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Although my dome light wasn't on, the inside of my car was lit up. I glanced around to find the cause. Resting on the seat next to me, there was a sort of toy car, a scale-model 1956 Buick with blazing headlights. The headlights were aimed at my corduroy-clad right leg. It looked as if the little car even had a toy driver. I put my hand on it, then drew back with a scream.
Just as my thumb touched the wraparound windshield of the model car, a giant's hand had swooped down out of the darkness to press its hamlike thumb against my own windshield! When I withdrew my hand, the giant followed suit.
I leaned down to peer into the model car's side window. It was lit up in there, too. I could make out a very strange sight. Sitting on the front seat of the model car was a still smaller model car. And peering into the window of the still smaller model was a thumb-sized little copy of me, Joseph Fletcher. The hair on my neck prickled as I realized that, staring in through my own car's window, there must be the eye of a giant Joe Fletcher.
I whirled around, hoping to see the giant's eye, but he turned as fast as I did. All I could see of him was the cheek of his huge head. He had whirled to stare out the window of his car, the giant car on whose seat my own car was resting. I could see beyond his cheek and out his window — out there was the head of a yet larger giant, and so on and on, forever up and down. I was embedded in a doubly infinite regress. Why on earth had I asked for this? And how had Harry done it? I had to escape!
I flung open my car door, jumped out, and found myself on the seat of the giant's car. When I looked out the giant's car door, I could see the giant, standing on the seat of a yet larger car, and staring out at the yet larger giant. Looking back into my own car, I could see the little model on the seat, and the thumb-sized Fletcher standing next to it and staring back in at the ant-sized Fletcher on the model's seat. No matter how fast I turned, I could never see myself face to face.
I threw myself back into my car and turned on the radio. Static crackled from my speaker and from the endless speakers beyond and within my car. Static, and then a voice, a strangely familiar voice.
"THE RED GLUONS ONLY WORK ONCE," said the radio.
"Hi?" I called questioningly. The giant Fletcher outside roared along, and from the tiny car on the seat came thumb-sized Fletcher's squeak: "Hi?"
"USE BLUE GLUONS THE SECOND TIME."
"What's your name?"
"IT'S A TYPE OF EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE."
"Please help me get out."
"LIGHT THE FUSE."
Silence fell. After a minute I flicked off the radio. Just then something bounced off my cheek. It was the miniature dynamite stick that Harry had thrown at me — how long ago? Time was all messed up.
I picked up the dynamite and struck a match. The larger and smaller Fletchers did the same thing. I lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite out the window. A tiny, tiny version of it flew out the window of the model car on the seat next to me. I braced myself.
The dynamites all blew at once, and I saw stars: cartoon stars and wacky spirals. When the dust settled, I was back where I'd started, at the crazed white plastic steering wheel of my Buick in the Softech parking lot. A square of sunlight lay on my lap, heavy and insistent. I turned the ignition to ON and fired up the big V-8.
2. My American Home
When I pulled into the driveway, my two-year-old daughter Serena was out in the front yard flailing at something with my fishing rod. She was holding the rod by the tip and slamming the reel down on the ground.
"Dada!" she cried. "Wiggle whack crawly bug!" Something moved in the grass, and Serena whipped my rod back for a real knockout punch. The fiber-glass snapped, and the piece with the reel flew over to crash on my Buick's shiny hood.
I got out of the car and tried to just walk on past her. I was definitely ripe for my Friday-afternoon beer. But Serena was too fast for me. She put herself between me and the house.
"Bad crawly bug!" She pointed with the tip of my broken rod. "Try bite Serena!"
I gave a heavy sigh and went over to look. Serena was hell on insects. A badly mashed stag beetle was lying in the grass. I was relieved that it wasn't a little Harry.
"Where's Mommy, Serena?"
"Mama lie down."
"Were you a good girl today?"
"Babby bite." She held out her hand to show me a tiny cut on her forefinger.
"The neighbor's baby bit you? What were you doing to it?"
"Playing. Babby bite. Mary Jo wash."
Mary Jo was the name of the woman next door. Serena liked to go over and pick on her baby. "Was Mary Jo mad at you?"
"Mary Jo wash." Serena showed me her finger again. The cut certainly did look clean.
"How nice of Mary Jo to wash your cut. I just hope her baby doesn't have rabies." I patted Serena on the head. She was a brat, but she was mine. "Would you like a candy?"
"Yus."
"Here." I found a linty cough drop in my pants pocket. "Now don't bother that baby any more. And put my fishing rod away."
"Bug gone."
"I'm going inside to see Mommy now, Serena. Be good." I walked into our crummy house, still brooding over Harry's message. There could be money in this, big money.
I found Nancy flaked out on our double bed with a stack of old People magazines and an overflowing ashtray. The TV was going full blast in the other room. I closed the door.
"God, Joey, I have such a backache today. And this morning Serena —"
"Yeah, I've had a rough day myself. Is there any beer?"
"Do you think you could rub my back a little?"
"If you move the ashtray. You know I don't like you to smoke in our bedroom."
"Then why don't you buy a couch for the living room. I hate living like this. We might as well be in a trailer park."
When we'd first married, we'd had a much nicer home. But I'd lost it when Fletcher & Company went bankrupt. The house we rented now was a low-ceilinged three-room tract home: two bedrooms and a kitchen-dining-living room. Looking out the bedroom window, I could see fifty-three houses exactly like ours (one Sunday afternoon I'd counted them). Our development was a reclaimed marsh with woods all around it.
"I'm going to go see Harry tomorrow. I think he's invented something new."
"Don't give him any money, Joseph. I mean it. We need that money for our Christmas trip."
"What trip?"
"Don't you ever listen to anything I tell you?"
"Look, I'm going to get a beer. You want one?"
"How about my back rub?"
Nancy was lying on her stomach. I sat on the backs of her legs and worked my fingers up and down her spine. She felt small and fragile, and she gave off a good smell. My woman.
"I'm sorry to complain so much, Joey. At least we have enough to eat. There's another terrible famine going on in Mexico, did you know?"
Nancy had some strange complexes about food. She was into world hunger, often serving on committees and raising funds. Yet she herself ate very immoderately. Somehow she never seemed to gain weight.
"No, I didn't know that. This afternoon, when I went out to the Buick in the lot, something really —"
Someone was trying to open the bedroom door. Serena.
"Just a minute, sweetie! Does that feel better, Nancy?"
"A little. Could you do something with Serena? She's been just awful. This morning she went next door and stuck her hand in the baby's mouth. That baby only has one tooth, but it bit Serena and she threw a fit. Mary Jo had to carry her back here."
"What a brat."
"Oh, but be nice to her. I was just like Serena when I was little."
Unable to turn the knob, Serena began kicking the door. "Dada! Dada! Dada! Dada!"
"Here I come. Don't break the door."