Early Warning (36 page)

Alicia scooted over so that her back was against one of the trees, pulling her bag with her, and when Michael came near her, she kicked him in the shins with her boots, then laughed again. Richie recognized her laugh; it was an I-dare-you sort of laugh. When Michael leaned toward her, she ducked to one side, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him down. He bumped his knee on something. Richie knew
in his body that Michael was beginning to get mad. It could easily be Richie and Alicia against Michael, so he said, “Why did you leave last night? I woke up around four and you were gone.”

Michael glanced at him.

Alicia said, “I got my period, and I didn't have any tampons in my bag.”

Richie hadn't seen any blood, but, fine, as good a reason as any. He said, “You should leave some in the same little box as your toothbrush and your hairbrush and your deodorant.” Michael, kneeling, now put his hand under Alicia's chin and kissed her long and hard. Alicia's arms stayed limp, and her eyes rolled in Richie's direction. He could not read their expression—was she scared, was she appealing to him, was she saying two are better than one? Why would a girl secretly date a pair of identical twins? And yet, he saw, Alicia was just the girl to do it. She was always trying stuff—never a Daiquiri, better a Hurricane; not a joint, better a bong; not marijuana, better kif; not mescaline, better LSD; not
Last Tango in Paris
, better
Deep Throat.
Suddenly her hand came up and smacked Michael in the balls, and then she popped away from the tree and scrambled to her feet. Michael doubled over for a second, jumped up, and went after her. Richie stepped to the side and knocked into him. Michael spun toward him, but Richie put his arm up and deflected the blow. “Oh yeah?” barked Michael, and Alicia said, mockingly, “So I get it: you're the bad twin, huh, Mike?” But she was backing away.

Richie said, “Alicia, you should get out of here. I know when he's mad, and he's mad.”

Alicia said, “I can take care of myself, thanks.”

Just then, Michael punched her, not him, right on the jaw. Having been the recipient of one of these on several occasions, Richie flinched. “Leave her the fuck alone, Michael!” he shouted. “Just mind your own business!” He stepped toward them.

Alicia opened the flap of her bag. She had a pair of scissors in her hand, holding them like a knife. Richie had the swirling feeling that things had gotten out of control. He shouted again, in a kind of strangled voice, “Why did you start in with him? You were dating me! We were having fun!”

But she was staring at Michael, and then she stabbed him in the arm, the wrong arm—the left arm was the wrong arm, since he
was right-handed. He swung his right, knocked her to the ground, knelt down over her, and began slapping her. Blood was soaking the sleeve of his shirt, but he didn't seem to feel anything other than fury; Richie had seen this many times, too. The scissors had been knocked away. Richie picked them up out of the leaves and tossed them deeper into the woods. Alicia was squirming, kicking, but Michael, straddling her, was pinning her hands with his legs and slapping. Richie did the only thing he could think to do, which was aim a kick right at him, right at his bleeding shoulder. He kicked him off her, and as Michael went down, he said, “Shit, whose side are you on, anyway?”

Alicia got up, grabbed her bag and her coat, and ran. She was crying. By now it was nearly dark. Michael lay on his back, quiet, and Richie stood next to a tree. They could hear Alicia running, and then they couldn't. Then all they could hear was the sounds of birds. When it was really dark, Richie said, “When did you meet her?” and Michael said, “What do you care?”

At the infirmary, they gave Michael a bunch of shots and said that the wound was serious but not dangerous, as long as he kept it clean and didn't use that arm—the “weapon” (the boys had said it was a knife) had pierced the triceps brachii muscle fairly deeply. Richie went back and forth about calling Alicia, but then was too cowardly to do it. On the last day of exams, two weeks later, he ran into her friend Eileen, who scowled at him and said, “Alicia told me you and your brother attacked her.” Eileen wanted him to explain or contradict this—Eileen had thought he was a nice guy. But he could think of nothing to say.

—

EVERYONE KNEW
that the Russians had bought four or five hundred thousand tons of corn right after Nixon was elected in 1968, and everyone knew that Nixon had turned a blind eye to it. And why not? Joe said to John. They need it, we've got it. Clarence Palmby, the guy in the Nixon Ag Department who ran the deal, was about Joe's age, from Minnesota. If you squinted, you could see him sitting in the Denby Café, sprinkling sugar in his coffee and making his case, just the way Dave Crest did, or Ralph Thorn. Everyone also said that the Russkies were paying cash—that's what gangsters always did, wasn't
it?—and of course this was just the tip of the iceberg. Then everyone forgot about it, because the longshoremen said they wouldn't load it and the Russkies said they wouldn't pay for American ships to transport it, so that was that. What with Vietnam and then Watergate, there was nothing in the paper about grain deals, and the ag report you heard on the radio every morning was about the same as what you heard in town.

Earl Butz, the actual secretary of agriculture, everyone in Denby did not know. He was from Indiana somewhere, and wherever he was from, they did not do what Iowans did, which was to leave unpleasant thoughts unspoken. Joe agreed with that remark, though—“Adapt or die,” even if dying was the most likely outcome. As Rosanna said, “You know what he's thinking, which is a welcome change.” When Butz and Palmby trotted off to Russia and came back, there were no rumors about what they had found out. Palmby disappeared, but Butz was right out there, saying this and saying that about how great for the average farmer this deal was going to be. Then Palmby reappeared, working for Continental Grain, so of course there was conflict of interest, and then Continental put through the biggest grain deal in the history of the world, and the Russians walked away with millions of tons of corn, wheat, and beans at a very good price—hardly a penny of which filtered down to the farmers sitting around the Denby Café. What did filter down was the conviction that it was time to get out of the hog business. All at once, corn was as golden as it looked, meaning expensive, and a farmer had to decide if he should send the hogs to slaughter and sell the gold itself. Some of the farmers at the café thought Palmby had made a typical Minnesota hash of his appearance before Congress. Had the sale to the Russkies driven up prices of wheat, flour, bread? Yes. Had the sale of corn driven up the price of meat and eggs? Yes. A fellow from Chicago would have said, “Maybe,” or “We can't demonstrate that,” but a fellow from Blue Earth, Minnesota—what could you expect? The lesson Joe took from the whole thing was that people in the cities had no idea where their bread and steaks came from, and no one in the government was planning to tell them.

—

ANDY LOOKED AROUND
and smiled. Only about ten members here today; quite a storm brewing—cold, blustery, dark, and you could see your breath—but the church basement was probably warmer than her house. It was at least better populated. Frank was in— Well, Frank was somewhere. There had been a breakthrough with his supersonic underwater missile. She could say he was in Hollywood, selling it to the movies. This was her joke, and it made her smile even more cheerfully. Then, when Roman was finished talking about his birthday (he had written notes of apology to both his ex-wives), she stood up. She said, “I'm Andy and I am an alcoholic. I just want to list a few things that I am grateful for today, not including the weather, of course.” She cleared her throat. “The first thing is that my son Richard flunked out of Cornell and is now at Rutgers. The reason I am grateful is that I can see how this might be the best thing for him, because his twin brother, Michael, is still at Cornell, and this is the first time they've been separated. I was at Rutgers over the weekend to take him some things, and a girl called him, and he smiled when he was talking to her, which made him look very handsome. I know both my sons were drinking at Cornell, but enough said about that. Anyway, I am grateful to have Richard closer now, less than fifty miles away.

“Another thing I'm grateful for,” said Andy, “is that I finally got a letter from my daughter, Janet, and it included a return address. She left home in the summer, and the only thing she's sent us up till now was a postcard, telling us that if there were an emergency we could call her at a certain number, and when I tried that number, a voice said it was a restaurant, and when I asked for my daughter, the voice said, was it an emergency, and I had to say it wasn't, because, since coming to meetings, I don't lie anymore. So the person who answered the phone hung up, and I was pretty sure that it was her. But now I've written her a letter, and I did apologize and try to make amends for neglect.

“And, finally,” said Andy, “speaking of lying, I am grateful that I don't lie anymore. I have to say that my lies did not get me into trouble, at least as far as I know, but, between the lies and the alcohol, I did absolutely get lost, so that I didn't know which way was up half the time. When you are growing up and the last thing you want to do
is make trouble, then lying seems like the easier thing, but so quickly you lose your way.” She looked around, and everyone nodded. They had all had the same experience, hadn't they?

—

JANET DIDN
'
T SEE HIM
before he squeezed into the pew right beside her and stepped on her foot. Janet pushed over into Cat, and Cat pushed over into Marla, who said, “Ouch.” He said, “Oh, sorry,” and gave Janet a smile, and then he kept looking at her, and smiled again. Janet, Cat, and Marla were at the Temple in San Francisco. The weather was wet—they had taken the ferry, since none of them had a car, and then the bus out to Geary. It was a long trip. Reverend Jones was getting to be an important man, and you could tell that he knew it and that it just made him more enthusiastic. The Temple had been pretty run-down, but the members had gotten together and fixed it up. Marla said that it was an old Scottish Rite building, “Oh, no black folks in those days. Ha!” One of the reasons for going was to fill that building with black folks and drive out the ghosts of the Masons, and every time they went, they saw that Reverend Jones was able to do that very thing. Reverend Jones was not unknown to Aunt Eloise—according to her, he had started out as a commie, and had told someone when he moved from Indiana to Eureka, up north, that the only way to bring socialism to America was through the back door of a church. Aunt Eloise heard that he had faced up to the bigots in Indiana without flinching. Marla, who did not have any religious background, saw the whole thing as a show, but Cat said if she wanted a show Cat would send her to her AME church back in Texas.

Reverend Jones was going on and on about the nature of heaven, which was, indeed, somewhere over the rainbow, and it was a rainbow made up of all the people in the world. The way you got into heaven was to turn to your brother and your sister and welcome him or her into your heart and your life, and there was heaven, right beside you. Reverend Jones's sermons didn't vary much, but they were nice to hear, and harmless, Marla, Cat, and Janet agreed. But Janet wasn't listening to him as much as she was watching the young man beside her. Because there was such a crush, he was bumped up against her. His leg ran along hers, warming it up. Her dearest wish, right at that
moment, was to sneak under his arm and cuddle up to him. And then he glanced around and caught her eye again.

It turned out that his name was Lucas Jordan; he lived in Oakland, too, only about three blocks from their house. He worked as a house-painter and was also in a band—he played drums. Janet told him, “I knew a guy once who was in a band. He said that the drummer had to be the most boring and reliable guy in the band, the only one who never smoked dope.” Lucas Jordan said, “Did this guy know me?” He invited her to come the next night to the bar where they played, and she did, taking Marla with her. The bar was a dive, but the sound system was good, and she fell right in love with Lucas Jordan, who sat on his stool behind the bass drum and never let up, never lost the tempo, never stopped driving everyone in the bar forward into the future, beat by beat.

H
ENRY CALLED
the number at the restaurant where Janet worked and said it was an emergency. The voice on the other end of the line said, “Oh, God! You're kidding, what?” and Henry said, “Janet, the emergency is that I'll be staying at the Mark Hopkins Hotel from June 3 to June 8, and I want you to come have lunch with me one of those days.” And the voice said, “Oh, for God's sake, Uncle Henry!” But she said yes, and then he slipped in, “Bring the boyfriend,” and she giggled but didn't say no. Philip had never been to California, and as a summer adventure, he wanted to drive down the coast in a rented car. Philip and Henry would spend a week in San Francisco and Napa before Henry flew back for summer school and Philip embarked upon his journey, which was to end at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

Their room overlooked the drop of Mason Street toward the flatter, more relaxing areas. Earthquakes? They might imagine the hotel swaying back and forth like a sapling in a storm, but it wasn't going to do that—even the fourteenth floor was original. Philip thought it was exciting, just the way he thought a tornado in Chicago might be exciting.

At noon, Henry positioned himself in sight of the hotel entry, in an overstuffed chair with a tall back. He had sent Philip away with instructions to meet them across the street at the Fairmont at one.
The surprise when Janet came in was not that she was nicely dressed in a respectable outfit—a V-necked green jersey dress with a white jacket and darker-green heels—or that her boyfriend (he had his hand on her ass) was wearing a button-down shirt and a tweed jacket, but that the boyfriend was a black guy with a moderate-sized Afro. They came in together, stopped short, and looked around. Janet's hair was thick and blond, and her cheekbones had emerged, giving her face more character—she looked more like Joni Mitchell than Linda Ronstadt, but she still looked less like a show-business personality than a lifelong bookworm. He stood up and said, “Janny!” She turned, and the boyfriend smiled. He was really quite good-looking, thought Henry. Janet hurried over, put her arms around Henry. The boyfriend's name was Lucas Jordan; close up, he looked younger than Janet. His eyes moved around the hotel lobby, unimpressed but observant, as if it were a matter of survival to take in every little thing. In spite of himself, Henry's spirits rose—he was no longer just checking up on the wayward niece. He held out his hand. “Any trouble getting here?”

“Just a nosebleed,” said Janet. Lucas laughed, and so Henry realized that Janet had acquired some wit, too.

They were seated at their table at the Fairmont when Philip appeared in the doorway. He had bought himself the widest and most outrageous pair of glen-plaid bell-bottoms that Henry had ever seen, as well as a pair of platform oxfords that added two inches or more to his height. Philip greeted Janet and Lucas in his plummiest accent, sat down, and said to Henry, “What do you think? Very Louis Quatorze?”

Henry said, “I think, if the front edge of your trousers gets caught under the toe of your boot, you're going to fall flat on your face.”

Philip ordered the lamb shank, Janet crab cakes. Henry ordered grilled salmon, and tried not to appear too curious about what Lucas would order. He hemmed and he hawed, said, “I can't decide what looks good.” Janet said, “I almost got the cioppino.” Lucas nodded, and ordered the cioppino. Meaningless. Henry consciously recalled and put away all the feelers he knew he was sending out toward this young young man, this kid that his niece was evidently mad about. He said, “The city looks wonderful from up here. I hated going to Berkeley. Now I don't understand why.”

Their food was set before them. The sunlight from the window nearby sparkled across it, making each dish look uniquely irresistible. They ate in silence for a while until Philip said, “Do you two have any words of wisdom concerning my peregrination?”

“Where are you going?” said Janet.

“Down the Big Sur coastline,” said Philip.

Henry said, “I got to Carmel one time, but never farther south.” He did not add that he had not wanted to. What a strange boy he had been. He squeezed Philip's knee under the table.

“Well, you won't be able to look at anything if you go alone, because you cannot take your eyes off the road,” said Janet.

“Best way is to hitch,” said Lucas. “It's more likely that the person driving you knows what he's doing.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” said Philip. “Am I dressed appropriately?”

“Not if you didn't raise your own sheep, card and spin your own wool, weave your own fabric, and sew your own outfit,” said Janet.

“You do that in Iowa, right?” said Lucas.

Janet and Lucas looked at Henry. Really, Henry thought, this kid had unusual charisma. He said, “Haven't sewn an outfit since elementary school. I believe the fabric I chose was mattress ticking. It was very avant-garde.” Everyone laughed. “But, speaking of Iowa, you know who has shown up as the savior of Chuck Colson?” Henry sincerely hoped that these young people knew that Chuck Colson was Nixon's satanic lawyer, the author of the enemies list that had included, for goodness' sake, Carol Channing!

“Who?” said Lucas.

Gratified, Henry said, “Harold Hughes.”

Philip, who viewed it as his personal obligation to ignore Watergate, kept on with his lamb.

“That millionaire recluse?” said Janet. “I thought he lived in Florida or Vegas or somewhere.”

“No,” said Henry, “
Harold
Hughes. He was governor of Iowa and now he's a senator. I guess he converted Colson to Christianity, and now he's vouching for him.”

Janet said, “I saw about John Dean. He said he talked to Nixon about the cover-up thirty times or something like that.”

Henry said, “When was that? I didn't see that.”

“A couple of days ago.” Janet ate another bite of her crab cake, then
poked her fork into the last piece, dipped it in the sauce, and lifted it toward Lucas. He opened his mouth, ate the forkful, and smiled. The comfort of this interaction gave Janet a different look from anything Henry had seen before—grace rather than carefulness.

Henry said, “I guess Mom was talking to Lillian about all of this, and she said that Arthur doesn't believe Nixon did it. He thinks the whole Watergate thing is a frame-up.”

“No shit,” said Lucas. “Tricky Dick is sure letting it happen.”

Henry finished his salmon and said, “According to Arthur, there were two break-ins, and they got away with the first one. The second one, they blocked the lock with a piece of tape. The tape went around the edge of the door rather than up and down it, which would be the normal way. Since it went around, and was white, the security guard was sure to see it. Was meant to see it.”

“Why would they do that?” said Janet.

“Trip to China,” said Henry.

Janet was staring at him. She said, “Did Uncle Arthur say that?”

“That's my guess. If I saw Arthur, I would ask questions, and if he didn't shake his head no, I would take that as a yes.”

“Who is Arthur?” said Lucas.

Janet was staring at her empty plate. Henry said, “My sister's husband. He's in the know. Whatever the know is, he's in it.” Lucas and Philip laughed. Janet didn't. Henry said, “Since Nixon's a Republican, they're allowing him not to be shot.”

Silence fell around the table.

Henry said, “I'm joking. Sorry.”

After another pause, Janet asked Philip what his plans were.

“Cross the Golden Gate Bridge and sightsee. Hunt for Patty Hearst,” said Philip. “I have to get used to driving on the right side of the road at some point.”

“Oh God!” exclaimed Janet. looking truly alarmed. “When was the last time you drove a car?”

“The last time I was in England. They say—”

Janet and Lucas exchanged a glance. Ten minutes later, the two of them had agreed to drive Philip to L.A. and back, then to put him safely on the plane to Chicago. Part of Henry welcomed this—the part that had any sense and had not really focused on the potential dangers of sending Philip down Highway 1. But part of Henry did
not welcome this at all—the part that felt old and fifth-wheelish as the young people agreed on where to meet, where to go, where to stay, and how much it would probably cost. Janet could move her shifts around, Lucas would be finished with the house he was painting late today, but they had to leave tomorrow to be back by Friday night for his regular gig. Here Henry was, left out once again. Someday, perhaps, he would figure out why he had set himself outside of every social group he had ever known.

—

JOHN WAS ABOUT USELESS
now, so Joe was glad to have Jesse around, no two ways about that—they had done all the plowing, spraying, and planting. Maybe because of Rosanna, Jesse had also persuaded Joe to let Pioneer plant the fallow field in seed corn—Jesse promised to run the detasseling and oversee the whole field through harvest. He also had gotten comfortable with the sheep; he held them when Joe clipped them in March, and even though there wasn't the least little market for the wool, he said he wanted a couple more, so now they had six ewes. A ram at Iowa State could cover the ewes, and Joe was ready to do that. But the last thing Joe wanted was for Jesse to ease into being a farmer only because it was the next step. In fact, the last thing he wanted Jesse to do was to continue being a good boy, and why he didn't want that was hard to explain to Lois and Minnie without also explaining that maybe he himself might once have thought about what there was in the world to do besides planting, plowing, and harvesting.

The strange thing was that everything was taken care of—Annie had decided on nursing school, and Lois was thrilled. Lois had decided she was going to open a small antiques store in Denby, two doors down from Crest's. She spent her spare time looking for “pieces.” She had found plenty of chairs, a hand-turned rope bed, and three secretaries with ornamented drawers and lids. Rosanna was much occupied with her Volkswagen. She spent her days driving in widening circles around Denby, exploring. Joe would not have said that any circle you could make around Denby in a single day had much to offer in the way of exotic landscape, but Rosanna came back full of excitement—Vinton, Waterloo, Clarion, Fort Dodge, Ogden, Ankeny, Montezuma, Vinton, back to Denby. Over five hundred
miles in something like twelve hours. Next stop, Chicago, where she would stay with Henry, or so she said, but she was still “practicing.” Minnie had up and taken off for a trip to Europe. It turned out she had been saving her money for ten years, and now she was ready—France, Italy, Sicily. Sicily was where Frank had gone during the war, and she'd always wanted to see it. She'd left June 5 and wouldn't be back until August 16. Joe felt like his house had exploded and dispersed all the inhabitants over the landscape. He was the heavy chunk of metal that ended up in the basement, more fixed in place than ever.

When Jesse came in for lunch, they heated up the stew from the night before, and they were just setting the table when the phone rang. Joe held it against his shoulder while he served up the food. Jesse was rummaging through the silverware drawer. The voice on the other end of the line was Frank's. Joe nearly dropped the phone, maybe because Frank said, “I'm heading your way. I've got a new plane—a Learjet. I'm going to fly into Des Moines and drive up.” Joe almost said, “Why?”

Jesse said, “Who's that?”

Frank said, “I can spend a couple of days with you, right?”

“Sure,” said Joe. He could not think of a single thing they would talk about.

Jesse said, “Is that Grandma? Did she have an accident?”

Joe shook his head.

Jesse said, “She's a very weird driver.”

Frank said, “Let's see, I think I can get out of here by eight. Flight time is supposed to be three hours. Don't know if that's true. I guess we'll find out.”