A Flash of Green

by John D. MacDonald

  Never seem to learn, she thought. Now pray that it isn’t the chills-and-fever kind. And that there won’t be too many blisters, and they won’t be too huge and wet.

  But nothing could spoil her sense of relief and accomplishment at having gotten through the day. During the day she had tried to make herself lose track of the hours. She had hidden her watch in her beach bag. But she had kept stealing glances at it.…

  About now he is finishing lunch in Venice, after talking to those men about the design for the new professional building.

  Now he is in the car, heading south, heading home, thinking about the contract, planning the preliminary sketches, and at about that same time that drunken woman is storming out of the roadside bar in Punta Gorda, getting into that old pickup truck and heading north, with no license to drive, with the gas pedal flat against the floor, heading in a rage toward Venice where, as it has been reported to her, her common-law husband, missing for over a week, is now in a bowling alley with her sister.

  Now both vehicles are entering that big curve north of Murdock.

  Now they are a hundred feet apart.

  Now the bald tire blows on the pickup truck.

  Now Van is dead. Forty minutes from now, I will answer the phone. I will hear it ringing and come in from the yard, running and smiling because I am so sure it is him calling to give me good news.

  “Miz Hubble, m’am? This is the State Highway Patrol.…”

  She drove into the carport. In the sudden silence Roy made a murmuring sighing noise. She put her hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. “Come on, boy. We’re home.”

  She got them roused and they each took their share of the things to be carried in. Mosquitoes whined around them in the hot crickety night. When they were inside, with the lights on, the children were astonished to find it was only eight-thirty.

  Kat showered away the layers of sun lotion and the crust of sea salt. Then she used an antiseptic spray can, a medication which also contained some pain-deadening agent. She called Alicia in to spray it on her back.

  It was so icy it made her yelp, and made Alicia laugh. “Get it on evenly, dear.”

  “Your back is pretty, Mommie.”

  “Thank you, honey.”

  “It’s so smooth, but it’s awful red.”

  Roy came into the hallway and yelled, “Colonel Jennings wants you on the phone.”

  “Please tell him I’ll call him back in five minutes, dear.”

  “I don’t care if they fill up the darn bay,” Alicia said. “We don’t have a boat any more anyhow.”

  Kat put her robe on and sat on the edge of the tub and took hold of Alicia’s hands. “That isn’t a very nice thing to say, dear.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” the little girl demanded, looking sullen.

  “Don’t you like to look out across Grassy Bay?”

  “I can’t see it from here, can I?”

  “You’re being a little bit fresh. Now, don’t try to pull away from me. I want you to understand something. You can’t think of these things just in terms of yourself, ’Licia. You have to think of them in terms of pleasure for other people. Do you know about those huge redwood trees in California?”

  “Sure. We had them in school. They’re the oldest living things.”

  “Now just imagine that you’re never going to see them in your whole life. I suppose if they were cut up into boards, they’d be worth a lot of money. Would you care if some men bought them and cut them all down?”

  Alicia frowned and bit her lip. “And I wasn’t going to see them anyway? Well … I guess I wouldn’t like it. I mean it’s nice knowing they’re there.”

  “You own part of those trees, dear. If they were all divided into a hundred and eighty million parts, one part would be yours. Your part might be just a twig and a couple of leaves.”

  “That’s silly!”

  “And you own a part of Grassy Bay too. It’s what is called an undivided interest. You don’t know what part you own and I don’t know what part I own, but if it was divided up, our parts wouldn’t be worth very much. Maybe a little sand and a shell and a fiddler crab apiece. But with everybody’s parts of it left together there, it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Now, listen carefully, dear. This is hard to understand. If those redwoods were sold, or if the bay is sold, you won’t get any part of the money, even though you own a part of both of them.”

  “That would be cheating, wouldn’t it?”

  “Clever men can use the laws to cheat all of us and make it sound as if they’re doing us a big favor. That’s what we’re trying to keep from happening. Colonel Jennings and Mr. Sinnat and Jackie Halley and all of us. Do you understand?”

  “I … I guess so.”

  “Now do you care if they fill up Grassy Bay and put houses there?”

  Alicia frowned. “It wouldn’t be right. No, I guess I wouldn’t like it.”

  “Now, you run along, honey, and figure out what we’re going to cook up for three tired beachcombers.”

  When she was alone, Kat looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. How can you know if you’re doing it right? she thought. How do you know exactly what you’re doing to them with the things you say? You could have done these things so much better, darling. You’d have the right words. They’d understand and remember. I don’t think they really pay much attention to anything I say.

  Tom Jennings’ voice was not as forceful as usual over the phone. He sounded remote and windy and indecisive.

  “I’ve been trying to get hold of you, Katherine. I don’t know if you can help or not. I hope so. This is very upsetting.”

  “What’s the matter, Tom?”

  “Di Sinnat phoned me about three o’clock. He was … almost formal. It was as if he was talking to a stranger. He said he had decided not to get involved in committee work this time. He said he was resigning. He said he was sorry to have to withdraw his offer of financial assistance to the committee. He wished us luck. I tried to find out why, but he was very terse and strange.”

  “I can’t understand it!”

  “Neither can I. I was counting on his help. I never thought he’d … Anyway, I called him back a half hour later to ask him if I could come over and talk to him. I got the housekeeper. She took my name. She came back to the phone and said Mr. and Mrs. Sinnat were gone for the rest of the day.”

  “But what could have happened, Tom?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I can’t imagine him changing because he’s gotten in with Burt Lesser and those people. And I can’t imagine him being frightened off. I just don’t know, Katherine. You’re as close to them as anybody I can think of. I must tell you he did sound as if there’s no chance of his changing his mind. But one always hopes. At least, maybe you can find out why this has happened. Without the two thousand dollars he promised for our campaign fund, we’re going to have financial difficulty. It will … weaken our effort to have to spend time and energy raising money when we should be stirring up public opinion.”

  “Who else knows about this, Tom?”

  “I decided that the fewer people who know about it, the easier it would be for him to change his mind back again. I don’t know who he has told, of course. But aside from Melissa and me, you are the only one who knows about his phone call.”

  She looked at her watch. “I’ll see what I can do. You understand, Tom, I can’t get … rough about it. Di and Claire have been too good to me. I mean, if he doesn’t want to talk to me, I can’t get insistent.”

  “Of course I understand that. Of the eight on the committee, he’s the one I didn’t want to lose.”

  “I have to feed the kids and stow them away, and then I’ll see what I can do. I’ll let you know.”

  “Phone me right away, please, no matter how late it is.”

  The kids were in bed by quarter to ten, their faces dark against the pillows. As she was wondering whether to phone, or whether to
walk to the Sinnats and leave the children alone for a little while, someone rapped on the glass of the patio door. She turned the outside lights on and saw Nat Sinnat silhouetted there.

  She opened the door and said, “Come in, Nat. Listen, dear, you’ve come along at just the right time. Could you stay here for a little while while I hurry up to your house and talk to Dial for a little while, if he’s home?”

  “What about?” Nat said, walking in. The tone of voice was so flat as to be almost rude. When the girl moved into the light, Katherine saw the compressed lips, the puffy eyes, the dark patches under the eyes.

  “I want to talk to him about the committee.”

  Natalie walked slowly to a big chair, sat in it and looked toward Kat. She kicked her sandals off and pulled her legs up into the chair and said, “Then maybe you better listen to me. My father isn’t going to talk to anybody, Kat. Not even Claire. And somehow I can’t talk to Claire either.” She lifted her chin slightly. “And I’ve God damn well got to talk to somebody or start beating my head on the trees. Do you mind?”

  Kat sat down near the girl. “It’s about the committee? I don’t understand.”

  “Some person or persons got in touch with Dial this morning. They told him that his darling daughter was a tramp. They named the times and the place and they had it right, damn them. They told him they didn’t want to interfere with any fun his little girl was having, but unless he severed every connection with Save Our Bays immediately, said little girl was going to be in the middle of such a stinking public mess, decent people would probably tar and feather her.” Natalie Sinnat began to cry.

  Kat went to her quickly. “Please, dear,” she said.

  “I keep c-crying because I get so d-damned mad. He’s taking it so seriously.” She started furiously at Katherine. “What the hell kind of a human being does he think I am? Certainly, people could make it sound ugly and horrible. I’m not a tramp! I don’t feel messy! He should realize I don’t care how anybody tries to make it sound. I don’t feel as if I’ve done anything so terribly wrong.”

  “I can’t believe you have.”

  “But now I don’t know what to think. Maybe it was wrong. I have to tell you about it. And you have to promise to tell me if I was wrong. Will you?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Please go back over there, Kat. Could I have a drink? A strong one. Gin, if you have it.”

  “And tonic?”

  “Please.”

  Katherine made drinks and brought them in. Natalie blew her nose and got her cigarettes out of her purse.

  “You have to know how it started,” the girl said. “When I first came down here, the second week in June, Jigger started sort of following me around. It was funny and it was annoying. I don’t like the sort of boy I thought he was. Big and powerful and beautiful and arrogant. I thought he was trying to rack me up for a summer score, so he could brag to his seventeen-year-old friends how he made it with a college girl. It seemed as if every time I looked around, there he was. And I was waiting for a chance to chill him. After I was here about ten days they put on that big end-of-school beach party for all the kids in the Estates. I went because I didn’t have anything else to do. He wanted to walk down the beach with me. I thought it was a good chance to clobber him. We walked a long way. I wondered when he was going to make the pass. He didn’t. We’d started back. The bonfire was a long way off. I stumbled on some driftwood. He caught me and he didn’t let go. His hand was here and he was trembling and it was as if he couldn’t let go. That was my chance, and I let him have it. I’ve got a mean mouth, Kat. I chopped him right down to nothing, and I left him there. He didn’t follow me. When I was about sixty feet away he made a terrible sound. A kind of anguish. I kept walking, but I kept remembering that sound. I’d said some truly horrible things to him. Finally I stopped and went back. I realized I hadn’t been fair. I was taking out on him some of the pain and the heartbreak of the terrible year I’d had.

  “He was sitting in the sand and he was crying. I circled around. I know he didn’t know I’d come back. The crying wasn’t faked. He was slamming his fist down into a little pile of shells the tide had left, hammering the shells with a terrible force so his hand was bloody. When I spoke to him he froze. It scared me. Have you ever seen a face with no expression on it at all? I knew there was something terribly wrong, and I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I’d pushed him over some kind of edge. I knew I’d nearly destroyed him, and I had to see if I could undo the harm. I knew I had to make him talk to me. And I sensed for the first time that there was a real person, actually a scared person, hiding under all that poise and muscle.

  “It took a long time to get him to talk. I didn’t get all of it that night, or the next night, or the next week. But finally he was able to break through all the inhibitions and tell me what it was that was eating him.

  “I won’t go into detail, Kat. It’s a lousy lonely home for those kids. There’s no love in that house. Sally Ann is a domineering bitch. Burt is a dull, withdrawn man. The kids do as they please. Anyway, when Jigger was fourteen, he got drawn into a little group set up by a practicing homosexual teaching in the junior high. I gather that the man didn’t actually mess with the kids until he’d made sure of them, and he took a long time making sure. Months passed before he got around to Jigger. The poor kid didn’t know how to cope. He was fifteen when it happened. It shocked him, scared him and revolted him. He never went back to that house, and he never told anyone. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, remembering it. He carried all that guilt and shame locked up inside him. He went around with it like a dog with a rotting chicken tied around its neck. He began to believe he was queer. He began to get the idea people could tell it by looking at him. He worried about the way he walked and about his tone of voice. He thought the man had ruined the rest of his life. When it all came out—apparently there was a considerable scandal—Jigger knew his name would come into it, and he began to plan how to kill himself. When he’d made up his mind how to do it, he wrote a farewell note and put it on his pillow and swam out into the Gulf. He left in the early morning. He swam out until he was exhausted, until the shore line was just a little shadow he could see whenever he was on the crest of a swell. He tried to let himself drown, but he couldn’t make himself go under and inhale water. He would go under, but he always came back up for air. Those Lesser kids were practically raised in the water. He doesn’t know how long he was out there before he gave up and started swimming back. He was so completely spent he doesn’t remember very much about coming back. He had to float often and rest. He came ashore a mile below the Pavilion. It was dusk. He said he fell down several times while walking home. His family was out. His bed wasn’t made. The note was on his pillow, just as he had left it.

  “Early this year he decided he would ‘cure’ himself by making love to a girl. He selected a little slut in his class who was reported to be ready to oblige anybody. He went to her house. She was alone. She kissed him hello, locked the front door, took him directly to her room, stepped out of her shorts, shucked off her blouse and bra and spread herself out on the bed and said, ‘Hurry up, tiger!’ Poor Jigger ran like a gazelle. He paused a block away to throw up, and kept running. The girl spread it all over school. By then if he hadn’t already learned he couldn’t kill himself, he would have tried again. It pushed him a little further from reality, that’s all.

  “Then I came along. I had two advantages, I guess. One, I hadn’t had a chance to hear any of the talk about him. I wouldn’t know, unless I suspected by just looking at him, which is ridiculous, of course. Two, I’m scrawny, not all big bazoom and fatty hips, which apparently the experimental girl had more than her fair share of, and he felt they had put him off. I guess you could say I had three advantages. He didn’t want me to expect anything of him. Can you imagine what the poor thing wanted of me?”

  “Just … maybe to be seen with you.”

  “Exactly! You’re very wise, Kat. He
wanted to have a girl to go on dates with, so the world would know he was dating a girl. He sensed I didn’t want to get involved in any way, certainly not with a kid of seventeen. Actually, if he could have bought a robot girl, that would have been perfect, as long as everybody thought she was real. He wanted me to like him. He wanted to talk nicely to me so I would want to be with him. And I guess he wanted to practice being with a girl, walking with her and talking with her, so that he could be more at ease. He wanted a status he thought he didn’t have, and I was to be the symbol. He really talked very nicely on our walk up the beach, but it was a little bit strained. I think he’d sort of memorized a conversational line he thought would keep me amused. I thought he was tense because he was working up to a pass. And then I stumbled and he grabbed at me in the dark when I half fell against him, and his big dear innocent paw clapped right over my left breast as if he’d planned it that way. And it was such a horrible moment, he froze. The very last thing he wanted to do was make a pass at me.

  “It took a long time to get that out of him. He’s terribly sensitive. And he’s brighter than you’d think. I knew he was not homosexual. But how can you convince anybody who’s gotten themselves tied up in such knots they can’t listen to reason?” She lit another cigarette, shook the match out too violently. “I don’t put much value on myself. Not after last year. When somebody takes everything from you, and decides it isn’t enough. And you crawl and beg and humble yourself, and they laugh and walk out of your life, it doesn’t leave you a hell of a lot to hold dear, does it?”

  “Natalie!”

  “I’m as much a woman as I’ll ever be. You see, I felt involved in Jigger’s problem. And maybe in some sick little way it made me feel better, because here was somebody messed up a little worse than I was. There’s a kind of rare justice in it, Kat. I seduced that big scared kid. I took the risk I could seduce him, because if it hadn’t worked, I don’t know what would have happened to him. On that same beach, the first time, because it seemed to have to be something that happened by accident, almost. If he’d known I wanted it to happen, he’d have become impotent out of fright. Hours, it took. And all kinds of sneaky tricks. God, I was so tender and cautious. When it finally began to happen, I felt ten thousand years old, the mother of all, holding that great trembling scared lummox, that sweet whimpering ox. But he needed more assurance than that. So we’ve had a couple of motel dates. Are you shocked?”