Further Lane (20 page)

Jerry's annoyed protest at allowing an invalid to cast a ballot ignited a furious backlash on behalf of the elderly man's guts and public spirit. Jerry was holding forth now on another matter, brilliant and persuasive in his trademark style.

“These Baymen have the right idea. Get a tough like Leo Brass up there to put a scare into the Establishment…”

“Brass?” Pam said. “What's he up to now?” She'd hardly been listening to Jerry, almost rudely ignoring his rant, or that was my impression, but now she seized on Leo's name.

“Oh, I dunno,” Jerry Della Femina said, “something about emptying ponds and changing the water. Turtles eating ducks or vice versa. And the red tide and the green algae, or have I got that confused?” Jerry knew very well what it was all about but enjoyed playing the simpleton and then, having lulled an opponent, pouncing!

Alix picked up on it:

“It's all a matter of duck feces,” she said, “imperiling fish and crabs and oysters and the like, causing the aggressive growth of algae and raising coliform counts. That's what chokes out the shellfish,” Alix offered, “or at least so I'm given to understand by Native American and other expert ecological sources.”

Della Femina had not yet met Her Ladyship so I made the introductions.

“Duck feces? Native Americans? Coliform counts? What would an English duchess know about all that?”

“Well, firstly, I'm hardly a duchess but I happen to be a personal friend of Mr. Jesse Maine who…”

Pam's face was still intent on something else. On Jerry's mention of Leo Brass? What was this all about? She'd battled and publicly with Leo even more fiercely than Hannah.

Over a glass Pam asked Alix if she played tennis. Having earlier underestimated the English myself when it came to personal floation devices, I was half-hoping Alix would tell her, “Why, yes, I reached the round of sixteen at Wimbledon before twisting my knee against Sanchez-Vicario.”

Instead, Alix demurred. “Oh, you know … I'm really not match-fit, much more caught up these days in Native American efforts to gain recognition for Crispus Attucks. And about flushing Georgica Lake into the sea.”

“Pond,” I hissed, “Georgica Pond.”

“Well, we're all aware it's hardly Loch Ness.” She shot a hostile look at me.

Ashawag Hall was just about filled and we squeezed into seats upfront, which I didn't like because they made it harder to slip out if you were bored. The crowd was Baymen, mostly, plus some serious New Money landowners who didn't trust rabble-rousers like Brass and feared their wine cellars might be flooded or their taxes would go up. There were also the usual wealthy layabouts and retailers and accountants and mergers & acquisitions specialists and Manhattan dentists who'd done well in the market and thought they owed it to America to espouse causes. Even ones they didn't precisely understand.

George Plimpton had been called in to moderate the rally. He did that sort of thing very well and was also available, it was said somewhat mockingly, to tape TV commercials for a local pizza parlor or swimming pool contractor. I admired George immensely. But as a fellow Harvard man I secretly wished he were more discriminating in the enterprises he took up.
The Paris Review
was one thing; pizza parlors quite another. But there were lots of people here who liked George and, because he was quasi-official pyrotechnic adviser to East Hampton, they hoped he might set off a few. People enjoy a good fireworks show.

Billy Joel, as well, showed up. If the Baymen had an event, you could count on Billy. And there were just lots of people who liked Billy and hoped maybe he'd play a little piano during the evening. East Hampton was a village that enjoyed piano music and a good fireworks show. But this was September and we had to be satisfied with Leo Brass and The Gut. If that's what he genuinely had on his mind; you couldn't always tell with Leo. Charisma he had; consistency? Well, now that was something else. Maybe there was a hurricane coming but right now, we had dry brush, dry scrub pine, and most folks were more nervous about that than a tropical storm and heavy rain. If the brushfires ever got started again as they did Labor Day weekend a year ago, it didn't really matter which side of the snail darter debate or flushing The Gut you favored.

Leo was good. Like all effective demagogues, he conveyed an absolute sense of believing everything he said, especially the rubbish. Brushing Plimpton aside (you'd think Leo, too, had a Harvard degree), he addressed, not a few fishermen in an echoing little hall, but a larger constituency. Channel 12, the local community TV station, had its camera there; there was a reporter from
Newsday,
a woman from the
Times,
and Larry Penny, the naturalist who wrote for the
East Hampton Star,
busily taking notes. And Alix and me upfront. He saw us, all right, and nodded, giving us a tight smile. Not saying hello but just marking that we were there.

Before he started to speak, Alix hissed at me.

“You're right, you know.”

“About what?”

“Hitler. He does look like ‘a tall Hitler.'”

I hoped her voice didn't carry.

Leo's agenda? Just listen:

“Disaster is good.

“Nature's way of kicking us in the ass and balancing the scales. You summer people don't understand that. Last year's Labor Day pine barrens fire in Westhampton Beach cleared the land. There are seeds that need heat to burst open and germinate. Five years from now we'll have a better forest there. Let the whole damned place burn next time. This hurricane they're talking about? Good. We ought to have a Great Hurricane like '38 every generation. Scour the beaches, rinse the air, renew the ponds, knock down the dead trees.

“This isn't the Sierra Club. The Hamptons Baymen aren't tree-huggers, we're not amateurs. We're serious, professional, hardworking people, who live every day with nature, work every day with nature. If we don't collaborate with nature, sometimes nature gets up on its hind legs and kills us. We understand that, as well. Every few years a Dayman's boat goes down, a man drowns. We know, as dilettantes can't and tree-huggers won't, that when you rape the sea, when you rape the land, when you rape the sky, there's nothing left to reap or harvest or bring to net. Nature doesn't have to kill you to get even; it can starve you. Practical working people understand this. Farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen. Spending a few weeks here in summer or dropping by weekends doesn't qualify you. You can't know. We
know.
”

The audience, which he'd just insulted as dilettantes who couldn't possibly
know,
loved it, breaking into applause.

“Here is our agenda for the year two thousand,” Brass continued.

“He thinks long term,” Alix said quietly, “got to give him that.”

“The Unabomber thought long term as well.”

“Hush,” someone behind us said, hearing Alix and reading meaning into my verbalized thoughts. Alix smiled, sensing support for her point of view. But Leo was already talking, listing his priorities:

“The wetlands are at risk. Swimming pools seem to come first. We cannot permit the East Hampton wetlands to be crucified on a cross of chlorine. The following steps are essential and the very first of them involves foreign affairs and a need for the State Department to become vigorously involved.”

He paused, and I must confess, we all leaned forward anticipating his next words. What was this all about, “foreign relations”? This was East Hampton, not Bosnia. What the hell did other countries have to do with chlorine in our swimming pools and whether they were overflowing into the local wetlands? Leo waited until the buzz fell. Then,

“Canada geese! There they are, in their thousands, shitting all over the fairways of the Maidstone Club, befouling the saline inlets and bays of the town, our precious freshwater ponds. Shitting on your lawn. And mine. Foreign birds, crossing our national borders to foul the playgrounds and ballfields of our small children.” Leo threw a small bone to moneyed, older folks in the audience, people who had no small children and resented the level of school tax.

“Shitting on your Cadillacs and Mercedes. I studied this problem at MIT, how the acid content in their droppings is eating through nine coats of the finest factory paint on the best automobiles the industry can build.”

He paused. We again leaned forward. I could hear Alix's breathing. It did nice, pneumatic things to her blouse and those young breasts within, Leo resumed:

“Washington does nothing about these lousy fowls. A totally supine reaction. No severe representations made to Ottawa. And why not? We didn't take this crap from Noriega? Why let the Canucks dump on us? Has someone been bought off? Or is it racism? Quite possibly.” He rolled his eyes a bit, suggesting more than his words. Then, changing pace deftly, he came down a degree or two in fury and went on. “And when Americans, decent people, our countrymen, stand up to the threat? What happens then, when they resist the invading birds? Upstate in Rockland County, Supervisor Charles Holbrook of Clarks-town, rather than shoo away the damned birds, had them shot, and the fresh meat, tasty at that, donated to the poor. What happened? Two hundred pounds of goose meat was seized by the state on grounds it was contaminated by feathers, dirt, and traces of lead pellets. Starving Americans forbidden to eat a free meal of roast goose.

“In the name of God! Bob Cratchit and his goddamned family were permitted a lousy goose. We're talking ‘Geese police' here. And think of what happened twelve years ago when they did something about Canada geese up-island at the Seawanee Golf and Country Club in Hewlett. Five hundred geese died, mysteriously. The club had to pay five thousand dollars in an out-of-court settlement following charges they'd salted golfing fairways with illicit pesticides. The Lawrence Village Country Club purchased a border collie to chase off the intruders. Did Washington strike medals in honor of this splendid dog? Hell, no. The good people of Lawrence Village ponied up the two thousand four hundred dollars themselves to pay for a sonuvabitching collie to chase geese.

“Other places they floated helium-filled balloons to scare off the geese or filled up soda cans full of marbles and hired day laborers to rattle them loudly. The Fish and Wildlife one time penned up thousands of geese and shipped them south to the Carolinas by tractor trailer. And the geese were back shitting on Long Island before the trucks…”

“Pa and his chums,” Alix whispered conspiratorially in my ear so as not to distract Leo, “would have put paid to this goose business in a month.”

“How?” I asked, also whispering.

“Shotguns. A dozen or so middle-aged old chaps with Purdey over-and-unders firing away,
bang! bang! bang!
”

Leo moved on in his agenda.

“Bring back the snapping turtle and control the duck population. Ban pesticides that run off following heavy rain into the ponds and bays. Give local stoop labor a break. Eliminate mechanical leaf blowers and let the Guatemalans make a dollar, illegal or not. No new swimming pools anywhere south of the Highway. Bring back ticket clerks to the railroad stations on the East End and do away with ticket-dispensing machines. Reduce the roundtrip cost of a Jitney ride into Manhattan and back.”

And men, reaching his climax, he made his announcement about The Gut!

“There's maybe a hurricane coming. And contrary to how the Baymen traditionally vote on this question, this year we're having a small change of heart. We think maybe this year and this year only, we ought to flush early. Like this week.”

Not even the Baymen were expecting this and a shocked murmur ran through the room.

“What's that all about?” Alix whispered.

“I dunno.”

“But he's terrific. Super! His command of the language. He's got them on their feet even if I don't understand a word of it.”

Nor did anyone else.

“He's been reading Bryan, the ‘Cross of Gold' speech.”

“Who's Bryan? What Cross of Gold?” Alix demanded.

“I'd rather explain about grunion.”

From the row behind, people shushed us urgently.

Leo's local popularity among the roughnecks, and with women, as well as his backing by the Baymen might have carried the day. But it wasn't to be; The Walter jumped to his feet. And with reason; this was Mr. Walter Pincus who may have been East Hampton's wealthiest man with 120 acres bordering Georgica Pond, a figure so preposterously self-important he was invariably (and to his delight) referred to as “The Walter.” As was his custom, The Walter was accompanied by a bodyguard and an attorney, and he stood now, waving order papers and shouting:

“Brass, you can't just…”

The Walter and Leo were old enemies (both men derived a perverse pleasure from their enmity) and they shouted back and forth, arguing whether and when The Gut was to be flushed.

“Gosh!” Alix said, “this is wonderful stuff, all the shouting, like a Kings Road pub at closing time. When do they begin throwing chairs?”

The Walter's voice boomed out one more time.

“The Gut, Brass! What about THE GUT?”

Momentarily, the room fell silent, waiting for an answer. What they got was a low growl:

“You leave The Gut to me. A John Deere backhoe or a couple pounds of plastic explosive'll take care of The Gut,” Leo Brass said darkly. That lock of hair fell over one eye and his mustache bristled. All you needed was an armband and rousing rendition of “The Horst Wessel Song.”

Someone else tried then to get recognized to ask a question about the sacred Indian burial grounds of Montauk and about some paleo-Indian artifacts recently unearthed. But Leo and the acolytes and his phalanx of burly Baymen were already gone, leaving The Walter, flanked by eminent counsel and Pincus flunkies, cursing as he went.

“Can he do that?” Alix asked, her splendid Oxford education being broadened by the minute. “Can he blow up The Gut?”