Gods Without Men (23 page)

Of all these, the H-bomb was the worst. Not just because it was nuclear. Because it used hydrogen. Splitting hydrogen atoms threatened the life force. It was in air and water, part of the Earth’s very soul. Also, the burning of hydrocarbons such as coal and oil (whose atoms contained Earth memories of the Ancient Times when dinosaurs roamed and man was unconscious of his inner truth) was combining with the modern-day projections of human negativity to produce smog, which lay over big cities and made it hard for Lightworkers to signal the fleets. That was one reason the Earth base was located in the desert. Pollution.

It was a beautiful thing, reconnecting the Earth. It was going to save billions of lives. So it was frustrating that Dawn’s school friends didn’t seem to understand. Whenever she said a word about the Command, they treated her like a mental case. They couldn’t see beyond the lack of air-conditioning and the dust and the vegetable stew. She tried to tell
them there was something wondrous about life in the Ashtar Galactic Command. Something real.

“What’s not real about here?” asked Sheri. “No one place’s realer than another.”

They were sitting in the Dairy Queen. Dawn shrugged. From the look of Sheri and Janet Graves and Diane Castillo, surrounding her in the booth, it didn’t seem worth trying to argue. She could talk all day and they wouldn’t hear a thing.

Sheri was suspicious. “Have they got you hooked on something?”

Another unanswerable question. Of course they had. Energy, Reality. Whatever you wanted to call it. There was stuff out there those girls had no idea existed, alien ships big as cities hovering invisibly a thousand miles over their town.

“It’s about love,” she said. “What can I tell you? It’s about shining forth with the Light.”

“Oh my goodness,” said Sheri. “Oh my.”

By the time the nights started getting cold, things had pretty much broken down with Aunt Luanne and Uncle Ray. Old Craw fired her from the store for running off with Wolf too many times and Uncle Ray told her she was going to have to find some other kind of work and quick, because he sure as heck wasn’t going to carry freeloaders. He had a whole lot more to say, about decency and the young men fighting in Vietnam and the obligations that came with living under his roof. When she told him she was against the war and suggested he’d probably be less uptight if he was to get rid of his stupid roof and float free of the rest of town in a personal bubble, he got mad and slapped her face. He would have done worse had her aunt not intervened.

Dawn knew what really bothered the old bastard: the thought of her having “sexual relations.” He’d come home from work (he drove a back-hoe out at the borax plant) and start right in on lecturing her. It was sexual relations this and sexual relations that, and she had the idea that he sat there in his cab, pulling levers and imagining in fine detail who was or wasn’t getting into the white cotton panties she pegged out on the line in the yard. He’d always been sort of touchy-feely, even when she was a little kid and first went to live with him and Aunt Luanne. He’d pinch
her thighs and pat her on the tush in a way that always meant more than he was letting on, but in the last year or so he’d really let the cat out of the bag. If she was sunbathing, he’d find some reason to be outside with her, fooling about in the rain gutter or tinkering with his truck. He had this whole routine of walking in on her when she was in the bathroom, pretending he hadn’t heard the shower running. She’d taken to wedging a chair against the door, and even then he kept on trying the handle. She knew what he wanted, and he knew she knew. The idea of her making it with “some greaser” was probably more than he could bear.

She’d have been out of that cramped little ranch house like a bullet if only she’d been confident she could support herself. She was half sure the Time of Tribulation was coming, in which case money wouldn’t matter soon enough. The other half of her mind was full of inconvenient questions about where she’d be in five years’ time and how she was going to pay for it. So she went to speak to Mr. Hansen about a job, and he said he might have something because he was opening up a new location over in Morongo. She might be suitable, just as long as she kept up her appearance. He asked why she’d stopped doing her hair. She’d given up on the spray and curling iron and was wearing it straight, or else tied up in a bandanna like the other girls at the Command. Lena and Sheri had said flat out it was a cry for help.

Eventually Uncle Ray banned her from going out to the Pinnacles, and for a while she did as she was told. Then Pioneer Day came along and the folks from the Command drove into town in their school bus, which they’d freshly painted silver like a NASA rocket and wanted to run in the parade. Mayor Robertson and the other committee men refused to let them, though the parade was a small, drab affair, just the high-school marching band and the veterans and the fire department and the Cholla Queen and her cactus maidens waving from the back of a convertible. With their costumes and that great glittering dazzle of a bus, the Command would have livened things up, but those committee boys had some excuse about permits and applications needing to be made in advance and right then and there she decided she couldn’t stand it anymore. It was time to pick sides. That afternoon, when the big silver bus drove out of town, she was on it.

Problem was she was under twenty-one. Uncle Ray must have infected the mind of Sheriff Waghorn with imagery of her panties, because the next day Waghorn was out at the rocks, purple-faced, bellowing about how he was going to commission a medical examination to check she was still “intact” and threatening all kinds of legal consequences if she wasn’t. “Are you here of your own free will?” he kept asking, repeating the question when she said yes, thank you, as if putting it a third or fourth or God help her a fifth time might produce a different answer. “Did they give you anything? An injection? Did you eat something made you drowsy?” She’d have laughed out loud if she weren’t also scared to hell. When she refused point-blank to go back with him, the sheriff got so angry he snorted the breath out of his nostrils like a bull.

She thought the Command would just put her out. She was bringing trouble on them. But Clark Davis took her over to Maa Joanie’s shack for a meeting. It was one of the buildings on the compound that was kind of off-limits and she’d never had reason to go in there. The shack turned out to be just one room full of all kinds of books and papers and religious items, crystals and Buddha statues and candles and pictures of Jesus opening up his bleeding heart. Maa Joanie had hung it with electric Christmas lights, which made the whole place look like a cantina in Mexicali she’d once been to with Uncle Ray and Aunt Luanne. There was a little bed covered with a patchwork comforter and an old-fashioned washstand with a basin and jug and a big round mirror and a few photographs in frames that mostly seemed to feature groups of people in shiny uniforms, with sashes and tunics and little hats like tin soldiers or majorettes.

Maa Joanie was sitting in a rocking chair. Judy stood behind her, brushing her hair with a silver-backed brush. She was concentrating real hard, her eyes sparkling like it was some sort of treat.

“Hundred strokes before bedtime,” said Maa Joanie, who looked contented, half asleep. Clark Davis turned a wooden chair backward and sat down heavily on it, rotating his hat nervously in his hands.

“Well, little Dawn, you’ve certainly put the cat among the pigeons.”

“I didn’t mean to. I just want to be here, you know? Be part of the Light.”

“I can understand that. But, as Sheriff Waghorn was at pains to remind me, your uncle’s still your legal guardian. He’s got the right to decide what’s best for you.”

“My uncle’s an asshole.”

“That’s as may be.”

“It might be best if she goes,” said Maa Joanie, who didn’t even look over, just stared off into the distance with that dreamy expression on her face.

“Do you want to?” asked Davis.

“No! You don’t know what it’s like. My uncle’s a creep, and my aunt doesn’t do a thing about it.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You’re saying he’s interfering with you?”

“Well …” She thought about it for a moment. “Yes.” It was true enough. It was what was on his mind.

“I want to be clear. This involves touching and such? Sexual touching?”

“Yes,” she said more firmly.

“Clark, I don’t like this,” said Maa Joanie. “We’ve got a burden on our shoulders as it is.”

“But if what Dawn says is true, then her uncle’s in league with the Dark Forces. Look at this girl, Joanie. She’s a starchild! You can see the mark on her brow. We can’t just throw her out. We have a duty.”

“They’re going to come after her. They’ll start hassling us, and we’re too far along just to up and move to another place.”

“Then we’ll fight. That’s what we’re here to do.”

“This isn’t the Tribulation. It’s not that time.”

“It’s close. We all know that. We need to take guidance. We ought to contact the Command.”

While they were talking, Judy stood behind Maa Joanie, the hairbrush held limply in her hand. The faintest trace of a smile played about the corners of her mouth. Dawn didn’t see what was so funny. This was her life they were talking about.

Maa Joanie got up and switched off the Christmas lights, leaving only a candle burning on the nightstand. Everyone settled themselves down.
Not really knowing what to do, Dawn just followed the others, sitting with her hands in her lap, dropping her head like she was praying in church. It was clear that Judy was now in charge. She did some kind of strange breathing thing and began to speak.

“Calling Command! Calling Command! Beloved Commanders, are you monitoring my wave? Come in, if you are receiving this signal. We of Earth desire contact with the Light.”

There was a silence, then a deep male voice spoke. Dawn didn’t dare open her eyes, but it sounded as if it was coming from where Judy was sitting.

“Salutations! I am Argus, director of Earth Missions, 325th wave. I am standing by. Discontinue.”

Maa Joanie spoke.

“Beloved Commander Argus! Greetings and salutations to you and your Supreme Commander Ashtar. In the name of Lord Jesus-Sananda, we need advice. Earth base is threatened by law enforcement operatives in league with the Dark Forces. We need to know if we should protect a young Lightworker, or if we should ask her to sacrifice her connection for the greater good of the mission.”

“I hear you, Beloved. Your emotions are imprinted on my soul. You are in doubt. I am sorry that it should be so. This is a complex problem. I will consult my colleagues in council. Please stand by.”

The silence seemed to last forever. If it really was just Judy using a weird voice, Dawn was sure the “aliens” would tell them to send her back to Uncle Ray. Her thoughts drifted on to whether she should beg Old Man Craw to reconsider or just get on a Greyhound and leave town. Where to? L.A.? San Francisco? Then Judy did her strange breathing thing again.

“Beloved, we have met in telepathic council and all are in accord. The girl is a special one. She has the solar seal on her brow. You are to protect her from the Dark Forces. Use any means necessary. My blessings and the Blessings of all the Solar Hierarchy fall upon you. Dwell in the Light. I am Argus. Discontinue.”

Dawn looked up at Judy in wonderment. Judy smiled. And winked at her, she was sure. Maybe it was just a trick of the light.

And that was how Dawn found herself in a law office in Victorville with Maa Joanie and Clark Davis, who was wearing ostrich boots and a bolo tie and a new felt hat for the occasion. She said the things he’d schooled her to say, about how her uncle came in when she was in the shower and touched her inappropriately and made remarks, and how she feared if she stayed under his roof he would fall into sinful ways. Sheriff Waghorn sat and stared goggle-eyed and Ray cursed and waved his hands and the lawyer told him he didn’t look kindly on such displays in the presence of a young lady. Then the sheriff told Ray flat out to drop it, said it wasn’t worth his while to keep hold of her if she didn’t want to stay. Ray looked like he wanted to strangle her with his bare hands but settled for calling her a tramp. All the while Aunt Luanne cried bitterly. Dawn felt sorry for Luanne, who’d never done anything to deserve a pig like Ray.

Looking back, that was the real start of the war between the town and the Ashtar Galactic Command. Each side thought the other was in league with the Dark Forces, and each side was prepared to do whatever it took to ensure right should prevail. A couple of days later Sal and Marcia came back from town all covered in red house paint, saying some boys in a green-and-white Mercury drove past on Main Street and threw it over them. Dawn knew exactly who it was. Frankie and Robbie and Donny Hansen and Kyle Mulligan and some of the other jocks had taken to driving out to the Pinnacles to hang around. They’d play music and lean on their cars, drinking beer and throwing the cans over the compound fence. If Wolf or Gila or any of the other guys came out they’d take off, but sometimes they shouted things about Dawn being a hippie slut and how they hoped she liked being fucked by niggers. Hurtful things, especially from Frankie, who always used to be so sweet.

Of course everything the good old boys at Mulligan’s thought was going on up at the rocks really was, and more besides. It took a while for Dawn to cotton on to why people who were sometimes so talkative could spend whole days lying silently in the dome or trudging naked circles on the dry lake. At least some of the money for food and building materials was coming from the drug runs being made to L.A. and San Francisco, which seemed to be almost a full-time occupation for many
of the Children of Light. Whatever was getting bought and sold wasn’t really any of her concern. As for being “intact,” whatever that meant, the night of the Pioneer Parade Wolf had taken her out on the rocks and calmly stripped her of her shorts and halter top and licked her pussy with his long tongue and then fucked her slowly and methodically until she whimpered and scratched his back. Afterward she felt more intact than she’d ever felt in her life.