“I admitted I hadn’t. After some discussion we decided to try and dry it off. That wasn’t going to be easy, but it beat sitting in the car all night. We got out our ponchos, and luckily the rain diminished to a steady falling mist. By the time I got my poncho on, my companion had the hood up and was leaning over the engine. He had a small flashlight in one hand, and was pulling at the distributor with the other. I reached in and three Barnard hands went to work on it, taking the distributor cap off, pulling it apart, drying it, getting everything back together dry. My double ran to get a plastic bag while I hunched over the engine, feeling its warmth, my poncho extended like a cape. My double returned—we were working at emergency speed, you understand—and he leaned over the engine, and then all four of our hands were working on the distributor with uncanny coordination. When we were done clamping it down he dashed to the driver’s seat and started the engine. It caught and ran, and he revved it. We had fixed it! As I closed the hood my double got out of the car grinning. ‘All right!’ he cried, and slapped my hand, and suddenly he leaped up and spun in the air, howling out the vowel-y Navaho chant we had learned as a boy—and there I was spinning with him, swirling my poncho out like a Hopi dancing cape, screaming my lungs out. Oh it was a strange sight, the two of us dancing in front of that car, on that high ridge, hollering and spinning and stomping in puddles, and I felt—oh there isn’t the word for the way I felt at that moment, truly.
“The rain had stopped. On the horizon to the south little lines of lightning flashed from low clouds into the earth. We stood side by side and watched them, two or three every second. No thunder.
“‘My life feels like this,’ one of us said, but I wasn’t sure who. And my right arm was hot, where it touched his left arm. I looked at it—
“And saw our arms met to enter a single hand. We were becoming one again. But it was a left hand—his hand. Then I noticed our legs came down to the same boot, a right boot. My foot.
“On the forearm wavering between us I could make out the reddish tissue connecting our arms, like burn-scar tissue. And I could feel the hot pulling and plucking. We were melting together! Already we shared part of the upper arm, and soon we would be joined at the shoulder like Siamese twins, and I felt the same burning in my right leg, oh, our time was up! First arms and legs, then torso then heads!
“I looked in his face and saw my mirror image, twisted with horror. I thought, that’s what I look like, that’s who I am, our time is over. Our eyes met.
“‘Pull,’ he said.
“We pulled. He grabbed the fender with his right hand, and I stepped out with my left foot, trying for traction in the muddy gravel. I leaned out and pulled like I had never pulled before. That forearm stuck out between us like a claw. We gasped and grunted and pulled, and the scar tissue above the elbow burned, and stretched, and gave us back a little of our arms. It was as painful as if I held onto something and deliberately tried to pull my arm off. But it was working. We both had elbows of our own now.
“‘Hold on tight,’ I gasped, and dove for the road! Boom! Rip!—an instant of agony, and I crashed onto wet asphalt. I pushed myself up with both hands. My feet were both there, I shook my right hand violently, grabbed my right boot. I was whole again.
“I looked at my double. He was leaning against the car, holding his left forearm in his right hand, shaking. Seeing it I felt my own trembling. He was staring at me with a furious expression, and for a second I thought he would attack me. For a second I had a vision, and saw him leap on me and pummel me, fists sinking into me and never coming out, so that we struggled and bit and kicked and melded into each other with every blow, until we became a single figure hitting itself, prone on the gravel, jerking and twitching.
“But that was a vision I had. In actuality, he shook his head hard, his lip curled into a bitter look.
“‘I’d better go,’ he said.
“Said I, ‘I think you better.’ As I got to my feet he walked to the passenger door, and got his backpack out. He pulled his poncho off to get the pack on his back.
“‘Back to home for you, eh Thomas?’ he said. There was contempt in his voice, and suddenly I was angry.
“‘And you can hit the road again,’ I said. ‘And I’m glad to see you go. You had me feeling like my whole life was a mistake, like you did it right and I did it wrong. But I’m not doing it wrong! I’m living with people the way a human being should, and you’re just taking the escape, wandering the road. You’ll burn out quick enough.’
“He glared at me, and said, ‘You’ve got me wrong, brother. I’m trying to live my life the best I know how. And I’m not going to burn out, ever.’ He put his poncho back on. ‘You take the name,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if we live in the same world or not, but someone might notice. So you keep the name. I have the feeling you’re the real Tom Barnard, anyway.’
“So we had traded curses.
“He looked at me one last time. ‘Good luck,’ he said. Then he walked away from the road, up the ridge. Through the mist, under that poncho, he looked inhuman. But I knew who he was. And as I watched him fade into the dark and the shrubs my spirit sank, and I was filled with despair. That was my own self disappearing there; I was watching my own true self walk away in the rain. No one should have to watch that.
“When I couldn’t see him anymore I drove off in a panic. Creaks in the car made me jump into the steering wheel, and I was too scared to look back and see what it was. I drove faster and faster, and prayed the distributor would stay dry. The valleys of east Arizona rolled on and on, and for the first time, I think, I realized how gigantic the country really was. I couldn’t stop thinking of what had happened. Things we had said seemed to ring aloud in the air. I wished that we had had more time—that we had parted friends—that we had allowed the joining to take place! Why were we so afraid of wholeness? But I was afraid; the fear of that union washed over me, and I drove ever faster, as if he might be running down the highway after me, wet and exhausted, miles behind.”
* * *
Tom coughed a few times, and stared into the fire, remembering it. We watched him open mouthed.
“Did you ever see him again?” Rebel asked anxiously. That broke the spell and most of us laughed, including Tom. But then he frowned at her and nodded.
“Yes, I did see him again. And more than that.”
We settled back; the older folks, who had heard this story before, I guessed, looked surprised.
“It was several years later when I next saw him; you’ll know what year I mean. I was still a lawyer, older and slouchier and tubbier than ever. That was life in the old time—the years in the boxes took it out of you fast.” At that point Tom looked at me, as if to make sure I was listening. “It was a stupid life really, and that’s why I can’t see it when people talk about fighting to get back to that. People back then struggled at jobs in boxes so they could rent boxes and visit other boxes, and they spent their whole lives running in boxes like rats. I was doing it myself, and it made no sense.
“Part of me knew that it made no sense, and I fought back in a weak sort of way. At this time I was out west doing that again, hiking a little. I decided to hike to the top of Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the United States. Weak as I was it was a killer task just to get up that ten mile trail, but after a couple days’ hard work I made it. Mount Whitney. Right before sunset, this was—again—so that I was the only person on the peak, which was rare.
“So I was walking around the top, which was broad, nearly an acre. The trail goes up the west side, which is nice and gradual. But the eastern face is almost sheer, and looking down it into the shadows made me feel funny. Then I noticed a climber. He was coming up that sheer face alone, up one of the cracks in the face. Old John Muir had climbed the face alone like that, but he was crazy for risks, and few climbers since had exposed themselves to such danger. It made me dizzy to look at this guy’s exposure, but I watched all the same, naturally. As he got higher he kept looking up,
and at one point he saw me and waved. And I felt funny. The closer he got the more familiar he looked. And then I recognized him. It was my double, in climbing gear and full beard, looking as strong an animal as you could ask for. And there on that granite face!
“Well, I thought about hightailing it down the trail, but at one point when he looked up at me, I saw that he recognized me too, and I realized we would have to say hello. Or something. So I waited.
“It seemed to go on forever, the last part of that climb, and him in mortal danger the whole time. But when he crawled over the top, the sun was still over that distant western horizon, out over the Pacific way out there in the haze. He stood up, and walked toward me. A few feet away he stopped and we stared at each other wordlessly, in an amber glow of light like you only get in the Sierras at dusk. There didn’t seem anything to say, and it was like we were frozen.
“And then it happened.” Here Tom’s voice took on a hoarse, harsh quality, and he leaned forward in his lame chair, stopping its rocking, and stared into the fire refusing to look at any of us. He hacked three or four coughs and spoke rapidly: “The sun was about half an orange ball lying out on the horizon, and—and one bloomed beside it, and then a whole bunch of others, up and down the California coast. Fifty suns all strung out and glowing for sunset. The mushroom balls as tall as us, and then taller. Little haloes of smoke around each column. It was the day, folks. It was the end.
“I saw what it was, and then I knew what it was; I turned to look at my double, and saw he was crying. He moved to my side and we held hands. So simple. We melted together as easy as that—as easy as agreeing to. When we were done, I was up there all alone. I remembered both of my pasts, and felt my brother’s strength. The mushroom clouds blew toward me, coming on a cold wind. Oh I felt all alone, believe me, shivering and watching that horrible sight—but I felt, well … healed somehow, and … Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I got down off of there somehow.”
He leaned back and almost rocked too far in his chair. We all took a deep breath.
Tom stood and prodded the fire with a stick. “You see, you couldn’t live a whole life in the old time,” he said, his voice relaxed again, even peevish. “It’s only now that we’re out by a fire, in the world—”
“No morals if you please,” Rafael said. “You’ve told us enough of those lately, thank you.” John Nicolin nodded at that.
The old man blinked. “Well, okay. Stories shouldn’t have morals anyway. Let’s get some more wood on that fire! This story’s over, and I need something to drink.”
With a cough he went to get the drink himself, and released us. Some stood and threw wood on the fire, others asked Mrs. N. if there was more butter—all a bit subdued, but satisfied. “How the old man talks,” Steve said. Then he took my arm and indicated Melissa, over on the other side of the fire. I shrugged him off, but after a bit I walked around the fire and joined her. She put her arm around me. Feeling that small hand over my hip made the rum in me jump. We wandered out in the junk of the yard, and kissed hungrily. I was always surprised at how easy it was with Melissa. “Welcome home,” she said. “You still haven’t told me about your trip—I’ve heard it all second hand! Will you come over to my house later and tell me about it? Daddy will be there of course, but maybe he’ll go to bed.”
I agreed quickly, thinking more about her kisses than the information I was supposed to get from Add. But when it occurred to me (while nuzzling Melissa’s neck, so beautiful in the firelight), I was pretty pleased with myself. It was going to be easier than I thought. “Let’s see if there’s more rum,” I said.
A while later we had found the rum and downed it, and Addison had found us. “Let’s be off,” he said to Melissa gruffly.
“It’s early yet,” she said. “Can we bring Henry with us? I want to hear about his trip, and show him our house.”
“Sure,” Add said indifferently. I waved goodbye to Steve and Kathryn behind Melissa’s back, and felt pretty slick when I saw Steve’s startled expression. The three of us took off down the ridge trail. Add led Melissa and me across the valley without a word or a look back, so he didn’t see Melissa’s arm around my waist, nor her hand in my pocket. The pocket had a hole convenient to her, but I was none too comfortable with Add right in front of us, and I didn’t respond except with a kiss on the bridge, where I could trust my footing. Stumbling along the path up Basilone I could feel the rum in my blood, and Melissa’s fingers groping in my pants. Whew! But at the same time I was thinking, how am I going to ask Add about the scavengers and the Japanese? The rum sloshed my thoughts when I considered it, but it was more than the drink. There wasn’t a good way, that was all there was to it. I would have to cast without bait and hope for the best.
The Shanks house was one of the old ones, built by Add before hardly anybody lived in Onofre. He had used an electric wire tower as the framework of the place, so it was small but tall, and strong as a tree. The shingled walls sloped inward slightly, and the four metal struts of the tower protruded from the corners of the roof, meeting in a tangle of metal far above it.
“Come on in,” Add said hospitably, and took a key from his pocket to unlock the door. Once inside he struck a match and lit a lantern, and the smell of burnt whale oil filled the room. Boxes and tools were stacked against the walls, but there wasn’t any furniture. “We live upstairs,” Melissa said as Add led us up a steep plank staircase in one corner. She giggled and pushed my butt as she followed me up, and I almost banged into one of the thick metal struts of the old electric tower.
Nobody from Onofre Valley had ever been on the second floor, as far as I knew. But it was nothing special: kitchen in one corner, blond wood tables, an old couch and some chairs. Scavenger stuff all. A stairway leading to a trapdoor indicated another floor above. Add set the lantern on the stove, and commenced opening windows and throwing back the shutters guarding them. There were a lot of shutters. When he was done we had a view in all four directions: dark treetops, every way. “You’ve got a lot of windows,” I said, rum-wise. Add nodded. “Have a seat,” he said.
“I’m going to change clothes,” Melissa said, and went up the stairway to the floor above.
I sat in one of the big upholstered chairs, across from the couch. “Where’d you get all this glass?” I asked, hoping that would be a start on my ultimate subject. But Add knew that I knew where the glass came from, and he gave me a crooked smile.
“Oh, around. Here, have another glass of rum. I’ve got rum better than the Nicolins’.”
I was fine on rum already, as I’ve mentioned, but I took a glass from him.
“Here, sit on the couch,” Add said, and took back the glass while I moved. “It’s got the better view. If the air’s clear you’ll see Catalina. If not, then the great sea. Getting to be your second home, I hear.”
“My last home, almost.”
He laughed long and loud. “So I hear. So I hear. Well.” He sipped from his glass. “Quite a pleasant evening, this. I like Tom’s stories.”
“So do I.” We both drank again, and for a moment it looked like we had run out of things to say. Luckily Melissa came back down the stairs, in a white house dress that pinched her breasts together. Smiling at us, she got a glass of rum for herself, and sat right beside me on the couch, pressing against my arm and leg. It made me nervous, but Add gave us his crooked smile (so different from Tom’s crooked smile, which came of a busted mouth—Add only pulled back one side of his), and nodded, seeming satisfied with how cozy we were. He leaned back and balanced his glass on the worn arm of his chair.
“Good rum, isn’t it?” Melissa said. I agreed that it was.
“We traded two dozen crabs for it. We only trade for the best rum available.”
“I wish we were going to be trading with San Diego,” Add said peevishly. “Was San Diego as big as Tom said it is?”
“Sure,” I said. “Maybe bigger.”
Melissa rested her head on my shoulder. “Did you like it dow
n there?”
“I guess so. It was quite a trip, I’ll say that.”
They began to ask me about the details of it. How many little towns were there? Were there railroad tracks to all of them? Was the Mayor popular? When I told them about the Mayor’s morning target practice they laughed. “And he does that every morning?” Add asked, rising to get us refills.
“So they said.”
“That must mean they have a lot of ammunition,” he said to himself in the kitchen. “Hey, this bottle’s polished.”
“You bet they do,” I said. It seemed like there would be a way to get the conversation over to the scavengers pretty soon, so I relaxed and began to enjoy getting there. “They’ve got all those naval warehouses down there, and the Mayor has had every one of them explored.”
“Uh huh. One moment; I have to go downstairs and get another bottle.”
The second his head disappeared down the stairs Melissa and I kissed. I could taste the rum on her tongue. I put my hand on her knee and she tugged her dress up so I was holding her bare thigh. More kissing, and my breath got short. I kept pushing the dress higher and higher, until I found she wasn’t wearing anything under it. Blood knocked in my ears with the shock of the discovery. Her belly pulsed in and out and she rocked over my hand, pushing down on it. We kissed harder, her hand squeezed my cock through my pants, and my breath left me entirely, whoosh, whoosh!
Thump, thump, answered Add’s boots on the ladder, and Melissa twisted aside and threw her dress down. Fine for her, but I had a hard-on bulging my pants, and Melissa gave it a last malicious squeeze to make it harder still, giggling at my expression of dismay. I drank my rum and scrunched around in the corner of the couch. By the time Add had gotten in the room and broken the seal on the new bottle I was presentable, although my heart was still pounding double time.