Angel Landing (12 page)

“You were rude to him,” I said.

“Old people can get away with that.” Minnie smiled. She crisscrossed stitches across the doily. “What do you think?” she asked me. “Do you think this Finn is for you?”

“He's my client,” I said.

“So?” Minnie said.

“You're being ridiculous,” I said. “He may be a very important case in my career. If he continues therapy.”

“Is that why you invited him here for a drink?” Minnie asked.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” I said.

“The first time I saw your uncle Alex,” Minnie now recalled, “I knew he was for me. Right away. I knew.”

“It's not like that,” I said.

I barely knew him; he was only another case, and probably dangerous. And there was Carter, and there were rules: he was my client, and it didn't matter if his eyes were blue or gray, or that my pulse grew weak when Minnie even suggested there was something more than there ever could be.

“That's exactly what I told everyone after I met Alex,” Minnie told me. “I said, ‘What the hell would I do with a poet? That man is certainly not for me.' But, I just didn't want to tell the truth. Was it their business? But I knew, from the minute I first saw him.”

Although I shook my head and laughed and didn't believe a word Minnie told me, when I said good night later and walked upstairs, I worried about Michael Finn. He might disappear; he would forget his Thursday appointment and run off to Canada or Mexico. I watched the harbor from my window; the later the night grew the more convinced I was that Finn, too, was looking at the same harbor, watching the same falling snow.

I was certain that Minnie was wrong; she was an old woman, with an old woman's desire for nonexistent romance. And he was a stranger, nothing more. But all the same, by the time the snow stopped falling, I was still thinking of Finn, still drowning in a stranger's eyes.

FOUR

C
ARTER AND
I
HAD BEGUN
to miss our Wednesday nights together; he was busy organizing a second protest at Angel Landing and I was busy with Michael Finn. Instead of disappearing, Finn now came to my office twice a week; he was never late for his appointments, but there was no way to call what went on between us therapy. Finn was as uncomfortable with his past as he was with the future, and so we avoided everything like sorrow and pain. Instead, we talked about the everyday, at times we let a sweet, comfortable laziness take over; we would sit, with cigarettes and coffee, occasionally mentioning the weather or the world outside. It was easy to forget that he was a client. But each time we met we could not help but remember that sooner or later there would be a trial.

Finn would take that long walk to the district attorney's office; there would be no quiet Tuesday afternoons together, no private Thursdays, we would no longer be able to pretend there had never been an explosion. When Carter finally called me, to come to the Soft Skies office on a Wednesday night, I had nearly forgotten that Wednesdays had ever been important to me; I charted the weeks by Tuesdays now, I had given myself over to Thursdays. Still, I agreed to meet Carter; refusing to admit that something between us had disappeared, I even took my diaphragm with me.

When I arrived at Soft Skies, Carter was waiting for me in the hallway outside the office door, pacing.

“You're here,” Carter said, taking my hand.

“I don't know what's happened to us,” I said. “Wednesdays have disappeared.”

“That's all right.” Carter kissed me lightly.

“But tonight is different. We'll be together,” I said, though I knew I couldn't stop thinking of Finn, even when I was in Carter's arms.

“Forget about tonight,” Carter said sadly.

“But you invited me.”

“I don't have time,” Carter explained. “I have to get organized for next week's demonstration at the plant.”

“You called me,” I said.

“That's right.” Carter nodded. “Because there's someone who wants to meet you,” he said as he opened the office door and led me inside. “Reno LeKnight.”

The attorney sat in the only chair in the office; he was dressed in a long suede coat, his shoes were Spanish leather, his cologne was a strong mixture of roses and lime.

“Natalie Lansky,” Reno LeKnight said, in a controlled courtroom tone.

“Why does he want to meet me?” I asked Carter.

“Why don't you sit down,” Carter said to me.

There was only the chair LeKnight sat in, that and the unmade mattress on the floor.

“I don't think so,” I said.

“I'm glad we could get together to talk,” Reno LeKnight said to me.

“I don't see why,” I told him. “I don't know anything. I can't help you at all.”

Now that we were in the same room, I could imagine the chalky odor of the courthouse; alibis danced on the lawyer's skin.

“I think you can help me,” LeKnight said. “Eventually you'll be a witness for Mr. Finn, and I want to know exactly where you stand.”

“What do you mean?” I said to him. “Is he implying that I'm not one hundred percent behind Finn?” I asked Carter.

Carter sat on the bare wooden floor; his hand stuffed fliers into addressed envelopes the way other fingers turned to needlepoint or worry beads. “Natalie,” he said easily. “Just relax.”

“What's your relationship with Michael Finn?” Reno LeKnight asked.

“I'm his therapist,” I told LeKnight. “I don't see why this is necessary.” I turned to Carter.

“But it is necessary,” Carter said. “I've had to appear in court seventeen times, and believe me, you can never be too prepared.”

“Why did Mr. Finn first come to see you?” LeKnight now asked.

“Who can tell why a client first decides to go into therapy?” I shrugged. Any fact about Finn seemed too personal to share, the tiniest bit of information was much too powerful.

“You're going to be asked this in court.”

“He wanted to work on his feelings of anger and guilt,” I said.

“Anger and guilt,” LeKnight nodded. “Good. And you knew about the explosion?”

“Do I have to answer that question?” I asked Carter.

“You do,” Carter said.

“I knew there had been an accident. But I didn't know all the details.”

LeKnight dropped his voice, the courtroom polish fell away. “Is that really true, Natalie?”

“I didn't know,” I said. “Not right away.”

“Now this is important,” LeKnight said to me. “Would you say Finn was emotionally damaged when he first came to Outreach?”

“Oh, who's to say?” I whispered.

“Natalie,” LeKnight said. “It's important.”

The scar down Finn's cheek, the icy calm of his eyes, the anger that moved deep inside and finally rose up like a serpent, devouring itself. “Yes,” I said. “He was emotionally damaged.”

“So much so that he may have been distracted while at his job, he may have accidentally made a crucial error?”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Yes or no,” LeKnight said. “It's as simple as that.”

Simple as pain, easy as a one-word answer. “Yes,” I said. “He was that emotionally damaged.”

LeKnight sat back in his chair and smiled. “She'll do,” he told Carter.

Carter got up and hugged me, but I thought of the witness stand and shivered.

“I told you she'd be terrific,” Carter said proudly.

“What will happen to him?” I asked LeKnight.

“We'll go to the district attorney and plead innocent to the charge of criminal tampering in the second degree, and we'll simply enter a guilty plea to reckless damage of property,” Reno nodded at Carter. “Soft Skies has generously offered to put up bail so Finn won't have to await trial in jail.”

“Can you afford to do that?” I asked Carter.

“Bail can't be more expensive than Reno's fee.”

After I had said good night, Carter walked outside the office with me. “Are you sure you don't want me to stay?” I asked. Under the fluorescent hallway fixtures Carter looked tired and drawn.

“I don't have time to sleep,” Carter explained. “As soon as Reno leaves I have to get back to work.”

“When was the last time you slept?” I asked.

“I stayed up all last night,” Carter admitted.

“Should you be working so hard?” I asked.

“I have to,” Carter told me as we kissed goodbye that night. “I can't help it.”

Reno LeKnight was ready for the courtroom battle, Carter had begun to raise bail; I knew my afternoons with Finn were just about through. I looked forward to seeing Finn all that day, but when he walked into the office at three o'clock he refused to sit down, he paced around the room. The time had come; I was about to lose him, I could feel it in my blood.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

“Reno LeKnight called me this morning,” Finn said. “It's going to happen.”

“When?” I asked.

Finn lit a cigarette and inhaled, but he refused to sit. “Today,” he finally said.

My skin grew tight.

“I'm going to jail today,” Finn said softly.

I shook my head. “Carter's going to raise bail.”

“Until he does,” Finn said, “I'll be in jail. And afterward. If I lose I'll be in jail for a long time.”

“You're not going to lose,” I said. “You have a terrific lawyer. The best around.”

“Ten or fifteen years for one act of stupidity,” Finn said. “I never even thought of what would happen after. I never thought at all.” He crushed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray on my desk. “If I have to go to jail, I might as well give up. I'll die.”

“You will not,” I insisted.

Already Finn seemed farther and farther away. “I won't string myself up. I won't slit my wrists. I'll just die.” He snapped his fingers. “That'll be the end for me.”

“You have more strength than that.”

“More strength than what?” Finn said. “You don't know anything about it. You've never been in jail.”

“Neither have you,” I said.

“Oh?” Finn said. “Oh, really?”

“The Stockley School?” I said. “Don't tell me that's jail. I was there on a field trip with a graduate-school class. I saw the school: it has basketball courts and color television sets.”

“A field trip?” Finn said. He laughed once, but it was too short a laugh, too dry. “You didn't see anything,” he told me. “Did they show you how once you're in you begin to feel less and less, until nothing is left inside? Once that happens, there's nothing left to keep you from collapsing when you get pushed.”

“We were just there for part of one day,” I said softly. “Really only for an hour.”

“An hour,” Finn smiled. He went to the window and pulled back the shade; he watched the street like a fugitive. “You think terrible things can't happen because they've never happened to you,” he told me. “But they're out there, all the time, every day. They happen to someone.”

There was the possibility that he might be convicted; he could be put away for years. Finn would grow old and fade; and one day, as he passed by a mirror, there would be no reflection, nothing at all but a spot of light where a man once had been.

“Not you,” I said. “Nothing like that will happen to you.”

Finn ignored me; he shook his head. “It's bad enough outside, but in jail you can never let your guard down. You pretend to feel nothing, you have to. You pretend it day and night, and then suddenly, it's true. There's nothing left inside.”

His memories moved so close to the surface I began to fear that Finn might now try to escape all that he had felt and forgotten: he might leap through the window to the street below, he might slowly become invisible, turning more transparent with each second, until I could look right through him.

“Please sit down,” I said. My voice sounded sharp, as if it might break or dissolve.

“I can't,” Finn said. He closed his eyes for a second, but even that was too long a time for an outlaw who did not dare relax long enough to rest his blood. He opened his eyes wider and blinked, as if any minute, if he wasn't terribly careful, he might fall under a spell. I went to the window, I touched his shoulder and tried to get him to turn to me.

“You were once in jail and there's still something left inside you,” I said. “You didn't lose everything.”

“It will be worse this time,” Finn said.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “What did you lose?”

Finn shook his head. “You'll never be able to see the things I tell you; you'll never understand. It could never be the way it was. It will only be a memory. That's all it will seem like, but it's not,” Finn whispered. “It's still with me.”

Finn finally agreed to tell me; but when he turned from the window and began to speak, I stayed where I was, just to make certain that no one would come for him and take his fugitive heart away from me too soon.

FIVE

H
E HAD BEEN DRIVEN UP TO
the Stockley school by a county probation officer. Because Finn would not answer any questions, because he simply would not speak at all, the probation officer had slipped a Beatles tape into his cassette player, and they had listened to that one tape over and over again, all the way up to Albany. When they finally reached the school, Finn moved as slowly as a sleepwalker. He tried to listen, but when the probation officer and the headmaster talked to him, they spoke in tongues, and Finn did not understand a word they said. Still, Michael Finn nodded when he was addressed; when he was told where to go, he moved his feet, he walked; there was no point in arguing, there was not even a reason to think; if he could have, Finn would have quietly stopped breathing, he would have collapsed to the floor in a pile of ashes.