by Martha Moody
Julie was running for a seat on the Bloomville City Commission. She had fantasized about running for water commissioner, but then she learned that this wasn’t an elected job. On top of this, Julie’s original inspiration, the water commissioner her father liked so much, had ended up being a traitor.
Channel 7 had recently run a feature, “Secrets of Lila de B.” It turned out that Lila de B. had been having an affair with one of the Grid leaders, a woman named Allyssa Banks. Channel 7 had found records of Lila visiting—twice—Allyssa’s farmhouse, and Internet usage records showed the two in regular contact. The city of Dayton was destroyed not for money, Channel 7 said, but for love. The clincher: new testing had found evidence of Allyssa’s and Lila’s bodies within feet of each other on what used to be the Grid. They’d been killed together during a strike on a munitions warehouse a few weeks before the flood. The destruction of Dayton, plotted by these lovers, would take place in their absence.
The Channel 7 special had a postscript: genetic material from a third person had been found near Lila’s and Allyssa’s. This material had been linked to a twelve-year-old girl Lila had been looking after while the girl’s air force father worked in military intelligence. When Lila had fled to the Grid and Allyssa, she’d taken this girl with her. She and Allyssa were planning a life together including the stolen child. On camera, Channel 7 delivered this news to the girl’s father, now almost seventy. He cried. For years he’d blamed himself, wondering what had happened to his daughter.
Julie felt a little sorry for Lila de B. Love could really mess up a good person. What troubled Julie was the twelve-year-old girl. What made Lila de B. think the Grid was any place for a child? Julie shivered at the thought of the Forces of Havoc and their handlers.
Julie was standing in the dugout tunnel when she heard two men talking above her. She glanced up. To her surprise, the ex-pilot was speaking. His copilot, he was saying, met a girl from Australia and moved there. The copilot now owned a chain of hair-coloring salons; any elegant woman in Australia, the man said, had a head of hair topped with a Gradyshade. And another Gradyshade for the lady area.
“What?” the listener answered. “How … ?”
“Bedroom Gradyshades, he calls it.” Julie knew about Bedroom Gradyshades. A salon in Bloomville did them, and one of the umps had had hers done for her honeymoon. She loved it, but it cost too much to keep up. “All sorts of colors, too. Green, pink, rainbow. Want to hear the slogan? Have some fun Down Under.”
The listener was laughing. “Who thinks up these things?” he said.
“I flew with that guy three years,” the pilot said. “I thought he was loco. But turns out he was brilliant.”
A voice erupted over Julie’s walkie-talkie. “There’s a faucet dripping in women’s restroom B. I got an elder going crazy here.”
“Oh, God,” Julie said. “Call maintenance and I’ll get up there.” Every elder in this town was a certified hydrophobe.
“WHERE’S KATHERINE?” CHAD asked, the lake at his feet in front of him.
He was a trial to them, he knew. Their Zadie who worried about everything, who was not nearly as much fun as Grandpa Max or Papa Kyle or Grandy Raj. But they took him seriously. For a moment the three children hesitated, turning their backs from Chad to look around. “There she is,” Hemant said, pointing at his cousin.
Oh, you wonderful children. You children who will find what an old man needs.
“I see her now,” Chad assured them. Katherine was standing behind a honeysuckle, rooting with a stick in the edge of the water.
She ees heeden behind the leafs, Chad thought, remembering his father at the bus stop. He started to say it: “She ees heeden …” But he couldn’t keep going. Protect them, he prayed. But what generation is promised protection?
Little Janeth looked up at him, her face stricken. “Baba, are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Chad said, touching her cheek. Glorious. Sharis had said life was scary and awful but glorious, on the day that the Taylorsville Dam was blown and Abba got sick and Sharis ran George’s suicide on her editon. Glorious. In all his days since that one, Chad had forgotten that word.
He let his eyes move over his grandchildren, Hemant’s grimy hands and Joe Mateus baseball jersey, the ragged part in Janeth’s hair. Through the leaves, Katherine threw him a defiant glance. Protect them, he started again, but then he stopped himself. That was a coward’s prayer. Better to wish for them the surprising virtues that he’d taught about in his Dayton course: skepticism, audacity, ambition, the sharp and dangerous virtues, the virtues that can change a world.
acknowledgments
THE FIRST NOTION of Sharp and Dangerous Virtues came to me one morning as I was driving home from the grocery store and had a vision of tanks moving down Whipp Road past the elementary school. This was in 1998. I’m not prone to seeing things, so I paid attention.
My primary resources for the “factual” parts of this book are Ohio Water Firsts, by Sherman L. Frost and Wayne S. Nichols, and Grand Eccentrics, by Mark Bernstein. I also, many years ago, had a helpful talk with Dayton historian Curt Dalton. Most recently I heard a few new Wright brothers stories unearthed by Nick Engler, head of the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company (website: www.wright-brothers.org). I apologize for any inaccuracies in the book. I’m sure there are many, both in its portrayal of the past and (I hope!) in its imagining of the future.
I’m a native Ohioan. My husband and I moved to Dayton in 1988. I like this city very much. Certain people in Dayton have inspired me to enjoy life as it happens and to appreciate the place I live in. I often think with gratitude about Jack Kinsey (cookies and stories), Phyllis Heck (companionship, vitality, and stories), and the late Glenn Thompson (former editor of the Dayton Journal-Herald and a man who was instrumental in founding the county park district).
I send special thanks to my friend Jill Herman, who through many years and revisions encouraged to keep gnawing on this book.
Mostly I want to thank my family, whom I love.