American Subversive

by David Goodwillie

  “What do you mean?”

  “The López family businesses remained untouched while my father’s concerns—the mines and all that—were nationalized. It was nothing more than chance: the mines were deemed valuable to the state. Eduardo stayed in Caracas and became an economic adviser to Chávez; my father chose to speak out against the socialists and was forced to flee south. Even so, the two friends talked every week, as if nothing had happened.

  “And then there was the coup. Everyone wanted it. Even the Caracas police sided with the rebels. My father, of course, was heavily involved as a liaison between the old guard—his people—and the labor unions who also supported change. He tried hard to convert his friend to the cause—he even told him of the coup beforehand, when it would happen, and how—but if Eduardo had no love for Chávez, he had no stomach for revolution either. Two days before the uprising, Eduardo left Caracas with his family to wait things out at his country estate. As it turns out, Chávez was back in power before the week was over, and when the dust cleared—or smoke . . . do you say dust or smoke?”

  “Either, I guess. Was there actual smoke?”

  “Some. There was shooting.”

  “So smoke.”

  “Okay, when the smoke cleared, Chávez went on a rampage. He went after everyone he thought might have betrayed him. The lucky ones were imprisoned after show trials. The others disappeared.”

  “Such a fine South American tradition, your disappearances.”

  “Ah, yes, we learned from the best,” Touché said, clearing his throat. “But let me get to the point now. Which is Eduardo López. Which is the death of Eduardo López. Because that’s what happened, Aidan. He came back to Caracas and Hugo Chávez had him killed. Shot dead on the street by men in masks. And why? Because he knew of the coup in advance and didn’t speak up. He never lifted a finger against Chávez. Never participated in the plots against him. And still . . .”

  “Jesus.”

  “Which, to answer your question, is why I hesitate to learn too much about your lovely friend.”

  “But you were all gung ho in the beginning.”

  “People are always gung ho in the beginning. In the same way they’re liberal when they’re young. To be honest, a part of me thinks you should tell everything to Cressida and let her take it from there. Or the two of you could break the story together. A grand exposé. It could do wonders for your relationship.”

  “And the other part?”

  “The other part . . .” Touché shifted in his seat. He picked up his drink and held it in his hands, and when he spoke again, his voice was so quiet and intense that if I’d heard it over the phone, I wouldn’t have recognized its owner.

  “The other part thinks that you . . . could help her.”

  “You mean, get involved?”

  “God no. You don’t even understand what she’s doing. Or why. But it’s hard to feel sorry for Indigo Holdings, no? If that was indeed her intended target. What I’m talking about is indirect support—a ride somewhere or a place to stay. That is, if you ever see her again. And I don’t say this because I believe in her methods—political violence is a worn-out theory, my friend, a black hole of misplaced idealism. It’s a thing that scars great nations. But too much prosperity can ruin them.”

  Touché stood up and started pacing the room. “I’m speaking of the American malaise. The triumph of the wealthy: complete disengagement, derived not from admirable self-sufficiency but sickening self-regard. Fishers Island. Nantucket. The Hamptons. This is wealth of another kind. And the new money is more dangerous than the old. Look at Palm Beach. Look at Aspen. Look at our cities, Aidan. A hole has been ripped in the fabric of the American middle class, and still Manhattan is like a theme park, but safer even, and more homogeneous. And, yes, I realize I’m part of the problem. I go along with it all. I laugh at golf stories and speak mindlessly of real estate at cocktail parties. But what choice do I have? We are the walking dead, my friend: America’s winners. Too tired making money to live. And the rest of the country? Too tired living to fight.” Touché sat on the edge of an armchair and leaned toward me, conspiratorially. “Eduardo López sent my father a book once, by the Italian anarchist Alfredo Bonanno. This was in the months before the coup, when politics was still intoxicating and the future might belong to anyone. The book was meant as a counterargument to unrestrained free enterprise, but my father was bothered by its theories and put it aside. I found it in his office during one of my visits, and intrigued—for my father is many things but most definitely not an anarchist—I skimmed it. Only one sentence was underlined. I still remember it, for my father had scrawled a giant question mark in the margin: ‘Beyond the crises, beyond other problems of underdevelopment, beyond poverty and hunger, the last fight that capital will have to put up, the decisive one, is the fight against boredom.’ And you know what? That makes a certain sense to me. Something at the end of prosperity is broken.”

  We sat there a moment. I wasn’t sure what to say, and Touché seemed none too sure of what he’d just said. Then, as if dismissing his own sudden depth, he stood back up and waved his hand through the air as if brushing away a fly.

  “But enough of this,” he announced. “You shouldn’t listen to me. I suffer from that foolish pessimism particular to South Americans. Read your friend Márquez, you’ll understand.” He started walking toward the kitchen. “I’m thinking of throwing a party on Friday night. Some music people. If you and Cressida are on speaking terms, you should bring her. If not, I’ll introduce you around.”

  And just like that, we came back to ourselves, to our roles, our lives—alluring and glamorous and utterly vapid. I left Touché’s apartment sometime later, drunk on big ideas and vodka, and caught a cab back to deserted Weehawken Street. It was almost three in the morning. It was always almost three in the morning. I climbed the stairs and fiddled with the locks, and when I got inside I paced around awhile, unsteady and unsettled. I turned on the TV, opened a bottle of wine, and dialed Cressida’s number. We’d gone five days without speaking, and when you’re in a relationship, five days is four too long. It was my fault, this extended silence, proliferating as each day passed, making it that much more difficult to initiate contact. The issue of her columns had lived its half-life and fallen away. This was something else now. A contest. Cressida had become an adversary—in life and love.

  She didn’t pick up. I tried again, and this time left a message.

  My windows were still open, and the wind must have changed for I could suddenly smell the river. I had the idea then of walking back outside and across the highway to the edge of the island. I could lean out over the lapping water like a million young men before me, men who’d encircled themselves in this city of angles and sought out answers in the bleakness before dawn. Because the odds evened out at night. The clock reset itself, the opposition rested. I’d never been to the waterfront at that hour, alone under a universe I couldn’t see. I wasn’t the kind of person who howled at the moon. And I didn’t that night either. No, I sat there drinking cheap wine, gazing at a televised war, soldiers slogging through some dusty desert, and to this day I have no idea what I was watching—what battle in what country. Was it the news, a documentary, a movie? At some point I got up to pour another drink, but the bottle was empty. And it was this unfortunate fact that led me back outside to hail another cab. It was 3:45 a.m. Surely Cressida would have wine, or answers, one or the other, it didn’t matter which.

  PAIGE

  WHEN I RELATED THE STORY, I WAS CAREFUL TO LEAVE OUT CERTAIN specifics—Aidan’s name, address, and the name of his blog. It was more than an issue of trust; I needed something—anything—that no one else had. I was tired of being the one in the dark. Keith listened intently until I was finished, then rubbed his growing beard.

  Will he stay quiet? Lindsay asked.

  I think he has so far, I said.

  Except now he knows you exist.

  Yes, but I didn’t say anything incriminating. />
  It sounds like you didn’t deny anything either, Lindsay responded.

  Whose side are you on?

  I’m just saying.

  What? What are you saying?

  Lindsay glanced at Keith. I’m saying you’ve put us in real danger.

  Really? Wow! That was almost an original thought.

  Excuse me?

  Girls, Keith said.

  Girls? I repeated. Who the fuck do you— I stopped, abruptly, and stood up. The cigarettes were on the kitchen counter. Calm as I could, I took them and walked out to the deck. I managed to close the sliding door without slamming it, all the while thinking of that well-worn Kipling line about keeping your head while everyone around you is losing theirs. The poem was about becoming a man, and Bobby, the earliest of bloomers, taped it to his wall when he was eleven or twelve. I used to read it when he wasn’t around. And then one day he took it down. I guess he didn’t need someone else telling him how to grow up. Later, in college, I bought Kipling’s collected works at a used-book sale, and I still have it—or did, when I had things. It’s funny what we cling to.

  But even Kipling couldn’t assuage me. These were the same people who’d originally suggested I confront Aidan Cole, and now, now that questions were piling up like leaves set to burn, I was being blamed. It could have been any one of us captured in that photograph. That’s what I kept telling myself. I lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. Behind me, the door slid open, and Lindsay stepped outside. She was barefoot.

  I’m sorry, she said solemnly. I shouldn’t have—

  Don’t. I mean, don’t apologize. We’re all under pressure.

  It was a stale response, but noncombative, and all I could manage just then. Lindsay produced one of those wrinkly smiles that so often lead to tears. But the tears didn’t materialize. Instead she came over and hugged me, her bony arms wrapping tightly around my body. I must have reciprocated, though I can’t remember. I was too busy wondering if Keith had sent her out to do this, too.

  Lindsay went back inside. I stayed on the deck until I’d calmed down enough to be around them again. When I walked in, Lindsay was draped across the couch. Keith was at the computer.

  Well, I’m exhausted, Lindsay said almost immediately. I’ll leave you two to . . . you know . . . and with that she climbed the stairs and disappeared. I, for one, didn’t know. And so I waited.

  I don’t understand what’s in it for him, Keith said finally. If he’s not a journalist, why not just go to the cops and wash his hands of the whole thing? Hell, he’d be a hero.

  He said the word with all the disdain it deserved.

  I stepped down into the sunken living room and took Lindsay’s vacated seat on the couch. Keith followed me, but opted for a nearby chair. He was wearing a grubby white T-shirt and jeans. His hair was growing out, but not as fast as his beard, which was becoming a straggly, knotted mess. It made his eyes look small.

  Tell me what’s going on, I said. Who’s behind this?

  What do you mean?

  Oh, come on, Keith. There’s only one possible explanation for who sent those e-mails and took my picture. Someone’s been dropping bread crumbs that eventually led this guy to our doorstep. Someone who knows what we’re up to. Someone on the inside.

  There are plenty of other expla—

  Stop it! Just stop talking.

  I couldn’t look at him anymore so I stood up and began pacing. Then I wheeled around and glared at him. He didn’t look away.

  Is it you? I asked flatly.

  Is what me?

  Are you doing this? Is Lindsay?

  Of course not. What sense does that make? If you get caught, we get caught.

  Okay, so it’s coming from whoever’s supporting us. Our so-called patrons.

  That’s impossible, Keith said.

  Really? Do you know what I think would be impossible? To be photographed coming out of Barneys if someone didn’t know I was in Barneys. Or, for that matter, to know the bomb went off on the wrong floor before the Times article was published.

  You don’t think someone could have figured that out? Jesus, the fucking Times figured it out. Obviously, we weren’t going after that ridiculous little fag designer—

  Fag? Nice.

  —or maybe your new boyfriend is lying. Have you thought about that? Look, Paige, I don’t have every answer. If that’s what you want, you’re in the wrong business.

  You don’t have any answers.

  I’m sorry, you know perfectly well that I can’t talk about the Movement—either individual names or the larger structure. It should be enough to know I trust these people completely. I trust them with my life. And Lindsay’s life. And your life, Paige. They believe in us, and for good reason: look at what we’ve done. What we’re doing. And who we’re doing it to: Indigo Holdings. They’re a household name, now. Have you seen the press they’ve been getting since that Times piece ran? Everyone’s piling on. It’s like Enron. Do you remember that, or were you too young?

  I wasn’t too young, I said.

  But do you know how that happened? An enterprising reporter wrote a magazine article that dared to question the practices of a company everyone else was heralding. That one piece led to a dozen others, then a hundred others, and then the house of cards came down. Enron was a public company, and still it took a year to get to the bottom of things. What we did took a week. We were impolite, but we had to be. It was the only way to make people listen. What I’m saying, Paige, is that our strategy works. If we’re careful, it works. Tell me what the downside is. Besides the danger. Besides what it’s doing to us. If we can just come back together, find a way to move forward, we can . . . oh, you know what we can do.

  His eyes were wide again, and affecting. Was this a performance or the real thing? Was there a difference anymore? Had there ever been? Keith was a man who could rally an army if the lighting was right. And, of course, it was right just then, at the end of the day, cicadas starting to sing. I could feel myself backing away from the precipice I’d been edging toward. I’d searched a long time, in different cities and capacities, for . . . what? A sense of purpose and significance, sure, but everyone is casting about for these things. I’d been working to reform a culture and country that changes imperceptibly if it changes at all. A system built on compromise and control, where there’s no room for idealism, for grace. Losing Bobby had freed me to step outside my small world, and Keith had allowed me to stay there, on the fringes, and to find a life—the kind I no longer had to turn from, or apologize for. Here was one last chance to embrace that grand idea that things could get better, that they would get better, if we set out to make them so. What was the alternative?

  The three of us sat down to breakfast the next morning and talked through our options. Continuing in one way or continuing in another. We would have to move. We’d been in the house too long, and if one person had found us, others would be close behind.

  So: leave immediately or stay a few days longer. There’d be another house ready in a week, Keith told us, in a town a few hours south. He’d be done with his work in the garage by then, but was that too long? We all lived with the same uneasy feeling, the sound of passing cars at night. That any one of them could stop. Movement was the only constant in our lives, dropping everything and starting over. We could leave the next day, stay at campsites and motels until the new place was ready. We could find more cars, just as reliable and utterly unmemorable as the two we had.

  It was time to go, but we didn’t go. In the end, Keith just wasn’t ready, and we wouldn’t push him. Maybe we feared the unknown or trusted Keith too much. For me, though, it came down to Aidan Cole. I believed his appearance was an isolated incident. And somehow I just knew he wouldn’t talk. It was a feeling based on the flimsiest of evidence, and yet I felt it strongly. He wasn’t the one I was worried about.

  A week, then. Keith began working even harder. Days and nights in the garage. Lindsay gave notice at work so as not to raise eyebrows by simply
disappearing. She made dinner most evenings when she got home, buzzing manically around the kitchen like a fly. Like a wasp. She always made a tray for Keith and took it down to the garage.

  How’s he doing? I finally asked. I hadn’t seen him for two days.

  Good. Why?

  He shouldn’t be working like this.

  He knows his limits, she said breezily.

  He does?

  Lindsay didn’t respond.

  I spent my time online. There had been little talk of the next target, so I got a head start. I made lists of vulnerable government facilities and military installations, but mostly I focused on corporate America—gluttonous oil companies, weapons manufacturers, bailed-out financial firms. The building blocks of a crooked republic. I liked to believe they were becoming our niche, our expertise, these secretive giants. I filled more notebooks with statistics—horrible facts and figures—and for a while it kept me busy. For a while I could ignore what was happening around me. Or what wasn’t. Two more days passed without my laying eyes on Keith. Once, in the middle of the night, I heard him climbing the creaking stairs, but I stayed in bed. It was as if confronting him, or even appearing to care, meant losing whatever silent war was being waged. How had it come to this? In the same way everything terrible happens: slowly, then all at once.

  On Saturday night he came in for dinner. It was Labor Day weekend, though no one cared. Keith’s beard was even fuller now—like Steve McQueen’s in his sad final years. His work shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest. And his hands were filthy. The person in front of me bore no resemblance to the man I’d met in North Carolina. This was more than a disguise. Keith, always meticulous, ever aware, was letting himself go. He opened a beer and sat down at the head of the table. Lindsay served him a large helping of salad, then put the bowl down and took a seat beside him. I looked at the bowl and then at her. She picked it back up and served herself.

  Paige showed me some articles about Indigo, Lindsay said. There’s a new one almost every day now. Keith took a bite of lettuce, the fork momentarily disappearing into the scruff where his lips had once been. They’re raising all these questions about improprieties, she continued. Illegal weapons deals. Secret offshore accounts. Even the Wall Street Journal is onto the story. It’s exactly what we wanted.