The Passage

people didn’t want to know about what happened to JFK?

They didn’t get the story then, and they don’t have it

now. When the hammer comes down to protect the people

in charge, in Washington, it comes down hard.

Youth perseveres. Danny says,

Yeah, but I bet I could. I mean, I can be pretty

persuasive.

Too late, in any case, says Isaac.

Observatories don’t cut it anymore, it’s too close to

the Sun now. They can’t look at light, they need the

night sky. It’s arrived, Danny, we’re not doing the

waltz anymore, we’re setting up for rock and roll!

Danny has fallen silent, but finally takes a big breath.

So what do we do?

Isaac explains that bottom line, one should be personally

prepared.

I know what I'm going to do. I'm not waiting for

anyone to tell me to do it, either. I've got a place

up in the hills, and as soon as things get funny,

that's where I'm headed.

_______________________________

Big Tom and Red are replacing wooden fence posts out in a field. They have a

stock of posts in the back of the truck, are pulling a broken post, snipping

the wire, hammering a new post in its place, and finally patching the wire

with a new piece of wire. Meanwhile, they converse. Big Tom says,

18

Heard that some rich folks come in from the coast

wanting to stock a bunker in big-top mountain. Wanted

this quiet, I guess, but you know Fred Harvey.

Big Tom and Red glance up and grin briefly at each other through their sweat.

Fred Harvey is apparently a known big mouth. Big Tom continues,

Fred says they had him take enough bottled water and

canned good to feed an army for a year up there, one

truckload after another. Says the big shock was the

hole in the mountain.

Big Tom stands straight, hand to his back, stretching. He continues while

standing, gesturing, his two hands together punching forward to indicate the

tunnel hammered in the rock.

They’d had someone hammer a tunnel, then a room.

Lights everywhere. Furniture too.

Red glances up from where he is crouched, mending the wire. He is not

interrupting as he wants to hear the story. Big Tom continues,

Now what were they expecting? An invasion?

Big Tom shakes his head and puts the sledge hammer back into the truck.

Muttering to himself and Red.

Crazy rich people. Got more money than they know what

to do with.

19

-Signs-

Danny and Daisy are driving to their campsite, a week into their camping trip,

somewhere out west in Utah. Danny glances sideways to drink in the lanky body

of Daisy in her shorts and halter top. Taking off for a camping trip, where

he can have her near him around the clock, should make him forget the unease

he has felt since that day talking to Professor Isaac, and the anger he still

feels at having his story cut. Daisy, for her part, is also looking forward to

two weeks alone with Danny. No phone. No editor. No assignments. Most of

their friends are married, and many with small children in arms or on the way,

and she rarely has opportunity to pry him away from his enthusiasms.

Danny is still upset in part as he is still angry about his story being

canned, being silenced and feeling there is something to it. It is pouring

rain, the windshield wipers flapping furiously and the car steamy. Daisy says,

Honey, you’ve got to let that go. It’s all just theory

anyway. This is your vacation, and all you’ve done is

fume about it. We’ve been on the road almost a week

already, and between you moaning about that damn

planet and Maya quashing your article and this damn

rain, it feels more like Hell than a vacation. How can

it be raining so much! Dry as a bone in New Jersey and

washing away in the rest of the country.

But Danny is still seething.

It’s just that all those things Professor Isaac was

relaying, that stuff really happened. No one can

explain it, there’s nothing that fits except the

passage of this rogue planet. Even a friend of

Einstein’s, guy named Hapgood, figured this out. Said

the sliding crust theory is the only explanation, and

Einstein agreed! And then they stop it at the gate,

block the story from getting past editors. And that

observatory guy!

Danny is almost gritting his teeth in his rage, his anger at being blocked at

all fronts palpable. As a young man, he is running into the reality of life in

the grown up world, and not liking what he is finding. How dare the truth be

buried, a cover-up occur in front of his eyes!

Daisy would just as soon put it aside, as she has other things on her mind.

All that stuff gets my stomach in a knot. There’s

nothing you can do about it, so forget it, honey.