The Mountain Cage (11 page)

He thought of food and dark, warm places, of laps and soft voices. Reluctantly, he was beginning to understand how Blondi felt.

“For a while,” he said, clinging to his freedom. “Just for a while.” As they left the road, several birds flew overhead, screaming of the distant war.

Afterword to “The Mountain Cage”:

Not long ago, a friend of mine mentioned a writer he knew who had begun researching a novel set during World War II about the Nazi high command. This writer soon gave up on this project, largely because having to live in that world imaginatively over a long period of time was driving him crazy. There are those who argue that the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the events surrounding them may not be fit subjects for fiction, at least not until more time has passed and the last of the survivors have had their say. Others have claimed that to write fiction about such horrors risks trivializing them, since the evil reality so far exceeds anything imagination and artistic transformation might yield.

All of which may help to explain why I approached this subject warily and chose to glimpse it obliquely, through the eyes of cats.

COMMON MIND

Miller Oretskin had installed the satellite dish himself, mounting the large wok-sized object on the side of his house, next to one of the windows. Doing the job himself had saved money, and he had always liked to use his hands anyway. For five years, he had been living a largely solitary life in this small house thirty miles outside the city of Hannaford. After Emily’s death, and then having to take early retirement when the company was laying people off, Miller hadn’t much wanted to be around a lot of other people.

But there was such a thing as too much solitude, and with the dish, he could pick up CNN and ESPN and some of those old movies he and Emily had seen together on that Turner channel and for less money than the cable company would have charged him. Now, with the dish and an antenna for local programming, he would be able to see just about anything he cared to watch.

Signals, Miller thought as he set down his remote and leaned back in his recliner. Everything on his TV screen—the green of the Astroturf, the players lining up in formation on the field, the voice of Boomer Whats-his-name speculating about what the Broncos might do next—all of it was signals aimed his way from a satellite and picked up by his dish, signals translated into images he and other viewers could watch. All over the country, millions of guys were probably watching this same game, sharing the same experience, most likely having many of the same thoughts.

All of which, Miller told himself, was some kind of miracle.

Kyle Gorman was fooling around with the amplifier in the back, showing off for a shopper who had wandered into the store. Jessamyn Richter watched as Kyle looped the guitar strap around his neck, grasped the instrument, then struck a note. An electronic screech sliced through her eardrums. Jessamyn covered her ears with her hands.

“Now that’s what I call feedback,” Kyle said.

“Whoa,” the shopper sighed. He was a young bearded man in a worn leather jacket, and Kyle had clearly impressed him. Jessamyn rested her elbows on the counter, listening absently as Kyle went on about amplitude and vibrations and feedback as if he were Mr. Science or somebody. Maybe he impressed a lot of the customers, but he didn’t impress her. By her estimation, Kyle had to be at least thirty-five, maybe close to forty, and here he was still working in a Radio Cabin store in the mall. He was the sales manager here, and got to handle the customers who wanted to spend serious dollars, like the guy in pinstripes who had bought the two computers for cash that morning or the geezer who finally decided to get the satellite dish and a big screen TV to go with it; but Kyle was still kind of pathetic.

“Jeez,” Jessamyn muttered under her breath, ignoring the bewildered-looking woman standing near the cellular phone display, wishing that it was nine-thirty already so that she and Kyle could start closing up the place. If she was still working in a Radio Cabin store when she was pushing forty, she hoped somebody would just take her out and shoot her.

Kyle pulled the strap over his head, then set the guitar down. “I wish it was nine-thirty,” he said. “If I’m still working for Radio Cabin in the mall when I’m forty, I hope somebody takes me out and shoots me.”

He’s reading my mind, Jessamyn thought, and heard herself say, “Hey, dude, at least you’re not slinging burgers at Mickey Dee’s.” Those weren’t her words. Jessamyn didn’t know where they had come from. She looked at the man in the leather jacket and saw him gaping at her. “I can’t even get my own place,” she continued, feeling adrift and lost and defeated.

Kyle looked at the woman who was lingering near the shelves of cellular phones. “He won’t speak to me,” Kyle said. “My own son, and he won’t speak to me, he’s a thousand miles away and wants nothing to do with me. What the hell do I even need a phone for?”

Kyle, she knew, had no kids. Man, this is bizarre, Jessamyn thought, and then flashed on the fact that she wasn’t totally weirded out by what was happening, that she did not feel afraid. “Man, this is bizarre,” the guy in the leather jacket said, “but I know what’s going on, and I’m not scared. We’re turning telepathic—that’s what it is.” He turned toward Jessamyn, but she was already walking slowly toward Kyle.

“It’s not my life,” she said, knowing that it was Kyle’s words reverberating inside her now. “Working in Radio Cabin—that isn’t my real life. My apartment might not be much, but it’s mine. Got my books, my computer, no ties—you know, sometimes the secret of life is not needing a whole lot of stuff and being happy with what you have.”

A wave of sympathy for the middle-aged woman flowed into her. “Edie,” Jessamyn said, knowing that this was the other woman’s name.

“Jess,” Edie replied, using Jessamyn’s nickname.

Jessamyn was filled with pity for the leather-jacketed dude stuck on the fast-food career track and also with a sudden compassion for Kyle. “It isn’t easy,” she said, “being in the closet.”

Kyle nodded. “You can bank on that,” he said, but Edie and the other guy were saying the words along with him. “But it’s easier for me now. It was worse when I was younger. At least now I can …”

“… come out to my friends and family,” Jessamyn finished, “even if I wouldn’t want other people to know I’m gay.”

They stood in a circle, in the middle of the Radio Cabin, hands clasped, in silent communion, and then she looked up to see more people entering the store. First were two punk-looking kids who had just boosted a couple of CDs from the Music Master outlet and who were feeling bad about it, followed by a tired-looking woman who had been shopping for new shoes she needed but could not afford and a heavy-set man who was worrying about his cholesterol and his heart.

“Shouldn’t have stolen those CDs,” Kyle said to the punks.

“You know something?” the weary-looking woman said to Edie. “I think your boy be calling you any day now.”

More people were coming into the Radio Cabin. For some reason, Jessamyn was hearing a lot of voices, and they seemed to be getting louder, even though nobody was saying anything,
 

“… can’t go home to that bastard …”
 

“… maybe I ought to take it back …”
 

“… he’s never going to notice me …”
 

“… put it off too long, got to tell her I want a divorce …”
 

“… why am I so much happier here than I ever am when I’m home?”

Jessamyn moved toward the newcomers, welcoming them.

Rich Bracco sat at the bar in the Montana Steakhouse, waiting for his wife Anna to show up. He’d had one Wild Turkey on the rocks already and was working on his second. Anna should have been here half an hour ago, but she always lost track of time in the mall.

Probably trying on shoes, Rich thought, or checking out knick-knacks at Lucy Goosy’s or whatever the name of that store was, and it wouldn’t be his fault if he was half in the bag by the time she got here. She should have gotten here right after he finished the Coke he had ordered, and then he wouldn’t be sitting here preparing to order a third drink.

Maybe getting drunk would make it easier for him to get through taking her out to dinner and trying to make conversation. Anna didn’t talk to him much any more; sometimes days passed without anything more passing between them than “See you later” and “I’m going to bed.” They had been married for five years now, and living together a couple of years longer than that, yet he felt that he knew less about her than he had seven years ago. Something had gone wrong, and he didn’t know what it was. Maybe he was putting in too many late hours at the insurance office; maybe Anna should ask the manager at the bank to give her Saturdays off more often so that they could have more time together.

He finished his Wild Turkey and signaled to the bartender for another drink. We’ve turned into windowless monads, Rich thought, thinking of a philosophy course he had taken in college. A philosopher called Leibnitz had thought that the universe was made up of monads that were completely independent of one another but operated according to a pre-established harmony. All of which meant, Rich mused hazily, that he wasn’t really seeing or hearing anything outside himself at all, and neither was anyone else; they were all just a bunch of wind-up toys who had been synchronized or whatever a long time ago. It was predetermined that the bartender would be setting his third drink on a napkin in front of him at this moment, and that Rich’s hand would be reaching out to take it. Now something had screwed up the pre-established harmony between him and Anna; they were completely locked up inside themselves.

“That’s what we are, all right,” the man on the stool next to him muttered, “just a bunch of windowless monads,” and then Rich turned to see Anna coming toward him, followed by two boys wearing baseball caps turned backwards, an old woman in a plaid coat, a young couple in jeans, and what looked like a crowd of people behind them.

“I love you,” Anna said as she came up to him, and Rich heard himself say the words with her. Somebody near him began to laugh, and soon everyone in the bar was laughing. Life isn’t so bad, Rich thought as he hugged Anna and grinned at the two boys in the baseball caps.

“You can say that again,” a red-haired woman said as she hoisted herself onto a stool. “Guess we aren’t windowless monads any more. Our windows are wide open.”

Warmth and sympathy for his fellow monads flooded into Rich. “Drinks on the house,” someone called out just before Rich was about to say the same thing.

“I love you, too,” another man was saying to Anna.

“What do I care?” said the bartender and three other men in unison. “It isn’t my booze.”

The bartender started pouring drinks and setting them out as more people bellied up to the bar. A young woman in a blue blazer stood next to him with a shaker of margaritas. “It isn’t my booze,” she repeated. “It belongs to some goddamn corporation in Cincinnati that makes all us waitresses wear Stetsons that keep falling off our heads and cowboy boots that leave blisters on our feet.”

Rich leaned toward the woman. She could not be a waitress here; she wasn’t wearing the requisite Stetson. But one of the waitresses was standing just behind her, dropping ice into glasses. Rich suddenly knew that the waitress had been watching him while he was drinking, thinking he was cute, and wondering if it was worth her while to flirt with him. The woman in the blue blazer was here to celebrate her first job with a local law firm. She smiled at him; she smiled back.

“Congratulations,” Rich said, lifting his glass.

“I love you, too,” Anna was saying to a bearded guy in a sweatshirt.

Jessamyn followed the crowd out of the store. Outside the Gap, two of the sales clerks were throwing coats and sweaters to the people milling around in the entrance. “Take them!” several voices shouted out at once. “You need them more than the store does!” Jessamyn felt the gratitude of the women catching the clothing and the warmth of the clerks giving the garments away.

A knot of people had collected around the pretzel stand. She suddenly felt hungry, saw that almost all of the pretzels were gone, then let the people pressing around her propel her toward the Great American Cookie outlet. Somebody handed her a bag of chocolate chip cookies. She turned her head slightly, saw that Kyle was still next to her, sensed immediately that he wanted a cookie, and held out the bag.

“Thanks,” he said, and a feeling of ecstacy flooded into her; she wanted nothing more than to roam around the mall handing out cookies and accepting whatever merchandise anybody wanted to hand to her. She spotted a mall security officer over by Liberty Shoes; the uniformed man was grinning as he tossed boxes of shoes to passers-by. She didn’t have to worry about him.

It occurred to Jessamyn then that, with all her thoughts flowing into the others in the mall and theirs into hers, she did not have to worry about anything. She understood them all and was part of all of them. And wasn’t that kind of overwhelming understanding and sympathy just what the world needed?