The jar of old coins caught his eye; now there was a handful of clues to the mystery of the missing States.
Owen darted over to the workbench. He twisted the lid off the jar and spilled the coins out onto the bench. A few of them were burnished, suggesting that she had tried to clean them, but the others were black and pitted.
“Hey, come here—look at these things.” He waved imperiously. “Where did you get these?”
She followed Owen to the bench, watching him closely. “The objects turn up occasionally during our excavations. The ancient peoples used them in their religious ceremonies. They are called monies.”
“I know what they are—I’m an ancient people.” He turned over a dime. “Just look at this date.”
Owen sorted the coins. There was a solitary penny, several dimes, a few quarters, a half-dollar, and two other coins that were wholly unknown to him. The penny was dated 1940 and Owen grunted his satisfaction at the familiar date. That was close to home; that was only a bit more than two years ago, just before the war. Two of the dimes were of the Mercury coinage and bore the dates 1915 and 1943. The remainder were later Roosevelt dimes, and Owen inspected them with an eager fascination. It was strange-—eerie—to find his own President portrayed on the coins; perhaps they had put his likeness there because he was the first man in history to serve three terms in the White House.
Owen was filled with a sense of wonder. The two Mercury dimes were put carefully aside.
The quarters were of minimal interest because all the dates were common and quite familiar to him; they ranged from 1920 through 1941. The half-dollar was something else again and earned a prolonged scrutiny: 1984. Owen stared with disfavor at the man’s profile stamped on the coin and muttered an indistinct vilification. Imagine that jackass winding up famous, with his picture on a fifty-cent piece!
Owen hunched over the two remaining mystery coins. “Look at these things,” he demanded of Paoli. “Just look: ten shut. Now, what in hell is ten shul? It was made in two thousand ninety-seven by something called the NorAmerFed. What do you know about the NorAmer Fed? Does that mean the North American Federation?”
She moved in beside him. “I have heard something of it in my childhood. A myth, really—a Mother’s story told to children at bedtime. It is said that NorAmer Fed was a most ancient land, a kingdom now lost in antiquity; it is said that the land was the prized possession of a mythical male deity. In those days the male gods owned everything and gave cities as gifts to their favorite sons. The gods and their sons rode across the sky on obedient clouds.” Paoli was sympathetic. “I know no more than that, and I trust I have not offended you and your gods. Do you have knowledge of the ancients?” “I know all about the United States, but I never heard of this fool thing,” Owen said.
“I thought the name was familiar to you.”
“Baby doll, you need a geography lesson. Indiana is in the United States, and the United States is in North America. North America is the name of this here continent; I guess it covers everything from the North Pole to the Panama Canal.” He tapped the strange coins. “But I never heard of the NorAmerFed, I never heard of ten shul, and I never saw two thousand ninety-seven in all my life. Even my grandchildren never saw two thousand ninety-seven, if I had any grandchildren, which I don’t, but you know what I mean. What in hell happened to Indiana and the United States after I died?”
“I cannot know that. I am sorry for you.”
Owen pushed the two coins across the bench to Paoli. “They made these shuls in two thousand eighty-one and two thousand ninety-seven.’ Boy! Talk about that crazy Buck Rogers stuff!”
“Was he an ancient god who rode in the sky?”
Owen muttered under his breath, but failed to reply. He turned his somber attention to the two Mercury (limes, flipping them over to read the mint marks and rolling them between his fingers. They had the good old feel of home: he might have actually owned one dime or the other at some time; he might have spent them at Ollie Cronin’s drugstore or at Juanita’s Grocery just down the street.
He gave the dimes to the attentive woman. “Here, read them.”
“Read what?” It wasn’t what she had expected.
“Read the dates.”
“One nine one five. Is that significant?”
“It sure as hell is, honeybun. That’s the year I was born; nineteen fifteen. Not dug up, not reconstituted, but born ” He indicated the other coin. “Now read that one.” “One nine four three.” She waited expectantly.
“Yep, nineteen forty-three. The year I stopped being twenty-eight. I never even made it to the opening game that year.”
The woman was sympathetic. “I realize that you consider it a most solemn and historic date.”
Owen nodded agreement, knowing a sudden melancholy mood. “Well, it gives a guy a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. Two dimes, twenty cents, and one marks the beginning while the other signifies the end. And they turn up here, of all places. It makes a guy think.” She asked softly, “Do you wish me to withdraw?” “Withdraw? What for?”
“You might wish to pray privately.”
Owen nearly hurled the coins across the workshop. “You don’t pray on them, dimwit, you spend them!”
“How do you spend on them?”
“On beer—when you can find dime beer anymore. The last time I was in Hartford City the bandits wanted fifteen cents a glass. Can you picture that? They’re taking advantage of honest workingmen just because there’s a war on. I hope somebody reports them to the Price Control Board.”
“What is beer?”
“Pale booze. Oh—” Owen remembered the jugs in his pockets and brought them out for display. “This stuff. I call it Owen’s Choice.” He removed the cap from a bottle and generously sampled the contents. “Now, that’s smooth. It will tickle your toenails, baby doll.”
She looked at the bottles with a new and sudden interest. “I hesitate to ask where you found them; your answers are unintelligible. I know the term booze now— I researched the subject in the files this morning.”
“Bully for you. What did you find out?”
“ ‘Booze’ was the name of one of the prehistoric gods who dispensed beverages to his people. The ancients drank the beverages during their ceremonial orgies and flew in the clouds with the god. That is said to be the meaning of the term high, I found it most interesting, as legend.” Paoli looked at Owen with an anthropological interest, seeing him as a genuine prehistoric practitioner.
“We sure did, honey—with or without the orgies. And so did that crazy dame who made me last night—but where did she get the stuff?”.
Paoli revealed her frustration. “I don’t know that. 1 have not been able to locate your fabricator.”
“Do me a big favor—don’t ever find her.”
“But she is responsible for you, for your present condition. I am certain that her unfortunate experiments with the beverage were responsible for your flawed construction and erratic behavior. That has never happened before. There has never been a faulty construct, before you, and it simply cannot be permitted to endure.” “Meaning what?”
“I must correct the error. You will have to be reconstructed in the proper manner.”
He pointed. “Back into that oven?”
“Yes.”
“Supposing I object? Supposing I take the Fourth Amendment?”
“It is my duty to the city.”
Owen said, “I’m a variant, and a damned good one.” “You are a flawed variant. The flaw must be erased.” Owen prepared to run. He didn’t know if he could outrun the long-legged blonde, but the doorway was open and he was always willing to try.
He asked, “So what do we do now? Fly kites?”
Paoli folded her arms and inspected him carefully, letting her gaze travel from head to toe and back again. Owen recognized the look in her eye; it was the same shown by Kehli as she sat on the blanket in the woods. She said, “I admit to a certain curiosity.”
&
nbsp; “About what?”
“About you. About variables and their performances. I have wondered if your flaw was deliberately introduced to enhance the results.”
Owen studied the traffic warden. A lively rubber ball of exhilaration snapped up and down his spine. “Do you want to find out?”
“In what way?”
“I’ll cooperate with you, if you’ll cooperate with me.” “Cooperate in what way?”
“Join me in the wake. That’s an old prehistoric practice, just chock full of significance. We do it to keep the gods happy.” Owen put his fingers on her chest and traced an imaginary T-square. “I’ll show you all the secret rites of the good of Indiana boys, but you have to promise to keep the secrets. And after that you can pry and poke all you want—you can look for flaws and things —whatever makes you happy.”
She looked down at his fingers. “What is expected of me?”
Owen placed the 1915 dime in her hand. “Hold that. Wrap it up in your fist and hold it tight. That’s the year I was born.”
Paoli obediently clutched the dime in a fist.
He held the 1943 dime in his left fist and picked up a bottle. “I’m holding the dead year, and now we’re in tune with the ages. Down the hatch, baby doll.”
“Down what hatch?”
“Never mind, just follow me. The redcoats are coming!”
Paoli watched him drink long and swallow easily.
Owen said, “Ah … now that’s the way us old prehistoric guys do it.” He gave up the bottle.
Paoli said dutifully, “The redcoats are coming.” She did as Owen’ had done, swallowed, gasped for breath, and turned red in the face, crying, “Oh . .. /”
“Now this is going to be one damned fine wake,” Owen declared, and whacked Paoli on the back to help her catch her breath. “It ain’t everybody who can celebrate their own wake—not standing up, that is.”
Seven
There are two times when you can never tell what is going
to happen. One is when a man takes his first drink; the other
is when a woman fakes her latest.
—O. Henry
The first bottle lay on its back on the workbench, empty. The seal had been broken on the second bottle and the contents proved to be of a quality equal to the first. Owen Hall realized that he had missed his calling.
Paoli said, “I have asked you three times but you have not explained. Why is a wake?” She sprawled on a chair in the small space that served as a lounge area.
Owen was sitting on the floor not far from her feet, attempting to light a cigar. -The match would not flame. “What? When did you ask me three times?”
“You do not listen to me.”
“I always listen to a lady when I can understand her. Your words are a little bit slurred.”
“You did not explain a clothesline.”
“I think I’ve missed a boat somewhere,” Owen said. “One of us is going up like a kite.”
“I asked you the first time when you were inspecting the chamber you call an oven. It is not an oven. You had your head inside the chamber—you said that it was too small and you would not fit.” She regarded him owlishly,
making a determined effort to control her speech. “You will fit.”
Skeptically: “I’m of two minds about that. Now, what’s this jazz about a clothesline?”
“I asked you the second time when you were in the shower … uh, shower, washing with your clothes on. You replied that you were washing away the soot. There is no soot in the chamber.”
He studied the match in his* hand. “Son of a gun! That’s why it won’t light—it’s wet.”
Paoli hesitated, ran her tongue over her lips to assist in pronunciation, and said, “I asked you the third time while you were putting your clothing to dry in the sun. You complained that I had no clothesline.”
“Oh that clothesline.” Owen Hall snapped his fingers at the reminder. “They should be dry by now, I guess— it’s been a while.”
He struggled to his feet and ambled around the room divider to the doorway, facing the familiar heat of August. Owen stepped out into the bright afternoon sunshine and felt the heat on his bare body. His coveralls were laid out on the patch of grass just behind the doorway, baking in the sun. He knelt beside them and ran his fingers down inside a pocket to retrieve the remaining matches. The topside of the garment seemed done. He turned the coveralls over to let the backside have its time in the sun and then smoothed the arms and legs to dry without wrinkles. It paid to be neat. That done, Owen stood up to again scan the lush countryside and the rolling road.
The workmen riding past the house ignored him and his nudity. Clods. He wouldn’t have ignored a naked man loafing on somebody’s sidewalk if he had been in their place; he would have at least turned to stare and compare as he sped by. Owen looked over the heads of the uncurious zombies to the timber standing against the horizon, wanting to make sure it was still there, still solid and real and inviting. He caught a flash of pink against the trees.
Two rangy women were coming into town on the trot, following the beaten path between the cemetery and the roadway. Their manner suggested an urgency. It was easy to guess the snooping wardens had discovered his back trail.
It seemed prudent to go inside.
The tall blonde seemed in imminent danger of falling off her chair. She was listing to starboard and studying the floor with bemusement. Owen assisted her to a more stable position and sat down at her feet.
“Never mind the clothesline, baby doll—the greensward yonder is doing the job.” He reached for the nearby bottle. “The redcoats are coming.”
“Again?”
“Yep.” Owen led the ritual.
Paoli obediently followed his lead. She swallowed hard and whispered, “That is a most potent beverage.”
“That is also the last bottle. I’ve got my work cut out for me, honeypot. The redcoats are closing in.”
She looked down at him carefully and her eyes widened. “You do not have your clothes on.”
“What a keen eye you have!” Owen cried. “Somebody forgot to make the underwear. I wear a size thirty-two, if you feel like whipping up a batch.”
She pointed a finger. “The fourth time you have not answered the question.”
“What question?”
“Why is a wake?”
Owen considered that and scratched the hair on his chest. “Well, I don’t know why. It just is, that’s all. It’s a grand old tradition like Mom, apple pie, and flags.”
“What does a wake do?”
“Honey, we’re doing it. The guest of honor doesn’t have to do anything, of course—he doesn’t even have to make a speech. Now usually, the neighbors all come in and pay their respects and tell a lot of lies about the dear departed. That’s all part of the ritual, you understand —lying about how good and noble and true the fella was. I guess it keeps the elder gods happy.” Owen blew on a match head to make certain it was dry and finally succeeded in lighting the cigar. “The folks sit around eating and drinking and lying a lot, and come sunrise everybody goes home well satisfied with themselves. They’ve done their duty. Somebody keeps the widow company so she won’t grieve all night. If she happens to be a doll, you can bet some guy will stay the night with her. And that’s a wake.”
Paoli stared at the cigar with fascination. “It is a strange ritual with strange symbols. Will you stay the night?”
“You couldn’t drive me away with an elephant.”
“I don’t have an elefent … elephant. Is that like a clothesline?”
“Not on Tuesday,” Owen replied. He waved the cigar toward the open doorway. “This town ain’t got no park benches, and the hounds of the law are yapping at my heels. You bet I’m going to stay the night—it’s my wake. Kelly is to blame—Kelly and that old bat. Between the two of them they put me in this fix, so you’ve got to do the right thing by me.”
“I have said that I would.”
He looke
d up at the woman teetering on the chair, sizing her. “I wish you were shorter.”
“Why?” ‘
“You’re too tall for me. I wish you were my size.”
“I will adjust.”
The woman very slowly and carefully slipped off the chair and knelt on the floor beside Owen, looking down on him from a height. Owen shook his head. It was still necessary to crane his neck to look up and inspect that delightful freckle on the tip of her nose.
“Not enough adjustment.”
Paoli teetered, nearly lost her balance, and abruptly sat down beside him. The impact was jarring.
He was quickly solicitous. “How’s your equilibrium?”
“A shoe.”
“You don’t have shoes on. You took them off when you came into the shower to haul me out.”
“Askew.”
He sat up straight beside her to measure his body against hers and found himself at shoulder level. “You’re still a head taller,” was the complaint.
Paoli stretched out on the floor by toppling backward, coming down much harder than intended. The floor shook.
“Mother!”
“I usually say fudge,” Owen commented. He measured the long pink length by eyeball and then lay down beside her, snuggling up against the wet coveralls to obtain the more accurate measurement.. His eye level was at her chest.
“Nope,” he said after a lengthy study. “Too long.”
“I can do no more!” Paoli cried. “Your gods are hard to appease.”
“I’m not worried about the gods right now—I’m thinking of me. Let me figure on it.”
Paoli struggled to sit up. She made it on the second try but had to brace her hands on the floor to maintain the position. The floor seemed strangely unsteady.
“I am naturally taller than you—females are always taller than males. My mother was tall.”
“Did your father stand on a chair?”
“I had no father.”
Owen squinted up at the woman and wondered if she had reached her capacity. That was the trouble with newcomers—they usually had to stop drinking long before the party was over. He sat up beside her and patted her shoulder.
Ressurection Days Page 9
