Voodoo Moon

FIVE

If you grew up in small-town Iowa, a trestle bridge likely played some part in your life. The adventurous, who sometimes included me, liked to stand on the top span while the train hurtled through below. Or you could take a stopwatch and see if you could best your previous time scrambling up the brace. Kids can come up with some pretty neat games. Or, when the bridge wasn't shaking with a train, you could sit on the top chord, dangle your legs, and fish in the river or creek below. I used to do this on sunny Saturday mornings back in the sixties when I was struggling toward teenhood. I had my pole, my night crawlers, my sack lunch of Ritz crackers and Kraft cheese slices, three cans of Pepsi, and my Ray Bradbury paperback. I went through a period when I wouldn't read anybody but Bradbury.

Anyway, the trestle bridge.

I became a half-assed expert on trestles simply because I parked my ass on so many of their top chords. You have your timber deck truss and your straining-beam pony truss and what they call your simple truss. And many others types as well.

The bridges we saw today were all of the lattice-truss design, the first one being in a field behind a manufacturing plant.

When I pulled up and killed the engine, Tandy said, "God, I want to puke. I really do. My stomach's a mess."

"C'mon. You'll be fine."

"I won't pick up any vibes, Robert. I know it."

"Then you want to go back?"

She frowned. "I'm being a pain in the ass, aren't I?"

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry."

I sighed. "How about we make a deal?"

"A deal?"

"Uh-huh. Every time you apologize for yourself from now on, you pay me five dollars."

"Five dollars is a lot of money."

"That's the point of it." Then, "I know why you're apprehensive. That makes sense. But I also know that on at least two occasions in the past, you were able to locate bodies the police couldn't-and that you found them through sleep images. Last night, you had another image like that. At least relax enough to give it a good try. Maybe you'll turn up something."

"Can I hold your hand and just sit here for a minute, Robert?"

"I'm afraid I'll have to charge you."

"How much?"

"At least a dollar thirty-seven."

"How about a dollar three?"

"How about a dollar twenty-two?"

"You know, Robert, you're almost as much of a dipshit as I am."

"'Almost' being the operative word there."

We sat in the car holding hands for five minutes. I got two frustrating little erections but spoke to them in nice gentle paternal terms and they went away. I was here on business.

Then we got out of the car, still holding hands, and drifted down through a dusty field toward the bridge. The creek beneath the bridge was shallow and dirty. The trees on either side ran to willows and birches. The narrow shoreline was a city dump of pop cans, beer cans, fast-food wrappers, and the occasional spent condom. I walked over on the railroad tracks and looked a long quarter mile down to where the tracks curved out of sight. The tracks sparkled silver in the waning sunlight. As a boy, I'd always wanted to be one of those old men who sat in the swaying red caboose with one arm cocked out the open window. They always wore OshKosh work caps and smoked pipes. I'd add one thing to that when I got to be one of them: I'd be reading a Ray Bradbury paperback.

I decided the best way to handle this was to leave her alone unless she asked me to be with her. She'd be less self-conscious that way. I was starting to get this crush on her; it was starting to feel funny without her small, fine-boned hand in mine. But I spent a few minutes just walking the tracks. A squirrel looked me over pretty good and didn't seem impressed. A garter snake slithered beneath an oily railroad tie. A number of flies were picnicking on some dog turds. I thought of Henry and felt like hell. Maybe I really should have killed his master instead of him.

Finally, I drifted back toward her. I stayed out of sight, off at an angle and hidden by some white birches.

She walked the shoreline. Facing me. Her eyes were closed and she lightly touched her fingers to her temples. She was mouthing something. Prayers, I imagined.

She walked up and down the shoreline several more times. Birds sang and cried; in the distance a dog barked and yipped. At one point, she sat down on a log and raised her face to the sky.

I wanted to help her. But of course there was nothing I could do.

This went on for a half hour, her sitting there on the log. Then she got up abruptly and looked around and saw me and climbed the angled shoreline to the field.

"Nothing," she said.

"We've got three more to go."

"Nothing," she said again. Then, "Maybe I need to start smoking again."

"What's smoking got to do with it?"

"I was a cigarette fiend during the time I was helping you and the other cops."

"You were also wearing your hair long."

"I guess I didn't think of that."

"And you weighed a hundred and twenty pounds more."

She gave me a sarcastic look. "I take back what I said, Robert. You're more of a dipshit than I am."

"And that takes some doing."

Without warning, she slid her arms around me and started crying softly. "I just can't do it anymore, Robert. I just can't do it."

We didn't spend much time at the next two bridges.

The first one was over a leg of river that twisted westward. It was a long span bridge whose construction marked it as built in the thirties. We tried both ends of the bridge. No vibes whatsoever.

The second was what they call a king-post trestle bridge. It was wood and at least eighty years old and spanned an old section of a highway that had fallen into disrepair since the coming of Interstate 80.

For a moment, she got excited. Her eyes rolled back. She appeared to go into a brief convulsion, shaking. But it passed quickly. Her eyes came open and she said, "Shit."

"Nothing, huh?"

"I was just starting to feel something. Not see it. But feel it. And then-" She shrugged her frail shoulders. "You hungry?"

"I could stand to eat something. Eight, nine thousand calories maybe. But not any more than that."

"How do you say 'dipshit' in Spanish?" Then, "We passed a Perkins on the way here."

"My stomach and I noticed that."

"Why didn't you say something?"

"I was waiting for you to start apologizing for yourself. I figured you do that three, four times, I could afford to buy dinner."

Perkins was crowded at dinnertime. A diverse group. Moms and pops, our time's version of Ozzie and Harriet, with their vans, credit cards, and little plastic cards that instructed them how much fifteen percent of their bill was. Truckers. Bikers. Native Americans from a nearby reservation. Young people who looked to be in love; young people who looked to be breaking up. Old isolated people eating alone and staring out the window at the past.

"Actually, breakfast sounds good."

"Good. Then have breakfast."

"I shall."

"Nice word, shall."

"Yeah," she said, "I heard Myrna Loy use it in one of the Thin Man movies and I've been working it into the conversation every chance I get."

While we were waiting for our food, and enjoying our coffee, and both reveling in the fact that she seemed inexplicably happy for the moment, they came over. Two of them. Mom with a camera, son with a grin.

Son said, when they arrived, "See, I tol' ya."

"Oh, God, it is you!" Mom said.

Tandy had been getting a lot of glances. A lot of people here recognized her right away. They'd whisper to their mate and mate would turn and look over here and a little explosion of recognition could be seen in his eyes.

"Tandy! I love your show!"

Tandy blushed. It was a real, true, little-girl blush, too. Sweet. "Thanks," she said.

"My husband isn't going to believe this. He loves your show, too!"

"Well, tell him thank-you for me."

People were watching us now. I was self-conscious suddenly, embarrassed. I hate being the center of attention, or even anywhere near it.

"In fact, a friend of his was abducted last summer and was going to call your show to see if you'd like to do a bit on him. He said the inside of the mother ship was different from what he'd expected. He said it looked more like the inside of this big huge tavern than anything else."

"Well, you can just call the eight-hundred number at the end of the show and talk to one of our scheduling staff about it."

The woman leaned forward. She was prairie stock, hardworking skin-and-bones at fifty sharp angles, and mad, lonely eyes. Whatever she'd spent her life looking for, she hadn't been able to find. Religion had likely failed her, so now she turned to UFOs. She wore a faded western shirt and faded Levi's. The camera was a small ancient Polaroid. Son, who was tubby in his western getup, said, "Could I get my picture taken with you so I can bring it to fourth grade show-and-tell?"

"Sure, honey," Tandy said. "We'll take one with you and your mom and me and then one with just you and me. How's that?" I took the pictures.

People watched, whispered, pointed, smiled, smirked.

This was my one and only brush with celebrity and I hated it.

I snapped the photos Tandy told me to and then finally Mom and Son were gone, after belatedly cadging an autograph on a napkin.

"I'm sorry," she said. "God, you looked mortified."

"I hate having people stare at me."

Then, in light of the fact that her first reaction to the fans had been to blush, she said, "I actually like it, Robert. I always feel a little funny at first, but then I really get into it."

The food came. We ate. It was good. I had breakfast, the best-tasting meal of the day. Pancakes and eggs and hash browns. You can't go wrong with such a meal. Ever.

She said, "You know what this is all about?"

"What what's all about?"

"My powers and the show and everything? So I won't feel so inadequate around Laura. She got the beauty and the brains."

"I think you're going to owe me five bucks. I think you're trying to sneak an apology for yourself past me."

"It's true, Robert. God, look at her. Listen to her. She's gorgeous and she's brilliant."

"This one may cost you ten bucks."

"So my power and my celebrity-when I have those things I don't feel so inadequate around her. And I can appreciate the fact that she's always taken care of me. Loved me and protected me and tried to help me. Which she has."

"And maybe exploited you a little, too."

"Yes, true. But if she hadn't, I'd never have gotten my own television show."

Or lost your power, I thought.

But I sure wasn't going to say that. I sure as hell wasn't.