by Jane Smiley
“I’m not objecting.”
“I know.”
Jane was friendly to me. Over the years she had perfected a way of getting on with men at the office that was comfortable, circumspect, and teasing, absolutely guaranteed to disarm any and every personal thought. Every time I came into the office, she said, “Oh, Joey! How are you today? What have you been doing?” She would push her chair back from whatever she was doing and turn right to me and give me a big smile. If she had a pencil in her hand, she set it down. If she was typing something or calculating something, she stopped what she was doing. If she was on the phone, she waved at me and gave me a big grin. I began to feel that she liked me. If I asked where Marcus was, she always said, “Making mischief,” then grinned and rolled her eyes. Other times, she would say, “Joe! I am getting! Are you spending?”
“Always!”
“Spend more!”
“Can’t help that!”
When I expressed admiration and friendship toward Marcus, Jane would always grin, as if this were especially amusing, but when he was in the office and telling her what he wanted her to do, she was serious and attentive, eager to please him. Her manner toward him was a combination of secretary, older sister, ally, and tease. Finally one day I said to her, “Jane, who’s the boss around here, you or him?”
“I thought you were the boss, Joe.”
“No, really.”
“Marcus and I have a strange relationship.”
“Because—”
“Because I have a hard time taking him seriously, whereas he listens to everything I say. On the other hand, he never does anything I tell him he should, and I do everything he tells me in spite of myself. I’m starting to think it’s a kind of enchantment.”
“Sounds like my marriage.”
“Really? My marriage was not enchanting at all. We were best friends. It wasn’t till the end that I found out he had a romantic side. Now he has a baby. I can’t imagine it.”
“Why not?”
“I could swear I never saw him look at a baby in twenty years. Not once. But he would swear that he was obsessed with babies. So it was like we didn’t live the same life after all. But at least splitting the property wasn’t hard. He had his, I had mine. We never even had a joint checking account. Each of us was very self-sufficient. I thought that was our strength. But then it turned out he didn’t even like the dog. I thought he loved the dog, and I thought the dog was impossible not to love, so I’m not quite sure what to make of that.” She shrugged.
“Marcus thinks my former wife was a little on the commanding side. He went to her restaurant, and she forced him to eat his salad. I just saw her as more firm in her desires than I was.”
“But Joey, you don’t mind being commanded, do you?” She picked up a pencil and tapped it on her desk. She was smiling, though.
“Am I being insulted, Jane?”
“That’s what he’s going to kill us with, you know.” She set the pencil down.
“Who?”
“Marcus. He doesn’t mind conflict and we do, so in the end he’s going to win.”
I didn’t know what she was getting at.
Although I was unattached and Jane was unattached, there seemed to be no possibility that we would connect away from the office, so we got to be something like friends, but always between us there was Marcus, with whom we both were allied, but whom we did not seem to see in the same way. I finally decided that working with a brother and sister was almost like hanging out with some married couple. In the end, your best bet is to stop noticing their relationship altogether.
We were happy as could be, it seemed. One day, I saw a check on Jane’s desk from Gordon, for twenty thousand dollars. The gravel, I thought, an interesting and amazing turn of events, in its way, and the next day Gordon called me and told me that Marlborough County, where Portsmouth was, had decided that the project was amazing in its way, also, because they had sent him a letter telling him that he was required to get a mining permit, and that the removal of county soils had to cease immediately, pending the implementation of required permitting procedures.
“When is the letter dated?”
“Well, let me put on my glasses here. Let’s see, May tenth.”
“Gordon, that’s over a month ago. Was it lost in the mail?”
“It got into the seat of Betty’s car and we didn’t find it until she was cleaning up a Popsicle that one of the kids had that melted in there yesterday.”
“A mining permit? That could be expensive.”
“I’m thinking the state and the township are going to want to get in on this too, but really, you better meet me out there and take a look, because things have changed since you were out there before.” I took this as an emergency request.
The earthmoving machine and the line of dump trucks were now considerably closer to the old farmhouse. In fact, the house, which must have still been inhabited because an old pickup was parked beside the door, now sat on what looked like a mushroom. They had dug away the former hillside for about 300 degrees around the house. As I pulled my car up next to Gordon’s, I saw the door of the house open and something fly out. I said to Gordon a moment later, “Is someone still living there?”
“Uh, Gerhardt, the old guy, is moving to the old folks’ home on the first of the month. It’s gonna be interesting to get into there. He’s got newspapers back to the birth of Jesus in there. That stuff is valuable in some quarters. Well, maybe not to the birth of Jesus. But the First World War, anyway.” He handed me a Popsicle-sticky paper from the county.
I said, “You don’t seem worried about this.” It was a very official letter from an office I hadn’t ever dealt with in a building in Portsmouth I had never been to, the Commercial Land Use and Mineral Rights Inspection Board. Among other things, the letter declared that recipient may be charged a penalty in addition to the normal permitting fee, and a fine for every cubic yard mined . . .which shall be assessed according to . . .please contact this office as soon as . . .ordered to desist.
Gordon shrugged. “We’ll go talk to them. So what? We’re recontouring is all.”
“Gordon, you’re taking down the whole hill.”
“There’s as much as we’ve already taken out still in there. The road-building guy said it was the best he’s ever seen. You know, I always thought the drainage on this farm was perfect. Those cows were never slogging through mud.”
The next morning we went to the Marlborough County Auxiliary Building, which was a former high school. The official we saw, named Sherwin Dorsett, turned out to be a young woman, maybe thirty years old. She took the letter in her hand, read it over, and then looked at me. She said, “You’re Mr. Baldwin?”
“This is Mr. Baldwin.”
“You his lawyer?”
“His Realtor, actually. I’m Joe Stratford, Salt Key Corporation.”
“I drove past that site on the way to work. I drive past that site every morning. Mr. Baldwin, you’ve got twenty trucks passing in and out of there on a steady basis. The mining regulations are very clear in this county. If you export more than the specified cubic yardage of ore or rock or soils, you have to have a mining permit.”
Gordon twinkled at her. “We’re not exporting anything. It’s staying right in the state.”
“This is a county agency, Mr. Baldwin. I work for the county.”
“If I didn’t supply the state highway commission with this gravel, they’d have to go another hundred miles to get it. That would be quite an expense, they told me.”
“I’m sure it would. County regulations are clear, though.”
“I’m recontouring that property. I’ve done it all over the county. If you’re going to build fifty houses somewhere, you’ve got to have level ground. The front section of that farm is level, right along the highway. The back section you couldn’t do a thing with. It was too steep. Now it isn’t, thanks to me.”
“Have you applied for a building permit?”
“Not y
et, but—”
“May I say something?” I piped up.
She led us into her office. I thought about Marcus and said, “Maybe you could tell me precisely what it is you would like us to do?” I smiled and smiled.
“You should have applied for a mining permit six months before beginning the project. That’s how long it usually takes to consider the various documents that would inform the county about whether or not the proposed mining is in the county’s best interest.”
“I don’t think Mr. Baldwin knew in November or October that the state would be needing the gravel. He was really responding to an appeal by them, because, you know, they have to do the roadbuilding now, in the summer, when the soil is stable so they can lay a good roadbed.”
“There are no filings on this project at all, so, as I said in the letter, the project is ordered to desist and all monies received are to be put in escrow until the project is approved.”
I reached out my hand for the letter and looked it over. I said, but oh, so pleasantly, “I’m sorry. I don’t see anything here about putting money in escrow.”
“Well, that is the next step with a noncompliance of this kind. How much have you received so far?”
Gordon stared at her. It was as if she, a girl, a blond girl, a blond girl younger than his daughters, was asking him to show her his poker hand. I leaned forward, shook my head regretfully. I said, “You know, I do think we need to talk about this further between ourselves before we decide what to do.”
“Mr. Stratford, there is no deciding, really. The rules are the rules.” She coughed. “The mining has to cease as of this afternoon. You may begin the permitting process as soon as you put together your impact statements and your soil analysis statements. The company doing the roadbuilding will have to be contacted so they can submit documents about the relative value of material from this site.”
I took out a pen and a little notebook, and I said, “Why don’t you give me the list of documents that you need?”
She softened slightly, I thought with relief, which showed me right there that she was more nervous than she appeared. Her voice strengthened. She gave me the list. I numbered each one. The last one was number fourteen. Fourteen applications and statements and authorizations required to move some gravel, including the “precious metals statement,” which was a soil analysis to be done by some expert from somewhere stating that we were not mining for gold, silver, or platinum and therefore not seeking a “premium” mining permit. I said, “Has gold ever been discovered in Marlborough County?”
“Not so far.” She spoke gravely.
I gave her a friendly look. I stood up. I said, “Thanks for your time.” I patted her on the shoulder. Marcus couldn’t have done a better job. Gordon was coughing and clearing his throat as we went out, as if he were choking to death. I poked him in the ribs and pushed him toward the exit. Out in the parking lot, he said, “It’s my property. I’ve had that piece for twenty years. It just sits there for twenty years, and finally they come to me, and I make a little something off it! Nathan knows a guy, a lawyer.”
I said, “Gordon, you’ve got a better idea than a lawyer.”
“What’s that?”
“Think about it. Think about that time six or seven years ago when they weren’t going to let you put those houses at Rookwood Crossing on quarter-acre lots.”
“I went to the township board of supervisors and asked where they were going to put in the mandated low-income housing. Oh, they approved those quarter-acre lots so fast! That’s a nice neighborhood now, you know. I went past there last week. It’s a regular town. Let’s go see Ivan Kruger.”
We got into his BMW.
“How much money have you made on that gravel?”
Gordon shrugged.
“Do you not know, or are you not telling?”
“I loaned some to Norton. He’s got a guest house he wants to buy. Betty’s putting down new carpets at the shop. You know, it comes in. I gave some to Marcus, but you know, Joe, you’ve got to hold something back with him. I’m not saying I’m not committed to the farm and all, but there’s a difference between paying top dollar when you have to and paying top dollar because that’s what you are in the habit of doing. Marcus doesn’t know the difference, you ask me, but he’s persuasive. That’s why I stay out of the office. Limited contact.”
“Well, yeah,” I said.
Gordon said, “Let’s go for a drive.”
The drive took us east of Portsmouth, to an area I didn’t often visit, a flat, not very pretty area where the farms still prospered—cattle, corn, tomatoes in the summer, onions, a few hogs, you name it. We turned down a dirt road and ended up at the Krugers’. Ivan Kruger had been a county supervisor since before the county had supervisors. He generally ran unopposed. He farmed about two hundred acres or so. When we pulled up next to his barn, he was standing there, holding a baby pig nose-down, his fist around one of its back feet.
Gordon brought the car to a halt beside him; we got out of the car; we came around the car. He did not greet us; Gordon did not greet him. I guessed they had known each other for almost forty years. The pig squealed and arched itself, then hung there for a moment, its ear twitching. Ivan was wearing greasy old overalls, a long-sleeved shirt with an elbow out, and an old fedora, against the sun, but it was a mistake to think he never got off the farm, because he said, “You got all those folks out there up in arms, Gordon. Those trucks are going in and out day and night.”
“That shouldn’t last much longer. A few weeks, maybe.”
The pig tried to stretch down and put its front feet on the ground. It squealed again.
Gordon said, “It was about time that place was recontoured. If old Gerhardt had done that years ago, he might have had a farm.” He nodded toward the barn.
“Might have.” Ivan tightened his grip on the pig but didn’t look at it. He cleared his throat, then said, “You’re making some money on that gravel.”
“One-time deal. Once the land is recontoured, it’s done. It’s not like it’s going to be a gravel pit out there.”
“I suppose,” allowed Ivan. With the hand not holding the pig, he hitched up his pants.
“Would have had to do it anyway, to put a neighborhood in. It’s just opportune that the state needed the gravel at the same time. You know there was four high school kids killed at that intersection up there last Christmas.”
“Folks drive too fast, that’s for sure.” The pig swung back and forth. “But they do. You know, we used to think, well, if there was part of the road that was interstate, then there was part of the road that wasn’t, well, people would notice that, but they don’t. It’s like those three-lane highways we used to have. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was the worst idea in the world.” I stared at the pig’s face, and I thought it caught my eye. Ivan said, “This is going to come up at the next supervisors’ meeting. You know it is.”
“Well, sure,” said Gordan.
“But if you do something for the county, I don’t see any reason to go through all the rigamarole they want.”
“If I shut down the project now, it’s going to look like hell,” said Gordon, “and the state isn’t going to hold off on that overpass till next year.”
“Nope.”
“Well, I got men who aren’t doing anything right now for a while. You know we’re getting ready to do a big project in Plymouth Township.”
“I did hear about that. Say, there’s a lot of kids in Rookwood now. The school bus won’t go in there. They have to come out and wait by the side of the road. I get complaints about that, too.”
“The school bus ought to be able to pull right off the road there.”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“Let me go look at that on my way back to Portsmouth.”
“You should.”
Suddenly, the pig began screaming and squealing, and behind Ivan some other pigs, it seemed like, began squealing in response. It writhed and jerked
its foot. Ivan grabbed the other foot. Now he had the pig hanging down in front of him. He tossed his head at us, then turned away. We got into Gordon’s car. As we drove away, I said, “So what was he going to do with that pig?”
“Believe me, you don’t want to know. The thing about farm animals is, when one gets sick, they just put it down before it infects the whole herd. You don’t even have time to get the vet out, because all he’s going to do is tell you what you already know.”
“I guess you’re going to put in a school-bus stop.”
“My bet is, we won’t hear from Miss Sherwin whatever-her-name-is anymore.”
“I doubt it,” I said.
“But I’ll tell you another thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Ivan isn’t going to run for election again, so she’s the future, not him.”
“Her and Marcus.”
“You got it.”
CHAPTER
20
AFEW DAYS AFTER our visit to Ivan Kruger, I saw some papers on Jane’s desk, and since no one was in the office I glanced through them. They were Bobby’s financial papers, such as they were. Things noted here, slips there, old pay stubs from me. The only thing that prevented them from being a disaster was that the sums were so small. I kept my eyes open, and not long after I saw a folder labeled R. BALDWIN, 1981–82. I opened it when I had the chance. I only looked at the top page. There, in Marcus’s neat and extremely legible handwriting, was a spreadsheet detailing Bobby’s financial condition, and underneath that was his amended tax return, also in Marcus’s writing. It was twenty-six pages long and earned Bobby a refund of $236. One schedule after another detailed this write-off and that. I was impressed that he would take the time, and also at how neat it all was—chaos reduced to order.
When I got home, I took out my own books and opened them up. I was not as disorganized as Bobby—I did have everything entered into an actual set of books, and I brought it all up to date every month, but I usually did so in a hurried way and didn’t often look at the big picture. Some months I paid my rent and my condo mortgage and my utility bills and not much else. Like Gordon, if I knew there was enough—more than enough—I often let it go at that for months at a time. Once a year I took everything to my tax accountant and then sent in a check for what he told me I owed. I had a couple of savings accounts. I was single and had few expenses. Now, under the influence of Marcus Burns, I suddenly got interested in my net worth. I took out the box I had brought from my office (which Gordon was renting to some crony of his month by month on the understanding that Bobby could keep his space and I might need to return, so we didn’t have to move the furniture or clean out the closets) and opened it up. Pretty soon I had spread it all out on my kitchen table. It was interesting reading. For example, as of my divorce from Sherry, a little over two years previously, I had owned my condo ($10,000 equity with a $35,000 mortgage); my car, worth about $9,000 or $10,000; my savings account (about $17,000); and the two pieces of ground, one worth maybe $40,000 and the other worth maybe $38,000. After two years selling real estate, one of them bad and one of them good, I had $20,000 equity in a condo worth $65,000 on the market; a new $20,000 car; and savings of $51,000. The pieces of property I had sold for $100,000 altogether, which I had put into the corporation along with my share of the Phase Four commission. In other words, without my even really noticing, I had gotten to be a third of a millionaire.