Oh Pure and Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📕

He was a small man, wearing a black cowboy shirt embroidered with white eagles in flight and sporting a large belt buckle that said NEBRASKA. —Thankya very much for taking the time off your busy schedules to visit the Test Site with us today. I’m Virgil Williams. I’ll be showing you around. I used to work in the testing program, in fact I worked in the program for fifty years starting the first year of the program back in 1951. I worked at the Test Site till I retired and started volunteering here on the tours. Give some young fella a chance, is what I said! I been present at over seventy atmospheric nukular explosions. These are the explosions that tested the weapons we need for the defense of our country.

Szilard, sitting in the very front row on the right, pulled out a small silver laptop Ann had never seen before, flipped it open on his knees and powered it up.

—I make no bones about it, said Virgil Williams, ignoring the laptop next to him. —I’m just a little hard of hearing, so speak up you folks in the back if you need my attention. I do apologize to you, ladies and gentlemen. I am a little hard of hearing.

Ann noticed that his two hearing aids sprouted thin filaments of wire like the stamens of a flower.

Ben watched the crane lower the rock with Lynn standing next to him, arms crossed. She was touching the side of her body to his in a way that suggested she was merely huddling close for convenience. As she leaned toward him she was pretending, he suspected, that the point of the exercise was to lean away from Yoshi, who stood on her other side.

He remembered moments like this from high school and he allowed her lengthwise flirtation because to move away from the contact abruptly would be obvious. A sudden movement would be construed as an insult. He was planning for the future: as soon as someone else spoke to him, say when a worker called him over, then he would separate quickly and neatly, a tuck of air between them and he would be gone.

It had rained earlier and the day was cold for late August so they were both wearing layers. This protected him but he was still aware of the slick nylon of her jacket as it brushed against the grainy beige canvas of his own. It was a steady distraction.

The rock loomed above the size of a modest home, and his stomach actually turned over as it dropped lower, lower, lower in small, jerky increments.

—It’ll be a focal point! said Lynn excitedly, and Yoshi gave a small, tight nod Ben could barely see when he leaned forward to glance past her profile at Yoshi’s. The boulder swayed slightly, whether because of its weight or because of a breeze Ben did not know. It was close to the crown of the aspens. He feared for them.

He wished he could leave: he wished to stop working at the mansion instantly. He wanted to get away from Lynn and her whims and move to a different job, start anew. Bad taste is not a crime, he said to himself, even though it should be.

That was it: if the world gave us our souls, why were the souls so impoverished? Most of them were so thin you could see right through them.

We have obscured the world, he said to himself as he stared up at the rock, taken it over with our flesh and nests and leavings, and all we see is our things. We have forgotten what the world is.

We believe we are it.

We can’t see past ourselves to the world, he thought.

—What? said Lynn.

—Did I say something?

—You whispered. Were you telling me a secret?

—I don’t have any secrets.

—Oh, come on, said Lynn slyly. —We all have secrets.

Across the interstate from the Test Site gate was a cluster of small tents and beat-up cars, a few motorcycles and an old Airstream, people camped out on what looked to Ann like a long-term basis.

—Pull over, would you? said Szilard to the bus driver, as though he was the boss.

—No sir, I’m afraid the tour does not stop here, said Virgil the tour guide, smiling.

—I said stop!

—If you want to talk to the protesters you’ll have to do it on your own time, sir, said the driver.

Virgil the tour guide nodded.

—We’re due at Badging, he said. —I make no bones about it: the Test Site does arrest those people sometimes. Peace groups, Indians, A-bomb survivors from Japan and so forth, your religious folks, nuns and priests and so forth. They protest what we do here, testing the nukular weapons that we need in America to defend our country. We put them in that jail right there.

As they turned into the Test Site gate she saw where he was pointing: a fenced-in enclosure on bare sand, bisected by another fence and decorated only with two blue port-a-johns.

—Sometimes around Easter—that’s when they like to come out, you know, that’s when they mostly come protesting here—we sometimes got three or four hundred people in our little jail there. We got a ladies section and a gents section too. See? Company named Wackenhut does the security. Now ladies and gentlemen, they’re a private company. We don’t do it ourselves. You know, it’s these guys that arrest the protesters. It’s not us personally.

—Criminal thugs, said Szilard loud and clear.

—They also give you your badges, here at Badging, said Virgil as the bus pulled over and parked. —OK ladies and gentlemen, just come on off the bus and follow me. You’ll need just your ID here ladies and gentlemen. Remember, no cameras, recording equipment, or binoculars with us today. That’s the deal. I do appreciate your cooperation here folks. OK? And now folks, please follow me.

In the plain concrete-block building marked BADGING they waited in line beneath fluorescent lights. Behind a