George Higgins - A change of gravity

"And then after I get through with that, the one on the third floor, then the downstairs hall." Brody paused again. When he resumed talking his voice was noticeably louder. "No, doggone it. Will you just listen to me? Just once will you listen what it is I'm trynah tell you? I keep trying to tell you things all the time, and it always seems like I can't get any place, ever make you listen: you can only do one thing at a time, all right? One thing at a time."

He paused long enough to take a breath. Merrion closed his fist and hit the door. The tone of Brody's voice changed; it took on a conciliatory note. "Because look here now, all right? I'm not sure you actually realize this, but there's a lot of work to do around this place here all the time, a helluva lotta work. Really. Anna people who own the property, you know, that four guys trust? They all live around here. It's not like with Florentine Gardens, say, or Falls Estates, owners're from alia cross the country and never even see the places. Something starts to go those places, you got some time before you really hafta fix it. Owners never see how bad you've let it get, just as long's the checks keep comin'. The four guys on this trust're different, all local. People own this place're here. We cut too many corners, it starts to look rundown, drivin' by they'll see it. Kick us out and hire new management. You and I're outta jobs, or I at least would be. So consequently what that does, it really keeps me hoppin' all the time around here. Day and night it seems like, sometimes.

This's not a well-built building. It needs a lot of maintenance, just to keep it operating. And that's not allowing for any improvements here, either that's just trying to keep it up, trying to stay even."

Merrion, now interested, lowered his fist and leaned his left shoulder against the door frame, crossing his arms.

The sound of conciliation in Brody's voice became pleading. "And sometimes you know, even though I'm doing that, workin' day and night, it just seems as though it's never gonna be enough. I get so that I start in thinkin': "No, it's no use. It's never gonna be no use. No matter what I ever do, I cannot keep up." But even though I think that, I still keep on trying. Because I know that no matter what I do, if it's the best I can do then my conscience will be clear. And if it isn't all right, Ginny, that's just gonna be too bad, because it's all that I can do." He paused.

Merrion looked at his watch, grew impatient and rapped twice again.

"Yeah," Brody said, adding urgency to his tone, "I know that. I realize all that; I hear what you're saying but just listen to me now, all right? There isn't anybody else who if you could get them to come in here on short notice, could do it any better or any faster, either.

I'm telling you: It's not just me. It's just the way it is, and that's all there is to it. So if I maybe gave you that impression, thinkin' that, something that I might've said or something, well then, I just didn't mean ah all right? Not what I meant to do. Right. Now, no, now look, all right? There's somebody at the door now and I got to answer it. No I don't know who it is. That's why I got to answer it, so I can find out. I can't talk to you no more right now. I got to get the door. Yeah, Ginny, I know: you're worried about it."

His tone became plaintively soothing. "I understand that, I really do, and I'll take care of it for you. No, I can't tell you when, not right now. Because I can't do that. Look, there's someone at the door. I can't talk no more. I tell you what: I'll call you back. Later on this afternoon. Yeah, this afternoon, soon's I get a chance, after lunch. Good-bye."

Merrion heard Brody replace the handset hard on its wall hook and say "Jesus Christ, now what?" There were two footsteps and the door opened. "Yeah?" Brody said gruffly. Then he became dismayed and said: "Oh. Mister Merrion. Diddun know it was you."

"Morning, Steve," Merrion said, 'sorry to bother you."

"Oh that's okay, Mister Merrion," Brody said, frowning deeply, recomposing himself, 'perfectly all right." He was average-sized, five-ten or so, big-boned, at one-seventy or so, no more than ten or fifteen pounds heavier than he needed to be, but it looked like more; he seemed to carry all the excess flesh as folds of skin on his face and neck and rolls around his waist. He wore his brownish-grey hair long and combed it back in thick strands from the brow of its recession in the front, arranging them in several sebum-heavy strands over his scalp. He wore a clean white tee-shirt and dark-green chino work pants; heavy black shoes with thick welted petroleum-proof soles. He had a snap-ring of keys hooked to the belt-loop just behind the opening of his right-front pocket. He gestured with his right thumb toward the phone behind him. "I was just talkin' onna phone. Ginny over management. She called me up again. She's always calling me up all the time. Every morning, got some new thing on her mind, some new project for me to do. Like she wants to drive me nuts. And then, in addition, she comes over here, two, three, four times a week, see how I'm doin' on something. I don't know what it is with that woman, what she thinks I am."

"Maybe she's lonely, and hot for your body," Merrion said. "Lookin' for love. Just doesn't know how to say it to you, put it into words."

Brody grinned and reddened. He had clearly envisioned that possibility, perhaps often. "Nah," he said, 'isn't that. Can't be that. Guy my age, I'm fifty-one years old, and she's what, thirty-two?

Just a kid. Uh uh, I think what it is is that she doesn't understand how long it takes to do a thing. No idea, you know? No comprehension at all.

"You get these kids: it's not their fault, but they never did anything with their hands. Spend all their lives shufflin' papers, workin' with figures. Now the computers: hit a key and what they want to do is done. So as a result they got no idea of how long it actually takes to do something. They think when they say it, they want it done, bingo, that's all there is to it. Now it's time to go on to the next thing onna list. "Can't have you standin' around here alia time, doin' nothin', getting' paid for it, you know." And then they laugh, "ha ha," like that at you; like they didn't really mean it, they're only fooling with you.

"Well, it just isn't like that, as you and I both know, and I try to tell her that sometimes. "You know when I'm working on a thing and it's gonna take a week, all right? Because I told you it was gonna take that, before I even started. I been on it a day and of course it isn't done. So what're you doin' this now for, already; comin' around and actin' like you still don't understand a day is not a week? You got me thinkin': how can this be? After I went to all the trouble of explaining it to you, tell you what's involved in a thing, I make sure you understand; you tell me you do; and then, boom, like that, you turn around and call me up, the very next day, the day after I started, acting like you don't know the first thing about it and I must be finished now. Tell me you now've got something else for me, I got to get started on right away. I mean: How can you keep doing this to me all the time? This doesn't make any sense."

"She always tells me she'll stop," Brody said. "Promising me then she wont do it no more; she'll cut it out. She never does, though." He paused and reflected, "She's still a good kid, though; we get along all right."

The anxiety returned to his voice and his face wrinkled up. "But hey, what's it with you being up here? Something didn't go wrong here or something, I hope? Everything still okay with Mark, up there and everything with him? I didn't hear nothin'. He was doin' okay last I heard. Sounded like he was all right. I know I didn't get no call here. Got my machine on all the time here, too, I'm not in the apartment; somewhere else in the building or something. I know they got my number up there and everything 'cause I gave it to them there when he went in. I didn't get no calls. Kid's still all right up there, isn't he? Nothin' wrong there with Mark?"