Butler, Octavia - Kindred

“This one shows main highways. Shows a lot of rivers too, and in eighteen fifteen there were probably not many bridges.” I looked closely at it, then got up again.

“What now?” asked Kevin.

“Encyclopedia. I want to see when the Pennsylvania Railroad built this nice long track through the peninsula. I’d have to go into Delaware to pick it up, but it would take me right into Pennsylvania.”

“Forget it,” he said. “Eighteen fifteen is too early for railroads.”

I looked anyway and found that the Pennsylvania Railroad hadn’t even been begun until 1846. I went back to bed and stuffed the pen, the map, and the scratch pad into my canvas bag.

“Tie that cord around you again,” said Kevin. I obeyed silently.

“I think we may have missed something,” he said. “Getting home may be simpler for you than you realize.”

“Getting home? Here?”

“Here. You may have more control over your returning than you think.”

“I don’t have any control at all.”

“You might. Listen, remember the rabbit or whatever it was that you said ran across the road in front of you?”

“Yes.”

50

“It scared you.”

KINDRED

“Terrified me. For a second, I thought it was … I don’t know, some- thing dangerous.”

“And your fear made you dizzy, and you thought you were coming home. Does fear usually make you dizzy?”

“No.”

“I don’t think it did this time either—at least not in any normal way. I think you were right. You did almost come home. Your fear almost sent you home.”

“But … but I was afraid the whole time I was there. And I was scared half out of my mind while that patroller was beating me. But I didn’t come home until I’d knocked him out—saved myself.”

“Not too helpful.” “No.”

“But look, was your fight with the patroller really over? You said you were afraid that if he found you there, passed out, he’d kill you.”

“He would have, for revenge. I fought back, actually hurt him. I can’t believe he’d let me get away with that.”

“You may be right.” “I am right.”

“The point is, you believe you are.” “Kevin …”

“Wait. Hear me out. You believed your life was in danger, that the patroller would kill you. And on your last trip, you believed your life was in danger when you found Rufus’s father aiming a rifle at you.”

“Yes.”

“And even with the animal—you mistook it for something dangerous.” “But I saw it in time—just as a dark blur, but clearly enough to see that

it was small and harmless. And I see what you’re saying.”

“That you might have been better off if your animal had been a snake. Your danger then—or assumed danger—might have sent you home before you ever met the patroller.”

“Then … Rufus’s fear of death calls me to him, and my own fear of death sends me home.”

“So it seems.”

“That doesn’t really help, you know.” “It could.”

“Think about it, Kevin. If the thing I’m afraid of isn’t really dangerous

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—a rabbit instead of a snake—then I stay where I am. If it is dangerous, it’s liable to kill me before I get home. Going home does take a while, you know. I have to get through the dizziness, the nausea …”

“Seconds.”

“Seconds count when something is trying to kill you. I wouldn’t dare put myself in danger in the hope of getting home before the ax fell. And if I got into trouble by accident, I wouldn’t dare just wait passively to be saved. I might wind up coming home in pieces.”

“Yes … I see your point.”

I sighed. “So the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to believe I could survive even a few more trips to a place like that. There’s just too much that could go wrong.”

“Will you stop that! Look, your ancestors survived that era—survived it with fewer advantages than you have. You’re no less than they are.”

“In a way I am.” “What way?”

“Strength. Endurance. To survive, my ancestors had to put up with more than I ever could. Much more. You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” he said with annoyance. “You’re working yourself into a mood that could be suicidal if you’re not careful.”

“Oh, but I’m talking about suicide, Kevin—suicide or worse. For instance, I would have used your knife against that patroller last night if I’d had it. I would have killed him. That would have ended the immedi- ate danger to me and I probably wouldn’t have come home. But if that patroller’s friends had caught me, they would have killed me. And if they hadn’t caught me, they would probably have gone after Alice’s mother. They … they may have anyway. So either I would have died, or I would have caused another innocent person to die.”

“But the patroller was trying to …” He stopped, looked at me. “I see.” “Good.”

There was a long silence. He pulled me closer to him. “Do I really look like that patroller?”

“No.”

“Do I look like someone you can come home to from where you may be going?”

“I need you here to come home to. I’ve already learned that.”

He gave me a long thoughtful look. “Just keep coming home,” he said finally. “I need you here too.”

The Fall

1

I think Kevin was as lonely and out of place as I was when I met him, though he was handling it better. But then, he was about to escape.

I was working out of a casual labor agency—we regulars called it a slave market. Actually, it was just the opposite of slavery. The people who ran it couldn’t have cared less whether or not you showed up to do the work they offered. They always had more job hunters than jobs any- way. If you wanted them to think about using you, you went to their office around six in the morning, signed in, and sat down to wait. Wait- ing with you were winos trying to work themselves into a few more bot- tles, poor women with children trying to supplement their welfare checks, kids trying to get a first job, older people who’d lost one job too many, and usually a poor crazy old street lady who talked to herself con- stantly and who wasn’t going to be hired no matter what because she only wore one shoe.

You sat and sat until the dispatcher either sent you out on a job or sent you home. Home meant no money. Put another potato in the oven. Or in desperation, sell some blood at one of the store fronts down the street from the agency. I had only done that once.

Getting sent out meant the minimum wage—minus Uncle Sam’s share—for as many hours as you were needed. You swept floors, stuffed envelopes, took inventory, washed dishes, sorted potato chips (really!),

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cleaned toilets, marked prices on merchandise … you did whatever you were sent out to do. It was nearly always mindless work, and as far as most employers were concerned, it was done by mindless people. Nonpeople rented for a few hours, a few days, a few weeks. It didn’t matter.

I did the work, I went home, I ate, and then slept for a few hours. Finally, I got up and wrote. At one or two in the morning, I was fully awake, fully alive, and busy working on my novel. During the day, I car- ried a little box of No Doz. I kept awake with them, but not very wide awake. The first thing Kevin ever said to me was, “Why do you go around looking like a zombie all the time?”

He was just one of several regular employees at an auto-parts ware- house where a group of us from the agency were doing an inventory. I was wandering around between shelves of nuts, bolts, hubcaps, chrome, and heaven knew what else checking other people’s work. I had a habit of showing up every day and of being able to count, so the supervisor decided that zombie or not, I should check the others. He was right. Peo- ple came in after a hard night of drinking and counted five units per clearly-marked, fifty-unit container.