by Unknown
“All right, all right. I get it.” George chuckled. “It ain’t like you to get all wound up. Now, you gonna offer me a seat?”
Leonard pointed at the empty rocking chair. George accepted. He placed his gun on his lap then poured himself a glass of lemonade. “You can’t do this, Leonard.”
“I did, George.”
“You can’t…”
“I did!”
George brought the glass to his lips, more to keep himself from arguing than to quench his thirst. He knew this was not going to be easy, but he set the glass back on the table and tried again. “How’d you find this place?”
“Five years ago we brought in that guy who came back to convince his great-grandfather to buy land that had future coal mines. I liked the area, the time, and did some research.”
“Research?”
“Yep. Dug around through some paperwork. Owned by the government until the mid-nineties. I bought it a month ago, this timeframe. Since I have no next of kin when I die, the government will get it back again.”
“That could happen sooner than you think.” George turned to his friend and tried to look him in the eye, but Leonard’s gaze refused to stray from the waning sun, falling toward the horizon. “This is barely a step above primitive times. You catch a common cold and you could be fighting for your life and…”
“It is the twentieth century! There are doctors and hospitals here.”
“And they’re all backward compared to what we have. I’m retiring soon, too. Come on back with me. I don’t want to be a hundred by myself.”
Leonard snapped his head around so fast George placed his hand on his gun. Eyes wide with fear, Leonard said, “Well, I don’t want to be a hundred, George. It’s not natural. To work all your life for a garbage pension, only to have some… some… some… ‘assisted living care facility’ drain it all away while being stuck in a bed with tubes and wires and… and… no! It’s not right.”
Turning away from his friend, Leonard pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. George knew Leonard, knew he fought hard to keep the tears at bay. After a few cleansing breaths, Leonard returned his gaze to the horizon, the sun’s slow journey toward surrender.
Weighed down with guilt, George’s eyes fell to his lap. He tore through his mind, tossing aside thoughts and ideas, looking for any kind of life preserver to throw to his friend. With a chuckle, he found one. “You could be your own grandfather, ya know. Doesn’t that conundrum bake your noodle just thinking about it?”
“Ha!” Leonard replied, unable to stop a smile. “All my relatives are still in Europe right now, then later settled on the West Coast. Nowhere near here.”
“That doesn’t mean…”
Leonard cut his friend short by closing his eyes and inhaling through his nose. “This is the best time of day for them.”
“Them?” George asked, again sliding his hand over his gun. “Them who? Where?”
“Shut up and smell.”
George did as instructed and inhaled. Coming from a time and place where heavy perfumes and synthetic scents clung to the thick odors of trash, exhaust, and decay, he couldn’t comprehend what wafted along the breeze. Uninhibited, a light aroma of sweetness danced through the air. His mind searched for a memory that did not exist. This seemed like a flower of some sort, but even they were mass-produced from where he came. He inhaled until his chest hurt; not wanting to exhale, but he acquiesced and whispered, “Amazing.”
“Honeysuckle,” Leonard said. “Whole bushes of them line the forest around the farm. They smell the best this time of day.”
George looked down, fiddling with his gun. “Be that as it may, Leonard, you still can’t be here.”
“Why not?”
Fighting back his emotions, George replied, “Why not? Did you just really spend twenty-five years doing what we do and ask ‘why not?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. How about your SS number? Cash? People asking too many questions? Not to mention fitting in here with barely half of the technology you’re used to.”
Leonard laughed in a pompous way, knowing the answer to a riddle his friend could not even fathom. “Social security number? This is before the damn ‘socialess’ security system even came to be. I bought this house and land with cash by putting a big ‘X’ on the deed. People in this area don’t ask questions. And I’m here to get away from all the technology I’m used…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” George interrupted. “You have cash? From now?”
“Yep. Spent the last two years buying it off the internet. It’s crazy, you know. Each of these dollars cost me two of our dollars, but can buy the same amount of stuff that it would take five of our dollars to buy. Now that is a conundrum that bakes my noodle.”
They both laughed, a laugh they had not shared in years. George looked at Leonard’s smile and knew he was happier now. Marble needed to be ground hard before it could become polished, and George saw that in Leonard’s eyes, his whole demeanor. This was where Leonard belonged.
Leonard’s laughter faded to a satisfied smile as he turned his attention back to the horizon. “Watch this sunset, George. You’ll be amazed. It’s nothing like our twilight back home, this is a real … real … sunset. When it’s my time to go, this is what I want to see. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah,” George whispered as he watched the horizon, finally understanding his friend.
The yellow shifted to orange, then to a red so brilliant George thought he must have been in a dream. The clouds burst into flame only to be extinguished by deep purples moments after the sun dipped below the horizon. Never had he seen the sky bend hues such as this, barely comprehending anything beyond the tarnished gray skies of his time. Then came the calm blue of the end, the deepness of an ocean spilling upward and filling the heavens. This was a good time. This was the right time, and it was time for George to leave.
In the blink of a tear-slicked eye, George was home, back to the time in which he belonged. He walked to the balcony of his one-bedroom apartment located in a building so tall, in a city so cramped; he could not see the sidewalks below. He watched the twilight, a miserable and dull ocher jaundicing to a miserable and dull blue, the myriad city lights reducing blackness to just another thing of the past. The night air, filled with the blaring ambiance of car horns, sirens and thumping music, forced the stench of fumes and garbage into his nostrils.
He massaged his hand, as it would be numb for three days, and remembered a time of honeysuckle and sunsets…
Doc
Barry Pomeroy
He wasn’t sure he worked for Bob, as he called him, driving back and forth across the abutment, or whether he’d worked for him before, and now had kept the habit, even though their purpose had been lost. Whatever the reason, he would climb on the increasingly ratty but powerful cart Bob had put together—or found. They would set out along the bridge, where Doc counted the four gaps in the railing until they reached what was left of the highway. There they would gently ease the cart over the washout and the debris onto the tarmac.
They would carefully avoid the edge where huge sections could fall away, silently, the ocean a glutton picking away at the edge of a crumbling cake. It was a matter of time before the highway fell off the cliff into the sea, and before the bridge, whose suspension cables were weaker every time they drove across, dropped into the gulf below.
Bob drove as if this was not the case, and Doc found Bob’s optimism refreshing. So it was that every day, Bob, in good humour or downright surly, would drive out onto the bridge to collect Doc, and they would set off, winding around whatever new obstacles had fallen from above in the night, and keeping on the outlook for Mickey.
Mickey lived somewhere in the divide between highway and bridge, and Doc and Bob had accepted him as a natural hazard of their ‘patrol’. Tearing out of a side hill, or up from the dirt itself, it seemed, Mickey would try to capsize the cart. Doc wasn’t sure if Mickey had always done this, but it had bee
n often enough. When Doc mentioned to Bob that Mickey looked like Mickey Rooney, Bob’s response had exactly that shade of boredom and patience one would have after hearing the suggestion many times.
If pressed, Doc was uncertain of many details about his life. He had no idea why he was called Doc, and other than the patrol, wasn’t sure where Bob fit into the picture. Bob patrolled every day, although the timing was uncertain, and every day Doc climbed up beside him, where it seemed, regardless of how he had acted, Bob would either be friendly or nasty. Clambering aboard today, Doc got turned around in all the levers and hoses and couldn’t find where to sit. When he reached forward to turn the thick metal key, which resembled the switch for a children’s toy, he twisted it to the left and the cart coughed a few times and stopped.
“What . . . hell . . . think . . . doing?” This was one of Bob’s upset days, and Bob reached forward to turn the cart back on.
“Sorry. Forgot. Thought it was my key day.” Doc knew every explanation would sound lame, but he couldn't seem to stop from providing one. In fact, when the dirty hand, with a rope wrapped around its wrist and torn knuckles, had reached forward, Doc thought it was Bob’s hand, but thought better than to mention it. If Bob had meddled with the switch, then he obviously didn't want to admit it, and if the hand had been Doc’s own, and he looked into his lap to check, then it was best not to argue.
He tried to focus on what Bob was saying, but the collection of words seemed random and he only understood one here and there amongst the mumbles that seeped through Bob’s moustache and beard. “I don’t know . . . hell . . . my cart . . . understand. Damn you.” The last exclamation was clear, for true to form, near where the dirt was piled at the entrance to the bridge, Mickey had appeared, waving rags, unless his arms were wrapped in rags, and yelling. A rock slammed into the cart and Bob sped up in response, almost tipping them over as they reeled past Mickey.
“He does look like Mickey Rooney,” Doc said, then instantly regretted it.
“Yeah,” Bob said clearly, “he looks . . . Mickey Rooney.” Then he seemed to lapse into a singsong voice, as though he were imitating a broken collection of quotes, “Maybe . . . should call . . . Mickey, . . . looks like Mickey Rooney, maybe . . . call you Bob.” Bob glanced over and seemed to be disappointed that Doc didn’t react. It made sense to call someone what they appeared to be and Bob was a fine name.
They finished their first pass by circling where the highway ended, and Doc saw Bob look for a long time across the gulf to where the highway started again. Finally, he engaged whatever mechanism that made the cart work, and spun away from the ragged, dangerous tarmac. Far below they could easily hear the waves spraying on the rocks, even above the sound of the cart.
Doc felt like asking if he could drive the cart, but even as he began to ask, Bob answered. “Not today,” and his voice was not unkind, “tomorrow.” Doc was satisfied and leaned back to relax before they got to the bridge, for Mickey would be worse on the trip back, of that he was certain.
Mickey must have been getting tired, because he popped out exactly where he’d been before, and this time the uttered threat, if that’s what it was, was snatched away by the wind even as Bob manoeuvred the cart through the sand. The rock fell hopelessly short, and when Doc commented that Mickey was in the same place as earlier, Bob seemed to nod with satisfaction.
Once they were on the bridge again it was clear sailing, for although there were black marks where something heavy had been scraped along the surface, much of its span was still standing. Doc liked the bridge. The constant nibbling away at the highway meant that Doc never quite knew which part was highway and what was rock, what was hollow underneath and what was solid. Every day, it seemed to him, the highway looked different, but the bridge, with its planned lanes and guardrails, was solid and secure. The gaps in the railing on the sides, Doc counted four of them, were gaping mouths of twisted shiny metal, as if someone with slightly less appetite than the highway eater had delicately nibbled the bridge. At least the remaining railing showed where the railing should go, while the highway was an unplanned melding of tarmac into weeds and gravel. Doc mentioned this to Bob, but he was looking out to sea and only grunted. His mood seemed to have improved, and for that Doc was grateful, but knew better than push his luck.
Doc got off the cart, pushing awkwardly past the hoses and pipes, and even getting vaguely angry when his foot tangled and he fell to the ground. Even before he landed, it seemed, Bob was there, and was lifting him up, his shaking white hands squeezing Doc’s arms. Bob was saying something, but Doc could only hear a few of the words. He’d never asked Bob where he was from, maybe he was foreign and that’s why he made so little sense. “Ciao.” Doc knew Spanish, it seemed, and he thought to try it on Bob, although he didn’t look Spanish, whatever that meant.
When Bob turned back towards the far side of the bridge, Doc was suddenly adrift. Somehow he had to fill the rest of the day. He sat for a long time, in the watery sunlight washing the hillside, until he was thirsty enough to drink out of the pipe coming out of the bank. Bob had told him about these pipes, and although he couldn't remember what he’d said, that seemed to indicate the water was safe. Spitting to get the taste of metal and cloth out of his mouth, Doc suddenly realized he was hungry. Very hungry.
Doc wandered around on the edge of the bridge, reluctant to leave the regularity of towering supports for the place where the bridge ended, which was a chaos of rock at the base of a cliff where black holes like eyes stared at him. Doc noticed movement along the base of the cliff. He had to strain to see, for there was gauze over his eyes, drying up his eyeballs and sandy when he scraped it away. Doc stepped to the edge of the bridge, which ended jaggedly, with great spikes of metal. In some of the gaps, which he pointedly ignored, Doc could see waves sweeping tiny carts back and forth amid the spray.
The thing moving along the cliff was closer now, and Doc only crept closer to the edge of the bridge so that the thing wouldn't notice him in the smash of upreared stone and metal bars. As if it could detect Doc’s unease, the animal turned towards the bridge’s cliff-side edge, and camouflaged its real intent by casually sniffing at the broken stone. “It’s smelling me,” Doc said aloud, and his voice sounded creaky against the roar of the water below and the taut strumming of the wind on the cables.
While Doc watched, the thing turned this way and that, looking for a good path through the boulders and sand, and Doc could see its true nature. It was a fake, thin like the metal walls of the cart, like the thin plates of black stone that made up the tarmac. When it turned to come towards him, Doc could see its falseness, although when it turned sideways it loomed large, even compared to the cliff. It was like a moving wall, but with an eye on either side. Its legs moved too fast to count, even if Doc had an inclination to try. The sight was overwhelming. Doc broke from cover and ran for the meagre protection of the cliff. Maybe in one of the holes, he panted.
Doc was halfway up the piles of sand and gravel that lay at the base of the cliff, when he gasped to a halt, his scattered footsteps below him showing him how little he’d actually climbed. It took him long moments to detect the thing, for it was almost invisible head on and he had to wait for it to move sideways again.
Shading his eyes with his hand, for the sun made them ache, Doc became aware of a key, like the one in the cart—maybe this was his key—strapped to his wrist with a stretchy multicoloured wire. It shone in the light and hurt Doc’s eyes so he shoved it out of sight into his sleeve.
The thing was moving along the gulf, and when it got to the middle of what used to be bridge it paused, as though to wait for a drive from Bob. Doc had a horrible thought. Perhaps the day’s schedule included the thing. Perhaps the thing was the second passenger, and Bob was coming back. Had Doc merely lost track of the schedule? But his fears were eased when he saw the thing turn towards the water and back to the cliff again.
Since his breathing was now under control Doc was ready to descend, or even g
o towards the holes, when his decision was made for him. Mumbling to itself like Bob, a skinny, impossibly wrinkled monkey was picking through the rocks at the bottom of the sand pile, mere moments away. Doc sat still, hoping it would go away, and he tried not to listen to its voice, although some of its words were clearer than Bob’s. “around . . . doing nothing . . . rushing water, flowing sand.” Much of what the monkey said sounded like a song without music, and its melody reminded Doc of something, although the memory was fuzzy and slipped away even as he reached for it.
The monkey seemed harmless enough, but Doc was unsettled that it had decided to pick through exactly where Doc had climbed. Its occasional pretence at lifting its hand to its mouth was a ruse. Doc was meant to be lulled into a false sense of—a false sense of security—for some reason that phrase had resonance. He was meant to ignore the monkey, if that’s what it was.
Maybe if he hadn’t seen the other thing earlier, and suddenly realized it had disappeared from view, Doc would have reacted differently, but as it was he crept up the sand backwards, pushing off with his feet and hands, like a spider backing away from a fly. His hunger tortured him while the monkey pretended to enjoy its sham lunch below. Its skinny arms propelled its grotesque fingers to a mouth that never stopped its constant chatter. None of it seemed real, and Doc was just getting an uncomfortable aching in his head when the monkey looked towards the bridge and scampered away to the base of the cliff and was lost from view. Doc reached up to touch where the pain was coming from, but all he could feel was his corrugated skin, as if the remains of a hat had stuck on his head.
By the time the monkey had gone, Doc was close enough to the holes for curiosity. Even while he marvelled at his own bravery, he stepped into the rough entrance of the tunnel and halted, so that he could tell if the rustling noise was the wind coming around the corner to see what he was doing, or an animal, eager to be seen for the first time in the world.