John Varley - Red Thunder

“The year I started school, my dad was out on strike. Money was very tight. You want humiliation, try showing up for the first day of first grade in a pair of Kmart sneakers with holes in the sides and have half the school calling you a barefoot coon-ass. I ran all the way home and cussed my daddy with every step.”

I mulled that over while we shopped, mostly for fresh fruits and vegetables. I could see Tia Maria was going to set out a Cubano feast we might all be a week recovering from. Travis paid with a hundred-dollar bill, which Mr. Ortega, the greengrocer, held up to the light and examined suspiciously before making change. We packed most of the greens in a plastic bag, and the heavier stuff in Aunt Maria’s souvenir mesh shopping bag from the Bahamas, which Travis produced from his pocket.

We stopped on the sidewalk outside, and Travis got out his wallet again. He counted out thirty hundreds, folded them once, and held the money out to me. I made a move toward it, pure reflex, then backed off a step.

“What’s happening here, Manny, is I’m going to have to go off for a while. I haven’t learned much yet about the silver bubbles, but I know some people in various places who will give me an hour or two with some very large and expensive machines, and they won’t ask to see what I’m doing and they won’t blab about it later. I’ll be going to Huntsville, Houston, and Cal Tech, and maybe all the way up to Boston. I’ll be gone at least a week, maybe two weeks.

[120] “Now, Jubal ain’t a dog, and he ain’t a child, but I can’t leave him alone at the ranch for that long. Just can’t do it.

“So I arranged with your mother to get a room for Jubal at the Blastoff. He’ll do fine there, so long as he knows Maria and Betty are around somewhere. He’s okay with walking down to the Burger King by himself. I’m paying for his grub in advance. If y’all would take him to the movies a time or two, I’d really appreciate it.”

I wanted to grab him and shake him and shout out Take me with you! But I knew he wouldn’t, and I really couldn’t get away, either, with the extra burden of work Jubal’s presence was likely to bring about. So I took a deep breath and nodded, and Travis stuffed the money in my shirt pocket before I could stop him.

“Betty wouldn’t take the money in advance, so this is how we’ll do it. You give her the bread after I’ve eased on down the road. Okay?”

“O… okay,” I said.

“Good enough,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder. I didn’t say anything.

Two weeks of baby-sitting-in spite of what Travis said-a 230-pound semiautistic genius second-grader with attention deficit disorder, or something very much like it.

Oh, boy. I could hardly wait.

IT WAS WELLpast dark when we all finally managed to refuse another slice of pie and push away from the table. Travis wouldn’t hear of leaving the apartment until the dishes were washed and dried and put away, with his help. Mom and Maria wouldn’t hear of letting him help. I thought they might get into a very polite fistfight until Kelly and Alicia took him by the arms and hustled him out of the kitchen, which was crowded with only two people trying to work. So then Mom and Maria had to chase Kelly and Alicia out, too, and finally things could be cleaned.

Travis decided he would help me at the front desk then, and watched over my shoulder as I checked in the late-night trade. We don’t rent to women we know are prostitutes, but we don’t know all of them. As [121] for the other couples who check in at ten and are gone by eleven, what are you gonna do? None of our business.

A few minutes before midnight, when I was about to turn off the vacancy sign, I got called to one of the rooms with fresh towels, and when I got back Travis was checking in the last couple of the night. He was frowning at the computer screen, then slowly shook his head.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but we already have a ‘Tom Smith’ checked in. We don’t want to cause any confusion. But you could be Bob Smith, or Bill Smith.”

The guy looked confused and I thought he might get angry, but his girlfriend or bar pickup got it, and laughed.

“Bob will be fine, won’t it, Bob?”

Bob put his cash down on the counter and Travis gave him a key and waved them out the door. Dak was there, and twisted the key in the lock, then sat down on the floor, unable to hold in his laughter anymore. Kelly came in and looked at him.

“What’s his problem?”

“Come on,” I said, “let’s get Travis out of here before he puts us out of business.”

I’VE GOT TOadmit, Travis really knew how to sweeten the pot.

There was an old Triumph motorcycle in the back of the Hummer. We wrestled it out and set it on the ground, then pulled out an old sidecar. Travis showed me how to attach the sidecar to the bike.

“All it really needs is some paint,” he said. “Runs like a top. Jubal is the world’s worst driver, don’t ask me why. Anyway, he loves to go for rides in this thing. He likes to go real fast. I trust you’ll keep it below about Mach one, not cause any sonic booms.”

He showed me where to put the key, how to start it. He was right, the thing purred like a kitten. At that moment there probably wasn’t a happier man in Florida than me.

Dak and Alicia, and Mom and Maria came out to see him off. Mom knew there was something going on we hadn’t told her about, but she kept quiet about it. Travis was paying his way and seemed to be good [122] people, so that was enough… for now. Mom shook his hand and Maria actually gave him a hug. Then Travis hugged Kelly and Alicia, climbed into his outrageous suburban assault vehicle, and pulled out on the almost deserted streets of Daytona.

I looked up and saw Jubal standing at the second-floor railing in front of his room, watching Travis’s Hummer out of sight. He turned and went back inside.

I SETTLED JUBALinto the room next to mine with a set of our best big towels, not the little scratchy ones nobody bothers to steal from the regular rooms. The television was one of our best ones, too. I showed him how to use the remote… feeling pretty silly halfway through the demonstration when I remembered this was the guy who turned remotes into magic wands with no batteries.

He had brought a very old suitcase made out of thick cardboard, stuffed with Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts and lots of clean underwear with-I swear-JUBAL written on the elastic band in black felt tip. I wondered just how big a deal was this for Jubal, being away from Travis? Part of him was perpetually twelve, I kept reminding myself.

I helped him stow his stuff away and headed back to my room, fifteen feet away. It had been a long and eventful night. I was dead on my feet.

AN HOUR LATERI still hadn’t managed to get to sleep. I was thinking about too many things.

Jubal, and the responsibility I had assumed for him.

[124] Travis and his mysterious mission.

The Squeezer, and all it might mean.

Kelly, and why she had decided to drive home instead of spend the night.

The Triumph, what it would be like to ride it tomorrow, where to go, whether or not Travis would sell, and if he’d take payments or if I should just offer to cut off my right arm and give him that.

There was a knock on my door and I jumped out of bed. Kelly? But before I got to the door I knew who I’d find there. Sure enough.

Jubal was dressed in baggy yellow pajamas. His pillow was tucked under one arm, and he was dragging the bedspread behind him. All he needed was a teddy bear to look like one of those Norman Rockwell framed prints we used to sell in the store. He was looking down at the floor.