A. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life

Is it better to become a crossword clue or a joke on Leno?

Leno continues, "Also in the news, the Chinese president today said he was giving up fried lice for Lent — or was that Rent?"

In his bedroom, Richard goes online. He does a little after-hours work — shuffling the deck, there is something to be said for constant vigilance, everything at its price.

He checks his e-mail. The boys are twenty-four hours away. Maybe it's good that Cynthia found a place of her own — it would be hard with her here and Ben and Barth.

In the middle of the night, the dog jumps up onto the bed. Richard feels him pressing against his leg and somehow thinks it's his ex-wife, warm, reassuring. In the morning, the dog is on his back in the middle of the bed; Richard gets up without waking him.

THE CONTRACTOR calls at 7:00 a.m. "When's a good time to bring over my glass man? He needs to measure in order to get the estimate."

"I don't have a car today," Richard says.

"Well, let's just make the appointment and you'll figure it out," the contractor says. "Let's call it one-thirty."

"Do you mind if I borrow some of these?" Cynthia asks, dividing a package of Sylvia's high-fiber carob cookies into two Ziploc bags.

"Go ahead," he says.

She puts the cookies into two brown-bag lunches she's made. "For the kids," she says. "I'm going to drop them off this morning before rehab. Well, I'm not going to drop them off. Evelyn, my ride from the program, will run into the school and deliver them — a hit-and-run nutrition attack. I'm worried that they've had nothing decent to eat. Andy probably stops at the McDonald's drive-through on the way to school and gets them McNuggets to go."

"I can't imagine they'd eat cold McNuggets."

"Oh," she says, "you'd be surprised. They probably find a way to heat them — the microwave in the teachers' lounge, a Bunsen burner — they're very crafty when they want to be."

A horn beeps — Cynthia's ride. She throws a couple of apples into the lunch bags.

"Do you need us to drop you?"

He shakes his head. "I'll figure it out."

"Have a nice day," Cynthia says, and Richard is terrified — did she really say that?

Richard gets dressed and goes to see Nic about borrowing the car. He rings the bell. He knocks on the door. He pounds. And then he turns the knob. "Hello, anybody home?"

"In here," Nic whispers.

"I've been knocking, ringing, banging."

"I know."

"Why not just answer the door?"

"Come closer and I'll give you a clue."

"Why are you whispering?" Richard goes farther into the house and finds Nic laid out on the dining-room table. "My back. Can't get up, couldn't get down, can't talk loud."

"How long have you been there?"

"End of the day yesterday."

"What happened?"

"I was on a conference call; I bent to pick a piece of paper up from the floor and couldn't get up. I crawled over here, managed to roll myself up onto the table. The worst part was, the call kept going. They were on speakerphone and just went on talking — blah, blah, blah. They had no idea, despite the fact that at one point I screamed and started swearing."

"Can I get you anything? Do you want me to call someone?"

"Could you just get me a plastic bag with some ice in it — a bag inside of another plastic bag, and then maybe wrap it in a dish towel? I don't want to get water marks on the table. It was my grandmother's."

"It's very nice," Richard says. The table is old-fashioned, elegant, seems entirely antithetical to Nic's personality.

"My mother's mother."

Richard brings a pillow and the ice. "And can you bring the little vials that are in the fridge, the ones with the green tops? I'll take a little of my recipe."

Richard follows Nic's instructions, squirting two drops of this one, four of that, and a full dropper of another into Nic's mouth.

"How long were you going to lie there?"

"I figured either it would get better or someone would show up. I wasn't worried. Do me a favor," Nic says, "hang up the phone, it's probably still an open line to Burbank."

"Do you want me to try and help you stand?"

Richard is looking down at Nic laid out; images flash — everything from the table as part of an operating room, to Nic as some sort of weird Jolly Green Giant; his feet are hanging off the end.

"Why don't you just pull up a chair and sit?"

He takes a seat in one of the dining-room chairs at the top of the table, near Nic's head — it's a little like sitting at a hospital bedside, a little like analysis.

"Were you talking about a new film when your back went out?" Richard asks, making conversation.

"It didn't go 'out,' it went into spasm, paroxysms of misery. And, yes, we were talking about a script I wrote. They were 'giving me notes,' which were starting to seem like they wanted me to write an entirely different film, and I kept thinking, That's a whole other movie, and if you want me to write that one you're going to have to pay me more, a lot more, because I already wrote this movie, which is the movie you told me you wanted. Every now and then one of them gets to me; it's usually a kid who studied film theory — movies are not about theory, it's a formula for belief, for selling popcorn."

"How many films have you written?"

"Fifteen or twenty. Can you pour me a drink?"

"It's not even nine in the morning."

"It was a long night."

"How about some Advil?"

"Useless."

"OK, how about a real muscle relaxant?"

"Let's give the recipe a few minutes."

Richard nods and they both dip into silence. He sits by Nic's head, not talking, watching Nic, who has gone deep inside himself. Richard watches Nic's breathing, conscious, deeply measured. He closes his own eyes, breathes, realizes how much he misses meditating with people, realizes how little he's been breathing. They sit — just breathing.

"All right," Nic says, jerking Richard out of the silence. "I hate to do it, it fucks me up, but I can't lie here forever. Bring me a couple of Percocet and a Valium — they're in the bathroom."

"Percocet and Valium?"

"It's not like I haven't done this before."

Richard brings him the drugs and some water and then sits again at Nic's head. "So I called that number that was on the phone pole…"

"And?"

"A guy answered. I said that I was looking for more information. He asked if I'd seen anything, and when I said no, he said, 'Keep looking,' and hung up on me."

Nic nods.

"Do you think there's something out there?"

"I believe in staying open to possibility. What is the point of not believing, closing the door? Just leave it open, see what comes in. Contact — people want contact — if they can't find it here they'll go elsewhere."

"What about the saber-tooth, do you think he's real?"

"I like the idea of it, nature coming back and kicking our asses. And I think he's a she, a bitch for sure."

There's a pause.

"Last night Cynthia told me that she and her husband had sex all the time. I found it weirdly exciting — I haven't had sex in years."

"Years?"

"Is that weird? How often do you?"

"Twice last week."

"With who?"

"Lady friends; I'm weird but I'm not dead. Maybe you need to see a doctor."

"I did. I mean I am, I've been going."

At a certain point Nic feels better enough to roll over and have Richard smear BenGay on his back. "Warm it first; I'm in pain but not without feeling, you know."

Nic's back is hairy, sweaty, thick, meaty. Richard feels odd touching him; he's never touched another man's back before. He smears the BenGay on quickly, unevenly, slapping it on like suntan lotion. He flashes on a memory of his mother putting suntan lotion on his father's hairy shoulders, on himself as a little boy at the beach, watching.