Not Fade Away

by Jim Dodge

  I didn’t finish bending his ear until we were passing the Dos Cabezas range. Joshua turned his attention from me to the mountains, then stuck his head out the window and craned his neck to look at the sky. When he sat back and settled himself again in the seat, he said, ‘There are many possible responses to being lost in the wilds. You can stay put and wait for help. You can build fires and flash mirrors and construct huge SOS signals by piling stones or dead branches. You can pray. You can hurl yourself off a cliff. You can try to find your way out by backtracking, or you can plunge on ahead. Or sideways. Or in circles. Or randomly, willy-nilly. I don’t think it probably makes much difference what method you adopt, though it is a reflection of character, and certainly an expression of style. The romantic is a dangerous impulse, easily confused with the most pathetic sentimentality, yet so wonderfully capable of a magnificence borne and illuminated not by mere endurance, but by a joy so elemental it will gladly risk the spectacular foolishness of its likely failure.’

  ‘So you approve?’

  ‘My approval isn’t required. I will confess I’m prey to such gestures myself, though they generally offend me with their excesses. A splash where a stroke would serve. The jelly of adjectives instead of the bread of a noun. Ah, but if the connection is made, the arc completed: what powerful grace! An eruption so marvelous a million spirits are joined!’

  ‘What you’re saying basically, if I understand it, is that my ass is up for grabs.’

  ‘You’re strafing a mouse, but yes, essentially.’

  ‘What about your ass, Joshua?’ I said. ‘Is it up for grabs, too?’

  He gave me a huge moonbeam smile, the kind we draw as children on the round faces of our imagination, U-shaped, the corners of the mouth nearly touching the eyes. ‘Of course my ass is up for grabs. It is a perpetual condition of asses.’

  ‘You don’t seem unduly concerned,’ I noted.

  ‘I’m not. I don’t care if it gets grabbed. I might not like it, of course, but I don’t care.’ He gave me a wonderful wink, convivial and conspiratorial, and at that moment, though I wouldn’t realize it till later, our journeys were joined. I’m sure Joshua had already recognized this and was acknowledging it with the wink – but then he was a chemist, and finally it was a matter of chemistry, of congruence and charge.

  As we started up Apache Pass, Joshua explained he was on something of a journey himself. As he talked, it became clear that Joshua was one of those eminently functional people who are remarkably crazy, a psychic equilibrium that few can sustain, and which may well constitute a profound form of sanity. Or may not.

  ‘I’m on an experimental field trip,’ he explained. ‘As a chemist it is one of my duties to stir the soup. Not to season it necessarily, but to keep it from sticking to the bottom and, not incidentally, to see what precipitates or dissolves. Perhaps I flatter myself in thinking I’m an agent of the possible, but we all suffer our vanities. Like your little orange man protecting himself with a piece of the puzzle. Classically it’s the catalytic burden, but why snivel or shrivel at the load when the trees can bear the wind with such grace, and the mountains bear the sky? “Don’t matter if the mule’s blind, just keep loading the wagon.” In that silver box burdening the back seat is a self-contained amplification system, from turntable to two powerful speakers. There is also a microphone hook-up. Primitive, really: twelve-volt DC, nickel-cadmium battery. Electrical amplification is a new force in the world and it needs to be assessed. Can clarity be made clearer by amplification? Is sound meant to be carried beyond the natural range of its source? Or are we about to start worshipping another overpowering technological distortion as some degraded puritanical form of magic?

  ‘My experiment is crude, but not without certain possibilities of elegant resonance. I intend to go to San Picante, a small village of perhaps ten thousand souls; it’s in New Mexico, out of Lordsburg and up through Silver City, in the Mimbres mountains. No trains have ever passed within ninety-four miles of San Picante. At approximately four o’clock tonight – or, more precisely, tomorrow morning – I will set up my amplification equipment and put on a recording of an approaching train – at full volume. I’ve tested it, of course, and the effect is quite impressive. I’m planning to do this in a residential area, and if a crowd gathers, I may hook up the microphone and make a few remarks.’

  ‘If I was you,’ I told him, ‘I’d make tracks. Some folks might be a little upset about getting the ever-loving shit scared out of them just so they can lose two or three hours’ sleep before they have to go to work.’

  Joshua inclined his massive head an eighth of an inch in acknowledgment. ‘I concur; that’s highly probable. But without that probability, how can we court the marvelous exception? Speaking as a true scientist – as opposed to those who line up to lick the tight ass of Logos, if you’ll forgive my justified vulgarity – I maintain a reluctant objectivity that I’m willing to abandon at any hint of the marvelous. In my first science class in college, we each looked at a drop of our own blood under the microscope. I saw a million women naked, singing as they ascended the mountain in the rain. Who’s to say what can happen when literally anything can happen? These people tonight may hear the train and walk radiantly from their houses, jolted into the reality of their being. But if their reactions confirm your grim predictions, you are a capable driver. Even excellent.’

  I noted my inclusion in his ‘experiment’ and took it as a shy invitation rather than an arrogant presumption. I was about to respond when Joshua pointed down the highway. ‘Look at that lovely live-oak. This is an outstanding tree. You look at it and immediately know it couldn’t be anywhere else. This tree could not be on television. That’s a good sign, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t know what to think, so I smiled and said, ‘Joshua, you’re crazier than I am.’

  He leaned his head back on the seat and shut his eyes as if preparing for sleep, but immediately leaned forward and looked at me. ‘George, my friend, when I was seven years old, living with my family in Wyoming, one day I was sitting in a mountain meadow examining the patterns the wind was making in the grass when a raven flew over my head and asked in one hoarse syllable, “Ark?” Having been a Sunday School regular, I was convinced this was the very raven Noah had sent out centuries before to seek out land – the raven that preceded the dove, remember, never to return? – and now, after what an unimaginably mysterious and exhausting journey, had found land but lost the Ark. I could feel its joyous message dying in its throat. So I set to work building an Ark in our backyard, using scrap lumber from a nearby construction site. It wasn’t much of an Ark, more of a pointed raft, but I worked on it with singleminded concentration and completed it within a week. Then I climbed aboard and waited for the raven to return. After three weeks of my absolute intransigence, my parents had me committed.

  ‘The doctors told me I had misunderstood. They said all ravens uttered a harsh croaking sound that could be easily mistaken for the word Ark. That, I thought, was fairly obvious. But they hadn’t been in the meadow with me; they hadn’t heard it. I understood their doubt, but not their adamant refusal to admit even the slightest possibility that they might be wrong. Nor could they offer textual evidence from the Bible of the raven’s fate, though it was impossible, they said, that this bird could’ve flown since Noah’s time, that it would have died of old age, and so forth. Despite this they claimed to believe in God. And yet they could not see, or refused to see, that if God could create the earth, and sky, and water, and stars, He could surely keep a poor lost raven aloft. Theirs was a disgusting violation of logic and an insult to intelligent inquiry. That’s why it’s a relief and a pleasure to meet people like you, people who understand––’

  ‘Joshua,’ I interrupted, not wanting him to think I was dense, ‘I notice you seem to have included me in your plans for tonight as the getaway driver, and I just want to keep things clear and plain. That’s sort of one of my rules for the trip: no bullshit.’

  ‘Tha
t’s rather bold,’ he said, blinking. ‘But I meant as a cohort and friend, not just as a chauffeur.’

  ‘I accept the honor of being your accomplice.’

  He broke into a smile I’ll never forget, that still shines on me sometimes with unexpected blessing. That smile was what I was agreeing to.

  ‘And,’ I added, ‘I hope you’ll accept my offer to continue on with me and make this delivery to the Big Bopper’s grave. I would welcome your company.’

  Joshua sighed. ‘There are lessons not even the wisest counsel can prevent us from learning. Nor should it. Each raindrop is different unto the river and equally waters the trees. After two years of pale green walls and apostate doctors I knew the raven wouldn’t come to me, so I went looking for it. I found it in the trees, in the sky, in the water, the flames, and in myself. I have built many arks for many ravens, burned many empty nests. I have some experience in these matters, George, believe me. I am no more a teacher than you are a student. But it’s best for both of us if I don’t accompany you. Yours is the journey of a young man. I’m nearly fifty. What help I might offer would merely obstruct you; my company would prove a distraction. Trust me when I say that you are much more essential to me than I am to you.’ He reached across the front seat and patted my shoulder. ‘You do understand?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said, stung at his refusal. ‘I don’t understand anything these days. I guess I do understand that you can’t drive and I can – which, if I understand it right, is what makes me necessary.’

  Calmly, patiently, Joshua said, ‘That’s a beginning.’ Then added, with a pointedness his patience couldn’t restrain, ‘It was an invitation, George, and can be declined.’

  I wasn’t sure if he meant his or mine, and decided it didn’t matter. ‘I thought I made it clear I’d be glad to help.’

  Joshua leaned closer. ‘Well then,’ he whispered, ‘let’s conspire.’

  It wasn’t much of a conspiracy. We’d pull into San Picante well after dark, find an appropriate neighborhood, Joshua would set up his equipment, we’d send a train screaming through the residents’ peaceful slumbers, Joshua would deliver his remarks, and then we’d split – and be prepared to do so triple-lickety in case of enraged pursuit. I had a few quibbles, questions, and doubts. About my fear that the Caddy was far too conspicuous for the job, Joshua argued that, on the contrary, it possessed ‘the perverse invisibility of insane proportion.’ As for its being stolen, he claimed this would make it harder to trace to us and, moreover, that the legal status of automobiles was an unnecessary burden on minds about to undertake an important scientific experiment. He did agree that I should smear mud on the license plates to ‘confound identification,’ though he personally felt we had nothing to hide and shouldn’t behave as if we did.

  I wasn’t particularly hungry myself but, playing the thoughtful host, asked Joshua if he was. He said he wouldn’t mind a milkshake, so we stopped at a Dairy-Freeze in Lordsburg and grabbed four shakes to go – vanilla for me; raspberry, butterscotch, and chocolate-chip for Joshua. I washed down four hits of speed with mine, seeing as how I’d be up late doing some tight work. Joshua declined my offer of the open speed bottle, claiming the milkshakes were sufficient. He drank alternately from the three cups, consuming them at an equal rate and with obvious pleasure.

  I pulled in at the local U-Save for ice, potato chips, and Dolley Madison donuts, then gassed the Caddy to the gunwales. As we headed into the mountains, I asked Joshua what he planned to say, assuming there was time for a speech. He said he had nothing in particular in mind; perhaps just a few general comments on the nature of reality and the meaning of life – nothing beyond what the moment might offer. Sounded an awful lot like me lying to Natalie and her friend about the word I’d whisper on the peak of Mount Shasta.

  On roads that narrowed as they climbed through the night, we talked about moments and what they might offer. We were an hour early in San Picante – a result, according to Joshua, of my driving faster than his calculations – but the town was already long asleep. Even Dottie’s All-Nite Diner was closed, a fact that for some reason irritated me and amused Joshua immensely. We cruised the small residential areas off the the main drag until Joshua found exactly what he wanted, ‘a pure-product middle-class tract subdivision, sumptuous with stunted dreams, ripe for the river.’ He said he could feel it, and I, more nervous by the minute, hoped he knew what he was doing.

  I parked in the shadow-deepened darkness of a large tree. Joshua took about fifteen heart-thudding minutes, nine hundred long moments, to get the sound system hooked up in the back seat. The battery, turntable, and amplifier stayed in the silver box; the speakers, which had some sort of adjustable metal tabs, were fitted into the open rear windows. Joshua hummed the sprightly ‘Wabash Cannonball’ as he worked. For my part, I worried, studying the county map I’d bought in Silver City while gassing up, and by the time Joshua had his instruments set up I’d memorized every possible escape route, from major roads to obscure hiking trails. I was looking for feasible cross-country routes when Joshua slung the microphone over into the front seat and then crawled over himself. ‘Are you ready for a ride in the patently unreal,’ he asked cheerfully.

  ‘I guess,’ I said.

  Joshua looked out the window. ‘I’m afraid this tree may cause some distortion in the sonic configuration from the right speaker. Can you back up about fifty feet?’

  In the interest of clarity, I kissed our cover goodbye and backed up as requested. As soon as I cut the engine, Joshua reached over into the back seat and hit the start switch on the turntable. I heard the record drop, then a whisper of static as the needle touched down.

  Joshua touched my arm in the darkness and whispered, ‘Isn’t this an amazing moment? Not the vaguest idea what will happen.’ Beside me, I could feel him swelling with happiness.

  You could hear the train coming far down the tracks, wailing on fast and hard and louder than I ever imagined it would be, mounting to a crescendo that was everywhere and right on top of you at once, its air horn blasting you out through the roof of your skull. I’m telling you, the fucking street shook. The Caddy started flopping like a gaffed fish, bucking so bad I instinctively jumped on the brakes. I knew that train was a fake, an utter hoax, and it still scared me shitless. I cringed to imagine the havoc inside those sleepy houses, houses never rattled by the roar and rumble of the railroad. I glanced over at Joshua. His eyes were mild, lips parted, but as the silence gathered mass in the wake of the ghost train’s shattering passage, before the muffled screams and curses issued from the houses and lights flicked on randomly down the street, a tiny smile lifted toward his cheekbones as he bent his head to the microphone like a man about to pray.

  Directly across the street I saw a grimacing face flash behind a parted curtain, then heard more shouts and shrieks. Imagined many trembling fingers dialing numbers that are found in the front of phone-books under In Case of Emergency. I hoped Joshua wouldn’t literally wait for a crowd to gather. A front door two houses down flew open and a huge man in rumpled pajamas lurched out onto the front lawn brandishing a baseball bat. He didn’t seem radiantly transformed to me; on the contrary, he appeared monstrously pissed. I was reaching for the ignition when Joshua’s voice, amplified to a deafening roar, stunned the night: ‘REALITY IS FINAL!’ He paused, then added softly, ‘But it is not complete.

  ‘How could it be complete without a Mystery Train hurtling through our dreams? How could it possibly be complete without imagining that together we have all dreamt it up, to make it real, so that at this moment, right now, our entire lives could come to this? A rather provocative state of affairs, don’t you think?

  ‘The train we dreamt of was the Celestial Express. I don’t know about you, but my arms are tired from trying to flag down the Celestial Express. The train we dreamt of was an old freight hauling grain, refrigerators, newsprint, tractor parts, munitions, salt. The train we dreamt of was the Dawn Death Zephyr, burning human breath and broke
n dreams for fuel. The train we dreamt up was the raw possibility of any real train we want to ride.

  ‘All aboard! All aboard that train!

  ‘But of course we’re already all aboard. That is the practicality of the joke. A joke, I promise you, that wasn’t intended to demean you as fools or scare you witless, but rather to illuminate your own face in the rain and hear the thousand songs in your blood. To perhaps touch your mother’s breast the way you did, a week old in a magical world – her clean mammal warmth most magical of all. To refresh the magic. The real magic of holding each other in our real arms.

  ‘We hurt each other. We help each other. We kill each other and love each other and generally seem to suffer the slaughter of bored failure in between. We treat others – people, plants, animals, earth – with contempt, deceit, unbound venality, slobbering greed. What faith we muster is often blind with self-righteousness or merely a garbage can lid to keep the flies from making maggots, the dogs from scattering our trash on the front lawn, our dirty little secrets and decaying shame displayed for all to see. And then a small child cuts a crooked cherry limb for a sword, lifts the garbage can lid for a shield, and sallies forth to vanquish the real dragons guarding the real grails, the empty grails depicting in precious stone the marriage of the sun and moon.’

  Joshua paused a long moment, the echo of his last words rolling down the valley, then continued with a boom: ‘I’m not talking about religion. I’m not trying to sell you a ticket on the train. I’m neither owner nor conductor; I’m a passenger just like you. Maybe some seats on the train are better than others, but all religions are basically the same. After that, the churches and temples fill with accountants, warriors, and delusion – and, quite frankly, I would have them fill with rivers, with ravens, with real wishes.