Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

“Not that he would bite me , of course,” the woman said. “He just fell in love with me, like I think I was telling you.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Macon said.

“But I could train him in no time not to bite other people. You think it over and call me. Muriel, remember? Muriel Pritchett. Let me give you my card.”

She handed him a salmon-pink business card that she seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. He had to fight his way around Edward to accept it. “I studied with a man who used to train attack dogs,” she said. “This is not some amateur you’re looking at.”

“Well, I’ll bear that in mind,” Macon said. “Thank you very much.”

“Or just call for no reason! Call and talk.”

“Talk?”

“Sure! Talk about Edward, his problems, talk about… anything! Pick up the phone and just talk. Don’t you ever get the urge to do that?”

“Not really,” Macon said.

Then Edward gave a particularly piercing yelp, and the two of them rushed home.

Well, of course she wasn’t there. He knew it the instant he stepped inside the house, when he smelled that stale hot air and heard the muffled denseness of a place with every window shut. Really he’d known it all along. He’d been fooling himself. He’d been making up fairy tales.

The cat streaked past him and escaped out the door, yowling accusingly. The dog hurtled into the dining room to roll about on the rug and get rid of the scent of the kennel. But there was no rug — only bare, linty floor, and Edward stopped short, looking foolish. Macon knew just how he felt.

He put away the milk and went upstairs to unpack. He took a shower, treading the day’s dirty clothes underfoot, and prepared for bed. When he turned off the light in the bathroom, the sight of his laundry dripping over the tub reminded him of travel. Where was the real difference? Accidental Tourist at Home, he thought, and he slid wearily into his body bag.

When the phone rang, Macon dreamed it was Ethan. He dreamed Ethan was calling from camp, wondering why they’d never come to get him. “But we thought you were dead,” Macon said, and Ethan said — in that clear voice of his that cracked on the high notes—“Why would you think that ?” The phone rang again and Macon woke up. There was a thud of disappointment somewhere inside his rib cage. He understood why people said hearts “sank.”

In slow motion, he reached for the receiver. “Yes,” he said.

“Macon! Welcome back!”

It was Julian Edge, Macon’s boss, his usual loud and sprightly self even this early in the morning. “Oh,” Macon said.

“How was the trip?”

“It was okay.”

“You just get in last night?”

“Yes.”

“Find any super new places?”

“Well, ‘super’ would be putting it a bit strongly.”

“So now I guess you start writing it up.”

Macon said nothing.

“Just when do you figure to bring me a manuscript?” Julian asked.

“I don’t know,” Macon said.

“Soon, do you figure?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a pause.

“I guess I woke you,” Julian said.

“Yes.”

“Macon Leary in bed,” Julian said. He made it sound like the title of something. Julian was younger than Macon and brasher, breezier, not a serious man. He seemed to enjoy pretending that Macon was some kind of character. “So anyway, can I expect it by the end of the month?”

“No,” Macon said.

“Why not?”

“I’m not organized.”

“Not organized! What’s to organize? All you have to do is retype your old one, basically.”

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” Macon said.

“Look. Fellow. Here it is—” Julian’s voice grew fainter. He’d be drawing back to frown at his flashy gold calendar watch with the perforated leather racing band. “Here it is the third of August. I want this thing on the stands by October. That means I’d need your manuscript by August thirty-first.”

“I can’t do it,” Macon said.

In fact, it amazed him he’d found the strength to carry on this conversation.

“August thirty-first, Macon. That’s four full weeks away.”

“It’s not enough,” Macon said.

“Not enough,” Julian said. “Well. All right, then: mid-September. It’s going to knock a good many things out of whack, but I’ll give you till mid-September. How’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Macon said.

The dullness of his voice interested him. He felt strangely distant from himself. Julian might have sensed this, for after another pause he said, “Hey. Pal. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Macon told him.

“I know you’ve been through a lot, pal—”

“I’m fine! Just fine! What could be wrong? All I need is time to get organized. I’ll have the manuscript in by September fifteenth. Possibly earlier. Yes, very possibly earlier. Maybe the end of August. All right?”

Then he hung up.

But his study was so dim and close, and it gave off the salty, inky smell of mental fidgeting. He walked in and felt overwhelmed by his task, as if finally chaos had triumphed. He turned around and walked out again.

Maybe he couldn’t get his guidebook organized, but organizing the household was another matter entirely. There was something fulfilling about that, something consoling — or more than consoling; it gave him the sense of warding off a danger. Over the next week or so, he traveled through the rooms setting up new systems. He radically rearranged all the kitchen cupboards, tossing out the little bits of things in sticky, dusty bottles that Sarah hadn’t opened in years. He plugged the vacuum cleaner into a hundred-foot extension cord originally meant for lawn mowers. He went out to the yard and weeded, trimmed, pruned, clipped — stripping down, he pictured it. Up till now Sarah had done the gardening, and certain features of it came as a surprise to him. One variety of weed shot off seeds explosively the instant he touched it, a magnificent last-ditch stand, while others gave way so easily — too easily, breaking at the topmost joint so their roots remained in the ground. Such tenacity! Such genius for survival! Why couldn’t human beings do as well?

He stretched a clothesline across the basement so he wouldn’t have to use the dryer. Dryers were a terrible waste of energy. Then he disconnected the dryer’s wide flexible exhaust tube, and he taught the cat to go in and out through the empty windowpane where the tube had exited. This meant no more litterbox. Several times a day the cat leapt soundlessly to the laundry sink, stood up long and sinewy on her hind legs, and sprang through the window.

It was a pity Edward couldn’t do the same. Macon hated walking him; Edward had never been trained to heel and kept winding his leash around Macon’s legs. Oh, dogs were so much trouble. Dogs ate mammoth amounts of food, too; Edward’s kibble had to be lugged home from the supermarket, dragged out of the car trunk and up the steep front steps and through the house to the pantry. But for that, at least, Macon finally thought of a solution. At the foot of the old coal chute in the basement he set a plastic trash can, with a square cut out of the bottom. Then he poured the remainder of a sack of kibble into the trash can, which magically became a continuous feeder like the cat’s. Next time he bought dog food, he could just drive around to the side of the house and send it rattling down the coal chute.

The only hitch was, Edward turned out to be scared of the basement. Every morning he went to the pantry where his breakfast used to be served, and he sat on his fat little haunches and whimpered. Macon had to carry him bodily down the basement stairs, staggering slightly while Edward scrabbled in his arms. Since the whole idea had been to spare Macon’s trick back, he felt he’d defeated his purpose. Still, he kept trying.