The Radio Magician and Other Stories by James van Pelt Read Free Book Online Page B

disappeared within.
    After finishing his rounds, making sure the gates pulled down in front of the stores were latched and the kiosks covered, he checked the parking lot monitors for the last time. No movement from the trailer and no lights within. He signed out for the evening before handing his keys to the night man, a retired car salesman with an extensive collection of dirty jokes.
    “How’d it go today?” A long mustard stain marked the night guy’s left sleeve.
    “Another day, another dollar.”
    “Ain’t it the truth?” The night guy settled into the office chair in front of the monitors. Dim lights showed empty halls, the central fountain no longer spouting, quiet loading docks, and a half dozen views of the parking lot. A sheet of wind-pushed newspaper slid across one screen. “How long you going to keep working both day shifts?”
    Trellis shrugged. “Until they get somebody new. I don’t mind. Sleep’s overrated anyway. I get bad dreams sometimes.” He winked. “I’ll check that trailer on the way out,” he said, looking toward the image.
    The hallways smelled of linoleum polish and warm chocolate. Trellis twirled his car keys on one finger as he left the building and walked to his car.
    It wasn’t until he was ready to pull out of the mall that he noticed the trailer parked by the exit, and he remembered that he said he would check it. He thought it was funny he’d almost forgotten.
    Peeling bumper stickers decorated the trailer’s back: FRODO FAILED! THE GOVERNMENT HAS THE RING, and FIGHTING FOR PEACE IS LIKE F***ING FOR CHASTITY. He chuckled at the last one. It struck him as cute when people substituted asterisks for a curse word, as if that made one not think of the word. A decal of a mushroom cloud under a red circle and slash covered one of the dark rear windows.
    As he turned onto the street, still laughing, he realized that he hadn’t actually gotten out of his car to check the trailer. Isn’t that odd? he thought.
    At home he watched Fox News for an hour. Tucked between a story about a celebrity scandal, and another chronicling which starlets were pregnant, was a brief piece about a pair of Middle Eastern countries with atomic ambitions. The commentator pointed out that forty-four countries operated nuclear power plants, all capable of producing weapon-grade nuclear material. What did a couple more or less matter?
    That night, the dream Trellis remembered was of F***ING FOR CHASTITY while a television in the background moaned out an emergency signal. “Seek shelter now,” a voice called out. SEEK . . . SHELTER . . . NOW. Trellis slid around in his dream bed, never quite able to hold the starlet, and he couldn’t tell if what he heard close by was his breathing or the shrill call of air raid sirens, and all the time a light so bright he couldn’t close his eyes against it burned in the room. In the dream, the flare beat into his head, and his heart flapped like wings against his ribs. How can I catch her under the light of a thousand suns?
    It was a most unsatisfying erotic dream.
    Trellis found the night guy filling out his records in the security room. The dawn’s golden gleam caught the top of the silver trailer. Wonder how long that’s been there? Trellis thought before remembering he’d seen the Airstream the night before. He checked his watch: 6:30. On the interior monitors, the morning cleaning crews worked the mall floors and buffed the display windows, readying for the 9:00 start of business. A motorized flatbed dolly loaded with boxes for restocking moved from store to store, but Trellis, munching his morning donut, concentrated on the trailer where three people stood in line at the door. It opened, letting one in, and the two remaining stood with their arms crossed against the morning cold. Another person coming from the bus stop walked the length of the parking lot, vanishing at the edge of one screen to appear at the edge of the next. He joined the two. They nodded to