- / l£- M OSO^ SOBS @ O P v i w i x hL? ’ ‘“ ’ ^ ^ ■;■. . 34^3 Fall 1982 »a? S's^^ra
“There is nothing that has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness has been produced as by a good tavern. ” Samuel Johnson NOW SERVING LUNCH HANDMADE SANDWICHES SOUP AND CORNISH MEAT PIES FINE WINE AND IMPORTED BEER TO GO FIRST AND VIRGINIA AfAN 5FRE0RIN 5/5 15™t?xsr 5eArn£, WASH 9$/12 C2O6) 322 2^2 SPECIALIZING IN ORIGINAL VicrORiAN AND CputCTAB^E WiCKeR FURNITURE THROUGH THE 1920's. i3uyiNq,5euNq c)PFN» webNesDAy- SArixRpay 12 m y OR ey AppoiNrMaVr The Futon Defined. futon\fu-tone\n (Japan) 1: a bed 2: a couch 3: a healthy, firm mattress 4: an inexpensive sleeping system 5: a unique alternative for those folks who like their houses to look a little bit different from everyone else’s 6: found at Unfoldings, Seattle’s foremost manufacturer of futons, along with flannel sheets, blankets, cushions and tatami mats. 2107 N. 34th. Two blocks north of Gas Works Park. 634-0630 Unfoldings. The bed has never been better. 2 Clinton St. Quarterly
CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY VOL4. MO. 3 HELLO. SEATTLE! Fall 1982 STAFF Co-Editors Peggy Lindquist Lenny Dee Jim Blashfield David Milholland Design and Production Jim Blashfield Production Assistants David Milholland Sharon Niemcyzk Proofreaders Walt Curtis Theresa Marquez Ad Production Peggy Lindquist Stacey Fletcher David Clifton Stan Sitnick Ad Sales Mike Bawaya David Clifton John Denton Lumiel Dodd Bob McLean Public Interest Marketing Typesetting Jill Wilson Al Schwartz Thanks — Archetype Camerawork Paul Diener Al Schwartz Contributing Artists Jim Blashfield Dana Hoyle R.K. Shepherd Steve Winkenwerder Contributing Photographers Michael Brush Eric Edwards Rich Iwasaki Thanks Tom Clark Eric Edwards Martha Gies Bob Jeniker John Laursen Paul Loeb Doug Milholland Ed Reckford Charlotte Uris Janet Wainwright Micheale Williams Advertisers call 367-0460 C T Hello Seattle. Hello Portland. This issue marks an historic turning point for us, as we simultaneously publish editions in both cities for the first time. Though matters of size, style and political philosophy often distinguish us, our commonality as two centers of a dynamic region impels us to take this big step. Driving through the lofty North Cascades this late summer, we were reminded of the many natural delights which drew and/or keep many of us here. From Crater Lake to Mt. Baker, from Lake Chelan to the Malheur, from the Olympics to Depoe Bay, we live in a veritable paradise. Lightly populated, its land largely accessible to the public, only the wearisome intrusion of sales tax serves to remind The CSQ’s specially designed transport plane _____________________winging its way toward Seattle.______ CONTENTS Cover Jim Blashfield us of state boundaries. Yet the bounty and beauty is ever threatened, as we noted a few miles west of the Cascade Crest, passing first by the three well-maintained, terrain altering Seattle City Light dams, and then into the Magic Skagit itself, where a dreary overlayer of pollution brought a lovely day into human relief. Such problems require a joint approach, as energy impacts and bad air so quickly leap borders. A case in point, the WPPSS adventure, pulled all of us into its sticky web. Both private and public utilities, long used to the bountiful energy of our hydro-rich region, picked the nuclear solution just as its costs began spinning out of control. Washington’s Senator “Scoop” Jackson then pushed through the Northwest Regional Power Bill to make sure the greed and poor planning of a few individuals would be borne on many shoulders. I/Ve are also being asked to bear, as a region, the risks incumbent in our role as a major producer and deployer of armaments. In our pages recently, Historian William Appleman Williams pointed out that “surely the Pacific Northwest is as much a theater for ‘limited nuclear war’ as Western or Eastern Europe. Boeing and Hanford are unquestionably as important as any Russian centers west of the Urals.” Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, in his refusal to pay the “defense” half of his taxes, and this summer’s stop-Trident boat force offer us examples of positive responses. Reagan’s minions have recently been babbling about a “winnable nuclear war, ” yet with the equivalent of one million Hiroshimas arrayed in battle position, it becomes apparent that a response is called for. The fact that Trident, Boeing, Hanford and Oregon’s Teledyne Wah Chang are major employers should never jade us to the ultimate aim of such production. The Clinton St. Quarterly intends to open up a dialogue about these and other issues. We will also examine, in zesty detail, the cultural life of our area. And as in the past, we will feature articles about the world beyond: France and Nepal, Brazil and El Salvador, New York and New Orleans. To say that we are a “regional” paper will hopefully never limit us to a provincial outlook. In fact, by tapping into the talents of writers and artists throughout the region, we fully expect to continue improving an already stimulating publication and attempting to redefine what can happen out here “in the provinces.” ■ DM Cheeveresque Mark Gray.................... 4 Nuclear Culture Paul L o e b .................... 8 True Defense Ron Dellums................12 Leaving Monkey Island Edwin Dobb.................16 Henk Pander: An Artist of Two Worlds Penny Allen...................18 Blocnos & Slocni Paul Ollswang............. 22 The Nocturnal Intruder Jim Blashfield.............. 23 That Grand Wild Sound of Bop Lynn Darroch .................. 27 In Women’s Strong Hands Lenny Dee.......................31 Music for the Sleeping World Michael Brush.................36 The Clinton St. Quarterly is published by the Clinton St. Theatre, 2522 SE Clinton, Portland, OR 97202 (503) 222-6039. Unless otherwise noted, all contents copyright © 1982 Clinton St. Quarterly. WHAT SORT OF PEOPLE READ CLINTON STREET QUARTERLY? Lo m rd a k k e n h o e w a s d s w o e r 'v t e a i r ls u n o u et n o o f u g th h e e m xp O en ne s iv th ei n d g em w o e g d ra o p k h n ic o w st u is d t i h es a, t b f u o t u t r o ti m be e p s e a r f y e e c at r l y w h e o t n a e k s et , o w u e r s c e a m n' i t distinguished journal of humor, commentary, fiction, political analysis and eyeball snagging graphics off to the printer and within days there aren't any of them left in our humming distribution center, the stamps are all gone, and we begin getting rude phone calls in the night, some from as far away as Borneo and Missoula. Montana! So if you can't afford to spend your valuable time standing around on street corners four times a year, but you want to be up on what’s what and all that try subscribing to the CSQ Four issues, five bucks Enclosed is my $5 00 for 4 issues of the CSQ you hyperbolic devil Name _________ Address ________;____ _________ __ _ City _________________________ State____ Zipparoo___________ Mail to: CSQ, 2522 SE Clinton. Portland, OR 97202 CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY Clinton St. Quarterly 3
4 Clinton St. Quarterly
CHEEVERESQUE BY MARK GRAY He was lucky. When his shirt caught fire he had been only a few feet from the pool. One of the twins, Timmy or Jimmy, had gotten careless with a marshmallow stick, and before he could turn around, the blue acrylic shirt had turned dark orange and begun to smoke. As he surfaced he saw both boys standing by the poolside, pointing their sticks at him and giggling, “Daddy’s on fire. Daddy’s on fire.” As soon as he climbed out he collared them both in one hand and paddled their bottoms. The boys howled and tried to break free. From the other side of the patio Louise screamed at him, ‘Stop it, Tom, stop it! You don’t even know which one of them did it.” He loosened his grip and the boys ran sobbing to their mother. With a weeping child under each arm, she looked like a mother hen, protecting her chicks from a predator. He raised his hands palm up — a gesture of peace — and took a step towards them, but the twins wailed and pressed themselves against her. From her side of the patio Louise shouted at him, “Stay away from us. Just leave us alone.” Gradually the children’s crying subsided, although they still kept an eye on him. He took off his sneakers and poured the water into the drain beside the pool, then mixed himself a drink. So far the day had run true to some kind of pattern. On his way to work he had been stopped for speeding and at the bank that afternoon a man had walked up to one of the drive-in windows and exposed himself. He and a security guard had chased the man across the entire shopping center, but the flasher, pot-bellied and fiftyish, had been maddeningly nimble, dodging around the parked cars and planters as if it were a game of tag, then stopping every fifty feet or so to laugh and pop open his coat. When they finally got him cornered he sprinted between them and scampered across the highway. A car swerved dangerously to avoid him, the woman behind the wheel leaning one fist on the horn and shaking the other as she slammed on the brakes. Among the shrubs and high grass of the lane divider he had paused just long enough to cup his hands into a megaphone and shout, “See you next week.” “I’m putting the children to bed now,” Louise said. “Don’t come near us. Just stay where you are.” Instead, he mixed himself another drink, took a lawn chair from the patio, and sat in the garden. The white linen pants clung to his thighs and calves and smelled of chlorine. The shirt, burnt and discolored, was ruined, and he pulled Lt off and dropped it beside the chair. It was Monday night, and in an hour he would be inside at the kitchen table, settling the family accounts with a pocket calculator and a large ledgerlike checkbook. He would write checks for the mortgage, for the cars, for the dentist, for the boys’ doctor, for Louise’s doctor, for the piano teacher, for the tennis instructor, plus enter and balance Louise’s checks for the gardener, for the grocery store, the drug store, the toy store, the shoe store. The whole thing would take the better part of an hour, provided he didn’t make any mistakes. The task filled him with a faint dismay — a sorrow for the abstractions of checking, of banking in general. In an earlierage he might have held court on the lawn, Drawing by Ron Shepherd disbursing his largesse from a leather sack as a long line of tradesmen filed past, collecting their pieces of silver and gold. From the near corner of the house lights flicked on and off in the bathroom and the children’s bedroom as the boys were bathed and put to bed. A minute later lights came on in the front bedroom and he watched its side window as Louise’s shadow crossed and re-crossed behind the curtain before she turned out the light. He was tempted to pick up a handful of pebbles from the driveway and toss them one by one against the glass. When she opened the window he would apologize and ask if he were allowed inside. It was a scene he remembered from an old movie, and he imagined it would go the same way here. When she opened the window she would be curt. He would apologize. She would be hurt. He would explain why he was so upset, what kind of day he had had. She would look There’s this story called “The Swimmer, ” she said. “It’s about this man who goes to a swimming party. And at the end of the party he decides to swim all the way home through his neighbor’s pools. It’s got a real neat ending. ” doubtful, perhaps accuse him of callousness. He would be careful not to argue. Pouting, still a little tearful, a little hurt, she would gradually relent. It was a bit corny, but he imagined it would get him back into his own bedroom. He bent over and gathered a dozen pieces of gravel and walked to the window, then heard the slapping of feet on the patio, and a second later, the creak of his diving board. Jeremiah,-the Tysons’ Labrador, sometimes stole a late-night swim, but the sound of the diving board made a human more likely. As he walked on to the patio he heard a splash. A pair of feet disappeared into the water and a few seconds later, the blonde head of the Bishops’ 15-year- old daughter, Patti, rose and broke through the surface. He watched her tread water as she shook the hair from her face, then called to her, “Come on out and have a Coke.” For a moment the girl looked startled — the look he expected from someone caught sneaking a swim in a private pool. She backpedalled into the oblong shadow of the diving board, then cleared her throat once, twice, as if preparing to explain her presence. “Mr. Borden,” she said, “are you wearing anything?” The reasonableness of her question surprised him and he sat down abruptly. On the chair beside him lay a terrycloth robe and he draped it over his lap. “I fell into the pool,” he said. “My pants are still wet.” He picked up a pant leg between his thumb and first finger and held it away from his ankle. The girl came forward a little, just to the edge of the shadow, and said, “How did you fall in?” “It’s a long story,” he said. “Come on out and have a Coke. I’ll tell you all about it.” For a moment she was motionless, then shook her head. He had known her for perhaps three years, although he hadn’t run into her in the last year or so. Between 12 and 14 she had babysat for them, then given the job to her younger sister. Now she appeared transformed — not by the changes a year can bring to anyone,- not even by the abrupt ones it can bring to an adolescent, but by something else, a change not in degree but in kind. She bore only the most tenuous connection — shared name — to their former babysitter. Even in the refracted light of the water she appeared miraculous, complete and wholly formed, as if Venus had risen from the waves of his own pool. He couldn’t remember the last time she had watched the children. She treaded water a moment longer before answering. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m not wearing a suit.” She cleared her throat again and said, “I’m skinny- dipping home.” “You’re what?” he said. “I’m skinny-dipping home. Like in that Cheever story.” “What are you talking about?” “There’s this story called ‘The Swimmer,”’ she said. “It’s all about this man — I forget his name — who goes to a swimming party. He lives in a neighborhood a lot like this one, and at the end of the party he decides to swim all the way home through his neighbors’ pools. Everybody has one. Their backyards are almost paved with them. He has to walk a little bit from one pool to the next, but most of the time he’s in the water. It’s got a real neat ending.” “You’re acting out a John Cheever story?” “Sort of. Except my way’s more fun.” She let herself sink down until only her fingertips appeared above the water, then abruptly surfaced. “That’s just the problem. We really do live in Cheever country. It’s just like everybody says at school. Nothing ever happens here.” For a half-second he thought of telling her about the marshmallow incident, or even about the flasher, but there was something in her appearance that precluded conversation. Her bobbing beneath the surface had brought her just beyond the shadow of the diving board, and in the yellow reflections from the insect lamp her body looked pale gold. The ripples she made broke up the light just enough to keep her modest and indistinct. “Where are your clothes?” “Over there.” She pointed to a green canvas bag beside the pool. “Just in case. I still have six more pools to do.” “Do your parents know about this?” She shook her head, creating just the slightest dimple in the ripples already fanning out. Suddenly she ClintonQuarterly, 5
turned serious. “You wouldn’t tell on me, would you? My dad would murder me.” There was a pause, just long enough to be uncomfortable, then she said, “I have to get out at your end. Promise you won’t look.” In her hair were several large drops of water, diamond-bright, and her body shimmered in its veil of ripples. He felt a sharp pinch inside his chest, as if a small hand had held his heart and given it a good squeeze. He stood up slowly, careful to keep the terry- cloth robe over his lap, then wrapped it around his waist and knotted it on his right hip. “I need to go inside the house for a minute,” he said. “You get your clothes and scoot.” The ice-maker in the refrigerator wasn’t working right and he cleared a space on the counter, then took a butter knife by the blade and began knocking off chips from a chunk of eight or nine fused cubes. In between whacks with the knife handle he could hear Patti’s feet on the wet concrete as she gathered her clothes. He filled his glass with ice and started for the patio, but changed his mind and turned back to the bookcase in the living room. The big red book of Cheever stories had been a Christmas gift from the Cunninghams and he had put it on the shelf before getting around to it. On the flyleaf Harry had written, To the Shady Hill Bunch. Love From Both of Us, then signed the inscription with his and Claire’s names. His pants were still too damp for the living room furniture and he took the book back to the patio. When he got there Patti was gone. A second later he heard the thunk and splash of the Lawsons’ diving board and pool. He had meant to read “The Swimmer,” the story Patti had been talking about, but instead opened the book at random and started one called “The Country Husband.” The insect lamp gave enough light for reading and a small breeze blowing from the Law- sons’ yard into his carried the sounds of Patti’s swimming. The story was only fifteen or twenty pages and he read quickly, although several times he was tempted to put it down. There was,something in his meeting with Patti that hadn’t been sufficiently thought about, sufficiently realized, and from the beginning the story made him depressed. On the first page the story's hero, Francis Weed, survives a plane crash, but when he gets home his wife is preoccupied, his children are squabbling, and he can’t get in a word about the crash. The scene ends with a fight at the dinner table, the family dispersing, in tears, through a “living room divided, like Gaul, into three parts.” The suburban setting, with its slightly absurd opulence and spoiled children, seemed to drain something from the characters and make them smaller than they should be. The light from the mosquito lamp was beginning to make him squint, but he read on, following Weed through a series of dull parties until he falls in love with a teenage girl, a babysitter, a girl who seemed to look a lot like Patti. There was something uncanny in the coincidence, and the way it built itself into the day’s sense of oddity. He skimmed over the description of Weed’s feelings about the girl, then read it again, then finally read it aloud. Now the world is full of beautiful young girls, but Francis saw here the difference between beauty and perfection. All those endearing flaws, moles, birthmarks, and healed wounds were missing, and he felt a pang of recognition as strange, deep, and wonderful as anything in his life. It hung from her frown, from an impalpable darkness in her face — a look that impressed him as a direct appeal for love. Had he felt that way about Patti when she appeared in his pool, or did he feel that way only now, after reading those lines? Or did he feel that way at all? With a growing distaste, an almost physical one, he followed Weed through to the end — where he despairs of setting up an affair with the girl, sees a psychiatrist, and for solace takes up woodworking. In the last evening, in the last lines, Weed is in his basement workshop, making a coffee table, while outside, “it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.” For a moment he was struck, so that his heart actually ached, by the irony of his sitting on a patio, reading a story like that under an insect lamp, while fifty yards away a young girl swam naked. There were other stories he could read, of course, and perhaps his choice had been an especially bad one, but he was tired and his eyes ached. The story Patti had spoken of, “The Swimmer,” didn’t sound very pleasant, and he suspected the others would make him feel the same — that some parts of him would show up on any page he turned to. After flipping through several stories he came across one called, “Oh Youth and Beauty,” but the title scared him away. What would happen, he wondered, if he read through the whole book? Could he sleep with Louise, or talk to the boys, without looking over his own shoulder? Could he cut the grass without seeing himself — muted and sad — through Cheever’s eyes? He had suddenly become an object, something formed in another man’s image, with no longer a part in making himself. He sat there a moment longer, started to pour himself another drink, then decided he’d had enough. He closed the book, lit one of Louise’s cigarettes, and got ready to go inside, then heard the thunk of another diving board, and an instant later, a scream. Between his property and the Hendersons’ ran a hedge with a gate in its center, but the latch was tricky and he found it easier, even at his age, to vault the hedge. The Hendersons were vacationing in Greece, but their burglar alarm system also turned on the house lights at certain hours. Across the dark green of the lawn, from several first- and second-story windows, fell patches of white, like large quilts of light. By hop-scotching across the lighted squares he managed to find his way across the backyard without stumbling. He called out, “Patti, are you all right?” For several seconds there was no answer. He looked for an outside light but couldn’t find one. From the darkest part of the yard he heard a moan, confused and unnaturally high pitched. It reminded him of the whimpering the boys’ Airedale had made after it had been struck by a car. He lit a match, and a second later found the concrete steps at the shallow end of the pool. Four or five feet in front of the diving board Patti lay curled and shaking on the cement floor. As he approached she managed to get up on one knee. “Can you stand up?” he said. “I think so.” He put his hands on her shoulders and helped her to her feet, then struck another match. There were cuts and bruises on her hands and arms and two of her fingernails were broken. She took several seconds to get control of her breathing, then whispered, “I almost got killed.” For an instant he had a vision of her in a coffin, then a second vision, just as wrenching, of her in a neck brace and wheelchair, her body withered and twisted, a shawl thrown over her lap. “Didn’t you know the Hendersons were gone?” She looked down at her nails. “I forgot.” The pool light switched itself on automatically. “Stay right here,” he said. “I’ll get you a towel.” The ladder at the deep end had only two rungs, the lowest five feet off the ground. After one try he gave up and walked back to the shallow end, then found her canvas bag on the apron of the pool. As he returned she started to say something, but lapsed into crying. He held the towel in front of her, then draped it over her shoulders like a cape. There was a large trickle of blood on her leg from where she had skinned her knee. She pulled the towel closed and said, “I’m going to have a scab.” For an instant he wanted to slap her. Then she started to cry again. He held her against his shoulder. What could he say to her? That just as she had escaped death in an empty swimming pool, he had nearly perished that night in a marshmallow fire? Two months ago he had almost died in Boston at the Copley Plaza. His boss had talked him into ordering coquilles St. Jacques and, thinking that the bed of small white stones on which they were served was rice, he had scooped up a forkful while everyone was talking. He had been within a half-second of swallowing the hot stones when Tom Wooten had reached across the table and knocked the fork from his hand. For the rest of the evening he had sat there in near silence, mortified. Without a word he picked up Patti and carried her out of the empty pool, across the Hendersons’ yard and into his own, then put her beside him on the front seat of the car and drove her home. Instead of pulling into the driveway he stopped on the road beside her house. As she opened the door he instinctively put his hand over the ceilSome of the arrivals were still new enough to be known by their houses. The Watsons were introduced as the Dutch Colonial on the corner. ing light. She pulled the towel more tightly around her and started to get out, then turned back and said, “What’ll I do about my clothes?” “You can get them tomorrow,” he said. “The gardener doesn’t come until Thursday. I left your bag by the pool.” As she closed the door she leaned her head in the open window and started to thank him, then swallowed and said, “Please don’t tell anybody. I feel so stupid.” There was a light burning on the front porch, but she went around to the side. In the stillness he could hear the mat being lifted and the scrape of her key, then the door opened and closed and the lock clicked as the bolt slid into its strike. The porch light flicked off and a second later a light came on in one of the upstairs windows. He put the car into gear and pulled away. In the sideview mirror he watched the upstairs light wink out, then heard the sound of a small animal as it ran from his headlights. There was still something not right in his running into Patti, something that hadn’t happened, although he didn’t know what he could have expected. Certainly he didn’t want a sexual liaison — the idea of seducing a 15-year-old was repulsive — but there should have been something. He hadn’t saved her life exactly, but that was the feeling he had — of rescue. Neither the occasion nor the place had been appropriate, but still — he had pulled her, crumpled and bleeding, from a dark pit, and after that they had sat together naked in a car. Or almost naked. The white linen pants were still wet, nearly transparent, and she had worn only a towel. What more was needed? What had been missing? At the end of Druid Lane he turned onto Fairway Drive, trying to imagine the rooms Patti had run through a few moments before. He had been at the Bishops’ no more than once or twice, for Christmas parties or a barbecue, but the house seemed oddly clear in his memory. In the center stood a staircase and to the left of that was the living room, with a large picture window facing the road. A fireplace centered one of the side walls, and on the opposing wall hung several paintings and some bookshelves. A mahogany case that took up most of the back wall held a combination television and stereo. Two recliner chairs were turned to it. With some minor variations it was the same arrangement, tasteful and unobtrusive, he could find all over the neighborhood. Fairway Drive was the newest addition to the suburb, all the houses slightly larger and more expensive, all built within the last five years. On one side of the road lay the golf course, on the other side the houses. Set far back from the road, with lawns neat as golf greens, big as small pastures, even the newest of them appeared ancient and stately. He drove by mock Colonials, mock Tudors, one ersatz half-timbered cottage the size of a small hotel. Some of the arrivals were still new enough to be known by their houses. The Watsons, whom he had met just last weekend, were introduced as the Dutch Colonial on the corner. Suddenly, from the other side of the road, deep within the golf course, there was a small circle of light, bouncing erratically toward the road. An instant later he saw behind the light a bright red torso, and above that a bright white blur. As the figure came into the path of his headlights he recognized the white hair of Mrs. Martin above her jogging suit. He slowed the car. Mrs. Martin was in her sixties, though she and her husband hung around with a younger crowd. They were active at the club, and in the summer tennis league were known as a tough doubles team. She waved her flashlight in greeting. “Out kind of late, Tom.” “You, too.” “Last mile.” He watched her recede in the sideview mirror, running as if pursued by something in no particular hurry. She jogged the way women in his childhood had knitted, for hours, with complete, mindless absorption. On the few occasions he had seen her standing still, she had seemed unnaturally wholesome. Her face was drawn and her eyes were feverishly bright, as if the strain of good health were too much for her. He drove another hundred yards, then slowed the car again. Without knowing why, he had an urge to take off his remaining clothes, to pull the car over to the curb and divest himself of pants and underwear and walk home unadorned. He took his foot halfway from the gas and tried to imagine what would happen. If he made a left on Fieldcrest he could circle around and park at the top of Druid Lane. From there he would be certain to run into Mrs. Martin again. Would she actually see him? Or would she merely shout hello and wave her flashlight in greeting as she jogged past? He could, he supposed, stop in for a drink at the Bellmans’. By now there would be a single light burning in the living room as they had the first of several nightcaps. Would they invite him in? Could he sit comfortably in the shadows, unobserved? Would they be sober enough to see he was naked? Even if they were, what would happen then? Would the village policeman haul him before a magistrate? Would he be fined and warned not to do it again? Would that be the end of it? Would everyone simply forget? He pulled the car into his own driveway, turned off the engine and shut the car door as quietly as he could. Inside, he whispered to no one in particular, “I'm home.” Normally he inspected the house from bottom to top, testing all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked, but tonight he made the tour in reverse, starting with the bedrooms. The boys were sleeping peacefully. In his own room, Louise turned over and mumbled something in her sleep, something that sounded snappish and short, then began again a slow, quiet breathing. Downstairs, the streetlight filtered through the elm dappled the walls, making them seem as flimsy as a silkscreen. He stood still a moment and the solution came to him. He took off his pants and underwear and left them on the floor by the front door. Between the Lawsons’ house and Patti’s lay four others besides the Hendersons’ — the Baldwins’, the Paleys’, the McAlisters’, the Reeds’ — all with pools. Those must be the four she still had to do. Before leaving he walked into the living room, naked, and took the ball point and a piece of paper from the pad by the phone. On his way back he’d stop at the Hendersons’ and leave a note — just the names of those four not yet consecrated pools — in her bag. ■ 6 Clinton St. Quarterly
Seattle's Finest Desserts Creations from silky smooth Italian gelati, made fresh daily with pure fruit and nut flavors. Also Dilettante Chocolates, Pacific Dessert Company cakes, espresso and juices. G Geppcttos • " Gelateria Seattle’s Finest Desserts First 8c Yesler O pen T-Th, 12-12, Fri & Sat 'til lam UNDER ONE BILLION SOLD Charbroiled Burgers Delectable Sandwiches rfreenlake You’re invited to Seattle Culinary Festival ’82 A three-day gourmet jubilee! Tempt your tastebuds, please your palate, sharpen your cooking skills, broaden your epicurean horizons. Learn more about food than you ever thought possible at Seattle Culinary Festival ’82, a three-day gourmet jubilee — where you can taste, touch and try the finest foods, products and services the culinary world has to offer. It’s the biggest culinary showcase ever in the Pacific Northwest. The largest gathering of the very best, for gourmet and novice, food student and food lover. Here are just a few of the highlights: Take FREE cooking lessons, meet celebrity guests. GRAHAM KERR the former Galloping Gourmet, will be on hand all three days of the Festival with autographed copies of his new book, The Graham Kerr Step-by- Step Cookbook. MICHAEL JACKSON world expert on beer, will also be appearing at the Festival. His latest book is The Pocket Guide to Beer. Sponsored by Morgan’s Lakeplace Bar and Grill. PIERRE FRANEY author of Pierre Franey’s Kitchen and More of the 60-Minute Gourmet, will also be at the Festival to help you sharpen your cooking skills. PERLA MEYERS author of The Seasonal Kitchen. Perla’s appearance is sponsored by Nalley Fine Foods and Bernstein Salad Dressings. Co-sponsored by KOMOAMIOOO For tickets, call MTJCKETIYIRSTER toll free 1-800-562-4988 ST • For exhibit information, call: 1-206-682-3366 (must be 21 years or older) Frittatas Weekend Specials CreDes Hand-dipped Shakes Fresh-cut Fries Breakfast Daily featuring: Homemade Blueberry Muffins & Savory Omelettes 7918 East Greenlake Drive North Hours: Mon-Fri 7 am - 9 pm For take-out orders, phone 523-4747 Sat-Sun 8 am - 9 pm October 29-30-31,1982 Seattle Trade Center Seattle, Washington Fri. 11 AM-10 PM Saturday 11 AM-10 PM Sunday 11 AM-6 PM A portion of the proceeds to benefit The Seattle Symphony Clinton St. Quarterly 7
MlfLEn By Paul Loeb V .nder the Manhattan Project's auspices, the world's first controlled chain reaction took, place on December 2, 1942, in the Stagg Pield test facility o f Chicago's Metallurgical Laboratory. The laboratory's scientists had already begun developing methods to separate out the plutonium that would be created in this reaction. And because it appeared as if an atomic weapon could be created either from plutonium or from the scarce uranium isotope U-235, the project’s directors decided to pursue both approaches simultaneously. They found an assembly site for the actual weapons at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Special facilities were to be built at the already existing research site of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to separate out the U-235 from the far more common isotope U-238. Now the project needed a secure and geographically distanced location for the reactors that would produce the weapons-grade plutonium. They found this isolation at Hanford, along with access to ample cooling water from the Columbia, to transcontinental rail transport from the Northern Pacific line that ran through the nearby town of Pasco and to nearly unlimited electrical power from the recently completed Grand Coulee Dam. When Army surveyors arrived in January 1943 to dig holes and test the bedrock for geological stability, local residents joked about forthcoming bonanzas from oil leases. But on February 23, a federal judge issued an expropriation order under the War Powers Act. A few days later curt notices arrived, giving the 1500 farmers — who had been cultivating irrigated orchards and vineyards in the valley surrounding the old towns of Hanford and White Bluffs — from fifteen to thirty days to leave their homes. Like the Japanese forced to relocate to Manzanar, they had no time to argue or resist. A few were permitted to return and complete their harvests, or, if they took Hanford jobs, to remain temporarily in houses on the edge of what was now officially the Hanford Engineering Works. A few defended their land briefly with shotguns. But the bulldozers, which the farmers referred to later as “them giant scoopmobiles,” knocked down the houses and barns. Workers began immediate construction. Follow-up letters explained that even shrubs and trees were now government property and could not be removed. Because the Manhattan Project did not have massive numbers of personnel directly under its command, it worked through the Army Corps of Engineers, and the engineers brought in the Du Pont corporation as the prime contractor to build and operate three plutonium production reactors and the accompanying facilities for separations, processing and fuel manufacture. Du Pont recruited the necessary workers from their existing, non-nuclear facilities in other states and from War Manpower Commission ads printed in newspapers and posted at government institutions throughout the country. Since the Hanford project was top secret, the incoming men and women were told only that they were going to a nameless eastern Washington location where they would earn high wages, have living facilities provided and make an important contribution to the war effort. They came by train or car — one man had 37 flat tires on the way up from Borger, Texas — and settled down in a newly built construction camp along with 45,000 other workers. Richland had no poor, no old and no unemployed. Crime was almost nonexistent — from 1945 to 1947 the localjail did not hold a single prisoner. “Nuclear Culture” is an excerpt from the book Nuclear Culture by Seattle writer Paul Loeb. These early impressions open the door for an examination of the present-day Hanford Project and Richland. It is published by Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., New York, 1982. Like any construction boomtown anywhere, the Hanford camp had its brawling, gambling and drinking, so much so that Walter Winchell aroused the ire of the security people by suggesting in a column that mothers prohibit their daughters from coming here. Workers ate in huge mess halls, loading their plates from giant platters of pork chops and steaks and holding the platters up to be refilled each time they emptied. They took ten days to build a 4,000-person recreation hall, then attended movies in it and danced to top visiting performers like Kay Kyser, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman. Except for families living in a 4,000-unit trailer camp, men and women slept in separate, racially segregated barracks, with fences surrounding those for the women. Because of this, local fire8 Clinton St. Quarterly
CULTURE But while Hanford employees willingly worked their overtime shifts, put up with the slapdash accommodations and suffered through the twomen blew their whistles each time they returned to their empty stations so as to chase out trysting couples, and there were rumors of midnight liaisons through fences. Nonworking wives had to remain back home or seek lodging in nearby farm towns. The Mystery Project n many ways, the spirit existing during Hanford’s war years would never again be equaled. Since blueprints were often completed just before each new machine system was to be built and were usually classified, supervisors relayed their specifications through They worried more about the practical questions of whether or not their machines would work than they did about how they would be used in the international confrontations whose ethics they left to the politicians and the preachers. oral instructions or crude drawings. Though this made each task more difficult, it also heightened the sense of being part of an urgent mission. Each job — whether milling the graphite blocks, bonding aluminum claddings on the uranium fuel rods, creating radiation-sensing instruments or designing remote control equipment to extract plutonium from the spent fuel — offered challenges to ingenuity, craftsmanship and skill. Whatever the mysterious product being created here, its use would help defeat a.barbaric enemy now threatening the world. (As an extra sacrifice, the Hanford men and women chipped in a percentage of their wages to finance an Air Force B-17 which was then named Day’s Pay.) The work provided a sense of purpose far beyond that offered in normal daily life. hour daily rides on the buses which the project provided, they were frustrated not knowing what it was they were creating. The construction workers, as well as the engineers and scientists, worked on specific tasks and asked no unnecessary questions. Both groups were prohibited from discussing their jobs even with spouses or friends from other crews. Less than a fifth of the operations people knew the end product of their work, and most guessed it was bombs or munitions — or perhaps some mysterious superfuel derived from the thousands of graphite blocks brought in to build the reactor core. A standard joke was that Hanford was making “fourth- term Roosevelt campaign buttons.” But when one worker took a graphite sliver into the mess hall and showed it to friends from another department, he was gone the next day — arrested by Military Intelligence. M.l. also opened mail and listened in on long-distance phone calls to ensure no revealing information was released. They had Enrico Fermi come through under the name Henry Farmer and Arthur Compton under that of A. Comas to hide the nature of the atomic product. They checked the background of each Hanford worker and even classified the amount of beer consumed so spies couldn’t determine the project’s size by the number of employees present. Monitors did warn the workers about radioactivity by timing them in “hot zones,” measuring them for contamination and generally watching out for their safety. Rules prohibited eating in work areas, mandated the wearing of dosimeters to log radiation exposure, and required medical inspection for even minor cuts that radioactive substances might have entered. Workers were forbidden to use the Boraxo soap which — because the boron it contained was the same as that in the reactor control rods — might contaminate the graphite and prevent a chain reaction from taking place. But the explanations of radioactivity were usually limited to vague comparisons with X-rays. When an instrument team developed a radiation detection device they named Pluto, after Disney’s constantly sniffing dog, project head General Leslie Groves decided it sounded too much like plutonium and made them change the name. But if the security rules were frustrating, they removed from most Hanford workers the burden of judging the wisdom of what they were creating. Simply assuming that their efforts were necessary to win the war, they could immerse themselves in details. They could take pride in having overcome the harsh environment, the pressure and awkward restrictions to meet an unprecedented technical challenge. They had the satisfaction of carrying out a job they were asked to do. r On July 16, 1945, the world’s first Clinton St. Quarterly 9
atomic explosion took place at Alamogordo, New Mexico, using a bomb made from Hanford plutonium. Since Germany had already surrendered and Japan never had developed a real atomic program, many top scientists (including Leo Szilard, future Atomic Energy Commission head Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Prize winner James Franck and Einstein) tried to have the weapon demonstrated in an uninhabited location rather than have it be employed against a human population. But the project, originally begun to neutralize a potential external threat, had now produced a destructive device so powerful that those who made the final decisions felt it would be folly not to use it to end the war. With a bomb made of Oak Ridge U-235 that fell on Hiroshima, and one of Hanford plutonium that was dropped on Nagasaki, the atomic era had its first public presence. Perhaps because theirs was more exclusively a production facility than were the theoretical labs of Chicago or Los Alamos, most men and women at Hanford knew nothing of the debates over their product’s use — and even those aware of what they were creating kept any apprehensions to themselves. Instead the workers heard the news of the bombs, realized their part in them and celebrated with cheering, laughing and champagne parties far into the night. No one considered until much later what other choices might have been possible. Taming the Atom With the end of the war, Hanford workers at last knew the product they had been creating. Turning their attention to peaceful applications, they discussed the possibilities of an atomic energy so limitless that users might not even have to meter it and debated whether it would be generated from the now wasted thermal energy of reactors, or whether some yet-to-be-invented process would enable electrons loosed in nuclear reactions to directly charge high- tension power lines. They received certificates signed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson thanking them for participating “in work essential to the production of the Atomic Bomb, thereby contributing to the successful conclusion of World War II,” and letters from Du Pont’s president expressing a similar message. With the newly formed AEC now the government body in charge, and with General Electric replacing Du Pont as prime contractor, Richland became known, to the local papers and many of its residents, as Atomic City. At the same time Hanford’s high- security atmosphere persisted. Engineers destroyed rough drafts, carbons and even typewriter ribbons used in preparing classified technical reports. They were still forbidden to talk about specific projects to their families or to workers lacking proper clearance. Billboards lining the road to the plants spelled out, in sequence, “Caution, Engage Brain Before Starting Mouth,” “A Secret Can Circle the Globe Without Refueling” and “Alcohol Preserves Almost Anything Except a Secret.” Later on Hanford’s old hands would decide the restrictions had created a public eternally frightened about basically unexceptional technical processes. But with Klaus Fuchs giving away atomic secrets to the Kremlin, Winston Churchill warning about an Iron Curtain falling across Europe and columns in the Kennewick-based Tri-City Herald revealing how profession after profession had been exposed before the House Un-American Activities Committee for harboring Communists, Hanford’s workers accepted readily the rules of silence. To a degree, the very horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki impelled unquestioning, unflagging efforts at Hanford. The A-bomb was the weapon which could have been used on us. It was the weapon which America’s skill, vision and integrity had instead created first (or which the Lord had granted us, thought some of the more religious workers). We could allow no other nation to brandish a more powerful version of it against us. The men who founded Hanford considered themselves, in often-repeated words, “doers, not thinkers.” That judgment had nothing to with intellect — they were as savvy as any of their predecessors in America’s long history of backyard inventors. But taking time to sort out the complex implications of their work would distract them from the building and creating they prized above everything else. They assumed their efforts fueled In December of 1958, Richland became its own incorporated town at a ceremony attended by Governor Albert Rossellini and Senators Henry ‘‘Scoop ’' Jackson and Warren Magnuson and capped by the setting off of a mock atomic bomb. American progress toward increased strength and security, and they felt proud to provide for their families through good respectable jobs. They worried more about the practical questions of whether or not their machines would work than they did about how they would be used in the international confrontations whose ethics they left to the politicians and the preachers. The old hands felt a joy in mastering the newly unleashed powers of atomic fission through an alchemical meld of parts, materials and purpose, a satisfaction in pioneering a desert once fit only for rattlesnakes and The A-bomb was the weapon which could have been used on us. It was the weapon which America's skill, vision and integrity had instead createdfirst (or which the Lord had granted us, thought some o fthe more religious workers). We could allow no other nation to brandish a more powerful version o f it against us. jackrabbits, and a sense of worth in creating working technical monuments that wduld endure long after the men who built them were gone. It was true that the nuclear stars — men such as Oppenheimer, Fermi, Szilard and Teller — were based not here but at Los Alamos, Oak Ridge and Chicago, and in part because of this Hanford never became as publicly known as did the other sites. But for all that theoretical foundations were developed elsewhere, it was in these reactors by the Columbia that nuclear technology became an industrial process, and that the men who manufactured plutonium, not in micrograms but in pounds and later hundreds of pounds, laid the ground for the massive atomic establishment America was soon to develop. Because the atomic industry would end up being staffed not by world-renowned physicists but by ordinary engineers and technicians, Hanford became the prototype for a nuclear future in terms of human as well as technical arrangements. To “tame” atomic processes was to bring them from the realm of the unexplored to that of the pedestrian and routine. The Tinkerers Clark Reitnauer transferred to Hanford in March of 1944 from Du Pont’s heavy-water plant in Morgantown, West Virginia. A supervisor there had already taught him about high-level security by telling him, “One word about what we’re doing here, and I’ll have you incarcerated for the rest of the war.” When his wife suggested, out of the blue, that Hanford might be making an atom bomb, he envisioned her telling people and himself jailed, then spent three days explaining how she was being ridiculous. Clark began here building special planes and lathes to fabricate the B, D and F reactor graphite, then worked on a variety of radiation-monitoring instruments, including the one abortively named “Pluto.” Although he came to Hanford without a college background — he supplemented his high school education with night school and correspondence courses in mechanical engineering — Clark developed 16 patents and was a senior engineer at United Nuclear by the time he retired in 1977. When I asked if working with atomic reactions differed from basement tinkering, Clark said it was at first “a little mystifying and scary.” But he adjusted quickly to entering hot zones so he could test the new systems he’d developed. He knew the dose limits were sufficiently low so no hazard existed. Even the year he was high man in terms of exposure didn’t really worry him. “I guess the monitors must have metered me wrong,” Clark explained when I asked how this happened, but he said the annual dose allowable was normally three REMs and five as an absolute limit (REM stands for Roentgen Equivalent Man — a unit of radiation exposure that factors in the biological damage created by different radioactive emissions) — and that the dosimeter in his badge indicated he’d ended up with more than five. Since the international limit was 15, that didn’t bother him. “But they had to file an AEC report, and they called me on the carpet just as if I’d broken the traffic laws by speeding.” An IdealFamily Town Despite the massive military enterprise supportingjt, to its residents Richland was the atomic age equivalent of a homey small town. Since no one was allowed to live here except Hanford employees, their families and a few merchants running stores under government contract, Richland had no poor, no old and no unemployed. Crime was almost nonesis- tent — from 1945 to 1947 the local jail did not hold a single prisoner. Richland even had its own mascot, a jaunty potato-headed cartoon figure in overalls named Dupus Boomer (Dupus referring to Du Pont), who appeared each week in the Richland Villager, chasing after the trash cans which the termination winds blew down the block, looking out at the desert while his kid asked, “Pop, how far away are we from the United States?” and joking with the local barber about all the “long-hair” scientists in town. That Hanford’s workers considered themselves “a fine class of people” testified not to any snobbery, but to optimism and innocence. In a 1952 League of Women Voters survey only half the respondents considered Richland their permanent home. But just as Hanford’s plutonium manufacture became routine, so Richland slowly shed its makeshift character and began striving, almost like Pinocchio, to become a real town in the mainstream world. At times this desire took the form of strutting. Atomic Frontier Days began in 1948 as an annual Westernstyle celebration. Movie stars visited, the men put on fake beards and held a male beauty contest, and local organizations used wire, crepe paper and paint to turn cars and trucks into elaborate floats. A diaper service built a huge winged stork. Mother Hubbard and her children proclaimed the merits of a shoe store. Members of Rainbow Girls dressed in an array of spectacular hues. Judges picked Miss Richland, one year selecting local belle and future Hollywood actress Sharon Tate. The Navy’s Blue Angel jets performed acrobatics overhead. A ground parade showcased tanks, howitzers and Nike missiles from the protective base on top of Rattlesnake Mountain; the high school sports teams, the Richland Bombers, rode by in their yellow and green colors displaying a finned metal bomb. Gradually Richland moved toward becoming a normal single-industry town. Electric meters were installed, then water meters. A 1955 advisory ballot on self-government lost by 500 votes. The AEC decided to sell the property anyway, for 50 percent of appraised value and, in 1956, 1500 residents gathered at the Bomber Bowl to protest the appraisals running too high. A delegation flew to Washington, D.C., to work out compromise prices. The houses were finally offered at bargain rates. In December of 1958, Richland became its own incorporated town at a ceremony attended by Governor Albert Rossellini and Senators Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Warren Magnuson and capped by the setting off of a mock atomic bomb. Because Richland was in part just a small rural town, its kids went hiking and swimming and rode their bikes all around the sagebrush terrain. They hung ropes from alphabet-lettered 10 Clinton St. Quarterly
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