Read Magic for Beginners: Stories for Free Online Page B

come back.
    Maybe Batu had a pair of pajamas in his collection with
All-Night Convenience Stores and light spilling out; the Ausible
Chasm; a road with zombies, and Charleys in Chevys, a different dog
hanging out of every passenger window, driving down that road. Down
on one leg of those pajamas, down the road a long ways, there would
be bears dressed up in ice; Canadians; CIA operatives and tabloid
reporters and All-Night executives. Las Vegas showgirls. G-men and
bee men in trench coats. His mother’s car, always getting farther
and farther away. He wondered if zombies wore zombie pajamas, or if
they’d just invented them for Batu. He tried to picture Charley
wearing silk pajamas and a flannel bathrobe, but she didn’t look
comfortable in them. She still looked miserable and angry and
hopeless, much older than Eric had ever realized.
    He jumped up and down in the parking lot, trying to keep warm.
The woman, when she came out of the store, gave him a funny look.
He couldn’t see Batu behind the counter. Maybe he’d fallen asleep
again, or maybe he was sending off more faxes. But Eric didn’t go
back inside the store. He was afraid of Batu’s pajamas.
    He was afraid of Batu.
    He stayed outside, waiting for Charley.
    But a few hours later, when Charley drove by—he was standing on
the curb, keeping an eye out for her, she wasn’t going to just slip
away, he was determined to see her, not to miss her, to make sure
that she saw him, to make her take him with her, wherever she was
going—there was a Labrador in the passenger seat. The backseat of
her car was full of dogs, real dogs and ghost dogs, and all of the
dogs poking their doggy noses out of the windows at him. There
wouldn’t have been room for him, even if he’d been able to make her
stop. But he ran out in the road anyway, like a damn dog, chasing
after her car for as long as he could.

The Cannon
    He tickled her with his funis ignarii.
    Q: And who will be fired out of the cannon?
    A: My brother will be fired out of the cannon.
     
    Q: And what is the name of the cannon?
    A: Mons Meg. Dulle Greite. Malik-i-Mydan, Tzar Pooska, Dhool
Dhanee, Zufr Bukh. Her nickname is Inevitable. She is also called
Sweet Mouth and The Up, Up, And Away. She is known as The Widow for
her coloring and because she has had congress with many men. She is
also called The Mermaid by her husbands—the men who oil her parts
and polish the O of her mouth, and harness her and pull her along
from town to town—they say we should release her into the harbor,
to see if she swims away. It is their little joke. She is called
The Conversation, because she will speak courteously if you address
her with a match. She is called The Only Answer, because she only
ever gives the same answer, no matter your question.
     
    Q: And what is your brother’s name?
    A: I have already forgotten it.
     
    Q: How far will he travel?
    A: He will travel so far, he will never come home again. His
feet will never touch the ground, not for the rest of his life. He
will never see his family again. He will never see the cannon
again, but for the rest of his life, he will dream of her round,
fixed, roaring black mouth.
     
    Q: Who are these women?
    A: They are his wives. After my brother is fired from the
cannon, his two youngest wives will take his place in the cannon.
They are wearing his luggage on their backs, filled with his
belongings, his books, his golf clubs, his correspondences, his
record collection, his toiletries, his identification. His wives
will climb into the cannon and leave the cannon in much the same
way that my brother will leave it, but they won’t go to the same
place he is going. Men and women don’t travel to the same
place.
     
    Q: Why not?
    A: No one knows why.
     
    Q: Will he never come home again?
    A: He will never come home again.
     
    Q: Why must the cannon be fired?
    A: The cannon must be fired because that is the reason for
cannons. Ordnance must be placed in the cannon. Ordnance must