IT WAS A GOOD LONG WAIT. I WAS UPTIGHT ABOUT THE TIME ticking away, so I sang to myself. I went through every version of "Rambling on My Mind" that I knew. Everybody has a version. It's always listed as a traditional song. Nobody knows whose it was. Nobody knows where it came from. Probably from way back in the Delta. It's a song for people who can't stay around. Even though maybe there's a good reason to. People like me. I'd been around Margrave practically a week. Longest I'd ever stayed anywhere voluntarily. I should stay forever. With Roscoe, because she was good for me. I was beginning to imagine a future with her. It felt good.
But there were going to be problems. When Kliner's dirty money was taken out, the whole town was going to fall apart. There wouldn't be anyplace left to stay around in. And I had to wander. Like the song I was singing in my head. I had to ramble. A traditional song. A song that could have been written for me. In my heart, I believed Blind Blake had made it up. He had wandered. He had walked right by this place, when the concrete pillars were old shade trees. Sixty years ago, he had walked down the road I was watching, maybe singing the song I was singing.
Joe and I used to sing that old song. We'd sing it as an ironic comment on army family life. We'd stumble off a plane somewhere and ride to an airless empty base house. Twenty minutes after moving in, we'd start up singing that song. Like we'd been there long enough and we were ready to move on again. So I leaned back on the concrete pillar and sang it for him, as well as for me.
Took me thirty-five minutes to run through every version of that old song, once for me and once for Joe. During that time I saw maybe a half dozen trucks pull into the warehouse approach. All local guys. All little dusty Georgia trucks. Nothing with long-haul grime blasted all over it. Nothing headed for the end building. I sang softly for thirty-five minutes and picked up no information at all.
But I did get some applause. I finished the last song and heard a slow ironic hand clap coming out of the darkness behind me. I whipped around the broad concrete pillar and stared into the gloom. The clapping stopped and I heard a shuffling sound. Picked up the vague shape of a man crawling toward me. The shape firmed up. Some kind of a hobo. Long gray matted hair and layers of heavy clothing. Bright eyes burning in a seamed and dirty face. The guy stopped out of reach.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked him.
He swiped his curtain of hair aside and grinned at me.
"Who the hell are you?" he said. "Coming to my place and bawling like that?"
"This is your place?" I said. "You live under here?"
He settled on his haunches and shrugged at me.
"Temporarily," he said. "Been here a month. You got a problem with that?"
I shook my head. I had no problem with that. The guy had to live somewhere.
"Sorry to disturb you," I said. "I'll be out of here by tonight."
His smell was drifting over to me. Wasn't pleasant. This guy smelled like he'd been on the road all his life.
"Stay as long as you like," he said. "We just decided to move on. We're vacating the premises."
"We?" I said. "There's somebody else here?"
The guy looked at me oddly. Turned and pointed to the air beside him. There was nobody there. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom. I could see all the way back to the concrete cantilever under the elevated road. Just empty space.
"My family," he said. "We're pleased to meet you. But we got to go. Time to move on."
He reached behind him and dragged a canvas kit bag out of the gloom. Army issue. There was a faint stencil on it. Pfc something, with a serial number and a unit designation. He pulled it up close and shuffled away.
"Wait up," I said. "Were you here last week? Thursday?"
The guy stopped and half-turned back.
"Been here a month," he said. "Didn't see anything last Thursday."
I looked at him and his kit bag. A soldier. Soldiers don't volunteer anything. Their basic rule. So I eased off the concrete and pulled a candy bar out of my pocket. Wrapped it in a hundred dollar bill. Tossed it over to him. He caught it and put it in his coat. Nodded to me, silently.
"So what didn't you see last Thursday?" I asked him.
He shrugged.
"I didn't see anything," he said. "That's the honest truth. But my wife did. She saw plenty of things."
"OK," I said, slowly. "Will you ask her what things she saw?"
He nodded. Turned and had a whispered conversation with the air beside him. Turned back to me.
"She saw aliens," he said. "An enemy starship, disguised like a shiny black truck. Two aliens disguised like regular earth guys in it. She saw lights in the sky. Smoke. Spaceship comes down, turns into a big car, starfleet commander comes out dressed as a cop, short fat guy. Then a white car comes off the highway, but it's really a starfighter landing, two guys in it, earth guys, pilot and copilot. They all do a dance, right there by the gate, because they come from another galaxy. She said it was exciting. She loves that stuff. Sees it everywhere she goes."
He nodded at me. He meant it.
"I missed the whole thing," he said. Gestured to the air beside him. "The baby needed her bath. But that's what my wife saw. She loves that stuff."
"She hear anything?" I asked him.
He asked her. Got her reply and shook his head like I was crazy.
"Space beings don't make sound," he said. "But the starfighter copilot got all shot up with stun phasers, crawled in here later. Bled to death right where you're sitting. We tried to help him, but there's really nothing you can do about stun phasers, right? The medics got him out Sunday."