force of time that has made quaint archaeological sites of other great capitals spare Washington, D.C.?
He eases up on the gas and pulls into the scenic overlook at the top of Spout Run. He is intimate with the physiogeography of the area. The river gorge runs along the fall zone between the Piedmont Plateau and the Atlantic Coastal Plain. At Great Falls, the river drops seventy-six feet in less than a mile. How many Sundays has he spent climbing the rocks along Billy Goat Trail? Where he is now, on the very edge of the fall zone, the exposed terraces form steep bluffs that run along both sides of the river, which widens quickly just below Georgetown.
Noel steps into the chill air. Snow is coming down in great white sheets, is sticking to the trees. An airplane passes overhead, making its final descent into Reagan National. They come in low here, following the river. There has always seemed something magical to him about airplanes, the charm effect of kites and strings and flying arrows and other boyhood fantasies of projected power. Lately, he’s begun to see a fuller connection between these fantasy forms of projection and what he calls “disembodied purpose.” The gun-tape footage is lodged in his thoughts. He can’t get rid of it. The sticking point is not the engineering of remote agency—which is just another fancy way of describing disembodiment—but the much larger question of purpose.
He opens the back hatch of the Navigator and takes a club from the golf bag he keeps there. Big Bertha. He fumbles in the pocket, grabs a handful of balls and a tee. A low stone wall runs the length of the parking lot, the WPA, National Park Service style of masonry that conjures visions of Buicks and Packards motoring along with all the time in the world. He steps over the wall and walks a few paces down the grass slope to where it drops steeply off. Through the swirling snow, he can just barely make out the black surface of the river below. With his foot he clears a small patch of grass in the snow, then, leaning on the club for balance, stoops and gently presses the ball and tee into the ground.
Another passing airplane distracts him, and he tops the first drive. The ball drops through the trees. He places a second ball on the tee, feeling a pleasant adrenaline flush, a foretaste of the perfect swing. He connects with a satisfying THWICK, sending the ball high and straight out over the gorge and filling his soul with deep, tranquilizing power.
He sets another ball onto the tee.
THWICK.
And another.
THWICK.
“Step back!”
A beam of light pierces the night.
“Step back!”
He turns into a milky blindness. A moment passes. The sound of a crackling radio sets his heart racing. Little white grubs skitter and pop in all the surplus light. Was milkiness the last thing they saw? He plucks ball and tee from the ground, then, with all the cheerful insouciance he can summon, strides toward the policeman, swinging Big Bertha like a walking stick. “Good evening, Officer.”
“Drop the club!”
“It’s all right, Officer. I was just—”
“Now!”
Noel drops the club.
“Put your hands up.”
“I’m sure—”
“I am going to count to three.” The caution is delivered with a precision that makes Noel smile as he raises his hands. The parking lot is lit like a stage. Snow falls gently through rose-white lights beaming atop the cruiser. The policeman steps over the wall, shining a baton of light directly into Noel’s face.
“Officer, I can explain.”
“Turn around.”
Noel obeys.
“I’m going to frisk you. Keep your arms raised.” The officer pats him down, removes the remaining golf balls from his pocket as well as his car keys. He runs his hands down each trouser leg, then steps back and says, “Okay, you can put your hands down.”
A brief interrogation ensues. The cop is clearly a rookie. Noel can’t help feeling both amused and irritated. He recognizes the textbook earnestness, the training sequences, the mock urgency—all misplaced and misapplied in this real-world situation. The Department of Defense ID sets the officer at ease. He allows Noel to fetch his golf club. As he picks it out of the snow and wipes it off, he wishes there were some way of telling the young cop about infrared white grubs, AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, and the dead schoolchildren on the other side of the world. Perhaps it would help both of them to see a little more clearly. Instead, he assumes the role of obedient citizen, thankful for being let off with a warning.
On the parkway, the Navigator’s wiper blades beat time across the windscreen. The road is slushy, overly salted and sanded. It is cozy inside the enormous vehicle, protected against the elements. Noel’s exact geographic location is mapped and displayed on the dash in degrees, minutes, and seconds. He loves the four-wheel-drive security, the three- hundred-sixty-degree visibility, and the pleasing sense of riding higher, heavier, and beyond all need. He’d joked about it—about heaviness, need, and middle age—in the doctor’s office that morning. A bout of light-headedness yesterday and what felt like stabbing pains in his chest had gotten him an emergency appointment. “Could be gas,” the doctor told him after the EKG. “Gas? That high up?” The doctor assured him it was possible. “Could also be stress.” He ordered the full battery of tests, the outcome of which Noel foresaw exactly. Diet, exercise. He wasn’t a hypochondriac. The pains had been real. But like all the men in his family, he’s always been stoic about aches and pains. You tough out the things you can’t control. Pat, his wife, calls it dumb machismo, but it’s really something homelier, a modesty that resists calling attention to private suffering, not to hide from but simply to acknowledge the fragility and finitude of the flesh.
An old Fleetwood Mac song is on the radio. Thunder only happens when it’s raining. He switches it off. Fifteen minutes later he enters his Arlington house, a three-bedroom postwar brick colonial set among mature trees. They’ve been here since Hannah was three, when houses inside the Beltway cost a fraction of what they sell for now. A second mortgage is paying her tuition and fees at the University of Virginia. Regardless of what has happened at work, the peace of the neighborhood always makes him feel that he is returning to a parallel day here, a day he has missed.
“Pat?” He removes his wet shoes, hangs up his coat, finds her dozing on the sofa in front of the television. “Steve Kritsick called to see if he could ride with you on Saturday,” she says, pulling the blue fleece over her feet.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said yes.” She glances over when he doesn’t respond. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to say.”
“How about no?”
“I told him you’d call to confirm.”
He goes into the kitchen as Pat wonders aloud why Hannah isn’t answering her e-mail or returning her calls.
“I’m sure she has a lot on her plate.” He takes a beer from the fridge. The Pottery Barn vase that appeared yesterday has already blended into the kitchen decor and now contains a bouquet of dried flowers. Pat is expert at introducing things into the house that seem always to have been there. It’s in the kitchen that he feels they are truly cohabiting life partners. In bed, there are too many uncertain signposts en route to a good or bad night’s sleep.
