A Story in Three Parts by R. M.

Dolin

1. Al Azar..................................................................................................................................................... 1 2. Derivation of Destiny ............................................................................................................................ 35 3. Sympatico ............................................................................................................................................. 80 4. The Ancients ....................................................................................................................................... 113 5. Damaged Goods ................................................................................................................................. 151 6. Bourbon Etiquette .............................................................................................................................. 180 7. The Aroma of Memories .................................................................................................................... 211 8. Quiet Desperation .............................................................................................................................. 240 9. Doc...................................................................................................................................................... 276 10. Social Nullification .............................................................................................................................. 322 11. Angelica .............................................................................................................................................. 351 12. Dawn of Discontent ............................................................................................................................ 382 13. Tengo Caricia (caress) ......................................................................................................................... 416 14. Trumpeter of Krakow ......................................................................................................................... 442 15. Fiesta de Albuqureque Por la Manana ............................................................................................... 476 16. Secret Police ....................................................................................................................................... 515 17. Love and War...................................................................................................................................... 539 18. The Calculus of Causation................................................................................................................... 572

R. M. Dolin / Quiet Desperation

INTRODUCTION
By Nicholi Olinisk

I met Ron in the summer of 1981 while in France to attend a close friends funeral. Ron was midway through a solo bicycle journey across Provence. We both found ourselves at bitter crossroads but for very different reasons. As part of his journey, Ron was in France to jettison aspects of his life that anchored his soul while, as he described it, cycling toward an ill-defined destiny. I too was longing to discard parts of my life but had not yet devised a plan. For Ron it was all about moving past what would no longer define him. For me it was a desire to escape the inescapable essence of who I was. We met at a sidewalk caf in the coastal village where my friend was buried. For complex reasons that torment me still, I didnt attend the funeral even though I was compelled to be near just the same. The waiter in the crowded caf where I defiantly dared to drown demons asked if Ron could share my table. Knowing enough about French protocol to know I had no choice, I reluctantly agreed. To say we got off to an awkward start is being kind but as the evening and the wine waned we became immersed in a deep discussion about life and how it was we each came to be in Provence. Rons ever forming perspectives on decisions leading to outcomes resonated with my saddened soul. His wisdom and insight that he thought only applied to him but somehow always cut to the core of my complexity helped me through an dangerously difficult time. Ron described his journey, referring to it as a personal Sundance. He tried repeatedly to explain how his Sundance was a modification of an ancient American Indian ceremony having something to do with erasing the soul of all it has have been in order to find out who its supposed to become. This appealed to me on such a profound level I convinced Ron to let me join his journey. I felt in some cosmic way that fate had intersected our lives for a purpose; that we were meant to journey on together even if only for a brief time. For a week I rode through Provence at a punishing pace with this one time cowboy from South Dakota who was pushing himself to the exhaustive edge of his endurance in the hope of finding answers for himself, within himself. We would ride all day in the hot August sun and consume massive amounts of wine all night at seaside cafs while exploring thought provoking ideas. We examined the many levels of
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human existence from perspectives that spanned the gauntlet of good versus evil and fate relative to chance. Even though Rons a logically grounded engineer who reasons his way toward conclusions, I admire his ability to filter the world through a novelists eyes. As a poet, I process based on emotions. This often led to vastly different perspectives. What made our time together provocative was the way we taught each other to consider alternate points of view. A lot of what we argued, debated and discussed centered on a philosophy Ron was developing called Happy Hell. The philosophy of Happy Hell is based on a recognition that humans instinctively seek happiness and that each individual achieves their level of happiness regardless of outward appearance. The twist however, lies in the observation that the very act of seeking happiness commits us to a private hell of our own choosing. Ron paradoxically reasoned that people actively (consciously) and passively (subconsciously) make decisions and take actions in life to maximize happiness as they define it. Society though creates a quite separate set of metrics and decries that those metrics must be achieved in order to be happy. For most people these societal metrics are unobtainable abstractions that when left unmet put is in personal purgatory. The irony of the Happy Hell paradox is that the pursuit of societal metrics is what paints us a prisoners of our personal purgatory; obtaining those metrics doesnt increase our personal happiness one iota because if they were ever an essential component of how we instinctively measure happiness we would already have obtained them. Put another way, it is the very pursuit of happiness that makes us unhappy. True happiness only comes from realizing that where we are is where we choose to be because our choices instinctively advance our need to be happy. The obvious flaw in societys measure of happiness is people are unique with different joys and disappointments, different ambitions, endurance, morals, and risk-to-reward ratios. Rons philosophy postulated that there exists a balance in each persons life between their desire for greater happiness and the hell they have to endure to realize it. This produces a buoyancy where the negative weight from all we endure harmonizes with the positive force of everything making us happy. The Happy Hell philosophy resonated with me because achieving harmony and balance in my life along with finding some measure of happiness was a constant, albeit elusive, struggle.
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Ron was just beginning to form the outline for a story about people on personal journeys through their happy hells who are simultaneously thrown into an even more imposing journey by events on a grander scale. His goal was not to simply tell a story that moved people but to create something that would challenge readers at their core and change how they thought about life and their role in the world. With such a lofty ambition, I understood that if it were even achievable, it would take time and only be possible through struggle, perseverance and deep reflection. In early 1982, during an especially dark time in my life Ron shared the outline for a story he was creating called Quiet Desperation. It was already several months after our time in Provence ended and we saw each other for the last time. I wondered now, as I did then, how he knew to reach out to me at that moment. With true engineering thoroughness and logic, Ron laid out in a table how his characters would traverse the story. He referred to his project as a story in three parts and joked it was a double entendre, since physically the story would be told in three books while simultaneously weaving three stories in and out of each other with mesmerizing gestalt. His table consisted of fifty-four columns, each representing a chapter while the rows represented the storys characters. At that time, the chapters were numbered and referenced to the book they belonged, but they were not titled. After reviewing the outline for Quite Desperation, I realized Ron was well on his way to achieving his ambition. He asked me to review the story line and character evolutions and to provide feedback. Instead of commenting on the this and thats of his story I decided I could better contribute by titling each chapter and composing a short companion poem capturing the emotional essence I believed the chapter conveyed. As spring merged into summer I obsessively immersed myself in his story and characters composing my poems. Helping Ron was a cathartic experience that carried me all the way to early Fall. After completing my compilation of poems, I decided as a final contribution in our collaboration that I would write this introduction. At the time of this writing, I do not know how his story in three parts turns out but I am greatly appreciative for having the opportunity to be a part of this project and for the inspiration it provided my poetry. I do not know how much my poems helped shape this story or if Ron even retained my chapter titles. My hope is that I was able to inspire him to tell his story with poetic passion and to occasionally perhaps, filter from a poets perspective.
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R. M. Dolin / Quiet Desperation

Quiet Desperation, is a complex story layered with simple subtlety. It is a journey that considers the collective condition while exploring the Happy Hell every individual creates. It is a story of tragedy, loss, sadness, hopelessness, endurance, hope; heroism in common measures and even love in pragmatic terms. It is a story of life and the struggles we all must overcome while finding purpose. My hope for you is that in reading Rons story in three parts, you come to appreciate him as both a storyteller and a person of wisdom and insight. I also hope that from time to time you are able to find pieces of me in the prose as well as pieces of you in his characters and their struggles. I leave you with this poem I composed during our bicycle ride through Provence.

There should have been more. More comfort . . . more happiness. If only the effort to overcome gravity were fair. If only the outcome of our choices more clear. We mostly travel like Coyote; our causal path toward chaos randomly affecting both rise and fall. At some point it becomes inevitable that gravity prevails and we crater below depths we previously could not consciously conceive. Harmony happens only because the desire to be better is buoyed against all those realties anchored in the past. Here then lies our happy hell. Every decision, adventure mistake, loss and unexplored opportunity. In the end, the place we chose to be.
Nicholi Olinisk Poet, Seeker, 1960 1982