by Gene Wolfe
Russell shook his head.
“You know how somebody said they were shooting at everything and doing more damage than the rioters? Well, they’re going to protest that. I heard it on the radio. They’re going to hold a march of their own today.”
Russell was no longer listening. He leaned back to look at Paul’s treehouse again.
“Ever since Thursday,” Sheila said. “Isn’t that a scream?”
Morris surprised himself by saying, “I don’t think so, and I’m going to make him come down today.” Sheila looked at him coolly.
“How does he live up there?” Russell asked.
“Oh, he’s got a blanket and things,” Sheila said.
Morris said slowly, “While I was at the office Thursday he took blankets out of the linen closet and a lot of canned food and fruit juice out of the pantry and carried it all up there.”
“It’s good for him,” Sheila said. “He’s got his radio and scout knife and whatnot too. He wants to get away and be on his own. So let him. He’ll come down when he’s hungry, that’s what I tell Morris, and meanwhile we know where he is.”
“I’m going to make him come down today,” Morris repeated, but neither of them heard him.
When they went away—Sheila to start breakfast, Russell, presumably, to finish clipping his side of the hedge—Morris remained where he was, staring up at the treehouse. After two or three minutes he walked over to the trunk and laid a hand on the rough bark. He had been studying the tree for three days now and knew that even before Paul had lopped some of its limbs it had not been an easy tree to climb. Walking only a trifle unsteadily, he went to the garage and got the step-ladder.
From the top of the ladder he could reach the lowest limb by stretching himself uncomfortably and balancing on the balls of his feet with his body leaning against the trunk. Suddenly conscious of how soft his palms had become in the last fifteen years, how heavy his body was, he closed his hands around the limb and tried to pull himself up. Struggling to grip the tree with his legs, he kicked the ladder, which fell over.
From somewhere below Russell said, “Don’t break your neck, Morris,” and he heard the sound of faint music. He twisted his head until he could see Russell, with a transistor radio clipped to his belt, righting the ladder.
Morris said, “Thanks,” gratefully and stood panting at the top for a moment before coming down.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Russell said.
“Listen,” Morris was still gulping for breath, “would you go up there and get him?” It was a humiliating admission but he made it: “You ought to be able to climb better than I can.”
“Sorry,” Russell touched his chest, “doctor’s orders.”
“Oh. I didn’t know.”
“Nothing serious, I’m just supposed to stay away from places where I might take a bad fall. I get dizzy sometimes.”
“I see.”
“Sure. Did you hear about the fake police? It came over our radio a minute ago.”
Morris shook his head, still panting and steadying himself against the ladder.
“They’re stripping the uniforms off dead cops and putting them on themselves. They’ve caused a lot of trouble that way.”
Morris nodded. “I’ll bet.”
Russell kicked the tree. “He’s your kid. Why don’t you just tell him to come down?”
“I tried that yesterday. He won’t.”
“Well, try again today. Make it strong.”
“Paul!” Morris made his voice as authoritative as he could. “Paul, look down here!” There was no movement in the treehouse.
“Make it strong. Tell him he’s got to come down.”
“Paul, come out of there this minute!”
The two men waited. There was no sound except for the tuneless music of the radio and the whisper of a breeze among the saw-edged leaves.
“I guess he’s not going to come,” Morris said.
“Are you sure he’s up there?”
Morris thought of the glimpse of Paul’s head he had seen earlier. “He’s up there. He just won’t answer.” He thought of the times he had taken the pictures his mother had given him, pictures showing his own childhood, from their drawer and studied them to try and discover some similarity between himself and Paul. “He doesn’t want to argue,” he finished weakly.
“Say.” Russell was looking at the tree again. “Why don’t we chop it?” He dropped his voice to a whisper.
Morris was horrified. “He’d be killed.”
The radio’s metallic jingling stopped. “We interrupt this program for a bulletin.” Both men froze.
“Word has reached our newsroom that the demonstration organized by Citizens For Peace has been disrupted by about five hundred storm troopers of the American Nazi Party. It appears that members of a motorcycle club have also entered the disturbance; it is not known on which side.”
Russell switched the radio off. Morris sighed, “Every time they have one of those bulletins I think it’s going to be the big one.”
His neighbor nodded sympathetically. “But listen, we don’t have to cut the tree clear down. Anyway, it must be nearly three feet thick and it would take us a couple of days, probably. All we have to do is chop at it a little. He’ll think we’re going to cut it with him in it, and climb down. You have an ax?”
Morris shook his head.
“I do. I’ll go over and get it.”
Morris waited under the tree until he had left, then called Paul’s name softly several times. There was no reply. Raising his voice, he said, “We don’t want to hurt you, Paul.” He tried to think of a bribe. Paul already had a bicycle. “I’ll build you a swimming pool, Paul. In the back yard where your mother has her flowers. I’ll have men come in with a bulldozer and dig them out and make us a swimming pool there.” There was no answer. He wanted to tell Paul that they weren’t really going to chop down the tree, but something prevented him. Then he could hear Russell opening the gate on the other side of the house.
The ax was old, dull and rusted, and the head was loose on the handle so that after every few strokes it was necessary to drive it back on by butting it against the trunk of the tree; each blow hurt Morris’s already scraped hands. By the time he had made a small notch—most of his swings missed the point of aim and fell uselessly on either side of it—his arms and wrists were aching. Paul had not come down or even looked out one of the windows.
“I’m going to try climbing again.” He laid down the ax, looking at Russell. “Do you have a longer ladder than this one?”
Russell nodded. “You’ll have to come over and help me carry it.”
Russell’s wife stopped them as they crossed Russell’s patio and made them come inside for lemonade. “My goodness, Morris, you look as if you’re about to have heat prostration. Is it that warm out?” Russell’s house was airconditioned too.
They sat in the family room, with lemonade in copper mugs meant for Moscow Mules. The television flickered with scenes, but Russell’s wife had twisted the sound down until Morris could hear only a faint hum. The screen showed a sprawling building billowing smoke. Firemen and soldiers milled about it. Then the camera raced down suburban streets and he saw two houses very like his own and Russell’s; he almost felt he could see through the walls, see the two of them sitting and watching their own houses—which were gone now as police fired up at the windows of a tall tenement. Russell, winking and gesturing for silence, was pouring gin into his mug to mix with the lemonade now that his wife had gone back to the kitchen.
He felt sick when he stood up, and wondered dully if Sheila were not looking for him, angry because his breakfast was getting cold. He steadied himself on the doorway as he followed Russell out, conscious that his face was flushed. The heat outside was savage now.
They moved cans of paint and broken storm windows aside to uncover Russell’s extension ladder. It was as old as the ax, dirtied with white and yellow splashes, and heavy as metal when they got it
on their shoulders to carry outside.
“This’ll get you up the first twenty feet,” Russell said. “Think you can climb from there?”
Morris nodded, knowing he could not.
They hooked the two sections together and leaned them against the tree, Russell talking learnedly of the proper distance between the bottom of the ladder and the base of the object to be climbed. Russell had been an engineer at one time; Morris had never been quite sure of the reason he no longer was.
The ladder shook. It seemed strange to find himself surrounded by leaves instead of looking up at them, having to look down to see Russell on the ground. At the very top of the ladder a large limb had been broken off some years before and he could look straight out over the roof of his own home and all the neighboring houses. “I see smoke,” he called down. “Over that way. Something big’s burning.”
“Can you get up to the boy?” Russell called back.
Morris tried to leave the ladder, lifting one leg gingerly over the stub of the broken limb. Giddiness seized him. He climbed down again.
“What’s the matter?”
“If I had a rope,” Morris gestured with his hands, “I could put it around my waist and around the trunk of the tree. You know, like the men who climb telephone poles.” Sirens sounded in the distance.
“I’ve got some.” Russell snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute.”
Morris waited. The noise of the sirens died away, leaving only the talk of the leaves, but Russell did not return. Morris was about to go into the house when the truck pulled up at the curb. It was a stake-bed truck, and the men were riding on it, almost covering it. They were white and brown and black; most of them wore khaki shirts and khaki trousers with broad black leather belts, but they had no insignia and their weapons were clubs and bottles and iron bars. The first of them were crossing his lawn almost before the truck had come to a full stop, and a tall man with a baseball bat began smashing his picture window.
“What do you want?” Morris said. “What is it?”
The leader took him by the front of his shirt and shook him as the others circled around. A stone, and then another struck the ground and he realized that Paul was throwing them from his treehouse, trying to defend him; but the range was too great. Someone hit him from behind with a chain.
ST. PATRICK’S DAY
St. Brandon1
We had fish and roast beef, and I think I remember green beans cooked with mushrooms. After the pie I was sent away again, but Doherty had unsaddled Lady, and he said it was too dark for me to ride anymore. I suppose I whined at that, as small boys will, because after showing me the puppies a second time he began to tell me a story he said he had from his grandmother, “the old Kate.”
“It was when there was kings in Ireland. There was a man then named Finn M’Cool that was the strongest man in Ireland; he worked for the High King at Tara, and he had a dog and a cat. The dog’s name was Strongheart and the cat’s was Pussy.”
I laughed at that, causing Doherty to shake his head over the unseemly merriment of the young generation. He was sitting cross-legged on top of an empty apple barrel. “Why and from where do you think the name come, for all of that?” he said. “Did you ever know a cat in your life that hadn’t a sister of the name?
“Well, upon a day it happened that Finn M’Cool was bringing in the cows, and the High King at Tara said to him, ‘Finn, there’s a job of work I have for you,’ and Finn answered him, ‘It’s done already, Your Majesty, and what is it?’ ‘It’s the king of the rats, that’s aboard St. Brandon’s boat gnawing at the hull of it and doing every kind of mischief.’ ‘I’ve heard of that boat and it’s stone,’ says Finn, ‘he’ll not get far gnawing that.’ ‘‘Tis wicker,’ says the king, ‘like any proper boat, and if you’ll not be moving those lazy feet of yours soon Brandon’ll never be reaching the Earthly Paradise at all.’ ‘Well, and why should he, now,’ says Finn, ‘and where is it, anyhow?’ ‘That’s not for you to ask,’ says the High King at Tara, ‘and it’s to the west of us, as you’d know if you weren’t a fool, for the other’s England.’
“So Finn walked every mile of it to Bantry Bay where Brandon’s boat was, and the boat was that large that he could see it for five days before he could smell the sea, for it was so long it looked like Ireland might be leavin’ it, and the mast so tall there was no top to it at all, it just went up forever, and they say while Brandon’s boat was docked there an albatross hit the top of it in a storm and broke her neck, though that was all right, for the fall would have killed her anyway, for she fell three days before she hit the deck, and the deck so high above the water she fell three more after Brandon kicked her overboard.
“But when he could get sight of the water around her, Finn said, ‘That’s the good man’s boat as I breathe, and she’s about to sail, too, for there’s a rat as big as a cow gnawing the anchor cable, do you see.’ And the dog agreed with him, for dogs is always an agreeable sort of animal, and that one would have had this tale if you hadn’t laughed at the cat. Then the dog drew his sword (and a big one it was, too, and the blade as bright as the road home) and lit his pipe and pushed his hat back on his head and said, ‘And would you like that rat dead now, Finn?’ And Finn said, ‘I would,’ and they fought until the moon come up, and then the dog brought Finn the rat’s head on the end of a piece of stick about this long, and never told that it was because the cat had come up from behind and tripped him, for the dog’s the most honest animal there is or ever was except when it comes to sharing credit, but Finn had seen it. Finn winked at the cat then, but she was cleaning her knife and wouldn’t look. The next day they went out to be seeing the boat again, and sure there was two old men on the deck, each of them with a beard as white as a swan’s wing and leaning on a stick taller than he was, alike as two peas. Then Finn scratched his head and said to the cat, ‘As sure as it rains in Ireland, I’ve looked at one and the other until I’m that dizzy, and the devil take me if there’s a hair of difference between them; how can you tell which is Brandon?’ And the cat said, ‘Faith, I’ve never met him, but the other one is the king of the rats.’ ‘Which?’ says Finn, to make sure. ‘The one on the right,’ says the cat. ‘The ugly one.’ ‘Then that’s settled,’ says Finn, ‘and you’re the girl for me.’ And he picked up the cat and threw her aboard and went back to the High King at Tara and told him the thing was done.
“But the cat lit on deck on her feet as cats do, but when she stood up the king of the rats was gone. Then Brandon said, ‘Welcome aboard. Now we’ve captain, cat, and rat, all three, and can sail.’ So the cat signed the ship’s papers, and when she did she noticed the king of the rats was down for quartermaster. ‘What’s this,’ she said, ‘and is that one drawing rations?’ ‘And don’t you know,’ says Brandon, ‘that the wicked do His will as well as the just? Only they don’t like it. How do you think I could have weighed anchor, a sick man like me, without the rat gnawed the rope? But don’t worry, I’m putting you down for CAT, and the cat’s above everyone but the captain.’ ‘When do we sail?’ says the cat. ‘That we’ve done already,’ says Brandon, ‘for the cable parted yesterday and our boat’s so long the bow’s in Boston Bay already, but there’s an Irish wind ahead and astern of us—that blows every way at once, but mostly up and down—and whether our end will ever make it is more than I could say.’ ‘Then we’d best go for’rd,’ says the cat.
“And they did, and took a lantern (like this one) with them, and it was a good thing they did, for when they got to the Earthly Paradise it was as black as the inside of a cow. ‘What’s this?’ says the cat, holding up the lantern though she could see in the dark as well as any. ‘If this is the Earthly Paradise, where’s the cream? Devil a thing do I see but a big pine tree with a sign on it.’ The king of the rats, that had joined them on the way for’rd, says, ‘And what does it say?’ thinking the cat couldn’t read and wanting to embarrass her. ‘No hiring today,’ says the cat. ‘Well, no cream either,’ says the rat, and Brand
on said, ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning in the Earthly Paradise. You don’t expect the cows milked at two o’clock, do you?’
“Then the cat jumped off the boat and sat on a stone and thought about what time the cows would be milked, and at last she said, ‘How long until five?’ and the rat laughed, but Brandon said, ‘Twenty thousand years.’ ‘Then I’m going back to Ireland where it’s light,’ says the cat. ‘You are that,’ says Brandon, ‘but not for some time,’ and he jumped off the boat and set up a cross on the beach. Then the boat sank and the king of the rats swam ashore. ‘‘Twas stone all along,’ said he. ‘That it was,’ says Brandon, ‘in places.’ ‘Shall I kill the cat now?’ says the king of the rats, and the cat says, ‘Here, now, what’s this?’ ‘It’s death to you,’ says the rat, ‘for all you cats are fey heathen creatures, as all the world knows, and it’s the duty of a Christian rat to take you off the board as may be, particularly as it was for that purpose I was sent by the High King at Tara.’ Then the two began to fight, all up and down the beach, and just then an angel—or somebody—come out of the woods and asked Brandon what was going on. “Tis a good brawl, isn’t it,’ says the saint. ‘Yes, but who are they?’ ‘Well, the one is wickedness,’ says Brandon, ‘and the other a fairy cat; and I brought the both of them out from Ireland with me, and now I’m watchin’ to see which wins.’ Then the angel says, ‘Watch away, but it appears to me they’re tearin’ one another to pieces, and the pieces runnin’ off into the woods.’”
EARTH DAY
Beautyland
The first time I saw Dives he was down on the sidewalk coughing his lungs out; an old lady had his mask up on the tip of her umbrella, and a kid, a tall, pimply kid with bushy hair and thick glasses, had been tripping him every time he tried to grab it from her. I went over to them and said, “You better give that back or he’ll die,” and the old woman was going to, but the kid grabbed it from her and threw it down in the gutter; I couldn’t give it to him to put back on with that stuff on it, but I kicked the kid and managed to flag a T-E-E aircab, and once I had him in there he was all right. I took off my own mask and told the driver to cruise; like all of them the windows showed the city the way it’s supposed to look after it’s rebuilt, so that if you believed it you’d give your ass to be born a hundred years from now.