by Eric Ellert
She stopped at a fountain, and ran her fingers through the water, but there were no coins. She looked at Rau to get some type of reaction, but he didn't seem to think it strange at all. Since they weren't there, she found she wanted to scoop up a handful of pennies, just to see if the Mayor might object. He must run the bank. He had to; she'd never forgive this town if he didn't own half of every half-store in it. Her dad would yell at her for getting on the suit case wagon, but she was nineteen. She'd get that law firm that Robert Vaugn advertised, which would be perfect since he played the leader of the mutant people in the second Planet of the Apes movie, dad's favorite. When she won and they were far from this place, she'd give half the money to Moren so Moren could run away or go to NYU early, but she shook the thought from her mind. NYU drove people to suicide and Greenwich Village was just a mall with drugs and suburbanites. No, she wouldn't wish NYU on anybody, she just wished Moren to behave for a couple of days.
"She'll be all right," Rau said.
Faudron wondered if she was so easy to read, but Rau didn't think anything he said was strange, which kind of took the strange out of it. Instead of asking how he did that, she ran him through the empty mall until she found a few customers.
"Why'd you run?" Rau asked, catching up to her out of breath.
"I'm sorry. Just a silly thought. I don't think there's an empty mall in the country, well, I mean of the ones that are still open. And none like this." She tried to think of a good put-down for it, but Rau was wheezing and turning red. "Can I help?"
Rau waived her hand away, pulled out a red and orange-colored inhaler and stuck the mouthpiece into his mouth. He had to take a number of deep breaths until his breathing slowed and the color in his face returned to normal. "No, I'm ok. You just have to keep on top of it. My lungs can't take all the nitrogen."
"Nitrogen? There's no nitrogen in the air. Well, never mind if it's ok."
"You were saying you hadn't seen a mall quite like this."
"Well, not since I was really small. I mean look at that." She pointed to a well-scrubbed glass-fronted store with a blue neon light above it -- Korvettes. "I doubt they've been in business in ages."
"Would that stop you from shopping there?"
"No. But you don't find the town a little, a little off-center?"
"Yes and no. It's like, off-budget. They set it up real nice quite a while ago and now people live here, but they don't, what's the word, upgrade it."
"Upgrade, it's a mall not a computer."
"It's not a mall. NASA used to do work on the reservoir's island and spent a lot to keep everybody happy in their off hours. I mean the sign still says Korvettes, but it's all co-op run now."
He always said the word co-op as if they were a minor wrong that ought to be righted. Faudron had a feeling he didn't want to go into it and she didn't want to think about the town for an hour or two. "OK."
Faudron breezed through Korvettes and bought clothes exactly matching the articles that floated in her now-flooded basement then went in and out of all the empty stores until she found the Toys Are Us but it was the same at each stop -- new goods up front and old stuff in the back, really old stuff like from her dad's time.
Faudron stopped at one aisle. "Ah, this is much better than a telescope. Oh, sorry."
"Not offended."
"It's a family thing. Mom got the telescope for dad because I wanted one. But here's stuff he'd like."
She checked out and picked up a Six Million Dollar Man doll, a GI Joe Mercury Capsule, a Squiggles, all of them in new packaging, all of them perfect. Dad collected this kind of stuff, all the toys he'd thrown away, she guessed. He didn't actually play with them, or even notice them once he'd pointed them out in an old photo in an album. They ended up on a shelf in the basement under dust, but this would get her off the hook for a bunch of holidays. Him too. Mom could wrap some of this stuff up for him as if from her.
Faudron felt like Gandhi bringing peace to the family, just like Gandhi. Her t-shirt had torn when she'd bent over, and she'd changed in the aisle as fast as she could.
"Can I really buy these?" she asked when she got on line. "I should go back and get 'em all." She showed Rau the 1973 prices on everything. "I could make a fortune on E-bay."
"Why would you want too? A moment ago you were happy."
At first she got mad but he was right. She only needed one of each and what would be the point of keeping a bunch of unloved toys in the box? What would Rudolph say? And Moren would of course offer to sell the extras on E-bay and dad would probably say, sure, sell 'em all.
She smiled on the checkout line though the check-out girl was surly when she recognized Rau.
He pretended not to notice. "Faudron, did you listen to Art Bell last night?"
"Sure." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her Sea Crane radio with the little memory sticks and the timer, AM timer, which wasn't so easy to come by. "Never miss him."
"Did you hear about the satellite cloud?"
"I tried to look for it, but it's a cloud. I doubt it's, seeable. Just once in my life I'd like to prove something they said on that show. Just once. There's always just a little bit of truth in there, but all the guests are selling you a book."
"And they suck you in," Rau said.
"Like the guy who said he found Egyptian stela up the Mississippi."
"So Art asks, what's written on them? And the guy says, they're just like the ones in Sardinia, which are just like the ones in Turkey."
"And they suck you in until you buy the book and there's nothing much in it."
"Did you ever see the Noah's ark movie?" Rau asked.
"The only one worse was the Big Foot movie. I have them both. You believe in Big Foot?"
"No, but I could show you the body."
"Ew. Jungle Habitat. How close are we?"
"Just a mile outside the fence. Lady just outside of town runs a candle store, well, that's what I call it. It's a gift shop, but I like to think of it as where people from the seventies go when they die. Anyway, she's got a stuffed-thing she calls a Big Foot in the back. I call it an old fur coat on a dummy, but that's just me."
"I'd like to go there."
"Maybe tomorrow," Rau said.
"Not now, Come on."
"I work at night."
Faudron had the strangest image of Rau tiptoeing through Jungle Habitat and wolves prowling the rotting gift shop.
***
Faudron felt her feet bounce a bit when Rau held the door for her as if she was wearing the sneakers with the springs, though the mall sold mostly Earth Shoes and although it was just impossible, she swore she could smell the ocean and without thinking she put her arm around him. His eyes had been so guarded but seemed open and even changed color, somehow lighter, gray-blue when she'd sworn they'd been black. She wanted to ask, but couldn't. Asking would spoil everything. "Can we try out the telescope?"
"Why not?"
When they got to Rau's place, Faudron wasn't quite sure what to expect. Everyone around town dressed out of date, had ferret faces and used old gadgets like Walkmen, the Walkman with the radio the shape of a cassette. They wore Hush Puppies and Earth Shoes, which were supposed to save your back because they had a rounded soul. They wore wide ties and big lapels and tan and yellow, plaid slacks, like in old pictures of mom and dad. Rau was so strange, she was sure his surroundings would be bland and well, normal, to make up for it.
When she stepped inside, his living room was spare but looked like Sam Spade's office. Two mid twentieth-century-style leather chairs faced a matching sofa; dark green and light green paint covered the two-tone walls like a really old doctor's office. A Fridgedaire stood in the kitchen with the car door handles of the past and a homemade paint job. You could get new ones that looked like that but this looked like an original and hummed along as if the compressor was on its way out. There was a store that sold ensembles like this, actually called The Maltese Falcon. Faudron was dying to ask but it would be much too impo
lite. Either he'd moved into a run-down place, or collected this stuff which was worse.
Rau laid the telescope down and said, "Make yourself at home."
She thought he'd head upstairs but he unlocked the basement door with the ubiquitous Fichet and took the creaky steps two at a time. She'd watched too many movies; for a split second she wondered if he had one of those secret rooms down there.
Faudron turned on the tv. Not the tv, six of them. All were antique, from the space age GE fifties one on the left with the swivel screen over to the furniture-like RCA in the center to the sliver and black, eighties Zenith on the right.
All six screens went on, activated by the first one's knob; all played one of the Planet of the Apes movies, the last the tv series. She knew, dad had dragged her, not unhappily, to football games and pre-73 movies with a Star Trek-nut like obsession with Planet of the Apes. If you looked hard-enough, you could still find all six movies playing all day long in a retro-movie theatre somewhere.
The screens warmed-up and there was Doc. Zais telling you how the world worked. "Thank you so much, miserable hairy, old ostrich." It was like the Godfather or Star Wars, they weren't bad, but they were on cable every single weekend, and everyone owned or had taped a copy. She turned it off, but when she pressed the button, nothing happened and it had to be a coincidence, but Doctor Zaius turned, looked directly at the camera and pointed at the television button, shaking his head, cursing, his cheeks flushed, which shouldn't happen under that mask, even if they'd digitized the print. Faudron turned her back on him. She was just shook up. Had to be a spoof or something. People made spoofs at home that so resembled the real shows they could fool you for a couple of seconds.
She decided to snoop. The far wall held a tapestry like the one in the Cloisters in New York, tea-stained or stained by time, she couldn't say. It depicted a rider in black armor on a kicking horse, pointing a lance at a grounded-dragon St. George style.
The picture was Rau; what an ego but when she crossed the room and looked closer, she'd been wrong. The gray horse was wrong. The horse in Rau's barn was dappled black and white as if it had a bad paint job and the rider was older and heavier than Rau, a world weary expression on his face.
She knew you shouldn't touch but couldn't help herself and when she felt the silk backing, she pulled a corner of the tapestry away from the wall to see if it was as old as it looked. If it was, it probably wouldn't have any machine stitching; it did and it had a modern label, and the tapestry hid a door. Inside hung a couple of black Nitrex and Kevlar armor suits she'd noticed foreign riot police wearing on television, somewhat bullet-resistant, but not exactly the thing to stop a knife. The legs were all scratched up and the armor mud-splattered. Please don't tell me he plays in the Tolkien forest on the weekends. Not that?
On the floor, Rau had a few pairs of Fry Com boots woven of steel thread; they were, five hundred bucks a pair, if she remembered correctly. Two short, thick-handled spears with two long, silver blades shaped like bayonets on their ends hung from the wall. She touched one blade with the flat of her thumbnail, scratching her nail the way a good, sharp knife did. He'd have to give up that hobby.
"Made you a sandwich," Rau said as he entered the room.
Faudron backed out and covered the door with the tapestry, her face guilty hot. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. I did say make yourself at home. Mayonnaise?"
"Yeah."
"In the fridge."
She liked the way he'd said that as if it was a peace offering though he hadn't done anything. She went to the fridge and found the mayonnaise in the chiller and something gamy-smelling wrapped in brown paper next to it. "Rau, about that."
He kept looking at the television screen as if she'd broken Doctor Zaius.
"Rau?" Faudron asked, shaking her head, shaking all over when she opened the package and had a moment to think about it. "Why are there live eels in your refrigerator? Dead ones wouldn't be much better? Do you have a weird pet?" She looked at the nearest corner, wondering if the thing that ate eels was alowed out.
"They're for Dee-Dee."
"Please don't tell me you have imaginary friends."
"The lama, that's its name. Her name, if you're interested," Rau said.
"They don't eat--"
"--She does."
Faudron couldn't bring herself to close the door, nor could she bring herself to reach into it, wondering if the eels could climb around in there touching all the food when no one was looking.
"There's leftover Chinese in there, if you'd rather."
Faudron checked, but noodles reminded her of eels. Did they lay their eggs in seaweed? They just might and if it wasn't city Chinese food, it might as well have been boiled.
She forced herself to eat the sandwich but eels were filthy, horrible things like smart worms and she imagined the things living inside her stomach. She chewed and chewed each bite and washed it down with the thick, town brand cola you only found in stores west of the Delaware -- thirty five cents a can; Faudron knew the price of everything, everywhere from moving around so much.
She didn't want to speak. She felt like a sneak thief. "Sorry about looking in the Bat Cave, but are we Batman?"
"I'll give you and Moren one."
It sounded funny, but he wasn't kidding, not really. "I don't know, Bat Girl? I'm built more like Hawkwoman."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. That was an entrée."
"Hm?"
"Hawkwoman. With the cris-crossed sports bra, green leggings with the stripes, looks like a flying cheerleader. Rau?"
"We didn't have comic books," Rau said.
"Would that stop you coming over here and kissing me?"
"No."
He kissed her, then Faudron's watch alarm went off. "Ah, I have to get that kid. I'd let her walk, I would, but she'll think the car was stolen."
"It's all right."
"I'll clean up."
Rau went outside and warmed the car up.
Faudron took a quick peek through the telescope and saw the Space Station clearly as if the clouds had been removed. It spun, with smoke coming out of it. A Soyuz in full burn passed it, then as if a space cloud ate it, the view dimmed until she saw nothing but stars. She pressed a button. The little view screen next to the eyepiece displayed a time stamp -- a recording made this morning.
She felt it hard to breath and sat down. He'd given her his telescope. He'd put the lens and electronics from his into hers and must have known and didn't mention it and he must have been looking at it just when she had been looking at it this morning, which wasn't possible, but it had to be something like that.
That stringy light across the sky had been it, the Space Station, burning and flaming to earth and the streak that had approached it hadn't been a comet, but a shot of some kind. Faudron cried but had to stop; there was no time. She had to tell Moren.
She washed her face not wanting Rau to know anything was wrong and when she went into the living room the lama had its faced pressed against the window. "Go away. I'll send you back to Jungle Habitat. See how you like that."
Chapter 5
Faudron got in the SUV trying not to look at Rau, but he put his hand out palm upward as he'd done earlier. "We're NASA people, here. Me sort of. We know how it is. It doesn't mean anything. They're not sure."
"And why didn't you tell me?"
"I did," Rau said.
"Like that? The hell you say."
Rau took a deep breath, staring straight ahead. "There's been a moving cloud in space, for two weeks."
"That's Art Bell Crap."
"Not this time. It's turned off all the satellites."
"He said they disappeared," Faudron said noticing that Rau's eyes gave off more light than they took in.
"If you must get right to the point. But that was the second pass. It's nowhere near the Space Station and it's moving ahead of it, not much faster."
"It freakin' broke it in half," Faudron said.
/> "That could be just something mechanical when the power went out. Inertia or something."
"So, I shouldn't worry about the smoke?" She pictured it, worse when she closed her eyes. It had been Battlestar Galactica smoke, with a touch of 911 thrown in.
"What I mean is, I don't think they...attacked it. I think they were just doing their job and, well, they had the vacuum on too high a setting."
They, them, they. She tapped the horn. "Promise me, he's alive."
"I promise you," Rau said.
"And how do you know?"
He tapped the imaginary label on his chest. "Dog catcher's know things like that, in a town like this?"
Faudron wanted to argue, but there didn't seem to be a point, he'd just talk in riddles so she put the car in drive and sped down the middle of the road, high beams on, the white line in the center, the edges of the road obscured by the weird fog that never lifted.
***
Faudron didn't mean to be rude to Rau but this was a family thing, so she'd gotten out at the school and barged in but the tattooed lady with the white eyes told her Moren wasn't there and they'd looked all over town but Moren wasn't anywhere until Rau had suggested the cemetery, highest point in town.
There she was, wandering the endless rows of back-to-back stones in the rain and mud. Faudron got out and shut the door, then went around to the passenger side. Rau rolled down the window. Faudron tried to say something, but Rau tapped the horn twice and let the car idle forward. "Meet you on the other end."
"What do you mean, death? Don't really like the sound of that."
"Shut up."
She laughed.
Rau looked this way and that the way people do in cemeteries. "Don't be stupid. Other end of the cemetery. Road comes back around."
"Oh, I thought you meant we were all going to escape somewhere. Just thinking ahead."
He shook his head and let the car idle away.
The rain runoff poured down the steep incline leading to the cemetery gate like a stream, coming up over Faudron's boots and into her socks. The stream carried leaves, branches and old flags made of nylon. It ran brown with a layer of topsoil and loamy seed they must have planted in the wrong season. If she'd let herself dwell on it, it probably carried articles of the dead, buttons and lint and shoe polish. She did dwell on it and climbed the hill at the side of the path, walking one step in front of the other along the curb, hopping over the sewer grating because the water made an echoing sound as some of it slipped down. She thought of catacombs and people hiding down there.