And the barrels looked sick. Piled haphazardly, unlabelled, many of them pockmarked, stained by unknown fluids that had streaked them like dried blood. Some of the bottom barrels were so corroded that weeds grew in and out of them, God knew how.
They’d taken the New Jersey Turnpike to Elizabeth, and Boone had guided the Datsun down this industrial waterfront stretch lined with storage tanks of gasoline and natural liquid gas that loomed like silver UFOs; the air hung with the smell of industry. At the end of this unshaded lane was Chemical Disposal Works, this Disneyland of waste drums they were now wandering around, like tourists, complete with camera.
“I thought you said you’d already been here,” Crane said, uneasy that she was strolling around at two in the afternoon, and a sunny one at that, taking pictures of what had to be a criminal operation.
“Sure,” Boone said. She was cheerful today, her long hair pulled back by a bright yellow headband, an incongruity next to her faded denim jacket and jeans and black-on-white NO NUKES sweatshirt. “But last time I was here they only had twenty thousand barrels. I’d say they’re up to thirty, now.”
“I mean, this is illegal, right?”
“I can take pictures here if I want. They don’t have any no trespassing sign up, that I can see. We didn’t climb a fence to get in.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about this.” He gestured to the barrels stacked on either side of the cinder drive they were walking along; the warehouse was up ahead, fifty yards.
She shrugged. “I contacted the Solid Waste Administration about it.”
“And?”
“I was told this was a licensed facility.”
“Jesus.”
“I sent photos I took, and never heard anything. So I called back and was told Chemical Disposal Works had been ‘administratively required’ to clean up their site, within a ‘reasonable amount of time.’ ”
“When was that?”
“Three months ago.”
They had reached the warehouse. No one seemed to be around. Boone took pictures of the loading-dock area; there were no trucks present, however, just a battered-looking tan station wagon, which indicated perhaps someone was around. Crane was getting nervous.
“What’s in those things, anyway?” Crane asked.
“The barrels? Who knows. Could be anything. Solvents. Plasticizers. Nitric acid. Cyanide. Pesticides. You know.”
“That sounds... dangerous.”
“You might say that. If they got certain compounds in ’em, exposure to the air could explode them.”
“Explode.”
“It’s happened before. Not here, but it’s happened.”
“Does Kemco use this place?”
“I don’t know. I just know I wanted you to see this place. It’s not the only one of its kind, you know.”
“I’m convinced,” he said. “It’s a real eyesore. Can we leave?”
“In a minute.”
She was still at it with the Nikon.
Despite the sun, it was chilly. Crane buried his hands in his jacket pockets. The air here had a funny smell; not like the acrid industrial odor he’d noticed earlier, but something not unlike an unpleasant perfume, and reminiscent at the same time of rubber.
To the left of the loading dock a door opened. A short, stocky man in a blue quilted work jacket and brown slacks leaned out. He had a pale face in which thick black streaks that were eyebrows obscured all else.
He yelled at them: “Hey! What’s the fuckin’ idea?”
Boone stopped taking pictures and gave the man, who was about ten feet away, a bigger smile than she’d given Crane so far and said, “We’re taking some pictures for our school paper. We’re trying for a mood, here, you know?”
The eyes below the bushy black streaks narrowed: the guy didn’t seem to be buying Boone as a teenager. It seemed a little lame to Crane, too, actually, but he didn’t figure at this point he had much choice but to go along with it.
He moved toward the man, who was still in the doorway, and got between Boone and the guy, blocking her from view — Crane figured he had a better chance of passing for a school kid than she did — and said, “We’re going for contrasts, like, uh, things that’ll look neat in black and white.”
“Horseshit,” the man said, and moved forward, brushing Crane aside, and pointing a finger at Boone like a pissed-off father. He stopped in front of her, his finger almost touching her nose.
“I remember you,” he said. “You were around here last summer asking questions. Taking pictures. Right before the state came down on our butts.”
Boone kept smiling, but the manner of it changed.
The guy returned her smile, but his was as heavy with sarcasm as hers. “Honey,” he said, “it’s been many moons since you were a teenager.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Boone told him.
The guy didn’t take that well. He grunted, and reached at the camera with one hand, latching onto one of her arms with the other, and squeezed. Boone yelped. But she didn’t let loose of the camera.
Crane grabbed the guy by a depressingly solid bicep and tugged, but the guy didn’t give any ground.
“Let her alone,” Crane said, still tugging, still getting nowhere. “Let her alone, will you? We’re leaving now, all right?”
The guy turned away from Boone, though he still held her by the arm, and said, with a spray of bad breath that almost matched the rubbery perfume of the air around them, “You’re goddamn fucking well told you’re leaving, but the film in that fucking camera isn’t,” and he ripped the camera out of her hands, opened the back of it and tore the film out, and flung the film against a nearby wall of barrels.
Then he handed the camera back to Boone and smiled and nodded and Boone swung a small fist at his face and connected, leaving the man’s mouth bloody, the red looking garish in his pale face. He pushed her face with the heel of his hand, like Cagney in the old movie, but minus the grapefruit.
Boone was on the ground, but she wasn’t hurt; she was sitting there swearing up at the guy, who was laughing at her, sort of gently, and Crane swung a fist into the man’s stomach, and surprisingly, doubled him over.
If they had run for it, then, it might have been over, but Crane got greedy. He took another swing, toward the guy’s face this time, and the guy batted it away, even while doubled over, and then came out swinging himself, first into Crane’s stomach, then into the side of his face, and Crane was unconscious for a while.
When he woke up, a minute or so later, Boone was cradling his head in her lap, sitting on the cinders, saying, “Crane? Crane?”
“Is he gone?”
“He went inside.”
“Good. Can we go now?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t break your camera did he?”
“No. The film is good and exposed, though. Did he break anything of yours?”
“My self-esteem. Otherwise, I’m fine.”
“You’re going to have a nasty bruise.”
“No kidding.”
She helped him up; he felt a little dizzy. She went and got her camera off the ground while he tried to stay on his feet. Then she walked him toward the Datsun.
“Go fuck yourself,” Crane said.
“What?”
“That’s what you told that guy. I can’t believe you sometimes.”
“I guess I do lack tact,” Boone admitted. “Are you starting to understand?”
They were at the car.
“Understand what?”
She opened the door on the rider’s side. “The seriousness of this.”
He touched the side of his face. “I understand pain, if that’s what you mean.” He got in the car. She went around the driver’s side and got in.