Andrew Ervin - Burning Down George Orwell's House

A falling star dripped into view, a hunk of rock that had come too close and got sucked into the earth’s atmosphere to die a fiery death. They watched it burn with its own innate sense of purpose, but it didn’t flicker out. It kept moving, steadily, perhaps in too straight of a line.

“They’re watching us,” Molly said.

“Who?”

“That’s a satellite.”

She was right — the flight path was too perfect to be natural. Only the manmade achieved such pristine linearity. Ray’s precise location at that moment, and at every other moment of his gleefully inconsequential life, could be found and plotted on some celestial map of the cosmos. That had always been true. There had only been the grid the entire time.

“I need to go,” he told her. “Goodbye, Molly.”

She hugged him and headed in the opposite direction, back to her father.

The next day, he awoke with the dawn and set out for a final errand. All of his affairs were in order except for one thing. Wind stirred in the trees. The sheep bah bah -ed at him with contentment, their bells tickling his ears. He smiled into the morning sunlight, and it smiled back at him. His new boots made all the difference in the world, and he regretted not buying them sooner. They were sure to keep his feet dry during even Chicago’s slushiest winter days. He didn’t look forward to those, but he also did. Some wool socks would be essential. Maybe he could score some from a local spinster before he left.

Smoke rose from Miriam’s chimney, so he knocked. “Miriam?” he called. No answer. He knocked again. “Miriam, it’s Ray.” Her dog growled at him from her new prison of barbed wire. It looked like she had grown even fatter. A curtain fluttered open at the next house over, where Mr. Harris’s truck was parked. Ray understood his desire to be left alone and had once shared it, but he gave Mr. Harris a regal wave all the same and the curtains shot closed with grumpy finality. Some people really did want to be by themselves.

Miriam opened the door a crack and blocked Ray’s view of the interior. Her face was covered in sweat, her hair matted to her forehead. “Hello, Ray, this is quite a surprise.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, I’m just dismembering some children so they’ll fit into my cauldron.”

“I’d be glad to help.”

“With all this proper nourishment these days, these vitamins and whatnot, their little bones aren’t as quite brittle as they used to be.” She smiled and wiped at her forehead with a paper napkin. A loud scraping noise came from the direction of the kitchen. “If I might have a moment to straighten up I would be glad to offer you a scone.”

“No, no, that’s not necessary — thank you. I just wanted to say goodbye.”

“Aye, I understand you’re taking your leave, and I hope you didn’t find we Diurachs too unaccommodating.”

“Well I did get shot and thrown into a whirlpool.”

“Aye, I can see how that might be frustrating. Speaking of which, before you go, do stop at the strand facing the Corryvreckan.”

“I know it all too well. In fact, I’m on my way there now.”

“Good, good. Some people will tell you that if you take a stone from that particular strand and bring it home with you, it means that you will come back to Jura one day.”

“I’ll do that. Thank you, Miriam.”

“God bless you, Ray,” she said and shut the door. She appeared to be in some hurry.

“Bye,” he said and there was so much more he wanted to say. He continued on to the island’s northern tip, where he had a date with a whirlpool.

On days like this one, even with the lingering discomfort, out in the sun on the planet’s last unspoiled corner, the amount left to learn felt more like a privilege than a chore. Jura still contained so many things beyond his experience or understanding — but so did Chicago.

The boat Pitcairn had commandeered still bobbed next to the creaking dock. Ray went down to the shore and chose a flat, grey stone to bring home then sat at the end of the pier with his feet dangling over the water. The Corryvreckan gurgled her farewells in the distance.

He pulled the first edition of Nineteen Eighty-Four from his pocket and tore out the first page, crumpled it up, and tossed it like a basketball free throw into the water. He had done the same thing in Chicago with his cell phone. It felt even better this time. Perhaps there was a trend in his behavior. The paper sat for a moment on the surface as if surprised to find itself getting wet, then caught a prosperous current and moved slowly away from the shore. With calm and joyous deliberation, Ray ripped all the other pages out, one after the other, for what had to be an hour or maybe two or three. He watched each page of the appendix float on the surface and drift, ever so slowly, in single file, toward the whirlpool: a fleet of rudderless paper boats carrying the sum of everything he had learned and wished to forget.

THE BELLS TIED TO the doorknob jingled, and Bud walked in. It had only been a matter of time. Ray muted the TV on the wall behind the counter. The White Sox were playing the Tigers. The game had gone on for hours. The Sox had been his father’s favorite team and Ray was praying for them to win. “Hello, Bud,” he said.

“The fuck are you doing, Ray?”

“What does it look like? I’m the proud owner of a drycleaning business. How did you find me?”

“I knew you were back in town when that check cleared. Then I saw your ads on TV Fifty thousand dollars, Ray.”

“Yeah, thanks for that. It was the only way I could get the mortgage on this place. Do you like what I’ve done with it?”

He hadn’t changed all that much other than upgrading the television and having new signs and plastic sacks made. A photo of a young Mrs. Kletzski hung next to the board listing all the prices. The bells tied to the door were new — they had been liberated from the necks of Barnhill’s ovine population.

“That check was an advance against your salary at Ethos. It wasn’t your money yet.”

“That’s strange. It had my name on it. I assumed it was a bonus for the millions of dollars Logos made from my Oil Hogg campaign.”

“You knew perfectly well what that money was for.”

“I wasn’t trying to steal your money. You’re now a twenty-five percent owner of Welter’s Warsh House. I have the paperwork around here somewhere. Our accountant says we may not see a profit for five or ten years. Dry cleaning just isn’t as popular as it once was. People are apparently content these days to throw away their clothes when they get dirty. I’m bringing in just enough business to pay the bills and get those TV spots made. Catchy, aren’t they? The apartment upstairs is mine, though. I’ll show you around sometime.”

“I don’t care about the money, Ray. My problem is with friends quitting on me. You left me hanging.”

“I left you hanging? Tell me this — did you fuck Flora?”

“Is that what this is about? It wasn’t for a lack of trying. She just wasn’t interested.”

“Hard to believe.”

“She said to tell you that she plans to stay in South America more or less forever, but if something changes she’ll look you up. You’re right, though, that I would not have thought twice about selling you down the river just for the chance to sniff her panties.”

“There are plenty here in the back if that’s what you’re into.”

“Dry cleaning? You can’t even keep your own clothes clean.”

“It’s tough to explain, but this is exactly what I want. Real, honest work. These clothes are either clean or they’re dirty. There’s no middle ground, no ambiguity.”

“The fuck happened to you over there?”