by Sol Stein
“We’ll have nowhere to go except into the compound,” Henry said.
“They’ll catch us,” Blaustein said, envisioning a scene of terror. “They’ll kill us for it! This isn’t a plan, it’s suicide!”
PART 3
16
Stanley’s friend Kathy lived off campus in Santa Cruz, in an apartment shared by four girls. They each had a bedroom with a doorknob that locked and a common living room and kitchen. The rules were you could feed yourself and one fellow in the kitchen and a fellow could visit you in your room, but if he stayed the night he had to vamoose before breakfast because the girls just didn’t want to go through the hassle of being seen in disrepair by someone else’s boy friend early in the morning.
“Can I speak to Kathy, please?”
Stanley heard the girl’s voice yell, “Kathy Brown, telephone!”
When Kathy got on, Stanley said, “Can I come over now?”
“I’ve got my period.”
“Jeez, Kathy, that wasn’t on my mind.”
“It wasn’t on mine either, you boob. I’m just telling you because you were worried, worrier.”
He had forgotten.
He felt the ping in his conscience. It was just two weeks ago when Kathy had said she wasn’t wearing her saucer, as she called it, and he’d said he’d be careful but wasn’t. Kathy’d cried, saying it was a perfect time for conception. He worried. And then forgot.
“I’m sorry,” Stanley said. “I mean, I’m glad.”
She had a nice laugh, Kathy did.
“So I can come over?” he asked.
“Sure. The living room’s a mess from last night’s party. Everybody’s been in class all day. Never mind, we can talk in my room.”
*
Kathy answered the doorbell. The living room served not only as headquarters for the four girls, but also as a drop-in place for at least two dozen friends. It still had last night’s paper plates with scraps of pizza ends, beer bottles, and crumpled napkins all around. There was a couch, but the real furniture of the room was three huge boldly colored cushions on the floor. On the walls were relics of an earlier period, posters of Hendrix and The Who, and, thumbtacked to the wall by the previous occupants of the apartment, a pair of bikini panties around which legends continued to grow.
As Kathy led him through the debris, he noticed the nothing dress she was wearing, a gauzy one-piece sack, colored like madras except you could see through it, vaguely, like the outline of her pants.
“You bought another one of those,” Stanley said.
“I’ve had this,” Kathy said. “Just haven’t worn it lately. When I do, people look at my boobs, not my face.”
“Nice face.”
“Thanks, I’m waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to say nice boobs. What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean what’s the matter?”
“You’re still worried.”
“Yeah,” Stanley said.
“You look worried. You’re worried half the time.”
She closed the bedroom door, got up on the bed, crossed her legs.
“Sit,” she said, pointing to a spot on the bed. “Tell me.”
He still wasn’t used to sitting cross-legged the way she did. It amused her to see him struggling with what came so easily to her.
“Okay,” he said. “You know the plan for the weekend. We fly down Friday morning and you’re supposed to show them around. Only we don’t know where to meet them. He was waiting to have a standby room confirmed or get a different hotel. He said he’d call from Santa Barbara. He never called.”
“Well,” Kathy said, “the day isn’t over.”
“He wouldn’t wait till the last minute.”
“Maybe you weren’t in when he called,” Kathy said.
“Sure I was in. Or my roommate was in. He always calls when he says he’s going to call.”
“Jesus, you’re a worrier,” Kathy said. “Suppose they just found someplace they liked and stayed a couple of days, something like that.”
“Then he would have called so I didn’t worry. If he says he’s going to be in touch, he’s in touch. I called the Beachcomber in Santa Barbara, they never checked in. They had a guaranteed reservation, which means they get charged for the room even if they don’t show. That’s not like him.”
“Oh Stanley, one night’s hotel bill is not going to break your old man. I hope you’re not going to be like that.”
“Like what?”
“I like to coast when I travel. Want a beer?”
“Not now. Look, I have this instinct, see, it’s like I can tell something’s wrong.”
“That’s bullshit. You don’t know anything. You just guess on the gloomy side. Are all Jews like that?”
“Like what?”
“Gloomy.”
“Listen, most of the comedians are Jewish.”
“Yeah, and are they gloomy.”
“You’re a big help. I think I’m going home to make some phone calls.”
“You just came.”
“I don’t want to run up your phone bill.”
“You can always pay me back for toll calls when the bill comes.”
“I guess I could.”
“Why don’t you try that place in Big Sur? What’s its name?”
“Something like Cliffhaven.”
“Call. Get it over with.”
While the information operator was getting him the number, Stanley thought What they’ll tell me is they left. And if they didn’t arrive in Santa Barbara, they cracked up the Ford somewhere in between. Kathy says I worry. I got reasons to worry.
He wrote the number down and then dialed.
“Do you have a Mr. and Mrs. Henry Brown registered there?”
The girl at the other end was consulting somebody, but she had her hand over the mouthpiece and he couldn’t hear more than mumbling. When she got back on, she said, “Nobody here by that name. Sorry.”
“Well, were they registered? Yeah, this week.”
Again, mumbling.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, “there’s been nobody here by that name.”
“You sure?”
Stanley turned to Kathy. “She hung up.”
“Well, if she’s handling a switchboard, she doesn’t have time to dawdle, I suppose. What are you doing now?”
“One more call?”
“It’s all right.”
He dialed a number. “Ruth? It’s me, Stanley.”
To Kathy he said, “It’s my sister, don’t get jealous.” Then into the phone, “Yeah, I met them in San Francisco like a good boy, and they were down here at college for a couple of hours. Have they called you? Dad was supposed to call me. What’s that? No, I’m not worried, I was just checking. Okay, okay, if he calls or Mom calls, just tell them to keep trying me. You’re going out where tonight? Well, don’t forget your diaphragm, Ruthie. Bob Zuckerman? That’s an idea. Yeah, I’ve got his number. Thanks. Goodbye.”
To Kathy he said, “For a sister, she’s all right. Nobody called. She said to try Bob Zuckerman.”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh a guy. I guess he’s Dad’s best friend.” Stanley fished the three-by-five card with all of his phone numbers out of his wallet. He dialed Bob Zuckerman’s office.
“He’s in a meeting,” his secretary said. “Can you call back?”
“I’m in California, in a friend’s apartment.”
“Leave me that number. I’ll have Mr. Zuckerman call you.”
“I won’t be at this number.”
“Wait a minute. Looks like it’s breaking up.”
Bob Zuckerman’s voice was too high for a man. And he sounded like he was tired even when he wasn’t.
“Stanley? What’s up?”
“Has my father been in touch with you?”
“No, why would he be?”
“He’s in California this week.”
“I know. Didn’t he see you?”
“Sure. He was supposed to be in the Big Sur area Wednesday, Santa Barbara on Thursday, and fly home Saturday from L.A. I was supposed to fly down tomorrow to meet them there.”
“Well?”
“He was supposed to call me from Santa Barbara. He never checked in at the Beachcomber.”
“Maybe he checked in at some other hotel. Or stayed longer in Big Sur. What’s to worry?”
“They say he never checked in at the place in Big Sur. He always calls when he says he’s going to call.”
“Stanley, your father can take care of himself, he’s a big boy. Even if he gets sick, he’s got a doctor at his elbow. What are you worrying about, kid? Listen, if he calls me when he gets back, I’ll tell him to give you a ring, okay? Got to rush now. Take care of yourself, Stanley, and stop worrying.”
Stanley jammed the phone down onto the receiver. “He’s a shit.”
“What’s wrong now?”
“No help.” Stanley imitated Bob Zuckerman saying Take care of yourself, Stanley. “Asshole.”
“You’re working yourself up for nothing.”
“I’m getting another number. What do you call it, Missing Persons Bureau?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Okay, I’m crazy.” He got up and left without saying good-bye.
*
The phone rang in Stanley’s room. He pounced at it.
“It’s me,” Kathy said. “I tried getting through for two hours. I haven’t been able to work on my term paper or anything. I’m sorry I got you angry.”
“Me, too. I mean I’m sorry I blew up. This is not a joke. The missing persons thing doesn’t know anything. I remembered the names of the places they said they might stay at in Carmel, and I found the place they were in one night. I phoned the Beachcomber again and they still haven’t showed. I tell you there’s something really wrong and it’s wrong somewhere between Carmel and Santa Barbara. Maybe they had an accident. Maybe it was so bad they’re both, you know, can’t talk, tell anyone to get in touch, something like that?”
“Now you got me worried. What are you going to do?”
“I was thinking I would drive down Highway 1 just like they did and see what I can find out.”
“That’s crazy. You’ll miss classes.”
“I can’t pay attention to that. I have to go.”
“I wish I had someone worried about me sometime like that.”
“You do. Want to come with me? You’d just miss one class Friday. You don’t have anything important Fridays. You said so yourself.”
“What about wheels?”
“Jerry? If I paid him something?”
“He might.”
“I’ll call Jerry.”
“Call me back, crazy.”
*
“Jerry said okay. First, he said ten dollars a day and I pay for gas, et cetera, but when I told him why I needed wheels, he said to forget the ten dollars. What about you, you coming?”
“Please wait till tomorrow morning. I can finish my paper and have Betty turn it in for me, okay? Besides, maybe your father’ll call by then and you won’t have to go.”
“I’ll be at your place at seven.”
“How about eight?”
“I wanted to get an early start if we’re waiting till tomorrow.”
“Eight is early.”
“Seven-thirty?”
“Haggle, haggle. Okay. Listen, if you hear from him, call me right away.”
Stanley put the phone back in the cradle, then lifted it again almost immediately. He didn’t want to make a fool of himself, but his mother had always said Trust your instinct. When he dialed the Cliffhaven number again, the same woman’s voice answered.
“Listen,” Stanley said quickly, “don’t hang up on me. My name is Stanley Brown. I’m trying to locate my parents. Are you sure they aren’t there?”
Damn, if the woman didn’t hang up on him again.
*
At the reception desk the young woman looked up at Clete. “If he wasn’t suspicious before, he’ll be suspicious now,” she said, smiling.
“Good girl,” Clete said. “I’m looking forward to this one.”
17
Margaret, this fire is for you, Henry thought, as he and Jake, arms and legs working like mechanical cranes, threw twigs and brush together in bonfire heaps the size of a man. At Masada they died fighting. That’s a lie. They killed themselves. They did their enemies’ work for them. Not me.
Henry glanced at the younger man. Jake’s body, drenched in sweat, seemed to work so much faster than Henry’s. The refrain went: Jake was younger, Jake was stronger. Jake’s head, Henry would bet, wasn’t a crowd of conflicting thoughts.
“You worried about being an arsonist, Jake?”
All Jake did was laugh. He was the age one sent to war. Cliffhaven was the enemy. Burn it down.
To get to New York City from the suburbs, Henry couldn’t avoid the tip of the South Bronx, its skeletal brick shells a monument to building-by-building arson, a city within a city incinerated.
“That’s high enough, Jake,” Henry shouted, and Jake moved on to start another pile.
Those Spanish people are crazy, Henry thought, while driving through on the Deegan, it’s their own homes they are using as tinder toys. They are not civilized, meaning we don’t do this kind of thing.
Break the branch, pile it up. Take the brush, pile it on. When this one’s lit, thought Henry, these young redwoods circling it will catch like orange crates.
Breaking branches hurt the hands. No time for pain. Gloves would have helped. We’re doing it with our bare hands, getting a redwood forest ready to blaze. Bad means to good ends. Codes meant to be broken in self-defense. This wouldn’t be necessary, would it, if someone, anyone, had paid real attention to those boy-scout-looking storm troopers in St. Louis and New York, those crazies marching in Chicago? Outside, you ignore them. Inside, it’s too late.
“Next one!” he yelled to Jake, and they moved on.
The mob drops bodies along roadways in Queens, streets in Brooklyn, highways in New Jersey, do even the police care? As long as they don’t bother us.
“Hurry up, Blaustein, Jake is way ahead of you!”
Man in Texas kills twenty-seven people of a certain category only. As long as he doesn’t bother us. Remember the kid in the city—thirteen years old—has murdered twenty-two people by the time he is caught. Asked is he sorry now, no, he yells, he’s mad about being arrested. We are untouched.
“You’re doing great, Jake!” Encouragement, like to the men at the plant, feeds the adrenaline.
And these religious communities, closed off till someone raises an alarm about a missing daughter. The daughter, a pleasant-looking young woman, slightly plump, completely rational in manner, says to the television cameras, I have found happiness with these people. Case closed. Is Cliffhaven different in kind or only degree? Was there any way that Margaret and I, in the car on the highway below Cliffhaven, could know that up that road was a closed society waiting to envelop us because we, I, fell into a category Cliffhaven had selected as its victims?
Paranoids of the world, don’t go near resorts, is no answer. Now we know. Now we do something. Henry, he told himself, finishing another brushpile, this is no time for thought. An alarm has to be set off that will be heard by the rest of the world.
*
“How many brushpiles have we got now?” Henry asked Jake and Blaustein. “Sixteen?”
“Seventeen,” Jake said.
“Not enough. We’ve got to ring the periphery.”
Blaustein said, “You could make a hundred and then get caught.”
“Should we ignite what we’ve got?” Jake asked.
“One plane could water-bomb the area we’ve covered,” Henry said. “We must have a fire that can’t be put out right away. What I want from both of you is to build as many more as you can in the next two hours.”
Jake, a boy suddenly seeing himself leaderless, cried
out, “Where are you going?”
And how could Henry answer that so that it made sense? Could he tell him a thought, more like a cry than a thought, had entered his mind as if it came from Margaret?
“Do Jake and I work together or separately?” Blaustein asked, nervously.
If he asked the question, Henry thought, Jake had better keep an eye on him.
“Together will be faster,” Henry said.
Jake, piling up brush, had stopped in mid-motion.
“Where are you going?”
“Don’t stop,” Henry said. “I’m going to release the people in the lockers so they don’t get incinerated. Jake, look at your watch. If I’m not back in two hours, light the brushpiles as fast as you can.”
“With what?”
“Take a branch about this long.” Henry extended his arms. “Here, I’ll show you.” He picked up a dry branch. It was too long. He put one end on the ground, stomped hard on it about a foot from the end, breaking it. “There,” he said. “That’s about the right length.” He tied his handkerchief around the end. “Use your T-shirt. Tear it up. Make two torches. This way we’ll have three of them so we can run in opposite directions, lighting them. You take a third of the area, Jake, and I’ll take the rest, skipping every other pile. Blaustein can follow right behind me, lighting the alternate piles. That’ll be quickest. Got it?”
Jake held his fingers against his mouth to command Henry’s silence.
He turned to look. They all saw the two Cliffhaven-uniformed men walking just beyond and to the right of the building where the score was kept. The men were looking over in their direction.
“They can’t see us,” Jake whispered.
“They always capture everybody,” Blaustein said.
“Shut up,” Jake said. Then to Henry, “You’d better not risk going out there.”
“They’re leaving,” Henry said. He picked up the stick he had used to demonstrate how to make a torch. “I’ll take this with me, just in case.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Jake said. “You’ll be caught.”
“If I don’t return, just do as I said.”
Henry waved at them with his free hand. Only Jake returned the wave. He wondered what Blaustein was thinking.