don’t want to think about it! She interposed Paul between her mind and the faces, and it quickened her breathing—two days! Two days with Paul. Fool woman! Grown woman of thirty-four, no adolescent, so suffused with plain physical passion that people waiting near you are staring at you! She raised her chin to meet their eyes. Under her shirt her nipples were stiff. I wonder if Paul ever thinks of me, and gets a hard-on riding home from work. The thought delighted her.
She quivered like an antenna to the presence of the people around her, and to the city. She was riding on the city’s main subway line. It ran from south to north under the city, passing beneath its vital parts—city hall, business district, the towering apartment complexes of the rich, the university—like a notochord, East of it lay Lake Michigan, with its algae and seaweed beds, like green islands, set in a blue sea. West of it the bulk of the city sprawled, primitive and indolent in the summer heat, a lolling dinosaur.
And Paul was out there, high in the smoggy sky, a mite on the dinosaur’s back. She had first seen them through a camera’s eye. She’d been shooting a documentary on new city buildings, six years back. He had been walking the beams of a building sixty stories up, dark against the sun, his hair blazing gold, his hooks swinging on his belt. She had asked one of the soundmen, “What are those hooks they carry?”
“Those are the skyhooks. They’re protection. See the network of cables on the frame?” Through the camera she could see it, like a spiderweb in the sun. “If a worker up there falls, he can use those hooks to catch the cables and save himself. Experienced workers use the cables to get around. They swing on them, like monkeys, hand over hand. The hooks don’t slip, and the cables are rough, so they fit together like two gears, meshing.” He made a gear with the interlocking fingers of his two hands.
“But I thought the name for the people was skyhooks,” she said.
“It is.”
Human beings, she thought, with hooks to hold down the sky...
* * *
She opened the door to the apartment. Paul was sitting in a chair, waiting for her.
He jumped up and came to her across the room, fitting his hands against her backbone and his lips to hers with the precision of anticipation. His lips were salt-rimmed from a morning’s sweating in the sun. She leaned into him. At last she tugged on his ears to free her mouth. “Nice that you’re home. How come?”
“Monday’s Labor Day. Dale gave us the afternoon off. Said to get an early start on drinking, so we’d all get to work Tuesday sober.”
“That was smart of her.” Dale was the crew boss on the building.
“So we have three and a half days.”
“No,” she said sadly, “only two and a half.”
“Why?” he demanded sharply, pulling away from her as if it were her fault.
“The show doesn’t stop for Labor Day. Think of all those lucky folks who could be home to watch it! Makes more money. Christmas, New Year’s, yes. Labor Day, no.”
He grunted and came back to her arms abruptly. “Then let’s go to bed now.”
They went to bed, diving for the big double bed and turning to each other with the hunger of new lovers. They rode each other’s bodies until they lost even each other’s names, calling in whispers and groans and laughter, and ending half-asleep in each other’s arms, soaked and surfeited with loving.
Christy woke from the drowse first. Paul’s head lay against her breasts. She tongued his forehead gently. He stirred. The camera eye in her came alive: she saw him curled like a great baby against her, looking even younger than his twenty-seven years, chunky and strong and satiated, his skin dark red-bronze where the sun had darkened it, fairer elsewhere, his hair red- gold... How brown I am against him, she thought. A thin beard rose rough on his cheeks and chin, his chest was hairless and well-muscled, his hands work-callused... He
She quivered like an antenna to the presence of the people around her, and to the city. She was riding on the city’s main subway line. It ran from south to north under the city, passing beneath its vital parts—city hall, business district, the towering apartment complexes of the rich, the university—like a notochord, East of it lay Lake Michigan, with its algae and seaweed beds, like green islands, set in a blue sea. West of it the bulk of the city sprawled, primitive and indolent in the summer heat, a lolling dinosaur.
And Paul was out there, high in the smoggy sky, a mite on the dinosaur’s back. She had first seen them through a camera’s eye. She’d been shooting a documentary on new city buildings, six years back. He had been walking the beams of a building sixty stories up, dark against the sun, his hair blazing gold, his hooks swinging on his belt. She had asked one of the soundmen, “What are those hooks they carry?”
“Those are the skyhooks. They’re protection. See the network of cables on the frame?” Through the camera she could see it, like a spiderweb in the sun. “If a worker up there falls, he can use those hooks to catch the cables and save himself. Experienced workers use the cables to get around. They swing on them, like monkeys, hand over hand. The hooks don’t slip, and the cables are rough, so they fit together like two gears, meshing.” He made a gear with the interlocking fingers of his two hands.
“But I thought the name for the people was skyhooks,” she said.
“It is.”
Human beings, she thought, with hooks to hold down the sky...
* * *
She opened the door to the apartment. Paul was sitting in a chair, waiting for her.
He jumped up and came to her across the room, fitting his hands against her backbone and his lips to hers with the precision of anticipation. His lips were salt-rimmed from a morning’s sweating in the sun. She leaned into him. At last she tugged on his ears to free her mouth. “Nice that you’re home. How come?”
“Monday’s Labor Day. Dale gave us the afternoon off. Said to get an early start on drinking, so we’d all get to work Tuesday sober.”
“That was smart of her.” Dale was the crew boss on the building.
“So we have three and a half days.”
“No,” she said sadly, “only two and a half.”
“Why?” he demanded sharply, pulling away from her as if it were her fault.
“The show doesn’t stop for Labor Day. Think of all those lucky folks who could be home to watch it! Makes more money. Christmas, New Year’s, yes. Labor Day, no.”
He grunted and came back to her arms abruptly. “Then let’s go to bed now.”
They went to bed, diving for the big double bed and turning to each other with the hunger of new lovers. They rode each other’s bodies until they lost even each other’s names, calling in whispers and groans and laughter, and ending half-asleep in each other’s arms, soaked and surfeited with loving.
Christy woke from the drowse first. Paul’s head lay against her breasts. She tongued his forehead gently. He stirred. The camera eye in her came alive: she saw him curled like a great baby against her, looking even younger than his twenty-seven years, chunky and strong and satiated, his skin dark red-bronze where the sun had darkened it, fairer elsewhere, his hair red- gold... How brown I am against him, she thought. A thin beard rose rough on his cheeks and chin, his chest was hairless and well-muscled, his hands work-callused... He
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