Stone Junction

going to be foolish, at least have the sense to enjoy it. If you find it demeaning, quit. The bosses of the world can’t do anything to you that you can stop them from doing. We all deserve ourselves.’

Carl was filling the pitcher from the counter tap. ‘You sound like a teacher,’ he said without enthusiasm.

Daniel considered this a moment. ‘I’m not sure I know enough to be a teacher, or could teach what I do know. I’m more of a romantic religious idiot trying to get his bearings in the Diamond-light of existence.’

‘Oh yeah?’ the kid said, sliding the pitcher across the countertop. ‘You with some church, some Eastern religion?’

Daniel sensed the kid’s eagerness to be rid of him, but rabbit-boy clearly hadn’t learned that religious inquiries encouraged conversation. Daniel decided to spare him. ‘No, none of that mystic Eastern woo-woo for me. I’m a Judo-Christian. I flipped.’ He gave the kid the wildest grin he could summon.

It must have been good. Carl gulped and turned for the kitchen, mumbling over his shoulder, ‘Better get your order in… be ten, fifteen minutes.’

Daniel sat at a table facing the mini-arcade. The machines flashed invitingly, but nobody wanted to play. Not the rabbit-eared kid at the counter, not a single patron. Daniel felt himself sliding toward depression and fought for equilibrium. He moved his left foot over and softly pressed it against the bowling bag. The feel of the curve against his foot gave him an immediate impulse to leap on the table, shout for attention, and vanish. That would wake them up. Instead, he concentrated on his beer, feeling the cool glass against his lips, tasting each drop.

Daniel was halfway through his pizza when a small boy tore by him, aiming straight for the pony ride – a fiberglass golden palomino cast in full gallop, ears laid back. The boy still had some baby fat in his cheeks and two front teeth were missing. He had brown eyes as lustrous as melting chocolate chips. Daniel sensed a delicacy about the boy, though there was nothing delicate about the way he swung into the saddle, twisted the plastic reins around his wrist, and shoved in his quarter; nothing delicate at all as he spurred the pony to full speed or whipped out his trusty six-gun – extended index-finger barrel, cocked-thumb hammer – and began blazing away, ‘Blatchooee! Blatchooee!’ The loud, wet report cut through the noise from other patrons.

‘Dad!’ the boy yelled. ‘Look! I’m killing the bad guys!’

The boy’s father was arguing in a low, tight voice with a woman Daniel assumed was the boy’s mother. They continued the argument without looking up.

‘Hey!’ Daniel yelled at them. They and most of the other diners looked up, startled.

Daniel didn’t care. He was going to be himself. He pointed at their son on the pony. ‘Your son is killing the bad guys.’

The mother turned without really looking and called over her shoulder, ‘Good for you, Billy.’ The father, a stocky, crew-cut guy not much older than Daniel, turned and shot him a challenging stare.

Daniel almost said Attention is the key to the vault, Dad, but thought better of it. He didn’t know anything about being a father. He shifted his gaze back to the cowpoke blasting away from the back of his swift steed, dropping one grubby bad guy after another until time ran out and the pony shimmied to a stop. The boy dismounted with panache. His father was saying, his voice tight and mean, ‘Read my lips, Mary: We don’t got the fuckin’ money for a new dryer.’

As the little boy passed, Daniel said, ‘Looks like you rid the world of some pretty nasty guys.’

‘Yup,’ the boy said, slowing but not stopping. ‘That Snake sure is a good horse.’

‘Well, you handle him real fine, too.’

The boy gave him a sidelong smile as he passed, a smile of deep and secret pleasure. ‘Thanks, pardner.’

‘Hey, you, pal,’ the kid’s father called, ‘you got some kinda problem with my boy?’

‘Not at all,’ Daniel smiled. ‘I was merely complimenting him on his imagination. You’ve got a fine son there.’ Daniel wasn’t feigning his smile; he was wondering how the jerk would like getting his liver pulverized by a Reverse Heel-Whip out of the Drowsing Crane position.

The father let this go, sliding over on the bench for his boy to sit down.

By the time Daniel finished another slice, the golden palomino had a new rider. He wasn’t as trigger-happy as the first, but he dropped his share.

And then a whole birthday party of children, accompanied by four harried mothers, came rabbling through the door. Carl-the-Counter- Rabbit already had a slice of pizza with a birthday candle ready for each of them, and one of the mothers produced a roll of quarters for the pony.

The boys, to a man, rode fast and hard with some fancy tricks thrown in, like hanging on the side and shooting across the saddle. The boys were full of bravado and purpose. Daniel loved them. But he loved the little girls even more. They rode with a quiet and stately abandon, eyes closed, the wind blowing their hair out behind them, taking on the power of the golden palomino but not confusing it with their own. He wondered what the little girls imagined as they rode, where they were going, how far away. He wanted to gather them all, boys and girls together, gather them all into his arms and carry them somewhere safe from the slaughter of time and change.

When the birthday party left, Daniel felt his depression ooze forward again. He wanted to vanish into the children’s minds, into some moment he could barely remember, before you were cornered by the lines you drew or trapped by someone else’s. He sat with his hands folded on the table, watching flecks of foam thin to scum and dry inside the empty pitcher. The pizza and beer, his first food since the Two Moons, left him feeling bloated and half- drunk. The last tatters of his energy fled to his stomach to aid digestion. Energy to make energy, and with each transformation a tiny bit lost to entropy. Running down to nothing. Those kids, so innocent. You couldn’t truly appreciate innocence until it was lost, and then you couldn’t get it back. Run down to nothing. The mind is a golden palomino. Hang on, children; it’s the ride of your life. Don’t be afraid. You’re safe with me but I’m not with myself, that’s our problem. There’s time, time, time. All the time in the world. Eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired.

Carl-the-Counter-Rabbit’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it’s ten o’clock, Jackrabbit Pizza’s closing time.’ Daniel, who wasn’t aware he’d been drowsing, leaped wildly to his feet, spinning around to check the room. Carl was being tactful. Daniel was the only one left.