Cecil, son of Anna and Dr. Albert Morgan, was raised in a well-to-do neighborhood in the 1930s. Always feeling different -- separate -- from everyone around him, after college, he relocates to an Appalachian Mountain cabin.
Lonely at first, Cecil spends a great deal of time talking to himself. One night, he hears a song on a breeze with a long note held for fourteen beats. As far as Cecil knows, he is alone on that side of the desolate mountain, so who is singing?
He eventually meets up with the mysterious mountain man without a name, a man who also lives separated from the world. Was his seclusion a choice? When illness occurs, will the aid Cecil brings during a time when doctors treat mental illness like a crime and homosexuality as a mental illness make things better or worse?
Cecil put his hand in his pocket. To his surprise, he felt a bit of silk. “My tie!” He’d taken it off before starting the drive home. “I had it on today.” It was the one his father had given him the prior Sunday. Cecil had worn it five days in a row. “But ...” He brought it to his bare chest. “It has to go in the fire?”
“I’m afraid it does.”
After just another moment’s thought, “Okay,” Cecil handed it over. This was important. “The test is really accurate?” It was destiny.
“Everyone I know says so. And you know numbers. It doesn’t get any better than one hundred percent.”
“Right.”
“I need you to stand ...” Reggie Wolf licked his finger, stuck it in the air, and then pointed to his left. “There.”
Cecil moved to the spot.
“I little more that way.”
He shifted slightly closer to the barrel.
“Too far. It has to be precise. Toward me just a little and take half a step backwards without looking, then a quarter step sideways.”
Cecil forgot the precise instruction immediately, but he did his best. “Like this?”
“Yeah. Perfect.”
“So, how does it work?”
“You, uh, you balance on one foot with one hand down the back of your pants.”
“Come on!”
“No, really. Those are the rules.”
Cecil’s eyes narrowed. “Okay.” But then he smiled.
“When one prospective lover -- in this case, me -- throws the other prospective lover’s object into the fire -- in this case, your tie -- if the sparks that come up drift toward he who last wore the object -- in this case, you again -- it means they’ll be lovers.”
“Forever?”
“Forever. You ready?”
Cecil had a hard time balancing. “One foot, hand down pants.” He gave it everything he had. “Yes ... no ...” He took off the shoe on the foot and held it up in the air. “Do the shoe.”
Reggie Wolf shook his head, possibly perturbed. “Not the tie?”
“No. No? No. My dad gave it to me.”
They made an exchange.
“Okay, then.” Reggie Wolf held the shiny black shoe high in the air over the barrel. “Here we go. Watch for embers ... for sparks to fly.”
“Hey! You think that’s where the saying comes from?”
“Could very well be, Cecil. Now, watch.”
“I’m watching.”
“One, two, three.” The shoe went into the flames.
