by Cadle, Lou
“My dad lived in a system that changed in his lifetime,” Ray said. “Blacks in South Africa—and people who were part black, like my dad—had no rights, and then they did. His father had very few choices of profession or where to live. My dad is a professor. He can date white women—and does, like he did my mom. So people can change things.”
“You’re right. They can. That’s a good example of it. I’ve been in places, though, where it’s hard to feel optimistic about change. Things have been bad for so long. And the people overthrow one awful dictator, and the guy who replaces him goes from good guy to bad guy in no time at all. I like it better when there’s a happy ending. Though no ending is really an ending. Life goes on, and the future will have more changes in store.”
“Books and TV shows and movies have endings.”
“It’s why they call it fiction,” she said, with a smile. “In real life, the only ending is individual. You die. But life goes on for other people. Life will go on for you after I die, for a good fifty years.”
“I hope you don’t die.” He meant it. She was interesting. Think of everything she knew. It seemed a waste to let that leave the world.
“If I figure out a way around it, I’ll drop you an email. Or text, or whatever you kids do these days. My implanted chip will tell your implanted chip the secret to immortality in ten years.”
“I guess it would be rude of me to ask how old you are,” he said.
“But you’re asking anyway.”
“I am. But you don’t have to answer. Or you can lie. It wouldn’t bother me.”
“Ah, so if I said I was a hundred and thirty, that’d be okay with you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t believe that.”
“Seventy-eight.”
Ray thought he was probably supposed to say he didn’t believe that either. Another polite social lie. She seemed about that old. “What was it like when you were my age?” is what he said instead.
“The world? Simpler in some ways. Just as confusing in high school as it no doubt is now.”
“You were confused?”
“About nearly everything.” She smiled again, as if remembering something amusing.
“You seem pretty on top of things.”
“I’m still confused, but about different stuff. But still, what are you, sixteen?”
“Fifteen, in January.”
“I wouldn’t be that age again for anything. It was painful. Not physically painful, like seventy-eight is, but wow, it was hard for me.”
“Really?”
“I suspect it is for most people.”
“Not for the popular kids, I don’t think. Like the football stars or head cheerleader or valedictorian.”
“For them too. And if it isn’t, they’ll grow up to be excruciatingly boring people. If the best thing that happened to you in your life is that you ran for a touchdown in high school or were elected beauty king or queen, and that came easy, and it was your best moment, that’s a pretty sad life.”
“I’d never thought of it that way.” Ray considered. “I guess I don’t think much about being a grown-up. Even college seems a long way off. It’s like this big question mark balloon hovering in the air on the horizon, but nearly out of sight.”
“Life always is a big question mark. I could stand up, trip over my shoelace, break a hip, and I’d be dead in a month or two. I could walk to the store next week and be hit by a bus.”
“Or good things might happen. You could win the lottery. Or—” He tried to think of a handsome actor of her age. “Um, Liam Neeson could show up on your doorstep and ask you to run off with him.”
She laughed so hard at that she ended up having to wipe her eyes of tears. “Oh dear. I do hope he likes driving in bad weather.”
Ray grinned. “You never know.”
“You do never know, but I think we can rule out Liam Neeson showing up. Or Robert Redford. Or Morgan Freeman.”
“How about Mick Jagger?”
“Never liked him. He can pass this house by. Also, I could believe that he’s a hundred and thirty, no matter what age he claims to be.” She chuckled at her own joke. “I’d take Neil Sedaka, maybe. If he’s still alive.”
“I never heard of him.”
“Oy vey,” she said. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have. I’m surprised you know who Mick Jagger is.”
“You can’t get away from classic rock,” he said.
“What do you listen to? Rap music, I guess?”
“Not a lot. I’m more into indie-alternative.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“I’ll play some for you one day when we have electricity again.”
“Do you play music? What instrument?”
“No. I don’t. I meant, I’ll play some on my phone for you.”
She shook her head. “Phones that play music. People may still be the same as they were sixty years ago on the inside, but you all have so many skills we couldn’t have dreamed of. I bet you can do pretty amazing things on your phone.”
“Not really,” he admitted. “I just do the regular things. Play games. Look up stuff. Text friends. Take pictures and videos. Call Mom.” Worry for her gripped him again. For a moment, settling in here, eating soup, and talking with Eve had made him forget. “I hope she’s okay.” He pulled out his phone and checked it. Still no service.
“I’m sure she is. Let’s stay distracted from our worries.”
“Are you worried about someone too?” He hadn’t stopped to think she might have someone like a niece to worry about. He was pretty sure she didn’t have kids. There were no photos around of kids.
“Just myself, selfish old bat that I am. I believe that we’ll be out of wood before the power is restored. Old bones get cold. In case your grandparents never mentioned that to you.”
“My dad’s folks are dead. His dad had a heart attack when I was in junior high, and his mom drowned when I was a baby.”
“That’s sad. How about your other grandparents?”
“They’re in Arizona now. I don’t see them a lot, and I don’t think they get cold there very often.”
“Have you been there to visit?”
“Once, so far. My mom isn’t super-close to them. I think they disapproved of her raising me on her own, and it kind of lasts to this day. Anger or resentment or whatever. She gets pretty tense whenever she talks to them.”
“But they love you.” It was a question.
“I guess so. I don’t think they disapprove of me existing. They thought my mom could do better with her life.”
“What do you think?”
“She definitely could have stayed in school. She might have gone on to be a professor or something herself, but for me. But I’m glad I’m here, and she says she is too, so I don’t know what to think. I can’t regret that I exist.”
“Does she like her job?”
“Sometimes.” He explained what she did. “I think she thought supervising would be easier, but there are still people yelling at her. It’s just the people she supervises rather than the customers.”
“It’s no fun to be screamed at.”
“She says she knows it’s not really her anybody is mad at. They’re just mad in general, and she’s in their way.” He’d never thought about it until this second, but maybe that was true of the kind of guys who’d follow you from school merely to mess with you. It had nothing to do with him, except that he might end up beaten up, if things went bad. But they would have done it to someone else, or kicked a dog, or something else angry, had he not been in their way. He wasn’t sure if the insight would help him in the future, but it felt like a good thought to have. It was more comfortable to think of himself as the victim of an accident rather than the specific target of someone.
“So how will we entertain ourselves today? I have a board game or two. Or there are books on the shelf. We could turn up the lantern and read.”
“What kind of games?”
“I have backgamm
on, a cribbage board, mancala, Go, Xianggi….”
“I don’t know how to play any of those. I haven’t even heard of half of them.”
“Do you play chess?”
“A little. I’m not very good at it. I mean, I can’t beat a computer set to the dumbest level.”
“Okay, maybe we can start with mancala, then. It’s a strategy game.”
“I like those,” he said.
“Mancala you can understand in a few minutes, though it’ll likely take a week to get good at it. Go has simple rules but it’s complicated, like chess. It takes years to master. Still, if you grow up and have a job that makes you interact with Japanese men, it would be a good skill to have.”
“Or Japanese women.”
She shook her head. “Fewer of those. Japan is a little behind the US when it comes to women fully participating in society, though Korea and Taiwan are much, much worse.”
“It’s amazing you’ve been to so many places.”
She rose and left the room, coming back a minute later with a small box. Inside it was a carved wooden board and some polished oval stones. They sat on the sofa together, the board between them on the center cushion, and she taught him the rules of the game. They played six games, and she won them all.
“Okay, I think I’m starting to get it,” he said.
“I had no doubt you would. You’re obviously bright.”
He was staring at the board and thinking, so he just nodded. Then he realized what he’d done, and how egotistical it seemed. “About some things. I don’t understand people very well.”
“We people are a puzzle harder than mancala or Go, that’s for sure.”
“Okay, let’s try again. I think I might do better this time.” And they played three more times, with him improving, but still not able to beat her.
The next game, when she was obviously going to win, she said, “Let’s switch. You finish the game from my position, and I’ll take yours.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Fair, schmair. It’s instructive. You’ll see.”
And it was. He had the superior position to start with, but he also had the chance to see how she worked herself out of a losing situation. Not far enough to win, which he did, playing her pieces, but it gave him more ideas. “Thanks. That was cool,” he said. “Can you teach me another game?”
“Of course,” she said. “Let me tend to the fire first.” She fed in two more logs and fiddled with the slider thing. “I’m going to let it get a little colder in here, to try and conserve the fuel as long as we can.”
“Okay,” he said. It was pretty cold already. His sense that it was warm had faded as he sat still. He had his extra blanket wrapped around his shoulders and wished he’d brought the plush throw, which would have been more comfortable than the scratchy blanket. But he was still far warmer here than he’d be at home. “I should check my house before it gets dark.” He pulled out his phone. Still no signal.
“Check the landline again. I doubt if it’s working yet, but it’s worth a try.”
He went to her kitchen, picked up her old fashioned phone and heard no dial tone. He returned to the living room. “I should go back to the house and check it before it gets dark. Maybe now. Make sure nothing else is wrong.”
“The trees aren’t falling like they were, thank God.”
He listened. “No, I guess they aren’t.”
“It was getting to me.”
“The noise? Or being scared of one falling on you?”
“The noise. It sounded like gunshots. That brought up bad memories.”
“Do you mean you’ve been around gunfire?”
“Twice. And I hope never again.”
“In a war?”
“One in a war zone—or a rebellion, I should call it. We should have been exfilled—taken out—but my supervisor at the time was a bit of an ass. Macho. He thought we could tough it out. We had to hide in this wet basement for more than two days, hoping and praying a rebel troop wouldn’t find us.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I didn’t mean to talk about it.”
“I’d be interested to hear about that.”
“Honestly, Ray, I wouldn’t be interested in saying more. It brings it back too vividly. As did the snapping tree branches.” She stared into the distance for a minute, and then seemed to shake herself out of the bad memory. “Probably all the weak trees have succumbed by now,” she said. “Let’s check the weather forecast.”
“How?” he asked. “Nothing is working. No electricity. No cell service.”
“I have a radio,” she said. “It’s for weather only, no music or news.” She went to the table behind the sofa where the lantern sat, and bent down, her knees popping. She opened a cabinet and pulled out a radio, pretty modern-looking, and held it while she turned a crank on it two rotations. “I should let you do that, with your younger hands.”
“Sure. Just turn it like this?” He went over and turned the crank on the radio until she told him it was enough.
She flipped it on. A robotic voice was in the middle of announcing the weather. It wasn’t like the news at all. No jokes, no serious tone of voice that reminded you of people acting in a high school play. Just the facts, read out robotically, though you could tell it was a real person, not a robovoice. Wind, temperature, precipitation forecast. And then it started again until it reached the point they’d tuned in. “That’s it,” she said, flipping it off. “Cold, and no more snow. But the wind will keep up.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“It would be better if it got over freezing, so the roads would melt on their own,” she said. “But we’ll take what we can get.”
“Will the roads be cleared soon, do you think?”
“I would imagine. With a lot of trees down, they might need to saw up the trees, and pull them out of the way before they plow and salt the roads. It might not happen fast.”
“I hope my mom can see my notes when she comes home,” he said. “Maybe I should go back there and wait for her tonight.”
“I doubt she’ll get home that soon, I’m sorry to say. Besides, I’d rather you stayed here,” she said. “For my sake as much as yours.”
“I think you’re helping me more than the other way around,” he said, feeling guilty once again for taking advantage of her and the woodstove.
“We’re helping each other. And it’s been some time since I played mancala, so I enjoyed that.”
“I did too,” he said. It was strange playing a game without a controller or phone in his hand. Retro gaming.
“I’ll teach you the basics of Go next if you want. But don’t expect to be an expert in a day. Or a year, even.”
“I won’t. The first game stumped me pretty good. And you hinted it was the easiest one.”
“The learning is easy on this next one. The mastery is hard.” She went to fetch the game board.
For another two hours, they played. She was right. The basic rules were simple, but he couldn’t get anywhere near to her level or even clearly see what she was doing.
“I think I’ll like this game,” he said. “I don’t get it yet, but I can see I’ll like it when I do.”
“You should find players on the computer to play it with. I think there are computerized versions, as with chess. Or you are always welcome to come over and play a game with me.”
“I’d like that,” he said, surprised to realize it was true. He wasn’t only being polite. She was an easy person to be with. It struck him that he’d made a new friend. Not the girl Julia, though she might become a friend one day. It was Eve who was his new friend. Funny. She was old, and a week ago he’d thought she was weird because she lived life differently than he did. But he liked her now that he knew her.
Maybe traveling around the world was like that. You met people who behaved differently, who had different rules, who ate with chopsticks or their bare hands rather than with a knife and fork, who looked right at you and shook your hand, or who bowed and look
ed away, or who dressed differently, but you could end up liking them despite those differences.
Chapter 12
Before night fell, he excused himself to go home and make sure his mom wasn’t home, and that nothing else had fallen on the house, and that nothing else had gone wrong. As he made his way through the dim rooms, nearly as cold as the outdoors, he felt strange, as if he was visiting the ruins of some former civilization. That was nonsense, of course, but the house felt dead, unlived-in already. And really, really cold. The walls cut the breeze, so it was warmer than standing outdoors, but it wasn’t warm. The ice in the sink hadn’t melted yet.
His notes for his mom were where he left them, untouched. Snow had drifted onto the kitchen floor, and he took a minute to sweep it up with a broom and dustpan and dumped it out in the sink.
Alone in the house, without the distraction of board games or conversation, he felt his worry for his mom grow and grow. Surely if something had gone terribly wrong, he’d have been told. If she was—his mind veered away from the thought, but he made himself have it, face it straight on—dead, like in a car accident, the police would have shown up to tell him, right? That’s what happened on TV. So she wasn’t dead. She was probably still stuck downtown, in her office, and the only thing keeping her there was that the roads weren’t cleared. This block wasn’t, for sure. No one had come along to cut trees or clear downed power lines or scrape the snow from the street today or put down salt. No one had tried to drive on it, though they’d fail to get far if they did.
He grabbed the soft throw from his bedroom before he left for Eve’s place.
On the way back, he went into the street and kicked aside the snow. There was still ice down there on the roadway, frozen solid, bumpy in a few places from where people had been driving down it a couple days ago when it first fell. In other places, it was smooth and clear, the dark surface of the road visible beneath it. Even if the temperatures rose to 33, 34, 35 degrees, it would still take a day or two for it all to melt. The drifts might be around for longer than that. What they needed was a day of 45 degrees, to make it all go away.