Kind of Kin

by Rilla Askew

  “The House will come to order! The House will come to order!” Her desk partner, Representative Thompson, strolled in, laid his two cell phones on the desk, clicked his laptop awake. His BlackBerry buzzed and he picked it up, strolled out again. Numbly she listened to the session unfold: Speaker recognizes Representative Renegar for questions on the amendment . . . Thank you, Mr. Speaker . . . Members of the House, prepare for debate . . . without objection . . . roll call, final passage House Bill 1727 . . . Representative McDaniel, you are recognized to explain your bill . . . Thank you, Mr. Speaker . . . Members of the House, please come to order! Debate is in progress . . . Roll call, final passage House Bill 1893 . . . Will there be debate? Seeing no debate . . . Representative Cox votes aye, Representative Wright votes aye . . . Members wishing to vote or change their vote . . . prepare to declare the vote . . . having received 73 ayes and 26 nays, the chair declares the bill passed . . .

  It seemed forever before she finally heard the pro tem call her name. “Representative Moorehouse, you are recognized to explain your bill.”

  When she rose from her desk, she felt the gallery’s eyes on her, as well as the eyes of almost all her fellow legislators, a kind of watchful attentiveness rare on the House floor. But the effect of so much audience steadied her, and she proceeded fluidly, making every point she’d practiced, even after she’d glanced up at the south gallery and spied in the padded burgundy row directly below the Indians a small clutch of middle-aged Hispanic-looking men in business suits. This would be the Oklahoma Association of Hispanic Professionals, no doubt. Or possibly members of the Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders. But Monica kept right on explaining the provisions of the bill smoothly, efficiently, right through to the end.

  “Will the representative entertain questions?” the pro tem asked by rote. This was a point much discussed over the phone with Leadership, and one she’d been uncertain about until this very moment, but a kind of bold confidence rushed through her. “Yes, Mr. Speaker,” she said, and she remained standing, microphone in hand, fielding the opposition’s barbed but politely veiled inquiries about “unintended consequences” and “negative fiscal impact” if the state had to defend against federal lawsuits with House Bill 1906 as they were still doing with the bill’s predecessor HB 1830, et cetera, et cetera. Monica maintained her frozen smile throughout the minority’s irrelevant commentary about crap that had almost nothing to do with the current bill.

  “My constituents in western Oklahoma,” Representative Johns declared, “have contacted my office numerous times about how badly they’re hurting for workers. We’ve got a real labor shortage since this bill’s predecessor went into effect—not just farm workers but skilled construction labor, too, I’m told.”

  “The simple solution for that, Representative Johns, is for them to hire citizen workers.”

  “Thank you, Representative Moorehouse. That’s very good advice. But they tell me every citizen in my district that wants to work is already working. Contractors are having to turn down jobs on account of they can’t get workers. Now, now,” he said, raising his hand as if to fend off an assault, “I promise you, nobody’s advocating for illegal workers. But one of the unintended consequences of this bill’s predecessor is how it took whole work crews out of the state, whole entire families, many of them here legally, maybe even the majority. This bill’s predecessor, House Bill 1830, created such a climate of fear that folks left in droves, and that has produced some real problems in my district. So my question here this afternoon, Representative Moorehouse, is this: Couldn’t one of the unintended consequences of House Bill 1906 be to create such an inhospitable environment—”

  At which point Monica waved her microphone avidly at the pro tem, who immediately recognized her. “An inhospitable environment is just what we want to create for lawbreakers, wouldn’t you agree, Representative Johns? We intend to roll up the welcome mat for these lawbreakers, just as we intend to quit having Oklahoma taxpayers pay to educate their children! And to that end, I believe that the education notification provision in House Bill 1906 addresses the issue very well . . .” And she went on to pull the focus back to the bill at hand.

  Another member, from one of the Tulsa districts, stood to speak of the recent negative national publicity creating a damaging image of the state, but Monica fended that off with, “Representative Howe, what is your question?” She received plenty of support from fellow majority members in the form of friendly leading questions, the answers to which tripped off her tongue, including debate on the touchy English Only provision—touchy solely because of the Indians, but she had that part deftly rehearsed. “Oklahoma is infinitely proud of its Native American heritage, we are Native America, as everyone in this august House knows, and certainly we would never want to do anything that would in any way impinge on that great proud heritage . . .” And so forth.

  Still, she was unsure, really, until the voting was well started just how it would go. But the bill passed—with less of a resounding margin than 1830, it’s true, far less of a margin than she’d hoped for—but a respectable number of minority members had voted aye, and she knew that the Senate vote, when it came up in a few weeks, was a shoo-in; everybody knew that. House Bill 1906 was a done deal. Unless the governor vetoed. But how could he, when he’d so ceremoniously signed 1830 into law? Anyway, they had the votes to override a veto, she was sure of it. Elated, she was smiling her thanks to several nearby lawmakers when she spied one of the Senate assistant floor leaders motioning to her from the outer hall. Flush with triumph, she went out to see what he wanted.

  “Congratulations, Representative Moorehouse. Fine work.” Yes? Then why did he look so sour. “I don’t want to take a bunch of your time,” he said. “I’ve just been visiting with some people from my district who drove over from Sapulpa this afternoon. They told me a bit of, I don’t know, some disconcerting news I thought I’d pass along. It would seem that the Latimer County sheriff is going to be on Larry King Live tonight. The promo clips have been rolling all morning.”

  If she hadn’t been so in the zone right then, Monica probably would have groaned out loud. The sheriff was a media hog and an egotistical fool, like Charlie said, and every time he opened his mouth he made Oklahoma look worse. But Larry King Live, good God, couldn’t somebody have prevented that? It wouldn’t just be a cringe-producing sound bite, it would be a whole goddamn interview. She held on to her smile. “Well, that is unfortunate news, Senator. Thanks for letting me know. But I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “Yes, well. Apparently the reason he’s going on is to defend his arrest techniques. The clips show him denying that that child’s beat-up face had anything to do with the initial raid or the boy’s treatment at the hands of his men.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “I wish I were.”

  “I thought that was a dead story!”

  “If it was, it’s been resurrected.”

  “But the man’s an idiot! That’s only going to give it legs!”

  The senator shrugged. Monica heard the chair finalizing the bill. “Oh my God. Excuse me, Senator!” And she rushed back onto the floor, but she was too late. The minority whip had already captured her bill. This time she did groan audibly, if faintly. Never once had she failed to recapture one of her own bills—that small bit of procedural housekeeping that ensured she’d be the only one permitted to bring it up again. Now the opposition had captured it; they could bring it up for reconsideration, in the meantime having tried to work the floor to make the vote tilt their way—or at minimum adding language that would nullify the bill’s intent. Leadership would not be happy. She tried to tell herself it would be okay, but the pass margin had been too slim; she couldn’t quite convince herself there was no reason to worry.

  Monday | February 25, 2008 | 1:30 P.M.

  Brown’s farm | Cedar

  Dear God, Sweet said to herself, not prayerfull
y, as she sat in her car watching the men standing around her daddy’s barn smoking cigarettes and spitting brown Skoal streams on the muddy ground. Those poor kids out yonder, she thought. What must they be thinking by now? Terry had been stuck to her side like beggar’s lice all morning while more and more vehicles filled with searchers poured in to her daddy’s yard. A couple of times she had managed to stroll to the corner of the barn and peer nonchalantly across the pasture toward the dump, but she saw no sign of Juanito’s pickup. Surely they wouldn’t come in with all this activity in the barnyard? Surely if they’d tried, they would have seen from a distance what was happening and stayed put. She couldn’t figure out how to drive back to them without raising Tee’s suspicions, much less conjure some smooth way to sneak that big white Dodge Ram past this passel of men. And these guys weren’t going anywhere, at least not until after the sheriff got back. And then, well, the sheriff would be here. Strutting his banty walk, preening for the cameras, holding court in front of the barn.

  Through the windshield Sweet watched her husband talking with the others, one steel-toed work boot propped on his tailgate. He wasn’t in hunting clothes and he wasn’t chewing tobacco—she’d made him quit that before they got married—otherwise he was indistinguishable from the rest. The brimmed cap. The serious, concerned frown. The secret excitement. Each of them wanted to be the one to find Dustin. Sweet felt she could see both parts in them: how truly bothered they were by this situation—the lost boy could be their own boy, their own grandson—and so they had to act gruff in order to not let their emotions show. They had to chain-smoke, spit tobacco juice, talk about the weather and the brambly terrain in low, grumbling voices, so as not to let their throats catch.

  But at the same time, Sweet thought, there was a little thrill in the back of each one’s mind—maybe he’d be the one to save the day. For the boy’s sake, of course, and the family, too, sure. But still. Maybe this very day he himself, the searcher, would turn out to be a hero. They were all secretly thinking it, Sweet believed. She loved them. She hated them. She wished they’d all go home. No. She wished they’d just go out and look for Dustin, comb the hills and the valleys, everywhere, everywhere, except across the creek, the south ridge that held the old mine. But nobody was leaving. And her husband stood there among them, his face grave and concerned, just like the rest, and he meant it, he really did. He was worried. He loved Dustin. She knew that. He loved Dustin, and he loved her, and maybe in some ways he even loved her daddy. And still he had done what he did.

  Suddenly Sweet swung open the car door. Terry turned to look at her. “Where you going, babe?” “Nowhere,” she answered. “I just feel like sitting on the front porch.” And that’s what she did, walked around the house and climbed the front steps and sat in the heavy iron lawn chair somebody had dragged up there from the weed-ridden yard. She looked at the overgrown field beyond the fence in front of the house, the blue humpbacked hills in the distance. Her chest was heaving, not with sobs, or even gulps of air, just a slow, steady, up-and-down heave, because she knew now that she was going to leave her husband. Not a temporary separation, not a little secret heart murder that she didn’t honestly mean, but for real and all. The sense of ending, the completeness of it, was a little bit like death. After a moment, Sweet put her hand on her breastbone, pressed hard, harder; then she stood up and went in the house.

  The familiar smell hit her—linoleum wax, linseed oil, the musty spidery smell creeping up from the cellar—and for a second she almost broke down. She didn’t break though, but gritted her teeth and went directly to Daddy’s room at the back of the house. Quickly she opened the cedar chest at the foot of his bed and pulled out several mothball-scented quilts, stacked them on the bedspread, and then went to the kitchen. Damn it, she thought, opening and shutting cupboards. There’s nothing here. She opened the fridge, stared at the empty shelves. What was her daddy doing, starving the boy? Chicken broth and tomato paste and three cans of Pet milk. Fat lot of good that was going to do. Sweet tasted salt at the corner of her mouth; she licked back the tears, plucked a couple of black trash bags from the box on the shelf and returned to the bedroom to stuff the quilts inside.

  From the wall closet she pulled out Daddy’s tan feeding jacket for Juanito and a bumpy, slick red down vest for Misty Dawn; she was thinking that they’d just have to wrap the baby in quilts to keep her warm, when she spied her daddy’s rifle standing butt down in the dark closet corner. With hardly a thought she carried the gun to the bed and stuffed it barrel-first in the trash bag with the quilts. Then she lugged the bags to the front room, where she paused to grab the two hurricane lamps off the mantel. But no, that would be way too obvious if she toted those outside. And she couldn’t stuff them in with the quilts and jackets, kerosene would leak all over everything. Another vehicle was coming up the drive; she could hear the motor, the crunch of gravel—might the men from this morning be coming back? Sweet stepped to the side window. Two men in insulated coveralls and orange hunting vests were getting out of a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee—newcomers.

  Sweet went back to the kitchen. Silent tears began sliding down her cheeks when she tugged open the cellar door and made her way down the splintery steps until she could feel for the light string overhead. The yellow bulb showed the shelved rows of dust-rimmed Mason jars full of home-canned green beans and tomatoes and okra and blackberry jelly and pickled pigs’ feet and shredded pork. She gathered as many jars as she could carry and went back upstairs, where she grabbed the cans of chicken broth and condensed milk from the pantry, fished some spoons and forks and a can opener out of the kitchen drawer, and then began emptying the cleaning supplies out of a beat-up brown Rubbermaid tub she pulled out from under the sink. Sweet had to pause to wipe her face on her sleeve as she set the food jars and cans inside the tub. She dumped the Lipton packets out of the tea canister, found some more trash bags, and in the living room she knelt and unscrewed the globes from the two hurricane lamps, poured the kerosene into the tea canister, tightened down the lid, set everything in the rubber tub and cushioned it as well as she could. The slow silent tears were still running when she went into the bathroom and retrieved a couple of hand towels to wrap the globes in, still running as she swaddled the filled tub in layers of black trash bags, but by the time she stepped out onto the back porch, the tears had stopped. She took a deep breath, went down the back steps toward her husband.

  She smiled when she got close. “I cleaned out the fridge, a bunch of old food garbage and stuff. I’m going to take it out to the dump before it stinks up the house.”

  Terry was distracted. “Need any help?” he said, but his gaze was on the first fellow from the Explorer who was now explaining things to the two newcomers.

  “It’s not that much,” she said, and got in her car, drove to the back porch. She would have liked to drive around to the front where nobody would see her putting the trash bags in the car, but that would most likely just draw suspicion, so she backed up to the rear porch steps, parked as close as she could. She was surprised, really, at her own calmness as she loaded the trash bags in her trunk. Maybe it wasn’t true calm, just exhaustion, but somehow it didn’t seem to matter now how any of this turned out. Whether she went to jail or not. Whether they caught Juanito or didn’t. Whether her daddy came home or got sent to the McAlester state pen. She waved a little friendly wave at her husband as she passed the barn.

  Driving slowly across the pasture, her tongue thick and metallic tasting from too many hours without food, she considered that maybe her calmness was not just fatigue but also hunger. The only thing that seemed to matter, really, was Dustin, and even that, she thought, was going to be all right. Or it would be what it would be. She passed the old dump in a kind of daze, drove around the downed barbed wire where Juanito’s truck had broken through. Now, though—now her heart quickened.

  The moment she started down the steep track toward the creek, those old fight-or-flight self-pr
eservation hormones, or whatever they were, rushed a fierce heat through her veins. Her chest burned. Her mind raced as fiercely as her blood. All this time, she realized, ever since this whole sorry saga began, she’d been thinking in old ways. And the old ways were gone, her old life was gone. There was nobody at home she had to go fix breakfast for, nobody to drive to school or clean house for, nobody to bathe and diaper and spoon-feed. For the first time in seventeen and a half years, she was alone. The bottom of her car scraped and bumped against the high humps as she descended toward the water; she did not have four-wheel drive, she did not even swim all that well. She stared at the muddy creek sweeping fast across the invisible bridge, but she did not hesitate, just glided the Taurus straight into it, because there was one other thought going round and round in her mind, eddying like the brown swirling water churning beneath the car’s chassis: this had all been arranged.

  Monday | February 25, 2008 | 5:00 P.M.

  Paseo District | Oklahoma City

  By the end of the day State Representative Monica Moorehouse was hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Not necessarily in that order. She waited in her office with the door closed until she heard Beverly leave at last. The outer hall had been quiet for hours. Still, Monica sat in her Aeron chair, tapping her nails on the mahogany desktop. Her cell phone buzzed. She ignored it. The thought of going home to Charlie and his TiVo and his clicker and his advice and questions and rehashed commentary from all those Internet bloggers, well, it was unbearable. Smiling through tonight’s reception would be no better, two hours of club soda and stale hors d’oeuvres while she wondered what people were saying behind her back. She pulled her desk phone toward her, but then slowly withdrew her hand and reached instead into her bottom file drawer for her Coach bag. She dropped her cell phone in the bag, dug out her keys. She wouldn’t call ahead, she decided. She would just show up.