Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

Denver revealed itself toward the end of the afternoon. It was first a silver shimmer on the horizon, then an intimation of silvered spires and towers, then a great tumble of buildings laid out across the flatness, under the cascade of white summer sun.

Catareen said, “Luke will want to see. I get.”

“Don’t you think we should let him sleep?”

“I go. I see.”

He stopped the Winnebago. She got out and returned soon with Luke, whose face was still flushed and whose eyes had a pink, unhealthy cast.

Still, he positioned himself eagerly between Simon and Catareen. He said, “There it is.”

“There it is,” Simon answered.

“Is something wrong?” Luke asked him.

“No. What would be wrong?”

“Just wondered.”

“You shouldn’t be up,” Simon said. “You’re still sick.”

“I’m getting better,” Luke said. “I just picked up a little something nasty in that water. Or maybe it was whatever that thing was we ate. Anyway, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. Catareen should have let you sleep.”

He noticed that the boy and Catareen exchanged looks of recognition. They seemed to believe they shared some knowledge about him. When had that started? He said nothing, however. He drove on.

Denver when they reached it proved to be a series of broad avenues teeming with humans and Nadians. The air sparked with their various invisible purposes. They crossed the streets and strode along the sidewalks, past the windows of small enterprises that had been carved out of the old stores and restaurants. Empty skyscrapers towered overhead, their windows cracked or shattered. Some citizens were on foot. Some piloted hoverpods, most of them old and dented. Some rode horses. Luke said, “The horse is making a comeback here. They’re more reliable than hoverpods. They can go more places.”

They inched their way along through the traffic. Luke pointed out a store that had once, according to its faded gilt sign, been called Banana Republic and was now a saloon, a barbershop, and a haberdasher’s. In front of the store, a group of Nadian settlers were loading a horse-drawn cart with sacks of what appeared to be some kind of seeds.

Simon leaned out the window and asked the drivers of several vehicles if they’d ever heard of Emory Lowell. He received only shrugs and baffled looks. Luke said, “Just keep going straight. If Gaya’s in her usual spot, she’ll know.”

“Gaya?”

“A bit of local color. She was a friend of my mother’s. Her turf is up ahead.”

Presently they approached a gaunt, elderly woman who stood on a corner speaking volubly and offering passersby what appeared to be a small white bowl.

Luke said, “There she is. Pull over.”

Simon pulled to the curb as best he could, given the crowds. Luke scrambled over Catareen’s lap and leaned out the window.

“Hey, Gaya,” he said.

The woman halted her imprecations and looked at Luke with an expression of fearful irritation. She appeared to be someone who did not associate the calling of her own name with the arrival of good news. She wore a Mylar jumpsuit and an ancient leopard-skin hat. Loops and waggles of dark, wiry hair shot out from under the hat like punctuation marks in an unknown language.

“It’s Blitzen,” Luke said.

Gaya ambled suspiciously up to the Winnebago’s window. She squinted, as if Luke himself emitted a painful light.

“You’ve grown,” she said.

“As people do. You know Emory Lowell?”

“I’ve heard the name, yes.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Right around here somewhere.”

“What are you selling?”

Gaya looked gravely at the bowl. “Blitzen,” she said, “this belongs in a museum. It’s only by the remotest chance that I’ve come into possession of it, and if it wasn’t for my medical bills I’d never consider selling — “

“How much?” Luke asked.

“Now, I’ve been asking twenty yen, which is of course an almost ludicrously low price, but since you and I — “

“Give her twenty yen,” Luke said to Simon.

Simon dug into his pocket for the money. Gaya said, “Hey, I can take a few yen off for you. I mean, considering”

“No, twenty is more than reasonable,” Luke answered. “Simon, have you got it?”

Simon produced a twenty from his pocket. The boy snatched it out of his hand. He said, “So. Could you give us directions to Emory Lowell’s?”

Gay a answered, “Straight for ten or eleven blocks, then right for about five miles. Turn left at the Gentle Giant Mall. Drive until you see a pair of blue spruce trees, one on each side of the road. Then park your truck and walk to the west.”

“Thanks. Here’s the twenty.”

Gay a took the money and handed Luke the bowl. She said wanly, “How’s your mother?”

“Couldn’t tell you. If she passes through here, tell her you saw me. Tell her I’m all right.”

“I’ll do that.”

Simon pulled away from the curb and accelerated. Luke sat with the bowl in his lap. “Junk,” he said.

“It looks old,” Simon said.

“If it got down to Gaya’s level, it’s junk. Believe me.”

“What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me,” Simon said.

Simon followed Gaya’s directions. They drove out of the densely settled area, past ever-diminishing outcroppings of empty houses, which gave way to a dun-colored emptiness that had once been farmland. Presently they saw the twin spruces ahead, as Gay a had described them. In front of the trees, a band of children and a horse stood in the road, unsteady in the heat shimmer that rose off the concrete.

Luke had by then fallen ill again. He was half asleep, his tureen-shaped head slumped in the place where his chest would have been. He roused sufficiently to see the children and horse in the road.

“You should probably just run them over,” he murmured.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a Christian?” Simon asked.

“I am a Christian. But I’m not a fool.” He fell back into his feverish doze.

As they drew closer, Simon could see that there were five children: two girls on the back of a shaggy brown horse, with a girl and two boys standing alongside.

Of the two girls on horseback, one was human and one Nadian. Of the other three, two were Nadian and one human. The oldest, a girl, human, was probably twelve or thirteen. The youngest, a Nadian, could not have been more than four.

Simon stopped the Winnebago. The children stood in modest expectation, as if waiting for a train. Simon leaned out of the window and called hello to them.

The Nadian girl on horseback wore a pair of dingy cardboard wings held to her narrow back by two dirty elastic straps. The human girl behind her sat with her scrawny white legs akimbo and her thin arms clasped around the Nadian girl’s waist.

The winged Nadian girl said, “You’re late.”

They were all more or less naked. One of the Nadian boys had somehow attached two plastic roses to his little-boy chest and wore a skirt made of grass. The human girl standing alongside the horse carried a spear that appeared to involve a knife blade affixed to the end of a pool cue.

The girl with the spear said, “You almost missed it.”

The horse stood stoically, shaking its enormous head. Its eyes were bright black, liquid circles.

“We’re looking for Emory Lowell,” Simon said. “We know that,” the Nadian on horseback answered.

“Why else would you have come?” the human girl said.

Luke roused enough to say, “This seems very peculiar to me.”

Simon said, “Can you take us to him?”

“Of course we can,” the Nadian girl answered.