By now, Donaldson’s story had sprung more leaks than a rubber raft full of porcupines. There’d been hundreds of kids on the beach, he claimed, though nowhere near that many could be accounted for now. Coulson’s men had seen forty bongs around those fires, and beers in every minor’s hand, though not one of these illicit items had been seized that night. Nor had Donaldson shown any proven cause yet regarding those he’d pepper-sprayed. It had been a riot, Donaldson kept insisting; but no one else who’d been there had seen it that way, except his fellow officers, of course, and Hamilton, who hadn’t been there. Ander had been known for years around the village as a quiet, well-liked boy, a good student and hard-working employee. Donaldson could hardly have picked a worse “criminal” to haul away in cuffs. As week had followed tumultuous week, Hawk had begun to feel almost sorry for the embattled man, who, by now, seemed desperate for peace, but still refused to drop his charges against Ander and the others.
“You want juice or milk?” Hawk asked, going to dish the stir-fry into their plates.
“Juice,” said Joby, climbing to his feet. “Thanks for cooking, son.”
“Just felt like something edible tonight.” Hawk grinned as Joby joined him at the table. “You only get to cook when I’m not hungry, remember?”
“You’re just jealous of my skill with Tupperware,” Joby parried as he sat down.
Unsurprisingly, Joby had been pulled over twice this month for “fix-it” tickets, but he hadn’t wasted any of his precious energy protesting such petty aggravations. He’d just told Hawk it was a fair price to pay for the greater satisfaction of discovering that people of goodwill could still make a difference against corrupt power. The proverbial fat lady hadn’t sung yet, but things were looking more promising for Taubolt’s kids and less for Donaldson all the time, and Joby was clearly more proud of his community than ever.
Nonetheless, the lengthy campaign had not been good for Hawk’s father. Not only was he tired all the time now, he seemed angry too. His whole life revolved around conflict now. On several occasions when Joby had been in the shower, or outside chopping wood, Hawk had heard him muttering and yelling as if Donaldson or Hamilton had been right there accusing him of something.
“Know what day tomorrow is?” Hawk asked as they began to eat.
“Nope,” said Joby, scooping food into his mouth. “What day?”
“Saturday,” said Hawk.
“Oh,” said Joby, looking at him quizzically. “And you’re saying this because . . .?”
“I think we should go hiking tomorrow,” Hawk said, “like we used to.”
“God, that sounds great,” Joby said. “Can’t though. Got a meeting with the county mediator in the morning, and the Youth Park Committee in the afternoon. Only day they could do it,” he said around another mouthful of stir-fry.
“Cancel it,” Hawk said gruffly. “The youth can get their park a week later.”
Joby looked up, seeming startled.
“Sorry,” Hawk apologized. “It’s just . . . This is all so out of hand, Joby.”
Joby shrugged. “Not much I can do about it. Life goes on, Hawk.”
“You’ve got a life?” Hawk said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Joby, all I’ve seen you do for months is ‘fight for justice.’ Maybe if you just got on with your life, and let this thing with Donaldson go, he might too.”
“You want me to give up three feet shy of the finish line? With charges still pending against all those kids, and let Donaldson off scot-free? You know me better than that, Hawk.” With a wounded look, Joby added, “I’d hoped you’d be proud of me.”
“Of course I’m proud of you,” Hawk protested. “That doesn’t mean I have to like watching you fall on your knife. You’re too wrapped up in all the crap that’s gone down around here, and I just think it would be good if you just took a little breather. The whole town backs you on this, Joby, and you’ve brought them all this way. Can’t you just let them do some of the cleanup?”
“What kind of man would that make me?” Joby said almost scornfully.
“A living one,” Hawk muttered. Joby could take this whole integrity thing to such ridiculous lengths sometimes. “It’s not like God appointed you to save the world.”
“All right,” Joby said, leaning back and crossing his arms. “What, exactly, am I supposed to be doing while everyone else in Taubolt is finishing what I started?”
“You should get out of here completely,” Hawk said. “Take a vacation.”
“I live in one of America’s premier resort towns!” Joby laughed. “Sunny beaches, magnificent forests, hiking, biking, kayaking on scenic rivers, quaint shops, and world-class restaurants overlooking the blue Pacific! Haven’t you read the Chamber’s new brochure? Where else would I want to go?”
Hawk stared at his food, deciding it was time to say it. “To see mom.” He looked up to find the laughter gone from Joby’s face.
His father dropped his gaze, and asked quietly, “Has she told you she wants that?”
“No,” Hawk said. “But I know she’d like it if you did.”
“No dice,” Joby said without looking up.
“Dad,” Hawk said, an appellation he still found strange and rarely used, but which seemed very to the point just now, “you still love her, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” Joby said. “But I’ve got no business bothering her unless she wants to see me, and if she did, I’m sure she’d tell me so.”
“Maybe not,” Hawk pressed. “I understand how you felt when you found out about everything, but she really thought she was saving you, and it hurt her when you didn’t even try to see that. Maybe she’s just waiting for you to take the first—”
Joby raised a hand to stop him. “If you’re trying to make me feel bad, son, you’re months too late. I do. I have . . . since hours after I destroyed everything.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” Hawk growled. “I’m just saying that maybe you’ve got to be the one to fix what happened. Maybe she just needs—”
“Some things can’t be fixed,” Joby said, looking up at last. His expression made Hawk want to wince. “Once you break them, you just have to make room for what’s left.” He got up and took his half-finished meal to the kitchenette, turned the water on, and stared into the sink. “I hurt her back in high school, much, much worse than I ever knew, and when she was brave enough to give me a second chance, I promised I would never hurt her again.” He laid his dishes under the water, and turned to look at Hawk with steely resignation. “But I did, Hawk. What should I go say to her now? I promise . . . again? . . . Third time’s the charm?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hawk. You have no idea how sorry. . . . She deserved better, and so did you. But if she wanted to give me more chances, she wouldn’t have moved so far away from Taubolt.”
“I still can’t believe this works!” Joby said in hushed wonder as he set a ring of dandelion seeds spinning clockwise, then counterclockwise, in the air above their heads.
“You learn faster than anyone I ever heard of,” GB said quietly.
“Well, that would be largely to my teacher’s credit,” Joby said, letting the ring of seeds disintegrate on the breeze as he turned to grin wanly at GB. His face was pallid with fatigue, his eyes red-rimmed for want of sleep. The sight filled Lucifer with satisfaction as Joby’s grin grew careworn, and vanished altogether. “I wish Solomon could see this,” Joby said sadly. “He’d be so surprised.”
Buck up, Joby, Lucifer thought dryly. He’s missing not a moment of it. “But you’re not showin’ this to anybody yet, right?” GB said aloud.
“No, GB,” Joby sighed, bending to sit on a tangled hump of tree roots. “I’m not going to blow your cover.”
“Just a few more months, and it won’t seem so sudden,” GB said apologetically. “It’s just, if these demons can get to an ancient like Solomon, what chance would I have? If they even suspect I could get into their minds, I’d be
dead in two seconds.”
“You’re really that sure it wasn’t just a stroke?” Joby asked glumly.
“I told you; guys as powerful as Solomon don’t just have strokes. It was them, all right, though I still wonder what he was doin’ up there at all when you were gone.”
“You’re too suspicious, GB,” Joby said. “I’ve known him for years. Besides, he wouldn’t have talked to Gladys first if he was trying to sneak into my room.”
“Unless he just wanted to be sure you were out,” GB insisted. “You said they all used to hide from you, right? Are you so sure they’re not still hiding?”
“Hiding what?” said Joby. “GB, I hate to say it, but you’re sounding awfully paranoid these days.”
“I know,” GB scowled, “but can you blame me? Don’t you see what’s goin’ on around here? This isn’t just some little band of asshole demons who stopped to look around on their way through. They’re staying ’til they take Taubolt down completely. Every last brick! Why? Why now? What are we really caught in the middle of here, Joby? Has anybody told you? You bet I’m paranoid. You should be too.” GB shook his head in frustration. “I finally reach a place I could stay with people like me, and get here just in time to see it all destroyed. You have any idea what that’s like?”
“Yes,” Joby said sadly. “I do.” His eyes were seeing something elsewhere. Lucifer suppressed a smile, imagining all the many elsewheres it might be. “That’s about all I ever knew ’til I came here.” Joby’s red-rimmed eyes focused again. “We’ve still got Jake, GB, and a lot of gifted people on the Council. They’ll think of some way to—”
“Hide?” GB finished for him. “ ’Til the demons just go away? That’s all I see anybody doin’. Who’s gonna go away is us, Joby. One by one, just like Rose did, and those other guys, Sky and Jupiter, and from what I’ve heard, a bunch more before them. People are dyin’ at an awful rate here, if you haven’t noticed. Pretty soon there won’t be any of us left to cry about it.”
“Gotta have a little faith, GB,” Joby said, looking at him with obvious concern.
“You a preacher now?” GB retorted. “Well, here’s a Bible quote for ya. ‘Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will open.’ Faith’s fine, but someone’s gotta act, Joby. Someone’s gotta find the balls to stop them any way it takes.”
“Which would be how?” Joby asked quietly. “Do you know?”
There’s the question we’ve been waiting for, Lucifer gloated silently. But, as always, timing was everything. Reel the line too fast and it might snap. “Not yet,” GB sullenly admitted. “But I’m workin’ on it. I’ll let you know.” He scuffed at the ground, and said, “Sorry if I’m bein’ a prick. I just get pretty bummed sometimes.”
“Hey,” Joby said reassuringly, “I don’t need you to be cheerful all the time. We all get bummed these days. I sure do. You’re completely welcome to talk with me about it.” He looked wearily away. “To be honest, I’m glad you’re there to talk with too sometimes.” He shook his head. “Hawk’s been through so much, I hate to burden him more with my troubles, especially when so many of his were my fault. Laura’s gone,” he said bleakly. “Everybody else in town is so busy trying to defend what’s left.” He looked up to smile grimly at GB. “Seems like you’re about the only person I’ve got left that’s been through enough shit to really understand and isn’t too busy or fragile to confide in. So, by all means, complain away, as long as I can do the same sometimes. Deal?”
“Deal,” said GB, reaching out to shake Joby’s hand. “Thanks, man, for understanding. I envy Hawk. He’s real lucky to have you.”
“Not as lucky as I am to have him,” said Joby. He glanced up at the sky above their isolated woodland “classroom,” then clapped GB on the shoulder and said, “I’d better go. Hawk’ll be wondering where I’ve gone by now.”
“Next week then?” GB asked.
Joby nodded. “Thanks again, GB. For all of this. You hang in there.”
Oh, I will, thought Lucifer. Count on it.
“So I took a quick walk with one of my students,” Joby said, seeming genuinely puzzled. “I don’t see why that upsets you so much.”
“You have time to go hiking with GB?” Hawk shrugged, sounding whiny even to himself. “I thought you had a Youth Park meeting.”
“I did. It ended a little early. I was already there at the school and so was GB. He wanted to talk about what had happened at the meeting, so we went walking in the woods for, what, forty minutes? An hour maybe? What was I supposed to tell him, Hawk? No, I can’t talk with you? My son wanted to go hiking today, and I couldn’t, so you can’t have me either? Not even for a half an hour?”
“It’s half an hour now?” Hawk growled. “Not forty minutes or an hour?”
Joby rolled his eyes. “Look,” he said. “I’m here now. It’s light for hours yet. You want to go out for a walk? I’ll give you two hours. Will that help?”
Hawk was too embarrassed, and too angry, to say anything at all. Since returning to his senses after Rose had died, he’d worked hard to repair his damaged friendships around town. Hawk hadn’t known GB that well before what he now thought of as “his illness,” but the boy was one of Joby’s favorite students, and Hawk had felt bad about being so jealous of him earlier, assuming his feelings had been nothing but another symptom of his dark condition. Lately, though, he wasn’t so sure. GB had received Hawk’s repentant overtures more magnanimously than many, but there’d also been something smarmy about his “understanding attitude.” Today hadn’t been the first time Hawk had caught GB and Joby coming companionably out of Taubolt’s fields or woods together. He didn’t know what they were always out there doing, but there still seemed something wrong about it.
“What’s your problem with GB?” Joby asked when Hawk went back to sorting laundry without answering his question.
“Sorry, Joby, but I just don’t trust him.”
“Why not?”
“Look, Joby, you keep talking like you get it, but I don’t think you do. Since last August, Taubolt has been under assault by demons. I met one, remember? I know you grew up in a dusty suburb where there wasn’t any ‘fairy magic,’ but wake up and smell the coffee! They disguise themselves as people, Joby—strangers! GB came here out of nowhere right in the middle of all this. What does anybody really know about him?”
“You’re saying GB’s a demon now?” Joby half-laughed.
“Do you know he’s not?” Hawk insisted.
“You’re serious!” Joby said, appalled. “Hawk, Nacho took him straight to members of the Council the day he got here. GB’s story checked out fully. He’s had a very rough life, and in spite of that, he’s been nothing but help in trying to defend this community almost since the day he arrived. Why should I distrust him? Why should you?”
It was true. GB had been checked out by several members of the Council. But then, the Council hadn’t recognized the demon riding Hawk’s back either, had they?
“That school down there is full of kids who’ve come to Taubolt in the last few years,” Joby pressed. “Am I supposed to suspect them all?”
“No,” Hawk sulked. “But most of them aren’t . . . like GB.”
“You keep saying that, but you never tell me what’s wrong with him. Do his eyes flash red or something?”
“He’s got such a way with the power, for one thing,” Hawk said, sounding pathetic, even to himself, “and such a way with you, for another.”
He watched Joby consider him with . . . was that amusement? “You know,” his father said at last, “I hate to say this, but you sound a little jealous.”
“Forget about it,” Hawk said crossly. To his relief, the phone rang.
“Hello,” Joby said, after grabbing the receiver. “Bridget! Hi. I just got back” Joby’s expression darkened. “That bitch,” he sighed. “Wait a minute. Slow down. It’s a pain in the ass, but if I have to get a credential now, I’ll go get one.” There was a longer paus
e during which Joby’s expression went from pained to thunderous. “What!” he exclaimed. “Can they just do that? Who do they think is going to replace me?” Joby’s expression went from angry, to angry and scared. “Well . . . what can I do?” he asked quietly. “Isn’t there anything?” Another pause, and then, “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll meet you down there in ten minutes.”
He hung up the phone, and just stood looking down at it, his back to Hawk.
“What happened?” Hawk asked anxiously.
“That goddamn fucking bitch!” Joby yelled, slamming his hand down on the tabletop. When he turned around, Hawk took an involuntary step away. Veins stood out on Joby’s neck and forehead, his face had been transformed by anger. He looked almost like a demon himself. “She’s trying to get me fired now!”
“After all the years of work I’ve done for this district,” Joby said, his head hung in furious despair, “everything I’ve gone through just this summer to protect the very kids they’re supposed to be concerned for! I can’t believe they’re doing this to me! Hamilton, I couldn’t care less about,” he said in disgust. “Who expects anything else from her, but the school board! And without even talking with me? If Bridget hadn’t called me, I’d probably already be fired by now! Were they just going to wait until I showed up at school in September? Announce it in front of my first class?”
Joby finally looked up at GB, realizing that he’d been ranting for at least ten minutes while the boy had simply listened patiently, managing, somehow, to convey genuine concern and sympathy in total silence. The gift of a true fellow sufferer, Joby thought, considering all the far more terrible things GB had been through.
The Book of Joby Page 72
