Chapter 5 - City of Truth

The weather engineers had just turned up their rheostats, flooding the Saturday morning sky with a dazzling emerald sunrise, when Martina came bouncing into my hospital room. She opened the

drawer of my nightstand and removed her ludicrous metaphysical horseshoe. It worked, she insisted, holding out the shoe as if it were a wishbone we'd agreed to split.

Oh? I said sneeringly, skeptically: I refused to descend into mysticism —

psychoneuroimmunology was for real.

She dropped the horseshoe into her handbag. I was lucky, she told me. The typical supplicant was commonly sequestered for a full month in the Hotel Paradise while the government decided his fate.

Instead, assuming Dr. Krakower agreed to release me, I would meet that very afternoon with Manny

Ginsburg himself.

Imagine, Jack — you've been granted an audience with the Pope!

Twenty minutes later Krakower appeared, accompanied by the eternally unctuous Franz. As Martina looked on with seemingly genuine concern, Franz with a kind of smarmy pity, the doctor inspected my infirmities. She removed the bandage from my head wound, palpated my broken rib through the adhesive tape — This might hurt a bit, she warned before sending me into paroxysms of pain — and cheerily pronounced me fit to travel, though she wanted me back by sundown for another checkup.

I got into the denim overalls I'd worn to work on Thursday: how far away that Thursday seemed, how remote and unreal. Martina and Franz guided me through the hospital lobby and across the park to the banks of a wide canal labeled

Jordan River

, its waters clean, clear, and redolent of some happy mixture of root beer and maple syrup.

Golden trout flashed beneath the surface like reflected moonbeams.

Sparkling with fresh paint, a red gondola lay moored to the wharf. We got on board. As my guardian poled us forward, pushing his oar into the sweet waters, Martina briefed me on the intricacies of dealing with Manny Ginsburg.

To begin with, he's a year-rounder. Lives here all the time. For most dissemblers, Martina elaborated, Satirev was a pied-a-terre, locus of the periodic pilgrimages through which one renewed one's talent for mendacity, whereas Pope Manny never left. It's made him a little nuts, she explained.

I'm not surprised, I said as an aquatic ferret leaped out of the Jordan and snatched an unsuspecting polka-dotted frog from the shore.

Play up your devotion to your kid, Martina advised. How you'd move heaven and earth to cure him.

And don't look the old man in the eye, said Franz. He hates directness.

My guardian landed us at a trim, sturdy, immaculately whitewashed dock, its pilings decorated with ceramic replicas of pelicans and sea gulls. An equally clean and appealing structure rose from the shore

— a bait shack or possibly a fisherman's hut. A German shepherd lay on the welcome mat, head bobbing in languid circles as he tracked a dragonfly.

The Holy See, said Martina, pointing.

It's a bait shack, I corrected her.

It's the Holy See, said Franz as he lashed his gondola to the dock.

Maybe we don't have the budget we'd like around here, said the dog, but it's still the Holy See.

I didn't bat an eye. I was getting used to this sort of thing.

The door swished open on well-oiled hinges and a short, nervous, walleyed man in his seventies ambled onto the dock wearing a brilliant white polyester suit and a yarmulke. He told Martina and Franz to come back for me in an hour.

Care for a cup of fresh-perked coffee? asked Manny Ginsburg as he led me into his one-room

riverfront abode. The German shepherd followed, claws clicking on the wooden floor. It's quite tasty.

Sure, I said, glancing around. Manny's shack was as spotless within as without.

Pull up a chair.

There were no chairs. I sat on the rug.

I'm Zeke, by the way, said the dog, offering me his paw.

Jack Sperry, I said, shaking limb extremities with Zeke. You talk, I observed.

A bioelectronic implant, modifying my larynx.

Manny sidled into the kitchenette. Lifting a copper kettle from his kerosene stove, he filled a pair of earthenware mugs with boiling water then added heaping spoonfuls of Fran's Fairish Coffee Crystals.

You said fresh, I noted with Veritasian candor.

It's fresh to , said the Pope.

us

Want to hear a talking dog joke? Zeke inquired.

No, I replied, truthfully.

Oh, said the dog, evidently wounded by my frankness.

Manny returned from the kitchenette with a Coca-Cola tray bearing the coffee mugs plus a cream pitcher and a canister marked

Salt

.

It's a sterile world up there. Sterile, stifling, spiritually depleting. Manny set the tray beside me and rolled his eyes heavenward. And before long it will all be ours. You doubt me? Listen —

already we've placed twenty dissemblers in the legislature. A person with our talents has no trouble getting elected.

You mean — you're going to conquer Veritas? I asked, making a point of not looking Manny in the eye.

The Pope slammed his palms against his ears.

Please

.

Don't say 'conquer,' admonished the dog.

We're going to reform

Veritas, said Manny.

I fixed on the rug. Truth is beauty, your holiness. Splaying my fingers, I ticked off a familiar litany. In the

Age of Lies, politicians misled, advertisers overstated, clerics exaggerated—

Satirev's founders had nothing against telling the truth. Manny tapped his yarmulke. But they hated their inability to do otherwise. Honesty without choice, they said, is slavery with a smile.

He pointed toward the ceiling with his coffee mug. Truth above... He set his mug on the floor.

Dignity below. He chuckled softly. In Satirev, we opt for the latter. Do you like it sweet?

Dignity?

Coffee.

I

would like some sugar, matter of fact.

The Pope handed me the salt canister. I shook some grains into my palm and licked. It was sugar.

My heart is broken, said Manny, laying a hand on his chest. I feel absolutely devastated about your

Toby.

You do?

I'm crushed.

You don't even know him.

What you're doing is so noble

.

I think so too, said Zeke. And I'm only a dog.

Manny shook Satirevian salt into his coffee. I have just one question. Listen carefully. Do you love your son?

That would depend on—

I don't mean love him, I mean love him. Crazy, unconditional, non-Veritasian love.

Surprisingly — to myself if not the Pope — I didn't have to think about my answer. I love him, I asserted. Crazy, unconditional, non-Veritasian love.

Then you're in, said Manny.

Congratulations, said the dog.

I must warn you — the treatment doesn't take in all cases. Manny sipped his Fran's Fairish. I advise you to throw everything you've got into it, your very soul, even if you're convinced you don't have one. Please don't look me in the eye.

I turned away, uncertain whether to rejoice at being admitted or to brood over the possibility of failure.

What are my chances, would you say?

First rate, said Manny.

Truly excellent, Zeke agreed.

I'd bet money on it, the Pope elaborated.

Of course, said the dog, we're probably lying.

* * *

On Sunday morning Martina and I hiked through the flurry of five-leaf clovers outside the Center for

Creative Wellness and, reaching the top of the hill, placed a call to Arnold Cook at his home in Locke

Borough. After claiming to be my wife, Martina told him I'd been diagnosed with double pneumonia and wouldn't be coming to work for at least a week. Her fabulation gave me a terrible headache and also, truth to tell, a kind of sexual thrill.

The chief curator offered his qualified sympathy, and that was that. What a marvelous tool, lying, so practical and uncomplicated. I was beginning to understand its pervasive popularity in days gone by.

Together Martina and I strolled through the park, Franz hovering in the background like an unwanted thought. She grasped my right hand; my fingers became five erogenous zones. Today she would return to

Veritas, she explained, where she'd finally lined up a job writing campaign speeches for Doreen Hutter, a

Descartes Borough representative.

I'll miss you, I said.

I'll be back, she said, massaging her baroque braid with her free hand. Like all dissemblers, I'm obliged to live here ninety days a year, soaking up the atmosphere. I'll be spending next Friday on the Jordan, fishing for ferrets.

Will you visit me? I asked this zaftig and exotic woman.

She stared into the sky and nodded. With luck you'll be a liar by then, she said, tracking a pig with her decorous eyes. If you have anything honest to say to me, you'd better do so now.

As you might imagine, I'm completely focused on psychoneuroimmunology right now.

However, beyond that, I'd have to say... The truth dawned on me even as I spoke it. I'd have to say I'm a little bit in love with you, Martina.

Only a little bit? she asked, leading me to the riverbank, Franz at our heels.

These things are hard to quantify. Two gondolas were lashed to the dock, riding the wake of a passing outboard motorboat. May I ask how you feel about me?

I'd prefer not to say. Martina splayed her fingers, working free of my grasp. Ultimately there'd be nothing in it for either of us, nothing but grief. She climbed into her gondola and, assuming the pilot's position in the stern, lowered her oar. I'm certain you'll become a Satirevian, she said, casting off. I have

great faith in you, Jack, she called as she vanished into the 3000-watt sunrise.

* * *

The current carried Franz and me south, past a succession of riverfront cottages encrusted with casuistry: welcome mats, flower boxes, plaster lawn ornaments in the forms of Cupids and little Dutch girls. My guardian landed the gondola before a two-story clapboard building painted a bright pink and surmounted by the words HOTEL PARADISE in flashing neon. A stone wall hemmed the grounds, broken by a massive gateway in which was suspended an iron portcullis, also painted pink. Bars of pink iron crisscrossed the hotel windows like strokes of a censor's pen.

A sudden skreee

: the portcullis, ascending with the grinding gracelessness of an automated garage door.

Franz led me beneath the archway, up a pink cement path, and through the central portal to the front desk. He gave my name to the clerk —

Leopold

, according to his badge — a horse-faced, overweight, fortyish man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt so loud it invited legislation. After confirming that they were indeed expecting a Jack Sperry from Plato Borough, Leopold issued me a pink tunic with NOVITIATE

stamped on the chest. It was as baggy as a gown from the Center for Creative Wellness, and I had no trouble slipping it on over my street clothes.

You look real spiffy in that, said Leopold.

You're one of the homeliest people I've ever seen, I felt bound to inform him.

The chief bellhop, a spidery old man whose skin resembled a cantaloupe rind, guided me down a long hallway decorated with Giotto and Rembrandt reproductions, Franz following as always, my eternal shadow. We paused before a pink, rivet-studded door that seemed more likely to lead to a bank vault than a hotel room — it even had a combination lock. Your suite, the bellhop said as the three of us stepped inside.

Suite. Sure. It was smaller than the Holy See, and sparser: no rugs, no chairs, no windows. The walls were clean and predictably pink. Two male novitiates with wildly diverse bodies rested on adjacent cots, smoking cigarettes. Your roommates, said the bellhop as he and Franz exited. The door thudded shut, followed by the muffled clicks of the tumblers being randomized.

I'm William, said my tall roommate. He could have played point guard for the Plato Borough Competents. William Bell.

Ira Temple, said his scrawny companion.

Jack Sperry, I said.

We spent the next hour swapping life stories.

Ira, I learned, was a typical dissembler-in-training. He hated Veritas. He had to get out.

Anything, he argued, even dishonesty, was superior to what he called his native city's confusion of the empirical with the true.

William's story was closer to my own. His older sister Angelica, the one person in the world who mattered to him, had recently landed on Amaranth, a planet that existed only in her mind. By

learning to

lie, William reasoned, he might travel to Angelica's mythic world and either release her from its mad gravity or take up residence there himself.

The door swung open and in came a small, dusky, stoop-shouldered man with a bald head and a style of walking that put me in mind of a duck with osteoporosis. During the upcoming week, you're all going to fall in love with me, he said abrupty, waving his clipboard around. I'm going to treat you so well, you'll think you've died and gone to heaven. He issued a wicked little wink.

That's a lie. I'm Gregory Harness, Manny Ginsburg's liaison. You may call me Lucky, he said with an insistent, rapid-fire bonhomie. The

Pope deeply regrets not being here to orient you personally, but his busy schedule did not permit ...

anyhow, you get the drift of his bullshit, said Lucky brightly. Which one of you's Sperry?

I raised my hand.

I heard about your sick child, said Lucky. Heart-rending. Tragic. Believe me, Sperry, I'll be rooting for you all the way.

* * *

And so it was upon us, our immersion in lies, our descent into deception, our headlong, brainfirst plunge into Satirevian reality.

At the crack of dawn Lucky herded us into his pickup truck and took us to a place where money grew on trees, a pecuniary orchard so vast it could have paid the interest on Veritas's national debt. We spent the day sweating under a mercury-vapor sun, harvesting basket after basket of five-dollar bills.

On Tuesday morning the weather engineers contrived a fearsome blizzard, squall upon squall of molten snow bringing Satirev to a total standstill and inspiring Lucky to issue us broad-scooped shovels. Clean it up, he demanded, every highway, street, alley, path, sidewalk, and wharf. And so we did, our skin erupting in blisters, rashes, and second-degree burns as we carried heap after heap of steaming precipitate to the Jordan and dropped them over the banks. Lucky mopped our brows with towels dipped in ice water, slacked our thirst with lemonade, soothed our wounded skin with eucalyptus oil —

but he kept us on the job all day.

Wednesday: a tedious morning of shoeing six-legged horses, a wearying afternoon of decorating Satirev's innumerable rock gardens. My companions and I felt that, for stones, these creatures were extraordinarily loquacious and singularly self-pitying. The stones lamented their lack of mobility and prestige. They said it was hell being a stone. Cut them, they claimed, and they would bleed.

Further lies, Thursday's lies — our task master loaded his truck with cans of spray paint and shunted us across Satirev, stopping at every public park along the way and ordering us to turn the grass purple, the roses blue, and the violets red, an ordeal that left my co-apprentices and I so speckled we looked like amalgams of all the Jackson Pollocks I'd ever criticized. That night, as I lay on my cot in the Paradise, my stunned brain swirled with deceptions — with lavender cabbages and crimson potatoes, with indigo jungles and chartreuse icebergs, with square baseballs, skinny whales, tall dwarves, and snakes with long, pale, supple legs.

More lies — lies, lies, lies. On Friday, Lucky gave us .22 caliber hunting rifles, instructed us in their use, and, exploiting the handicap of our Veritasian upbringings, made us swear we wouldn't use them to escape. Before the day is out, you must each bring down a flying pig. Don't let the low comedy of their

anatomy fool you — they're smarter than they look. Thus did I find myself crouched behind a

forest of cat-o'-nine-tails on the banks of the Jordan, my .22 poised on my knees, my mind turning over the manifest rationale behind my deconditioning. A black, bulbous shape glided across the river, like the shadow that might be cast by a gigantic horsefly, and I recalled the perusal I'd made of

Alice's

Adventures Underground before criticizing it. The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. I grabbed the rifle, took aim; the shape flew along the equator of my telescopic sights, eastward to the axis. Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax — of cabbages and kings.

I fired. And why the sea is boiling hot. The bewildered and wounded animal fell squealing. And whether pigs have wings. My bleeding prey hit the water.

When your every muscle aches with the effects of a currency harvest, you do not doubt that money grows on trees. When your entire epidermis is branded with the aftermath of 200-degree snowflakes, you cannot but accept their reality. When every particle of your concentration is fixed upon blasting a winged pig out of the sky, you do not question its species's ontological status.

* * *

The Hotel Paradise had but one eatery, an immaculate malt shop called the Russian Tea Room, and on

Friday night Lucky took us there for dinner. Brilliant white tiles covered the walls. The stools —

red vinyl cushions poised atop glistening steel stalks — resembled Art Decco mushrooms. The menu bulged with carnivoral delights — with cheese steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, beef tacos.

Lucky told us to order whatever we liked.

I've been driving you all pretty hard, he confessed after our food arrived.

An understatement, I replied.

Lucky twisted the cap off a bottle of Semitomato Ketchup from Veritas. Tell me, men, do you feel any different?

Different? said Ira Temple, voraciously consuming a beef taco. Not really.

William Bell bit into his cheeseburger. I'm the same man I always was.

Saturday's schedule is pretty intense, said Lucky, shaking blobs of ketchup onto his French fries.

You'll be digging sugar out of the salt mines, attending a linguistics seminar with some golden retrievers, carrying steer haunches over to the Pope for him to bless. In my experience, though, if you're not a liar by now, you never will be. With a directness rarely found in Satirev, Lucky looked William in the eye. What do pigs have, son?

Huh?

Pigs. What do they have? You've been dealing with pigs lately — you know about them.

William stared at his half-eaten cheeseburger. He pondered the question for nearly a minute. At last he raised his head, closed his eyes tightly, and issued the sort of delighted yelp an Age-of-Lies child might have voiced on Christmas morning. Pigs have wings!

What did you say?

W-w-wings! William leaped from his chair and began dancing around the table. Wings! he sang.

Wings! Pigs have wings!

Good job, William! Ira shouted, his face betraying a mixture of envy and anxiety.

Lucky smiled, ate a fry, and thrust his fork toward Ira. Now — you. Tell me about money, Ira.

Where does money grow?

Ira took a deep breath. Well, that's not an easy question. Some people would say it doesn't grow at all.

Others might argue...

Money, son. Where does money grow?

On trees! Ira suddenly screamed, grinning spectacularly.

On what

?

Money grows on trees!

And I'm the Queen of Sheba! said William.

I'm the King of France! said Ira.

I can fly! said William.

I can walk on water! said Ira.

God protects the innocent!

The guilty never go free!

Love is eternal!

Life is too!

Lucky laid his knobby hand on my shoulder. Tell me about snow, Jack, he commanded. What is snow like?

The appropriate word formed in my brain. I could sense it riding the tip of my tongue like a grain of sand. It's ... it's...

Is it hot, for example? asked Lucky.

Snow is h-h-h—

Hot?

Cold! I shrieked. Snow is cold, I moaned.

William shot me an agonized glance. Jack, you've got it all wrong.

Don't you remember that blizzard? asked Ira.

I quivered with nausea, reeled with defeat. Damn. Shit. The stuff they make here is a fraud

. Jack Sperry versus Xavier's Plague — and now the disease would win. It's not snow at all.

Snow is hot, said Ira.

Snow is cold! Rising from my chair, I stumbled blindly around the Russian Tea Room. Pigs don't fly!

Dogs don't talk! Truth is beauty!

I left.

The hotel lobby was dark and pungent, suffused with the Jordan's sugary aroma. The night clerk slept at his post. Franz sat in a wicker chair beside a potted palm, his long face shadowed by a Panama hat.

I staggered to the front door. It was locked. But of course: one left Satirev pumped full of either lies or scopolamine, illusion or amnesia; there was no third path.

Treatment isn't taking, huh? said Franz as he approached.

I'm beaten, I groaned.

Franz removed his Panama, placing it over his heart — a gesture of grief, I decided, anticipatory mourning for Toby Sperry.

You have a visitor, he said.

Huh?

Visitor.

Who?

He led me past the sleeping clerk and down the east corridor to a steel door uncharacteristically free of catches, bolts and locks. The sign said VIDEO GAMES. Franz turned the handle.

There were no video games in the Video Games Room.

There was a blood-red billiard table.

A print of Picasso's

The Young Women of Avingnon

.

Martina Coventry.

Hi, critic. We had a date, remember?

To tell you the truth, I'd forgotten.

'To tell you the truth'? What kind of talk is that? Martina came toward me, her extended hand fluttering like a wondrous bird. You look unhappy, dear.

I'm no Satirevian. I reached out and captured her plump fingers. I never shall be.

Martina tapped the brim of Franz's Panama. Mr. Sperry and I require privacy, she told him.

Don't worry, we're not going to have sex or anything.

Though convulsed with misery and self-loathing, I nevertheless noticed how Martina was dressed. If employed as a lampshade, her miniskirt wouldn't have reached the socket. The strap of her madras bag lay along her cleavage, pulling her LIFE IS A BANQUET T-shirt tight against her body and making her breasts seem like two adjacent spinnakers puffed full of wind.

Franz tipped his hat and ducked out of the room.

Let's get your mind off your deconditioning. Martina hopped onto the table, stretched out. She looked like a relief map of some particularly mountainous nation. Lie down next to me.

Not a good idea, I said. True: a roll on the felt wasn't going to solve my problems. I should be pumping

Martina's mind and no other part of her; I should be trying to learn how she herself had managed the crucial transition from Veritasian to liar.

She said, You don't want to?

I gulped loudly. No, I don't. My blood lurched toward the temperature of Sartirevian snow.

No?

I'm married

, remember? I don't want to have sex with you.

I did, of course. In my heart of hearts, I did — and now came the correlative of my desire, drawing both

Martina's attention and my own.

I don't want to have sex with you, I'd said.

Yet here was the resolute little hero, shaping the crotch of my overalls into a denim sculpture.

So I'd lied! For the first time since my brainburn, I'd lied!

I pulled off my tunic, slipped out of my overalls. I hide my wings inside my soul, I quoted, climbing atop

Martina.

Deftly she removed my undershorts; my erection broke free, a priapic jailbreak. I'd done it, by damn. I

might have a Veritasian penis, but I'd finally acquired a Satirevian tongue.

Their feathers soft and dry! I cried, shucking off Martina's skirt.

And when the world's not looking, she whooped.

I take them out and fly!

* * *

I had to apply the brakes on my Plymouth Adequate almost a dozen times as I descended the southern face of Mount Prosaic and headed into the lush green valley below. Cabin after cabin, hut after hut, Camp Ditch-the-Kids was strung along a strip of pine barren midway between the swiftly flowing

Wishywashy and a placid oxbow lake. For the first time, it occurred to me that Toby might not like the idea of leaving two days early. With its fearsome dedication to frivolity, its endless amusements and diversions, Ditch-the-Kids was the sort of place a seven-year-old could easily imagine living in forever.

As I pulled up behind the administration building, a gang of preadolescent children in Ditch-the-Kids

T-shirts marched by clutching fishing rods. Their counselor explained that acid rain was sterilizing Lake

Commonplace, so it really didn't matter how much they caught, the fish were all doomed anyway.

I entered the building, a slapdash pile of tar paper and cedar shingles. A grizzled man with a three-day beard sat behind the desk, reading the August issue of Beatoff

.

I'm Toby Sperry's father, I said. Are you're—?

Ralph Kitto. The camp director eyed me suspiciously. Look, Mr. Sperry, there's no question we were pretty irresponsible, leaving that rat trap out in the open as we did, but I doubt you have a criminal case against us.

It's not my intention to sue you, I told him, savoring the spectacle of joy and relief blossoming on his face. Little did he know I could've been lying.

Will Toby be okay? I've been feeling a certain amount of guilt about this matter. Nothing I can't handle, but—

I'm here to bring him home, I said. He's going into the hospital tomorrow.

Life is a tough business, isn't it? Ralph Kitto fanned himself with Beatoff

. Take me, for example. Sure wish I could find a better line of work.

I imagine these kids drive you crazy — figuratively crazy.

Vodka helps. I get drunk frequently.

Kitto consulted his master schedule and told me Toby was probably still on the archery field, a half mile south down the Wishywashy. I paid the balance due on my son's tuition, thanked the director for his willingness to take on such an unrewarding job, and set out along the river.

When I arrived, my son had just missed the bull's-eye by less than an inch.

Nice shooting, Toby, old buddy!

He maintained his bowman's stance, frozen in astonishment at hearing my praise. Dad, what are you doing here?

I hadn't seen him in a month. He seemed taller, leaner, darker — older — standing there in his grimy

Ditch-the-Kids T-shirt and the bluejeans he'd shredded into shorts last spring.

I've come for you, I told him, moving as close as I could without making it obvious I was scanning him for symptoms. His hair was as thick, dark, and salubrious as ever. His eyes sparkled, his frame looked firm, his tanned skin held no trace of blue.

No, I'm taking the bus Sunday. He nocked an arrow. Mom's picking me up at the station.

The plan's been changed. She had to go out of town — there's a big UFO story breaking in the Hegelian

Desert. I experienced a small but irrefutable pleasure, the sweet taste of truth bending in my mouth.

We'd better get your stuff packed. Where's your cabin?

Toby unnocked the arrow and used it to indicate a cluster of yurts about twenty yards from the targets.

The archery instructor approached, a woodsy, weathered fellow with a mild limp. Toby introduced me as the best father a boy'd ever had. So strange, I thought, the spontaneous little notions that run through the heads of pre-burn children.

My son turned in his bow, and we started toward his cupcake-shaped cabin.

You've got a nice tan, Toby. You look real healthy. Gosh, it's good to see you.

Dad, you're talking so funny

.

I'll bet you feel healthy too.

Lately I've been getting headaches.

I gritted my teeth. I'm sure that's nothing to worry about.

Wish I wasn't leaving so soon, he said as we climbed the crooked wooden steps to his room.

Barry

Maxwell and I were supposed to hunt snakes tomorrow.

Listen, Toby, this is a better deal than you think. You're going to get an entire second vacation.

The space was only slightly more chaotic than I'd anticipated — clothes in ragged heaps, Encyclopedia

Britannica comics in amorphous piles. We're going to live in a magic kingdom under the ground. Just you and me.

What sort of magic kingdom? he asked skeptically.

Oh, you'll love it, Toby. We'll go fishing and eat ice cream.

Toby smiled hugely, brightly — a Satirevian smile. That sounds neat. He opened his footlocker and started cramming it full: crafts projects, T-shirts, dungarees, poncho, comics, flashlight, canteen, mess kit.

Will Mom be coming?

No.

She'll miss all the fun.

She'll miss all the fun, I agreed.

My son held up a hideous and lopsided battleship, proudly announcing that he'd made it in woodworking

class. How do you like it, Dad?

Why, Toby, I told him, it's absolutely beautiful.