Curse the Names
Page 14
But I recognize him. I flip off the light and make him go away.
I push open the slider, the noise of the door rumbling in its track almost too much to bear. New moon, no moon—crickets going strong on the practice putting green. The crickets in Los Alamos: all these six years I’ve heard their song, but I never understood the message—mournful, indifferent, a noise beating down on the earth—you you you you, and contrapuntal: real real real real. Can anybody help me? Where is there someone who hears what I hear? There is no one there.
I shut the slider, sealing myself inside the house like a skeleton in a vault, and pull the curtain to the edge of the glass. I lie on the living room couch and cannot sleep. I am cold but do not move, not even for a blanket. No traffic on Pajarito Road. No distant dog barking.
When the first light of dawn begins glowing against the curtain, the crickets’ chorus diminishes—the sound of the world winding down. I rise and stand before the slider, flipping the switch and flooding the room with light. I push aside the curtain to see that ragged man in the glass, and superimposed on him is someone else: handsome in an expensive blue suit.
McCaffery.
“I do not believe that you are here.”
“We all come here eventually.” I do not open the slider, but I hear him loud and clear.
“The blood tech saw you, though.”
“Who says?”
“She says.”
“You say she says.” He stares back at me through the glass.
I tell him, “I went back to the house.”
“You had to warn them.”
“I met the old man.”
“You had to put the names up on the wall.” McCaffery glances eastward at the sky. “It’s almost time.”
“And if I don’t go out to meet it?”
“With or without you, no one will be spared.” The light is rising. McCaffery is retreating.
I feel a tremor, hear a sound, and I am lying on the living room couch. The curtain in the dining room is closed.
I open the front door and step over the Los Alamos Monitor, registering the date: August 6, Little Boy’s birthday, Hiroshima Day.
Hello, my name is James. I am not crazy. I am not afraid to close my eyes.
All across Los Alamos, a thousand Mr. Coffees gurgle on at split-second intervals.
It is a minute past sunrise and it is already hot, a bright summer morning on the Hill. Gracious homes left and right.
Ten thousand people waking up. People with high blood pressure read the paper. People with clean teeth go jogging. People with skin cancer that hasn’t been detected yet get ready to go to their jobs.
It is dawn, and Ned, he of the Weedwacker, is already out on his immaculate lawn.
Here I am, barefoot, coming to meet my neighbor between our fields of green. My front lawn is not as nice as Ned’s. The grass is shaggy, riddled with dandelions, pocked with old Oppie shits. Ned keeps his lawn closecropped and free of crabgrass.
“Good morning!”
Ned looks up, waves. He is stringing up his Weedwacker, wearing work boots, eye protection, noisecancelling headphones.
“Did you hear something?”
He squints at me through the plastic goggles. I make a no-worries gesture. Of course he didn’t hear anything. Let me think about this for a second. Was what woke me a sound, or was that just the sound of myself jerking awake?
Ned stoops to yank the cord, once, twice. He is having trouble getting the Weedwacker started. Over Ned’s shoulder, down Pajarito Road, the streetlamps are burning in the dawn’s early light.
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