Daniel started laughing. Knowing himself was no more improbable than a frog bringing him an armload of roses or falling petals turning into frogs.
The laughter relaxed him, collapsed the manic pressure to solve it all right now. He was a moth flinging itself at the sun. Volta was wrong. The Diamond wouldn’t destroy him; the Diamond was simply a possible means for him to destroy himself.
He decided his best strategy was to give up for awhile. He’d offered himself to the Diamond and so far had been refused. Fine. No more vanishing with the Diamond except in defense. If he was patient, maybe the Diamond would come to him.
He also decided to keep the twice-swiped Cutlass. If he couldn’t be captured, nothing could compromise his safety – or nothing except losing the power to vanish. Conserving his strength for emergencies was even more reason to quit vanishing with the Diamond.
His new approach, he thought, was adventurous yet eminently sane. Yet he was fidgeting behind the wheel because he kept imagining himself looking into the Diamond, pouring himself into the spiral-flamed furnace at its center, and he couldn’t allow himself that anymore. He turned on the radio for distraction.
A half-hour later, with the first stars glimmering above and the lights of Reno a pale hollow on the horizon, a blast of static fried the local station and Denis Joyner took the air.
Transcription:
Denis Joyner, AMO Mobile Radio
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I’m David Janus, your host for this sundown program of ontological inquiry, ‘Moment of Truth,’ brought to you from the mobile studio of the Public Bullcast System on the frequency to which you’re evidently tuned.
I trust you’ll find this evening’s program as compelling as I do, though its format is slightly different than our usual broadcast fare. That’s right, Santa, there is no Virginia. And while it saddens me to disabuse you of such sweet beliefs, I can only echo my old friend Ludwig Wittgenstein’s sweeping disclaimer that ‘the world is the case.’ Alas, dear listeners, we can only drink it by the glass.
Which brings me to the creative origins of tonight’s presentation. This afternoon as I browsed my library, sipping a young but ambitious petite syrah, I realized my enlightenment, while total, has become slightly stale of late. I therefore resolved that I would henceforth seek to explore complexities worthy of my pretensions. Thus decided, I fortified myself with an ounce of Serbian caviar accompanied by a chilled liter of Thunderbird (sic itur ad astra!), and began to search for neglected volumes from which I might glean information on topics which have traditionally bewildered less formidable brains than my own.
Quickly then – tempus fugit, as old Thoth said – tonight we’ll examine that most intractable mystery of existence, the sine qua non of consciousness itself, the irreducible element of being, the gray jelly smeared on each cracker of thought, the meat and potatoes of knowledge, the very fire in the forge. I refer, of course, to the human mind.
The mind is a glass floor.
The mind is the spirit’s tear.
The mind is our prior and subsequent ghost.
The mind is the Bullion Express and the blood on the tracks.
The mind is a stone door.
The silver on the backs of mirrors.
The wave that defines the coast.
It’s what the drunk grave robbers couldn’t stuff in their sacks.
The mind is the sum of all and more.
The spasm between one and zero in the Calendar of Black-Hole Years.
The contract between the lash and the whipping post.
A quilt of dreams stitched with facts.
A meaningless argument among the whores.
Rain that keeps falling when the sky clears.
A masquerade party, guest and host.
A candlelit landscape of puddled wax.
The mind is what thought is for.
The parking lot at the Mall of Fears.
The fire-pit for the piggy roast.
What the soul surrendered and won’t take back.
The mind is neither either nor or.
The real center of an empty sphere.
This has been your man of the hour on ‘Moment of Truth.’ I trust your attention proved worthy of my intelligence, and that as you listened you cried out that ultimate Destructuralist accolade, ‘Tha’s a big ten-four, good buddy!’ And so, until next time, do keep in mind that every moment is a moment of truth. But for now: Ciao, baby, and Adieu.
Daniel snapped off the radio and stared down the road. He remembered Volta talking about an AMO-financed mobile pirate radio station and wondered if that’s what he’d been listening to. It figured. He’d have to mention it to Volta the next time they talked, tell him that it had strengthened him while he was running with the Diamond. The reminder that he was part of an ancient alliance of magicians and outlaws cheered him up. But also, and perhaps more importantly, David Janus was hard evidence that he, Daniel, was relatively sane. He was impressed that the DJ could still function. This gave Daniel hope. He needed hope. Hope and rest and patience. And food. He needed to eat. He needed lots of things.
Thankful, Volta watched Red Freddie’s plane lift from the Eel River airstrip and bank toward the mist-shrouded moon. Volta hadn’t enjoyed the flight. From the moment they’d left El Paso, Red Freddie had lobbied him hard. Red Freddie wanted AMO to ‘strike more blows against the Empire, real blows instead of this candy-ass policy of gentle subversion.’ Red Freddie wanted to blow up dams and burn banks and bind and gag the president of Maxxam in the top of an old-growth redwood the company had marked for harvest. Direct action, that’s what Red Freddie wanted.
Volta wanted to indulge the seeping melancholy that infused him the moment he’d understood the Diamond would destroy Daniel. He was tired of control. But Red Freddie was a member of the Alliance as well as a friend. His policy suggestions deserved a thoughtful response. So Volta had listened and answered with diplomacy and patience.
Volta was so glad to be alone that he drove three miles up the hill before he remembered he needed groceries. He took mental inventory of the Laurel Creek pantry as he drove. There was probably enough to get him through a week, but he wanted to stay home at least a month. He decided to go back to town and stock up so he wouldn’t have to interrupt his retreat later.
Volta judged his decision sensible and efficient. No surprise there. He hadn’t surprised himself in years. Solid, sensible, honorable Volta. He felt trapped inside his integrity, an integrity that had slowly turned arid. He had accepted the responsibilities of the Star, and he had honored them. They were responsibilities so serious that to accept them virtually forbade foolishness. No regrets. But now he needed to water his garden. Needed to be foolish.
As if to test his resolve, a golden opportunity for foolishness presented itself on the outskirts of town. This was the smallest carnival Volta had seen in all his wanderings – four games, a junior Ferris wheel, a House-Trailer of Horrors, and a booth the size of a one-hole outhouse selling clouds of cotton candy, soda water, and caramel apples. Skimpy, true, but it was a carnival.
Volta was taken first by the force of her concentration and not her long, lovely, reddish-blonde hair. She was ten or eleven, that strangely mercurial age of female prepubescence that actually ranges from three to thirty-five. She was fiercely focused on tossing ping-pong balls into a mass of small goldfish bowls arrayed on a plywood-sheet table. Volta quietly walked over and stood behind her. She tossed and missed, shaking her head angrily, her waist-length hair shimmering in the stark, bare-bulb light.
She dug into her pocket and finally produced a quarter. ‘Last chance,’ she told the man behind the plank.
He handed her three ping-pong balls from his apron, squinting at her through the smoke from his Marlboro. ‘Your last chance, huh? Well, good luck.’
Volta watched her concentrate. She was a sweetheart, freckles and all. Volta foolishly allowed himself a pang of regret for his childlessness.
When her last toss
bounced harmlessly off a bowl’s rim and landed in the dust, the girl stamped her foot and said ‘Shit’ quickly, as if velocity made it acceptable. Her shoulders slumped and she turned to walk away. Volta was ready.
‘Miss,’ he said as he bent down to pick up something from the ground, ‘I believe you were standing on this.’ He held up the dollar bill he’d palmed.
She looked confused. ‘I don’t think so. I spent both of mine.’
Volta admired her honesty, but he relished the sudden glint of hope in her eyes. ‘Miss, you were standing on it. It must be yours. And if it’s not, it’s yours by right of good fortune.’
She took the bill with a grin that made Volta happy in a foolishly uncomplicated way. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘May I offer you some technical advice on tossing ping-pong balls into goldfish bowls?’
‘What?’ Her tone was a dead heat between wary and eager.
‘The trajectory of your toss is too flat. While the bowls look close together, they’re actually far enough apart that a ball seldom skitters into one. Also, the balls aren’t that much smaller than the neck opening on the bowls. The outcurving edge makes the opening appear wider than it is. Appearances are the best deception. We want to believe our own eyes. But I trust you see the secret by now: Loft the ball high instead of tossing it low – that way you get a straight drop on the opening, the full circle to shoot at.’
Her seventh ball dropped in so perfectly it almost bounced back out.
The sallow guy behind the plank raised his voice a few desultory decibels, ‘Awwwrighhht here.’ Nother winner.’
She grinned up at Volta. The wrinkle in her nose was enough to fuel his melancholy for days. ‘My name’s Gena Leland. What’s yours?’
‘The Great Volta,’ he bowed. He hadn’t used his stage name in twenty years.
‘Really? You in the carnival?’
‘No. I’m a retired magician.’
She was about to ask something else when a towheaded boy, clearly kin, ran up and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, Gena. Mom’s getting pissed.’
The man behind the plank tapped her other arm. ‘Here, kid; you won it.’ He handed her a goldfish bowl, but this one held water and a tiny goldfish.
Gena hissed, ‘Okay, Tommy, just a sec.’ She accepted the goldfish and handed it to Volta.
Surprised, he took it, but immediately tried to hand it back. ‘No, you won it; it’s your prize.’
She put her hands behind her back. ‘But you taught me how. Besides, I don’t want it. I wasn’t doing it to win a goldfish. I just wanted to do it, get one of those balls in.’
‘Oh,’ Volta said. ‘I thought you wanted the goldfish.’
‘No. My mom says it’s a pretty big responsibility to take care of another living thing. Gotta go.’
And she and her brother were gone on flashing sneakers.
The bowl cupped in his hands, Volta looked down at the goldfish. With a sudden and startling clarity, Volta felt Daniel open a door. ‘Shit,’ Volta said quickly. Then, with a freedom more befitting his age, he added a long anguished ‘Fuuuuuuuck!’
Daniel stopped at Jackrabbit Pizza in a mini-mall at the edge of Reno. The Cutlass wouldn’t lock, so he took the Diamond, money, and day pack in with him. When he opened the pizzeria door, he was startled to see a large rabbit behind the counter. As his eyes adjusted to the light, the rabbit slowly turned into a tall, gangly, teenage boy with a small, pinched face and wispy mustache. The kid was wearing a pair of stiff, slender rabbit ears and a light-grey smock made of the same sheeny velveteen fabric, a material closer to carpet than cloth. The kitchen workers also wore rabbit ears and furry smocks. Clearly a uniform, Daniel decided, unless all three shared the same sartorial eccentricity.
The pizzeria had two long aisles of tables and benches, padded booths along the near wall, and a mini-arcade of computer games, pinball machines, and a mechanical pony ride along the back wall. It was noisy and warm, a fragrant braid of yeast, garlic, tomato, and sizzling pepperoni wafting from the kitchen. Daniel stepped up to the counter.
‘Good evening.’ The tall rabbit-boy reached for a pad. ‘Ready to order?’
Daniel decided you could say anything you wanted to someone wearing jackrabbit ears, so he said, ‘The mind is a pizza with the works.’
The kid’s button nose twitched just like a rabbit’s scenting danger on the air. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ the kid said, ‘I missed that.’ He glanced timidly at Daniel and immediately shifted his gaze back to his order pad.
‘Pardon me,’ Daniel said, ‘I get mumbly alone on the road. I said “I wouldn’t mind a pizza with the works.”’
‘Small? Medium?’
‘Medium.’
‘Anything to drink?’
Daniel looked at the menu board. ‘A pitcher of beer.’
The rabbit-eared kid said, ‘Comes to nine ninety-five.’
Daniel set the bowling bag down and dug in his front pocket. He handed a hundred-dollar bill to the kid. ‘Keep the change.’
The kid looked at the bill and then back at Daniel. ‘That’s a hundred-dollar bill, sir. It’s only nine ninety-five.’
‘That’s right,’ Daniel said. ‘So, if my math doesn’t fail me, that leaves you a tip of ninety dollars and five cents. Correct?’
The kid shook his head, his rabbit ears swaying slightly. ‘Gee, that’s more than I make in a week.’
‘Please,’ Daniel said with a dismissive flick of his hand, ‘I can afford it. Furthermore, I admire your courage.’
‘My courage?’
‘In wearing that outlandish rabbit uniform.’
The kid winced. ‘Don’t remind me. I forget till someone reminds me. Owner makes us wear them. He catches you without your ears on, you’re fired on the spot.’
Daniel didn’t respond. He was looking at the kid’s ears.
Nervously, the kid went on, ‘Sometimes it’s a real bummer. Girls from school come in once in a while, know what I mean. Pretty hard to look cool when you look stupid. This one girl, Cindy, thought I looked so silly she still cracks up giggling every time she sees me in the halls.’
‘Marry that woman,’ Daniel said, ‘she’ll keep you honest.’
‘Right,’ the kid said with a plaintive sarcasm, ‘she’s really going to marry Mr Rabbit Ears. It’s not like I’m Paul Newman to start with.’
Daniel advised him, ‘Tell her you are a master of the Nine Tantric Circles of Intimate Permissions.’
The kid lowered his eyes. ‘I don’t even know what a tantric is. Even if she’d be interested in knowing it, and I doubt she would. That would impress her, huh? “What nine tantric circles, Carl?” “Uh, well, Cindy, gee, duh.” Gotta tell her something, right?’
‘Absolutely,’ Daniel agreed.
‘So, you got any suggestions? You know about these tantric circles?’
Daniel winked. ‘That knowledge is the source of my wealth. Unfortunately, I’m bound not to reveal them, though in fact they’re open secrets. I can point you to the right path, though. Use your imagination. That’s what I did. And if Cindy uses her imagination, perhaps you’ll enter the First Circle together.’
Carl looked at Daniel, clearly puzzled. Daniel was vaguely disappointed when he said, ‘Well, thanks for the tips, sir. Let me get your pitcher, and I’ll call when the pizza’s ready. You’ll be number ninety-three.’
Daniel’s disappointment turned to an anger spawned more by the kid’s sloth than the implicit slight. ‘What I can’t decide,’ Daniel said, ‘is whether you should get down on your knees and thank your boss for forcing you into foolishness, or whether you should twist those rabbit ears together and tell him to stick ’em up his ass. If you’re going to be foolish, at least have the sense to enjoy it. If you find it demeaning, quit. The bosses of the world can’t do anything to you that you can stop them from doing. We all deserve ourselves.’
Carl was filling the pitcher from the counter tap. ‘You sound like a teacher,’ he said without enthusias
m.
Daniel considered this a moment. ‘I’m not sure I know enough to be a teacher, or could teach what I do know. I’m more of a romantic religious idiot trying to get his bearings in the Diamond-light of existence.’
‘Oh yeah?’ the kid said, sliding the pitcher across the countertop. ‘You with some church, some Eastern religion?’
Daniel sensed the kid’s eagerness to be rid of him, but rabbit-boy clearly hadn’t learned that religious inquiries encouraged conversation. Daniel decided to spare him. ‘No, none of that mystic Eastern woo-woo for me. I’m a Judo-Christian. I flipped.’ He gave the kid the wildest grin he could summon.
It must have been good. Carl gulped and turned for the kitchen, mumbling over his shoulder, ‘Better get your order in… be ten, fifteen minutes.’
Daniel sat at a table facing the mini-arcade. The machines flashed invitingly, but nobody wanted to play. Not the rabbit-eared kid at the counter, not a single patron. Daniel felt himself sliding toward depression and fought for equilibrium. He moved his left foot over and softly pressed it against the bowling bag. The feel of the curve against his foot gave him an immediate impulse to leap on the table, shout for attention, and vanish. That would wake them up. Instead, he concentrated on his beer, feeling the cool glass against his lips, tasting each drop.
Daniel was halfway through his pizza when a small boy tore by him, aiming straight for the pony ride – a fiberglass golden palomino cast in full gallop, ears laid back. The boy still had some baby fat in his cheeks and two front teeth were missing. He had brown eyes as lustrous as melting chocolate chips. Daniel sensed a delicacy about the boy, though there was nothing delicate about the way he swung into the saddle, twisted the plastic reins around his wrist, and shoved in his quarter; nothing delicate at all as he spurred the pony to full speed or whipped out his trusty six-gun – extended index-finger barrel, cocked-thumb hammer – and began blazing away, ‘Blatchooee! Blatchooee!’ The loud, wet report cut through the noise from other patrons.