The Wooden Sea

by Jonathan Carroll

  But what the old stories say really is true—somewhere deep in their hearts, those who love us most always know how we are. The moment she recognized Frannie McCabe lying by the side of the road, Susan Ginnety knew he was dead. The memories of her joyful times with him when she was a girl had haunted Susan her whole life and would continue to do so.

  Only months later when she felt very sad and alone did a revelation come to her one winter night that made her smile. Only after all that time since his death had passed did she realize how lucky she was to have been the one to find McCabe. It had allowed her to be the first one to tell him goodbye. But in the next instant, life for her suddenly seemed hopelessly long and obscure. Because even when it gave you a gift, what could you do with a first goodbye?

  Epilogue

  Much against Magda’s wishes, the funeral turned out to be a huge event. None of Frannie’s friends could ever agree whether he would have loved or hated knowing five hundred people attended. Five hundred people who were genuinely stricken by the fact this still-young man was dead. He was so smart and competent, so funny too. Without doubt the best chief of police they had ever had. The story of how he had saved Maeve Powell’s daughter from some mysterious madman on the day he died only polished his star.

  Granted, there were also many stories about what a rotten kid he had been. How he had once set fire to a principal’s car. Been expelled from school, been arrested, caused his father pain. But his death made those stories into anecdotes, apocryphal, chuckles mostly. Old Frannie, he was some guy, wasn’t he? And weren’t most good men naughty in their time? And don’t forget how he also helped solve only the second murder case in the history of Crane’s View.

  So what if he’d been a wicked kid—McCabe grew up to be one hell of a man. He was a good friend, one hundred percent dependable; he loved his wife and did his job well. Those things are what count and people were grateful to have known him.

  Thank God the boy was there. Gary Graham was his real name but he preferred being called Gee-Gee. A handsome kid. People who knew said he looked just like Frannie when he was that age.

  On the day Gee-Gee came to stay with the McCabe’s, his aunt was rushed to the hospital and his uncle died! Not much of a welcome but that didn’t matter: He stepped right up and won people’s admiration by the way he behaved.

  He and Pauline arranged the funeral together, brought Magda home from the hospital, and led her to the gravesite when it was time. Then those two good kids stood by while she looked down at her husband’s simple coffin.

  Someone nearby heard her say only one thing: “I like you.” Then she threw a pink rose onto his coffin and returned to her seat. Besides the large turnout the only other things that surprised people were the fact that Frannie’s best friend, George Dalemwood didn’t attend, Johnny Petangles did, in a wheelchair, and the minister no one knew who said the last words.

  No one had ever seen the man before. An elegantly dressed black gentleman, he seemed to have the confidence of a politician and the voice of a radio announcer. At the service someone sitting near Gee-Gee asked in a whisper who the fellow was. The boy said in a peculiar voice, “I know who he is. Uncle Frannie and I knew the guy.”

  People were hesitant to ask Magda what this man’s connection to her family was but she appeared to like what he said, particularly the quotation from the Koran: “Consider the last of everything and then thou wilt depart from the dream of it.” Which was the only thing in the whole ceremony that made her cry, but again no one had the nerve to ask why.

  When it was over and people were walking away, the boy approached the minister and asked in a tense hiss if they could talk a minute. The man tossed him a shrewd smile and said certainly, as soon as he was free they’d talk. Free meant after shaking as many hands as the man could find. He really did behave like he was running for office. But the boy waited, after telling Pauline he would meet them back at the house. The girl gave him a goony, loving look and said okay, but hurry.

  Watching him patiently wait with his hands held in front of him, people thought Gee-Gee only wanted to thank the minister.

  But when they were finally alone, the boy looked both ways to make sure no one was listening and then he let fly. “You fuck! You bastard! What are you doing here?”

  “Gee-Gee, you should thank me for letting you come back. I didn’t have to, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Why don’t you tell me? Huh? You think you could do that?”

  The man looked at an exquisite silver-and-black wristwatch on his left arm. When the boy saw it his eyes popped. “That’s his watch. You stole his watch!”

  “Borrowed. It’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it? Really a handsome piece. I’ll give it to you when we’re done here. Then you can pretend to have found it and get points with Magda. Yes, that’s the best way to do it.” He seemed very pleased with this idea.

  In contrast, the boy was seething. His mouth was pinched down into a thin straight line that turned his lips almost white. Any moment it looked like he might jump on the minister and attack him although the other man was much larger.

  Now that the service was finished, cemetery workers that had been waiting at a discreet distance quickly appeared all around them. Two started snapping closed the green folding chairs. Another took down floral arrangements. A bulldozer nearby started up but for some unknown reason shut right down again with a few motory burps and coughs. More men came along to fold the chairs. The minister and teenager were clearly in the way so they moved a few feet off.

  “Why are you here again? Why am I? I thought I was dead.”

  “You were. I brought you back.”

  “And I’m supposed to be grateful for it? Am I supposed to say thank you?”

  “That would be nice.”

  Instead, the boy jumped in front of the minister and shot both right and left fuck-you fingers at him. One cemetery worker saw and whooped. He pointed at them and kept laughing. Giving a minister the finger! That was a good one. Astopel looked at the worker and nodded his approval—he thought it was funny too.

  “Why did you do it? And if I was coming back, why not send me to my right time?”

  “This is your time from now on, Gee-Gee. Get used to it.” Astopel reached into his jacket pocket and rummaged around for something in there. He looked at the brilliant blue sky while searching. Sunlight glinted off the crystal face of his watch. Once it shot into the boy’s eye and he had to look away.

  “Here we go. Look at this and pay close attention.” From lis pocket Astopel brought out a handful of eight marbles. The colors were not unusual—cat’s-eyes, a blue, a red, some were doubles—two yellows. Kids’ marbles.

  “This is the life of Frannie McCabe.” Cupping the marbles between both hands, Astopel shook them vigorously. Their glassy lick was loud and annoying. He stopped, opened his hands and bowed the marbles again. Gee-Gee half expected something else to be there—it was some kind of trick. But no, there were the marbles on the salmon-colored palm. He looked at the man’s face and saw only a clear smile. Suddenly with no warning, Astopel flung the marbles into the air. The kid ducked because he lought they’d hit him. Instead, they froze in the air in a perfectly raight vertical line. Eight marbles—two yellows on top, then blue... They did not move. Sunlight bounced off them into the world. A line of marbles hung perfectly arranged and unmoving in the air between these two men. After a few moments, the still-smiling Astopel plucked each one individually from its place and dropped them back into his other hand.

  Shaking them again, click click, he tossed them back into the air. The same thing happened, only this time they spread out like buckshot and froze in no discernible pattern. One here, one there, one higher, two lower...

  “And this too is the life of Frannie McCabe, Gee-Gee. I could throw them all afternoon and each time they would freeze in a different pattern. The marbles are the events and people in your life. You have one life, but we’ve had to intervene a little
in it now. If you think of these marbles as the raw material we have to work with, what we’re doing is throwing them out in different combinations to hopefully obtain a certain result.”

  “You’re using me. You and the rest of you fucking aliens are using my life to get what you want.”

  “Using? No. We’re only moving you around inside your own life.” Picking the marbles out of the air, he shook them. They clicked. “At the end of his life just now Frannie came very close to a breakthrough. We were all very excited and impressed. Because he was so close, we decided to bring you back here now and let you try again.”

  “Why not bring him back? Why’d you let him die?”

  “It was his decision. We cannot control that.”

  “But Old Floon killed me.”

  “Floon couldn’t kill you – he met Frannie when he was twenty-nine years old. He never knew jou.”

  “Then who shot me?”

  “Unfortunately Frannie let it happen. That’s a very different matter. It’s what he learned at the end. So now you must take his discovery and use it.

  “Think of it this way, son: In some combination there is a perfect order for these marbles. Maybe it’s a vertical line, maybe a circle, who knows? But you must find it. Francis McCabe. So far that hasn’t happened. Now it must because we need that perfect order for something important. Only McCabe in one variation or another of his life can find that flawless combination. So now it’s your turn to try. Frannie was married to Magda. Pauline was his stepdaughter. For you, Magda will be your aunt and Pauline your cousin.” Astopel smiled. “Or maybe more than your cousin.”

  Belligerently the boy demanded, “And what if this new arrangement with Aunt Magda doesn’t work? What if I can’t find the right way to arrange your stupid marbles either?” His hand shot out to grab them from Astopel but the other’s snapped closed like an alligator’s jaws.

  “You don’t want to throw these away, Gee-Gee. They’re who you are.”

  “But if I don’t figure this out, you’ll bring another Frannie back from another age and put him in here in a different arrangement. You’ll do it again.”

  “Again and again until one McCabe finds it and we can add that piece to the World Machine.”

  Neither had anything more to say. Gee-Gee fumed. His blood felt like it been replaced by pure adrenaline. Astopel felt pretty good. It was a fine day. He was finished working for the time being and maybe he’d go see a movie.

  “If you want, we can give you something to help.” “Like what? A laxative?”

  “No, a helper. Something that might help you find the solution.”

  “All right, why not? I mean, why not have help?”

  “Good. You’ll just have to find a way of explaining it to Magda.” Astopel brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled. A weak tweet, the sound cracked and broke as soon as it came out.

  “That’s no whistle!” Gee-Gee smirked triumphantly. No one could whistle like him. Putting the same two fingers together, he let one fly that was fabulously earsplitting. Even staunch Astopel winced. When Gee-Gee saw that reaction, naturally he did it again.

  Nothing happened. Gee-Gee didn’t know what to expect but not nothing. He looked at Astopel who didn’t appear concerned.

  “Should I whistle again?”

  “Not necessary. He’ll be coming along.”

  “He” turned out be a solidly built moving object way far down the cemetery green. It was coming toward them. It was young and had two normal eyes and four normal legs this time which allowed it to trot comically. It approached with its tongue hanging out and its mouth set so that it looked like it was smiling. Maybe it was. A plump smiling dog that looked like a marble cake.

  “That dog? He’s my helper?”

  “You’ll be surprised how much Old Vertue knows, Gee-Gee.”

  “Gee-Gee. Do I gotta live with that name forever?”

  “It’s possible. But remember, for now Gee-Gee gets to live with Magda and Pauline.”

  “And this fucked-up dog.”

  “Still sounds like a fair trade. Well, I’m off.” The minister dropped the marbles into his pocket and without another word strode away.

  Old Vertue walked over and sat down on Gee-Gee’s foot as if they were old friends. The young man was about to tell the fat bastard to get off but didn’t. Instead he looked at the high mound of fresh dirt covered only partially by a tarpaulin. For some reason no cemetery workers were around now. Only some of their brand-new shovels lay on the ground and the silent bulldozer he assumed would later be used to fill in the hole. Going over, he picked up a shovel and hefted it tentatively. Then the dog watched while Gee-Gee began shoveling dirt into Frannie McCabe’s grave.

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