Red Thunder

“Dere was little angels cut outta tin, an’ my pa he give dem to my li’l sister Gloria and tol’ her to tie ’em up to de tree anywhere she want. And dere was silver strings. And dere be fo’ or fi’ dozen roun’ balls, all colors. I drop one an it break… yessum, it did.

“An’ den my ma, she tie candles to dat Chris’mas tree, six or seven of ’em, and she say it was de pretties’ t’ing she evah see.”

He said nothing for a moment, tasting the memory I think.

“Bedtime, Ma, she put out de candle lights. Ma pere, he go out jack-lightin’ deer with Fontenot an’ Hebert. Junior Hebert, not Alphonse.

“An’ I got me outta bed and I light dem candle again so Santy Claus kin fin’ de house, him. And what do y’know, dat tree it kotch fire and burn down de whole house. We sleepin’ in leaky tents de res’ a dat winter, we did, till de new house done got build.” He chuckled again. This time I wasn’t tempted to laugh along with him.

“Pa, he come home firs’ light, see dat ol’ shack jus’ smokin’ ashes and his family standin’ dere in de only clothes dey own. He tole us, ‘Dat’s what Almighty God t’ink a Chris’mas trees, boys. And dere be y’all’s Chris’mas. Yo firs’ an yo las’!’

“And den he wallop me upside de head!”

He smiled again, and for the first time I could see, the way the light hit him, that there was a dent in the side of his head. I’d thought Dak was exaggerating. It was partly hidden by wispy white hair, but I could have laid three fingers in it.

I was at a loss what to say. Clearly, the story was over, but Jubal hadn’t answered my question. I wasn’t sure now I wanted it answered.

[81] “So that’s what those are?” Dak asked him, nodding toward the jar. “Some new kind of Christmas tree ornament?”

Jubal said nothing, just took the lid off the jar and handed a bubble to Dak.

… who immediately had it slip from his hand. He quickly reached down to catch it before it hit the floor, but it just hung there.

His eyes got wide, and he smiled. But the smile didn’t last long. I shut up for the next ten minutes, letting Dak repeat the kind of experiments I’d done already. Finally he gave up and scowled at me. He probably felt like a fool. I know I’d felt that way.

“So what is it, and what’s it for, Jubal?”

“Tol’ you I got no name for it, me. You could hang ’em from de Chris’mas tree.”

“Anything else?” I asked. I was trying to be careful, remembering what Dak had told me about Jubal and his limitations in practical matters.

He looked back and forth at us, then smiled like a little child with a secret.

“I got some ideers, me. Come look.” He led us to another workbench across the room. There was a device there, I saw it was made from two video game controllers, one with a couple small thumbwheels, another with a pistol grip. It was held together with twisted copper wire and pieces of duct tape. Small plastic labels had been glued over the places where a particular button’s function used to be.

The only label I could read was on one of the control wheels, and it said SQUOZE and DE-SQUOZE, with arrows pointing to the left for the one and the right for the other.

“Chris’mas, dat be de reason I build de Squeezer,” he said. “Wondered if I could build me a silver ball dat don’ break so easy, me. Done started readin’ on optics, indexes of refraction an’ reflection, stuff like dat…” He looked thoughtful, then scratched his head around the horrible dent and looked confused for a moment, as if he couldn’t remember where he was. Then he smiled again.

“Den I had dis idea, me. An’ you watch, it go

[82] “So it’s called the Squeezer?” Dak asked him.

“It is? Who said dat?”

“You did.”

Jubal thought back, then laughed.

“I guess I did. How ’bout dat? De Squeezer. I guess dat’s right. Now watch.”

He took one of the bubbles out of the jar and placed it in the air. It just hung there, drifting in random air currents. But Jubal worked some controls on his device and suddenly it jerked to the left.

Jubal waved it back and forth, and the bubble stayed out there as if it were impaled on the tip of an invisible sword.

“Really neat, Jubal,” I told him.

“Dat ain’t nuttin’. Watch dis.” He turned one of the wheels of the game controller and the bubble shrank down to the size of a marble, then a BB. “Don’ wan’ get her too small, no,” Jubal said. “We lose her for sure.”

Dak moved closer, and he looked at the bubble as if he found it offensive.

“That’s why you call it a Squeezer?” Dak asked.

“Dat’s why. Now, stan’ back, cher.” Dak did. Jubal fired the trigger mechanism on the other game controller…

… and I must have jumped a foot. It sounded like a gunshot.

“Goodness gracious, as my grandma used to say,” Dak breathed. “That was one powerful startlement.”

Jubal laughed. Kids love to sneak up and go “Boo!”, and so did Jubal.

“So where did it go?” I asked.

“Didn’t have nowhere to go to,” Jubal said, “since it not here in de firs’ place.”

“Run that one by me again, Jube,” Dak said.

“Wouldn’t it leave a… a skin or something?” I asked. “Like a popped balloon?”

“ ’Cep’ it ain’t no balloon!” Jubal crowed, enjoying himself.

“Well, it’s something, isn’t it?” Dak asked. Jubal folded his arms and smiled.

“Like I say, never was cain’t go no place.”

[83] “Yeah, that’s where it… where it isn’t. But what isn’t it?”

“Dat depend on what yo definition a isn’t is, cher.”

We finally got him to say the silver bubble was a field of some sort. Nothing could get into it.

“So, ma fren’s, you buy one dese, somebody give you da chance?”

Dak and I looked at each other.

“What, one of the gizmos there, or one of the bubbles?”

Jubal pointed to the Squeezer, still gri

“I sure would,” I said. “If I could afford it.”

“I don’ t’ink it cos’ too much, no.”

“Whatever you say, Jube,” Dak said. “If you can build a man-sized robot cheap, why can’t you build a… dammit, Jubal, just what is it? What is it doing?”

But Jubal folded his arms and turned away from us.

“You bes’ be goin’ now, ma fren’s.”

It took me a moment to realize he was kicking us out. Dak had warned me, but it left me off balance. A thing like that ought to come after some argument, or name calling, or something. Dak and I were completely mystified.

“Jubal? Are you okay? Because I didn’t-”

“Y’all jus’ go ’way now, hear? I can’t talk to y’all now.”

“But Jubal…”

“Come back later. A few days, mebbe.”

I took Dak’s elbow and started pulling him away. He didn’t resist, but kept looking over his shoulder all the way to the door.

“Was it something I said?”

“I think so,” I told him. “Travis said something about cursing around Jubal.”

“Sure, and I cleaned my act up. When he’s around I haven’t been saying… Wait a minute. You think we got kicked out because I said ‘dammit?’ ”

“That’s my guess.”

“Well gah-da …” He stopped himself. “How am I supposed to talk if I can’t say… that word?”

“It’ll be tough,” I agreed. “But we can do it.”

[84] “Hel… heck, Ma

“You know, that one offends me, too.”

“-three times. It ain’t my own favorite, tell the truth, but it plain old don’t mean much anymore. If you call someone a moth… a MF, that’s one thing, but mostly people just use it as an all-purpose modifier, ‘MF this, MF that, MF the other thing.’ ”

“You don’t have to sell me on it, Dak. I agree. But it looks like if we’re going to spend any time around Jubal, we’re going to have to really watch our mouths.”

“Crazy, man. Plum crazy.”

“What’s crazy?”