Charles Baxter - The Soul Thief

“Jeez,” Theresa says. “Where did you get that routine? I thought I knew them all.”

“I was reciting a poem,” Coolberg says modestly. “Almost.”

“Well, don’t ever do it again,” warns Nathaniel, gripping the steering wheel. “It’s like vomiting in front of people.” They pass over the second bridge from Grand Island and turn onto Buffalo Avenue, running parallel to the Robert Moses Parkway, which leads to Niagara Falls on the American side.

“Who’s been out here?” Nathaniel asks. “To the falls?”

“Well, I never have,” Theresa informs him.

“Me neither,” Coolberg tells them quietly, seemingly miffed.

“How’d you know about the gods, then? That was the whole point of this expedition. ‘Gods’ are what you promised,” Theresa says.

“I had heard about them,” Coolberg explains. “From someone. Someone who had seen them. Besides, look.” He points ahead. A smell from the atmosphere invades the car’s interior, filling the little Volkswagen with the odor of petro-chemical solvents. On the left-hand side along Buffalo Avenue is an array of chemical plants, visible ahead along the river for miles: DuPont, Carborundum, Olin, Dow, Occidental Chemical, others, all brightly lit in gold by sodium-vapor lamps. The plants’ complicated tubular pipes look like giant industrial webbing connected to enormous black-and-gray fortress-refineries and processing machinery, their smokestacks decorated with evenly spaced vertical lights and red blinking stars at the top — lighthouses that beckon the chemical storm and resist it. Close to them are gas flares. This display is the triumph of something that does not want to be named. No humans are visible, no cars are parked. Nothing appears to be moving except for the smoke that wafts like a little industrial storm cloud toward the parkway, the Niagara River, and the car in which they are traveling. A background hum is audible. This entire complex operates without any human intervention and could continue forever without anyone turning a dial or throwing a switch. Nevertheless, Coolberg is correct: some presence is here. You can hear it.

“Valhalla,” Coolberg says, from the backseat.

“Should we stop?” Theresa asks.

“Stop? Stop where?”

“Well, anywhere.” She shakes her head. “To go in. Nobody works here, that’s obvious. These factories are all automatized. Is that the word? Automated. That’s the word. They run themselves. No one’s been here in years.” She puts her hands under her armpits for warmth. She shivers and grins. She is so beautiful when she shivers; she shivers and trembles when she comes.

“There are fences and barriers and guard shacks. The lights have to be replaced. See those KEEP OUT signs?” Nathaniel asks, ever the practical soul.

“Xanadu,” Coolberg says from the backseat. “Stately pleasure domes.”

Nathaniel takes an angry left turn onto a service drive, downshifts into second, then takes another turn into a mostly vacant parking lot bordering a squat brick building over whose doorway are the words THE CARBORVNDVM COMPANY. Behind them, and at a distance, a ghostly train consisting of chemical tankers chugs forward into the darkness. In the lot where they have parked, tanker trucks rumble, their engines still running as they do at freeway rest stops, though Nathaniel cannot see their drivers. In the distance, a siren wails, then abruptly cuts off in mid-shriek.

“Want to get out of the car?” Nathaniel asks. “Take a tour?”

“What do they make here?” Theresa asks him.

“Snack food.”

“Polyester fire-retardant snack food.”

“All right, all right. That’s enough of that duet.” Nathaniel’s foot taps nervously on the brake pedal. “Do we get out? Do we take a safari into one of these places?”

Theresa looks straight at him. “You’re kidding, right? Listen, I just changed my mind. If they found us here, they’d kill us. They’d douse us with their chemical compounds and set us on fire. No, no, this isn’t where we’re supposed to be. This place is creepy, Nathaniel. We must exit. We must drive away. ”

As they are talking, a night watchman wearing a blue Pinkerton uniform emerges from a small shed attached to one of the larger buildings. The door he opens is rusty, as is the shed, and a red rust attaches itself to the gravel he steps on. His red hair leaves the impression that rust has attached itself to his body as well, slowly burning him from the inside out and from the top down. He makes his way in a leisurely cop-saunter over to where their car is idling. He has perfected the tough coolness of an enforcer, even though he seems to have no gun, only a billyclub. When he reaches their car, Nathaniel lowers his window, and the guard, whose hair is even rustier when viewed close-up, and whose face has the humid florid flush of youthful high blood pressure, bends down to ask, “What’re you folks doing here? This is private property. You got business here?”

“That’s not the god,” Coolberg says. “He’s a fake.”

The night watchman glances at him, or, rather, one eye does. The other eye does not move. It appears to be made of glass.

“We were just leaving,” Nathaniel says, starting the car and then throwing it into reverse. He backs out, narrowly missing one of the snoring semi-trailer trucks, and returns to Buffalo Avenue.

AFTER PARKING THE VW,they make their way across a footbridge to Goat Island, Nathaniel in the lead like a Boy Scout. The park closes at eleven, according to a sign they have passed near a vacant squad car that has the words PARK ANGER on it, the decal R in RANGER having been removed or painted over by some vandal. On the east tip of the island, they find a bench and sit down, Theresa in the middle, facing the Niagara River as it divides on their left toward the American rapids and on their right toward Horseshoe Falls. A few scraggly leafless maples stand on either side of them, the falls roaring melodramatically just out of sight behind them.

In the wind, the streetlights vibrate and chatter.

“What are we doing here?” Theresa asks, her voice coming out in a nervous squeak. “Here in this stupid park?” She waits, and when neither of the men answers, she says, “Don’t say ‘gods.’ That’s just the cover story.”

“Of course the gods are here,” Coolberg says. “Why do you think newlyweds come to this place?” He pauses. “They want to partake. They want to share in the god-stuff.” He turns his head to stare at Nathaniel, who is gazing out at the water.

In the midst of his reverie, Nathaniel does not remember why he agreed to this expedition. Following the path to this part of the island, they had walked past the statue of Nikola Tesla, inventor of alternating current and the death ray, who claimed, late in his madness, that he could split the earth in half like an apple. Behind their bench on the other side of Goat Island are the modest tourist traps for visitors: Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Museum, the Daredevil Museum, and Louis Tussaud’s Waxworks. The bench is uncomfortable and gives him a slatted pain in his shoulder blades. Someday, he thinks, he’ll chalk this trip up to the adventurousness of youth and high spirits. But for now…what? Gradually his eyes adjust to the darkness. A small crowd of Japanese tourists passes behind them, snapping flash photos in the dark.

Something terrible is about to happen. The thought drifts downward over him like a veil over a face. And at that moment, he reflects that some people, like Coolberg, simply have a talent that he himself lacks — a talent for creating hypothetical narratives out of the air, out of nothing. Gods. If you play a tune, a few suckers will always dance to it. But first you have to play the tune and, even before that, advertise the concert. No tune, no dancing. What an innocent I am, he thinks.