Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

The woman’s little sequined evening purse was the last of her to go, trailed behind her in one white hand as she disappeared into the darkness of the restaurant.

He stepped over to the telephone and lifted the receiver. It was cool to the touch; she hadn’t talked long. He fumbled through his pockets, found coins and dropped them in. But there was no one he could contact. He didn’t know a soul in all New York. Instead he called home, miraculously summoning up his credit card number. He worried his family would let the phone ring — it was a habit, by now — but Charles answered. “Leary.”

“Charles?”

“Macon!” Charles said, unusually animated.

“Charles, I’m up on top of this building and a sort of… silly thing has happened. Listen: You’ve got to get me out of here.”

“ You out! What are you talking about? You’ve got to get me out!”

“Pardon?”

“I’m shut in the pantry; your dog has me cornered.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry, but… Charles, it’s like some kind of illness. I don’t think I can manage the elevator and I doubt I could manage a stairway either and—”

“Macon, do you hear that barking? That’s Edward. Edward has me treed, I tell you, and you have to come home this instant.”

“But I’m in New York! I’m up on top of this building and I can’t get down!”

“Every time I open the door he comes roaring over and I slam the door and he attacks it, he must have clawed halfway through it by now.”

Macon made himself take a deep breath. He said, “Charles, could I speak to Rose?”

“She’s out.”

“Oh.”

“How do you think I got into this?” Charles asked. “Julian came to take her to dinner and—”

“Julian?”

“Isn’t that his name?”

“Julian my boss ?”

“Yes, and Edward went into one of his fits; so Rose said, ‘Quick, shut him in the pantry.’ So I grabbed his leash and he turned on me and nearly took my hand off. So I shut myself in the pantry instead and Rose must have left by then so—”

“Isn’t Porter there?”

“It’s his visitation night.”

Macon imagined how safe the pantry must feel, with Rose’s jams lined up in alphabetical order and the black dial telephone so ancient that the number on its face was still the old Tuxedo exchange. What he wouldn’t give to be there!

Now he had a new symptom. His chest had developed a flutter that bore no resemblance to a normal heartbeat.

“If you don’t get me out of this I’m going to call for the police to come shoot him,” Charles said.

“No! Don’t do that!”

“I can’t just sit here waiting for him to break through.”

“He won’t break through. You could open the door and walk right past him. Believe me, Charles. Please. I’m up on top of this building and—”

“Maybe you don’t know that I’m prone to claustrophobia,” Charles said.

One possibility, Macon decided, was to tell the restaurant people he was having a coronary. A coronary was so respectable. They would send for an ambulance and he would be, yes, carried — just what he needed. Or he wouldn’t have to be carried but only touched, a mere human touch upon his arm, a hand on his shoulder, something to put him back in connection with the rest of the world. He hadn’t felt another person’s touch in so long.

“I’ll tell them about the key in the mailbox so they won’t have to break down the door,” Charles said.

“What? Who?”

“The police, and I’ll tell them to — Macon, I’m sorry but you knew that dog would have to be done away with sooner or later.”

“Don’t do it!” Macon shouted.

A man emerging from the restroom glanced in his direction.

Macon lowered his voice and said, “He was Ethan’s.”

“Does that mean he’s allowed to tear my throat out?”

“Listen. Let’s not be hasty. Let’s think this through. Now, I’m going to… I’m going to telephone Sarah. I’m going to ask her to come over and take charge of Edward. Are you listening, Charles?”

“But what if he attacks her too?” Charles asked.

“He won’t, believe me. Now, don’t do anything till she comes, you understand? Don’t do anything hasty.”

“Well…” Charles said doubtfully.

Macon hung up and took his wallet from his pocket. He rummaged through the business cards and torn-off snippets of paper, some of them yellow with age, that he kept in the secret compartment. When he found Sarah’s number he punched it in with a trembling finger and held his breath. Sarah, he would say, I’m up on top of this building and—

She didn’t answer.

That possibility hadn’t occurred to him. He listened to her phone ring. What now? What on earth now?

Finally he hung up. He sifted despairingly through the other numbers in his wallet — dentist, pharmacist, animal trainer…

Animal trainer?

He thought at first of someone from a circus — a brawny man in satin tights. Then he saw the name: Muriel Pritchett. The card was handwritten, even hand-cut, crookedly snipped from a larger piece of paper.

He called her. She answered at once. “ Hel -lo,” roughly, like a weary barmaid.

“Muriel? It’s Macon Leary,” he told her.

“Oh! How you doing?”

“I’m fine. Or, rather… See, the trouble is, Edward’s got my brother cornered in the pantry, overreacting. Charles I mean, he always overreacts, and here I am on top of this building in New York and I’m having this kind of, um, disturbance, you know? I was looking down at the city and it was miles away, miles. I can’t describe to you how—”

“Let’s make sure I’ve got this right,” Muriel said. “Edward’s in your pantry—”

Macon collected himself. He said, “Edward’s outside the pantry, barking. My brother’s inside. He says he’s going to call the police and tell them to come shoot Edward.”

“Well, what a dumb fool idea.”

“Yes!” Macon said. “So I thought if you could go over and get the key from the mailbox, it’s lying on the bottom of the mailbox—”

“I’ll go right away.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“So good-bye for now, Macon.”

“Well, but also—” he said.

She waited.

“See, I’m up on top of this building,” he said, “and I don’t know what it is but something has scared the hell out of me.”

“Oh, Lord, I’d be scared too after I went and saw Towering Inferno .”

“No, no, it’s nothing like that, fire or heights—”

“Did you see Towering Inferno ? Boy, after that you couldn’t get me past jumping level in any building. I think people who go up in skyscrapers are just plain brave. I mean if you think about it, Macon, you have to be brave to be standing where you are right now.”

“Oh, well, not so brave as all that,” Macon said.

“No, I’m serious.”

“You’re making too much out of it. It’s nothing, really.”

“You just say that because you don’t realize what you went through before you stepped into the elevator. See, underneath you said, ‘Okay, I’ll trust it.’ That’s what everyone does; I bet it’s what they do on airplanes, too. ‘This is dangerous as all get-out but what the hay,’ they say, ‘let’s fling ourselves out on thin air and trust it.’ Why, you ought to be walking around that building so amazed and proud of yourself!”

Macon gave a small, dry laugh and gripped the receiver more tightly.

“Now here’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m going to go get Edward and take him to the Meow-Bow. It doesn’t sound to me like your brother is much use with him. Then when you get back from your trip, we need to talk about his training. I mean, things just can’t go on this way, Macon.”