Bus Town Fire (The Day of Two Nights, Part 2)

Bus Town Fire (The Day of Two Nights, Part 2)
Originally uploaded by Snurri

"For most of the city, the morning of May 17, 1978 began like any other Wednesday. Celeste Simon sang to the shoppers at the Cagliari Street Farmer's Market, the bridge schools convened classes promptly at second bell, and the Mayor's convoy of horse-drawn limousines and war bicycles traveled the half-mile from Faldbakken Mansion to City Hall. . . . Across town from Cedar Hill, near the overgrown stretch of interstate which bisects the city, the settlement known as Bus Town had just begun to stir. Populated largely by transients, Bus Town had grown up in one of the transit authority lots, a 'circled-wagon' community centered on a living fire, one of those summoned by Cyril de Saavedra during his infamous rampage (see p.402) and the only one known to have escaped his thrall. . . . The fire had established a bond with the denizens of Bus Town, particularly its de facto mayor, the flautist Toby McGowan, who used to organize recitals for it every evening. The fire, it seemed, was a music-lover. . . . Roberta Stommel AKA 'The Wandering Comic,' was among those living in Bus City at that time. 'The fire would talk to us sometimes,' she said in a recent interview. 'You could hear his voice when you were half-asleep, or drunk, or when the music made you forget yourself. Toby called it Joe. We fed Joe scraps of wood that we didn't have a use for, although he burned fine without any fuel. All he wanted was to hear the music, and to burn.' . . . Stommel believes that it was the general laziness of the Bus Town residents that saved their lives. 'There were a few early risers there,' she says quietly. 'But most of us made a habit of staying up late around Joe, and sleeping until noon. You wouldn't think it, but with enough blankets and pillows, those buses could be really comfy.' . . . In Stommel's own words: 'I might not have noticed when the darkness fell. We might have kept on sleeping if not for Joe. He called out to me, to all of us, and that was when I realized I couldn't see his light. The sun is a pain when you're trying to sleep, but most of us really liked having Joe flickering out there at night. There was a primal sort of comfort in it, even if he was too far away to feel the warmth.' . . . 'Joe's voice was faint, like it was coming through a wall, or from under the ground. He was being smothered by the dark. He was still there, still burning--somehow--but his light was hidden by whatever had happened. I got up and I fumbled around in the dark until I found a window. Some of them were tinted, so I thought maybe I just couldn't see Joe from inside. But all that happened when I opened the window was that the dark came inside. It was in the air; it was like I was breathing it. My lungs felt tight. That's when the rain started.' . . . Those who liken the travails of The Day of Two Nights to the biblical Ten Plagues of Egypt usually count the darkness as the first, and the rain as second. . . . 'We couldn't see it, of course, but it came in a torrent. Have you ever heard rain on the roof of a bus? Except, this was rhythmic. Martial. I put my hand out to feel the rain, and my hand . . .' Stommel trails off, her eyes flickering past the stump where her right hand used to be. 'It was like the rain--instead of making my skin wet, it took all the moisture out of me. I could hear my skin crackling. I mean, I was screaming and I could still hear it. Like someone stepping on dried leaves.' . . . What it was that possessed the rain, even the hydromancer Gwandoya Kyoga has been unable to say with certainty. But where it struck it sucked up moisture, from the ground and from living things. Specifically, living things with blood. . . . Stommel was reluctant to talk of those who died at Bus City that day, but Toby McGowan was among them, and citywide dozens of citizens were caught in the rain that did not soak but rather desiccated. Seventy-four were killed at the Cagliari Street Market alone. . . . 'I managed to shut the window with my other hand,' says Stommel. 'Most of the screaming stopped right away. The rain killed them that quickly. But the fire--Joe--was in agony. He begged us for help. We didn't know what to do. And then someone started swearing. It might have been me. In a few seconds all of us, in all of the buses, were letting loose with the foulest talk you can imagine. Fouler. It was a sort of mass hysteria, only it worked.' . . . The torrent of obscenities poured upwards and seemed to stagger the murderous rain. 'The marching slowed. Some of them were staggering. I never saw them--no one did--but I think they had combined into larger drops. They were shoving at the sides of the bus, trying to tip us over, and when the sun came back there were big dents in the roof where they had been trying to force their way in. When we first moved into the buses a lot of the roofs leaked, but luckily we'd plugged them. But if it hadn't let up they would have broken in anyway'. . . . 'I was scared at first. I don't care if you're afraid of the dark or not, once you can't see anything it's like being buried alive. But once the swearing started'--Invocations professor Denise Pezzelli has referred to the Bus Town defense as 'good old-fashioned cursing'--'I was just mad. It was like a song, after a while. The filthiest song you've ever heard. I used to work blue before that, but I haven't said a nasty word since that day.' . . . While the inventive invective of the Bus Town residents knocked the rain back on its heels, it was not enough to banish it entirely. . . . 'Joe didn't say what he was going to do. He just said goodbye. I think he knew that Toby was gone. I think he wanted to do something to honor his memory.' . . . The nature of the elemental struggle which took place in the darkness of that 'first night' is still unclear. That the Bus Town Fire could have burned away the rain falling all over the city seems unlikely, but Stommel is convinced that it somehow did. 'I think Joe went up into the atmosphere or something. I think he sealed whatever rift in the shell had opened to let that rain in.' . . . The battle at Bus Town continued for some time after the rain stopped falling, and the fire's efforts did not burn off the unnatural darkness. For that part of the story, we must shift our focus to an apartment building at 2312 Honeymoon Avenue." (p.416-417)

Dreamhaven, June 12th

Actually, most of the information is right up there on top, but I'll elaborate for purposes of clarity.

I'll be reading from Superpowers at Dreamhaven Books, 912 West Lake Street in Minneapolis, at 7 PM on Thursday June 12th.

Mark your calendars, people. I want a CROWD.

Jules et Jim, or, Too Much Books Gives the Boy Strange Ideas

I am on a temp assignment where I am able to read, like, 5-6 hours a day. (Yes, it is kind of awesome.) Today I started and finished both Around the World In Eighty Days and The Killer Inside Me.

I can't stop envisioning a mash-up in which Phileas Fogg leaves a trail of bodies behind him for Passepartout to clean up. And I ask you: Aouda/Amy--COINCIDENCE?