Looked over her shoulder.
Pedro's arms splashed through the river's current, following behind her, trying to catch up.
She leaned against the stick, moving the raft further out towards the center of the river. Leaned all her weight against the stick, looking back over her shoulder.
After an hour of floating down the river, Maggie released her hands from the steering stick. She was, by now, way out in the middle of the wide, wide river. She couldn't see either shore. The moon was up in the sky. Pedro must have either given up, paddling back to the shore, or drowned.
Lying down on the planks of her raft, under the brilliant stars above, body lolled by the gentle sway of the great river underneath, she gradually closed her eyes, fell asleep.
When she woke, it was still dark around her, white glitter in the sky.
She heard a loud splash.
A tall form rose up out of the river, water falling, onto her raft.
It was Pedro, naked.
She drew herself up on the raft, into a sitting position, calves crossed in front of her like swords.
His outline against the dark, bobbing water of the Mississippi turned in her direction. "Can you smell the river?"
"Yes."
The outline continued talking. "That is what I remember most from a river. Not its length, wideness, or what fish are in it, but its smell. Every river I have been in, her smell is different. What does this river smell like, to you?"
She closed her eyes. It was hard for her to open up her senses to where she wasn't trying to say what she thought the river should smell like, but what it actually smelled like.
"Is hard, right? So many smells to compare."
She surprised herself. "It smells like sausages and doughnuts."
Pedro grinned. "I was thinking that, too."
"I have to sleep. I'm very tired."
"By all means."
She woke, his naked body spooned against her back. He kissed the nape of her neck. God, how tender is that kiss. His hands didn't cup her breasts, or touch between her legs.
He rotated her head around, so she was looking up at his face. An ugly face, wild black hair, big nose, big ears. He leaned his face down, kissed her on her lips, such a gentle kiss. Like a child, she kissed him back. Parted her white teeth, submissively, as his tongue went into her mouth. Felt that old feeling between her legs.
He moved his naked body on top of her, slid his cock straight up. She gave out a little cry, surprised at her willingness, his size.
He pumped slowly, stroking her hair with his big, calloused hands, kissing her shut eyes.
Her thin fingers traveled over his broad shoulders, long spine, shapely buttocks.
Just when she thought she should stop, a betrayal to her dead husband, she lifted her bare feet off the raft, wrapped her legs around his brown waist.
She kept her eyes shut, feeling his big hands move over her body.
One minute, two minutes, three minutes.
Lips pulling away from her teeth, she let out a long, shocked cry of orgasm, cunt slapping up, arms hugging his wet back.
Afterwards, they lay side by side on the raft, under the stars, naked bodies cooling.
Eventually, he lifted his sweaty face. "While I am listening to your sermon, I wondered, why does your husband take his life?"
Maggie looked up at the twinkling night, physically satisfied as she hadn't been in a long, long time, conscious of the smell, in the air, of her own cunt.
"We had a little boy."
"He died?"
"I don't know."
Pedro was puzzled. "How could you not know if he died?"
"We had a little boy. He was the joy of our lives. My husband and I made love so many times, and the only reason why we made love was for the physical pleasure, the closeness. Lying in each other's arms afterwards. Eventually, the light in the bedroom getting dim, evening coming, we'd turn on the TV to watch a movie on HBO, and usually the credits of the previous movie would be scrolling up. Carl used to do this thing where lying on his back in bed he'd wave both arms in the air, as if he were conducting the orchestra playing the end titles music. I'd join in, waving both my arms. It's goofy, I know, but we were so happy.
"Then one time, I missed my period. I waited a few weeks before I mentioned it to him. I had been late before, so we did nothing. A few more weeks passed, and I still hadn't had a period. We had lunch together every day, so one Friday, after about eight weeks without a period, we went to a drugstore during lunch and bought one of those over the counter pregnancy tests.
"We didn't test me that night. It was Friday night, the end of the week. We drank, listened to the radio, boiled some lobsters. But the next morning, Saturday, we both went in the bathroom. I urinated on the test strip. We had to wait five minutes to see the results. Carl and I…" She dipped her head, started crying. Wiped her eyes. "I don't get to use his name that much. Each time I do, now, it hurts. Carl and I, we just stood around the bathroom sink, where I placed the strip, waiting for the five minutes to pass. We had vaguely talked about maybe having children at some point, but that was all still in the 'future'. So the five minutes passed, we're both kind of quiet, just looking around, smiling shyly at each other, and the strip indicated I was pregnant.
"We didn't believe it. I did a second urine test. Same result. I'm pregnant. It started to sink in. Those two incredibly powerful words. I'm pregnant.
"I called my doctor, arranged for a visit. Carl came with me. We're sitting in the doctor's office, he's talking to me after my exam, and he's telling us, Yes, you're pregnant.
"We were both stunned. I was like, I'm pregnant? Really? I have a human being growing inside me? We still didn't fully believe it, but then my stomach started swelling. I had to buy new outfits. That was fun. And, a really special time. I'll always, always remember going to dress shops, buying pregnant lady clothes. It was so precious, talking to the shop girls. We were signed up for natural birth classes by then, every Tuesday evening, we had to buy a mat to attend, buying the mat kind of made it seem more real, then it reached the point where we could feel him kicking inside me. Such a fucking trip! There's an actual human being inside me!
"That's a special time for a couple, the days and nights they go through, waiting for their first child to be born? I remember how gentle Carl was with me. Everyone was. I'd be out in the city, and men, looking down at my belly, would hold doors open for me, let me go ahead of them in line. And I started to really feel like I was communicating with the baby in my womb. Like we were…sharing secrets."
"I didn't truly, completely believe I was pregnant until the day I gave birth, and the person inside me actually came out. The doctor put him on my chest after the nurse cleaned him off. I can't describe how that felt, to see this incredibly strong infant lying on me, crying, looking into my eyes, with a face that was part me, part Carl. It was such an incredible miracle.
"Our whole life revolved around him. Absolutely. We were afraid to not be in the same room with him, to make sure he was okay. I took a sabbatical from work. I couldn't bear to be without him. Carl'd come home each day at lunch, and it was, you know? Just this happy little family, sitting on the carpet, me on one side of Daniel, Carl on the other. He was the sun we revolved around. We took so many pictures of him. Videotapes. Videotapes that would go on for two hours, the tape's length, just Daniel looking around, taking it all in."
She smiled through her tears. "Here we were, this hip young couple, we thought, knew all these really obscure bands, were always the first to try some new dish, and all of a sudden, all we care about is our darling little baby.
"One day, I went into town to buy some more videotapes, and pick up a birthday cake, while Carl and Daniel stayed on our front lawn, digging a hole. It was Daniel's fourth birthday. While I was gone, Carl went in the house for a moment, to pee. Done it a thousand times before. We rarely get any traffic on our little country road, the bathroom was right inside the front door.
"When Carl went back outside, it couldn't have been forty-five seconds later, Daniel was gone. The hole the two had been digging was still there, both their hand spades, but Daniel was gone."
Her pretty, dark-haired face looked tired. "Forty-five seconds! He couldn't have wandered off. You can see half a mile in all directions from where the hole was. He was kidnapped. And that's the last we ever saw of him. Yeah. The police put out all kinds of bulletins, they even threw up some roadblocks, but we never, ever got Daniel back. You have no idea what that's like, shopping in the supermarket, all those bright lights, strangers everywhere, or watching a sitcom on TV, or trying to fall asleep at night, not knowing where your baby is. Is he still alive? Is he, you know…being mistreated? Does he remember us? At least our smell?
"Carl couldn't take the guilt. I saw it eat away at him. I was so paralyzed myself, I did nothing to help him. I knew he was drowning, but I never could stir myself enough to hold out my hand. A lot of times, I'd be in one room of our empty house, drinking by myself, get up to fix a new drink, pass by him in his room, see him sitting in his chair, not reading, not working on the computer, nothing, just pale-faced, glassy-eyed, nodding to himself. I should have gone into his room, those times. Bent over, hugged him, sat on the carpet, talked to him, but each time, I just passed by the doorway, to fix my drink.
"He killed himself one night after I passed out. He left me a suicide note, but I crumpled it. I never read beyond the first few sentences. I wish I had.
"A few weeks after his death, I tried to commit suicide myself, but I really botched it. Then, that same night, God spoke to me, in a dream. Told me to build this thing."
Pedro inhaled through his nose, taking in what she had said. They sat side by side in the river darkness, not talking, then he looked at her. "This came from God?"
"Yeah. Really."
"May I dive under it, to see its mechanisms?"
She shrugged her thin shoulders. "If you want."
He was gone a while, resurfacing every so often to gulp fresh air.
After an hour, he pulled himself back up onto the raft. "What God told you to build, is very exciting. Before, when I was in Panama? I was an engineer. This is a very exciting form of a new engine. You should get it patented. You really should."
Maggie swayed on the raft. "I wouldn't have any idea how to do that."
"On the other side of this river? At Liddy College? There's a professor, Hollis Kearns, who I know is an honest man, very smart. You should go to him."
"I don't know."
"God brought you here. Maybe God wants the next step in your journey to be a meeting with Professor Kearns."
She thought about it.
He touched her bare shoulder. "I have to go, now." He grinned his big teeth at her. "Work, in the morning."
"Can you swim that far?"
"Sure, I can." He touched her hair, stood, dived off the side of the raft. She watched his splashing body disappear into the gloom, until he was gone, even the sound of his splashing gone, until all that was left in the world were the stars above, the smell of the river, the raft, herself.
It took three weeks to navigate the raft down the river, and across it, to Liddy College.
She timed her arrival for early morning, on a Tuesday, just as the sun was rising above the horizon.
The college was located on the riverfront.
She docked the raft, took off her shoes, splashed through the calf-high water to land. She was wearing her best outfit from her suitcase, green blouse, yellow slacks.
She started across the lawns of the campus. As she got closer to the main building, passing students walking in all directions, she went up to a group of girls sitting under a tree, opened books on their laps. "Where would I find Professor Kearns at this hour?"
A blonde with glasses looked up at her, smiled, pulled out of one of her textbooks a folded, stapled set of papers, flipped through them. "He's teaching in 316A until nine. That's over there." She pointed a straight arm out at one of the secondary buildings.
Maggie walked down the wide, quiet hallway, shoes loud on the linoleum floor, hearing muffled voices lecturing behind the wooden doors she passed.
310A, 312A, 314A.
She twisted the knob to 316A, stepped through.
Tiers of seats descending to a small, circular area where a man with shiny white hair, navy blue bowtie with white polka dots, was walking away from a blackboard, looking up at his students, putting his right forefinger to his lips, deciding who to call on next.
Maggie sat in the back row.
After forty-five minutes, the lecture ended.
Most of the students filed out, carrying their books by their hips.
Maggie nervously made her way down to the circular area, where a few students were gathered, asking questions.
She stood behind them, blushing.
Professor Kearns raised his white eyebrows when it was her turn. "You aren't one of my students."
She smiled. "No. Pedro Alvarez recommended you. This is hard for me to say. I was talked to by God. He had me create a large wooden square that travels on land and water under its own energy. It doesn't need gas or anything. Pedro told me you'd be a good person to go to, to see about making money from it. My name is Maggie."
Professor Kearns ducked his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't believe I know anyone named Pedro Alvarez."
"He was an engineer in Panama?"
"It doesn't ring a bell. You have a square, like a machine, or…"
"It's a twelve foot by twelve foot square I've been using to travel around the South, giving sermons. It also travels on water, like a raft."
He raised his right forefinger. "I've heard about you! You're the one with the piece of paper, everybody in your congregation crumples the sheet, tries to smooth it?"
Maggie raised her thin shoulders. "Well, I don't really have a congregation, I don't think of it that way, but yeah."
Professor Kearns spread his hands apart. "I'm an atheist. I don't know if I could believe in a machine the specifications of which were dictated to you by God in a dream."
"Well, could you at least look at it?"
"How far did you travel with this square?"
"Over five hundred miles on land. I don't know how many miles on water."
"With no source of energy?"
"Right."
Professor Kearns gave a kindly smile. "That's kind of hard to believe."
"Will you look at it?"
He lowered his face, checked with the undersides of his fingers to make sure his hair was in place. "Okay. As long as you understand I'll be looking at it basically because you've been in the papers, and this will be my chance to debunk this perpetual energy machine of yours."
"That's fine."
"It's nothing personal. It's in the name of science."
"I understand."
Professor Kearns supervised as several of his graduate students, using a crane, turned the platform over onto its back, like a horseshoe crab, exposing the metal mechanisms of the underside.
After the students took dozens of photographs, cameras up where their eyes should be, a group of them, using graph paper, meticulously recreated the interactions of the mechanism in pencil, then input that data into a computer.
Professor Kearns stood by her while his students worked. "There's a guest room available in one of the sororities. You can sleep there while my students complete their analysis. You'll have access to a shower, and the food is free. You have to understand though, once they prove your machine doesn't work, you'll have to leave the campus."
That Friday, Professor Kearns stopped in the doorway of her room at the sorority. "We're still analyzing the mechanism. Do you know how to build a smaller or larger version?"
The question caught Maggie off-guard. "Not really."
She didn't hear from him the next Friday, or the next.
The following Tuesday, debating what she should do, she went back to 316A, waited until his class
was over, walked down to talk to him.
He gave her a smile, shrugged. "We can't figure out how you built your machine. We also can't figure out how it works. But it does somehow generate energy when it's in motion, then stores that energy. Each time it's in motion, even though it's expending energy, it's also storing energy. This storage of energy is based on the mechanical structure of the machine. It's like the more you coil a spring, the more you store energy that can be tapped during the release of the spring. What all this means, impossible as it sounds, is you've created a machine that provides self-renewing energy. We've duplicated your machine on a smaller scale. The more energy it expends, the more it stores. You have a machine that uses its own expenditure of energy as fuel. Do you know what that means?"
She shook her head, holding the morning's unread newspaper against her breasts.
"You've created a machine that does not require any type of fuel. Your machine can easily replace all sources of energy. We can build models that provide enough energy to take care of all the energy needs – oil, gas, electricity–of a family for about one hundred dollars. Once someone spends that hundred dollars, they never need to spend any more money on energy. No more heating or air-conditioning bills, no more electricity bills, no more buying gasoline at the pump. And, your energy is completely clean. It creates no pollution whatsoever, and depletes no natural resources. You're going to be the wealthiest person on the planet. I haven't been round to tell you all this, because despite all the tests we've run, I still can't believe this machine of yours really works. But it does."
Maggie looked up at him. "It works because God made it."
Professor Kearns let out a sigh. "I'm an atheist. There's got to be some other explanation."
"When God first told me how to build this machine, I didn't know what he meant for me to do with it. Now I do know. He wanted me first to come to grips with my sorrow over the loss of my husband, my child, which I did, traveling around the South, sharing my pain with others. Then he wanted me to meet Pedro. Finally, he wanted me to meet you, because with your help, like you said, I'm going to make a lot of money."
You Can Never Spit It All Out Page 33