“Bend low!” he whispered and bent over himself. “Lower, stupid!”
Arthur bent over in fright, and a clap of thunder shattered the air. Right over their heads an intricate lightning bolt danced furiously, barely visible against the bright sky. Arthur sat down, shoulder deep in the slime. Redrick, ears clogged by the noise, turned and saw a bright red spot quickly melting in the shade among the pebbles and rocks, and there was another thunderclap.
“Forward! Forward!” he shouted, unable to hear himself.
Now they were moving in a crouch, Indian file, only their heads exposed. At every peal Redrick watched Arthur’s long hair stand on end and could feel a thousand needles puncturing his face. “Forward!” he kept repeating. “Forward!” He could not hear a thing any more. Once he saw Arthur’s profile, and he saw his terror-stricken eyes bulging out and his white bouncing lips and his green-smeared sweaty cheek. Then the lightning began striking so low that they had to duck their heads. The green slime gummed his mouth, making it hard to breathe. Gulping for air, Redrick tore the cotton out of his nose and discovered that the reek was gone, that the air was filled with the fresh, piercing odor of ozone, and that the steam was getting thicker, or maybe he was blacking out, and he could no longer see either of the two hills. All he could see was Arthur’s head sticky with green slime and the billowing clouds of yellow steam.
I’ll get through, I’ll get through, Redrick thought; this is nothing new. My whole life is like this. I’m stuck in filth and there’s lightning over my head. It’s never been any other way. Where is all this gunk coming from? You could go crazy from this much gunk in one place! Buzzard Burbridge did this: he walked through and left this behind. Four-eyes lay on the right, Poodle on the left, and all so that Buzzard could walk between them and leave all his filth behind. That’s what you deserve, he told himself. Whoever walks behind Buzzard walks up to his neck in filth. You didn’t know that? There are too many buzzards, that’s why there isn’t a single clean place left.
Noonan’s a fool: Redrick, Red, you violate the balance, you destroy the order, you’re unhappy, Red, under any order, any system. You’re not happy under a bad one, you’re not happy under a good one. It’s people like you who keep us from having the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. What do you know, fatso? Where have you seen a good system? When have you ever seen me under a good system?
He slipped on a stone that turned under his foot, and fell in. He surfaced and saw Arthur’s terrified face right next to his. For a second he felt a chill: he thought that he had lost his way. But he had not gotten lost. He realized immediately that they had to go that way, where the black top of the rock stuck out of the slime; he realized that even though there was nothing else visible in the yellow fog.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Keep right! To the right of the rock!”
He could not hear his own voice. He caught up with Arthur, grabbed his shoulder, and pointed: keep right of the rock and keep your head down. You’ll pay for this, he thought. Arthur dove under at the rock, just as a lightning bolt hit it, smashing it to smithereens. You’ll pay for this, he repeated, as he ducked under and worked furiously with his arms and legs. He could hear another peal of thunder. I’ll shake your souls out of you for this! He had a fleeting thought: who do I mean? I don’t know. But somebody has to pay for this, and somebody will! Just wait, just let me get to the ball, when I get to the ball, I’m no Buzzard, I’ll get what I want from you.
When they finally scrambled out onto dry land that was covered by sun-heated pebbles, they were half-deaf, turned inside out, and staggering and holding on to each other. Redrick saw the peeling pick-up truck, sagging on its axles, and he remembered that they could rest in the shade of the truck. They crawled into the shade. Arthur lay on his back and began unbuttoning his jacket with limp fingers, and Redrick leaned his backpack against the side of the truck, wiped his hands against the small rocks, and reached inside his jacket.
“And me, too.” Arthur said. “Me too.”
Redrick was surprised by the loudness of the boy’s voice. He took a sip, shut his eyes, and handed the flask to Arthur. That’s it, he thought weakly. We got through. We got through even this. And now, accounts payable upon demand. Do you think that I forgot? No way, I remember it all. Do you think I’ll thank you for letting me live and not drowning me? You get zilch from me. This is the end for all of you, get it? I’m not leaving any of this. From now on, I make all the decisions. I, Redrick Schuhart, being of sound mind and body, will make all the decisions for everybody. And as for all of you, buzzards, toads, Visitors, Boneses, Quarterblads, bloodsuckers, green-backers, Throaties, in your suits and ties, clean and fresh, with your briefcases and speeches and good deeds and employment opportunities, and your eternal batteries and eternal engines and mosquito manges and false promises—I’ve had enough, you’ve led me by the nose long enough. All my life you’ve led me by the nose, and I thought and bragged that I was living the way I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were egging me on and winking among yourselves, and leading me by the nose, dragging me, hauling me through jails and bars. I’ve had it! He unsnapped the straps of the pack and took the flask from Arthur.
“I never thought…” Arthur was saying with meek disbelief in his voice. “I couldn’t even imagine. I knew about death and fire and all, of course, but something like that! How are we going to get back?”
Redrick was not listening. What that thing was saying no longer had any meaning. It had no meaning before, either, but before it was a person at least. And now, it was like a talking key, a key to open the way to the Golden Ball. Let it talk.
“If we get some water,” Arthur said. “At least wash our faces.”
Redrick looked at him distractedly, saw the disheveled and glued-together hair, the face smeared with drying slime with finger marks in it, and all of him covered with a crust of oozing slime, and he felt no pity, no irritation, nothing. A talking key. He turned away. A dreary expanse, like an abandoned construction site, yawned before them. It was covered with broken brick, sprinkled with white dust, and highlighted by the blinding sun, which was unbearably white, hot, angry, and dead. The far end of the quarry was visible from there—also blindingly white and at that distance seemingly perfectly smooth and perpendicular. The near end was marked by large breaks and boulders, and there was the path down into the quarry, where the excavator’s cabin stood out like a red splotch against the white rock. That was the only landmark. They had to head for it, depending on dumb luck to guide them.
Arthur propped himself up, stuck his arm under the truck, and pulled out a rusty tin can.
“Look at that, Mr. Schuhart,” he said, livening up. “Father must have left this. There’s more under there.”
Redrick didn’t reply. That’s a mistake, he thought, dispassionately. Better not think about your father now, you’d be better off not saying anything. On the other hand, it doesn’t matter. Getting up, he winced: his clothes had stuck to his body, to his burned skin, and now something was tearing inside, like a dried bandage pulling from a wound. Arthur also groaned as he got up; he gave Redrick a martyred look. It was clear that he wanted to complain but that he didn’t dare. He only said in a strangled voice:
“Do you think I might have another sip, Mr. Schuhart?”
Redrick put the flask that he had been holding back under his shirt.
“Do you see that red between the rocks?”
“I see it,” Arthur said and shuddered.
“Straight for it. Let’s go.”
Arthur stretched his arms, straightened his shoulders, grimaced, and said looking around:
“I wish I could wash up. Everything’s sticking.”
Redrick waited silently. Arthur looked at him hopelessly, nodded, and was about to start when he stopped suddenly.
“The backpack. You forgot the backpack, Mr. Schuhart.”
“March!” Redrick ordered.
He did not want to explain or to lie, and there was no need. He would go anyway. He had nowhere else to go. He’d go. And Arthur went. He wandered on, hunched over, dragging his feet, trying to pick off the baked slime from his face, looking small, scrawny, and forlorn, like a wet stray kitten. Redrick walked behind him, and as soon as he stepped out of the shade, the sun seared and blinded him, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and was sorry that he had not taken his sunglasses.
Every step raised a cloud of white dust, and the dust settled on his shoes and gave off an unbearable stench. Or rather, it came from Arthur, it was impossible to walk behind him. It took him a while to understand that the stench was coming from himself. The odor was disgusting, but somehow familiar—that was the smell that filled the city on the days that the north wind carried the smoke from the plant. And his father smelled that way, too, when he came home, hungry, gloomy, with red wild eyes. And Redrick would hurry to hide in some faraway corner and watch in fear as his father tore off his work clothes and tossed them to his mother, pulled off his huge, worn shoes
