John Varley - Red Thunder

Jubal laughed. Kids love to sneak up and go “Boo!”, and so did Jubal.

“So where did it go?” I asked.

“Didn’t have nowhere to go to,” Jubal said, “since it not here in de firs’ place.”

“Run that one by me again, Jube,” Dak said.

“Wouldn’t it leave a… a skin or something?” I asked. “Like a popped balloon?”

“ ’Cep’ it ain’t no balloon!” Jubal crowed, enjoying himself.

“Well, it’s something , isn’t it?” Dak asked. Jubal folded his arms and smiled.

“Like I say, never was cain’t go no place.”

[83] “Yeah, that’s where it… where it isn’t. But what isn’t it?”

“Dat depend on what yo definition a isn’t is, cher .”

We finally got him to say the silver bubble was a field of some sort. Nothing could get into it.

“So, ma fren’s, you buy one dese, somebody give you da chance?”

Dak and I looked at each other.

“What, one of the gizmos there, or one of the bubbles?”

Jubal pointed to the Squeezer, still grinning broadly.

“I sure would,” I said. “If I could afford it.”

“I don’ t’ink it cos’ too much, no.”

“Whatever you say, Jube,” Dak said. “If you can build a man-sized robot cheap, why can’t you build a… dammit, Jubal, just what is it? What is it doing?”

But Jubal folded his arms and turned away from us.

“You bes’ be goin’ now, ma fren’s.”

It took me a moment to realize he was kicking us out. Dak had warned me, but it left me off balance. A thing like that ought to come after some argument, or name calling, or something. Dak and I were completely mystified.

“Jubal? Are you okay? Because I didn’t-”

“Y’all jus’ go ’way now, hear? I can’t talk to y’all now.”

“But Jubal…”

“Come back later. A few days, mebbe.”

I took Dak’s elbow and started pulling him away. He didn’t resist, but kept looking over his shoulder all the way to the door.

“Was it something I said?”

“I think so,” I told him. “Travis said something about cursing around Jubal.”

“Sure, and I cleaned my act up. When he’s around I haven’t been saying… Wait a minute. You think we got kicked out because I said ‘dammit?’ ”

“That’s my guess.”

“Well gah-da …” He stopped himself. “How am I supposed to talk if I can’t say… that word?”

“It’ll be tough,” I agreed. “But we can do it.”

[84] “Hel… heck , Manny, I know some dudes can’t put a sentence together without saying motherf-”

“You know, that one offends me, too.”

“-three times. It ain’t my own favorite, tell the truth, but it plain old don’t mean much anymore. If you call someone a moth… a MF, that’s one thing, but mostly people just use it as an all-purpose modifier, ‘MF this, MF that, MF the other thing.’ ”

“You don’t have to sell me on it, Dak. I agree. But it looks like if we’re going to spend any time around Jubal, we’re going to have to really watch our mouths.”

“Crazy, man. Plum crazy.”

“What’s crazy?”

I was startled, and looked up to see Travis, Kelly, and Alicia coming up the path from the lake. The girls had windblown hair, though I don’t recall a lot of wind while we were studying. They must have been really moving along in whatever kind of boat Travis had, the one we’d heard roaring away a few hours ago. Their faces were shiny and flushed from sun, wind, and UV blocker.

Fishing? I doubted it. I was so jealous I could have spit.

Dak told Travis what he’d said, and Travis nodded as he set his rod and reel and tackle box on the big patio table.

“That was it, boys. Jubal won’t hold with ‘blasphemin’, cursin’, swearin’, nor the utterin’ of obscenities.’ Learned that in the cradle, he did. Some of them he can just frown and pretty much ignore, but anything worse than ‘damn’ will send him into a silent depression that can last three or four days, sometimes.”

“Jeez-” I started to say.

“Watch it,” Travis warned. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

“You mean…” Dak had to pause as he contemplated the enormity of it. “You mean ‘damn’ ain’t the bottom of the scale? It ain’t the mildest… cussword there is?”

“Best not to take a chance, Dak,” Travis said, taking a big rattan creel from Kelly, who had slung it over her shoulder. “Myself, I avoid heck and darn and gosh. Jubal feels… more accurately, Jubal’s father felt those were just euphemisms for hell and damn and God. Not that a [85] word like ‘euphemism’ ever had a chance to settle in Avery Broussard’s head, ignorant, pious, brutal, hypocritical swamp rat that he is.”

“So what can we say?” I wanted to know. “I guess we’d just better flush all those expletives we use in a normal day.”

“Not a bad idea. But what I try to do is substitute some harmless word instead. And you know, everybody knows, there are times nothing but an expletive will do. Like, you hit your thumb with a hammer.” He put his thumb on the table and mimed hitting it with a hammer.

“ ‘JEEZ! … us loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…’ ” Everybody laughed. Travis was not the world’s best singer.

We made lists of words we could safely turn to when we wanted to say something we normally would express with a curse or an oath. Words like swell, and whillikers, and gloriosky, and rats, and glory be!

But that was later, because first Travis opened the creel and spilled six big catfish out onto the table, still gasping for air. Dak was trying not to gape, trying to be cool.

“No bass?” he asked.

“We tossed the bass back,” Alicia said. “Decided to let ’em grow a little more.”

“So… how do you cook those ugly things?”

“Thought we’d deep-fry ’em in cornmeal, sweetie,” Alicia said, and Dak looked as if he might faint. I probably did, too, because I realized at that moment I was starving.

Alicia and Travis cleaned the fish… and did most everything else, none of the rest of us being very good cooks. When it was all done Travis set out six places. We heaped our plates with golden crisp catfish filets, mashed potatoes, okra, and hush puppies. I saw Kelly about to dig in so I patted her hand and shook my head when she looked up. I had a hunch. Travis saw me, and tapped his glass of white wine.

“This isn’t for me, folks, but the fact is, Jubal won’t eat any food that someone other than himself hasn’t said a prayer over. I’ll do that now, unless one of you has words you’d like to say.”

I bowed my head, and was surprised to hear Alicia’s quiet voice. It was so quiet, in fact, that I couldn’t hear the words, but she sounded sincere. I did hear the last:

[86] “ ‘… and the wisdom to tell the difference.’ And bless this food. Amen.”

“He won’t come down to eat, Travis?” I asked.

“ ’Fraid not, Manny. He’ll hole up there the rest of the day.”

I got up and picked up his plate. Travis grabbed my sleeve as I passed him, and said, close to my ear, “He won’t take it, but don’t leave it on the stoop. It brings the raccoons.”

I went on, not sure now if I should have volunteered. But I knocked on Jubal’s door anyway, and he answered on a speaker I hadn’t noticed before.

“Suppertime, Jubal,” I said.

“T’ank ya kinely, Manny. Did Travis bless it?”

“Alicia did.”

“Den t’ank her kinely, too. Manny, I don’ feel so good, me. T’ank whosomever cooked dem vittles, if you please.”

“I’ll do that, Jubal. And Jubal… we’re sorry. We won’t let it happen again.”