Alice, Part III: Legal Muscle
Merz;  mrmerz@yahoo.com
In the '80's I had some trouble with the law.  Alice helped me out.


JOHNNY In a lot of ways my life ended in the spring of 1987. To that point
when I compared myself to the people around me, I was doing great. I made a
lot of money and had a lawyer good enough to protect most of it through my
divorce. The marriage had been a quick three years and out mistake, and I
ended up with a good share of my stock portfolio and the big house in the
suburbs. My wife got enough that I didn't feel guilty and she didn't complain.
My job let me travel abroad frequently and a business trip to Thailand or the
Philippines can definitely be worth envying. I still resembled the triathelete
I had been before my job took up all my time so that I could no longer train.
I dressed to show off my trim build and height. I was a young executive at a
company known for aggressive young executives. In the Reagan Recession I had
learned the secret of laying off hundreds of employees in the afternoon and
sleeping like a baby all night. Part of the secret got me in trouble when I
overindulged one evening after work. The product development VP took some
pleasure in letting me know my idea for a line of rock climbing shoes and
equipment had been vetoed. The company doesn't like its executives to come up
with bad ideas so I knew I was heading for a period of falling status and
fewer perks. I tried buffering that news at a club in town. The police got me
going 65 in a 45 mph zone on the way home. The Breathalyzer didn't travel as
far up the scale as I had put it before, but well into inebriated territory. I
foolishly agreed to a drug test when they got me to the station. My thoughts
turned toward my lawyer only after I heard my rights and had let them draw
blood for the test.

"I'm J.B. Smith and I demand to be released immediately. It's outrageous that
I've been held this long," I shouted at some clerk behind a desk at three in
the morning. When he just yawned and shuffled forms around I turned on my heel
and began storming away only to run into a wall. The wall stood 5 feet 5
inches and wore a zipper front sweatshirt, sweat pants and clogs. I bounced
back a step, drew breath for another tirade, then looked at the curly blonde
hair pulled back in a ponytail, and the familiar smile with that cute gap
between the front teeth. "Hey, Johnny," said Alice, "What brings you to the
world of cops and robbers?"

When I had last seen Alice she had been starving to get her weight low and her
body fat into negative numbers for a bodybuilding contest. Now she looked much
healthier with nice wide planes to her face, the familiar broad shoulders, and
about 160 or 165 pounds of total weight. She looked great.

"Alice! What's it been, ten years? I'm being railroaded here. The police have
my car impounded and refuse to let me go home. It's all a big
misunderstanding, but heads will roll when my lawyer gets down here. How about
you? Have the Gestapo grabbed you for jaywalking?"

Her smile faded some and she looked more closely at me. "I left teaching a few
years ago and got my MSW. I was doing counseling in high school and decided to
move up to adults. Then I moved here and work across the street in
corrections. I'm a parole officer and had to drop off one of my clients who
wasn't ready to reenter the real world."

"Wow! Maybe you have some pull around here. Is there anything you can do to
get me out of this mess and fix this little misunderstanding?"

"Be careful what you ask for, Johnny, you may get it," she said slowly. "If
you want and if you will keep the lawyers out of it, I will see what I can do
about your problem."

I thanked her and begged her to do whatever she could. Old friends in the
right places, I thought to myself, can really come in handy.

Alice told me to take a seat while she looked into the matter. In about half
an hour she was back. "I got them to release you to me, Johnny. You'll be able
to go home tonight, but you will forfeit your drivers license for a year
because of the DUI's. I've been up all night and I want to shower and change
now. Meet me in my office across the street in two hours. We'll talk about
your next steps then. Now, go down to the cafeteria and have whatever meal you
think it's time for. I'll see you in a little while."

I was prompt for our appointment, if a little groggy. I don't know if the
corrections office was waking up for the day or if it was busy around the
clock, but a receptionist directed me back to Alice's cubicle. It was a tiny
space with two tall file cabinets and a bookcase taking most of the space. A
small desk with a chair wedged in on both sides completed the cramped scene.
Serving as a paperweight on top of a tall stack of file folders and papers was
a big hexagonal dumbbell weighing 60 pounds. Alice had had it when we met in
college and called it her lucky charm. She rose from behind the desk and
greeted me. She had changed from sweats into stirrup pants and a blazer. She
lifted the dumbbell effortlessly and pulled a file folder from the top of the
stack. I saw the sleeve of the blazer tighten around her upper arm like it
could burst. "You're still lifting weights, I see. Do you compete anymore?" I
asked.

She hefted the dumbbell then replaced it on the stack. "No, you saw my last
hurrah as a bodybuilder. Even if I could have been reinstated like my friend
Gail eventually was, you persuaded me I wasn't meant to chase anyone else's
idea of what I should look like. I might do pretty well these days if I
trained because the fashion is for more muscle on the competitors, but I don't
do fashion. I predict tastes will change back again in a while and just swing
like a pendulum between thin and beefy. I don't care. Besides, I'm tainted
goods. Christopher had me take a couple steroid shots to get me even leaner.
Any effects will have worn off long ago, but I still would know I wasn't drug
free. It's about my integrity, not whether anybody else would say anything or
prove anything. That keeps me from thinking about power lifting contests as
well - that and the fact I think going for maximum weights is too risky for my
joints. I lift so I'll be strong, not so I'll be stronger than somebody else.
Let's go into the conference room."

The conference room was large, square and windowless. Accordion dividers
allowed it to be split into quarters, but they were open now. A conference
table sat in the middle of one quarter with stacking chairs around the table
and piled along the walls.

Alice sat me opposite her at the table and tossed the file folder across at
me. It contained my police records and made dismal reading. Three DUI's and
notes of a few stops where I was only borderline. The comments from the police
officers indicated I was belligerent and uncooperative.

"Here's your bad news," Alice told me. "The good news is I'm your friend. The
drug test you agreed to came back positive for cocaine, but that report found
its way to my hands instead of the DA. Officially you're just a bad drunk who
will lose his license to drive."

"But you can fix that too, can't you? I work across town and I need to drive
just to get around." I felt I was sounding cool and calm despite my rising
panic.

She sat forward and stared at me. "I wouldn't fix it if I could. You got three
more swings than you deserve and now you're out. You proved you aren't
responsible enough for a car. Luckily for you, you have a bicycle to ride
around on."

"That's ridiculous. I own a racing bike. There's no way to get around town and
run errands on that machine. I need to have my car," I sputtered.

"'Need' is not a word I use lightly, Johnny."

She was showing no emotion one way or another in the face of my outbursts.
"There are plenty of residential streets you can take from your suburb to your
office and to the store. And we have a good bus system. If you don't like the
bike you have I can drive you to Forest Park and you can trade your BMW for
any mountain bike you see there. I'm sure we can find a kid your size willing
to make the swap."

"You're joking," I sneered, seeing very clearly that she was in no mood for
jokes.

"I'd say you would come out ahead on that deal. You give up the expense of a
car you no longer can drive and you get a bike that will take you anywhere.
You'll find they're quite practical and fun. I have one." She sat back in her
chair and made a tent with her fingers in front of her face. "The car is just
the start. You could do jail time, but I'm not letting you off that easily. I
had you assigned to me for your community service. It's my job to give people
a fresh start in life. Every few months I'm assigned a new group just getting
out of jail. I put them through a 90-day program to put them on their feet and
moving in a positive direction. You won't officially be a part of the group
that starts Wednesday evening because you weren't jailed. You'll be my
temporary assistant but I'll expect exactly the same from you as I do from
them."

"Now wait a minute. You can't treat me like some sort of criminal. Alice,
we've known each other a long time, but if I need to get my lawyer involved to
put this matter right, I may not be able to save you from being hurt," I told
her, speaking very evenly.

"Threats?" she asked with an amused look. "It often comes to threats, although
most of the people passing through my program don't try threatening me with
lawyers. They're braver and more honest than you." She stood up and removed
her blazer, folded it and laid it on the table. She was wearing a sleeveless
pink blouse that accented the size of her upper arms and shoulders. They had
never needed accentuating, but now they seemed to surge out of the blouse. In
the ten years since I had seen her she looked to have added over an inch
around her arms and they looked solid. Every move - folding the blazer,
tugging down the bottom of her blouse - set her biceps stirring like animals
pacing beneath the skin.

She walked around the table and stood in front of me. "You are a criminal,
Johnny. You put yourself at my mercy because you couldn't obey the law. You
will obey me because you have no choice." She squatted suddenly and gripped
the arms of my chair and heaved. Her arms swelled with power as she stood up
and I rose into the air. "You were never a match for me. Now you've threatened
me. I don't respond well to threats and I will deal directly with you for it,
not with your lawyer. Do you understand me?" I reached down to grasp her arms
as she held me at chest height in the chair. Her arms felt like iron under my
trembling hands.

"I'm sorry. Please, put me down. Let's be reasonable about this," I pleaded.

She set the chair back down and returned to her seat. "From now until the end
of the program you will address me as Ms Abot and you are Mr. Smith. For the
next 90 days I own you. If you displease me, if you break any of my rules, if
I suspect you are not fully committed to the program I will either punish you
myself or I will bring your drug test back from limbo and you will go to jail.
These are not threats, these are promises I am making to you. Do you
understand, Mr. Smith?"

"Yes, Ms Abot" I replied meekly.

"Good. This is your lucky day, Mr. Smith. Most criminals have to spend time
behind bars before getting the opportunity of my program. You get to skip over
that part. Now you may go home. By bus. I will see you at 6:30 Wednesday
evening in this room."

She put her blazer back on and left. I sat for several long minutes wondering
what I had gotten myself into and frantically trying to figure a way out.

* * *

ALICE I met my new group on Wednesday. As their parole officer I was to
monitor their progress reentering society. The program I had set up worked to
get them started off right. Many people coming out of jail or prison carry the
same dysfunctional attitudes that got them in trouble with the law in the
first place. My methods are sometimes unconventional but have shown good
results in breaking down bad habits and replacing them with more productive
and socially acceptable ones.

The new group of 15 men and women ran the usual gamut of shapes, ages and
colors. In the six years I've been in corrections I've seen a wide sample of
society come and go. I had met each of my new group individually to be sure
they were set up in acceptable lodging and were on track to getting the sorts
of jobs available to people with recent criminal records. As usual I dressed
carefully for this initial group meeting in snug black mariachi-style pants
with silver studs up the sides, a red silk shirt, wide belt with large silver
conchos, and cowboy boots. It is clearly a costume but has dramatic impact the
one time the group sees a professional person dressed this way.

As each member of the group entered I shook hands until the last person,
Wallace Norman, showed up a few minutes past 6:30. When he reached forward to
shake I grasped his hand and crushed it with all my strength. He got a shocked
expression and sank to his knees before me.

"Mr. Norman, from now on you will always be the first person to arrive. Do I
make myself clear?" I snapped at him. He answered "Yes, Ms Abot," and I
released him to take his chair. Wallace Norman had used the last few years in
jail to lift weights and cultivate a defiant attitude as shown by his arriving
a little late to see how far he could push my program boundaries. I would have
found some excuse to establish my physical dominance even if he hadn't been
late on the first night. In my program I can not allow anyone else to compete
with me as a physical threat to the other members. Wallace Norman had history
as the sort who bullied others and would try to intimidate parole officers. I
used a cheap trick by striking when he was unprepared and unsure of his place
in the new environment. The old crusher handshake had the desired effect. The
bones of the hand are small and readily attacked if the victim is taken by
surprise. Had he been able to resist that, I was prepared to kick him in the
balls with my cowboy boots to achieve my objective.

I explained my program once they were all seated in a semi- circle around me.
I introduced Johnny as my assistant who would help meet their needs for next
90 days and help me assure all the conditions of their parole were met.

I summarized the four primary dimensions. First, they had to respect
themselves physically in order to take a place among the rest of society. If
they were ashamed of their bodies they would lack the basic pride needed to
face up to daily challenges and set backs. They would be more prone to abuse
alcohol and drugs. I gave each of them the name and address of a gym in their
own parts of town that would be expecting them to register. A personal trainer
would set them up with a program to address the goal each of them would begin
working toward, whether it be strength, weight loss, endurance or whatever. At
this point I stood behind Wallace Norman's chair and commented to the group
that he had made a most impressive start on his strength training, and I put
my hands on his massive shoulders. This was to show him I had nothing against
him personally despite my aggressive beginning. As I played up to him a bit he
enjoyed it and seemed not to hold a grudge. By first establishing dominance
and then extending the favor of my positive attention, I could count on his
assuming the desired role in the group. The second toughest person in the
group couldn't challenge me as long as Wallace Norman held rank, and only a
fool would challenge Wallace Norman.

I told them that I would be checking up to be sure they were at their gyms for
at least an hour a day, five days a week. I would check the records of their
progress and attendance and would sometimes personally drop in on their
workouts. That part of my program has a somewhat selfish aspect. With the
various clients I have working through their paroles, I get to spend a few
hours every day working out myself. Much of my work happens at my desk
checking in with clients who have completed the program and are working
through their periods of parole, so time out of the office is welcome. I am
responsible for plenty like Wallace Norman who get a thrill out of pumping
heavy iron with the lady from corrections. Despite my tough façade and unusual
strength I am a five foot five inch woman whom these big thugs could crush in
a fair fight. I would never allow them a fair fight, but by my being one of
the guys at the weight benches we never come into conflict.

Next I talked about finances, our second dimension. I gave them each a budget
form where they could ration out a minimal income to meet their expenses.
Anything left from what they actually earned went into a savings account they
were to set up. For Johnny I modified things to include payment of the
mortgage on his big house in the suburbs and credit card debts but no extras.
Years before he had set up a diversion of income through his employer so a
portion of his pay got invested automatically. Still, I was shocked to see how
much he seemed to spend, living paycheck to paycheck on a six figure salary.

That was ironic. On a tip from Johnny I had been investing in his company
since he started there. With stock splits and options I have a sizeable nest
egg now. I use the dividends to subsidize my clients at their gyms. By a
combination of my invisible subsidy, the generosity of the various facilities
offering reduced rates for my clients, and the gratitude of former clients
paying back into my system even a client in a minimum wage job gets to belong
to a gym for three months. Most find room in their budgets to continue after
the program.

The budget exercise also involves the clients allocating their monthly wage
among normal expenses: rent, food, utilities, clothing, etc. Then we do it
again with a 10% reduction in pay so they prioritize expenses and look ahead
for ways to get by if belts need to be tightened. Finally, we make a budget
adding 20% to get them thinking about improving their standard of living, but
with the stipulation that a portion of the increase go to benefit someone
other than themselves.

The third dimension looks at jobs as something more than a place to be eight
hours a day. They chart out layers of benefit from their jobs, from direct
consumers to suppliers, and wider groups in the community and society. Then
they work out ways to portray how they wish they could benefit others with as
many specifics as they can provide and describe an existing job that would
meet that description. For most, it is the first time they have thought about
making an effort that isn't purely selfish, that identifies their labor with
the well being of others: other cons, others of their race, children not their
own, victims of abuses they themselves may have suffered.

I take every opportunity for members of the group to share their particular
skills with the rest. Some former prostitutes had good insights into grooming
and dressing for effect, even when the desired effect wasn't a sexual
transaction. A mid-level drug pusher was a big help to others in working out
household budgets and systems of cash management. A couple of the women had
suggestions on meal planning for economical nutrition, such as cooking a large
quantity and freezing enough for several meals through the week. Some had no
skills to offer: the pettiest of thieves, abused wives who had been turned out
to deal drugs or sell themselves at the bus station, gang members who had gone
from high school to jail terms without having established any individual
skills or identity. These people provide the most to the group because the
others can see them learn and grow in every way, and can feel some ownership
in helping another person improve.

Johnny fell right into the spirit of helping others in the group. He worked
with anyone wanting to get serious about jogging, the lowest cost exercise
program possible, and provided remaindered shoes and clothing from his
employer. He tutored several who had never finished, and one who had never
begun, high school. He even introduced Wallace Norman and a couple others to
rock climbing where they would deliberately trust someone else with their
physical safety for the first time in their lives. I didn't push him to share
details of his budgeting, job analysis or plans for sharing benefits because
he was ostensibly my assistant. But I did insist that he do each exercise and
give the results to me like homework.

The week before each group's final meeting I sit down with the members
individually to start them on a goal setting exercise, our fourth dimension.
In one corner of a sheet of paper they write or draw something that symbolizes
their current condition. In the opposite corner they symbolize the thing they
want most in life. Then they fill the rest of the sheet with the obstacles
they will have to overcome to reach their goal, the intermediate
accomplishments they will need to achieve along the way, and other milestones
that will mark their progress. It's a surprisingly powerful exercise. I meet
routinely with each person in my caseload until the term of his or her parole
is up. We go over their goal sheets, discuss their progress and setbacks and
refine goals as circumstances and visions change. * * *

YVONNE Alice - Ms Abot - had come by the gym where she had assigned me to do
my exercising the night Raymond tracked me down. It was just a little old
YWCA, but the folks there were real nice to me, and they got me started with
their aerobics class at 9:00 p.m. after I got off my job at the restaurant.
Sometimes Ms Abot would join in the aerobics and sometimes she and I would go
off and do other exercises by ourselves so we could talk about how my life was
going and how the other girls were doing in the program. She had had me work
with some of those poor things so they could start dressing themselves and
tending to their hair and makeup and all. I swear, some of those white trash
girls had never learned how to make a man take one look at them. I wasn't
doing them up like they were going into the trade like I had been, just so it
looked like they had a little pride in themselves and didn't look so hang dog.
Anyway, it felt good to help out these girls, help them get started earning
their own way and all.

That Ms Abot was really something. She didn't like calling attention to
herself at the gym. She'd dress in regular old gym clothes and just do her
aerobics or stretching or whatever we were doing. But when we'd shower after a
workout I got to see the muscles on that woman and my eyes just about popped
out of my head. I saw some of the other girls in the locker room were kind of
stealing glances, too, but Ms Abot just went about her business like everybody
else. She wore a zipper sweat shirt and sweat pants over her gym clothes when
she came, then put the sweaty things in a plastic bag inside her shoulder bag
when she was done and just dress in the sweats to go home.

So this one night we're about the last ones out of the building. We're half
way across the parking lot to her car because she was going to give me a ride
home when my old pimp Raymond drives up and gets out of his big car. Raymond
starts in about how he heard I was out and was disappointed he had to come
hunting me instead of me calling him right away. I told him I was through with
the street, that I had a chance to get my little boy back from his grandmother
where he'd been living, and that he wasn't going to do anything t spoil that.
Then Ms Abot said I was with her and Raymond ought to go about his business
and forget he ever knew me. That Raymond reached out and grabbed a hold of me
and you could just tell that was what Ms Abot was expecting. She stepped in
and took hold of his wrist and gave it a good sharp twist that had him yelping
and wriggling. That would have been that except that big dumb Tyler who runs
with Raymond came boiling out of the car and gave Ms Abot a crack across the
side of her head before I could even warn her. She was staggering and Tyler
grabbed her threw her down hard on the parking lot. She rolled over and lost
her shoulder bag, but I grabbed that right up. She started to get up when big
brave Raymond came in and kicked her in the side. She rolled over and started
coming up again. Raymond went to give her another kick, but this time she was
ready. She blocked his kick with one arm and kept standing up. She grabbed his
crotch in one hand and his throat with the other and just kept coming up,
lifting Raymond right off the ground. He was trying to holler or scream
because of where her right hand was squeezing him, but nothing could get out
because of her left hand around his throat. She gave him a shake and dumped
him down on the pavement and turned so this time she was ready for that Tyler.
He swung at her head but she blocked that, then he swung at her belly and she
just let that bounce off. I was real scared because that Tyler is a big mean
man. I was holding Ms Abot's shoulder bag tight against me when I felt
something hard inside it. I knew right away that was Ms Abot's gun because
parole officers are supposed to be armed as part of their job. I fished this
little snub nose .38 out her bag and figured I was going to shoot down both
those men as soon as I got an opening. But I didn't get a chance with Tyler.
After he hit Ms Abot in the stomach and she acted like she didn't even feel
it, she reached out quick with both hands and grabbed hold tight in his
armpits, with her thumbs squeezing in on the outside and her fingers digging
deep inside. Tyler gave a yell and tried to get her off him but holding him
like she was he couldn't reach in and hit her or grab her. He looked to be
hurting bad and he went down on his knees from it. Ms Abot brought her own
knee up hard and smacked him on the chin. His head snapped back and when it
came forward again she gave him another knee on his nose. There came a bunch
of blood and she just let him fall over on his face.

I looked over at Raymond kind of curled up squirming and holding himself and
throwing up on the ground. I figured we had him this time but he was the sort
of snake you couldn't turn your back on. I went over sat down on his chest
with my knees holding his arms. With one hand I grabbed his hair and told him
to look at me. He kind of focused his eyes so I stuck that little pistol right
in his messy mouth and told him this was goodbye. He had tried to spoil my
life one time too many and I cocked back the hammer. Ms Abot came and put her
hand on my shoulder and took the pistol away before I could pull the trigger.
She told me I didn't have to kill that bastard, that she had fixed him
permanent with a lesson in respecting women. Then she said, right down in
Raymond's face, that if she ever saw him again or even heard his name again,
she would finish the job and make him sorrier than he was now. And she told
him we were going inside to call the police so he had about three minutes to
help Tyler so they were both gone before she came back out and beat them until
the police arrived.

Ms Abot was a little messed up after the fighting and rolling on the ground
and all. We banged on the door of the YWCA and the janitor let us in. We told
her a little about the fight but didn't call the police. Ms Abot didn't think
that would be worth our while. The janitor said we could get cleaned up back
in the locker room and just let ourselves out when we were ready, that she had
hours of work before she got to the locker room.

So we went in there and Ms Abot was looking at where she got scraped up on her
elbow and her shirt torn. I went up to the registration desk where they keep a
first aid kit. I found that and when I went back in the locker room she had
her sweatshirt off and was in front of the big mirror looking at this bloody
strawberry scrape on her elbow. I came up and this time I wasn't stealing
little peeks at her body. I just stared. She had her arm bent so she could see
the scrape in the mirror, and that just piled up a muscle on her arm like I've
never seen on a woman. I've been with plenty of men proud of their muscles, at
least the ones above their waists, but not a woman like this. I reached over
and put my hand across the top and kind of rubbed it. She asked if I thought
she had too much muscle for a woman, and I said no, I sure didn't think that
tonight, and we both laughed. Then instead of just having her arm bent she
straightened it out and then flexed that big muscle. That thing got big as a
baseball and so hard! She was standing there with one hand on her hip and this
arm flexed that I was stroking, and her stomach was flat with six squares like
panes of glass in a window frame showing where her stomach muscles were and
she was looking right in my eyes. I bent down a little and kissed that nice
hard muscle of hers, and gave it a kind of a lick with my tongue. Then I
looked in her eyes some. Then I put out my hand and stroked her breast some,
and gave it a kiss and a little lick. She made a little noise and put her hand
down onto my hip. I rubbed her breast a little more, then ran my knuckles
slowly down across that flat stomach and felt it get tensed and ridged as I
moved down. I hooked my finger in the top of her sweat pants and just looked
into her eyes.

She undid my shirt and pulled it down, and my bra and we each started working
on the others pants. We stood there looking at our naked bodies for a bit,
then I pulled her over to the bench. We straddled the bench kissing and
caressing and I pushed her down so I could go to work all over. I guessed I
wasn't the first woman she had made love with, but it wasn't a regular thing,
you know what I mean? I worked her pussy with my tongue and my fingers and
stroked that fine body in all the sweet places. When she came I was lying on
top of her with her feet braced down on the floor and I could feel all those
big muscles erupt so hard I felt like I was lying right on the wooden bench.
When that passed we hugged some more and I told her it was one of my most
exciting rides. I rubbed my fingers on my pussy and showed her they were wet,
too. She took my fingers into her mouth, then she gathered me into her arms
like I was light as a little child and she worked me up and down like I had
done with her until I had an explosion of my own. I felt just like I was
floating there in those gentle strong arms of hers.

We showered quickly when we recovered ourselves. I put a band aid on her elbow
and gave her a kiss on this nasty bruise Raymond had caused by kicking her in
the ribs. Then we went back out, turning off the lights again.

We didn't see any sign of Raymond or Tyler but Ms Abot kept her gun in her
hand inside her pocket. She drove me home and said before I got out of her
car, "Tonight has to be a dream. Part of it was a nightmare and part of it was
a wonderful dream. I expected this session of the program was going to be all
my private nightmare. But you know it was a dream?" And I said I knew it was
all a dream, because a woman can't be romancing her parole officer male or
female and a parole officer sure can't go romancing a parolee. So it was all
just a dream, but I didn't understand why she expected our whole ninety days
to be a nightmare for her.

* * *

JOHNNY That Wednesday I was sitting on my deck watching the sunset. With my 90
day probation over I was free from Alice and her program. I was free to go out
for a few drinks, or spend money until the credit card people made me stop.
Earlier in the week I heard another exec bragging about the new stereo
speakers he had just bought, a set of four that could shake his house and
convince you the New York Philharmonic was sawing away right behind your
chair. The same company had an even larger and grander system that three
months of enforced financial discipline brought within my reach. I didn't want
to do any of it. I tried to think of some way to celebrate escaping Alice and
her sacred program.

As I sat watching the sun across my back yard I heard the doorbell. I looked
through the window on my way to the front door and froze. Alice. She had
already seen me so I couldn't pretend I wasn't home.

"Good evening, Ms Abot. What brings you here?" She was dressed as I'd never
seen her, in a little black dress with fishnet hose and black pumps.

"It's graduation night, Johnny, and we can go back to first names. The group
is out having dinner together. I wanted to see if you felt like you had
graduated and to see how much this past three months has cost me." She
stammered on the last part and forced herself to meet my gaze. She held up a
bottle of champagne.

"Cost you? You seemed to be having a pretty good time acting the queen bitch
over a roomful of people too weak to stand up to you."

She flushed bright red. "They can stand up to me. Now. Just like you can,
keeping me standing on your porch. They can stand up to me or anyone else now
because they've thought about what they believe is worth standing up for, for
the first time in their lives."

I asked her in and went to get champagne glasses. We sat on my deck and
toasted graduation. Her dress was tastefully chosen. It didn't call attention
to her physique unless she was bending steel or lifting a truck or some other
activity that would require some exertion from her. She looked like any fit,
stocky woman in her mid-thirties.

"So where do you go from here, Johnny? Where do we go? Can you tell me if I'll
ever see you in my professional capacity again?"

I told her I doubted it, but that she might. "My company will be hiring more
parolees in the future. It seemed like a smart move, what with news stories of
ghetto kids shooting each other to steal our $100 basketball shoes. If our
logo is stimulating crime we need to be more pro-active on the other side. We
might need some liaison work with corrections to make it work out."

"And you made that happen," she stated.

I shrugged and said I might have helped things along. I didn't tell her the
company was also putting up money and, of course, clothes for a pilot project
in several communities to get released prisoners into exercise programs. She
would learn about that soon enough.

"You'll be able to drive again in nine months. Any chance that will lead to
trouble again?" she asked.

"None at all. I don't keep alcohol in the house now, and the times I've gone
anywhere I thought I might have a drink I've had my transportation lined up
ahead of time. Of course, being without a car makes that pretty much
automatic, but it's become a habit I think I'll keep."

"Warren Randolph from the group says you and he are training together for the
marathon in September. You look more fit."

I told her that was true. I hadn't run one in a few years, and someone like
Warren looking ahead to his first marathon can really benefit from a little
coaching and advice from someone who has run 26 miles before. I added that I
was swimming in the morning now and thought I might try a short triathalon in
the fall as well.

We sipped our champagne for a few silent minutes. She stood up and reached
behind her to unzip her dress. She stepped out of it and removed the camisole
to stand naked to the waist in front of me.

"And us, Johnny? What about us? When I saw you three months ago I saw a man
running out of control who didn't seem to mind who got hurt along the way. Now
you're making choices that reflect compassion and responsibility. What do you
see when you look at me? What's changed?"

She undid her hair and let it frame her face. "Do you still like my muscles?"
she asked, crossing her arms in front of her and flexing her entire upper
body. Then she turned and made her back seethe with strength as she flexed
both biceps.

"Yes," I stammered, "you're so beautiful, so strong and so beautiful."

"And would you like to feel my muscles?" she breathed at me, shifting poses to
highlight different parts.

I started to rise and reach for her, then sank back. "I can't," I said. "I
don't deserve to. You're so strong and honest and clean. I'm a bad drunk and a
coward. I don't dare come close to you, not now."

Her eyes teared up and she said, "I was afraid of something like that." She
began to dress. "That's what the program has cost me, Johnny. You had to see
me in one role for it to work and now you can't see me as a woman who cares
about you and wants to be with you. To me you're still the wonderful man I met
in college but you think you have failed somehow. I see someone who hit a bump
in the road, but to you it feels like you fell off a cliff. You did your
probation and got things back under control so I can forget the whole thing.
But you feel like you have to climb all the way back up the cliff, am I
right?"

I swallowed hard and said, yes, that was about how it felt to me.

"I went through the same sort of thing when I saw you at the end of my
bodybuilding days. I had lost my sense of who I was and what was important. It
took me years to recover. I moved here a couple years ago when I thought I had
found my way again. Then I heard you were married and I thought I had been too
late to get back in your life. You'll always be able to find me when you want
to. You don't have to do anything to earn my respect or prove anything to me.
Just let me know when you're ready. Now I had better go." And I just let her
leave. I looked at the champagne remaining in the bottle and poured it down
the sink.

When she was gone I sat down at my desk and took a clean sheet of paper. At
the upper left corner, signifying the starting point, I wrote my name. In the
opposite corner signifying the goal I wrote Alice's name. Then I just sat
there as the night grew quieter, staring at the expanse of white in between.
For the rest of the week and through the weekend I spent my spare hours
staring at it and identifying what in my life wasn't helping me toward my
goal. The blank paper looked as wide as Siberia, like it would take me a
thousand years to get across it. On Monday I took my first step. I went to my
boss and gave two weeks notice that I was quitting. After that the journey got
easier. It only took me ten years.