Curt: ‘Oh yeah. You better believe it.’
There are several more of the lightning bolts, some shooting out of the Buick’s windows, some rising from the roof or the trunk. One leaps out from beneath the car and fires itself directly at the rear roll-up door. There are surprised yells as the men back away from that one, but the camera stays steady. Curt was basically too excited to be afraid.
At 3:55:03 there’s a final weak blip — it comes from the back seat, behind the driver’s position — and then there’s no more. You can hear Tony Schoondist say, ‘Why don’t you save the battery, Curt? The show seems to be over.’ At that point the tape goes momentarily black.
When the picture resumes at 4:08:16, Curt is onscreen. There’s something yellow wrapped around his midsection. He waves jauntily and says, ‘I’ll be right back.’
Tony Schoondist — he’s the one running the camera at that point — replies, ‘You better be.’ And he doesn’t sound jaunty in the least.
Curt wanted to go in and check on the gerbils — to see how they were, assuming they were still there at all. Tony refused permission adamantly and at once. No one was going in Shed B
for quite awhile, he said, not until they were sure it was safe to do so. He hesitated, maybe replaying that remark in his head and realizing the absurdity of it — as long as the Buick Roadmaster was in Shed B it was never going to be safe — and changed it to: ‘Everyone stays out until the temperature’s back over sixty-five.’
‘Someone’s gotta go,’ Brian Cole said. He spoke patiently, as if discussing a simple addition problem with a person of limited intelligence.
‘I fail to see why, Trooper,’ Tony said.
Brian reached into his pocket and pulled out Jimmy and Roslyn’s water-reservoir. ‘They got plenty of those pellets they eat, but without this, they’ll die of thirst.’
‘No, they won’t. Not right away.’
‘It might be a couple of days before the temperature in there goes up to sixty-five, Sarge.
Would you want to go forty-eight hours without a drink?’
‘I know I wouldn’t,’ Curt said. Trying not to smile (and smiling a little anyway), he took the calibrated plastic tube from Brian. Then Tony took it from him before it could start to feel at home in Curt’s hand. The SC did not look at his fellow scholar as he did this; he kept his eyes fixed on Trooper Brian Cole.
‘I’m supposed to allow one of the men under my command to risk his life in order to bring water to a pair of pedigreed mice. Is that what you’re telling me, Trooper? I just want to be clear on this.’
If he expected Brian to blush or scuffle, he was disappointed. Brian just kept looking at him in that patient way, as if to say Yes, yes, get it out of your system, boss — the sooner you get it out of your system, the sooner you’ll be able to relax and do the right thing.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Tony said. ‘One of us has lost his mind. Probably it’s me.’
‘They’re just little guys,’ Brian said. His voice was as patient as his face. ‘And we’re the ones who put them in there, Sarge, they didn’t exactly volunteer. We’re responsible. Now I’ll do it if you want, I’m the one who forgot — ‘
Tony raised his hands to the sky, as if to ask for divine intervention, then dropped them back to his sides. Red was creeping out of his collar, up his neck, and over his jaw. It met the red patches on his cheeks: howdy-do, neighbor. ‘Hair pie!’ he muttered.
The men had heard him say this before, and knew better than to crack a smile. It is at this point that many people -perhaps even a majority — would be apt to yell, ‘Oh, screw it! Do what you want!’ and stamp away. But when you’re in the big chair, getting the big bucks for making the big decisions, you can’t do that. The D Troopers gathered in front of the shed knew this, and so, of course, did Tony. He stood there, looking down at his shoes. From out front of the barracks came the steady blat of Arky’s old red Briggs & Stratton mower.
‘Sarge — ‘ Curtis began.
‘Kid, do us all a favor and shut up.’
Curt shut up.
After a moment, Tony raised his head. ‘The rope I asked you to pick up — did you get it?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s the good stuff. You could take it mountain-climbing. At least that’s what the guy at Calling All Sports said.’
‘Is it in there?’ Tony nodded at the shed.
‘No, in the trunk of my car.’
‘Well thank God for small favors. Bring it over here. And I hope we never have to find out how good it is.’ He looked at Brian Cole. ‘Maybe you’d like to to go down to the Agway or the Giant Eagle, Trooper Cole. Get them a few bottles of Evian or Poland Spring Water. Hell, Perrier! How about some Perrier?’
Brian said nothing, just gave the Sergeant a little more of that patient look. Tony couldn’t stand it and looked away. ‘Mice with pedigrees! Hair pie!’
Curt brought the rope, a length of triple-braided yellow nylon at least a hundred feet long. He made a sliding loop, cinched it around his waist, then gave the coil to Huddie Royer, who weighed two-fifty and always anchored when D Troop played tug-of-war agaist the other PSP octets during the Fourth of July picnic.
‘If I give you the word,’ Tony told Huddie, ‘you yank him back like he just caught fire. And don’t worry about breaking his collarbone or his thick skull pulling him through the door. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
‘If you see him fall down, or just start swaying on his feet like he’s lightheaded, don’t wait for the word. Just yank. Got it?’
‘Yes, Sarge.’
‘Good. I’m very glad that someone understands what’s going on here. Fucking hair-pie summer camp snipe-hunt is what it is.’ He ran his hand through the short bristles of his hair, then turned to Curt again. ‘Do I need to tell you to turn around and come out of there if you sense anything — any slightest thing — wrong?’
‘No.’
‘And if the trunk of that car comes open, Curtis, you fly. Got it? Fly out of there like a bigass bird.’
‘I will.’
‘Give me the video camera.’
Curtis held it out arid Tony took it. Sandy wasn’t there — missed the whole thing — but when Huddie later told him it was the only time he had ever seen the Sarge looking scared, Sandy was just as glad he spent that afternoon out on patrol. There were some things you just didn’t want to see.
‘You have one minute in the shed, Trooper Wilcox. After that I drag you out whether you’re fainting, farting, or singing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean”.’
‘Ninety seconds.’
‘No. And if you try one more time to bargain with me, your time goes down to thirty seconds.’
Curtis Wilcox is standing in the sun outside the walk-in door on the north side of Shed B. The rope is tied around his waist. He looks young on the tape, younger with each passing year. He looked at that tape himself from time to time and probably felt the same, although he never said. And he doesn’t look scared. Not a bit. Only excited. He waves to the camera and says,
‘I’ll be right back.’
‘You better be,’ Tony replies.
Curt turns and goes into the shed. For a moment he looks ghostly, hardly there, then Tony moves the camera forward to get it out of the bright sun and you can see Curt clearly again.
He crosses directly to the car and starts around to the back.
‘No!’ Tony shouts. ‘No, you dummy, you want to foul the rope? Check the gerbils, give em their goddam water, and get the hell out of there!’
Curt raises one hand without turning, giving him a thumbs-up. The picture jiggles as Tony
uses the zoom to get in tighter on him.
Curtis looks in the driver’s-side window, then stiffens and calls: ‘Holy shit!’
‘Sarge, should I pull — ‘ Huddie begins, and then Curt looks back over his shoulder. Tony’s juggling the picture again — he doesn’t have Curt’s light touch with the camera and the image is going everywhere — but it’s still easy enough to read the wide-eyed expression of shock on Curtis’s face.
‘Don’t you pull me back!’ Curt shouts. ‘Don’t do it! I’m five-by-five!’ And with that, he opens the door of the Roadmaster.
‘Stay out of there!’ Tony calls from behind the madly jiggling camera.
Curt ignores him and pulls the plastic gerbil condo out of the car, waggling it gently back and forth to get it past the big steering wheel. He uses his knee to shut the Buick’s door and then comes back to the shed door with the habitat cradled in his arms. With a square room at either end, the thing looks like some strange sort of plastic dumbbell.