Chapter 33: A Moment of Clarity

November 18, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

🎤 Jesse

“Great game!” Libby exclaimed when I came out of the locker room after a 5-2 win on Sunday morning.

“Thanks, but one of those goals I gave up was SO weak.”

Libby rolled her eyes, “You won by three goals!”

“Forget it, Libby,” Mom Two said. “You know Jesse is a perfectionist!”

“Oh, I know, but he should be happy!”

“I AM happy!” I declared. “But if I don’t think about how I could have stopped each goal I give up, I won’t improve. And you know Pete is almost as good as I am. I want to be a starter for all four years, so I have to work hard!”

“Are we riding with your dad?” Libby asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Are you SURE you want to do that?” Mom One asked. “Jesse will be driving!”

“I’ll borrow his helmet!” Libby teased.

“Ha, ha,” I replied flatly. “You’re both hilarious.”

“You know we love you!” Mom One said. “And in the Block and Adams households, THAT is how we show it! Or at least that’s what you said about teasing Birgit!”

“Sudden memory lapse!” I exclaimed.

“I think it’s time to make your escape,” Dad said, handing me the keys to his BMW.

“Good advice!” Mom Two agreed.

Libby, Dad, and I left the rink and first went to Mom One’s car to put my gear in the trunk, then to Dad’s car. I got into the driver’s seat, dad got into the passenger seat, and Libby sat in back.

“Do you have your will prepared?” Dad asked Libby.

She laughed, “The backseat is the safest place to be! At least that’s what they said in driver’s ed!”

“I think that was for car seats,” I said. “OK to go?”

“Yes,” Dad said. “You know how to get home from here?”

“Follow US41 all the way - it turns into LSD. Get off at 47th Street.”

“Proceed.”

I started the car, put it in gear, and pulled out of the parking spot which Dad had backed into.

“Are you having a Hangout today?” Dad asked.

That was what we had decided to call our meetings that Dad now called his Philosophy Club.

“Yep. We’re doing the same Sundays as you.”

“How many people?”

“A dozen. We ran out of people we think are mature enough to invite, though we did invite a new girl who just moved to Chicago. She’s from Malaysia and her dad was transferred to Chicago.”

“Sounds similar to Eduardo,” Dad said.

“I think he works for the same kind of company,” I said. “It’s called McKinsey.”

“They’re both management consulting firms,” Dad replied, “but they have different areas of focus.”

“She’ll actually come to the hockey game next Saturday,” Libby said. “She’s never seen one.”

“What’s her name?” Dad asked.

“Adiputeri binti Mussa,” I replied.

“So her dad’s name is Mussa, right?” Dad asked.

“Yes!” Libby exclaimed. “You know about that?”

“Yes. They don’t have family names, in general, and use a patronymic, similar to how the Russians do it.”

“Or you! Jesse Stephen, right?”

“Yes, exactly.”

I stopped talking so I could navigate two intersections without being distracted.

“Did one of the moms tell you about the Christmas tournament in Grand Rapids?” I asked.

“Mom One,” Dad said. “I called Dmitry and he’s planning to be there.”

“Cool. What about Lara?”

“She and her mom are flying to Russia to see Lara’s grandparents. It appears the general is more interested in watching you play hockey!”

“Of course he is!” I declared smugly.

🎤 Steve

“It’s been four weeks,” Sarah declared when we met just after lunch.

“Tell me where you are.”

“Sitting in your study!” she smirked.

“A true statement, but not the answer to the question which was asked!”

“Can we start with something from yesterday?”

“Sure.”

“I know you said I should dismiss anything Michelle said, and that she shouldn’t factor into my thinking, but I have to ask - do you love her?”

“Absolutely. But as I said, that doesn’t imply that I was never frustrated, upset, or disappointed about some aspects of our relationship or things she did or what she believed.”

“One thing she didn’t tell me was what happened to cause you two to break up. I know I’m not supposed to ask, but I think it’s important.”

I debated with myself how much to share, and decided that, as Michelle had shared basically everything except the most important thing - the reason we’d broken up, or, as I’d come to realize, divorced.

“Two completely different visions of the future. While Jess was estranged from Kara and me, your sister wanted to displace Kara and become my sole wife. Michelle hoped for and expected Jessica to legally divorce me, which would allow us to marry. In the process, she’d displace Kara to being a close friend and mother to my children.”

“I can’t see how that could ever have worked!” Sarah observed.

“It was a close thing, really. It’s complicated, but her goal was to change my behavior, and for us to have a completely monogamous relationship. This was all before my trip to Japan and long before my doctors figured out how to reliably attenuate my manic behavior, so despite making progress, at least from her perspective, I was basically unable to be who she needed me to be.”

“OK, now things she told me which seemingly made no sense actually do. I’m curious, though, about your, well, life choices. If what she called promiscuous sex was part of your manic behavior, then shouldn’t the medication have affected that?”

“Yes, and it has. In the past, even if I was very careful about carbohydrate intake, sleep, and exercise, I would get manic urges and literally nothing would stop me from saying ‘yes’ to any girl who asked, though I did manage to stick to my rule about not being with any girls in committed relationships. And if there was ANY kind of drama in my life, I sought out the riskiest, most dangerous girls. Once I began taking the medication, I could control my urges and make much better decisions.”

“And because your relationship with your wives allows you freedom, you take full advantage.”

“No, full advantage was when I was manic. Now I take considered advantage. There are girls I turn down.”

“Me?”

“I haven’t made a decision one way or the other.”

“Am I allowed to ask the criteria?”

“There’s no single set of criteria; they are as varied as the girls who ask.”

“You never ask?”

“Just once. Otherwise, it’s always the girls who initiate the dance that leads to, well, dancing horizontally.”

Sarah laughed softly, “Cute. May I ask if you ever just do it to do it?”

“Yes, though much more often it’s a way of bonding with the girl, or better, sealing the bond of friendship.”

“I’m confused, then. We’re friends, right?”

“I think so, yes.”

“And we’ve become intimate in the way you’ve described intimacy, or at least we’re working on it.”

“Working on it is probably accurate.”

“And you’re attracted to me, physically, right?”

“I am.”

“Then I don’t get it! I want you to fuck me! Why won’t you?”

“I haven’t said I won’t,” I replied. “First, do you have an answer to my question?”

Sarah shook her head, “No, I don’t.”

“Honesty is important. What’s the difficulty?”

Sarah frowned, “It would have been SO easy if you hadn’t insisted I go to church, receive communion, and go to confession! But I think you knew that!”

“I strongly suspected that would be the case.”

“It seems like you’re trying to orchestrate things so I decide not to ask.”

“Not at all. It’s simply a matter of you being sure you understand your own desires and what you want out of the relationship.”

“Because of my sister, right?”

“Yes, but not only that. Some girls come to me because they want a great first time. Other girls ask because it’s the next logical step in our relationship. Other girls ask because they want a deep, long-term relationship with me, with the understanding that I’m married to Kara and Jessica. Some others because they heard through word of mouth or somehow intuited that I’m a great ‘shag’ as my English friends call it. And, finally, there are some who come with hidden agendas.”

“Me?”

“With you, it’s not hidden, it’s, well, ‘undiscovered’ is probably the best word.”

“By me or by you?”

“Both. I can’t know it until you know it, and the one thing that is sure is that right this moment, you don’t know for sure. Well, besides the physical desire. You thought you knew, but you were wrong, weren’t you?”

“Yes,” Sarah admitted.

“Good. Honest self-evaluation is the key to success. Where do you think you are?”

“Having what I think they call a crisis of faith. I’m not sure what I believe.”

“Remember the maxims I taught you?”

“‘Not knowing is the beginning of wisdom’ and ‘Confusion is the beginning of clarity’.”

“Do you understand those?”

“Yes. I thought they were paradoxical when you first said them, but now I understand, at least at a basic level, what they mean.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” I replied.

Sarah smirked, “And the un-fucked pussy is not worth having!”

I laughed hard for a good minute before I recovered my composure.

“Now there’s a twist of that phrase I’ve never heard, or even imagined! That would make a great pick-up line!”

But not only that, I suddenly saw something I should have seen weeks ago - Sarah was not Michelle. I’d allowed my experience with Michelle to cloud my judgment AND in the process had repeated the same error - not treating Sarah for who she was NOW, but for who I thought she was before. It had required quite a few harsh conversations to rectify that problem with Michelle, and truth be told, it didn’t happen until too late. Recognizing that earlier wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but it most likely would have made things smoother.

“You look like a light bulb just went off in your head,” Sarah said.

“I just had a moment of clarity and a revelation.”

“About?”

“Not repeating a mistake I made years ago.”

“Me?”

“But not the way you think. Are you going home for Thanksgiving?”

“Yes. I leave right after class on Wednesday and come back on Sunday evening. Why?”

“Then next weekend is out.”

“Wait! You’re saying ‘yes’?!”

“Yes, if you know that’s truly what you want.”

“I admitted before that I don’t know for sure!”

“And maybe you never will,” I replied.

“So you aren’t really saying ‘yes’!”

“I am, but let me propose a way forward. Go home for Thanksgiving, think it through, then come back and ask me for what you want.”

“And I’ll get it?”

“So long as it doesn’t create conflicts for me, yes, with the caveat that something beyond my power to control could change things. But I promise I won’t use a bogus or contrived excuse.”

“I swear, every time I talk to you, I think my brain is a little more addled.”

“You know the phrase about never judging a person without walking a mile in their shoes?”

“Sure.”

“Well, with me, it’s spending thirty seconds in my head!”

Sarah laughed, “It’s pretty obvious you’re warped!”

“You’ve only scratched the surface so far.”

“What if what I want is to think like you and live like you?”

“Then you’re even crazier than I am!”

We decided to end our session then, and go out into the great room to sit with Suzanne, Jackson, Holly, Leigh, Natalie, and my wives to wait for the Philosophy Club members to arrive. As usual, everyone had arrived by 2:00pm and we had a very lively discussion about current events, including the September 11 attacks, the war in Afghanistan, and the Patriot Act. When we finished, Holly’s friend Achara, who was now a sophomore at IIT, came up to me and asked to speak to me privately.

“What’s up?” I asked when we were in my study.

“I wanted to invite you to celebrate my 21st birthday. Holly and Jackson are taking me out and I’m not dating anyone, so when I asked Holly for a suggestion, you were the first person she named.”

“Which day is that?” I asked.

“December 7th. It’s a Friday. They’re taking me out to dinner.”

“I’d be delighted,” I said.

“Thanks!”

We left the study and I rejoined Kara and Suzanne.

“Was that a request?” Kara asked quietly.

“She asked me to join her, Holly, and Jackson for dinner on December 7th to celebrate her 21st birthday, and I didn’t get the vibe you’re implying.”

“I don’t get that vibe either,” Suzanne said. “I’ve spoken with Achara, and I honestly think it’s no more than the usual awe the college kids have for Steve, setting aside the sexual attraction most of the girls have.”

“Most?” Kara asked.

Suzanne laughed, “Julie’s attracted to YOU!”

“Oops!” Kara replied with a soft laugh. “She’s not out, right?”

“No. Even in this group, she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about it.”

“Then you shouldn’t have outed her,” I said.

“I know neither of you will say a word or treat her differently, but I did want to correct Kara’s misunderstanding of the situation! It’s also true that Luisa isn’t interested in Steve at all. She actually asked some time ago if it was a requirement that she sleep with him.”

“Now THAT you probably should have told me,” I said.

“There was no point,” Suzanne replied. “I made it clear that wasn’t true and that was the end of the matter. Ever since that conversation, she’s been a much more frequent participant in the discussions. Nothing was served by telling you at that point.”

“True,” I agreed.

When refreshments were finished, everyone left and Kara, Suzanne, and I went to the kitchen to begin preparing the meal for our Sunday extended family dinner.

November 19, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

On Monday, after a brief stop at the office to pick up tools, cables, Velcro tie wraps, and a label maker, I headed for the first data center which was close to McCormick Place. My first order of business was to get my hand scanned for the palm reader that allowed access, as well as have a photo ID card made, which would also serve as an electronic pass card. When that was completed, I waved the pass card to enter the first door of the ‘man trap’ and when the door closed behind me, I scanned my palm to open the second door. It reminded me of the ones I’d passed through when visiting Noel and Lisa, though in those cases, the doors had been remotely operated. Once I was through, I located the empty racks which would house our equipment.

I retrieved the equipment we’d had delivered from a locker with assistance from one of the ‘Smart Hands’ engineers employed by the datacenter, then set about unboxing the router, firewall, and ethernet switch. It took me the best part of an hour to mount everything, and once I had everything properly cabled, I connected my laptop to the router’s serial port and turned it on.

I had to key in the configuration which Sam and I had worked out because until I had the server up, I wouldn’t be able to use TFTP to transfer and load configuration files. Once I had everything in place, I connected my laptop to the ‘LAN’ port on the router and verified that I received a DHCP address on the correct subnet, and that I could access the internet. Lastly, I plugged in the phone line and modem for ‘out of band’ access, and had Sam place test calls to ensure we could access the router in the event of network trouble.

That completed, I brought up the firewall in the same way, though once I’d applied an IP address to each interface, I could use the GUI to configure it. Taking the most cautious approach, I set all inbound protocols to ‘drop’, then enabled those I wanted - SSH, IMAP, POP, SMTP, HTTP, and HTTPS. Satisfied, but unable to do full testing until the servers were installed, I turned on the managed ethernet switch and once again applied an IP address so I could use the GUI to configure it, disabling all the ports by default.

Once everything was satisfactory, I labeled each port and each cable, labeled each device with its name and IP address, then disconnected my laptop. I closed both the front and rear door of the cabinets, locked them, and once I was sure they were secure, I left the datacenter to have a late lunch. before heading to the secondary datacenter near O’Hare airport. I had to repeat most of the process, though my ID and palm print gave me access to the building, so I didn’t need to go through that again.

I arrived home late, and went straight to karate, and ate a light dinner after I arrived home from the dojo.

November 20, 2001, Chicago, Illinois

Tuesday was much easier. I visited each data center, put a workstation I’d configured with Linux on the floor of the first cabinet, cabled it to the switch, enabled the switch port, booted the computer, and ensured I could access it in ‘headless’ mode. By lunchtime, I’d taken care of both datacenters, and Sam and I had lunch in her office while we confirmed all of the configuration settings.

“I just need to set up the reverse proxy on the server so we can access the firewall interface via SSH tunnel,” Sam said. “I finally got it working the way I wanted this morning on the test gear.”

“Good,” I replied. “The last thing we want is any admin interface open to the WAN. The root accounts are disabled completely, and ssh requires public/private DSA key pairs, and those obviously can only be loaded by a logged-in user. Yours and mine are on the test servers.”

“Brenda and I are still working on certificate-based security for the web interfaces for the legal and medical software. Anyone who wants to use it will have to install a certificate in their browser. There won’t be any other way. And each client will use a separate certificate.”