Mean Streak (32 page)

“Besides,” Cass adds, plunging the spoon deep into the melting peach mess, “how could anyone get hurt? It's not like it was really poison or anything.” She is not certain whether she's trying to convince the others, or to convince herself that what the group wants to do is the right thing.

“Yeah,” Rap echoes. “Not like the stuff they used on that poor kid. You were the one who found her, Jan. You were the one who called the ambulance. So what's this fucking shit about maybe someone will get hurt? Someone's already been hurt, and it's a kid. If she comes out of the coma, she could have permanent nerve damage, remember?”

“That really sucks,” Dana murmurs. Again her hand reaches for her long hair and shifts it to the other side of her neck. She puts out a hand and wiggles her fingers at Tarky, who passes her the remaining joint.

“Hey, what about my turn?” Wes says. He reaches into his jeans pocket and pulls out a hemostat. He moves the swing forward to meet Dana, who leans forward on the glider. She holds the joint between her fingers, and Wes clamps it with the medical instrument.

“‘Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy,'” Rap says, imitating Andy Devine's gravel voice. “I don't see why you can't take your roaches straight, like the rest of us.”

“It burns my fingers,” Wes replies. He brings the hemo to his lips and takes a deep drag.

“And it leaves those telltale burn marks,” Rap adds. “We wouldn't want anyone to suspect that straight-arrow law student John Wesley Tannock might smoke dope, now would we?”

Tarky fixes Rap with a black-eyed Armenian stare, a stare that promises horrible revenge in some future incarnation. A stare that has Rap's vulpine lips stretching into an ironic smile that bares canine teeth.

“Oh, shit, not this again,” Jan mutters. She puts out a thin arm and takes the hemo from Wes. She opens the clamp and takes out the roach, then hands the instrument back. She holds the remaining quarter inch of butt to her lips and sucks deeply. She closes her eyes and seems to float away on a cloud of self-absorption until the males sort out which is to lead the pack.

The radio station plays a long, dreamy Iron Butterfly tune that has Jan swaying to guitar riffs and Rap beating a tattoo on the glider with his long fingers.

A hand touches Cass's shoulder; she turns and looks up at Ted Havlicek. He motions for her to move over and she shifts herself on the porch floor to make room. Part of her is annoyed at his proprietary air, and the other part—the stronger part, she has to admit—takes pride and pleasure in being someone's girl. If she can't have Wes, she'll settle for Ted.

“So, Clark Kent,” asks Rap, “they gonna put this story on the front page or what?” Rap has the bluntness of the New Yorker, but they're used to him by now, so Ted takes no offense.

“Afraid not,” Ted replies. “The city editor said I'd get three graphs on page three of the local section. That's if there isn't a four-car pileup out on Secor Road. Face it, folks, an injured migrant kid isn't big news in this town.”

Ted reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a soft pack of unfiltered cigarettes. He lights one and offers the pack to Cass, who shakes her head. Jan accepts the offer even though it wasn't made to her; she reaches across Kenny to take one and nods her thanks.

“Let me bring you up to speed,” Rap offers. “We have an idea that will put what happened to that kid on the front page, but Wes here, after we've talked about it all fucking night, after we've planned and argued and reached a consensus, now, now”—he stops, faces Wes, and slams a fist into an open palm—“now we're ready to reach the final stage and Tannock here is starting to lose his nerve.”

Rap's deep-set eyes, illuminated by the light from a garage across the alley, narrow with suspicion. His voice, which had been sharp and high, now goes flat as he throws out the challenge: “I'm not sensing fear here, am I, Wes? You're not starting to think this isn't going to look too good on your résumé, are you, because if you really want a job on Wall Street when this summer's over, then you can get up right now and walk—”

Interrupting Rap in full rant is never easy, but Ron Jameson cuts in, “Let the man talk, Rap. I'm sure that's not what he's getting at.”

“Let me play devil's advocate here,” Wes says. He gives Ron a glance that holds no gratitude; he can't maintain his leadership role if someone else does his fighting for him. He leans forward on the porch swing, which lets out a squeak of protest. “We want to make the point that pesticides kill, right?”

Universal nods. Even Kenny, Jan's young cousin, who sits in the corner of the porch and hopes no one will remember his presence, gives Wes the compliment of an acknowledgment.

“We want to make them understand how their poisons hurt the migrants, right?” More nods. “We want to bring Belita's pain home to the people who caused it. We want to give the farmers a little taste of what they did to that kid.”

“Easy, John Wesley,” Tarky murmurs from his perch. “You're preaching to the choir.”

Wes cuts a look at his fellow law student, then takes a breath and continues. “But we don't want to hurt anyone. Not really. So we take a can of parathion, empty the stuff out, and replace it with hot pepper oil.”

“Capsicum oil,” Kenny murmurs under his breath. He's a skinny sixteen-year-old wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt. Bony boy-knees and hairless legs protrude from under his cutoff jeans. He's a kid genius, a college freshman majoring in chemistry.

No one even glances at him. Rap finishes what Wes started. “We take the canister to the county fair, spray the stuff all over the farmers waiting to see who gets the blue ribbon for the fattest pig or whatever, and they all go bananas. Then we tell them it's only pepper oil, but the stuff they poison the migrants with is the real thing.”

“Guerrilla theater,” Cass murmurs. She realizes she's still holding the sodden carton of ice cream and passes it to her brother.

“Will there be any parathion left in the canister?” Jan asks.

Ron Jameson's voice overrides Jan's. “Just how poisonous is this stuff, anyway?”

“A little dab'll do ya,” Rap replies.

Wes looks down from his porch swing throne at Kenny, who swallows hard and murmurs, “It's an organophosphate. One of the most poisonous chemicals known to man. A few drops can kill you.” He warms to his topic; the only time the others listen to him is when they need scientific information. Which doesn't happen often, so his chest swells with pride as he shares his knowledge. “It comes in different strengths. The growers usually buy it in concentrate and then make an emulsion. A spray canister contains about fifty percent parathion, and—”

Jan translates her cousin's words into English. “All Belita did was run through the field after the spraying. She didn't even touch the plants. The fumes were enough to put her in a coma. The doctor at the emergency room told me that if she had touched anything, she'd have been dead in minutes.”

“God,” Cass says under her breath. She herself isn't sure whether it's a curse or a prayer. All she knows is that the lump in her stomach is heating up. Her tears are turning into rage, just the way Jan wants them to.

In the background, Simon and Garfunkel sing that “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls.” And, thinks Cass, they'll be written on the signs we'll carry when we spray that pepper oil. The words of the prophets fill her with the anger she needs to cement her purpose.

“What did that grower say when you told him what happened to her?” She knows the answer, but wants to hear it again, wants to fuel her anger with accounts of the farmers' indifference to the welfare of the people who work their crops.

“He said the fields weren't a playground and it was Belita's parents' job to keep their kid at home. He said it wasn't his fault if these people didn't understand English.”

Jan's words do their intended task. The students all shake their heads in disbelief and disgust. Rap says what most are thinking: “Truth is, I'd love it if we could hit them with the real thing. Put them in a coma just like they did to Belita.” His big-knuckled hands weave webs of intrigue in the night air.

“But no,” he continues, “we're going to make damn sure there's no parathion left in that canister. Kenny here is the chemistry maven, so it's on him to get every bit of the stuff out of the canister and put in a neutralizing agent. So when we fill it with pepper oil there'll be no trace of poison left. Right, Kenny?”

Kenny nods. “Right.” His boy-voice cracks on the word.

“There'll be no screwups like there were on the Fourth of July, right?” Rap takes the carton of ice cream from Ron. Holding the soggy cardboard carton aloft, he lifts it to his lips and drinks the melted pink mess.

“That wasn't my—” Kenny begins, but Tarky's black-eyed stare silences him.

Tarky's black brows lower like thunderclouds. He fixes Kenny with a stare intended to intimidate. “You'd better not fuck this one up, kid.”

The radio has gone into a commercial. A jingle tells the listeners that if they want a used car, they'll be “on the right track at Nine Mile and Mack” in nearby Detroit.

Cass looks at the others one by one, loving the intense passion in their faces, the clear empathy they show for little Belita. They are, she is certain, on the right track.

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

August 21, 1969

Ted Havlicek sits at his desk in the Amigos Unidos Community Action Center. He is a recent graduate of Toledo University's journalism program and acts as press liaison for the center and stringer for the local paper, the Toledo
Blade
. His desk is covered with half-finished press releases; a sign above the portable typewriter reads
NOTICE: THIS PROGRAM IS SET TO SELF-DESTRUCT DUE TO LACK OF FUNDS
.

On the wall are an unframed Peter Max poster of Bob Dylan and two
Blade
stories on migrant workers with the byline underlined in red. An avocado-green radio on the desk thumps out “Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of Earl.”

“But what do you need a notebook for?” he asks the slight boy with the long, serious face. “I use them for reporting, but what do you need with one?” It isn't that he can't spare a steno pad; hell, he's already rooting around in his desk drawer for a fresh one. It's that in the depths of his journalist's soul he has to know the who, what, where, why, and how of everything that comes his way. And that includes knowing why Kenny Gebhardt wants to play reporter all of a sudden.

The kid's sixteen-year-old voice cracks as he replies, “I'm sick and tired of what's been going on around here. I want to find out who's been doing this to me.”

“Doing what?” Ted's blue eyes are guileless behind his wire-rimmed glasses. A jolt of annoyance rips through Kenny; Ted can be a real pain in the ass when he pretends not to know something everybody knows he knows.

“Setting me up. Making me look bad.” Kenny shoves his hands into the pockets of his bell-bottoms. “Like the time I brought the wrong flyers to the rally. The ones in English instead of Spanish. I opened the fucking box back at the office. I checked them before I put them in the station wagon. Then when I get to the rally, they turn out to be the wrong ones. But would anybody believe me when I said I checked?” Kenny's voice rises to a boyish pitch; he drops his eyes and contemplates his worn hightop sneakers.

“They think I'm a dumb kid,” he mutters. “Like I'd really pull that stunt at the radio station.”

Ted stifles a smile. “Yeah,” he agrees, “that was pretty stupid. We're supposed to be airing a tape in Spanish about applying for food stamps and instead all we get is Donovan singing ‘Mellow Yellow' about twenty-five times.”

Kenny raises his eyes and stares Ted down. “Well, I didn't do that either. I took the tape Rap gave me to the station; it's not my fault it was the wrong one.”

“So how's the notebook going to help?” Ted leans back in his swivel chair and puts his elbows on the armrests. All he needs is a green eyeshade to look like a very young editor of a small-town newspaper. The long sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up and his wide, brightly colored tie is loose. But if he had to cover a story, he could knot the tie and put on the navy blue blazer and step out the door looking like a professional.

“I'm going to do what you do,” Kenny replies. “I'm going to take it with me wherever I go. I'm going to write down everything I see and hear. I'm going to find out who's making me look bad.”

“Kenny, nobody thinks you're sabotaging us,” Ted says. “If we did, would we trust you on this parathion thing?”

On the radio, Motown has given way to acid rock as Grace Slick tells the listeners that their friends, baby, treat them like a guest.

“The only reason they want me to do the switch is that they're afraid the stuff's gonna eat right through their skin or something.”

“Still, they asked you to do it. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't trust you.” Ted adjusts the glasses that slide down his nose on hot, humid days. “That's got to mean something.”

Kenny shrugs a skinny shoulder. “I dunno,” he says. “Maybe it's just another setup. Another way things can go wrong and I can get blamed. All I know is, I'm going to be watching everybody. I'm going to find out who's screwing me around if it's the last thing I do.”

Three hours later, while sitting on the porch of the White House, which sits next to the art museum, Kenny finally sees something worthy of recording in his notebook. A man in a black suit steps out of a black car and adjusts his black sunglasses before proceeding to the entrance of the museum. Kenny has seen the man before, standing in the rear of the crowd at a migrant union meeting. Rap was the one who said aloud what they were all thinking: FBI.