Part 6 (2/2)

He needed his nose clear to follow the scent of the motorcycle.

The fat woman had taught him a lesson. He must concentrate on his mission. He could not afford to indulge his desires for affection and snacks. He would try to forget the man named Boog.

Ringo ran down the shoulder of the highway, ignoring everything in the world except the trail of the Ariel.

The twilight became night.

SKYVUE.

Khrushchev sat on a Naugahyde-covered bench in the projection room, his eyes closed and his face puckered in concentration. Eisenhower lounged beside him, munching popcorn while watching Buddy Holly perform on a five-inch color TV that hung from the film projector.

Khrushchev's eyes opened abruptly, and he clambered to stand on the bench and look through the projection window. Gazing across acres of speaker poles, he said, ”There goes your boy, right past us.

Did you plan that?”

Eisenhower swallowed. ”No. It's Fate.”

”And here come the cops after him. Is that Fate too?”

”Don't be sarcastic.”

Khrushchev turned away from the window and sat down with a thud. ”I'm not being sarcastic. I'm merely curious as to how much of this you're orchestrating and how much you're just letting happen. I mean, since I'm not directlyinvolved anymore, curiosity is all I have.”

Eisenhower gave him a look of sympathy and sincerity. It was an extremely presidential sort of look.

”I'm orchestrating nothing. Everyone is free to react to the broadcast as he or she wishes.”

”In that case, we might as well give up on these people and convert back to noncorporeality right now.”

Eisenhower's expression became stern. ”You sound as though you're on the anti-flesh side.”

”Not at all,” Khrushchev said, folding his arms. ”I believe in the right of the fleshbound to attain Seeker status. However, I admit that I do understand the anti-flesh position.”

Eisenhower nodded sagely. ”As do I. That's why I prefer not to intervene in whatever events the broadcast may foment. Nevertheless, because I selected the catalyst, I must accept responsibility if the outcome is tragic.”

Khrushchev's eyebrows rose. ”How so?”

Eisenhower looked back at the TV and stuffed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. ”I shall pay the price along with them,” he said, his voice m.u.f.fled.

”You meandeath?” Khrushchev exclaimed. ”Are younuts? I should open your head and-” He stopped in mid-sentence and climbed up to look through the window again. ”There goes the opposition's canine computer.”

”He isn't theirs,” Eisenhower said. ”He does their bidding, but he belongs to himself.”

”If you say so. But maybe we ought to divert him before he catches your boy and chows down.” Eisenhower shook his head. ”He won't do that. At least, I don't believe so. In any case, he too is part of Fate's random plan, and therefore we shouldn't interfere.”

” 'Fate's random plan'?” Khrushchev said. ”Sounds like more bulls.h.i.+t to me. I mean, how can a plan be random? How can randomness be planned?”

Eisenhower leaned forward and turned up the TV's sound. ”Let's stay tuned and find out, shall we?”

Khrushchev sat down again. ”You've been here too long, Ike. Your brain's turning to video kibble.”

”Hush. I want to hear whatever Buddy's going to play next.”

”You don't already know?”

”Of course not.” Eisenhower picked a popcorn hull from his teeth with a fingernail.”He belongs to himself too.”

Part 2 - the pilgrimage of the physically fit

4.

OLIVER.

My grandfather died in April 1965 as the result of an accident at the Goodyear plant. No one would tell me what happened, and Mother didn't explicate it in her diary, so I have always imagined that he went to work drunk (as he often did), fell into a vat of bubbling black goo, and ended up rolling down the highway under somebody's Ford. The closed casket at the funeral made a hollow sound when I knocked on it, so I wasn't convinced that he was in there.

Five-year-olds do things like that. At least, I did. Four months had pa.s.sed since Sam Cooke's demise, and a portion of my fear of death had metamorphosed into an intense curiosity about just what it was that separated death from life. So I knocked on the casket to see whether anyone was home.

Fortunately, Grandmother was talking with the pastor in the vestibule when I did that. If she had witnessed it, she would have whipped the snot out of me. As it was, the only witness was Mother, and she knocked immediately after I did.

”Knock, knock,” she whispered.

”Who's there?” I asked. I had become a skilled straight man at knock-knock jokes.

”Coffin,” she said.

”Coffin who?”

”Coffin your handkerchief or don't coffat all!” I giggled. I was only five.

On Mother's birthday, Thursday, May 13, Grandmother left for Des Moines for a two-week visit with Uncle Mike, who was supposed to have come to Topeka for the funeral but who had missed it because the Greyhound bus bringing him had broken down. Mother and I were specifically not invited along on Grandmother's trip, because she felt that our sinful and illegitimate presences would have a deleterious effect on her seventeen-year-old son.

Mother cried the night before Grandmother left. She had not seen her brother in six years, and now he was almost grown up and she didn't even know him.

Being denied a trip to Des Moines turned out to be only a prelude. As we said good-bye to Grandmother at the bus station, she informed Mother that by the time she returned, we had better be out of the house.

I remember that much. For further details, I must refer to Volume III of Mother's diary: So there I was this afternoon, just turned twenty-four without so much as a Happy Birthday, waiting with Mama and Oliver at the bus station. Oliver was sitting on the floor playing with his Matchbox fire truck, and Mama said, ”Get that child off the floor, Mich.e.l.le, what's the matter with you? He'll catch a disease.” So I picked him up and held him on my lap, although he's getting big. It's always best to let Mama feel like she's running things. Which she is. Except for not getting to go see Mikey so that Oliver could meet his uncle, I was looking forward to the next two weeks without her.

Then the man with the microphone announced the bus, and we all stood. I was still holding Oliver, so I hugged Mama with one arm. She didn't hug back, which had been typical for a long time now. She is still Mama, though, just like Daddy was Daddy and I miss him even though he was pretty awful for the last five years.

Mama picked up her little blue suitcase and said, just as if she were commenting on the weather, ”When I come back, you have to be gone.”

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