Mantrap

Prologue: The World is Good

"The world is good," Curtis Randolph said in the quiet of his own mind. He felt a strength of cleanliness, as though the ugliness of the past were swept away by the same rays of sunlight now washing away the last tinges of darkness from the broad highway. He led his dark blue sedan onto the exit ramp, feeling the car resist him, struggling to remain on its former course. And he felt the greater strength of his purpose guiding it away nevertheless, just as he had guided himself from the squalor of his youth to the splendor of his latest triumph. "I bear witness," he said with silent conviction, "the world is good."

He slowed to the speed of the accessway. Unable to keep his eyes on the road, he feasted on the midwestern landscape, the wild outbursts of color: purples, heartbreaking yellows, a dozen shades of green, each singing with a light of its own. The colors of the sweaty shirts and grimy billboards of the city, here made real in their natural palette. Just weeds, really, he thought, grinning at his own emotional reaction. But weeds who didn't regard being weeds a curse. Weeds who strive for the best within them, for the hope and beauty and prosperity--for the turf--that could only be won by their own effort. "The world is good... for those who seek good in it."

He slowed to a stop at the outskirts of Dalton, Ohio. He got out of the car and stood, hands on his hips, getting used to his new home. He could feel the rising sun warming the back of his neck, and he could see it reflected in the white paint of the clapboard houses at the top of the next rise. The fields to his left and right were ribboned in neat furrows of some crop--was it corn? The gangly plants seemed to rejoice in the coming of their god, the burning orb of the late-Spring sky. He could hear faint hints of the radio, a symphony erupting through the closed windows. A symphony of life, thought Curtis. Of the life that is a becoming, an emerging, a rising. The rising of the sun from yesterday's dusk. The rising of the crops and weeds, fueled by death but defiant and unafraid of it. The rise of man, he thought. Of a man who brings success of failure, undismayed and unintimidated. "The world is good!"

"Oh, Christ!," he swore. "A fuckin' car..." But then he saw the man standing outside of the car, a tall, thin black man in casual clothes. Corey felt a relief equal to the prior stress. "Just a fuckin' nigger," he muttered. "Most likely stopped to take a leak." Life might suck, he thought, but there were a few things you could count on. One was that no nigger would ever turn you in for smoking reefer. Steal your money, sure. Run off with your woman if he thought he had the chance. But no nigger was going to run to the police. Not over a little stinkin' reefer. As if to prove to himself that he was safe, to prove that the witness would see nothing, he raised the pipe to his lips and had another hit. "Life sucks, but pot makes it okay..."

1. Press On Regardless

"I'm afraid I don't understand..." The prim little woman behind the counter recited the formula for the fourth time.

Curtis Randolph smiled. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

"I'm afraid I don't understand that, either," she said, reaching back to tuck a stray white hair under her bun. There was a tightness about her, a feeling of being bound and gagged: her tight-pursed lips, her rigid posture, her stiff-starched white blouse. She straightened the objects on the counter in front of her, the pencil sharpened to a pinpoint and the small plate engraved with her name: Estelle Simpson, County Recorder.

"It's really quite simple," said Curtis. "I'm here to claim my property. I hold good title, as shown by this bill of sale." He pointed to the document on the counter. "Your job is to grant my title."

Estelle Simpson sniffed. It was a habit she'd picked up in girlhood. If she expressed it in English, which she never did, it might translate to: 'know your place', or 'children are to be seen and not heard'. She did not like this Curtis Randolph, whomever he might be. His tall figure was ugly, like something composed of metal, or maybe rock. And his stern black face was unbecoming. She had always felt that blacks should smile and be cheerful. After all, that was their nature, wasn't it? She sniffed again.

"Do I get my title?," Curtis demanded.

"Mr. Randolph, I was under the impression that I am the Recorder of Deeds."

Curtis smiled again, a smile that spoke of a private pleasure, as if the Estelle Simpsons of the world did not matter because they could not matter. "Tell me," he said, "as recorder, are you recording many foreclosures?"

"Why, yes," Estelle conceded. "A great many."

"And is it true that unemployment in this county has stood at over ten percent for more than two years?"

"Closer to three years." She saw Randolph's smile and knew what he was getting at. And hated him for it... If only he wouldn't smile like that! So smug. So sure of himself. What right did he have to be so sure of himself? The other blacks who came to her, they knew how to act. Why couldn't he act that way? He reminded her of a dream she hadn't had in years, a dream of unbearable pleasure and revulsion. She gasped, realizing that she was thinking of a whip, but she was not sure if she was delivering or receiving the lashes.

"Do you know that I'm reopening the Pauling Plastics plant?"

Estelle fought to compose herself. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I did know that."

"Well...?"

"Well, it's just that I was expecting someone--" She saw the glint of recognition in his eyes, like one of her meticulous check-marks on a form. "It's just that I wasn't expecting you so soon!"

"Well, I'm here now," said Curtis. "And I'd appreciate having that title. I'd like to get started."

"Yes, yes," said Estelle, burning with embarrassment and resentment. She fought to regain control. "If only you'd explained..." That smile again! That smirk! But she knew it wouldn't do to push him too far. The Dalton Chronicle was very enthusiastic about Mr. Curtis Randolph and his plan to reopen the Pauling plant and create 500 new jobs. It would be only too easy for him to complain of foot-dragging... And with the elections coming... She didn't finish the thought; she didn't need to. She knew what would happen to any politician accused of standing in the way of jobs in Dalton, Ohio. She knew too well...

She bustled about the small office, making more of the job than was necessary. After twice checking files she knew by heart, she regretfully concluded there was no way to deny Randolph's claim. She initialed the form and got him to sign it. She tore off the original and handed it to him. "Your title, Mr. Randolph."

"I thank you," he replied warmly. "Good day."

She glared at his departing back. He would be gracious! She knew what his gratitude meant. It meant: I can afford this; I won. She was aware of that sinking feeling of revulsion again. If he had won, then it was she who had been whipped. Humiliated! By a nig-- She cut off that thought in favor of another: things have a way of changing. "With God as my witness," she intoned slowly, silently, "I'll see him beaten!" She gasped with a pleasure she hadn't known in years.

The man was stooped, and his clothes hung on him, but there was still a strength in him. He studied Curtis, his clear blue eyes missing nothing. "Stranger hereabouts?"

There was no doubt in the observation and it was only by the rising pitch that Curtis guessed it was a question. "Yes. I've just arrived."

"Come in off the Interstate?"

Curtis nodded.

"Then you drove right past the Pauling plant. Off to the left, just past Virgil Wright's place. There's a sign for it. Can't miss it."

"My error," Curtis said, smiling, glad to have the error corrected. "I guess I overlooked it. I was too busy admiring the landscape."

"What landscape?," the old man asked. "Ain't no landscape out that way, just a bunch of damn weeds."

Randolph's smile grew more full. "Well, there's one weed out there I intend to pluck. Thanks for your help."

Except by Curtis Randolph.

She sighed, letting her thoughts roll over him. Then she mentally kicked herself: is that all it is? Had she let an attraction for Randolph convince her there was more there than there was? No. Not because she was not attracted. But because that would not have made her feel as she had in the last hour. She almost laughed again when she thought of how her sister or the other women she knew would have reacted to her dilemma, which they would have thought more important...

She thought of the first moment she had seen him, of the feeling that had swept over her then. She was aware not of a man, but of a man in charge. The words leapt out at her: man in charge. The man people are always asking to see...

Glenna saw him. She felt him. She tasted him. The man who leaned against the jamb of her office door was a stranger, but still somehow a friend. As if in her glance she had known him totally, known his spirit, which no later action would ever contradict, so that no detail could ever matter. Is it possible to know a person in one glimpse? Glenna felt in the moment no introduction: she felt a summation.

Was his face beautiful? Or was it the things his mind brought to his face that made it beautiful? The stern lines of his face echoing the rigorous strength of his lean body, his coffee dark eyes, bright and burning with the energy of intelligence, the smooth dark skin stretched taut over his sharp features--were these cause or consequence? Or just an accident?

It took her a moment to realize he had been speaking to her. "I'm sorry," she said, flustered. "Please repeat that."

There was a sun in his smile, a light that erupted from his perfect white teeth. "I'm Curtis Randolph. I'm the new owner."

"Oh!" Glenna fought to retain her composure. "You surprised me. I wasn't expecting you to... I wasn't expecting you to be here today."

His smile grew still brighter. "The county recorder wasn't expecting me to be black either."

Glenna bit her lip. She started to raise an objection, but he held up his hand.

"Don't apologize. I wasn't expecting you to be black, either."

She laughed with a joy she hadn't known since girlhood, a feeling that everything was so simple and so right. "Well," she said, "don't just stand there in the doorway. Come in... Sir."

He strode confidently into the room. "Call me Curtis in here." He pointed toward the door, out toward the factory floor. "Mr. Randolph out there. I don't require a lot of formality, just enough to get the job done."

"Okay... Curtis. I'm Glenna Rhodes. You can call me Glenna anywhere."

"Including your home...?"

"What?!"

"Never mind," he said, smiling. "I'm not courting a job action or a harassment suit. Let's go to work instead. You were appointed by the receiver?"

"Yes," she agreed, fighting to regain control of herself. She was glad he hadn't pressed his point; she didn't know how she would have reacted. "But I was with the company five years before it went into receivership."

"Is that common out here? To let a former employee remain on the premises?"

There was a pencil on the desk in front of her. She pushed it gently forward. "Let's just say I made a good impression on the receiver..."

"And how did you do that?"

"As soon as I heard Herbert--Mr. Pauling--had filed for reorganization, I shut down the production lines and had the entire staff start moving things. For the rest of that day, everything that couldn't be nailed down was moved to the warehouse. I had new locks put on every door, with the keys to be held for the receiver, and I put truck seals on the doors to the warehouse."

There was a look of respect in his eyes; she felt good about it, an honor she'd earned. "That was quick thinking."

She fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. "I knew what to expect."

"Have you had trouble with looting employees before?"

"With one looting employee..." She felt her anger as a palpable thing spread throughout the room.

"Oh?"

"Him," she said, pointing through the open door. "The bum who let you in."

He looked confused for a moment, then his smile surged forward again, like a new dawn. "The receiver wanted to make sure that you didn't go soft, so he left you a continuing challenge...?"

She smiled despite her anger. "Not quite... You see, Corey Pauling--him," she pointed again, "--he's the boss's son."

"The old boss's son."

"Right. Son of the boss, grandson of the founder. The end of a short line." She took a deep breath; maybe talking about it would make her anger abate. "Pauling demanded that Corey keep his job as a term of the receivership." She let her new feeling for the man before her carry away the pain of remembering the bitter arguments, the long, angry nights spent hammering out the reorganization that saved the body of the factory, but killed its spirit. And the pain of the price: to let the killer remain to kill again.

"I'd like to hear about it," he said, and she knew it was true. He was aware of her emotion, not just solicitous of it. He knew where it came from and why it mattered. He wanted to hear it not for her sake, but for his own.

"It's pretty simple, really. Oh, a lot of history. Corey made life miserable for both of his parents... and maybe that went both ways, I don't know. But when his mother killed herself three years ago, Herbert put him on here. He hadn't wanted to. Corey had never made much of himself; kicked out of one college, dropped out of the next. More interested in telling lies to his drinking buddies than in doing anything worthwhile. But Herbert brought him in. I think he felt he owed Corey something, especially after... what happened.

"Made him purchasing director," she continued, "which was more than he was trained for. And a big mistake business-wise."

"How so?"

"A truck pulls up and delivers thirty gallons of paint. The receiving clerk does a count, compares it to the packing slip, signs for it. A half-hour later the warehouse foreman calls me and complains that he shows paper for thirty cans of paint, but he's only got ten to store."

"This happened often...?"

"All the time, and with everything. Paper goods--eight thousand dollars worth of paper goods in one year. Hardware, plumbing supplies, lumber, raw materials, finished product. He stole and sold everything except the air in his father's office."

"You were right to lock everything up. I'm in your debt."

That felt real good, despite everything. "It just ticks me off that five hundred good people are out of work because of that worm, but he still has a job!"

That smile, that face, that strong figure; she felt his support even though she hadn't thought she'd ever need support. She found that she not only needed it, but welcomed it. "So," he said. "Maybe he won't have a job for long... What does he do here?"

"Officially, he's still purchasing director," she replied, "but now the few checks go through me to the receiver--Mr. Dalton. When we were putting together the receivership agreement, he insisted that if Corey were to stay, he'd stay on as janitor. He said he didn't see any reason to pay for more than two employees, and Corey wasn't qualified to do anything else."

"I think I'll like this Dalton. But I didn't see any evidence of janitorial services rendered."

"And you won't. Corey doesn't want to earn a living. He just wants to get paid." There's was more she could say, but she decided to keep her mouth shut. If this new boss was as smart as he seemed, he'd find out on his own.

"So you've been running the plant?"

"Since we went into receivership," she said.

"I mean before that. I knew about Pauling's wife. I expected the company to sink soon afterward. Was it you who kept it afloat?"

"To the extent that anyone did..."

"You did all right," he said, and again she felt that surging jet of pride. But that wasn't what she was working for; she hadn't hoped for it or expected it, she never had. And she hadn't known it would feel this good... "How much are they paying you?"

"What? Oh, three hundred."

"Salaried?"

"Yes."

"And what kind of hours are you working?"

She bit her lip again; there was no telling what bosses would say about hours. One might be offended if she didn't work twice as much as he did, another if she worked more than half as much. Best to tell the truth. "I try to get here before he does. So I'm here by seven. I usually get out before six."

"So," he said, "that's six and loose change an hour before taxes. Glenna, that's terrible. Put yourself down for ten, hourly. Can you keep up those hours?"

"Yes, and thank you."

"Don't thank me. You earned it when you put the locks on that warehouse. And the hours may get worse." He spotted the snapshot on her desk. "Your kid?"

"Yes."

"Are you married?"

"No."

"If you want, you can put him on the payroll. We'll use him after school, maybe as an office boy. Pay him whatever you think he's worth, off the books. Set up a cash drawing account or add it to your check and pay it out of that. Do you have a pad?"

"Yes," she said, pulling a steno pad out of her desk.

"Good. Because I'm going to cover a lot in a short time. Then I'm going to have Corey show me the plant while you run to town.

"First, I need you to go to the Dalton National Bank and open a checking account for me. Do that first, because there's a cash transfer coming for me, and I'll need to write checks against it by tonight." She took down the instruction and made two notations beside it. "Second, make arrangements to hire yourself a girl. Get the best you can find for two-fifty plus overtime. I'd like her to start tomorrow."

"What if the girl is male?," she asked.

"Don't do me that way. Hire the best person you can get, and I promise to be shocked if she isn't female." Glenna couldn't resist his smile that time. "But whatever gender she is, get her quick. I want you to turn over your general administrative, payables, receivables, posting, all that, to her. You'll keep a close eye on her, but I'll need you free to handle the phones, the doors, keeping the fort."

"And where will you be...?"

"Selling, if we're going to make this pay. And let me finish, please. I'll make time for questions later. Stop off at the local newspaper and place an ad. I want eight able-bodied men--who can be female, so long as they're strong. Good strong backs to move heavy equipment. To start at once. What do they get paid?"

"It was eight to start here, before we shut down."

"Union shop?"

"Amalgamated."

"Pay them six. There are five thousand pairs of idle hands in this town. They'll work at six." Rapture? Is that the name for it? She'd always doubted her girlfriends, when they spoke of rapture in the arms of their lovers. Yet rapture was what she felt when she looked into the clear eyes of this man, this man in charge. "You'll interview them," he went on. "I'm paying for conscientious muscle. I don't care what they do off the property, so long as they earn their pay on it. Any chance of having a least one tomorrow?"

"Probably. I'll call around to some of the old hands later. There were a few I hated to see let go."

"Good. If you can get all eight or any fraction by tomorrow, that'll make things go quicker." He stopped to think, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling. "Money, staff, labor... I guess that's all for now. Jump into town and get on it. How long will you be?"

She looked at her watch. "An hour, maybe more."

"Take time out for lunch, and bring me back a sandwich. Now," he said, "I've got to see what kind of work has to be done out there."

He turned abruptly and was gone, leaving Glenna in the glow that persisted here, in the bank. "I'd like to see this last," she said to herself, not sure if she meant the job, the man, or the feeling. Maybe it was all of them...

Glenna had been a silent undercurrent to his thoughts from the first, a glowing harmony that seemed to support the melody of his mind, no matter where it turned. He was surprised to find himself thinking of her here, in a twisting accessway leading back to the loading dock. The straight lines of her vision, of her posture, or her movements and speech--they were what was needed here, too. "Needed by whom?," Curtis asked himself, letting his eye trail back to the vacant factory floor. He smiled at himself, knowing by whom and for what. He saw her slim perfection, her trim waist balancing the jutting breasts, the gently rounded behind. He saw the sleek lines of her legs singing with the beauty of her creamy brown skin, as the delicate nose, the clear dark eyes, the rich, full lips sang of the beauty of her face. He wanted to join his skin to hers, to press so tightly together that no heat could escape from them. Because he wanted to join his mind to hers, to match the wonder of her clear vision with his own, to join her in the actions dictated by their thoughts. Because he wanted her to supervise reconstruction of this hallway, to use her strength to tear a clear path from the plant to the world. He wanted her body because he wanted her mind because he wanted what her mind and body could do.

And that's the way to start a new job, he chided himself. Think about screwing your secretary...

"Who laid this out?," he asked Pauling, who gave every evidence of a sincere attempt to blur the distinction between life and death.

"I don't know... I guess my father did..."

Glenna was right about this Pauling. Even if he wasn't a thief, he wasn't worth anything. It was almost amusing to bring that verdict, the judgement he'd passed so many times before: Pauling was white. Curtis knew that shouldn't make any difference, but he still felt somehow that it should. He thought about the values he'd had to fight to learn, one at a time, the hard way. He'd always felt that those who had the advantage to grow up with values, who had parents who knew right from wrong and how to get ahead in the the world--they ought to know how to appreciate it. He'd met many who did, but many more who did not.

"That reminds me," Curtis said. "I smelled something when I came in this morning. What was it?" Curtis knew what the odor was. He'd recognized Pauling at once--the driver of the old red truck parked out in the lot. He'd seen him earlier, scrunched furtively over the steering wheel. He wasn't hunched now, but there was still something secretive about him, as if he were trying to hide. Curtis thought of all the liars he'd known and laughed silently at this feeble attempt. No point in giving the man a chance to tell the truth...

"I don't know. Maybe it was a cleaning fluid..."

"It wasn't a cleaning fluid." Curtis looked contemptuously at the dirty floor. "Not that any has been in use here recently. No, what I smelled was more like marijuana. You know anything about that?"

The bearded punk looked to his feet. He kicked one shoe against the other. "There were some people... Up the road. They were burning weeds this morning. Maybe some of the smoke got inside."

Curtis smiled. "Did they tell you I'm a city boy?"

"...no."

"I don't know much about the smell of burning weeds. But I do know the smell of burning weed. Do you want to tell me what you know about it?"

Pauling kicked his shoe again. He looked all around the room, everywhere but into Randolph's piercing brown eyes.

Curtis asked, "You have any friends on the unemployment line?"

Pauling seemed surprised by the quick turn in the conversation. "Damn near all of 'em," he spat.

"Do you have a strong urge to join them?"

Pauling's eyes were small. They raced to Randolph's face, then sped away just as quickly. The fear in them was unmasked and unpretended. "No!"

"Then you'll tell me all you know about the marijuana I smelled in here."

The punk made another ritual of kicking his shoes. When he looked up, his expression was one of undisguised bitterness. "It was mine! All right? It was my pot you smelled!" He let out a gust of air, punctuated exasperation. "What the fuck am I supposed to do, huh? I'm trapped in this coffin all damn day! Who cares if I smoke a little reefer?"

"I do," said Curtis. "For one thing, it's illegal, and I'm legally responsible for what happens on my property. For another, what you're supposed to do is keep up the custodial services in this factory. Which you obviously haven't been doing."

"Hey," said Pauling, "there's only one of me!"

"And that one of you has been blowing smoke rings instead of doing his job. I want you to understand me, Corey: I'm not happy with you. This plant is a sty, when you've had three months on the payroll to get it in shape. You try to bullshit me about what you've been doing in here. What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

Pauling looked as if he were about to say something, then checked himself. "Are you telling me I'm fired?"

"I'm telling you you're sure as hell hanging by a thread, mister. You'll shape up and damn fast, or you'll eat at somebody else's expense. Is there marijuana in this factory now?"

He wanted to lie! Damn, he wanted to lie! Curtis could read his face like a schoolbook; what a loser. "...yeah."

"Get it out of here. Get it off your person and from wherever else you've got it hidden. Get it out into your truck, and don't bring it on my property again. Not in your pocket; not in your truck; not anywhere on my property, from now on. What you do on your own property is your own business. What you do on mine is mine. Do you understand me?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"Good. When you come back, get started clearing out this area." Curtis pointed to the boxes and skids stacked around the loading dock. "Don't break them down, just stack them outside. We may be able to use those skids. Clear everything out of this hallway."

"What for...?"

"Corey, we're going to reopen this plant. When we do, it's going to be a good idea to have a straight shot at the loading dock. It's hard to sell product if you can't ship it. Does that make sense to you?"

"I guess so..."

"Good," Curtis said. "Get on it. When you've got all that trash outside, give the floor a good sweeping. Looks like it could use it."

"But that'll take all day!"

Curtis smiled. "Corey, you'd best get used to the idea of working for a living." He slapped at the flat expanse of his chest. "Mammy ain't got no tits to suck on..."

Pauling smiled, it looked as though in spite of himself. "Good," thought Curtis as he watched him shuffle away, "good... There might be a way to make him work out despite himself."

He kicked a box over to the tool and stood atop it. Pits. Maybe two hundred small cavities in the gray metal. The rust had dug through the paint and was surging like an undergrowth beneath, shriveling it, declaring it impotent to its purpose. He looked up to the roof of the toolroom: a leak? Or just the moist Ohio air? He ran his hand down the sides of the drill, feeling the same drag. No leak had caused those pits. He hadn't really felt the wetness in the air until he saw it condensed, concentrated in those small red bores.

Damn! A coat of paint six months ago would have saved a long day with steel wool and acetone. No real damage, but the time! There was too much to do, too much that had to be done to get this facility back up. It seemed a shame that some of that time had to be wasted on jobs that shouldn't have needed to be done.

The story was the same throughout the plant: things looked good, until you looked closely. Pauling Plastics had been neglected long before it was abandoned. Like that accessway to the loading dock. Whoever did the numbers--Pauling senior?--must have known what that contorted route cost. In extra steps. In smaller loads. In goods ruined by scrapes and tumbles through the sharp turns. Like this toolroom. Fabulously equipped, some of the best machine tools money could buy, but going to rot and ruin because no one ordered a paint job. He let his eyes drift back toward the roof. He wondered what he'd find, when he finally got around to inspecting it...

So much to do. Pauling senior could have made it easier by attending to his property. But it isn't Pauling's property anymore. It's mine, Curtis thought with satisfaction. Mine, and it's my job to make it pay, no matter what. "Press On Regardless." Without being summoned, the name of Janio's boat leapt into his thoughts. He remembered seeing it for the first time, asking why the boat's name was painted below the waterline, where no one could read it. Later, when the speedboat was surging up the Long Island Sound, it's nose pointed skyward, it seemed that the screw was the only point of contact with the water. Janio had slapped at the side of the boat: "Any trouble reading it now?" Curtis smiled at the memory: "Press On Regardless."

And he would be hearing from Janio... Curtis pulled a small pad from his jacket pocket and made a note to strip, scrub and paint these tools. He'd made many such notes in the past hour, and he knew he wasn't yet begun. There was very much to be done, but some of it could wait. What Janio would be concerned with was just one aspect of his operation, a dry molding line that had prompted him to fund this project. But that wouldn't be enough to pay to keep the doors open. And there had to be above-ground activity to make eyefood for gawkers. And all of that is my job, Curtis mused. And there is so much to do. "Press On Regardless," he said aloud to the empty hulk of a factory. "Victory belongs to the man who snatches it."

"Curtis Randolph," she said, as Curtis stood, "meet Ryan Dalton."

Curtis nodded as the man locked a beefy hand in his firm grip. "You're the receiver, then?"

"Newsman," said Dalton. "My father is--was--the receiver. He owns the biggest bank in town, so he gets all the ugly financial jobs."

"Your father and Glenna saved me an ugly financial job. I'm looking forward to meeting him."

"Sure," said Dalton. "You'll look forward to meeting him right up until you do meet him. Then you'll look back in horror..."

"Ryan!," Glenna scolded.

"Sorry," Dalton said, raising his hand and letting an impish grin spread over his face. "Things aren't all they could be in my family, but that's not your problem."

Glenna said, "Ryan wants to talk to you about your plans for the factory."

"Not that we can't get by on the prevarication and procrastination we've run so far. It's just that it's more comfortable to have a fact or two to lean on." Again that impish grin. Dalton had to be thirty-five, but when that smile erupted it took years off his features.

"And who do you work for?," Curtis asked.

"Dalton Chronicle," Dalton replied. "Central Ohio's biggest small newspaper. Guaranteed to be untainted by objectivity, impartiality or good sense. Thirty-five cents daily. Seventy-five cents on Sundays."

"Don't let him kid you, Curtis," Glenna said. "Ryan is the Dalton Chronicle. He owns it."

"R. Dalton, Proprietor," said Dalton. "I brought a photographer with me, but he lost his nostrils out in the parking lot. He'll be along soon."

Curtis was swept along by the brawny man's infectious good cheer. "Good thing you brought him," he said. "You may want to run a lot of photos with your story. Because all I have to say consists of more prevarications and procrastinations."

"Doesn't matter. If it's in quotes, the reader thinks it means something. If I write Mr. Randolph says quote zero equals zero unquote, we'll still get over. They'll be sure they've learned something."

Curtis laughed out loud. "Do you have such a low opinion of your readers?"

"That's what I'm striving for. I haven't gotten there yet. It doesn't pay to have too high an opinion of Dalton's denizens."

"Does that include yourself...?"

"Touche!," said the brisk, confident man. "When I make a blanket statement, I always leave my own poor self out shivering in the cold. Which is all a part of my immense vanity, of which you're asking for a display. Not wise, as I have to hit a press by one-thirty. If I don't have the Curtis Randolph story in tonight's rag, there'll be an angry mob of hungry job-seekers outside my door. Worse, my father will threaten to foreclose on my mortgage... So, Mr. Randolph, is it true that you're going to put a rainbow in every back yard, with one pot of gold for every gaping mouth in the county?"

"Not quite. And call me Curtis, please. I think you and I will get along fine."

"Okay, Curtis. Call me Ryan. And don't worry about getting along. Everybody likes me."

Glenna made a puffing sound, like a restrained laugh.

"And no backtalk from you, wench! If the man has a good opinion of me, let's make it last as long as possible. When it's gone, it'll be gone forever."

"Curtis," Glenna said. "Just talk. Say whatever comes to your mind, but talk. If you let him go on like this, he'll just go back to his office and make up quotes."

"Lies!," Dalton sputtered in mock anger. "And the worst kind, too--the true ones! Curtis, you've got one hell of a woman here. Best administrator in the city. I'd hire her away, but she'd make me wash behind my ears."

"And clean up your balance sheet."

"And eat my asparagus, for all I know." The newsman shivered in mock revulsion. "So let's do some business instead. How soon do you plan to be in operation?"

"Three weeks, give or take," said Curtis. "You understand that I've just arrived?"

"Sure," Dalton replied. "I knew as soon as daddy did. And he knew as soon as Glenna dropped in at the bank. There are advantages to dynastic hegemony. But that's neither here nor there. How many employees?"

"Twelve by tomorrow. I'm estimating one hundred when we swing into production. More as the workload justifies it."

Dalton whistled his surprise. "I've been saying five hundred. That's what this plant used before..."

"Before it sank."

"...before it sank."

Curtis went on: "Five hundred employees was part of why it sank. The lines were engineered for people, not profit. The plant employed more people than it needed to do less than it should have, for a lower net rate of return on equity. I didn't know how it lasted as long as it had until I met Glenna."

Dalton stared beseechingly at the ceiling, then looked down to plant another impish grin on Curtis. "Go ahead and look forward to meeting my father. He'll like you, too."

"If you're saying I ought to employ more people, I'm telling you why I can't. What good does it do them to have a job that won't--can't--last?"

"I know, I know," wheezed the newsman. "My staff's cut to the bone, too. But the prospect of jobs is what sells newspapers. You're big news, Curtis. Probably the biggest news around here since the Civil War. A hundred jobs ten years ago and you'd have been a blurb on the business page. And I might have tied you to an ad contract to get that much. But today... Today a hundred jobs is a hundred more than anyone ever expected. What'll you be paying?"

"Between five and six to start. Performance incentives and a good benefits package."

Dalton whistled again. "People around here, they're used to eight, ten, fifteen dollars an hour..."

"My understanding is that the labor pool I'm appealing to is earning zero, and getting around four from the state. Follow me close, and you can print what you want of it. It won't matter in the long run, because my guess is that soon enough your gaping mouths will decide that I'm heartless. But the way I see it, the only alternative to being heartless is to be brainless, and I proved to myself today that it was brainlessness that killed this factory. No amount of brainlessness is going to bring it back. If the people around here think they're worth more, let them go and get it."

"My daddy's going to like you fine!" Curtis hadn't expected Dalton's enjoyment to last through that speech. But the dark-haired man underscored his smile: "Pity you didn't come here and say that about fifty years ago..."

"Well, then," Curtis continued, "let me say the other half. I'm not going to pay ten dollars for five dollars worth of value. And I'm not going to pay a bum for more than half a day; there's no reason why I should. But if there are men and women in your audience who want to work, who know that there is no free lunch, no something for nothing--if they're willing to work, I'll trade my best effort for theirs, and we'll all make a good living."

Dalton was scribbling feverishly on his pad. "When and where should they apply?"

"Here, with Glenna, but I don't want to tie up all her time. How much for a quarter page of your paper, front and back?"

"What for?"

"I'd just as soon publish the application and have people mail it in as have them lining up outside."

"Don't worry," said Dalton. "I'll run it for nothing. Your application will be worth the space it takes up."

"What kind of response should I expect?"

"Fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand."

"One in twenty ought to make for a great labor force. But I thought there were five thousand out of work...?"

"There are, but the biggest group of them intend to remain out of work. They didn't like jobs when they've had them, they're without them more often than with, and they like it that way."

Curtis smile bitterly. "Why does that sound so familiar...?"

"A twice told tale: we've got plenty of it, but it ain't worth a damn. I don't kid myself, Curtis. This town has problems neither of us is going to solve. And they didn't start with any plant closings, economic troubles or foreign imports. They started with a kid who told a lie and got away with it--like your executive janitor." Dalton jerked a thumb over his shoulder, out toward the factory floor. "And I talk too much. Let's see if we can find that kid and take a few snaps of you and Glenna in industrial bliss."

"You've got it."

"You bet I have!," Dalton shot back. "And I intend to keep it!" Curtis joined him in his laughter. He wasn't sure why, but he felt certain that part of the man's gaiety was a defiance of pain...

"I guess so," Curtis replied, glancing at his watch: ten of one. "But he does talk a lot... Didn't you say you were bringing back lunch?"

"Oh! I forgot all about it! I brought chicken dinners for both of us. I hope you like chicken..."

"Why, yaz," Curtis teased. "Dis black boy shonuf do like chicken!"

"Stop that." She knuckled him hard in the ribs. "Besides, everything's probably cold by now!"

"Not the cole slaw. It should be nice and warm. Anyway, I'm hungry enough to eat the box, so run back and get it. I'll fix us up a place to eat."

While they ate, he sat silently and listened to her tell him about her boy. How smart he was. What an accomplished musician. How well he did at math and science. He didn't press for details, letting her speak of whatever she wanted. He was surprised at how much he enjoyed it.

But he was not surprised by the sharp turn she took as he was finishing his last piece of chicken. "Curtis," she asked, "how old are you?"

"Twenty-eight. How about you?"

"Twenty-five."

"Then this is your first job?"

"Not by a dozen," she replied. "The first job since I got out of business school. I guess it's the first job that's really mattered to me."

"And you wanted to make sure it's going to last? That's why you asked my age?"

"...I guess that's why I asked."

"No," he said confidently. "It isn't. But it'll do for now."

That was an insolence, just as much as if he'd torn her clothes from her. But he was right! How could she deny that he was right? And how much more was he right about? She wasn't sure that he wouldn't be right to tear her clothes from her... She felt that she didn't need any defense in his presence, would never need any defense again. "That's right," she said, matching his confidence. "It'll do for now..."

A lot of potential. A truckload of potential. A good facility. No serious structural trouble. Lines and tooling that needed reworking, but were in good shape. Zero products and zero sales prospects, but that cut both ways: Pauling Plastics hadn't pursued any new accounts in years; the damage to its reputation was limited to a few accounts, some of which might be brought back into the fold.

A decent labor base at a reasonable price. A lot of local support... or at least no strong resistance. Probably a lot of backing from both the bank and the newspaper, which could make a difference...

..and Glenna. She was worth all the rest and then some. How many people, he wondered, how many brilliant executives buried so deep in dead-end jobs that they didn't even know what they had going for them? Well, here was one chance to make a difference. Because, like it or not, Glenna was going to have to take a large share of making this thing go. But he knew she would like it. And he knew she was the added margin, the insurance that this factory would rise from its own ashes, no matter what. Press On Regardless, he intoned in the silence of his own mind. The world is good! I know she's felt that too...

He pushed away from his desk and strode out to her office. "Come sit down with me for a few minutes, then I'm going to send you home."

"Okay," she said, rising, "but I can't leave yet. I still have loads to do."

"It'll keep." He followed her into his office. They sat opposite each other in the two chairs in front of his desk.

"You should go, Curtis. What time did you start this morning?"

"That's the point," he replied. "I need you to cover for me when I collapse. If I get sick, there's no damage. But if you get sick, we can't operate."

"Well, why not?"

"For one thing, you have the keys to the front door."

"Oh, darn!," she said. "I meant to have a set made for you while I was in town."

"Don't bother. That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Don't bother! Curtis, you should have new locks made and keep the keys to yourself. That's just good business."

"Oh," he said, "do I need to worry about you stealing from me?"

"Well, no. But it's just good policy. It's not smart to trust anyone that much."

He smiled, but it seemed as if at a memory. "Glenna, you can trust appearances. Or you can trust what you believe in. But you have to put your trust in things, in people, more often that you have time to think about. I trust knowledge. I trust what I have proved to myself to be true. I have proved to myself that you're not going to steal from me. On that I'd stake my life--and your argument is that I have. So be it: it is done. The only argument that could sway me would be if you were to say that you don't want that responsibility. Do you wish to say that?"

She sighed. "You know I don't."

"That's right, so that case is closed. Next, that raise today is only the beginning. You've done a hell of a job around here, and it seems as though no one has noticed." He saw the look of recognition in her face, as if he had named her thoughts. "I have noticed. From now on, you'll be paid on the basis of your performance. That is, as soon as we have the cash flow to cover it, you'll be paid as superlatively as you've performed all along. Does that appeal to you?"

She gave him a grateful smile. "You don't need to do that. I already make more than I have time to spend."

"So. That son of yours will be going to college some day. You'll be able to pay for a good one. There's more, and this is part of how I know you won't ever steal from me: I'm cutting you in on the action. For now it will just be profit participation. When we're on a sound footing, we can convert it to ownership. I don't want you to lose money on my account, so we won't call it equity until it's equity worth owning. Does that sound good to you?"

She looked both pleased and confused.

Curtis went on, "You're thinking: there must be a string attached... And you're right: there is. You're going to bust your ass for this company, Madame Vice President."

"What?! Oh, Curtis!"

"I have a friend who calls himself the vice president in charge of everything else. Dalton, Ohio, I give you Ms. Glenna Rhodes, Vice President In Charge of Everything Else. I'll handle manufacturing and sales. The rest is up to you. Will you take the job?"

"You don't have to do that, Curtis. You know I'm with you in this..."

"I know it," he said. "In this and in whatever else I might ask. But I do have to do this. I have proved to myself that it's the right thing to do. If I may offer one small criticism of my newest partner, you've been willing to do too much, and you've asked too little in return. Pauling should have done this. Maybe if he'd given you the authority you'd earned, he'd still be sitting behind this desk. But I am not obliged to duplicate any of his errors, and I'm doing my best to correct the worst of them. So, how about it, Glenna? Are you taking the job?"

"Yes," she answered, a little breathless. "This and whatever else you might ask..."

"The rest is for another day. Tonight we're rebuilding the loading dock."

"What?"

"Rebuilding the loading dock," he repeated. "First thing tomorrow, I want you to get on the phone to a contractor. Get the best price and performance you can find. I want to knock out the wall from the shop floor to the loading dock, so that we have a straight shot outside. I want to seal off that dog-leg they have been using. Have them hang walls at both ends, with a door at the loading dock end. We'll use that for short-term storage; it'll save trips to the warehouse. Got it?"

She was scribbling on her steno pad. "Finished by when?"

"The twentieth at the latest, so tell them the fifteenth. That'll give them a chance to be late without hurting us."

"And to spend how much?"

"I leave that up to you," he said. "I don't know the local prices and I don't have time to learn. No frills, just one wall out, two walls and a door in. Do that first, because as soon as you're free, I want you to get me an inventory on everything. I'll give you two of those men we have coming in the morning. How many will there be, anyway?"

"All eight. But, Curtis, I'm sort of tied to the office. In addition to everything else, I've got to get them on the payroll."

"Is your girl coming?"

She nodded.

"Did she turn out to be male?"

She laughed. "No. She's female."

"Put her on the phones as soon as she comes in. 'Ms. Rhodes is out of the office right now; may I take a message and have her call you back?' Give her anything else you want her to do, and lock everything else up. As to the payroll, we'll pay these guys out of my checking account for now."

"Curtis, that's illegal."

"Yeah," he said, smiling, "I'll bet it is. And organized crime is always defensive of its prerogatives. But my guess is that they'll be quick to look the other way. If you get any trouble, tell them we're only paying the men long enough to move the tools and goods to Kentucky." He laughed out loud.

"Oh!," she said. "That's rich! But what if they still want to cause trouble?"

"Then, by god, we will move to Kentucky. If they were smart, they wouldn't be in government; they'd have real jobs. But the last five years should have taught every thief in the county that you can't steal what hasn't been produced. If they don't like the way we produce, they can do without. I'd just as soon they do without anyway."

She said nothing, just laughed like a child, with the gaiety of the joyously serious.

"So," he went on, "you're going to look after that construction, then get a complete inventory of the plant, the warehouse, and the offices. Sounds like a big day. Do you agree with me that you ought to go home?"

"After a proof like that, how could I disagree? I'm not sure I could ever disagree with you, Curtis."

"Will you remember that, when I get around to whatever else I might ask...?"

"...I'll remember." He saw the smoky look in her eyes and knew she would never forget.

The phone rang. Glenna said, "I'll get it from here." She picked up the phone on his desk and announced herself. She pushed the hold button and turned to face him: "A Mr. Valenta. Shall I have him call tomorrow?"

"No," said Curtis. "That's the man I was telling you about, the vice president in charge of everything else. I'll take the call, you hit the road. Deal?"

"Okay, Curtis. Don't stay too late." She leaned forward and gently kissed his forehead. "That's a down payment..."

"Hmm. You tempt me to collect the outstanding balance."

"Don't worry," she said, her voice low, almost husky, "I'm good for it. I'll bet you are, too... Bye."

"Goodnight, Glenna. I'll see you tomorrow." A good woman, he thought as he watched her walk away. He picked up the receiver. "Hello, Janio."

"Hi, Curt. How is everything?"

Curtis pictured the slim bronze man at the other end of the line, the unbending strength of his body and the unbending strength of his character. "Good," he replied. "Real good."

"...that isn't very revealing."

"Ah," said Curtis. "Then I have achieved my purpose!"

The laughter boomed through the room. "Curt, it's good to talk to you."

"Same here. But you say it as if you thought you'd never speak to me again."

"...I've never been to Ohio."

Curtis laughed. "Janio, it's just like New York, only quieter and less crowded. America is all one country, not too different from one place to the next."

"I have heard that blacks are not as welcome outside of New York..."

Curtis sighed. "There may be some truth to that. And it goes for hispanics, too, if you're thinking of visiting. But, Janio, the difference is very small. I feel safer here than I did anywhere in New York, and I'll have fewer race troubles here than in some parts of the city."

"Then it's all right?"

Curtis smiled. "My mother, the worrier. Yes, buddy, it's all right. Couldn't be better."

"That's good. Please forgive my worrying. It's part of my job. Let us speak of other things. Tell me about the business."

"Not very much to tell," Curtis replied. "I took title this morning, looked the place over. When you called, I was going over plans with Glenna Rhodes, the woman who answered. There's some good news: she's a real winner. I'm going to cut her in on the equity."

There was a long pause. "You haven't told her anything?"

"No, of course not!"

"But you intend to? Don't you? I can tell it by the sound of your voice."

"I do intend to tell her, sooner or later," Curtis responded. "But I'll let you know before I do."

"So she's that impressive?"

"Do you remember we wondered how this place stayed open as long as it did? She's the reason."

"Oh, ho!," said Janio. "I should have found her on my own."

"I'm glad you didn't. I aim to keep her for myself."

"Good for you, Curtis....tell me--the plant, was there anything missing?"

"No... Some things weren't well cared for, but Glenna kept a close guard on the inventory. Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm the mommy. Worrying is part of my job. Will you be able to produce what I need?"

"I'll be ready for you by the end of the week. I'd rather wait until the first of the month, just so people get used to seeing truck traffic out this way. Is that all right?"

"Fine, fine," said Janio. "I wanted to assure myself that the physical facilities were as good as advertised."

"If anything, they're better. I did a rough count this morning, and I see at least two hundred thousand in resale value, not counting the real estate. We got a real bargain."

"Someone else thought so, too."

"What?"

"Never mind. Will you have enough activity to hide our work?"

"I expect to," said Curtis. "In addition to the dry forming I'll be using on your stuff, there's enough compression for a dozen wet layup lines. Pauling was angling for circuit-board work before they went under, and I'm thinking that's a good way to go."

"Excellent! That's really good news. Cliff was bugging me about a source for boards. You may get a contract from us, to supplement your above-ground work."

"Keep talking, Janio. I get richer every time you open your mouth."

"...Curt, what's the attitude out there? What are the people like?"

"I don't know. I've only met five of them so far. I liked two, didn't like two, and didn't form an opinion of the last."

"Those people," said Janio, "they have been without work for a long time, have they not?"

"Some of them..."

"Ah, people without work can become ugly very quickly. Have you thought about that?"

"Janio, this is America. You're still living in Nicaragua. Things like that don't happen here."

"No? Then why are they in the newspapers every day? Shootings, killings, riots? Things like that do happen here, but Americans don't attend to them. I learned the hard way to suspect fire where I see smoke."

Curtis restrained a giggle. "And that's why you're the mommy..."

"That's right. If I worry too much now, it is because I didn't worry enough in Managua. We have much to lose, Curt. Too much to lose... I want you take out an insurance policy on that factory."

"Yes, of course. Fire, theft, weather-damage--all the usuals."

"Those, yes. But also a policy on the productive capacity. To be paid if production is disrupted or made impossible by accident or malice. A big policy, Curt."

"Janio, what for?"

"Because I'm the mommy, if you must have it that way. Because you've got your entire fortune tied up in that plant. Because I've got a chunk of money in it, and because the whole organization will be hurt if we don't get those membranes bent. We've committed ourselves to that plant, Curt. If we lose it, we'll all be out a lot."

"Is there any reason to expect that we'll lose it...? Janio, why did you call today?"

Curtis heard Janio sigh deeply. "Because I finally found out who was our second bidder at the receiver's sale. The party who forced us to go higher than we'd intended for the property..."

"Well, who was it?"

"Mr. Cameron Dalton, of the First Dalton Bank, Dalton, Ohio," Janio replied.

"But he was the receiver!"

"That explains why he went to such great lengths to cover his tracks."

"But why would he want it? What does he know about plastics?"

"Probably nothing. My guess is that he wanted to gut it, to sell the tools and inventory piecemeal. That would explain why he didn't go above a hundred thousand, assuming your estimate of value is correct. He was trying to double his money."

"But, Janio, is that any reason to suspect him of trying to sabotage us?"

"'Those who do evil fear the light'. And it's not the only reason. There's still the general population and who knows what crazies. One idiot with a grudge could do us more damage that I'd like. Let's do what we can to offset it. I'm going to have a policy sent out to you. As owner of record, you'll have to sign it for it to go into force. Don't put it off, Curt. It's too important to all of us."

"All right," Curtis sighed. "I still don't think it's necessary, but it won't hurt anything."

"Fine. And when it turns out that you were right all along, you can tell me I worry too much."

Curtis laughed. "And you'll say, 'that's why I'm the mommy'."

"That's right," Janio replied, and Curtis could see his clear, bright smile through the phone. "That's why I'm the mommy. I'm going now. Mind you, keep your greedy black hands off that Glenna until you show a positive cash flow. Or I'll get Sally to put a lock on your gold drawer."

"She won't do any such thing," Curtis joked. "So go suck on your rice and beans, all right?"

"Fillet of sole tonight. What are you having, chicken or ribs?"

"Chicken was lunch. I thought I'd get the watermelon special for dinner."

Janio's full, rich laugh erupted through the phone. "Go to it, Curt. And listen: I love you."

"I love you, too, Janio. Goodbye."

Curtis sat for a long time, staring at the phone, but not really seeing it. Instead, he saw the friend who knew him so well, the trader who always gave more than could ever be repaid. "The world is good!"

2. The Clock Unwinding

Corey kicked at the sofa. "Damn nigger!," he said to the empty house. "Goddamn nigger!" Mr. Curtis Randolph was spread over the first three pages of the Dalton Chronicle. With photos of him and that nigger bitch who was always causing trouble. He could picture his friends' reactions. He knew what they'd say about him... Behind his back for now, but that wouldn't last. He kicked out at the sofa again.

Where is that dumb bitch? Probably at her fuckin' mother's again. No dinner on the table, the house is a fuckin' pigpen, so she's got to run off and cry to her mother. Five fuckin' nights a week! It hadn't bothered Corey, at first, when Sandra had started spending more time with her mother than with him. In some ways it made him happy, He didn't have to talk to her or think about her; he was free to run off where he wanted, stay out as late as he wanted... What the fuck? Sandra didn't give a shit, right? She was off havin' a good time with her damn mother, for Christ's sake... But then he'd caught the scent of something else, something like fear. Like the cunt was running off to her mom out of fear. Like she's afraid of me or something, like she's tryin' to escape... He was shocked to see his thoughts come to life in his mind, collapse from a fog of generalizations into the definite shape of words: Sandra is afraid of me. Corey shivered. He didn't like that, knowing things completely, knowing them so well they couldn't be denied. And what a crazy fuckin' thing to think about! Sandra--afraid of me? Trying to escape...? He forced a laugh, then kicked out at the sofa again. "Damn nigger! He ruined my whole fuckin' day!"

Corey lived in a rundown wood house at the dead-end of a short side street. There were two automobiles in his front yard, two rusting heaps abandoned in plain sight. There was an assortment of other junk, and the grass was calf high and shot through with weeds. The house next door was vacant; it had been taken over by an extended family of cats who fed on the neighborhood's garbage. When Corey kicked out of the house, out for a damn drink, he found a gray-striped kitten in his truck. "Get out of my fuckin' truck!" He picked up the cat and threw it hard, like a baseball. The cat squalled; it landed hard on the grass, took the fall rolling and squealing. It struggled to its feet and regarded Corey with a look of confusion and fury. He laughed. As he was peeling away, he heard a crunching sound and felt his tires spin out, give way beneath him. Someone had smashed a beer bottle on the pavement. "Fuckin' asshole!"

At the corner stood Rutherford's old dump, a general store with a gas pump. Corey smiled as he passed it, at the sight of the boards nailed over the windows and the big orange sign: closed. Rutherford was a fuckin' bastard, played favorites with his credit. Sandra could buy stuff on credit, for Christ's sake! But not me... Fuck Rutherford, he thought. Let him rot in hell.

Up ahead there were some kids playing ball in the street. Corey stomped on the accelerator, pushing the truck as fast as it would go. The kids scurried, one barely making it out of the way in time. They shouted angry curses as he passed. Corey Pauling laughed. He let out a yelp of undiluted glee.

Corey spun out on to the main drag, Dalton Avenue. There was slack in his lane, but he quickly chewed it up, anxious lest anyone should cut in front of him. The car ahead was driven by a blue-haired old lady. Corey crept up closer to her, until he was tailgating to within a foot of her car. He giggled, enjoying it, teasing her. He had one foot hovering over the brake as he pushed closer, closer. The granny kept glancing furtively, plaintively into the rear-view mirror. Finally she gave up; she signaled to move to the other lane. Corey smiled with satisfaction. He slowed the truck down to the speed limit. "Fuck you, bitch!," he mouthed through the window as he passed her. The old woman gave him a resentful glare.

Her husband had warned her, warned everyone. Hadn't he said that all these roads would make things hard on older folks? "Get things so damned spread out," he had said, "you won't be able to get around without one." But that was in the thirties, and Horace--her husband--had been on the outs on everything; people had called him old-fashioned. They chided him for suspecting the motives of those who sought no profit. "Mind you, that's exactly what I do suspect. If something's worth doing, someone'll come along and do it for money. What's the purpose of doing something that isn't worth doing for money? What makes it worth doing? A merchant might try to skin me alive, but at least I know what he's after, what to protect. What are they after? How will you protect it, if you don't know what it is?" People had pooh-poohed it then, and even now Cora couldn't say precisely where it was right and where it was wrong. But she'd had nagging doubts for years, the feeling that Horace had known what he was talking about, even if he couldn't say exactly what that was. What was the purpose? She didn't know. What was the effect? Pushed off the road by a hairy monster in a pickup...

Her children had sided with Cora's neighbors and friends, of course: father is a lovable old paranoid, don't let his blustering scare you. Margaret was in Chicago now, engaged to husband number four. Walter was in California, with his... friend. "...get things so damned spread out..." Cora was shivering in a parking lot, trying to work up the courage to go back out on the road. "...can't get around without one..."

How much else had Horace been right about? How much of what they'd laughed at? Hadn't he foretold the troubles Social Security was having? Her shiver deepened as she thought about it. He'd said just what the papers were finally saying now, that it was a swindle that could never last, that it was just a fancy pyramid scheme that had to collapse sooner or later. How she'd resented his holding back money for their retirement. And how grateful she was now! The dividends from Horace's investments came to more than her meager Social Security check...

And hadn't he predicted that Dalton would fall on hard times? When the first few layoffs and the first few store closings were announced, Cora had thought it was just a passing thing. Dalton had one-hundred-and-fifty years of proud history. There were good times and bad times, but there was always Dalton, bustling, lively, aglow day and night. The biggest city in this chunk of the state; an employment mecca for all the folks in the county. Maybe a little rowdy on payday, but the work of Dalton's industries--tires, truck parts, steel--required that type of man, didn't it? Things never got out of hand, and for a long time it seemed that Dalton would get better indefinitely. But Horace had been right in the end: the first signs were not the last. The layoffs and plant closings seemed to be fueled by their own momentum. More than half the downtown shopping district was boarded over and closed. Three companies had moved out, and three more were running one shift where they had run three. And two had gone bankrupt.

Worse, it seemed that the people had changed... She wasn't sure when she had first noted it; she hadn't thought much about it then, no more than she would at noting a small crack in the paint of a family portrait. But the crack had spread, coming to dominate the canvas. She thought of the Dalton she had grown up in, the Dalton of nods and waves and small talk on Dalton Avenue. Of proud men in stately clothes and proud men in sturdy clothes. Of decency and civility and, yes, even moral outrage on the rare occasions that was called for. How different now... Without being summoned, a memory struck her--a child, just a baby, maybe four. She was hitting a doll again and again, screaming, "Mommy's gonna teach you how to live, if it's the last thing I do!" She could hear Horace's questions, "To live? Where?" Oh, Horace! What are they after? How much did you know? How much did I ignore? Her hands clenched at the wheel, her anger renewed: "Fuck you, bitch!"...

But she wouldn't hurt him if he didn't bother her... Would she? Lonnie was mystified by adults. He had a few dim clues, a few rules he knew were always true. But you could never be sure of how any adult was going to act about anything. He stood there watching, testing. He looped his thumbs in the thin belt wrapped around his waist, supporting a too-large pair of dungarees that were patched in several places. There was a small hole in his smudged tee-shirt. He was three days from his last bath and proud of that fact. Outwitting mom about baths was one of his early triumphs in the battle to have his way from adults. He leaned his strong young back against one of the lamp posts in the parking lot, watching the old woman. If he could understand why people stared like that, maybe he could use it...

Lonnie was eight years old. He was the smartest and most unruly boy in Mrs. Stark's third grade class. He always knew his lessons, without study. How many Eskimos go along on a seal hunt, how many milligrams of nicotine in a cigarette, what to do when a friend says he doesn't want to talk about a problem, how a Swedish boy his age would spend his time, the entire history of the Tennessee Valley Authority--all the stupid things they make you memorize. Lonnie could memorize that crap almost before the teacher said it. At times he was nagged by the doubt that there couldn't be much use for this junk, but he beat it back. The use was winning, beating the other kids, in class, on the playground, after school. That was a lesson he didn't have to memorize. He felt that he knew it somewhere inside him, like in his bones or something. He had always dominated the other kids, had always known how to bully them to have his own way--most of the time without even having to use his fists. It had come as a surprise to him when he learned he could dominate adults in the same way, surprised and shocked him. With the kids, he'd known what to do; just scare them with what scares you most. He began to feel he had some control over his life when he made the connection: it's not what scares me that counts, it's what scares them. That was the key. If you could find out what made an adult scared, you could dominate him... That made sense. The damn teachers said that things didn't have to make sense, but Lonnie knew they did. When you throw a baseball, it always moves away from your hand. When you throw it at a window, the window smashes into a million pieces. Things worked like that, but it didn't seem to apply to people... Well, if the fuckin' teachers aren't smart enough to look for a pattern, I am. If they won't build a system, then I'll come up with a system of my own...

Lonnie's system had worked fairly well. He made mistakes, got caught in the shoals of the unknown, but he made progress. His father was harder to bullshit, but all the strangers--the teachers, neighbors, storekeepers--they were putty in his hands. He smiled to himself, remembering the free candy, the coins and bills, the phony compliments uttered in tones of awed respect. He laughed, thinking about how much free candy you could get, just by fingering a baseball and talking about the store up the street--funny, isn't it, how their plate glass window was shattered by those kids playing a game of catch?

But his father remained a mystery. He'd just sit there on the couch, sit there and stare. Once in a while he'd take a long pull off the drink on the table beside him, but mostly he'd just look off into space. Not like he was seeing something good; not even something horrible. Just like he was seeing nothing, and like nothing was the only thing he was happy to see. Lonnie was never sure, when he walked through the room, if his father would notice him at all. Or, if he did, whether he would get clouted or hugged. Sometimes his father would hug him so tight, like he wanted to crush him or something. "You know I love you, don't you, Lonnie?," like one long whine. "You know I'm doin' the best I can, don't you?" That didn't happen too often, and it never lasted too long; his father would lose interest, turn back to his drink or his football game. But Lonnie felt that somehow this was the key: "You know I love you, don't you?" Lonnie didn't know and didn't care. But it was interesting that his father cared...

He looked up and was surprised to see that the old woman had gone; the space where her car had rested was empty. Lonnie pushed his hands into his pockets and ambled off down Dalton Avenue. If he phoned his mother and said he was studying with Jerry Dinkins, he could probably stay out 'til ten, anyway. He had nothing in particular to do with the time, but the thought of getting over on his mother made him happy...

And, darn! She was going to be late. She hated to be late for School Board meetings; one never knew what would be decided in the halls before the meeting. And there were so many important questions to consider just now, so many important issues rending the board into hostile factions. Just as the new methods were showing their worth, they were being called into question. That Ryan Dalton! Things hadn't been the same since he'd won a place on the board.

She soothed herself with the memories of what she had been able to do, how much things had changed from the classrooms of her girlhood, dominated by rules and axioms and postulates and necessary relationships. Not reading, writing and arithmetic, but reasoning, in order to read, to write, and to do arithmetic. Marion had hated it, and she was glad to be able to do something to change it when she took her place in front of a class. Her education instructors had stressed the destructive aspects of learning, the pressure, the loss of self-esteem that results from failure, the social atomization forced by the system of competition for rewards.

It was competition that she had done away with, first in her own classes, and now, thirty years later, throughout the school district. Students would cooperate, if that was the only way to be rewarded. No more systems of axioms, postulates, proofs. If they wanted the grade, let them learn the more important things: sharing, foreign culture, the accomplishments of the nation-state. Let none of them stand alone on his or her own conviction of proof; let them all stand together in the sharing of data carefully memorized. No more systems of grading based on merit. What was merit, anyway? Just an organized way of playing favorites. No, now every child's grade would be tied in a curve to every other child's grade; the best children, the most common ones, would hold down the few lone wolves, crush their desire to stand out. No more reading, writing and arithmetic, for that matter. Or at least not much. What did they need that stuff for, anyway? To work in factories? To put bolt C on spindle Y? No, she'd convinced the entire School Board that the purpose of a school was not to teach the student to read or to reason, but to teach the child to react, to respond and be responded to. To be creative and sharing and close to others. To need others... Training for interdependence, she'd called it. Manufacturing the new man...

And now Ryan Dalton was trying to ruin it all... "Parker Academy!" She spat out the words like a bad pistachio. Dalton's children didn't even attend the public schools! None of the Dalton children ever had. What right had he to dictate to the schools--darn it!--my schools? That man was so infuriating! He wanted the public schools to adopt the Parker model, what she privately called the four A's: Aquino-Aristotelian Atomistic Anarchism. Rigorous reasoning for robots. Sure, Parker kids got a good education, and they got into some of the best colleges, but they never came back to Dalton. If a kid went to Parker, someday he'd leave and neqer come back. What kind of school made children turn against their own home, their sacred family birthplace? Parker kids didn't give a damn about their city, even though there were many jobs for educated people. Why, didn't her own school district have a shortage of skilled teachers? And with the pay out of sight, up near fifteen thousand dollars a year. And the Rexco downtown has been advertising for a pharmacist for over six months. And wasn't Dr. Griswold just complaining to her that he hadn't had a good secretary since old Miss Ellis died? Things weren't so good in the factories, but there were plenty of good positions from which the Parker kids could give back to the community what they'd so freely taken. Didn't they owe that much to Dalton? The greedy little money-grubbers certainly didn't act like it. They wanted the better money, the better jobs, the better life, and to hell with those left behind.

And that's exactly what Ryan Dalton wants! Didn't he say so? He said that our public schools should train children to get along without anyone, not just the city, but their friends and families as well. He said the town is dead, and the only reason people don't leave is that they know they can't get along anywhere else. "They can't retrain because they don't know how to learn. We have willfully and intentionally crippled them, and the only thing we can do now is try to save the children. Teach them to live; teach them to reason." At first she thought is was just rhetoric, more of the same invective she heard in meetings with angry parents. But it had its effect over time, among the industry observers to the board and some of the local entrepreneurs, perhaps because Dalton emphasized his points by admonishing, "Look outside! Do you see what's happening out there?"

Time is running out... Why should those words strike her? She glanced hurriedly at her watch, trying to pretend that the time was all that worried her. But it was worse than that. Those dunderheads were getting a lot of support for their simplistic notions. She tried to counter it, both by calling their case into question and emphasizing her own, that good times or bad, children have to be taught how to get along in this world, how to give way. But... time is running out. She remembered the eight-day clock that had hung in the living room of her childhood home. She remembered how the ticking would slow, oh so gradually, as it expended its stored energy. She used to listen with pleasure to its slowing. She was gleeful when it finally stopped, as if her power alone had conquered it. At times she couldn't bring herself to worry about the Ryan Daltons of the world, so sure was she that the eight-day clock of culture was winding down. Man had reached his highest state--and had failed of it. He couldn't practice the sacrifices required. He had aspired to godhead and succumbed to deviltry instead. It gave her pleasure to think of the clock stopping...

There was a reverence in his clear brown eyes, an etching of confidence in the concerned lines of his face. His skin was brown from the sun; it set off the brightness of his smile. He smiled now as he watched the people charging past. They practiced the principles his daddy had taught him, even if they refused to admit that they did. Those few principles were all he'd had to get him here, but they'd served him well, and he was proud to have passed them on to his three sons. "A man pays his own way." Matt Clinton had always paid his own way. Once there were three seasons of bad crops in a row, but Matt had taken winter jobs to keep even with the bank. "A day's work for a day's pay." Matt prided himself on always giving full measure, never knowingly cheating, even where cheating was expected, as at weigh-ins. "Life is what you make it." Matt hadn't had much education, but he made the best he could of what he had. He'd kept up with improvements in agriculture, to the point that he got some of the best yields in the county, even though his land was far from the best. And he'd taught his boys to seek the best. His two oldest were off in college, paid for by twenty years of paid-up insurance. His youngest was finishing high school and gunning for an academic scholarship. Matt smiled, a testament to a pride that doesn't need to shout. It hasn't been all peaches and cream, but I'll spit in the eye of anyone who says it hasn't been good...

"Dad?"

"Huh? Oh, hi, Josh. Hop in."

"Dad...? Would you be upset if I asked you to come back in an hour?"

"Not finished yet?"

"No, sir."

"Get back to it then. I don't mind coming back." Matt smiled as he watched Josh hustle back inside. Was he that serious about his studies? Or was it a study-rendezvous with a girl? A good thing either way. Just because there's a girl around doesn't mean you can't learn anything. And, for damn sure, there are worse places to have a date.

He pulled the truck out into traffic and, without really considering his route, found himself headed out east of town. He'd heard that the Pauling plant was being reopened and he found himself drawn to it. Just a damn fool curiosity, most likely. But he felt that there was more to it, something like a feeling of kinship, a desire to see his values confirmed by the actions of another person. And more: a thirst for the knowledge that factories were opened, too, not just closed...

As he drove past the plant, Matt saw one lit window, one surging beacon of light against a black background. He wondered if the light came from the office of this Randolph who was in the paper. "Good luck, Mr. Randolph," he called silently. "Good luck."

No one knew Apple Annie's real name. That was part of a joke: not even Annie. In Dayton or Cleveland, Annie would be 'one of the homeless', entitled to special benefits. In Dalton, she was one of a kind, and she was granted permission to live completely outside Dalton's norms. Annie was a fixture, an institution. She'd shown up many years before, had earned her name silently peddling fruit near the courthouse. At first, the cops had rousted her daily. But it soon became clear that they were not getting through, that they were not there for Annie. Lock her up for the night and she'd be out there the next day. Hand her a nickel and she'd hand you an orange. Lock her up and she just came back. People felt sorry for Annie. After a while orders came down to leave her alone. Annie had long since stopped selling fruit. She roamed the streets by day, picking through the city's trash. She slept in a different place every night, always as far from cars and people as she could get. Some said she had riches stashed away, someplace in the city. Once in a while, Annie would bring an old silver coin to Dalton's only pawnbroker; she always got top dollar.

Enveloped in the reek of her own wastes, resplendent in the remains of a dozen cast-me-off wardrobes, encumbered by double hands-full of booty, Annie went where she would, contentedly oblivious and middling. Ryan Dalton had twice dubbed her Dalton's 'Person of the Year'. His breathless editorials had gushed about "Reality's Refugee. We credit her for her many services to this city, among them single-handedly saving Dalton's delousing industry from extinction." People had chided him, said it wasn't fair, him picking on Annie. But Ryan had pointed out that Annie was not offended, probably not even aware of her newly won status.

"Besides," he'd said, "you ought to regard her as your leader. She's achieved everything you claim to want. Did you say ignorance is bliss? Then Annie is ecstatically blissful. Did you say wisdom is indifference, that wanting something automatically disqualifies you to have it? Annie is always indifferent, she wants nothing. Therefore she's qualified for your highest respect. Did you say that that the things of this world are evil, that you cannot know things as they really are until you forget this world? Annie has forgotten this world. Take careful note of what this higher state of knowledge has done for her skin, her teeth, and her functioning level. I know you'll all keep at it, but you'll have a hard time matching that!"

Everyone was shocked but Annie. Annie was never shocked. Nor amused, nor angry, nor frustrated, nor joyous. She tried as hard as she could not to think, and after years of practice she had come to a place where she could hide all evidence of awareness. A place where her mental existence was unwitnessed, seemingly even by herself... But tonight she was caught unawares by the rain. She still hadn't thought about how to organize the boxes. When the rain began to pelt at her cheek, she stood staring at them, thinking she must do something, but not wanting to know what to do...

When he walked outside, he was surprised to see a person standing there in the parking lot. She was a bag lady--what people in New York would have called a bag lady. She was wearing several layers of ill-fitting clothes, and she had collected a few of the boxes Corey had put out earlier.

"Hello," Curtis said.

No reply.

"Looks like a wet night. Can I take you someplace?"

Nothing.

"All right then," he said. "Wait here. I'll be right back." He hurried back into the factory. He found what he was looking for in the custodial closet: large industrial-grade trash bags. He took one and cut head and arm holes out of the top seam Another he cut up the side seam, almost to the top.

The bag lady was still waiting when he got outside. By gesturing to show what he wanted, he got her to lift her arms so he could pull the plastic shirt over them. Then he put the plastic poncho on her head and showed her how to pull the sides around her to keep the weather out.

"...thanks," she said.

"So you can talk?"

"A little."

"Now can I take you someplace?"

"No... I want to stay here."

"Suit yourself," Curtis said. "Good night." He smiled warmly and was answered by a crooked grin.

He didn't know why she should bother him, why he should feel, as he drove away, that he could have done something more for her. She wasn't his responsibility; no man was his brother's keeper--nor his brother's property. He felt bad for her, but that didn't mean he owed her anything, that he should sacrifice his own values for the sake of her inability to evaluate. Yet he felt there was a way to attack the problem, and that he should be attacking it not for the bag lady's sake, but for his own...

Curtis sped silently through the rainswept streets, looking at Dalton for the first time. In many places it looked like a war zone. He passed a long row of stores with their windows boarded over. He saw many 'For Sale' signs in the lawns of the houses he passed, but not many signs that said 'Sold'. There was a feeling about the town, a sense of foreboding. He pictured Dalton as a man pacing back and forth in front of a casket, trying to decide if he should get in.

At a traffic light, he stopped to look closely at a cluster of houses. The ghetto, he thought, sure that this was the area set aside for Dalton's blacks, yet not sure how he knew it. The streets were deserted. But the colors of the paint on the houses, the colors of the flashing neon signs, the toys strewn about on lumpy lawns, the broken glass on the pavement, the electric cross on the steeple of the church--all told a silent story...

A question of values, really. Wasn't that what separated people? Whether they served different values, or the same values differently, wasn't it this that stood between them, that kept them from understanding each other? He thought about that bag lady. What made her life worth living like that? What did she get in return that made that worthwhile? And what about this neighborhood? How is it that I can know blacks live here, without seeing any blacks? By cataloging disvalues? By knowing where the values of blacks differ from those of whites?

Curtis remembered something Janio had said years before: "There is only one right way. If the issue of right and wrong is involved, only one way is right, and all the rest are wrong. Some things don't matter, such as which shoe to put on first. And people will differ about which value to serve. But if two people agree that a value is valuable, there is only one right way for each to pursue it, and the one who comes closest to that right way will achieve more of the value than the one who comes less close." As his wheels hissed over the water, he let his thoughts roll over the past. Not just back to Janio and all that he'd taught him, but back to his beginning, back to his first memories of trying to find the right way to live...

Had he been born hungry? His first memories were of hunger and of the quest for food. There was never any starvation, never any days without food. But no meal was ever large, never large enough. At an early age, Curtis grew adept at finding food for himself. At first he stole it, not knowing that he was stealing, knowing only that he saw an orange or a box of cookies, and knowing that he wanted it. Later, he'd learned to trade labor for food, and only then did he achieve the satisfaction of being well-fed all the time. And more, the satisfaction of knowing that he would be well-fed all the time.

Curtis was born in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a black ghetto in the steamy heart of Brooklyn. His mother was in her late teens when she had him; she had no time for a child, and no need. Curtis was raised by his grandmother. His mother rarely stayed at home, preferring to hang out in the streets or the bars or the apartments of her many boyfriends.

Curtis was what his Gramma called a "good baby". He was quiet as an infant, serious as a child. He was inquisitive and curious. He rarely spoke except to ask new questions. He spent many hours examining everything in their small home, in the building, in the streets outside. He like to take things apart, to see how they were made, then to put them back together. His favorite word was "because", as in "because this happened, this must happen", but more often as in "because why?" Gramma was driven to distraction by his ceaseless pursuit of answers. You couldn't put him off; if he didn't get the whole answer right away, he'd push till he got it. If you couldn't tell him, he'd find out on his own, then come back and tell you.

He was five when he figured out that you could trade work for food and other things. He'd been caught swiping an apple. The greengrocer clouted him good, but he let Curtis keep the fruit. He made the boy heft some boxes from the store to the curb. The next day, Curtis came back, took another apple, then stood beside the greengrocer, waiting to be told what to do. The man had laughed and put Curtis to work. An hour later he walked home with a large bag of fruit.

Work gave him the mobility, the freedom he needed. He had much of his time to himself, and he was usually without supervision. With a good, steady diet, he was able to expand the scope of his daily wanderings, coming at the age of five to know the city as his own. He knew every building and store and junkyard and abandoned car in Bed-Stuy; he had explored all at least once, and he had worked in many of the stores. He never worked for more than an hour or two. Though they valued his eager labor, the merchants feared reprisals from the city--the city that could forbid them the legal right to live, just as they had forbidden it to Curtis with their child-labor laws. But a couple of hours a day was more than enough. Sometimes Curtis took his pay in food, at other times in goods, at other times in cash. He always brought the bulk of his wealth home to Gramma, who told him what a good provider he was, what a good man he would be.

At five, Curtis also learned to read and to fight. He badgered Gramma about reading until she sat him down with a book and tried to explain. Because she was ignorant, because she lacked the inestimable benefit of a college education, she taught by the outmoded and inferior phonics method. She did not know 'see and say' existed, did not know of its superiority. As a result, Curtis learned faster. He already knew thousands of words; he could read them as soon as he could sound out the letters. He quickly tore through the few books and magazines in the house, then started reading anything he could find: posters, cereal boxes, leaflets and flyers he found in the street. He even began to take some of his pay in old books and magazines.

It was when he discovered the library that he learned to fight. It was a wondrous place, an entire building full of books. He'd wandered into it not really knowing what it was, then stumbled all through it, awed, exploring it thoroughly. He was still there at closing time, poring over one of the five books he'd selected. He was not aware of the time, of his hunger, of Gramma, who must have been worried sick over him. He was aware only of the book in front of him and of the feeling of being home, a relaxation and comfort he'd known nowhere else. It took a moment for him to realize that someone was trying to get his attention, a tall white woman with glasses. When he figured out that she worked here, that she knew about this place, he asked her a million questions. She explained everything, then helped the very excited boy apply for his first library card. Then, exacting his solemn promise that he would return them, she let him borrow the books he'd selected.

On the way home, a bigger boy tried to shake him down. He taunted him about the books and demanded that Curtis hand over his money. Finally, the thug had swung out at the smaller boy and caught him full on the face. Curtis did not know how to fight. He'd had little to do with other children, and he didn't even know that they did fight. But when the boy struck him, he responded with a fury that was new to him. He carefully set the books aside, then attacked the other boy. He knew nothing about technique, had no knowledge of which blows were effective, which wasteful. It didn't matter. He attacked in a wild frenzy, swarming over the bully, laying on so many blows that the other had no time even to react, much less retaliate. The fight was over quickly. The older boy scurried off, looking over his shoulder to make sure Curtis was not following. Curtis dusted himself off, picked up his books, and walked home.

"What's it like to grow up in the streets?" He smiled at the naive question asked so many times by concerned whites. "What's it like to grow up in the suburbs? No different from anything you've ever known, not subject to comparison while it's happening." Curtis never connected the things he saw in the streets of New York to his own life, he never considered them a reflection on him. Those people were stupid; he was not. For a long while, his life revolved around the library. He'd spend hours of every day there, devouring books of science and stories.

At six he was sent off to school, but he stopped going after the third day. The teacher claimed she was going to teach math and reading, but mostly she seemed to chatter and act confused. He could learn more in ten minutes than she managed to cover in a whole day, and he quickly grew disgusted with the ceaseless, senseless repetition. He went back to the library. After much plaintive argument, the librarian agreed to let Curtis study there, so long as he promised not to mention her to truant officers, social workers or anyone else who was likely to inquire. She set a stern course of study for him, but Curtis tore through it faster than she could assign it. He became very interested in chemistry; he was fascinated by the perfect mathematical structures embodied in perfect physical structures...

When Curtis was twelve, his Gramma died. He hadn't known her, hadn't loved her, but still he felt the loss: a part of the unchanging universe had changed. His mama showed up for the first time in years, tried to take up the place in his life Gramma had occupied. Curtis knew it was a fraud, that it wouldn't last, that his mother could not be both what she was and what she was now pretending to be. He tasted the bitter resentment of charity, the knowledge that this was something his mother was doing not for her own sake, as the consequence of her own introspection and her own desire, but for his sake. Worse, because she thought that this was what ought to be good for him, to collect a sacrifice. It was the same resentment he knew when he thought of the 'do-gooders' who thought it was 'good' for him to be denied a way of making a living, of getting an education. Denied a way of living a life that didn't require sacrifice, whether it was the sacrifice of other people's wealth to him, through handouts, or the sacrifice of his ability to others, in classes full of morons to whom it was demanded that he chain himself... To have his mother renounce her whole dismal lifestyle, and to have her think that he would regard this as the good, that she would do herself out of what she wanted out of some self-imposed slavery to Curtis--to cooperate would mean that he would be enslaving himself to her, wouldn't it...? Curtis left for Manhattan that night, taking only his clothes, his books, and his savings.

"What's it like to grow up in the streets?" Good, for Curtis. Leaving home made him confront the issue of survival head on. He realized he had defaulted on Gramma, letting her handle much of what he didn't understand. He understood it now, and after sleeping two nights out in the cold, he cajoled an old woman into renting him a room. She made him promise to tell any questioners he was her nephew from South Carolina, staying here while he got his schooling. He began to hustle at the first of dozens of odd jobs--shining shoes, curb service at a newsstand, hawking papers, peddling cheap jewelry and umbrellas. The city was his front lawn and he explored it thoroughly, starting with the Fifth Avenue Library and proceeding to every surprising corner of Manhattan. His days free of the impertinences of parents, teachers and other busybodies, he applied himself rigorously to getting an education--his way. When he discovered the universities he was enraptured for weeks. He spent every free minute sneaking into chemistry classes, to listen and learn, first at one school, then at another.

At fourteen, by lying egregiously about his age, he talked his way into a job at a chemical supply house, first working as a stock-boy, later as a sales representative and supervisor. He wanted desperately to go to college, to a good college, to study chemistry. He knew his education was spotty, remarkably complete in some areas, next to non-existent in most. His new-found stability gave him the margin to think long-term, to think beyond the next meal or rent payment. He resolved to go to school, even if he hated it. To get the best grades he could get, even if he was bored to death doing it. To qualify for the best school, a school like the ones he so loved visiting, and to do whatever was necessary to make that dream come true. Even if it was dismal.

To his surprise, it was not dismal. His savings permitted him to apply to the some of the better private schools. He did not consider the public schools; they were just the slow way of asking to be adopted or dumped in a juvenile home. Curtis had spent many years learning to avoid the 'social relief' apparatus that wanted so desperately to destroy what he'd made of his life. He wasn't about to pay that much for an inferior education. He quietly asked around and found that, on the list of those he could afford, St. Matthew's was the school with the greatest financial need. By quietly demonstrating his ability to pay, and by assuring the headmaster that he would not report him should Curtis fall into the clutches of the social welfarists, he managed to talk his way into the school.

It was much more than he expected, so exciting, so fulfilling. The mindless repetition was gone, replaced by a rapid-fire cannonade of strange, new, wonderful ideas. Any student who could not keep up was invited to repeat the course, but Curtis always kept up, even in English, where he was weakest. He soared in the sciences, and he spent many joyous hours after school in the copiously stocked chemistry lab. A teacher gave him a copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead; Curtis liked to lay awake at night thinking of Roark, of how much is possible in life for a man who is willing to work and think. In his Senior year, he read Atlas Shrugged, and it gave him an understanding of himself he hadn't gathered on his own. Ayn Rand had named his own thoughts, his own most deeply held convictions.

It was less than a month later that he met Janio for the first time. In those days, Janio was running the 'church' without fanfare, just himself and his equipment on Saturday afternoons in Washington Square Park. Curtis had seen him there, attracted by the strange spectacle of a crowd of radio listeners. As he got closer, he saw that the man at the center of the crowd, a slender hispanic with rich black hair, was 'broadcasting'. His microphone and instruments fed into a radio transmitter, not an amplifier. The audience heard the show through the portable radios they carried. How strange...

There was a sign beside the man: "Holy Church of Iconoclastic Atheism". "Have you come to worship god?!," he demanded in a parody of the raging video evangelists. "No!," came the liturgical response, accompanied by a few angry remarks from the fringes of the crowd. "Have you come to kneel before the lord?!" "No!" "If you have come to pray to god, you have come to the wrong place. Why? Because there is no god!" The audience cheered. Curtis got interested, fascinated by the careful way the performer kept his motives ambiguous. You couldn't be sure if he was a comedian or a soap-box crazy. It wasn't clear if his purpose was to amuse or to hector. He made you laugh, but when the laughter ended, you had the feeling that something stuck, that some part of what he'd said stayed with you and made you think...

Curtis became a regular at Janio's shows. Every Saturday, he would come to hear the strange man speak on drugs or politics or religion or liberty or his experiences in Nicaragua. His lectures were always funny and always didactic. And Curtis came to hear him play, too. Janio was a keyboard master; he would use his synthesizers to produce as many as twelve voices at once, and his gay parodies of musical cliches were as effective as his satires of philosophical bromides.

A big part of the audience came solely for the music. Janio played as no one they'd ever heard, and if they had to put up with a few quirks to hear it, it was worth that price. He played rock 'n' roll medleys with a classic virtuosity, using their common themes to craft a symphony. Though he rarely performed the lyrics, he made the music speak with a greater beauty and potency than its words could declare. Nothing passed through his fingers unchanged. It was as though his hands were a filter that let past only that which was beautiful and purposeful and inspiring in a piece of music. He seemed to thrive on exposing the musical beauty of 'ugly' songs, like the Tubes' 'White Punks on Dope', and the Beatles' 'Jealous Guy'. He stripped them of all anger, defeat, pain. What was left was the stark beauty of the music and the raw power of the musician.

After the radio show one day Janio had stopped to speak with Curtis. They talked for an hour, then went for dinner together. That was the beginning of a close friendship, one that had now lasted more than ten years. Janio was joyous and carefree in those days, an elegant Central American heir gone bohemian. He lived in a garage-sized loft on Prince Street. Curtis spent many late nights there, talking with Janio, listening to him play the classical music he loved but would not play in public. And, as Janio put it, 'making the revolution'. Their shared interest in Objectivism, Austrian economics, and liberty filled their minds and time with many lively discussions.

A revolution of the other sort had erupted in Nicaragua, so Janio missed seeing Curtis graduate with honors from Columbia, BS-Chemistry. By the time he returned to the city, Curtis had gone away on the first of a series of jobs in the plastics industry. His first jobs had been in research and development, but he had shown so much organizational skill that he was quickly promoted into management. He earned a reputation for getting everything right: people, product, profit. His last two jobs had been as CEO in turnaround companies. It was the bonuses from those rescue operations that had paid his half of the Pauling nut.

Janio had paid the other half. Since the Sandinistas had taken power, Janio was different. He returned to New York a changed man, no less ebullient, but much less open, less trusting. Curtis knew that Janio no longer shared his whole life with him. He knew that there were things that Janio kept from him, things of which he no longer spoke. Part of it was the private gold bank Janio ran through SallyBank, a powerful computer. That was very illegal, as he'd advised Curtis when he set up his account. When Curtis saw the scope of Janio's private trading network, he was astounded: "Why? Janio, why?" His good friend had smiled, but the smile was not a happy one: "We are making the revolution, my friend. We have embargoed them, we boycott them. Are you with us? Don't answer. When the time comes that you must choose, you will know. For now you have a gold account in an underground economy. That's worth maybe five years at a federal country club. I won't give you any better basis for self-incrimination just yet."

'Making the revolution'...? Or making a living? For more than five years, Curtis had traded over SallyBank, had seen his gold shares accumulate, losing no value against goods, gaining value against the US dollar and every other paper currency. SallyBank was a trading network more than a bank, a means of negotiating goods against a common standard to effect a trade, sometimes involving many parties. Curtis sold consulting services and imported some chemicals that the SallyBank economy was not yet producing internally. He didn't know his current state of legal compromise, but he thought it must be greater than simple tax-evasion, trading in taboo currencies, etc. Maybe black marketeering? Conspiring to mock the dignity of the holy republic? Treason? Curtis smiled his answer: "Make the most of it!" He had come to love SallyBank and everything it represented, from the code of competence imposed by gold money to the spirit of freedom that prevailed among the traders. SallyBank was home, and if necessary he would fight for his homeland. Isn't that what a value is, something so good you refuse to deny its goodness, even at gunpoint? My purpose is to live and "there is only one right way", and it does not require guns or armies to compel 'cooperation'.

"Hello, Ryan."

"Hi, Curtis," said Dalton. "I was hoping you'd drop in. I wanted to speak to you."

"About what?"

"Oh, nothing in particular. Just to shoot the breeze. I came here from a School Board meeting, and I needed to wash the stink off me. What are you drinking?" When Curtis had ordered, Dalton continued: "Do you want to know the intellectual crisis of our age, the burning issue searing the heart of the body politic, the two contenders for the heavyweight championship in the battle of ideas? It's the Pythagorean Theorem versus 'Getting Along With Your Grandparents'. And the grandparents are winning!"

"It sounds like it means a lot to you."

"Oh, yeah!," said Dalton, taking a sip of his drink. "Funny, isn't it? Me, Mr. Civic Virtue? I used to laugh at them, their look-say-forget reading, mantra math, and togetherness training. I thought they were getting what they deserved..."

"Hah! What made you join the other side?"

"I found that I was getting what they deserved--all over the place! In errors made by idiot reporters, in waste caused by idiot printers, in taxes paid to keep idiots idiotic. Simply renouncing stupidity is not enough. I have to fight it, to try to root it out."

"Oh?"

"You know, around town people enjoy thinking of me as Mr. Civic Virtue. They say things like 'high time he gave back what his family's taken out of this town'. That is not my motive. I want to stress that with you, though I don't know why it should matter."

Curtis said: "I do."

"Do you? You know, somehow I thought you might... Anyway, my family has never taken or given anything in this town. We've traded honestly and well. I don't feel that I owe anything to Dalton, nor that it owes anything to me."

"...but..."

"But..." Ryan took another sip of his drink. "Well, maybe I'm just trying to prove to myself that I'm not acting in self-sacrifice... Tell me, Curtis, if you saw a man on fire, would you try to put him out?"

"Yes, if it wouldn't endanger my own life."

"But an ongoing problem, like drink or drugs or gambling--would you subsidize that?"

"No. Because it would endanger my life, to consistently trade higher values for lower ones."

Dalton smiled. "What you didn't say is that subsidizing vice would hurt the recipient."

"That's true but irrelevant. In both cases, it's my own interests that count, not the other person's."

"Okay," said Ryan. "Try this: what if you saw a giant mantrap? Would you try to tear it down?"

"...a 'mantrap'?"

"A trap for men. A machine that snatches them and holds them and won't let them go. Would you try to tear it down?"

Curtis smiled. "Somebody did that for me. I guess I'd return the favor. Is there such a machine?"

"You tell me. Dalton has lost five thousand jobs in the last five years. The housing stock is ten percent vacant, and those who remain can't hope to sell. The public schools are guided by the premise that education is Pavlovian, that a child who understands 'monkey-see, monkey-do' understands the world. With the help of some of the city fathers, the schools have sought to produce the perfect factory labor force--short attention span, low reasoning ability, limited curiosity. As a result, now, when they should leave, they can't. Many of them don't even know they should leave..."

"There's not much you can do for them now, is there?"

"Not for them," Ryan said. "Not this late. But I can try to stop the process. If we're going to pay taxes to support schools, let's at least get our money's worth. Let pay to give the kids a fighting chance in life. Can you imagine the type of mind that considers grandparent relations comparable to geometry? That is what we have to fight against. If we can get reason back into the curriculum, then maybe we can save this town. Without it, we're sunk."

"...do you think the problem can be solved that simply?"

"Not simply," Dalton replied, "and not overnight. But in time, if we have the time to give it. You said it today: what killed the Pauling plant? Low productivity. How do you learn how to produce more? Not by looking into tea leaves. Not by consorting with demons or talking it over with your relatives. No, to learn to produce more, to learn anything, you must think! An education that doesn't teach reasoning is a fraud. An education that insinuates that there can be a special reality where falsehood is truth, where you can eat without having produced, know without having thought, steal the property of others because they produced it and you didn't--that's a mantrap. It commands that its every victim be both predator and prey, both a thief and a beggar, with no hope of escape ever, because the victim knows no other way to live. Would you try to tear that down?"

Curtis looked down at his drink: half full. "What are you getting at, Ryan?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm looking for allies... I talk to everyone I can, try to get them to see why it's so important. I've lined up support from most of the commercial community, and my paper pumps it regularly."

"Isn't that enough?"

"Doesn't make a scratch. This is Ohio, Curtis. The Democratic party has ruled Dalton for more than fifty years. If you're in a union, especially the teacher's union, you're under their protection. Until we can get control of the School Board, we can't effect any lasting change."

"And you represent--what?--the Republicans?"

"Libertarians. The Republicans are cold soup in Dalton; they usually endorse our candidates. Can I talk you into running for a seat in the next election?"

"I don't think so. I've got too much to do for the next few years. Maybe later."

Dalton smiled. "I figured that. Will you write an article or two for my paper, maybe make a few speaking appearances?"

"I don't know what I'd write about..."

"How reason saved my life, naturally. Or anything related to education. Someday when you have time just sit down, relax, and write down what you thought was most valuable in your education, what you prize most highly now."

"All right," Curtis said. "I'll do it, but it's not likely to be soon... By the way, Ryan. There's something I wanted to ask you."

"What's that?"

"Is it common, around here, for a receiver to bid on his own sale?"

"That's not common here or anywhere. That's fraud..." A look of confusion overtook Ryan's face. "Curtis, what are you asking?"

"One of my financial advisors phoned today. He reports that our competitor in the bidding for Pauling Plastics was a Mr. Cameron Dalton, the receiver. That's your father, isn't it?"

"...yes."

"Do you have any idea of his purpose?"

"No real information, but I can guess. He's making quick kills to keep his mortgages alive."

"I don't understand."

"When Cleveland Tool moved out, the same thing happened, though my father wasn't the receiver. He bought out the plant, then sold everything under the roof and condemned the structure. A week later he announced that new foreclosures would be suspended for six months. My guess is that he's trying to give folks a chance to recover, while making sure he doesn't trade the capital stock of the bank for real estate that can't be sold..." A sadness overtook Dalton's face. "He's trapped in it, too, just like the rest of them. And selling out the productive plant only makes it all worse. A six month 'breather' works out to zero if you don't get anything in exchange for your breaths... Are you upset with my father?"

"He cost me twenty-five thousand dollars I didn't need to spend."

"That might have been part of his motive as well. The bank owned most of Pauling's notes. It'll get the lion's share of the distress disbursement... If what you say is true, you have legal recourse. You know that, don't you...?"

"Yes," said Curtis, "I did know that."

"Are you going to take it?"

"I don't know. I'll have to decide if it's worth it to me. Are you going to discuss this with your father?"

"Maybe," Ryan responded. "Are you?"

"Probably. I'll want to know what kind of man I'm dealing with."

Dalton's impish grin returned. "When you find out, be sure to tell him. He's heard it before, but it never seems to sink in."

Curtis laughed. They chatted a while longer, then he said good night and trailed up to bed.

Dalton pushed away the drink and pushed away from the bar. As he drove home, he whistled softly to himself, a phrase from Beethoven's Third. It seemed somehow connected to Curtis, as if it were written solely to herald his arrival. Dalton smiled to himself when he remembered that the Eroica was written to honor a conqueror... And now, at last, it does...

She was thinking of Curtis, realizing that she had thought of little else all night. How could he know her deepest thoughts, her most hidden emotions? He had named them as if he had known they were true, and known that they ought to be true. Did that mean he shared them? She gasped with pleasure. Do his clear bright eyes qualify him for this room, as well as the office? Another thought clamored forward: am I qualified for him...? She quivered when she thought of Curtis Randolph here, in her arms, in her body. She was aware suddenly of her hand, resting gently against her leg. She felt it not as a hand but as pinpoints of heat burning into her flesh. She raised the hand to the heat of her thighs. "Oh, yes, Curtis... Yes!"

It's all that fuckin' nigger's fault, he thought. He's the one who had to go and ruin my life! Things had been rough. At the first bar, Corey had finished two drinks before the giggling got out of hand. He'd gone to another bar rather than face a show-down. Hassle old women and kids, sure, but there's no point in getting beat up... At the second bar, he had another two. By the third joint, he was obviously too drunk to fight, so he was able to enjoy his last two slowly.

But that crowd had gotten their giggling in early; by now they were to the open insult stage. One man had asked, "Larry, how low can a man sink in life...?" His table mate had responded, "I don't know. Why don't you ask the nigger's janitor?" That had brought down the house, and the more timid types were happy to waddle down the trail that Larry had blazed. Old geezers and meek milquetoasts would say things like, "At least you ain't his golf caddy!," or, "Could be worse; you could be shinin' his shoes!," all accompanied by spastic, joyless guffaws.

Corey knew they had to gang up on him, had to prove to themselves that he was unique, that his fate could never befall them. Corey didn't know that in seeking that proof, they were proving its contrary. But he knew that if he got it out of the way tonight, he'd never have to fight about it. The tittering, the raw comments, they'd continue. But he wouldn't be expected to fight about it. He'd announced to the world that he would let them have their way with him, that he would not resist their taunts. He felt somehow that there was a surrender involved, but he didn't know what it was. He didn't feel any loss.

What he felt was hatred, a burning resentment, against that nigger Randolph and everyone. He remembered with pleasure busting up that ballgame, running that old bag off the road. That's life, he thought. It's not what you can get, it's what you can deny to others...

He pulled into his drive and waddled to his door. After fumbling with his keys, he let himself in. Sandra was asleep. He undressed and slipped into bed beside her. Her rolled her over and pulled up her short nightie. He entered her in one quick thrust and she awoke in a scream of pain. He took her in short fast jerks; Sandra endured it. He knew she got no pleasure from this, that it brought her no more than pain and boredom. That was part of his pleasure. When he had finished he rolled over and stared at the ceiling, hating the things he saw in his mind, Randolph and those swarming savages in the bar and Sandra and Glenna-fucking-Rhodes and the whole stinking town... "How low can a man sink?" Corey clenched his jaws. "Ask the nigger's janitor..." Then his mind stuck on a happier image: "Fuck you, bitch!" He wore a smile of quiet satisfaction as he dropped off to sleep.

3. Mind at Work

For Curtis, the Dalton Chronicle article on education was a kind of private celebration. He wrote it on the Sunday afternoon following the plant's reopening. There had been a number of public ceremonies, with insincere testimonials and blinding electronic flashes, but the private ceremony consummated by the article was by far the most valuable to him. Out of three weeks of his hardest labor he had condensed a rule of laboring, a universal law of getting things done, the practical definition of "Making it pay"...

Making it pay... It had been a scrabble from the first. The eight hands Glenna had hired were eager and intelligent, but there was a beatenness about them. Their faces were lined at the eyes, creased at the cheeks, and Curtis felt that the pain-scars were both new and enduring. He had some buttons he'd used once in a turnaround situation; they read: "Mind At Work." He gave one to everybody, and they seemed to help. The men seemed more confident of their fitness for work, of their worthiness to have a job.

Curtis lost two of them to Glenna's inventory the first few days, and he put two more to work inspecting the decompression system valve by valve. With the remaining men he'd rebuilt the toolroom, reorganizing the machines, stripping and painting each before it was moved. From there his crews surged through the plant. Working side by side with the men in dungarees and work shirts, Curtis inspected, replaced, repaired and reengineered the production lines of the factory. They set up and operated two lines: one for bending polymer-glass membranes, one for the layup of multi-layer printed circuit boards.

Glenna had chosen wisely: the men she'd selected were first-rate. Once they'd gotten their confidence back, they thrived on the work. They worked overtime, well after dark most nights. When they'd gotten the plant into serviceable if not perfect shape, he began drilling them on product, training, quality control, personnel management... He made it clear to the men that he was looking to promote them into floor management. He coached them ceaselessly on manufacturing techniques, cost savers, known disasters to watch for. "Let me make this clear: our job is to make money. 'Mind At Work'. I'm looking at you men for better jobs at better pay, because I think you'll be worth more to me in those jobs. If you elect to take them, it will be because you feel I'll be worth more to you at those wages. When we start hiring for line workers, I'll hire on the basis of ability. Does that sound strange, com