TWENTY

Perry’s voice was on the answering machine early the next morning. I phoned him and got Perry’s dad, a man who always sounded like he was a desert island and hadn’t heard a human voice in weeks.

“Zachary, jeez, it’s great to hear your voice,” he said, crunching breakfast toast. “God,” he interrupted himself, shifting to a more serious tone, like a sports announcer handed a grave news bulletin. “Perry told me.” His dad expressed his condolences, a smart man who sometimes sounded dumb because of his enthusiasm for things, and then the telephone made a fumbling whisper and Perry was there.

I had the picture in my mind, Wheaties and muffin crumbs, a nearly empty carton of nonfat milk. I saw Perry in my mind, taller than me, tanned from exposure to the northern sun. Perry said very little, mostly uh-huh as I told him what I knew, doctors, IVs, cops. We were more comfortable snapping E-mail back and forth, voice communication clumsy and complicated, having to express everything out loud.

“This is awful,” said Perry at last, and I felt bad about making him so solemn. Perry doesn’t say How awful or That sounds bad. With Perry you get This is true or This is bad news.

I was happy to change the subject, just to hear Perry express some of his old interest in things. I said it sounded great, all of his plans, and we agreed that when this all got resolved maybe I could fly up for a visit, maybe look at the fish ladder, watch salmon swim upriver over a set of locks from salt water to fresh, all that Northwestern activity that sounded like life on another planet.

I was so happy to hear his voice, I went into my room and sent him an E-mail right away, letting him know how good it was to hear from him “voice-to-ear.” But what I really wanted to tell him was to forget about kayaking and bear-tagging and take up an interest in sea otters or mule deer, some animal we have in California.

The water that runs out of a hose is sometimes hot as soup, even the brass nozzle gets hot. You can hardly touch it.

I let this first water run out of the hose for a while before I let it trickle onto the tendrils of my beans. Some of my beans were adult, nearly, having muscled all the way up the stake and then, with nowhere to go, spiraling down again. Only a few whiteflies danced around the pods as I splashed water over the plants.

What I saw next did not make sense.

The tomato plant, Mom’s prize, was shivering. It wiggled, shuddering inward toward its stake. The leaves were nodding. Green tongues sprouted from the green rope of the stem.

I took my time, marching to the faucet, turning off the water, approaching the tomato plant cautiously. At times like this I find myself keeping up a running dialogue, like a cop chattering into his radio, except it’s all in my head.

Okay, what is it, I queried myself. Some kind of disaster.

The plant was alive with fat green worms, each larva the size of my thumb, but longer, and when I stepped on one by accident it was green pulp inside, half-digested leaf. The sound of the feeding host of green caterpillars, Hyles lineata, was like rain heard far away. The fruit was untouched, green blushing orange, days from being fully ripe.

The dozens of swollen green larva of the white-lined sphinx moth were finishing the last foliage as I watched.

Not such a disaster. Nature at work. I wrapped my fingers around the tomatoes, and the fruit was warm, holding in the sunlight. I tugged at the fruit but the stem would not release, the vine wanting to stay the way it was. At last I pinched the tomatoes from the stems and hustled the armload into the kitchen.

The phone rang. I knew it was my mom. Mental telepathy was real, after all. A message had reached her: Big Green Worms Threaten East Bay. But I feel a tug of anxiety when the phone trills. Two inner messages hit me at once: answer it; let it ring.

Mom has an especially heart-stopping ring on her phone, an electronic police whistle. After four rings the answering machine kicks in. Two more rings to go. I could wait.

I picked up the phone without wanting to, my hand with a life of its own. I must have said hello because a voice was talking. He was glad he caught me at home. He was just heading out the door but he wanted to keep me posted.

What is it, I must have asked, because Detective Unruh’s voice turned reassuring, sorry he had worried me. “It’s not bad news,” he said. But the way he said it made me want to sit down.

I heard the detective continue, his words massaging into me, a man proud of his voice without maybe being aware of it, aware that it was one of his strengths.

I interrupted. “You caught him.”

Fit Pit was a gym you could see into from the street. I had tried not to pay attention to it before, a frenzied showroom stuck among storefronts on Solano Avenue, bodies running in place, pedaling, pumping iron. But as I stood in the doorway I could feel the activity pulling me in, people in a deliberate frenzy, tight smiles of effort on their faces. Others had no expression, sweaty stoics, rowing nowhere. I had expected thumping, urgent music, but there was only the iron chime of weights and the whir and beep of the machines.

A voice was calling to me, an inquisitive tone, nice but bossy, a woman’s voice. I ignored it.

Bea was in a distant corner, slugging a great red punching bag with a pair of red Everlast boxing gloves. The bag was a little caved in from having been punched a lot in the past. Bea was punishing the big sack, her punches resounding among the whirring, clicking exercise machines. Bea didn’t mess around with footwork, hooking her left fist hard into the red leather where it was worn black.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Whap. Her right hand caved in what was left of the bag’s defense. And someone stepped around me to hold the bag steady, a woman with broad shoulders and eyebrows drawn on high above where her eyebrows would naturally be. She hugged the bag from behind, crouching into it.

“It’s okay,” said Bea. “He’s my guest.”

“He has to sign the waiver,” said the woman.

I had insisted, telling Detective Unruh that I wanted to drive across the bridge, that I wanted to see the face, look into the eyes, but the detective used his voice on me, his calming, Amazing-Grace voice, saying there was no need, everything was taken care of, he was just keeping me informed. I still insisted, and he said he was telling me to stay right where I was. Like an army officer in a movie: This is an order.

Bea gave the bag a rapid combination of punches, blows of such impact that the sound shook the insides of my body. She turned to me, panting, and wrestled her hand out of the glove. Sweat gave her face a strange gleam. “Sixteen-ounce glove,” she said. “Try it on.”

“The waiver form is over by the desk,” the woman said. She was deeply tanned and her dark hair was gathered into a tousled bunch at the top of her head, one of those ageless people so well conditioned the tendons in her neck stood out.

“I won’t be using any of the equipment,” I said. I know all about waivers, promises that you won’t sue if you drop dead. The interior of the glove was warm from Bea’s fist.

“Let him go ahead,” said the woman with the tough neck. She wore a black leotard top and shiny, tight stockings, shimmering and metallic looking. “Go ahead,” she said, smiling. “I’ll go get the waiver form, bring it over. A lot of people think they’re in good shape until they give the big bag a workout.”

“I don’t feel like it right now,” I said.

“It won’t hurt,” said the woman in the leotard, smiling so I could see her gums. She had smooth arms, hairless. Depilatories, I thought. She was engaged in life’s endless war against hair.

Bea took my arm, sensing something about my mood. “Maybe just a rowing machine today, Sherry.”

“This is your friend,” said Sherry incredulously. “This guy who won’t take a poke at the bag is Bea’s friend.” She gave me an I-don’t-believe-it wave and sauntered off, giving me the full treatment, bending over to pick up a towel.

“What happened?” Bea was saying.

“You were gone by the time I came to give you a ride,” I said. Ruth had even been friendly in a matter-of-fact way. “You missed her by about three ticks,” Ruth had said. Bea must have done some explaining for me, told her about my dad.

“What happened?” asked Bea.

It should have been easier to say.

The gym was noisy, bodies grunting, the weight machines clanking.

Bea put her face up to mine. “They arrested the guy who did it,” she said. Not asking, confirming.

I poked the big red leather bag, expecting it to move.

It didn’t.