John Adams - Wastelands - Stories of the Apocalipse

Rain and Deaver ate and then turned off all the lights while she played the old record player Deaver had wangled away from Lehi. They really weren’t supposed to have it, but they figured as long as they didn’t burn any lights it wasn’t wasting electricity, and they’d turn it in as soon as anybody asked for it.

In the meantime, Rain had some of the old records from when she was a girl. The songs had strong rhythms, and tonight, like she sometimes did, Rain got up and moved to the music, strange little dances that Deaver didn’t understand unless he imagined her as a lithe young girl, pictured her body as it must have been then. It wasn’t hard to imagine, it was there in her eyes and her smile all the time, and her movements gave away secrets that years of starchy eating and lack of exercise had disguised.

Then, as always, his thoughts went off to some of the girls he saw from his truck window, driving by the fields where they bent over, hard at work, until they heard the truck and then they stood and waved. Everybody waved at the salvage truck, sometimes it was the only thing with a motor that ever came by, their only contact with the old machines. All the tractors, all the electricity were reserved for the New Soil Lands; the old places were dying. And they turned and waved at the last memories. It made Deaver sad and he hated to be sad, all these people clinging to a past that never existed.

"It never existed," he said aloud.

"Yes it did," Rain whispered. "Girls just wanna have fu-un," she murmured along with the record. "I hated this song when I was a girl. Or maybe it was my mama who hated it."

"You live here then?"

"Indiana," she said. "One of the states, way east."

"Were you a refugee, too?"

"No. We moved here when I was sixteen, seventeen, can’t remember. Whenever things got scary in the world, a lot of Mormons moved home. This was always home, no matter what."

The record ended. She turned it off, turned on the lights.

"Got the boat all gassed up?" asked Deaver.

"You don’t want to go there," she said.

"If there’s gold down there, I want it."

"If there was gold there, Deaver, they would’ve taken it out before the water covered it. It’s not as if nobody got a warning, you know. The Mormon Sea wasn’t a flash flood."

"If it isn’t down there, what’s all the hush-hush about? How come the Lake Patrol keeps people from going there?"

"I don’t know, Deaver. Maybe because a lot of people feel like it’s a holy place."

Deaver was used to this. Rain never went to church, but she still talked like a Mormon. Most people did, though, when you scratched them the wrong place. Deaver didn’t like it when they got religious. "Angels need police protection, is that it?"

"It used to be real important to the Mormons in the old days, Deaver." She sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall under the window.

"Well it’s nothin now. They got their other temples, don’t they? And they’re building the new one in Zarahemla, right?"

"I don’t know, Deaver. The one here, it was always the real one. The centre." She bent sideways, leaned on her hand, looked down at the floor. "It still is."

Deaver saw she was getting really somber now, really sad. It happened to a lot of people who remembered the old days. Like a disease that never got cured. But Deaver knew the cure. For Rain, anyway. "Is it true they used to kill people in there?"

It worked. She glared at him and the languor left her body. "Is that what you truckers talk about all day?"

Deaver grinned. "There’s stories. Cuttin people up if they told where the gold was hid."

"You know Mormons all over the place, now, Deaver, do you really think we’d go cuttin people up for tellin secrets?"

"I don’t know. Depends on the secrets, don’t it?" He was sitting on his hands, kind of bouncing a little on the couch.

He could see that she was a little mad for real, but didn’t want to be. So she’d pretend to be mad for play. She sat up, reached for a pillow to throw at him.

"No! No!" he cried. "Don’t cut me up! Don’t feed me to the carp!"

The pillow hit him and he pretended elaborately to die.

"Just don’t joke about things like that," she said.

"Things like what? You don’t believe in the old stuff anymore. Nobody does."

"Maybe not."

"Jesus was supposed to come again, right? There was atom bombs dropped here and there, and he was supposed to come."

"Prophet said we was too wicked. He wouldn’t come cause we loved the things of the world too much."

"Come on, if he was comin he would’ve come, right?"

"Might still," she said.

"Nobody believes that," said Deaver. "Mormons are just the government, that’s all. The Bishop gets elected judge in every town, right? The president of the elders is always mayor, it’s just the government, just politics, nobody believes it now. Zarahemla’s the capital, not the holy city."

He couldn’t see her because he was lying flat on his back on the couch. When she didn’t answer, he got up and looked for her. She was over by the sink, leaning on the counter. He snuck up behind her to tickle her, but something in her posture changed his mind. When he got close, he saw tears down her cheeks. It was crazy. All these people from the old days got crazy a lot.

"I was just teasin," he said.

She nodded.

"It’s just part of the old days. You know how I am about that. Maybe if I remembered, it’d be different. Sometimes I wish I remembered." But it was a lie. He never wished he remembered. He didn’t like remembering. Most stuff he couldn’t remember even if he wanted to. The earliest thing he could bring to mind was riding on the back of a horse, behind some man who sweated a lot, just riding and riding and riding. And then it was all recent stuff, going to school, getting passed around in people’s homes, finally getting busy one year and finishing school and getting a job. He didn’t get misty-eyed thinking about any of it, any of those places. Just passing through, that’s all he was ever doing, never belonged anywhere until maybe now. He belonged here. "I’m sorry," he said.

"It’s fine," she said.

"You still gonna take me there?"

"I said I would, didn’t I?"

She sounded just annoyed enough that he knew it was OK to tease her again. "You don’t think they’ll have the Second Coming while we’re there, do you? If you think so, I’ll wear my tie."

She smiled, then turned to face him and pushed him away. "Deaver, go to bed."

"I’m gettin up at four-thirty, Rain, and then you’re one girl who’s gonna have fan."

"I don’t think the song was about early morning boat trips." She was doing the dishes when he left for his little room.

Lehi was waiting at five-thirty, right on schedule. "I can’t believe it," he said. "I thought you’d be late."

"Good thing you were ready on time," said Deaver, "cause if you didn’t come with us you wouldn’t get a cut."

"We aren’t going to find any gold, Deaver Teague."

"Then why’re you comin with me? Don’t give me that stuff, Lehi, you know the future’s with Deaver Teague, and you don’t want to be left behind. Where’s the diving stuff?"

"I didn’t bring it home, Deaver. You don’t think my mom’d ask questions then?"

"She’s always askin questions," said Deaver. "It’s her job," said Rain.

"I don’t want anybody askin about everything I do," said Deaver.

"Nobody has to ask," said Rain. "You always tell us whether we want to hear or not."

"If you don’t want to hear, you don’t have to," said Deaver. "Don’t get touchy," said Rain.

"You guys are both gettin wet-headed on me, all of a sudden. Does the temple make you crazy, is that how it works?"

"I don’t mind my mom askin me stuff. It’s OK."