Wide Blue Yonder

by Jean Thompson

  But he had begun to chafe at his old routines. There was a narrowness in his life. He felt he had never really decided on a course of action, only drifted into things. He had cloudy dreams of all the places he had never seen, all the lives it might be possible for him to live, once he broke free from his origins. He had been saving up money bit by bit, fifteen hundred dollars. Counting it out felt like flexing a muscle. He had a sense of possibilities, of unknown currents in himself. Anger had been his only fuel and power, the thing he could most easily lay hands on and call forth. But what if he possessed other qualities and strengths, previously unsuspected? If he could not change his face or his history, he might yet breathe a different air.

  He might surprise them all some day, him, Rolando Got Jack, target of a thousand jokes and fists. He might return with his pockets full of wealth, as wise and smooth as one of his mother’s brown saints. Anything could happen.

  But first he had preparations to make. That evening, after his mother had finished disbelieving his story about San Antonio, he stepped out into the street. Paused to get a cigarette working. Children called out to each other in the rose-tinged dusk. Traffic noise, never very far away, crested and receded like the ocean. Although the air had cooled, the pavement still smelled hot. There were other smells too, something balmy or fruity, with a faint underlay of stink. The things they put in the air nowadays, the sweet was probably just as bad for you as the stink. He walked to the end of the block, nodding to people sitting out on lawn chairs, people walking dogs, and although none of them individually was anyone he expected to miss, he would miss the whole of them.

  On the avenue the night would just now be getting underway, the cars cruising slow and soft through the wash of lights and music, the sidewalk busy with sellers of CDs and silver and T-shirts, doorways propped open for a glimpse of the ruby-lit darkness inside, and everywhere the beautiful, beautiful girls … But he steered clear of all this and hiked on as far as the small, nearly grassless park. Two younger boys were playing basketball in a circle of streetlight that lit them like a stage. He had never been much of a player, but he loved the tart sound of the ball on cement and the boys’ excited, swaggering voices. And the view from the park’s little rise, the pink smear of freeway lights and beyond them the distant mountains, black except for the small trails and constellations of brightness, like an upside-down universe. He would miss all this too. It disconcerted him to discover such feelings in himself, soft places that sent out eddies of confusion just when he needed to be straightforward and clear.

  He caught a bus on Whittier, transferred downtown, and disembarked in a neighborhood that had often suited his purposes. Quiet, but not so much that a pedestrian would attract undue attention. In Los Angeles it was often a very suspicious thing to be a pedestrian. Nice houses, these. Little bungalows with red-tile roofs, brass gadgets on the front doors, fishponds, somebody’s idea of a statue. A place he wouldn’t mind living himself, if not for his prejudice against any wealth that could not be carried by hand. He strolled past the car he had already picked out, a sky blue Ford product with enough of the new worn off it so that people might have grown relaxed about things like alarms. His heartbeat was so sweet and steady, you could have used it to keep time to a waltz.

  These things were not difficult, given the proper equipment, experience, and opportunity. A final look around. Pop the lock, strip the wires, fire it up, and go. They never knew what hit them. Out on the boulevard and merging with the traffic, a model citizen obeying all vehicular laws. Oh, he was slick. He sang himself a little slick song as he fooled with the radio. Half a tank of gas in it. These folks were absolute princes. He could tell they were the kind to have excellent insurance. He wished them well. Thirty-eight thousand miles on it, practically new. He took further inventory. Box of Kleenex. Change caddy with a handy roll of quarters. If he’d called Avis and told them what he needed, he couldn’t have done better.

  There was a nice tape player, with auto-reverse and a lot of settings that would be fun to fool with. Already he had begun to think of it as his car. Groping around, he found a single cassette in the console, homemade by the look of it.

  He popped it in and weird shit started coming out of the speakers. Chimes and flutes and bird noise. And here he thought these people had taste. He was disappointed in them, he was personally saddened. He reached to eject the tape. That was when the angel choir started up.

  Layers of sound so beautiful it made him see colors, white and candy-cane pink and sunburst gold. The angels climbed stairways of luminous chords. His heart climbed with them. Crazy! They were just singing Ohhh, but like nobody’s business.

  Then the voice started. A man’s voice, welcoming and easy, the voice of your best friend. “Life,” it said, “can seem complicated. We all know the feeling. Worries about work, health, relationships, money. Worry on top of worry. Times we feel we hardly have room to breathe freely, let alone relax, clear our minds, and focus on what’s important to us. For the next hour I’d like you to join me in a journey toward harmony and greater self-knowledge. Remember, you are not alone.” The angels sang a little riff. “When the world swirls with formless chaos, when fears and troubles mount, remember that forces for peace and understanding are all around you. You are a cell in the body of God. You are a cell in the body of God.” The words echoed and reechoed. The angels were going nuts. “You are a cell in the body of God. You are a cell in the—”

  Rolando punched the eject. New Age crap. Great production values, feel-good bullshit for people whose biggest problem was how to pay for their tennis club membership. Man, he was glad he lifted their car. He should go back and burn their house down so they’d get a feel for what real trouble was. Real was his nose twice broken, so much for breathing freely. Real was the tattoo on his right shoulder, a snake coiling around a rose whose petals dripped blood. Real was a lifetime of jobs like the one at Planet Chicken, clearing away half-chewed lettuce and cigarettes put out in coffee cups and worse. Real was the deck stacked against him since before he was born. If there was such a thing as the body of God, then he was an abscess, a tumor, a stinking boil.

  This was how the anger came over him, all at once in a black wave. Once he reached his own neighborhood he parked the car two blocks away and slipped inside the darkened house where his mother slept. His duffle was already packed. He took the roll of money from its hiding place, also the gun he dared some fool to make him use. Then he was gone for good. He pulled away with as much speed and noise as he could muscle out of the engine and hit the freeway, heading east.

  Part Two

  July

  Global Warming

  Something was wrong with the hot. It kept getting more. There were places like Texas that you expected to crisp up every summer. But this was different. Cities far up north zoomed into the nineties. Out east it quit raining. There were serious charts that showed the rainfall deficits, nine, ten, fifteen inches. Yellow patches crawled across the map; they meant drought. It was the worst one this century. Or maybe second worst. Scientists had measured the polar ice caps and the glaciers in Alaska. There was no doubt about it. Everything was melting.

  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

  Local Forecast watched the bubble of hot air floating over You Are Here. Every day the bubble grew a little larger. He could feel the weight of it. All the folded places of his body stuck together. The thermometer outside the kitchen window rode a rocket. Fat Cat stretched out on the floor by the fan. You could have tied it in a knot. All afternoon the big yellow sun beat beat beat against the window shades. The air slowed down to nothing.

  Man In A Suit said, drink plenty of fluids, limit exertion, wear comfortable, light-colored clothing, avoid alcoholic beverages. He did all that. It wasn’t enough. It just got hotter. He filled dishes of water for the exhausted birds. He ran bathwater and paddled around in the tub until his hands got pruney. In Chicago the power kept failing. He didn’t like to think about things l
ike that. He imagined giant wheels and pistons grinding to a stop, electricity leaking out of the long black wires. Everything was breaking. What if the water was next?

  It was the Year Of Our Lord Nineteen Ninety-Nine. Something big and bad was coming.

  The grass was turning yellow. He dribbled the hose on it but he wasn’t rain, he didn’t do it any good. Here and there they got a thunderstorm, then the sky shriveled up. He worried about the farmers. If the farmers didn’t get rain, they couldn’t grow food. That meant hard times. People going hungry, starving, as the oceans rose and covered up Washington, New Orleans, Los Angeles. Tall buildings going down like sand castles. Now cut that out. It was scairdy talk. You could get in trouble. Crying I’ll give you something to cry about.

  His head hurt. When you stayed in the tub too long, your brain wrinkled up. Daddy was dead. Mamma was dead. Frank was dead. Sometimes he missed them but not really. They were in Heaven. Heaven was like a football game they had the best tickets to. Daddy slept the sleep of the just. Sometimes he snored. You could creep right up to him and look into his mouth, the black place the snores came out of. His tongue was sticky. The corners of his mouth were sticky. The snores blew little sticky pieces back and forth like curtains in a window. There was a smell too. It was amazing that such a smell came out of Daddy, a purely evil smell. It started down where the snores were. Like there was something bad black inside that only came out when Daddy slept. It spoke in the language of snores. Very carefully he leaned close in so he could feel the rumble all through his head. He listened hard. It was saying all the words you weren’t supposed to say. It was pleased with itself for getting away with such a trick. Daddy’s eyes opened no no no 30 percent chance of showers late, then clearing and continued warm.

  He was still in the tub when Yoo Hoo came. He didn’t hear her until she walked right up to the bathroom door. “Harvey? You in there?”

  He gave a little yelp and knocked the water this way and that. He was embarrassed not to have his clothes on. “It’s all right, Harvey, it’s only me. I’ll go wait on the front porch. I have a surprise for you, OK?”

  Local Forecast let the stopper out of the tub until there was only him left in it. He didn’t feel clean, just naked. He ran to his closet and got dressed as fast as he could. Then he could relax. There was only one Yoo Hoo today. She sat on the glider next to a big gray box. “Whew. I just don’t think it can get any hotter. I brought you an air conditioner, Harvey. What do you think about that?”

  Local Forecast had forgotten shoes and socks. He felt bad about his feet. They were so long and white and fish-shaped. He tried to walk them back under his pants legs. “An air conditioner. Do you know what that is?”

  He reached out a finger to touch it. It felt cool. Yoo Hoo said you plugged it in. “We could put it right next to the television. I honestly don’t know how you’ve gotten by without one all this time. Can you help me lift it?”

  He wasn’t much help on account of still being mortified about his feet. He bent down close to try and see them better. They looked like something that had grown moldy in the ground, big pale moldy roots. She said never mind, she could do it herself. She kept talking to show him how easy it was and how much fun. He liked her. She smelled good. “We just need to—prop it up right here—get it more … unnhh. When’s the last time you had this window open? All right. Ready?”

  It started up loud. The window rattled and shook. Then it kicked out a little cold air. Yoo Hoo got all excited. She said for him to get his shoes on. “We’ll go for a drive, and when we get back it’ll be all cool. How about that?”

  It was a wonderful thing. It was cold-in-a-box. Instant October. “Harvey, I promise you nobody’s going to take it away. It’ll be right here when you get back. Now where are your shoes?”

  She talked so much she got him out the door. His eyes hurt. The hot was too yellow. He stopped his feet and tried to get his mouth moving. “Daddy said.”

  “What’s that, Harvey?” She leaned in close to him. She had a face that asked questions even when she didn’t talk. “You know what would be a good idea for you? Sunglasses. Here. That better?”

  “Daddy said the world shall be destroyed by fire.”

  “Slow down, I can’t understand you. Are you worried about the car? The car has air-conditioning too. I promise I’ll drive extra careful.”

  The world flew by in bits and streaks. Its colors were melting. The glass was rolled up. On the other side of it things zoomed toward him, then away. “I bet it’s been a while since you rode in a car, huh, Harvey? Can you even remember the last time?”

  His stomach flipped up and down. The last time you. He had glasses on his nose. How did that happen? He missed the Weather. Had he remembered to turn the talking down? Daddy said it was the last time he was going to put up with that sort of nonsense. He was a bigboy now, old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. Local Forecast squeezed his eyes shut. He heard the calming voice of Beige Woman, talking about all the Weather that was happening in places a long ways away. The Weather was one thing that was nobody’s fault.

  Except for Global Warming. He gave a little hot-and-cold shiver. All this while he had tried not to think about it. He forgot what he did wrong but it was bad. He told Mamma he was sorry. Mamma said Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil. Mamma’s hands were afflicted. She rubbed them with salve but the skin stayed cracked and raw. When she washed his face her hands scratched him. The salve smelled like glue and mothballs. Global Warming was what happened when your feet did evil. He had sinned and fallen short. Whatever he had done, was it bad enough to burn up the whole world? The smell was horrible. He could feel his stomach rising up his throat.

  “Harvey? Do you need to stop?”

  She came around and opened up his door and he put his head out and spat up a little on the pavement. “Oh dear,” said Yoo Hoo. “Maybe this was just too much too soon. Here, take this and rinse out your mouth.”

  With the car stopped he felt better. He leaned back so his head was in the cold and his feet in the hot. “I was going to take you to McDonald’s but I don’t know what that would do for your stomach.”

  “Supersize it!”

  She laughed and said she guessed he watched enough television to know about McDonald’s. Was he sure he felt up for it?

  “Quarterpounderwithcheese!”

  Local Forecast and Yoo Hoo sat in the car, eating out of paper bags. They had big wet paper cups full of ice and pop. Everything was so good. His mouth couldn’t get enough. He licked the salt from his fingers. Yoo Hoo said Slow down, don’t make yourself sick again. But she was laughing, she was in a good mood. He scrabbled around in the bottom of the bag. All gone. He belched.

  “I usually don’t eat junk food. You won’t tell on me, will you, Harvey?” He was supposed to say something, either yes or no. But the only thing that came out of him was another belch. Pretty soon he was going to have to pee. Where were they anyway? It was full of trees he didn’t know.

  “Most days I just eat at the register. A salad or something. It gets so busy. Then I go home and I’m too tired to fix anything decent. Josie’s hardly ever there anymore. I pour a glass of wine and fall asleep in front of the TV. Not much of a life, is it?”

  Trees and cold air whooshing up from the innards of the car. He liked the car. It was big and smooth and the seats were the color of vanilla. If you had the right kind of car, you didn’t have to worry so much about Global Warming. You just drove somewhere cooler.

  “All I do is try and keep one step ahead so the business doesn’t go down the tubes. I’ve seen it happen. You don’t stay sharp, you’re history. So everything’s haggle and push and pinch. I have to remind myself the whole rat race was my big idea. Nobody said I had to run an import business. I feel like Alec Guinness at the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai, do you know that movie? After he’s tried to stop his own army from blowing up the bridge, and he slaps his hand to his fore
head and says, ‘What have I done?’”

  Local Forecast really really really had to pee. He opened the car door and ran into the trees. The trees were all too skinny. He ran a little farther but the heat made him wobble and he still had the glasses banging on his nose and finally he just couldn’t wait any more and unzipped right where he was and did it on the ground.

  It felt so much better. He couldn’t see much of anything because of the glasses but there was a lot of loud talking. Somebody was saying Police. Then Yoo Hoo was at his side, turning him around and telling him he had to come with her. She told him to do up his pants. He was so embarrassed. The Police were like Daddy.

  When they were back in the car Yoo Hoo said it was all her fault. She should have been watching out, taking better care of him. “Next time you tell me if you have to go, OK?”

  So he was in trouble again. Oh, bad word. Frank said he was going to get it now. Frank was a pistol. He whupped the Germans. He had a uniform and medals. He had answered the call of duty. Frank said the Army didn’t take sissies. One look at him and the Army would laugh itself blue in the face. That’s why he didn’t go to war. He was just as glad. He never liked loud things and the Army was full of them.

  He liked running, back when his legs worked. He could just stick his head in the air and go and go. Nobody could catch him. It was one more thing he liked about the Weather, it was fast. Mamma Daddy Frank were slow, because they were dead. He ran past them and waved. He climbed the clouds like steps.

  The car stopped. They were back home. “Yoo Hoo,” said Yoo Hoo. Are you listening? Are you understanding?

  He was so fast, her words couldn’t catch up to him. Her words rose to his ears like fish bubbles coming to the surface of a pond. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend he was running. The car door opened and she tugged on his arm. He liked not looking. He cheated and opened his eyes a little going up the stairs. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever locked this door. That’s something you should really get in the habit of doing. Do you even know where the key is? Never mind. I’ll look for it.”