"My daughters found out about it, Lydia and Doreas. They went up to the old Sweet place a few days ago, and there he was, all cozily moved in."
"Why on earth did they go up there?" Bruno asked.
"I'm sure I have no idea," Ostlich snapped defensively. His tone conveyed his desire that this particular question be left unanswered, and the other members of the town council respected the implication. They all knew that Dorcas was a good girl, but Lydia was another matter. Her reasons for going to a supposedly deserted house off in the woods were matters best left unexplored in a public discussion.
"Okay," Bruno said, "so Dorcas and Lydia told you that someone was living up to the Sweet place, and you went to investigate, right?"
"Precisely."
"And so you spoke with Vernon Sweet, and all he did was coo. So how do you know he won't sell the land?"
"He isn't alone," Ostlich replied. "Apparently he has a . . . well, a companion, I suppose you'd call him."
"Probably his keeper," Schilder muttered.
"He was the one I spoke to," Ostlich went on. "From what I gathered, he and Sweet seem to have quite a bit of money between them. He told me that he's been paying the property taxes for Vernon over the years, and that they had come here to retire and live out the rest of their lives. He was very emphatic about that, by the way."
"Damn it," Alex mumbled.
"That other man," Ostlich began, and then paused as if choosing his words carefully. "He is a, well, dark-complexioned person. . . ."
"A nigger!" Schilder shouted. "A nigger, here in Beckskill? Gott im Himmel, first ye haf de hippies, den ve hal dat crazy animal come back, and now ye got us a gottverdammte nigger!"
"Come on, Pop," Bruno said. "Don't get so excited."
Schilder ignored him. "Vhat de hell is happening to de vorld? Gott helf mich, Ich sollt in Regensburg bleiben . . . !"
The door of the bar slammed shut and a slurry voice boomed out, "Hey hey hey, Al!" All conversation ceased and all heads turned in the direction of the voice.
Rebecca Saunders, her bleary eyes half-closed and her gait less than steady, sauntered up to the bar and grinned at Alex. As she unwrapped her scarf and unbut-toned her coat she said, "Hiya doin', sugar. Gimme a beer." She smiled at the other men at the bar. "Hiya, boys." She took off her coat and tried to drape it over a bar stool, but it slid off and fell to the floor. She did not seem to notice, any more than she noticed the hostile stares from all quarters of the room.
Alex placed the glass of beer in front of her. As she tilted her head back and poured the beer down her throat Alex could not keep himself from gazing at the soft flesh beneath, the tanned skin of her neck growing whiter and whiter until his view was obstructed by her T-shirt. She put the empty glass loudly down upon the bar and asked, "You seen Clay?"
Alex looked away and shook his head, and Rebecca smiled slightly. Alex always acted this way when she spoke with him, avoiding her eyes, trying to disguise the fact that he was fascinated by her body, and Rebecca found this endlessly amusing. She pulled on the bottom of her yellow T-shirt, ostensibly to straighten it, but really so as to tighten it around her breasts and to cause the taut garment to accentuate the outward thrust of her nipples. "He was supposed to meet me here sometime. Like if we was both here at the same time, you know?"
Alex wrenched his eyes away from her chest and pretended to himself that he disapproved of young women not wearing bras. He coughed. "He was here a few hours ago."
"Ah, shit," she muttered. "Where'd he go?"
He shrugged. "How should I know?"
"Yeah, yeah, right right right," she replied. "Gimme pother beer." Rebecca appraised him almost affectionately as he drew another glass of beer from the tap. There was no real maliciousness in her playing with him, no intentional cruelty; but she derived a thrill of pleasure from the power she was able to exercise over this middle-aged man. She was both old enough to feel the libidinous pull of sexuality and young enough not to understand the inhumanity of her erotic toying with so lonely, bitter, and frustrated a man as Alex Brown.
She downed the second glass of beer and then inhaled sharply as if in sudden concern. "Oh, wow, man, I just remembered, I don't have any money! Hey, Al, you think I can like owe it to you?"
Alex shook his head. "I don't give no credit."
She pouted impishly. "Aw, c'mon, Al. I'm good for it."
"I don't give no credit," he repeated.
She frowned as if in thought, and then leaned forward and said very softly, "Maybe we can make a trade. Anything I got that you might want?" She smiled and tried to look into his averted eyes. He did not reply, so she added, "I must have something you'd be willing to trade for a couple of beers, Al."
"Young woman," Ostlich said angrily, "I would like to speak with you, outside, if you please!"
"In a minute, Doc. Me and Al are negotiating a trade here."
Alex coughed. "Forget it. On the house." He walked away from her and busied himself refilling the nut rack.
"Now, Miss Saunders!" Ostlich said sternly.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. I gotta go anyway. I was supposed to be in New Paltz two hours ago. Hey, thanks a lot, Al. I'll see you 'round." She picked up her coat and threw her scarf around her neck as she walked toward the door. Alex stared at her lithe form for a moment, until his view of her was obscured by Ostlich as he followed her out into the street.
As Rebecca Saunders buttoned her coat Ostlich asked, "What were you trying to do in there? Have you no sense of right and wrong, young lady?"
She laughed. "Gimme a break, Doc. I was just fuckin' around. It didn't mean anything."
"And I'll thank you to watch your language!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure," she responded casually. "Anything else?"
"Yes." He coughed. "Where are Lydia and Dorcas? Neither of them came home last night."
She shrugged. "Beats me. Why don't you ask Sarah?"
"My youngest daughter does not associate with the riffraff who are trying to ruin Lydia and Dorcas," Ostlich replied haughtily. "She does not approve of her sisters, and they know it. They certainly wouldn't tell her where they were going."
"Yeah, well, they didn't tell me where they were going either. They're probably down on Long Island with Pete and Russ. I think they were going to see Artie playin' at Zoli's. He had a gig last night."
"I do not want them staying out all night!" he said angrily.
She shrugged again. "So tell them that."
"I have told them. It doesn't do any good."
"So why are you tellin' me?"
"And I don't like those boys, either. I want them to stay away from my daughters."
"So why are you tellin' me?" she repeated. "I got nothin' to do with it." She paused. "Besides, Lydia isn't interested in them. She's stuck on my brother."
"Yes, God help her," Ostlich muttered. "He's the worst of the lot."
Rebecca bridled slightly. "Hey, fuck you, you know?"
He frowned and pursed his lips. "You will not speak to me in that manner. Rebecca! Why, if you were my daughter . . ."
"If I was your daughter?" She laughed derisively. "From what Lydia tells me, if I was your daughter, you'd have your hand down the front of my pants by now." Ostlich's face grew red with rage and embarrassment, but Rebecca pretended not to notice. "Besides, if I really was your daughter, I'd be down on Long Island, gettin' stoned and gettin' laid." She walked away from him and got into her shiny new red Camaro, leaving him to sputter angrily at her. Ostlich took a few moments to compose himself, and then went back into the bar.
He found the other members of the town council nodding their heads in vigorous agreement with something Frank Bruno was saying, and as Ostlich resumed his seat Bruno turned to him. "We've figured out what to do, Doc."
"Good." Ostlich sighed, his mind elsewhere. What are they doing down there? he was thinking. And why on earth were they prowling around the old Sweet place the other day?
"We have to bring the factory question to a
vote anyway, so we've decided to have a town meeting day after tomorrow. If we can't persuade Sweet to sell, we can initiate the eminent-domain proceeding at the same time. At least that way we'll be getting things moving, we'll be showing Craigo that we're serious about this."
"Good, good." Ostlich nodded. "Well, let's announce the meeting, post the notice. Walter, can youfind out what exactly we'd have to do if it comes to a court action?"
"Sure," Rihaczeck replied. "I'll ask around tomorrow. . . ."
The conversation drifted off to inconsequentials, and soon thereafter the bar began to empty out. On Friday and Saturday Alex stayed open until early in the morning, sometimes because he had customers, sometimes because he nurtured the hope that some would show up; but this was a weeknight, and by eleven o'clock Alex Brown was standing alone in the large empty room.
He collected the used glasses and placed them all in the sink. Wash'em tomorrow, he thought as he shut off the radio and unplugged the old bowling machine. He locked the front door and the back door, turned off all the lights, and then walked slowly up the stairs to his bedroom.
The Saunders girl had unnerved him and made him tense, and so Alex took the vodka bottle from the night table and helped himself to a few large swallows before opening the window and drinking in the cold mountain air. The view from the second floor of the Browns' Hotel allowed him to look up at the dark mountain where Clayton and Rebecca Saunders lived, as well as out at the winding Beckskill River and the River Road that ran between it and the forest, the forest that apparently was now owned by Vernon Sweet.
All the money that bum has, he thought morosely. Even that retarded freak and that nigger seem to have money.
He took the bottle to bed with him and lay back upon the pillow, his thoughts drifting to Rebecca Saunders. He tried to tell himself that his feelings for her were paternal. Not her fault, he thought. No parents to raise her. Living with that bum of a brother. Not her fault.
But she's young yet, she can change, straighten out, grow up. Maybe she'll meet a nice boy. . . .
A nice boy . . .
Alex clenched his jaws angrily, for he had met Sean Brenner, Rebecca's boyfriend, on a number of occasions when they had come to drink at his bar, and it was Alex's opinion that Brenner was even more degenerate than Saunders. A drunken junkie, he thought. A goddamn draft dodger. Piece of filth, piece of filth . . .
In his mind, against his will, he pictured Brenner and Rebecca together, she drunk and naked, he running his hands eagerly over her body, his lips floating upon her breasts, his genitals rubbing against hers, her brother sitting nearby, laughing and laughing. . . .
Alex jumped up from the bed and threw the bottle against the wall.
His own action startled him, and he stood staring at the shattered glass for a few moments. Then he went down to the bar to get another bottle. He needed the vodka badly, for he had not been able to sleep sober since the death of his wife.
"I'm tired," he whispered as he sat back down on the edge of the bed. "So tired."
It was nearly dawn before the vodka bottle lay empty upon the floor and Aleksander Sergeiovich Ovyetchkin sank at last into a troubled, restless sleep.
Chapter Two
November 21, 1968
"A car isn't private property, goddamn it!" Russell Phelps insisted. "It's personal property, totally unrelated to the means of production!"
Sean Brenner dragged deeply on the joint and then passed it back to Peter Geerson in the rear seat of the old Volkswagen Beetle. He held the intoxicating smoke in for a few moments and then exhaled it loudly. At last he responded, "That's all bullshit, Russell. You keep saying that nobody should own anything, and you own this car. So how can you call yourself a socialist?"
"Jesus Christ, Sean, you are so dense! Didn't you read any of those books I gave you?"
"He started to," Peter said, "but he lost interest when he realized that Harpo didn't write Das Kapital."
"Fuck you, Peter," Sean muttered.
"No pictures in it, either," Peter added. He took a small toke on the marijuana cigarette and then gave it to Lydia Ostlich, who was half sitting on his lap. He knew better than to offer it to her sister Dorcas. She sat silently beside them in the cramped backseat, stealing occasional glances at Peter, wishing that she were as bold as her sister, wishing that it were she and not Lydia whose thigh was resting upon his.
"This is great dope, Pete." Lydia coughed. "You get this from Eric?"
"No, it's Sean's," Peter replied. "I've just been holding it for him during his, ah, recent business difficulties."
Sean laughed softly and repeated, "Fuck you, Peter."
"There's an interesting problem for you, Russell," Peter said. "Sean's an entrepreneur. If he hadn't gotten burned trying to sell Meth to a cop, he would have made a bundle. I mean, dealing drugs is private enterprise. Why doesn't that bother you?"
"Don't be obtuse, Peter," Russell responded as he took the joint from Lydia and dragged on it. "Selling dope is a revolutionary act in a bourgeois society like this one…."
"Yeah, and in the workers' paradise it's thirty years to life at hard labor in Siberia," Peter observed.
"Yeah, sure, but only because Stalin beat Trotsky in the power struggle after Lenin died!"
Peter shook his head and laughed softly. "We're exterminating the whales, pouring poison into our air and water, raping the surface of the earth, eating God knows what in our food, and you're upset about Trotsky and Stalin. Russell, you're incredible"
"You know," Sean said, "sometimes I don't know which of you two guys is the bigger pain in the ass, Russell with his fucking Marxist bullshit or you with your goddamn fish."
"Whales aren't fish."
"Whatever."
Russell glowered at him. "You know what your problem is? You're selfish and irresponsible. Why, I don't think you've ever taken a political stand in your whole life."
"I thought I just committed a revolutionary act by selling speed."
"Funny, Sean, very funny."
"I . . . uh . . ." Dorcas began tentatively.
"What, Dorcas?" Peter asked.
"Well, didn't Sean . . . I mean, I saw him burn his draft card at that rally in Poughkeepsie last year."
She did not understand why Peter and Russell began chuckling until Russell explained, "Sean used to let his draft deferment lapse every September. After they'd send him a 1-A draft card, he'd renew the deferment, get his 2-S, and have an extra card to burn at dramatic moments."
"Sean, that's terrible." Lydia laughed. "Why would you do something like that?"
"Impresses the girls," Peter offered.
The Beetle puttered along the New York State Thruway in the fading light of early dusk. Dorcas and Lydia had hitchhiked down to Long Island the day before and had met Peter, Sean, and Russell at Zoli's Bar on Hempstead Avenue in Nassau County. Dorcas had remained straight and relatively sober during and after the musical performance of their friend, Artie Winston, but her sister Lydia had joined the others in the customary indulgences. After an uncomfortable night's sleep on the floor of the small, rattrap apartment that Peter and Russell shared with Artie in Maspeth, Queens, they had cajoled Russell into driving them up to Beckskill.
As they approached the thruway exit that would lead them to the road into town, Sean's thoughts were not on Russell's socialist diatribe. "I don't believe I beat it," he muttered.
"What?" Russell asked.
"I don't believe I beat it," he repeated.
"You haven't heard a word I've said! Damn it, Sean!"
"Come on, Russell," Peter interjected. "If you went through what he just went through, you wouldn't be that interested in the struggle of the workers either."
"I don't believe I beat the rap," Sean mused, stroking his wispy beard absentmindedly. "I was sure I was gonna do some time."
"Well, you were in jail overnight, until Clay bailed you out," Russell reminded him. "And you're on probation for five years. That isn't exactly beating the ra
p."
"I ain't in prison. That's the important thing."
"And are you surprised?" Russell asked.
"Shit, yes!"
"You shouldn't be, not in this racist hellhole we live in. You're a nice little white boy. Nice little white boys don't go to jail for selling speed. Only blacks do. It all boils down to racism. Why, under a Leninist system—"
"Hey, Russell, give it a rest, will you?" Sean said as they pulled off the thruway exit. They were silent as Russell paid the toll, and Sean did not speak again until they were on Route 32. "Drive faster, will you, Russ?"
"You in a hurry to visit your aristocrat friends?"
"Clay and Becky, aristocrats?" Sean laughed.
"Well, what would you call them? I mean, don't get me wrong, I get a kick out of Clay, but he sure isn't leading a productive life."
"So what's a productive life?" Lydia asked. She fancied herself madly in love with Clayton Saunders, and reacted very defensively when he was criticized. "I mean, if you're gonna like cure a disease or something, I guess that's productive. But other than that, what's a productive life? I mean, he's like doing what you'd be doing if you only had the money."
"Don't try to insult me, Lydia. Your wits aren't sharp enough."
"Hey, like, fuck you, you know?"
Russell's comment had not been intended to wound, and neither had Lydia's response, so he went on, unperturbed. "The whole tune-in, turn-on, drop-out thing bothers the hell out of me to begin with, but to be a rich dropout . . . that's just sick."
Sean glanced back at Lydia and smiled, "Sounds good to me." She giggled.
"It really isn't funny," Russell said. "It really isn't. Clay is the worst possible product of the capitalist system. At least Bob and Cathy . . . you know Bob and Cathy Johannson, right?"
"Sure. Their parents own the piano-hammer factory at Redhook."
"Right. At least they work in the goddamn factory, at least they do something. Clay and Becky don't do anything."
"You don't understand Clay," Sean insisted. "He's like Peter Pan, you know? He has enough money so that he never has to work, and so there's no pressure on him to get anywhere or be anything. Hey, just think about what it was like six months ago, when we were all still in college."
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