Enter to win a copy of Michelle Wildgen's novel "You're Not You" by joining the FiveChapters mailing list with a note to editor@fivechapters.com.
Upon his first confrontation with Mrs. Bryant's dogwood tree, a rusting pair of hedge trimmers dangling from one hand, Hal realized he should have spent more time with his father. The dogwood was a loosely knit fabric of tough little branches, its blossoms long gone but the green leaves still obscuring everything. At first Hal had the notion of trimming only the dead-looking twigs, but after twenty minutes and no discernable change he'd known he had to get bold. He never thought it would take so long to do a little pruning. His father would have imagined a shape and started cutting the edges to find it, Hal decided, and he had begun to do the same.
That was two weeks ago. The whole dogwood altercation -- the tree itself had turned out rather nicely, even if Hal had taken what should have been a working afternoon to trim it -- had been blown out of proportion. He understood why his boss was peeved at him. The Southwest Wisconsin Food Initiative -- the Swiffies -- had built a largely unsullied reputation since the 1960s, gathering donations and delivering food to the elderly and otherwise housebound. According to Diana, theirs was a reputation now imperiled single-handedly by Hal. He had been late for the rest of his home visits that day. But she made it sound as if he was an EMT who'd stopped for a milkshake. Frankly, Hal thought Diana's sense of proportion was a bit off. Lately he suspected Diana viewed their organization as the last wall between chaos and civilization. Maybe they were closer to this role than Hal had believed for some time, but he had moments in which their vans and trays, even the warehouse stocked with cheap and somewhat nutritious food, felt so tiny and naïve.
The day he'd gone to work on the dogwoods had been a decent enough day to start off. He and Diana were getting along all right, the intern who hadn't been working out had quit anyway, sparing them all the scene of firing an unpaid employee, which was as low as a day got. Hal was so relieved by the intern's outside job offer that he decided to volunteer for the van run although it was Lyle Krentz's turn. Lyle was a colleague of Hal's who filled a similar jack-of-all-trades function but with a year's less experience, so if Hal requested the fresh air and stereo of a drive delivering meals, instead of a day in the warehouse checking their inventory and seeing which organizations hadn't followed through, Hal won.
Mrs. Bryant's house fell about halfway through the run. He had stopped to visit with her six or seven times by this point, and heard a bit about the deceased husband, the sister's daughter who was Mrs. Bryant's closest relative and the only one in the area. He often accepted a cup of tea (and made it, and served it, but the idea of hospitality lurked in the ritual somewhere). She stocked tea in odd, remaindered flavors: orange-clove, peach-clementine, licorice. Hal generally sipped politely for a few minutes and later poured it out in the kitchen while Mrs. Bryant stayed in her chair, neatly and doggedly devouring her meal.
He had walked right into the tree-trimming. The late September weather was gorgeous: sunny, mild, the sky pillowed with sheepy clouds. As Hal gave his usual sprightly knock and entered the Bryant house, he was struck as always by the darkness inside it, the gloom that so often enveloped the houses of the people he visited. The continuation of such an atmosphere was pointlessly cruel. Why didn't he and his coworkers all just take a day and open the window for these people, clean the panes, and clear out the overgrown trees that blocked the light? Before he'd considered the idea fully he'd blurted, "You'd get so much sun in here if the tree out front were trimmed."
Over in her chair in the living room corner, Mrs. Bryant nodded. "You could set your watch to Mr. Bryant's hedges," she informed him. She reached out a hand for the tray and sniffed at it as she lifted the foil. It was turkey meatloaf. Her expression suggested she'd seen worse. "Sit," she instructed Hal.
"I can't stay long," he said. He unfolded her TV tray before her and set the meal on top of it. Then he went to the kitchen for a cloth napkin and a fork and knife.
"I know, I know, the other shut-ins call," she said. She enjoyed referring to the other shut-ins, among whom she did not number herself. When he returned, she peered over the dark frames of her glasses, a true feat considering they were gigantic egg-shaped frames. "You can spare a minute, can't you?"
"Sure," said Hal.
"The hedges are a problem," she continued. She took a bite of carrot and chewed thoughtfully. Mrs. Bryant had not lost a single tooth. "When Mr. Bryant was alive we could have set a tray of iced tea on them, they were so even. That was one of his beliefs."
Hal nodded, glancing at his watch. He was already fairly well acquainted with Mr. Bryant's beliefs, which included the importance of personal vegetable gardens and varying one's tithes between nine and fourteen percent, so the church didn't coast on assumptions.
She patted at her lips with a cloth napkin. Mrs. Bryant had what Hal thought of as good Yankee manners. He had no idea why he termed it this way, but something about her seemed deeply frugal and straightforward, yet with a real sense of propriety. The cloth napkins she insisted upon may have been the tip-off.
"You know," Mrs. Bryant said casually, "I do have some hedge trimmers out in the garage. Old rusty things I don't think a soul has touched for ten years. Who knows if they would even work. Nice job on the egg noodles today."
"I'll let them know," said Hal. He sometimes invented compliments for the kitchen staff out of pity; it would be a relief to have a sincere one this time.
"How's your new girl?" Mrs. Bryant asked. Hal had told her a bit about his living arrangements, about his new housemate Greta, who'd joined Hal and his other housemate Karin straight from the pleasant, middle class environs of the west side. For someone so small, so wiry, she had presence. Her hair was a flossy, pale cornsilk color; the lines around her green eyes deeply traced. Her lips were usually set in a serious line, her hands short-nailed and laced with veins. She had arrived dressed in leather pants, a platinum ring, and a pilled Bucky the Badger sweatshirt with a fraying hem.
Mrs. Bryant seemed to think Hal lived in more of a harem than a co-op, a misapprehension Hal was judicious about correcting. She took obvious pleasure in the idea of Hal ruling a roost.
"She's not really a girl, she's probably forty," Hal had said. "She's fine. Keeps to herself."
"Good cook?"
"I guess," he shrugged. "Long as she cooks on her nights and it's edible and mostly organic that's all I can ask." Mrs. Bryant also appeared to think it was a boarding house.
"I was a fine cook," she said. "Even Mr. Bryant could tell, and he grew up eating fatback and razor-grass, practically."
"Razor-grass?" Hal interjected.
"Really, Hal. Don't be simple." She chewed awhile longer. "When I arrived here no one ever ate hot dishes. I made them and they looked at me like I was a madwoman. No hot dishes. Can you imagine?"
"Really?" Hal asked. "They ate everything cold? Well, maybe Cornish pasties you could have in the fields..."
She cut him off. "It wasn't Cornwall, for god's sake. Pasties, my god. Hot dishes! Tuna noodle, chicken and rice with bread crumbs. Those hot dishes."
"Oh," he said. "Casseroles."
"If that's what you call them out here." Mrs. Bryant had lived in the Midwest for fifty years but still frequently referred to her surroundings with the surprise of a new transplant. She took another dainty bite of meatloaf and looked at the branch-blocked window. "I don't know how you set it up these days with all your women but of course back then the division of labor was quite distinct. Indoor, outdoor. I never even touched Mr. Bryant's garden. If I needed herbs he insisted on cutting them himself."
"I'd like an herb garden," Hal said sincerely. Maybe in the spring they could all plant an organic one, if they began composting now.
"There might be some mint out there yet." She nodded toward the window. "Or sage. Been so long I can't quite recall. You should take a look, Hal. Take a cutting home to these girls of yours. You're a good young man. They must appreciate you."
She eyed him as she said this, and Hal sipped his tea and kept his expression bland and pleasant. He knew Mrs. Bryant's intention was not the sweet compliment she wanted him to notice first. He had talked to her enough to know she didn't value sweetness very much.
The truth was that Hal wasn't very fond of Mrs. Bryant. He had found that she simply expected a certain sort of obeisance, often presenting as fact her need for the armchair to be shifted, the television antenna to be adjusted more carefully this time, a little nub of parmesan to be grated over her dinner. If she didn't get whatever she'd requested she began to talk and just kept going, chatting about how you might have pleased her but instead had failed, things you had the opportunity to do but missed, details you might have thought she did not notice but which in fact she perceived minutely. She did this to everyone -- Lyle entered and left her house at a dead run. Diana talked loudly right over her. Hal once asked her how she managed not to let Mrs. Bryant interrupt her, and Diana said, "She does. I just keep talking and the two of us yell away at each other about totally different things the whole time and when I leave she's still talking."
The problem was that Hal had earned a certain cachet by being on Mrs. Bryant's good side. Even the niece had called and thanked them for the personal attention. She did this just as Hal was getting ready to toughen up on Mrs. Bryant and stick only to his SWFI-designated duties. Everyone at work was deeply impressed by the achievement of pleasantries with the Bryants, patting his back and chuckling to themselves about Hal's magic touch.
It had been some time since people made a big deal about Hal's magic touch.
Enter to win a copy of Michelle Wildgen's novel "You're Not You" by joining the FiveChapters mailing list with a note to editor@fivechapters.com.
Mrs. Bryant had moved to Wisconsin from New Hampshire in 1960, accompanied by a husband who'd had dreams of farming until he got a job on a dairy farm and quit after six months. The couple bought a house on the far east side of Madison and settled in for good, he a factory worker at Oscar Mayer and she a school secretary. When Hal looked at photos of the late Mr. Bryant he saw a feckless, floppy-haired young man turned toward the camera with a startled look over his shoulder, as if he'd just been poked with a stick.
That day, after Hal had suggested someone trim the dogwood, Mrs. Bryant dispatched her meatloaf and told him, "Mr. Bryant was exceedingly strong-willed." She had caught him staring at the photograph again. It was part of his attempts to imagine married life with Mrs. Bryant, which he saw as a pugnacious, needling affair. Hal was there longer and longer each visit, pondering the photo, seated across from Mrs. Bryant on her couch, an antique horsehair affair that was at least half as comfortable as an actual horse. His knees stuck up too high, so he often compensated with a hand flat on each knee like a school master, while he eyed the photo.
Mr. Bryant was framed in white ceramic painted with ivy, sitting on the coffee table and facing the window, as if for the view. Mrs. Bryant continued, reiterating: "Strong-willed. He looked like a bit of a sap, was the humorous part. But he never gave an inch. Not one god-fearing inch." She chuckled proudly. Hal often felt like a bit of a sap himself in her presence.
"I bet you were never bored," he said. He was on the verge of running late. In five minutes it would be official. He had planned ahead with an early start, but he always spent more time here than he intended. It wasn't that time flew so much as the house seemed to exist a step outside time.
Mrs. Bryant chewed her lip thoughtfully, nodding and gazing toward the dusty window. Was she about to tell him one of those bits of homespun wisdom and fond memory that was really pure domestic abuse? This was a pitfall with the elderly, who were wont to tell you stories of grandmothers who whipped them soundly for sneezing in church or going near the old well. They all seemed to have lived long enough that their stories of striped hides and paddles struck them now as almost amusing, as toughening and memorable, and they never realized that to Hal they sounded like the last remaining members of a particularly vicious tribe.
"Well," she began, "you can't go hoping marriage isn't boring." She looked at him sharply. She seemed to enjoy catching Hal in moments of unrealistic optimism. This was not one of them; he assumed marriage could not be anything but monotonous. "Because it is boring. Of course it is! Same person, day in, day out! Same foibles, same jokes, same everything! But every once in awhile you'd have a good knock-down drag out and learn something new about a man. Yes you did."
She speared a piece of meatloaf and carrot and sat back in her chair, nodding. She kept an eye on Hal the entire time. Hal debated how she wanted him to respond. Was she about to confess something? Or was this a true brag? "How so?" he finally asked, keeping his voice neutral.
"Oh, it's not for a young man like you, I suppose," she said. "Not that 'young' is what it used to be. By the time I was your age, Mr. Bryant and I had been married for ten years and had already moved out here from New Hampshire. Anyway, I can tell you that when Mr. Bryant decided he didn't want to buy his own farm after all, wanted in fact to quit the job he had on Snedgar's dairy farm, I was simply livid, livid as can be. He had dragged me out here to nowhere, away from our people back east, and we still barely knew a soul except for the church ladies who liked to show up and nose around.
"I remember he came home late one night, smelling of manure of course, and he chooses that moment to say he might have made a mistake. He was thinking about a factory job, he says. A nice steady thing.
"And of course in most ways a factory job was better. That wasn't the point. Mr. Bryant had bent my ear for months, before we even were married, about this great nation and becoming what you wanted and the freedom of being one's own boss. I felt that to have bored a girl silly for so long with all this, and then to give up so quickly, was bad form.
"And I told him so. Oh, I told him everything I thought. I was a girl who maybe should have been more straightforward at times, you know. I bottled things up, as they say. But this time I was having none of it. You have to realize too that Mr. Bryant was a few years younger than I was. It was a bit of scandal in Hanover, where we came from. I just knew they'd be saying I'd dragged him out and bet all wrong, bet on the wrong horse. They thought I pushed him around a bit, you see, which I did not. I come from women who know their minds, that's all.
"And it may have been that I went a bit far. A bit. I informed Mr. Bryant of a few of his habits I wasn't fond of, and I let him know that others back home had commented on the same. I had worked myself in to a fair lather, and I was finishing dinner and putting it on the table -- it was salmon loaf; I used to put a touch of pickle in it to make it mine -- and Mr. Bryant was sitting at the table the whole time, just watching me get upset. And finally I said, 'You lack imagination, pure and simple, James Bryant. You don't have that spark you wanted me to think you did.'
"Mr. Bryant had hardly said a word till then, but that stirred him. He was up and at me like a flash -- had my wrist up behind my back and was right there up against me, pressing me to the counter. I can smell him still, those coveralls he wore. His breath too. He'd just taken a drink of beer, and I think I even smelled the beans and cornbread they'd served him at the farm. And he told me I would think twice before speaking to him that way. He reminded me that I had him and only him out here, and he'd like to know how I planned to get back to Hanover if I were so inclined. Because I could go.
"He of course was assuming I wouldn't go. He was so upset he forgot I knew about the passbook account he had to save up for that farm he was never going to buy anyway. He hid the passbook in his drawer with his razors and things, underneath a little shelf paper. And thought I wouldn't know! Men are simple at times, Hal. I hope you never allow yourself to be so simple.
"Well, I apologized and was even rather sincere about it, since I did feel bad for saying he lacked imagination. It was true but you have to handle truth judiciously in marriage. And we sat down and ate our dinner and kissed goodnight and went to bed. And as soon as he was gone the next morning I got the passbook and talked them into letting me withdraw the money at the bank -- it was in his name. I had begun to see that Mr. Bryant was not a trusting man. But I had my identification and even my marriage certificate. All that turned out not to be necessary with the account number and such. And I withdrew seven thousand four hundred thirty-nine dollars. I left exactly five dollars in that account."
She smiled and took the last bite of meatloaf. Hal waited and then asked, "Well? What'd you do with it? Did you go back to Hanover?"
She chuckled and shook her head. "I was gone for a time. I haven't told anyone ever where I was then, but all you need to know, and certainly all Mr. Bryant needed to know, is that I was gone for three months and so was his money. I came back eventually. I remember being a little nervous coming up the driveway but feeling good too. He hadn't expected me to do any of that, and that's the key in this life, Hal. People think less of you than you think they do."
She had finished her meal. Hal watched her close her eyes briefly as if in pure satisfaction at a good story, a good meal. He was trying to picture a young Mrs. Bryant, with '60s bouffant and ballet shoes. "How much longer were you married?" he finally asked. He was beginning to think he had just heard of the youthful marriage before the long lasting one, despite the names.
"Another thirty years or so. 'Til Mr. Bryant had his stroke in 1991." She opened her eyes. "Now, Hal," she said. All business again. "I can't see a thing in here. I always thought it was old age but now that you point it out I suspect it's that old dogwood blocking everything. I'm going to be flat-out ashamed of this shabby place from now on."
Hal had met her gaze, which seemed benign, if you weren't looking closely. He was already good and late by now, running at least fifteen or twenty minutes behind schedule. Every day he planned to assert himself with her, he failed. Their eyes were locked, and Hal began to see the familiar steely glint in hers. But something very odd was happening -- for some reason he wasn't feeling as secretly frustrated as he usually did at this moment. He found himself, quite bizarrely, wanting to placate her. There were people waiting, it was true, but couldn't he do this one thing? He had slightly unformed notions of winning her over for good, now that she had told him stories of the unforeseen virulence of Mr. Bryant. Who knew what brought people to the places they now inhabited? Sometimes they seemed a little strange but they had facets you didn't always understand. Mrs. Bryant was a woman alone, he was thinking, a spunky, independent, strong-willed woman who had made her fearless way through life. He wanted somehow to honor that. It took him until he was standing in front of Mrs. Bryant's house, rusty hedge trimmers in hand, still pondering that list of adjectives, to realize he'd been thinking of his new roommate Greta.
Dogwood trimming turned out to be unexpectedly satisfying, the scrape of the blades as the branches fell, the visual improvement so sudden and complete. The window appeared behind where the branches had been. The glass was grimy and dull from rain and dirt, but he fancied he could see Mrs. Bryant inside, the sun pouring in on the faded blue carpet. It was then he began to do the detail work, evening out the edges here and there, sweeping up the fallen twigs. All the while he was aware of the Swiffie van, still half-packed with foil-wrapped meals, sitting in the driveway behind him, but he didn't let that remind him of his real responsibilities. He was feeling good, feeling purposeful. He was already framing his defense: an elderly woman, a dangerously obscured window -- how could he not help?
Finally he'd finished with the dogwood, and it was only as he put away the shears in the garage, returning them to the shelf next to an ancient Mazda, that he began to panic. The sun was not even in the same position as it had been when he'd arrived: it was lower, bloated and dulled. He didn't want to touch one of the trays on the racks in the back of the van, knowing they would be stone cold. So he ran the rest of his rounds in high gear, apologizing quickly and darting back out of the houses again, refusing to look at the screen of his cell phone, which he knew would register missed calls from Diana. Many missed calls.
The discussion that awaited him at the office was everything you'd expect. Yet even knowing he was wrong, Hal couldn't make himself apologize. He found himself digging in his heels and believing it as he insisted he had had no option, that they were missing the forest for the trees if they were so caught up in details that they couldn't make an old woman comfortable.
It was this position, maintained with unwavering passion, plus the artfully evoked image of tiny Mrs. Bryant with her clock-print dress and swollen diabetic leg, that kept his job. Diana allowed Hal to convince her that the day had been a case of compassion run slightly amok, of the charitable impulse they should all have, but should perhaps schedule more efficiently. She was probably picturing a brief détente with a crusty old soul, achieved through Hal's relentless kindness. A little teary learning across generations. Hal never mentioned that in fact he thought Mrs. Bryant might be slightly evil. He was that much more repulsed when he realized he'd been superimposing Greta's rather abrupt demeanor over hers -- he didn't quite know what to make of Greta, but unlike Mrs. Bryant, he didn't suspect one day Greta would fondly confide the details of some ferocious fight with an old lover. Mrs. Bryant, he was increasingly bothered to realize, had recounted the details -- the twisted arm, the breath in the face, the stolen life savings -- as lovingly as the story of a proposal.
Greta had moved into the co-op two months before, saying that Slow-Food based co-operative housing was the best way to take a more active role in her community. Hal and Karin both knew her line sounded a little rehearsed, but they were down two roommates and the other co-ops in the neighborhood were looking askance, so they invited her to move in. The question of why a woman near forty, diamond earrings sparkling beneath her slightly unkempt, pale hair, would choose a co-op had been answered the night before, when her husband announced his existence by passing out on their porch swing. Karin and Greta fled to work early, leaving Hal to be the only one still at home when the husband awoke the next morning, still too drunk to drive his car home. His name turned out to be Will. Hal made pancakes and took his keys.
The drive to Greta's husband's house, in Hal's estimation, took somewhere between ten minutes and four hours. As they drove down Willy Street and through the campus, Will's still-drunk presence evinced an odd, osmotic effect. They watched the students ranging over the streets, happily disregarding lights and crosswalks, and Hal drove the other man's car as cautiously and slowly as an elderly person. The red sweatshirts of the students -- it was a home game weekend -- stood out brightly in the morning sun; coffee steamed invitingly from every other person's hand. Normally driving through campus gave Hal a pleasant jolt of possibility and condescension. The kids all seemed so earnest to him, so clearly at the start of their lives and consciousness after eighteen unthinking years of Midwestern pleasantries and lulling dairy products. His favorites were the ones who were already holding up signs and yelling about something, this early in the semester. Hal had fond memories of realizing how much there was to yell about.
In the closed car, Hal could smell the faint metallic scent of the man sitting next to him -- he smelled like cold metal, late winter air, something ferrous and chilled and curiously airless, like the inside of a cold steel box. Not sweat, not unwashed clothes, not cologne. He'd never smelled anything quite like it before. It must be the scent of metabolizing alcohol. Perhaps Hal had never smelled someone metabolizing it in the quantities Will must be. No wonder Greta had moved out.
He shot a sideways glance at him. Will's seat belt was on, which Hal had insisted upon with a humiliating, jocular little show of fastening his own, and his briefcase was perched across his knees. His head leaned back against the seat rest, but his eyes were open. His stubble was tinged with grey near his jawline. He was watching the students without expression but Hal nevertheless felt himself empathizing with what he imagined Will must be thinking -- the students were annoying. They walked into traffic, too busy flirting to notice the cars; they horsed around and watched each other so blatantly for a response that it was painful to see. You could only feel pity and kindness for so long before you just wanted them to grow up.
Hal stopped too hard at a red light. Will cast a baleful, green-eyed glance his way without moving his head. Hal shrugged and said, "Sorry." He'd been too busy thinking about the effect this man had on him. It was uncanny. He seemed able to suck the life and pleasure out of you without saying a word. He was like some mythical creature with a man's body and leech's soul.
"Like the car?" Will finally said. It was the first thing he'd spoken for a mile.
"It's okay," Hal said. He didn't like to admit that it was a pleasure to drive. He was so used to driving his old Toyota around, the suspension of which was now a distant dream, that the smoothness and responsiveness of a newish, decent car was a luxury. "I'm not really a car person," he added.
Will nodded and turned to watch a group of students trudge through the crosswalk.
On the other side of campus Will indicated with a nod of his head that Hal should go left. They drove into the neighborhood of older, well kept housing that lay between the campus and the hospital. It was a mix of utilitarian student housing and early twentieth century single family homes made of brick and stone, big windows looking out onto tidy, small yards. It wasn't as rough around the edges as Hal's neighborhood, but neatly kept, the architecture varied, the yards quiet.
"This is nicer than a lot of those big subdivisions out by Wal-mart," Hal ventured. The comment was a lot like stating his preference for air and water, but he let it stand anyway. He slowed down for a stop sign. The house on the corner had no grass in the yard, just a profusion of uncontrolled flowers. Next to him Will coughed and Hal got that scent again, like an iron lamppost in January. He stared at the flowers instead, noticing that near the center of the lawn there was a single red blossom. "It really has character," he added.
"Take a left on Van Hise," said Will.
Half a block later Hal was directed to stop before a gabled brick house with a flagstone walk and a light still shining on the front porch. That light depressed Hal. He knew it was probably on a timer, but he imagined Will turning it on as he left the house in the morning, just for himself when he came home later. It was maudlin, but it was probably also true. Hal was reminded suddenly of Mrs. Bryant. Had anyone ever changed the bulb in her front porch light? He'd glanced up the last time he was there, through the web of spidersilk and mummified insects, and could see the phantom shape of the dead bulb through the dusty glass. He didn't think it was safe for an old woman not to have a well lit porch. Then again, she probably rarely opened her locked front door to anyone.
Will was hauling himself out of the car, moving languidly. Hal knew he ought to hand over the keys and say good bye, but somehow he just didn't. Will didn't seem to find it strange that Hal accompanied him to the front door. He sat back against the porch post and waited while Hal tried two or three keys in the front lock. When he got one that worked he opened the door and stepped back for Will to go in first, as if Hal were the host.
Hal followed Will inside the house, simply because he wasn't stopped. He was curious to see where Greta had lived before she moved in with them. They were standing in the front hall, next to what appeared to be an antique table with a marble top. On it sat a wide silver bowl containing the usual detritus: sticks of gum, their hardened edges poking through the paper wrapping, a few paper clips, loose change. The front room was a formal living room, done mainly in pale colors. He saw a little grid of four circular depressions in the carpet next to the window where a pale green silk ottoman sat, looking strange without Greta's beloved chair, which now sat in Hal's own living room. She always managed to sit in it before anyone else could get to it. Hal had tried it out a few times and remained nonplussed. It was a chair. A perfectly comfortable, expensive chair with no ottoman. The rest of the room was messy but a few steps below genuine dirt. Newspapers were piled next to a chair, still folded, and a coffee cup filmed inside with a dull brown skin sat on the side table.
Will set his briefcase down on the floor and proceeded down the hall. Hal heard a faucet run and the sound of drinking, and he realized Will must have been desperately thirsty all morning. Hal had given him coffee and some water but he remembered that terrible thirst first thing in the morning, the way you fantasized about anything refreshing: water, juice, popsicles, grapes, watermelon, sorbet. He hadn't been on a real drunk in many years, but every now and again he still got a reminder: the headache that fit your skull like a cap, the need to bloat your stomach with three glasses of cold water, drunk while standing at the sink.
He heard Will moving around in the kitchen and realized he was taking advantage. Will still wasn't in any shape to realize Hal didn't even belong here. Hal was about to call out a goodbye and toss the keys into the bowl when he glanced out at the car and paused.
There was a muffled thump in the kitchen, then the hiss of a pop-top can. Hal debated going to the kitchen to see if it was a beer or a soda, but what did it matter? What business was it of his? He stood there for a second, then put the keys in his pocket again and went down the hallway. He passed photos of Greta and a thinner, livelier looking Will, all thick dark hair and pale eyes made silvery by the black and white film. There they were, smiling in a yard beneath a tree, sitting in a porch swing, Greta's leg draped over Will's. They were a striking couple. Why leave the photos up, he wondered. Did Will keep them just to torture himself? Or perhaps he lacked the wherewithal to change anything. The ottoman hadn't even been moved over to another chair. It was just sitting in the living room like an island.
The kitchen light was still off, the bright sun coming in through a window that looked out on the backyard. Will was at the kitchen table, two cans of seltzer before him. One appeared empty; the other he tipped his head back and drank from.
"I thought maybe you'd cracked open a beer," Hal said. He gave a little laugh. He didn't really know how to do some kind of intervention. Were there AA meetings at this time of day?
Will sat back in his chair and stared at him. It appeared to be hitting him now that Hal had no reason to be there, certainly no reason to care if he had opened a beer or a seltzer. "Well," he said. "Thanks for the ride in my car."
Hal expelled a chuff of false laughter. He said nothing for a moment, then went ahead and asked. "Can I call someone for you?" he said. "Maybe you know some people from AA you should be in touch with. I could drop you at a meeting." He glanced around, as if an AA meeting book would be sitting out. "Where's your computer?" he asked Will. "We can look one up. I'll wait and drop you off."
"Have you ever been to an AA meeting?" Will asked. He got up, opened yet another can of seltzer, thought better of it and grabbed two, and sat back down with both. He didn't offer one to Hal.
"No," said Hal. "I thought about going to an open one once or twice, sort of as research."
"Why would you need to research?" Will's expression had focused on him carefully for a second, and Hal realized Will might be suspecting a fellow alcoholic.
It was almost with an air of regret that he said, "For my job. Some of the people I work with are in 12-step programs. I thought I could find out what they're about."
"Well," Will drawled. "I'm sure we can find you one. You must need a 12 step program for something. Try this: What's the thing you most enjoy, and that no one wants to let you do anymore?"
"Do you enjoy it?" Hal asked.
Will shrugged, a loose-muscled lurch that spilled a little seltzer. "Everyone enjoys a drink."
Hal took a paper napkin from an open plastic container and set it on the spilled seltzer.
"It looks like fun," he said conversationally. He could feel a Mrs. Bryant-like swell of annoyance at the sheer stupidity of his surroundings. He had come to hate this man just on the drive over, for his deadness, for the way he could radiate despair without admitting it. Yet nevertheless Hal had tried to help, against his own wish to leave this person alone and go have coffee or take a walk, he offered to spend yet more time in his depressing company, and this was what he got. Hal was reminded of the people who, when you gave them a bag of dried white beans, looked at you as if you had handed them sand. The filthy psychic secret in Hal's work was that at times you hated the people you helped. Sometimes you came so close to saying, as they scorned your offering, I'm sorry, had you already bought lobster? Hal would never say such a thing to the people SWFI worked with. He might think it, but he would never say it. Which was why it felt briefly satisfying to say such things to Will. He took the other can of seltzer and opened it. After a long sip -- he actually was thirsty -- he continued.
"I mean, you do seem to be enjoying this lifestyle. It looked like fun when you passed out on the porch at my house. You know my house? Where your wife lives?"
Will stared at him, his mouth slightly open and his eyes a little hooded. He looked, if anything, a little gratified himself. Then he chuckled thickly, apparently to himself, and shook his head. "Everything's fine," he told Hal infuriatingly. "It's all good. You don't have to be here, Greta doesn't have to be here, it's fine."
Hal briefly imagined throwing his can of seltzer at Will, not really over-handing it at his face, just a flip, something to shake him up. The two men looked at each other, and as Hal counted to three, he realized the answer was simple. Will was right. He had no reason to be here. He began to stand.
"So what do you do again?" Will said. Hal paused and leaned against the table. Will wasn't looking at Hal, just gazing out the window toward a maple tree.
"I give people food," Hal said.
Will nodded. He seemed about to say something of interest but ended up adding only, "Oh."
"Yeah," Hal sighed. "What do you do?"
"I give people advice," Will said. "Taxes, law, that kind of thing."
"You're a tax lawyer?" Hal ventured.
"Sure," Will said, as if Hal had just offered him the chance to try it.
They sat in silence. Hal was thinking about getting up again when Will said, "Those pancakes you made were good. You ever eat them with jam? My grandmother served them with raspberry jam."
During this statement Will gazed at Hal with a startling intensity. Hal looked back uncomfortably. Was this an obscure cry for help? Maybe pancakes held a deeper meaning for him. Finally he registered from the silence that Will had exhausted himself on this topic.
"I make them on weekends a lot," Hal said. "Karin, my other roommate, she's big into cornmeal and blueberry pancakes."
"Greta likes buckwheat."
"I'll try them next," Hal said, somewhat sincerely.
"You have to start them the day before or something. Greta always likes shit you have work for twice as hard."
Hal rubbed his eyes. "Well," he said. "I guess I should go. I have to see a friend."
"On a work day?" Will said. Hal looked at him, surprised to realize Will was more alert than he may have chosen to appear.
"She's really old," Hal said, "she doesn't work, I mean. I'm not really scheduled to go but her house needs some work and it's been nagging me. It could be taken care of so easily. I thought I'd swing by as long as I have the day off."
Here he may have been feeling a little proud, a little smug. An enjoyable ring of martyrdom in the unexpected visit to the elderly. Though it did seem satisfying to imagine that place fully cleaned and neatened. All week he'd kept thinking about the dust on the upper fixtures only he was tall enough to see, the yard that could so easily be reigned in. He found it extremely vexing to ignore disorder of such a surface kind.
It was also possible he was trying to set an example. Maybe he was trying to let Will know he was a helpful person, in case he, Will, needed him. But so far Will, though clearly doing badly, wasn't reaching out much for help. Hal had become exhausted with offering help where no one even bothered to acknowledge it. His altruism today had taken on a prickly, show-offy cast, but he wasn't in the mood to change courses.
"You're kind of an all-around good guy," Will said. "Do you actually do anything or do you just show up, drive drunks places, and then visit here and there and feel good about it?"
"It doesn't feel that good," Hal said. He snorted. "Come with me, you'll see." He indulged in a brief vision of Mrs. Bryant haranguing Will about the demon John Barleycorn.
"Fine," Will said, draining off the rest of his seltzer. "Let me shower real quick." And he was gone, the water running, while Hal drank more seltzer and berated himself for the prospect of the day he'd just set in motion.
The very first time Hal knocked on Mrs. Bryant's door, a foil-covered tray heating the palm of his hand, he'd waited for a full five minutes of knocking before he finally entered the house, calling hello loudly and clearly, identifying himself and his organization and peering slowly around corners so as not to startle anyone. This was Madison, not Montana, but you never knew -- someone could be a relic from a heavily armed rural town up north.
The inside of the house had been dim, the air smelling faintly of dust and clove. He had left the door open behind him for the light as his eyes adjusted. After several minutes he finally perceived a woman sitting in an armchair in the corner, the light from the door illuminating her wisps of white hair. She wore high-top tennis shoes and some kind of garment in a cheerful print on a pale background, and she was sitting with preternatural stillness. As Hal took a step toward her he realized that behind the large, circular frames of her glasses, her blue eyes were focused directly on him. Or -- now he was overtaken by the fear that she had expired only moments ago -- perhaps she had last been focused where he was now standing. Hal swayed a little, thrown by the sensation that those pale blue eyes did not see him at all.
He stared into them, focusing on the glare across the tops of the lenses, the lower lids pouching downwards so that the threaded whites showed beneath the irises. Several minutes seemed to pass. He touched his pocket for his cell phone and realized he had left it in the car. The dress, he now saw as he looked at her flat chest for signs of breath, was printed with grandfather clocks.
"Chicken a la king?" the old woman said. Hal jumped.
"I'm sorry?"
"You brought it," she said irritably. She lifted a hand and motioned impatiently for him to come closer. He did, the tray held out before him, until he was a few inches away. She gestured for him to lift the foil, and when he did, peered inside.
She looked up at him again and confirmed, "Chicken a la king."
It turned out she just liked to be very still sometimes. She also enjoyed frightening visitors, but once Hal got used to her she never scared him in quite the same way again.
She liked to announce her guess at the day's meal before he got near her with the tray. Hal grew fond of these guesses, which were invariably the names of such antiquated dishes that hearing her say them was like a childhood trip to his grandmother's house. "Yorkshire pudding!" "Pigs in a blanket!" "Tongue in raisin sauce!" and once, a single, triumphant syllable, one gnarled hand darting upward toward the sun: "Hash!"
Hal began to wish the dishes bore some resemblance to the guesses. (The chicken a la king was really chicken stew, but he hadn't pressed the point.) He mentioned to Diana that they might try pigs in a blanket, but she was reluctant. She agreed to succotash with frankfurter, offsetting the unhealthful sausage with copious amounts of corn and lima beans. Mrs. Bryant, though she noted that succotash was best served with brown bread and a dish of oyster stew, seemed to enjoy it.
Ironically, today it was Will who suggested they stop for food. "You can't just show up at someone's house with nothing," he said. "We can get her some muffins or something."
"I don't know if she likes those," Hal said. He was driving Will's Toyota again, getting used to the tight clutch and smoothing out the braking. He was used to cars you had to pummel into submission; this one leapt to respond like a 1950s secretary.
Will snorted. "Everyone likes muffins." His hair was still wet. He'd dressed in dark gray pants, a heavy brown leather jacket, and a white sweater. He looked like he should be popping out for flowers before a dinner party.
"She has sort of peculiar tastes," Hal explained. "I could see her liking some bizarre old fashioned kind of thing that no one else would want. Maple crumpets. Quince muffins."
"Quince is all right," Will informed him. "It tastes like apple. Anyway, you just stop and I'll go in. No. Wait here, it's fine."
He was suddenly quite chipper. Hal watched Will walk into the grocery store. It was one with a liquor section. He adjusted his seat, flipped around the radio, dug an iPod out of the glove compartment, and scanned through it. He'd been expecting some Fifties crooners, some Sinatra or The Platters, but the music was no different from what was in Hal's own house. He clicked on Koko Taylor singing "Wang Dang Doodle" and put his head back, eyes closed, fingers tapping on the steering wheel while Koko and Howlin' Wolf growled at him. Toward the end of the song the car door swung open.
"Ok," Will said, settling in. "Let's go see this person you supposedly enjoy visiting so much on your day off."
"It's not really my day off," Hal said. "I'm just not there."
"Even I called my office," Will said. "They're going to can me soon anyway but I did call. They going to let you slide if you just don't show?"
"I don't know," Hal snapped. He didn't want to think about it. "What'd you buy?" He heard his tone becoming a little lofty but he couldn't help it.
"Apples, bread, cheddar cheese. A snack. A manners snack."
"Anything else?"
Will watched him for a long time. Hal kept his eyes on the road. "Why do you think I bought anything else?"
Hal laughed and shook his head. "Jesus, I'm not your wife," he said. "Who knows you're a drunk, anyway, obviously. Don't insult me with the same crap, okay?"
Will didn't respond. Just stared at him a little while longer, his face unreadable, and then turned toward the windshield again. He shifted the bulk of the grocery bag on his lap. They drove the rest of the way in silence.
"Well, well, well," said Mrs. Bryant. "Your pals aren't supposed to be here for a few hours, you know." She eyed Will closely. "New recruit? What's in the bag?"
Will held out a hand to her. Mrs. Bryant pretended not to notice. "It's a snack," said Hal. "I'm off today but you can't just show up without a little something." Out of the corner of his eye he saw Will smile to himself.
"Well, tell your friend to go fix it up." Mrs. Bryant waved a hand in the direction of the kitchen. Will went off with his grocery bag and Hal seated himself on the horsehair couch. The two of them listened to him opening drawers and cupboards.
"How are you today?" Hal asked finally. "It's nice and light in here."
"One of your failings, Hal, is your need for acknowledgment at every turn. I know you trimmed the hedge. It was very nice of you. Let's not keep talking about it."
"I got a pretty serious reprimand for that," Hal told her. "If I'm going to get canned for something I want acknowledgment."
She waved a hand. Today she wore stretchy black pants and a massive powder blue sweater with a cowl neck like a burka. "Your friend work for the do-gooders too?"
"No," Hal said. In the kitchen he heard the sound of a knife cutting something and striking a surface. "He knows my roommate Greta. He came over last night and wasn't feeling well, so he stayed. I drove him home, and I don't know... He wanted to meet you."
"He looks healthy to me," she said. "Smells like a drunk, but looks functional enough."
"Does he?" Hal asked softly. "You can smell it? I think he bought something at the store on the way over here."
Will came back into the living room, carrying a plate of sliced dark bread, apples, and cheese. He set this down on the coffee table, moving aside the photo of Mr. Bryant, and returned to the kitchen for plates, which he then doled out to each of them.
Mrs. Bryant eyed her empty plate with a watery blue gaze.
Will smiled at her. He wasn't going to fill her plate, Hal saw, though it was clear she expected him to. Hal took a brief liking to him.
"Well, Will," Mrs. Bryant said. "I gather you're something of a drunk."
Will took a small bite of apple. "What makes you say that?" he asked calmly.
"You smell like it," she said. "It's morning, and I can smell it from here."
Will shrugged, chewing his apple. "I'm fine," he said.
"I ask because I am not one of those people who sits around asking others to lie to them to make me more comfortable. Hal tells me you probably bought something at the store. Why don't you just drink it?"
"I don't want to," Will said. He had finished his slice of apple and was now sitting back against the couch next to Hal, watching Mrs. Bryant. Hal couldn't read his expression. That was what was most infuriating, that blank face. You felt like you could hit him and Will would do nothing. He seemed to shut down and shrink into himself, as hostile and sulky as a child.
"Hand me a slice of bread, Hal," Mrs. Bryant said. Then, turning back to Will, "I believe you don't want to. But you will."
"Hey," Hal protested, leaning forward on the couch. The folly of the whole idea, the whole visit, had presented itself all at once. She would have the man on heroin by lunch.
"I'm being frank," she said, chewing. "You know I'm always frank. In the east we didn't sit around jabbering about how things were fine if they weren't. You either say something or you don't speak at all. Midwesterners have such a strain of sap through them." Her mouth, its fine drawstring lines radiating outwards, was an odd grapefruit pink. The pouches beneath her eyes gave her stare a baleful power. Hal sometimes had the feeling she didn't care who he was; she would request whatever she wanted of whoever sat before her.
"I'm sure you're used to people begging you not to drink and making all sorts of promises if you will," she went on. "It matters not a whit to me if you drink. But I don't have a house in which people dash off and guzzle in the bathrooms and kitchens. If you're going to drink you'll do it in a civilized manner."
"You don't know me," Will said simply. "You know nothing about me."
"No," she agreed, sounding fairly cheery. She clapped her palms down on her knees and lifted a hand, knotted with blue veins and swollen joints, in Hal's direction. The new sunlight illuminated the hand rather terribly: the yellow ridged fingernails, the looseness of the knobby skin. Hal felt a wave of generalized panic; his retirement savings were never what they should be.
"Help me up, Hal," she commanded.
He took her by the wrist, the soft skin sliding over her flesh, the bones eerily present, as he pulled her up. That revelation of the inner workings of the body -- this was the brutal nature of old people. Everything inside them announced itself: digestion, rotting muscle, the synapses sizzling aimlessly in the dark. Hal held her elbow and walked her to the bathroom, at the door of which she swatted him efficiently away.
"I can do that myself," she said. "My niece's loutish husband installed some bars in the walls, for god's sake." Hal turned toward the living room but Mrs. Bryant's fingers clamped down on his arm. "Give him a second," she said. She shook her head and grasped the doorjamb as she took a step into the bathroom, which was tiled with aging coral squares in need of a grout. "That's the very sad thing about drunks. That shame they feel. Just give him a moment to do whatever he needs to."