Like Mr. Paul Simon had sung, The mother and child reunion is only a motion away.
This was more responsibility than Cornell usually shouldered. When he tried to sit near the boy and read, he couldn’t concentrate on the prose. He worried that he was going to do something—or fail to do something—that would endanger Travis.
Now he stood over the La-Z-Boy recliner again, watching the child. Travis breathed so softly, maybe he wasn’t breathing at all. Cornell wanted to touch him, see if he was alive, but dared not.
All night the German shepherds had patrolled the library, taking turns sleeping, sniffing Cornell, trying to induce him to pet them, which he couldn’t do, because it might be like touching a person.
Any place where another person touched him was a wound that didn’t bleed blood, that bled the very essence of him, his mind and soul. By a touch, another person could drain Cornell out of himself and leave his body a mindless husk.
This was a false fear related to his personality disorder. But knowing it was a false fear didn’t make him less fearful. Strange. Otherwise, he respected reason. But this streak of unreason was baked into him like a vein of cinnamon in a morning roll, though cinnamon was a good thing and unreason was not good.
The dogs were agitated. They needed to potty.
Cornell didn’t want the dogs to potty on his Persian carpets.
If he tried to put the dogs’ leashes on their collars, they might touch him. No good, no good, no good.
The dogs might be trained not to run away. But what if they did? The boy loved them. He’d be devastated if the dogs ran away.
Here was what responsibility meant. It meant making decisions that affected someone other than Cornell himself.
When the dogs started whining, he said, “All right, I’ll take you out. But don’t run away from me, please and thank you.”
Outside, the day was warm and bright, with none of the soft colors of the library lamplight that he loved so much.
The dogs ran a few yards from the door before they peed. Then they sniffed around for a minute, and finally both squatted to poop.
Cornell was embarrassed, watching the dogs toilet, but he was also fascinated because they seemed self-conscious, glancing at him sheepishly, maybe because he hadn’t watched them do this before.
When they had pooped, they stood staring at him expectantly, ears pricked forward. After a minute of confusion, he realized they expected him to pick up the poop in plastic bags, like people did.
He didn’t have plastic bags. Besides, except for the graveled area around the blue house, in which cacti and succulents were the only landscaping, the rest of this acreage, including that in the vicinity of the barn, was a mess of dead grass, sage, long-stemmed buckwheat, assorted weeds, and bare earth. Leaving poop wasn’t as offensive as it would have been on a golf course or a church lawn.
As Cornell moved toward the house, his hulking freak-show shadow preceding him, the dogs watched. When he called them, they glanced at the poop and regarded him with puzzlement, maybe wondering why he was so poorly trained. But at last they came to the house with him.
The large bag of kibble stood in the kitchen where the boy had said it would be. His suitcase of spare clothes and other items was in the smaller of the two bedrooms.
After locking the door, Cornell returned to the barn, carrying the kibble in one hand and the suitcase in the other.
“Come along, please and thank you,” he said to the dogs, and it delighted him that they trotted at his side, one to his left, one to his right, as if they cared for him the way they cared for the boy.
The electronic key in his pants pocket automatically unlocked what appeared to be a flimsy man-size barn door that was in fact steel behind its rotten-plank fa?ade. He and the dogs stepped into a white vestibule. He closed the door behind him. After a few seconds, its lock engaged with a hard clack. The electronic lock on the door before him responded to his hand on the knob and unlocked itself, so he could push through into the library.
To the left of the door through which Cornell entered, another door led to the bathroom. To the right lay the part of the fourth wall that wasn’t lined with books, but instead featured a kitchen counter, cabinets, a double sink, two large Sub-Zero refrigerators, two microwaves, and an oven.
The boy stood peering in one of the Sub-Zeros.
The dogs whined with pleasure and hurried to the boy.
Travis turned to Cornell. “Mr. Jasperson, can I ask something?”
“Can you? Yes. Of course. And call me Cornell.”
“What runs the ’frigerators?”
Cornell blinked at him. He put down the kibble and suitcase. “Umm. Runs? Well, the power company.”
“What happens after the world ends?”
“The world won’t end. Just civilization.” When the boy frowned, Cornell explained, “Just cities and stuff, not the planet. Not the planet. Not the planet.”
“So what runs the ’frigerators then?”
“A generator. A big tank of propane buried out there. It’ll run library and bunker fourteen months, or just the bunker for thirty.”
“What then?” the boy asked.
“Maybe a new civilization will start up.”
“What if nothing starts?”
“Umm. Umm. Then I’ll probably be dead.”
“Probably,” Travis agreed. “I thought you never go into town.”
“I don’t ever go to town anymore. Hardly ever did, even when I lived in the little blue house. I don’t want to scare people.”
“So where do you get chocolate milk and stuff if you never go into town?”
“Gavin comes down here once every month like clockwork. He stocks the refrigerators.”
“Maybe he will. If he’s not …”
“Umm. If he’s not dead. If he’s not dead. If he’s not dead.”
The boy closed the refrigerator and regarded Cornell solemnly, as did the dogs. “Mr. Jasperson, why do you say things three times?”
“You can call me Cornell. I don’t say everything three times.”
“But you say some things three times.”
“Umm. Things I don’t want to happen or wish weren’t true. Or sometimes things I think aren’t true but wish they were.”
“Does that work?”
“No. But I feel a little better. Do you want something to eat?”
“I’m kind of hungry.”
“I can make eggs scrambled or fried, cheese or not, or eggs all other ways. With toast. I can make baloney sandwiches. Mustard or mayonnaise or both. I can make many kinds of meals.”
“Are you hungry?” the boy asked.
“I am. I’m hungry.”
“Then I’ll have what you’re having,” the boy said.
The dogs padded to the bag of kibble, sniffing with excitement.
“I should feed the dogs.” Cornell bent to the bag. “They’re nice dogs so far. They don’t bite so far. Not so far.”
“They like you a lot,” Travis said.
Cornell froze. Hunched over the bag, he turned his head to stare at the boy. “How do you know?”
“Can’t you see? They like you.”
“I don’t see. I don’t know how to see that.”
“Well, they do. They like you.”
Cornell looked at one dog, at the other. They wagged their tails. “Umm. Maybe it’s just because I have the food.”
“No, they really like you.”
Around other people, Cornell always felt too big and awkward and strange, even around his cousin Gavin, and he felt no less so around animals. Before this, dogs barked at him. Cats hissed, bared their teeth, and fled. “Umm. Maybe, maybe not. But that would be something. That would be something. That sure would be something.”
37
IF HE BELIEVED THEY WERE REAL, Egon Gottfrey would hate Texans, and if he believed Texas was a real place rather than a concept, he would never go there again.