Chang-Rae Lee - On Such A Full Sea

Dale was now frantic and pounding on his side of the door. Quig hollered for him not to open it, his fear now replaced by fury, at the marauders but also himself, for literally falling down in every way. He had committed a crime, yes, but it was never one of malice and so what greater transgression had he done to bring such profound misfortune upon his beloved? He had only done fine veterinary work, with caring and integrity. What was otherwise so wrong with his character and life? These were his instant, infinite-sided thoughts while entreating Dale at the top of his lungs, but all at once he was prone, bludgeoned with the butt of the shotgun. He was losing consciousness, the world going milky. The door then swung in, revealing Dale lamely holding a knife, Trish and Glynnis barely shielded behind him. And before he could say a last good word to them, the one with the shotgun stepped over the threshold and began blasting away.

For us B-Mors it’s difficult to accept such a transformation, being as willingly cloistered as we are, even our entertainments and tours designed to take us the middle distances, the thrums never so intense as to invite anything more than the standard extrapolations. What’s the point? In essence, people don’t want to go too far, at least not for long. It’s too much for the mind. Charters are equally sheltered, but whether they wish to recognize it or not, the native fuel of their society is risk, and when they fall, they fall from heights that very few can survive.

Fan, gentle-hearted girl that she was, couldn’t bear to ask what the scene was like when Quig came to. She thought she could see it anyway, flashes in the cold screen of his eyes, burned in. For Quig didn’t quite survive, Fan knew that. The robbers left after a futile search of the office for cash, leaving him and Landon alive, he later realized, only because they’d run out of ammunition. So instead they set fire to the inn, Quig roused out of his unconsciousness by the heat and choking smoke. The office, with its tragic hold, was already aflame. He managed to drag Landon a safe distance from the building but realized once in the clear that he had lost too much blood and was dead. Quig lay down again, spent by vertigo, and for the rest of the night felt the heat of everything torching. In the morning it was a stand of char. But his sense of balance was back, and he walked to his car, the keys in his pocket and the contents of the vehicle the only possessions he had left.

Fan drove for another stretch, having no trouble. But Loreen woke up to see her at the wheel and cried out in terror for Quig, which caused Fan to cross the roadway and head straight at a car that happened to be coming in the opposite direction. Had Quig not grabbed the wheel to make a split-second correction the collision would have been surely head-on. Instead, their front bumper glanced the back end of the other car at an angle that had little effect on them but sent the other vehicle into a wild spin, kicking up a huge cloud of dust before it suddenly straightened and ran off the embanked road, disappearing. Fan slowed down and stopped and looked at Quig, and after a pause, he had her turn around. Loreen was woozy but livid and saying how she was going to throw up any second. They let her out and then drove back to the spot where the tire tracks left the road, and when they looked down, they saw the car, a wagon, on its side in some high weeds. It sat, ticking. Then passengers calmly climbed out of the windows. They kept coming out and coming out, and before they knew it, a near-dozen of them had exited the car, among them a middle-aged couple and an elderly man wearing a tattered straw cowboy hat and an assortment of children of various heights and ages. Save for the couple, who were fleshy and plump though not quite as big as Loreen, they were lithe and muscular, and every one of them wore a clingy burnt-orange-colored overall, some with T-shirts underneath and others with no tops at all, a few of the younger girls included.

With a nod, the man of the couple acknowledged them for having come back, and as they stepped down the brief slope, Fan noticed that Quig had a small hunting knife tucked in the back of his trousers; out here it was always best to be prepared, especially in a chance circumstance. The couple shook hands with Quig, who apologized for the accident and suggested they set the car back upright to see what kind of damage there was. The man agreed and he whistled at some of the larger children, who immediately took their places about the vehicle and with him and Quig rocked the wagon and gently eased it back down on its tires. There were long fresh scratches on the side of the car but no serious damage otherwise, as it had tipped over and slid a couple of lengths in the weedy vegetation. The man didn’t seem concerned about the scratches — the car was ancient and rusted about the wheel wells — and hopped in to start it. But as much as he tried, it wouldn’t turn over. It was agreed maybe the engine was flooded and they ought to wait for a while, during which time the couple talked with Quig and now Loreen, who had walked back from where she had gotten sick.

The couple was relaxed and cheerful, not at all as if they had just been in an accident in which they might have been badly hurt. This seemed to unsettle Loreen, who couldn’t quite suppress a slightly scowling expression, as though the faintest funny smell hung about them. Quig mostly listened to the chatty couple and spoke calmly and evenly in reply to their queries. Their surname was Nickelman. Meanwhile the children plus the very old man crowded around Fan; they appeared related enough, their features mostly elfin and birdlike, golden haired to the last except for the old man, whose long bristly hair poking out from beneath his hat was silvery white.

Because of her looks, they wondered if Fan was from one of the facilities, and when they found out she was, they asked her all about what it was like there, though by custom not inquiring about how she had come to be in the counties with Quig and Loreen, as that was nobody’s business and, besides, wholly moot. The old man said he remembered visiting a B-Mor — like settlement as a child on a school field trip, their group touring the production facility where they made specialty sweet baked goods, things like egg custards and tea cakes meant to be shipped back to New China, and how they got to put on gloves and hairnets and were even allowed to take a fresh warm almond cookie as it came off the line.

You told us that story like a billion times already, Pappy! one of the little girls cried. Now just let her talk!

The others chimed in the same. Fan patiently answered every one of their questions about her work and her household and her favorite things to eat and do with friends, leaving out, of course, certain details about Reg or anything else that might reveal her true age. They were genuinely excited to hear about whatever she described, their eyes ready and bright, and their mouths of typically awful open counties teeth all yellowed and crooked or plain missing now agape with the yearning wonder of children. They would have queried her for hours had not the adults begun trying to start the car again. But it wouldn’t turn over, and after some discussion, it was decided that they would tow the car back up onto the road and then to where the Nickelmans lived, which was apparently about five kilometers away. The Nickelmans invited them to stay the night, if they wished, which you would think was not something offered casually out in the counties but which was, in fact, pretty much customary, an odd instance of expected etiquette. Of course, you could always decline, but the offer had to come, maybe because in the complete darkness of the nighttime roads (no streetlights or working streetlights), it was easy to blow out a tire in a deep pothole or, worse, run into a large fallen rock or downed tree, which would leave you vulnerable to opportunistic parties. It was different at the Smokes because that was a business operation and there was no expectation of any quarter. Quig said thanks but no, thanks, that they had camping gear for the night and anyway should drive some more.