Authors: Steven Gould
Bob pulled the lever in the other direction and the two pistons withdrew. As they did, the lower half of Larry, from the shoulders down, dropped onto the stage, pinched off by the impact. The head flipped down and hung, upside down, still suspended by the manacled arms.
"Tough luck, Larry," Bob said.
The splash shield withdrew and Bob's assistants took the remains of Larry out on the gurney, covered in the watermelon-stained sheet. A recorded dirge played and Bob held his hand over his heart.
Sarah shoveled more coal into the firebox, and the steam gauge crawled back toward the red. Bob added parts of Vanessa's costume to the fire so that she was clad as briefly as Sarah; then Vanessa brought another audience member on stage to handcuff Bob to the platform and check the integrity of the manacles.
"Nervous?" Bob asked the man, who kept glancing sideways at the two pistons. "You should be. The last guy who volunteered disappeared and hasn't been seen since."
I had to admit he was taking my disappearance well. I made up my mind to reappear before the act was over.
Vanessa escorted the volunteer back off the stage and then Bob said, "If you guys think I'm lowering the splash shield, you're crazy. If I'm between these pistons when they connect—well, let's just say I hope to make quite an impression on the audience."
The needle moved closer to red and the drumroll began. Vanessa moved to the lever and Sarah joined her, each woman putting a hand on the lever. The stage darkened, and a broad spotlight illuminated Bob and the apparatus. A more tightly focused light lit the two women. In the sudden darkness, the mouth of the firebox spilled an orange glow onto the stage and a third spotlight flicked on and tightened on the steam pressure gauge.
I blocked the light with my hand, looking, instead, into the shadows around Bob, trying to see what they didn't want the audience to see. The tension was getting to me and the possibility that Bob would get crunched seemed more and more likely.
The raised platform eliminated the possibility of him dropping through another trapdoor. While the spotlight did cast shadows, it also wasn't so tightly focused that he could dodge to either side without being seen.
The drumroll increased in volume and the women each held up three fingers, then two, then one; then they shoved the lever hard over.
I kept my eyes on Bob. At the count of two, he shifted his hands and grabbed the chains of the manacles hard. As he did this the sleeves of his tux jacket slipped back and I saw that he had some sort of metal sleeve around his wrists, between the manacles and his skin. As the women counted one I saw something happening to the cables that the manacles were attached to. Thin wires, dull black, pulled out from the surface of the cables and tightened. I saw the ends of the manacles come free of the cable and draw slightly upward, obviously attached to the thin wires.
Bob preserved the illusion by holding his arms out stiff, so they still seemed to be pulled tight by the cuffs. Then the women shoved the lever over and the steam shot out in front of the platform. As the steam shot out, the wires tightened and Bob literally flew straight up so fast that he was in the shadows above the stage before the pistons came together.
Then they slammed together with a frightful clang and I jumped to the top of the pistons, where they pressed together, and sat there, in that brief instant before the steam cleared.
The applause was terrifying.
Bob reentered the stage, then, from the other side of the boiler and slammed the firebox door shut. With this cue, the stage lights came up and he stepped forward to take a bow. It wasn't until he motioned for his assistants to take a bow as well that he noticed they were staring at me, perched on the "Hammers of Doom."
He walked toward me, eyes wide, mouth tight. I jumped down, first to the platform, then to the stage. The applause increased and I took a half bow. Bob turned back to the audience again and said, "Thank you for coming." Then he made a gesture with his right hand and the curtain came down.
I wondered if it might not be a good idea to leave.
Bob turned around then, hands at his side, balled into fists. "All right, asshole. How'd you do it?" His voice was harsh and loud, and I took an involuntary step back. He started walking toward me.
I looked nervously around and saw four of the backstage crew come forward, watching me, wondering who the hell I was. Some of them also looked angry. Sarah and Vanessa just watched, faces impassive.
"Bob," I said loudly, "you're a poseur."
Then I raised my hands, snapped my fingers, and jumped.
The morning after my encounter with Bob the Magnificent, I decided, out of the blue, to go to Florida, to see my grandfather. My travel agent got me a seat on a jet leaving La Guardia in less than twenty minutes. I walked aboard during the final call.
From Orlando, I switched to a small commuter flight for the last leg to Pine Bluffs. It was noisy, cramped, and it jumped around a lot in the afternoon thermals. At one point, after a particularly vicious downdraft pulled me up against the seat belt for seconds, I nearly jumped away.
The only thing that stopped me was that I didn't think I could jump back into a moving vehicle, not one out of my sight. If I was going to jump away from the plane, I decided I'd wait until we were closer to the ground and even more out of control. The flight lasted a half hour of real time and a lifetime of subjective time. Things were better when it was back on the ground.
The airport building was only slightly bigger than the first floor of my brownstone and the ticket agent was the ground crew, baggage handler, and security. The five other passengers on my flight were met by friends or relatives, leaving me to the tender mercies of the airport car service, a beat-up blue station wagon with a driver whose face was all seams.
"Where to?"
"Oh. Hang on a second. I need to get it out of the phone book." I went back into the building, to the pay phone in the corner.
There was no Arthur Niles listed.
Shit.
I glanced around the building—no one was looking my way. I studied my corner and "acquired" it, then jumped to my old room, in Dad's house. The dust was thicker than ever. I rustled through my desk until I found one of Granddad's old letters, a birthday card with the envelope. The address was on it. I tucked it in my pocket and shut all the drawers.
There were steps in the hallway that stopped outside the door. I froze, stood still as stone. If the door handle moved, I could be gone in seconds. A voice, Dad's, with a quaver I didn't remember, said, "Davy?"
I don't know why, but after hesitating a second I said, "Yes, it's me."
I don't think he expected an answer. I heard him gasp and the floor creak as he shifted his weight from one foot to another. Then he was fumbling at the padlock. When I heard it click open, I jumped back to the Pine Bluffs airport.
The ticket agent/baggage guy at the counter glanced up as I sagged against the wall.
Well, let him wonder,
I thought, thinking of Dad, not the ticket agent. My stomach was churning, but there was a curious satisfaction, not unlike the feeling I'd gotten when I broke the flour container. Though that hadn't been as satisfying as it could have been. I didn't get to see the results, but I also didn't leave footprints.
The card and envelope were still in my hand when I walked outside to the cabby. "345 Pomosa Circle," I told him.
I got in the back and sat, quiet, as a lot of white houses and greenery went by. Dad had sounded different,
old.
I tried not to think about it.
"Here you are: 345 Pomosa Circle. That's four bucks."
I paid him and he drove off.
The house was mostly as I remembered it, a small white bungalow with date palms and a canal that ran behind every house. The name on the mailbox said JOHNSON.
The woman who came to the door spoke Spanish and very little English. When I asked after Arthur Niles, she said,
"Un momento, por favor."
She vanished back into the house.
Another woman, blond, with a deep Southern accent, came to the door. "Mistuh Niles? He passed away four years ago, I buhlieve. Yes, it was four years ago in August. He had him a stroke, in the worst heat, and died later that same day." She put a finger on her lips as if thinking. "We lived down the street then, at 330 Pomosa. We bought the house from his daughter."
I blinked. "Mary Rice?"
"Well, I think that was her married name. I think the paperwork said Mary Niles."
"Does she live here in town?"
"I don't buhlieve so. She was here for the funeral, down at the Olive Branch Cemetery, but at the closing, she was represented by a lawyer with a power of attorney."
"Do you remember the lawyer's name?"
She looked at me. "Uh, I don't suppose you'd care to tell me why you need to know all this?"
I paused. "Well, I'm David Rice, Mary's son. When she left my dad, she, uh, left me, too." I felt my face flush and my palms were sweating. Well, hadn't she?
Didn't she leave you behind because you weren't worth taking?
Lamely, I added, "I'm trying to find her."
Silence. "Hmmm. Well, let me look at the paperwork and see what the name is. You come in out of the sun while I look." She led me back into the house and showed me a chair in the front room. "Roseleeenda?
Aqua frío, por favor, por el hombre."
Then she vanished into the back of the house.
In a minute, the maid brought me a glass of ice water. I said,
"Gracias,"
She said,
"Por nada,"
smiled briefly, and left.
The front room was strange to me, as all the furniture was different. It wasn't until I glanced out the window and saw the way that it framed the house across the street that I had any sense of being in there before. Then the memory was sharp, clear, and painful.
"Darn you, Davy! That's the third time you've given me the queen of spades."
"Now, Davy, you be kind to your granddad. After all, he's old and feeble."
"I can still lay you across my knee and spank you, young lady. Take that!"
"Oh, Dad, not another heart! Well, I guess Davy wins again."
We'd played a lot of hearts that summer visit. Granddad and I would fish early in the morning, and some days Mom and I went to the beach.
It was a good trip.
"The deed is down at the bank, so I called my husband. He remembered the lawyer's name. It was Silverstein, Leo Silverstein." She carried a phone book with her when she came back into the room. "The phone book says his office is down on Main. It'll be overlooking the square by this address—Fourteen East Main."
I thanked her and left. When she closed the door I jumped back to the local airport, appearing by the pay phone. There was a gasp from the counter, but I just walked out through the door as if nothing had happened. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that the ticket agent was following me through the door.
Damn.
I walked around the corner and jumped back to New York.
Whereas Millie had forbidden me the touch of her body but twice a month, she still let me call her every night.
"Hi, it's me."
"What's wrong?"
"Huh?"
"You call me every night. You don't usually sound like an undertaker."
"Oh. Well, I've been trying to find my mother. I went to Florida, to see my grandfather."
"What? Are you in Florida right now?"
"Huh? Oh, no. I came back. My grandfather died four years ago."
The line was quiet for a moment. "And you just found out?"
"Yeah."
"I wonder if your father knew?"
"I don't know," I said tiredly. "I wouldn't put it past him."
"Were you close to your grandfather?"
I thought about it. Hearts and fishing and the odd birthday card with a twenty-dollar bill taped carefully inside. "Once, I was. A long time ago."
"It's rough to lose somebody. I'm sorry."
"Yeah, well..."
"You couldn't have known."
I stared at the phone. "How did you know?"
"What? That you feel guilty about not knowing he was dying? For not knowing when he died?"
"I should have!"
She took a deep breath. "No. I know you feel that way, Davy. You can't help it. It's all right to feel that way.
But there was no way for you to know!
We all feel guilty, now and then, about things that aren't our fault. Trust me—this wasn't something you could do anything about."
I was angry then, at her presumption, at her perception, for putting a name to the feeling I'd been fighting all day. "I should have known when I didn't get a birthday card on my fifteenth birthday. I could have written. I could have sent a letter from school. Dad wouldn't have stopped that one!"
"Your father used to read your mail?"
"Well, I'm pretty sure. We were rural so we had a post-box in town. I didn't have a key for it. I once found an envelope in the car addressed to me with no return address."
"Christ! Why did he do that?"
"I don't know. He didn't let me write relatives, though."
"No wonder, the way he treated you."
I didn't say anything for a while. She didn't press me, just stayed on the line, a companionable breathing, barely heard. Finally I said, "I'm sorry, Millie. I'm not very good company tonight."
"It's okay. I'm just sorry you're having a rough time. I wish I could hold you right now."
I screwed my eyes shut and felt the phone squeak under my suddenly increased grip.
I could be in your arms in seconds, love. I could....
I made myself say, "I wish you could, too. I'll hold you to that on Friday."
"Okay. You sure you don't want me to meet your plane?"
"No. That's okay. I'll get to your door before seven P.M. Just don't eat without me."
"Okay. Sleep well."
"Thanks, I'll try. Uh, Millie?"
"Yes?"
"I... I... I'm going back to Florida tomorrow, but I'll still call, okay?"
She sounded slightly disappointed about something. "Yeah, Davy. That's fine."
I jumped to the corner of the Pine Bluffs airport building, outside, on the sidewalk. When I looked around the corner, the beat-up blue station wagon was there with the ancient cabbie. He seemed surprised to see me.