The Cocoon Trilogy

by David Saperstein

  CHAPTER SEVEN – A PLANET OUTSIDE IN

  Amos Bright was amused when he telepathed Jack Fischer from the dock. The first time he had summoned him by inner voice only with no response. Then he sent an electric impulse to the charter captain’s brain. It startled Jack and made him shudder. Amos made a mental note to cut his telepathing to the Earth dwellers several millivolts. But Jack got his message and caught up to Amos at the end of the Antares dock. They walked silently toward the Building B complex. The sun had nearly set. The lighting along the path was mercury vapor lamps, glowing with an eerie greenish light. The only sound was from the small tractor behind them as it made its way along the service path to the back of Building B’s delivery entrance. Jack glanced back to the tractor and noticed that the cocoons, now dimly lit, had a faint glow of their own that came from within. He had not seen that in the daylight. Amos, who read Jack’s thoughts, knew and the reason for the glow. It was the power system installed in each cocoon to maintain life-force electrics. The glow was caused by the fuel cell, a small piece of the mother planet core. Literally a piece of home to keep the occupant alive and warm.

  Home for Amos Bright was Antares, a near Earth sized ice planet whose sun was growing cold. It orbited in the constellation the Earth dwellers called Scorpios. By all reason it should have been abandoned millennia ago, but the Antareans were an old race that had adapted as their world cooled and its surface froze. It appeared desolate. Ice covered the entire planet and the poles had more than fifty miles of ice through which one had to travel before reaching the surface of the planet. It was another eighty miles below the surface that water could exist without freezing. That point was the beginning of the planet’s temperate zone where, it was, in fact, very much like Earth, except Earth zones were on the surface in a lateral dimension and temperature was dependent on the distance from the sun and the altitude of the surface terrain. Most planetary life depended upon energy from without - usually a nearby star. On Antares it was a matter of depth. Heat was determined by the vertical plane. The closer one got to the core of the planet, the warmer it was. So Antarean heat and energy came from within. It was this fact that formed the basis of Antarean thought and philosophy. Examination of the inner self had rapidly brought the Antareans to develop their energy and life centers, the things the Earth dwellers called brains. Telepathic communication was discovered early. But as they developed these inner powers, a well-developed Antarean brain could move mountains and navigate spacecraft. It could also melt ice and refreeze it in milliseconds. Amos let his mind wander with thoughts of home and he grew slightly taller. Jack Fischer thought Amos had just straightened up, or stretched. They had reached the outside back door to the B complex. It opened without Amos touching the knob.

  It was cool inside. They walked down an unfinished corridor. Jack thought it was a bit strange that the building was air-conditioned at this stage of construction. Then he noticed that the air-conditioning duct work was not complete, and he realized that it was cooler on his left, the side closer to Amos Bright. As he moved a bit closer to the alien, it became even cooler. Amos was putting out his own air conditioning.

  They turned a corner and stopped at a stairwell. Again the door opened, seemingly by itself. They walked up the stairs to the second-floor landing. When they entered the corridor, Jack saw that it, too, was unfinished. He also noticed that the coolness emanating from Amos had stopped and that they were now in an air-conditioned area. They came to a blue door painted and Amos stopped. “We will go in here for a while. The others have preparations to make before we open the first cocoon. Are you hungry?”

  Jack answered, “Yes, and I’m also a bit cold.”

  “Of course,” Amos said. “You will get used to that soon, I promise. This room will be comfortable for you.” He opened the door with his hand this time and motioned for Jack to enter. Amos Bright followed him into the room.

  CHAPTER EIGHT – AFTER THE EMPTY NEST

  “Four bam. Two crack. Soap.” Then silence. Rose Lewis and Bess Perlman looked across the table at each other. It was Mary Green’s turn and she was staring down at her mahjongg rack and card, deep in thought.

  Alma Finley spoke first. “Come on, Mary, you’ve been playing for two months now. You should know the card by now.” Mary looked up with a hurt expression. “I’m trying to play a hand I never played before, and I think I just went dead.”

  Bess leaned over and looked at Mary’s rack. She thought for a moment and then suggested that Mary call the soap and play an exposed hand.

  Mary looked at the mahjongg card in front of her and then smiled as she realized that she could do what Bess suggested. “Thanks, Bess. I guess you have to be Jewish to be really good at this game.”

  Alma laughed. She was the best player of the foursome, and she was a Presbyterian. Bess and Rose had made her an honorary Jew the day she cleaned them all out after only three lessons in mahjongg. Actually, she was a terrific card player and she approached this game the same way. She could count tiles the way she counted cards and therefore knew the odds at any given time. She played the percentages. Before Joe had been forced to retire they made a few trips to Las Vegas. She always won at the blackjack table because of her counting ability. Joe admired her for it, but he always believed that the next time it wouldn’t work. He never allowed her to gamble with more than a few hundred dollars. Even so, she had managed to stash away over ten thousand dollars from her winnings in a bank account that Joe didn’t know about.

  Mary called the soap tile and the game progressed.

  “West,” Bess said.

  “Take for mahjongg,” Alma called, and she exposed her winning wind hand.

  Rose looked at her with disbelief and said, “Somewhere in your WASP past a Jew must have snuck in. Either that, or you cheat.”

  Alma laughed again. “Actually, from what I understand about my sea captain paternal great grandfather, it was probably an Asian.”

  That started the laughter again and Bess Perlman made a mental note to have a talk with Mary regarding exactly what a Jew was, and was not. Now was not the time or place.

  They dumped the tiles into the center of the table and began turning and mixing them for the next game.

  “Joe told me that the pool was going to be filled soon,” Alma said.

  “Ben told my Arthur today,” Bess said. She was a woman of few words.

  Rose looked at Mary and asked, “So, is it today?”

  Mary answered, “Yes. Ben told me that he was having a meeting with the manager this morning and that the pool was going to be filled today. It’s a crusade with him, but when he says something will be done, usually it’s done.”

  That was the way with Ben Green. He was a man of action, not reaction. He was a leader, and until Mary had realized that she was a person unto herself, she had been a follower of Ben Green. At times he could be an overbearing pain in the ass. But it wasn’t Ben’s fault. It fact, he had pointed that out to her on a day she would never forget. They had been married twenty-two years and their three children were out of the house. The youngest was nineteen – a marine biology major at Cornell. Their middle child had been drafted, sent to Vietnam and was now a permanent resident at Arlington National Cemetery. Whenever Mary saw a golf bag being shipped on the plane to Florida, it reminded her of Jimmy, because she had seen pictures of body bags being shipped back from Vietnam and, although they had received his body in a casket, she knew that at one time it had been in a bag like that. Her third and oldest child, Patricia, was married, living in Chicago, and soon to make Mary and Ben grandparents. She was in her sixth month. Her husband was Michael Keane, an up-and-coming product manager for General Foods.

  On a particular day in May 1965, Mary had followed her usual routine. Ben had been up and out of the house by seven A.M. It was eleven A.M. and she was still in bed. She heard the key in the front door and then Ben’s voice calling to her. “I’m up here,” she said. He came into the room and looked at her. Then he shook h
is head and went to the large walk-in closet and took out his mid-sized suitcase.

  “Where are you going?” she asked. “It’s Friday.”

  “I have to go to Los Angeles this afternoon. I’ll be gone for a week. We have to rush through a pool of commercials on that new cereal account.” While he spoke, he continued to pack.

  Suddenly she felt very depressed and alone. Then she got an idea. “How about my coming with you?” she asked.

  He had stopped packing and stared at her. He knew then that what he was about to do was cruel but necessary. He truly loved his wife, but in his mind she had become a vegetable. Her life had always been the children and the house and taking care of him. Now that was over. The kids were gone -one of them, tragically in war. Mary had become a slug...a sloth…she was going to seed. Ben knew women older than Mary who worked at the agency. They were vital and exciting. Mary was a disaster, and if this way of life continued for her, he knew that it was just a matter of time before they would drift irreconcilably apart. He decided that now was the time to speak directly to the problem. He loved her, but he was a coward when it came to fighting with her. Years of living a relatively easy life around children and other homemakers had dulled Mary’s fighting spirit. She was a pushover in a logical argument and her perception of the world was twenty years old.

  Ben sat down on the side of the bed. “My dearest Mary,” he began, “I want you to listen carefully to what I’m going to say. I love you very much. I think you are a good woman. I think you are a beautiful woman. I think you are an intelligent woman. A wonderful woman. But I also think you are becoming a pain in the ass and a bore. You can’t come with me because I have a long hard week of work in front of me. It’s my work, which is a part of my life. It is what I do, and I do it well. It really has nothing to do with you other than that it provides money for our standard of living. I happen to love what I do. It is stimulating and exciting. But that’s for me. I think that you should take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror, and a good look at this house, and then sit down and find out who you are and what you want to do and be in this world now that our children are grown. You can do anything you want. I’ll be back next Friday or Saturday and we should talk about it then. Now, please don’t say anything. Just let me finish packing and get the hell out of here.”

  He got up, quickly finished packing and left without saying another word. He slammed the door and she had heard the tires of his MG squeal as he drove out onto their quiet Westport Lane.

  Ten minutes later, with tears drying on her cheeks, she screamed, “Screw you, Ben Green!” Then she poured herself a glass of bourbon.

  The next four days were spent in and out of a hazy drunken stupor. She wandered through the house spending time in each room. She had drawers, folded their contents neatly and then refilled them. She threw out a stack of Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and McCall’s magazines that dated back fifteen years. She stripped naked and stood in front of a full-length mirror in their bedroom and examined her body. She saw the beginning of flab and the flattened breasts. She studied the slight bulge of varicose veins on her legs. She gently touched the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. She let strings of four-letter words fly out of her mouth on a regular basis. Some of them surprised her because she hadn’t remembered knowing them. In the beginning they had been directed toward Ben, but as time passed they poured out in a general, undirected way.

  The morning of the fifth day she woke up with a start. She had slept for only three hours. It was seven in the morning. She was naked. There was a sound coming from the kitchen and she realized that Betty, her cleaning lady, was in the house. It must be Tuesday. Mary Green got out of bed and walked slowly to the bathroom. She hadn’t bathed since Ben left. She smelled her breath. It was foul. She smelled her body. The odor was unpleasant.

  Then she recalled the punch line of a joke that her son Jimmy had told about a hermit who had a long beard. He fell asleep one day in his cabin. Some kids crept in and rubbed Limburger cheese into his beard. When he awoke he sniffed the rotten odor. He went outside his cabin and sniffed again. It was a clear, bright day in the mountains. Still he smelled the cheese. Finally, he muttered to himself, “The whole world stinks.”

  Mary said it out loud. “The whole world stinks.” Then she thought: No, it’s only me and my body. I can brush my teeth, and wash my body, and perfume myself. Then what? Mary desperately wanted the answer to that question, and she knew she had three days to find it.

  Betty was washing the kitchen counter when Mary came into the room. “Miss Green,” Betty said. “What’s been goin’ on here? This house is one fine mess.” Betty had been working for the Greens for seven years and took a proprietary interest in the comings and the goings of the family. She had been the only person who had been with Mary when news of Jimmy came to the front door in the person of an Army Captain and a Chaplin. She had cried like a baby with Mary. She had hovered over the family and cared for them all. She was a Catholic, just as they were. She was black and they were white and that made a difference, but only outside of the house. She truly loved these people and felt their love for her in return. Now, as she looked at Mary Green, she realized that a very troubled woman had entered the room.

  Mary stopped near the kitchen table and sat down. “Is there any coffee, dear?” she asked. Betty poured her a cup and brought it to the table.

  “You want some breakfast? You’re up kind of early.” Mary didn’t answer. She just looked down into the cup. Betty saw a tear drop into the coffee. Mary’s hands started to shake. She sobbed. Betty sat next to her and put her arm around Mary who leaned her head onto the big black woman’s shoulder and cried.

  Betty held her. “Okay, honey. I’m here. Let it out. Let it all out.”

  It was ten minutes before Mary could talk. She sipped her coffee and told Betty what had happened. At first it came slowly and with difficulty. Betty listened patiently. She liked Ben Green. He was a fair man, a bit pushy at times, but nevertheless fair. She knew the truth of what he had told his wife. It was the method that she didn’t approve of, but what was done was done. Her concern now was for Mary.

  “What have I done wrong?” Mary asked. “You’re married. Does your husband think you’re a vegetable or a slug? What does he want?”

  Betty was slow to answer. She wasn’t sure this problem was in her domain, but she did love this woman. “Well, Miss Green,” she said, “I don’t know exactly what is on Mr. Green’s mind, but I can understand how he might be feelin’. You know folks get on, we all do, and the years seem to go by, and suddenly we get to be forty and then fifty and the kids leave and being a mother and father isn’t there anymore like it was. Mr. Green, like he says, he has his work. It keeps him feeling...well, sort of alive. Maybe makes him feel younger than his years. Gives him a reason to get up in the morning and be tired at night. Me and George, we have that, too, both of us. We have a nice small house and a good car and we travel a bit and go out a lot. But we each have a life of our own too. I have my friends and he has his. Sometimes I go down to North Carolina to visit my sister and he doesn’t come. I come here three days a week and go to Miss Kramer two days and at night I sleep real good. You get what I’m sayin’?”

  “I know you work hard, Betty, and I know it isn’t easy for you and George. But we have money. I mean we’re comfortable.”

  Betty shook her head. “You’re missin’ the point, Honey. Look at yourself. Are you comfortable?”

  Mary stared at Betty for a moment and then said, “I’m about as uncomfortable as I can be right now. Help me. Please.”

  “What the man was sayin is to make something for yourself in this world. Do your own thing, like the kids say. Let it all hang out, Mary Green. You’re a fine lookin’ woman with a brain and an education. You don’t need money, that’s true, but you do need to find something to do. Something that will make you feel good and important. The way I figure, there’s not too much we can do about getting older, but we sure don’t
have to get dumber at the same time.”

  “You mean get a job?” Mary questioned.

  “Right on,” Betty replied. “Get a job or volunteer for something and get your ass out of this house. Maybe next time you’ll be the one packing for a business trip.”

  They had talked for the rest of the day and then cleaned the house together. Betty called her husband and told him that she was going to sleep over that night. The two women talked into the night exploring the possibilities of what a fifty-two-year-old ex-housewife might do. By morning Mary was as excited as the day she had graduated from college.

  By the time Ben came home from Los Angeles, she had written out a program for herself. They had sat together all day Saturday and discussed the plan. Mary would enroll in summer school at the University of Bridgeport and take a few refresher courses. She had been a business major. She would also take a steno and bookkeeping course in a night program at the local high school. In the fall she found a job at a large real estate office in the area and continued taking courses at the university at night. She eventually managed the office.

  That was fifteen years ago. In the time since that fateful week Mary had changed her life. She was still shy, and a woman of few words, but she had confidence and a positive sense of herself. Her life with Ben had been wonderful since that week.

  The business with the pool had brought back those memories, and as she built her wall of mahjongg tiles for the next game she wondered about her new friends around the table and if someday soon they might discuss their feelings the way she and Betty had so long ago.

  CHAPTER NINE – A ROOM OF COLORS

  The light kept changing in the room. It was a subtle change that Jack hardly noticed it at first. Now it was blue again. A pale blue, like the dresses the bridesmaids had worn at his brother’s wedding last week. That thought shook him a bit because he remembered that Judy would be coming home to the apartment in an hour and wonder where he was.