Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [127]
He tried to pull himself back into the world. Behind him Frank was still wandering, lonely as a cloud, deep in his own space; but soon he would catch up.
Charlie took a deep breath, pulled himself together. Several more deep breaths. No one would ever know how shaken he had been by his thoughts. So much of life is a private experience.
Frank stood over him. He looked down at him with his head cocked. “You okay?”
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’m okay.” He gestured around them. “Quite the drought.”
“That’s for sure!” Charlie shook his head violently from side to side. “It makes me sad—it makes me afraid! I mean—it looks so bad. It looks like it could be gone for good!”
“You think so?”
“Sure! Don’t you?”
Frank shrugged. “There’s been droughts up here before. They’ve found dead trees a couple hundred feet down in Lake Tahoe. Stuff like that. Signs of big droughts. It seems like it dries out up here from time to time.”
“Yes. But—you know. What if it lasts a hundred years? What if it lasts a thousand years?”
“Well, sure. That would be bad. But we’re doing so much to the weather. And it’s pretty chaotic anyway. Hopefully it will be all right.”
Charlie shrugged. This was thin comfort.
Again Frank regarded him. “Aside from that, you’re okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” It was so unlike Frank to ask, especially on this trip. Charlie felt an urge to continue: “I’m worried about Joe. Nothing in particular, you know. Just worried. It’s hard to imagine, sometimes, how he is going to get on in this world.”
“Your Joe? He’ll get on fine. You don’t have to worry about him.”
Frank stood over Charlie, hands folded on the tops of his walking poles, looking out at the sweep of the Muro Blanco, the great canyon walled by long cliffs of white granite. At ease; distracted. Or so it seemed. As he wandered away he said over his shoulder, “Your kids will be fine.”
“There are days which are the carnival of the year. The angels assume flesh, and repeatedly become visible. The imagination of the gods is excited and rushes on every side into forms.”
—Emerson
Wake up Sunday morning. In the van, outside a fregan potluck house, down in Foggy Bottom. Put on clothes one would wear to give a talk: “scientist nice,” meaning shirt with collar, dark walking shoes, Dockers pants.
Walk to the Optimodal that Diane found near the White House. Work out, shower and shave, then east on G Street. Find a deli open for lunch; most of them closed on weekend. Eat lunch and then continue east to the MCI Center, where the Wizards play basketball.
A building like all the others in the area, filling a whole block. This one, instead of offices and shops bordering the sidewalk, has glass doors by the dozen, and poster-holders between the doors, advertising all kinds of events. The glass doors have lines of people outside them. Many Asians, many of them in Asian attire.
Wait in line, then give an attendant a Ticketron ticket. Inside, wander down the hallway looking at the tunnel entries, checking the section numbers. Hallway lined with food stalls and souvenir stands and restrooms, as in any sports arena in the country. Beer, wine, hot dogs, pretzels, nachos. Like a basketball game, or a rock concert. Strange to see when attending a talk by the Dalai Lama. Walking in a category error. Maybe that was always true.
Plan to meet the Quiblers at their seats, a good thing; impossible to tell if one has circled ninety degrees or a hundred and eighty. Which way is north? No way to tell.
After two hundred and seventy degrees, perhaps, come to proper number and show ticket to usher, get ushered to seat. Great seats if it were basketball, in the middle, just above floor, which is now occupied by rows of chairs, slowly filling with people. Stage at the end of the floor, where one basket would be. Empty