Parts Per Million
Page 6
And then they’re all laughing, Jen too, at the image of her scrambling around on the bridge, fifty feet above the Willamette, grabbing at pages peeling away in the wind.
Deirdre smiles and says, “Okay, so if you’re such keen environmentalists, why would you be driving such a big old car? It’s brilliant on the inside, but you could’ve done all that to something that uses a wee bit less petrol.”
Fetzer nods. “Good question. You know when I go out to the shed in the mornings? What do you think I do out there?”
Deirdre looks out the window at the backyard shed. “Um. Run on a treadmill?”
Nelson’s laugh kicks so deep he gets a cramp. Wine sprays out of Jen’s nose.
After they quiet down, Fetzer folds his arms on the table. “No, dear. I make the biofuel. The Toro runs on Mr. Nguyen’s used fryer oil.”
Deirdre’s topaz eyes sweeten with delight.
She’s beautiful. She is so beautiful.
11: FETZER
The irony didn’t dawn on me till much later: it was Nelson who offered her that first glass of wine. I was selfishly enjoying the fun that evening, and not thinking through the implications. What struck me at the time was the way she relaxed her arm next to his on the crowded kitchen tabletop. The way she leaned closer to him when she laughed. The way they tried to look like they weren’t looking. A girl wants to get back to being a normal human being and who better to hold her hand through it than Nelson, an entire first-response team rolled into one human being.
But the day she got the job at Nguyen’s diner I was just enjoying the lightness of the moment—unusual for us—as we sat together at that green Formica table and laughed. As the afternoon drew on, Deirdre got tired and went downstairs to her cubicle to crash. Once she was gone, Nelson pushed his chair out from the table and stretched his legs. He’d eaten the apple pastry, and there was just the maple donut on the white plate. Jen shoved it away. “Bunch of addicts.”
“Quit acting superior,” I said, and I cut the maple donut in half. I was feeling lazy from the wine, and the permission it seemed to be giving me to take an evening off. Topsy-turvy lazy from wine and having a girl laughing next to me. And it was a really good maple donut. I slid down in my seat. Dragged the point of the knife through some frosting on the plate.
Nelson pushed his fingers up under his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
Jen said, “I’m surprised at you, Nelson. I figured you’d go for someone smarter.”
Nelson straightened his glasses. “Excuse me?”
My plans for Nelson and Deirdre aside, I couldn’t resist having some fun, and that was my cue. Lifted my hands up all flippy and camp. “Deirdre,” I said, “like my fancy wine glasses? They’re Waterford.” Jen tilted back in her chair, snickering on a slow idle. I flapped my wrists and batted my eyes. “You spilled some? Don’t get up, Deirdre, I’ll get the dish sponge. Oh, and while I’m standing here, Deirdre, would you like to suck me off?”
“Shut up,” said Nelson. His face was red. Jen and I laughed so hard Dee must’ve heard us downstairs.
He snatched up the plate, dumped the amputated maple donut in the compost, and circled the plate under a blast of water.
Jen said, “I thought your next one would be an intelligent, nerdy type. After, you know, the last couple of prima donnas.”
Nelson scrubbed the plate. Steam from the hot water billowed around his shoulders.
“Like one of those diehard biologists,” said Jen. “Wears socks with sandals. Ponytail. No makeup. Finds coyote scat exciting and knows every fucking detail about the sex life of some insect that lives in caves.”
The plate looked clean, but Nelson kept scrubbing. “I’m just trying to make up for the bad manners she has to put up with. So mind your own damn business.” He angled the plate into the dish rack. Turned to face us. Folded his arms. “Besides,” he added, “she is intelligent.”
Jen and I started debating the likelihood of crazy sexual scenarios and we just about asphyxiated from laughing, until I mentioned levitating tantric sex and Jen’s chair bumped upright. “Shit,” she said. She had a slight frown. “That reminds me. I found this press release from the Cascade Graduate Institute about getting federal funding to test this, like, hovercraft thing. Something amphibious, for the military.”
Nelson looked relieved that the conversation was no longer about him. “Military R&D at Cascade? That’s weird.”
“I know,” said Jen. She went over to the coffee table—it was this hulking wooden thing from the seventies, with a cinderblock standing in for its missing leg. She opened the laptop. “Yeah. A SEALION craft with modular capabilities. So then I checked out some other local colleges, and Willamette College of Tech and Northern Oregon U? Turns out they’re suddenly getting federal R&D bucks for military shit, too. Three million to Willamette Tech to develop infrared and thermal imaging equipment. And NOU’s getting two mil to develop approach-system software for military planes.”
Nelson asked, “How deep did you have to dig for this?” He disliked it on principle when Jen hacked, not that it stopped him from using the information it brought. But after 9/11 and the passing of the PATRIOT Act, it added an extra layer of worry.
“Surface scratch,” said Jen. “Communications departments love to crow about this kind of thing. Okay, NOU’s isn’t public yet, but their intranet security is made of, like, twigs and string. And it’s due for release next week anyhow.”
I said, “Can we put an environmental angle on any of this?”
Jen looked up, her face pallid from the light off the laptop. “Sure. But, you know—times like these—I think it calls for expanding our beat.”
“Absolutely,” said Nelson. He lifted his hands in exasperation. “This preemptive strike thing is bullshit. The corporate media’s screeching about Iraq being a threat, even though there’s zero evidence they’ve got WMDs anymore.”
So two things were set in motion that night. Deirdre found her new poison, and we found a thread. We picked up that thread and followed it, not realizing it was a lit fuse.
PART TWO
12: JEN
* TheJenerator does not swing.
Fuck, it’s noisy. I’m trying to get some work done here, people. As in, shut up? It’s not like her day at the diner’s the most interesting topic in the world, Nelson, you chocolate-milk-drinking freak. I saw you with that bottle of Nesquik she brought you yesterday. No, don’t come over here, Deirdre. Please. Don’t. I am trying to work.
Shit.
“This time I have veggies,” she says, and pulls a cucumber out of her paper bag like she expects a medal. The cucumber looks ridiculously phallic in her hand.
“Organic?” I say, knowing the answer.
She drops the smile. “Don’t think so.”
Nelson says something sappy to her and she goes upstairs. What a waste of bandwidth.
“Jen?” says Nelson.
“What?”
&nb
sp; “We can use the help with the food,” says Nelson, “with an extra mouth to feed.”
“What are we, an orphanage?”
Fetzer says, “You’ve been typing for two hours, Jen. Take a break.”
The #rezist window scrolls up without me.
He’s right. I need to pee.
*** TheJenerator has left #rezist
When I get up to the kitchen she’s sitting on the velvet sofa writing in that diary. Probably “journaling” about me. What a crock. But by now I am pretty sure she’s harmless. Like Fetzer said, if she was an infiltrator, she’d be doing a better job of fitting in.
She closes the notebook with one skinny finger between the pages.
I say, “Hey, uh. It’s cool that you can bring home food.”
She doesn’t look up. “I’m not staying long. I’ll keep out of your bleedin’ way in the meantime.”
“No. Fuck, it’s not like that. I was just busy, okay?”
She lifts her eyes. Funny colored eyes. Like Pabst.
I say, “It’s just weird having someone else around. Who isn’t tuned into how we do things.”
She lays the notebook down. “Okay.” Then she checks out her nails. Who knows why, they’re all bitten.
The fridge turns off. And as if to make up for it, the crossing bells start up.
“So,” she says, “how long’ve you lot been together, anyway?”
“Omnia Mundi? About six years. We used to be with this bigger group that did more direct-action stuff. But then we split off.”
She shifts over from the middle of the sofa. Guess that means sit down.
Whiff of sweat—mine or hers? I want to sit back, but somehow this isn’t the time to lounge. Elbows on my knees. Next to her I feel giant.
She says, “Split off?”
“Yeah. The sabotage and shit was awesome, but we got tired of some of the other guys’ accountability issues. That’s when we started the Omnia Mundi Media Group.”
Funny how where you end up is less about what you want and more about what you’re not willing to put up with.
She asks me how old I am and her eyes widen when I say twenty-eight.
“But I’m barely adult, yeah, I know.”
The train comes, honking loud, vibrating the house. My feet look big next to hers. Hers in tan laceups. Weird shoes to wear with a skirt. Last time I wore a skirt was eighth grade. Her profile’s beaky. If I didn’t know she was Irish I’d think Italian. Or Jewish. The train passes and it goes quiet again.
Her face swings around, eyes too pale and too close. “Let’s start over and be friends, okay?” She holds out her hand.
“Deal,” I say, and take it. It’s small. And way warmer than mine. She’s smiling now, but I can’t look right at her. Then her thin arms are around my back, squeezing. There’s dust bunnies under the roll-cart. Looks like a spoon’s stuck under the fridge. I’m just getting my brain to coordinate whatever’s involved in hugging her back when she lets go.
Whoa.
Silence drops like a damn theater curtain. Try to be nice. Try to be nice.
“Hey, um,” I say. “You been to the river? The sunset’s pretty cool over the river.”
This fence is getting looser. I do a bent-kneed jump onto weeds and grass. A path like a deer trail runs beside the fence. It’s from the homeless folks, though, wider than a deer trail. Deirdre’s slow and I have to help her over. Fence rattles as she comes off it, thumping into the weeds.
We step over the train tracks and head down past the A-1 Tire & Brake Co. Taking this walk is always cool, heading toward Ross Island Sand and Gravel poking above the trees by the river. Thinking of Tre Arrow. Thinking of those cement trucks burning in the night. I miss that guy. Stay safe, man. Keep low.
Down the next street, across the parking lot, down the alley that goes under McLoughlin Boulevard with the trucks roaring overhead like airplanes. Past Mattresses by MacElroy, and Ron’s Vending Machine Sales, with rusting vending machines in the back lot surrounded by razor wire.
Can see the Willamette now, between warehouses. It’s one cool river. Love this place.
Where’d she go? Guess I walk fast. Man, she’s like nearly a foot shorter than me.
We get to the end of the parking lot for Seymour’s Construction Sealants and stop at the ragged crust of pavement. Down the riverbank it’s all weeds and bushes. Plastic binding and beer cans. Setting sun makes the water sparkle. I usually go down the track to the water, but it’s narrow and steep and she’s still not a hundred percent.
She shields her eyes and looks across at the city on the other side. “It’s so different over there.”
“Yep,” I say. All chichi’d up with bike paths and non-native trees and riverfront condos. Looks like a whole different town. But it’s better here. Something about it, even with McLoughlin’s noise and the litter and everything. Best place to get away and think.
Underbellies of the bridges all concrete and girders. A tourist boat eases past, guide’s loudspeaker voice drifting over in snatches. Tourists gobbling up the BS.
“What’s it called?” she asks.
“The boat?”
“No, the river.”
“This is the Willamette. I can’t believe you don’t know that.”
“Do now,” she says to the water.
“You really aren’t from around here, are you?”
She lifts her pointy chin higher. “Beware. There are more of us out there than you think.”
I laugh but don’t know what to say. A caller on the show once said I was insular. But how many people bother to care as much as I do about the big issues? And it’s great being a left-coaster. A best-coaster. Wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else.
“You from Oregon?” she asks. Her hand still shading her eyes.
“Yep. Born in Roseburg. To redneck parents. Got out of there soon as I finished high school.”
She nods like she understands. “I grew up surrounded by bloody bogs, would you believe. Left home at seventeen. Left Ireland.”
“Peat bogs? Awesome. Peatland ecosystems sound amazing. Sequester a lot of carbon, too.”
Her eyes stay on the other side of the river.
“So where did you go?” I say.
“London.”
“Cool.”
She snorts. “Not when every second parson you meet suspects you’re IRA.”
It takes me a second to figure out she said “person.”
“Holy shit. Yeah, there was all those bombings in the nineties.”
A breeze pushes a strand of her hair around.
“So—were you?” I ask.
She looks at me like I just kicked her. “Yer fockin’ kiddin’ me. They’re awful! Bombing innocent people who had nothing to do with the Orangemen.”
I swear her accent’s ratcheted up a notch. “Uh, sure. But didn’t the British army do pretty similar shit in Ireland?”
Her eyes get a desperate look. “They’re awful, too! Violence never fixes a fockin’ thing.”
My hands up like whoa. “Understood.”
She turns back to the water. “Besides. I’m from the Republic, not the North.”
“Yup. Understood.”
She stares across at the condos for a while. Tells me she waited tables. Saved her money, went to Australia, went to college. How good it was to get away from home. Then she asks me what “Willamette” means.
And I have no idea.
Deirdre’s eyes do a circle around my head, checking out my hair again. People fucking fixate on my hair. If I was pretty they wouldn’t notice the hair so much.
“Maybe it’s means something about fire,” she says, and her eyes return to the water. “It looks like it’s on fire, dunnit, flames dancing on the water.”
The bed sags under my back. Maple leaf shadows on my ceiling from the lamp in the parking lot on Taggart. It’s leaf shadows in summer, twig sha
dows in winter. “Willamette” is from the French pronunciation of an Indian village called Wal-lamt, which looks like Wal-Mart—gross—but probably meant “spillwater,” according to the interwebs. Good to have that squared away.
She doesn’t tell you much. People who travel a lot usually bore you to death with stupid stories, but not her.
A breeze twitches the shadow-leaves.
Weird how I never think of Roseburg anymore. Mom and Dad down there, rotting away on junk TV and junk food and junk ideas about what’s worth fighting for.
Deirdre’s hug—that threw me.
And her fingers on my arm when we climbed over the fence. Digging in, letting go, leaving white marks under the freckles for a second. Then she was stepping onto the train tracks, looking down them one way, then the other, like a little kid hoping to see a train. And on the way back, she goes and slips her hand under my hair like she owns it and asks what kind of shampoo I use and says it’s beautiful.
“Not you, too,” I said. It’s bad enough having modelboy Franky nag me about “hair care.”
But she told me that when she was a kid she prayed every night for curly red hair. And that they’d called her japhead in school, and said her mom bonked a Chinaman.
“Bloody racist where I come from,” she said. “It was good to get far, far away.”
Fuck. I was glad to leave home, but imagine wanting out of your whole country.
She stroked my hair across her palm. I didn’t know what to say. Sometimes think I should just let it dread up. That’s such a scene, though.
Can’t stand scenes. Even ones I like.
Deirdre’s so scrawny. Who knows what Nelse sees in her.
Poor Nelse. Last girlfriend he had went off with a guru, and the one before that was getting heavily into the sabotage shit right when we were getting out of it. Then before that was his crazy-ass screaming wife. The guy is kind of a loser.
Like I can talk.
13: NELSON