unfamiliar music, while children, dressed outlandishly, tossed an ordinary Frisbee. A dog barked, chasing the floating disk from child to child. They might as well have been the Seven Dwarves—my picture of their world was dim and fuzzy. Shivering in sweat, I had only the faintest interest in staying alive. My ears thrummed mocking counterpoint to the cheerful music from the bandstand.
Here and there, other people were dancing, talking in small groups, lying in pairs under leafy canopies, moving gently with the music. They wore a bewildering variety of costumes: bright swirly cloaks, skirts or kilts, trousers and tunics—riots of color strewn like shining flowers across the forested lawn. Hunched and feeble in my tattered suit, I clutched miserably at some hostile stranger’s pistol in my pocket. My knees and elbows were caked with mud.
A hand on my shoulder—I started. A dark, pretty girl in orange bellbottoms stood behind me. “Are you all right?” she asked, almost apologetically. Before I could reply, she slipped gracefully around the end of the bench. A sheathed dagger, needle slim, hung from a jewelled chain around her tanned and slender waist.
“Been hurt worse before,” I managed to croak. All this conversation was tiring. “Could you point me back toward the Sciences Building?” I was beginning to understand: the Enquirer’s headline would read, POLICEMAN THROWN HUNDREDS OF FEET BY EXPLOSION, LIVES! with a thumbnail sketch of my service record, duly exaggerated, and an account of how, while sailing through the air, I’d found Jesus.
The young lady looked dubious, but willing to let me pick my own handbasket. “You mean the university?” she pointed down a tinted pathway through the trees. I could see another sunlit space beyond, perhaps the slightest hint of moving traffic. Make that headline . HUNDREDS OF YARDS … ! “Across Confederation Boulevard, at the edge—why, you’re bleeding!”
Just like a movie heroine. I didn’t want to hear about it—you can do amazing things seriously injured, as long as you don’t know. “I really think I’ll be all right,” I lied, and found a Kleenex, dabbing at the worst parts. The web of my thumb, where I’d kept the other guy’s gun from going off, was split back half an inch. I wadded the bloody tissue into the fist and said, “Gotta get going. Police business.”
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Thanks. I’ll try.” Stifling any further stoic repartee, I lurched painfully to my feet, plodded in the direction indicated. A hundred yards and a century later, I stopped at another bench, cheery pastel pink, and lowered myself wearily, wondering if I’d ever get up again.
I didn’t seem seriously damaged, just sore, and incredibly tired. Pilots have fallen miles, sans parachute, and survived. Maybe I’d qualify for a Guinness record when this was all over—a brightening thought, somehow. I started humming an old railroad song and reached into my coat pocket. “Last week a premature blast went off / And a mile in the air went Big Jim Goff / And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
The pistol I’d confiscated was a sweetheart:
THE BROWNING ARMS COMPANY
MORGAN, UTAH & MONTREAL P.Q.
MADE IN BELGIUM
“ The next time payday comes around / Jim Goff a dollar short was found . . .” I’ve always admired the Browning P-35, despite its lack of authoritative stomp. Impeccably designed and made to last for generations, it’s no more powerful than an issue .38 but carries an impressive fourteen cartridges.
“‘What for? says he, then this reply …” On the other side, stamped in neat, tiny letters, was something that started me wondering exactly what I’d do when I found my way back to the university:
CALIBRE 9MM PARABELLUM
PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT SECURITY
POLICE
‘“Yer docked fer the time you was up in the sky!’ /And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
Wobbling the rest of the way across the park, I
Here and there, other people were dancing, talking in small groups, lying in pairs under leafy canopies, moving gently with the music. They wore a bewildering variety of costumes: bright swirly cloaks, skirts or kilts, trousers and tunics—riots of color strewn like shining flowers across the forested lawn. Hunched and feeble in my tattered suit, I clutched miserably at some hostile stranger’s pistol in my pocket. My knees and elbows were caked with mud.
A hand on my shoulder—I started. A dark, pretty girl in orange bellbottoms stood behind me. “Are you all right?” she asked, almost apologetically. Before I could reply, she slipped gracefully around the end of the bench. A sheathed dagger, needle slim, hung from a jewelled chain around her tanned and slender waist.
“Been hurt worse before,” I managed to croak. All this conversation was tiring. “Could you point me back toward the Sciences Building?” I was beginning to understand: the Enquirer’s headline would read, POLICEMAN THROWN HUNDREDS OF FEET BY EXPLOSION, LIVES! with a thumbnail sketch of my service record, duly exaggerated, and an account of how, while sailing through the air, I’d found Jesus.
The young lady looked dubious, but willing to let me pick my own handbasket. “You mean the university?” she pointed down a tinted pathway through the trees. I could see another sunlit space beyond, perhaps the slightest hint of moving traffic. Make that headline . HUNDREDS OF YARDS … ! “Across Confederation Boulevard, at the edge—why, you’re bleeding!”
Just like a movie heroine. I didn’t want to hear about it—you can do amazing things seriously injured, as long as you don’t know. “I really think I’ll be all right,” I lied, and found a Kleenex, dabbing at the worst parts. The web of my thumb, where I’d kept the other guy’s gun from going off, was split back half an inch. I wadded the bloody tissue into the fist and said, “Gotta get going. Police business.”
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Thanks. I’ll try.” Stifling any further stoic repartee, I lurched painfully to my feet, plodded in the direction indicated. A hundred yards and a century later, I stopped at another bench, cheery pastel pink, and lowered myself wearily, wondering if I’d ever get up again.
I didn’t seem seriously damaged, just sore, and incredibly tired. Pilots have fallen miles, sans parachute, and survived. Maybe I’d qualify for a Guinness record when this was all over—a brightening thought, somehow. I started humming an old railroad song and reached into my coat pocket. “Last week a premature blast went off / And a mile in the air went Big Jim Goff / And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
The pistol I’d confiscated was a sweetheart:
THE BROWNING ARMS COMPANY
MORGAN, UTAH & MONTREAL P.Q.
MADE IN BELGIUM
“ The next time payday comes around / Jim Goff a dollar short was found . . .” I’ve always admired the Browning P-35, despite its lack of authoritative stomp. Impeccably designed and made to last for generations, it’s no more powerful than an issue .38 but carries an impressive fourteen cartridges.
“‘What for? says he, then this reply …” On the other side, stamped in neat, tiny letters, was something that started me wondering exactly what I’d do when I found my way back to the university:
CALIBRE 9MM PARABELLUM
PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT SECURITY
POLICE
‘“Yer docked fer the time you was up in the sky!’ /And DRILL, ye tarriers, DRILL!”
Wobbling the rest of the way across the park, I
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