I broke the silence.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted. “In New York, they have street surveillance, but this shit is going too far. Cameras right in our own house.”
“Jacob, calm down,” Megan said.
“Megan! C’mon. People can expect reasonable goddamn privacy in their own houses, can’t they?”
“Maybe in Nebraska the laws are different,” Megan said.
“No,” I said. I was beginning to shake with anger. “You can’t ever do something like this in someone’s house.”
Then I exploded: “That’s illegal!”
I looked at the tiny camera in my hand, then flung it with all my strength toward the garage door. I heard the crack, the immediate shattering of the pieces.
I rushed into the house. When a man goes beyond mad, he becomes a madman.
Megan and the kids were right behind me.
I looked around the kitchen. I began studying the ceiling and the tops of cabinets. In the tiny space between the Sub-Zero fridge and the appliance garage, where the industrial-size mixer was stored, was another camera. I wedged my fingers into the tiny space and pulled it out.
“That’s illegal!” I yelled.
I found another camera in the window over the very sink where I’d been doing the dishes.
“That’s illegal!” I yelled.
In the front hallway was a camera over the coat closet, perfect for recording guests.
“That’s illegal!” I shouted.
Room to room. Lindsay was sobbing. Megan was as angry as I was.
Over the living-room fireplace.
“That’s illegal!”
Behind the corner cabinet in the dining room.
“That’s illegal!”
As I bounded up the stairs, Lindsay said, “They’re probably watching you bust up their camera stuff.”
“Let them. What the hell do I care? And you know why?” I yelled as I yanked a camera from the medicine cabinet in the kids’ bathroom.
“Because that’s illegal!”
From our bedroom to the attic. From the guest room to the playroom.
“Illegal! Illegal!”
We stood—a sweaty, crazed group of four—in the center of the playroom. The ghost of a video game made an occasional gargle on the TV screen. The silent furnace in the utility room cast a long shadow on the playroom floor. We surveyed the room. We were like the four-man crew of a ship that had survived a terrible storm.
“You think we got them all?” Megan asked.
The truthful answer would have been “No, I don’t,” but my wife and kids seemed scared enough.
I said, “Yeah, probably.”
We sat at the bottom of the basement staircase. We were covered with perspiration. I was gasping for breath. There were a good sixty seconds of silence.
“What now?” Lindsay asked.
“Now we wait,” I said. “It’s their move.”
Chapter 8
WE ALL slept badly.
I can’t recall how many times Megan and I turned our heads and asked each other “Are you still awake?”
Or how many times I walked into Alex’s room and said, “Either lower the music or use your earbuds.”
No one was hungry for breakfast. Not even Alex, who’s never been known to turn down food.
“How about we all take a drive and check out the downtown area?” I said.
I didn’t expect anyone to agree to my suggestion. But Lindsay said, “Why not?” and Alex said, “I guess,” and Megan gave a shrug that meant “Might as well.” Okay, not an enthusiastic majority, but a majority nonetheless.
It was a quick drive from our house to downtown New Burg. No one brought up the surveillance cameras from the night before. Maybe we felt that if we didn’t acknowledge it, then it didn’t really happen. Or maybe we were just too spooked to dwell on it.
Ten minutes later we were standing at the corner of Brick Street and Mortar Street.
Alex gently punched Lindsay in the arm and mockingly said, “Brick and Mortar. Get it, dummy?”
“Of course I get it, you idiot,” Lindsay said.
“Stop it, both of you,” Megan said. “It’s too hot to argue.”
“Damn. It really is hot. Like a dry sauna,” I said.
“Really different from New York,” Alex said.
“No humidity,” I said.
Not many other people were out walking. We all noticed that. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe.
We walked slowly. The combination of the intense heat and the perfect quaintness of the town was somehow hypnotizing. The town looked like an exquisitely built movie set—a movie from, say, the 1950s. A barbershop with a striped pole outside. A drugstore with a large brass apothecary scale in the window. A noble-looking First Bank of New Burg with what appeared to be real marble pillars at its entrance.
We walked silently, my eyes occasionally glancing up toward the street signs and the tops of small buildings in search of surveillance cameras. I was slowly becoming a man obsessed.
Something was strange about this downtown. We all felt it. But Megan was the first to put it into words.
“How many people do you see on the street?” she asked.
We looked around us.
“Fifteen,” I said. “Not counting us.”
“And how old do they look to you?” Megan asked.
We got it immediately. They were all old. Everyone was over seventy, some of them probably in their eighties. White-haired widows in pink-and-white pantsuits. Knobby-kneed old men in polyester shorts and imitation Lacoste shirts. One woman with a walker. One woman in a motorized wheelchair. A few old guys with canes.
“It all makes sense,” I said. “That’s why this downtown area exists—for the old people who just couldn’t make the adjustment to the brave new world of the Store.”
While drones hovered overhead, while the Store planned the techno-invasion of all consumer consumption, there remained a group of people who simply were not going to be part of it.
Clearly this downtown area had been created to soothe and seduce the elderly—people who did not want to use a Command key or an Option key. These were people who had to touch the oranges and smell the flowers and try on the shoes before they bought them. So the Store built a little town just for them. The Store knew it would be temporary; that sooner rather than later these old folks would die, and the world would be left to a new generation that could handle an iPad and a laptop and a cell phone at the same time.
We walked the wide wooden sidewalks. Inside the Drug Store, an elderly couple—he in baggy chinos, she in a very loose powder-blue caftan—sat at the counter. They each were drinking a chocolate malted. Behind the counter was a soda jerk from central casting—a bony young guy with rolled-up sleeves, a white apron, and a paper cap.
As we walked past the Jewelry Store, its window filled with charm bracelets and Timex watches, wedding bands and tiny diamond solitaire necklaces, two women passed us. Age guess? Both around seventy-five, both wearing billowing pants that looked like skirts (Megan later told me these items were called culottes). They both had very shiny silver hair and smiled when they saw us.
“Well, if it isn’t the Brandeis family!” one of them said.
Before we could respond, the other woman announced our names as if she were a schoolteacher taking attendance.
“Megan, Jacob, Alex, and Lindsay.”
“Yes, that’s us,” said Megan. “But how did you—”
“I meant to come by yesterday,” the first woman said.
“I’ll be over this week with a walnut streusel coffee cake, my specialty. So nice to meet you all,” the second woman said, although they had never told us their names. Then they walked on briskly, still chuckling.
We four also kept walking. When we passed the Hardware Store, two very old men carrying cans of paint, folded tarps, and paint rollers tipped the visors on their baseball caps.
Almost in unison they said, “Welcome to New Burg, Mrs. B
randeis…Mr. Brandeis.” Then they walked on.
We walked past a few more stores. The main street of town was almost ending. The last store sign said THE PIZZA STORE. Every shop had the word store in its name.
A drone was headed skyward, carrying a stack of four pizza boxes.
Then a big hulking blond guy walked out of the pizza place carrying two pizza boxes. He was wearing cut-off jeans, a white T-shirt, and a baseball cap with the letter N imprinted on the front.
“Hey, man, watch the door,” he said. His voice was deep and surly. He paused, then he broke into a big wide smile.
“Jacob, my man. I didn’t realize it was you.”
“It’s all good,” I said.
“I’m sorry, man. Is this the brood?”
“Uh, yeah. My family.”
“Good to see you, gang. Jake’s my man.”
Then the big guy hit me gently on my shoulder and walked away.
Before anyone could ask, I said, “No! I have absolutely no idea who that guy was. But by the way, does anyone know what the N on his hat stands for?”
Lindsay had an answer.
“University of Nebraska?”
“No,” I said. “It stands for knowledge.”
All three of them groaned. I didn’t even wait for the question Lindsay and Alex were about to ask. I simply said, “Listen. I don’t know how they know our names. They just do. Maybe there’s, like, a new arrivals section in the local paper. Maybe they all work for Welcome Wagon or saw our names on a church bulletin board.”
Or maybe, I thought, it could be something else. I just didn’t know what.
Chapter 9
“HEY, LOOK!” Alex said as he pointed across the street.
I hoped for something interesting, and I guess it was interesting—for him. Alex had spotted the Army and Navy Store.
“Let’s check it out,” I said.
So with no cars coming from either direction, we crossed the street. The kids crossed the street ahead of us and waited outside the store. As Megan and I stepped onto the sidewalk, we heard it before we saw it: a police car with a flashing light and siren.
A cop, fleshy and pink-faced, stepped out of the car. He was smiling ever so slightly.
“Mr. Brandeis, isn’t it?” the cop said. Like everyone else in New Burg, he was determined to be impeccably polite.
“Uh…yeah,” I said.
He looked at Megan, tipped an imaginary hat toward her, and said, “Good morning to you, too, Mrs. Brandeis.”
“Good morning,” Megan said softly.
“Do you folks realize you just broke the law?”
“We did?” Megan said.
“Jaywalking is against the law here,” the officer said. I wanted to say, “You’ve got to be kidding,” but the cop, though polite, was also deadly serious.
“Well, there were no cars. So we thought…” I realized that I was foolish to say anything.
“Mr. Brandeis, a law is a law. A rule is a rule.”
I nodded. But the officer wasn’t finished talking.
“Jaywalking. That’s illegal.”
Megan and I looked at each other. I saw the fear in her eyes.
“Maybe in New York City they flaunt the law,” he said. (I thought this would be a bad time to tell him that the correct verb was flout, not flaunt.)
He went on. “But here in New Burg, if you don’t follow the rules, well…that’s illegal.”
“But…we…”
“No problem, Mr. Brandeis. Let’s just call this conversation…a warning?”
He tipped his imaginary hat once again.
“Welcome to New Burg,” he said, and he got back in the patrol car and sped off.
We stood silently for a few seconds. We pretended we were looking at the bomber jackets and khaki cargo pants in the store window.
Then my daughter turned and put her arms around me. She hugged me tightly, and I could feel her tears against my chest. It was her brother, however, who spoke next.
“We’re scared, Dad. This isn’t fun. This is no fun at all.”
They were too old for the usual parental bullshit. I couldn’t say, “Oh, c’mon, there’s nothing to be scared about.” I couldn’t say, “Whaddya mean ‘no fun’? What about the goofball guy with the baseball cap? This crazy old cop was like something from a movie. Nothing to be scared of.”
Instead I said, “I know how you feel. I’m scared, too.”
Alex put his arms around my side. Megan moved toward me and touched my face. Then Megan spoke.
“Of course we’re all scared.”
My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Now, there’s one smart and wonderful woman.
Chapter 10
MEGAN AND I were absolute suckers for old bookstores and old libraries. So when we saw the words NEW BURG FREE LIBRARY engraved on a sign in front of a small redbrick building, we smiled knowingly at each other and headed to the library’s white front door.
The library was open. We walked in.
An old-fashioned feather duster sat on the tall wooden checkout desk. But apparently the duster had not been used in quite a while; a thin layer of dust covered just about every surface.
I counted ten rows of dark wood shelves. A random survey of the library collection indicated that there was nothing much that had been published after the 1930s. I saw a lot of Sinclair Lewis—Babbitt, Main Street, Dodsworth. I saw a few old bestsellers—Grand Hotel, Back Street, Saratoga Trunk. Megan pointed out a big selection of Agatha Christie and a small selection of William Faulkner. But none of the books seemed to have ever been opened. When I took down a copy of Gone with the Wind, the spine of the book cracked gently; the pages were pristine.
“Megan! Jacob!” A crisp, stern woman’s voice shot through the room.
The voice rang out again: “I’m in the home crafts and culinary section. Don’t move. I know where you are.”
So we did not move. I just turned to Megan and said, “Oh, shit: we’re probably in trouble again.”
Walking around the end of the fiction section was a woman about forty years old. Her hair was pulled back. She wore a simple gray linen smock, and her face was so plain that I could not tell if she was smiling or scowling.
“I’m Deb Borelli. I’m the librarian.”
“And you seem to know who we are,” Megan said.
“Everybody knows everybody in New Burg,” she said. Maybe there was the start of a smile on her face.
“I see,” I said. As if what she had said was actually an explanation.
“May I answer any questions you might have?”
I had a thousand questions. Why was the library empty? Why was the library dirty? Why were there no books less than seventy-five years old? Why does everybody recognize us and know our names? Why are only old people walking the downtown streets?
“No. I don’t have any questions, but thank you,” Megan said. “Jacob? Any questions for Ms. Borelli?”
“Oh, please,” the librarian said. “I hate the word Ms. It tells you absolutely nothing about a woman.”
I wanted to say, “Well, that’s the whole point,” but I was learning to keep my smart mouth shut in New Burg. Megan was much better about it than I was.
“So is it Miss or Mrs.?” Megan asked.
Now the librarian smiled. It was gracious. I was certain that it was also phony.
“Not Miss. It’s Mrs.”
“Oh, you’re married?” Megan said.
“Yes, I’m married.”
Ever the charmer, I said, “Well, no doubt we’ll meet Mr. Borelli one of these days.”
The librarian spoke.
“No. You won’t.”
Uh-oh—a divorce or a death. I stepped in it again.
“My husband’s been transferred,” she said.
There was a silence. Deb Borelli’s face was vacant. Her eyes looked back and forth between Megan and me. I decided to say something.
“Transferred. What exactly does that mean?”
Her e
yes narrowed. Her chin quivered a tiny bit. Then she spoke.
“He’s…been transferred.”
Never content to make a small mistake, I then turned it into a big mistake.
“What do you mean by ‘transferred’?” I said.
“What I mean is: he’s not here anymore.”
She turned quickly and began to walk away. “You’ll have to excuse me now.”
Chapter 11
WE WERE tired and angry and nervous when we returned to our car. So as I drove we did what every normal American family does: we argued like idiots and got on one another’s nerves.
“Why don’t you sit in the back for a change, Mom?” Alex said. He had a definite snarkiness in his voice. And I really was not in the mood for it.
“Your mother always sits in the front,” I said. “That’s the rule. So don’t start.”
“That time we drove to Albany she didn’t sit in the front,” he said.
Lindsay joined the action.
“That’s because you acted like a baby and lied. You said you were getting carsick when you weren’t. You’ve never gotten carsick in your life.”
“I get carsick whenever I look at you,” Alex answered.
Suddenly (and unexpectedly) Megan exploded.
“Stop it. Both of you. Just stop it. Only imbeciles would argue about where we should sit in the goddamn car.”
To ward off a potential escalation, I said, “And don’t either of you make a joke or an insult about ‘only imbeciles.’”
Before I or anyone else could say anything, I saw a flashing light in the rearview mirror. It was accompanied by a siren.
“What the hell is that for?” I said. Then, almost reflexively, I pulled onto the shoulder of the road. I shifted the car into Park, and I rechecked the rearview mirror.
Oh, it was definitely a police car, and the red light was still flashing.
Alex and Lindsay were taking turns shouting, “What’s happening?” and “What’s going on?”
“Don’t turn around!” I yelled, and I really had no idea why I said that. I squinted hard, alternating my gaze between the rearview and the side-view mirror.