Makers Part 42

"You got the whole sales pitch, huh, darling?" Eva said, not unkindly, but Kettlewell flushed and glared at her for a moment.

Perry broke in. "Guys, these are -- wow. Incredible."

"They're better than the modern product," Suzanne said. "That's the point. You can't print these or fab these. They're wonderful because they're so well made *and so well-used*! The only way to make a glove this good would be to fab it and then give it to several generations of baseball players to love and use for fifty to a hundred years."

Perry turned over the catcher's mitt. Over a hundred years old. This wasn't something to go in a gla.s.s case. Suzanne was right: this was a great glove because people had played with it, all the time. It needed to be played with or it would get out of practice.

"I guess we're going to have to buy a baseball," Perry said.

The little girl beside him started bouncing up and down.

"Show him," Suzanne said, and the girl dove under the table and came up with two white, fresh hard b.a.l.l.s. Once he fitted one to the pocket of his glove, it felt so perfectly right -- like a key in a lock. This pocket had held a lot of b.a.l.l.s over the years.

Lester had put a ball in the pocket of his glove, too. He tossed it lightly in the air and caught it, then repeated the trick. The look of visceral satisfaction on his face was unmistakable.

"These are *great* presents, guys," Perry said. "Seriously. Well done."

They all beamed and murmured and then the ball Lester was tossing crashed to the table and broke a pitcher of blueberry syrup, upset a carafe of orange juice, and rolled to a stop in the chocolate mess in front of the little girl, who laughed and laughed and laughed.

"And *that* is why we don't play with b.a.l.l.s indoors," Suzanne said, looking as stern as she could while obviously trying very hard not to bust out laughing.

The waiters were accustomed to wiping up spills and Lester was awkwardly helpful. While they were getting everything set to rights again, Perry looked at Eva and saw her lips tightly pursed as she considered her husband. He followed Kettlebelly's gaze and saw that he was watching Suzanne (who was laughingly restraining Lester from doing any more "cleaning") intently. In a flash, Perry thought he had come to understanding. Oh dear, he thought.

The kids loved the shantytown. The little girl -- Ada, "like the programming language," Eva said -- insisted on being set down so she could tread the cracked cement walkways herself, head whipping back and forth to take the crazy-leaning buildings in, eyes following the zipping motor-bikes and bicycles as they wove in and out of the busy streets. The shantytowners were used to tourists in their midst. A few yardies gave them the hairy eyeball, but then they saw Perry was along and they found something else to pay attention to. That made Perry feel obscurely proud. He'd been absent for months, but even the corner boys knew who he was and didn't want to screw with him.

The guesthouse's landlady greeted them at the door, alerted to their coming by the jungle telegraph. She shook Perry's hand warmly, gave Ada a lollipop, and chucked the little boy (Pascal, "like the programming language," said Eva, with an eye-roll) under the chin. Check-in was a lot simpler than at a coffin-hotel or a Hilton: just a brief discussion of the available rooms and a quick tour. The Kettlewells opted for the lofty attic, which could fit two three-quarter width beds and a crib, and overlooked the curving streets from a high vantage; Suzanne took a more quotidian room just below, with lovely tile mosaics made from snipped-out sections of plastic fruit and smashed novelty soda bottles. (The landlady privately a.s.sured Perry that her euphemistic "hourly trade" was in a different part of the guesthouse altogether, with its own staircase).

A few hours later, Perry was alone again, working his ticket counter. The Kettlewells were having naps, Lester and Suzanne had gone off to see some sights, and the crowd for the ride was already large, snaking through the market, thick with vendors and hustling kids trying to pry the visitors loose of their bankrolls.

He felt like doing a carny barker spiel, *Step right up, step right up, this way to the great egress!* But the morning's visitors didn't seem all that frivolous -- they were serious-faced and sober.

"Everything OK?" he asked a girl who was riding for at least the second time. She was a midwestern-looking giantess in her early twenties with big white front teeth and broad shoulders, wearing a faded Hoosiers ball-cap and a lot of coral jewelry. "I mean, you don't look like you're having a fun time."

"It's the story," she said. "I read about it online and I didn't really believe it, but now I totally see it. But you made it, right?

It didn't just... *happen*, did it?"

"No, it just happened," Perry said. This girl was a little spooky-looking. He put his hand over his heart. "On my honor."

"It can't be," she said. "I mean, the story is like *right there*. Someone must have made it."

"Maybe they did," Perry said. "Maybe a bunch of people thought it would be fun to make a story out of the ride and came by to do it."

"That's probably it," the girl said. "The other thing, that's just ridiculous."

She was gone and on the ride before he could ask her what this meant, and the three bangbangers behind her just wanted tickets, not conversation.

An hour later, she was back.

"I mean the message boards," she said. "Don't you follow your referers? There's a guy in Osceola who says that this is, I don't know, like the story that's inside our collective unconsciousness."

Perry restrained a smile at the malapropism. "Anyway a lot of people agree. I don't think so, though. No offense, mister, but I think that this is just a prank or something."

"Something," Perry said. But she rode twice more that day, and she wasn't the only one. It was a day of many repeat riders, and the market-stall people came by to complain that the visitors weren't buying much besides the occasional ice-cream or pork cracklin.

Perry shrugged and told them to find something that these people wanted to buy, then. One or two of the miniatures guys got gleams in their eyes and bought tickets for the ride (Perry charged them half price) and Perry knew that by the time the day was out, there'd be souvenir ride-replicas to be had.

Lester and Suzanne came by after lunchtime and Lester relieved him, leaving him to escort Suzanne back to the shantytown and the Kettlewells.

"You two seem to be getting on well," Perry said, jerking his head back at Lester as they walked through the market.

Suzanne looked away. "This is amazing, Perry," she said, waving her hand at the market stalls, a gesture that took in the spires of the shantytown and the ride, too. "You have done something...stupendous, you know it? I mean, if you had a slightly different temperament, I'd call this a cult. But it seems like you're not in charge of anything --"

"That's for sure!"

"-- even though you're still definitely *leading* things."

"No way -- I just go where I'm told. Tjan's leading."

"I spoke to Tjan before we came out, and he points the finger at you. 'I'm just keeping the books and closing the contracts.' That's a direct quote."

"Well maybe no one's leading. Not everything needs a leader, right?"

Suzanne shook her head at him. "There's a leader, sweetie, and it's you. Have a look around. Last I checked, there were three more rides going operational this week, and five more in the next month. Just looking at your speaking calendar gave me a headache --"

"I have a speaking calendar?"

"You do indeed, and it's a busy one. You knew that though, right?"

Tjan sent him email all the time telling him about this group or that, where he was supposed to go and give a talk, but he'd never seen a calendar. But who had time to look at the website anymore?

"I suppose. I knew I was supposed to get on a plane again in a couple weeks."

"So that's what a leader is -- someone who gets people mobilized and moving."

"I met a girl in Madison, Wisconsin, you'd probably get along with."

Thinking of Hilda made him smile and feel a little h.o.r.n.y, a little wistful. He hadn't gotten f.u.c.ked in mind and body like that since his twenties.

"Maybe I'll meet her. Is she working on a local ride?"

"You're going to go to the other rides?"

"I got to write about something, Perry. Otherwise my pageviews fall off and I can't pay my rent. This is a story -- a big one, and no one else has noticed it yet. That kind of story can turn into the kind of money you buy a house with. I'm speaking from experience here."

"You think?"

She put her hand over her heart. "I'm good at spotting these. Man, you've got a cult on your hands here."

"What?"