Bird's-Eye View

by J. F. Freedman

  My mother links my arm with hers. “Come meet our new neighbor.”

  She’s happy, in her element, with two of her three children in tow, a rare occurrence. My brother, Sam, and I don’t keep each other’s company, for reasons varied, complex, and ancient.

  She leads me to a tall, ruddy-faced fellow with graying, rust-colored hair cut JFK-style who’s in his early-to-middle sixties, I’m guessing, but in great shape, the kind of man who will always look a decade younger than his true age. He’s dressed in a finely cut summer suit that hangs well on him. Compared to this guy and my brother I’m strictly tobacco road, which fits my current personality-approach to life.

  Our new neighbor is talking to a couple of mom’s old-lady friends. They’re smiling, almost giddy, so he must be charming them. He looks like a charming sort of guy.

  “James,” she says, butting into their conversation, her prerogative as the hostess, “this is my other son, Fritz.”

  The man turns. He looks inquisitively at me for a moment, as if trying to read me, or place me. Not able to do either, since we’ve never met, he smiles pleasantly. “James Roach.” He offers a hand.

  “Fritz Tullis.”

  We shake. His grip is firm.

  “James recently bought the farm at the edge of Swanson Creek,” Mother informs me again, in case I’d forgotten.

  “It’s been almost a year now,” he says with a smile.

  “A year,” I say, trying to figure out if this is one of the men I saw there this morning, either the pilot or the killer. I’m pretty sure he isn’t the pilot. The alternative is not good, from my perspective. “Are you a permanent resident?” I ask politely.

  He smiles again. If he’s noticed my lack of sartorial cachet he’s good at not showing it. That qualifies him as a gentleman in my book. “Not yet, unfortunately, although I hope to be able to live here more permanently someday.”

  “James is assistant secretary of state,” my mother says proudly, as if he’s an expensive urn she’s brought out to show off.

  “That’s impressive,” I reply, not that I give a shit. But it is impressive, this man’s important.

  A modest shoulder shrug. “One of several.” His eyes are locked into mine, unblinking. Someone taught him a long time ago that would give him a psychological edge. He strikes me as a man who always wants to have an edge, psychological or otherwise.

  “James was heavily involved in the Balkan peace process,” my mother prattles.

  I change the subject away from politics—I have more pressing questions on my mind. But I have to tread lightly. “What do you own, about a hundred acres?” I start out innocuously. My father sold the parcels in even amounts, although they got mixed up in later transfers.

  “Eighty,” he answers crisply. “Eighty-two, to be exact. Most of it’s heavily wooded, as you’d know,” he adds without my asking, letting me know he’s not a strictly absentee owner.

  “Do any farming?”

  He shakes his head. “Not now. I might want to try to grow some grain. I’m thinking of bringing in a few horses for riding.”

  “Do you spend weekends on your farm?” I now query, getting closer to my target.

  “As often as I can,” he says, “although I usually don’t get out of Washington until Saturday afternoon. Mine’s not a nine-to-five job, as you can imagine.”

  “James has his own airplane,” mother says admiringly, as if that makes him a better person somehow.

  He’s not a career government apparatchik, obviously—you can’t afford a multimillion-dollar piece of prime waterfront property on a government salary, let alone an airplane. “A corporate jet, no doubt.”

  “Yes,” he answers comfortably, implying “what else would I have?”

  “What kind?” I ask, pushing harder than I want to but unable to hold back on my curiosity. “A Gulfstream?”

  Roach shakes his head. “They’re a bit expensive for me,” he says, his tone insinuating that he could, in fact, afford such a plane if he so desired. “Mine’s a Lear. And it’s leased,” he adds, as if to say, “I’m just a regular guy.”

  The plane I saw this morning wasn’t a Learjet. I push my line of questioning anyway. “Did you fly in this morning?” I can feel the water forming under my arms. The antiperspirant I used wasn’t strong enough to cover fear-sweat of this power.

  Roach shakes his head. “I was tied up in my office until this afternoon. And I don’t normally fly from Washington to the farm. By the time you get to the airport, get the plane ready, and fly out here, you’ve spent more time than it takes to drive. Besides, a flight of that duration costs too much. I’d only fly in if I was going somewhere else from here, but this weekend I’m not, I have to be back in Washington tomorrow afternoon.” He smiles. “We’re hosting an international conference on terrorism, which is one of my specialties. You’ve heard about it, I’m sure, it’s been on the news.”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t been following the news.”

  If he didn’t arrive until this afternoon, and came by car, then he wasn’t one of the men I saw this morning. I feel the tension flowing out of my body like air escaping a balloon. “It must be convenient, having your own airfield,” I say. “Friends want to visit you, they fly right in. Although I guess for someone in your position, security’s always a concern.”

  “I’m on every terrorist hot list in the world.” Said flatly, but the gravity is manifest.

  It occurs to me, suddenly, that he could be a target, like the man I saw murdered this morning. That raises a moral issue for me—should I tell him about what happened out there this morning?

  The answer, simply, is no. I don’t want to get mixed up in this, especially with someone this powerful. I don’t want to be the target. I’m not involved, I’m not going to get involved. If he’s that important, he’s under tight security anyway.

  “Speaking of friends flying in,” he mentions, “that rarely happens. Again, security issues. And I don’t have many friends with their own planes—it’s a luxury for me.” He frowns. “We have had uninvited aircraft using our strip.”

  I give him the most nonchalant “Oh?” I can muster. “Doesn’t that bother you? Being intruded on?”

  “It bothers the hell out of me. I’m sure you know what a haven this area is for smuggling, drugs especially.”

  I nod. “Don’t you try to stop it?”

  “We ever catch one, we sure will,” he replies vigorously. “But it’s only been a couple of times; I hope that’s all it’s going to be. It’s either that or plow the strip under, which would be cutting off my nose to spite my face.”

  My mother, who’s been a silent observer to our conversation, breaks in. “Fritz lives near you,” she tells Roach. “On the north side of the river, down there.” She doesn’t mention what kind of house I live in. My situation makes her teeth grind.

  Roach nods, like he’s thinking about that. “Where, exactly?” he asks.

  “It’s not that close,” I say, correcting my mother. “About twenty minutes, by boat.”

  “You’ve seen my airstrip, then,” he says. “It’s right on the water.”

  I feel like biting my tongue off—that was really stupid, letting him know I’ve been by his place from the water side.

  “I may have, a couple of months ago,” I lie. “I normally don’t go down that far on the water. Mostly I hang around my house.”

  “You should come down sometime. I’ll take you up in the Lear. It’s a kick.” Changing the subject, he asks, “Do you sail?”

  I’ve sailed all my life—if you live on the water most likely you know your way around boats. But I don’t want to get into talk about the water, particularly around his property. “I fish from my dinghy. That’s about it for me and boats these days.”

  “Fritz is an excellent sailor,” my mother butts in pridefully, happy to trumpet any accomplishment of mine, given the other side of the coin she’s had to live with this past year. “He’s been in big sailing ra
ces all over the world.”

  “That was a while ago,” I protest mildly. “I haven’t sailed competitively since college.”

  “I’m having a sailboat built for me,” Roach says. “It’s almost finished. Perhaps we could take it out together when it’s delivered. I’m not a pro like you, but I enjoy it.”

  “I’m no pro,” I demur modestly, “but that would be fun. It’s been a while.”

  My mother breaks into the conversation to excuse us and steer me in another direction, toward two women who are standing on the edge of the veranda, watching the early evening sun as it bleeds slowly into the marsh at the edge of the deep back lawn, a particularly radiant spectacle tonight. “Be nice,” she says in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

  “I’m always nice.”

  “No, you’re not. Work at it for me tonight.”

  How can I say I won’t do that? She’s my loving, aged mother, who puts up with all my shit.

  The two women, I can tell as we approach them, are mother and daughter. I see the blood-likeness in the faces, the shapes of their bodies. The mother’s in her mid-sixties. The daughter is about my age, I’m guessing a few years younger. Tall, slender women, pale of hair and complexion. They’re both wearing summer dresses that show off their legs. They have nice legs, long and thin but with good definition, although the daughter’s are better, since she’s half her mother’s age. The daughter is sensibly barelegged in the heat. The older woman is tolerating the discomfort of opaque white pantyhose, to hide the varicose veins. They’ve undoubtedly been competing since the kid reached puberty and bought her first trainer bra. From the looks of her, the size hasn’t increased much in the ensuing twenty years.

  Keeping her voice low, my mother says, “She’s a . . .”

  “. . . lovely woman,” I finish for her. Meaning the daughter, of course.

  “She is,” my mother says, almost hissing. “I’m serious, Fritz.”

  “Well, I’m not.” I smile.

  Both women are drinking tonics in tall, sweaty glasses. They turn to mother and me in unison as we approach.

  “Agatha, Johanna,” my mother says, “this is my son Fritz. Fritz, Agatha and Johanna Mortimer. I believe you’ve met Agatha, Fritz, she’s from the historical society.”

  My mother is chairperson of the King James County Historical Society, a duty she takes seriously and conscientiously.

  Agatha’s the mother. “Of course,” I say smoothly. “Nice to see you again.” I don’t remember ever having met the woman.

  “Well, thank you.” She’s flirting with me, the way aging women fighting to hang on to their looks can’t help doing.

  I shake their hands. The mother’s already sizing me up; the daughter also, but less obviously.

  “Johanna’s from Boston,” mother informs me, saying “Boston” as if living there automatically makes one a unique and special person. “She’s a stockbroker.”

  “Managing director,” the woman’s mother corrects my mother. “Merrill Lynch. That’s like a vice president, except higher,” she informs me with a mother’s brag.

  “Mother . . .” Johanna’s a sophisticated woman of the world. She doesn’t need her mother acting like she’s in fifth grade.

  “You’re a professor at the University of Texas?” the elder woman asks, pushing, knowing the answer, which my mother must have fed her. Poor mom, having to stand up for me under this woman’s sky-high praising of her accomplished adult child. “What is your field?”

  “American history,” my mother answers for me. She is going to navigate these perilous waters before I can run us aground. “On sabbatical this year,” she adds quickly, before other bothersome questions can be raised.

  Sabbatical. How many times have I heard that word come out of my mother’s mouth?

  “Burnout?” The daughter regards me presciently.

  “You could call it that,” I say.

  “I’ve come across a wonderful old book from the 1880s about the old county horse shows,” my mother says, placing a hand on her counterpart’s arm. “It’s in the study. Come, let me show you.” To me, she says, a glint in her eye, “We’ll leave you two to acquaint yourselves with each other.”

  Off they go. Johanna and I stand next to each other. It’s awkward, but not too badly. She leans against a post, smiling at me cagily. She’s a pretty woman, high-cheekboned, a stockbroker—make that managing director—she must be intelligent, making plenty of money.

  “Mothers,” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  She fingers my puckered seersucker, like my mother did. “I haven’t seen a suit like this since Humphrey Bogart stole the Maltese Falcon.”

  “It was Sydney Greenstreet,” I correct her, “and he wore white linen.”

  “Whatever. It takes a man of courage to wear a suit this distinctive,” she says. It sounds like flattery, but I’m not sure.

  “It’s a retro thing,” I say. “If we were in California I’d be wearing a zoot suit, pants pegged fourteen.”

  Juggling her drink, she takes a pack of Camel Filter Hundreds and a Bic lighter from a small beaded handbag. “Do you mind?”

  “Light ’em if you’ve got ’em.”

  “I’m trying to quit, but I’m not doing too well on my own. I’m going to have to go to Nicoderm or something.”

  “What’s life without a vice?”

  “I agree. What’s yours?”

  “Almost all of them, except this one.” I smile.

  She hands me her lighter. I light her cigarette for her. She touches my hand softly with her fingertips as she takes the first drag, standing there next to me on the far end of the veranda, away from the others, wide-hipped, wide-shouldered, small-breasted, smoking and drinking, looking at me, sending a clear message, I came here to meet you and I’m not disappointed.

  There is a hot, humid, decaying-flower sweetness in the air, and she’s had enough to drink that she is without reserve. Her forwardness is an aphrodisiac of a schoolyard nature, and I’m looking at her and feeling the fuck-heat coming off her, and thinking, okay, if that’s what you want.

  “I’m sitting next to you at dinner,” she says, knocking back the rest of her drink and crunching the ice cubes between her teeth. “I snuck a peek at the place settings.”

  “Mothers,” I say. We both laugh.

  • • •

  As the honoree of the evening, James Roach is sitting at the head of the table, to my mother’s right. I’m situated toward the other end, the lovely Johanna on one side, Dolly MacBride, another old-biddy friend of mom’s whose family are tobacco billionaires, on the other. The caterer has provided a nice selection of California chardonnays and cabernets, but half the guests, the older ones, eschew the wine, sticking with hard liquor. There’s also some lighting of cigarettes during the meal. They’re old, they don’t have to worry about dying of lung cancer, they’re going to die soon anyway, it doesn’t matter from what.

  Roach is an entertaining guest. He regales the table with tales about current affairs and the players who are deciding the fate of the world, and the casual, even reckless manner in which high-level decisions are made. Some of the late-night sessions he describes at the State Department and the Pentagon sound like scenes right out of Monty Python meets The X-Files. It’s incredible and lucky, he says, how many times we go to the brink without even realizing we’re there. He’s particularly critical of the Russians, none of whom, according to him, are ever sober, and are either crooks or incompetents, or both. He’s equally scornful of the members of Congress that he and the other “professionals” at State have to deal with.

  Dinner is vintage summer Chesapeake Bay: rockfish and crab cakes and fried chicken, fresh vegetables and salads, homemade biscuits dripping with butter. Cholesterol through the roof, but nobody’s shy about digging in, including the old dowagers, who shovel it in by the forkful.

  After dessert, coffee and Remy Martin are served back out on the veranda. The temperature’s still in the 80s, but
there’s a cooling breeze coming off the water. My new lady-friend and I are tossing cognacs back, match for match. Her mother tacks in our direction.

  “Johanna, darling, I have to make an early exit.” Turning to me, she says, “Would it be too inconvenient for you to give Johanna a ride to my place? It isn’t that far out of your way.”

  I look across to my mother, who’s talking to the guest of honor. She feels my stare and turns; then she smiles, and turns away.

  “No problem. If that’s all right with you,” I say to Johanna.

  “I’d appreciate that,” she says, deadpan.

  “She’ll be safe and sound with me,” I promise Agatha.

  “I know she will.” The woman’s practically purring.

  Now that that’s settled, we can relax. We drift over to the rest of the group, where Roach, holding court, has picked up the thread of the subject he was discoursing on at dinner.

  “The Russians today are a much greater threat than they were when the Soviet Union was at the peak of its powers,” he’s telling his captive audience. “At least then there was stability in the government. Now it’s total chaos. Everything in Russia is for sale, including military items—the military there is totally corrupt, we’ve caught them selling tanks, airplanes, you name it. The real power in Russia now is their version of the Mafia—they’re running the country, and they have their tentacles spread out all over the world, even in this country—enclaves in New York, Miami, other big cities are controlled by hooligans who emigrated here from the former Soviet Union.”

  Personally, I find this regurgitated post–Cold War talk boring—but the old folks are listening with rapt attention.

  “The most frightening thing,” Roach continues, “are the huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction that are unaccounted for. One of these days we’re going to wake up and find that the Iranians or Iraqis or some other rogue government has acquired a nuclear submarine from the Russians, complete with atomic warheads. For all we know, they may already have. I can’t tell you the number of hours every week I spend trying to stay on top of this.”