The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Hear them yelling? The good book has returned.”

  “So in this devil of a river it happens. Bad is lost. Good is saved.”

  “But you know, Mrs. Hovendyke, it’s all a coincidence. In the next twenty minutes another bubble may come floating up to the rail bringing back the criminal’s bag of tricks. Right?”

  “Evil goes down,” Flossy Hovendyke repeated. “Good comes to the top. My gory husband would go down like a lump of lead. But you, Charley, you must be good, not evil. I’ve heard the story about you.” She touched my arm.

  “What have you heard?”

  “That you actually dived off the walkway after a little girl had fallen. You haven’t mentioned it. You’re too modest. They believe that a bubble took her in, down there under the mist, but it was stuck among the rocks. You dived down and got into a bubble and were somehow able to set her free. She floated up, and you followed. And you both lived. I didn’t understand it when I read it in the newspaper, but now I see what they meant.”

  I modified her story for accuracy. I hadn’t dived from up here but from farther down, yet the danger had been real and the recollection silenced me. I was a bit dazed now, to realize that the story had gone out to the public.

  She started to repeat her theme song once again. “if that mess of dead fish that I call my husband ever falls—” and then she broke off with, “Speak of the devil!”

  Yes, Guy Hovendyke was coming out of the crowd, walking over toward us. About fifty steps away. Freshly shaved. Dressed in neat white slacks and beige jacket. Hair neatly combed. Walking briskly.

  She shrieked. “I don’t want to see him!” She swept her mass of black hair down over her face and tried to look away. “I won’t talk with him. I’ll run.”

  I caught her arm. “No, don’t run, just don’t look up. I’ll detain him. Just walk away.”

  “He sees me. He smells me. His instinct—I should have known!”

  The dynamic playwright crowded past me and took his wife—or exwife—into his arms. He tried to embrace her. She fought and cursed. He slapped a hand over her mouth to cut off her raving.

  “So you’ve come at last, Flossy. I knew it would be just a matter of time until you traced me here. I somehow felt your presence a few hours ago. Whatever your scheme is—”

  “Go away! Let me go. You’re nobody to me!”

  “Let’s go where we can talk.”

  “I’m not talking. I don’t know you. I hate your guts and I hate your brains. Making your fortune in New York out of my talent and giving me only half! Trying to force me to learn French and come over to that ghastly chicken coop they call Paris, to keep acting and make more success for you, you cheat!”

  “Why did you come here now?”

  “Business reasons.”

  “You’re too late. I’m putting my fortune into drama scholarships all over Europe, with extensions out here into space. It’s a wide open field.”

  “You think I haven’t heard? The U.S press is blowing you up into a saint. But they remember how you got your start.”

  “I got it with your help.”

  “Where?”

  “In New York. But New York isn’t everything. If you had only joined me in France—but you weren’t in love with me. You were in love with rich homes, fur coats and space tours. And most of all, liquor.”

  She jerked free and slapped him. He drew back. In a low tone he said, “If we could only talk sensibly.”

  She drew a letter from inside her garment. “I’ve written all I have to say to you.” She drew away from him, holding up the pink envelope. He followed her a few steps along the walk. Again he was about to embrace. She slipped out of his grasp. The letter fell from her hand.

  She whirled, intending to snatch it from the edge of the ledge. A touch of breeze carried it away a few inches and I thought it would slip over. Guy dived for it, had his hand on it. His ex-wife had also tried for it and her effort crowded him. Did she deliberately push him? Unbalanced, falling forward, he reached back with a quick flashing hand and caught her by the wrist. They both toppled. They both went down.

  And down and down. Her wild screams pierced through the roar of the waterfalls.

  Suddenly my earphones were filled with the excited wails of the crowd along the walkway, surging to this edge of the drop-off. The twelve or fifteen who had caught sight of the action believed she had pushed him off, then lost her footing and toppled. But I knew he had reached back and caught her wrist as if to save himself.

  Falling near each other, they were descending the full four-fifths of a mile to a point where the upsurging torrents, like geysers, might catch them in splashing cushions. Or would the breaks open the way from them to be dashed to their deaths on the jagged floors of rock? Now the gray mists swallowed them up. Was this to be my final memory of two highly talented persons? I picked up the pink envelope, wondering how her final message to him would be expressed. The letter was blank. I discarded it.

  My heart was pounding. I had the impulse to start running down the zigzag cliff path. If I were to go down—if a tragic crash had not already occurred—was there anything I might do, or would they already be lost downstream?

  My sympathies were in a whirl. If by great good luck they might become enclosed in bubbles, would they both rise up through the mist? Or by chance would one rise and not the other? Stop! Don’t think those silly thoughts! Are you going to let that harebrained superstition get a grip on you?

  I borrowed a motorcycle and rode, zigzag-zigzag, around half a mountain and down into the depths of the vast river gulch.

  Finally I emerged where the amber substance was oozing out of the walls, back behind the falling waters, as far as I could see. There were small globes of rubber-like transparent bubbles forming, and what a brilliant show! Yellow and orange and deep red when penetrated by the shafts of sunlight. Sometimes rising, sometimes bursting. Packed together, breaking apart, filling fuller, pressed and distorted, popping free, combining, swerving, rising up and up and up—

  I heard none of the shrieking and crying that had filled my earphones during the fall from above, yet through the strong blends of thousands of sounds, roaring, slushing, pounding, I thought I caught a filtering-through of human voices. And now I saw the bubbles from which those sounds were coming. I could distinguish a sphere containing Guy, waving his arms, and another that held Floss, holding her hands over her eyes. Guy was calling to her. She was moaning.

  He was starting to float upward; she seemed in motion, yet not quite rising, just aimlessly tossing.

  He seemed to have gained a little control from random actions, pressing his body against one part of the wall that enclosed him. Yes, he was moving his globe downwards, little by little, to come up from underneath her. It was working. Her conveyance started to rise again, bouncing upward little by little. Then the two became interlocked and they were hovering on the level—no, they were perceptibly sinking, a few inches downward, now steady, now downward again. If they came down against the teeth of those craggy rocks, what would happen?

  Could I possibly retard their descent, steady them, and start them upward again?

  I had climbed to the point of a promontory through a series of dangerous steps, and twice the gushes of fountaining water nearly threw me into the big dashing waves. I had a vision of my red jacket being picked up ten or twelve miles downstream. Then good luck came my way. A bubble had somehow formed around me. I was hardly aware it was forming, but now my vision of everything beyond the curved walls of my enclosure became yellowish- green and gray. The deep shadows guided my actions. Throwing my weight back and forth, I gained control of the bubble’s motions. I moved over to where the two of them in their joined globes were turning about slowly.

  They saw me. I came from underneath and bounced them upward—just a little—just enough to start them into an ascent. It was working. Slight bounces, then up and up and up . . .

  Many long minutes later we realized that although moving slo
wly we were actually rising steadily. Out of reach of the cascading water. Lifted by occasional updrafts. Up and up and up . . .

  Finally, we were looking up toward the cliff’s edge, studying the uneven pattern of the railing that we knew marked the edge of the walkway. People were up there, bending over perilously, watching, shouting, beckoning, cheering. We rolled up over the rail, tumbled forward on the level surface, and then our bubbles burst like soap bubbles, and the substance was lost in the surrounding air. The three of us stood facing each other.

  Floss, though in a daze, seemed to realize that it was real, she was standing on solid ground above the waterfall. Her life had been saved. She took off her earphones, not wanting to hear anything, but I’m sure the pounding vibrations of the waterfalls kept bombarding her ears. She dropped to the ground and hid her face in her hands. The crowd had been cheering, but when she looked up, after a moment, and they saw the tears streaming from her eyes, everything was subdued. The crowd stood by in awe.

  That afternoon in Cabin Eight, Guy’s studio, the couple and I went over it all in low key.

  After food and drink, they began to come to life, aware of their motives. Soon they were talking about money.

  At the end X could see chat Guy had already made his own decisions, long before Floss had arrived on Space Transfer Station 19. His decisions, in my opinion, were not selfish ones. He volunteered that he wanted to give his ex-wife several thousand dollars that would enable her to continue her life in the United States in her accustomed manner. But he would hold to the plan he had set in motion, which was to use two million to educate young talented persons in the field of drama.

  However, he would now suggest a special something for the rebellious Floss. Would she like to stay and become his assistant in administering his financial aid to the students?

  She didn’t anger over this typical Hovendyke gesture, hut she didn’t take it seriously. She spoke a word of gratitude in her characteristic manner. “I believe there might be something good in you, you mean old he-bitch, but—no, no thanks and goodbye.” She slapped him on the shoulder, whipped the tresses of her black hair across his face, picked up the packet of checks he had made out for her, and left.

  Mr. Emerson provided secure conveyance for her to the spaceport, where the flying taxi would take her to her ship. In Floss Hovendyke’s own way she was happy.

  Emerson returned to the playwright’s studio with a word for me. “Conference ended? My wife has a dinner waiting for you, Charley. For you too, Mr. Hovendyke, if you’ll take the time.”

  Guy waved him away. “Thanks, but I need to get back to my play.” He settled down to his typewriter but turned to shake hands with me. “Thanks, Charley, for the Lift. I’ll put you in my play.”