Part 26 (2/2)

I was on my feet but didn't remember standing up. ”I don't know what you're trying to do here, but you're not going to pull me into your fantasy world. What is this? Some kind of variation of Dungeons & Dragons where we each a.s.sume mystical powers? Or are we pretending this is Middle Earth? Let me guess . . . you're Gandalf, right? You look like you'd be a Gandalf.”

I was rambling. I couldn't help myself. I was scared.

Sue Ling stood solemnly in the library window watching us.

”You told her, didn't you? That's why she acted like she did. You told her I was some sort of freak. Part human, part ED. Isn't that what she calls them? Extradimensionals? Well, you're wrong, Professor. I have trouble enough with three dimensions, I don't need more.”

The professor persisted. ”The extreme reaction you had to Semyaza when he revealed himself to you, the charge of energy you felt just now . . . Grant, a part of you vibrates in tune with heavenly-”

”Shut up!” I shouted. ”Just . . . just . . . shut up, will you? I need to think.”

Only I couldn't. This was so utterly ridiculous . . . so far out in left field . . . so crazy . . . I should be laughing at the absurdity of it all. But I wasn't. Why wasn't I laughing?

”I'm outta here,” I said.

I didn't want to hear any more. I didn't want to think about it. I didn't even want to look at him any longer. All I wanted was to get away from here, from him, from all this talk of supernatural beings, or extradimensionals, or whatever you wanted to call them.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I stopped running when I couldn't run any farther. It was either that or start swimming.

The sh.o.r.es at La Jolla have always been a place of solace for me. There's something seductive about the rhythm of the sea, it calms me and calls to me. The cras.h.i.+ng of waves against the rocks, the colorful sea life in the tide pools, the ocean spray on my skin, these have always relaxed me, and they didn't fail me now.

As I drove out here over the Grossmont Summit my cell phone rang. I turned it off without looking to see who was calling. I didn't want to know. I didn't want to talk to anyone. When you talk to people you hear things you don't want to hear, so I did the mature thing. I decided I would never talk to anyone ever again.

”Who is feeding him this stuff?” I shouted at the waves. ”That vanis.h.i.+ng linebacker? I don't know about you, but it's been my experience you can't believe a word a vanis.h.i.+ng linebacker says.”

The waves pummeled the rocky sh.o.r.eline. Maybe that's why they were soothing. They took your anger and aggression and slammed them against the rocks.

Part angel. Big joke.

Well, I knew one person who could set the record straight. My mother. Mothers know where their children come from.

Thirty minutes later I was back in El Cajon on Mulgrew Street, where I grew up. The house looked uninhabited. The front yard was dead and parched, not even weeds were growing in it. The exterior paint was as weathered as Doc Palmer's barn. A half-dozen newspapers had yellowed in the sun. The bedroom window facing the street was lined with tinfoil. There was no car in the driveway, only oil spots.

I didn't know what kind of reception to expect. Mother and I weren't close. Her choice. We had barely spoken a dozen words to each other since I graduated from high school and moved out of the house. When I called to tell her I'd won the Pulitzer Prize, she hung up on me before I could say Pulitzer. When I was invited to speak at Singing Hills, I sent her an invitation. She didn't respond. Didn't attend.

Even as I was knocking on the door, I hadn't decided how I was going to broach the subject. How do you ask your mother if your grandfather was an angel?

As it turned out, it didn't matter.

I never got the chance.

The door opened just a crack, stopped by the security chain. Bleary eyes over sagging cheeks labored to focus. I almost didn't recognize her at first, my own mother. Her hair was disheveled. She was still in her housecoat. Musty odors of a house shut up too long combined with whiskey poured through the opening.

The first words out of my mother's mouth when she recognized me was a curse, followed by, ”What are you doing here?”

”I need to talk to you,” I said.

”Got nothing to say.”

She started to close the door. I stopped it with my hand.

”It'll just take a moment. It's about Grandpa Tall.”

At the sound of my grandfather's name her unfocused eyes quickened. She looked past me, as though she expected to see someone behind me.

Tall Mann was my grandfather's stage name. Born Ulysses William Austin, he made a living as an extra and stuntman. At six feet five he was an imposing figure and was often cast in the role of the Tall Man in the credits. It became a joke on the film lot, one he apparently didn't mind because he began using it as his stage name, adding an extra n. So if you're watching an old black-and-white western and you see in the credits, ” 'Tall Man' played by Tall Mann,” that's my grandfather.

I never knew him. Shortly after I was born, he drank himself to death-six months before my father committed suicide.

”I need to talk to you about Grandpa,” I repeated, since she hadn't answered me the first time.

Her eyes darted wildly, not only behind me, but above me, searching the sky. ”You brought them with you, didn't you?” she cried. She was beginning to panic.

”I came alone, Mom,” I a.s.sured her. ”I just want to talk to you.”

”Go away!” she shouted.

”Mom . . .”

”Go away! Go away! Go away!” She leaned her shoulder against the door and tried to force it shut. The lack of weight she was able to put behind the effort was alarming.

”Go away!” she sobbed.

”Grandpa Tall,” I said. ”Is there something I should know about him?”

”Go away! Please, go away!”

She was hysterical, pounding the door first with her fists to get it to close, then with her forehead, all the while weeping.

I've seen her stinking drunk. I've seen her pa.s.sed out on the sofa in her own mess. But I had never seen her like this.

She slumped to the floor, her mouth twisted with grief. ”Go away,” she pleaded.

”Can I get you anything?” I asked. ”Can I call someone?”

”Go away . . .”

”All right. I'm going.”

I eased the door shut and heard her lock it and the dead bolt.

For several minutes I stood on the doorstep. I didn't want to leave her like this, but we didn't have any relatives in the area I could call and I didn't know her neighbors or friends.

Making my way to the car, I determined I'd get the phone number of a local church and see if they had someone they could send to check up on her, possibly take her some food.

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