Fool's Gold
This tale of an American woman and her young son caught in a web of deceit and avarice is based on an odd interlude in my life during which I moved to New Zealand in pursuit of love, adventure, and riches and very nearly lost everything I held dear.
Although I came to see that there were mitigating circumstances underlying my fugue state---I was isolated in a foreign country and my sense of reality had recently imploded due to an overdose of risky spiritual practices---there were after effects: demons inhabited my head. They slept during the day, emitting only sporadic snores and mumbled curses that I could ignore. Nights, however, were a different matter. Like most demons, mine were nocturnal, given to pacing the floor of my brain at two a.m., noisily rearranging the cartons of guilt, remorse, and despair that they’d hauled up from the sub-basements of memory.
Eventually I decided that the only way I could break their long-term lease was to address the story with which they were blackmailing me and transform it into fiction. As such, the characters and many of the events in “Fool’s Gold” are the products of my imagination. However, the psychological drama that ensues as protagonist Cassie Harris attempts to save herself and her son from disaster parallels my actual experience.
Here are the first pages:
WESTLAND
The water is cold, opaque, the color of over-brewed tea, and it's up to my knees. Mitchell's Creek. The name of my ex, wouldn't you know. I clutch my black metal gold pan and stumble towards a cut in the bank where I can scoop out some gravel and possibly find a few flakes of the precious yellow stuff among the pebbles. Just a few, I pray silently, just enough to encourage Graham and stave off one of his terrifying black moods, moods that always presage a demand that I wire my bank in the States for another infusion of cash.
My legs ache so badly that I can barely navigate the rocky bed of the creek. My throat aches too. But I can't allow myself to cry. That would show weakness, and like a predator waiting for its prey to falter and fall, Graham would be on me in a fit of rage, cursing and accusing me of being soft, a spoiled Yank, too intellectual for real work.
But I can’t help myself. I’m too tired, too scared, too alone in this wild piece of bush in a barely tamed country, and there is no more money to placate my beastly husband. Worse yet, there’s no way to go home. Home no longer exists. I’ve sold my house in Del Mar and all its contents: my furniture, my books, my family’s antiques, my past. I’m up shit creek in Westland, New Zealand and I’ve lost everything, including my self-respect.
Great gulping sobs arise unbidden and unwanted from somewhere deep in my gut and I lurch forward off balance and collapse sideways, waist-deep in the ice cold water. I can’t move, can’t do anything but allow the pent up misery of the last three months to well up and out of me like the last bubbles of air from a drowning victim. I don’t think about hypothermia or about being swept downstream, pulled under by the weight of my backpack. I don’t think about anything; I just cry, if you can call such shuddering spasms crying.
And then, with no warning, the wracking sobs cease and the sick empty feeling in my belly abates. A fierce voice echoes in my head: Fuck it. Fuck it all. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing left to lose. I scrabble for a foothold on the stony creek bottom and rise from the dark water. I’m smiling as I wade towards the exposed creek bank that may or may not contain productive gravels. Why worry? Graham can’t take anything else from me; he’s already got it all.
I’m wrong, of course, but I won’t find out how terribly wrong until much later.
My legs ache so badly that I can barely navigate the rocky bed of the creek. My throat aches too. But I can't allow myself to cry. That would show weakness, and like a predator waiting for its prey to falter and fall, Graham would be on me in a fit of rage, cursing and accusing me of being soft, a spoiled Yank, too intellectual for real work.
But I can’t help myself. I’m too tired, too scared, too alone in this wild piece of bush in a barely tamed country, and there is no more money to placate my beastly husband. Worse yet, there’s no way to go home. Home no longer exists. I’ve sold my house in Del Mar and all its contents: my furniture, my books, my family’s antiques, my past. I’m up shit creek in Westland, New Zealand and I’ve lost everything, including my self-respect.
Great gulping sobs arise unbidden and unwanted from somewhere deep in my gut and I lurch forward off balance and collapse sideways, waist-deep in the ice cold water. I can’t move, can’t do anything but allow the pent up misery of the last three months to well up and out of me like the last bubbles of air from a drowning victim. I don’t think about hypothermia or about being swept downstream, pulled under by the weight of my backpack. I don’t think about anything; I just cry, if you can call such shuddering spasms crying.
And then, with no warning, the wracking sobs cease and the sick empty feeling in my belly abates. A fierce voice echoes in my head: Fuck it. Fuck it all. Everything’s gone. There’s nothing left to lose. I scrabble for a foothold on the stony creek bottom and rise from the dark water. I’m smiling as I wade towards the exposed creek bank that may or may not contain productive gravels. Why worry? Graham can’t take anything else from me; he’s already got it all.
I’m wrong, of course, but I won’t find out how terribly wrong until much later.
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It all started nine months ago. On July 11, 1981, to be precise, in La Jolla, California, 5,000 miles and social light years away from the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. It started, of all places, in a conference room in a Holiday Inn, with a hand opening a door, which is, when I think about it now, highly symbolic. I’m making an early exit from a weekend workshop led by a high priced motivational speaker who’s supposed to reveal the seven secrets of successful entrepreneurs. I enrolled because my interior design business was in the doldrums and I needed inspiration but all the guy has talked about so far is visualizing success and writing positive affirmations and I’m bored. I reach the nearest exit at the same time as another defector, who opens the door and steps back to let me pass.
“Allow me” he says. His resonant voice and clipped vowels arrest my attention.
I nod thanks and glance at him and something delivers an electric jolt to my solar plexus. It’s not that he’s devastatingly handsome, although his penetrating blue eyes and square jaw are appealing. It’s his presence. He exudes a confident masculinity that attracts me like a lodestone draws a compass needle. Shaken, I turn and walk slowly into the lobby, wanting to prolong this encounter but not sure of how to do it without making fool of myself. I am aware that the man is behind me as I approach the registration desk to ask for a refund. As I wait for one of the workshop coordinators to finish a phone call and help me, the man speaks again.
“You can’t get your money back.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“I already tried,” he says with a smile that makes my knees go wobbly. “That’s one of the seven secrets: never give refunds.”
I laugh and tell him that’s the most practical advice I’ve gotten all weekend.
“Practical’s the name of the game where I come from,” he says. “I’m continually amazed by the way Americans complicate matters.”
I recognize a conversational opening and go for it. “Where are you from?” I ask.
“Aotearoa,” he replies. “The Land of the Long White Cloud.”
“What?”
“New Zealand,” he says, and my heart lurches in my chest.
“Really?” I reply. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Allow me” he says. His resonant voice and clipped vowels arrest my attention.
I nod thanks and glance at him and something delivers an electric jolt to my solar plexus. It’s not that he’s devastatingly handsome, although his penetrating blue eyes and square jaw are appealing. It’s his presence. He exudes a confident masculinity that attracts me like a lodestone draws a compass needle. Shaken, I turn and walk slowly into the lobby, wanting to prolong this encounter but not sure of how to do it without making fool of myself. I am aware that the man is behind me as I approach the registration desk to ask for a refund. As I wait for one of the workshop coordinators to finish a phone call and help me, the man speaks again.
“You can’t get your money back.”
“How do you know?” I ask.
“I already tried,” he says with a smile that makes my knees go wobbly. “That’s one of the seven secrets: never give refunds.”
I laugh and tell him that’s the most practical advice I’ve gotten all weekend.
“Practical’s the name of the game where I come from,” he says. “I’m continually amazed by the way Americans complicate matters.”
I recognize a conversational opening and go for it. “Where are you from?” I ask.
“Aotearoa,” he replies. “The Land of the Long White Cloud.”
“What?”
“New Zealand,” he says, and my heart lurches in my chest.
“Really?” I reply. “I’ve always wanted to go there.”
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