Which, alas, shows no sign of abating. My security people have checked out the license numbers of all those who have visited her, old family friends I am surprised have chosen to be so disloyal to me and have not even asked my permission to tramp, or roll, across the grass. I have been rendered singularly helpless here by the fact that the property is half in Deirdre’s name. Anyway, I have sent my lawyers out to hunt down and punish the inventors of the utterly false headline, BILLIONAIRE LEON TUGGS SENDS WIFE OF FORTY YEARS OUT TO PASTURE, and another one, just for good measure, THINGIE SPOUSE SEEKS HOME ON THE RANGE. I have also sent my investigators to try to infiltrate the organization which seems to have sprung up out of Deirdre’s ill-considered gesture, all on its own, and which has already set up offices in New York and Washington, offensively and possibly illegally appropriating our pasture’s name, Martha Washington’s Nap. It seems to be promoting the insidious idea that if women would scrutinize their investments they could change the world “for the better.” But of course any fool knows that if, in a moment of misguided equal-opportunism, our engineering and industrial establishment were turned over to women to manage and operate for a just day or a week, not to speak of a whole year, the entire world would come to an instant halt.
I appreciate, Rowena, your fey little reports on what’s going on down at the tents—seven at last count—and how it is so much more fun sleeping on the freezing ground in sleeping bags and hearing the pitter-patter of rain at night on the tent canvas. I have suppressed my expressions of outrage that your mother has allowed you to spend whole nights down there with your grandmother, endangering your health, I am sure, probably because your liberal democrat father has somehow twisted her arm. You tell me that the most recent tent is called a yurt and that it has become a combination bath house and kitchen, and that it’s so warm and steamy that the women don’t usually wear any clothes at all. Charming observation, little Rowena. I am surprised that you have not yet reached the age to be shocked.
In my recent night visit in a Hummer specially purchased for the occasion (it will be added to your collection in the appropriate sequence) I was shamefully rebuffed by several women who, had they been dressed properly instead of being bundled up in thick down jackets, I would have probably recognized, even in the rain.
I’m here to see my wife, I bellowed out the open window of the powerful rumbling machine. Please tell her I am here. I could not be sure, but one of them could have been your former third-grade teacher, Ms. Plummets.
She has asked not to be disturbed. She’s meditating.
Meditating? I believe it’s possible to stop meditating at any time. I believe I have even seen her do it, stopping meditating. Repeatedly I have seen her stop meditating. Please tell her I must see her.
No.
Whoever you are, I said, I do not take no for an answer, particularly in matters regarding my own wife. Whereupon they gave me what must be called funny looks and disappeared into the darkness, leaving me no choice but to lean on the horn between bouts of calling your grandmother’s name out the window, in answer to which there was not her familiar voice but a rising crescendo of hostile drumming. By then it was raining so hard I couldn’t tell whether the Hummer was being pelted with clods of mud and turf—which I suspected. But enough, I said to myself, throwing the vehicle in reverse to back up the grassy slope. Progress was slippery but secure in the dark. This is a vehicle the United States Army has certified as being unstuckable. Until a certain point where, on not particularly steep ground, it lost all traction and I could hear the tires singing as they spun on the wet and muddy grass. I switched on all exterior floodlights—which I should have done much earlier—to illuminate an area 360 degrees around the vehicle and was puzzled to see rising around me a white bubbly substance like a kind of inflating pillow. Too late did I realize it was laundry detergent, or rather the suds created by perhaps several boxes or buckets of laundry detergent spread out on the wet grass and in the grooves of my previous tracks, whipped to a rising foam by my deeply cleated but totally useless all-terrain Conquista-Terravanquish-Trak tires, which, at $700 a pop, are guaranteed stuck-proof at depths up to two feet. By the time I became fully aware of my plight, the Hummer was completely enveloped in suds. I feared suffocation. I opened the door and jumped, rather fell, into the now muddy suds. I will spare you the pain of describing the state of your grandfather just after midnight as he staggered inside through a side door of the Manor.
Happily I later obtained a full refund for the Conquista-Terravanquish-Trak tires when the vehicle was finally air-lifted out of the pasture. The event also inspired top-level inquests at Conquista-Terravanquish-Trak and at the Pentagon, resulting in the early retirement of three generals.
* * *
My dearest Rowena, I believe you are old enough to know the meaning of the term practical joke (an oxymoron if ever there was one) but I will nonetheless assume that you were serving as mere putty in the hands of others with their clearly malign intentions. As far as I can make out the path that led to a certain inflammatory pamphlet being placed on my dinner plate (I had just returned from yet another tiring trip to Tokyo and am back in the air heading yet one more time for Tokyo) by your maybe innocent hands probably began with one of the amazons at Camp Martha Washington’s Nap—as the national press will now have it—and then led to your fourth grade class, or more exactly into the hands of your former instructor or minder or whatever, Ms. Plummets, who then—most likely—pressed into your sweaty little palms and those of all your playmates, male and female alike, packets of the pamphlets bound together with rubber bands, and instructions whispered into your innocent ears to the effect of Go forth and ruin the world. Well it certainly ruined my dinner. Some of that superb Japanese tuna I have helicoptered to the back door. What a waste. I can readily imagine your father egging you on. Psst! Right there. On Grandpa’s plate. Right in the middle. Hurry up, he’s coming. Although you now read quite well, happily most of this propaganda is over your head.
Of course I sat down and whipped out my napkin as if there was nothing unusual at finding a rabble-rousing arch-feminist pamphlet on my dinner plate—or to be exact, on one of the Barbed Wire Robber Baron’s dinner plates, Spode, I believe. I carefully unfolded my reading glasses. While seeming to read it carefully—I had no need to read it beyond the first line, WOMEN OF THE WORLD AWAKE—THE LONG NAP IS OVER—I amused myself by tabulating its grammatical and spelling errors, seventeen in number, which gave the impression of a slow and methodical perusal to your father and mother, who were watching me out of the corners of their eyes as they picked away at their salads. Identical pamphlets sat at various angles beside their plates. Your mother’s appeared to have been folded and rumpled and then smoothed out again. To your credit, Fabian, you had turned yours into a paper glider, or into an attempt at one.
I seized upon the moment and pulled my chair up to yours. What you need is more wing, Fabian, more wing surface. More surface equals more lift. It will also improve the balance so it doesn’t nose dive quite so often. Just to be sure, you can add tiny ailerons to give it just the right additional amount of lift. Lift, Fabian, think lift. Lift, think lift even before you begin to fold the paper. Lift, Fabian, lift.
With the remote, I ignited the fireplace log. The screen, as yet unmotorized, was still in place, however. I swept around the table and pulled it aside and then returned to my place and with a single swoop launched the paper glider across the Persian carpet and directly into the flames. With a little poof it was gone.
That was an excellent demonstration of the principle of lift, if I may say so myself, Fabian. To your credit, Fabian, you were appropriately entranced. I fixed my gaze upon your father. Chippo, pass me over yours. I want to make sure that it wasn’t just a fluke, that we have real lift here.
Yes sir, he said with a grimace, handing it to you, Fabian, who passed it on to me. I never should have mocked his preference for calling me sir, which I now found music to my ears, particularly in th
e absence of other editorial comment. In a blink I folded the pamphlet into a slightly different configuration, tested the balance, tweaked the wings, and launched it toward the fireplace. It fell short on the brickwork in front but skidded under the gas log where it slowly turned brown before igniting.
Let’s see if we can do better than that. Deedums? Without looking at me, Deedums handed over her pamphlet. Her swollen red eyes indicated she had been crying. Her mother’s behavior was having the unfortunate effect of shaking her convictions about how the world was arranged, which were passable versions of my own convictions, that men make the world of things in order for it to be a workable place for women, who should busy themselves with peopling the world of men’s things. She knew perfectly well that the Martha Washington’s Nap movement sought to cut the world in half and throw the half it didn’t like—men and their things—into the sea. With her pamphlet, I created yet a third design, which evoked a supersonic fighter plane with little bends at its wing tips. I sailed it straight into the flames. Poof!
And Rowena? Come on, now. But you, little Rowena, or rather not-so-little-anymore Rowena, your cupid lips having—when did this happen?—evolved into a swollen pout and your round saucer blue eyes having acquired a squinting edginess, you slowly pulled the pamphlet off the table and turned and gave your mother the coldest look I have ever seen come out of you.
Which of course I ignored. Oh, I said, I forgot my own. Which I quickly folded up into a complicated four-wing model, launching it vigorously into the fireplace in a down-swooping to up-swinging arc. It disappeared briefly up the chimney before falling back down into the gas logs and bursting into flames. Poof! Not for nothing was I given a prize at the end of my senior year in engineering school for having successfully launched more paper gliders in Riles Lecture Hall—traditional signal to lecturers that they were becoming boring and repetitious—than any other student. The Cement Glider (Class of ’58) has been my prized paperweight ever since. Which is why it occupies the position of honor in the gallery devoted to displaying my world-class collection of paper gliders signed by famous personages.
But the vigor of my swing, or the twisting movement of my torso, sent my left elbow into the stemmed crystal water glass, which fell over with a thump, and we all watched silently as the water fanned out under the lace table cloth.
After that, it was a quiet dinner at least. Probably for the best. As I chewed, I tried not to keep time with the sound of drums echoing up from Camp Martha Washington’s Nap.
* * *
I suppose I should be proud in a way that you mastered the security code to my upstairs studio door, Fabian—your cousin Barton Delahunt is far too doltish for that—though I must express my censure in no uncertain terms for you having chosen to become peeping Toms by means of my binoculars and telescopes set up on tripods. Your flushed faces and giggles as you were bending over to look through the lenses while trying to keep your balance on the footstools you had dragged over to the bay window to get a better view over the treetops, before you noticed my unexpected presence, occasioned by an early return from Moscow—your smirks gave the lie to your too glib excuses—We just wanted to see Grandma—as I chased you two out of my study. And see much more, I am sure. A quick glimpse through the glasses confirmed my suspicions. There was quite a bit of shameless nude sunbathing down there on this unseasonably warm early spring afternoon. Had I been able to instruct you on the intricacies of Industrial Sex, you could have dismissed this mass display of pussies and breasts—I could swear they were all pointed deliberately in the direction of the Manor—as scarcely titillating at all and would have used the binoculars and telescopes as I do, to seek for developments of a strictly political nature. After a careful scanning of the scene, I found none. Being a weekday, the gathering had dwindled to its hardcore group of a hundred or so.
But finally—and reluctantly—I resolved to call the county health department in person, claiming to be a simple landowner. I rarely do anything in person except drive, fly, or boat. But this time I decided to make an exception. I called and introduced myself and complained about the unauthorized encampment in my lower field going under the name of Camp Martha Washington’s Nap.
Well, Mr. Tuggs, we’ve been treating it as a private reception, said the earnest voice of a young liberal democrat civil servant, so called.
A private reception that goes on for thirty-seven days? A private reception that goes on for thirty-seven days and nights? A reception that swells to nearly a thousand over weekends? Features nude sunbathing by day and drum beating and bonfires by night? A private reception, you say? I would like you to explain in detail your definition of a “private reception.”
Well I believe, Mr. Tuggs, we have all the requisite permits for whatever goes on there, obtained by—one moment please. There were some rumbling noises and he then came back on the phone and tentatively read out my Deirdre’s name. I could have guessed this in advance. This is your wife, am I correct, Mr. Tuggs?
Who else do you think she is?
No one, Mr. Tuggs. But as co-owner of record of Fairlawn-Fairview Lake Manor she has taken out the requisite permits for what she describes on the form as a permanent private reception.
And you accepted that?
No Mr. Tuggs, I did not. The approval was signed by Thea Westheim, the county health director, who I believe is at the reception as we speak. We haven’t seen her in the office for days.
I slammed down the phone and reminded myself never to do anything in person ever again. The terrible thought occurred to me that I might be losing my touch. I went back to the telescope, hoping to find a clue how to end this backyard insurrection. National Guard? Pinkertons? A good blizzard would do it in a flash, of course.
Damned global warming.
25. 1:8 SCALE 1953 INDIAN BLACK HAWK CHIEF MOTORCYCLE WITH SIDECAR
ON THE OCCASION OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF Thingie® Corporation International’s gross sales having attained $10,000,000,000, I am adding these 1:8 scale prairie-green 1953 Indian Black Hawk Chiefs to your collections—the original of which I purchased ten years ago, on the signal date in question, though I believe I have only ridden the bike on public holidays on three or four occasions, accompanied by two armed bodyguards on Harleys and a surgeon with expertise in emergency medicine on a Honda, and a mechanic expert in antique Indian motorcycles on his Suzuki, followed by my caterer in a stretch GMC Suburban owned by the company—all at the insistence of your grandmother Deirdre, who fainted when I took her out onto the front verandah for her first look and gestured toward the magnificent machine parked in the shade of the circular front drive. Often we were honored by an ad-hoc police escort. Behind my dark goggles and under my safety helmet, I was no doubt mistaken for the President, or a former President, and I waved accordingly.
The ten-billion-dollar mark, which corresponded coincidentally with the harvesting of our first million acres of timber, was the first credible index—to the skeptics—that Thingie® Corporation International actually had some hope of conquering the market. This finally put to an end what one might call the “paper tiger” phase in which critics had been dismissing the Thingie® as a flash in the pan, the Hula Hoop of home and office products, here today and gone tomorrow. I could go on and on, listing all the words and phrases and sound bites that critics of the Thingie® have since had to sit down and eat plain and raw, even as they try to distract themselves by re-arranging all the Thingies® and Thingamabobs® on their desks.
These same critics have of course seized upon Camp Martha Washington’s Nap with all the fury of sharks held too long on vegetarian diets and are now indulging in orgies of speculation, particularly about the state of my soul in this time of crisis. What must it feel like—their favorite phrase—to be the third richest man in the universe and have your wife of forty years plotting revolution in your lower field with a bunch of half-naked (actually fully unclothed, weather permitting) amazons? Happily they don’t know old Deirdre. They don’t kn
ow that she’s probably more like the queen bee, just sitting there and enjoying all the fawning and attention, now and then shifting a thigh in order to lay an egg. Do I miss her? Damned right I do. Who wouldn’t miss a woman who every single morning of our married life—she does this on the phone when I’m traveling on business—checked that all my shirt and suit buttons were properly buttoned and made sure the zipper on my fly was up and the belt through all the loops and my tie properly cinched up, and who said goodbye every morning with a little chant, Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch—everything on board? I am not good at either dressing or eating, always a sign of brilliance.
It was therefore with the greatest of reluctance that I rummaged through Deirdre’s motorized walk-in closets and, almost averting my eyes, chose a flowing green full-length coat and a large green hat with a veil, which at least would go well with the prairie green paint job of the Indian. By wrapping the coat around my pinstripe suit I intended to create an impression from a distance, not close up, in order to gain entrance into the inner sanctum of Camp Martha Washington’s Nap and have a little chat with my wife at last. The hat was certainly a finishing touch. I strode downstairs and out into the garage, recently expanded from seven to eighteen stalls, at the far end of which was parked the somewhat neglected Indian. But tires were firm, there was a full tank of gas and no oil drips on the floor, so I opened the fuel shut-off and set the choke and gave the machine a few priming kicks—and amazingly it fired up, with a cloud of blue smoke. I back-walked it out of the garage and then headed down the drive, veil lowered over my face. I was vaguely under the impression that shouts of Hey, you were coming from behind, but a running figure in the rear-view mirror was a vibrating blur. Probably one of my mechanics.
Petroleum Man Page 11
