Hallelujah, thought Mobley. For I am the one true God.
Simon
Picture a cartoon snowman. He has an orange carrot for a nose.
He sings:
This will all make sense when I am older.
Someday I will see that this makes sense.
His name is Olaf. He lives in a Disney movie. Disney movies are movies for children in which everyone lives happily ever after.
One day, when I’m old and wise
I’ll think back and realize
That these were all completely normal events.
The movie is a cartoon, a fantasy. It’s set in what they used to call the land of make-believe. Olaf is childlike, filled with wonder. He has a child’s conviction that growing up will clarify all of life’s sordid mysteries.
You know, the way it did for you.
I’ll have all the answers when I’m older
Like why we’re in this dark enchanted wood.
The adult world, Olaf believes, is a place filled with answers, with certainty, with clarity. Simon Oliver knows better. He knows what all adolescents teetering between childhood and adulthood know: that the bread crumbs are all behind you, and there is a witch waiting in the dark ahead.
I know in a couple years
These will seem like childish fears
So I know this isn’t bad, it’s good
The world of children is the world that makes sense. Freeze tag and four square and I spy. If the floor is lava, it’s lava, and the tie always goes to the runner. Simon remembers that feeling, even though he has lost the ability to feel it. A time when everything made sense. When questions had simple answers, because you didn’t even know there were hard questions to ask.
Now, crouched in a midnight bush outside the Wizard’s compound, all Simon can think of is the complicated questions. Adult questions. Questions of degree. Like how do you get off the ride once it starts? Like what’s the difference between a revolutionary and a criminal? Like how did I get here, a child about to commit nine federal and local crimes with a group of disgruntled teenagers. There is a sluiceway at his feet, dug into the rock, and a wire grate just big enough for a child to fit through. Simon has pulled tin snips from his pocket, and he is clipping himself an entrance. At fifteen he can be tried as an adult—for murder, for assault or kidnapping or whatever else they choose to charge him with.
How’s that for grown-up?
Somewhere a coyote screams.
When I’m more mature
I’ll feel totally secure
Javier is sitting on a rock next to Simon, eating a bologna sandwich. He speaks some English, and Simon speaks almost no Spanish, but somehow they’ve managed to get themselves here, to this blind ravine where in seven minutes Simon will sneak into the Wizard’s compound and do his part to rescue a princess.
It’s been eleven days since the Hotel St. George, eleven days since Simon, Louise, and the Prophet met Felix and Story, since they heard their tale—how the Wizard is holding Felix’s sister, Bathsheba, in a tower, how he brought her here under false pretense and has impregnated her. They came to Marfa to rescue her, just as Simon has come to rescue—somebody, anybody. And, oh yeah, how Felix’s real name is Samson! He told them in confidence when his girlfriend was in the bathroom, because the Prophet kept asking if Felix knew where they could find Samson. Because Felix was desperate to help his sister and he thought they would help. Felix made them swear they wouldn’t tell Story—her name is Story! So hear his Story must mean listen to his girlfriend, to what she has to say—and they all swore they would keep it quiet, even as Felix swore he was going to tell her soon.
When Story comes back, he tells them about Bathsheba but says they can’t call the cops or the FBI or the press, because those roads don’t lead anywhere anymore. They end at a river and the bridge is out, blown from the other side. Authority is a runaround machine now, Felix tells them, designed to create heat and noise without ever returning a satisfying result. Justice is no longer the function of the justice system, in other words, if it ever was.
Flagg agrees. He knows all about sound and fury. He knows all about solemn funerals and calls for actions. He knows the talk show circuit. He’s watched his friends testify before Congress. He’s worn the red ribbon and the black armband. He’s seen performances of outrage and promises for change. He knows the joke—how many grown-ups does it take to change a lightbulb? None, because they don’t want the light to change. They like it the way it is.
See, that will all make sense when I am older
So there’s no need to be terrified or tense.