The Smoke Jumper (30 page)

‘Connor, it’s convenient. Okay?’

She showed him the bathroom and lastly led him into the main bedroom. It smelled of her. The bed was set beneath the window and covered in a plain white cotton throw and he imagined her lying there and stored the image in his head. He could tell which side she slept on from the stack of books and the little collection of creams and lotions. There were pegs on the wall where she hung her jewelry and there was a big painting which though he’d seen little of her work he somehow knew was hers. It was like a cave painting of running deer and matchstick men on horses chasing them with spears and bows and arrows and it was painted in earth colors, red and black and orange and amber.

‘This must be one of yours.’

‘Oh, that. Yeah.’

She looked embarrassed again and he didn’t know if it was because of the painting or because they were in her bedroom.

‘It was just a phase. Something I was playing around with, you know. It doesn’t really work.’

‘It’s good.’

‘Oh no. I mean, thanks, but it’s not. Really.’

‘Ed told me you’re teaching again.’

‘Yeah. It’s great. Only part-time, you know. I do three days a week at this little elementary school in Missoula.’

‘Teaching art?’

‘Uh-huh. But mostly wiping noses and hosing them down after they’ve thrown paint all over each other.’

‘Sounds like fun.’

‘It is.’

They stood without speaking for a moment, still staring at the painting.

‘He was really worried about you, you know?’ she said.

‘We’d hear about all those awful things going on out there, not knowing where you were or anything and we - Ed, I mean, he just got a little worried. Silly, I know.’

‘You didn’t get my cards?’

She laughed. ‘Oh yeah, “Weather terrible, wish you were here.”’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Anyway. Here you are.’

‘Here I am.’

They stared at each other for a moment. Then, suddenly, she gave a little smile, a distancing kind of smile, like a shutter coming down.

‘I’d better go and see if everyone’s okay out there.’

 

‘So are the snipers always there watching?’ Ed asked. ‘Just waiting for somebody to cross?’

‘You don’t know until the bullet hits you. Some of the side streets off Snipers’ Alley, you can go for days without a shot being fired. Then, bam, somebody gets killed. I guess for the snipers it’s a kind of game.’

‘Killing total strangers.’

‘Worse than that. Some of these people they’re killing were friends and neighbors before the war. Now they’re just Muslims and fair game. Like they’re not human beings anymore. ’

They were lying in the grass down by the river, just the two of them. Above the babble of the water, they could hear the others talking and laughing up at the house. Someone had put on one of Ed’s old Doors albums. He had been trying all evening to talk with Connor on his own and eventually had to drag him off down here. For the last half hour he’d been asking questions about Bosnia and picturing in his head the stories Connor told him.

‘Do you wear, like, a flak jacket or something?’

‘At first I did. But not later on. They’re kind of heavy old things.’

Somewhere upstream among the cottonwoods a duck cackled in alarm.

‘Fox on the prowl,’ Connor said.

‘Or a coyote. We hear them yipping up there in the forest some nights.’

They listened but heard no more.

‘You’ve gotten yourselves a great place here.’

‘Yeah, we’re real lucky.’

‘Have you had a go fishing? Looks like there’s some good spots here.’

‘A few times. I had the trees cut back a little so I don’t get myself in too much of a tangle. But, you know, if you can’t stalk them and land a fly on their heads, it takes the fun out of it a little. All I can do is cast into the broken water, let it drift down and hope something takes it. They’re here okay though. Brownies, cutthroat. Bill Robertson, the guy who owns the place over there, hooked himself a three-pound rainbow the other day.’

As if to make the point, a fish rose somewhere across the water. They both laughed.

‘And how’s the music going?’ Connor asked.

‘Oh, you know.’

‘Well, if I did, I wouldn’t ask.’

Ed smiled. He didn’t want to talk about it but it seemed unfair not to after the interrogation he’d just given Connor. He sighed.

‘Well, to be honest, it’s not going at all.’

‘Julia says you play all the time.’

‘Oh, sure. I play. I’ve even done a couple of gigs in a bar in town. But I haven’t written anything in over a year. Anything worth keeping, anyhow. I just seem to have . . . I don’t know. Lost it.’

‘It’ll come back. You’ve had to learn a whole new way of doing it, I guess.’

‘Oh, sure, but that’s not it. I’ve got the best equipment money can buy and I know my way around it. It’s not that. I guess I’ve just had to accept that I haven’t . . . got the talent.’

‘Man, you’ve got more talent than anyone I know.’

‘Well, that’s nice of you to say it, but you know as much about music as I know about photography.’

‘I know you’re good.’

‘Connor, do you know how many goddamn musicals I’ve written?’

‘No.’

‘Eleven. And God only knows how many other bits and pieces. And every single one of them has been rejected. Not once, not twice, lots of times. I haven’t had a single thing performed since I left college. And there comes a point when you have to get real. It’s not going to happen. And, in the letters that come back, do you know what I hear now? Embarrassment. It’s the same with my agent - that’s a laugh - my non-agent. He doesn’t even take my calls anymore. And when I do manage to get through to him, I hear the same thing. He’s embarrassed. It’s true. I’ve become an embarrassment. ’

He could tell from Connor’s silence that the poor guy didn’t know what to say. He reached out and found his friend’s shoulder and held it a moment.

‘Do you know how proud I’ve been of you, just going out there and making a go of things? Man, I was proud. That picture of the women? I know it. I know what it looks like. I had Julia describe every single little detail of it and I know how extraordinary it is and I was so proud. And you know what? I was jealous as hell.’

‘Ed, I just got lucky. Like I did that time at Yellowstone. I stumbled across a moment and took one good picture. What you’re trying to pull off is a hell of a lot more difficult.’

‘Hey, please. Don’t patronize me.’

‘Patronize you? Jesus.’

They sat silent for a while. Ed could imagine Connor shaking his head and staring out across the river. He felt like kicking himself for saying that. It was the first time in ages that he’d allowed himself to be hijacked by self-pity. Up at the house Chuck Hamer was finishing a joke and everybody groaned. Ed reached out and found Connor’s shoulder again. After a moment Connor put his own hand on Ed’s and said he was sorry if that’s how it had sounded.

‘No, man. I’m sorry. I just find it hard sometimes to hold it all together, you know? Hell, I’ve got so much to be thankful for. I’ve got Julia, this fantastic place. And you know what? I’m a great piano teacher. I used to find teaching a real drag, like it was something I had to do until the musicals clicked through. But now I enjoy it, I really do.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Yeah. It is.’

He paused. He hadn’t intended telling anyone the true cause of his low spirits. But sitting here with his best friend, he suddenly wanted to share it. He swallowed.

‘Did Julia tell you we’ve been trying to have a kid?’

‘No. Hey, that’s great.’

‘Yeah. In theory. We’ve been trying for almost a year and nothing’s happened.’

‘Well, I’m no expert. But that’s not so long, is it?’

‘Well, maybe. Anyhow, last month I had this minor problem with my diabetes. No big deal, it turned out that I just needed to increase the amount of insulin a little. But when I was having it checked out, the doctor, who’s a really good guy, you know, up-to-date with all the latest research and things, asked me if we were going to have children. And I said yeah and told him how we’d been trying but it hadn’t happened yet. And I made some stupid joke, like, maybe my sperm were all tired from having to work so hard, ’cos, boy, you know, when I say trying, I mean it. We’ve really been going for it - thermometers, calendars, the whole deal.

‘Anyhow, then he asked me about when my diabetes was first diagnosed and if I’d ever had any immuno-suppressant treatment. And I said hell, I don’t know, I was only a little kid at the time, why? And he ummed and aahed and hedged around and finally I forced him to tell me and he said apparently some of the drugs they used in those days had been found to have an adverse effect on fertility.

‘So, you can imagine. Right away I call my mom and sure enough she says yeah, I did. I had like a blitz course of these immuno-suppressant things. Seems the doctors thought they might be able to knock the diabetes on the head or something. So I go back to my doctor here, he gets me to jerk off, runs the tests, looking for all these squirmy little Eds swimming around down there under the microscope and you know what? Zilch. Blanks, man. I fire blanks.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Can they do anything about it?’

‘Not a thing.’

Again, they were silent for a moment.

‘Have you told Julia?’

‘Not yet. I only found out at the end of last week. I just haven’t had the balls to do it yet. So to speak.’

He laughed and felt Connor’s hand grasp his shoulder.

‘I mean, I know we can adopt and all, but . . . I guess it’s just the shock, you know.’ He paused. ‘Well, hey! There’s a party pooper if ever there was one. I’m sorry, man. I shouldn’t have—’

‘Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me.’

Ed felt for his watch and pressed the button and the little robot voice told him it was ten-twenty-six-pee-em.

‘Sorry, Hal? What was that again?’

It was a silly trick but it always got a laugh. He pressed the button again.

‘Ten-twenty-six-pee-em.’

‘That’s cool,’ Connor said.

‘Yeah. The kids I teach all want one. Hey, tell me. Can you see the moon?’

‘Uh-huh. It’s not much of one.’

‘Two days old. And now, ladies and gentlemen, for his next trick, The Amazing Tully is going to point right at it.’

He reached out to his right and found the last post of the rope rail to get his bearings and make sure he was facing in the right direction. Then he pointed at the sky.

‘There. Am I right?’

‘Absolutely. That’s pretty good. How do you do that?’

Ed touched his temple like a mystic. ‘Ah, my friend. These are powers vouchsafed only to the chosen few. Will you draw me a map of the stars?’

‘Sure. Where?’

‘On my back.’

Connor knelt behind him and while the river rippled by charted with his finger every planet and star he could name, which was many. While he was doing so he saw a falling star and told Ed and described it and traced its arc on his shoulder blade. And in the darkened dome of his skull Ed could see it and see them all, bright and silver and shimmering and he secretly shaved from them a sliver of their light and stored it in his heart.

17

J
ulia stood back and watched them, marveling at how such a small number of six-year-olds could make such a vast volume of noise. They were spread out along the back wall of the playground, all wearing their red and blue painting smocks. There was more chalk on their faces and smocks than was on the wall. It wasn’t every day that law-abiding junior citizens were given license to deface state property and they were sure making the most of it.

Julia had gotten the idea for the project after talking with Connor about her cave painting in the bedroom. The outside of the school was being redecorated and she asked Mrs Leitner, the principal, if her firstgrade class could do a little decorating of their own before the painters got there. They had spent the previous week talking about cave painting and looking at some reference books that Julia had found in the public library. She’d handed out photocopies of some Native American pictographs in Idaho and of some extraordinary rock paintings recently discovered in France.

Today came the climax, with the kids being let loose on the playground wall. Julia had divided the wall into eight different ‘caves’ and the kids into eight ‘cave families.’ They had to imagine what they had been doing that day and depict it in colored chalk on their stretch of the wall.

Mrs Leitner had said it was a great idea but had failed to realize that it would be taking place right outside the room where she taught fourth-grade math. Julia had told her cave kids that they should communicate with each other exclusively in cave language, which seemed mostly to consist of loud shrieks and grunts. This was a decision she was now coming to regret and, judging by her rueful glances through the window, so was Mrs Leitner.

Some of the children’s pictures were impressive. Most had opted for hunting scenes, with deer and wolves and bears and woolly mammoths and lots of little human beings, though it was sometimes unclear who was hunting whom. Others had gotten a little more surreal. Julia had to point out to Lucy Kravitz that Batman and Robin probably weren’t around in those days and that cooking was generally done by fire, not by microwave.

Now the noise was again reaching Mrs Leitner-alert level. Julia clapped her hands and called out and told everyone to gather around. She put a finger to her lips and spoke in an excited whisper.

‘Okay, listen up. Here’s the deal. I’ve just been up the hill and there’s this big, hairy saber-tooth tiger up there. And he looked really, really hungry.’

‘You should be telling us this in cave language.’