Jane Smiley - Early Warning

But which two against which one? thought Richie.

In their two years at Cornell, Richie had made it a point to wait a split second before Michael said what he was going to do, and then say that he was going to do a different thing. Their paths had not diverged; they had run parallel. Some people knew that they were twins — they did still look very much alike — and some people had been fooled. One professor the previous spring had told Richie he’d taken that class already. The first thing Richie said was “How’d I do?” and the professor looked at him like he was crazy while saying, “You got a B+. You could have worked harder.” Richie said, “Must have been my twin brother. I’m sure to get a B—.” Then the teacher looked at the roster of students and laughed, as if this were a joke. A girl who had met both of them at mixers but was able to tell them apart said, “I met your brother last week.” Richie said, “How do you know?” She said, “Your left eyelid is a little droopy, and his right one is.” Richie had been impressed. He’d told her she ought to be a private investigator. They’d danced a few times and had a beer. But he was not going to ask how Michael met Alicia, or whether Michael knew Alicia was his girlfriend. Then it occurred to him that maybe Michael had met her first.

Alicia scooted over so that her back was against one of the trees, pulling her bag with her, and when Michael came near her, she kicked him in the shins with her boots, then laughed again. Richie recognized her laugh; it was an I-dare-you sort of laugh. When Michael leaned toward her, she ducked to one side, grabbed his wrist, and pulled him down. He bumped his knee on something. Richie knew in his body that Michael was beginning to get mad. It could easily be Richie and Alicia against Michael, so he said, “Why did you leave last night? I woke up around four and you were gone.”

Michael glanced at him.

Alicia said, “I got my period, and I didn’t have any tampons in my bag.”

Richie hadn’t seen any blood, but, fine, as good a reason as any. He said, “You should leave some in the same little box as your toothbrush and your hairbrush and your deodorant.” Michael, kneeling, now put his hand under Alicia’s chin and kissed her long and hard. Alicia’s arms stayed limp, and her eyes rolled in Richie’s direction. He could not read their expression — was she scared, was she appealing to him, was she saying two are better than one? Why would a girl secretly date a pair of identical twins? And yet, he saw, Alicia was just the girl to do it. She was always trying stuff — never a Daiquiri, better a Hurricane; not a joint, better a bong; not marijuana, better kif; not mescaline, better LSD; not Last Tango in Paris , better Deep Throat. Suddenly her hand came up and smacked Michael in the balls, and then she popped away from the tree and scrambled to her feet. Michael doubled over for a second, jumped up, and went after her. Richie stepped to the side and knocked into him. Michael spun toward him, but Richie put his arm up and deflected the blow. “Oh yeah?” barked Michael, and Alicia said, mockingly, “So I get it: you’re the bad twin, huh, Mike?” But she was backing away.

Richie said, “Alicia, you should get out of here. I know when he’s mad, and he’s mad.”

Alicia said, “I can take care of myself, thanks.”

Just then, Michael punched her, not him, right on the jaw. Having been the recipient of one of these on several occasions, Richie flinched. “Leave her the fuck alone, Michael!” he shouted. “Just mind your own business!” He stepped toward them.

Alicia opened the flap of her bag. She had a pair of scissors in her hand, holding them like a knife. Richie had the swirling feeling that things had gotten out of control. He shouted again, in a kind of strangled voice, “Why did you start in with him? You were dating me! We were having fun!”

But she was staring at Michael, and then she stabbed him in the arm, the wrong arm — the left arm was the wrong arm, since he was right-handed. He swung his right, knocked her to the ground, knelt down over her, and began slapping her. Blood was soaking the sleeve of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to feel anything other than fury; Richie had seen this many times, too. The scissors had been knocked away. Richie picked them up out of the leaves and tossed them deeper into the woods. Alicia was squirming, kicking, but Michael, straddling her, was pinning her hands with his legs and slapping. Richie did the only thing he could think to do, which was aim a kick right at him, right at his bleeding shoulder. He kicked him off her, and as Michael went down, he said, “Shit, whose side are you on, anyway?”

Alicia got up, grabbed her bag and her coat, and ran. She was crying. By now it was nearly dark. Michael lay on his back, quiet, and Richie stood next to a tree. They could hear Alicia running, and then they couldn’t. Then all they could hear was the sounds of birds. When it was really dark, Richie said, “When did you meet her?” and Michael said, “What do you care?”

At the infirmary, they gave Michael a bunch of shots and said that the wound was serious but not dangerous, as long as he kept it clean and didn’t use that arm — the “weapon” (the boys had said it was a knife) had pierced the triceps brachii muscle fairly deeply. Richie went back and forth about calling Alicia, but then was too cowardly to do it. On the last day of exams, two weeks later, he ran into her friend Eileen, who scowled at him and said, “Alicia told me you and your brother attacked her.” Eileen wanted him to explain or contradict this — Eileen had thought he was a nice guy. But he could think of nothing to say.

—

EVERYONE KNEW that the Russians had bought four or five hundred thousand tons of corn right after Nixon was elected in 1968, and everyone knew that Nixon had turned a blind eye to it. And why not? Joe said to John. They need it, we’ve got it. Clarence Palmby, the guy in the Nixon Ag Department who ran the deal, was about Joe’s age, from Minnesota. If you squinted, you could see him sitting in the Denby Café, sprinkling sugar in his coffee and making his case, just the way Dave Crest did, or Ralph Thorn. Everyone also said that the Russkies were paying cash — that’s what gangsters always did, wasn’t it? — and of course this was just the tip of the iceberg. Then everyone forgot about it, because the longshoremen said they wouldn’t load it and the Russkies said they wouldn’t pay for American ships to transport it, so that was that. What with Vietnam and then Watergate, there was nothing in the paper about grain deals, and the ag report you heard on the radio every morning was about the same as what you heard in town.

Earl Butz, the actual secretary of agriculture, everyone in Denby did not know. He was from Indiana somewhere, and wherever he was from, they did not do what Iowans did, which was to leave unpleasant thoughts unspoken. Joe agreed with that remark, though—“Adapt or die,” even if dying was the most likely outcome. As Rosanna said, “You know what he’s thinking, which is a welcome change.” When Butz and Palmby trotted off to Russia and came back, there were no rumors about what they had found out. Palmby disappeared, but Butz was right out there, saying this and saying that about how great for the average farmer this deal was going to be. Then Palmby reappeared, working for Continental Grain, so of course there was conflict of interest, and then Continental put through the biggest grain deal in the history of the world, and the Russians walked away with millions of tons of corn, wheat, and beans at a very good price — hardly a penny of which filtered down to the farmers sitting around the Denby Café. What did filter down was the conviction that it was time to get out of the hog business. All at once, corn was as golden as it looked, meaning expensive, and a farmer had to decide if he should send the hogs to slaughter and sell the gold itself. Some of the farmers at the café thought Palmby had made a typical Minnesota hash of his appearance before Congress. Had the sale to the Russkies driven up prices of wheat, flour, bread? Yes. Had the sale of corn driven up the price of meat and eggs? Yes. A fellow from Chicago would have said, “Maybe,” or “We can’t demonstrate that,” but a fellow from Blue Earth, Minnesota — what could you expect? The lesson Joe took from the whole thing was that people in the cities had no idea where their bread and steaks came from, and no one in the government was planning to tell them.