Paul's Call

The telephone call started it all; started that old anxiety, the bile rising in the throat. It brought back the fear, anxiety and insecurity that Jake had felt most of his life. That phone call pitched him back in time and propelled him on a cross-country trek that was sure to end in disaster. It ripped him from the family and the happy life he had built back to the unforgiving and manipulative family that he had left. That phone call was so much more than a summoning for reconciliation. It was an order to dance again to the old tune that he had been raised listening to. It was a command to return to drama and dysfunction, to anger and a world of bitter resentment. Across the country the deadening roar of his motorcycle plays counterpoint and backbeat to the memories of the history of his life; a life of chaos, destruction and frustration playing in his head. His motorcycle and his mind wander aimlessly into the Arizona desert, through the wilds of New Mexico and into the reassuring mountains of Colorado before shooting boldly across the plains with the focus of a bullet to face his appointment with an uncertain future, and to bury an unforgiving past. Jake returns to the fold to set things right once and for all, but that call is much more than a telephone call. It is an insistence that Jake recognize a new order; to acknowledge a fundamental reorganization of role and rank, and ultimately to accept and embrace this novel dynamic. People, places, and events spin out of control quickly upon Jake's arrival, and he is conveniently there to spin with them, or to finally put a stop to the twirling disorder.