We even went back to the beach and found some of the boiled fish. We ate some, and found that they were pretty good, considering we had been living off dog-urine fruit, which made for a very real and very regular bowel movement, dear hearts. I figured, way we had been eating and shitting, the woods were full of scat.
We cut the boiled fish open with scoops made of sharp sticks, wrapped them in leaves, and stuffed them in my pack. We made spears by twisting off limbs in such a way that a sharp piece was left on the end. It wasn’t a great weapon, but it was all we had.
On the day when fruit and gourds were dry, we packed my pack full of the withered dog-urine produce, filled the gourds with water, corked them with pieces of wood, made slings of vines to carry the gourds, made similar straps with vines so we could fasten them to and carry our spears on our backs, then we started out.
Our plan was to take turns with the pack. We all carried our own water gourds and spears. As for the pack, I carried it first. We took a hike around the pile of busted toys and rotting bodies, made our way to the shiny beam that rose up to heaven.
And with the red-stained sky dripping down frighteningly low, we did the pile-on hands thing again, made with a little one-for-all grunt, and started up.
It went well enough at first. The wires were thick, and they gave you something to cling to. The beam slanted enough you weren’t just hanging out in space, but it didn’t slant enough for you to be comfortable. It didn’t take long before I was tired. I thought it was just because it was my turn to tote the pack, but when Grace took it over, I found I was even worse off, as if the weight of all that food had given me what strength I had.
Finally we came to a great bolt in the beam, and the wires were nestled about it in a wad. We found we could crawl up in that wad, and the wires were bundled tight enough, very little light got in. We crawled in there and pressed up together, mostly in a sitting position, opened the pack, ate and drank sparingly, then rested.
Resting turned out to be a full-bore doze.
When I awoke, stars were in the sky, and I watched two of them drip off and fall. I could see way out there, dear hearts, and I watched as the stars hit the sea and the water rose up big-time, came crashing down on the island, washing trees away like matchsticks with a garden hose.
The drive-in mist, which was cruising the water below, was hit by the waves and disrupted. It curled and coiled and broke apart.
Reba, who I didn’t know was awake, said, “We left just in time.”
“It’s not going to wash the whole thing,” I said, “not this time. But what if the moon falls?”
“It’s all over,” she said. “Davy Jones’ Locker, baby.”
The moon was out and it was bright, but that old lunar wad nodded from time to time, as if it might doze off and drop into the waters below. We watched for awhile, until the drive-in ghost had regrouped and began to float over the waters, then we decided to wake the others, keep climbing, making time while the moon was up and its light was high.
As we climbed, Grace and Steve in the lead, Reba (carrying the pack now) and I lagging slightly behind, Reba said, “What do you think about all those bodies down there, the toy soldiers, the mannequins, and such?”
“I don’t know. I’m having some thoughts, but they aren’t altogether formed, and what thoughts I’m thinking I can’t express, but, baby, somewhere back to the rear of the old bean, I’m not liking what I’m thinking at all.”
“Want to share?”
“I meant what I said. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s more a feeling than an expression. But it comes to me, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I think I do know what you mean. Something is nagging me, too. And it feels uncomfortable. Like a pretty bad thought is trying to burrow out, and I won’t let it.”
“I hear you,” I said.
Many days and nights passed, and sometimes there was no place for us to really rest, so we had to keep on cl imbing. And sometimes, when we found a bolt, where the wires were always clustered, we decided to stay for a day or two, if anyone could in any way decide on what a day was.
In time, more stars fell, and the water rose up way high, and soon there was no land or trees below us. Oh, for a few days it was there, in patches, and the water would roll back and show us at least the tops of trees, and now and again a patch of mud, but eventually that went away too. And then one night the thing we had feared happened.
The moon came up and went down fast and furious. Striking the sea so hard it sounded like an atomic bomb had gone off. The great beam vibrated and the metal sang with a sound like a scream from a robot’s lungs.
The ocean yawned, and the water went all about, then it gathered itself together with what sounded like a moan and rushed forward. All the waters of this drive-in earth appeared to have loosened their bounds, and they had gathered together in one great wet flood; it thundered below us with a gush, and it began to rise, like a plugged toilet, and in a time so short as to be somewhere between our taking a deep breath and cutting a fart of fear, the water charged up and around the beam, rose nearly to our feet.
Well. Okay. That’s an exaggeration. But it rose up as high as we had been two drive-in days before. Had we decided to hang out a little longer down there, we would have bathed the big bath, baby.
The flood brought with it a bullet-hard rain and a cloud of mist, and the mist collected itself and became the drive-in ghost. We looked down on it and I saw within it the island and us on the island, and then I saw us and the pile of corpses, false and neat, and I quit watching then. Feared it might show me our future. And, frankly, I didn’t want to know.
2
“All these wires,” Steve said, “I think they run the drive-in world. They travel along these great beams, and the interconnecting parts that look like ladder rungs. They run through those. They go from the sky to the ground. They’re worked into this world’s fabric. They give it light. They make the sun, the moon and stars, night and day work. Or did. They’re starting to go bad. Shorting out maybe. No maintenance. The whole goddamn thing is breaking up. I don’t know, maybe it’s on purpose. But down there, it’s all over. I’m sure of it. From sea to shining sea, from one end of the jungle to the other, all the way down that single stretch of highway, the drive-in at either end. It’s done, companions. Done.”
We were resting in a mess of wires by one of the huge bolts, and Steve, he was running on, talking ninety miles an hour, as if he were on some kind of caffeine high, which he wasn’t, unless the dog-urine fruits were naturally rich in it.
And maybe they were, because we were all in one of those late-night type of conversational, philosophical moods that one usually associates with coffee houses or university lifers or chat-it-up smart guys trying to score pussy.
Only thing was, it wasn’t late night, it was day, but the day wasn’t much. The sun was down low, literally, and it was leaking its light over the water, making it the color of rich bourbon. There was a lot less water now. Much of it had been steamed away. But still that sun dripped into the sea, and our version of Sol had begun to lose its shape, like a rotting fruit going quick-fast to liquid. On the seabed all manner of creatures, giant squids, fish, and even our great catfish friend, Ed, squirmed in the mud.
From where we were, we could see the great fish clearly. The dark things, the ravenous cancers, or pissed-off shadows, whatever they were, those hungry things that had been inside of Ed, had exited the old boy’s ass. The shadows fluttered about the muddy seabed like crickets. There was too much light for them, fading or not, they hopped and twisted and fell about like dying locusts, came apart in little black pools that ran into the mud and were absorbed.
The people who had been inside Ed exited as well. They were very small from our position, the size of termites. But we knew they were people. They came out of the gaping mouth of the fish and disappeared into the mud. It probably went very deep, that mud. Maybe miles.
If anyone was still in the fish, they
might stay on the surface for awhile, as Ed covered a lot of space and was sinking more slowly, spread out like that, but he was sinking. We could see that big buddy going down.
Goodbye, Bjoe, if you’re still there. Goodbye you man-eating, dick-jerking asshole.
The horizon had become a charcoal gray band, and it was broadening. Soon, all the world below would be dark.
Above us, the clouds were near touchable. Puffed up and white as a Jesus robe.
I said, “I think, tired as we are, we should start moving again, while we can see to climb. If the sun holds out just a while longer, I think we’ll reach the clouds.”
“And if we do,” Reba says, “who says that means anything? It can be just as dark inside a cloud as out. The sun goes, what the fuck does it matter where we are?”
“I’m thinking the beam leads somewhere,” I said. “Remember Popalong, he climbed up here, through that hole over the drive-in, and it was nearly as high as this. He saw things. He told us a little about them. This world has an attic.”
“But there’s no guarantee this leads to it,” Reba said. “This world, in case you haven’t noticed, lacks logic.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Grace said, “we made this decision, and now we’re stuck with it, we either ride the dick or use our fingers.”
“Say what?” Reba said.
“It’s an old saying I just made up, meaning, we’ve made a decision. We don’t know if it’s the real thing, the big cosmic fuck, or just us playing with ourselves. We won’t know till we get up there.”
“There really isn’t any other way to go,” Steve said. “Well, other than down. And if we climb down, I don’t think we’re climbing down to much. A lot of mud, dead fish, and such.”
“You’re right,” Reba said. “Of course you are. I’m just tired.”
We started climbing again.
There was something I hadn’t mentioned to the others. The clouds. I feared our oxygen would thin. But it didn’t. Truth was, the sky, the clouds, the whole arrangement, was way lower than back on earth. But it was a bit chilly. As we climbed through the clouds, they felt wet and sticky, like cotton candy.
And then we broke through a bank of clouds so thick you could swat them with your hand and knock them about. When we rose above them, struggling our way along the wires on the beam, we saw it.
A hole at the top of the world, the beam traveling up through it like a knife through a wound.
3
When we came to the top of the beam it began to narrow dramatically, and eventually we had to go one at a time. Grace was the first inside, followed by Steve, then Reba and myself. Behind us, the sun dimmed even more as it dissolved into the mud.
We climbed over the lip of the sky and stood in a room.
A dusty goddamn room.
A big room, I might add. But, a room.
Dimly lit, but lit. The source? Unknown.
There were all sorts of things there, and many of them were things I remembered Popalong Cassidy describing. There were backdrops of all sorts and tins of film, and loose film scattered helter-skelter, piles of television sets, all sizes.
Looking up, I could find no ceiling. Just darkness. In fact, I couldn’t see any walls. There was just a floor and lots of junk and lots more for as far as the eye could see in the dim light.
“There seems to be some kind of path along here,” Grace said.
And there was. A break in the backdrops and tins of film, forming a little corridor. Dust clouds rose and floated as we walked. We were all soon coughing, but in time the dust ceased to bother us, and we proceeded at a brisker pace.
“I remember Popalong Cassidy said he could walk into the backdrops,” I said.
“Yeah, I remember that too,” Grace said.
“We find one of home,” Steve said, “we’re set.”
And as if wishing would make it so, we found just that. A huge backdrop hung down on chains attached at the top to ... Who knows what? The backdrop was so long it curled on the floor. It was a painted outside view of the pool hall back home, the street out front. It was where my friends and I had conceived our plan to visit the Orbit Drive-in; it was where Willard had kicked some ass protecting Randy, the two who were later welded together by a lightning strike, welded in such a way they became one mean creature, the Popcorn King.
“If we can step through that,” I said, “we will be in my hometown. Everyone can find a way home from there.”
I turned for an answer from the others, saw another backdrop across the way. The Dairy Queen in my hometown. A tear abruptly dripped out of the corner of my eye, ran down my cheek.
“We could search about,” Grace said, “but if we can step through it, if we can go back to East Texas, close enough for me.”
“You said it,” Steve said.
“I’m up for it,” Reba said.
I walked slowly toward the backdrop, stuck out my hand, and ran up against canvas.
I pushed again.
Harder.
Nothing.
I hit the canvas with my palm. Then my fists. Hard as I could. It rippled a bit, but I didn’t pass through. I fell to my knees and pressed my forehead against it.
“The lying sonofabitch,” I said. “He didn’t go anywhere. Popalong said he could go through the backdrops. He said it.”
Reba bent down and put her arm around me. “Come on, Jack. It’s okay.”
“No. It’s not okay. I’ve had about all I can take.”
“Get the fuck up,” Grace said.
I turned and glared at her. She stood there in all her glorious, topless beauty. I had turned and was prepared to be angry, but looking at that woman, her face full of confidence, all I could do was make myself stand. I said, “Sorry, I had a moment.”
“Okay,” Grace said, “but now the moment’s over. Popalong, who knows, maybe he did pass into these things. In his mind. And what works one time, may not work the next. We aren’t whipped yet. We’re never whipped till we say we’re whipped.”
“I don’t know,” Steve said, “I’m feeling a little whipped myself. I just don’t have the energy to fall down and cry, or I would.”
“Me too,” Reba said.
“We can rest, or we can search,” Grace said. “And, another thing, something important, I think ... Right over there. A wall.”
It was. A nice brown wall that ran way up into the darkness, out of sight. There was a standard light switch on the wall. I hit it. The lights in the great room brightened. There was a creaking noise, and the backdrops began to move about on their chains, changing positions. They locked in and were still.
“Now there’s something cute,” Grace said.
It was a door, revealed by the movement of the backdrops.
Grace strolled over, took hold of the knob. “When I turn,” she said, “be ready for whatever.”
She turned the knob, pulled the door open.
Nothing leaped on us.
No whatevers.
Inside the room were all manner of mirrors, and looking into them, we looked different in every one. Not just short or fat or tall or wide, but we had different faces. I could recognize them as our faces and bodies, but they were different.
Even Grace showed discomfort, started moving along quickly. For in many of the mirrors her shape was not so attractive. Her breasts drooped, and she looked tired and scared and old.
I looked weak, bent over, my fingers almost touching the ground. Steve’s face was blank in many of the mirrors, and Reba was chunky and big-legged and exhausted.
“It’s how we really feel,” Reba said.
“I don’t feel that way,” Grace said. “Not at all. I think it’s how this world wants us to feel.”
“Whatever, I’m for going back to the other room,” Reba said. “At least some of the backdrops are pretty.”
But we kept moving, and soon the mirrors were gone, and there were these rows and rows of what we had seen in a pile on the ground beneath the hole in the sky. They hung
on cables from the ceiling we couldn’t see. There were crude-cut bodies and nicer ones, and really fine ones, some with windup keys at their backs, many without, all the fleshy ones nude and shiny. No one stunk here. They looked fresh. And there were aliens. The ones in our dreams, and in the pile below the sky.
The aliens were in great chairs in front of enormous cameras that were poked through holes in the floor, and the chairs, they rode up in such a position that the aliens’ filmed-over, bulging eyes were pointed down into the cameras, and the creatures were held in place by belts and straps so they wouldn’t fall from their chairs. They didn’t move.
We walked slowly toward them, threading our way between the hanging figures. A tentacle dripped over the side of one giant chair, and I reached out to touch it. It was slick with decay and smelled.
“Dead,” I said, “all dead.”
We moved between the chairs that held the many aliens, came to a canyon in the floor. We looked over the rim, all the way down. All we could see was a dim red glow. We could feel heat coming up through the opening.
“This must be the garbage hole, where the bodies are dumped,” Grace said.
“My guess is,” I said, “that red glow is the sun. It has fallen onto the drive-in world, heated it up. I bet all that’s left now is lava.”
Looking across the vast expanse on the canyon to the other side, I could see cars and buses, planes and trains. They looked small and were all heaped together in the manner of toys tossed aside at the end of the day by an exhausted child.
“I bet we’re looking down the funnel from the sky,” Steve said. “It could be that, instead of the waste hole.”
“The funnel was far away,” Grace said. “The waste hole was just below us.”
“Maybe,” Steve said. “But time and distance ... Nothing makes sense here. And there’s some of the same kind of stuff that was thrown down the funnel over there,” he said, pointing at the autos and planes and such on the other side of the great gap.