"It's this simple," said Betty-John, "I will live every moment of every day as if the whole outcome of the war depends upon my commitment to victory. Everything I do shall produce a victory over chaos of every kind."

The kids ate it up. Of course.

So did I. It became mantra. Don't stop. This is part of the game.

Every so often, Big Ivy would hold a special game for the girls and Jack Balaban would hold a special game for the boys. When I asked, Betty-John told me that those classes were about bodies. Their own and others. And shame and curiosity and fear. Yes, there was some nudity. Later, they would be about masturbation, if necessary, and even about sexual expression, if necessary. I didn't ask the details. What I did ask was, "Are the kids that far gone?"

B-Jay nodded. "Some of them are. I'm hoping that appropriate role-modeling will help them find an avenue back, and I'm not above using whatever tools are available." She must have seen the look on my face, because she said, "Don't worry about it, Jim. Most of this is pretty innocent stuff. The girls need to be taught about menstruation and personal hygiene. The boys need to learn that an erection doesn't mean you're going to die. Remember poor Marty Christian?"

Marty Christian would have been funny, if he hadn't been so pathetic. He was a perfect example of how the mind makes inappropriate connections between one fact and another.

I participated, at first reluctantly, then with a kind of alacrity that was as much performance as anything else, and finally with a real enthusiasm, because I could see the difference the games meant to the kids.

One day, B-Jay asked me to lead the next night's game. I tried to beg off, but she insisted. "Jim," she said meaningfully, "first Thursday is when we have the Directors' meeting, remember?"

"Uh, right."

"You may not have noticed, but this is still a corporation, and we do have a budget and expenses and taxes and a lot of other paper concerns that need to be addressed." She didn't mention the worm fence. She didn't have to.

Just the same: "B-Jay, I don't know how to do this."

"Yes, you do. You just don't know it."

"I don't know what to do!"

"Make something up. That's what everybody else does. Just have a clear goal in mind so that when you win, everybody can experience a victory. But don't make it too easy. It isn't a victory unless you have to work a little for it. Or a lot."

Sigh. I thought of my worm fences. This was another test, wasn't it? "Okay." I gave in.

I spent most of the afternoon clearing the brush from the base of the peninsula, where I wanted to install the worm fence. It wasn't quite the narrowest part; I would have preferred to work at the very base of the peninsula, but it was too rocky. There was no easy way to get onto the rocks, let alone anchor the fences. No, we'd have to do it higher up, where we had enough good soil to anchor the spikes. If I could get a gas-hammer we could shoot the spikes right into the ground and the job would be a lot easier; otherwise, we'd have to use the screw-in kind and do it by hand.

While I worked, I tried to figure out what kind of a game I would have the children play. I wanted to do something more than just wash dishes or pick up litter; I wanted to give these kids something that they weren't getting anywhere else-hell, even a chance to scream out their frustration might be a welcome break.

It was while I was working on a particularly well-rooted bush that I noticed a little boy watching me. I didn't recognize him immediately; there were a lot of kids around I didn't know; but he shouldn't be out here alone either.

This was a continual problem with some of the kids, they weren't socialized enough to be bonded to any specific person or place. Some of them were near-feral and wandered off a lot. We knew who most of our problem children were and we kept them on tight leashes; but this must have been one of the new ones.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi, back," he said.

He was about eight years old, maybe ten. Hard to tell. Short pants that didn't quite fit him, a bulky sweater. Needed a haircut. Black hair. Missing a tooth.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Clearing the bushes."

"Why? Don't you like the bushes?"

"I like the bushes fine. We just don't need them here."

"Oh. How come?"

"We're putting up a fence. A big strong one. To keep the worms out. That's so we can sleep well at night."

"Oh," said the boy. He watched me silently for a while, then he said, "You're really scared of worms, aren't you?"

"Everybody is," I said, without thinking.

"I'm not," he said.

I gave him my best indulgent smile. Childhood bravado. I wanted to say, "Wait till you see one up close," but Betty-John wasn't particularly fond of scaring the hell out of the children for no reason at all.

For no reason at all. Hm.

An idea occurred to me.

To the boy, I said, "You'd better get back. You don't want to wiss lunch. I think Little Ivy is making Chocolate Disaster for dessert today."

"I don't like chocolate," he said. "What's your name?"

"Jim. What's yours?"

"Jim who?"

"Jim McCarthy. And you're really not supposed to be here now. Somebody is probably looking for you. Come on, I'll take you back." I held out my hand.

"I don't need your help." He backed away.

"Okay." I held up my hands to show I meant no harm. "Have it your own way." I bent back to the task at hand. The kid looked skittish enough already. When I looked up again, he was gone. No matter. He couldn't go far.

Just as well. I wanted to think.

I had an idea for a game we could play.

Maybe one of the reasons we were having so much trouble making contact with these children was that they were so terrified. Dogs, darkness, people, worms, their own bodies-these kids were psychological disaster areas. The ones who knew what they were afraid of were the lucky ones; the rest of them were afraid of things that could only be found in a catalog of Nameless Horrors. (How do you alphabetize a catalog of Nameless Horrors anyway?) Or worse.

It wasn't just that our kids were afraid; it was worse than that: they were afraid to be afraid.

If we could get them to acknowledge how scared they really were, that would be the most honest experience in their lives. It might be the start of real communication.

That was it. We had to get them talking. I knew what I wanted to do.

It was one of Jason's exercises.

Jason always said, "What you resist, persists. Your resistance is the energy it feeds upon."

Right. If you resist your own fear, what you get is the terror of fear compounded. If you resist your feelings of anger, you get rage. If you resist your grief, what you get is unending despair.

"Give in," Jason always said. "Let yourself be angry, afraid, or sad, or whatever else comes up. The experience hurts a lot less than the resistance to it. Once you let it out, it leaves you. Let go of it, it disappears."

I knew the exercise would work.

It had worked for me. Over and over and over. Dammit.

I knew what the real problem was.

I missed the circle. I missed the loving. I missed the good things about the Tribe.

I didn't want Family to be a Tribe-but I did want Family to have some of the family feeling of the Tribe.

When I finally came back, later that afternoon, I must have had a thoughtful expression on my face because B-Jay stopped me and asked, "What's that about?"

"What's what?"

"The look."

"Huh? Nothing. I was thinking about tonight?"

"Did you figure out what you're going to do?"

I realized then that she was testing me-no, pushing me into larger and larger responsibilities-the same way we pushed the children. The same way Jason had pushed me. The same way Duke had pushed me. And everybody else. It annoyed me. I wanted to ask, "Why can't I go through life at my own speed?"