Naja Hara sat in parvatasana, transfixed, upon her velvet cushion.  Her long amber-glint hair swept across her eyes and over her shoulders, masking the transparency of her self-deception.

Sat nam, Sat nam, Sat nam…this was her mantra, repeated hundreds of times, to still the chaos—not her own choice—that cluttered the mind incessantly.  Then, ensuing “Breath of Fire”, until the uproarious sound begins: First at the feet, traveling up the spine, before reaching the brain, enveloping the body like a shroud, where everything disappears into that peaceful void the yogis call bliss.  The experience belongs to a different dimension.  There is no time, no space, no self.

The Hindus believe that sound was the first emanation of manifestation.  In the beginning there was the Word (the Big Bang, the Sound Wave, Evolution may have been Darwin’s discovery, but it was surely God’s Plan) and to think he had created it all for her, and she so loved it there in everywhere, and no nowhere.

Then the interruption!  The ringing of the phone jolted her back to here and now.  With one call the Hounds of Hell would be released, with relentless pursuit they would propel her back to this alternate universe.

She had once been their mistress.  Then lightening would strike, the Tower would crumble and though uncharacteristically, she would take the fall alone, scattering the wild pack to the far corners.

Thinly veiled had been her escape.  She had covered her tracks, hidden her scent, and retreated into the world of the mundane, walking lockstep with the zombie-like human kind, disguised as one of them.

The Goddess Kundalini guided her, the Great Master extended his hand; but was it too late?  Her frail metamorphosis incomplete, yielded its chided wing. With one strangers siren call—invalidating her presumptive evolution.

Who was this caller, and what did he want with her?  Could he have fathomed the demons he may have unleashed?  He had set the beasts on her path yet again, racing through the chimes unbound.

She could sense their presence now, their fiery eyes upon her.  Their hungry panting, their withering desire, beckoning her return 

The caller identified himself as Gary Craig, an investigative reporter for Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.  He was writing a series of articles on an Upstate mobster, who after a short hiatus, was for the third time back in the Big House.

Tommy Marotta, she knew him well.  Their relationship had spanned a ten-year period, between the mid-seventies and eighties.  It survived two of his marriages, one prison term, a bloody gang war, several bullets to his beautiful body, courtesy of her ex, Rene Picarretto, not to mention her less-than-casual affairs with Frank Aloi (author, “The Hammer Conspiracy”) as well as Gannett CEO and USA Today founder, Al. H. Neuharth, self-admittedly a true S.O.B. 

Tommy was more than a footnote in her story.  He was her lover, friend, confidant—her champion.  She gave the little information she cared to share with the reporter, Craig, but he had missed the larger story, the one only she could tell.

It was the tale of four powerful men, all at the top of their game, caught in her orbit, revolving around the same heavenly body.  Beauty alone couldn’t explain the attraction.  She was an enigma, a study in opposites, a chameleon effortlessly changing to blend into her surrounding.

Naja Hara, the Cosmic Dancer was perhaps a Sorceress, a snake charmer, and under her spell, the snakes she charmed in those starry nights would slither and sway.  She knew their resumes, but what she didn’t know was that together they would be linked in history.

For her cunning, Karma wouldn’t wait for the next lifetime for payment.  She would spiral down, not directly to hell, but close—back to Small Town, USA, incarcerated indefinitely in Wal-Mart Purgatory, attempting to get time off for good behavior.  One could pray eight times a day, but her only prayer was as Eckhart’s:

God please save her from God”—not the God of the Great Master, but from the Old God of Judgment, eternal fire and retribution, the one that responded to “cheap flattery”, and “Please let my team win!”  Her path was through the Goddess. In prayer one talks, in meditation one listens.

She had received vision without eyes, glimpsed the light that emanates from the Source of All Creation, and just as the gates were opening to her freedom, she would be drawn back from Eden to the battlefield.  Her scope would once again narrow, directed with laser precision into the distant past, where finding her prince had merely been the alchemical equation, as in all Fairy Tales, for seeking union with the higher self.  Would rebuilding that fading façade be worth the Garden?  And why could she not, of all earthly women, “have it all?”

Scientists have pondered for decades which factor more importantly impacts adult behavior; is it nature or nurture?  Genetically encoded or environmentally induced?  Let’s borrow, for example, two sisters brought up in the same small town atmosphere in the same family, though nine years apart.

Profile: The second sister

She grows up in Indiana, graduates from high school and college, marries and has two children, then becomes a nurse. It doesn’t get any more Norman Rockwell than that.

Profile: The first sister

She too grows up in Indiana and graduates from high school—drops in and out of four colleges—joins an underground newspaper—becomes an exotic dancer—runs from the grasp of J. Edgar into the arms of an NY mobster—rolls the dice with the Gannett Chairman—and last but certainly not least, is inducted as a permanent member into the “Neurotic’s Rebels Union”.

Why does the second sister find herself in the middle of a cornfield, while the first sister finds herself in the middle of a gang war?  One stays in the pumpkin patch while the other goes to Pumpkin Center.

RENE PICCARRETO

Rene Piccarreto had the dubious distinction of being her only lover to have put a contract out on another.  When Tommy Marotta proved less than accommodating, surviving the first round of fire to his bullet-ridden body, Piccarreto had the unmitigated gall to try, yet fail, with a second assault.  Tommy must have been shot everywhere but his brain and his balls, but the bastard refused to die.  It was so difficult to find a good hit man.  Though Naja had predicted this cabal, Tommy couldn’t believe a member at the top of his own team was capable of such calculated duplicity, but Rene was Old School, tutored for years under the auspices of Frank Valenti in the fine art of deception.  He cautioned Naja to always let her opponent, and especially her friends underestimate her.  In a world where virtue was fined, he garnered no debt.

Rene Piccarreto had vanished from public view after his indictment for murder conspiracy in the gangland killing of Jimmy “The Hammer” Massaro.  She understood his need to maintain a low profile.  It was quite by accident, this time, when she ran into him at The Village.  He greeted her as though they had never parted, yet watching the door, worried someone, like maybe a cop or reporter, would spot him not putting his quarter in the parking meter.  By now he was getting pretty damn sick of this game of hide & seek, and was thinking “Screw ‘em” as he took her arm, escorting her out of the restaurant, walking her back toward her suite at the East Ave Hotel, one block 

She began to feel a bit panicky—what the hell was she going to do?  Lie?  Yes, a fine idea, but she couldn’t figure out a good one he would swallow. She must tell him the truth.  Entering the hotel lobby, she gestured for him to sit for a moment.  She had a confession and she hoped he understood.  She even suggested that her current affair with Tommy Marotta was practically his fault, as she would have never met Tommy, there at the courthouse, if she hadn’t been there that day, showing support for him.  She saw little sympathy from him as she pleaded her impassioned case. Quick—break out the pompoms—too late!  His usual stoic demeanor darkened.

Rene wouldn’t be the last of her four lovers to dump her, but he certainly won the award for creative style.  He rose to his feet, heaving one end of the bench towards the ceiling, sliding her onto her most treasured asset, before exiting the hotel.  He would have preferred to strangle her, but the little tweetie-pie couldn’t deal with two murder trials simultaneously

His blood rushed to his face, incredulous with anger.  The very presence of that pretty-boy Marotta, or his bosom buddy, Sammy G, with their flamboyant ways, was insult enough.  Now this!  Marotta parading around town like the trial was some kind of hootenanny, with that neon corn-fed-feathered bitch on his arm, flashing “Guilty—Guilty—Guilty”.  Either way it went down, the futures of his partners in crime, from his standpoint, appeared quite bleak.

TOMMY MAROTTA

Rene hadn’t surfaced for months after his arrest.  The closer the trial date, the greater the media attention grew.  With Dick Marino already convicted and F. Lee Bailey representing Sammy G, it was the most entertaining show in town.

Rumors seeped into the Halls of Justice.  The fix was in.  Chief Mahoney drilled the stool pigeons for months before their performance.  They had cooked up the corroborating evidence, literally!  A sheet of yellow note paper with places, times, dates, attendees, was slowly baked in the oven, to appear older.  Completing the scene was twelve of the most undeniably gullible people to have ever come together in the same place at the same time.  No wonder Aloi would only argue before appeal judges, people who could not only read, but could do so between the lines.  This was definitely the kind of cop-conspiracy that movies were made of.  The flat foot was ecstatic as the judge called recess. 

The corkscrew was waiting, the beer & wine on ice.

Naja was loitering in the hallway when out the men’s room strolled Adonis himself, flanked by two bodyguards watching his every move.  It took but one look at Tommy Marotta to know she wanted their job.  At six foot, two hundred and twenty pounds of sculpted marble, this blue-eyed Italian had it all going for him, right down to the dimple in his chin.

Everything could have been so different, had she only met him long before he was facing twenty-five to life, and oh, cruel fate! he was walking straight towards her.  Was she to love him one moment, only to have him torn from her the next? The answer, of course, was: Yes! Sucking Yes!  She was standing against the wall when he put his arm up, leaning close to her. “You’re not falling for any of that crap those goons are saying about me, are you, sweetheart?”

“No, Mr. Marotta, I know it must be a pack of lies”, she replied.  Besides, the only thing she was falling for was him.

FRANK ALOI

Frank Aloi was just another bored, overpaid attorney, a Cornell summa cum laude, School of Law.  Nicknamed “The Genius”, he could write a five-hundred page brief while watching reruns of Casablanca, without missing a comma.  In fact, his compulsion was writing, not legal briefs, but the far grittier stories of Mafia history.  Five days a week he spent his time as what he described as “a glorified secretary”, and seven nights a week he submerged himself in those murky criminal characters, living vicariously through their exploits.  Huddled in the dim light of the kennels with his Irish Setters, unhindered by reality of his dysfunctional home life, he roamed through the mean streets.  It could only be synchronicity at work, with the planets in perfect alignment with his desires, when events presented themselves that could make his dreams come true.

Now word was leaking that the Sheriff’s Department, under the direction of Chief Mahoney, might have been over zealous in their conviction of the Mafia figures that ran the Rochester rackets--maybe even evidence tampering.  Aloi smelled a Best Seller.  He paced his office floor, awaiting his cousin’s call. Cousin Felix claimed to be on a first name basis with both Marotta and his infamous stripper girlfriend.  If anyone knew the scoop it was Naja Hara, or as her fans referred to, Boom-Z-Boom, a testimony no doubt, to her undulating dance style.  She was more than eager to expose the fiction of the Sheriff’s case to anyone who would listen.

What should have been a mere curiosity, instead turned into a life altering, down-the-primrose-lane event.  The evening arrived when he and Felix wandered into The Triangle, over the threshold of The Pussycat, coming face-to-face with an apparition.  Whether Nymph or Nemesis, like others before and after, he found he couldn’t turn away from the enigmatic vision that stood before him. 

He invited her to join him at the bar for a drink.  “A Cuba Libra for the lady, and I’ll just have a Cement Shoe.”  Amusing!

She sat glaring suspiciously at him, and before he could say “That gun is loaded”, she had plucked it out of his boot strap, and pointed against his right temporal lobe.  He never lost his composure as he gently held her wrist, while lowering that pistol down.  Bogie and Bergman danced across his brain.  Out of all the gin joints in the world, why did he have to wander into hers?

He had to save her from herself, lest his own life diminish it some mysterious way.  He dried her tears and in return, she would put him exactly where he wanted to be.  When Marotta walked out of a fifteen year sentence fourteen months later, Aloi was deep in the thicket—another great American Mafia novel.

“The Hammer Conspiracy” was written, meticulously researched, yet real success had eluded him; content to cast himself as “Murph”, a banal character that slipped in and out unobtrusively, a fiduciary figure at best.  He couldn’t tell the truth without jeopardizing his own double life.  Yet the door of opportunity never closed.  Perplexed?  Could he see himself as a serious player?  His best seller was still only a neuron away from Murph’s vain existence: No guts, no glory.

ALLEN NEUHARTH

It was another long day for Al Neuharth before he relaxed into the booth at The Italian Village.  He looked at ease with loosened tie, sipping his martini, yet his thoughts never rested.  What sort of coup could he pull off tomorrow, or next week, next month, next year?  It wasn’t just the million dollar paycheck.  He must constantly jockey for more power, so that when he asked for the big one, no one dare say nay.  Deep in thought as always, he was unnoticing of the woman approaching, behind him, from the dining room.  She paused at the exit, just long enough to catch a look at this enticing figure.  Straight out of central casting with his black sharkskin suit and glistening white hair.  Conspicuous in contrast to the surroundings. What the hell was he doing here?

Unable to erase him from her memory, she returned to The Village the next day, to inquire as to his identity.  Already caught between two lovers, she rationalized her fascination with Gannett’s CEO was innocent enough.  After all, she was more likely to see “The Second Coming” than to encounter Al Neuharth again.

Still nearly a year later on another perfect spring evening in 1981, she and Frank having finished dinner, with Colonel Ehmann and his wife Rusty at The Rascal Café. They said goodnight at the restaurant door. He returned to his Mendon ranch and family, while she, with Tommy having blown their love fest, headed home alone.

Having driven only a block, she spotted that unmistakable corporate limo parked in The Village lot.  Her Regency, on automatic pilot, negotiated a U-turn in the middle of Main Street, parking itself directly behind that baby, as if it possessed some kind of damn homing device.

The scene felt surreal as she entered the bar.  It couldn’t be—but there he was.  Angels wept as she seated herself one empty stool away from him.  She ordered a drink, and then excused herself to the powder room, just long enough for Mike, the bartender, to paint him the picture.  “Consort of the Warrior Kings…God’s gift to man…Little Egypt…Blaze Starr…Tempest Storm with an attitude…Good luck, pal”, Mike replied.  But Neuharth didn’t need luck.  He could drive without a license, frolic stark naked in broad daylight on his roof at Pumpkin Center, and wear the crown without the thorns piercing his hollow brow.  It was she who needed cautioning, yet no warning bells rang, nor did trumpets blare, when he introduced himself, and invited her to dine.

His perennial order: linguini with white clam sauce, and Pouilly Fuissé—she hadn’t even remembered eating when the check arrived.  Then he turned his attention to her and said: “You can go to my place with me, or I can go to your place with you.  Or we can part company?”  The angels gasped.  “I’ll go to your place.”

Years later she would read the Secret, only to discover that she already knew it.  It had been re-packaged from the postulates of the Golden Dawn and its most famed magician Aleister Crowley, and still further back in time, from the Great Master.  If you plant a mustard seed, you’ll most likely grow a mustard plant.  As in all magic, herein lies its danger—be careful what you wish for.  There was one small opening.  With the benefit of hindsight, she keenly understood that she should have chosen Door Number Three.

Upon reaching his chambers in the Glass Tower, he pressed a button and a wall disappeared.  He retrieved another bottle of wine, placing it on the table before the cone-shaped fireplace.  He then offered her a choice of two robes. She chose the black, assuming it was his.  He then retreated into the dressing room in the corner of the living room.  Moments later, with no formal announcement that should have proclaimed such a sight, he re-appeared wearing his wife’s brown robe, open auspiciously, displaying the scepter of his real power.  She may have fallen on the floor, had she not already been there, grasping for the bottle.  She needed another drink! 

He bragged that he was the same weight as he was in WWII, one hundred and forty-six pounds.  “Yeah, one hundred pounds of body, forty pounds of ego, and six pounds of Aphrodite’s most intricate handiwork”, she quipped.  The Dark Prince loomed over her, the ground trembled, the Angel’s shuddered.  No two people deserved each other more than Naja and Neuharth.  Thank heaven for prenups.

Author: I. Naja Hara

Typist/Editor: Julia Meek

09/11/08