A God in Ruins Page 7

  “And it just so happens that you have some parcels between Harmony and Chepachet you’ll swap us for a song,” Darnell said as Dwight Grassley grew aggravated.

  “You selling or developing?” Thornton asked.

  “All, nothing, or part and part,” Dwight answered. “There are a variety of options....”

  “Yeah,” Darnell chipped in, “a shopping mall but too close to Pawtucket, a marina hotel but too far from Newport, a senior citizens’ development. Costs to build old folks’ condos are too far out of line of prospective receipts.”

  Dwight now underwent a different reaction, one of shock. How did you get this information?”

  Thornton started to jibber-jabber, but Darnell held his hand up. “We got the data on the land sell off your computers.”

  Well, well, thought Dwight. Well, well, well. He cleared his throat and leaned toward Thornton, dropping his voice. “May we speak privately?” he asked.

  “”Scuse me,” Thornton said. “This is Darnell Jefferson, my vice

  president, sole employee, and nigra confidant. Sure you must keep a few nigra lawyers around so’s they can translate to the nigras in the low-rent district.”

  “I did it,” Dwight said, folding his arms on the desk and laying his head in them. “Even great men like me make mistakes,” he said, trying to make light. “Now that we’re past introductions, you got a cold Coke?”

  “If we still have electricity,” Darnell said. “What’s your thinking, Mr. Grassley?”

  “The land will sell for enough to clear our books.”

  “Let’s see, you can then put a Woolworth’s, Jacques Penne, Sears, Filene’s Basement, and maybe a hundred-thousand-seat stadium made entirely of luxury boxes to attract an NFL franchise. Al Davis would be interested.”

  “Dwight—may I call you Dwight?” Darnell queried.

  “Certainly. And you’re Darnell and you’re Thornton.”

  “Let’s go up on the roof,” Darnell said. It afforded a view of the dump site and was rather depressing. “Mr. Grassley-Dwight—you’re from one of Rhode Island’s great families. This state is known for beads, bracelets, and costume jewelry, probably taught to the Pilgrims by the Indians. It’s no longer a growth industry or a major financial winner. This land, reclaimed, could hold a modern industrial park that could help revive the economy of Rhode Island.”

  “With your plant as our anchor,” Dwight retorted. “Look, fellows, we’ve also done our research. Nobody knows what you’re doing, including yourselves.”

  No sun would burn off the haze this morning. They returned to the office.

  “Give me a figure for your land. We’ll attach it to our parcels and get you, say, twenty percent of the total sale.”

  At that moment Darnell and Thornton looked at one another, completely locked into each other’s brain. Thornton gave a tiny, tiny nod. Darnell was on. He picked up a Growler and handed it to Dwight.

  “This little devil makes our Bulldog network totally secure.”

  Dwight burped out a laugh, excused himself, and waved them off.

  “The computer environment is now being invaded by every con artist, cross-dressing sicko, porno pervert, thief, monster banks, stock manipulator, secret arms and trade dealer,” Darnell said.

  “And you boys must have God on your side,” Dwight mocked.

  “In a manner of speaking,” Thornton said. “The First Union Bank of Providence, your bank, dips freely into ten numbered cocaine accounts and ‘reinvests’ through your building funds. Accurate records are hard to come by. You’ve got a sweet, clean seventeen percent skim-off.”

  Dwight paled. Suddenly he was looking at a pair of young men, eager of purpose and filled with frightening information. He told himself to remain calm. After casting about for a reason, he realized there was no explanation.

  “Are you going to blow the whistle on us?” Dwight asked.

  “Of course not,” Thornton answered. “You’re just doing what any respectable bank would do. But get yourself a new security system.”

  “Like the Bulldog and Growler,” Darnell said.

  It was a fortunate day for Dwight Grassley. Thornton Tomtree and Darnell Jefferson had long envisioned the extent of their own greed. It was plenty, and it converted to the computer’s mistrust of the computer, or more succinctly, man’s mistrust of man.

  First Union of Providence, their insurance company, and their real estate holdings used the initial Bulldog/ Growler network. It was filled with bugs, but no one could tap into its secrecy circuit.

  Then came the Air Force after one of its most vital and secret networks had been broken into by a hacker.

  Teams of geniuses in many universities and laboratories went into exercises with the Bulldog/ Growler each coming out with incredible praise of attaining absolute secrecy.

  The greening of Thornton Tomtree began when a row of | bulldozers moved in to reclaim the land. The first building would house the mainframes, a pair of electronic wizards hand created by Thornton.

  Darnell made certain that every set of tests was covered by the media. With much publicity, the system sold itself and there was soon a waiting list for installations. Darnell came up with the great name and logo, T3 Industries.

  In a few years T3 Industries had set up networks for over a hundred industries listed in the Fortune 500.

  If demand were to be met, manufacturing capacity had to be increased by several hundred percentiles. Flushed with a generous deal with T3, Dwight Grassley knew he had a cash cow, an endless, endless, endless cash cow. He even got rid of his drug-money accounts.

  As the system built, Darnell Jefferson took it upon himself to push the parameters of Thornton’s personality. It was slow, mushy going. Meeting the press, using wit, building a comfort level into local business and fraternal lunches. Darnell brought in a speech coach, and Thornton responded, slowly. At first, when he went to the rostrum, there was an awkward dry-mouth trembling and jokes that lay flat. A mild beta blocker calmed his trembling. The challenge was great, and Thornton stuck it out and became reasonably proficient.

  The more he spoke, the more those elusive thoughts would clear themselves in his mind and then on his lips. He began to toy with words and got a grip on what was humorous.

  Thornton moved up to college commencements, guest appearances at

  business and professional power conventions, and learned that stumbling

  in mid-sentence could be endearing. A moment of trembling could make

  the audience tremble,

  his shy charm brought smiles, and that old humor, which he scarcely understood, made others howl with laughter.

  Meanwhile, Darnell saw to it that Thornton’s appearances were plentiful and important.

  Darnell understood immediately that this was another page being opened to him in the now-and-future Thornton Tomtree Book of Revelations. Why is he trying to get people to adore him? Darnell wondered. What was his curse, his sin, his burden? He did not seem to return the warmth but always positioned himself as the wise father figure.

  One night at the ultraliberal and prestigious 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, everything fell into place. About three or four minutes into his speech Thornton realized the audience was mesmerized. He crossed the enormous chasm that made an ordinary speaker into a speaker who absolutely controlled his listeners: an orator, an actor.

  To step down from the lectern and shove his hands in his pockets “home style,” to wipe his glasses or remark he’d lost his place, to relieve drama with a funny quip, to drop a curse word.

  Well, Thornton was a sound sleeper, but he didn’t sleep for three days after the 92nd Street Y speech. He was top-of-the line, just a notch below Kissinger, as an attraction.

  Expand they must. It was Darnell’s baby. The Pawtucket Central station would be a state-of-the-art home of two mainframes capable of transmitting and receiving tens of thousands of messages simultaneously.

  A factory would make and assemble the computer and the
encryption box. No employee worked on more than a fourth of a Growler. Another building would hold the research lab and the repair and installation division.

  A final building was to be a modest four-story office.

  Darnell brought Thornton all the blueprints, including some T3 had never seen.

  “What the hell is this?” Thornton spread the last several sheets on his workbench. “Do I read this correctly? Employees Health and Recreation Center? This your idea of a whiz-bang knee slapper?”

  “The architects,” Darnell answered, “and I hold no brief for architects, say that every progressive new factory has workout rooms, TV room, dance hall, and so forth and so forth.”

  “This dispensary here looks like the Mass General Hospital.”

  “Think in terms of the days we won’t lose to illness.”

  “Bullshit! Quality restaurant, travel office, beach club, packaged tours .. . whatl A nursery for preschool children!”

  Thornton ripped the pages from their moorings, tore them into six parts, crumpled them and put them into his wastebasket and lit a match to it.

  “I take it you’re not in full agreement,” Darnell noted.

  “This is fucking, and I mean fucking, socialism. Baby-sitters! We’ll end up with a Russian labor force, complete with a portrait of Lenin in the Comrades Meeting Hall.”

  “You do know why I’m pushing this,” Darnell said.

  “No, unless it’s to be your last words on earth.”

  “I had to fight you like hell to skim off the best personnel in the country. We have the best. But you can’t pay a man a six figure salary to work in a junkyard. We have a golden opportunity to take future labor troubles off the table. The public relations aspects are dynamic. If they ever vote a union in here, if absenteeism doesn’t drop and production per worker doesn’t rise, I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window at the Thanksgiving Day Parade.”

  “Not a single Republican CEO, which make up ninety percent of the CEOs worth their salt, will support this. You’re crazy if you think you can buy employee loyalty.”

  They had both reached their side of the chasm. What had started out as one of their friendly debates had sunk quickly to the very reason of their being.

  “Are you giving me an ultimatum, Darnell?”

  Ur J>

  Yep.

  “And spend the rest of your life blackmailing me?”

  “Only when you’re going to fuck up, Thornton. The investment now will be a pittance. Later? A week on the picket line will cost us quadruple. Goddammit! You’re still living in the Industrial Revolution.”

  “What if the business world turns on me?”

  “The odds are that the better business world will follow you.”

  The laying of the cornerstone for the employee recreation building turned into a joyous occasion and huge public relations coup.

  A band, a picnic, the governor, Miss Rhode Island, and the Boston Pops orchestra sparked a gala. Two thousand one hundred and four steaks were devoured.

  While the band played “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” T3 himself broke the ground for the cornerstone.

  TROUBLESOME MESA, 1953

  The nun, Sister Donna, set the little boy down at the Denver airport and pointed at Dan and Siobhan across the hall. He ran to them. “Momma! Daddy!”

  Siobhan hugged him first. “How on earth did he know us?” she sniffled.

  “We’ve been showing Patrick photographs of the two of you and telling him you are his father and mother.”

  Quinn arrived with one small bag of clothing, a stocking doll, and eyes filled with wonderment.

  During the changeover period, Siobhan was always at Sister Donna’s side, and each time the baby was passed to her she squeezed and kissed him, and every time Dan held him, he looked for an O’Connell or Logan resemblance.

  As it came time for Sister Donna to leave, Siobhan inched around her with abstruse theories of the boy’s origin.

  “Siobhan,” Sister Donna finally said, “I do not know where Quinn Patrick came from. As they say, I’m only the messenger. This child’s first years are a closed book. It is the passage you and Mr. O’Connell have to pay for such a blessed child. Vows are vows, Siobhan.”

  “But Dan is so proud, so Irish, so generational. And Quinn Patrick.

  God rue the day Dan finds out the boy isn’t Irish.”

  “All I know is that he was brought to the convent, and he made us all very happy,” the nun said, staring directly at Siobhan.

  Siobhan showed wisdom, Dan was ecstatic. All families have their secrets and closets and things to be whispered. Yet two ghosts—a man and a woman who had given Quinn life-were now part of their life, of the unsaid extended family.

  During Quinn’s growing years he was rarely away from hand in hand with his daddy. The great hand held the little one; he rode on Daddy’s horse with Daddy’s arms about him.

  Dan was tough, ran the posse, was crowned king of the valley, and won elections, twice as a state senator. Once a Tammany Hall Democrat, he turned into a ranching Republican, detesting .. . loathing .. . hating government regulations. Troublesome Mesa was his territory, and he didn’t want anything to do with those bearded hippy pot-smoking scum who called themselves environmentalists. Shit! Telling me I’ve got to move my stream! The day came, an environmentalist, dressed like a normal man, sat down at the table with Dan to work out a small dam that would save the beavers left in the mesa. Dan changed his mind slightly in their favor.

  As for little Quinn Patrick, once his novelty had worn off and once he had shown that he had a temper and could be naughty, the calendar of parenthood caught up with them. Almost all the time and on almost every occasion, the boy made them proud.

  Siobhan realized that a very clever Quinn was making better adjustments than Dan. When it came time to finesse his dad around, Quinn could side-slip and waylay an argument, or if things tightened up, he’d do something to please Dan.

  Yet Quinn and Dan could be stubborn, so much so a fear crept into Siobhan when they were abrasive. As the result of Dan’s frustrations, he often blamed it on the mystery of Quinn’s birth.

  Unraveling happened, as it does most times, by accident, a random and thoughtless remark.

  “Hey, Quinn,” Frank Piccola said, coming up to the school bus stop.

  “Hey, Frank, going to play ball today?”

  “Naw, old man’s got a ton of work.”

  “If we ever get nine men on the field, we’re going to have some kind of ball club.”

  “Hey, Quinn,” Frank continued, “I heard my dad and mom talking in the kitchen, in Italian, like they talk when they don’t want me to hear. I heard them. My dad said he remembered the day the nun brought you to the ranch.”

  The element of love was so deeply embedded, the secret disarrayed them but did not break them.

  There would inevitably be this day of reckoning.

  “Dad and I have talked about this a thousand times. When is the right time to tell you? Secrets don’t stay buried. They come up at the craziest times. At a school bus stop,” Siobhan said.

  “Frank Piccola didn’t say it to be mean,” Quinn defended. “I’m glad it is on the table, son,” Dan said. “We waited too long, but long enough to know we belong to each other. You are Quinn Patrick O’Connell, named for a brave Marine, and you are our son.”

  “I was adopted?”

  “Yes,” Siobhan said, and went through the entire story, as much of it as they knew.

  Quinn took their hands with utmost maturity. “I love you,” he said. “We are now and forever a family. This answers so many little questions that have popped up about me that seemed to have no answers .. . but I love you ... I love you.”

  Dan and Siobhan knew the pain of pain. Quinn got up to leave the room. “What about my real—I mean, my other parents?”

  “We don’t know!” Siobhan cried.

  “In God’s name. In Mary’s name. We were told never to ask or we’d lose you! I swear to you,
son, Mom and I don’t know,” Dan pleaded.

  “The Church knows,” Quinn said, leaving.

  The waters did not separate entirely. The three of them hung on to one another. Yet two ghosts lived in the house. Who were they? They were always lurking. At times it was sharply painful. At other times it drifted easily on through.

  The years were good to all of them. Long fishing trips with his son .. . trips to L.A. to see the Dodgers .. . shooting the rapids .. . firing on the range. Dan’s hip kept him from running after a ball, but Quinn’s accuracy didn’t make it necessary very often.

  Quinn’s great friendship with Carlos Martinez, son of the ranch foreman, formed early. Carlos was the non-rancher of his family. He liked chess, serious reading, and fine music. He also had a macho attitude of a Latin leading man. His conquests began in his mid-teens.

  Quinn’s life, on the other hand, dealt with nature and cattle. Thus, each boy and, later, young man, brought gifts to the other. They reminded Dan somewhat of his own love for Justin Quinn.

  The only young girl in the area was Rita Maldonado, daughter of the famed portrait artist and sculptor Reynaldo Maldonado. Reynaldo had built a magnificent A-frame home and studio on a plateau a mile down from the ranch. A widower, he had raised Rita with the help of a Mexican nanny.

  Although Rita was considerably younger than Quinn and Carlos, she persisted in breaking into their two-person club. She rode with the wind, played ball, and helped build a monumental tree house. She hung out around the O’Connell kitchen. She learned chess well enough to beat both of her “brothers.”

  By high school, Carlos Martinez knew where he was going and how to get

  there. His ambition became to gain admission to a law college, pass the bar, and become a great lawyer. The posh Eastern universities were beyond his reach, but he wanted to specialize in immigration and that could not be taught better than at the University of Texas.

  While Carlos had direction, Quinn sort of treaded water, mainly honing his ranching skills.