Planet America (21 page)

Mayfield Police Officer Charles Eaton was working on his second cup of coffee of the night when the call came in.

There was a disturbance
above
the municipal golf course.

Or so his dispatcher was trying to tell him.

"Repeat, base?"

"Report of a disturbance above the town links," came the reply. "Could be a fire in the trees, over near the thirteenth fairway."

Eaton carefully poured his coffee back into his thermos and started his patrol car. He knew the thirteenth hole very well. A par-five, 575-yard killer with big woods off to the left. He'd spent a lot of time looking for his stray shots among those pines. But how could the trees catch on fire?

Eaton's present position was closer to the north side of the links. The whole golf course was part of his patrol area this night; the place routinely saw some extracurricular activity after any Mayfield football game, win or lose. Usually, a blast from the siren scattered any kids drinking out on the course. But fire meant vandalism. That meant Eaton would have to walk in and check it out.

He put his car in gear and rolled about two hundred feet to the ninth tee turnoff. He could park the car here, and walk in.

"Base ... sixteen here ... nineteen thirty-three hours. You'd better call the firehouse, tell them to get someone out here. I'm going forty-two from the car."

Eaton gathered his portable radio, his nightstick, and his flashlight and stepped out of the car.

His radio crackled again. This time Betty, the night shift dispatcher, had a bit of panic in her voice.

"Sixteen, we now have a report of something on fire and ...
flying
over the links."

Flying
? Eaton thought.

He was about to ask Betty for a repeat when he saw it. Right above the trees. A machine of some kind. Red, white, and blue. And yes, it was flying. And yes, it seemed to be aflame, with a low roar emanating from its midsection.

He dropped the light, the radio, and his nightstick, all at once. He went to his knees and tried to pick them up. But his hands were shaking too much.

"Base?
Base? Are you there
?"

He looked down to see he was talking into his flashlight.

When he looked up again, the machine was right over his head.

It hovered there, just for a moment. The thing had wings, two big ones, two little ones. Its nose was sharp, pointed. It was now making a very strange growling noise. And it was surrounded by a greenish glow.

Officer Eaton blinked again, and the machine was gone.

Soaring...

Off the ground, the golf course rushing beneath. Over more trees, over the last three holes, over the pond, over the high school, over the middle of town itself.

No feeling. Not really. They were standing still, and everything else below them was moving. The ground, moving, beneath.

Faster now. Very fast. Off in the distance, the lights of a big city. Chicago? Could that be?

Yes! Over the tall buildings, over the five bridges, over the lakefront. Now over the lake.

Another big city. Ships on the cold waters below.
Another
city. Then long stretches of highways. Going east, everything moving beneath. The moon was so close, she felt like she could reach out and touch its face.

This was real, but not real. Ashley was awake, but she knew she must be asleep. Her eyes were open, yet when she pinched herself, she could not feel any pain. She could still talk, but when the words came out, she could not hear them.

Was that New York ahead of them?
New York City
! Was it possible?

Suddenly they were flying through a canyon of buildings. Manhattan. The rivers. The lights. The bridges. A huge green statue of a woman holding a torch high over her head. A turn to the left, then a long curve back over the city. Going west now. Faster and faster. Over fields and dales and forests and many long, wide rivers. Houses, small towns, and miles and miles of growing things... and then suddenly, Ashley was walking on the road near the stadium again. And Hunter is there. Then they are in the gas station, then her kitchen, then her bedroom. Her rug turns into a wave of gold. And Hunter is smiling at her. His machine is gone, but she feels like she is still flying. He takes her by the hands and gently kisses her cheek. They are standing in a great hall, with hundreds, no,
thousands
of people around them. And Hunter is wearing a completely different outfit. This one was deep blue, and there were no
Xs
across his chest, but many ribbons and medals and gold stars instead. And she is dressed in a long, white gown, with immensely curled hair and a string of diamonds plunging from her neck.

"I hope I can explain this to you someday," he says to her.

She looks back into Hunter's eyes and suddenly understands something.

"Oh my God ..." she whispers. "
It's you
...."

He smiles wearily. "Yes, it is ..."

Another flash.

The gold weave turned into the finely manicured grass of the thirteenth green.

They were suddenly back at the golf course, looking up at the stars.

"Are you OK?" Hunter asked her.

But Ashley couldn't hear him. All she could think about was her dream the night before.
That strange dream
. She met this guy, they got along, they kissed, and ...

Suddenly she grabbed Hunter by the sleeve and began dragging him across the fairway.

"I have to bring you someplace," she said. "And I mean,
right now
...."

They ran this time.

Across the north end of the golf course, right by a gang of confused cops and firefighters, through the center of Mayfield to Pike's Hill. Ashley didn't talk the whole way, and she never let go of his sleeve. They climbed the hill swiftly. At the top was a patch of soft, high grass and a view that stretched for miles. Below them was the town, the lake, the river. The high school. Above them, all those stars.

She knelt on the grass and pulled him down with her.

"That thing you do," she said, still out of breath. "Turning things back on themselves? Or whatever it is! Can you do it whenever you want?"

Hunter smiled. "Sure can...."

She leaned over and kissed him hard on the lips.

"Then do it again," she said, squeezing him very tight. "
Please
..."

The sun came up, and Ashley made it home before her parents.

Hunter stayed at top of the hill, lying on the same patch of grass, watching the sunrise and listening to his heart beat. It had been quite a night. And it hadn't been
all
fun and games. They'd talked. He'd asked about life here—and what a strange place the planet was turning out to be. They had cars here but no airplanes; microscopes but no telescopes. Lots of cops but no armed forces. They had no enemies except themselves. This world was one world, not a bunch of nations thrown together.

They'd looked at the brilliant night sky. Hunter was still amazed by it, but it was old hat for her. She told him that no one had ever bothered to name anything up there because there was so much stuff, where would one begin? And the heavenly bodies? No one knew what they were. And why did the moon fly around the planet at such an unnatural speed? Again, no one knew, and no one really seemed to care.

It was odd. There were brilliant people here: doctors, scientists, academic types. But apparently no one had ever had the urge to climb on a wing and try to fly it or to blast off into space and get a better look at what was happening out there. The people here had no idea what their planet looked like from outer space. But then again, neither did Hunter. During his two quick flights around the planet, he'd maintained a very low altitude and a relatively high speed. He'd yet to get the God's-eye view.

Maybe next time
, he remembered thinking.

So they'd talked and talked and talked, and when it was time for her to go, Ashley realized she'd passed the night without her once asking him how all these things he was able to do could be real. It was not like her she said, but she'd simply accepted them. And she promised not to say a word about them to anyone. And she said she would like to do them all again. Soon.

The last thing Hunter had said to her was, "Can you meet me up here again tonight?"

And she'd smiled and said, "You bet."

That's why he was still on top of the hill. He didn't want to go anywhere else. He would stay here, hold his position, so there would be no chance that he would miss her when she came again.

Of course, he wished he'd thought to ask her what time she would return. Later or early? Did night start as soon as the sun began to go down? Or when it finally set? Or when the moon and all those stars came out again? Midnight or dusk?

He didn't know.

But, no problem. He'd just stay put and be sure that when she came, either early or late, he would be here, waiting for her.

So he just lay back on the same patch of grass and watched the sun slowly glide across the blue sky. He thought of how he got here, and wherever here was, and how now maybe he wasn't so sure he was on the wrong planet after all.

Then the sun began to set, and he sat up and watched the path at the bottom of the hill. Then the sun disappeared, and all those stars came out, and the heavenly bodies and then the moon streaked across the sky.

The night grew colder. The stars burned his face. And then the sun came up again.

And though Hunter had stayed awake all night waiting, Ashley never showed up.

10

Tony "Tony Burps" Balbini was the diner king of Jersey City.

He owned three of them: one by the tracks, one by the whorehouse, and one right off the Route 202 exit. The diners had originally been built to serve as fronts for the rackets, numbers running mostly. But the food side of it came along better than anyone had hoped. Now all the businesses were running in the black.

Tony Burps did everything in XL. He drove an extra-large Cadillac, he carried an extra-large gun, he wore extra-large, or sometimes even extra-extra-large-size clothes. Every one of his employees hated him but did everything they could to stay on his good side, this after he once spread some nasty rumors about a missing busboy and a particular Monday's meatloaf special.

Usually, at first sight of his Caddy flying into the parking lot, his employees would scatter to the far corners of the diner and just hope they could survive the random, intimidating encounters. Tony went through employees like some people went through cigarettes, but that was just part of the diner game. Dishwashers were the worst. They were usually just thieves in disguise. If one lasted more than two weeks, Tony became suspicious, earlier even if one showed any signs of initiative or any other wacky behavior.

That's what had brought Tony Burps to the Route 202 Diner this rainy evening. He'd hired a new dishwasher less than a week before, and his spies were telling him the guy had not left since. He'd been taking every shift for nearly four days, allowing the other kitchen help to burn a rare day off their miserly sick time.

Even though Tony had hired the man he could barely recall what he looked like now. He just remembered this guy was big—real big. As big and tall as Tony was big and fat. His brief work record was something of a quandary for Tony. Working for nearly one hundred hours straight was great for the diner's overall operation, as there had been no backup at the sinks since the man was hired. But Tony was also paying for this spirited enterprise—at nearly five bucks an hour.

He was there today to investigate.

He barged through the front door, grunted in the general direction of some of the stool regulars, then cornered Marshall, his head counterman.

"That guy go home yet?" he asked Marshall.

The diminutive black man in the neatly pressed shirt and tie just shook his head.

"He's still back there, boss," he reported. "He ain't even broken a sweat yet. But I'll tell you, whenever he decides to work his magic, the dishes have never been so clean."

Tony did not like the sound of that.

He pulled out his employee/living book and began flipping through the last few pages.

"What's his name again? Clorox?"

"Zarex," Marshall gently corrected him. "I think he's sitting out back, having a smoke."

Tony brushed by him and pushed his way into the kitchen. The place was a mess. The dishes were piled sky high in the sink, there were dirty pots and pans everywhere. Tony took one look at the night cook. The man stood frozen for a few seconds before going back to his task of making a stack of silver dollar pancakes.

Tony stepped through the filthy cleaning area and kicked the back door open. The junkyard, a putrid canal, and the highway lay beyond. Sitting on a crate next to the trash barrels was his latest dishwasher.

"What's a matta wit' you?" Tony asked him. "You got a headache? Did you break a nail?"

Zarex looked up at him, took a long, sweet puff of his Marlboro, and blew the smoke right into Tony's extra-large face.

"I'm on break," he said, looking back out over the dirty canal. God, how he loved staring at it and the busy roadway beyond.

"It looks like you've been on break all day," Tony said, thumbing back toward the dirty kitchen. "I mean, when I hired you, Mr. Xerox, I wasn't doing it just to provide you with a place to hang out. If that's what you kids still call it. I mean, you're here to work, too."

Zarex sent another plume of smoke Tony's way. There was a screech of brakes on the highway nearby. A fascinating sound.

"I've done nothing but work since coming here," he told Tony. "Why? Have you heard complaints?"

"Yeah," Tony roared back. "A big one. Like the fooking kitchen area looks like a fooking mess. Like it's all dirty dishes and crappy pots. This ain't charm school, bozo. You're supposed to be cleaning all that stuff."

Zarex took one last drag of his cigarette, stubbed the lit end out on the palm of his hand, then stood up. Tony nearly stumbled backward. This guy was much bigger than he remembered him. He stepped aside while Zarex calmly put his apron back on and stepped back inside the kitchen. Tony saw a quick flash of light, followed by a puff of greenish smoke. Not two seconds later, Zarex stepped back outside, sat back down on his crate, and relit his Marlboro.