Children of Light

by Robert Stone

  Stuart had hidden and survived. Deak, who was loving and sensitive, had been caught in the coils; neither his humor nor his grace had served when the drugs came like a punishing wind to sweep away all the unprotected children. Abstemious Stuart did just fine.

  So, to please, no doubt unconsciously, as a part of his uncanny repertoire, Stuart would perform his Deak impression and glow with a kindly fire not his own. That had been Deak’s when Deak was healthy and favored.

  Walker crumpled up the letter and thought of Deak, his passionately loved, his angel.

  Faint with anguish, he stood up and walked to the window. If—perhaps, only to speculate—he went through it and over the balcony, the pain would stop. He could do it any number of ways.

  If he went out he would be killing Deak. Deak would eventually follow him, in that as in everything. Probably he would be killing Stuart as well. Stuart would prosper, have his fame and fortune, but time would bring him down. You could not make his kind of adjustment without paying in the end.

  So there could be no question of leaps or lethal measures. The luxury of abandoning hope was not available to him. Hope might make a fool of him and compound his grief, but he was bound to it as much as the next man. For his sons, himself, even his marriage. He leaned against a cornice beside the balcony window and took deep hopeful breaths, his eyes closed. It was a matter of inner resources. It was a matter of getting through the day.

  When he was ready for the road again, Walker checked himself out of the San Epifanio Beach and drove back to the San Diego Freeway. Within an hour he was at the boat basin north of Rosa Point.

  He found a spot in the club parking lot and got out and walked along the dockside. The rain had stopped; pale sunshine was filtering through the low cloud. A party fishing boat rode at anchor off the point but the sea was still rough and there were few sailboats out. A stiff wind from the bay rattled the wire rigging of the boats at moor, banging stays against masts in a ceaseless tintinnabulation.

  One of the dozens of powerboats tied up in the basin was a forty-foot Chris-Craft rigged with a pulpit; the legend SAM THE MAN was inscribed on her brightly finished after woodwork. Walker halted beside the boat, braced against a piling and called down into the cabin.

  “Quinn?”

  A portly sandy-haired man, deeply tanned, came up from the cabin and squinted up at Walker. He was bare-chested and powerfully built, although a slab of gut hung down over the waist of his dungarees. There was a red neckerchief at his throat.

  “Hey, Gordo,” he said, and wiped his mouth as though he were hiding a smile.

  “Hello, Sam.”

  “You want a drink?”

  “I want some cold water,” Walker said.

  Quinn ducked back into the cabin and emerged with two bottles of clear liquid. One he handed up to Walker; the second he upended and drank from deeply.

  “Want to give me a ride, Gordo? Figure you were on your way up to the ranch anyhow, right?”

  “Sure,” Walker said.

  They went back to Walker’s car and took off along the coast road. A few miles south of the point they passed a crescent beach tucked between cliffs; offshore twenty or so leonine surfers sat their boards in the chop, waiting for a wave. Walker pulled over and they got out, walking through ice plant that was littered with beer cans and cellophane bags.

  “Little fuckers go on forever,” Quinn said.

  Walker stopped near the edge of the cliff and lit a cigarette.

  “I had a fantasy once,” Quinn said. “I’d get a net a quarter mile wide. I’d get a dragger, a galleon with black sails.” He turned to Walker, who had hunkered down in the brush. “Under cover of the fog I’d come in, see, and I’d play out my net and I’d catch the young turkeys and haul ’em in. Fill my hold with ’em. Boys. Girls. Don’t matter.” He reached into his pants pocket, took out a joint and lit it. “Work the coast clear from Mendocino to Imperial Beach. Then, when I had a load, I’d sail the whole mess to Jidda. Sell ’em as slaves to the Arabs.”

  Walker declined the joint when it was offered, knowing how strong it would prove.

  “You told Lu Anne about that plan,” Walker said. “She told me.”

  “Sweet thing,” Quinn said. “She’s working down in B.H.”

  “I know,” Walker said. “I’m going to see her.”

  Quinn grinned at him with a sidewise glance. One of the caps on the man’s front teeth had a gold death’s-head design worked into it.

  “Fine woman. You kiss her for me, man.”

  They got back in the car and drove until the highway was intersected by a dirt road, running between rows of glass commercial greenhouses. They turned off there. After the last greenhouse there were rows of avocado trees and then the road began to climb, ascending one side of a canyon. Yellow tule grass grew on the crest of the hills. On the inland slopes there were live oak and cactus. Their road crossed and recrossed dry riverbeds and tributary canyons until it ended at a cattle grid. A wooden ranch fence held a sign that read: DANGER NERVOUS GUN FREAK. There was another sign that said: TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED. Beyond the fence was a grove of cotton-woods and beyond the trees an old white frame farmhouse with an attendant barn and duck pond.

  Walker parked in front of the barn, alongside a dusty Bentley which was missing a wheel.

  “Everything pretty much as usual?” he asked Quinn.

  “Yes and no,” the big man said. “Little of this, little of that. What’s up with you?”

  Walker told him that his wife had left for London, about the play in Seattle and his plan to visit Lu Anne. Quinn nodded curt approval.

  “Connie was always bourgeoise.”

  “Connie was a fucking hero,” Walker said.

  The pain of loss he felt when he thought of her quite surprised him. He had only begun to realize that he had seen the last of her heroics and that she would not be coming back to him.

  For years he had survived through her calm resolution and good sense; suddenly she had used them in her interest. He had not expected that. It seemed like betrayal to him.

  For his part, he had never stopped loving her. Now he would have to force her out of his mind, confine her to the interior white space that held all those elements of his life too painful to consider. He could manage it, he thought; he was tough and selfish enough.

  As he grew older, the number of things he sought to banish from his consciousness increased and so did his skill at keeping them in isolation.

  “Whatever you think, Gordo.”

  Behind the house was a small field with a dog pen, a fenced corral and an overgrown garden enclosed by strands of wire. Empty milk jugs were tied at intervals along the wire to stir on the breeze. It was close and warm in the hollow where the ranch was; hills shut out the ocean wind. The sky overhead was clear.

  Walker and Quinn took chairs on the back porch.

  “Lu Anne,” Quinn said reflectively. “She’s all right. I was glad to hear she’s working again.”

  “She’s a lead,” Walker said. “My script.”

  “Yeah, I heard all that.” He rocked slowly back and forth, watching his guest. “How’s her head?”

  “I haven’t seen her much,” Walker said. “What else have you heard?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Not a lot. That she married a doctor years back. A shrink. Probably handy for her to have one at home.”

  “Yeah,” Walker said.

  “Funny her getting an Oscar nomination for playing spacey,” Quinn said.

  “Yes,” Walker agreed. “We all used to kid about that.”

  “But she’s good,” Quinn said. “That’s the thing. There’s no one better than Lu Anne. Not out here. Not in New York.”

  “What about you, Sam? Working any?”

  Quinn smiled, flashing his Jolly Roger.

  “Too old and fat,” he said. He was leaning back in the rocker looking at the sky. Walker turned to follow his gaze and saw two people hang-gliding high above the next ridge. They were be
autiful to watch and, Walker thought, incredibly high. They seemed to command the wind that bore them.

  “Shit,” Quinn said, “look at that.”

  “Does it make you paranoid?” Walker asked.

  “Nah,” Quinn said. “Makes me fucking cry, is what. Think that isn’t kicks, man? That’s the way to do your life, Gordo. Look the gray rat in the eye.”

  “I think we all do that anyway.”

  “We’re little worms,” Quinn said. “We piss and moan.”

  “So,” Walker said, “I wonder if you can help me out.”

  Quinn crooned in a black-toned bass. “Got yo’ weed, got yo’ speed, got yo’ everythin’.”

  “I’m on this fucking thing,” Walker explained. “I’m doing a lot of blow and then I’m drinking. I have to dry out. I need downers.”

  Quinn screwed up his face and sounded a high-pitched comic cry.

  “Ai, Gordo. I don’t got them. I got blow. Speed. Sinsemilla. No downers. Except, you know, I could get horse but that’s not for you in your frame of mind.”

  “Christ,” Walker said. “I was hoping to break the cycle.”

  “Sorry, man.”

  “I’ll have to wait until I get down there, then. I hope Siriwai’s the doctor on this picture.”

  “Siriwai’s got a Laetrile clinic now. I doubt he even works flicks anymore.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. He’s got this enormous spread in San Carlos Borromeo. He cures cancer.”

  Walker sat in silence, looking at the dun boards of the back porch.

  “If you’re gonna drive,” Sam Quinn said, “it’s not that much out of your way. I’m sure old man Siriwai could fix you up if he felt like it.”

  “I suppose,” Walker said.

  “Hate to send you away disappointed, Gord. Can I offer a drink? A fine line?”

  “Oh sure,” Walker said.

  Quinn got up and went into the kitchen. Walker sat rocking, watching the hang gliders. When he looked down again, he saw a young red-haired woman coming from the barn, leading a little boy of about three by the hand. The young woman’s eyes were fixed on Walker as though in recognition. As far as he knew, he had never seen her before. He rocked and watched the two of them approach.

  “Hello,” he said, when they had reached the porch, and directed a cordial smile at the child.

  “You’re Gordon Walker,” the woman said.

  Walker was not used to being recognized by name. The woman before him looked like a great many other women one saw in Los Angeles; she was attractive, youthful a bit beyond her years. She seemed like someone imperfectly recovered from a bad illness.

  Her face broke into a sudden, quite marvelous smile.

  “You don’t remember me,” she said. “I’m Lucy Brewer. I played the radical chick in Stover.” The child, who had Lucy’s auburn hair, shouted and pulled against her grip. “Woman, I should say. Of course, they cut a lot of me.”

  “Sure,” Walker said. “Certainly I remember you.” He had absolutely no recollection of Lucy Brewer and very little of the character. Stover had been the next thing to a doctoring job, done years before. “I have trouble with names,” he assured her. “But I don’t forget people.”

  “You had a cute little boy, I remember. You brought him out to the set.”

  “I have two,” Walker said. “They aren’t little anymore.”

  “Well, he was one cute little guy.”

  “He’s an actor now,” Walker told her.

  “Another one of us, huh?” She was good-humoredly restraining her own little boy with both hands. The child broke away finally and ran off toward the corral.

  “Speaking of cute kids,” Walker said.

  “We were having our nature walk. We saw the animals and the cemetery.”

  Walker chuckled agreeably. Sam Quinn came out with two drinks on a tray. Beside them was a tiny glass bottle of cocaine with a miniature chain attached to its cap. Seeing Sam, the little boy turned around and came running back toward the porch.

  “Sam Sam Sam,” the infant shouted.

  “What cemetery?” Walker asked. Quinn handed him a drink.

  “Ah,” Sam Quinn said, “we bury the animals. We have a ceremony.”

  “And we buried Hexter,” the little boy cried.

  Quinn sighed. “We gotta talk about this,” he said to Lucy. “I mean really.”

  “We buried our dog,” Lucy said merrily. “Hexter.”

  “Oh,” Walker said. A few years before he had known an aspiring screenwriter, a fellow Kentuckian, by the name of Hexter. Hexter had left for New Mexico some time before.

  Lucy gathered the child to her loins. She seemed oppressed by Quinn’s even stare.

  “Well,” she said to Walker, “best of luck.”

  “The same to you, Lucy,” Walker said. He waggled his fingers at the little boy. Lucy took the boy by the hand and led him off.

  Sam Quinn turned his back on an imaginary breeze, dipped the cap-spoon device into the vial of cocaine and had himself a snort. Done, he screwed the cap on and passed the works to Walker.

  “I’m a murderer,” Quinn explained. “I murder my enemies. I bury them under my barn and then I drink champagne from their skulls.”

  “We were talking about a dog,” Walker said.

  “We were friends,” Quinn said. “We were close. He got into fucking nitrous oxide and he was not getting it from me. One time he comes up here from Taos and his pickup is loaded with tanks. We have parties, it’s great, except he won’t stop doing it.” Quinn sniffed and wiped his nose with his wrist. “So one morning I go into the john and Hexter’s in the tub. He’s underwater and he’s stone fucking dead and the tank’s on the floor next to him. So what am I supposed to do, send for Noguchi? I don’t want the damn cops up here. I loved that man, Gordon. He was like a brother.”

  Walker took a hit off Quinn’s coke. It was very fine, better than his own. It dispelled his anxiety and his sorrow about his sons. He watched Quinn with a tolerant smile.

  “I welded him into an oil drum and we brought out the Bible and we laid him to rest. He was divorced, didn’t have no kids. He’s home, man, he’s in Abraham’s bosom.” Quinn shrugged. “All right—it sounds kind of sordid.”

  “I see,” Walker said, and did another tiny spoon.

  They sipped their vodka-and-tonics. The hang gliders disappeared beyond the inland ridge.

  “I have to get out of this business, Gordo. My nerves are shot. My life is in danger. Then I got Lucy and Eben to think of.”

  “Funny,” Walker said. “I can’t remember meeting Lucy.”

  “Stover,” Sam Quinn said. “I don’t think she’s worked since then. She had a speed problem and a couple of crazy boyfriends. I helped her out.”

  “The kid yours?”

  Quinn shook his head. “I can’t tell you whose kid that is, Gordo. Very big name. Since deceased.”

  “You ought to get out,” Walker said. “I thought you’d be doing stunts forever.”

  “Yeah, I was born to die in a burning stagecoach. But I’m too old for it, that’s the problem. I tell you, Gordon, this after-forty shit sucks.”

  “You could coordinate. You been all over. You know a lot about filmmaking.”

  “I’m associated in the industry with drugs. Once that didn’t matter. But these days it is not so good.” Quinn drained his glass and set it aside. “I ought to move. Maybe up to Newhall—I got a lot of old buddies up there might get me something. I should get Lucy out of here, get her straight. I should sell my boat, sell this place—I’d get ten times what I paid. There’s a couple of hundred goddamn things I should do. But I don’t know which, the way things are. I don’t want to be broke no more, Gordon, I ain’t used to it.”

  “Well,” Walker said, “if you think of a way I can help you, let me know.” He set his own glass down. “You really think Doc Siriwai could fix me up if I stopped in Borromeo?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Quinn sai
d. “I see him once in a while.” They stood up; Quinn yawned and stretched. “Lee Verger,” he said. “Good old Lu Anne. You give her my special love, you hear.”

  “I will.”

  They shook hands and Walker got behind the wheel of his car. As he drove by the cottonwood trees, he passed Lucy and Eben. Lucy was smiling; she had bent over the child and was encouraging him to wave. Walker threw them a salute. As soon as he came in sight of the sea, the fog rose to meet him.

  When they were gone she sat on the beach in front of her casita. She had not ridden to the airport, only stood in the driveway before the main building and waved them away. Lionel and the sun-ripe children, happy-eyed. Were they also pleased to be quit of her? They were sensitive children, they had seen a few things they should not have seen. Driving away, they had not turned to wave or to look back at her and it had made her feel hurt and afraid. Only their excitement, she had thought, walking back down the path. But it was as though their eyes were fixed upon some wholesome future in which she had no part.

  At least there was work. But it was a few hours until her call, so she spent twenty minutes or so doing breathing exercises and then commenced swimming laps in the small patio pool. Lu Anne was a strong swimmer and the pool barely more than an ornament; she coursed the length in two strokes and flipped at ends in a racing turn. She kept at it until her breath came hard and her shoulders ached.

  Overhead, the sky was leaden; distant heat lightning flashed. She could hear the men at work beside the lagoon where the Grand Isle set was. For weeks she had been listening to the trailer-truck engines and the roar of articulated loaders. Lines of peons, armed with machetes, had been chopping cactus, beating the brush for scorpions, laying track for the giant Chapman crane. Now it was ready, the ground cleared. A roadway of two-by-twelve boards, stacked three layers deep, stretched from the dunes to the mild surf. Only the odd shout or burst of laughter, the whine of a power drill or the beat of a hammer drifted across the tame surface of their civil bay. From the other direction, where the unchecked Pacific whirled in narrow canyons along the point or thrust itself against the black sand of Playa China, she could make out the crash of surf, muffled by the offshore wind and the guardian mountainside.