Orange County just can’t provide the kind of culinary sophistication that Manhattan boasts, which is galling to Lemon when he has to try to impress Hereford. He takes him down to Dana Point, and they eat at the Charthouse over the harbor. Hereford concentrates on the salad bar, eats with obvious relish. “They still can’t do this properly in New York, I’m not sure why.” A couple of young women in bathing suits sit at the next table, and Lemon says, “Yes, there are certain advantages to living in California.” Hereford smiles briefly.
When they’re done eating Hereford asks, “So what do you make of this rash of sabotages against defense contractors in this area?”
Ah ha. Here might be the explanation for the inspection of the grounds. Lemon says, “Our security thinks it’s a local group of refusniks, and they’re working with the police on it. Apparently they won’t attack any place where there are people working, because they don’t want to kill or injure anyone. So we’ve taken the precaution of having several night watchmen in the plant, as well as people patrolling the perimeter of the grounds, and the beach below us. And we announced the fact at a press conference—it was pretty well reported.”
Hereford is disturbed by this. “You mean you’re assuming these saboteurs won’t make a mistake, or change their policy? If it is indeed their policy?”
“Well…”
Hereford shakes his head. “Get all the night watchmen out of the building.”
“But—”
“You heard me. The risk is too great. I don’t like the idea of using people’s lives as a shield, not when we’re dealing with an unknown enemy.” He pauses, purses his lips. “The truth is, we’ve got reason to believe that the sabotage out here is backed by a very large, very professional group.”
Lemon raises his eyebrows in unconscious imitation of Hereford. “Not the Soviets!”
“No no. Not directly, anyway. The truth is it may be one of our competitors, providing the money, anyway.”
Lemon’s eyebrows shoot up for real. “Which one?”
“We’re not sure. We’ve penetrated the organization on a lower level, and naturally the links between levels are well concealed.”
“I suppose it would have to be one of the companies that hasn’t been hit.”
“Not necessarily.”
Now, this statement turns certain tumblers in Lemon’s mind. He’s silent for a time as he considers the implications of what Hereford has said. A company attacks others to harm their work and eventually damage their reputation for efficiency with the Air Force. Then it attacks itself to keep suspicion away from it. And, at the same time, it could use the attack on itself to get rid of something potentially damaging in and of itself. Sure, it makes sense.
But say another company learned it was going to be attacked; and say it had something, say it had a program that was in really serious trouble for one reason or another.…
“Should we increase our security on the perimeter?” Lemon asks, testing his hypothesis.
“No reason to.” Around Hereford’s eyes there is an amused crinkle; perhaps he thinks that Lemon is dense, perhaps he is amused that Lemon has finally gotten it; no way of telling. “We’ve done what we can, I think. Our insurance is in good shape, and all we can do is hope for the best.”
“And… and get the night watchmen out of there.”
“Exactly.”
“Do you… do you have any information that indicates we might become…”
“A target?” Hereford shrugs. This goes too far, it shouldn’t be talked about. “Nothing definite enough to go to the police with.” But his eyes, Lemon thinks, his eyes; they look through the map of the Caribbean on their table, and they know. They know.
Lemon sits back in his seat, sips at his Pinot blanc. He’s been let in on it, really. If he’s smart enough to put it together, then he’s in the know. Maybe he had to be. Still, it’s a good sign.
And this means that maybe, just maybe, something will happen soon that will get him off the hook with the Ball Lightning program. Get LSR off the hook as well. And insurance… incredible. He swallows the wine.
51
Back at work in the First American Title Insurance and Real Estate Company, back at work in his night classes, Jim finds he cannot keep Sheila Mayer and her jigsaw puzzles from his mind. Now it’s the principal element of the uneasiness that oppresses him. And he can’t escape it.
Hana is still working hard, she has no time. Hana is working, he is not.
Finally, impelled to it, he sits at his computer and stares at the screen. He’s got to work, to really work, he’s got to. Tonight it’s as much an escape from his life, from his uneasiness, as anything else. But any motive will do at this point.
He thinks about his poetry. He considers the poetry of his time. The thing is, he doesn’t like the poetry of his time. Flashy, deliberately ignorant, concerned only with surfaces, with the look, the great California image, reflected in mirrors a million times.… It’s postmodernism, the tired end of postmodernism, which makes utterly useless all his culturevulturing, because for postmodernism there is no past. Any mall zombie can write postmodern literature, and in fact as far as Jim can tell from the video interviews, that’s who is writing it. No, no, no. He refuses. He can’t do that anymore.
And yet this is his time, his moment; what else can he write about but now? He lives in a postmodern world, there is no way out of that.
Two of the writers most important to Jim wrote about this matter of one’s subject. Albert Camus, and then Athol Fugard, echoing Camus—both said that it was one’s job to be a witness to one’s times. That was the writer’s crucial, central function. Camus and the Second World War, then the subjugation of Algeria—Fugard and apartheid in South Africa: they lived in miserable times, in some ways, but by God it gave them something to write about! They had something to witness!
While Jim—Jim lives in the richest country of all time, what’s happening man, nothing’s happening man.… Jack-in-the-Box is faster than McDonald’s!
My Lord, what a place to have to be a witness to.
But how did it get this way?
Hmm. Jim mulls that over. It isn’t really clear, yet; but something in that question seems to suggest a possible avenue of action for him. An approach.
But that brings up a second problem: it’s all been done before.
It’s like when his English teacher at Cal State Fullerton told the class to go out and write a poem about autumn. Great, Jim thought at the time. First of all, we live in Orange County—what is autumn to us? Football season. Wetsuits for surfing. Like that. He’s read that Brahms’s Third Symphony is autumnal, he’s read that the rhythms of the Book of Psalms are autumnal—okay, so what’s autumn? Brahms’s Third Symphony! The Book of Psalms! That’s the kind of circles you run in, when the natural world is gone. Okay, take those fragments and try to make something of it.
I listen to Brahms
And watch the Rams
I read from Psalms
We are only lambs
Putting on our wetsuits
To surf the autumn waves.