"Just go with it," I recommend.
Richard harrumphs.
"You were spying on us?" Megan accuses—these modern kids—-so paranoid.
"Nope. Just watching. And caring. And worrying. And freaking out.
"What was so wrong about our lives that we had to go through the past year?" Linus asks. "At least Jimmy Stewart was having a life crisis. Our lives were going along pretty smoothly, actually."
"Were they?" I ask. "I mean, were they really?"
"Hey, Jared," Hamilton says, "it's not as if you were out there selling Girl Guide Cookies when you were down here. Who are you to watch over any of us and tell us what our lives should or shouldn't be?"
"For starters, Hamster, I'm a ghost, so that gives me a few extra course credits. No, I didn't get to stay on earth for an extra few decades, but I did get to see—oh, good God, Hamilton—what do you want me to have—wings and a halo?"
"For sta—"
Karen interrupts: "Will you testosterone cases clam up? Shush!"
Wendy says, "Jared, I get the impression that we were supposed to have been doing something else down here this past year—and that we've failed some kind of test."
"Yeah," Richard adds. "And what if we had done the right thing,
Jared? What would we have won—a trip to Rome on Sabena
Airlines? A year's supply of Rice-a-Roni? Maybe you haven't noticed, but Earth is a big slag heap these days. There's not much we couldalter even if we wanted. What—we're supposed to start a new race of human beings? A new civilization? Assemble some new Noah's Ark? Build a legacy? We don't even know what we're going to be able to eat in a year or two. Tang? Each other?"
Wendy adds, "Jared, there's radiation here now. And the weather isn't weather anymore. We can't plan for five years when we're unable even to plan for a week."
"Wendy, you're carrying our kid," I say … oops. "What kind of life do you expect him to lead?"
Wendy replies, "Him? You know the gender already? If you know the future, Jared, you ought to have thought of that beforehand."
"Wait wait wait wait wait," Linus says. "You two made it?" Wendy's sigh is a confirmation. "You bastard!" he shouts at me, throwing a patio chair at the spot where he roughly imagines me to be floating. One of the chair's legs knocks over the barbecue's dome and the embers fall onto the ground, missing Richard by inches.
"You pinhead!" Richard shouts, "You could have brained me."
Linus ignores Richard and turns me. "You couldn't even keep it in your pants when your dead, you dumb jock." He swivels toward Wendy. "Very well. Where'd you do it? How'd you do it? Now I know why you've been so moony lately."
"In the canyon. Two weeks ago. It wasn't sex sex," Wendy says, "It was a soul-to-soul thing. I didn't even remove my clothes."
"Don't soul-to-soul me."
"Linus," I say, "Cool down. I simply made her stop feeling lonely."
"Yeah. Sure."
Wendy and I sigh. "Linus—do you want me to make you pregnant, too? It's not impossible. I can arrange it."
Richard is sweeping the embers into a small pile with a stray brick. Linus is confused. He wants to be angry but now he isn't sure what should be the anger's focus. Karen says, "It's not bad like you think,
Linus."
Linus sulks and the group stands silently and looks at me. Surprisingly, it is Richard who breaks the quiet, saying, "Jared's rightto be worrying about us." He puts down his marshmallow trident. "We really don't seem to have any values, any absolutes. We've always maneuvered our values to suit our immediate purposes. There's nothing large in our lives."
Hamilton snaps in, "These past weeks are the first time I've felt good in years, Richard, and you're starting to bring me down. Do we really need to analyze our shortcomings so thoroughly?"
"Yes, I believe we do," Richard says. "Jared's here to ask us to take a look at ourselves, Hamilton. I mean, look at us: Instead of serving a higher purpose we've always been more concerned with developing our 'personalities.' and with being 'free'"
"Richard?" Karen asks.
"Karen, let me say what I feeclass="underline" This has been on my mind ever since Jared first appeared. I think we've always wanted something noble or holy in our lives, but only on our own terms. You know, our old beefs: The World Wide Web is a bore. There's nothing on TV. That video tape is a drag. Politics are dumb. I want to be innocent again. I need to express the me inside. What are our convictions? If we had any convictions would we even have the guts to follow them?"
Marshmallows broil then slime through the grill and into the embers. Papery carbon husks above are blown away in the breeze like used black cocoons. "It's true," Linus says, and all eyes move to him. I let him speak because he's saying the right things. "Our lives have remained static—even after we've lost everything in the world—shit: the world itself. Isn't that sick? All that we've seen and been through and we watch videos, eat junk food, pop pills, and blow things up."
Hamilton says, "Okay, Helen Keller, get to the point. And if you get any more depressing, I'm rearranging the furniture and not telling you how."
"Hamilton," Richard says, "tell me—have we ever really gotten together and wished for wisdom or faith to come from the world's collapse? No. Instead we got into a tizzy because some Leaker forgot to return the Godfather III tapes to Blockbuster Video the day of the Sleep and now we can't watch it. Have we had the humility to gatherand collectively speak our souls? What evidence have we ever given of inner lives?
Karen perks up: "Of course we have interior lives, Richard. I do. How can we not have one?"
"I didn't say that, Karen. I said we gave no evidence of an interior life. Acts of kindness, evidence of contemplation, devotion, sacrifice. All these things that indicate a world inside us. Instead we set up a demolition derby in the Eaton's parking lot, ransacked the Virgin Superstore, and torched the Home Depot."
"Aren't we holier than thou?" Wendy snipes at Richard, her arms tight around young Zygote Junior inside her stomach.
"Actually, Richard," I say, "the demo derby looked like a lot of fun. And I like the way you spray-painted names on your cars. I thought your 'Losermobile' would win in the end."
"Me, too. I—"
Megan ignores Richard and looks at me: "Jared—stop talking about cars. What are we supposed to do now?" she asks. "How can we change? You arrived saying you would teach us things that would allow us to change. So tell us."
My friends go calm—quiet. "Okay, guys, I think you want me to tell you that the world is a moral place. It is. But you're right to be thinking about your souls—the better parts of you—they're all desperate to climb from your bodies and leave you far behind. You're going to have to lead another life soon; a different life. The choice will be obvious when it arrives. You can get the world back yet."
A salvo of questions follows: "But you didn't tell us how to—" "What do we do to—" "What happens next?" "When do we—?"
"Hold your horses. A few squabbles ago Wendy asked what it was you were supposed to have been doing here this past year. The answer is that you ought to have been squabbling twenty-four hours a day for all of this time—and asked a million questions about why the world became the way it did. If you'd done that, you'd have been returned to the world the way it was and you'd be smarter and wiser,
But you didn't—arson, looting, cocktails, videos, and demo derbies— so now we move to Plan B."The barbecue hisses. "I'll return when the lightning ends. I'll meet you on Cleveland Dam in seven days—at sunset." "What lightning?" Hamilton asks. Lightning cracks; the sky ignites. "That lightning, goof ball."