Clearfather cocked his head. It was a growling, chewing sound. From around the other side of the house Warhol appeared, chomping at something.
“It’s my dog.”
“What’s he eating?”
“I’m afraid it’s the remains of your dogs,” Clearfather said.
“What are you talking about?” the Man of Steel demanded.
“Your mastiffs. Warhol got out when the car barn doors opened. There was an altercation. Warhol won.”
“But the mastiffs aren’t real!” the Steel Man exclaimed. “I got rid of them years ago. A pile of mastiff shit is the size of a cow patty!”
“But . . . you mean the sounds? They’re just—”
“A recording loop. You need people to think you’ve got big vicious dogs—that just makes good security sense—but to actually have them—”
“I can’t believe you!” Clearfather cried, and Warhol looked up at the balcony and gave a happy bark. “But if he’s not tearing up one of your dogs, what’s he eating?”
“Good Lord, I hope it’s not Mrs. Stovington! She’s the only one who knows how to work the microwave! Where was he coming from?”
“The mastiff kennel. He took the growling as a challenge.”
“Oh!” moaned the Man of Steel. “He must’ve found the secret vault where my third wife is—was—frozen! I installed it there because I thought no one would go near. There’s a pressure plate in the paving—he must’ve activated it.”
“Well, for what it’s worth,” considered Clearfather. “He’s enjoying her.”
“God! Reminds me of a stockholders’ meeting back in the 1970s. But now it’s sudden death and I’m up first . . .”
The Man of Steel fired at an ice-clear snowwoman when a man in a Lucron tracksuit jogged through. The Steel King’s shot went wide, splashing off the arm of an effigy he’d already hit. “Shit!”
“Who’s that?” Clearfather asked.
“That’s Julian Dingler! My damn neighbor and enemy!”
The man, who looked about Clearfather’s age, stopped running and stared up at the balcony, taking in the scene. Then he strutted up to one of the unstruck snowwomen and proceeded to have a vigorous piss on it. He covered the figure in bright yellow pee and when he was done he bent over and slapped his butt.
“You bastard!” the Man of Steel seethed, his temples pounding. “Get off my property!”
Julian Dingler broke off a piece of snowwoman, balled it up in his hands, and then demonstrated the kind of bazooka-like throwing arm any major-league outfielder would have been proud to own. The icy snowball hit the Man of Steel smack in the face. He fell forward onto the lever controls of the surfboard and would’ve launched clean through the railing if Clearfather hadn’t grabbed his IV stand.
Clearfather waved to the Steel King’s neighbor. Dingler seemed to wave back—the sun breaking through for a moment. Then the sun and the man were gone—and the Man of Steel’s board nudged the rusted railing off the edge.
“Surf’s up, old-timer,” said Clearfather. “It’s winner take all.”
“N-no! Please” the Steel Man whinnied. “Not like this!”
“Why not? You’ll shatter like that vase. Probably the same stuff inside!”
“Please!” the decayed tycoon whimpered. “I give in! You win! You fix my implant and I’ll do all the things you said. I swear.”
“All right,” said Clearfather, and pulled the board back onto the balcony. “You show me my money. And I’ll keep my part of the bargain.”
They went back inside. Brand was snuffling. The bald stranger had brought everything undone. The old man motored over to his taxidermized wife, unzipped her, and began fishing out bills.
“You keep your cash in her?” Clearfather gasped.
“I couldn’t trust the safes with Theodore around. I told you they’re a conniving bunch. Okay, here’s your bucks. Now give me my bang.”
The old man laid out the money. Clearfather heard his aunt’s and uncle’s voices in his head again. Then the Radio Man. Then a golden stillness came and out of the stillness, the song.
“I know this will seem odd, but do you know the song ‘Do Your Ears Hang Low?’”
“What?” squealed Brand.
“Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? Can you tie them in a knot? Can you tie them in a bow? Can you throw them o’er your shoulder like a Continental soldier? Do your ears hang low?”
“Listen,” groaned the Steel King. “You have bested me at every turn. My wife is obsessed with sleeping with you. My youngest son wants to be you. You don’t need to humiliate me further!”
“I’m not kidding, Mr. Brand. Just try it,” Clearfather said, and he really did feel a sudden depth of pity. Just as Wilton offered an image of the son he might’ve had, the boy he might’ve been—so did the Man of Steel suggest the father he couldn’t remember or could yet become.
“How does it work? Why couldn’t it be a song that isn’t so . . . silly?”
“I’m sorry,” Clearfather answered, shaking off his spell. “I don’t know how it works, but that’s the song that will do it for you. Sing it loud, sing it proud.”
Much to his mortification, the crumpled old man coughed out the words, and to his surprise the implant stopped rotating and settled down.
“Try getting it up,” Clearfather encouraged.
“Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro? . . .”
“You see?”
“It’s working!” Brand cheered. “It’s working!”
“Now it’s time for you to take me to the bus station. I have either a rendezvous with destiny or just another stop on a wild goose chase.”
“What do you mean by that?” Brand asked.
“I’ve lost my memory,” Clearfather said. “I’m on a journey of discovery.”
“I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car in a very long time. We would both be much safer if you took a cab.”
“No, Mr. Brand. It’s time you got outside and saw the world again. You get yourself ready. I’m going to get my stuff and say goodbye to Wilton.”
Clearfather went down in the elevator, found the front door, and whistled for Warhol. Together they peeked in on Wilton but the boy was still sleeping, even when Warhol climbed on the bed. The lines on Wilton’s face had relaxed and he looked like a child again, even with the split lip. Maybe the bad dreams are all behind him, Clearfather thought, returning the kid’s money. A part of him wished he could stay and watch over the boy, but he knew he had to go.
“You take good care of him, Warhol, and yourself,” he whispered. “I’m counting on you.”
The giant dog licked his hand. Clearfather closed the door softly and put on his own boots and coat.
The Man of Steel wasn’t exaggerating. He hadn’t driven anything other than his surfboard—and never farther than the end of his driveway, admittedly a long driveway—in the last forty years, so the trip from Fern Hollow into the city in his wife’s Bentley had a few harrowing moments. But Clearfather remained calm.
“Listen,” said the Man of Steel when they arrived downtown. “How do I know it’s going to work when you’re gone?”
“You have to trust me,” Clearfather answered.
“But you don’t even remember who you are!” the Steel Man complained.
“All you ever do is remember who you were,” Clearfather replied. “I know something about who I am now . . . and I keep my word. But if I ever find out that you didn’t help Wilton into rehab and that you’re trying to harvest organs—”
“I get the picture,” the Steel King sighed.
“You have a family that you’re supposed to be heading, not cannibalizing. Oh, and take good care of Warhol.”
The withered businessman was about to drive off when a strong emotion seized him. “Wait a minute,” he pleaded. “Would—would you consider—staying?”
“I thought you were adamant that I leave?”
“I . . . I’ve changed my m
ind.”
Clearfather squeezed the tiny ivory ball in his pocket. “No,” he answered.
“Why not? You’d never have to worry about anything—ever again!”
“One big dinner party, hm? What about Eat the Wounded?”
“All that’s going to change,” the former Steel King insisted.
“It had better,” said the bald man.
“Just think what you and I might accomplish—together!” Brand rhapsodized.
“You just want me to do more—magic.”
“No,” said the Man of Steel, and the tone of his voice and the expression on his face changed completely. “Don’t you see? You’re the son I’ve been looking for all these years!”
“You don’t look for sons, Mr. Brand.”
“Oh, yes you do!” Brand exclaimed. “If you’re a leader, that’s exactly what you do. You look for sons and daughters—and partners. That’s what life’s all about.”
Clearfather considered the connection he felt with Wilton. Maybe the Steel Man had a point.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Brand,” he said at last. “I have to go. You have a fine son in Wilton if you look for him. And I think you still have a fine man inside yourself. If you were to be the man you could be . . . you’d have no need of help from me.”
“So this . . . is good . . . bye?”
“This is good luck.”
The Steel Man nodded sadly and then bucked and stuttered off in the Bentley. Clearfather watched until the car was gone. For a night at least he’d almost had a family. Now he was alone again, except for the voices in his head, which had gone silent. He entered the station.
A Harijan was buffing the floor. A Laotian woman was mopping up in front of Starbucks. There was no sign of Ubba Dubba or Dooley Duck—just a hologram around the WOMEN & CHILDREN’S area that read: SPONSORED BY CHILDRITE NURTURING CENTERS . . . THE ONLY WAY TO BEGIN A LIFE . . .
When it came time he got aboard the bus and staggered to a vacant seat beside a ruddy-faced white woman with a porcupine haircut. He closed his eyes and saw the city of cyclones again. From one of the intermittent windows of the spiral a strange young girl watched him. She seemed to raise her hand—just as Julian Dingler had. When he opened his eyes he saw they were passing a group of Dooley Duck supporters. At the front of the line were the two drunks from the day before. The Greyhound welcomed those who’d boarded in Pittsburgh, and as they revved up onto the freeway he saw another of the eccentric billboards and his head seemed to explode.
“Are you all right, son?” the woman next to him asked. “Could I interest you in a nice hot cup of cocoa?”
The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.
—RALPH WALDO EMERSON
CHAPTER 1
Something Undiscovered
“Are you all right? You look like you could use some cocoa.”
He looked around. “Are we in Pittsburgh yet?”
“You got on in Pittsburgh,” the woman said.
He tried to think what he remembered. Of course. Wilton, Warhol, the Man of Steel. But why had he been in Pittsburgh? The map. He was there trying to find clues—to his past. The whole nightmare came pouring back.
“I’m Edwina Corn.” The woman smiled and handed him a plastic mug of cocoa.
“Th-thanks,” he said, sipping. “My . . . I’m . . . Elijah Clearfather.”
“That’s quite a name to be carrying around,” Edwina grinned.
Clearfather flinched. Just then it seemed like quite a heavy load indeed. Outside, the bauxite-colored sky weighed down on the land as the Scenicruiser vibrated on through the clover bottoms and plains of wild rye that long ago had been replaced by steelworks and glass factories, which had in turn given way to bacteriological growths of housing . . . ashrams, refugee camps, golf courses, biolabs, prisons. He was trying to remember what the billboard had said when all the static filled his head—and was startled when Edwina Corn remarked, “The ancient Greeks and Romans used to brush their teeth with bits of cloth coated with the pulverized heads of mice and moles. They believed contact with these strong-toothed animals would make human teeth tougher. Makes you wonder, duddn’t it?”
Clearfather thought that it made him sick. “How do you know that?”
“Because I’m a dentist . . . as I was saying. Or I used to be.”
“Oh, I’m sorry . . . ,” Clearfather said. “I was thinking of something else.”
“That’s all right.” The woman smiled, patting his knee. “Cocoa all right?”
“Yes,” Clearfather answered. “So . . . you’re a dentist?”
“I was. Circuit dentist for a few of the Time Havens. Two New Puritan settlements and Brook Farm Two.”
“What . . . is a Time Haven?”
“You sound as though you’ve been living in the past!” Edwina chuckled, and then glanced at him quizzically. “People live like they used to. In the past. Or they try to. But most draw the line at dental and medical inconvenience—and it’s not easy to keep good doctors and dentists around, so they set up deals with people like me. But now I’ve had enough and I’m off on a pilgrimage to start my new life . . . following in the footsteps of Zane Grey. Just visited where he played baseball at the University of Pennsylvania.”
“Who?”
“Zane Grey! The inventor of the American West! One of the biggest-selling authors of all time and the world’s greatest fisherman. How many writers make the cover of Field and Stream?”
“Zane Grey?”
“He was a god!” Edwina pronounced, slapping her beefy thigh. “His book sales rivaled the Bible! A sailfish was named for him. I’m a bit of a fisherman myself. Been to the Kona Coast, Florida Keys. Hooked twelve good-sized trophy fish. Not bad for a lump of mutton like me, eh?”
“N-no,” Clearfather agreed, not quite sure how to answer.
“Got the biggest one in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. Do you know anything about marlin fishing? Lots of folks think it’s cruel and don’t want any part of it. I felt that way, too—until I clipped myself into the fighting chair for the first time. I’ve been kind to animals my whole life—but I’ve just got this passion for big-game fishing. That’s why I ride the bus. Now that I’m retired, got to save money where I can.”
“How are you going to get to New Zealand on a Greyhound?”
“Zanesville, Ohio’s, my next stop!” Edwina hooted. “His hometown! I’m going to see where he did his fishing as a boy, and then I’ll carry on to Surprise Valley, the Zane Grey community I’m joining out in Utah.”
“A Zane Grey . . . community?” Clearfather asked.
“People who are devoted to the life and works of ZG. There are study groups and readings—a film festival and fishing expeditions!”
“I see,” Clearfather breathed.
“But in some ways it’s not a new life . . . ,” she whispered.
“No? Why’s that?”
Edwina Corn lowered her voice further. “Because I think I was Zane Grey . . . in my previous life. Do you believe in past lives?”
“I—I guess . . . ,” Clearfather said, feeling that his current situation somehow obligated him to.
“My ex-husband thought I had Shirley MacLaine Disease but my home diagnosticon gave me a clean bill of mental health.”
They reached the West Virginia checkpoint. The bus stopped and two odd-looking white women got on the bus. The other passengers became instantly alert.
“Uh-oh,” Edwina murmured.
“What?” said Clearfather. “Who are they?”
“Vitessa Inquisitors,” the retired dentist whispered. “Are you in any trouble?”
“I . . . I don’t know. What right do they have stopping the bus?”
“They own the roads and run the prisons, don’t forget.”
“What?” Clearfather whispered.
Edwina scrutinized him. “I really think you have been in a Time Warp. Vitessa bought all the roads and the prisons—that was one of the big inroa
ds, pardon the pun, into the government. Don’t you know that? Hell, they’d buy the rights to the English language if they thought they could collect the royalties.”
“R-ight,” Clearfather mumbled, watching as the figures moved down the aisle checking ID. The women looked like female golf pros but from the reactions of the other passengers, you’d have thought the Gestapo was aboard. They were still several seats away when they stopped at a middle-aged black woman with a motorwave haircut and bright blue glasses. Hers was the first ID they didn’t scan. A hush spread through the cabin like nerve gas.
“Voleta Kincaid?” one of the Inquisitors asked. “Got a reading here. Parole violation. Is that right?”
Perspiration broke out on Voleta’s face and she swatted herself and then began raking her fingernails across her skin—digging and tugging at her hair.
The scene filled Clearfather with revulsion and anger. “What are they doing to her?” he whispered to Edwina, whose ruddy face had clouded over.
“She’s got a brain implant. She was in prison,” the dentist shushed.
“What’s going to happen to her?”
“She’ll claw herself to death, if they want her to.”
Clearfather couldn’t stand the sight of the woman twitching and scraping herself. He wriggled in his seat and made a move to rise, but Edwina seized hold of him and hissed, “Don’t! I don’t think they’re here for her, and if she’s got an implant she may deserve what she gets, however appalling it is to watch.”
“Stop,” the Inquisitors said, and Voleta stopped scratching herself. “You have eight hours to check in with your PO or there’ll be a total eclipse, understand? Do not leave Allegheny County again.”
“B-but, my daughter gonna have a baby,” Voleta sputtered—and then stopped herself. The Inquisitors looked up, examining the faces of the other passengers. They spotted Clearfather. He felt Edwina’s hand squeeze his arm as they neared, no longer bothering with anyone else.
“Are you together?” the one in the pastel pink jacket asked.
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