Current Affairs

by Raskin, Barbara;

  Suddenly chilled, I hug my arms around myself.

  “Do you think they know we’re up here?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Bo answers. “Those guys might still be wandering around. You better take Amelia and get off the Island. Go to your mother’s in Minneapolis or something. Let’s see if I can get you on a plane out of here tonight.”

  But in the next instant, as we hear a car pull up and park in front of the house, we lose our cool. I see the color drain out of Mickey’s face. I see Bo reach for the gun in the holster under his jacket. He tells us to go inside before he walks toward the front of the porch.

  From the window, we watch him talking to someone in a car. When he returns he’s with two large, deeply tanned young men wearing summer business suits. He leads them into the side porch, where Mickey and I join them. The men are from the Southampton Police Department. They do not offer to shake hands. One of them gives me a perfunctory nod.

  They ask Bo if he’d rather talk to them inside, meaning alone, but he shakes his head so the two men sit down next to each other in an antique wicker loveseat. I feel a dangerous urge to laugh at the Norman Rockwell aspect of two hefty cops jammed together in a fancy loveseat. Bo fills his usual rocking chair. Mickey and I sit side by side on the glider.

  It is quickly apparent the men are going to play good cop/bad cop. Good Cop begins by saying they’ve been briefed by their captain about Bo’s early-morning arrival at the Russo house. He says the captain appreciated Bo identifying himself. He says that now the captain wants Bo to sign a statement that reiterates his earlier explanation for being in the area the previous night and at the scene of the shooting this morning. The captain also wants Bo’s badge number and the name of his superior officer.

  “What exactly’s the problem here?” Bo asks evenly.

  Bad Cop leans forward, “No one in the Long Island P.D. can understand why a D.C. cop would be so interested in Jerry Russo. Or why that interest should happen to peak on the night before the guy gets shot. We can’t seem to get a straight answer from your captain and we also think it’s somewhat unusual that you would arrive here in Southampton without the courtesy of a phone call or any kind of advance notice. That’s not our style.”

  “I didn’t shoot that lowlife lawyer,” Bo laughs. “I’ve got better things to do with my time. I’m a cop, not a hit man.”

  Good Cop intervenes. “You’re not a suspect, Lieutenant Culver, but we need an explanation for your presence in Southampton. You understand that, of course. This is a little out of the ordinary. Also, you may know something more about Russo than we do. About the whole situation, in fact.”

  “That’s probably true,” Bo mutters.

  Bad Cop loses his temper. His speech is crude. His tone is rude. He is unimpressed by Bo’s credentials. He treats him like some lower form of life. Several times he points out that Bo’s jurisdiction does not extend to the State of New York.

  I cannot, will not, look at Bo. I will not witness his humiliation. In my nervousness I somehow launch the glider into motion.

  “We don’t wanna tie up your dinner hour,” Good Cop says with just an edge of impatience. “We just want you to sign this statement explaining what brought you here. It’s exactly what you told the captain earlier today.”

  Suddenly Amelia flings open the French doors leading from the sitting room. The squawk of television cartoon characters wafts outside as she studies the unexpected strangers. Then she makes a lunge for my lap as if catapulted from a missile launch pad.

  “I explained my interest in Jerry Russo to Captain Bennett,” Bo says. Beads of sweat have erupted on his forehead. His eyes have dilated and seem to be protruding from the pressure of his contained rage. “He certainly had no difficulty understanding what I told him.”

  Good Cop: “You’re quite right about that, Detective. But since this morning, the commissioner appointed a special investigator to take over this case. He’s the one who wants the statement from you.”

  “Well, you should know about some other D.C. folks who’re interested in Jerry Russo,” Bo says. “By no means am I the only one. I already mentioned to Captain Bennett a possible DEA entanglement. But there’s also a White House interest and a National Security Council interest and a CIA interest and an FBI interest. Lots of folks are interested in Jerry Russo apart from whoever shot him.”

  “Well, that’s very reassuring,” Good Cop says. “But at the moment we just want to take care of this one particular affidavit.”

  “Tell you what’s pissing me off,” Bo says flatly. “You guys see a cop on his own and decide to hit on him ’cause he looks easy, right? Well, get smart. Most of Russo’s clients are illegit. Any one of them could have taken a hit at him. Or the government could have done it. You know who they use for problems like this one: indicted dealers or anyone else they got goods on. They offer ’em a deal. A convicted felon will do anything to get off doing time. So the federal government’s got a private army of experienced killers at their disposal.”

  “Detective Culver, why don’t you just read the statement and sign it for us, huh? So we can get the hell outta here?”

  Bo reads the paper once, twice. Then, quietly, he signs his name.

  The two men get up without saying good-bye and walk back through the porch and out the front door. The screen slams hard. The summer sound of a slamming screen suddenly takes on more ominous meanings.

  Bo is frozen in his rocking chair. His rage is so raw he can’t speak. Irrationally I feel responsible for the way the white men trashed him. Abjectly apologetic, I can’t think of anything to say. It’s hard for me to know if the cops gave Bo the business because he’s black or because he’s trespassing on their turf. Maybe only blacks can make such nice discriminations.

  I clutch Amelia against my chest and rock back and forth. I feel sick. Sullied. Like I’ve done some despicable thing that I can’t undo. Guilt is wrapping itself around me like a boa constrictor. My mind is darting about. A man has been shot because of my sister. I am ashamed that my sister has caused all this trouble. I am ashamed that my sister betrayed Georgia and Jerry Russo while staying in their home. I am sorry that she defiled the ancient role of a guest and made everybody’s life uncertain and unsafe.

  This is as close to the edge as I’ve ever been and it seems corny to me, phony, a low-budget episode of Miami Vice moved north into a false setting far from the pale pastel Art Deco hotels of lower Collins Avenue. It is easier to believe in fictive mayhem than in real violence when it occurs. It is easier to swallow television make-believe than the reality of two white cops bullying a black detective from D.C.

  “Let’s call Northwest Airlines and see when we can get you out of New York,” Bo says.

  We all walk into the kitchen.

  The next three hours are a blur. I telephone Marge to say I’m bringing Amelia home for a short visit and that we’ll reach Minneapolis at ten-thirty her time. She is so thrilled I feel guilty, and as soon as I begin packing I have an anxiety attack. Mickey hangs around trying to be helpful but his nearness sets off sporadic alarms throughout my system. Our all-day flirtation seems tacky now after hearing about Jerry Russo’s shooting. There is even something sinister about our frivolity, in retrospect.

  I carefully avoid being alone with him before we leave.

  Bo struggles and finally gets me plane connections to Minneapolis. Then he locates a flight to D.C. for himself. Mickey decides to remain on Long Island. Bo drives us back to Islip’s MacArthur Airport at an outrageously illegal speed. We barely speak. I am totally inhibited by the fact I saw the Southampton cops bully him. I can neither mention the good cop-bad cop episode nor forget it.

  At the airport Bo helps me schlepp Amelia and our luggage into the small movie-set terminal. Inside the airport restaurant we order Diet Pepsis and Bo says he’ll stay in touch with me, that I don’t have to be frightened while I’m in Minneapolis, and that he’ll let me know about any new developments. He waits while we boar
d a prop plane to fly to Kennedy and is still standing at our departure gate when we take off.

  9

  Amelia sleeps throughout the flight to Minneapolis. I watch the darkness outside the window, sorry I’m not able to see the Mississippi slithering through Minneapolis on its journey south. Last week I read in the Post that the river is at its lowest level in 115 years of recorded history. Big barges have begun traveling in convoys to provide assistance if one runs aground. Long-lost ships have begun to emerge from the once-muddy Mississippi riverbed. Hulks of hundred-year-old barges, ancient steamboats and even skeletons of prehistoric animals have begun surfacing. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, three Confederate steamers—the Charm, the Dot, and the Paul Jones—have staged a reappearance.

  Weird.

  The craziness Shay has unleashed upon us is as strange as our recent weather and its varied repercussions. Last week officials announced that they had closed the Mississippi River—whatever that means. Still, I believed they could do it. Why not? If we can punch a hole in the ozone atmosphere three times the size of the United States and as deep as Mount Everest is high, we should be able to stop a silly little river from running.

  SNAPSHOT

  That’s the four of us. I’m maybe seven, Shay five. Our parents had taken us up to Bemidji, where we all jumped across the small natural spring that is the source of the Mississippi. That was a nice day. It had inherent drama. We grilled hot dogs and marshmallows in a picnic area near the river and played with some children eating at a nearby table. Afterward our two families organized a baseball game with real sandbags for the bases. When Shay hit a home run in the top of the ninth, Dad picked her up and triumphantly carried her on his shoulders back to the car. On the ride home to Minneapolis, I sat in the backseat beside my little sister, shivering from too much sun and not enough attention.

  Minneapolis is to Washington as country girls are to their city cousins—simpler and shier but growing more feisty by the moment. Recently Minnesotans have begun to pay a lot of attention to the cultural quotient and quality of life their cities offer. In the upper Midwest, Minneapolis has always been the acknowledged homecoming queen, sitting alone in the first open convertible. Iowa and the Dakotas are only her attendants, crowded together in the next car, smiling and waving with runner-up resignation.

  Marge is waiting at the gate for us, standing on tiptoe to see above the heads of people in front of her. Always introverted, at seventy-one she has embraced her senior years with a bear hug of relief. Tonight she is wearing a pink Polo golfing shirt tucked inside size-eight kelly-green culottes, neat white anklets, pink-and-white tennis shoes. Her hair, once thick and dark like Shay’s, has turned gray and begun to thin.

  Psychologically unable to press her way through a crowd, Marge waits for us to reach her. She embraces me quickly before kneeling to hug Amelia, clearly overjoyed to see the little girl for the first time since Easter. Amelia strains to manufacture some toddler mix of respect and affection, but then regresses into a bashful babyish mode.

  “This was almost too sudden for me.” Marge smiles, cupping Amelia’s hand in her own. “A few hours’ notice? I didn’t have a bit of food in the house and the man still hasn’t come to fix the air conditioner in the den. I didn’t even have a chance to go out to buy any toys for Amelia. But we’ll do that tomorrow.”

  Amelia flushes with pleasure but is still unable to look directly into Marge’s face. Her eyelids flutter as if she is watching the sun.

  We begin the now-familiar trek toward the baggage-claim area. What I would like to do is fall upon my mother and let my hot tears stain the front of her shirt like I used to do when I was little and aching from some insult Shay had inflicted upon me. Only Marge knows how Shay has shaped and shaded my life. Now I want to tell her that I feel bereft, that my marriage is a sad and useless thing, that my sister still abuses me in a million different ways, that I have been shot at and chased and uprooted and terrorized. I want her soft sympathy to enfold me like a baby blanket.

  But these are selfish feelings because now my mother is needier than I. I am not yet forty-three and she is already past seventy. She misses Dad and has been hurt by Shay’s neglect. She is the aging one, living a solitary life, with real health complaints. I have no right to crave sympathy from her. So I adopt a cheerful voice. By pretending to feel “on,” I stay up.

  I load all our luggage, including the suitcase I borrowed from Mickey to hold my Southampton loot, onto a baggage cart, which I then push to the underground garage. The thought of all my expensive and totally unnecessary new clothes makes me nervous; I will hide them from my mother. Without waiting to be asked, I slide into the driver’s seat of Dad’s last Cadillac and take the beltway that winds toward St. Louis Park. This highway skirts all the city lakes, where I spent most of my childhood.

  PICTURE POSTCARD MINNEAPOLIS: THE CITY OF LAKES

  This is an aerial view of Glenwood, Cedar, Calhoun, Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet. From our house we could bike to all five of these lakes. Each was distinctly different. My favorite was Glenwood—the smallest and shabbiest lake of all. Along its shaggy shoreline, islands of lily pads floated atop the murky waters, attracting insects and algae. Even near the roped-off bathing area, clusters of weeds waved above the water. Below the twelve-foot diving platform, just beyond the dropoff, the surface of the water looked green instead of blue. On its narrow pebbly beach, people of different colors and classes mingled. This was what probably gave Glenwood its bad rep. When we were little, Marge told us that during the big Minneapolis polio epidemic, Glenwood was the first beach closed—as if its shabbiness spread germs, as if its multiracial swimmers were infectious.

  Mom’s apartment building is situated right off the highway on a preposterously thin slice of land alongside the exit ramp. It looks like a beached whale but it feels only like a tired hotel when we walk inside. There are long, long corridors filled with an infinity of slammed doors. It used to be that only a certain class of French women lived in this kind of isolation. Now their American counterparts do also. Instead of staying in shabby hotels, the lucky ones among America’s forgotten women live in small, L-shaped apartments with bars on their windows.

  Marge’s apartment doesn’t feel permanent. Maybe it’s not. The furniture looks rented, which it isn’t. My mother looks uncomfortable, which is not necessarily the case all the time. She moves around tentatively, using only a small portion of the available space because she’s spent her life trying not to take up too much room, not to make any disturbance. It’s easy to have everything you need when you no longer want much of anything.

  She is trying to make her life come out even, like a piece of chocolate cake with a glass of milk.

  “Now, Amelia, where shall I put your suitcase?” she asks as seriously as if she were questioning an adult. “Would you like to share my room with me so Aunt Nattie can have the guest room to herself?”

  This is a tough call for Amelia, but she finally accepts Marge’s invitation, looking toward me for some acknowledgment of her bravery. I give her a wink and she smiles proudly. Now we are far from danger, back to basics again—room-and-board decisions, maintenance requirements, the planning of meals, the execution of domestic chores.

  SNAPSHOT

  This is a picture of Marge and me when I was about five. I am on roller skates and she is holding my hand so I won’t roll away out of camera range. This picture tells much more than it shows—truths more real than factual. Marge lived all her life in a land of fear and trembling. Anxiety stained every hour of her days and nights. Her fears for Shay and me were endless—babyhood diseases, child molesters, car accidents, academic troubles, popularity problems. I once heard Marge tell a friend of hers that she thought she could handle me, but knew she could never control Shay. Indeed, the real dangers were psychological, not physical. Each year, when we went on our summer fishing vacations to Brainerd, Minnesota, it became progressively obvious how different Shay and I were. I was Mama’s Littl
e Helper, Shay was Daddy’s Little Girl. Because she got in trouble so often, Shay won the major share of our parents’ attention, which turned her into a love junkie. What I learned was that it’s awful to have to compete for love. When the competition became too keen, love didn’t seem worth the trouble and I’d just drop out of the running.

  After Mom puts Amelia to sleep, she returns to make us tea. Then we sit down at the table for our traditional catch-up talk. First Marge tells me I look great, remarking upon my weight loss, haircut and tan. I return the compliments and then ask about her friends. One by one. Each by name. She gives me a complete account of all recently diagnosed illnesses and deaths, and the psychological conditions of surviving spouses. Then she discusses her finances. In detail. Dollar by dollar. In the year since Dad died, Marge has learned a great deal about personal bookkeeping.

  I ask about Yvonne. Marge is our point person for Yvonne, picking up the slack in this area by visiting her once a week. Although Yvonne is currently drug-free, no one yet feels confident about her chances for survival in the outside world.

  “Hazelden’s great,” Marge says. “If Yvonne’s got a chance, it’s only because she’s there.”

  “Do you think we should take Amelia to see her?”

  “I don’t know,” Marge says doubtfully. “We should ask Steven. And Yvonne’s doctor. Or her counselor.”

  “Well, I’ll call Steven right now,” I say.

  “That’s a good idea.”

  SNAPSHOT

  This is Shay and Steven on his eighteenth birthday. I had stopped by their (Christopher’s) house to drop off a gift, but Steven was on his way to the Georgetown post office to register for the draft. I knew he had had long serious talks, with both Barney and Eli, about possibly registering as a conscientious objector. Finally, however, not wanting to jeopardize his chances for admission to medical school, he decided to comply. In this picture, Steven, who looks like Tony Perkins, has his arm around Shay’s waist. It is astonishing that the slim, young-looking woman beside him is actually his mother. Right after I snapped the camera, he gave us a nervous smile and waved good-bye. As he started down the front stairs, Shay opened her purse and ran after him with a five dollar bill. “Honey, can you buy me a book of stamps as long as you’ll be at the post office?” Really. My sister should have gotten the Mother of the Year Award for 1987.