The Indestructible Man (17 page)

       
We guard the girl carefully, wary of hitchhikers or road crews who come too close. We would willingly die in her defense, though rivers have dried into dust since the old woman put the sleep on her and we have not yet been called to do so. It would make things more interesting if we were faced with that possibility, and we sit up nights drinking Scotch and devising plans to defend against potential assaults. We have contingency plans for every conceivable scenario, can hold out against siege indefinitely with the supplies we have amassed. Send an army against us and we can, theoretically, stand against it.

       
Our confidence in such plans falters after we wake hung-over from the previous night, but the joy is not so much in the testing of these plans as in their composition, contributing something to her care other than the usual maintenance. It is much easier than sitting around doing nothing, waiting for the one incident which we know
will
happen eventually, which we anticipate with longing and dread. We have no defense against that.
    

       
Some morning or other it will come: a soft knock, a small white envelope pushed under the crack of the door. Inside, on thin folded yellow paper, a telegram:
Have found you and am coming. Wait for me.

       
We often argue about how we might respond: burn the shack, load the girl up into our trailer and set off down the turnpike again, search for another cornfield or hidden underpass or cave to hide in. We might carry her into the fields, ignoring the sharp edges of the cornstalks as their leaves scrape the rough skin of our faces, dividing into smaller groups so we are more difficult to track. We cannot avoid him forever, but we can elude him for a day, even a week, before he finds us.

       
The more ruthless among us suggest that we actively seek him out, intercept him before he locates us. What we do when we find him is another matter. We could kill him as we did the old woman. But a look at the sleeping girl, the thought of her eyes finally reopening, reminds us that such a thing is too ruthless, too selfish, even for us. We remain open to all possibilities, but for now all we can do is drink and plot and wait.

       
We lie awake and imagine him wandering across the cornfields until, finally, he stumbles upon us and we hear his gentle knock at our door. He will kneel at her bedside as we have so often knelt, bend his neck and kiss her lips, in an instant undoing what we have failed so many times to undo. Her eyes will open and flutter, and when they do she will see only him. When this moment comes we will not be crushed, will not shed tears, will not cower in the corner. We will hold our heads high, our chins firm, what remains of our chests barrel-like before us, as we accept her gratitude—a gentle hug, a kiss on the cheek. We will follow as he carries her still-drowsy form out the front door and into daylight, watch as they speed down the highway and out of our lives, will perhaps even cry as his car finally slips beyond the vanishing point. We will gather at the grassy edge of the cornfield and silently say goodbye to one another with nods and grunts, until our shoulders sag and we disappear one by one into the green concealing stalks.

The Edge Of Solid Ground

       
I am dating a woman
who believes the earth is flat. Her ideology is silly and sometimes childish, but she has a slender, elegant neck and perfect rounded hips, and when she holds her warm skin against mine all arguments are forgotten. She has made it her mission to show me the truth, photocopying stacks of books and articles which, she insists, provide irrefutable evidence of the flat-earth theory—the research of scholars who have spent their lives calculating its exact dimensions, the points of termination where soil and rock and ocean drop off into empty space. These drop-offs are mainly found at the edges of vast oceans, places where the churning water hangs suspended, frozen waterfalls refusing to give up their captive streams.

       
The key, she says, is this: the earth is shaped not like a sheet of paper, but like a sliced orange peel pressed onto a tabletop, its folds spreading out like a Mercator projection. It is, allowing for mountain ranges and deep ocean chasms, slightly more than two miles thick, with a solid barrier of impregnable rock at the bottom to keep us from digging too far and falling through into dark vacuum. Once revealed, she claims, this evidence will undermine the very foundations of modern science—which is exactly why those in power have held these radical findings to a whisper.

       
I do not argue, though I sometimes offer her subtle prompts to consider: we have seen the earth from space; we can reach the east by sailing west; we have drilled deeper into the ground than any of her sources allow. But she has counters to every misgiving, and speaks without a trace of doubt. Early explorers like Columbus and the Vikings, she explains, had at least a rough idea of the points of termination and were able to skirt the boundaries until they reached the outlying islands of North America. Magellan did not heed the ancient notes and the warnings of his experienced seamen, who knew them well, and thus fell off the edge to wallow forever in the airless void. According to her sources, one can still see him floating there, arms and legs spread out like a scarecrow, his face a grimace of horror and sadness. One needs only a powerful telescope and to know where to look. One day, she says, we will see for ourselves.

       
The early scientists who claimed the earth was spherical were, she argues, victims of a severe brain-swelling which left them prone to delusions:
Tycho
Brahe, suffering from such an ailment, refused to urinate for two days and subsequently died when his bladder exploded; Isaac Newton, in the later stages of dementia, regularly ingested near-fatal amounts of mercury. More recent photos of the earth from the moon landings and from satellites she dismisses as fictional, a conspiracy forged in remote darkrooms and computer labs to preserve the myths taught to children. She views this as a crime, and has vowed to see it corrected, beginning with me.

       
I smile and nod, grunt “
Mmm
-hmm,” when she pauses for acknowledgment, and listen until fatigue narrows her wide eyes to slits and she lies beside me on the couch, resting her head in the crook of my neck. Her hair is light brown, with subtle streaks of blonde and red, smelling faintly of strawberries. But before I press my nose and chin into it I hesitate, unable to shake the suspicion that I have not yet earned the right.

       
Since it is the first Monday of the month, she and a group of friends picket the local high school, linking hands in the circle drive and forming human chains to keep buses and cars from entering. All wear the symbol of their faith: a pewter medallion with an etched sun rising over a flat, mountainous earth. I do not take part, remaining in the car and idling by the curb until the protest is over. On the way to the school, I ask her what good this will do, if there are better ways to attract attention. She shakes her head at my ignorance, insists she will continue to do this until the superintendent agrees that the children should be taught the truth.

       
Superintendent Partridge has yet to acknowledge their demonstrations, though today I can see him staring down at them from his office window. He does not intervene when some of the high school boys, their faded denim jackets and black T-shirts stinking of cigarettes and marijuana, walk up to the demonstrators and throw chewed-up bubble gum at them, pour warm chocolate milk from crumpled cartons over their heads, spray them with shaken soda cans. Neither she nor her friends move or try to run away. I would grab the boys by their smoke-stained collars and beat respect into them, but she has made me promise not to interfere. She accepts the abuse willingly, believing her show of moral strength in the face of humiliation will draw sympathy. Today, as usual, it brings the police.

       
Officer Albrecht calls me by my first name, greets me with an understanding grin and a cup of weak coffee when I follow the patrol car to the station. “Amanda again?” he says, and leads me to the holding area, a yellow-plastered room in the station basement which usually reeks of beer and urine. When he slides the cell door open she runs to me, in tears but still fiercely proud, smearing my shirt with chocolate milk and soda. Officer Albrecht neither cites her nor requires her to post bail; he merely tips his hat as she passes, exposing his thick white hair, and asks her to take it up with the school board next time.

       
I take her home and sit her down at the kitchen table, gently wipe the grime from her hair and face with a wet paper towel. After I have cleared away all but a few brownish patches on her clothes, she rests her head on my chest, moistening my shirt with her damp hair. “At least
you
understand,” she sighs.

       
“I know,” I whisper, stroking her forehead with my index finger, hoping she does not ask me to explain
what
I understand.

To make up for her ordeal we drive into the country to her favorite place, a grove of crabapple trees by a lake lined with reeds and cattails. She cannot tolerate drives of more than an hour and falls asleep, her limp hand cupped over my knee, lips hanging partly open.

       
I consider stomping the gas pedal, darting under the green and silver sign of our intended exit, abandoning the lake to find the point where tires lose contact with pavement and we coast into space. I do not, of course; I have yet to memorize the points of termination, and she would insist they are beyond the reach of any car. I only hesitate for a moment, press my foot to the gas a millimeter or two farther, then cut onto the exit ramp. As we round the sharp curve and my body leans into the door, a giddy pressure radiates from my chest and I laugh.

       
We spread out a knit blanket at the grove’s edge, close enough to see the water shimmer through the weeds but far enough to avoid the duck and goose droppings that mine the grass near shore. She tells me about her dream to start a school to prepare people like her to spread the truth, to cushion the blow when all the evidence is finally revealed. Again I nod, focus on the freshly-thawed supermarket bagel from the wicker basket, then I creep close to her, the blanket rustling the grass underneath us. She keeps talking as I pull up the front of her green-striped tank top and kiss her belly. Her abdomen is hard and flat, with gentle crevices and small peaks where the muscles swell. Only when I begin inching her thick denim shorts down her thighs does she fall silent. We make love briefly, wrapping ourselves in the blanket, stripping down only partway in case someone should wander into view.

       
When it is over she points to the horizon, the warm red-orange disc sinking behind the crabapple trees. “Isn’t it much nicer to think of the sun going down over a flat horizon?” she asks. “And more romantic?”

       
“Uh-huh,” I say, sweaty and tired, peeling the blanket away from my damp skin.

       
“I always knew you’d come around,” she says. I smile and try to suppress a sigh, zip my fly and roll away from her, leaving her wrapped in the blanket, and stretch out on the grass. But I cannot rest comfortably on natural ground; I roll and fidget, struggle to lie still and face the sky, unable to flatten my back against the curve of the earth.

       
My mother is an experienced time traveler.
When I was ten she claimed she had refused my father’s proposal and married another man, a terrible mistake she realized a few months after the wedding. So one morning she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, willed herself back to the moment my father offered her the ring, and said “yes.” She says she has repaired her history many times—taken back harsh words to her sisters years ago, exchanged gifts we didn’t enjoy, avoided numerous fender-benders and broken heirlooms. All she requires is quiet and a bit of concentration, and she can go anywhere in her past.

       
I tried it myself once—lying on top of my bedspread, eyes closed tightly, willing myself back to our trip to Florida when I was eight. I concentrated as hard as I could on the sand, the heat, the sound of waves rushing over the beach. It didn’t work, and after a few minutes I gave up, grunting and pounding on the mattress. When my tantrum was finished, she looked in and told me it would happen if I just kept trying.

2:58 a.m.

At three o’clock on a Friday morning, I am in a slow-moving line in the all-night grocery, between an elderly woman in a pink shawl and a retired policeman, holding a basket full of pistachio ice cream, pound cake, and double-stuffed Oreos, which
Glynnis
demanded after jostling me awake. She is seven months pregnant and has strange cravings; though school starts at eight and I have not slept much lately, I go whenever she needs something.

I look at my watch several times, wondering why the cashier, a twenty-year-old with greasy hair and dark circles under his eyes, needs to run a price-check on every third item. The old woman peeks into my basket. “You’ve only got a couple of things,” she says. “Why don’t you go ahead of me?”

“I couldn’t,” I say.

“My cart’s full,” she says. “Go on.”

I thank her, pay for
Glynnis’s
snacks, and head for my car. As I cross the parking lot a man climbs out of a powder-blue pickup in the space across from mine. He is about thirty-five, with sandy blond hair and mustache, so thin I can see his ribs under his red tank-top. There is a large bulge in the front of his pants, too high to write him off as well-hung. His eyes dart from side to side as he walks toward the automatic doors. On my way to the car I brush past him; he nods and says “howdy” as we pass. At 3:05 I climb into my car and drive off.

As I pull out of the parking lot, the man draws a .38-caliber handgun from his pants and holds it in the cashier’s face, demanding the money from the register and the safe behind the service desk. At 3:10 the cashier fumbles and drops the cash onto the floor. The retired policeman tries to grab the gun, but he is not fast enough. The man panics and shoots him in the chest. The cashier reaches for the phone, but before he can dial 9-1-1 the man fires two shots into the base of his throat. The old woman is the last victim, taking a bullet in the stomach. She lives long enough for the ambulance to speed her to the hospital, but dies before sunrise. By 3:15, I am home fixing a bowl of ice cream and crumbled Oreos for
Glynnis
, two people are dead and a third fatally wounded, and the gunman is running across the parking lot, clutching sixty-seven dollars from the register. At 4:17, after I have gone back to sleep, he is shot by a policeman while trying to flee into the cornfields at the edge of town.

At six o’clock
Glynnis
gets up with morning sickness and sees the story on the morning news. “Wake up and watch this,” she says, dragging me out of bed by the arm. On the screen is a still photo of the blond man. His name is Charles Douglas Linton, a Rockford native who suffered from alcoholism and bouts of severe depression. His victims: Sergeant Bernard Russell, retired, 57; Millicent Patterson, 77; and store clerk Adam Carlisle, 20.

“Wow,”
Glynnis
says, easing herself onto the loveseat next to me. “You only missed it by a few minutes.”

“I guess so,” I say, reaching under her bathrobe to rub her thigh. “Some luck, huh?” When she goes into the kitchen to fix breakfast I lie back down, bury my head under the heaviest pillow, and do not move. I call off for the day and stay in bed until noon. Though my eyes are shut, I still see Linton passing me in the darkened lot, the suspicious bulge in his pants. I think of the old woman, and wonder if she was afraid. And I think, I should have been there.

When my eyes finally open my body feels heavy, my head filled with cotton. I shuffle into the kitchen where
Glynnis
is chopping carrots for a salad. While she finishes I tell her I intend to travel back in time to a few minutes before the shooting, and stop Linton from committing the crime. It may be dangerous, and I may even be hurt, but it is the least I can do.

Glynnis
feels my head and asks if I am all right, if I have been talking to my mother. When I insist I am fine she hides the knife in the bread drawer and asks if this is such a good idea. I explain that there is no other way, so she makes me wait a few minutes while she makes me a sandwich, in case I get hungry on the way. I shuffle back to the bedroom, turn on the vaporizer for its low, relaxing hum, and lie on top of the covers. I close my eyes and listen to the wet droning hum, focus on the blue truck and the parking lot’s dirty asphalt, hoping this time I will get it right.

3:04 a.m.

I am walking toward my car, grocery bag in hand, when the blue pickup pulls into the space across from mine. As Linton crosses the lot he looks from side to side several times. I notice the bulge in his jeans and stare a bit longer than I should. He turns his head and glances at me; caught, I can only look away, pretend to fish for something in my grocery bag. I get into my car and back slowly out of the space, stealing a glance as he walks through the automatic doors, then circle the lot and peer into the storefront windows. I turn onto the street, slowly to avoid attracting attention, stopping at a gas station two blocks away to call the police on a pay phone. I give them Linton’s description and the truck’s plate number, then hang up and drive home, sure I have done my part.

    
At home I tap
Glynnis’s
shoulder to wake her, pull the sheets back from her bare, swollen torso. Since she has grown too big for her maternity nightgowns, she sleeps in nothing but a pair of tiny briefs, and the chill wakes her faster than my nudging. I tell her I did it, the situation is fixed. “That’s wonderful, dear,” she mumbles, then takes the ice cream and wanders into the kitchen. For the next few minutes, until I collapse on the blankets and fall asleep in my clothes, I am satisfied.

I get up early and beat her to the TV. The story is the same: Linton has still robbed the store, has still shot the cashier and the retired policeman and the old woman. When the news goes to commercial I slam my fist down on the dining room table, so hard that
Glynnis’s
vase of orchids falls on its side. She does not stir, even when I topple my chair to the floor. I think of our baby, how I will one day explain to him why I did so little.

I gently nudge
Glynnis
, tell her my solution did not take, that I have to go back. “That’s nice, baby,” she says. “Come back to bed.” But I am already gone.

2:56 a.m.

I arrive at the store a few minutes early and hit the line before either the old woman or the retired policeman come to the checkout, and in addition to the ice cream and pound cake and Oreos I buy a lighter and a pack of off-brand cigarettes, the kind
Glynnis
wouldn’t have touched during her worst chain-smoking phase, before the baby. I walk outside and loiter by the automatic doors. In a few minutes Linton’s blue truck coasts into the lot, eases into its parking space. I am so nervous my ass is sweating, and if Linton even raises his voice to me my bowels will release in the parking lot. With a moist, trembling thumb I flick the lighter without pressing the button, causing it to spark weakly. The plan is to reason with him, ask if he really wants to go through with this, tell him to put himself in the place of his victims. It has diffused fights among my fifth graders; with a bit more effort it should work on Linton as well. At any rate, it is the best I can do.

I watch Linton without appearing to stare; he seems to take forever just getting out of the truck. As he shuffles toward the entrance I do not make eye contact until we are face to face.

“Hey buddy,” I say as he approaches. “Got a light? Damn lighter just died on me.”

“Nope,” he says, walking past as if he does not see me.

I hold in a sigh, afraid to exhale. I quickly glance inside; Mrs. Patterson is still checking out. I only need to stall Linton a minute or two, but Carlisle seems to be moving in slow motion. When I speak my voice is reedy and high, like a child’s. “Getting crowded in there,” I tell him. “Must be a late beer run.”

“Doesn’t look so bad,” he says.

“Liquor aisle’s pretty packed,” I say. “Another minute or two there’ll be a dozen people in line.”

He looks me over, his thumb hooked in the waistband of his faded jeans, right above the bulge. I stand frozen, wondering what I will do if he draws the gun. There are few cars in the parking lot to duck behind, and I could not reach one in time anyway.

Finally his hand falls to his side and he turns from me, heads into the store. I could stop him, I think—go back inside and rush him from behind, knee him in the spine, try to snatch the gun away, yell out a warning to Sgt. Russell, just now emptying his basket on the checkout counter. Instead I watch Linton walk inside, my legs shaking too violently to move. Finally I inch my way back to my car and stare at the dash. When the first shot rings out I floor the gas and speed away.

At home I sit cross-legged on the floor next to the bed.
Glynnis
lifts her head, scans me with half-closed eyes. “What’s going on?” she mumbles. I tell her everything is fine and fix her a bowl of ice cream. When she goes back to bed I look up the phone numbers of Linton’s victims and scribble them on a sticky-note I shove into my pocket.

2:36 a.m.

I dial all the numbers on my list, hoping to warn the three victims, prevent them from going to the store in the first place. Mrs. Patterson is not home; Sgt. Russell answers, and I tell him everything, but he chides me for making prank calls in the middle of the night, threatens to alert his friends at the station if I call again, and hangs up. Carlisle answers at the supermarket; I tell him what is going to happen, give him a complete description of Linton, but he only laughs. “Dude, get a life,” he says when I am finished. I call a second time but he does not pick up. I even try phoning the police, hoping to find someone who will believe me; I am transferred to three different officers before I finally speak to a dispatcher. She asks over and over how I know this will happen, and apparently “I just do” is not a plausible answer. If I tell the whole story, she will either hang up or send someone to the house to arrest me. So I say Linton and I are old friends, that he talked about holding up the supermarket, that he has a gun.

The officer takes my name and number and tells me they cannot arrest Linton for something he hasn’t done yet, but she will send a car to check out my story.

I sit for ten minutes or so, wondering if I should call back and see if Linton has been arrested or at least questioned, but think better of it. I want to trust the dispatcher to send someone, but I know she was only humoring me.

I reach into the closet and pull out a yellow “Designated Fallout Shelter” sign I liberated from the school’s garbage pile as a gift for
Glynnis
, and tuck it under my shirt front, pull on my hooded sweatshirt to conceal the odd protrusions. I do not wait for
Glynnis
to wake and ask for ice cream; I kiss her cheek and tell her I am going, and run out the door.

I linger in frozen foods for several minutes, taking extra long examining the ice cream, hoping it will give Mrs. Patterson time to check out before Linton arrives. Carlisle is busy ringing up her groceries when I step up to the line, Sgt. Russell waiting patiently behind her. For the first time I think it all might turn out okay, but then Carlisle has trouble scanning Mrs. Patterson’s canned green beans and has to call the service desk, turning on his flashing light and leaving the line paralyzed with a blinking “3” to mark the seconds. He gets his answer just as Linton walks through the door.