Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

“Me, too.” A marital lie to make me feel better. “Thanks.” I effect a sore-necked look back at the duct-taped window, seemingly as impregnable as a bank.

“No problem,” Chris says. His skin-pink Camaro with a bright green replacement passenger door sits idling behind us, headlights shining, interior light on, its door standing open. “You’d be surprised how many of them babies I fix a month.” He grins again, a boyish grin, his teeth straight, strong and white. He’s leaving, rescue complete, heading home to his Maria or his Silvie, who won’t be mad, and will thrill to his return (after modest resistance).

“How old are you?” It seems the essential question to ask of the young.

“Thirty-one.” A surprise. “How ’bout you?”

“Fifty-five.”

“That ain’t so old.” His breath is thin smoke. His vinyl coat affords little warmth. “My dad’s, like, fifty-six. He does these tough-guy competitions for his age group, up at the convention hall in Asbury. He’s on his fourth wife. Nobody fucks with him.”

“I bet not.”

“Bet they don’t fuck with you,” Chris says to be generous.

“Not anymore they don’t.”

“There you go.” He breathes down into his lapel again. “That’s all you gotta worry about.”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” I say. “Early.” We are beating on, Chris and me, against the current.

“Oh yeah.” He looks embarrassed. “Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.”

C onceivably it’s two. I’ve avoided clocks on my drive home, likewise during the passage through my empty house. Knowledge of the hour, especially if it’s later than I think, will guarantee me no sleep, promising that tomorrow’s celebration of munificence and bounty will degrade into demoralized fatigue before the food arrives.

Clarissa’s bedroom window’s been left open, and I crank it closed, intentionally noticing nothing. I listen to none of my day’s messages. I’ve shown one house to one serious client on the day before Thanksgiving, a day when most toilers in my business are headed off to convivial tables elsewhere. For that reason I’m ahead of the game — which is generally my tack: With few obligations, turn freedom into enterprise. Thoreau said a writer was a man with nothing to do who finds something to do. He would’ve made the realty Platinum Circle. His heirs would own Maine.

But passing by my darkened home office a second time, I’m unable to resist my messages. After all, Clarissa herself might’ve called with a plea that I shoot down and collect her at the elephant gate at the Taj Mahal. In my unwieldy state of acceptance, I concede that something once unpromising could show improvement.

Clare Suddruth has, not surprisingly, called at six — a crucial interval, and at the vulnerable cocktail hour. He says he definitely wants to “re-view” the Doolittle house on Friday, if possible. “At least let’s get through the damn front door this time.” He’s bringing “the boss.” “At my age, Frank, there’s no use worrying about the long run in anything.” He says this as if I hadn’t spoon-fed him those very words. Estelle, the MS survivor, has been counseling with Clare about matters eschatological. I’m just relieved not to have to call the Drs. Doolittle with unhappy news that would cost me the listing. Though Clare’s the type to come in with a low-ball offer, consume weeks with back-and-forth and then get pissed off and walk away. My best strategy is to say I’m tied up until next week (when I’ll be at Mayo) and hope he gets desperate.

Call #2 is from Ann Dykstra, more cut-and-dried-businessy than last night’s sauvignon blanc ramble about what a good man I am, what a long transit life is, me snagging the Hawk’s liner at the Vet in ’87. “Frank, I think we need to talk about tomorrow. I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t come. Paul and Jill just left, which was very strange. Did you know she only has one hand? Some awful accident. Maybe I’m just saving myself.” What’s wrong with that? “Anyway, maybe I’m getting ahead of myself on several fronts. I sort of sense you may feel the same. Call me before you go to bed. I’ll be up.”

Too late.

Call #3 listens to my Realty-Wise recording, waits, breathes, then says “Shit” in a man’s voice I don’t recognize and hangs up. This is normal.

Call #4 is from the Haddam Boro Police — putting me on the alert. A Detective Marinara. The room where he’s speaking is crowded with voices and phones ringing and paper rattling. “Mr. Bascombe, I wonder if I could talk to you. We’re investigating an incident at Haddam Doctors on eleven twenty-one. Your name came up in a couple of different contexts.” A tired sigh. “Nothing to be alarmed about, Mr. Bascombe. We’re just establishing some investigative parameters here. My number’s (908) 555-1352. That’s Detective Mar-i-nar-a, like the sauce. I’ll be working late. Thanks for your help.” Click.

What investigatory parameters? Though I know. The boys at Boro Hall are hard at it, connecting dots, leveling the playing field. My license number was mentally logged by Officer Bohmer. Dot one. My years-old connection with the grievously unlucky Natherial (who couldn’t have been the target) has been cross-referenced from his list of life acquaintances. Dot two. Possibly my passing association with Tommy Benivalle (who’s conceivably under indictment somewhere) has hit pay dirt via the FBI computer. Dot three. My fistfight with Bob Butts at the August has disclosed an unstable, potentially dangerous personality. Dot four. Who of us could stand inspection and not come out looking like we did it — or at least feeling that way? I am again a person of interest and my best bet is to call and admit everything.

Call #5 is, also predictably, from Mike, at ten, and sounds as if he may have been into the sauce (he’s a Grand Marnier man). Mike hopes that I’ve enjoyed an excellent day with my family around me (I haven’t); he also notes that Buddha permits individuals to make decisions without giving offense because “the nature of existence is permanent, which can include temporarily taking up a quest to free oneself from the cycle of time.” There’s more, but I don’t intend to hear it at what is probably two-something. He’ll be naming streets in Lotus Estates by Monday. His arc is shorter than most.

I’m relieved there’s no call-out-of-the-weirdness from Paul, and half-relieved/half not that there’s nothing from Wade. Nothing’s from Clarissa. And I’ll be honest and admit, in the new spirit of millennial necessity, that not a night begins and ends without a thought that Sally Caldwell might call me. I’ve played such a call through my brain cells a hundred times and taken pleasure in each and every one. I don’t know where she is. Mull or not Mull. She could be in Dar es Salaam, and I’d welcome a call gratefully. A lot of things seem one way but are another. And how a thing seems is often just the game we play to save ourselves from great, panicking pain. The true truth is, I wish Sally would come home to me, that we could be we again, and Wally could wear a tartan, hybridize many trees and be satisfied with his hermit’s lot — which he chose and, for all I know, may long for, given the kind of lumpy-mumpy bloke he was in this house. Possibly I will call her on Thanksgiving, use the emergency-only number. Nothing has qualified as an emergency — but may.

The sea and air outside my window are of a single petroleum density, with no hint of the tide stage. One socketed nautical light drifts southward at an incalculable distance. I’ve always attributed such lights to commercial craft, dragging for flounder, or a captaincy like the Mantoloking Belle, commandeered by divorced men or suicide survivors or blind golfers out on the waves for a respite before resuming brow-furrowing daylight roles. Though I know now, and am struck, that these can be missions of another character — grieving families scattering loved ones’ ashes, tossing wreaths upon the ocean’s mantle, popping a cork in remembrance. Giving rather than taking.