Spirit of the Place (9781101617021) (36 page)

It didn't, but the impact with Washington popped a manhole cover and busted a pipe, which sent a geyser of suspiciously brown water up, and then down, spreading messily across and down the street. All cleared out except Packy, Americo, and Orville.

The
TV
cameras gone, Americo said, “Unreal. So what the fuck you want, Orvy?”

“That you keep the agreement we made at the hearing, where you don't knock the hotel down for six months—and that you add another six months to it because of this.”

“Done.”

“And that you yourself sign a note to guarantee that personally.”

“
Personally?
You want me to assume that kind of liability?”

“Yes.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Kinda hard to do, chained up like this. I'm staying. Staying right here.” He looked around happily. “It's nice here.”

“Tell you what I'm gonna do. I'll guarantee it
politically,
okay?”

“What does that mean?” Orville asked.

“Executive privilege. We'll get the town lawyer to draft it, okay? Len Date?”

“Isn't he still suspended? Awaiting trial for what he did with that little—”

“No, no, the little boy's parents are settlin' with 'im. For a bundle he'll beat it.”

“Looks bad for Columbia, though, if he stays on, doesn't it?”

“What
doesn't
look bad for this place these days! I can't argue with you there, but he's blackmailin' us to the tune that he'll sue for some kind of bullshit federal workplace discrimination bullshit if we fire him. He's one sick fuck, ya get me?”

“Okay, as long as I get my own lawyer in on it too. Happy Thorne.”

“Whoa!” Americo waved his hand up and down in front of his belly, palm up, in a gesture of admiration. “Them
WASP
lawyers out in Spook Rock are balls-out!”

“That's why I got him.”

“Okay. So c'mon. Unlock yourself now, okay?”

“Don't have a key.”

“He doesn't have a key?” Americo asked Packy. “Did you know this all along?”

“We didn't get that far.”

“He doesn't have a fuckin' key. So what—we're supposed to find a blowtorch?”

“But I know where you can
get
a key,” Orville said.

“Where's at?”

“First we sign the document.
Then
we get the key.”

“What the hell, Orvy—you've known me all your life—don't you trust me?”

“Americo, I've known you all my life—of course I don't.”

“Aw c'mon, don't be a fuckin' hard-ass. Think of the town, your town, my town, our town—this is an embarrassment, okay?”

“Then you better hurry up. I'm happy. You can be happy too. I'll wait.”

It took a while to draw up the document and sign it, but it got done.

“So where's the key, Doc?” Packy asked.

“In my office, on a table below the twelve-point buck, under the big bottle of Starbusol.”

As he sat and rocked and waited, the saying that came to mind was “Beware the weak, the strong have no defense against them.”

That afternoon
,
The Crier
ran the photo on the front page, it taking up much of the space above the fold. Amy rushed the paper into Orville's office. He stared at the massive crane facing the frail old hotel, at Officer Packy Scomparza and Mr. Jeffrey Liebowski, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, facing the smiling Dr. Orville Rose, in a suit and tie, in a rocker, in chains. One link of the spanking new steel chain was caught catching a ray of dawn sunlight and reflecting it back into the imperfect lens in a big dazzling X of light which, Orville mused, a postmodernist antiquer would falsify to the level of art. The caption read:

TOWN DOCTOR SAVES HISTORIC HOTEL

RISKS LIFE, LIMB, JAIL FOR CAUSE

All that day as he doctored Columbians as usual, fielding their more intense interest now that he was a celebrity and answering their arguments pro and con about saving the Worth, and as he worried whether he could find someone to buy the practice because he didn't want Bill to return to find it dead, a strange word kept floating through his head:
ahimsa.

It was Gandhi's word, meaning “nonviolence.” He had heard it from time to time in disparate corners of the world when he worked for Médecins Sans Frontières.
He had a vague recollection that the word didn't really mean what everyone thought it meant, didn't really mean “nonviolence.” But all day long he couldn't recall what it did mean. He'd walk along and his feet would tap the pavement
ahimsa, ahimsa.
He'd eat lunch at the Hendrick Hudson Diner and chew his French fries
ahimsa, ahimsa.

Finally, late in the day, it popped into his mind.

Last July at Lago d'Orta, perhaps even to the day, Celestina Polo had told him that the Sanscrit
ahimsa
is wrongly translated into English as “nonviolence.”

“The true meaning,
caro,
is ‘creative love.'”

· 28 ·

Howdy, Doc,

Cold and wet. Ugly place. Makes you not believe in God. Close as you can get to Antarctica. Babs wants to go there to see Emporer Penguins. Seen one penguin seen 'em all but that's married life. Both bowels blocked bad. Worse than the Army. When you leave, lock office door and throw away key.

Yr frnd, Bill

The front side of the postcard showed a desolate mountain range, all ridges and hollows and no trees, overlooking a more desolate rocky beach. In the foreground was a single, piercing, scarlet and gold wildflower. Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. So far south it's always cold.

Orville read the postcard while sitting in Bill's chair. He realized that the ridges and hollows in the seat of the chair that had fit Bill's big butt beautifully now fit his own fairly well. His very own Tierra del Fuego.

It was late afternoon of August 6th, his real birthday.

Weird, he thought, for the first time in my life after forty years, to celebrate my real birthday. Some celebration. No one except Penny and Miranda and Celestina knows. Celestina and Miranda are unreachable, and Penny is enraged and no longer speaking to me. Some celebration.

In the almost two weeks since he'd chained himself to the Worth, things had gotten a bit better, and then a whole lot worse. Better because he had a brief high when he knew for sure he'd be leaving. He'd bought a ticket to Rome for August 27th and sent a telegram to Celestina with the details. Everything else was worse. No good deed goes unpunished, he'd say to himself as he walked from one disaster to another with his patients and his family.

Word had gotten out that Milt was the culprit. Totally pissed at Orville, he denied being the one—maybe with Henry Schooner—who'd ordered the demolition.
Maybe
Schooner, yes. Orville realized that while he assumed from Milt's message that Schooner was part of it, he couldn't be sure. As usual, to the naked eye everything about Schooner seemed obvious and clear, but when you looked deeper you realized that you knew nothing for sure. Henry hadn't been in town the day of the chaining and hadn't been back since.

Orville had phoned the house and got Nelda Jo. She said he was on a fund-raising trip to Washington and then on to the Deep South and the Sunbelt. “He's followin' the money—that's where the deep pockets are. My daddy has clout with the oilmen of Tulsa, and Henry's buddies in the navy all seem to have settled in around golf courses in the desert, makin' it hand over fist. He'll be back on the tenth. Honey, I think what you did was great, brave and great. If we don't save that dump, what won't we save? Makes good business sense, an opportunity cost for tourist return. How 'bout droppin' in? Or comin' over for a barbecue on Sunday?”

“Sorry, can't.” He didn't inquire about the fate of the mole.

“Next time. I'll tell the Great One you called.”

That very night Henry called Orville back. Out of the phone came puzzled concern.

“I'm shocked, shocked, at what Milt did,” he said, “and saddened, too. What is our great little town without due process. I swear on the Bible, Orvy, that I had nothing to do with it, and thank God you stepped in and saved that dear old lady. Your mother would be proud. God bless you.”

Orville waited for “—and God bless America,” but it didn't come.

Amy was thrilled at what Orville had done, and Penny, trying to find a way into Amy's life, had praised his public-spirited action. She allowed Amy to move in with him for the few weeks until he left. Amy was helping out at the office, functioning as receptionist, scheduling appointments, and helping with the billing. This made everything in the office run a lot better, and Columbians resented it greatly. In particular, they didn't like having a set appointment time, a time when they could be seen without waiting.

“
Bill
never saw us without waiting! When's he comin' back anyways?”

Penny had good reason to be enraged. Not only had Orville provoked her husband's public humiliation, but he had missed the unveiling of their mother's tombstone

“You did it on purpose!” Penny said, eyes full of venom, when Orville arrived after everyone else had left.

“No,” he said, “I swear not. I'd been up for two days straight and was finishing up another all-nighter doing a delivery way out in Red Rock and I got into the Chrysler and was going as fast as I could down 66 to get there and nodded off once, and woke up, but then the line down the middle of the road started wobbling again and I nodded off again and only woke up when I felt the car shudder off the road—I pulled out of it just in time. I was too tired to see straight, to drive. I fell asleep—it was a deep sleep and I missed everything and I'm sincerely sorry, Pen. I overslept, okay?”

“No. Your oversleeping is your unconscious hatred for your mother.”

“Hey, I love my mother. Selma's a great Columbian.”

“Do not mock me, okay? I mean, even after a whole year when you're supposed to be mourning her you hate her more. You should go under psychoanalysis—fast!”

“I was nodding off in the car! People die that way! You'd rather have me dead?”

“Don't tempt me but I've had it with you and when are you leaving?”

“The 27th. I get the check that day, and I'm gone.”

“For sure?”

“Got my ticket.”

“One way?”

“That's sweet.”

“No, it isn't. Your leaving Columbia, leaving us with one less doctor, is one of those good news/bad news situations.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, but not the way you think. You think it's bad for Columbia and good for you, but I've got news for you—it's the opposite. You've done a lot of harm here this year and we'll all be better off without you.”

“Thanks, Sis.”

“You're welcome. The problem was that you got our expectations up—me, Amy, even, would you believe it, Milt. Over the years we'd gotten used to expecting nothing from you, so your staying for a while was more than we bargained for. But now, hell, it's clear that you were just doing it for the money. I wouldn't like to live in your head for a day, even for a million! Thank God you're going. When you're gone we'll be all set. We can all get back to normal.”

Her viciousness rocked him. He still felt shaky three days later.

And so it was August 6th, his first real birthday. That morning he'd gone up to the attic of his mother's house to the Scomparza Moving and Funeral box. He found the pile of Selma's letters and took the top one off the pile. It was marked “Number 15, To Be Mailed On the Eleventh Month and First Week He Is Back.” He opened it and read:

Dear son,

Maybe writing these letters to you is having an effect on me.

I had a strange thought today. It brought tears to my good eye.

Maybe you weren't running from me, you were running for me.

I can't write anymore now, dear, I'm crying too hard to see.

Til next time,
Love, Mom

Orville was surprised, touched. He remembered as a boy lying next to her on the couch, his head on her breast, his grandmother Molly sitting in her rocker, all of them watching what his grandmother always referred to as “The Ed Solomon Show”—mistakenly thinking Ed was Jewish. Lying there, feeling his mother's breathing. Soft rise, soft fall. Feeling her laugh at the jokes on the show.

He looked at the letter again, turned it over, searching for the dagger, the way that, whenever she opened him up, she would plunge the knife in.

No dagger.

He reached into the box and picked up the next letter, “Number 16, To Be Mailed on the Eleventh Month and Second Week That He Is Back.” It felt light. The flap was unsealed. He looked inside. It was empty.

He looked back down into the box again, and took the next one off the pile. “Number 17, To Be Mailed On the Eleventh Month and Third Week That He Is Back.” This one, too, was unsealed and empty. And so it was with all the rest of the letters. They were marked to be mailed at closer and closer intervals until the year and thirteen days was up, two a week for a couple of weeks and then one a day for the last seven days. All of them were empty. Stamped, but empty.

Sometime between Letter Number 15 and Letter Number 16 his mother had died. He flashed on her complaining in previous letters about her indigestion, brought on by exertion, and not helped by Maalox. Bill had blown the diagnosis. It wasn't indigestion, it was angina, her heart.

Orville felt light-headed, and slumped down onto the rough dusty planks of the attic floor. She's dead. This meant she really
was
dead. No more letters. She was out of touch for good. He felt sick to his stomach.

“Running
for
her?”

It was a long lonely day doctoring. Longer and lonelier for it being his fortieth birthday and no one else knowing it. No “Happy Birthdays!” to carry him through the day and no one to welcome him home. That evening as he trudged through the sluggish damp night from Bill's office to Selma's house, his heart was heavy and his spirit sunken. His feet hit the warm pavement softly, sadly. At the entrance to the Courthouse Square he had a sense of being watched and raised his eyes.

There she was! Not flying, hovering only a few feet above him, at the level of a first branch of an oak. He felt a strange relief—glad to see her now that she was somehow more dead. Her head was turned away from him. She was not wearing the cobalt-blue satin gown but something white—maybe a housedress? And she had something on her head, also white—a white hat?

“Selma?”

She did not respond.

“Your indigestion? Remember your indigestion?”

Still she floated there, at the level of the oak branch, facing away, and silent.

“Bill blew it. It wasn't acid reflux, it was your heart.”

Nothing.

“Mom?”

On this she turned toward him. He reeled back, in shock. Her face was hideous, one facial nerve cut by the surgeons so that half of her face was fallen, as if in sorrow, and one eye was sewn shut with black sutures, to protect the cornea because she could no longer blink. The white housedress was a hospital gown and the white hat was a turban to wrap her head and cover the hairless flap of skin over the hole drilled in her skull. He lost his breath and stumbled back. It was how she had looked when she'd come home that morning from the hospital, when he, taking one look at this woman he'd always seen as beautiful and being totally unprepared for anything being wrong with her, anything at all, had run out of the house across the square and down into the woods. In that first moment he hadn't stayed with her, and he hadn't stayed with her all summer.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

Instead of an answer, a look of inconsolable sadness passed over her mutilated face. She floated away.

Shaken, he groped for a park bench and sat down. Trying to catch his breath, he stared at her house. It was dark, forboding. How can I go in there?

Sounds from Schoonerland came from behind him. Rock music. Must be Junior. Was Henry back? He turned to look, thinking he might go over. But the oversized sign on the front lawn—
VOTE AMERICA VOTE SCHOONER
—was a deterrent. Breathing more easily, he took out a Parodi cigar and lit it. The sharp taste stimulated a craving for bourbon and a cold beer, which lived in the house. He got up and walked slowly, shakily, toward Selma's house, thinking, Now I've even been rejected by the dead.

The front door was unlocked. Strange. He'd been locking the door ever since a break-in last month, a “Below Fourth Streeter” looking for drugs in his doctor's bag. Had he forgotten to lock it this morning? Not like me. Is Amy home? Hayley? But there were no lights on. He went in cautiously.

“Amy?” No answer. “Hayley?” None. He tried again, louder. Nothing. A touch of fear. He shivered. Hayley always waited around if she knew he was coming home, and she knew tonight. They would talk and watch
TV
while he ate. A comfort. He thought he remembered Amy saying that they would all have dinner together tonight. Something was wrong. And then he realized that Starlight wasn't shrieking. The bird always shrieked when he came in. Better than a watchdog. Something was definitely wrong.

He picked up an umbrella from the stand in the hall. Scared, he tiptoed down the dark hallway to the kitchen door, raised his umbrella, and opened the door and felt something roar and come crashing down on him and saw a flash of light. As he reflexively slashed out with the umbrella, he realized that the crash was a hand slapping his back and thrusting him further into the room and that the light was from flashbulbs and the roar was Columbians shouting “Surprise! Surprise!” A banner read: “
HAPPY FORTY-ETH AND FAIRWELL!
”

Like a rowboat on a friendly lake, Orville floated among friends and dear nurses and hospital workers and patients and enemies. Someone took the blanket off Starlight's cage and the bird began to shriek. Going person to person and then blowing out the candles and cutting the cake, Orville was touched. As he stood between the small squat Hayley and the taller, thinner Amy, Orville, feeling appreciated, felt appreciative. At one point, looking into Hayley's eyes—noticing behind the thick glasses the gathering clouds of cataracts and thinking she should have those done, but not here, up in Albany—he said, “This is great! Thanks!”