Voyage From Yesteryear

“I didn’t think it would, so I won’t say it.”

“So does that mean you’ve got it figured?” Jay Eked.

“Would it make any difference to your problem if I had?”

“No. It’d be your solution, not mine.” “Then that’s the answer.” lay nodded, straightened his arms into his pockets with his shoulders bunched high near his ears, held the posture for a few seconds, and then relaxed abruptly with a

sigh. “Can I ask you something?” he said, looking up. “Do I have to answer it?”

“Not if you don’t want to, I guess.” , “Go ahead.”

“Why is it the way it is? How does what you and I do in. Jersey have anything to do with my dad’s job? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Did you ask him about it?” “Uh-huh.” “And?” lay squinted into the distance and scratched his head. “Pretty much what I expected. Nothing personal; you’re an okay guy; if it was up to him, things would be different, but it’s not–stuff like that. But he was only saying that so as not to sound mean–I could tell. It goes deeper than that. It’s not a case of it being up to him or not. He really believes in it. How do people get like that?”

Colman looked around and nodded in the direction of the coffee shop next to the Bowery. “Let’s not stand around here all night,” he said. “Come on inside. Could you use a coffee?”

“Sure… thanks.” They began walking toward the door.

“And-thanks for the valves,” Jay said. “They fit perfectly.” “How’s it coming along?”

“Pretty good. The axle assembly’s finished. You’ll have

to come and take a look.” “I sure will.”

Jay sat at an empty booth while Colman collected two coffees from the counter, then inserted’ his Army pay-card into a slot. In a lot of ways lay reminded Colman of himself when he was a lot younger. Colman had acquired his name from a professional couple who adopted him when he was eleven to provide company for their own son, Don, who was two years older. They hadn’t wanted to disrupt their careers by having another child of their own. Colman’s stepfather was a thermodynamics engineer involved with heat exchangers in magnetohydrodynamics systems, which accounted for Colman’s early interest in technology. Although the Colmans had done their best to treat both boys equally, Steve resented Don’s basic schooling and was jealous when Don went to college to study engineering, even though he himself had then been too young W do the ‘same. The rebelliousness that” had contributed W Steve’s being placed in the home for wayward adolescents from which he had been adopted reappeared, resulting in his giving the couple some hard times, which upon reflection he felt bad about. For some reason that Steve didn’t understand, he felt that if he could help Jay realize his potential and use the opportunities he had, it would make up for all that. Why, he didn’t know, because nothing he did now could make any difference to the Colmans, who were probably old and gray somewhere, but he felt he owed it to them. People’s minds worked like that. Minds could be very strange.

He set the coffees down and slid into the seat opposite 1ay. “Ever been thirsty?” he asked as he stirred sugar into his cup.

lay looked surprised. “Why… sure. I guess so. Hasn’t everybody?”

“Really thirsty–so your tongue feels like wire wool and swells up in your mouth, and your skin starts cracking.”

“Well… no. Why?”

“I have. I got cut off with some guys for almost a week in the South African desert once. All you think about is water. You can’t describe the craving. You’d cut off your arm for a cup.” He paused, and Jay waited with a puzzled expression on his face. “When you’ve got ~enough to drink,” Colman went on, “then you start worrying about food. That takes longer to build up, but it gets as bad. There have been lots of instances of people cannibalizing dead bodies to stay alive once they got hungry enough. They’ve killed each other over potato peels.”

“So-o-o-o?”

“When you’ve got enough to eat and drink, then you worry about keeping warm. And when you’re warm enough, you start thinking about staying safe.” Colman opened his hands briefly. “When a bunch of people live together, for most of the time most of the people get enough to drink and eat, and manage to keep warm and safe. What do you think they start worrying about then?”

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