Angel Landing

by Alice Hoffman

  “Thank you,” I said, regretting having invited Minnie into the parlor, “for that wonderful advice.”

  “On the other hand,” Minnie went on, “people have to use their energies before they kick the bucket.”

  “You just said exactly the opposite,” Finn told Minnie.

  Minnie looked at him, surprised. “So?”

  Finn shook his head. “For an old woman you seem very confused.”

  Minnie glared. “For a young man you seem very mixed up. First you bomb a power plant, then you regret it. Make up your mind.”

  Finn gulped down his Scotch.

  “Another?” I asked him.

  “But let’s not argue,” Minnie said to Finn. “I like you,” she nodded. “And I approve.” She smiled, first at Finn, and then, even more broadly, at me.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I approve,” Minnie said. “The two of you.” Finn and I both stared at her dumbly. “Your affair.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” I said to my aunt. “There is no affair.”

  “Hah,” Minnie said, knowingly.

  “Can I have another drink?” Finn asked.

  I poured him some; we didn’t look at each other. I tried to think of a way, short of murder, to get Minnie out of the room. “Can you get some crackers and cheese?” I asked her. “I don’t want to make a mess in your kitchen.”

  “Certainly,” Minnie said, “but I’ll be right back.”

  When she had left, I turned to Finn. “My aunt,” I explained, “is eccentric.”

  Finn sipped his Scotch. “She’s different,” he agreed.

  “She’s not crazy or anything like that.”

  “Oh, no,” Finn said quickly. “Nothing like that.”

  Perhaps Minnie had guessed that I’d fallen for Finn’s blue eyes; she assumed I wanted to be closer to him than I dared, but she had no proof, none at all; and if my heart beat quickly, just a little too fast, it may have been something as simple as a slight fever.

  “One thing I don’t understand,” Finn said. “Why doesn’t Carter live here?”

  “He’s dedicated to his work,” I said. “He’s more complicated than anyone would guess,” I added.

  Finn shrugged; finally he decided to sit in the easy chair, he leaned back and finished his drink. As soon as Finn had relaxed, Beaumont began to rattle his pots and pans, like a convict wrapped in chains.

  Finn’s body tightened; he sat up straight. “What is that?” he whispered.

  “Nothing.” I smiled. “Just Beaumont.”

  “Is he hiding down there?” Finn pointed to the basement below.

  “He’s lived in the basement since nineteen fifty-six; he’s one of my aunt’s boarders.”

  “Oh yeah?” Finn said. “How do you know that? How can you be sure?”

  “You don’t believe me?” I smiled. I went to the basement stairs and opened the door.

  “Don’t do that,” Finn said, following me to the door. “You don’t know who’s down there. I may have been followed.”

  “I know who’s down there,” I said. “Beaumont,” I called. We heard pots clatter; the odor of cabbage drifted upward.

  Beaumont peered up from the basement.

  “It’s me,” I told him, “Natalie. Come on up.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Beaumont called back.

  He walked up the stairs, and when he reached the parlor the old boarder blinked like a mole. He was dressed in the gray shirt and trousers that were his watchman’s uniform. Beneath his shirt his back was hunched from years of ducking under the pipes in the basement.

  “What’s he wearing?” Finn asked suspiciously.

  “This?” Beaumont squinted down at his shirt. “It’s my uniform.”

  “What kind?” Finn whispered. “What does he do?”

  “He’s a guard,” I said. Beaumont nodded as Finn looked more and more uncomfortable. “At Angel Landing,” I confessed.

  “Oh, shit,” Finn said. “Great.”

  “I’ve been there for seven years,” Beaumont told Finn. The old man walked to the wood-burning stove and held out his hands. “Sure would be nice to have a stove like this downstairs.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Finn asked.

  “He’s only the night watchman,” I said. “He probably doesn’t even know there was an explosion. Take a look at him; he’s only a guard.”

  Finn watched Beaumont carefully. “Still working?” he asked Beaumont.

  “Oh, sure,” Beaumont said. “I’m there every night.”

  “But the plant’s been closed down,” Finn said.

  Beaumont blinked. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m still there every night.”

  Minnie returned to the parlor; when she saw Beaumont crouched by the stove she glared at me. “Did you force him to come upstairs?” she asked me. “He likes his own room; he doesn’t need a social worker.” She turned to Beaumont. “Has my niece been harassing you?”

  “Oh, no,” the old boarder answered.

  “No social work with my boarders,” Minnie said, waving a finger at me.

  “Boarder,” I corrected. “You have only one aside from me.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Beaumont said as he edged toward the basement door.

  “I think I better go,” Finn said. He placed his glass on the silver tea tray near the stove.

  “That’s right.” Beaumont nodded to Finn as the old man made his escape to his lair. “It’s late. I have to get down to the power plant.”

  I followed Finn to the front door. “I’m sorry about all this,” I said. “My aunt gets carried away.”

  “I think I shouldn’t have come here,” Finn said. “You asked me to have a quick drink because you felt sorry for me, because you’re polite.”

  “I’m not polite,” I insisted.

  Finn opened the front door; snow swept over the polished floor, icicles hung from the roof like daggers, just above Finn’s head. “Good night,” he told me, softly, quietly, as if his words were some long farewell meant to last years.

  “Don’t forget our appointment Thursday,” I called.

  “I’ll think about it,” Finn said as he walked out on the porch. “I can’t promise anything more. I can’t promise you I’ll be there.”

  I watched as Finn got into the Camaro and drove away, then I went back to the parlor. Minnie had taken out her sewing box and was repairing the torn doilies which covered the arms of the easy chair. I stood at the window, behind the glass and the lace; I imagined the apartment where Finn would sleep that night: I was certain the room was not well heated. Finn would sleep in his clothes, and would shiver beneath a thin cotton blanket; in the early morning, when the sky was still black, he would call out in his sleep, his own cry would wake him.

  I went to the stove to warm my hands; when I looked up, Minnie was watching me. She tore a piece of thread with her teeth and then tied a knot. “So?” she said.

  “You were rude to him,” I said.

  “Old people can get away with that.” Minnie smiled. She crisscrossed stitches across the doily. “What do you think?” she asked me. “Do you think this Finn is for you?”

  “He’s my client,” I said.

  “So?” Minnie said.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” I said. “He may be a very important case in my career. If he continues therapy.”

  “Is that why you invited him here for a drink?” Minnie asked.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “The first time I saw your uncle Alex,” Minnie now recalled, “I knew he was for me. Right away. I knew.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said.

  I barely knew him; he was only another case, and probably dangerous. And there was Carter, and there were rules: he was my client, and it didn’t matter if his eyes were blue or gray, or that my pulse grew weak when Minnie even suggested there was something more than there ever could be.

  �
��That’s exactly what I told everyone after I met Alex,” Minnie told me. “I said, ‘What the hell would I do with a poet? That man is certainly not for me.’ But, I just didn’t want to tell the truth. Was it their business? But I knew, from the minute I first saw him.”

  Although I shook my head and laughed and didn’t believe a word Minnie told me, when I said good night later and walked upstairs, I worried about Michael Finn. He might disappear; he would forget his Thursday appointment and run off to Canada or Mexico. I watched the harbor from my window; the later the night grew the more convinced I was that Finn, too, was looking at the same harbor, watching the same falling snow.

  I was certain that Minnie was wrong; she was an old woman, with an old woman’s desire for nonexistent romance. And he was a stranger, nothing more. But all the same, by the time the snow stopped falling, I was still thinking of Finn, still drowning in a stranger’s eyes.

  FOUR

  CARTER AND I HAD BEGUN to miss our Wednesday nights together; he was busy organizing a second protest at Angel Landing and I was busy with Michael Finn. Instead of disappearing, Finn now came to my office twice a week; he was never late for his appointments, but there was no way to call what went on between us therapy. Finn was as uncomfortable with his past as he was with the future, and so we avoided everything like sorrow and pain. Instead, we talked about the everyday, at times we let a sweet, comfortable laziness take over; we would sit, with cigarettes and coffee, occasionally mentioning the weather or the world outside. It was easy to forget that he was a client. But each time we met we could not help but remember that sooner or later there would be a trial.

  Finn would take that long walk to the district attorney’s office; there would be no quiet Tuesday afternoons together, no private Thursdays, we would no longer be able to pretend there had never been an explosion. When Carter finally called me, to come to the Soft Skies office on a Wednesday night, I had nearly forgotten that Wednesdays had ever been important to me; I charted the weeks by Tuesdays now, I had given myself over to Thursdays. Still, I agreed to meet Carter; refusing to admit that something between us had disappeared, I even took my diaphragm with me.

  When I arrived at Soft Skies, Carter was waiting for me in the hallway outside the office door, pacing.

  “You’re here,” Carter said, taking my hand.

  “I don’t know what’s happened to us,” I said. “Wednesdays have disappeared.”

  “That’s all right.” Carter kissed me lightly.

  “But tonight is different. We’ll be together,” I said, though I knew I couldn’t stop thinking of Finn, even when I was in Carter’s arms.

  “Forget about tonight,” Carter said sadly.

  “But you invited me.”

  “I don’t have time,” Carter explained. “I have to get organized for next week’s demonstration at the plant.”

  “You called me,” I said.

  “That’s right.” Carter nodded. “Because there’s someone who wants to meet you,” he said as he opened the office door and led me inside. “Reno LeKnight.”

  The attorney sat in the only chair in the office; he was dressed in a long suede coat, his shoes were Spanish leather, his cologne was a strong mixture of roses and lime.

  “Natalie Lansky,” Reno LeKnight said, in a controlled courtroom tone.

  “Why does he want to meet me?” I asked Carter.

  “Why don’t you sit down,” Carter said to me.

  There was only the chair LeKnight sat in, that and the unmade mattress on the floor.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “I’m glad we could get together to talk,” Reno LeKnight said to me.

  “I don’t see why,” I told him. “I don’t know anything. I can’t help you at all.”

  Now that we were in the same room, I could imagine the chalky odor of the courthouse; alibis danced on the lawyer’s skin.

  “I think you can help me,” LeKnight said. “Eventually you’ll be a witness for Mr. Finn, and I want to know exactly where you stand.”

  “What do you mean?” I said to him. “Is he implying that I’m not one hundred percent behind Finn?” I asked Carter.

  Carter sat on the bare wooden floor; his hand stuffed fliers into addressed envelopes the way other fingers turned to needlepoint or worry beads. “Natalie,” he said easily. “Just relax.”

  “What’s your relationship with Michael Finn?” Reno LeKnight asked.

  “I’m his therapist,” I told LeKnight. “I don’t see why this is necessary.” I turned to Carter.

  “But it is necessary,” Carter said. “I’ve had to appear in court seventeen times, and believe me, you can never be too prepared.”

  “Why did Mr. Finn first come to see you?” LeKnight now asked.

  “Who can tell why a client first decides to go into therapy?” I shrugged. Any fact about Finn seemed too personal to share, the tiniest bit of information was much too powerful.

  “You’re going to be asked this in court.”

  “He wanted to work on his feelings of anger and guilt,” I said.

  “Anger and guilt,” LeKnight nodded. “Good. And you knew about the explosion?”

  “Do I have to answer that question?” I asked Carter.

  “You do,” Carter said.

  “I knew there had been an accident. But I didn’t know all the details.”

  LeKnight dropped his voice, the courtroom polish fell away. “Is that really true, Natalie?”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “Not right away.”

  “Now this is important,” LeKnight said to me. “Would you say Finn was emotionally damaged when he first came to Outreach?”

  “Oh, who’s to say?” I whispered.

  “Natalie,” LeKnight said. “It’s important.”

  The scar down Finn’s cheek, the icy calm of his eyes, the anger that moved deep inside and finally rose up like a serpent, devouring itself. “Yes,” I said. “He was emotionally damaged.”

  “So much so that he may have been distracted while at his job, he may have accidentally made a crucial error?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  “Yes or no,” LeKnight said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Simple as pain, easy as a one-word answer. “Yes,” I said. “He was that emotionally damaged.”

  LeKnight sat back in his chair and smiled. “She’ll do,” he told Carter.

  Carter got up and hugged me, but I thought of the witness stand and shivered.

  “I told you she’d be terrific,” Carter said proudly.

  “What will happen to him?” I asked LeKnight.

  “We’ll go to the district attorney and plead innocent to the charge of criminal tampering in the second degree, and we’ll simply enter a guilty plea to reckless damage of property,” Reno nodded at Carter. “Soft Skies has generously offered to put up bail so Finn won’t have to await trial in jail.”

  “Can you afford to do that?” I asked Carter.

  “Bail can’t be more expensive than Reno’s fee.”

  After I had said good night, Carter walked outside the office with me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?” I asked. Under the fluorescent hallway fixtures Carter looked tired and drawn.

  “I don’t have time to sleep,” Carter explained. “As soon as Reno leaves I have to get back to work.”

  “When was the last time you slept?” I asked.

  “I stayed up all last night,” Carter admitted.

  “Should you be working so hard?” I asked.

  “I have to,” Carter told me as we kissed goodbye that night. “I can’t help it.”

  Reno LeKnight was ready for the courtroom battle, Carter had begun to raise bail; I knew my afternoons with Finn were just about through. I looked forward to seeing Finn all that day, but when he walked into the office at three o’clock he refused to sit down, he paced around the room. The time had come; I was about to lose him, I could feel it in my blood.

  “What’s wrong
?” I asked.

  “Reno LeKnight called me this morning,” Finn said. “It’s going to happen.”

  “When?” I asked.

  Finn lit a cigarette and inhaled, but he refused to sit. “Today,” he finally said.

  My skin grew tight.

  “I’m going to jail today,” Finn said softly.

  I shook my head. “Carter’s going to raise bail.”

  “Until he does,” Finn said, “I’ll be in jail. And afterward. If I lose I’ll be in jail for a long time.”

  “You’re not going to lose,” I said. “You have a terrific lawyer. The best around.”

  “Ten or fifteen years for one act of stupidity,” Finn said. “I never even thought of what would happen after. I never thought at all.” He crushed his half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray on my desk. “If I have to go to jail, I might as well give up. I’ll die.”

  “You will not,” I insisted.

  Already Finn seemed farther and farther away. “I won’t string myself up. I won’t slit my wrists. I’ll just die.” He snapped his fingers. “That’ll be the end for me.”

  “You have more strength than that.”

  “More strength than what?” Finn said. “You don’t know anything about it. You’ve never been in jail.”

  “Neither have you,” I said.

  “Oh?” Finn said. “Oh, really?”

  “The Stockley School?” I said. “Don’t tell me that’s jail. I was there on a field trip with a graduate-school class. I saw the school: it has basketball courts and color television sets.”

  “A field trip?” Finn said. He laughed once, but it was too short a laugh, too dry. “You didn’t see anything,” he told me. “Did they show you how once you’re in you begin to feel less and less, until nothing is left inside? Once that happens, there’s nothing left to keep you from collapsing when you get pushed.”

  “We were just there for part of one day,” I said softly. “Really only for an hour.”

  “An hour,” Finn smiled. He went to the window and pulled back the shade; he watched the street like a fugitive. “You think terrible things can’t happen because they’ve never happened to you,” he told me. “But they’re out there, all the time, every day. They happen to someone.”