The Promise of the Orb

by Marshall Cobb

  Orb then went dark for the first time. Peter approached him, gingerly picking Orb up and slowly turning him in his hands. The red glow was gone. Orb looked like a dark red rubber ball—the kind used for kickball at school. Peter risked gently shaking Orb a little, but nothing happened.

  Peter needed to get ready for school. He did as Orb asked, put him in his closet under a pile of old clothes and shoes, then closed the door behind him.

  ***

  Later that night, Peter sat with Big Ed on one side of a booth. Eli sat across from them, a big grin on his face as he worked an oversized knife against a giant steak that sat squeezed between a mountain of mashed potatoes and a pile of green beans. The fork that Eli used to pin the steak against the round plate screeched from the pressure he applied.

  “Easy son,” laughed Big Ed, “It’s not like it’s going to run away.”

  Eli just grinned and continued sawing off a large chunk. The meat, which Eli preferred medium rare, oozed blood onto the white plate. Peter grimaced as he watched. The blood reminded him of the crusty, dirty shirt he had forgotten to throw away.

  “Ed!” a fellow diner, Samuel Jenkins, exclaimed as he walked over and clapped Big Ed on his shoulder. “I don’t know how the hell you did it, but thank you again for everything.”

  Big Ed smiled, his face a little red from embarrassment, and extended his hand. “I didn’t do anything special, Samuel. As a matter of fact, I really don’t know exactly what happened.”

  Samuel, whose belly stretched the confines of his shirt so that it appeared that a button might pop off at any moment, grasped Big Ed’s hand and shook it vigorously. “Oh, I think you know all right, but I understand that you’ve got to keep your secrets.”

  Big Ed just smiled again. Samuel clapped him one more time on the shoulder then lumbered off in search of more food.

  Big Ed leaned in, conspiratorially, and whispered, “Truly, I have no idea.”

  Eli was too busy chewing his bloody steak to respond. Peter, trying his best to look away from Eli, decided to change the topic.

  “So, you said you might be doing something now for the state? Does that mean you have to travel all the time?” An alarming thought occurred to him: “We don’t have to move, do we?”

  Big Ed put his big arm across Peter’s shoulders and squeezed him close. “Move? Now that we have our river back? Not likely!”

  Peter reveled in his dad’s embrace for a moment, then realized that he was thirteen and they were in a public place where hugs with his father were not cool. He wriggled a little to gain some space. “But I don’t understand what your job is.”

  Big Ed went back to tearing into his own steak, smacking his lips in anticipation as he answered. “I’m going to head the co-op, just like before. I’m also going to work our farm, just like before. I don’t have all the details yet, but the governor wants me to help the state do evaluations of other small farms that are suffering from water problems. I think I’m mostly going to take calls and e-mails and organize the information, but I will have to go to Little Rock every now and then to make reports.”

  Eli, chewing busily on a piece of gristle, selfishly chimed in. “And they’re going to pay you for this, right? And it’s not a one-time thing? You can get paid for a while?”

  Big Ed, also thoroughly occupied with a large hunk of meat in his mouth, grudgingly smiled at Eli’s not-so-subtle point. He chewed once more, then swallowed the contents of his mouth. “Yes, and maybe some of that money can go toward your college fund.”

  Eli raised his fork triumphantly and yelled, “Woohoo!”

  Their fellow diners stopped, turned and looked, which then made Eli lower his hand and head and return to cutting his steak.

  Big Ed grinned then frowned a little when he noticed that Peter was moving his food around more than he was eating it.

  “Something wrong with your chicken, Rug Rat?”

  Peter stiffened then understood that it looked like he did not like his food. “No, it’s great. Thank you. I’m just so excited by everything that it’s hard to eat.”

  Big Ed smiled. Eli wolfed down a piece of steak that appeared larger than his mouth, and someone across the room yelled out, “Big Ed is the man!” Peter continued with his one-man pity party in the middle of an actual party.

  “I know it’s a lot to digest—chew your food, Eli!—but this is the best day our family has had in a long time.”

  Big Ed’s smile seemed to change into something sadder. “I don’t remember the last time I actually thought about the future and was happy.”

  Peter looked up at his father’s eyes and knew it was true. Big Ed had suffered more than any of them when Peter’s mother died, and the responsibilities had mercilessly piled up on him.

  “Yeah, Peter,” Eli jeered, “Why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself and be happy for Dad!”

  Peter felt a rage inside. He wanted dearly to burst out to make the record clear. It was Peter, not Big Ed, who had reunited Orb with the others and brought all this good luck to the family. Peter had faced down a mountain lion and bled for his family. Eli always said Peter was lazy and unhelpful. Well, Eli could put down his fork, crawl under the table, and kiss Peter’s dirty toes. If Eli had enough money to go to college now it was because of Peter. Lazy, dirty Peter!

  These thoughts passed through Peter’s head then, just as quickly, they passed. Big Ed had gone to jail protesting on behalf of their family and their community. Eli was a giant pain in his butt, but Peter knew their family would have been in serious trouble without all the work Eli did every day to keep it together. Big Ed never worried about trying to take credit for things…

  “You’re right,” Peter said as he stabbed a big chunk of chicken and stuffed it in his mouth, “Dad is the man!”

  ***

  When they returned home Big Ed was entirely too excited to sleep. When he was not talking to Eli about their future plans, Big Ed had the house phone pressed against his ear, sharing stories of their victory with friends and neighbors as he tugged on the ancient spiral cord that connected the handset to the main body of the phone mounted on the wall. Big Ed stopped talking long enough to hug Peter goodnight, then went right back into action on the phone.

  Peter brushed his teeth, went to his room, and quietly shut the door behind him. Shutting the door did no good as he could still hear Big Ed talking away.

  Peter shuffled over to his bed and sat down. He peeled off his shirt and threw it down into a small pile of dirty clothes already in front of his closet. He did the same with his jeans, then dug around underneath the bed until he found a pair of almost-clean gym shorts that he pulled over his boxers.

  He sat, staring at the door of his closet. Everything that had happened was so bizarre, so unlikely, that he almost convinced himself it had been a dream.

  I’ll open the door to the closet. There won’t be any Orb. I’ll wake up in the morning and go to school and that will be that.

  He willed his legs to stand, then walked over to the scratched, faded doorknob that was supposed to look like brass but clearly showed its steel through its finish. He took a deep breath, put his hand on the doorknob, then twisted it and opened the door in one motion.

  Still holding his breath, he looked carefully around the closet. There was no bright, shining red light. He saw only his motley collection of clothes hanging over his equally ragged assortment of shoes.

  He let his breath out, bent down slowly, and pushed at the small pile of shoes. He sucked in his breath again and stood straight up, frowning.

  In the middle of the pile of shoes, Orb’s now dark side was clearly visible. Peter had not dreamed anything. It was all real.

  He stared at Orb for a few more moments, not even aware that he was slowly clenching and unclenching his fists. Finally, he blew out the breath he had been holding, leaned down, and put a pair of smelly old sneakers over the exposed side of Orb to conceal him.

  He stood to admire his work and, satisfied, clos
ed the door.

  Big Ed was still laughing and carrying on with someone on the phone, while Eli giggled in the background. Peter leaned his head against his closet door, trying to remember the last time he had heard this much laughter and joy in the house. He realized it had been long ago, before his mother became sick.

  He looked down at his scrawny chest and his big feet that jutted out below. He had been eight years old when Big Ed brought Peter’s mother home and gently guided her to the couch to break the news to the family. Always petite to begin with, she had lost too much weight. Peter’s almost skeletal frame reminded him of how she looked that day and the rest that followed.

  I know I don’t completely trust Orb, but he did keep his promises. My family is happy. We’ll have plenty of money. Our river will return tomorrow. Am I being childish? Am I just jealous of the attention that Big Ed is getting? He’s done nothing but work hard his entire life. He finally caught a break, but I want to take credit for it. What’s wrong with me?

  He pushed away from the door, flicked off the light switch, and then plopped down on his bed. His mind raced so quickly that he thought he would never sleep. Moments later, with Big Ed’s voice still bouncing off the walls, his eyes closed, and he fell into a deep, dreamless void.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: A Whole New World

  The next afternoon, Peter pulled at the collar of his one and only long-sleeve shirt. It rubbed on his neck no matter how much he tugged at it, and the sweat building up from standing in the sun was not helping.

  Big Ed had picked up Peter and Eli from school at lunch time and, squeezed together in the cab of the truck, they drove over to the spot where the dam had been erected to cut off the flow of water on their fork of the river. Big Ed, wearing the one of his two sport coats with fewer stains, insisted that both boys change into their nicest shirts, which he had hung on hangers from the handle mounted above the passenger window. Big Ed had even ironed the shirts, which might be part of the reason the collar hurt so much.

  Stiff with starch and general uneasiness, they tentatively stepped out of the truck and were greeted by a round of applause. Peter’s gaze was briefly distracted by the giant scoop that dangled above the river. The scoop was attached to the bent arm of the biggest backhoe Peter had ever seen.

  The backhoe sat atop the dam. The dam was constructed from a mix of large rocks and earth with a wall that tapered up to a dirt road which ran along the top. For safety reasons they all stood on the wet side of the dam where the water was walled off and forced to the left to follow the main river channel.

  The giant, metal treads that pushed and pulled this beast of a machine were easily as tall as a full-grown man—almost a full-grown Big Ed. Peter wondered where they had found such a large piece of equipment on short notice—and why something this big was needed for a relatively small job. Peter also noticed a man wearing a yellow hard hat in the large, air-conditioned cab of the backhoe. The hard hat man looked bored.

  The loudest applause came from the governor, Mark Jenkins, whose large, meaty hands slapped together with so much force that it seemed likely to break the bones within. The governor, who until two days ago had been all for the damming of their river, looked exactly as he did on TV. He was on the tall side, a little thick around the middle from the many breakfasts, lunches and dinners he attended, and dressed in a spotless navy-blue suit that contrasted nicely with the silver hair on the sides of his head and what appeared to be a fake tan on his face. Peter answered his own question about the need for the giant backhoe—the governor loved attention, and nothing received more attention than a giant, yellow, rumbling piece of heavy machinery.

  Governor Jenkins was surrounded by his many aides as well as a gaggle of reporters—all of whom tripped over themselves trying to keep up with the governor as he raced toward Peter, Eli, and Big Ed. Peter also recognized the faces of a number of other local farmers and residents but could not focus on them as the governor, like a black hole, sucked all energy and interest toward himself.

  “Mr. Davidson!” the governor boomed as he approached. “The man of the hour!”

  Peter looked up at Big Ed and saw him pull at the front of his collar too. How much starch had he used? It was odd to hear anyone use their last name. Big Ed was just Big Ed.

  “Please call me Ed, Governor.”

  Someone in the crowd yelled out, “Big Ed!”

  Big Ed blushed slightly, then stuck out his hand. As the governor did the same, Peter noticed that the governor’s hand was quite furry. Large black strands of hair stuck out around the many gold rings on his fingers. He also noticed that the governor’s large grin covered up the beginnings of a frown. Big Ed was several inches taller than the governor, and Peter had the feeling that the governor liked, and expected, to be the tallest person in the room.

  The two men shook hands vigorously. The governor reached up to grab Big Ed’s shoulder as he continued shaking, turning back toward his staff and the reporters.

  Peter and Eli, trapped behind the two men, exchanged a quick look. Everyone was happy that the river would return, but no one understood why the governor had changed his mind. It all felt a little forced, phony.

  As if on cue, another voice rang out and a smaller man in an ill-fitting, gray suit pushed his way between the aides and reporters. “Mr. Davidson!” he puffed, “Let me be the first to congratulate you!”

  The smaller man was George Pullman, the county commissioner. Like the governor, Mr. Pullman had been all for the damming of their part of the river. Also like the governor, it was rumored that he had received quite a bit of money from the owners of the large commercial farm who wanted all the water for their new operation.

  Peter could not see Big Ed’s face, but he guessed that he had to hide a frown as he disentangled his hand from the governor’s to shake the outstretched hand of the county commissioner. Big Ed was not one to speak badly about others, but throughout the long fight over the river he had nothing kind to say about George Pullman or Mark Jenkins.

  “I can’t say enough how proud you’ve made all of us,” Commissioner Pullman shouted for the benefit of the reporters as he turned to face the cameras, still shaking Big Ed’s hand up and down in an exaggerated motion.

  Peter wondered how the commissioner could be proud of Big Ed’s fighting something that the commissioner himself had supported. He exchanged another look with Eli, who only shrugged in response.

  The governor, apparently unhappy that someone had taken his spotlight, jumped back in. “Commissioner Pullman, thank you again for coming. I didn’t know you were going to attend.”

  If Commissioner Pullman had an answer for that, no one would ever know because the governor continued. “Let’s have you take a couple of steps to the side, Commissioner, so we can all get a look at these boys.”

  Commissioner Pullman stood his ground for a moment, then reluctantly took a half-step to his right. There were pictures being taken, and he had every intention of being featured in them with the man of the hour at his side.

  “Come on, boys,” the governor encouraged, “Come on out and let us see you.”

  Peter and Eli exchanged one last, quick look then squeezed around either side of Big Ed, blinking at the flashes from the cameras and the harsh beams of light cast on them by video equipment. Peter, wedged between the commissioner and Big Ed, hoped he did not look as uncomfortable as Eli, who was stuck in the tiny amount of space allowed between the governor and Big Ed.

  The governor reached across Eli and again began shaking Big Ed’s hand again, partly for the benefit of the cameras, but mostly to make sure that the commissioner could not do the same. The flashes continued, and the aides and reporters drew nearer. Between the noise, the irritating collar, and the heat from being trapped in what amounted to a large bear-hug, it took all the willpower Peter had to not turn and run back to the truck.

  The governor, who had achieved his position thriving on just this sort of exposure, threw out statements in the form of questions
to his aides, reporters, and the small gathering of local people from the area in attendance. “Isn’t he great, folks? We’re so lucky to have Mr. Davidson, I mean, Big Ed, on our team. He’s going to be doing great work for my staff and all of us here in the state—right?”

  The governor’s aides responded with applause, as did many in the crowd. The reporters used the opportunity to push in closer, their microphones extended like swords toward the governor.

  The governor called out some additional rah-rah questions, getting the reaction he wanted from the crowd and the exposure he needed for the cameras. When it was clear he had received the proper amount of attention, he released Big Ed’s hand and motioned for those gathered to settle down. With the dam behind him—the backhoe perched atop—the governor began his speech.

  “I tell you, folks. What a difference a few days and some real, detailed information can make.” The governor removed his arm from behind Big Ed, slid it past Eli, then stepped forward to speak directly into the large, fuzzy end of the microphone closest to him. The side of the microphone had a white square that featured a bright red logo that read, “Action 4 News.”

  “I have always said that it’s more important to make the right decision than the popular one. Am I right?”

  The governor’s aides clapped noisily. Everyone else stood and watched. The governor sensed he was losing the crowd and sped to the chase, “I was wrong about damming this fork of the river.”

  He turned and pointed at the commissioner, his outstretched index finger just inches from the commissioner’s face. “HE was wrong about the river!”

  The commissioner flinched, but with nowhere to go, he smiled and nodded weakly at the finger. The crowd clapped.

  “It took Big Ed to get the commissioner to understand that what he had approved would not help his constituents. No! To the contrary, what was done to this river was going to hurt small farmers and benefit a huge corporation headquartered halfway across our great country!”