The Best of Connie Willis (30 page)

So, as I say, we were pretty busy for the next few months, revamping the magazine, cooperating with the police, and following up on all the leads Ariaura had given us. We went to Vegas to research the chain-letter scam she and Chuck Venture / Charles Fred had run, after which I came home to put the magazine to bed and Kildy went to Dayton and then to Chickamauga to follow up on Ariaura’s criminal history.

She called last night. “It’s me, Rob,” she said, sounding excited. “I’m in Chattanooga.”

“Chattanooga,
Tennessee
?” I said. “What are you doing there?”

“The prosecutor working on the pyramid scheme case is on a trip to Roanoke, so I can’t see him till Monday, and the school board in Zion—that’s a little town near here—is trying to pass a law requiring intelligent design to be taught in the public schools. This Zion thing’s part of a nationwide program that’s going to introduce intelligent design state by state. So, anyway, since I couldn’t see the prosecutor, I thought I’d drive over—it’s only about fifty miles from Chickamauga—and interview some of the science teachers for that piece on ‘The Scopes Trial Eighty Years Out’ you were talking about doing.”

“And?” I said warily.

“
And
, according to the chemistry teacher, something peculiar happened
at the school board meeting. It might be nothing, but I thought I’d better call so you could be looking up flights to Chattanooga, just in case.”

Just in case.

“One of the school board members, a Mr.—” she paused as if consulting her notes, “Horace Didlong, was talking about the lack of scientific proof for Darwin’s theory, when he suddenly started ranting at the crowd.”

“Did the chemistry teacher say what he said?” I asked, hoping I didn’t already know.

“She couldn’t remember all of it,” Kildy said, “but the basketball coach said some of the students had said they intended to tape the meeting and send it to the ACLU, and he’d try to find out if they did and get me a copy. He said it was ‘a very odd outburst, almost like he was possessed.’ ”

“Or drunk,” I said. “And neither of them remembers what he said?”

“No, they both do, just not everything. Didlong apparently went on for several minutes. He said he couldn’t believe there were still addlepated ignoramuses around who didn’t believe in evolution, and what the hell had they been teaching in the schools all this time. The chemistry teacher said the rant went on like that for about five minutes and then broke off, right in the middle of a word, and Didlong went back to talking about Newton’s Second Law making evolution physically impossible.”

“Have you interviewed Didlong?”

“No. I’m going over there as soon as we finish talking, but the chemistry teacher said she heard Didlong’s wife ask him what happened, and he looked like he didn’t have any idea.”

“That doesn’t prove it’s Mencken,” I said.

“I know,” she said, “but it
is
Tennessee, and it
is
evolution. And it would be nice if it was him, wouldn’t it?”

Nice. H. L. Mencken loose in the middle of Tennessee in the middle of a creationism debate.

“Yeah,” I said and grinned, “it would, but it’s much more likely Horace Didlong has been smoking something he grew in his backyard. Or is trying to stir up some publicity, à la Judge Roy Moore and his Ten Commandments monument. Do they remember anything else he said?”

“Yes, um … where is it?” she said. “Oh, here it is. He called the other board members a gang of benighted rubes … and then he said he’d take a monkey any day over a school board whose cerebellums were all paralyzed from listening to too much theological bombast … and right at the end, before he broke off, the chemistry teacher said he said, ‘I never saw much resemblance to Alice myself.’ ”

“Alice?” I said. “They’re sure he said Alice and not August?”

“Yes, because the chemistry teacher’s name is Alice, and she thought he was talking to her, and the chairman of the school board did, too, because he looked at her and said, ‘Alice? What the heck does Alice have to do with intelligent design?’ and Didlong said, ‘Jamie sure could write, though, even if the bastard did steal my girl. You better be careful I don’t steal yours.’ Do you know what that means, Rob?”

“Yes,” I said. “How long does it take to get a marriage license in Tennessee?”

“I’ll find out,” Kildy said, sounding pleased, “and then the chairman said, ‘You cannot use language like that,’ and, according to the chemistry teacher, Didlong said … wait a minute, I need to read it to you so I get it right—it really didn’t make any sense—he said, ‘You’d be surprised at what I can do. Like stir up the animals. Speaking of which, that’s why the baby was stashed in the icebox. Its mother stuck it inside to keep the tiger from eating it.’ ”

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

I
really
miss H. L. Mencken. I have spent the last forty years (since Nixon and Watergate) following politics, observing my fellow humans, and saying, “
Where
is Mencken when we need him?” And wishing desperately that he’d come back from the grave to say all those things that desperately need saying. Like:

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

And:

“In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”

And:

“It may be hard for the average man to believe he is descended from an ape … Nevertheless, it is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.”

I also miss him because he loved language. His book
The American Language
is a masterpiece, and he was the first to document what Mark Twain had understood, that “American” is not “English” but a language all its own.

Most of all, I miss the Mencken who loved women and music and a good, stiff drink and who wrote:
“Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.”

I wish he
had
hung on a bit longer.

But at least we still have his books. And the occasional not-quite-as-phony-as-she-thought channeler.

The phone sang as I was looking over the defense’s motion to dismiss. “It’s the universal ring,” my law clerk Bysshe said, reaching for it. “It’s probably the defendant. They don’t let you use signatures from jail.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “It’s my mother.”

“Oh.” Bysshe reached for the receiver. “Why isn’t she using her signature?”

“Because she knows I don’t want to talk to her. She must have found out what Perdita’s done.”

“Your daughter Perdita?” he asked, holding the receiver against his chest. “The one with the little girl?”

“No, that’s Viola. Perdita’s my younger daughter. The one with no sense.”

“What’s she done?”

“She’s joined the Cyclists.”

Bysshe looked inquiringly blank, but I was not in the mood to enlighten him. Or in the mood to talk to Mother. “I know exactly what
Mother will say,” I told him. “She’ll ask me why I didn’t tell her, and then she’ll demand to know what I’m going to do about it, and there is nothing I
can
do about it, or I obviously would have done it already.”

Bysshe looked bewildered. “Do you want me to tell her you’re in court?”

“No.” I reached for the receiver. “I’ll have to talk to her sooner or later.” I took it from him. “Hello, Mother,” I said.

“Traci,” Mother said dramatically, “Perdita has become a Cyclist.”

“I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought Perdita should tell you herself.”

“Perdita!” She snorted. “She wouldn’t tell me. She knows what I’d have to say about it. I suppose you told Karen.”

“Karen’s not here. She’s in Iraq.” The only good thing about this whole debacle was that thanks to Iraq’s eagerness to show it was a responsible world community member, and its previous penchant for self-destruction, my mother-in-law was in the one place on the planet where the phone service was bad enough that I could claim I’d tried to call her but couldn’t get through, and she’d have to believe me.

The Liberation has freed us from all sorts of indignities and scourges, including assorted Saddams, but mothers-in-law aren’t one of them, and I was almost happy with Perdita for her excellent timing. When I didn’t want to kill her.

“What’s Karen doing in Iraq?” Mother asked.

“Negotiating a Palestinian homeland.”

“And meanwhile her granddaughter is ruining her life,” she said irrelevantly. “Did you tell Viola?”

“I
told
you, Mother. I thought Perdita should tell all of you herself.”

“Well, she didn’t. And this morning one of my patients, Carol Chen, called me and demanded to know what I was keeping from her. I had no idea what she was talking about.”

“How did Carol Chen find out?”

“From her daughter, who almost joined the Cyclists last year.
Her
family talked her out of it,” she said accusingly. “Carol was convinced the medical community had discovered some terrible side effect of ammenerol and was covering it up. I cannot believe you didn’t tell me, Traci.”

And I cannot believe I didn’t have Bysshe tell her I was in court, I thought. “I told you, Mother. I thought it was Perdita’s place to tell you. After all, it’s her decision.”

“Oh, Traci!” Mother said. “You cannot mean that!”

In the first fine flush of freedom after the Liberation, I had entertained hopes that it would change everything—that it would somehow do away with inequality and patriarchal dominance and those humorless women determined to eliminate the word “manhole” and third person singular pronouns from the language.

Of course it didn’t. Men still make more money, “herstory” is still a blight on the semantic landscape, and my mother can still say, “Oh,
Traci
!” in a tone that reduces me to pre-adolescence.

“
Her
decision!” Mother said. “Do you mean to tell me you plan to stand idly by and allow your daughter to make the mistake of her life?”

“What can I do? She’s twenty-two years old and of sound mind.”

“If she were of sound mind she wouldn’t be doing this. Didn’t you try to talk her out of it?”

“Of course I did, Mother.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t succeed. She’s determined to become a Cyclist.”

“Well, there must be something we can do. Get an injunction or hire a deprogrammer or sue the Cyclists for brainwashing. You’re a judge. There must be some law you can invoke—”

“The law is called personal sovereignty, Mother, and since it was what made the Liberation possible in the first place, it can hardly be used against Perdita. Her decision meets all the criteria for a case of personal sovereignty: It’s a personal decision, it was made by a sovereign adult, it affects no one else—”

“What about my practice? Carol Chen is convinced shunts cause cancer.”

“Any effect on your practice is considered an indirect effect. Like secondary smoke. It doesn’t apply. Mother, whether we like it or not, Perdita has a perfect right to do this, and we don’t have any right to interfere. A free society has to be based on respecting others’ opinions and leaving each other alone. We have to respect Perdita’s right to make her own decisions.”

All of which was true. It was too bad I hadn’t said any of it to Perdita when she called. What I had said, in a tone that sounded exactly like my mother’s, was “Oh,
Perdita
!”

“This is all your fault, you know,” Mother said. “I
told
you you shouldn’t have let her get that tattoo over her shunt. And don’t tell me it’s a free society. What good is a free society when it allows my granddaughter to ruin her life?” She hung up.

I handed the receiver back to Bysshe.