The Oregon Experiment (13 page)

“Nobody like that,” Scanlon said, stepping down to the patio and pulling the door closed behind him.

One cop shined his light into the marionberry vine, then around the back of the garage, and his partner said, “If you see anybody, give us a call. Sorry to disturb you, sir.”

The other one pointed toward the garage. “Mind if I look inside?”

Scanlon shrugged. The cop pushed open the side door and shined his light in the corners and up in the rafters, then let the beam linger for a moment on the broken pane, still not replaced after these two months.

They latched the gate, and Scanlon stood there watching their lights dart around the next yard. His bare feet were cold from the concrete, the chilly night air creeping up his robe. His heart thumped powerfully in his chest.

He went back inside to the sharp smell of pot and gasoline, and standing over Clay he reached down for the roach and the Bic. He torched it up, drew in a lungful, and let it go. “What did you do, Clay?”

The kid’s head twitched. “Thanks for getting rid of them.”

“You owe me.” Scanlon took another hit. “Lots.” His pounding heart rushed the THC straight to his brain, and he was immediately high. He fell back into the overstuffed chair and enjoyed the joint, the luxury of letting it burn in his fingers between drags without a thought of passing it to Clay,
the sweet smoke flashing a slide show of high-school memories through his mind. He was getting much too stoned, he knew, but it didn’t really matter. It was the middle of the night. It was still summer. He’d lied to the cops, harbored a suspect. They’d called him “sir.” Homeowner.
His
backyard. Cops dressed as commandos—pants tucked into high black boots, uniforms with military doo-dads. That was a problem: they give the impression they’re waging a war, making the rest of us the enemy. Did they notice how nervous Scanlon was? He knew that cops were trained to expect a little anxiety in the innocent. In fact, the icy-cool ones were probably guilty. Scanlon had bought (and tried to buy) booze so many times before he was twenty-one that his heart, to this day, beat faster in liquor stores.

He’d forgotten this part. When the whole room is your heart and you’re inside it and the ceiling and walls squeeze in and out with each of your heartbeats. He heard his name and thought about Cindy Feagan back in the third grade, all pigtails and crooked teeth. They’d eaten sundaes together at Dairy Queen, and where was she now with that cute smile and those perfect drawings of horses and castles like they were right out of a book? He could totally go for a sundae right now as he heard his name again, and in high school he and Jane Swallows got stoned once and ate sundaes at Friendly’s. He remembered telling Naomi early on about this girl he’d been hot for his senior year, and he knew he liked Naomi when he said, “What a name. Jane Swallows,” and Naomi quipped, “To her credit.”

Through the syrupy memory and the palpitating room he heard it again: “Scanlon.” And this time he realized it was Naomi. “Pratt!”

Clay smacked him on the arm and plucked the roach, long dead, from his fingers.

Scanlon sat up, but he was … this was.… oh, this was gross-motor skills completely whacked. He was standing. Upright, he believed. And he could see Naomi doing the sumo walk toward him down the hall, her hands reaching out to the walls on either side.

“Sorry,” he said. “We were just …” Words eluded him.

“This is it,” she said, and groaned.

“Have you noticed,” he asked, “that you groan a lot more since you’re pregnant?”

“It’s time,” she said.

Time for bed, he thought, time to wake up, time for Clay to hit the road. Then he realized. “No way,” he said.

“Get my slippers and my bag,” she told him, then she flipped on the light and screeched.

He covered his eyes against the brightness.

“What the hell?” she said.

“Not now.” Scanlon peeked out from behind his arm. “It’s not for two weeks.”

She held a towel under her belly, staring at the two of them, trying to understand. “Party’s over,” she said calmly, nodding at Clay. “You need to go home.” It must be that no one moved because she said, more assertively: “Anarchist. Go!”

Scanlon made a move toward her, his eyes slowly adjusting to the light, his mind slowly processing the towel and the water puddling around her feet.

“You’ve been smoking pot? Oh my God. Perfect. Just fucking aces.”

“But it’s
two weeks
!”

She doubled over, grabbing the doorframe. “Owww,” she moaned, and Clay was at her side, taking hold of her arm.

“Hee-hee-hee-hoo,” he said, which definitely rang a bell for Scanlon, but at the moment he wasn’t able to summon all he’d learned in Lamaze class. “Even though your water broke,” Clay said, “we should time the contractions.”

“I need a—” but another stab cut her off, tears running down her cheeks. “Dry pants. My coat.”

The bag was packed. Slippers, okay. A coat. Which one? And he’d intended to fix a few bagels with cream cheese. Some juices. Fruit. A thermos of coffee. “Your water broke,” he said, senselessly. He felt paralyzed by the seriousness of the situation. Was there time to do it all? “I’m supposed to have snacks,” he said, as he and Clay helped her sit down on the coffee table. “Coach’s snacks.”

“They should be five minutes apart,” Clay offered, almost whispering.

She ripped her arm away from Scanlon and cocked it to elbow him in the jaw. “Do it!” she shouted, then jerked her other arm free and thrust her face inches from his. “Please, what’s this guy doing in our house?”

“You might not need to go to the hospital yet.” Clay’s shoulders dropped apologetically. “I’m just saying.”

“Shut up!” Scanlon snapped. “You need to leave.” But Clay didn’t move. “You’ve fucked this up enough already,” he shouted. “Get the hell out of here.”

Water trickled down her leg. The towel was soaked. She took a deep breath. “He’s right,” she said. “The timer’s on the stove,” she told Clay. “And stay in the kitchen until I get changed. And you!” She backhanded Scanlon’s chest. “Sweatpants. Coat. Bag. Snacks.”

Naomi smelled gasoline and thought this might be one of those weird olfactory experiences that comes with labor; she’d smelled pot from the bedroom but mistook it for a combination of the warm amniotic fluid soaking her and the rotting hosta leaves outside their window. She’d been confused by memories of her water breaking seventeen years ago, as bloodhounds can be confused by an unexpected scent slashed across the trail. Scanlon had helped her dry off and get dressed, and now the anarchist propped pillows under her shoulders and back and under her knees, then sat cross-legged on the floor beside her with his thumb on the cooking timer’s red button, ready for the next contraction. Up close she saw the dark holes pierced by tight silver loops in his eyebrow and lip. The tattoos of a hovering gull on one side of his neck and “Billy” on the other looked splotchy and crude. Jailhouse tattoos. His skull had a five-o’clock shadow; his lips were chapped, his small teeth square and gray. His black clothes were torn, covered with drawings and silver spray paint. What if her baby boy grew up like this? How do you mother an anarchist?

Scanlon was banging dishes in the kitchen. Still no sign of her suitcase or slippers. “Do you work in a gas station?” she asked Clay.

“Nah.” His head twitched. “But sometimes I huff gasoline.”

“Oh my fucking Christ. Scanlon!”

“I’m just joking.” Clay smiled, exposing a black hole where he was missing a tooth. “Trying to relax you.”

Steel fingers gripped her lower back, then a crushing weight dropped on her uterus and pelvis. She groaned and heard the beep as Clay popped on the timer. Scanlon rushed in from the kitchen and kneeled at her side, patting her hair cloyingly.

“Hee-hee-hee-hoo,” Clay breathed.

And seeing Scanlon’s penis hanging out of his robe—as the contraction tightened around her like a rope—heightened his blame for all of this.

“Hee-hee-hee-hoo.”

She tried to follow Clay’s coaching and breathe. “Hee—” she eked out, and as both men panted in her face, she recalled that when a boar breathes in a female’s face, she reacts to a chemical in his saliva by arching her back, steeling her haunches, and flicking up her tail—a “fixed-action response,” no free will involved. She’d once smelled the boar’s-breath concoction that’s sprayed up the snouts of domestic sows to make them more receptive to artificial insemination.

She smacked Scanlon’s hand away. “Get—hee-hoo—dressed!” Closing her eyes, she breathed through the contraction, sweat running down her face.

When it was finally over, Clay said, “Level-two breathing. Deep and steady until the next one, then we’ll check the timer. And relax your neck and shoulders.”

She was squeezing his hand in a death grip. He had tiny ears, she noticed, tender-looking rosy ears.

Scanlon came through the living room, dressed, and he set her bag by the door.

“You’ve done this before,” she managed to say.

“Just once.” Clay looked at his boots. Did his cheeks flush?

She heard running water and dishes clattering in the sink. “What the hell is he doing?”

Clay got up, peered into the kitchen, then came back. “Washing the dishes.”

“Leave the goddamned dishes!” she shouted.

“I’ve got everything ready,” he called back. “You just do the timing and let me handle this. You don’t bring a baby home to a kitchen full of dirty dishes.”

Clay smiled—a sort of sweet smile, somehow. Boyish despite the metal piercing his face. “Nesting,” he said.

“How long has it been?”

He looked at the timer. “Four minutes.”

She took a deep breath. “Do you have a baby?” The possibility horrified her, but she also felt a warm wave of hope and good faith: We’re all in this together, raising the next generation to be better than we are.

“I do,” he said, “but listen.” He sat back down on the floor. “Your husband out there, he’s sort of a lightweight. Pretty wasted. Normally I’d say let him wrap his middle-class car around a tree. Nature wins. There’s sort
of a …” It seemed Clay couldn’t find the words for all of society’s contradictions and injustices sinking into his gut. “It’s this whole dichotomy …”

Naomi stared at him, struggling to maintain the generous impulse: Parenting brings out everyone’s best, she made herself think. It takes a village.

“But it’s not the baby’s fault. Yuppie parents and whatnot.”

Finally she had to shake her head. “I’m not really following.”

“He shouldn’t be taking you to the hospital,” Clay said. “I think I’d better drive.”

For God’s sake, he was right. “We’ll—” Two daggers stabbed her in the back. “Ahhh!” she howled. “Time?” Her hand clamped down on Clay’s. “The time?”

“Four minutes, fifty-six seconds.”

Again, the crushing weight. Again, Scanlon at her side saying, “Breathe.”

“Hee-hee-hee-hoo,” Clay chanted in her other ear.

Scanlon pulled on her arm. “After this one we’ll go.”

Brutal, punishing pressure. She wanted an epidural, right now.

“I’m driving,” Clay said.

Scanlon looked at him like he was crazy. “The hell you are.”

“You’re too wasted,” Clay said. “Hee-hee-hee-hoo.”

“I’ll handle it from here.” Scanlon stood. “Ho-he-he.”

“Ahh!” Her uterus clenched up tighter. She touched Scanlon’s arm, nodding. “Safer,” she said, more air than sound through all the pain.

Scanlon gave her a puzzled look.

“She said it’s safer if I drive,” Clay said, using hand gestures now to coach her breathing.

“Safe?” Scanlon protested. “A fugitive anarchist?”

She clenched her eyes shut, trying to bear the peak of the contraction, squeezing Clay’s hand to the bone and submerging into a painful sea of purple. Far off she heard the men competing as coaches. And then a howl rose toward her, rising faster, gaining strength toward the surface, louder, until she was shaking her head as it surrounded her: a guttural roar from the center of the earth.

After a silent moment she opened her eyes. Her husband and the anarchist were both staring at her, their jaws dropped, their faces white, frightened, and helpless. The contraction had passed. “We should go,” she whispered.

They each took an arm and brought her to her feet, then lowered her to the edge of the coffee table. Scanlon draped her coat over her shoulders, saying, “See you later, Clay.”

“Okay,” Clay said. “One thing. Just gimme a second.” He took Scanlon by the wrist and stood him in front of the overstuffed chair. “Then I’ll leave.” He pointed two fingers and a thumb at Scanlon, reached toward his eyes and drew back, then again, back and forth, like Crocodile Dundee subduing a wild beast. Then he thrust both palms toward his chest, stopping well short of touching him, and Scanlon fell back helplessly into the chair.

“Please,” Naomi said, “give him your keys.”

Scanlon reached in his pocket, and she believed he knew in his heart that this was the right thing, that only stubborn masculinity and an admirable proprietary impulse had made him resist.

“Hey,” Clay said brightly, taking the keys, “could I borrow some clothes? These are kind of dirty for a hospital.”

“Forget it,” Naomi ordered. “C’mon.”

Scanlon sat up on the edge of the chair—“No, he’s right”—and exchanged a knowing nod with Clay. “It’ll just take a second.” They disappeared into the bedroom, leaving Naomi waiting, slumped over on the table, a raincoat draped on her shoulders, completely at their mercy. If the actions of these men endangered her baby, she would cut out their hearts with a bread knife.

When they finally emerged from the bedroom, Clay said, “I look like such an asshole. There’s a limit.”

Scanlon was pushing him down the hall. “We’ve gotta go,” he barked.

Clay appeared in the living room dressed in Scanlon’s clothes—a white turtleneck that covered the tattoos, nearly white khakis, old white tennis shoes, and a red Gap baseball cap that Scanlon’s mother had given him and he’d never worn. White supposedly made someone look fatter—and black, more gaunt—but it had the opposite effect on Clay. He looked like a skinny, moping Haverford boy who’d just been cut from JV tennis. The cap brought out the pink in his ears and cheeks. There were still the piercings, but those seemed inconspicuous given the rest of the makeover. “If anyone sees me,” he said, “I’ll get stomped.”