The legend of Danny Engall, part 1

Terry always waits until the last second to put the thrusters on and it drives me nuts. I understand why he does it, because a lot of people do it, but I feel invisible in the cockpit here with him and I might as well be just another chunk of rock like we've got strapped to the back.

He's trying to find that sweet spot, the place somewhere between the dock and the station where our inertia runs out just enough to make it just barely energy-efficient to start using the thrusters. He can feel it. Heck, I can feel it, I've been doing this long enough. Where we slow down just enough. Then he eases the throttle forward light as a breath and the hopper picks up speed without any jerks. Very smooth. He's been doing this for ten years.

Terry is a very, very good pilot. There are a lot of very good pilots here. I'm a good pilot myself, but I'm never going to have that genius feel for the controls like they do. This place attracts people who like to be very, very good at things. Because there's a lot that can go wrong up here, and sometimes if you give yourself a millimeter too much on either side you're toast. Situations like that don't happen all the time, but they happen enough that mining has once again become the system's Most Dangerous Job.

Terry Spratt doesn't look at all like the kind of person you'd expect to be a hot-shot pilot. He's short and thick-lipped and curly-haired and has a boy's high voice, and cares more about getting home and watching the World Series of Poker than about bragging how that last run went. He doesn't look like a hero and he doesn't look like the kind of guy I'd have expected to change my life.

I came up here five years ago because I didn't know what the hell to do with my life. I had been working as a handler for a huge border collie breeding and showing operation, I lived and slept and practically breathed dogs, and then Mojo--the guy who started it all, the champion, the number one sire, and probably my best friend--died, and the owners expected me to carry on with the new generations and I just couldn't. It was the oddest thing but as I tried working with the pups and tried working by myself as a groomer for a few months, I came to this realization that I wasn't sure if liked dogs at all. I just liked Mojo. I had since I first met him at my cousin's wedding. He was why I ended up working with the McHones for fifteen years. And I had no clue where to go from there. All I knew was dog handling.

So I came up here. I signed up as a miner and got my suit and my tools and got to work on the asteroid and I hated it more than I could ever have thought it was possible to hate anything. I remember hearing the alarm in the morning and waking up in my dark bunk and wanting more than anything else in the world to pull the covers over my head and lie there while my roommates shook me and shouted at me and eventually gave up and went off to breakfast... the only reason I didn't was that I knew I'd signed a contract and I knew if the company had to pay to ship me back home I wouldn't dig myself out of that hole for years. And I went through that for literally the first year and a half here. Almost every morning. I would finally get up and jam my legs into the legs of the suit and tie the arms around my waist and get to the mess room just as they were putting breakfast away, and have some cold cereal and just make it onto the hopper I was sharing with two kids from Canada who were happy as hell to be here.

Through the entire day I'd have a running commentary in my head on the outrage and stupidity of everything I saw and did. "God, Caleb is an asshole. Is that the fifth time he's walked off without anchoring the hopper? If I fucking get killed because of him... Christ, do you think they could afford to spend more than five dollars on the joints on these suits? I can't even touch my toes, let alone pick up anything I drop. What the hell is Jason doing? Why is he using the #5 drill? If he breaks that thing and we have to go back..." all day long. It's funny but some days I think about half of it was about dying.

I was scared of dying, all the time. I would say there's death all around you up here, and there is, if you think of it that way... the vacuum and all... but somebody really only dies every few months, and with thousands of miners crawling over these rocks that's a pretty good rate of survival, all things considered. But I kept thinking about it and thinking about it and I was convinced it would be me next. Because of something Caleb or Jason did, or just some random asteroid collision, or a tear in my suit. I couldn't keep my mind off it. And I was angry and scared all the time.

That didn't really start to change until the day Caleb crashed the hopper into the side of GR8290 or something and broke his leg, and we had Terry flying us for a few days until some other guy took over. I was really out of it that first day Terry was with us. I remember being really mechanical, sealing my suit up and getting in the hopper and sitting there across from Terry not caring who he was, and looking out at the stars like all the sky was just black paper with holes poled in it. Nothing felt real. My system was fried with adrenaline by then, cortisol, just so exhausted all the time that I was only half there. I felt like a robot. I was totally resigned to the fact that I couldn't get out of the job and I was just going to keep going like this for another three and a half years until my contract was up. I remember talking with Terry and Jason as if I were there. But there was a buzzing in my ears and nothing was real.

I climbed out of the hopper door and felt my boots stick to the rock, and I shouldered one of the drills and went right off to a "corner" of the rock where I knew there was some platinum. And I worked at it all day, thinking about how I was going to be in the next crash, and that'd be it. And about how to worm out of that fate. I wanted really badly to transfer to another team but I knew I was at the bottom of the totem pole and anyway, what if I got stuck with someone worse? Some of these young kids were really crazy. I could deliberately injure myself and end up back in hospital with Caleb, but that'd only last for a little while. I ground miserably at the rock holding the platinum in place. It was very long and very quiet and eventually we got back in the hopper and went home and I stayed in my bunk the rest of the night.

It wasn't until the next day that I really talked to Terry. We landed on another asteroid and again I got out and went over to where I knew there was some platinum, and he came over and looked at what I was doing.

"How long you been up here?" he said.

I was irritated. "A year and a half," I said.

He nodded in his helmet, toeing the dust that was kicking up into nowhere. "And they still got you stuck with that kid?"

I wanted him to stand a little further off so he didn't endanger me, didn't get in the way of what I was doing. It's hard for me to split my attention. I didn't know what to say to him. "Well, yeah."

He watched me drill for another minute without saying anything, which really irritated me. I noticed his squinty eyes then and his slow-looking lips. "We had a guy up here a year ago... maybe before you came... named Danny Engall. He's with Dynacorps now. He had the same kind of feel for ore that you do."

I didn't know Terry from Adam then, and I'd certainly never heard of Danny Engall. "I don't think I have any kind of a feel for ore," I said, leaning hard into the drill.

I could tell when Terry shrugged in his suit. "I could believe that you think you don't. If you've only been here a year and a half and haven't worked with anyone other than Boy Wonder over there. But I've been up here almost a decade and believe me, you do."

So what was I supposed to say to that? "What good is that going to do me?"

Terry chuckled.

He eventually wandered back to the hopper and spent the rest of the day catching transmissions and playing with the settings. I thought he was being a lazy bum and maybe he was, but I didn't know then how much of a right to that he'd earned. We talked a little bit the next day too, about my supposed feel for ore, where it was and how to get at it, and then I didn't see him. Some guy with red hair and freckles took over as pilot until Caleb got back and I don't even remember his name.

But it was only a couple weeks more of dead misery until I got transferred to Terry's hopper, and then I was too busy to think about dying for a long time.

I know what you want, part 3

In the morning I get ready for our excursion into the jungle. My pad is pretty small, but it's all I need. I'm looking in the mirror now. I still look so young... no wrinkles to speak of... no grey hairs. But sometimes I feel like I've been here forever. I haven't always been a tour guide, but it was my first job, and I've been doing it on and off ever since. Sometimes I think about quitting it and going somewhere else, getting a job working with animals or something. But heck, people are animals.

I can't just wear shorts to go into the jungle. No... actually... I could just wear shorts to go into the jungle. I've done it before. But the mosquitos, man. I pick out a terrible Hawaiian shirt and grab my boots from the bottom of the closet. They're still dirty from the last time I went. I always forget to clean them.

This shirt is really something. It's got pictures of women surfing in grass skirts on it. It's usually good for a laugh. And I want him to laugh. I don't think I'm all that good at making people laugh, but it's so great if you can get them to.

It's really early still, like six o'clock. It used to be really easy for me to get up after a night of partying. Then as I got a little older it started to get really hard. And then as I kept doing it some kind of hangover expertise replaced the original energy and it got easy again. I know I'm going to be tired. It just doesn't bother me anymore.

I get on the bike and zip down the streets to his hotel. I do like it when it's this quiet. The air is very foggy, the birds are chirping, and it's neither too hot or too cold. He's outside the hotel already, all dressed... still in black... no guitar. He has his hands in his pockets. He climbs on the back of the bike without saying anything. We've already discussed the outing.

My surfing friends get to see me being a tour guide when I take clients to the beach, but I'm being a surfer there... once, Kit was with me when I picked up a client at the docks. The French teacher. Afterward he actually sounded angry with me. "You act that way with every dude, man?" he asked. I think he was upset I was so solicitous. Or maybe just so different from how I am when I'm surfing, using. He doesn't see the solicitation as using too, like I do.

Or maybe he was just alarmed at the physical contact. We're physical, we hug each other, but we don't, for instance, touch each other on the arm when we talk. Not like you'd want to do to put a potential client off his or her guard.

So I'm glad it's just me and Rafe, motoring through the fog, down to where the road turns to dirt, then up over the hills and into the scrubby land before the jungle. The sun is starting to show through the fog, but it hasn't got much definition yet. The jungle starts pretty abruptly in front of us: where I hide the bike in the bushes, it's not a forest at all, and then it is, a few feet on. I walk in first and it's dark.

"Ooh," says Rafe.

I am totally at home. "When you planned your vacation, did you think you'd be doing this?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says.

Well damn. "Did you think you'd be doing this?" I bolt from him then, down the path at a run, and of course he follows. It's just a few more seconds to the river, and the pool that's deep enough to belly-flop into, which I do. And damn if he isn't just standing there on the bank when I come up, looking at me. In his clean black clothes. So I just kneel there on the bottom of the pool. I have to get him vulnerable. I've got a monster craving for some genuine soul and while the shock of the water was a pretty good thrill, it's nothing compared to seeing another human being let down their guard for just a few seconds.

Rafe is looking at me.

I laugh out loud at my own floundering. Come on, Nate, I tell myself. You're a pro. Just watch him. He'll reveal something. They always do.

He takes his eyes off me to look at the plants we've stumbled into. Their leaves are huge, I could wear them, just one would cover my chest and crotch besides. There are orchids on the trees. There are ferns up to my elbow. It's like being in a coloring book about dinosaurs, except without the dinosaurs.

And he's just looking at it all... I want him to be here, be with me, connect... God knows I need it. Don't I need it? I can't go into space, I can't take those little metal tubes, and I'm stuck here. Doesn't that deserve some compensation? This is all there is for me. The least they can do is visit and make some kind of effort to bring me something when they visit... I want a little high, a little contact, a little soul... I want to put my arms around him... I can barely stand to admit it. I don't care what it means, and I'd never do it, after all... my job is to give the tourists what they want, not send them screaming back to the ship.

Rafe is just lost looking around. He's captivated by the silly plants. "Hey," I say. "What's the matter, never done a belly flop into a leech-infested river with a raving lunatic before?"

He turns to me and smiles.

"Uh," he says. "I'm not really sure how to do a belly flop."

This makes me laugh. "Neither am I," I say. I watch his face for a sign. He does want something. I just don't know what yet. It's hard to tell sometimes... people... it could be anything. You never know. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of desire and find out what they really want is to find a restroom.

A fish darts by me in the pool. I am so wet.

I am even wetter when he jumps in suddenly, in a terrible, skilless flop that almost dashes his brains out on a rock. But I can't stop laughing. I like being surprised. After almost a hundred years, you get to appreciate being surprised.

I'm curious now and I remember I can just ask him. I don't need to tease things out of people all the time... "How old are you?" I ask.

"Twenty-two," he says.

"No, how old in real years?"

"Twenty-two," he says.

Christ in a caboose. I am a dirty old man.

It's getting lighter, light enough that the reflections off the water are playing on the undersides of the leaves all around us. The water's just this side of cool and my boots are trying to float up to the surface in front of me. Well. I am so grateful. That he is here. That he is new. New to me and new to the universe. And here in a blue pool with me in the middle of the jungle, sharing his company with me, this alive bright spot on my consciousness, a real person, fresh and new and achingly young and sweet. That is the old man part. These are old man feelings. To feel grateful just to have a pretty young thing beside me, sinking down so that only his hazel eyes are above the water.

And the dirty part... well. I'm young too. And not so bad looking, after all, and not what they call swishy, but I still love the way his innocence pokes out everywhere, in the way he hesitates before trying to swim a few feet, the way he knows I'm interested in him but has no idea how. Because I want him... his everything... I want to feel it with more than my eyes and ears. I want to grab him right now and tickle him, or tear his shirt off and run a finger down to his navel, just to feel. I want my arms around him, I want to hear his voice... I want to slip my fingers in his dark hair and pull him close to me. And let him feel my breath on his cheek. And just taste the tip of his ear.

And see what he does.

And for a moment, thinking these things, I think I've already done them. But no, he's on the other side of the pool, singing to himself. The songwriter. Before him there was the botanist, the mechanic, the retired naval captain, the cook, the pothead, the French teacher, the twin sisters, the counselor... eighty years is a long time to be stuck on one planet. Most of it in San Francisco. The weather doesn't change, anymore. The land doesn't change. The only thing that changes is the people. I just wish he would stay for a while. I don't want to possess him. I'd just like someone to stay for a while.

"Do you make all the tourists jump in a river?" he asks.

"Yes," I say. "It makes the money fall out of their pockets."

"I didn't pay you for today!" he says, sitting upright in consternation.

"You can pay me after," I say, and "I'll make sure you catch your flight. I just wanted to loosen you up a bit. Spacefolk are so serious, you know."

"I know," he says. "I wish I could be more like you."

"No you don't," I blurt out, before realizing that I should have said something else. "I mean... what I mean is that I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

I don't know how the hell to phrase this. "I'm just a junkie, you know. I'm just a user. Practically everything I do is just manipulation to try to get a high." He is looking at me totally blank and I'm getting hot with frustration. "All right, it's impossible to explain. Just take my word for it, everything I do is just to get something I want."

He's silent for a moment. "What do you want?" he says with confusion.

"What do I want??" it explodes out of my lips before I have time to flip the emergency self-control switch. "I want somebody to stay more than a goddamn week! I want somebody who lets me get to know them. I mean really know them. I want somebody who actually cares who I am, who Nate is, besides the best tour guide in San Francisco, besides a doped-up surfer, I want somebody to at least just be a little bit curious for once and be more interested in me than in the orchids and to stay for more than a few days, and to just be here."

And he has the strangest expression on his face. He's staring at me with this intense fascination like the answer to the secret of life is written on my face, and I am feeling really exposed all of a sudden. I really want to get out of here.

"Okay," he says quietly, still staring at me. And I have no idea what he means.

I am rolling onto my stomach and paddling around the pool like a dog, just bobbing at the surface, so light. This pool is really not very deep but it is exceedingly charming. I feel fond even of the slime on some of the rocks. I don't know what I'm doing. Just splashing around. This is all very silly. I am thinking that I hope he likes me. I am thinking about what I might like to do tomorrow, and the rest of my life.

I must also say this

Sorry I haven't gotten around to finishing the latest story! I hope to do that over the weekend.

I was sitting in the park the other day and a woman came in, wheeling a 2-year-old in a stroller. The 2-year-old dropped her package of animal crackers and the woman said, "Oh, f--- me." I glanced at her and she smiled sheepishly and said, "Sorry, didn't realize there was anyone else here."

I did not feel a thing

When I sing, I feel no pain. This is really remarkable, almost like magic. I remember reading about some old master painter whose fingers were locked up with arthritis, but who became young again and pain-free and energetic when he picked up the brush again. But I'm certainly not a master, and I'm not old either. It's just that singing requires so much concentration there's no room for anything else.

There are lengths of notes, and pitches of notes, and those are hard enough to get straight. There is dynamic (or loudness), and so many other symbols to pay attention to both above and below the staff... there are crescendos... and of course the words you are singing, which have to be memorized eventually, you can't read them and read the notes and everything else at the same time. I am not a music prodigy. Just trying to keep track of one or two of these elements at once--say, the words I'm supposed to be singing and the lengths of the notes, at the tempo we're singing them--requires so much concentration that the rest of the world might as well not exist.

I had terrible cramps the day we were rehearsing the Brahms Requiem. I have cramps that could fell a horse, although that's not special among women. And I thought, good. Better to have them today. I was in so much pain I was nauseous and shaking and sweating on the risers, afraid I was going to faint. We would sing a movement and there would be nothing but focusing on singing, which is wonderful, and of course the piece itself, and it was beautiful and electrifying and fun and everything it always is. I would feel nothing physically, unless the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like they do when you sing in a chorus and you hit a particular chord. And then the piece would end and Mr. Kent would drop his hands and the pain would come back all at once and I would try not to fall over. Sweating. I was so glad we were rehearsing because otherwise I would have been at home alone in my apartment trying to deal with it, with no distraction.

I have somehow backed myself into a corner this year with my bad habits, mostly worrying and perfectionism and denying my feelings. I've had these problems all my life, but somehow this year they've bred until I've gotten to a place where literally every move I make hurts. I can't ponder a decision without being stabbed by fear or cut down by self-criticism... but I don't even see what I'm doing and I react to it without thinking, like an animal. I feel like I've dressed myself in a straightjacket. Every move hurts. I am blessed to be able to write this now... it has become so much a part of the background that I'd begun thinking this was just the way life was. It is painful all the time, and if I have a problem with it it's because I'm weak or lazy.

It was funny to watch myself singing tonight. I felt no pain while singing. And then when we quit for the evening I felt it all roll back in. But it was the thoughts that were odd. Half-formed things resembling "Oh, now I have to feel this again... this is real life... I'd forgotten about this..." as blankets of queasy fear and pain settled on top of my brain, smothering the clarity I'd had a minute earlier.

But they give themselves away. Those thoughts. There is something of a chicken-and-egg question here. Which came first, the heavy misery or the thought that I had to experience it? That--oh--I have forgotten what real life is? What odd thoughts to have. It seemed to me that they were a bit over-eager, rushing in in the desperate hope that I wouldn't forget about them. Well I was afraid and I set myself in opposition to them, and they overcame me and I became straightjacketed again. Until I sat down to write this. Writing is a little like singing.

I'm sitting here watching the words appear on the screen as my fingers move. I want to make a resolution, I want to say, I will not be in opposition to my fears. I would say that I will feel them when they come and when they go away I will feel that. It is a new thing to me to be at this loose end. To give up trying to control tomorrow. I must remember that I am already in a corner and there is, in fact, no where else to go. To learn a new thing is difficult sometimes but if that's all that's keeping me from it... there are far worse things than difficulty. Like, oh, TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PAIN.

I must say this

In Wal-Mart tonight in front of me a little boy, I mean a really little boy, asked his father, "Daddy, does smoking feel good?"

"No," said his father, who had tattoos on every visible body part.

"Then why don't you stop doing it?" asked the little boy, who was apparently at the age of four already turning into his mother. (Either that, or he was really just being a little kid.)

I know what you want, part 2

I've been wearing my hair long now for years for one reason: the way it feels when I've been in and out of the water from sunup to sundown, wet and dry and wet and dry, without the time or inclination for a shower. It gets dreadlocked with salt, stringy and sticky, until I can't run my fingers through it at all, I can only whip my head back to get it all out of my face. It's breathtakingly gross and breathtakingly freeing at the same time. My body's so far gone it isn't worth even a thought about getting clean, let alone an effort. Salt is crumbly on my arms and thighs. My fingers are pale and wrinkled and everything has a faint blue haze from the sun pill I took this morning. The Pacific Ocean goes on right to the sky where little clouds dribble like white droppings on the horizon, unimportant and very far away. You know, even my eyebrows have salt in them.

I love the Earth. It's been said to me that you can't truly appreciate Earth unless you've spent time in space, but I've known for a long time that I can't go into space, that this is all there is for me, and it only makes things all the more precious. This is all there is. And it's heaven.

For instance, there's nothing like the beach. And even if you've been to the beach--even if you came down from Quasaw or rode the rail from Missouri and spent an afternoon sunning and swimming, you wouldn't know what we know.

It's Rafe's second day on Earth and I was right. He likes the surfing all right but he loves the surfers. Because my friends are the opposite of spacefolk. They're laid-back friendly San Francisco Earthsters with all their rough edges smoothed over by drugs and sun. They like everybody. They're a lot like me.

"So you play that thing?" Marcus is asking him, pointing at the guitar.

Rafe shrugs. "I play it every day. I've played it every day of my life since I was 12." He picks it up and sits it on his thigh like I used to do with my niece when she was a little sack of potatoes.

"Do you sing?" asks Tony, crowding in in his eagerness.

Rafe grins, that smile, that smile, that makes me so grateful he's here. Because it's not a stunning smile. Or a beaming smile, or a polite or a self-conscious one. It is a simple smile, so shy and honest I think I could go without talking for the rest of the year. In fact it doesn't bear describing at all, so I take it all back.

"Uh, I try not to," he says.

I am sitting on my favorite piece of driftwood watching him like a hawk. The orange sun is behind him and there's a skin of orange light wrapping around his features, sifting through his hair. Hair that's too short for him to feel what I feel now, tickling my shoulders and back. He has a light, deft jaw, I'm noticing, his mouth moves so easily--despite his persistent silence--like English is weightless, like he lives in some alternate universe from mine where impulse is hefty but expression light, instead of the other way around. I want to know what he wants.

I do know what he wants. He wants to sing. For these new friends, people whose attention he craves, blond dudes like the characters in the movies, who've been showering him with warmth and questions since the moment I brought him to this beach when the sun was still in the east.

"Come on," I say. "Do you write songs?"

He nods, his Adam's apple bobbing in a swallow. The faintest likeness of his smile, the understudy of his smile, just a little movement of the lips, flickers on his face. Yes. You want this, I think, and it's intoxicating to me. I see it! that hint of your spaceboy soul, and it's better than drugs. You've come thousands of miles, leaving behind intellectual friends who match your smarts but not your sincerity, to be here on this one beach where you can share this one song with the one group of people who'll take it just like it is.

Or something.

"Yeah?" I ask. I make myself pause. It's hard, but I'm not totally lacking in self-discipline. "You know, this beach, I mean, it's beautiful and all, and it's easy to come here and use it and go back to town, but it's harder to try to give something back."

Now Kit and Marcus are looking at me too. I better think up something good.

"It's not... I mean it's not... I mean it is for the beach, for Mother Nature, but it's more for us, actually. Like the Indians, to try to give something to the spirit of the place, to show we can be humble. To leave something of ours behind."

Rafe, bless him, actually glances up the beach to his bag for a second, but then he looks back at his guitar. He's not even thinking to question this spiritual mumbo jumbo, the rascal. He plain wants to sing for us. I am suddenly so absurdly touched.

"I wrote this song about this one night a couple years ago on the station," he says easily. The first chord is perfect, each string ringing out, in tune and everything. I would know; my brother played guitar for years. Badly. The guys lean forward in the sand, so pleased, I know, to have something new tonight, something other than Tony telling us what he did with his girlfriend. I look away before he begins, because the evening is coming on, and the air is just right, exactly 75 degrees, with a breathlike breeze, and the sun is that soft color that makes it impossible to take bad pictures, or memories. The ocean is a dark blue with waves standing out jagged in the exaggerated relief of sunset. My muscles are warm and ache and I can feel the warmth of the sand on the tops of my burrowing feet and even on the pale skin between my toes.

And Rafe opens his mouth and sings low and perfectly on key, and I don't hear a word of it. It gets to verse three or something and I'm kicking myself because I'm noticing for the fifth time in the past forty-five seconds that I'm not paying attention to his song. I'm paying attention to him. The angle his back takes as he leans over the instrument. The years of practice I see in how his fingers move. The preciseness with which he's trimmed his nails. The freckles on his shamelessly pale arms. The lack of tattoos. The ring I didn't notice until now, a silver ring. His lips... how the curve of his upper lip leaves his white teeth exposed when he opens his mouth to take a breath. How long his eyelashes are. The pointiness of his active, human, insignificant elbows. His elbows!

Pay attention, man!

It's only one night
Tomorrow comes quickly
For sleepers and lovers
And slowly for me
It's only one night
But it's only three-thirty
And I had this same thought
At a quarter to three
It's only one night
And I know tomorrow
Will find me as foolish
As the guilty can be
And it's only one night
And it's only one night
And it hurts and it's still only three-thirty-three.

Well damn it, he's good... And I'm a fool for not being able to listen to the whole song. I don't know what's wrong with me, sometimes. But I let this slip away and there's no way to get it back and I'm chagrined. I clap with the others and gaze at his smile. Somewhere in my self-castigation I know he's the one who's important, that it's what he's feeling that matters. He's happy. That's all.

And the guys are definitely happy. They whoop it up. "Dude, you're good!" says Marcus in awe. "You're good," echoes Kit. He's such a gusher. "You could be, like, on RayRay. You're better than half the singers on RayRay. You should apply."

Rafe is shaking his head, still smiling. The guys can't stop talking. They're all over him with praise. Okay, I am too. "You have perfect pitch, man," I say. "And you know emotion. You're a songwriter. I don't know what you get paid to do back on station, but you're a songwriter."

The sun's going down... we have a delicious evening of food and alcohol and the town and partying ahead of us... tomorrow it's the jungle, and it's just you and me. Your last day. Then you get on a ship and streak away to Tokyo. Tokyo! As if anyone cared about Tokyo...

"So what are you going to leave?" Rafe the songwriter is asking me, and Kit laughs, and I'm so surprised I think it shows on my face. Shit.

"Yeah, Nate, what's your offering to the beach? I gave it my blood, obviously." Kit is talking about his wipeout earlier.

I'm scrambling. What do I know about sacrifice? Being a surfer and a junkie and a tour guide is about take, take, take! Take the sun, take the evening, take the dope, take the money, take the delight, I take it all. Silly. I can't do this. I can't think of anything.

"Dude, all he's got is his shorts," says Tony, guffawing.

"Nooooo!" says Marcus.

Imbeciles. I'm an imbecile too. "I'm leaving something... intangible," I say, not knowing what. Rafe nods at me so I think it's all right. I think I can leave it at that and not be taken for a liar or a cheat. I just don't know how to play this game, all of a sudden.

I don't even know what I'm leaving when we actually leave an hour after the sun goes down. It doesn't matter, I don't think. Tomorrow I'll be doing what I do best.

I know what you want, part 1

Another ship comes in, its lovely silver hull wavering through the heat. It's like a piece of jewelry. The heat that touches me here on the hill is only the heat of the sun, but it's hot, and I fancy I can feel the heat of the dock, that furnace of light and ozone. It's a beautiful day in San Francisco and I can almost taste the money I'm about to make.

It takes me only fifteen minutes to walk down the hill to the shore. My shadow is huddled under my bare feet. Even through my shades, the light gleaming off the newest ship leaves blue streaks on my vision. Now I feel the heat of the engines. It's hard to even draw in a breath.

I come up to the gate and lean on the railing and watch. There are a lot of tourists... I want somebody my own age for once, a young one. A young, happy one. My eyes follow the stream of men and women clanking down the ramp. They wear such dark clothing in space. They're so serious.

I see a couple--older, by the way they carry themselves--so unconcerned--already pulling out money and heading for a tram. They're wearing head-to-toe black, they both have short hair, they have gold-plated shades. I like that couple. All business. They know where they want to go. But I want... there's a group of young guys, so full of energy, dragging a girl after them, laughing. They're loud, and I don't understand what they're saying. I love their accents but I hear so many dialects here and even I don't understand them all. It could be fun. To rope them over, grab one of their bags, try to convince them by gestures to follow me. But I'm tired after last week and I just want an easy, sweet young tourist, wide-eyed and deep-pocketed.

They come here to have fun. And you can have fun in space, but it's amazing how heavy everything can be in a place known for its lack of gravity. All the good drinks are so expensive. Hell, the ships are expensive. One rowdy night and you're paying for a new titanium fixture for the rest of your life. And watch out who you hook up with because in space, word gets around. Personally, I think it's the vacuum. When you're separated from deadly emptiness by only a foot of cold titanium, your whole life, it's bound to make you serious.

It's funny how folks from out there think of Earth as dangerous. Because it's got animals, because it's got weather, because it's not clean. But I'm here to play into that. I'm here to be your tour guide.

I see several unaccompanied guys on the dock now, gathering their bags and looking around. Blonds, brunettes, redheads. There's one with a guitar on his back... yes, I could take that one. It's so easy. It's easy because I know what they want. Nobody comes to Earth who doesn't want it--at least, not to this station. They've come to get in touch with something, something they've read about, seen on a screen... they want something authentic... most of all, they want to let go of being their serious selves and be Earthlings for a little bit. Just for a vacation, understand. Just temporarily. They want a good excuse to be wild. It tempts them and it scares them at the same time.

But I'm here. So reassuring. And it's so easy. Because I know what they want better than they know it, and that little edge gives me all the confidence in the world. I don't even have to move yet. I did my work ahead of time, mostly the outfit. I look exactly like what they expect: nothing but a pair of shorts, a bandana and a deep tan. And I've gone half-blond from the sun and sometimes I let myself get a little stubbly, but I don't pump iron. Too fake. So I'm a little soft. But it's amazing how the scruffy Earth-boy thing works: someone always ends up making a beeline for me. Stereotypes are so reassuring!

But I want that one--he's walking now, toward the gate, and I push my shades onto my head and just watch him. Without blinking. He's so tall and lean, and straight, I feel like I could plant him here and he'd grow into a poplar in a few years. His black clothing makes him look even leaner. Is he a singer? Maybe he writes poetry too... those dark eyebrows. So serious. And here he comes, drifting with the other passengers through the gate.

"Tour guide!" I yawn at a passing cloud. A clump of dark tourists clank through the gate without making eye contact. "Native Earthling... I know all the places you won't find in the books... reasonable fees..." And as he passes, I grab his elbow and pull him out of the stream with a big grin. "What's your name?"

He stares at me for a moment, looking a little scared. His eyes are, what do they call it, hazel. When they don't fit the label of any other color. "Rafe Savitz," he says.

Rafe. Raphael? His voice is too deep for his skinny body, and he has a little accent... of Gamma Station, perhaps... it's so hard to tell. I wonder how old he is. "I like you," I say, keeping the big grin on my face. "You look like you'd know how to appreciate Earth. Not like most of these folks... they come for a week, they eat and drink a lot, they never see half of what they came to see."

He blinks.

"Look, smile! You're on Earth!" I poke my knuckles in his side and he grins spontaneously, and I think I'm just about going to die. If he's sweet, this could be good. "Look around! Sun's out, birds are singing, we've got a whole city and a beach and a jungle to explore... how long are you here for?"

Rafe adjusts the strap of the guitar on his shoulder. "Just for three days. Then I'm going to Tokyo."

All right. "All right. Listen--" I lean in, looking right in his eyes. "For ten thousand a day, I can show you Earth--the real Earth--I mean, things your friends back home have never seen. Or done. No resorts. No tourist traps. Just real city, real wilderness, real people. All right?"

The guy is beaming. There's a light in his eyes that makes me feel warm just looking at him. He glances around now, looking for copies of me, trying to decide if I'm for real. And there are other tour guides here, Steph and Visor and Jim, working the tourists, and they're all good. I mean they're good at making a dollar and they're good at showing a tourist a good time. But I have this big grin on my face saying "Let's get out of here, just you and me" and somehow Rafe knows I'm not just in it for the money. And I'm not just in it for the work. I want him.

I want that light in his eyes. I want to see his wonder. I want him to have a very, very good time on Earth. Look at him! And there's nothing I love more than making a customer happy... he's so genuine... right from space, with his long fingers, his serious face and sudden smile... I love people but I love this guy. And I've got him.

"Yeah," he says, shrugging the guitar up on his shoulder again. "Okay. Let me get my money."

Mosquitoes

Fear of not being good enough
Fear of car breaking down
Fear of losing the apartment
Fear of not making enough money
Fear of having to find another job
Fear of not liking a job
Fear of being trapped
Fear of not knowing what to do
Fear of not breathing right
Fear of fear getting worse
Fear of derision
Fear of not being able to face the fear
Fear of being asked to do the impossible
Fear of missing the boat
Fear of missing a deadly physical ailment
Fear of not doing things right
Fear of not knowing what's expected
Fear of strange things
Fear of having a spider crawling over bare feet
Fear of not knowing what's wrong
Fear of being broken
Fear of doing irreparable harm to a body part
Fear of being paralyzed
Fear of not being able to enjoy anything
Fear of not being able to enjoy something
Fear of not being able to enjoy going out
Fear of being crazy
Fear of going crazy
Fear of doing something wrong that will lead to going crazy
Fear of not knowing the right thing to do to keep from going crazy
Fear of others' impatience
Fear of losing friends
Fear of strangers
Fear of not knowing what to say to strangers
Fear of the telephone
Fear of not being able to see what's in the water
Fear of having something brush against a leg
Fear of dying
Fear of dying in fear
Fear of this continuing forever
Fear of rapists
Fear of bears
Fear of being alone in the woods
Fear of wetting pants
Fear of being bullied
Fear of alligators under the bed
Fear of other people not helping
Fear of letting people get the better of you
Fear of letting dogs get the better of you
Fear of being no good
Fear of being too arrogant
Fear of
Fear of not feeling enough fear to be able to practice feeling fear
AHA!
**swat!**

Hell is not partial

Becky couldn't catch her breath. The air was so muggy. Her skin felt sticky. It was dark and hot and close under the trees, and the roots perplexed her feet. It was the jungle. She was on a path in the dark, or in just enough light to see the path... the moon was up there, somewhere, tonight... and she wasn't lost. She knew where she was. She just didn't know where she was going. The path was growing fainter and fainter, becoming just a harder patch among softer soils.

Then she saw something and then a split second later a wave of fear washed through her. Her tongue tasted electric. She was shaking. There was a snake... a large snake... on the path. She stood and saw it. It seemed like a dream snake, lying there across the path in the dark, and she didn't know what it was doing. That was the most dreamlike thing, the not knowing. It was an alien. It was unknown.

Becky stood for a minute and the dream feeling buzzed over her. She was scared because of the snake, but she was also scared because she suddenly didn't know who she was. In a jungle? Trying to escape? She was afraid it wasn't real, that she was going crazy. She was afraid it was real. Her heart was in her throat. Her breath was in her throat. Her tongue hurt and she was dizzy.

It was so dark. Things would look different in the light, but it might be 3 AM and it might as well never get light. It was the tropics... wasn't it? The sun might not come up until six... three more hours of walking... but there was this snake.

She felt she ought to go forth, let it bite her, strangle her, constrict her... she was already constricted... she couldn't breathe. She turned around and went back.

***

The next night, there was no more light, but she left again. After the sun went down and she tossed and turned in fear, she went out and slipped out to the path, and began to walk. Her thoughts were so loud in her ears she was afraid she was walking to her death--that she wouldn't hear the panther, or the boar, or a river before she tumbled down its banks into her drowning. It would be the river, her stomach told her. You will fall down a ravine into a river, it will be freezing cold, wet, it will fill your nose and stop your mouth and you'll be terrified for the eternity of drowning. You will be terrified.

It had been like this forever. Fear forever. She hated herself all the time for not being able to stop it and for not being able to go with it. She didn't dream anymore, but when she dreamed she dreamed once of wriggling, under a rock, wriggling like a spider and not going anywhere. Now she slept blackly and when she woke up she had a second or two of being Becky, and then she remembered she was in a nightmare and her chest felt tight as a fist again. It was like waking up and remembering your legs were gone, and would be gone every day for the rest of your life... it was like looking up from a book and remembering your lover has died and you're still grieving, and it all comes down like a ton of bricks.

So here she was in fear on the path. She was trying to get out. She felt she didn't have the strength, the smarts or the willpower to get out, but what else was there to do? It was not going to get better. She was a wreck. She shook all the time. She was covered in insect bites and she still couldn't stop swatting at the mosquitoes... her teeth throbbed from clenching her jaw and from not seeing a dentist in a year. She wasn't afraid for her teeth anymore. That was months ago. But she was afraid of--

The snake. Still there! The alienness of it gripped her. What was it doing? And in the split second between recognizing the snake and feeling the wash of fear, this time, she saw it, saw what lay across the path. It was a rope, a rope. Round and thick and careless, lying on the ground. Her nerves clashed with the afteraffect of terror, jangling like a tambourine. The night was a night of sirens. It was a rope. The snake was forgotten. There was no snake. She stepped over the rope and thumped down the path in the dark, swatting the mosquitos with shuddering hands.

Now she was on new ground. The moon was hidden, far away. The night grew full of sounds, droning sounds of insects and sharp unknown sounds, each of which pierced Becky through with a fear she couldn't defend against. It was like being six years old and sitting on the padded bed and having the doctor hit your knee with the little triangular hammer, and watching astounded as your leg leaped up. She heard the noises and she felt herself jolt with adrenaline and dismay after each one. She groaned aloud with exhaustion and hate. And she walked.

She had been nervous when she came to the Amazon. She had come to try to escape her nervousness. Worrying about her job, about the car, about her parents, worrying about making rent payments, worrying about her heart, about not being able to get into grad school, about being in grad school, about having enough time to volunteer, about not being nice enough, about not walking the dog enough, about her life slipping past and her not enjoying it. She needed help and she grabbed at this, at the opportunity to get away from it all.

She was thinking about these things when she realized she wasn't on the path.

She was so exhausted when the resultant wave of terror hit her that she barely noticed it. She looked up. She looked around. There was no light of dawn and she felt it must be about three or four o'clock. The moon was still up somewhere, but she couldn't see it, only the faintest glow on the ground, her night vision grainy and staticky like a very old TV. She could see things, rocks, if she moved around, if she didn't look directly at them. She turned and tried to go back in the direction she'd come. The soil was soft and spongy under her feet. She groaned again.

Then this is it, this is it, her mind taunted. This is how you die. Lost in the jungle. You'll wander lost for days, and die of starvation, terrified the whole time. This is your fate.

And it was a few minutes and she realized with some surprise that she was on the path again, and the packed sand of it made a little noise beneath her sneakers. She blundered back to camp, tired to the bone.

***

On the third night, she set out exhausted and walked for hours, the noises and the terrors becoming so familiar to her it was like wearing a costume for the sixth week of a play, a long-running play. It was very hot and uncomfortable and it was not her, but she was so used to it. She was terrified and used to it. She hated it and was used to it. Her insect bites were miserable, and the sensation was so familiar to her she felt she could write a full-length book on bites. On itchiness. On the raw pain of too much scratching, the bleeding, the shaking of a body flooded with histamine. On finding her own blood dried under her nails days later. On looking like hell.

She was beginning to get good at being terrified.

When she saw the rope she stepped over it without hesitating, then stopped. She turned around. She was curious. It was so strange to feel something beside fear and pain that for a moment she was awed. And still curious. She followed the rope, heart pounding, and followed it up to the thick tree beside the path... followed it up the thorny bark of the tree... up to where her eyes lost it in darkness. She gripped the rope in both hands, feeling its age and fibrous strength. She could smell it. It was a hemp rope. She set one sneaker then another against the thorns of the tree, and pulled with her shaking arms, lifting one sweating hand over another, pulling herself up the tree.

When she had climbed ten or fifteen feet, she felt a wooden platform above her, and was too tired to be surprised. She grasped breathlessly for something above it, something to hold onto, found a lean weathered board and put all her strength into hauling herself onto the platform. And all her strength was not enough, and she slipped back down, her hands still adequate, cramping, leaving her dangling from wood and rope while her whole body shook.

Without thinking she tried again, trying to try harder, put even more into it, clench her whole body... and she felt herself lifting up... and took her hand off the rope to reach up and grasp, found something unknown that held her, and beached herself on the small platform.

After a minute or two she tried to sit up. It was pitch black. She couldn't lean back against the tree for the thorns, and the platform was only a couple feet wide. She felt above her. There was more rope, and wooden slats of some kind. But she was gone, empty, and wanted to rest. She would rest until it got light.

She didn't notice when the sky began to lighten. She was thinking about the people back in camp, and then she noticed she could see again, just barely. There were slender trunks all around her, giant leaves in places, and behind her the thorns on the bark were taking shape. She could see her hands. She wondered if they looked like her hands, or some stranger's hands. Everything had been so strange. She didn't even know.

She had come to the Amazon to join Right Intentions, a group of mismatched seekers trying to live harmoniously and help the natives and... she wasn't sure. She had been desperate when she saw their web site, she remembered. She had had a feeling that she had to go, had to do something like this, live more simply, reach out and help others, or she'd always be stuck in the same miserable and self-absorbed place in her life. She felt compelled and she had signed on and taken her dog to her sister's and booked the flight on the dull energy of compulsion.

Nothing had been like she'd expected. The living conditions had been not just primitive, but truly shitty, poorly looked after, falling apart. Dirty. Unsanitary, yes. Jerry, the leader of the group, was charismatic in a slightly hypnotic way... at least, his absolute confidence was attractive... but he was more of a jerk than anything else. He always worked without a shirt on, he called Becky "honey" and whenever she worried aloud about malaria, he laughed. Not a laugh that made light of her fears, but a laugh that enjoyed them. He thought she was funny. And he smoked. And then there was Matt, who was in love with Becky and who she felt she had to sleep with... his dirty hair and freckled, almost translucent skin that made her think queasily of her dog's belly... God... what did she just think? Why did she think that? Why should she have to sleep with him?

As it got lighter she realized there was indeed a ladder above her, and some kind of structure far overhead in the canopy. The birds were very active, all kinds, so loud they almost hurt her ears. There was one that made a noise like the metallic squeak her oven made when she opened the door to put a pan of brownies in at home. In a moment she would stand and climb up to the platform, to see if she could see a river or a town or farms in the distance, carved out of the jungle, places where she could make a phone call or hire a boat... She didn't speak Spanish. She was too numb to be afraid of that. She had felt desperate to get out, and now that she was out she knew the desperation was unnecessary, but here she was.

The 10th of August in Scarborough

I've always known I'll die alone. That's why I'm so angry to find myself bleeding to death on the pavement surrounded by about two hundred people in various states of alarm.

The paramedic holding the bag over me is in a calm state of alarm. Her eyes are intense, light brown, and she's very serious. She's in her 20s and I wonder if I'd find her pretty if I wasn't bleeding to death.

Someone dragged over another person... I feel like there are people lying all around me, dying. It's eleven o'clock in the morning on a... on a Friday and it's August and I'm in Scarborough, outside the mall... I can hear myself narrating in my head. Why, Jesus Christ? I can't feel my limbs and I wonder how I'm still breathing, yet somehow the narrating never stops.

"Hold that," the paramedic says to another woman. I have to get out of here. I tried to say something when she first caught up with me and made me lie down, but she ignored me. Pretty soon I didn't feel like I could get up again anyway. But--

"I have to go," I say, feeling ashamed.

"Just hold on," the girl mumbles, ripping open a package of something white. I want to go. I can't be here. This is crazy. They can't be putting that on me. This is just getting worse. Everything is getting worse.

There was a noise, I heard the noise and I thought a tiny thought for a split second that the escalator was breaking down, and then I saw the ceiling start to collapse.

But it's August and it's a chilly day, like it's September already... I think it's just like fall... I think it's just like when the twin towers went down... which also strikes me as wrong, cheesy somehow, like it'd be in a bad poem. The leaves are green but the air is brisk, and it smells like exhaust. If I could get out of here I'd go for a run. I turn my head.

To my left across the concrete is an old guy, his work shirt sticking to his ribs with watery blood. His eyes are closed. He looks like he's sleeping. I'm telling myself how cliche that is when he opens his eyes, rolls his head over and looks right at me.

He doesn't say anything. Then he says, "You look like hell!"

This is crazy. Jesus, could that siren be any louder? It's not enough that I'm apparently bleeding all over the sidewalk, they want to burst my eardrums too. Even once it's turned off, I have no idea what to say to this old guy.

"You haven't got any right to talk!" I say. I can't take this. I stare at the guy for something to do. He has a thick face and a beard and looks like he'd be married to somebody frumpy. He looks like the minister of the church I went to with my grandmother as a kid. Or like the old guy who stocks shelves at the grocery store.

"I'm Roger," he says.

"I'm Neil," I say. "Can't shake." Eleven o'clock, Friday the 10th, Scarborough Mall collapses, my mind says. Paramedics rush to the scene. I look around again. The building over the hump of my white-swathed belly looks messed up, like a kid built it. I can see the big windows of Sears still standing up there, but over to the right it's crumpled, really carelessly. I feel angry again.

"This isn't supposed to be happening," I tell Roger. He's getting his clothing cut open with a pair of blunt scissors.

"Tell me about it," he says. "I'm supposed to be at the dentist's right now. I have a tooth that's killing me."

"I'm freaking pissed," I say, really angry. Really angry. "I am not dying today."

The paramedic says something, and I don't catch it but I think it's something stupid. I feel she's stupid, and I'm not sure why.

He has a tooth that's killing him?

I look at Roger again. This is ridiculous, this is insane. "How's your tooth feel now?" I ask. His face looks so pink against the concrete.

I'm ashamed to say it but I had a dream... it was just a dream, I remember. I was twelve years old. I dreamed I was dying, alone somewhere... the feeling of where wasn't very strong, but the feeling of being alone was very strong, and when I woke up I just knew I'd die alone. I knew it like you know you're hungry, or tired, or know you're going to be in trouble when you get home.

But it was a dream and I was 12 years old. Now I'm 27 and I'm dying surrounded by people.

"We need to get him in before he loses any more..." the girl is saying, and Roger is laughing, and I feel very light. It's the 10th of August in Scarborough and I am not dying alone.

Radiation and you

I've always been fascinated by radiation, and I just read this article in an old Smithsonian, which inspired the "only job" story. The particularly inspiring bit can be found at the bottom of the linked-to page.

It was the only job, part 2

The boy's arms were swinging like young trees in a hurricane as he busted through the swamp. Peter felt slow running after him in his two-pound work boots, but at least it hadn't rained lately and the mud beneath him only gave a little as he ran. Peter hadn't even begun to breathe hard and the hungry boy had inexplicable stamina as they were soon out the other side of the swamp and onto a dirt road. So now it would be a true sprint.

Peter felt he was gaining on the boy, who ran wildly, his head back and his bare feet slapping the dust full-on. The blue-gloved hands flailed through the air on limp wrists. The boy hadn't looked back once. Peter began to sweat with exertion as well as heat as they pounded down the road, one minute then two then three and he still felt like he was gaining, but he obviously wasn't going to catch the boy before they came to the village.

It was in the village that the boy's stamina began to give out on him. Peter's boots left skids in the dust as he darted around the corner of a corrugated metal shack to follow the boy, who was only slowing down in his attempts to shake Peter. An alarmed brown chicken, fleeing Peter's feet, ran into the side of the shack with a scrape of beak on metal, and fluttered off in the other direction. Finally at the yard of another rusting shack, its guano-spattered satellite dish jutting almost at eye level, the boy stumbled and Peter reached out a hand to grab him, tumbling on top of him instead.

The boy was weak as Peter's little sister and Peter wrenched the canister right out of his hands. "Get off, get off," coughed the boy, his human voice surprising after his animal bearing and behavior. His hands flapped painfully at Peter's face, and Peter grabbed one by the wrist and realized the boy didn't have gloves at all. His hands were coated with glittery dust, the same that now sifted from the canister as Peter tried to set it down outside of reach.

The boy was clearly frightened but his behavior was so irritating that Peter felt only anger. "I'll hit you!" said Peter, wrestling down the thrashing bony knees and trying to grab for the boy's other wrist. "You're going to jail, you thief."

"I didn't steal... it was just junk, let me have my medicine," he mumbled, the dust clear and glittering around his dry lips. Then, "I'm dying."

Peter didn't have to think of a reply to this assertion because now there were people in the yard. Peter held tight on the boy's wrists and shifted his glance to the canister with only his eyes. A pregnant woman in a red dress with high padded shoulders bent down to pick up the canister and he couldn't do anything. She was like his mother.

"You boys are too old to be fighting over silly things. And in my yard." The woman had clenched teeth clothed in a terrible frown. She tipped the canister to shake out some dust onto her palm. Clearly possessing no idea of what the substance was, and just as clearly not caring, she passed it to the deferent man who had come up behind her. The man took one look inside and made an "O" with his mouth, and pulled his shirtless friend close so they could both peer inside.

"Now stand up, both of you," said the mother.

Peter didn't want to let go but he had to. When he was standing, the other boy dealt him an absurd and painless kick on his calf, rolled a bit on the dirt to demonstrate how abused he was, and eventually crawled to his feet. The sun was right in Peter's eyes and he rubbed his glittering, dusty hands on his uniform pants before speaking.

"Ma'am, I'm from the--" He stopped, squinting. Things were giddily out of his control, he sensed. He tried to stand up taller. "I work for the United Nations. The boss will be here soon."

The hard woman gave him an angry stare, but his uniform was still new enough to be recognizable as such and vaguely convincing. "What d'you do for the United Nations, boy?"

Peter glanced dismayed at the crowd that was making a circle around him, at the other boy, who was sullenly sucking his fingers again. He took a deep breath. "I reconnoiter and retrieve abandoned radiation threats, ma'am."

"Well, that don't give you a right to go fighting in my back yard," she huffed, unmoved as a great cow. She was just as stern as his mother but not as smart. Nowhere near.

"Ma'am..." he began in a pained tone. He was beginning to feel very uneasy and slightly shaky. Something, an insect or a bead of sweat or just nerves, was tickling across his stomach. He glanced at the clump of shirtless men who had possession of the canister and saw a scene from a dream. They had all smeared the glittering powder across their chests and faces and were admiring each other and drawing patterns and now a naked fat-legged little girl was waddling up to them and her uncle was scooping out more powder from the glowing blue hole to dab on her smooth black eyelids...

Peter was ashamed, so ashamed the month he was in the hospital. Every day he thought about the pain in his hands and his thighs and his lungs for hours, but he thought about his shame more. He had seen the little girl once; she was blind and half her face was eaten away, but she was alive still. Five of the men had died and the skinny boy had died, just as he'd said. The mother he didn't know about, and the rest of the townspeople he didn't know about, for the fabulous canister of otherworldly glitter had been passed around town from curious hand to curious hand while he trotted whining like a dog after it, possessed by the greatest distress he had ever known and utterly unable to find the thing to say to get the canister back. His body that had seemed so strong when he raced down the other boy had seemed like a dream body, impotent and unable even to reach out a hand for the thing he wanted, let alone swing a fist. And so he had wasted through the miserable dream that afternoon until everyone began to burn hideously and were driven by wide-eyed neighbors to the hospital.

Over the month, at least eighty people were found who'd been contaminated by the cesium chloride, and there were probably more who just weren't smart enough to come to the hospital.

Peter's own mother had come to visit him, missing two days of work, and he was glad but he could hardly look in her eyes for the shame. She came and went and he went back to staring at the television and thinking he deserved the pain. His sixteenth birthday came and his mother couldn't get away but she sent him a present, a watch from China, and he wore it and liked to look at it but it didn't matter.

The only thing that mattered was when Charlie came and asked when he'd be ready to go back to work. "We all discussed it," said Charlie, "and I told Grandpa you deserved a little retirement with your payments, and take it easy the rest of your life, but he said no." Charlie took his cap off and rubbed his old stubbly head. "Grandpa said this is the work for you, especially since... begging your pardon... there won't be no little ones in your future now, you know what I mean. He said we need a young strong boy like you we can actually use to bring the lead sheets up and get'm set. And I suppose we do. All I know is I'm not getting any younger and my back hurts terrible sometimes, and you know Grandpa and Lovejoy aren't getting any younger too."

The pain was forgotten. Peter sat up straight in his bed. "Thank you Charlie," he said. "I will start next week."

"I know," said Charlie, and next week Peter was there in a lead vest helping drag the big lead sheets up to be fitted around another radiation therapy machine they'd found in an abandoned hospital on the west side of town. When the machine was secure they'd put it on the cart and have it brought to the truck to be taken away by the other boys. One of the boys who helped load the trucks was about 16 and had been hired since Peter's hospital stay, and he looked up to Peter with a shy awe that Peter loved.

The scars on Peter's hands and thighs were thick and rippled, and Peter still hated the day he got them but he liked having them. He had taken the job two months ago because it was the only job he could get that paid enough for him to help his mother too, and now it was the only job Peter had ever worked at where he did the work of a young man but got the respect of an old man, and he loved it.

It was the only job, part 1

It was the only job Peter had ever worked at where the old men did the dangerous work, and the young men got to sit around and watch. Now it was a hot three o'clock in the Nigerian sun and he was exhausted with boredom. He rested his chin on top of the stone wall to relieve his aching neck, his eyes fixed on the action fifty feet away in the garbage-strewn swamp. The old men crept up to the largest pile of junk, their geiger counters held out in front of them like pistols, like the best defense was a good offense, except in this job there was only defense, and only for the young.

Peter was 15 and he wasn't married, and hadn't a thought of children, but he'd stopped trying to argue with the old men two weeks into the job. "You're young," said Charlie. "You'll want sons when you start getting older. Trust me." So he shut his mouth. Charlie was up there now, shuffling in a careful gait with his inadequate apron making his body shapeless. The old men looked like very evil hunters. They were very black in their age and dressed in dark uniforms and soundless and entirely intent on the rusting white assemblage in the middle of the junk heap, and it was spooky to see them converge on it.

It was most likely an old radiation therapy machine. Somebody had dumped it here outside Lagos in the 70s, probably, and nobody but the crew had any idea what it was--or so they hoped. At least, nobody but the boy they paid to find dumping grounds knew it had any significance at all, and certainly no one knew there was probably enough cesium inside to make fifty dirty bombs.

The old men had frozen. Charlie leaned back suddenly as if something had hit him in the chest. He glanced at Lovejoy, who glanced at Grandpa, who paused only a moment before spitting on the ground and calling, "What you doing in there? You come on out, now." His voice was high and confident like a flute. "Come on out, now."

And Peter waited but he couldn't see anything. He licked the sweat off his upper lip. Charlie and Lovejoy shared another glance, a long one. When Grandpa took a step forward, they did too. Peter felt a high, excited feeling under his ribs. He couldn't move. He saw the figure rise, and it was very thin. Grandpa opened his mouth again. "Now just come away from that. We trying to do some work here."

The figure looked at the old men. It was a bent, beaten youth who might have been about Peter's age, but who obviously hadn't had the luck to land a job and a home and steady bread. The youth's ribs showed and he had nothing on but some dirty shorts and a pair of bright blue gloves. He had a rusting canister clenched in one fist and the corners of his mouth also shone blue.

As Grandpa strode forward quickly on his old stick legs, the youth thrust a hand into his mouth. He pulled it out glistening, then ran.

"Stop!" shouted Grandpa, and Charlie and Lovejoy after him. Charlie broke into a careening run, his mouth hanging open to suck at the mosquitoed air. Lovejoy dipped his dark head down to peer into the junk pile then ripped out a curse. Grandpa half-turned and looked back at Peter so sharply that Peter's shins were bleeding from his crash over the stone wall before he even thought. He bounded downhill into the swamp and through the brush, overtaking Charlie in an instant, the creepers clutching at his wrinkled uniform. His eyes didn't adjust as he plunged in, but he still saw the flash of a bare smooth arm ahead of him as the other boy sprinted away. He heard Charlie yell after him but Charlie's words weren't anything to the look he'd seen in Grandpa's eyes. Peter was young and crazy with sitting around and he knew he could catch this boy.

The best thing that ever happened to shamelessness

It's not a sin to be rich. It's not a sin to have fun, my momma said. She would know. She was living it up until two days ago. Now I'm left here with four spaceships and nowhere to go.

Momma did know how to have a good time. So did her boyfriends. Daddy wasn't that type really, but even he could live it up once he had some liquor in him, provided the boyfriends weren't kissing on Momma too much. But that was before Daddy left for good, taking the bank with him.

It's lonely in space. It's especially lonely when you haven't been able to get a date since Saturday. The party ended on Saturday. Now I call the LaunchPad for more cuties and they all say, "Maybe next week." I know they're just itching to get out of here now that both the money and the power have gone. And I have these four spaceships and I can't even buy fuel for them.

Momma was a killer. Not literally, unless you count indirectly. But figuratively speaking, she was the bomb. She had nails out to here. She had a woman she brought in from China just to organize her four thousand dresses. She had the gravometer set at .5 Gs on the deck of this thing so that she could wear the eight-inch heels she bought off the Princess of Mars. She had class. And she had something nobody else in this corner of the Galaxy would ever have, which was a contract with XFashion Biogene.

She got it as a wedding present from Daddy. Daddy was smitten with her. Momma was smitten with his honor -- he was the only man who ever told her they should wait before doing the horizontal moonwalk -- and with his money. Mostly with his honor. Or his money. I don't know, they hadn't decided to make me yet. When they got married, twenty years ago, Daddy was the heir to the throne of Intervelop Industries and Momma was the queen of celebrity on thirty-five worlds. She'd been a nobody but a nobody with a mushroom cloud personality and teeth that were out of this world, and somehow she was exactly what they were looking for. I've seen broadcasts of her from that era. She was the best thing that ever happened to shamelessness.

Daddy walked her down the aisle in a five-piece suit. Momma wore white. She had to. It was in her BeautyFool contract. The first thing after the wedding, I guess, she had to leave for L.A. to star in one of her boyfriend's films -- Barry Huck, who was always in the top five or at least the top ten. After the ten or so I could count on seeing pretty much every month, I lost track.

But it wasn't the boyfriends or the fashion contracts or even the excess that did Momma in. It was the loneliness. Because it is lonely up here, you know.

"Angel," she used to tell me, "you're the only one I can talk to." And she would tell me everything, all night long -- but it was always night -- she would talk to me about the terrible things her agents signed her up for, and how Daddy was falling out of love with her, and how Frank and Tip used to fight so awful over who got to sleep with her that night. It was always like this. When I was five years old I used to tell her to not be sad, and it'd make her smile. Now I'd tell her she was incredible, she was gorgeous, she was still young, she had more style than anyone ever born, that she had more hair on her head than an eviorg -- and she wouldn't care.

I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand to see Momma cry. Not with all those cameras around all night long. Not with her eyelashes so perfect for once, with the new eyelights. So one night, with my heart wound up like a streed converter, I finally told her the truth.

"Momma, you'll be a hundred soon," I forced out. "I think you should let me take over, just for a while. Just like you and Daddy planned when you made me."

Well that was on Friday, and I haven't spoken with her since. Because after she heard that she turned away from me and clicked up the corridor in her stiletto slippers, and she wouldn't talk to me, not even when I said I took it back and that I never wanted to be a model, I just wanted her to be able to relax for once.

But I did want to be a model, kind of.

Because it's awfully quiet here since Momma opened the airlock, and I may have the Jetter and the Mach 90 and the twin Starliners, but all the staff has disappeared, and now I'm making myself sturkey sandwiches in the echoing galley, and drinking all the champagne... and I can't get a hold of Daddy, whose men say he needs to be alone right now, and I can't get a hold of Momma's agents, whose secretaries say it's for the best, and I can't get a hold of any of those fine things at the LaunchPad because they're spooked. And it's very empty here with Momma gone.

A view from the end

My mother always said despair was a sin. I won't give in to it. We're good people. We believe in tradition and love and justice. But the thing my mother always hated most wasn't cruelty, or greed, or anything like that. It was despair. She said the worst thing a person could do was to give up. That there were a lot of sins against man, but despair was a sin against God.

I know things seem pretty grim now. We've lost contact with the other towns, and Turk says there's no reason to believe they haven't been wiped out. I agree it's unlikely, but it seems they could just be unable to communicate. They could be hunkered down, like we are.

I always thought I'd be a good leader, but it's like I never had any time to prepare... Lupin was killed, and the old colonel, and people started asking me what to do, Mary and her sister and the old colonel's wife. Because I have such a strong voice. People thought I seemed like a leader. I always thought I'd be a pretty good leader. I just never had any practice... the old colonel used to say that to hesitate was the worst thing. So I told everyone we needed to get out and took them up on the mountain.

The air reeks even from here. The cloud of smoke hangs over the town in the February air, just staying in one place, but I can smell it from here. I thought I was going to cry this morning. Everyone else is crying, just about. Mary's little sister is worried about her house and her cat. I'm too busy worrying about my life for that nonsense. I wish everyone would shape up. Maybe I'm a little inexperienced, but they're not making it any easier. I wish people would just use their heads. Nobody cares about your cat when the entire world is being destroyed.

My mother was the strongest woman. When I was young and the invasion was new, she still used to smile a lot, I remember. She made me laugh. She used to say if she ever met one of them she'd give them a piece of her mind. She was angry a lot, but I loved it. She had so much energy for that. When she went on a rant, talking so fast I could hardly follow her, I loved her. I didn't really think she could save the world, but if anyone could, sure it would have been her. She was righteous.

I'm looking at the smoke again when Turk runs up, panting like an idiot. "They're coming," he says. "They're coming up from the town." So I stand up and start yelling. I have everybody get up off the warm rock and go into the forest. I figure we'll go over the pass into the next valley.

I hate these people. A couple middle-aged women are crying and they're slow to get up. God, I'm yelling right in their face. I love my voice though. I wonder if the invaders can hear it, wherever they are.

Finally I just run, right into the trees, getting whacked in the face by branches, and other people start to follow. I'll kill myself running up the side of the mountain. But I'm in better shape than most of these people and I've got to lead. Maybe if they see me doing it they'll do it too.

I feel the lurch in my stomach before I hear the explosion. Chunks of rock and wood the size of cars fly past me in an instant, rocketing against the mountainside and rebounding into snapping tree trunks. I didn't hear anybody cry out. Hopefully whoever got hit didn't feel much. The black smoke blows over me in another minute, and I start coughing as I run.

I really didn't think any of this would happen. I feel like my life went wrong about five years ago. I was supposed to go to college, learn sports medicine. Even while I'm running I have this damn nagging feeling in the back of my mind, like I have to go back, like there's something I forgot to do. It was one thing when the invaders first arrived. I was only a kid. For all a four-year-old knows, stuff like that is normal. And it was normal. It sucked but it was normal. In a little town like Millhoe, it was normal. We saw the deaths on TV and we couldn't travel much but we pretty much went about our lives. I was going to be a physical therapist or something. Turns out the libertarians were right. We were never going to be allowed to live.

It's just... I can't give up. It would be a crime. Anyway my mother would hate me for it if she were still alive. Her hate was a wonderful thing to behold. My stomach drops again and then the mountain disappears in front of me, and I swear I see grey sky and birds for a second but it's just my imagination, I'm seeing powdery dirt and dust, and then I know something's hit me when the trees seem upside-down. It's strange-- I don't know what-- those bastards! I think, I won't give up because to despair is a sin and it might not matter anymore but God my mother raised me better than that.