The Oregon Experiment (22 page)

He walked past the bike shops and the longboard shop and Filbert’s, which according to Hank had the best salmon burger in town. He crossed the street in front of the bus station, and across the parking lot he noticed a group of Native Americans frying dough in kettles over a propane stove—a heavenly smell. Behind them, a Quonset hut nearly hidden in the alley was identified by a small sign as the university’s Native American longhouse; he supposed this was a fund-raiser.

In his book on Wounded Knee, Sam argued there was tremendous justification for secession in indigenous rights—the moral imperative of a conquered people. This would be a cynical argument—there were no more than a half-dozen Indians in the PNSM—but one that could buttress a larger case involving past and present economic injustices. The longhouse itself would be on sacred ground. It might be a start.

“A real lumberjack,” Scanlon heard, and he looked across the sidewalk where a little boy was pointing at him, pulling on his mother’s sleeve. Scanlon tugged on his beard and squared his shoulders, stomping his heels
a little harder, flapping the ax blade like a fighter pilot wagging his wings. He didn’t even balk as he passed by his car. He crossed the tracks, wound through the boot dancers and the bandstand, the bamboo flutes and chimes, until he was standing in a short line at the Skcubrats booth.

Under the tent she was laughing with one of her helpers—something about a mojito and blueberry pie. Sequoia, the Queen of Mellow. At the griddle, dipping her capacious ladle into an immense bowl, hugging the bowl to her swayed hip, she laughed again, throwing back her head. While the pancakes sizzled, she flicked each one with a pinch of cinnamon, then flipped them onto a plate with a sprig of mint. She was an earth goddess preparing for a ritual involving warm pools surrounded by ferns, fragrant oils, and sacred pleasure.

Naomi had mentioned experimenting with smells in their lovemaking. The Oregon experiment—all the new smells that had rushed back into her life. But that afternoon had been the last time they’d made love—lemonade on their tongues, mint in their lips, her wonderful belly, full of their baby, rolling into his own. And he realized now, with the slap of betrayal, that she’d held mint in her lips to mask the smell of
him
.

After a moment he caught Sequoia’s eye, and as she smiled and waved the ladle at him, a drop of batter splatting her bare shoulder, the customers between them craned back to see who deserved such a friendly greeting. She was sexy and voluptuous and beautiful, obviously. But what excited him most was her vigor, her strength. She was healthy, burstingly undepleted, overflowing with more than she could ever give away. Which was why it felt so good to give something back to her. From that first night, when he perceived her disappointment in his blow-off of the PNSM, he’d wanted to please her.

“Mr. Douglas,” she said when he reached the counter.

He dropped the ax head to the pavement between his boots and rested his hands on the knob of the handle. “I didn’t win,” he said.

“Because you were in the wrong competition.”

“And what should I—”

“The Village People meet the Chippendales. Sing some disco, then strip.”

“I look like a
stripper
?”

“No,” she admitted. “You look like a cute professor dressed up for Halloween.”

He felt himself blush, and was glad she missed it as she stepped back to the griddle to work her cakes.

“You come up with any winning strategies in the night? For secession?”

“My main thought,” he said, unhappily shifting away from flirting, “is that the group’s too focused on the minutiae of policy. How you’ll run the schools and clean the streets can be worked out
after
you’ve got a groundswell of public support. At this point, it’s salesmanship. People need to know that for every dollar the Pacific Northwest sends the Feds, only eighty-seven cents comes back. They need to know what the region’s contribution to the war could’ve bought at home. They need to know the Pacific Northwest’s economy is larger than most countries’, and that energy independence is actually feasible here. The immediate strategy needs to be winning people over to the
idea
of secession. That’s why the name’s important.”

“How do you like the Northwest Alliance for a Better Way?” she asked.

“Terrible.”

“I know.”

“The point is,” he said, “the name’s gotta have some jing.”

She pushed her hips against the counter and handed him a plate of pancakes. “These are special,” she said.

“You added extra love?” he asked.

She leaned over the counter, putting her lips to his ear. “Something like that.” Wafts of sandalwood, coffee, cooking oil, and the syrupy citrus aromas of her body rose up from her hair, her mouth, her cleavage. Her lips brushed his ear as she whispered, “A couple drops of jing.” She drew away with a playful grin.

“The Oregon Experiment,” he blurted.

Suddenly she was beaming.

“That’s it,” he said. “Our new name.”

He dropped his ax in the trunk, and driving home past car dealers on the strip, he could still feel the brush of her cheek on his own and her body pressing into his right through the heavy Carhartts. She’d loved the name. She’d been wild about it. She’d come running around the counter and hugged him, a hug wriggling and prodding toward full-body massage.

His sexuality had been deadened, and now it was electric. His heart still thudded, her gaze still mesmerized him. But shit. He swerved into the Famous Footwear parking lot and turned off the motor. He couldn’t do this. He loved his wife. And Sammy. He
worshipped
Naomi, for God’s sake. And her emotional and physical depletion was understandable. He had to understand what she was going through and be patient. With her nose back—her olfactory world gone haywire yet again—she was overwhelmed. Did she even know what smells she liked and disliked? Right now Naomi was unavailable, and obviously Sequoia was wide open. But he wouldn’t cheat on Naomi. He couldn’t. He would not repeat the selfishness of his parents; he would live life right. And he had to focus on why he was involved with the secessionists in the first place: to get their family back east. Their
family
. A few quick articles, then a book charting the successes and failures of a tenable micro-secession, his “soft ideals” redeemed, the
Domestic Policy
blip forgotten, Sam Belknap made proud, at which point he’d move Naomi and Sammy to Cambridge or New York, where they’d inhabit the ultimate ideal: the transcendent marriage, the loving family, the enviable career. He wanted Sequoia, no doubt. His body screamed for her. A cabin in the forest by a stream for a week. But giving in to temptation would be corrosive, the ideal forever stained.

He started the engine and steadfastly drove the eight or ten blocks to their house. “I’m home,” he called in the kitchen, but no response came. And through the living-room window, he saw them in the backyard: Naomi and Clay on a blanket in the shade, folding a heap of laundry, Sammy conked out beside them in his bouncy seat. No sign of Joey. Naomi laughed, then covered her mouth and looked at Sammy to make sure she hadn’t woken him. Scanlon stood inside the screen door, listening.

“You had a
great
labor,” Clay said. “I love labor.”

Naomi laughed again. “Easy for a man to say.”

“Labor’s the first and last great confrontation. You’re telling him, ‘Get out!’ and Sammy’s saying, ‘Make me!’ From the moment of conception the baby’s power increases every day. In labor, the mother and baby are equals—a fair match. But then birth squeezes us into submission. For the rest of life, whenever you feel the power coming back, a cop smacks you down.”

Naomi folded what looked to be a pair of Clay’s underpants.

“Daria’s labor was epic,” Clay said. “Ruby Christine was an anarchist before she was born. Kicking and fighting all thirty-seven hours. Daria’s
teeth were chattering most of the second day. She got these spasms in her uterus that rippled right up to her jaw.”

“Oh, man,” Naomi said. “Toward the end I had spasms in my vagina—”

What the hell?
He punched the screen door open, and they fell silent, watching him descend the concrete steps and stride toward them in his logging boots.

“Hey,” Naomi said.

“Lumberman,” Clay said. “How many board feet would you guesstimate are in that blueberry bush?”

Naomi suppressed a smile, looking away and folding a black T-shirt painted with a Circle-A; she was stacking his clothes on the Adirondack chair.

Clay reclined on an elbow, extending his legs and stocking feet toward Scanlon. His boots stood unlaced at the trunk of the tree. “Your hands look wasted,” he said, and Scanlon shoved them in his pockets.

“Clay cut down that branch,” Naomi said. “The one that was banging on our bedroom window.”

Scanlon peered at the shoulder-high stump on the tree. “I was gonna do that this afternoon.”

“He says both trees need some pruning.”

“And the laurels,” Clay added.

“He says he could do it.”

“For a price,” Clay said.

“If you’re looking for odd jobs,” Scanlon told him, “you can fix the garage window.”

“Never been much of a window glazier. I focus more on the breaking.”

“I’m willing to hire you,” Scanlon said.

“I ain’t cheap.”

“I’ll pay what you’re worth.” He turned to Naomi. “Take the baby inside. Clay can fold his own laundry.” His tone was resolute: she picked up Sammy and stood without a word. Scanlon didn’t doubt his wife’s fidelity, but he wouldn’t sit back while she talked about her vagina with a punk who was bent on unmanning him.

If Scanlon had to compromise scholarly distance to pick Clay’s brain, it wouldn’t be by giving him access to his wife. He’d get to Clay himself. Like Blaine Maxwell and her Deutscher boxer, he’d have his research subject on the payroll.

·   ·   ·

When Scanlon finished taking measurements for the broken pane, Clay was stuffing the last of his clean laundry back in the bag. “You can come with me to the hardware store,” Scanlon said. “We’ll get what you need to replace this glass next time.”

“Like I said—”

“If you want work, you’ll do it.”

“Like I said,” Clay repeated, and stopped there, still fucking with him.

Backing out of the driveway, he looked over his shoulder and Clay glanced back too, their faces nearly touching, and Scanlon flashed to Naomi’s labor—the two of them coaching her, all three faces huddled close. Was it possible the kid imagined she would even be tempted?

“What do I owe you for the pruning today?” A security beam dinged as they entered the hardware store.

“I need some stuff,” Clay said. “Okay if you just cover it?”

“Depends on what it adds up to.”

Clay veered off at the first aisle, and while the woman behind the counter cut the glass, Scanlon found the glazier’s points and putty. He also needed primer, and to get the paint matched. He’d pay Clay for the yard work, but he could do the window on his own time.

As the woman wrapped the pane in brown paper, Clay stood an eight-foot length of PVC pipe against a rack of safety goggles, rolled end caps on the counter like oversized dice, set down two big batteries, pulled wire cutters from his back pocket, and as he squeezed the red handles, apparently inspecting their precision, the anarchy tattoo on his forearm rippled with stringy tendons.

“What’s all that for?” Scanlon asked.

“Pipe bombs.”

“Nothing to joke about,” Scanlon said, he and Clay and the woman price-scanning the batteries all looking at one another nervously, like birds. He handed over his credit card. “Seriously,” he said, and it wasn’t until Clay said, “My fish tanks. Filtration. Temperature control,” that Scanlon realized he might not have been joking at all.

B
y Halloween night, Joey had been gone for three days and the rain began in earnest. Drenched bunnies and Pooh Bears stood at the front door as Scanlon dropped bite-sized chocolate bars into their waterproof bags. Tiny princesses and ballerinas wore tiaras over rain hoods, their shiny jackets floating up on cushions of tulle, and shivering superheroes sprinted from house to house. The firemen fared best: plastic helmets and face masks shed the rain from their heads and down their ankle-length red plastic coats to their rubber boots. All evening long the rain kept pounding on the roof and the kids kept pounding on the door, the youngest ones with parents standing back under umbrellas, the older ones driven by the greedy frenzy Scanlon recalled from his own boyhood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lived in a place where kids still trick-or-treated.

By nine o’clock the doorbell stopped ringing and he reluctantly closed up shop, wishing Sammy were old enough to join in, wishing Naomi had felt up to it.

He opened the bedroom door and saw she was done nursing. The light was turned off, Sammy was sleeping in his bassinet, and she’d withdrawn
behind her eye mask and earplugs, now curled on her side on the far edge of the bed facing the baby, her new white-noise machine shushing away.

In the last two weeks she’d started acupuncture with Sequoia’s friend Angel, who’d sent her to an herbalist, who then sent her to a reiki lady who in turn sent her to a therapist who’d begun unlocking her fascia. Naomi’s practitioners all agreed that antibiotics could cripple her nose. For yeast infections, she painted a purple root called gentian violet on her nipples; for blocked ducts, she’d started in with cabbage. She’d drawn into herself and her health care regimen so completely that Scanlon feared it would lead to a major crash. Nightly, she told him she wasn’t in the right space for intimacy. His sexual hunger had reached the point that watching her every evening at the stove blanching cabbage leaves and cupping them over her breasts left him with a hard-on.

He closed the bedroom door and decided to go out for coffee. To Skcubrats. But as he swung the car into a spot out front, he noticed that Sequoia’s bike with the gas can bolted to the rear wasn’t chained to the rack, so he sat in the idling Civic for several minutes as the wipers made intermittent passes, staring through the café’s big front windows. He didn’t see her inside.