John Cheever: Bullet Park

Nailles did not think this funny, anticipating the fact that almost everyone else in the neighborhood would. How many hundreds or perhaps thousands of cocktail parries would they have to live through, side by side: Hammer and Nailles. Nailles claimed not to be a superstitious man but he did believe in the mysterious power of nomenclature. He believed, for example, that people named John and Mary never divorced. For better for worse, in madness and in saneness they seemed bound together for eternity by the simplicity of their names. They might loathe and despise one another, quarrel, weep and commit mayhem, but they were not free to divorce. Tom, Dick and Harry could go to Reno on a whim, but nothing short of death could separate John and Mary. How much worse was Hammer and Nailles.

"Welcome to Christ's Church," the priest was exclaiming. "Welcome to Bullet Park. Father Frisbee did write to me about you." Father Frisbee had probably not gone into their finances, but Father Ransome, at a glance; guessed them to be good for at least five hundred a year; although he had experienced many disappointments. The Follansbees, for instance, who kept saddle horses and went to Europe every summer, dropped a dollar into the plate whenever they came to church and let it go at that. On top of this they very likely claimed a tax exemption of a thousand. Live and learn. "Mr. and Mrs. Hammer," he said, "may I present your neighbor Mr. Nailles." He laughed.

The look they exchanged was deeply curious and in some ways hostile. The stranger evidently anticipated the unwanted union that the sameness of their names would enforce in such a place. Nailles, who detested genealogy, crests, idle investigations into the elegance of time gone, spoke from a conflict of feeling when he said: "Our name used to be de Noailles."

"I've never looked into the history of our name," said the stranger. He could have beeri unfriendly. He took his wife's arm and left the church.

"Tell me," the priest asked Nailles, "what's happened about Tony and the confirmation class."

"He's playing varsity basketball," said Nailles quite loudly. The Hammers were still within hearing. "He's the only member of his form on the varsity squad and I hate to ask him to give it up."

"Oh well," said Father Ransome, "the bishop will come again in the spring but I suppose he'll be playing baseball then."

"I'm afraid you're right," said Nailles, yielding his place to Mrs. Trencham, who hinted at a curtsy and would probably have kissed the priest's ring had he worn one, but his fingers were bare.

Driving away from church Nailles turned on his windshield wiper although the rain had let up. The reason for this was that (at the time of which I'm writing) society had become so automative and nomadic that nomadic signals or means of communication had been established by the use of headlights, parking lights, signal lights and windshield wipers. The evening paper described the issues involved and the suitable signals. Hang the child murderer. (Headlights.) Reduce the state income tax. (Parking lights.) Abolish the secret police. (Emergency signal.) The diocesan bishop had suggested that churchgoers turn on their windshield wipers to communicate their faith in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. He drove on through a neighborhood where all the houses stood on acre or half-acre lots. All the houses were white. His own place was at the western edge of the town. He had three acres. At the edge of his property was a sign that said: "No dumping. $50 fine. Violators will be prosecuted," Below the sign were a gutted automobile, three defunct television sets and a soiled mattress. The night population of Bullet Park was sparse but its most inscrutable and mysterious members were the scavengers' opposite- the dumpers. Four or five times a year Nailles would find on his property a collection of broken refrigerators, television sets, maimed and unidentifiable automobiles and always a few mattresses, rent, stained, human and obscene. The mattresses were ubiquitous. The town clerk had explained to him that the cost and inconvenience of legitimate dumping outweighed the scrap value of the rubbish. It was cheaper and easier to drive up to Bullet Park from the city and dump your waste than to have some professional haul it away. No violator had ever been caught and prosecuted. The problem for Nailles was merely emotional-Nellie would call the clerk and a truck would haul the stuff away in the morning-but his anger at seeing his land disfigured and his sadness and unease at the human allusions of this intimate and domestic rubbish disturbed him.

Nailles's house (white) was one of those rectilinear Dutch Colonials with a pair of columns at the door and an interior layout so seldom varied that one could, standing in the hallway with its curved staircase, correctly guess the disposition of every stick of furniture and almost every utility from the double bed in the northeast master's room through the bar in the pantry to the washing machine in the laundry basement. Nailles was met in the hall by an old red setter named Tessie whom he had trained and hunted with for twelve years. Tessie was getting deaf and now, whenever the screen door slammed, she would mistake this for the report of a gun and trot out onto the lawn, ready to retrieve a bird or a rabbit. Tessie's muzzle, her pubic hair and her footpads had turned white and it was difficult for her to climb stairs. In the evening, when he went to bed, Nailles would give her a boost. She sometimes cried out in pain. The cries were piteous and senile and the only such cries (or the first such cries) the house had heard since Nailles had bought the place. Nailles spoke to the old bitch with a familiarity that could seem foolish. He wished her good morning and asked her how she had slept. When he tapped the barometer and looked out at the sky he asked her opinion on the weather. He invited her to have a piece of toast, talked with her about the editorials in the Times and urged her, like some headmaster, to have a good day when he left for the train. When he returned in the evening he gave her some crackers or peanuts while he mixed the cocktails and often lighted a wood fire as much for her pleasure as anything else. He had decided that should a time come when she would have to be killed he would take her out behind the rose garden and shoot her himself. As she had grown old she had developed two common frailties. She was afraid of heights and thunderstorms. When the first peal of thunder sounded she would seek out Nailles and stay at his side until the violence had definitely gone into the next county. Nailles still hunted with her in the autumn.

Nellie was frying bacon in the kitchen and he kissed her and embraced her passionately. Nailles loved Nellie. If he had a manifest destiny it was to love Nellie. Should Nellie die he might immolate himself on her pyre, although the thought that Nellie might die had never occurred to him. He thought her immortal. The intenseness of his monogamy, the absoluteness of his belief in the holiness of matrimony, was thought by a surprising number of people to be morbid, aberrant and devious. In the course of events many other women were made available to Nailles but when some ardent divorcee, widow or wayward housewife attacked him, his male member would take a painful attitude of disinterest. It would seem to summon him home. It was a domesticated organ with a love of home cooking, open fires and the thighs of Nellie. Had he any talent he would have written a poem to the thighs of Nellie. The idea had occurred to him. He sincerely would have liked to commemorate his spiritual and fleshly love. The landscapes that he beheld when he raised her nightgown made his head swim. What beauty; what incredible beauty. Here was the keystone to his love of the visible world.

They ate breakfast in the dining room. Nailles went to the hallway and shouted up the stairs to his son: "Breakfast's ready, Tony."