Migrators

by Ike Hamill

  “You should have gotten the last name of that old man. Clive?”

  “Buster,” Alan said. “His name is Clyde, but everyone calls him Buster. Quid pro quo.”

  “What made you say that?”

  “What?”

  “Quid pro quo is an exchange of goods or services. What made you say it?” Liz asked.

  “It’s something Buster said. He said the town owns the cabin, quid pro quo. Bob and I have been saying it constantly ever since.”

  “Well I don’t think he’s using the term right,” Liz said. “Unless the cabin was traded to the town for goods or services.”

  “Maybe it was,” Alan said. “Although it sounded like the town just took the land because nobody was paying the taxes.”

  Liz licked the cheese off her fingers and then stood up to dish herself some salad. She picked the olives from the bowl and put most of them on her portion—she always stole the olives.

  “I’m not sure they can do that,” Liz said. “I can check with Gerald. I think that if you don’t pay your property taxes, the property goes under lien for a period of time. After that, I think you have so many years to pay off the debt with interest. Actually, I’m not sure what happens after that deadline. Maybe they do take the parcel.”

  Liz picked an olive from her salad and popped it in her mouth. She smiled as she chewed.

  “Did you do any more photos at the house?” Liz asked.

  “Yeah, a few. I can’t get the light right for a couple I want. I did the manure shed, the spinning wheel, the bulkhead, the loft, and the rock garden. The back of the barn is problematic. This time of year the sun hits it directly in the morning. There’s nothing to soften it. Then, in the afternoon, it’s black back there. There’s no ambience.”

  Alan served himself a salad from what was left in the bowl.

  “I’ve been thinking more and more about Edwin’s book,” Alan said. “I’ll need a big space to spread out the photos so I can arrange them into some kind of order,” Alan said.

  “Huh,” Liz said. He could see the gears turning in her head. She knew that once he laid out his photos, they would be there for months while he sorted them over and over. Alan worked with big subjects—genocide, and the overthrow of governments—and he used big prints to examine their worthiness. They weren’t the kind of photos you wanted to spread out in the dining room a few weeks before all your relatives would arrive for Thanksgiving.

  “I’m thinking the attic,” Alan said.

  “Oh! That sounds good,” Liz said.

  “I can put a kerosene heater up there to take the edge off while I work. I’ll have to string some lights. It might make sense to pin up some insulation, just so I don’t get pneumonia while I’m working up there,” Alan said. He pressed for all the advantage he could gain while she was still relieved at the easy resolution.

  “Sounds great, honey,” Liz said.

  “I’ll pick up some supplies on my way home,” Alan said.

  “I’m so happy you have a new project,” Liz said.

  “I’m happy this one has a purpose and an end,” Alan said.

  “What do you mean?” Liz asked. He put aside her fork and used her fingers to manipulate the last of the salad.

  “All that shit with Joe, and the crazy garbage out in the woods—it’s all so unresolved and unsolvable. I don’t have a plan. I’m just reacting.”

  “I know how you feel,” Liz said. She didn’t have the ability to listen to a problem and just sympathize—Liz was a fixer. She always had to try to solve a problem presented to her. Alan appreciated her commitment and caring, but he was sometimes frustrated that she seemed to think that she could come up with an answer to a situation he’d just declared unsolvable. It felt like she didn’t think much of his intellect. This was one of those times. “Joe probably feels like he doesn’t have any agency. He’s been dropped into a new situation and he has no influence over what happens from day to day. It’s understandable that he would want to take control of some corner of his world.”

  “Liz, he thinks there are evil forces and it’s up to him to stop them. I’ve never given him any indication that the world isn’t a logical, rational place. I don’t know where he developed those ideas.”

  Alan went around the back of the desk to dish out lasagna. He’d forgotten to bring a spatula. He was trying to lift a square of noodles with a knife and fork.

  “Everyone comes to their own understanding of spirituality,” Liz said. “You can’t force someone to believe in evil, and you can’t force someone to not believe.”

  “So we should let Joe run around beating up little girls he thinks are evil?”

  Liz wrinkled her nose. “Alan—he needs to know that actions have consequences and that violence doesn’t solve problems. That doesn’t mean he has to slough off his belief that there are things beyond human understanding.”

  “I’m not sure we’re having the same argument,” Alan said. “And what kind of talk is this for your half birthday?”

  “You brought it up,” Liz said. She took the offered plate of lasagna. She held it in one hand while she tucked her legs underneath herself. “You want to talk about private schools again?”

  “We don’t have the money,” Alan said. “And we can’t run from these problems.”

  Liz nodded. She chewed and closed her eyes. “This is so good. This is like an hour on the treadmill right here, but it’s so good.”

  Alan smiled.

  “Do me a favor—leave the rest of that here. I don’t want it in the refrigerator at home, calling to me.”

  “I’ll take home enough for me and Joe,” Alan said. “You can have twigs and sand for dinner.”

  Liz took another sip of wine and then set her glass to the side.

  “I can’t afford any more of this, either,” she said. “I’ve got too much going on this afternoon.” She sighed.

  “Do you like this work?” Alan asked.

  “I do…” she said. It sounded like the beginning to a longer sentence, but she didn’t complete the thought.

  “It’s a far cry from what you were doing in Virginia.”

  Liz grunted and took another bite of her lasagna. She turned away from Alan as she chewed. He saw her hand. After she lifted the fork to her mouth, her hand paused at the corner of her eye.

  “Liz, you don’t have to do this if you don’t like it. You can find other work. We’ll figure out a way to get by. I can get a job, or I can try to get a real book deal of my own.”

  She didn’t answer. She looked down at her plate and used her fork to push aside the big noodles. She abandoned her fork and used her fingers to pick a roasted red pepper from the pasta.

  “Liz,” Alan said.

  She took a deep breath.

  “No,” she said. “I like it. It’s a stepping stone. I’ll just keep stepping.”

  “You don’t have to be miserable for the benefit of me or Joe or anyone. We should share the burden.”

  “This was my decision, Alan. You warned me. This all just came sooner than I expected. I built up so much potential energy but I wanted to convert more of it to kinetic energy. Don’t worry, I’ll get over it. This is just a nine to five.”

  A tear finally escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. She dabbed at her face with the cuff of her shirt. Alan rested his plate on his legs and waited. He was just as passionate about his job as she was with hers, but his was a solo effort. He went where his camera took him, and was lucky enough to take the photos that people wanted to buy. Even on assignment, he was a free agent. Alan never negotiated office politics. He never had to curry favor.

  “These people are different,” she said. “I took initiative last week and I had a lunch with the president of Maple View Realty and his lawyer. Just a lunch. You know what my boss said?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘We don’t do that here.’ Like I overstepped. I had Jason Lunder there at the lunch—he’s their lawyer. Like I would really try to steal
their business with their lawyer right there.”

  “So what was he talking about?”

  “Who, my boss? I have no idea. It’s like he was accusing me of trying to pull a fast one. Big city cut-throat techniques don’t play up here in rural Maine, you know?”

  “Maybe he thought you were trying to jump ship?”

  “No, it’s this fucked up sense of propriety they have up here. It’s mixed with a weird self-loathing. They’re so afraid that the locals will think of them of sharks that they’re afraid to go out and seek business. I’m not trying to be an ambulance chaser, but it’s okay to let prospective clients know that you’ll offer them better service than they’re currently getting.”

  “And that’s what you were doing with Maple View Realty?”

  “No, that’s the stupid thing,” she said. “I was just networking. You know how real estate works.”

  “Not really,” Alan slipped in.

  Liz kept going. “They do a lot of boilerplate stuff. There are billable hours there that require almost no work and expect almost no expertise. The only thing that gets you in the door is just knowing the right people. You want to be the card they hand to the other party at the table. Then you just come in and collect a small fee for almost zero work. Minh would do most of it—it’s just photocopying and putting little signature stickers in the right spot. We already do a lot of it. I just don’t see any of those hours because I don’t know anyone. I try to go out and make one connection and my boss wants to shut me down. It’s unreasonable.”

  “There has to be an acceptable way to network,” Alan said.

  “They just know each other because they all went to the same shitty law schools.”

  “Did you save room for dessert?”

  “Yes. A quick one though. I have to write up some stuff for this afternoon.”

  “Fair enough,” Alan said. He took her plate and stacked it with his own. He put both in a plastic bag and then pulled out fresh plates for the pie. She smiled as he handed her a small slice of apple pie.

  “Homemade?”

  “With the apples we picked,” Alan said.

  “The ones Joe picked, I hope.”

  Alan laughed.

  “This was so nice,” she said. “I can’t wait to see what you bring me tomorrow.”

  “Back to twigs and sand tomorrow, I’m afraid. I can’t have you ballooning up. I need my breadwinner to be easy on the eye.”

  “I’d fit in better if I put on about forty pounds on my ass, don’t you think?”

  “You’re used to looking at these downtown butts, darling,” Alan said. “There are some fine, toned rumps amongst the moms. The parent-teacher conferences are like MILF conventions.”

  “You really know how to make your lady feel special, you know that?” Liz asked.

  “I do my best.”

  X • X • X • X • X

  The process was exhausting. Alan went up to the attic, wrestled the window open, set aside the screened vent, and dropped a rope to the ground. Back on the ground, he tied a bale of insulation to the rope. Up in the attic, he raised the bale and pulled it through the window. He was going to have to repeat the process five more times to get all the insulation upstairs.

  Alan pulled the rocking chair away from the other window and sat down. The caned seat was busted out in the center, but the sides supported his weight. Alan used his tape to measure the seat—he had a piece of plywood that would serve as a temporary seat for the chair.

  Alan rocked. Despite the seat, the chair was comfortable.

  After a few minutes, he got back to work.

  At one point in the house’s history, the ventilation in the attic would have made perfect sense. You wanted to keep the underside of a shingled roof as cold as the top side, so the snow wouldn’t melt and form ice dams at the eaves. Now that the house had a metal roof, there really wasn’t much point. Alan could insulate and heat the space without concern for ice.

  Once he’d hoisted all the insulation up to the space, it was clear he hadn’t bought enough. It didn’t matter. As long as he started the project, he could muscle through Liz’s objections and bring up more insulation later. He cut the plastic from one of the bales and pulled on rubber gloves before handing the itchy pink stuff. It was fun helping Bob work on his house, but there was nothing more satisfying to Alan than improving his own house. He could barely wait for the relatives to come and go so he could enjoy more latitude with his projects.

  Each compressed length of insulation was about eight feet long and built to fit in the space between rafters. Alan bought the wide stuff. He held one of the batts up to the gap and exhaled.

  “Shit,” he said. The insulation was a few inches wider than the space. He moved down to the next space and discovered that it was even smaller. With his tape, he confirmed his fear. The big hand-cut rafters of the ancient building were spaced unevenly.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, looking at his tape. “I’m going to have to custom-fit each piece.”

  Alan backed up and lowered himself towards the rocker. He landed with his ass on the attic floor.

  “What the hell?” he asked the attic.

  Alan looked around. The chair was back near the window.

  “Joe?” Alan called. He pulled out his phone to check the time. Joe wouldn’t be home for another twenty minutes. Alan set down his measuring tape and walked over to the chair. He picked it up and set it down firmly in the center of the attic. He couldn’t remember putting it back at the window, but he figured he must have moved it when he was unbundling the insulation.

  “This is not some cliché horror movie bullshit,” he said aloud. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

  There’s talking to yourself, and then there’s talking to an empty room, Alan thought. Let’s try to cut back on the latter.

  Alan went down the narrow stairs and pulled himself through the little door to the closet. Down in the shop, he found his long straightedge. He would need it to compress the insulation for cutting. As he walked it through the house, he cursed himself for not dropping the rope down. The straightedge was probably too long to fit through the opening to the narrow stairs. He confirmed his fear quickly. He leaned the straightedge up against the wall and pulled himself through the opening.

  I should tell Liz to quit the gym. She can get her cardio done right here, just climbing up and down the stairs to this damn attic.

  Alan laughed as he began to climb the narrow stairs. He paused just before his head came up over the edge of the floor. He was certain what he’d see—the chair would be back at the window.

  “I’m warning you,” he said. “You better be right there.”

  The chair was still in the center of the room where he’d left it.

  “Good boy,” he said.

  Alan lowered the rope out the window.

  He took the straightedge down to the yard and tied it to the end of the rope. At some point in the distant past, the straightedge had been a decent bubble level. Unfortunately, constant abuse in the form of dropping it, tripping over it, and accidentally hitting it with his hammer, had reduced its usefulness. These days, Alan just used the long piece of metal to draw lines on things he was about to cut.

  “Hey, Dad,” Joe said.

  “Hey, bud,” Alan said. “Good day at school? You’re early, aren’t you?”

  “Nope,” Joe said. “Right on time.”

  “You want to help me for a minute?”

  “Sure. What do I do?”

  “Go up in the attic and pull on the rope there. I’ll guide this thing away from the house so it doesn’t hit the bedroom window.”

  “Okay,” Joe said.

  Alan waited in the lawn for his son’s face to appear in the window. While he waited, he tied the level to the middle of the rope so he could tension the end and hold the level away from the house.

  “Okay?” Joe asked.

  “Pull slowly,” Alan said. “Try to keep the level from sw
inging.”

  Joe hung out the window so he could hold the rope away from the bay window below. Alan held his breath as he tensioned the rope. All he could imagine was accidentally pulling his son through the window and watching him fall to the ground below.

  “Don’t lean so much, Joe,” Alan said.

  Joe was out the window so far that Alan could see his belt.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I have my foot hooked around this thing,” Joe called back. “Besides, the rope is tied up here.”

  “Joe, the rope isn’t going to stop you from falling. Back up,” Alan said.

  He let up his slack on the rope. When Joe was a little kid, he always wore the same funny face when he was trying to learn something new. He looked up and left, squeezed one eye shut, and stuck his tongue out to the side. It was the same look when he tried to learn to balance on a snowboard, kickflip a skateboard, turn a cartwheel, or jump rope. He had that look now. Alan pictured him biting off the tip of his tongue as he bounced in the flower beds below the window.

  “Come on, Joe.”

  “I’m trying,” Joe said. “I can’t go back in. I’m stuck on something.”

  For several seconds, Alan watched his son squirm in the window. He couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Okay, Joe, drop the rope and just hang on. I’ll come up and help you,” Alan said.

  The straight edge banged against the side of the house as Joe let go of the rope. Joe had both hands back at the sill, trying to pull himself in. Alan darted through the kitchen, nearly tore the newel post from its mount as he pulled himself up the stairs, and ran into the master bedroom. Outside the big bay window, the rope flopped and the straightedge danced at the end of its tether. The screaming started when Alan was still in the bedroom.

  X • X • X • X • X

  Alan threw himself through the hatch in the side of the closet. He rammed his head into a bare stud as he clawed to pull himself through to the attic stairs.

  Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall. Please don’t fall, Alan thought.