Then Merle became agitated under a strong impulse. It began when she read a news story about the Marshall Islands. Although many have chosen to disbelieve the calculations about global warming, those small Central Pacific islands are already becoming tinier as the ocean rises. Sixty thousand people will lose their country over the next century. Merle clucked over that report. She said it was pretty dumb to settle on islands that were only six feet above sea level, but still… and then she put her palms on the table and her eyes on me. “We have to visit the ocean,” she said. She pushed herself to a stand. “I’m sorry. That was abrupt. But it just hit me. I’ve been antsy and unsettled lately. Something has been lurking in the back right corner of my brain, my blind spot. Reading about the Marshall Islanders, I just visualized the ocean and it all came clear. We have to go there. Right now. I need to think by the ocean.”

There wasn’t any good reason not to do it. Oz wanted to come along. We cranked down all our systems and got into the Jeep. But first, we cruised the Internet for accommodations. We weren’t in an exploring mood; we wanted to settle into an ocean home. Sea Ranch had all the listings so we went with it. We took a big place perched above the northernmost cove. It’s so large that we each have a suite of rooms. I sketch and write these memoirs from the north end upstairs; my room is lit with afternoon reflected off cypress-framed ocean. Oz is at the other end of the house, also upstairs; when he isn’t working on the verse play with Merle, I think he’s tinkering with some electronic models. Merle has taken over the whole downstairs. She moves around a lot lately, arranging items or pacing. She sometimes visits me up here, or invites me to walk outside, and we all get together in the big room for meals and evenings. This place is strange to us and very lovely, but it’s eerie the way it seems to be inhabited with none but gray-hairs. There are no children, no stores or businesses. Everyone walks along the coast and admires the flowers in the same way. It’s fabulously monotonous, as if it were cast under a spell.

We have gray hair. Merle has a dozen strands. Oz’s brown curls are salt and pepper now. I color my hair regularly. But the other folk here are old and automatic. They move like zombies. Luckily there aren’t many of them, especially during the week.

And the drivers are obnoxious. We’re too close to the Bay Area to be away from that.

I think it’s time to get out of this place. If not back to Nevada, I want to propose that we move farther north. I’ll suggest it to Merle.

(Some memoirs. I just reread these pages and they seem more a journal to me.)

(Some big love. I just listened to Merle and got my heart shattered.)

She’s pregnant.

By Oz.

She agrees it’s time to leave here. She has completed what she came for. She has decided to let the pregnancy continue.

I may be a woman, but my first feeling is that of a man. I want to kill both of them.  With my hands. I can feel that passion dissipate even as I describe it.

Right. Merle at 48 and Oz at 49. He of the tiny dick. He has the smallest penis I’ve ever seen on an adult. Oz is only about five foot eight himself, so his dick ought to look big no matter what size. But it doesn’t. And Merle told me it didn’t work for her, back when she and Oz friendly-fucked in 1968.

Then again, gorilla dicks are only an inch and a half, and that’s sufficient to impregnate lady gorillas. The proof is in the pregnancy I guess.

Right. Merle who always wanted to be Minerva, sprung from her father’s brain without a mother, therefore just, that Merle is now choosing to be a mother? And what for me? Godmother/father? Probably…

I didn’t know what to say to her at first. “Sure,” is the sound that came out of my mouth, followed by “Aren’t you the one who pointed out that women can’t complain about men as long as mothers are the ones who raise the boys?”

But Merle doesn’t particularly complain about men. She complains about people. Anyway, she tells me she’s carrying a daughter. She says the challenge is to raise her without an eating disorder.

Merle is nauseated and chagrined. But she’s not confused any more. She’s beginning to search out a perfect name.

At least the ride isn’t boring…