Robert Tanenbaum - Absolute rage

There was a pool with a slide and a couple of diving boards there, and they all went swimming. Lucy discovered the delights of horsing around in the water with a young man, with its many opportunities for little touches on naked or nearly naked skin. Marlene was stretched on a lounger, supposedly reading, with her sunglasses on. Lucy could not therefore tell where her mother's eyes were and so felt them upon her constantly.

"Let's go somewhere else," she said into Dan's ear as they drifted together.

Hendricks came into the room with an expression on his face that Karp assumed was what passed for excited, which meant that Hendricks had for the moment stopped looking like Lincoln contemplating the slavery question.

"They been spotted," he declared.

"Where?"

"Someone called it in from a gas station on 712. That's north of Burnt Peak."

"All three of them?"

"They didn't say. But they were driving that monster truck Earl Cade's got, and there was someone sitting in the bed of it. So figure one in the shotgun and the driver. That's three, and it's likely it's them."

"What're we doing?"

"I've got cars moving to plug the main roads back up there and a couple cruising on 130 north of town. That's the best I can do. I'll move the car I've got at the Heeney place now that the boys're going to stay here, but we're still short. I'd hate to ask a single trooper to take on all three of them. Anyway, it looks like your plan worked all right." A twist of the mouth that might have been a smile appeared on the captain's face.

"Where are we going?" Lucy asked. They had slipped away in the Land Cruiser, Lucy with a pair of shorts over her Speedo suit, Dan in a T-shirt and his cutoffs. Dan was driving north out of town. He drove the clumsy vehicle accurately and at speed, without a belt. No one in this part of the state wore seat belts, and the highway code apparently demanded that the dotted centerline on the blacktop be aligned with the hood ornament, especially on hills. She admired this sort of driving, as she admired the golden curls flapping around his face. The mastiff was curled up asleep in the back.

"First Forge," he said. "It's a kind of park near Ponowon. There's a carousel and rides, and a lake, and a reproduction of a colonial ironworks. I thought you were the kind of girl who would enjoy seeing a guy in a wig bending red-hot bars."

"It's something I've always dreamed of. What I really hope, though, is that they'll have a dim room full of glass cases and wall boards with yellowing labels, and a lot of old, dusty machinery."

"Well, you're gonna get your wish, little lady. I don't think there's a better collection of hand-cut screws and carriage bolts anywhere in West Virginia."

"Be still my heart!"

"Yeah, but really it's nice, in a tacky way. Sincere. Dad used to take us there all the time, and that's where they always held the Labor Day picnic, the great event of Dad's… um… calendar… no, what's that church word?"

"Liturgical year."

"Right, that. My mom would always roll her eyes at me when he wasn't looking. Anytime she could, she'd grab us up and zoom into D.C. for a day of tromping through art museums, and we'd go to a concert in that room at the National Gallery with the fountain, and zoom home again to cook supper."

"Did you like it?"

"We liked the Natural History and the Air and Space all right, not the art so much. Lizzie liked the art." He was silent for a long interval. She watched his face. He is transparent as the air, she thought. You can see what his heart is feeling. Without thinking she moved closer to him and put her hand around his neck. He jumped and shuddered.

"Wow. Shit, I was about to bust out crying there for a minute. What a drag."

"It's not a drag," she said. "It's grief. You're supposed to feel that way."

"You're not going to tell me they're all having fun in heaven and I shouldn't worry?"

"Of course not! 'Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' Even Jesus wept."

That was interesting, she thought, he can pull down a screen over his face, but it takes an effort. He doesn't want to hear any of that stuff. She regretted her outburst.

More silence and then he switched the radio on, found a country station. "You don't mind? It's the onlyiest kand of music we get here in beeootiful southwestern West Virginia."

She smiled and shook her head. They drove, they listened. Dolly sang about the coat of many colors my mother made for me. He took her hand. This is not happening, she thought. I am not out on a date with a gorgeous boy who likes me. She rolled the words date and boy around in her mind like a baby playing with something shiny and new. To test whether it was really happening, she reviewed the modal suffixes of Korean in her head. I want to go: ka-go shipsumnida; I must go: kaya huminida; I ought to go: kaya haeya hadda…

"What are you thinking?"

She started and turned toward him. He was smiling. "You were someplace else. What were you thinking?"

She felt herself blushing. "I was reviewing the modal verb modifiers of Korean."

"Really. Are you having a test in Korean tomorrow?"

"No, it's a habit, like picking cuticles."

"Uh-huh. You realize you are an extremely peculiar person. I kind of resent that."

"You do?"

"Yes. I used to be the most peculiar person in Robbens County, and now you butt in. I'll have to think of something really weird."

And more of this kind of silly, delightful talk, until they pulled into the parking lot at First Forge. It was full of families and smelled of fried things and burnt sugars and the stink of burning coal from the actual forge. They watched a fat, red-faced man in a wig make a shovel blade. They walked giggling through the dim room and got glared at by the guardian. They ate fried chicken. Then they took a ride on the Tunnel of Love.

"Gosh, this is a first for me," said Lucy as their little craft, pink and spattered with hearts and crudely figured cupids, was yanked through the heart-shaped entryway.

"Oh, you're just saying that to make me feel good."

"No, really. I didn't think they had them anymore. I figured the sexual revolution had put them all out of business."

"They had a sexual revolution? No one told me."

"I bet you've been on Tunnels of Love with lots of girls."

"Oh, yeah, hundreds. Miles and miles in the dark with 'Moon River' playing on cracked speakers. There's no detail of tunnel of loving I haven't plumbed…"

After saying this, he kissed her neck, her ear, drawing her to him, mouth on her mouth. His hand slipped around her shoulder, wiggled under her arm, fingers slid under the stretchy fabric of her suit and settled on her nipple. Time became stretchy, too, as the love pod moved for hours up a minor tributary of the Orinoco.

Suddenly she pulled away. "Whoa! My gosh!"

"What?"

"Whew! Nothing, I was being overcome by lust."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I just didn't expect it, is all. My experience in these things is fairly limited. Approaching zero, as a matter of fact."

"Now must be the time, then."

"No, I don't think so. If we keep this up, I'll want to drag you into the bushes for purposes of fornication."

"That sounds like a good plan," he breathed into her ear. The hand snaked again.

"No, it's not," she whispered against his cheek. What an absolutely remarkable smell he had.

"And why?"

In a whisper, too: "Because it's a sin."

"You're joking."

"I am not."

He pulled an arm's distance away from her and looked at her. His eyes had adjusted to the dimness and he could make out her face, its expression woeful, vulnerable, mouth slightly open, the thin lips fatter than they had been with all the kissing, her eyes almost reflectant, like an animal's.