Collected short stories, p.142
Collected Short Stories, page 142
Finally Mr. Hawthorne took back the wheel and pulled up next to his dock. But Neil wasn't happy here, either. The triplets were screaming on the beach. Claudia was still shouting, "I'm drowning. Help me, help me." Collin and the two Shepherd boys were running on the hard planks, beating each other with Roman swords and styrofoam noodles. It would be a fun game, for about two seconds. Neil resisted the temptation. Mrs. Jensen was sitting nearby, pretending to be a lifeguard when she wasn't reading her fat novel. When Claudia yelled for help again, the woman looked up. But it was Neil that she was watching. "How was your trip?" she asked, showing a sly little smile.
Mrs. Jensen wasn't as pretty as Mrs. Miller. Or as built. But Neil had always halfway liked talking to the woman.
"Did you have fun?" she pressed.
He said, "Yes," because that seemed like the polite thing to say.
Mrs. Jensen's sunglasses had slipped down her whitened nose. She pushed them back up, and her smile changed, and shaking her head, she said, "Really?" She said, "I'd have a hard time buying that."
Despite his doubts, the rest of the afternoon had its fun. Neil began by swimming out to the floating platform and back again, then diving into the weedy depths with a leaky mask strapped to his face. When those adventures got old, there were chicken fights in the bathwarm shallows. Neil was too long and lanky to ride anyone. Not that he wanted to ride, of course. But he didn't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, and some of these kids were real chunks. Fat or solid, they were hard to lift, and moving with them on his shoulders was about the toughest work he'd ever done. It was the little kids who made the best partners. Like the Jensen triplets. They were wiry and strong for five-year-olds. Barbie Jensen would wrap her legs around Neil's neck and shoulders, and an adult man carrying some beefy kid would charge and knock the girl backward. But she'd pop right up again. And if they got behind the man while he was fighting someone else, they could knock him off his feet, and that's how you sometimes won this very simple game.
Between rounds, Claudia swam up to him. She was turning ten in another month, and her parents had already bought her a pony as a birthday gift. She explained all of this in a breathless rush, floating high in the water because she was fat and because of her big orange life jacket. Then she said, "Let's be partners. Okay?"
She had to be as heavy as Neil. That's why he asked, "If I say yes, what'll you give me?"
Not missing a beat, Claudia said, "You can ride my pony."
"Oh, wow," he said sarcastically. "Gosh, jeez."
Claudia heard what she wanted to hear. She assumed they had a deal, and when Neil turned to leave, she grabbed hold of his head and flung her thick legs over his shoulders. Neil was trapped, at least for the moment. He sank into the warm water, letting the girl scramble into position above him. Then he rose up to where he was holding most of her weight and too much of his own. He sagged and moaned under the waves, then lifted his mouth high enough to take a pained gulp of air, moving them into deeper water to let himself stand taller, bracing for the first assault.
Neil's plan was to lose. Someone would give them a little shove, and he would pitch to one side as if shot, dive deep and slip free of the fat girl.
But their opponents were HannahMiller riding high on her mother's strong shoulders. Mrs. Miller was in shallower water, her suit filling with water as she lifted her eight-year-old into the air, those big breasts threatening to spill free. Then she adjusted her straps and started her charge, laughing as she pushed her way through the lake. Neil watched how the water lifted and broke over the pale smooth flesh, and he stared as the breasts dove beneath the surface, bearing down on him. Then something obvious occurred to him, and he grunted to Claudia, "Hold on. Tight!"
It was a short, forever sort of battle. The four of them collided along with their foam and shouts, and the high arms were grasping while the lower arms held tight to the clinging legs. Neil and Claudia had momentum, and Mrs. Miller was laughing too hard to fight back. For an instant, it looked as if she might lose. Claudia gave Hannaha yank, and their opponents started to fall. But the fat girl didn't have a killer instinct. She let them recover, which was fine with Neil. Then everyone was close and pushing hard, and Neil felt a small strong hand against his ribs, then tugging at Claudia's foot. It was a woman's hand. It was touching him, pretty much. So Neil reached out and yanked at Hannah's foot, and his quick fingers brushed against one of Mrs. Miller's breasts -- her left breast--the wet fabric barely obscuring the living swell of flesh that seemed to Neil, for that wondrous instant, to be the genuine center of the universe.
Then Claudia confused him for her six-hundred-pound pony. She threw her weight to one side, their center of gravity suddenly outside Neil's body, and he was failing sideways, his bare feet dancing across the muddy sand of the lake floor. He wanted to remain standing. He desperately wanted a second chance to touch the breast. Another quick feel; that would be perfect. But the fat girl kept fighting him, twisting her legs and hips, and Neil was underwater and sinking fast when a pain attached itself to his badly twisted neck, causing him to scream and drop deeper, shoving at the girl's fat ass in order to free himself, at last.
Neil's neck had broken.
That was his first horrific impression. But then he realized that he could move his limbs and even swim, buoyed up by the water and a white-hot misery. He surfaced weakly and made no sound for a moment or two. Where was Mrs. Miller? Nowhere close, he realized. She and her daughter had wandered off, looking for fresh victims. Meanwhile Claudia splashed behind him, telling the world, "I'm drowning, help!" She screamed, "Neil! Look at me!" So he turned, his neck burning somewhere near its mangled base. Then she giggled and said, "Save me, Neil! Save me!"
It was easy to say those next words.
"You're as big as a fucking pony!" Neil snapped.
For the first time today, Claudia fell silent.
"You broke my neck, you goddamn horse --!"
His belongings were in the house, set in a heap in the room where his parents were planning to spend the night. The unairconditioned boathouse was reserved for the children and whichever parents drew the long straw. But for now, Neil could use his parents' bed. He was under strict orders to sleep and also keep a big ice pack pressed against his aching neck, which was a ridiculous pair of assignments. Between the pain and the cold, sleep was impossible. So what Neil did instead was play a few rounds of Time's Arrow, pretending that he was Agent Nano searching through Roman times, trying to stop Count Kliss and his minions before they forever altered history.
"How are you feeling, dear?"
He froze the game and folded up the screen. Without moving his head, Neil told his mother, "The same."
The pack was more water than ice now. Mom took it from under him and sat on the edge of the bed, starting to rub his neck and then thinking better of it. She bit her lower lip for a moment, then said, "You know, she has a crush on you."
A sudden impossible hope pounced on him.
But Mom had to ruin everything, saying, "Claudia practically adores you."
"Oh," Neil whispered. "Her."
"She's awfully sorry for this. I don't think she's stopped crying yet." Mom was telling him this for a reason, but she wouldn't just come out and say it. She didn't know what Neil had said to the fat girl, or she was pretending not to know. Either way, she decided to change the subject, smiling when she said, "Dinner's almost ready. If you want, come down and eat with the rest of us."
His neck ached, but Neil was famished, too.
"Laura says it's just a muscle strain."
Laura Shepherd was a dermatologist, which made her opinions a little suspect.
"Are you coming?" Mom pressed.
Neil unfolded the screen again, but only to clear the game. He wasn't doing that well anyway. Obviously, what he needed was food.
DINNER WAS LOUD and busy and extraordinarily boring. Mr. Shepherd had cooked spaghetti in big pots, and it came out clumped together and halfway raw in the middle. Yet the adults had to tell each other how delicious everything was. Neil ate with them in the big living room. The kids and Dr. Shepherd used the dining room. Spills would be less of a problem there, and there were spills. The new carpet was stained at least twice before the kids were banished outside with popsicles. Plastic plates and empty bottles of wine were thrown into bulging trash sacks. More wine was opened, plus some tall cans of beer. Then the kids were brought back inside and stuffed into the playroom, along with maybe twenty million toys, six of which being interesting enough to be played with.
There were fights over those six good toys.
If Neil was healthy, he would have helped referee. But he wasn't well. He sat in the living room with his neck ridiculously straight, making a show of his misery. It was Dad, of all people, who vanished into that mayhem; and that left Neil in the equally unwelcome position of taking Dad's place in the evening's first game.
He had never played charades before and never would again. It was acting in public, which was something that he wouldn't do. So Mom did double-duty, standing in front of their team and making a fool of herself. And Neil did try to contribute to his team's efforts, but the books and movies and songs were from a world that he barely knew. Sometimes he'd blurt out a wrong answer, but mostly he just stayed quiet. And when his team lost, he pretended that it didn't bother him. That it was just a stupid game, which it was. One of several stupid games that were played in rapid succession.
Neil watched the adults, listening to what they said when they weren't playing. Everyone looked tired and sounded happy and maybe they were a little drunk. Mrs. Miller was wearing summer clothes. Shorts and a light blouse and sandals. Neil kept remembering that her name was Sarah, and he would wonder how it would sound to say Sarah when he was alone again, in the dark. Her face was red from the sun and pretty in a grown-up way. He was watching her face when she noticed his gaze, and with a sudden little wink, she asked, "What should we play next?"
She was talking to the room, but the room was too busy to notice.
"My mother just turned seventy," Mom was shouting, apparently responding to some distant conversation. "And she doesn't even look sixty, which I'm taking to be a very good sign for my future."
In Neil's eyes, Grandma was nothing but a sputtering old seventy. Yet he decided to sit there, conspicuously saying nothing.
"And do you know her life-expectancy?" Mom continued. "I mean what those charts...the actuarial charts...do you know what they're predicting for her....?"
"Ninety-plus years," Mr. Jensen replied. "It's something like that, I would think."
Mom nodded. "Another twenty-three and a half years. Yes!"
Mr. Jensen was a lawyer and a genius. He was a small man, a little pudgy around the middle, and he looked like a genius should look, wearing thick glasses, his thick black hair going twenty ways at once. When the group played Trivial Pursuit, Mr. Jensen played alone. It was the group's special rule. He had no partner and no help, but more often than not, he'd still win their stupid game.
"If our parents reach old age," he explained, "then they've escaped the hazards of risky behavior and bad genetics. And if they have healthy habits after that, most of them are going to be around for a long time. One or two of them will make it to a hundred, easy."
The adults reacted to this news with a horrified cackle.
"God!" Dr. Shepherd called out. "I'm going to have to keep my house clean for another thirty years...just in case his mother shows for a snap inspection --!"
The laughter rose, then collapsed when it ran out of breath.
Mr. Hawthorne said, "Bullshit! Are you telling me that I've got to listen to my old man complain about politics until the middle of this century?"
"Maybe so," said Mr. Jensen. "Maybe so."
Mrs. Hawthorne grabbed her husband by the knee. "Maybe we should give our folks skydiving lessons. What do you think? For their anniversaries?"
Everyone howled with laughter.
Mrs. Miller said, "Or a float trip through the Grand Canyon, maybe?"
Which made Mom blurt, "Perfect! My mother can't swim a stroke!"
Neil couldn't believe what he was hearing. Sure, his parents liked to complain about their parents. But to say that you want them dead... to say it in public, even if it was just a joke...well, it made Neil uncomfortable and sad. Watching them bend over with laughter, he caught a glimpse of frustrations that were deep and private, and ancient...frustrations that he'd always assumed were peculiar to fourteen-year-old boys ....
Mr. Jensen cleared his throat. "Lifespans are growing," he told Mom, and everyone. "If a woman in our generation can reach seventy, then she'll almost certainly live well past the century mark.'
Mom got a look. She halfway shuddered, then made herself laugh. And turning to Neil, she blurted, "Just think, honey. I'm going to be your mom for another hundred years!"
Neil didn't know what to make of that threat. The adults had to be drunk. Whatever this was, this was a disgusting and fascinating business, and Neil could only just sit on the brand new couch, sipping his fifth or sixth coke of the day, wondering where things would lead next.
"Imagine," said Mrs. Hawthorne. "We're only a third of the way there!"
"If we make it to old age," Mr. Jensen cautioned. "Which is less likely for men than for women."
"As it should be!" Mrs. Miller trumpeted.
Again, Mom looked at her son. But she was asking Mr. Jensen her question. "And how long will our children live? Can you guess?"
"I can always guess," he replied, laughing softly.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, laughing and bending close to hear whatever he might say next.
"One hundred and fifty years," Mr. Jensen offered.
"That much?" Mom cried out.
"Or a thousand years, maybe."
There was laughter, but it had a different color now. It was a bright, uncomfortable sound that evaporated into an abrupt and very nervous silence.
"Look at the last hundred years," Mr. Jensen continued. "Antibiotics. Transplants. Genetic engineering. Hell, how much of that was predicted?"
A genuine interest grabbed hold of Neil. "You really think so?" he sputtered.
"You'll live to walk on other worlds, my boy. I guarantee it."
Neil had always liked the man.
"Who knows what you might accomplish, given a thousand years?"
It was an idea that made Neil happy and warm, wiping away most of the pain in his poor neck. And that's when the idea hit him. It came from an obvious source, but he didn't mention his computer game. "Maybe when I'm done traveling to the planets," he began. "I don't know, but maybe I could travel back in time .... "
"To where?" blurted Mrs. Miller. Then she added, "To when, I mean. And where also, I guess. Wouldn't it be?"
Neil thought of Rome and the Dark Ages and the other popular haunts of his computer self. But instead of those possibilities, he heard himself say, "Here. Maybe I'd come back to now, and here, just to tell you how things turn out and...I don't know...maybe let you know about the future, in little ways .... "
That brought giggles and winces and every other uncomfortable expression.
For a moment, Neil felt foolish. He hoped this topic would pass. Collapse, and vanish. But then Mr. Jensen found something worthy in the possibility. Even intriguing. He jumped to his feet, swayed for a moment, then said, "Let's get the kids in here. Right now."
Mom asked, "What for?"
"We've got another game. A new game." Then he promised everyone, "It won't take two minutes. Or it'll take forever, depending on how you look at things."
People exchanged big-eyed looks, then agreed to play along. Mrs. Hawthorne went to get Dad and the kids. At Mr. Jensen's insistence, three video cameras were set up and left running. The kids were herded back into the room and told to sit together, as if posing for a group picture, and when Mr. Jensen finished his glass of dark wine, he stood in front of his audience, saying in a big, half-drunken way, "Listen to me. This is the night! We want to ask you a favor. A huge favor. When you've learned how to travel in time...maybe a thousand years from now...we want you to come back here. If it's possible. Please. Will you promise us that? Will you?"
These were little kids. They looked fried from too much fighting and too much fun, and whatever Mr. Jensen was saying, it was too strange and large for them to understand. But he sensed their limits. He made a stabbing gesture at a camera, adding, "We're going to talk to you about tonight. That's our promise. For years and years, your parents are going to remind you about the big commitment that you're making to us now."
But they hadn't said anything. Mostly, the kids sat motionless, looking ready to fall over into exhausted heaps.
"Promise us," said Mrs. Miller, getting into the mood of the moment. "Hannah? Say that you promise."
Her oldest squirmed, then said, "Okay. I guess."
Then Mrs. Miller turned to Neil. "You should promise for all of them. Would you do that for us?"
If anyone else had asked. But it was Sarah Miller, and he whispered, "Sure," and gave the cameras a little glance.
"What are you sure about?" Mom pressed.
Without too much life in his voice, he told them, "We'll come back. If it's possible, we'll visit you."
There was a strange, long pause. The adults acted as if they were waiting for some flash of light and the miraculous appearance of travelers from the far future. But then it was obvious that nothing would happen, and it was embarrassingly obvious that some people needed to stop drinking, at least for the time being. Over the next half-hour, most of the kids were successfully installed in the boathouse. The Hawthornes volunteered to stay with them, and that left the master bedroom free for Neil's parents, which left him with a real bed instead of a hard cot in the hot boathouse.
