Saving Candor

Andrew was as pure as they came. At age nineteen, he hadn’t kissed a girl, drank a beer, and most likely, never slandered a soul. He often had a glazed look on his face as if nothing ever bothered him.

“Hey, Dom, you know, that sandy blonde girl in our chemistry class, Jen, I think her name is. I wonder what it would be like to kiss her?”

Dom scratches his chin for a second and replies to Andy,

“She looks like the kind, if you kiss her right, she will love you forever. She probably has a close family, loves Daddy, and eats blueberry pie.” He further encourages,

“Andy, you should ask her out… so we can double date this weekend.”

“How should I ask her?”

“Tell her your friend, Dom is having people over at his girlfriend’s house and that you’d like her to come.”

“Good idea, I’ll do that.” Andy is quick to please his company no matter what they ask. He is simple and easy to hang with.

Friday rolls around. Dom and Lisa are chilling at her house, drinking a beer, when Andy (Mr. Smiles) walks in with his new companion, the sweet Jen.

“Dom & Lisa, this is Jen. We have chemistry together… I mean we have a chemistry class.”

Dom chuckles a bit amused at Andy’s Freudian slip. Dom replies, “Hey Jen, this is Lisa.” They exchange “Hellos”

“You guys want to see the house? It’s an old Victorian,” Lisa adds.

“Dom loves this house because it’s big, spacious, and stocked with lots of frozen dinners in the fridge!”

They all walk up the stairs to her room.

“This is the walk-in closet.” Lisa points to the enormous space. She then proceeds into the bathroom. I hear a musical tune and turn around. Andy is strumming on a guitar he just picked up.

“Sounds like a familiar Clapton song?” Dom asks.

“Yep,” he answers.

“Old Love,” Jen confirms.

Andy keeps playing. Meanwhile, Lisa shows them her room and the backyard. The girls walk down the stairs and keep chatting. Dom stays and listens to Andy jamming. He is excellent!

“Where’d you learn that?”

“I’ve been playing for about ten years. Being stuck up on that hill leaves a lot of time for playing music.” Andy transforms from a chemistry nerd to Smooth Daddy to Eric Clapton…all in one week!

“That reminds me... Dom, could I stay at your house for a few nights?”

“Sure, I have a 1970s-style sofa bed rigged up with the view of the bay! You can camp there. We can cram for the big chemistry test on Thursday; we’ll get real caffeinated, have a cram session, then ace it.”

The boys cruise back down to the living room to get a few beers.

“Have a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale,” Dom offers both Andy and Jen a beer. Dom is curious if Andy will accept in front of Jen, his new date.

Andy obliges and takes his first swig like he’s Frat Boy of the Year. His eyes tingle and then tear over his reddened cheeks. Dom was happy to see him relax and lighten up a little socially. It was a pleasure enjoying the company of new friends.

Next Monday after class, the boys cruise over to Dom’s house, start a fire, brew up a pot of coffee, and dive into chemistry. The only way to pass chemistry is to buddy up, get Geeked out of your mind, and push each other to pile through the material.

Dom inquires, “So, why aren’t you going back up there, on the hill?”

“They won’t let me back up there, now that I’ve left.”

“Dam, that's pretty harsh," Dom exclaims.

“You ready to start a new life down here, in the real world?”

“Yep, I’m nineteen and it’s time to wake up and see the world!” Andy answers with anticipation in his eyes.

“You’re getting a great start, you know, going out with Jen and drinking your first beer.”

Dom encourages.

“Well, let’s get started on this stuff. Open up to the ideal gas law: PV=nRT, the formula of the night.”

“What’s the relationship between pressure and volume?” Dom asks Andy.

“They’re inversely related. In a closed system, as pressure goes up, volume goes down and vice versa.” Andy confidently answers.

“Good, my boy, we’re off to a good start; let’s do problems 1-5.”

They work out the problems and move to a new section- Entropy:

“A measure of randomness; the tendency for energy to scatter into disorder,” Dom states.

“Hey Dom, entropy makes me think of my dog. I haven’t seen him in so long,” Andy mumbles.

“What’s his name?”

“Candor… He’s a good dog, an Australian Shepherd; he always does what I say and is very loyal. I can depend on him to scare away raccoons and mountain lions and he always alerts me of any danger. One time the neighbor’s dog broke into our trash bin and I tried to shoo him off but he bit my foot. Candor came to the rescue and snapped him in the ass.”

“Andrew, since you miss Candor so much, why don’t we rescue him from the snare of the devil?” Dom suggests.

“Yeah, I have been thinking about how to get him back. If I could get him back, I could take him to my mother’s house in Santa Cruz, and he’d be perfectly safe there.”

Dom continues with his proposal,

“I’ve got it, I know exactly what to do. We dress up in night commando gear and take him tonight,” he says boldly.

The boys were truth-seekers on a mission to save the dog which represents peace to Andy. He smiles with a smirk of worldly intent and confidence. Andy’s large candid smile shrinks to a vengeful grin. Dom provides him the push he needs to follow through and reclaim his dog held captive.

“We’re on, let’s do it,” Andy replies. The boys dress in black sweatshirts and camouflage and head up the mountain.

Dom pulls his hood over his head and wraps his sleeves around his hands to keep out the cold air that enters the car window as they drive closer to their destination.

“Where is this community?” Dom asks.

“It’s at Lakefront, up by Skyline Road” Andy replies.

“How many people live up there?”

“About two hundred and growing. My dad’s wife, Jean, keeps convincing people to move up there,” Andy answers.

“Who’s in charge?”

"She is," Andy mumbles.

“How can that be? Dom asks with skepticism. I thought the Bible indicates that men should lead churches. At least I haven’t run into a woman pastor yet in my long nineteen years of life…”

The old grin grew right back on Andy’s honest face.

“I know, she seems to be making her own rules up,” Andy explains.

“It all started back in the garden with that shiny apple, right Andy?” Dom jokes. Andy appreciates Dom’s rare, harsh humor, as his upbringing wouldn’t allow it.

Andy adds, “She even tried to tell me who to marry and that I was going to be a doctor, of course.”

“This woman sounds like a crazy Jezebel trying desperately to grasp control of her own life through the poor lives of others.” Dom proclaims.

The boys pile into Dom’s white 4-Runner. Dom turns the heater on full blast to fight the piercing chill creeping into his truck. The boys now approach the densely populated redwood forest. The Redwoods stand boldly like lions protecting the domain of a king, the most powerful king. They keep out cars, tractors, and other civilized encroachments that tend to spoil the forest. Dom rolls down the window for a second to air the truck out and smells the damp forest permeating the truck, reminding him of divinity and supreme creation. Dom points out a shooting star across the sky that lights up the forest for a brief second. The stars shooting in the direction of their destination…

As they drive to the top of the mountain the boys chat,

“My dad’s wife once said she saw Jesus in a redwood tree, and that he told her to start this community up here in the forest,” Andy shares with Dom.

“Beware of those who say they see Jesus in a tree he thought, ‘From the book of Matthew I think.’ Or something like, you know a tree from the fruit it bears…”

Then Dom voices to Andy,

“Doesn’t the book of Matthew discuss the notion about not trusting people who say they see Jesus in a tree?

“I’m not sure, but my dad’s wife once did say she saw Jesus in a tree.”

Dom is appalled. She appears to be the one protecting such lies; a definite wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Andy continues, “I’m bummed that my father got involved with her; she talked him into moving up here and joining them.”

That must be difficult to deal with,” Dom consoles Andy.

"They spent one year in house arrest for false imprisonment of two kids in the church. They kept them in the basement for a year, complaining that the children were defiant and incorrigible."

“Where were the parents during all of this?” Dom asks.

“The parents went to Europe on an outreach program, and when they returned, the kids told them what happened and they charged my Dad and stepmom with false imprisonment,” Andy explains.

“No way,” Dom fires up more motivation to help. Hypocrisy is smoldering in the forest and we are here to put an end to this injustice.” Dom encourages with exuberance.

“About a year after serving their time, Jean started developing a brain tumor, and it’s been growing ever since,” Andy adds.

Dom envisions a grotesque silhouette of the elephant man, Joseph Merrick style (from the movie, Elephant Man).

As they approach the commune, Andy wrestles in his seat.

“Are you nervous?” Dom asks.

“A little, but I won’t feel bad for taking him back. I am his best friend, anyway.”

After driving five miles of winding road, the boys come to a stop about a hundred yards from Andy’s old house. Dom parks below the house next to some trees to lay low. The night is cold and dark and only glimpses of light slice through the treetops and little pieces of midnight blue trickle through. The boys watch a bit and talk for a while.

“My dad joined what, I guess, he thought was a tight church group. Turns out…Jean started coercing members to move up to Lakefront Properties. She had them sell their previous houses and invest in the commune. She pretty much monopolized the whole property. Next thing you know, she’s dictating rules to members.” Andy continues to share his disappointing experiences for the last sixteen years of his life.

“Jean even had other guys spank me with a plank when I did something wrong,” Andy said quietly with a horrific look in his eyes.

This story was growing as fast as the cancer in Jean’s brain. Dom shares his inner beliefs with Andy,

“Let someone dark get a hold of feeble people and entropy will take over completely. That's entropy, the scattering of atoms, and the tendency of chaos to win. Now you are away from them and soon you will be with your dog! Meanwhile, Jean’s head is swelling like a water balloon and your act of love slows a little of that dark entropy down. You can heal the disease of chaos by saving one last piece of good that is left, Candor!”

The clock reads 11:25 pm.

“They’ll fall asleep around 11:30 pm and then we can sneak in around midnight and snatch Candor from the pit of despair,” Andy told Dom.

Diabolic darkness in the forest envelops the boys. All Dom could think of was that Merrick-like head. All that extra-alien-like cerebral cortex where it doesn’t belong (on a human's head at least). Pressure goes up and volume won’t hold; it decreases and no one can change the law of physics. The brains have to go somewhere. Out the ears maybe, bulging through the eyes, right out the orbital foramina. Whenever it may be, these laws written above don’t change. Gravity holds these stars visible to our eyes in place. We are in a spot here on Earth where we are limited to spatial order. The kind of order that keeps the planets aligned and people grounded to the soil here on Earth.

“Ok, it’s 11:59, let’s change. Vamos con Dios,” Dom whispers, “Andy, you lead hombre; I’ll be in your shadows.”

Andy shuffles up to the first redwood on the front lawn. Dom follows right behind him. They make themselves skinny to hide any bit of their bodies that can be seen from the second floor where Andy’s dad and Jean are sleeping.

“Look Dom,” Andy whispers silently.

“My dad’s asleep, but she’s still awake.”

Andy points to the window. With a soft light on in the background, they see a dark figure pacing back and forth across the room. The figure stops and gazes out the window for a second and then turns to pace again. In the silhouette, a large round bump in the shape of a croissant bulges on her head like Joseph Merrick’s.

“Candor’s over there in the backyard by the neighbor’s house. follow me.” Dom scurries behind Andy like a stranger in an unknown land.

“Candor,” Andy lightly calls. The friendly shepherd runs up and gives his lost buddy a good lick. The boys run back to the street with Candor following them. Andy opens the door and lets the dog in.

"You're with me now for good," Andy reassures his dog as he hugs him with relief and satisfaction.

The boys jump back in the truck and bring Candor back with them to Dom’s house for the night. Dom congratulates Andy for taking back his dog and reclaiming some of that chaos that separated them. The adventurous undergrads were able to slow entropy a bit and re-establish some emotional order in Andy’s life.

Dom didn’t see Andy for two years, after that night, until he ran into him at a local coffee shop. Andy shared with him that he was attending a university in San Diego and that he regularly played guitar at coffee shops. He had a girlfriend and they would probably get married soon. Dom asks about his dad and Jean. Andy replies nonchalantly as always,

“Jean’s head exploded from the tumor and my dad left the cult. He’s living peacefully down in Santa Cruz.” They talked for a short while and Dom hugged him and finished off with, “Well, that’s great everything worked out, it’s funny how life works, huh?”

“Yep,” and he went on his happy way.