself white?"

 

"I'm South Aisan," I explained. "I'm Punjabi but I'm an American citizen, born in Manhattan."

 

"A New Yawker," laughed Jacob.

 

"Do you want to talk about your visions?" asked Jacob.

 

I wasn't ready for this. I was glad I was not being written up but the visions...well they weren't visions. They were real. I decided it could not hurt to tell Jacob about Kokqi and for that matter Kelli. "I know the idea of a high school girl going east to attend a different school is like those hated boarding schools, but schools are better in New York and Kelli agreed to go to Ithaca. She didn't have to do it..." I was out of breath. Despite the cold, I had started to sweat.

 

Jacob suggested we walk together. "I am going to vote for Kelli getting her funding in Ithaca. I'm on council," he said. "It's only fair to the child. She hasn't wanted to come back and you are right, she is not troubled. We don't have all that much to offer academically talented youth." Jacob shook his head.

 

"And yes, part of me fears, others will want to follow Kelli. Part of me says, so be it. I'm not a rabid traditionalist. I don't have to be. As for the other one....Kokqi, you say she wants to come here. She is what could have been for all the Indians here in the west."

 

"No," I said. "She is what is for her world. You are what is for our world."

 

Jacob smiled. "I don't have to tell you," he said, "that there is magic in music and rhymes. That is why the whole office felt irritated by the nutmeg song. It's not just a silly song. It is a mother's love in a land where there are no lullabies."

 

I blinked. "That is all right Mothers and grandmothers are resourceful enough to make do and make do well. We are different."

 

"Do you know..." I tried to find the words. "Indian nursery rhymes and songs?"

 

Jacob nodded "and I know others who have the old songs in Cheyenne."

 

"What about Blackfoot and Lakota....."

 

"You're jumping one step ahead of me."

 

"Where are we going?"

 

Jacob laughed and then he explained. He planned to arrange for Amber to be taught her people's children's rhymes and songs and get her and other children to put them on CD or casette tape and then we could have those in the van. "That means I'll have to learn them too," I said.

 

"Do you want to?"

 

"If it helps the children, but the children are from many tribes."

 

"I have friends down in Rosebud, out in Browning, and among the Flat Head and Crow."

 

"What about Kokqi?" I asked.

 

"She may help. Can you give me her address since she's in this world?"

 

I gave Jacob Kokqi's address. We had a deal.

 

We got back to the government building and Amber begged me to teach her the alma mater. We did this using a back office so we weren't such a disturbance. Then two hours late a sad middle aged Indian woman in a cowboy shirt showed up and took charge of Amber who was anxious to unload all the new songs she had learned.

 

Jacob took the woman aside and they had a whispered conversation. I left Lame Deer alone and tried to imagine what it would be like with a CD box full of Indian nursery rhymes. What kind of nursery rhymes do Indians have any way?

 

Jacob is right by the way. Americans do not have lullabies for their children so they substitute all kinds of other songs.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Bozeman, MT

Point Two-Five

 

I got to meet Kokqi this afternoon. You may have guessed it all ready, but I phoned the professor who has custody of her and had an invite to his house for dinner. They had corn bread and beef jerky plus vegetables of various types and smoked turkey wings. Apparently, Kokqi only really likes some modern foods.

 

Kokqi does look a bit like Kelli might look if Kelli hadn't bleached her hair and then dyed it red or maybe she just bleached it. Kokqi is smaller and more self posessed. Her raven hair comes down to her neck and her tauni skin has a faintly reddish cast. Her cheekbones are high and her black eyes give away nothing.

 

She can speak a few words in English, like a foreigner with a phrase book. She says she learns the language by watching TV. Most of the time Dr. Rhime, translated for Kokqi who of course said she was lonely and homesick.

 

Then we went in to the study and Kokqi got down what looked like huge coffee table books and she showed me grainy deguerotypes and other primitive photographs. Like the Germans less than a century later, the white man photographed what he did to the Indians and the buffalo who supported them. I stared at the sepia and silver toned images of buffalo skulls and bones and piles of robes, stacked up wantonly and buffalo just left for the flies to eat. I stared at the buffalo hunters standing cocky and sure with their guns. Then there were the sad posed pictures of Indians.

 

There were not pictures of starvation. It was the victors who had the camera, if one can call them victors. Dr. Rhime read to Kokqi in Blackfoot and she sat listening. She sat with her hands in her lap. She said later she had heard the story before. It made her hurt inside until she remembered this was not how it turned out on her own world.

 

Then she asked after the "girl who painted her hair red." I told her that Kelli was getting a good education. It would not be an Indian education, but there was not much of that left.

 

Kokqi sighed and shook her head. He reddish skin looked pale. There is so much a person can stand and Kokqi has had to stand a lot of late.

 

Dr. Rhime told her about the cultural project that Jacob Fat Deer who let no grass grow under his feet proposed. Kokqi shook her head and answered back that songs in diverse tribal tongues would just be museum pieces unless the children could understand them. The project needed translators if the children who on this world spoke English were to learn the songs of their people and teach them to their children.

 

Dr. Rhime raised his eyebrows. He got out his legal pad and took note of Kokqi's answers. "I have to remember," he said "that she is not Ishi." I asked who Ishi was and Dr. Rhime said he was the last of a tribe of Indians in California. He had lived for years in hiding and then come out to be studied and taken care of. Kokqi is part of a thriving culture that on this world has been all but destroyed. Kokqi will be going home when it is spring time. Luchi-Xara has been negotiating for her so that she does not get interrogated upon her return to Two by Two.

 

Kokqi said that her school, the School of Many Tongues in Oniksi (which in my world is Rapid City, South Dakota) might be able to translate Indian songs in to English so Indian children could understand them.

 

Dr. Rhime also talked about nursery rhymes and children's rhymes in general. Just for fun, we looked up the nutmeg song on the net. Naama Roth's version is according to Dr. Rhime, a twentieth century corruption of this poem.

 

I had a little nut tree,

Nothing would it bear

But a silver nutmeg,

And a golden pear;

The King of Spain's daughter

Came to visit me,

And all for the sake

Of my little nut tree.

 

Her dress was made of crimson,

Jet black was her hair,

She asked me for my nut tree

And my golden pear.

I said, "So fair a princess

Never did I see,

I'll give you all the fruit

From my little nut tree.

 

This is about Princess Katherine of Aragon of Spain who visited the court of King Henry the VII of England in the 1500's and you can't sing it to HaTikva. Also the little nutmeg never gets lost. Naama, is there more to your nutmeg song than the one verse you taught me. I think I like your song better since I can understand looking all over the living room for a poor little nutmeg that has rolled under the couch a lot more than some princess long ago. If you have to make up the extra verses then fine. Go for it.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Ma cher Henri,

 

The reason I did not comment on your last letter was that you said nothing except you were in training. I had not the slightest idea what you were doing? Was it exercises, sword-play, running and climbing ropes, learning to read military maps? It is clear from mentining boots and polishing them that you get your share of K.P. duty as we call it. Here K.P. duty means cleaning up the motor pool garage and when the weather is warm enough (above thirty degrees farenheit. Freezing is thirty-two degrees and we have a thermometer hanging outside the garage. They also announce the temperature on the radio regularly and in our Report of the Day)we wash the vehicles down as well on the outside. We have a washing stall for all the vans.

 

Since you are interested in training, let's start with mine. I was lucky to have been trained before I was drafted. My father helped me earn my driver's license (New York State Class 5) before I was eighteen. I learned in Nassau County outside the city line and for my eighteenth birthday, my father gave me bus driving lessons in Nassau County. This gave me a New York State Class 2 license. A bus is a large vehicle that can hold from a dozen to forty or fifty individuals.

 

What I drive for the Federal government is a transit van which seats nine people. My job (Remember I'm noncombat) is to go to whatever city I bid for (We bid for our jobs.) and pick up whom I am told to pick up and take them to their destination. Usually I have two to six riders in the van. I don't think it's ever been full.

 

In this part of the country Federal Transport works with the military and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). We also subcontract for county departments of education and social services. If you wonder what children were doing in my van, well there is your answer in short form. In the longer form, the BIA and the departments of social services for about twenty different counties all manage foster care. This means that when a child's parents can not care for him or her (Think Earnesty and Domino Chung on the Telegraph or Tareisia K. Simmons) the department of social services places them with a set of substitute or foster parents until the parents can take the child back or until the parents lose their rights or until the child reaches the legal age of adulthood which is eighteen. For American Indian children who have lived most of their lives on the Reservations (land set aside for Indian tribes and very poor places), the individual tribes handle foster care placements and the BIA handles transportation which is how I become involved. My chain of command orders me to transport foster children and I'll happily do it as long as the children in question are toilet trained. I won't bid on runs where there are children in diapers. People often think it is better to have female drivers for children anyway, but we have drivers of both sexes. In fact, most of the long haul drivers are male.

 

On today's part of my current run, my passengers were all adults. I think they were in Bozeman to study something since there is a university there. They did not talk much about what they studied. The military has a lot of secret missions. I had seven passengers all the

way to Missoula. From Missoula a local transport takes them to a secret base somewhere in the Cascade Mountains.

 

Tommorow, I will be bringing three foster children from Missoula to Lame Deer (Yes, back to Lame Deer!). They are going out of straight foster care in to what in New York State is called kinship care or kinship placement which means someone has found a relative willing to take them. Actually in this case, it is three relatives. If I get stuck hanging around that tribal council building in Lame Deer again I won't just sing the Alma Mater. I'll scream. Cheyenne can run on "Indian time." I like to see the kids' new guardians pick them up and take them home. I'm dreading this run since I will be in Lame Deer on a Saturday and hope the tribal council building will be open for as long as I need to wait for kids' relatives.

 

I may or may not have more passengers in Lame Deer. It is not a large place. I'll get my next manifest via my lap top and cell phone modem. A lap top is a combination writing table and telephone. Actually it can also be used for a calculating machine and many more things. It is part of my kit which I take with me. I have all kinds of equipment and supplies on my van. You don't travel the distances I travel in bitt cold weather without a lot of junk.

 

I hook up the lap top to my cellular modem. I carry something called a cell phone that gives me instant voice communication with my chain of command. I have this even when I'm a thousand miles or more away from them. Once the lap top is hooked up and I give it the password, it connects to something called the internet which is like a great phone system for messages. I then can check my electronic mail. This by the way is how I send and receive the Telegraph. I also receive letters from Clay this way. At the base where he is stationed which is on the other side of the planet, they have a room called the Cyber Cafe in the Enlisted Person's Club. Men and women wait on line to go in and send messages to their friends and loved ones. Clay manages to get in to the Cyber Cafe twice a week and email me. Since I have a lap top and cellular modem here in the van and also at base, I can email Clay every evening.

 

Although there is a phone hook up (satellite phone by the way which bounces signals in to space. Remember where Clay is...) at Clay's base, we don't use it or even try to. Clay is eleven or twelve(depending on my time zone. I regularly cross a time zone border) time zones ahead of me. That means that it is eleven or twelve hours (right now) later for him than it is for me. Our whole world is divided in to time zones. The United States covers four time zones. Russia covers seven. The world has about twenty-four.

 

Right now I'm in the Mountain Time Zone. Vermillion, South Dakota where I am stationed is in the Central Time Zone. Mountain time is one hour earlier than Central Time. When I pass through Rapid City, South Dakota or Medora, North Dakota, I have to change my watch either forward or back to match the change in time. For Clay and I though, it means that he is on a completely different schedule. His day ends more or less when mine begins. He is asleep when I am awake. Phone calls even if they were possible with any frequency and the line to make them is long, simply will not work. Email is better. He can read it when he gets a chance in the Cyber Cafe and I can be asleep then or driving.

 

I have a feeling all of this is as clear as mud. I remember when Naama and Tareisia hosted Peter and one of the things we kept rubbing in to is how much we love to count things in our time. Temperature is not just cold, it is a number. Right now it is two degrees below zero farenheit outside with a wind chill of minus ten. Yes, the van is heated but you still need a coat. It is 1:43pm Mountain Standard Time. Standard time is different from daylight savings time which we will have the end of April when all the clocks get shifted forward one hour. I wear a watch on my wrist. My cell phone and the van also have clocks and my computer has a clock. When I buy gasoline to power my van it is by the gallon (Roughly four litres) and I buy oil by the quart (roughly one litre). It has to be high viscosity and yes there is a number for that as well on the can. If the number is not right, it does not go in the van. Precise measures are something I take for granted, but people have only lived by numbers since the mid to early nineteenth century. For you matters are very different. I'm curious about this. You can also talk to Naama about this since she cooks and all of that is done with written recipes and measuring tools. My grandmother and aunts by the way, cook differently but they were born in Pakistan (other side of the planet) and did not learn to cook the American (industrialized) way.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Missoula, Montana 1:47pm MST (Mountain Standard Time)

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I returned home to Vermillion yesterday to find out I had missed what passes for a riot on this quiet military base. Actually, a minor rebellion was more like it. Because I am Moslem, I've been able to get out of eating in the mess hall here on base and been cooking my own food. The other noncombat conscripts have not been so lucky and the food is vile.

 

The military people can eat it, but noncombat conscripts are not military. We wear our own clothes and at most facilities have kitchens and cook our own food. We pay only for room. We buy our own board with our monthly pay checks.

 

Well, the noncombat conscripts finally decided to protest the vile food by boycotting the mess hall. They went on a hunger strike and said when they got hungry enough, they'd buy food in town, raid the vending machines, beg parents for packages from home, but they would not set foot in that wretched mess hall.

 

This naturally went up the chain of command, but the top of the noncombat chain of command as opposed to departments like the motor pool or the data processing center etc... is Kommandante Shiela as we call her. She is our Personnel Supervisor and a civilian.

 

She came to speak to us (though I wasn't there) and my roommate, Rachel, explained to her that the food was atrocious and if we were stationed any where else, we would not have to eat it. Several conscripts who worked in the mess hall described it as unsanitary. Other conscripts complained there was no vegetarian option and no low calorie option for those trying to lose weight. This was especially insensitive after holiday feasting. They told Shiela about how at other installations noncombat option people prepared their own meals and ate what they enjoyed.

 

If you read Alise' posts her living arrangement is fairly typical. Every three or four noncombat people shares a kitchen in a two bedroom apartment.

 

Surprisingly, Kommandante Shiela agreed with her subordinates. She pulled some strings and by the time I returned home on Sunday, I found myself invited to a feast in the dormitory kitchen which is in the basement. We now have a schedule for KP duty in the kitchen. Part of the agreement that lets us cook our own meals is that we have to keep the kitchen spick and span, but it is worth it. Sunday there were chicken kebobs, Milano cookies, crackers with cheese spread, smoked tuna on other crackers, fancy vegetable mix with butter, some kind of casserole made with cream soup, cole slaw, potato salad, and carrot salad with raisins and more. It felt good to eat well after being on the road and sorry to the Sirius Gate folks and all the hungry people on the Telegraph.

 

Of course I'm now on the KP schedule for the kitchen but so what... Today I am off. Since I worked most of the weekend, I get two free days and don't have to work until Wednesday. I spend my free time shopping for groceries and working on my kit. I have to launder blankets and car seat covers as well as my clothes. Everything gets very scuzzy in the van. We have washing machines and dryers but doing laundry stinks. Also it is my turn to do KP in the dormitory room I share with Rachel.

 

My van, also needs serious KP. I am going to vaccuum it out because if I don't do this, it doesn't always get cleaned. It missed scheduled KP, nd I don't want to spend hours in a dirty van. Also since the temperature is currently 39 farenheit (above freezing!) I am putting my van and the other long haul van that is not on the road, in the washing stall and giving them a good cleaning on the outside. The poor vans get road salt on their underbellies, and the salt can rot them through. Yes poor "gung ho" Vijaya is in to spit and polish today.

 

And yes, I wrote to Clay. He is a bit stir crazy on the secret base. It is also very cold where he is. From this information and the time zone that appears on his emails, I am almost sure he is in Central Asia and not Iraq. I just wish I knew what he and his comrades were doing. Black ops are by their very definition scarey.

 

Vijaya Naipul

Driver and federal employee

Rank 11 and proud of it

Vermillion Air Force Base

Vermillion, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Henri,

 

I forget you enlisted in the army and it is unusual for women in your day to have combat option. In fact, you had to twist arms to get it. Congratulations on having successfully twisted those arms, but being in the service is no big thing. I'm a conscript. I'd be in college now if I weren't here in Vermillion.

 

I sometimes wonder if what I am doing here on the high plains is as worthwhile as studying architecture. It very much is serving my country. We don't have a king in the United States. Soldiers, airmen, children, and government employees all need transportation and I'm one of the long range drivers. It's skilled work which is why I'm an 11 rather than 13 or a 14.

 

As for going hither, there is a bit more to it than what you describe. First, you have to keep the van running safely. Temperatures outside are well below freezing. Right now they hover around zero on the farenheit scale and minus eight on the celsius scale. There are two ways to measure temperature. In the US farenheit is the most common. They've turned the water pipes off in the washing stall. All the vans stay dirty on the outside until the weather gets warmer. We can vacuum them out on the inside though. Vacuuming is like sweeping except we use a machine to suck out all the dust and grime and small dropped objects.

 

I got to open the vacuuming machine yesterday to clean it out and you should have seen all the neat odds and ends embedded in the dirt. Even with a KP bag and regular road KP's of your van (You bring it in, you take it out) the floor still gets scuzzy. We also have to know the right kind of fuel for our van and the right kind of motor oil and other additives. We have to know the road safety rules in the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Idaho, and Washington state. Fortunately, they are all pretty similar but not like those in New York City.

 

Second, I deal with the weather. I'm not sure if the temperature and windchill readings I give you convey how cold it gets in this part of the country. Sometimes we have blizzards with white outs where you can not see your hand in front of your face. If you go walking around in the extreme cold and we all do it sometimes, you have to make sure you have NO EXPOSED FLESH except a bit around your eyes. Frostbite is a real danger.

 

Third, there's the distance factor. From Vermillion, South Dakota to Rosebud, South Dakota which is a large Lakota reservation is 321 miles. If one were walking it, it would take a good two months. In a van that travels at sixty to seventy miles per hour, I can drive it in six and a half hours (I take safety breaks every hour or two to prevent getting hypnotized). From Vermillion, South Dakota to Missoula, Montana is 1,118 miles. You can not make such a trip in one day so there is an overnight at the American Inn (that is the name of the motel) in Rapid City, South Dakota or at the Thunderbird Inn in Medora, North Dakota. It takes two days of driving roughly eight hours.

 

Between places like these there is nothing quite often but miles of open country. This is semi arid prairie and not much grows here but grass. There was once better grass than we have now and buffalo roamed, but in the nineteenth century European settlers exterminated the Buffalo to starve out the native people (Don't you dare call them red savages! The BIA is one of oru best clients.). That along with the US Army and Western diseases did the rest except there are still Indians which I guess is a tribute to their resiliance or maybe human resiliance in general.

 

This remoteness is what makes driving on the plains and mountains in winter dangerous. A van stalling out, an accident on the side of the road, having to pull over due to zero visibility and waiting out a storm, all carry the risk of dying if you can not get going again or if the state police or county sherriff's patrol do not rescue you. I've all ready been stranded once, several weeks ago, just west of the pass in Laramie, Wyoming. A state trooper let us finish digging and led us down off the mountain to a safe haven in a barracks parking lot. Then he led out the eastbound motorists in order of priority. The snow plough went out first (It is motorized too like the vans) and the lucky ones followed behind like a line of ants behind a huge beetle.

 

Being able to travel quickly (sixty to seventy miles per hours and sometimes a bit more) and having a lot of communications equipment on board (Yes it's electronic but I'm never out of touch with my base.) is what protects my passengers and me.

 

By the way, for every front line soldier in a modern army, there are ten support personnel in the rear. Clay is not a front line airmen. He is not a pilot. He does not fly airplanes (which are flying machines that can shoot large guns and drop bombs and missiles on enemy targets). He is a radar technican. He fixes and maintains the navigation instruments that the airmen use and that are also used on the ground to help the airmen.

 

If I were combat option and living in your time, I would be one of the wagon drivers who birngs supplies and people to the front and takes back the wounded to base hospitals. You can't have a war without transportation, and the road in your time is probably no safer than it is in my time.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver and Federal Employee

Rank 11

Vermillion Air Force Base

Vermillion, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

I had an idea. I hope you don't find this insulting, but it might help someone who is starving. People in my time, 2006, often say that one person's trash is another person's treasure. Even folks who are federal employees and receive a paycheck every month (minus their room but not their board) like to look at the debris we take out of the Vehicle-vac. They always wonder about what small objects are lying in the dirt and dust that accumulates in the bottom of the transit vans we drive.

 

Usually it is loose change. Sometimes it is a piece of jewelry, an earing that has fallen on to the floor of the van. There are candy wrappers, used condoms (make of that what you will), popsicle and lollypop sticks etc... Perhaps you could find something of value in this refuse. I found the bag of it out by the dumpster and I am enclosing it with this letter. Open it in a well ventillated place. It is mostly dust, and please don't take this as an insult. I know it is pretty disgusting stuff.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver and Federal Employee

Rank 11 and proud of it.

Vermillion Air Force Base

Vermillion, South Dakota

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I haven't written you for a while because I was transferred. I am still in the West which I like. Perhaps I have grown to love it. I am not sure. Sander realized that I really was bucking for a ten and he sent me out on a courier van that was on loan. He said the van was going to be transferred with me. Courier vans are smaller than transport vans. I fitted out the van with my seat covers, food boxes, and plenty of water and rations as well as clean blankets. I carried three boxes of papers. Some went to Yankton. Others went to Rosebud. A few went to Rapid City and even Medora in North Dakota. Don't ask what they do in Medora.

 

I continued west from Medora to Missoula which is the headquarters for a small courier van squad of which I am a member. There are four of us. All of us are women. The Squad Leader is a civilian, a twenty-one year old from Manhattan named Dafni. Under her are Leah, Nadine, and me. Leah, Nadine, and Dafna are all Jews. They are also Easterners and having good food in one's van is a must. Often there are no restaurants, let alone decent restaurants where we go.

 

Our vans do not have chains here in Missoula. They have snow tires with studs in them. We all carry ten pounds of kitty litter (ground clay) on board in case we get stuck on ice somewhere and have to drive off of it and need traction for the van's tires. My stops include Browning, Gallatin, and small places that I am forbidden to name due to security. I don't see much in those places, just a warm room if I'm lucky. I can sleep overnight in some of them. They'll give me a cubicle and a bed.

 

We run our own mess in Missoula. There are five pound bags and ten pound boxes of dried fruit in the fridge as well as clementines and frozen edamamme. I know those starving space people on the Sirius Gate can not read this so it is OK to write about food. Food as I said is an issue. We have to wash our vans at the car wash in town and none of us are mechanics. In early April we will have the local tire place put the regular tires on the vans.

 

Other than that the driving is more dangerous. The Cascades and the Rockies, both of which are in our territory tower six to eight thousand feet above sea level. Temperatures here are often well below zero farenheit and there can be blinding blizzards. Dafna says that it is a question of when I'll be stranded and have to dig out, until a snow plough or trooper can guide me down off a mountain side and it will probably happen several times before spring comes.

 

Dafna also drives. She is a ten. That is her rank. I am an eleven. She does the schedule and makes one run a week. The rest of us makes two or three runs depending on lenght. I miss the constant parade of foster children though I sometimes still transport them. These are mainly Blackfoot. Browning is the Blackfoot Nation (read tribe's) Capital. Like Lame Deer, it is a sad small town. Sorry, I am from New York City. Out here, no one except my fellow drivers knows where the Bronx is.

 

Clay remains unhurt. He is no longer bored. He sometimes doesn't have spare parts to fix all the radars. Planes with supplies don't always get through to where he is based in Central Asia. Clay is with the airforce. I am noncombat option. Clay's letters are exciting to read. He is my boyfriend and I love him.

 

Alise, hang in there with the building. You'll get your complex. The lawyers just take their good sweet time. Naama, I can't make it to the Tu B'Shevat party on the second of February. They won't give me leave. I wish you all the best though, and Mendel Liyo, the new guy, is right. The men and women in the server work harder than you will ever know. I'm glad I have the opportuntiy to serve my company and I'm glad my boyfriend does too.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Missoula Courier Statioin

31 Ajax St.

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

Kitty litter or cat litter as it is sometimes called is not a litter of kittens, but instead ground dry clay or wood pellets. It is sold in ten pound bags. Its intended purpose is to provide an indoor toilet facility for cats. If you keep cats and don't want to let them out to do their business or don't want to let them out at all (and many people in big cities don't want to let their cats out because it is dangeous for them.), you need to have a place for them to relieve themselves. You buy a litter pan. This is a square plastic pan. In this pan you put about five pounds of litter. When the cat needs to go, he or she digs a hole and puts her waste in the litter and covers it up. Every few days, you change the litter.

 

Because cheap kitty litter is ground clay, it acts like sand. If your van gets stuck on ice, you sprinkle the litter on the ice and it makes a rough surface so the van's tires can have traction.

 

I'm sorry I confused you. Kitty litter is a relatively new invention. It enabled people to breed cats because they did not have to let them roam outside any more and one could arrange matings. I've never had a cat, but they are clean animals and there are fancy breeds of cats of which I have seen pictures. They are very beautiful animals.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Missoula Courier Station

32 Ajax St.

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

I realize the source of confusion. In the United States in 2007, a pound is a unit of weight in the English system of measurement. We have a second system of measurement called the Metric system which is easier to use but never caught on. You use it if you take science (think natural philosophy but with experiments and plently of mathematics) classes in school which I did. We also have two systems of measuring temperature, the Farenheit system (named after the man who invented it) and the Celsisu or centigrade scale. I usually give temperatures in Farenheit. We have a thermometer, a device for measuring temperature hanging outside the living room window. This way we know exactly how cold it is outside.

 

The National Weather Service has machines for measuring wind speed and they can calculate the wind chill factor which they announce on their special radio station and on the internet. This is a very important number because it's the one that really tells you how brutally cold it is. Our wind chill this morning was -20 Farenheit. That is twenty degrees below zero. Yes, you can have negative numbers. I learned about them in sixth grade when I was eleven and then you use them in Math 1 and all the other high school and college math you have. When they first teach you about negative numbers in school, they use the thermometer as an example because those are the first negative numbers any one sees in real life.

 

Our unit of currency is the dollar. If I pay in cash, dollars are green paper currency or four fairly large silvery coins with grooved edges each of which is worth one quarter of a dollar or twenty-five cents. Kitty litter costs between 1.25 and 1.69 dollars for a ten pound sealed paper bag. The bag looks like a large brick, is fairly colorful, and usually has a picture of a contented cat on it.

 

Usually I pay for supplies we need in our garage with a Federal Voucher Card. This is a plastic (It would feel to you like very thin wood or metal but with a texture like hard wax) card with a magnetic strip on the back. When it is run through a machine it checks our account and the machine takes the money out for our purchases. Stores are set up to receive electronic debit cards so this is no problem. We receive our pay electronically as well. Once a month, the government deposits our pay to bank accounts. Ordinary people have dealings with banks in 2007. If we want something we take our bank cards and either withdraw cash at an ATM (Stands for Automatic Teller Machine) or pay for our purchases directly with our cards through a swipe machine.

 

We only have our rent and utilities deducted from our checks in Missoula. We run our own mess which means we buy our own food, but it is a group kitchen and we divvy up the food bill. We end up patronizing two health food stores plus Albertsons and Safeway for more prosaic fare. Dried fruit is a necessity and our crew demands it. I taught my colleagues to make carrot salad. I learned this from watching Naama last summer. Thankyou Naama. Carrot salad rocks. We usually pay each other back in cash. Sometimes that is the only cash I ever see, though Dafna says it is a good idea to have a hundred dollars either in your wallet or pinned under your clothes or in a money belt when on the road. In an emergency a Federal Voucher Card or personal ATM card might not work. Also some of our work occasionally takes us across the national border in to Canada.

 

Now for the bad news, we have a much smaller garage in Missoula than we do on Vermillion. We do not have a washing stall or a vehicle vac. The garage is heated though. This is important because it means our vans all begin their trips with a warm start no matter how cold it is outside, and it is plenty cold. Oh well, my break is over. I'll try to think of something else to send you. Please let me know about the earing.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Arlee, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

The reason we have so much stuff is for safety. We want to make sure that we do not lose single driver, a single passenger, or any of the vans which are worth about fifteen to twenty-five thousand dollars apiece. A lot of the measuring and all of the electronics I carry (I have both a cellular telephone and a lap top) are to give me important information and allow me to transit important information. I am nearly never out of touch with the squad station which is an apartment over a heated garage in downtown Missoula.

 

Every morning, whoever is not out on a trip (There is always one of us behind) I get a Report of the Day. I have done the Report once. Dafna who is our station chief makes it most often. In the Report of the Day are traffic conditions, weather forecasts, orders from Spokane, Fargo, or Vermillion, and news from the base.

 

If I get stranded or if the weather turns completely inhospitable, I can get in touch with base and tell them I am stranded. I also might have to get in touch with local law enforcement or state troopers depending where the strand happens. The rules are different if it is on a state or federal highway or if it happens on an Indian reservation. We still do short runs for the BIA.

 

Other safety equipment is to enable us to ride out a strand. If we get stranded we have shovels to dig our way out, blankets to stay warm, extra food and water, extra batteries for the lap top, and ice scrapers. Our vans also come equipped with a safety stick which looks like a big radio antenna (Just think of a very long stick, about three feet long). You hook the safety stick to the trunk or roof of the van. Different vans have attachments in different places, and then tie a disaster flat to the safety stick. The flag is a big piece of brightly colored nylon. Our station color is teal with a yellow star in the middle. Our vans are also teal. The vans in Vermillion were red.

 

The disaster flag keeps it visible behind snow drifts or if the van gets partly buried. This prevents it from getting ploughed in by a snow plough or run over by one. It also lets law enforcment find you easily if you need help getting on the road.

 

Strands last from two to eighteen hours. You try not to get stranded and get a DNP (Do NOT proceed order) from base. Dafna says not to be shy about asking for such an order. She'll take care of the paperwork so you get vouchers for extra nights in motels if you need them.

 

Tonight, I am back at base. The run to Browning is four and a half hours each way. That means I got a hot but late dinner after a supermarket run. I am washing my blankets and sheet covers. I brought a Flat Head and a Blackfoot foster back to Missoula. One was a little girl about four years old. The other was an eight year old girl. Both looked well cared for. We were about an hour underway when the younger foster threw up.

 

I tell the kids who ride with me that if they think they are going to be sick to please tell me so I can pull over or if that fails to open the window and puke outside. I'll even supply an empty paper bag, but little Linnea just quietly upchucked all over the blanket I had lent her.

 

I bought my blankets with my salary in Vermillion. Oh well, I'm glad we have a washing machine and drier here in the base. At least we don't have to go to a laundromat. We even wash our seat covers. These are made of thick material and held on with either elastic sewn around the edges or straps of elastic. My mother made my seat covers and they are fleece. They are also in the washing machine. Our seat covers get filthy because we basicly live in the vans. Nadine is the only one of us who forgets to wash her seat covers so Dafna gets on her case about it. Happiness is clean van, and a warm apartment, and a full stomach.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Missoula Courier Station

32 Ajax St.

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

I thought you might like to see a Report of the Day. I'm on my way to Testosterone Hall which is what we call a certain building in North Powder, Oregon. T-Hall is not a pleasant place, but I've got a BIA employee to keep me company. She was in Missoula for meetings, and Northern Star Federal Courier Station is cheaper than Greyhound. The Nezperce Indian Nation pays for her transit. She's a nice enough woman who promises to barf out the window, but says she doesn't get car sick. She asked if I am going to get scaird crossing the LoLo Pass through the Bitterroot Mountains. The bus does not take the route through the State Forests, but we take the back roads when we can. That is how courier is different from transit.

 

Anyway, here is today's Report of the Day

 

 

Good morning this is Nadine Rabinowitz, current Queen of the Strand and Strandedness letting all you good drivers know what is up and what is down here in the beautiful Rockies, Cascades, and Bitterroots.

 

First weather continues to be gorgeous, no heavy snows and finally a warm spell with temperatures in the 20's (Note: all temperatures are farenheit). Wind chills are negligible. Almost like summer huh....

 

Leah, you've got the international run (That means up to Calgary, Alberta which is in Canada) and you're going to get fot until you hit the federal highway system. There's wet snow in places. Be careful, though I know you will.

 

Dafna, you are heading east toward the Green and Red Barns. (Note: these are locations with a lot of security clearance). Stay off S30. The pass closes for the winter. You know that. There is a wind warning on the plains. These vans should be heavy enough not to blow around but still...

 

Vijaya, you pulled the best route in the bunch, the Testosterone Palace. Enjoy your passenger. I hope she doesn't make you homesick for Vermillion. You have good road conditions across the LoLo Pass so don't worry about riding through the National Forest. Just make sure you pee at the last outpost of civilization. Make sure your passenger pees too.

 

 

Leah, make sure your papers are in order for the border crossing.

 

Dafna, your overnight is in the Green Barn. I talked with the chief out there. They'll put a cot for you in the office. I'm glad you made the last of the smoked mozzerella in to sandwiches. Food at the Green Barn was vile when I staye dthere in November. Those twits can not cook or won't cook.

 

The only place where food is worse is the Testosterone Palace. Vijaya, if any one calls you a Courier Princess let me know. We are half way through this winter with a perfect safety record and it is going to stay that way. That should speak for itself, but it often doesn't.

 

Safety requires good morale. Good morale requires decent food and working equipment and clean vans and a base kept in good order. Our morale is good. Our safety record shows it. Our employer and most sane people would rather spend tax payer dollars on Constant Comment Tea, farfelles, edamamme, dats, and dried apricots than fixing vans and hospital bills.

 

 

For those of you returning tonight, dinner is black bean cholent, corn bread, and mixed green salad with carrot slices and choice of dressing and of course fresh fruit for dessert and tea to drink. Our shipment of dried apricots is at Roots and Berries Natural Foods as is the quinoa. I'll be picking them up.

 

I'm going to take my van to be washed and vaccuum it out down at BoomBoom's our favorite car wash.

 

Vijaya, I'm working on tracking down our local chaplain. I guess none of us ever trusted Christian clergy enough to seek him out, but you've had good luck with chaplains so I'm going to see if we can get his number since you requested a consult.

 

Other than that, be aware that March 1, new recruits come in to the system. This won't effect us directly except to give us passengers. We may be getting more experienced drivers from the transport bases as those bases get new blood.

 

I'm complaining to Spokane again. One of their vans arrived without adequate emergency supplies and no scraper for ice, and only a broken shovel. The driver was a newly trained nineteen year old road virgin. I gave him a big bag of gorp and dug out what extra things I could spare. The Spokane transit drivers are road hazards waiting to happen.

 

OK, be safe and if you aren't I need to hear it. I check the message machine hourly. Sit tight and don't panic.

 

Nadine Rabinowitz

Driver and Federal Employee Rank 10

Missoula Courier Station

 

 

So there you have it. Yes, it is chatty but so what. Sometimes the most important news is not official. I wonder what happens if I shoot my mouth off at the Testosterone Palace tonight.

 

Vijaya Naipul

Driver Rank 11

LoLo Hot Springs, Idaho

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Stigand,

 

Let's get two things straight. First, I am NOT a great lady. I'm an eighteen year old conscript and working person. I can drive a bus, but that does not make me royalty. I was lucky to attend a very good public high school, but being a high school graduate with some college credits is again, not that unusual.

 

Second, I bite my tongue where you are concerned because you and I are close in age. You are sixteen and I am a few weeks short of my nineteenth birthday. I live in a world where it is NORMAL for people to be in school full time until they are eighteen, but even with that, people expect older teens to work part time. I worked for my father. He had a cab company. I'd clean up the garage and help load the barrels on barrel days. The cabbies sent the barrels home to South Asia where many of them had family.

 

Part of me knows not to ask about the employment situation where you are. For all I know the streets of your town are full of unemployed adults and teens. Under such circumstances saying "get a job!" is not exactly useful advice. If there are jobs available and labor is scarce, you are old enough to work. I don't know why you don't.

 

As for the earing, the Spiritual Telegraph is a public list. I was not about to publicly rub your nose in something very embarassing. In 2007 precious metals are EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE. Therefore, the earings ordinary women wear is either gold plated (base metal with a thin coating of gold), silver, surgical steel, or plastic. Surgical steel or plastic are the least irritating to the skin of the ear lobes. I hoped that you found either a gold filled or a surgical steel earing. What you got was probably gold plated, and the jewler did not pick up the craftsmanship. That is his loss. I am glad the earing did not end up embarassing you. All that glitters in my world is not gold.

 

Oh and sometimes the talk at the Courier Base gets sarcastic. A great example is the Testosterone Palace. I can't describe it due to security concerns, but I am in a guest bedroom here. The Testosterone Palace is no palace. Testosterone is the male hormone. That's a chemical your testes (testicles) secrete in to your blood. It is what makes you male. Well there are no women at the Testosterone Palace, and most of the inhabitants are current or former police (either civlian or military). They must be in their twenties or thirties. They call us couriers from Mmissoula princesses. Their food is vile. It's a "meat and potatoes" diet. (Think meat and bread and nothing else...No fruits, no vegetables and no tea!) Their kitchen also smells bad.

 

Dafna has a theory: the further west you go the more things fall apart which is why there is a Pacific Ocean. Things basicly fall in to it. Me, I think the Testosterone Palace is an abberation and Spokane doesn't train their drivers properly either, but they are up in the Cascades, not on the coast. I've never met drivers from Seattle, on the West Coast, but it would not surprise me to see them well trained.

 

Vijaya Naipul

Driver Rank 11

The One and Only Testosterone Palace

North Powder, Oregon

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

There is only one thing worse than staying in the Testosterone Palace, it is having a passenger from there. Actually, there are lots worse things. A Spokane Driver got in to an accident not far from the pass at Pendelton. Yes, it wasn't us! It's not going to be us either. You can prevent accidents. I have to keep believing that.

 

Friday morning, I left the Testosterone Palace after refilling my thermous with good quality black tea. These days my brand is Constant Comment. I even had an extra mug of it. I found a pan to heat water. The boys at the Testoserone Palace don't have a kettle.

 

My passenger was named Pete. He was four inches taller than I am. I stand six feet even in my stocking feet. He was a good eighty pounds more than me and twice my size horizontally. We put my food basket in the back of the van along with boxes that were security sealed and going with Pete to Medora. His job, he said was to guard the boxes. I said I had no interest in the boxes which is true. I'm just the driver.

 

I offered Pete an apple and a clementine. He refused both. I ate my last peanut butter sandwich. I had Chex party mix (home made!) which is a premium product and in some ways better than either granola or gorp both of which we also make. In fact, Chex party mix is my favorite trail mix.

 

We headed toward the Clearwater, which surprised Pete. The Clearwater is the Clearwater National Forest. Our fist stop though was NezPerce, Idaho on the NezPerce Indian Reservation. It was also the last place with a clean or dirty toilet. "You need to pee here," I explained to my passenger as I sigmed for payload. In this case, it was medical samples in two big styrofoam containers. They were going to a hospital in Missoula.

 

My passenger blinked. Pee is not the nicest word, but it is a common word at base. I felt like telling my passenger that he had heard worse language which is true. I used to cuss like a sailor at school when I was in seventh and eighth grade.

 

"There are no toilets in the Clearwater," I further explained. "This is your last chance to pee."

 

My passenger started to laugh. "You do need a toilet," he howled. I was afraid the poor passenger would go in his pants. Well, did Pete expect me to pull up my skirt and undo my longjohns and squat in knee deep snow. It hit me then that males can go standing up and just have to undo their flies.

 

"You don't want to pee outside just because you can," I replied. "It's gross."

 

My passenger continued to laugh. A lady who was working in the office laughed too but in a good way. "I agree with you there," she answered. She invited the passenger to use the office toilet. He finally did and we both got in to the van and headed in to the woods and up in to the woods and down Highway 12.

 

This would be pretty country if you were a tourist. In the winter, it takes careful driving and hard work to cross through. We took a safety break for lunch and I offered some of my trail mix to my passenger. He had not brought any food. He refused. I asked if he was hungry. He said he'd eat when we reached Missoula. I shrugged.

 

He did bring CDs which were mostly country music. We listened for a while and then I treated him to ghazals. He asked respectfully about where my parents came from and I told him about growing up bilingual in the Bronx. Actually I'm trilingual now tdue to five years fo French in high school. He laughed and then said I'd never lived in the real world.

 

I felt like telling him a nice four letter epithet that starts with f plus a you, but I dind't. I've grown out of cursing. Instead, I asked him where the real world was. He said that real people didn't live like I did with their tea and clementines. Yes, real people have their vans flip over on I-90. Fortunately, the poor Spokane driver emerged unhurt.

 

Pete had been an MP and after that he had worked for Highway Patrol in California. He was a volunteer doing National Service now because his country needed him. He would not say what he was doing. I think his work is classified. Half the work at the assorted barns, palaces, and houses and mansions as we call them is classified. There is a lot of secret stuff. Clay, my boyfriend, is part of a black operation in Turkmenistan. I don't ask that many questions. I get even fewer answers.

 

Pete and I crossed the Lolo pass at 1500 hours Mountain Standard Time and began our descent in to Missoula but not before a pee stop at the ski area. The toilets there are dirty but at least they flush. If any one gives me static about using the facility, I show them my federal employee ID.

 

We reached Missoula around 1545 hours and I dropped the medical samples at the hospital and headed in to base. I brought everything inside and started to break down the van. We were going to put Pete in the guest bedroom which Nadine set up. Dafna usually does this but Nadine got to sit home and mind base because she had been stranded and needed two days to recover.

 

Pete stood in the garage watching me remove the seat covers and take them to the washing machine along with some other laundry. I only did the front seat covers. I also dismantled my food basket. Since we were low on cholent and had eaten most of the cornbread, I set farfelle cooking to make farfelle and vegetable salad. Leah had returned from Medora with string figs that she got in Bozeman when our favorite supermarket had them seventy percent off and she brought back kasha as well which we can't get in Missoula.

 

I stood cutting up the veggies while the pasta cooled. I told our guest dinner was at 7pm. Meanwhile, he met the other drivers who had come in fron their runs. Dafna was still not back, but Nadine was a bit stir crazy and wanted to go walking with me after dinner. She had KP'd our garage which we don't let get away from us.

 

"So this is the Ivy House," sighed Pete.

 

Yes, that is our slang name. Nearly all the small facilities located in the Upper Intermontane Region, and the Northern Plains have slang or code names. Some have code names because they are classified. Some have slang names because they earn them. Some have a name that serves as both. The Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple and Brown Barns all are code names. The Testosterone Palace is both a code and a slang name and we have just a slang name. It's Ivy House since all four of us will be returning to the Ivy League. Dafna is going to Dartmouth to study engineering science. Leah is going to study journalism at Columbia/Barnard. Nadine is going to Brown and is undecided. I guess she would be an Artsie if she were going to Cornell. We are also all from within a hundred miles of New York City, though I am the only one of the four of us from within the Five Boroughs. Northeasterners make good careful drivers. All of us have earned a promotion to Rank 11 or better in less than a year.

 

Pete called us spit and polish. Nadine glared at him. "If you don't have good morale you will have an accident," she reminded him. A clean van made good morale. Decent food made good morale. An empty bladder made good morale.

 

"That's the dumbest thing I ever heard," complained Pete.

 

"Well what do you suggest?" asked Leah.

 

"Ever hear of shit?" asked Pete.

 

We shrugged. "It happens," he answered.

 

"Yeah, but we do our best to keep it from happening, because it stinks," answered Nadine.

 

Pete sniffed. He did not like dinner. He picked all the hearts of palm out of his farfelle salad. He ate only half his black beans. Nadine offered him bread and butter. He asked if we had anything with protein in it. She got him some peanut butter and even offered to open a can of fish. We have all kinds of canned fish. We are currently out of cheese. Dafna did not pick any up in Calgary.

 

We had to ask Pete to accompany us on Nadine's night walk. We have to take exercise and Nadine will not run a treadmill. Pete advised us to avoid a strip where there are bars and fake old West saloons. We all ready know and we tend to walk in the snow at a park and a local school. We were having the chaplain by for tea on Saturday. Dafna figured that perhaps it was a good idea for every one to meet him and at least "give him a try" since I had asked for a consult and was willing to work with clergy outside my faith. I am Moslem and Dafna, Leah, and Nadine are all Jewish. Pete just shook his head. He had no use for chaplains.

 

I told him how friendly and helpful the chaplain in Vermillion had been when I got groped. "Is getting groped part of the real world?" I asked before I could stop myself. "I woldn't let my daughter drive as a courier with some of those Indians," said Pete. I asked Pete how old his daughter was. He said she was twelve. I then told him she was too young to drive.

 

Pete stayed with us overnight and at 0800 hours on Friday a driver from Vermillion whom I did not see came and got him. Dafna who was manning base again (She had a short run to Kallispel in the afternoon.) handed him off. She said that the driver had a well maintained van and it was clean. The driver was Lisa from Iowa. She told Lisa she was free to come by for dinner when she was in Missoula.

 

I had a smoked salmon and mayonaise sandwich for lunch. This was not lox. It is smoked salmon that comes in a can and Bumblebee makes it. I split the can with Pete who got a sandwich. He complained we were giving him a "girl portion." I remarked that a whole can would not fit on the bread. I offered him two sandwiches, but he settled for one.

 

I was up at 0400 hours Friday to ready my van and fix my lunch food and repack the food basket. I am on the Lolo trail (Route 12) again for an overnight at the Purple Barn which is also west of the Nez Perce Nation. I got back at 1700 hours today. The Purple Barn has excellent stir-fry. I took two of their crew to Missoula along with four sealed boxes which are now at a motel where the crew had vouchers. A Vermillion driver will be by for them in the morning.

 

We had tea with the chaplain around 1800 hours. It was sort of dinner time so Dafna made little canapes. We also had fruit and the leftover farfelle salad. Our chaplain's name is Rev. Maureen McCaulay and she is with the United Church of Christ. She complained that she gets Hell from the Bornagains. She asked us if we went any where for religious services.

 

Dafna explained that there are no synagogues in Missoula. The Messianic operation clearly does not count and Rev. Maureen understood this. She asked about home worship. Nadine said that this required prayer books. Rev. Marueen said she'd provide those for us. She then asked what kind we wanted. Dafna said she, Leah, and Nadine would decide. As for me, there is no mosque in Missoula so I am used to home worship. I showed her my prayer mat. I have to pray on the road when I can. I also showed Rev. Maureen my English language Koran. She was relieved that I don't attempt to read the Arabic phonetically or just rote memorize passages. She said her church has events for conscripts and that they are not religious. She left us with a schedule. All in all it was not a bad visit.

 

We still have to do group KP which we do to music and then we go walking. If this is our own world, it beats the so-called real one by a mile. We are still at zero accidents and it is now nearly February. We have had strands and DNP's but no accidents. Shit may happen, but you can ha ve your shovel and toilet paper ready.

 

Vijaya Naipul

Courier and Federal Employee

Rank 11

Ivy House

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I'm nineteen years old today and I had to stay and mind the base and write up the Report of the Day. I also had to fill out an incident report. How did all this happen. I was coming back from Pow-Wow West which is another secret house in Eastern Oregon. I was taking the customary route through the Clearwater, and you bet I made sure I peed first at Nez Perce, when about half way in to the National Forest, I heard a large pop and I nearly lost control of my van. I got the van over to the shoulder of the road. I realized that Ivy House as we are known is still accident free. I had simply blown a tire.

 

I got out the jack and the tire iron and managed to jack up the van. I had no passengers. It would have been easier even if I had children because they are a distaction and can be a very pleasant one. There are times after all when a distraction makes all the difference. It was just me and boxes of top secret paperwork and maybe medical samples. I always have my suspicions about what goes in boxes I transport through the Clearwater rather than down I-90 as a Spokane transit driver would do.

 

Jacking the van up was no big deal. They made us practice jacking up bigger vans than this in Vermillion and we have power jacks so even Nadine who stands 4'1" can jack up her van and change a tire. The tire iron is designed to give tremendous mechanical advantage. The vans have big tires though. When Nadine changed hers, she let it drop to the ground rolled it and then after three tries wrestled it in to the back of the van. Her coat was filthy. We washed it with stones to keep the down padding from getting all clumped up.

 

Anyway, I got the blown tire off and put on the spare, but it's not a real spare. We call it a dougnut. It is like half a tire and only lasts fifty miles. I had just that far to go before I reached Missoula. I had an emergency. I was also freezing cold. I drank hot tea, but had trouble unclenching my teeth. As I started driving, I started shivering. My teeth chattered all the way through the Clearwater Forest. When I reached LoLo where cell phone reception is good, I knew I had to dial, but my teeth were chattering so hard I could not speak. I stood in the fading winter sunlight with my poor van riding on a doughnut and me too stressed out or scaird to get my mouth open. Finally, I went inside the ski area office and finding paper and pencil wrote down what I wanted to say and begged the woman behind the counter to phone the base.

 

Needless to say both the van and I arrived in one piece though I was shaking like a stinking leaf and the van was on a doughnut. Dafna, our supervisor asked me if I was all right. I wanted to say yes, but all that came out were clattering teeth. I wanted to cry. It would have been easier to ball and howl. Instead I just stood there and shivered some more. I could move around fine. I helped get the boxes in the house.

 

Dafni put up hot water. My job tomorrow would be to write the report, take the van to get a new tire or a fixed version of the old one. "You'll probably be able to talk again by then. She gave me a really hot mug of fruit and currant flavored black tea with no sugar or milk. I sipped at it as the skin on my back crawled.

 

"You did fine," Dafna told me. "A breakdown in the Clearwater is very scarey. You followed procedure. You're safe. You know you're safe." Then she said she was calling the chaplain. I didn't have any choice. She was requesting the consult. I wanted to tell her I couldn't pray. To pray takes speech and I was still shaking and dumb struck.

 

Well, the chaplain arrived. She sat down with me and pulled out her English language Koran. I blinked. "Let's take turns reading it," she said. "I can't," I wanted to tell her but I listened to her reading the words in a language I understood and then it was my turn and the words came out. They came out in bits and bieces because I was pretty shakey but they came out and then they caught on each other and smoothed out and I could talk again.

 

The Chaplain asked me how I felt. I told her I was cold and while I didn't feel scaird, maybe I was deep down inside. I told everyone I wanted to keep driving. Dafni agreed that I could keep driving but a day spent in town would help me rest up and shake the "silly stress reaction."

 

There is an almond cake that I am going to ice with brown sugar icing and there is farfelle and chickpea salad for a main dish and tomato vegetable soup for a soup course, and a salad made from what they call mixed greens, carrots, and raisins. My mother called me. She asked how I am doing. It was nice not to lie. I really am doing fine. The van will be on the road again soon. The boxes found their way to the airport and come tomorrow, I'm driving back through the Clearwater. Maybe this is what it feels like to be nineteen.

 

Vijaya Lisa Naipul

Courier Rank 11

Ivy House

Missoula, Montana

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier Rank 11

LoLo, Idaho

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

 

I still have no word from Clay. I had a terrible drive through the the LoLo pass and Clearwater this morning. This is getting to be my route. I don't mind or I didn't until I blew that tire. We've had wet snow and Rt 12 is not all that well ploughed. You can say "yes this used to be fun." Go ahead. Say it! I need to hear it! I say it myself.

 

I remembered to pee at the ski area at LoLo. There is no where to pee for fifty miles. Then it was off in to the woods. My gahzals no longer cut it. I started playing my kids songs though I was alone in the van. In the back were twenty pound boxes of dried dates, cases of pudding mix, five pound jars of pistachio nuts, and other things (I can only guess what). Only a fraction of what I am delivering is top secret, but the place I am going to does not yet have a name. It will be up to me to name it. It is a top secret destination.

 

I got my clearance while working in Vermillion in case any one is curious and yes, it took six weeks, because my family is foreign born. What else is new. Alise had the same problem back in September. They say it is worse if your parents were born outside the British Commonwealth. I would like to see worse.

 

Anyway, I started singing along and soon I had new verses for Ba-Ba Blacksheep.

 

Ba-Ba Blacksheep have you any wool?

Bags and bags and bags all full.

 

One for Dafna

One for Nadine

You'll never have accidents

If your van is clean.

 

One for Leah,

Who makes kasha for dinner

If you eat at Ivy House

You won't get any thinner.

 

An extra bag

For whoever writes today's report.

It keeps us going with

Its whitty retorts.

 

And several bags for

Those in the house without a name.

Stuck in Eastern Oregon

That's got to be a pain.

 

And please send a bag

To my darling boyfriend Clay

When you do not write to me,

You're oh so far away.

 

Ba-Ba Blacksheep have you any wool?

Bags and bags, and bags all full.

 

And then I added verses to the Nutmeg Song.

 

I have a little nutmeg who rides along with me.

Oh my little nutmeg is such good company.

I have a little nutmeg inside my pocket warm.

My little nutmeg and I can weather any storm.

Nutmeg nutmeg you're my little friend.

Her in my pocket, you're with me to the end.

I have a little nutmeg who rides along with me,

Oh my little nutmeg is such good company.

 

I have a little nutmeg who rides along with me

Oh my little nutmeg is such good comapny.

With my little nutmeg, together we do go,

Over frozen highways way up towards the LoLo

Nutmeg nutmeg, why aren't you afraid?

Nutmeg tells me "that's just the way I'm made."

I have a little nutmeg who rides along with me,

Oh my little nutmeg is such good company.

 

I have a little nutemg who rides along with me

Oh my little nutmeg is such good company.

My nutmeg is good and loyal without a doubt,

She'll stay in my pocket while I dig this van out.

Nutmeg, nutmeg, I'm tired, scaird, and blue,

But you know something, I'm glad that I've got you.

I have a little nutmeg who rides along with me,

Oh my little nutmeg is such good company.

 

Wishing you success in all your journeys.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier Rank 11

Nez Perce, Idaho

Point Two-Five

 

The new house in Eastern Oregon is now La Maison D'Ordure. Yes, we all know what that means in English and the title is well deseved. I found out what was in their boxes, the ones t hat were not marked Top Secret any way. My clearance is only Secret. If I don't mess with the Top Secret boxes, they can ride fully sealed in the back of my van. The ordinary boxes held Lean Cuisine, ready made dinners. None of the women or men at Maison D'Ordure know how to cook. They watch the nastiest comedy movies. I went and hid in the guestroom and read my Koran. They had nothing to eat besides their ready made dinners except white bread, peanut butter, and grape jelly. They did not even have eggs one could hard boil. They had no fresh fruits and vegetables and there was a burnt pot growing whatever a burnt pot grows on their kitchen stove, and yes, their garbage pail was overflowing. Had nobody taught these creatures to do KP?

 

The inhabitants of Maison D'Ordure are somewhat older than typical conscripts. I suspect they are all volunteers. Many of those who staff the very secret houses like this are volunteers. I am not sure what goes on in such houses. I have my suspicions but only because I have been an Independent Rainbow Employee and will be an Independent Rainbow Scholar when I get back to Cornell or for part of my time at Cornell. The government does pay for some of my college education due to my having been drafted for National Service.

 

Anyway, I was glad to get out of Maison D'Ordure and through the Clearwater. I was glad I had my own food and they let me in the office at Nez Perce on a Sunday to pee. I had to beg and plead to get inside. The lady who runs the office and who had to open it up for me, said she is going to mail a key to us at Ivy House because she knows that with all female drivers we need a place to pee before we go in to the woods with the vans and we can't pee in the woods in the winter time.

 

All this is deceptively good news. Even Leah's kasha casserole with peas and carrots and pearl onions was deceptively good news. The bad news is the "no news." I still do not have word about Clay. I have decided that what has happened to my love and boyfriend is one of four things, and I don't think it is the worst of the four things. I hope it is not the second worst.

 

First: Clay could be dead, but usually the military reports this to the family in which case, Clay's parents and sister would have told me. I'm just a girlfriend so I'm not officially in the loop. Clay's family knows nothing. I've checked with them and they too are worried. Therefore, I suspect Clay is still alive.

 

Second: Clay is missing in action. Since Clay was on a black op and we don't officially have troops in Turkemnistan if he went missing there, the government might say nothing. This is the real worst case scenario. I am hoping I am wrong about this and that Clay is all right.

 

Third: Clay is injured, but again, he should turn up if this is the case. Someone should inform his family even if they can't give a lot of details. They usually move injured service people off the battle fields of South Asia and the Middle East to a big hospital in Germany. No one has heard any word of this with Clay.

 

Fourth: Clay has found another girlfriend. All I could do was kiss him. He wanted someone who could give him more in a physical way and there are airwomen though not that many. It gets lonely on a black ops base in Turkmenistan. Clay might have just found someone else. Of course that wouldn't stop Clay from writing to his family, but they say they haven't heard from him either. Could they be lying? This is the least bad of the four options and I'll be angry but I swear I'll be gracious and glad Clay is alive and unharmed if I find out this is true. You can be both angry and glad at the same time. People are very good at mixed emotions.

 

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier Rank 11

LoLo, Idaho

Point Two-Five

 

Dear all,

Is any one awake out there tonight? I know I am two hours behind you. Sometimes it is three. Sometimes it is centuries. I have no cause to complain. When there were ice storms in the LoLo today, I proceeded with caution all the way to NezPerce, let myself in to pee, and then kept going all the way to the Testosterone Palace.

The storms grew worse and I phoned the base and emailed them for a DNP which is short for "do not proceed." I got a three hour delay, enough time for the worst of the storm to pass this morning. That meant I had time to kill in one of the worst dumps in the universe. Maybe the Sirius Gate these days is worse, but the Testosterone Palace in Powder, Oregon gives the good ship, Serius Gate, a run for its money.

Well, there I sat reading and praying and keeping to myself and my passenger(Yes, I was taking a passenger over the LoLo) noticed I was sulking a bit. I insisted everything was fine but finally I told him. I was sure he would laugh in my face and it would serve me right to be as worried as I am about Clay. I said that it was better he be alive and unhurt and found someone else and I had to live with that. I made my choices about physical relations and sordidness. Clay had a right feel differently and act on those feelings.

"You sound just like a girl," sighed Daniel. "Would you like to find out what really happened to Clay?" he asked next.

"How would you know?" I asked.

"I've got clearance. We can check the records."

Suffice it to say, I said yes. I'm glad of that now. I sat with Daniel in a basement room that should have been off limits in the Testosterone Palace basement and watched the database entry appear, words floating across a screen: Clay's name, his rank, his barnch of the service, and his serial number and then the rest.

Clay is alive. Clay is in Bilbao, Spain. Because he came out of a black operation, they did not send him to the usual hospital for injured service personnel which is in Frankfurt, Germany. Clay does not have good internet access. Clay is not mortally wounded. He was involved in some kind of battle field accident and his right leg was smashed. They are not going to amputate it. They want him stableized enough with pins and plates and artificial bone grafts to travel. That may be one to four weeks. When Clay arrives in the United States he will be at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Do you hear that Alise?

A big part of me is relieved. No one in the early twenty-first century dies of a severely broken leg. It's not a head wound or a broken back. And yes, I miss Clay, but my paritence can be renewed.

We arrived in Missoula after 0000 hours Mountain Standard Time. I stopped at a Burger King so Daniel could buy himself a meal, since he feels about Ivy House food the way we feel about food in the Testosterone Palace. Nadine had stayed up late for me, and there was reheated kasha casserole and cabbage salad with sliced dried apricots.

"I may as well give you a sneak preview of tomorrow's Report of the Day," Nadine said. "There were two disabled vehicles and one accident out of the Taos center. From what they've released, Taos couriers make Spokane transit look good. The brass wouldn't publicize this unless they were excedingly T'd off. How would you feel about helping to train new drivers and break them of bad habits?" Nadine asked.

"I don't want incompetent drivers," I answered. I wished Daniel was not sitting at the table eating his fast food and listening in.

"You may have to see they're not," answered Nadine.

"Are you getting transfered?" I asked her.

"Nobody knows squat," sighed Nadine. "I just sense a shake up. The Top Brass doesn't interfere unless there's a real royal screw up and someone gets hurt or killed or a van gets totalled."

I thought of Clay who got hurt working for his country. "I'll do whatever I have to," I said.

I still have to KP my van and take a turn to exercise my stiff muscles and work off dinner. Walking in the night, my thoughts will be of Clay. They will also be of the two drivers down in New Mexico and/or Colorado who had close calls. At least, I tell myself they are couriers which means they are somewhat brave at heart. I can't really abide cowards.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Driver Rank 11

Ivy House

Missoula, MT

Point Two-Five

 

Dear Alise and Dr. FitzRoy,

Thankyou for the kind words and the confirmation. Clay is far away. I am getting used to not writing him; for I fear he has no way to read emails.

There is more news here in Montana. Several days ago, there were two bad accidents involving drivers out of the Taos, New Mexico courier house. Apparently, the place is badly run and the top brass are doing something about it. They are transferring Dafna to take it over and transferring one of their drivers to take her place.

No I am not stepping in to Dafna's shoes. Leah will be our new 10 here. Nadine, Leah, and I will be training the new driver. Dafna has insisted she come up to Ivy House this weekend and she and Patricia, the new driver, will swap vans. Dafna fears that Patricia's van which will be her van, will be filthy and in poor condition. She wants Patricia's van checked and wants to make sure Patricia takes good care of the van she is getting.

There is an interesting story behind Patricia. She is from a wealthy family near Princeton, New Jersey. They wanted her back east and were willing to pull strings. Patricia told them: "no." I guess that is a good thing. Hopefully, Patricia will be a good fit.

Vijaya Naipul

Driver Rank 11

LoLo, Idaho

Point Two-Five