A Friend of the Earth (19 page)

The water was waist–deep – did I mention that? – and slipping by at a pretty good clip. Plus there were the damned catfish crawling up on every horizontal surface in their little gift–wrapped packets of slime. And how did the lions feel about it? Pissed off. Definitely pissed off. They were hungry and tired and sick to death of being wet and cold and clambered over by fish that had no right to exist in this environment at all. Dandelion fixed his tan eyes on us and let out a belly–shaking roar of complaint from his perch atop the lion house.

‘All right, Chuy,' I said, ‘I'm going to dart Dandy first, and when you see him go down on his haunches, fling that rope around him. That lasso, I mean. You can use it, right?'

'Sí
, Mr. Ty, I can use,
no hay problema.'
(Among his many former occupations, Chuy listed ‘bronco–buster' and ‘vaquero.' When he was in his twenties, before he came north, he'd worked in a Mexican rodeo, roping dogies, whatever they were – calves, I take it.) ‘No worries,' he said now, grinning out of the wet mask of his face. The wind screamed, flapping the hood of the slicker against my elongated old man's ears, and I could hear Lily harmonizing in the distance:
oooo–whup, oooo–whup!

‘And if the other two come for us, I'm not going to dart them, so we're
just going to have to back out of the cage and lock the door, okay? They're not all that fond of the water, so they'll probably stay put – '

‘That is what I am thinking
también
, Mr. Ty,' Chuy said, wading forward with deep thrusts of his legs till he was twenty feet from the gate and maybe thirty from the lions. And they were roaring now, all three of them, ears flattened, lips pulled back, tails twitching, their eyes locked on Chuy as he whirled the lasso over his head in the wind and driving rain. ‘Yippee!' he shouted. ‘Yippee–yi–ki–yay!'

I was worried, I admit it. I'm a worrier and cynic at heart, always have been – at least since Earth Forever! came into my life. Or before that even, when a stinking little half–inch wasp that couldn't have weighed more than a quarter of an ounce took Jane away from me for good. I expect the worst, and I'll have to say that my expectations have been abundantly fulfilled through the seventy–five years of shitstorms and bad luck that constitute my life to this point. At best I expected three drowned lions; at worst, I pictured Chuy with his limbs separated from his body and me with my intestines rearranged in a way that would have caused real consternation down at the emergency room. That's why I had Philip Ratchiss' Nitro Express slung over my shoulder in addition to the Palmer dart gun.

My hands were trembling as I sighted down the barrel of the dart gun (old age, palsy, the
sake
shakes, undiluted terror – you name it), and the first dart took off like a guided missile, streaking high over the lions, out of the pen and into the dense fabric of the wind–whipped sky. The lions roared, Chuy yippeed and yahooed and twirled the rope over his head. I took my bifocals off and wiped them on the handkerchief in my breast pocket, the only reasonably dry thing on me, and then I lined up a second shot with the tip of my nose spewing water like a fountain and my fingers befuddled and the catfish crawling up my pantlegs, and let it go out of desperation, frustration and something very much like hate – hate for the animals, for Mac, for the U.S. Weather Service and all the polluters and ravagers and industrialists who had brought me and Chuy and the lions to this absurd and humiliating moment in the history of interspecies relations.

There was a sound like the final blow in a pillow fight – a soft
whump!
and there it was, the dart, dangling from Dandelion's flank like a – well, like a big yellow jacket. He turned and snapped at it, whirling round two or three times with a snarl more bewildered than fierce, and in the process inadvertently knocked Amaryllis off the roof and into the cold swirl of the
muddy water. She didn't like that. Didn't like it at all. Thankfully, though, she didn't take her displeasure out on Chuy – or me – but instead scrabbled back up on the roof of the enclosure and gave Dandy a swat that would have crushed the spine of a zebra or wildebeest (if such things existed), but only managed to operate in concert with the drug and knock him off his feet. That was when Chuy's rope work came into play. He was a master, no doubt about it, the lasso snaking out, catching the wind and riding it in an elliptical trajectory right over Dandy's head, where it came down soft as a snowflake.

The rest was easy. (I'm speaking relatively here, of course – relative to a week ago, when all I had to worry about was what I was going to read on the toilet and which can of soup to open for supper, it was the seventh circle of hell.) Chuy cinched the rope, waded back to me and stood at the open door of the enclosure to watch the result – and slam shut the door if anything went wrong. I backed up, the current snatching at my old man's feet, the wind slamming at me in gust after gust, and slowly made my way back to the Olfputt, where I climbed into the back seat and fought the door closed. The two Als were up front, giving me the sort of look they reserved for anybody who got within five feet of Mac. They looked fierce and suspicious, puffed up like bullfrogs, the slabs of their shoulders rising titanically out of the black slickers Mac had provided them with. They also looked scared. ‘What now?' the one at the wheel said.

I glanced over my shoulder to where Chuy, partially obscured by a scrim of wind–driven rain, was giving me the thumbs–up sign. A gust rocked the truck. ‘Put it in four–low,' I said, still watching Chuy, ‘and start up the hill, nice and easy.'

The truck moved forward and the line fastened to the trailer hitch went taut, and in the next moment I saw the distant form of Dandelion pitch forward off the roof and plunge awkwardly into the water, all four paws spread like landing gear. For an instant, he was gone from sight, but then his head bobbed up and I could see his front paws churning – he was swimming! But the miracle didn't end there. In the next moment, both the other lions followed suit, flopping into the water with looks of weary resignation and paddling right along with him, through the open gate and on up the hill behind the Olfputt. ‘Right up to the door!' I shouted at Al. ‘Right on up to the door!'

Now, there are many forms of disaster that could have spun out of this – three full–grown, ill–tempered and half–starved African lions loose among the condos, and how big a check would Mac have to write then? – but
the newborn river that had taken possession of Rancho Seco had split round Mac's hill. His place was an island now, and though the cats could have swum off to wreak havoc of the worst and bloodiest sort, I really did think they would have the sense to come in out of the rain and settle down to the breast of feral emu we'd so thoughtfully provided for them. And that's exactly what they did. I leaned out the back window and cut the rope, and Dandy, wobbly from the drug, had to sit down twice in the mud before he could follow his nose – and his two unencumbered companions – through the open door and into the vast recesses of Maclovio Pulchris' paneled and carpeted basement. All that was left was to close and secure the door, and I had Al the First nose the Olfputt in over the flowerbeds and right up to the door, and then Al the Second jumped out and put his shoulder to it in a very definitive way. Then it was the planks and six–inch nails, and all three of us put our energy into that, even as Chuy, triumphant, staggered up to us with a four–foot grin. ‘Now we go for Lily,
verdad
, Mr. Ty?'

So this is why I can't sleep – the animals. It was the animals all along. Lions in the basement, vultures round the indoor pool, the hyena in the gift–wrapping room on the second floor. It's crazy, that's what it is. And all the while the water rising.

What are we going to feed them? How are we going to clean up after them? And when the waters recede – if they ever do – will Mac have the energy to start all over again?

I don't know. But Andrea rolls over suddenly, her face right beside mine on the pillow, and in the watery light of dawn I watch her eyes flash open, dreaming eyes, the eyes that pull me down and into her inescapable arms. ‘Sleep well?' she whispers.

I try to avoid perspective as much as possible. Perspective hurts. Live in the present, that's what I say, one step at a time, and forget nostalgia, forget history, forget the sketchy chain of loss, attrition and disappointment that got you into bed last night and out of it this morning. It's hard, though, when you've got Andrea Knowles Cotton Tierwater sitting at your elbow and sectioning your grapefruit for you because you can barely lift your arms your back hurts so much, and April Wind the toad worshipper mooning at you from across the table. And Mac. I've known him for ten years, ever since I got out of prison for the last and final time, and here he is skating through the door in a gauze mask that scares the
living hell out of me. ‘Morning, morning, morning!' he chimes, whirling round on the balls of his feet as if he's onstage, the two bodyguards shadowing him with their big heads and sleepy eyes. One more shock: they're wearing masks too.

I gape. I blink. I fish my glasses out of my shirt pocket. ‘All right,' I say finally, ‘come on, Mac – what's with the mask? And don't tell me it's the
mucosa
again, because I don't want to hear it, not with the weather and the animals and all the rest of it, uh–uh, no way.'

Andrea's out of her chair already, and screw the grapefruit, screw her ex–husband, nobody exists in the world but Mac. ‘It is, isn't it? April and I were trying to tell Ty, but he wouldn't listen. Go ahead, tell him, Mac –'

But let me back up a minute to give you a view of the scene unfolding here. Here's Mac, worth I don't know how many millions, fiftyish and lean to the point of being skinny, bandy–legged in a pair of black jeans, some sort of drum major's jacket with gold piping over a black
Barbecue You!
tour T–shirt clinging to his emaciated torso, his face swallowed up in fedora, shades and mask; and here's Andrea, worth nothing, a hot old lady in a print hippie dress that drops to the toes of her boots, striated bosom exposed, golden eyes agog, taking hold of Mac's forearms in real earnest while the bodyguards shift uneasily from one cloddish foot to the other. And where are we? We're in one of the three dining rooms in the mansion, this one called the Motown Room, perched high over the north wing, looking out the reinforced picture window to the roiling mess of the fladands beneath us. It's still raining. And the wind is still cutting up.

‘I've got masks for everybody,' Mac pipes, shrugging out of Andrea's grip and waving a sheaf of them over his head, ‘so there's no reason to get excited. Just a precaution, that's all. Everybody's my guest for as long as this keeps up, and don't you worry, Mac'll take care of you. We've got plenty of food and Al's had the generator going ever since the power went out day before yesterday – '

I'm on my feet and I'm angry and I don't know why. ‘So what is this, “The Masque of the Red Death” or something? We all wore masks and kept strictly to ourselves the last time, remember, Mac? And it didn't do Lori a whole lot of good, did it?'

‘That was then. We didn't take it seriously at first. We fraternized. Let the maids go home every afternoon. The parties, remember the parties, Ty? But I got out of the Carolinas the minute I heard this time. Siege mentality, folks. And, really, I'm going to have to insist that everybody
wear a mask till we hear different – if you want to stay here, you play by my rules. And Dr. Deepit says to stay inside because of the mosquitoes, the ones that carry the – what do they call it, Ty?'

‘Dengue fever. They call it dengue fever, and the mosquito that carries it is the
Aedes aegypti
, formerly known to occur only in the tropics. They call it bonebreak fever too, because your bones feel like they're snapping in half when you've got it. But we can stay inside all we want – shit, we could go around day and night in beekeeper's outfits – but what are we going to feed the animals, that's what I want to know. Everything got washed away yesterday, and all of them except for the lions have had to go without.'

Andrea's face is – joyful. Or nearly joyful. And April Wind, dressed in some sort of serape with a clay likeness of Chaac, the Aztec rain god, dangling on a suede cord from her throat, looks ecstatic too. It takes a minute, and then I understand – the storm is raging, the plague afoot, and they're locked in with Maclovio Pulchris: mission accomplished.

I don't like it. I don't like it at all. The
mucosa
is a nasty business all the way round, a sort of super–flu, spread by casual contact, that inflames the mucous membranes of the sex organs, the respiratory canal and the eye until they begin to hyperfunction and you literally drown in your own secretions. It's painful. It's lingering. And it's not pretty.

‘It might surprise you to know, Ty Tierwater, that there's meat in this house,' Mac is saying, and he skates playfully across the room to pose beneath a rippling electronic portrait of Gladys Knight and the Pips, performing for the little audience gathered in the dining room. I'd describe his look as sly, but for the fact that he has no look at all – hat, shades and mask, that's all I see.

‘Meat?' April Wind is offended. ‘But you're a vegetarian, aren't you? You of all people – I mean, I've read all the bios and the magazines too, everything …' She's gaping up at him from a plate of chapatis, lime pickle and eggs–over–easy prepared by Mac's invisible cook and served up silently by a masked Pakistani woman who disappeared the minute the plate hit the table. ‘You're a vegetarian. I know you are.'

Andrea's left in the middle of the enormous room, looking as if she's been deserted on the dance floor between tunes. ‘He probably just keeps it for his guests, for the parties –
Barbecue You?
Bight? Isn't that it, Mac?'