Lucifer's Hammer

Harry slept badly. He made a nest back in the cargo compartment, sacrificing some shopping circulars and his morning newspaper. He woke often, always hearing the endless drumming of rain on metal. When earth and sky turned from lightning-lit black to dull gray with less lightning, Harry squirmed around and searched out yesterday’s carton of milk. A premonition of need had made him leave it until now. It wasn’t enough; he was famished. And he missed his morning coffee.

“Next place,” he told himself, and imagined a big mug of hot steaming coffee, perhaps with a bit of brandy in it (although no one but Gillcuddy was going to offer him that).

The rain had slackened off a bit, and so had the howling wind. “Or else I’m going deaf,” he said. “GOING DEAF! Well, maybe not.” Cheerful by nature, he was quick to find the one bright point in a gloomy situation. “Good thing it isn’t Trash Day,” he told himself.

He took his feet out of the leather mailbag, where they’d stayed near-dry during the long night, and put his boots back on. Then he looked at the mail. There was barely enough light.

“First class only,” he told himself. “Leave the books.” He wondered about Senator Jellison’s Congressional Record, and the magazines. He decided to take them. Eventually he had stuffed his bag with everything except the largest packages. He stood and wrestled the driver’s door open, trapdoor fashion, and pushed the mailbag out onto the side — now the top — of the truck. Then he climbed out after it. The rain was still falling, and he spread a piece of plastic over the top of the mailbag. The truck shifted uneasily.

Mud had piled along the high side of the truck, level with the wheels. Harry shouldered the bag and started uphill. He felt his footing shift, and he sprinted uphill.

Behind him the trees bowed before the weight of truck and shifting mud. Their roots pulled free, and the truck rolled, gathering speed.

Harry shook his head. This was probably his last circuit; Wolfe wouldn’t like losing a truck. Harry started up the uneasy mud slope, looking about him as he went. He needed a walking stick. Presently he found a tilted sapling, five feet long and supple, that came out of the mud by its loosened roots.

Marching was easier after he reached the road. He was going downhill, back from the long detour to the Adamses’. The heavy mud washed off his boots and his feet grew lighter. The rain fell steadily. He kept looking upslope, alert for more mudslides.

“Five pounds of water in my hair alone,” he groused. “Keeps my neck warm, though.” The pack was heavy. A hip belt would have made carrying it easier.

Presently he began to sing.

I went out to take a friggin’ walk by the friggin’ reservoir, a-wishin’ for a friggin’ quid to pay my friggin’ score, my head it was a-achin’ and my throat was parched and dry, and so I sent a little prayer, a-wingin’ to the sky.

He topped the slight rise and saw a blasted transmission tower. High-tension wires lay across the road. The steel tower had been struck by lightning, perhaps several times, and seemed twisted at the top.

How long ago? And why weren’t the Edison people out to fix it? Harry shrugged. Then he noticed the telephone lines. They were down too. He wouldn’t be calling in from his next stop.

And there came a friggin’ falcon and he walked upon the waves,
and I said, “A friggin’ miracle!” and sang a couple staves,
of a friggin’ churchy ballad I learned when I was young.
The friggin’ bird took to the air, and spattered me with dung.

I fell upon my friggin’ knees and bowed my friggin’ head,
and said three friggin’ Aves for all my friggin’ dead,
and then I got upon my feet and said another ten.
The friggin’ bird burst into flame — and spattered me again.

There was the Millers’ gate. He couldn’t see anyone. There were no fresh ruts in their drive. Harry wondered if they’d gone out last night. They certainly hadn’t made it out today. He sank into deep mud as he went up the long drive toward the house. They wouldn’t have a phone, but maybe he could bum a cup of coffee, even a ride into town.

The burnin’ bird hung in the sky just like a friggin’ sun.
It seared my friggin’ eyelids shut, and when the job was done,
the friggin’ bird flashed cross the sky just like a shootin’ star.
I ran to tell the friggin’ priest — he bummed my last cigar.

I told him of the miracle, he told me of the Rose,
I showed him bird crap in my hair, the bastard held his nose.
I went to see the bishop but the friggin’ bishop said,
“Go home and sleep it off, you sod — and wash your friggin’ head!”

No one answered his knock at the Millers’ front door. The door stood slightly ajar. Harry called in, loudly, and there was still no answer. He smelled coffee.

He stood a moment, then fished out two letters and a copy of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, pushed the door open and went inside, mail held like an ambassador’s passport. He sang loudly:

Then I came upon a friggin’ wake for a friggin’ rotten swine,
by the name of Jock O’Leary and I touched his head with mine,
and old Jock sat up in his box and raised his friggin’ head.
His wife took out a forty-four, and shot the bastard dead.

Again I touched his head with mine and brought him back to life.
His smiling face rolled on the floor, this time she used a knife.
And then she fell upon her knees, and started in to pray,
“It’s forty years, O Lord,” she said, “I’ve waited for this day.”

He left the mail on the front-room table where he usually piled stuff on Trash Day, then wandered toward the kitchen, led by the smell of coffee. He continued to sing loudly, lest he be shot as an intruder.

So I walked the friggin’ city ’mongst the friggin’ halt and lame,
and every time I raised ’em up, they got knocked down again,
’cause the love of God comes down to man in a friggin’ curious way,
but when a man is marked for love, that love is here to stay.

There was coffee! The gas stove was working, and there was a big pot of coffee on it, and three cups set out. Harry poured one full. He sang in triumph:

And this I know because I’ve got a friggin’ curious sign;
for every time I wash my head, the water turns to wine!
And I gives it free to workin’ blokes to brighten up their lives,
so they don’t kick no dogs around, nor beat up on their wives.

He found a bowl of oranges, resisted temptation for a full ten seconds, then took one. He peeled it as he walked on through the kitchen to the back door, out into the orange groves behind. The Millers were natives. They’d know what was happening. And they had to be around somewhere.

’Cause there ain’t no use to miracles like walkin’ on the sea;
They crucified the Son of God, but they don’t muck with me!
’Cause I leave the friggin’ blind alone, the dyin’ and the dead,
but every day at four o’clock, I wash my friggin’ head!

“Ho, Harry!” a voice called. Somewhere to his right. Harry went through heavy mud and orange trees.

Jack Miller and his son Roy and daughter-in-law Cicelia were harvesting tomatoes in full panic. They’d spread a large tarp on the ground and were covering it with everything they could pick, ripe and half green. “They’ll rot on the ground,” Roy puffed. “Got to get them inside. Quick. Could sure use help.”