THE CLOUD SEEDERS

by James Zerndt

  If only I had a pin.

  “We tried to keep it going for awhile, filled the swimming pool with packing peanuts. But, as you can imagine, it just wasn’t the same.”

  I wait for him to crack a smile, but he just keeps on talking.

  “What can you do though? Adapt, that’s what you do. So, here I am with an empty pool and...”. He stops, realizing he’s starting to lose his audience. “Oh, Lord, I’m sorry. Here I am prattling on, and all you’re probably wondering about is that radiator of yours. You just make yourself comfortable, and I’ll go have a look.”

  Jerusha steps in front of him, bars his way with her chest. “I’d just like to say it’s a real pleasure to meet such a...How can I put this? Such an ingenious man.”

  Dustin and I are beyond dumb-struck. Jerusha has turned into a complete stranger.

  “I’d like to say I owe it all to the man upstairs,” Twink says, looking like he’s about to dance his way out to the car. “But the truth is, I’m not even religious.”

  Once Twink leaves, Dustin turns to Jerusha, says, “So that was like your Princess Leah imitation, right? Like when she’s trying to butter-up Han Solo even though she doesn’t really like him?”

  “We need a car.” Her voice is back to normal now. Sugar-free. “Possibly more than that.”

  “Doesn’t Princess Leah fall in love with Han Solo?” I say. But before I can get an answer, Twink returns with a smudge of grease across his cheek that looks like it’s been placed there for affect.

  “Hate to tell you this, but the problem isn’t your radiator. You’re hemorrhaging oil.”

  Jerusha, turning back into a little school-girl, bites her bottom lip. “I didn’t know they even used oil now.”

  “They don’t use a whole lot, but enough to ensure you’re not going anywhere tonight. Maybe not tomorrow either. Depends on whether or not I can get the parts ordered today.”

  Dustin, standing by a display of ancient radials, kicks one and mutters, “Fucking perfect.”

  “Dustin,” Jerusha says, coming to the rescue. “Why don’t you get our tents from the car. It looks like we’ll be camping here for the night. That is, if it’s okay with you, Mr. Twink.”

  “Please,” he says, his face returning to its normal shade of big. “Just call me Twink.”

  *

  Dustin wants to camp inside the swimming pool.

  He only gives up on the idea once I explain we won’t be able to have a campfire that way. As a compromise, we set up behind the shop, our tents fortressed between the shells of old Buicks and Hondas. We’re just finishing up dinner when Twink makes an appearance, sits down right next to Jerusha.

  “Anybody thirsty?” he says, handing Jerusha and Dustin each a bottle of water.

  “I’m fine,” I say when he finally offers me one.

  Twink shrugs, cracks the bottle open himself.

  “Car’s going to be just fine in case you’re wondering,” he says. “Turns out it was more seepage than leakage. Valve gasket ought to be here sometime in the morning.”

  “How much?” Dustin asks, Yoda at the ready on his knee should Twink try any funny business.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen, debits.”

  Dustin considers this, then holds Yoda up. “Fair that sounds.”

  “Hey, that’s not bad. I do a mean Chewbaccer myself. Wanna hear?”

  Dustin doesn’t commit to an answer, just fiddles with Yoda’s legs, bending and un-bending them at the knee.

  “Preparation,” Twink says and takes a good-sized drink, gargling the water before spitting it out into the fire. “It’s all about the preparation.”

  He then stands, clears his throat, and lets loose something that sounds like a cow giving birth. A cow giving birth while simultaneously being strangled.

  When he finishes, nobody seems able to speak. And, for a second, I’m certain he’ll leave, but then Dustin, apparently converting to masochist, asks him to do it again.

  “Sure, but just remember,” Twink says, all serious. “It’s never wise to upset a Wookie.”

  More silence. The crackling of the fire.

  “It’s a line from the movie,” Twink tells us. “Han Solo?”

  “Oh, right,” I say. “Good one.”

  Twink changes it up a little this time by offering us a variety of Wookie-isms:

  Laughing Wookie...

  Frightened Wookie...

  Confused Wookie...

  Dustin bowls over laughing at this last one, which, I have to admit, is pretty good. “Sounded like,” Dustin says, catching his breath. “Like, like a Wookie taking a dump!”

  Twink stands and I’m convinced Dustin has finally succeeded in offending him.

  Unfortunately, I’m wrong.

  Instead, Twink lets loose the same mangled howl, only this time he squats, scrunching his face up like he’s air-pooping. Dustin’s about to have a heart attack, and even Jerusha allows herself a giggle, something I’ve heard maybe twice before.

  Twink stays at the fire for the better part of the night, his voice slowly softening as he reminisces about his baptizing pool, about the good old days before everybody went electric.

  “...used to go swimming in there every night, too. After the customers were long gone, of course. My wife used to joke about it, said she felt truly cleansed afterwards. She was something else. I don’t think I’ll ever--”

  “Do you know our dad?” Dustin asks, cutting to the chase.

  “Don’t know. Who’s your dad?”

  “He’s a scientist,” I tell him. “Richard Banks. He had your address written down on our map. His map.”

  “You’re Richard’s boys?” He shakes his big head from side to side. “I can’t believe I didn’t put it together sooner. Especially this one,” he says, pointing at Dustin. “Spitting image.”

  Dustin doesn’t say anything to this, but I can tell he likes hearing it. And it’s true; Dustin always has looked like Dad.

  “How do you know him?”

  “What? You don’t think a used-car salesman could know the country’s biggest scientist”

  “No, well, I just meant--”

  “It’s okay, kid. I know what you meant.” Twink leans over, peers into the fire. “I used to go to school with your dad. A long, long time ago.”

  “So you studied science then?” Jerusha asks, trying her best not to sound incredulous.

  “We were roommates for a short while, but I never was much of the academic type.” Twink pokes at the fire with a stick before continuing. “But your dad. Now your dad was born for a lab coat. I was more born for these,” he says and thumbs his suspenders. “I never did make it past my third year.”

  I’m waiting for Dustin to say something obnoxious like “What a shocker,” but he keeps quiet.

  “You know what his nickname was back then?”

  “What?” Dustin says, genuinely interested.

  “The Seeder. Everybody used to call him that.”

  I think of Mom’s poem.

  Her little Cloud Seeder.

  “Mom called him something like that,” I say. “I think so anyway.”

  “She did?” Dustin says. “I never heard her call him that.”

  “You were too little.”

  “Your face is too little.”

  “I think we called him that for entirely different reasons,” Twink says. “But, um, that’s another story.”

  I don’t ask.

  “You know, I once went up in a plane with him, helped him drop a bunch of dry ice into some clouds. I’ll be damned, but it actually worked. Anyway, this is all long before the country went haywire and he got obsessed with building that damn Cloud Lab.”

  “Cloud Lab?” Dustin asks.

  “He never mentioned a Cloud Lab to you boys?”

  “No,” Dustin says flatly. “Him and Mom have been away doing research junk.”

  “Well, I suppose that explains why I haven’t heard from him in so long.”

  I’m dying to
ask more questions, but now isn’t the time.

  Not with Dustin here anyway.

  “Oh, hey,” Twink says, just as I’m about to suggest we all get some sleep. “I almost forgot to give you these.” He digs in his pockets, pulls out a baggie filled with little blue berries. “They’re salal berries. Native Americans used to chew on them whenever they got hungry or thirsty. They’ll help with the pangs.”

  “Where’d you get them?” Jerusha says, popping one in her mouth.

  “That, my dear, is top secret.” Twink winks at her, then stands as if to leave. “I’ll let you get to bed now. But if you should need anything, just knock. I sleep in the back of the shop.”

  Jerusha gives him a hug.

  Dustin shakes his hand, says, “May the force be with you.”

  “And also with you,” Twink says back in this creepy preacher-like voice before tipping an imaginary hat to me and walking off through the purgatory of cars.

  *

  I am this close, the back of my hand scratching against the tag on Jerusha’s panties, Jerusha pushing back into me, her neck craned, mouth open, those hidden vowels of pleasure slowly escaping...when I hear something.

  Dustin.

  Dustin crying.

  Dustin the crying cock-blocker.

  “He’s fine,” I say, but Jerusha hikes her pants up and plants a consolation kiss on my cheek.

  Something I’m getting too used to.

  “You’re coming back, right?” I say when she grabs her pillow.

  “We’ll see.”

  She gives me a smile--an I’m-sorry-but-hey-what-can-I-do? sort of smile-- then crawls out.

  Seconds later, the crying gets worse.

  I can tell he’s trying his best to hold it in, but with Jerusha there, there’s not much hope of that. When the sobbing eventually turns to mere whimper, I lie there picturing Jerusha rocking Dustin back and forth, her fingers stroking his face, wiping his tears away, her kisses peppering his sandy hair.

  But then things get really quiet.

  No conversations with Mom and Dad.

  No Yoda. No Lando. No Chewie.

  Only the sound of something like material being rubbed between fingers. And that’s when I get the image in my head: Jerusha with her hands down Dustin’s pants.

  Like she’s not enjoying it really, but willing to do anything to calm him down, to put him to sleep. But then I hear Jerusha reading something, her voice so clear it sounds like she’s right outside, her mouth pressed up against the tent.

  Mom’s poetry.

  I turn on my side, curl into a ball, try to will myself dead.

  *

  I wake up alone.

  Almost like Jerusha knew what I was thinking.

  Even as I go to look in Dustin’s tent, I’m still a little afraid of what I’ll find. But it’s a nativity scene: Baby Dustin asleep in a manger of sleeping bags, cradled in Mother Jerusha’s arms. The way they’re spooning, it’s almost an exact replica of our basement. Only Dad has shrunken considerably.

  Would you rather remember or forget?

  “Rise and shine.” I toss two body-wipes inside the tent and they both groan like they’ve got massive hangovers. “Sooner than later would be good.”

  I strip down outside, all the while keeping an eye on the tent, waiting for Jerusha to come out. When she does, she comes out shiny clean. Dustin’s right behind her, a shit-eating grin on his face aimed right at me. I bite my tongue, occupy myself by making us a cold breakfast of canned-mush and pill.

  While we eat, I ask Dustin if he wants to go and find Twinkie, see what the deal is with the car.

  “Okay,” he says, seemingly back to normal now. “But I’m taking Lando with me. He doesn’t trust Wookies.”

  “Good thinking.”

  Dustin scarfs down the rest of his breakfast, then runs off, zigzagging his way through the parked cars like he’s being shot at.

  “So I guess whatever was bothering him last night is over with?”

  “He’s doing better,” Jerusha says, straightening up a touch when she hears my tone. “For now anyway.”

  “He miss Mom or something?”

  “No.”

  “Dad?”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “He thinks you’re going to be put in Rehab.”

  “I’m not going to be put in Rehab.”

  “He’s afraid, Thomas.”

  “So am I.”

  “He’s afraid he’s going to be left alone.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I’m not going to lie to him.”

  “Like I do, you mean.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Jerusha says and starts cleaning up.

  “You want to know what I think?” I say, not able to stop myself. “Sometimes I think you two would be better off without me.”

  Jerusha stops, weighing one of the breakfast bowls in her hand like maybe she’s going to chuck it at me. “Are you jealous? Please tell me you’re not jealous of a child.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “We’re not discussing this. You need to figure out what you’re going to tell him and when. California’s not much of an option anymore.” She tosses the bowls into my tent, our tent, then turns and stares at me. “He’s just a little kid, Thomas.”

  “I know,” I say. “I just don’t want you to hate me.”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because I don’t know what I’m doing. With Dustin. With anything.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing with me?”

  “Yes,” I say. “That’s one of the few things I do know.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

  *

  When we go to meet up with Dustin, we find the shop empty.

  No Dustin.

  No Twink.

  We hello around outside for a while, then head to the back of the shop where Twink said he sleeps. There’s a small bed in the corner of the room, a Bible on the mattress. I’m trying to decide whether this is comforting or disturbing when I see a photo of a woman on his nightstand. She’s tall and thin with long, black hair. Her bony hands rest on Twink’s young shoulders.

  It’s cute, but in a traveling-sideshow sort of way. The rest of the place is empty as an echo, nothing but car parts and grease scattered everywhere. I stop in the kitchen, stare out the window into the backyard.

  “Don’t freak out,” Jerusha says from behind me. “But I think we should check the basement.”

  I didn’t notice it when we came in, but there’s an open door, a light bulb dangling.

  “No, yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

  Jerusha flips the switch, heads down first.

  The place is filled with boxes and miscellaneous junk. At first I think maybe our Twink is a hoarder, but then Jerusha hands me a piece of paper.

  “Recognize this?”

  A big drop of blue water tightening a belt around itself stares back at me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Unfortunately.”

  “He’s got a frickin’ printing press down here.”

  Not only does he have the means to counterfeit water labels, there’s an exercise bike hooked up to a water-brewing system so advanced it makes Jerusha’s look like child’s play. Not to mention the bottled water. Boxes and boxes of it. All of it State labeled, ready to go.

  Twink’s a bootlegging genius.

  He could baptize a semi.

  “So I guess you’re in love, huh.”

  “I guess,” Jerusha says, caressing some of the plastic tubing.

  “Dustin,” I remind her and start back upstairs. “You can drool later.”

  The backyard is empty save for the corpses of a few old cars, so we scour the skeletal woods behind the shop, up and down the road we came in on. But there’s nothing. Jerusha is starting to look a little worried now, and I have to admit it’s freaking
me out.

  Jerusha never looks worried.

  About anything.

  Suddenly I feel like my parents are staring down at us, both of them wringing their hands, my mom shaking her head like she knew all along I’d never be able to take care of her little boy.

  Then we hear something.

  A howl.

  Of course.

  The swimming pool.

  We run and, once we get there, find a ladder leaning up against the side of the pool.

  The howls have now turned to giggles.

  It’s definitely Dustin.

  My heart has to catch its breath before I can climb up the ladder. When I peer over the top, I see Dustin and Twink wielding branches, circling one another.

  Twink is the first to spot me. “Teaching him the art of saber warfare!”

  “Yeah,” Dustin says. “And the war-cry of the Wookie!”

  “Wonderful,” I say into the chalky blue of the pool. “I’m so very happy for you.”

  Dustin waves his stick at me, does this annoying whirring sound. “Leave us alone now, you will.”

  “I thought Wookies didn’t talk.”

  “He’s right, young Padawan,” Twink says in this listen-to-your-brother sort of way that makes me want to climb down there and stick his light-saber up his butt.

  “It’s okay,” Dustin explains. “I’m part Wookie, part Yoda.”

  “You’re part dead if you don’t get out of there.”

  Dustin slashes the air in my direction, then spins around to face Twink, who, without so much as a glance in my direction, levels his weapon again.

  I give up, climb back down to Jerusha.

  To sanity.

  “He’s fine. Just a little annoying.”

  Jerusha eyes the swimming pool, whispers like maybe Twink will hear us. “What should we do about the stuff we found?”

  “It’s none of our business,” I say. “Unless, of course, you two want to swap recipes.”

  Jerusha seems to be considering this, is probably about to ask if I’d mind, when Dustin appears at the top of the pool with his stick.

  “Drop your weapon,” I yell, and, to my surprise, he does.

  Twink follows after, un-armed.

  He must have lost.

  “Sorry,” he says when he reaches solid ground. I expect him to be wheezing and out of breath, but he’s totally fine. “Dustin said he’d never been in a swimming pool before. I thought it might be fun for him.”