Just North of Nowhere (48 page)

“Never mind!” she said, closing her eyes. “Smile. Smile!” His not-smile made her want to swallow her eyeballs.

When she peeked, his face had struck a balance. He was a droopy little guy. His face overflowed his collar. The necktie stopped it below the third roll but there he Goddamned stood, sagging, disinfected, sanitary-looking in the roiling fecundity of her place. She loved that word.

“I like this place,” he said.

“My place to like!” came out louder than she thought. “No one else’s!”

She tried conjuring one of Cristobel’s mutters!

Nothing. There it was! She couldn’t even get off her ass and stare down a droopy tourist much less whip up the Goddamn Way!

“I hold this place!” she yelled and was on her feet, crouching, arms spread as if grabbing the space from ledge to rise.

“You do, you know!” He seemed surprised, pleased. “Yes, it is yours,” he added a blink or two later.

Standing, she realized,
Holy cripes, I’m tall as he is!
Still, he was, an adult, okay: suit, tie, polished shoes. He seemed to... Okay:
he knows stuff!
She knew, without knowing how:
he’s been places, places far away. I hang one lousy pop fly baseball and, cripes, that smile could freeze all the homeruns ever. That not-smile would have melted the moon from the night. He’s seen things, sung songs that...

She shook her head, blinked a half-dozen times. “Don’t care how you got here, but you have to go. Private property. No trespassing. Posted land. Keep out. This means you.”

He nodded.

“...and when you go, take that with you!” she pointed at the place that couldn’t be but was.

He nodded. “Oh, absolutely, this is your place. I stopped because I’m visiting and soon I’ll be gone.”

She nodded, too quick, too hard, maybe.

“I wanted to come here,” his hand panned the tree-cloaked view of the dam, the river, the path, the town, “because, well, this is a place where things meet.”

She cocked her head like a dog staring at a new idea.

He almost smiled but didn’t. “You know. You’ve studied. Lines. Power.”

“Yes,” she said.

“And I wanted to give you,” he took a wallet from his breast pocket, opened it and removed a bright disc, “this. You might like this,” he said, handing it to her, his words long-considered, just-decided.

“Leslie turned it over in her hand. “A CD?”

The guy sagged. “No. I’m sorry, no. I do love music, but this is something else.

It was something else. The disc was un-grooved, heavier than a CD. It reflected the sky, trees, the mist that swarmed and drifted from below flowed across it. A bird flicked by in reflection and she turned to look.
There.
A red-wing black bird fluttered into the dark woods, two drops of blood flickering in the dawn.

“Well, huh,” she said.

“Yes,” Herb said.

“Where...?” she tipped the disc back and forth, trying to catch herself in the mirrored face. “I’m not there.”

The hound face showed briefly, “You will. You have to work at it.”

“Everything else is.”

“Not everything.” He seemed accustomed to sadness. “Most things are. Many live things. People? Not so much. They have to work at being there.”

Leslie squinted at the hard bright surface, bore down on the squint, then gave up. “Nope. Nothing.”

“Take a breath,” he said, “think of someone.”

She did. Cristobel!

“Look!”

Where she might have been reflected was a quiver, no more than the ripple of noon heat off a tin roof. “Huh,” she said. Another damn Cristobel breath and again the shimmer, shape for maybe a beat of her heart. Stupid heart! Then, gone.

“See? You organize the world a little,” the guy said. “You can’t help it.”

“Who are you?” Leslie said.

“Herb,” he said.

“Leslie.”

“Leslie, then. A pleasure.” His hand uncurled. She took it, expecting... She didn’t know what, but it was nothing strange. A hand: soft, cool, dry. She shook it.

Then for a minute, maybe more, Leslie stared, squinted, tipped the disc every whichway. She made faces, snarled at the backward world in the disc. She held her breath, blew it out in big gasps. Didn’t even mist the surface, not a bit more showed than what had in those first Cristobel breaths.

Herb turned aside, as she fussed. He gazed at the rising light of morning, peered through the mist across the river. He watched another redwing follow the first into the trees.

“I give up!” she shouted finally. “I’m just not there!”

“You will be.”

“In time,” she said.

“That’s right,” Herb said.

“’Rome wasn’t built in a day!’” she said.

“It wasn’t.”

“’Grow up, kid!’”

“Well...”

“’Ya gotta know the hows and whys and power comes from knowledge!’”

“Uh...”

“’With power comes responsibility!’ ‘gotta find the roots and grow into...’”

Herb head cocked his head like a curious beagle. “I’m afraid that with power,” he said, “comes more power. That’s about it.”

Leslie shut up. She looked at the disc again: still no Leslie. “You are there,” he said, “you’re just not very full yet. You will be...”

“Nothing!” she said. She looked up. He was gone. So was the way downward to the path.

“...later.”
the sad voice said in her memory.

“What?”
she called out.

“You’ll fill it. It will be rich with you. It will be you, complete...
her head said

“And? And then?”

There was just the sad, sad memory of a smile.

“Well, for crineoutloud! What?”

Day had flopped over the world. A wind found its way off the Amish lands and blew over the valley. Leslie walked the cliff edge staring into her disc. She was dizzy with breathing and in a fume and fuss, thinking of Cristobel, of Roy, of Ms. Lukowski, Mr. Dorbler, Miss Ruth, dad – ever-vacant – mom – ever-dead!

Twitches in the air was all! Stupid air. Dumb gift. Long walk back. Too much to think about. That was life: too many dumb places to go, too many long walks home and too much thinking on the way. Too many long thoughts.

Then:
Holy hell. Cristobel!

Leslie B. Fritz: dead in her sneaks at the edge of the Karlton ruins. There was Cristobel: twenty-five feet away, poised like a hood ornament on the rocky perch at the bluff edge. Leslie damn near leapt up shouting, “don’t jump!”

She didn’t. First, she thought it might scare Cristobel into a fall. Second, she figured the Strega probably wouldn’t. Next she was curious to see if she
would
. Finally, she was dying to see if Cristobel could make it if she did!

The wind picked up. It carried dry earth and the damp smell of fall-cut crops from the farms to the west.
What crops
, Leslie wondered. Funny. All her life and she’d never noticed what the hell they raised up here. Corn, wheat, soy, oats? She knew corn. Thought she knew wheat. But oats? What the hell? And soy!?

Another gust swirled grass and raised a whirl of dry leaves.

Cristobel raised her arms. The air caught her skirt and she stood on her toes.

Holy shit, she’s going!
Still, Leslie did nothing. Cristobel’s leg muscles twitched, she strained upward on her toes. Her hair whipped forward, leading. The moment hung for a breath, a long breath, then died. Stupid moment. Cristobel’s toes relaxed, her feet settled flat onto the rock. The wind blew hard as ever, but what was the difference? No one was going to fly. Cristobel’s shoulders sagged. The air left her; she became small, smaller.

Leslie’s neck tingled. The wind was right. Cristobel wanted it. Leslie remembered that day at Elysium, caught the remembered tingle of Ms. Lukowski’s “nice one, Fritz, and packed it into a gentle breath. That done, she blew toward Cristobel.

Cristobel’s shoulders rose, her body stepped upward, her calf muscles held her weight then released it. Her feet stretched downward, trailing where a moment before they had tried to propel her. Cristobel rose until she was aloft. Not like a bird, a plane, but like a baby taking a first step, she flew. Something natural a body does. Eventually.

Night was huge outside Leslie’s room. The tingle had stayed with her. It ran through. Down the way, Cristobel lay awake in dreams, Leslie knew that much.
She dreams of flying,
Leslie thought,
flying? Ha! Flown! A kite was Cristobel, no bird, no...
Leslie would LOVE the look on her face when...!

Ease oozed into Leslie’s gut. Her tingling neck hairs settled.
Huh.
She didn’t want to tell Cristobel. Holy Crap. She
wouldn’t
tell.

What the hell was that?

And Roy? Where was Roy? Home of course. She knew, but who cared? She looked at the sky.

She cared. Roy was a friend and who knew? Maybe more. A hundred kids? The tingle again. That was possible. She and Roy?

The moon was full. Stupid, beautiful moon. Her body grew. Leg bones creaked, stretched, toes wriggled longer, much longer.
Yipes. It hurts. Oww, it hurts! Good, good, good. Good!
Her hips creaked, instantly widened one-one hundredth of an inch, her neck lengthened a good sixty-fourth – she could measure it!
Bet
she could! By morning, a full thirty-second! In her backbone, calcium bred like ‘shrooms in a damp and shitty place. Cell by cell and in a blink she added damn near an eighth of an inch – one damn wink! Everything spread, stretched, added to and extended. Every part grew farther apart. Everything was moving away from her: her head, eyes, elbows, hands, knees, feet inched away from where
she
was!

And, oh cripes, it hurt, it would, it was going to hurt – and hurt for a long time – and when it stopped, well then, she’d be six feet tall. Taller, maybe, he’d said. Taller than six! Yes! And break hearts? No kidding! Shatter them!

She looked at the world for a minute, saw it as she had that morning on the Bluff. She looked at the world all over again; saw it, as it would be a couple years from now, saw it from six feet up and more!

She raised the little man’s gift to her eyes. In the brightness of the moon she saw the bed’s headboard, the pillows behind her and,
yes!
Not much but more than a wrinkle, but there was the tiniest smile on the mirror, not much more than a kiss-print on its surface, but there was something!

“Hot damn! Oh, cripes,” she said to the sacred darkness, “Come on! Hurry! Hurry up!”

Then, Leslie B. Fritz: sound asleep.

Down the way, Cristobel still felt the thrill of air underfoot, the dizziness of height, the freedom of release, of letting go.
Oh
, she thought, remembering her Nanna’s deathwords, realizing for the first time,
there was a wind! Today was a windy day, a windy, windy day!

Roy scooted; headed homeward ahead of night’s sliding shadow. The shadow of the ridge had a head start on him but if he ran faster than the world turned, he’d beat night to his front door. Easy! He knew that darn much.

Then: Nope!

Ahead, fifty feet, maybe, one of
them
slurped from the side yard of the last house on the block. The thing waddled across the road to the trees above the river leaving a trail of slime, drool, and body damp.

Eugene froze. Hair, fur, scale, feathers, knobbed flesh, some of each, Roy couldn’t tell what the thing was made of; it stayed to the twilight. Legs? Two for walking – two at least, maybe more – a couple more limbs above its gut, boneless and tentacular – for wrapping, probably and hooks for grabbing, maybe octopoid suckers for drawing prey to its mouth. Or maw. He liked that word. And fangs? Could a maw be fanged? Well, yeah!

It slowed, slobbered again; left a wet-black puddle on the road.

Keep going, keep going,
Roy whispered to the creature and to his heart.

...the thing stopped.

Its head – it was half head at least – hove ‘round to face him. Its non-head parts were gut, some squirmy bits, stink and such. They stayed aimed at the trees. Roy smelled it from where he stood... And another thing! He’d first figured the distance between them to be fifty feet. Now it was twenty-five, thirty at best. It hadn’t squished any closer to him and he hadn’t closed the gap. So? What? The thing ate distance?

Maybe.

Could be that’s what it does: devours space, sucks up time. Roy had seen stranger gifts in odder creatures. Its eye clusters – ten, twelve feet above the ground – glimmered in the frail light.

Seeping? Crying maybe? A weeping beast was it? Possible; he hadn’t seen that before.

Roy wasn’t afraid, not precisely. This – others like it – had cut paths with him most of his life. They’d never hurt him. Their stink and drool, the uncertain numbers of their limbs and their fractious hub-bubs gave Roy pause, but except for squeezing by or going around him, they never paid him much attention.

“Go on,” he said quietly, “go on.”

“Growp,” it said, glimmering at him from the twilight.

By then, the bluff’s shadow had swallowed Roy’s house and had begun to crawl over Roy. Evening chill eased through him as it did.

Oh, cripes
, he wasn’t going back to the EATS, he would not, thing
be damned!

It and Roy waited.

Then the shrubs to Roy’s right wiggled a sneaky bit. To his left, across the road and down by the river, the trees sighed in the evening breeze. Something splished. Mud burbles sucked.

Big feet,
Roy thought.

“Blork!” the thing ahead called, louder.

“Greellip,” the mud-sucker croaked.

Various stinks met in Roy’s nose. The shrub ruffled again.

“Okay,” Roy whispered and backed down toward Commonwealth.

Leslie stood inside the big front window at the EATS. She was washed in blue vanilla fluorescence. She sucked ice, and
still
looked pissed.
What the heck’s with her,
he thought. Maybe she perked a little when she saw him climb the steps to the porch. Maybe not. She ignored him. Then she put three hand-flicks into urging him in.

He checked his watch. Sixteen minutes exactly since he’d left. “You, come out,” he mouthed.

She side-sneered him like a pissed-off Popeye and head-wagged back at him.

“Need. To talk. To you!” he mouthed and pointed back and forth. “Just us!” he mouthed.

She gave him an I’m-too-good-for-
you
nose-in-air turn, did a dance on her two big toes then leaned into a one-footed pose: an old-fashioned wings-back flying hood ornament.

He replied in kind. Reluctant.

She reposed, cooler, her lean just
that
shy of flopping.

The restaurant people watched: Her, him, her, back again.

She gave him her ‘that was lousy’ look about his last pose then pressed her lips and cheek to the window.

“Come here,” he said against the glass at her ear.

“What?” she said when she hit the porch, still blue-white, still washed in restaurant vanilla.

“Nothing,” he said. “You going home or what?”

“Thought you went.”

“Just worried about, you know? You. Night and all.”

“Oh, so sweet,” she said – her drippiest sarcasm. She looked at the night. “You worried for me? Night?” She wiggled two-hands of fingers at him, ran a tip-toed circle around him. “You forget what I
am...
” she sang. “I am
of
the night. I
am
the night – the night of winter climes and starry dark...”

“Yeah. I was just saying, is all.”

“What?” She dropped the song. “There’s something?”

“Maybe something,” he said.

“Something maybe I can see?”

He shrugged, looked at his watch. “Just worried about you. You know?”

“Any of your what-do-you-call’ems?”

He shrugged.

“What
do
you call ‘em?”

“Outer people.”

“Yeah, ‘Outer people,’
tres
cool.”

“Yeah. You going home or what?”

“You want me to walk you?”

He looked into the dark. Night fully draped the bluffs, the town. “It’s just something is different, is all.”

She took his hand and they were off, Roy lagging, then catching up, then he was side by side with her.

“You want protection all you have to do is ask,” she said.

The place where the thing had been was just a place. The drool, seep, tears – whatever – was a damp spot on the macadam. The rubble-bubble of the river and the trees’ sighs were no louder in the dark than Roy’s breath. The bushes did not crackle and Leslie kissed g’night onto his cheek.

For the hundred-dozenth time, he made his
Gaak
-face at her and was off.

For the fifty-dozenth time, she laughed.

Train?
Old Ken sat up in bed.
Train whistle?

Clear as winter moonrise: a wet brass sigh snaked the bluffs. “Train!” he breathed to the darkness. He waited. In less than a minute there it was: a steam chug and a rolling clack, steel on steel. Memory clicked inside him: a long-held breath, let go, a daylong itch was scratched. A train was coming, a hot puffer out of the south, a long one, dragging weight, no local mutt making for lost time in the night, this.

It slowed passing the bend by Engine Warm. When the locomotive spilled steam before the turn across from Daddy’s livery, she was still clacking track down by Papoose Bridge...

...she’s
that
long! She’ll be half turned back on herself,
he thought – saw it in his head!

Ken was up before he knew.
Damn! she’s THE train!

Something spoke:
Bedlam and Swathe!
something said.

Oh, damn and joy!
said he.

Eugene Roy woke at the same time. The faces in the wall around him, above his bed, to the sides, below, cast dim shadows by the clock’s green glow. 3:01 in the A.M. They were awake too.

Roy kept his breath shallow; he moved his eyes no more than he needed.

The heck am I awake, three-oh-one in the morning?
he wondered. He didn’t have to pee.
The heck are
they
awake, three in the morning?
They never peed.

Fourteen seconds later he heard...

A train?
No trains to Bluffton,
he knew that darn much.
The tracks are gone...fifty years.

A whistle brassed the distance.

More than fifty years!

Clackety wheels and the chuff of steam came eight seconds later. It was near.

Curiouser and curiouser,
he thought. First: that evening’s shuffler had stopped, looked, paid attention to him. It wept – maybe wept – then the others: the thing in the bushes and by the water: they’d been...
What?
Strange. They hung back. They waited. The creatures were being, what? Coy? Shy? Tearful? Well, okay. They were being
outer!
Like dad had said.

As he counted the day’s outer-ness, the train pulled into town. And it was a train for sure. Rails or no rails, a train was coming to Bluffton.

Old Ken dressed lickety split! His joints rubbed red hot; clacked as he waddled the hall, pranced the stairs to the porch! He was down the front steps and hoofing up the street before he’d spat!
Sweet shit! Boy-speed forward!

The full moon washed and starlight dusted the town. The whistle called again and Ken’s nose sucked coal sulfur from the sound!

To the intersection in record time! He rounded the corner, one-footed, screeching.
To hell with the Restrant! To hell with Nora Tim, her grits and all the grease there was! Bedlam and Swathe’s pink spun sugar and finger-burning ‘fries today!

On the straightaway now, he rocketed toward Elysium. By-and-by the town would come along but, clattering and creaky, Ken led the pack for now!

Forget the wall people,
Roy thought,
something’s coming.
He waited, still in bed, still pretending sleep.
Something...

Train brakes vented steam, grabbed screaming steel, railcars boomed gently, one into another.

At the far end of town – near the dam by Roy’s estimate – the engine had stopped. It panted, hissed, and (he imagined) dripped wet light. The whistle sounded again.

He’d never seen a steam locomotive, but in movies they smoked and farted, emitted the visual stink of coal. In a minute his nose twitched, his whole body tingled.

Something!

His head turned – easy, easy – one leg slid over the edge of the bed. The other followed.

When he was halfway up, the faces in the wall, either side of his clock, went wide-eyed. One head, straining a wallpaper-striped neck, dipped, sniffed the time: 3:19! The other face accordioned out. Its mouth melted till the lower lip hit the floor, amazed. Its tongue unrolled beneath his bed in shock.

Confused
? Roy thought,
good for you. So am I!

When he jumped into his pants, both faces gave a silent shriek. Noses flared, mouths rounded, red and wriggling eyestalks waved, uvulas flapped. By the dozens, every face in every wall and corner of the room erupted in old-time movie passion.

Phooey on ‘em!
Roy was down the stairs and out the door when 3:21 winked. He hopped toward Commonwealth, pulling on sneaks as he bounced.

He wished Leslie could have seen those faces. He really did.

One living soul was out in the night, a block ahead: the old man, the snake hunter, Ken, in full-waddle.

Leslie gave him back his sight!
The thought popped into his head.
Leslie? Okay, the Italian lady helped. A little. Okay, okay. Now, the old dude’s jogging to meet the train!

The old man hit Commonwealth, wobbled left and was gone.

Full moon washed the town. At bedtime it had been just a watery sliver.
Okay. That’s not possible
, he realized.
It’s just not. The moon doesn’t phase from new to full in half a night!

Still, there it was: a sharp disc above the bluff. Its light made the nigh-mist glow.

Of course, there aren’t monsters, either
, he thought.
Ha!

The old man picked up speed and Roy paced himself to match. The roar of the dam swelled as they crossed the feeder stream by the Sons of Norway lodge. He couldn’t see it, but the locomotive’s steady
shug-shug-shug
in the darkness grew nearer.

No more than moon haze filled Elysium Park.

Roy stopped. He doubled over, palms on his knees, and sucked air.
Huh.
The old guy had nearly outrun his lungs.

When he looked up again, the trees that rimmed the park had become a wall of shadows to the brightness in the field beyond. Dark places in the light resolved into...

What?

The moment was like putting on his glasses: A skeletal circle of lacy light sharpened, became a steel wheel.
A Ferris wheel!
Turning against the dark it sprayed light and carnival sound. The spray settled across the field. Sounds, the locomotive’s chug, the soft roar from the spillway, other nightsounds broke into a thousand pieces, reformed into a calliope’s whoop and crash. Light from the town, the wheel, and that full, impossible moon drifted in strands among the trees. They settled like a dew-wet web over Elysium. The strands wove themselves into tents, stands, pitches, people. Canvas and paint unfolded, spread, and licked upward into the haze.