John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

Laura pulls herself out of bed, tired. She waited till midnight to go down to the darkroom, not knowing if he would come over or not.

He was on his knees measuring when Laura came down, padding over the newspapers that covered the floor. She was wearing what the garbage men had wanted to see her in.

"Good morning, Michael."

"Morning."

Laura came down nowadays without putting her little bit of makeup on, came down with sleep in her eyes and pillow creases still on her face. In the beginning Michael had heard her fiddling in the upstairs bathroom for a good half hour before she made an appearance yawning and stretching as if she'd just tumbled out of bed.

Laura put a pot of coffee on the hot plate he'd rigged for her till they brought the gas stove, came over and kissed the back of his neck.

"You sleep okay?" she asked.

"Fine."

"I missed you."

"Mmn." Michael measured the drawer slots front and rear in case they weren't square. He'd already fastened the shelf standards. He accounted for the thickness of the metal guide and wrote a figure down.

"How's it coming?"

"It's coming fine. Gonna look really nice."

"How long do you think you'll be on it?"

She asked that almost every morning lately.

"Oh — four, five days."

Laura yawned for real. "Gotta get the kids up," she said, and crinkled out over the newspaper.

Aaron is up already, bouncing on his mattress.

"Is Mike here, is Mike here?"

It's always such a treat for them when he comes. Boys. She never figured on having boys.

"It's Michael, not Mike," says Laura. "He's downstairs working."

"When did he come?"

So nosey lately, even with all the precautions.

"Early this morning, like always. Now get your brother up and help him find his clothes. It's getting late."

There is a big glossy print of David on the wall between their beds. The one she blew up and retouched *for grain. His Daddy face.

"And what are you smirking at?" she mutters to it as she leaves the room.

The first morning Michael put her up against the bare wall. The kitchen was stripped but for the old linoleum. The linoleum showed where everything had been. The breakfast nook, the pegboard wall, the cantilevered peninsula with the built-in electric range — all that early-sixties plastic and Formica the former owner had gone in for. The kitchen was empty.

"Face the wall," he said.

"Now reach up, slowly, very slowly, as high as you can. Hold it there. Don't go up on your toes. Okay, relax. Now flex your elbow and reach, slowly, as high as it's comfortable. Don't stretch."

She was wearing a tie-dyed sleeveless undershirt. Michael watched the muscles in her back move.

"Drop your hands and make like you're mixing something in a bowl on the counter. Put some muscle into it. Drop to where they're most comfortable."

She was tall. He'd make the counter height forty inches, maybe forty-two. He'd drop a section lower for her to work with long-handled spoons and mixers.

"Now turn and face me, Laura. Spread your arms out to your sides. Wide. Wider. That's nice."

He could tell she was trying to move gracefully. She tensed some when he measured her, when he laid the cloth tape softly on the inside of her arm, when he moved behind and ran it up her back. It was the right kind of tension. He could have asked her height and figured it all from that, but it was nice to see them move. To make them move for you that way.

"Aaaaaron! Isaaaac! Hurry up and get dressed, it's time to go! And don't flush the toilet!"

Laura poured herself coffee. She knew not to offer any. Michael had given up telling her how bad the caffeine was for her. Something she held on to from back East.

"Damn." Laura kicked at the plastic trash-baskets, half of them full of wood scrap. "They came, didn't they?"

"With the morning serenade."

"I always forget about it Wednesday night."

She separated the organic from the trash from the bottles and cans and lugged them all out to the metal cans.

They came from back East mostly, or the Midwest. Laura was from New'Jersey and the last one, Diana, was from Kansas City. Kansas or Missouri, he forgot which. They came and bought houses and did things to them.

"Fog again," she said, shivering when she came in. "All they have here is fog. It's supposed to be sunny."

Michael shrugged. "It's different in Redondo. The fog burns off around noon and then it's real nice. It doesn't get clammy like up here."

"I'd like to see it sometime."

He could stretch the work to the full five, maybe six days if he wanted. Laura had lost track, she'd already paid him for the job. He busted a clutch on his van trying to go straight up Marin and had asked for an advance.

Aaron and Isaac came down, Isaac carrying his clothes, tottering to keep up with his older brother. Michael put the clothes on while Laura made lunches. The kids liked Michael, he brought a hunk of four-by-four and times when Laura wasn't having one of her migraines he'd give them each a hammer and let them bang nails into it. Just whale away. That way he didn't have to talk to them so much.

"Aaron," said Laura, "have you been trading lunches?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then how come I find cake crumbs in your lunch box? I don't give you cake."

Aaron thought hard for a possible explanation, then gave up and shrugged. "I don't know."

"Don't be trading lunches. I want you to have what I give you and I don't want you getting anything else on the side."

Aaron mumbled something about nobody wanting to trade for his lunches anyway.

Laura ignored him and chopped an apple in half. The vein in her temple was starting up.

Tad had put Michael on to the job. He knew Tad from Redondo, from when he was heavy into surfing and went as Mike. Tad still called him Mike.

"Got a new lady on the table, Mike. She needs some cabinetwork." Tad did massage, acupressure and rolfing. Laura went to him for her migraines.

"Lives in the Hills, just divorced."

"Nice?"

"Very nice. Lady has a lot of tension in her abdomen, lower back, back of her neck. You know how that is."

Tad claimed to be able to tell the amount of a person's sexual activity from where their muscle tension lay.

"Yeah, I know."

"I'd take a whack at her myself, but I got my hands full right now. Lotsa ladies on the table. You know how that is."

Michael got his jobs through the Berkeley grapevine. He knew Tad, he knew a guy who had a gardening service, knew a guy worked in a day-care outfit, knew a guy who remodeled bathrooms. If someone needed cabinetwork they'd recommend Michael. Satisfied customers passed him on to friends.

"What'd I tell you?" said Tad the next time they met.

"Very nice."

"I'11 soften her up for you in our sessions. Old Magic Fingers."

"You're a sport."

"Go for it, buddy."

Laura cleans up the lunch makings. He's good with them, Michael, but not obsessive. David was obsessive. They would have turned out just like him — spoiled, hypersensitive to criticism, insensitive to others. He's good with them, Michael, not on their case all the time. And for them to see him at his work, that steady, quiet crafting…

Michael went into the living room, sat on the couch to check his measurements against his stock list. He saw Aaron and Isaac leaving. Isaac bent to right the plaster burro, it was nearly as heavy as he was. Aaron opened his lunch box and unwrapped his sandwich. He pulled the sprouts from it and threw them into the jungle of succulents around the mailbox. The day-care panel truck came, and then the little bus to take Aaron to first grade.

When the bus had pulled away Laura sat by him and kissed him. Lots of tongue in it this time, a kiss that made Michael want to pull her down on the couch or floor with him. But Laura bounced away, reassured, muttering about errands she had to take care of.