"SENATE REJECTS BAN ON CROP KILLING IN VIETNAM Washington D.C. The Senate, continuing debate on the $19.3 billion military procurement bill, yesterday rejected by a 48 to 33 vote a new attempt to ban military use of herbicides on food crops in Vietnam. San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 28, 1970."

     Murray Goldstein set down the newspaper and scratched the back of his head. There was no escaping the utter truth of his balding pate. It seemed that at 42 years of age, one should be ready for such facts of life, but he had to admit in his deepest heart, he really regretted losing his curly brown hair. He smoothed the few long, still remaining strands over the top, and adjusted his glasses over his nose.

Now that he had finished reading the Chronicle he'd best get back to the court case, and the deposition. He needed to review what the prisoner had said, so when he testified tomorrow, everything would be clear in his mind. He leaned back in his chair, tapping the freshly sharpened pencil on the edge of his desk. He felt peaceful, in control of his life, proud of his accomplishments, his position in the world.
     His pleasant reverie was interrupted by a kind of scratching sound at the door. His wife Dora's small face seemed to emerge like a speeded up time and motion photo of a seed bursting through the earth. God she was irritating . . . but he stuffed the thought, focusing on her pale plant like face and watery blue eyes.
     "Darling," she whispered in her little girl voice, "I'm so sorry to bother you while you're working, but Buddy won't go to sleep and I'm at wits end. Could you take him for a little walk around the yard?"
     Buddy's bland two year old face emerged much the way his mother's had, bulging through the light cracked door frame like a pale turnip pulled from the earth.
     Murray snapped the pencil against the desk one final time and lowered the chair legs to the floor. She really knew how to get to him.
     "Of course dear," He pushed back from the desk, and strode across the carpet to take Buddy in his arms. The child felt squashy, phlegmatic. He was decidedly a child of little muscular initiative. Murray grabbed the diaper hung over Dora's shoulder, but not in time to prevent Buddy from rubbing a runny nose over his new L.L. Bean shirt ordered from the catalogue last month.
     Being a psychiatrist, Murray Goldstein was fascinated by his own inner reactions to everything, and he was particularly interested in the abrupt and inexplicable shards of anger that reared sudden cold points into his awareness. Not that he wasn't in control of them mind you, oh no. He was a man of control. He never allowed these shards to damage his outer image as he presented himself to the world. But he did note the distaste he felt, as he scrubbed the red and green plaid shoulder of his new shirt with the diaper. In fact he restrained himself from pinching Buddy's nose as he wiped it clean.
     The child squalled anyway, and Murray bounced him roughly as he retrieved the heavy lead-like body from Dora.
     "Now Buddy, you and Daddy Goldstein are going for a walk. Goodie, goodie. Let's go!"
     Another whack on Buddy's back and Murray bounced down the hall to the lighted porch. He stepped down to the stone walkway that led around the house, with its brass lanterns waving flags of light every few feet. He continued to pat Buddy, who finally gave up and lay calmly on his father's shoulder, as if he knew the best way to endure Daddy Goldstein was to lie flat and let him have his way.
     They walked together, father and son, and as Buddy fell asleep, Murray mentally reviewed the deposition. He had been called upon as a member of the psychiatric community, (mind you he was new in the San Francisco Bay area), to act as an expert witness to testify as to the sanity or insanity of a man on trial for second degree murder. The man had shot his wife and her lover upon finding them together in bed, in his own home. He was an ex-football player, a linebacker, a veteran of the Korean War, with a gun kept handy just in case such a thing might occur. He had acted without thought, in a fit of passion.
     Murray thought about his conversation with the man at the prison yesterday. An interesting violent man, a man of passion, much like himself, not that he would ever lose control in that way, but he could understand that kind of drama.
     Murray's fantasy continued as he thought about the man's story and the empathy he felt. Murray was good at feeling people's feelings. That's why he was a psychiatrist. He had spent his whole childhood silently observing his own mother's feelings as she expressed them, ad nauseam, to his father's silences. He was good at this, and he felt sure that this man of passion, whose crime was a crime of passion, could certainly be considered temporarily insane, temporarily out of control because he had been faced with the awesome fact of his life, staring him in the eyeball, right there in his own bedroom.
     Murray shuddered, hugging Buddy who was by now sleeping as if drugged. He paced back toward the house. Imagine if he found Dora in such a position. In his mind's eye, he saw Dora's expressionless face, pale beneath another man's body as he entered their bedroom, and, and, and . . . why wasn't he feeling the rage, the fury that this other man must have felt? He perused his lack of feeling, questioning himself until his attention was peremptorily captured by a vague light blinking on and off, as if carried by a person walking along a bumpy path. Someone with a flashlight? Down by the Olsen farm? Out back by their barn!
     Murray was suddenly alert. An intruder? Perhaps he'd better have a look. That young widow was alone down there, that gorgeous red-headed pathetic woman who lived with her young son and two aged aunts.
     Perhaps he'd better put in a call to Jake, the volunteer fire chief before he moseyed down there, or maybe he should dial 911 for the local sheriff.
     Murray had joined the volunteer fire department four months ago, as soon as he and Dora had settled into their newly constructed, luxurious country home, here on the California coast. He wanted to do his civic duties, be part of the community. He enjoyed the CPR classes, thinking about the power of life and death he held in his hands. He was warming up to his part in this community, as a new Californian, recently transported from Boston.
     His home sat high on the hill overlooking the Lagoon. On the road below nestled the quaint old Victorian bed and breakfast inn known as the Butterfly Tree. He was particularly pleased with his new home and his recent move. He had never been comfortable in Boston, the town of his birth. He was a country boy at heart. Nature was a passion of his.
     Nature, family, community! Goddamn! There was someone down there by the Olsen Barn.
     The barn stood some distance from the house which was dimly lit tonight only a back porch bulb burning bleakly into the coastal dark. Someone was fooling around down there.
     Murray took the front steps two at a time, handed Buddy to Dora without a word, picked up the telephone and left a message with Nellie, Jake's wife, who told him Jake would be back shortly. He then dialed 911, and reported a prowler at the Butterfly Tree. He hung up the phone, and with a tense deadpan face, instructed Dora to lock all the doors after he left.
     As long as he kept people informed, he felt quite capable of acting on his own. After all, he was grown, mature, well controlled, and sane. Fully in charge: of himself, his wife, and his child.
     He grabbed his volunteer fireman's jacket which hung on a hook by the door, put his hard hat on, and clipped his beeper to his belt. He wouldn't need a flashlight. He had good night vision and didn't want to alert the intruder, whoever it might be. As a precaution he slipped his two-way radio into his pocket.
     If he were that widow woman, he'd be mighty glad for his own arrival!