To the Vanishing Point
Alan Dean Foster
1
DESOLATION IS MAGNIFIED at seventy miles per hour. At that speed, colors that are normally separate and distinct tend to blend together like the test pattern on an old TV. Sharply defined objects melt into one another, precluding identification, forestalling recognition. Landscapes adopt the illusion of reality.
It’s worse in the desert because there is so little to focus on. Those creatures that don’t hide usually spend the daylight hours sleeping. For most of the year the plant life is dressed in a blistered gray hue that seems designed to confuse the eye. Nothing moves except the tormented air that rises in waves from the frying-pan pavement in front of you.
In summer, when the thermometer in the Mojave creeps past the 110 mark with threatening regularity, all activity ceases. Like the sidewinders and the kangaroo rats, the desert’s human inhabitants have gone to ground by eight A.M., embracing the protection of dark buildings and overstressed air conditioners.
Once you get out past Barstow, driving east, civilization vanishes for hundreds of miles except for one tiny outpost called Baker. The map will insist you’re still in the United States of America, but if not for the nondescript ribbon of concrete known as Interstate 40 you might as well be crossing the Gobi, or the Sahara, or the Namib. Brothers in emptiness. Parts of the Great Southwest Desert are as deadly empty as Arabia’s Rub’ al Khali.
If anything stands out it’s the absence of black. Everything is painted light or white. In the Mojave black is the color of fools; sometimes dead ones. Now and again travelers convinced that living in the twentieth century has endowed them with immunity break down out in the desert. Travelers neglectful of water. Transient visitors who perish of dehydration despite aerial surveillance and thermos bottles and air-conditioning and CB radios.
Dull the desert can be, but it slays the thoughtless and carefree as efficiently as any gilded Toledo blade. Indifference makes it no less lethal.
The Sonderbergs had no thoughts of dying, though there were times since they’d left Los Angeles when Frank thought of doing some killing of his own, if only in the metaphorical sense. It was his own fault and he knew it. Normally they flew to Las Vegas. He’d decided they’d do it differently this time. Among the things that had inspired this changeling journey was the fact that Wendy was now old enough to appreciate the beauty of their unspoiled surroundings. That she had not the slightest intention of doing so was no fault of his. He ought to have known better.
Straightening slightly in the captain’s chair enabled him to see her in the rearview mirror. Sixteen and pretty, she was convulsing on the couch that folded out to make a bed. Her head snapped from side to side, her torso twitched violently at the waist, and her feet massaged the floor. Eyes shut in private rapture, she was moving to the electrified rhythm of an unpronounceable group of heavy-metal leprechauns, delivered exclusively to her ears via the tiny wire that connected earphones and Walkman.
Though he would never have said so among peers, Frank didn’t consider his daughter’s musical taste all that bad. It wasn’t so very different from what he’d been chastised for listening to when he was her age. But it was one thing to appreciate, another to be addicted. Wendy only removed the damn earphones to bathe and to sleep, and he wasn’t sure about the latter. Fascinating sights were whizzing past outside the motor home and the only time his daughter opened her eyes was to change tapes.
Even when she paused briefly between concerts it was difficult to get her to pay attention to the country they were passing through. Worse, she was just old and smart enough to come up with a new word each week to describe her father. The current pejorative-of-the-month was “droll.” As in his telling her plaintively, “Why don’t you watch some of this scenery? Why the hell do you think I took off the extra time and shelled out the extra bucks to rent this palace on wheels so we could drive and look and learn instead of flying?” And her rolling her eyes and replying, “Oh, Daddy. How droll.”
He would have welcomed the comment from Steven, who was ten. He would have welcomed anything from Steven, so long as it didn’t sound like a whine. His son was two years too old to still be a whiner. Overweight, unattractive, he only displayed enthusiasm when they drew near the next Burger King or McDonald’s or Carl’s Junior. Anything but a Wendy’s, because that was the name of his despised, contemptuous older sister.
Frank settled back into the thickly padded seat. Two junkies he was raising. One addicted to indecipherable music, the other to junk food. He glanced to his right, and his expression softened. God knew Alicia tried her best. The children were just going through a phase, she would assure him. That was her favorite line and she clung to it like a talisman, reciting it like a prayer. Just going through a phase. No matter what the problem was, it was just a phase. Heavy metal, it’s just a phase. Overeating, a phase. Cats and dogs phasing out now. Scarred bass guitarists and Big Macs phasing in.
He was being too hard on himself, he knew. His kids could be worse. Steven might grow out of his gluttony, and at least Wendy wasn’t into drugs. Not so far as he knew.
Alicia still had that glow. She’d never been truly beautiful, but there was a serenity about her he’d always found attractive. The maid helped maintain that aura, as did the money. She’d been much more hyper when they’d met. Success bred in contentment, bred out her early nervousness and uncertainty. They enjoyed each other’s company, and that was more important than superficial physical attractiveness. Besides, he was no Cary Grant himself.
She’d been ambivalent about this project all along, but she’d agreed to renting the motor home and driving to Vegas instead of flying as usual because he’d been so enthusiastic. He knew she’d done it for that reason and not because she thought it was the right way to go. The warm feeling prompted him to reach over with his right hand and pat her thigh. She looked back and smiled that familiar half-certain smile of hers.
“Love you, too.”
He returned his attention to the empty highway ahead. The big engine sang to itself beneath the hood. The outside thermometer read ninety-eight and rising. Other vehicles, even eighteen-wheelers, were scarce this morning.
“It’s not working out.”
She glanced back, then settled into her seat again. “You mean the kids? You can’t really blame them. They’d rather be lying by the pool. At their age there’s no vacation in getting there.”
“I know. It’s my fault.”
The kids enjoyed Vegas. Wendy was old enough to enjoy watching the young men at the pool and in the casino. Steven liked the pool, too, and freaked over the selection of video games, not to mention over being able to order room service. With the children occupied, Alicia spent the day soaking up the sun while Frank relaxed from the business. At night he and Alicia would take in a show or spend some time at the craps table while the kids relaxed in front of the TV, watching movies. They were pretty good about that, he had to admit.
Now Steven was whining constantly and Wendy had withdrawn to her private metal nirvana, and it was all his fault. Just this once he’d determined to do something different. He hoped for enlightenment, but the result so far had been unrelenting discontent and alienation. Maybe he should have let Alicia stock the motor home’s larder with Steven’s requested cookies and chips and candy. At least he wouldn’t have had to put up with the boy’s continual whining ever since they’d left San Bernardino.
Wendy didn’t whine. She just ignored him, as she ignored the barren landscape flashing past the windows while slipping fresh tapes in and out of her player as efficiently as any late-night DJ. Frank no longer tried to point out ocotillo or cholla, jumping cactus or paloverde. He could have counted on more response from a stone.
“You never thought much of this trip either, did you?”
Alicia Sonderberg tried to frame a tactful reply. Truth to tell, she’d been startled when her husband had first broached the idea. It wasn’t like him. One of the traits she most loved him for was his predictability. She’d found him a welcome change from her own unsettled adolescence. Frank made her feel safe and secure right from the start, even during the early days when they’d lived in a cramped studio apartment in a run-down section of Santa Monica while he’d tried to start his business. He was dependable, reliable.
Then out of nowhere came his declared intention to deviate from their vacation plans, from the pattern they’d followed for years. Instead of flying to Vegas, let’s rent a motor home and drive, he’d announced brightly.
She smiled to herself. It wasn’t as if he’d proposed chartering a plane to fly to the North Pole so they could watch polar bears and walrus. Nevertheless, she’d quietly tried to change his mind, arguing that Steven wasn’t old enough to appreciate whatever they might encounter and that Wendy wouldn’t care. That she’d been proven correct so far was small comfort. She derived no pleasure from her husband’s disappointment.
It was no way to begin a vacation. He’d always expected the truth from her and she’d always given it to him, but it was going to be hard to reply honestly. Oh sure, one or two things they’d seen had been of interest, but they had to consider the children. Frankly, Wendy and Steven were bored to tears. Wendy wanted boys to admire her new swimsuits and Steven wanted his snacks. Their idea of a vacation was not slowing down to watch a real, live rattlesnake cross the road. It wasn’t Alicia’s, either. The closest she wanted to get to creepy-crawlies was watching them on PBS. She was even more of a city person than Frank. Thank God they could afford a gardener.
Seeing how genuinely distraught her husband was, she tried to work around the question. “Frank, you know how I always like to look my best for you.”
He frowned. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Cosmetics don’t hold up too well in this kind of climate. That’s why I don’t go outside when we’re in Vegas, except to go to the pool.”
“You’re being evasive, hon.”
She smiled gently. “Maybe a little. Frank, you’ve got to admit this hasn’t been very exciting so far.”
“Did I promise excitement? Did I ever say it was going to be exciting? We’re going to spend a week in Vegas, for chrissake. Isn’t that excitement enough? Can’t we take a few days away from that to have an educational experience?”
She looked toward the middle of the motor home. “I’m afraid the kids have had all the education they can take.”
He grunted and leaned over the wheel. “The kids! My kids. The zombie and the human garbage disposal. The Jacksons they ain’t.”
“Frank, their summer vacation just started. They’ve been nine months in school. The last thing in the world they’re interested in is an educational experience. Don’t you remember what it was like when you were their age?”
“It should be fun for them, too.” He was losing ground and knew it. “I mean, seeing that big diamondback cross the road. You know how many kids never get that close to a real, live rattler?”
“Every kid in L.A. gets to the zoo.”
“That’s not the same thing as seeing it in its natural habitat,” he protested.
“I’m not sure I-40 qualifies as a natural habitat, Frank.”
He nodded to himself. “You’re gonna fight me on this one, aren’t you?” He swerved slightly to avoid a piece of broken crate littering the pavement, pulling into the fast lane to go around it. He barely bothered to glance at the sideview mirror. There’d been so little traffic since they’d left the outskirts of San Bernardino he felt they had the highway to themselves. In a sense they did.
