Set the Night on Fire (23 page)

C
asey came awake all at once. For a moment he thought Payton and Teddy were having a conversation, but he was alone. Strange to have this much privacy after sharing for so long. Gradually he realized that Alix and Rain were talking in the hall outside the bathroom. They kept their voices low, but he heard the tension. When he heard the word “clinic,” he roused himself and stumbled through the door.

Rain was standing against the wall, arms akimbo. “You have to go. What if it’s TB?”

“I don’t have TB, Rain. I’m not coughing.”

Rain shook her head. “You don’t know that. Do you want history to repeat itself?”

“What’s going on?” Casey yawned. “Are you sick, Alix?”

Rain’s face was tight. “She needs to see a doctor, but she keeps saying no.”

Alix leaned against the other wall. “I’m all right.”

Casey brushed his hair off his face. He’d tried to encourage Alix to go back to her jewelry business, but her heart wasn’t in it. Aside from the occasional trip to the grocery store, she wasn’t doing much except reading and, now that Payton wasn’t there to criticize, listening to the radio. Part of it was mourning Billy. Part of it was mourning Dar. And part of it was the brittle Chicago winter. Last year, their combined energy had fueled their souls and their bodies. This year, he’d started to notice how the cold seeped in, leaving a chill in every room.

But Alix did look pale and listless. Casey couldn’t take a chance. “Rain is right. You’re going to a doctor. We’ll take you. No argument.”

“And what did you have in mind?” Alix said. “It’s not like we have money for a Michigan Avenue practice.”

“The Panthers’ free clinic is down on 16
^th
Street. We’ll go there.”

“Uh, excuse me, but I think Alix just might be the wrong color for that,” Rain said.

“Mention Payton to them, and they’d probably treat her.” Casey shrugged. “But if that’s a hassle, I guess we can go to the ER.”

“No,” Alix answered quickly.

“Wait.” Rain held up her hand. “
The Seed
was just doing an article about a new clinic in New Town. Let me check it out.” 

* *

Alix and Rain emerged from the Women’s Health Collective at the corner of Sheffield and Clark the next afternoon. Located in a squat building, the clinic had been started by feminists who wanted to provide women with an alternative to the male-dominated health care system.

Casey was waiting at a coffee shop across the street. He threw fifty cents down on the counter and hurried outside. “What happened?”

Rain’s expression was enigmatic, but Alix looked dazed. “I am so stupid.” She shifted her feet.

Casey looked from Rain to Alix. “Did they do a TB test?”

Alix said something, but the clamor from a passing El train drowned out her reply.

Casey motioned to the train. “What?”

Alix dug out a card from her bag. When the train had passed, she said, “The doctor did the test. I’m supposed to check my arm over the next three days for any of these things.” She handed him the card, which had four squares with various bumps and drawings of what she should look for. “But the doctor doesn’t think that’s the problem.”

“What is it, then?”

“She thinks I’m pregnant.”

Casey took a startled step back. His mouth dropped open.

“I should have known. I mean I was putting on weight, even though I was hardly eating.”

“And the nausea,” Rain added.

Alix nodded. “So they did a pregnancy test. I’m supposed to call next week.”

Casey hung back, still speechless.

But Rain was already making plans. “If you
are
pregnant, there are places that can take care of you. A couple of girls at
The Seed
told me about one in Lincoln Park. Very clean. Almost a hospital.”

“Take care of me?” Alix looked surprised. “You mean an abortion?”

Rain nodded. “It’s gonna be legal one day. Has to be.”

“I don’t want one,” Alix said quietly.

“What do you mean? Of course you do.”

“No, Rain, I don’t.”

Rain waved one hand over the other. “Are you crazy, Alix? This isn’t just a fifteen-year-old boy who wandered into your life for a year or two. This is a baby. It will change your life. Forever.”

For the first time since Billy died, a genuine smile spread across Alix’s face. “I know, Rain. But it’s our baby, Dar’s and mine. Don’t you see? Now he’ll have to come back.”

* *

A week later the clinic confirmed that Alix was nearly four months pregnant. When she went in for a follow-up appointment, she received another surprise. The doctor detected two heartbeats. She was carrying twins.

“Casey, we have to find Dar. He needs to know.”

Casey’s lips tightened. “I don’t know where he is.”

“But you’re his best friend.”

“And you’re his girlfriend. Doesn’t mean we know what he’s up to.”

“There must be some way to find out,” Rain said.

“Are you sure you want to?”

Alix looked worried for a moment. Then her forehead smoothed out. “Don’t worry, Casey. It’s going to be fine. We’re going to be parents.”

She was already talking about turning the back bedroom into a nursery. And even though the babies weren’t due until July, she was making plans to shop for blankets and cribs and two little mobiles to hang over them.

Casey ran his tongue around his lips. “Alix, what if he doesn’t? Come back, I mean?”

Her smile wavered. “Why? Do you know something I don’t?”

“Of course not. But I don’t want . . . ”

“He will. These are his babies.”

Casey and Rain exchanged glances. Then Rain asked, “Have you called
your
parents? They should know.”

Alix bit her lip. “Not yet.”

* *

It took Casey three weeks and several trips to Weiss’s, the local hippie bar at Belden and Lincoln, to find someone who knew someone who could make contact with Dar, Payton, or Teddy. All of which made Casey nervous. Why were they so deep underground?

Finally, on a crisp, sunny February morning, the same day most of the Chicago Seven defendants were convicted of crossing state lines to start a riot, Casey found a message in their mailbox. Scribbled on the back of a piece of brown cardboard was the following:

The record store on Wells at 9. Listen to Volunteers in the booth.

Casey felt a spit of irritation. This wasn’t a James Bond movie. But he’d promised Alix, so that night, at ten past nine, he showed up at the record store a few doors down from Up Against the Wall. He was the only customer in the shop, and he browsed through bins of records, studied the album covers on the walls, smelled the incense. The guy behind the counter, a black guy in a dashiki with dreadlocks and lots of gold in his mouth, watched him carefully.

Finally, Casey went up to the counter, feeling foolish, and mumbled, “I’m looking for the Volunteers album.”

The guy grunted and pointed to a curtained-off booth at the back of the room. “I’ll bring it to you, mon.”

Casey went inside the tiny booth, where a turntable and speakers lay on a waist-high counter. A stool sat in front of it. What was he supposed to do now? He sat on the stool, drumming his fingers on the shelf, wishing he could leave and go home.

A minute later, the guy behind the counter knocked on the door. When Casey opened it, he slipped him the Volunteers album. A scrap of paper was taped to the cover, directing him to an alley near Clybourn and Division, about a mile away. He sat for a moment, wondering if he was expected to play the album before he left. He decided not to and exited the booth. He dropped the album on the counter. The guy manning the store was nowhere to be seen.

Rain and Alix were waiting outside.

“Well?” Alix asked.

Casey explained. “This is a stupid idea. It isn’t safe,” he added.

Rain said she was happy to forget the whole thing and go back to the apartment, but Alix insisted. “Please, guys. Do it for me. And the babies.”

Casey capitulated. It was a cold night, but there was no snow and the wind was calm. They could walk.

The three of them headed down Wells. This part of Old Town was safe and well-lit. The Ambassador East, a luxury hotel, was a few blocks away. As they turned west, though, the neighborhood changed. Once they passed Sedgwick, the sidewalk became cracked, and there were slippery patches of ice. The streetlights were dim, and angry shadows loomed between buildings.

Two minutes later they reached the alley. It was bricked along most of its length. Someone had made an attempt to banish the darkness with a weak floodlight, but it looked gloomy and sinister. The smell of decay wafted out from a dumpster. They quietly crept past it, Casey starting when a cat streaked across their path. Rain shivered and pulled her parka close. Only Alix—the girl who’d been protected and coddled all her life—marched fearlessly.

At the far end it made a surprising ninety-degree turn, opening onto an abandoned snow-mottled field. The field was littered with trash and bottles and tires, but new buildings surrounded it, and Casey suspected it wouldn’t be long before it too was developed. He stepped gingerly, trying to avoid broken glass. He didn’t want to think about what else might have been dumped there.

A streetlamp splashed a watery pool of light onto the field. Casey saw a tall form emerge from the shadows behind it. Dar. Alix spotted him, too, and started to sprint toward him. Half way there, she slowed, as if she’d just realized she was pregnant and had to be careful.

Casey watched as Alix threw her arms around Dar, who let his arms sag, but then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he hugged her back. She buried her face in his coat. Though Dar wasn’t that close to them, the coat looked unfamiliar. Casey wondered what had happened to his pea coat.

He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he watched as Alix made wide gestures with her hands. At one point, Dar straightened and reared back, as if surprised. Then there was more talk, after which Alix lifted the wool serape she was wearing because she couldn’t button her coat, and placed Dar’s hand on her stomach. Covering it with her own, she looked up at him. Casey could see her cloud of blond hair escaping the hood of the serape. He imagined her hopeful expression.

Then Dar withdrew his hands and shoved them in his pockets. Alix went still. She said something. Dar shook his head. A moment later she held out her arms one more time, but he stepped out of reach, and disappeared into the shadows.

Alix watched him go, not moving, her solitary figure etched in the weak light. Then she turned around and trudged slowly back to the alley.

When Alix reached Casey and Rain, she spoke only one word, “No.” 

That one word held all the sadness and despair that comes with the end of a dream.

On the street, at the far end of the field, the dome light of a car snapped on. Casey caught a glimpse of Payton in the driver’s seat. Someone was in the back—he was sure it was Teddy. Dar slid into the passenger seat, the door closed, and the car sped off.

I
t was a stormy spring. News of the My Lai massacre became public and triggered a fresh wave of outrage. In March, a bomb accidentally went off, leveling a townhouse in Greenwich Village and killing the three Weathermen who’d been assembling it. Closer to home, at the end of March, a bomb went off in a recruiting office on Chicago’s north side, shattering windows and destroying furniture. A month later Nixon announced he’d sent forces into Cambodia.

Casey found it all hard to absorb. Time seemed to have accelerated, compressing events into a procession of shocks with no distance or perspective between them. On one hand he felt battered and desensitized; on the other, he was hurtling toward oblivion.

He wasn’t alone. The breaking point for Rain came on May 4
^th
when the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of student protestors at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others. That night Rain stalked around the apartment in a cold fury. “It’s bad enough we’re killing the Vietnamese. But when we start killing our own, I’m . . . I’m ashamed to live in this country.”

“What are you going to do?” Casey asked.

“I’m done. It’s over. I’m going back to Madison. I want to study something that has nothing to do with society. Or politics. Maybe I’ll go to Europe.”

“What about
The Seed
?”

“It’s not gonna be around much longer. The Weathermen have scared away our advertisers. They think we’re committed to the violent overthrow of the government.” She flipped up her palms. “No ads, no articles, no paper.”

Alix came out of the kitchen. “I never thought of you as someone who gave up.”

Since the night they’d seen Dar, she hadn’t mentioned his name. It was as if he’d never existed. All her energies were focused on the babies. She bought Dr. Spock’s
Baby and Child Care
, as well as a book of baby names. She’d made lists of all the equipment she needed, and even made Casey go with her to Kerr’s to comb through racks of baby clothes.

“I’m not giving up,” Rain answered. “You know the Byrds’ song,
A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven
? Well, it’s time for me to find a new purpose.”

Alix looked stricken.

Rain let out a breath. “Look. When we started living together, we thought we could do anything. We were special. Cooler, more daring. Our words, our parties, even our sex was more meaningful.” She pasted on a sad smile. “But we’ve been fooling ourselves. We’ve been pulled along by the current, hoping to grasp a branch along the way that would give us a sense of our own importance. The truth is we’re no better—or more important—than any other generation.”

Casey sensed something inevitable about Rain’s words.

“We’re never going to change society. Not in any meaningful way. So it’s time for me to accept it, fold up my tent, and hit the road,” Rain said. “What about you, Alix? What are your plans?”

She was getting huge; it was difficult for her to get around. Even climbing the two flights of stairs to the apartment was a chore.

“My purpose is to have my babies and take care of them right here.”

“You seem so . . . sure of yourself,” Rain said. “Why here? Why Chicago?”

“It’s become my home. And I can’t wait to be a mother. For real this time.”

Rain arched an eyebrow, as if surprised by Alix’s insight into Billy’s role in her life. At least she seemed to be done with mourning. That was a good thing.

Rain turned to Casey. “What about you?”

“I’m going to stay with Alix. At least until the twins are born.”

“You’ve always been here for me, haven’t you, Casey?” Alix got up and headed to the bathroom, complaining that was all she ever did any more.

Rain waited until the bathroom door closed. Then she said, “Well done, Casey. How does it feel to get what you want?”

Casey tilted his head.

“Dar is gone, but you’re still here. With Alix. All your waiting paid off.”

“Alix needs me. I’m glad I can help.”

Her smile was knowing. “I guess at least one of us should get what they want.”

The toilet flushed, and Alix came back.

Rain stood up. “You’re due the end of July, right?” When Alix nodded, she said, “Well I guess I can hang around ‘til then. Be nice to have new life around here.”