Day of Change

Lawrence Holofcener

holofcener.com

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Richard took his arm.  “Come see for yourself!”  His other arm was taken by Anne.  From now on, she would always be present, he decided.

They entered through the wide glass doors remained still while all dust and foreign minutia were noisily vacuumed away, then through another set of doors and into the moist brightness that made the general cough.  At the edges of the gleaming polished concrete floor there were benches all around and he sat down, still frowning with surprise.  Ann joined him, smiling.  “It’s a geodesic dome, and—“

“I know what it is.  I met the guy once.  He gave us a lecture—golly, he talked a mile a minute, Bucky something, for quickly assembled hangars.  Too much wasted space, we decided.  So, what’s it for?  Surely not a roller skating rink?  Talk to me, Richard.  Or should it be Anne?”

“Both, I guess,” she said tentatively and Richard folded his arms.  “It’s for conferences, forums.  And, well, for something else.  Tell him, darling.”

Instead, Richard gave a sharp whistle.  Pouring out of Army tents lining the extremities of the dome were soldiers in work garments.  Fifty or more, and they sat in a semi-circle smiling up at the two men.  Richard’s sons, too. 

General May shook his head.  “Kept you busy, has he?”

They laughed and nodded.    

“Ready to go home?” he shouted at them, expecting a round of yays and received only silence and questioning frowns.  Richard and Ann took the older man’s arms and led a quiet proud procession towards a cavernous quarry which began at the dome’s extremity and went beyond it for fifty yards. Some thirty feet down, a tiny stream ran gurgling along the bottom, with two large, earth-moving tractors standing nearby. 

“Three weeks,” Richard told his amazed friend, “just three weeks and look at it.  Much of it thanks to Don’s carefully placed explosives.”  Anne, too, smiled her pride at the achievement.

Now the soldiers rose, hefted shovels and picks and descended a path down to the big machines, as their general kept shaking his head in wonder at the sights; the enormous startlingly bright and warm dome; and this—this great hole in the ground.  And at the confounded audacity of this genial, smiling madman, his new friend, Richard of Amwell, and the use he’d put to Clark’s corpsmen and a few hardy ladies.  Plus Richard’s own two sons.

The three of them occupied a bench overlooking the pit.  So many questions assailed Clark May’s brain.  “What’s it all in aid of, Richard?  It’s not just to grow bananas and oranges in winter.  Come on.  Let’s have it.”

Richard gave him that slow enigmatic smile, then nodded to Anne who said, “It’s where we’ll live, Clark.”

The general looked them in the face for the joke.  He saw none. “Now, now, just a minute,” he said as he was wont to say to give him a chance to catch up.  “What do you mean, live?  Nobody should live underground except rabbits, ground hogs and moles, damn ‘em.”

“The Pueblos out west occupied caves,” countered Anne.  “So did the Incas in the mountains, the Inuit in ice caves, Eskimos in igloos.  There are Amazonian tribes living beneath the earth for protection from weather, predators—I’ve met some.  But that’s not the point, Clark.  We have to live below ground.”

“Richard, seeing the general’s doubting frown, chuckled.  “Hey, we’re not real sure it’ll fly.   So much to work out: plumbing, water, heat, electricity, claustrophobia issues.  We’re building a prototype, a model to show the country through the media, and the women who’ll run things.  Your wonderful troops want to stay, to finish the job, but they need your permission.  And we need more specialists, for the steel workers, masons, and carpenters, plumbers, electricians—and materials and supplies and so forth to get it up and running.”

“Get what up and running?”           

“Clark, I’m sorry, I’m ahead of myself.”  Richard faced the worry lines creasing the brow of the man he’d come to like, respect—well, yes, to honor as the father who had never seemed to have time for him or his older sister.  Richard had grown up in Brookline, Massachusetts, his father taught physics at M.I.T., his mother English in high school and were occupied with other interests, Dad golf, Mother charities.  Both were gone.  He wanted to take Clark’s hand, to press flesh, be close, didn’t dare.  Not yet, anyway. 

“Remember when we met and I said we were not from here—from the planet Earth?   I called us Outsiders.  Still do.”   He paused and found himself breathless, and knew why.  Clark May was from Charleston and had the sweetest low country drawl, and he—Richard—was trying to emulate it, to convince him that what he was thinking wasn’t all that mad. 

“We Outsiders, especially the male of the species homo sapiens, well . . . a lot of us are strange, if you know what I mean.  And, ya know, I’m not sure we left our home planet voluntarily.   I’m guessing mebbe we were pushed out, ex-communicated.  I know, it’s impossible to verify, most people think I’m crazy when I even hint that we humans are the real aliens.  Uh—those tigers, what do you call the ones that start killing not just for food but for the love of it, and can’t stop?’

Clark had difficulty keeping up with him, the way he switched subjects.  “Rogue tigers, that’s what they’re called.  Only answer is to hunt them and, well, beautiful as they are . . . put them down.  Like rabid dogs.”

Richard had looked off.  What’s he getting at now? Clark wondered, waiting to be told as he was sure he would be pretty soon.  This smart fella even made points with his pauses.  Good to talk to, listen to, almost want to hug him like he did back then. 

  “And that weed down south that can’t stop growing and devouring . . .”

“Kudzu, bad stuff,” chuckled the general.  “It can swalla a whole house.  Tried burning it out but it’s native to the south so it just keeps on keepin’ on.”

“Clark, it’s not native to the south, not even to this country.  My oldest boy’s into biology, he says kudzu comes from Japan.  The colder climate there keeps it under control.  We imported it in the Twenties as cheap, fast growing fodder for cattle.  It’s a rogue species.  Like us—men mostly.  Matter of fact, cattle is not native to America, nor is the potato or rice.  Or most of our herbs and spices and – on and on.  All those alien things have to adapt to our climate, soil, water, air. 

“We’re not native, but instead of adapting, we make everything adapt to us.   It’s like we have design flaws, we’re missing some elements that the Earthen have naturally, something that allows ’m to get along with the plants and fish and animals around them and take just what they need.  Not us.  They live in the present, and when they die?  Ashes to ashes.  Not us; we have to glorify the past with cemeteries, memorials, museums and history books.  We have to carve up the country into states, buy a piece of land and put up fences—this is mine, stay out.  We make war over those artificial lines.  Not the Earthen.  They know—have always known—you don’t own the land, it’s not yours or his or mine, or even God’s.  It belongs to Mother Nature.  Would she allow any caring, rational creature to kill his own species, to burn coal or oil, or create cars or – raise cattle, both of whose exhausts damage the very air we breathe?”  He paused while Clark got the joke and chuckled.  “Why can’t we get along with Mother Nature, or even ourselves? 

“We’re all on the same team, just another species trying to stay alive, no more, no less.  Can’t we exist on this lovely planet as it is?  No, as it was before we came?  We’re gonna be real busy getting rid of the mess we’ve made, our footprint—our heavy stamp on the earth.  Sorry, I’m repeating myself, I told you all this when we met.  A big project, yep, and it’s all yours.  I mean, all your men and women in the military.  They’ll have a new mission, a new purpose, and for something worthwhile.  Look what they’ve accomplished already?  I hope you’re up for it, Clark, ‘cause I—I don’t know anyone else I can trust.” 

Richard found himself exhausted with it, his head and stomach aching.  And surprisingly, his eyes brimming wetly, so desperate was he for this wise, older man’s covenant.  “Hey, wait a sec.  Anne, give him the—you know.  Clark, this is what we – no, not I, the ones with brains and experience and ideas and all.  Every night after the day’s march we sat around a camp fire and discussed how we can heal the planet, undo the mess we’ve made so that not just we but all species can survive.  I almost wish you’d been there to see how it slowly evolved—you all right, sir?”

The general coughed and turned away, thinking of his deception with Penny.  But she’d kept things—the important ones—back, too.

“Anyway, we put together a . . . a few things we kinda have to live by.  Number one is living in holes in the ground.  Like this one.”

Anticipating the general would be as shocked as she’d been, Anne had placed the crisp single sheet of paper in a large envelope and sealed it.  Richard blinked in surprise, hearing Anne warn Clark not to open it until he was back at his base.

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