Paul Theroux: The Mosquito Coast

"But Dad's not young."

Mother stared at me.

I said, "And he's worried."

"No," Mother said. "But he's got a lot on his mind just now. I've seen him like this before — brooding. It gives him wonderful schemes. Someday soon, he'll tell us what his new invention is."

"Something is going to happen to us," I said.

"Something good," Mother said. "Now go to sleep, darling."

After she turned the light out, I wanted to pray. I shut my eyes tight, but nothing would come. I did not know how. I thought Please, but that was all the prayer I could manage. And the voices down below, the thump of them, made my heart pound. I went to the door and, creeping out to the landing at the top of the stairs, heard Father's hoots.

"You've got me confused, Doc! I don't know whether I'm deaf or blind! This very morning I showed you a working model of a dirt-cheap freezing plant. You turned your back on it and said you had to water your tomatoes. Now here you are, probably missing your favorite TV show, asking me—"

"I told you I was interested," Polski said in a stricken voice.

"I must be deaf as a post," Father said, "because I didn't hear a thing."

"And I'm interested now."

Father said, "Your interest and ten cents wouldn't get me a cold cup of coffee."

I peeked through the railing. Father was goose-stepping up and down the parlor. Polski had found a low stool. He sat on it the way a girl sits on a toilet, with his knees together and his face forward.

Polski said, "The cold store is full after today's cut. What I want to know is, what am I going to do with what they cut tomorrow and the day after?"

Father said, "You can always go on blowing fuses. It'll help pass the time."

"There must be some way of vigging up the barn. I mean, insulating her and fixing up a cooler where the hay is. I could hire the carpenters, but the vefrigeration angle is the problem. If you handled it, that would see us through the harvest."

"I don't get it. This morning I showed you a refrigeration device that was perfection, and all you did was ride off in your jalopy. What was the word you used? Oh, yes, you called it a contraption. I was scratching my head! I didn't see a contraption anywhere! Doctor," Father said grandly, "I am still scratching my head."

"That icebox was a fine idea," Polski said. "But I'm looking for something more down-to-earth. The cold store you made me last year was okay for last year's crop. But this year we've got ourselves a bumper harvest, and we've got to act accordingly. Now don't think I'm looking for miracle vemedies—"

"Insulating a barn is no problem," Father said. "They can slap on an interior wall and blow rock wool through with hose pipes. But there's a lot of airspace in that barn. What? Ten thousand cubic feet — maybe more? You'd have to have multiple-level cooling to get an even temperature, otherwise you'd be freezing some and roasting the rest. Blowers, thermostats, coils. You're talking about a mile of copper pipe, not to mention the wiring and electricals."

"See, you do understand the problem."

"You wouldn't even look at my Worm Tub — that icebox I showed you this morning."

"It's too small."

"A scale model is always small."

"I need something a hundred times bigger." Sumthun: Polski had started to gobble.

"You don't understand its application."

"I don't want fires."

"You'll go broke paying electricity bills. Ten thousand cubic feet. How many kilowatts? Cost a fortune." And he repeated, "A fotchin! "

"Stop trying to save me money, Mr. Fox."

"It's not the money, it's the wasteful attitude I object to. Doctor, it's sending this country down the tubes."

"I'm not running this country" — runnun —"and this is nothing to jaw about. I realize it's short notice, but I need more cold-storage space and I'm counting on you to provide it."

"I keep asking myself — I'm thinking out loud, you understand — I keep asking myself, what's the point?"

"The point is," Polski said, "there's too damn much asparagus this year. That's the point."

"Are you cutting it too fast, or selling it too slow?"

"I'm not selling it at all — other people are. That's why the price is down."

"Listen, are you in the storing business or the selling business? I'm asking, because I don't know about these things. I'm a handyman, not an economist."

Still hunched on the stool, Polski turned his pinched face toward Father and said in a sour defiant voice, "I'll sell when the price goes up — not before. In the meantime, every spear I cut goes into cold storage."

Father said, "That's the lousiest rottenest thing I've ever heard."

"It's business."

"Then it's dishonest business. You're creating a shortage of asparagus — although there is no shortage. So the price will go up — although the price is pretty fair. Well, it's not as bad as sticking up a bank, but it's bad enough. I'd say it was about on a level with robbing poor boxes." Father was now standing over Polski and smiling horribly. "And what do you get for it? A few bucks, a new pair of dungarees, a tin wristwatch that lights up in the dark — maybe a jalopy or two. You think it's worth it?"

"Every farmer worth the name watches the market," Polski said, hugging his knees together.

"There's watching, and there's tampering," Father said. And he became at once ferociously friendly. "Make yourself comfortable, Doctor. You don't have to squash yourself on that. The chair behind you has hydraulics."

"I'm comfortable where I am, thank you."

"Reason I ask is, you're sitting on my foot massager."

Polski jumped to his feet.

Picking up the boot-shaped stool, Father said, "People neglect their feet something awful. See this slot? You just stick your foot in here and wiggle your toes. That gets the mechanical fingers going inside. Funnily enough, it works. Want to do your tired old feet a big favor?"

Polski said no and went to the chair, which was like a dentist's chair. He sat on it almost daintily, but against his will the chair tilted and embraced him, and lifted his legs off the floor, and swung him toward Father.

"Hydraulics," Father said.

Doggedly, his jaw out as if he were having a tooth pulled, Polski said, "I've got a farm to vun and sumthun like twenty tons of produce to sell. I have to do it the best way I can."

"Simple. Sell it and clear out room for more. You make up in volume what you lose in price, and you still come out ahead of the game. That's sounder than strangling the market altogether. But no, you're not interested in that, because you're riding high — using slave labor. Profit? I didn't plumb that chair and make that foot massager so that I could retire on fifty grand a year. I did it because of lumbago and sore feet, and if I'm able to ease someone else's pain, fine. That's the way I'm made. But you want to bluff the market and make a killing. That ain't business — it's robbery."

"I didn't come up here to discuss the ethics of farming, Mr. Fox. I've got a problem and you seem to have the solution, so will you please stop this nonsense?"

Polski had turned green. He was suffering.

Father said, "You were cool to my cooler."

"It doesn't seem practical."

"If you think that, you're out of touch with reality. It's the most practical invention in the world. And it'll run on anything — not only range oil, but methane gas bubbled out of a solution of raw chicken shit, and there's plenty of that around here. Furthermore, although there's a little more plumbing in it, there's absolutely no wiring."

"How long would it take to set up?"

"A jiffy. You said money wasn't a problem."

"A reasonable amount."

"Don't back away," Father said.

"You'd be willing to install a firebox refrigerator, would you? For the overspill?"