"Anything's better than working for the death machine. We all try to dress the same way here. Simple and beautiful. But it's not like uniforms. It's just part of the single consciousness of the community. It's like everybody is you and you are everybody. Sex is mostly auto. You can watch someone doing something with himself or herself and then they can watch you do it. It's better that way because it's really purer and it's all one thing and you can do it with different people without anybody running for their shotgun like in the death factory out there. Sometimes it's not auto but mostly it is and it's two people mostly because two is still the most beautiful. I don't know what the Indians do."
"Look, Jill, I'm not a reporter or anything, so you don't have to tell me things that are private or sensitive."
"It's okay," she said. "I would tell you anything because you remind me of my brother. He was killed by the police."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"It's okay. I loved him very much but I wasn't sad. You have to get beyond that."
"Who's that guy over there?"
"That's Incredible Shrinking Man. He sleeps every day at this time. At night he goes into the desert. He's the one that started this whole thing. He has so much love in him. It won't be long before they kill him too. He believes in the truth of science fiction. The cosmos is love. Something is out there and once we learn to welcome it instead of fear it, we'll find out that its mission is love. His name is the name of an old sci-fi movie. At night he goes into the desert to watch for UFOs. He's seen lots of them. We've all seen them. This is a good place for sightings. That's one of the reasons he started the community out here. The visibility is terrific. So then they'll kill him because he preaches love."
"I believe in the saucers."
"Almost everybody does," she said. "But people are afraid to admit things to themselves. If we can learn to welcome instead of fear, the whole universe will heave with love. But the festival of death is going on all the time. That makes it hard for some people."
"I knew a boy at college who did what you did. He left school just like that and went to live with the Havasupai Indians. He lost forty or fifty pounds."
"They're north of here. I think they're farmers and planters."
"I wonder if he's still with them. Leonard Zajac. A very brilliant boy."
"This is the only community that's sci-fi oriented."
"I know another guy who's walking to California," I said.
Incredible Shrinking Man rose to his elbow. He was wearing plaid bermudas. He was well-tanned and very muscular, dispelling the vague sense of undernourishment in the area. His hair reached down almost to his shoulders. We stood to shake hands and I realized he was about six feet eight inches tall, broad across his bare chest, lean at the waist. His grip was gentle. I found myself exerting pressure. Then we sat down again.
"This is an interesting thing you've got here."
"The locals fear us," he said. "What they don't realize is that we're much more conservative than they are. This is a very conservative settlement. We want to cleave to the old things. The land. The customs. The words. The ideas. Unfortunately wilderness will soon be nothing but a memory. Then the saucers will land and our children will be forced to embrace the new technology. If they're not prepared, if we don't prepare them, there'll be an awful lot of confusion. We have to learn to accept the facts of technology without the emotion it engenders, the death impulse. But soon big government will take this land from us and install silos and missiles and lasers to keep out the UFOs. Big government beeps out everything in the end. Screaming meemies wield all the guns. Pimps and brainwashers are gaining power footholds. The answer is indistinguishability. Become indistinguishable from your neighbor and his neighbor and his neighbor. The death circus is coming to town and benign totalitarianism is the only feasible response."
"I'm not a journalist," I said.
"Whoever you are, you're welcome. Everybody's welcome. Love lives in our own galaxy. We sing at nine."
"Jill said you've seen a lot of UFOs out in the desert."
"He calls them love-objects," she said.
"I've seen them by the score. Night things filled with love. But they won't land until the time is right. The thing is out there. Jupiter and beyond the infinite."
"I have my own theory about UFOs," I said. "They're not from outer space at all. They're from the oceans. The depths of our own oceans."
"Who pilots them?" Jill said.
"Dolphins."
"He's just kidding," she said to Incredible Shrinking Man.
She and I continued the tour. A few Apaches played cards inside one of the huts. The girl Verna was still holding the Indian child. A group of eight young men and women, all of them appearing a few years older than Jill, sat in the dirt playing a game of jacks. A boy of fourteen or so, an Indian, knelt at the fringe of the group; there were two fielder's gloves and a baseball on the ground beside him. I picked up one of the gloves, a very old Luke Appling model. I spat into the palm and pounded it a few times. The boy got up and we walked slowly past the last of the huts and started playing catch. At first we stood only thirty feet apart and tossed the ball easily back and forth, limbering up. Then we doubled the distance and began to throw a bit harder. Then he moved back another ten feet and started firing. It was dry and very hot at the rim of the desert. I felt wonderful. The boy had a strong and accurate arm. The glove was soft with use, not as well padded as the later models, and my hand began to sting. He moved still farther away and I tossed him some high flies, which he fired back on a line. I took off my shirt. The sun felt good and my face and neck and upper body broke into lavish sweat. He moved across the dirt and weeds, kicking up dust, purposely delaying his break for the ball so that he could make an over-the-shoulder or backhand catch. My hand hurt badly now and I could not recall feeling this good in many years. I continued throwing long high flies, first to one side, then the next, and the boy veered and cut and back-pedaled, always sure of his terrain, dodging the larger stones without taking his eye oíf the ball. Sweat was collecting at my navel and I would rub it off with my right hand and then rub my hand in the dirt and wipe off the sticky dirt on my pants and blow on my hand then, drying it further, and then lean back and heave another long arching fly into the mouth of the sun. All trace of lettering had long since vanished from the baseball.
We walked back to the village. I draped my shirt over my neck. Jill came toward us and the boy was gone. We sat on the ground and she put one finger to my chest and then touched her lips with it. We stared at each other for a moment.
"Why does he dye his hair blue?" I said.
"Vanity."
"To what end?"
"Vanity's end," she said. "It's silly for a person to repress his own vanity. Make love to your body and you kill the death inside you."
"There are certain inconsistencies here."
"I think his hair is beautiful. Why shouldn't he have blue hair if he wants to? Do you feel it threatens you in some way? Really seriously now, what harm is he doing? If you let yourself be what you want to be, physically and spiritually, you can kill a lot of the death inside you."
"I love to be instructed by the very young. It implies I'm not yet a lost cause."
"I could never instruct you," she said. "And I could never get mad at you. It's not just the brother thing either. You're so beautiful."
" And that's important, you think."
"Youth and beauty are always important. It's what the death police hate most. They want to kill us and fuck us at the same time."
"I admit he's a striking figure. I suppose the Indians think he's a god."
"The Indians think he's a fag," she said, and she giggled for a bit, then slapped herself on the wrist as punishment.
"Your gums show when you smile," I said. "It gives me an almost death-dealing pleasure."
"I got all shivery when I touched you before."
"Do it again."
"I better not," she said.