Joy Williams - Breaking and Entering

Liberty did not want to picture it.

Charlie sighed and looked at his food.

“Well?” Willie said.

Charlie seemed to be losing his drift. He looked at his food as though he were trying to read it.

“So what happened,” Willie insisted. “Finally.”

“Well, I don’t know man. The future is not altogether scrutable.”

“Janiella and Teddy,” Willie said, glancing at Liberty. “The spelling book.”

“I fell alseep, I guess,” Charlie said. “The last thing I heard was the kid saying, ‘I thought Daddy was in Miami at a car show.’ I passed out from the heat, man.”

“You see Janiella at Duane’s house?” Willie asked. “Who does Teddy think you are?”

“We’ve never met,” Charlie said. “I’ve only laid eyes on him in a photo cube. Cute kid. Spiky hair. Janiella wants to keep him out of the house so she’s got him busy every minute. He has soccer practice, swim team, safe-boating instruction. He’s hardly ever at home. Ask him, I bet he’s ignorant of the floor plan. After school he takes special courses in computer language, sea shell identification, God knows what all. Poor little squirt comes staggering home, his brain on fire . I think of myself as a fantastic impetus to his learning.”

“Liberty’s not happy with this situation at all,” Willie said.

“Liberty’s all right,” Charlie grinned, oblivious, showing his pale gums. “Liberty’s a great girl.”

Liberty spooned up another piece of mush from Willie’s plate.

“That’s extremely irritating,” Willie said. “You never order anything, then you eat what I order.”

Liberty blushed.

“Liberty,” Charlie cried, “eat off my plate, I beseech you! Let’s mix a little yin and yang.” He picked up a piece of coffee cake in his large hand and waved it at her.

“It’s just one of those things that’s been going on too long,” Willie said.

“Really, man, you’re losing energy with these negative emotions. You’re just going dim on us here. Your song is fading.” Charlie cupped the hand that was clutching the coffee cake to his ear. Crumbs fell. “Ubble-gubble,” Charlie said.

Outside, Clem lay beneath the orange tree, his paws crossed, yawning. Two deputies sat nearby in their cruiser, looking at him as though they’d like to write out a ticket. Circumstances had not allowed them to write out a ticket in what seemed to them to be an extraordinarily long time. Look at the size of that dog one of them said you run over him and you’d know it .

“What a great animal,” Charlie said, pointing with the diminished cake at Clem. “How did you get such a great animal, Liberty?”

“He came in on the night air and settled on her head as she slept,” Willie said.

“Gubble-ubble,” Charlie said.

“He was in the envelope with the marriage license,” Willie said. “We sprinkled water on him and he was expanded and made soul.”

“Leave this creep and come away with me,” Charlie said to Liberty.

Willie said, “We got him from the Humane Society. He ate a child. The police impounded him, but what could they do, after all, this isn’t the Middle Ages, we don’t hang animals for crimes. And he was an innocent, a victim himself, belonging to a schizophrenic, anorectic unwed mother who kept leaving her infant son alone with him, unfed, in her fleabag apartment. Clem, unfed, day after day. Although his name wasn’t Clem then, it was Sword and Pentacles. Or sometimes Sword, and sometimes Pentacles.”

Charlie said, “I mean it. I love married women. I treat them right. Your blood will race, I’m telling you. I’m also a cook. I make great meat loaf, no, forget meat loaf, I’ll make gumbo. I’m third in line for two acres of land in St. Landry Parish. Only two people have to die, and it’s all mine. It’s got a chinaberry tree on it. We’ll pole the bayous and eat gumbo. We’ll drink beer and listen to chanky-chank bands.”

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Willie said. “You were the only Cajun I knew who couldn’t cook.”

“I cook,” Charlie said, affronted.

“Actually,” Willie said, “Liberty found Clem lying partially in the road, partially in a ditch of water hyacinths, injured by some vehicle. Blood all over the place. What a mess.”

“Everything’s so relative with you, man. I don’t know how you make it through the day,” Charlie said. He gazed at Liberty, absorbed.

“I found him in a mailbox,” Liberty said. “It was at a house where we were staying for a while, inland, in the country. Somebody had hurt him and then stuffed him inside the big mailbox at the end of the drive. He was just a puppy then.”

“That’s awful!” Charlie exclaimed. “You are on some bad mailing lists.”

“A linear life is a tedious life,” Willie said. “Man wasn’t born to suffer leading his life from moment to moment.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that Janiella is not for me,” Charlie said. “For one thing, she’s mean, she’s not married and she talks too much. Even in situ she’s gabbing away. And she’s into very experimental stuff. There are not as many ways of making love as people seem to believe.”

“I’m splitting,” Willie announced.

Charlie rubbed his face hard with his hands. Liberty knew that he wanted a drink. He had that look in his dark eyes.

Willie stood up and leaned toward Liberty, his hands on the table. His hands were tanned and strong and clean. His wedding band was slender. Liberty remembered the wedding clearly. It had taken place in a lush green tropical forest in the time of the dinosaurs. “I’ve got to shake myself a little loose,” he said. “Do you want the truck?”

“No,” Liberty said.

“Just a few days,” Willie said. “Later,” he said to Charlie. He left.

“A butterfly vanishes from the world of caterpillars,” Charlie said.

Liberty saw Clem get up and look after the truck as it drove away. He trotted over to the restaurant and peered in, resting his muzzle on a window box of geraniums. Liberty waved to him.

“He can’t see that,” Charlie said. “Animals live in a two-dimensional world. For example, like with roads? To a dog, each road is a separate phenomenon that has nothing in common with another road.”

“That sounds about right,” Liberty said.

“And so it is, the truth specific to each species. To each and all, one’s own dark wood,” Charlie said. He picked up Liberty’s hand and kissed her wrist bone. “I love you,” he said. “There’s only you. I have employed Janiella only for the purposes of obfuscation.”

“You’re a bottle man,” Liberty said.

“Liberty!” Teddy called. He hurried over from the bakery counter, holding a cruller and a bag in one hand, an egg in the other. It was a small brown egg. Liberty hugged him and ran her fingers through his hair. Charlie closed his eyes.

“I’m going to learn how to build furniture,” Teddy said. “I was a little late today because I saw a joke shop on the way, but the man let me hammer a piece of wood.”

Charlie’s eyes were shut.

“Is he all right?” Teddy asked Liberty. “Is he dead?”

“I am dead,” Charlie said. “I was in the Alps, hiking. I started out on a spring day. The air was sweet and warm. As I went higher it grew cold. There was a blizzard. I took refuge in a cave and built a small fire for comfort. The small fire caused an avalanche, which flattened me. Ever since then I have been dead.”

“Who is this,” Teddy demanded.

“My man,” Charlie said, opening his eyes. “Liberty and I were just discussing running away together.”

“We weren’t,” Liberty said.

“You’re dead,” Teddy said to him somberly.