Early Warning

1974

HENRY CALLED the number at the restaurant where Janet worked and said it was an emergency. The voice on the other end of the line said, “Oh, God! You’re kidding, what?” and Henry said, “Janet, the emergency is that I’ll be staying at the Mark Hopkins Hotel from June 3 to June 8, and I want you to come have lunch with me one of those days.” And the voice said, “Oh, for God’s sake, Uncle Henry!” But she said yes, and then he slipped in, “Bring the boyfriend,” and she giggled but didn’t say no. Philip had never been to California, and as a summer adventure, he wanted to drive down the coast in a rented car. Philip and Henry would spend a week in San Francisco and Napa before Henry flew back for summer school and Philip embarked upon his journey, which was to end at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

Their room overlooked the drop of Mason Street toward the flatter, more relaxing areas. Earthquakes? They might imagine the hotel swaying back and forth like a sapling in a storm, but it wasn’t going to do that — even the fourteenth floor was original. Philip thought it was exciting, just the way he thought a tornado in Chicago might be exciting.

At noon, Henry positioned himself in sight of the hotel entry, in an overstuffed chair with a tall back. He had sent Philip away with instructions to meet them across the street at the Fairmont at one. The surprise when Janet came in was not that she was nicely dressed in a respectable outfit — a V-necked green jersey dress with a white jacket and darker-green heels — or that her boyfriend (he had his hand on her ass) was wearing a button-down shirt and a tweed jacket, but that the boyfriend was a black guy with a moderate-sized Afro. They came in together, stopped short, and looked around. Janet’s hair was thick and blond, and her cheekbones had emerged, giving her face more character — she looked more like Joni Mitchell than Linda Ronstadt, but she still looked less like a show-business personality than a lifelong bookworm. He stood up and said, “Janny!” She turned, and the boyfriend smiled. He was really quite good-looking, thought Henry. Janet hurried over, put her arms around Henry. The boyfriend’s name was Lucas Jordan; close up, he looked younger than Janet. His eyes moved around the hotel lobby, unimpressed but observant, as if it were a matter of survival to take in every little thing. In spite of himself, Henry’s spirits rose — he was no longer just checking up on the wayward niece. He held out his hand. “Any trouble getting here?”

“Just a nosebleed,” said Janet. Lucas laughed, and so Henry realized that Janet had acquired some wit, too.

They were seated at their table at the Fairmont when Philip appeared in the doorway. He had bought himself the widest and most outrageous pair of glen-plaid bell-bottoms that Henry had ever seen, as well as a pair of platform oxfords that added two inches or more to his height. Philip greeted Janet and Lucas in his plummiest accent, sat down, and said to Henry, “What do you think? Very Louis Quatorze?”

Henry said, “I think, if the front edge of your trousers gets caught under the toe of your boot, you’re going to fall flat on your face.”

Philip ordered the lamb shank, Janet crab cakes. Henry ordered grilled salmon, and tried not to appear too curious about what Lucas would order. He hemmed and he hawed, said, “I can’t decide what looks good.” Janet said, “I almost got the cioppino.” Lucas nodded, and ordered the cioppino. Meaningless. Henry consciously recalled and put away all the feelers he knew he was sending out toward this young young man, this kid that his niece was evidently mad about. He said, “The city looks wonderful from up here. I hated going to Berkeley. Now I don’t understand why.”

Their food was set before them. The sunlight from the window nearby sparkled across it, making each dish look uniquely irresistible. They ate in silence for a while until Philip said, “Do you two have any words of wisdom concerning my peregrination?”

“Where are you going?” said Janet.

“Down the Big Sur coastline,” said Philip.

Henry said, “I got to Carmel one time, but never farther south.” He did not add that he had not wanted to. What a strange boy he had been. He squeezed Philip’s knee under the table.

“Well, you won’t be able to look at anything if you go alone, because you cannot take your eyes off the road,” said Janet.

“Best way is to hitch,” said Lucas. “It’s more likely that the person driving you knows what he’s doing.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Philip. “Am I dressed appropriately?”

“Not if you didn’t raise your own sheep, card and spin your own wool, weave your own fabric, and sew your own outfit,” said Janet.

“You do that in Iowa, right?” said Lucas.

Janet and Lucas looked at Henry. Really, Henry thought, this kid had unusual charisma. He said, “Haven’t sewn an outfit since elementary school. I believe the fabric I chose was mattress ticking. It was very avant-garde.” Everyone laughed. “But, speaking of Iowa, you know who has shown up as the savior of Chuck Colson?” Henry sincerely hoped that these young people knew that Chuck Colson was Nixon’s satanic lawyer, the author of the enemies list that had included, for goodness’ sake, Carol Channing!

“Who?” said Lucas.

Gratified, Henry said, “Harold Hughes.”

Philip, who viewed it as his personal obligation to ignore Watergate, kept on with his lamb.

“That millionaire recluse?” said Janet. “I thought he lived in Florida or Vegas or somewhere.”

“No,” said Henry, “Harold Hughes. He was governor of Iowa and now he’s a senator. I guess he converted Colson to Christianity, and now he’s vouching for him.”

Janet said, “I saw about John Dean. He said he talked to Nixon about the cover-up thirty times or something like that.”

Henry said, “When was that? I didn’t see that.”

“A couple of days ago.” Janet ate another bite of her crab cake, then poked her fork into the last piece, dipped it in the sauce, and lifted it toward Lucas. He opened his mouth, ate the forkful, and smiled. The comfort of this interaction gave Janet a different look from anything Henry had seen before — grace rather than carefulness.

Henry said, “I guess Mom was talking to Lillian about all of this, and she said that Arthur doesn’t believe Nixon did it. He thinks the whole Watergate thing is a frame-up.”

“No shit,” said Lucas. “Tricky Dick is sure letting it happen.”

Henry finished his salmon and said, “According to Arthur, there were two break-ins, and they got away with the first one. The second one, they blocked the lock with a piece of tape. The tape went around the edge of the door rather than up and down it, which would be the normal way. Since it went around, and was white, the security guard was sure to see it. Was meant to see it.”

“Why would they do that?” said Janet.

“Trip to China,” said Henry.

Janet was staring at him. She said, “Did Uncle Arthur say that?”

“That’s my guess. If I saw Arthur, I would ask questions, and if he didn’t shake his head no, I would take that as a yes.”

“Who is Arthur?” said Lucas.

Janet was staring at her empty plate. Henry said, “My sister’s husband. He’s in the know. Whatever the know is, he’s in it.” Lucas and Philip laughed. Janet didn’t. Henry said, “Since Nixon’s a Republican, they’re allowing him not to be shot.”

Silence fell around the table.

Henry said, “I’m joking. Sorry.”

After another pause, Janet asked Philip what his plans were.

“Cross the Golden Gate Bridge and sightsee. Hunt for Patty Hearst,” said Philip. “I have to get used to driving on the right side of the road at some point.”

“Oh God!” exclaimed Janet. looking truly alarmed. “When was the last time you drove a car?”

“The last time I was in England. They say—”

Janet and Lucas exchanged a glance. Ten minutes later, the two of them had agreed to drive Philip to L.A. and back, then to put him safely on the plane to Chicago. Part of Henry welcomed this — the part that had any sense and had not really focused on the potential dangers of sending Philip down Highway 1. But part of Henry did not welcome this at all — the part that felt old and fifth-wheelish as the young people agreed on where to meet, where to go, where to stay, and how much it would probably cost. Janet could move her shifts around, Lucas would be finished with the house he was painting late today, but they had to leave tomorrow to be back by Friday night for his regular gig. Here Henry was, left out once again. Someday, perhaps, he would figure out why he had set himself outside of every social group he had ever known.

—

JOHN WAS ABOUT USELESS now, so Joe was glad to have Jesse around, no two ways about that — they had done all the plowing, spraying, and planting. Maybe because of Rosanna, Jesse had also persuaded Joe to let Pioneer plant the fallow field in seed corn — Jesse promised to run the detasseling and oversee the whole field through harvest. He also had gotten comfortable with the sheep; he held them when Joe clipped them in March, and even though there wasn’t the least little market for the wool, he said he wanted a couple more, so now they had six ewes. A ram at Iowa State could cover the ewes, and Joe was ready to do that. But the last thing Joe wanted was for Jesse to ease into being a farmer only because it was the next step. In fact, the last thing he wanted Jesse to do was to continue being a good boy, and why he didn’t want that was hard to explain to Lois and Minnie without also explaining that maybe he himself might once have thought about what there was in the world to do besides planting, plowing, and harvesting.

The strange thing was that everything was taken care of — Annie had decided on nursing school, and Lois was thrilled. Lois had decided she was going to open a small antiques store in Denby, two doors down from Crest’s. She spent her spare time looking for “pieces.” She had found plenty of chairs, a hand-turned rope bed, and three secretaries with ornamented drawers and lids. Rosanna was much occupied with her Volkswagen. She spent her days driving in widening circles around Denby, exploring. Joe would not have said that any circle you could make around Denby in a single day had much to offer in the way of exotic landscape, but Rosanna came back full of excitement — Vinton, Waterloo, Clarion, Fort Dodge, Ogden, Ankeny, Montezuma, Vinton, back to Denby. Over five hundred miles in something like twelve hours. Next stop, Chicago, where she would stay with Henry, or so she said, but she was still “practicing.” Minnie had up and taken off for a trip to Europe. It turned out she had been saving her money for ten years, and now she was ready — France, Italy, Sicily. Sicily was where Frank had gone during the war, and she’d always wanted to see it. She’d left June 5 and wouldn’t be back until August 16. Joe felt like his house had exploded and dispersed all the inhabitants over the landscape. He was the heavy chunk of metal that ended up in the basement, more fixed in place than ever.

When Jesse came in for lunch, they heated up the stew from the night before, and they were just setting the table when the phone rang. Joe held it against his shoulder while he served up the food. Jesse was rummaging through the silverware drawer. The voice on the other end of the line was Frank’s. Joe nearly dropped the phone, maybe because Frank said, “I’m heading your way. I’ve got a new plane — a Learjet. I’m going to fly into Des Moines and drive up.” Joe almost said, “Why?”

Jesse said, “Who’s that?”

Frank said, “I can spend a couple of days with you, right?”

“Sure,” said Joe. He could not think of a single thing they would talk about.

Jesse said, “Is that Grandma? Did she have an accident?”

Joe shook his head.

Jesse said, “She’s a very weird driver.”

Frank said, “Let’s see, I think I can get out of here by eight. Flight time is supposed to be three hours. Don’t know if that’s true. I guess we’ll find out.”

Joe said, “Are you bringing anyone?”

“The pilot, but he’ll stay in Des Moines,” said Frank.

Jesse said, “But at least she uses her seat belt all the time.”

“What about Andy?” said Joe, but Frank had already hung up.

“Who was that?” said Jesse.

“Your uncle Frank is flying out in his new Learjet.”

They attacked their food as if this were at least reasonably routine news, on a par with the tornado that touched down out by County Road 27 a month before — not the one that killed two people the same day and cut a swath of destruction from Ankeny to Carlisle, right through East Des Moines, convincing Paul Darnell to expand his bomb shelter from one room the size of a closet to three rooms.

That afternoon, Joe called Rosanna. She said she would be happy to eat supper the next night with Frank, but the morning after that, she was leaving for Minneapolis, planning to spend the night at a Holiday Inn in Bloomington.

“By yourself?”

“You want to come along?”

“Why are you going?”

“I figure Interstate Thirty-five is a better road to practice going seventy on than Interstate Eighty.”

In other words, after that first supper, he was on his own with his brother. Joe wondered if that had ever happened on a voluntary basis — yes, they had slept together as boys, but Frank had hated it. If Joe had a bad dream, Frank shook him awake and told him to roll over and shut up. If Joe had to go to the outhouse, Frank sometimes wouldn’t let him back in until he had said various “magic words,” which could be anything. Frank had tossed water on him, slapped him, poked him with sticks, tickled him, hidden his nightshirts. They laughed about these antics once they were grown up, but there was that residual reluctance to be alone with Frank, wasn’t there?

He tried to talk his mother into going to Minneapolis over the weekend. (“Roads too busy,” she said. Didn’t she want to see Frank? She said, “I’ve seen Frank.”)

Frank showed up in khakis and a short-sleeved pink shirt, a little sweaty from the hot day, carrying a suspiciously large suitcase, and hugged everyone, including Joe. He hugged Joe rather tightly, actually, as if he meant it.

When he went out for a walk after supper—“just to look around”—Rosanna said, “I guarantee you, he’s getting a divorce.” But when he came in after an hour, he didn’t offer any news, and he didn’t seem tense or upset. They talked about Watergate. That’s what everyone talked about these days. Frank, of course, had already read All the President’s Men, which had only been out a couple of weeks, and he wasn’t buying it, not really. Didn’t trust Woodward. Arthur didn’t trust Woodward. And he thought Bernstein was the beard. “What’s that?” said Rosanna.

“Oh, when a homosexual gets married, you know. His wife is the ‘beard.’ ”

Rosanna tossed her hands in the air and said, “Good heavens!”

Joe and Lois exchanged a glance.

Frank said, “Anyway, you ask me, Bernstein thinks all this is on the up-and-up, and he wrote the book. Woodward knows better. He just shaped the corners. I mean, it’s a good story, and people seem to be buying it. Anyway, I figured Nixon would be out of there once Agnew was gone, but he’s hung on this long, so maybe he’ll stick it out.”

Lois started going on about what her new best friend, Pastor Campbell of the Harvest Home Light of Day Church, thought, evidence of the sinful nature of human beings, and powerful human beings in particular, while Jesse sat near Rosanna, holding out his hands so she could roll skeins of yarn into balls. Joe watched Jesse watch Frank, both at supper and afterward. But he couldn’t tell anything. He guessed maybe Jesse just saw an old man, fifty-four now, and his gaze passed over him as over every old man. But Joe saw a hunter, lean and avid. Though what Frank might be hunting, Joe had no idea.

Frank was gone before breakfast, and out all day. Joe and Jesse were sitting on the front porch, waiting for an evening breeze, when Frank pulled up. He threw open the door and jumped out, clearly in a good mood, then trotted up the steps and sat down in the empty chair. He said, “I wonder where my old shotgun is.”

Joe said, “There’s a rifle in the gun cupboard at Mom’s.”

“I do wonder if I’ve still got the eye.” He said to Jesse, “You shoot?” Jesse shook his head.

“You want to learn?”

“What’s in season?” said Jesse.

“Targets, anyway. Tin cans.”

The next morning, Joe heard them through the open front window, talking as they went out the door. He was still lying in bed, planning to feed the ewes at about seven. All he heard was Frank’s voice saying, “Fox was all I hunted back then. Twenty dollars a hide, which is a hundred dollars today, or more. Had to shoot it in the head, though, so you didn’t damage the pelt. I knew a guy in New York, when I first moved there, who fed himself by shooting ducks in Central Park early Sunday mornings, which was fine, because they are a terrible nuisance.”

Jesse said, “Where is Central Park?”

Frank laughed and said, “You come visit me and I’ll show you.”

Joe’s heart sank, not because he had never visited Central Park, but because he had never even thought to visit Central Park.

They were back by noon. It was ninety-six degrees, and they set their guns down, splashed their faces with water from the outside pump, and flopped in the shade of the back stoop. Joe said, “How’d you do?”

Jesse was grinning. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and said, “I did get a squirrel. Uncle Frank got two jays and a crow.”

“That crow was sitting on the branch, screaming at me, daring me to shoot him, so I did. We killed about a hundred bottles, too. I’m surprised there was that much ammo around.”

Jesse said, “Do Richie and Michael hunt?”

“They learned to shoot at school, but they aren’t fond of it.”

“Did you ever kill a person?”

Frank looked at Jesse with a steady gaze, but didn’t say anything. Jesse looked at Joe. Joe could not help his eyebrows lifting. But he said, “You two hungry? There’s plenty of that rolled roast left.”

Frank said, “Where’s Lois?”

“Getting her shop ready. She wants to open in two weeks. She called and told me she found a perforated veneer rocking chair. Out in someone’s barn, right beside an old Pierce-Arrow.”

“Say…” said Frank.

Joe stiffened.

“Can I borrow a couple of things?”

“Like what?”

“Pair of overalls, your truck.”

“You’re up to no good,” said Joe, but he said it jovially.

“Always,” said Frank.

“That’s what Pop said.”

Jesse looked back and forth between them.

The truth came out at supper — Frank was looking for farms to buy. He had a friend named Jim someone who had decided that farmland was going to appreciate now that grain prices were up. Jim was thinking of buying himself a farm in the south of France, growing lavender and poppies.

“Staples,” said Joe.

“There are farms in France that only grow plums. Or sunflowers. Or blond cows. You need a couple of those. Blonde d’Aquitaine. Beautiful cattle. Quiet as mice; bigger than Angus, too.”

“Now you tell me,” said Joe. His overalls were roomy on Frank. When Frank brought the truck back, he had put two hundred miles on it.

He left three days later. Joe thought they’d gotten along pretty well. They were certainly too old to wrestle, and maybe even to argue, and they had nothing to argue about. Frank had walked through the fields and looked in the barn. It wouldn’t be Joe telling him what the price of land was these days, it would be some appraiser in Usherton, or even in Des Moines. What made him sad was Jesse’s reaction. The first thing Jesse did was take the rifle out and shoot things — targets, jays, barn swallows, rabbits, squirrels — and the second thing he did was quiz Joe and Rosanna about all of Frank’s adventures. What did he do in the army? Was it true he shot some people? Where did he go besides Italy? Did he really live in a tent over in Ames? Did he really invent gunpowder? Did he really steal German documents at the end of the war? Joe could not set him straight, so Jesse started writing Frank letters, and Frank started writing back, and, sure enough, Jesse asked in August if it was too late to go to Iowa State. Minnie said no, it wasn’t, and that she was proud of him. To Joe she said, “I always thought he was a self-starter. That’s why I didn’t say a word about college. I wanted it to be his idea.” Joe just said, “Well, I’ll miss him.”

—

HENRY HAD NEVER ASKED himself where he got his methodical ways, but as the fall progressed and Rosanna crept toward Chicago bit by bit, he saw that she must have been the source. Her goal was to come in early October, when the trees would be at their peak — she wanted nothing fancy in the way of food or sightseeing, but she did want to go to the Sears Tower and look out at the lake, to walk around the campus and look at the changing leaves. Henry made a reservation at an inexpensive Italian place famous for meatballs, gave her a map with clear instructions for getting from 80 to 55 to Lake Shore Drive and then to his duplex. He scrubbed his kitchen sink, his bathtub, and his baseboards, and he laundered not only the sheets in the second bedroom, but also the bedspread. He walked around sniffing — he could smell nothing untoward. He bought some chrysanthemums (chrysanthema, really) for the hall table, and a nice coffee cake from the bakery. He pretended to himself that all of this was a pain in the neck, but it wasn’t. At what point would he decide that Rosanna had been forced off Lake Shore Drive into Lake Michigan and he needed to call the State Police?

But she was early; she knocked rather than rang the bell, and when he opened the door and saw her neat bun and happy face framed against his neighbors’ maple trees, he was pleased. She had a paper sack with her. She put it under her arm and carried it in. When Henry realized that her change of clothes was in that paper sack, he felt a slight pang that, even though they all knew she was extending her range, no one had bothered to buy her an overnight bag.

She came in talking. “You look thin. But that’s a nice haircut. Oh, look at your couch; I saw that same fabric in Younkers and I liked it. I even said, ‘Henry would like that,’ I really did. So bright. Good for a place like Chicago. Have you talked to Claire? Just call her — I’m not saying a word. Well, I will say one word. Insanity. But you’ll hear all about it. Those boys! Well, they do fine in school, and why wouldn’t they? It’s worth their lives to get A’s. Of course, I’m exaggerating. Jesse shot a starling right off the roof of my house; I nearly jumped out of my skin. It fell with a giant thud onto the top of the TV room — you know, where you all used to sleep. Jesse is taking it back to Ames, or somewhere down there, to be stuffed. I’m glad he’s going to college. He’s doing fine, I must say, for a boy who never opened a book in his life. How you children got to be all so different I’ll never know, but he made a thousand dollars with that field Pioneer planted between my place and theirs, he had those detasselers practically running. He was very good about making sure they had plenty of water — that was a real hot spell. But—”

Henry offered her a glass of the lightest Riesling he had been able to find, and she sat in the oat-colored armchair and sipped it, looking around. Finally, she said the magic words: “This is a nice place. Small, but clean.”

Henry laughed. He said, “How was your trip?”

“My land, until I got to Chicago, it was fine, but there was a car in flames right beside the highway. I never saw such a thing. No one around it. I nearly drove off the road, staring.”

“You could have taken a plane, Ma.”

“Now, why do that when I have a perfectly good car? I did pass the airport, I believe.” Pause. “Chicago is not at all like Minneapolis.”

“Not at all,” said Henry.

Rosanna took a sip of her wine and looked around again. Henry let the silence fill the room as she stared at his bookcases, as ordered as the stacks in a library. She took another sip, then smiled and said, “Well, that scar has almost disappeared.” The tip of Henry’s finger went to the spot just beneath his lip. Rosanna shook her head. “Tsh! What days those were! To think I had to sew that up myself, with you lying in Lillian’s lap and screaming your head off. Good thing I had a spool of silk thread. My goodness!” Then, “I think I’m a little tired. I should wash up, too.”

“You can lie down for an hour or so. I made the supper reservation for six.”

He helped her out of the chair, which was deep, and held her elbow lightly — not offensively — into the bedroom. Then he carried in the paper sack. She was sitting on the bed, looking around. She said, “Now, this is a lovely pattern — we used to call it Wild Goose Chase. I don’t know what they call it now.” She ran her hand over the quilt. “Black and white with the red is very modern.” She lay back, and he covered her with the extra blanket. He lowered the shades, even though it was darkening toward twilight by five now. After that, he went out and checked to see whether she had parked the car safely; then he sorted through the tests he had to grade by Monday, went into the kitchen, closed the door, and called Philip. They had started laughing about something when Henry felt a surge of alarm and dropped the phone. What was it? Nothing audible, and yet, when he entered the bedroom and turned on the light, his mother was collapsed on the floor, maybe three feet from the bed, between the bed and the door.

Henry exclaimed, “Oh shit!” and Rosanna moved, opened her eyes. Henry knelt down and smoothed her skirt over her legs. When Rosanna spoke, Henry could barely understand her, which provoked more alarm. There was no phone in this bedroom, so he nearly jumped up to call an ambulance. Instead, he contained himself, and lifted her, eased her onto the bed. She was not at all heavy. She gave out a long sigh that ended in a cough, and then she said something he did understand: “I thought I was the queen, you know, when I used to drive Jake into town. I would wave and smile. Right, left. I would just lift my hands, and Jake would arch his neck.” She lifted her hands maybe an inch off her skirt and smiled. “So silly.”

“You weren’t silly, Ma, you were beautiful.”

“Was I?” she whispered. Then she shook her head. But she was still smiling — at the memory, he hoped. Henry put his hand on her temple, gently. He could feel the dry thinness of the skin of her forehead, and with his fingertip, he could feel the vein quiver in her temple, and then he could not feel it anymore. He waited. After a minute or two, he placed his palm over her eyelids and closed them.