Roger S. Gottlieb - The Sacrifice Zone

THE

SACRIFICE

ZONE

Also by Roger S. Gottlieb

Morality and the Environmental Crisis

Political and Spiritual: Essays on Religion, Environment,

Disability, and Justice

Spirituality: What it Is and Why it Matters

Engaging Voices: Tales of Morality and Meaning in an Age of

Global Warming

A Greener Faith: Religious Environmentalism and our Planets

Future

Joining Hands: Religion and Politics Together for Social

Change

A Spirituality of Resistance: Finding a Peaceful Heart and

Protecting the Earth

Marxism 1844-1990: Origins, Betrayal, Rebirth

History and Subjectivity: The Transformation of Marxist

Theory

THE

SACRIFICE ZONE

A NOVEL

Roger S. Gottlieb

atmosphere press

Copyright 2020 Roger S. Gottlieb

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Nick Courtright

Cover photo by Roger S. Gottlieb

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the publisher.

The Sacrifice Zone

2020, Roger S. Gottlieb

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

atmospherepress.com

Contents

Present as Prologue 3

PART I

Chapter 1 | Daniel 9

Chapter 2 | Daniel 17

Chapter 3 | Anne 27

Chapter 4 | Daniel and Sarah 35

Chapter 5 | Daniel and Sarah 45

Chapter 6 | Anne 52

PART II

Chapter 7 | Daniel and Sharon 65

Chapter 8 | Sarah 78

Chapter 9 | Patricia and Lily and Anne 100

PART III

Chapter 10 | Daniel and Sarah 121

Chapter 11 | Sarah 140

PART IV

Chapter 12 | Anne 149

Chapter 13 | Daniel 173

Chapter 14 | Anne and Patricia 180

Chapter 15 | Joffrey, Lily, Anne 188

Chapter 16 | Sarah and Daniel 206

Chapter 17 | Anne 218

Chapter 18 | Anne 233

Chapter 19 | Daniel and Sarah 242

Chapter 20 | Daniel and Sarah 270

PART V

Chapter 21 | Daniel and Sarah, and the others 285

Chapter 22 | Anne 310

Chapter 23 | Daniel 317

To Miriam

For your wisdom

Thank you

And (once again)

To the Earth

Without whom this book

could never have been written

Sacrifice Zone:

a place so polluted it can never be cleaned up

Present as Prologue

The five days off had been wonderful for Sarah. Though she made a point of going into some kind of wilderness at least three times a year, it always felt like it had been too long since the last trip. In the spring she had been to the Utah canyon lands, barely escaping a flash flood in a narrow slot by climbing up to a six-inch ledge and holding on for dear life as the immense force of liberated water streamed past for two hours. It had scared the hell out of her, but the purple and yellow wildflowers blooming in the desert, and the way the light created strange patterns on the water, colored by the sandstone and the glowing twilight sky, made it more than worth it.

This time shed hiked a mild thirty-six miles in five days, hitting the ridges for the autumn views from the Presidential range of New Hampshires White Mountains in the day and walking back down below the tree line to sleep in her cozy little tent. Together her gear made around thirty-five pounds, enough to give her a slight burning sensation between her shoulder blades, as if someone were pushing tiny needles into her skin. Her arches cried out for ice at the end of the day and the muscles in her ass complained that her pack straps had been too loose and her back hadnt carried nearly enough weight. Halfway up a three-hour climb, balancing on a series of medium size boulders damp from the rain, she would occasionally wonder why in hell she was doing this if she didnt have to.

But she knew. On the third morning the shockingly cold clear air invited her eyes to open by themselves, without the grogginess that often afflicted her in the city. The whispers and rustlings as forest twilight turned to night made her feel safe and loved, like being at a family reunion with people who actually cared about her. On other trips shed watched mountain goats finding their way down near ninety degree slopes in the Weminuche Wilderness; heard a coyote howling his joy at being who he was after shed crossed a pass at twelve-five on the Continental Divide; seen a perfect Harlequin duck, with its chaotic white and black and brown markings, floating on a perfectly still lake up against the sheer face of a mountain in Glacier Park, with a waterfall leaping sixty feet down the cliffs into the water as a mist cleared.

She paused at the overlook, pretty much the last place shed get a vista before entering into the first stunted and then gradually larger pine and birch and maple forests. Taking off her pack and sitting on a large round rock, she gazed long and hard, taking in the brightly colored trees stretching far into the distance, the mammoth hulk of Mount Washington to the north, the smaller ridges of mountains spreading out to the west. She marveled at how much of New Englands woods had returned, even though this meant that the destructive agriculture and manufacturing had just moved south, or to places like Guatemala and Bangladesh. A lot of the scars on the land that the hardy pioneer stock of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries had made were overgrown by small, but flourishing, woods. If they could recover here, maybe the black marks being made today, and which would, she knew, be made for a lot of tomorrows, could be overgrown as well.

She bowed her head slightly to the sky, the colored leaves (Who thought of this leaves changing colors business? she laughed to herself. My compliments to the designer!), and the two hawks riding the thermals. Then she shouldered her pack, relishing its lightness with all the food gone and the way even a few days seemed to strengthen her upper body, and headed down the trail. Down to the car, back to Jamaica Plain, and to the work, the all-important work. She laughed out loud, feeling with pleasure the crunch of her thick soled, worn hiking boots against the stones, carefully stepping over the roots and gently, almost dancing, past the muddiest bits and the treacherous wet leaves on top of slippery small logs on the trail.

Hours later, nearly back to the flat that would lead to the trailhead, the sound of a stream fifty yards to the side playing with the last of the seasons bird calls, she heard a weak voice. H elp, please, help filtered through the trees. Dropping her pack, she ran down a well-worn spur trial to see a man sprawled on the ground, pain set in his lips and eyes, clutching at his left knee with both hands. He had ruffled gray hair, a scruffy beard, new looking equipment and clothes, and seemed to be holding back tears with each jerky breath.

What was this?

PART I

Chapter 1

Daniel

Daniel kept shifting his wineglass from one hand to the other and back. He pretended to study the framed photos of desert sunsets and the watercolors of tropical flowers, and he tried to interest himself in what people were saying. On the surface, he hoped, he was just another mild-mannered, jolly party guest. One more politely smiling spouse at the same old holiday get-together for the folks from Amys office.

He nodded to Phyllis, slender and well preserved at fifty-four, wearing elegant slacks, a gold beaded blouse and a lilac batik scarf, talking about the failure of the Democratic Party to do anything serious for the white working class. There was Cal, aiming for the neo-hippy look in a black Indian styled tunic, studying the appetizers, perennially aggrieved about immigration reform. Sylvie had a Black Lives Matter button conspicuously pinned to her large, multi-handled leather handbag. And Abe, the senior partner, who often made it clear he didnt buy all this exercise-health-perfect-diet-purity crap, contentedly worked on his third scotch and his fourth smoked salmon and brie.