Bill swerved onto the shoulder in front of the wagon.
"What are you doing?" Lisl said.
"I'm going to get this guy going again."
"Bill, I don't want to sit here and—"
"Only be a minute."
He hurried over to the wagon. He knew the Country Squire engine like he knew his Breviary. If it wasn't anything major, he could fix it.
He leaned on the fender and looked across the engine at a man who was probably ten or fifteen years younger but didn't look it.
"She die on you?"
The fellow looked up at him suspiciously. Bill expected that. People tended to be leery of offers of help from bearded guys with ponytails.
"Yeah. Died while we were stopped during the jam. She cranks but she won't catch. I'm afraid I don't know much about cars."
"I do." Bill started spinning the wing nut on the air filter cover. When he'd exposed the carburetor he said, "Get in and hit the gas pedal. Once."
The fellow did as he was told and Bill noticed right away that the butterfly valve didn't move. Stuck. He smiled. This was going to be easy.
He freed the valve and held it open.
"All right," he called. "Give her a try."
The engine turned and turned but didn't catch.
"This is what it was doing before!" the driver shouted.
"Just keep going!"
And then it caught. The engine shuddered and shook and then roared to life with a huge belch of black smoke from the rear. These engines tended to do that. To the tune of children's cheers from the wagon's rear compartment, Bill ran to his own car, popped the trunk, and got some spray lubricant from his work box. He lubed the hinges on the valve, replaced the cover, and slammed the hood.
"Get that carburetor cleaned and that choke checked out as soon as you can," he told the man, "or this'll happen again."
The fellow held out a twenty to him but Bill pushed it back.
"Get those kids an extra hot dog."
"God bless you, mister," the woman said.
"Not likely," Bill said softly as they pulled away.
He returned the waves of the smiling kids hanging out the rear window, then walked up to his own car. N
"There!" he said to Lisl as he started the Impala. "That didn't take too long."
"The Good Samaritan," she said with a sad shake of her head.
"Why not? It cost me nothing but a few minutes of doing the kind of thing I like to putter around with in my spare time anyway, and it literally saved the day for six people."
Lisl reached over and touched his hand.
"You're a good man, Will. But you shouldn't let everyone who comes along take advantage of your good nature. They'll eat you alive if you do."
Bill turned off at the next exit, looped on the overpass, and got back on the' freeway heading south toward town. He was baffled by her attitude.
"No one took advantage of me, Lisl. I saw a fellow human being who needed a hand; I had no place I was hurrying to, so I lent him one. That's all. No big thing. I come away feeling a little better about myself, he goes away feeling better about other people. And somewhere inside I have this hope that I've started some kind of chain letter: Maybe the next time he sees someone who needs a hand, he'll stop. That's what it's all about,
Lisl. We're all in this mess together."
"Why do you need to feel better about yourself?"
The question caught him off guard. Lady, if you only knew.
"I… I think everybody does, a little. I mean, how many people don't feel they could be better or do better? I like to feel I can make a difference. I don't mean changing the world—although, come to think of it, if you make a change for the better in one person's life, you have changed the world, haven't you? An infinitesimal change, but the world, or at least a part of it, is better for your passing." He was pleased with the thought.
"If you want to be a sacrificial lamb, I'm sure you'll find plenty of people standing in line for a piece of you."
"But I'm not talking about sacrifice. I'm talking about simple good fellowship, acting like just another crewman on Spaceship Earth."
"But you're not a crewman. You're an officer. Think about it, Will. Can any of them do anything—really do anything—for you?"
He thought about that, and was frightened by the answer. Who out there in the world could help him? Was there anyone who could put his life right again?
"No," he said softly.
"Exactly. Primes stand alone. We're islands. We have to learn to exist apart from the rest."
Bill stared straight ahead at the road. Lisl, you don't want to be an island. I know what it's like. I've been an island for five years, and it's hell.
And then something she'd said struck a discordant note in his brain.
"Primes? Did you say Primes? What's that?"
She then launched into this involved dissertation on Primes and "others," punctuated everywhere with the phrase "Rafe says."
"What a load of elitist bullshit!" Bill said when she was through. "Does Rafe really believe that garbage?"
"Of course," she said. "And it's not garbage. That's your cultural conditioning speaking. Rafe says—"
"Never mind what Rafe says. What does Lisl say?"
"Lisl says the same thing. You and I and so many others have been conditioned to deny who we really are so that we can be more easily used. If you look around you, really look at the world, you'll see that it's true."
Bill stared at her.
"What's the matter with you, Leese?"
She turned on him, her face contorted with anger.
"Don't say that to me! My parents always said it and I don't want to hear it ever again!"
"Okay, okay," Bill said soothingly, startled by the outburst. "Be cool. I'm not your parent."
He spent the rest of the ride back to town trying to explain the shortcomings of Rafe's perverted egoism, how egoism in itself wasn't wrong, but when it refused to recognize the validity of all the other Fs around it, the result sacrificed not only logic but compassion as well.
But Lisl wasn't having any of it. She'd bought into Rafe's philosophy completely.
Slowly, a deep unease wormed through Bill.
What was happening here? It was almost as if Rafe had been reshaping Lisl from within—right under Bill's nose.
He saw how it had happened. Someone as vulnerable as Lisl was a sitting duck. A poor self-image, emotionally battered, and suddenly there was this enormously attractive young man telling her she's not the ugly duckling she's always considered herself, but a swan. A little love and affection to ease the deep emotional pains from her divorce, a little tenderness, a little patience, and Lisl opened up to him. But having her physically wasn't enough, apparently. He'd gone on to seduce her mind as well. Once her defenses were completely down, he began to fill the vacuum of her valueless upbringing, whispering a twisted philosophy that offered an easy road to the self-esteem she'd been denied for most of her life. But it was false self-esteem, gained at others' expense. And during the course of his remodeling job, Rafe had made himself Lisl's sun; she revolved around him now, her face turned always toward him, only him.
As they pulled into town, Lisl asked Bill to drop her off at the downtown lot where she'd left her car.
"Thanks for the ride, Will. It was great. But I want to get you and Rafe together real soon. He'll open your eyes. Wait and see—it'll be the best thing that ever happened to you."
She waved, then turned and headed for her car. Bill felt a terrible sadness as he watched her go.
I'm losing her.