A. Homes - Music for Torching

"Do you feel unhappy?"

"I feel nothing," he says. "Sometimes a twinge in my back, a little bursitis, but other than that, nothing." He pauses. "It isn't always perfect. Your mother still wants perfection. She still wants everything she never had," he adds loudly. "She won't die without it."

"I will die without it, that's the problem," her mother says.

"Mother, what do you want?" Elaine calls into the kitchen.

"Everything. I want everything, all the best, and you should want it, too."

Her mother sweeps into the living room-a force of nature, her determination evident in the flare of her nostrils, the flash of her eyes, the tightness of her lips. She is fierce. "Where's your family? Why haven't they come down? Rally the troops," her mother says, clapping her hands.

Elaine goes upstairs. Sammy is still in the bed. She uncovers him. "Time to get up," she says.

"No," he says.

"Yes," she says.

Paul is in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror.

"You look at yourself more than anyone I know," Elaine says. "What do you see?"

"Decay," Paul says. "The early signs of rot."

"Breakfast is ready," Elaine says.

"I'm almost done," he says.

There's a little pile of pills on the dresser-mental candy. She can't remember which color does what. She picks two, orange and blue. She dresses. Sammy still has not moved. Elaine goes to make the bed; she pulls the sheets up over him, pretending he's not there. She fluffs the pillows. "Paul," she calls. "Paul, there's a problem with the bed."

"What now?" he asks, not realizing it's a joke.

"There's an inexplicable lump in the middle. Maybe you can do something about it."

"Can't it wait?"

"I don't think so," Elaine says. "I think you ought to deal with it before breakfast."

"Give me a minute," he says, "and I'll take a look."

Sammy giggles.

Elaine knocks on Daniel's door. She pretends her hand is a horn, she pretends that she's playing reveille, she blows hard. "Rise and shine," she says. "Chow's on."

"Where are your filters?" her mother asks when Elaine returns.

"In the drawer below the toaster oven-on the right."

Elaine could go blind and no one would notice. She's memorized where everything is. She could navigate the house for years before anyone caught on. The problem would be something simple, like laundry.

Paul bounds down the stairs, his flat feet clomping like hooves. "Morning," Paul says. "Long time no see. How've you been?" Paul slaps her father on the back.

"I saw that Robertson got Van Kamp," her father says to Paul.

"Only after they gave up Raleigh," Paul says. "And Donaldson is out on his ass."

"Yeah, where'd he go?"

"Organic farming," Paul says.

"Jumped ship?" her father asks-he's the retired guy talking to the working guy, looking for a taste of the old life, a sip of the juice. Paul tries to give him some.

"No, he's gone into organic farming," Paul says.

"I've never heard that one before," her father says. "What does it mean?"

"He gave up everything and started a chicken farm."

The conversation stops, and then her father tries again. "Do you still talk to that other fella?"

"Which one?"

"The guy with the."

"Henry?" Elaine says. Her head hurts-maybe orange and blue were a bad combination. She takes a couple of aspirin.

"That's the one-how's he doing?"

"He's gotten into rock climbing," Paul says.

"What's that mean? Why don't I understand what you're talking about?"

"It's very literal," Elaine says. "He left his wife and has a new girlfriend, and they've been going hiking."

"Oh," her father says. "I thought you were talking in some kind of a code."

"He can get a little paranoid," her mother says. "Where's your dining room table?"

"Elaine axed it," Paul says.

"Mom," Daniel yells downstairs. "Where's my plastic cast?"

"Your what?"

"You know, the white mold I made at Scouts."

"Your plaster cast?" Elaine corrects. She remembers it. She remembers finding it on Daniel's desk, she remembers Paul smashing it, thinking there was some hidden treasure buried within. She remembers dusty white smoke rising, rubble, small pieces on the floor.

She looks at Paul. He goes to the bottom of the stairs.

"Maybe you left it at the Meaderses'," he says.

"No," Daniel says. "It was here. You didn't take it, did you?"

"Just because you can't find something doesn't mean I took it."

"Paul," Elaine says, stopping him before it gets worse.

Her parents stand in the kitchen-oblivious.

"Weird," Daniel says, coming to the top of the stairs.

"It happens," Elaine yells. "Chow's on. Get Sammy."

"Samster, the hamster boy," Daniel says. "Come and get it."

"This is great," Paul says as they squeeze in around the kitchen table. "Elaine doesn't usually make a real breakfast."

"Don't touch me," Sammy says, sitting down.

"It's early for tomatoes, but I'm a sucker," her mother says, loading her plate.

"A sucker for anything that costs double what it should," her father says, digging in.

"Does anyone need me to make eggs? I can make eggs if anyone wants them. I brought a dozen."

"This is fine," Elaine says. "We're fine."

"Could someone pass the onion?" her father says.

"Now, that's what you shouldn't be eating," her mother says. "All day it'll repeat on you."

Elaine listens to her parents "not fighting-talking." She has the sensation of something pecking at her, pinching, biting off pieces of her flesh. She hears her mother's voice and hates it.

"Sam, come here, I have something to show you," her father summons Sammy.

"Don't go," Daniel says. "He's going to make your ears excrete money."

"That's a big word," Paul says.

"'Money'?" Daniel says.

"'Excrete,'" Paul says.

Daniel squeezes the two halves of his bagel together-cream cheese oozes out.

The phone rings, it's Joan. "Will you be home later? I have a little something for you. I was thinking of dropping by at around six. How does that sound?"

Elaine watches her father pluck a quarter from Sammy's ear.

"Excrete," Daniel says.

"Fine," Elaine tells Joan. "Great."

In the living room, after brunch, Elaine's father pulls a cigar from his shirt pocket.

"Since when do you smoke?" Paul asks.

"It's his new passion," her mother says.

"For years I was too busy to enjoy anything. That's what retirement is about, discovering pleasure," he says, clipping the tip.