March 24
10:55 a.m. PST
“This can’t be happening.” Kinnard sighed into a cup of bitter coffee before putting it down. He put his muscular hands together, blew through his fingers, and closed his eyes.
It seemed that Kinnard was always pulling Ulman out of trouble. But he didn’t know what to do with Ulman’s latest predicament.
In 1948, Troy Kinnard caught Chris Ulman slyly taking candy from the smooth glass jar on the counter of the First corner store. Kinnard remembered his amazement. He had no idea how Ulman had removed the metal lid from the jar so quickly. There wasn’t even the faintest sound. Mr. Hefleiter, the storekeeper, busily spoke to Maria Higgins, which for once was a turn of events. Maria Higgins, weighing in at three hundred pounds, could talk more than a bird could sing! Somehow she and old baldy Hefleiter had come upon a subject Hefleiter had way too much interest in. Hefleiter interrupted her repeatedly, overexcited about the topic. Mrs. Higgins stuttered and wrestled to get a full sentence in as he rambled at high speed. Kinnard didn’t have a clue as to the subject of the conversation, and that was when he turned to find Chris with his hand in the candy jar.
Wham-bam! Without a sound, Ulman’s hand was out of the jar, the thin metal lid miraculously back in place, and Chris grinned, showing yellow, orange, and green hard candies for a split second before sliding them into his pocket.
They were only ten years old, but Troy had considered himself as intelligent as if he were twenty.
His wide eyes darted to Higgins and Hefleiter, both rotund and still talking like two dogs yipping face to face. Mrs. Higgins’s round face flushed red. Hefleiter’s glowed as if he was about to win a very long tennis match. But unfortunately for the ten year old boys, both adults slid down the counter toward the candy jar.
The counter had been built right onto the floor, wood against wood. The planking was old, and Hefleiter liked it that way. Someone, before Hefleiter’s day no doubt, had put the small building on its short stilts and set the warped wood down over the anciently sturdy frame. The boards had crumbled over the years, so it creaked quite a bit when walked across. Hefleiter appreciated the sounds because he could shout, “May I help you!” from anywhere in the store as soon as someone entered. The squeaky planks did the job that laser lights and bells do today. By listening quickly, Hefleiter could discern the number of the customers, whether they were children or adults, and in the case of Mrs. Higgins, he could even tell it was her without hearing her voice or seeing her face. Hefleiter claimed he knew the sound of everyone in Greenwich who happened to play on his old accordion deck.
But as Hefleiter and Higgins tromped in the direction of the two ten-year old boys, Kinnard remembered glancing with guilty eyes at the candy jar.
The lid hadn’t gone on all the way.
The floor creaked and bounced, and the counter rocked just a little.
Ulman turned around. Both boys knew the alarm was about to sound; the metal top would slip clear of the jar and sound their capture. They had seen the jar as it swayed ever so slightly on the counter.
Kinnard watched the metal lid as it barely hung to a lip of glass lining the hole of the bottle. The steel cover rocked and swung as if only held on by a string.
Heavy Hefleiter’ and Higgins’s feet pounded on the wood. Their arms pushed against the counter as they dueled back and forth with words.
Another step-just one more jolt! — and…
As the lid slid free from the top of the glass, rang against the counter, and spun to the ground, ten-year old Troy Kinnard felt his hands fly to the mouth of the candy jar.
The lid crashed like a cymbal into the planks at Troy’s feet. Both his hands locked onto the top of the jar. His eyes darted to the two older people who focused on him like circling hawks without motion.
Kinnard figured he looked like a dog caught messing in the garbage. He couldn’t see his friend from his angle, but he froze motionlessly until Hefleiter spoke up.
“Well now,” the old man said with his clogging voice, a light smile coloring his dry mouth. “You plan on paying for that before dig’n in?”
Kinnard nodded. What else should he do? His dark brown eyes were huge circles. His fingers gripped the lip of the jar, only white knuckles showing. He didn’t smile. He squeezed away the blood of embarrassment attempting to fill his face. Cold swept through his little body. But he managed to say with a weak voice, “Yes, sir.”
“How much money you got?” Hefleiter said, prying the jar away from Troy’s hands with one quick motion.
Kinnard had to think about it fast, rummaging through his pockets with his mind. “Got a penny,” he said with the same shaky voice.
“Let’s see it.”
Then Kinnard remembered flipping the penny he and Ulman had found earlier that day. Heads, it was Troy’s. Tails, Chris kept it. Flip…tails.
It was in Ulman’s pocket.
“Well?” Hefleiter said, spotting the hesitation.
Kinnard spun around and Ulman turned to face him. Chris’s face lacked the little color he normally had, and Kinnard realized Ulman’s eyes screamed, “ Yes I have it, you idiot! But it’s in the pocket with all the candy! It’s beneath all the sweets!”
Ulman didn’t move.
“Let’s see that coin,” Hefleiter said. In the past, the old man had given the boys candy for free once in a while. But the two were getting older, and it seemed Hefleiter wanted to teach them the rudiments of business. Once he said he wanted money, he never backed down. That probably accounted for Ulman’s impulsive attempt to snag all he could.
Kinnard felt the air point fingers of accusation. He remember the lightness in his head, the swaying sensation. Lies to protect his friend surrounded his mind. Nothing Troy could say would get him away from the crime. His eyes dropped to the ground. He prayed for a miracle-for a forgotten penny to wait somewhere on the planks that had betrayed him…
“Oh, land sakes!” Mrs. Higgins said, “I have a penny! Candy for you both.” She promptly produced the funds and jumped just as quickly back into her previous debate with new ammunition spewing from the edge of her lips.
A moment later, Troy and Chris scurried quickly from the corner store with sugar in their hands. Energy surged through Ulman as he bumped again and again into Troy’s shoulder, laughing about their stolen treasure, their free food, and the close call.
Finally, Troy shoved back. “I can’t believe you, Chris! You stole that candy!”
“He wasn’t gonna give us none for free, Troy!” Ulman said, leaning into his friend’s face.
“We were dead meat back there! We could’ve been dubbed robbers and ruined for life!”
“We was fine,” said young Ulman. “You want some?” He produced a lint-layered palm full of hard candies.
“I don’t want any!” Kinnard said, shoving him away with a wave. “Don’t you know stolen candy’s got no taste! It’s filthy! It’s rotten! And it’s no good when guilt’s fill’n your stomach!”
Ulman shrugged. “I heard untouchable goodies taste sweetest.”
Troy stopped walking and shoved his face into Ulman’s. “It’s a lie, Chris! A fib told you by thieves! You wanna be a looter? You wanna be a no good, dirty rotten, two-faced, lying, cheating, stupid-bag-of-potatoes criminal when you grow up! This is all how it starts, you know! Everyone in prison begins this way, Chris!”
“What’s wrong with potatoes?” said young Ulman.
Troy pounded his open hands into Chris.
Ulman lost his footing and skidded to the ground, one leg bending under his bottom while the other stretched out in front of him.
Breathing so hard his shirt felt tight, Kinnard stood with clenched fists over his friend. “You ever do something that dumb again, Chris,” his said through labored breaths, “and you can find yourself a new friend.”
Kinnard remembered storming off in a hurry.
But that hadn’t been the end of their relationship. Relatively, it was still sprouting. Chris had begged Kinnard’s forgiveness and told him he’d gone back to Mr. Hefleiter’s shop to return the candy. Kinnard never knew that for certain, but forgave him and decided to avoid the store for a few weeks.
The two boys grew up together as close pals all the way into high school.
A similar unhappy experience happened in their early dating days.
Ulman ditched his girlfriend, Lily Ungar, at a dance he’d taken her to their junior year. Kinnard found him hiding around the back of the building with Jennifer Broachman where they were kissing away. Kinnard saved his friend from a near disaster when Lily went looking for her boyfriend. Evidently, Lily and Chris had hidden in the same place to learn how to smooch just a year before, so she knew the spot well. Kinnard had to warn his friend without letting his date wonder where he’d gone. Of course, the chaperons were looking out for stragglers, so Kinnard had to dodge them. And if Lily spotted Troy walking alone in the dark, she’d know for sure his best friend, Chris, would be near.
Kinnard ended up climbing through a small window, or rather a fair-sized one, a little too high for his steadily swelling size. He broke the glass, ripped his jacket, and barely got away without being caught stuck in the portal.
Ulman also escaped, but got a scolding later from his friend. Chris must have known it was coming.
Kinnard had continued to save Ulman throughout his life. They both made unwise mistakes, but only Ulman made such absurd choices that they always required Kinnard to pull him out in the end.
Kinnard grew to be large and muscular while Ulman remained small. Size opened a number of avenues for Kinnard, but Ulman found few and thus sought escape from an unfair world through books. Fate gifted Ulman with an exceptional memory. It was a door to a level of prestige neither of the boys could have expected. In time, Ulman became the example and Kinnard the follower. Ulman wanted to study ancient history, so they both did. When Ulman went to Chicago University, Kinnard stayed close behind. They parted ways when graduate school came along, but both sought higher education in similar fields. Ulman went into the nit-picky study of archaeology with a focus in Central and South America, while Kinnard chose to follow the advice of a favorite professor and examine areas of oriental studies. Ulman graduated with a doctorate in archaeology from the University of Minnesota and quickly joined the staff at Stratford University in California.
Kinnard and Ulman remained close while Kinnard slowly finished his studies in Arizona after a short time at the American University in Cairo. Both became professors at Stratford, where they laughed about the past and murmured together concerning the future.
Well, the morrow had evidently arrived, and the grass wasn’t green.
Kinnard rubbed his eyes until they stung, then kept smashing them until the stinging went away.
“What is Ulman doing?” Kinnard said to his wrists.
Three knocks from the door.
Kinnard dropped his hands and tried to focus his bloodshot eyes. “Come in.”
John Porter was already standing in the room, but Kinnard couldn’t tell who it was.
Porter stepped forward and sat in the chair in front of Kinnard’s desk while speaking. “I apologize for not calling for an appointment. If you’re busy, I’ll understand.”
Kinnard watched Porter get comfortable in the chair, slouching a bit. It was obvious the student hoped to stick around and considered Kinnard a close enough acquaintance to freely relax in his small office.
Smiling, Kinnard looked out the window. “I’m always busy, but don’t worry about it.”
The window was of fair size and hung in the middle of the room on Kinnard’s right. The office was cramped and overlooked the married student housing district of Stratford University. At least he had a window. Pine bookshelves without paint or stain covered the walls behind him and to his left, and the tidy desk, a dark wood that didn’t fit in the white room at all, stretched nearly from wall to wall, making it difficult to get around. Actually, the contents on the top of the desk were orderly by Kinnard’s standards, though it needed serious dejunking in the opinion of the secretary just beyond the wall. Files, open books by Philip K. Hitti, Ibn-Khalhkan, and Kinnard himself, and a large pile of unread papers hid the tabletop calendar that covered two feet by two and a half of his desk’s surface. In the center of the heaps sat Ulman’s brown package of soiled paper, which Kinnard gently moved to the floor on his left.
Kinnard examined the graduate student sitting before him. John D. Porter. Fair height, medium build, thin-boned. He wore a white button-down shirt and silver-gray slacks. Nice shoes: the ultimate judge of character. Porter had young skin, which made him look to be in his twenties rather than in his thirties. His thin hair had been cut short and rested like brown silk, slightly parted on one side, but otherwise simple-a commodity not found often in today’s society. It made Kinnard think of the far-too-modern Dr. Richmond for a moment. Richmond wore a style like many of the freshman young men: cropped in back, the hair grown out long on top; the result was a constant pouring forth of hair in front, which protruded outward from his face, leaving only a four inch tunnel of dark hair through which to see. Kinnard thought it was ridiculous, but then his own hair had thinned and now he was completely bald on top. Kinnard wore dark-rimmed glasses, a weak prescription, so at least he could take them off whenever possible. And the dark hair that wrapped around the sides of Kinnard’s head had begun to gray a few years ago. He didn’t consider himself as handsome as he used to be, but then he didn’t know why he was thinking about it. He hated pondering his looks.
“How’s your paper coming?” Kinnard said, rubbing his eyes again.
Nodding comfortably, Porter said, “Fine. I can have a copy of it to you by Friday.”
“That would be nice,” Kinnard lied. He had at least twenty-five thick essays to read and couldn’t pass them on to assistants because they came from the assistants. All he needed was another anchor to pull him down. He cursed Ulman inwardly and then all who worked for him.
“If you’d rather, I could give a quick oral overview of the project,” Porter said. “Stratford has reminded me recently I have other pressing work to get started on.”
“What’s that?”
“My dissertation.”
Kinnard stopped. His tired eyes looking over the tips of his fingers. His mind churned. Porter doesn’t have his dissertation done, he thought. How long has he been working at Stratford? It’s not seven years yet…
“I have this semester to do it-”
“May twenty-first?” Kinnard said, his eyebrows going up. “Can’t be done.”
“I appreciate the pessimism, but you know I’m not your regular Joe Bloggs student,” said Porter with his best humble grin.
That was for sure! Kinnard smiled. Few students were so comfortable around a supervising professor that they started bragging about their intelligence-especially in light of threatening impossibilities.
“I think I can accomplish the task, Professor Kinnard…but I could use your help.”
“How much help,” Kinnard said. His voice was strong. He could imagine getting sucked into some big project in order to save a student who hadn’t used his time efficiently. Of course, Kinnard also knew he was partly to blame. Instead of directing Porter toward his dissertation, he’d had the assistant running around doing dirty work. Kinnard had too many other jobs to attack.
“Well,” Porter said with a weak smile that quickly went away, “I could use an idea for direction.”
“You said you’d give me an oral review of your paper?” Kinnard leaned back in his chair. The high back of the seat squeaked.
Porter nodded. Kinnard could see the student fiddling with the dry skin on his knuckles.
Kinnard lifted a hand.
“Well,” said Porter. “I think I’ve found sufficient evidence indicating Nabataean trade with China.”
“Something new? Like what?”
Porter licked his lips and looked through the desk as he spoke. “The Parthians regulated the trade of most Indian merchandise-”
“And we know the Nabataeans traded with the Parthians. But that only indicates trade as far as Parthia.”
Porter nodded with a grin. “But I may also have found evidence of a Nabataean temple in Tengyueh.”
“ You do. Who found it?” said Kinnard, focusing a little more on Porter.
“Dr. Bertrand from Crispin University in Maryland.”
“I’ve never heard of him or his college,” Kinnard said.
“Bertrand’s a Berkeley graduate, younger than I am, who’s taken the chair of the History department at Crispin. Crispin’s the youngest university in the states.” Porter straightened his slouching posture.
“Why haven’t I heard of it,” said Kinnard. His mind floated back to Ulman’s package. He thought he could smell the dusty paper. He tried to regain his declining attention in order to sound coherent. “Where did you say it was again?”
“Still small. You don’t have plans to leave Stratford, do you Dr. Kinnard?”
Kinnard didn’t bother shaking his head. He nudged away the image of Ulman writing quickly in some beaten box he called a house in the mountains of southern Guatemala. His mind finally clicked back to Porter’s insinuations. Evidence of a Nabataean temple site in China was sufficient to alter the history books-something scholars love to do. Relics of Nabataean temple sites had been found in Rhodes in the Aegean sea and Puteoli, just north of Naples, Italy, indicating such a high degree of trade that permanent structures were required so that Nabataean traders traveling afar could still worship Dhu-Shara, Hadad, Al-Uzza, and the rest of their gods.
“Refresh my memory; where’s Tengyueh, exactly,” he said. Kinnard was a professor of Ancient Near Eastern studies, and regardless of what he may have learned in the past, he continued to recognize areas of his own ignorance-something many of his colleagues refused to do.
He saw Porter smile before speaking. At least someone was happy with Kinnard’s deteriorating mind. “In China. Southwest from Yangtze Kiang. Close to the Northeast border of Burma.”
Kinnard nodded. “And this Beartrend-”
“Bertrand.”
“-thinks he found a Nabataean temple site?”
Porter shifted in the chair. “Not…exactly…but what he describes, the pictures he presented…it looks Nabataean to me.”
Kinnard’s tense eyebrows relaxed.
In other words, Porter didn’t have anything at all. Just another organized example in speculation. Porter was a master at this sort of thing, but plenty of people disagreed with him as a common practice.
“I think you’ll agree with me, once you read-or hear-my paper.”
“I’m sure,” Kinnard said without interest. Porter was in a difficult situation, and they both knew it. He looked at the Near East books on his desk. “Do you intend to continue your study of the Nabataeans for your dissertation? It will definitely give you something to argue.”
Porter stuttered a moment, then said, “I was…hoping for-for some advice.”
Leaning forward and putting his elbows on his desk, Kinnard looked Porter right in the eyes. “You know, some universities don’t even accept students anymore without some idea of their intended thesis. Stratford just hasn’t jumped onto the wagon yet. Do you realize the predicament you’re in?”
“I am well-reminded,” Porter replied without feeling. He knew he was stuck, and it was obvious. But Kinnard could see that the student planned to go out fighting. May twenty-first was still a full two months away.
“I don’t think I can help you, Mr. Porter.” Kinnard said, leaning back and putting his hands in the air. “I’d love to, but I don’t have any ideas for you.” He let his hands fall to his lap and sighed. “You really should have come to me sooner.”
Porter nodded to the window, squinting his eyes. He stood and put his hands on his thin hips. His lips twisted as he thought. “Then I’ll come up with something on the Nabataeans.”
The problem was, Nabataean finds were relatively few and didn’t say all that much. Besides, Dr. Glueck and a few others had already said it all. How Porter could come up with a new Nabataean idea in the next few weeks, then write, present, and argue a paper about it by the end of the semester seemed impossible. They both knew it. Porter was in real trouble.
“Call me tomorrow,” Kinnard said, glancing from his desk to his student, to his desk again, then back to his student. His face showed no emotion. The gravity of the game demanded seriousness. Kinnard’s brown skin hardened, and his muscular jaw flexed. He had to think this out. Turning his eyes and hands to the papers on his desk, he said in a low tone, “Pray for magic, and maybe we’ll come up with some.”
Porter nodded without a sound, without a smile, without a single sparkle in his eyes. He closed the door behind him.