That afternoon Roy spent in Electric City, in every corner of Electric City. Box M, Box N, Boxes 0 and P. Every street had an Electric Enterprise on it. Trucks filled the streets like salmon in a stream, jammed the highways leading out and filled the roads leading to the highways.
At each factory it was the same. Electric Shy Boy, Electric Unglamorous Girl, Electric Minority Boy. Then, as the work bell at the Electric Bad-Breath Boy plant poised at five to five, Roy told the foreman, another man with a cigar in his teeth, “I'm supposed to deliver the new Electric plans to the president, for Electric Horsey Girl an Electric Unfunny Boy.”
“Hadn't heard of those. Things have been jumping, though.” The foreman pointed up. At first Roy thought he was pointing directly overhead but then he saw that the finger pointed up and over the rim of the factory. “Take your nose to the edge of Electric City. Climb the steps, keep climbing the steps.” He looked at his watch as the bell rang loud. “Might be a good time to see him. Might be home.” And then the foreman was gone.
~ * ~
Steps. There were nothing but steps. The steps went on forever. Winding up from a cracked granite base, they suddenly lurched into a limestone cave, came out into bright sunshine, wound over through a trellised garden and into sunlight again. Roy found himself on a little porch and looked down to see Electric City below him, gray and smoky in the twilight—the smokestacks which dotted the Electric plants in even rows over the plain that was Electric City were billowing brown smoke yet, as another shift came on to work the busy night. The town had grown smog; the trucks were rolling so thick together they formed unbroken tentacles out of the roads leading north south east west and made the City look a huge octopus. Roy turned and saw nothing but more steps leading up to the clouds. But now there was a scent that came close, touched his nose and moved on, a scent of late summer flowers or early autumn ones, fresh, alive. Roy followed his nose.
More steps. The height of the steps lengthened and shortened, as if the builder had run out of one material, used whatever was at hand—or been blind. Roy's legs ached. The stairs notched into the cliffs again, burst out onto another porch which only made the City below look like a smaller octopus, climbed up and in again.
The stairway ended so abruptly Roy nearly fell down. Suddenly he stepped onto even green grass. The grass smelled like perfume—it was so rich and dark and wet it caressed his feet right through his shoes.
The lawn rolled out from his feet like a carpet leading to the whitest and biggest house in the world. Though the sun had nearly set there was light enough falling on it to make it shine like midday. A porch spread across its bottom long enough for forty wicker chairs with leg room between.
A screen door banged somewhere, out behind. Roy heard the tiny sounds of faraway movement and then saw a light tick on in an upstairs room. A profile set itself against the yellow rectangle of the window, a profile at once fat and sad and ugly and awkward. The profile moved back and forth, back and forth, teetering in a rocking chair.
Roy's sneaker made the front steps creak; after waiting a frozen minute he moved to the screen door which creaked even louder. The waxed-bright boards of the entry room floor groaned as he headed for the mahogany staircase warmly nestled against a far wall behind acres of furniture.
“Rimbaud, is that you?” came a call from upstairs, in a voice high and mousy. Roy imitated a rabbit in a car headlight. There was no further sound for a moment until the voice said, “Whoever you are, come on up.”
At least there was a carpet at the top, wet and green as the outside lawn. There were gas lamps. There was delicate red flowered wallpaper, and much furniture that looked as though it had just been dusted. There was a stack of white set stacked neatly beside a polished hunting board.
“Come, come,” the voice said impatiently, as Roy stepped into the shadow of the open doorway.
In the room, under the amber light of an overhead petal lamp, sat the oddest boy Roy had ever seen.
He was fat, to be sure; and ugly. He wore black rimmed glasses, with thick bottle lenses that made his eyes look round and wet. His pants were baggy and unstylish; his shoes black with thick laces, the kind people with foot problems wear. He looked as though he had a club foot. He turned his limpid eyes on Roy, looked away toward the window, tried to heave himself out of his chair. He failed, and sat back with a grunt. He tried to fold his hands in front of him but, finding that uncomfortable, let them wander uneasily over the arms of his rocker.
“You're the one asking about me,” he said in his voice, high-pitched and breathy.
“You're the president of Electric Enterprises.”
“True,” the fat boy said, as if he didn't quite believe it himself.
“One of your machines ran amok. My friend Chubby—”
“It's been a long time, this time,” the fat boy broke in, seeming to ignore Roy. He was staring out the window at the puffing sprawl of the various Electric Enterprises below him. He suddenly put out his white pudgy hand to Roy. “Come, look.”
Reluctantly, Roy edged closer to the window. The fat boy did not touch him; his hand fell once more to the arm of the rocking chair where it crawled, fat, spiderlike, slowly up and down the length of the arm.
“This was a sleeping city less than a month ago,” the fat boy said. His voice held something—regret? Longing for sleep? —that Roy couldn't fathom. His hand waved at the scene below the cliff. “All those chimneys were white with bird droppings. Sleeping....”
“My friend—” Roy attempted to say.
“`The meek shall inherit the Earth,” the fat boy went on. “That was the quotation that started it all.”
“I—”
The fat boy turned his eyes on Roy, away from the window. “’And the meek shall inherit the Earth.’ The magazine advertisements always run, you know,” the fat boy went on. “Always. They're the originals and they still work. The idea was so simple: there's so much meanness in the world, so many little meannesses that eventually add up to the big ones that start wars and bring death. If you diffuse the little meannesses, make them go away before they grow monstrous, wouldn't that help prevent the big ones from ever happening? Little bullies become big bullies. What if you struck a balance, met the little bully with an equal force that told him that you can't push the little fellow around after all? Then, just maybe, the little bully would go on to other things and lose interest in being a bully. Sometimes—a lot of times—it works. Push four-eyes around in the schoolyard day after day—but then one day four-eyes fights back. Next day he fights back again. Pretty soon you leave four-eyes, and the kid with the big nose, and the skinny little runt, and the fat kid, alone.”
The fat boy rested his hand on Roy's shoulder for the briefest instant before dropping it again. “So, Electric Fat Boy, Electric Ugly Boy, Electric Every Boy Who Needs A Little Help Because He Gets Picked On For Something He Has No Control Over.”
Roy tried again. “But—”
“There are a lot of little meannesses out there this time,” the fat boy went on, turning again to the window. A bumper crop. If these electrics don't cut it off right now, at the start, well...BIG meanness. War. The end. Who knows.” He sighed, a high, mousy, unpleasant sound. “So once again the meek shall inherit the Earth for a little while.”
“My friend Chubby—”
“There's nothing wrong,” the fat boy said, seeing the anxiousness on Roy's face, “with your friend. It's a little failing—meanness, perhaps—of mine, that I put just a little too much spunk into the Electric Fat Boy. The real Chubby has no doubt taken over again by now.” He smiled, and Roy saw that he also had bad teeth. “I wonder where Rimbaud is? There are things he hasn't set up yet at my little retreat here, and it looks as though I may be here a while this time. My fine things are another little failing of mine—the only one I'm really allowed now....”
“You started all of this.”
“Me? In a way....”
“But you said it's been a long time�
�”
“Tell me,” the fat boy said. “Why did you come here? What made you so bold as to ride all the way to Electric City to do something about your amok friend Chubby?”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“Yes. But would the old Roy have left home, taken money, gone off by himself, get mad enough to do something like that for himself—or even for his friend!” He broke off his train of thought, lifting the index and middle fingers on his right hand and examining them under the light, rubbing them one against the other. “Rimbaud was supposed to dust all of this,” he said, shaking his head. “Later....
“Come, I want you to look at something.”
The fat boy pushed up the arm of his ill-fitting jacket, rolled up the too-long-sleeved blue shirt underneath to expose white skin.
Holding out his arm directly under the amber light from the petal-lamp, he took a pinch of skin from the middle, fleshy part of his arm and tore downward.
There was a deep metal well there, filled with batteries and wires. Roy gasped, “You're electric....”
“How else to continue? It's the price I paid.” He tapped his skull. “It's still me, in this metal bowl. I could trust the electric enterprises to no one else. It's my responsibility. So....”
“You wake whenever all this is needed, start all the factories.”
“Then close it all down tenderly when the job is finished. And wait for the next time.” He suddenly grabbed Roy tight by the hand, and, before Roy could pull away, ripped a fold of skin down on the forearm, exposing a copper well of electric machinery similar to his own.
Roy cried out.
“Of course you're electric,” the Fat boy said. “Electric Shy Boy. The same time the real Roy ordered his friend Chubby's fat boy. How else would you be here? The real Roy wouldn't. Although maybe when he sees what the Electric Roy has done in his name he'll do it himself the next time.”
“Is that really all I am?” Electric Roy said, horrified.
“No. Much more. Underneath you're just a couple of metal spheres glued together. That's underneath. You're Roy, only you're the part of him needs working on.”
“I'll disappear when he's through with me?”
“No again! You'll be part of him, that stronger part that will stay with him. Remember, you are him. Your electric body will sleep. You won't. You're lucky; you're flesh and blood while I'm trapped in this metal casket. My body of flesh is long gone....”
A figure appeared in the doorway, short and stooped, with thin, steel-gray hair in wisps about his head and with round clear spectacles. His hands were as thin and gray as the hair on his head.
“Rimbaud,” the Electric Fat Boy announced. He turned once more to face Roy.
“What will I do now?” Electric Roy asked.
“Go back to him, of course. Your battle is won already. Let's hope the others are as lucky.”
“Chubby?”
The Electric Fat Boy laughed. “A resounding success.” In a confidential whisper he added, “The fat ones always win a little sooner than the rest.”
He pushed Roy gently toward the door. The little gray man passed into the room, and Roy heard the Electric Fat Boy say, “Rimbaud, my human friend....”
Roy descended the long mile of steps one at a time. Below him the orange dawn was beginning to break, turning the thin clouds of smoke over Electric City the color of persimmon. The trucks rolled, an unending line of electric life streaming out and off into the world. Roy counted the eight roads out, deliberately, as if on a string of beads, and stopped strongly and gently on the one that led home.
SNOW
On the day before Christmas, a few rogue snowflakes fell. They drifted like unsure intruders; dropped, reluctant parachutists, from a sky still dear and blue-cold with autumn. They fell on Eva's nose and melted, fell onto Charles' outstretched tongue and were warmed into water.
“I wish it would snow forever!” Eva said.
And ever!” Charles said.
“We'd build forts and go sledding!”
“Have snowball fights and dig tunnels!”
“Forever!” Eva said.
And ever!” said Charles.
“We'd never have to go to school again!”
“Hurrah!”
And, in other places, other Charleses and other Evas said the same things.
The skies darkened.
It began to snow.
It snowed on Christmas—all twelve days of it. It snowed, inch upon inch of white, falling in flat layers from an always-gray sky
Eva and Charles sledded, drank hot chocolate, and cheered. They had snowball fights, and built forts.
And still it snowed.
It snowed for twenty days, then twenty days more. Each day it snowed. Drifts sat on snow drifts. There were layers of snow, geologic demarcations, that traced the storm's history.
School was canceled again and again.
Eva and Charles cheered, played Monopoly inside as snow layers climbed up the sliding glass door of the family room, topped Mother's bushes, made their tiny twig fingers wave goodbye as they went under.
It snowed.
And snowed.
And....
Snowed.
“It's never going to stop,” Mother said, staring out at the snow with her haggard face, a cold cup of tea nestled forgotten in her hands. “It's going to snow forever.”
“And ever!” Charles laughed, and then he and Eva went out to build another snow fort as Father, in the driveway, cursed his snowblower, which coughed and then died.
It snowed.
And snowed.
And snowed some more.
There was no school, and then there was no mail. There were no packages. The stores, the malls, the 7-Elevens, winked out one by one. People drew into their homes like ticks, battling their walks and driveways before finally giving up. Snowplows roared, then died like dinosaurs at the end of their reign. They plowed sideways into curbs and then sputtered out, their drivers hopping out as if afraid, tramping hurriedly home through the disappearing streets.
It snowed.
And snowed.
Eva and Charles played, built walls of snow that were eaten, threw snowballs that were swallowed. Soon they could almost reach the house's gutters with their mittens. They ran huffing in to drink the last of the hot chocolate, topped by the last of the marshmallows. It continued to snow.
And snow. And snow.
And then:
“I'm sick of snow,” Charles said.
“Me too,” said Eva.
They stood looking from their family room at the mountains of snow, the layers of snow, the valleys of snow, the plateaus of snow. Snow made the windows white, the earth white, filled every nook, each cranny; sifted into every corner and crack and edge of the world. They had done all the sledding they could stand; all the snow forts they could build had been built: the first ten buried like Pompeii, the last five in degrees of backyard burial even as they watched. A thousand snowballs lay entombed: lumps of white coal waiting to be turned into diamonds by the crushing, building weight of snow.
Through the sliding glass door, only a thin line of gray sky could be seen at the top, above the geologic layers of snow.
And, in the gray sky, it snowed.
“I'm sick of snow,” Eva said.
“So am I,” said Charles.
They were weary of snow boots, of gloves and mittens; tired of tasseled hats and long johns and layers of socks; disgusted with dressing like astronauts each time they went out.
In the kitchen, where Mother and Father sat all but lifeless staring at their teacups, the radio called for more snow, crackled, went silent.
At the top of the sliding glass door, the last line of sky was filled in by snow, enclosing the world, making it go away.
“I'm afraid of snow,” Charles said.
“Me too,” Eva said.
And, in other places, other Charleses and other Evas said the same things.
Eva said:
“Then we'll tunnel our way out.”
“Yes!” said Charles.
~ * ~
They mounted their expedition like professionals.
Whistling, smiling, Charles rummaged through his room, through the cellar, through the attic. Eva organized. Charles loaded his arms with layers of socks and his book on Admiral Byrd. Eva piled up digging tools from the garage, the camping stove, Sterno cans for heat and cooking, and whatever was left to cook. She stuffed their school backpacks full with flashlight batteries and candy bars, comic books and automobile flares, boxes of matches, pots and pans. In the pockets she put sunglasses against the glare, and her Walkman with tapes and Charles' lucky baseball card. She zipped the backpacks closed, afraid the straining seams would burst.
They dressed in their best clothes: ski parkas stuffed with goose feathers, snow pants with elastic straps to keep them in place. They had gloves with leatherette palms and fingers for gripping, crisp blue jeans, flannel lined. They wore two pairs of wool socks, gray and thick, and thermal underwear, and turtlenecks under sweatshirts that said 'GO ARMY!'
Outfitted and backpacked, they stood before the sliding glass door in the family room.
Eva looked at Charles, and Charles nodded.
Slowly, Eva unlocked the door, slid it back on its rails.
A wall of snow, smooth and white, high and wide, confronted them.
“Ready?” Eva said.
Charles said, “Ready.”
They began to dig.
~ * ~
They dug.
And dug.
Scoop by scoop, handful by handful, Eva pushed snow back at Charles, who pushed it back into the room behind. A depression in the wall formed, kid-high and wide; the depression deepened and deepened until there was a little room made of snow, with snow walls, snow ceiling and snow floor, which they moved deeper into as they dug.
And dug.
And dug.
Charles looked back through their deepening tunnel. He saw the room they had left, the house they had left, far behind them, a shrinking cave opening.
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