by David Klass
Ellen’s degree was in chemistry, and while she was now a world expert in greenhouse gases and the threat to the ozone layer, she easily discussed volatile hydrocarbons and the other toxins used in the fracking process that bubbled back up in flowback. Flowback liquid was always comprised of water, sand, and salt, but there were dozens of other flammable and combustible chemicals used in fracturing shale. After the liquid came back up, it had to be disposed of, so it was either injected deep underground or stored in metal tanks or in pits at the drilling site. The metallic tanks were vented, but volatile gases collected in them, and at the giant Hanson Oil Field that Green Man was starting to zero in on, there were thirty tanks a hundred feet from the Kildeer River, which flowed in under the security fence. That river would be his way in, and the bomb would already be waiting for him.
“If you ignite a flowback tank, in addition to the explosion, volatile hydrocarbons will be released in a gaseous state,” Ellen told him as he let go of her arm. They had climbed a hill and now stood at the top, looking at the red oaks and the buildings of Central Park West that loomed above them, and the gray sky that was darkening quickly to black overhead. “The gas will be toxic and carcinogenic. But given the distance to the nearest towns, I don’t think it’ll pose a major health threat.”
“Except to the oil field workers themselves,” he said softly.
“Many of whom have safety equipment, including their own breathing systems,” she pointed out.
“But some don’t. Or they won’t hear the alarms in time.” He went quiet as he thought of them, and the pain was so evident in his face that she raised a hand and touched his cheek where the circles under his eyes showed nights of sleeplessness. “I suppose it’s unavoidable,” he finally said, pulling back. “What about if a few of the oil tanks go up? There was an explosion like that in . . . ?”
“San Juan County, New Mexico, in 2016,” she told him. “Thirty-six tanks caught fire. All the tanks were extinguished in a few days, and there were no deaths.”
“Thirty-six tanks went up and there were no deaths? That’s hopeful. But I’m sure there was significant damage to the atmosphere?”
“Some environmental damage will be unavoidable if you hit an oil field,” she told him. “There will be less damage if you hit the flowback tanks than the oil tanks. And you’ll be calling attention to something really harmful to the ozone layer that a lot of people don’t yet recognize as a serious threat. And it’s good that we’re on high ground, because otherwise we might both drown in about five minutes.”
Green Man felt the breeze quicken as the foul weather system blew east from New Jersey and thunder rumbled over the Hudson River. “I can’t get away from this damn storm,” he muttered. “It followed me here from DC.”
“I hope it’s the only thing that followed you here from DC,” Ellen said, making a bad joke, and they looked at each other and smiled nervously. They both knew that it was almost time to say goodbye forever. She lived north of the park, and Green Man’s hotel was on the west side, so the coming storm was hastening the moment when they would have to split up for the very last time.
They made a dash for the park exit on 110th Street, but the wind began gusting and the rain came down. Within seconds the first drops turned to a downpour. Ellen had come straight from a morning of teaching at Columbia and hadn’t brought an umbrella, and Green Man had picked up a small and flimsy one for ten dollars from a corner vendor that morning. They huddled together beneath it as they ran, but by the time they neared the park exit the worthless umbrella had blown inside out twice, and the two of them were drenched from head to foot.
They stopped fifty feet from the park exit, beneath the partial shelter of a wide-branched maple. They were alone in the storm. He put his hands on her shoulders and spoke very tenderly. “This is it, my dear. Go home and get dry,” he urged her.
Her hands on his chest became fists clutching his shirt, and she shook her head. “This is not how I want to say goodbye to you, Paul.”
It was a name from another life, absolutely forbidden to mention now, but in the intensity of the moment, he let it pass. “El, it really doesn’t matter how—”
“To me it does.”
“Long goodbyes are no better than shorter ones.”
The raindrops were running down her beautiful and slightly desperate face, intermingling with her tears. “Come back with me.”
“What? Where?”
“I live three blocks from here. I have a big, beautiful, dry, and completely empty apartment. Come back with me so I can make us some hot tea.”
“That’s crazy.”
“I’ll dry your clothes. I’ll even throw in a high-functioning umbrella for the road.”
He held her tighter as lightning forked near them. Sirens blared as a procession of fire trucks sped around Frederick Douglass Circle. “Crazy, crazy, crazy. Look, maybe I do want to go back with you and say goodbye properly. But we can’t risk being seen together. We’ve been so careful for so long. . . .”
“Who’s going to see us? Nobody’s around in this storm.”
“Your daughter . . .”
“She’s got soccer practice for three hours after school.”
“Canceled due to flooded fields.”
“It’s never canceled. They practice in the gym till six.”
“Your doorman.”
“Don’t have one.”
“Cameras in the lobby and probably the elevator.”
“Not in my Harlem walk-up,” she told him. “I don’t know what kind of posh joints you’ve been hanging out in. And if there are one or two cameras along the way, which I very much doubt, we’re under an umbrella, so we’ll be invisible.”
“We’re not exactly under it,” he pointed out, squinting some rain from one eye, “and let me say for the record that it’s a worthless, porous, piece-of-shit umbrella that wasn’t worth the ten dollars I shouldn’t have paid for it.”
Ellen sensed that she was winning and laughed. “We’re under it enough. Stop arguing and just come.”
They were looking into each other’s eyes. “Why?” he whispered. “Even if there’s nobody on the street and your building doesn’t have cameras, it’s nuts.”
“This is the last time we’ll be together and . . .” She shivered, and he held her tighter. “It’s important to me, Paul, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“And I want to come . . . but it’s too risky. . . . I’m thinking of you, Ellen.”
“Sometimes you think too much these days. Just come.” She looked up at him and said softly, “The first time you kissed me you didn’t think so much; you just grabbed me.”
They were so close beneath the dripping shell of the umbrella that he could feel her heart beating. “I was twenty-four, young, and foolish. Not to mention a little horny. El, I’m sorry, but it’s really not safe. . . .”
But she put her right arm around him, grabbed his belt, and guided him a step, and then dragged him another one. “When it’s time to go I’ll let you go and never look for you or reach out to you again. But now it’s time for you to come, so stop fighting me.” She dragged him a third step, and very reluctantly he let her lead him on. Scrunched together beneath the tiny umbrella, they hurried out of the park and up the street toward her apartment.
TWENTY-THREE
“Do you think it was the hypnosis, baby? Did they mess with your mind?”
“No, I’m just real tired from the travel,” Dwight told her. “They barely let me sleep for three whole nights.”
“Poor baby.” Jenna came over to him and kissed him on the lips and straddled him.
He held her up by the hips. She was wearing short-shorts, and the muscles in her long legs were taut.
“Did you see the president?” she purred in her sexy voice.
“No, I told you, I didn’t see anyone.”
“Did you see the Washington Monument? You know what it’s supposed to look like?”
“No, I didn’t do any sightseeing. I saw the inside of the FBI building.”
“Did you miss me?”
“Jenna, honey, please.”
She lowered herself onto his lap. “Is that a yeaahhhh?”
“Sweetie, I’m really sorry.”
Jenna looked a little shocked. “Wow. You really must be tired.”
“I could crash right now, but then I wouldn’t sleep tonight.”
“So take a little nap.”
“I’m gonna watch some golf.”
“How will that help?”
“It’s like taking a nap without sleeping. Could you get me a beer?”
“Oh, so now I’m the beer girl?”
“I picked up a sixer in Fairmont. It should be cold by now. Beer girl, please.”
“Call me that again and I’ll smack you.”
“Don’t bother with a glass, beer girl.”
She smacked him and got off him. “Okay, couch potato. Sit there and veg. I’ll get you your damn beer.”
Dwight sat back in his leather chair and watched a golfer with a big gut prepare to drive. He took a practice swing and then stood over the tee. He pushed the driver back high on his backswing and then pulled it through, and his torso turned and opened up as 1-wood met ball with a crack. The ball disappeared skyward, and the TV screen showed the path of the drive with a thick white-line graphic.
Jenna brought the beer. “Here you go, Mr. Excitement. And I brought you some corn chips in case they didn’t feed you. Anything else before I head out?”
But Dwight didn’t answer. He was sitting forward, staring fixedly at the TV screen, watching a tall golfer in a blue shirt drive. Again driver struck ball, and again a thick white-line graphic split the screen to show the arced path of the drive.
“Did you even hear me? Do you want me to pick up something for dinner?”
The golf action cut to the tournament’s leaderboard, but Dwight was still hunched forward on his chair, staring at the TV, unblinking.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“It had a white line on it,” he said softly.
“What had a white line on it?”
He swung his eyes to her. “So it couldn’t have been a badger.”
“What couldn’t have been a badger? Was there an animal on the golf course? I bet it was a skunk. . . .”
But he was out of his chair and running for his laptop. He turned it on and started searching, and Jenna walked up next to him. “Can you tell me what’s going on? You’re kind of creeping me out. Seriously, Dwight, I’m a little worried—”
“There!” he said. On the screen was a photo of what looked like a large and ferocious weasel, with a broad white stripe down its back.
“Oh, a honey badger. I know all about those,” she said. “They were on some TV show I watched about the bravest animals. It said they kill poisonous snakes, and they eat honey from beehives even if they get stung a million times, and they’ll fight a lion. So they’re either really brave or really stupid. What’s going on? What are you looking for?”
Dwight had his wallet in his hands and quickly found the business card. He dialed it on his cell phone. “Hi, I’m calling for Mr. Brennan. Sure, this is Dwight Hall. H-A-L-L. Just tell him it’s Patrolman Dwight Hall from Nebraska. He’ll know what it’s regarding. Even if he’s in a meeting I think he’s gonna want to hear this right now. . . .”
Jenna looked at the title and FBI insignia on the card and whistled. “Wow, you know some important people.”
“Mr. Brennan,” Dwight said. “It’s Patrolman Dwight Hall from Nebraska. No, sir, there were no problems. The flight was just fine. But I remembered something. I’m really sorry, but it wasn’t a badger. Well, it kind of was and it wasn’t, sir. It had sharp teeth, but it also had a thick white stripe down its back. Regular badgers don’t have those. So I looked it up. It was a honey badger.”
Dwight glanced at the laptop screen. “I’m looking at a picture of one right now, sir, and yes, I’m absolutely one hundred percent sure.”
TWENTY-FOUR
She gave him a yellow cotton bathrobe to wear while his clothes dried. She had put on a soft flannel one of her own, and her long, wet hair was wrapped in a yellow towel. Green Man had never been in her apartment before, and Ellen showed him around with pride. She had bought it just before the Harlem real estate market had surged, using most of her savings and the money that her mother had left her. The living room had exposed brick and high ceilings and felt like a downtown loft. The kitchen was small but functional, with stainless steel pots hanging from a rack next to a window that looked down on an elementary school. A short hall led to the two bright bedrooms.
Ellen’s was first, and he saw that above her bed hung a landscape he had painted more than twenty-five years earlier of the Middle Fork River in Kings Canyon, where they had camped together. She led him on to the last room and hesitated.
“Teens are private about their space,” he told her, misreading her hesitation. “If this isn’t comfortable, you really don’t have to—”
“I want you to see this part of my life,” she said decisively, opened the door, and walked inside.
He followed her into the small bedroom, which was dominated by a four-poster bed and a wall of overflowing bookshelves. “Looks like a bookworm raised a bookworm,” he said, taking in the nearest titles of an eclectic collection that was stacked double deep on the shelves and included everything from romance novels to hard science.
“She started reading at four and never stopped.” Ellen’s eyes moved from the wall of books to the four-poster bed, which was covered with an elegant quilt.
“Julie sewed that herself.”
“And I bet I know who taught her how.”
She led him to the dresser, on top of which were framed photos of a pretty black girl growing up from a chubby six-year-old jumping double Dutch in a playground to a tall and willowy eighteen-year-old young woman ready to take on the world.
“She’s beautiful,” Green Man said, his eyes moving from photo to photo. And then, softly, with real emotion: “She reminds me so much of her mother.”
Ellen stood next to him, pointing to different photos. “That’s Julie taking the penalty kick that won the league championship last year. She’s gonna play D-III for sure. Here she’s picking up the eleventh-grade science award. To go with her math and French awards.”
“Her friends must hate her,” Green Man joked, but there were several photos of Julie with smiling groups of friends that proved otherwise. “El, you’re trembling. Are you okay?”
“Just still thawing out from that freezing rain,” she lied, guiding him over to a desk piled high with thick textbooks. “And just in case you don’t believe me, here are the awards.” Framed testimonials hung on the wall above the desk, from the Carlyle Academy’s French, science, and math awards to a plaque from the Global Leaders for Tomorrow and a Gold Key citation from Scholastic’s national short story contest.
“She’s gonna have to get a bigger wall soon,” he said. “Ellen, you’ve done so well, and you should be so proud.”
“When you’re gone, she’s going to be all I have. . . .” Ellen’s voice quivered, and she suddenly fell silent, with her arms wrapping around herself as if to contain some powerful emotion that she was afraid of.
Green Man sensed her pain and suggested softly, “I think we both could use some of that hot tea.”
They walked back to the kitchen, where the kettle was steaming and preparing to whistle. Ellen poured one mug of hot ginger tea for him and one for herself, and they sat side by side on the couch and sipped. “This is good, but I should go soon,” he said.
“Your clothes will be dry in ten minutes. Finish your tea.”
He to
ok another sip. “Julie’s sensational. You’ve shown me plenty of photos of her over the years but . . . I really felt her presence in her room, and it’s such a strong and original presence. She’s gonna do great things.”
“Yeah, I think so, too,” Ellen told him, lowering her mug to the coffee table and slowly turning to look at him. She took a breath and said softly, “She’s a big fan of Green Man. She gave a speech the other day that was just incredible. . . .”
“Don’t start crying again, or I’m leaving for sure,” he threatened in a gently teasing but also slightly worried voice, as he saw her eyes begin to glisten and well up.
“I’m not crying.”
“Then what are these?” He reached up to wipe away her tears and blinked away one of his own. And then they were kissing passionately.
It had been more than fifteen years, but he remembered the heat of her cool breath and the soft hardness of her lips. For a few seconds he couldn’t stop himself. Then he pulled away. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.
“No, I’m sorry.” She was smiling through her tears. “Or maybe I’m not sorry, but I know we shouldn’t have.”
He stood up awkwardly, his voice husky and catching in his throat. “Yeah, listen, I have to go.”
“So you’re planning to walk out of here in a bathrobe? Good way to avoid being noticed.”
“My clothes must be almost dry.”
“I don’t send old friends away in ‘almost dry’ clothes.” Ellen dragged him back down by one arm. “Just a few more minutes. I promise no more smooching, and I’ll find a way to stop crying. But I don’t want you fleeing awkwardly out the door in wet clothes as my last memory of you, either. Let’s just sit together in a friendly and dignified fashion and talk about what comes next. Your summer place is all ready?”
He hesitated and then sat back on the couch. “Yes, El, it’s all set.”
“Do your kids know about the trip?”
“No, we haven’t told them anything. We thought it was better to surprise them.”