The Sun Collective: A Novel

by Charles Baxter

  It was the strangest sight, those eyes in the midst of the snowfall, focused on her like suspended beams of light asking her a question to which she did not yet have an answer.

  “What will be asked of me?” she said, still watching the animals. “What am I being called to do?”

  “That would be telling,” she thought she heard Wye say, but when she turned toward him, he seemed not to be there any longer.

  - 24 -

  When Alma opened the morning paper, she saw on the front page two major stories, one national, the other local. The national news was that President Thorkelson had released his Monthly Poem, a practice he had instituted several months ago while claiming that he was treading in the footsteps of the great poet-presidents, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Smiling crookedly at his news conference—one of Alma’s friends had called it a “grim grin”—he had said that these United States suffered from a dearth of poetry and that he, Amos Alonzo Thorkelson, would fill that particular gap. America, after all, had a history of great poets. “Poetry is the heart and soul of the nation,” President Thorkelson claimed. “No great country can long survive without great poems. Even our enemies recognized that simple fact. Chairman Mao wrote poems. Saddam Hussein wrote poems.”

  January’s poem was on the subject of welfare cheats, and the poem was entitled “No Free Lunch.” The president had recited his new poem at a news conference, and the paper had printed the entire poem in a sidebar.

  NO FREE LUNCH

  At the local supermart I saw

  A sight to make me weep:

  A woman buying tubs of slaw

  With her eyes closed, half-asleep.

  At the cash register she paid

  For junk food with a wad

  Of food stamps, and this made

  Me very very very sad,

  For she was superfat and didn’t need

  More food of any kind

  Paid for by taxpayers. Her breed

  Of food hound you will find

  Waddling down each grocery aisle

  Past the fresh produce and the fruit

  To grab a fistful and then a pile

  Of popcorn, chips, and candied loot.

  Ounces, pounds, and lbs. to spare

  Loaded in the grocery cart

  For the Winner at the Fatty Fair

  Who pays with food stamps at our supermart.

  No more! No more! The voters bray:

  Fat lady, you have been sacked!

  For we have heard a wise man say

  The times they are a-changin’ back.

  “That’s absolutely and without any doubt the worst poem I’ve ever read in my life,” Alma said to her husband, who was sitting at the other end of the table eating a banana, whose peel was green at one end and overripe at the other. He was taking careful bites. He had already finished his cup of coffee. Alma was clutching her brown mug of chamomile tea with both hands. Steam rose from it and clouded her glasses. “And vicious. Plus stupid. He’s such a shameless know-nothing. People go around reciting this trash.”

  “Hmm,” Brettigan said. He was eating his banana quickly, from the unripe end downward until it got soft, because the Thundering Herd would be exercising out at the Utopia Mall in an hour, and he didn’t want to be as late as he usually was.

  On the other side of the front page, the paper reported a gas-line explosion in downtown Wayswater, at a women’s clothing store, F. Christianson & Co., which specialized in elegant, high-end fashion for the yacht club and country club set. Forensic teams were investigating.

  “Did you see this report?” she asked. “About the natural gas explosion? In Wayswater? At the F. Christianson?”

  “Anybody hurt? Killed?”

  “Doesn’t say. Probably not. Seems to have happened after closing time.”

  After exhaling, he brushed away crumbs from his sweater and smiled halfheartedly. “Want some more tea? By the way, when was the last time you saw Tim?” The question was preemptive. He knew the answer, because Alma’s depressions and fears had abated, now that their son had been rehabilitated by the Sun Collective, and she was happy to tell Brettigan about all the lunches she’d had with Tim downtown, and how good and how happy he had now seemed. He had dinner with his parents every two weeks or so, a bit dutifully, but he was a recovering adult, after all. Sometimes she thought he was too good, too happy, for comfort. Still, he was back in town; he was sober; and he was taking his meds. He had a job at the Alhambra Theater in Uptown as the assistant manager, and he had an efficiency apartment nearby. God bless the Sun Collective, she had said. Now if they could only find him a nice woman, everything would be fine. Still, watching Alma at the breakfast table, Brettigan wanted to hear her repeat her news of Tim. He was curious about the tone she would take.

  “A few days ago,” she told Brettigan. “He and I had lunch downtown. At Chez Antoine? Don’t you remember? I told you. I had a Cobb salad. Tim was…fine. You never remember anything I tell you,” she said, with some odd darkness creeping into her voice. “You don’t pay me much attention. I could be dying here and you’d never notice. I should get used to it, but I never do.”

  “Oh, I’d notice if you were dying. Well, I’ve got to go,” Brettigan said. He stood up halfway before sitting down again.

  “What?”

  “I have a question for you,” he said, without asking it.

  “Don’t you have to get to the Utopia Mall for that senile exercise gang of yours? So ask,” she said, biting into a piece of cold toast. Still chewing, she rose and went over to the stove, where she was making hard-boiled eggs. The timer buzzed, and she turned off the heat.

  Brettigan coughed, then said, “Has he, do you know, I mean…these difficulties and so forth, and…so I’m wondering what Tim’s been doing with the Sun Collective.”

  “He isn’t doing anything with them.” She sat down again, taking an extended look at her husband.

  “How do you know?”

  “You always make them sound like wackos. They’re just plain citizens. Listen, Harry, they’re working for community gardens and improving urban environments and encouraging people to stop buying what they don’t need. They’re helping people, and is that so bad? Come on. You can see what they’ve done with your own son. Rehabilitations—they’ve stepped up when no one else has. What’s the harm? They’re idealists. Who doesn’t want a better life?”

  “Well, for starters, I don’t. Let’s start with me. I like the life I’ve got. I’m grateful for it. Harmless sun worshippers? There’s no such thing as harmless. You don’t know how or why they’re rehabilitating anybody. You don’t have a clue about what they’re doing over there. Nobody does, except them.”

  “I’ve gone to their meetings.”

  “That’s for the public. That’s just a sideshow. You gotta get into the inner circle.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” She slammed her fist on the table, making the forks rattle. “I can’t stand your cynicism! So what makes you the great expert? Do you actually give a damn? About anything? About Tim? They’re fighting for better human beings—and they want to rehab the insulted and injured, I mean, they’re not just a bunch of complacent fatheads sitting at the bar and drinking beer and watching football like most men your age. They want to improve the world. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Alma, dear, you’re sermonizing. I hate it when you get like this. I like the world the way it is.” He had the beginnings of a cold, and when he took out his handkerchief to wipe his nose, he sneezed. “I don’t want better human beings than the ones they have now. Even if I did, you wouldn’t get them.”

  “Yeah, I bet you don’t.” The measuring expression on her face was both unsympathetic and direct. “Pretty soon you’ll be writing monthly poems yourself. I can’t wait. An ode to yo
ur reclining chair? A sestina about the microwave? A sonnet on the subject of fresh vegetables in the produce section?”

  They sat in silence for a moment staring at each other. “You know, I had ideals once,” he said.

  “And? So?”

  “A bunch of us once broke into a Selective Service office during the Vietnam War. We opened the files and poured pigs’ blood onto the records. We almost got caught.”

  She leaned back and closed her eyes. A theatrical sigh came out of her. “That tired old story. It makes its appearance one more time. Okay, here’s the Applause sign.” She raised her arm in the air and pulled an invisible cord. “I know that story—I know all your stories. I know your entire history, Harry, for chrissake, every little botch and twig and stone in it, every little success and failure, every doodling up and down, every snicker. Anyway, by now your history is, let’s call it, ancient history? Yes, let’s call it that. Okay, there we go, the Dark Ages way back there, in your youth, back when you had values. Yes, those were the days. The difference is, I’m talking about right now. I’m talking about Tim. Who is alive. And working. And sane. At last.”

  “Alma, listen to yourself. You’re getting to be a blowhard. Every sentence out of your mouth is a cliché.” He smiled, then raised his arms in song. “Ah, white liberals, where would we be without us?”

  “And Harry, I love you, but now that you’re old you’re getting to be such a shit, and you’re going to be the death of me. I mean it.”

  “Please don’t shout.”

  The orange peel she threw at him sailed past his right ear and landed on the floor. She wouldn’t throw the saltshaker: he was sitting in front of the alcove window, and it would have broken the pane. In the meantime, the dog and the cat, Woland and Behemoth, had come into the kitchen and had taken up battle stations: Behemoth jumped up onto the window ledge, where she could see Alma, and Woland sat several arms’ lengths away, near the dishwasher, as if he were afraid of domestic violence and could run to the basement if the situation warranted it.

  “They’re worried,” Brettigan said, observing them. “They’re like children. They think something is really going to happen.”

  Alma studied the dog’s face for a moment. “Those animals are smarter than you think they are. They can smell your fear.”

  Finishing his banana, he removed what was left of the center and threw the peel in her direction. She caught it with one hand and threw it back. He let it fall to the floor.

  “I don’t love you anymore,” she said, with something like a smile.

  “You don’t mean that, but I don’t love you, either,” he replied calmly, getting into the spirit of things. “Anyway, make up your mind. You said you loved me a minute ago and just now you said you didn’t.”

  “You’re impossible. I can’t stand the way you talk. I can’t stand the way you are. You’re not even my type.”

  “Woe is you. I know.”

  “And you’re wicked. And complacent. You disgust me.”

  “That’s as sad as it can be. Isn’t it awful?” he asked. “They should just come and haul me away.”

  “I already called them. They’ll be here any minute now. With their paddy wagon.”

  “They don’t haul humans with paddy wagons anymore. They have all the new devices. It’s trucks now, with electric cages inside. Handcuffs. Up-to-date torture equipment.”

  “You’re just laughing this off,” Alma said, sounding disgruntled. The dog had been watching both of them, turning his head back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. Now he appeared to be bored.

  “Laughing? Do you see me laughing? I haven’t laughed once. You don’t put words in my mouth, but you do put other stuff there.”

  She pointed down at the floor. “You should pick up that banana peel before someone slips on it.”

  “Alma, you threw it there. You pick it up. And I’m the disgusting one?”

  “I thought you’d catch it. Harry, do we sound like an old couple? The Bickersons? I think we do, actually.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. How come you called me ‘wicked’ just now, by the way? Were you just fooling and pretending?”

  She sighed. “We don’t even fight the way we used to. The fun’s gone out of it. It used to throw you for a loop when I told you I didn’t love you anymore. You’d get hysterical and sad and tear up. Now you don’t even notice when I say it. You don’t care. You don’t raise a single eyebrow.”

  “Sure, I care. My eyebrow went up an eighth of an inch. I asked about your use of ‘wicked.’ If that isn’t caring, what is?”

  “Harry, how long have we lived together?” she asked. “How long have we been married?”

  “You’re being evasive.”

  “Decades, that’s for how long.” With her elbow on the table, she propped her head on her palm. “No. Centuries. Before recorded history. I think I’ve been married to you all my entire life, and maybe before that. I was married to you before I was born. In the pre-universe. Since before the Big Bang.”

  “ ‘Wicked.’ I hate to repeat myself, but why did you use that word?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Well, try. Think back.”

  “I didn’t call you ‘wicked.’ That’s for witches.”

  “Don’t deny it.”

  “I never called you a ‘witch,’ ” she said. “I would never do that. A warlock, maybe.”

  “Could we please get to the point? ‘Wicked’?”

  “You didn’t mind calling yourself ‘disgusting’ by the way.”

  “I’m an old man. Old men are disgusting by nature. I can carry that burden. But ‘wicked’?”

  “You’re going to miss your geezer group out at the mall.”

  “Well, I’m late already.” He checked the kitchen clock.

  “You let things happen. You just let the world slide along. Slipping and sliding, slipping and sliding: that’s you.”

  Brettigan sat up straight, took out his soiled handkerchief, and glanced at the ceiling. Then he blew his nose. “Why can’t we just be happy that our son is back in town? I guess we can’t. Anyway, one time,” he said, “there was this one time, and because you think you know everything about me, I’ll tell you a story that you don’t know. I never told you this story, because…why? Well, I just didn’t. Anyway, this was, oh, maybe two years after we were married. You and me.

  “So anyway there I was, two years after we were married in that backyard, out there at the world’s end visiting my very own mother on a Friday night, and you were home in our apartment, not accompanying me on my trek to visit my mother, whom you did not like and who was, let’s be honest, and sad to say, in her cups that particular evening. She was sitting on the sofa, my mother, smoking her cigarettes and slurring her words the way she did once it got dark outside and after her cup had brimmed over a few times. And because she often liked to order me around, even though I was an adult married man, she asked me to go over to the shelf where the family photographs were perched in their standing frames, because I would find a little private something behind one of those photographs, a little something I should see. And, sure enough, when I did as I had been instructed, I found, behind a photograph of me as a little boy wearing my sailor hat, a stash, a stash of what seemed to be newspaper clippings.

  “ ‘Did you find them?’ my mother slurred, and I said, ‘Yes,’ because indeed I had found them and brought them over to where she sat, and what they were, as I went through them…were these pictures of babies, little human creatures, infants, ten or twenty or thirty photographs of babies that she had clipped out of magazines and newspapers, just for my benefit, or should I say, our benefit. Why had she clipped out these pictures of babies? Well, subtlety had never been my mother’s strong suit. The idea was, you and I should get cracking, get busy, get it on, get you knocked up, pregnant, pronto, s
o there would be a child and then a whole host of grandchildren for her to dote over, or whatever. She didn’t say anything, my mother. She just looked with her watery shining eyes at me as I sifted through these newspaper and magazine clippings of these cherubic offspring in their little cribs and cradles.

  “So of course I got the point, the request moment achieved itself, and then the evening was over, and I kissed my mother good night on the cheek and got in my car and drove away, out of the suburbs and back into town. I had had a drink or two but wasn’t drunk—fortunately, as it happens. Because my idea was to take the back roads, and when I was just outside of the town of Hopkins, I came upon an accident, which had obviously occurred a mere few minutes before I got there, because only one other car was in attendance, actually a pickup truck, and this was before cell phones, and so somebody would’ve had to have gone somewhere to call the police and the emergency squad, for the EMTs. And my heart began beating fast, because the wrecked car, which had swerved off the highway and lost control, and then come swerving back on the highway and hit another car, was an old gray Ford, just like, I almost said ‘identical to,’ your old gray Ford, the one you had back then, and I thought, Oh, Jesus, it might be you. On the pavement you could see broken glass and green antifreeze fluid, and rubble. Enclosed inside the wreck was a woman still behind the wheel, in shock, I think, or at least not getting out, talking loudly to herself, and I couldn’t see her clearly, just her hair, same color as yours. So I was saying as I got closer, approaching her, ‘Alma, Alma,’ like a prayer, but, as we both know now, that wasn’t you. She was somebody else.

  “I stayed long enough with that car and that woman and the pickup truck guy to comfort her until the police and the ambulance arrived, and once she was ambulanced away, I got back into my car and drove back home. To you. I walked in and maybe expected to see you sitting up reading or watching TV, but, no: you had turned in early. For the night. I came in and closed the apartment door, and I heard you call from bed, ‘How was it? How’s your mom?’ and I said ‘Okay,’ and after I drank a glass of water, I headed into the bedroom. The light was off, and there you were. You hadn’t worn your nightgown that night, so you were splendid in your winter nakedness, and after I undressed, we made plain old homespun love that night, no fireworks, nothing special.