Fool on the Hill

by Matt Ruff

  “Sure,” Aurora said, putting her fork down. “I’m done.”

  “Good, Let’s go.” He stood up. “Sorry to rush off like this, George.”

  “That’s all right. You’ll probably be seeing me around on campus this semester.”

  “I hope we will. You’re teaching this year, right?”

  “That’s right,” George agreed. “I get to pass along some of my unpolished writing style. Should be fun.”

  Brian laughed politely. “Good luck. See you around, George.” Aurora stood up, gave George a small wave. “You take care,” she said. He nodded to her, and then Aurora and Brian were on their way out of the restaurant. As the front door swung shut after them, a voice spoke up behind George. “Now there’s an unhappy marriage shaping up.”

  George looked back at the sound. The ever-popular Wax was sitting alone while his newfound librarian went to powder her nose.

  “What do you mean?” George asked.

  “The expressions on their faces,” Wax explained. “The look in their eyes. It’s subtle, you understand, but it reminds me just exactly of my brother and my sister-and-law before they tied the knot. Bad shakes, my young friend.”

  “What happened to your brother and your sister-in-law?”

  “Too much tension. Made for a bad match. Third night of the honeymoon she got fed up and shot him in the leg. Hell of a thing; he hasn’t walked straight since.”

  Wax shook his head and sighed, then turned away. “You want to be a Good Samaritan, young man?” he added, giving his coffee a stir. “Steal that woman’s heart away for yourself—save that boy from a lifetime of limping.”

  “Right,” said George. He too shook his head—grinning—and a moment later went back to his pancakes.

  II.

  “How do I look?”

  “Absolutely ridiculous, if you want the truth.”

  “I’m serious, Blackjack. Do I look like a Purebred?”

  “You look like a neurotic dog who went and dipped himself in a mud puddle. Which proves that looks don’t always deceive.”

  The flatbed had taken them upstate, to the vicinity of a town the humans called Watkins Glen. Now they were walking due east, with only a short march left until they would be at the site of what Luther still insisted was Heaven.

  “Funny, I was expecting a much longer trip than it’s been,” Blackjack said. “But if Heaven is so close, Luther, then why even bother trying to disguise yourself? If it’s what you say it is, you won’t have any trouble with Purebreds there.”

  “This is just in case,” Luther told him. “You never know, Raaq might have some sort of guard around it, to keep dogs from getting in.”

  “But if Raaq’s guards kill you,” Blackjack pointed out, “won’t you wind up in Heaven anyway?”

  “Well . . .” The thought was unsettlingly logical, but Luther didn’t want to give up his disguise. “Well, I might, but there’s no sense taking chances.”

  “As you like it, then. But I think it’d take a pretty stupid Purebred not to notice there was something unusual about you, Luther.”

  Luther did, as Blackjack had said, look like he’d just been dipped in a mud puddle. He’d rolled in one, actually a thick brown pool left by recent rains. Two squirrels had watched him curiously as he’d done it. Now his coat stuck out and curled in odd ways that bore no resemblance to natural hair growth, but at least the color was uniform. On a good day he might have passed for a Terrier of some sort, a Terrier who had just bulled his way through a dirt wall.

  “I just feel more comfortable this way, Blackjack,” Luther said. “If Dragon were to walk by now, I bet he wouldn’t even recognize me.”

  “You’re probably right. Not that I plan on seeing him again, the way those ‘catchers were treating him. But you smell like shit. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some in that puddle.”

  “I don’t care about my smell. I can still smell Heaven, stronger than ever, and that’s what counts. We’ll be there soon, tomorrow maybe, and then everything will be fine. It’ll be so good to see Moses again. . . .”

  Blackjack said nothing for a moment. Part of him, the carefully guarded part where he kept his conscience and sympathy hidden, was beginning to wonder what would happen if they didn’t find Heaven. Obviously, the cat thought, they couldn’t find it, not the traditional Heaven anyway, and it was equally impossible that Moses would be there. The events of the journey had done nothing to dispel Blackjack’s atheism. If anything, the run-in with Dragon had strengthened his disbelief; surely no just God, or gods, would allow such mindless prejudice to exist.

  “Listen, Luther,” he began, “if . . . if Heaven really was only a short distance away from here, wouldn’t there be some sort of sign by now?”

  “Sign?”

  “Like the lights from the City reflecting off the clouds. Heaven ought to be bigger than Manhattan, at least, but still we haven’t seen any sign of it, any change. Oh, the air’s cleaner here, but it’s been that way for days. There’s no change in the countryside, no sign that we’re leading up to something big. And don’t you think there should be, if we’re so close?”

  “What you’re trying to say is, you still don’t believe I leaven exists?”

  Blackjack stared down at his paws.

  “And,” Luther went on when he made no reply, “you don’t want my feelings to be hurt when we don’t find it?”

  “Luther . . .” Still he did not look up. “Luther, you’re a good friend, and you know I don’t want to see you hurt, but . . . I can’t believe such a place is real. Not some big doghouse in the sky, full of angel-dogs or whatever and the souls of the dead. It’s too much like something you’d see in a dream, and it’ll take more than a short march for this landscape to melt into something dreamlike.”

  “Why did you come with me, if you didn’t believe we’d find Heaven?” Luther asked. The question was emotionless; Blackjack couldn’t tell if Luther was angry.

  “Because you’re my friend,” Blackjack replied, as if ashamed to admit his own emotions. “And maybe . . . maybe because I thought the journey might be worth it. Not that I minded living in the slums, you understand, that’s good ratting territory, but I could get enthusiastic about settling somewhere with real trees, and grass that doesn’t just grow up in the sidewalk cracks. I’m sure this place we’re going to is nice, Luther. Maybe even nice enough to justify this damn trip. I know your nose wouldn’t lead you completely wrong. But Heaven . . .”

  “You don’t believe we’ll find Moses, either, do you?”

  “No,” Blackjack said, as gently as he could. “I don’t think Moses exists anymore, except as a memory. That doesn’t lessen him any, though, because we’re all going to cease to exist sooner or later . . . sorry to be so blunt, but I don’t want you to be too disappointed when we don’t find him. I hope you aren’t angry with me.”

  “Angry?” Luther sounded surprised. “You’re just saying what you feel, Blackjack, and after all, you’re a cat. Even if you turn out to be right, that won’t be your fault. I know you don’t want Moses to not exist anymore.”

  “No, I don’t,” Blackjack agreed. “I want us to find him. But when we don’t—”

  “If we don’t,” Luther insisted. “Let’s say if, until we’re actually there. Who knows, it might still turn dreamlike. Maybe we’ll have to do something special, yet, before we’re really there. Like . . . I don’t know, like a cross a magic river, or climb a mountain. It smells like it’s got big hills, at least. You should really try to be more optimistic, Blackjack,” he said as they started off again. “I think things are definitely improving.”

  “This from a dog who looks like something out of a swamp.”

  “Blackjack, you—”

  And so it went, the two of them arguing back and forth good-naturedly as they made their final approach to Heaven.

  III.

  “Am I dreamin’?”

  Just past seven on the morning of the twenty-fifth. An Ithaca Po
lice patrol car was idling by a downtown intersection, watching an army on horseback ride up West State Street in the direction of The Commons. The rain had taken a short rest break, and the Bohemians appeared out of the mist like a phantom parade.

  “No, you’re not dreaming,” said the officer behind the wheel of the car. She was a slim black named Nattie Hollister; her partner, Samuel Doubleday, was pale, middle-aged, and had a remarkable rash of freckles on his cheeks.

  “They sure are colorful, aren’t they?” added Hollister.

  “Who are they? What are they, I should say.”

  “They call themselves Bohemians.”

  “Is that some new kind of Communist thing?”

  “Not exactly. They’re a good bunch, really. Never had to run one in.”

  Doubleday hawked and spat out the window. “Maybe they just never got caught. I don’t like ‘em.”

  At that point Ragnarok cruised in front of the patrol car on his bike. He saw Hollister through the windshield and raised a hand in salute.

  “God bless all Ithacops!” he cried.

  “Hail, Caesar!” shouted some of the other Bohemians.

  “You see? You see?” Doubleday growled. “Just like those fags down at The ‘Wave. No respect for authority.”

  “Oh, they respect us,” said Hollister. “They just show it in a unique way, that’s all.”

  “That one there,” Doubleday went on, as Z.Z. Top trotted by on his burro, “Marxist or child molester. No question.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself over it, Doubleday. They’re harmless. You want to cruise over to the State Diner and pick up some coffee?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure. As soon as this damn intersection is clear, that is.” His mouth was drawn down in an angry bow; Hollister was beginning to wonder if the man ever smiled. “Ah, hell!”

  “What now, Doubleday?”

  “It’s raining again!”

  Hollister threw back her head and laughed.

  IV.

  “Let’s hear it for the rain!” Lion-Heart cried as they rode through The Commons, and the downpour received a solid round of applause. They had been applauding everything from woodchucks to Greyhound buses for the past five miles, so happy were they to be back. For many of them, including Lion-Heart, this would be their last year at Cornell, and they wanted to start off on as positive a note as possible.

  Lion-Heart still led the way, Fujiko and Myoko flanking him, the other Bohemians and Grey Ladies following in a disorderly fashion. Sweeping through The Commons they cheered the row of stores, cheered the McDonald’s, cheered the sidewalks beneath them. In front of Iszard’s department store—which stood on the site of the old Ithaca Hotel—they encountered George, who had risen very early that day.

  “Morning, storyteller,” Lion-Heart said, nodding to him. He held up a hand, and the procession halted. “What brings you out? I thought we were the only ones crazy enough to beat the sunrise.”

  “What sunrise?” George said pleasantly, glancing up at the clouds. “Besides, I figured it was about time for you to be coming back. Got a welcome-home for you.” He hoisted a bottle of Midori up to Lion-Heart.

  “Well now,” the Bohemian King said. “Can’t help but respect a man with good taste in liquor.”

  “Hey George,” cried Z.Z. Top, trotting up to the front of the line. He held a newspaper in one hand. “Got a good one for you. You heard the latest from Chicago?”

  “No. What gives?”

  “All right,” the Top said enthusiastically. A fan of The Knight of the White Roses, he loved sharing odd news items with George. “Dig it, there’s this guy out to the Windy City owns a huge house in the suburbs, he comes home two days ago and the place is burning up. There’s not a fire truck in sight, and his kid, who’s been left home alone, is screaming out a top-floor window for Daddy to come save him.

  “So he’s a concerned father, he ought to just run in and see if he can save the kid, right? Only thing is he’s got this mental problem, he’s a what-do-you-call, a tri— . . . a trisko— . . . ah, fuck!”

  “Triskaidekaphobe,” Myoko offered.

  “Right! Right, that. Triskawhatever. Which basically means his asshole goes into toxic shock over the number thirteen. And there’s smoke pouring out of exactly thirteen windows of the house.”

  “He counted them?” George said skeptically.

  “Hey man, it’s right here in the paper, inquiring minds want to know. This guy’s house, it’s a special effects representation of the number thirteen, and his spinchter starts to get all tight . . .”

  “Nice, Top,” said Fujiko.

  “. . . and there’s no way in hell he can make himself go in, not even with his own child in line to be a barbecue. So he goes back to his car, see, gets a spare gas can out of the boot, grabs a pop bottle from the gutter, rips a strip off his Brooks Brothers suit, and makes himself a suburban Molotov cocktail. Lobs it into a part of the house that hasn’t been touched yet, whoosh, fire, smoke, the number thirteen becomes the number fourteen, his asshole simmers back down and now he can be a hero. Gets the kid out fine but the fire guts the house, and the final kicker is the insurance company doesn’t want to pay off because the guy committed arson, technically. They’re going to have one hell of a time in court with that one.”

  “Quite the tale.”

  “No shit. But if you put that sort of thing in one of your novels, zap!, into the penalty box for lack of realism.”

  George shrugged. “Can’t beat real life for suspension of disbelief.”

  “No shit. Lots of weird stuff going down in Chicago lately. We’ll have to get together for some beers, pop a few Black Label Lights while I tell you about it.”

  “Need a lift up The Hill, storyteller?” asked Lion-Heart, when Z.Z. Top was through.

  “No thanks,” said George. “Think I’ll hang out here a while longer.”

  “As you like. Hey, you got a woman yet?”

  George reddened the tiniest bit.

  “ ‘Fraid not,” he admitted. “I’m still trying, though.”

  “Yeah, well I got something for you, make us even for the Midori.” He brought out a velvet pouch, and from it produced a fortune cookie which he tossed to George.

  “What’s this?”

  “Open it, storyteller. Don’t ask questions.”

  George cracked the cookie open. He took out the slip of paper inside and read it aloud.

  “Beware the Ides of March,” he read, looking puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

  “Huh?” said Lion-Heart. “Shit, I must have given you the wrong one.”

  He rummaged again in the pouch and got another cookie. “Here.”

  This time the slip of paper inside made more sense.

  “ ‘Redeem for one (1) Woman of Your Dreams. This coupon void where prohibited by law.’ Wow. Just what I needed.”

  “Those are magic fortune cookies, storyteller,” Lion-Heart informed him. “I had this Wicca chick in SoHo make ’em up special for me. If that doesn’t help you, you might as well give yourself up as a lost case.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Li,” George said.

  “You just take it light, storyteller.” The Bohemian King gave his horse’s reins a shake and got moving again. “Come up Risley way and visit us sometime soon.”

  “I will,” said George. He moved out of the way and watched them go by, waving at those Bohemians that he knew, blushing when a Grey Lady named Kiri smiled at him. Soon they were all past, making a slow-motion charge up The Hill, first to the Cornell stables and then to Risley.

  George folded both fortune cookie messages carefully and placed them into a dry part of his wallet.

  Then he hunkered down under a storefront awning to watch the rain.

  V.

  Calliope arrived in Ithaca sometime during the rain, though only she could have named the exact hour. A small cottage awaited her in a grove along Triphammer Road, north of North Campus. It was cozy and suited her perfectly, though
she knew she wouldn’t be needing it for long.

  After putting away her few possessions she showered, washing away the smells of the road, almost polishing herself until her skin glowed. Clean, she investigated the cottage’s refrigerator and found the champagne and cheese, smiling at the discovery. Thoughtful of him. She ate and drank while the sun went down, its descent hidden by the cloud cover.

  Long after sunset she dressed in a pair of moccasins and a curious silver-threaded robe that looked like a cross between a kimono and a long cloak. She went out into the night.

  The rain had once again given way to mist, this time for good, and in her robe Calliope was nearly invisible. Three times she passed strangers on the road. None of them saw her, but each paused in her wake, feeling a deep sadness as if some great love had just been lost to them.

  Prudence Risley Residence Hall stood on the north edge of Fall Creek Gorge, to the left coming off the East Avenue bridge that led to Central Campus. The residents were holding a Mist Party in the rear courtyard, and the whole building blazed with light.

  Lion-Heart mingled and drank at the party for about an hour, then staggered out onto the front lawn to get a break from the music, a non-stop stream of “alternative” rock bands. Not that such groups weren’t good—most of them—but they were feeling, paradoxically, a little too trendy lately. Now that disco was officially dead, it might be a good idea for the Bohemians to resurrect it, just for the shock value.

  Sipping Midori from a shot glass, Lion-Heart stared drunkenly at the dorm. Erected in 1913 as a women’s dormitory, Risley had gone slowly radical over the course of the late Sixties and the early Seventies, eventually becoming a co-ed haven for misfits. Three years ago a conservative element had begun to creep in, and Lion-Heart, then a Freshman, had formed the Bohemians to combat it. True, much of what the Bohemians did was not original—Lion-Heart had freely borrowed clothing styles from the Greenwich Village neighborhood where he had grown up, as well as borrowing from his parents’ considerable Old World fortune to financé the cavalry aspect of the group—but the sight of a purple-garbed rider on a purple-maned horse was still different enough, even at relatively liberal Cornell, to raise eyebrows and restore Risley to its former reputation.