by Sandy Nathan
42
“Don’t get too excited about staying here.” Jeremy was pissed off. The others would rather go to a planet they knew almost nothing about than live in his masterpiece. “You don’t know that they’re coming. They may see us and turn around.” He stood in front of the group, seething.
“I was going to spend the rest of my life down here. Now Ellie’s come and that may change—but I’m not sure if I’ll leave. Or if any of us should. We don’t know much about her planet.
“I had a speech prepared, and I’m going to give it. Anyone who goes in my shelter follows my rules. If you can’t agree to my rules, you don’t get in. If that means I have to lock it up tomorrow morning and let everyone fry—I will do that.”
He looked at them, tough and hard. The others stared at him in disbelief.
“You can’t mean that, Jeremy,” Mel said.
“Yeah. I’ve spent years making this place. I’m not going to let people come in and act however they want.”
“You’ll lock us out if the spaceship doesn’t come?” Mel looked flabbergasted.
“A minute ago you didn’t want to be here,” Jeremy retorted. “Yeah, I do mean it. You have to agree to abide by my rules. Here they are.
“First—I command whoever comes out of this shelter to take over the planet—no matter when that is. Two thousand years from now or fifty years from now, I want you to get out of here and take over whatever you see. When the general comes after us, I want him to get the surprise of his defrosted life.
“That’s my number one command.” He turned to Ellie. “Ellie, I need some paper. Could you give me a couple of sheets from your notebook?”
Ellie reached into her purse and pulled out the book. Showers of light flew.
She spread the pages. They could see dazzling letters, incised in light. The book shimmered. She took one part in one hand, gripped it with the other, and tore the book lengthwise along the spine. She handed half to Jeremy and put the other half back in her purse.
“Look—this is The Book.” He raised it over his head. “Arthur, you be the scribe. Write down what I say.”
Arthur took the book and found a pen in his pocket. When he looked back, The Book was already written on the front page. “It writes itself,” he said, holding the volume at arm’s length and leafing through the pages. The others stared. “Everything you said is in it.”
Jeremy chuckled. “That’s my kind of technology. Why should I command you to take over the planet? Because the general and his son are coming. We’ve already had the kind of world he’ll make. I don’t want that. No one wants that.
“I want warriors down there, disciplined warriors. That’s what my commands will create.
“I want to make a good world.” Anger powered his words. “My whole life I’ve seen rich people lord it over poor people, and smart people over not so smart. I don’t want any more of that.
“Whoever goes in my shelter follows my commands. If I’m in theshelter, I’ll enforce them. If I’m not—and this is command number two—Sam will enforce them.”
Sam jumped and looked at him. “Ah will?”
“If I’m not here, Sam is my headman. He will run the place. And he’ll do it the way I say. That’s in perpetuity: his oldest son will take over when he’s gone.”
“What are you thinking, Jeremy?” Mel gaped. “That’s undemocratic.”
“Yeah, it’s undemocratic. Lincoln Charles was elected democratically. The US Constitution was rewritten by popular vote. Democratic doesn’t mean good.
“Sam will do anything necessary to keep this place running, and himself alive. He’s hard and canny enough to keep the village under control. I don’t think the rest of you could do that, except maybe you, Rupert. But Sam’s run the village for years. He’s the boss.
“Command number three is for Sam and Rupert and the rest of the village: you must learn to read. You can’t be illiterate. The future depends upon operating this place. I’ve got tapes, and self-study courses for seven languages. But now, you must learn to read.
“And this is another command: the people who came with me must teach the villagers to read. I want everyone old enough to hold a book to be literate in six months.”
Sam gasped. “We cain’t—”
“Yes, you can. If you don’t, you’ll die. The systems in here will keep you alive, but you have to take care of them. This shelter should keep the village—your kids’ kids’ kids, dozens of times out—alive until it’s safe to leave. But you must be able to read. And you must speak proper English. You must be taken seriously when you get out.
“The next command is you must to want to live. I’ve been thinking about this since my dad died. Why would a species be so stupid as to stick shit in our veins that will kill us? Not in my world. I’d stick anyone who’s inclined to that out the canary hole. No room in here for people with death wishes.
“Here’s another command: no hooch, no mushrooms, no weed. No anything else that you think up to get high. Sam, if anyone brings a still in here, or the makings of a still, I want you to kill them.”
The group gasped. “Kill them, Jeremy?” Mel said.
“Kill them. I will if I’m here. One slip, and this place could go up. We need self-controlled people. Warriors. We’re fighting a war to survive. It’s not over when we get out—we’ll fight harder then.
“Here’s a proclamation, Sam: you are no longer an ox. You will now stop acting like one. I know exactly how smart you are. I’ve seen you juggle rents and crop yields, and then act like you were dumb. I hereby take away everything that keeps you and your people from being who you really are—good, decent people.
“The old village is done, Sam. I know about the hooch and mushrooms and orgies. It’s over. You won’t last a year in here if you live like that.
“No more multiple wives. Warriors don’t live that way. True warriors live right. My warriors have one husband or one wife, and they’re faithful to them. That’s a command—one spouse per man or wife. Fidelity. Period.
“And no boingy-boingy with your cousins. That’s a big command.” Sam and Rupert stared at him. “Do you know what I mean? Boingy-boingy? Fucking?” Their faces said they knew what that was. “Do you know what a cousin is?” They didn’t. “Arthur, teach them what cousins are. You have too many birth defects in the village, Sam. It’s from that.
“Do you know why I did all this? Why?” He waved his hands to indicate the massive structure around them. “Why did I do it? Tell me!”
“To help people?”
“To save the world?”
“To save us?”
The others threw in reasons, looking a little afraid of him.
“Humanitarian feelings?”
“Mostly because I was so pissed. I’ve never believed in Good Tsar Yuri, even as a kid. He was like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. I never believed in them either. I grew up on the stories of the wonderful man who gave us peace forever. I could look out the window in mom’s town house and see people getting arrested on the street. Why was everyone afraid if we had peace? Why was there an eye in the middle of the ceiling of my first-grade classroom? Why did people disappear? Even little kids knew about that.
“When I started messing with computers and remade the ‘net, I knew. Yuri didn’t get rid of the atomics.
“We’ve been fed a crock of shit. Tsar Yuri brainwashed us so that we’d believe every kind of shit he fed us. I think what’s going on now is get-back from Yuri. He’s giving us what we deserve.”
“But, Jeremy, don’t you think that’s a little extreme? Blowing up the planet to teach us a lesson?” Mel interjected.
“No, I don’t... but we’ll never find out what really happened. Washington isn’t going to tell us.
“I have one more command: No snake men! I’ve got the Bible in the library; I’ve got the Koran and Buddhist books. Books from every sacred tradition. I command you to read all of them. And if anyone says their way is better than anyone else�
��s, I want you to kill them.”
“Kill them?” Ellie’s sweet voice shocked Jeremy out of his rant. She had not spoken when he talked about killing before, but now she did. “Jeremy say, ‘Kill them, kill them.’ What is kill?”
Jeremy stopped short. “Uh, kill means to cause the death of something. To take a life. To make something die.”
She scrunched up her face. “Die?”
“Yes. People die where you live, don’t they?”
“No. Pets die. Children die. Grown-ups no die.”
“Grown-ups don’t die on your planet?”
“No die. Never kill.”
“Do they live forever?”
She considered, forehead tensing as she fought for words. “When get old, my people turn dark. When time, they go...” She searched for a way to say it, finally stretching her hand out flat, parallel with the floor and pushing down, as though she were pushing something into the ground. “They go into ground.”
“They become part of the planet?”
“Yes.”
“You can’t kill them?”
“No. Only pets and children die.”
“Well, we’re different,” Jeremy said. “We die and we can kill.” He could see shimmers of gold light around her and outlines of tall, slender people. Her people were studying him somehow. He knew he was being evaluated.
“Jeremy kill?” she said. The air around her roiled as her people clustered to hear what he said.
“Yes. I’m sure that people died when I blew up the school. I didn’t want to kill them, but I’d never used plastics before. We had to get here, El. They would have killed us if they caught us.”
Ellie pulled away from him, standing stiffly. “How kill? Life no yours.” The golden forms around her seemed denser.
“Ellie, we’re at war,” Mel said. “Things happen in war that don’t happen other times. Jeremy would never kill anyone—”
“Yes, I would, Mel, exactly the way I said, if I was in the shelter and people didn’t follow my commands. Everyone could die if one person got drunk and pulled out a gun. Or went into a rage and tore up the computers. I would kill to stop that. And so would you.”
Eliana looked shattered. “Kill? War?”
“It’s not a nice planet, Ellie,” Henry said. “We’re violent. They stole people off the streets back in the city, and out of their jobs. They tortured them and killed them.”
“No!” She put her hands over her ears. “No! Bad. Terr’ble.”
They stared at her. She looked like a confection in her dress and tiara. Her hooves clicked on the cement floor. Tears streaked her cheeks. She looked at Sam Baahuhd with gleaming silver eyes.
“Ah’m no better than any, miss. Ah killed my share, defendin’ my family and this place.” Sam could see the gold forms swarming around him and Rupert.
“How should we handle bad people, Ellie? How do they do it in your world?” Jeremy asked.
“No bad people.”
“There aren’t any bad people in your world?”
“No. All good. All nice.”
“Well here, they’re not always nice. There are evil people here. How should we handle them?”
“Love them. No let do bad things and love them.”
“Love them?” Jeremy said. “OK. Write it down, Arthur. The people in the shelter are to love bad people and stop them from hurting others by loving them. Figure out how to do that.” He looked at Ellie. She looked away. It jolted him.
“What’s the matter, El?’
She shrugged, “My people talking. Say I no do my job.”
“Are your people coming for us tomorrow?”
“Yes. They come. But I no do job.”
“Will you be punished?”
“What punished?”
“That’s where something bad happens to you if do something wrong. You don’t have punishment in your world?”
“No. Everyone work together, do their job.” She clutched her purse.
“Am I part of your job?” A sober nod. “OK. I’ll finish and see how I can help you. Just a second.” He turned back to Sam and Rupert.
“I just want to do something right, and good.” He felt overwhelmed. “Don’t let me down, Sam. Do it right.”
Sam stared at him. Jeremy realized that he had commanded Sam to do something that he didn’t know how to do himself.
Jeremy looked around at the lab. “There’s just one more thing. The estate. Everything outside this shelter will be burned to ashes. All the trees, everything. The land will be left, and that’s what you’ll have to start again with.
“I’m giving you the estate, Sam. You and your descendants.” Sam looked at him, not seeming to understand what he’d said. “We’ll clear out early in the morning. You can take whatever you want from the house. Take practical things—my mom’s jewels, for one thing. They don’t take much space and you may be able to barter them, when you get out. Take what you want. It’s all yours.”
Henry interjected, “Are you sure, Jeremy? If Eliana’s people don’t come, you’ll be inside. Don’t you want what’s left of the estate for your heirs, even if it’s just radioactive dirt?”
“I don’t have any heirs. And I’m tired.” His body drooped. “I’ve been talking about what to do if Ellie’s people come; they might not come. I’m not sure I’ll go, even if they do come. Part of me wants to sit out there on that point by the sea and fry.”
“Oh no, son.”
“It’s my choice, Henry. It will be over fast. I built this place so other people could live, and part of me says that’s all I can do.” He looked at Ellie and smiled bitterly. “I don’t believe in angels. I’ve never seen a real angel.”
Henry wondered if he could do something to change Jeremy’s mind. He crept to the open doorway and back up the stairs.
Jeremy kept talking, not noticing Henry’s absence. “If Ellie’s people don’t come, or if they do, I don’t give a shit who owns this place. Arthur, can I have that book to write Sam a deed?”
Light flashed from the pages when he opened it. Jeremy looked at it. All of his commands, everything he said they could and couldn’t do was already written in it, in a luminous hand that cast glowing ripples.
He wrote:
I, Jeremy Edgarton, heir to the Piermont estate in the Hamptons, give it and all it contains to Sam Baahuhd, headman of the village. Sam of the village and his oldest son and their descendants may have the estate forever. In return, they agree to create a decent world when they get out of the shelter.
He was about to sign it, when more words came to him.
If I come back some day, I hope to be welcome and have a home here. I appreciate what you’ve done, Sam, on behalf of my family.
Love,
Jeremy
He couldn’t believe he’d signed it that way. The word love shimmered and sparkled more than the rest. He knew he couldn’t change it if he wanted to.
“I guess love is what’s been missing,” he said. “Hold onto that book.”
Jeremy was stepping toward Sam to shake his hand when music wafted down the staircase. Jeremy spun to face it.
When I see you, the sun starts to climb... When I hold you, that moon is all mine...
The voice was a beautiful tenor, known all over the world.
When I touch you, the whole world smiles, you’re my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...
The voice soared and flew, a father’s first words to his child.
My beautiful, beautiful brown-eyed boy...
It was a declaration of love with no bottom or top, no beginning and no end. It was Chaz Edgarton singing to his son.
The song flowed down the stairs from the ballroom.
Jeremy turned toward the voice of the father who had betrayed him. Furious, he leapt through the doors, and sprinted up the stairs to the ballroom. “Who put that on? I don’t want to hear that!”
Henry called down, “It’s time that you heard it, Jeremy. Your father wrote that song for you the d
ay you were born. It’s never been released. You need to hear it now.”
43
Jeremy stormed across the ballroom. He headed for the bank of audio equipment, intent on stopping his father’s sweet voice.
My little brown-eyed boy... You make me feel alive, you make me jitter and jive, you are my beautiful, beautiful... brown-eyed boy.
No one could sing like Chaz Edgarton. No other voice had that softness, the kindness. The love. The heart-expanding, mind-rending beauty.
My beautiful, beautiful brown-eyed boy...
“Shut it off! I don’t want to hear it.”
Henry blocked him from tearing into the cabinet. “You need to hear it. And you need to look at this room.”
Jeremy looked up, and was met by his father’s kind gaze looking down off the wall. The room’s walls were decorated in huge photographs of Chaz Edgarton. Not posters—these were beautifully framed blowups of Chaz, six feet wide and ten feet tall. They filled the spaces between the arched windows. The images included formal portraits of Chaz holding his sax, singing, pounding the ivories, rocking in clubs. Smiling at his wife. Holding Jeremy. Walking around the estate.
Something gurgled in Jeremy’s throat and he fell to his knees, his arms and torso draped over the bandstand railing. The gurgle became a scream, and then sobs.
Henry kneeled next to him. “That’s good son. Let it out.”
Jeremy turned to him. “Oh... oh... he died. He died. He died.” He grabbed Henry and held on, the images bursting in his head. His father’s slumped form in the big leather chair in his studio when Jeremy found him. The rubber hose around his arm, syringe stuck in one of the few veins that blood could still pass through. Tinfoil on the desk, folded where he’d cooked the stuff.
“Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch!” Jeremy pushed himself back and tried to run. Henry grabbed him.
“No running away tonight, boy. This is the last night you can clean it up.”
Jeremy was back on his knees, sobbing. He dropped to the floor, a folded heap, with Henry hovering over him. The song kept playing and that exquisite voice crooned, “My beautiful brown-eyed boy...”
