Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [16]
They discussed details. With the Santa Ana blowing there'd be melt-off on all but the top elevations, but there would certainly be snow on the north slopes. A dozen scouts and Gordie. It sounded like fun. It was fun. Harvey shook his head ruefully. "You know, Gordo, when I was a kid it was a good week's hike to Cloudburst. No road. Now we drive it in an hour. Progress."
"Yeah. But it is progress, isn't it? I mean, now we can get there and still keep a job."
"Sure. Damn, I wish I could go." By the time they'd driven up—an hour—and hiked in and got the gear out of their backpacks and set up camp, and got damp wood burning and their backpack stoves going, the freeze-dried mountain food always tasted like ambrosia. And coffee, at midnight, standing in a shelter out of the wind and listening to it whistle above … But it wasn't worth a comet. "Sorry."
"Right. Okay, I'll check with Andy. Go over his gear for me, will you?"
"Sure." What Gordie meant was, "Don't let Loretta pack for your son. It's hard enough hiking at that altitude without all the crap she'd make him carry. Hot-water bottles. Extra blankets. Once even an alarm clock."
Harvey had to go back for his jacket and tie. When he came out of the garage he went another way, into the backyard. He'd thought of asking Gordie, "How do you feel about calling it 'Gordo's Bank and Kaffeeklatsch'?" From the look on Gordie's face when the bank was mentioned, it wouldn't go over. Some kind of trouble there. Private trouble.
Andy was in the backyard, across the pool, playing basketball solitaire. Randall stood quietly watching him. In zero time, in what must have been a year but felt like a week, Andy had changed from a boy into a … into a stick figure, all arms and legs and hands, long bones poised behind a basketball. He launched it with exquisite care, danced to catch the rebound, dribbled, and fired again for a perfect score. Andy didn't smile; he nodded in somber satisfaction.
Kid's not bad, Harvey thought.
His pants were new, but they didn't reach his ankles. He'd be fifteen next September, ready for high school; and there was nothing for it but to send him to Harvard School for Boys, certainly the best in Los Angeles; only the school wanted a fortune just to hold a place, and the orthodontist wanted thousands now and more later. And there was the funny noise from the pool pump, and the electronics club Andy was involved in, it wouldn't be long before the boy wanted a micro-computer for himself and who could blame him? … And … Randall went inside, quietly, glad that Andy hadn't noticed him.
A teen-age boy used to be an asset. He could work in the fields—drive a team, or even a tractor. The pressure could be shared, shifted to younger shoulders. A man could ease off.
There was wrapping paper in the kitchen wastebasket. Loretta had been shopping again. Christmas had been on charge accounts, and those bills would be coming to roost on his desk. He'd already heard the stock-market report on the radio. The market was down.
Loretta was nowhere around. Harvey went into the big dressing room off the bathroom and stripped, got into the shower. Hot water beat down on his neck, draining away tension. His mind was turned off; he imagined himself as meat being massaged by hydraulic pressure. Only. If only his mind would really turn off.
Andy has a conscience. God knows I never tried to make him feel guilty. Discipline, sure. Punishment, standing in a corner, even a formal spanking, but when it's over it's over, no lingering guilt … but he knows guilt anyway. If Andy knew what he's costing me in dollars and cents—and in the years of my life. If he ever knew what it does to the way l have to live, the shit I put up with to keep that goddamn job and win the bonuses that keep us afloat … What would Andy do if he knew? Run away? Get a job as a street sweeper in San Francisco to try to pay me back? He damned well is not going to know.
A voice in the roar of water. Huh? Randall came out of the internal world and found Loretta smiling through the glass shower door.