The Book of Joby (41 page)

With a heavy sigh, Joby turned from the window and wandered toward
the alcove pantry that doubled as his bedroom. Sitting down there on his narrow cot—or, more precisely, on the pile of dirty laundry covering it—he tried to come up with yet another plan, though he doubted it would matter what he tried. Since getting himself kicked out of school nine years earlier, Joby’s life had seemed to decompose as inexorably as all those soggy newspapers heaped up in the apartment building’s leaky basement. Each tedious, menial job he’d lost had led to some even more meaningless job, until now it seemed he wasn’t even equipped to enter columns of pointless numerals into a database all day at InfoStream. He had certainly done his best—at all the jobs he’d lost—but any expectation of cause and effect between effort and results had abandoned him long ago. He hadn’t so much as one good reference to show for all those years of futility.

Turning to his parents for help was out of the question. Joby had concluded long ago that it was best for them, and for himself, that they know as little as possible about what his life had become. He called them several times a year to let them know he was alive, and assure them, however fraudulently, that all was well. Probably sensing that the truth would be unpleasant, they seemed content to let things go at that.

Trying to find some more comfortable perch on the pile of clothes beneath him, Joby conceded that he might as well bundle this mess up and walk it to the Laundromat. The apartment’s gloom made him feel claustrophobic anyway.

Moments later, he walked back through the dingy lobby of his building and stepped into the frenetic stream of pedestrians outside. Squinting against the bright September afternoon, he hoisted his trash bag of clothing over one shoulder and started toward the corner, where yet another specimen of ravaged humanity was hunkered down against the wall. Sitting in her long, ragged skirts, weaving strands of yarn around a tiny cross of sticks, the weathered old woman looked like an apple doll someone had left out all winter in the rain. As he passed, she offered him a merry, half-toothless, smile.

“Sorry,” he grunted, looking away. “Gave it all to the last guy.”

Sometimes every moment in Hell seemed an eternity to Williamson. Halfway through Malcephalon’s interminable presentation, he had begun counting silently backward from 666,666 just to combat the boredom. Now, he was starting to wonder if some larger number might not be called for.

Lucifer’s conference room had been enlarged several times during the past ten years to accommodate the swelling legions of Hell’s most renowned
glitterati sitting around it now. Williamson was still accorded no loftier role than “security camera,” of course, though Lucifer continued to demand his analysis in private, only to credit himself later for all the best ideas.

“Malcephalon!” blurted out an enormous pile of demonic flab named Basquel. “While we all stand in awe of your inexhaustible expertise, eternity
is
ticking by. Is the boy ready yet, or isn’t he?”

Malcephalon fell silent, glowering at his detractor.

“Don’t be petulant, darling,” teased a stunning succubus wrapped in glimmering silks, “Basquel’s just admitting that brilliant insights like yours are wasted on minds like his own.” Basquel shot her a threatening frown. “But surely you can understand our eagerness to know. Is he soup yet, or not?”

“Not,” Malcephalon intoned. “Yet,” he added to stifle the rustle of discontent rippling through the assembly.

“We’re twenty-four years into this campaign,” Lucifer growled impatiently, “which, by the wager’s terms, leaves us only
seven more
to bring
some
plan to fruition. How long can it take to break one pathetic boy’s spirit?”

“You insist on cautious subterfuge,” droned the dour demon. “Give him no meaningful crises, you say, nothing to battle but himself, yes? Such strategies require time. The boy’s will is strong, his character sadly well intentioned. By now he is very angry, of course, but directs that anger largely at himself, just as you commanded—which causes him to rot, much as a pear does, from the core outward. The skin will be last to go. I fear we can expect little visible satisfaction until all he’s stored inside these many years exceeds capacity. Then, I assure you, the whole structure will collapse at once, and we will have a victory as swift and devastating as its construction was . . . meticulous.”

“Which should occur
when,
exactly?” Lucifer pressed in overt exasperation.

“You ask me to read tea leaves, Bright One,” Malcephalon complained, “but, if we continue to be
very
careful . . . I think, perhaps . . . within the year.”

At the resulting clamor, Williamson sank farther into his chair, demoralized. If he didn’t find some way to grab the ball soon, he might never get the chance.

Autumn had blown fiercely into winter. Rain gusted through Berkeley’s streets now, slicking asphalt and concrete to a gloomy sheen. Heavy fabrics in dark colors were back in fashion for those who could afford to care. Joby could not. His job interviews always seemed to go well, then—
nothing
—as if all his applications had simply vanished behind him. In October, he’d finally
taken young Gypsy’s advice and started dining here, at the Berkeley Public Meal Project, to conserve his dwindling funds. Dinner could be had each night for twenty-five cents in the basement of this Unitarian Church.

Standing in a cold drizzle amidst the smoky, milling throng waiting for the dining hall to open, he looked around for Gypsy. Joby’s initial forays into Berkeley’s street culture had been awkward at best. Having no idea how to behave around people he did not remotely understand, he had behaved badly at first. Had it not been for Gypsy’s almost eager willingness to mediate between Joby and the others, he might never have been accepted here. As Gypsy had helped him discard his distorted preconceptions, however, Joby had come to enjoy the companionship of his new peers. Now dinner was the highlight of his day, and Gypsy was one of the best friends he’d made in years.

To Joby’s disappointment, the boy was nowhere to be seen tonight. Across the parking lot, however, by a cluster of rumpled men drinking from paper bags beside the Dumpster, he saw “the little old yarn weaver,” as he’d once thought of her. Joby smiled and raised a hand in greeting. She waved back with one hand, waving off a proffered bottle with the other. Their friendship had been born gracelessly as well.

As Joby had wandered the city that fall looking for employment, she had come to seem almost omnipresent in her mass of fraying skirts, weaving her little ornaments of brightly colored yarn. She’d never said a word to him, much less asked for money, but had often smiled when he passed, as if they were old friends. This strange attention had come to cause him such discomfort that he’d started turning corners at the sight of her. Not until Gypsy had finally introduced them at the Project, one clear October evening, had Joby learned her name. Mary, it turned out, was regarded by nearly everyone here as the unofficial queen of Berkeley’s streets.

No one seemed quite sure where she had come from, or how long she’d been around, but all agreed it had been longer than most among this transient crowd. Nor could anyone say where she went at night. But there was no one easier to find by day, as Joby had already discovered, and once he’d quit avoiding her, he’d quickly come to appreciate her marvelous sense of humor and great trove of earthy wisdom.

“What are you doing here?”
rasped a voice at Joby’s shoulder.

Joby whirled to find a gaunt man of sickly gray complexion whose short pewter hair seemed more bitten off than cut, and stumbled back, as much from the reek of urine, sweat, and stale smoke as from surprise.

“I know what you’re doing up there!” the man insisted in a rapid-fire staccato. “I hear you through the floor! I hear everything!” He wrung a knot of greasy rags nervously between his hands. “I know all about Nixon’s daughter.”

“Y-you’ve got the wrong guy,” Joby stammered, struggling to conceal his alarm.

“Don’t fuck with me!”
the lunatic shouted.
“I know where you’ve got me buried! I know where all of us are buried! I hear everything you do up there!”

“Silverjack! Down boy!”

Joby turned to find Sundog, the Project’s self-appointed peacekeeper, coming toward them across the parking lot, his beefy hands held up in placation. Mary followed close behind, looking somber. Passing Joby by, the burly red-haired vet placed a hand gently on the maniac’s shoulder and said, “Joby’s okay. He’s a friend of Mary’s. See?” He turned to Joby, one hand still on Silverjack’s shoulder. “Joby, this is Silverjack. He gets a little freaked around strangers.”

“You know Mary?” Silverjack asked Joby suspiciously.

Joby nodded.

Silverjack looked past him at Mary. “You know him?”

“We’re good friends, dearie,” she assured him with one of her toothless smiles.

“He’s okay?” Silverjack pressed.

“Would I be eatin’ with ’im if he wasn’t?” she asked, coming to stand beside Joby.

Silverjack gave Joby a decisive nod and said, “You’re okay then,” as if it were Joby who’d been uncertain, then thrust out a filthy hand, which Joby shook once, trying not to grimace.

“There you go!” Sundog roared happily, slapping Joby on the shoulder with one arm, and rocking Silverjack in a half hug with the other. Then, with Mary in tow, he yanked Joby brusquely off toward the basement door where those with tickets were finally being admitted.

“Thanks for bailing me out,” Joby said turning first to Sundog, then to Mary.

“No problem,” Sundog rumbled. “Everybody gets along. That’s what matters.”

Wishing another of his “neighbors” good night, Drrusaffa left their porch with his stack of pamphlets, and stopped to watch the last few stragglers shuffle out of the church basement down the street. The one they called Silverjack was still pacing and muttering erratically to himself back by the Dumpsters. Drrusaffa grinned, focused his mind, and hurled a barb in the man’s direction.
Sure enough, the vagrant turned, peering fearfully into the streetlit darkness around him until he met Drrusaffa’s gaze across the distance. The demon’s hideous grin widened unnaturally as Silverjack’s frightened eyes went round as moons. Drrusaffa chuckled as the ruined man ran screaming from the lot, nearly bowling over two terrified old women walking home.

Drrusaffa’s “neighbors” knew him as Bob Mackley, that nice young man who’d moved into the neighborhood several months ago, or had it been longer? Such a civic-minded young man, active in so many good causes, like . . . like, well, people had trouble remembering just what exactly, though they’d been told all about it . . . by someone.