A Town of Empty Rooms

by Karen E. Bender

  Dan thought of Harold standing in the garage beside him. How old had Dan been then? A child, barely older than Zeb. It seemed impossible that Harold had been that young at that moment, for he thought of his brother as immensely old, mature, just then, but he had been so small, eight, nine — Dan had never asked him what that moment had been like for his brother. That night, at 2:00 AM, he sat down and sent an email to Harold’s former address, and there was no response, no returned mail, just an electronic note sent somewhere in the universe.

  Hello, he wrote. He tried to think of what he wanted to say to him, and it was this:

  We won.

  He looked at these words and felt like an idiot. What had they won? A trophy for a wooden car? Now he was the sort of person who sent an email to his dead brother.

  Dan looked at his family at the dinner table the next night, felt guilty for writing to his dead brother that they had won, where he did not feel like a winner particularly, and he was disoriented. Zeb was glad to have won but seemed to have forgotten it, and it was as though Dan were peering at his family, this group that he had joined and created, through a box of glass; he was trapped inside this box, and he did not know how to get out.

  The phone rang.

  It was Forrest. He sounded cheerful. He wanted to come and chat about the derby for a moment and wondered if he could drop by now.

  “Sure,” said Dan; there was an urgency to Forrest’s voice that he had not heard before. He put down the phone and looked at his family sitting at the table.

  “Forrest wants to come by and talk about . . . uh, the derby,” he said.

  “He’s coming here? Now?” Serena asked.

  “Apparently,” he said.

  “Are you kidding?” she said. She did not want Forrest anywhere near here after the school meeting. “Do you know what happened at the meeting last night?”

  “He seemed fine,” Dan said, trying to sound confident. “He just wanted to drop by for a sec. Maybe we left something at the derby — ”

  Serena stared at him. She did not want Forrest in the house. She thought about what he had said to her and the rabbi: judgment.

  “They do live next door,” said Dan.

  “Two minutes,” she said. “Really. I’m going to set my watch.”

  She set the children up with bowls of ice cream in the kitchen. She closed the doors between the kitchen and living room and stood like a sentry at the doorway. She was glad the room was not very comfortable, so Forrest’s visit would have to be quick. Dan pulled the kitchen chairs into the living room, brushed crumbs off the couch. Five minutes later, Forrest knocked on the door. He was dressed in full troop leader regalia, and he was accompanied by Mr. Hester Smith, another assistant leader.

  “How are you all?” said Dan, holding open the door into the cool blue evening.

  “Hello,” said Forrest, stiffly. “Don’t want to take long — ”

  “Come on in,” said Dan. “Can I get you folks anything? Soda?” He paused. “Beer?”

  “No, thanks,” said Forrest. He stood inside the living room, looking around with a determined expression; he seemed to be searching for something specific. His eyebrows twitched. He glanced at Serena, then he sighed, a short, impatient breath, as though she were a particularly troublesome plant that needed to be trimmed.

  “Two minutes,” said Serena, crisply. “That’s all we have tonight.”

  They all stood, waiting to be directed by some other authority. “You want to sit down?” asked Dan, after a moment.

  “Sure,” said Forrest. They settled on the broken couch. Hester wore, Serena thought, an empty expression that could be interpreted as boredom or thuggishness.

  “How’s Evelyn?” asked Dan.

  “Up one day, down the next,” said Forrest. He rubbed his hands over his face as if he were trying to mold it into a particular expression. Hester tried to smile, but it looked like he was baring his teeth.

  “Now, you know,” said Forrest, his voice both strident and trembling, “I’m not a man that likes conflict. I like everything to be well between my friends and neighbors.”

  Serena felt a warning along the back of her neck.

  “Well, I’ll get right to it. There have been some concerns raised after the derby. Some people, some others in the troop, thought we should have a talk.”

  Dan blinked. Even the way Forrest sat — straight, prim, folded into place — made him look incongruous in the living room. Dan glanced at his uniform, his badges, the way his hands were folded, and was aware that he knew almost nothing about Forrest at all.

  “What concerns?” asked Dan.

  “You know, some people are more skilled than others when it comes to making the cars,” said Forrest. “Some people are afraid of irregularities.”

  “Excuse me?” said Dan.

  “Being in charge of timing, you see.”

  Dan cleared his throat. “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “I looked at the computers,” said Forrest, “and it all seems fine . . . but some people thought you should have stepped aside when your son’s car came up . . . ”

  Serena and Dan stared at Forrest; her face was abruptly hot.

  “We won!” said Dan. “Fair and square! Look at his car!” He jumped up and grabbed the car, which was on top of a bookshelf. The absurd black Batmobile. He held it out to Forrest, who took it and rubbed the wheels against his palm.

  Serena felt Dan’s voice swell in her; she understood his outrage. For the first time in months, they both felt the same thing.

  “Well,” said Forrest, wiping his brow, “some of the troop members — quite a few, in fact — have gathered to complain that there should have been different rules, that there was no objectivity — ”

  “It’s the timing issue,” said Hester.

  “That’s right,” said Forrest.

  Serena stepped forward. “We’re talking about wooden cars here. You can all be good sports and deal with it — ”

  “They ask that you give back the trophy,” said Forrest.

  There was a sudden silence. It was so harsh and uncomfortable it felt like someone had been slapped.

  Serena felt her body moving, a kind of hulk, and all she could say was, “Forrest. Stop.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Forrest, standing up. “Coming in. Taking over the derby — ”

  “What are you saying, Forrest?” Serena said. He looked excited, as though accusation was his best, most natural state of being, that this is where he found some inner peace.

  “We don’t know you,” Forrest said. “We don’t know what, uh, the rules are in that Jewish church — ”

  Dan froze. That Jewish church? Was that how Forrest saw him? It seemed a joke; didn’t Forrest know that he hated services, the mumbo jumbo? What the hell did he see? Forrest had made a mistake. But Dan heard the tone in his voice with absolute clarity.

  “I can’t have this doubt with my assistant leader,” said Forrest, now sounding almost merry. “You are hereby relieved of your duty — ”

  “Forget it,” yelled Dan, standing up, his whole body tense. “We quit!”

  Serena looked at them — Forrest small, crazy, grinning, Hester standing beside him like a bodyguard, which was, she realized, his intended role, Dan standing, face red, suddenly shocked at this turn of events, which she had tried to tell him about many weeks ago. She wanted them out — Forrest and Hester — before something else happened. “Go,” said Serena. “Now.” She opened the door.

  “Take care, now,” said Forrest. His posture was slightly hunched, almost deferent; now that he had accomplished his goal, he was trying to be apologetic.

  She shut the door and locked it.

  The children were hanging on the kitchen door, watching.

  “What happened?” they asked.

  “The Boy Scouts just ended!” Dan shouted. “It blew up. Gone.” He ran into his room and brought out his uniform and stuffed it into a trash can. It looked like he was stuffin
g a dead body inside the plastic receptacle.

  Zeb looked appalled. “What are you doing?”

  “We’ve quit. We’re out. They’re — ” He stood, trying to think of the right word. “Boring. Give me your uniform.” Their son trotted upstairs and brought it down — the small cotton navy shirt, the gold neckerchief. It was a costume of decency, of the yearning for order, and they were stuffing it into the trash. The children thought this was an exciting activity and wanted to toss other random items into the trash, and some door of lawlessness had been opened; in went a Barbie, a nightgown, a couple trucks. They threw the items into the trash happily. Five minutes later, Zeb reached in and grasped the sleeve of his blue uniform.

  “Can I put it back on?” he said.

  Serena was watching Dan. They had won the Pinewood Derby, and now they were kicked out of the Scouts. Could this be happening? She saw Zeb lifting his uniform out of the trash, staring at it, trying to figure out how it might now fit. She touched Zeb’s hair. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You still won. The trophy’s yours. The Scouts are going to get boring. We’ll do something else that’s fun.” She looked at Dan with concern; he was striding around the room, hands trembling.

  “Screw them,” she whispered. “Assholes. I told you. I saw it — ”

  “What the hell did they think?” he said. The children laughed, astonished. “I mean — ”

  “Dan,” she said, looking at his face, “he’s a jerk. I told you — ”

  She looked at his face again; there was a great strain within it, a reddening, a hardening of his jaw, the sense that he was struggling terribly against something. He looked away.

  “I’m going out,” he said.

  “Where?” she said.

  He bit his lip. “Out,” he said.

  He picked up his jacket. The night seemed so bent and wrong that she imagined doing something impetuous — taking the children to a late movie, running them through a toy store, all of them packed into the car and rushing into the night. But he was not waiting for them. He hurtled out the door. There was ice in her throat. She stood at the door and watched him drive off. The children were looking at her. She waved at the car, to seem normal.

  “Where did he go?” her daughter asked.

  HE DROVE. HE HAD NO idea where he was going — he just could not be around anyone he knew. His father headed out of the garage with that woman thirty-five years ago; Dan and Harold had watched their father’s car move through the shadows and through the garage’s electric door, outside; he had wanted to jump into that car with him, put his hands on that woman’s shoulders, push her out, and take the seat beside his father as the car rumbled away.

  Now Dan’s car moved down the wide streets. It was seven, the rush-hour congestion had cleared, and Waring’s main drag was a long, dark strip, the headlights cutting luminous paths into the darkness. Dan gripped the steering wheel, opening and closing his fingers, like an anemone, as they began to ache. The cars felt too close to him in the adjoining lanes — he did not want anyone near him. He drove through the milky light to the darkness of the exurbs, circled them, took the interstate briefly, headed north.

  SERENA DID NOT KNOW WHERE Dan had gone. She moved through the actions of the evening — the bathing, dressing, story reading — as though this were any night. The children were oddly obedient. The strange events of the evening, the adults shouting in the living room, had made them feel they had to move gently, carefully, through the rest of the night. Serena pressed the sheets around their faces when they went to sleep. As she tucked in Zeb, he reached forward and grabbed her wrist. His grip was hard. His eyes were closed, and he did not speak.

  “Are you all right?” she asked him. She sat with him, his hand holding her arm, for a long time until he fell back asleep.

  There was no call. Nine PM. Ten PM. She listened for the wheels in the driveway. There were sounds of others coming home from work, from parties, car doors slamming, but not his. He did not answer his phone. Serena lay in bed, listened, got up, checked the children, went back to bed. She got up and looked out the window at Forrest’s house; the windows glowed yellow, and his sidewalk was clean, swept of leaves. She locked the door and placed a chair in front of it. Perched on the living room couch, she stared into the dark.

  IT WAS 11:00 PM AND Dan was getting tired; his spine was stiff against the vinyl seat, his neck ached, and he had to urinate. He picked up his cell phone to call Serena, but he could not bring himself to punch in the numbers. His palms made wet streaks on the rubber steering wheel. The brake lights of the other cars glowed in front of him, bright red lozenges. What had Forrest said to him? What had he said? Dan’s mind was empty. It was something about “the Jews.” Forrest thought he had cheated. Guess what? He had wanted to. He sat by that timer and tried to figure out how to favor Zeb — just as, he imagined, all those fathers had done, too. But Dan had not known how to rig the machine. Dan had thought they were part of this group. He had felt pretty good in those meetings, liked the feel of the stiff cotton uniform against his skin, liked the sensation that he and his son were, with the others, flowing down a current to a hopeful place. He had liked the way Zeb ran around with the other Cubs; he even liked the way they stole sugar from the kitchen — how free and careless they seemed. What would Zeb remember from this? Would he remember the night he won, that lightness, or would he remember the scout leader coming by to tell them they were not welcome at meetings anymore? Harold stood, ten years old, wearing that uniform, looking at himself in the mirror. The world was made of paper; you could push your finger against it, and it would tear. On the other side of it was nothing.

  Dan drove on.

  He didn’t know where he was going, only that he had to move; he listened to the vibrations of the car on the road, the thin shriek of wind when he cracked the window; he was focused on the sensation of his hands around the wheel, his back against the seat, the long ribbon of blackness in front of him, and he wanted to be rid of himself; for a pure, strange moment, he thought he understood his father.

  At about midnight, he swung his car into a Wachovia bank parking lot, shut off the ignition, locked the doors, and closed his eyes.

  THE CHILDREN TOOK A LONG time waking up and then were full of demands: to eat cereal on the floor in bowls, to have several cookies as dessert; Serena allowed all of it, which delighted them.

  “Where’s Dad?” Zeb asked.

  “At work,” she said, quickly, lightly; she thought she fooled them. Then she took them to their schools. Rachel hurried into her playgroup, but Zeb clutched his mother’s hand as they walked into the classroom with the same intensity he had gripped her as he fell asleep. The classroom was its general, pleasant chaos of backpacks being put away and children settling into their chairs, but the tasks, in their regimentation, were strangely beautiful.

  Serena got into her car. Her face was slack with fatigue. She sat in front of the steering wheel. The interior of the car felt like an icebox. She drove around their neighborhood, down to his office. Nothing; she stopped at a Waffle House that he liked, ran inside, stared at the strangers in the orange-punch-bright plastic booths. She was a woman looking for her husband in the morning at a Waffle House; she was now one of those sorts of wives. How quickly this had happened.

  The cashier at Waffle House was looking at her with curiosity. “Do you want a seat?” she asked, and Serena ran out.

  Driving by Zeb’s school, the third time, she saw her husband’s car.

  Dan was standing beside the school playground, the low wire fence that surrounded the jungle gym. He was watching the children. Zeb was running along with a cloud of children, absurdly innocent to the turmoil of his father. A janitor was raking some leaves and eyeing Dan with an alert expression. Serena slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the car, and ran toward him.

  “Dan,” she called.

  He was wearing the same clothes as he had been the night before, exhaustion blue under his eyes.

  “Hi,” he s
aid.

  “Hi?” she said.

  He glanced at her briefly, then away.

  “Dan. Dammit. Where were you? My god. I was up all night — ”

  “Look at them,” he said.

  He was watching their son run. The grass was silver, slick with dew. There was the thunder of sneakers across the pale, dusty yard. The children were, with great excitement, chasing a flat volleyball.

  She stood beside him. His fingers gripped the wire fence as though he wanted to hurl himself over it. His hands were red; she put one of her hands over one of his, and his hand was cold.

  “So?” she said.

  “Look at them.”

  She watched him. Her skin felt papery and thin.

  “I want to know nothing,” he said.

  She stared at him. He could tell that she noticed only that he had driven away for the night. But he did not know how to tell her that he did not know what to do with that enormous burning inside him; it felt as though it might subsume him.

  “Let’s go home,” she said, quietly. He peeled himself off the fence. His palms had red lines where he had clutched the wire.

  “Let’s go,” she said. She held his arm, and they walked slowly to the car.

  He got in. They were together, sitting in the unclean car, quivering. What now? She did not know where to drive them. A coffee shop? A hospital? She was unschooled in this particular chaos. Starting the engine, she decided to pretend normality; she headed home.

  The car rumbled down the gray streets, the bare branches now etching the sky.

  “Where were you?” she asked. “I was afraid something had happened — ”

  “I just drove,” he said. “I couldn’t stay in that house. I didn’t want the kids to see me.”