The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

by The O Henry Prize Stories 2016 (retail) (epub)

  I never thought I’d get tired of the crashing waves, but it never ends. It holds your attention like someone who can’t stop coughing. It grates. It might be nice to listen to something else for a change. Plus I’m tired of my music.

  I know I probably shouldn’t, but I kick his feet toward an ornamental umbrella stand, get him full-bodied into the house, and close and lock the door. He wants whiskey? I don’t care for it, and I have too much as it is. Besides, I’ve always liked having drinkers around. They often surprise.

  —

  The man—he grumbles that his name is Gary—doesn’t even take the stack of crackers I offer him, flings them like dice, messily pours another glass.

  “Ice,” he slurs.

  I shake my head. One of the first things I did was unplug the fridge and freezer. My food is canned.

  He’s so at ease in his stupor. Though he arrived sopping wet, if he asked me what’s with all this water, I wouldn’t be the least surprised.

  Now he wears one of my bespoke suits. He wears it like he’s a metal hanger, but it’s a bit tight on me. I’m not ashamed. I live a good life.

  I make a list of chores for him.

  “If you’re going to live here, you’re going to work,” I say, and slide it over for him to sign. He does so without reading. Irresponsible.

  So I summarize it for him. “The contract states that in exchange for room and board, Gary will guard the house, take care of any beggars or intruders. He will fill the flush buckets with seawater when they are empty so we can flush our toilets like civilized people. He will throw our empty cans, bottles, and uneaten food out the back door each night to avoid smells. He will help the owner with weekly cleanings of the house. He will perform all other duties the owner asks.”

  There are plenty of extra rooms for him to stay in, but it’s my house. So for the first night, I set him up on the study love seat with some fine sheets and a goose-down pillow. He scrunches into it, keeping one eye open as he sleeps, one foot up on the coffee table and the other leg bent, perfectly right angled, foot flat on the floor, ready. For what? To run? Though the water is creeping closer to the house, I’m not sure that’s it.

  —

  The far stand of houses is gone. Where there should be rickety multifamilies, I see water flat like a prairie, occasional whale spouts on the horizon, the glare off all that water like looking at the sun.

  I see my neighbor padding around the sleeping bodies in his halfway home for derelicts. He is dressed in a tattered robe, his beard is long and unkempt. I can practically smell him.

  I catch his eye across the moat and mime a drowned body, limbs, head, tongue hung and bobbing, and then point to where the houses stood. He looks, rubs his eyes, then drops to his knees. Some of the criminals he’s invited into his home take this opportunity to rob him. Their hands work him over, dig in his bathrobe pockets, his hair, while he shudders with tears. Something is yanked from under his arm, and they disperse so quickly it is like they were never there. I shiver. My neighbor is taller than I am, and stronger. Who knows what would become of me if I had hundreds of people crammed into my house? I’d have no food left. I’d be bullied out of my master suite. I might even lose my life. I am once again grateful for Gary. He wants nothing from me except my whiskey, and has the build of a welterweight or a thief: small and wiry, someone who can put you in a headlock before you feel his touch.

  As my neighbor wipes his tears, I shrug in commiseration. But he just shakes his head at me, like I’m the one who robbed him, I’m the water that tore those houses down.

  —

  Unless he’s sneaking into the pantry late at night, I doubt Gary has eaten a morsel since his arrival. I notice no dent in my supplies, except the whiskey, which is already half gone. The other night, I crumbled some crackers into a half-full bottle to see whether he would take to the sustenance, and he roared, smashed the bottle against the marble table on which we dine. The noise was exhilarating. Normally the only sound is the constant murmur of the sea around us. Some nights I hear displaced loons calling out to their mates, or human calls from the boats of survivors looking for a place to dock. Their voices travel low across the water and get trapped within the walls of my bedroom. I hear music from my neighbor’s house. Not often. In all, it’s dreary, but on occasion a piano is played, accompanied by some squeaky string instrument. People stomp feet and call out. It’s rustic. One night I heard a wavering wedding march and imagined a bride, in a dress of pinned white towels, making her way through the mob to stand with her groom, two people desperate to have what they think is love before the big end. It was hard not to feel something.

  Gary doesn’t always hear noise or even conversation. He sleeps undisturbed in strange intervals, like a pet. It’s pleasant enough. When I need him, he is a great bodyguard. When a knock echoes through the house, I send him to the door with instructions to gut-punch the supplicant men. And he does it. They fall backward from shock and he slams the door. Once, a woman came to the door, bent like a hook, and Gary paused, turned to me miserably. I shrugged. Most bands of vagrants send the men, as is proper, but clearly they were beyond propriety. They hoped we might treat a woman differently. I saw two tense shapes in a rowboat just beyond the south wing of the house. What could Gary do? Some people hang on to old ideals. I do not. But I couldn’t make a man like Gary do something he didn’t feel good about. He has integrity. I pointed to my knee. He gave hers a halfhearted kick and she crumpled. He shut the door gently. I hope he feels like this is his home, too.

  —

  Gary has allowed me to shave him. He sits on the edge of my tub and snoozes while I hot-towel him, lather his face and neck. I’m careful not to nick him; I wag the razor clean in a silver bowl of mineral water. He looks more and more like a businessman in my suit; his graying temples lend him an executive air. He wears my suits and sometimes I add a tie for color. The world outside is gray, black, and blue, dotted by faded plastic garbage. A bit of color brings out Gary’s eyes.

  I leave him to clean up, and a while later he tumbles through the bathroom door with a bottle in his hand and knocks into the armoire. He is dangerously intoxicated and half dressed.

  He crouches before me as I sit in my reading chair, sticks a soiled finger into my mouth, claws my lower jaw open. I’m stunned and let him. He strokes the caverns of my back teeth. I taste sour salt.

  “Where’s your gold?” he asks, like a child who thinks everything is his mirror.

  I lean back from his brackish finger. “I have porcelain fillings.”

  He is blank.

  “You can’t see them. They blend in with my teeth. They’re better.”

  His face threatens a smile, which would be a first, but instead his mouth gapes wide; it’s like a California riverbed, shallow gold in every hole.

  He taps one. “My bank,” he says, and howls irresistibly. Then he gulps more from the bottle and falls into my bed. He’s wearing a pair of my paisley silk boxers, his legs knobby and bowed like a baby bird’s, and a hand-stitched dress shirt, the French cuffs gutted.

  “Gary.”

  He murmurs from just below sleep.

  “Did you ever think you’d be sleeping under down, in a well-appointed room, clean-shaven, in tailored shirts and silk underwear?”

  He strains an eye open, seems to ponder it, like maybe he can see where I’m going with all this.

  “I’m just saying, I think we have a pretty good thing here. We are at the height of land. We have a beautiful house. It doesn’t smell, doesn’t leak, isn’t crowded. Think of the wind. It sweeps over the entire sea, gathers all that fresh air just to deposit it at our doorstep. We have loads of food. More than we could ever eat, really. We drink imported water.”

  I suck at a bottle to demonstrate.

  “The whiskey won’t last, but I’m sure we can think of something. There’s other liquor. I have port. Several vintages. All told, Gary, we have a pretty nice life.”

  He yawns. Perhaps he’ll
take this moment to drain another bottle of whiskey. He looks toward the neighbor’s house.

  I’m wondering whether he’s heard me when he mumbles, “We’re homeless.”

  I don’t know what he means. “Don’t be absurd,” I say. I’m certainly not homeless. And neither, now, is he.

  But then I think maybe I do understand his meaning, looking at the lapping endless sea, which for once stretches beyond metaphor and actually is endless.

  Homeless is a term of destitution. We’re not hanging out of windows, waving blankets; we’re not trod on by pruned feet like my neighbor. But undeniably we are experiencing a lack. I respond, “Friend, we are worldless.” I let my new word linger. Gary sniffles and paws at his face, and then I see a glistening on his cheek.

  “Gary, are you crying?” I mock tenderly.

  He scowls and pulls the blanket right under his nose, clutches the whiskey close to his heart, and pretends to sleep.

  —

  I hear murmuring outside the house. A boat creaks a hundred yards offshore.

  A multicolored sail of ragged cloth, swatches crudely stitched together, barely registers the wind. I can make out the figures of two men swim-walking their way to our door while others wait in the boat. They gaze admiringly at the house. As they should.

  “Gary,” I hiss.

  A minute later, he shuffles into the entryway, bringing with him a scent of something savory. Not whiskey, I notice, and think it odd.

  “Men are coming. See what they want.”

  Gary peeks out from behind the drapes, allows his eyes to adjust, nods his head. I hand him a knife and he slips out the front door to meet the men.

  He returns with a note in a bottle.

  “They’re from next door,” he says, slurring slightly.

  “They have a boat next door?” Should we have a boat? I hadn’t thought about surviving outside my home. Would I even want to? It seems so awful out there. But maybe it’s something I should get Gary on, just in case. The note is scrawled on the back of a soup label:

  Dear Neighbor, might you have some food and water to spare? My men will ferry it over. We are running dangerously low. Might you have some room to spare? I’ll send clean women and children. We’re greatly overcrowded and I am concerned. Respectfully.

  I crumple the letter. The nerve. “No way to this.”

  Gary looks surprised, which surprises me.

  “But we have spare food.”

  “What do you know about food?” I yell.

  “You said we had more than enough.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did.”

  “That was before. We’re running very low. You eat too much.”

  “We have a lot of food,” he mumbles again.

  “I suppose you know best. I suppose you’re the decision maker now. I guess you’ll be telling me we should invite them over.”

  “Would it be so terrible to let some in?”

  “Yes!”

  Gary looks up at the grand staircase, considers each wing. “There’s room.”

  I throw my hands up. “You’re unbelievable! He’s scamming you!” I’m ashamed of the squeal in my voice, but I can’t control it. “His house has always been a wreck. Always a cracked window. Bricks crumbling. His vines growing over my side of the fence. And that’s just the outside.”

  Gary stares longingly at the upstairs hallways as if fantasizing that they are crowded with laughing children and pretty women.

  “They’ll ruin everything. Our life. They’ll eat more than their share. They’ll waste water. They’ll drink your whiskey, you know they will.”

  Gary blushes and looks down at a smudge on the golden maple floors, licks a finger, squats to rub it out. “I don’t care,” he mutters into the smudge.

  “I’ll make it simple for you, simple guy. If you want to be with them, then leave.” Even as the words come out I want to take them back. The rest of this life feels impossible without Gary. But I shouldn’t have to give up a life I enjoy to harbor the foolish masses. What’s the point of living if you can’t have the life you want?

  Gary turns toward me and I don’t like the look. It’s like we don’t even know each other. He slips the knife from his pocket and strides out the door.

  They are having words. I can’t tell if Gary’s is one of the voices. Maybe the men are begging to be let in and Gary is merely listening, hearing them out. That would be so like Gary.

  But maybe the men are begging to be let in and Gary is saying yes. That would be a different Gary, I think.

  Then I hear yelling and grunts from a struggle. I run to the coat closet and hide inside. A lone jacket hangs above me. I pull it down and wrap myself in it.

  A cry of pain leads to the sound of men splashing in retreat.

  The front door is opened, then gently clicked shut, as though I am a child and Gary is taking care not to wake me. Feet shuffle away. I crack the door and see the knife lying in the center of the rug. It is smeared with blood and sea scum. I would like to dress his wounds if he has any, but I don’t move.

  From the study comes the clinking of bottle to glass. A glass this time. What civility. I’m ashamed for doubting him. He is a loyal friend. All is well.

  —

  A terrible crash wakes me. I reach across the bed, but Gary is not there.

  I see nothing through the window, but hear the sea lashing at the side of the house, frantic and high. The clouds are thick like insulation and hide any evidence of a moon. Is it large and full and pulling the tides higher, or is this some kind of grand, irreversible shift in things?

  I sink into the cold middle of the bed. Then comes another crash, and yelling, and the unforgettable cracking of heavy beams of wood, of walls collapsing. Screams, splashes, cries for help. If I had to guess, I’d say my neighbor’s house has just fallen to pieces. I don’t want to look, in case I’m right. The surrounding sea would clog with the lifeless, faces down, a simple burial for those who had survived longest. A passing thought: Must I shoulder some blame for this tragedy? I’d believed our stories were separate. I’d begun to think of this earth as my own private sanctuary. Shared with Gary. We could climb higher and higher as the water rose and live out our days in that quaint, functionless widow’s walk, until it, too, was swallowed. I’d always thought it such a romantic scenario. But with our neighbors washed away, I’m suddenly curious what other story we all might have told together. We’re each of us survivors, after all. What a pathetic end. How desperate. I fall asleep in a surprising state of grief.

  —

  In the light of day, my neighbor’s house is still standing. The top of the building has caved in on itself. Some bodies float in the surrounding waters, but not many. The bobbing corpses lack the gravitas I imagined. I leave bed to fix myself a plate of crackers and peanut butter.

  As I approach the landing, I hear hushed voices and see my neighbor in the entryway with Gary. They lean into each other, whispering. It all looks quite friendly.

  “Howdy, neighbor,” I force.

  They look up, caught. I scan Gary’s face for clues. Then my neighbor’s.

  He has tried to clean himself up a bit. His clothes look pressed in spots, like they have been lain between stacks of books to mimic the effect of steamers. But they are pieces from different suits, clashing directions of stripes on the jacket and trousers, and a gingham shirt. His beard is roughly trimmed, big chunks of hair cut shorter than other chunks. He looks to be wearing some kind of makeup, a powder or rouge.

  My neighbor nods in greeting. “We had an accident,” he wheezes haltingly. “The roof. Fell in. Top floor. All dead.”

  “I know, we heard,” I say, mustering horror. Gary looks distraught. Then I say, “We heard it fall, I mean,” so that my neighbor doesn’t think we heard from someone else, as though it were gossip.

  “I saw the bodies in the moat,” I say.

  My neighbor looks ashamed and sputters, “We had to. The disease. All the others.”
<
br />   I notice Gary’s suit is rough and wrinkled. I reach out, fondle the fabric. It’s damp.

  “Have you been swimming, Gary?”

  My neighbor coughs. “Neighbor,” he says, beginning a plea.

  “What do you want?” I ask, trying to sound friendly, but I can tell by their faces that my tone is pure stone.

  “We have to hold up the ceiling.”

  Gary clears his throat. “I found big posts in the basement.”

  I’m looking right into his eyes and they are mossy green and clean like he is fully awake. We are so close; his breath in my face smells sweet like milk. I’m about to hypnotically say I don’t have any posts when I remember that I do, from a renovation last year. Why does Gary know my house better than I?

  I glare at him, preparing to accuse him of something, when my neighbor begins to cry. Gary clamps a hand on my neighbor’s shoulder to comfort him. I’m alarmed. Those are my hands.

  Sea foam curls around my neighbor’s galoshes and I suddenly feel woozy. I step back, hug my cardigan close, and realize I’ve become pointy, emaciated, swimming in this sweater, the cuffs hanging on me like I’m wearing my father’s clothes. Is this even mine? Haven’t I been taking care of myself? I look at Gary. He’s lean. But I don’t think he’s leaner than usual.

  “He’s going to borrow the posts,” Gary says, making it sound utterly ordinary to give something away. He tightens his grip and guides my shell of a neighbor inside. “Watch the rug,” he says absently, and instinctively I’m grateful. He’s thought of me. Of us. Of our things. I think to offer him my most thankful expression, but he is already leading my neighbor through the basement door. “I’ll help him,” he calls back over his shoulder.

  Of course my neighbor will need help. The posts are big and long and were almost too much for the builders to get down there in the first place. And my neighbor is clearly starving. When he and Gary come out of the basement, I notice that Gary isn’t stumbling. He appears strong, almost. He is speaking in full sentences, not slurs. He’s concerned and not angry. He directs my neighbor, who is bent and shaky, barely able to hold the post up, toward the door. Gary stands tall, the post balanced easily on his shoulder, like the weight isn’t even felt. I almost want to check my food supply, but I know that would be wrong. It’s his house, too.