And he wasn’t certain Daniel could survive the situation in which he was so terribly alone. There was nothing Volta could do about it and remain true to himself, and probably nothing he could do even if he betrayed himself. Volta had let the Diamond go – not as joyously or as easily as he’d tried to make it seem to Daniel – but he couldn’t release Daniel from his heart. Volta understood that he, no less than Daniel, had confused the ideal and the real, but he understood, in a way Daniel did not, that such a confusion seldom goes unpunished. Because Volta had no children, Daniel, orphan of fire, was an ideal son. And now it was going to hurt.
Volta closed his eyes and tried again to imagine Daniel vanished with the Diamond, tried to see the spiral flame through Daniel’s mind. He was failing so badly he was relieved to hear a key in the lock and Smiling Jack’s voice booming down the stairs, ‘Dreamers awake!’
Volta swung his feet to the floor, muttering, ‘One dreamer’s not sure anymore if he knows the difference.’
As he stepped from behind the partition, Smiling Jack advanced, waving a half-gallon of Ten High. ‘What do you say, Volt? Let’s get really fucked up and full of sentimental despair and then finally decide life, despite every heartbreak and anguished cry, is worth each pulse and breath.’
Volta tried to smile. ‘I’d drink to that, but you have work to do and I won’t drink and get stupid without you.’
‘What work? Message I got said we’re shutting this one down.’
‘We are, but I’m putting you in charge of loose ends. You tie such strong knots.’
‘What is this, an alliance of magicians and outlaws or the fucking navy?’
‘It changes with every breath,’ Volta said.
‘Maybe so,’ Jack sighed, ‘but I’m not going to try to change your mood. Be grim, glum, and gloomy.’
‘Jack, while I can’t admire your alliterative abilities, I thank you for your thoughtfulness.’
Smiling Jack sat down on the worn beige sofa. ‘How’s Daniel? What’d he have to say?’
‘He’s emotionally ragged and spiritually lost – dangerously so. He’s trying to see something inside the Diamond that he thinks only he can behold. He believes the Diamond wants him to see inside it. He intends to keep the Diamond until it opens and he understands. He said it is a thousand times more important to him to pursue the Diamond than revenge his mother’s death. Other than that, our conversation was devoted to relieving each other of responsibilities for our stupid decisions.’
‘What do you think?’ Jack said.
‘I’m trying not to. That’s why I want you to take responsibility for the follow-through. Two things: stay on Alex Three’s identity, and do justice to Mr Debritto. Set him up with the code as we’ve already discussed. When, where, and which Raven is up to you. I don’t want to know till it’s over.’
‘Okay,’ Jack said solemnly, ‘but there may be another loose end. Shamus called Dolly this morning, claiming he has some crucial information he can only share with you and Daniel, so he wants to set up a meeting. He said he’d never heard of an Alex Three.’
‘How’d he sound to Dolly?’
‘Nuts.’
‘No meeting right now. Have Dolly convey that we’re both unavailable.’
‘Where are you going to be?’
‘Home,’ Volta said.
Daniel woke in the front seat when the sun was high enough to blaze through the windshield. He had planned it that way when he’d parked the truck facing east, well hidden behind the burned-out gas station.
After talking to Volta he’d vanished with the Diamond. He tried concentrating on the twist of flame at the Diamond’s center, focusing to a pinpoint intensity and then suddenly letting go, hoping the force of the Diamond’s resistance would collapse outward – like someone holding a swinging door closed spilling into the street at the abrupt removal of the counterbalancing force. It didn’t work.
He tried staring into the thread-thin, spiraling flame and praying with all his heart that the Diamond would open to him, let him see what he needed, let him step across the threshold clean. It didn’t work.
An hour before dawn he took out his pocketknife and nicked his left thumb. He held his thumb above the Diamond, let the blood drip on the radiant globe before he sought to see inside. It didn’t work.
Beaten and exhausted, he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep at dawn, not stirring until he felt the sunlight on his face. He sat up blinking, checked the Diamond in the bowling bag on the floor, and slid back behind the wheel.
Daniel drove straight through to Phoenix. He stopped at a Shell station for a city map, then checked the Yellow Pages in the phone booth’s directory. He found exactly what he sought in the first listing under Auto Dismantling – ‘Aura Wreckers … cash to smash.’ When he noticed his fuel gauge showed less than a quarter tank, he unthinkingly pulled over to the pumps. When the attendant asked him, ‘Fill’er up, sir?’ Daniel started laughing so hard he could barely shake his head and gasp, ‘No, empty ’er.’
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘Nothing,’ Daniel said, more in control, ‘I thought I needed gas but I don’t.’
‘Help you with anything else?’ the attendant said. He eyed Daniel with wary concern.
‘No, I guess not,’ Daniel told him. ‘I don’t even know if I want in or out anymore, or if there’s a difference.’
‘You look like you’ve been on the road awhile. Tired. It gets to you.’
Daniel said earnestly, ‘I hope so.’
The attendant nodded vaguely and said, ‘Well, take it easy. Have a good one.’
Daniel thanked him and headed through Phoenix.
He stopped down the street from Aura Wreckers. In the camper, he dressed in his bowling shirt, jeans, and shoes, packed a change of clothes and toilet kit in a day-pack, and stuffed a thousand-dollar roll from the attaché case in his front pocket. He took the pack and attaché case back to the cab and set them on the floor with the bowling-bagged Diamond. He crumpled the phony registration and pink slip in the ashtray and burned them, tear-blind from the smoke before he cranked the windows down.
Daniel wheeled into the oil-splotched yard of Aura Wreckers and pulled up near a crane with a powerful magnet on its cable. The crane was picking up hulks from a pile of wrecked cars and dropping them into a forty-ton hydraulic crusher that turned each one into a small metal cube. A large beer-bellied man operating the crusher yelled at Daniel, ‘Hey, no parking! Office is back there.’ He pointed toward the building.
Daniel gathered the bowling-bag, attaché case, and day-pack and walked toward the man, who looked pained at his approach. Before Daniel was halfway there the man called, ‘C’mon, man – move your ride and put you in it – we don’t have no insurance that covers fools. This is a heavy-equipment area, and I’m the yard boss.’
Daniel stopped in front of him and looked into his eyes. ‘My truck must be destroyed.’
The yard boss looked at the truck and then back to Daniel. ‘What for?’ he said suspiciously. ‘It was still moving when you got here.’
Daniel roared, ‘It is possessed of demons! I know because I am a man of God and a professional bowler. As a Minister of Faith with the Gospel Strike Church of Imperishable Bliss, I am under vows of frugality, and therefore drive from match to match on the PBA tour, spreading some of the Sun Lord’s literature on the way. And as I travel these faithless states, I pick up every hitchhiker I see, some of whom are striking young women, many not even seventeen, wandering lost in this world, bereft of love and comfort. I swear to heaven my intentions are noble when I pick them up – to share the wisdom and consolation of The Word – but there are demons in the truck, vinyl warlocks, devils of chrome, and they tear my heart from the River of Light and hurl it into the Sewer of Raw Desire. I know it’s the truck, because lewd and carnal desires seize those comely young women, too, and soon the demons have dragged us panting into the camper where we rut for hours like lust-crazed warthogs, and I feel their hot, ti
ght, naked bodies move under me like a wave of ball bearings and my heart wants nothing more than the endless replication of our joined moment of release forever and forever!’
The yard boss gave the truck a more thoughtful appraisal. ‘Don’t look like much of a pussy wagon to me.’ He shook his head. ‘But what the hell – if you got the pink slip and the registration’s in order, I’ll give ya a coupla hundred for it. Maybe take it for a drive. Fuck, ya never know, maybe something sweet’ll jump my bone.’
Daniel thundered, ‘I want it destroyed! It is possessed by Creatures of Filth!’ Daniel raised his fist and slammed it down into his palm. ‘The Creatures of Filth must be crushed!’
The yard boss stepped back and folded his arms over his protruding gut. Tilting his head, he inquired with a trace of derision, ‘What are you, some kinda fucking wacko? You can’t be for real. The real gets weird, sure, but not this weird. Huh? How about it? You for real?’
With an extended index finger, Daniel began thumping the center of his forehead. He smiled at the yard boss. ‘It appears I am.’
The yard boss considered a moment. ‘Ya got the pink slip and reg?’
‘The demons covered them with a green slime that sucked off all the ink. Turned that pink slip blank and snowy white.’
‘Get outa here,’ the yard boss muttered, pointing with his chin. ‘We don’t touch fucking nothing without clear title, and especially from loonies who seem to have blown their mental transmissions but are still coasting to a stop. No title, no deal.’
Daniel reached into his front pocket and took out the roll of bills. ‘Would a thousand dollars change your mind?’
‘Completely,’ the yard boss said, counting it quickly before shoving the roll in a back pocket. ‘Get out what you want and pull it over. I’ll go tell Jake there, running the crane, that you’re next. And Reverend? Any more demons get to haunting your vehicles, bring ’em on in and we’ll give them a Monster Mash that’ll pop their little black hearts like rotten cherries. Same deal, same price.’
‘Bless you, son,’ Daniel said fervently, spreading his arms. ‘May you flow with the River of Light.’
Daniel watched smiling as the cable-lowered magnet locked on his truck with a solid clank, rocking it on its springs. Cable reversed, the truck jerked free of the ground, sunlight exploding on its twirling chrome as the crane swung it toward the crusher like a fish being lifted from water to land. The magnet released and the truck dropped into the press, windshield shattering on impact. Then, with a breathy hydraulic hiss and the dry shriek of buckling metal, the press reduced the truck and its contents to a gleaming four-foot cube.
Daniel was impressed by this model of concentration, and fought a merry urge to try the crusher on his brain. He lifted his arms heavenward and cried out in joy, ‘Free, free, oh Blessed Light; free at last!’
He slung the day-pack over one shoulder and stooped to pick up the case and bowling bag. He hefted the bowling bag, imagining the Diamond burning inside. ‘How about it, huh?’ he mumbled to the Diamond. ‘Free at last sound good? You and me together, baby, both of us, nothing but dense, wild, diamond light, stone solid and loose as flame. Marry me.’ He started giggling uncontrollably at the thought of giving the Diamond a diamond ring. It would be like giving Venus a rat’s asshole for a wedding band.
Still giggling, he walked through the gate, turned west, and stuck out his thumb. From the churn of connections, he realized he hadn’t slept with a woman since he’d been on the road with Bad Bobby. Over a year. With Jean Bluer he’d been absorbed in other identities, and after that all his energies had gone into vanishing, consumed in being nothing at all. He remembered thinking after he’d first vanished that he might be able to make love with the same woman twice, but he hadn’t thought to try. His body, however, hadn’t forgotten. A heavy current swirled through him. Bursting into tears at Wally’s mention of loving his wife. Exceeding the demands of effective characterization with his description of all those lust-struck nubile teen-angels. Marriage. Conjunction. He was horny, so horny he could feel the Diamond’s warmth against his thigh, or so erotically ripe he imagined he did. He let his arm drop to his side. He squared his shoulders; took a slow, deep breath; closed his eyes. He tried to imagine the spiral as a woman, see her face, gather her body from the spiral’s burning curve, feel her opening with him, feel her heartbeat real against his palm, both of them bathed in light.
A deep male voice called, ‘Ya dreaming there, kid, or looking for an actual ride?’
An old Ford flatbed, dusty and dinged, rattled at idle where it had pulled over next to him. He hadn’t even noticed. The short leather-faced man at the wheel pushed up a cowboy hat older than the truck and said, ‘You riding or hiding, son? Ain’t going further than the Juniper Mountains, but you’re welcome along if that’s how your stick floats.’
‘What’s that mean?’ Daniel said.
‘Old mountain-man lingo, from beaver-trapping. Means which way you’re going, how you’re inclined, what you hanker.’
For a moment, Daniel thought of waving him on and waiting for a woman to stop. He wanted to be with a woman. But the old cowboy in the flatbed looked like he might know something. Daniel picked up the attaché case and said, ‘I’m riding.’
THE FIRST NOTEBOOK OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL SOMETHING (7TH? 9TH?)
A long way from last night. I just hit Reno and things are good and bad, and probably that’s ‘normal’ if you’re ‘sane’ and ‘mature,’ but maybe because I’m none of the above, I’m down with the blues. Not depressed, Doc – blue. A touch of postpartum blues, the adrenaline of our delivery from confinement to liberty fading, from thrilling act to a new set of mean facts. It’s tough to live in hiding or on the run.
I’ve got the mama-blues working on me, too. Mia woke up screaming last night in the barn. She had a terrible dream about fire-snakes falling on her in the darkness, their sizzling venom turning her to stone. I couldn’t console her. I rocked her for hours, humming lullabies, but she just kept on sobbing until my helplessness overwhelmed me and I wanted to smother her to silence her cries. Instead, I left her weeping on the straw pallet and went outside to look at the moon and stars until I was small enough to go back in and rock her in my arms again and let her weep. I can’t feel where she’s hurt the way I could before; her pains have become too complex. I can only love her and hope she heals. Women hurt and heal differently.
I don’t know about men. They seem to confuse permission and plunder. In my cosmology, the sun created itself and imposed a single rule of existence: Everything created had to create something in return. The sun, to demonstrate, created Earth. Earth created a mighty river fed from a bottomless spring. The flowing river hit a mammoth golden stone and forked into freshwater and saltwater, into rivers and oceans. At the exact point where water met stone, men and women were created. Men created the clock. Women created the moon.
See, Doc, I’m not crazy. I just know what’s going on.
I have to admit some of my blues are the rejected kind. The only good news today was a ride from the barn to Reno, courtesy of an Alaskan fisherman named Billy Krough. I halfway fell in love as we rambled along. Billy, alas, was tall and strong, and while he wasn’t really handsome, his face, especially his deep-set, sky-blue eyes, had character. Smart, too. I require intelligent men. Bright Billy knew where Jim Bridger’s grave is – eastern Wyoming. I’d instinctively run in the right direction. The brain isn’t the only organ that thinks.
Billy was headed for Las Vegas to play big-time poker, his last blast before heading back to Petersburg for the salmon and halibut seasons. He makes enough money in the four tough months of fishing to take off and travel the other eight. His two long-time loves broke up over his off-season restlessness and his months gone at sea. Seemed to actually understand their point of view and had remained good friends. And there we were in the front seat, Mia sound asleep in the back, and I wanted someone to hold me close, so I slid across and snuggled in tight and sa
id, ‘Hold me.’
He did, and it was tender and truly sweet, but without a trace of that wild carnal edge you would have to cross if you want to get so close together you can’t tell each other apart.
I pushed it. I said, ‘I want to get closer. I want you to love who I am.’ Love doesn’t do much for the powers of explanation, but since Love has never asked for one itself, that seems fair enough.
Billy was kind. He squeezed me a little bit closer and explained that he’d promised a certain woman not to play around, a promise he intended to honor despite what he was thoughtful enough to call a ‘delectable temptation like you.’ Me! But not so delectable the temptation couldn’t be declined.
Shit. Why are the ones who are too good to be true always being true to someone else?
Billy let us off in downtown Reno. He wasn’t even stopping to play cards since the action he wanted was in Vegas. He gave me a fifty- dollar bill, saying he wanted to treat me to a long bath and a night of safe rest, though I was absolutely free to piss it away gambling. A real gentleman.
I haven’t decided what to do with the fifty. I’m writing this in a Winchell’s donut shop while I think it over. Mia is still asleep. Poor little girl, she shouldn’t have to go through this. She’s exhausted.
I’ll let her sleep until she’s done dreaming and wakes herself. It’s no problem to carry an imaginary daughter around. They’re light.
What we Crazy Janes with imaginary daughters call ‘inside jokes.’ Hee-hee.
Gonna laugh them blues away.
Eli Boyd, a semiretired ranch hand who worked his own twenty acres up near Hope Mountain when he wasn’t working on somebody else’s spread – which was too goddamn often as far as Eli was concerned – drove the old Ford flatbed at a steady fifty miles per hour and just as steadily told Daniel jokes, tales, yarns, and no-shit true stories of the Old West, back when a man could ride two days to hump the schoolmarm and never cut another human track along the way. Daniel listened, from Aura Wreckers in Sun City to the I-40 junction. One story in particular seized his imagination.