I knew her real reason for resisting the air conditioner. She revered our aunt Fern, who lived in Lubbock. Janey loved Fern’s stories of her teenage years. Fern used to crawl out her window at night and sneak off to meet her boyfriend. They’d hitch a ride to the Johnson-Connelly Pontiac dealership, which sponsored concerts in its showroom featuring Buddy Holly, Joe Ely when he was just a kid, and, once, even Elvis. Janey didn’t want to miss out on the great tradition of teenage girls sneaking away to meet their boyfriends. Fern had married her boyfriend — our dorky uncle Ralph — and lived with him now in a house swamped by the smell of his El Productos.
Now Janey and Michelle sat in her room playing “Hey Jude” and scowling at the Carrier. When I glimpsed them from the hall I got that buzzy feeling in my hands. What if I were the boy who spurred Michelle into slipping quietly out of a window? We could link fingers in the parking lot at Bronco Chevrolet, staring at the new Thunderbirds through the display window. My throat tightened. She looked so sweet sitting on Janey’s bed.
I suppose Pat and I had read the phrase Tet Offensive or heard it on the news. In any case, our Trat Offensive consisted of blackmail, subterfuge, and assault. The plan was, first, on Thursday afternoon, we’d slip a tape of my mother’s snores into her ledger. She’d get the message and leave our fort alone. Next, as Josh’s family gathered in their backyard, as they did each Thursday night, to sing and praise the Lord Jesus, we’d click on my radio, concealed in a holly bush just beyond Josh’s fence. The devil’s music would assault him and his always cheery folks. And last, once the radio was secured, we’d cross the street and wait behind my dad’s peach tree. When Janey walked Michelle home, we’d ambush them with water balloons. Operation Kiss-Kill. “To hide your face, you should wear your asthma mask,” Pat said. “Do you have an extra for me?”
That day, as I stood in the hall, while the Beatles nah-nah-nahed and Michelle glanced at me, my commitment to Pat started to crack. But what if Michelle told Janey about the alley? What if she ambushed me again with her short shorts? No. Solidarity. Nah-nah. Courage.
On Thursday morning, I lingered out of sight near the dining room, hoping for an opportunity to tiptoe to Mom’s writing desk and slide the tape into the ledger. Mom and Dad were sitting at the table, eating bacon, drinking coffee.
“But oil prices aren’t flat?” Mom said. “I thought you’d been more hopeful lately?”
“Till Atlantic-Richfield gobbled up Sinclair … the big boys keep getting bigger. We can’t keep it running, honey.”
“Well. There’s Oregon.” She had a cousin who’d just moved to Portland. He’d written and said the place was lovely, the “last patch of unspoiled America.”
“What’s in Oregon for us?”
“I don’t know. You know what they say. The Pastures of Plenty.”
“Houston’s more feasible. Shell is hiring there.”
“Yes, but it’s Houston!”
“Even if we were to refinance the mortgage — ”
“What’s a mortgage?” I said, stepping into the room. I’d tucked the tape between my waist and the elastic band of my pajama bottoms. Mom stood and kissed the top of my head. “I’ll get you some eggs,” she said.
Dad explained mortgage to me. It sounded like a quagmire. “Are we going to move?” I said.
“I don’t know, son. We may have some hard choices to make pretty soon.”
I nodded.
“We’ll want to know how you and your sister feel about things.”
I felt like running to the fort. Mom set a poached egg in front of me. The ledger lay open on the table.
“I see the Rebs have hired a new quarterback coach,” Dad said, tapping the paper, lightening his tone. “Fellow from Ardmore. He says they’ve got a hot new prospect out of Big Spring, coming along slowly …”
I shrugged. My chance was slipping away.
“This ol’ Okie says someday he’ll be just as good as Bucky.”
“No one’s as good as Bucky.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
Mom started thumbing her ledger.
Stage One, aborted. I could have left the tape somewhere else — Mom’s pillow or in the bathroom — but I didn’t want to risk any action without checking with Pat. As I rose from the table the tape slid through my pajama leg and clattered to the floor. Mom looked up. “The Mamas and the Papas,” I said. “A new tape Pat gave me …”
I’d be court-martialed for this. I’d harbored doubts about Kiss-Kill, and now I’d let the rhino escape. But these worries were starting to dim in light of my parents’ conversation. Oregon? Houston? My folks may as well have been speaking Vietnamese.
Stages Two and Three of the Trat Offensive ran into stiff counterresistance as well. Midafternoon, three patrol cars lined our street. Officers went door to door asking permission to search garages, garbage cans, yards. Mr. Wallace stood in the park talking to two men in gray suits. They pointed at the bushes.
The young cops we’d seen before came to our door. Flustered, Mom tried to phone Dad at work, but he wasn’t available. “Well, sure,” she told the men. “You can look around. I mean, I guess it’s fine. I just wanted to check with my husband, is all. You won’t make a mess, will you?”
“We’ll try to be careful, ma’am.” The cop tipped his hat; pimples ringed his forehead. He and his partner combed through boxes in the garage. There weren’t many left. They searched the alley. The anthill was back in business, I noticed. Janey, Pat, and I stood behind Mom at the gate. She chewed her fingernails while the officers lifted her garden hose and started leafing through her bushes. “Be careful!” she called. “That yellow rose has been puny, and I only just got it to — ” Petals scattered like pollen. “Oh!”
“Bacon!” I cried. They’d lifted him out of a moist bed of dirt. He’d tucked his head inside his shell but his flippers whiffled wildly. I grabbed him from the officer and set him down in a shaded spot.
“What’s this?” The men turned to Mom.
“It’s the kids’ fort.”
“We’ll need to take a look.”
She nodded.
The pimpled cop hesitated, then, when his partner scowled, tore the top sheet away. The other man leaned on the desk to peer inside. I knew it wouldn’t hold his weight. Pat’s hands trembled on the handles of his crutches. The desk leg popped loose, and the cop stumbled into the fort. Boxes flew. Paper tore. The desk cracked in half. He scrambled to get up, yanking the pins from our pillowcases. The men ripped through our stuff, pulling up towels. Playboys tumbled onto the patio. Mom’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything. Janey poked me in the ribs. “You sick little dork,” she said. “Wait’ll I tell Michelle.”
One of the cops plucked a walkie-talkie off his belt, spoke our house address into it, and barked, “Secure.” The receiver snapped with static, a louder version of the crackling I’d heard in the wires. The other fellow told Mom, “We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience.” They left. Janey sprinted through the alley for Michelle’s house. It was next to be searched. Mom didn’t move. Neither did Pat. I knelt beside the upturned boxes. John Berryman’s beard had torn away and was stuck to Country Joe. I couldn’t find all of Bucky. A strip — par sent — the size of a Chinese cookie fortune dangled from our torn sheet.
Sheila’s green face. A green phone number at the top of the screen. Then the local announcer returned us to the national network. Coverage of Chicago. Through green haze, cops in green helmets beat T-shirted boys with sticks. Green rivers ran from their ears.
Dad passed in front of the television hauling a metal sign. “Help me, Troy, all right?” We hammered the sign onto the lawn: FOR SALE BY OWNER.