The Doorposts of Your House and on Your Gates

by Jacob Bacharach

  “Well, let’s see,” said Krupp. “Marv and Pat are cousins, I guess. Not actual cousins, but, I believe Marv’s mother’s sister-in-law is Pat’s aunt, so it’s a through marriage thing. They’re just a couple of strung-out assholes, but when they’re not on disability, they pick up construction jobs here and there. And Jerry—excuse me, Officer Rittenhauer—works for Mack Chislett, who’s the chief of police. The mayor tells Mack shit, and Mack tells Jerry shit, and Jerry shouldn’t drink whiskey, because when he does, he talks. Then he cries, usually, or gets into fights. Which is good for us.”

  “Don’t worry. I got some shit on Jerry Rittenhauer,” Larimer told them. She tapped on the back of the chair. “We go back. Here’s what I’m getting at. What I’m getting at is that Bill Pattaglia”—she paused to catch Veronica in a nasty stare—“that’s the mayor—Bill Pattaglia and that faggot Jerry—that’s Jerry Jernicki, by the way, not Jerry Rittenhauer, who’s pretty goddamned fruity himself, if you know what I mean—have been talking to Harrisburg, and they’re cooking up some kind of in-state vendor requirement to keep our boy Phil here out of the running.”

  “How do they even know I’m interested?” Phil asked.

  Larimer shrugged. “Yinz been asking around, right? And you probably already asked to get on the list for the RFP.”

  “Sure.” Harrow shrugged. “I’ve got my sources, too.”

  “Yeah, well, you think the people who blab shit they’re not supposed to blab are real discreet otherwise?”

  “Do you mind if I bum a hit?” Abbie asked Krupp.

  “Go for it, man. I love your jacket, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” Abbie accepted the joint and inhaled deeply. “One hundred percent Egyptian linen.”

  “Abbie, for fuck’s sake.” Veronica knew that she was betraying something about herself by standing while the rest them sat or leaned, knew that her brother found her harsh and her partner found her hysterical, which was what you got for being a woman who gave direction. It occurred to her that she wasn’t sure when, or if, Sherri Larimer had stopped liking her, when her allegiance had shifted toward her business partner and then toward her brother.

  “Well, hell, what if I move my offices to Uniontown?” asked Harrow. “That’d be easy enough.”

  Veronica shook her head. “There’ll be some kind of duration of residency requirement to avoid that sort of thing. A carpetbagger clause, basically. That’s the usual form of these things. We need to head it off, if it’s true. Once it’s done, it’s done.”

  “Then, how do we get around it?” Harrow tipped back in his chair and nearly fell. He caught himself. Larimer smirked. “Shit.” He rocked again. “I mean, there’s gotta be a way around it, right? I mean, head it off. Whatever. This is a good nut to crack, in terms of the, you know, the larger ambitions.”

  “La longue durée,” said Abbie to no one in particular, and he laughed to himself and then took another hit.

  “Marc Bloch!” said Krupp.

  “Cheers!” Abbie passed the weed.

  Larimer shrugged again. “My guess is that someone already prefers Mantini, for whatever reason, but they know they won’t come in with a low bid, so they’re trying to preempt that possibility by cutting out Harcon. Or they’ve got the same plans as us clowns.”

  “Where’s Mantini Construction?” asked Abbie.

  “Connellsville,” Harrow replied. “Why?”

  “Is that in Fayette County?”

  “Sure is, hon,” Larimer said. “You have a thought?”

  “I don’t know,” said Abbie. He looked at her. “Do you have a thought?”

  “Weh-ellll.” Sherri Larimer was especially terrifying when she smiled. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”

  “Was I going somewhere with something?” Abbie chuckled. He’d taken the one hit, then two, then a third before passing the weed back to Krupp, and had forgotten what exactly they were talking about.

  “I think I see where you’re going,” said Veronica to Larimer. She looked to Phil for support, but the coward looked away. “I’d rather . . . it would be better to not discuss this in front of, what’s your name? Sorry?”

  “Bob.”

  “Bob’s fine,” Larimer insisted.

  “Sherri,” Veronica said.

  Larimer regarded the other woman for a moment, and Veronica, though she found this sort of staring contest unseemly and absurd, the sort of dick-measuring posture better left for boys who imagined business as a contest of wills rather than a simple question of position and interest, matched her stare, until finally Larimer permitted herself a smile that Veronica interpreted as the concession that allowed her to look marginally away. Then Sherri said, “Okay. Get out of here, Bob.”

  “Well, the thing is—” he began, and he slightly lifted the still-lit roach in his hand, but Sherri tapped twice and bit on the inside of her lip, and Bob reversed course and said, “Yep, I’ll let you all be.” He dropped the joint on the floor and stomped out the embers. “Uh, cheers,” he said to none of them in particular, and he executed an awkward half-bow that was mostly a nod of the head and all but backed out of the room.

  “I liked him,” said Abbie.

  Larimer said, “Bob’s fine, Mayer.”

  “Who?” said Abbie.

  “I was talking to your sister.”

  “Right.”

  “Fine,” Veronica said. “But there’s a certain precautionary principle at work here.”

  Harrow said, “I didn’t smoke any goddamn ganja, and I don’t know what you’re all talking about either.”

  “What I’m saying,” said Veronica, who now permitted herself to lean against a stack of chairs, who wished, though she hadn’t had a smoke in years, that she had a cigarette right then, or, barring that, a scotch, “what I’m saying is, if I read you correctly, Sherri, is that we might be able to take an opportunity to, oh, lobby against the other participant in the process rather than the process itself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because no one really gives a fuck about who builds a road. Mantini probably promised someone something. And if he didn’t, maybe we can suggest that he did.”

  “Yes,” Larimer agreed. “I’m sure we surely can.”

  “Yeah, but what will that cost us?” asked Harrow.

  “Haven’t the slightest,” said Veronica. “Sherri, hon. Would you care to put a figure to it?”

  Larimer said, “Shit, you got a thousand bucks?”

  “What’s that for then?” Abbie asked.

  “Seems cheap,” Harrow said.

  “Just to be clear,” said Veronica. “If we do this, we have to, for obvious reasons, leave the details to you, Sherri. If you’re comfortable with that.”

  She laughed loudly and lit one of her slims. “It’s not like we’re going to kill the guy!” She raised an eyebrow at Harrow.

  “Jesus Christ,” Harrow replied. “Don’t fucking kill anybody.”

  “No. Obviously. Hell. I figure we’ll just plant drugs in his car. Jernicki.”

  “What?” said Abbie. “Who?”

  “Don’t worry, sweetie.” Sherri patted his knee affectionately. “That’s some good weed, huh? You know where he gets it from?” She winked.

  “She’s kidding!” said Veronica.

  “Well, not about the weed.” Sherri exhaled. “I’m just saying, we’ll spread some rumors. Pass some dispersions, if you know what I mean.”

  Later that night, Phil was in his Lincoln on a dark road back to Morgantown, and Veronica and Abbie were sitting in the dull Holiday Inn bar drinking nightcaps. Abbie, no longer so stoned, asked Veronica if they’d just agreed to something illegal. “Not strictly,” she said, but then she murmured, “I hope,” into her glass. “By the way,” she said, “What was Sherri talking to you about when we went back out to the bar?”

  “Oh, some property.”

  “What property, Abbie?”

  “None. Nothing. I mentioned to her, a few weeks ago, when we met
her at that other charming establishment, that I’d had a sort of vision of a property on top of a mountain, which I described to her. She was telling me—tonight I mean—that she knew just the spot.”

  “Please don’t deal with Sherri Larimer without me.”

  “No, no. I just. I’m just interested in looking. She told me it’s along an old gas line access road up on top of the ridge, actually. And cheap.”

  “I’m serious, Abbie.”

  “Yes, okay.”

  “And stop fucking telling people that you’ve had visions. They’ll think you’re nuts.”

  “A vision, repeated. Like a theme and variations. And why the hell do I care if they think I’m nuts? And also, you’d be surprised, really, how perfectly willing people are to accept the basic fact of it, provided you gauge them properly and describe it in terms they can understand. You yuppies accept it if I cast it in terms of artistic creativity; Sherri accepts it because she’s a superstitious yokel. But—”

  “She’s not stupid.”

  “No. That’s not what I said. By the way, do you know someone named Inman? Imnack?”

  “No. Why?”

  “She said he owned the property. On the mountain. I was, as you may have noted, slightly looped at the time. I don’t think that weed was just weed.”

  “I’m going to pay, Abbie. Let’s get out of here early. This whole town is a dive. I find it slightly threatening.”

  “Do you think? I find it charming.”

  “You’re not gay. Or a woman.”

  “No. But you’re not visibly. Gay, I mean. You’re visibly a woman, which mitigates, I suppose, against the other thing.”

  “Fuck you, Abbie. That’s a fucked up thing to say.” She placed a twenty on the counter and kissed his cheek. “Seven A.M.,” she said. “Or I leave you at the mercy of the local tribes.”

  • • •

  In early December, Jerry Jernicki was pulled over on 119 heading into Uniontown for driving sixty-five miles per hour in a fifty-five zone.

  “I’m sorry sir,” said Officer Jerry Rittenhauer, “but I detect the smell of alcohol. I’m going to have to administer a field sobriety test.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” asked Jernicki. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Step out of the car, sir.”

  Jernicki asked for a breathalyzer, but, by odd coincidence, Rittenhauer’s unit wasn’t functioning.

  “Please walk nine steps and turn on one foot,” the officer ordered. At eight steps, he told Jernicki to stop. “I’m sorry sir, but you appear to be inebriated, and that gives me probable cause to search your vehicle.”

  “Search away,” Jernicki said. The officer then discovered quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine just below the limit for intent to distribute.

  “That’s not mine!” protested Jernicki.

  “Of course it isn’t,” said the officer.

  “I swear to you,” Jernicki said. “I don’t know how that got there.”

  “Me neither,” said Rittenhauer. “Now please turn around.”

  Two months after that, Mayor Bill Pattaglia of Uniontown, County Commissioner Cavignac, and Congressman Menta announced that after discovering “irregularities in the bidding process that may have been related to a possible kickback deal between Alan Mantini of Mantini Construction and County Commissioner Jerome Jernicki, whose troubles with narcotics were a cause for sorrow, and our prayers are with him, we are pleased to announce that the bid for the construction of a new interchange between the Uniontown Bypass and the future Route 43 Mon-Fayette Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike has nevertheless been awarded to the other lowest bidder, Harcon Construction of Morgantown, West Virginia, who has covenanted to use ninety percent local labor and/or subcontractors in terms of overall payroll and invoicing, thereby bringing a net economic benefit in excess of twenty-one million dollars directly to Fayette County! And now we’re going to ask Phillip Harrow, CEO of Harcon, to say a few words.”

  • • •

  “What the fuck, Ronny?”

  “What the fuck what?”

  He tossed a copy of the Uniontown Herald-Standard on her desk. JERNICKI RESIGNS. SPECIAL ELECTION TO BE CALLED.

  “Yes?”

  “We did this.”

  “Calm down, Abbie.”

  “No. This is fucked. This is illegal.”

  Veronica rubbed her temple. That morning, she’d had the same argument with Edith. “What, specifically, is illegal?”

  “Fuck you, specifically.”

  “The only illegality that I can see,” Veronica said, “is this alleged kickback scheme between former commissioner Jernicki and his preferred firm.”

  “Which is bullshit and you know it! And also, the drugs!”

  “Yes, he was transporting quite a large—”

  “You put them there!”

  “No.”

  “Sherri Larimer did it!”

  “At your suggestion.”

  “At my . . . Don’t you dare! I didn’t—”

  “Abbie, sit down.”

  “No.”

  “Sit down.” She said it softly. He sat. She recalled when they were barely teenagers, he and two other boys, boys who weren’t even his friends, really, had tossed a neighbor’s cat from a fire escape; he’d been utterly untroubled by the death of the poor animal until the woman who’d owned it posted signs around the neighborhood and its broken little body was discovered behind some trash cans in the alley and he saw the lady, who lived in a different building, whom none of them had ever met, standing at the end of that alley holding back tears. She was only in her mid-thirties, though that seemed old to them at the time, and Abbie had only happened to be passing the scene, and he heard her sniff and say, “That poor thing.” He made it home before he started to cry. Then he was inconsolable, and Veronica had to hide the cause of his grief—if grief was the right word for it—from their parents, concocting a foolishly elaborate teenage story about Abbie having been bullied by the very boys he’d been with when they killed the cat. Mom and Dad didn’t believe her, but they didn’t press her either. It was in keeping with their universal preference not to know. There was—in society, in literature, in psychology—a belief in change by degrees, that a person moved by increments from good to bad, each tiny tick of the watchwork gears imperceptible until, over time, the hands on the face had visibly moved. And in this metaphor, Abbie’s youthful cruelty was at once an aberration and precisely such an increment. But wasn’t it truer to say that the good and the evil, or the right and the wrong, or the sin and the righteousness, always coexisted within each person; he was neither one thing nor the other: not the clockwork, but the quartz, vibrating imperceptibly between alternate states, never, to the observer, in one or in the other; molecular; quantum; even the act of looking might alter it. Look at that sad, dead creature. It was only in the light of observation that it became bad to begin with.

  “Abbie,” she said, “this is the business we’re in.”

  “Speak for yourself. I’m not in any business where this sort of thing goes on.”

  “Yes you are. And you know you are. But if you want out, please.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean exactly what I said. Say the word. This is a business partnership only. We’ll still be brother and sister. I won’t forsake you. Phil will hate your guts, but what do you care? You don’t have much of an equity stake, but if you want out, by all means, I will write you a check. There’s no zoning board. There’s no environmental impact study. Your input isn’t needed. You can go back to being an architect.”

  “I never stopped being an architect.”

  “Abbie.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “When was the last time you designed a building?”

  “I still have speaking engagements. I still write.”

  “What was the last thing you wrote?”

  “Yes, all right. Your point is taken. But this is wrong, Ronnie. And don’t look at
me like that. I’m not naïve. I understand that we are obliged, sometimes, to live among the barbarians, such as it is. I understand that. I understand that this business is full of unsavory characters and that everyone is on the make and that the first truly honest man in the building business will also be the last, but doesn’t it fall to us to try to be decent? If not wholly honest, then mostly? If not mostly, then occasionally? When we can? When we could still do all right by it? Is it necessary to debase ourselves just because our peers and our colleagues are debased?”

  Veronica wove the bare fingers of her hands together, and she looked at her brother. He wore a plain gold band. Sarah, she knew, wore their grandmother’s diamond. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “It was a nice speech, Abbie, but yes. Yes. Yes! We do what we need to do. Will you calm the fuck down? No one died! You make it into this big thing. This is the way it’s done. And meanwhile, you tell me you’re working on some private deal with the same woman you think—with no evidence, by the way—you think set up some asshole rural potentate on some embarrassing but ultimately irrelevant charge that’s gonna get him an admonition and a sentence of going to AA or something.”

  “It’s not a private deal. I mean, it is, but it isn’t a business deal.”

  “Oh no? What is it?”

  “I’m going to build a house there. You don’t understand. I drove down to see that property. I walked on it. I’d seen it before.” Where he’d been angry, where he’d pontificated, now he looked at her, pained and desperate. “I’d seen it, Ronnie.”

  That night at home, after she’d had a glass of wine, after Edith, who was an excellent cook, had served her coq au vin and poured her another glass and turned on a Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald album and ate with her without saying a word, because Edith, alone, knew her, knew when Veronica needed to talk, knew when Veronica needed to be quiet, it occurred to Veronica that her brother might be crazy—not that it hadn’t occurred to her before, exactly; it had, in one sense, frequently occurred to her; it had occurred to her in the way that you’d casually call anyone whose eccentricities exceed your own crazy. And it would have meant something almost exactly like that, that her brother’s eccentricities exceeded her own. But couldn’t it be true, equally true, simultaneously true, that his madness tinged into the psychological; that his pomposity was symptomatic of a pathology; that his yammering on about visions wasn’t just a self-promoting self-regard about his own genius, but rather something like mental illness—no, not something like it; rather, the thing itself?