by Thomas King
I stand and listen to the storm batter the roof and rattle the windows. Then I step into the room and lock the door behind me.
THE NEXT MORNING, the rain is still coming down. I take my time in the bathroom. The irony of standing under a shower in the middle of a downpour is not lost on me.
The towels at the Plaza are large and fluffy. I wrap myself up in one that is the size of an overcoat and go back to bed. I lie there in the dark and listen to the weather outside get on with its business.
Nothing to do with me.
The room is dark and warm and silent. I settle into a familiar daydream where I’m safe at last, where no one knows where I am, where I can stay hidden forever and never be found.
And then the phone rings.
ASH LOCKEN IS WAITING for me in the hotel dining room. One corner of the room is awash in steam tables. A man in a white uniform and a chef’s hat stands over a roast with a knife.
“Brunch,” Locken tells me. “But we can also order à la carte.”
The wind has teamed up with the rain, and the two of them have driven everything and everyone off the street.
“I’m glad you could join me for breakfast.”
Disingenuous. Saying no had not been an option.
“Oliver will be joining us later.”
A young man comes by. Coffee pot in one hand, juice pitcher in the other.
Locken stops him with a hand. “Do you have espresso?”
“No, ma’am. But the coffee is excellent.”
“Just water, then,” says Locken. “No ice.”
“We have Voss and San Pellegrino.”
“No Finé or Veen?” Locken smiles. “No Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani?”
The man shifts from one foot to the other.
“I can be such a bitch,” says Locken. “We’ll have the Château Gleaming.”
“Tap?”
“Please.”
The waiter heads into the kitchen to tell the rest of the staff about the crazy woman at the table by the window. Then he’ll look up Acqua di Cristallo Tributo a Modigliani on his cellphone.
There are small jars of jam on the table. Locken picks up one.
“Apricot,” she says. “That’s something you don’t usually see. Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, marmalade. They’re common enough.”
If I had a favourite jam, it would be rhubarb.
“My mother was a gardener. She was especially fond of fruit trees, and her favourite was the apricot. I don’t know how many times she told me that if you wanted good apricots, you had to grow them yourself.”
But all in all, most jams have too little flavour and far too much sugar.
“And in order to have a healthy and productive tree, you have to prune it constantly and judiciously. Cut the wrong branch at the wrong time, she would tell me, and you could traumatize the tree, even kill it. Prune too much or too little and you might not get any fruit. And then there were the diseases—bacterial canker, eutypa, phytophthora—and the insects—aphids, mealy bugs, mites, caterpillars. Always a concern. But if you were careful and you trimmed away just the dead wood, watched for any sign of diseases or insects, saw to it that the tree got just the right amount of water, you could look forward to a fine crop of fruit.”
Locken puts her fork to one side and settles in the chair.
“And then there’s my father. His obsession was with longevity, immortality. And to that end, he asked you to create a list of like-minded individuals, individuals who could afford the costs of such a venture, individuals who would allow nothing to get in the way of their shared goal.”
Locken doesn’t lower her voice or turn towards the wall. There are people all around us, but that’s the beauty of restaurants. Each table tends to be its own little island, its own little world.
Unto itself.
“But you saw what my father could not, didn’t you. The issue wasn’t immortality. The issue was the small group of men and women, individuals and families with such vast resources and privilege that they imagined themselves to be separate from society, invulnerable and invincible. The issue was individuals who were determined to reshape the world with no regard for the well-being of the rest of humanity or for the health of the planet, with no regard for the concept of balance.”
The old couple at a table against the wall with their books. The young couple with two small children who are already squirming in their seats.
Locken arranges her napkin on her lap. “We exist at the sufferance of others.”
The businessman at a table by himself, reading the news on his iPad.
“Of course, there are good billionaires as well as bad billionaires,” says Locken. “At least, I like to believe that this is true.”
The four older women, for whom Sunday brunch is a religion.
“And then again,” says Locken. “Then again.”
Oliver Flood appears at the maître d’ station. Crisply dressed, as though he’s just been taken out of the box. It doesn’t appear as though the weather has dared to touch him. He sits down next to me without a word. Hems me in, in case I’m thinking about an escape.
“Think of us as an orchard.” Locken folds her hands together. “In need of a little pruning.”
Flood signals the server. “Everything is in place. We’ve already made arrangements to replace the double-wide that was lost in the fire. Not with a trailer, but with a permanent structure.”
Flood hands me one of the Cradle River Estates brochures that the mayor passed out at the party.
“We’ll be meeting with the band council early this week to put the full proposal on the table.”
Locken nods. “And Ms. Stillday?”
“We’ll request that she be lead council and the band’s liaison with Ankh.” Flood orders coffee, juice, and an omelette.
Now that I look closely, I can see that the plan in the brochure doesn’t quite match Loomis’s scale model.
“The mayor’s plan was decent,” says Flood, “but we were able to add a few improvements.”
Locken turns back to me. “You see, we keep our bargains.”
Flood smiles. “Of course, his worship isn’t going to be pleased.”
“Ah, yes,” says Locken. “No Loomis Commons.”
“May I tell him?” asks Flood.
“No,” says Locken. “I think we’ll leave that pleasure to Ms. Stillday.”
Flood turns to me. “A quiet time in a nice hotel suite,” he says, “and you still look as though you’ve been run over by community.”
I LEAVE LOCKEN AND FLOOD to enjoy their breakfast. There’s a fancy umbrella stand by the front door. Courtesy umbrellas with the Plaza’s logo. I help myself to one of them and step out into the day.
Dino is wrong about rain. It just gets things wet.
38
Florence doesn’t waste any time.
“You’re late,” she tells me as I come in the door. “You still sleeping at that hotel?”
I put the brownie on the counter. I take the sausage roll out of the bag.
“Hear brunch at the Plaza is staggering, but word is you passed it up.”
The sausage roll is delicious.
“You stop talking is one thing,” says Florence. “You stop eating and we start to worry.”
I finish the roll in three bites.
“Ada thinks your acting funny is ’cause of your girlfriend.”
The Three Bears are huddled in a corner with Wapi in the middle. Louis is grim-faced. Enola has an arm around her cousin. Both of Wapi’s hands are bandaged to the elbow.
Florence cuts the brownie and takes the larger half to the table and sets it in front of Wapi.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Louis shouts to me from the table. “He didn’t know.”
Florence comes back to the counter, grinds the beans, packs the basket. “Hell of a thing. The boy loses his parents, almost dies himself, and now this.”
I watch the dark brown liquid leak into the cup and w
ait for the rest of the story.
“He just wanted to help,” says Enola. “Just wants to be like everyone else.”
There’s an art to frothing. Use the steam wand to pull the milk up the sides of the metal pitcher.
Florence pats the bottom of the pitcher as she works the milk. “Generator at the council office ran out of fuel.”
If you do it wrong, all you wind up with is scalded milk and air. If you do it correctly, you get milk as thick as soft butter.
“Wapi tried to fill it.” Florence pours the milk into the cup. “But the generator was still hot. Spilled some of the gasoline, and you know the rest.”
“I could have made the same mistake,” says Louis.
“Word is the mayor’s thinking of charging Wapi with arson.” Florence puts the macchiato in front of me. “You have to wonder who has the developmental problems.”
“Anyone come for my cousin,” says Enola, “and they come through me.”
“No one’s coming for Wapi.” Louis ruffles his nephew’s hair. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“And Nutty’s back in the hospital.” Florence eats the rest of the brownie without offering me any. “Ada says she started breathing funny in the middle of the night.”
“Wasn’t his fault,” says Enola.
Florence wipes the brownie crumbs off the counter. “Emma and Ada and me are going to see her soon as Emma’s done in the kitchen.”
I would have liked to have had a bite of the brownie.
“Ada’s looking after Lala right now,” says Florence. “But we need someone to step up while we’re at the hospital.”
Wapi holds up his hands and smiles. “Brownie,” he shouts.
Florence gives Wapi a thumbs-up. Then she turns back to me.
“And you got elected.”
Emma emerges from the kitchen. “All done,” she says.
The Three Bears are on their feet. Wapi holds his hands out in front of him. He looks a bit like a kangaroo.
“We’re going to take Wapi home,” says Enola. “He can’t play on his iPad, so he gets bored.”
“We don’t have cable,” says Louis. “You think Ada would mind if Wapi watched hers?”
“You’ll have to stay with him,” says Florence.
“Yeah,” says Enola, “we can do that.”
I WALK BACK to the school with Florence and Emma. Louis and Enola and Wapi follow along behind.
“Are you going to pull up all the crosses?” Louis asks me.
“Are you really going to burn them?” says Enola.
Wapi runs off ahead of us, and then he runs back. “I help,” he says.
ADA AND LALA are in the classroom that Ada and Nutty are using for a bedroom.
“Pop-Up!” shouts Lala. “You came back.”
“Course he came back,” says Ada. “He thinks he owns the place.”
Wapi runs over to the big-screen television. “Cartoons,” he says.
“We got lots of cartoons,” says Ada. “You know how to work the remote?”
“Remote,” says Wapi.
“Why don’t we get something to eat first,” says Enola.
“Pizza,” says Wapi. “Pizza, pizza, pizza.”
The Three Bears disappear into the kitchen. Ada and Emma and Florence get in Ada’s car and head to the hospital.
“Come on, Pop-Up,” says Lala. “We can pull up crosses.”
I don’t bother changing. I just grab the mallet and chisel and my gloves. The storm has moved along, but it’s left a slate-grey sky and a crisp chill in the air, as though winter is planning a return engagement.
I squat down beside a river stone. Lala sits beside me.
“Nooko says you don’t like people,” says Lala.
I turn the stone over to see which side is the flatter. Then I take out my pencil and begin laying out the name.
“But you like me, right?”
Mary Camp. A woman I never met. Never saw. Not so much as a story. A name on a list kept by an obsessive priest.
Lala sees him first.
“Roman!”
“Hi, sweet stuff.”
“I’m not sweet stuff.”
“Sure you are, sweetie pie.”
“I’m not sweetie pie.”
I set the chisel on the edge of the M.
Roman looks at the name I’ve sketched on the stone. “Mary Camp,” he says. “She would have been one of my aunties.”
Dead at twelve. Hinch’s map shows not only the location of each grave, but the dates as well.
“Yours, too, cousin.”
“Then she’s my auntie, too,” says Lala.
“Great-auntie,” says Roman. “I’m thinking of getting some ice cream.”
“Ice cream!”
I slide the chisel down the stone. I don’t know what arrangements Emma has made with Roman or if she has made any at all.
Lala tugs on my shirt. “Can I go?”
“Sure, you can go,” says Roman. “Jeremiah’s not your dad. I am.”
“Can I have vanilla?”
Roman looks back at the school. “Where’s Emma? How come she left her with you?”
“Mum-Mum had to go to the hospital. Grummy’s sick again.”
Roman stiffens. “Nutty?”
“Is she going to die?”
“Nutty’s too tough to die,” says Roman. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”
“Can Pop-Up come?”
Roman shakes his head. “He has work to do.”
Across the river, a flock of crows has appeared in the overcast sky, black on black.
Lala jams a hand in her pocket and comes up with a fistful of peanuts. “If Slick comes looking for me,” she says, “you’ll have to give him peanuts.”
I put the nuts next to the stone.
“Otherwise, he’ll be grumpy.”
I don’t know how Emma will feel about Lala going off with Roman. Maybe she’s okay with it. Maybe she’s not.
The crows have taken over the trees on the far bank. They’re too far away for me to see if Slick is in the hover.
Nutty is in the hospital. Florence and Ada and Emma are there, too. If the Neighbours are still around, I don’t hear them. Lala is off with her father. And for the first time in a while, I’m alone.
I set the chisel on the inside edge of the M and strike down hard.
39
I finish the M and the A and the R before I give up and call it a day. My left hand, the hand that holds the chisel, is aching and swollen, and I now have a cut on my cheek where a chip from the stone caught me.
Mary Camp does not appear to me. Nor do any of the other children in the graveyard. Perhaps there are too many people at the school now, with no room for the dead among the living.
The crows have not come to this side of the river. I pick up the peanuts and fling them among the crosses where the birds can find them at their leisure.
I could return to the school, go upstairs to my room, and have a nap, but now I find that I’m a stranger to the place. And it to me. If there had ever been a bond with the building, it is gone. And all that I have left as consolation and comfort, if in fact I have anything, is the cemetery.
And the graves.
If I’m being honest, I have to admit that I enjoy feeling sorry for myself. So much so that I stretch out on the cold ground next to a cross, my face to the sky, and pretend that I’m dead.
I keep my eyes open, in case the crows try to sneak up on me. In case I look like roadkill to a passing corvid.
I’m surprised how different the world looks. Being flat on my back. The tops of trees, clusters of clouds, an open sky. It is a view that changes but remains much the same.
A simple and peaceable panorama. A natural world of sights and sounds. Nowhere are there market equities, hedge funds, venture capital, real assets. Not a corporation to be seen.
Odd ducks, corporations. They trace back to England and the royal charters granted to well-placed individuals and consortiums by
the monarchy. The Locken Group is just the newest manifestation of an older concept.
Make money at any cost.
And then in 1886, in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the U.S. Supreme Court held that corporations were persons and entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Of course, corporations aren’t, in fact, persons, but the ruling created a cynical and clever legal dodge that helped to increase and legitimize corporate power in the marketplace and in society.
THERE ARE SEVERAL PROBLEMS with lying on my back in the middle of a graveyard. It’s not all that comfortable. And it’s cold. And then there are the explanations I will have to concoct should someone come along and find me.
THE STORY OF HOW corporations became persons is more interesting than a simple court case, and there are two parts to it.
The first part featured the lead lawyer for the Southern Pacific, a Roscoe Conkling. In the 1860s, when Conkling was a congressman, he sat on the committee that drafted the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Southern Pacific arrived on his doorstep, Conkling swore that the drafters of the amendment had changed the wording, replacing citizens with the word persons so that the law would cover corporations.
CROWS, FOR INSTANCE. I can’t see any from my vantage point, but they are a curious species, could come along at any moment with their trilogy of concerns.
Can we steal it? Can we eat it? Can we shit on it?
Not all that different from humans.
If the crows find me first, I’ll simply tell them the truth. That I’m lying on the ground because, at this moment, I can’t think of anything else to do.
CONKLING’S ASSERTION WAS a lie. The framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had had no such intention in mind. And, as it turns out, the decision in the Santa Clara case did not decide that corporations were persons. Evidently, the court clerk, a J.C. Bancroft Davis, who wrote the summary, added it in.
After the fact.
His own opinion.
That corporations were protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
And because no one noticed or no one cared, the notion became the law of the land.
THOMAS LOCKEN LIKED to tell this story. And on each October 30 and December 29, Locken would invite select members of his corporate team to his office to raise a glass to the two men who had made corporations virtually untouchable.
