The Great Unknowable End

by Kathryn Ormsbee

  • • •

  Stella and I bike a half hour down Eisenhower. We pass the Dreamlight and even Red Sun. We keep pedaling, between walls of corn, straight out on the flat road, for mile after mile.

  Stella rides a little ways ahead of me, her bike wheels tick-tick-ticking with every one of their quick revolutions. It’s the only sound, aside from the occasional car or truck passing by. I’m thinking about the red rain. The pink lightning. The Back Room. The combo organ. Stella’s watering eyes. That’s why I don’t notice at first when she slows, matching her pace to mine.

  “It’s not much farther,” she says.

  “Huh? Oh. Where are we going, exactly?”

  “Surplus store.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A store of . . . surplus things? From the base nearby.”

  “The base?”

  “The army base.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re pacifists, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Me too.”

  I sneak a look at her. Her frizzy brown hair is blowing all around.

  I could say, I know you’re a pacifist. You’ve written me long letters about it.

  That could set it off. If I’m looking for a segue, there’s one. I could take it now.

  I don’t.

  Not surprised, you’re saying. You’re a damn coward, Galliard.

  Don’t I know it.

  We don’t speak again until we reach a squat, concrete building lined by overgrown, thistly weeds. There’s only one car in the lot.

  “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want,” says Stella, leaning her bike against the wall.

  I do go in, though, following her up to the counter, where a middle-aged man sits in a lawn chair, listening to the radio. At the sight of Stella, he claps his hands and stands.

  “Right, right. Got what you’re after,” he says.

  Stella waits patiently, eyes big, as the man disappears into a dark doorway behind the counter. When he comes back out, he’s got some kind of metal contraption in his hand. It’s bigger than an ear of corn, and it looks heavy.

  “I make a point of not asking what you do with these,” says the man, ringing her up at the register. “But I’d appreciate some assurance you’re not building a bomb.”

  Stella smiles. “If I were doing that, I’d need plenty of things you don’t sell here.”

  “Well, now, who’s to say you aren’t going elsewhere?”

  Stella slides her money across the counter. “I guess you can’t say, Rick.”

  “Don’t want the Feds sniffing around, is all.”

  “If they do, it won’t be because of me.”

  Rick’s been laughing with his eyes. Now he laughs for real. Then he points to me. “With this one hanging around, there’s no knowing.”

  I start, clearing my throat.

  Without looking at me, Stella says, “He’s harmless.”

  “Maybe so, but cults ain’t.”

  “He doesn’t belong to a cult, Rick.”

  My damn throat clears continue. Rick squints at Stella, then at me. I feel hot around the neck, itching to say something, because Rick and Stella have been talking as though I’m not in the room. Only now Rick turns to me and says, “All the same, you’d best stay out of town, boy. Plenty of folk are saying it’s you and yours who started this end-of-the-world business.”

  “Duly noted, Rick.” Stella’s voice is tight as she takes her purchase. Then she pushes past me, and I follow her outside, away from Rick’s squinting stare.

  I want to say something about what’s happened. I feel as though I have been accused of something, made dirty in Stella’s eyes. I want to scrub myself clean before her. The trouble is, I’m not clean. You could scrub me hard, and I’d still be filthy underneath. Rick is right: I am the one who started this. The lightning, the red rain, even the wind—they have to do with me. They were lessons from Holly, Hendrix, and Joplin. And for all the bravery my gods have taught me, I’m not brave enough to do the one thing that matters most.

  Maybe Rod was right: Maybe I am weak. I’m weak enough to want to keep the Outside perfect a little bit longer. My gods can’t begrudge me that, though, can they? I have so short a time left here. Surely they don’t mind if I hold off the truth for a few more days. That’s what I tell myself. And that’s why, instead of telling Stella what matters, I ask her a pointless question.

  “Are you building a bomb?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What is that thing?”

  “A walkie-talkie. I get them here because army walkie-talkies have the best range.”

  I clear my throat. “What’s it for?”

  “A project. Nothing important.”

  She’s tense around the neck, the same way she was the other night, when she told me about the Voyager missions. She never wrote in her letters about a project, or about trips to the surplus store, or walkie-talkies. And I get now how rude it was for me to invite myself along. This is something private. It’s something Stella won’t even write her brother about.

  But then, if she hadn’t wanted me to come along, she wouldn’t have let me.

  Right?

  “Do you work on a lot of projects?” I ask.

  “No. Well, I do, but most of them are in my head. I don’t have the things I need to work on good projects.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’d need parts and a soldering gun and a work space. Those are expensive. So I just think about projects, mostly.”

  “You could go to school, though, couldn’t you? A university? Can’t you work on projects there?”

  Stella tips her nose toward me. “How do you know so much about higher education?”

  “We’re not stupid. We know about the Outside.”

  “You just can’t listen to new music.”

  “That was Rod’s decision, really, not Opal’s. It wasn’t always that way.”

  “Who’s Rod?”

  “One of our leaders.”

  “And he’s the one who says you can’t listen to certain things?”

  “He weeded out a lot of our library, too. We can’t import any new books.”

  Stella’s frowning hard. “That sounds suspect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that’s censorship.”

  “We’re not a cult.” I sound kind of mad, saying that. I guess I am.

  It’s not that I like Rod, but he does think I can be a leader. And sure, I don’t enjoy the ban on new music, but the only alternative is leaving Red Sun for good.

  “Didn’t you hear me in there, with Rick?” Stella asks. “I never said you were a cult. I only said this Rod guy is suspect.”

  “Well . . . maybe. I dunno.”

  “Doesn’t anyone challenge him?”

  “No, that’s not—you don’t get it,” I say, frustrated. My jaw shifts to the right. “At Red Sun we live in unison.”

  “Don’t you care, though? Don’t you care that you’re going to live the rest of your life there? And that you won’t have books or music or any connection to what’s happening out here?”

  My jaw jerks again. “I care. But there are . . . there’s a lot of good things about the inside.”

  The kitchen. Archer. The chance to do something. Change something. To even be on the Council. I tell myself this, as well as Stella. There are plenty of good things in Red Sun. Reasons to stay.

  Stella keeps jamming her thumb into the handlebar of her bike. “There are good things out here, too.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  Her gaze cuts to me. “You don’t think it’s depressing anymore?”

  I smile. “I liked Ferrell’s. I liked the music, too.”

  “See? Not all bad.”

  We’re quiet, but I don’t want the conversation to end, because I feel wrong. I feel like Stella thinks I’m wrong.

  “I had a plan in there,” I say. “I knew what I wanted. Then I didn’t get it, and after th
at, everything felt . . . off.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  Your brother’s.

  “I want to play music,” I say. “I want to make that my life. I guess I always thought I could in there. Now I’m not so sure.”

  Stella’s putting it together. “That’s why you came out. Because everything changed.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “What are you thinking now?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still . . . figuring it out.”

  I’m figuring out what would happen if I stayed. Would everything go back to the way it was? Would I work ten or more years at the Moonglow, eventually become a Council member, and live the rest of my days in peace? Not music-filled peace, maybe, but peace?

  I’m figuring out what would happen if I left. Would I make it? What if J. J. was right, and the Outside is too tough for me? Then again, what if I’m inspired to write a whole lot of new music, like the song I composed on the first night of the red rain? Would my gods support me, if I faced this new world? Would I have them on my side, at least?

  Stella’s looking at me funny. I can’t read her face as she says, “Maybe it would be easier to shoot you into space.”

  Honestly? Sounds like the perfect solution to me.

  “You could come too,” I say. “You could work on all kinds of projects up there.”

  Stella nods, serious. “I’ll call NASA and make arrangements. I get Voyager 1, you get Voyager 2.”

  “We’re flying separately?”

  “Well, you know. Weight distribution.”

  “Yeah, but . . . it might be better to be alone together. In case we start to go crazy. Or something goes wrong.”

  My face is burning. I can’t help it.

  Stella says, “I don’t know if arrangements could be made on such short notice.”

  “Rocket scientists are smart, though. They could make anything work.”

  It happens in a flash—a bolt of lightning, a match strike.

  She drops her bike against the concrete wall, and then, with the walkie-talkie still in one hand, she reaches up, and she kisses me. Her mouth grazes my chin first, then folds onto my lower lip. Her hands grab my tunic, and my hands grab her waist, and I’m kissing her back, and it’s good, and it’s awful, too, because my chest explodes with guilt and unexplainable sadness.

  And then I tic. It’s sudden. My head jerks hard, and Stella staggers back. I step away.

  “Fuck,” I say. “Fuck. Stella, I’m sorry.”

  She touches her lips, eyes wide.

  “It’s fine. It’s fine—I need to go.” It’s more a wheeze than words. She fumbles for her bicycle, shoving the walkie-talkie into the bike basket. She mounts, and she pedals away from me, fast and hard, without looking back.

  I don’t shout after her. I just watch her go.

  20

  Stella

  SUNDAY, AUGUST 14

  I pedal. I don’t stop. I think I am surprised. I think I am stunned. I think I am startled. I am not sure if any of those words suffice. I am not sure if every one of them is the same.

  It was only a kiss, I know.

  Only, it was a kiss.

  It was my first, and I gave it, and it was returned.

  And then . . .

  I’ve left Galliard behind, and all that remains of him is in the cracks of my lips.

  It’s not something This Stella would ever do. That Stella stole my body, used it, and then released it to me with no explanation. No formula can reveal the why of it. Why I would kiss him, with no warning and no direction.

  It could’ve been the way his eyes lit up like a child’s when he heard “Somebody to Love,” or the ravenous energy with which he purchased that LP.

  It could’ve been the song he played, and the way his voice dove and rose with soft assurance, carrying on it such sad words: I finally died, which started the whole world living.

  It could’ve been what he said outside the surplus store—that he understands what it means to be alone together. He understands, and I never thought anyone but a Mercer would.

  The world without has gone wild and unpredictable. Now my world within has done the same. The way That Stella lives is dangerous, confusing—so much so that my thoughts dim, and the only thing left to me is the muscle memory required to bike home.

  When I get there, my father is on the front porch. He is sitting on the top step, smoking.

  I don’t remember the last time I saw my father sit on our porch. I do, however, remember the last time I saw him smoke: It was the day of my mother’s funeral.

  “Stella,” he says, as I wheel my bike up the driveway.

  I nod, continuing toward the garage.

  “Leave that for a second,” he says. “Come here. We need to talk.”

  It’ll be difficult talking now, I want to say, as I am existing on minimum brain function.

  I set the bike against the garage entrance, though, and I join my father on the steps. Before I reach him, he has jammed out the cigarette on the concrete.

  Once I am seated, he says, “I want to know what’s going on.”

  So do I.

  “Who were those boys? The ones in Red Sun clothes. How do you know them?”

  I could lie, but I don’t have the energy. And if my world is ending in less than a week, I would rather it end with me on honest terms with my father.

  “Their names are Galliard and Archer,” I say. “I met them at the Dreamlight. I’ve been showing Galliard around town.”

  “Why?”

  I know I need to tell him this. It is a truth I think he already suspects. That does not mean it’s easy. I’ve kept this secret for two years, and every day I’ve kept it has made it harder to push from my mouth.

  Eventually, I do.

  “I’ve been writing Craig. I’ve been writing him for a while now. And I wanted to see him again, and Galliard said he could make that happen.”

  My father is silent. He does not look taken aback, exactly. He looks thoughtful, the way he does when Jill asks an “adult” question about politics.

  “I’m almost eighteen,” I say. “I know you gave us rules about Red Sun, and I know why you gave them, but I’m an adult now, Dad. Talking to Craig is something I need to do as an adult.”

  My father nods, but I am not reassured. I do not think it is a nod of approval.

  “Have you?” he asks. “Met him? Talked to him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “All right.”

  I look across the street, to a brown vinyl-sided split-level. The Metcalfes used to live there. They were the ones who owned Major, the collie we found dead two weeks ago. They moved away to Indianapolis. A new family moved in, and I’ve never learned their name.

  “Stella,” says my father. “Do you want to go to college?”

  I have not been expecting this question, of all questions. There are so many unpleasant things I would rather talk about. I would rather tell him about my kiss with Galliard and the resulting confusion inside me. I would rather speculate on the red rain, and if the hippies of Red Sun are responsible or if it is God’s wrath or if it is the work of alien life-forms.

  What I don’t want to talk about is college. It hurts inside, a burn around my throat. To talk about this means revealing the two Stellas and their disparate lives.

  I glance back at the garage, where my recent purchase is resting in a bike basket.

  I decide then that I won’t speak; I will show.

  “Hold on,” I say, getting to my feet.

  I go to the garage and remove the walkie-talkie from the basket. Then I go inside, to my room, and pull out the wicker bin from under my bed. I do not hesitate. If I do, I will reconsider.

  I walk back outside and set the bin on the porch between me and my father.

  “What’s this?” he asks.

  “It’s something I’ve been working on. An invention for the salon.”

  I take out the pieces, one by one, a
nd arrange them on the concrete, fitting them into their proper places beneath the wooden frame, ensuring that each wire is snug and in its proper slot. Then I set down the walkie-talkie I purchased today from the surplus store. I take out a Phillips screwdriver from the bin and set to twirling loose each of the screws on the back plate. Once it’s off, I am in familiar territory—a small town, neatly mapped. I lift the circuit board for Dad to see.

  “I’m not done,” I say. “I have to fit this into one of the other walkie-talkies so the aesthetic is uniform. At first I thought I would have to desolder a transistor; that’s what was faulty with the last usable one. Instead I can just switch out circuit boards. That makes it much easier.”

  “I . . .” He frowns, uncomprehending. “What’s it for?”

  I set the walkie-talkie down. Carefully, I grip my project’s wooden frame by the edges and tip it over, revealing its presentable side. It is a lectern-like contraption fitted with buttons and labels, painted in the orange-sherbet trim of Vine Street Salon.

  “The salon gets busy,” I say. “A lot of women come from out of town and don’t have time to spare. They want to get their errands and their hair done, without much downtime in between. Connie’s scheduling doesn’t allow for that, though. Which is why I came up with this.”

  I take out one of four intact walkie-talkies, which I’ve painted over in white acrylic paint and labeled with the number two.

  “It’s bulky, but it will fit in any woman’s purse, antenna up.” I pull the antenna to demonstrate. “This is how it works: A client checks in with me at the reception desk. I write down her name and assign that name to a number—in this case number two. Then I tell her she’s free to browse anywhere on Vine Street; she’ll be in range. When Connie is about finished with her most current client, I press this.”

  I press the button on the lectern labeled 2. In my other hand the corresponding walkie-talkie sounds a shrill, electronic beep.

  “The client is notified and can make her way back to the salon. Meanwhile I can stay at the desk and tend to any other incoming or outgoing clients. No running around, no confusion. Order. And when the client arrives, she returns the walkie-talkie, and I can assign it to a new client. Like clockwork. It’s a basic idea. Nothing complicated about the design or mechanics. It mainly requires collecting parts and arranging them to look pretty. But it’ll save a lot of trouble at the salon.”