As Easy As Falling Off The Face Of The Earth Part 14

"I wonder if they're taking care of it," he said. "I wonder if they're even using it, or if it's just there for tourists to look at and take pictures of."

The way he said this made Ry smile. It was as if he were talking about an animal, a n.o.ble old animal forced to wear a silly costume and do tricks in a traveling circus.

"Do you want to go check on it?" he asked. "Make sure it's okay?"

"Do you mind?" Del said quickly. "I think we have plenty of time. It's still pretty early. It wouldn't take very long. I'm just curious. I'd like to take a look at it, up close."

Ry thought he knew what was coming next, so he decided to say it himself.

"It would be stupid to pa.s.s it by when we're so close," he said. "It wouldn't feel right."

"That's how I feel, too," said Del.

"But we won't stay very long, right?" asked Ry.

"Not long at all," said Del. "A quick look and we're back on our way."

"Okay," said Ry. "Let's go."

As they headed for sh.o.r.e, he yelled to Del, "If it needs to be fixed, you have to come back after we find my mom and dad."

THE WINDMILL.

The main harbor was behind them. They could have made a U-ey and headed for it, but they spied a boat emerging from another inlet, closer to hand, and decided to go there. This seemed to be nearer the windmill anyway. No way to tell yet if the windmill was milling anything, but the blades were spinning merrily around. Glancing to the south, Ry saw the island of St. Jude's. It was close enough that he could make out the movement of a tiny car climbing a steep tiny road that traversed the face of the mountain rising behind the port. It was unbelievable. They were almost there. He felt his blood quicken and more than a mild astonishment: they had actually done this. But there was no time to bask yet. They had swells to slice. They had rollers to romp over, spray to be soaked by.

"Be right there, Mom," he said over his shoulder at the clump of verdant volcano tips. He turned back to St. Jeroen's. The inlet they entered looked like paradise. Two other boats were anch.o.r.ed in the azure waters off the white sand beach. Del and Ry dropped anchor, too. They lowered themselves into the dinghy and paddled in.

The windmill, when they reached it, was a tourist attraction, but not too crowded. There was a guide dressed in a Dutch costume, but his hair was in dreads so he didn't look that authentically Dutch. He demonstrated how flour was made between some grindstones, then he would sell people a bag of it if they wanted one.

Del asked several questions, but it was clear the Dutch miller was not a real miller, either, because he didn't know most of the answers. He was just someone getting paid probably not much to dress up in his outfit and be friendly. Del kept asking questions, because he was interested and curious, but when he started talking about the industrial revolution and alternative energy, the miller looked at him, amused, and said, "The wind blows, the wheels turn, I put the flour into a sack. Do you want some?"

So Del and Ry went back outside while the handful of other people lined up to buy paper sacks of flour.

Ry wandered around the base of the windmill while Del was completing his observations. The stone foundation it rested on looked fairly ancient, and he wondered if that, too, had been brought from the Netherlands, or if the St. Jeroenians had built that themselves. On the back side, he looked up at the cranking arms that translated the spinning of the blades into the turning of the grindstones. Okay, he thought, that makes sense. I get it. Humans were pretty brilliant, really, to think up stuff like this. Of course, it had taken several dozen eons to get to the windmill. Still, he was glad someone had done it. Because of how one thing leads to another. First the windmill, then just an epoch or so later, the airplane propeller. Though he couldn't say that was currently his favorite invention. That would be the pillow-top mattress.

A movement caught his eye. He followed it and saw that Del was climbing up the side of the windmill.

"What are you doing?" he called out. Meaning, Why are you doing it? He flashed on what Everett had said about going rock climbing with Del. "When the rope is attached to Del," he had said, "I tend to think of it more as a leash."

Del hauled himself along the braces under the decking, then pulled himself up and over the railing onto the deck.

"It's my favorite thing to do on windmills," he said over his shoulder. He jumped up onto the railing and walked along on it with his arms out to his sides, like a tightrope walker. It was kind of funny: Del didn't want the windmill to be forced to perform circus tricks, but he didn't mind doing them himself. Now he grabbed onto one of the giant blades as it rose swiftly beside him. He was lifted into the air. The part he grabbed was a crossbar of wooden latticework. He shifted the position of his hands once or twice as he rode up and around to maintain a comfortable angle, a good grip.

He did it the way he did everything, as if he did this every day. As if it were the easiest thing in the world. As if any sane person would do the same.

He hung gracefully from the turning blade by one arm as he turned to step lightly back onto the railing when it came within reach.

The railing was wooden and it was old. Maybe not hundreds of years old, maybe it had been replaced at some point, but not lately. The expression on Del's face as it gave way beneath him was one of surprise.

His eyes met Ry's as if to say, "What the heck? What just happened?" His arms and legs went slowly spinning in a weird echo of the blades still spinning behind him, but in the opposite direction. As he fell through the air he began the movement of pulling into a tuck, but this was a trick he hadn't practiced. The timing was off. He met the Earth before he was ready.

For his part, Ry watched Del fall as if he were the pitch, the shuttlec.o.c.k, the ball in some sport Ry had never learned how to play. What was he supposed to do here? Catch him? Before he could figure it out, there was, almost all at once, the thud of Del reaching the ground and the snapping sound of cracking bones. And Del lay there, his limbs all wrong to his body.

Ry ran and knelt beside him. Del's eyes fluttered open and shut, and then stayed shut. Ry put his fingertips to the place on the neck where you can feel a pulse. Without opening his eyes, Del said, "I'm not dead, but I think I might need a doctor." His voice vibrated in Ry's fingertips. Ry pulled his hand away, startled. Then someone else's fingertips were on Del's throat, a woman's. Ry looked up to see one of the tourist ladies kneeling on Del's other side. The whole group of tourists huddled a few yards off, along with the miller, each one holding a brown paper bag. It was like an advertis.e.m.e.nt for brown paper bags. Except that with the expressions on their faces, it was more like a warning against brown paper bags.

Ry glanced down and saw something protruding from the skin on Del's leg. He realized it was Del's bone. Everything sort of disappeared then and went black, until he felt the doctor's warm hand on his cheek, turning his head for him. Her voice said, "Just look at his face for now." So he did.

The doctor said, "Is he your father?"

Still looking at Del's face, Ry wondered if he only imagined a smile moving through it.

"No," said Ry. "He's my friend."

When the ambulance arrived, it was a taxi, a minibus of a manufacture Ry hadn't seen before. The driver jumped out and peeled off the magnetic TAXI signs on each side. He replaced them with signs that said AMBULANCE, and then it was an ambulance. There was even a light on the roof.

The driver hurried over with a bag. Ry was apprehensive, but the guy was not inept. He took one look, then went back to the minibus and returned with a human-sized board with straps on it. Somehow he and the doctor and Ry gently maneuvered Del onto the board without altering his arrangement too much and secured him there. Ry and the driver carried him over to the minibus and loaded him in through a door in the back, sliding him along the aisle between the seats.

The doctor rode along to the hospital. The road was not smooth. With every b.u.mp, Ry and the doctor (and Del, no doubt) winced. They looked back and down at Del. His eyes were still closed.

The doctor said to Ry, "Does he often do things like that?"

"Yeah," said Ry. "He kind of does. But I've never seen him fall before."

"The wood was rotten," she said.

Ry was grateful that she didn't say it was a stupid thing to do. She just said her name was Shirley, and that Del would be okay. Eventually.

"He'll be laid up for a while, though," she said. "No wing-walking for a few months."

b.u.mp. Ba-da-b.u.mp.

IN THE HOSPITAL.

The hospital was a low building of whitewashed cement. The driver had been talking on his phone to the staff there, so at the instant they pulled under the drive-through carport, the doors opened and two people emerged with a gurney.

Shirley was off the bus in a flash to meet them behind the minibus. She spoke with them while they hauled Del back out. Ry could hear her American English and their island-accented English going back and forth through the opened door. They all spoke quickly, but softly and calmly; more routine than urgent, but also more urgent than routine. Someone must have made a joke while Ry was coming around back, and they all laughed.

Then Del was rolled inside and the doors closed. Shirley took Ry by the arm and they went inside, too.

There were forms to fill out. Information was needed. Ry and Shirley did the best they could with what they could find in Del's wallet, brought to them after his pants were cut away from his off-kilter limbs.

"KerHodie," said Shirley, reading Del's last name from his driver's license. "What is that, Dutch?"

"I don't know," said Ry. "I think so."

"Sounds Dutch," mused Shirley. "Looks Dutch. He looks Dutch. But maybe it's just because I'm on this Dutch island. Maybe it's just that windmill."

When they had finished with the forms, Shirley turned to Ry and asked, "Is your family nearby?"

It seemed like a trick question.

"Yeah, they are," said Ry. "Why?"

"Well, maybe you should call them," said Shirley. "I need to get back to my own family."

"Oh, right," said Ry. "I will. You should go-I mean, thank you for coming here. It really helped a lot. I wouldn't have known what to say. What to do."

"I'm sure you would have figured it all out," she said. "But it's easy for me, it's what I do, so I'm glad to help. Well, take care, then."

They shook hands and said good-bye, then Shirley was off, down the hall, around the corner. Maybe the ambulance became a taxi again. Ry stood in the hallway, irresolute.

Absentmindedly, he flipped open Del's wallet, which he was still holding. Del's face looked out through a scratched acetate window. There was a folded piece of paper sticking out that Shirley had opened, glanced at, then refolded and replaced in one of the credit card slots. Ry took it out now and opened it up. He had seen it before, but it was different now. It was the poem he had found in the typewriter that first morning he woke up in Del's house. There was the blob of Wite-Out he had applied, trying to conceal his nosiness.

But the poem had been revised. The revisions were handwritten, in pencil and in pen. The poem wasn't about interplanetary gravity at all. It was about Yulia. Yulia and Del. A t.i.tle, "For Yulia," had been written at the top, in blue ballpoint: For Yulia Try as I might, I can't escape your gravity.

My orbit is elliptical: I fling myself far and I think I'm free.

Who am I kidding?

Invisible forces, and visible ones, come into play: A stranger comes to town, someone goes on a trip.

Leaving and staying away Is as easy as falling off the face of the Earth, But who would want to, Anyway?

A stranger comes to town, someone goes on a trip. That would be me, Ry thought. The invisible force.

The hospital was small. It didn't take long to find Del. He was on a bed, and a nurse was hooking him up to an IV bottle. Del, despite being in obvious pain, watched her closely. Like next time he might just go ahead and do this part himself and he needed to know how. When he saw Ry, he seemed relieved.

"Call Yulia," he said, "and tell her where I am."

"Do you know her number?" asked Ry. "I don't even know her last name, to try to look her up."

Del rattled off the number as if it was one long word. "Tell her what happened," he said, "and ask her to come."

"Wait a minute," said Ry, searching around for a pen. He found one on the clipboard on Del's bed. "Okay, what?"

Del said it again and Ry wrote it on the back of his hand.

"Tell her I said I could be wrong," Del said. "And I'm sorry. And then you should go to Saint Jude's and find your mom and dad. You need to get there today."

"How am I supposed to do that?" asked Ry. "I can't sail the boat by myself. And I can't just leave you here."

"Yulia will come," said Del. "She might not stay, but she'll come."

"Okay," said Ry.

"I was wrong about the wood on that railing," said Del. "I should have noticed that."

"Everyone makes mistakes," said Ry.

"That's what I'm saying," said Del. "I was also wrong about the pancakes. Everett was right. You don't go by the thermostat. Any idiot knows that."

"What?" said Ry.

"And I was wrong about opera music. I thought I hated it, but now I don't mind it so much every now and then. In small doses. Very small."

"Oh," said Ry. "I get it. You can say you were wrong. That's great, Del."

"Right," said Del. "I was wrong about taking the air pollution control stuff out of cars, too. It's pretty important to leave it in there."

"Okay," said Ry. "You can stop now."

"I was wrong about being right," said Del. The expression on his face had relaxed to a goofy half grin. The medications dripping into Del's bloodstream must be taking effect.

"I was right about being left," said Del. He was still smiling, but his eyes were falling shut in fluttering stages. His voice was a loopy drawling singsong.

"I was left about..." His voice trailed off; his head lolled gently to one side. Ry thought he was out. Then Del's eyes opened and he said in a clear, normal voice, "...about three years ago, I think."

His eyes were not open when he said the last words Ry heard him say that day. Which were, "Her last name is KerHodie."

It wasn't until the nurse came back into the room that Ry realized his mouth was open. He closed his mouth and smiled at her, a slight courtesy smile that his face did out of habit. Then he walked out, thinking.

Ry called Yulia. He asked the hospital people if he could call Del's family, and they let him.

His mind was so busy running through all the things he might say that it took him by surprise when he heard Yulia's actual voice, answering her phone.

"Yulia!" he said as if he had met her unexpectedly, on the street.

"Yes?" she said, not recognizing his voice, but recognizing that he was a "yes" person, not a "si" person.

The conversation was short. Of course she would come.

"He said to tell you he was sorry," said Ry. "And that he was wrong."

"He said he was wrong?"

"Well-he said he could be wrong."

Yulia laughed. "I guess that's a start, isn't it?" she said. She said she'd see him that afternoon, maybe not till evening or night, depending on what she could work out.

"Okay," said Ry. "See you then."

Although he wouldn't see her then, he thought, or maybe ever. He hung up the phone and handed it back to the person behind the desk.

Putting one foot in front of the other, he walked down the corridor, pausing only to scarf a couple of uneaten rolls from a rack of dinner trays. He jammed two more in his pockets and walked through the reception area and out the front door. Where he hesitated, just briefly, in the shade of the carport drive-through, squinting out into the brightness that bathed the day. Then, putting one foot in front of the other, he walked in the direction of the windmill and the cove where the boat was anch.o.r.ed. He didn't know exactly where it was, but this was an island. If he stayed near the sh.o.r.e, how lost could he get?

NEXT.

The forested old lava cones, the mountains of St. Jude's, seemed so close. Not so close that Ry could see his father half walking, half running out to the end of a dock, waving what looked like paper packets, manila envelopes maybe, in the air. But from time to time, a gap in the foliage allowed him a glimpse of the buildings of the port town. He remembered from the lighthouse keeper's map that the town was called Finisterre.