A. Homes - Safety of Objects - Stories

“I’m here to fix the hot water heater,” Bob says.

“There’s a little difficulty with the door,” Jim says. “My key broke off in the lock.”

“Which door?” Bob says.

Jim points up to the kitchen door, and the repair man takes his toolbox out of the truck. Jim follows him up the stairs. Just as they’re getting the door open, Jim’s wife pulls up in the car. Susan seems surprised by the sight of him, and Jim’s not sure if it’s because he’s home hours earlier than usual, or if it’s the shirt on his head and the dirt on his chest that have thrown her off guard.

“Daddy!” His daughter Emily hurls herself at him, hugging his knees.

“Did you bring me anything?” his older child, Jake, asks.

“Just me,” Jim says.

Jake makes a face. He sees the weeds that Jim dug up lying in a heap by the driveway.

“You’re in trouble now,” Jake says.

“You idiot,” Susan screams as she rounds the edge of the car and looks into the backyard. “You dug up my marigolds.” She runs through the yard shouting. “What the hell is wrong with you? Are you insane?” Jim charges down the steps and into the yard. He’s almost willing to kill Susan to keep the neighbors from hearing her.

“Be quiet,” he says loudly. “Be quiet.”

“You ruined my garden, you fool,” Susan screams and then stands silent in the middle of the yard, her arms crossed over her chest.

Bill’s Repair Man comes out of the house to get something from his truck. He’s grinning and Jim has the urge to punch him, but his children are staring at him, waiting to see what an adult does after being completely humiliated.

Jim walks past all of them, up the steps, and into his house.

There’s no reason I should know what a marigold is, he thinks, I’m the Flynch-Peabody Man of the Year.

He goes up to the bedroom, empties the contents of the hamper onto the bed, spreads the dirty clothing out evenly, and lies down on top of it. He stares up at the ceiling, sucking his thumb, and occasionally rubbing a soft piece of clothing across his face. This is something he does to relax. He doesn’t think it is any stranger than a person taking a Valium, lifting weights, or immersing himself in some kind of tank. Emily comes in with her bottle and lies down next to him.

“You’re dirty,” Emily says.

Jim nods.

“It’s okay.” She rests her head on his chest, sucks her bottle, and falls asleep.

The phone rings, Jim gets up carefully, so as not to disturb Emily, and picks up the phone in the hall.

“Hi, it’s Bill MacArthur.”

“Oh, hi Bill, how are you?” Susan says, from the extension in the kitchen.

Jim tries to remember who this Bill is. In the six months they’ve lived there he’s met four Bills, two Bobs, three Roberts, and a Robbie, and he can’t tell one from the other.

“Good, good,” Bill says. “I’m just getting ready to run the kids down to the park and toss around the ball. I thought maybe you’d like to bring yours.”

“What a nice idea.”

Jim knows that if he’d gone downstairs a minute before and said, Honey, let’s take the kids to the park and toss a ball around, she would have looked at him like he was crazy.

“I’ll stop by and you can follow me in your car.”

Jim tries to imagine who Bill MacArthur is. What’s his relation to the real MacArthur? Doesn’t he have a job? A family, his own damn wife?

“Kids, kids, where are you?” Susan calls, as she runs up the steps. “Get your shoes on, we’re going to the park.”

“Can I come with you?” Jim asks, as Susan rubs a damp washcloth over Emily’s face, wiping off her sleep and the dirt from Jim’s chest.

“You have to stay home and replant my flowers.”

Jim feels as if he’s been slam-dunked. How can he do anything when she’s running off into the woods chasing wild balls with some guy named Bill?

“Do you wear your ring?” he asks.

“What ring?” Susan says.

“You know, your ring?” Jim spins his wedding band around.

“Oh that ring. You scared me for a minute. Of course, except when I’m doing the dishes. What makes you ask?”

MacArthur’s horn beeps in front of the house.

Jim stands on the landing, looking out the window. He tries to wave to Bill MacArthur, whoever the hell he is, but MacArthur doesn’t see him.

Jim decides to take a shower outside, it will save him the job of cleaning the tub when he’s done. He takes a towel and a bar of soap and goes into the yard, hauling the hose after him.

This is what men who don’t live in cities do, he thinks, imagining naked men in backyards all over Westchester and up into Connecticut. They shower out of doors, like Abe Lincoln. It’s the hearty way. The real way.

He picks at the dirt embedded in his chest hair, and rubs what he gets between his fingers. He throws the hose over a tree branch and turns on the water — it is cool if not cold. Jim starts to sing. He lathers himself from head to toe, watching the dirt pour off his body in little muddy rivers. He rinses his hair and, when the soap is out of his eyes, looks into the bushes at the far end of the yard. There are two small faces pressed up against the fence. They are giggling. “Look at his pee-pee,” a small voice says. Jim turns away. They have ruined his moment. Is a man not free to do as he pleases in his own home, he wonders, to wash his own dirt from his body? Does he need permission? This is not America as Abe Lincoln intended.

He is angry and ashamed. He has the urge to turn the hose on the children but knows it will only start trouble. Instead, he moves cautiously, rinsing himself with his back to them and then wrapping the towel tightly around his waist. Jim carefully collects his clothing, the soap, and the hose, leaving no traces, and walks back toward the house, clean feet squeaking on the grass.

He sits in a straight-back chair in the living room, wet hair slicked back. Susan has bought all new furniture. Nothing is familiar. Nothing is comfortable. Jim goes into the kitchen and tries to make phone calls. His book is in his briefcase at the office. He can’t think of where anyone lives and so can’t get their numbers from information. He sits in his chair, in the dark, until his wife and children return. They have stopped at McDonald’s on their way home; he can smell it on their clothing.

He takes the sleeping Emily, his little french fry, from Susan and carries her up to bed.

“Why were you home this afternoon?” Susan asks when he comes downstairs.

He points up toward Emily’s bedroom and motions for Susan to whisper. “Bomb threat,” he says.

“Nobody else came home early?” Susan says as if she doesn’t believe him.

“It wasn’t the whole city, just my building, my firm to be exact.

“How odd,” she says. “Will you go in tomorrow?”

It has not occurred to Jim that he might not be going to the office in the morning. Susan goes upstairs to remind Jake to put his retainer in. The phone rings and Jim picks it up, hoping it will be someone from work.

“Is Susan there?” a male voice asks.

“No, I’m sorry, she’s not.”

“This is Bob Wellington. I ran into her at the car place the other day, and I just wanted to make sure she got her tires rotated all right.”

“They seem very well rotated,” Jim says.

“How many miles you got on that car?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Jim says.

“Well, remind her to check on the oil change: every thirty-five hundred miles, even though they say you can wait to four or five. Runs the engine down if you wait, kills the car.”

“I’ll pass the information on.”

“Is this her father by chance?” Bob Wellington asks, chuckling.

“No, it’s not,” Jim says.