by Drew Perry
“He’s great,” Jack says, watching him disappear around the back of the office, materialize again on the other side.
“It’s hot,” she says.
“It is.”
“I didn’t think it was supposed to get hot yet.”
“There’s a tropical storm coming,” he tells her.
“Really?”
“Maybe. It was on the weather.”
“You were watching the weather.”
“Yes.”
“Shocking.” Beth pushes her hair out of her face, squints. “Guess what?” she says. “Rena called this morning. Checking on Terry.”
“That was good of her,” Jack says, readying himself for disaster. “So did Butner, he tells me. You’re gonna need an answering service over there.”
She ignores that. “It was funny, though. About Rena? She was at our house. Our house. Yours and mine.”
The breeze picks up, dies back down. “Yeah,” he says. “She would have been.”
“Perhaps you’d like to tell me why that is?”
“She came by last night,” he says. “After she found out about Canavan.” She doesn’t say anything back to that, so he clarifies. “About you and Canavan.”
“Well, isn’t that just perfect.” She watches Hen. “And now she’s staying with you?”
“She’s not staying with me. She stayed last night. She turned up at the door.”
“That must be a lot of fun for you, Jack.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
“I don’t know why you’re here,” he says. “Maybe you need a couple of yards of pine bark. I have no idea. I can get Butner to cut you a deal.” Butner looks up, waves.
“What the hell was she doing at our house?”
“You really want to do this?” he says. “I mean, we can do this if you want to.”
“Is she there now?”
“I don’t know where she is,” he says. “I have no idea in the world.”
“But she was at our house.”
“Yes,” he says. “She was.” He hasn’t done anything wrong here, he reminds himself. He’s not the one fucking Canavan. He can ride this out. “How’s the patient?” he asks.
“He’s in a lot of pain,” she says. “Or what seems like a lot of it, anyway.”
“You think he’s faking?”
“That’s not what I meant, of course.”
“It’s all an elaborate ruse,” Jack says. “He didn’t even cut himself. It’s all special effects. Smoke and mirrors. CGI.”
She takes a deep breath. “Try not to be a complete asshole, OK?”
“OK.”
“We’re supposed to go to the doctor tomorrow to get the bandages changed. To make sure he’s not getting infected.”
“We are?”
“He is. I’m taking him.”
“Oh,” Jack says. “That ‘we.’ ”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Well, who’s supposed to take him, Jack? He can’t drive himself.”
“Is that your reason for being over there now? Your new reason?”
“What’s she doing in our house, Jack? What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on,” he says. “She’s not doing anything in our house. No one is. She turned up and got drunk and slept on the sofa. We both did. Get drunk, I mean. I didn’t sleep on the sofa.” Butner’s coiling the hose back up. “And besides, what if there was something going on? Who would you be to ask me about it?”
“I’m your wife. I can ask you anything I want to.”
They stand out there and look at each other. He doesn’t understand what this argument is supposed to be about. Or any argument. Or anything else. He keeps ending up feeling half-insane, or pissed off, or confused. That more than anything else: She confuses the hell out of him.
Ernesto comes out of the office holding Hendrick’s pants, intercepts him mid-lap, somehow gets him to put them back on, and Hen takes off running again. Jack says, “So you just came over here to get to the bottom of things? Reconnoiter?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Outstanding.”
“Oh, shut up,” she says.
“Maybe I don’t get it,” he says. “What is it I’ve done to you this time?”
“Shut up, Jack, OK? Don’t talk. Don’t. Let’s just stand here and don’t talk for a minute. Let’s just try that.”
Hen comes back around the office. “Here,” Jack says. He knows this is a mistake, but he’s doing it anyway. He’s got to find something to hold onto somewhere. “You’ll like this.”
“I thought we weren’t talking.”
“We’re not. But you’ll like this. This is good.” He takes a breath. “Ernesto’s been teaching Hen to speak Spanish,” he says.
She waits a while before she answers. The wind picks up from off the back of the yard. “Speak Spanish how?” she says.
“He speaks a little Spanish now, is all.” He hangs onto it a little bit. “He knows the words for things. He talks to Ernesto.”
“He talks to Ernesto in what way?”
“He just does.”
“Don’t screw around, Jack. That’s not funny.”
“I’m not. He does. It’s impressive.”
“He speaks Spanish.”
“Yes.”
“Hen speaks Spanish.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“No,” she says. “No. Don’t tell me. Show me.” She takes him by the arm, pulls him toward Hen and Ernesto. “Show me right now.”
“OK.”
“Right now.”
“OK,” he says, letting her drag him over. Hen comes around the shed again. “Ernesto,” Jack says. “Beth would like to hear some of Hen’s Spanish, please. If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Absolutely,” Ernesto says.
“This isn’t funny, Jack,” she says. “You’re being mean.”
Ernesto catches Hen the next time he comes by, and holds him out at arm’s length. He gets him to look at him, says, “Hola, Hen.” Hen says nothing. He’s out of breath.
“¿Hen, qué es eso?” Ernesto asks, pointing to Hen’s shirt. Hendrick still doesn’t say anything. Beth stands still, and Jack can tell she wants to believe. Hell, he still wants to believe, too, even though he’s seen it, even though he already believes it. Ernesto takes hold of the shirt, holds it out in front of him. “Eso, Hen,” he says. “¿Qué es eso?”
Hen makes a small popping sound, then says, precisely, “Es una camisa.” His cheeks are flushed.
“Bueno, hombre. ¿Qué color?”
“Azul,” Hen says, very quietly.
Jack’s ears ring some, and Beth says, “Oh, no,” hand in front of her mouth, and then she says, “Oh my God.”
“¿Y qué son esos?” Ernesto asks him, pointing to Hen’s feet.
“Son mis zapatos,” Hen says.
“Is he conjugating?” Beth asks. “Is he conjugating his verbs?”
“Not always,” Ernesto says.
“Oh, God,” she says, sitting down on the ground now, holding onto her head. “When did this happen?” she asks.
“Yesterday,” Jack says, then corrects himself: “It’s been going on a while. I found out yesterday.”
“You didn’t tell me. At the hospital, you didn’t tell me. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I forgot.”
“Bullshit.”
“We were busy.”
“Fuck you,” she says. “My God, fuck you. How could you not have told me?” She reaches out for Hendrick. “Do another one,” she says. “Otro.”
“¿Hablas Español?” Ernesto asks her.
“Sí, un poco,” she says, and then she’s off and talking to Ernesto in Spanish, longer questions and answers Jack can only barely get the gist of. Beth took Spanish all through grad school. Hendrick’s listening to Beth and Ernesto like he might be ready to cor
rect their grammar. Two police cars roar by out on the road, lights but no sirens, and Ernesto points.
“Policia,” Hen says. “Hay una emergencia.”
Beth looks at Jack. “How are you not amazed?”
“I’m amazed,” he says. “I am. Plenty.” He holds his hand out to Hendrick, says, “Come on, buddy.”
“Wait,” she says, standing up. “Where are you going? I thought maybe I’d go on and take him, find an early lunch somewhere, or a snack or something.”
“Sorry,” Jack says. He wants to take this back now, take it away—it’s not that he wants to hurt her so much as that he’d just like to remind her that he exists. “We’ve got to go,” he says. “We’ve got deliveries, and Hen rides the truck now.”
“Entregas,” Hen says.
“Wait,” she says again. “Hang on, OK? Please. Just for a minute. How much has he been talking?”
“Like this,” he says. “This much. Not much more than this.” He wants badly to be able to lie, to tell her it’s been whole sentences, paragraphs, the full texts of Franco’s early speeches. But he doesn’t.
“We should take him to the doctor,” she says.
“No way. Not today. The Beanbags can wait.”
“But—”
“You know what?” he says. She’s the one who showed up all full of questions and accusations. “You go back to Canavan. Go check on him, make sure he’s comfortable. Make sure he’s got enough pillows. We can go see the Beanbags next week.”
“But what if he’s not doing it any more next week?”
“Then he’s not doing it next week. I don’t care. We’ll tell them that he could do it, and that then he couldn’t any more. We’ll see what they say to that. Either way, that ought to be our money’s worth. Or theirs.”
“Jack, you can’t just—”
“I can’t just what?” he asks her. “What is it I can’t do?”
She looks like she’s working on a long list. But she says, “Nothing.” She looks away from him, looks out at the road. The wind blows her hair into her face. “Do whatever you want,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says. “I will.” He turns, takes Hen across the lot, gets him into the truck. Laying this on her like this is probably one better than what he did to Canavan’s yard. He knows that. But he can’t help it. Butner hops up in one of the skids and starts loading the cypress into the truck. When he’s done, he passes a clipboard through the window to Jack, and Jack starts the truck up, full load, and pulls past Beth, who’s walking back toward the wagon, dust and dirt on her ass from where she sat down on the ground. None of this is fair right now. Not any of it. But she can’t hold him entirely responsible. Here’s what he knows how to do, he wants to tell her: Get up, eat, go back to sleep. Get Hendrick dressed, keep him dressed for as long as he can. That’s what he’s grown expert in. Do whatever it is he needs to do, see what’s left standing after he’s done it. Fix it then, if it can be fixed. If it can’t, let somebody else sort it all out.
She stares at them as they come by. Hendrick adjusts his crown on his head, tugging at it until he gets it perfect, until he gets it right.
Hen’s got a ballpoint pen Ernesto’s given him, so the ride is punctuated by the slow click of the pen in and out of the barrel. Jack feels light-headed. Just off the teacup ride at the amusement park. Things are surely seeming less fine now. He puts on the news. Bombings in Iraq, bombings in Indonesia, a car bomb in Chechnya. Things are less fine everywhere, which makes him feel a little less alone. The market is down thirty points. A congressman resigns from Ways & Means. Tonight it will drop down into the mid- 60s. Tomorrow will be the hottest day of the year so far, 90 with thunderstorms. The forecast track for Ashley has shifted a little bit, the radio woman says, and rain from that storm could be here by the weekend. He loves her voice. She’s British, or South African. Her vowels are beautiful. While she talks, he wonders what would happen if he let the truck slide off the road, let it ride out across the tobacco fields and the scrub, let them coast to wherever it is they’d stop.
Hen says, from nowhere, “I like Ernesto. I think he is my friend.”
“What?” Yet one more miracle.
“I think Ernesto is my friend.”
He sounds so sure. “Why do you think that?”
Hen says, “Why do you think that?”
Jack says, “I think he’s nice to you.”
“I think he’s nice to you,” Hendrick says, and Jack can’t tell any more whether this is a conversation, a real conversation, or if Hen’s just playing with the way the words sound.
“He is nice to me,” says Jack.
“Que bueno,” Hen says. “Que bueno, que bueno, que bueno.” He repeats it for a while, barely audible, touching his finger to his thumb for each syllable.
Jack tries something. “Hen, what’s this?” He points at the door of the truck.
“La puerta,” he says, “y la ventana.” Then he goes back to que bueno, que bueno. Jack’s pretty sure that’s right, puerta and ventana, pretty sure he remembers those words. What he’s got left from high school is basically low-end language-lab-tape ability. Where is the library? ¿Donde esta la biblioteca? Or is it el biblioteca? He could start a band under that name. He and Rena could start it up, maybe put Butner on bass. Ernesto on rhythm guitar. Beth and Canavan on backup vocals, on shiny matching tambourines. Hendrick on endless repeating triangle, or ballpoint pen. They’ll tour the country. Get a bus. Good evening, Pasadena. Please give a warm welcome to El Biblioteca. And the crowd goes wild.
About halfway to Mebane—they’re taking the cypress to Mebane—they pass a man standing on the concrete median, beating a yield sign with a chain. Que bueno, Hen whispers. This is precisely, exactly what Jack’s life looks like these days. He should hire someone to follow him around, take pictures of everything, document all the signs and signals.
What happens to him at Kinnett College is this: Somehow it gets back to his chair, Alan Sherrill, that he has kissed his student Sarah Cody in the parking lot at Gubbio’s. One of Alan’s advisees is Sarah’s roommate. No one else, apparently, knows, but the roommate has told Alan for reasons that escape everyone. Because she’s pissed off, because it offends her religion, because she’s twenty-one and bored and wants to rattle shit around. Jack sits in Alan’s office, which is full of maps of the Pacific Ocean—his gig is Naval Warfare—and listens while Alan says, You know, Jack, even absent these, ah, revelations, you haven’t got your doctorate, and you’ve taught the four years full-time. Wouldn’t it just be easier, really, for everybody, if. The conversation is about how they wouldn’t have had a place for him anyway, how they’d only have been able to give him one more year, tops, about how Jack shouldn’t worry, how Alan intends to be discreet and professional about all of this. Jack watches it happen to him like he’s watching it happen to someone else.
That night, after the meeting, when he tells Beth that—but not why—they’re not renewing his contract, she’s not surprised. They’ve been at enough department meetings, heard enough times what the hiring situation would look like long-term. And she’s been on him lately to get back to his degree, worried that it would catch up to him eventually. Take the year, she says, finish your dissertation, and then look for something local for a year or two. They can live, she thinks, for the next year at least, on her salary, their savings. Hen will still have insurance through her, through the school. Jack can find something. Community college. High school. When and if her tenure decision gets made, they can talk about going on the market together. She’s not planning on staying at Kinnett forever. If she’s tenured here, she’s more attractive somewhere else. This will be good for him. Send him back into his book about the Viaduct and the New Jersey Turnpike and the Ted Williams Tunnel under the Boston harbor. Possible titles: Great Conveyances of the East. Or: Life Is a Highway. They’ll be fine, they’ll be OK. And right in that first moment, he believes her, believes he could take the year, pick it all back up again. That this migh
t all wash off. They make Hen some dinner, get him into bed. Beth finds some junk on the TV and says she’s going to wind down for a little while. Jack pours himself a big drink, takes Yul Brynner out onto the porch—the rented house in Burlington, their old front porch—and sits on the steps, a man with no job and a busted son, somebody guilty of standing in a parking lot and kissing a kid. He comes pretty quickly back to the idea that things might not, actually, be all that OK. He’s never been fired before. It feels like a medical procedure gone wrong. Sir, while we were in there, we found something else. He sits there with the dog and drinks his drink and works on just what it is he might be supposed to do with himself now.
Hendrick flicks the pen. They drive toward Mebane. Canavan’s in bandages up to his hip. Jack’s got six yards of cypress behind him. His entire life, just about, is sliding around underneath him. It’s been eleven days. He has no plan. He reaches out the window to pick at the edge of the magnetic sign on the door, PATRIOT MULCH & TREE, just to make sure it’s still there.
Hen loves the hydraulic lift on the truck. Always has. Loves the sound, loves to see the bed lift off the frame, loves to see the gravel or dirt or mulch come spilling out the back into a neat pile. He stands off to the side while Jack dumps the cypress in a bare spot of lawn directly behind the basketball goal. Nobody’s home. He’s called back to the yard three times, has waited half an hour in the driveway—the woman called that morning, told them please not to dump it without speaking to her husband first about where he wants it—but no one’s home. The number she left for them in case her husband wasn’t there, Butner says, calling Jack back, turns out to be a science museum in Raleigh. There’s no one who works there with the name she gave. But they’re paid up, in cash, and Butner says into the phone, I swear, boss man, I’d just find somewhere out of the way to drop it and come on back. If they weren’t paid, Jack wouldn’t put it down—customers angry about eight-foot mulch pyramids in their driveways tend not to pay—but it’s past noon and getting hotter and Hen needs lunch and Jack’s head still hurts and he’s getting hungry, too, so: What the hell. He gets the back of the bed just past the goal, gets Hen out of the way, works the control levers on the box on the side of the truck. Hen claps and lifts his right leg up and down in time to who knows what piece of music it is that’s strung through his head right now.