A Friend of the Earth (35 page)

Andrea was wearing heels and a tight green dress with spaghetti straps that showed off her arms and shoulders. Sierra, in baggy jeans, high–tops and a sweatshirt that featured the name of her high school stamped across the front of it, stood against the wall just inside the door while one of the guards – another flesh–monster born of doughnuts and Kentucky Fried – frisked Andrea for contraband. Up and down her front with the portable metal–detector, both sides, now turn around, the wand re–creating each dip and bulge, the hair falling across her face in a shimmering, fine white–blond sheet, every prisoner watching with that starved prison light in his eyes, even the ones with their pregnant sixteen–year–old girlfriends propped up across from them like tombstones. Then Andrea was crossing the room, everything in motion, and Tierwater stood to place his hands flat on the table and lean into her for the kiss.

The kiss was the big feature of every visitors' hall encounter, and every inmate lingered over it, dreaming of another place and another time, savoring the female smell and the female taste as long as humanly possible. Tierwater was no different. Three hundred and thirty–four days without sex. That was paying your debt to society, all right. With interest. He clung to her with his lips as long as he could, and then they were sitting on opposite sides of the table, his erection throbbing insistently, and they talked about the things that counted for nothing, the mundane things, the things of the world outside the wire. ‘The deal's all but done,' she said.

‘What do you mean – the shopping center?'

‘Uh–huh. Teo knew somebody back east – remember I told you last time? – and he came in and got it closed. No reflection on that realtor you were stuck on, but she was a low–grade moron with about as much chance of selling that place as I've got of being named premier of China – ‘

‘Elsa was a friend of my father.'

‘Yeah, well, she couldn't have sold that place if it was the last piece of property on the East Coast. She was tired. She was
old
, Ty – I mean, what is she: Sixty? Seventy?'

‘What'd we get, just out of curiosity? I mean, this is what we're going to be living on for the rest of our lives, that's all. No big deal.'

She pursed her lips. Shifted her buttocks. Let her hair fall and then swept it back again. ‘One three,' she said.

For a vivid moment he saw the place he'd abandoned, the Mongolian
barbecue that used to be a dry cleaner that used to be a notions shop, the dirty–windowed vacancy of the deserted drugstore, the model shop he'd haunted as a brainless teenager, the yarn store, the pet shop with its grimy aquariums and enervated birds and its smell of superheated death. It was a prime property, or at least it used to be, back in the sixties, when his father built the place. One three. Well, one three was better than nothing, and who would be crazy enough to buy the place anyway – even for half the price?

‘That doesn't include the office building and all that parcel,' she was saying.

He was doing the math. One three minus the six–hundred–thousand second mortgage and the forty–odd for the realtor's fee and the taxes on top of that – it would still leave them a nice piece of change. How many flyers could they print up with that? How many culverts could they block?

‘Or the house, though we did get one low–ball bid on that, and the property out back of the development is something we – you – should sit on. That's going to go through the roof one of these days, I know it is…'

Then there was Sierra. Andrea got up and Sierra took her place, slouching across the room and dropping into the chair as if she'd been struck by paralysis, the other inmates moistening their lips and shooting her covert glances – she was a woman, she was, and for half the pedophiliac bastards it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Flesh, that's all they cared about it, flesh and orifices. He wanted to get up and punch somebody. Hurt them. Make them pay.

‘Hi, Dad,' she whispered.

Bill Driscoll had apparently roused himself from his dreams in time for visiting hours. Tierwater heard him before he saw him – he was three seats down, leaning into the table with both elbows while his wife, Bunny, sat across from him, her posture so rigid she might have been nailed to the seat. ‘Some of those, what do you call them, caramels?' he boomed. ‘Like you get in the supermarket with the little scoop? And those other chewy things I like, with the three layers and the coconut shreds? A pound bag. Of each.'

‘What,' Tierwater said, ‘no kiss?'

Sierra glanced down at her lap, and her face was a legitimate miracle, the silken eyelids, the lashes thick and dark and mascara–free, his mother's nose, Jane's eyes. Then she stood, and he stood, and they placed their hands flat on the table, and pecked their mutual kisses. ‘No makeup,' he
observed, settling back into the chair. ‘Is it because of – he nodded at the long row of chairs and the inmates, mostly young, crouched over them and leaning into the table as if into a wind that would suck them out the door to freedom – ‘because of them?'

‘I'm a vegan now,' she said.

‘So?'

‘That means no animal products of any kind, no eggs, no milk even. And makeup – you know what they do to those poor lab animals just to test it? I mean,
eyeliner —
you really think a rabbit, hundreds of rabbits, should have to die just for us to smear up our eyes? Ever hear of the Draize test? Did you?'

He shrugged.

‘They put these chemicals in the animals' eyes – the stuff they're going to use in mascara and eyeliner? – and they superconcentrate it to see what would happen if some lady like used twelve tons of it on her face, just to see if the rabbits and white mice'll go blind. You think that's right?'

Nothing was right. Not injecting chimps with the AIDS virus or creating mice with human immune systems or clear–cutting the Sierras. Of course it wasn't right. But none of that mattered in here. ‘No more gloom–and–doom?' he said. ‘What about the Cure? And all your black clothes – did you donate them to the vampire club or something?'

'Dad,'
she said, and he knew it was all right.

‘You walking the dog?' Bill Driscoll's voice, heavy with bass, rose above the general clamor. He should have been a radio announcer, Tierwater was thinking, one of those gonzo morning–drive types. Or, better yet, a TV evangelist. He certainly had the background for it. ‘Twice a day like you promised? Because, I'm telling you, she needs it, for her bladder, and I swear I'm not paying the vet bills – ‘

‘Everything okay at school?' Tierwater said. ‘At home? You getting along with Andrea?'

Sierra nodded.

‘Because you're one lazy–ass bitch, Bunny, you were born lazy, and if I'm stuck in here and you can't get your skinny ass off the couch twice a day – '

‘I'm getting out soon, you know – twenty–six more days – and then it's going to be just like it used to be, you and me – '

‘— and Andrea.'

‘Yeah, and Andrea.' He ducked his head and drew in a breath. ‘But I know I've done some things I shouldn't have, and I really should have
paid more attention to you, your needs, I mean – I should have put you first – and I'm going to do that as soon as I get out of here. I promise.'

She was watching him now, the gray eyes, the sweet full–moon of her face, hair pulled back in a braid, her hands clasped in her lap. ‘You don't have to apologize to me, Dad. I think what you're doing – and Andrea and Teo too – is the greatest thing anybody could do. The only thing.' She glanced up as Bunny Driscoll stifled a sharp sob, then came back to him. ‘I think you're a hero.'

(What's the first thing you do when you get out of prison? Scoot your wife over and get behind the wheel of the car. What car? Any car. In my case, it was the new Jeep Laredo Andrea had bought me on the promise of real–estate cash, and the simple prosaic act of driving – of going where the whim takes you, of opening it up on 101 South and watching the hills and the trees roll by and all the law–abiding motorists fall away from you like leaves in a gutter— was the sweetest thing I'd ever known. I hammered it, pedal to the metal all the way, windows down, radio cranked, the sun stuck overhead and the ocean spread out on the right, freshly spanked and blue as a gun barrel. Then it was the restaurant, a real restaurant, with prissy waiters and fish on the menu – and wine, wine in an iced bucket right there at hand. We ate outside, in the sun, then went to a movie, my wife and daughter and I, like real human beings. Finally, it was home, the new house, twelve–month lease, big lawn, pepper trees along the street, isn't this nice. Then bed. And sex.)

But Tierwater had to face a gauntlet of reporters before he could get to the car, minicams whirring, mikes thrust in his face: Mr. Tierwater, Mr. Tierwater, hey, Ty, over here, Ty,
Ty
. Do you think the forests can be saved? How did they treat you in there? What about the spotted owl? Are you planning any new protests? Do you believe in nudism? Vegetarianism? Crystal power? He squeezed his daughter, squeezed his wife, kissed them both for the cameras, and he stood there outside the gates for half an hour giving speeches and pontificating and posing with Teo and the E.F.! Santa Barbara chapter president, famous birdwatchers and nationally known tree–huggers till Andrea whisked him away and he had the car keys in his hand and the car was rolling down the blacktop road to the freeway. ‘Tell me,' he said, swinging round to rest his eyes first on his grinning wife and then on his worshipful daughter in the back seat, ‘did the Fox ever have it this good?'

No, the answer was no. Because there was no feeling like this, nothing in his vocabulary to express it. He was supercharged with emotion,
dancing in his socks, rocking in his seat. Touch the accelerator and watch the car go, hit the brakes and feel it stop. In the morning, he sang in the shower and let the water run till it went cold. The toaster was a miracle, the smell of rye toast, the light in the windows. Every ordinary moment of every ordinary day made him want to cry for the beauty of it. Pushing the start button on the dishwasher, flicking the remote to bring the TV to life, standing under the walnut tree out back and watching the crowned sparrows flit through the branches: these were the expressions of the inestimable richness of his newly anointed life. The microwave made him weep. Beer in a six–pack. The bedspread.

Still, for all that – for all the exhilaration of those first few days and the steady trickle of interviewers at the door with their mikes and tape recorders and yellow pads, and for all his prison vows about overseeing Sierra's book reports and attending parent/teacher conferences and seeding and mowing and fertilizing and mulching like any other suburban drone – Tierwater was bored right on down to the hems of his socks before the week was out. Or it wasn't just boredom – prison was boring – it was more a restlessness, a feeling of emptiness and impotence, a growing certainty that all this was a charade. The animals were dying, the forests falling. There were scores to be settled.

He didn't say a word to anybody. Just waited till Andrea went off to work the phones at the E.F.! office half a mile up the street and Sierra was safely deposited at school, then rummaged through the garage for the watchcap and face paint, the crowbar, bolt–cutters and wrenches wrapped in black electrical tape to dull the kiss of metal on metal and the flashlight with the red nail polish smeared across the lens. And what were the terms of his parole? To remain within the city limits of Los Angeles, to report to his parole officer once a week, to protest nothing, demonstrate against nothing, abjure all tree–huggers and – spikers, and above all to steer clear of illegal activity of any kind. No extracurricular activities. No night–work. No monkeywrenching. The judge made that abundantly clear.

Yes. Well, fuck the judge.

Black jeans, black T–shirt, black hiking boots: Tierwater looked like any other middle–aged Angeleno climbing aboard the RTD bus at the end of the block. He set the backpack – black and logoless – on the seat beside him and watched the mini–malls, restaurants, discount houses and tire shops scroll by the crusted windows till Budget Car presented itself amid a field of humped and gleaming automobiles. Inside, he was transformed into Tom Drinkwater, and though he knew it wouldn't
wash if he was caught, he handed the man at the counter a Tom Drinkwater Visa card and showed him Tom Drinkwater's California driver's license, replete with a stunned–looking portrait of himself fixed in the lower left–hand corner.

There wasn't much on the radio all the long way up through the Central Valley – country or Mexican, take your pick – but somewhere around Stockton he picked up an oldies channel featuring the hypnotic noodling of Jerry Garcia, followed by an eternal raga of the sort Ravi Shankar used to inflict on audiences in the sixties. That was all right. The guitar climbed the stairs and came back down again, then climbed them, and came down, and climbed them, and the sitar jumped like a nervous bird from branch to branch of a spreading tree. He felt the music – he saw it – and it took him back to a time when he and Jane wore flowered shirts and pants so wide they were like flapping sails, a time when they subscribed to everything and never thought twice about it. Drugs were part of his life then. And protests. Political protests. Flag–burning. Jeering. Painting your face for the sheer hell of it.

There was none of that in what he was doing now. What he was doing now – in this car, on this highway – was the prelude to an act of revenge. It was as simple as that, and he had no illusions about it. He drove with the calm that comes of purpose, sticking to the slow lane except to squeeze past the hurtling caravans of trucks, not daring to push the wheezing crackerbox of a rental car much more than ten miles over the limit: it wasn't worth the risk of getting pulled over. There was no point in having people see his face either, so he stopped only for gas, and when he got gas he picked up a chili–cheese dog or a microwave burrito and a Coke or a cup of coffee, one more anonymous traveler in a whole nation of them. He drove through the high–crowned afternoon and into the evening and the fall of day, and then it was the stars and the headlights until he crossed the Oregon border in a kind of trance in the unsteady light of dawn. His stomach was queasy – all that grease – and the caffeine had turned to sludge in his veins, so he steered his way off the interstate and down a series of increasingly small roads till he found a place where he could pull over and sleep beneath the trees.