The Boy in the Tunnel

by Gardner Linn

45.

“You look like an Ewok.”

The Ewok sighed, like he’d heard this before.

“Whasisname. The guy...the little guy--Wicket. Wicket wicket wicket.” Joanie put on a hammy Boston accent. “Wicket

pissahhhhh.”

The Ewok seemed so small, so faraway. Joanie was high, on a tower or a cloud, looking down at the Ewok, down there all the way down there on Earth or Endor, just an ant from all the way up here, just a fuzzy little ant with two beady black eyes poking out from a thick clump of head hair.

“First-timers shouldn’t have more than one cup of the Catalyzer,” said the Ewok, and then he was taller than Joanie, a giant, those eyes looking down in judgment. “It will fuck you up.”

“Fug youuuuup.” The Ewok bent down, though he hardly seemed to bend at all, and took a red cup from Joanie’s hand. “Wicket I think I’m drunk,” she said.

“Something like that.” The Ewok threw back what was left in Joanie’s cup and licked his lips, the flicking of his pink tongue from the tangle of hair around his mouth somehow disturbing to Joanie, even in her state, even on the hard industrial orange-brown carpet of this off-white-walled room. “The good news is it goes as quickly as it comes. Just give it a minute.”

“Wicket I’m not Princess Leia. Donget no ideas.”

“Don’t worry.” The Ewok swirled the red cup, gathering the last drops of the Catalyzer, but stopped short of drinking it.

“I’m sposta find something. A book. Or...a liberry? Lie. BeRRRARRRy.”

“I know,” said the Ewok, considering the small bit of liquid left in the cup. “Just a few more moments now. You’re going to see something. You’re a devotee of the gunpowder, yes?”

“Really use some gunpowder...”

“You’re familiar with communing. This will be similar.”

“Can’t...can’t talk with Anthony right now.” Joanie hiccupped and spat out a thin string of pink drool. “Be disappointed.”

“I imagine he might. But you won’t be talking with Anthony.”

Joanie rolled over on her back and stared up at the dingy not-white ceiling, with its single light fixture in the center, blaring a loud hot white. It was dark and wet a few minutes ago and now she was here. Seemed like hours ago. Days. This had been a night.

“Wicket do you have a watch.”

“I don’t have any use for a watch.”

“What time is it?

“I don’t have a watch.”

Joanie held up her hand in front of her face, blocking the white light, turning her hand black, outlined in glowing pink. “This has been a weird night.”

“What time do you think it is?”

“Tuesday.”

“I don’t have a watch but I’m pretty sure it’s Friday. Or Saturday morning now.”

“Friday.” Joanie’s hand dropped. “Burton’s seminar. Perrrrrrv. That guy. Pete. Peter.”

The Ewok abruptly threw the red cup into a trash can that Joanie now saw was under a dorm-room desk, next to a creaking chain on which the Ewok sat. “Peter?” he said.

“Asshole.”

“I used to know someone named Peter who was very much an asshole indeed. What did this Peter want with you?”

“There’s something...something in room 79. But he got stopped by a dragon.”

The Ewok hopped off his chair and paced between the desk and the bed against the opposite wall. The Catalyzer was wearing off now, enough that Joanie could see that this room like every other room in Wintertree that Joanie had been in, though the Ewok was clearly no student. The beard made him look older than he was, but even so, Joanie could tell he was old. Thirty, at least. “What is Peter doing?” he asked, but not of Joanie. “What is Marston having him do?” The stubby fingers of the Ewok’s right hand disappeared inside his beard as he rubbed his chin, his teeth clicking and grinding like an overworked hard drive.

Joanie was swimming back into lucidity. She propped herself up on her elbows. “What’s your name?” she asked.

The Ewok froze, removed his hand from his beard, and turned his black doll eyes on her. He seemed perplexed, as if the very premise of the question was irrevocably flawed. “I haven’t needed a name in years, Joanie,” he said.

“Did I tell you my name?”

“You didn’t have to.” The hand again vanished inside the beard. “I will confess to never missing a Lady Ambassadors match.”

Joanie pulled herself up to her feet, like a high-rise construction crane assembling itself. “Careful,” said the Ewok. “You’ll probably want to be sitting down when you talk to Him.”

The woozy, spacey feeling was leaving her, and in its stead was an emptiness—her head felt scrubbed clean, scraped out, hollow. There was no past, no memory, just the present, just the now, just an empty skull ready to be filled.

And then the room grew dark around the edges and He appeared.

© 2009 Gardner Linn