by Mark Harris
“Krannick, not Brown,” said Brown. “She’s quite well. I think I’ll go to her office right now in fact.”
“Her office out Geary?” asked Officer Phelps. “That’s right.”
“No, I should be getting back to work.”
“Get in,” said Officer Phelps.
“Well, that’s awfully darn nice of you,” said Brown.
But apparently Officer Phelps had not quite understood Brown’s intention, for instead of driving to the Chronicle he was driving toward Van Ness. “Maybe we got our signals crossed,” said Brown.
“I’m just stunned,” said Officer Phelps, thinking of Junie. “I’m absolutely speechless.”
“When did you see him?” Brown asked.
“I was just thinking. He was in uniform. I met him in Station G there at Eighteenth and Diamond. We were leaning our elbows on the table and talking.”
“It certainly pleases me that he said I had a ‘sophisticated moral code,’ ” Brown said. “I’ll write that down, you can be sure of that.”
“He was awfully proud of you,” said Officer Phelps, “because you were on the newspaper. Everybody some time or another wants to write it down.”
“Headlines writer, not really writer,” said Brown modestly. “People read me every day and never know my name. I’m anonymous. I have no power.”
“You were a wonderful father considering that you weren’t his natural father,” said Officer Phelps in his frank, youthful way.
“I was a wonderful father by any standard,” said Brown. “It’s the only thing I’m proud of.”
“He was a leader,” said Officer Phelps. “He was a rebel. He was a fighter, too. O.K., a Protestant kid in St. Ignatius had to be a fighter anyhow.”
“He wouldn’t fight in the war,” said Brown. “That’s what killed him. He wouldn’t carry a gun.”
“It was a belief,” said Officer Phelps, becoming enraged. “If you hold such a thing as a belief they’re supposed to exempt you, it’s like a religion, it’s something you inherit in your family.”
“They wouldn’t accept it,” said Brown. “They wouldn’t accept me as his father.”
“You were a more natural father than his natural father,” said Officer Phelps in fury.
“His natural father abandoned him when he was a year old,” said Brown.
“I was lucky,” said Officer Phelps. “Draft exemption for police. All you need is a little pull anyhow. McGinley made a fortune exempting people.”
“I can believe it,” said Brown, beside Phelps, speeding out Fulton beside the great park where he and Luella and Junie walked together five hundred Sundays, though Brown could remember, of all those Sundays, no particular Sunday, no single day apart from all others, none separate, all merged into one Sunday walking with Junie among the animals, the wheels, the bouncing balls, the wet trees, the shining glades.
“The park makes me taste potato soup,” said Officer Phelps. “We always had potato soup at picnics.”
“I remember my father frying bacon in a pan,” said Brown.
“The park makes me think of the expression ‘It’s a small world,’ ” said Officer Phelps, “because my father met another man walking along in the park, and the man said it. It fascinated me. Of course, it is a small world when you get right down to it.”
“When Junie was a baby his father nearly suffocated him one time,” said Brown.
“How was that?” asked Phelps, horrified.
“More than once,” said Brown.
“How?”
“By pinching his nostrils.”
“Don’t tell me any more,” said Officer Phelps, driving north on Park Presidio, to Geary, and illegally left on Geary, west to Luella’s. On Geary, near Narrow Alley, Officer Phelps parked beside a fire hydrant.
“The astronauts are in trouble,” Luella said, greeting Brown as he entered her “real-estate office” with James J. Phelps, Jr.
“He was a friend of Junie,” said Brown.
“Friend and admirer,” said Officer Phelps. “I’m in a state of shock, let me tell you that.” He was uneasy, awkward, and breathless with emotion.
“Have a chair,” Luella said. Her office had only two chairs, which inspired Officer Phelps to wonder how she could do much business here. Where did people sit while making deals? Her typewriter was an old upright Underwood, and yet it appeared new. On her desk lay several magazines and newspapers, but where were the contracts and maps and brochures you’d expect in a real-estate office? Her telephones were dust traps — they certainly weren’t telephones you picked up and set down a hundred times a day as you’d expect in a thriving real-estate office. And only two chairs, too. It didn’t check out. “I’ve been watching them all evening,” she said, “but you can’t see much. Mostly you see Cronkite’s face.”
“I can’t stand Cronkite,” said Brown.
“He’d like him better if we had a color TV,” said Luella. “They’re definitely in danger. They blew a gasket, Walter said, or the air rushed in their window. Their radio pressure, I think that was it.” On her bosom she wore a small watch dangling from a chain about her neck, and a McGinley button. It was a nice round bosom, Officer Phelps observed, although of course she was a very old woman. She’d need to be upward of forty at least to be Junie’s mother.
“It was wonderful the way we struck up a conversation,” said Phelps. “Then he mentioned something, and I knew he was Junie’s dad.”
“Step-dad,” said Brown.
“Right,” said Officer Phelps.
“Junie’s in Asia,” Luella said.
Officer Phelps glanced at Brown. In Asia? What was this?
“That’s how Luella prefers to put it,” said Brown, when she’s under a certain strain, as she is tonight.” Behind her chair he gently massaged her neck and shoulders, and she closed her eyes briefly, perhaps wearily or blissfully.
“Where did you run into each other?” she asked.
“In the McGinley headquarters,” said Officer Phelps.
“There was a bomb scare,” said Brown.
“Another?” she asked, opening her eyes but closing them quickly again lest she reveal her keen interest. Someone was taking the law into his own hands . . . her neck and shoulders were in Brown’s hands. She almost slept. Later tonight she will take Brown’s body into her hands — her wise, experienced hands — and send him sleeping, too, drawing his rage from him into her own hands, making his rage her own, and kill McGinley tomorrow night with the assistance of James Berberick, whom we saw a little while ago on the northeast corner of Larkin & McAllister Streets; and subsequently kill her husband Stanley Krannick, too, with the kind assistance of Officer Phelps, having captured each James with her magical hands. “Was anybody hurt?” she calmly asked.
“It was only a scare,” said Brown.
“Somebody phoned it in,” Officer Phelps explained.
“Then it didn’t go off,” she said.
“It didn’t go off because there wasn’t any bomb,” Brown said. On one finger he wore a rubber band to remind him to give her a deposit receipt from the Hibernia Bank, and he gave it to her and rolled the rubber band from his finger and dropped it into the wastebasket.
“It was just when he telephoned you,” said Officer Phelps.
“Telephoned me?” she asked.
“I telephoned you,” Brown said, “but there wasn’t any answer.”
“When was that?” she asked.
“Just an hour ago,” said Officer Phelps.
“I was here,” she said. “What was it you wanted?”
“I thought you spoke,” said Officer Phelps.
“You misunderstood,” said Brown.
“We spoke,” said Luella.
“She’s not herself,” said Brown. “When your son is murdered then nothing matters at all after awhile.”
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br /> “Murdered?” asked Officer Phelps.
“Well, killed,” said Brown. “I call it murdered.”
Officer Phelps heard this uneasily. He himself had lately often thought of war as murder, too. He had had no direct experience of war, but he had now some experience of police work, and he mistrusted the joy by which he imagined himself surrounded. “War is sadism,” he announced. He mistrusted the pleasure he received from people’s distress, especially from the distress of women. How explain this? — that in the presence of dead Junie’s mother his testicles tightened, his breathing grew short, and he felt his cynicism written upon his face. “Call it killed or murdered, either one,” he said. “I won’t argue. But I honestly don’t understand under the circumstances how you can vote for McGinley.”
“Oh that wheelchair,” said Brown, “it makes me nauseous the way he exploits that boy.”
“We don’t talk politics here,” said Luella.
“Because he came in here one day and shook her hand and called her ‘my pretty lady,’ that’s why she’s voting for him,” said Brown.
“Who wanted to bomb him?” Luella asked.
“We don’t know,” said Officer Phelps. “Probably nobody wanted to at all, somebody only wanted to phone it in and break up the meeting. I’ll tell you what these people do, though: they put ideas in other people’s minds. It’s the power of suggestion.”
“The wives refuse to be interviewed,” Luella said, turning her attention once again to the television. “One of the fathers was interviewed. He was on the verge of tears. If they can’t restore their radio pressure they’ll miss the earth. Is that possible? They’ll go floating in space forever.”
“Why should I worry about them?” Brown asked. “They’re only three people like any other three people. People are in trouble everywhere.”
“Thousands died in the war,” Luella said.
“Thousands are still dying every day somewhere,” said Officer Phelps, relieved to be able to show his true colors, showing them that he agreed with them, rejoicing within himself to have found such compatible people: he too hated war and astronauts and many things besides. Why should these three astronauts be selected for sympathy while many people were endangered elsewhere with never a word raised to advertise their condition? Why these three white astronaut Protestants? What about hardworking plumbers and bricklayers and even policemen working humbly against adversity and nature and bad health and despondency and fears? What about hospital workers? What about sewer workers? Here’s a test: do you so badly need to know the astronautical facts about the moon that you’d trade one good plumber for a hundred astronauts while all the shit in the world is backing up in your toilet?
“I shouldn’t have gone to his headquarters,” said Brown. “It only got me all upset. What ocean are they coming down in if they do?”
“Pacific,” said Luella.
“We have a neglected child on our block,” said Brown to Officer Phelps. “Give me your professional opinion, what should we do?”
“Report it,” said Officer Phelps.
“Do you remember . . .” Brown began, but he checked himself. He had been about to ask whether Luella remembered Mordecai’s Toys.
“I’m beginning to feel a little better now,” Luella said.
“When Stanley comes to town she goes far down,” said Brown, “but after he’s here a day or so she begins to come up again.”
“This is your husband you’re referring to?” Officer Phelps inquired. “You know, if he harasses you or anything of the sort you can lodge a complaint against him. We don’t put up with that sort of thing. I’ll be all the help I can.” How true! How true!
“He was a bad father,” Luella said.
“I can’t believe . . . Junie,” said Phelps. “I know I haven’t even begun to feel it yet. It will set in. I don’t know how I’ll stand it.”
“He saw Junie at Station G,” said Brown to Luella. “That was the last time they met.”
“You mustn’t dwell on such things,” said Luella to Officer Phelps. “You’ll be able to stand it all right, don’t worry. We all do.”
“Luella received a helpful letter,” said Brown.
“Yes, that’s my way,” she said. “When I’m feeling low and desperate I read my letter over again. It saved me from the brink.” She took it from her purse, where it had reposed some months in its mailing envelope now slightly creased and wrinkled, and she held it forth for Officer Phelps, who read it:
My Very Dear Mrs. Luella Krannick,
I am a good friend of yours in real-estate circles, but there’s no sense in your trying to identify me, as you can’t.
I only want to be helpful to you, so I say to you, my dear Luella, you must face the fact of the event regarding Junie in the horrible and needless war. All the men responsible for the war will be punished hereafter, we may be sure. In your grief you are not alone. Be comforted, and be free of vengeful thoughts.
Love God and your husband and your associates. Continue to do well in your business, and continue to enjoy the many pleasures of life available to a young and attractive person such as yourself.
With great personal affection,
A FELLOW REALTOR
“This is a very sensible letter,” said Phelps.
“We thought so,” said Brown.
“Take it with you and read it for consolation,” Luella said.
“But you’ll want it,” he said.
“Mail it back,” she said.
“I’ll bring it back,” he said.
“I’d like that,” she said.
I’d like that, he heard. He could imagine those words under other circumstances. Seen a certain way she was “a young and attractive person.” Hadn’t Benjamin Franklin said . . . what was it? . . . not an apple a day but, oh yes, the bodies of women are younger than their faces . . . and he’d say (Phelps, not Franklin), “May I give you a small kiss?” and she’d reply “I’d like that.” A kiss would be all. She hadn’t bad legs. At least sitting down she hadn’t, and a fine bosom too with the time on a watch dangling on a thin chain, and a McGinley button. He might ask her the time. Instead he blurted, “McGinley is warlike. Can’t you understand that?”
“Stanley killed him from the beginning,” she said.
“You see how Stanley’s got her all upset,” Brown said.
“If Stanley harasses you don’t forget I’m here,” said Officer Phelps. “That’s what we’re for for God’s sake.”
“We prefer not to say that,” said Luella.
“Say what?”
“God’s name,” she said.
“But your grammar is very good,” said Brown.
“At St. Ignatius,” said Officer Phelps, “they’ll drill you in grammar or die.”
“I’m not,” said Brown, replying to the television — to Cronkite. “I’m not ‘praying for their safe return.’ Even if I were a praying man any more I wouldn’t pray especially for them.”
“What about sewer workers?” asked Officer Phelps. “Maybe I’d pray for the safe return of sewer workers or coal miners, or how about children in Vietnam bombed by our Air Force?”
“That’s funny talk for a St. Ignatius graduate,” said Brown, but he spoke in an approving tone, and Phelps could see that Brown, far from being displeased with him, shared in some sense his having fallen away from strict obedience. Brown immediately confirmed the young officer’s suspicion, saying, “I trained for the ministry. I was on God’s team there for a while — that was our college slogan — but it ended up more team than God.” Let them drift in space, he thought. Let them gurgle out their frozen oxygen, become a small new meteorite, a frozen package of man-food, a delicacy to be discovered in a state of perfect preservation ten thousand years hence.
“Perfectly Preserved”
Scientists Discover Planet Eart
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Foodstuff Said to be 10,000 Years Old
No, he thought, go to Florida. Down on one knee in the Florida swamps near the launch-pads, as he was sometimes down on one knee across the street from the White House, getting a good bead on the rocket in spite of the tall grass waving before his eyes — but perhaps he’d not need a bazooka at all. A rifle would do. (He had never fired a rifle, never seen a bazooka.) He’d get a good bead on the rocket’s vulnerable place, for even the best rocket was somewhere weakest — the elephant’s eye — down on one knee in the swamps while the voices were counting down backwards like the voices of mechanical toys purchased at Mordecai’s Toys . . . nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . and there went the great rocket into the air but punctured by Brown’s rifle silent in that awful din. A leak! Yes, very definitely, hear the air all leaking out, p-sss p-sss p-sss p-ssssssss, the rocket was beginning to wobble and falter. What could the poor astronauts do? Nothing. No chance. The great rocket was over the grandstand now, falling down on all the dignitaries assembled for the launching, and thus Brown brought down with his one small rifle not only the rocket itself and its three occupants but all the distinguished spectators, too, including by chance almost everybody who was anybody among that government which formulated the policy of war against Vietnam, among them Mr. and Mrs. Former President Lyndon B. (“Greatest Mass Murderer of Recent Time”) Johnson, President and Mrs. Tricky Dick Slippery, General and Mrs. Creighton W. Abrams, Special Presidential Assistant and Mrs. McGeorge Bundy, Mr. and Mrs. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs William Putnam Bundy, Mr. and Mrs. Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Allen W. Dulles, Ambassador and Mrs. Henry Cabot Lodge, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, Mr. and Mrs. Walt Whitman Rostow, the Right Honorable and Mrs. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, General and Mrs. Maxwell Davenport Taylor, General and Mrs. William Childs Westmoreland, Former Draft Director General Lewis B. Hershey, and others who in Brown’s opinion had bypassed the United States Constitution and Congress, thus taking the law into their own hands in Texas style as no men were ever to have been entrusted to do, thereby singly and individually causing Luella’s son, Junie — Brown’s step-son — to be drafted and sent abroad and murdered, whose death Brown vowed to avenge, if only in his daily thoughts.