“I don’t know that much about—”
“Don’t say you’re voting Dukakis. Do not tell me that.”
“Uhm, actually, I probably won’t vote.”
“Not for nobody?”
“Just, I haven’t lived in America for so long now,” Paul said, sniffing. “Seems wrong for me to pick who’s in charge.”
“Ain’t you alone doing the picking, son — rest of us get a say, too! It don’t matter how long you been overseas. We’re always Americans, wherever we end up. And you’ll move back sooner or later. Plus, I bet you go stateside pretty regular on home leaves.”
“I don’t really take home leave. I have too much work.”
“Don’t take it ever? Your momma and daddy back home, they don’t mind?” he asked, adding hastily, “Excuse me — I’m assuming your folks are living. That’s impertinent of me.”
“No, they are.”
“And they’re good with that?”
Paul said nothing for a moment. “Actually,” he said, “I heard some troubling news about my father’s health a few days ago. Something serious. I …” He cleared his throat.
Tooly held her breath to hear better.
“He’ll be in my prayers,” Bob Burdett said. “That’ll take you home quick, I guess.”
“I’ve got things here. It’s not possible right now.”
They ate in silence.
“I never asked if you served,” Bob Burdett remarked.
“Served?”
“The armed forces.”
“I didn’t really consider it, to be truthful.”
“Where’d you go to college?”
“Berkeley.”
“Hell’s bells. You mixed up in them protests?”
“I was just studying computers.”
“Guys studying computers can’t be subversives?”
“I never really knew those people.”
Bob Burdett slurped his beer. “Your housekeeper’s a little cutey.”
“Maybe don’t say that so loud, please.”
“Don’t matter if she hears — probably likes it. You stay out here a while, son, you’ll find everything’s for sale in that department.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Paul stated softly.
The conversation stalled; rain pattered outside.
“I was going to ask you,” Paul resumed, as if working up to something crucial, “about the rainy season.” He cleared his throat. “Do you know when it formally ends?”
“Formally?” Bob Burdett chuckled. “Not sure they got no official ceremony.”
“Humidity’s bad for my asthma.”
“You picked the wrong city, son. All we got out here is humid. Maybe you ought to turn right round and go back to the U.S. of A. — except, kind of seems you don’t like the place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Heck, if my daddy was ailing and—”
“I have things I’m trying to deal with here,” Paul said. “Doesn’t matter what I’d like to do. This is what I have to do.” He took a breath from his inhaler.
“Guess you got a real important job,” the guest conceded. “That’s top priority for people these days. I’m from another era. If my people were in need, I wouldn’t be out here doing no car pool, I promise you that.”
“It’s … it’s … it’s not like I’m out here for fun,” Paul said. “Okay?”
Tooly — hearing his unsteady voice, his dry mouth — clutched the hem of her T-shirt.
Bob Burdett persisted. “Maybe that’s what they teach you in college: put yourself first. You can wait out here till your daddy’s funeral, I guess. Or you not going home for that, even?”
“I have a duty to be here right now, and if I—”
“You don’t know the first thing about duty. You don’t care about your own blood. Don’t care about your country. Don’t know how you’re going to vote. Don’t know if you’ll vote. Thank you kindly for supper. But, Lord above, what is wrong with you, son?”
“Nothing’s the matter,” Paul snapped. “Okay?” Tooly recognized from his tone that he’d lost his temper. He repeated himself shakily—“Nothing’s the matter”—saying that he couldn’t care less about voting, about politics, about empires, about who ran what, who succeeded Reagan, who led the Communists.
Bob Burdett reminded Paul to act like a representative of the United States out here, then recalled that his host wasn’t an embassy officer, just a contractor. “Another mercenary,” as he put it. “Going around for a paycheck and a piece of tail.”
“Can you leave my home,” Paul said, voice trembling, knocking over his chair as he stood. “Get out of my home. Okay? Scolding me like I’m an idiot! Like I’m here for a good time! This is my home. Not for you to come in and lecture. Any duties I have, I’m aware of. Fully aware of. Okay? I don’t need you to tell me. What I do concerns nobody.”
“Don’t concern nobody?”
“Can you go, please?”
Bob Burdett’s chair squeaked as he rose. “Sometimes,” he said slowly, “there’s things that are bigger than you in the world.”
“Are you being threatening now?”
“Sometimes,” the guest repeated, voice hardening, “there’s things in life that’s bigger than you.”
There were smaller things, too, and one emerged from her bedroom.
“I can make my eyeballs vibrate,” she said.
Bob Burdett — looming over Paul — turned at the sight of the little girl and stepped back, cocking his head. “Well,” he said, “hello there, little lady. And who might you be?”
Paul, voice choked, answered hastily, “My daughter. She’s my daughter.”
“Well, howdy, little girl. Nobody told me we had young folk on the premises. Do excuse my profane words. I enjoy firing off the occasional political firecracker — keeps things lively out here in the tropics. No harm intended. None taken, I trust.” He nodded at Paul, then smiled at Tooly. “Didn’t hear me say no cuss words, did you, sweetheart?”
She looked at each man in turn, unsure if she was in big trouble. “I can make my eyes vibrate.”
“I’d be most appreciative, young lady, if you’d provide a demonstration.”
She opened them wide and performed her trick, eyeballs moving fast from side to side, to the approval of Bob Burdett. “I seen it all now,” he exclaimed. “Yes, I have.”
“And I can count a minute exactly,” she said. “You can time me.”
Bob Burdett readied the stopwatch function on his watch. “Go right ahead.”
All fell quiet, but for the fizz of Fanta. Finally, she raised her finger.
“Fifty-eight seconds,” Bob Burdett said.
“Sometimes I get it exactly.”
“Darn good.” He ruffled her hair, which made Paul wince. “You all should come around to my place sometime, meet my dog. This young lady’s got a momma? Bring her, too.”
“My wife’s in America,” Paul said. “She’s busy at the moment.”