Daniel was impressed by this model of concentration, and fought a merry urge to try the crusher on his brain. He lifted his arms heavenward and cried out in joy, ‘Free, free, oh Blessed Light; free at last! ’
He slung the day-pack over one shoulder and stooped to pick up the case and bowling bag. He hefted the bowling bag, imagining the Diamond burning inside. ‘How about it, huh?’ he mumbled to the Diamond. ‘Free at last sound good? You and me together, baby, both of us, nothing but dense, wild, diamond light, stone solid and loose as flame. Marry me.’ He started giggling uncontrollably at the thought of giving the Diamond a diamond ring. It would be like giving Venus a rat’s asshole for a wedding band.
Still giggling, he walked through the gate, turned west, and stuck out his thumb. From the churn of connections, he realized he hadn’t slept with a woman since he’d been on the road with Bad Bobby. Over a year. With Jean Bluer he’d been absorbed in other identities, and after that all his energies had gone into vanishing, consumed in being nothing at all. He remembered thinking after he’d first vanished that he might be able to make love with the same woman twice, but he hadn’t thought to try. His body, however, hadn’t forgotten. A heavy current swirled through him. Bursting into tears at Wally’s mention of loving his wife. Exceeding the demands of effective characterization with his description of all those lust-struck nubile teen-angels. Marriage. Conjunction. He was horny, so horny he could feel the Diamond’s warmth against his thigh, or so erotically ripe he imagined he did. He let his arm drop to his side. He squared his shoulders; took a slow, deep breath; closed his eyes. He tried to imagine the spiral as a woman, see her face, gather her body from the spiral’s burning curve, feel her opening with him, feel her heartbeat real against his palm, both of them bathed in light.
A deep male voice called, ‘Ya dreaming there, kid, or looking for an actual ride?’
An old Ford flatbed, dusty and dinged, rattled at idle where it had pulled over next to him. He hadn’t even noticed. The short leather-faced man at the wheel pushed up a cowboy hat older than the truck and said, ‘You riding or hiding, son? Ain’t going further than the Juniper Mountains, but you’re welcome along if that’s how your stick floats.’
‘What’s that mean?’ Daniel said.
‘Old mountain-man lingo, from beaver-trapping. Means which way you’re going, how you’re inclined, what you hanker.’
For a moment, Daniel thought of waving him on and waiting for a woman to stop. He wanted to be with a woman. But the old cowboy in the flatbed looked like he might know something. Daniel picked up the attache case and said, ‘I’m riding.’
THE FIRST NOTEBOOK OF JENNIFER RAINE APRIL SOMETHING (7TH? 9TH?)
A long way from last night. I just hit Reno and things are good and bad, and probably that’s ‘normal’ if you’re ‘sane’ and ‘mature,’ but maybe because I’m none of the above, I’m down with the blues. Not depressed, Doc – blue. A touch of postpartum blues, the adrenaline of our delivery from confinement to liberty fading, from thrilling act to a new set of mean facts. It’s tough to live in hiding or on the run.
I’ve got the mama-blues working on me, too. Mia woke up screaming last night in the barn. She had a terrible dream about fire-snakes falling on her in the darkness, their sizzling venom turning her to stone. I couldn’t console her. I rocked her for hours, humming lullabies, but she just kept on sobbing until my helplessness overwhelmed me and I wanted to smother her to silence her cries. Instead, I left her weeping on the straw pallet and went outside to look at the moon and stars until I was small enough to go back in and rock her in my arms again and let her weep. I can’t feel where she’s hurt the way I could before; her pains have become too complex. I can only love her and hope she heals. Women hurt and heal differently.
I don’t know about men. They seem to confuse permission and plunder. In my cosmology, the sun created itself and imposed a single rule of existence: Everything created had to create something in return. The sun, to demonstrate, created Earth. Earth created a mighty river fed from a bottomless spring. The flowing river hit a mammoth golden stone and forked into freshwater and saltwater, into rivers and oceans. At the exact point where water met stone, men and women were created. Men created the clock. Women created the moon.
See, Doc, I’m not crazy. I just know what’s going on.
I have to admit some of my blues are the rejected kind. The only good news today was a ride from the barn to Reno, courtesy of an Alaskan fisherman named Billy Krough. I halfway fell in love as we rambled along. Billy, alas, was tall and strong, and while he wasn’t really handsome, his face, especially his deep-set, sky-blue eyes, had character. Smart, too. I require intelligent men. Bright Billy knew where Jim Bridger’s grave is – eastern Wyoming. I’d instinctively run in the right direction. The brain isn’t the only organ that thinks.
Billy was headed for Las Vegas to play big-time poker, his last blast before heading back to Petersburg for the salmon and halibut seasons. He makes enough money in the four tough months of fishing to take off and travel the other eight. His two long-time loves broke up over his off-season restlessness and his months gone at sea. Seemed to actually understand their point of view and had remained good friends. And there we were in the front seat, Mia sound asleep in the back, and I wanted someone to hold me close, so I slid across and snuggled in tight and said, ‘Hold me.’
He did, and it was tender and truly sweet, but without a trace of that wild carnal edge you would have to cross if you want to get so close together you can’t tell each other apart.
I pushed it. I said, ‘I want to get closer. I want you to love who I am.’ Love doesn’t do much for the powers of explanation, but since Love has never asked for one itself, that seems fair enough.
Billy was kind. He squeezed me a little bit closer and explained that he’d promised a certain woman not to play around, a promise he intended to honor despite what he was thoughtful enough to call a ‘delectable temptation like you.’ Me! But not so delectable the temptation couldn’t be declined.
Shit. Why are the ones who are too good to be true always being true to
