others affirmed this call, so Joe continued.
“And the ladies. I didn’t want to say anythin’, but if you insist I’ll say a word or two. Well that same night he came in and the beer vanished, the men upstairs with the girls come flyin’ out of the rooms all at once, screamin’ the damn same thing.”
“What’d they scream Joe?” the crowd cried.
Joe leaned in, his eyes bloodshot. “That there were crawlies in the ladies’ privates.”
The crowd was silent in shock. “All the ladies fled town!” Joe continued. “They don’t want to stick around with that kind of sorcery about. So the town’s dry now!” He lifted his arms in the air. “No ladies, no booze! What does it say then?” The crowd erupted in anger, but Joe lifted a finger in the air to silence them. After a moment all was quiet.
“We can jibber and flam about this all we went, but I’s been saying this past week somethin’ needs to be done about it. It’s time the wizard pays for it all, yeah?” The crowd began to shake their heads and stomp their feet. It was a scary sight to see, dozens of men and women thundering about.
“Then there’s one way to do it then!” Joe cried. He gestured to the scaffolding he stood on. “The door’s to the clock tower’s locked with his magic, sure. So build this fucking tower and let’s rise up to meet him! At the top of the clock tower! What do you say we burn ‘im down!?” Joe threw his arms in the air, his voice cracking with the words ‘burn ‘im down.’ The response from the crowd was tremendous.
“Burn it down! Burn it down! Burn it down!” they chanted. Now the maintenance men moved to the base of the scaffolding where construction tools lay. They began to work. Andrew watched and said:
“They’re building it up. They’re making it into a tower.”
“With wheels,” Nick added, observing the tower’s base. “Come on Andrew. Let’s get out of ‘ere.” The two boys turned to leave. As they rounded the corner around a tall brick house, another hipster-looking fellow nearly crashed into them. The newcomer skidded by the two boys and called to them:
“Be here by two tomorrow boys! That’s when the wheels start turning and we burn ‘im down!”
VI
The two boys sat on Margaret Smith’s front porch, observing the street. It was nightfall at last; the sunset had dragged on for over an hour. Margaret Smith, a bumbling woman plumper than her nephew, treated Andrew with cordiality and kindness. Andrew had asked Nick to keep his guns a secret from his relatives. He also hid his gun in a small purse Nick had lent him once they entered the house. Part of Andrew, after seeing the riot today, wanted to break the entire gun charade, but he knew better.
There’s work to do here, he thought to himself as he sat down at the dinner table. I’ve never fired a gun aside from my dad’s rifle, but there’s work to do here. I’ve got to play this part, to myself and others.
So he played along and kept it all a secret, thanking Margaret Smith graciously for the food, which was delicious. Her husband, Theodor, was the town postman and apparently still working. At one point during dinner, Margaret brought up Joee Freeman and the riot.
“You’d be best to stay away from all that, Nickolas,” she advised. “I know they’re your friends and all, but what they’re doing is bound to make a bad mess. And the mayor won’t stop ‘em neither. I always thought Joe Freeman ought to be locked away, what with the awful things that go on in his bar. And now look what he’s doing!” She banged her fist on the table for emphasis. Andrew jumped a little, and Nick cracked a grin. “Say, Andrew, where’d you say you’re from again?”
“From town, Aunt Margaret,” Nick answered in Andrew’s place. “From the north quarter, on Begrimble Street.”
“Oh, quaint area,” Margaret said, though her eyes said differently.
“I don’t want to intrude-” Andrew began. His mother had taught him this much politeness.
“Nonsense!” cried Margaret Smith, banging her hand on the table again. Andrew didn’t jump this time. “You’re welcome to stay the night, or as many as you’d like! Our home’s yours’, don’t you know it?”
Andrew hoped the same could be said of this new world. As he sat on the porch with Nick, hearing the torches crackle on the city streets and gazing up at the stars that belonged to a universe that wasn’t his, he sank deep into his thoughts.
There’d been a drought back home, and there was a drought here. Andrew began to wonder if these two worlds were connected by more than a door; maybe they were tied through fate, or something. Andrew didn’t have the faintest clue what fate was, but it sounded right.
Nickolas’ aunt had used the word at dinner. She’d started lamenting about the fate of the city, claiming the man in the clock tower would be the doom of them all. She said “that St. Gerardo fella” was responsible for the drought. After all, the townspeople had often seen him atop the tower at dawn, his hands outstretched to the sky, mumbling strange words in a foreign tongue.
“He’s from the west too,” she said with distaste. “He may be a sage and all, but I never liked folks from the desert and I never will.”
Andrew had lost all motivation to find him. Even with his six-shooter, what could he do against someone like St. Gerardo? He’d felt ten feet tall earlier; now he just felt small.
Nick looked over at him from his seat on the porch. “Andrew,” he said in a low voice. “What’s your world like? It’s just that, I didn’t get to see much of it, you see.”
Andrew grinned. “It’s sort of like this one, Nick, except…” Andrew looked up at the sky, with stars that burned eagerly and clearly above. He could see thousands of them. “Except you can’t see the stars like you can here. Cause of electric light, and pollution, I guess.”
“Hm,” Nick said. “How can you see your path without the light of the stars?”
For a moment, Andrew was silent. He thought about it. Then he stood up from his chair and stepped up on top of it, to get a better view of the street.
“You make your own path, that’s how!” he proclaimed. Nick watched him with wide eyes. “The stars don’t have to tell you where to go- you can make your own decisions.” He paused for a moment, thinking it over. “Yeah, that’s it. Nobody tells you who to be, you make your own path. Simple as that.”
“I dunno about that,” Nick said. “I was told I’d never be very smart, just cause I was born into farming folk. That doesn’t seem very fair. I’d like to go to school but I guess it wasn’t in the cards.”
They were silent for a moment. Andrew sat back down. “I guess that’s true,” he offered.
“And your gun!” Nick said, then covered his mouth with his hands. He looked around to make sure no one watched. No one did. He continued.
“Didn’t yer da hand your guns down to you? That’s the way of the gunfolk, yeah?” Nick’s eyes shone. The light of the fluorescent graffiti cast a multicolored shade upon the porch.
“Yes…” Andrew said, nodding his head slowly, playing the part.
“See? We’re the same! My parents gave me the farmin’ tools, yer’s gave you the shootin’ tools. I’d always heard stories about the ways of the gun-people, but there’s none in this world so I never knew it for sure. But I know somethin’ for sure: I was born to help, you were born to lead.”
Andrew peered off into the street. Suddenly, there was a pop and bang! that made Andrew jump a little.
“Ah!” Nick said, his face lighting up. “Somebody’s settin’ off sparkers.” Andrew heard the ensuing crackle of childhood a few blocks away. It reminded him of summer. At his own house, sitting on the back porch with his dad at night, admiring his mother’s garden in the moonlight. His dad