Richard Ford - Independence Day

“Look, Ted,” I say. “Just step out and take a look at that green-and-gray sign and see if it doesn’t say ‘exclusive.’ I’m not going to make a big deal out of it right now, because I’m up in Connecticut. But I’m going to get it straight on Tuesday.”

“How is it up there?” Ted says, daffy as a duck.

“It’s hot.”

“Are you up at Mount Tom?”

“No. I’m in Hawleyville. But if you’d just be considerate enough, Ted, not to show the house to anyone else, maybe we can avoid a big lawsuit. My clients deserve a chance to make an offer.” Not that they haven’t had ample chance, or that they aren’t right now cruising the deserted, lusterless streets of East Brunswick, hoping to find something much better.

“I wouldn’t mind that,” Ted says, energetic now.

“Great, then,” I say. “I’ll get back to you in a hurry.”

“The people after you yesterday said they’d be coming in with an offer this morning.”

“If they do, Ted,” and I say this threateningly, “remember my clients have first refusal. It’s in writing.” Or it should be. Of course this is standard realty baloney, routinely purveyed by both sides: the “bright ‘n’ early in the morning” offer. In general, people (buyers, usually) who trot out this “promise” are either making themselves feel substantial and will have forgotten it entirely by five o’clock, or else they’re deluding themselves by supposing the mere prospect of a fat offer makes everybody feel better. Naturally, only generous offers you can pinch between your thumb and index, finger make everybody actually feel better. And until one of those comes into view, there’s nothing to get excited about (though a rising tide of seller’s angst never hurt anybody).

“Frank, do you know what’s a very strange thing I’ve learned,” Ted says in a seeming state of goofy wonderment.

“What’s that?” Through the window I’m watching a van full of retarded kids off-load in the Friendly’s lot — teenage tongue-thrusters, frail cross-eyed girls, chubby Down’s survivors of unspecified gender — eight or so, bumbling out onto the hot tarmac in elastic-band shorts of various hues, sneakers and dark blue tee-shirts that have YALE printed on the front. Their counselors, two strapping college girls in matching brown shorts and white pullovers, who look like they go to Oberlin and play water polo, get the van locked up while the kids stand staring in all different directions.

“I’ve learned that I really enjoy showing people my house,” Ted rambles on. “Everyone who’s seen it seemed to like it a lot and they all think Susan and I did all right here. That’s a good feeling to have. I expected to hate it and feel a lot of grief at having my life invaded. You know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I say. My interest in Ted is dwindling fast since I realize there’s a decent chance he’s a real estate scammer. “It just means you’re ready to move on, Ted. You’re ready for Albuquerque and all that sunshine.” (And to have your nuts preserved in amber.)

“My son’s a surgeon in Tucson, Frank. I’m going out for surgery in September.”

“I remember.” (I got the city wrong.) The gaggle of afflicted teens and their two big, tan-legged, water-polo-type minders are making for the door now, some of the kids in full charge, and all but a couple wearing plastic crash helmets strapped under their chins like linebackers. “Ted, I just wanted to touch base here, see how your day went yesterday. And I needed to remind you about the ‘exclusive.’ That’s a serious agreement, Ted.”

“Okay then,” Ted says buoyantly. “Thanks for telling me.” I imagine him, white-haired, soft hands, diminutively handsome in his dimpled Fred Waring way, framed in his back window, marveling out at the bamboo wall that has long shielded him from his peaceable prison. It leaves me with a dull feeling that I’ve gone about this wrong. I should’ve stayed close to the Markhams, but my instincts said otherwise. “Frank, I’m thinking that if I get this cancer thing behind me I might just give realty a try. I think I might have a gift for it. What do you think?”

“Sure. But it doesn’t take a gift, Ted. It’s like being a writer. A man with nothing to do finds something to do. I’ve got to hit the road now. I’ve got to pick up my son.”

“Good for you,” Ted says. “Go right on. We’ll talk another time.”

“You bet,” I say darkly, and then that’s over.

The kids are clustered at the glass doors now, their counselors wading through them, laughing. One Down’s boy is giving the door handle a vicious jerking and making a fierce face at the pane, in which he can no doubt see his reflection. The rest of them are still looking around and up and down and back.

When the first counselor drags the door open with the Down’s kid still attached to it, he glares at her and makes a loud, fully uninhibited roar as the door lets hot air right into my face. Then the whole bunch comes scuttling in and past, heading for the second door.

“Oops,” the first tall girl says to me with a wondrously bountiful grin. “We’re sorry, we’re a little clumsy.” She moves on by in the current of little feebs in their Eli shirts. Her own shirt has a bright-red shield on its breast that says Challenges, Inc . and below that, Wendy . I give her a smile of encouragement as she gets shoved past.

Suddenly the little Down’s kid whirls left, still attached to the door, and roars again, conceivably at me, his dark teeth clenched and worn to nubs, one little doughboy arm raised, fist balled. I am poised by the phone, smiling down at him, my hopes for the day attempting to scale the ladder of possibility.

“That means he likes you,” says the second counselor— Megan— inching past at the back of the pack. She’s putting me on, of course. What the roar means is: “Stay away from these two honeys or I’ll eat your face.” (People in many ways are the same.)

“He seems to know me,” I say to golden-armed Megan.

“Oh, he knows you.” Her face is freckled with sunshine, her eyes as plain brown as Cathy Flaherty’s were dazzling. “They look alike to us, but they can pick you and me out a mile away. They have a sixth sense.” She smiles without a whit of self-consciousness, a smile to inspire minutes but possibly not hours of longing. The inner door to Friendly’s hisses open, then slowly shuts behind her. I head at that moment out into the sunny morning to begin my last leg to Deep River.

B y 9:50, feeling late, late, late, I’m larruping down-hill-and-up toward Middletown, Waterbury and Meriden, being already lost in the morning’s silvery haze. CT 147 is as verdant, curvy and pleasant as a hedgerow lane in Ireland minus the hedgerows. Tiny pocket reservoirs, cozy roadside state parks, pint-size ski “mountains” perfect for high-school teams, and sturdy frame homes edging the road with satellite dishes out back, show up around every curve. Many houses, I notice, are for sale, and quite a few display yellow plastic ribbons on their tree trunks. I can’t now remember what Americans are being held prisoner or where and by whom, though it’s easy to conceive somewhere, somebody must be. Otherwise the ribbons are wishful thinking, a yearning for another Grenada-type tidy-little-war which worked out so happily for all concerned. Patriotic feelings are much more warming when focused on something finite, and there’s nothing like focusing on kicking somebody’s ass or depriving them of their freedom to make you feel free as a bird yourself.

My thoughts, though, unwillingly run again to the pathetic Markhams, no doubt at this very minute touring some grisly cul-de-sac, accompanied by a nasal-voiced, thick-thighed residential specialist demoralizing the shit out of them with chatter. An indecent, unprofessional part of me hopes that by day’s end, faced with calling me and crawling back to 212 Charity with a full-price offer, they jump for the last house of the day, some standing-empty, dormered Cape whose prior owners gave it to the bank when they transferred-out to Moose Jaw back in ’84, some dire shell on a slab, with negative R factors, potential for radon, a seeping septic, in need of emergency gutter work before the leaves fly.