construed as a good thing.
A sign. An omen.
Not the kind of omen that makes you want to buy a lottery ticket or take
a quick trip to Vegas. Certainly not an omen that would make you decide
to commit more of your net worth to the stock market. No, this was an
omen that might inspire you to move to rural New Mexico, up into the
fastness of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, as far from civilization as
you could get, with a hoard of food, twenty thousand rounds of
ammunition and a prayer book.
I returned the pistol to the holster under my jacket.
Suddenly I was tired, drained.
I took a few deep breaths, but each inhalation was as stale as the air I
exhaled.
When I wiped a hand across my face, hoping to slough off my weariness, I
expected my skin to be greasy. Instead, it was dry and hot.
I found a penny-size tender spot just below my left cheekbone.
Gently massaging it with a fingertip, I tried to remember whether I had
knocked against anything during the night’s adventures.
Any pain without apparent cause is a possible early signal of a forming
lesion, of the cancer that I have thus far remarkably escaped. If the
suspect blemish or tenderness occurs on my face or hands, which are
exposed to light even though sheathe in sunscreen, the chances of
malignancy are greater.
Lowering my hand from my face, I reminded myself to live in the moment.
Because of XP, I was born with no future, and in spite of my
limitations, I live a full life perhaps a better oneby concerning myself
as little as possible with what tomorrow may bring. The present is more
vivid, more precious, more fulfilling, if you understand that it is all
you have.
Carpe them, said the poet Horace, more than two thousand years ago.
Seize the day. And trust not in tomorrow.
Carpe noctem works as well for me. I seize the night, wringing from it
all that it has to offer, and I refuse to dwell on the fact that
eventually the darkness of all darknesses will wring the same from me.
The solemn birds had cast down a dreary mood, like feathers molting from
their wings. I walked determinedly out of that fallen plumage, heading
toward the movie theater where Bobby Halloway was waiting.
The sore spot on my cheek might never develop into a lesion or a
blister. Its value, as a source of worry, had been solely to distract me
from the more terrible fear that I was reluctant to face, The longer
Jimmy Wing and Orson were missing, the greater the likelihood they were
dead.
Bordering the northern edge of Dead Town’s residential district is a
park with handball courts at one end and tennis courts at the other.
In the middle are acres of picnic grounds shaded by California live oaks
that have fared well since the base closure, a playground with swings
and jungle gyms, an open-air pavilion, and an enormous swimming pool.
The large oval pavilion, where bands once played on summer nights, is
the only ornate structure in Wyvern, Victorian, with an encircling
balustrade, fluted columns, a deep cornice enhanced by elaborate
millwork, and a fanciful roof that drops from finial to eaves in
shingled scallops reminiscent of the swags of a circus tent. Here, under
strings of colored Christmas lights, young men had danced with their
wive sand then gone off to bloody deaths in World War II, the Korean War,
Vietnam, and lesser skirmishes. The lights still dangle from rafter to
rafter, unplugged and sheathe in dust, and often it seems that if you
squint your eyes just slightly on moonlit nights like this, you can see
the ghosts of martyrs to democracy dancing with the spirits of their
widows.
As I strode through the tall grass, past the community swimming pool,
where the chain-link fence sagged around the entire perimeter and was
completely broken down in a few spots, I increased my pace, not solely
because I was anxious to get to the movie house. Nothing has happened
here to make me fearful of the place, but instinct tells me not to