Friendswood (24 page)

“Go,” said Lamb.

Willa turned away from them and looked down at the yard, where yellow dandelions had sprouted up in a dot-to-dot pattern she tried to trace—a boat or a rat. “They're all laughing at you,” said Dog. Its voice sounded like radio static and coughing. “Saying what they got away with.”

She could feel the pressure of the beasts fade when she looked out the window, but she could still hear Dog. “Maybe you could just go.”

A caterpillar inched timidly across the bottom of the wire screen, and as she watched its slow progression, a breeze went through the trees, a hushing sound. She leaned into that neutral solace. She put her mind there.

W
HEN
P
RINCIPAL
J
OHNSON CALLED
H
AL
at work to say Cully had been in a fight at school, he knew this would be the end of football for him, though they were entering the play-offs and Cully, at one time, had been the best wideout on the team. “We can't have it, Mr. Holbrook.”

“I understand.”

“We can't have our leaders—our leaders—acting this way. He could have walked away from it, by all accounts. He was not personally provoked.”

“I understand,” said Hal, and saying good-bye to her, he had a vision again of his uncle, passing out tiny American flags on toothpicks to him and other kids on the Fourth of July. “It's our flag, you remember that,” he said. “No matter what size it is.”

Hal had planted his in a ball of play dough and kept it on his dresser for years. And when his uncle died in old age, his widow was presented with the life-size flag solemnly folded into a tight triangle.

He'd have to tell Darlene about the fight, but he figured it was easier to do by phone. “Cully's been in a fight at school. He won't play in Texas City,” and it surprised him how hard it was to say, how much he got choked up. If only he'd had more money to give as an offering to the church, if he could only show his devotion better.

“Oh, Hal. Maybe it wasn't his fault.”

“Nope, he willingly joined in. Came in to help his buddy Bishop apparently.”

“Well, he was helping his friend then.”

“Darlene, it was two against one. He must have had a good reason, but you can't tell Principal Johnson that.”

“Well, we have to fight it now.”

“I know.”

He hadn't been successful with Lee Knowles—no surprise, but still he had hope. Avery told him she must have gone to Toxic Texas with something because they called him to crow about it. Hal would have to try with her again. He needed to break through his limited mind-set and imagine what God could do for him. He just needed to keep at it.

He drove over to the school and went to the field house to see Coach Salem. In his office there was a photo of a mustang running duct-taped to the cinder block wall. Coach Rowan had occupied that same office twenty-five years earlier, and Hal had always been proud to be beckoned inside it.

Coach Salem, in his silver buzz cut and blue coach's shirt, smiled at him, his teeth even and perfect. He had the tan, fit appearance of clean living—he was a Quaker like the old guard in town—no drinking or dancing for him.

Hal told him his son had done a stupid thing, but he was a smart boy, and he hoped this wouldn't impact his game. He just needed to be forgiven.

Coach Salem raised his thick, gray eyebrows and heaved a sigh. “I've had him in the weight room all fall, to make up for the one thing. And now this.”

The muscles bared under the coach's short-sleeved blue shirt were taut, though he must have been past fifty, and they felt like an affront to Hal's own lump of clay body.

“The truth is, Cully hasn't been playing great, and I think you know this—he hasn't been acting like a football player either. He hasn't
respected the position. His body is here, but his heart isn't. I've been thinking maybe it's better he takes some time to sort things out, get himself together.” His voice was so gravelly it sounded soft-spoken.

“Are you serious?”

“Oh, I am.” He chuckled. “I've been real disappointed in him, frankly. Real disappointed.” He slapped his palms on the desk, as if to dismiss Hal. “You played too, didn't you?”

“I did, class of 'eighty. Hell, he's a better player than I ever was. Coach, please.”

“Well, if you played, then I'm sure you know I've got a team to think about.” He narrowed his eyes. “I'm not in the touchy-feely business, Mr. Holbrook. I do football. But Cully needs something.” Coach nodded, his face an austere blankness.

Hal left the field house, walked past the electric-blue lockers and the silver-flecked posters of Mustangs. Cully needed something alright. He needed the holy spirit in him. He needed righteousness. He needed faith. And then the football would come back to him.

W
HEN
L
EE HEARD BACK
from Ecological Society for Texas, there it was, the standard answer: “Thank you for sharing with us your recent soil sample readings for Banes Field. We have put the site on consideration for our watch list for the future.” And she put this in the pile of other tepid replies: “We have placed this on our list of sites to watch.”

She was so angry as she drove home from work, she couldn't think logically but kept saying the word to herself, “Assholes.” She drove fast, the red lights on Friendswood Drive like the tips of scolding fingers, trying to warn her, and on the highway, a car pulling a horse trailer slowed in front of her. Through the window in the back, she saw the brown butt, the long, swiping tail. Horse people always acted so entitled, as if they alone were keeping Texas authentic and that's why they deserved to block the entire lane. When she tried to pass the trailer she nearly sideswiped a white car she didn't see.

She had ways of taming her anger these days that might or might not work. She tried taking a shower. She was soaping herself, thinking about her next step, when his face suddenly came to her, handsome Chris Hite, who'd just moved back to town to start a newspaper/website funded by his father (whose own newspaper had gone out of business).
Friendswood Dispatch
. That was it. She'd seen just one copy, over at the counter of the dry cleaners. And she'd run into Chris Hite at the drugstore, where they'd chatted for ten minutes or more. He'd grown beefier in the arms, fuller
in the face, but his smile was still sweet, the lines of his face pleasing. “You're a sight for sore eyes,” he'd said. “My God, look at you!”

She got out of the shower, dried off, pulled on her robe, and went to find his number. He had his work voice on when he answered.

“Oh, hey. Well, what can I do for you? You want to subscribe?”

“I want to do that. I also want to give you a story. And I've even got the pictures.”

She told him someone needed to investigate Banes Field again. She told him what she'd seen and about the recent readings of the soil samples, and when she'd finished, he was quiet. “I can't just go at it, you know, attack Taft Properties. Not without more sources.”

“Make it all about me, then. I'll give you what I've got. I've got numbers; I've got pictures. People need to see it for themselves—I know they'd care if they could just see it.” She watched herself squeezing the pen in her hand as if it were a knife she could stab at something.

He sighed. “You really think there's something there, huh? Go ahead and send it along, then,” he said blandly. “I'll take a look. I can't promise, but for an old friend, I'll take a look.” She picked up the file from the table and dropped it, photos and papers scattering in the dust and crumbs on the floor. His indifference marked the end of a hope, the end of a certain fair-minded resolve in her, and when she hung up and knelt to gather the documents, what came to her was fierce and chaotic.

S
HE FOUND HERSELF
drawn back to the
Ecological Defense Manual
, for the fantasy of what someone might one day do to Taft. She lay on the couch one evening, held the book up in the lamplight, ignoring the loud music from the next-door-neighbor's party. “When finding where to lay the blame for a corporation's cold-hearted actions, avoid the lay managers just doing what they're told.” That might be Hal, or not. “Look for the criminal in the corporation. His or her car can be targeted for slogans
naming the crime—at his house, the office, in a parking garage. Don't fool with the engine, which is risky, but consider slashing the tires.” Avery Taft drove a white Mercedes. She'd seen him pull out of the parking lot at city hall. He probably had at least one other car—a truck or a Jeep, something for hunting. What would she write on his car? I BUILD HOUSES ON TOP OF POISON. BUY A HOUSE FROM ME, MAKE YOUR CHILD SICK. It seemed a cheap, childish thing to do—the slogans. People would take his side if they saw the paint job ruined like that. She gazed for a minute at the clutter of the coffee table, a half-drunk glass of Coke. The couch smelled musty, and when she slapped a cushion, dust wafted up. She'd neglected so many things—the dirty windows, email from friends, and there weren't any groceries in the refrigerator. “Stay away from complicated disguises, which tend to arouse suspicion, but wearing a fake beard or mustache is a good option.” (Really?) “For instructions on how to best apply facial hair, see books like
Werner's Stage Makeup
.” If she wore a wig, maybe, she could convince herself that she was entirely someone else, someone who hadn't lost so much.

She went to the computer, and on the Internet, she studied the faces of the ones who'd been caught. The woman had long, blond frizzy hair, a rabbit face—she'd planted a bomb at a fur factory, and she'd been arrested two states away for her crime. The man looked like a balding schoolteacher, with his granny glasses and timid chin—he'd camped out in front of a forest and shot darts at the police who tried to physically remove him. Another man had a pudgy boxer's face—a mouth that curled up on the sides. He'd spray-painted over the billboards of oil companies WE KILL PEOPLE, and then he'd manufactured bombs out of milk bottles. They were all proudly ELF, and the adolescence of their anger bothered her. Their acts—no matter how justified—felt like teenage hijinks. The government called them terrorists, but they seemed too immature for that.

She clicked over the words she'd read so many times already and felt
anger manifesting itself as physical pain—in the crick of her neck, the base of her spine. If she were to do it. If she were to ruin some part of the building site, the wooden frames. Her eyes ached from staring at the blue-lit words. She twisted a rubber band until it pressed the circulation from her fingertips.

When she got up from the chair, her muscles were so stiff she could barely walk. It would be a destruction of property that didn't belong to her, a kind of theft, but wasn't Taft's a crime too, and more violent than anything she wanted to do?

She went to the window and saw the partygoers out on the porch next door, a woman's body swaying to the music, a man holding up a large plastic bottle of Coke. They didn't drink, her neighbors.

It made her distrust them, though she herself liked to keep a measure of control when it came to substances. Her mom's drinking had seen to that. But there were times like now, when her rage seemed worse than alcohol: an ocean of hidden monsters and sharp, torn shipwrecks, and an unpredictable tidewater. If she were to set herself to do one of those things in the manual, she wouldn't be able to say if it was logic or rage that had moved her.

The music changed to some awful, clinging guitar, and a woman opened the back door, carrying a bunch of blue, helium balloons and a giant crepe-paper-covered baby bottle.

She went back to the computer, sat down and stared numbly at the screen. It looked homemade, this website, a crooked photo of a newspaper article, an inelegant diagram. She followed a link to an ammo site. Who were these people? She scrolled down the comments page, bright blue sentences, elliptical bursts of emotion. “Love the Super-XO.” “The Winchester Western will blast away just about anything.” She stopped at the user name, Overlong, in Alvin, Texas. “Easy enough to fix with a Dyna-igniter.” This guy—he had to be a guy—had a few posts. “If you have trouble detonating from a safe distance, try the Extra booster detonating
cord. Go see Allen at Alvin Fireworks. Trust me.” The thrill of his proximity sang through the anonymous screen of Internet. She clicked the link for this Allen, and it went to a cheesy ad for a fireworks stand she'd seen just off the exit of 2351, three girls in camouflage bikinis holding rifles. “We buy BIG!! We're cheap, and we're stocked!” She hated free-form fireworks. It scared her that anyone in Texas with a face could walk into a store and buy fireworks and a gun.

She got up from the computer, went to her desk, found her tallies of the cancer rates from the local cancer registry (she got this through Doc), and saw the rate of brain tumors was still five times higher than the national average. Lee wasn't a scientist, but she was keeping track, and it could be the vinyl chloride, maybe coupled with solvents. No one wanted to hear this. She put down her notebook and walked through the kitchen out the back. The party next door had moved inside. She watched a squirrel on a branch. It made a sound like a piece of wood breaking. The moss was all over that tree now. She could see it even in the dark, a bright green strip of velvet.

S
HE DROVE DOWN
2351 in the dark humidity, highway lights like perfect white fish in an aquarium, and hovering over them, the stars bright flecks of algae. Soupy, her mother would have called this weather.

She wore black socks over her shoes to disguise her footprints, black cloth gloves, and a black ski cap, though it was hot. In the trunk, there was a bag of gravel, a small can of oil, a funnel, a flashlight, a ballpoint pen, a pair of pliers, and three kinds of screwdrivers. Everything but the gravel would fit into a small canvas bag that Lee would wear over her chest. A truck was on one side, speeding up, and in the whoosh of its passing, her car shuddered.

Lee took the exit ramp and drove down the feeder road, past the dark gas station, past a stretch of woods, and turned down the dirt road. She
parked the car at the edge of the woods, where it might be hidden, and she got out and walked toward the field.

The sky was a voice overhead that she couldn't understand. She felt separate from her body in a way that quickened her nerves, made her movements feel strong and deliberate. She found her way slowly by flashlight to the area of the construction site, and then she noticed the trailer Taft must have recently parked on the premises. The lights were off inside it, and there wasn't a car.

She walked up to the trailer from the back, then went around to the side to peer into the first window, seeing nothing but the flat brown shapes of furniture. The other window was curtained off. If anyone answered, she would say she'd had car trouble and needed to use the phone. She knocked, then gently turned the small handle on the door. It was light and swung open easily. She went inside and shone the regular, bright flashlight onto a card table filled with bottles of a strange blue liquid. She turned to the right and saw an open trash can filled with beer bottles. There was an orange-brown couch, a file cabinet; and when she shone her flashlight in the back room, it was empty, just a miniature sink and pantry shelf, a low table between cushioned benches. As she was coming back out, the light caught on a flat female face that startled her. A beat later, she knocked over the stand-up cardboard cutout of a girl in a bathing suit, a flat white smile, made-up eyes. At Lee's feet lay a large mesh bag full of shovels.

Back out in the dark, the humidity clung to her clothes. She walked past the foundation of one new house, near neatly stacked plumbing fixtures, and she knocked over the piles of pipes, cringed at their clattering. From where she stood, the bulldozer looked like a large, still animal. Approaching it, she felt like she should shush the thing, calm it down. She climbed up into the seat, lay on her stomach, and hung down to reach the oil filter cap. She had to feel her way to the lock. She squirted oil into the seams of the opening, unscrewed the six screws, and used the pliers to pry off the top. It took about fifteen minutes. When the spring came back
from the top, it pinched her finger. She pulled out the dipstick, inserted the funnel. She maneuvered the cutoff plastic container of gravel to meet the funnel's lip and poured the gravel into the hole. It made a soft, crackling sound as it went down. She poured lubricant into the opening to spread the abrasive better. She pushed the dipstick back into the opening, twisted the lid back on. Her hands only began to shake as she pushed the screws back into their holes and she tightened them with the screwdriver. For a few seconds she thought she heard footsteps, but the plodding noise stopped. She lay there, very still, listening. Unless the directions were wrong, or she'd misread them, she'd killed the oil filter system.