A Builder’s Tale
Chapter Forty - Three
The Fourth of July and Indian Dick
Becomes the Hero
Janet wakes from a sleepy haze to Conrad’s snorts and sneezes. Not yet aware of the day or time, she lingers, her head half buried in the pillow, until a rising sense of purpose seizes her thoughts, launching her into the morning. Then, as Conrad rolls and expiates from every orifice in token payment for his night before, her brain announces the 4th of July. She begins to pump with energy. Tossing on a robe, she pauses, stretching at the bedroom door, breathing deep, sniffing the air… pensive she lifts her hand to rub the dust from her eyes, contemplative, pausing at her thumb, rubbing the arthritic joint. They are getting old. Even her husband’s farty morning odor is changing. An old man’s farts… dried out. She sighs and continues stretching, contemplating life… there have been so many mornings, so many 4ths. She sniffs the scents coming from the bed. Did she know when she was young that the odor of one’s farts would age the same as bones and bodies, faces… a sign of decay within, or just drying out… her thoughts straying to an Egypt vacation years ago, pyramids, sand, and wizened mummies, scarabs, life… the dry desert air, thinking simple, they were both drying out. Then she wanders down the stairs.
Birds are singing their morning notes, the Jay, the Yellow Finch, the Raven squawking in the distant high forest limbs viewed from her kitchen window. Turning left and West, her eyes follow the broad-winged shadow of a vulture as it moves across her meadow and then the wetland. The odor of coffee fills the air. She sits for only two sips at the kitchen table before the morning tugs her outside to feel the breeze on her face and fingers. South, she thinks, looking at the haze cloaking the gray blue morning, the sky’s shades resembling a filthy confederacy cap. It is humid. The day will be hot. Memories surface of smoggy southern Michigan factory air. She had hoped for a cleaner day and a bright crisp northern sky. A deer stands distant, head bent, dipping to the ground, half hidden by a low earth fog rapidly breaking with the sun. There is a boom and then another. The deer darts away from view with the first explosion. Someone is already fiddling with fireworks. Momentarily, the 1812 booms in her head… Cannons, Napoleon, Tchaikovsky…
She suspects it is the urchins from across the road, inhabitants of the tumble downs and trailers just past that ratty bar MacGuilties. The two boys have been plaguing her since she shooed them away at the beginning of last summer, after observing them adventuring, struggling with a canoe where her beach met meadow and wetland grasses. Exploring, she had found a small childish dock of driftwood and logs at the northern edge of her property. At her request, Conrad’s boy had busted this up and burned it, and after this the delinquents had made a project of harassing her, putting in at the public access near MacGuilties. And now, a year later, they were at it again. She suspects it will not stop until they find girls more fun than fireworks, occupying themselves with a different sort of mischief. This will not be the last morning, nor the last year. She hears their noise.
So, she is not surprised. She had anticipated it, and after all, she reminds herself. There cannot be water access for everyone, everywhere, and this included children. Noblesse oblige must have its limits when it comes to privacy. No doubt, the noise… will continue. She does not own the water. Another explosion sounds and then another, then in the distance childish laughter.
Inside and adding to her cup of coffee, her glance falls on the D-con envelopes in the cabinet kick space. If these children were animals and so annoying, she would poison them… Vermin requiring traps and poison. She then walks to the piano, sits down, stretches her arthritic fingers, and begins to play Yankee Doodle Dandy… one last bit of practice preparation before the celebration at Brown’s Camp Hope venue.
Independence Day. The ‘Pumpkin Patch’ ladies transformed into ‘Firecrackers’ will be on hand joining the male chorus, the ladies wearing draped bunting and red stovepipe hats fashioned from quaker oats containers and paper plates. The men’s stovepipes will be black, and their outfits also, this designed to contrast with and highlight the ‘Firecrackers’ brightness. Janet plans to wear her white skirt and navy jacket, a red shirt, and her ruby slippers. Her baton sits on the piano, twisted red, white, and blue with crepe paper. Adams, Jefferson, even that genius lecher, Franklin, would be proud.
Janet hammers the piano, hums, makes some notations on her score, and then bangs again. They really should have had one more rehearsal, but time, time, time. No one had wished to come.
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A few hundred yards to the south, Daphne rises to the same morning. Cortland has come for the weekend and also Margie and the girls who are staying with her aboard the Master Mind II. She upset Cort when she told him he must use the Condo, as there was to be too much company aboard for trysting. Philippe was supposed to have been aboard too, occupying the poop deck cabin, but he had reneged, calling with news of a new lover and a hastily planned journey south to Saugatuck. Janet had hoped to discuss the kitchen with him, in regard to Cortland’s statement “that light in the loafers fella ripped you off on your cabinets.” Cort, like almost every man she knew, was threatened by gays.
But this will have to wait, she thinks, observing the two boy-imps in their canoe, paddling by, and tossing cherry bombs (did they still have these?) She watches the small explosions and remembers when her brothers would stick M-80s into bluegills and light the fuse, tossing them off the end of Grandfather’s dock, blood and fish guts exploding, splattering everywhere. She wonders what these two psychopath captains of industry are up to this Fourth of July and makes a mental note to call them. Then, she questions… Why? They had not even bothered to attend Tim’s funeral. Such is family… But they are the fathers of her nieces, and she hopes Joan and Becky will visit someday… Gazing across the water, imagining next summer with her house finished, and the workmen gone… Another fourth, more fetes, and parties next year, and years after. Will there be more Fetes at Browns Camp Hope… probably… She will turn it into an event just like the Pumpkin Splash.
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Margie, disheveled and unmade, walks up the companionway. Daphne shoves a coffee at her, observing Margie’s sags and flaws, the fabric of her face unraveled by the morning light, one similar to Daphne’s but with altered patterns. Margie’s face suffers from her smiles, Daphne’s from frowns and squints. She tugs at the flesh beginning to swell and sag around her neck, then says to Margie, “We should go to the spa this fall. I’ve been thinking I need another lift.” “If it makes you feel good,” says Margie, pretending to be less worried for her face. But Daphne knows Margie is just as vain and will probably accompany her for moral support, and for a little lifting too, if Daphne pays for it. Then she tugs her earlobe, thinking. Even my ears are sagging.
The two women sip their coffee. The flag at the stern flaps north, then folds, then straitens as the morning breeze arrives, heavy, dense and damp. Daphne sniffs. She has spent enough time in Beauville to inform Margie, “The north wind never has this smell. But these southern breezes arrive heavier and full, hot… bitter.”
“Acrid,” replies Margie. Daphne sniffs again. “And often full of fish.”
“Daphne,” says Margie. “That does not sound like you. You should spend more time up here. It’s good for you.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s odd, but since Tim’s death, I’m growing. I have gained more confidence. I’ve realized it’s me. I’m in charge!”
They sip some more and watch the beginning of the commotion that will become the party.
“My excavator, Brown, He has a camp.”
“You told me.”
“We are going to attend the party.”
“Perhaps you should write,” says Margie.
A few more explosions go off. The boys have tossed their explosives all the way to Brown’s and now they are returning. Daphne waves. As they toss another blast in her direction. She smiles.
********************************
Grace awakens. Grabs the covers, pulling them over her eyes, thinking, what a terrible room for a late riser, peering from beneath the sheet… Pleased that leafed in trees, now block a portion of the morning’s eastern light, unlike in winter. But the trees are not enough to counter it all.
The wall of glass and the bright white surfaces of the room. While not as bright as a sunny day in winter, are still too bright, and overpowering for a bedroom. Light is everywhere. Outside there is a deck’s glass railing and past it the shadow of a roof. Towering conifers rise to her right. High ash and maples and an old oak meet where her eyes align along the diagonal bias of the room and the centered corner glass.
She slides her foot to her left where it encounters Wilson’s warmth. He is still asleep, head up, mouth open, snoring. She had not meant to be here. She would have preferred her place. But they had stopped at Wilson’s on their way back from dinner and Lucy’s Raw and one thing had led to another. Anyway, here she warms and wakes, already late, behind, as Wilson stirs. She stretches her neck, then extends her legs while arching her feet, tensioning and releasing the muscles of her calves, her thighs, and then her shoulders. She’d better get going. The light tells her she is late. A clock is not necessary. No time for sex now, and if she lingers… She can tell by his breath and habit that he will soon be awake and wanting. No time for that, she has promised Janet.
As she admonishes herself for making the commitment, she hurriedly puts on her panties, bra, her jeans and shirt… Leaving Wilson asleep, she looks at the trees and the shadows on the bay, the Anomie’s mast and hull through the leaves. Her eyes hurt from the brightness as she turns right and descends the stairs, gazing at cedars, shadows and dense myrtle, through more walls of glass. Then, she hurries down four more museum wide steps and grabs a pen. Hastily leaving a message for Wilson on the kitchen counter, she heads out to the Fury. The car door screeches welcome. The Seventies engine begins to rumble. Then rumbles more, as she drives west into the morning.
Grace almost turns at Janet’s, but then she remembers the animals. Barney will need to be taken for a quick walk, and Beezle… food. The Fury climbs and falls and climbs once more, sprung springs bouncing up and down in rhythm with the drumlins, until she is driving north across the ridge looking west toward a calm and heavy hazed lake Michigan and a morning mist and fog that will soon burn off. The lake’s surface is bathtub-flat.
Barney barks as her hand meets the door, and before she has opened it half way, he is shivering with excitement. Then, as she reaches for his collar to restrain him, he escapes her grasp and is gone… A force of energy racing greyhound fast, up then back, then round the field. Returning to stop and make a statement by the flowers, before he turns towards her with a stare that says… Now feed me. And tail a whack, they enter the house as Barney rushes to the kitchen and pushes his dish towards her, his expectant eyes focusing on hers as Grace dumps crunchies in his bowl. While Beezle peers down from her pulpit perch observing the hubbub with cat affected nonchalance, until with a long stretch she wanders slowly, circling down the pulpit steps, then reaches the kitchen, and pauses by her dish, one glance waiting, with a slight meow.
Animals fed, Grace calls Janet to find out what Janet needs help with, imagining that Janet will want food, or wine, or assistance for some post fireworks fete. But to her surprise, Janet is not having any fete at all. “Tomorrow,” she says, “Tomorrow… I’m getting wise. Once we finish the show, I’m dragging Conrad home. Oh sure, a couple people may drop by, but it will be late, probably 10:30 or 11:00, or later… We’re getting old… And, my performance is scheduled for 7:00 … and that means 8. And Brown is providing hot dogs, salad, burgers, some catered food from MacGuilties too, he said. You know Brown… He was trying on Chef hats and singing, giving the hats out to some of his fellas… some of his diggers are doing barbecue…I think. Anyway… not me! And the fireworks… It will not be dark enough for them until 10:00 or 10:15 … I need help with Conrad. I will be busy, and he has not finished his poem for the finale.”
“So, I’m baby-sitting Conrad? That’s my job… Really?”
“Please… please,” says Janet, adding another “Please,” for emphasis. “I’ve too much to do. You could take him to your house.”
“Not a chance,” says Grace.
“You could just enjoy the day here… then… You may even invite Wilson.”
“Oh right,” says Grace. “Wilson and Conrad, together for hours. They’d end up quarreling. Or worse… They might get on and both be drunk by nightfall. But not to worry… It’s not happening. Wilson’s going sailing. He said he might not even make it to Brown’s. Or your show.”
“You will work it out. But I need Conrad’s lyrics and he is not finished.” Grace hears Janet in the background. “Stop that, hurry up, finish your poem.” Then Janet returns to the phone. “The old fool was trying to hug me.” There is another pause in the conversation. “Stop it,” Grace hears a laugh, “Not now…Conrad.” Then Grace is listening once more to Janet who interjects another “Please,” and “Hurry, he needs watching… motivation… Booze. But not too much. That’s your job.”
“I’m the booze tender? ... Really?”
“I need you. You can control him.”
“Ok,” says Grace.
“And I am going to need you to watch him. This afternoon and evening… at Brown’s too! You know how he is with those young girls.”
“Right,” says Grace. “I know, I’ve observed… felt him nudging. He is persistent… Like a dog that cannot remember yesterday, last year.”
“And you don’t let him get away with it. He listens to you, Gracie… Please….”
“I said I would do it. It’s a big favor. Do you need anything else?”
“Three hands,” says Janet. “More arms… Stop that, Conrad.” Grace listens to another laugh from Janet. “Stop it, Stop it.” There is a clatter and more laughter. Then to Grace, before Janet hangs up the phone. “That Horney old man still wants me….”
“Nice to be needed,” says Grace. “In a bit, I’m coming.”
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Cortland observes the morning from the small deck of the condo. It is early and mist rises from the water, obscuring the waterlines of the smaller yachts anchored in Beauville’s harbor… sailboats, twenty, thirty and forty footers, intermixed with trawlers, fisherman, and power yachts. Two stand out, immense… Yachts that might be small ships, too large for any slips. Larger than the ferry, they rest immobile, anchored, gleaming and top heavy. So out of place and scale that the boat traffic moving towards the drawbridge must change course in order to navigate around them.
The small yachts spin and drift about their anchors. The morning breeze is incapable of spinning these two great lumps which might as well be islands except for their lack of loam or greenery. Cortland views these with their speedboat shore craft and helicopters atop the deck with envy. “That fellow has it made,” you hear him muttering. And the harbor… It is pretty. There was a time when this deck and condo would have been enough, when he would have thought he had it made, looking to go to town, to score, and find a woman for the weekend. In his younger days, it would have equaled satisfaction. But with his designs for more and his needs and wants… his wealth addiction… No longer. Cortland knows that his grip on Daphne is slipping. Something must be done.
Life has taught him that when you want influence, it is best to create chaos, instability. One can become necessary in uncertain times. Especially when it comes to women. But how? He needs a plan.
Daphne has grown sure of herself, happy with her house, and he is the one who created the problem. His initial stock suggestions have turned her head and added investments have increased her confidence and independence. The woman has decided she has found her calling. His fault, and in the process, he has lost his place and purpose in her picture, growing less and less important. He will need to plant some seeds today. Seeds of uncertainty. But what seeds?
Going after Wilson is the only way. He must make her realize that a smart business person like her would now remove Wilson from the picture. Save the money… With Wilson gone she can keep his fee… meaning more to invest. He can find a different reason if necessary. And then he will let Potts finish the house for dollars less. More of him, a bit of skimming, as long as there was also more for her too. And by placing Potts in charge, a man he can manipulate, and incompetent enough that he will certainly encounter problems. Cortland will again become necessary to the house, to Daphne, and closer to her investment dollars. GG-World success and a way to move closer to Van Elder, and have more for himself to boot... All this is possible, with some problem solving.
The fact is that bad times for Daphne would, will, be good times for Cortland. And once again, important, perhaps he can find renewed affection and permanence with Daphne and her money. He thinks of these monsters of the harbor. Maybe, just maybe, the Master Mind Too might transform into something new and even larger, with a helipad on top… ‘Courtland’s Pride’.
He will call Potts and arrange a meeting… Midday at the house? It is the 4th, but? Courtland thinks of his last meeting with the foreman. Yep, he is going to call him. Potts is an opportunist. He will show up, even on the 4th of July—Meet during that Camp Hope affair or earlier. The girls will all be gone. Sneaking in plain sight… He ponders. Why not?
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Indian Dick: Dick has risen early. He is at the water’s edge and fishing. His shallow inlet and shabby beach might as well be a different body of water. Here, where Lake Arnaud turns to wetland, it more closely resembles a small mud lake, than the deep clear waters that border most of lake Arnaud’s shoreline… like those that display in deep blue brilliance in front of Chateau Daphne. No matter… He is attempting to catch a feeding morning bass. One he knows is hiding at the edge of the wetland grasses where the water deepens. It is an advantage he has over Longbottom estates, where the fishing’s lousy. There are no tall beach grasses, no cattails, in front of Chateau Daphne.
This is not his normal, non-work day, morning habit. Usually, he would have been on his porch, lounging with his first coffee, observing birds above the fields, and across the sky. He fishes because of yesterday, when the professor from the camp dropped by. Dick is trying to avoid another encounter. The last thing he wants is a be-speckled anthropological annoyance with his wake-up coffee.
The anthropologist has returned for another summer. Once more, Professor Bloom will be about and bothering, asking questions. And they will be the same questions he asked last year, and the year before. “Does Dick know of any old burial grounds?” Two days before, Bloom was there when had returned from work, on his porch inquiring. “Has he discovered any relics? Is he working on that house adjacent to that old Indian camp in Longbottom Estates…. Was it an Indian Camp or is that only a rumor?... Could Bloom drop by?”
They have been down this path before, Indian Dick and Bloom. In past summers, Dick has taken the trouble to play with the man. To offer advice and send him on wild goose, wild Indian chases. But on this recent encounter, Dick blew him off.
He had been busy, hunched over, working on the cruiser adjusting the carburetor when Bloom arrived behind him for a chat, startling Dick and causing Dick to smash his head into the vehicle’s hood. The incident had stopped any conversation. And this morning, Dick has no desire to continue playing the role of Bloom’s summer freak of anthropology. The fellow is persistent. Dick knows this from past summers.
He thinks of other goose chases he might send him on.... If the professor bothers him again? He could dig up some of that old junk he buried in the Steven’s water line and pretend to let Bloom discover it, waste his time until he discovered more and more, from Dick’s Indian Charlie days… from the 1960s. But who knows what that might produce? If Bloom thought it was ancient-old, and not thirties-fifties old. Dick is aware that it is often in the unanticipated where problems lie. No, he thinks. Bad idea. But he will tell Bloom of Brown’s Camp Hope celebration. Brown might finagle some contributions from Bloom and his Michagumee campers. Hell… Perhaps Bloom might decide to study Brown.
His casts have produced nothing. Adjacent, three other lazy lines, with plastic bottle bobbers attached, extend into the water. These float untended to his left. He enjoys the action, the flipping of the pole, the cast, the natural random rhythm, as he reels the line in, tugging now and then to spastic the spoon with starts and stops. But the fish aren’t biting his lure this morning. He casts again, noticing that one of the floats from a lazy line, baited with worms, is moving. He sets down his rod and walks over to the tether and tugs it. Thought so, he thinks. A fish, and then the soap bottle bobber is partially sinking… up, down, then thrashing on the water. Dick tugs the line, and he has a fish, and for a moment there is a fight until he decides to just leave it alone, and come back later. The fish will still be underwater waiting if it does not escape the hook.
It is time to move the cruiser back to the front of the house. Maybe the cruiser parked across his drive will dissuade Bloom from bothering him again. He sniffs the air… Southern, heavy, thinking nothing good comes from the south… only fools like Bloom, the wealthier white men, and their money.
He drives to the loop that will take him back around to the main entrance of his acreage and trailer. Then he slowly pulls out onto Center rd. where he floors it. The cruiser has become a special space, where he can sit and think and drive and ponder, flout the rules and wonder... Indian Dick, tribal officer Dick, wild and free, racing across the high flats, gazing toward lake Michigan, yet again, it’s beauty so often transformative… But not today, as he imagines that ass from high school, Rufus Smathers, out patrolling once again. Dick has not seen Rufus since Christmas. Perhaps he will appear today, in another attempt to hassle him… And wouldn’t that be fun!
The Indians have a complicated relationship with the 4th of July, and Dick is no exception. After all, a party is a party, and everyone, unless they are ill, infirm, or a cowering animal, appreciates the spectacle of fireworks. But if you are Dick, you remember. You remember as a kid having to travel and dance and parade and jump for the white man at their festivals. There had been many 4th of Julys when this had been Dick’s lot. Dressed in a variety of costumes, even wearing some of those he had dumped next to the Steven’s water line and buried with his other junk… Last year when he had cleaned the shed.
The fourth of July summons memories of insult. Because of this, for Dick, it has always been a day of ambivalence. And if chaos met the white man with an explosion one year’s 4th, and a fire disaster the next, it rarely caused him pain.
Certainly, if Rufus happened by today, Rufus would be an insult to challenge, as he had been last Christmas. But, this morning, Smathers is busy and not hanging out to trap Dick or any of the other locals he sometimes preys on to make his quotas. There are parades enough to occupy his time and fill his ticket book, and there will be many drunks to trap, possibly even some arrests. So, Dick will not be meeting Rufus today, on Center Road, though it is possible Smathers might be hanging about later, at Brown’s affair. But probably not, because Camp Hope will have many townies drinking and on the fourth of July, Smathers will have no need to harass the locals. There will be down state fish to fry.
As for Dick, his plans are to watch the show, and to wander round the job site, with tidying up as his excuse, but really as means to watch the chaos of the white man’s fete… Stop by Brown’s camp, linger in the shadows… who knows, maybe he will meet some young thing who likes Indians? This has only happened twice before, in such a place. And that was long ago, before his pony tail started going gray. But who knows? He has heard that Indians are coming back in favor on the campuses. He smiles, with the possibility.
At times, Indian Dick is like Bloom. He also studies cultures while pretending to have a task at hand… Something forgotten and untended at the Chateau Daphne job site. This will give him a place to watch the white man’s carnival show. And maybe some of Daphne’s girlfriends too, who he imagines trotting about in their bikinis. One thing Dick senses that is certain. Somewhere nearby today, between MacGuilties Bar, Camp Hope, and Longbottom land, between Brown and Janet and Camp Hope… With that many all-Americans together, there will be chaos somewhere. And if Dick is fortunate, he won’t miss it.
With these thoughts, he crests the final Drumlin and makes the turn. It is a short distance overland, less than half a mile from his inlet to his trailer, but by road and in order to avoid the wetland, he has had to travel round and this has provided the time to plan his day.
To his chagrin, he is too late. Parking the cruiser across the drive will dissuade no one. Because Bloom is already upon him, casually hiking and almost to his mailbox. He thinks of turning about, retreating, heading back and leaving the cruiser by the water. But with this thought, it is too late. Bloom, who has heard the cruiser’s rumble, is turning, waving and smiling.
There is nothing to do but have a chat, a quick one. And with this, Dick parks and pauses, exits the cruiser and shakes Bloom's hand, as Bloom immediately starts blathering about the fourth of July and the interest he has for it, the celebrations and barbecues, man and society, the observant parties that will be everywhere in our nation. “Does Dick have any advice about where to watch the fireworks?”
“Camp Hope,” says Dick. “Do you know that bar MacGuilties? Just past it, half a mile toward the water… Brown is having a party. There will be locals there. I recommend it.”
“We are having a barbecue at Michagumee,” says Bloom. “You are welcome.”
“Camp Hope,” says Dick. “If you want to watch. Watch there! I have to go. If you decide to visit Brown. Old Wainwright will be speaking.”
Bloom says, “Yes, the poet. I heard him recite in Ann Arbor last year. I have a copy of his book.”
“The old drunk will be reciting,” says Dick. “I’ve a busy day ahead, but that is where I’ll be later. I am sure Brown would love some more contributors to his new Camp Hope for Little Children. You should go, bring the other professors.”
Bloom says, “Yes, I will. I’ll tell them Wainwright is reciting.
Dick looks askance at Bloom… “Every time I see that old fool walking by the job, he is reciting, or trying to corall me with some dirty limerick. Wainwright!” He snorts, shrugs, laughs… “Wainwright.” … sighing…. “The other day he was reciting that poem about bow legged woman, wandering tipsy toward me, as if that line from Jaws was his own. He sighs again… Later, Bloom, I’ve things to do… Bye. See you...”
And before Bloom can ask any more questions, Dick has entered his trailer and shut the door. A few minutes later as he is leaving… Off to the job site. To his surprise, Bloom is still hanging about by his entrance, and now Bloom’s brought company, returned with a car, and a wife and kids. The children, a boy and girl, stare at Dick as he exits his home and wanders to the car, starting the cruiser and letting the engine roar, eventually moving toward his drive’s intersection with the farm road, pausing… surrounding Bloom with exhaust… “Just wanted to touch base again, the kids were curious… and… Tell me about the old campground. I thought you might walk me around the place, show me about that job site… What you’re up to… building… And where you think the old Indians lived… Maybe I could drop by later, if you’ll be about?”
“Free country,” says Dick. “But it will be busy today… If you see the cruiser.” He roars the engine… “Or my truck,” waving toward the truck. “I’m about. But don’t bother me if things look busy, or full of owners.”
“We’re headed into town, to look at boats,” says Bloom. Bloom's children’s faces are almost stuck to the windows, looking at Dick. “Ice cream,” says the boy. “I might look for you this afternoon, if I don’t see your vehicle here,” continues Bloom.
Dick frowns, then says again, “Free country.”
He then departs, considering that it might not be wise to alienate Bloom or Camp Michagumee, imagining Bloom declaring to his children with PHD wisdom “He’s a real Indian.” Gazing into the rearview mirror, at his reflection… With his summer mahogany face and straight long gray hair, he looks the part.
You never know about the white man. You just never know? He might be able to sell the camp a few cases of Dick’s Beer or maybe some of his ‘Indian’ wine? Turn them into regulars… direct from the fragrant field and forest, all-natural… Firewater… Made by a real Indian. His new label, prominent on the latest batches. Indian Dick, stern and silent… on the bottle.
Wilson:
Wilson wakes surprised to find Grace departed, and that he has slept through her departure. She had been correct. He would have enjoyed some morning affection. It is nine am. Already, he hears commotion coming from the water. The whine of a jet ski, the noise of high-pitched shrieking children traveling from a thousand feet away, carrying in the morning calm. He can feel the holiday excitement as if a part of the ether… activity, people, madness, the arriving day, like a 6th sense… his mind drifts to fireworks and folly. Rising and shutting the slider, blocking the noise, he wanders downstairs for coffee. Waiting, he puts on Barber’s Adagio for Strings, then thinking the better of this, he switches the disk to Aaron Copland, Simple Gifts and Appalachian Spring.
It is cool in his house. The music softly echoes, resonating in the angled spaces. He could do nothing, have an early drink, relax… inebriate the day away with books and music… Remain at home. But gazing at his boat below, framed by towering Ash, with its mast rising and reflecting inverse on the bay’s calm waters…Guilt assaults his senses. The morning is beautiful, and perfect breezes are predicted. He questions, do I really wish to sail today, or is it ownership that drives me?
He has again been wrestling with a concept. The tyranny of possessions. Was it desire driving him this morning, or was it that the boat cost so much that he felt that something so expensive must be used, activated and employed… Even when the idea of lounging on his deck seemed more desirable? Was it that his boat had become a chore? That because it cost so much, it must be used? Perhaps this idea lay nestled in the J.P. Morgan quote about yachts and their expense… ‘If one had to ask the cost… He could not afford one.’ Who was the master here, he or the boat? Was he going to let guilt force him out into the madness, necessitating navigation through a crowd of boats and people… through the chaotic harbor… to wait at the bridge, with boats ahead and boats behind before finally, two hours gone, venturing into Lake Michigan… Guilt, or joy, or habit… What?
There is no storm arriving to entice him. The wind is slight. Perhaps he will simply sail the lake? And then he gets another cup of coffee and lounges on the couch, content with discontent, joined by Ivy who arrives, up from downstairs… Jumps onto the couch and stretches across his thigh and then moves to sit above his head, on the rim of the couch, poking him and purring.
Two hours later, he wakes to silence, except for Ivy’s purr. He has fallen back asleep. The phone has not summoned him. No one has banged his door. Perhaps all who might choose to bother him are busy, and he can stay home, to be left alone?
He walks to the slider and opens it. Immediately, there is noise and heat… Hot, humid, summer mixing with the sound of people playing. He shuts the door, and returns to silence, deciding that the sun is over the yardarm somewhere. It feels good doing nothing, as he pours a whiskey, takes a sip and puts on some more music… Turandot. Then he skips through the tracks to the Nissan Dorma and lies back down to lounge and listen. He has told everyone he’s going sailing. He could just stay right here… Weary from too many obligations, too many promises… to himself, to life, to others… And tired too, from the too many games… called life.
Indian Dick rolls down Longbottom Lane, the cruiser bouncing, in and out of rhythm with the terrain’s roll and rise. He stops at the tool trailer where he plans to organize it and watch the marina from a distance, observe if any women wander the docks, attractive and bikini’d. His gaze shifts. He is surprised to see Pott’s truck parked by the building’s front and parked almost on top of the temporary plywood door, its bumper almost touching the unfinished masonry steps beneath it. Concrete grays and weathered yellow forms… The start of stone. And higher… White Tyvek, the reddish gold shingled roof running across three staggered ridges, their progress broken by the turret cupula’s unfinished roof, round black with bituthene. Then, the three main gables, and the angled double ridges of the two garages with their roughed in eyebrow door openings, the curved edge of the porch roof just visible against the water, and above it all the deep blue sky… It is a picture. A presentation.
It will be a mansion. Wilson says he doesn’t like it. But Dick knows different. Behind it all, behind the chaos of the building’s beginning… behind Tim’s death, and this new Daphne, and Cortland’s attempt to take control of everything. Behind this, the building rises and Dick knows Wilson cannot help loving it. It is his mind that’s made it… That, and all their craftsmanship and labor. He steps back, placing the view against the shadow of the clouds. Thinking. He did it again! Wilson did it again! It fits! It simply fits.
Faint speech is coming from inside the house, and he walks to the edge of the eastern wall, next to the master bath window. Maybe, it is Daphne and her friends inspecting. Dick listens. It is not Daphne. Instead, he overhears Potts. “Sure, I could finish her, no problem. I’ve learned a lot workin for Wilson. I know his details. I could do the same thing… if you want to build a spec on that lot your buyin. There are some details… But I know how to copy Wilson’s from the last house. I’d like to branch out when this one’s done.”
“I’ve been thinking of you,” says Cort. “Daphne likes the house. She likes Wilson. I don’t think we’re…” Cortland coughs to counter his implication… “she’s doing any changing.”
Dick listens more, as Potts persists.
“Well… If problems happen… If anything changes… The interior details… I got most of em. I could fly with the plans unfinished, if you needed? If you and he should have a problem?” Potts lets ‘problem’ dangle in the air and then continues. “I’m as good as he is. I could finish that stair, he’s workin on… Now. Should things change… Just in case? I have other friends. They’d be happy to work…”
“You never know.” says Cort. “You never know.”
The conversation falls off, and Dick hears no more. Listening to mumbling as Potts and Cortland move away from the window, further into the body of the house.
He cautiously retreats, walking first toward the water, and then back south and east to the tool trailer. He has never cared for Potts and vice versa… Potts not caring for Indians in general, and Dick in specific. Partly from his prejudice, but also because both of them influence Wilson from different places in the hierarchy, Potts as his foreman and Dick as a long-time employee-friend. Potts takes charge when and where Wilson lets and tells him, while Dick is left to do pretty much whatever productive thing he wants. If Potts gets tough with Dick? He knows Dick just tells Wilson to get rid of him. And Dick has been with Wilson as long as Wilson has been building in Beauville. Potts is more recent, necessary, sometimes in charge, but not a friend. Wilson would never hang with Potts, and Potts knows it.
Potts’ disdain for Dick is both personal and racial. Like most northern Michigan working men… He thinks… He knows from unquestioned observation; the Indians don’t matter. The world belongs to the white man. And for resentment, add the prejudice built on Indian freedoms, their hunting and fishing rights... no licenses required, whenever they wish.
When the price of fish goes up, when the lake trout are less and less, the white fish few and fewer, the once plentiful white perch now with prices that make them a fine fish luxury compared to thirty years ago and past fish fries… Cheap fundraisers like the Rotary pancake breakfast… Men like Potts blame it on the Indian’s right to fish whenever, wherever they wish. Blaming scarcity on the Indians over fishing, ignoring that the perch are scarce as a result of the White man’s environmental crimes, and too many white men eating them.
And Potts is not unique. Most of white America would join him if asked. It is about ownership, and short family histories, and the European colonizing belief, endemic to America, that a few generations on the land and possession of a title while paying taxes… That this gives the white man ownership… While neglecting to examine the facts. If Dick’s ancestors had thought it possible to own the land, Potts’ ancestors might never have got their hands on it in the first place. For the Indians, ownership of the earth had been an alien concept.
Who knows? What might have happened had the cultures met in a circumstance without the white man’s Christian god embodied in disease and plagues, and the pox ridden blankets, that decimated millions, proving to the white man that God was on his side…Pre-science?
Thoughts like these rarely dent the minds of the Pott’s of the world. Such thinking would crush their myth. And, for most of them, even though they don’t realize it, the American myth is all they have. Even as rugged and independent as they pretend to be, it is their rugged freedom myth that gives them value. They are slaves to it. And with the myth comes prejudice.
Dick’s ancestors were doomed the moment they met the white man, their numbers decimated with and by the white man’s plagues, way before the socializing and the slaughtering began. You can see this story written on their faces. The Pott’s upward nose tilt certainty, and Dick’s flat frowning aware acceptance. For Dick and his Chippewa brothers ride the sea of life, while men like Potts attempt to tame it. An Indian will paddle the shifting stream. The white man attempts to shift the stream. The cultures coexist in a racist imbalance, as do Potts and Dick in microcosm… Both men realizing that the Indians have lost whatever battles they fought… Never to win again.
Yes, the white man and the Indian sometimes work together, when necessary, by circumstance, or the result of employers like Wilson, but they almost never socialize. Dick thinking Potts, an asshole, and Potts thinking Dick, an Indian.
So, when Dick hears Potts praising himself, implying that Wilson might be unnecessary, he cautiously retreats, walking first toward the water and then back south and east to the tool trailer, not wishing to encounter Potts, except by a distant wave, a gestured half assed howdy.
But this overheard conversation is something to know about, and someday he may warn Wilson. Alert, alert…
**********************
Digger Brown has also risen early. He meets the same morning, exiting his home, which sits across the entrance drive from his adjacent business, and sign. Digger Brown Excavation—Holes to Highways. Someone has painted Digger’s Do It Deeper on a piece of plywood beneath this. But that slogan is for the baseball caps and not for the business entrance.
Sipping coffee, Brown observes the shadows fall down the hillside as the sun rises above the ridge, beginning to light the hill to the East, and the old bridge trestles, the endless scatter of vans and trucks and old loaders, excavators, monstrous shape shifting graders, and the buildings on the horizon now shining bright with early light, the industrial junk, giant gears and wheels, some of it rusted with nature’s years, turned and turning it into sculpture when the light is right. Dew sits on it all before the sun, evaporating and shining, as the sunlight increases, as it climbs the sky. In shadow or in light, it does not appear as junk to Brown, who sees not junk, but his past… His and his father’s history.
It has been a rough patch. A different year, that started badly. But time and chicanery, a bit of acting, and one great idea, have altered Brown’s landscape. Amazing, when he thinks about it. One night in jail, and not even two years later, he has been transformed into Benevolent Brown.
He plans to make a speech. He supposes he may give in, give up a bit… Become part of it all, jump back up the step… Respected and respectable. Maybe Smythe is correct that his good old boy disdain for government resonates? When this is done… Next election… the one after… Perhaps he should run for congress? There is no question he has charisma. As the saying goes… ‘time will tell.’ And it might! If he could get Janet on his team. He would have the liberals. Or some of them… the old Hippies, their predecessor Beats, the lefties who still hated war and the CIA. They did not care much for government either. He already has the conservatives and all the Bubbas too. Another year, two years, he thinks… Someday… Maybe… Congressman… Senator Brown?
He sips his coffee and decides he better work on his speech. Though, he is a contemporaneous speaker, it will be a place to start. His big fingers are not good with writing. They clutch the pencil awkwardly. His letters are blocky and large. But they will be easy to read. ‘Hello Beauvillians’, the phone rings, he pauses.
It is Janet Wainwright. He anticipates complaints about her stage. But this is not the reason for her call. She is calling to say how nice it is that he has all the rainbow bunting draped about the landscape, how enlightened of Brown for Beauville. “Is it possible he might think about including the Chippewa in Camp Hope? Little Indian children too.”
“I never meant to keep them out,” says Brown.
“But how about an announcement? You know. Remember. We were on different sides. There is evidence that there was an Indian Camp where Longbottom Estates now is, before it was ever Wainwright land.”
“I remember you pretended that, to try to stop development, after your wetland fantasies failed.”
Brown knows where this is going, and probably why. Too many oars stirring that water. The Indians… Janet had been getting back at Conrad’s sister for selling the land. Stopping Longbottom and development and preserving her privacy had been only part of her reasons for the fight. And he knows for certain that Indians were never Janet’s reason. They were her excuse, even if her hypocrisy kept her from seeing this fact. And what the hell, why now…again? He thought this was over with. Settled! Longbottom estates exists. It is a reality.
“What are you doing Janet, trying to get back at Longbottom for something?”
“NO, no, of course not… I just thought what a great lead in for you, if you wanted to announce that next year when Camp Hope actually will have some campers, that there will be funds raised and special scholarships for little Chippewa campers too.”
Brown starts to hum. One little, Two little, Three little Indians.
“Oh, stop that,” says Janet… “But how can you lose. Brown?”
“Don’t know Janet, sounds Ok, let me think about it. Maybe, but not now. So, don’t add any Tom-Tom’s to that music of yours… But I’ll think on it.”
Brown returns to his pencil, humming that childhood tune… flexing his massive left hand, as he bends his fingers, one little, two little, three little Indian Boys…
*********
Dick has straightened everything to his and Wilson’s liking, blades collated, saws in their proper slots, gun nail boxes stacked by model and size, tools aligned and shovels hung, everything neat for another week, until the men will scatter his order to the winds. If not by the middle of next week, certainly again a week from now. Job Security. He looks out the trailer’s small window, turns away and then turns back. One of Daphne’s friends, one he has never seen, younger and hot in her bikini, her ass wobbling slightly as she walks. He thinks what the hell and takes off his shirt. Dick is tan and compact, solid, thick and muscled… His chest athletic, buff for a man in his late thirties.
If Hollywood was still making westerns, he could have been an extra, maybe a lead… He could grunt with the best of them… straight nose, slightly wider than aquiline and flared at the nostrils, a high broad forehead, strong jaw. His skin tanned dark mahogany, his shoulders red from the sun. Dick has no body fat. He imagines the plot, the noble savage who kidnaps the white woman who then falls in love with the savage, his land and scenery.
Maybe, this one seeks adventure? They rarely do, but he can imagine. He leaves the tool-trailer and walks importantly to the front of the house where the attractive woman has been joined by another of Daphne’s gals, this one older, less fit, but either one would do. He walks faster, self-important, his gaze is distant, past the women, as if he is intent on the house, and a project.
But before he can flex his pecks and pass, ignored as usual in such job encounters, the hot one looks straight at him, smiles, and says “Hi.” And Dick is living in a dream. And the dream continues as she asks him to tell him about the house, while resting her hand lightly on his arm, then shoulder, chirping like a delightful bird, “Did you build this? It’s beautiful.”
As the older woman stares at her companion with derisive surprise. The hot bikini says “Can you give us a tour?” “Not me,” says the older woman, frowning at her companion… the frown a question of intent and purpose. “Not me, I am going to sit here.”
And soon, Dick is giving this hot young woman a tour. “Watch yourself,” he says. “Thing are sharp in here…”
This would be an incongruous scene to anyone. Rarely do half naked bare foot women walk about a job site. “You must be careful, watch for nails. Do you want to get some shoes?” The woman looks into his eyes and says, “I’ll be fine.” And then she bounds up the stairs as Dick watches her behind flexing past the 2x4’s and 2x6’s. “Wait he says, wait.”
Then Dick gives her the tour as he has heard Wilson provide one, explaining the spaces, the heights, why this and not that, the purpose of the upper glass, what the finished product will look like. By the end, Dick has a fan, and his arm has been squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, again. He has felt her breath near his, as she has first come close then darted away, from room to room, leading Dick once she understands the next turn.
But as the tour continues, Dick’s warning bells begin to sound. What might this look like to Wilson, to Cortland, a half-naked women and shirtless Indian Dick? This is not the wild prairie. He has burned no wagon train. He cautions, Liz, he has learned her name…that it has been nice to meet her, to show her, but he has trades to ply, and a day ahead, they need to return outside.
And so, they do, fortunately to no one’s notice but the older woman, lounging and still frowning. “Ok, well, by then,” says Dick. “Nice to meet you,” nodding to the other woman. He is now in a hurry to leave before. He never imagined he would be conducting tours with such a hot young creature.
“Later,” says Liz. “I will see you later.” Then, “Are you going to that Camp affair?” “I’ll be there,” says Dick as he walks away. “So will I,” she says… “So will I.” As Dick leaves the other woman admonishes.
“Elizabeth, what are you thinking. He works here. He’s an Indian!” Liz laughs and says, “He’s nice.”
As Dick rounds the building, a much less pleasant wrinkle sits before him. Bloom is driving down Longbottom Lane. And at the trailer there is a neighbor’s dog, the black lab that is always dragging 2x4’s about the site, dragging them up the stairs, then waiting for someone to throw them out the window, then dragging them back and then up again. Repeat, repeat, repeat. But instead of a 2x4, Boris, the lab, has an old deer head in front of him… One that Dick buried months before. In the old deer head’s antler’s, a moccasin is trapped. Boris waits for Dick, panting at the trailer door, returning it.
Bloom’s Volvo wagon bounces at the intersection of Longbottom Lane and the drive, construction entrance, to chateau Daphne. He pauses looking at the house, then his eyes find Dick and he drives toward Dick and Boris, parking. “Left the family at the beach. So, this is what you’re building. Big, isn’t it… Looks like it is pretending to be old.”
“I think that was the idea,” says Dick. Trying to separate Boris from the deer head, before Bloom sees it. But with Blooms arrival Boris has growled and reattached his muzzle to the Antlers. And Boris is not letting go.
“What you got there boy?” says Bloom.
“He just dug it up.”
A smile rolls up Blooms face… “Really…looks old.”
“Isn’t,” says Dick. “I buried it last fall. Boris has decided to bring it back to me. It was in my shed… I was cleaning. It is no find.”
“Really,” says Bloom looking at the moccasin attached to the antler. “Those beads don’t look plastic, they look glass. Seed beads. If so, that moccasin is old, from the mid 1800s, and it might be older.” Bloom quickly grabs the moccasin before Boris can decide if it is antler or moccasin he prefers, leaving Boris tightly attached to the rotting head… The same head Dick imagines, might have belonged to that fellow from Cincinnati, featured in his grandfather’s story. The rich man his grandfather once guided, many decades before Dick cleaned the shed and buried the head and moccasin with the water line.
“These beads aren’t uniform,” says Bloom… Bloom continues to examine… “Definitely old, 19th century old… and a Plains moccasin. What’s it doing here? I bet trade!”
“I told you,” says Dick. “It was in my shed and I buried it.”
“Well how did you get it?”
“I don’t know. My father, grandfather. It was their junk. But it did not come from here. It was left over from the Indian Charlies.”
“The what?”
“You don’t want to know,” says Dick. “My father had a show. I was in it. It was the family business. Type of Indian didn’t matter. Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Huron, Pawnee, he didn’t care about the get up. It was for the white man.”
“May I have it,” says Bloom.
“You got it away from Boris, and I’m not grabbing it back,” says Dick. “But it does not prove there was any Indian site here. I buried it.”
“I hear you,” says Bloom. “It’s a nice piece… Did you bury more like this?”
“I don’t know… it was all junk to me.”
“Can I dig it up… Your junk?”
“No,” says Dick. “I did not tell anyone I was doing it. I was cleaning. It’s just junk buried by the water line. Take the moccasin.”
“I am certain there was an Indian Camp here. I did research when that Wainwright woman called me trying to stop this.” Bloom waves his arm north then south, then points to Chateau Daphne. “This development! But I guess my help was not enough.”
“Yeah,” says Dick, “I imagine… It is not like it is a secret. It was poor land, wet and wanting, before the lake became popular. So?”
“Relics,” says Bloom. “My business is research, relics.”
“Well, that moccasin is the only one you’re going to get from here. And it came from my shed! I suppose you might find some old whisky bottles and beer cans too, if you went digging… And if you go next door?” Dick points a thousand yards north to the Wainwright Forest. “You will find that Drunk Wainwright, and you could probably dig up some old scotch bottles, too.”
“Oh… Right. That is where they live isn’t it? It seems farther away when you pass their drive on the road.” Bloom dusts off the moccasin, touching it carefully, wiping off the Boris slobber, the debris, mold, dirt. “I’m preserving it. We’ll put this in the museum… At the minimum, in a case at Michagumee.
“It came from my shed,” repeats Dick. “It was… still is… trash.”
Bloom gently strokes the moccasin, touching it like treasure… “I tried for her,” he points north toward the trees, and Deer Haven. “I tried to stop this.”
“And if you had, I would have no job,” says Dick. “She’s performing this evening at Camp Hope, one of her fetes… for the Fourth. I told you. You should go, listen and watch, observe, connect, reconnect. I think Wainwright is reciting. See the containers.”
In the distance, the red and blue and yellow, vertical, inclined, and horizontal containers of Camp Hope stand and tilt before the clouds. Dick gestures south. “She calls it Oz.”
6 PM … The fourth of July.
Wilson has changed his mind, and docked his boat at the camp hope marina. He and Brown stand next to his slip looking east toward Camp Hope. Brown says, “Like my additions?” “Yes,” says Wilson. “It is a contrast, isn’t it?” With this, he waves north toward Longbottom estates and the Master Mind Too, and then toward the point and Chateau Daphne.
“No one will confuse this with old, will they… though if you add little Indian children to the mix, you may need a teepee.”
“We’ll build a metal one,” says Brown. Wilson laughs, “OK, that fits.”
******************
Imagine, Longbottom estates with its attempt at old—an outrageous theme park affluence in waiting, a final gasp of the late twentieth century. And right next door, Brown’s metal jungle gym of Hope. And surprisingly, it fits. Because Beauville is all one giant reality installation, a ‘Disney Land’ of summer. And soon, the fireworks will proclaim and shout the wonder of America, the essential nation, and of Beauville, a real and metaphoric myth ridden theme park, equally absurd.
And if you tried, and your imagination was large enough… You might stretch this human centric theme park to include the universe - light years on, until you stumbled on Aliens, or God, or infinity… string theory… or recycling black holes of space… and explanation.
But this will not happen this evening… Only the Wainwrights, and the fireworks, Janet’s fete and her bright colors—Happy old and happy young, and happy old and young neuroses attached to separate commingling Beauvillians and visitors… Citizens of the late twentieth century with their repeating human folly, and time centric, yet eternal, myths and manipulations.
Hurrah America, the land of the free, home of the brave, where we all wear white hats, and we are all exceptional. How could we not be? We are the myth. Americans are American Exceptionalism in all its good and bad, real and fraud reality.
This… That… is the fourth of July in Beauville. And you will see little of any racial melting pot here, where almost everyone’s DNA is Northern European. Except for the native folks. The Indian Dicks, and they don’t count. They are almost invisible, unnoticed, just part of it all...scenery...like the lake, the water, the forest… Invisible as nature… Until you notice. Until you smell the air and feel the breeze, until the rain falls on your face, until you see the buzzards soaring… And soon you will notice Indian Dick as he finds his place in American Exceptionalism.
***********************
“I ran into your Grace,” Brown winks. “She was not sailing with you?” “Never does,” says Wilson. "She thinks it is something rich fools do, a waste of time. Grace does not grasp the challenge, or understand the romance. For her it’s the nuts and bolts of stupid.” Brown frowns, “Different strokes,” beginning to say something else before he pauses, adding. “She said you were not attending.” “Changed my mind,” says Wilson. “And there’s no wind.” He points to the Anomie. “Can I leave her here for tonight, tomorrow…Until next week if it comes to that… I need to charge the batteries.” “No problem,” says Brown. “Plug er in.”
The two men gaze toward the shore, toward Brown’s metaled Oz. “Pretty much as we planned it last March,” says Wilson. “Pretty much,” repeats Brown. “My ideas, the idea has grown… still growing. The containers were a good thing….”
From the water, Camp Hope slowly climbs the hill. First you see the barge and floating docks, then a large common and the central dome that will be the eating hall. Next to this jut out shipping containers to serve as storage and kitchen. And behind, there is a semicircular lawn, fifty feet wide, and after that, built into the hillside, tiered rows of shipping containers—Nine of them in threes separated by newly landscaped trees… Like a roman amphitheater. And in the center, along the center line of the central dome, but farther up the hill. Behind it all, is a large blue silo thrusting 80 feet against the sky.
The plan is for interior stairs that circle an elevator, and for a large observation deck on top. Next year, someday… When Camp Hope is completed, expanded in reality and in Brown’s mind, into The Camp Hope Foundation with still more steel buildings at the road, office space for the foundation, for Brown, and staff, in keeping with the materials and color… reds and yellows, blues, pole barns… Someday, but with an added twist… the curved metal roofs of Quonset huts along the road.
And perhaps Brown’s complete vision may come to pass. But now. This fourth of July. The highest thing behind everything, at the back of this real and re-contoured hill, is the lone sentinel silo with Brown’s flag and rainbow banner attached at the silo’s top, carried by a cable strung across to one of Brown’s old cranes—the only way to the top of this is a ladder bolted to its side.
“It has a future, Brown,” says Wilson…
“Smythe says I should run for congress, the senate... says there is a hole I might fill.”
“Why not,” says Wilson. “You’ve got the Republicans, and with this Hope enterprise and your stable barns, you seem to have Wainwright. And if you’ve got her… you could make congress… Don’t know about senate.”
“One term,” says Brown. “Then the Senate. That’s Smythe’s plan… We live in a great land, a great land…”
Wilson, never sure with Brown, where the ham stops and the real sets in… defers to this judgement. Saying. “I’m sure your founders think so” … Then moving on. “So, the show?”
“It’s to be a Janet Wainwright, without the collapsing pumpkins, as far as I can figure,” says Brown. “That, and Yankee Doodle Dandeee… Must go.”
“I’m hanging on my boat,” says Wilson.
And Brown heads off towards the barge and stage.
***************************************************************
As the festivities are about to begin Conrad steps forward. He has told Brown, over a couple of scotch the previous week, that he has a poem. And Janet, trying to corral her husband’s bottom pinching tendencies, aware there will be a lot swimming suited bottoms with many young girls attached, has arranged for his place on the dais, and Brown has approved, even announcing, to those planning to attend, that Conrad will have a poem to present, especially written for the occasion.
So, here stands Conrad, at the edge of the stand, at the edge of the barge, its green indoor outdoor carpeted dais and steps before him, above the gathered seated celebrants as Brown announces that something special is coming. “Conrad’s contribution” as Brown raises his hand, as if holding back the waters, to delay Conrad who has assumed this is his cue, but who is now halted in his progress across the stage, paused, annoyed, impatient, looking about to locate his wife, then towards the shore, towards a view he has never seen from this perspective, where the red and black and blue and white shipping containers assault his old-money eyes.
Vertical and rising, sentinels on edge, some straight, some stacked and titled catawampus, the main body a curved amphitheater arrangement rising up the hill. Order and disorder, tilted planes, straight lines, square windows, round windows, rectangular windows, and huge planes of glass at the edge of walkways—order and chaos joined, all present in this Camp Hope arrangement. As Conrad takes this all in, with impatient irritation, Brown launches into a save the children, Camp Hope, fourth of July soliloquy of his own.
Clad in an immense flowered shirt, wearing deeply pleated kakis, and with his holiday Derby on his head. Brown gestures wide with both hands, beaming toward the crowd. “Welcome, welcome… Future campers.”
He looks down at a hastily gathered group of unhappy children forced to look at Brown and this adult nonsense when they could be playing in the sand, or splashing in the water.
“Founders,” he gestures to his right where some of the founders sit looking appropriately golf shirt pressed and pleated, summer tanned, and affluent. “And, our generous contributors… Many of you!” His eyes travel across the crowd. “And friends… Visitors to our village. Welcome, welcome… On this day, Citizens… Americans… Patriots… We observe…”
Brown removes the Derby setting it on the podium. Then he straightens and stretching his arms, he appears to grow before the crowd, turning left then right. Then, with heavy jowls nestling in his neck, he gazes down, becoming serious as he continues.
“Friends, neighbors, patriots, Americans… we celebrate our nation this fourth of July. Only in this great nation can Hope come to so many.” He pauses and turns once more. “Look, look.” He points up the hill toward the shore. “Camp Hope. In America we have history. We have hope. We have the new. We have the old, and we care… For the people, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, here in Beauville and all across our great land. From sea to shining sea, we care… And today.” He pauses again as his great head burrows into his buffalo shoulders. Serious, his chin tilting, staring straight toward the crowd… Then thrusting his finger up the hillside. “Hope…Hope… What is more American than hope…and good deeds done and doing. And today, we announce, we imagine its completion. Today we commemorate Camp Hope for little children, and the birth of our great nation.” Brown pauses and retrieves his derby placing it on his head.
And then with “America, Camp Hope… hope” … repeating he removes the Derby from his head again and with a grand gesture he tosses the derby skyward. Brown beams his arms high above his head. Janet whacks the podium. A trumpet begins the fanfare for the common man. The first bright three measures of the fanfare pierce the air ending with the long final note held for as long as this single trumpeter has air. Brown waves his hand then points toward the hillside and his banner.
The attendees applaud, Brown beams, turning left then right.
“Thank you, Janet Wainwright. Thank you trumpet. Thank you, Copeland,’’ as someone questions from the center front… “What’s a Copeland… Copland?”
“And now,” Brown motions to Conrad who impatient, enters from the left. Clad in a white straw hat, white pants, a turquoise shirt, and a white Casablanca jacket. His nose is deep red from sun and from his morning, afternoon, and early evening Scotch, as he thanks Brown, the crowd, the day, and the beautiful weather.
I see the tiny birds, above,
I think of peace, I see the dove.
I think of the nasty British boys
Who we kicked out!
Sent home!
Without a country
Without their toys.
The people clap and laugh and snicker, but then serious, Conrad continues. Smiling and beaming at Brown, he puts his pages before him and begins to read…
Our nation is a wondrous place
We celebrate, the people
And this place.
We celebrate the fourth today…
As he says this, he is looking at Camp Hope and Brown’s catawampus containers. Camp Hope, as Conrad…Scotched… perceives it, pausing for a moment as Janet glares at him, concerned.
“What is that anyway, Brown?” Conrad puts down his pages, allowing them to tumble to the ground as he pulls his flask from a pocket and takes a deep pull. Janet moves toward him, but he nods her off. Brown does not know, he waits… Then Conrad roars.
“no, No, NO!” louder… His no’s repeat three times, four times, five…
Then extemporaneous, or planned, perhaps memorized but not likely. Conrad continues.
As we celebrate the fourth today
He points at the hillside…
What is that, What the fuck, is that!
He turns left then right… The camp has bothered him, but he has never really seen it so directly… This monstrous ‘Steel, Stonehenge, Oz’ as he heard Janet complain about it, just this morning. ‘Munchkins and madness, Druids…’
“What is that Munchkin Modernist mess… Brown?”
“Quiet…hush,” says Janet from the edge of the stage. “Read the poem.” She rushes out and picks up the papers and hands them to him retreating. But Conrad is not about to be hushed, as he lets them fall again, and takes a sip from his flask and then another, placing the flask back into his pocket while shaking his head, flexing his hair.
“As we celebrate the fourth today.” He pauses for a moment, in thought.
“I wish this camp would go away,” he turns to Brown. Then as if he was holding forth in his living room and not onstage at this celebration of the fourth and the inauguration of Brown’s Camp Hope. He continues with a quizzical look at Brown.
“Hope for children?” He pauses.
Hope for children?
Really, Brown?
And foundation too?
You’re such a clown.
Brown has moved to the far side of the stage, as he smiles and shrugs.
Then Conrad bursts.
I see through you
It was to escape jail time.
That you thought this up.
How sublime.
Conrad turns towards Brown for emphasis…. Brown beams, not knowing what else to do.
A camp for children?
It’s a space for yachts
For the La di da and Hottentots.
You could give a shit
About the kids, I say!
Conrad turns and glowers at the crowd, then points to the circle of shipping containers.
I wish this mess would go away!
He then looks again at Brown.
And quitting drinking, what a sham
Here. Have a snort, right now, I am.
Conrad raises his flask and gurgles then he tap, tap, stumbles towards Brown who has already had his snort earlier, and his breath mints.
Brown turns toward Conrad and smiles. But his eyes are hot. “All in fun, Brown, all in fun.” says Conrad, handing Brown his flask. Brown grabs it and puts it quickly in his back pocket. Then he takes hold of Wainwright by the elbow. And, while smiling at the people, chuckling, pretending with a wink and gesture that this is just another Conrad inebriation annoyance. While wishing that he could just toss Wainwright off the barge, he instead gently but powerfully steers him down the steps and to the chairs as he continues to smile and laugh and make light of the situation.
“Let your wife perform, we can have a toddy, later” he says quietly. Then with an admonishing warning Brown continues. “Sit Down!” He hands Conrad back his flask. “Please!” Then beaming he turns to Janet and the assemble Beauvillians, and says “And now the show.”
And with this Janet pitches her pipe and taps her baton as the one Trombone, the two trumpets, the two cellos, the viola, the clarinet, the sax, the two violins, and the recently added rock and roll organ join the chorus and the remaining orchestra, launching into the ‘big parade and seventy-six trombones’, as some of the younger and most attractive Pumpkin Patch ladies, now turned Firecrackers, march across the stage.
All is well, the show must go on. And it does, one tune after another until the finale, with Shenandoah’s finishing chords, sound first wistful and sad and then build to quiet joy, bringing tears to the eyes of the audience who pause with silence, and then slowly begin to clap—their applause rising up, towards a darkening cumulonimbus sky.
Suddenly, as if on schedule, there is a slow gurgled cry and then a scream of “help” and then another, followed by young voices, shouting.
A little girl has followed the older children, climbing up to the silo’s top. An adventure, and a place to watch the fireworks. But it is too early and the children have become bored by Brown, every one of them climbing back down the ladder, leaving this small child behind because she was unwilling to go first.
As anyone who has climbed anything knows; it is much easier to climb up than down… The All-American ladder of success… or the ladder to the top of the silo. And now, the little girl is four steps down and frozen to the side… her small legs that were barely able to climb up, unable and unwilling to climb down. It was easier for her short arms to pull herself upwards than to support her on the way down. One of the older boys is climbing back toward her, but his coaxing is useless. The little girl might as well be welded to the ladder. She dares not turn, hugging the ladder tight, as those in attendance become overwhelmed by her whimpers and her louder cries of help.
Brown looks on, then shouts, and points to the crane. “Who will ride the bucket? Who Will ride the bucket?” Then he starts yelling at Ralph to drive up the hill, retrieve it and hurry, attach it to the crane, and drop the rainbow banner. “We need someone strong enough to pluck her from the side.”
Brown surveys the crowd. No one volunteers. His eyes travel left then right until he sees Dick standing in the shadows, chatting with a woman. “Dick, Dick.” Dick ignores him. Brown beckons with his hand his wide arm swinging, summoning Dick toward the podium. “Dick, Indian Dick,” shouts Brown… And then the eyes of the crowd turn ‘Who is Dick? An Indian?’ Liz gazes at Dick, turns and clutches his arm. And Dick is trapped.
The little girl is crying. Brown is shouting his name while gesturing, pointing towards the crane and bucket. “Dick, Dick.” But Dick is not going to ride the bucket. He turns to Liz, the hottie, who says, “Do it, you can do it,” as she squeezes his bicep.
“It will take too long to dump the banner.”
She squeezes his arm more. There is a moment, but sex is powerful, plus Dick cares. A momentary pause and then he shouts to Brown. “Ok… I’ll get her!”
He begins to walk and then he is running to the ladder, taking off his shirt as he runs, his broad back exposed to the twilight. And then Indian Dick, on the fourth of the fucking July, begins to climb to save the white man, and he is not going to wait on Brown and the crane either.
Dick is climbing. The crowd is watching. The anthropologist Bloom is watching, the Michagumee campers watch, and also Bloom's children who are yelling to their friends, “That’s the Indian…” But Dick hears none of this as he departs the shadows, muscles flexing, legs stretched, a coiled machine hurrying upwards toward the little girl who now lets go with one hand as she reaches for Dick
“No, No,” says Dick, “No honey,” soft and calm to counter the crowd’s excitement. “No honey. Hold on. Both hands. I’m coming.”
And Dick might be running up the silo now, left foot, then right, his calves bulging, thighs taut, his biceps flexing. His broad back is shiny mahogany, his muscles ripple, defined by the shadowed twilight, Sweat shimmers on his shoulders. He gleams against the darkening sky.
And no one has thought to halt the fireworks, and these commence on schedule as day turns to night, everything computerized, set to fire in crescendoed bright arrays. White and red, blue and magenta, blossoms fill the sky, smoke hovers on the water and the heavens turn hot with color. Fireworks boom, their explosions rising into the sky, as they flare and flash with powdered thunder, as smoke begins to rise and travel inland, upwards, towards the little girl who is petrified and frightened by the noise and flash, in shock, out of her mind with fear, waiting for Dick’s traveling time… seconds that seem like hours.
Some of the crowd looks toward the lake, toward the purples and bright whites, the emerald green embers that fall like small dying stars, but most are intent on Dick and the little girl, small against the sky’s reflected light.
“Almost there, almost there... hold tight.”
And then it happens, the little girl lets go with one hand and reaches for Dick. Dick shouts “No, No.” The sky turns bright white then deep blue and then deep rose red as the little girl slips and falls.
A collective gasp rises from the crowd, and in this instant the Indian Dick that was All State, the Indian Dick who has jumped through hoops with the Indian Charlies, the Indian Dick who could have been an acrobat stretches out and catches the child as the tiny girl falls by. Dick holding on with his right hand and arm, dangling from the ladder, now seventy feet up the silo, in shadow and in light. Everyone is entranced and fearful watching Indian Dick as King Kong, catching the child and throwing her Fay Wray style across his shoulder and then climbing down the silo’s side beneath the fireworks, welcomed back to earth by cannon booms and clapping… Applause for Indian Dick, who is not in the shadows now.
Feely, Wilson, Janet, Randy, Grace, Conrad, Daphne, the lawyer Smyth, Walshinksi, the many Founders, Margie and the gals, everyone who is anyone in Beauville and everyone who is not, clapping for Indian Dick on the fourth of July—Everyone but Potts and Courtland, who have paused from plotting, to watch the show.