T. Boyle - When the Killing's Done

“Good question,” Alma purrs, congratulating her, relieved to field a query from someone who’s come to be informed, to learn something rather than suck up attention like a parasite, and that’s exactly what Dave LaJoy is, a parasite on the corpus of the Park Service and the museum and Frieda and everyone else who works to improve things rather than tear them down. “Our field biologists”—her voice is soft now, honeyed, the pleasure of the exchange erasing the tension that settled in her stomach and migrated all the way out to the tips of her fingers till they tingle as if they’ve been frostbitten—“have taken the mice into account and we’ve trapped a representative population for captive breeding and release after the rats have been extirpated — and we expect them to repopulate very quickly in the absence of competition from the rats.”

“And the birds? What about the birds? Isn’t it a fact that there’ll be a massive kill-off?” A man on her left — a confederate of LaJoy’s? — has popped up out of nowhere, unrecognized. She sees a goatee, the glint of gold in one ear, the glaring blue unbreachable eyes of the fanatic, and for an instant she thinks to ignore him, but immediately relents — if she doesn’t answer she’ll look as if she’s evading the issue.

“The bait is colored bright blue, a hue that doesn’t fall within the range of anything the avifauna might be expected to consume. And, of course, we’re going to do the aerial drop now, in winter, when bird numbers are down.” She raises a placatory palm and lets it fall. “We expect very little collateral damage.”

“Little?” It’s LaJoy again, again on his feet. “The loss of a single animal — a single rat — is intolerable, inhumane and just plain wrong. Why don’t you tell them— Dr. Takesue — about what this poison does to any animal unlucky enough to ingest it, whether that’s a rat or one of your precious little birds? Huh? Why don’t you tell them that?”

She can see Frieda stirring in the chair she’s taken in the front row, Frieda the watchdog, her neck craned, glasses shining militantly. And where’s Bill Braithwaite — wasn’t he supposed to provide the muscle here? And Tim? Where’s Tim?

“The agent is quick-acting and humane,” she hears herself say.

“More doublespeak.” LaJoy is swinging round to incite the crowd, juggling his arms and flaying the dreadlocks round the stanchion of his neck. “The fact is that this poison — call it by what it is, why don’t you? — this poison causes slow death from internal bleeding over anywhere from three to ten days. Ten days! You call that humane?”

The audience breathes out, massively. Chairs creak. A soughing murmur of opposed voices starts up. She’s losing them.

“Listen, Mr. LaJoy,” she says, her voice as sharp-edged as one of the arrowheads in the back room, and she’d like nothing better than to run him through, pull back the bowstring and let fly, “I’m not going to debate you here—”

“Then where are you going to debate me? Name it. I’ll be there. And then maybe people can get around to the truth of this thing, that you and your so-called scientists—”

“Frankly, nowhere. We’ve had your opinion. Thank you. Now — yes, you, the man in back, in the plaid shirt?”

But LaJoy won’t give it up, just as he wouldn’t the week before in Ventura when he had to be escorted from the room, spewing threats and curses. “You’re no better than executioners,” he shouts over whatever the man in plaid is trying to say. “Nazis, that’s what you are. Kill everything, that’s your solution. Kill, kill, kill.”

Suddenly Frieda is there beside her, the microphone riding up to the level of her irate face. “Now that will be enough. If you can’t be civil—”

He throws it right back at her. “How can you talk about being civil when innocent animals are being tortured to death? Civil? I’ll be civil when the killing’s done and not a minute before. Those rats—”

Alma feels the heart go out of her. She’s standing there at Frieda’s side, feeling helpless and exposed, trying to keep her shoulders from slumping, the scepter of the microphone taken from her and the crowd too, even as Frieda glares at the rear of the auditorium and calls for order. “Bill,” she cries, “Guillermo. Will you please have this gentleman removed from the hall?”

And here they come, Bill Braithwaite, all two hundred fifty ventricose pounds of him, and the tech person, Guillermo Díaz, head down and a hundred pounds lighter, making their way up the right-hand aisle, looking grim. “Those rats have been there for a hundred and fifty years!” LaJoy calls out, edging down the row to box them off. “What’s your baseline? A hundred years ago? A thousand? Ten thousand? Hell”—and he’s out in the far aisle now, facing the crowd—“why not just clone your dwarf mammoth and stick him out there like in Jurassic Park ?”

“Bill,” Frieda pleads in a long expiring sigh of exasperation that bleats through the speakers like a martyr’s last prayer. “Bill!”

Everybody seems to be standing now, voices caroming off the high open wood-beamed ceiling, no bringing them back, another night lost — or at least the most instructive part of it. And why couldn’t the informed people speak up? Or the schoolchildren who want to know about the fox’s habits or what the spotted skunk eats and how it got so small? Why the controversy? Why the anger? Why the hate? Jurassic Park . That was a low blow, the demagogue’s trick of confusing the issue, and she wants to snatch the microphone back and let him have it, but she can’t because she’s a professional, she abides by the rules, she has taste and manners and truth on her side, and getting into a shouting match with a sociopath just isn’t the way to advance her agenda.

She looks out into the audience, LaJoy already at the exit, a good half the crowd between him and Bill Braithwaite and Guillermo so that she won’t even have the satisfaction of seeing him thrown out. He’s taking his time, all hips and shoulders, his head swaying cockily, carrying himself like a wrestler marching into the arena. He’s almost there, the crowd at the door parting to make way for him as they would for any embarrassment, any pariah, but at the last moment he jerks himself up, swings round to shoot a withering glance at the podium where she stands beside Frieda on the forgotten stage and lifts his chin to deliver the parting blow, loud enough for all to hear: “And who exactly was it appointed you God, lady?”

Afterward, over warm white wine and stale tortilla chips at the reception the museum board has arranged for her, a number of people come up to tell her how stimulating and informative her lecture was and how much they support what she’s doing for the islands and how they deplore the sort of rude behavior and ignorance on display in the audience tonight. They mean to be kind, but a reflexive smile and a gracious “thank you” is the best she can come up with. Once LaJoy had been ejected — Anise Reed slithering off with him — Frieda managed to settle the crowd and the Q&A went off as planned, people genuinely interested and Alma taking advantage of the opportunity to educate them with all the graciousness and facility at her command. Which was plenty, especially considering the dramatic tension left hanging in the air — in a strange way, the outbursts made the audience all the more sympathetic and receptive. All things considered, she’s weathered the evening well — and, more important, gotten her point across, nudging people toward the light in a calm and reasonable fashion that went a long way toward negating the distortions of the PETA fringe and the FPA and all the rest. Yes. Sure. And so why is she standing here balancing a plastic cup of tepid undrinkable wine on one palm while fielding the sort of looks usually reserved for the perky little gymnast who falls off the balance bar at the Olympic trials?