by Julia Stoops
Jen’s middle name is Victoria, but I figured that was a clerical error at the Health Department’s Vital Records Office. It was really “Victim.”
“She left him alone soon as he said he had a girlfriend.”
Jen turned to me. “He usually says that to keep girls away, but now it might actually be true, huh?” Then she flipped the laptop over, booted it up. “It could get weird, you know, if they do hook up.”
“Hell no,” I said. “Already he’s easier to live with, and he’s not even getting laid.”
Jen snickered. “He’s easier in some ways, but he’s, I dunno, lost focus. Could get worse when he finally remembers he’s got a dick.”
“That’s sexist,” I said, and Jen snorted.
The tent flap zippered open and Nelson poked his smiling head in. I thought he’d heard us, but his face showed only simple joy. That and wearing an old T-shirt and jeans instead of his usual jacket and tie made him look younger than his thirty-four years.
“There you are,” he said. “It’s nice out. What are you doing hiding in here?”
Jen said, “Maintenance. Close the flap. We’re trying to keep bugs out.”
Nelson said, “Zoe’s here. She wanted to know where our tent was.”
Zoe’s cute face poked into our tent. “Hey, guys.” She was about twenty-five, light-brown skinned, and she reeked of pot. We said hi. She said, “Hey, Jen, wanna take a walk to the overlook?”
Jen stared down at the laptop, and I swear if she’d said she was busy I would’ve slammed it shut on her fingers. But she said, “Sure,” and Zoe said, “Cool,” all squeaky, and Jen angled her large limbs out of the tent.
Nelson climbed in. He had a touch of sunburn on his nose and forehead.
“Wow,” he said, “that hike to the next crest is fantastic. I wish Dee could’ve been here.” Then he flopped down on his sleeping bag and went on about how great the retreat was and how amazing the energy was and aren’t those direct-action people inspiring?
I said, “Yep. Plenty to see and do.”
To be honest, I was feeling jaded about the return-to-nature shit that the youngsters kept shoving in my face. For one thing, it doesn’t scale. There are six billion souls on the planet. A solution that won’t work for the global population isn’t a solution. And if there’s going to be some huge social restructuring that forces a return to a nontechnological lifestyle, who’ll get the good, fertile land? The white people with guns, that’s who. Everybody else will starve on the margins. We’ve got to be smarter than that.
Nelson gazed at the ceiling of the tent. “Rainier looks incredible today, huh? And oh, man, go down from the ridge a ways and there’s a patch of hemlock, about three dozen trees, and they’re huge. I’d say seven, eight feet across at the base.”
I stretched out my shrapnel knee until it clicked. “Old, huh?”
“Yeah.” He laced his fingers over his chest and sighed. “Then about halfway up there’s a waterfall. Drops about a hundred feet, maybe more. Wish Dee could’ve seen it. I’m gonna use it as a starting point for an essay.”
I didn’t sleep too well the night before—mostly due to him sleep talking—and I was ready for a nap. “Great,” I said.
“You know?” he said, with a small, thoughtful frown, “streams and rivers aren’t just any old water moving along.” His hand lifted and traced a slow line above his head. “They’re this thread of energy, you know?”
Uh-oh, I thought. Here comes the essay.
His arm followed a wide curve. “Circling through ecosystems in their own time dimension, like they have for millions of years. And everything we do is so temporary, you know? Like even if you dam a river up, it’s really just biding its time, because in a million years the dam’ll be eroded away, or simply bypassed.” Nelson sat up and opened the laptop. “Hey, did you hear what that guy Willow was saying? That Independence Day should be renamed Inter-dependence Day?” Nelson shone his lit-up eyes in my direction. “You know, because we’re all dependent on each other, and the earth and systems and so on.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I get it.”
He gave a self-conscious smile and watched me stretch out on my sleeping bag.
“Happy Inter-dependence Day,” I said, and turned my back to him. “In case I forget tomorrow.”
The morning after we got back from the retreat, Jen and I were up long before Nelson—bizarre enough. But in that morning’s papers we were learning something even more bizarre: a proposed new Department of Homeland Security. First of all, who the hell since the Nazis names where they live “Homeland”? Internal Security, sure. Domestic Security, okay. But Homeland Security? Second of all—ironic, much? It was a bunch of other peoples’ home-land for millennia before the US even existed.
That morning, Jen and I shared a wary look over the tops of our papers.
“Unaccountable to the public,” I said. “Exempt from FOIA disclosure.”
Jen nodded. “Massive reorganization of the federal government. And more armed federal agents with arrest powers than any other branch. I’m getting a laptop.”
Nelson plodded down the main stairs. His eyes were puffy and his hair stuck out.
“Velcom to ze new verlt orter,” said Jen. He ignored her and sat down at the table.
Jen set the laptop in front of me, open at the ACLU’s website. The new Department of Homeland Security planned to deny its 200,000 employees whistleblower protection. “Way fucked up,” said Jen, then she gave Nelson’s chair a kick on her way over to the fridge. “Party party party. She’s turning out to be pretty wild, huh?”
We’d returned late the night before to a rainstorm, and to Joe Cocker blasting and Deirdre and Franky dancing around the kitchen. The place smelled of booze and sweat. There were open bottles, and hardened candle wax puddled on the kitchen table.
The smile on Dee’s face when she’d noticed Nelson. And Nelson frozen, staring, watching her dance.
Jen had yanked the boombox cord out of the wall, which made Franky and Deirdre collapse, laughing, but not touching—I noted they weren’t touching—onto the brown velvet sofa.
“Remain seated until ride has come to a complete stop,” said Jen. Then we went upstairs to bed, and Franky followed. There was just the sound of the rain outside and the clink of Dee gathering up wine bottles.
And now it was morning, and Nelson was picking at a lump of wax on the table.
Jen dropped her butt on a chair next to him. “Looks like someone didn’t get much sleep. Probably didn’t even stay in his own bed.”
Nelson’s head snapped up. “What?”
Jen raised her hands in mock surrender. “Whoa! It speaks.”
“Maybe now’s not the time,” I said.
Jen kept her hands up. “Guess you won, Fetz. Unless he’s bullshitting us.”
I wanted to slap her. “You’re not helping, Jennifer.”
She smirked. “We had a bet going about whose bed you’d wake up in.”
Nelson’s eyes bulged.
I said, “It was just a joke, dammit. A stupid joke, didn’t mean anything. Quit taking everything so goddamn seriously.”
Nelson folded his arms on the table and stared at the wax. “Leave me the hell alone.”
Jen sat back, snickering.
I should have been taking Nelson more seriously. Instead I said, “Now you listen to me, dumbasses. We agreed to let Deirdre stay because it made for a pleasant change, remember? Breath of fresh air. But not if it turns this place turns into a fucking soap opera.”
I turned the laptop around so they could see the ACLU page. “Hell in a handbasket, kids. Hell in a handbasket.” Jen and Nelson watched my jabbing finger. “We’ve got work to do, and we’ve got years invested in it, and it’s getting even more critical that we stay on it.”
They said sorry and we went back to work. For the next couple of weeks, I noticed Nelson avoided being alone with Deirdre. But we got through the backlog of site updates, a long-delayed book-editing gig,
and we put out a damn tight newsletter.
Then we got a call from Kate Simms, the Oregon Herald reporter who’d run our “Pentagon Cash to Colleges” story. She had some follow-up questions. We made a date to meet at Nguyen’s diner.
Deirdre played obsequious waitress with us, but when Kate turned up I shooed Dee away. Kate came with a baby in a sling. Some deal about the sitter was sick. The baby burped, gurgled, and fussed. Kate somehow maintained focus despite swaying him back and forth and jiggling him up and down. Nelson gazed at that kid, and I knew what was going through his head. When we first met him, he and his attorney wife were trying to start a family. We’d turned that couple’s world upside down.
Kate was plump, pretty, and chin-up-confident. Everything Deirdre wasn’t. She had light brown curls and a blue silk blouse with faint stains that I attributed to baby puke.
After the introductions and chitchat, Kate said to Nelson, “I enjoyed your essay on water.”
Nelson dropped his eyes and tweaked a smile. “Thanks.”
“Really. It was beautiful. Poetic.”
“Yikes. I hope it came across as more practical than that.”
Kate bounced the baby. “Perhaps you’re a practical poet.”
Made me wish I’d written an essay about water.
Then Kate said, “Anyhow, I need to find out what’s up with the Harry Lane omission.”
Nelson and Jen looked as puzzled as I felt.
Into the silence, Kate added, “Rumor has it you left Harry Lane out of your exposé because you’re leftie snobs.”
“Harry Lane University?” I said. “What’s up with them?”
Kate said, “A research assistant at NOU complained that I picked on them even though Harry Lane's Pentagon contract was bigger.”
“For real?” said Jen. “But, Harry Lane's, like, a private liberal arts school.”
“Liberal arts and sciences,” Nelson corrected.
Kate paused her baby-rocking. “You mean you really don’t know?”
“Uh, no,” said Jen. “Do you?”
Kate sighed like we were tiresome morons.
Jen whacked her hand on the table. “Harry Lane! Hah! How fucking rich is that!”
“Seems incongruous,” said Nelson. “Bastion of progressivism and all.”
We looked at Nelson, who had done an honors year at HLU during his undergrad days—the inherent elitism of which Jen loved to tease him about. “I guess we need to look into this,” he said. “Good tip. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” said Kate. No smile. Then she had to go. But first she had to use the restroom. Would Nelson mind holding him? Nelson’s eyes stretched wide, and he took the child like you’d take an egg yolk that was being handed to you.
“What’s his name?” he asked.
“Adrian,” said Kate over her shoulder.
How seldom you recognize the start of things.
16: JEN
Can hear him and Deirdre coming in downstairs.
“Hey, Nelse!” I yell. “Harry Lane University! You gotta hear this!”
Nelson’s voice floats up: “Hang on.”
“Do I detect a note of irritation?” I ask Fetzer, and he nods.
Nelson climbs the basement stairs with the enthusiasm of a tired snail.
“Dude. Get your ass up here,” I say, and when he emerges at the top, I add, “Apologies if this is interrupting something important. ’Cause this is, like, more important?”
“Get a load of this,” says Fetzer, and he grins, quick and triumphant. He hands Nelson the document.
“What is it?” says Nelson. And do I detect a note of reluctance?
Fetzer says, “Well, if you read the words, Nelson, you’d learn all about HLU’s shiny new contract to help the Pentagon distinguish suspicious activities from ordinary body movements.”
I point to the third paragraph. “Pentagon’s got so much spy video to go through, they need software to help.”
Nelson reads from the document. “Video and Image Recognition and Analysis Software—VIRAS? The ability to search existing video data and monitor real-time video data for specific activities or events will provide a dramatic new capability to the US military and intelligence agencies . . . to identify and catalog cases of gathering, moving in a group, shaking hands, kissing, exchanging objects, kicking, carrying together . . .” His eyes scan the page. “Harry Lane's doing this for them?”
“Developing algorithms,” I say, “to identify human activities and evaluate whether they justify a military response.”
Nelson pushes his hair off his forehead. “God, this is awful. Where’s it going to be used?”
Fetzer says, “Afghanistan. Maybe Iraq, if it comes to that. But you know they’re gonna use it on civilians in”—he makes air quotes—“the Homeland.”
Nelson gazes across to the kitchen window like he’d rather be somewhere else.
“Thing is,” says Fetzer, “there’s been no press release. They’re keeping it under wraps.”
“I mean, shit,” I say. “It’s so not Harry Lane. Can you imagine?”
Nelson shrugs and says we should just go straight to HLU's chair of Engineering and ask. A move that did not occur to me, I must admit, but then I don’t carry the privilege of the well-educated white male.
“You think he’ll deign to talk to us?” says Fetzer.
“You’re assuming the chair is a he,” says Nelson.
“Big assumption, Fetz,” I say.
Fetzer says, “I guess worst that can happen is he—or she—says no.”
When Fetz and I get back, Nelson’s already made an appointment for us to see Dr. William Reynolds on Thursday.
“Cool,” I say. “Your chai latte.”
Nelson takes the latte, sets it aside. “His secretary was really helpful. Said she was a fan of the show. I mean, she was like, I’m-moving-another-meeting helpful.”
Fetzer starts eating that nasty scone he bought. “Fans are good. But see, I was right: he’s a he.”
Nelson sighs and goes, “Yeah.” Closes the calendar, starts tidying shit up.
“What’s up?” I say. “You bummed about your alma mater?”
Nelson shakes his head.
Fetzer softly asks, “How’s things with Deirdre?”
“Hah. Too much else to do. Like you said, we can’t afford distractions.”
Fetzer puts a hand on Nelson’s tan corduroy shoulder. “I didn’t mean be a monk. Buddy, you need a life.”
Nelson gathers pens, drops them in the pen cup. “I get anxious around her,” he says.
“Just come right out and ask her on a date,” I say.
Of course nobody says, Jen, you need to get out more too.
Fetzer says, “You know she likes you.”
“It’s pretty fucking obvious,” I say.
Like last night when she brought him a cup of tea. “Whatcha reading?” she asks. “Article about timber companies,” he replies. “Looks bloody dull,” she says. And he tells her about how he’s fascinated with the “tapestry of it all.” The history, the law, ecology. “You have lovely hands,” she non-sequiturs. Disbelieving, he holds them up to check. “Oh. Thanks.” Then he tucks them under the desk. I was staying quiet ’cause I wanted them to keep going. Then she gestured at his desk. “Why do you do all this?”
And Nelson stopped acting like he was in a bad dream. He looked right at her and it rolled out of his mouth like only Nelson can get away with: “I try to defend what is defenseless. One day I realized I had to try. And then I knew I couldn’t do anything else.”
Which is why Fetz and I picked him, as I must remind myself from time to time.
17: NELSON
“I’m taking a shower,” Nelson says, “and that’s final.”
Deirdre’s curtain is open, but she’s at work. He pulls his tie loose and unbuttons his shirt on his way up the basement stairs. No way he’s going to meet Dr. William Reynolds unwashed.
Jen says from below, “Downtown’s
jammed this time of day.”
Nelson’s sick of the nagging. He leans over the banister. “There’s time for me to shower.”
Fetz says, “We haven’t even rehearsed.”
God, they’ve been interviewing people for years. Surely they have it down by now.
Empty kitchen. Dishes are done. Deirdre’s put three dandelions and two small Cecile Brunner roses from the front porch in a glass in the middle of the table. He sees her dancing the night they came back from the retreat: twirling, hair flying. His heart aches.
Fetzer drums his fingers on the steering wheel. Jen logs in at the console, checks email. Nelson lets his shoulder lean against the car door. The sky is windless blue and the city sparkles. The message from Reynolds’s assistant at eight this morning: Could they come in earlier? Dr. Reynolds is flying out of town tonight. He would appreciate it.
To supplement their internet research, they’d left for the public library so early that he’d missed seeing Deirdre, and they’d spent the morning in a dark corner, digging through obscure journals, feeding coins into a photocopier, getting hungry.
They ate through a box of crackers, and an orange they’d found in the car. Nelson was too nervous to eat much. But now he is clear and calm. Clean shirt. Flossed teeth. A folder on his knees full of evidence—enough to convince him now—that Dr. William Reynolds, former Research Fellow in Defense Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and a regular and generous contributor to the Republican party, has no business chairing a department at Oregon’s most liberal independent educational institution. At least not if it means bringing in stinking war business.
It’s strange being back on campus. The old Sci and Eng building has been replaced by a steel-and-glass structure called Hewell, and Engineering lives on the fourth and fifth floors. Reynolds’s assistant turns out to be a heavy black woman in a tight yellow suit and dangly earrings.
“I am so pleased to meet you,” she says, and her voice is deep. “I’m Nancy. My daughter and I, we listen to your show religiously. She’s going into twelfth grade, and she is a science nerd.” Nancy’s laugh is big, and her manicured fingers rest for a moment on the closest shoulder, which happens to be Fetzer’s. But Fetzer’s holding up one hand, saying, “Don’t tell me, don’t tell me— Nancy Washington?—the co-op? On Thurman?”