The Croning (18 page)

He paid ten dollars to borrow the radio phone in the post office and check his messages. He imagined he cut a melodramatic figure, leaning into the low, rude wall with its scaly-yellow flyers and disjointed wanted-posters from faraway lands, receiver tucked in the crook of his neck and ear, a mostly-drained bottle of brown liquor clutched in his free hand.

Michelle crackled on the line, or, her day-old echo, melancholy and wan. She said, —
Lou’s dead—come home
.

3.

Michelle awaited him at the Olympia house, freshly returned from her latest expedition to the Congo, burnt to a crisp and with new lines around her eyes and mouth. If anything, she appeared tougher and more hard-bitten than Don did after his odyssey of self-destruction on the Yukon. They made love with passion sufficient to leave marks. Then, they fought for two days, and it was time for the funeral of a man Don scarcely knew despite the scientist’s presence in Michelle’s life for close to thirty years.

Louis Plimpton had passed away at a rented farmhouse near Wenatchee, Washington, but the Plimpton family plot was in nearby Levitte Cemetery where Tumwater and Olympia overlapped.

Don finally dragged Michelle out the door twenty minutes before the service began and he had to drive like hell to make the opening ceremonies, which included a blustery oration delivered by the Dean of Columbia who’d been flown in thanks to the largesse of Barry Rourke; the eulogy, delivered by Lou’s surviving brother, Terrance—a hoary octogenarian stricken with Parkinson’s; and the requisite bagpipe dirge courtesy of a quartet of ruddy Scots from the VFW hall. Lou had never set foot within a hundred yards of a recruiting office, much less gotten shipped overseas to pump old-fashioned American lead into the enemies of the Republic, but nobody seemed to notice the discrepancy.

The pavilion was reserved for family and close friends, colleagues and associates, and there weren’t many folding seats. Don and Michelle stood in the rear, fanning themselves with programs in the sweltering heat. Don had hastily shaved and doused himself with cologne, dusted off his funeral suit, a Windsor tie, the nice shoes and everything.

He was fanning himself with his hat when he noticed two men in off-the-rack suits staring at him and Michelle. Both wore dark glasses and serious expressions; one had an impressive mustache. The men loitered on the periphery, making no secret of their presence as outsiders, interlopers. Michelle was oblivious to them, busy as she was wiping her eyes and blowing her nose into a hanky. Don decided not to point them out and after a few minutes they climbed into a black car and drove away.

When it was a wrap, he and Michelle shook hands with a few people who noticed them lurking, and afterward, beelined for the parking lot and had nearly made their escape when Paul Wolverton intercepted them behind the street-side hedge and attempted to extract a promise to appear at a special reception in one week’s time for a round of
do you remember when’s
, and
for he’s a jolly good fellow
, and to pay obeisance to the Widow Plimpton, a self-made royal. Paul Wolverton, middle son of the famed playboy Marcus Wolverton, was taller than Don, and only a few years junior, although he was what Mama Miller would’ve called “well-preserved”, and unlike the oft-accepted characterization of bankers as porcine, Wolverton was gaunt and urbanely boisterous, if stereotypically fashionable in his double-breasted suits. Don promised to consider attending the reception.

4.

Once they were alone in the car, Michelle responded to Wolverton’s invitation with a rather pronounced lack of equanimity, exclaiming, “Oh, sweet baby Jesus, Paul’s cousin Connor Wolverton was Lou’s benefactor. There’s a museum in that house. It’s incredible. We’re going!” She explained that Connor Wolverton was sort of a northwest Howard Hughes who made like a hermit in rural eastern Washington on a huge estate. The man was rabidly passionate regarding the sciences, collecting everything from pottery to the bones of obscure war leaders and unusual animals. While not formally trained or inclined, Connor Wolverton did what rich, obsessed patrons were best at—contributed enormous sums to various foundations and projects. Michelle, via her longstanding association with Doc Plimpton, had benefited magnificently from that largesse.

“But, um, my sweet, that’s in Spokane,” Don tried.

“Ho, ho, nowhere so civilized. It’s at least sixty miles south of the city. Nowhere near an airport, either. Completely in the sticks.”

“By car? Egad, sweetheart.”

“Six-hour drive, tops.”

“More like ten on those roads and with someone behind the wheel who doesn’t have a death wish.”

It went like that all the way back to the farm. Upon arriving at the house, Michelle tabled the discussion and made a few phone inquiries before engaging Don for round two.

She said, “Naomi and Paul are hosting. She’s doing all the legwork. They’re tight with the Wolvertons.”

“Our vacation…relaxing, screwdrivers on the veranda, screwing…”

“Don’t be unseemly. Show proper respect to our dead colleague.”

“Whom we’ve spoken to half a dozen times since the Moon Landing.”

“Wrongo. I corresponded with Lou plenty. Our interests coincided. Who do you think put me in touch with Toshi and Campbell? Why do you suppose they agreed to help me secure funding, charts, maps? Hells bells, Howard lent me his data for the Pyrenees expedition.”

“Oh, right—the tour of exotic whorehouses and Plimpton family reunions. Honestly, hon, I just figured you flashed your lovely gams and those lecherous swine fell all over themselves securing the dough.” He was no fan of Ryoko or Campbell, a pair of crackpot scientists who’d kept tinfoil manufacturers busy for the better part of a decade. He suspected it was their ilk who’d infected Michelle with the whole Hollow Earth delusion, and later that duo fostered and fed it with praise and monetary support. He’d met them way back when during a visit to Bangkok. Vainglorious frauds who’d made a fortune by peddling quack science to the gullible public. The evening was a disaster. Don lost his temper and engaged in fisticuffs with someone, though as usual the details slipped away.

In any event, somehow the fools hadn’t managed to torpedo Michelle’s career as he’d seen befall other, less fortunate researchers caught in their draft.

Michelle closed the book on the debate. “We are going.”

She was correct, as ever. So correct, in fact, that she’d prevailed upon Argyle Arden to emerge from his badger burrow, otherwise known as the Arden House, and to join them for the excursion. Argyle declined the offer to hitch a ride, preferring to be driven by his own dashing chauffeur in a Rolls Royce.

“Argyle’s coming?” Don had said, annoyed as if his friend had betrayed him, albeit unwittingly. On second thought, Argyle was hardly unwitting and he unerringly took Michelle’s side in political matters.

“He’s certainly breathing hard,” she’d said and pecked his cheek.

The following week, husband and wife cruised through Seattle and out into rugged country toward the Cascades in a sedan Don had borrowed from an intern at Evergreen who was a little sweet on him and would be for maybe another semester before she too whiffed the scent of unshakable loyalty to his often absent wife of thirty years.

The thermometer at the rustic gas station where they serviced the car read 99 in the stifling shade of the awning. This was late August and rain hadn’t fallen for the better part of two weeks. Don bought fuel and a six-pack of Coke and an ice cream bar, and rambled on, rambled on. Michelle licked the ice cream bar, hoarding it with mischievously selfish pleasure.

She went down on Don after he took the East Valley exit off I-5 and rolled through terrain that alternated between fields and hills verging on low mountains. He nearly crashed the sedan in surprise at his pants buttons being expertly undone and her red lips closing on his manhood. Her tongue was hot beneath a veneer of ice cream chill as it circled and pressed. He glanced at the speedometer and noticed the needle had jumped to the 70 mark.

“Well, all right,” he said. “I concede: this
is
a wonderful plan. You are right as always, my dove. Let’s pray I can keep us pointed between the ditches…”

She chuckled and nipped him. Then she sat up and smoothed her hair and casually reapplied her lipstick in the side mirror. Her hair whipping about her tanned cheeks lent her an aspect of unearthliness, a beautiful, ambivalent creature, half woman, half goddess of the brambles, with the requisite affection and cruelty of both halves.

“Hey, uh…I was joking,” he said, gloomily trying to figure out how a man went about buttoning his pants with one hand while sporting a considerable erection.

“Better safe than wrapped around a tree,” she said, and smiled.

“Really. I think it’s proper to finish what you start.”

“Don’t be such a tough guy.”

“You love it.”

“I love you. I also know a few tough guys.
Real
hard cases. Don’t tread in those waters—you’ll catch cold, dear.”

He sighed and she smiled a secret smile and tuned the radio to a blues station. The country road wound before them, often narrow and unpaved, margined by wild forest and marsh and creeks, and occasionally a house or a farm. Golden fantail dust rose in their wake and drifted toward an enamel-blue sky. Late afternoon came down upon the land and occasionally, he slowed to avoid a cow or a string of goats wandering the road. The beasts sought the deep blue shade of overhanging willow limbs. She rolled the window down and trailed her bronzed arm against the rushing wind.

Even though the nest was empty going on five years, Don felt a pang whenever he glanced in the rearview at a blank seat and no children pulling one another’s hair, or causing him to pull the last of his own in exasperation at incessant yammering questions, or the interminable monotone naming of things kids were wont to undertake.

He swerved around a black Labrador and hoped all concerned were having a swell time traveling on his dime. Kurt in Cape Cod with a gaggle of affluent chums he’d met in college, Holly abroad in Europe with a girl named Carrie. Backpacks and a stack of travelers checks and mommy’s bank number were all the ladies needed—Holly had promised to drop a postcard in the mail when they hit Rome.

He smiled with fondness and melancholy. None of this felt right. The family shouldn’t be scattered to the wind, yet there it was.

Dinner was a leisurely affair at the quaintly named Satan’s Bung tavern in Ransom Hollow, a venerable chain of valley settlements and home to several of Michelle’s ancestors on the Mock side. Allegedly cousins of the Mocks (she couldn’t recall the family name) had settled hereabouts before the Gold Rush and founded a lodge; the family had owned half the valley during their heyday.

The couple knocked back a few rounds and devoured exquisite venison steaks and held hands while the Blackwood Boys, a highly polished local jug band, play several sets. Matters came to a head when, as the entire taproom crowd was clogging in unison to a drawn-out fiddle solo, Michelle drained her glass of whiskey (it was whiskey, beer or water at Satan’s Bung) and leaped atop the table and danced a jig she’d learned in a similar backwater village in Ireland. The men hooted and cheered and Don laughed and covered his eyes as she swished her leopard stole under his nose. Michelle had bagged the cat herself with one clean shot from a borrowed Winchester. She was no Jane Goodall, that was for sure. Were a seal hunter to toss her a club, Don suspected she’d cheerfully march for the beach.

A logger with a furry beard punched a beardless logger who wore a plaid coat and in short order bottles were flying and teeth as well. The jug band upped the tempo and the lead man yowled a tune about a bad person named Black Bill coming into the hollow to rape the goats and carry off the women-folk. A fire started near the bar and Michelle and Don took the opportunity to split.

All in all, Don thought as he revved the motor and burned rubber out of the parking lot, a typical evening abroad with his dear wife. He didn’t allow himself to contemplate the trouble she got into when wasn’t around to whisk her away.

5.

He took a wrong turn and they lost two hours before stopping at a mill and getting directions from the fellow who was locking the place down. Don shouldered the blame with as much self-deprecatory grace as he could muster. Michelle kissed his cheek and said nothing. At times during their journey she was entirely present and focused on him with the heated intensity he recalled from their courtship in school; at other moments she drifted miles away and was hardly with him in the car.

Bumpy blacktop road unwound before their headlights. A lonely night in the mountains; moonless, starless. The heat had dissipated with sunset. Mist rolled across the fields and through the trees and boiled in the ditches and conjured images of cloaked highwaymen and wolves howling on Scottish moors.

Don switched off the radio and pushed in the knob of the dashboard lighter. He stuck a Gauloises cigarette into the corner of his mouth while he waited. He’d tried to quit since Sputnik with intermittent success. Recently, Michelle had brought home a knapsack of brunes direct from Paris. “It’s dark-dark,” he said. “Anything could be out there on a night like this.”

“What? Why do you say that?” Michelle pulled the collar of her jacket tighter. “Good lord, it was roasting an hour ago. Now it’s practically winter.”

“We’re getting pretty high.”

“How I wish. I wasn’t going to tell you. But…” She rummaged in the glove box and came forth with a baggie. She expertly rolled a joint and had herself a toke. “Don’t you touch that window and whisk away my lovely fumes, Donald Miller, or I’ll break your fucking arm.”

He sighed and released the handle as blue exhaust clouds swam before his eyes.

She said in a deep, rasping tone, “Good kitty.”

“Excuse me?”

“What do you mean ‘anything can happen’?”

“Just look. Might as well be in the Dark Ages, baby—”

“Don’t call me baby, baby.”