I Sing the Body Electric

Then he walked over and did an unexpected thing. He reached out and…touched…my Machine.

He laid his hand on it and left it there, as if feeling for the life, and approving what he sensed beneath his hand. He stood that way for a long time.

Then he turned without a word, not looking at me, and went back into the bar and sat drinking alone, his back turned toward the door.

I didn’t want to break the silence. It seemed a good time to go, to try.

I got in the truck and started the motor.

What kind of mileage? What kind of fuel? I thought. And drove away.

I kept on the road and didn’t look right or left and I drove for what must have been an hour, first this direction and then that, part of the time my eyes shut for full seconds, taking a chance I might go off and get hurt or killed.

And then, just before noon, with the clouds over the sun, suddenly I knew it was all right.

I looked up at the hill and I almost yelled.

The grave was gone.

I drove down into a little hollow just then and on the road ahead, wandering along by himself, was an old man in a heavy sweater.

I idled the safari truck along until I was pacing him as he walked. I saw he was wearing steel-rimmed glasses and for a long moment we moved together, each ignoring the other until I called his name.

He hesitated, and then walked on.

I caught up with him in the truck and said again, “Papa.”

He stopped and waited.

I braked the car and sat there in the front seat.

“Papa,” I said.

He came over and stood near the door.

“Do I know you?”

“No. But I know you.”

He looked me in the eyes and studied my face and mouth. “Yes. I think you do.”

“I saw you on the road. I think I’m going your way. Want a lift?”

“It’s good walking this time of day,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Let me tell you where I’m going,” I said.

He had started off but now stopped and, without looking at me, said, “Where?”

“A long way,” I said.

“It sounds long, the way you tell it. Can’t you make it shorter?”

“No. A long way,” I said. “About two thousand six hundred days, give or take some days, and half an afternoon.”

He came back and looked into the car.

“Is that how far you’re going?”

“That’s how far.”

“In which direction? Ahead?”

“Don’t you want to go ahead?”

He looked at the sky. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

“It’s not ahead,” I said. “It’s back.”

His eyes took on a different color. It was a subtle shift, a flex, like a man stepping out from the shade of a tree into sunlight on a cloudy day.

“Back.”

“Somewhere between two thousand and three thousand days, split half a day, give or take an hour, borrow or loan a minute, haggle over a second,” I said.

“You really talk,” he said.

“Compulsive,” I said.

“You’d make a lousy writer,” he said. “I never knew a writer yet was a good talker.”

“That’s my albatross,” I said.

“Back?” He weighed the word.

“I’m turning the car around,” I said. “And I’m going back down the road.”

“Not miles but days?”

“Not miles but days.”

“Is it that kind of car?”

“That’s how it’s built.”

“You’re an inventor then?”

“A reader who happens to invent.”