21 Geode
The next morning I crossed the river lit by smaller fires. In my bag were the remaining rat family cell phones. I went to the Central Transit station, which was full of displaced workers thrown from their schedules by the bombings and scrambling to adjust. I sat down on a long bench in a crowd of people and pulled out the phones. Busses came and went on either side of me. I picked up the grape cell phone belonging to Jupiter Rodere and set it aside without turning it on. Saturn, Poseidon and Uranus I switched on and programmed to call-forward to their targets. Then I sent them off on different busses and walked two blocks north to a busy shopping plaza.
My whole life I had held back. But at that moment, I threw myself into the arms of an invisible collective and with all my heart, leapt for the sea lion.
I called in the Happy Day Corporate Charity Center first because I felt the hand of Jupiter should strike it dead directly. Lightning bolts of hate. Then I called the strawberry cell phone, Saturn, which call forwarded to the Oldies Station, KGOD and told them they were going to be bombed. I didn’t explain past that. I figured that if they had to ask, they wouldn’t have understood. Next was the blueberry cell, Poseidon. It forwarded to the Central Library. Then Uranus, which hit the Cine-Tower. I did it fast then threw the Jupiter phone into the flatbed of a passing truck.
I crossed back over the river. On the water, the city upon the hill wavered, an inverted reflection, and broke into scallops of stuttering light as the sun set. I went to a de-paving party once and watched people tear up a parking lot. I cried and cried because I’m a sap and it was so f*cking hopeful I felt ashamed to even be there. I never let myself believe things like that can happen but I finally admitted that hidden in my scientist’s mind was a dancehall that I had kept shuttered. I forgot the prettiest fossils are worthless. All the important material eaten by crystals. I felt like that was what was happening to me.
Two days went by and no new bombs went off. The security subsided and people fell back into their patterns. During that time I saw Jimmy twice. Both times it was awkward. She was somewhere else. I was someone else.
The first I heard of it was from a woman walking her dog. She said, stay away from downtown. Three more bombs had gone off. I asked her if anyone was hurt. She said no. It was a miracle.
Over the next twenty-four hours more fires started. Some of it was organized and some of it was just kids throwing Molotov cocktails. And no one was hurt. I know. I asked several times and not just the same person. They all said it, Milagro! Milagro! I broke open like a geode.
I know someone whose gratitude practice is centered on appreciating every object from the day it comes into his possession until the dystopic collapse of society. Vacations (soon nobody’s going to be going anywhere, man), new cars (what the hell, we’ll all be walking before long), guitars (how else are we going to have music without electricity)—the guy was a Zen master. I walked in the golden autumn light thinking he was more right than not.
I stopped by Rise Up Singing and listened for a while to the coverage with everyone else, huddled around the kitchen radio. The Happy Day Corporate Center was decimated. Boxes of irregular Nike shoes melting like butter. KGOD went down, a burning bush, a sign for all to see. Look! A new star in the heaven under which we shall find the baby—oh, maybe not. What’s all this charred cinder block? The Cine-Tower, a lighthouse, a beacon on a hill.
The last thing I heard about were the two AM radio towers south of town. They exploded like timed fireworks, dancing around like sparklers on the Fourth of July. It was a beautiful thing about the towers but there was only one problem. I hadn’t called them in. The AM radio towers were on my original target list, not on my working one. They were alone on the border of town near the spinning cell phone and I decided there was no point calling them in because there was no one there. I had crossed them off my list days before but they were burning all the same.
I called Tamara. She didn’t answer.
Fires burned all the next day. Mid-afternoon Jimmy called. She said she’d had a change of plans. When I got to her apartment she was standing in the archway between the living room and the kitchen surrounded by boxes. There were white squares on her wall where pictures had hung.
“I’m leaving next week.”
Her hair was dyed brown all over. She had cut off her cord necklaces and taken out her piercings. If had seen her in kindergarten, and then seen her now, I probably would have said she never changed. She leaned down and ran a strip of packing tape along a box of kitchen supplies.
“What do you want to do between now and then?”
“I’m actually heading out tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah, as soon as I’m done with these boxes.”
We talked about how things had moved too fast and how it was a hard time for anyone to know what they wanted. My favorite thing about Jimmy is her way of saying something she doesn’t want to say. Like if she thinks something you are doing is wrong, or if she is sad about something she can’t change, she’ll just tell you. Simple and light as a silk parachute falling over everything, you will know. There is no hesitation in her and no violence. None at all. That’s probably why Grace was so disturbing. Grace is all violence.
We talked and packed up kitchen supplies to take to a shelter. The rooms were empty. The plants were gone. On the floor was a Chinese calendar. She picked it up.
“Here,” she handed it to me, “there’s still three good months on it.”
She smiled and shook her head then put her hand lightly on my shoulder. “I’ll send you my address. You’ll always be welcome.”
“Mirror will kill you for leaving before her party.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I’ll get the lecture on a postcard.”
Then she picked up the last box and asked me to hold the door. There wasn’t anything else for me to do but load the truck.
Jimmy decided to spend the last few days with her family. They had a house out near Pretty Little Hopes in an adjacent suburb called Fair Prospect. That’s where she went. Mirror asked me why she left before the party. I told her going to that thing would be like crashing your own wake and you just can’t be in two places at once. I didn’t blame Jimmy either. All this glory is too much glory. She needed to get away. From the smoke, the fires, the bomb threats, the bus crashes and me. I see her beyond the orange lights, twirling in a ball gown. Queen of the Jaguars.