The Oregon Experiment (35 page)

If he saw her now, most likely he still wouldn’t know what to say, so he set a course for home. In the gentle rain the houses he walked past seemed especially quiet and peaceful. During the Seattle demonstrations he’d never gotten away from the hot spots downtown, so Flak’s description of the tranquil neighborhood where he’d escaped with the money had surprised him—like in a movie when the gunshots and chase are interrupted by an elevator ride and Muzak. And that was the Douglas soundtrack today in the blocks leading back to his house—“Penny Lane” lightly arranged for strings and piccolos.

The Seattle he’d seen those few days was all about fighting back. Like Clay’s old girlfriend, Scanlon had been there when the glass came down in front of the Gap. The thrill that ran through the crowd was electric. They all felt guilty, that violence wasn’t the answer and in fact played into the establishment’s hands, but they also felt a surge of power when the glass dropped and the rocks and bricks kept flying into the store, knocking over mannequins, tearing posters of smiling Gap-happy lives. Smacking down the man. And he could convince himself he’d seen Daria stripping the child mannequin as soldiers do their dead enemy. He’d been thinking about those little mannequins getting trampled ever since he heard Flak’s story. At the time they’d been corporate camouflage for goods produced under exploitative conditions. But now, as he turned the corner onto his block and saw the little boy—Cory or Casey—riding a tricycle in circles on his driveway, those blond-haired, blue-eyed mannequins with their faces ground into the broken glass represented something more personal than sweatshops and multinational greed.

He went into the kitchen and Geoff turned from the window, where he was sitting with Sammy on his shoulder.

“Where’s Naomi?” Scanlon whispered.

“Sleeping.” Geoff pouted sympathetically. “She was wiped out.”

Scanlon bent down to Sammy’s sleeping face, touched his tiny head, and kissed his soft baby hair. The gesture felt odd in such close proximity to his father—exposing himself like that—and as he pulled back he tasted the tear gas in his throat, the burn in his eyes, and felt the thrum of dissent in his chest.

When Sammy picked up his head and sneezed, Scanlon took him from
Geoff, cooing and burbling and laying him over his shoulder. Sammy sneezed again and nuzzled Scanlon’s neck with a wet nose. “You missed the action,” Scanlon told his father.

“Police can be dangerously unpredictable,” Geoff said. “Never mind those delinquents. Avoiding conflict’s always the best course.”

“I’ve been thrusting myself into it my entire career,” Scanlon retorted. “That’s my job, my expertise. You’ve got no idea, man.”

Sammy fussed and Scanlon got a look at his face. His eyes were swollen and red, so watery that tears rolled down his cheeks. He coughed, then sneezed, and started to cry. “He’s sicker than he was this morning,” Scanlon said. “Do you know if Naomi took him to the doctor?”

“Not sure. He didn’t seem so bad when she went to bed.” Geoff shook his head. “Probably nothing. They sometimes get a little stuffed up while they’re sleeping.”

What did he know about babies? Scanlon probably did more fathering in these three months than his father ever did in three years.

“It’s okay, Mr. Jiggles,” Scanlon cooed, putting him back on his shoulder, but Sammy’s face reared up, snot running thick from both nostrils, and he let out a wail. “He’s hungry,” Scanlon said. “And he’s sick. The poor guy’s getting worse by the minute.”

When Scanlon got to the bedroom Naomi, having heard the cries, was already hauling herself out of bed. “I’ve got him here,” he said, and she flopped back under the covers and leaned up against the wall where a headboard would be if they had more than a mattress and box spring on the floor. He sat on the edge of the mattress, reaching to her with the baby, who did a face-plant into her boobs. Scanlon smelled her skin and milk, the warm, sweet sleep rising up from under the blankets and from inside her shirt. As if to rub it in, Sammy sucked and slurped and smacked his lips. But his nose was gurgling and he let out a frustrated cry. Naomi stretched her hand around her plump breast, cocking her nipple toward his mouth as she guided him back to her, a thin white stream spraying Scanlon’s arm and hand and Sammy’s forehead before finding his mouth. Sammy swallowed greedily, milk dripping down his cheek, but the snot got sucked up his nose and he gasped and let out a scream.

“Did you take him to the doctor?” Scanlon said.

“What’s that smell?” Naomi asked over the wails blaring between them. She was stuffed up too, and breathed hard through blocked nostrils to get a sniff. “Something harsh.”

A smile escaped his lips, and he said, “Tear gas,” lifting his arm and taking a hearty whiff of his coat. “Radical action seeks me out.”

“Christ, Scanlon. That’s what’s doing this to Sammy!”

He backed off the bed, smelling his shoulder where he’d laid Sammy’s head, a tickle in his nose.

Naomi tried to soothe the baby, but his screams grew more insistent as he sneezed and coughed, rubbing his eyes against her shoulder. “Get out of here!” she barked. “Get those clothes out of the house!”

He skulked out of their bedroom, arms tight to his sides, trying to draw his fumes with him. Damn. Chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile penetrated mucus membranes—eyes, nose, mouth, lungs—then set about irritating them. Human-rights groups had called for a tear-gas ban, documenting countless instances of fatality. And he’d blasted the toxin right into his baby’s tiny pink membranes.

They’d changed so much of their lives for Sammy. They gave up the 1988 convertible Cabriolet for a new Honda Civic with airbags, and they drove more slowly, stopped fully at Stop signs, gave an extra look before changing lanes; they never went out together at night, of course; they whispered and tiptoed and ate nutritious food so Naomi’s milk, the smell of her skin, and the air of their home wouldn’t be polluted with hamburger fat or tequila, growth hormones or pesticides.

God, what was he doing? He was so fucking lucky, with a dream baby, a
family
, and a beautiful woman who possessed a peculiar genius, a woman he loved. And in the last twenty-four hours he’d cheated on her and swaddled his baby in chemicals listed in Amnesty International’s crimes against humanity. Infidelity had been so easy: Sequoia was available, and he took what was offered. He’d betrayed Naomi, risking his marriage, and now he’d been reckless with Sammy.

“Shit, Dad,” he said in the kitchen. “We’ve got to get these clothes off. Sammy’s reacting to the tear gas.”

Geoff was filling two goblets nearly to the rim with red wine, then he set the bottle on the orange teardrop table. “Cheers,” he said, handing him a glass.

Scanlon took a gulp before stripping off his rain shell and yanking out his shirttails. “C’mon,” he said, watching his father make a show of tasting the wine. “I’ll dump our clothes straight in the washer.”

Geoff brought his arm to his nose, inhaled, then said, “No flies on me.”

“Fuck! Just do it, okay?”

“I’m telling you. I got out of there before the smoke even drifted our way.”

“Just take your goddamn clothes off!” Scanlon shouted. “Sammy’s health is more important than debating this. Jesus!” He stripped down to his underwear, picked up the pile of clothes, stepped into the laundry room, and dropped it all in the washing machine. From the kitchen, his father tossed him his shirt and pants, then pulled off his socks and started on his underpants.

“That’s okay,” Scanlon said. “It wouldn’t penetrate that far.”

“No, no,” Geoff insisted, flinging his white jockeys at him. “Not even a wisp of impurity shall offend thy baby.” He twirled his wineglass and took a sip, then reached to the counter for Scanlon’s glass and handed it to him. “Take it easy,” he said.

“I don’t
want
to take it easy! When you’re in this house, Sammy’s got seniority, not you. Got it?” Scanlon gulped his wine as the washer chugged on the other side of the door. He was wound up, breathing hard. He gulped again, and the wine spread through his chest, calming the thud of his heart.

Geoff cradled his goblet in the palm of his hand—the stem dropping between two fingers—twirling, sniffing, sipping, swishing. “These Oregon pinots are highly regarded,” he said serenely, then stood up and opened the kitchen door.

“This isn’t a nudist camp, Dad. Let me get dressed, then I’ll grab you some clothes from the RV.”

Geoff waved him off. “We’re all nudists,” he declared, “in varying stages of denial.”

Her boobs were on fire. How could something so natural be so impossible? The sperm penetrates the egg, the fetus grows, the child’s born—okay, it’s excruciating, but you get over it—and he’s a good sucker and your tits produce milk. It should be simple. Did cows get blocked ducts? Did kangaroos get mastitis? Did antelope have trouble with bacteria in the teats? Somehow she doubted it, because otherwise they’d send their offspring away to fend for themselves. Surely the instinct for motherhood in lesser mammals wasn’t more powerful than the avoidance of extreme, self-inflicted pain. Instead of the sacred bonding promised by the soft-focus baby-card photos
of nursing mothers, Naomi yelped when Sammy latched on and winced through the feeding. Her nipples and pajamas were stained purple from the hokey and useless “remedy.” Sammy had the face of a fat cartoon character caught stealing blueberry pies. As a rule, she had no patience for Erma Bombeck feminism, but sometimes it hit the mark: if testicles became excruciatingly engorged from blocked sperm ducts, there’d be entire institutes devoted to discovering a relief.

Still, when the feeding was over and he fell away from her nipple, milk-drunk or sound asleep, and she burped him while swaying in the glider or standing, as she was now, at the bedroom window looking out at the rain, she did feel the profound communion those ghastly cards advertised.

She wondered if she’d felt it for her own mother, and if her mother had felt it for her. Her mother hadn’t nursed—it hadn’t been the fashion, and her doctor deemed her breasts too small. But she’d fed, burped, and bathed her, napped with her sleeping on her chest. Naomi loved her, and respected her dedication as a nurse. Childhood had been happy in virtually every respect. But she didn’t feel the profound bond she’d developed with Sammy. Could it be that he wouldn’t feel it either? Maybe not. And suddenly Naomi was shaking, shaking with the fear of losing Sammy, of his growing up and leaving.

He lifted his head from her shoulder, let out a long belch, and snuggled down again. Was it merely a mother’s projection that her baby loved her? A calf stayed close to the cow for protection and warmth, one eye on the dangling teats. But was it love? Did Joshua long for her as she longed for him?

She watched the little boy at the corner riding his tricycle up and down the sidewalk in the rain, and then saw Geoff, strolling toward his RV, a glass brimming with red wine in his hand. He bent down to snap off and sniff a pinch of rosemary. Except for her own yellow rubber clogs, he was naked.

After Sammy fell asleep, she laid him in his bassinet, slipped into jeans and a fleece, and clicked the bedroom door closed. She was so angry she didn’t even glance at Scanlon. “Did you wash everything? And Geoff’s clothes too?” She drank a glass of water. “Geoff needs to shower before he goes near the baby.” Finally she looked at him: he’d showered and was wearing his robe. “There’s milk in the freezer. Feed him at six if I’m not back.” Out
of the house at last, she gasped for air as if she’d lunged from a collapsing coal mine.

Tiny drops dampened the shoulders and hood of her raincoat, but by the time she got to the corner the rain had stopped. She walked past the high school, a park full of Canada geese, and a street she’d never noticed lined with maples, their wet leafless branches the color of the Pacific leaping frog’s belly.

Soon she was on Sequoia’s street. As she approached her house, the bamboo chimes caught a breeze and chunked, froglike. She wondered what she’d been baking, whether they’d fed each other. She didn’t doubt that Sequoia was a more energetic lover than she was. Had Sequoia been aroused by his smell? Had he noticed hers? It wasn’t until Naomi lived in France that she came to appreciate the smell of lusty sheets and bodies, of unwashed hair. Although less sophisticated, Sequoia had olfactory lineage in a Parisian woman’s sensuality.
Much
less sophisticated, practically a hillbilly. Naomi could hardly believe she’d taken her advice—boiled cabbage leaves on her breasts?—or thought she might be a friend. Of all the betrayals, one sat like a stone in her chest: in Geoff’s RV, her head in Scanlon’s lap, those first semiconscious whiffs had summoned Joshua, and it wasn’t until later that she realized the smell wasn’t of his birth but of her husband’s infidelity.

Her true friends were in New York; she had to move back as soon as possible. For now she’d take trips east with Sammy, and they could stay with Liz. They’d be women in the museum with strollers. She’d order takeout and rent movies with Maria and Peter, show off the baby, eat lunch at Tartine, window-shop in SoHo. Sammy would learn to crawl in the park. She’d splurge on cabs and get a good table to hear Jimmy Scott one more time before he, too, was taken away.

Four blocks from the courthouse—she was surprised and relieved that the demonstrations were contained to the square, leaving the rest of downtown life untroubled—a bus lumbered up to the curb, and she spotted the shabby doorway in the alley beside the Greyhound station. Four buzzers. She pressed the one without a name, then rang again for a good twenty seconds.

But he wasn’t home. She stepped back onto the sidewalk and watched the bus unloading passengers, an assortment of anarchists among them, half of them resembling Clay. Two cops pointed them down Jefferson Avenue to where barricades surrounded the courthouse.

Then Clay walked out the front door of the station, taking a bite of a burrito and almost bumping into her. They stared at each other for a moment, then he offered the burrito, holding it out to her like a joint.

She was trying to make sense of the hot dog sticking out from a nest of lettuce, tomato, beans, and sour cream wrapped in a white tortilla when a cop strode up to them. “Proceed to the demonstration area,” he ordered, pointing to the courthouse with his nightstick.