Resurgence (41 page)

Hoop can’t be bothered to bog himself down in racial palaver or the organized breaking of rules, so he takes his Saturday-night thirst a half mile down the road to a Chinese restaurant with a neon cocktail glass sign on the roof. The only problem there is the Chink bartender doesn’t understand that a shot and a beer should be served together; he wants to serve one after the other.

“No two at time!” the bartender says, shaking a cautioning finger.

To the guy a couple stools away who asks for a dry martini—whatever that is—the bartender scolds, “No dry, drink wet!” He demonstrates by pouring enough gin on the bar to form a puddle. “Wet! You see?”

The bar is crowded with non-Orientals and they’re all listening when a woman seated on the other side of the man with the wet martini gets set straight for ordering scotch on the rocks.

“No rocks! Ice only” the Chink says, but the word “only” comes out sounding like “own-ree” and all the barflies except Hoop bust out laughing. The grouchy bartender notices this and it’s like a secret handshake was exchanged.

Hoop still can’t convince the guy to bring the shot of rye at the same time he pops the top off a Bud longneck, but it’s not like the world’s ended to have to settle for one drink at a time.

Another woman—a young one—has the misfortune to ask for a drink she calls a “white Russian.”

“No white Russian! Russian red!” the bartender says real loud. This sets off more laughing and gets Hoop to thinking about the different ways he could have the last laugh on these mockers. However, nothing comes to mind that wouldn’t get him locked up for armed assault, so he tamps down the urge that’s more about himself than the bartender.

By eleven-thirty, the place is empty except for a few folks slurping up late-night chop suey at a corner table, and a lone drinker at the opposite end of the bar. The bartender, a sinewy-thin tobacco-colored guy with a bad haircut and almost no beard, could be younger than first thought. Now that the Chink’s relaxed a little, he looks less like he spent his early years pulling one of those rickshaw things and living off slimy bean sprouts flavored with dog meat.

But who is Hoop to look down? How many of his people aged early from pulling a travois when no horses were left, and from living off roots and bark when all the game and dogs were gone? And isn’t this sour, half-used-up guy his brother if you believe the scientific claim about America’s natives having come from the Orient by way of the land bridge that’s not there anymore? Something to ponder when he doesn’t have anything else on his mind.

Hoop orders another beer and, after a respectable length of time, another shot of rye whiskey. He flickers a glance at the backbar and the television that’s showing local news, and homes in on the calendar tacked up beneath a Spuds MacKenzie Bud Light clock.

August 1, 1987, it reads in big print like it’s taunting him for biding his time. But did he really expect to earn his luck back in less than the ten weeks that have passed since he gave up the El Camino and cut back his spending to only what came in pay envelopes, and only a small part of that?

He can’t let the date bother him or he’ll feel as defeated as he did on the last day of April when the United States Passport Agency almost made him give up. He can’t let the TV hold his attention either, not when it’s tuned to local news where he might see that the Essex County authorities have changed their minds about what killed an old lady a few weeks ago.

Over another beer and delayed shot of whiskey, his mind wants to touch on all the things he had to tell himself in order to keep going after the passport setback. They cyclone around in his head like too many people talking at the same time. Then, when that slackens down to one voice and one nagging reminder, it’s like his head’s filled with a tune he can’t get rid of.

He only partway hears an outside voice announce closing time, time to leave. When he does leave, the gaunt bartender leaves with him, walks with him a few hundred feet to the NJ Transit bus stop, where he says he’ll be catching his ride.

“I go other job now,” the bartender explains when Hoop lingers. “Go Newark. After hours joint. Two night jobs buy papers bring ode father Taiwan USA. No nursing home,
I
take care,
I
good son,” he brags like he’s the only person in the world respectful of elders.

The brag doesn’t drive Hoop away, though. For some reason he hangs around till the bus shows up. After the bus wheezes off with the Chink bartender on board, the bartender’s words linger like they’re part of the bus exhaust—like they’re something Hoop ought to write down in his notebook and maybe even underline, along with the fact that the bus had a bike rack on the front.

Hoop weaves the rest of the way back to his lodgings, the repeating voice in his head bleeped out by this new stuff to think about.

FORTY-FOUR

Early morning, August 14, 1987

The empty space in the bed next to her is still warm. Colin can’t have been gone long. But why? And where?

Laurel opens one eye, squints at the clock. Too early for Simon to be screeching for someone to fix him; even too early for Anthony to be plotting mischief. She sits up a little, groggy from deep contented sleep, sees that she must have forgotten to pull the drapes across the southeast-facing oriel window last night. She sits up a little more, fixes on a patch of sky large enough to indicate her wedding day is dawning without blemish.

But this is England; that could change in an hour, she’s reminded by sounds that register as intermittent gusts of wind. She sinks back into the pillows, pulls the covers over her head to block out these ominous sounds. Then, when the puffing noises infiltrate the bedcovers and begin to sound less like a storm brewing than the exhalations of a dragon, she springs out of bed, hurries to the oriel window to see what’s going on.

She’s not the only one wondering. Colin is visible on the terrace, along with Sam Earle and several of the groundskeepers. Anthony and Simon, in pajamas and wellies, are dancing excitement at the edge of the group, and they’re all staring upward at an unbelievable array of hot-air balloons. There must be one hovering above every open stretch of land on the estate.

“Oh . . . my . . . god,” Laurel gasps as she dashes to the dressing room for whatever clothing her hands grab first.

Barefooted, in yesterday’s shorts and still fumbling closed the buttons of a clean shirt, she runs the distance of the central corridor and down two flights of stairs against house rules and better judgment. When she reaches the terrace, those assembled there are as breathless as she is.

“Will you just look? Did you
ever
?” Laurel exclaims, drawing spontaneous applause when it’s assumed she’s responsible for the stunning visual display—a display that will also keep airborne paparazzi at a distance, if she’s any judge of things.

“Brilliant, you are!” Colin grabs her in a quick bear hug, lets go just as quickly to gawk again at the colorful spectacle. “But how did you pull it off without any of us involved?” he says.

“Me? I didn’t arrange for this . . . Good lord, didn’t
you
?”

Colin professes innocence. So do the groundskeepers, who are the logical conspirators.

“Can we go up in one, Dad? Please?
Dad
! Can we? Can we? Can we?” Anthony shrieks. Simon takes up the cry without knowing precisely what he’s yowling for, and Sam Earle, suddenly appearing the most culpable, separates himself from the group.

“Someone would need full knowledge of the open meadows and utility tracks to bring this off,” Colin shouts at the retreating estate manager. “And he’d have to be possessed of the authority to admit strangers bearing balloons to the property, wouldn’t he then?” Colin shouts even louder.

Sam halts, turns to face Colin. “Indeed he would,” Sam says.

“He’d also need funding. He’d need the resources of a Nate Isaacs to pay for it all,” Colin says.

“Not to mention the bollocks,” Sam says with a wink and continues on his way.

The rest of the group, now increased by members of the household staff, remain mesmerized by the sight until Anthony’s wheedling prompts Laurel to suggest that they go see if a ride might be possible.

“You go ahead,” Colin says, looking like the thundercloud she feared earlier. “I want no part of it.”

“Very well.” Laurel scoops up Simon and beckons Anthony to come along. “We’ll discuss this later,” she says to Colin and hurries with the boys in the direction of the nearest balloon.

They soon see that this balloon is tethered to the trailer hitch of a heavy-duty off-road vehicle that must have rumbled in with Sam Earle’s complicity sometime during the wee hours. As they near the rig, a man on an ATV closes in from the opposite direction. When they meet, the rider swings off the three-wheeler and steps forward to introduce himself as crew chief of the operation. He explains that the twenty-seven balloons are in service to deter overflights by unauthorized aircraft—just as Laurel surmised. But he sees no reason she and the boys can’t be wafted a ways up and down, as long as the weather remains dead calm and no others are clamoring for rides.

Laurel is required to sign a release that gives pause, reminds that she hasn’t yet signed the documents that will legalize her claim on Anthony and Simon. The signing of those documents is scheduled for later, immediately following the signing of the marriage certificate, and has no bearing on the liability she just assumed. She’s presently responsible for the safety of these children, regardless of their relationship to her. Something to seriously contemplate as the crew chief radios the balloon pilot and calls for additional ground crew.

She and the boys are directed to wait at a distance as the balloon is vented and coaxed back to earth. Then they’re cautioned to wait until all three members of the ground crew are in place before they approach the wicker gondola. The longer they wait, the more inclined Laurel is to call the whole thing off and suffer the double-barreled consequences of the children’s disappointment.

Are these pre-wedding jitters she feels? Pre-adoption jitters? Has Nate’s extravagant gesture laid bare the Nate-generated concerns that are never very far from the surface?

Given the all-clear, Anthony goes first, boosted into the gondola by the crew chief; Simon gets handed up next, fearless and trusting as his big brother. She accepts a leg up from the crew chief, hauls herself into the gondola wishing she’d brought her shoes and left her misgivings behind.

They’re positioned for even weight distribution before liftoff; this puts Anthony out of her reach but well within range of the pilot. She locks Simon in a tight grip when—with a single chuff of the burner—they rise high enough to recall her arrival here by helicopter and the breathtaking views available from the roof.

Although they’ve seen it all before, both boys whoop with excitement every time a familiar object is recognized from this novel perspective. The pilot interjects commentary on ballooning; explains everything he does and why; touches on the interdependent subject of meteorology, thereby providing excellent material for Anthony’s next science project, if the boy happens to be paying attention.

Laurel’s attention drifts as the pilot’s lecture drags on with overly technical descriptions of the role played by the local topography in discouraging violent updrafts and downdrafts, buffering prevailing winds that might otherwise have prevented all manner of flight, and even curtailed development of the centuries-old vegetation dotting the meadows below. As if she hadn’t already figured that out. She’s only half listening as he avers that it would take a truly massive act of God to disturb any of those deep-rooted, long-established oases—another non-profundity. She’s hardly listening at all as the pilot explains that the cord he’s presently manipulating is attached to the parachute valve at the top of the envelope, and will release enough heated air to enable their gradual descent.

“Dad’s
really
gonna be sorry he missed this,” Anthony says when their feet are back on the ground. “Why didn’t he come with us? He’s not afraid of high places.”

“Indeed he’s not,” Laurel says. “Didn’t you see him watching from the roof?”

Laurel is in no hurry to confront Colin’s displeasure at Nate’s presumed wedding gift. She’d rather confront the specimen copper beech tree that’s come to symbolize everything she once thought too good to be true.

Although the boys must be getting hungry, they go along without complaint when she steers them toward the long open stretch surrounding the tree. At the halfway point to destination, where paved pathway becomes gravel track, she has to walk in the dewy grass to spare her shoeless feet.

They pass two more captive hot-air balloons before they reach the tree, itself fully inflated with peak summer foliage and splendid in its isolation.

Today, within its sanctuary she’s more inclined to bow her head than focus upward at the silvery-limbed, dark-leaved canopy. Today she’s inclined to feel prayerful, superstitious even, and want to knock on wood to avoid tempting fate—knock on centuries-old
living
wood.