There was a pause.
“Dr. Jensen said I should go ahead. May I come up?”
“Come on.”
Brad Taylor stood in the doorway with a file folder in one arm, dressed in a gray suit with a silver-and-red-striped tie and his hair combed so that it fell to one side. “How do you do, Mr. Copenhaver.”
“How do you do.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine, considering I received the combined weight of two hundred corn-fed farmers and ranchers united in the service of world fascism. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Your whole life ahead of you. What an appalling prospect.”
“Thank you.”
This one was in a fog, thought Frank. “Ordinarily, I deal with George Carnahan. I’ve seen him in a few tight spots over the years, and given what a spineless puke he is, I take it you’re bringing me bad news.”
“I’m afraid I am.”
“I see you’re a shy boy.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t be. This isn’t your fault.”
“I know. Still, I hate to be in on this kind of thing.”
“What kind of thing?” asked Frank, his suspicions further aroused. You run with the pack for years, then one day you note a circling tendency and find yourself in the center.
“Well, there was a tremendous shortfall on those cattle we floated. And we’ve seen the clinic and the condition it’s fallen into. We’ve been very troubled —”
“Don’t be. The Japs just bought a painting for six million. At least somebody’s gonna eat these critters. It’s more than just blue sky.”
“But is it?”
“What are you getting at?”
“We’re concerned with the reaction of our examiners.”
“Piss on ’em. Besides, that’s banker double-talk. This imaginary figure called the examiner. The most ordinary people reject this bullshit. Banking is nothing but a pyramid scheme. You’re an apprentice swindler. George Carnahan is a more polished swindler. That’s why he’s not here today. Brad, it’s a bleak thing that an attractive young man like you should already be making references to the examiners.”
Brad Taylor looked completely dazed. He held up the file folder and said, “Why don’t I leave these for you to go through. George thought it was only fair, given the long relationship we’ve enjoyed with you, to let you know the remedies we’re seeking to cover our losses on the cattle.”
“You going to try to take the clinic?”
“I’m afraid we are.”
“I’m afraid you aren’t.”
“We’d let you try to sell it, but our position takes all there is.”
“What about this house?”
Brad nodded.
Frank told him, “Over my dead body. This motherfucker has been the site of my hopes, dreams and failures ever since that day in October long ago when I gave up being a hippie and set out to make a fortune. I brought this house back into our family. Tell you what, explain to George I’ve got several show pigs over in Reed Point. They need a new home. We’re deep discounting them all and several of them kiss pretty good by George’s standards. Tell him I said so. Take the file folder with you and goodbye.”
Frank rolled over and waited for the exit steps of the young man and the sound of Dr. Jensen’s ascent. I require that these rich scenes occur in my own unencumbered home, Frank mused, with its deed in the cupboard. Here I have farted, cooked, dealt and procreated coequally, enriching its thousandfold oak boards with my own life. If there are to be dramatic scenes of my decline, let them take place in this fine Montana home.
Now comes before us Dr. Jensen, wishing to know if Frank is comfortable. Frank said that he was, and asked if the doctor had examined him before he regained consciousness. The doctor said that he had, and concluded that Frank suffered a concussion. Frank thanked this young doctor for making a house call while still in his spandex bicycling shorts. The doctor said that he was welcome. He said this idly because he was checking out the house, taking in the oak floors, the depth of crown molding, the swirling shapes of the staircase, the fancifully paned windows, the ice-cream, deep, hand-troweled, perfect plaster with its frieze of tangled roses ’round the top. Frank gazed at him, seeing right into this, and thought, In a moment he will pant like a coyote hazing jackrabbits into traffic on the interstate.
Dr. Jensen took Frank’s wrist between his thumb and forefinger, raised his arm to drop his sleeve away from his watch, then studied its dial. “What’s the fate of our old clinic?”
“Why do you ask?” Frank said. “You’re not there anymore.” He smelled something.
“Er, well, because this could be a good time to open communications again. Various efforts at resettlement in other spaces have been less than perfect.”
“So, you guys might want back in?”
“Might.”
“Gets pretty dicey when you can’t co-op the electronics and stuff.” Frank figured out the smell, an old college favorite, a men’s cologne called Canoe.
“Absolutely.”
“Well, you’re too goddamn late. I’m selling it to a Wop for a noodle factory.”
As Frank said these things, he wondered whether he meant any of it or if a desire for a dark-sided fulfillment at the expense of his adversaries had given him a lingo of revenge that he donned like a disguise. He hoped this wouldn’t be the birth of a new, obnoxious Frank Copenhaver, but in his present wooze, he wasn’t sure. He just felt that, out here alone, he had to fight his battles stylishly because in his failing greed there was an errant valor in complicating the lives of well-paid white people.
“Phil tells me you made off with his wife for good.”
“I’m afraid she got a taste of the good life and kept on rolling. Got her a car dealership in Great Falls.”
“So the pressure is off everybody.”
Dr. Jensen smiled at him mildly. Not patronizingly. To him, Frank seemed to be a lawn ornament, perhaps, or a float in a small-town parade. He was reaching Frank a piece of paper, which Frank perceived, with a bit of cynical closure, as a bill. But it was a citation for disorderly conduct from Sheriff Hykema.
“I asked him not to wake you up,” said Dr. Jensen.
Frank fell asleep again after the doctor had gone, and thought he was dreaming when George Carnahan stood at the foot of his bed and said, “How dare you talk to my impressionable young associate as you have.” Frank flowed along with the dream, enveloped in its unfolding. “How dare you take any position other than that we have treated you with inordinate flexibility and kindness, unwavering Christianity and goodheartedness, in your many years of reckless wheeling and dealing. For reasons none of us can understand, you have ceased entirely paying attention to business. Several of my older colleagues have suggested that you have reverted to being the fog-bound hippie we remember you to have been, as though it were some sort of debility that must one day surface. And finally, how dare you call me a spineless puke and a pig-kissing swindler. I am your old friend and business acquaintance who hates to bring you bad news. If in avoiding doing that personally I sidestepped a painful moment, so be it. And now I would like you to examine these.” By now Frank’s eyes were open and he knew it wasn’t a dream.
“George, get my glasses off the mantel.”
George brought Frank his reading glasses and Frank examined a stack of identical checks on which someone had signed his name and wrote “1st payment,” “2nd payment,” down to, ten months later, “last payment.” The funds were used to buy a small filling station. Frank looked up at George and studied him in his checked tweed jacket. George had loose jowls and a tiny, disapproving mouth.
“Who owns the filling station, George?”