Eric wanted to nod. “They didn’t.” He felt bewildered and humbled. And annoyed — discussions of most art bothered him, even as he made himself listen to them; though it always seemed there were some aspect to it everybody understood but him — which, finally, even as Shit laughed at him for it, Eric was always putting himself in the way of.
“Oh,” Deena said. “Well, I never saw any light sculpture down in this part of the country, anyway. Wait a minute — let me put it back the other way.” She moved her hands again, one making a wiping gesture (which seemed to change the color), and one pointing here and there, which didn’t do anything Eric could figure out. “You just tell me which one…you know, feels better. Feels righter — more complete.” She gestured again, with both hands — Eric did not quite follow how, but again it had become a blue sphere in an envelope of white.
Another leaf peeled away and shot off, spinning.
The image of a luminous, exploding cabbage made Eric, out of nervousness, laugh.
Deena looked at him and beamed. “See…? He gets it! I told you. It’s supposed to embody humor, as well as beauty.”
“Oh…!” Eric said, surprised, losing all the access to its sense of wit, now that he knew his had been a proper response. He could laugh at the thing, but he was completely uncomfortable laughing with it.
“You don’t have to be an art critic just to respond to a piece of art. But you really get it — I can tell. Don’t you?”
A naked young man ambled into the clearing, a baby harnessed high on his belly. “They told me to come and see what was keeping you guys.” He smiled at Eric. “Hello.”
“Hello,” Eric said.
“Hey, Ole.” Deena stepped back from the sculpture. “This is Mr. Jeffers. My mom used to talk about him when I was a kid. He knew my grandfather.”
“That’s the grandfather you told us about who liked to fuck everything like I do.” Holding his cock in one hand, Ole reached out the other to shake.
Eric shook hands with him.
“I’m sexually psychotic.” The young man smiled, pumping vigorously. “See my balls jogglin’ down there, under my kid? Even somethin’ like that can turn me on. It makes me very polymorphous. I like fuckin’ everything. Even old people, like you. I’ll fuck around with you, if you’ll talk to me and stuff about things. You ever fuck any animals? That’s one of my favorite nasty things to talk about — especially when I’m fuckin around with guys. Not so much girls, though…”
He had not released Eric’s hands, and now he tugged Eric’s fist back to rub it against the red hair over his groin and the bone beneath. His abdomen seemed nervously taut.
Eric’s wrist brushed the sleeping child’s dangling foot. “A long time ago, yeah. A few,” Eric said.
“Oh, wow. Will you tell me all about ’em? Maybe after dinner, we can go off and talk about ’em and play with each other’s cocks — ”
“Cut it out, Ole,” Sally said.
Deena said, “Mr. Jeffers used to run a whole pornographic theater. He probably knows more about fucking than you ever dreamed of. Ole basically just likes to say things that shock people.”
“Yeah?” the young man asked. “I probably won’t be able to pay a lot of attention to what you tell me. That’s ’cause I’m nuts. Still, it’s nice to meet you. Let’s go eat.” He dropped Eric’s hand, turned, and wandered off.
Eric said to Deena. “What do you call it?” (That’s what the artists always asked each other on Gilead.) “Your sculpture.”
Deena looked at Eric. “The working title is The Valley.”
Eric was bewildered.
Sally said, “Are you gonna tell him why you named it that?”
Deena looked bemused. “No — I wasn’t. Not unless he asked.”
“Go on,” Sally insisted. “Tell him. It’s interesting.”
“Doesn’t it look less like a valley…than anything you can think of?” (Deena started walking away, and Sally — with Eric — followed.) “I mean, valleys are depressions, but my sculpture is all outside. A sphere — and things coming off a sphere. So you have to think real hard to figure out any way at all that it’s like a valley — and even think about all the ways it isn’t like a valley. Which means you have to think about a valley and what makes something a valley even more. And what about this is different.”
They stepped from among the trees —
And the house that they were approaching was not Bull’s cabin: the first thing Eric realized. For one, the front wall was entirely glass. And it was wider than Bull’s house had been. Before it in the yard, a fire burned. Racks were set up over it, with pots and spits and, Eric saw now, fish cooking between the tines of the turning grills. It gave off little or no smoke, which was why he hadn’t seen it from the distance. But, then, of course, he hadn’t been looking.
Five or six people walked around.
Rough log benches stood at various angles to the fire.
“Hey,” Eric said. “You mind if I sit?” Seven or eight others already were. (How much daily medicine did it take so that, at his age, Eric could walk comfortably for an hour-and-a-half, for two hours? He knew that Shit took a lot more.) Someone said, “Sure — ” Another black woman with eight inch dreadlocks smiled at up at him and moved to make room.
As soon as he sat on the awkward bench, he realized he had to go to the bathroom. “Um…” Eric began.
Besides naked Ole, the only other man was a dark brown bear of a fellow, with a curly pad of hair over his chest, equally nappy hair on his head, and a beard. He wore pants and boots like the women. He sat a seat away, on the bench, leaning forward on his knees.
“Excuse me,” Eric said. “Do you guys have a latrine area — or a working bathroom available?”
The guy looked at Eric, then laughed. “Sure. Use the one in the house.”
“Oh…” Eric said.
“Just go right in and turn to the left. You’ll see it in front of you.”
“Thank you.” Eric stood again, wondering how to get into the glass-enclosed room.
There was no porch at all.
It must have been pure accident that he was close enough to some sensor. The glass wall parted and an opening spread between gleaming panes.
Eric glanced back. The bear nodded at him, grinning.
Eric walked forward. Inside, the floor was stone. A door stood to the left, so he walked toward it. It opened automatically, and he went inside.
It was a very modern bathroom, with a dozen planters built into one wall, trailing leaves and tendrils down the tiles. Two others were bright mirrors. (The commode was also some silvery-mirrored substance, and when he unfastened his pants, dropped them down his thin thighs, and sat, he realized the silver seat was heated. He actually felt too tired to stand and urinate — he had been sitting more and more, of late.) Beside him, was a table with three different levels, each of which held a pile of magazines.
The cover illustration moved as he looked at the top one. The glimmering title said,
THE KYLE FOUNDATION
NEWSLETTER FOR
THE DUMP
The top one was dated October 2072, which was a year and a half ago. Eric picked up several. They were all old issues of the same periodical. While he sat there, Eric thought, the crazy kid with the baby just propositioned me! Actually, he’s kind of cute — and I am about ninety-eight percent uninterested. Why didn’t this happen to me twenty years ago?