Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

by Cory Doctorow

find themagain. So I bundled them all up and carried them over my head and Iwaded in and the water had never been so cold and had never felt so oilyand there was a smell to it, a stagnant smell.

  I waded out and I stood and I shivered and I whispered, "Father?" and Ilistened.

  I heard the sound of the water I'd disturbed, lapping around my ears andup on the shore. I smelled the sewage and oil smell, but none of thehabitual smells of my father: Clean water, coalface, sulfur, grass, andlime.

  I picked my way out of the water again and I walked to the shore, and itwas too dark to put on my clothes, so I carried them under one arm andfelt my way back to the summer cave and leaned against my mother andwaited to drip dry. I'd stepped in something soft that squished andsmelled between my mother and my father, and I didn't want to put on mysocks until I'd wiped it off, but I couldn't bring myself to wipe it onthe cave floor.

  Marci's eye sockets looked up at the ceiling. She'd been laid out withso much care, I couldn't believe that Davey had had anything to do withit. I thought that Benny must be around somewhere, looking in, takingcare.

  I closed my eyes so that I wasn't looking into the terrible,recriminating stare, and I leaned my head up against my mother, and Ibreathed until the stink got to me and then I pried myself upright andwalked out of the cave. I stopped and stood in the mouth of the cave andlistened as hard as I could, but my father wasn't speaking. And thesmell was getting to me.

  #

  She got him dressed and she fed him sips of water and she got himstanding and walked him in circles around the little paddock he'dcollapsed in.

  "I need to get Georgie out of the car," he said. "I'm going to leave himin the cave. It's right."

  She bit her lip and nodded slowly. "I can help you with that," she said.

  "I don't need help," he said lamely.

  "I didn't say you did, but I can help anyway."

  They walked down slowly, him leaning on her arm like an old man, stepsfaltering in the scree on the slope. They came to the road and stoodbefore the trunk as the cars whizzed past them. He opened the trunk andlooked down.

  The journey hadn't been good to Gregg. He'd come undone from his windingsheet and lay face down, neck stiff, his nose mashed against the floorof the trunk. His skin had started to flake off, leaving a kind of scaleor dandruff on the flat industrial upholstery inside the trunk.

  Alan gingerly tugged loose the sheet and began, awkwardly, to wrap itaround his brother, ignoring the grit of shed skin and hair that clungto his fingers.

  Mimi shook him by the shoulder hard, and he realized she'd been shakinghim for some time. "You can't do that here," she said. "Would you listento me? You can't do that here. Someone will see." She held somethingup. His keys.

  "I'll back it up to the trailhead," she said. "Close the trunk and waitfor me there."

  She got behind the wheel and he sloped off to the trailhead and stood,numbly, holding the lump on his forehead and staring at a rusted Cokecan in a muddy puddle.

  She backed the car up almost to his shins, put it in park, and camearound to the trunk. She popped the lid and looked in and wrinkled hernose.

  "Okay," she said. "I'll get him covered and we'll carry him up thehill."

  "Mimi --" he began. "Mimi, it's okay. You don't need to go in there forme. I know it's hard for you --"

  She squeezed his hand. "I'm over it, Andy. Now that I know what's upthere, it's not scary any longer."

  He watched her shoulders work, watched her wings work, as she wrapped uphis brother. When she was done, he took one end of the bundle andhoisted it, trying to ignore the rain of skin and hair that shook offover the bumper and his trousers.

  "Up we go," she said, and moved to take the front. "Tell me when toturn."

  They had to set him down twice before they made it all the way up thehill. The first time, they just stood in silence, wiping their crampedhands on their thighs. The second time, she came to him and put her armaround his shoulders and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek that feltlike a feather.

  "Almost there?" she said.

  He nodded and bent to pick up his end.

  Mimi plunged through the cave mouth without a moment's hesitation andthey set him down just inside the entrance, near a pair of stainedcotton Y-fronts.

  Alan waited for his heart to stop thudding and the sweat to cool on hisbrow and then he kicked the underwear away as an afterthought.

  "God," he said. She moved to him, put her arm around his shoulder.

  "You're being brave," she said.

  "God," he said again.

  "Let it out, you know, if you want to."

  But he didn't, he wanted to sit down. He moved to his mother's side andleaned against her.

  Mimi sat on her hunkers before him and took his hand and tried to tilthis chin up with one finger, but he resisted her pull and she rose andbegan to explore the cave. He heard her stop near Marci's skeleton for along while, then move some more. She circled him and his mother, thenopened her lid and stared into her hamper. He wanted to tell her not totouch his mother, but the words sounded ridiculous in his head and hedidn't dare find out how stupid they sounded moving through freespace.

  And then the washing machine bucked and made a snapping sound and hummedto life.

  *The generator's dead,* he thought. *And she's all rusted through.* And still the washing machine moved. He heard the gush of water filling her, a wet and muddy sound.

  "What did you do?" he asked. He climbed slowly to his feet, facing awayfrom his mother, not wanting to see her terrible bucking as she wobbledon her broken foot.

  "Nothing," Mimi said. "I just looked inside and it started up."

  He stared at his mother, enraptured, mesmerized. Mimi stole alongside ofhim and he noticed that she'd taken off her jacket and the sweatshirt,splaying out her wings around her.

  Her hand found his and squeezed. The machine rocked. His mother rockedand gurgled and rushed, and then she found some local point of stabilityand settled into a soft rocking rhythm.

  The rush of water echoed off the cave walls, a white-noise shushing thatsounded like skis cutting through powder. It was a beautiful sound, onethat transported him to a million mornings spent waiting for the boys'laundry to finish and be hung on the line.

  *All gone.*

  He jerked his head up so fast that something in his neck cracked,needling pain up into his temples and forehead. He looked at Mimi, butshe gave no sign of having heard the voice, the words, *All gone.*

  *All gone.*

  Mimi looked at him and cocked her head. "What?" she said.

  He touched her lips with a finger, forgetting to be mindful of theswelling there, and she flinched away. There was a rustle of wings andclothing.

  *My sons, all my sons, gone.*

  The voice emerged from that white-noise roar of water humming andsloshing back and forth in her basket. Mimi squeezed his hand so hard hefelt the bones grate.

  "Mom?" he said softly, his voice cracking. He took half a step towardthe washer.

  *So tired. I'm worn out. I've been worn out.*

  He touched the enamel on the lid of the washer, and felt the vibrationsthrough his fingertips. "I can -- I can take you home," he said. "I'lltake care of you, in the city."

  *Too late.*

  There was a snapping sound and then a front corner of the machinesettled heavily. One rusted out foot, broken clean off, rolled acrossthe cave floor.

  The water sounds stilled.

  Mimi breathed some words, something like Oh my God, but maybe in anotherlanguage, or maybe he'd just forgotten his own tongue.

  "I need to go," he said.

  #

  They stayed in a different motel on their way home from the mountain,and Mimi tried to cuddle him as he lay in the bed, but her wings got inthe way, and he edged over to his side until he was almost falling offbefore she took the hint and curled up on her side. He lay still untilhe heard her snore softly, then rose and went and sat on the toilet,head in his hands, staring at the mol
dy grout on the tiled floor in thewhite light, trying not to think of the bones, the hank of brittle redhair, tied tightly in a shopping bag in the trunk of the rental car.

  Sunrise found him pacing the bathroom, waiting for Mimi to stir, andwhen she padded in and sat on the toilet, she wouldn't meet his eye. Hefound himself thinking of her standing in the tub, rolled towel betweenher teeth, as Krishna approached her wings with his knife, and he wentback into the room to dress.

  "We going to eat breakfast?" she asked in the smallest voice.

  He said nothing, couldn't will himself to talk.

  "There's still food in the car," she said after some silence had slippedby. "We can eat that."

  And without any more words, they