The New City

by Stephen Amidon

  All right, Truax thought. Time to go. He made his way through the throng, careful not to jostle anyone.

  “Irma.”

  She almost stumbled as she turned. The engineers took the opportunity to vanish. Truax realized he had to be careful.

  “I think we should get something to eat and then …”

  But she wasn’t listening to him. Her eyes had grown suddenly lucid as they focused over his shoulder.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice low. “Hello.”

  Truax turned. Earl and Ardelia Wooten stood a few feet away, washed up by the human tide jamming the deck. They looked around uneasily.

  “Good evening, Irma,” Ardelia answered, her voice friendly but precise. “John.”

  For people whose children had been dating for nearly a year, the two couples had almost no contact. Truax saw Wooten only occasionally around town. After one terse discussion affirming the fact that Joel and Susan were seeing each other, they’d never again mentioned the subject. The women spoke only when Irma was chasing down Susan by phone, their conversations cool and factual.

  After five long seconds Wooten took the lead.

  “John, how are you,” he said, offering his big hand.

  Truax backhanded it.

  “Irma …”

  She nodded a grim hello. Her ten fingers remained on her highball glass, as if they were holding down the wildfowl pictured there. Someone jostled Truax from behind, moving him closer to the Wootens.

  “Is Joel here?” Irma asked suddenly.

  The question took everyone by surprise. Earl and Ardelia exchanged a glance.

  “No,” Ardelia said after a moment, striving to be sociable. “I think Joel believes we get up to too much hanky-panky here. It offends his sense of propriety.”

  “Hanky-panky,” Irma said into her glass, an oblique smile parting her lips.

  Wooten began to look around for an escape route. Ardelia’s eyes remained fixed on Irma, waiting to see where that smile was going. Get her out of here, Truax thought. Now.

  But before he could move Irma was speaking.

  “Something must be done, you know.”

  Her voice was cold and clear, her eyes fixed on Ardelia’s expensive shoes.

  “Excuse me?” Ardelia asked after a moment.

  “Something must be done,” Irma said, raising her eyes with slow malevolence.

  “About what?”

  “About your son.”

  “Our son.”

  “Yes. Your son.”

  “Ladies …” Wooten said.

  “There is nothing wrong with my son,” Ardelia said coolly.

  “Irma, please …” Truax tried.

  “I did not say that there was something wrong with your son,” Irma said, enunciating every syllable, mocking the other woman’s perfect English.

  “Well, vaht are you saying?” Ardelia responded, taking the bait.

  “Look, this isn’t the time,” Wooten said.

  “Then when is?” Irma asked, spitting out the words. “When it’s too late? When there’s a little brown package on the way?”

  Her words silenced everyone. A few nearby heads turned. That’s it, Truax thought. He placed his good hand on her elbow. He could feel it stiffen in his grasp. He began to fear that he would have to frog-march her out of here.

  “Now listen here, lady …”

  Ardelia’s words caught in her throat. She’d seen something behind Truax’s back that checked her anger more certainly than a choking hand. Wooten had seen it, too. As had Irma. Truax turned. It was Swope, standing just a few feet away, staring at Irma and then at the Wootens. His expression was agreeable but his eyes were sharp. He’d seen. Heard, probably. Truax felt something closing inside him.

  Everyone waited for the birthday boy to speak.

  “Dinner,” he said pleasantly.

  They walked across the soggy lawn, surrounded by partygoers.

  “Racist bitch.”

  “Easy.”

  “Don’t easy me, Earl Wooten. Brown package. Who does she think she is? George Wallace without the wheelchair?”

  “She keeps drinking and she’s going to need one of them before too long,” Wooten joked.

  Ardelia failed to see the humor. Wooten couldn’t really blame her. He’d felt his own temper rise when Irma started talking about Joel. First Chones, now this. And that sorry husband of hers, just letting her go on. If Austin hadn’t showed up when he did, Wooten was about to take the man aside and inform him he’d better control his woman if he wanted to have a future with EarthWorks.

  “I’ll have a word with Austin about it,” Wooten said.

  “Well, all right,” Ardelia answered, only partially appeased.

  They reached the marquee. Wooten looked around for the Truaxes, spotting them settling into a place at an empty table near the back of the enclosure. At least the man had enough sense to keep his drunken wife as far from things as possible. They seemed to be arguing intensely, with Irma doing most of the talking. Damn, would I hate to have to lie down next to that every night, Wooten thought. He felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Truax. Maybe he wouldn’t be so hard on him. After all, you can’t punish a man for family.

  They found seats at the marquee’s center table, the one reserved for Swope’s inner circle. Wooten checked to make sure nothing was blocking the pathway leading down from the lawn—the cake would be coming later and he didn’t want anything to impede its progress. He’d had it specially made in Baltimore. Six feet by four, eight inches deep. Its surface re-creating the scale model in Swope’s office, smaller and less detailed, but pretty fine nonetheless. Eighty-eight bucks, and worth every cent.

  A minute after settling into his seat Wooten was up again, joining the food line before it grew too long. Tonight, he’d be able to eat as much as he wanted without enduring his wife’s baleful stares. It was, after all, a party. He piled six kebab skewers on his plate, even though the normal allotment seemed to be two. It didn’t matter. No one was about to question how much Earl Wooten was due.

  Three young couples were at the center table when he returned, their reward for exemplary service during the year. Among them was Richard Holmes. They hadn’t spoken since he’d tipped Wooten off about the manager rumor. When he saw Wooten he began to make his way around the table, eager to speak. Behind him, Swope had just burst through the crowd. He fell in behind Holmes, who stopped abruptly a few feet in front of Wooten, almost causing Swope to ram him.

  Holmes plucked the unlit pipe from his lips.

  “Any more good vibes on the grapevine?” Holmes asked.

  “I think you’re blocking the guest of honor’s way,” Wooten interrupted.

  Holmes turned and saw Swope, who smiled graciously.

  “Richard, so glad to see you.”

  “Mr. Swope,” a flustered Holmes answered. “Happy, well, birthday.”

  Holmes moved aside to let Swope pass, then grimaced apologetically at Wooten. Everyone took their seats.

  “So, Earl,” Swope asked. “What was all that about?”

  Wooten felt himself groping for the words. Just tell him, he thought. End this nonsense now.

  “Up on the deck, I mean.”

  Wooten’s alarm vanished. Swope hadn’t heard Holmes.

  “I think Mrs. Truax doesn’t approve of my son.”

  “Really?”

  “Somezing must be done.”

  “What’s her beef?”

  “What do you think?”

  Swope leveled his gaze across the marquee at the Truaxes. They were still alone. Silent now. Truax’s arms folded in front of his chest, Irma coaxing a recalcitrant ice cube from the bottom of her glass.

  “Ah,” he said, his eyes on the Truaxes. “Well, I’ll have a word with the good sergeant about it. Let him know that’s not how we do things in this man’s army.”

  Wooten nodded his head in gratitude.

  “There was another gaslight fire this afternoon,” he said after a moment.r />
  “Where?”

  “Juniper Bend. Luckily, I was able to turn back the fire department. You know, Austin, I think it’s high time we did something about this. Somebody’s gonna get hurt behind one of these things.”

  Swope looked for a moment like he was going to repeat the company line on containment. But then a better idea seemed to dawn on him.

  “Maybe you should bring it up with Savage next time you two talk,” he mused. “My star doesn’t exactly seem to be ascendant in his firmament these days.”

  Tell him, Wooten thought. Now. But he couldn’t. He’d been ordered not to.

  “Well, I don’t have any plans to talk to Gus, but if I do, I will.”

  Swope nodded once, then gestured toward the smoking drums on the lawn.

  “I think I’ll go get me some of this kebab everybody’s talking about.”

  The diced pork had a distinctly vaginal hue, a gristly pink tincture that foretold toilet-hugging bouts of food poisoning for those foolish enough to eat it. The shrimp was equally unpromising, grayish and speckled with bits of shattered shell. Swope had taken one skewer of each, but after examining them he made a mental note to stick with the charred bits of onion, green peppers and mushroom. The potato salad looked equally inedible, overcooked dices smothered in crusting mayonnaise.

  He took his time returning to the table, stopping to say quick hellos to various minor guests. Though all he could think about was Wooten’s denial that he had any plans to see Savage. The way he had to think for a moment before answering. The trapped look in his eyes. It just didn’t seem right. And Holmes’s question, followed by that shit-eating grin when he thought he’d been overheard. Something was going on. Swope’s earlier confidence that this was all some foolish misunderstanding began to falter. Could it be that Wooten really was going to Chicago?

  “Austin Swope.”

  It was Ralph Chones, sitting at one of the outlying tables. He wore a dogtooth sports coat and a broad, shiny tie that was knotted noose-tight, pushing wattles of pale skin up under his chin. Beside him was his wife, a chunky woman with a tight do of steel-wool hair.

  “Sheriff Chones,” Swope said, occupying the empty folding chair near them. “I didn’t see you arrive. Margaret.”

  The woman nodded contentedly at him from above a pork kebab, which she nibbled like a cob of corn.

  “I guess I owe you a happy birthday,” Chones said jovially.

  “Well, thank you, Sheriff.” Swope leaned forward slightly. “And I think I owe you an apology for my curt manner last Tuesday.”

  “No hard feelings, Austin. It’s a messy situation.”

  “And your men handled it perfectly.”

  “You wouldn’t think so reading the papers.”

  “Gettin’s so you can’t even arrest a colored anymore,” Margaret intoned over her stripped bone.

  “Honey, please.”

  “Well.”

  Swope let the air clear of her statement before speaking.

  “Ralph,” he said, “you and I should get together soon and see if we can hammer out the specifics on your job. I’d like it to be my first announcement.”

  Chones nodded, his eyes locking momentarily on Swope’s before wandering up to the tent’s stretched canvass.

  “I’d like that, Austin.” He smiled. His gray teeth were a boneyard of orthodontic neglect. “I’d like that a lot.”

  “I’ll have Evelyn call you once I get the all-clear from Chicago.” He stood, picking up the plate of food he would never eat. “Well, I better get back. I think somebody’s going to give me a cake in a minute.”

  Irma would not leave until they cut the cake. Not until the candles had been lit, the song sung and the big knife wielded. Even though Truax’s instincts told him to get his wife the hell out of here before she could do any more damage, he knew that dragging her away now would cause a ruckus. If he waited until all attention was focused elsewhere then he might be able to make a clean getaway. So they sat in self-imposed exile at their mosquito-plagued table near the edge of the marquee, Truax stonily silent, Irma rapidly depleting the bottle of white wine that had been left in an ice bucket. She spoke occasional bitter words, most in German. Truax ignored her, contemplating instead his bleak future. Irma had finally done it. Mixed it up with the Wootens. On Swope’s back porch. Truax might as well have kicked the foreman in the balls and spat on his wife. Just after taking his seat he stole a glance at the center table, where Swope and Wooten were conferring, a brief conversation that concluded with the lawyer casting a baleful glance at the Truaxes. So that was that. His career at EarthWorks was over. The week’s accumulating hopes had been shot to hell. Truax ruefully considered what he might now do. He could drive. He’d liked driving back in his motor pool days. He’d been good, too. Never had an accident or a ticket or a reprimand. An unblemished record. He could drive a big rig. There were commercials on the TV about this outfit that qualified you. Maybe a Greyhound. That would be good. Decent money, long stretches away from home. Union. Pension. His dealings with people simple and anonymous. No boss looking over his shoulder. Next stop Kalamazoo.

  But that couldn’t happen unless his hand healed. How could he work the gears of an eighteen wheeler when he could barely hold a pen? Who would give him a chauffeur’s license? No one. Which left—what? Clerking at a hardware store like his humpbacked father. That would be great. Maybe he could be the key grinder. Just like his dad. People would marvel at how skilled he was with only one good hand. Or maybe he could work as some sort of dispatcher, sitting in a crowded, humid room with a bunch of fat women as they popped gum and passed around photos of their grandkids. Or he could be a crossing guard. Wear a uniform again. He’d sit in his car when it was cold, drinking from the thermos that rested on his dashboard like a spent howitzer shell. Snapping back at the talk radio guys. Yes, there were all sorts of things John Truax could do now that his life was over.

  He watched the smoke from the barbecues drifting into the trees for a while, then looked at Irma. She held her lipstick-stained glass to her lower lip. It was empty. Running on fumes, Truax thought. Her hair was losing its shape, a few brittle fronds sticking out crazily, others hanging limp. The mascara on her long lashes had clumped into oily orbs that reminded him of the warning bubbles they put on high tension wires around air bases.

  There was a commotion at the far side of the marquee. Guests were standing, craning their necks to get a better view. Truax felt a swell of relief. The cake. Finally. Four Filipinos—the two chefs and the stoutest of the waitresses—carried it along a tarp runway. The candles were already lit. Moving through the dark yard, it reminded Truax of a burning sampan he’d seen one night as he flew in a transport above the Perfume River, a tablet of flame drifting through perfect blackness.

  “Time to go, Irma,” he said. “Get your things.”

  Her head swiveled slowly toward him.

  “What?”

  “We’re going home.”

  “But I want to dance.”

  Everyone was standing now, trying to get a better look at the cake.

  “It’s a city,” someone nearby whispered.

  “There’s not going to be any dancing, Irma.”

  “What kind of a party is this, no dancing? I’m going to talk to Sally. She’ll understand.”

  “Irma, please. Let’s just go. It’s been a long night.”

  Applause broke out. Irma looked around, gradually emerging from her stupor.

  “What is happening?” she asked.

  “They’re bringing the cake.”

  “The cake?” Her voice was that of a six-year-old.

  She stood, teetering uneasily. Truax stood as well. The Filipinos were under the tent now, picking their way through the clutter of tenantless chairs. He could see the cake. It was huge, the length and breadth of a coffin. Its surface was decorated with small rectangular figures. It took Truax a moment to realize what it was. Newton. They’d made the cake into a city. He was so intent at st
aring at the decorations that he didn’t realize Irma was heading toward the center table, hip checking guests out of the way.

  They’d started to sing “Happy Birthday” just as he set off after her, a few halting bars that quickly grew into a rousing chorus. Swope was on his feet, Wooten next to him, leading the singing like some black Sousa.

  Everybody was looking at the cake, which moved toward them with the brilliant inevitability of a comet.

  Truax caught up with his wife two tables from Swope. He used his good hand to grab her by the elbow.

  “Irma, please. Let’s just go.”

  She snorted and pulled away, taking a few more steps toward the center table. Candlelight rippled on the canvass roof. Singing people were watching the Truaxes now, their worried eyes at odds with their happy lips.

  Happy Birthday dear Austin …

  Truax caught her again, grabbing her upper arm. Hard. Her flesh was soft beneath his grip. This would leave a mark. His wife was a bruiser. She wheeled, her empurpled face bearing a look of naked hatred. Outstanding veins pulsed on her neck.

  “Let go of me, you failing man,” she hissed.

  The song was over. Her words rang through the tent. A stunned Truax did as he was told, releasing her arm just as she pulled violently away from him. The unexpected lack of resistance caused her to pitch violently backward, her high-heeled foot catching on a chair leg. As she fell her eyes assumed a look of terror, as if she were plummeting from a tall building. Her shoulder struck the cake just after the front two bearers had placed their edge on the table. The other two, the chefs, had not yet begun to slide it forward. Irma hit the trampled grass with a grunt a split second before the dislodged edge of the tray landed next to her. The stunned chefs continued to hold onto their end, causing the cake to slide off its angled support and crumble into a sticky pile of sugar houses. A few of the candles still burned; the rest released wisps of smoke.

  Everyone stared at the ruined cake. Then everyone stared at Irma. She sat in a strange position, the bottoms of her feet together, her legs splayed upward and outward, like butterfly wings. The gossamer fabric of her dress settled slowly over her knees. Her eyes were dreamy and unfocused.