Let the Fire Fall

Chapter Nine

“STEP up! Step up! See the world’s most daring drivers perform! See the Flying Cars! See Mindy and His Men in head-on collisions a hundred feet over your heads! See the world’s fastest ground car! See the parade of the champions!”

Blake motioned to Sam the barker, who stepped up the pitch, now with a blare of music that hurt ears within two hundred feet of the speaker. There was a long line of willing spectators already, and Sam stopped to a blast of trumpets that left the air vibrating.

“Okay, kid. Inside. You finish those tires?”

“Sure.” Blake looked over the crowd quickly and said, “Four thousand tonight. Not bad.”

Sam the barker nodded. He had questioned Blake’s audience count in the beginning but he no longer did. In fact, whatever Blake said, most of the crew accepted as true. Sam shoved Blake roughly toward the backdrop where Mindy and his men were revving up. “Tell ’em to make it snappy, kid. I want to get out of here before midnight tonight.”

The rough shove didn’t bother Blake. Sam liked him, and was afraid to like him too much. Blake didn’t know why, and he knew he would never find out, for Sam hid so far back from others that most people never even met him at all, but saw the shell with quick rough hands, and a mean, brusque voice. Mindy was something else. A clown in a souped-up car, with the spirit of a bird that wanted only to fly. Mindy had something wrong with his ears; mastoiditis, he had told Blake early in their relationship, kept him out of the skies, but he could still fly. And he did. He was driving a ’72 model Olds that had no trace of the original motor left in it, Under the hood chrome and stainless steel gleamed, and when he turned on the key there was a hum that sounded like it should have come from a super liner getting ready to fly around the world.

Blake listened to the motors and nodded to himself. They were all in good shape. He pulled a rag from his pocket and polished a newly painted spot on the Red Lady, Mindy’s lead car, and when Mindy slouched over to see what he was up to he motioned toward the ring. “He’s ready.” Mindy nodded. He jumped in the car and the show started. Blake watched from a comer of the backdrop.

The first act was a big precision driving number, where eight cars in the huge ring raced at eighty to one hundred miles an hour doing wheelies, about faces, right-angled turns, sudden stops and just as sudden accelerations, all in time to Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever. It was always exciting and put the crowd in a good mood for the rest of the two-hour long show. During the last five minutes of the big number Mindy’s wife Alison wandered absently about the ring, engrossed in a magazine, oblivious of the racing automobiles, each step she made as exquisitely timed as a ballet dancer’s. It was a great finale. The crowd shrieked and screamed and sighed long-drawn-out Ohhhs, every time a car barely missed Alison, who never looked up, hesitated, or speeded her measured pace through the ring.

The ground effect cars were next. Blake didn’t like this act as much as the others, and he hurried away from his position to fetch Alison a cup of coffee. She already had discarded the dress worn for her first act, and was now in tight pants and boots and a turtleneck pullover. Her crash helmet was at her elbow as she tied her brass-blond hair back with a ribbon.

“How’d it go over, honey?” she asked.

“Great, like always.” Blake waited for her to sip the coffee, and for the drum roll to announce that it was time for her to make her second appearance. He carried her helmet for her to the car that she drove for this act, saw that her door was latched, then moved back and waved.

Alison’s car rose. On the other side of the ring Mindy’s car was doing the same. The music was a waltz, The two cars glided toward one another, away, dipped and swayed rhythmically. The music changed to a jazz beat and the cars began to speed; their motions became jerkier and swifter. With each increase in tempo the two crazily dancing cars increased speed, and again timing was what made the act. Suddenly they hit in midair head on. There was a moment of stunned silence in the audience, then laughter. Part of the act. Mindy started to get out of his car, as did Alison. Each held to the door and leaned out swaying over the air. Mindy swung his leg over the hood and pulled himself to the front of the nearly circular vehicle and stood there, hands on hips, scolding Alison, blaming her for the collision. She climbed to the top of her car and wagged a finger in his face. The cars were very slowly settling to earth, so slowly that it was hardly noticeable. They carne down, nose to nose, and landed finally so softly that no sound was heard from it. Mindy and Alison stepped off their cars, and arm in. arm left them. The audience went mad.

While helpers were clearing the ring Blake was busy helping Mindy into a cerise satin costume. He saw Sam the barker watching him and he waved as he hurried past with Mindy’s dirty clothes. Sam was still there when the next act got under way.

“Hey, kid. Hold it a sec. You in trouble or anything?”

Blake froze. He shook his head.

“Yeah. I didn’t think so. Look, kid, I don’t know from nothing about you, but I don’t figure you’re in trouble. So why’re there three guys beating the bushes for a kid whose description fits you like a glove?”

Blake turned toward the trailer that he shared with Mindy and Alison, but Sam’s hand on his arm stopped him. “How much dough you got?”

“Five, six hundred dollars.”

“Yeah. Take this. It’s a grand. You were due a raise. Buy some gear with the extra. And beat it now. Don’t go back to the trailer.” Sam pushed Blake from him and turned away.

Blake stood for another minute watching the departing figure. “Sam,” he called. “Sam, I’ll Come back some day and pay you back. I promise.”

Sam turned and yelled furiously at him, “Get lost, you punk kid! Just get lost!”

Blake nodded and waved once, then left, walking among the empty cars to the shadows of the trailers. It was eleven-thirty. He couldn’t stay out and be caught in the streets. There was the curfew. He’d end up in the clink and they’d find him there. For four months he had lived with Mindy and Alison, and they had been the happiest four months of his life since Wanda had stopped her car and asked how to get to a doctor. He walked slowly, a dark figure in jeans and black jersey, and he didn’t know where to go. There was the drum roll for the ring of fire act, a chorus of ahs, screams, a crash of cymbals…. The show was playing three miles from downtown Cleveland. There was a zoo smell nearby, and the stench of industrial gases being blown in from the lakefront. The trouble was that they had brains, the searchers had brains. They always knew the sorts of places where he might turn up: circuses, carnivals, traveling shows where few questions would be asked as long as he worked, the zoo. They knew he could handle animals. They had found him in the small poorly kept menagerie at Scranton, and when he had approached the keeper of the lions in the Dayton zoo, the man had gone off to make a telephone call and Blake had left hurriedly. There had to be someplace where he could stay and not draw their attention for a couple of years, until he was not so conspicuously a kid.

That was his biggest handicap, being a kid. He looked older than eleven, a couple of years older, but still he was a kid. The last to get waited on in a diner, the first to be questioned if there was a rumble anywhere, the first to draw stares if he turned up in a bus terminal, or, worse, in an airline terminal. No prospect of getting an International Travel ID Card, no jobs, always the chance of being jumped by a gang of older kids who’d rough him up and take his money and everything else he had on him. And that would land him in a juvenile jail answering questions, having the authorities hold him for his rightful guardians…. He walked on through the dark side streets, where there was little traffic, stopping when he heard the sound of a car slowing down nearby, hearing pursuers in every set of footsteps. He had to get off the streets.

He heard a car coming very slowly, too slowly. He melted back against a doorway and watched for a moment. It was at the far end of the block, shining spotlights along the sidewalks as it came, searching doorways, around parked cars. Other drivers passed it and vanished down the street. Blake ran to the comer and turned, ran another half block and ducked into an alley. They would comb the area. They must know that he was on foot, that he couldn’t have gone far yet. He listened while he waited for his breath to come easily again. There were apartments all about him, some with open doors and lights on still, others darkened. Radios and televisions played and some kids were singing somewhere to his right. The alley was flanked by high board fences at this end, a couple of garages down farther, then it was lost in shadows. No good. No place there for him to hide. He studied the fences, but decided against that. Just yards and people. People who would yell cop if a strange kid dropped down inside their yards. He started to leave the alley when he heard something else. Voices whispering almost in stage whispers. He could sense excitement in the voices and fear maybe.

He edged along the fence, and at the same moment the car with the searchlights stopped at the alley entrance, sending the beams of light in both directions. The driver decided to turn left, across the street away from Blake. Blake moved again, following the whispers. Now that he had fastened on them the other louder noises dimmed in his ears and became background. He pulled himself up a board fence and looked over into the yard beyond. A dirt yard with a three-car garage. There was a ’79 General parked there. The apartment was completely dark. Three boys stood about the General peering into the engine while one of them held a flash, shielding its light, and another poked about trying to get the motor running.

“You _______ liar. You can start one with a hairpin. You _______”

“_______ you. If you can do better, _______ it yourself.”

Blake heard an approaching car and looking over his shoulder saw the searchlights coming his way again. He pulled himself over the fence and dropped down into the yard. One of the boys there straightened and there was the glint of a knife in his hand.

“Come here, cutie pie,” he said softly. “Come to Papa, you _______ _______”

“I can start the car,” Blake said softly. “If I start it, will you let me leave here with you. On the back seat, out of sight.”

“Come to Papa, _______ _______ ” The boy with the knife sidled toward him.

“Listen!” one of the other two hissed.

“You _______ _______ _______ brought the _______ creepies here!”

“No! My old man. He wants me, that’s all. Let me start the car.”

They all became silent as the car neared the other side of the fence. The searchlight showed through cracks in the planks, then was gone. “He’s squaring,” the kid said, still trying to get the engine going. “Come here, kid. If you can’t start it, you’re Harry’s baby. He’ll cut off your _______ and stuff it up your _______”

The General was the fastest of the electric cars produced. It would do one hundred miles an hour on straightaways, cruise for five hundred miles without recharging, and was virtually noiseless. Blake couldn’t reach inside the engine and he had to hoist himself up and cling by his arms as he manipulated the wires. The General had half a dozen safety features that were advertised as making it steal-proof. Blake unhooked wires and refastened them quickly. Harold touched him in the ribs with the knife and Blake spoke in asterisks as fluently and forcefully as Sam himself could have done. Harold grinned and moved back a step.

The kid who had been trying to start it was watching Blake with concentration, and the third one was acting now as the lookout. He said, “Pst,” and they all froze. The searchlight was back, on the street, probing driveways now. Harold watched it with narrowed eyes. “No _______ _______ creepies,” he said. “But that makes two cars so far. Who’s after you, cutie pie?”

The car came to life then. There was no noise, only a vibration that they could feel. Harold chuckled and slipped the knife into his jeans. “Okay, kid. You earned a ride. Hop in.”

They rode around until four in the; morning. They wouldn’t let Blake out before then and eventually he fell asleep on the back seat. Harold woke him.

“Where you want to go, kid?”

“Out of the city. I don’t care where.”

“Come on. Let’s get some sleep.” Harold pulled him out of the car, which left again, and he was walked up ten flights of stairs, stumbling over people on the landings and in the halls.

Blake couldn’t see anything inside the room where Harold took him, but he was pushed down on the floor on a thin mat that smelled old and mildewed and he fell asleep there. The next day Harold left Blake in the room for a couple of hours and when he came back he had a bag of hamburgers and milk. “The _______ creepies ain’t after you, but someone is. They’re watching the buses and the trains. What’d you do?”

Blake told the fourth or fifth version of the basic story that he had decided to give in answer to that question. He’ said, “It’s my father. My stepmother talked him into putting me in a _______ fancy school with _______ uniforms and marching every morning and all that _______ I ran away, and now he’s trying to find me and take me back. She’s got money and there’s not much he can do except what she tells him, but he hired those goons and they stick.”

Harold didn’t believe all of it, but enough to accept Blake without further questioning. He had seen the men himself in the bus station, and he knew they were private detectives, and that was enough. The kid had been on the bum long enough to work up some muscle and break his fingernails back to the quick and get them black with dirt and oil. His hands were hard and callused, and he knew how to jump a General. That was enough.

Blake became part of the gang, the Erie Waves. This section of the city had been industrialized fifty years in the past, and industry had since moved out to escape the mountains of filthy, unusable refuse it had created. Instant Rehab had moved in following the exodus and had filled the warehouse shells with walls, floors, bathrooms, kitchens, and had rented them out at low, subsidized rent rates. After ruling the development for ten years or so, Instant Rehab had been abandoned when graft and plain sticky fingers brought in a full-scale investigation. No one had stepped in to fill the vacancy left, and the newly created apartments became something else again. Where a four-room apartment had been specified for a family of no more than four, it now held six, ten, twenty, however many wanted to live there. There were no inspectors. The warehouse where Harold lived had been planned to house twenty families in twenty units. It held close to a thousand people in units that had lost their unity. Rooms became apartments. Bathrooms went with the room occupied by the strongest, or the meanest, or the quickest with a knife or lead pipe. The building smelled of urine, sweat, mold, garbage, beer, booze, weed, excrement. There were no mice; the rats killed them. Harold had taken a room on the top floor and had held it for two years now, ever since his fourteenth birthday when he presented himself with freedom.

Blake lived in the room with him that fall and winter. The worst problem he faced was with the money Sam the barker had given him. He knew he couldn’t leave it in the apartment, nor could he keep it with him. He worried about it for three days, then went to a ten-cent store and bought stationery and a pen and studied the newspapers for another two days, finally picking out an investment firm. He wrote directly to the president in these words: “Dear Sir, This is extremely eccentric of me, but I am an eccentric person. I wish to have you invest the enclosed money, one thousand dollars, $1,000, in the following companies. Five hundred dollars, $500, in common stock of the LCSA, Laser Communications Systems of America; three hundred dollars, $300, in preferred stock of OSMC, Off Shore Mining Corporation; and the remainder, after your fee, in stock of your choosing. Please send a receipt of this transaction to Mr. J. M. Black in care of Heffleman’s News Store, 16890 Huron Avenue.”

So J. M. Black was born, and Blake became his errand boy. He haunted Heffleman’s store until the receipt arrived, with a request to call at the office to fill out necessary papers, tax forms, social security forms, etc., signed sincerely, Robert L. Kaufman. He gave a false social security number, and advised Robert L. Kaufman to take care of the tax for him until further notice. Then he severed the communications by not answering any of the later notes.

Harold liked Blake, was infinitely amused at his vocabulary, awed by his repertoire of swear words, and astounded by his knowledge of cars and motors. He never did believe the story of the father searching for his son, but he didn’t care. Blake was okay, and legit, really on the lam from something. He was the only whitey who’d call Harold a _______ spade and get a grin out of him instead of a blade. He told Blake how to stay out of sight during the school session on weekdays. Told him where kids his age could go and not be picked up for loitering and on suspicion, which places to steer clear of, which men, and women, to avoid like plague, which guys would be good for a pad, or a bite at a minute’s notice. He brought grocery bags of stolen books for him. In return Blake stole a car whenever Harold needed or wanted one. Harold never kept the cars, or resold them, he simply used them. A loan, he would say grinning. Harold was a good friend to have; he could use the knife, and he had had sixteen years’ training in the alleys of Cleveland, knew every creepie three blocks away, could identify every prowl car the day after it took to the streets, and knew exactly when the heat was too high to be out at all. He taught everything he knew to Blake. They were busy months. Harold ran bets for Heffleman, picked up hot credit cards and delivered them, brought an occasional girl home and shoved Blake out, brought the guys around for beer, or stolen whisky, and cards now and then. And there were the rumbles that never really ended. They would ebb and surge, but never die.

And so, time is swift and to detail the various modes of life sampled by Blake Daniels would be tedious. Enough to say he survived them, sometimes quite respectably, more often less so, learning the slums of the land, and the wilderness areas—he discovered that he could live off the land in the summer more comfortably than he could manage in the cities, and he could avoid the endless bloody riots and the ever present possibility of being picked up for questioning. He learned the museums and the libraries. Especially the libraries. He read everything and remembered everything he read. He discovered drama, and he wondered if French drama lost much in translation, so he learned French. He learned Russian and Spanish and Italian, and when he came across Haiku in the original, he started in on Asian languages. When he was fifteen he could pass for eighteen and his identification problems were solved for him. He bought a forged draft card and ID cards, credit cards, and so felt safe unless a thorough investigation should be made. He listed Chillicothe, Ohio, as his hometown because he thought it was a funny name. By sixteen he no longer feared being forced to stay with Obie, but he didn’t want to go through the court battles that he knew Obie could arrange. He planned to return to Matt and Lisa when he was eighteen.