Charles Baxter - Gryphon - New and Selected Stories

“You hit him,” the murderer repeated, sitting next to the gift apple pie. “What’s so bad about that? People sometimes hit their kids.”

“Not if they love them,” Ellickson said, still weeping. “I hit him in the face. With a book.”

The old man stood up, gazing at Ellickson. “Eric, you poor guy, you’re as bad off as I am,” he said. “Yes, after all. Thank you. I needed to hear that. I’ll be going now.”

Ellickson stared at the murderer’s back. “Go back to your spaceship. But I’m still sober! Goddamn it, I’m sober now! Sober and proud!”

“Look where it’s gotten you,” the old man said gently, letting the screen door slam.

Two days later, Ellickson called his mother-in-law’s so that he could talk to his wife, and Laura answered. “Laura? Honey, babe?” he began, speaking with his eyes shut and his hands shaking. “Don’t hang up, please? It’s me. We have to talk. Really, we have to talk. You know I’m sober now — you know that, don’t you? These days? And the effort it’s costing me? It’s all for you. I know you want to hang up—”

“I’m pregnant,” Laura said, interrupting him. “Can you believe that?”

“Oh, Jesus,” Ellickson said, “can’t you—”

“We should talk soon. But not now.”

She had broken the connection.

Ellickson put down the receiver and walked into the kitchen, where he removed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured a small glass for himself. He swished the orange juice around in his mouth as if it were mouthwash; then he swallowed it. Opening the refrigerator again, he did an inventory of its contents: eggs, milk, salad greens, English muffins, spreadable butter, strawberry jam, leftover chili, salad dressing, yogurt, biryani paste, and a bottle of root beer. The contents constituted the most hopeless array of objects the world had presented to him in some time, and he shut the door against it with a shudder. One of Alex’s drawings of a dinosaur and a vampire was still stuck with magnets to the refrigerator door.

He took two deep breaths before leaving the kitchen, exiting through the back, crossing the driveway, and knocking at the murderer’s front door. No one answered, Ellickson rang again, and still no one appeared. He tried the doorknob, and the door opened with a slight squeak. Ellickson entered the old man’s living room.

“Macfadden?” he called out. “Are you here? Mac?”

Ellickson walked into the kitchen. The phone was off the hook, as if the old man had gone to get something or had left in a hurry. Ellickson went down the back stairs to the basement. He wanted to see the spaceship.

Macfadden Eward sat in a reading chair next to a lamp, the history of Robert E. Lee in his lap. He was listening to music through headphones. “Oh,” he said, taking the earphones out, “it’s you.”

“I rang the bell.”

“Well, I didn’t hear it.” He waited. “I’m sorry. My hearing’s not so good.”

“The phone was off the hook.”

“Yes,” the old man said. “I don’t like to be bothered when I’m down here.”

“Where’s the spaceship?” Ellickson asked. “I don’t see any spaceship down here.”

“That’s because you’re not looking. I tell you what it is, Eric,” the murderer said, “and you should listen to me. When you’re in prison, you get used to prison. When you’re in the desert, you get used to the desert. You get interested in cactus, you know what I mean? And what I’m saying to you is, inside those four walls, I got used to the four walls. Sometimes I just can’t stand being upstairs and the daylight and everything that goes with daylight.” The ghost of a smile appeared on his face. “And that’s why I’m down here.”

“And the spaceship?”

“You’re in it,” Macfadden Eward said.

An hour later, Ellickson found himself back on the phone to his friend Lester. “Lester,” he said, “I think you need to come over here. Pronto. I’m in trouble again. I talked to my wife and I’m in serious trouble.”

“All right,” Lester said. “But I’m in the middle of something.”

“And could I ask you for a favor?” Ellickson asked. “Would you please bring your stethoscope?”

“It’s pretty rusty,” Lester told him. “I don’t practice medicine now, as you know.”

“Bring it anyway,” Ellickson said.

Fifteen minutes later, Lester pulled up in the driveway in his Buick. He came into Ellickson’s living room without knocking or ringing the bell, with his stethoscope flapping against his chest. He was a small compact man, with a full and slightly unruly head of hair, and a face on which great intelligence and comical sadness were usually visible — the expression of quizzical wit seemed to animate everything. But Lester also had a distinctive overbite, the attribute of a character actor who will always be left out at the end of the show.

He rushed forward and shook Ellickson’s hand, pulling him forward into a tentative hug. “So. What’s happened?”

“Lester,” Ellickson said, “my chest feels like it’s going to explode.”

“Pain? Chest pain?”

“No, it’s more like a weight.”

“Well, you know, we should get you to an emergency room. I’m not really a practicing M.D. anymore.”

“I want you to examine me. Please.”

Lester gazed at Ellickson with his comically sad chipmunk expression. “Me? Okay,” he said. “Take off your shirt. I want to listen to your heart.”

Ellickson did as he was told. Lester put the earpieces in and pressed the stethoscope against Ellickson’s chest.

“Lester, my wife’s pregnant.”

“Shh.”

“She won’t let me talk to Alex.”

“Shh. I’m listening to your heart.”

“The guy next door is a murderer who lives in a spaceship. And all I want in this life is to have a drink.”

“Would you please shut up?”

Finally Lester lowered the stethoscope. Outside the screen door, a cardinal sang in the linden. The air smelled of moisture, of a thunderstorm brewing just out of sight underneath the line of the horizon, and despite the sunlight, Ellickson thought he heard the rumble of thunder. “Well,” Lester said, smiling. “There’s good news and bad news.”

“Tell me the bad news first,” Ellickson said.

“You’re still alive,” the doctor told him.

“And what’s the good news?” Ellickson asked.

Lester shrugged. “Same thing,” he said.

FOR RICHARD BAUSCH

THERE WAS SOME SORT of commotion at the end of the checkout line. Words had been exchanged, and now two men, one tall and wide-shouldered, the other squat and beefy, were squaring off against each other and raising their voices. Their shoes squeaked on the linoleum. The short one, who had hair from his back sprouting up underneath his shirt collar, was saying a four-letter word. The other man, the tall one, shook his head angrily and raised his fist. An elderly security guard was rushing toward them. He didn’t seem up to the task, Estelle thought. He was just a minimum-wage retiree they had hired for show.

“Good God,” Estelle said to her grandson, “there’s going to be a fistfight.”

The boy didn’t glance up from his phone gadget. He held it in his palm and was rapidly clicking the letters. “They’re just zombies,” the boy said quietly and dismissively after a glance.

“Well, how do you know that?” the grandmother asked, trying for conversation. “I’ve never met a zombie.” The men seemed to have calmed down a bit. They were just rumbling at each other now.