PROLOGUE
THE LEAF-BLOWER
"That damn phone doohicky will rot your brain.”
Joey Shapiro’s mom. Not an educated woman by any stretch, but a lady of great conviction. That Old World wisdom can’t be learned in school. You have to go to Jersey.
“Mom, I’m not playing a game, I’m networking.”
“Networking! Networking? Don’t you mean not working? I knew I should’ve never let you get that thing, but stupid me I let you talk me into it. It’s a good thing your father’s not around to see this; I know what he would say: ‘Give that lazy S.O.B. his walking papers!’ But you know you can take advantage of your poor mother, who can’t say no to her only child, her baby. Oh yes, I remember when your little bottom fit in the palm of my hand. Why, God, why?”
“Mom, I’m twenty-six.”
Joey’s always been a problem child. Sallow. Skinny. Ben Pakula next door said the boy belonged in the Army—“Boot camp will wring the milk out of him!”—but Dottie Shapiro, bless her soul, hoped Joey was cut of finer cloth and kept him home. Besides, he was her only family since her husband died in that roofing accident.
“Don’t get high and mighty with me, kiddo, or you’ll find you’re not too old to get a slap in the face from your mother. Oh-ho-ho-yes.”
“Jeez, Mom, it’s my day off.”
“Your day off. Well isn’t that fine? It’s his day off.” She threw open the window and yelled out, “Stop the world, it’s Joey’s day off!”
Joey hung back, making faces. Real chicken neck on that kid. I should’ve probably gone upstairs, but I was working on a cup of coffee and Dottie had stiff rules about food in her rooms. A sensible woman, and not unattractive for her age.
“Isn’t it too bad that the rest of us don’t get a day off like Mr. Joey Shapiro! Some of us just have to clean up after him!” She snatched up his phone gizmo and flung it down in the wastebasket by my chair. Good for her!
Joey squealed, “No!” He fished out the thing and frantically tried to make it work. “Dammit, Ma—!”
“Don’t curse at me!” She loomed up over him with the flat of her hand. “Don’t you ever curse at me. Oh no, I won’t take it. Uh-uh, buster. No.”
“But Mom—”
“No ifs, ands, or buts. Instead of wasting your time playing games, why don’t you do something useful? Here—” she handed him the garage key, “—go out and clean the leaves off the property. Get some fresh air. Then later you can pick up a few things for me at the Stop ’n Shop.”
“Come on, the Marzi brothers hang out in that neighborhood!”
“The Marzi brothers! You’re a man now; it’s time you stopped letting other people push you around.”
“For God’s sake…”
“Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain! Are you gonna move, or am I gonna have to throw you out by the seat of your pants?”
“Mom—”
“You know I will. You know there’s only so much I’ll take.” She squared her bosom, ready to charge.
Joey hung there for a minute, looking—if you want to know—kind of feeble. Very sad thing, a widow with such a son. But you never heard her cry about a broken heart. All guts. Finally he went out and slammed the door. Dottie winked at me, that minx, and went into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, I heard Joey start up the leaf-blowing rig, wielding it as if it were a flamethrower, blasting imaginary enemies off the driveway. Sad, sad… When I was his age I was clearing airstrips in Nha Trang. Of course, a young man had something to fight for, something to believe in then. The thought made me almost sorry for Joey. Joey, Joey, Joey. All that kid had in his miserable life was hope.
It was about two months later that a cardboard tube arrived in my mail. Special Delivery. At first I thought it might be something from my son in Guam, who I hadn’t heard from since things went crazy in the Pacific. That kid wouldn’t write if it were a paying job. Then I saw the return address: Hercules Enhancement Products. Damn—it was for Joey. A few weeks earlier he had asked me if he could use my name to order something by mail, and like an idiot I agreed.
“I hate to ask, sir,” he had said, “but it’s kind of private, and my mother opens all my mail.”
“It’s not porn, is it?”
“No, sir!”
“You’re not asking me to accept a shipment of illegal drugs or anything?”
“No, sir, it’s nothing illegal! They advertise it on the Web. It, uh, has to do with…personal enhancement.”
“What do you mean, like a degree program?”
“Not exactly. It’s kind of a guy thing; my mother wouldn’t understand. I’m trying to make myself more, um, dynamic to the…female persuasion. You know.” He lowered his voice to an almost inaudible whisper. “Bigger.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
Feeling embarrassed for the kid, I said okay. Then I forgot about it. Well, here it was, whatever it was. Not wanting to know, I didn’t look inside, just tore my name off the address and put the parcel on Joey’s dresser next to his Star Wars crap.
Soon I started having second thoughts. Mama Shapiro and I were just starting to hit it off—we went dancing at the Elk’s every Saturday. If she heard about this mail-order baloney it could sour my big play. Why had I started such Father Figure nonsense in the first place? I turned around and headed back to the basement.
Joey was coming up. He had the mailer in his hands. “Mr. Lieber?”
“Hi, Joey.”
“Uh, did you put this on my dresser, sir?”
“I guess I did.”
The kid’s bat ears were bright red. “Does my mother know?”
“No. But this is a one-time deal, y’unnerstand? I may be a crusty old man with a heart of gold, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna be your personal P.O. box.”
He nodded, relaxing a little. “You won’t mention it to her or anything?”
“Are you kiddin’?”
Joey’s face collapsed into an embarrassed grin and he said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Hey, I just hope it does the trick.”
“Me too, Mr. Lieber, me too.” Then he was gone down the stairs.
≥≠≤
“What am I going to do with that damned kid?” Dottie moaned over her vodka tonic at the VFW.
“It’s just a phase he’s going through.”
“A phase! Fat chance.”
“I’m telling you. Give him time. It’s hard on a boy, not having a father.”
“Hard on him? Hard on him? What about me?”
“I know, shhhh.”
“Don’t shush me! That boy is a spoiled brat. He’s had everything handed to him on a silver platter! That’s all. I’ve been too weak with him. That’s always been my problem—I’m just too nice. People walk all over me. I could’ve sent him to a boarding school but I didn’t. I could’ve put him in foster care. I could’ve gone out and had a high old time instead of squandering my beauty raising that ungrateful, lazy brat. But I’m too damned soft-hearted. Well no more. No more, pfft! From now on I—”
“Whoa there.” I leaned forward into the candlelight. “Lady, you didn’t ‘squander’ anything.”
She looked baffled, grinding gears as I took her hand. “What?”
“Ma’am,” I whispered, “you make Joan Collins look like pickled herring.”
When the tears started flowing I knew I had her. It’s all timing. Needless to say, we didn’t get home until after midnight, and Dottie and I had big news to tell Joey in the morning. Yessireebob, it was going to be a big day for all of us.
≥≠≤
It must’ve been three in the morning when the earthquake hit.
I was knocked out of my bed, the whole house warping and cracking around me. Books tumbled off shelves, windows shattered, and chunks of ceiling plaster came crumbling down. I heard Dottie screaming upstairs and ran for her room. Except for a faint glow of moonlight through the windows, the house was pitch-dark.
“What the hell was that?” she cried hysterically as I rushed in. She was sitting up in bed holding a pillow over her head, surrounded by puzzle-pieces of ceiling stucco.
“I don’t know,” I said, crouching next to her, “but I think it’s over now. Are you okay?”
“No, I’m not okay! Call 911!”
I tried the phone but it was dead. “Looks like all the power’s out.”
“Where’s Joey? Joey!”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m sure he’s fine down in the basement. He’s probably still asleep.” That kid could sleep through a stampede of rogue elephants.
Mrs. Shapiro bolted to her feet, heading for the door.
I caught her arm. “Let me,” I cautioned. I had a terrible premonition of something—I wasn’t sure what.
“He’s my son.”
“No—”
“He’s my son!” She wrenched free.
Feeling her way to the hall closet, she dug up a big flashlight among boxes of camping gear—the late Earl Shapiro had been something of an outdoorsman. I was surprised there wasn’t more commotion outside: sirens, car alarms, jabbering neighbors.
I couldn’t see a thing out the windows; the world was dark and dead quiet. Inside, the hallway had a hazy, dreamlike quality, and our voices were slightly out of sync. Weird. Staggering a little, I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. The air seemed too thin; I felt lightheaded, high as a kite.
“Phew, I think I’m still drunk,” I said.
Dottie must have felt the same, because she moaned, “What is happening, Bill?”
“I don’t know, honey.”
For once she didn’t know everything. For once…she needed someone. I hugged her tightly and she cried softly into my shoulder like a young girl.
The downstairs looked like a tornado had hit it.
“Oh, don’t scratch the floor,” Mrs. Shapiro said as I cleared a path through the debris.
Holding the lantern before us, we made our way down the basement steps to Joey’s room. The stairway had been twisted and mangled in bizarre ways, as if it had softened like taffy and then hardened again. The door at the bottom was open.
“Oh my,” said Mrs. Shapiro, her voice cracking.
Joey was not there. His room was wrecked—even more than usual. As with the stairway, it looked warped, the walls bent into strange waves, the ceiling beams perversely askew and out of proportion. A strange layer of luminous vapor hovered above the floor like swamp gas, making islands of the furniture. I hoped and prayed I was still drunk.
“Joey!” his mother called.
“He must have gone outside. That’s probably the smartest thing to do for us, too. This place could collapse any minute.”
We went back upstairs, giving the kitchen a quick once-over.
“Joey?”
“Hello? Joey honey?”
Tracks in broken sheet-rock led to the open back door. Looking at the dark void, I had a sudden feeling of dread.
There are times when the mind goes blank, just puts up the Gone Fishin’ sign and checks out. I would have thought I was long past it, me an old campaigner and jaded leatherneck who lost his innocence in Da Nang and later four toes and ten men during the Tet offensive. But in the face of…this…I was cold-cocked, flat-footed, green as grass.
What we should have seen out there in the moonlight was a view of Dottie’s postage-stamp backyard: her grape arbor, flowerbed, birdbath and cast-iron patio furniture, hemmed in by a wood fence and the high gabled houses of the neighbors. There was none of that. There was nothing.
Instead, the back porch seemed to step off into outer space, a huge unobstructed night sky, close enough to touch. Dottie gasped and grabbed my arm. I looked down: Casa Shapiro was standing all by itself on a small jagged plateau in the middle of an otherwise empty landscape—a featureless desert that fell away to the edge of the world.
Low in the distance was the downhill curve of the horizon, dark against the pale blue rim of the sky. It was as if we were perched on a weird alien moon. A low mist covered the ground, and here and there were beds of sparks like kicked-open embers, glowing under weird coral formations of smoke. I thought I was going crazy: the heavens seemed to turn as I watched them.
“What the hell happened to Hoboken?” I asked.
Dottie squealed, “Oh thank God! There’s Joey!”
Joey Shapiro was in his undershorts, sitting on the porch roof like some kind of Indian guru, his legs crossed and his expression one of ecstatic revelation, tears running down his face. Oh, I could tell right away that he had figured something out. A cloud of tiny flies was buzzing around his head like electrons around an atom.
“What is this, Joey, what’s happening?” his mother begged. “Come down, honey. What’s the meaning of this?”
I was incoherent, raving out of my head, “Where’s New Jersey, you punk? What have you done with my Camry?”
Joey didn’t look at us, but only gestured at something with a limp toss of his arm. We turned the way he was pointing, toward the east. It was brighter there; the sun was coming up, visibly rising, a brilliant salmon streak spreading along the base of the sky. The colors were mirrored on the surface of a calm primordial lake that stretched to the opposite horizon. There was something funny about the water, about the little crenelated island and the shore, the shrublike puffs of smoke.
“You always wanted an ocean view,” Joey said.
That’s when Mrs. Shapiro started screaming.