• VISIONS OF THE SEVENTH SENSE

When I was cricket-little Daddy Bob took me and Sis to Mossybird and let us ride up the DeepSunday Six. He showed us how the stars are really pasted on the sky and not whirly-gas yuck like teacher says. I bought a gold hereafter hat that spins around and a postcard of God’s big house up on the hill. Sis ate Angeltacos till she urped.

One summer after that we stayed with Grandma Alice/Jack in Heaven-Seven, and she took me right behind the big set and showed me how the little wheels go clicky-clack to work the world. There’s a special place there you can see who-you-are-who-you-were-who-you-might, and it was fun seeing me-being-him-being-her till I got the dizzies and had to stop.

When we got back home Daddy Bob said just like he hadn’t ever told us all before, not to talk about our vacation time or what we saw or what we did. Folks go to lots of different churches, and you have to watch who you might offend. ‘Course I couldn’t wait to tell Piggy St. Pack my best friend about Grandma Alice/Jack and the stars and the shiny little wheels. Piggy made a Pope’s Eye promise that he wouldn’t ever tell. Then I had to Swear-a-Prayer too, because he told me what he’d done all summer long.

Piggy goes to Mr. Mass and he said how you got to get thin as ant-breath soup and go stitchery through the colors and the sounds. He told me how the blues are sweet as bees and the yellows hurt your ears, and how the Peters and the Pauls and the Leos and the Johns are all hiding in the purple just waiting for a bad little kid to snicker by.

Before we moved here and switched to Third Electric Jesus, we lived in Pepitch Down and went to Glory Road Temple Number Nine. Our church is sorta like Piggy’s only not the same at all. We’ve got Jimmy-Jerry Magic and he’s got Polly Pope. Piggy goes every Sunday night and we don’t.

Missy Mendoza goes to Hindu Hacienda ‘cross town. She told me and Piggy if we’d let her see our nasties she’d tell us all about her vacation too.

Boy, I couldn’t hardly believe the great stuff they get to do! How you get to be lions and elephants and snakes if you don’t miss Sunday School once. You can blink around in Oldtime all you want, and ride a red lizard or a ringtail beaver big as Old Man Hasher’s barn. Missy says the sky’s puke green. Like a frog floating upside down.

Missy used to not like me at all. Our church played hers in Gummy-Goal, and we had this cheer that went “Yell-yell-yell-put-the-Hindus-in-a-spell-and-send-them-right-to-hell!” and it did. They made a big fuss getting all their players back and then our folks had to pay theirs and get boils and horns and warts and all kinds of icky stuff prayed off. We didn’t play Hindu Hacienda or anyone else for ‘bout a year.

Daddy Bob says it’s two or three sins to covet what you don’t have and so I don’t. I get along fine over at Third Electric Jesus. It’s okay I guess to visit Grandma Alice/Jack. I like to watch the wheels go ‘round and look at who I was and who I maybe will, but we can’t sing and dance and be a snake and do colors in our heads? I’d sure like to ride a lizard, or at an urpy green sky, or hide from the Leos and the Johns.

Hey, all the other kids get to have fun. Everyone but me...

 

What I wanted to be was a Collie but they were out.

All the kids got down to Pets-R-You Saturday morning ‘bout dawn---I mean, everyone but me. It takes Dad forever just to think about crawling out of bed. Unless some jerk sees a fish jump forty miles away and then he’s up at two or three.

Dad finally gets up and spends three or four days in the john and finds his pants and starts hunting for his keys and we get down to Pets-R-You and guess what? All you could be was a cat.

You don’t really get to be a pet---but it feels like you do and you can’t hardly tell that you’re not. The man at the store’s a real clown and he gives you something tastes like double-chocolate-liver-lemonade, and says don’t bite your daddy or your mom now, kid-haw-haw. You lie down quiet in this room and go to sleep. Your folks take a pet back home and that’s you.

Being a cat’s okay. It isn’t a Collie dog that’s for sure, but there’s still a lot of fun things to do. Like peeking in windows after dark, and climbing trees you never could. Driving dogs nuts and staying up as long as you want. Good old dad would like it fine---seeing how you sleep ‘bout forty-seven hours every day.

I know whisker secrets I didn’t know before. Like, people think cats just imagine they see things that aren’t really there? Hey, they’re there, all right, I’ll tell you what. People are lucky they can’t see like a cat.

I don’t much like the dreams. Cats dream hot-murder-red. I wake up tasting bird and feeling razors in my eyes. I feel electric wires in every claw.

There are cat things I haven’t learned to do. Like, I can’t catch a mouse no matter what. There’s cat stuff you have to learn early or you don’t. Micing’s one of those. Eating bugs is one too.

I miss things kids get to do and cats don’t. TV is pretty gross. The picture’s all fuzzy and the colors are pinky-wet and gray. I love ice cream at least I did. Mom left some on the counter and I hopped up and lapped it all up. Strawberry-cheesecake-ripple-triple-lime. Double yucko urp! Wait till they see what I left beneath the couch.

So okay, enough is enough. I’m tired of playing Pets-R-You. It was fun, but I’m ready to go back and be a kid. I thought Dad paid for just a week. Maybe cats see days different, but listen, I can count. I’ve been making scratches by my bowl. Thirty-two scratches that’s thirty-two days and nights, right? Seven’s not anywhere close to thirty-two.

I know I’m not wrong, because I can see the bus. Summer’s over now and school’s started up again. I can sit in the window and see the yellow bus come by at eight. Dad’s got to get me back to school soon. If I don’t stop being a cat I’ll get behind.

All I can figure is my cat-sense is messing up my head. If I was right, I’d see some other kids on the bus, and I don’t see any at all. The bus stops at the corner every day. Stops and moves along, and comes back empty every night...

 

It sure is cold down here.

Of course it’s cold because it’s so darn big. Miles and miles long like a dark gray tunnel beneath the world. I doubt everyone’s ever seen it all. You know your Life Number and when to be where you ought to be. How to watch the red light, and know when it’s time to start living once again.

Betty Ann ought to be here real soon. I can’t recall a life when she hasn’t been right on time. I like that in a woman just fine. That and being neat. And having supper ready when she should. That’s important stuff for a wife to know.

Don’t get me wrong, Betty Ann does good. Now and then you got to sit her down hard and sorta give her what for, but shoot, that’s no trouble at all for me.

It sure is scary down here.

The light’s mothy green and it smells like the biggest worm ever crawled by and left the earth all soft and slicky-wet. There’s nothing to really be scared of, I know that for a fact. And you wouldn’t be at all if you still had lots of grownup in your head. But they have to take it back to make it work right.

And it’s awful important to make it work, it really is. In the old days there was Sin and Corruption in the land, Sep_ _ _ ration and Div_ _ ce. Jerimiah’s Eyes, what an awful way to be! ‘Course that was long ago. Before they got the True Love Vaults and you could go back and start all over and do it right. Go back and be sweethearts again.

It isn’t easy John knows. But you’ve got to learn to make your marriage work. Oh sure, you could just give up and sign on for Death City, and not even try any more. Who wants to do that? Me, I look forward every life to working things out good with Betty Ann. And we can do it. That’s what’s different ‘bout us. Our marriage is just about as fine as you could ask. This is just our twenty-seventh try---and Betty Ann gets better all the time. ‘Course there’s been a few lives when she flat out forgot what I liked, or tried to do a couple things different from the way they ought to be. But she’s done real good, she really has.

It sure gets lonely down here.

I’m tired of waiting ‘round in scary light. Guess we’re going to have to work on promptness this time.

Paul’s Nose, Betty Ann, come on! Let’s get with it, girl. I’ve got this feeling, you know? Like you’re going to get it right this time...

 

What we did was what the folks who used to write that future time stuff said they figured that we’d do. There was flood and fire and famine, and wide-spread yuck. We did Tar Wars and they did it back. Then Cuba got the Herp-o-Bomb and you don’t want to hear about that.

Somebody won. They got things going real good. Everyone did what they were told. They stopped making things they didn’t need. Like babies and Hondas and Macs. Real soon, there weren’t many people at all. Everything was pretty and nice. People made pots and went fishing a lot and talked to trees. You could do about anything you liked.

Someone decided to see if there was anyplace else and so they did. They learned how to go places quick. Pretty soon, everyone was somewhere they hadn’t been before. Making babies, Hondas and Macs. In about a zillion years there were people everywhere. Sometimes they met things that looked like a lobster or a bug. When they did they made them dead. When everyone finished doing history a couple thousand times, they decided not to do it anymore.

People stopped walking or using big rocket ships or trains. You thought about where and there you were. People got tired of doing that. They started doing Backtime and triple astral flips. Zen-Sin and Double Yang. Darma-Karma Rock. In twenty-two minutes, you couldn’t find anyone at all.

See, I’m not into fun things like that. I’ve got this soular dyslexia or something, I forget. Anyway, I’m here and they’re not. And I’ve got to ask someone real bad. These things showed up Tuesday night. They’re not from a time-place or anywhere else, they’re just here. What they want to know, what the things are asking me, is how much everything is. That’s what they said. How much do you want for everything?

Listen, I’m only nine years old. I don’t know a thing about stuff like this. I sell the whole thing some grownup’ll pop back in and say, hey, Billy/Beth, where’s the universe? Where’d everything go?

No way. I may be a handicapped kid but I’m not any dummy, okay? So would someone come and help? Just for a minute, maybe two. I don’t have any idea how much to ask, and will we take a check or what?...

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