T. Boyle - T. C. Boyle Stories

Cursing under his breath, he jabs the key in the lock and twists, but nothing happens. He jerks it back out, angry now, impatient, and examines the flat shining indented surface: no, it’s the right key, the same key he’s been using for sixteen years. Once again. Nothing. It won’t even turn. The truth, ugly, frightening, has begun to dawn on him, even as he swings round on his heels and finds himself staring into the black unblinking gaze of Susan Certaine.

“You, you changed the locks,” he accuses, and his hands are trembling.

Susan Certaine merely stands there, the briefcase at her feet, two mammoth softbound books clutched under her arms, books the size of unabridged dictionaries. She’s in black, as usual, a no-nonsense business suit growing out of sensible heels, her cheeks brushed ever so faintly with blusher. “A little early, aren’t we?” she says.

“You changed the locks.”

She waits a beat, unhurried, in control. “What did you expect? We really can’t have people interfering with our cataloguing, can we? You’d be surprised how desperate some people get, Mr. Laxner. And when you ran out on your therapy … well, we just couldn’t take the chance.” A thin pinched smile. “Not to worry: I’ve got your new keys right here — two sets, one for you and one for Marsha.”

Her heels click on the pavement, three businesslike strides, and she’s standing right beside him on the steps, crowding him. “Here, will you take these, please?” she says, dumping the books in his arms and digging into her briefcase for the keys.

The books are like dumbbells, scrap iron, so heavy he can feel the pull in his shoulders. “God, they’re heavy,” Julian mutters. “What are they?”

She fits the key in the lock and pauses, her face inches from his. “Your life, Mr. Laxner. The biography of your things. Did you know that you owned five hundred and fifty-two wire hangers, sixty-seven wooden ones and one hundred and sixty-nine plastic? Over two hundred flowerpots? Six hundred doilies? Potholders, Mr. Laxner. You logged in over one hundred twenty — can you imagine that? Can you imagine anyone needing a hundred and twenty potholders? Excess, Mr. Laxner,” and he watches her lip curl. “Filthy excess.”

The key takes, the tumblers turn, the door swings open. “Here you are, Mr. Laxner, organization,” she cries, throwing her arms out. “Welcome to your new life.”

Staggering under the burden of his catalogues, Julian moves across the barren porch and into the house, and here he has a second shock: the place is empty. Denuded. There’s nothing left, not even a chair to sit in. Bewildered, he turns to her, but she’s already moving past him, whirling round the room, her arms spread wide. He’s begun to sweat. The scent of Sen-Sen hangs heavy in the air. “But, but there’s nothing here,” he stammers, bending down to set the catalogues on the stripped floorboards. “I thought … well, I thought you’d pare it down, organize things so we could live here more comfortably, adjust, I mean—”

“Halfway measures, Mr. Laxner?” she says, skating up to him on the newly waxed floors. “Are halfway measures going to save a man — and woman — who own three hundred and nine bookends, forty-seven rocking chairs, over two thousand plates, cups and saucers? This is tabula rasa, Mr. Laxner, square one. Did you know you owned a hundred and thirty-seven dead penlight batteries? Do you really need a hundred and thirty-seven dead penlight batteries, Mr. Laxner? Do you?”

“No, but”—backing off now, distraught, his den, his den—“but we need the basics, at least. Furniture. A TV. My, my textbooks. My scopes.”

The light through the unshaded windows is harsh, unforgiving. Every corner is left naked to scrutiny, every board, every nail. “All taken care of, Mr. Laxner, no problem.” Susan Certaine stands there in the glare of the window, hands on her hips. “Each couple is allowed to reclaim one item per day from the warehouse — anything you like — for a period of sixty days. Depending on how you exercise your options, that could be as many as sixty items. Most couples request a bed first, and to accommodate them, we consider a bed one item — mattress, box spring, headboard and all.”

Julian is stunned. “Sixty items? You’re joking.”

“I never joke, Mr. Laxner. Never.”

“And what about the rest — the furniture, the stereo, our clothes?”

“Read your contract, Mr. Laxner.”

He can feel himself slipping. “I don’t want to read the contract, damn it. I asked you a question.”

“Page two hundred and seventy-eight, paragraph two. I quote: ‘After expiration of the sixty-day grace period, all items to be sold at auction, the proceeds going to Certaine Enterprises, Inc., for charitable distribution, charities to be chosen at the sole discretion of the above-named corporation.’” Her eyes are on him, severe, hateful, bright with triumph. This is what it’s all about, this — cutting people down to size, squashing them. “You’d be surprised how many couples never recall a thing, not a single item.”

“No,” Julian says, stalking across the room, “no, I won’t stand for it. I won’t. I’ll sue.”

She shrugs. “I won’t even bother to remind you to listen to yourself. You’re like the brat on the playground — you don’t like the way the game goes, you take your bat and ball and go home, right? Go ahead, sue. You’ll find it won’t be so easy. You signed the contract, Mr. Laxner. Both of you.”

There’s a movement in the open doorway. Shadow and light. Marsha. Marsha and Dr. Hauskopf, frozen there on the doorstep, watching. “Julian,” Marsha cries, and then she’s in his arms, clinging to him as if he were the last thing in the world, the only thing left her.

Dr. Doris and Susan Certaine exchange a look. “Be happy,” Susan Certaine says after a moment. “Think of that couple in Ethiopia.” And then they’re gone.

Julian doesn’t know how long he stands there, in the middle of that barren room in the silence of that big empty house, holding Marsha, holding his wife, but when he shuts his eyes he sees only the sterile deeps of space, the remotest regions beyond even the reach of light. And he knows this: it is cold out there, inhospitable, alien. There’s nothing there, nothing contained in nothing. Nothing at all.

(1992)

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following magazines where these stories were first published: Antaeus, The Antioch Review, The Atlantic Monthly, Epoch, Esquire, Fiction, Fiction International, Gentleman’s Quarterly, The Georgia Review, Granta, Harper’s, Interview, The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, The North American Review, Oui, The Paris Review, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project, Penthouse, Playboy, Quest/77, Quest/78, Rolling Stone, The South Dakota Review, The Transatlantic Review, TriQuarterly , and Wigwag.

Most of the selections appeared in the following short story collections of Mr. Boyle, all published by Penguin Books: Descent of Man (1979), Greasy Lake (1985), If the River Was Whiskey (1989), and Without a Hero (1994).

Acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted works:

“I Shot the Sheriff,” written by Bob Marley. Copyright © 1974 Fifty-Six Hope Road Music, Ltd., and Odnil Music, Ltd. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

“Poem Without a Hero,” by Anna Akhmatova from Poems of Akhmatova , translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. © 1972 by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. By permission of Darhansoff & Verrill Literary Agency.

“Don’t Be Cruel,” by Otis Blackwell and Elvis Presley. Copyright © 1956 by Unart Music Corporation. Rights assigned to CBS Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by CBS Unart Catalog, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. By permission of CBS Songs, a Division of CBS Inc.