Fireworks in the Rain: A Tor.Com Original Read online

  I selected the switches I’d actually use, and considered how I was going to set them up. Finding him in the park I could do—any preparation to the park itself that would require exact knowledge of where he’d be was out of the question.

  By the time I’d completed the plan, I was mentally exhausted, though physically still fine. I opened my eyes, letting the Garden dissolve. I thought about a nap, but then realized that most stores would be closed tomorrow, so any errands would need to be run today. While my resolve was still firm, I put on my cap and walked out of the house.

  It was about a hundred and five degrees outside, but it was a dry heat, so it felt like a hundred and four. In spite of the reflector, the inside of my Prius was not pleasant. I turned on the a/c and went back inside while it did its job. I drank some water, because that’s what you do when you’re about to set off into an environment in which man was not intended to survive. Funny, I remember adobe houses, and times when finding shade, or a sudden cool breeze, or a cloud felt like salvation. But now I’m used to air conditioning, and I don’t really remember how I managed to live through the 2000 years—not to mention the previous 38,000 my Primary has been around—before it was invented. Anyway, this is better. While the car cooled, I phoned some liquor stores, and managed to find one not too far away that had what I needed.

  By then I figured the car was cool enough. I got in and headed out. An In and Out Burger off the 15 tempted me briefly, but I had leftover Chinese waiting for me, so I was virtuous. It was a short trip, and I came back thirty-five dollars poorer, but with a bottle of Ron Diplomático Reserva Exclusiva. I opened it and poured some into a hip flask. By that time, it was already getting dark, which meant the Pirates game was over. I heated up the rest of the Mongolian beef and watched the game, fast-forwarding through the commercials. It was exactly my kind of game—a nail-biter, finally won by McCutchen’s walk-off home run. Gotta love a good ball game. Somewhere, deep, deep inside of me, I’m sure a guy named Chuck Purcell was pleased.

  Okay, enough fucking around, Phil. You have meddlework to do tomorrow; let’s get ready.

  I opened up my oversized hall cupboard and checked through it. I keep a lot of things there: various oils, scents, and the raw materials for more. I had fresh-cut grass, but I didn’t have any fresh-cut hay. I made a mental note to acquire some; that’s a pretty common switch. I dug around some more. Finding things in the Garden is easier. Eventually, I came up with some sweet william, and spent a couple of hours making perfume (not that hard, it just takes distilled water, a scent, and a lot of care), then diluting it. Usually, with switches, less is more. On a hunch, I also put together the smell of an old diesel engine: a combination of diesel and burning motor oil.

  I cut a couple of 1-inch squares out of a sponge, and poured tiny amounts of scent into each. A casual hand into a pocket, a squeeze, and they’d be on my hand.

  So much for the smells.

  Not much I could do with visuals out in a park.

  I reviewed the sound options, sighed, and downloaded what I needed onto my iPhone.

  I called it done. I stretched, loosening up my back, hips and shoulders. I made sure everything was in a nice pile on top of my cap so I wouldn’t forget anything. Then I checked the TV listings and grumbled. Last year over the Fourth of July weekend there’d been a “Shadow Unit” marathon, but I’d had no time to watch it. This year I had time, but I could only choose among “NCIS” or “Dallas” or a sci-fi show that I’d already seen a dozen times. I’d have liked to curl up next to Ren and watch something mindless, but it wasn’t any fun by myself. I went to bed.

  The Fourth of July in Las Vegas was only in the mid-80s when I got up, and my swamp cooler was handling it like a champ. Shower, shave, coffee, check the boards, set up to record the game. I had time to head to The Palms and play some poker, but decided not to—I wanted my mind sharp for the meddlework. I had fried rice for breakfast and went over the approach I’d take, the switches, the delivery. I put on my pants with the big, loose pockets, so I could drive and walk without accidentally squeezing the sponges. It made me look a bit like a dork, but only a bit.

  By mid-afternoon, it had clouded over, and it looked like we might get rain. I hoped that didn’t mean Pete was going to cancel. I went into the bathroom and put on a bit of make-up so I could pass for ten years younger, then went to the entryway where there is a small table opposite my painting of “Dog Painting Coolidges Playing Poker.” From the table I put the flask in one back pocket, the iPhone in another, the sponge with the sweet william in my left-hand pocket, the other perfume in my right. There I was, ready to meddle. The air around me smelled cleaner, the outlines of objects a bit sharper. It’s funny how having all of my switches ready to use on the Focus is, itself, a switch for me. I was no longer nervous; I was ready.

  I put on my cap, picked up my keys, and headed out the door.

  I got onto the 15, taking it north to 95, which took me most of the way to Providence—a “gated community” that had generously opened itself up so us poor and disadvantaged types could enjoy fireworks at their park. I wondered if they’d spray it down once we left. The drive took about forty minutes, which still got me there early. I studied the clouds. Rain would dampen things. Even if the fireworks weren’t cancelled, there is an emotional difference between watching fireworks on a nice night, and getting wet while you watch. And if everything you’re doing is based on emotional subtleties, you can find yourself in trouble just from a bit of rain.

  I watched the sky.

  It wasn’t hard finding the park. From what I could tell, it was a nice park: they had a dog area that made me miss Susi, which made me miss Ren; they had a baseball diamond that was, at present, occupied with fireworks preparations; they had a lot of what I’m sure they called “natural terrain;” they had a picnic area; and they had a parking lot that was filling up fast. I was looking around for a good vantage point from which to see as much of the lot as possible, when a light green 2011 Acura pulled up. And there he was.

  How many of these had I done? Certainly it was in the tens of thousands. And still, my heart still gives a flutter when I first set eyes on the Focus. I was about to meddle with him, to change him, to alter him. If I messed up, not only would the project fail, but I’d leave him worse instead of better. If that sort of thing didn’t matter to me, I couldn’t have been the sort of person who’d have been recruited to do this work in the first place; I’d have been a shoemaker in Judea, lived a life, and died.

  In exchange for the possibilities of immortality, you get the possibility of fucking things up, and having to live with that the rest of your lives. Yeah, it’s a good trade; but never think we don’t care.

  He got out, stretched, and removed a lawn chair, a blanket, and a cooler from his trunk. He still looked in pretty good shape—tall and sort of lanky; a bit like me, now that I think of it. But my hair is longer.

  The lawn chair had a sort of ribbon on it, so he could haul it over his shoulder, put the blanket over the other shoulder, and use both hands for the cooler. That’s the sort of guy he was. He set off, and I followed him. He was wearing dark blue shorts, a sleeveless white T-shirt, and a hat that made me think of Colonel Blake on MASH. It was not, let us say, his usual outfit.

  There was a big field between the parking lot and the baseball diamond, and he found a spot in it as close to the diamond as they were letting people. I walked up to him as he was spreading out the blanket, put a somewhat puzzled, hesitant look on my face, and said, “Slippy?”

  His head whipped around—pleased, then confused. “I—”

  “Phil,” I said, smiling and extending my hand. “Kansas State. I’m a track fan. Saw all of your meets. We never met, but I’d recognize you anywhere.”

  He took my hand, smiling. His handshake was strong, and I liked it that he didn’t pretend to know me. “You live in Vegas?” he asked me.

  “I do. Near Arville and Trop. You?”

  “Right here in Prov
idence.”

  “Nice!” I said. “You must be doing well.”

  “I worked for Wachovia. Wells Fargo now.”

  “Ah. That’s gotta keep you busy.”

  “Reminds me of the Las Vegas cocktail waitress joke. You know it?”

  “Too many cocktail waitresses,” I said.

  He grinned, and I put my hand in my back pocket and turned on my iPhone. It was soft. So soft, you could hardly hear it: John Denver singing “Rocky Mountain High.” The hardest part of this job is when you have to deal with things like that. But one man’s slap is another man’s switch; what can you do?

  “Beer?” he said.

  “Love one.”

  He opened the cooler and got me out a Coors Light. I popped it, held it up like I was toasting him, and drank. The things I do for the world that the world will never know.

  The temperature had crept up a bit, but was still a quite tolerable 90 or so. Meanwhile, the place was filling up, and his friends might be along any minute.

  I got out my hip flask and held it out for him. “Like rum?” I said.

  “If it’s good,” he said, but accepted it. He tasted, and a delighted grin came over his face. I had some too, to be sociable. I’m not a rum guy, but it was better than the Coors. I handed it back to him, and, while he drank, I put my free hand in my pocket. I squeezed the sponge with the sweet william perfume, and casually wiped my hand on my shirt.

  I studied him, gauging where he was. There should be a good quantity of oxytocin running through his system by now, not to mention a bit of alcohol. Enough? Maybe. I turned so we were both facing where the fireworks would be, shoulder to shoulder. I matched the way his shoulders hunched and the way he stood, one leg forward a bit, knees almost locked—not enough for him to think I was mocking him, but enough to tell his subconscious that I was his kind of people.

  “Those were some days, weren’t they? You were a helluva runner, man.”

  He nodded and smiled.

  “Smart, too,” I added. “You knew how to plan a race. There’s more to a footrace than flat-out speed, and I like the way you approached it.”

  I hadn’t actually known any of that before grazing for his switches; but he was pleased. “You have to stick around and meet the boys,” he said.

  “Maybe,” I told him. “I’ve got a few people showing up.”

  He wasn’t married, and he wasn’t happy about that, so I was careful not to make one of my imaginary people an imaginary wife. He nodded and I handed him the flask again. That was enough. Alcohol and oxytocin can complement each other, but the effects can become unpredictable. And those of us who do this don’t like unpredictable.

  I said, “Who are the people you’re meeting?”

  “Some guys from work.”

  “Bankers,” I said. “Exciting crowd, eh?”

  He chuckled. “They can be more fun than you’d think.”

  “Yeah? What do you do there?”

  “Mortgages.”

  “Ah. Not a lot of those these days.”

  “Well, and foreclosures.”

  “Oh! That’d keep you busy.”

  It started raining a little. We both ignored it.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  “What’s it like?” I asked him.

  “Hmmm?”

  “What’s it like, working on foreclosures?”

  “Masses of paperwork. I mean, masses of paperwork. I don’t handle it directly, I supervise. But you wouldn’t believe the red tape, the legalities, the forms.”

  “Yeah. A guy I went to high school with just had his farm foreclosed on.” Okay, the time for subtly was over; make it or break it right now. “Do you ever think about it?”

  “About what?”

  I put my left hand into my pants pocket, squeezed the other sponge, put the diluted scent of an old diesel engine onto my hand, and wiped it on my shirt. I brought my right hand up and playfully pushed at his head. It’s a delicate thing, that push. Do it wrong, and all of a sudden your usual heterosexual male starts feeling vaguely threatened, or at least uncomfortable. Do it right, and it’s a sort of friendly teasing gesture that permits you to brush your finger past his temple.

  “About throwing people out of their houses.”

  He was quiet for a long time after that.

  It’s a strange thing. If you’re going to have a job like Pete’s, you must have defenses. Layers of them. First, you concentrate on the tasks, ignoring as much as you can the end result. But more, you have to have built up justifications and arguments enough to keep you going in to work every day—in fact to keep you not bothered by going in to work every day. By any reasonable measure, someone doing that can’t have a conscience about it.

  But somewhere, under the walls and layers and defenses, there’s the guy who went to college, who lettered in track, who wanted that girl to notice him. And still further under, there’s the boy who loved fresh corn-on-the-cob, who spent hours watching his grampa work on the tractor, who played with his cousins in spring woods full of sweet william.

  He’s in there somewhere. You just have to find him.

  The rain came down—light, but steady.

  He said, “But what could I do?”

  “You could walk the line,” I said. “Between delaying and sabotaging the foreclosures, and going so far you get fired. You’re in a position to do that. And not only that, but you’d enjoy the game.”

  He stared at me.

  I smiled. I was facing him now, and I reached out and, once more, lightly touched his temple with a finger. “You’ve been thinking about it anyway. You might not have been aware of it, but somewhere inside you’ve been thinking how much fun it would be to gum up the works, just a little.”

  Yeah, just a little.

  That’s where I left him. He was thinking about it, but I knew it had worked.

  Two weeks later, Ren was back.

  She was curled up in my arms, her hand on my chest, and I was enjoying her touch and the way the sweat was drying on me. Susi scratched at the door.

  “What the other Washington did was big,” I said. “But some people, like me and Peter, are just cut out for little things.”

  “Unlike Oskar,” she said.

  I nodded, and her head bounced a bit on my chest. “Oskar wants to see the whole banking structure come tumbling down and the wealth divided. But Pete and I don’t work on that scale.”

  “I don’t either,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “There are, like, nine homes on this block about to be foreclosed on. You gave some of them more time, and maybe now they won’t be. I think that’s a win.”

  “Yeah.” I pulled her closer. “I’m not saying it’s good. I’m saying it’s better than nothing.”

  “It’s better,” she agreed. “What did you do after you left him?”

  “About what you’d expect,” I said. “Found myself a decent beer, missed you a lot, and watched the fireworks in the rain.”

  Copyright (C) 2013 by Steven Brust

  Art copyright (C) 2013 by Wesley Allsbrook