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A Note on the Author
Also by George Saunders
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1.
Like in the old days, I came out of the dry creek behind the house and did my little tap on the kitchen window.
“Get in here, you,” Ma said.
Inside were piles of newspaper on the stove and piles of magazines on the stairs and a big wad of hangers sticking out of the broken oven. All of that was as usual. New was: a water stain the shape of a cat head above the fridge and the old orange rug rolled up halfway.
“Still ain’t no beeping cleaning lady,” Ma said.
I looked at her funny.
“ ‘Beeping?’ ” I said.
“Beep you,” she said. “They been on my case at work.”
It was true Ma had a pretty good potty mouth. And was working at a church now, so.
We stood there looking at each other.
Then some guy came tromping down the stairs: older than Ma even, in just boxers and hiking boots and a winter cap, long ponytail hanging out the back.
“Who’s this?” he said.
“My son,” Ma said shyly. “Mikey, this is Harris.”
“What’s your worst thing you ever did over there?” Harris said.
“What happened to Alberto?” I said.
“Alberto flew the coop,” Ma said.
“Alberto showed his ass,” Harris said.
“I hold nothing against that beeper,” Ma said.
“I hold a lot against that fucker,” Harris said. “Including he owes me ten bucks.”
“Harris ain’t dealing with his potty mouth,” Ma said.
“She’s only doing it because of work,” Harris explained.
“Harris don’t work,” Ma said.
“Well, if I did work, it wouldn’t be at a place that tells me how I can talk,” Harris said. “It would be at a place that lets me talk how I like. A place that accepts me for who I am. That’s the kind of place I’d be willing to work.”
“There ain’t many of that kind of place,” Ma said.
“Places that let me talk how I want?” Harris said. “Or places that accept me for who I am?”
“Places you’d be willing to work,” Ma said.
“How long’s he staying?” Harris said.
“Long as he wants,” Ma said.
“My house is your house,” Harris said to me.
“It ain’t your house,” Ma said.
“Give the kid some food at least,” Harris said.
“I will but it ain’t your idea,” Ma said, and shooed us out of the kitchen.
“Great lady,” Harris said. “Had my eyes on her for years. Then Alberto split. That I don’t get. You got a great lady in your life, the lady gets sick, you split?”
“Ma’s sick?” I said.
“She didn’t tell you?” he said.
He grimaced, made his hand into a fist, put it upside his head.
“Lump,” he said. “But you didn’t hear it from me.”
Ma was singing now in the kitchen.
“I hope you’re at least making bacon,” Harris called out. “A kid comes home deserves some frigging bacon.”
“Why not stay out of it?” Ma called back. “You just met him.”
“I love him like my own son,” Harris said.
“What a ridiculous statement,” Ma said. “You hate your son.”
“I hate both my sons,” Harris said.
“And you’d hate your daughter if you ever meet her,” Ma said.
Harris beamed, as if touched that Ma knew him well enough to know he would inevitably hate any child he fathered.
Ma came in with some bacon and eggs on a saucer.
“Might be a hair in it,” she said. “Lately it’s like I’m beeping shedding.”
“You are certainly welcome,” Harris said.
“You didn’t beeping do nothing!” Ma said. “Don’t take credit. Go in there and do the dishes. That would help.”
“I can’t do dishes and you know that,” Harris said. “On account of my rash.”
“He gets a rash from water,” Ma said. “Ask him why he can’t dry.”
“On account of my back,” Harris said.
“He’s the King of If,” Ma said. “What he ain’t is King of Actually Do.”
“Soon as he leaves I’ll show you what I’m king of,” Harris said.
“Oh, Harris, that is too much, that is truly disgusting,” Ma said.
Harris raised both hands over his head like: Winner and still champ.
“We’ll put you in your old room,” Ma said.
2.
On my bed was a hunting bow and a purple Halloween cape with built-in ghost face.
“That’s Harris’s beep,” Ma said.
“Ma,” I said. “Harris told me.”
I made my hand into a fist, put it upside my head.
She gave me a blank look.
“Or maybe I didn’t understand him right,” I said. “Lump? He said you’ve got a—”
“Or maybe he’s a big beeping liar,” she said. “He makes up crazy beep about me all the time. It’s like his hobby. He told the mailman I had a fake leg. He told Eileen at the deli one of my eyes was glass. He told the guy at the hardware I get fainting dealies and froth at the mouth whenever I get mad. Now that guy’s always rushing me outta there.”
To show how fine she was, Ma did a jumping jack.
Harris was clomping upstairs.
“I won’t tell you told about the lump,” Ma said. “You don’t tell I told about him being a liar.”
Now this was starting to seem like the old days.
“Ma,” I said, “where are Renee and Ryan living?”
“Uh,” Ma said.
“They got a sweet place over there,” Harris said. “Rolling in the dough.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea,” Ma said.
“Your ma thinks Ryan’s a hitter,” Harris said.
“Ryan is a hitter,” Ma said. “I can always tell a hitter.”
“He hits?” I said. “He hits Renee?”
“You didn’t hear it from me,” Ma said.
“He better not start hitting that baby,” Harris said. “Sweet little Martney. Kid’s super-cute.”
“Although what the beep kinda name is that?” Ma said. “I told Renee that. I said that.”
“Is that a boy or a girl name?” Harris said.
“What the beep you talking about?” Ma said. “You seen it. You held it.”
“Looks like a elf,” Harris said.
“But girl or boy elf?” Ma said. “Watch. He really don’t know.”
“Well, it was wearing green,” Harris said. “So that don’t help me.”
“Think,” Ma said. “What did we buy it?”
“You’d think I’d know boy or girl,” Harris said. “It being my freaking grandkid.”
“It ain’t your grandkid,” Ma said. “We bought it a boat.”
“A boat could be for boys or girls,” Harris said. “Don’t be prejudice. A girl can love a boat. Just like a boy can love a doll. Or a bra.”
“Well, we didn’t buy it a doll or a bra,” Ma said. “We bought it a boat.”
I went downstairs, got the phone book. Renee and Ryan lived over on Lincoln. 27 Lincoln.
3.
27 Lincoln was in the good part of downtown.
I couldn’t believe the house. Couldn’t believe the turrets. The back gate was redwood and opened so smooth, like the hinge was hydraulic.
Couldn’t believe the yard.
I squatted in some bushes by the screened-in porch. Inside, some people were talking: Renee, Ryan, Ryan’s parents, sounded like. Ryan’s parents had sonorous/conf
ident voices that seemed to have been fabricated out of previous, less sonorous/confident voices by means of sudden money.
“Say what you will about Lon Brewster,” Ryan’s dad said. “But Lon came out and retrieved me from Feldspar that time I had a flat.”
“In that ridiculous broiling heat,” said Ryan’s mom.
“And not a word of complaint,” said Ryan’s dad. “A completely charming person.”
“Almost as charming—or so you told me—as the Flemings,” she said.
“And the Flemings are awfully charming,” he said.
“And the good they do!” she said. “They flew a planeload of babies over here.”
“Russian babies,” he said. “With harelips.”
“Soon as the babies arrived, they were whisked into various operating rooms all around the country,” she said. “And who paid?”
“The Flemings,” he said.
“Didn’t they also set aside some money for college?” she said. “For the Russians?”
“Those kids went from being disabled in a collapsing nation to being set for life in the greatest country in the world,” he said. “And who did this? A corporation? The government?”
“One private couple,” she said.
“A truly visionary pair of folks,” he said.
There was a long admiring pause.
“Although you’d never know it by how harshly he speaks to her,” she said.
“Well, she can be awfully harsh with him as well,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s just him being harsh with her and her being harsh right back,” she said.
“It’s like the chicken or the egg,” he said.
“Only with harshness,” she said.
“Still, you can’t help but love the Flemings,” he said.
“We should be so wonderful,” she said. “When was the last time we rescued a Russian baby?”
“Well, we do all right,” he said. “We can’t afford to fly a bunch of Russian babies over here, but I think, in our own limited way, we do just fine.”
“We can’t even fly over one Russian,” she said. “Even a Canadian baby with a harelip would be beyond our means.”
“We could probably drive up there and pick one up,” he said. “But then what? We can’t afford the surgery and can’t afford the college. So the baby’s just sitting here, in America instead of Canada, still with the lip issue.”
“Did we tell you kids?” she said. “We’re adding five shops. Five shops around the tri-city area. Each with a fountain.”
“That’s great, Mom,” Ryan said.
“That is so great,” Renee said.
“And maybe, if those five shops do well, we can open another three or four shops and, at that time, revisit this whole Russian-harelip issue,” Ryan’s father said.
“You guys continue to amaze,” Ryan said.
Renee stepped out with the baby.
“I’m going to step out with the baby,” she said.
4.
The baby had taken its toll. Renee seemed wider, less peppy. Also paler, like someone had run a color-leaching beam over her face and hair.
The baby did look like an elf.
The elf-baby looked at a bird, pointed at the bird.
“Bird,” said Renee.
The elf-baby looked at their insane pool.
“For swimming,” said Renee. “But not yet. Not yet, right?”
The elf-baby looked at the sky.
“Clouds,” Renee said. “Clouds make rain.”
It was like the baby was demanding, with its eyes: Hurry up, tell me what all this shit is, so I can master it, open a few shops.
The baby looked at me.
Renee nearly dropped the baby.
“Mike, Mikey, holy shit,” she said.
Then she seemed to remember something and hustled back to the porch door.
“Rye?” she called. “Rye-King? Can you come get the Mart-Heart?”
Ryan took the baby.
“Love you,” I heard him say.
“Love you more,” she said.
Then she came back, no baby.
“I call him Rye-King,” she said, blushing.
“I heard that,” I said.
“Mikey,” she said. “Did you do it?”
“Can I come in?” I said.
“Not today,” she said. “Tomorrow. No, Thursday. His folks leave Wednesday. Come over Thursday, we’ll hash it all out.”
“Hash what out?” I said.
“Whether you can come in,” she said.
“I didn’t realize that was a question,” I said.
“Did you?” she said. “Do it?”
“Ryan seems nice,” I said.
“Oh God,” she said. “Literally the nicest human being I have ever known.”
“Except when he’s hitting,” I said.
“When what?” she said.
“Ma told me,” I said.
“Told you what?” she said. “That Ryan hits? Hits me? Ma said that?”
“Don’t tell her I told,” I said, a little panicked, as of old.
“Ma’s deranged,” she said. “Ma’s out of her frigging mind. Ma would say that. You know who’s gonna get hit? Ma. By me.”
“Why didn’t you write me about Ma?” I said.
“What about her?” she said suspiciously.
“She’s sick?” I said.
“She told you?” she said.
I made a fist and held it upside my head.
“What’s that?” she said.
“A lump?” I said.
“Ma doesn’t have a lump,” she said. “She’s got a fucked-up heart. Who told you she’s got a lump?”
“Harris,” I said.
“Oh, Harris, perfect,” she said.
Inside the house, the baby started crying.
“Go,” Renee said. “We’ll talk Thursday. But first.”
She took my face in her hands and turned my head so I was looking in the window at Ryan, who was heating a bottle at the kitchen sink.
“Does that look like a hitter?” she said.
“No,” I said.
And it didn’t. Not at all.
“Jesus,” I said. “Does anybody tell the truth around here?”
“I do,” she said. “You do.”
I looked at her and for a minute she was eight and I was ten and we were hiding in the doghouse while Ma and Dad and Aunt Toni, on mushrooms, trashed the patio.
“Mikey,” she said. “I need to know. Did you do it?”
I jerked my face out of her hands, turned, went.
“Go see your own wife, doofus!” she shouted after me. “Go see your own babies.”
5.
Ma was on the front lawn, screaming at this low-slung fat guy. Harris was looming in the background, now and then hitting or kicking something to show how scary he could get when enraged.
“This is my son!” Ma said. “Who served. Who just came home. And this is how you do us?”
“I’m grateful for your service,” the man said to me.
Harris kicked the metal garbage can.
“Will you please tell him to stop doing that?” the man said.
“He has no control over me when I’m mad,” Harris said. “No one does.”
“Do you think I like this?” the man said. “She hasn’t paid rent in four months.”
“Three,” Ma said.
“This is how you treat the family of a hero?” Harris said. “He’s over there fighting and you’re over here abusing his mother?”
“Friend, excuse me, I’m not abusing,” the man said. “This is evicting. If she’d paid her rent and I was evicting, that would be abusing.”
“And here I work for a beeping church!” Ma shouted.
The man, though low-slung and fat, was admirably bold. He went inside the house and came out carrying the TV with a bored look on his face, like it was his TV and he preferred it in the yard.
“No,” I said.
“I
appreciate your service,” he said.
I took him by the shirt. I was, by this time, good at taking people by their shirts, looking them in the eye, speaking directly.
“Whose house is this?” I said.
“Mine,” he said.
I put my foot behind him, dropped him on the grass.
“Go easy,” Harris said.
“That was easy,” I said, and carried the TV back inside.
6.
That night the sheriff arrived with some movers, who emptied the house onto the lawn.
I saw them coming and went out the back door and watched it all from High Street, sitting in the deer stand behind the Nestons’.
Ma was out there, head in hands, weaving in and out of her heaped-up crap. It was both melodramatic and not. I mean, when Ma feels something deeply, that’s what she does: melodrama. Which makes it, I guess, not melodrama?
Something had been happening to me lately where a plan would start flowing directly down to my hands and feet. When that happened, I knew to trust it. My face would get hot and I’d feel sort of like, Go, go, go.
It had served me well, mostly.
Now the plan flowing down was: grab Ma, push her inside, make her sit, round up Harris, make him sit, torch the place, or at least make the first motions of torching the place, to get their attention, make them act their age.
I flew down the hill, pushed Ma inside, sat her on the stairs, grabbed Harris by the shirt, put my foot behind him, dropped him to the floor. Then held a match to the carpet on the stairs and, once it started burning, raised a finger, like, Quiet, through me runs the power of recent dark experience.
They were both so scared they weren’t talking at all, which made me feel the kind of shame you know you’re not going to cure by saying sorry, and where the only thing to do is: go out, get more shame.
I stomped the carpet fire out and went over to Gleason Street, where Joy and the babies were living with Asshole.
7.
What a kick in the head: their place was even nicer than Renee’s.
The house was dark. There were three cars in the driveway. Which meant that they were all home and in bed.
I stood thinking about that a bit.
Then walked back downtown and into a store. I guess it was a store. Although I couldn’t tell what they were selling. On yellow counters lit from within were these heavy blue-plastic tags. I picked one up. On it was the word “MiiVOX-MAX.”
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