you'll swing the other way.'
The heavy-handed kidding—it's all so Young Navy. The pimply virgin there trying to act wise—he's from Virginia, so we call him the Virginian. So we all chip in to pay for a Siren and watch the Virginian through the two-way mirror....
'Look at the dong on that kid,' says the boy from East Texas.
The kraut kids hardly ever go ashore, because they like to save money. Off duty they loll around in their bunks jacking off and making airplane noises.
The sky is thin as
paper here
Waring's house still stands. Only the hinges have rusted away in the sea air so all the doors are open. In a corner of the studio I find a scroll about five feet wide wrapped in heavy brown paper on which is written 'For Noah.' There is a wooden rod attached to one end of the scroll and on the wall two brass sockets designed to receive it. Standing on tiptoe I fit the rod into the sockets and a picture unrolls. Click. I remember what Waring told me about the Old Man of the Mountain and the magic garden that awaited his assassins after their missions of death had been carried out. As I study the picture I see an island in the sky, green as the heart of an emerald, glittering with dew as waterfalls whip tattered banners of rainbow around it. The shores are screened with thin poplars and cypress and now I can see other islands stretching away into the distance like the cloud cities of the Odor Eaters, which vanish in rain ... the garden is fading ... rusty barges and derricks and cement mixers ... a blue river ... red brick buildings ... dinner by the river. On the edge of the market, tin ware clattering in a cold spring wind. When I reach the house the roof has fallen in, rubble and sand on the floor, weeds and vines growing through ... it must be centuries.... Only the stairs remain going up into the blue sky. Sharp and clear as if seen through a telescope, a boy in white workpants, black jacket and black cap walking up a cracked street, ruined houses ahead. On the back of his jacket is the word DINK in white thread. He stops, sitting on a stone wall to eat a sandwich from his lunch box and drink some orange liquid from a paper container. He is dangling his legs over a dry streambed. He stands up in the weak sunlight and urinates into the streambed, shaking a few drops off his penis like raindrops on some purple plant. He buttons his pants and walks on.
Dead leaves falling as we drive out to the farmhouse in the buckboard ... loft of the old barn, jagged slashes of blue sky where the boards have curled apart ... tattered banners of rain ... violet twilight yellow-gray around the edges blowing away in the wind.
He is sitting there with me, cloud shadows moving across his face, ghostly smell of flowers and damp earth ... florist shop by the vacant lot ... dim dead boy.... The sky is thin as paper here.
Etranger qui passait
Farnsworth, Ali, and Noah Blake are moving south across the Red Desert, a vast area of plateaus, canyons, and craters where sandstone mesas rise from the red sand. The temperature is moderate even at midday and they travel naked except for desert boots, packs, and belts with eighteen-inch Bowie knives and ten-shot revolvers chambered for a high-speed 22-caliber cartridge. They have automatic carbines of the same caliber in their packs, with thirty-shot clips. These weapons may be needed if a time warp dumps an old western posse in their laps.
The only provisions they carry are protein, minerals and vitamins in a dry powder concentrate. There are streams in the canyon bottoms where fish abound and fruit and nut trees grow in profusion.
They carry collapsible hang-gliders in their packs.
They have stopped at the top of a thousand-foot cliff over an area littered with red boulders. Here and there is a glint of water. The sandstone substrata form pools that hold water and even in otherwise arid patches there are usually fish and crustaceans in the pools.
The boys unpack and assemble the gliders. As always, they will take off one at a time so that the lead glider will indicate to the others the air currents, wind velocities, and updrafts to be expected.
They draw lots. Noah will go first. He stands on the edge of the cliff studying the terrain, the movements of dust clouds and tumbleweeds. He looks up at the clouds and the wheeling vultures. He runs towards the edge of the cliff and soars out over the desert. The glider is out of control for a few seconds in an updraft. He goes into a steep dive and pulls out, coming in smoothly now he lands by a pool. He waves and signals to the others; a tiny figure by a speck of water. They move a hundred feet down the cliff and take off.
By the pool they eat dried fruit washed down with water. Ali stands up and points.
