Whatever Lola Wants (38 page)

Johnnie had said, “You don't know hallucination, that's bad stuff, stay away.”

Yak did; often bringing Johnnie out to real daily things. Like now: “But listen, there's more. Over to the right and across there's some kind of fissure. Where I sent the probe before the blast, it's two hundred feet anyway. And the vibrations suggest water rushing down there.”

John Cochan clicked his tongue. “Long as it doesn't get into the system.” Full annihilation of bugs might not be possible but water impurities he would control.

“Nope. It can't flow up. Our systems are safe.”

“I'll worry it through with you soon as I get back. First thing. Promise.”

“Okay.” He waited, but had to add, “Listen, Handyman, I'm pretty sure part of the cavern is under the other land. The Magnussen place. As we feared.”

Johnnie stared into the distance, and shook his head. “No. Not far enough east.”

“I don't know, man.”

“Don't concern yourself about it.”

“Okay, whatever.” But Yak worried. The law was murky, and the way Johnnie played it—

“Anyway it doesn't matter what it's under. We'll get that land too.” Johnnie smiled.

“Yeah? They've accepted?”

“I've made another offer. Delivered today. And the lawyer daughter's coming in when I get back. It's a good offer. More than fair. They won't turn it down.”

“More than fair.” Yak watched Johnnie's head nod. “Great.” Light caught the few white hairs at Johnnie's temples. “In fact, fantastic, because—you ready?”

Johnnie couldn't keep from grinning. “What else?”

“Looking mostly ahead, just a bit to your right.” Yak played the beam against a far wall.

“Near where the fissure comes in?”

“Not so far right. Come back maybe twenty degrees.”

“Okay.”

“The sonar says there's another space back there. Huger even than this one. If I'm right, by itself it's maybe a quarter as big as everything we've already found.” He stopped. “Except this for sure is under their land.”

The perfect smile spread across Johnnie Cochan's face, cheeks, neck even. The pit of his stomach warmed. A voice, sweet, confident, whispered: It's yours, yours.

But it was answered from the sour juices of memory: Yours, Johnnie? Yours like what you dare not lose?

•

“What?” asked Lola.

“I don't know yet,” I said.

•

Johnnie shook his
head. He leaned toward Yak. The smile was gone. “The land is ours.”

LAND

In the roar of a moment, balance leaves

nature and time.

The trout are going, and the beaver.

Moose, hawk, rabbit, moth.

The summer's silent drain.

Wind, pond, trees, sun.

And sour rain.

In the end, will the soil, too, grieve?

R.F., April 11–12/03

Nine

1.

They were there, male, female:

Her scent drew him on. His head swam. He understood only one direction, ahead. Where she waited.

She sensed his approach on her legs and on her hair.

They faced each other, reached out, closed the space. Their bodies passed a message, you, me. Electricity sparked through each. And out to the other.

She needed more.

He turned, showed her his back. She approached, closer. His glands were ready, she would be his release. His scent called to her, whispering. She climbed on his back. Just—so. She lay there, licked at his scent, at its juices, its stickiness, the viscous chemical taste. Her sex opened, a wide crescent, ready for him.

He, still beneath, pushed rearwards, his back to her sex. She licked him again, along the back, then higher. She licked and his genitals extended, rose, pushed up toward her, grasped her hook-like, gripped her crescent. They held each other, a tight clasp.

Slowly, to one side, he pulled himself from under, connected to her he turned, turned in, more, clinging, and now they faced away. He held her tighter. New hooks entwined her, full penetration. Slowly the organs slid, strafed, tiny pulsations, the barest pull, push, pull and the discharge began, went on, on, on, on, and on, on. Minutes of orgasm, ten, thirty, longer—

His seed was launched, she its receiver. Both were content. The moment of linkage was their lives' one splendid act. The seed would burst soon into new life.

A thousand times, in millions of households, in as many alleyways and fields, the act was repeated, and repeated.

•

Lola said, “Neat.” She stroked the robe on her thigh.

“In the hidden places,” I continued, “the coupling of cockroaches.”

“Oh.” She flicked me a grin, but it fell away. Something was troubling her, a lot. Near as much as Theresa's stroke, it felt like. But she didn't say what.

•

The ones Carney
could see:

Out of the corner of his eye, kitchenward, across a chalk line, in the shadow between the stove and the sink cabinet, movement. In the half darkness, four of them, two pairs, huge, back to back, antennae swaying. He got up, eased his way to the kitchen switch, flicked it on. They and he stood frozen. He charged.

Off they scrabbled toward the cabinet; in a second they found the slit under the sink, their private chasm, and down they wiggled. He tore open the lower door. The light hit dozens of them diving for cover. He slammed at them bare-handed and crushed three as they tried to evacuate. From the survivors, was that laughter?

He washed his hands. He stared at the chalk line. No, the roaches hadn't crossed it.

Three hours ago Milton had offered Carney his choice, a couch in the Magnussen living room or an apartment in downtown Burlington. “Sorry, we're not set up for guests. Not like in the Grange days.” The apartment belonged to Natalia Bewdley, a colleague of Theresa's, off on a summer-long field trip researching west coast redwing blackbird family structures. Milton watered Natalia's plants. Use the place to bed down any visitor you can't stand having at your place, she'd told Theresa. So Carney chose privacy. Tonight for the first time in years he would, in a manner of speaking, sleep in a woman's bed.

Milton had shown Carney the apartment and told him about the roaches. “Nat and the bugs share the place. They live under the sink. Don't worry, they're trained.”

“I can see.” Wonderful. Only in Vermont would roaches understand chalk.

“Organized them herself. At night you draw a chalk line, five feet this side of the stove. They stay over there. You stay here.”

Not like his New York City roaches. Back in New York, Thea had needed garlic. But those had been tough roaches.

Seven hours ago Milton and Carney had lugged a mattress to the van and slid it in back. They'd lain Theresa flat and covered her with a couple of blankets. Milton sat with her, his hand light on her shoulder. Carney sped them into Burlington. Theresa muttered, “I feel cold, it's—too cold.”

Milton covered her with a third blanket. “Better?”

“I'm cold—right through.”

The duty nurse wasn't Pat but everybody knew Theresa. Now in a hospital wheelchair, she complained she couldn't reach the stick, couldn't move herself forward.

“It's a different chair, Tessa.” Milton stroked her arm. “We'll push you.”

“Where?”

“Wherever we need to go,” said Carney.

“I can't see where.”

“We'll take you,” said Milton.

“The light's …very bright.”

Milton put his hand on her forehead, and let his palm slide over her eyes.

“Harsh. Very …cold.”

“Close your eyes for a bit, Tessa.”

“Where are we?”

An orderly took her off. Carney and Milton waited. Milton stared across the room, down at the floor, out again. Neither spoke. What to say? Again and again Milton took his lower lip tight between his teeth and sucked on it. Sometimes his head shook.

Carney said, “Shouldn't you call Feodora, or one of the others?”

“Yes,” said Milton but didn't move.

“You want me to call?”

Milton said nothing.

Carney went out. Milton sat alone. An hour and a half later they were allowed to see her.

How was she? Still difficult to tell. Preliminary tests indicated ischemia, a sudden deficiency in the blood supply to the brain. Definite paralysis on the left side, hard to know about the right. More tests tomorrow.

Carney said, “I'll wait out here.”

“If she wants to see you—”

“You two should be alone.”

She lay on the bed, eyes wide, face chalky blue, motionless. Two tubes to her left arm, monitors above the bedhead. Milton sat on the mattress, stroked her right forearm, whispered. No sound from her, no quiver on her lips. He held her hand in both his and his head hung down to the three hands together. He cried, a soft rhythmic breath. She didn't look his way but her eyeballs did seem to shift their gaze.

Carney by the door saw her eyes move. He knew little about strokes but took this as a small positive sign. After a minute he went away, walked around, gave them time.

He came back. The heel of Theresa's palm lay at the bridge of Milton's nose, his hands holding her hand in place, his brow bent toward her as if she supported his head. Carney touched Milton's shoulder, squeezed gently, left, waited in the corridor. Twenty minutes later he looked in again. Neither Milton nor Theresa had moved. A new silent world for them.

After a while a nurse separated their hands and led Milton from the bed. Milton dried his cheeks, smiled to Carney, asked to sit alone for a few minutes. Not in the room, in the hall.

Carney went in. He hadn't meant to but his legs took him to the bedside. He bent forward to catch her glance. Her eyes, open, motionless, stared at Carney; not focused on Carney's eyes but—Carney felt it this way—to catch a glimpse of what or who Carney was. What did she see?

Her pupils dilated, slightly. Could Theresa Bonneherbe Magnussen still see anything? But her non-focused gaze seemed to probe space, to ask the skeletal questions. Was there such a category as post-stroke stare? “Goodnight, Theresa.” He found Milton in the hall.

Milton smiled weakly. “She'll come out of it again.”

Carney nodded. “She will. With your help.”

At last Milton called Feodora and Ti-Jean. They'd stop at the Grange, pick up Carney's car. But, keys? No problem, Ti-Jean could start any car. Yes, she'd contact Leonora and Karl.

Milton and Carney sat in the hall. Milton said, “It'll be good for Theresa to have Feasie here.” He continued speaking softly, as if clearing up a mess in his mind. As if hearing his own words could make him more present for Theresa. He talked about his offspring. The twins he found easiest. About Sarah he was mainly sad, her distance from Theresa, from him too. For Karl, his concern was greatest, he felt a fear for him, and more, for his choice of profession. Earlier Milton had worried about Karl's debauchery …

Debauchery? “A dated notion, no? Too much drink? Too much sex?”

Milton shook his head. “So many women, a kind of flailing search. He seemed in anguish. He told me once, so few women he was with were really with him. Since his conversion he's become almost a hermit.” Milton spoke with increasing weariness. “He's our only son.”

It still sounded as if Milton was trying out shared words, shared knowledge—could it bring Theresa back? At least keep her, tonight, from falling further away. And what are you doing here, Carney? In the middle of all this?

Feodora and Ti-Jean arrived, Feodora in tears as she hugged Milton. Then Milton had taken Carney to the Burlington apartment and returned to the hospital. When Carney at last found sleep a shifting woman in her thirties haunted his dreams, sometimes in a kitchen he almost remembered, at times a garden, once nearly the woman in the photo over his desk, then a bright-lipped vamp in a tight white fifties dress. All the same woman.

•

“Do you know who she is?”

Yes.

Through the filter of Carney's dream she looked like my Annette. Forty-four earth years since I saw her last, in any manner. When we Achieve Ascension we get to choose our locations. From the down below of 1959 I chose to be over the place Annette and I had enjoyed most.

Annette. To breathe the clarity of life into images of other people had been her great talent. The artist in her painted what lay beneath surfaces. Her gaze penetrated walls, moments, the ground, skin. She saw in others what they had done with and to themselves. Her paintings taught many of them to see this too, from a kindness in her stroke and line.

Annette and I were merry lovers and best of friends for twelve years. She read my stories, confirmed what I'd done right, helped me transform what was weak. Her pleasure when I succeeded was greater than my own. Without her
The Lives of Elena
would have been a narrow tale of aborted lust,
Mustache of the Walrus
a cracked melodrama instead of high comedy,
Twelve Lucky Pelicans
a mildly veiled courtroom drama. I assumed we'd be together always.

Annette had a patron, an elderly—and powerful because wealthy and generous—uncle. He convinced the board of the Art Institute of Chicago to offer her a retrospective show. She'd only been painting sixteen years! I went there with her,
Pelicans
had just appeared, for me there'd be interviews and readings. Her uncle sent his private plane. Over central Ohio we ran into a storm, lightning on all sides, massive turbulence. Suddenly we were falling. The pilot shouted out his instruments were jammed, freak electric circuits— The plane plummeted, he tried to pull us out. We had no parachutes. The plane crashed, and we died.

I don't know what happened between hitting the ground and my arrival up here but with enormous surprise I discovered I'd become an Immortal. Of course I never knew such categories existed. Even if I had, I hardly possessed the hubris to think I'd end up here. But I always did suspect that little brings superstar popularity to a writer so much as dying. Here I am, not a God but still a mighty privilege, my books securing for me in death the fame I'd never attained while down below.
Pelicans
received three major prizes, and my estate the revenue from huge posthumous sales, including film rights. I think my son was proud of me. If I'd been able to feel parental emotion I would've missed him terribly. But here I could bask in my glory with Annette.