Atwood Margaret - The Heart Goes Last

“I brought him here,” says the scrawny man. “You told me to watch the house.”

“Good job, Herb,” says Conor. “Talk to Rikki, he’ll give you something.” The guy shambles off. “Brain-dead fuck. Let’s have a beer,” Conor says, and they go into one of the trailers. An Airstream: high end.

It’s surprisingly cool and clean in the main room. Conor hasn’t fouled it up: no contemptuous garbage or in-your-face crotch-grabbing rock posters, unlike Con’s teenaged bedroom. Stan used to defend him, stick up for him to the parents, claim he’d straighten out. Maybe not such a bad thing that he hasn’t. At least he seems to have a source of income, and a good one judging from the results.

Pale grey decor, small aluminum cubes of hi-tech placed discreetly here and there, window curtains, good taste: does Con have a woman around, is that it? A tidy woman, not a slut. Or is he just making a bundle? “It’s nice,” Stan says ruefully, thinking of his own cramped, smelly car.

Con goes to the fridge, produces a couple of beers. “I’m making do,” he says. “How about you?”

“Not so good,” says Stan. They sit at the built-in table, upending the beers.

“Lost your job,” says Con after the right amount of silence. It’s not a question.

“How’d you know?” says Stan.

“Otherwise why come looking for me?” says Con in a neutral voice. There’s no point denying it, so Stan doesn’t.

“I wondered maybe,” he says.

“Yeah, I owe you,” says Con. He stands up, turns his back, rummages in a jacket that’s hanging on the door. “Couple of hundred do you for now?” he says. Stan grates out a gruff thank-you, pockets the bills. “Need another job?”

“Doing what?” says Stan.

“Oh, you know,” says Con. “This and that. You could keep track of stuff. Like, money. Take it offshore for us. Stash it here and there. Make us look respectable.”

“What’re you up to?” says Stan.

“It’s cool,” says Conor. “Nothing dangerous. Custom stuff. On order.”

Stan wonders if he’s stealing artwork. But where would there be any of that around here any more? “Thanks,” he says. “Maybe later.” He has no real wish to work for his little brother, even in a safe way. It would be like family welfare. Now that he has a bit of cash and some breathing room, he can look around. Find something decent.

“Any time,” says Con. “You need a phone or anything? Fully loaded. Good for maybe a month, if you’re careful.”

Why not have a second phone? That way, Charmaine and he can phone each other. While the top-up lasts. “Where’d you get it?” says Stan.

“Don’t worry, it’s wiped,” says Con. “Can’t be traced.”

Stan slips the phone into his pocket. “How’s the wife?” says Con. “Charmaine?”

“Good, good,” says Stan.

“I bet she’s good ,” says Con. “I trust your taste. But how is she?”

“She’s fine,” says Stan. It’s always made him nervous when Con took an interest in a girl of his. Con thought Stan should share, willingly or unwillingly. A couple of Stan’s girls had agreed with him on that. It still rankles.

He wants to ask Con for a firearm of some sort to thwart the nighttime thugs – but he’s in a weak position. “You were crap with the Nerf gun, you’d shoot your foot off.” Or worse: “What’ll you trade me? Time in the sack with the wife? She’d enjoy it. Hey! Joke!” Or: “Sure, if you come work for me.” So he doesn’t try.

The two guards walk Stan back to his car. They’re much friendlier now, they even stick out their hands for a shake. “Rikki.”

“Jerold.”

“Stan,” says Stan. As if they don’t know.

As he’s getting into his car, another car pulls up in front of the trailer-park entrance; a fancy hybrid, black and sleek, with tinted windows. Con has some upmarket playmates, it looks like.

“Here comes business,” says Jerold. Stan’s curious to see who gets out, but nobody does. They’re waiting for him to leave.

Pitch

Charmaine likes to be busy, but sometimes in the afternoons at Dust there’s not much to be busy about. She’s already wiped down the bar counter twice, she’s rearranged some glasses. She could watch the nearest flatscreen, where a baseball replay is going on, but she isn’t much interested in sports; she doesn’t see why a bunch of men chasing each other around a field and trying to hit a ball and then hugging and patting butts and jumping up and down and yelling can get people so worked up.

The sound’s turned down low, but when the ads are on it gets louder, and also they run the words across the bottom just to make sure you get the message. Usually the ads are cars and beer, on the sports shows, but all of a sudden there’s something different.

It’s a man in a suit, just the head and the shoulders, looking straight out of the screen, right into her eyes. There’s something convincing about him even before he speaks – he’s so serious, like what he’s about to say is very important. And when he does speak, she could swear he’s reading her mind.

“Tired of living in your car?” he says to her. Really, straight to her! It can’t be, because how would he even know she exists, but it feels like that. He smiles, such an understanding smile. “Of course you are! You didn’t sign up for this. You had other dreams. You deserve better.” Oh yes, breathes Charmaine. Better! It’s everything she feels.

Next there’s a shot of a gateway in something that looks like a shiny black glass wall, with people walking in – young couples, holding hands, energetic and smiling. Pastel clothing, springlike. Then a house, a neat, freshly painted house with a hedge and a lawn, no junked cars or wrecked sofas lying on it, and then the camera zooms in through the second-floor window, past the curtains – curtains! – and moves through the room. Spacious! Gracious! Those words they use in the real estate ads for places in the countryside and on beaches, far away and in other countries. Through the open bathroom door there’s a charming deep-sided tub with lots of giant fluffy white towels hanging beside it. The bed is king-sized, with nice clean sheets in a cheerful floral design, blue and pink, and four pillows. Every muscle in Charmaine’s body yearns for that bed, those pillows. Oh, to stretch out! To fall into a comfortable sleep, with that safe, cozy feeling she used to have at Grandma Win’s.

Not that Grandma Win’s house was exactly the same as this one. It was a lot smaller. But it was tidy. She more or less remembers a different house, from when she was little; it might have been like the house onscreen. No: it could have been like that if it hadn’t been such a mess. Clothes rumpled on the floor, dirty dishes in the kitchen. Was there a cat? Perhaps, briefly. Something bad about the cat. She’d found it on the hall floor, but it was the wrong shape and ooze was coming out of it. Clean that up! Don’t talk back! S he hadn’t talked back – crying wasn’t talking – but that hadn’t made any difference, she was wrong all the same.

There was a hole in her bedroom wall the size of a large fist. Not surprising, because that was what made it, a fist. She used to hide things in that hole. A Beanie Baby. A cloth handkerchief with lace on the corner, whose was that? A dollar she found. She used to think that if she pushed her hand in deep enough, it would go right through, and there would be water, with blind fish and other things, things with dark teeth, and they might get out. So she was careful.

“Remember what your life used to be like?” says the man’s voice, during the tour of the sheets and pillows. “Before the dependable world we used to know was disrupted? At the Positron Project in the town of Consilience, it can be like that again. We offer not only full employment but also protection from the dangerous elements that afflict so many at this time. Work with like-minded others! Help solve the nation’s problems of joblessness and crime while solving your own! Accentuate the positive!”