Part 19 (1/2)
”I want something from you,” the Jaff said.
”What's going on, Tommy-Ray? This is my house. You can't just come in here and take stuff.”
”This is something you don't want,” the Jaff said, reaching towards Ted, ”something you 'II be much happier without.”
Tommy-Ray watched, amazed and impressed, as Ted's eyes began to roll up beneath his lids, and he started to make noises that suggested he was about to throw up. But nothing came; at least from his throat. It was out of his pores the prize appeared, the juices of his body bubbling up and thickening, paling, and rising off his skin, soaking through his s.h.i.+rt, through his trousers.
Tommy-Ray danced from side to side, enthralled. It was like some grotesque magic act. The drops of moisture were defying gravity, hanging in the air in front of Ted, touching each other and forming larger drops, those drops in turn meeting and joining, until pieces of solid matter, like a sickly gray cheese, were floating in front of his chest. And still the waters came at the Jaff's call, each mote adding bulk to the body. It had form now, too: the first rough sketches of Ted's private horror. Tommy-Ray grinned to see it: its twitching legs, its mismatched eyes. Poor Ted, to have had this baby inside him and been unable to let it go. Like the Jaff had said, he'd be better off without it.
That was the first of several visits that night, and each time there was some new beast out of the lost soul. All pale, all vaguely reptilian, but in every other regard a personal creation. The Jaff put it best, when the night's adventures were drawing to a close: ”It's an art,” he said. ”This drawing forth. Don't you think?”
”Yeah. I like it.”
”Not the Art, of course. But an echo of it. As, I suppose, is every art.”
”Where are we going now?”
”I need to rest. Find somewhere shady, and cool.”
”I know some places.”
”No. You've got to go home.”
”Why?”
”Because I want the Grove to wake up tomorrow morning and believe the world is just as it was.”
”What do I tell Jo-Beth?”
”Tell her you remember nothing. If she presses you, apologize.”
”I don't want to go,” Tommy-Ray said.
”I know,” the Jaff said, reaching out to put his hand on Tommy-Ray's shoulder. He ma.s.saged the muscle as he spoke. ”But we don't want a search party out looking for you. They could discover things we only intend to reveal in our time!”
Tommy-Ray grinned at this.
”How long will that be?”
”You want to see the Grove turned upside down, don't you?”
”I'm counting the hours.”
The Jaff laughed.
”Like father, like son,” he said. ”Hang loose, boy. I'll be back.”
And laughing, he led his beasts off into the dark.
IV.
The girl of his dreams had been wrong, Howie thought when he woke: the sun doesn't s.h.i.+ne in the state of California every day. The dawn was sluggish when he opened the blinds; the sky showing no hint of blue. He dutifully ran through his exercises-the barest minimum his conscience would allow him. They did little or nothing to enliven his system; they simply made him sweat. Having showered and shaved, he dressed and went down to the Mall. He didn't yet have the words of reclamation he was going to need when he saw Jo-Beth. He knew from past experience that any attempt on his part to plan a speech would only result in a hopeless, stammering tangle when he opened his mouth. It would be better to respond to the moment as it came. If she was dismissive, he'd be forceful. If she was contrite, he'd be forgiving. All that mattered was that he mend the breach of the previous day.
If there was some explanation for whatever had happened to them at the motel, hours of soul-searching on his part hadn't unearthed it. All he could conclude was that somehow their shared dream-the idea of which, given the strength of feeling between them, didn't seem so difficult to understand-had been rerouted by an inept telepathic switchboard towards a nightmare which they neither understood nor deserved. It was an astral error of some kind. Nothing to do with them; best forgotten. With a little will on both sides they could pick up their relations.h.i.+p where they'd left it outside Butrick's Steak House, when there'd still been so much promise in the air.
He went straight to the book store. Lois-Mrs. Knapp- was at the counter. Otherwise, the store was empty. He offered a smile, and a h.e.l.lo, then asked if Jo-Beth had yet arrived. Mrs. Knapp consulted her watch before frostily informing him that no, she hadn't, and that she was late.
”I'll wait then,” he said, not about to be dissuaded from his purpose by the woman's lack of geniality. He wandered over to the bookstack closest to the window, where he could browse and watch for Jo-Beth's arrival at the same time.
The books before him were all religious. One in particular caught his eye: The Story of the Savior. Its cover carried a painting of a man on his knees before a blinding light and the p.r.o.nouncement that its pages contained the Greatest Message of the Age. He thumbed through it. The slim volume-it was scarcely more than a pamphlet-was published by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and presented in easily a.s.similated paragraphs and paintings the story of the Great White G.o.d of ancient America. To judge by the pictures whatever incarnation this Lord appeared in- Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Tonga-Loa G.o.d of the ocean sun in Polynesia, Illa-Tici, Kukulean or half a dozen other guises- he always looked like the perfect whitebread hero: tall, aquiline, pale-skinned, blue-eyed. Now, the pamphlet claimed, he was back in America to celebrate the millennium. This time he'd be called by his true name: Jesus Christ.
Howie moved on to another shelf, looking for a book more suited to his mood. Love poetry perhaps; or a s.e.x-manual. But as he scanned the rows of volumes it became apparent that every single book in the store was published by the same press or one of its subsidiaries. There were books of prayers, of inspirational songs for the family, heavy duty tomes on the building of Zim, the city of G.o.d on earth, or on the significance of baptism. Among them, a picture book on the life of Joseph Smith, with photographs of his homestead, and the sacred grove where he'd apparently seen a vision. The text beside it caught Howie's eye.
I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said- ”I called Jo-Beth's house. There's no answer there. Something must have called them away.”
Howie looked up from the text. ”That's a pity,” he said, not entirely believing the woman. If she'd made the call, she'd made it very quietly.
”She's probably not going to come in today,” Mrs. Knapp went on, avoiding meeting Howie's gaze as she spoke. ”I've got a very informal arrangement with her. She works whatever hours suit her best.”
He knew this to be a lie. Only the morning before he'd heard her chide Jo-Beth for being unpunctual; there was nothing informal about her working hours. But Mrs. Knapp, good Christian that she was, seemed determined to have him out of the shop. Perhaps she'd caught him smirking as he browsed.
”It's not the least use you waiting,” she told him. ”You could be here all day.”
”I'm not scaring off the customers, am I?” Howie said, defying her to make her objections to him plain.
”No,” she said, with a joyless little smile. ”I'm not trying to say you are.”
He approached the counter. She took an involuntary step backwards, almost as though she was in fear of him.
”Then what exactly are you saying?” he asked, barely able to preserve his civility. ”What is it about me you don't like? My deodorant? My haircut?”
Again, she tried the little smile, but this time, despite her versing in hypocrisy, she couldn't make it. Instead, her face twitched.
”I'm not the Devil,” Howie said. ”I haven't come here to do anybody any harm.”
She made no answer to this.
”I was...b...b...I was born here,” he went on. ”In Palomo Grove.”
”I know,” she said.
Well, well, he thought, here's a revelation.
”What else do you know?” he asked her, gently enough.
Her eyes went to the door, and he knew she was reciting a silent prayer to her Great White G.o.d that somebody open it and save her from this d.a.m.n boy and his questions. Neither G.o.d nor customer obliged.