Willie always has other people’s names for Mickey, never “Mickey.” George is the one he uses the most.
Willie says cracklingly, “Hold it, boys, I’ve got to do something to repair this scandalous situation.” Then he’s gone.
Rex has situated the small box in the cab somewhere. Through the yellow haze of fight-or-flight and too much sun, Mickey can’t see Rex’s face now, even though Rex is standing in front of him. Mickey leans over the side of the truck bed, trying to look casual, sees clearly the red lettering on the doors of the truck parked up there among the trees, close to Willie’s workshop: WILLIAM D. LANCASTER, LANDSCAPING & TREE WORK.
Now he sees, coming from one of the two connected mobile homes, Willie with a gun. He turns back around to face the weirdly perfect ranch house where he has heard ordinary schoolteachers live. Probably very thin-lipped Mr. Carney look-alikes. But Mickey sees no sign of life there presently. It looks like a safe haven from here.
The sound of Willie’s work boots on sand and then tar, coming closer, make color and light against Mickey’s closed eyelids as he draws hungrily on his now-short cigarette. He has a sudden desire to chew up the cigarette and swallow it, hot end and all.
Willie’s gray eyes are fixed on Mickey’s face even before he gets around the truck. “I thought you were following me, Roger!!!!” Willie shrieks. “You sure are in love with that truck handle.”
Mickey’s eyes drop to Willie’s right hand. It’s a service pistol. A Colt, Mickey observes.
Willie stands squarely, more military than a TV Western, but absolutely over-the-top showmanship. They are eyes into eyes, no words, Willie grinning, sort of, his bucktoothed grin, Mickey straining not to lower his eyes.
Now Willie whispers, “Max, I want to give you this Christmas present.”
Mickey’s eyes fall now firmly to the pistol.
Willie snickers. “I am giving you this Christmas present”—it is August—“because it bothers me so much that I want to wet myself—bothers the hell outta me—to see a member of my militia going all around out in the open air like you do, all. . . .” Willie wiggles and shudders all over, signifying what, Mickey isn’t sure. “I am giving you this Christmas present so you need to put out your hand for it . . . but, Chuck, you gotta promise me that no matter how grateful you are, you will not hug me.”
Rex is out there somewhere, sane, strong, Godlike Rex, wayyyy out there on the edges of Willie Lancaster’s zone of twisted lights and sounds—and now the absence of sound. Here is Mickey, dead to everything except the soundless look of Willie’s muscular hand holding out to him, muzzle down, the gun.
Midnight. Tree house residence of Michael Gammon.
He is surrounded now—by the feeling. He falls asleep with it—the feeling. He dreams the feeling. He wakes with the feeling. It is a feeling that is dumb and confusing but it is good. A kind of security, like high walls. Shoulder to shoulder. Brother to brother. The gun? Yeah, but when he dreams it, there’s no steel, just that muscular hand and the gray eyes, the voice, the moment.
Spread out on the floor of the clothes-making shop.
It’s a full-sized flag. Dark blue. Painstakingly assembled with pieces of almost expertly dyed cotton sheeting to resemble the State of Maine flag, but with an arch of yellow-gold letters across the top that reads THE TRUE MAINE MILITIA. Three teen girls on their knees. “What about the eyeball on this moose?” “It’s way too big.” “Dorky-lookin’ moose! We gotta fix it!” Meanwhile, leaning in one corner of the room, a hornbeam pole with an eagle carved on the top. Eagle came out perfect—almost. This will be the flagpole in due time. This will be the True Maine Militia. “Waaaay better than Rex’s militia,” someone whispers. “Yeah, ’cause we aren’t afraid to go public. We love public.” A pleasurable sigh, then another teenage girl voice. “No limited membership. We welcome the world!”
September
There’s been some plans to get Jane settled, not just daytimes but nights too.
Maybe with Aurel and Josée, or with the Butlers, or with old Lucienne in her little shady house at the end of the brick path, closest to the shops and the quadrangle of trees and mowed grass. That would make a lot more sense than the present arrangement. Gordon feels uneasy about the farm place, not gated off in any way. Strangers often stop there, either first or after they find the Settlement road blocked. The phone rings and rings. Much confusion since Ivy Morelli’s feature story went to press. And then the “angry white men” photos. Everyone suspects it’s just a matter of time before the DHS SWAT teams come through the door of the farmhouse some night to “rescue” Jane. Tear her out of bed, shove her into a social worker’s car, and off they go. It seems better all the way around if Jane were settled with one family or person instead of the constant shuffle of nighttime sitters here.
But this dusky September evening, Jane is still a resident of the old St. Onge house. She has refused to hear a story or play a game, so Bev and Barbara hang out in the old dining room, looking over some old photo albums that Marian, Gordon’s mother, left when she moved, almost everything in this room the same as when Marian lived here, even a bookcase with her “ceramics”: dogs, deer, horses, Jesus in the manger, Bo Peep and a sheep, some cherubs. Marian St. Onge has a fetish for cherubs. Her cherubs here are painted a blushing pink. Wallpaper is blue. Room cool, usually closed off. Some of Gordon’s papers and books, maps and letters are in cardboard boxes stacked in one corner. A braided rug, the factory-made kind, with blues to match the walls. Some phonograph records: Frank Sinatra, Lawrence Welk. Curtains, white with frills. Not Marian’s curtains, though. These white frilly things were Claire’s touch when she was here as a young wife.
When Gordon comes in, he catches Jane spying on Bev and Barbara: Jane beside the partly open dining room door in the little hall. She is making a picture in one of her small notebooks and wearing her secret all-seeing heart-shaped glasses. Deep concentration. Gordon’s sudden appearance makes her really jump.
Gordon pretends not to notice that he’s caught Jane at something, and Jane pretends that she hasn’t been up to something, and the moment passes.
Now, out in the kitchen, Gordon is running a glass of water for a couple of aspirin. He turns and sees she is now sitting at the table, her glasses on the table, folded. She is glaring at him, her round dark eyes filled with mortal contempt.
“What?” he asks.
“You ugly pig.”
He blinks. He grins. He snorts, like a pig.
She rises most dramatically. She is dressed in a little pink sweater made by one of the mothers. She has such long-limbed ease, more beautiful than any ballet or symphony, that old African grace that swims through tall grass and rolls with hard orange suns. She opens the refrigerator door and lifts out a long speckled enameled pan . . . empty . “What. . . is . . . this?”
He cocks his head, squints. “My mother brought something for me when she was here the other night.”
She sniffs the pan. “What . . . was . . . it?”
“Éclairs.”
“How . . . many?”
He shrugs. She shoves the empty pan back into the refrigerator and turns, the door closing behind her soundlessly. She sinks gracefully to the floor, wraps her long sweatered arms around the knees of her long knitted matching pants, and buries her face. “I want my Mum,” she says, against her knees.
He says, “Jane. I’m sorry. I should have saved you one.”
She raises her face, tears wiggling in her huge black eyes, spilling now. Her mouth opens, a large square of real grief. “Mumma,” she whispers. Softly, wearily. Turns her head slowly from side to side, tears dripping from her chin. “I can’t stand it here,” she says into Gordon’s eyes. “Because you are so fat and full.”
He tries not to smile.
She says quaveringly, “I can punish you.” She sniffs. Her voice now bears a hard edge. “I got secrets about you, Gordie. About the milishish. Milishish are wrong. Everyone says they hurt kids. They bomb kids. I
am going to tell. I know of a DARE man who is nice. I will tell him, and I will tell him to tell the other ones, the ones that’s narcs, and you will be very very very very sorry.”
Gordon stands frozen, looking at Jane’s slim fingers, now picking at the knee of her knitted pants. He is seeing something, something that is not in this room. He is seeing.
Barbara, a short, ruddy, square, gray-haired person, is in the door of the kitchen now, and she says firmly, “Jane. People are not pretty when they blackmail.”
Gordon steps over toward the refrigerator, to Jane sitting on the floor, her eyes unblinking.
He says, “What DARE man, Jane?”
Jane’s eyes drop. “A nice one. He likes me. I bet if I told him to, he’d get the narcs to put you you-know-where.”
Barbara is deathly silent. Behind her, Bev, also short, square, ruddy, and gray, is putting a hand on Barbara’s upper arm, like steadying herself while walking a narrow board over high water.
Gordon squats down to get his face closer to Jane’s. “What DARE man?” he asks again.
Jane squinches her nose. Laughs nervously. “Just joking.”
Gordon takes Jane’s shoulders, pulls her slowly to her feet. Hugs her head hard, maybe a little too tight. Rubs her hair. He looks into the eyes of the two women in the door. He shakes his head slowly. He says, “We need a lot of time to ponder certain profoundly painful possibilities in Jane’s past—and Lisa’s present— before we react. For now, a moment of silence, aye? And a nice long quiet night to follow where we don’t react. You know? We’re just going to ponder . . . the possibilities.”
Word goes around the Settlement.
A serious development. There shall be one appointed person at all times to make sure that Jane Meserve never steps off the property. No more little strolls out on the tar road. Never alone with the phone or with visitors. Never. And the profoundly painful possibilities of Jane’s part in her mother’s arrest are discussed.
Secret Agent Jane tries to make sense of the recent past, before she came to the Settlement.
I just wanted to scare Mum. It was because she wouldn’t buy it for me, even though my heart was melting into ruins: the leather skirt. It was the best thing I have ever wanted. But she said, “Later, Jane.”
I said, “Now.”
She said, “We have to wait till I get the credit cards paid next week.”
This credit-card thing she always said. Just an excuse. If it was something she wanted, she didn’t have excuses. I figured I could scare Mum just a little, just a little scary thing. Not real bad.
At school, the DARE man, a police guy, said to us all, You ever see one of these things in your house? I said, Oh, yes. He was so friendly. He talked to me special, and we went in the place where teachers sit. I knew he wouldn’t hurt Mum, just scare her, and I could say to Mum, There! Now where’s my leather skirt?
So he asked me if I knew what it was called.
I said, in a very smart way, A joint.
The DARE man said, That’s very good, Jane.
So I told the DARE man about the other part he wanted to know. She knows some people. She was on the phone. She thinks it’s big. She thinks it might be really big. Mum calls the other one Dr. Eric because when you get a bag to smoke, it makes you feel better. That’s funny, isn’t it? But Mum met this other man, I think. It is something with boats. I think Mum is a little scared.
The DARE man was very interested and very nice and kept asking me more stuff like where Mum worked—which is for Dr. Grossman, a real dentist, not a man who sells stuff—and I told him about the leather skirt and he said, I’ll see you get that leather skirt, Jane. He was so nice. He said not to tell Mum about our talk.
Then it was days and days . . . no police yet . . . but I said to Mum, You are about to be real sorry you didn’t get me the leather skirt. Meanwhile, I was afraid. What if somebody else bought it and it was the LAST ONE, no more in stock? It looked like the last one.
More days and days, and the nice DARE man never showed up. I kept looking out the window for his police car and his real pretty dog that sniffs your marijuana.
More days. Then I guess he forgot.
But somehow a bad thing happened when I was in school. Very mean cops made Mum prisoner, a real prisoner. Killed Cherish, my beautiful Scottie dog. Left her hot in the car. It wasn’t anything to do with the nice DARE man, you can be sure of that. He didn’t even remember my leather skirt. He has a bad memory problem. He promised to get me that skirt. He’s, like, really spacey. The cops who arrested Mum are a special government kind: narcs, rhymes with sharks. The kind that make people cry. If I told Mum about the nice DARE man, she would agree that he probably forgot about Dr. Eric and all that. Who knows, he might show up right here with my leather skirt. It will take him awhile to find out where I am. And when he does, I’ll talk to him to see if he can get Mum out. He had a gun and police outfit. They might listen to him. He was so nice.
However, Jane escapes.
Without the smallest detour, no zigzag, no slouch, she hurries up, up, up the paved road, up, up, up that long hill to Headquarters, her new friends who give out cookies and Wacky Lemon Wonder, both schoolteachers, a mother and son, virtuous, yes, not afraid to shop, not afraid to be what everybody is supposed to be.
She knocks crisply on their door, curtain of green dots to cover the door window, little wooden girl in bonnet and watering can and the word WELCOME, all so pretty. But nobody is home.
Jane fumes.
Moments later, she is stepping across the bristly dried-out grass and sees a familiar person stepping from the door of the Lancasters’ scary-looking mobile home across the road, walking on the path between the giant trunks of the giant trees. He walks like a cop. Yes, it’s him, Rex, Gordie’s milishish friend. Jane calls out “Hi!” and waves.
Rex nods grimly.
Jane steps out onto the crumbly tar just as he too reaches the tar, and she hurries over to him as he is putting a hand on the handle of the cab door of his shiny new red truck, and she speaks in her velvety, Africa-husky voice. “Can I have a ride to Gordie’s?”
Nothing of a welcome on the parts of his face that show, but not much of his face shows. Dark coplike glasses. Big mustache crawling to the jaws.
Jane adds charmingly, “I really love your shirt.”
Short-sleeved camo shirt with the Border Mountain Militia’s embroidered patch on the left shoulder.
He goes around to the passenger door and opens it, Jane right behind him, stepping along long-leggedly, her new handmade knee-length smock of a patchwork of harvest colors swirling around her. Big orange patchwork cloth flower in her upswept, floofy, curly topknot. She scrambles up into the seat. Rex closes the door for her.
Now they are riding along, slowly, down the steep and winding old mountain road, heaped with stone walls on either side, stone walls and ferns and tawny late-afternoon sun and chipmunks and red squirrels who mostly watch and wait.
Rex doesn’t talk at all. Just, “Fasten your belt.” Meaning seatbelt.
Jane has nothing to say either.
After a few moments of the ride, Rex glances at the kid and it jumps him to notice that though her face was bare when she first boarded the truck, there are now two white plastic heart shapes aimed squarely at him . . . staring. These, her dark tinted glasses for spying and special powers of vision.
Still, he says nothing, just steers one-handed, the hand and wrist with the black-faced compass watch, the sleeve with the militia patch fluttering on the arm that rests on the open window, the black combat boots working the pedals. And fear. Yes, Rex York is just a little bit afraid of Secret Agent Jane.
Time chugs on. Late afternoon of a mid-September day.
In the cold parlor of the St. Onge farmhouse, deep in the old collapsing couch, sort of wrapped in the couch, in its waves of whimpering springs and hills of upholstery of frazzled blue nap, are fifteen-year-old Brianna and Gordon. His thick legs are stretched out, feet on the
rug. She has her legs curled under her as she leans toward him and he is looking at her, face-to-face. His face normal, hers stretched by birth defect.
He smells of the hot fields and hot work, perhaps even some chaff in the seams of his faded blue T-shirt. She places her hands on his shoulders; her hands and her body and work shirt and jeans smell of the woods and of hot work too—of a logging operation, specifically, woods-spiced with skidder grease and a smoodge of pink bar-and-chain oil—and she looks steadily into his face and she does not giggle. She is his wife now. She takes herself for granted. She sees his eyes on her face and on her bright ripply hair, which falls over her back and over her shirtfront. These eyes of his are filled with her sweaty, woodsy, cigarette sweet opulence . . . his eyes and his being are drawn to her, pulled to her, stuck. As in a web, yes.
She says huskily, “We are mind into mind. We are getting mixed up.”
He smiles, in a twinkly, restrained way.
She sees his forty-year-old eyes crinkle at the sides, eyes the palest she’s ever known, like some great big cat. She almost giggles. They are on the edge of so many sort ofs and almosts as she leans closer, now forehead to forehead. This is painful to him as he is becoming farsighted, but he doesn’t draw back. He accommodates.
She says, “There is only one big soul, but nature stuffs pieces of the soul into all these separate skulls. My dear beautiful male thing, if we mix souls we are breaking the law of nature and it could be hard on us.”
He says, “Baby, we are breaking all the laws.”
She reaches with her fingers behind his ears and along his neck and sets all the nerves there alive; her stiff logger fingers have the lightest touch. She draws her head back and, still staring into his eyes, she says, “We have our windows open, dear husband.” She flutters her strange far-apart eyes. “Our souls are getting out of our skulls!”
The School on Heart's Content Road Page 22
