The Lake - Richard Laymon

“Don’t get started, okay?”

“Burning the American flag.”

“Dad.”

“Mouthing off about ‘the establishment.’ My God, it’s the dreaded ‘establishment’ that puts the food in the bellies of these people…I’m the establishment. Me and all the other people who worked our butts off so that our kids could maybe have it a little better than we did. And we’re the enemy? Am I a warmonger? Is Colonel Randolph? Do you think he likes this war? My God, the man’s been devastated by it.”

“Then he should be out there marching against it.”

Dad shook his head, sighed. “I would never wish anything bad on you, honey. I certainly hope you don’t have to learn this the hard way. You’re all idealistic right now, and you’re sure that peace and love will rule the world if you just march around and sing a few songs about it. But I’m afraid you’re in for a rude awakening. There are bad people in this world.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered.

“I intend to, whether you like it or not. There are people out there—and governments—that would be more than happy to wipe out you and me and your mother, our country if they’re given half a chance. Guys like your pals Castro and Ho Chi Minh.”

“They aren’t my pals. Neither is LBJ.”

He ignored that and went on. “Guys like Charles Starkweather and Richard Speck.”

She’d heard of Speck but didn’t know who Charles Starkweather was.

“Do you think your pacifism would work on them? Turn the other cheek on them, and they’ll cut it off for you.”

“I get the message.”

“Do you? I doubt it. I think your mind’s been so twisted around by all your long-haired friends that you don’t know which end is up anymore. We’ve been pretty lenient with your weird outfits and anti-everything buttons and staying out till all hours at that place in Sausalito. But we trusted you to have more sense than to get involved in something like this today. We brought you up to know better.”

“You brought me up to do what I think is right,” Leigh said. “And I think it’s right to protest the war.”

“Well, you’re mistaken. And it’s high time for a crackdown.”

“Let me guess. I’m grounded.”

“At the very least, young lady.”

“Whatever happened to freedom of speech?”

“You can feel free to speak whatever you like, but I will not allow you to march with the Great Unwashed and get yourself thrown in jail.”

“I didn’t get thrown in jail.”

“Not this time. And believe you me, you won’t get another chance at it. Not while you’re living under this roof.”

Leigh pulled the pillow down over her face. “Are you done?”

“We just want what’s best for you, honey.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You’ll understand someday when you have kids of your own. Now why don’t you get cleaned up for supper. We’ll try to start out on a new foot, okay?”

“All right,” she muttered.

When he was gone, she took her robe into the bathroom. She pulled her dress over her head, turned it around, and looked at the buttons pinned to the front. A peace button. One with Uncle Sam pointing, not his finger but a revolver. One read, “Make Luv Not War.” Another, “The Great Society: Bombs, Bullets, Bullshit.” Another, “War is Unhealthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Dad had called them “anti-everything buttons.” He was so blind. Couldn’t he see that they were pro-peace and -love?

Leigh let the dress fall to the floor. She moaned from her aches as she bent down and untied the leather thong around her left ankle. The bell strung through it jingled softly. She set it on the counter.

Reaching behind her neck, she untied the other thong. She held it up and stared at the dangling ornament. She had found the thing in the sand near Point Reyes Station a few months ago. She didn’t know what it was. Maybe that was why she had kept it. The small, rounded thing with one side curled inward seemed too light to be a stone. It looked and felt like ivory. She suspected it might be some kind of shell or fish bone, though its shape was so peculiar that she couldn’t imagine what kind of creature it might have once belonged to.

It came with a hole through the middle, so she had strung it on a rawhide lace from one of her old hiking boots and made herself a necklace.

She thought of it as her “sea-thing” necklace. Sometimes as her lucky necklace.

It hadn’t brought her much luck today.

She set it down carefully beside the ankle bell and looked down at herself. Pressing in on her left breast, she flattened it enough to let her see the reddish-blue mark across the ribs just beneath it. A police nightstick had done that. The same nightstick, wielded by the same pig, had left a bruise the size of quarter on the jut of her hipbone.

That fucking Gestapo pig.

Leigh had seen lust in his eyes when he went at her, ramming low with the end of his stick. He was aiming between her legs. But she moved fast enough so it pounded her hip instead.

Leigh turned around. She looked over her shoulder at the mirror and saw three strips of bruises across her back. The seat of her panties was shredded and speckled with blood from when they had dragged her by the feet. She pulled the panties down and wrinkled her nose at the sight of her scraped buttocks.

Yeah, Dad, she thought, tell me about the bad guys.

Three days later, Leigh was on a TWA flight to Milwaukee.

From her parents’ point of view, the Bay Area was a hotbed of radicalism. A month with her uncle Mike and aunt Jenny, two thousand miles away from it all, would keep her safe from such influences and give her a chance to learn how people look at things in the solid, down-to-earth Middle America.

She didn’t have to go, of course. They wouldn’t force her. If she refused, however, she would be restricted to the house for the entire summer.

Leigh decided to take her chances with the boondocks.

Once she agreed to go, Mom and Dad changed. They seemed a little giddy. The Prodigal Daughter had returned. Instead of slaying the fatted calf, they took her out to dinner at the White Whale on Ghirardelli Square. Leigh let herself slide back, at least for the time being, into the role of the well-bred daughter. She didn’t want to spoil their mood. Besides, acting rebellious would have been difficult; she enjoyed fine restaurants too much. The dim lights, the quiet sounds of people dining, the pleasant aromas and delicious food. She could never walk into one without starting, right away, to feel good.

Her parents seemed to forget that the trip to Wisconsin was a ploy to remove Leigh from harmful influences. It was a special vacation for her. She would love it—the woods and lake, the swimming and boating and fishing. They wished they could go with her, but of course Dad’s job made that impossible. On second thought, maybe they could arrange to come up for a week later on. It would be terrific.

Mom took Leigh shopping the next day. At Macy’s on Union Square, they bought a conservative dress and shoes for the flight, two sundresses, an orange blouse, white shorts, a modest one-piece bathing suit, and an assortment of undergarments. Leigh went along with her mother’s suggestions, though she fully intended to spend most of her time in T-shirts and cutoffs.

At Dunhill’s, they bought a soft leather tobacco pouch and a tin of Royal Yachtsman tobacco for Uncle Mike, a pipe smoker. At Blum’s, they bought a box of candy for Aunt Jenny. They ate lunch there and finished with a dessert of Blum’s fabulous lemon crunch cake.

Leigh expected to be taken home when they returned to the car after lunch. Instead, Mom drove her to North Beach. “You’ll need some reading material, I think.” They went to the City Lights, then to a secondhand bookstore across the alley. Mom waited while Leigh loaded up with paperback editions of Franny and Zooey, Soldier in the Rain, Boys and Girls Together, The Ginger Man, In Cold Blood, Love Poems of Kenneth Patchen, Just You and Me, and The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Mom raised an eyebrow at the selection but kept her opinions to herself and paid for all the books.

Leigh woke up on Tuesday morning feeling excited. The trip, to be sure, was a form of banishment. But she found herself looking forward to it anyway. The trip would be an adventure. She’d be on her own during the flight and, if her aunt and uncle would stay out of her hair enough during the visit, she might even be able to enjoy herself. At least they weren’t her parents—maybe they wouldn’t try to control her life while she was there.

At the boarding gate, Mom wept. Dad gave her a fierce hug.

“Be on your best behavior,” Mom said.

“Save some fish for us, honey,” Dad told her.

“You’re definitely coming out, then?”

“We wouldn’t miss it.”

Leaving them, she hurried along the boarding ramp with light, quick steps. She almost started skipping. She felt free and wonderful.

When she reached her seat, she opened her purse and took out her peace button. She pinned it to the top of her crisp, proper, Macy’s dress. Then she tied the rawhide behind her neck, opened her top button, and slipped the sea-thing in. It was smooth and cool on the skin between her breasts.

The pin and necklace let Leigh feel more like herself.

They can change where I go and who I see, she thought, but they can’t change who I am.

ELEVEN

Leigh hadn’t seen her aunt and uncle since their trip to California when she was twelve, but she recognized them immediately when she stepped through the gate.

Uncle Mike looked a lot like Dad, especially his eyes. He was bigger, though—built like a football player. And, unlike Dad, he sported sideburns and a bushy mustache. His hair was considerably longer, too. Dad wouldn’t have approved of his brother’s appearance. Leigh felt relieved. She gave him a hug. His corduroy jacket smelled of pipe smoke.

She kissed Aunt Jenny on the cheek. The woman was surprisingly short. She used to be the same height as Leigh. Now the top of her head came only to Leigh’s chin. She was still as slim, however, and she still had a humongous bosom. She no longer wore the weird, harlequin glasses she’d had six years ago. Now she wore round lenses with wire rims. Granny glasses. A very good sign.

“You sure have sprouted up,” Aunt Jenny told her. “I considered it, myself, but chose not to. I enjoy conversing with belly buttons.”

Uncle Mike reached for Leigh’s carry-on. “Let me take that for you.” They started walking. “So how was your flight?”

“Just fine.”

“They feed you?” Jenny asked. “We’ve got a pretty long haul ahead of us.”

“We’ve got snacks. Or we can stop along the way.” Mike smiled around at Leigh. “Are you still crazy about McDonald’s?”

“Not quite like I used to be.”

“God, I remembered you hogged my fries.”

This might not be so bad, Leigh thought as she walked with them toward the baggage-claim area. Then she thought, Don’t kid yourself. Maybe they’re not as uptight as Mom and Dad, but they’re the same generation. They’ll have a lot of the same hang-ups, even if they do seem pretty cool for people their age. So you’d better watch out.

Their car was an old, battered station wagon. Mike loaded Leigh’s luggage into the rear, tossed in his corduroy jacket, which must have been smothering him in this hot, muggy weather, and came around to the passenger side. “Don’t see why we can’t all pile into the front,” he said.

Leigh sat between them.

“So,” Mike said as he started to drive, “we hear you’ve been dabbling in hippiedom.”

Here we go. “A bit,” she admitted.

“I don’t see that the movement’s produced any worthwhile literature.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jenny told him. “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”

“Ah, but where are the Ginsbergs, the Ferlinghettis, the Kerouacs, the Gary Sniders?”

“Mike misses the Beatniks,” Jenny explained.

“I was in Ferlinghetti’s bookstore just yesterday,” Leigh said.

“The City Lights? No kidding. We stopped in there when we were out visiting you folks. We sandwiched it in between the McDonald’s, so to speak. Do you remember that?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It was the high point of the trip for Mike,” Jenny said.

“Who’ve the hippies got? Kesey? He’s all right. Cuckoo’s Nest is all right. But who else?”

“Ginsberg’s still writing,” Leigh said. “Yeah, but he’s not a true hippie. He’s an over-the-hill Beatnik. There’s a difference.”

“Not a whole lot,” Jenny said. “Do hippies wear berets? Do hippies play bongos? Do hippies recite poetry in coffeehouses?”

“Mike’s a closet Beatnik.”

He started to declaim “Howl” in a deep, thundering voice.

“Oh, geez, spare us.”

Leigh started to laugh.

After a few stanzas, Mike quit his recitation. He and Jenny started asking the questions Leigh expected from relatives she hadn’t seen in years. How were her parents? How was school? Did she have a boyfriend? What did she like to do in her spare time? What did she plan to major in at the university? Did she have a career in mind?

They talked about themselves: the high school where Mike taught English and Jenny taught music; their cabin on Lake Wahconda; the new Cris Craft they’d bought two weeks ago; a drowning the previous summer when a fisherman’s boat capsized in a sudden storm; a legendary muskie named Old Duke that was said to inhabit the lake.

By the time they’d been on the road for an hour, Leigh felt completely at ease. Her aunt and uncle seemed easygoing and good-humored. They didn’t talk down to her. They treated her like an adult, a friend.

“Are you getting hungry?” Mike asked.

“I’m okay,” Leigh said.

“Thought I heard your stomach growl.”

“Not mine.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure there’s a McDonald’s around the next bend.”

Leigh doubted it. They were traveling along a two-lane road deep in the woods. The Big Bass Bait & Tackle Shop was the last business establishment Leigh had seen. That was ten minutes ago.

Mike steered around the bend. “Guess I was wrong. I remember I was wrong once before.”

“You can remember that far back?” Jenny asked. “Admirable.”

“You’d better break out the provisions, Tink.”

Jenny turned around. Kneeling, she reached down behind the seat. She handed back three cold bottles of Hamms to Leigh.

Mike started to sing the Hamms beer commercial about lakes and sunset breezes. Leigh pictured a cartoon bear playing a log like a tom-tom.

“We thought you might appreciate an authentic native snack,” Jenny said, twisting around and sitting down again. She had a box of Ritz crackers in one hand, a pottery crock in the other.

The crock contained smoked cheddar, which she spread on crackers while Leigh broke open the beers with a can opener from the glove compartment.