Earthquake I.D. by John Domini

soldiers in a second vehicle. This escort looked serious, bulked up in powder-blue helmets and vests, with a semi-automatic and a pistol each. But Barbara and the kids rode weapon-free. So it appeared, anyway; the mother couldn’t help wondering about what the liaison man wore under his jacket. A white jacket, this time, and before the abbreviated caravan set off, as he’d huddled with the soldiers, he’d kept touching his lapel. His lapel or whatever he carried under it.
    â€œActually,” the man was saying now, “out in your father’s camp you’ll find some folks believe that kind of thing. These people, they’ll fall for every kind of superstition you could name.”
    These people? Barbara looked to Paul, but he’d cupped his eyes against the tinted window. Her Lakota child, following the buffalo.
    â€œFor this population,” Kahlberg continued, “a lot of them anyway, the quake set off, mn, millennial fever. You understand?”
    Chris turned from the window. “They thought it was like, The Rapture?”
    â€˜You got it, son. Some of these old boys, they figured it was the end of the world. That quake, it did leave them at the end of their ropes, anyhow.”
    Was that a reference to Jay’s near-kidnap? A desperate stunt at the end of someone’s rope, the day before yesterday?
    Barb and Kahlberg had been circling the subject since she’d first gotten in touch to set up the visit. This morning too, though the mother had taken care not to sound nervous in front of the children, she’d fished for a guarantee that she wasn’t exposing them to real danger. Give the liaison credit, he’d said all the right things. He’d echoed the children’s father almost word for word.
    Papa swore that the worst weapon brandished against him had been a piece of kitchenware. Also his would-be kidnappers never even got off the campgrounds, let alone came close to a getaway car—and not because the former Fordham lineman had put up much of a struggle, either. Rather, Jay explained, other Center refugees had stepped in. The people on the Jaybird’s side had far outnumbered the troublemakers, a handful of clandestini only. Five or six young men, no more, claimed they acted out of solidarity with a downtown group on hunger strike.
    Pretty strange, hey? , the father had said. A hunger strike in Naples .
    Barbara, listening, sensed a different sort of urgency in her man’s chatter. His hope for the marriage, that’s what she heard, a hope bucked up by the mere mention of a family trip to the Center. So his storytelling came across as one part brag, one part gee-whiz, and overall nothing to be frightened of During the brief struggle, he assured them, a crowd of refugees had surrounded the would-be abductors and made sure il capo Americano never suffered a scratch. By the time the carabinieri had picked up Barbara outside the church, the worst was over. By the time Jay was through talking, that night, the whole business had dwindled to nothing more than another story about Papa’s job. And like all such stories it came with a moral.
    My people in the tents , the husband declared, they’ve seen enough destruction .
    At the opposite end of the table, Barbara drained her wine. She liked the taste anyway, a local vintage, the Tears of Christ.
    Destruction , Jay went on, that’s never the answer .
    Yet here she was two mornings later, en route to her husband’s worksite. It hadn’t escaped Barbara’s notice, either, that the Jaybird had traveled with an armed guard these last couple of mornings. His helmet-ck-vest shared the same car. Plus what did it tell her when their NATO liaison suggested that the mother and the kids wait a couple of hours after the father left, before they headed to the camp themselves? Nevertheless here she sat, ignoring the itch between her legs, more of her husband’s recklessness. She sat there and