NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Herman is concerned about his son, after hearing about his provocations at the Guild Meeting. Herman Intaglio’s son Albrecht is 23 and has been living with his parents for most of the year. He has quit Tenniel’s Art and Frame shop. He went to art school for a while but didn’t get a degree. He worked for the Plancks on and off, and he didn’t work at all for long periods. He moved in with a girl, and when that broke up, he moved back home.
He also worked at the local Seven Eleven for a few months, after that Herman thought he was working for the online music service called “Prime Numbers” but his wife Dona says that never really happened. He was just downloading a lot.
Herman had told me that much before. I am listening to Herman as he chats with Lark Bunlush outside the door on the corner of the Cavendish Pie Shop. Dona has gone in the shop for coffees.
“Did he find God, or did God find him?” He laughs, Lark looks puzzled and Herman goes on, “If God found him there is hope, but if he found God, this relationship may not last any longer than his others. Now he says he is a full time activist with C.U.P.A.”
Lark nods slowly, looking at Herman and asks him why Albrecht doesn’t work with the Plancks any more.
“I don’t know. He helped me move the etching press this morning. I have been working on some plates by the way, but I couldn’t really get much out of him.”
“You talking about those sheets of copper you were cutting the other day?”
“Yup”
“Are you going to show?”
“Well, I am doing some dry point now. Not etching, no acid, no fumes either, just pressing the stylus into the metal, and printing. Yeah, one day I’ll show ‘em.”
Albrecht’s father, Herman, returns to the question of where his son has suddenly found all his fanatical zeal. Albrecht’s mother is convinced a retreat in Idaho sponsored by Citizens to Clean up America had ‘set him off’. “I was happy for him when he left, but now… well, this shocks me. I’m disappointed too in the way he behaved at the Guild meeting. Herman says he can only hope Albrecht will get over it before using his new gun. His wife Dona comes out of the shop with two coffees.
“Are you talking about the gun? Lark can you explain why is he carrying that thing?”
“I can’t explain it. I’m opposed to people carrying weapons around here.”
“He was unarmed when he took off and as full of confidence as I ever saw him, but now…” Herman scratches the back of his neck, looking down pressing his chin against his throat until his half-shaved jowls bulge and finally mutters
“He told me it was the only guarantee of liberty left to patriotic Americans,”
“So there’s your answer Dona,” said Lark.
“What do you mean?”
“Dona, he has told you Albrecht’s reason for carrying the gun.”
Dona gives a cup of coffee to Herman. She and Herman sip in silence until she breaks out, as from a prison, “It doesn’t make sense.”
“At least he has found something to do,”
Dona looks at Lark and clasps her wrist, “Lark, my son has turned into a thug,”
Herman let out the words “Oh God” as if in pain. Dona looks off towards some crows gathering in the trees across the road. Herman sighs into the conversational lull, which extends it further. A jet whistles over in a descending tone, adding its own sigh and banking steeply into the sun on its approach. Lark squints at it, following its turn until she has to shade her eyes. “Herman the way I see it, if your son is working for CUPA then he has found some direction. Look of it that way.”
Herman lifts his chin from his throat. “Lark you’ve been looking into the sun.”
They all laugh. Then Herman’s concern weighs on him.
“What has he found though? Clean Up America? I object to a lot of the same stuff they object to, but I am worried about those people.”
“Throw him out now Herman!” laughed Lark. “Let him find trouble on his own.”
“Those people are fanatics in my opinion. Besides I am not going to throw my son out of our home.”
“Herman you’re just a hard headed Liberal!”
“I am a progressive if you please. Home is home and that’s my greatest family value.”
“Family what?”
“Value!” Lark grabs his arm and puts it around her waist, tossing her hair and
laughing, she presses her cheek against his. “Lark are you flirting
with my man again?”
“I am Dona, I am!” We are standing next to some tables and chairs arranged under the awning outside.
Dona, puts her cup down on one of the tables and pulls on Herman’s other arm. Herman pulls his wife close, “He’s my man.” Lark breaks away, to emphasise her point.
“It’s such a fascist, totalitarian idea, ‘Clean up America’. All those who disagree are dirt or something. That’s the implication.”
“Lark, I don’t know about being fascist, but they are fanatics.”
“What do you mean fanatic?”
“I mean they are extremists, not interested in listening to reasonable objections.”
Herman objects, “politics isn’t reasonable. It is about power and persuasion.”
“The implication is clear. Dirt should be swept away. They have no respect for argument.”
“Wait”, Dona waves her arm at the others as if to flag down the conversation. “Look, we can disagree on principles without carrying weapons and becoming mortal enemies.” She pulls out chair to sit at a table and then another. “Why don’t you sit down Lark?
“No, I am in line, but right, that’s the whole idea of our system.”
Herman pulls up another chair and sits next to Dona, loking up at Lark. “Yes some people can argue reasonably, but not them.”
“Don’t you think it is just rhetorical heat Lark?”
“No, I think it may start that way, but it can easily become more than that.” says Lark losing her place in line but still not sitting down in the vacant chair.
Dona closes both hands around her coffee paper cup slowly distorting it into an oval taking great care not to spill any, “Okay it could be more than that, but is it?”
Herman explains that CUPA tells its membership what they want to hear. Strong words attract media attention and that’s what CUPA needs.
“How do you tell it’s just heat? Do they need to be storm troopers?”
“Come on Lark,” said Herman.
“I am serious.”
“What are you proposing, Lark? A Spartacus movement?” asks Herman.
“No, and I am not trying to be Rosa Luxemburg,” Lark goes on. “I am just saying watch carefully.”
Dona lifts her cup as if to sip, but hesitates, breaking in, speaking across the top of her cup,“Are you talking about Rome?”
“No they used the gladiator’s name, but this movement was in Weimar Germany.” said Lark. Herman gulps some coffee and leans forward.
“You mean the Commies. Don’t lump me in with them.”
“Okay” said Lark. “So Albrecht has joined CUPA. Don’t worry. It’s not personal. Feeling the way you do, doesn’t make you a Commie. In fact I’d like to talk to him. It’s been years.”
Dona looks at Herman who is looking at Lark and Lark breaks another uneasy silence. ”Is something wrong?”
“No,” said Dona and Herman together, and Dona goes on. “He’s probably home right now. You want to come over?” Lark is preoccupied, looking across the street towards Fauxmont behind the tall trunks of oaks and hickories and some small cypresses further up the gentle slope from the road. There is someone standing under the huge southern red oak by the bus stop.
“Isn’t that Boyd Nightingale?” said Herman following her gaze. A bus pulls up, red, with dark windows, the engine rumbling, under a higher hollow throaty roar. The driver leans out of his window to greet a motorcyclist pulled up next to him. We can’t see who gets on or off on the other side. “Did you see that?”
“What?” asked Dona.
“That kiss! Who is my son kissing?”
“I only saw one person and that was Boyd.”
“No, look Dona, there goes Daisy up the path, there. See.”
“Herman that’s not Daisy.”
“It’s her, Lark. She’s all arms and legs. Couldn’t be any one else.”
“What is my son doing with Daisy Briscoe?”
“I don’t see anyone Lark.”
“No, she’s gone behind those evergreens.”
“Lark you might as well walk back with us and talk to Albrecht.
