A. Homes - Music for Torching

"Do you think it's drugs?" he asks frantically-his tone half implying that it wouldn't be the worst thing, maybe they'd get a discount.

"I doubt it," she says. "He's been wearing a suit. Drug dealers don't usually wear suits."

"Then what is it, Elaine? Banking? Do you think he's become a banker and that's why he's got the place locked up like Fort Knox?"

Elaine stands back. Paul is heaving, banging, pounding. Finally, the molding gives way. The hasp and a great chunk of wood rip off. The staple flies. A screw skittles across the floor. The door pops open.

The room is undisturbed. Nothing looks out of the ordinary. Elaine picks up a shirt and folds it.

Paul goes to the desk. He reads aloud from an open notebook. "'On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.' My patrol call is Slithering Snake. I make a rattling hiss."

"I bet something's in here," Paul says, picking up a chunk of plaster from the desk. "I bet it's buried in here." He drops the mold on the floor and stomps on it with his shoe. White plaster powder rises like smoke. There is nothing inside.

"I'll tell him it's my fault, it fell while I was cleaning up his room," Elaine says, sweeping up.

She opens a dresser drawer to put away the shirt and feels something. She pulls out a Ziploc bag-her lipstick, Strong Persuasion, is inside. She reaches in again and pulls out a handful of Ziploc bags. Each contains a single item: a sock, a pack of matches, a chip of red enamel.

"Evidence," Paul says.

"Evidence of what?"

"I don't know."

They sit on Daniel's bed.

"Does he know about the fire?" Paul asks. "Does he know not to talk to anyone about it?"

"You'd think he'd know instinctively," she says.

"That's what worries me, he has no instincts." Paul stops. "Do we have to be scared of him?"

Elaine thinks of Catherine and Hammy's son eating the science teacher.

"Do you think he's going to bust us?"

"Why would he do that?" she asks.

"He hates us. Kids get hung up on right and wrong. They get very righteous and moral. We have to find out what he's got," Paul says, ransacking the room, dumping dresser drawers on the floor, turning the place inside out.

"Enough," Elaine shouts after a few minutes of frenzied chaos. "Enough," she shouts. "We're overreacting. Let's clean up. Let's put it all back together."

She goes to make the bed, to put on clean sheets and the new comforter she bought him the other day-black on white, a repeating figure of a man in a suit carrying a briefcase. She lifts the corner of the mattress; magazines slide out: Chunky Bunch, Big Jugs . Fat-girl nudie magazines. Big women. Enormous. Elephantine. Not just chunky but oozing flesh.

"Have you ever seen anyone who looks like this?" Paul asks her.

"Never."

"Not even in the Loehmann's dressing room?"

"No," Elaine says, horrified. She turns the page and begins to read the story of a woman so fat she can't get out of bed, a woman whose legs have to be held open by a special machine in order for her to have sex.

The doorbell rings. They jump. Paul gets up to go. Elaine puts the magazines back. She puts them in a neat stack under the mattress. She folds all the clothing, puts it back in the drawers, puts the drawers back in the dresser, and tucks in the Ziploc bags.

Who is she cleaning up after, Daniel or Paul?

Jennifer is downstairs. "Is Daniel home?"

"No, why?" Paul asks.

"He called me," she says.

"Not here," Paul says, wondering if Daniel often calls Jennifer, if they have some sort of relationship he's not privy to. "Do you want a snack? We're just about to have dinner." They go into the kitchen. He preheats the oven, gets a cookie sheet, and lays out the delicacies, a row of pigs in blankets, a row of mini-egg rolls, a row of cheese puffs. He gets the pitcher and starts to mix the martinis.

"I'll just have a gherkin," Jennifer says.

"Have two, they're small," Paul says. "Why did Daniel call you?"

"I guess he had a question or something," Jennifer says, eating gherkins. "Do you realize that in two weeks I'll be a high school graduate?"

"Yes," Paul says. "Elaine and I would like to get you something special for graduation. Something that would really have mean- ing-any ideas?"

"A Chanel suit," Jennifer says.

"Oh," Paul says. The thought would never have occurred to him-or anyone. "What size?"

"Like an eight," Jennifer says.

Paul jots down "Chanel 8" on a piece of scrap paper. Later, he will see it and wonder if there was something he was supposed to watch on channel 8.

"I should go," Jennifer says, looking up at the kitchen clock. Light glints off the silver ring sticking out of her eyebrow.

"Where do you go at eleven at night?"

"Out," she says.

"With who?"

"People."

"Well, have a good time," Paul says, pulling the cookie sheet out of the oven.

Elaine comes down. "Who was that?"

"Jennifer," Paul says. "Here and gone."

"Where does she go at this hour?"

"Out," Paul says.

"With who?"

"People."

"You don't have to be so rude," Elaine says. "It's not like I'm going to tell her mother."

Paul ignores her. "Where do you want to eat?"

"Upstairs in bed, with the TV?"

They load things back into grocery bags and carry up the loot. Paul brings a tray of hot snacks and the pitcher of martinis.

"God, I'm glad to be home," Elaine says, settling in on the bed, arranging an assortment of jars and boxes in front of her-olives, onion, crackers, Stilton.

The phone rings, the machine answers.

"Hi, Elaine, it's Mom. That's nice you're using the new machine. All right, I guess you're not home, otherwise I'm sure you'd take pity on your poor mother and pick up." She pauses, waiting for Elaine to answer. "All right, I'll talk to you tomorrow."

Paul pours martinis.

"Our kid is a pervert," Elaine says, dropping olives in. "We have to do something about it."

"Tomorrow. We'll fix it tomorrow."

They gorge. They eat pigs in blankets, cheese and crackers, sardines-stinky things that will make them steam and smoke. They flip channels-going round and round, 1 to 99, backward and forward; basketball, old movie, sitcom, sitcom, Headline News, The Weather Channel. They dip their fingers into jars, pulling out tastes of this and that-juices drip everywhere. Paul refills their glasses-his homemade rocket fuel splashes over.

"Did we finish last night or did we just stop?" Elaine asks.

"Is there such a thing as an end?" Paul says.

"I hope so."

"Who wins?" he asks.

"It can't continue," she says. "None of this can continue." She finishes her drink and quickly has another. Her face goes white. "Do you want a divorce?"