The Secret of Life

On the last couple of days, Conrad scribbled page after page of stuff like that—hoping somehow that the intensity of his longing could bring the secret out into print. He wrote in the house, he wrote in the woods, he expanded and condensed. Finally he had something typed up; he couldn’t tell anymore if it made sense or not. And then it was Thursday.

Chapter 28:

Thursday, September 22, 1966 “You should just get high, Conrad, and let the marijuana do the talking.” Platter and Ace and Conrad were walking up from Bulber’s house to Clothier Hall, the big gray stone building where Collection was about to take place. Platter was stoned—he’d been stoned since last Saturday—but the other two weren’t.

“This is too serious for that,” said Ace. “I got a feeling.”

“Me too,” said Conrad. “I’m scared shitless. You guys sit with Audrey, OK?” Audrey had come down last night so she’d be here for Conrad’s big speech on the secret of life. “In case something happens.

She’ll be in the front row. She went there early to save places.”

Conrad said goodbye to his two friends outside of Clothier. It was a bright, windy fall day, but the great gray building seemed gloomy as a church or prison. Ace and Platter went in the rear entrance to get their names checked off the attendance list, and Conrad went on down to the stage-door entrance at the front.

Dean Potts was right inside the door, waiting.

“Charlie!” said Dean Potts. “You’re right on time.” Potts was a tall, dough-faced guy—one of these low-empathy American men who never really gets past being a boy scout. Mr. Bulber had been somewhat the same type, so it stood to reason he and Potts would be friends.

“I’m surprised the kids wanted me to speak,” said Conrad tentatively.

Was that mockery on Potts’s face? Conrad thanked God he wasn’t stoned, thanked God he’d typed some kind of speech out in advance. This was going to be tough. If only he’d had more time!

Potts led Conrad out onto the stage, and they took their seats along with the rest of the faculty and staff.

The format was that all the students sat down in the auditorium, and the grown-ups sat up on the stage, facing the students. And then the speaker would stand up in front of the grown-ups, facing the students, and talk. Right before the talk, with everyone still sitting down, they always had a minute or two of silence, a legacy of Swarthmore’s Quaker begi

The students seemed unruly today, messy and buzzing—they’d all heard of Mr. Bulber’s pot party two weeks ago, and they were expecting something bizarre. Settling into his wooden seat, Conrad noticed a small figure darting up and down the Clothier aisle ...Tuskman , oh, Christ, Izzy Tuskman with a stocking over his head, tossing out handfuls of joints as fast as his arms and legs could move. One thing about Izzy, he never gave up. When Conrad had given him his one-fifth kilo, he’d explained to Izzy that the handing out of reefers was definitely canceled, but ... did Izzy care? No. He had it all figured out—that he’d wear a disguise and take off before anyone could—

BAM!That was Izzy slamming the rear door of Clothier. Outside you could hear a car peeling out.Da get-away cah.

Conrad buried his face in his hands and tried to merge into the One. The meditation period had started—oh, it was peaceful here, in this empty time—two minutes is as close toforever as seventy years is, if you look at it the right way, the old finite/infinite distinction ...

In the vast, thoughty silence you could hear matches scratching here and there—people were lighting up.

Conrad peeked out between his fingers—yes, there were plumes of smoke everywhere, a faint blue haze percolating up from the crowd. How was he going to convince the President that this wasn’t his fault?

Especially since itwas ...

ARHMMM.Dean Potts at the mike, the two minutes were over. “Today’s speaker needs no introduction.

I give you Charlie Bulber.”

The space between his chair and the lectern seemed so far. Taking the first step, Conrad flashed on his old high-school rap about the urinals, how it seemed you can never cross a room, but you always do:

“We’re going todie , Jim, can you believe that? It’s really going to stop someday, all of it, and you’re dead then, you know?” Right here, right now, death was very close. This was a trap. Something about Potts’s face. Conrad could feel it. And inside himself, he could feel a new power begin to grow.

Now he was at the lectern. A rifle barked. Without even thinking about it, Conrad stepped outside of time.

It was like being in a waxworks—all the students frozen with expectant smiles; the plumes of smoke like cracks in ice; and there, hovering just behind Conrad’s head, the bullet.

He peered up past the bullet and into the scaffolding over the stage. Perched there were two men in black—government agents. They’d been onto him all along. No doubt they’d found him in the first place by tailing Audrey; they’d probably opened her mail. Conrad winced to imagine cops reading the silly drunken first letter he’d written her from Bulber’s.I do want to do some kind of trip on the straights’

heads here ...

Fourth Chinese Brother.

Conrad could feel that his body had gone back to its old shape—his hair was long again; his joints more flexible. It felt good. Getting out of the Mr. Bulber shape was like getting out of an uncomfortable Sunday suit. His shape-changing power was gone, but now he had a new power: the ability to step outside of time.

He crumpled up his confused, rambling speech about the secret of life and tossed it aside. It hung there in the air, just where he let it go. Time had stopped for everything except Conrad and what he touched.

Somehow his personal time-axis had turned perpendicular to the world’s time. He was still in our universe’s space, yet his time had twigged off into a new direction.

Conrad wondered if he should do something to dough-faced Potts, sitting back there with his finger raised in silent signal to the snipers. Give him the speech, maybe. Yeah. Conrad pried Potts’s mouth open and stuffed his wadded speech inside.Chew on that, man. Do you some good. Potts twitched momentarily into life at Conrad’s touch, just long enough to gag and glare, but then, as Conrad shied away from him, he returned to stony immobility.

Conrad hopped down from the stage and went over to Audrey, sitting there in the front row between Ace and Platter. A smile still broadened her full mouth, and her hands were held up in applause. He took her by the shoulders and kissed her.

“Huh?” Audrey jerked in surprise. For her it was as if Conrad had flown over instantaneously. “Conrad?

You changed back! But ... why’s it so quiet?”

Conrad made sure to keep his hand on her, towing her along in his altered timestream. “It’s my fourth power. I changed the direction of my time. It’s a little like I’m moving infinitely fast. As long as I touch you, you’ll move along with me. They were going to shoot me up there. I jumped out of time just before the first bullet hit me.”

Audrey got to her feet and looked around. It was an unsettling sight: row after row of faces caught in random flash-bulb expressions. The overall feeling was of being in front of a great, cresting wave about to break. “It’s creepy, Conrad. Let’s get out of here.”

Hand-in-hand they walked out of Clothier. Red-and-yellow maple leaves hung suspended in the air. A

starling that had just taken wing hovered three feet off the ground. Frozen in time like this, the bird’s body looked strange—like a three-dimensional Chinese ideogram. High overhead, a jet’s contrails marked the sky.

“They tried to shoot you?”

“Yeah. The bullet’s still hanging in the air back there.”

“What would have happened if the bullet had hit you?”