by John Varley
“Den I had dis idea, me. An’ you watch, it gonna make us a fis’ful a money!”
[82] “So it’s called the Squeezer?” Dak asked him.
“It is? Who said dat?”
“You did.”
Jubal thought back, then laughed.
“I guess I did. How ’bout dat? De Squeezer. I guess dat’s right. Now watch.”
He took one of the bubbles out of the jar and placed it in the air. It just hung there, drifting in random air currents. But Jubal worked some controls on his device and suddenly it jerked to the left.
Jubal waved it back and forth, and the bubble stayed out there as if it were impaled on the tip of an invisible sword.
“Really neat, Jubal,” I told him.
“Dat ain’t nuttin’. Watch dis.” He turned one of the wheels of the game controller and the bubble shrank down to the size of a marble, then a BB. “Don’ wan’ get her too small, no,” Jubal said. “We lose her for sure.”
Dak moved closer, and he looked at the bubble as if he found it offensive.
“That’s why you call it a Squeezer?” Dak asked.
“Dat’s why. Now, stan’ back, cher.” Dak did. Jubal fired the trigger mechanism on the other game controller…
… and I must have jumped a foot. It sounded like a gunshot.
“Goodness gracious, as my grandma used to say,” Dak breathed. “That was one powerful startlement.”
Jubal laughed. Kids love to sneak up and go “Boo!”, and so did Jubal.
“So where did it go?” I asked.
“Didn’t have nowhere to go to,” Jubal said, “since it not here in de firs’ place.”
“Run that one by me again, Jube,” Dak said.
“Wouldn’t it leave a… a skin or something?” I asked. “Like a popped balloon?”
“ ’Cep’ it ain’t no balloon!” Jubal crowed, enjoying himself.
“Well, it’s something, isn’t it?” Dak asked. Jubal folded his arms and smiled.
“Like I say, never was cain’t go no place.”
[83] “Yeah, that’s where it… where it isn’t. But what isn’t it?”
“Dat depend on what yo definition a isn’t is, cher.”
We finally got him to say the silver bubble was a field of some sort. Nothing could get into it.
“So, ma fren’s, you buy one dese, somebody give you da chance?”
Dak and I looked at each other.
“What, one of the gizmos there, or one of the bubbles?”
Jubal pointed to the Squeezer, still grinning broadly.
“I sure would,” I said. “If I could afford it.”
“I don’ t’ink it cos’ too much, no.”
“Whatever you say, Jube,” Dak said. “If you can build a man-sized robot cheap, why can’t you build a… dammit, Jubal, just what is it? What is it doing?”
But Jubal folded his arms and turned away from us.
“You bes’ be goin’ now, ma fren’s.”
It took me a moment to realize he was kicking us out. Dak had warned me, but it left me off balance. A thing like that ought to come after some argument, or name calling, or something. Dak and I were completely mystified.
“Jubal? Are you okay? Because I didn’t-”
“Y’all jus’ go ’way now, hear? I can’t talk to y’all now.”
“But Jubal…”
“Come back later. A few days, mebbe.”
I took Dak’s elbow and started pulling him away. He didn’t resist, but kept looking over his shoulder all the way to the door.
“Was it something I said?”
“I think so,” I told him. “Travis said something about cursing around Jubal.”
“Sure, and I cleaned my act up. When he’s around I haven’t been saying… Wait a minute. You think we got kicked out because I said ‘dammit?’ ”
“That’s my guess.”
“Well gah-da …” He stopped himself. “How am I supposed to talk if I can’t say… that word?”
“It’ll be tough,” I agreed. “But we can do it.”
[84] “Hel… heck, Manny, I know some dudes can’t put a sentence together without saying motherf-”
“You know, that one offends me, too.”
“-three times. It ain’t my own favorite, tell the truth, but it plain old don’t mean much anymore. If you call someone a moth… a MF, that’s one thing, but mostly people just use it as an all-purpose modifier, ‘MF this, MF that, MF the other thing.’ ”
“You don’t have to sell me on it, Dak. I agree. But it looks like if we’re going to spend any time around Jubal, we’re going to have to really watch our mouths.”
“Crazy, man. Plum crazy.”
“What’s crazy?”
I was startled, and looked up to see Travis, Kelly, and Alicia coming up the path from the lake. The girls had windblown hair, though I don’t recall a lot of wind while we were studying. They must have been really moving along in whatever kind of boat Travis had, the one we’d heard roaring away a few hours ago. Their faces were shiny and flushed from sun, wind, and UV blocker.
Fishing? I doubted it. I was so jealous I could have spit.
Dak told Travis what he’d said, and Travis nodded as he set his rod and reel and tackle box on the big patio table.
“That was it, boys. Jubal won’t hold with ‘blasphemin’, cursin’, swearin’, nor the utterin’ of obscenities.’ Learned that in the cradle, he did. Some of them he can just frown and pretty much ignore, but anything worse than ‘damn’ will send him into a silent depression that can last three or four days, sometimes.”
“Jeez-” I started to say.
“Watch it,” Travis warned. I slapped a hand over my mouth.
“You mean…” Dak had to pause as he contemplated the enormity of it. “You mean ‘damn’ ain’t the bottom of the scale? It ain’t the mildest… cussword there is?”
“Best not to take a chance, Dak,” Travis said, taking a big rattan creel from Kelly, who had slung it over her shoulder. “Myself, I avoid heck and darn and gosh. Jubal feels… more accurately, Jubal’s father felt those were just euphemisms for hell and damn and God. Not that a [85] word like ‘euphemism’ ever had a chance to settle in Avery Broussard’s head, ignorant, pious, brutal, hypocritical swamp rat that he is.”
“So what can we say?” I wanted to know. “I guess we’d just better flush all those expletives we use in a normal day.”
“Not a bad idea. But what I try to do is substitute some harmless word instead. And you know, everybody knows, there are times nothing but an expletive will do. Like, you hit your thumb with a hammer.” He put his thumb on the table and mimed hitting it with a hammer.
“ ‘JEEZ! … us loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…’ ” Everybody laughed. Travis was not the world’s best singer.
We made lists of words we could safely turn to when we wanted to say something we normally would express with a curse or an oath. Words like swell, and whillikers, and gloriosky, and rats, and glory be!
But that was later, because first Travis opened the creel and spilled six big catfish out onto the table, still gasping for air. Dak was trying not to gape, trying to be cool.
“No bass?” he asked.
“We tossed the bass back,” Alicia said. “Decided to let ’em grow a little more.”
“So… how do you cook those ugly things?”
“Thought we’d deep-fry ’em in cornmeal, sweetie,” Alicia said, and Dak looked as if he might faint. I probably did, too, because I realized at that moment I was starving.
Alicia and Travis cleaned the fish… and did most everything else, none of the rest of us being very good cooks. When it was all done Travis set out six places. We heaped our plates with golden crisp catfish filets, mashed potatoes, okra, and hush puppies. I saw Kelly about to dig in so I patted her hand and shook my head when she looked up. I had a hunch. Travis saw me, and tapped his glass of white wine.
“This isn’t for me, folks, but t
he fact is, Jubal won’t eat any food that someone other than himself hasn’t said a prayer over. I’ll do that now, unless one of you has words you’d like to say.”
I bowed my head, and was surprised to hear Alicia’s quiet voice. It was so quiet, in fact, that I couldn’t hear the words, but she sounded sincere. I did hear the last:
[86] “ ‘… and the wisdom to tell the difference.’ And bless this food. Amen.”
“He won’t come down to eat, Travis?” I asked.
“ ’Fraid not, Manny. He’ll hole up there the rest of the day.”
I got up and picked up his plate. Travis grabbed my sleeve as I passed him, and said, close to my ear, “He won’t take it, but don’t leave it on the stoop. It brings the raccoons.”
I went on, not sure now if I should have volunteered. But I knocked on Jubal’s door anyway, and he answered on a speaker I hadn’t noticed before.
“Suppertime, Jubal,” I said.
“T’ank ya kinely, Manny. Did Travis bless it?”
“Alicia did.”
“Den t’ank her kinely, too. Manny, I don’ feel so good, me. T’ank whosomever cooked dem vittles, if you please.”
“I’ll do that, Jubal. And Jubal… we’re sorry. We won’t let it happen again.”
“Not yo doin’, not yo fault. I jus’ a little crazy, me.”
I put the food just inside the door and went back. Best catfish I ever had.
“If you know Jubal won’t eat it,” Dak said at one point, “why have Manny take the food up there?”
“Because it’s important to make the offer, meathead,” Alicia said.
“Same reason that I, an atheist, had a prayer said over it,” Travis said, nodding at Alicia. “If Jubal did take it, he’d want it blessed. I try not to lie to Jubal. He’s had enough lies for three lifetimes.”
Nobody pursued that one. We cleaned the plates. Hell… I mean, whillikers, we cleared the whole table, and topped it all off with a berry cobbler Alicia made. I figured if I came out here much more I’d have to start watching my waistline.
10
* * *
MY PHONE RANG at three A.M. the next morning. I almost didn’t answer it, but after eleven rings I figured whoever was on the other end wasn’t going to give up easily.
“Hello?” I said, and yawned.
“Manny? Travis. I wonder if you could do me a big favor?”
I was sitting up now, fully awake. “I’ll sure try, Travis. What is it?”
“I wonder if you could come on out here to the ranch.”
“Come out… what, you mean now?”
“If you could. It’s pretty important.”
“Gee, Travis, I don’t know…”
“It’s about Jubal.”
“Is he all right? Did something-”
“Please, Manny, just come on out. I can explain when you get here. Take a taxi if you have to. I’ll pay.”
“No, Travis, I mean, sure, I’ll come, but-”
“Thanks a million, pal.” And he hung up. Kelly rolled over and sat up.
“Travis?”
“Yeah, he wants me to go out there. Tonight. Right now.”
[88] “That’s what happens when you have weird friends,” she said, and bounced out of bed. “Let me wash my face and comb my hair, and we’ll both go.”
WE STOPPED FOR two giant Starbucks espressos and a dozen Krispy Kremes, then hit the road.
The place looked a lot better in the dark this time. It’s amazing how much difference changing a few burned-out lightbulbs can make.
The tennis court, pool area, and paths to the barn and to the lake were now lit by lights on poles. Moths and June bugs battered themselves to death on them, and bug zappers hung all around the patio.
But the biggest difference was in the pool, all cleaned out and full of beautiful blue water, lit from below. I wished I’d brought my bathing suit.
Dak and Alicia arrived not far behind us. We went in through the patio screen door and found Travis sitting in the sunken conversation area, fully dressed. There was a bottle of Jim Beam on the table at his side, and a tumbler half full. Alicia made a face when she saw the bourbon, but she didn’t say anything.
Sitting on the coffee table was Jubal’s 7-Eleven jug of golf-ball-sized indestructible silver bubbles.
“So where’s Jubal?” Dak asked at last.
“Jubal is out rowing on the lake. It’s what Jubal always does when he’s upset. You probably noticed the size of his arms. Jubal rows a lot, and it’s usually my fault. It certainly is tonight.
“I’d like to know everything y’all know about these things.” He looked from one of us to another, right down the line. “Unless you’re going to tell me you don’t know anything about them.”
I told him everything I had done with the bubble since finding it in the tall grass not a hundred feet from where I was now sitting. It didn’t take too long. I deferred to Kelly, who had very little to add, and then to Dak, who confirmed what Jubal had shown us of the nature of the bubbles, and some attempt to report what Jubal had said.
Alicia was one of those females, like Mom and Maria, who can’t [89] stand seeing people sitting around with nothing to eat or drink. She had been listening to us from the kitchen and came out now with a big pot of coffee and some cookies she had brought with her. There was oatmeal and brown sugar covering up the taste of the other health store stuff I’m sure was in there.
Travis took a deep drink of his bourbon, looked at the bottle, then at Alicia, and reached for a coffee cup. Alicia filled it, looking happy as a prohibitionist who’s just set a barroom on fire.
“Okay, friends,” Travis said. “Did I say friends? Well, Jubal likes you. If it was up to me, I might just chase all y’all’s asses back to the beach where I found you-”
“You found us?” Alicia snorted.
“-where I found y’all, illegally rampaging up and down a public beach that innocent citizens were sitting on, minding their own business. But it happens I kind of like you, too, and I can’t really figure how any of you did anything wrong… except I wish you’d a told me about this. I might have handled Jubal better.”
“You really think so?” Kelly asked.
“… Probably not. Anyway, things would be so much simpler if none of y’all had seen these things. But you have. And Jubal wants you to keep coming around. That’s one area I’ve failed Jubal miserably, not bringing new folks around for him to visit with. Jubal’s frightened of other people, often as not, but both of us know if he doesn’t socialize now and then he’s likely to grow a hide so tough he won’t be able to talk to anybody else, ever. And I’ve pretty much used up all the old friends I used to have, which may be why I’m trying to be friends with as unlikely a group as y’all. Anyway…
“I reckon I’d better tell you a little more about Jubal. About me and Jubal. I’ve told this stuff to no one, nobody at all outside the family, and I wouldn’t be telling y’all if Jubal hadn’t said he didn’t mind. So here goes.
“My friends, it ain’t easy being Jubal…”
* * *
[90] TRAVIS’S UNCLE AVERY Broussard was a few years older than Travis’s father. When Avery was young he had been Travis’s favorite of his six uncles. Of all the Broussard brothers and sisters, Avery lived closest to the land. He taught his sons and nephews to get along in the woods and swamps of Louisiana bayou country. It was Avery who always found the time to take the kids out in the middle of the night frog-gigging or jacklighting deer. Travis said he was nine before he realized jacklighting-shooting deer frozen in car headlights or powerful spotlights-was illegal. Avery just laughed at that, and said it was okay because they intended to eat the meat. It was just an easier way to put food on the table, and he wasn’t surprised that the city boys and girls who never in their lives killed for the table would want country boys like him to hunt the hard way.
“Just think about it, cher,” Avery said. “Dem city boys, what dey be cryin’ ’bout is it ain’t fair to d
e deer. Ain’t fair!” He had a good laugh at that one. “I tell you, I druther be shootin’ at dem deer not movin’ dan jus’ run all over God’s miraculous creation findin’ a deer wasn’t nothin’ but just winged, and him hurtin’ powerful all dat time. No, sir, Avery Broussard hasn’t never missed no deer caught in de headlights. What is dat, if it ain’t ‘perventin’ cruelty’ to animals, hah?”
So they jacklighted and dodged the game wardens through the tangled bayou that Avery knew better than anyone else. And during the day, Avery would take them hunting for coon, possum, and squirrel. They raised their own rabbits. He would take them out on the water to run the trotlines and crawdad traps, fish for catfish and trout and alligator gar and just about anything else they could wrestle aboard a rickety pirogue, including alligators when the game warden wasn’t in the parish. It was a Huck Finn life, and one that Travis and all his brothers liked a hell of a lot more than their own situation in town, in Lafayette, where their father, Emile Broussard, worked as a pipe-fitter.
They could all see the differences in the two families, but for many years it didn’t seem to matter. Emile’s family had enough money, a car, good clothes and food, a great house, all courtesy of wages and benefits negotiated for him by the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union. Avery, on the other hand, had nothing. His children dressed in rags [91] and hand-me-downs from his brothers’ families, and were lucky to have one pair of shoes. But Avery didn’t seem to mind, and neither did his kids, who hardly ever wore shoes, anyway. In fact, any jealousy went the other way. Even Emile admitted that sometimes he wished he’d opted for the independent life, living off the land. Most of the time the living was good out there in the bayous, and when it wasn’t Avery had a large family that would pull him through the tight spots. Avery always repaid the help he got in fresh eggs, fish, rabbits, whatever the bounty of nature was producing at the time.
During those golden years, Jubal was Travis’s best friend. Travis was three years older and it should have made a difference, except that Jubal was the smartest person Travis had ever known, child or adult. And Travis knew something about being smart, he was far and away the best of his class in every subject he took.
