The Wooden Sea (23 page)

Frustrated, I threw up my hands. "Now what are we supposed to do?"

Vertue growled and _clock-clocked _some more.

"Let's call the police," Wiseguy said from atop his Audi and honked a big fat fake laugh.

That inspired Old Vertue and it started jumping again. Ominously it got higher and higher.

"He gonna bite you, boss. Them teeth of his go _clack-clack. _You'd better think of something fast!"

"Like what?"

"Why don't you kill it? You got your gun?"

"You can't kill this dog. It's already died twice since we met."

He wouldn't stop grinning. "Maybe the third time you'll be lucky."

"Gee-Gee, help me out here, willya? Don't be a dick all day long.

Helping me is helping you, don't forget."

"What's its name?"

"Old Vertue."

"What kind of dog's name is that? Vertue! Come here, boy."

It didn't move. Now it was drooling. Drooling and _clock-clocking.

_Its gums were showing. They were shiny bubble-gum pink.

"We gotta get out of here. We gotta get over to George's and see what's going on with him."

"Well we ain't got no stilts or a hot air balloon." He put a hand in a shading position over his eyes and pretended to look toward the horizon. "No ladder in sight. It'd be nice if there was a tightrope, but there isn't."

"Thank you for sharing that with me."

"You're welcome. You know what that dog is? It's a FUDD."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning most dogs are just _dogs, _you know? Not one thing special about them. Dog-dogs.

But that one--that is a fucked-up-dog-dog. A FUDD."

_Clock-clock. _I looked down into Vertue's bubble-gum mouth and noticed for die first time that its teeth were tobacco-brown. Pink and brown and shiny.

_Clock-clock._

"Hey, Uncle Fran?"

"What?"

"I got an idea."

Straightening up, I looked over at him. "Yes?"

"We fly."

"That's brilliant. In what?"

"We just fly, man. Everything else around here is crazy, right? So why can't we fly? Why can't we just jump off these roofs and fly? Who says it won't happen if we try?"

"Gravity."

"Look, _Zio, _since I got here, this whole experience has been like sitting in the electric chair getting five thousand volts through your head all day long. It's fried everything, but `specially our brains.

So I say we just try it and see what happens. We've seen again and again anything's possible. So now we start using that. This whole world around us is

nuts: Me and you are here together at the same time. Isn't that crazy? We've been time traveling, that dead dog rose up out of its grave, birds disappear in plain sight ... so why not flying? We want to fly, we try. If it don't work, then it don't work.

Why not?"

It was me talking, but a me I hadn't known for years. The me who believed in why not? Rather than no way/no can do/ no exit or no, period. Middle-aged, this-idea-is-ridiculous me started to get up and leave the movie theater. But the rest of me shouted at him to sit down again and watch the rest of the show.

Why not fly? _Why not?_

"Let's go."

Gee-Gee grinned like a carved pumpkin and clapped twice. "Excellent."

Without a moment's hesitation he extended his arms as if he was preparing to dive into water.

Then he jumped off the roof of the Audi.

And hit the ground a second later, hollering in pain. Old Vertue looked at him and back up at me just as I sailed off the roof of the VW bus--and flew.

Could I describe to you what it was like to fly? Certainly. Will I?

Never in a million years. I will tell you this: Remember the best kiss you ever had? How suddenly all sound, all life, all matter, disappeared? How for that holy while all of your life was only on your lips? That's some of what it was like in that first moment when I realized it was happening, that it was real.

I flew like an astronaut on the moon. The leap off the car roof drifted me forward at ten feet off the ground. Slowly I began to descend. Touching down, I pushed off with one foot and at once rose up again up up and back to the height I'd been. Floating gently forward, flying... sort of.

"You bastard, you bastard, you're up there! It's working! I told you.

I knew it would work. Get the hell away from me, dog!"

Gee-Gee ran along below me, waving his hands excitedly.

For a few moments my shadow actually passed over him and the earth, as if I were a plane casting its dark image down. He shouted when Old Vertue ran into his leg and made him stumble. As I was coming down for my first landing, fifty feet from where I'd started, I saw the kid kick the dog full-bang in the head.

Orange cowboy boot on dog skull.

Result? A draw. Vertue stopped and gave his head a couple of shakes.

Which made enough time for me to push off again and for Gee-Gee to start running.

"You got it now, Uncle. You are definitely airborne!"

I turned halfway around in midair to check on Vertue. It was keeping its distance now but wasn't about to give up the pursuit. As I was turning again, I felt my body beginning to descend. But now I had the hang of it and when I

touched ground it was only that--a touch. A push off and I was gone again.

"This is the coolest thing! You-are _flying_."

"It's your doing, Gee-Gee. If you hadn't said try, it wouldn't have happened."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Who cares how it happened? It's just so damned cool."

This was true, but what was I going to do when I got to George's house, besides land? Floon was there, George was there, Vertue was here trying to bite me while I tried to get there--

As if he'd read my mind, down below Gee-Gee asked, "What are we going to do when we get to Dalemwood's house?"

Before I could answer, I saw a jogger coming down the sidewalk toward us. I started to smile. How would he react to: a man floating overhead like a kite, a boy in thirty-year-old clothes and a bad El vis haircut following below, and a dog with three legs, one eye, and a jaw going _dock-clockl _This was going to be rich.

He wore one of those ridiculous-looking jogging suits that no real jogger ever wears. It was a traffic jam of clashing colors, all of them made more ugly because they were on top of each other. What kind of person would actually buy clothes like that? I'd seen something like it recently, but didn't register or remember that until later.

When I had a chance to think about the details.

I was so tickled that another person was seeing the three of us now like this. I was so eager to see how they'd react to the absurdity of our picture.

I didn't pay attention to anything but the fact a man in a jogging suit was coming toward us and what would he think?

He shot the boy first. The man shot Gee-Gee.

Ten feet from us he casually reached into his pink-on-yellow pocket and pulled out a pistol. I saw it, realized it, took the image into my slow brain.

Ten feet above the ground I was powerless to do anything.

I shouted out, "A gun! Look out, he has a gun."

Blank-faced, Caz de Floon pointed it at Gee-Gee and shot him in the throat, the chest, the stomach. The boy collapsed, dead before he hit the sidewalk.

Floon then turned to Old Vertue and shot it in the head.

Bang Bang Bang.

*The Rat's Potato*

I'm sure I fell from the sky the moment Gee-Gee's heart stopped beating.

Because when he died, so did the "why not?" and renewed sense of wonder in me he had brought back. I don't remember dropping or even hitting the ground because I was so horrified by what had happened.

Arms at his sides, Caz de Floon, looking exactly the same as I'd seen him in Vienna, stared indifferently at the two bodies. I got off the ground but stayed where I was. I had no idea what he'd do next. Maybe I was going to die too.

_"Why? _Why did you do it, Floon?"

"I don't like the future I was living in, Frannie. I want a different one.

Had to make a few changes. You had an unfair advantage with those two. I know who the boy was." He pointed at the dead dog. "Now it will be different."

"How did you pet back here?"

"I don't know. Divine intervention--_manus e nubibus_--a hand from the clouds; I suppose someone powerful wants me here. In the same way they brought the boy back to help you."

I remembered Gee-Gee saying Astopel had made a mistake by manipulating my life. Because the result of that was anything could happen now.

Floon here with a gun in his hand was immediate proof of it.

"But you killed them. What for? Do you know who they were?"

"Yes, George explained. I just told you why, McCabe. You'd better be careful too. From now on I'm going to be as close to you as the vein in your neck. Or the eye in your socket."

"Or the shit passing through my bowel. Put the gun down and we can get _real _close to each other, Caz. I'll French kiss you while I cut out your brain." A bad thought blinked on in my head. "Where is George?"

Floon furrowed his brow and sounded surprised. "At his house. Where else would he be?"

"You didn't hurt him?"

"No, I need him. I need George and you but I don't know in what way yet. When I do, we'll see. But don't follow me now because I'll shoot you in an instant.

You know that?"

"Yes, Floon, I know that."

"But don't be sad when I'm gone because I'll always be nearby. I'll check in with you now and then." His voice was cheerful, all good will.

"What are you going to do?"

"Make some changes here now. So that life will be even nicer than it was."

"For you. Not for anyone else."

"Of course for me, Frannie. At least I'm honest about it."

Disgusted, I turned away and looked toward Gee-Gee to show myself again that it had really happened. But his body was gone and so was the dog's.

Floon must have seen my expression change; aiming the gun at me, he looked over and grew a smile. "Ah, that's considerate; they saved you the trouble of having to explain two bodies to your colleagues on the police force."

"Who's doing all this, Floon? Do you know? Did you meet Astopel?"

"No. But my guess is God. And if it is, I like this deity. Maybe He decided to get involved again.

Wouldn't that be interesting? I'll see you." He waved with his gun hand and walked away.

When he was gone I stood-stock still without a single idea of what to do next. The obvious move was to go to George's and see if he was okay. Instead I stared at the spot on the sidewalk where the boy and the dog had lain when I last saw them.

I'd always thought of him as the boy, the pain in the ass, or Gee-Gee.

Now that he was gone I remembered, if that was the right word, he was me. And he was dead.

That me was gone and I was sure there were more things he still had to show me but never would now.

I was back in my own time with too many bits and pieces of information to swallow but no time to digest them. I assumed that there were only a few days left to complete whatever it was I was supposed to accomplish. I couldn't return to the future for another look because my magical phrase "holes in the rain" hadn't worked when I tried it. I couldn't ask Astopel or Gee-Gee any questions. And the cherry on top of this shit was Floon had gotten loose in the here and now and would surely snarl things up more. All I could hope was that he would stay out of my way while I tried to figure out what had to be done.

"Hey, Frannie, how come that guy was pointing a gun at you?"

Johnny Petangles is a tall fat man. He exists on Burger King Whoppers and candy. Physically he has looked the same for fifteen years. There are people in our town who think he's some kind of idiot savant. I don't know about that.

The only unusual thing Johnny ever did that shows he's more than mildly retarded is memorize decades of television commercials--not a talent that's going to get you a job at the White House or Microsoft. Since his mother died a few years ago I've kept an eye on him. That isn't hard because so do most of the people in Crane's View. We feed him when he'll accept it, give him odd jobs that pay for his hamburgers and Arnold Schwarzenegger video rentals, and feel very protective toward him. He may not be a rocket scientist, but he's our Johnny and that's enough. I have always tried to be as straight with him as I can.

"Where are you coining from?"

"Mrs. Darnell made me French toast for breakfast. That was nice, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it is. He's a bad man, Johnny. His name is Floon. If you see him around town steer clear of the guy."

"Shouldn't you arrest him? He held you at gunpoint." Johnny loved movie phrases like that--"held you at gunpoint." Sometimes when he was watching a video he would hear one and laboriously write it down in block letters on a pad he kept near the television.

"Maybe later. Not right now."

"Okay. But would you like me to follow him? I could give you a secret report on where he goes."

My first instinct was to say forget it, but I stopped. What could it hurt?

Even if Floon noticed him, he only had to speak with Johnny for two minutes to realize his mental Swiss Army knife didn't have all its blades. Who would feel threatened by a fat retarded guv reciting Isuzu commercials? What Floon didn't know was that once John got his mind set on something he was as tenacious as a mongoose battling a cobra.

Why not let him follow Floon?

"You'd have to be very careful, Johnny. If he saw you he might make big trouble."

Johnny never smiles but he did then. "I know how to hide. I used to hide from my mother and she could never find me anywhere. I'll just hide from him too.

You watch--I bet you ten thousand billion dollars that guy will never see me."

"Then go ahead, John, but be careful. Don't do anything stupid.

"I am a little stupid, Frannie, but not about hiding." He was still smiling when he left.

So much had already happened in the last few hours that it was a wonder I
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