Tom O'Bedlam Part 24

The Gypsy Snap, and Pedro Are none of Tom's comradoes; The punk I scorn and the cutpurse sworn And the roaring-boys' bravadoes; The meek, the white, the gentle, Me handle, touch, and spare not But those that cross Tom Rhinoceros Do what the panther dare not.

Although I do sing, "Any food, any feeding, Feeding, drink or clothing?

Come, dame or maid, Be not afraid, Poor Tom will injure nothing."

- Tom O' Bedlam's Song.

ITwas starting to get dark, earlier than usual. Some clouds starting to drift over from the north, maybe even a little rain tonight, Tom thought. The first of the season. Last night clear and sharp and cool, the moonlight strong and bright; tonight, maybe, rain. A change in the weather, perhaps heralding other, bigger changes just ahead. Go back to the room, take a nice shower, fix yourself up for dinner. Afterward have a talk with some of the people here, this Ferguson, the fat girl April, some of the others. The Time of the Crossing was getting close. Like the coming of the rain: the season was changing.

"Let's go," he said to Ferguson. "We been out here for hours. Time to head back."

"Yeah," Ferguson said. "Sure." He sounded half-awake, or less than half: vague, dreamy, furry. He had been that way since Tom had given him the vision. Sitting quietly under the giant trees, smiling, shaking his head from time to time, saying almost nothing at all. It was as though the Green World dream had stunned him. Or was it something else, Tom wondered? Was it that somebody had turned to him at last and said, Look, man, I care for you, me, an absolute stranger with not a d.a.m.n thing to gain, I just want you to stop hurting and this is what I can do for you. Maybe no one had ever said anything like that to him before, Tom thought.

"Come on, then. Up."

"Yeah. Yeah. I'm coming."

"Give you a hand. Here."

Tom pulled Ferguson to his feet. He was a big powerful man, plenty of beef on him.

Getting him up was work. Ferguson wobbled a little, rocking back and forth. Easy, Tom thought. Get your balance. He hoped Ferguson wasn't going to fall. He remembered what it had been like catching hold of April whenshe went over. Easy. Easy. Ferguson managed to steady himself. They started toward the trail back to the Center.

"You think I'm going to get the s.p.a.ce dreams all the time now?" Ferguson asked.

"Without you having to do that to me, I mean?"

"Sure," Tom said. "Why not? You're wide open. You always were, except you wouldn't let it. Now you know how to let it."

"What a beautiful thing. That green world. I understand now, the fuss. I want to see the other ones too, you know? All seven of them."

Tom said, "There are more than seven."

"There are?"

"The seven are just the main ones, the strongest visions. There are others. Thousands.

Millions. An infinity. Some have come to me only once, for a fraction of a second.

Some only a couple of times, years apart. But the main seven, they come all the time.

Those are the ones that I can give to others, the strong ones, the main ones."

"Jesus," Ferguson said. "Millions of worlds."

"Look up there," said Tom. "You know how many stars you can see when the sky is clear? And those are just the bright ones near by. This galaxy, it's a hundred thousand light-years from end to end. You know how many stars there are in a hundred thousand light-years? And that's just this galaxy. They've got nebulas out there that are whole galaxies in themselves. Andromeda. Cygnus A. The Magellanic Clouds. Full of stars, and all the stars have planets. Makes you dizzy, just to think. This funny little planet . . .

what gall, saying we're the only stuff there is in the universe. You know?"

"Yeah," Ferguson said. "Yeah. Jesus, what was I doing all my life? What was I thinking of?"

Lost in the vision, still. Floating along with his head in the stars. He seemed to be altogether different now, that cold knot in his breast gone, his face smoother, younger- looking, more at ease. Well, Tom thought, that won't last. You don't get completely transformed in one single flash, no matter what. The old sad mean bitter cold Ed Ferguson might come back, probably would, an hour from now, a day, a week, sooner or later. Unless something big was done to change him, very soon now, while he was still open and vulnerable. Tom gave that some thought.

"Tom?" a sudden voice whispered out of the underbrush. "Hey, you, Tom!"

He looked around. A face in the shadows, blue eyes, thin lips, little scars all over the cheeks. A hand beckoning to him, pointing, signaling him to get rid of Ferguson and come over there.

Buffalo, it was. Hiding there like a ghost.

Tom shook his head. Pointed toward the Center, pointed at Ferguson. Buffalo gestured again, more urgently. Whispered again.

"Come here, will you? Charley's here. Wants to see you."

"All right," Tom said, frowning. "Wait."

He trotted forward, catching up with Ferguson, who by now was twenty, thirty paces ahead. "You go on back," he said. "I'm going to stay out here another five minutes, okay?"

Ferguson didn't seem curious about that. Right now the Green World was more vivid to him, he figured, than anything that might be going on here in the woods. "Yeah,"

Ferguson said. "Sure."

"I just need to be alone a little bit."

"Yeah. Sure."

He went trudging on. Tom hesitated, watching him go; then he turned back into the deeper forest. Buffalo stepped out from behind an enormous tree.

"That was the guy from the highway, wasn't it? The one who hurt his leg, the one with the dark-haired girl?"

"That's right," Tom said. "Why are you here? What does Charley want with me, Buffalo?"

"To see you, man. To talk to you. He misses you, you know that? We all do." Buffalo winked. "Hey, you look good, Tom! Got yourself cleaned up a little, huh? New pair of jeans, new shirt, everything fresh. This a pretty good place here, this Center?"

"It's all right," said Tom. "A lot of fine people here. I like it."

"I bet. Well, come on. Come on. This way, right back here. Charley wants to see you."

Buffalo led the way between the great trees, across a meadow thick with clumps of leathery ferns. A few more of the scratchers were hunkered down in a secluded little glade near a stream that had just about run dry. Charley was there, looking tired and gloomy. Mujer. Stidge. White-haired Nicholas. They all seemed even scruffier than usual, a worn-out, beat-up group of men. Tom wasn't happy to see them. He hadn't expected ever to see them again.

"There he is!" Charley called out. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h, look at the new outfit! They gave you a bath, too, put some food in your belly, huh? Hey, there, Tom! Tom, how you been?"

"Charley."

"Sight for sore eyes," Charley said. "You been doing okay. Hasn't been going so good for us, you know." "No?"

"We ran into a little trouble, up Ukiah way. Tamale and Choke, they were ambushed and killed."

"I thought they were back out there with the van."

"Van's in here," said Charley. "We floated it right between the trees, got it a little ways back in the meadow. Tamale and Choke, uh-uh. Rest of us, we were lucky to get away."

"Not so lucky, them," Tom said. "The Time of the Crossing's almost here. What a time to get killed, missing out on all the splendor, on the redemption."

"Give you a bath, it don't change you any, I see," Charley said, smiling faintly. "The green world and the Loollymooly planet and all the rest. That's okay. We dream the visions too. Loolymoolly and everything. Mujer, Buffalo, me. Stidge says he doesn't.

That right, Stidge? You never get a vision, huh, you sour-faced b.a.s.t.a.r.d?"

Stidge said, "Why don't you get off my back, Charley? But for me you'd be dead back there with Tamale and Choke."

"That's right," Charley said. "Stidge saved us, do you know that, Tom? Very quick with his spike, Stidge is. There were these three vigilantes at the roadblock, big energy-wall up, and somehow Stidge slipped around behind them -" He shrugged. "It's been a rough couple weeks, Tom. We missed you."

"I bet you did."

"No. Seriously. You were our luck, Tom. So long as you were with us, everything seemed to go okay. All your nutty stuff, your visions, your worlds, they were like a charm for us. We got into trouble, we got right out again. Since they took you away in that copter it's been lousy. Choke, Tamale, they shot them into pieces. Didn't even ask questions. That's why we came back here, Tom."

"Why?"

"For you. We're going to make a run for the south, warm weather, Mexico, maybe.

Rainy season's coming on any minute. We'll head down the Valley, maybe over into the desert, cut around San Diego and down into Baja. You come with us, okay? We got plenty of the room in the van, now."

"The Crossing's almost here, Charley. Doesn't make any sense, going to Mexico or anywhere else now. A couple of weeks, we'll be up there in the sky."

He heard Stidge snickering, Mujer muttering.

Charley said, "That so? h.e.l.l, you can do the Crossing just as easy from Baja, can't you?

And be a lot warmer until it happens, right?"

"I'm going to stay here, Charley." "At the G.o.dd.a.m.n Center?"

"Yeah. There are people here I want to help. When the Time of the Crossing comes, I want to guide them. I tell you what, though. You stay here, I'll help you too. You were good to me. I want you to be among the first to Cross. You stay out here in the woods, in the van, and I'll come to you when it begins. Okay? That's a promise. Let me help Ferguson over, and April, and Dr. Elszabet and some of the others and then I'll be back here to help you. Another week, maybe. Maybe even less, Charley."

"You want him," Mujer said, "let's just put him in the van and go, you hear, Charley?"

Charley shook his head. "No. I don't want that." To Tom he said, "You come with us, Tom."

"I told you, I got things to do here."

"You know what's going to happen to you, you stay here? You'll get run over by the lunatic crazy army that's marching this way. They'll be here, another day or two, the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n swarm of them, and when they come they'll tear the place apart."

"I don't know anything about that, Charley," Tom said, frowning.

"n.o.body told you? That's all we heard out there, last couple of days. About a million and a half crazies, some gang of nuts, marching toward the North Pole, they say. Going there to meet G.o.d. Some kind of G.o.d, anyway. Started in San Diego, been collecting people all up the coast. Heading straight this way, like a plague of locusts, chewing up everything in sight. That's why we're going to get out of this end of the state. Double back around them to the east, head south while all the fun and games is going on up here. It won't be safe for you, Tom. Come on with us. We'll clear out in the morning."

"It won't matter what's going on here, when the Crossing begins."

"It's supposed to be like a traveling riot," Charley said. "It's real wild. Guy like you, you don't want to be mixed up in stuff like that."

"It won't matter," Tom said. "Look, I got to get back. I want to wash up, have dinner, talk to a few people. You come on to the Center with me, all right? They'll take you in.

They're really good there. Dr. Elszabet, she'll welcome you the same way she did me.

And then we'll all be together when the Crossing starts. What do you say, Charley?"

"Nothing doing. We're clearing out. This won't be no place to be when those marchers get here. You come give us good luck again, Tom."

"The place for good luck is right here."

"Tom -"

"I got to go now." "You think about it," Charley said. "We'll camp out here tonight. In the morning, you come back, we'll still be here. You can go south with us."

"You want him, we ought to just grab him," Mujer said again.

"Shut it," Charley said. "See you tomorrow, Tom?"

"You come into the Center tomorrow," Tom said. "Tonight, even. They got good eating there."

He turned and walked away into the shadows. It was much darker now. Definite hint of rain, maybe tonight, maybe not until morning. Were they going to run up behind him and grab him? No, he thought, Charley wasn't like that. Charley had a sort of honor about him. Tom felt sorry about the scratchers. Come with us, be our luck: yeah. But he couldn't. His place was here. Maybe in the morning he'd hike back out again and try to talk them into staying. He hoped they wouldn't try to grab him then. Not with the Crossing so close - to take him away from his new friends here, before he could help them - no, that would be bad. He'd have to think about it some.

He was back in the main part of the Center in twenty minutes. Into his little cabin, edge of the woods. A good long shower, and he sat crosslegged on the floor beside his bed for a time, doing his thinking. Then over to the big building, the dinner place. The others were there already, Ed Ferguson and Father Christie, and the beautiful artificial woman Alleluia, and fat April, all sitting together at one of the long tables. Ferguson was still glowing. You could see the glow on him from halfway across the room. It was a good feeling, Tom thought, knowing that by the laying on of hands he had brought a joyous vision to that unhappy man. He went over to them.

Alleluia said, "He told us you gave him a s.p.a.ce dream."

"I showed him how to open himself to a vision, yes," Tom said. "Can I sit with you?"

"Here," said Father Christie. "Right here, next to me. You're a remarkable person, you know that, Tom?"

"I wanted to help him."

"How'd you do it?" Alleluia asked.

"I spoke with him for a while. I showed him the powers that lay within him. That was all."

"It's amazing," said Alleluia. "He's like someone else now."

"He's like himself now," Tom said. "The real self that was inside him all along. We are all becoming ourselves. We will all be fulfilled soon."

This is the moment, he thought. Tell them. About the Crossing. Tell them now. But then April said to him in a small little voice, "You know what? You scare me." She was on the far side of the table, shrinking back from him as though she was afraid she'd catch a disease from him. She was trembling and her face was red. Tom hoped she wouldn't go into another fit and fall over.

"I do?" he said.

"You have the visions inside you, don't you? Like a power all coiled up in there. And when I'm this close to you I can feel it," April said. Her cheeks were burning. She wasn't able to look him in the eye. "The other worlds, pressing in. It's frightening. The other worlds are very beautiful, you know. But it's all frightening. I wish none of this was happening."

"No, child," Father Christie said. "What's happening is the imminence of the advent of the Lord upon the Earth. There's nothing to fear. This is the moment we've been awaiting for more than two thousand years."

Tom looked at Ferguson. He was far away, smiling in the deepest bliss.