6 Aug. 1993 - Friday - 7 p.m.
It was a scorcher today. Hot, dry, offshore winds straight out of the Great Basin blew the smog toward the city and the bridge. Both looked like they were floating in beef bouillon. The air stinks and there's not even the hint of a sea breeze yet. It will be a bad fire season for all of California. I hope not as bad as two years ago. It was amazing and terribly sad to stand atop the tower and watch the fire storm consume the Oakland Hills. A vision of Hell itself. That was in October, if I recall, and we've got a long way to go til then.
It's not been a good day. I must admit that I find Mr. Boyle's nervous energy somewhat exhausting to be around. When he's in that hyperactive state and I chance to enter the room, I feel as though I've had the air sucked from my lungs, or I've run into a brick wall. Then there is whatever else I feel emanating from him - suppressed hostility, for lack of a better word.
I've retreated to my bedroom with the excuse of a headache and calling it a very early night, which is the truth. The heat and bad air gave me a splitting headache. My neck is killing me. I feel like someone has taken a sledgehammer to it.
I shall force myself to endure one more month of this. By then I should know how or if Nick is going fit into the team and Nick, himself, should be bouncing from the ceilings with boredom. A person can only do so many push-ups before the brain turns to mush with the monotony of it. How many miles can a person run in one day? How many meaningless, or not so meaningless jobs, can I press upon him? Once he reaches the bursting point, I shall dangle the carrot of a case. I need to find something special that all of us will like - myself included. Something that will let me see Nick in his element and really working with the team, but nothing of any real consequence - just the right mixture of difficulty, investigation, and dead-end.
~~~~~
In truth it was more than just a bad day - it was dismal. I spoke with Maggie. She tried to act as if she wasn't concerned, but she is going to recuse herself from Nick's case first thing Monday morning. We still plan to keep our date for Sydney - at least that's something to look forward to. I only hope that there will be no further ramifications for her down the road. I should never have taken advantage of the situation as I did. I didn't think things through well enough. Like a damned fool, I allowed my testosterone to control my brain. That and a simple desire to have a moment's respite.
I've always been a loner - by nature and by training. I have a jillion acquaintances, but can count the number of true friends on my fingers. I'm rarely lonely. I've never felt the need to have people constantly about me the way some seem to, but that doesn't mean I am totally devoid of the desire for companionship. Sometimes the hunger for it becomes overwhelming. At times like those I feel like a soul lost in the immense blackness of the universe. It's a sense of being this tiny, meaningless spec in the infinity of time and space.
Maggie can be so disarming and funny. She always surprises me. She listens and is one very bright lady. There's not a topic she can't discuss. She's also perceptive enough to know when not to ask certain questions. I suspect she's very intuitive and reads between the lines. But the truly special thing about her is that if one removes the judicial robe, Maggie is just Maggie - under the layer of polish is the Texas girl with pigtails, puppy dogs, holey jeans, and worn out cowboy boots. With me it is never that. Derek is never just Derek. I get so damned tired of the charade, of always trying to meet expectations, especially my own. Which mask do I wear tomorrow, which battle do I fight?
The battles never cease - the mundane ones over which project will be funded and which will be denied - even simply over the maintenance of this place. Each day there are at least ten things in need of repair or attention - broken windows to non-flushing toilets and groaning pipes to broken down ferries to stuffed up chimneys. It never ends. Then there are the power plays within the Legacy and their nitpicking over reports, protocol, procedures, and finances. It's a war and they worry about the format of a memo or a ridiculous newspaper photo. It seems as though everyone believes they must know everything. And, of course, there is the war itself. We can never really win. All we can ever hope for is a stalemate. I feel like I don't know what - a man shoveling sand in the midst of the Sahara or snow in Antarctica.
How can I reveal these feelings to anyone on the inside? If I speak to a Legacy member whether above or below me they are honour bound to record and, if necessary, report it. How can I place Alex or Julia in that position? In any case, they are both too young to understand. How could I burden them in such a manner? How would they ever have confidence in my decisions again? What if I speak to Philip in confession? No - not while he is a member of my team. If I see a Legacy psychologist, their interference would become all the more intrusive. I feel like I've lost my balance. I miss the talks that Ingrid and I once had - back then she was, in her own way, very much like Maggie. Spilt milk, very sour spilt milk, that's flowed down the drain and is long since gone.
It's not that I don't want the job any more, or that I can't do it. In a way, it is who I am, but sometimes I get so bloody tired of it all. I seethe on the inside. Sometimes I wonder what happened to that kid named Derek that I once thought I knew? He was terrible at Latin, hated algebra, loved Mozart, Chopin, Sherlock Holmes, and the tales of the Atlantis, Alexander the Great, Marco Polo, and Lawrence of Arabia. He grew up too fast and joined the wars - twenty-five years ago. Good God - twenty-five years - almost two-thirds of my life. The burden was now his... the ring was pressed into his hand. Verdomme! Those words will ever haunt me, "The burden is yours." Why did it have to be mine?
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