“You got it!” Bob said, relieved. “Thanks, Gar, you’re a pal.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Gary groused. “You owe me, motherfucker.”
He clicked off and walked into the kitchen to break the news. Gwen was quietly banging things around, taking the dishes out of the drying rack, clicking cups and plates with a deliberate intensity.
“Uh, babe…”
“I heard,” she said. “Mr. Dedicated.” She swished soapy water in the now-emptied coffee carafe, rinsed and racked it. She said everything in those two words that he needed to know. Eggshell City.
“It’s just a jammed deck,” he offered apologetically. “I’ll be back in plenty of time to make it to the airport.”
“It’s okay,” she said, meaning it isn’t. “I’ll get her myself.”
“I don’t want you driving,” he blurted, instantly regretting it.
She grabbed a glass, went swish swish swish. Meaning I don’t care what you want.
Gary took a step toward her; Gwen racked the glass almost hard enough to chip it. The translation was the aloha of unspoken marriage-speak, and its meaning was crystal-clear.
Touch me, you die.
Gary backed off. There was nothing else for him to do, or say. This was one storm front that had to blow off of its own hormonal accord.
“I’ll be back in a flash, darlin’,” he said. “Promise.”
Gary grabbed his leather jacket off the peg by the garage door entrance and closed the door quietly behind him. Gwen was still washing and rinsing, but her shoulders were shaking ever so slightly. She cried silently, covered it with dishwashing clatter.
Gary refilled the oil and readied the bike, heart aching. Poor baby, he thought. Sure gonna be a better world when Spike finally pops. The homestretch was the hardest, for both of them.
He donned his leather and riding gloves. His helmet sat on the passenger hump of the seat. It was a ninja-black road-warrior style fiberglass monstrosity, a precautionary pre-Father’s Day gift from Gwen. It encased his whole head and face, with just a little snap-on plate for his eyes, the kind of helmet only rice-burner riders thought was cool. He hated it, but loved her for giving it to him.
Gary straddled the softtail, keyed it on, and kicked it over; the engine roared to life. It thrummed between his legs; Gary felt instantly better, his head clear.
Fuck it, he shrugged. Into each life, and all that shit. If the gods of expectant fatherhood were with him, the sun would be shining when he got back.
Gary gunned the engine, eased out of the garage, and rode.
Right into the thick of it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The commuter flight from Philly to Paradise sucked; and by ten thirty-five, despite her best efforts to remain in good cheer, Micki Bridges had pretty much exhausted her options. She was too tired to read, too wired to sleep, and way too close to blowing chunks for her to sit back and enjoy the ride.
The turbulence, of course, was at the root of her distress. Every sledgehammer thud against the little plane’s fuselage helped inch her stomach a little higher up into her lungs. She groaned as the plane lurched abruptly toward sea level, caught itself hard.
Soft laughter emanated from the curtained-off cockpit: the pilot and copilot, yocking it up. She could barely hear it over the drone of the engines, but it dragged a nervous, involuntary smile to her lips. “Glad somebody’s enjoying this,” she muttered to herself.
“Sorry about that, folks.” The tiny intercom buzzed to life with the pilot’s voice. “We’re just passing through some rough air here; there’s a little storm front moving by overhead. Not to worry, though; estimated E.T.A. in Paradise is approximately twenty-seven minutes. So hang in there, and thank you for flying US Air.”
Another thud rocked the plane.
“Oh, great,” Micki moaned, trying to keep her digestive system moored. Her long ebony hair, laced with premature gray, spilled over her face; she brushed it back and groaned some more.
Micki Bridges was a handsome woman, agelessly attractive, youthful and mature by turns; one could guess ten years to either side of her thirty-three years and not seem too far off the mark. But now her riveting, deep-set eyes were etched with the shadow of fatigue; and nausea had leeched off some of the healthier tones from her naturally olive skin, leaving her a tad on the greenish side.
She was coming down from Amherst, straight off the New World Symposium on EcoHarmony, with no breakfast and very little sleep under her belt. All in all, she was glad she’d gone. It was a chance to throw support behind a worthy cause, get together with handfuls of people she admired, meet her public, promote her books, and network like crazy. All expenses paid.
For four days, she had done just that. The organizers had outdone themselves, securing everyone from John Denver to Jean Houston, Carl Sagan to Stewart Brand, with a sobering keynote speech by Bill “The End of Nature” McKibben.
The speakers were passionate. The cause was just.
And, in the end, very little had really changed.
Because half the people in attendance had come to see the world saved for them, by famous stars and noted authors. A large percentage had come to hawk their ecologically correct wares: the water purifiers and solar conversion kits and biode-gradable, nonphosphate, lemon-fresh detergents for the modern New Age lifestyle. A far smaller percentage had come in the hope of finding support for their own little homegrown save-the-world strata gems: each one grandiose, sweeping, and impossibly naive; and all structured so as to place themselves squarely at the imaginary helm of Spaceship Earth.
But the real problem, Micki mused, was the perennial problem with the New Age: in its boundless optimism, its proponents had a tendency to offer far too much, make extravagant claims and promises they could never in a million years live up to, thereby turning love of the Mother Earth into so much New Age snake oil.
The hype surrounding this show, for example, promised that monies earned would go straight into the environment; that important global transformational policies would be drafted and then implemented over the weekend, by the total Symposium membership; and indeed, that ordinary rank and file would get to actually hobnob with the famous, to share theories and compare notes with the finest minds on the planet.
The reality netted somewhat less utopian results. Operating costs of the convention ate up fully half of the money generated, the important policy-drafting decayed into pompous speechifying and political infighting. And utopia had a VIP lounge, after all, where the invisible line between prole and privileged was clearly drawn. The average results ran somewhere between a lecture and a flat-out dog-and-pony show.
The undercurrent of crushed hope was palpable. Those naive enough to believe in a mystical Good Guys network—where they and their heroes labored side by side to solve the world’s problems together—were inevitably in for some major disappointment. Those who expected the quick fix were reminded that there were none, that the task of saving the Earth took nothing less than absolutely everyone, doing absolutely everything they could, every day for the rest of their lives.
And then maybe—just maybe—it would all work out.
By Sunday, it was clear to most that the world wasn’t going to be saved this week, and certainly not this way. In the process of trying to balm all those broken hearts and imploded ideals, Micki had used up every last ounce of energy, not to mention violating ninety-nine percent of her own very strict health regimen.
And then it was time to go…
WHAM! Micki’s eyes snapped wide open. Wa-WHAM! There was a disorienting moment of total weightlessness, irrespective of gravity. Freefall seemed to go on forever—a full ten feet, longer, in the space of a second—then SLAM! steadied out and proceeded to shake, like the plane was a chew toy in a pit bull puppy’s jaws.
She heard herself mewling, and shut herself up.
“Oh dear God.” White-knuckle-clutching the arms of her seat. “Oh, please stop.” As the shaking continued. “Oh!” as they dropped
again—WHAMWHAM buh buh BLAM! BLAM!—and miraculously stabilized.
Leaving Micki with a moment to question her sanity, ask herself what the hell she was doing here.
The answer was simple. She had come to see Gwen. Put up with Gary.
And help usher their baby into the world.
In fact, she had planned this out months in advance, leaving virtually no margin for errors not endemic to the plan. She had gotten up at six, checked out by six thirty, then limoed the fifty-plus miles from Amherst to Hartford and hopped a marginally civilized DC-9 to Philly, only to find her angular frame wedged into the tiniest, least comfortable seat this side of Midget Purgatory, puddle-jumping to Paradise on a US Air commuter flight that only carried two of its maximum twelve-passenger payload.
The downgrade from jet to prop-power was bad enough. She could deal with the flight that had brought her the three-thousand-plus miles from Oregon to Amherst because the plane was so damned big—Clipper Class in a 747 was like taking Amtrak at thirty-seven thousand feet. And even in a smaller jet she could fool herself: hold her breath until they broke cloud cover and then while away the flight time studying the little seat-pocket cards, memorizing escape routes and how to best use her seat cushion as a flotation device.
A turbo-prop, however, was all business: there was simply no escaping the fact that she was flying, not-so-bravely going where no one in their right mind should ever have gone before, three thousand five hundred feet in the air in her itsybitsy seat right next to an aisle you couldn’t even stand upright in while the pilot and copilot sniggered behind their dinky curtain, plotting air-speed vectors and crash coordinates and hoarding parachutes and she could see people the size of ants in their backyards, goddammit, and…
If you’re really that frightened, said the voice in her head, you could always make a circle.
Micki started, momentarily surprised. She hated it when her spirit guide snuck up on her like that. Even after five years of trance-channeling, it still gave her the willies sometimes. “What do you know?” she said aloud. “You’re not even on this plane. You’re not even on the earth plane.”
You’re overreacting, Bob-Ramtha said calmly.
“Overreacting!” she blurted. “Are you kidding? You ever seen what happens to these things when they go down? It’s like a human Cuisinart!”
You don’t have to yell, Bob-Ramtha chided.
Micki lowered her voice. She looked behind her; the sole other passenger sat three rows back on the other side. He was doughy, disheveled, a cheeky businessman with a full day’s growth of scratchy beard, heading home at last. He smiled at her uneasily and nodded. Micki nodded and turned away.
“Sorry, Bobba,” she amended to herself. “I’m just nervous, is all. And my stomach’s upset.”
It’s okay, the voice said.
“No it’s not,” Micki replied. It was stupid. Micki Bridges was blessed with a direct pipeline to the hereafter—a live internal audio feed to the Other Side—and she was still scared of dying.
The plane buffeted again, bouncing on the air currents like a numbered ping-pong ball in a Pennsylvania Lotto drawing. She sucked wind sharply and held it, took the reins on her panic.
The storm front is pretty big, Bob-Ramtha said. Micki nodded in affirmation. From her vantage point, it extended as far as the eye could see: a solid wall of low, foreboding clouds blanketing the earth. To the north, the air was purplish-gray with rain. It wasn’t apt to get much better in the twenty-odd minutes to come.
She thought about it, accepted it, sighed. “Make a circle, huh?” she said.
Couldn’t hurt, Bob-Ramtha replied.
Micki smiled; his voice was soothing, and his advice had never been off the mark. Bob-Ramtha was rare, as spirit entities went: he didn’t make portentous proclamations, he didn’t claim to be bosom buddies with the Almighty or to know the exact date the mothership would land or whatever really happened to Elvis.
He was just there; having come at a point in her life when she desperately needed someone, and having stayed ever since.
Keeping the circuit open.
And the spark alive.
“Okay,” she said, looking up. The businessman was watching a crazy woman auto-emote. Tough titties, she thought, flashing him her sweetest smile.
Then closed her eyes. Centered herself.
And began the silent ritual prayer.
In the Wiccan tradition, the drawing of the circle was a time-honored form of protective, healing magick. Its function was to create safe haven, a merging with the spirit realm, a space outside of space and time.
Where no harm could befall you.
The key to the power of the ritual circle was the invocation of the elementals: the spirits of the living Earth, as embodied by the four directions.
To the east was sky, the breath of the Mother. Her spirits presided over the beginnings of life. They correlated to the swords of the Tarot, wielding Intellect in the service of truth. The sky-people would be the first invited into the circle.
Next would come the fire-people, spirits of the south. Spirits of flame, and ferocity of passion. Spirits of energy and will. Bearers of wands, and of earthly vitality, joining the caster of circles inside.
To the west lay the bearers of cups, brimming over with the living blood of the Mother. Spirits of Emotion, of sadness and joy, of all we are able to feel within. Spirits of oceans and endings, the water-sisters would be third in line.
Fourth would come the earth-people, the spirits of the rocks and soil. The spirits of meat and bark and flesh, of pentacles and earthly possessions, of things long dead and returned to ground. From the north, they would be welcomed into the circle of life.
Then finally, one would invite the Source of all life to commune with them inside. Great Spirit. The Mystery in the Middle. Goddess. God. All love. All life.
And when they all had come, the circle would be closed, so that no others might enter.
And there, surrounded by all the forces of Nature, they could at last encounter their One True Self, recognize those very forces at play within themselves.
That was the theoretical function of the ritual circle. Of course, it had never been devised for use in deepest space. And three thousand feet in midair was a definite compromise position.
But Micki would be damned if she didn’t feel better, once the circle was cast. She felt better the whole rest of the way into Paradise. The turbulence let up a little as they crossed the Susquehanna, but whether that was a good omen or just good luck she wouldn’t venture to guess.
“Thanks, Bobba,” she said.
And he told her not to mention it.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Oh, Christ.” Kirk was bitching again. There was a blue-haired matron in a prehistoric Rambler, doing twenty-five down the old Gut Road. When the ACTION-9 mobile screeched around the hairpin curve, it nearly rode up on her ass. “Can’t you go around her?”
“No passing, man,” Mike said. “I’ve already got two tickets and ten points on my license. One more and I’m a pedestrian.”
“So what’s life without risk? Come on, man! Punch it!” Mike shrugged. “Fuggit.” He hit the accelerator, let out a manic war whoop as they crossed the double yellow line. Kirk echoed the sentiment, but he still ducked out of sight as they blasted past the wide-eyed senior. Just in case.
“I’m tellin’ you, man. This is it!” he exclaimed, sitting back up in the seat. He was charged on adrenaline and the bloodscent of a story. “I’ve got a sense for these things, and this one’s a motherfucker. No more mall openings and handshake ceremonies for me, babe. This puppy’s my wake-up call.”
“Okay. Cool.” Mike nodded, noncommital, as the car sped eastward, past open fields and housing developments, toward Kirk’s big date with destiny. He’d believe it when he saw it; Kirk’s wake-up call came at least three times a month, and he hadn’t woken up yet. He thumbed in the dashboard lighter, fished a joint of homegrown from his pocket and fired when read
y, going shhhup as he sucked in a lungful of sweet smoke.
He offered it to Kirk. Kirk abruptly recoiled. “No, I better not…” he began, then just as suddenly changed his mind. “Aw, hell. Who’s gonna know?” Taking a tiny, tentative hit.
“So tell me,” Mike inquired, “why you think this is such a big deal.”
“Why?” Kirk looked astounded, as if he’d just found out that Mike had been a really slow child. “ ‘Cause HazMat’s a hook, that’s why! It’s not just a story in itself; it’s a way into the whole larger issue of toxic waste, from a local perspective! I mean, don’t you see how hot this is?”
Mike said nothing, maddeningly neutral.
“Christ!” Kirk yelled, exasperated. Then he took another tiny hit and shot Mike a demented quiz-show-host look. “Okay. For example. Do you know how many tons of toxic shit are generated around here every year?”
Mike gave him a slight, startled who me? look. “Um…” he began.
“Four thousand tons,” Kirk answered for him, dragging out the words dramatically. “That’s eight million pounds, man. Every year. In this county alone.”
“Whoa.” Taking the joint back, toking again. The figure impressed him. “That’s one large pile of shit.”
“Yup. We’re talking carcinogens, mutagens, fetalogens, hallucinogens…” Kirk was in Serious Mode now, rattling off the litany with practiced vigor. Mike humored him, punctuating each technical term with a solemn nod. Especially the last one.
Then Quizmaster Kirk struck again. “So if the local treatment facility can only actually handle maybe sixty percent of that, where does the rest of it go?”
“Um…” Shrugging, clueless. Holding in his hit.
“Quick!” White teeth flashing. “Think! Where do you think it goes?”
“Umm…shit, I don’t know.” Exhaling, huge. “Toad Road, I guess.”
“Exactly!” Kirk crowed. “And a hundred other places. Like any goddam place they want. Burn it. Bury it. Dump it in a creek. What the fuck do they care? It’s like it all just goes away!”
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