Like a Surge

by Olivette Devaux

  Schools were cancelled due to snow just two days before winter recess. As Russ heeded the three-AM call to help the power line crews out in Green County, he reflected upon Paul’s job cycle of landscaping work when weather permitted, and road maintenance in the winter. He had never realized that people put in retaining walls in December, as long as the ground was workable.

  He slowed down some more in the dark, careful of slippery snow tongues that turned winter driving into a minor adventure. The storm came in from the south and he was driving straight into it. Had Ash been around, Russ would have woken him up and asked him to read it and tell him all about its duration and precipitation levels just to supplement the weather prediction data. Ash was gone to see Cooper’s family, though, and when it came to weather, the rest of their little team had to depend on weather.gov and their nifty radar images. The inky black of the sky beyond his windshield revealed only the palest tinge of electrostatically charged clouds. By the time he pulled into the plowed parking lot full of maintenance trucks and cherry-pickers, he counted his blessings that he’d set out early enough.

  He turned off the engine and stepped out into the cold. The confectioner’s sugar dusting he had seen in Pittsburgh had turned into heavy clumps of white, cold softness that clung to his sturdy nylon jacket, and to the yellow construction crew vest with reflective strips.

  “Russ! Glad you could make it.” The foreman, Jack, clapped him on the shoulder as soon as Russ entered the small office trailer. “The ice formed on the lines south of here and there’s damage. How long do you have?”

  “As long as it takes, Jack.” Russ flashed the foreman a reproachful look. “I’m always happy to help.”

  “Yeah? And your students won’t mind?”

  “School’s out for winter break.”

  “Aha!” Jack chuckled. “And your sweetie doesn’t mind either, I bet.” From the way he said it, his constant emergencies and irregular schedule must’ve been causing friction at home.

  “He doesn’t mind.” Russ smiled as he thought of the way Paul had launched out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen.

  Their eyes met. Jack raised his eyebrows, and suddenly, Russ realized that the raucous shit-giving and caffeinated grumbling around them stilled.

  He was the center of their attention now.

  “He?” Jack’s voice jumped an octave. “You one of them fags? I’d have never guessed.” There was no censure in his voice. Only surprise.

  “Not fags,” Russ said, realizing his voice matched the weather outside perfectly. Soft, yet biting cold. “Gays. Yes, I’m one of them gays. You’ve known me for five years. I thought you knew.”

  “Shit.” Someone in the back broke the silence. “So why didn’t you say anything?”

  Russ turned to the guy he barely knew but had worked with under life-and-death circumstances before. “Because it has nothing to do with getting the power restored, asshole. But if none of you keep your relationships secret, why should I? It’s no different.”

  A phone went off, and Jack’s attention got redirected to more urgent things. He took the call, bit off a few monosyllabic responses, and put his phone away. He looked at Russ sheepishly, and shrugged. “I guess you’re right. It don’t change nothing, and you’re still the expert. I just don’t wanna know what yinz are doing when you’re alone, y’know?”

  This was as good as apology. Russ nodded. “No problem. So, what’s the job?”

  His quick acceptance and the subsequent diversion to their common purpose dissipated the tension in the room into relieved warmth and overly eager chatter.

  Two hours of touch-and-go driving later almost got them mired in more than a foot of snow. The heavy trucks and their maintenance wheels could barely handle it.

  “If we could wait for the snow plows, we would,” Jack yelled from the front passenger seat over the driving Metallica music to Russ, who was strapped into the back of the cab, cradling the thermos of coffee Paul had filled for him while he was taking a short wake-up shower. “Thing is, the step-down station lost several lines, and the hospital in Mingo is running on emergency power right now.”

  “No problem,” Russ yelled back as he tried not to think of the panicked maternity wards and the delayed surgeries. By the time their truck battled its way through the white parking lot and pulled up to the locked, high-security gate in the concertina-wire topped chain link fence, the skies had turned dark orange in the glow of the step-down stations sodium lights.

  “Let’s see where the issue might be,” Paul said to Jack as he surveyed the complex structure. To his inner sight, it glowed with swirls of bright fuchsia energy, deeper than the pink of 220V fields in the maintenance shop, and a lot deadlier. The lines painted streaks of purple in the sky that stretched into forever. In the past, before Paul and Uncle Owen, the input would’ve blinded him with its intensity. Now, though, he spread his booted feet in the snow, drew a centering breath, and focused on that whirling sphere of his own native power, right below his belly button. From there, he gently extended his senses again, filtering out what obviously worked. All that pooled energy, that glowing power, receded into the background as Russ searched for dead darkness.

  The station itself seemed in order, but as Russ followed the set of lines in the westerly direction, he hit a black spot. “Have the guys check B31. It sounds different,” he said to Jack. He referred to sound, because it was less crazy for the uninitiated.

  “Okay,” Jack said with a skeptical nod. “You’re the boss.” Jack was, even after five years, firmly grounded in the standard operating procedures of checking every single terminal, every section that affected his part of the power grid. And that was how it should be.

  Even many hours later, after they had battled their way to the fallen tree, cut it apart, and reconnected the broken wires, and after the lunch made by Paul was happily gone along with the coffee, Russ was carefully directing the crew to take readings on the electrical current properties. He could’ve told them it was all fixed with a single glance – except he knew he couldn’t always be there.

  Plus, there was the secrecy issue. Moving in with Paul drove home how much he had to lose – how much all of them had to lose – if the word got out that they were more than just a bunch of ordinary guys. Maybe he should make a mistake here and there. His success rate had, all of a sudden, become a liability.

  But could he really afford to lead the team on a wild goose chase when a nearby hospital was running low on generator power?

  He wished he had been the one traveling with Cooper instead of Ash. He wanted to talk to Uncle Owen again, and to that famous Grandma Olga. He yearned to find out how others walked the fine line between usefulness and obscurity while managing not to jeopardize the existence of their gifted family and friends.

  CHAPTER 21

  Slowly, ever so slowly, Paul eased his hand through the gleaming copper structure of his Faraday Cage bed canopy and disabled his alarm before it could go off. On this Winter Solstice Saturday, his bedroom was still dark except for the gentle glow of a small, plug-in night light that gently spilled in from the hallway. They sky outside the windows was inky black on this longest night of the year, and not even the omnipresent glow of the city lights alleviated it here, in a tucked-away alley whose three feet wide, six feet tall bedroom window faced an overgrown hill.

  With outmost care, Paul settled on his back, then hazarded a glance at Russ.

  Russ, who had pulled a 36-hour shift of snow-driving, running on caffeine and adrenaline and fumes. Russ, who’d run his car into the rusty chain-link fence of Ash and Cooper’s new house in an effort to park, because his backlash headache blurred his vision after too many hours of working his newfound gift a bit too hard. Russ, who had made it possible for his crew to restore power faster and safer, while fixing more connections broken by falling branches than they could’ve identified in the same time-frame without him.

  His Russ. This drive, this level of courage wasn’t something Paul had expe
cted, but it pleased him. Russ would fit well with a team that restored natural power flows and battled rogue talents whose taste ran to lazy greed.

  He sat up and slowly pushed aside the curtain of copper wire that hung off the trellis with its fanciful, wrought metal leaves and vines. Only a gentle chime of copper followed in his wake. Paul couldn’t sleep in, not today. Not on the Solstice, when there was so much to do. He had, after all, promised to hold the ceremony with the others, just as Ash did with Cooper and his family up in snow-blanketed Minnesota. The meditation part was sure to help Russ, along with a spoonful of the bitterly vile reishi mushroom tincture.

  The slap of his bare feet against the cold, wooden floors broke the morning silence as he made his way out of his bedroom and into the bathroom, where he had his clothes laid out.

  No shoes. No rubber-insulated shoes – the reality of the risk he was taking made Paul pause. After a quick internal inventory, he breathed a sigh of relief. His bioelectric charge did not threaten to surge any more today than it did yesterday, or the day before. Not in the morning, anyway, although he knew he would have to watch himself by lunch.

  The bed worked.

  And, whether by coincidence or by design, Russ had given him the freedom to live a life that almost resembled that of a regular person. One where he didn’t have to slip into protective shoes, and where he might even, someday, do without his insulating rubber gloves.

  Daring greatly, Paul reached for the light switch with his bare hand.

  The light turned on.

  It stayed that way.

  An airy whoosh of relief tore its way out of his lungs, and with the accompanying adrenaline surge, he detected a slight tingle under his skin. Paul dismissed it with a chuckle. This little electrical charge was nothing in the great scheme of things.

  It was small enough to meditate away – or to rinse away with the citrusy suds of his morning shower.

  He paused, thinking. What if his years of striving to not release his electrical charge into his environment had made his internal energies stale? Like stagnant water going bad in a pond, was it possible for his power to be tainted? Go bad? Become uncontrollable by the virtue of the fact that he had been trying too hard?

  He wished Uncle Owen had been around to answer his questions.

  First, though, he’d make tea. Then he would do a bit of yoga, the way Ash had taught him, to center himself for the day. And after Russ woke and took his reishi extract, Paul would see whether Russ would need to refuel after his incredible effort, or whether he would join everyone else in the solstice fast.

  “I THOUGHT YOU loved me.” At eleven o’clock, Russ tossed Paul a glare he hoped was as baleful as the dark brown mushroom tincture was bitter. And not only bitter but tasting of rotten wood and mushrooms and some indescribable component which was, in his achy head, not considered fit for human consumption.

  He leaned into the back of the kitchen chair and groaned. Everything ached. His sore back was a hair’s breadth from being out, his thighs burned with fatigue from walking in the deep snow, and his arms and shoulders nagged with a dull ache from hauling heavy electrical lines and cut-up fallen trees. “I wish I dared to stretch, but if I do, I think I’ll pull something,” he whispered over a mug of honeyed herbal tea.

  “How about a bath?” Paul looked him up and down, wishing he could see energy patterns the way Cooper saw them while holding the sword that was Jared. “I’ll give you a rub-down afterward, and you can sleep some more.” He paused. “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving,” Russ admitted. “Although you said before we are supposed to be fasting today, so...”

  “So nothing. If you eat a bit now, you’ll be in a better shape for tonight.”

  “But I want the meditation to go well,” Russ said plaintively. “We both have so much to learn, and if I screw it up...” he sighed.

  “It’s up to you.” Paul took his empty mug and refilled it with more tea and a spoonful of honey. From the set of his jaw, Russ could tell he had an opinion about the matter, but was doing his best to keep his mouth shut and let Paul do the driving.

  Russ found Paul’s struggle endearing. This wasn’t just about their insane physical chemistry, nor was this all about the convenience of Paul being a bioelectric dynamo and he acting as a natural ground.

  Paul cared. That ‘love’ word they had tossed about in an almost-experimental manner before was, just maybe, a real thing.

  “Maybe I could have a banana with peanut butter,” Russ relented. “Or two. And then I’ll see.”

  “Would you like it in the tub?” Paul’s smile brightened the whole room, and Russ could’ve sworn that he saw little electric sparks light up his eyes.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Fantastic.” Paul peeled a banana, set it on a porcelain plate, and aimed his finger at it. A loud, blinding discharge jumped off his fingertip, searing the length of the fruit. Ozone and the scent of broiled banana filled the air. “Think of it as Banana Foster, but with peanut butter instead of ice cream.” He winked. “Just wait till we have a dinner party, and I’ll sear the sugar on our guests’ creme bruleè!”

  A LIGHT, TWO-MILE jog and a good stretching routine helped Paul settle into a proper holiday spirit. The whole Lawrenceville neighborhood was in its pre-Christmas mode, with greenery and lights decorating the newly renovated storefronts. Municipal decorations spruced up the lamp posts on Butler Street. The sturdy plastic structures depicted a lit candle, supported by two Christmas balls right underneath. The attempt at a small, evergreen bough under the awkward composition didn’t negate the fact that the whole street was bedecked by two long rows of glowing dicks-and-balls.

  Paul wished he had a cell phone with a camera. He would have taken a picture for Russ, and then he would’ve texted it to Cooper and Ash.

  He sighed. With more control, and with rubber gloves, he might be able to swing a phone yet. To further that goal, however, he should get back and help Mark and Ellen with solstice preparations, after which he’d wake up Russ and see if Russ needed a shower to feel fully alert.

  As he walked back home, he tried to negotiate how much money it would take, in fried second-hand cell phones, before he decided the device wasn’t suitable for him after all.

  HANK’S BASEMENT WAS the one with the secret door to the underground tunnels. Russ knew the way in existed, but try as he might, he could not see any signs of the well-hidden entrance.

  “We are down here to be in touch with the Earth,” Hank explained. “Now mind you, I’m just rehashing what Uncle Owen taught all of us at some point, and I’m repeating all that to refresh the material for the newer members of our group.”

  Russ wiggled on his meditation pillow, grateful that Paul had dragged him into a hot soaking bath with a subsequent massage. He’d slept like a log, and he’d woken up less sore. Even so, the unfamiliar half-lotus position was getting to him. At least the rubber yoga mat protected his ankles from the rough concrete floor, and the brand-new furnace made the basement as comfortable as any living room.

  “Since there’s five of us, we will do the pentagram today so no one’s left out.” He glanced at Russ. “You can do any geometric shape as long as the people are even. Big groups do circles. The shape doesn’t matter, but the balance does.”

  With a person seated at each point, they all seemed to represent an element. Hank walked a circle outside of them, drawing an invisible perimeter in the air using a pocket knife that had seen better days. In the books, Russ had seen ceremonial knives with all kinds of decorations, and seeing the big, hulking Hank wield a tiny three-inch little blade he always had in his pocked seemed oddly common.

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Uncle Owen’s words drifted through his mind on a wisp of a treasured memory. With his short, rotund stature and cheerful disposition, Owen Anneveinen didn’t have the looks of a “high mage,” to use a term from fanciful books, but his abilities might qualify him as such in the eyes of many a reader.

&nb
sp; “As a wind-worker, Ellen would normally be Air, but she’s pregnant so she’ll represent Spirit. I’m Void, so I’ll be air instead of her.” Hank looked around. “You be Water, Paul, since your electric surge seeks it out. This would make Russ Earth, which would leave Fire to Mark. You okay being Fire, Mark?”

  Mark nodded. “As long as I get to use the matches, sure.”

  The rest of them laughed, and when Russ turned his quizzical expression to Mark, he got his answer: “Fire is extremely rare, and difficult to control. Fire Men don’t make the best housemates.”

  Russ tried to process the implications of a rogue fire talent while listening to Mark’s instructions. So far, he knew what to say when Mark pointed at him, but as far as ceremonial power went, he didn’t feel a darn smidgeon of spirituality, or afterlife, or anything cosmic like that. The dry, dim basement receded into the background of his eyesight, and as hard as he tried to ‘feel something,’ Russ couldn’t see anything but the warmly lit faces that glowed in candlelight. His newfound friends sat facing the center of the pentagram, with a candle in front of each person, and a circle of small, candle-powered luminaries around them all. Hank chanted words that made no sense, so Russ focused on centering himself.

  “I invoke Air,” Hank said, and clapped. The words and the sharp noise brought Russ to the present.

  “I invoke Spirit,” Ellen said with a clap.

  Hank pointed at him.

  “I invoke Earth,” Russ said in a voice that wasn’t nearly sure enough, and the clapping part dredged out a memory of an old second-grade music class. He was doing it only because he didn’t want to stand out. He was feeling like an idiot, sitting in somebody’s basement, surrounded by candles, reeking of incense.

  He wished he could poke Paul and whisper something stupid in his ear to break the nervous tension that leaned against him so hard he thought he would bend forward. Since when was sitting upright so much work?