Dead and Alive

catchingin her throat. Then in a blink, and only
for
a blink, she saw the Resurrector as it really was, a blasphemy, a hideous offense against nature, an abomination from which the mind recoiled in desperate defense of its sanity.
    One blink of paralyzing truth, and then again the radiance, the perception of beauty beyond the mind’s capacity to fully understand, exquisite form without definition, virtue and righteousness in the flesh, kindness embodied, love materialized … Her fright washed away in a tide of benevolence. Her heart settled to an easy beat, and she found her breath again, and her blood did not run cold, neither did the nape of her neck prickle, and she knew that regardless of the form of the Resurrector, she was safe, she was safe, and it was a champion of their cause.

CHAPTER 60
    JOCKO IN THE BIG CAR. Not driving. The day would come. All he needed was the keys. And a booster pillow. And long sticks to work the floor pedals. And a reliable map. And somewhere to go.
    Until then, riding was good. Being driven was nice.
    “Jocko’s first car ride,” he told Erika.
    “How do you like it?”
    “Smooth. Comfy. Better than creeping through the night, scared of brooms and buckets.”
    Rain rattled on the roof. Wipers flung big splashes off the windshield.
    Jocko sat dry. Racing through the rain but dry.
    In the night, wind shook trees. Shook them hard. Almost as hard as the crazy drunk hobo shook Jocko while shouting,
Get out of my dream, you creepazoid, get out of my dream!
    Wind slammed the car. Hissed and grumbled at the window.
    Jocko smiled at the wind.
    Smiling felt good. It didn’t look good. He smiled at a mirror once, so he knew how not-good it looked. But it sure felt good.
    “You know what?” he said.
    “What?”
    “How long has Jocko not twirled or backflipped, or nothing?”
    “Not since you’ve been sitting there.”
    “How long is that?”
    “Over half an hour.”
    “Amazing.”
    “Is that your record?”
    “Got to be. By like twenty-seven minutes.”
    Maybe having clothes relaxed Jocko. He liked pants. The way they covered up your flat butt and the knees that made people laugh.
    After the crazy drunk hobo stopped shaking Jocko, he shouted, spraying spit,
What the hell kind of knees are those? Those knees make me
SICK
! Never saw knees make me
SICK
before. You freak-kneed creepazoid!
    Then the hobo vomited. Just to prove Jocko’s knees really were sick-making.
    Erika was a good driver. Focused on the road. Staring hard.
    She was thinking about driving. But something else, too. Jocko could tell. He could read her heart a little.
    His first night alive, he found some magazines. In atrash can. Read them in an alleyway. Under a lamppost smelled like cat pee.
    One article was called “You Can Learn to Read Her Heart.”
    You don’t cut her open to read it, either. That was a relief. Jocko didn’t like blood.
    Well, he liked it inside where you needed it. Not outside where you could see it.
    Anyway, the magazine told Jocko how to read her heart. So now he knew something troubled Erika.
    Secretly he watched her. Sneaking looks.
    Those delicate nostrils. Jocko wished he had those nostrils. Not those particular nostrils. He didn’t want to take her nostrils. Jocko just wanted nostrils like them.
    “Are you sad?” Jocko asked.
    Surprised, she glanced at him. Then back at the road. “The world is so beautiful.”
    “Yeah. Dangerous but pretty.”
    “I wish I belonged in it,” she said.
    “Well, we’re here.”
    “Being and belonging are different things.”
    “Like alive and living,” Jocko said.
    She glanced at him again but didn’t reply. Stared at the road, the rain, the wipers wiping.
    Jocko hoped he hadn’t said something stupid. But he was Jocko. Jocko and stupid went together like … like Jocko and ugly.
    After a while, he said, “Are there pants that make you smarter?”
    “How could pants make anyone smarter?”
    “Well, these made me prettier.”
    “I’m glad you like them.”
    Erika took her foot off the accelerator. Eased down on the brake. As they stopped on the pavement, she said, “Jocko, look.”
    He slid forward on his seat. Craned his neck.
    Deer crossed the road, in no hurry. A buck, two does, a fawn. Others came out of dark woods on the left.
    The trees shook in the wind, the tall grass thrashed.
    But the deer were calm under the trembling trees, in the lashing grass, moving slowly but with purpose. They almost appeared to drift like