Barry Malzberg - Phase IV

“Ah,” Hubbs said. “But what about the towers?”

Eldridge squinted; the complexion of his face changed. “I don’t know anything about the towers,” he said.

“Well, you must have seen—”

“I just don’t know anything about them,” Eldridge said. “I seen them and I know what you’re talking about, but mostly I don’t think about them. What’s the point of it?” A practical man.

“Do you think there’s any connection between the towers and the ants?” Hubbs said.

This was the key question; one that had been weaving around in my subconscious for several hours now, and hearing it, dredged it to the surface like a drowned body; I felt, in fact, a kind of nausea. Of course, of course, there had to be some connection, it was obvious; the growth of the towers, the growth of the ants. Hubbs had been able to see it and make that connection easily, whereas I had been afraid to… but Eldridge merely nodded, his face still bearing that strange, implacable expression, and said, “I don’t know about that either.” He paused. “Of course, it’s been a dry year. You know, you can get ants in dry years. I once talked to an entomologist at the State Department of Agriculture and he said that these things were cyclical.”

“He wasn’t talking about ants,” Mildred pointed out matter of factly.

She had been inside the house, but now at Eldridge’s invitation—“Come out and meet these people; lest they think I’ve got you chained up in that house”—she joined us, nodding again.

“These are university people,” Eldridge said to her. “They’re going to develop a new spray for those ants. Give us some help. Of course I think the ditches will do the trick, but you never know; we can always use some reinforcements.”

“You know what I think?” Mrs. Eldridge said.

“Don’t tell them,” Eldridge said.

“I want to.”

“Stop worrying,” he said harshly. His whole expression had changed. So had Mildred’s. They were not American Gothic anymore but something out of Breughel. “Leave these people alone with your ideas.”

She shook her head and Hubbs made then what I think was a serious mistake, but there is no way of rectifying or even going back to it now. He took a sheet of paper out of his pocket, read some bureaucratese at them, and said that they were being evacuated. Eldridge reacted with shock. So did I. I hadn’t even known that he was carrying such an order around with him. Full of surprises, my senior associate.

“Now look here,” Eldridge said, and now we were no longer a-setting and a-rocking, but all of a sudden we were confronting. I looked for Kendra, but she had gone way off into the back, and in some illustration of the pathetic fallacy, the sun had clouded over. “Look here,” this sixty-five-year-old man said. “What’s this all about anyway? This isn’t right; they can’t push us off our own—”

“It’s necessary,” Hubbs said. His pedantry had returned; it seemed that all of the setting and rocking had only been a brief, pastoral interval after all. “For your own protection. Some very dangerous insecticides and other preparations are going to be used here, and they might pose a real threat to you; you can certainly return—”

“The ditches,” Eldridge said. “We have ditches, we have oil, now listen to me, doctor whoever you are, this is our land and—”

“Hubbs,” he said “Ernest D. Hubbs. Now look, Mr. Eldridge, I said that I’m truly sorry about this. It isn’t my doing; it’s a governmental order, and believe me you’ll be much happier not being exposed or exposing your family to our righting of the balance here.” Eldridge’s face had turned orange in color now, his movements were somewhat feebler as he got out of the chair. “I’m sorry,” Hubbs said, perhaps thinking that Eldridge was going to attack him, raising hands to face. “But—”

“Listen,” Mildred said, taking Eldridge by the hand. “The man is right; don’t you see that? He’s right; we can’t go on this way. The ants,” she said and Eldridge’s face was not the only one turning color now. There was a true festival of color on the porch, except that Mildred’s was a bright green. “The ants —” she said and attempted to go on, but couldn’t. She seemed to choke and as she did Eldridge’s expression altered altogether, his fury became despair and he seemed to collapse; it was as if air was going out of him, he collapsed in small stages, sitting on the chair, and Mildred took his hand while Hubbs watched with astonishment, nonplused being the word I suppose, although I doubt if nonplusment is a part of Hubbs’s range of behavior.

“It’s for our own protection,” Eldridge said softly, clutching her, “All right, then. We’ll go.”

I looked to Hubbs for some confirmation of my own astonishment—never have I seen such an alteration so quickly—but he was looking out toward the desert, his eyes shadowed.

“For our own protection,” Eldridge repeated.

I looked for Kendra, but could not see her.

“All right,” Lesko said, driving the jeep. “That’s good enough. But when do they get their farm back?”

“That depends,” Hubbs said. Little marks of strain appeared on his forehead. “Among other things it depends on when we can clear out the ants, doesn’t it?”

“That was rough,” Lesko said. He felt obscurely angry, but was unable, somehow, to penetrate that anger; he knew that it had nothing to do with Hubbs. “The old man may be the last survivor. He’s holding out.”

“That doesn’t concern me,” Hubbs said. “We’ve got a job to do.”

“You didn’t have to spring the evacuation order on him. That was rough. You could have worked your way into it.”

“I’m not in the social sciences,” Hubbs said. His face, was very tense now, and sweat was coming off it freely. “I’m not a psychiatrist or a social worker; I’m an ecologist with background in biophysics.”

“All right,” Lesko said.

“And what are you, Mr. Lesko? You’re a researcher in game theory. By your own admission, not mine mind you, you’re strictly a pencil and paper man; you don’t deal with people.”

“I said all right,” Lesko said. His hands were very tight on the wheel. In the distance, off to the right, he could see the towers, and the uncomfortable feeling was rising in his chest again, soaking through his stomach and bowels. He did not know how much longer he could keep on driving, could keep on being matter of fact about the situation. It was bizarre, that was all, entirely bizarre, and the afternoon with Eldridge, which. had started out so promisingly, had ended by making him ill. “Let’s forget the whole thing.”

“It’s the girl,” Hubbs said. His voice was flat and quite even. “You’re thinking about that girl. Well, Lesko, you’re a healthy, normal young man; you’re certainly entitled to such interests, and she is a charming little thing. But if you think that that can interfere—”

“Hubbs,” Lesko said very quietly, slowing the vehicle. “I want you to keep quiet now. I want you to shut up. If you don’t, I can’t tell you what I might do. You asked for me and I’m here at your request; we have to work together and I’m willing to do it… but I don’t want to hear you mention the girl again.” Little blots of color were coming out on his cheeks; abruptly he looked much older than thirty-five. The vehicle was now completely at rest. “Do you hear me?” he said. “Do you hear me now?”

“All right,” Hubbs said in a shaken voice. “I hear you.”

“That’s good,” Lesko said. He put the jeep back in gear again, and they started to roll. Hubbs sat shrunken in one corner, staring out over Lesko’s shoulder at the desert, his eyes clouded. A hand trembled as he raised it to wipe sweat from his forehead.