The Egg Code

by Mike Heppner

  “Fuck you!”

  He watched her disappear over the hill, then went back inside and dug around for the telephone. He hadn’t used it since December, when his father called from the Steele County Corrections Facility in Sparta, the same as he did every Christmas. Following the trail of a twisted cord, he found the receiver lying under a stack of printouts. He dialed, then waited. The man who answered the phone sounded old.

  “M-Mason residence.”

  “Julian!”

  “Oh. Good day now.”

  “Julian. Jules.”

  “Hello there.”

  “Do you know who this is?”

  “I think I do.”

  “Starts with an O—”

  “All right, then.”

  Looking out the back window, Olden stared past the trees to where Julian’s house rose above a brown, rolling hillock. A tall man strode across the front lawn, peering into the basement with his right hand cupped like a visor to block out the light. “Julian, can you come over for a quick meeting? I’d make it real brief.”

  “Oh. Well. Gee.”

  “Or I could come up there. Whichever.”

  “I don’t know if that would be possible today, sir.” Standing in his kitchen, Julian held back the drapes and leaned over the sink. The telephone antenna knocked against the window as he looked at the tall man now moving around the corner of the house.

  “It’s just . . . I think it’s important that we have this talk, Julian, because to tell you the truth, I’ve been seeing things a little bit differently now, and I know that in the past I might’ve given the impression of being somewhat—oh, you know, crazed and around the bend, and—”

  “Oh . . . I don’t know.”

  “Come on, now, isn’t that true?”

  Julian took the phone into the hall, hoping to catch the man on his way past the living-room window. “Well . . . different strokes for different folks, sir.”

  “Yeah. I mean, what can I say? I should’ve been more out in the open, more respecting of your need to know, and I apologize for that. But it’s clear the Egg Code has got to go.”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “And I don’t want to do it by myself.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “I want to take it back. I want to do it in a way that’s professional, and I want you to help. I know it’s a lot to ask, but . . . I gotta tell you, Julian, there’s just something about that typeface, man. It’s so irresistible.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I mean, don’t you agree?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Julian could feel the acid rolling around inside his gut as he studied the stranger outside. Steam came off of the man’s nearly bald head, and Julian could hear his footsteps crunching across the frozen grass.

  “I don’t want to screw you over,” Olden continued, “because I know how much time you spent putting it together. As far as I’m concerned, that’s your intellectual property, and I’m going to honor it as such.”

  “Nice, nice.”

  The man drifted back to the curb, glaring up at the third floor. Light frost made a curtain along the fringe of his mustache. Deep eye sockets, lost in shadow, revealed nothing, only a dark core. Still, Julian knew who he was. Derek Skye. The famous recluse. Bit of a quack?

  “It really would just be a few hours on the weekend, and I would take it from there, and you wouldn’t be obligated to, you know, deal with it anymore.”

  “Oh, okay then.”

  “And I’d definitely keep the content very tasteful, because I know how sensitive you are about, you know . . . are we misleading children? and things like that, whereas I’m coming at it from a more academic point of view.”

  Julian stood shivering inside the foyer. He could feel the cold air pouring through the walls, the thin door. “No, I understand. It’s just . . . I mean, I respect it all, I respect you, and . . . everything’s beautiful. But for me, my feeling is, I guess . . . it wouldn’t be something . . . I would feel comfortable—”

  “Shit.”

  “—with having to get involved with . . . at this time.”

  Olden sounded distracted, already onto the next plan. “Right. Okay. Sigh. All right, that’s fine.”

  “But I really enjoyed working with you, sir.”

  “Well, I enjoyed working with you too, Julian. I’ve always had a lot of respect for you as an artist, because . . . you and people like you are really a part of . . . an old breed of craftsmanship that’s basically dying out as we speak . . .”

  “Well, thank you, sir.”

  “Anyway, it looks like you’ve got company, so I’ll let you go, but . . . if something comes up—”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Yes, and you have a blessed day, sir.”

  Julian squinted at the receiver, then found the right button and pressed End. He opened the door and stepped out onto the front porch. The wind blew him back into the foyer; he staggered forward again, his eyes narrow, almost shut. Derek Skye, having satisfied his curiosity, now lingered at the edge of the yard, his hands on his hips. Julian let the screen door slam behind him and joined Derek on the lawn. “Can I help you?”

  “I rang the bell, but it didn’t work.”

  Julian raised his voice over the wind. “It’s Derek, right?”

  “Derek Skye. We met a few months ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  The two men shook hands. Looking down at their clenched fingers, Julian remembered a poster campaign he’d designed in the late seventies—some charity walk for racial harmony, a black hand and a white hand, and he’d intentionally exaggerated the colors, making it bold and obvious, but here in real life Derek was really that white and he was really that black.

  “I’ve been out of the mix for a while . . . been going through some things. A divorce and—you don’t want to hear about it.”

  “Mmmlord.”

  Releasing Julian’s hand, Derek crossed his arms behind his back. “How are you enjoying the country?”

  “It’s a . . . unique experience.”

  “That’s about right.”

  “Good place for an old man to relax.”

  “I hear what you’re saying. I’m getting up there myself, and I’m liking the solitude.”

  At a loss, Julian looked back toward the house. “Why don’t you come on in, and I’d be glad to show you around.”

  “No thanks, I’ve got to run. I just had a few items I wanted to discuss, if you . . . ?”

  “Well, sure. It’s a trifle cold.”

  “That it is. Look, I’ve heard from a few people that you’re a . . . what’s the word?”

  “A colored fella? Heh.”

  Derek stared for a moment, then smiled. His mustache crinkled, breaking into frosty chips. “No, well, that too, obviously that too. But . . . you’re an artist, aren’t you? A designer, I guess would be the more accurate term.”

  “Used to be, that’s right.”

  “Book production, that sort of thing?”

  “Advertising, mostly. Print work.”

  Derek nodded absently. “You might know my father-in-law. Ex-father-in-law. Bartholomew Hasse . . . ?”

  “Name sounds familiar.”

  Derek shrugged as a gust rolled in from the lake. The wind filled the neck of his shirt, and for a moment his entire torso seemed to swell and then shrink. “Anyway, I wanted to ask you—”

  “Whoo—that wind!”

  “I’m a writer of sorts. I write . . . informational material. I’ve actually had a few bestsellers over the past several years.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “And I’m kind of working on an interesting project right now.”

  “Nice, nice.”

  Derek smiled again, and Julian could see lines of tobacco red and tobacco black running along his receding gumline. It seemed odd that such a man wouldn’t have taken better care of his teeth. Julian’s own teeth were sore and looked lik
e quarried limestone, but that was only natural, given his childhood.

  “I’m pretty excited about it. But my publisher . . . wait for the wind to die down . . . my publisher has expressed a few reservations about the project. The usual ninth-inning jitters.”

  “Nice.”

  “It’s aggravating, is all.”

  “They all saying one thing, whereas—”

  “Right, and finally I said to hell with it. Anyway, I’ve got the manuscript all set to go, and I’d really like to . . . that is, I should say . . . I would hate to—”

  “I’m just covering my ears.”

  “Mmmm?”

  “I can still hear you. I’m just trying to keep my ears warm.”

  “Oh! Sure. Absolutely.”

  “Lord, it’s raw!” Julian felt his lips stiffen, and he huffed a few times behind his closed teeth.

  “But the bottom line—it’s Julian, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The bottom line is, I feel confident that I can cover the production costs myself and still make out pretty well. So what I was wondering is— and I’d pay you, of course, that’s not a problem—but if I could just hire you to take care of the design, the cover and layout and all that—”

  “And then what you got is . . . you’ve just got your distribution to worry about.”

  “Which is expensive but . . . you know, I’ve made a lot of money over the course of my career.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “I mean a lot of money.”

  “Don’t be ashamed.”

  “Oh, I’m not. I’m grateful, is what I am. I’ve had a good life. It’s been . . . very satisfying.”

  Nodding, Julian tried to smile, but his lips were blue and hard, frozen around a thin space. “And now you wanna give back . . .”

  “Now I want to say that was that, and now this is something else. But in a way that’s professional.”

  “You want a nice, clear quality presentation.”

  “Absolutely. And that’s why I think that you could do a bang-up job for me here, with your experience and—”

  “Mechanical skills.”

  “But it’s not just that.”

  “Oh no.”

  Taking his hands out of his pockets, Derek made a bold, professional gesture, swiping his hands high and wide. “I think it’s a generational thing. And I feel—you know, I’m fifty-two, so we’re both coming at this from a similar perspective.”

  “Aw . . . you’re a young man!”

  “Wellll . . . not so young. But young enough—or old enough, I guess—to appreciate the difference between . . .”

  “. . . something of today . . .”

  “. . . something of today . . .”

  “. . . versus something of . . .”

  “. . . twenty, thirty years ago, where the quality was so much better.”

  “I agree.”

  “Even the simplest things, like—”

  “Shoes.”

  Derek pointed at the old man and nodded appreciatively. This was the man’s great talent—to make any answer seem like the right one. “Shoes. The manufacturing quality of shoes has just gone through the floor.”

  “Appliances.”

  “Yes. And if there’s something that . . . if there’s anything in this world that should be of the highest quality imaginable . . . it’s books.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s no excuse—”

  “Books and furniture.”

  “Yes, but books, I think, even more so . . .”

  Meanwhile, Gray Hollows was sitting alone in his tiny office on the second floor of Enthusiasms Inc., his head on the desk, the metal edge just starting to hurt as it pressed against his forehead. The lights inside the office were off, and in the diffuse glow of the computer screen, he could see a big bug moving toward a ventilation duct. Leaning back, he picked up the telephone and dialed the number of a Ms. DuChamp, whom he’d spoken to earlier that afternoon. If he gave it up right now, they could put something together in time for the evening news. Hating himself, he stared out into the corridor, where a dying fluorescent winked, then stayed off, then suddenly switched back on, wild and bright. I’ve got to get out of here, he thought. The line picked up.

  “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Um . . . oh.”

  “Oooo. Oooo. I’m sorry! I thought you were—”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Oh my God, I’m so—”

  “That’s okay . . . This is . . . Ms. DuChamp?”

  “Yeah, yeah, it is, umm . . . hold on, give me a sec . . . Denny, get these flowers out of here . . . I’ll be right there—”

  “No problem.”

  “—because I don’t want them! . . . Oh . . .”

  “Sounds hectic.”

  Ms. DuChamp’s voice came and went, talking to two people at once. “Oh no, we’re one great big happy . . . goddamnit! Look, are you at a place where you can—”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Good. Why don’t we start with, uh . . . get started.”

  “Okay. The kid’s name is Simon Tree-Mou—”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa! Simon . . .”

  “Tree—”

  “Ho! Okay. Simon . . . ?”

  “Tree . . . That’s T-R—”

  “Look, can you just fax it to me?”

  “Oh, sure.” Something shifted out in the hallway, and he covered the receiver with his hand. Like an old house, the Enthusiasms Inc. headquarters creaked at night.

  “Okay, so, Simon something-something . . . and you worked with him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And where was that?”

  “Living Arrangements.” He closed his eyes, trying to stay calm. “The furniture store.”

  “I bought a divan there once.”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s a really nice divan. It takes a standard-size mattress, but it folds up, so you can use it as a couch during the day, and then at night, if you’ve got guests, you can take it down and convert it into a sleeper. They had a different kind, with a brass frame, but I didn’t like it because I thought it looked too seventies. Brass is seventies, Chablis is seventies. Ficus plants are totally seventies. Anyway. Simon whatever-whatever.”

  He shook his head and thought, what an idiot. Wedging one hand between his legs, he said, “Here’s the address.”

  “I’ve been there. It’s out by the Vega Mall.”

  “No, of the Web page. The computer . . . the . . .”

  “Oh. Wellll . . .”

  “What.”

  “I don’t really ‘do’ computers.”

  “I see.”

  “I just ‘do’ e-mail. That’s it.”

  “It’s just . . . it’s kind of central to the story.”

  “No, I know . . . Aw, hell, just give it to me. I’ll take it down to Frank in Post.”

  Gray stopped, aware of a change, as if a door had been left open, letting the cold in. Already he could sense himself drifting away from the building, away from this corporate lifestyle. “Okay, it’s double-u, double-u-”

  “WWW. I know that part.”

  “WWW dot eggcode, one word.”

  “Eggcode?”

  “E-G-G . . . no space.”

  “Okay.”

  “C-O-D-E.”

  “They always make it so long.”

  “And then dot com.”

  She did something with her pencil—set it down, or tapped it against the telephone. “Great! Got it.”

  “And then you’ll see it right away.”

  “With the kid.”

  “With the kid and all that good stuff.”

  She sighed; Gray could almost smell her smoker’s breath through the receiver. “It’s terrible, using a young child for something like that.”

  “I agree, ma’am.”

  “I did a story last month about a kid who was chained to a furnace for three weeks.”

  “Yeah?”

&n
bsp; “Chained to a furnace. With handcuffs, they did it. They had him once around the wrist and once around the ankle. And once a day, they came down with food, and they gave it to him in a dog dish. And then the rest of the time—nothing. For three weeks. They wouldn’t talk to him. They wouldn’t even turn the light off at night. And there was a dog, and every now and then it walked down to the basement, looked at the boy, and then walked back up again. What was the dog thinking? That’s what I kept wondering, the whole time I covered that story. What was that poor dog thinking?”

  “It must’ve been very upsetting.”

  “It was, but that’s my job. Look, I’ve got to go—but listen, thank you so much ...”

  Sheesh Is Rich

  Hey, I’ve got a store to run here! That’s what I should’ve said. I’ve got a truck out back, I’ve got people on the phone, some hoity-toity ditz from Hedgemont Heights, thinks she’s the queen of the world, wants to know how much the brass candlesticks are—well here’s an idea, lady, why don’t you come down and look for yourself! My God, these women have nothing to do all day, just sit around drinking Scotch, yapping with their girlfriends, Oh, Linda, I’m so unhappy. I don’t need that junk. I make $43,000 a year. That’s real money! So finally I said to heck with it. Got my assistant, I said if anyone starts throwing their weight around, you get the coupon book out and you say right what it says on the coupon and that’s it! Enough of this noise, man. I shouldn’t even have to deal with this crap. If a customer has a problem and needs to speak to the manager, I shouldn’t be out there pushing a broom, Yes ma’am, I’ll be right with you, just let me finish peeling these price tags off the floor. See, that’s where your cult of personality comes in. If I had a decent sales staff, there’d be enough qualified people to manage the day-to-day stuff, and I could focus on the important business at hand. Just like any other corporation.

  That’s the problem, man. No one gives a crap. I’m losing thousands of dollars, you can’t even reach the checkout stand, there’s too much stuff in the way—the TV crew, cameras and lights, and everyone wants to be on the six o’clock news. Cords running all over the sales floor, hanging from the ceiling. Then this woman jams a microphone in my face, starts asking questions about my son—like I know the first thing about what goes on with those people. This time it’s the Internet. That’s right—Lydia’s latest brainstorm. Never mind that we’ve already got the kid rented out for the next six months. Tell that to Cam Pee. We’re trying to sell furniture, not blow up the White House. So I tell the woman, I say this is my store, these are my people, I’m in charge of 1.5 million dollars worth of unsold merchandise, and as a licensed representative of the Living Arrangements Family of Fine Retail Establishments, I order you to get off this property . . . and now! She’s standing between two cameramen, making her pen go in and out, hitting the button with her thumb, trying to look concerned. These stupid women with their made-up jobs. Now she wants to come up to the house, take a few pictures of me and the family on the computer. I tell her, Look, ma’am, we don’t even own a computer! Just the one with the shoot-’em-up games, cost me an arm and a leg but Simon nagged and nagged until finally I said okay. Other than that, we don’t mess around with the junk—haven’t even bought a stereo in thirteen years ’cause the new ones don’t play the old LPs, and all my Cars records from college are still in good shape so why bother?