The Bridge Trilogy Part 30

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And a taller cross rising beyond that, this one welded from rusty railroad track, a sort of framework stuck full of old televisions, their dead screens all looking out toward the road there.

Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton was asleep now, so she missed that.

Rydell thought about how he'd used Codes's phone to get through to Suhlett's number in L.A., and

gotten this funny ring, which had nearly made him hang up right then, hut it

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had turned out to be call-forwarding, because Sublett had this leave to go and stay with his mother, who was feeling kind of sick.

'You mean you're in Texas?'

'Paradise, Berry. Mom's sick 'cause she 'n' a bunch of others got moved up here to SoCal.'

'Paradise?'

Sublett had explained where it was while Rydell looked at the Sh.e.l.l man's map.

'Hey,' Rydell had said, when he had a general idea where it was, 'how about I drive over and see you?'

'Thought you had you a job up in San Francisco.'

'Well, I'll tell you about that when I get there.'

'You know they're saying I'm an apostate here?' Sublett hadn't sounded happy about that.

'A what?'

'An apostate. 'Cause I showed my mom this Cronenberg film, Berry? This Videodrome? And they said it was from the Devil.'

'I thought all those movies were supposed to have G.o.d in 'em.'

'There's movies that are clearly of the Devil, Berry. Or anyway that's what Reverend Fallon says.

Says all of Cronenberg's are.'

'He in Paradise, too?'

'Lord no,' Sublett had said, 'he's in these tunnels out on the Channel Islands, between England and France. Can't leave there, either, because he needs the shelter.'

'From what?'

'Taxes. You know who dug those same tunnels, Berry?'

'Who?'

'Hitler did, with slave labor.'

'I didn't know that,' Rydell had said, imagining this scary little guy with a black mustache, standing up on a rock and cracking a big whip.

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Now here came another sign, this one not nearly as professional as the first one, just black spraypaint letters on a couple of boards.

R.U. READY FOR ETERNITY?.

HE LIVES! WILL YOU?.

WATCH TELEVISION.

'Watch television?' She was awake now.

'Well,' Rydell said, 'Fallonites believe G.o.d's sort of just there. On television, I mean.'

'G.o.d's on television?'

'Yeah. Kind of like in the background or something. Sublett's mother, she's in the church herself, but Sublett's kind of lapsed.'

'So they watch tv and pray, or what?'

'Well, I think it's more like kind of a meditation, you know? What they mostly watch is all these old movies, and they figure if they watch enough of them, long enough, the spirit will sort of enter into them.'

'We had Revealed Aryan Nazarenes, up in Oregon,' she said. 'First Church of Jesus, Survivalist. As soon shoot you as look at you.'

'Bad news,' Rydell agreed, the RV cresting a little ridge there, 'those kind of Christians ...'

Then he saw Paradise, down there, all lit up with these lights on poles.

The security perimeter they advertised was just coils of razor-wire circling maybe an acre and a half. Rydell doubted if it actually was electrified, but he could see screamers hanging on it, every ten feet or so, so it would be pretty effective anyway. There was a sort of blockhouse-and- gate set-up where the road ran in, but all it seemed to he protecting were ahout a dozen campers, trailers, and semi-rigs, parked on cement beds around what looked like an old-fas.h.i.+oned radio tower they'd topped with a whole cl.u.s.ter of satellite dishes, those

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little expensive ones that looked sort of like giant gray plastic marshmallows. Somebody had dammed a creek, to make a sort of pond for swimming, but the creek itself looked like the kind of

industrial runoff you wouldn't even find bugs around, let alone birds.

Sure had the whole place lit up, though. He could hear the drumming of big generators as they drove down the incline.

'Jesus,' Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton said.

Rydell pulled up by the blockhouse and powered his window down, glad it still worked. A man in a blaze-orange fleece jacket and a matching cap came out, carrying some kind of shotgun with a skeletal metal stock. 'Private property,' he said, looking at where the winds.h.i.+eld should've been.

'What happened to your winds.h.i.+eld there, mister?'

'Deer,' Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton said.

'Here to visit our friends, the Subletts?' Rydell said, hoping he could distract the guard before he'd notice the bullet holes or anything. 'Expecting us, if you wanna go call 'em.'

'Can't say you much look like Christians.'

Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton sort of leaned across Rydell and gave the guard this stare. 'I don't know about you, brother, but we're Aryan Nazarene, out of Eugene. We wouldn't want to even come in there, say you got any mud people, any kind of race-mixing. Race-traitors all over, these days.'

The guard looked at her. 'You Nazarene, how come you ain't skins?'

She touched the front of her crazy haircut, the short spikey part. 'Next thing you're gonna tell me, Jesus was a Jew. Don't know what this means?'

He looked more than maybe just a little worried, now.

'Got us some sanctified nails in the hack, here. Maybe that gives you some idea.'

Rydell saw the guard hesitate, swallow.

'Hey, good buddy,' Rydell said, 'you gonna call tip ol' Suhlett for us, or what?'

250.

The man went back into the blockhouse.

'What's that about nails?' RydeE asked.

'Something Skinner told me about once,' she said. 'Scared me.'

Dora, Sublett's mother, drank c.o.ke and Mexican vodka. Rydell had seen people drink thai before, but never at room temperature. And the c.o.ke was flat, because she bought it and the vodka in these big plastic supermarket bottles, and they looked as though they'd already lasted her a while.

Rydell decided he didn't feel like drinking anyway.

The living room of Dora's trailer had a matching couch and reclining lounger. Dora lay back in the lounger with her feet up, for her circulation she said, Rydell and Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton sat side by side on the couch, which was more a loveseat, and Sublett sat on the floor, his knees drawn up almost under his chin. There was a lot of stuff on the walls, and on little ornamental shelves, but it was all very clean. Rydell figured that was because of Sublett's allergies. There sure was a lot of it, though: plaques and pictures and figurines and things Rydell figured had to be those prayer hankies. There was a flat type of hologram of Rev. Fallon, looking as much like a possum as ever, but a possum that had gotten a tan and maybe had plastic surgery. There was a life-size head of J. D. Shapely that Rydell didn't like because the eyes seemed to follow you. Most of :he good stuff was sort of grouped around the television, which was big and s.h.i.+ny but the old kind from before they started to get real big and flat. It was on now, showing this black and white movie, but the sound was off.

'You're sure you won't have a drink, Mr. Rydell?'

'No ma'am, thank you,' Rydell $aid.

'Joel doesn't drink. He has allergies, ~OU know.'

'Yes ma'am.' Rydell hadn't ~ver known Sublett's first name before.

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Sublett was wearing brand-new white denim jeans, a white t-s.h.i.+rt, white cotton socks, and disposable white paper hospital slippers.

'He was always a sensitive boy, Mr. Rydell. I remember one time he sucked on the handle of this other boy's Big Wheel. Well, his mouth like to turned inside-out.'

'Momma,' Sublett said, 'you know the doctor said you ought to get more sleep than you been getting.'

Mrs. Sublett sighed. 'Yes, well, Joel, I know you young people want a chance to talk.' She peered at Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton. 'That's a shame about your hair, honey. You're just as pretty as can be, though, and you know it'll just grow in so nice. I tried to light the broiler on this gas range we had, down in Galveston, that was when Joel was just a baby, he was so sensitive, and that stove about blew up. I just had had this perm, dear and, well . . .'

Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton didn't say anything.

'Momma,' Sublett said, 'now you know you've had your nice drink. . .'

Rydell watched Sublett lead the old woman off to bed.

'Jesus Christ,' Chevette Was.h.i.+ngton said, 'what's wrong with his eyes?'

'Just light-sensitive,' Rydell said.