Fool on the Hill (12 page)

“This from a dog who looks like something out of a swamp.”

“Blackjack, you—”

And so it went, the two of them arguing back and forth good-naturedly as they made their final approach to Heaven.

III.

“Am I dreamin'?”

Just past seven on the morning of the twenty-fifth. An Ithaca Police patrol car was idling by a downtown intersection, watching an army on horseback ride up West State Street in the direction of The Commons. The rain had taken a short rest break, and the Bohemians appeared out of the mist like a phantom parade.

“No, you're not dreaming,” said the officer behind the wheel of the car. She was a slim black named Nattie Hollister; her partner, Samuel Doubleday, was pale, middle-aged, and had a remarkable rash of freckles on his cheeks.

“They sure are colorful, aren't they?” added Hollister.

“Who are they?
What
are they, I should say.”

“They call themselves Bohemians.”

“Is that some new kind of Communist thing?”

“Not exactly. They're a good bunch, really. Never had to run one in.”

Doubleday hawked and spat out the window. “Maybe they just never got caught. I don't like ‘em.”

At that point Ragnarok cruised in front of the patrol car on his bike. He saw Hollister through the windshield and raised a hand in salute.

“God bless all Ithacops!” he cried.

“Hail, Caesar!” shouted some of the other Bohemians.

“You see? You see?” Doubleday growled. “Just like those fags down at The ‘Wave. No respect for authority.”

“Oh, they respect us,” said Hollister. “They just show it in a unique way, that's all.”

“That one there,” Doubleday went on, as Z.Z. Top trotted by on his burro, “Marxist or child molester. No question.”

“Don't trouble yourself over it, Doubleday. They're harmless. You want to cruise over to the State Diner and pick up some coffee?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure. As soon as this damn intersection is clear, that is.” His mouth was drawn down in an angry bow; Hollister was beginning to wonder if the man ever smiled. “Ah, hell!”

“What now, Doubleday?”

“It's raining again!”

Hollister threw back her head and laughed.

IV.

“Let's hear it for the rain!” Lion-Heart cried as they rode through The Commons, and the downpour received a solid round of applause. They had been applauding everything from woodchucks to Greyhound buses for the past five miles, so happy were they to be back. For many of them, including Lion-Heart, this would be their last year at Cornell, and they wanted to start off on as positive a note as possible.

Lion-Heart still led the way, Fujiko and Myoko flanking him, the other Bohemians and Grey Ladies following in a disorderly fashion. Sweeping through The Commons they cheered the row of stores, cheered the McDonald's, cheered the sidewalks beneath them. In front of Iszard's department store—which stood on the site of the old Ithaca Hotel—they encountered George, who had risen very early that day.

“Morning, storyteller,” Lion-Heart said, nodding to him. He held up a hand, and the procession halted. “What brings you out? I thought we were the only ones crazy enough to beat the sunrise.”

“What sunrise?” George said pleasantly, glancing up at the clouds. “Besides, I figured it was about time for you to be coming back. Got a welcome-home for you.” He hoisted a bottle of Midori up to Lion-Heart.

“Well now,” the Bohemian King said. “Can't help but respect a man with good taste in liquor.”

“Hey George,” cried Z.Z. Top, trotting up to the front of the line. He held a newspaper in one hand. “Got a good one for you. You heard the latest from Chicago?”

“No. What gives?”

“All right,” the Top said enthusiastically. A fan of
The Knight of the White Roses,
he loved sharing odd news items with George. “Dig it, there's this guy out to the Windy City owns a huge house in the suburbs, he comes home two days ago and the place is burning up. There's not a fire truck in sight, and his kid, who's been left home alone, is screaming out a top-floor window for Daddy to come save him.

“So he's a concerned father, he ought to just run in and see if he can save the kid, right? Only thing is he's got this mental problem, he's a what-do-you-call, a tri— . . . a trisko— . . . ah, fuck!”

“Triskaidekaphobe,” Myoko offered.

“Right! Right, that. Triskawhatever. Which basically means his asshole goes into toxic shock over the number thirteen. And there's smoke pouring out of exactly thirteen windows of the house.”

“He counted them?” George said skeptically.

“Hey man, it's right here in the paper, inquiring minds want to know. This guy's house, it's a special effects representation of the number thirteen, and his spinchter starts to get all tight . . .”

“Nice, Top,” said Fujiko.

“. . . and there's no way in hell he can make himself go in, not even with his own child in line to be a barbecue. So he goes back to his car, see, gets a spare gas can out of the boot, grabs a pop bottle from the gutter, rips a strip off his Brooks Brothers suit, and makes himself a suburban Molotov cocktail. Lobs it into a part of the house that hasn't been touched yet,
whoosh,
fire, smoke, the number thirteen becomes the number fourteen, his asshole simmers back down and now he can be a hero. Gets the kid out fine but the fire guts the house, and the final kicker is the insurance company doesn't want to pay off because the guy committed arson, technically. They're going to have one hell of a time in court with that one.”

“Quite the tale.”

“No shit. But if you put that sort of thing in one of your novels, zap!, into the penalty box for lack of realism.”

George shrugged. “Can't beat real life for suspension of disbelief.”

“No shit. Lots of weird stuff going down in Chicago lately. We'll have to get together for some beers, pop a few Black Label Lights while I tell you about it.”

“Need a lift up The Hill, storyteller?” asked Lion-Heart, when Z.Z. Top was through.

“No thanks,” said George. “Think I'll hang out here a while longer.”

“As you like. Hey, you got a woman yet?”

George reddened the tiniest bit.

“ ‘Fraid not,” he admitted. “I'm still trying, though.”

“Yeah, well I got something for you, make us even for the Midori.” He brought out a velvet pouch, and from it produced a fortune cookie which he tossed to George.

“What's this?”

“Open it, storyteller. Don't ask questions.”

George cracked the cookie open. He took out the slip of paper inside and read it aloud.

“Beware the Ides of March,” he read, looking puzzled. “I don't get it.”

“Huh?” said Lion-Heart. “Shit, I must have given you the wrong one.”

He rummaged again in the pouch and got another cookie. “Here.”

This time the slip of paper inside made more sense.

“ ‘Redeem for one (1) Woman of Your Dreams. This coupon void where prohibited by law.' Wow. Just what I needed.”

“Those are magic fortune cookies, storyteller,” Lion-Heart informed him. “I had this Wicca chick in SoHo make 'em up special for me. If that doesn't help you, you might as well give yourself up as a lost case.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Li,” George said.

“You just take it light, storyteller.” The Bohemian King gave his horse's reins a shake and got moving again. “Come up Risley way and visit us sometime soon.”

“I will,” said George. He moved out of the way and watched them go by, waving at those Bohemians that he knew, blushing when a Grey Lady named Kiri smiled at him. Soon they were all past, making a slow-motion charge up The Hill, first to the Cornell stables and then to Risley.

George folded both fortune cookie messages carefully and placed them into a dry part of his wallet.

Then he hunkered down under a storefront awning to watch the rain.

V.

Calliope arrived in Ithaca sometime during the rain, though only she could have named the exact hour. A small cottage awaited her in a grove along Triphammer Road, north of North Campus. It was cozy and suited her perfectly, though she knew she wouldn't be needing it for long.

After putting away her few possessions she showered, washing away the smells of the road, almost polishing herself until her skin glowed. Clean, she investigated the cottage's refrigerator and found the champagne and cheese, smiling at the discovery. Thoughtful of him. She ate and drank while the sun went down, its descent hidden by the cloud cover.

Long after sunset she dressed in a pair of moccasins and a curious silver-threaded robe that looked like a cross between a kimono and a long cloak. She went out into the night.

The rain had once again given way to mist, this time for good, and in her robe Calliope was nearly invisible. Three times she passed strangers on the road. None of them saw her, but each paused in her wake, feeling a deep sadness as if some great love had just been lost to them.

Prudence Risley Residence Hall stood on the north edge of Fall Creek Gorge, to the left coming off the East Avenue bridge that led to Central Campus. The residents were holding a Mist Party in the rear courtyard, and the whole building blazed with light.

Lion-Heart mingled and drank at the party for about an hour, then staggered out onto the front lawn to get a break from the music, a non-stop stream of “alternative” rock bands. Not that such groups weren't good—most of them—but they were feeling, paradoxically, a little too trendy lately. Now that disco was officially dead, it might be a good idea for the Bohemians to resurrect it, just for the shock value.

Sipping Midori from a shot glass, Lion-Heart stared drunkenly at the dorm. Erected in 1913 as a women's dormitory, Risley had gone slowly radical over the course of the late Sixties and the early Seventies, eventually becoming a co-ed haven for misfits. Three years ago a conservative element had begun to creep in, and Lion-Heart, then a Freshman, had formed the Bohemians to combat it. True, much of what the Bohemians did was not original—Lion-Heart had freely borrowed clothing styles from the Greenwich Village neighborhood where he had grown up, as well as borrowing from his parents' considerable Old World fortune to financé the cavalry aspect of the group—but the sight of a purple-garbed rider on a purple-maned horse was still different enough, even at relatively liberal Cornell, to raise eyebrows and restore Risley to its former reputation.

But while history might be made to repeat itself, it never stopped moving. With most of the hard-core Bohemes graduating this year (including Lion-Heart and his bankroll), he had begun to wonder how long it would take before the remainder drifted apart or collapsed into a clique. He wondered about the dorm, too, how it would fare without such wonders as Z.Z. Top's electronic Jew's Harp.

Even as Lion-Heart pondered Bohemia's role in Risley and larger society, Calliope appeared out of the mist, revealed for a moment in the glow from the dorm.

“Ho . . .” Lion-Heart gasped frozen by the sight of her. The shot glass dropped from his hand and the ground lapped up the rest of the Midori.

“Ho?” Calliope caught his gaze and smiled, tearing his heart. For she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen, ever would see, and yet he suddenly knew with an iron-clad certainty that she was not to be his. When she teasingly blew a kiss at him, Lion-Heart lost all control of himself.

“Who are you?” the King of the Bohemians demanded, springing forward to catch her. “At least tell me who you are. . . .”

“I'm just a dream on a lonely night,” said Calliope, laughing. As he reached out to grab her she spun, the cloak/kimono slipping easily through his fingers, and then she simply wasn't there anymore. He stumbled and fell hard to the ground.

“Wait!” he called into the mist, not sounding very much like a King now. “Wait . . .”

Her laugh echoed once in the distance—she sounded as if she were crossing the bridge—and faded. Lion-Heart thought about chasing after her and soon rejected the idea, knowing he could never catch her unless she wanted him to. And besides, he was just drunk enough to believe that something bad might happen to him if he became too persistent and annoyed her.

“Go easy on him, though,” the Bohemian King said thickly, struggling to his feet. “Whoever it is you did come here for.” No sooner was he standing than Myoko came around to the front lawn looking for him, and Lion-Heart thought he had never been so glad to see anyone.

“Are you real?” he asked her, still dizzy from the fall.

“What?” Myoko glided up to him. “You been into something heavy tonight, Li?”

He didn't answer, but reached out gently to touch her, as if fearing that she too might whirl and vanish. He clasped her hand in his, marveling at the feel of solid flesh and bone; he brushed his fingertips against her cheek.

“What is it?” Myoko asked, surprised and flattered by the expression of awe on Lion-Heart's face. He'd gone through a cold phase recently, being short on affection in the past week or so; now it seemed to have passed.

“You
are
real,” Lion-Heart said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. And so they remained, clasped together with the faint sounds of the party drifting over to them from the courtyard, for the better part of an hour. When at last they ended their embrace and turned to go inside, all memory of Calliope had been erased from Lion-Heart's mind. He had seen no one that night but Myoko, and he loved her.

VI.

The Arts Quad was deserted when Calliope got there. It shouldn't have been; even with the majority of the night's activities—wild parties in particular—taking place at the dormitories, fraternities, and sororities, there should have been a few scattered individuals passing through Central Campus at any given time until well after midnight. But the Lady was in a mood to dance, to dance but not to be seen, and so all those who would otherwise have walked
through the Quad suddenly got it in their heads to take a different route to wherever they were going.