Spin

  “Water brother,” he said.

  I laughed. “Keep it. You’ll need it.”

  “Tyler, I wish you could make the descent with me. This is—” He said something in his own language. “Too much stew for one pot. Too much beauty for one human being.”

  “You can always share it with the G-men.”

  He gave the security people a baleful glance. “Unfortunately I can’t. They look but they do not see.”

  “Is that a Martian expression, too?”

  “Might as well be,” he said.

  Wun gave the press pool and the newly arrived governor of Arizona a few genial last words while I borrowed one of the several Perihelion vehicles and headed for Phoenix.

  Nobody interfered, nobody followed me; the press wasn’t interested. I may have been Wun Ngo Wen’s personal physician—a few of the press regulars might even have recognized me—but in the absence of Wun himself I wasn’t newsworthy. Not even remotely. It was a good feeling. I turned up the air-conditioning until the interior of the car felt like a Canadian autumn. Maybe this was what the media was calling “desperate euphoria”—the we’reall-doomed-but-anything-can-happen feeling that had begun to peak around the time Wun went public. The end of the world, plus Martians: given that, what was impossible? What was even unlikely? And where did that leave the standard arguments in favor of propriety, patience, virtue, and not rocking the boat?

  E.D. had accused my generation of Spin paralysis, and maybe that was true. We’d been caught in the headlights for thirty-odd years now. None of us had ever shaken that feeling of essential vulnerability, that deep personal awareness of the sword suspended over our heads. It tainted every pleasure and it made even our best and bravest gestures seem tentative and timid.

  But even paralysis erodes. Beyond anxiety lies recklessness. Beyond immobility, action.

  Not necessarily good or wise action, however. I passed three sets of highway signs warning against the possibility of roadside piracy. The traffic reporter on local radio listed roads closed for “police purposes” as indifferently as if she’d been talking about maintenance work.

  But I made it without incident to the parking lot in back of Jordan Tabernacle.

  The current pastor of Jordan Tabernacle was a crew-cut young man named Bob Kobel who had agreed by phone to meet me. He came to the car as I was locking it and escorted me into the rectory for coffee and doughnuts and some hard talk. He looked like a high-school athlete gone slightly paunchy, but still full of that old team spirit.

  “I’ve thought about what you said,” he told me. “I understand why you want to get in touch with Diane Lawton. Do you understand why that’s an awkward issue for this church?”

  “Not exactly, no.”

  “Thank you for your honesty. Let me explain, then. I became pastor of this congregation after the red heifer crisis, but I was a member for many years before that. I know the people you’re curious about—Diane and Simon. I once called them friends.”

  “Not anymore?”

  “I’d like to say we’re still friends. But you’d have to ask them about that. See, Dr. Dupree, Jordan Tabernacle has had a contentious history for a relatively small congregation. Mostly it’s because we started out as a mongrel church, a bunch of old-fashioned Dispensationalists who came together with some disillusioned New Kingdom hippies. What we had in common was a fierce belief in the imminence of the end times and a sincere desire for Christian fellowship. Not an easy alliance, as you might imagine. We’ve been through our share of controversies. Schisms. People veering off into little corners of Christianity, doctrinal disputes that, frankly, were almost incomprehensible to much of the congregation. But what happened with Simon and Diane was, they aligned themselves with a crowd of hard-core post-Tribulationists who wanted to claim Jordan Tabernacle for themselves. That made for some difficult politics, what the secular world might even call a power struggle.”

  “Which they lost?”

  “Oh no. They were firmly in control. At least for a while. They radicalized Jordan Tabernacle in a way that made a whole lot of us uncomfortable. Dan Condon was one of them, and he’s the one who got us involved with that network of loose cannons trying to bring about the Second Coming with a red cow. Which still strikes me as grotesquely presumptuous. As if the Lord of Hosts would wait on a cattle-breeding program before gathering up the faithful.”

  Pastor Kobel sipped his coffee.

  I said, “I can’t speak for their faith.”

  “You said on the phone Diane’s been out of touch with her family.”

  “Yes.”

  “That may be her choice. I used to see her father on television. He looks like an intimidating man.”

  “I’m not here to kidnap her. I just want to make sure she’s all right.”

  Another sip of coffee. Another thoughtful look.

  “I’d like to tell you she’s fine. And probably she is. But after the scandals, that whole group moved out to the boonies. And some of ’em still have open invitations to speak to federal investigators. So visiting is discouraged.”

  “But not impossible?”

  “Not impossible if you’re known to them. I’m not sure you qualify, Dr. Dupree. I could give you directions, but I doubt they’d let you in.”

  “Even if you vouched for me?”

  Pastor Kobel blinked. He appeared to think about it.

  Then he smiled. He took a scrap of paper from the desk behind him and wrote an address and a few lines of directions on it. “That’s a good idea, Dr. Dupree. You tell ’em Pastor Bob sent you. But be careful all the same.”

  Pastor Bob Kobel had given me directions to Dan Condon’s ranch, which turned out to be a clean two-story farmhouse in a scrubby valley many hours from town. Not much of a ranch, though, at least to my untutored eyes. There was a big barn, in poor repair compared to the house, and a few cattle grazing on weedy patches of grama grass.

  As soon as I braked a big man in overalls bounded down the porch steps, about two hundred fifty pounds of him, with a full beard and an unhappy expression. I rolled down my window.

  “Private property, chief,” he said.

  “I’m here to see Simon and Diane.”

  He stared and said nothing.

  “They’re not expecting me. But they know who I am.”

  “Did they invite you? Because we’re not big on visitors out here.”

  “Pastor Bob Kobel said you wouldn’t mind me coming by.”

  “He did, huh.”

  “He said to tell you I was essentially harmless.”

  “Pastor Bob, huh. You got any identification?”

  I took out my ID card, which he closed in his hand and carried into the house.

  I waited. I rolled down the windows and let a dry wind whisper through the car. The sun was low enough to cast sundial shadows from the pillars of the porch, and those shadows lengthened more than a little before the man came back and returned my card and said, “Simon and Diane will see you. And I’m sorry if I sounded a little short. My name’s Sorley.” I climbed out of the car and shook his hand. He had a fierce grip. “Aaron Sorley. Brother Aaron to most people.”

  He escorted me through the wheezing screen door into the farmhouse. Inside, the house was summer-hot but lively. A child in a cotton T-shirt ran past us at knee-level, laughing. We passed a kitchen in which two women were collaborating on what looked like a meal for many people—gallon pots on the stove, mounds of cabbage on the chopping board.

  “Simon and Diane share the back bedroom, top of the stairs, last door down on your right—you can go on up.”

  But I didn’t need a guide. Simon was waiting at the top of the stairs.

  The former chenille-stem heir looked a little haggard. Which was not surprising given that I hadn’t seen him since the night of the Chinese attack on the polar artifacts twenty years ago. He could have been thinking the same about me. His smile was still remarkable, big and generous, a smile Hollywood might have exploited if Simon
had loved Mammon more than God. He wouldn’t settle for a handshake. He put his arms around me.

  “Welcome!” he said. “Tyler! Tyler Dupree! I apologize if Brother Aaron was a little brusque just now. We don’t get many visitors, but you’ll find our hospitality is on the generous side, at least once you’re in the door. We would’ve invited you before this if we’d known there was a shadow of a chance you could make the trip.”

  “Happy coincidence,” I said. “I’m in Arizona because—”

  “Oh, I know. We do hear the news now and then. You came along with the wrinkled man. You’re his doctor.”

  He led me down the hall to a cream-painted door—their door, Simon’s and Diane’s—and opened it.

  The room inside was furnished in a comfortable if slightly time-warped style, a big bed in one corner with a quilted comforter over a billowing mattress, a window curtain of yellow gingham, a cotton throw rug on a plain plank floor. And a chair by the window. And Diane sitting in the chair.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said. “Thank you for making time for us. I hope we haven’t taken you away from your work.”

  “No more than I wanted to be taken away from it. How are you?”

  Simon walked across the room and stood beside her. He put his hand on her shoulder and left it there.

  “We’re both fine,” she said. “Maybe not prosperous, but we get by. I guess that’s as much as anyone can expect in these times. I’m sorry we haven’t been in touch, Tyler. After the troubles at Jordan Tabernacle it’s harder to trust the world outside the church. I suppose you heard about all that?”

  “A royal mess,” Simon put in. “Homeland Security took the computer and the photocopy machine out of the rectory, took them away and never gave them back. Of course we didn’t have anything to do with any of that red heifer nonsense. All we did was pass on some brochures to the congregation. For them to decide, you know, if this was the kind of thing they wanted to get involved with. That’s what got us interviewed by the federal government, if you can imagine such a thing. Apparently that’s a crime in Preston Lomax’s America.”

  “Nobody arrested, I hope.”

  “Nobody close to us,” Simon said.

  “But it made everyone nervous,” Diane said. “You start to think about things you took for granted. Phone calls. Letters.”

  I said, “I suppose you have to be careful.”

  “Oh, yes,” Diane said.

  “Really careful,” Simon said.

  Diane wore a plain cotton shift tied at the waist and a checkered red-and-white head scarf that looked like a down-home hijab. No makeup, but she didn’t need it. Putting Diane in dowdy clothing was as futile as hiding a searchlight under a straw hat.

  I realized how hungry I’d been for the simple sight of her. How unreasonably hungry. I was ashamed of the pleasure I took in her presence. For two decades we had been little more than acquaintances. Two people who had once known each other. I wasn’t entitled to this speeding pulse, the sense of weightless acceleration she provoked just by sitting in that wooden chair glancing at me and glancing away, blushing faintly when our eyes met.

  It was unrealistic and it was unfair—unfair to someone; maybe me, probably her. I should never have come here.

  She said, “And how are you? Still working with Jason, I gather. I hope he’s all right.”

  “He’s fine. He sends his love.”

  She smiled. “I doubt that. It doesn’t sound like Jase.”

  “He’s changed.”

  “Has he?”

  “There’s been a lot of talk about Jason,” Simon said, still gripping her shoulder, his hand calloused and dark against the pale cotton. “About Jason and the wrinkled man, the so-called Martian.”

  “Not just so-called,” I said. “He was born and bred there.”

  Simon blinked. “If you say so then it must be true. But as I said, there’s been talk. People know the Antichrist is walking among us, that’s a given, and he may already be a famous man, biding his time, plotting his futile war. So public figures receive a lot of scrutiny around here. I’m not saying Wun Ngo Wen is the Antichrist, but I wouldn’t be alone if I did make that assertion. Are you close to him, Tyler?”

  “I talk to him from time to time. I don’t think he’s ambitious enough to be the Antichrist.” Though E. D. Lawton might have disagreed with that statement.

  “This is the kind of thing that makes us cautious, though,” Simon said. “This is why it’s been a problem for Diane to stay in touch with her family.”

  “Because Wun Ngo Wen might be the Antichrist?”

  “Because we don’t want to attract attention from powerful people, this close to the end of days.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “Tyler’s been on the road a long time,” Diane said. “He’s probably thirsty.”

  Simon’s smile flashed back. “Would you like a drink before dinner? We have plenty of soda pop. Do you like Mountain Dew?”

  “That would be fine,” I said.

  He left the room. Diane waited until we heard his footsteps on the stairs. Then she cocked her head and looked at me more directly. “You traveled a long distance.”

  “There was no other way to get in touch.”

  “But you didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m healthy and happy. You can tell that to Jase. And Carol, for that matter. And E.D., if he cares. I don’t need a surveillance visit.”

  “That’s not what this is.”

  “Just stopped by to say hello?”

  “Actually, yes, something like that.”

  “We haven’t joined a cult. I’m not under duress.”

  “I didn’t say you were, Diane.”

  “But you thought about it, didn’t you?”

  “I’m glad you’re all right.”

  She turned her head and the light of the setting sun caught her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just a little startled. Seeing you like this. And I’m glad you’re doing well back east. You are doing well, aren’t you?”

  I felt reckless. “No,” I said. “I’m paralyzed. At least that’s what your father thinks. He says our whole generation is Spin-paralyzed. We’re all still caught in the moment when the stars went out. We never made peace with it.”

  “And do you think that’s true?”

  “Maybe truer than any of us want to admit.” I was saying things I hadn’t planned on saying. But Simon would be back any minute with his can of Mountain Dew and his adamantine smile and the opportunity would be lost, probably forever. “I look at you,” I said, “and I still see the girl on the lawn outside the Big House. So yeah, maybe E.D. was right. Twenty-five stolen years. They went by pretty fast.”

  Diane accepted this in silence. Warm air turned the gingham curtains and the room grew darker. Then she said, “Close the door.”

  “Won’t that look unusual?”

  “Close the door, Tyler, I don’t want to be overheard.”

  So I shut the door, gently, and she stood up and came to me and took my hands in her hands. Her hands were cool. “We’re too close to the end of the world to lie to each other. I’m sorry I stopped calling, but there are four families sharing this house and one telephone and it gets to be pretty obvious who’s talking to who.”

  “Simon wouldn’t allow it.”

  “On the contrary. Simon would have accepted it. Simon accepts most of my habits and idiosyncrasies. But I don’t want to lie to him. I don’t want to carry that burden. But I admit I miss those calls, Tyler. Those calls were life-lines. When I had no money, when the church was splitting up, when I was lonely for no good reason…the sound of your voice was like a transfusion.”

  “Then why stop?”

  “Because it was an act of disloyalty. Then. Now.” She shook her head as if she were trying to communicate a difficult but important idea. “I know what you mean about the Spin. I think about it, too. Sometimes I pretend there’s a world where the Spin didn’t happen and our lives were different.
Our lives, yours and mine.” She took a tremorous breath, blushing deeply. “And if I couldn’t live in that world I thought I could at least visit it every couple of weeks, call you up and be old friends and talk about something besides the end of the world.”

  “You consider this disloyal?”

  “It is disloyal. I gave myself to Simon. Simon is my husband in the eyes of God and the law. If that wasn’t a wise choice it was still my choice, and I may not be the kind of Christian I ought to be but I do understand about duty and about perseverance and about standing by someone even if—”

  “Even if what, Diane?”

  “Even if it hurts. I don’t think either one of us needs to look any harder at the lives we might have had.”

  “I didn’t come here to make you unhappy.”

  “No, but you’re having that effect.”

  “Then I won’t stay.”

  “You’ll stay for supper. It’s only polite.” She put her hands at her side and looked at the floor. “Let me tell you something while we still have a little privacy. For what it’s worth. I don’t share all of Simon’s convictions. I can’t honestly say I believe the world will end with the faithful ascending into heaven. God forgive me, but it just doesn’t seem plausible to me. But I do believe the world will end. Is ending. It’s been ending all our lives. And—”

  I said, “Diane—”

  “No, let me finish. Let me confess. I do believe the world will end. I believe what Jason told me years and years ago, that one morning the sun will rise swollen and hellish and in a few hours or days, our time on Earth will be finished. I don’t want to be alone on that morning—”

  “No one does.” Except maybe Molly Seagram, I thought. Molly playing On the Beach with her bottle of suicide pills. Molly and all the people like her.

  “And I won’t be alone. I’ll be with Simon. What I’m confessing to you, Tyler—what I want to be forgiven for—is that when I picture that day it isn’t necessarily Simon I see myself with.”