The Best People in the World (10 page)

“We can pay our own way,” said Alice.

“Oh, man, don't bring up money. Trust me, whatever you've got isn't enough, and whatever you're trying to get rid of nobody wants. Money won't do you a bit of good. In about twenty years they're going to figure out how to make diamonds in the laboratory and then the whole structure of wealth will go right out the window. Farmers will always be able to feed their families and dentists will always have to stick their fingers into strangers' mouths.”

“Her sister lives with a dentist,” I said.

“You're a fount of knowledge,” said Parker. “Get this, the place those people live was going to be one of those places like Disneyland.”

“An amusement park?” I asked.

The guy turned toward me. “More historical, like a village. They were going to have rides eventually, only things didn't get to that stage. It was after that movie, that musical. The Japanese were crazy for it, but then they decided it was easier to walk away than see things through. They had all the money in the world, but they ran out of courage.” He nudged Shiloh with his elbow.

“A Japanese musical?” Alice asked.

“No, the movie isn't Japanese. The family lives in this really old-world place. Well, things go wrong, the Nazis, and they're forced to climb these mountains.”

“
The Sound of Music?
” I asked.

Parker leveled his finger at me. “Bingo.”

“And these are friends of yours?” asked Alice.

“I trust them, if that's what you're asking. Take my word, this place will be perfect for you. Just give me a couple of hours to beat the bushes and I'll tell you exactly where you can find them.”

Alice said she was worried about her car.

“That's no problem,” said Parker. “I'll help you move the car somewhere safe. After that I'll make these inquiries. You'll be back on the road first thing in the morning.”

Alice glared at Shiloh.

“I told them we wouldn't have to stay in the city.” Shiloh sounded unconvinced.

“There you have it for best-laid plans.”

Parker led us across the vast room to something like a stamped steel pulpit. He had us mount the platform. There was a little console with a slot for a key. He pushed a button and the platform started inching upward. The ceiling yawned open and we passed through another dark floor. A siren cycled a few times before the ceiling parted again and we saw clouds. The lift delivered us to the sidewalk. All around us loomed the familiar ruined buildings.

It was a relief to be out from under all that cement and gravity. I didn't know if I could submit to it again.

We found the car. Shiloh replaced the part he'd carried with us, one of the battery cables.

We piled in. Parker told Alice where to turn.

“How long have you been staying here?” Shiloh asked.

“A little while. A couple of months. They want me out, but no one has the stones to tell me to split.” Then he said, “Ha! What did the girl tell you?” He looked at us expectantly.

Shiloh looked from Alice to me. “You know,” he said.

“I run the place, basically,” said Parker. “They're kids. It's a younger generation. They're idealists, I guess. They suffer from limited thinking.”

He had Alice turn again.

“What are you doing these days?” Shiloh asked.

I didn't necessarily want to hear Parker's answer to the question. It was bad enough that we were going back inside that building.

“New things,” said Parker. “Here we go.”

Wedged between two basically intact buildings, a bulldozer hulked, its scarred blade rested on the pavement. We waited as Parker climbed over the steel blade and into the vehicle's cab. In a moment the diesel stack started to flutter. He gave us the high sign and the bulldozer crept out of its lair. Inside the alleyway there were motorcycles in different states of disrepair, cars on blocks and parts of cars on blocks, a yellow sports car and a blue van. With the bulldozer idling in the middle of the street, Alice parked the Plymouth at the head of the line. After he'd backed the bulldozer into place, Alice asked how she was going to get her car out. Parker said we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves. Shiloh asked Parker what he needed a bulldozer for.

“Have you ever had access to a bulldozer?” asked Parker.

Shiloh said he hadn't.

“Imagine you had a twelve-inch dick. Let me tell you, I'm going to hate to give it up.”

 

It started to rain. Outside the laundromat, suds formed on the sidewalk.

Opening a door on the side of the building, Parker led us back into the maze. He led us up a flight of stairs, down a hallway choked with humming refrigerators, and into a large room where six floor-to-ceiling windows shared one terrible view. The room was crowded with defective furniture, as though the previous tenant had spent all his time trying and failing to invent the chair.

Parker told us to sit tight.

On what?

I propped a bench up with a stool while Alice wandered about trying to find something redeeming in the place. Shiloh just stretched out on the floor. He stared at the ceiling as if he could see stars.

“How'd you and Parker meet?” I asked.

Shiloh turned to look at me. “You're asking me about history,” Shiloh said, “but from now on I only want to think about the future.”

All at once we were starving. Shiloh and I retraced our route to the refrigerators. What we found inside didn't give us any hope, row upon row of brown plastic jugs, some empty, others full, dates written on white labels.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked.

“I have a hunch,” said Shiloh. He picked a jug up and weighed it at the end of his arm. “I don't think we want to eat it.”

We returned to the bleak room. Alice didn't say anything. She stared out the windows.

The girl came in carrying the baby. Something about her face made me sympathetic to sleep.

“Did you get the diapers?” I asked.

She held the baby away from her body, so its bowlegs dangled.

“This is a different girl,” said Alice.

The girl took a spot on a filthy sofa and bounced the baby on her thigh. “This baby is crazy for jumping.”

The three of us watched the baby, who looked, if not thrilled, at least content. Then the girl embraced the baby the way a girl will a doll or kittens, as though overcome with happiness, as though, in her exuberance, she might accidentally smother the child.

I wanted to say something to her.

She propped the baby up on the sofa. The baby toppled over and rubbed its mouth over the upholstery.

“Are you baby-sitting us?” Shiloh asked.

“No,” said the girl. “I'm waiting with you.”

Alice took a ten-dollar bill out of her front pocket and held it in the air. “If you get us some food, you can keep the change.”

The girl took the money and left.

 

A little while later Shiloh said, “Do you think she's coming back?”

Alice asked, “You don't think she will?”

“I don't know,” said Shiloh.

“I think she'll come back,” I said.

Alice just groaned.

The girl marched in with two greasy bags containing a dozen beef tamales, a Styrofoam container of rice and beans, and a six-pack of orange soda—the most exotic meal I'd ever seen. The smell of the food drove me crazy. The spicy oil burned my lips. I sucked the rim of the can of too sweet soda. It was painful and wonderful. Perspiration evaporated from my forehead.

“What do you think of Parker?” the girl asked.

Shiloh said they were old friends.

“Did he ask if you were here to save him?”

“He said something,” said Alice.

“He's like a broken record. He's not fooling anyone.”

“What do you mean?” asked Shiloh.

“Every time someone shows up looking for him, he pretends it's some great mystery.”

I said, “I hope we're not getting him in any trouble.”

“Parker doesn't need anyone's help finding trouble.” She smiled at me. “I've got to get this baby to bed. I'll show you where the bathroom is and then you can make yourselves comfortable.”

The bathroom was across the hall. The toilet flushed with pails of rainwater. This struck me as a beautiful process, meditative and honest. Immediately I resolved that my life should be like this, a little more involved, a manageable struggle.

We whispered thanks to the girl—the baby had fallen asleep in her arms.

We went back to the room. We expected to be tired at any moment. Alice said spicy food always knocked her out. It turned out that the soda contained a lot of caffeine.

“We'll be away from here tomorrow,” said Shiloh.

Alice said, “I can't tell you how much of a relief that will be.”

 

In the morning a purple light cut across the room. I went to the bathroom, poured rainwater in the bowl.

I got turned around on my way back. Instead of returning directly to the room, I wound up in a dark hallway. Black plastic lined the floors. When a corridor intersected, filled with the light I'd woken to, I thought I'd rescued myself. I came to the room where we had stayed, but there was no furniture and no Alice. I tried to understand what had taken place. It was the time of day that proves conclusively how light can bend. Looking out the window I saw that the building wasn't a solid, blocky cube, but was composed of a series of linked towers. Insulated by a hundred yards of air, I spied a room, the twin to the one I was in. In that room I had a twin who approached the glass. It was Parker, peering down at the sidewalk, rubbing a spot on the glass with his finger. I couldn't believe I'd left Alice alone. I needed to get back to that room before he moved from the window.

I sprinted down the purple corridor, nearly losing my footing when I turned onto the slick plastic. I burst into a windowless room filled with racks of folding tables. Then I understood my mistake and found the right room. I was back before Alice had finished rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Shiloh and Parker were eating egg sandwiches. They had a coffee for Alice and a chocolate milk for me.

“You did right coming here,” Parker said. Maybe Parker didn't have a lot of opportunities to give people good news, because he seemed to relish his station. He told us that he had managed to track down a few of his contacts, people who were not easy to find. He had an address for us and a set of directions. These people he was putting us in touch with were salt of the earth. They had a covenant with God that was equal parts Lutheranism and socialism. They believed they had the right to take from those who had more and lose to those who had less, and all the time they endeavored to remain very pleasant. All of this they claimed to have picked up from the Bible—technically, they were fundamentalists. They were smart, business savvy, just the type of people we needed to help us get set up. And if we didn't like their scene, we were free to move on. That was part of their faith, too.

“Welcome to the new radicalism,” said Parker.

“You'll have to take us to our car,” said Shiloh.

“You're in a rush all of a sudden?”

“I've been waiting for the next part of my life forever,” said Shiloh.

“I like that,” said Parker. “That touches me.”

He led us out of that place and into the shadow-filled streets. There was a quietness in the air, like the fading echoes of raindrops. The oily pavement was beaded with dew. Parker fired up the bulldozer and eased it out. The three of us got in our car, Alice at the wheel. It started right up.

“Thank God,” said Alice.

Parker tapped on Alice's window.

Alice rolled it down.

“Now you folks look after one another,” said Parker.

Shiloh leaned forward from the backseat. “I see you still got that van,” he said, pointing his thumb at a blue cargo van stashed in the alley.

Parker nodded.

Alice hit the gas. Her seven-year-old Plymouth, the three of us, all our things stored in the trailer, we left that place behind. Somehow Alice managed to find a thoroughfare with signs and options. She saw a sign that said “Upstate.” The road curved, merged. We joined the traffic heading north.

“It's not a good thing to have so many visitors,” said Shiloh, “especially when they're making drugs.”

“They were making drugs there?” Alice asked.

Shiloh fell back in the seat. “You saw all the refrigerators.”

“Why would they keep grass in refrigerators?” asked Alice.

“Who said anything about grass?”

Alice decided to pursue a different channel of inquiry. “What exactly did Parker do?”

“He's not guilty of half the things people blame him for.”

“I've never met so many persecuted people,” observed Alice.

“I'm not persecuted,” said Shiloh. “I'm misunderstood.”

Alice shook her head, as if to say, Let the record show I shook my head.

“Trust me,” said Shiloh, “neither of you has a clue.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked him.

“The problem is determining what It is.”

“But you know what It is?”

“I have an opinion.”

I made a gesture, like I was trying to draw this thing out of him.

“It's personal.”

“What does Parker have to do with It?”

“Parker is like us.”

“How is he like us?” Alice wanted to know.

“He's just like us. He's on the run.”

8

Idyll

I wasn't on the run. Every moment with Alice I was home. Not getting into her car would have been running. I was certain of this.

I had dropped my things from the window of my boyhood room. A moment later I'd dropped myself. And I'd felt worse before I jumped than after.

Mary and her noble intentions, Fran's wounded empathy, were secure in their beds. I paused to gather up my things.