Kings of Infinite Space: A Novel Read online

  “That day there was a terrible storm,” whispered Olivia, and for a moment Paul had the same childish thrill he used to get from campfire ghost stories. Olivia clutched her purse and dropped her voice so low that Paul caught only snatches of what she said. He wasn’t even sure they were the important snatches: a sudden Texas thunderstorm—the men took refuge in the bus—a flash flood—the bus carried away—that awful sinkhole—the bus swept clean—

  “What?” said Paul.

  Olivia narrowed her eyes at Paul. “The force of the water busted out the windows of the bus, and just scoured it out. All those men . . .” She blinked back tears. All those men, it seemed, had been washed away into the caves without a trace. Only Stanley Tulendij was ever found, clinging to a juniper bush at the lip of the sinkhole, still in his coat and tie, soaked to the skin, nearly drowned.

  “And he’s never been the same man since,” suggested Paul, trying not to smile. He didn’t believe a word of this. It had the almost pornographic allure of an urban legend or some mournful, minor-key folk song about a train wreck or a mining disaster. “So now he haunts the halls of TxDoGS, looking in vain for the faces of his missing men . . .”

  Olivia’s face hardened, and she slung the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “I suppose you think losing your job is funny,” she snapped, and Paul was stung to silence.

  “Not really,” he managed to say.

  “You think because you’ve got a pee aitch dee,” she spat, “you’re too good for this job.”

  “Not really,” Paul said again, hoarsely.

  “Excuse me.” Olivia snapped her purse strap between her breasts and pushed past Paul, sailing out the door of her cube and up the aisle.

  Paul sighed, then stepped across the aisle into his own cube long enough to switch off his light. He took the rear stairs and passed the mail room, hoping for a glimpse of Callie, but he didn’t see her. He signed out and deposited his visitor’s pass at the front desk, then threaded his way through the parking lot to his lucky spot under the tree, along the river embankment. He rolled down the windows and opened the creaking hatchback to let out the day’s accumulated heat; he took off his dress shirt and tossed it on the passenger seat. Behind him, the departing column of SUVs and pickups rumbled out of the lot; Paul slammed the hatchback shut and lowered himself behind the wheel.

  I’m supposed to believe all that? he wondered. A busful of sacked state employees washed into a sinkhole? Stanley Tulendij clinging for dear life to a juniper bush? All of them in business attire?

  “They died with their boots on,” Paul murmured, and smiled to himself. He started his engine, and the car shook itself like an old dog. Through the windshield glare he squinted over the embankment and across the river. Some of his coworkers’ vehicles were already lumbering across the Travis Street Bridge in a haze of heat and exhaust, past insane Texas joggers pounding along the pedestrian walkway during the worst heat of the day. One pedestrian, however, had stopped on the bridge. He was not a stalled jogger: He wore trousers, a shirt and tie, and glasses, and he seemed to be looking this way. His features were hard to make out with the sun behind him, but the shape was unmistakable—a small oval atop a larger oval. It’s the homeless guy from yesterday, realized Paul, the egg-shaped man, Señor Huevo, what was his name? Boy G—that was it! Mr. Are We Not Men himself! Paul leaned forward and tilted his hand against the glare. Is he looking at me? he thought, and just then the figure on the bridge lifted his hand and waved.

  Paul snapped back in his seat as if he’d been struck across the face. Another movement caught his eye through the driver’s side window, and he turned to see Stanley Tulendij step out from behind the tree. Without a glance back, the old man spidered up the embankment on his long legs, and in a moment he had crested the rise and disappeared down the other side.

  Paul fumbled at the latch and heaved his door open on its whining hinges. He hesitated, then dashed through the heat up the slope. At the top of the embankment Paul was halted by the sour reek of the river. On the far side of the sluggish water lay the unfashionable end of Lamar’s hike-and-bike trail, but on this side, the yellowed grass sloped directly into the weeds at the water’s edge, with no interruption but the humped concrete back of a storm drain that emptied into the river. Paul looked both ways; to his left, the embankment curved away around a bend in the river, to his right, it ran unbroken to the bridge. Stanley Tulendij was nowhere to be seen in either direction. Paul turned and looked back down at the nearly empty parking lot. His own car trembled below him, motor running, door open. He turned towards the bridge and shaded his eyes with his palm. The figure at the railing, the oval-on-oval silhouette, was gone. All Paul saw were candy-colored SUVs, nose to tail along the bridge, and the lean silhouettes of joggers, pounding through the Texas glare.

  TEN

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, surveying the crowded lunchroom for an empty table, Paul was about to turn away and take his sandwich up to his cube again when the Colonel beckoned to him from the far corner. Paul pretended he hadn’t noticed and swung his gaze round the room once more—he’d never seen Callie here during lunch, but then he’d never really looked. Then his gaze drifted back to the Colonel, who sat with his chin lifted and his wattles pulled tight, and he lifted his hand over his head, as if signaling a waiter. Before Paul could make up his mind, he was halfway across the room. Bob Wier gave him a sad smile and pushed back the empty chair. Paul took the seat with a shrug.

  “Glad you could join us, Professor.” The Colonel’s eyes twinkled.

  “Carrot stick?” said Bob Wier, proffering a Tupperware dish of crudités.

  “Thanks, no.” Paul emptied his lunch bag one item at a time—cheese sandwich, no-brand chips, pickle.

  J.J. worked a burger into his mouth with both hands. “Mmmph,” he said.

  “We were just discussing the life and work of Marion Morrison.” With his chopsticks the Colonel skillfully plucked a crumbling bit of sushi from his beautifully enameled Japanese lunch box.

  “The Duke!” said Bob Wier. “The Big Guy!”

  “Fuckin’ A,” said J.J., plucking a soggy bit of lettuce off his lower lip.

  “Ah.” Paul peeled the baggie off his sandwich. Was he supposed to know who Marion Morrison was? Was he another decrepit, downsized TxDoGS legend like Stanley Tulendij?

  The Colonel gave Paul a wry smile across the table. “No doubt you’re familiar with Morrison’s œuvre.” Oove, he pronounced it.

  “I don’t think so,” Paul said. “He must have been before my time.”

  Bob Wier and the Colonel burst out laughing. J.J. gagged on his burger and thumped his fist against his sternum. Through a full mouth, he said, “John Wayne, dickhead.”

  “Pardon me?” Paul glowered back at J.J.

  “Forgive our friend’s choler.” The Colonel reached around the table and squeezed J.J.’s bicep manfully. “It’s his way of showing fellowship. Isn’t that right, J.J.?” He squeezed a little harder, and J.J. winced and said, “Sorry.”

  “Sure.” Paul felt his face get hot, and he took a big bite of his sandwich.

  Bob Wier said, “I was just saying what a blessing the Duke’s example was to the American man. A paragon of strength”—Bob Wier balled up his fist—“and tenderness.” He opened his hand. It was as if he were gesturing for the benefit of the parishioners in the pews all the way in the back. “Why, even my wife, Barb,” Bob went on, “was a fan of the Duke.”

  The Colonel and J.J. froze and glared at Bob Wier, J.J. crushing his burger, the Colonel squeezing his chopsticks so tightly that a pink fleck of sushi shot across the table. Even Paul froze, involuntarily, his gaze shifting back and forth as he clutched his sandwich halfway to his lips.

  “Bob,” warned J.J.

  “Time to move on, son,” intoned the Colonel.

  “Right.” Bob Wier’s face drained of color, and he dropped his gaze to the Tupperware dish before him. He rolled a fat little carrot between thumb and forefinger. “Of course
. You’re absolutely right.”

  Still watching Bob Wier, J.J. slowly fed the burger into his mouth. The Colonel dipped his chopsticks into his lunch box. Paul took a cautious bite of his cheese sandwich.

  Bob Wier drew a deep, shuddering breath and soldiered on. “It’s just that when I think of how John Wayne bore Natalie Wood up in his arms at the end of The Searchers—”

  “Fuuuuck,” said J.J. in a dismissive diminuendo.

  Bob Wier widened his eyes. “No?” he said.

  “Well, I don’t fucking get it!” whined J.J. “Check out her eyebrows, for chrissake! You ever see an Indian with lipstick and blush?”

  “The Lord’s name, J.J.,” said Bob Wier, smiling ferociously.

  “Okay, sorry, but Jesus, Bob, what about that other guy, whatshisname, the bad guy, the evil Comanche—”

  “Scar,” said Paul, without thinking. What am I doing? he thought. He was still wondering what had just happened.

  “Yeah, Scar.” J.J. rolled his eyes. “Fucker had five o’clock shadow, for cry yi. He was sucking in his gut for the whole movie.”

  “Gentlemen, please.” The Colonel laughed, reaching to either side to grasp the wrists of Bob Wier and J.J. “A little decorum, if you please. Our guest here will think we’re savages ourselves.”

  Paul wondered if it was too late to get up and sit somewhere else. Meanwhile, Bob Wier squeezed his eyes shut and moved his lips in silent prayer. Across the table J.J. sighed and dropped his sullen gaze to his paper plate.

  “All I was trying to say,” Bob Wier said, opening his eyes, “was what a splendid role model the Duke was. Especially as he got older.” He poked a celery stick at the tabletop for emphasis. “The very picture of a man aging gracefully.” He crunched off the end of the celery stick. “In great movies like Big Jake and Cahill: U.S. Marshall.”

  “The Sons of Katie Elder,” mumbled J.J. through a mouthful of french fries.

  “Yes! Praise Jesus!” Bob Wier crunched his celery and lifted his eyes to heaven. “What’s that wonderful line from Chisum?”

  “Jism?” said J.J. with a glint in his eye.

  “Knock it off, son,” warned the Colonel.

  Bob Wier ignored them both. “Somebody asks him . . .” Crunch, crunch. “Oh yes, somebody says, ‘Where are you going, John?’ and he says—” Swallowing his celery, Bob Wier threw his shoulders back and essayed the lurching rhythms of a pretty fair John Wayne imitation. “ ‘Somethin’ I shoulda done thirty years ago.’ ”

  “That’s not what he says!” protested J.J., his mouth full.

  “So let me get this straight.” Paul was astonished to hear himself weighing in. “We admire John Wayne because he’s a procrastinator?”

  Bob Wier broadened his smile at Paul, unsure whether Paul was joking or not. The Colonel’s gaze drilled into him from across the table. J.J. shot an angry glance at the Colonel, as if to say, I told you so.

  This was a mistake, Paul thought, I shouldn’t have sat down here. He was aware of the Colonel’s gaze on him.

  “Jism,” snorted J.J. again, in case no one had heard him the first time.

  “I don’t think the professor agrees with you, Bob,” said the Colonel, ignoring him. He had finished his exquisite little lunch and was closing up the enameled box. He dabbed at the corners of his lips with a creamy linen napkin.

  “Really!” said Bob Wier, a little too enthusiastically. He folded his hands and peered at Paul earnestly. “It’d be a blessing to hear your thoughts on the subject.”

  Paul held up a finger; he was chewing.

  “I think what the professor wants to say,” said the Colonel, carefully folding his napkin, “is that in the later movies—pardon me, the later films—of Marion Morrison, what we see is not a role model, not a moral paragon, but an actor. And not just an actor, but a vain old movie star in a wig and a corset who let his stuntman do everything but the close-ups.” The Colonel smiled across the table. “I think the professor here prefers the dark, neurotic John Wayne of Red River, the—how shall I put it?” He placed his hands on either side of his Japanese lunch box. “The Nixonesque John Wayne, John Wayne as King Lear, if you will. And do you know, gentlemen? He’s right.” He held up his creased palm. Bob Wier nodded earnestly, while J.J. glared at Paul and shoved a limp bundle of fries into his mouth.

  “Those earlier films of Mr. Morrison’s,” the Colonel continued, “are the work of a mature artist, a man at the peak of his powers as a professional and as a man. With all due respect to you, Bob, those earlier films convey more of the richness and complexity of life than do the more, shall we say, self-indulgent work of his waning years.”

  “Hm.” Bob Wier rubbed his chin.

  “A corset,” said J.J., chewing slowly. “Fuck.”

  “Now,” The Colonel leveled his gaze at Paul “Is that a fair assessment of your position?”

  Paul swallowed his mouthful of cheese sandwich. What he wanted to say was, John Wayne? Hell, I don’t even like westerns. The only John Wayne movie he remembered really enjoying was a boneheaded epic (he couldn’t recall the name) where Wayne, in heavy makeup, played Genghis Khan. But if he had given the Duke’s oove any thought over the years, then, well yes, he’d have to admit, grudgingly, that he preferred Red River to Wayne’s later films. But only, he would have hastened to add, because it was the work of a great filmmaker like Howard Hawks, not because of John Wayne, for chrissakes.

  “Well, okay, yes,” he began, but before he could qualify his answer, the Colonel said, “Outstanding. I thought as much. Now, gentlemen.” The Colonel emphatically clapped his hands together, once. “Topic B: The welcome, if brief return to our midst of the redoubtable Stanley Tulendij. What are we to make of this unexpected visit?”

  Paul took another bite of his sandwich. Bob Wier was snapping the lid of his Tupperware, and J.J. was rubbing his lips with a wad of paper napkin, but both men swiveled their gazes in Paul’s direction. Even the Colonel narrowed his eyes from across the table.

  His mouth full, his sandwich clutched between his hands, Paul glanced from J.J. to the Colonel to Bob Wier. He forced himself to swallow. “You’re asking me?”

  The three men watched him intently. They did not say a word.

  Paul felt his face get warm again. “I, uh, only just met the guy . . .”

  “But you’ve heard the story,” said J.J. “Everybody’s heard the story.”

  “The layoffs,” said Bob Wier. “His defiance.”

  “A man at the peak of his personal and professional powers,” said the Colonel, “cut down in his prime.”

  “Sacrificing himself for his men,” said Bob Wier.

  “He faced his enemies,” said the Colonel, “and drew a line in the sand.”

  “Cross that, motherfucker,” said J.J., flinging down his wadded-up napkin.

  “The fateful bus trip,” said Bob Wier.

  “That fucking storm,” said J.J.

  “The sinkhole,” intoned the Colonel, leaning across the table and folding his hands while gravely fixing Paul with his gaze.

  “I, uh,” stammered Paul, “I think somebody might have mentioned it to me . . .”

  “The man stood up, Paul.” The Colonel’s voice was tight with emotion. “He did what a man should.”

  Paul squeezed his sandwich. They would not stop looking at him. “Well,” he said at last, “good for him.”

  A glance passed between his three companions. They seemed to withdraw the tiniest increment from him, as if he had failed some test.

  “Amen,” said Bob Wier, burping his Tupperware.

  “Yeah, right.” J.J. glanced around the room.

  The Colonel banked his gaze and silently ground his palms together.

  “Nolene told me.” Paul was at once foolishly eager not to disappoint these guys and furious at himself for his eagerness. “About Stanley Tulendij.” Shut up! he told himself.

  “Nolene. Ah, yes.” The Colonel frowned at the tabletop.

  What’s going on
here? Paul wondered. What are they trying to get me to say?

  “ ‘I will leave you in the desert,’ ” Bob Wier said. “Ezekiel twenty-nine, five.” He lifted up his hands, playing to the back pews again. “ ‘Then all who live in Egypt will know that I am the Lord.’ Twenty-nine, six.”

  “There’s a Rashomon aspect to the situation, Professor.” The Colonel peered significantly at Paul. “You may have heard one version of what happened to Stanley Tulendij, but you have not heard the truth.”

  “Amen,” breathed Bob Wier.

  You’ve got it wrong, Paul wanted to say. The point of Rashomon is not that one of the stories is true and the others are lies, it’s that no one will ever be able to tell. There is no truth, you overbearing son of a bitch. That’s what it means to invoke Rashomon. And stop calling me professor. . . .

  “Paul.” Bob Wier clasped his hands together on the table-top. He almost looked as if he might cry. “It’s a real blessing to have you join the team. I just wanted to say that.”

  “Nuff said.” J.J. repressed a belch and pushed himself back from the table. Bob Wier stood also.

  “Actually, Bob,” Paul said, “I’ve been—”

  “I think what our good friend Paul is trying to say,” said the Colonel, “is that he’s already been on the team for a good—what is it?—a good six weeks now.” He made no move to get up from the table. “Isn’t that right, Paul?”

  Paul simply stared at the Colonel as J.J. slouched off and Bob Wier swung away. The Colonel leaned back and folded his fingers over his belt buckle.

  “I know what I wanted to say.” Paul kept his voice low. The rumble of the lunchroom was diminishing behind him. He heard the scrape of chairs as other people stood to return to work.

  The Colonel lifted his palm. “I should have let you speak for yourself. I know our luncheon conversation is a little overwhelming for a newcomer. The cut and thrust. The attack and parry. I know you want to contribute—I could see it in your eyes, son—but your time will come, don’t worry.” He watched Paul with a hint of a smile. “I apologize.”