The Terminal List

Chapter One: The Final Target

When it finally came to him the decision was simple. The last death would be random, a convergence of time and circumstance. The last killing, the fifth killing, would be someone that Cliff had not yet met, a result of an occurrence that had not yet happened. At its core, The Terminal List was all about revenge, about setting wrongs right and about forcing people to understand the potential ramifications of their actions, their rudeness their arrogance and their lack of concern for their fellow man. Cliff was sick and tired of a world of selfishness. He was tired of people’s lack of concern with anyone they did not see in the mirror. Cliff could not change the world, he was not trying. He could alter the path of a few lives, in fact he could and he would end some lives, which on some small scale would make this world a better place. Some people had hurt others enough. There was time to stop some future wrong, perhaps just enough time.

Cliff had spent weeks passing judgment on dozens of people who had wronged him over the years. Most had lived, four had died, and none was ever told that they were on trial. Some would say it was trial of a madman, but Cliff would disagree. Cliff was a complex man, a dispassionate man; but not a madman. A madman would kill for pleasure, without restrictions or limitations. A madman would kill indiscriminately, without a trial, even if the trial was of the homemade variety. Cliff had spent weeks finalizing The Terminal List. Judge, jury, and executer, he was one in the same.

Cliff killed only under the terms and conditions allowed by The Terminal List. Over the years, The Terminal List had become one of Cliff’s best friends. It was a security blanket that provided his checks and balances for living. Cliff knew that he would die someday, it was preordained like taxes. The final Terminal List was the "Bronzed List" of the five people who would accompany him on his final death journey. It contained the five people who had most wronged him or wronged society. It was the five people he deemed without conscience who would repeat grievances as long as it was convenient or as long they could get away with it. The purpose of The Terminal List was not to change society; society would not change. The Terminal List was a vehicle to stop the offenders in Cliff’s life.

Cliff had often mused about the hidden potential power of The Terminal List. Two and a half million people died in the United States each year with the vast majority having some form of advanced warning: diseases of death or simple old age. Each one has a choice, either die with a whimper or die having exacted terminal revenge on an enemy. Being diagnosed as terminal is akin to a get out of jail free card, a formal reprieve from society’s boundaries, and an amnesty from society’s ability to punish. Once one is diagnosed as terminal, laws no longer really apply Nothing changes one’s destiny. Nothing alters one’s death sentence. Should terminal patients choose the path of life’s revenge, and the evening up of old scores, it goes to figure that the world would become a better place. Those killed would be the ones who hurt others, whose offenses were bronzed on somebody’s Terminal List, a formal proclamation that these offenders were of more value dead than alive. Those remaining would be the nice people, the ones who respected the lives, dreams, and boundaries of their fellow man. The world would be a nicer, gentler place.

The Terminal List was unique to Cliff, it went no further. The Terminal List had already directly resulted in four people dead, but there was still one to go. Indirectly, The Terminal List had caused the death of a few others, but not as a direct result of Cliff’s hand. It was collateral damage in military speak, but these casualties were not part of The Terminal List. They were never a part of The Terminal List. Cliff might be a psychopath, but he was a sane one.

One death to go, this was Cliff’s final mission. Number five had to count; there would be no number six. Cliff had no regrets about the first four. They had been given a fair trial, even if it was only in his mind and he was comfortable with the decisions. Four people were dead, be it revenge or murder, it was all in the eye of the beholder, and it was in the past. Number five would be different. Number five would die for an act that had not yet been committed, or an act not discovered. It might be for a personal affront against Cliff or he could choose to respond to a grievance against society. There were no rules, only limits and the limit was five. There would be no retribution, and there would be no punishment for completing the list. Cliff’s final execution could result from any action. That was a thought that excited Cliff. The Terminal List had previously been a rather static list of people whose death had been sealed through Cliff’s illness. It had come down to the simple questions of how, when and where. But Number five turned the list to a dynamic process, it was now a hunt. A new Terminal List must be analyzed and completed for the last kill, the criteria established, the merits evaluated and the time and place calculated. Start to finish, the process must be completed inside of two months, because in two months Cliff would be dead.

Cliff had invented a free pass to kill the most deserving person he could find. This was a responsibility not to be taken lightly; it was a responsibility not to squander. Cliff had about two months to find his last victim. By then his cancer would run its course and he would join those he had taken. He had killed four people already, four people who deserved to die. Four people whose false sense of self-entitlement got them killed, and there would be a fifth.

* * * * *

Chapter Two: The Death Sentence

Cliff was a dead man. His stomach felt like he had been kicked or perhaps it was his groin. He lost his breath. Not only did he have cancer but it was terminal. Three months, maybe six months to live at the outside. It was a lot to digest and a lot to think about.

Cliff could not say he was surprised. Fifty years old and he had lived life the hard way. Too many bars and airplane rides where free drinks obscured the blur of the states below. There were too many bad meals eaten in broken down places. Places he could not remember and where he had never wanted to be. The duties of a career are now the carnage of a career. Cliff knew he made choices, bad choices for years and now the end is right there on the MRI screen. The mass that started in his prostate, had spread to his stomach and now embraced a biology book full of other organs. Cliff did not know what half these organs and functions were, but he did know that when they were broken, life did not work, and clearly his were broken.

Dr. Mason was the cancer specialist. Cliff had been having symptoms for months. At first he was just peeing a little more often. Getting up in the middle of the night--once, twice, and lately lots. He saw all the ads on TV, men fishing and men on bikes stopping and peeing. Cliff was not alone, it happened to everyone, but now Cliff was a dead man.

Shit! This is Stanford Hospital where all the experts are. Dr. Mason is an expert in all the things killing Cliff. The verdict was terminal and there was nothing really to do now but to learn how to die. Cliff still felt dizzy and nauseous. It was a direct hit to the balls. Sure, he will put up the good fight, accept the treatment, take the drugs and endure the sickness, and hope he’d said something magical in church just once in the past. Something uttered, heard and appreciated by a Higher Power, but being honest he could not imagine what that would have been. There would be no divine intervention here, just sickness and death.

What day is it? Wednesday, March 14th. Cliff would be dead by the next World Series. Hell, his Giants would not be there anyway. Cliff had never seen them win the series and secretly doubted that his kids would either. What difference did it make? Unbelievably his sixteen year old son, Rusty, was a Dodger fan. How does that happen in the bay area? Was it bad fathering or not being home enough? How did he raise a Dodger fan?

Cliff had now seen his last Super Bowl. It had been one for the ages, a team of destiny beaten by the underdog. Nobody believed it and now Cliff was an underdog. No, Cliff was a dead man; his epitaph was clearly visible in Dr. Mason’s eyes. Cliff had lived a career reading people’s eyes. Ever since he was a kid he could sell the stuff of dreams. He had started his career by selling photocopiers door to door. They called it cold calling at the time, a lifestyle now replaced by the Internet. It had been a bold profession, walking in on a business unannounced and trying to sweet talk the lady on the phones to provide the hidden information, Who? What? When? Where? Why? How do I sell somebody something they do not want to buy? Cliff had learned how to sell by learning how to read the eyes.

There were no more Super Bowls in his diagnosis. Did he really care? The Raiders would probably relocate two or three more times before they got back to the playoffs. He still could not believe it, once dominate in his youth, the Raiders were now the worst team in professional sports. A huge fall from their once proud tradition of conquering all there was to conquer within a hundred yards of green. Now they were shit. The best Cliff could hope for was that their ownership died before him. At least then there would be hope. Maybe now Cliff shared the Raider’s destiny: once proud and successful but now marching toward an endless grave.

Speaking of hope, what should he tell his wife? They were married twenty five years. She had loved him, tolerated him and supported him, but maybe she never really liked him. They had been sweethearts since college, graduate school, and a life in the valley where technology gushes like oil. Technology brings out the greed, it makes the smart ones rich and the rich ones lucky and the lucky ones in the right place at the right time. Once there was an internet rainbow. An idea on a PowerPoint was worth millions, to be bought, sold and stolen. Everyone was invincible, unearned wealth was everyone’s destiny, and then in one minute during one day it was over. Somebody remembered that businesses were supposed to sell real products and make real profits, and the internet bust came crashing down.

All that happened a lifetime ago. A lifetime ago sounds so dramatic, but now Cliff was a dead man so the analogy was earned, Cliff had seen it in the Dr. Mason’s eyes. The eyes are always a window to the mind, the eyes don’t lie. What should Cliff tell his wife Mary and the kids? How important it is to move on, to cherish the memories of the past and live the dreams of the future, with no regrets and no sorrow. Cliff always loved his family, his wife and two kids in high school, the oldest one now driving, or pretending too. Putting one’s first child behind the wheel is not for the faint-of-heart. Cliff had never been so scared in his life. Driving was so easy back in 1974 when he turned sixteen. The toys of choice were muscle cars with nothing but speed. Nobody ever died, nobody ever knew how. Kids just drank and kids just drove, life was a party on fast wheels. Now his oldest, Rusty was driving in the traffic and congestion of the technology valley, where people drove like idiots, including Rusty. Cliff prayed every day that Rusty’s arrogance and cockiness would take a backseat to a long life. But Cliff does not pray. He really was not raised that way.

How Cliff loved those kids: Two great kids with great grades and great futures. He never could figure out what he did right in fatherhood but those kids are more perfect than he ever hoped for, more perfect than he deserved. There were no drugs, they were hard workers who cared about who they were to become. Now Cliff would never see their destination, but he felt a warm and contented comfort in their path. He would like to thank God for their beauty, thank God if only he could, thank God if he only believed.

Cliff did not tell his family about the appointment with Dr. Mason. He did not want to worry them as unfounded hope has a way of rationalizing any thought process. Dying now goes against the grain of conventional wisdom. It is common knowledge, people are born and built for eighty years; Cliff had thirty to go before his last conquests were summarized on the obituary page. He really had no friends, at least no friends that he wanted to call friend. Sure, there were lots of colleagues and people who shared common memories of times and places. Cliff always thought it was odd that a man who made a living through the seduction of salesmanship, just wanted to be left alone on the weekends. Many evenings were wasted on airplane flights, wine to celebrating the fleeting victories and whiskey to drown the defeats of the day, and a nightcap to prepare to fight the good fight the next day. The reflection of each passing year was a blur of products and prospects and problems and solutions, until it became the summation of a lifetime in the rearview mirror.

Dr. Mason did not say so, but he did not have to. Cliff had always been a drinker, more beer than hard liquor or wine, but the experts fail to recognize the difference. Was he an alcoholic? He probably was, in somebody’s definition. A functioning Alcoholic perhaps, Cliff never drank during the day, never missed a day of work, never passed out. Each day ended with a relaxing beer or three, or more after a hard day’s work, in an airport, on an airplane, at a restaurant, or in a hotel. Life is a blur and nothing blurs life like a bottle. His grandfather was three hundred pounds, had lived eighty years drinking whiskey and smoking three packs a day, and then died of a broken heart when Cliff’s grandmother died. Cliff was not overweight and did not smoke, he figured eighty years was his destiny, but clearly he did not have his grandfather’s constitution.

Today was not Cliff’s day to die. He had not prepared his family. Cliff had woken up to just another day, taken the kids to school, finished phone calls and emails, and then driven off to Stanford expecting to hear the Dr. say everything is okay. He would need to live healthier but Cliff knew that but thirty years is still a lot of future. Those thirty years disappeared in a single sentence, in a string of stinging words from Dr. Mason.

What had it been? Ten minutes, Maybe fifteen, Since the death sentence. Cliff’s mind was still racing as he emerged into the bright California sun. It was a beautiful day, it should have just been a bad dream, but Cliff knew that he had heard what he heard and there was no changing his new destiny through denial. He had some real problems that were there to stay, at least for a few quick weeks. Fifty years of life’s experience does not prepare one for telling loved ones that your future is your past. When and how do you break the news? Should he tell them the truth or should he leave hope? Cliff first decided to tell Mary and then the kid’s one at a time. Tell Mary what and how. Spin a story for the boy’s that makes everything okay. Cliff could always spin and find the bright end to any problem. This was just another problem, bigger than most, but Mary and the boys still had their lives ahead of them. Just stay on the right track and learn from Cliff’s mistakes, just be all that they can be. The spin is there, now it was just a question of putting it into words that work.

Cliff thought about his funeral, it would be simple with family only. Family was all he had, but family was all he cared about. Others might show up because they feel obligated, no real sorrow but a chance to take stock in their own lives. Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd would be the only funeral song, a message for Cliff’s sons to live life happier, to enjoy life’s little pleasures, and to stop and smell the roses. These were lessons Cliff had always spoken of, always dreamed about but never really learned or understood. There was always another dream to chase, another dollar to capture, a life’s work to justify through a commission check.

Sometime’s life moves slowly when life moves fast. They say that the fastest car accident happens in slow motion. Cliff had not yet reached his car in the hospital parking lot and yet he and already relived a lifetime in reflection. He did not know if he had accepted his fate yet, but he did know that his fate had accepted him.

As Cliff drove away from the hospital he remembered the eyes, the eyes do not lie. He had made another appointment with Dr. Mason. The start of the obligatory fight for life Chemo would start on Monday, chemo and radiation. Cliff would have a few days to internalize the gravity of his situation, a few days to start getting eternal affairs in order and then the fight for life or death would begin. There was no real hope for success but one must do what is expected. Cliff knew he was still a role model to the kids he cherishes and the wife he loves. He’d ever give up and he’d never say die. Cliff thought of the irony as he already knew the outcome of the fight, only the day and hour of surrender is in question.

Cliff smiled at the thought of losing his hair. That’s what happens isn’t it? The doctors would poison him and he would go bald. He lost some of his hairline in college; he had thought he would be bald by twenty-one and then for whatever reason it stayed. Fifty years now and it was still dark black. No chemicals, no formulas, just a single lucky string of genetic DNA. His father was bald, Cliff always thought that baldness was his destiny and now in the changes of a single day it was. He was destined to be bald as a baby’s behind. Funny what one thinks about when the death sentence is pronounced?

Without noticing, Cliff merged on the freeway toward home, to Saratoga, California, a small haven at the edge of the valley, just away from the madness of ambition. Cliff thought about his destination, the place where he raised his family and the place where he called home. It saddened him to know that his kids could never afford to raise their families there, the valley brought people willing to pay ridiculous housing prices to live next to people like themselves. Three bedroom tear downs started at one and one-half million dollars. No kid can afford that. Some may try but none can afford. Towns like Saratoga were breeding grounds for sub-prime and interest only loans, impossible balloon payments and other creative ways to fake living the American dream. Every day more young lovers mortgaged their future to rent a zip code and a school district. Young professionals move in, men and woman toiling under the pressures of the fastest industry in history, where markets are born, bred and reach obsolescence in just a few years. The stress of the valley takes its toll, leaving few unscathed. Daily commutes felt close to impossible commutes. People were living life paycheck to paycheck, always hoping to stay one step ahead of the ever present layoffs which have become the hallmark of a non-caring industry. Outsourcing jobs under the guise of creating a global economy was simply a new way to increase profit possibilities at the direct expense of friends, neighbors and colleagues. Cliff knew this for a fact, he had been in the executive staff meetings and board rooms as the decisions that set good people backwards and ruined lives were made before the mornings coffee got cold.

Those destroyed were good people, honest, loyal and hard working folks trying to scratch out a living for their families in a business that did not care. Being a sales executive, Cliff knew that yesterday never mattered. Planning for tomorrow at the expense of today’s profits and bigger bonuses for those that already have, was a thought left behind in the business textbooks. Too many times, Cliff had participated in the stripping down of people’s dreams, in the layoffs and terminations due to bad planning and worse execution. He’d seen the debts of failure paid for by the rank and file, not by the leaders who keep profiting from the same mistakes and a convenient lack of community conscience.

These reflections on the valley and the misery it rained down on so many were a nice break from internalizing his own date with death. Now stuck in traffic five miles from home, Cliff knew the next hour would be brake lights and anger management. It was start, stop and repeat. Cliff envied those people who had the green cars. Some people commuted with neighbors, opening access to the commuter lane, which cut the trip home to a fraction of those more isolated by either where they lived or where they worked. For Cliff it never really mattered, he could never be a commuter, a case of the wrong temperament. He was not sure whether he valued his privacy that much or he really did not like anybody enough to spend every day either gossiping or inventing small talk. He thought the smart ones where the folks that bought hybrids. Clearly the planet is melting and all grandchildren or great grandchildren will be in boats, but that is a problem for others and another day. The hybrid lets people drive in the commute lane without the inconvenience of pretending that they like their ride buddy. A perfect solution, at least for a little while until the commuter lane gets clogged with cheap green cars. He watched one after another go by, interrupted only by mothers driving their children home from day-care. A frustrating loophole in the law, carpool lane companions do not have to be licensed drivers to qualify, simply breathing. People have tried to qualify with dead bodies in the car, but the judges didn’t buy it. Brand new babies qualify so the diamond lane is full of mothers with a sense of entitlement.

Cliff inched toward home with all the burdens in the world on his back, or perhaps all the burdens lifted; he really was not sure. What was clear was that it was one hell of a day, he’d been pronounced dead in advance, and he still had a family to tell. As he got closer to home, all the emotions of a lifetime of frustrations and of dreams unfulfilled begin to bubble to the surface. His reflection on life, on all the sins of the valley, and the incompetence’s and indiscretions of those people charged with proper steerage of so many brought up, in Cliff, that familiar feeling of anger and bitterness. For the first time as a dead man he thought about The Terminal List.

* * * * *

Chapter Three: The Terminal List

Cliff did not remember exactly when he created The Terminal List; only that it had been decades ago. Perhaps it started out as a joke, but he had always felt a strong attachment to it. One thing was certain, it grew out of a hidden anger, an anger he never really understood, an anger born out of years of unresolved frustration.

The Terminal List was the death scroll of companions, the list of those he would kill, those whom he would take with him should he ever be diagnosed as a man about to die. For whatever reason, perhaps a thread of conscience or some disguised mercy; he had always limited The Terminal List to five: Five people, male or female, who he would kill prior to his own demise. Somehow in his Terminal List fantasies, six deaths were too many and four, somehow, not enough. Cliff was not a bad man. Clearly, it would take a bad man to kill six people, so six was not an option. Cliff had met a lot of people, people who were stupid, insensitive, or simply at odds with his immediate goals and desires. So many people, idiots and assholes, that four was not enough. Five was the number, the number for appropriate revenge, but not the number of a serial killer. Hitler had killed millions, Manson close to a dozen. They were bad men and mad men. Cliff was neither. He was a sick man, a dying man harboring fantasies of The Terminal List for too many years to dismiss. He halfheartedly tried to get the thought out of his mind, but sitting in the daily traffic he started to mentally update the list. The list was his personal legacy, a legacy he that refused to let go.

It was a strange moment, one fifty years in the making. He had just been diagnosed as a dead man, less than an hour ago. He waited for the wall of depression and despair to envelope him. He knew he should be crying, regretting all the things he would never do and all the sights he would never see. Despite his efforts to behave as society would have expected a different emotion was taking control.

He started to feel better and better; even good, the mysteries of life and death were being answered. Cliff no longer had to wonder. The rest of society, all his friends and enemies, live in fear of their own demise. Would it be a heart attack, car accident, perhaps a plane crash? Would they know they were dying? Would they wake up one morning knowing it was their last, or would they just have a massive heart attack? Would they be alone or with friends? Would it hurt? Would they be scared? Now Cliff had the advantage. He knew the details of his own mortality. He had a new sense of power over life and death, strangely of his own and of others.

He began to feel truly invigorated as he realized that society’s rules and taboos no longer really mattered. It was damn hard to kill a dead man, in fact pretty damn hard to punish one. Confusion became power and power became comfort. He had three months to live, perhaps six. It provided a window for planning and a finite time for control. Cliff had often wondered, what would he do if he could do anything? Now, for the rest of his life, Cliff knew he could do anything.

While still basking in the upside of dying, Cliff’s thoughts went back to The Terminal List. The realistic value of The Terminal List could be traced back to Cliff’s first questions of the meaning of life and the purpose of death. It really went back to his personal beliefs of heaven and hell, and whether there were possibilities for an afterlife. Cliff was raised in a God neutral environment, Yes, No, or Maybe, his family’s belief structure did not go much deeper than that. Was there an eternal reason to be a good citizen, or was it something that one does because it was expected by those that you expected it from. Would Charlie Manson burn in hell for all eternity or would he just die like everyone else. Cliff had loved his grandparents. Was there a chance to see them again? Was there a chance to reunite with his wife and children at some future time and place? Could he someday actually meet his grandchildren in another dimension, as it was now painfully clear that he would not get to love them in this lifetime on this planet?

If only Cliff could internalize the angels and believe the possibility of white wings, The Terminal List would have been a flashing thought, discarded many years ago. His current emotions could return back to the obligatory depression and fear, and life would be in order where it was supposed to be. But evolution is a powerful mistress, the truths of the Galapagos, the survival of the fittest and that the dead must die so the living can live. Cliff had no doubts about Darwin. There was clearly a grander scheme created through The Big Bang. Life on other planets was a certainty. The expanse of the universe was not there for human amusement. Clearly there were more questions than answers, but Cliff could not buy into the idea of an afterlife, that the life of the good disciple was recyclable.

So if life was finite, a one shot deal, and if the sun was setting on Cliff’s, than there really was nobody left to impress, and there were no more rules he was required to follow. The world no longer owned Cliff, Cliff in fact owned the world. Sure, he still loved his family and would exit as an appropriate role model, but that simply dictated caution and discretion. The Terminal List was never about publicity or about fame. The Terminal List was about evening scores, keeping the ups and downs of a lifetime in balance. The Terminal List was about righting wrongs, the correction of undeserved injustices by a man with a self perspective of righteousness and an unhealthy dash of anger. The Terminal List was simply an explosive culmination of a lifetime. It was the culmination of his personal ying and yang; the balancing of his emotions.

Over the years, Cliff had often joked about The Terminal List in chats with friends, frequently over drinks, reflecting about who was on it and why, and who had received reprieves through the passage of time and the emergence of better days. The Terminal List was always dynamic and changed over time. There was never to be more than five on the final execution list. The limit was five. Clearly there would always be more than five who displayed the conduct of an immoral being, so decisions had to be made.

The Terminal List had been a frequent topic of conversation between Cliff and his best friend George, pals since grammar school and golfing buddies for life. And then George died suddenly in his sleep of a massive heart attack. He was forty-three. George also had kept a Terminal List, but he was never terminal. He just died, leaving those who wronged him to live out their self-centered lives, uncaring about the damage they caused and unaware that if it had been cancer rather than coronary that took George, if he had time to balance his personal score card, they would now be as dead as he was.

But best friends are replaceable. Second best friends become best friends and now Jack was the new George. Cliff had introduced Jack to The Terminal List and he knew Jack had his five identified and stored in the mental vault in his head or buried in the dark side of his heart. While a bit non-conforming, The Terminal List provided a clear and invigorating sense of empowerment. But Jack was alive and healthy, he had not yet been pronounced terminal by specialists and experts, so Jack’s list was nothing more than an unfilled fantasy, just as Cliff’s list had been hours before. Jack had been a close friend since college, second best until George died, and now best. Jack had moved away from the bay area responding to dreams of love and his disdain for loneliness. He moved to the Midwest to start a family, to make his kids as well as to raise a couple conceived through the union of his wife’s first marriage. Cliff loved Jack, as a friend and confidant, and his moving was another of life’s bitter disappointments, but Cliff wished only the best for Jack and his new life.

Thoughts drifting between George and Jack, Cliffs mind focused back on the list. Was it fantasy or was it destiny? Did he care enough to kill? It was something to ponder as one prepared to die. Suddenly the traffic cleared, and the freeway exit home interrupted his thoughts, but the invigoration stayed. There was no reason for structure or restraint; he knew he would revisit these thoughts again. Now it was time to focus on his family, on what to tell them and how; whether to begin with an appetizer of information or to serve the whole meal. It was to be Cliff’s own version of the Last Supper.

As he pulled into his driveway, the reality of the minute hit harder than the death diagnosis. This was the minute of truth, the time to tell his family. They had known he was sick, it was just a question of how bad, even with the worst confirmed he really was not surprised. His wife knew he was sick and there was a possibility that it could be bad, but she never acknowledged the worst. She was too much the optimist. She saw the happy in most sad tales. The kids really had no real basis to understand dead parents. How would they respond? They were young men, with good heads on their shoulders, but this would set them back. How does one prepare young people for the certainty of death? This would be the true test of Cliff’s salesmanship. Was he good enough to put a positive spin on death for those who loved and depended on him?

The key to the spin would be a positive and brave outlook, an enthusiastic willingness to fight the good fight and go though the medical procedures. The fight would buy some time, precious time which would allow the boys to mourn and accept. Cliff was the keeper of the house, the chef and maid, jobs he really did not mind and jobs he was good at. Cliff believed that his food was better than the fare served at many of the greatest restaurants. He enjoyed preparing for his family, he never received a complement, but with teen age boys the lack of a nasty complaint is actually one of life’s greatest complements.

First he had a brief chat with his wife as she prepared for the gym, a healthy addiction she had picked up a number of years ago. It was a quick confirmation that the news was bad, than the life fight was impending and that he was in the best medical hands that Stanford had to offer. They must be strong, maintain the same routine, allow life time to sink in death and then they would discuss a plan. Mary needed time to herself, time to think, maybe to cry; time to plan for the future and time to accept whatever it had in store. Mary needed to sweat, to digest she needed to work her body and her mind, Mary needed the gym and her daily routine. Cliff went to greet the boys and prepare a dinner above complaint. As they sat over dinner, Cliff delivered the news, or at least part of it. Yes, he was sick, yes, it was cancer, yes, he was at the best hospital, yes, he would fight, and take the treatments, yes, there was a chance he would live to be an old man, yes, he loved them, and yes he would keep them informed. What else was there to say on the first day of death? Like Cliff, they needed time to internalize. He would feed them what they could handle when they could handle it. He would die with dignity and grace, and he would use his death as a lesson for their lives. Cliff would clean the kitchen while the boys did their homework. They held up a brave front, but for the first time in many years, the boys slept on the floor in their parent’s bedroom, a chance to revert back to days with brighter futures.

* * * * *

Chapter Four: The Journey of Life and the Journey of Death

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Cliff wondered where he had heard this before. He was sure it had to have been in a movie. It probably had Chinese origins, maybe it came from Confucius? If life’s journey were a thousand miles he knew he could now see the finish line. One-half mile to go, maybe only one-quarter, there were no guarantees. Dr. Mason had made that much clear.

Cliff was a complex fifty year old. He was a product of his past. He had made it to the land of the Internet famous, called the same town home, shopped in the same stores, and drank in the same bars. Granted he looked up at those who owned the town from a measurable distance. He did not grace the lives of those who lived in the mansions on the mountains but he shared geography on the map; Saratoga, California. Cliff had evolved into an angry man, but not an unhappy one. He had a great wife, a solid career, and two terrific kids in private schools living an upper-middle-class lifestyle. In the overall scheme of things, he was not heavily mortgaged, he had a positive net worth and from a financial perspective retirement would have been a realistic possibility, if he were to live that long.

Where did the toxic cocktail of contentment and anger come from? Cliff was born in southern California, before Vietnam and the change of the American consciousness. The late 1950’s were a prosperous time. The largest southern California import was cement, miles and miles of ugly gray rock which had now placed a deep and everlasting scar on the natural beauty. Cliff had never known hard financial times nor the wants of necessity.

But there was always the moving. Cliff’s father was an upwardly mobile executive whose career required a new job and a new town every year to eighteen months. Roots were for plants, not for people. Until high school, Cliff never went to the same school for consecutive years. Always being the new kid, Cliff developed an inner self-reliance which had served him well over the course of a sales career. Always quick with a quip, an easy smile and a funny story, he could make friends easily. But even as he made friends, he knew each one would be a temporary crutch, someone to share a couple of childhood experiences, but then the next new neighborhood was always right around the corner.

The end of the school year was always the end of the friendships as the family would move