An Atomic Romance (20 page)

T he buffet line was long and boisterous, and people were piling their plates high. Reed and Burl were chagrined to realize they hadn’t contributed any food, but they were hungry. Besides meat and vegetables, there was a generous selection of processed snacks, arranged with the bags open-mouthed, like cornucopias. A whole table was laden with pies and cakes in supermarket packaging.

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” an older woman in front of Reed in the buffet line said with a sigh as she loaded her plate.

“I feel an urge to go ride a camel across the desert,” said Reed.

“Don’t rely on a donkey,” Burl said.

In the parking lot after they ate, Burl sneaked a swig of whiskey from his truck. Sally sailed past, a couple of cars away. She waved and called out, “It just thrills my soul to see all these good people out here celebrating the Lord. You come back now, Reed.”

“Didn’t I tell you she had the holy spirit?” Burl said.

Reed waved to Sally. He leaned against the truck and observed the people streaming out of church. The parking lot was a traffic jam.

He said to Burl, “You can’t see the stars out here with all these Florida-orange vapor lights.”

Burl lifted his eyes skyward. “People don’t worry much about the stars out here,” he said.

Suddenly emotional, Burl said, “You’re my best buddy, Reed.” He touched Reed’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d do without you. Look at that. I’m weeping tears. I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right, Burl. Nowadays men blubber and hug.”

“Thanks, Reed, good buddy.” Burl laughed and banged on the truck door. “Sometimes, life is just so—you know, goddammit
—
whatever,
that the best thing to do is just enjoy the spectacle.”

38

Reed reached home shortly after nine. The day had not smoothed his disquietude. He was restless and disturbed, still wondering if he should take off for Chicago. But surely Julia would be back for work the next day, Monday, after her three-week absence. Regretting that he had called her previously at three a.m., he refrained from dialing her now. If she had returned, she would be tired and busy, preparing for work the next morning. She wouldn’t want to hear his mood.

He contemplated the solar system—Uranus close up with its halo askew, the thousand-faceted face of Jupiter’s moon Callisto, Venus unmasked. The planets seemed so watchful, a steady presence, but as full of mystery as the human soul. As Mercury faded from the screen, he clicked on his e-mail. Hot Mama had written at two-thirteen p.m., “I checked my horoscope just now; usually I would have done it first thing in the morning. It told me to avoid Geminis today, and I have a feeling you are a Gemini. No offense, but you have this expression on your face, like you’re whistling some private tune to yourself. I got the feeling that for you life is just a show, everything is for your entertainment. I was a sideshow.”

Reed zipped back: “Now why would you think that? I am known as a kind and tolerant person. I gave you my time and interest. Everybody I know is fucked up. Do I need to add an opinionated loser to my list of troubles?” He paused for a moment, then wrote, “My best friend always says the best thing to do is enjoy the spectacle of life. I know he’s right.”

He clicked SAVE and shoved his message into the Drafts file. Don’t act in haste, he said to himself. Did Jesus say that? Or Burl?

He decided to call Sammy Blew. Sammy was a night owl and something of an eccentric. He made collages of cut slivers of mirrors. He frequently cut himself and feared he was getting quicksilver poisoning from the backing on the mirror. “I’m O.K.,” he had said to Reed once. “I got a tetanus shot.” Reed hadn’t seen Sammy lately, and he was troubled by what Hot Mama had said about him. Reed had never thought of Sammy as “pitiful.” Sammy began working at the plant not long after Reed signed on, but after he transferred to utilities Reed seldom saw him.

Sammy was home, watching a movie, and he seemed glad to hear from Reed. They chatted for a while. He sounded O.K., and Reed was uncertain what to ask him. He couldn’t bring himself to ask about Sammy’s health. He told Sammy about Hot Mama.

“I don’t know who you mean,” Sammy said.

“Great big woman? Likes Beethoven and cures her own hams?”

“Bettina,” Sammy said. “Yeah, I used to go with her. But she’s not
that
big.”

“Oh, I know.”

“Might be a matter of perspective. You know I always went out with big girls.”

“But
why
?”

“Reed, you don’t know till you’ve tried it. But big women are—well,
comfortable.
And they’re a challenge to make it with.”

“Comfortable. Hmm.”

“Big women will make good babies.”

“I bet,” Reed said, picturing a row of corpulent cherubs.

“How did Bettina seem, Reed? I haven’t seen her in ages.”

“She seemed nice.”

“Happy?”

“Hard to tell. She seemed . . . aggravated.” Clarence was nuzzling at Reed’s arm. Reed patted the dog’s head. “How are
you
doing, Sammy?”

“Great, just great, Reed. I’ve turned a corner, getting my life together, that whole story.”

“Good, Sammy. That’s really good to hear.”

Reed decided not to ask Sammy about his exposures. He went out with Clarence for a moment. The insects outside were louder than the traffic on the boulevard. The night was overcast and humid. He went inside. Something from the church supper had given him heartburn, and as he sought out a remedy from his vintage collection of patent medicines, he began talking aloud to himself and storming around his place. He was angry with Hot Mama and angry with himself for getting into such ticklish tangles with women. He was mad at the world. After locating a plastic shopping bag, he began ditching his expired medicines. Slam, dunk. Cough syrup, antacids, salves, all partially used. A packet of douche powder someone had left, hair conditioner. Tooth whitener, dead. Mouth rinse, dead. Some allergy medicine he had inherited from Glenda. She snored like the devil! He remembered an occasion when he was still married to her—he was throwing things around, cursing and yelling at her. For what? He couldn’t remember. It wasn’t important. Or maybe it was. Maybe he wasn’t paying enough attention to the nuances of her femininity.

39

The digital clock said six twenty-five. The telephone was ringing, not the alarm.

“Reed.” His mother’s voice was calm and clear, as firm as she sounded twenty years ago. “I was awake all night thinking things through,” she said. “I’m fully recovered from my stroke. Why, I could play basketball. I don’t need to be in this place anymore.”

“Ma. It’s six-thirty in the morning. At least I think it’s morning.”

“Good. That will give us all day to get me moved.”

Reed groaned. “Let me get some coffee. I’ll come over there later.”

Unhurriedly, he made a pot of coffee and prepared some eggs and cereal. He read the newspaper. He thought about exercising. He should take Clarence to the park or the country. He was active enough on the job, but he needed to work out more. It had been too hot. A slight midriff pudge had crept up on him. At seven he turned up the radio to hear the news. It occurred to him that he liked for the big things to be simple and clear. He liked for the small things to be intricate and complicated. Wasn’t that what Julia was saying to him?

He was reading the editorials when a phrase on the radio news skipped across his consciousness like a pebble on a pond. A headline, innocuous sounding, not elaborated upon, swiftly abandoned for another sensation—a carjacking. He rewound mentally what he had just heard: the administration had announced the start-up of the Strategic Nuclear Armaments Preparedness Program (SNAPP). Ten nuclear facilities were candidates for the new contracts. Reed spilled cereal on the floor. He was barefoot. He stepped in soggy cornflakes. He flung the dish into the sink, but it didn’t break.

Nuclear bombs. More nuclear bombs—small ones probably. Suitcase bombs. Baby bombs, what they used to call kitten bombs. Bunker-busters—now named “robust earth penetration mechanisms.” Deadly, precise things that could tunnel into rock and sink their hideous light into the dark earth. Baby mushroom clouds. Fast, thick streaks of light. Muffled clouds mushrooming through cracks in rock like easy, silent gas blasts.

Surely he had misheard. Yet he wasn’t really surprised. He felt as if a blast of wind had blown a hole through him.

He found nothing about the new plan in the newspaper. On the Internet he located the brief wire-service story. Ten sites were being considered for various phases of bomb processing—including plutonium-pit refurbishment and uranium enrichment. Reed doubted that Congress would stand in the way. The ten sites were not named, but what it meant for the plant Reed could guess: with special centrifuge technology, the fuel could probably be cycled repeatedly until it was enriched to 90 percent—bomb grade. He figured the plant could switch from commercial to military in a sleight-of-hand maneuver, just as a rogue country could slip into bomb making while ostensibly creating electricity for heating up hot-tubs.

Reed telephoned Teddy, who would be getting home from his shift about then, but there was no answer. He tried Jim, paging him on the operations floor. Jim hadn’t gone home yet.

“This is happening a whole lot sooner than we thought,” Jim said.

“Of course we’re one of the ten places,” Reed said. “They’re going to need our fuel for their new toys.”

“We don’t know the details, but I’m sure everything will be speeded up now. I knew this was going to happen! You can count on it, Reed. No layoffs. We’ll get that centrifuge for sure. We’ll see how fast this plant cranks up. I bet the D.O.E. will be here by lunchtime.”

“Atoms for Peace!” Reed said, like a sign-off, but he thought Jim lived in an irony-free zone.

The accelerated cleanup would be even more accelerated now, he realized. The universe was accelerating. Everything was flying faster and faster, farther apart.

Reed replenished Clarence’s water, pleased that he had the presence of mind to do so. He did not try to call Julia. He felt a slight vertigo, as if the news had made his surroundings wobble. He hadn’t finished his breakfast, but he had no more appetite. He set the dishes in the sink and filled them with water.

He found his mother asleep—lying across her bed, her shoes still on. He tiptoed around the bed and stared at her until she woke up. “What are you staring at?” she asked.

“I got here quick as I could.”

“I gave up on you.” She straightened up and sat on the side of the bed. She seemed agile, her leg stronger.

He helped her to her chair and eased into the sofa. His stomach was still a bit queasy, and his mind seemed to be floating inside his head.

“I can do without these nosy-rosies that work here,” she said. “And without their hard-luck cuisine. And without these half-brained people who live here. I’m not one of them. I want to go home.”

“If you recall, the Smithfields are living in your house. They bought it. They play volleyball and raise chickens.”

“That’s so hard to believe,” she said. “Sometimes I forget.” She fumbled with some letters and cards stacked on her coffee table. “They’re going to drive me nuts here,” she said. “Norrie Paramor! They’re always playing Norrie Paramor’s orchestra on the intercom. It never stops. I’d love to hear Fats Waller do ‘Flat Foot Floogie With the Floy Floy.’ Or anything by Spike Jones. These people have no sense of fun here. They just play paper dolls.”

Reed stared at the quilt hanging on the wall by the dining table. It was his grandmother Reed’s old pinwheel quilt, its reeling design like drunken galaxies. He shifted his focal point to the bird clock on the wall and felt steadier. It was ten to eight. He wondered which bird would sing. The song sparrow’s picture was at eight.

A couple of the cards in his mother’s lap fell to the floor. Reed picked them up, a get-well card from someone in Memphis and a card from Shirley.

“Shirley’s coming in October,” his mother said, taking the cards.

“Great. She can be more help to you than I’ve been. It’s about time she showed up.”

Laying the cards on the coffee table, she said, “I’ve been thinking about all that stuff they’ve found out at the plant.”

“What do you mean?”

“You thought I was in never-never land and didn’t have a brain in my head. You’re just pretending everything’s hunky-dory, but I know better.”

“But I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Well, I
am
worried. I’m afraid of what that plant has done to you.”

“You know I’m always careful.” He was the voice of reason, clutching at birdsong.

She was silent, wadding a tissue in her hand. Then, haltingly, she said, “They’ll never get that mess cleaned up.”

He took her hand and held it. He glanced at the photograph of his father on the shelf near the TV. He seemed to have shifted slightly, his face a bit more inquisitive.

“Tell me what Dad’s accident was like—and what it did to you,” Reed said, putting his arm around her shoulders and giving her a little squeeze. “You never said much.”

Reed wasn’t in the habit of referring to his father as Dad; for a moment, it was almost as if his father had a life there with them.

Trembling slightly, she turned her face away from him. Reed held her tight until she got over her tears.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Ma. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it was bad, real bad. In the hospital he was raw and blistered. All over.” She paused and touched her forehead, summoning memory.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

She shook her head. “He cried,” she said. “It hurt so bad. He cried to die. He couldn’t even talk to me for the pain. He couldn’t form words. And they couldn’t give him enough morphine to kill the pain. It went on for six hours.” She blew her nose. “By the time you went to work there, they stopped mixing the chemicals the way they did, so I thought it was safe. You wouldn’t have an accident like that. And the money was so good. And you were just starting out in life. If I had known. . . .”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m O.K.”

She clasped his hand. Talking to the bookshelf, she said, “Now I think I was just closing my eyes. Everybody was so loyal; nobody dared to say anything bad about the plant. Your father never knew how bad that stuff was.”

“I’m sorry I brought this up.”

“I couldn’t blame the plant for what they did to him. We were in a war, you know. You couldn’t question.”

“That’s the trouble, isn’t it? Things seem different now.”

“If you get cancer I think it will purely kill me.”

“No, no, Ma, I’m fine. I feel just dandy. My urine’s clear and I can run uphill. And I’m still as careful as ever.” He grinned. “With chemicals
and
with women.”

“I guess I’ll stay here and I won’t move back home,” she said. “I know I’m a burden to you.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, Mom. Where’s your spunk? This morning you were wanting me to come and haul you out of here. Don’t play martyr on me.”

“Where’s the girl who went with us to Captain Mack’s?”

“She’s gone to Chicago to see her sister. But I’m going up there to get her and bring her back. I can’t wait to see her so I can give her a big smack on the puss.” He kissed his mother’s cheek. “I love her almost as much as I do you, Mom.”

His mom laughed. “She’s good. She’s good for you.”

The clock warbled the hour. It was the goldfinch.

“Damn. I have to fix that thing,” Reed said, rising and seizing the clock from the wall.

“They still get mixed up,” she said.

He worked on it, twirling the knob in the back. “You have to cycle through the songs and stop one bird shy of the one you want to sing next. That would be the cardinal at nine o’clock.” He finished resetting the birds and replaced the clock on the wall. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long to get around to accomplishing this simple task. It was one more story of his life.

His mother’s love gushing over him, he was ready to rip boldly into the fabric of space-time. On his way down the hall, he tipped his cap and greeted a woman pushing a walker—Mrs. Valley! Lindbergh’s pal. Preoccupied with the arduousness of her journey, she didn’t speak. But the man who said prayers at meals gave him a military salute, and one of the ladies in the sunroom waved and said, “Tootle-oo!” He realized that Norrie Paramor’s orchestra was playing on the intercom as he strode down the hall to the exit.