by Steven Brust
Ren shrugged. “I’m not sure the rigor of being happy is any easier than that of being good.”
“For the love of God, Ren!” Oskar looked up from his laptop. “Ever the doubting Incrementalist.”
Jimmy opened his eyes, his face wet as Lusanne’s had been the morning of her wedding. “I’ve found the memory for this afternoon,” he said. Ren sat down next to him and let his arm cloak her.
“What do you think, Oskar?” Jane’s playful tone didn’t match the tension in her spine. “How do you know what’s right to do?”
Oskar twisted himself in Phil’s chair to glare at Ren. “Of course it’s right to spike Phil into Jane’s husband—what’s his name, Sam?—if he ever gets here. What possible, rational objection could you have?”
“Can there be objections that aren’t rational, but are still valid?” Jane hadn’t sat down.
Oskar unfolded his long body from Phil’s chair and, with a courtly flourish he must have tapped his first Second’s pre-spike memory to render, offered it to Jane. “There can be objections—irrational, emotional, spiritual, and mystical—made.” He proffered the curl of aristocrat’s fingertips to her, drew her to him, past him, and into the La-Z-Boy. “They just don’t matter. What matters—”
“What matters,” interrupted Jimmy with all the gravity of the group’s moral core. “Is lunch.”
* * *
Here’s what I was thinking in the moment: I was thinking I should write a self-help book. It would be the most useful and the shortest self-help book ever written. It’d go like this: “Every self-improvement program makes you concentrate on yourself, and the more you do that, the more self-involved you get, and the more self-involved you get, the more you need improvement. So get out of your god damned head for once, and look around. Read a newspaper. Learn what’s happening in the world. Get involved in it. Stop wasting your time with self-improvement.”
I was thinking that’s what Incrementalists do: we look at what’s going on around us, and we try to make it better. Sure, I think a lot of what we do is a waste of time, and lot of them think I’m not incremental enough, but fine. We argue about it. But every one of us is trying. We all want to see things improve. We all want to leave the world better than we found it. And that doesn’t get done by gazing into your own navel and going, “Oh, how am I to become a better person?” and sure as hell not by going, “How am I to become happier?” It gets done by looking hard at what is all around you, forcing yourself to see what is actually there, and asking, “What would make this better, and how can I help?”
I was thinking, was that so hard?
I was thinking how Phil made me crazy, with his smugness and superiority. You can see it, can’t you? In the way he thought he could meddle a true-believer like Brown into a more moderate, incremental agenda? I was thinking I had certainly wanted to strangle Irina more times than I could count, and at that point I didn’t yet know that she’d been countermeddling, working with the corrupt and ruthless cop Jack Harris to get Phil arrested in order to force Ren to integrate with the rest of us and to unify popular opposition to the police. I was thinking Matsu, with his platitudes of mystical bullshit, could just go fuck himself. I was thinking that even Jimmy, whom I love, had annoyed me at times with his unwillingness to listen to anything beyond his inner voice. I was thinking Ren made no sense. She was a morass of contradictions: looking inward and outward, sensual and rational, self-effacing and stiff-necked with pride. I was thinking about Ramon, who had always frustrated me the most. Ramon, with his sharp, clear, luminous mind, that he put rigid borders around and wouldn’t let himself think beyond their edges. I was thinking so, of course, Ramon was on his way to Tucson too.
But I was also thinking that these were the people I worked with. They were my tribe. And they were, all of them, trying to accomplish something, and that made me proud to be one of them.
I was thinking about the people throughout Arizona being harassed, arrested, beaten, deported, and killed because their skin was too brown and their wallets too empty. I was thinking Occupy Wall Street was listed as a domestic terrorist organization, while the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office wasn’t. And I couldn’t stop thinking of Phil—of arrogant, supercilious Phil. Always so ready to knock down everyone else’s arguments without having any proposals of his own. Always with the smirk underlying his rhetorical questions. God, Phil pissed me off.
I was thinking Phil had been murdered and Jimmy was right, murder had a price. I just didn’t know how I’d gotten assigned to help Irina of all people determine who would pay for Phil’s death and how.
I was thinking Phil was in stub, and we needed him back. Ren was in tatters, and we needed her whole.
That’s what I was thinking. Here’s what happened:
—Oskar
* * *
“How did you enjoy lunch?” Jimmy asked Oskar.
“Fine,” Oskar said, and hoped no one would ask what he’d eaten.
Nobody was looking at him. “What?” he said.
“Nothing,” said Jimmy, passing him a napkin. “Dry your eyes.”
* * *
“Irina!” Jimmy kissed both Irina’s cheeks and his fingertips, appraising her recent Second’s young body. “Beautiful, as always,” he proclaimed. And the thing about Jimmy was, he meant it. Even in last night’s makeup, and with a nasty bruise coming up, to Jimmy, she was always beautiful; all women were, and most men.
He embraced her, and Irina, barefoot and stinking of beer, turned her good cheek to his chest and let his exquisite cologne and love envelop her. Jimmy weighed a bit—okay, maybe twice—what he should, but he was fat for the same reason he was consistently the best lover Irina had had over a series of lifetimes, and he wrapped her in his appreciation and the smell of expensive history.
The last time Irina had seen Jimmy, she’d been closer to seventy than sixty, and thin as a mummy, but he’d wallowed in her like Anthony Bourdain tucks into offal. It had been the best her old body had felt in years, even with Celeste whispering in her head the whole time that her tits looked like spoiled fruit.
Jimmy stroked her swollen jaw. “You’ve been fighting again.”
“And you’ve been crying,” she said.
“I’ll bet I shouldn’t see the other guy.”
“I don’t know why not.” Irina winked and ushered the other guys inside. “Jimmy, meet Sam and Frio.”
Jimmy shook hands like he hugged, and even the wary Frio smiled returning Jimmy’s ritual clasp and pump. Frio had a nice smile, if a little crooked. Irina hadn’t seen it before, but she knew Ren would like it, which pleased her.
“I thought you might be Matsu,” Jimmy said.
“God, he’s flying in too?” Irina followed Jimmy into the kitchen.
“He was invited.” Oskar stood next to the stove, tear-stained and baffled. He had a dishrag in one hand, the other on the fridge door, and Irina thought he should cry more. It made his nose run and gave him an ugly, pink, duck lip—swollen and distended, vulnerable. Kissable.
Okay, maybe not.
“What are you cooking up, Oskar?” Irina stepped around him and went straight for the freezer to get ice for her jaw.
“I don’t know.”
“We all made sandwiches for lunch,” Ren suggested.
“Make mine roast beef and swiss on rye?” Irina gave Oskar an encouraging pat on the tush, breezing by. “Sam, Frio, you hungry?”
“No.” Frio spoke for them both.
Sam seemed to be trying to telepathically communicate with Jane, who was as intently watching her coffee mug. Frio watched Oskar.
Ren stood up, and honestly, Irina knew the girl was grieving and all, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t still blow-dry her hair. She looked like a drowned kitten.
“Hi,” Ren said to Sam more than Frio, “I’m Ren.”
Ren wasn’t just makeup-less, she was pale too; frightened, not just sad. With both Oskar and Jimmy in tears, Irina could see how Ren might be start
ing to doubt the assurances everyone had given her that they’d get Phil back. But they would. Irina had brought home the perfect recruit. She felt like a cat with a fresh kill for the doormat. Two, in fact.
* * *
This is what I like about Irina. She’d cowboyed off on her own to the Southside to discover who killed Phil, but when she saw a chance to help a homeless woman, she took it, and when she spotted a potential Second for Phil, she acted on that as well. This is what I despise about Irina.
—Oskar
* * *
Irina put an encouraging arm around Sam. “I know you and Jane have a lot to talk over,” she prompted. “Why don’t you two go out on Ren’s lovely back patio and chat?”
Jane looked up, and the pivot markers Irina had been watching in Sam finally registered in his wife. Irina wondered whether Jane had really not known what her husband was going through. It didn’t matter. He’d resolved to tell her. They walked outside together, the space between their shoulders the exact width of a broken heart.
Frio started to follow them, but Irina touched his wrist. “They need to be alone,” she told Sam’s keen, young second-in-command. “You can still see them from here.” She offered him a seat at the kitchen table. “Jimmy, Ren,” Irina said, waiting until Oskar looked up from the fridge, and trying not to beam. “Oskar, I’d like you to meet Frio, Phil’s new Second.”
Of course everyone started talking at once: Jimmy and Ren with Earnest Explaining Things faces, Oskar full of outrage, certain Irina had overstepped and didn’t understand.
* * *
Well seriously, can you blame me?
—O
* * *
But Frio was all Oskar’s favorite things: poor, undereducated, a racial minority, and Oskar couldn’t take his eyes off him, even as he scolded Irina.
She settled herself in to wait beside the taut, handsome young man sitting across the table from Ren, because really, Ren was who Irina had picked him for. Irina had never meant for Ren to hurt this much. Phil’s arrest would have been hard on her, sure, but an acceptable suffering when balanced against the gains Irina had calculated would accrue to Ren, the group, and the world. Also, Irina owed Ren a good turn or two for what happened in Vegas, and for the way Ren had forgiven her. It had to be hard to be an Incrementalist with an incomplete memory. It certainly had to suck to fear your great-aunt had tricked your fiancé into loving you.
“Has Irina explained this to you?” Jimmy resumed his seat at the head of the kitchen table as the generalized hubbub settled down.
“Explained what?” Frio was tight as a trigger finger.
“What we are, what she’s recruiting you for?”
“I’m no recruit.”
“Ex-military?” Oskar came in from the kitchen on fighter’s feet.
“No.”
“Don’t bullshit me.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“Oh sit down, Oskar,” Irina said. “Frio was Tucson PD for five years. You’re seeing SWAT training.”
“How do you know that?” Frio demanded without letting Oskar out of view.
Irina ignored him, talking to Oskar. “Have a seat, dear. Notice I said was a cop. A year ago, he shot a kid, left the force, and joined Sam’s army.”
“Wait,” Ren said. “Sam has an army?”
“How the fuck do you know that?” Frio turned in his seat to face Irina.
She gave him a flippant shrug. “Sam told me all about the Hourlies,” she lied, delighted to have her theory confirmed. “As for you, that wasn’t too hard to figure out. You’re name’s Frio? Spanish for cold? Obviously a code name or nickname, maybe. But for what? Something that sounds like it. Iro? That’s common enough.”
“Don’t call me that.”
Irina ignored him and explained to Ren: “Iro is short for Porfirio. I did a little grazing. The Tucson Police Department has five Porfirios, but SWAT only two, one of whom quit recently. I read your resignation letter, Porfirio.”
He looked like he might punch her, same as Santi had. “Frio,” he said.
“Irina.” Jimmy intervened. “Maybe you should explain about Sam’s army.”
“Please do.” Oskar finally sat down.
Irina hated the way Jimmy appointed himself Voice of Reason when Ramon wasn’t around, but if he could direct Oskar to pay attention to her instead of measuring dicks with Frio, she’d let Jimmy do his thing.
Irina looked around the table. Ren had her feet tucked up under her in that casual, graceful way that always made Phil sappy. Jimmy’s shoulders shifted as he patted her leg under the table.
“Irina?”
Irina smiled at Oskar, whose tiny mind she was about to blow. He had one eye on her and one on Frio, like he was trying to decide which of them was more of a threat. It’s me, Oskar, my love, she thought. It’s always me.
* * *
Irina may be dangerous, but it’s never for the reasons she thinks.
—O
* * *
“Sam Kelly,” Irina began in her best schoolmarm, “teaches civics at Southside High.”
“We know that,” Oskar growled. “We were—”
“Oskar,” Ren said. “Please do shut up.”
* * *
It was the moment, Kate thought, when Sage came in to gripe that she was hungry, and Daniel had grinned at how Kate said, “Rats!” that she had recognized the problem. But maybe then she had only been frustrated at having forgotten it was her night to cook, and it wasn’t until Daniel buttered a slice of bread, folded it in half, and presented it to Sage as a Butter Sandwich Deluxe that she’d seen it. Either way, by the time she put Daniel to work getting drinks and dumping applesauce into bowls while she got the lasagna out of the box and into the microwave, Kate knew she had a problem.
Daniel was funny with the kids, and called Legal One “sir” until they begged him not to. Or maybe that was it? The way he sirred her husband, like they were all so much older than he was. Kate sighed. She had known he was young—technically too young—but that was overlookable, right? And only six years younger than Ren. The critical thing was to get Phil back. And that Ren would have no trouble loving Dan.
After dinner, Legal took the kids upstairs to bed, and Daniel stacked their empty ice cream bowls into his. He looked around the dining room, at the ketchupped plastic army men, the dropped napkins, and piles of Apples to Apples cards. He gave a low whistle that made Kate laugh. “Goodness,” she said. “Nobody ever told you family life was tidy, did they?”
“I don’t guess anyone ever did.” Daniel carried the bowls into the kitchen, but couldn’t find a clear place to set them.
“Leave it,” Kate told him. “Wrecker will clean up when he gets off the phone.”
“Legal and Wrecker?” Daniel came back to the dining room and deposited the bowls back on the table.
“Short for The Homewrecker and The Legal One.” Kate opened the liquor cabinet and studied her options.
“But he didn’t.”
“Cordial? Brandy?”
“No, thank you.”
“Who didn’t what?” Kate poured herself a generous snifter of B&B.
“He didn’t wreck your home.”
“No, the kids did that.” Kate waved at the mess, but Daniel barely smiled at her joke. And she thought it’d been a pretty good one.
“No,” Daniel said. “Your family is exquisite.”
“Exquisite?” Kate couldn’t laugh at him; he was too sincere. And honestly, pretty darn exquisite himself—almost too good-looking. And too young. “Meh,” she said. “They were both named Allen, what was I going to do?”
“You’re amazing—wife, mother, doctor—I mean, damn. And good at it all.”
Kate downed her B&B. “I’m not a great wife,” she said. “I’m a good lover and a good mom, and that combination has a lot of overlap with wife, but that’s all.” Daniel’s admiration suitably squelched, Kate poured herself another snifter. “Come on,” she told him. “Let’s go ba
ck to the den and finish our chat.”
DECEMBER, 1857
“I CAN KNOCK YOU OUT AGAIN, CARTER.”
December was cold, but the Eldridge had a fire going, and we were warm enough with all the bodies packed together. It also smelled more like a stable than a hotel, but never mind that. I sat in the back and listened.
There was a sense of history like I hadn’t felt since the War for Independence—a feeling that big events were astir in the room, and that everyone knew it. It was heady, intoxicating. And speaking of intoxicating, there wasn’t as much liquor in evidence as I’d have thought there would be.
It was a surprisingly good debate. It was as if everyone’s priority was solving the problem—deciding how to handle the Lecompton Constitution—instead of showing off how smart they were. That doesn’t happen often.
In the end, the idea of holding our own constitutional convention won out, and we decided to meet on Christmas Eve in Leavenworth. The question came up about whether we could get the word out in time, but we all agreed we could. Then we gave three cheers for the Topeka Constitution and three groans for President Buchanan and the meeting broke up.
Brown wasn’t there, though I knew he’d returned to Kansas last month. I dropped comments, asked questions, listened, and was able to learn that he was recruiting, although exactly for what no one could or would tell me. It didn’t make me any less worried.
I went back to my snug little Kansas and Nebraska Cottages house, got a fire going, and closed my eyes. I imagined the smell of cherry blossoms and the taste of chive, and looked around my villa. It was warmer than the house, even with the fire going.
I opened up the circular stairway and went down into the perpetual nothing where everything exists. There should be letters to New England, and if that’s where he was, letters back to Kansas as well.
I passed a Cypress tree impossibly growing in the desert, and a bushel of wheat, and blacksmith’s tongs sitting next to a new windmill.