Clean Slate

Chapter 16

The Flatiron Building stood on a lot the shape of a pie wedge, where Central Avenue met Eighth Street. This was the northern fringe of downtown St. Marys: the Skywalk did not reach this far, and the nearest Metrotrain stop was four long blocks away. Most of the buildings were second-tier and not too tall, four or five stories at most, and housed an ever-churning variety of second-tier businesses: bill collectors, quick-buck lawyers, health food stores, palm readers, clothing shops, delicatessens, juice joints, dry cleaners, and, of course, saloons. Above this aromatic stew of diversity, gazing down benignly at the pedestrian and vehicle traffic smoking up the narrow boulevards, the Flatiron Building was, at ten stories, a clear cut above, at least in appearance. Shaped like its namesake, and startlingly similar to same-named buildings in Atlanta, New York, and other places, the Flatiron Building was a white stone Beaux Artes classic: a structure that, if placed just eight blocks closer to the heart of downtown, would have commanded rents in the area of a hundred a square foot, net-net-net. Up here it went for considerably less; in fact it was surprisingly cheap, and yet since its glory days in the 1940s it ran chronically at 50% occupancy except during the go-go late nineties when it had been home to a couple of dot-com flops.

Judge Wayne Wildern kept his private office here. Lacking phone, fax, or the possibility of interruptions, the Flatiron Building office was a place for the Judge to study research papers, write complex orders and opinions, and become unavailable when it suited his strategic purposes. Its very existence was a dread secret, known euphemistically as "up the street" only to his longtime secretary, wife, and Earl Bucaro. Who had, truth be told, never actually been inside the thing. His interaction with it was to drop the Judge off here some mornings, and, right at the curb where the Flatiron came to a point, pick him up.

Which was what he did tonight. Pulling away, Earl guided the big black Caddy onto southbound Central Avenue, flowing with the traffic toward Thomas Jefferson Way. Behind him, in his usual spot, Judge Wildern sat at the center of the leather bench seat. He had his briefcase with him, as well as several cardboard wallets of paperwork – all as usual. He wore a black suit with very thin, faint chalk pinstripe, over white shirt and red-and-black tie – very typical. He sat in the center of the seat, knees spread, plump white hands folded in his lap: entirely normal. But Earl, ever alert to the nuances emanating from the powerful around him, picked up a signal on a faint, low-register frequency. He could not identify it. Preoccupation? Sadness? Maybe the old guy was just tired. This was Friday, after all.

"The country club, Judge?" Earl asked.

"No, no. Take me home. Last thing I need today is more back-slapping fat cats."

Earl found this amusing, given that Judge Wildern was the classic and ultimate back-slapping fat cat. "Tough week?"

"Ah. I don't know. I suppose." The Judge looked out the side window, his dark eyes beneath the heavy brow far away. "I don't know why things can't just stay. . .regulated for any period of time."

"Sir?"

"People just need to stay put and do what they're supposed to do."

"I hear you."

"But the real problem, Earl, you know what that is?" the Judge asked, leaning forward, elbows on knees. "The problem is all the new people."

"Yes, sir."

"Where they come from I don't know. Where they get all their piss and vinegar, I can't tell. I turn my back and when I look around again, they've come over the wall from somewhere, or parachuted in, or something – and here they are, digging in."

"Younger all the time," Earl ventured.

"That's right," the Judge snapped. "And the worst of 'em are these Homeland Security Desk people. Act like a bunch of little robots, they mouth all their little slogans and platitudes. They wrap themselves in this mantle of duty honor country, Earl, but I know what they're really about. You know what they're really about, Earl?"

"Haven't a clue, sir."

"They're about the same thing the rest of us are about," the Judge barked. "Getting a piece of the pie, and then making it as big as they can. Grabbing more and more and more. That's what they're really about. Forget this ‘protecting the public' bull shit."

That last word told Earl more than all the rest of the Judge's blather combined. Even in the company of close friends – other men – the Judge almost never used profanity. "Feathering the nest," Earl murmured.

"That's right. They don't care about the public. In fact, if Osama drove a few more planes out of the sky they'd be tickled pink. Because that would give them even more power." The Judge sagged back, scratched his head. "I don't know, Earl, I just don't know. They're chipping away. Relentless. Like termites."

"Let 'em chip, Judge."

Wildern did not respond for a long while. From his slack expression he seemed back inside himself, way way back. Then he said: "What's the status of the hooker? Brody?"

Your little play toy, Earl thought, and then realized: That's what this is all about! He's in mourning because she's gone!

"It would appear," Earl answered, "she's making haste to relocate to more distant precincts."

"Very distant, I trust," the Judge grumbled.

"Presumably," Earl said easily. "I'll keep you informed."

"I don't want to know where," the Judge ordered.

Sure you don't.

"So it's all done?" the Judge asked.

"We had a minor loose end," Earl said. "But --"

"I don't want to know about that, either," the Judge said.

In silence they drove. Soon the Caddy was winding its way up Mount Madison. The further they went, the narrower the street, the larger the lots, the larger the trees, the more impressive the estates. Judge Wildern's place was nearly at the top, a fact whose significance was never lost on Earl Bucaro. "Let 'em chip, Judge," he repeated into the long silence of the sighing Cadillac. "It's part of the cycle, that's all."

"Cycle?" the Judge muttered. "Or spiral?"

"Just the cycle," Earl said, sharper than he'd intended. "Come on, your Honor. You're on top, you've always been on top, and unless and until you choose to hand off the baton, you'll stay on top."

Earl wheeled the Caddy up the Judge's driveway and neatly into the turnaround. The Judge opened his door and stepped out, briefcase dangling, arms burdened with the work papers. He closed the door, but instead of bounding up the steps to his house, as he usually did, he stepped to the Cadillac's driver door. As Earl opened the window, the Judge bent down. His smile was weary, but at least he was smiling. "Damn, Earl, I knew there was a reason I keep you around."

"I'm your man," Earl said, and, with a jaunty farewell salute, departed, catching just a glimpse in the rear view mirror of Ruth at the open house door, greeting her husband with a correct kiss.

---

The mid-summer storm had hit just after midnight, waking Mac from his usual restless sleep with hot flashes of white lightning, and sharp cracks of thunder that sounded like the opening salvo of Pickett's charge. Lying on his back, atop damp sheets that had been snapped free from their corners by his restless dream-agitated sleep-floundering, Mac felt blurrily uncomfortable. For once, the sturdy old farmhouse, a rock from his youth, seemed vulnerable to the storm that rolled by high overhead, throwing its random bolts like a furious God, burning with anger, lashing out. Presently the fireworks phase faded toward the east, dragging behind it a soft drenching rain that made a comfortable thrumming sound on the roof. And with that he somehow faded back into the only kind of sleep he knew these nights: edgy unsettled wandering through dark relived memories, the plaintive theme If only! If only! If only!

The morning dawned bright and clear. Coffee mug in hand, Mac stepped out the front porch. A soft breeze sighed through the limbs of the giant sugar maples and white oaks that stood like monuments at random intervals around the gently sloping lawn. From somewhere in the distance he could hear the sound of a tractor engine under heavy load. Old Kennesaw Road, seventy feet away, was silent: if four vehicles passed by here today, it would be a lot for a Saturday. Sipping coffee, Mac thought over his agenda: mow lawn, of course – a four hour exercise – and then fix some fence and do inside work until Ben Perkins arrived.

But something was nagging at him. Up the road to the east, beyond the thick cluster of trees and brush that made a deep green belt between the gravel road and the east lawn, the view he was accustomed to was somehow disturbed. Mac squinted and stared, and then walked across the lawn to the road for a better look.

Sure enough, a tree limb was down. A big one, split off one of the white oaks that flanked this stretch. It stretched its thick leafy wood arms wide and high, completely blocking the road.

Going back into the house, Mac changed into his coveralls and work boots, then went to the shop building and loaded tools into the large loader bucket of his very large yellow Minneapolis-Moline tractor. Firing it up, he let the engine warm, then rumbled the tractor in third gear over to the road and east toward the downed tree limb. It got larger as he approached. Beyond it, in the distance, he saw a vehicle coming, and realized it was Dan Thweatt high atop his Ford 4000 with loader and dualies. They waved, and Mac, pulling his tractor to the side, disembarked and fetched his chain saw from the loader. Dan used his loader to raise the limb some, and Mac started cutting.

About halfway through, Bren Stallwood came from the west on her big red M. Working as a team, the three cut the massive oak limb into manageable sections and pushed the brush off to the side. Then each chained up a section to haul home for firewood. Through all this they had spoken only briefly, in short calls over the loud tractor engines. But before parting, as of on cue, they nosed their tractors close and idled the motors and chatted, topics typical: how good the rains had been, status of crops, commodity prices, who was sick, who was recovering, who had died. Mac noticed that Bren and Dan avoided any mention of children. Bren did ask if it was true, as had been rumored for days, that Mac was buying his dad out and taking up residence. Mac confirmed it, and was heartened that the others seemed pleased. Called by the day's duties, the drivers, with a wave, rumbled their three tractors away, scattering gravel and popping acorns like sparks under their big hard rubber wheels.

Mac dropped his limb section behind the shop building, next to a massive pile of accumulated field stones. He felt great from the exertion, and from the work with the tractor, which was always solid therapy for him. Most of all he'd deeply enjoyed the fellowship with Dan and Bren: neighbors who, as neighbors do in these parts, joined forces and resources to fix a problem. No discussion, no calling 911, no whining to some county agency – you just dealt with it.

During that hour or so, St. Marys and Mac's issues over there – the job, Clare, Suzanne, the errant Eddie Fant, all that – seemed a long way off. Work like this did that for him. It could hardly have that effect on the specter of Nicholas, though. Mac couldn't help remembering Nicholas's love for the tractor, so like his own. He could not help but flash back to the times they'd spent driving the tractor around the farm, Nicholas on Mac's lap, small left hand clutching the wheel, right hand holding the turn knob. Before Perkins arrived today, Mac had a lot to get done, including the day's good cry. He had not had it yet. He went ahead and had it now.

---

By lunch time Mac had finished the mowing – the two-tracks, the lawns, and, just this one time, a wide straight swath across the flat meadow north of the house – and had accomplished about all the fence repair he felt like undertaking today. Sitting on the deck, Mac basked in the full noon sunshine, and was just finishing his lunch when, in the distance, he heard an engine sound. High up, and faint, growing louder by the minute: a hard throaty blatting. Rising, Mac cupped his brow and looked to the northwest.

First just a black speck, presently it became a plane. As it came closer, it dropped lower, and grew colors: blaze orange and black. The little ultralight veered east, and seemed intent on going right by, but suddenly it swerved and dropped and cruised, with amazing gravity-defying slowness, over the hilly pine forest to the north, and then over the meadow. Mac waved at it, feeling a little foolish, and also greatly amazed: the guy had actually made it, just as he said he would.

Dropping off the deck, Mac headed down the hill toward the meadow. Above him the ultralight circled around in a big arc to the east and then north, and then came southward again over the pine forest, this time dropping altitude quickly – almost too quickly, Mac thought – in line with the wide swath Mac had cut in the field grass. Big orange wings waggling slightly, and angled slightly back, the tiny aircraft eased down rapidly and bounced on its tricycle landing gear precisely in the center of the makeshift runway Mac had created, and barreled at speed, bouncing on the uneven ground. It slowed rapidly as the engine throttled down, and came to a stop about fifty feet from Mac's yard.