The Hollow Man (9 page)

When they roll apart on the flattened sleeping bags, the air in the nylon tent is almost foggy with the moisture of their exhalations and exertions. It is full dark out now as Gail undoes the tent flaps and they slide their upper bodies out into the soft drizzle, feeling the gentle spray on their faces and chests, breathing the cooling air, and opening their mouths to drink from the sky.

They are not reading each other’s minds now, not visiting
the other’s mind. Each
is
the other, aware of each thought and sensation as soon as he or she feels it. No, that is not accurate: there is no he or she for a moment, and that gender consciousness returns only gradually, like a morning tide receding slowly to leave artifacts on a fresh-washed beach.

Cooled and refreshed by the rain, they slip back inside, dry themselves with thick towels, and curl between the layers of goosedown. Jeremy’s hand finds a resting place on the small inward curve of Gail’s back as she rests her head on his shoulder. It is as if his hand has always known this place.

They fit perfectly.

The next day they have lunch in Utica and head north again, into the mountains. In Old Forge they rent a canoe and paddle up through the Chain of Lakes that Jeremy has read about. The lakes are more built up than he had imagined, the hiss and crackle of neurobabble is just audible from houses along the shores, but they find isolated islands and sandbars to camp on for the three days they are canoeing and portaging, until a two-day rainstorm and a two-and-a-half-mile portage drives them in from Long Lake on their fifth day.

Gail and Jeremy find a pay phone and ride back to Old Forge with a bearded young man from the canoe-rental place. Back in the sputtering VW, they head deeper into the mountains, making the seventy-some-mile loop up through Saranac Lake and down into the village of Keene Valley. There Jeremy buys a trail guide, they hitch up their backpacks for the first time, and head off into the boonies toward something called Big Slide.

The guidebook insists that the trip is only 3.85 miles via a moderate trail called the Brothers, but the word “moderate” is an obvious misnomer as the trail leads
straight up rocks, past waterfalls, across ridges, and over minor peaks, while Jeremy is soon cursing that the “3.85 miles” was obviously measured by an aircraft, not a biped. Also he acknowledges that he may have overpacked. Gail suggests taking out the bag of charcoal or the second six-pack of beer, but Jeremy discards several bags of gorp and insists on keeping the essentials for a civilized trip.

At 2.20 miles they pass through a beautiful stand of white birch and scramble onto the summit of the Third Brother, a low peak that just manages to get its rocky snout above the undulating ocean of leaves. From there they get a glimpse of their destination—Big Slide Mountain—and between gasps for air, Jeremy and Gail grin at each other.

Big Slide Mountain is a smaller and much more secret version of Yosemite’s El Capitan. While one side rises in a gentle, wooded arc, the other drops off in a sheer rock wall to culminate in a tumble of house-sized boulders.

“That’s our destination?” pants Gail.

Jeremy nods, too winded to speak.

“Can’t we just take a picture of it and say we were there?”

Jeremy shakes his head and lifts his pack on with a groan. For half a mile they drop down into a col, the trail occasionally cutting back and forth in a gentle switchback, more frequently dropping straight down rock formations or steep slopes. Just below the Big Slide summit cliffs they hit the last section of trail, and the last three-tenths of a mile seems to be straight up.

Jeremy realizes that they have made the summit only when his downcast eyes see no rock in front of him, only air. He falls backward and sprawls on the pack with arms and legs askew. Gail politely removes her own pack before collapsing on his stomach.

They stay sprawled for almost fifteen minutes, commenting on cloud formations and the occasional hawk as they get enough breath back to whisper. Then a rising breeze makes Gail sit up, and as Jeremy watches the wind ruffle her short hair, he thinks,
I’m always going to remember this
, and Gail turns to smile at him, seeing her reflection in his thoughts.

They set up their tent back away from the south ledge, in among the weather-stunted trees along a rock overhang, but they lay their foam pads and sleeping bags along the edge of the drop-off itself. They prepare the charcoal in a natural hollow in the rocks along the tree line; the grill fits perfectly. Gail takes the steaks out of the small ice chest and Jeremy pulls one of the three cold beers out and pops the tab. Gail has already set the foil-wrapped corn on the cob in the embers, and now Jeremy oversees the cooking while Gail sets fresh radishes, salad, and potato chips on the two plates. She produces a pack-within-a-pack wrapped in towels and filled with paper, and carefully removes the two wineglasses and bottle of BV cabernet sauvignon from within. She sets the bottle to chill with the remaining beer.

They eat as the summer evening settles toward sunset, both perching along the sheer ledge, boots hanging out over space. There are just enough clouds to ignite the sky to the west in a blaze of pinks and deep purples. The ledge lies along the south face of the mountain, and they watch in that direction as true twilight deepens into night. There is much steak, and they eat it slowly, refilling the wineglasses often. Gail has brought two large slices of chocolate cake for dessert.

A night wind comes up as they are cleaning the cooking area and stowing the paper plates in their garbage bags. Jeremy does not want a campfire and he scatters the
dead coals in among the crevices in the rock, leaving as little sign as possible that they had cooked there. They pull on fleece jackets while they are brushing their teeth and attending to private business back among the trees along the north ledges, but they are in their sleeping bags along the south ledge again by the time the stars come out.

This is right
comes the image, and for a moment neither one of them knows who thought it first. To the south there is only forest and mountains and darkening sky as far as they can see. No highways or houselights mar the purple length of the valley, although now a very few campfires are visible. In ten minutes the sky is lighter than the valley as stars fill the dome above them. The stars’ brightness is undiminished by city lights.

The two bags have been zipped together, but there is little extra space as Jeremy and Gail shrug out of their clothes. They stack things in neat piles under the foot of their bags so underthings will not blow away if the breeze grows stronger in the night, and then they duck their heads in and huddle together, all smooth flesh and warm breath, defying the cold gale beyond their sleeping bags. Their lovemaking tonight is slow in the starting, gentle in the extreme, and promising more violent ecstasy than they have known before.

Always
. Jeremy can tell it was Gail who sent the thought this time.

Always
, he whispers back, or does not whisper.

They settle lower, intertwined, warm and out of the wind, while, overhead, the stars seem to blaze with the intensity of the universe’s affirmation.

T
hey parked in a row labeled
GRUMPY
and took the long towed shuttle to the park’s gate. Vanni Fucci had taken off his white jacket and was carrying the .38-caliber revolver under it. “You do anything stupid,” he said softly to Bremen as they waited for the shuttle, “and I’ll whack you right here. I swear to fucking Christ I will.”

Bremen looked at the thief, sensed the resolve warring with irritation there.

Vanni Fucci mistook the look for disbelief. “You don’t fucking believe me, I’ll whack you right here in the fucking parking lot and be in fucking Georgia before anybody realizes you’ve been fucking shot!”

“I believe you,” said Bremen, feeling the surges of the man’s excitement. There was something about a public killing, especially here, that did appeal to Vanni Fucci, although the little thief would prefer that crazy Bert
Cappi or his equally crazy buddy Ernie Sanza would do the deed. Either way, him or Bert and Ernie, it’d make a fucking hell of a story … whacking this citizen
here
.

The shuttle arrived. Bremen and Vanni Fucci piled on, the barrel of the .38 pressing through the coat into Bremen’s side. During the short ride to the gate, Bremen was able to pick out more of Fucci’s plan.

The meeting here had been prearranged for other reasons; more precisely, had been arranged between Don Leoni’s main man down here, Sal Empori, with Bert and Ernie as backup, and some of those crazy fucking Colombians … that was how Vanni Fucci thought of them each time, those crazy-fucking-Colombians … to exchange a briefcase of Don Leoni’s money for a suitcase of the crazy fucking Colombians’ best smack for the nigger trade up north in Vanni Fucci’s territory. They had been making the swap in Walt Disney World for some years now.

Sal’ll take care of this fucking geek. No sweat, no fucking muss, no mucking fuss
.

“Pay your own fucking way in,” Vanni Fucci whispered as he bought his ticket and prodded Bremen in the ribs.

Bremen pawed through his pockets. He
had
stuck some of the fifties in there three days earlier. Six fifties, to be exact. He slid one across the counter, had to specify that he wanted only a single day’s entry coupon, and waited for his change, which was less than he would have guessed.

The thief moved him through the crowds, one hand on Bremen’s arm, the other hand out of sight under the jacket. It looked suspicious as hell to Bremen, but no one else seemed to be noticing.

Bremen hardly looked up as Vanni Fucci led him onto a monorail that took them around some lagoons and
toward a distant congregation of spires, structures, and at least one artificial mountain. The monorail stopped, the thief pulled Bremen to his feet and out the door, and the two men moved into thickening crowds. The neurobabble around Bremen had risen from whisper to scream, from scream to incessant roar. And the roar had a particular and peculiar quality to it, as different from the rasp of normal neurobabble as the rush of Niagara Falls must be from the sound of a lesser waterfall. And the peculiar quality here was one of a frenetic and widely shared sadness, as pervasive and powerful as the smell of decaying flesh.

Bremen staggered, raised his hands to his temples, and covered his ears in a futile attempt to block out the waves of nonsound, nonspeech. Vanni Fucci shoved him onward.

Not like I thought it’d be … been waiting thirty-five years for this
 … 
not like I hoped it’d be …

More places to see! More rides to go on! Not enough time! Not ever enough time! Hurry … hurry them up, Sarah! Hurry!

Well, it’s for the kids. For the kids. But the goddamn kids seem hysterical half the time, dazed like goddamn zombies the other half.… Hurry up! Tom, hurry, we’re gonna be at the back of the line.…

Bremen shut his eyes and let Vanni Fucci direct him through the crowd while wave after wave of desperation washed over him like a heavy surf. It was as if all the urgency in the park … to have fun, to
by God have fun!…
was hitting him like heavy breakers pounding on a narrow beach.

“Open your eyes, you fuck,” whispered Vanni Fucci in his ear. The muzzle of the pistol dug deep into Bremen’s side.

He opened his eyes, but remained almost blind because of the pain of the neurobabble … the urgent, frenzied, centerless, harried, hurry-up-goddamn-it-we’re-gonna-be-at-the-back-of-the-line will to have fun come hell or high water. Bremen gasped for air through his open mouth and tried not to get sick.

Vanni Fucci hurried him along. Sal and Bert and Ernie should have made the connection with the crazy fucking Colombians now, and Vanni Fucci was supposed to hand over the geek at the Space Mountain thing. Except Vanni Fucci wasn’t a hundred percent sure where the fucking Space Mountain thing was; the swap was usually done at the fucking Jungle Ride, so he’d always gone straight to Adventureland during his other trips here, picked up the suitcase from Sal, and gone straight out on the monorail. He didn’t know why Sal had to change the fucking meeting point to fucking Space Mountain, but he knew the mountain was in fucking Tomorrowland.

Vanni Fucci tried to orient himself.
Okay, we’re on fucking Main Street out of dear dead Walt’s childhood. Right … this is a wet dream of a childhood fantasy, man. A fucking wet dream. No Main Street never looked like this fucking place. Main Street where I grew up was fucking factories and fucking franchises and fucking ’57 Mercs up on fucking blocks because their fucking tires had been boosted by the fucking niggers
.

Okay, we’re on fucking Main Street. That fucking castle’s north. The fucking sign says that fucking Fantasyland’s over beyond the fucking castle. Which way from Fantasyland to fucking Tomorrowland, huh? You’d think they’d put up a fucking road map or something
.

Vanni Fucci made a circle of the big fiberglass castle, caught a glimpse of a spaceship and some futuristic crap way off to his right, and shoved Bremen along in that
direction. Another five minutes and he’d hand this geek over to Sal and the boys.

Bremen stopped. They were in Tomorrowland, almost in the shadow of the vaguely old-fashioned structure that housed the Space Mountain roller coaster, and Bremen stopped cold.

“Move, you son of a bitch,” hissed Vanni Fucci under his breath. He pressed the .38 deeper into Bremen’s ribs.

Bremen blinked but did not move. He did not mean to defy Vanni Fucci; he simply could no longer concentrate on the man. The migraine onslaught of neurobabble lifted him out of himself in an avalanche of otherness, on a cresting wave of alienation.

“Move!” Vanni Fucci’s spittle struck Bremen’s ear. Bremen faintly heard the hammer of the revolver being thumbed back. His last clear thought was,
I am not destined to die here. The path continues downward
.

Bremen watched himself through a middle-aged woman’s eyes as he stepped away from Vanni Fucci.