Air Force One, Part Two (2) The little pile of books that Jack owns is worth more in trade, if you can find the right buyer, than his four guns. This room has got to have over a thousand volumes. Enough to buy two rigs. Maybe three. Eventually remembering the gravity of his mission, he pulls his attention away from the shelves and down to the woman standing at the big oaken table that dominates its center. He noticed that some of the shelves were half-empty, and now he sees why. On the table in front of her, there are piles of books that she’s in the process of gathering together. On the floor near the table several boxes are already filled. She looks at him with eyes bloodshot from tears, and Jack is instantly tongue-tied. Or rather, he wishes that he were tongue-tied. Unfortunately, at moments like this he typically does not lose the ability to speak. Instead of freezing in the headlights, he would be one of those deer who instinctively try to leap across the road. More often than not catching a truck in the middle of its grill. "Annie," he says catastrophically, "are you going somewhere?" She looks away, but not before a flicker of pain crosses her features. Jack, the oratorical genius, wonders whether it would be possible at this point to simply turn around and run back down the stairs. Perhaps he would be lucky enough to trip and break his neck. More likely, he would simply be paralyzed for life, losing all motor skills except the ability to put his foot in his mouth. Fortunately, however, after a few more seconds the mistress of the Wolverine collects herself enough to face him again. She wipes her face, not minding that her young visitor understands what's going on. There's nothing to hide anymore. "I'm sorry Jack," she says. Seeing how unprepared he is to speak to her, she adds "Did you want to see Mick?" "Uh, yeah," he says uncertainly, "Is, this um — a bad time? To uh — talk to him?" She reflects a moment, glancing out one tall window, then nods. "It's probably not the best time you could pick," she smiles. "I'm sorry. Is it anything that I can help you with?" She looks at him hopefully, gray-blue eyes smiling so soon after tears, gray-blond hair bright in the momentary sunlight of a mostly-cloudy day. All at once Jack understands that this is exactly what she has done all her life: she has helped people with stuff. Quietly helped one thing after another work right — first before, then during, and finally after the end of the world. "Well," he says slowly, "it's — kind of a business thing." "Oh, a business thing! Well then I think you’d better talk to me,” she laughs. Then, detecting his hesitation, immediately sobers. “Jack?” she asks, worried already, "is anything wrong?" "Oh no!" he replies quickly. "Nothing's wrong. I was just — thinking of selling something. I was just wondering if, ah, if the Wolverine might be interested — you know. In buying it." "Oh!" she says, smiling again. A familiar problem: men with money trouble. "Well, I hope you’re selling books. Mick hates empty shelf space!" A shadow of pain touches her again, realizing how carelessly she’s spoken, but she recovers almost before he notices and waits calmly for his answer. She gives the impression of operating on a time-scale slightly different from that of other people. As though she might hear his words coming slower and deeper than he intends, or see a dropped glass drifting, rather than plummeting, toward the floor. Through the experience of many years, she has learned patience. "I do have ah, a few of those ma'am," he answers awkwardly. "But I was kind of hoping to hold on to those. I was kind of thinking about selling my, um — rig." "Your rig?" The look of concern returns instantly. "But why, Jack? You’re young. You're still getting loads aren't you? What will you do?" What, indeed. The idea of having this talk with Mick was plenty bad enough. Doing it with Annie is — in a way, even worse. But here it is, and there's no running away from it now. Of course she wants to know what he's going to do without a rig. Who wouldn't want to know? Isn’t he a trucker? But her question brings him right up to the edge of the chasm. And you can't cross that chasm in two half-hearted jumps. "Ma'am," he begins, "I was — thinking about, you know. With the money I get from the rig, and everything. I was thinking about, seeing — . Whether I could, ah —" At some point after revving your engine long enough, after checking your oil pressure, temperature, which way the wind is blowing — at some point without exactly making any decision, you just realize all at once, oh God I'm really doing it. Your foot steps on the gas of its own volition, or moved by some force outside of your own will. You understand what's happening only when you realize that you’re feeling acceleration pushing you back in your seat. And then there's the edge. And then there's the leap into sudden, air-whistling-past-you silence. "I was thinking about going to school," he says. She is taken by surprise, but only for the briefest instant. Then her gaze holds him in its exact center of focus and he knows better than to make any attempt to escape. Her eyes are unlike her daughter's in every way except the clarity of their perception. "So," she says at last, "you want to go up to Interlochen?" "Yes ma'am," he answers, for once without hesitation. "More than anything." The first moment passes, and then the next. And another. Then the old woman smiles, and the chasm fades behind him: one in a long series of do-or-die ventures. Yeah, I have a near-death experience every day. Usually before lunch. It's no big deal. "You know," she says slowly, "you'd get a better price for your truck in the springtime." "Yeah, I know. But if I go now, and, you know— if they take me, I still have time to get into the winter term. They don't have anything going on in the spring and summer anymore because people pretty much have to farm so, uh — if I don't get in now, I'd ah— I'd have to wait till next autumn." And Melanie will be starting her third year. She smiles slyly, apparently quite capable of hearing thoughts as well as words. And, just as apparently, not minding. When he thinks of how this interview might have gone, had he found Mick — it occurs to him that maybe everything really does, as his aunt used to say, work out for the best. "But Jack," she asks him seriously, "do you know what it costs?" "Yes ma'am. I figure the price of the rig ought to get me through the first year and then I'll take a job. I know they need farmers up there if nothing else, and that is definitely something I know how to do." "And you're going to work your way through the last three years?" "Yes, ma'am. I figure I'll be able to pay for one year's schooling with every two years' working. I'll get through." "That's ten years, Jack." "Yeah," he nods. "I know. But I'm not in a hurry to get anywhere. Anywhere else, I mean." "Good," she smiles again. "That’s good." When she sees that he can't think of what to say next, she comes to the rescue again. "So," she asks, "what do you want to study?" "You know, I've thought about a lot of different things," he begins. And it's true, as far as it goes. But mostly he has thought about alternative courses of study from the point of view of defending the one he’s already chosen. "I mean, I know I'm not gonna get another chance to do this. It's got to be something that's going to matter. It's got to mean something, the way things are now. I would say it has to be practical, you know? But what is that now? With the way things have worked out. And everything’s still changing, right? Like, maybe driving’s good right now — but will it still be in ten years? And if not — what will be good? “So you know, I’m thinking I'll try different things, you know? Maybe just sit in on some courses if they'll let me. They will. And, I mean, maybe I'll find something else that'll really grab me. I'm open to that. Anyway, they won't even let you declare a major for the first two years. But, uh —" He has become animated, walking to the big table and absently fingering a little of the wealth of books stacked there. But he sees an expression on Anne’s face that he doesn’t understand, and that stops him. "Is that, uh — do you think I'm crazy? Do you think I'm too old to start?" "No!" she answers quickly. "Oh my God, too old?" She laughs. "No, no. Certainly not that." She smiles, deliberately reassuring him, realizing that her thoughts are showing — and they’re thoughts that he can’t understand. He reminds her so much of herself, and Mick. It’s hard to remember the gulf of age that separates them, magnified all the more by the catastrophic events that those years have seen. For this young man, school is a bright possibility: a glittering secret preserved miraculously in a distant, half-mythical land. It’s still within reach, barely, if you know exactly where to go, if you leave at just the right moment, and if you're ready to pay everything you have. For her, on the other hand, school is a memory of a different world. Faster-paced, more harried, actually less peaceful in many ways. But nonetheless a safer, kindlier world. A world that's gone. She can still visit her old grad-school if she wants; it's less than fifteen miles from the Wolverine, just a few miles east of Ann Arbor. It’s not a very good idea to visit the old urban areas, although Mick would send a couple of truckers with her if she really wanted to go, and she'd be safe enough. But there's no point to it. She did go there once, five or six years ago, to see the place. The buildings were still there, still easily identifiable: most of them were built with too much brick or stone to burn completely down. But now she knows that none of the buildings in the school that she remembers have roofs anymore, and only the crows live there now. She also knows that the self-pity she’s feeling is not really about burnt-out buildings, and she knows better than to indulge in it. Her role in life now, as things have worked out, is to midwife the world that this young man belongs to. The world that isn’t quite born yet, but that’s coming fast. Her part is to help insure that it isn't born dead. And doesn’t it make sense that she can feel this now more clearly than ever? Now that the last bit of the world that she once belonged to has finally died? It does. So, she smiles at the boy. "But I do think," she says, "that you're old enough to know better than to fib. You know perfectly well what you want to study. What is it? Don't be shy!" She notices that he recovers well after being taken aback for a moment.. "Yeah," he says, "I guess I do." He should have known that there was no sense even half-trying to conceal anything. Whatever her opinion will be of his plans, they won't get improved any by him being furtive. "I'm interested in people. I'm interested in what they do, how they make a living. How — all the little decisions that individuals make add up to the world that we’re living in. I guess," he laughs, "I'm just nosy about basically everything people do, and not only as individuals, but as groups, gangs, nations, whatever. How did all of the little things that people do everyday ever add up to —" he waves toward the windows, "this?” "Or did it?" he asks pointedly. "Is our history really the sum of all the daily actions of billions of people? Like the temperature of a gas is the sum of all its little molecules whanging around? Is that really the right way to think about it? "What if," he asks the window, "well what if is like gas? But what if it’s exactly like a gas? If you look at just a tiny bit of a gas, you can see its temperature and pressure — and that's about it. And you can understand temperature and pressure perfectly well as statistical properties of lots and lots of particles, so you figure great! That's all there is. "But scale up further," he looks at Anne. "Look at a lot more gas and you get a lot more behavior than just temperature and pressure. You get weather. You get phenomena that emerge out of the woodwork only when the system gets complicated enough. Phenomena you would never imagine if you always studied air one quart at a time. “So — what if there are emergent phenomena like that, in our history? "You know, when a system does get complex enough to have these 'emergent phenomena' you pretty much have to understand the system in terms of those phenomena. I mean, if you try to study neuronal behavior, like firing times and branching factors and stuff —if that neural network is sufficiently complex — and if you don't take into account the emergent properties of that network — you know, you’re gonna piss it off. You'll get your ass kicked across the room before you plant your first electrode. Because it’s not just five hundred neurons anymore. It’s a person. "Toynbee saw some of it. Strauss and Howe — " Jack stops and focuses worriedly on his hostess. "Am I babbling?” he asks. “I'm babbling. I guess I’m saying I basically want to study history. I mean, I don't know if anybody in this world needs a historian, but that's I want to be. Truck drivin' historian. Without the truck." He stops finally and waits, watching for any sign. Her expression, which had seemed supportive and interested while he was speaking, now just slightly darkens. "You have no business," she says quietly, "worrying about what this world wants from you. Your business is to know what you need to do, and what you are called to do. You have to know it, and then get out there and do it. No matter what." She transfixes him again and holds him calmly in her mild x-ray gaze. He can feel it, like soft ultraviolet from the ozone-depleted sky, shining effortlessly through his body. She examines his skeleton, his cranium, the soft tissues of the heart, and last, switching to a still more rarefied wavelength, all the hidden recesses of his soul. Finally satisfied, her attention returns to the desktop. She removes a piece of cream-colored paper, of a weight and texture that plainly proclaim the wealth and power of the lost world. She writes on it briefly — quick, fluid hand motions skipping across the page, and then hands it up to Jack. It is her instruction, addressed to the Registrar of the University of Michigan at Interlochen to admit him, free of tuition, for as long as he wishes to study. Dated, and signed. He looks down at her, eyes a little wide. She has just added six years to his life. "Oh, it's OK,” she says, calming him. “We can write a dozen of those if we want to. This is the first time anybody has wanted one." She stands slowly and blows out her breath, looking at the stacks of books on the strong table. "And keep your truck," she says. "I'm coming with you." ————————————————————————————— Dinner ————————————————————————————— Bob Hewitt had gotten in late the night before — actually, real early this morning, after having come all the way from Rock Island at the far edge of Illinois the day before. Maybe once upon a time, a very long time ago, a four hundred mile drive wouldn't have seemed like a very big deal for one day's drive. With the way the roads have gone since the Wars, though — even in the seven years since Bob first started driving for a living — and even on the biggest and best roads like I-80 and I-94 — four hundred miles in one day has gotten to be a very big deal indeed. He woke up, therefore, hoping for some kind of breakfast — and is less than amused to reach the dining room late in the morning only to find that none seems to be forthcoming. Unless you call a cup of strong coffee a breakfast. "Hey man, you know where Mick is?" he asks one older trucker who looks as though he's getting ready to clear out. "I gotta get me some breakfast here!" He tries to sound more lighthearted about it than he actually feels, but it isn't easy. It isn’t cheap to stay at the Wolverine, and hot meals are supposed to be part of the deal. "No." The man stands up, looking him over in a glance. "He was in the kitchen a while ago, but he's been in and out a lot. And good luck even if you do find him. I think he's kinda under the weather today."
Copyright © 2000 Michael Goulish |