“It doesn’t matter, Mom. You okay?”
“There are onions on the floor.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll clean them up.”
She nodded and left the room. When she came back a few minutes later, she had her overcoat and hat on.
“I’m going down to the lake,” she said. “Want to come too?”
We got into my car and negotiated the icy gray streets.
“Remember when we used to have proper winters in Vermont?” she asked quietly. “Now the snow’s so damn sporadic that we just have four months of cold, overcast gloom.”
“You sound like a character in a Russian novel.”
“I am Russian,” she said crossly. “And in Russian novels, there is always fucking snow.”
I smiled, relieved to hear Mom back to her old cranky self. We drove down to a small beach right on the lake, parked the car, and walked onto the narrow strip of sand. Mom immediately sat down, clasped her knees to her chest, and looked out at the Adirondack skyline way across the lake in New York State. Though her hair was completely gray and she needed heavy prescription lenses to see the world, her posture on the beach was that of a young girl, staring out at the water, wondering what the future would bring her. Until she said, “You know what I regret most in my life? The fact that I don’t do happy.”
“Does anybody?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think there are a lot of people out there who are reasonably content. Or, at least, I want to think that. Because I’ve never been content, never been—”
She broke off again, losing the train of thought, blinking into the thin winter sunlight covering the lake. Three months later, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s—and she began the long, slow descent into silence.
I don’t do happy.
Staring out at the Atlantic from the prospect of a sand dune on Popham Beach, Mom’s words came back to me—and I couldn’t help but think that I don’t really do happy either. It’s not that I’m discontented with everything . . . it’s just that I’ve never really felt that ongoing exhilaration that you hope will accompany life. Oh, there have been moments of pleasure, of fun, of a sense that everything is just fine. But these have been largely occasional; episodic flashes amid the day-to-day stuff that constitutes a life. And no, I’m not a gloom merchant who thinks she’s had an unhappy life. But still . . . the idea of waking up enthused, of battling against all the everyday stuff, and seeing the little time you have here as a great adventure . . .
No, that’s not exactly been me. All right, I’ve maintained a certain curiosity, I try to remain optimistic, but . . .
I don’t do happy.
Does Dan? He never seems cheerless, but he also never comes across as greatly enthused. It’s just not his thing. He keeps it all so level, so controlled. He doesn’t do happy either.
And Jeff? The angry man, always railing against whatever doesn’t fit with his rigid point of view, so insanely concerned with appearing to be the Great Husband and Father, Mr. Family Values, Mr. Corporate America. Does he do happy?
And then there’s Lizzie—my poor lost girl who once seemed to be in such splendid control of her life, so determined to avoid all the pitfalls that land so many people in professional and personal culs-de-sac from which it is very difficult to escape.
And now . . .
Oh God, here we go again.
I felt the tears sting my eyes and tried to tell myself it was a reaction to the salty air. I forced myself to keep walking, to raise my eyes above the sand and keep them focused on the ceaseless roll of the Atlantic. So much for emptying my head of everything that was tearing me apart right now. But how could I really expect to void all thoughts of Lizzie at a moment of such desperate uncertainty, when I didn’t know if she was alive or dead or sleeping in some gutter or . . .
I kept walking, pushing myself up the beach, past the shuttered summer cottages, and the great colonial revival homes that defined the farthest corner of Popham, keeping up a brisk pace until I reached that point where I was directly opposite an imposing lighthouse, several hundred yards out to sea. I checked my watch. Four-forty p.m. Time to hightail it back to the parking lot.
Thanks to my pressing concern about getting off the beach, the sense of being besieged by grief lifted for a little while—and for the first time since this nightmare began, I could exist in the moment without the crushing weight of Lizzie’s disappearance impinging on my every thought.
I reached the car just as night fell. A low fog was rolling in off the sea, so I had to peer over my headlights as I drove slowly back to the interstate. By the time I reached I-295, it was well after six. But instead of heading home, I decided to turn north, driving another thirty minutes up the coast to Wiscasset—one of those postcard-perfect New England towns of white clapboard churches and sea captains’ houses with widow’s walks. It was packed in the summer with tourists and blessedly empty at this time of year. But there was a small restaurant on the main street, which I gambled on being open. I won the wager—and basically had the place to myself. The waiter gave me a booth, leaving me plenty of space to spread out the endless sections of the Sunday New York Times while I ate clam chowder and scrod, drank two glasses of sauvignon blanc, and quietly reveled in this time by myself and the simple pleasure of lingering over food and newsprint for a couple of hours.
By the time I got back to Falmouth, it was after nine. As I approached the Bucknam Road exit, I was tempted to keep on driving. I didn’t want to go home, didn’t want to tell Dan about the bad interview, didn’t want to hear bad news from Detective Leary. I just wanted to stay on this road.
But there was already one runaway in this family—and I knew that, like it or not, unpleasant stuff must always be faced (the old New England sensibility always kicks in). So I made the turnoff and pulled into our driveway ten minutes later.
The lights were off downstairs, but I could hear the bedroom television. I went upstairs. Dan was already in bed, watching some History Channel documentary on Stalin. Why do so many middle-aged men have such an addiction to the History Channel? It wasn’t, I felt, a thirst for knowledge—rather, a need for some sort of visceral experience beyond their own day-to-day grind. Dan looked up as I entered, raised the remote control, and lowered the volume.
“So where did you disappear to?” he asked quietly.
I told him.
“Sounds nice,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen. “We had a couple of calls while you were out.”
“Detective Leary?”
He shook his head. “Just your dad, wanting an update, and Jeff, sounding pretty damn upset that the Herald’s running the story tomorrow.”
“He certainly won’t be pleased with what they reveal about his sister.”
Dan said nothing. He kept looking at the screen.
“And I’m a bit worried that the stuff I said to the journalist might be taken out of context.”
He still didn’t look over at me.
“I’m sure it won’t be too bad.”
“I really didn’t like the way the interview went.”
“Did he ask some tough questions?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Well, if you answered them reasonably . . .”
“That’s not the point, Dan. The guy’s a tabloid journalist—he’s going to sensationalize everything. And the way he was questioning me, I’m pretty damn sure he’s going to twist everything to . . .”
“Well, if you knew the guy was a tabloid hack, why didn’t you exercise a little caution?”
“Are you kidding me?” I said, trying to keep my anger in check. His eyes remained fixed on black-and-white footage of assorted Russian gulags.
“I’m just saying . . .”
“Do you have amnesia?” I asked.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You asked me to handle the interview, remember?”
“Yeah, but don’t go getting angry at me because it all went wrong.”
; “Oh, thanks a lot . . .”
“Hey, lose the tone.”
“I will not lose the tone—and I’d really appreciate it if you’d look at me while we’re having an argument.”
He clicked off the television, pulled down the covers, and got out of bed, grabbing the robe that he’d left on a nearby chair.
“You’re the one having the argument here, not me.”
“Don’t try to play your usual passive-aggressive games.”
He stopped and looked at me coldly, but his voice was dry, unemotional.
“Passive-aggressive? Since when did you start talking in psychobabble?”
“See? You’re doing it right now!”
He walked toward the door. I said, “I’m not going to let you just leave without . . .”
“Well, I’m not fighting with you over nothing.”
“What is going on right now is hardly nothing. Our daughter is missing.”
“And you are understandably distraught. And I am going to cut you a wide berth and sleep downstairs. Good night.”
He shut the door behind him. My first instinct was to chase after him and demand a confrontation. But I was so infuriated by his pass-the-buck comments—and his usual cunning avoidance of a showdown—that I forced myself to stay put, knowing that all the fear and sorrow I was feeling right now might come out in a vindictive deluge. And there was a big part of me that always worried what might happen between Dan and myself if I ever told him what I really thought about everything to do with us.
So I couldn’t face Dan right now. Just as I couldn’t face a phone conversation with Jeff (anyway, Shannon complained if I ever called after nine). And I frankly didn’t want to try to calm Dad’s anxieties when I couldn’t calm my own. All I wanted to do was sleep.
But sleep was elusive. I woke twice during the night, and didn’t dare take a second sleeping pill for fear of being groggy in the morning—something my students would see and mock. By six, I gave up, tossed aside the book I was reading, and started getting ready for the day.
When I came downstairs twenty minutes later, I saw that Dan’s car was gone from the driveway. There was no note saying he’d headed off earlier—and I was surprised that I didn’t hear him pull out during the last two hours of this nuit blanche. Maybe he’d driven off during one of my dozy moments. My stomach was tense. I hated fights that ended inconclusively, without some sort of détente. Just as I hated myself for rising to combat last night.
I picked up the phone and punched in his number. No answer—just his voice mail. That was strange, him forgetting to turn on his phone, especially given that the hospital always needs to have access to him. No doubt, the stress was making him neglectful too.
I grabbed my gym bag and briefcase and left the house. The sky was still black, a sharp chill to the air. I drove into downtown Portland and parked in front of the gym. Even though there is an excellent gym at the Woodlands Golf Club, where Dan is a member, I’ve never really been able to stomach the country club atmosphere of the place. When the kids were still at home, I couldn’t really stand all the soccer moms who used the gym there . . . largely because they always looked down on me for not being a stay-at-home type like themselves. So I found this basic, utilitarian gym in the business district a few years ago—and I try to work out at least four times a week. It’s a regimen that I find boring but effective when it comes to keeping the weight off and telling yourself that you are stalling the ravages of time—as Margy once noted after we both turned fifty, “From now on, it’s all about damage control.”
Today, however, my half hour on the StairMaster—followed by another twenty minutes with light free weights—was all about trying to dampen down the effects of insomnia and stress. But as I climbed more than a hundred floors on the dreaded machine, all I could think was, How can you engage in something so banal and self-serving while your daughter is still missing?
I knew that my overriding feeling of helplessness stemmed from the fact that, without scouring every park and flophouse in Boston, there was nothing more I could do in the hunt for Lizzie. And in the middle of the endorphin rush that followed the workout, I also resolved not to read The Boston Herald until the end of the working day. After all, bad news doesn’t have to be ingested immediately.
So, on my way to the school, I pulled over to a 7-Eleven and bought that dreaded tabloid, refusing to look at the front page and immediately folding it in half and tucking it into my briefcase. I got back in my car and drove over to the school. It was now seven-thirty. I had just over an hour until my first class. There wasn’t much accumulated mail in my box, but the expected FedEx package from Margy was there. I picked it up and retreated to my little cubicle of an office. I shut the door, took off my coat, sat down behind the metal desk, and opened the package. Inside was a hardcover book, around three hundred pages in length. There was a Post-it from Margy attached to its front cover, with a simple message: Read chapter 4, then call me.
I removed the Post-it and found myself staring at the title:
I Ain’t A-Marching Anymore: Memoirs of a Reformed Radical
Below this was the cover illustration, a split image. On one side was a photograph of the then long-haired author, aged twenty-two, hectoring a crowd of fellow long-haired radicals while somebody burned an American flag in the background. The other side showed the author, now in his fifties, with horn-rimmed glasses and thinning hair, dressed in a sober suit and tie—shaking hands in the Oval Office with a certain George W. Bush. I don’t know which version of Tobias Judson appalled me more.
I fought the urge for a cigarette. I lost. I stood up and opened the window behind me all the way. Then, sticking my head outside, I plugged a Marlboro Light in my mouth and lit up. I smoked it quickly, hoping that a backwind didn’t send its fumes into my office (smoking on school property is a serious offense, especially for staff members). When I had sucked the cigarette right down to its filter, I stubbed it out on the windowsill and tossed it into a drain conveniently located in the ground below.
I retreated back into the room. I shut the window. I sat down again at my desk. I breathed deeply—my head buzzing with the first nicotine jolt of the day. It gave me just enough chemically induced courage to pull the book toward me again. Once again, I started nervously tapping its cover.
Come on, get it over with.
I picked it up, opened it to chapter 4, and started to read.
FOURTEEN
Chapter 4
LOVE ON THE RUN
When the phone call came, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment with George “the Lynx” Jefferson—the Chicago-area “Information Secretary” for the Black Panthers. It was around ten a.m. George had stopped by for an early-morning rap, but back then, after the usual coffee and Danish, no day could begin among comrades without a little taste of the old bong. So we sat cross-legged on the floor, listening to Ornette Coleman’s weird jazzy syncopations while George filled the bong with Panama Red—some of the best grass on the market back then. We were discussing recent “Pig Activity” in the Chicago area—how the cops had just busted Brother Ahmal Mingus for attempting to sabotage all U.S. mail leaving the Chicago-area FBI headquarters—when the phone snapped into life. I exhaled a lungful of Panama Red and answered it.
“Yo,” I said.
“That Groucho?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Hey, if I was Harpo, I wouldn’t be talking,” I said.
“Jack Daniels here. How about picking up a newspaper for me? But come prepared.”
Within moments, I had grabbed my coat and was out the door. “Groucho,” you see, was my code name in the Weather Underground, because I had always been their most outspoken advocate of Marxist economics. “Hey, if I was Harpo” was the coded exchange I always used whenever “Jack Daniels”—the head of my Weatherman cell—called to verify that he was speaking with me. “And how about picking up a newspaper for me” meant only one thing—it was an order to walk to a public phone on the stree
t, where I was to await a call that couldn’t be tapped. “But come prepared” was coded language for: pack a bag and be ready to split.
So I did as commanded: I threw some clothes in a backpack, grabbed the $300 in cash and false ID I kept hidden away for just a moment like this, and told George he too had to split right now. Without even looking around to see if I’d left the stove on or the fridge open, we both snuck out a back door, scanning the street to check if we were under pig surveillance. The coast clear, we gave each other the clenched revolutionary salute . . . and started walking in different directions.
The phone was just three streets away from the main gates of the University of Chicago—now, as then, the sort of institute of higher learning that embraces a Left Bank–style disdain for American values.
I reached it just as it started to ring.
“Groucho?” Jack Daniels asked.
“Hey, if I was Harpo . . .”
“Affirmative,” he said. “I’ll be fast. The Man is onto your roommates for the past couple of days.”
“How on?”
“I’d say you should clear the area now.”
“Are you talking about a hop and a skip?” I asked, code for jumping the border into Canada.
“Let’s not go drastic yet, especially as they could be watching all such exit points. Why not hit the road for a while? Get lost somewhere quiet, out of the range of media attention. And when you’ve found a safe haven, call me on the secure line and let me know your whereabouts. Happy trails, Comrade.”
What had happened was this: after the bombing of the Department of Defense by another Weatherman cell, Jack Daniels contacted me and said that, as the police and the FBI had thrown a virtual blockade around the city, I would have to let these comrades hide out with me until the heat was off. Now, thanks to my radical indoctrination, I didn’t think once of questioning the idea of harboring two murderers—men who, through their violent, egocentric actions, had been responsible for the deaths of two upstanding citizens: Wendall Thomas III and Dwight Cassell, both African-Americans, both veterans of Korea, and both family men with five children between them. But did I think about the innocent death of these men, guarding a government department responsible for the security of our nation? To me—the great Marxist—they were simply collateral damage in the struggle for revolutionary change.
The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1 Page 147
