Deep Cover

by Brian Garfield

  “Should I wear this dress?”

  “Why not?”

  “Fred, you haven’t even looked at it.”

  She stood by the open closet holding a loosely pleated yellow dress on a hanger, spreading it out over her forearm and giving it the uncertain appraisal of a shopper in a department store. She had always been lean and she had become a little bony the past few years—there was folded flesh at her elbows—but her posture was very good, she didn’t have the caved-in slump of underweight middle age. She was in her bra and slip and her breasts looked full and round in the thin pink hammocks. Her face was chiseled and lovely but strong rather than warm. She had the power to attract men’s second looks, and she did not look like the mother of a twenty-two-year-old son. Winslow said, “The dress is fine. Come here.”

  “No. You’d muss my hair, I’d leak all night, and anyway we haven’t time.”

  “So damned practical.” He rolled his feet to the floor and started to dress. “I saw the yellow car outside. Alec in his room?”

  “He’s writing a paper for one of his courses.” She pushed the straight brown hair back from her eyes and gave him a smile that was distant and distracted; she presented her back to him and he zipped her up and she waited without moving until he gave her rump the ritual hand pat.

  She went to the closet to get her sandals. She had the legs of a fashion model and he thought, I’m lucky; why can’t I just think about that? But he was profoundly depressed. What was survival worth if it meant the need for endless caution? Mere existence wasn’t enough: there had to be the promise of freedom from terror, there had to be hope.

  She said, “Barbara’s letter is on the table next to you.”

  He read it with a creeping sense of guilt. He rarely thought of Barbara except when her letters arrived, punctually every week, and when the headmaster mailed her monthly report card.

  Her letter was full of the impatient strugglings of a nonverbal teen-ager to find something to say. Last Christmas she had come home for two weeks and shocked him—her skirt as high as her fanny, coping with adult bras and her first pair of false eyelashes. He was too concerned to be amused: she was fourteen and he wondered how soon she would be experimenting with grass and pills and vaginal foam and her first orgasm, if she hadn’t done already. In a few years’ time would she be freaked out in a pad somewhere with walls papered with posters of Fidel and Mao and the Panthers? The orthodontist says my braces can come off in May. At least she could spell. He remembered the ridiculous silver-frosted paint she had put on her fingernails. Oh, Daddy, I mean, it’s only sort of, like, you know, everybody wears nail polish, hey?

  He put a clean shirt on. “I’ve told them and told them and told them no starch in the collars. Christ.”

  “What’s come over you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Rubbish.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Fred.”

  “Do we have to talk it to death? All right, look, we’ve somehow turned into middle-aged, middle-class Americans. Doesn’t that frighten you? With a slightly retarded son in college and a disgustingly typical fourteen-year-old daughter. We—”

  “He’s not retarded! For God’s sake.”

  “All right, he’s dumb.”

  “He’s as bright as you are. It isn’t his fault he’s a couple of years behind the rest of them; he was ill. But he’s perfectly—”

  “Fine,” he conceded. “Let’s not argue the point. Whatever they are, they’re ordinary American kids—doesn’t that scare you?”

  “Why ever should it?”

  “What on earth is going to happen when Alec and Barbara find out?”

  “Fred.”

  Her tone was different and he straightened from his shoelaces to look at her.

  She said, “Do you know the risk we take just having this conversation?”

  “We have to trust each other, don’t we?” But he knew what she meant. When they had serious things to discuss privately they always went outdoors.

  He rammed his shirt tails into his trousers and started into the hall. “Want a drink?”

  “Yes.”

  He went to the little portable bar in the living room. From the back of the house he heard the muted racket of the radio, a hard-rock beat that meant Alex had opened his door. In a moment his son appeared in sandals, tight chino pants and a fatigue shirt. Alec mumbled something by way of greeting and Winslow said, “Taking five?”

  “I, uh, figured I’d go out for a little while, finish up later.”

  “Then at least you could turn that radio off.”

  “Uh.” Alec scuffed back down the hall and after a moment the noise stopped.

  Celia arrived and gave her husband her wry smile and when Alec reappeared Winslow said, “You kids deplore the mechanization and dehumanization of technological life and you love this music that’s nothing but electronics and mechanical noise. It’s the least humanized music in the history of mankind. How can you explain that?”

  “You always have to make sense out of things, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “Sometimes you need to just put it in the groove and let it wail. Anyhow why ask me about it? You’ve got plenty of straights full of fifty-dollar-an-hour reasons for everything everybody does.”

  Winslow watched him. The boy shifted from foot to foot with his hands in his pockets and Winslow said, “Are you on something, Alec?”

  “No.”

  Winslow’s silence argued with him and Alec’s head lifted. “I know I’m stupid but I do know the difference between freaky kicks and getting hung. I’ve seen them ride and I’ve seen them fall. Nobody comes down easy. I don’t even try.”

  Winslow followed it, more or less. “I believe you; does that make me a typical straight fool parent who believes everything his kid tells him?”

  “I don’t know what it makes you.” Alec moved two steps sideways, like a crab. “It’s true, that’s all. I don’t use anything except maybe grass now and then, and I don’t keep that at home.”

  “I’m grateful for that.”

  “Because you won’t get raided?”

  “Because I can’t stand the smell of the stuff. Is there something on your mind, Alec? Something you want to talk to me about?”

  “Uh, I was going to ask you, what are you going to do about Senator Forrester?”

  It startled him. “What?”

  “He’s a heavy guy, Dad.”

  “And?”

  “Everybody figures he wants to inspect the base, and a lot of people are waiting to see, uh, what you guys are going to do about it. I mean, if you guys try to shoot down Senator Forrester it could make a lot of noise.”

  “What kind of noise?”

  “Look, there’s walking around the air-base gate with picket signs like they’re doing now, and then there’s going out on that jet runway and having a sit-in on the pavement.”

  “To stop the planes?”

  “It’s been mentioned.”

  “Did those kids tell you to put it to me that I’d better help Senator Forrester or else?”

  “Or else what, Dad?”

  “I do a job. My job isn’t going to be influenced by any crazy attempts at extortion.”

  “No extortion. The people are just waiting to see what happens, that’s all.” Alec’s expression changed briefly, more a tic than a smile; he lunged toward the door.

  Celia appeared in the kitchen door. “Dinner’s going to be on the table soon.”

  “Save me a slice cold. I got to go.”

  Winslow said, “You might have told your mother before.”

  “Okay, I forgot. Is that a misdemeanor or something?”

  Celia said, “Go to your meeting. I’ll keep your plate warm for you.”

  Alec took a hand out of his pocket to open the front door and went out without saying good-bye.

  Winslow said, “That kid doesn’t even know how to spell discipline.”

  When he heard
Alec’s car start away with a guttural belch of noise he crossed the room and propped his shoulder in the kitchen doorway. “I hope they’re just blowing off steam. They wouldn’t get as far as the runway of course but if they did they might get hurt—a dose of jet exhaust wouldn’t leave much of them.”

  She looked up from the stove but there was no time for a reply. The doorbell rang.

  Ramsey Douglass was narrow as a plank and clothed in a slim sharkskin suit that gave him an air of slick elegance. He was a little sickly with his conspiratorial mannerisms; there was something silken and rustling about him. Middle age had settled his eyebrows into arches of perpetual irony. He sat on the small of his back, filled with sleepy sardonic arrogance. All through dinner he had filled the air with tart bitter commentaries: he had a ruthless and superficial felicity with words.

  Winslow had eaten very little and consumed the lion’s portion of the Beaujolais.

  Douglass was Matthewson-Ward’s SATAF coordinator and that put him at home both in the hardware industry and in Air Force circles; he was also deep in local politics and had been Congressman Trumble’s chief campaign-speech writer.

  Douglass sipped cognac and chain-smoked and held forth in his wintry caustic voice. “You cradle them in comforts, you sell yourselves on the curious notion that they’re the most dedicated and principled and magnificent generation ever born, you accept without argument the proposition that they alone recognize the maladies of the world and have the wisdom to chart a new course for us all. What the hell do you expect them to do when you hand them carte blanche?”

  Winslow made a noncommittal sound to indicate he was listening.

  “You parents let them overrun you. You let them overrun their teachers and their school administrators. You’re refusing to defend civilized values against these barbarian kids—you’re handing them the world and telling them it’s theirs to play with. I promise you I’m not nearly as afraid of the warmongers and capitalists and polluters and over populaters as I am of these babies. What’s going to happen to the civilizations we know when this generation of ugly self-indulgent brats grows old enough to take over? What have any of them accomplished that earns them the right to be held up as the sages of our age?”

  Celia laughed at him. She had that strength. Winslow had known him half his lifetime but had never developed nerve enough to laugh at Douglass. Celia said, “They started with sensible ideals, Rams. It wasn’t until they saw that nobody was listening to them that they started to get raucous.”

  “Nobody was listening? Christ we were listening. We listened to them tell us that Mao was the only real Communist, that the Panthers are just peace-loving folks at heart, that there’s no choice between the USSR and the USA because they’re both fascist dictatorships, that the kids have the right to destroy the universities because they don’t like the color of the wall paint. We listened, Celia. We just didn’t believe it. These kids talk peace and make guerrilla war with terrorist tactics. They reject materialism and they embrace Daddy’s credit card. They claim the establishment won’t budge from its unyielding position but they offer nothing but nonnegotiable demands. They tell us to open our eyes and they glaze their own with drugs. They—”

  “All right,” Celia said. “We get the point. You’re turning into an archconservative, Rams.”

  “Hell, I’m the only one in this room who hasn’t sold out to bourgeois values. These babies aren’t leftists. They’re babies, playing with toys because you gave them the toys to play with.”

  “But don’t you find something gallant about them? At least they’re willing to question the bourgeois values. They may be the first generation in history that’s dared to challenge the contradiction between ideals and realities.”

  “Crap. Infantile romanticism. They’re a kept generation—no sense of humor, they can’t communicate with each other without sex because nobody ever gave them an incentive to learn basic English. They’re experts at hooting down speakers and breaking up meetings—they’ll defend to the death your right to agree with them but if you argue rationally their only answer is to shout you down and throw bombs. It makes me think of Hitler’s brownshirts. Did you ever hear one of these kids stand up and insist that the kids should be expected to live up to their own demands? They make great high moral demands on everybody but themselves. Disagree with them and right away you’re pigeonholed: another brainwashed member of the mindless fascist mass. Including you and me, which is pretty damn funny, you know. In Russia these kids would be put away until they learned the meaning of loyalty.”

  Celia crossed her fine long legs and smiled, and Winslow found himself staring stupidly at his own wife’s discreet décolletage. He had learned long ago he was no match for Douglass’ devious rhetoric and Celia’s stubborn ripostes; he did not intrude.

  Celia said, “Don’t you think they’re having the same problems in Russia?”

  “They’ll never let it get out of hand this way.”

  “What will they do, then? Purge a whole generation? Destroy the nation’s youth?”

  “If they have to. It’s been done before. Stalin killed far more Russians than non-Russians but you notice the Soviet Union has survived and that’s the important thing.”

  Celia said, “You’d have a different slant if you had children of your own.”

  “Thankfully I haven’t.”

  “You really should have got married a long time ago.” She was teasing him and Winslow resented her complacency because she was impervious to Douglass’ abrasiveness and he was not.

  “Why get married?” Douglass said. “It only means you’ll probably get divorced.” His eyebrows stirred. “Actually I suppose it all shouldn’t come as a surprise—the kids are uninspired because they’ve got uninspired parents. Wouldn’t you say, Fred?”

  “What?” The skin on Winslow’s face tightened.

  “Look at you—soft around the middle, living in this plastic air-conditioned bourgeois paradise, going through life like a puppy that keeps wagging its tail hoping it’ll persuade people not to kick it again. That’s what that kid of yours sees—a tired middle-aged guy who goes through life being sold by the last person who spoke to him.”

  Winslow looked down to see that his hand had formed itself into a fist. Douglass laughed. “And never darken my door again, eh? You cut a rather ridiculous figure for a would-be pugilist, Fred.”

  Winslow Opened his hand and heard Celia say, That’s enough, Rams.” Her voice was cool.

  “I suppose it is. I meant nothing personal by it. You do understand, Fred?”

  Winslow made a sound of dismissal and pushed back the red haze of anger. Douglass uncoiled himself and stood up. “I suppose it’s time to go. Oh by the way,” he added, enjoying it, “a gentleman by the name of Dangerfield arrived in town this afternoon and I imagine we’ll be getting together with him and some of our mutual friends very shortly—perhaps tomorrow. It gives pause for thought, doesn’t it, after all this time?”

  “What is it?” Winslow asked. “An inspection?”

  “More than that this time, I think.”

  Celia said, “It doesn’t mean anything,” but not as if she believed it.

  Douglass laughed. “You’d hate for anything to upset the applecart now, wouldn’t you?”

  “And you’d love it.”

  “It isn’t a question of what I’d love. Let’s not forget what we’re here for. Celia, have you got any engagements planned for tomorrow and Thursday? If so cancel them—I’ll want you available instantly. The same goes for you, Fred. Maybe you’d better call in sick tomorrow and stay home.”

  “I can’t. We’ve got a Senatorial investigation coming on the base Friday morning.”

  “Forrester? Yes. Awkward timing, but we’ll see what we can do. If worse comes to worst we’ll meet without you and Celia will bring you up to date.” Douglass turned away and went toward the door and added over his shoulder, “Let me recommend you prepare yourselves for whatever may be required. It may
be time for us to take things out of mothballs and if so we don’t want to find any moth holes in them, do we?”

  Having given himself the curtain line he walked out.

  Winslow watched the red tail lights of Douglass’ Volkswagen disappear down the street and then he slammed the door and tramped back through the house. Celia was already outside in the yard. They walked silently down the dusty alley the length of the block and turned right on the gravel sidewalk. There was a chill and he wished he’d brought a sweater.

  “He was only trying to throw a scare into us.”

  “He wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, Fred.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. I wouldn’t put anything past him. Thanks for sticking up for me.”

  “Did I?”

  “When you told him to shut up. I wanted to smash a few of his teeth.”

  “That wouldn’t have been too bright, would it.”

  “‘Whatever may be required,’” he said. “What did he mean by that?”

  “I don’t think he knows, himself.”

  “He knows something we don’t know. How can you take it so calmly?”

  “What can we do except wait?”

  They crossed a street and Winslow said, “Suppose we have to do something that ruins everything we’ve got here?”

  “We’ve lived with that for years.”

  “Is that all there is to it? What about the kids? What do we tell them?”

  “We don’t tell them a thing, Fred.”

  “Sure. It’ll be lovely if they have to find out from someone else.”

  “Who else is going to tell them?”

  “For all we know we’ll be in the headlines.”

  “For all we know we won’t.” She stopped and turned and faced him. “Fred, it’s what we are here for.”

  “How can they expect us to be the same people we were then? Just because they’ve banked double pay for us and told us we could come home to early retirement as soon as we’re finished here? Do they think that’s really what we want after all this time? Go home to what? No friends left over there—God, we’d even have to learn the language all over again. A miniature apartment with a tiny refrigerator and if we’re lucky central heating to get through those God damned winters—spend half a day standing in line to buy your clothes, maybe use half our savings to buy an unreliable little excuse for a car so we can go to the country on a few weekends in the summer when it’s not snowed in. That’s no good for us any more—you know it and they must know it; it’s too late for all that. We’ve changed too much.”