Stone Junction

more importantly, David Janus was hard evidence that he, Daniel, was relatively sane. He was impressed that the DJ could still function. This gave Daniel hope. He needed hope. Hope and rest and patience. And food. He needed to eat. He needed lots of things.

Thankful, Volta watched Red Freddie’s plane lift from the Eel River airstrip and bank toward the mist-shrouded moon. Volta hadn’t enjoyed the flight. From the moment they’d left El Paso, Red Freddie had lobbied him hard. Red Freddie wanted AMO to ‘strike more blows against the Empire, real blows instead of this candy-ass policy of gentle subversion.’ Red Freddie wanted to blow up dams and burn banks and bind and gag the president of Maxxam in the top of an old-growth redwood the company had marked for harvest. Direct action, that’s what Red Freddie wanted.

Volta wanted to indulge the seeping melancholy that infused him the moment he’d understood the Diamond would destroy Daniel. He was tired of control. But Red Freddie was a member of the Alliance as well as a friend. His policy suggestions deserved a thoughtful response. So Volta had listened and answered with diplomacy and patience.

Volta was so glad to be alone that he drove three miles up the hill before he remembered he needed groceries. He took mental inventory of the Laurel Creek pantry as he drove. There was probably enough to get him through a week, but he wanted to stay home at least a month. He decided to go back to town and stock up so he wouldn’t have to interrupt his retreat later.

Volta judged his decision sensible and efficient. No surprise there. He hadn’t surprised himself in years. Solid, sensible, honorable Volta. He felt trapped inside his integrity, an integrity that had slowly turned arid. He had accepted the responsibilities of the Star, and he had honored them. They were responsibilities so serious that to accept them virtually forbade foolishness. No regrets. But now he needed to water his garden. Needed to be foolish.

As if to test his resolve, a golden opportunity for foolishness presented itself on the outskirts of town. This was the smallest carnival Volta had seen in all his wanderings – four games, a junior Ferris wheel, a House-Trailer of Horrors, and a booth the size of a one-hole outhouse selling clouds of cotton candy, soda water, and caramel apples. Skimpy, true, but it was a carnival.

Volta was taken first by the force of her concentration and not her long, lovely, reddish-blonde hair. She was ten or eleven, that strangely mercurial age of female prepubescence that actually ranges from three to thirty-five. She was fiercely focused on tossing ping-pong balls into a mass of small goldfish bowls arrayed on a plywood-sheet table. Volta quietly walked over and stood behind her. She tossed and missed, shaking her head angrily, her waist- length hair shimmering in the stark, bare-bulb light.

She dug into her pocket and finally produced a quarter. ‘Last chance,’ she told the man behind the plank.

He handed her three ping-pong balls from his apron, squinting at her through the smoke from his Marlboro. ‘Your last chance, huh? Well, good luck.’

Volta watched her concentrate. She was a sweetheart, freckles and all. Volta foolishly allowed himself a pang of regret for his childlessness.

When her last toss bounced harmlessly off a bowl’s rim and landed in the dust, the girl stamped her foot and said ‘Shit’ quickly, as if velocity made it acceptable. Her shoulders slumped and she turned to walk away. Volta was ready.

‘Miss,’ he said as he bent down to pick up something from the ground, ‘I believe you were standing on this.’ He held up the dollar bill he’d palmed.

She looked confused. ‘I don’t think so. I spent both of mine.’

Volta admired her honesty, but he relished the sudden glint of hope in her eyes. ‘Miss, you were standing on it. It must be yours. And if it’s not, it’s yours by right of good fortune.’

She took the bill with a grin that made Volta happy in a foolishly uncomplicated way. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘May I offer you some technical advice on tossing ping-pong balls into goldfish bowls?’

‘What?’ Her tone was a dead heat between wary and eager.

‘The trajectory of your toss is too flat. While the bowls look close together, they’re actually far enough apart that a ball seldom skitters into one. Also, the balls aren’t that much smaller than the neck opening on the bowls. The outcurving edge makes the opening appear wider than it is. Appearances are the best deception. We want to believe our own eyes. But I trust you see the secret by now: Loft the ball high instead of tossing it low – that way you get a straight drop on the opening, the full circle to shoot at.’

Her seventh ball dropped in so perfectly it almost bounced back out.

The sallow guy behind the plank raised his voice a few desultory decibels, ‘Awwwrighhht here.’ Nother winner.’

She grinned up at Volta. The wrinkle in her nose was enough to fuel his melancholy for days. ‘My name’s Gena Leland. What’s yours?’

‘The Great Volta,’ he bowed. He hadn’t used his stage name in twenty years.

‘Really? You in the carnival?’

‘No. I’m a retired magician.’

She was about to ask something else when a towheaded boy, clearly kin, ran up and grabbed her arm. ‘Come on, Gena. Mom’s getting pissed.’

The man behind the plank tapped her other arm. ‘Here, kid; you won it.’ He handed her a goldfish bowl, but this one held water and a tiny goldfish.

Gena hissed, ‘Okay, Tommy, just a sec.’ She accepted the goldfish and handed it to Volta.

Surprised, he took it, but immediately tried to hand it back. ‘No, you won it; it’s your prize.’

She put her hands behind her back. ‘But you taught me how. Besides, I don’t want it. I wasn’t doing it to win a goldfish. I just wanted to do it, get one of those balls in.’