Ben Soul

by Richard George

and Beau joined him. One or two people looked around for TV cameras and any one of a dozen detectives whose shows sped through the streets of the City but they saw no cameras. They shrugged, and went on their way.

  At the third corner, Fu I directed them to cross the street. They set out just before the little white person turned into a red hand. A stubborn Volkswagen intervened between the three friends and Fu I. The Volkswagen almost shaved a few inches off Fu I’s belly. While he was thus distracted, Noah pulled Shu and Beau into a bus scheduled to go to the Zoo. Fu I got to the bus stop just in time to see where the bus was headed, but too late to board it. He patted his sleeve, to be sure he hadn’t lost the one Kuanyin he had bought at the Wong Brothers Import/Export Emporium, caught the next bus headed toward the zoo, to pursue the three friends.

  Butterfly in Pink Granite and Malachite

  Ben slept late deliberately. He could save money if he only ate twice a day. A late breakfast kept him full until early evening. A modest meal then carried him through the night, especially if he slept. He thought the fair would offer an opportunity for something to eat. He had never tried several food items advertised. Ben loved experimenting with new foods.

  The fair was not so crowded today; the parade yesterday had drawn more people to the area than the fair alone drew. Ben wandered the alleys, looking for the bolo booth. He hadn’t marked its location as closely as he had thought, or it was gone. He did find another booth, one that specialized in rings and belt buckles. He stopped and looked through the ring trays. The woman behind the booth watched him closely, but said nothing. The majority of the vendors tempted passers-by with conversation and invitations to look at other merchandise deeper into the booth. This woman nodded, silently, and went back to her magazine. Ben appreciated her silence, and lingered over the belt buckles.

  One piece caught his eye; it was Zuñi-style inlay of polished pink granite and malachite shaping a butterfly. He lifted it. It delighted him when he saw it was a bolo. The non-traditional stones in the inlay intrigued him.

  “How much?” he asked the woman.

  “Ten bucks,” she said.

  Ben dug into his pocket. “I’ll take it,” he told her, and gave her the bill. She put the bolo in a small plastic sack and handed it to him.

  “Wear it in good health,” she said, and took up her seat again to watch the crowd.

  Ben carefully withdrew the bolo and put it on. He looked for a mirror to see how it looked on his chest, but couldn’t see one.

  The earth hiccupped under his feet. Ben fell on his knees, hard, and tears came to his eyes. The buckle booth swayed and fell, trapping the vendor under canvas and metal poles. Ben started to push himself to his feet when the earth heaved and rolled, and booths all around collapsed in rubble heaps. A wind chime booth nearby rang an alarm loud enough to raise Hell-fiends. Ben prostrated himself and covered his head with his hands.

  A third shake tumbled a booth of tough pots onto the alley. Some shattered; others began rolling. One struck Ben’s foot and bounced into the air far enough to clear his heel and land on his calf. It was a large pot. He carried the bruise for days.

  A flash of red, gold, and blue went by his head. Another pot was rolling toward a crazy heap of umbrellas in a tottering umbrella stand. The pot bowled them over. Long moments after the upheaval Ben lay still, fearing another rumble of the earth would land him flat again. Slowly he became aware of someone moaning. He finally located the source; it was the vendor in the buckle booth. He pushed himself to his knees, and then to his feet, and struggled toward the collapsed booth. He began pulling canvas and poles off her.

  Len looked out from the dressing room tent toward the fair. He had been planning the orderly dismantling of the tent and booths for several hours. The ground under him rolled once, twice, three times. He said afterward that it had been the longest temblor of his life. He expected the heavy canvas to crash down on him and smother him. By some quirk of placement, structural integrity, or flexibility, the tent held, though most of the booths in the fair crumpled and crashed. Weavings, pots, and pictures mingled with broken rods, canvas flaps, and broken ropes in the shambles that had been the fair.

  Ben heard, “You okay, mister?” He looked up. A short man with curly red hair was bending over him. Ben recognized him after a moment. It was the man he had bumped into the day before.

  “What the hell happened?” Ben asked.

  The red-haired man said, “Earthquake, I think. You sure you’re okay? I’m a doctor, if you need one.”

  “I’m okay. I don’t know about the guy in the bolo booth, though.”

  “I’ll check.” The short man went toward the bolo booth.

  The City’s wisdom in requiring the cooking booths to be at a remove from the craft booths proved out as first one, and then another, cook stall flared up where barbeque barrels and gas camp stoves had ignited the tumbled walls. Len ran toward the fair booths. He knew some must be hurt. As he went he commandeered fairgoers who were ambulatory, and began directing them in dismantling the wreckage. He organized a brigade to stack the poles in one place, and the canvases in another. Items like blankets and carpets he confiscated. Two medically trained fairgoers improvised litters from some of the canvas and poles, and directed others in carrying the wounded into the tent.

  “We need something to put this fire out,” the little man said. “Is there an extinguisher anywhere?”

  “There’s a tank of lemonade, and another one with some kind of purple juice. Let’s try that. Maybe it will knock the flames down,” Ben said.

  “We’ll pour it slowly. We don’t want to spread the propane.”

  Ben found a large pan with flour in it. “Maybe we should dump this flour on the pool of gas, and then use the liquids to kill the flame on the canvas.”

  “Let’s try it. Maybe there’s a shutoff on the tank. If we can shut off the gas, we can slow down the fire.”

  Ben dumped the flour on the propane. Then he shut off the valve on the tank. The other man, who had said he was a doctor, took the tops off the beverage tanks. Then, with Ben’s help, he poured the contents on the burning canvas. Steam and smoke rose up in a great cloud. Len came walking through the fog.

  “You guys got that fire under control?”

  “Pretty much,” Ben said.

  Len looked them over. “I need people to help with folks that are hurt,” he said. “We’ve got a big tent on the other side of the street fair.” He gestured toward it. “It survived the quake. We’re going to use it for a hospital tent. Now all I need is a doctor and some nurses.”

  “I’m a doctor,” the little man said. “That is, I’m a psychiatrist, but I’m a fully trained physician, as well. Dr. Chester Field, at your service.”

  “I don’t know a lot about medicine,” Ben said, “but I’ve worked with a lot of wounded animals over the years.”

  “Right now I need a doctor, and somebody to boil water.”

  “I can boil water, too,” Ben said.

  “Great. I can use you both. Let’s go.”

  It was not until long after night had settled in that Len realized one of the civilians he so immediately pressed into service was the young man he had met the day before.

  Ben was feeding wood scraps and debris to the fire under the cauldron of water several volunteers with buckets had filled. The boy came up to him. He was teetering on the edge of adolescence, and wore very little clothing. His ribs showed at his sides like ladder rungs. He wore cutoff jeans, very short, with the side seams split up almost to the waist, and sandals. Several adults followed him.

  “Hi, Mister,” the boy said. “You know who’s in charge of these booths?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “We’re taking them, then. La Señora needs them to shelter people.”

  Ben looked at the boy and the adults following him. “You sure they’re going to be used for shelter?”

 
; The boy bristled. “La Señora doesn’t lie. She says we need them to shelter the women and the kids that are gathering in the park.”

  A man among the adults chimed in, “The kid’s right, mister. Anybody needs to know where the stuff is can find it in Lost Lane Park.”

  Ben considered. “It’s not mine to say take it or leave it. I just boil water.”

  “So, it’s okay by you if we take the stuff?” the boy asked.

  “I won’t try to stop you,” Ben said. He was quite sure he couldn’t, not all of them.

  “Okay, ladies and gents,” the man who’d spoken before said. “Let’s take the booths apart and move them to the park.”

  Ben watched the boy and his helpers dismantle the booths, and roll the poles and ropes in the canvas. He mentioned the occurrence to Mr. DeLys. Mr. DeLys assured him it was all quite okay. La Señora was a known missionary presence over on Lost Lane.

  Vanna on the Job

  Vanna Shayne watched her boss, Quigley Drye, Private Eye, close the door behind his broad rear. “Perspiring porker,” Vanna thought after him, and turned to her filing. She had taken this secretarial job a few months ago, because it was the only one available. She did not like her boss, or the work, but found both preferable to staying at home to play pastor’s wife with her husband, Dickon. In time, she hoped, she’d save enough from the job (she told Dickon it paid less than it actually did) to get away from Dickon and his religious