transition at least a decade before. Even Doro had expected him to. Doro was father to both of them. He had actually worn one body long enough to father two children on the same woman with it. Their mother had been annoyed. She liked variety.
Well, she had variety in Clay and Seth. One son was not only a failure but a helpless failure. Clay was abnormally sensitive even for a latent. But as a latent, he had no control. Without Seth he would be insane or dead by now. Doro had suggested privately to Seth that a quick, easy death might be kindest. Seth had been able to listen to such talk calmly only because he had been through his own agonizing latent period before his transition. He knew what Clay would have to put up with for the rest of his life. And he knew Doro was doing something he had never done before. He was allowing Seth to make an important decision.
“No,” Seth had said. “I’ll take care of him.” And he had done it. He had been nineteen then to Clay’s twenty. Clay had not cared much for the idea of being taken care of by anyone, least of all his younger brother. But pain had dulled his pride.
They had traveled around the country together, content with no one place for long. Sometimes Seth worked?when he wanted to. Sometimes he stole. Often he shielded his brother and accepted punishment in his stead. Clay never asked it. He saved what was left of his pride by not asking. He was too unstable to work. He got jobs, but inevitably he lost them. Some violent event caught his mind and afterward he had to lie, tell people he was an epileptic. Employers seemed to accept his explanation, but afterward they found reason to fire him. Seth could have stopped them, could have seen to it that they considered Clay their most valuable employee. But Clay didn’t want it that way. “What’s the point?” he had said more than once. “I can’t do the work. The hell with it.”
Clay was slowly deciding to kill himself. It was slow because, in spite of everything, Clay did not want to die. He was just becoming less and less able to tolerate the pain of living.
So now a lonely piece of land. A so-called ranch in the middle of the Arizona desert. Clay could have a few animals, a garden, whatever he wanted. Whatever he could take care of in view of the fact that he would be incapacitated part of the time. He would be receiving money from some income property Seth had insisted on stealing for him in Phoenix, but in more personal ways he would be self-sufficient. He would be able to bear his own pain?now that there would be less of it. He would be able to make his land productive. He would be able to take care of himself. If he was to live at all, he would have to be able to do that.
“Hey, come on in here,” Clay was calling from within the hermit’s shack. “Take a look at this thing.”
Seth went into the shack. Clay was in what had been a combination kitchen-bedroomliving room. The only other room was piled high with bales of newspapers and magazines and stacked with tools. A storage room, apparently. What Clay was looking at was a large cast-iron wood-burning stove.
Seth laughed. “Maybe we can sell that thing as an antique and use the money to buy an electric stove. We’ll need one.”
“What we?” demanded Clay.
“Well, you, then. You don’t want to have to fight with that thing every time you want to eat, do you?”
“Never mind the stove. You’re starting to sound like you changed your mind about leaving.”
“No I haven’t. I’m going as soon as you’re settled in here. And?” He stopped, looked away from Clay. There was something he had not mentioned to his brother yet.
“And what?”
“And as soon as you get somebody to help you.”
Clay stared at him. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Man, you need somebody.”
“The hell I do! Some crazy old man lived out here by himself, but me, I need somebody. No! No way!”
“You want to try to drive the van into town yourself?” Suddenly Seth was shouting. “How many people you figure you’ll kill along the way? Aside from yourself, I mean.” Clay had not dared to drive since his last accident, in which he had nearly killed three people. But obviously he had not been thinking about that. Seth spoke again, softly this time. “Man, you know you’re going to have to go into town sooner or later.”
“I’d rather hitch in with somebody who lives around here,” muttered Clay. “I could go to that place we passed?the one with the windmill.”
“Clay, you need somebody. You know you do.”
“Another Goddamn baby sitter.”
“How about a wife? Or at least a woman.”
Now Clay looked outraged. “You want to find me a woman?”
“Hell no. Find your own woman. But I’m not leaving until you do.”
Clay looked around the shack, looked out the open door. “No woman in her right mind would want to come out here and share this place with me.”
“This place isn’t bad. Hell, tell her what you’re going to do with it. Tell her about the house you’re going to build her. Tell her how good you’re going to take care of her.”
Clay stared at him.
“Well?”
“She’s going to have to be some woman to look at these God-forsaken rocks and bushes and listen to me daydreaming.”
“You’ll do all right. I never knew you to have trouble finding a woman when you wanted one.”
“Hell, that was different.”
“I know. But you’ll do all right.” Seth would see that he did all right. When Clay found a woman he liked, Seth would fix things for him. Clay would never have to know. The woman would “fall in love” faster and harder and more permanently than she ever had before. Seth didn’t usually manipulate Clay that way, but Clay really needed somebody around. What if something caught his mind while he was fixing food, and he fell across the stove? What if a lot of things! Best to get him a good woman and tie her to him tight. Best to tie Clay to her a little, too. Otherwise Clay might get mean enough to kick her out over nothing.
