Fallen Land

by Patrick Flanery

  “What’s the partner called?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not sure how I feel about this.”

  “Don’t be a bigot,” Julia says, slipping on a black linen sheath that makes her look even more like a wraith.

  “I’m not being a bigot. I’m voicing reasonable speculations. We don’t know anything about them and I think it’s reasonable to ask questions about the people we’re choosing to associate with.”

  “What would Matthew say if he heard you?”

  The longer he looks at it the more Julia’s dress seems too metropolitan for a suburban barbecue; she should be in floral prints, or at least bold blocks of color, but he doesn’t know how to say any of these things. He has dressed himself in jeans and a navy blue polo shirt and deck shoes. “I think you should change.”

  “I’m not going to change. I like this dress.”

  “You look foreign. You should wear more color.”

  “What’s happening to you? What do you mean I look foreign? I’ve always dressed like this. And what do you care if they’re two men living together?”

  “That’s not at all what I’m talking about, Julia. I don’t give a damn if they’re a couple. If you’ll let me explain, what I meant was that the partner, if that’s who he really is, he looks like a terrorist. And if that dress had sleeves, a hood, and a veil, then you could pass for a terrorist too.”

  “Are you kidding me? A man looks like a terrorist just because his skin is brown? What about your brother-in-law?”

  “Baldur is half German. And this man, this ‘partner’ next door, has a beard.”

  “And apparently, like Matthew and Baldur, he has a partner who’s a man. And he has a child. I think that automatically makes him an unlikely candidate for the potential-terrorist category, but then who am I to judge, since I myself appear to fit that category as far as you’re concerned.”

  “You can’t assume anything these days.”

  “What the hell is happening to you, Nathaniel?”

  “I don’t like the dress. If your husband doesn’t like the dress you’re wearing you should change. You’re going to embarrass me. You look like a vampire.”

  “Honestly, Nathaniel, I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

  BRANDON AND HIS PARTNER, AZAR, have a brick oven on their terrace, around which the adults have gathered, taking warmth against a sudden midday chill that has blown down from the northwest, while the children play on the lawn, throwing armfuls of leaves at each other, chasing themselves through a disorderly game of tag. Azar is making vegetarian pizzas in the oven while Brandon grills burgers and salmon on the adjacent barbecue. There are salads, homemade rolls, and in the kitchen a table of desserts, a full bar, wine, beer, soft drinks and juice for the kids and teetotalers. The other neighbors are friendly but Nathaniel feels unmoved to make an effort with these people: Cathy and Rob and Janet and Peter and Devon and Dermot and Zach and Molly and Mike and Denise, all of them white, bland, mass-produced Styrofoam slices of life, some thinner, most thicker, globular, pear-shaped and shining with perspiration. There are promises of dinner invitations and Christmas parties and sledding on the “empty lot,” which is what the others call the acres of undeveloped land to the north. The food, when it comes, is delicious, the pizza as good as anything Nathaniel ever ate on the East Coast. Denise tells him that Azar is a trained chef.

  “I’m guessing he can’t work,” she whispers, “which is why he’s playing stay-at-home dad.”

  “But he lives here.”

  “Don’t ask me,” Denise says, raising her hands, rolling her eyes, “but I think he leaves the country every few months, comes back in as a tourist. Between you and me, I overheard him and Brandon in the kitchen, and it sounds like his time is already up. I mean they didn’t say anything specific, but I got the idea he should’ve left by now. I don’t know how they do it. I feel for them, you know, what with the kid and everything—you know Brandon is the father and Azar’s sister is the mother. My husband has some ripe words, but I tell him just to shut up. I go by ‘live and let live,’ ‘each to his own.’ I don’t have a problem with it myself, and they seem to know how to look after the little girl. She always looks real neat, real pretty. Although you have to wonder how they’ll manage when she hits puberty.” Fat fingers raise a chip to her mouth. Denise, Nathaniel learned a moment ago, is a dental hygienist, while Mike works in the middle rungs of IT management at EKK, though Nathaniel has never seen him at the office. Between them they just afford to keep up their lifestyle: mortgage, insurance and utilities on a three-thousand-square-foot house (one of the smaller ones in the development), two cars, a snowmobile, annual vacation, birthdays, shopping, gifts, and all the costs involved in raising two children, one of whom is “on the autistic spectrum.” While Denise talks, regaling Nathaniel with the catalog of injustices and difficulties that have plagued her mostly comfortable life, the nightmare that was their experience of dealing with Paul Krovik—“a real amateur, a total nut job”—he finds himself staring at Azar, at the man’s chestnut-colored skin and carefully trimmed but full black beard, the paunch at his waist, the loose ethnic shirt embroidered along the hem that falls to his upper thigh, the waft of exotic scents coming from the man’s armpits and the unusual spices that flavor the pizza, which is not, in fact, pizza but something less European, flatter and spicier and resolutely foreign. He looks at those steady hands and thinks they would be good for fine, skillful work: assembling circuit boards, cameras, advanced weaponry, bombs, flying planes.

  “Where is he from?”

  Denise shakes her head, chews a mouthful of burger, swallows, and says, food still secreted in her cheeks, “No idea. Somewhere over there or down there”; she flaps her free hand to the east and then to the south. “I’ve never asked. I don’t like to pry. He’s a nice guy. They’re both real nice guys, and good neighbors. They looked after the kids earlier this year when I had to go to the emergency room. And Sofia’s a sweetie. But, you know, it’s a big risk what they’re doing, I mean, if that is what they’re doing. I could be wrong.”

  As well as the memo directing employees how to vote, there had been another one on Friday reminding them that, as a contractor with the federal government, and as one of the corporations involved in the provision and maintenance of Homeland Security, EKK’s employees are expected to report any unlawful behavior about which they may be aware, including the presence of illegal immigrants in their communities, suspected terrorists, and anyone else working against the interests of the country. A phone number was provided for anonymous reporting of suspicious activity and/or individuals. Technically, Nathaniel knows, he should waste no time in phoning the number and reporting the suspected presence of an undocumented migrant in his community; looking at the man, the un-American body language, talking with his hands, and hearing the loud voice and raucous laughter, the heavily accented English, it is possible to imagine that Azar whatever-his-name-is should be feared, or at the very least suspected, if not of terrorism, then certainly of breaking state and federal laws—laws meant to protect American citizens, to defend the homeland and secure the borders and ensure the country does not find itself susceptible to attack from within. A man like Azar could be from anywhere, sent by a foreign government to infiltrate American society, to be the least likely looking terrorist or agent possible by a performance of—Nathaniel thinks it before he has a moment to correct his language—aberrant sexuality, so that American officialdom will look at him, see a homosexual father with a daughter when, in fact, he is a cold-blooded plotter and schemer, who would, no doubt, sacrifice a child’s life, even a child for whom he appears to be a loving parent, in order to bring new horrors raining down on the peaceful acres of neighborhoods just like Dolores Woods.

  “What grade is Copley in?” Denise asks.

  “Second.”

  “Same as Austin. What school?”

  “The Pin
wheel Academy.”

  “Same as Austin! What teacher?”

  “Mrs. Pitt.”

  “Isn’t that weird? I haven’t heard Austin talk about him.”

  “No. And Copley—.” Nathaniel tries to remember if his son has mentioned the names of any of his new classmates.

  “He’s sure skinny.”

  “You think?” Nathaniel looks at his son, pacing his usual grid on the lawn, staring at his feet, kicking every leaf he encounters, while the other children have organized themselves into a game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

  “What’s he doing? Pretending he’s in Dawn of the Dead?”

  “My wife says he’s still adjusting to the move.” He stops himself from lurching into the kind of excessive sharing that this neighborhood gathering seems to engender. He does not want everyone to know that his son is seeing a psychiatrist, is medicated, and is in all likelihood terrorizing his own family.

  “I know a good counselor if you need one. She works in the same building as me. We took Austin to her when he started pulling down his pants at school and she put a stop to that in no time.”

  “We don’t need a counselor,” Nathaniel snaps, getting up to refill his plate. “There’s nothing wrong with my son.” He knows as soon as he walks away from Denise that the other adults have heard what he said and are looking at him and at Copley, who is walking toward the circle of laughing children, romping through piles of fallen maple and cottonwood leaves. Of course there is something wrong with Copley, which is why the boy sees a psychiatrist, why he is taking a cocktail of medication that would give even Nathaniel’s pill-happy mother pause. At the granite counter next to the oven he puts several more slices of the pizza or flatbread or tostada or whatever it is on his plate (they don’t do paper plates, these two men, but an assortment of colorful crockery). He turns, finding himself nose to nose with Azar.

  “Can I get you anything else, Nathaniel?” the man asks.

  “No, thank you, Azar. I’m good.”

  “Another beer? A soft drink? You understand I’m culturally pre-conditioned to make sure that, as my guest, all your needs are satisfied,” Azar says, his accent thickening. Nathaniel is unsure how to respond and then Azar’s face cracks into a smile, his accent modulates, becomes more American. “I’m only joking, man. Now what else can I get you?”

  “Nothing, really. I’m good.” As Nathaniel says it a second time, this inane shorthand phrase Americans have adopted to mean, thanks, I have everything I could possibly need, I don’t need anything else at the moment, you can leave me the fuck alone, screams erupt from the lawn. He turns to see Copley marching into the circle of other children, advancing in a fixed, unwavering course that has him kicking and stepping on small legs and feet and torsos. The other children fall away as Copley continues to the fence, turns, and comes back to pass through what remains of the circle. Julia is already halfway across the lawn and redoubles her speed, intercepting Copley before he can do more damage. Other parents have jogged over to attend to their own children while Julia draws Copley aside, speaking to him, Nathaniel can see, in a firm but kind voice. It is time to dispense with the kindness; surely they have now reached the point where physical discipline is necessary for the boy to understand he can’t simply do whatever he wants, oblivious to the happiness and wellbeing of others, without repercussions. The first chapter in a lifetime of criminality, that is what is unfolding in the actions and mind of his child: delinquency, petty theft, arrest, incarceration, drug addiction, release, theft, arrest, incarceration. He does not want his son to stumble blindly into a system never intended for people like him.

  THERE WERE NO RECRIMINATIONS OR chastisement, just a sickening array of sympathetic looks and quiet words, people who understood the difficulty of moving to a new city. Play dates were offered and Denise scribbled the name of her son’s counselor on a paper napkin, while her husband Mike caught Nathaniel’s eye, nodded in Azar’s direction, and shrugged, as if to say, should we do something about this, man? Nathaniel pretended not to understand but began to wonder himself if something ought to be done, especially now that he and a fellow EKK employee were conscious of each other’s knowledge of whatever this situation might be. Meanwhile, the party continued as if nothing had happened at all, and for this Nathaniel found himself both grateful and outraged.

  As the hours after the party have passed, he wishes that someone had made a big deal of it so his son would get the message that you can’t just be a creep who walks all over other people without there being consequences. At home, in private, he has suggested to Julia that Copley face some kind of punishment, although it is difficult to know what. They do not spank, they do not allow him to watch television more than half an hour a week, and he seems happiest when left alone in his room, so sending him there is hardly going to discipline him.

  “Talk to him, that would be more productive,” Julia says.

  “On my own.”

  “No, I’ll talk to him, too.”

  “Together.”

  “Fine, okay. Together. But not here. I don’t want him to feel cornered or ambushed. Let’s take a walk.”

  “A walk?”

  “In the woods.”

  IT IS THE FIRST TIME Nathaniel has been out the back gate and into the wooded portion of their property, which extends all the way to the sign marking the boundary with the nature reserve. Walking naturally again, Copley takes the lead, waiting only for his father to unlock the gate with a key and lock it again behind them. Julia has proposed exploring the trails that lead all the way to the river and Demon Point.

  “I’ve been here before,” Copley says. His voice is cocky and boastful in a way that enrages Nathaniel. “There are stairs and a chimney. There used to be some houses here. Louise told me.”

  The woods look all but virgin, the trees tall and dense, others fallen and overgrown with ivy, gripped by decay: trees that are inmates in a prison reserve, growing up and out, some of them dying within, collapsing, decomposing, never escaping to freedom, but perhaps giving rise to positive regenerative growth, production of new life and materials on which others will feed. They walk for five minutes to the limit of their property and cross into the reserve. Copley runs ahead until Julia calls him back, telling him to stay close.

  “Why?”

  “For safety.”

  “But it’s safe,” Copley says.

  “And because we want to talk to you about what happened earlier.” Julia puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, drawing him between the two of them. Why does Copley always have to be in the middle? Why can’t he stand to one side? Gripping the boy’s shoulders, Nathaniel moves his son over so that he and Julia can walk together, hand in hand, while his right hand steers Copley by the back of the neck. He can feel Julia flinch at the suddenness of the shift, and her hand squeezes his, not cooperative or soothing but itself a kind of punishment, pinching and chastising, making it clear, as if he had any doubt whatsoever, on whose side she really stands.

  “What about earlier?” Copley squirms out of his father’s grip and walks a few feet to one side.

  “The way you kicked the other kids.”

  “I didn’t kick them. I was just walking. They were in my way.”

  “But sweetheart,” Julia says, still not taking a firm enough line, “you can’t do that to other people. They were playing a game and you made a decision not to play. You can’t just go wrecking other people’s fun because you’re not a part of it.”

  “That’s not what I was doing,” Copley shouts, his body doubling over, one of his feet stamping the ground.

  “Then what were you doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nathaniel feels his patience slip. “That’s not good enough, Copley,” he says, his chest swelling as the old pressures build up inside. “You have to know what the hell you’re doing in the world.”

  “Nathaniel—�
�

  “You know what happens to kids like you,” he says, grabbing Copley by the shoulders and spinning him round. He leans over and points at Copley’s chest, has a vision of his father doing the same thing to him, on some trail in the Berkshires, in the buzzing humidity of Mount Greylock. “You’ve taken the first steps on the wrong road. You’re getting in trouble at school, you’re making messes at home, you’re lying to your parents, now you’re hurting other kids. Pretty soon you’ll get into more serious trouble at school, you’ll fall in with the wrong crowd, you’ll disobey us, we’ll punish you, you’ll revolt, you’ll get into trouble with the law and they’ll send you to juvenile detention where older kids will do very bad things to you, things you cannot begin to imagine.”

  “Nathaniel, that’s enough!” Julia shouts.

  He ignores her, index finger thumping his son’s chest.

  “If you’re lucky you’ll just barely finish high school but you can forget about college because you’ll have such a bad record that no college will admit you. You’ll work menial jobs, you’ll have more brushes with the law, you’ll probably start doing drugs. And then one day, you’ll either get busted for drugs or busted for doing something to support your drug habit, and then you’ll go to prison, and for the rest of your life, nothing will ever be the same. Your life will be prison, whether you’re inside its walls or outside, you’ll be thinking about prison the whole time, about going back in, about getting out, about how far you can push the system before it sends you to the hole. Your life will be nothing, and you’ll ruin not just your own life, but our lives as well. You will be a gear in a big machine instead of one of the people running the machine. People like us, like your mother and me and the families we come from, we’re the people who run the machine. We’re at the top, pushing the levers. We’re not the gears. You are not going to be a gear.”

  Bewilderment floods Copley’s face, and then there is a sudden torrent of tears and redness, the boy wailing, running to his mother, who embraces him and looks at Nathaniel with such hatred and fear that he knows he has done the right thing, the only action that could possibly be taken.