And so it comes to this: out on the far edge of a busy softball diamond, two people play catch, in silence. A man and a woman. The evening sun casts long shadows away from them. The man throws the ball harder and harder with every throw, so that it looks like they’re playing a game of Bullet. But the woman never says a word, or flinches, or steps back. She puts up her glove and catches each throw right in the pocket, on the thin leather over her palm. The ball smacks with a loud pop each time she catches it. Right on the palm. The man only throws the ball harder. The woman bites her lower lip. She throws the ball back almost as hard as it comes, with a smooth violent snap of the wrist. And the man only throws harder.
And so back and forth the white ball flies, straight and hard, like a little cannonball. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
8
In a camp in Virginia. Interned. Big mistake to antagonize that immigration officer. That a single official’s enmity can result in this! But it’s more than that, of course. A tidal wave of fear. Lawyer says private tests all negative, so this is just a ploy to hold me while they put together a case under the H-G Act. False positives. Meanwhile here in a kind of camp. Wooden dormitory barracks in rows, dead grass, dirt baseball diamonds, benches, fences. Barbed wire, yes. City of the dying. False positives, those bastards. Actually a lot of people here make the same claim. Some of them obviously wrong.
Summer in Virginia, hot, humid. Thunderstorms black with hail and lightning. The daily blitzkrieg of the news. War spilling into the Balkans like a bad summer re-run. TV apocalypse. Four planes blown up in transatlantic flights, and international flights soon to be severely curtailed. Pam will have to return by ship, if she can get home at all. World getting bigger as it falls apart. I can’t write any more.
As Tom had predicted, Alfredo was now forced to go public with his plans for Rattlesnake Hill. He and Matt took time on the town talk TV channel in the dinner hour before the Wednesday night council meeting, and they announced their proposal, walking around a large architect’s model of the hill after it had been built up according to their plans. The model was covered with little dark green trees, especially on top—the copse already there would be allowed to remain, at least in part. And the structures were low, built around the hilltop in a sort of crown, stepped in terracelike levels and in some places, apparently, built into the hillside. The buildings were of pale blond brick, and what was not building was lawn. It was a beautiful model, attractive as all miniatures are, ingenious, detailed, small.
Matt went through the town finances, comparing El Modena’s shares to those of the surrounding towns and discussing the downturn they had taken in the last ten years. He went over charts showing how the new complex would contribute to the town income, and then moved on to show briefly where Heartech and Avending would get the financing to build the complex. Timetables were presented, the whole program.
Finally Alfredo came back on. “In the end it’s your town, and it’s your land, so you all have to make the decision. All we can do is make the proposal and see what you think, and that’s what we’re doing. We think it would be a real contribution to El Modena, the restaurants and shops and promenades up there would really make the hill used, and of course the restaurants and shops down below would benefit as well. We’ve made proposals on the council concerning zoning and water resources that would make the project feasible on the infrastructural level. The environmental impact report has been made, and it says pretty much what we’re saying here, that the hill will be changed, sure, but not in a degrading way. Nearly a quarter of the town’s land is parkland just like the hill, immediately behind it—we could easily afford that hill, and use its prominence in Orange County’s geography to make a stronger profile for the town as a civic and financial unit.”
“Fuck,” Kevin said, watching his screen. “What babble!”
Tom laughed. “You’re catching on, boy.”
Alfredo and Matt ended by asking those watching to spread the word, because few townspeople would be watching, and to speak to their council members in favor of the proposal, if they were so inclined. More detailed messages and plans and updates and mailings were promised.
“Okay, it’s in the open,” Tom said. “Time to start asking the hard questions in the council. You can still stop the whole thing right in council if the zoning proposal doesn’t pass. If people want it then they’d have to elect a new council, and at least you’d have bought some time.”
“Yeah, but if people want it, the council will probably go for it.”
“Maybe. Depends on the council members—they don’t have to pay any attention to polls if they don’t want to, it’s representative government after all, at least in this part of things.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Kevin could barely talk about it. The truth was, since his talk with Ramona he just didn’t care very much, about the hill or anything. He was numb. No more new worlds of feeling; just withdrawn, in a shell, stunned. Numb.
One night Tom got a call from his old friend Emma. “Listen, Tom, we’ve caught a good lead in this Heartech case you’ve put us on. We haven’t followed it all the way yet, but it’s clear there’s a really strong relationship between your company and the American Association for Medical Technology.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, basically they’re an umbrella organization for all the old profit hospitals in the country, with a lot of connections in Hong Kong.”
“Ah ha!” Tom sat up. “Sounds promising.”
“Very. This AAMT has been implicated in a number of building programs back on the East Coast, and in essence what they’re up to is trying to take over as much of the medical industry as they can.”
“I see. Well—anything I can do?”
“No. I’ve passed it to Chris, and she’s going to be going after it as part of her federal investigations, so it’s coming along. But listen, I wanted to tell you—we broke cover to get the opening on this.”
“They know they’re being investigated?”
“Exactly. And if Hong Kong is part of it, that could be bad news. Some of those Hong Kong banks are rough.”
“Okay, I’ll keep my eyes open.”
“You do that. I’ll get back to you when I have more, and Chris may be contacting you directly.”
“Good. Thanks, Em.”
“My pleasure. Good to have you back on the map, Tom.”
Doris was angry. Mostly she was angry at herself. No, that wasn’t quite true. Mostly she was angry at Kevin. She watched his evident suffering in the affair with Ramona, and her heart filled with pity, anger, contempt. Stupid fool, to fall so hard for someone clearly in love with someone else! Kind of like Doris herself, in fact. Yes, she was angry at herself, for her own stupidity. Why care for an idiot?
Also she was angry at herself for being so rude to Oscar Baldarramma, that night in the hills. It had been a transference, and she knew it. He hadn’t deserved it.
That was the important part. If people deserved it, Doris felt no compunction about being rude to them. That was the way she was. Her mother Ann had brought her up otherwise, teaching politeness as a cardinal virtue—just as Ann’s mother had taught her, and her mother her, and so on and so forth back to the Nisei and Japan itself. But it hadn’t taken with Doris, it went against the grain of her nature. Doris was not patient, she was not kind; she was sharp-tongued, and hard on people slower than she was. She had been hard on Kevin, perhaps—she had needled him, and he never appeared to mind, but who knew? No doubt she had hurt him. Yes, her mother’s lessons still held, somewhere inside her—transformed to something like, People should not be subjected to anger they don’t deserve. She had blown that one many a time. And never so spectacularly as with Oscar, up in the hills.