Линвуд Баркли - A Noise Downstairs

“Walter’s always getting free tickets to stuff, like baseball games and shows and stuff. In fact...”

“In fact what?”

Josh glanced up warily at his father. “Walter got tickets to tomorrow afternoon’s Knicks game.”

“Great. I hope he and your mom have fun.”

“But so, like, they’re going to pick me up tomorrow morning. I’d have taken the train but Walter’s got some client in Darien he wants to see in person before heading back. So I’m just here for one night. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Mom talked it over with Charlotte. She’s probably going to tell you after she gives you your surprise.”

“Maybe that’s the surprise,” Paul said grimly. He shook his head slowly, feeling the irritation build. This definitely should have been discussed with him. He was expecting to spend the entire weekend with his son. But he didn’t want to take his anger out on Josh. He patted him on the back and said, “We’ll sort it out.”

“But I can go, right?” Josh asked. “I’ve only been to one other NBA game and I really liked it.”

Paul suddenly felt very tired. He glanced at his watch. “I think it’s been five minutes,” he said.

When they got back to the kitchen, Paul immediately noticed his office door was closed. Charlotte stood before it, a smug look on her face, but it broke when she saw Paul’s expression.

“What?” she asked. “You don’t look happy.”

“Did you know Josh was going back tomorrow?” he asked.

“Hailey mentioned it when she emailed me about when Josh’s train would arrive.”

“You couldn’t have told me?”

She crossed her arms and waited a beat. “Maybe this isn’t a good time.”

Josh’s face fell. “We’re not doing the surprise?”

Charlotte stared at Paul. “It’s your dad’s call.”

Paul looked at Josh, quickly sized up the disappointment in his face, and tamped down the anger he’d been feeling. “Sorry,” he said. “Surprise me.”

“Is it in there?” Josh asked. He looked ready to charge into the small study.

“Stay right there, buster,” Charlotte said. Her look softened as she said to her husband, “I wanted to get something to inspire you as you...” She looked at Josh and decided against getting into all the details. “I wanted to celebrate your moving forward.”

Paul smiled with curiosity. “Okay.”

She aimed her thumb at the door. “Go on in.”

Josh said, “Can I open it?”

“Yeah, okay,” Paul said. To Charlotte: “Should I close my eyes?”

She shook her head.

Josh turned the knob and pushed the door open.

Sitting on the desk, beside the closed laptop and hidden beneath a tea towel adorned with Christmas trees, was something the size of a football helmet, although far less rounded.

“So it’s a Christmas present,” Paul said.

Charlotte shrugged. “It was the biggest dish towel I had, and it was too awkward to wrap properly. Take a guess.”

Paul grinned. “I got nuthin’.”

Josh had squeezed himself in front of his father, wanting to reach out and pull the towel away, but knowing he had to let his dad do it.

“Here goes,” Paul said, grabbing the corner of the towel and flicking it back like a magician whipping out a tablecloth from a fully set dining room table.

Josh said, “What is it?”

“Oh, my God,” Paul said. “It’s amazing.”

“You like it?” Charlotte said, putting her palms together, as though praying, the tips of her fingers touching her chin. “Seriously?”

“I love it.”

For a second time, Josh asked, “What is it?”

“That,” Paul told him, mussing his hair, “is a typewriter.”

“A what?”

“You must have needed a crane to bring it in here,” Paul said, running his fingers along the base of the machine. “It looks like it weighs a ton.”

Charlotte did her best Muscle Beach pose. “Strrrong vooman. Like ox.”

Paul dropped his butt into the computer chair and gave the antique a thorough examination.

“This is so funny,” he said. “I was just thinking about one of these old typewriters.”

“Seriously?” Charlotte asked. “I’m like a mind reader. Why were—”

Paul shook his head to suggest it didn’t matter. Besides, he was too busy inspecting the machine to reply.

It was an Underwood. The name was stenciled onto the black metal just above the keys and, in much bigger letters, across the back shelf that would prop up a sheet of paper, had one been rolled in. The machine was almost entirely black, except for the keypad — Paul wondered if that was strictly a computer term — but anyway, all those keys, marked with letters and numbers and punctuation marks, each one perfectly ringed in silver.

“What does it do ?” Josh asked.

Above the keys, a semicircular opening that afforded a view of the — Paul wasn’t even sure what they were called, those perfectly arrayed metal arms that struck paper as one pounded on the keys. But there was a kind of beauty in how they were arranged, like the inside of a very tiny opera house. Those keys were the people, the paper the stage.

“It writes things,” Paul said.

“How?”

“Grab a sheet of paper from the printer.”

Charlotte said, “I tried it. There’s still some ink in the ribbon, but I don’t know if you can even buy typewriter ribbons anymore.”

“Ribbons?” Josh said, handing a sheet of paper to his father.

“Okay,” he said, taking the sheet and inserting it into the back of the machine. He twisted the roller at the end of the cylinder, feeding the paper into the typewriter until it appeared on the other side, just above where the keys would hit it.

“I don’t get this at all,” Josh said.

“Watch,” Paul said. “I’m going to type your name.”

He raised his two index fingers over the keys.

Chit chit chit chit.

“God, I love that sound,” Paul said.

Josh watched, open-mouthed, as JOSH appeared, faintly, on the sheet of paper. “Whoa,” he said as his father pulled the sheet out and handed it to him. “That’s cool. But I still don’t get it.”

“This is what we used before computers,” Paul said. “When we wanted to write something, we used this. And you didn’t have to print out what you wrote, because you were printing it as you wrote it, one letter at a time.”

Josh studied the machine. “But how does it go onto the Net? Where do you see stuff? Where’s the screen?”

Charlotte laughed. Josh looked at her, not getting the joke.

Paul struggled to explain. “You know how if you want to write something on the computer, like, you use Word or whatever. That’s what you would use this for. But that’s all it did. You didn’t surf the Web with it. There was no Web. You didn’t figure out your mortgage on it, you didn’t use it to read the Huffington Post or watch a show or look at cat videos or—”

“But what does it do ?” Josh asked.

“This machine does one thing and one thing only. It lets you write stuff.”

Josh was unable to conceal his disappointment. “So it’s kind of useless, then. How old is it?”

Paul shook his head. “I’ve got no idea.”

Charlotte said, “I looked all over it for a date and couldn’t find one. But I’m guessing maybe the nineteen thirties, forties?”

Paul shook his head in wonder. “Who knows. But it’s older than any of us in this room, that’s for sure.”

“Even Charlotte?” Josh asked.

“Josh!” Paul said, and shot his wife a look of apology.

“I’ll get you for that,” she said, giving the boy a grin.

Paul asked Charlotte, “What made you... why did you get this?”