Raymond Bradbury: Farewell Summer

Quartermain let himself be pushed another block in silence and then said: "Braling was a fool."

"The metronome? Yes." Bleak shook his head. "He might be alive today if he hadn't scared himself to death. He thought he could stand still or even run backward. He thought he could trick life. Tricked himself right into a fine oration and a quick burial."

They turned a corner.

"Oh, it's hard to let go," said Quartermain. "All my life I've held on to everything I ever touched. Preach to me, Bleak!"

Bleak, obediently, preached: "Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You've got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. It's like boats. You keep your motor on so you can steer with the current. And when you hear the sound of the waterfall coming nearer and nearer, tidy up the

boat, put on your best tie and hat, and smoke a cig- aright up till the moment you go over. That's a triumph. Don't argue with the cataract."

"Take me around the block again."

"Here we go."

The leaf-light flickered on the paper-thin skin of the old men's wrists, the shadows alternating with fading sunlight. They moved in a soft whisper.

"All of a sudden. In that boy's face… He gave me a piece of cake, Bleak."

"I saw him."

"Why, why did he do it? He kept looking at me as if I were someone new. Was that it? Or what? Why did he do it? And there I was, me, staring out of his face. And I knew I'd lost."

"Let's say you didn't win, maybe. But you didn't

"What broke me down all of a sudden? I hated that monster, and then, suddenly, I hated myself. Why?" "Because he wasn't your son." "Ridiculous!"

"Nevertheless. You never got married that I knew…"

"Never!"

"Never had children?"

"Never!"

"And the children never had children."

"Of course not. Impossible!"

"You cut yourself off from life. The boy has reconnected you. He is the grandson you should have had, to keep the juices flowing, life staying alert."

"Hard to believe."

"You're coming around. You can't cut all the phone lines and still be on speaking terms with the world. Instead of living inside your son and your son's son, you were really heading for the junkyard. The boy reminded you of your utter and complete finish."

"No more, no more!" Quartermain grabbed the hard rubber wheels of his chair, causing them to stop

"Face up to it," Bleak said. "We're both dumb old fools. A little late for wisdom, but better an ironic recognition than none at all."

Uncurling his friend's fingers from the spider web wheels, Bleak pushed the chair around a corner so the light of the dying sun stained their faces a healthy red, and added, "Look, life gives us everything. Then it takes it away. Youth, love, happiness, friends. Darkness gets it all in the end. We didn't have enough sense

to know you can will it-life-to others. Your looks, your youth. Pass it on. Give it away. It's lent to us for only a while. Use it, let go without crying. It's a very fancy relay race, heading God knows where. Except now, in your last lap of the race, you find no one waiting for you on the track ahead. Nobody for you to hand the stick to. You've run the race for no reason. You've failed the team."

"Is that what I've done?"

"Yes. You weren't hurting the boy. Actually, what you were trying to do was make him grow up. You were both wrong for a while. Now you're both winning. Not because you want to, but because you have to."

"No, it's only he who's ahead. The idea was to grow them as fruit for the grave. But all I did was give

"Love," said Bleak.

Quartermain could not say the word. That dreadful sweet, candy-sickening word. So trite, so true, so irritating, so wonderful, so frightening, and, in the end, so lost to himself.

"They won. I did them a favor, my God, a favor! I was blind! I wanted them to race about, like we run about, and wither, and be shocked by their withering, and die, like I'm dying. But they don't realize, they don't know, they're even happier, if that's possible."

"Yes." Bleak pushed the chair. "Happier. Because growing old isn't all that bad. None of it is bad if you have one thing. If you have the one thing that makes it all all right."

That dreadful word again!

"But I'm thinking it," said Bleak, trying mightily to keep an unaccustomed smile from creasing his lips.

"So you're right, so I'm miserable, and here I sit, crying like a goddamn idiot fool!"

The freckled leaf-shadows passed over his liver-spotted hands. They fitted, for a moment, like a jigsaw and made his hands look muscled, tanned, and young. He stared at them, as if delivered free of age and corruption. Then the freckling, twinkling motion of passing trees went on.

"What do I do now, what do I do? Help me, Bleak."

"We can help ourselves. You were heading for the cliff. I tried to warn you. You can't hold them back now. If you'd had any sense, you might have encouraged the children to continue their damned revolu-

tion, never grow up, to be egocentrics. Then they really would have been unhappy!"

"A fine time to tell me."

"I'm glad I didn't think of it. The worst thing i snever to grow up. I see it all around. I see children in every house. Look there, that's Leonora's house, poor woman. And here's where those two old maids live, and their Green Machine. Children, children without love. And over there, take a look. There's the ravine. The Lonely One. There's a life for you, there's a child in a man's body. That's the ticket. You could make Lonely Ones of them all, given time and patience. You used the wrong strategy. Don't force people to grow. Baby them. Teach them to nurse their

Little patches of hate and prejudice. If you wanted them unhappy, how much better to say, 'Revolt, I'm with you, charge! Ignorance, I'm for you! Down with the slob and the swine forever!'"

"Don't rub it in. I don't hate them anymore, anyway. What a strange afternoon, how odd. There I was, in his face. There I was, in love with the girl. It was as if time had never passed. I saw Liza again."

"It's still possible, of course, you can reverse the process. The child is in us all. It's not hard to keep the child locked there forever. Give it another try."

"No, I'm done with it. I'm done with wars. Let them go. If they can earn a better life than I did, let them earn it. I wouldn't be so cruel as to wish them my life now. I was in his face, remember, and I saw her. God, what a beautiful face! Suddenly I felt so young. Now, turn me around and roll me home. I want to think about the next year or so. I'll have to start figuring." "Yes, Ebenezer."

"No, not Ebenezer, not Scrooge. I'm not anything. I haven't decided to be anything. You can't be anything that quickly. All I know is I'm not quite the same. I've got to figure what I want to be." "You could give to charity." "You know me better than that."

"You've got a brother."

"Lives in California."

"How long's it been since you've seen him?"

"Oh, God, thirty years."

"He has children, right?"

"Yes, I think so. Two girls and a boy. Grown now. Got children of their own."

"You could write a letter."

"What kind?"

"Invite them for a visit. You've got a big house. And one of those children, God help them, might seem like you. It struck me, if you can't have any private sense of destiny, immortality, you name it-you could get it secondhand from your brother's house. Seems to me you'd want to connect up with a thing like that."

"No, common sense. You're too old for marriage and children, too old for everything except experiments. You know how things work. Some children look like their fathers, or mothers, or grandfathers, and some take after a distant brother. Don't you think you'd get a kick out of something like that?"