The Perpetual Motion Club (25 page)

Elsa’s body shook at the sound. She couldn’t believe it. She jumped up and skipped to the front hallway.

However, when the door opened, Jason with his arm slung over Deanna Taye was not there. Instead, jWad with his arm slung over May was there.

May giggled. “We’re here to help.”

“Where’ve you been?” Elsa asked.

“We’ve been busy, I told you.” May answered, pushing Elsa aside and dragging jWad in behind her as she headed toward the kitchen. “Everyone’s been talking about our project. It’s so fabulous.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be great,” jWad added as he followed her.

“
Our
project?” Elsa said still holding the doorknob in her hand.

“The coven’s,” May called back to her. “The club’s.”

Elsa let the door swing shut and followed the two downstairs. From the top of the stairs she heard jWad as he took in the scene.

“Holy Crap!” he said.

“Yeah,” May said.

“Yeah, well, no thanks to you,” she mumbled to herself. Then raising her voice, she said, “And there’s still a lot of work to be done. I doubt if we’re going to make it.”

The doorbell rang.

Again Elsa’s body started. She flew to the door, but found only Christine sniffling on the front porch.

She swallowed her disappointment. “Where’s Jimmy?” she asked.

Christine gave a toot into her Kleenex. “Everyone’s been talking about Jason Bridges staying at your house. He thinks you’re in love with Jason, so he’s not coming around.”

Elsa looked squarely to the left at the doorjamb as if the sense of Christine’s answer was there.

Why would he think that? And why would he care? And why would he be confiding in Christine? Elsa wondered. She shook it off and motioned for Christine to enter. Just before closing the door, she heard a step on the sidewalk. It wasn’t Jason, but nevertheless her heart started just a tiny bit when she saw Jimmy hesitating before climbing the front steps.

“Where’ve you been?” she demanded when he made it to the door.

“Been busy,” he answered.

“Not busy anymore?”

Jimmy said nothing but proceeded to the basement. Elsa remained staring for a while and then walked slowly downstairs, thinking about things. She shook herself out of her thoughts of Jimmy and joined the group. They were busy remarking on the amazing progress, the amazing project, and how amazing every amazing thing was. “So what’s left?” jWad said

“Well,” began Elsa, still a little bit muddled. But once she got going she forgot about Jimmy. “The Fludd circulator needs a basin and return mill,” she started. And then she stopped to think. “And the, ah, the magnetic car needs the chain and gear setup.” She was hitting her stride now. “Boyle’s apparatus needs the capillary tube flared and sealed. It’s been leaking. Somebody that’s handy with the Bunson should do that. Who’s got good handwriting? The copy needs to be added with white ink to the plaques. I’ve got it printed out here, but my penmanship sucks. I want this handwritten to emulate olden times.”

“I’ll do it,” Jimmy said.

“Um,” Elsa hemmed, her mind dragged back to the subject she was trying to not think about.

Jimmy picked up a stray piece of paper from the floor and a sharpie lying near it. “No, I’m really good,” he said. He placed the paper on a clipboard hanging on a nail by the ping pong table and proceeded to write with an awkward left-hander’s arc. When he finished he presented the paper to Elsa. May and jWad looked over her shoulder.

“Wow,” The three said together.

“I aced mechanical drawing,” Jimmy said.

“Mechanical drawing?” May said. “Oh, yeah, you’re an art student.”

“I didn’t even know there was such a thing,” jWad said. “Where do you take classes?”

“There’s a temporary modular building behind the North Wing. Been there for years,” Jimmy answered.

“Huh,” jWad said. “Never knew that.”

Elsa said nothing. She remained staring at Jimmy for a full minute before finally turning to Christine and May. “Everyone else has to do hookups. The mechanics have to be complete by the end of the night. And, uh, Jimmy . . . ” She turned to the art student. “Maybe you can maybe kind of, I don’t know, design the final color scheme or something. I’m not very good with that. I mean, if you don’t . . . mind.”

“Yeah, I sort of noticed you were having . . . Yeah, I can do that.” Jimmy looked around at the mostly assembled machines, naked in their colorlessness. The function was there, but a little form would go a long way. He nodded. “Definitely.”

Everyone set to work to add the finishing grommets and touches.

At midnight, Elsa announced, “We’re gonna make it. All we have left is the paint and polyurethane.”

Christine and jWad were asleep. Jimmy had gone home. May however sat up against a wall with her knees drawn up. Her close cropped hair was askew and a line of grease ran down her left cheek, marring the white color scheme she daily applied to herself. “We have to paint everything?”

“And polyurethane it.”

“Now?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“But why does it need to be painted? Nobody likes to paint. jWad isn’t going to do it. Christine is . . . ” May looked over to Christine sleeping underneath the ping pong table. “Well, she’s not very artistic.”

“She’s clumsy, yes, but we’re not going to win if we don’t get some color in it. Everybody knows that. The whole project is about aesthetics. Jimmy knows what I mean. It’s . . . ”

“But he’s a twerp.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say!”

“Oh God,” May said, leaning her head against the wall and closing her eyes.

Elsa watched her friend, a little annoyed at her attack on Jimmy. And confused about her own reaction. I mean, he was a twerp. Wasn’t he?

She continued arguing, not even sure May was still awake. “It has to be eye-pleasing, easy to read, understandable. It has to be beautiful. The whole point is to teach people why perpetual motion machines don’t work. It’s not about making it work and making a million dollars. It’s about making people understand it and the principles of physics that are always mysterious for no reason other than that they are never presented in an understandable way. They teach us that density is mass per volume and to determine it you divide a known mass by its volume. Then they define mass as density times volume. How can anybody work with that circular explanation? At some point somebody’s got to explain exactly what mass is.”

May lifted her head away from the wall and opened her eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“Exactly,” Elsa said.

Silence for several moments as May’s mind wandered, and then Elsa said, “Everyone can go home for now.”

***

The following day, end of the day, at the lockers, as usual Jimmy was there with something to say.

“You know, you’re a member of the anti-Rifs. They could use your help, too.”

“Jimmy, I’m trying to finish my project here. It’s more important than what they’re doing.”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “More important to you, but you know what, you could use their help. Why don’t you go and ask for it.”

“Are you nuts? I’m sorry I ever joined that club. How can I help them?”

“You’re smart. You know how to get things done. They’re really a mess. They mean well.”

“But I don’t believe in it.”

“Only because you like iHigh.”

“I don’t use that.”

“Elsa, everyone knows you use it. I think even your mother knows it. The only people that don’t want to get rid of the chips are people like you that use it to get high with. And you’re never going to get your art pieces painted if you don’t get help. I can’t do it all alone, and—”

“When’s the next meeting?”

“Right now. Usual place.”

“Let’s go.”

And so Elsa made a deal with Ralph and his group. If they came to help finish her project she’d figure out how to get enough signatures to put their stupid legislation on the books.

Jimmy was such a twerp.

***

The following evening May, jWad, Christine, Jimmy and ten suede-clad strangers showed up promptly for the final steps of construction. The excitement of being so close to the finish and maybe even winning after all the doubt, embarrassment, and ill will of the past months left no question in the club members’ minds as to where they would be this Friday night.

When they filed into the basement, they found notes in Jimmy’s meticulous hand with specific instructions on what color went with which station. The paints were all lined up on the ping pong table with brushes laid across the lids. A wide mouth glass jar stood in the center of the table with a liquid, presumably paint thinner, to hold the brushes between uses. Newspapers spread out on the floor beneath the stations promised an easy cleanup.

Elsa gave instructions: “You all are going to paint. If you have problems, Jimmy will explain while I get going on this history booklet. I’ll be working right here, though, so I can help if you get bogged down.” With that she opened her laptop on the bar.

The gang worked diligently painting, dripping, wiping, sneezing, and knocking over neon colored liquids to the screams and wails of the others. Once Elsa finished a rough draft of the booklet she began painting alongside the others, letting the text settle before the final read. She’d email the finished version off to the third shift at Geneve’s Print Shop who would then make five hundred copies for the fair. She’d pick them up on her way in the morning.

By two a.m. the gang had finished painting.

Looking from one model to the next and admiring the fabulous color, Elsa couldn’t help being proud. “Now it’s time for the polyurethane,” she said.

No one complained about the new assignment. Not a sound of protest came from a single soul. No one was awake to give one. Elsa swung her head and surveyed her team. May and jWad were under the ping pong table. Christine and Jimmy curled up on the inflatable cot. The anti-Rifs had left an hour before. No one around was awake.

Elsa sat herself on the floor against the one area of the wall with free space and wondered why she needed polyurethane. Soon she fell over asleep as well, the combination of late hour and paint fumes overcoming her will to finish the project before the seven a.m. setup time.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Seven-thirty, bright and
early, the first stiff body in the basement of 1272 Beat Lane stirred and yawned. Its head tried to figure out where it was. Its eyes blinked and its hands reached up and pushed the eyes around in their sockets. Its neck stretched and twisted. Finally its arms pushed its upper body to the sitting position.

“May,” jWad’s mouth said.

“Mm,” said May.

“What time is it?”

“Mm,” said May.

The remaining bodies lying amidst the prettily painted working models of yesterday’s perpetual motion machines now stirred. Elsa blinked awake and looked at her watch. Suddenly fear broke through the morning fuzz in her brain.

“Holy Christ!” she said, jumping up. “We’re late.”

The other bodies slowly rolled over, refusing to register the urgency.

Elsa leaned over to poke Christine and Jimmy.

“C’mon, let’s go,” she said. ”We have to be set up by nine a.m. when the judging starts. Oh, shit! I forgot to email the booklet file. Crap! The finish isn’t done. Omigod, we’re never going to make it. C’mon let’s go, we’ve got to get this stuff into the car. I’ll take my bike over to Geneve’s . . . we’re going to have to make a bunch of trips to get all . . . I wonder if my Dad, oh, shit!”

She rushed around the room, intermittently shaking May, jWad, Christine, and Jimmy, and moving the models ineffectually from one spot to another presumably more ordered or closer to the door or something to make herself think she was making progress.

“jWad, is the car unlocked? I need to get this stuff loaded.”

“Yeah,” jWad answered while lying on his back and watching Elsa’s darting movements. “Where’s the can?”

“Can? What can? We don’t need a can, we need a box. Here help me with this piece, it’s the biggest. It has to go in first. Where’d the floor plan go? This sucks. We’re going to be late; we’ll get the crappiest spot to set up in. Arrrg!”

“The bathroom, man!” jWad said, stretching himself upwards so his Yamaha sweat shirt was pulled up and his belly button exposed.

“What? Around the corner behind the bar,” Elsa answered. “May, help me with this. Jimmy, you and Christine take number 4.”

And so they slowly woke up and gathered the pieces of the almost finished installation, only half of which fit into jWad’s Taurus.

They realized they’d have to make two trips even if it meant they’d miss the nine a.m. call. With the booklet explaining the set up, they’d still have a chance even if installation was going on while the judging took place.

“We’ll never win,” Christine said.

“Don’t even think that,” Elsa cried. “How dare you? Don’t put a hex on this before we even try.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you helped us install this rather than going around town getting copies made?” May said. “And when are we eating? We should stop at Wendy’s to get . . . ”

“Forget it. No time. We’ll eat after. Yes, it would be better if I help with the installation, but the booklets
have
to get done . . . ”