Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

Termite’s staying down with the girls at the end of the bar. No one else has shown up for happy hour (weather and the holiday are always negatives). I leaf through the Buyer’s Guide, perusing the broker-associate faces in their winning, confidence-pledging smiley cameos. The glam Debs, Lindas and Margies with their golden silky hair, big earrings, plenty of lens gauze to disguise what they really look like, and the men all blow-dried Woodys and mustachioed Maxes in hunky poses — blue jeans, open-collar plaids, tasteful silver accessories and gold throat jewelry. Most of what’s for sale are “houses,” our term of art for cookie-cutter ranches and undersized split-levels — nothing different from our basic inventory in Sea-Clift. Every few pages, there’s a grandiose one-of-a-kind “palatial beach estate” that doesn’t list the price but everyone knows is seizure-inducing.

My 61 Surf Road listing is back on page ninety-six, a boilerplate box with the Doolittles’ house in washed-out color, a shot captured by Mike using our old Polaroid. It strikes me again, even knowing what I now know, that it’s as good as there is at this location, at this time, at this price. There are nicer listings in Brielle, but at twice the ticket. Monday morning, I’ll call Boca and discuss options regarding foundation issues and amending the disclosure statement. “Foundation needs attention” is naturally a death knell in a saturated market unless the buyer sees the whole thing as a tear-down. My bet is the Doolittles jerk the listing and hand it to a competitor who knows nothing about the foundation. I’m not sure I’d blame them.

“Hey! You!” the big Yanks-cap mama bear down the bar (she’s shit-faced) is addressing me. I smile as if I’m eager to be spoken to. “You wouldn’t happen to be named Armand, would you? And you wouldn’t happen to be from Neptune, I guess?”

“Or Ur-a-nus.” Her can’t-bust-’em friend bursts out a guffaw.

“Nope. Afraid not.” Smiling back winningly. “Sea-Clift.”

“Told ya,” the overall woman gloats.

“Big deal. Well then, do you wanna dance? I promise I’m a woman.”

“He doesn’t give a shit,” her companion stage-whispers, leaning in front of her to grin down at me. “Look at him.” More laughing.

“That’s really nice. But no thanks,” I say. “I’m taking off pretty soon.”

“Who isn’t?” she growls. “Tough luck for you. I’m a good dancer.”

“On her feet and yours, too,” her friend mocks.

“You two should dance,” I say.

“There you go,” the second woman agrees.

“ Where I go?” the first woman grumbles, and they immediately forget about me.

It is a fine and fortunate feeling to be beached here — stranger and welcomed onlooker. I could’ve easily gotten mired into nowhere-no-time, with only the night’s dark cave in front of me. But I’m not. I’m found, though I’m not sure anyone but me would see it like that.

Still, my day has accomplished much of what I wanted when I set forth — which is full immersion in events. Three occurrences have been of a positive nature: a good if unproductive house showing, a successful implosion and a salubrious interlude here. Versus only two and a half of a low-quality: a not-good kitchen encounter with my daughter and her beau; my car busted into; Wade blowing a gasket and ending up — where? (Home, I hope.)

Any of the latter events would be enough to set a man driving to North Dakota, ending up at a stranger’s farmhouse east of Minot, pleading amnesia and letting himself be sheltered for the day — Turkey Day — before regaining his senses and heading home. Suffice it to say, then, that when you see a man bending an elbow, head down, shoulders hunched before a dark brown drink, chatting elliptically, sotto voce with the barkeep, looking tired-eyed, boozy, but apparently happy, you should think that what’s being transacted is the self giving the self a much-needed reprieve. The brain may not have a true manager, but it’s got a boss. And it’s you.

Several pairs of fresh patrons have rumbled in out of the rain, which turns the bar more festive. All the ladies — a couple being 200-plus-pounders — are in some species of loose-fitting work clothes with durable footwear, as if they were members of the pipe fitters’ union. Some have donned amusing headgear (a pink beret, a zebra-striped hard hat, a backwards Caterpillar cap), and they’re all in cracking good spirits, know everyone else’s name and are joking and ribbing one another just like a bunch of men — though these women are younger than men would be, and more amiable and tolerant, and would undoubtedly make better friends.

They each give me a surreptitious appraising eye upon entering and share a quick naughty remark, as if I was actually a woman. One or two of them smile at me in a haughty way that means, we’re happy you’re here, we’re on our best behavior, so you better be on yours (which I intend to be). Termite, they all treat like a beloved little sister, but a scandalous little sister with a vicious mouth any parent would have trouble with. She stalks the duckboards with their drink orders, calling everyone “gents” and “goyls” and “douchebags,” occasionally wisecracking something down to me that I’m not supposed to answer. She drifts my way, eyes snapping, offers me something known as an “Irish Napalm” that the “goyls” all like, and that’s served on fire. “They’ll all be wanting ’em in a minute,” she says in a tough, loud voice over the enlarged noise, “after which all shit’ll break loose in here. Anyway, an-y-way.” She’s forgotten about having talked to me twenty minutes ago about being afraid she’s going crazy.

“De thing I want to know,” she says, leaning in again, tiny eyes slitted, as if this is definitely not for general consumption, her right hand resting on her bowie knife handle, “is — when did everything get to be about bidnus? You know what ahm sayin’? Bidnus this, bidnus that.”

One thing I hadn’t noticed, now that Termite’s moved in close to me again, is that she’s wearing silvery orthodontic appliances on her lower incisors, in addition to her silver tongue rivet — which makes her look even stranger.

“The business of business is business,” I say with a frank expression to suggest I know what that means.

“Okay.” She nods, then glances over her shoulder at her bar full of business, as if the new raucousness in here gives us some privacy we hadn’t had. “You a good listener. Did ma old husband, Reynard, hear one thing I ever said, ah mighta been stayed married to dat knucklehead. You know what ahm sayin’? But no way. Uh-uh. Wudn’ no listenin’ involved. Just him talkin’ and me jump’n round like a old hop-frog.”

“That’s too bad. Some men aren’t good listeners, I guess.”

“Oh yeah.” She sucks a tooth and looks down. “You a good-lookin’ man, too. You got you a good young hotsy down-ere where you livin’ at Sea-what’s-it-called?” Termite suddenly smiles at me both directly and sweetly, a smile that features her lower line of silver braces, and tentatively advances a thought that a better, stronger bond might form between us, with other things possibly permissible.

“I do,” I cheerfully lie. I’m picturing my daughter with polyethnic Thom, who I hope never to see again.

Termite’s sweet smile turns instantly professional-impersonal. “Yeah. Well. Das good. Yep,” she says crisply. “Happy hour almost over wid. You need anything?”

“I’m already happy,” I say, wanting to sound affirming about all her life’s prospects but one.

“Dere you go,” she says, and turns straight away again and saunters down the duckboards, proclaiming, “Now ya’ll fatsos try to control ya’ll selves.”