by Dana Spiotta
“I’m going to make some phone calls and get some money,” he said. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Get ready.”
She listened to the radio and emptied the apartment of any evidence of them. She wiped rubbing alcohol on every surface. There wasn’t any news.
When Bobby walked in later, he didn’t say anything. She knew instantly—his face was white. He was sweating.
“Oh no,” she said.
“I’ll drop you at Grand Central, and then I’ll go to Port Authority,” he said. He spoke in a flat, low voice.
She couldn’t speak.
“Are you ready?”
She nodded.
“No talking in the cab, okay?” He picked up their bags.
The cab ride went so fast. Why was everything moving so fast?
At the station he kissed her. After he left, she walked quickly to the women’s room, closed herself in a stall, bent over the toilet and waited to be sick.
Louise watched the news as always. More KGB files had been opened and made public. The files revealed several previously unknown British and American agents. She watched the press descend on a petite, ancient lady. Under a code name, she had spied for decades, all the while living the life of a modest civil servant. The cameras hounded this lady in her lace collar and barrette-clipped hair. Why? They Wanted to Know: Why and What and How. She told them she had no regrets.
“How much did they pay you?” they asked.
“I did not want money. I’m not sure the younger generation understands. I’m not sure they accept it. We wanted the Soviets to be on equal footing with the West. We wanted them to have a chance. We believed in it. It was what we thought was right.”
“Yes, but how much money did you get?”
She just shook her head.
“Aren’t you sorry for what you did?”
Louise turned off the TV. She really was going to do it. She was going to turn herself in. And no one would understand. It didn’t matter at all.
Last Things
AFTER HENRY died, Nash wanted to do something to their ad, a tribute of some kind. But he put it off and never got around to it. He even avoided driving past the billboard on Second Avenue for a while. He just didn’t have it in him anymore. The will to do it. He was tired.
He drove a lot these days. Henry had left him his car. And the bookstore. Nash couldn’t refuse, but he sort of cursed Henry as he drove. He drove sometimes at night when he couldn’t sleep. Which was pretty often. He missed Henry, he really did. And now and then he thought of Miranda. He knew she didn’t go back to New York, but he never saw her. And he thought about other things, too. Like when and how, which were questions he hadn’t thought about in years.
About two months after Henry died, Nash was driving home from the University District to Capitol Hill. It was a rainy evening, and the roads were deserted. Nash listened to talk radio. At the top of the hour they announced the news headlines. A newly released study linked the antianxiety drug Nepenthex with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Not only was there a connection between cancer and Nepenthex but the university scientists doing the original FDA test reports had covered up possible carcinogenic evidence. Several of these scientists admitted to getting large grants from Allegecom, the corporation that owns Nepenthex. They denied any conflict of interest. The FDA was temporarily banning sales of Nepenthex. Allegecom was seeking an injunction to stop the ban.
Nash headed straight on Second Avenue. Why not? It was a lonely, dark night. He could find some way to trash that vinyl billboard. He wasn’t going to climb the face of the building, but he should be able to spill paint down from the roof. He’d kept the five gallons of latex paint in his trunk for weeks. He would do it. He owed it to Henry.
His mouth started to get dry. He could easily be caught and arrested, but he had nothing to lose at this point, nothing.
The building with the board came into view. But instead of the luminous pink letters and sculpted pills, a black face loomed. A huge skull and crossbones obscured the ad. When Nash got closer, he could see it was a vinyl overlay designed specifically for the board. The names Blythin and Nepenthex were visible, and Pherotek, as well as one luminous pill. But the skull and crossbones loomed above them. And above the skull was the legend in cutout letters: WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Nash stopped his car in front of the billboard. It was fantastic. Perfectly done. And so quickly. Better than the feeble gesture he had considered. He got out of the car and stood in the middle of the deserted street in the rain. The board defacement was signed. He could see a small tag on the vinyl face. SAFE, it said. He couldn’t believe it at first. Then he laughed. Someone had finally jacked his acronym. Someone smart.
Nash drove home, all the while trying to guess what SAFE now stood for. Maybe Some Angel Future Ecclesia. Or Safe Appropriations for Ever.
Nash woke up early, made his bed, his toast and his coffee. He ate as he sat near the window, wearing his bathrobe. He watched the first sunlight streaming in, catching the shine on the wood floors, warming him as he finished eating. It was a lovely morning.
He heard a vehement knock at his front door. He quickly got up and started to dress. He put on a sweater. He bent over and tied his hiking boots. He put on his peacoat and his watch cap. More knocking and talking.
He stuck a pen in the spiral of his notebook and tucked it in his large welt coat pocket. He opened the front door. Two men stood in the doorway in suits and overcoats. The Cascades loomed in the distance behind the men. The mountain peaks were clearly visible and, he finally had to admit, gorgeous. One of the men reached into his coat.
“What took you so long?” Nash said.
She pressed the buzzer. The wooden fence was over six feet tall. A woman’s voice answered.
“It’s Jeanie Morris for Mrs. Benton.”
“She’s not at home.”
“She’s expecting me. I have an envelope to drop off for her.” Mary clutched the small envelope in one hand, and in the other she held a purse. Tiny drops of sweat collected on her upper lip despite the chilly wind blowing off the ocean. The door buzzed, and she walked into the heavily landscaped courtyard. The house was new but built to resemble a Victorian shingle-style beach bungalow. But it was huge—a mansion bungalow. Mary heard her heels click on the stone path. She wore a linen mididress that hit just above the knee, a matching jacket, and low-heeled shoes with squared toes and daisy-shaped buckles. The shoes matched the leather of the snap-closed purse. She had put on a full face of base, lipstick, eyeliner and powder. Her hair was up and high, a hairdo. As she got ready, each detail of makeup and clothing had made her feel braver. She was putting on armor. It girded her, using the innocuous mascara wand and smelling the crisp linen. She felt hidden and quite capable. Clean and ladylike and dangerous.
Go ahead, underestimate me, she thought. When she arrived at the front step, she had a confident but blank smile.
A middle-aged woman opened the door. She also had a blank, unreadable smile.
“I’m Mrs. Malcolm, the housekeeper. I’ll see that Mrs. Benton gets your letter.” She barely looked at Mary as she took the envelope.
“I’m so sorry to have missed Mrs. Benton.”
“I’ll tell her you were here.” Mrs. Malcolm began to close the door.
“May I use your washroom to freshen up?” Mary said. The housekeeper didn’t hesitate.
“It’s right over here,” she said, and Mary followed her to a small bathroom under the main stairwell. Mary closed the door and gently placed her purse on the closed toilet lid. She looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. A wave of tightness moved through her stomach and chest. She grasped the sink and thought for a second she might faint. She ran the water and took several deep breaths. She put her face down to the faucet and drank directly from the running water. She thought of all the terrible, ugly things that had built this opulent, ugly house.
Under the sink was an oak cabinet with two hinged doors in the front. She opened it. In ad
dition to the plumbing she could see a round toilet brush and a bottle of Mr. Clean. She lifted the purse from the toilet and kneeled in front of the cabinet. She placed the purse carefully inside, under the curve of plumbing. Holding the handle in her left hand, she opened the clasp with her right. A clock face, some wires and a mound of molded plastic no bigger than two fists.
She looked at her watch.
She put her hand in the purse and held the clock face steady.
She pulled the pin up until it clicked.
She listened for the faint ticking.
She inhaled.
She let go.
Jason’s Journal
IT DIDN’T HAPPEN the way I imagined it would. No drama, no epiphanies. No breakpoint. Just a gradual and increasing distance. I feel so disloyal copping to this, kind of sad really. What I mean is, I never listen to the Beach Boys anymore. Not a note, not ever. The plastic-sleeve-encased vinyl sits untouched in a box in my room (in chronological order of release, of course). I still admire them, appreciate them, but it is almost purely intellectual now. I don’t have the deep-felt desire to listen over and over. I honestly never thought the day would really come. And although it is sad, it is also kind of a relief, a liberation. As more time goes by, I discover other things to fill that now vacated space. Or perhaps I found the other things first and that’s what pushed the Beach Boys slowly to the perimeter. All I know is I now have time to listen to my Kinks records, a band I have come to really admire. Although I somehow don’t anticipate a connection quite as deep as the Beach Boys. That was, perhaps, a one-off. And other interests and thoughts, some even unrelated to vintage music, have settled in, even flourished.
As I said, it wasn’t dramatic or at all deliberate. I just started to turn to those records less and less. And when I did listen to them, my mind wandered more and more. I skipped songs. Or maybe it is as simple as I wore out the old material and I ran out of new material to listen to (it is—after all and despite all the bootlegs—ultimately a finite set of work).
Don’t get me wrong. It is not as though I am about to put my half-speed-mastered 180-gram-vinyl Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) up for auction on eBay anytime soon. Not the rare 1965 British-issue 45, mint and in original sleeve, of “God Only Knows” backed with “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” (worth a considerable amount in the collectors’ market). Not even my used, cheaply issued compact disc version of The Beach Boys Love You (featuring odd, synthetic-sounding keyboards and arguably the strangest album the Beach Boys ever made). No, I will keep all the LPs, all the CDs, all the singles and all the EPs for two important reasons:
First, at some point enough time will have gone by of not listening that I’ll listen again and it might sound fresh and new. It could again totally engage me, maybe in even deeper ways because I’ll be an older, and presumably deeper, person. I might find things in it I never was able to hear before in my younger life. I might become just as enchanted, just as joyously captivated. I could fall in love all over again. All of that could come to pass. It is possible, isn’t it?
The second reason I feel compelled to keep these artifacts is because of something I am quite certain will transpire. I need these records because one day, years from now, I will listen to this music and I will remember exactly what it was like to be me now, or me a year ago, at fifteen, totally inhabited by this work, in this very specific place and time. My Beach Boys records sit there, an aural time capsule wired directly to my soul. Something in that music will recall not just what happened but all of what I felt, all of what I longed for, all of who I used to be. And that will be something, don’t you think?
Acknowledgments
The following people answered many questions and gave their time to me: Beep Brown, Blake Hayes and Tim Horvath of Cherry Valley, New York. Kristi Kenny at Left Bank Books, Eric Laursen of AWIP, Carter Adamson of Skype, Dustan Sheppard of ICQ. Richard Frasca. David Meyer. George Andreou.
Thank you to Liza Johnson for letting me see her movie. And all the other people who helped me. I am indebted to Cecil B. Currey and his essay “Residual Dioxin in Vietnam.”
Thanks for the practical help that makes writing time possible—Jessie and Ted Dawes, Terry Halbert and Bill Coleman. Special thanks to Willy Brown and Rebecca Wright for the Roseboom Housing Fellowship.
I am so fortunate to have Nan Graham as my editor. Thank you for all your time and attention. Thank you also to Alexis Gargagliano for her hard work. And to Melanie Jackson for her enthusiasm and encouragement.
Thank you, Don. Thank you, Gordon.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not send a huge and never-ending shout out to Clement and Agnes for all their inspiration and patience.
About the Author
Dana Spiotta is the author of the novel Lightning Field, a New York Times Notable Book and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. She lives in Cherry Valley, New York, with her husband and daughter.
