Chapter 11

" Come on, assholes! You want to live forever? "

Unknown World War I Top Sergeant

They passed into Oldtown around midnight. They switched through two feeder roads, joined Route 2, and went through the center of town.

For Ray Garraty the entire passage was a blurred, sleep‑ hazed nightmare. The cheering rose and swelled until it seemed to cut off any possibility of thought or reason. Night was turned into glaring, shadowless day by flaring arc‑ sodium lamps that threw a strange orange light. In such a light even the most friendly face looked like something from a crypt. Confetti, newspaper, shredded pieces of telephone book, and long streamers of toilet paper floated and soared from second‑ and third-­story windows. It was a New York ticker-tape parade in Bush League U.S.A.

No one died in Oldtown. The orange arc‑ lamps faded and the crowd depleted a little as they walked along the Stillwater River in the trench of morning. It was May 3rd now. The ripe smell of paper mill smote them. A juicy smell of chemi­cals, woodsmoke, polluted river, and stomach cancer waiting to happen. There were conical piles of sawdust higher than the buildings downtown. Heaped stacks of pulpwood stood to the sky like monoliths. Garraty dozed and dreamed his shad­owy dreams of relief and redemption and after what seemed to be an eternity, someone began jabbing him in the ribs. It was McVries.

" Wassamatter? "

" We're going on the turnpike, " McVries said. He was excited. " The word's back. They got a whole sonofabitchin' color guard on the entrance ramp. We're gonna get a four‑ hundred‑ gun salute! "

" Into the valley of death rode the four hundred, " Garraty muttered, rubbing the sleepy‑ seeds out of his eyes. " I've heard too many three‑ gun salutes tonight. Not interested. Lemme sleep."

" That isn't the point. After they get done, we're gonna give them a salute."

" We are? "

" Yeah. A forty‑ six‑ man raspberry."

Garraty grinned a little. It felt stiff and uncertain on his lips. " That right? "

" It certainly is. Well … a forty‑ man raspberry. A few of the guys are pretty far gone now."

Garraty had a brief vision of Olson, the human Flying Dutchman.

" Well, count me in, " he said.

" Bunch up with us a little, then."

Garraty picked it up. He and McVries moved in tighter with Pearson, Abraham, Baker and Scramm. The leather boys had further shortened their vanguard.

" Barkovitch in on it? " Garraty asked.

McVries snorted. " He thinks it's the greatest idea since pay toilets."

Garraty clutched his cold body a little tighter to himself and let out a humorless little giggle. " I bet he's got a hell of a wicked raspberry."

They were paralleling the turnpike now. Garraty could see the steep embank­ment to his right, and the fuzzy glow of more arc‑ sodiums-‑ bone‑ white this time--­above. A distance ahead, perhaps half a mile, the entrance ramp split off and climbed.

" Here we come, " McVries said.

" Cathy! " Scramm yelled suddenly, making Garraty start. " I ain't gave up yet, Cathy! " He turned his blank, fever‑ glittering eyes on Garraty. There was no rec­ognition in them. His cheeks were flushed, his lips cracked with fever blisters.

" He ain't so good, " Baker said apologetically, as if he had caused it. " We been givin' him water every now and again, also sort of pourin' it over his head. But his canteen's almost empty, and if he wants another one, he'll have to holler for it himself. It's the rules."

" Scramm, " Garraty said.

" Who's that? " Scramm's eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.

" Me. Garraty."

" Oh. You seen Cathy? "

" No, " Garraty said uncomfortably. " I‑

" Here we come, " McVries said. The crowd's cheers rose in volume again, and a ghostly green sign came out of the darkness: INTERSTATE 95 AUGUSTA PORTLAND PORTSMOUTH POINTS SOUTH.

" That's us, " Abraham whispered. " God help us an' points south."

The exit ramp tilted up under their feet. They passed into the first splash of light from the overhead arcs. The new paving was smoother beneath their feet, and Gar­raty felt a familiar lift‑ drop of excitement.

The soldiers of the color guard had displaced the crowd along the upward spiral of the ramp. They silently held their rifles to high port. Their dress uniforms gleamed resplendently; their own soldiers in their dusty halftrack looked shabby by comparison.

It was like rising above a huge and restless sea of noise and into the calm air. The only sound was their footfalls and the hurried pace of their breathing. The entrance ramp seemed to go on forever, and always the way was fringed by sol­diers in scarlet uniforms, their arms held in high‑ port salute.

And then, from the darkness somewhere, came the Major's electronically am­plified voice: " Pre‑ sent harms! "

Weapons slapped flesh.

" Salute ready! "

Guns to shoulders, pointed skyward above them in a steely arch. Everyone instinctively huddled together against the crash which meant death‑ it had been Pav­loved into them.

" Fire! "

Four hundred guns in the night, stupendous, ear‑ shattering. Garraty fought down the urge to put his hands to his head.

" Fire! "

Again the smell of powder smoke, acrid, heavy with cordite. In what book did they fire guns over the water to bring the body of a drowned man to the surface?

" My head, " Scramm moaned. " Oh Jesus my head aches."

" Fire! "

The guns exploded for the third and last time.

McVries immediately turned around and walked backward, his face going a spotty red with the effort it cost him to shout. " Pre‑ sent harms! "

Forty tongues pursed forty sets of lips.

" Salute ready! "

Garraty drew breath into his lungs and fought to hold it.

" Fire! "

It was pitiful, really. A pitiful little noise of defiance in the big dark. It was not repeated. The wooden faces of their color guard did not change, but seemed all the same to indicate a subtle reproach.

" Oh, screw it, " said McVries. He turned around and began to walk frontwards again, with his head down.

The pavement leveled off. They were on the turnpike. There was a brief vision of the Major's jeep spurting away to the south, a flicker of cold fluorescent light against black sunglasses, and then the crowd closed in again, but farther from them now, for the highway was four lanes wide, five if you counted the grassy median strip.

Garraty angled to the median quickly, and walked in the close‑ cropped grass, feeling the dew seep through his cracked shoes and paint his ankles. Someone was warned. The turnpike stretched ahead, flat and monotonous, stretches of concrete tubing divided by this green inset, all of it banded together by strips of white light from the arc‑ sodiums above. Their shadows were sharp and clear and long, as if thrown by a summer moon.

Garraty tipped his canteen up, swigged deep, recapped it, and began to doze again. Eighty, maybe eighty‑ four miles to Augusta. The feel of the wet grass was soothing...

He stumbled, almost fell, and came awake with a jerk. Some fool had planted pines on the median strip. He knew it was the state tree, but wasn't that taking it a little far? How could they expect you to walk on the grass when there were‑

They didn't, of course.

Garraty moved over to the left lane, where most of them were walking. Two more halftracks had rattled onto the turnpike at the Orono entrance to fully cover the forty‑ six Walkers now left. They didn't expect you to walk on the grass. An­other joke on you, Garraty old sport. Nothing vital, just another little disappointment. Trivial, really. Just... don't dare wish for anything, and don't count on anything. The doors are closing. One by one, they're closing.

" They'll drop out tonight, " he said. " They'll go like bugs on a wall tonight."

" I wouldn't count on it, " Collie Parker said, and now he sounded worn and tired‑ subdued at last.

" Why not? "

" It's like shaking a box of crackers through a sieve, Garraty. The crumbs fall through pretty fast. Then the little pieces break up and they go, too. But the big crackers" ‑ Parker's grin was a crescent flash of saliva‑ coated teeth in the dark­ness‑ " the whole crackers have to bust off a crumb at a time."

" But such a long way to walk... still..."

" I still want to live, " Parker said roughly. " So do you, don't shit me, Garraty. You and that guy McVries can walk down the road and bullshit the universe and each other, so what, it's all a bunch of phony crap but it passes the time. But don't shit me. The bottom line is you still want to live. So do most of the others. They'll die slow. They'll die one piece at a time. I may get it, but right now I feel like I could walk all the way to New Orleans before I fell down on my knees for those wet ends in their kiddy car. "

" Really? " He felt a wave of despair wash over him. " Really? "

" Yeah, really. Settle down, Garraty. We still got a long way to go." He strode away, up to where the leather boys, Mike and Joe, were pacing the group. Gar­raty's head dropped and he dozed again.

His mind began to drift clear of his body, a huge sightless camera full of unex­posed film snapping shuttershots of everything and anything, running freely, pain­lessly, without friction. He thought of his father striding off big in green rubber boots. He thought of Jimmy Owens, he had hit Jimmy with the barrel of his air rifle, and yes he had meant to, because it had been Jimmy's idea, taking off their clothes and touching each other had been Jimmy's idea, it had been Jimmy's idea. The gun swinging in a glittering arc, a glittering purposeful arc, the splash of blood (" I'm sorry Jim oh jeez you need a bandaid") across Jimmy's chin, helping him into the house... Jimmy hollering... hollering.

Garraty looked up, half‑ stupefied and a little sweaty in spite of the night chill. Someone had hollered. The guns were centered on a small, nearly portly figure. It looked like Barkovitch. They fired in neat unison, and the small, nearly portly figure was thrown across two lanes like a limp laundry sack. The bepimpled moon face was not Barkovitch's. To Garraty the face looked rested, at peace.

He found himself wondering if they wouldn't all be better off dead, and shied away from the thought skittishly. But wasn't it true? The thought was inexorable. The pain in his feet would double, perhaps treble before the end came, and the pain seemed insupportable now. And it was not even pain that was the worst. It was the death, the constant death, the stink of carrion that had settled into his nos­trils. The crowd's cheers were a constant background to his thoughts. The sound lulled him. He began to doze again, and this time it was the image of Jan that came. For a while he had forgotten all about her. In a way, he thought disjointedly, it was better to doze than to sleep. The pain in his feet and his legs seemed to belong to someone else to whom he was tethered only loosely, and with just a little effort he could regulate his thoughts. Put them to work for him.

He built her image slowly in his mind. Her small feet. Her sturdy but completely feminine legs‑ small calves swelling to full earthy peasant thighs. Her waist was small, her breasts full and proud. The intelligent, rounded planes of her face. Her long blond hair. Whore's hair he thought it for some reason. Once he had told her that‑ it had simply slipped out and he thought she would be angry, but she had not replied at all. He thought she had been secretly pleased...

It was the steady, reluctant contraction in his bowels that raised him this time. He had to grit his teeth to keep walking at speed until the sensation had passed. The fluorescent dial on his watch said it was almost one o'clock.

Oh God, please don't make me have to take a crap in front of all these people. Please God. I'll give You half of everything I get if I win, only please constipate me. Please. Please. Pl‑ -

His bowels contracted again, strongly and hurtfully, perhaps affirming the fact that he was still essentially healthy in spite of the pounding his body had taken. He forced himself to go on until he had passed out of the merciless glare of the nearest overhead. He nervously unbuckled his belt, paused, then, grimacing, shoved his pants down with one hand held protectively across his genitals, and squatted. His knees popped explosively. The muscles in his thighs and calves pro­tested screamingly and threatened to knot as they were bullied unwillingly in a new direction.

" Warning! Warning 47! "

" John! Hey Johnny, look at that poor bastard over there."

Pointing fingers, half‑ seen and half‑ imagined in the darkness. Flashbulbs popped and Garraty turned his head away miserably. Nothing could be worse than this. Nothing.

He almost fell on his back and managed to prop himself up with one arm.

A squealing, girlish voice: " I see it! I see his thing! "

Baker passed him without a glance.

For a terrifying moment he thought it was all going to be for nothing anyway--­a false alarm-‑ but then it was all right. He was able to take care of business. Then, with a grunting half‑ sob, he rose to his feet and stumbled into a half‑ walk, half­run, cinching his pants tight again, leaving part of him behind to steam in the dark, eyed avidly by a thousand people‑ bottle it! put it on your mantel! The shit of a man with his life laid straight out in the line! This is it, Betty, I told you we had something special in the game room... right up here, over the stereo. He was shot twenty minutes later...

He caught up with McVries and walked beside him, head down.

" Tough? " McVries asked. There was unmistakable admiration in his voice.

" Real tough, " Garraty said, and let out a shivery, loosening sigh. " I knew I forgot something."

" What? "

" I left my toilet paper home."

McVries cackled. " As my old granny used to say, if you ain't got a cob, then just let your hips slide a little freer."

Garraty burst out laughing, a clear, hearty laugh with no hysteria in it. He felt lighter, looser. No matter how things turned out, he wouldn't have to go through that again.

" Well, you made it, " Baker said, falling in step.

" Jesus, " Garraty said, surprised. " Why don't all you guys just send me a get­well card, or something? "

" It's no fun, with all those people staring at you, " Baker said soberly. " Listen, I just heard something. I don't know if I believe it. I don't know if I even want to believe it. "

" What is it? " Garraty asked.

" Joe and Mike? The leather‑ jacket guys everybody thought was queer for each other? They're Hopis. I think that was what Scramm was trying to tell us before, and we weren't gettin' him. But... see... what I hear is that they're brothers."

Garraty's jaw dropped.

I walked up and took a good look at 'em, " Baker was going on. " And I'll be goddamned if they don't look like brothers."

" That's twisted, " McVries said angrily. " That's fucking twisted! Their folks ought to be Squaded for allowing something like that! "

You ever know any Indians? " Baker asked quietly.

" Not unless they came from Passaic, " McVries said. He still sounded angry.

" There's a Seminole reservation down home, across the state line, " Baker said. " They're funny people. They don't think of things like 'responsibility' the same way we do. They're proud. And poor. I guess those things are the same for the Hopis as they are for the Seminoles. And they know how to die.'

" None of that makes it right, " McVries said.

" They come from New Mexico, " Baker said.

" It's an abortion, " McVries said with finality, and Garraty tended to agree.

Talk flagged all up and down the line, partially because of the noise from the crowd. but more, Garraty suspected, because of the very monotony of the turnpike itself. The hills were long and gradual, barely seeming like hills. Walkers dozed, snorted fitfully, and seemed to pull their belts tighter and resign themselves to a long, barely understood bitterness ahead. The little clots of society dissolved into threes, twos, solitary islands.

The crowd knew no fatigue. They cheered steadily with one hoarse voice, they waved unreadable placards. Garraty's name was shouted with monotonous fre­quency, but blocs of out‑ of‑ staters cheered briefly for Barkovitch, Pearson, Wy­man. Other names blipped past and were gone with the speeding velocity of snow across a television screen.

Firecrackers popped and spluttered in strings. Someone threw a burning road flare into the cold sky and the crowd scattered, screaming, as it pinwheeled down to hiss its glaring purple light into the dirt of a gravel shoulder beyond the break­down lane. There were other crowd standouts. A man with an electric bullhorn who alternately praised Garraty and advertised his own candidacy to represent the second district; a woman with a big crow in a small cage which she hugged jeal­ously to her giant bosom; a human pyramid made out of college boys in University of New Hampshire sweatshirts; a hollow‑ cheeked man with no teeth in an Uncle Sam suit wearing a sign which said: WE GAVE AWAY THE PANAMA CANAL TO THE COMMUNIST NIGGERS. But otherwise the crowd seemed as dull and bland as the turnpike itself.

Garraty dozed on fitfully, and the visions in his head were alternately of love and horror. In one of the dreams a low and droning voice asked over and over again: Are you experienced? Are you experienced? Are you experienced? and he could not tell if it was the voice of Stebbins or of the Major.