Hidden River (Five Star Paperback) (21 page)

Robert drives and talks. Robert doesn’t have the charm or salesmanship of his older brother. Where Charles has us telling our favorite movies and books and gets Abe to rehearse us through doorstops and the rap (to increase group cohesion and team spirit, Charles says), Robert senses that he has to do something but is a bit of a wet blanket. He seems to have digested management guru books and gives us pep talks based largely on sports metaphors and stories about the rebirth of Chrysler.

We drive south down Broadway rather than the highway and after a time we stop in a typical leafy suburb, or what would be a leafy suburb, were not all the trees dying and the lawns turning brown.

“We’re here,” Robert says, and switches off the engine.

He turns around to look at us.

“You should tell them where here is,” Amber whispers.

“Oh yes, Englewood. It’s a borderline area, mixed incomes, so I want everyone to go in p-pairs tonight.”

Everyone nods.

Amber whispers something to him.

“Oh, yes, of course, we all have to g-get pumped up, don’t we?” Robert asks, almost rhetorically.

“Yes, we do,” Abe says.

“Ok, then. Um, Abe, are you ready to go?” Robert asks with fake enthusiasm.

“Yes, I am,” Abe says.

“I c-can’t hear you,” Robert says.

“Yes, I am,” Abe says, louder.

“I still c-can’t hear you,” Robert says.

Abe yells that he’s ready to go. Robert does the same routine with everyone in the van. It’s cringe making. When he gets to me, he says:

“Alexander, are you r-ready to go?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” I shout, USMC fashion.

And then something a little odd happens. Robert laughs. Strange noise, like a small animal drowning. Really, it wasn’t that funny. In fact, it wasn’t funny at all, but Robert’s cracking up about something. Snot comes out of his nostrils and he takes out a tissue, wipes his eyes, blows his nose. No peeler worth his salt makes snap judgments à la Columbo, but suddenly I don’t see Robert as the murdering type.

“Oh my God, that reminds me, r-really reminds me. You know, I got thrown out of the ROTC after one week? I would have made the worst s-soldier in the world,” Robert says to Amber, forgetting, I think, that the rest of us are here.

“I thought they’d banned ROTC at Harvard?” Amber asks.

“At school. At B-Bright. They said the only one worse was Charles and they didn’t throw him out because he was l-lacrosse captain. Oh, you should have seen me, it was—”

“Robert, the business at hand,” Amber interrupts, and gives him a look that none of the rest of us can see but which freezes him.

“Oh, yes, sorry folks, f-forgot what I was doing there. Um, who’s next?” Robert asks in a still-cheerful mood.

We go through the rest of the van and everyone claims that they are ready and enthused about going out tonight.

“Does everyone have their m-maps?”

We all nod and say yes.

“Does anyone not know how to read their map?” Robert asks.

One shy girl with curly brown hair puts her hand up.

“Ok, I’ll go with you,” Robert says.

We pile out of the van. It’s another warm night. Englewood looks like everywhere we’ve been going. Another white ’burb. By fluke or luck or foul design, Amber and I are the only two left without a pair, but it’s ok, I’m still new enough to need training by the top people.

“Looks like you’re with me, marine,” Amber says, twisting her hair behind her into a tight ponytail.

“Looks like,” I agree, somehow managing to get the words out.

We gather our clipboards and materials and walk out into Englewood. I stare at her ass all the way to the first house and my internal monologue is: Bloody calm down, Alex, she’s just a woman.

The first house we go to: a chubby lass, twenty years old, black hair, glasses, pretty, holding a wineglass. She opens the door, looks at us.

“Let me guess, you’re a little bit country, he’s a little bit rock and roll,” she says.

I have no idea what she’s talking about, and I look at Amber, baffled.

“She thinks we’re Mormons,” Amber says.

“What?” I say, still confused.

“We’re not Mormons, uh, we’re from the Campaign for—” Amber attempts.

“Let me tell you something,” the girl says, taking a large sip of wine, “I do not believe that the Angel Gabriel appeared in upstate New York and said go take dozens of wives. It makes no sense. Ok? No sense.”

“We’re not Mormons,” Amber persists.

“Damn right you’re not,” the girl says, “and I’m not going to be one either. And then he went to Utah? Jesus is no cowboy, I mean, come on, you people are seriously misguided.”

“Does the issue of deforestation concern you at all?” I ask.

“No, but converting dead people does, that’s a disgrace,” she says.

She closes the screen door and then the front door, leaving us outside feeling very foolish.

“What was that all about?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Amber says briskly.

“She must have been drunk,” I suggest.

We turn and walk down the path.

“I just don’t get the ‘you’re a little bit country’ thing,” I say.

“It’s from a TV show you would never have seen, a song they used to sing, from the
Donny and Marie
show. You know, the Osmonds.”

“Oh, who are Mormons, oh, I see, that was a good line, then.”

“Yes,” Amber says.

“Aren’t their missionaries always men, though?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” Amber says, a bit snootily. “I don’t know anything about the Mormons.”

The encounter has embarrassed her, she doesn’t think it’s funny at all, whereas I think it’s hilarious, it’ll amuse Pat and John when I tell them.

“Me neither, all I remember about the Mormon missionaries is as a kid in Belfast. Our next-door neighbor would throw a bucket of water around them because he said they were the heralds of the Antichrist or something. He probably thought that because he was so filthy and they were always so clean and neat,” I say.

“That’s right, you grew up in Belfast, didn’t you?” she says, looking at me.

“Aye.”

“That’s quite near a place called Carrickfergus, isn’t it?” she says.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never been there,” I tell her.

My résumé is crucially different from Victoria Patawasti’s in that respect. But even so, it’s time to change the subject.

“Yeah, in fact, everything I know about the Mormons comes from that Sherlock Holmes story and that’s hardly complimentary,” I say.

“You read Sherlock Holmes?” she asks excitedly.

“Some of them.”

“I love Conan Doyle, I love mysteries. Mysteries, puzzles, figuring stuff out, I love that stuff. It’s not Charles’s thing,” she says, her face lightening.

“Never Chuck, or Charlie, or Chaz, always Charles, eh?”

She frowns at me and I see that I’ve goofed up. Charles’s name is not a subject for levity.

“Who’s your favorite mystery writer?” I ask.

“Oh, the divine Agatha,” she says, giving me a big smile.

“Are you a Poirot or a Marple?” I ask.

“Oh, a Marple, of course,” she says.

I grin at her. She really is quite captivating and suddenly to think that either she is implicated in a brutal murder or closely related to the murderer seems utterly absurd. Once again I wonder if I’m completely on the wrong track about all of this. Or maybe my dick or the ketch is clouding my judgment.

In the next house an old man gives us a lecture about the low reservoirs, the yearlong drought, the importance of conservation, and refuses to take a leaflet.

In the next house no one’s home. In the next house they don’t want to give. Next house, fat white woman in a print dress, very heavy perfume. I give her the rap.

“You doing the whole street?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“How much they give next door?”

“They weren’t home.”

“I’ll bet they were. Mother’s black, father’s Japanese, Chinese, something like that.”

“Really?”

“A lot of Negro families in the street now,” she says.

“Is that a fact?”

“It is a fact. It is,” she says conspiratorially.

“Well, that’s America,” I say, a little thrown by the first obvious racist I’ve met since coming here.

“Look at that O. J. Simpson. Would you want him next door? All on welfare. They’re not really contributing anything, are they?” she says.

“Who?”

“The Negroes. Who do you think? They don’t do anything. Haven’t done anything.”

I look at Amber for support, but she’s staring at her shoes in shame and humiliation. Honey, you’re going to meet a lot more people like this if you start moving in right-wing activist circles, I’m thinking. And again she looks vulnerable and slightly lost.

I smile at the woman.

“Well, they built the railroads, won the Civil War, were the workhorses of the Industrial Revolution, created an amazing literary culture, and invented four original musical forms in this century alone: jazz, blues, rock and roll, hip-hop. Boring old world without them, huh?” (I say all this with a big friendly smile. The woman looks furious.)

“What is it you want?” she asks.

“We’re trying to promote Wise Use of the forests,” Amber says.

“I don’t think so,” the woman says, and slams the screen door so hard that it rattles on its hinges. I can’t help but laugh and even Amber grins.

Two more doors, we get nothing. As we head south the neighborhood is getting less affluent and the next street on our map is distinctly poorer still. The cars parked outside aren’t as nice and the kids playing in the street are Mexican. I find it quite interesting the way there’s almost an invisible demarcation line and I remark on this to Amber, but she doesn’t reply.

Clapboard houses, most of them run-down looking. Rubbish piled up on the sidewalks in black bags. At the end of the street there’s a big warehouse that looks as if it hasn’t been used for about fifty years. The windows are dirty or smashed, and someone has drawn soccer goals on the walls.

It’s dark now. The wind has whipped up, the sky is clouded over, and the temperature has dropped by thirty degrees. I shiver and we go down the path of the first house. A dog barking in the backyard, snarling at us through a chain-link fence. Slabbers coming out of its chops. I ring the bell and an Asian man answers. Amber does the rap, but it’s impossible to hear over the dog, and anyway, he’s not interested. We cross the yard to the next house and tap on the screen door.

It is answered by a huge man in a dirty white T-shirt and jeans.

“Yeah, what do
you
want?” he asks, like we’re the millionth person to have called on him that night.

“Hi, we’re from the Campaign for the American Wilderness and we’re—”

“Yeah, I know,” he interrupts. “I know what you are. You guys should do your research better. You guys were around here last week for the same fucking thing.”

Amber’s shivering beside me, a little cold too in her thin sweatshirt.

“The old growth forests are a vital part of—”

“I know they are. Thank you,” he says, and closes the door.

“It’s going to be one of those nights, I can tell,” I say.

She nods glumly.

“Maybe we should take a break, find a coffee shop or something,” I suggest.

She shakes her head.

“No, everyone is going to do their full quota, so should we, it would upset Robert if we snuck off somewhere,” she says, not very enthusiastically.

“Ok, you’re the boss,” I say. I didn’t mind, in the last week I had had a lot of success, ok to strike out tonight, especially with such charming company around.

We cross the street to the next house. A bungalow, straggly garden, wire fence, patched screen door, scuffed paint.

Amber knocks on the screen door.

“Hold on, wait a minute, I’m getting the money,” a boy says.

He opens the door. Fifteen, skinny, pale, curly hair, gormless expression.

“Dude, where’s the pizza?” he asks.

“We’re in your neighborhood tonight, campaigning to promote Wise Use of …” Amber begins and does her whole rap uninterrupted.

The kid looks at her and shakes his head.

“Yeah, but dude, where’s my pizza?” he asks.

“We’re not the pizza people, we’re promoting Wise Use of the forests,” Amber says a little desperately and does the rap a second time. Again, I think that she seems younger than the thirty Abe says she is. Is she so naive that she doesn’t see that the kid is stoned out of his fucking brains?

“What the fuck is keeping you?” another kid yells, appearing in the hall, flipping a cigarette lighter on and off.

“These guys won’t give us our pizza,” the first kid explains.

“Whoa, she’s a babe,” the second kid says.

“Come on,” I say to Amber, “let’s go.”

She hesitates for a minute and lets me take her down the path. The power in the relationship has shifted in that moment. She, who is supposed to be training me, has cracked. She’s wearing flats, is an inch or two smaller than me. But it’s enough. She has to look up to ask me the question.

“What was going on there?” she asks.

“The kids were stoned,” I tell her.

“At their age?” she says, sounding amazed.

“That’s the age you get stoned,” I say.

“Not where I come from,” she says indignantly.

We get halfway down the path to the next house when the sprinkler system comes on, soaking us.

Amber is furious.

“And that’s illegal too,” she says. “Breaking the water rules.”

When we get to the door, they’re pretending not to be home and we have to brave the sprinklers down the path again. I offer her my jacket, but she says no.

No one’s home in the next house, either. Her hair is damp and clinging to her face. She looks increasingly miserable, increasingly beautiful.

“So where
do
you come from?” I ask.

“Knoxville,” she says after a pause.

“Where’s that?” I ask, not entirely ignorant.

“It’s in Tennessee,” she says.

“Cool,” I say, “it’s a cool place.”

“What do you, an Irishman, know about Tennessee?” she asks, finally breaking into a little smile.

“A lot,” I say.