Heat and Light (33 page)

Zacharias takes half-glasses from his pocket and flips quickly through the contract. Rich has never seen anyone read so fast. Despite his stoop, his drooping eyelids, there is something youthful in his quickness. His darting eyes seem expressly built for scanning contracts, like some advanced machine.

“You're married?” he asks, glancing at the signature page. “Will your wife be joining us?”

“She's not home. I can fill her in later.” Rich hesitates. “She's pretty upset about everything. She thinks it's all my fault.”

“She was opposed to signing the lease?”

“Hell, no. She was all for it. We both were. I've been trying to get the farm up and running. The extra money came in useful.” There is more, much more he wants to say: about his grandfather, his brother, what this land has cost each of them, the great price paid all around. It takes some effort to stick to the facts.

“Shelby was the one who first noticed the water. I didn't believe her at first. Then I had it tested. It's all right there in the report.”

Zacharias flips through the pages. “Who else has seen this?”

“This guy. Quentin Tanner.” Rich takes the business card from his pocket. “One of the guys on the rig gave me that number. They asked me to fax a copy of the report. Which I did.” He pauses for a breath. “Right away this Tanner guy tells me they want to do their own testing.”

“That's standard.”

“I was a little worried, but the numbers came back basically the same, so I figure I'm home free. Pretty cut-and-dried, if you ask me: they contaminated my well, and they need to make it right.”

“Let me guess. They're saying the water was dirty to begin with.”

“How did you know?”

Zacharias shrugs. “It's a negotiation. Dark Elephant has been down this road many times. Their opening offer is always the same: exactly nothing. That's why I tell landowners to have their water
tested
before
they sign a lease. Then, if something goes wrong, you have some baseline numbers to point to.”

How did I not think of that?
Rich understands, too late, the depth of his own disadvantage. Two years ago he'd barely glanced at the contract, which—he sees now—might as well have been written in a foreign language. In the end he simply scanned for numbers. It had never occurred to him to hire a lawyer.

“Nobody told me that.”

“Of course not. It's in their interest to keep the landowner in the dark.” Zacharias scribbles something on a yellow pad. “The truth is, these well contaminations aren't as rare as the industry would have us believe. A well bore is lined with cement casing. If something goes wrong in the cementing phase, gas can migrate into the groundwater. Darco will contest that point. The industry has taken the absurd position that there have been no documented cases of gas migration. But it simply isn't true.”

Rich recalls, again, the morning he found Bobby Frame sitting at his table, in the same chair where the old man sits now. Bobby Frame had played him. He'd give anything to get his hands on Bobby Frame right now.

“The thing is, I don't see how they
could
fix it. Even if they wanted to. I already had a guy out here to drill me a new well. He went down five hundred feet. Still dirty. My wife won't even wash clothes in it.” Rich hesitates. “There's one other thing. I wasn't going to mention it, but my daughter—she's seven—has a lot of stomach problems. She spent the other night in the hospital. My wife thinks it has something to do with the water.”

Zacharias makes a note on his pad.

“She made an appointment with some doctor in Pittsburgh, a specialist. Environmental medicine? I think that's what she called it.”

“It must be Ravi Ghosh. He's the best in the field.” He makes another note on his pad. “You're still using the water?”

“For some things. Laundry, showers. For drinking and cooking we get bottled water from Walmart. It's costing me a fortune.”

“Save your receipts. At minimum, Darco should reimburse you. No guarantee, but we can try.”

“That's good, I guess. But it doesn't solve my problem.” Rich gropes for the right words. “This was my grandfather's land. I'm not farming it right now, but I plan to. That's why I bought it in the first place. That was the whole point of signing a gas lease.” He's never actually said it aloud before. Now that he's said it, the words won't stop coming. He talks about Pap's old tractor, which he's finally got running; the farmer in Somerset County with his eight-year-old Honiger. He babbles like a teenage girl.

“With those royalty checks I can just about afford to quit my job. Buy some animals. But how do I raise them without a supply of clean water?”

“You can't,” Zacharias says.

The truth sits between them like a turd on a plate.

“So this land is basically no good to me.”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Fuck it. I'll sell it, then.” Does he mean it? In fact, selling never occurred to him until he heard the words come out of his own mouth.

“It's not that simple. To sell, you need a clear title. And once you've signed away your mineral rights, the gas company can file a lien against your property. What we've seen in Washington County—I don't want to scare you, Mr. Devlin, but we've seen it—is that the lien is typically grossly inflated. Often it's greater than the market value of the property. In which case—” He pauses significantly.

“What?”

“You wouldn't be able to use the land as collateral—for example, to get a home equity loan. And you certainly couldn't sell it.”

“How is that possible? It's
my land.
”

“Yes and no.” Zacharias riffles through the sheaf of paper. “Your lease is with Darco?”

“Dark Elephant.”

“Same difference. I should tell you that the news on this particular company isn't good. They finance their drilling operation by borrowing billions of dollars, so they're carrying an enormous debt load.”

Nothing, nothing is simple.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“When did they start clearing your land? A couple months ago? You wouldn't know it, but you've had several different subcontractors working on your property. Logging crews, road crews. If I were a betting man, I'd wager that those workers haven't been paid yet. Dark Elephant has a reputation in the industry for paying their contractors late, or not at all.”

“You're saying they're deadbeats?”

“Essentially. Of course, if I'm a contractor, I don't care who's at fault, as long as I get my money. If Dark Elephant won't pay up, I can file a mechanics' lien against your property.”

“That's legal?”

“Absolutely.”

The truth dawns slowly. “So I can't farm it, and I can't sell it.” Blood in his mouth: he has bitten the inside of his cheek.

“Not at the moment, no.”

The lawyer keeps talking, but Rich isn't listening. He doesn't want a lawyer. He doesn't want to go to court. He wants his old farm back.

All he wants is to make it stop.

G
ia sits at the kitchen table, watching Shelby fill the coffeemaker. “Bottled water?”

“For now. You know, until we drill a new well.” Shelby sits, still in her bathrobe. It looks, to Gia, like a sleeping bag with sleeves. “Rich finally believes me. I've been telling him all summer the water was bad, but he's so stubborn.”

Their friendship is a curious thing, surprising to them both. Gia doesn't make friends with women. Shelby doesn't make friends with anyone.

The house is quiet around them—no cartoon music, no Braden noises. “Where are the little monsters?”

“First day of school. Doughnut?” Shelby says, to change the subject. To forget the cold and terrible dread of standing at the foot of the driveway, watching the yellow bus take her children away. When she came back inside, the emptiness of the house was nearly sickening. She was grateful when Gia called.

“Did I tell you Olivia was in the hospital?” Shelby picks out a jelly doughnut and lays it on a plate. “They kept her overnight and everything. But they still can't tell me what's wrong.”

The friendship is a relic of their days at Saxon Manor—Shelby working for Larry Stransky in Medical Records, Gia managing the laundry room. For two years they shared a lunch table, weekly Happy Hour at the Pick and Shovel, a place Shelby would never
have ventured alone. That she met Rich Devlin at the Pick and Shovel, and thus owes her whole life to Gia, is a truth she avoids thinking about.

“I'm taking her to Pittsburgh, to see a specialist. My neighbor is going to drive us. Olivia isn't happy about missing school already, but she knows it's important.”

Predictably, Gia isn't interested—waiting, as usual, for a chance to talk about herself. Her busy social life is like a trashy TV series Shelby devours in secret, one Braden and Olivia wouldn't be allowed to watch.

But Gia seems, this morning, to have nothing to tell. In the bright light she looks as though she slept in her makeup, her eyes ringed with smudged black liner. In high school she'd been a kind of celebrity, the queen bee of Bakerton High. Now she looks older than she ought to. This morning, Gia is showing her age.

“Is Darren sick?” she asks. “He didn't come to work yesterday.”

“He didn't tell you? He went back to Baltimore.” Shelby hugs her bathrobe around her. “He stopped by the house, but I was at church. I didn't get to say good-bye.”

Gia looks stunned.

“That's crazy. When is he coming back?”

“He isn't. He didn't tell you?”

Gia is suddenly, inexplicably busy, sorting through her pocketbook. “I guess he used up all his vacation.” She knows it isn't true. He had two more weeks.

“That's too bad,” says Shelby, chewing at a cuticle. “Rich thought for sure he was going to move back here. You know, to help Dick. I told him it would never happen.”

“Why not?”

“Can you imagine Darren living in Bakerton?”

Gia doesn't answer. She can easily imagine Darren living in Bakerton. Also: he had two more weeks.

“I'm glad you're here. I need a second opinion.” Shelby springs
out of her chair and takes a shopping bag from the broom closet. “My secret hiding place. I don't think Rich has opened this closet even once.” From the bag she takes a child-size plaid jumper and a purple sweater dress. “For Olivia's appointment. Which do you like better?”

“The purple. Definitely.”

Shelby holds the dresses at arm's length. “So cute! I was going to return one, but maybe I'll keep them both. Poor Olivia never gets any new clothes. Rich says she hasn't outgrown her old ones. Which is true, I guess. But it doesn't seem fair.”

She returns the dresses to the bag and stashes it in the closet. Gia drinks her coffee in silence. Their friendship is made possible by the fact that neither envies the other in the slightest, while believing the other envies her. Gia's life, to Shelby, seems lonely and desperate: the long series of throwaway boyfriends, the sad job as a barmaid. To Shelby it's a familiar story, with a grim ending.

Gia thinks Shelby married an asshole.

“How's the counseling going?” she asks.

“I quit.”

“Why? I thought it was helping.” Gia imagines, idly, what it must be like to live with Rich Devlin. Does he leave Shelby lists of instructions?
EMPTY DISHWASHER. TAKE OUT TRASH.

“It was. Pastor Jess—oh, it's a long story.” Shelby selects a second doughnut. The complexity of the situation overwhelms her. She hungers to tell someone—not Gia, but
someone—
about the pastor's stunning duplicity, her fall from grace. Her own outrage and disappointment, her sense of betrayal: normally she would hoard these feelings, save them up to share at her next counseling session. Because Pastor Jess, in the end, is the only person she wants to tell.

“Rich said he'd go with me. He promised! But now he's being a butt. And Pastor Jess is wrapped up in her own life. She didn't even visit Olivia in the hospital. The
hospital,
” she repeats for emphasis. “Anyways, if Rich won't go with me, there's really no point. And
if he
did
go with me—which he would never—who would watch the kids?”

“I'll come hang out with them. I love those little monsters.”

Shelby would never in a million years leave her kids with Gia.

“You know all those gas guys, right?” she says, changing the subject. “From the Commercial. Have you ever met one named Marshall?”

“Nope,” Gia says.

“Are you sure? He was one of the guys who drilled our property. A short guy, but kind of muscular.
Very
muscular. Like a weightlifter.”

“Oh, you mean Herc.” Gia laughs. “Sure, I know that whole crew, Herc and Vince and Brando. Herc and me, we're like this.” She crosses her fingers.

Shelby finds the gesture confusing. “You've dated him?”

“Nah, I'm done with old guys.” Gia remembers, too late, that Shelby's husband falls into that category. “Anyways, Herc's married. With kids! I draw the line at kids.”

At this Shelby makes a remarkable face. Gia has never seen anything like it, a
grand mal
seizure of horror and disbelief.
“No!
Are you sure?”

“Positive. His wife's name is Colleen. I helped him pick out earrings for her birthday.” Gia leans in, smelling gossip. “Why? You like him?”

“Are you crazy?” Shelby wonders for a moment what world Gia lives in. “I have a husband, remember?”

“Oh. Right,” Gia says.

THE SUNY CAMPUS IS ALIVE AGAIN,
roused from its summer coma. A week ago the only sounds were lawn mowers. Now the backpacks have returned. Lost freshmen, rowdy sophomores, cool juniors, jaded seniors. American youth with its palpable hungers, its summer suntans, new haircuts, resolutions, anxieties, plans.

In the quad they note signs of foreign activity, above and beyond the new-semester bustle: a stage set up at one end, flanked by loudspeakers; tour buses parked along the winding campus road. Men and women in legible T-shirts, of parental age and older, set up tables on the lawn: the Empire State Sustainability Coalition, the Green Future Society, Antifrack Nation New York.

The old in their relaxed-fit blue jeans, potbellied and pear-shaped, earnest, thick-bodied, gray. Lorne Trexler moves through this crowd like an impresario. These are his people. Everybody knows Lorne. He is accompanied, today, by a woman no one recognizes, which is not unusual. The activist community is fluid, permeable. It runs on coalitions and alliances, unions of all kinds. Today, for example, Keystone Waterways is partnering with Frackless Future—an offshoot of Fracklash!, which coorganized the event.

His hand at the woman's back, Lorne points out the key players. Watershed Watch, the Greater Catskill Food Co-op, the Zero-Impact Collective, the Hudson Valley Livestock Network. Joined today, in a show of solidarity, by sundry others, seen wherever crowds are gathered—the antivaccinators, the hemp activists, the Falun Gongsters. These are the movement's peculiar relations, its distant cousins. Their connections to gas drilling are strategic, or metaphysical, or perhaps totally imaginary. Gluten-Free Living, the drumming circle from Philmont. The La Leche League, Fur No More, TransAction, the Jews for Jesus.

The connections are not easily explained.

Lorne squeezes Rena's shoulder. “Well? What do you think?”

She thinks the day is passing far too quickly. It seems only minutes ago that she met him in the Days Inn parking lot. The meeting had the feeling of an assignation: the neutral location, separate from either of their lives; the roadside motel in her peripheral vision, with its concrete promise of sin. It was hard to look at him. His face didn't quite match her memory, the recollection she'd fingered and worried all these weeks like a string of rosary beads.

When she arrived he was waiting in a nondescript Ford Taurus.
The Prius is in the shop.
I hit a deer.

They're bad this year. Mack hit one, too.

The intimacy of riding in a car together, the enforced closeness. She could smell the cinnamon gum he chewed, the fabric-softener freshness of his shirt, as they crossed a border to a place she didn't live.

“I love it,” she says.

“I knew you would.” Lorne waves to someone across the quad. “I wanted you to see what can happen when we speak truth to power. Trust me, this would never happen in Pennsylvania.”

“Why not?”

He shrugs, as though the question is unanswerable, or simply of no interest. “You tell me. Personally, it makes me crazy. The fatalism. The lack of, I don't know”—he gropes for the word—“
outrage.
It's like they
expect
to have their land and water polluted.” He seems to have forgotten that Rena is part of this
they.
“Like they're just waiting to be screwed.”

They make their way through the crowd. The drumming circle stakes out a territory near the food trucks. A bearded man hands Rena a pamphlet.
ARE YOU WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH?

On the makeshift stage a man approaches the podium, a movie actor in a plaid shirt.

A burst of applause, cheers and whistles, a rattling of homemade placards.

NOT ONE WELL

STOP FRACKING NOW

GOV. CUOMO: HOLD THE LINE!

The actor is young and scruffily handsome. He might play Lorne Trexler in the movie version of his life. He holds up a jar of what looks like greasy dishwater and says, “This is why I'm here.”

A woman in a knitted beanie hands Rena a pamphlet.
Immunization and the Autism Spectrum: What Big Pharma Doesn't Want You to Know.

“We are in a spiritual war.” The actor is not generally famous. He is indie-famous, which is better. “I got this out of a family's well that was poisoned by frack drilling that's within two hundred yards of their home.”

Signs in all colors, on plastic sheeting, on poster board, on butcher paper.

MOTHERFRACKERS, GO HOME!

I SPEAK FOR THE TREES!

“Who in New York would take a sip of that?” the actor demands. “Who in New York wants to wake up in the morning and bathe in
this
? I mean, if there aren't any problems with frack drilling, how come there's so many problems with frack drilling?”

DON'T FRACK WITH OUR FUTURE

HOME IS NOT AN INDUSTRIAL ZONE

“We're in a battle, and a battle has refugees. Today we're joining with refugees from Pennsylvania, which, let's face it, is ground zero for hydro-fracking. I don't care how prodrilling you are, you still want your water and your air clean.”

Lorne grasps Rena's shoulder and points to a sign in the distance:
PENNA. WAS THE EXPERIMENT. THE PATIENT DIED.

“I'm here today for my kids and your kids and the kids in New York City. Don't get me wrong. I want the farmers to survive. I think it's a shame they can't make a damn fine wage in this community.”

Rena appreciates the sentiment, though she has never heard of this actor. An Asian girl with a crew cut hands her a pamphlet.
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRANSGENDER.

“New York isn't ready for this.
Pennsylvania
wasn't ready for this.
Every single community
where they've done the drilling is seeing water contamination. In
every single community
they're poisoning the rivers, the lakes, the air.”

The crowd goes wild.

“Is that true?” Rena asks, but Lorne doesn't hear her. Her question is lost in the noise.

“For every person here, there's a thousand more who feel the way we do. Do you think we
like
schlepping all the way up here?” The actor pauses, as though he expects an answer. “I'm not getting paid to do this. My land isn't leased. So why am I sticking my nose in?”

Rena blinks. It was Mack's point exactly, the same question she'd asked about Lorne.

The actor spreads his hands. “I have no angle here. I'm here because I care.”

To Rena it is a moment of pure marvel. How the very same question can have two conflicting answers, both incontrovertibly true.

The actor is winding up for his big finale, a hearty call-and-response. “Now we're going to take the energy—”

The crowd repeats:
We're going to take the energy

“That we've created here today—”

That we've created here today

“We're going to carry it to Albany—”

We're going to carry it to Albany

“We're going to carry it to Cuomo—”

We're going to carry it to Cuomo

“We're going to carry it to President Obama—”

We're going to carry it to President Obama