Close Encounters of the Third Kind (4 page)

Neary winced inwardly. “You’re painting a very dull picture,” he said.

“Give me a different brush.”

“Listen, if you think my job with the power company is some kind of glamour life . . .” Neary trailed off, wondering how angry she really was. Ronnie had the ability to burn out her anger quickly. “Listen,” he told her, “when you’ve fixed one burned-out transformer, you fixed them all.”

Ronnie stared blankly at him. “I think it’s that new thing they’re always talking about,” she said.

“What new thing?”

“Life-style. I think we have to change ours.”

“That’s for rich people, honey,” Roy said. “They just call up the store and order a whole new life-style.”

“Maybe it isn’t life-style,” Ronnie said. “Maybe it’s that other thing the magazines talk about . . . quality of life.”

“Sounds like a soap opera.”

“There has to be more to life than stalking the supermarket aisles looking for three rolls of paper towels for a dollar.”

Neary was silent for a long moment. She had never butted him about how much he earned, or whether they had enough money to live on. He’d always assumed they did okay.

“I got a raise in January,” he began cautiously.

She shook her head. “Wrong track. I’m not talking about money. I don’t mind searching for specials in the store. As long as something special is going on somewhere in my life. And, Roy,” she added, “you know me. I’m easy.”

“Huh?”

“I’m not asking for a week in Acapulco. I mean I’m so starved for something to happen, I’d go bananas if you brought me home a flower. One perfect rose.”

Neary winced again. “I always forget that.”

“When you crave change the way I do,” Ronnie said, “you’ll settle for anything. New potholders. Going down to the Hertz office and watching them rent Pintos. Calling time and weather and dial-a-joke.”

“Listen,” Toby said, intent on getting back to important things. “He took my luminous paints.”

Ronnie folded the newspaper to the movie section and stuck it in front of her husband. “Play through this on your calculator,” she suggested.

Neary glanced down at the page. “Hey! Guess what?
Pinocchio’s
in town.”

“Who?” Brad asked.

Ronnie had opened her handbag and was examining her face in a compact mirror. “I smile too much,” she said. “My mouth is thinning out.”

“Pinocchio,”
Neary said. “You boys have never seen
Pinocchio.
Are you guys in luck!”

Brad frowned. “You promised Goofy Golf this weekend.”

For once, Toby was in agreement. “That’s right. Goofy Golf.”

“But
Pinocchio
is so great,” Roy said.

“Thinning out,” Ronnie repeated aloud to herself, “and turning mean. Just like my mother’s mouth.”

Brad produced a great sigh. “Who wants to see some dumb cartoon rated G for kids?”

“How old are you?” his father demanded.

“Eight.”

“Wanna be nine?”

“Yes.”

“Were seeing
Pinocchio
tomorrow,” Neary said.

“Winning your children’s hearts and minds,” Ronnie commented to her reflection in the mirror.

“Just kidding,” he told her. “But I grew up on
Pinocchio.
Kids are still kids, Ronnie. They’ll eat it up.” He hummed softly for a moment, then sang a few words. “When you wish upon a star . . . makes no difference—” Neary stopped. He could see that he wasn’t getting through to anybody, neither children nor wife.

“You’re right,” he said, throwing up his hands. “Fellas, you can make up your own minds and I won’t influence you in any way. Tomorrow you can play miniature golf, which means a lot of waiting in line and pushing and shoving and maybe scoring zero . . . or . . . you can see
Pinocchio
which has music and animals and magical stuff and things you’ll remember for the rest of your lives.”

Then, in desperation: “Let’s vote.”

“Golf!” all three children shouted.

Neary pretended to stagger back. “Okay, tomorrow, golf. Tonight . . . bedtime. Right now. Get going.”

“No, wait,” Toby protested. “You said we could watch
The Ten Commandments
on TV.”

Across the room the telephone rang. Ronnie moved to answer it. “That picture is four hours long,” she said, picking up the phone on the second ring. “Hello. Oh, hi, Earl.”

Neary said, almost to himself, “I told them they could watch only five of the Commandments.”

“Slow up, Earl,” Ronnie said into the phone. “I can’t relay all that. You better tell Roy direct.” She held out the phone to her husband. “Something’s up.”

Neary started around the ping pong table. “My kids don’t want to see
Pinocchio,”
he grumbled. “What a world.”

Roy reached for the phone. Instead of handing it to him, Ronnie held it to his ear with one hand, moving around to snuggle against his other side, kissing his other ear. Neary was used to this sudden mood switch of hers. He leaned over and picked up Sylvia, who wanted to kiss his ear, too.

“What’s the problem, Earl?” he asked his colleague at the power company.

“I got a call from the load dispatcher,” Earl Johnson, his voice high with worry. “Big drain on the primary voltage.”

“On primary?” Roy said. “How the hell—?”

“Shut up and listen,” Earl cut in. “We’ve lost half a bank of transformers at the Gilmore substation,” he said, trying to get the words out as fast as possible. “It’ll hit the residential any minute, so put on your pants while you’ve still got the light.”

“Earl, what the—?”

“Get over to Gilmore fast, Roy.”

The line went dead as Earl hung up. Neary turned toward his wife. “Did you hear that—?”

Then the room went dark. Everything stopped dead.

5  

A
Moog synthesizer is nothing if not complicated. There are still not many of them in the world, and still fewer people who know how to put one together, and even fewer who understand what to do with the thing: its capabilities, its potential, its limits.

Therefore, when the rush order came through to modify the synthesizer they had constructed for Stevie Wonder two years before, the bearded, mustached and bespectacled young men who understand these arcane matters proceeded with bemused diligence.

Bemused because, evidently, Mr. Wonder was lending or giving his Moog to a group not previously known for its musical interests. But what the hell? What could these guys do with a Moog synthesizer that they couldn’t already do with a nuclear-tipped long-range intercontinental ballistic missile?

6  

I
ke Harris was holding on to two telephones when Roy arrived: one connected directly to an apartment elevator in which Supervisor Grimsby was trapped, the other to the equally-agitated outside world.

Harris was shook. “A 27-KV line at Gilmore went,” he said into the phone to Grimsby; at the same time, he was briefing Neary. “All the breakers opened and we started losing feeders. Tolono’s dark. Crystal Lake’s dark. What? Oh, that’s right, sir. You’re dark too.” Harris glanced at Neary and his eyes went up in his head for a moment, signaling the kind of vibes Grimsby was transmitting at his end.

“Okay, right,” Ike said, when Grimsby was temporarily through screaming. “I’ve got reports of vandalism on the line—890-megawatt lines seem to be down all over. I called Municipal Lighting for a fix, but we can’t send the new juice through till this 500 KV tower is operational. What? Yes, sir!”

Harris put his hand over the phone. “Neary, you know the normal wire tension in that area?”

“Without wind, normal tension for the sag is about fifteen thousand pounds per wire. I was a journeyman out that way a couple of years ago.”

Ike took his hand away from the phone. “I’m sending Neary over there now.”

“You are?” Roy mouthed.

Harris waved Neary out of the control room with the hand not holding the Grimsby-phone. “Get the hell going. On the double. No, not you, Mr. Grimsby.”

As Roy started trotting out the door, he heard Ike shouting to someone, everyone, anyone: “Tell Municipal we’re going to candle power in ten minutes.”

Now, fifteen minutes later, barrel-assing down a dark country road whose name or number he wasn’t sure about, Neary was about to admit to being lost. Roy’s car was a smaller version of his workroom at home. He had a network map spread out over the steering wheel as he searched vainly for the problem coordinates, a penlight sticking out of his mouth.

Already a menace on the road, Neary was further distracted by the police calls that were squabbling over his broadband radio.

“This is Sheriff’s Dispatch. Do I have a patrol car near Reva Road?”

“Hello, County. This is highway patrol six ten. We’re on Reva. Can we help you boys out?”

“If you would, thank you. See the woman two eleven Reva Road. Something about the outdoor lighting. She’s in a state. Barking dogs. Go figure it out.”

The radio stopped talking, and Neary stopped driving, pulling over to the side of the road. Reva Road was in Tolono, he was sure of it. But Ike had reported Tolono dark. Roy picked up the mobile phone.

“TR eighty-eight eighteen to Trouble Foreman,” he called.

“Here’s Trouble,” Ike Harris came back, no less hysterical than fifteen minutes ago. “Whaddya want?”

“Have you guys restored power to Tolono? Over.”

“Are you kidding? Tolono was the first to go.”

“I just heard the police reporting lights in Tolono.”

“Jesus!” Harris shouted. “What, are you monitoring police calls on a night like this? Everything’s down, Neary. The whole network’s fallen.”

Harris went off abruptly.

Neary pulled back onto the road. Several minutes later, he saw a revolving amber light in the distance, which made him feel a little better. But not much. At least he wasn’t lost. Roy pulled over behind a utility trouble wagon and got out. Two crews were there, standing by, waiting for someone in authority to give the word. A yellow DWP cherry picker idled, ready to lift men to the top of the tower that loomed indistinctly high in the darkness.

Neary felt inadequate. He’d never bossed line crews before. These guys were good—old-timers, most of them. Roy had put in his time on line crews himself, but these guys were fifteen years older than he was and ten times as experienced. Just because he’d moved up through the system didn’t mean a damn thing to these fellows, didn’t automatically mean they’d follow his orders, if he could think of any orders to give.