"In my opinion, the issue's best story is its last. Rajnar Vajra's "His Hands Passed Like Clouds" is the warmly told story of advertising man Greg Burns and his relationship with a very unusual uncle. Greg returns to the Massachussetts town of his youth after a serious car accident in Manhattan that has left him crippled. Uncle Joe, also known as the Cloudman, is a local legend who spends all his time--literally, it seems--painting cloudscapes at the beach. Greg struggles down to the beach to reacquaint himself with Uncle Joe, who proceeds to alleviate the pain of Greg's injuries, more or less healing him completely. This coincides with the discovery of a large, metallic mass underneath Lake Champlain in Vermont, a tabloid story that Uncle Joe seems particularly interested in. The mystery of Uncle Joe and the Champlain discovery are intertwined, of course, in a tale that skillfully combines a number of SF ideas. The final explication of the mystery is a bit too detailed for my taste; I would have preferred some of the mystery be left unexplained. But overall I found the story well constructed and entertaining, possessing a human warmth absent in much of the rest of the issue. It nicely ties together its various story elements for a satisfying conclusion."--Christopher East, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)
I'll start by telling you about Uncle Joe, the Cloudman.
As far back as I can remember, he was a neighborhood fixture, relentlessly painting his sky-landscapes down at Beck's Beach, only two and a half blocks from the old yellow house I grew up in. Common sense insists that Joe must have sneaked off occasionally to buy a new canvas or sleep or use a bathroom or cash a check; but for the life of me, I can't visualize our beach without the Cloudman. It's easier to picture it without the ocean.
Everyone in our small community pitched in, making sure Joe had plenty to eat and drink (he wouldn't touch meat or milk) and he never seemed sick or even uncomfortable. His chief problem in life seemed to be weather that was either too bad or too good.
Starting when I was six years old, if the summer mornings looked encouraging, Ma would send me trotting down to the seashore with a huge canvas tote slung over my shoulder, straps clutched in my good hand. That is, I'd start out trotting. My burden would soon wear me down until I finally needed to sit on the sidewalk and rest every few yards.
Just thinking about that tote makes my shoulder ache, even after all these years! My brother, who went to a summer school for "gifted" children and was allergic to carrying stuff, once called it "Atlas's Sack" (I don't mind holding the world, folks, but someone get this damn sack off me!). It typically contained four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (Joe could eat and paint at the same time), two bananas, carrot sticks, a big thermos of overly diluted Juicy Juice, paper cups, a Tupperware jar of filtered water for the Cloudman's atomizer, and four oranges--only one was for me.
If all that wasn't enough weight for a handicapped youngster, the inevitable bottle of sunscreen lurked beneath the sandwiches, cocooned in Ma's ultimate barrier: Reynold's Wrap.
"Good morning, young Gregory," Joe would always announce when I got within twenty feet of his easel, even when I crept up from behind. "I trust that today's glorious sun will reflect off your best behavior?"
"I'll try real hard, Uncle Joe," I'd always respond, lying through my baby teeth.
The "Uncle" was honorary but earned. An understanding had crystallized between the eccentric painter and the local parents that he would act as an unofficial day care provider in exchange for meals and resident privileges (trust me, the parents got the best of that bargain.)
I always wondered how such an understanding began. When I called the painter "eccentric," I meant it. Just to give you an inkling, the man spent every day, even in the worst winter weather, in the company of the Atlantic Ocean, and he never painted a single wave, sailboat, or seagull. Just clouds. As long as he could see clouds he'd paint them. A big, clear plastic tarp was his answer to rain or snow. On foggy days, not commonplace on Cape Cod, he'd just stand there and patiently study the bland sky.
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Every town has its oddballs, but Uncle Joe is in a class all his own.
