John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

The car started up again, eased past and out of sight.

"Last time they had me up on the hill they were talking about Price. Man almost blasted him away with a shotgun. Fellas in the station said it wasn't for a bum shell we'd have a new bull rainin on our parade every morning."

Cervantes handed Daniel a cigarette and began to roll another.

"You do beautiful work, buddy. Just as neat as a tailormade and twice as deadly."

"Tonkyou, Donnydonny, tonkyou."

Daniel turned to face Brian only when he had a question. The rest of the time he talked staring out over the ocean.

"I never messed with no shotgun," he said. "I'm a knife fighter. Killed three men with a knife, one at Iwo, two at Tarawa. Demolition. I'd go in before the beach assaults. You believe it?"

Daniel Boone looked down to Brian and he had to nod. It was possible, just barely possible.

"Brooklyn, my friend, I detect an air of misbelief. Well lookit here."

Daniel rose and pulled up his pants-leg. There was a round, reddish mark on his pale calf. "Punji stick," he said. He pulled up the front of his shirt. There were puckered scars on either side of his sagging belly. "Jap round," he said. "Got me from the side, went in here, came out there. Lots of blood but it didn't puncture my stomach." He turned to show another souvenir over his kidney. "Shrapnel. A short round from our own artillery. I called in the coordinates and some greenhorn laid one in behind me." Daniel tucked in his shirt and sat back down.

"We'd swim in, all you could carry was demolition equipment and a knife. Cut their throats, all three of em, didn't think a thing of it. Wouldn't figure I'd be such a long time doing away with myself, would you? Hairy carey."

"He got steaks an bacongs an sosage an rose-biff an — "

"Settle down, Cervantes, you'll drop your smoke all over."

an homborger Donnydonny."

"I can still outswim anybody in this town," said Daniel Boone. "I had asthma when I was a kid."

It was too obvious a setup, there was no way he'd ask what the connection was. Hitching across the country had left Brian tired of playing straight man.

Daniel leaned back and dragged reflectively on his cigarette. He sighed. He crossed his legs. He picked at his nose hair.

Cervantes smiled steadily, like a sideman in a countrywestern band. From time to time he would run his hand through his hair, still holding the lighted cigarette, and leave a streak of ash in it.

"So this fella from the neighborhood," said Daniel finally, "was like an uncle to me, he said he'd give me a five-dollar — " he screwed his eyes shut to think hard "scholarship? To the Y?"

"Membership."

"Membership. See what the booze'll do to you? Give me a five-dollar membership to the Y if I'd promise to swim underwater every day, as far as I could go. Cured the asthma. God, I could swim. Still can, I bet."

Daniel looked like he'd drown in a footbath. Brian smiled. "Could you swim out to the end of that pier?"

"No sweat, Manhattan, no sweat."

"Ohyes Donnydonny, you con swim ober honrid, tree honrid bee-yon feets, m'hmn m'hmn Donnydonny yes you con."

"Three hundred billion feet is a lot of water, buddy. Don't get me in over my head." Daniel turned to Brian. "Say, Philly, you know what ESP is?"

Brian groaned inwardly. He had ridden with a half-dozen astrology freaks on the way out, including one guy who was convinced he was the reincarnation of Stephen Foster. Sang spirituals the entire Indiana Turnpike.

"I guess," said Brian. "Mind waves and all that stuff?"

"You believe it?"

He shrugged.

"I do," said Daniel Boone. "I got it."

Brian had figured as much. "What's it do to you?"

"Well, you see, most people only got three dimensions. You got ESP, then you got four dimensions. Brain power is your fourth dimension."

Daniel got up to spit over the wall. He looked out on the beach.

"Sumnabitch. Lookit all the squirrels."

"Yuh."

"No shit, Philly, there's thousands of em, see for yourself. This aint no DT's. DT's I get lizards. Never seen so many squirrels, not even in the park. Beach is just covered with em. Wonder what they're eatin?"

Daniel watched for another moment, then shook his head. "Shouldn't think about food. Haven't put nothin in the stomach for some time now. Hairy Carey."

"Pork shop an chickens an libber an — "

"That's what the booze'll do to you, right there." Daniel turned to point at Cervantes, who grinned.

"Donnydonny, my gooboddy. We take care take care."

"Slow down, Cervantes. But he's the best goddam sumbitch around. Aintcha buddy?"

"Ohyes, Donnydonny."

Daniel sat back down. "Man I served with, was lost when we took a shell off Tarawa. Went overboard. He's been callin me ever since, callin from the dead. He's out there in the fourth dimension." Daniel dropped his head forward into his hands and sighed. "Jeez, I'm burnin up with a fever."

"Take a dreeng, Donnydonny. You torsty, yes?"

Daniel ignored his friend. "See, usually he comes in loud and clear, his voice callin to me from out there. But this mornin I can't seem to make him out, it's like he's callin from underwater. Gurgles."

"He drowned, didn't he?"

"I suppose. But he always talked clear before. I can't understand it." He rubbed his eyes and pulled a paperback book out of his bag.

"Say, Philly, you look this here over and then tell me if you believe it." He passed it across Cervantes to Brian. Beyond the Mind, by Dr. Milton Shopenhauer. Case histories and commentary. "Look it over and then tell me what you think." He eased his head back into his hands.

When he got really liquid, Brian's father heard freight trains. Steam-driven freights rolling across the plains, rolling through small towns thousands of miles away. "At first it's not even a sound," he'd say, chin lifted, eyes closed in concentration, "it's a slight movement, a thickening in the night air about your ears. Stronger then, a wind blowing far off, then deeper, and there's a tingling up your legs and it turns to water, streams of water gathering into a rushing river, cascading down and suddenly all around you, shaking you, like the engine is driving the blood through your veins and it's shaking you, taking you, taking you along with it wherever it's going and Lord God you want to go, you want to but you're rooted to the ground and the power rattles down through your body into your feet again, out of you, and the train tears off, tears away with that long, moaning wail and it's water, and it's wind, and it's a slight thickness in the air and then it's gone and left you, stranded in the still, cold night." It always gave Brian a shudder when the old man heard his trains. He'd keep his eyes closed for a long while, as if still listening, and sometimes he'd fall asleep like that, sitting chin up at the bar, listening.

Brian opened to the middle of the book. The usual amazing feats and astonished friends. A story about a shopkeeper in Belgium who had ESP and was examined by a lot of scientists and made the papers once or twice and then died, still minding the store. He was psychic but not too bright.

Daniel sighed and passed the Thunderbird down for last hits. When it came back to him he took care of the last drops and arced it over the wall.

"Wonder if I hit them squirrels."

"Hey, Daniel Boone." Brian figured he might as well get it over with.

"Huh?"

"I believe it."

"Huh?"

"The ESP. I believe it. But what good does it do you?"

Daniel smiled. "Pittsburgh, it's our link with the next world. I was an atheist till I tumbled onto the fact that I had it. I believe that when you die you go into the fourth dimension. Only a few people can use their brain power to break into it while they're still alive. Pioneers."

"Oh." It didn't exactly answer his question, but it would do.