Sean and Jared have a long conversation about their beliefs and fears. Sean mentions that everyone wants to fuck Aaren. Jared is angered and conflicted about having expressed his feelings about her because everyone knows he’s with Char.

6. THE MESSENGER

Jared’s back in the Catholic seminary as Friar Otto. Friar Alfred, a slightly older, ex-Vietnam

veteran sniper and a photographer shows Jared shocking pictures of the war. He tells Friar Otto: Abruptly, with ambush startle, Alfred is back at Otto. “How the fuck can

you, in here? Look, you g-gotta get out of here. In here you, they—you know!—they'll lead you into false worship. You'll end up being a priest, not a saint. That's what you want, r-right, to be a saint?” ....“The children. He was always talking about ‘the children.’ How God does not want us to kill the children.” Friar Otto leaves the monastery, becoming Jared Jennings again.

7. THE LAST RALLY – January 1971

Jared listens at a rally as Aaren spouts her Maoist beliefs about “Revolution comes out of the barrel of a gun.” She snubs him. He speaks to the crowd about the pending trial and the shift in America after Kent State, the invasion of Cambodia, and other transforming events of the times. He realizes that the crowd is small, the day is freezing, and he calls for courage in others to continue protesting as he enters prison.

8. THE LAST NIGHT BEFORE

Char, a nonviolent feminist activist, shares Jared’s Catholic background. She doesn’t want to marry because she’s committed to the feminist cause. They are deeply, tenderly in love. Their conversation and relationship this night reflects the vision, joy, and erotic thrills of the free sex era with its companion fears, pains, and disappointments.

“Fuck it, Char, fuck it all. Fuck it all! You and I simply don't live on the same planet. Jesus, woman, tomorrow I'm going to prison, and all you care, all you fucking do, is go to meetings.” Then he gets downright nasty. “Ratting and tatting with your bitchy queer friends.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Char stands and grasps a window's ledge. No light comes to her eyes, but the warmth of darkness soothes her. A jagged silence vibrates between them.

“Jared,” spoken smoothly and firmly, announced, “I love my Sisters, and I want to be, will be, with them for a long time. It’s real, you're going to prison but—but we are in prison. I have always been in prison.”

9. THE DAY OF SURRENDER – January 5, 1971

Jared, the youngest of seven, meets with three of his siblings, Larry, Eddie, and Marian. His others sibs don’t attend this off-to-prison breakfast. Larry is a Korean War vet and Jared’s hero. Marian is the oldest and a hard-nosed nurse. Eddie’s a corporate accountant. They want Jared to either cop a guilty plea or go to Canada. They’ve made all the arrangements. Jared’s family dynamics, especially his close spiritual relationship with his deceased father, a World War II veteran, are shown. Jared’s expresses his convictions and commitment to staying in America to work for peace, even though in prison.

PART II– PRISON

10. THE FIRST NIGHT BACK INSIDE

Back in county, waiting to go to federal prison, Jared reflects on his recent visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. A pompous confessor led to Jared’s aborting his confession and, for the final time, rejecting the Catholic faith. He then visited his uncle, a famous and influential theologian who is his mentor/adversary. He’s known to all as “Uncle Sam.” To Jared’s amazement, Uncle Sam has changed from a “soldier of Christ” to a mystic. He relates that during his early years as a sickly priest, while on a mission, he had survived Nagasaki. He and Jared thrash out the war/peace beliefs of the Church, argue about key themes of the times, but in the end absolve one another.

Wordlessly, his most valued gift, the crucifix presented to him by a group

of hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he loops from his neck

and presses into Jared's hand. It is the presence of Him, salvaged from the

wreckage of a melted Buddha by a craftsman whose creative light the

Bomb could never extinguish.

Jared carries the hibakusha throughout his journey into prison and beyond.

11. DRIVING TO PRISON: MILLSTON, FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION (FCI)

Jared’s county jail to federal prison driver is a FBI agent, which is a bit unusual. Normally, a federal marshal escorts transfers. The agent talks about the war, and judges Jared to be a deceived youth. He compares Jared to a recently deceased Black agent, Arthur.

He likes to think of their role as Guardians. Somehow it has a scriptural tinge to it that’s fitting. And he knows Mr. Hoover is fond of it. However, now they’re coming closer to the prison. And this young fellow, high in his ideals, but quite odd in how he squares what he thinks with what he does, will be out of his hands in a small bucket of minutes. That’s one of the problems with this fellow. He just doesn’t understand. “You still don’t understand, even standing at the gates of prison! That your imprisonment is your freedom. Someone who did what you did would be dead by now in most parts of the world. You just don't understand that prison is the proof of the truth of our democracy. Otherwise, I'd be driving your hearse!"

The agent presents the Establishment’s view of anti-war radicals like Jared.

12. SEGREGATION

Jared goes through the naked, bug spray Admission and Orientation process. He becomes number 8867-147. Then he’s thrown into Segregation. He doesn’t know why. Weirdly, it’s a pastel blue Holiday Inn type room. He freaks out when they bring him a humongous steak with several sides. He throws the food against the wall and then strips.

Rages while systematically, as if driven by ritual obligation, kicking each wall. Then, he pees. Zips out his cock and pisses a little here, a little there, marking out his territory, setting warnings to astral intruders. Then he takes the tray and smashes it against the back wall. Turns and slashes each wall with the hard chrome edge of the tray. That done, he grabs a spoon and begins to randomly, but with intensity, bang on the tray. Blonk! Bing! Thwack! Thwack! Nothing harmonious, rather increasing in energy as he hums louder as the clanging gets louder. Then, suddenly, Jared jerks to full stop. He throws the tray and then his bedding onto the floor. He starts to strip and tear his clothes. Fumbles at buttons, rips, whips off shirt and pants, BVDs and socks. He is birthday naked. He spends three weeks in Seg.

13. TROUBLEMAKER

Before being let out of Seg, Jared’s taken to an “Adjustment Committee” meeting. They threaten him with severe punishment if he tries to organize. He’s amused. If there’s anything he doesn’t want to do is more time in Seg. He’s told, “I know how you think and how you dream!”

14. THE POPULATION – February 1971

Jared is released to the Population but encounters suspicion from his fellow draft resisters since rumors fly about his special escort by the FBI agent and his wild time in Seg. He’s introduced to the racial and sexual geography of prison.

15. THE GAME

Jared is a basketball jock, top talent. He plays against a black phenom, Moses. Their game nearly causes a riot.

16. EVENING REVERIE-ESCAPE! – late January 1971

The border between violence and nonviolence gets slenderer with each day.

Jared struggles with the deep violence that girds his nonviolence. He begins to plan an escape.

“What isn't violence? We are accepting being here. Doesn’t that make us

collaborators? Good soldiers?”

Escape; only escape. Or, the effort at it brings back the possibility of living within the thoughts and images of their past lives of Resistance....

He hates himself; has wanted to escape even before he entered the first remote-controlled gate. Something deep within lunged at his mind, yelled at him, “Don’t go! Escape!”

17. MOM’S VISIT

A visit with his mom, sister Delores and her fiancé, Gene, provides insights about the family, including his deceased father. The close bond with his mom is described. The Waiting Room hack upbraids Mom for not sitting correctly.

18. CHAR’S VISIT: ELLEN – February 1, 1971

Char and Jared were living together before prison. He laments how masturbation is the only way he can feel alive while Inside.

“Char, it may seem perverse to you, and often it does to me, but if I don't masturbate I feel less than alive. Yet when I do, I feel so much the desert spaces of our life in here. Don't think it's guilt or sin, nothing like that. Probably though, if I'm honest, it's more a sense of being so utterly futile. Goddam!" Jared knows he must stop talking. "Goddam, I hate where I am and what I'm becoming."

She brings up that she’s joined a woman’s collective, which Jared anticipated, but then says that she has taken a lesbian lover. Jared is experiencing the “Dear John” scenario that occurs regularly in prison. He feels abandoned—truly alone.

19. CHAR’S VISIT: PREGNANT – February 25, 1971

Char tells Jared about life in the woman’s collective—and then, that’s she’s pregnant. She implies that she might abort the child in order to focus on women’s issues and run for political office. Aaren, Char alleges, has changed and is living in the commune. The Sisters have forewarned Char about Jared’s reaction. He goes from condemning her for this murder (according to their Catholic upbringing) to threatening her if she does not get an abortion!

20. BLACK INTELLIGENCE AND IRON MOCCASIN

The Black Muslims think that Jared is a FBI plant. He wakes up to a note pinned in the bedsprings of the bunk above him. “Praise Be Black Intelligence!” The Black vs. White atmosphere, a coffee-time discussion with other white recidivist inmates, and a basketball encounter with Iron Moccasin, a “State raised convict,” lay out the role prison plays in American society.

21. THE MAIL CALL RIOT – April 1971

A “Dear John” letter leads to a black on white riot. Linked arm in arm with liked-minded Black inmates, a group of anti-war inmates move in a nonviolent way to calm the riot. The leader, Harley, gets shot, as Jared watches this from his dorm window. He realizes that the shot was supposed to kill him, not Harley.

22. BETTY AND FILBERT

Jared encounters the homosexual side of prison. He dreams about “Betty.” Gay inmates are called by their female names, even by the guards.

“It was a simple matter. All the fella did was walk over, tells me he likes

my cock, and asks me to visit his cube after Lights Out.” How many times

have I asked myself the question? All that I remember is my spurting

hostility. Except for the guy's cool and calm manner I expected to see my

fist in his teeth. There he was in the stall. Penis hanging. Ivory white thighs relaxed and enticing. Aw, shit, I had often felt strange inklings when in

jock rooms before. How many times did I feel the heat—the Bitch's Heat— of a basketball locker room after a game?

23. WAKE-UP: DAVITT’S OFFER – May 1971

Jared wakes in the middle of the night to watch the guards move some inmates out. In the morning, he realizes that he’s the only anti-war activist left! Worse, he gets transferred to an all- Black dorm. Desperate, he starts a late-night fight with an old con out in the TV room. Jared gets thrown in Segregation, where he feels safe. He has to cut a deal with a Davitt, a Mafia inmate who can help him escape.

24. CHAR’S LETTERS

A memo from the Warden details how to “de-code” allegedly innocent looking letters. Char writes about her decision to keep the child. How some of the Sisters have helped her understand her mothering role. From the Warden’s memo:

“A case in point: the correspondence attached (re: J. Jennings, 8867-147).

She says, ‘I love you.’ Watch it carefully. You ask, ‘Is it code?’ Consider.

The ‘I’ is upright and can indicate the prison tower. ‘Love’ means heat and

can mean the furnace room which is adjunct to the tower. ‘You’ may stand

for ‘U,’ indicating that around the tower behind the furnace there are some

guns, explosives, or other devices. Never fail to check out these insidious

clues!”

None of Char’s letters ever get to Jared.

25.WAKE-UP: THE ESCAPE – May 1971

After three days in Seg, Jared is sent back to the Black dorm. Over the edge, Jared accepts Davitt’s offer—to have sex with “Sally” in exchange for arranging his escape.

Jared's hesitancy, once she’s fully aware of it, liberates a tittering that she

swiftly arrests with the back of her hand, sensitive to Jared's

embarrassment. It’s been a very, very long time since she’s been with a

virgin.

Clearing his throat, Jared's whispers, "Well.. .errr, let's get it over

with!"

Normally—how pleasant the reversal!—this is Sally’s unspoken

line.

Jared squirms with the question he has to ask, "Pitch or catch?"

Sally flutters her eyes coyly and exhales like smoke, "Both."

.....If Matt could survive it, so can I!

Davitt’ s henchman cuts the fence and Jared crawls through. He tells Jared that the boss will love the video. Jared is shocked that his sexual acts with Sally have been recorded. Halfway through the farmer’s field en route to his pick-up point, Jared looks back at Millston and reflects upon all that he’s done and is doing. He decides to slip back into prison. The next morning he’s snoring as a group of angry Blacks watch him, note his mud-caked shoes, and wonder what the Warden is up to.

PART III – THE RIDE

26.“EXIT, STAGE RIGHT” – April 1971

Jared is whisked out of Millston and placed “on the Ride.” The FBI wants to put him out of action, not send him out preaching.

On the Ride, Jared will be sweeping up time while in county jails, state and federal pens, sometimes in the Big House. He'll see many, most on stop-and-gos, one night stands, passing through a multitude of states. The Ride will make it impossible for his family or friends to reach him, visit him, or directly send him mail. By the time the prison authorities process his mom's persistent requests, he’s off, en route to somewhere else. Routinely they respond, “All we know, ma'am, is where he's been.”

27. THE COMPANION – May 1971

FBI agent Steve Witson is Jared’s driver. Witson goads Jared by telling him that he knows who betrayed The Four, that he was inside the Weathermen organization, and, devastatingly, that he’s fucked Aaren in the Weathermen sexual ritual of Wargasm.

“I did what I had to. I fought their war. It was a war of cunts and pricks. I fucked my brains out. They fucked my brains out!”

Aaren? Aaren? scorches Jared's brain.

“Group sex, orgy, whatever you want to call it. It was all as cold and impersonal as killing gooks. Just as simple. Bang, bang, you're dead. And then you simply move on. So I left them, a field of naked bodies, like a field of dead babies, all stillborn.”

28. DAYS ON THE RIDE

Witson gives Jared some civilian clothes, no handcuffs or chains. He fills their van with munchies and plays an endless supply of hip Sixties music.

Witson waits for Jared to cue him, but the only sound is Judy Collins singing—almost as if scored for this specific conversation—as a refrain from La Colombe drifts through the van.

“The dove has torn her wings

So no more songs of love

We are not here to sing

We're here to kill the dove.”

29. THE SCAR – June 1971

In Milan FCI, Jared watches a gay sexual exchange turn violent. He attempts to protect one inmate who’s been knifed by the gay prostitute. Not discerning attacker from defender, the prostitute slices Jared’s face.

What is not noticed is the other outline. It’s been frozen, totally freaked-out in that motionlessness that is absolute fear, existential dread and shock.

It sees Jared as just another outline. It makes no distinctions and so it slices again with the razor’s edge, enticing a draw of blood so effortlessly that it spurts forward like a chorus line, all at once along its length, in cadence, in one motion.

More than the cut, Jared feels the gush of air from the guy’s strike. He recoils, but not quickly enough. Red sprouts from mid-forehead down his temple and drops to the jawbone below his left ear.

... Striking back, Jared grabs the guy’s arm, spins him around, cranks the arm upward towards the back of his head, almost not stopping at the

Pop! Crack! as he busts it; almost yanks it off.

Jared does not see the disbelief in the eyes of the other cons. Hollow- eyed witnesses to the banality of cruelty. Horror and terror mingle, but

they’re also curiously entertained and satisfied. “Man! You really fucked

him, man!”

30. AAREN’S VISIT – Milan, FCI – June 1971

To Aaren, Jared’s always been a “revolutionary barrier” and, because of his commitment to nonviolence, an “anti-revolutionary obstructionist.” She joined the draft raiders to topple him from within. Witson recruits Aaren to fuck with Jared’s mind and drive him over the edge. She visits and plays an “I’m no longer a Weatherman” line. Jared is suspicious. Aaren protests and proclaims her love for him. Then she twists the knife with a lie about Char. Aaren readies to move in for the kill. She draws closer to Jared. She grasps his right hand and places it upon her belly. “This is not a murderer's womb!”

31. GODS OF CRUELTY – Marion, FCI

The Ride is having its impact. Jared now calls Witson, “Steve.” Steve’s supervisors press him to up the ante. Jared is taken to Marion FCI. Steve has Jared dress like a guard. Jared watches Steve-as-guard humiliate black and white inmates. Then he pushes Jared into a cell with a mentally unstable Black youth. Jared is attacked but does not fight back. Steve intervenes and saves his ass.

“You’re the fool! You walked me into this blind. What the fuck do you

think I was going to do? Walk in here and beat the shit out of him?”

“He’s black.”

“What the fuck?”

“Can’t you figure it out?”

Steve abruptly turns and starts to whack the back of the unconscious youth with his bat.

... Jared forcefully grabs Steve’s baton, lifts and heaves him away from

the body.

Steve taunts, “Do It! Show me you have some balls!”

32. CHAR’S RIDE VISIT – August 1971

None of Char’s letters are getting through. She believes that Jared has stopped writing. Witson arranges for Char to visit on the Ride at Aaren’ s urging.

For Aaren, Char is one of her most effective and cruelest weapons. The baby’s here now, and she’s confident that when they meet, Char’s broadsiding him with both her not telling him that she didn’t abort, and then making him feel the loss, even the guilt, of not being

at the birth, will rekindle the rage that ended their last visit. Actually, she’s hoping it will be more than rage—a double dose of fury at her for fucking with him over the abortion mixed with the poison of his being so powerless before. Aaren has gained a keen sense into Jared’s psyche during her Ride visits.

However, during this visit Char does not tell Jared about the baby. During the visit Jared has several half-waking dream sequences. These reveal his own deep sexual violence, his love for Char, and how complex their relationship is.

33. WOMANFIRE

Aaren goes from tricking Char to an actual transformative moment right in the midst of an orgiastic Wargasm event.

“Yes, Sister, yes! But Womanly violence, Motherly violence, the violence of Kali. We must become Black Widows. Females who once and for all and forever kill the Male, castrate him, gut him. Sexual technology can set us free from him! We must abandon him to his masturbation—that’s all he wants anyway!” ...

“Never, never. . .” Char is resisting.

“No, ever, ever! It must be done forever, now and for all time yet to come. Imagine and rejoice! For we can now seed ourselves. The ultimate contradiction of Capitalism is not just political, not just the Stateless State, but the cockless ecstasy. We don’t need them. Can’t you see how clear this is? You must join us, the Vanguard—witches! True

revolutionaries! Women without cock!” ...

“Right there, in the middle of Wargasm. Just like in the middle of

battle, Pow! It came to me. Ha. I came that day—eight, a hundred times, I don't know. I looked around and there were mouths and eyes, moving like fireflies in the late summer sky, flashing, and I came, orgasm and juice

flowing, and hard cocks all over me and my sucking this one and that teat, and Jesus, oh, god. Fuck it. I was really fucked! Glorious! That’s how it

happened. I came. Really came. What can I say? The weather’s changed!”

Breathless. It’s the only word that describes Char’s reaction, when she retells the story. “I was breathless! Imagine. Wargasm leads to love! Who would have ever thought that?”

“Isn't it wonderful!” as if concluding but actually asking for Char’s comments, her reactions. Again, “Isn't it wonderful!”

“What?”

“Love.”

“Love?”

“Blissful! Female love, Sister love. WomanFire!”

34. REVEREND CRAY- Attica June 1971

Steve flies Jared to Attica State Prison. Jared meets the chaplain, Rev. Cray, a former Catholic, turned Pentecostal evangelical. Cray sees America as a Blessed Nation. He finds Jesus present in prison. Here to save the inmates from the devil, he pounds Jared with traditional Pentecostal fire.

“Can you not feel the Presence? Can you not feel the difference between

these walls and monastic walls?”

Jared rejects Cray. The Reverend damns him to hell!

35. “WE ARE MEN!” – ATTICA STATE PENITENTIARY

The famous Attica Riot erupts. The prison is a jungle. Inmates roam. Rape. Murder. Protest for Rights. The Attica manifesto opens with, “WE ARE MEN! We are not beasts and do not intend to be beaten or driven as such. The entire prison populace has set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed.”

Jared is pushed out into the Yard to face the governor, warden, and a small army of guns and grenades.

What is recorded is never the same, as happens to the stuff of legends. Jared walks, calmly—much to Cray’s admiration!—to the center of The Yard. He looks around......“I am a Man!” he booms. Clearly. Distinctly. It is a statement. It is a proclamation. It is an indictment. It is an act of rebellion. It is a moment of joyous celebration.....After that, the accounts differ. “They fired on him. Missed every time. He had protection. God’s angel was with him!” ...“No, Man, he was shot. Once, twice, three times. I saw his head snap back. Saw that in ’Nam, Man. I knows what I saw.” Stymied, “But I can’t figure how he lived? Did anyone see who dragged his sorry ass away?”

36. CHAR’S LETTERS

A sample envelope showing multiple forwarding marks and indicating that her letters never reached Jared.

“Forward to Milan, FCI.” “Forward to Lewisburg, FCI.” “Forward to Attica State Prison.” “FILE CODE: 237-JJ-001 TOP PRIORITY. SECURITY RISK.”

37. CHAR’S LOOK AND AAREN’S FANTASY

Presents key insights into the erotic character and sexual violence of Jared’s struggles, failings, and desires with and for Aaren and Char. They reveal his bond with Char and his sexual obsession with Aaren. Aaren’s fantasy is a recurring them at the end of the novel.

38. SAFE HOUSE, GEORGETOWN, D.C. – October 1971

Steve is relieved that the end is in sight. All he has to do is drop Jared off at a safe house in Georgetown in D.C. Supposedly the Boss, J. Edgar himself wants to meet Jared. Witson laughs to himself, “Maybe he’ll recruit him!” Jared is dropped off at a stunning mansion. He stays there for over a year as the Boss never shows, eventually dies, and Jared’s file is lost in bureaucratic snafu.

39. AAREN’S VISIT (2) – November 1971

When the butler tells Jared that he has a visitor, the one person he never expected to come is Aaren. That morning he viewed a video tape left on the breakfast table. He watches Witson and Aaren plot at the Black Forest to mess with him. Aaren’s truly diabolic nature is revealed. During the meeting Jared plays along with her, then he exposes, denounces, ridicules and damns Aaren. She admits it. Yet, she pleads guilty in the mode of confessing that it was all true but boldly stating that she has dramatically changed, that she is a new woman, a Sister like Char. Jared doesn’t believe her.

40. A BRIGHT CLOUD – November 71 to May 1972

Witson left Black Ops and started working in the new area of information technology. He realizes he has a special bond with Jared. When Hoover dies Jared’s file—and his bureaucratic existence!—is lost in a snafu. Witson realizes he has a concern for Jared and the day Hoover dies he creates a cover story for Jared that protects him. A theme is picked up that’s threaded throughout the novel—the transforming event of the Bright Cloud that arose when the atomic bomb was dropped. As America has been since that day living inside a Bright Cloud, so Jared enters one that rises from the hibakusha that was itself part of the bomb’s devastation. Jared relives in a dream state all of his relationships and he comes to grasp what Revolution! truly means, namely, personal, intimate transformation, especially of the sexual relationships between men and women. He grasps that the sexual violence that grounds the Warrior mythos (reflected in the biblical story of Adam and Eve) can be—must be!—countered. His insight is that as Adam did not couple with Eve, so it is his coupling with Aaren that is how the Revolution starts. One night he is drugged and dropped off the Ride in Los Angeles.

PART IV – DREAMSLIPPING

41. THE GREYHOUND BUS DEPOT-Los Angeles – May 18, 1972

Jared slowly wakes up hearing the pounding of surf. He’s been dropped off the Ride, unceremoniously, in Los Angeles. As he walks along the beach, he finds two hundred dollars in his pocket. Watching him, two beach bums attack him. He fights them off. For hours he walks around the Venice area of L.A. Soon, he realizes that he must go back home to Minnesota. He’s wary because he knows that the Feds have told his family and others various stories. Witson let him know that his mom was told that he’s a patriot. Jared waits in the Greyhound bus depot. He muses philosophically.

42. THE RIDE HOME-Minneapolis, MN

On the bus he wonders, “What is America in the spring of 1973?” Sally Jo, a Texan, flirts with him. He lies and tells her he’s an anthropology graduate student. Jared fails miserably at picking her up. Later, a kid running up and down shooting an imaginary gun jumps into Jared’s seat.

Chasing him, Jared meets the kid’s mom, Donna Sindowski. He tells her he just got out of prison. Her ex is in prison. She’s savvy about the state of mind and insatiably horny state Jared is in right now.

In this way he’s welcomed home. Laid and fucked silly in a signless motel in downtown Saint Paul. Taken by the hand and led to her car, a battered old Rambler waiting, two parking tickets secured by rusty wipers.....She knows he'll have enough for the place. Knows from his dress that he hasn't blown much. He confirms her analysis when he falters at taking a swig.

She assesses, “Not a boozer. Hasn't been laid.”

In truth, she’s being a “nice girl.” She no longer says, “I'm a nice girl.” She used to, but stopped that, one too many bus rides back. Now she doesn't care to say anything, she just wants his juice. She knows he has juice.

Jared’s back in Minnesota, but doesn’t leave the motel. He doesn’t want anyone to shout, “Welcome home!”

43. THE FARM

Char is at her parent’s farm. She’s there to discuss her lesbianism and plan to raise the child with

the Sisters. Her relationships with her father, brother and mother are described. The family

always wanted her to marry Jared. Char and her mother discuss the “L-word.” “Mom, I hope you can see, now, why I must say to everyone, everywhere that I'm a Lesbian. It's an affirmation of that feminine which was touched by God. You know, maybe you can even understand this better, that it is not a matter of sexuality. Sexuality is not the issue. That's where the traditional priest theology loses itself in sin—it’s all focused on genitals.

“I'm having a baby. I am having this baby because I am a Lesbian!”

44. UNWRAPPED – August 6, 1972

Jared stretches his homecoming into a two month plus event. A map of cheap hotels, soup

kitchen charades, always on the move, evading this shadow and that brightness. Everything from Inside, thins out. Loses its strength. Ultimately dematerializes in this Outside space of time. He’s left facing what he’s heard so many old timers describe. “You’re a loser, Jared. One stupid ass fucking loser.”

At last, he knows he has to begin anew. He seeks out Char, then Aaren.

45. THE FARM (2)

Jared meets Char at the farm. He’s dealt with his own violence when he dressed as a hack and beat up the black inmate, and has accepted that Char has aborted. He’s still angry, but he feels that he has to meet her, have some closure.

In a desperate effort to hold onto him, she blurts out, “You have a son! A

boy, Jared. A son.” From afar it seems to be the motion of a scythe

executing a corn stalk. He falls as if his head’s been cut off. Thud!

Although he’s now two, Char has not named the child. She’s been waiting for Jared. They agree upon Joseph, the name of Jared’s brother who died young. Char and Jared share the pains of their growth during the past several years. They bond. She and the child will live with the Sisters. He’ll be around to father.

46. COLD WATER FLAT

Jared rents a cold water attic flat in south Minneapolis. He’s waiting. One morning, Aaren knocks on his apartment door. He’s been waiting for her, but doesn’t know how to start. He goes upstairs to his flat. She sets about tidying up the place. They eventually sit down and discuss, argue, accuse, forgive and reconcile.

“But listen, it had to be—my journey, I mean. Look, you and I both had to become warriors. To battle in the streets, under the sheets and inside the sanctuary. Isn't that true? Don't you see, we’re like mirrors to each other? And I, I—oh, how painful!—only when I had waged with all my weapons, only after I fired every bit of my stock of ammunition, bullets, bombs, knives.. .only then, true, true, oh, then.. .only after fucking and being fucked, inside and out, only when I thought I had won, captured the male and his fire in my every opening,” and she points, mouth, cunt, ass, hand, teats, lips, tongue, “only then did I experience defeat. Defeat and victory, what is the difference? You know that.”

They agree that coupled intimacy is the core of their Revolution!

It marks that moment when they, in deepest knowing, grasp and image themselves as twin flames. She is to him a box of precious gems, and as he lifts her lid, she bequeaths him gold. He is like the goldsmith upon her, lightly pounding the malleable metal, forming a necklace for himself from her kisses, drawing from her breasts light pearls. Sweet and salty, he licks her, sucking from her healing milk, tapping into her inner network through her dark, dark nipples, and the softness of her hillock, as if with spring's first grass, tender of shoot and blade. He feels her, pets her, and feels himself. Breast to breast, they couple and lock on, she kisses him, his eyes the entry way to his soul, and she watches his hunger for her in the movements of his play.

47. DREAMSLIPPING

Their revolution seeks to counter the Warrior myth of sexual violence as told in the story of Adam and Eve. They grasp that all myths are collective dreams, and that they continue to be dreamed every day. They approach one another seeking to “dreamslip.” They seek to evoke that out-of-time primal moment when the first man looked at the first woman. For them, this is when the male and the female embraced.

Jared’s drowning in a torrent of erotic juice. His whole body is sodden, drenched with the sperm of a desire so strong, he fears that his hands will disengage from his arms and tear her to shreds. He’s mad with desire to have her. Possess her. Penetrate her. It’s as if his toes are ten little cocks, and his fingers ten medium ones, and his tongue a larger one, and his bodily self so large and gargantuan a penis that he bawdily laughs at seeing himself pull it up and position it atop her southern mound, there, positioned like an artillery cannon, all ready to Boom! But he has worked and labored to be here. He has, all day, warded off the many temptations to simply take her, have his way.

....As agreed, he repeats now what they’ve chosen to chant and image themselves with – I love you. I am not your enemy.

“I love you. I am not your enemy.”

They do this to make present what is novel and fresh between them. Chant it because the sexually violent ways of the predatory Warrior are always there in their minds and hearts, as past is ever present and future ever past, and they must be acknowledged before they can be dispelled.“I love you. I am not your enemy.” Through this shared mantra, Aaren and Jared make conscious the sexual violence of the predatory Warrior. He who dominates and conquers her. Rapes. Who trivializes and casts off the females after she has quenched his sexual desire. Booty. Who obliterates any memory of Her or her as all he can see is Him and himself. You are my flesh. You came from my rib!

It is the mantra of a fresh beginning. It enables them to exit the mythic world in which they grew up. Together, they want this. To start anew. Be fresh bodies and souls, each for the other.

48. REVOLUTION!

Aaren and Jared move in together and focus on creating an intimate relationship. They throw out all previous political and theological language—all talk about gods and goddesses. They focus on the act of heartfelt embracing. The Warrior myth remains dominant insofar as men and women continue to look upon one another as sex objects.

In a moment of pure amazement, they realize that it is just this simple act of heartfelt embracing that is the revolutionary act. Heartfelt embracing is the act that stands everything the Warrior believes on its head. Heartfelt embracing is the act that puts flesh on their mantra, “Love as if you are no one’s enemy.”

The Revolutionary act, then, is the simple act of heartfelt embracing—honoring and respecting the other as a Beloved.

49. EPILOGUE-WE’RE HERE TO SING, 1981

Jared listens to Ronald Reagan’s first Inaugural Address while holding his daughter, Amanda Rose. His son, Joseph, plays nearby. Jared sees Reagan as a Revolutionary. Aaren is less impressed. She notes that John Lennon was assassinated just the month before. Reagan’s victory raises the question “Who won?” Jared recalls the divisiveness with the Movement that was evident at his and Aaren’s wedding.

Char had worked hard to prevent the blow-up, but the recently revived chapter of SCUM —Society for Cutting-up Men— prevailed. They stormed the wedding, marched in from all sides, raucously waving banners, whooping and hollering. ... SCUM’s raiders.... “Marriage is evil! It is the rape of our Mother!” was shouted, screamed as Frog Pond’s sighful waterfall ran red with blood! Or, obvious to all, with red dye.

In concert, a dozen or so hideous butterflies burst forth from the adjoined Enchanted Garden ...These were wing-damaged, beheaded, squashed and uglied creatures who flitted around the crowd with the intent of unsettling everyone, notably the men. They pushed their bodies and faces lip close and twittered, “Kill all the males! Kill all the males!”

These butterflies were not in any manner the Enchanted Garden’s “magical creatures of transformation” described in their wedding invitation. For Aaren and Jared, the humble, hairy, squishy and

unremarkable caterpillar symbolized all that they, this day, came to proclaim as the core meaning of their marrying. “We seek to transform

and be transformed,” they wrote, “To marry rightly by honoring and making present through our everyday embracing the heart and spirit of the divine male and holy goddess. We do this as two separate, autonomous individuals who intentionally seek to create family – at once civil, holy and mythic.”

Jared can’t sleep. He recalls all the novel’s key characters and details what happened to each one. Finally, he sits down in front of the memorial to John Lennon on their mantelpiece. Jared listens to Joan Baez play Jacque Brel’s “La Colombe” (“The Dove”) which for him is the Sixties anthem.

“Look, John, I know. I know. I know the answer. We’re here to sing, right? We’re here to free the dove? All that symbolism. I get it. You’re a fucking genius. I love you, Man.”

Jared falls asleep listening to Lennon’s “Imagine.”

In the morning, Aaren, half-awake, sneaks her hand under the blankets to

stir her beloved spouse—Again?!—all she feels are cool sheets. She throws on her robe and as expected finds him—her lover, her husband, her divine spouse—snoring on the couch, earphones askew. Gently, she lifts

them off his head. She doesn’t have to ask. She knows the question. Looking up at John, she also knows the answer. Aaren knows. She knows. “Imagine!” she whispers to her dreaming beloved intimate Revolutionary. “Keep imagining!”

As Aaren turns and goes into the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee and set out the bowls for the kids’ cereal that portion of their wedding vow that they sang to one another, that launched their own dreamslip coupled

Revolution hums through her head and becomes the day’s heartbeat.

You may say that I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one.