Kinflicks

by Lisa Alther

  ‘And during the day, downtown, with the heat rising up from the concrete in these great scorching waves, and bouncing back and forth between the glass buildings. And that horrible soft squishy feeling the macadam would take on, so that you expected to be in it up to your knees at any moment,’ Hawk said.

  ‘And being so exhausted from just trying to breathe that all you could do was lie panting in the shade like a dog.’

  ‘But I will say this for it,’ Hawk said. ‘These Yankee winters and southern summers do serve a purpose.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Well, just imagine if everywhere were perpetual autumn or spring — a mild sun and temperatures in the sixties and seventies, say. You’d really start feeling pretty good about yourself — as though you had things under control, knew what you were doing. As it is, though, at almost every spot on earth you get fried by the sun or blasted by blizzards. You’re reminded of what a puny little insect you really are, and of how you’re kept alive in spite of all your pathetic weaknesses.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to too many Holy Rollers!’

  He didn’t smile. ‘No, wait!’ he insisted. ‘This is very important. Now! The earth is tilted on its axis, which is what causes the seasons. Right? Okay. Well, in a mathematically perfect universe, one would expect the earth’s axis to be exactly vertical to its path around its sun. I mean, it’s just more geometrically pleasing that way. But if it were vertical, there would be no seasons. Weather at any given spot on earth would be constant. Right? As a result, I bet you anything that the people living at any given spot, provided they didn’t wander aimlessly around the globe as everyone is doing nowadays, would evolve the physical characteristics to cope with their climate. The Eskimos would grow luxurious fur and would stay deliciously snug without igloos and whale fat. And the Mexicans would sprout cold shower faucets from their skulls. But Montreal and Tennessee would have an endlessly moderate fall-type climate.’

  ‘Sounds delightful.’

  ‘Yes, of course it does. That was the problem. That’s why the axis had to be tilted. People weren’t suffering enough. They had no appreciation for their own frailties. They had no incentive to seek out other dimensions of experience that might be more hospitable. Plus, they were locked in. They were born, grew up, and died right in the same locale. Their bodies couldn’t cope with the climate changes if they left their own region. Their internal thermostats lacked flexibility, so their brains lacked flexibility. Can you imagine how someone covered with fur would flee in terror from someone with a faucet growing out of his head?’

  I laughed. ‘That’s very good, Hawk.’

  ‘Thank you. Actually, it’s not impromptu. I’m writing a book about it.’

  ‘Really? What kind of book?’

  ‘I’ve created a new category. It’s called historical science fiction.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’m tracing in ten or twelve volumes the history of creation, from beginning to end, with emphasis on the recent past, covering such themes as the meaning of life and the nature of truth and beauty.’

  ‘I see,’ I said noncommittally.

  ‘But I can’t reveal any more at the moment,’ he added in a whisper, ‘for fear of being overheard and drawing down upon your lovely sequestered home greedy droves of clamoring literary agents and editors.’

  ‘I quite understand.’

  Later, as he turned over to toast his hairy chest, he asked, ‘How come you’re up here?’

  ‘Well, to simplify the saga — I went to college in Boston, and then I moved to a farm near here a few years ago with some friends.’

  ‘What? You mean an earth trip?’

  I nodded, smiling tolerantly at my former self.

  ‘No shit! I didn’t figure you for the freak type.’

  ‘That was in my younger years. Before I settled gracefully into middle age.’

  ‘Hmmm, yes. Middle age is a state of mind rather than a question of years. I’m there myself, now that you mention it. In fact, I’ve been thinking lately of shaving off this ridiculous beard. I no longer have any protests to make, except to the sadist who constructed me as I am.’

  ‘Don’t be rash,’ I suggested. ‘Just slip into middle age gradually. It’s easier that way. In other words, just snip off bits of your beard a little at a time.’

  “How did you end up in this museum curator’s wet dream?’ he asked, gesturing to Father Bliss’s fortress.

  ‘I married the man who owns it.’

  ‘Who has left you, or what?’

  I was starting to wish that I had detected a note of hope in Hawk’s voice as he asked that. But I suspected that I was merely projecting. ‘No. He’s just away for a few days.’ Instinctively, because of my upbringing, I cringed, knowing I should have said that Ira would be back this afternoon, in case this man Hawk was considering holding Wendy and me hostage or something.

  ‘Is he a — native, or whatever you’d call long-time residents?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What’s it like — living here?’

  ‘Really, I guess it’s pretty much like living anywhere else -Hullsport or Cambridge or anywhere.’

  ‘What do you do all day?’ He rolled over on his stomach and inspected me in my bikini with detached interest, as though I were a laboratory specimen.

  ‘Well, the same thing people do anywhere, I guess. I cook meals and wash dishes and fold laundry. The baby takes a lot of time. She and I go on walks and do the shopping and just mess around. I go to a few meetings and showers and stuff.’

  ‘Ah, community!’ Hawk sighed. ‘Do you travel?’

  ‘I’ve been on one trip in four years — to Tennessee and Florida to show the baby to her grandparents. Oh yes, and I went to a funeral in Tennessee for a weekend.’

  ‘What do you and your husband do for fun — like on a Saturday night or something?’

  ‘We watch television, or we go out riding on his Sno Cat. Or we square dance at the elementary school. Or his family — he has this vast network of aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters — they come out for picnics and holiday dinners.’

  ‘What’s he like, your Husband?’

  ‘Ira? Oh, he’s very kind and decent and considerate. He loves to fish and hunt and does them very well. In fact, everything he does, he’s accustomed to doing well. He’s quite attractive, I suppose — sort of dark and muscled and high-strung-looking. He sells insurance and snow machines and makes a fair amount of money at it. He’s very organized and dependable.’ Until this point, everything I had said about Ira and Stark’s Bog had been in a detached tone of voice. But halfway through, Hawk had started grinning. The corners of my mouth were now twitching faintly, too, when I added, ‘That’s why I hate him.’

  Hawk sighed and nodded sadly and said, “Yes, I know what you mean. Order achieved by exclusion, rather than order achieved through combating and subduing the chaos.’

  I nodded, pleased to have the issue spelled out so succinctly for me by this stranger.

  ‘It’s too bad, though.’

  ‘Yes, it makes me very sad.’

  ‘And you’re thinking about splitting?’

  ‘I think he’ll probably put a bullet through my head first.’

  ‘These pleasant orderly types are the ones who do that sort of thing, you know,’ he cautioned me. ‘One day the chaos we’ve so resolutely lopped off unexpectedly rears its ugly head, and we’re done for. We’ve developed no defenses against it.’

  I noted with interest his use of the collective ‘we’ and wondered if it was a gesture of generosity or if he was speaking from personal experience. ‘We?’

  He closed his eyes and shook his head to indicate that I wasn’t to question further. There was an awkward silence.

  ‘Actually, I have thought about leaving, off and on,’ I said, to gloss over the tense moment. ‘But where would I go? I’ve lived with different kinds of people. I’ve lived in a city, in the country, in a small town.’
r />   ‘How about a suburb?’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s a possibility. But I’m beginning to suspect that the problem isn’t the place or my partners — but me. I apparently haven’t been able to achieve a balance between my need for stability and order and my need for variety and excitement. “Flexible strength,” it was called in Introductory Psychology in college — like a used Kleenex.’

  ‘You’re aware,’ he intoned, ‘that that’s a politically reprehensible attitude, that any personal problems are the fault of a corrupt society, and that that society must be altered — or preferably destroyed?’

  ‘Yes, I’m aware that I’m being reactionary.’

  ‘Good. Then we can still be friends,’ he said, his teeth white through his tangled beard. ‘Because you’ve just painted yourself into my corner. We can huddle together and hold hands while waiting for the New Left lynch mob to arrive.’ Then he added in a voice tinged with desperation, ‘But there has to be a way to change.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Yes. There has to be.’

  Just then a car horn tooted, and a booming male voice called out, ‘Anybody home?’

  Hawk leapt up and crouched against the fence. He hissed at me, his eyes wide with alarm, ‘No one must know I’m here!’

  I thought his reaction excessive for the crime of sunning nude next to a married woman while her husband was away. But I nodded to him as I headed for the gate. ‘No one!’ he whispered urgently.

  Ira’s Uncle Dean, a short man with a huge pot belly, was in the garage looking around. ‘Hello, Uncle Dean!’

  ‘Whybygod, Ginny! Decided nobody was around, so I was going to borrow Ira’s chain saw and leave him a note.’

  ‘Ira’s not here, but help yourself to his saw.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘At Camp Drum with the National Guard.’

  ‘Jesum Crow, I’d forgotten. Don’t get too lonely now, will you?’

  I promised him that I’d try not to.

  ‘Pretty day, huh?’ I pointed out.

  ‘Beautiful. Just beautiful. Going to be a beautiful week.’

  ‘Is that what they say?’

  ‘A-yup. But these weather men, they’re never right.’

  ‘It’s only their life’s work.’

  ‘What? Oh yes, life’s work. Right.’ He put his arm around me as I walked him to his car. He carried Ira’s yellow chain saw in his other hand. He leaned over and whispered in my ear, ‘You got any exciting news for us yet?’

  I looked at him indignantly. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, knowing perfectly well what he meant.

  ‘Hang, you don’t want to wait too long now to start on your second.’

  Feeling ornery, I said, ‘Uncle Dean, people don’t always get what they want.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Forgive me, Ginny.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I assured him with sad dignity.

  When I got back to the pool, Hawk was still crouched against the fence like a cornered animal. ‘He’s gone,’ I notified him.

  He collapsed in a heap. ‘Did you tell them you’d never heard of me?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The FBI.’

  ‘That was my husband’s uncle. Now what’s this all about? What horrible thing have you done, that you should be such a nervous wreck?’

  He stood up slowly, his face haggard; he walked back to the pool and lay face down in the grass. ‘I should have told you right from the start,’ he said miserably. “Now I’ve implicated you, and you can get in a lot of trouble.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For harboring an army deserter.’

  It was my turn to look at him with alarm. The term ‘deserter’ resounded with such sinister associations in my mind. A deserter: a coward who had abandoned his post at a battlefront to roam through the surrounding countryside raping and looting and murdering. Men without consciences who would flee to save their own necks, leaving their braver comrades weakened and more vulnerable to attack. I glanced at him uneasily.

  He was studying my reaction. Finding what he expected, he shut his eyes and nodded his head knowingly and said softly, ‘Yes, but it wasn’t like that at all.’

  And, in fact, I still trusted him, my flash of conditioned panic notwithstanding. After all, although to the Stark’s Boggers Hawk was all the heinous things I had already thought of, to Eddie he would have been a war hero. I had an obligation at least to hear him out before kicking him into the road.

  ‘Well, as long as I’m already implicated, why don’t you tell me exactly what I’m implicated in?’ I suggested.

  He sighed wearily. ‘It’s a vast saga of grief and misery.’

  ‘We’ve got several days before my husband gets back from the National Guard.’

  ‘Your husband’s off with the National Guard?’

  Indignantly, feeling penitent for having talked so candidly with this deserter about the failings of my kind and loyal Ira, I said, ‘He views his obligation to his country differently from you. I don’t see why that’s any reason to ridicule him.’

  He stopped laughing. ‘I’m sorry if it sounded as though I were, because I wasn’t. I was just struck by the irony of it all — him off serving his nation, and his wife back home entertaining a deserter.’

  I flinched. I too had been struck by the irony, which I felt cast me in a not altogether flattering light. In short, I felt guilty. It was marital infidelity at its most pure. ‘Go on,’ I commanded unpleasantly.

  Hawk’s father, a retired army colonel and an American Legion Post Commander, had been in Belgium in World War II and in Korea — silver star, bronze star, purple heart. Dinner table conversation frequently included his story about being shot down over occupied France and having to parachute out and find his way to the border without food or a compass. Hawk’s grandfather, a general in World War I, had fought at the Somme. His great-great-grandfather, a Confederate officer, was killed in a charge at Lookout Mountain. And so Hawk had grown up surrounded by plastic howitzers and model armored support vehicles. He had jumped out of trees with a parachute of silk scarves tied to his shoulders.

  After military academy in Atlanta, he was turned down by West Point. In a funk, he went to Alabama Tech and studied electrical engineering, the first Hawk male in three generations not to be a career officer. One morning after graduation he found himself standing with a raised hand under a touched-up photo of President Nixon. And the next thing he knew, he was marching back and forth at Fort Maynard chanting, ‘I wanna go to Vietnam! I wanna kill the Vietcong!’ A huge billboard of a handsome GI bayoneting a sinister little yellow man in black pajamas towered over him everywhere he went.

  ‘It was a conditioning thing,’ Hawk explained, as I changed Wendy’s diapers on the grass and scowled at her for failing to give me a cryptic signal to spirit her into the toilet, as Dr. Spock had assured me babies much younger than she did effortlessly. ‘The point was to get us so scared and so exhausted that we did exactly as we were told. My mind shut down completely, and I became a highly trained instrument that responded instantly to outside commands. Once during a bayonet drill, though, my mind began stirring and yawning and peering out at the activities of this body under its supposed control. It was jabbing at a sandbag and shouting, “Kill, kill, kill!” This four-foot drill sergeant who’d done two tours in Nam was all purple in the face from yelling, “Stab low and pull up, you mother fuckers! Rip those gook guts right out!” My brain freaked out! I started giggling, then guffawing. Soon I was doubled over in paroxysms of glee. And here came this Napoleon bellowing about how he was gonna bust my ass and knock the shit outa me and kick my fucking teeth in. But I couldn’t stop. He stood over me and growled, “Well, you ain’t gonna be laughin’ where you’re goin’, boy I You lie round laughin’ over at Nam and you get your fuckin’ head blown off!”

  ‘To show us how the semiautomatic on the M-16 worked, this guy blew the head off an alley cat in a g
arbage can. And one afternoon he invited me to his quarters and showed me the skull of a Vietcong, which he’d scooped out and dried like a Halloween pumpkin. Then he hauled out this album of photos of mutilated bodies. I said, “Hey man, I don’t wanna look at these. This little hobby of yours is weird.” And he said, “Well, son, you’d better get used to lookin’ at them, ‘cause where you’re goin’ you’re gonna see plenty.”’

  Hawk went to Vietnam in the grip of the basic male thing: Here was this rite that would either make a man of you or destroy you. If you returned alive, you’d somehow conquered Death. Naturally he assumed that he would be one of those to return — loaded down with medals just like his father. But once there, his only concerns became enduring the incredible boredom and staying alive and getting home, which required doing as he was told. Out on a patrol he and four others abducted a Vietnamese girl from a field near a village. Hawk protested faintly and was told to shut up. He speculated on pulling a John Wayne and rescuing her. Then he pictured himself in a jungle grave with a bullet through his head. Or returned to Atlanta in a body bag — a war hero. It was one of those jarring moments when a person realizes that he’s stepped out of the familiar everyday world into a realm of primal lawlessness in which anything goes. The girl panicked and started kicking and scratching. The others slapped her around. Finally Hawk joined them in raping her.

  I looked at him with alarm: I was alone and defenseless with a rapist. What should I do?

  ‘You have to understand that I was almost a virgin,’ Hawk explained grimly, as I stared at him with horror. ‘I’d done the usual back-seat grapplings when I was at military school. At Tech I went once to a black whore — and came all over her before we were even undressed. Once I wrangled a date with a townie who’d reportedly “do it for anyone.” I got her drunk so that she wouldn’t notice my ineptitude, and she passed out. So I screwed her anyway, and then cleaned her up. She never knew. Junior year I fell hopelessly in love. But my girl’s education was very important to her, and we didn’t want to risk wrecking it by getting her pregnant. So we had this beautiful chaste relationship for over a year. I went off to war knowing that she’d be through school when I got back and all would be well. I’d have saved myself for her, and she for me, and we could spend the rest of our lives making up for lost time.