The Glass Factory (18 page)

And lower the property values so that only the
latinos
will move in next to the living dead. Colomba says when she bought the place, the real estate agents told her that FNL was a drug company. Nobody mentioned the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

“Yeah, it’s a little unsettling to say the least,” I say. “Kind of like finding out one of your neighbors has a vengeful, emotionally disturbed teenage son with ready access to high-powered rifles.”

“Plutonium’s pretty heavy, though. It would tend to sink rapidly and bond with the sediment, so it’s fairly unlikely that it would get into the drinking water.” I’m beginning to think about just how I could get it into someone’s drinking water, when Gina says, “There’s a much bigger risk on Long Island from breast cancer.”

Oh, no. Something
else
to worry about. “What’s that about?”

“Well, we’re just starting to study it. But Nassau and Suffolk counties rank among the highest incidence of breast cancer in New York State, which already ranks high in the national average. We think the most likely chemical agents are organochlorine pesticides like Chlordane, Toxaphene, DDT—”

“DDT was banned years ago.”

“Yes. Suffolk was the first county in the U.S. to do it, back around 1970. But the stuff’s persistent. Any woman who’s been living in the same house for fifteen years is at risk.”

That means Colomba. And probably Rosita, too.

“Chlordane was banned in 1988, but it can stay in the soil for twenty years. Traces have been found in the Arctic food web, and in almost every human being on the planet, but it’s particularly high in people who work with pesticides, like exterminators and lawn-care workers.”

And that means Elvis. Strike three. “What else have you got? Come on, don’t hold out on me.”

“It’s still being manufactured for export.”

“Where to?”

“Where do you think? Poor countries with flimsy environmental regulations.”

And that means Ecuador.

All of Latin America.

“Ay, ¡mierda!”
And a chemical change comes over me, submersing me in a cauldron of wrath, which I pour out for several minutes, constructing elaborate curses about what I’d like to do to the SOBs who allow a known poison to be shipped abroad, in a mixture of English, Spanish, and Quichua, before I resolve to get down to Ecuador somehow and help them outlaw this shit before it’s too late.

I also resolve to insist that Colomba and Rosita start going for regular mammograms, and to tell Elvis to make sure he uses rubber gloves and a breathing mask the next time he has to spray some shrubs. But Gina tells me it’s not that easy. No one uses Chlordane any more, so he wouldn’t be in danger of breathing it in. The greatest risk would be physical contact from digging in Chlordane-contaminated soil. He does a lot of digging. And the only way to determine if a house he’s working on was treated with Chlordane would be to find out from each and every homeowner if they or their exterminating service have records from before 1988 indicating what chemical pesticide they used for termite treatment. Right.

I listen to Gina tap her pencil and hum, as she studies the situation.

“Tell you what I can do, Fil, I can check with the state Resource Conservation and Recovery people to see if there are any existing violations—”

“That’s too slow. You’ve got to move in now.”

“Just like on TV, Filomena. ‘I need
evidence,
Detective Buscarsela,
evidence.’“

“You
do
sound a bit like my lieutenant.”

“Fuck you, girl.” We laugh.

“You want evidence?” I say. “I’ll get you evidence.”

“Okay, but be careful.”

“I will.”

“’Cause the phone might be tapped.” It’s a joke.

So why aren’t I laughing?

It’s one of those cloudy days that’s threatening a thunder-shower sometime, you just don’t know when. I’m moping about the house, at my wit’s end. I’ve been blocked five different ways before, but with the machine to fall back on. Cops may not be too brilliant all the time, but they generally know what they’re doing, they get paid to do it, and if there’s evidence out there, they’ll find it. I’m on my own here. I feel like calling up Van Snyder for backup, but I know it’ll be the same story: “I need
evidence,
Detective Buscarsela,
evidence.”

So now what? I think about the workers. They’ve lived here so long they’re used to it. They may look okay to each other, but to me they all look gray and bloodless. Of course, hazardous workplaces are nothing new. Nineteenth-century clowns were dropping like flies from the whiteface makeup before they found out that the chemical they were using to make it was deadly. Now
there’s
a situation some surrealist ought to explore.

I’ve dealt a lot with the flip side of legality, but this one’s got me caught between the two. Guess I’m showing my age there: I suppose CD-bred kids don’t know what a “flip side” is. Well, maybe they do. Am I sounding old-fashioned? Oh, no. Is it old-fashioned for me to get angry when I hear that Elvis’s girlfriend cooks his meals and cleans his apartment for him? (Does she cut his meat, too?) Is it old-fashioned of me to want to pull the plug when I go in to see Billy, and he’s watching a porno movie on Pay-Per-View?

I accost him: “Why are you watching this garbage?”

“I dunno. Porno’s really gone downhill.”

“It has? How is
that
possible?”

“I mean, it’s always the same: the guy and the girl meet, strip and fuck. Bo-o-oring! They even use the same actors. At least this one’s got some new faces. Cute Asian babe. And there was this gorgeous black woman on before with—uh—”

“Any
latinas?”

“Sometimes. See that one there? She’s from Iran. Man, they’d stone her to death back home if they ever caught her!”

Hmm. So that’s what our struggle for equality has given us: Multicultural pussy. It is a sad commentary on our condition when
pornography
represents our society at its most “egalitarian.”

“See?” he says.

“My, he’s large.”

Billy laughs. “Yeah, his cock takes up half the screen.”

I look at Billy. “You’re getting a hard-on watching
a cock?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “No, I’m not. I’m watching this Iranian babe give him head.”

“You’re watching both.”

“I am not!”

“Look at it! It’s right there on the screen!”

Pause. He zaps the channel. To a commercial: “And the taste?
Great!”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for in an antacid: great taste. Come on, Billy, let’s get out of here.”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. Go for a walk. Antonia! You want to go for a walk?”

“I want to go for a walk!” she comes running in from the kitchen.

Tree-lined streets and lengthening afternoon shadows. It’s pleasant enough, until the wind shifts.

“Pew! What’s
that
smell?” I ask. I mean, in addition to the usual smells that we’ve all gotten used to.

“Every year they spray the trees,” says Billy. “Right after Memorial Day.”

“So it’s insecticide. Great. More poison.” Going to have to ask Gina about what they use in place of Chlordane, too.

“Come on, Aunt Filomena. You know how much it’d take to kill a person?”

“No. Do you?”

He doesn’t.

“We didn’t go to see
tía
Yolita,” says Antonia.

“She’s in Ecuador, Antonia. I showed you on the map. It’s very far away. We’re going to see her soon. I promise.”

“She’s in Ecuador?”

“Yes, in South America. Remember, I showed you—?”

“Freeze!
You’re dead!”

“Jesus—!” I’m all instinct, pushing Antonia back and lunging forward into the bushes, grabbing a throat, thorns, squeezing—a knifelike slice cold across my cheek begins dripping, then a second blast squirts it in my eyes. It’s a water pistol. A fucking water pistol. Filled with ice water.

“Jesus shit bricks!” I explode, but I’m just letting off steam now. My forearms are scratched and bleeding superficially. The kid rolls out of the bushes, laughing. Thank God I didn’t hurt him, but if it had been for real I’d probably be dead. He’s about twelve years old, but big, with a voice like a man’s.
That’s
what did it to me. I wipe my face with my T-shirt and he shoots cold water all over my abdomen.

“Goddamn, that’s enough!” I shout, grabbing him. “Don’t you have kids your own age to play with?”

“My mom won’t let me go when they’re in there,” he pleads, like that’s supposed to make it okay.

“In where?”

He points. The fence.

Of course.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Tomás. Tommy.”

“Okay, Tommy, why doesn’t your mother want you to go in there?”

“She thinks it’s dangerous.” He makes a face that says—mothers—as if I’m supposed to sympathize with him.

“Is it?”

“Nah.”

“Why not? What’s in there?”

“Just a bunch of barrels and shit.”

“What do you mean ‘and shit’?”

He makes another face: “I know, I’m not supposed to say bad words—”

“No, you’re not—now what do you mean, ‘and shit’?”

“You know, stuff.”

“No, I don’t know. What kind of stuff?”

“Just stuff.”

“Just stuff. Solid stuff? Liquid stuff? Gas?”

“Oh,
that.”
Like it was obvious. “Liquid.”

“Liquid?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe?”

“I mean I guess it’s liquid. It’s all thick and gooey.”

“What color?”

“Black.”
Like
everybody
knows that.

“Black. Like motor oil?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Billy, you got film in your camera?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Here’s five bucks. Run to the store and get some. Go!”

He runs like an out-of-shape athlete who’s over the hill at seventeen, but he runs. Haven’t seen him move this much since I’ve been here.

“And there’s five for you too if you’ll do me a big favor.”

“My mom told me not to take money from strangers.”

“Your mom told you right. But now that you’ve soaked me twice we’re
not
strangers.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I’ll make it ten dollars.”

“What’s the favor?”

Fifteen minutes later Billy’s back with his Instamatic and a roll of film and I’m explaining to Tommy that I want him to sneak in and take pictures of anything unusual. Since he doesn’t know what constitutes “unusual” at an abandoned waste dump I tell him anything
messy
—like barrels that seem to be leaking oil.