City code (revised, S. Adams): Freeway overpasses with more than forty percent curvature to be dislodged by giant cranes and placed, unanchored, on the ground in reversed position, to serve as bases for rocking horses roughly the size of three-story buildings. Ancient cannon (howitzers, etc.) to be removed from military museums and welded together as superstructure for legs, tails, heavily maned necks. Clouds snagged by oversized cloth nets stretched between helicopters to be used for padding in Astroturf-and-leather saddles. Redbud trees bundled together and tied are to be placed on the horses’ noses: blazing nostrils. In addition, cypress trees to be imported from states with large rivers, sculpted to resemble butterflies, birds, painted white, gold, blue, and suspended mobile-like from cranes around the horses.
Deidre dressed for dance rehearsal. In her grass skirt and cap she looks like a little hut. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Adams says.
“Well, we were in David’s yard — ”
“David is the little boy…?”
“Next door. His daddy took down his swing set.” She stops, as though she’s made her point.
“And?”
“He’s really mean. He doesn’t want David to have any fun.”
“Okay, so then what happened?”
“So then … we were in David’s yard, okay? And his daddy took down his swing set. And there was this metal bar, you know, that used to be part of the swing set, and I picked it up and started throwing it in the air like a baton, okay? And I wasn’t throwing it high, like he said I did, and it came down on David’s head.”
“How badly was he cut?”
“I didn’t see him bleeding or anything, but five minutes later David’s dad comes over here yelling at me like I’m some kind of wookie or something.”
“They had to take him to the emergency room,” Pamela says.
“Has this sort of thing happened before, Deidre?”
“No. What do you mean?”
“Well, apparently David’s father says the other kids are afraid of you.”
“That’s ‘cause they’re really really dumb. I liked it better where we lived before.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell your father about the Crisco,” Pamela says.
“Oh, that’s stupid.”
Adams says, “What about the Crisco?”
“I was with Stephanie in her kitchen — ” “Stephanie is eighteen months old,” Pamela adds.
“And I thought it would be funny to put Crisco on her face to make her look like a clown.”
“Stephanie was covered with Crisco head to toe,” Pamela says.
Adams laughs.
“It’s not funny, Sam.”
“You had me thinking she was terrorizing everybody.”
“I never said that. That was Mr. Doyle, David’s father.”
“He’s really mean,” Deidre says.
“He had no right to yell at her. I’ll punish my own kids the way I see fit,” Pamela says.
“Ma-ma.”
“All right,” Adams says. “I’ll take you to dance class. And tomorrow I want you to apologize to David and his father.”
“It was an accident!”
“You’re sorry it happened, aren’t you? And if you haven’t apologized to Stephanie’s mother, I think you should do that too.”
“And to Stephanie?”
“Yes, and to Stephanie.”
“She won’t understand, Dad.”
“Well, you’ll teach her. Now get your stuff.” He slaps her bottom.
Pamela offers him a drink. “I’m not home enough, Sam. I know that’s part of the problem.” In addition to her work, she’s now involved on a volunteer basis with a social group called Women Against Poverty. On Tuesday nights she counsels battered wives, distributes food to women whose food stamps have been rescinded by federal cuts, and helps uneducated single mothers put together résumés and fill out job applications.
“You should see these women when they realize how easy it is to fill out a job application. They think their problems are over. Of course they’re just beginning. I don’t know how much good we do. Sometimes I think we’re getting their hopes up for nothing. But I’m teaching them art. I’ve put these cutouts on the wall, like Matisse dancers, and we talk about color and proportion. Most of them don’t care, but it takes their minds off their children and their boyfriends and their bad checks.”
“Don’t worry about the kids. We’ll work things out.”
Deidre is ready to go. Adams drops her off at class, circles back, and has a talk with Mr. Doyle, a nervous man who turns out to be friendly and reasonable.
“I’m sorry if I upset your wife,” he says.
“Understandable. And you probably did Deidre some good. David’s all right?”
“He’s going to be fine.”
Fathers being fatherly.
Adams offers to pay David’s medical costs; Mr. Doyle politely declines.
Adams drives to the women’s shelter with a bottle of champagne. “To celebrate your work. And the end of the hostilities with Mr. Doyle,” he says.
The shelter is temporarily located in a vast ware house, no private alcoves, and he feels embarrassed standing nicely dressed among crying women and children, holding a chilled bottle of Moët et Chandon.
“That’s really sweet of you, Sam. Can you leave it in my car?” She hands him her keys and leads a mixed group of children — black, Chicano, Asian — toward a corner of the room. One of the boys repeats to himself in a deep, affected voice, “I worked late last night, worked late tonight, and I’m fed up, do you hear me, I’ve had it up to here.” Loudly buzzing yellow lights glare from the rafters of the building, the gray metal walls are covered with cardboard figures holding hands and dancing in circles. Folding chairs and cots fill the space in the center of the room; on the sides, seven or eight portable freezers.
Adams follows Pamela, jangling her car keys. “Why don’t you just come over when you get through tonight?” For some reason — perhaps because Mr. Doyle was so nice — he feels gracious and forgiving this evening.
“I’m going to be here awhile.”
“How long?” He bumps into a pregnant woman with very thin legs and arms.
“I don’t know, Sam. I’m just not up for it, okay? It was very sweet of you, but …”
“Okay, okay.” He is jealous of the crowded shelter, of her purpose here.
She squats beside a woman with long curly hair. The woman is seated on the concrete floor.
“How you doing, Angela,” Pamela asks.
Angela’s left wrist is in a cast. “I haven’t changed my mind,” she says. Her tongue is cut.
“Please, Angela.”
“Where did they park my car?”
“Stay with us, at least for tonight.”
“I’ve got to see him again!” Angela starts to cry.
Pamela looks up at Adams: condemnation, fear, affection? He’d like to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly but knows she might consider it, at this moment, a hostile gesture.
City of Women Alone, Street of the Listener, Avenue of Lost Children. Come back. Return. So this is where we are.
Part Four
IN dream Pamela mails him a plate. The Dutch are always giving plates. Ceramic plates, wooden plates, clay plates. Generally a hand-painted scene appears in the center of the plate, and around the rim an aphorism: “Happy the Soul Who Trusts in God” or “Coal Remains in the Hills.” A distinct feature of the plates is that they often are addressed to brothers and sisters. Husbands and wives sometimes paint affectionate names on one another’s plates, such as “Gimp” or “Woodchip.” In Adams’ dream the plate arrives wrapped in paper. He cuts the tape. When he removes the last shred of wrapping, he is astonished. In the middle of the plate a hag, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel, leans on a cane. Written in German script on the rim: “Good Morning, Cousin Snitch, You Kissed the Mouth for Nothing, didn’t You?”