Bombo rubbed his temples as a terrible pain throbbed in his head.
“Your brain is being recoded,” said the old man known as Papa. “Information that you’ve been storing for years is being overwritten.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the new now, the manuscript for this novel, The Pugilist, was lost when my first wife decided to pack all of my work into a suitcase and hop on a train to meet me in Geneva. She left the suitcase on the train… and The Pugilist was gone forever.”
“Your first novel—” Bombo began.
“—was The Torrents of Spring,” Hemingway said. “I managed to rework some of this material into another story, but this—this perfect first novel—it died.”
“I’m going to kill Alistair,” Bombo said.
“No. You need him,” Hemingway said. A depression had settled on the man, one that would never really leave him. “Neither one of you alone can save the Legendarium.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bombo said. “About what happened to you.”
“There’s one more thing,” said Hemingway. “Remember how Cuba became the fifty-first state in 1959?”
“Oh, no.”
Hemingway nodded sadly. “Batista and his cronies were overthrown by communists and we’ve been in a pissing contest with them ever since. Almost caused a nuclear war, but at least we managed not to bomb the human race into oblivion.”
Bombo was speechless. His mouth hung open and tears formed in his eyes.
“A thousand-thousand other changes happened too,” Hemingway said. “For example, how’d you get the name Bombo?”
“Don’t tell me…”
“I have to tell you, young man, so buck up and listen or I’ll cuff you one on the ear,” Hemingway said. “Roberto Clemente, the great Puerto Rican outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was in Havana when that city fell on New Year’s Eve in 1958. The next morning, on New Year’s Day of 1959, Clemente saw so many of the poor and needy flooding the streets of Havana that he pledged his life to ease human suffering. That, in and of itself, was a good thing. But every change ripples through time and changes other things.”
“No…” Bombo said. “He tried to clasp his hands over his ears, but Hemingway, still strong and fiery, wrestled Bombo’s hands down again.
“Roberto Clemente was killed flying relief supplies to earthquake-stricken Nicaragua in 1972.”
“Oh my…” Bombo said, “Not Clemente! He was my favorite player growing up! Him and another great Puerto Rican player: Bombo Rivera. In fact, my mother nicknamed me after Bombo.”
Hemingway looked into Bombo’s eyes. “Now you see.”
“Bombo took up baseball because he idolized Roberto Clemente. They played together for several years after Clemente got the Pirates to trade for Bombo in 1976. In fact, they were neck-and-neck for MVP in ’78.”
Hemingway shook his head. “Nope. Now none of that ever happened. Bombo Rivera got to play a few seasons in the majors, but with Clemente dead, he was never traded to the Pirates. He never was mentored by Clemente. Bombo spent most of his career in the minor leagues. He’s more famous for his name than for anything he ever did in the game.”
Bombo was still shaking his head. He couldn’t believe that in the new world, no one would even know why he was nicknamed Bombo.
“It’s all true,” Ernest said. “It’s all the new truth.”
“I can’t believe Clemente died in ’72,” Bombo said.
Hemingway exhaled. “Yes, he died when you were just a boy. It’s not just something that changes when a literary world dies. Everything changes.”
“This is a disaster,” Bombo said. “An absolute disaster. Is there anything we can do to fix the situation?”
“The best you can do is to not let it happen again,” Hemingway said. “Half the world has read the Wonderland books. If those disappear, anything could happen. You could even lose your wife.”
“Okay,” Bombo said. “Fine. What should I do right now?”
“Your friend is outside drowning in quicksand,” said Hemingway. “You might want to help him. I’d do it, but I think I’d probably knock the son of a bitch out cold if I saw him.”
“He’s not my friend,” Bombo said.
“Whatever,” said Ernest Hemingway.
* * *
As Bombo left the Health Farm he noticed the living shadows descending from every corner of the gymnasium. The Mome Wraiths were here, devouring all life, and soon this world would cease to exist, just like the science fiction world created by Russell Benjamin.
Bombo pushed through the crowd and toward the side door through which he’d seen Alistair depart in search of Agnes. He stepped through the doorway and nearly toppled into the quicksand that consumed the city beyond. Tall buildings were sinking in the sand, and as they leaned they crumbled and collapsed. Overhead, the sky was black with Mome Wraiths, and their screeching filled the air with a hellish din.
“Help!” Alistair screamed.
Bombo looked down and saw his partner and nemesis almost completely submerged. He had one hand out, grasping for a lifeline, for anything to save him from the pull of the sand. I’m the lifeline, Bombo realized. He lay down flat on his stomach and stretched his upper body over the quicksand. His hand brushed Alistair’s fingertips, but he couldn’t—quite—reach him.
“Your… shirt,” Alistair gasped. The quicksand had reached to the bottom of his lip.
Bombo removed his flannel shirt—strangely he was wearing it again now, and the gray suit was gone—and rolled it up tight. He tossed one end to Alistair, who grabbed it and held on for dear life.
The bearded author pulled with all his might and managed to yank Alistair out of the sand and into the relative safety of the doorway. The two sat there, panting, while living shadows consumed the gymnasium to one side of them and a city collapsed on the other.
“Agnes is dead,” Alistair said. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I talked her into leaving Jack.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Bombo said. “You really screwed up this time.”
“I know,” Alistair said. “I know.”
“How are we going to get out of here?” Bombo asked.
“I was hoping you had a plan.”
“Well, we can’t go outside,” Bombo said. He looked around. “If there’s a doorway to another story or back to the Legendarium, it must be inside the gym. Come on then, let’s find it.”
They stood and entered once more into the Health Farm. Mome Wraiths had devoured nearly everything, but an old man with a white beard was valiantly trying to fend them off with a folding chair.
“Is that Ernest Hemingway?” Alistair asked.
“Yep. Don’t let him see you, though. He’ll feed you to the Mome Wraiths.”
“Hemingway doesn’t like me either?” Alistair asked.
“Not even a little bit,” Bombo replied. “In fact, to say he dislikes you would be a fantastic understatement.”
They raced across the gymnasium and headed for the locker room, because it was the only internal door in the building and the only direction that was mostly free of screeching Mome Wraiths. When they reached the door, Bombo threw it open. They were disappointed to see only lockers on the other side.
“Maybe there’s another door,” Alistair said. “Come on.”
They darted past the lockers and through the shower area, and found another door deeper inside the locker room. It was constructed of ancient teak, narrow, and hung on antique hinges. It rested between two metal lockers and had a crystalline knob that seemed out of place in the utilitarian gym.
“Where does it go?” Alistair asked. “This has to be it. I mean, just look at it.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said Bombo. He opened the door, and the two men stepped through the blinding light, with no idea what they’d find on the other side.
Chapter Six
Or, The Whale
They appeared on the heaving deck of an old
-fashioned sailing ship and knew within seconds into which story they’d arrived. Scrimshaw decorated the gunnels of the ship, and a golden doubloon was nailed to the mainmast. It was a clear, beautiful afternoon at sea, and a man in the crow’s-nest high above was bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“There she blows! There she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It’s Moby Dick!”
“I love this story,” Bombo and Alistair both said at the exact same moment. The deck rose again as the ship handled the swells, and the two authors looked at each other in amazement. They were both dressed as deck hands from the 1800’s, and for the first time since they entered the Legendarium, Alistair’s ponytail looked only sort of out of place.
“You do?” Bombo asked.
Alistair nodded with a silly grin on his face. “It’s my favorite book.”
“Five stars?” Bombo said.
“Six. I even have a Moby Dick tattoo. See?” He pulled up the sleeve of his newly acquired sailor shirt to reveal a picture of a white whale’s tail and the word AHAB.
Bombo shielded his eyes. “TMI, Foley. I really don’t want to see that.” He pointed his finger at Alistair. “Two main rules, Foley. No mouth-to-mouth, and we don’t show one another our tattoos. Got it?”
The deck of the Pequod was a scramble of activity as sailors from all over the ship sprang to life. They clambered into whale boats that were attached to the sides of the big ship and took their places as the smaller boats were lowered toward the ocean. The deep blue sea spread all around them as far as the eye could see, as if the ocean was all there ever was, and all there was ever going to be.
Bombo and Alistair hung back, trying desperately to not get in the way after the disaster with Ernest Hemingway. This was Herman Melville‘s greatest work, and perhaps the greatest work of American literature. If Moby Dick were lost, the repercussions would be catastrophic.
Within minutes, the deck of the Pequod was all but empty. Most of the crew was gliding across the water in a desperate race to catch the white whale.
“This is the first day of the chase,” Bombo said. “The peak of the novel is on the third day.”
“In the last two worlds, the Mome Wraiths attacked near the climax,” said Alistair. “Of course, Moby Dick isn’t like any modern novel. The climax is so spread out… I can’t imagine any modern publisher even considering it.”
“Yep, it would never happen,” Bombo nodded. “And a book where the antagonist is a whale? Not unless the whale was also a robot, or if the whale was anthropomorphized and could communicate to either a young boy or a teenage girl overwrought with angst and brimming with unknown superpowers.”
“I agree,” Alistair said.
“Melville would probably have to self-publish,” said Bombo. “Think about that.”
“I’ll think about it later,” Alistair said. “Right now we’ve got to figure out how we can save this story.”
“You, sailors!” shouted a commanding voice. The writers looked up on the quarterdeck and saw a severe-looking man with a black beard glaring at them. They recognized him at once as Starbuck, the first mate of the Pequod. “Get to work, men,” he snapped. “I want these decks scrubbed and ready for when they return.”
“Yes, sir!” Alistair said.
The writers set themselves to work, formulating their plans as they scrubbed the boards. Bombo lowered a bucket into the ocean and pulled it up again filled with seawater. Meanwhile, Alistair retrieved some soft sandstone, known as holystone, from belowdecks.
“I’ve been thinking,” Alistair said, handing Bombo one of the holystones. “Remember how the doctor in Beyond the Stars wanted borogoves, a plant from Through the Looking Glass?”
“Yeah.”
“And I didn’t realize it at the time, but the Cheshire Cat actually suggested to us that we try them. Do you remember that?”
“I think so.” Bombo dipped his holystone into the seawater and began to scrub the boards.
“If we had taken some, we would ha’ve had them when we landed on the space station, and then the captain would have been saved, and the story would have proceeded normally to its original ending.”
“The Cat, or the Legendarium, was trying to help us,” Bombo said.
“Just like when I found the exact amount of cash that we needed in my wallet,” said Alistair. “Anyway, I think it’s the revision that caused an opening for the Mome Wraiths to attack.” Alistair sank wearily to his knees and began scrubbing. “The Mome Wraiths are like a virus, and the infection starts when the story is allowed to change."
“Same thing happened in The Pugilist,” Bombo said. “When you decided that you knew better than Ernest Hemingway…”
“I feel like such an idiot,” Alistair said.
“I can understand why you would feel that way,” said Bombo.
“If I had convinced Agnes to go along with the bet—as appalling as that seems to my modern sensitivity and my sense of moral uprightness—everything would have been different.”
Shouts in the distance caught their attention. The writers looked up and saw that the whaling boats had ceased their frantic race across the face of the deep, and sea birds were now circling around the tiny boats.
“Clearly we have to see that Moby Dick achieves its original ending.”
“Exactly,” Alistair said. “We have to watch for any weak point where the Mome Wraiths can attack.”
“For all we know, they might already be here,” Bombo said. “This novel has a hundred pages about the history of whaling.That was difficult for even me to read. If there was any point where they could enter this story, that’s it.”
“No. The attack is going to come on the third day,” Alistair said. “I’m sure of it. Or maybe even in the epilogue. If Ishmael drowns with the rest of the crew, that’s it.”
“Or if Ahab manages to kill Moby Dick.”
“We need to keep our eyes open for any sign of deviation from the original text,” said Alistair. “That’s our mission. I just wish I’d understood that sooner.”
“You’re pretty good at analyzing stories,” Bombo said. “I hate to pay you a compliment, you being such a blowhard and all, but that really is a strength for you.”
“Thanks?”
“I mean it,” Bombo said, “I’ve never outlined a story in my life—”
“No!”
“—or spent five minutes analyzing my stories, but you really have a good understanding of what makes a story work.”
“Too bad no one other than slush pile interns have ever read my work,” Alistair said.
“That’s your own damn fault,” said Bombo. “You know what you should do.”
“Has anyone ever told you what an annoying jerk you are?” Alistair said.
“My wife tells me that all the time,” Bombo said, “and she loves me.”
At that moment, in the distance, they both saw the white whale burst from the water like a missile. His jaws were open wide and he was preparing to sink Ahab’s boat. The captain prepared to strike with his harpoon, but Moby Dick, showing his malicious intelligence, crashed into the small craft. Ahab was inside the monster’s jaws, and Bombo and Alistair stopped their work and stared at the scene unfolding before them. Was this the end?
“Sail on the whale!” screamed Starbuck. “Drive him off!”
Almost instantly, the ship was alive. Starbuck was turning the wheel as sailors pulled at the rigging. Bombo and Alistair dropped their holystones and followed suit, lending their strength to that of the sailors who’d remained on board when the whaling boats lowered. As he pulled, Bombo realized that he was standing right behind Ishmael, the omniscient protagonist of the novel.
The Pequod raced across the waves as Ahab slipped from the jaws of death and into the sea. Moby Dick swam around the bobbing sailors like a shark, but the ship effectively parted the whale from his victims and drove him off.
The captain and his men were hauled back on board the Pequod, and the old man was raving all the wh
ile about the condition of his harpoon and the eternal sap of vengeance that was coursing in his veins. Having been the first to spot the white whale, Ahab claimed the doubloon that was nailed to the mainmast.
Night closed around the Pequod as Ahab ordered the ship to keep full before the wind. They did not want to overrun the white whale in the night.
Bombo and Alistair found their bunks belowdecks and waited anxiously for morning. And throughout the long night, the old man paced back and forth on deck, his false leg tap-tap-tapping on the boards overhead.
* * *
They were up at daybreak on the second day. The sailors rose without complaint and set about their business as the Pequod plowed through the sea, leaving great, foamy furrows in her wake. As the men went about their duties, Alistair worked and thought on what was supposed to happen today. They would spot Moby Dick a second time, and once again mad Captain Ahab would lower after the white whale. The rest Alistair knew by heart as well. Once again Ahab’s ship would be capsized, and this time the enigmatic harpooner Fedallah would be lost at sea.
The masthead cry came as if on cue. “There she blows! She blows—right ahead!”
The crew of the Pequod moved as one man as Moby Dick breached. The men scrambled toward their boats, ready to slay the monster upon whose head Ahab had bent his fury.
“Breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick,” said the old man, “thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand.”
The boats were lowered, but Moby Dick did not flee as he had done before. He turned toward the tiny boats and met them head-on. He was intent on annihilating every plank of these mortals who pursued him. The whale was pierced all over with rusted harpoons, and now, as Bombo and Alistair got their first close look at the monster, they saw something peculiar.
“Do you see that?” Bombo said. “Sticking right there, near the whale’s dorsal fin?”
Alistair looked closer, and his eyes widened when he saw it. There was a sword plunged halfway into Moby Dick’s back.
“Is that the vorpal sword?” Alistair asked. “It looks just like the same sword Commander Stuyvesant was using back on the Alamo-02.”
LEGENDARIUM Page 8
