The Imaginary Lives of Mechanical Men by Randy F. Nelson Page B

time. Just drawn.
    Almost sleepwalking now, with slow determination and only a vague sense of unreality, she turns the corner and flicks on the light, and they whirl from the vicinity of the refrigerator.
    “We camped out!” Wesley screams.
    They are pale and ragged, hollow eyed, covered with dirt and leaves. Newly dug from some grave.
    She gasps, clutches the robe, and backs herself against the wall. They have filthy, hanging hair. Ragged nails and bloody fingers. Roger’s eyes are a maze of broken capillaries, swollen flesh to the temples; his face is a chaos of stubble, scratches, and scrapes.
    “I camped out!” he shouts again. “With Dad and Rex all night! We did it! We found the best place in the world and made a hole. And Rex kept us warm. All night!”
    “Roger?”
    “I don’t know, I need … coffee, something.”
    “We told stories! We cuddled up with Rex under the leaves.”
    “Dear God. Are you hurt? Are you … are you okay? Look at you. Look at your clothes.”
    “I need something, I … a hot bath maybe. Some breakfast.”
    Amy drops the brush, begins to undress them, stops to wipe a cut, to pick leaves from Wesley’s hair. Scolds and cries, the back of one hand pressed to her lips. Jerks their filthy clothing away and makes a pile before shooing them upstairs to steaming hot water and antiseptic. She hunts out clean towels and underwear. Pours forth a breathless litany of questions and recriminations. What in God’s name was he trying to prove? Alone with a child, no camping equipment, no precautions ofany sort. When you could have frozen to death. Letting that dog back in the house like this. Ticks and lice. People have died for God’s sake. There has to be a rational explanation. Roger. Roger, what in God’s name were you thinking? What was going on inside your mind?
    “Nothing,” he says. “I just … I don’t know.”
    She hovers, waiting for an explanation that never comes.
    Overturns a flower arrangement on one of her trips down the stairs, looking for clean socks perhaps or fabric softener or something, which falls from her mind as soon as she sees the new thing. It stops her, leaves her breathless one last time, like the magician’s grand finale. And she, like the beautiful assistant, takes it up in her hand and holds forth the wonder. Across the seat of her chair in the kitchen, someone has left her a sprig of winter jasmine, as thin and ragged as honeysuckle, as yellow and bright as a star.

Food Is Fuel
1
    In the tale of the Japanese magician, the year is 1939, and the nightclub is a renovated mansion called The Oasis. It’s owned by Robert Hassard. The opening scene has Robert gliding from table to table, greeting his guests like an election-year politician, and it’s a comforting moment. The men are in tuxedos. The women, after they have been undraped, are in a profusion of sequins and ostrich feathers. They glimmer and shine in spite of the freezing rain outside, and soon everyone has been warmed by the orchestra’s own rendition of Tommy Dorsey’s “Little White Lies.” There’s polished brass everywhere you turn. Leaded crystal and white gloves. In fact, the only detail that seems out of place in this part of the story is the one involving the cocktail waitresses. The girls of The Oasis wear tight satin shorts and white satin blouses, and they go wiggling between the tables with a sensuality not ordinarily associated with the thirties. Still, it’s the year of Gone with the Wind . Two years since the Hindenburg disaster. And anything seems possible. There are even rumors that Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey are getting back together.
2
    The orchestra swings into “Beale Street Blues” just as Robert passes a darkened table in one of the alcoves. It is of course my table, and henotices me because I am the author and my sudden appearance has given him a start. So naturally Robert hesitates, but at last he extends a soft, unformed hand. “Jack,” he manages to say, “how