Plan B for the Middle Class

by Ron Carlson

  “You’ve been watching too much Letterman.” I came to the bedroom door.

  “You’ve been outside this house since four o’clock. We had a lovely dinner.”

  “Oh, now we’re going to fight about dinner?” I could feel the rough cuff of dirt around my neck and I hated standing there dirty and naked.

  “We’re going to fight about whatever I want to fight about.”

  “Look, Liz. Don’t. I’ve been in the yard. We want the yard, right?” I felt the closeness of the rooms; it was suddenly strange to be inside. “I’ve got to take a shower,” I said.

  “Where are you?” she said before I could turn. It was a tough question, because I was right there full of beer, but she was on to something. It was August and I wasn’t looking forward to school starting. I shrugged and showed her my brown arms. She looked at me and said, “Let it go, if you like. Just let the yard go.”

  I bought the controls for the sprinkling system. Opening the boxes on my lap and holding the timer compartment and the bank of valves was wonderful. The instruction booklet was well written: simple and illustrated. I took the whole thing over to DeRay and showed him.

  “Yeah,” he said, turning the valves over in his hand. “They’ve got this thing down to the bare minimum and there’s a two-week timer.” I knew he was a union machinist for Hercules Powder Company, and in the four months he’d been my neighbor he’d told me that three different deals he’d worked up had gone into space on satellites. “You’re going to be the King of Irrigation with this thing.”

  Though Liz didn’t like the idea, I put the control box on the guestroom wall downstairs. It took me two six-packs. She said it didn’t look right, a sprinkler system timer box on the guestroom wall. I said some things too, including the fact that it was the only wall I could put it on. She just shrugged.

  I finished at three o’clock in the morning. I went out in the garage and filled the spreader and spread the lawn seed all across the yard first one way and then the other in a complete checkerboard just like it said on the package. It was quiet in the neighborhood and I tried to step lightly through the raked topsoil. There was no traffic on the streets and the darkness was even and phosphorescent as I walked back and forth. It seemed like the time of night to spread your lawn seed.

  The next morning, Liz woke me with a nudge from her foot. I was asleep on the floor in the nursery. “Who are you?” she said.

  “We’re all done,” I said. “The yard’s all done.”

  “Great,” she said, carrying Allie into the kitchen. “Looks like we drank some beer last night. Did we have a good time? I think you’ve caught a little beer fever from your good buddy next door. This is being a hard summer on you.”

  Very late that night, Burris began barking and Allie woke and started crying. “What is it?” Liz said from her side of the bed.

  “Nothing. It’s okay,” I said. There was a strange noise in the house, a low moan in the basement, which I understood immediately was the water pipes. I went to Allie and changed her diaper. She was awake by that time so I carried her into the kitchen, where Burris was jumping at the window. I had set the system to start at four-thirty, which it now was, and outside the window the sprinklers, whispering powerfully, sprayed silver into the dark. I sat down and Allie crawled up over my shoulder to watch the waterworks. Burris stood at the window on two legs humming nervously. I swallowed and felt how tired I was, but there was something mesmerizing about the water darkening the soil in full circles. A moment later, the first bank of sprinklers shrank and went off and the second row sputtered and came on full, watering every inch I’d planned. It was a beautiful thing.

  There were five banks, each set for twenty minutes, and when the last series—outside the fence—kicked on, I saw a problem. The heads were watering not only my strip of yard, but the sidewalk and part of the street. Along the driveway, they were spraying well over my strip, and DeRay’s motorcycle was dripping in the gray light.

  I stood so sharply that Allie whimpered, and I took her quickly in to Liz and laid her in the bed. I put on my robe and grabbed a towel, and I went outside. It was a little after five and I wiped down the bike until the towel was sopping, and then I used the corner of my robe on the spokes and rims, and I was down on my knees when I heard voices and two high school girls in tennis clothes walked by swinging their rackets. It was full light. I looked up and saw Liz in the kitchen window. Her face was clear to me. There was grit in my knees and my feet were cold.

  “I’m going to have to adjust those last heads,” I told her when I went inside.

  “Why don’t you make some coffee first,” Liz said. She was sitting at the table. Allie was back in her crib asleep.

  “You want to talk about what’s going on?” Liz said. I poured coffee into the filter and set it on the carafe.

  “There’s too much pressure this early,” I said with my back to her. “We soaked DeRay’s motorcycle.”

  “You’re taking care of DeRay’s motorcycle now?” she said. “You’re going to get arrested exposing yourself to schoolgirls.”

  After a long tired moment of standing staring at the dripping coffee, I poured a cup while it was still brewing and set it in front of my wife. “Look, Liz, everything’s fine.” I opened my hand to show the kitchen, the window, the yard. “And now the grass is going to grow.”

  That evening there was a knock at the kitchen door just after six. Liz answered it and when she didn’t come back to watch the news, I went out and found her talking to DeRay on the back porch. “Hello, Ace,” he said to me.

  “DeRay has invited us to …” Liz smiled. “What is it, DeRay?”

  “They’re testing one of our engines and I’ve got passes. We could make it a picnic.”

  Liz looked at me blankly, no clue, so I just said, “Let’s do it. Sounds good. This is one of your engines?”

  “We did some work on it. It’s no big deal, but we can go up above the plant in the hills and get off the homestead for a while, right?”

  “Right,” I said, looking at Liz. “A picnic.”

  The Saturday of our picnic dawned gray—high clouds that mocked the end of summer. I offered to make the lunch, but Liz nudged me aside and made turkey sandwiches and put nectarines and iced tea and a six-pack of Olympia in the cooler along with a big bowl of her pasta salad. When I saw the beer I realized that she was going to do this right by the rules and then when it turned into a tragedy or simple misery or some mistake, she would have her triumph. She had never bought a six-pack of Olympia before in her life.

  At eleven, we met DeRay and Krystal in our driveway. She was wearing a bright blue bandanna on her head. DeRay lifted his orange ice chest into the back of our Volvo and said, “Now follow us.”

  Before we were down the block, Liz said, “We’re not driving like that.”

  “It’s his right to change lanes,” I said, moving left. “He’s using his signals.”

  “We’ve got a baby in the car.”

  “Liz,” I said, “I know we’ve got a baby in the car. And we’re following DeRay out to Hercules Powder for a picnic. This is going to be a nice day.”

  As it turned out, DeRay made the light at Thirteenth and we didn’t. He disappeared ahead, the blue bandanna on Krystal’s head dipping in front of two cars in the distance, and they were gone. We sat in silence. Allie was humming as if she had something to say and would say it next. There was no traffic on Thirteenth at all. How long is a traffic light? I’ve never known.

  When the light turned green, Liz said: “Just let us out.”

  “Good,” I said. “Where would I do that?”

  “Right here,” she said.

  Without hesitation, instantly, I pulled against the curb. The sudden stop made Allie exhale with a high, sweet squeal. “Is this good?” I said.

  Liz looked at me with a face I’d never seen before. She unlocked her door and unbuckled her seat belt.

  “Wait,” I said. I knew I was out of control. “I’ll
drop you at Claire’s. Shut your door.”

  She snapped her door closed, but did not refasten her seat belt. I wheeled sharply back onto the street and dropped three blocks down to her sister’s house. I jumped out and ran around to the baby’s door and lifted her out. I kissed her and placed her in Liz’s arms and went back around to my door. I didn’t want any more talking. It was like the things I’ve done when I was drunk. Before I could measure anything, I was back on the access headed for West Valley.

  I just thought about driving, how I would pass each car, dip right, reassume my lane, and head out. When I entered the freeway, I hammered the Volvo to maximum speed. I hated this car. It had always been too heavy and too slow.

  DeRay waited for me at the main gates of Hercules, the plant situated alone on the vast gradual slope of the west valley. There was a guard at the gate, and DeRay waved me through, grinning, and then he and Krystal shot past me through the empty parking lot and under the red-checked water tower to the corner of the pavement where they dropped onto a smooth dirt road that wound up the hill. Powdery dust lifted from their tires and they led me up the lane and around into a small gravel parking area where there were already four blue government vans. Off to the side about twenty people, about half of them in military khaki, stood in the weeds. DeRay parked his bike and came over to where I was getting out of the Volvo.

  “Where’s the wife?” he said, looking in. “Is the baby here?”

  “No, they decided to go to Liz’s sister’s.”

  “Oh hell, that’s too bad. This should be good.”

  We carried the coolers and a blanket to a high spot in the dry grass and spread out our gear. “Who are those guys?” I asked.

  “The staff and some guys from Hill Air Force Base.”

  “Is it okay to have a beer?”

  “That’s why we brought it.” He reached inside the orange Igloo for the cold cans and handed me a beer. Krystal wasn’t drinking.

  DeRay walked down a few yards to look at the bunker a half mile below. I had forgotten the view from out here. I could see the whole city against the Wasatch Range and each of the blue canyons: Little Cottonwood, Big Cottonwood, Millcreek. On the hill I could see the old white Ambassador Building, two blocks from my house, and I could imagine my yard, the fence.

  Krystal was staring out over the valley. “Your wife didn’t want to come to the country?” she said. I could tell that she knew all about it.

  DeRay came back. “It’s all set. In twenty minutes, you’re going to hear some noise.” He pointed to the bunker. It’ll fire south. They’ll catch this on the university seismograph as a two-point. What’d you bring to eat?”

  We broke out the sandwiches and the salad. DeRay sat down on the blanket, Indian-style, his big boots like furniture beneath him, and ate hungrily. “Hey, this is good,” he said, pointing his fork at the pasta salad. “Nothing like a picnic.” He drained his beer and tossed it over his shoulder into the tall grass. “Just like home,” he said. While we ate, DeRay had waved at a couple of the guys by the vans, and later when we were cleaning up the paper plates, one man walked up to us.

  “How does it look?” DeRay asked him as they shook hands.

  “Good, Ace. We’ve got a countdown.”

  DeRay introduced us to the man, Clint, and we all stood in a line facing the bunker. “In a minute you are going to see thirty seconds of the largest controlled explosion in the history of this state,” DeRay said to me and winked. “We hope.”

  A moment later I saw the group near the vans all take a step backward and then we saw the flash at the earthen mound become a huge white flare in a roar that seemed to flatten the grass around us. It was too bright to look at and hard to look away from, and the sound was ferocious, a pressure. I found myself turning my head to escape it, but there was no help. Clint wore sunglasses and was staring at the flash itself. He wasn’t moving. Round balls of smoke rolled from the flame and began to tumble into the air, piling in a thick black column. Krystal watched with her head tilted. She was squinting and her mouth was open.

  When it stopped, it stopped so suddenly it was as if someone had closed a door on it, and the roar was sucked out of the air and replaced by a tinny buzzing which I realized was in my ears.

  “Jesus Christ,” Krystal said.

  The people by the vans were kind of cheering and calling and several of them turned and pointed at DeRay happily.

  “Congratulations, Ace,” Clint said and shook DeRay’s hand again. “It was beautiful.”

  “Yeah, right,” DeRay said. “Now on to phase four.”

  Clint walked down to where the group was boarding the vans, and two more guys came up and shook DeRay’s hand, and then the four vans packed up and drove carefully down the dirt road out of sight. I was watching the smoke cloud twist and roll silently in the sky, thick as oil. You could see this from our house. I wondered what Liz was doing, what she had told her sister. My ears simmered. With the vans gone this seemed a lonely place.

  “That was your rocket?” I asked him.

  “Fuel feed. I’m the fuel feed guy.”

  I looked at him. “I thought you were a machinist.”

  “That’s all it is, really.” He pulled out another beer and sat on the cooler. “Just like this can. Same problem. You’ve got to keep the beer under pressure—two or three atmospheres. But you’ve got to cut the top here so I can open it with one finger. How deep do you score it? Figure that out and your problems are history.” He lifted the tab and the beer hissed. He took a long swig and shrugged. “Oly’s a good beer, right? We’re having a fine picnic here. Am I right?”

  Krystal walked toward us, arms folded.

  DeRay said, “Hey, let’s not head out yet.” He stood. “Ace, you feel like riding the bike? I feel like a little ride.” He turned to the woman. “You okay, Krystal, if we run up the hill for a minute? You can have some more of that great macaroni salad.”

  He started the Harley and I climbed on behind him. “Your wife is some cook. I’m sorry she missed this.”

  We cruised slowly down the road and through the lot. I was thinking about Liz and I felt bad and I could feel it getting worse. And it was funny, but I wanted it worse.

  When we hit the highway, DeRay turned and said, “My second wife could cook,” and he jammed the accelerator and we were lost in the wind, going seventy up the old road toward Copperton, slowing through Bingham and then hitting it hard again, winding up the canyon using both sides of the road. It didn’t matter. The air was at me like a hatchet and I’d watch the yellow line drift under the bike on one side and then another. At the top, the gate to the mine was closed. The mine had been closed for years.

  DeRay pulled up to the gate and I felt the dizzy pressure of stopping. “I come up here all the time,” he said. “After work I just drive up. Push the gate.” The chain was locked, but it opened three feet. He conducted the motorcycle under the chain easily. Near the pit, we sped up a paved incline and circled into the parking lot of the old visitors’ center.

  The structure was weathered. The back walls of the shelter held poster-size framed photographs of the mining operations: a dynamite blast, the ore train in a tunnel, one of the giant trucks being filled by a mammoth loader. DeRay had gone to the overlook and was leaning on the rail staring out at the vast rock amphitheater. The clouds above the copper mine were moving and shredding. The wind was chilly. “You want to bring the bike in?” I asked him. “We’re going to get wet.”

  “Forget it,” he said.

  “I hope Krystal gets in the car.”

  “That woman knows what to do in the rain.” He stood and pointed at four deer that walked along the uppermost level of the mine. “Check that.”

  “What are they looking for?” I said. The animals had made some kind of mistake.

  DeRay leaned on the rail and said, “You know that Krystal’s leaving.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, she has to go. Her crazy man is on leave. He’s out. Th
ey weren’t really divorced. You can’t divorce someone who’s crazy. Something. She’s going out to his folks’.”

  “I didn’t know. Hey, I’m sorry.”

  “Come on, what is it? She has to go,” he said. DeRay rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. His face in the dim light looked blue, the way it did some nights on his porch. When he looked up, he said, “Hey, look at you.” I reached up and felt my hair standing all over. “You’re going to want to get a cap.” DeRay lifted his and snugged it on my head. “Why don’t you take it for a spin? Go ahead, down the road and back.” He waved at the motorcycle and his tattoo in the gloom looked like a wound.

  I said, “Krystal’s a good woman.”

  “Oh hell,” he said. “They’re all good women.”

  “Things happen,” I said.

  He turned to me. “No they don’t. I know all about this. Things don’t happen. I’m an engineer. One thing leads to another. Listen. You’re a nice kid, but that fence around your place won’t stop a thing. What are you, thirty?”

  We could smell the rain. It felt real late. It felt like October, November. When you have a baby, you have to put in a lawn. You’re supposed to build a fence. There’s no surprise in that. I am like every other man in that.

  “That was some rocket,” I said. I could taste trouble in my mouth and I felt kind of high, like a kid a long way from home. “I’m sorry Liz didn’t see it. It won’t be easy to describe.”

  DeRay pointed again at the deer and we watched as they tried to scramble up the steep mine slope. It was desperate but so far away that we couldn’t hear the gravel falling. They kept slipping. Finally, two made it and disappeared over the summit. The two left behind stood still.

  “Hey, don’t listen to me,” DeRay said. “I’m just squawking. We should have brought some beer.”

  I went out and mounted the Harley. It came up off the stand easier than I thought and started right up. I sat down in the seat and looked over at DeRay as the wheels crept forward. I could sense the ion charge before rain. We were definitely going to get wet. Just a little spin.