“Well,” Alfred said.
“It’s a Baptist morality gone sour,” said Jamborets. “The Wroths can’t abide that we admitted any principle but the ruthless pursuit of profit. I’m telling you: they hate what they can’t comprehend. And now they’re sowing salt in the fields. Close down headquarters in St. Jude? When we’re twice the size of Arkansas Southern? They’re punishing St. Jude for being the home of the Midland Pacific. And Creel’s punishing the towns like New Chartres for being Midpac towns. He’s sowing salt in the fields of the financially unrighteous.”
“Well,” Alfred said again, his eyes drawn to his new blue chair and its delicious potential as a sleep site. “Not my concern anymore.”
But he’d worked for thirty years to make the Midland Pacific a strong system, and Jamborets continued to call him and send him news reports of fresh Kansan outrages, and it all made him very sleepy. Soon hardly a branch or spur in Midpac’s western district remained in service, but apparently Fenton Creel was satisfied with pulling down the signal wires and gutting the boxes. Five years after the takeover, the rails were still in place, the right-of-way was undisposed of. Only the copper nervous system, in an act of corporate self-vandalism, had been dismantled.
“And now I’m worried about our health insurance,” Enid told Denise. “Orfic Midland is switching all the old Midpac employees to managed care no later than April. I have to find an HMO that has some of Dad’s and my doctors on their list. I’m deluged with prospectuses, where the differences are all in the fine print, and honestly, Denise, I don’t think I can handle this.”
As if to forestall being asked for help, Denise quickly said: “What plans does Hedgpeth accept?”
“Well, except for his old fee-for-service patients, like Dad, he’s exclusive now with Dean Driblett’s HMO,” Enid said. “I told you about the big party at Dean’s gorgeous, huge new house. Dean and Trish really are about the nicest young couple I know, but golly, Denise, I called his company last year after Dad fell down on the lawn mower, and you know what they wanted for cutting our little lawn? Fifty-five dollars a week! I’m not opposed to profit, I think it’s wonderful that Dean’s successful, I told you about his trip to Paris with Honey, I’m not saying anything against him. But fifty-five dollars a week!”
Denise sampled Chip’s green-bean salad and reached for the olive oil. “What would it cost to stay with fee-for-service?”
“Denise, hundreds of dollars a month extra. Not one of our good friends has managed care, everybody has fee-for-service, but I don’t see how we can afford it. Dad was so conservative with his investments, we’re lucky to have any cushion for emergencies. And this is something else I’m very, very, very, very worried about.” Enid lowered her voice. “One of Dad’s old patents is finally paying off, and I need your advice.”
She stepped out of the kitchen and made sure that Alfred couldn’t hear. “Al, how are you doing?” she shouted.
He was cradling his second hors d’oeuvre, the little green boxcar, below his chin. As if he’d captured a small animal that might escape again, he shook his head without looking up.
Enid returned to the kitchen with her purse. “He finally has a chance to make some money, and he’s not interested. Gary talked to him on the phone last month and tried to get him to be a little more aggressive, but Dad blew up.”
Denise stiffened. “What was Gary wanting you to do?”
“Just be a little more aggressive. Here, I’ll show you the letter.”
“Mother, those patents are Dad’s. You have to let him handle it however he wants.”
Enid hoped that the envelope at the bottom of her purse might be the missing Registered letter from the Axon Corporation. In her purse, as in her house, lost objects did sometimes marvelously resurface. But the envelope she found was the original Certified letter, which had never been lost.
“Read this,” she said, “and see if you agree with Gary.” Denise set down the can of cayenne pepper with which she’d dusted Chip’s salad. Enid stood at her shoulder and reread the letter to make sure it still said what she remembered.
Dear Dr. Lambert:
On behalf of the Axon Corporation, 24 East Industrial Serpentine, Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, I’m writing to offer you a lump sum payment of five thousand dollars ($5000.00) for the full, exclusive, and irrevocable right to United States Patent #4,934,417 (THERAPEUTIC FERROACETATE-GEL ELECTRO-POLYMERIZATION), for which you are original and sole holder of license.
The management of Axon regrets that it cannot offer you a larger fee. The company’s own product is in the earliest stages of testing, and there is no guarantee that its investment will bear fruit.
If the terms outlined in the attached Licensing Agreement are acceptable, please sign and have notarized all three copies and return them to me no later than September 30.
When this letter had arrived in the mail in August and Enid had awakened Alfred in the basement, he’d shrugged and said, “Five thousand dollars won’t change the way we live.” Enid had suggested that they write to the Axon Corporation and ask for a larger fee, but Alfred shook his head. “We’ll have soon spent five thousand dollars on a lawyer,” he said, “and then where are we?” It didn’t hurt to ask, though, Enid said. “I will not ask,” Alfred said. But if he just wrote back, Enid said, and asked for ten thousand … She fell silent as Alfred fixed her with a look. She might as well have proposed that they make love.
Denise had taken a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, as if to underline her indifference to a matter of consequence to Enid. Sometimes Enid believed that Denise had disdain for every last thing she cared about. The sexual tightness of Denise’s blue jeans, as she bumped a drawer shut with her hip, sent this message. The assurance with which she drove a corkscrew into the cork sent this message. “Do you want some wine?”
Enid shuddered. “It’s so early in the day.”
Denise drank it like water. “Knowing Gary,” she said, “I’m guessing he said try to gouge them.”
“No, well, see—” Enid reached toward the bottle with both hands. “Just a tiny drop, pour me just a swallow, honestly, I never drink this early in the day, never — you see, but Gary wonders why the company is even bothering with the patent if they’re still so early in their development. I guess the usual thing is just to infringe on the other person’s patent. — That’s too much! Denise, I don’t like so much wine! Because, see, the patent expires in six years, so Gary thinks the company must stand to make a lot of money soon.”
“Did Dad sign the agreement?”
“Oh, yeah. He went over to the Schumperts’ and had Dave notarize it.”
“Then you have to respect his decision.”
“Denise, he’s being stubborn and unreasonable. I can’t—”
“Are you saying this is an issue of competency?”
“No. No. This is fully in character. I just can’t—”
“If he already signed the agreement,” Denise said, “what is Gary imagining you’re going to do?”
“Nothing, I guess.”
“So what’s the point here?”
“Nothing. You’re right,” Enid said. “There’s nothing we can do,” although in fact there was. If Denise had been a little less partisan in her support of Alfred, Enid might have confessed that after Alfred had given her the notarized agreement to mail at the post office on her way to the bank, she’d hidden the agreement in the glove compartment of their car, and had let the envelope sit and radiate guilt for several days; and that later, while Alfred was napping, she’d hidden the envelope more securely at the back of a laundry-room cabinet containing jars of undesirable jams and spreads going gray with age (kumquat-raisin, brandy-pumpkin, Korean barfleberry) and vases and baskets and cubes of florist’s clay too good to throw away but not good enough to use; and that, as a result of this dishonest act, she and Alfred could still extract a big licensing fee from Axon, and that it was therefore crucial that she locate the second, Registered letter from Axon and hide it before Alfred found out that she’d deceived and disobeyed him. “Oh, but that reminds me,” she said, emptying her glass, “there’s something else I really need your help with.”