The Best of Nancy Kress

by Nancy Kress

“Electricity,” Harry said, and hit him on the back of the head with a solid brass candlestick from the pocket of his coat. The candlestick had cost him three dollars at a pawn shop.

  They had walked past the stores and pushcarts to a point where the locked business offices and warehouses began. There were no passersby, no muggers, no street dealers, no Guardian Angels, no punk gangs. Only him, hitting an unarmed man with a candlestick. He was no better than the punks. But what else could he do? Nothing but hit him softly, so softly that Gernshon was struggling again almost before Harry got his hands and feet tied, well before he got on the blindfold and gag. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he kept saying to Gernshon. Gernshon did not look as if the apology made any difference. Harry dragged him into the warehouse.

  Rudy was asleep over Spicy Stories. Breathing very hard, Harry pulled the young man—not more than 150 pounds, it was good Harry had looked for slim—to the far corner, through the gate, and into his closet.

  “Listen,” he said urgently to Gernshon after removing the gag. “Listen. I can call the Medicare Emergency Hotline. If your head feels broken. Are you feeling faint? Do you think you maybe might go into shock?”

  Gernshon lay on Harry’s rug, glaring at him, saying nothing.

  “Listen, I know this is maybe a little startling to you. But I’m not a pervert, not a cop, not anything but a grandfather with a problem. My granddaughter. I need your help to solve it, but I won’t take much of your time. You’re now somewhere besides where you gave your lecture. A pretty long ways away. But you don’t have to stay here long, I promise. Just two weeks, tops, and I’ll send you back. I promise, on my mother’s grave. And I’ll make it worth your while. I promise.”

  “Untie me.”

  “Yes. Of course. Right away. Only you have to not attack me, because I’m the only one who can get you back from here.” He had a sudden inspiration. “I’m like a foreign consul. You’ve maybe traveled abroad?”

  Gernshon looked around the dingy room. “Untie me.”

  “I will. In two minutes. Five, tops. I just want to explain a little first.”

  “Where am I?”

  “1989.”

  Gernshon said nothing. Harry explained brokenly, talking as fast as he could, saying he could move from 1989 to September, 1937 when he wanted to, but he could take Gernshon back too, no problem. He said he made the trip often, it was perfectly safe. He pointed out how much farther a small Social Security check, no pension, could go at 1937 prices. He mentioned Manny’s strudel. Only lightly did he touch on the problem of Jackie, figuring there would be a better time to share domestic difficulties, and his closet he didn’t mention at all. It was hard to keep his eyes averted from the closet door. He did mention how bitter people could be in 1989, how lost, how weary from expecting so much that nothing was a delight, nothing a sweet surprise. He was just working up to a tirade on innocence when Gernshon said again, in a different tone, “Untie me.”

  “Of course,” Harry said quickly, “I don’t expect you to believe me. Why should you think you’re in 1989? Go, see for yourself. Look at that light, it’s still early morning. Just be careful out there, is all.” He untied Gernshon and stood with his eyes squeezed shut, waiting.

  When nothing hit him, Harry opened his eyes. Gernshon was at the door. “Wait!” Harry cried. “You’ll need more money!” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, carefully saved for this, and all the change he had.

  Gernshon examined the coins carefully, then looked up at Harry. He said nothing. He opened the door and Harry, still trembling, sat down in his chair to wait.

  Gernshon came back three hours later, pale and sweating. “My God!”

  “I know just what you mean,” Harry said. “A zoo out there. Have a drink.”

  Gernshon took the mixture Harry had ready in his toothbrush glass and gulped it down. He caught sight of the bottle, which Harry had left on the dresser: Seagram’s V.O., with the cluttered, tiny-print label. He threw the glass across the room and covered his face with his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Harry said apologetically. “But back then it cost only $3.37 the fifth.”

  Gernshon didn’t move.

  “I’m really sorry,” Harry said. He raised both hands, palms up, and dropped them helplessly. “Would you…would you maybe like an orange?”

  Gernshon recovered faster than Harry had dared hope. Within an hour he was sitting in Harry’s worn chair, asking questions about the space shuttle; within two hours taking notes; within three become again the intelligent and captivating young man of the lecture hall. Harry, answering as much as he could as patiently as he could, was impressed by the boy’s resilience. It couldn’t have been easy. What if he, Harry, suddenly had to skip fifty-two more years? What if he found himself in 2041? Harry shuddered.

  “Do you know that a movie now costs six dollars?”

  Gernshon blinked. “We were talking about the moon landing.”

  “Not any more, we’re not. I want to ask you some questions, Robert. Do you think the earth is dead, with people sliming all over it like on carrion? Is this a thought that crosses your mind?”

  “I…no.”

  Harry nodded. “Good, good. Do you look at your mother with contempt?”

  “Of course not. Harry—”

  “No, it’s my turn. Do you think a woman who marries a man, and maybe the marriage doesn’t work out perfect, whose does, but they raise at least one healthy child—say a daughter—that that woman’s life has been a defeat and a failure?”

  “No. I—”

  “What would you think if you saw a drawing of a woman’s private parts on the cover of a magazine?”

  Gernshon blushed. He looked as if the blush annoyed him, but also as if he couldn’t help it.

  “Better and better,” Harry said. “Now, think careful on this next one—take your time—no hurry. Does reality seem to you to have sweetness in it as well as ugliness? Take your time.”

  Gernshon peered at him. Harry realized they had talked right through lunch. “But not all the time in the world, Robert.”

  “Yes,” Gernshon said. “I think reality has more sweetness than ugliness. And more strangeness than anything else. Very much more.” He looked suddenly dazed. “I’m sorry, I just—all this has happened so—”

  “Put your head between your knees,” Harry suggested. “There—better now? Good. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Manny sat in the park, on their late-afternoon bench. When he saw them coming, his face settled into long sorrowful ridges. “Harry. Where have you been for two days? I was worried, I went to your hotel—”

  “Manny,” Harry said, “this is Robert.”

  “So I see,” Manny said. He didn’t hold out his hand.

  “Him,” Harry said.

  “Harry. Oh, Harry.”

  “How do you do, sir,” Gernshon said. He held out his hand. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your full name. I’m Robert Gernshon.”

  Manny looked at him—at the outstretched hand, the baggy suit with wide tie, the deferential smile, the golden Baden-Powell glow. Manny’s lips mouthed a silent word: sir?

  “I have a lot to tell you,” Harry said.

  “You can tell all of us, then,” Manny said. “Here comes Jackie now.”

  Harry looked up. Across the park a woman in jeans strode purposefully toward them. “Manny! It’s only Monday!”

  “I called her to come,” Manny said. “You’ve been gone from your room two days, Harry, nobody at your hotel could say where—”

  “But Manny,” Harry said, while Gernshon looked, frowning, from one to the other and Jackie spotted them and waved.

  She had lost more weight, Harry saw. Only two weeks, yet her cheeks had hollowed out and new, tiny lines touched her eyes. Skinny lines. They filled him with sadness. Jackie wore a blue T-shirt that said life is a bitch—then you die. She carried a magazine and a small can of mace disguised as hair spray.

  “Popsy! You�
��re here! Manny said—”

  “Manny was wrong,” Harry said. “Jackie, sweetheart, you look—it’s good to see you. Jackie, I’d like you to meet somebody, darling. This is Robert. My friend. My friend Robert. Jackie Snyder.”

  “Hi,” Jackie said. She gave Harry a hug, and then Manny one. Harry saw Gernshon gazing at her very tight jeans.

  “Robert’s a…a scientist,” Harry said. It was the wrong thing to say; Harry knew the moment he said it that it was the wrong thing. Science—all science—was, for some reason not completely clear to him, a touchy subject with Jackie. She tossed her long hair back from her eyes. “Oh, yeah? Not chemical, I hope?”

  “I’m not actually a scientist,” Gernshon said winningly. “Just a dabbler. I popularize new scientific concepts, write about them to make them intelligible.”

  “Like what?” Jackie said.

  Gernshon opened his mouth, closed it again. A boy suddenly flashed past on a skateboard, holding a boom box. Metallica blasted the air. Overhead, a jet droned. Gernshon smiled weakly. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “I’m capable of understanding,” Jackie said coldly. “Women can understand science, you know.”

  “Jackie, sweetheart,” Harry said, “what have you got there? Is that your new book?”

  “No,” Jackie said, “this is the one I said I’d bring you, by my friend. It’s brilliant. It’s about a man whose business partner betrays him by selling out to organized crime and framing the man. In jail he meets a guy who has founded his own religion, the House of Divine Despair, and when they both get out they start a new business, Suicide Incorporated, that helps people kill themselves for a fee. The whole thing is just a brilliant denunciation of contemporary America.”

  Gernshon made a small sound.

  “It’s a comedy,” Jackie added.

  “It sounds…it sounds a little depressing,” Gernshon said.

  Jackie looked at him. Very distinctly, she said, “It’s reality.”

  Harry saw Gernshon glance around the park. A man nodded on a bench, his hands slack on his knees. Newspapers and McDonald’s wrappers stirred fitfully in the dirt. A trash container had been knocked over. From beside a scrawny tree, enclosed shoulder-height by black wrought iron, a child watched them with old eyes.

  “I brought you something else, too, Popsy,” Jackie said. Harry hoped that Gernshon noticed how much gentler her voice was when she spoke to her grandfather. “A scarf. See, it’s llama wool. Very warm.”

  Gernshon said, “My mother has a scarf like that. No, I guess hers is some kind of fur.”

  Jackie’s face changed. “What kind?”

  “I—I’m not sure.”

  “Not an endangered species, I hope.”

  “No. Not that. I’m sure not…that.”

  Jackie stared at him a moment longer. The child who had been watching strolled toward them. Harry saw Gernshon look at the boy with relief. About eleven years old, he wore a perfectly tailored suit and Italian shoes. Manny shifted to put himself between the boy and Gernshon. “Jackie, darling, it’s so good to see you…”

  The boy brushed by Gernshon on the other side. He never looked up, and his voice stayed boyish and low, almost a whisper. “Crack….”

  “Step on one and you break your mother’s back,” Gernshon said brightly. He smiled at Harry, a special conspiratorial smile to suggest that children, at least, didn’t change in fifty years. The boy’s head jerked up to look at Gernshon.

  “You talking about my mama?”

  Jackie groaned. “No,” she said to the kid. “He doesn’t mean anything. Beat it.”

  “I don’t forget,” the boy said. He backed away slowly.

  Gernshon said, frowning, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure exactly what all that was, but I’m sorry.”

  “Are you for real?” Jackie said angrily. “What the fucking hell was all that? Don’t you realize this park is the only place Manny and my grandfather can get some fresh air?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “That punk runner meant it when he said he won’t forget!”

  “I don’t like your tone,” Gernshon said. “Or your language.”

  “My language!” The corners of Jackie’s mouth tightened. Manny looked at Harry and put his hands over his face. The boy, twenty feet away, suddenly let out a noise like a strangled animal, so piercing all four of them spun around. Two burly teenagers were running toward him. The child’s face crumpled; he looked suddenly much younger. He sprang away, stumbled, made the noise again, and hurled himself, all animal terror, toward the street behind the park bench.

  “No!” Gernshon shouted. Harry turned towards the shout but Gernshon already wasn’t there. Harry saw the twelve-wheeler bearing down, heard Jackie’s scream, saw Gernshon’s wiry body barrel into the boy’s. The truck shrieked past, its air brakes deafening.

  Gernshon and the boy rose in the street on the other side.

  Car horns blared. The boy bawled, “Leggo my suit! You tore my suit!” A red light flashed and a squad car pulled up. The two burly teenagers melted away, and then the boy somehow vanished as well.

  “Never find him,” the disgruntled cop told them over the clipboard on which he had written nothing. “Probably just as well.” He went away.

  “Are you hurt?” Manny said. It was the first time he had spoken. His face was ashen. Harry put a hand across his shoulders.

  “No,” Gernshon said. He gave Manny his sweet smile. “Just a little dirty.”

  “That took guts,” Jackie said. She was staring at Gernshon with a frown between her eyebrows. “Why did you do it?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Why? I mean, given what that kid is, given—oh, all of it—” she gestured around the park, a helpless little wave of her strong, young hands that tore at Harry’s heart. “Why bother?”

  Gernshon said gently, “What that kid is, is a kid.”

  Manny looked skeptical. Harry moved to stand in front of Manny’s expression before anyone wanted to discuss it. “Listen, I’ve got a wonderful idea, you two seem to have so much to talk about, about…bothering, and…everything. Why don’t you have dinner together, on me? My treat.”

  He pulled another twenty dollar bill from his pocket. Behind him he could feel Manny start.

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Gernshon said, at the same moment that Jackie said warningly, “Popsy….”

  Harry put his palms on both sides of her face. “Please. Do this for me, Jackie. Without the questions, without the female protests. Just this once. For me.”

  Jackie was silent a long moment before she grimaced, nodded, and turned with half-humorous appeal to Gernshon.

  Gernshon cleared his throat. “Well, actually, it would probably be better if all four of us came. I’m embarrassed to say that prices are higher in this city than in…that is, I’m not able to…but if we went somewhere less expensive, the Automat maybe, I’m sure all four of us could eat together.”

  “No, no,” Harry said. “We already ate.” Manny looked at him.

  Jackie began, offended, “I certainly don’t want…just what do you think is going on here, buddy? This is just to please my grandfather. Are you afraid I might try to jump your bones?”

  Harry saw Gernshon’s quick, involuntary glance at Jackie’s tight jeans. He saw, too, that Gernshon fiercely regretted the glance the instant he had made it. He saw that Manny saw, and that Jackie saw, and that Gernshon saw that they saw.

  Manny made a small noise. Jackie’s face began to turn so black that Harry was astounded when Gernshon cut her off with a dignity no one had expected.

  “No, of course not,” he said quietly. “But I would prefer all of us to have dinner together for quite another reason. My wife is very dear to me, Miss Snyder, and I wouldn’t do anything that might make her feel uncomfortable. That’s probably irrational, but that’s the way it is.”

  Harry stood arrested, his mouth open. Manny started to shake with what Harry thought savagely had better not be laughter. And Ja
ckie, after staring at Gernshon a long while, broke into the most spontaneous smile Harry had seen from her in months.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “That’s nice. That’s really, genuinely, fucking nice.”

  The weather turned abruptly colder. Snow threatened but didn’t fall. Each afternoon Harry and Manny took a quick walk in the park and then went inside, to the chess club or a coffee shop or the bus station or the library, where there was a table deep in the stacks on which they could eat lunch without detection. Harry brought Manny a poor boy with mayo, sixty-three cents, and a pair of imported wool gloves, one dollar on pre-season sale.

  “So where are they today?” Manny asked on Saturday, removing the gloves to peek at the inside of the poor boy. He sniffed appreciatively. “Horseradish. You remembered, Harry.”

  “The museum, I think,” Harry said miserably.

  “What museum?”

  “How should I know? He says, ‘The museum today, Harry,’ and he’s gone by eight o’clock in the morning, no more details than that.”

  Manny stopped chewing. “What museum opens at eight o’clock in the morning?”

  Harry put down his sandwich, pastrami on rye, thirty-nine cents. He had lost weight the past week.

  “Probably,” Manny said hastily, “they just talk. You know, like young people do, just talk….”

  Harry eyed him balefully. “You mean like you and Leah did when you were young and left completely alone.”

  “You better talk to him soon, Harry. No, to her.” He seemed to reconsider Jackie. “No, to him.”

  “Talk isn’t going to do it,” Harry said. He looked pale and determined. “Gernshon has to be sent back.”

  “Be sent?”

  “He’s married, Manny! I wanted to help Jackie, show her life can hold some sweetness, not be all struggle. What kind of sweetness is she going to find if she falls in love with a married man? You know how that goes! Jackie—” Harry groaned. How had all this happened? He had intended only the best for Jackie. Why didn’t that count more? “He has to go back, Manny.”

  “How?” Manny said practically. “You can’t hit him again, Harry. You were just lucky last time that you didn’t hurt him. You don’t want that on your conscience. And if you show him your, uh…your—”