A Beautiful Truth (13 page)

Word had got around last year about Looee and the landscapers. They talked about it at Viv’s and at church. Mike heard about it.

He had paid Walt a few visits when Looee was much younger, before his house was built. Looee brought Walt and Mike a couple of cans of Coke—one in his mouth—and Mike said it’s really amazing what you’ve trained him to do.

Walt said it’s not training. I haven’t trained him at all. He just watches and learns.

Mike remembered Looee sitting on an armchair looking like an abomination. He thought there was a cruelty in Walt, a wickedness.

They did the dairy barn deal together. The dairy industry was suffering, and Mike had been one of those who found new modes of production. He managed to triple the milk per cow, and was able to cut his herd by half, but still produced more than he had started with.

Walt had sensed that something could be done with all the barns that were vacating. He bought one of Mike’s and kept his eye out for others.

Mike suggested to Walt that he donate the barns to the state as part of its local heritage program. Walt would get a tax break and the barns would be preserved. Walt bought up a few more with Mike’s help, and a society emerged to protect them.

It was a happy moment—Walt and Mike in a private deal, their interests coinciding. Mike liked visiting Walt’s home instead of meeting at the office.

Mike wasn’t ashamed of his own house, but Cindy was still recovering from her illness and Mike didn’t like to force company on her—not while she was neither feeling nor looking her best.

Mike had to admit, as well, that Walt had found a lovely woman in Judy. Very soft, very charming. He sensed that she was not as happy as she could be, and he tried to cheer her up whenever he saw her, with his smile or clear-minded vigour.

They sat in Walt’s living room and Judy wore a white dress, white as the lilies. She asked if there was anything they needed and Walt said no, honey, you go get some rest. Looee will get us a couple of Cokes, won’t you Looee. Mike watched Judy leave and the chimpanzee grunting its way to a fridge that Judy unlocked.

When they had started the barn deal together, Mike had thought it was an opportunity for him and Walt to get to know each other better. They hadn’t had many conversations about matters beyond work.

Was the chimpanzee more suitable company for Mike than Judy was?

The only polite thing he could remark was how well Walt had trained it.

Mike tried to talk about his growing interest in the community, but he wished that Judy was near because somehow it sounded flat or insincere when it was shared with just one man. He felt tested by
Walt, even though Walt was mostly silent. He noticed that Looee wouldn’t look at him when he talked, but Mike caught him staring surreptitiously. It was unsettling.

Looee abruptly climbed the arm of Walt’s chair and kissed Walt’s cheek, and Walt said don’t go misbehaving. Looee left the room and chewed a hole in Mike’s winter boot.

It was a devilish scene, as far as Mike could tell, and, as much as he had thought he wanted to get to know Walt better, this congress with a man-animal was repulsive. Circus stuff. Worse than those who keep a hundred cats or kiss their dogs with their tongues.

He’s something else he said to Walt with a smile.

You should look closely at his mouth said Walt. Next time you see him. His lips are big but when he’s looking normal they’re exactly like ours. His lips remind me of my father’s. And his tongue.

He’s something else. He truly is. What else can he do.

You know, Mike, it’s funny. People never ask me what my dog can do.

Well. I didn’t mean anything.

Next time you’re at a town meeting, look around the room and look at people’s mouths. Don’t listen to what they say, just look at the way they sit. The way they argue.

Ha.

I’m serious. You know his feet, when you don’t wash his feet they smell cheesy just like ours.

Goodness.

Mike felt that he was being challenged by Walt or that Walt had taken offence, or that he was expected to know how to talk about a creature that did not belong in a living room save as an imaginary caution. There are monkeys in old paintings, in papal processions, risible in their garments.

He can do all kinds of things said Walt. I’ve stopped counting.
You could probably get him to milk your herd. He wouldn’t even need a reason.

Pretty pretty pretty.

Rain.

Blankets.

Looee wanted to put his cock in Susan’s face.

The time will come to judge and to rebuke. Mike was open to the interests of all others. There is nothing easy in the affairs of men, and Mike held this wisdom with a light in his eyes. Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Mike had mellowed and grown over the years. Strengthened. He truly enjoyed meeting all kinds of people. He believed that we could all, in time, move together.

He joined the Rotary Club for fellowship, and when it came time to publish his resumé for the Senate he could claim membership in over sixty-four associations, unions, cooperatives and clubs.

The Addison County Independent published profiles of all candidates for the State House, and their political columnist, who was professor emeritus of political science at Middlebury College, forecast a competitive race for the county’s Senate seats. Mike was singled out as one who would give the Democrats a run for their money.

That same columnist characterized Mike, years later, as a determined supporter of agriculture and local industry, a thoughtful legislator who had been quite successful promoting and passing bills (eight of ten in the past session alone).

So while Looee was looking at lingerie and had a concept of tomorrow as a thing that happens later than right now, Mike was carefully plotting his journey to the Vermont state Senate.

Over fifteen years, Mike had sat on planning commissions, conservation commissions, select boards and development review boards. He knew local politics as well as anyone in the state.

He had had a hand in forwarding the Land Use and Development Act, which was the first of its kind in America. The act was created with the idea that the state was essentially a garden to be enjoyed by everyone. It put strict rules on any development that might impact the state’s environment or small communities. Mike had been one of the private citizens appointed by the governor to approve or reject development applications.

He had tried to be practical about the concept of a garden. It was a place for people to relax and recreate, but it was also a space that provided food. It had uses.

He was long into his partnership with Walt and Larry, and the more they succeeded with their properties, the more complicated his concept of a garden became. His power on boards and committees over time was useful to the three of them.

The heart of politics in Vermont was the town meeting, and Mike hadn’t missed one in eighteen years. He had learned early on that a confident side of himself emerged whenever he joined these gatherings, and he felt he had an ability to direct the mood of the room. He wanted to test this ability in a bigger forum, and he was encouraged by his wife to seek election to the State House in Montpelier.

She told him to dare to take power.

When he sold his share of the business back to Walt and Larry, he didn’t get as much money as he deserved.

You know I’ve done a lot for this company Mike said. I shouldn’t need to point it out.

You know the books better than I do said Walt. We can’t afford to pay you that price. You’re betting on the future. That’s
not current value and we’d be doing you a favour. I like doing you a favour and I appreciate everything you’ve done, but we couldn’t afford more than seventy-five percent of that—not without selling those same properties. They’re worth nothing now.

Well if Vermont doesn’t go in the right direction, you never know. That’s my point, Walter. I feel that I can get things done for your cause, for the common cause, that will make your properties an important piece of an important state. But you never know.

Walt went to eighty percent having talked to Larry, thinking they were buying future favours from Mike; but eighty percent only bought a lingering grudge. Mike knew he had saved them hundreds of thousands through his bookkeeping alone, never mind all the passages he had smoothed through being on boards and councils.

It was Walt’s company initially, but when he brought the partners in he never quite let go of a sense of entitlement. Mike had often felt unrecognized.

Where he did feel recognition, however, was in town meetings and his exchanges of ideas about the state and its environment. He gained a reputation as a champion of local produce and local industry. When companies from out of state or out of country wanted to build plants in Addison County, he not only helped to thwart them as planning commissioner but he was also a Jeremiah at monthly meetings. This will be a disaster for our communities. Let them be California’s problem. Vermonters make what Vermonters want.

This was the idea that took root and eventually led him to Montpelier. There is nothing this state needs that this state cannot produce. Like all Vermonters he loved the woods: their trails, their lumber, their syrup.

Mike’s other business was dairy farming. His family were in
dairy, back generations. He loved ice cream, cheese, this morning’s curds.

He loved hiking, hunting, orienteering and fishing, cross-country skiing from dawn till dark.

Where Larry would look at Looee’s burgeoning manhood and say I was your age once, Mike would never admit that that age had ever passed—not except in the briefest or loneliest moments, when shopgirls would only give him perfunctory smiles or when he closed the doors of hotel rooms after company had left.

He even loved beer. Vermont was brewing the best beer in the Union. Small, careful, artisanal products, that’s what Vermont excelled at; things created modestly, low to the ground, things that were other people’s business only when they were made well, made here, and people chose to come to them.

He was a proud Vermonter, and only those who were from here could truly know what that meant.

And over the years, as his political ideas matured, the thought of a chimpanzee in his midst made him angry. It disgusted him.

A creature should be in its rightful place. Let the land produce living creatures according to their kind.

Mike respected all animals, but he knew that ultimately all must be measured for their utility each to each. There is a chain of being, and where there is killing there is also thriving. A lion despises a lamb no more than Mike despised a deer—there is gratitude and communion throughout the chain, and ultimately mankind must show the highest gratitude and bear the burden of being a guardian. Mike read an immense responsibility into the passage of Genesis, where the fear and dread of mankind will fall on all the beasts of the earth. They were given into our hands. He did not see this as a licence to kill indiscriminately; he saw it as a duty for us to manage our dominion.

He understood that some of this language did not have a place in political discourse, and when he spoke at town meetings he put his thoughts in terms that everyone could appreciate.

Do we want to eat the chemically fed and foreign cattle of Canada? The blind and featherless chickens of Kentucky? I have never tasted corn as sweet as the corn from here or St. Albans. I don’t know about you, but I don’t need to eat corn all year or save a dollar on a chicken. Let’s eat what our gardens give us.

It was no great adjustment to apply these ideas to industry. He spoke of his preference for local knowledge and local experience. These big-box stores that were starting to sprout across the country. I would rather get the advice of my local hardware store owner, Bill over there—Hi Bill—who has known me for years, knows my land, my house, my machines—I would rather get his advice than have to deal with strangers just to save a nickel on a box of screws.

He opposed all developments that would bring more of what the state already had. Let others do what they do, and we’ll get on with our business.

Good fences make good neighbours.

And now that he no longer had business with Larry and Walt, and didn’t have to be troubled by the imperiousness of Walt, he could focus, once again, more clearly, on the concept of a garden. The greenest state.

He joined the Vermont Natural Resources Council and broadened associations throughout the state. There were elections every two years for seats in the Senate, and his county had two seats. It was all within reach.

As he made his speeches and refined his thoughts, he sometimes pictured Looee.

What on earth was the purpose of that animal.

David’s belly pushes against his belt and he thinks he might skip lunch today. He says how are you to Pete at the gate and parks in the space labelled KENNEDY. It is a ten-minute walk from his car to the field station, longer if he takes the hallway near the cafeteria. He used to be able to walk outside, but the front of the institute was sealed years ago to keep it secure from protestors.

When he leaves the main building there is just enough distance to the old observatory to make it annoying when it rains. When it is dry he walks slowly and pensively, forcing a brief meditation, trying to forget the noise of his own life. He deliberately smells their air, feels their sun and breeze. He can hear them on the other side of the wall.

His office is upstairs now. He walks through the security doors and through the once open area that is now walled in as winter and sleeping quarters. This used to be where he had all his interaction with Mr. Ghoul and Mama. Concrete cannot bury memories but it makes them harder to envision. It is only when he wills his recollections that he can picture what these spaces once were.

He greets his colleagues and assistants and every day a miniature history of the species plays out. Jokes, testiness, grievance, ease, illness and maternity leave. His days are filled with administrative duties, staff meetings, board meetings, negotiating the movements of those above and those below. A life like no other, identical to billions.