We came home tonight, fighting the usual traffic on Lincoln. I was taking back streets for a while, cutting along Burling. Everyone’s trying to get home. Pulling up at one stoplight, I saw this old couple. The woman could barely see over the steering wheel. The light changed, but the car didn’t move. Horns honked, the car jolted forward, then it stopped in the intersection. The light turned yellow and she backed up.
“God damn old people,” I said, realizing the irony. One of these days, Mary and I will be driving around like this. Mary’s reasonably tall, so seeing over the dashboard won’t be a problem. But I can imagine her hesitating. Whenever we’re driving now, and I start harping on about old people on the roads, she’ll look at me and say, “They’ve got as much right to be here as you do, Sam.”
Muller sits there with one of his bent cigarettes. He still keeps them in his back pocket. By the end of the day, they’re a twisted mess. He smokes and looks out the window. I think he was in better spirits today, probably because Ruby told him he had a cute jiggle on the ladder. He started attacking the blistering paint, sending the chips down on my face below. “Take it easy, Muller,” I said.
We both ended up with paint chips all over us. Muller never shakes himself before getting in the car. The floor mats are covered in the stuff. Pulling in the driveway, I say to Muller, “Shake yourself before you go inside,” and he gets out of the car doing what looks like a hula dance. “Why can’t you shake like normal people?” I said to him. Now there’s paint chips mingling with oil, running down my driveway to the culvert. Muller doesn’t even notice. Sometimes I think his eyes only see as far as a cookbook or Ruby’s bandana.
Lasagna is waiting when we come through the door. We shower, eat, and then watch a movie. Mary found this place where you get ten movies a week for a set price. Her taste runs to sad tales, people wailing as the boat leaves, kids holding their dogs before the father grabs his shotgun. Muller blubbers through them all, grabbing tissues, while Judy hugs his face. “He’ll get another dog, Muller,” she’ll say, taking him off to bed. Mary and I stay up to watch the news, then we turn in as well. “How was Muller today?” Mary asks.
“He’s coming along.” Most of the time, he makes a hell of a mess, tripping over cans, tracking paint into people’s houses. Ruby’s more patient than most, but you see her give the occasional sigh. I think he’s only tolerated because he’s a loveable lug with an innocuous disposition. At the end of the day, he’ll make his brownies and all offences will be forgiven.
Kept within reason, his brownies calm me down. Go beyond one or two and it’s lights out. Otis gobbles them up like potato chips, and then starts telling people the dumbest things. One woman called to say she’s putting her father in a home. Otis started sobbing away until she explained she’d won a lottery and was buying him a split-level up near Seward Park. “Oh,” he said, and then Margot pushed him out of the way.
“What part of Otis Cries for You don’t you get?” Margot said. The woman said she just wanted to talk about it. “You’re barking up the wrong tree here, sister.” she says. “Otis doesn’t know good deeds from bad ones. How old’s your father?” The woman said he was eighty-four. “In a split-level, for God’s sake? They’ve got beautiful retirement homes all over the place. Friendly staff, physicians, psychiatrists, the works. Didn’t you think of that? What happens when he takes a header down the stairs?”
The woman started crying. Margot pulled Otis back in his chair. “She’s all yours.” Otis let out a few sobs and the woman thanked him.
I drift off thinking of Margot the way she used to be, sitting in her office, bifocals low on her nose. I see Frank, standing at her door, saying, “We need to charge these bastards more,” and Margot saying, “You’re a vulture, Frank.”
That always sent Frank over the edge. He’d rant away about capitalism and free markets. She’d finally push him out of her office, and Frank would storm down the hall saying, “I should put that woman in a facility.” I wake up laughing and get an elbow from Mary. I try to get back to sleep again, and when I do, I dream of the time Frank pulled us all in on a new pitch, a sports equipment manufacturer out in West Town. We worked for two weeks, taking stuff into Frank’s office each morning. Nothing got him excited. “Bollocks,” he said, getting up and going to the window. Down below, these two guys were walking along carrying two cases of beer. It was a hot afternoon. They put the cases down, took out a beer, and sat down, using the cases for seats.
“There’s ingenuity,” he said. “Take your bar with you.” Frank went back to his office. Ten minutes later, he was shouting down the hall, “Get in here, all of you!”
We came in his office and he was standing there at the window, pointing down at the two guys. “See those bastards there?” he said. “Fucking geniuses.” Then he started laying out this campaign, telling us his idea for hockey equipment. “They’re selling everything separately,” he said. “Skates, gloves, upper body protectors. We gotta start bagging all this shit together. The bag’s the thing. Every kid wants a hockey bag. Why sell all this shit separately? Start selling the whole getup. Make your money on the package.”
Was that how people bought hockey equipment? We didn’t know, but Frank made the bag concept work. One commercial had this kid coming home, seeing his father on the front porch. The father takes him inside. There’s this full hockey bag in the hall. The kid’s over the moon, the mother’s wiping away tears. It was a hell of an emotional spot and parents ate it up. Frank had those bags everywhere: commercials, end-of-aisle displays, contests to win a bag of hockey equipment. The slogan became an instant catchphrase in the industry: “Now, play!”
That fall, the client sold more sports equipment than he could manufacture. Frank was a hero, a legend, and O’Conner Advertising took home awards, big awards; gold, silver, bronze awards. The trades called him a genius, another Leo Burnett. “They’re comparing me to Burnett?” he laughed. “I never put a homo in green tights on a can of peas. A right pansy.”
“I’m starting to worry about you, Sam,” I hear Mary say. I open my eyes. She’s up on her elbow, staring down at me. “What’s so funny?”
“Frank,” I say. “He was calling Leo Burnett a pansy.”
Chapter 29
Judy’s singing to the song, “Dedicated to the One I Love.” It’s a nice piece, a little sappy. Otis did this whole stupid opening about how it goes back way before The Mamas and the Papas. John Phillips adapted it, and Otis wanted everyone to hear the original version by The “5” Royales. “This was recorded by King Records back in the fifties,” he says. “John Phillips was still doing his wacky doodle folk stuff. Listen to this version, folks. I ain’t got nothin’ against The Mamas and the Papas. I had a good little cry when Mammy Cass choked on that chicken sandwich.”
Judy laughed and then sang along. She loves to sing. She just can’t carry a tune. As much as I love Judy, I’d like to put her out in the garage when she sings. She’s making Meek and Beek all flappy, probably figuring she sounds like a hawk, one of their sworn enemies. At least The Rec Room of Sound is expanding her repertoire. When she first arrived, she kept singing that if you want it, you need to put a ring on it or something. I asked Muller what that meant, but he’s as clueless about modern music as me. He also tends to morph songs together when he sings, which bugs the crap out of Otis. “You ain’t got a dang full song in that head of yours, do you?” Otis told him the other day. Muller was bringing the brownies out of the oven. Otis gets all dreamy-eyed when the oven door opens, smacking his lips. “At least you can bake,” Otis said. “You sure can’t sing worth a shit.”
We’re finishing this place on Carlyle, so this morning I tell Muller we’d better get going early. Then Judy says, “Can I help you paint?” and Muller gets all fidgety.
“You have to wear painter’s pants,” he tells her, acting like there’s no way around Ruby’s rules.
“It’s Ruby, for God’s sake,” Judy says. “What’s she going to do?”
Mary wants to pick up the new barbecue today, so Judy goes with her. They walk out the door singing about love making a woman. It seems pretty obvious from a breeding perspective, but somebody puts it out on a record and suddenly it’s an inspired thought.
On the drive to work, I tell Muller he’s a sneaky shit. “I know what you did back there,” I say.
“I can’t help it, Sam.”
“Yes you can, you dumb bastard. Krupsky says this is just a crush. Well it’s getting old. I’m sick of this cow-eyed crap.”
“I’ve tried to stop. I feel awful.”
“What was all that shit the other night? I just want to make you happy, Judy. You’re so full it, Muller.”
“I do want to make Judy happy.”
“By thinking about Ruby? You really are one fucked up asshole. Maybe you should go back to Seattle.”
“Judy doesn’t want to.”
“I mean you. Leave Judy here. You don’t deserve her.” He looks out the window. “I’m serious, Muller. You don’t deserve Judy.”
“I’m sorry, Sam.”
“Cut out that sorry shit.”
“I can’t help how I feel.”
“Ever since you showed up here, you’ve been telling me how you feel. Forget how you feel. Nobody cares. Try not feeling for a change. Try not even thinking.”
It works for most men in America.
Chapter 30
“What’s wrong with Muller?” Ruby asks. “He barely said a word when I zinced his nose. Is he okay?” I tell her he was like that when he woke up.
He’s been up on the ladder all morning, doing the soffits. His fear of heights doesn’t seem to be bothering him today. He looks like a primate, toes hanging out over his sandals. It reminds me of the joke where a man finds a gorilla on the roof of his house. He calls the zoo and tells them to send somebody over. Two men arrive, one carrying a net, the other a shotgun and a bulldog on a leash. “Here’s how it works,” the one guy tells the homeowner. “I go on the roof, push the gorilla off, and my assistant releases the bulldog. It goes straight for the gorilla’s nuts. The gorilla’s distracted, my assistant nets the bastard, and we’re out of here.” He then hands the homeowner his shot gun. “What’s this for?” the homeowner says. The zoo man replies, “If I get pushed off, shoot the bulldog.”
As I’m thinking about that, Muller’s shadow passes overhead. He hits the ground with a dull thud. Max and Ruby come running outside all in a panic. Ruby kneels beside Muller, listening to his heart. Max calls an ambulance on his cell. We end up racing to the hospital behind the ambulance, following a gurney down the hall. Muller opens his eyes and takes Ruby’s hand. “Ruby, I—I—” Two orderlies wheel him into an examining area. “The poor man,” Ruby says. “I thought he looked kind of tipsy this morning. We shouldn’t have put him up on the ladder if he’s got sunstroke.”
I get Judy and Mary on the phone. They rush right over. Then Margot shows up, taking me aside. “The man’s a liability, Sam,” and I tell her he probably did it on purpose. “Why, for God’s sake?” she says. Then I tell her about Muller’s crush on Ruby.
“Ruby?” she laughs, looking around for a coffee machine. “Let’s go down to the cafeteria.” We take the stairs and Margot decides she needs something to eat. She orders a full breakfast, putting on her bifocals to look at the menu overhead. “Is that the biggest breakfast you got?” she asks the girl at the cash. The girl tells her it’s the only breakfast they have. “Gimme an extra order of toast then,” Margot says. “You want anything besides coffee, Sam?”
“No, I’m fine.”
The food comes and Margot takes her tray over to the far corner. She starts slathering her toast with jam. “So Muller’s got the hots for Ruby, huh? Has he made any advances yet?”
“Thankfully, no.”
“Ruby’s not bad looking for her age,” she says with her mouth full. She takes a gulp of coffee, washes it down, and then gets a sausage on her fork like a mallet. “It’s probably just a passing fancy. Judy know anything?”
“No, and she’s not going to know anything,” I say. “I told Muller I’d throw him in Lake Michigan before I let him hurt her.”
“Spoken like a true father, Sam,” she says. “Maybe you should talk to Ruby. Tell her the big guy’s got a bad case of puppy love.” She takes another gulp of coffee. “At least get it out in the open. Saves having him jumping off roofs.” I tell her that’s not a bad idea. “Glad I could help,” Margot smiles. “Strictly speaking, my real concern is the liability issue. Muller’s a sweet guy, but we ain’t got the money for his high jinks. Sure you don’t want anything to eat? Have some toast. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach.”
I take a piece of toast and watch Margot shoveling the rest of the eggs away. She probably doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and five pounds, but she’s got the appetite of an entire fire hall. “Ruby,” she laughs, shaking her head. “That’s a hoot.”
“Why’s that a hoot?”
“I got a better ass than she does. I do butt squeezes at my desk. Two hundred a day. They really work, Sam,” she says and gets up. “Feel my ass. Go on, grab a handful.”
Not even if you did three hundred butt squeezes a day, Margot.
Chapter 31
Muller’s back is sprained, but that’s about it. The official story is he slipped and fell. Judy reads him The Road Less Traveled, which I’m sure goes right over his head. I had trouble with it myself, especially the bit about holes. Supposedly, we all have these emotional holes. Relationships are based on how well we fill the other person’s hole. Muller must have one the size of a tanker truck. How Judy even makes a dent in it is a mystery to me. I wish she didn’t love him so much. One of these days, Muller’s going to do something really stupid (not that he hasn’t already), and Judy’s going to fall apart. I know how easily that can happen. I don’t want her ending up like those people writing into Otis Cries for You. I can see Margot pushing Otis out of his chair and saying, “Move on, Judy. He couldn’t even give you a kid. What was he waiting for? A coronation?”
To be honest, I don’t know where Margot gets her advice. She’s never been married, never had kids. In all the time I’ve known her, the closest she came to a meaningful relationship was with Joey. Maybe that’s what makes the Internet an equal opportunity medium. Anyone can sit there weeping like a baby, or dispensing tough love.
If the Internet brings the masses together, it also lets anyone with a computer be a quack. Look at Otis. He’s not even wearing pants half the time. How can anyone take advice from him? The man’s a moron, but he’s already up over four thousand viewers an hour. The other day, he told a woman she could get rid of crow’s feet by watching horror movies. Fourteen people blogged saying it really worked. Margot had to get on and tell them they’re all ninnies.
Feminist groups send Margot messages every day, inviting her to conferences and rallies. The other week, she told Ruby she’s thinking of attending one on the fifteenth. “I’ll go with you,” Ruby said. “We’ll get the fur flying,” which is just the sort of thing Margot should avoid. She’s never been able to keep her opinions to herself, and I doubt they’re flattering to feminists. She hates them as much as Frank does. You still don’t fuck with those women. I read about a feminist in Evanston who had a man in court, claiming he was using his telescope to watch her undress. The guy was a noted astronomer and taught at the university. Even after giving his credentials to the judge, the woman still complained that she was being observed. If not by him, at least by someone in the galaxy. The judge found the astronomer in contempt when he casually said, “I think alien life forms are more selective than that.”
The astronomer was ordered to move the telescope nearer the university and do community service. The woman got a lot of press, appearing on talk shows, getting feminists all worked up. The university didn’t need the hassle. They took away the astronomer’s tenure and now he’s gazing at s
tars in the Nevada desert somewhere.
If Margot and Ruby start something with the feminists, I hope I’m up on a ladder, scrapping paint, and not anywhere near Otis’s place. Imagine him telling a bunch of angry women to go hook their toes on door handles. We’ll have every feminist in the country out there looking like hyenas. Some of them are more bug-eyed than Otis.
Chapter 32
Brownies are baking again. Otis eats them straight out of the oven, tossing them back and forth in his hands as he goes back downstairs. He’s really getting on his high horse these days, going on about abortion, speed limits, and the right to assembly. Margot thinks he’s getting too evangelical. When he crosses the line, she sticks a cattle caller in his ear. His dentures flew out the other day. “Stop being such a sanctimonious shit,” she said, and went back to her invoicing. The cattle caller sits right next to her. She uses it on delinquent clients. “Send me a check tomorrow or you’ll get worse than this,” she says, blasting the cattle caller into the receiver. As of today, we only have one outstanding payment.
Bisquick takes it all in stride, cleaning up Otis’s crumbs, going for his nipple now and then. Otis tapes them down when the air conditioning’s running. He swats Bisquick away, and Bisquick flies over to Margot’s desk. She’s got him saying, “Pay, or else.” Some clients think it’s cute, others see it as a form of extortion.
We’ve started a new house over on Webster Avenue. Ruby has Muller painting the basement floor. I’m outside on the ladder, getting all the sun I need. After work, we wash up, have brownies, then drive home for dinner. We eat like there’s no tomorrow. Judy figures it’s because we’re outside all day. Mary’s suspicious. She gets me in the sunroom later and says, “I know something’s going on. It better not be why Muller jumped off the roof.” I tell her I don’t know what she’s talking about. She flashes me a look, then she’s back on the baby business. “You’d better do something with Muller,” she says. “How are they going to have a family if he’s jumping off roofs?”
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