Tumbledown

by Robert Boswell

  He remembered coming home with her one evening from a lecture—they met in college—and the cottage they rented had all but disappeared beneath the shadows of the neighbor’s cottonwoods. Only the kitchen window, made silver by a nightlight, shone along the dark walk to the house, and it looked like a sheet of steel upended in the dirt where their house had stood. Later he would realize that a burnt-out streetlight contributed to the effect, but that night their place seemed foreign and beautiful and not like a house at all. Dlu knew not to turn on the lights after they entered, understood not only that they should make love but that the act should not be performed in their bed. They were magically elsewhere, and it was delicious.

  The next morning when he stumbled into the kitchen for coffee, she was leaning against the table, her arms crossed, and she glanced at the clock over the stove. Candler understood they were going to have a fight. His mind searched frantically for a possible reason.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” she began, “that other people may not want to wake to your underwear on the kitchen floor?” That’s where their lovemaking had taken them the night before. “You know I’m going to be up first,” she went on, “and you simply expect that I’ll clean up after you.” She put her hands on the table behind her, her arms quivering with indignation. “You’re the most thoughtless . . .”

  Her angry monologue continued but he left the room, unable to argue with her because she was absolutely right—utterly petty, in his estimation, but unquestionably right. He got dressed, putting on sandals so he wouldn’t have to return to the kitchen for his shoes, silently cursing her, regretting the night, regretting even the lecture. He had only gone to please her, but he enjoyed listening to the woman talk about her life among a primitive tribe, and then they returned to the mysterious house and made love on the kitchen floor. It had seemed perfect, and he now regretted all of it.

  He went out to his car and she followed him up the same shady walk they had traversed the night before, calling him a coward for not engaging the argument, saying he was a smug bastard even when he was in the wrong. There were many passages she used that he could remember verbatim. He drove to a café, where he drank coffee, ate an omelet, and read the morning paper, furious with her, counting up the articles of clothing on the floor—shoes, socks, pants, underwear, shirt. Picking them up might have taken seven seconds. Kicking them into a corner, two seconds. At the same time, he knew her anger had little to do with the clothes. They had heard the speaker—her idea of a night—and fucked in the dark on the kitchen tiles, which was undeniably his kind of thing. It didn’t matter that she was a willing participant, so aware of his desires that she could consciously pick up on what was as yet unconscious and unfolding in his own mind, an empathy so quick to materialize that it permitted her to step into the darkness ahead of him and lead him precisely where he wanted to go. She had to make him pay for that, show him that she could not only see what he wanted, she could also see how tawdry it was, how clichéd, predictable, sentimental, and stupidly male. She had to show him that she was above it, which meant she had lowered herself for his sake. She had lived among the primitive tribe of men long enough to know what they wanted and what expense to demand for acceding to it.

  They didn’t break up that day. They lived together another two years, but that episode stayed with him. It was still with him. When he eventually left her, it was not because she was in the wrong but because she was so precisely right. He wanted someone who was blind to his sentimentality, at least as it applied to her, someone who was not above any of it but up to her neck alongside him. He thought it might be more important to be heard than to be understood. It was almost certainly the greatest benefit of therapy: that someone was willing to listen.

  Candler checked his cell phone, but Billy had not called. Les Crews had been fired, and Candler managed to get Billy Atlas an interview. They needed someone to start the next day, which meant it had to be someone who had completed the Center’s three-day training session. The interviews were being conducted at the senior citizens facility, and Candler had agreed to give Billy a ride home. Counselors had no official sway over hiring, but they could recommend people as long as they sent forward two names. Personnel made the final decision, but the sheltered workshop was Candler’s innovation and he guessed the two he recommended would be the only ones considered. He had sent a text to Billy Atlas—get bus to onyx springs job interview haul ass—before buzzing Rainyday to ask if her husband was still looking for work. If Billy couldn’t outdo that anvil-brain, he would park cars forever.

  Candler had been waiting for Billy to call since five. He used the first hour to study the Guillermo Mendez file. Nothing in the test scores showed the War Vet incapable of returning to Iraq. It occurred to Candler now, slumped down in his car and watching the diesel through his rearview, that maybe the question itself was ridiculous.

  Near the end of their relationship, Dlu had entered a graduate program in behavioral ecology, specializing in the conduct of certain birds. She talked about things like cooperative hunting, dear enemies, flock responsibilities, and territory pilfering. “Some birds cheat,” she told Candler and described a swamp bird that would give up a monogamous relationship with its mate to have another male around to defend the nest. “Others turn their back on their duties to get ahead,” she said. “Birds and people, all the same.” She branded human acts they witnessed on television or in the wild flock behavior, which rarely seemed like a good thing.

  When Guillermo Mendez enlisted, he was exhibiting flock behavior, Candler reasoned, blindly following a lead bird—his father, the army recruiter, the president of the United States. What about Candler’s consideration of the War Vet’s request? Did he really believe that serving in an unpopular, unnecessary war fabricated by a dishonest, lame-duck president was reasonable? Or was Candler exhibiting flock behavior? If he refused to accept that being sent to war in Iraq was reasonable, then it might be easy—or at least possible—to write the recommendation Mendez wanted. Of course, that would be writing a professional report to suit his own political beliefs and a client’s personal agenda, and not even Egri would support him on that, but at least he would be separating himself from the programmed thinking of the flock.

  Karly and the trucker appeared at the corner. He pushed a red wheelbarrow filled with clothing, his wet hair plastered against his head. She was in cutoffs, a yellow halter, and the thought of the trucker’s hands on her flesh turned Candler’s stomach. Beneath the clothing, which the trucker tossed into the cab, were two suitcases, a clock radio, and several boxes of cereal. He piled it in the truck. He was leaving, Candler thought, and he felt gleeful. You win. Karly climbed in after the driver, and the truck offered a loud diesel mutterance. Candler let the truck turn a corner before starting his car. He would hang back and watch. He had no desire for another confrontation. The red wheelbarrow lay on its side by the street, a spilled box of Count Chocula beside it.

  His cell phone tinkled, a text message from Billy Atlas: dun.

  Billy would be in the senior center parking lot, and the diesel was headed in that general direction. There was no reason not to shadow it. Candler suspected that it was aimed for the freeway, and he feared the driver was taking Karly with him to Oklahoma. What could he do about that? She was an adult, according to the law, though her mother still had guardianship.

  It should have been easy to track something so enormous, but he let himself fall too far behind and only caught up with the truck because they were headed to the same part of town. Enter westbound ramp for Interstate Eight, the omniscient librarian announced. Candler had punched in his home address to avoid hearing her complaint. Recalculating, she said as he followed the truck under the freeway. Passing the senior center parking lot, Candler spotted Billy leaning hands-first against the brick wall, as if to be searched. No one else was in the lot. He could be stretching, maybe, Candler hoped. He tailed the diesel to a residential street. The truck wheez
ed to a stop in front of a pale, two-story house. The trucker did not wait to see that Karly was safely inside. Candler watched her skirt the main residence and go to the garage, up the exterior stairs that led to an apartment. One of the sheltered workshop gang answered the door, Bellamy Rhine. They were having some harmless gathering.

  He watched the shadowy figures beyond the curtains for only a moment before resuming his pursuit of the truck. He wondered again why he had decided to go by Karly’s house. The encounter with the trucker disturbed him, he supposed. If he was going to be honest, it also bothered him that of all the people in the world to talk with, he had chosen Karly Hopper. The confession had taken place during a counseling session, no less. He unburdened himself to her, and now he owed her. That had to be it. You’re such a fucking coward, Dlu yelled at his back as he walked to the car. He could hear the specific way she said it, with the emphasis on cow.

  Rhine was lingering by the door, which made him the one to answer it, the tone of the ringing bell still alive in the room as he whipped it open.

  “Wow, hi, Rhine,” Karly said, her mouth wide and white with teeth that were . . . Mick tried to focus. Her teeth were as white as . . . as white as . . . a smile, he thought. Then: God, I hate these meds.

  Karly had dark brown hair, brown eyes, skin that tanned and did not burn, a thin yet curving body whose shape made its own pronouncements, but it was her face, the bright eyes and smile, the beautiful way she took in the world, that made her irresistible, that made Mick’s heart beat like a basketball dribbled up-court. He had played basketball in high school, not especially well, but he’d been able to immerse himself, to let go, to play. What an amazing thing.

  “You look so good in that outfit, Rhine!”

  Rhine nodded rapidly. “The man who bought it from me said prescription when he meant sub.”

  She wore cut off jeans, very short, with white raveling strings that would drive Rhine crazy if he noticed them, if he could ever look away from her face, and a yellow halter top that showed off her shoulders. Mick loved her shoulders. She put her hands under Rhine’s jacket, ran them up and down over his shirt. “I’m so lucky to see you in this. It feels so pink. You pink boy, you. Pink.”

  Alonso lined up behind Rhine. He could not take his eyes off Karly’s neck, the notch at the base of her neck. He would like to slip his thumb into that slot. It would fit perfectly. It was made for his thumb. He put his thumb between his teeth and made biting movements to relieve the tingling itch: her neck, his thumb, the slot.

  “Alonso!” she called. “Wow, hi.”

  “Hi, Karly,” he said, removing his tingling thumb from his mouth. The skin that bridged his thumb to his hand tingled, too, and even, when he thought about it, his stomach. He realized he had an erection, dropping his hand to check. Yep. “Hi, Karly,” he said again. He could almost make out the ridges of a thumbprint in her thumb socket.

  “Isn’t Rhine’s shirt so pink? Have you felt how pink it is, Alonso?”

  “I have my cycle outside if you need a ride home,” Rhine said. “I parked it across the street, but I could drive over and pick you up if you don’t want to cross the street.” He touched his pocket to check for his keys, then, just to be certain, checked his fly, too. (Keys present, fly shut, lever down.) “I’ll move it right now.” He stepped to the door, which Karly had not shut. “Mick,” he called. “You’re going to have to move your car, Mick. Karly wants my cycle there.”

  “Mick!” she called out.

  Mick raised his head to her, the shift in weight causing it to rock back. “Hey,” he said. “I like that dress.” He meant the cut offs, her legs, her thighs, the way she tanned and did not burn, how the thighs paled slightly at the turning where they almost touched.

  “Isn’t it divine?” she said, meaning, he supposed, her shorts or the evening. Her legs were perfectly shaped, brown and sleek. That was a word, wasn’t it? Sleek?

  “Isn’t Rhine’s shirt divine? Oh, Mick, you look so good on that couch.”

  “Sit with me,” he said and patted the cushion next to him.

  Before she could sit, Rhine rushed past and sat so close to Mick his shoulder brushed Mick’s nose.

  “I thought you were talking to me,” Rhine said, smiling at the ingenuity of his lie. “Karly, I thought Mick was talking to me.”

  “You almost knocked her down,” Mick said.

  “This place is so divine,” she said, sweeping her head back and forth. She knew the effect her hair had on men whenever she’d sling her head from side to side. To her, it seemed like the same effect on any man. She could not know that the room became for Rhine a black-and-white movie, the world transformed by her movement. Not an old movie with bubbling static, but sharply outlined, hi-def, and digital, a great inaccurate clarity. What Alonso saw in the movement of her head and hair was a shift in the shape of her thumb slot, a wrinkling that wasn’t pretty but was so real and womanly, a womanly indent of skin, that made him think: This is a real woman. And even through the medicated fog of Mick’s brain, this gesture—one so familiar to him and yet so startling—caused a pain in his chest. He understood that the frequent and self-conscious repetition of a gesture should diminish it, should reveal the superficiality of its charm, and since it retained its power over him, it was he who was revealed, his own devotion to this lovely woman, which made him as much a goon as the others—and that hurt his heart because they were his friends and he did not want to be like them.

  The big truck took the eastbound ramp onto the freeway and Candler circled back to the senior center. Billy Atlas was high-stepping up the building’s white stairs.

  Exercising, Candler supposed. Or just as likely: Billy has lost his mind.

  Billy was disheveled and soft, chronologically in the prime of his life and yet he seemed never to have had a prime, his hair short and badly cut, the color of pine boards, his teeth too big and always showing—Billy was a smiler. He was capable of such insistently blank stares that people often believed he was putting them on. At the bottom of the stairs, he did squats, his hands thrust out like a Russian dancer. Definitely exercise, Candler decided, though that didn’t rule out insanity as a sidebar. He was wearing one of Candler’s suits. It was too small, Billy’s pink hands emerging from the cuffs like sea creatures. Exercising in one of my suits, Candler revised. He and Billy were both overweight, but the pounds looked manly on Candler and chubby on Billy, and a list of tiny things like this accounted for the vast difference in their lives.

  “Yo, Richard Simmons.”

  Billy high-stepped it to the car. “I was beginning to wonder if you were coming,” he said, climbing in, huffing.

  “Had to finish some things.” He had them out on the street again quickly. “How’d it go?”

  “I knew I’d get the job when I arrived and the other guy was arguing about whether he could play the radio while he worked. You send that clown?”

  “Thought I’d keep the competition to a minimum.”

  “It worked. Where we going?”

  To the consternation of the librarian, Candler turned onto the eastbound freeway ramp. He wanted to catch the diesel, which shouldn’t be difficult through the Lagunas. Exit freeway in point five miles. “There’s a piney place up ahead a few miles where we can eat,” he said. “Have a beer and celebrate your employment.” Exit freeway in point two miles.

  Billy put his nose next to the GPS screen. He touched one corner with his index finger. He kept the finger there and the screen went blank. The omniscient narrator was turned off.

  “How’d you know how to do that?”

  “I’m a genius.”

  “Could’ve used a genius earlier. I’ve had a weird day.”

  “How so?”

  “Driving stuff, clients, my secretary had her skirt tucked into her belt this morning so her panties were hanging out.”

  “This is why camera phones were invented.”
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br />   “There are maybe a hundred reasons I wouldn’t do that, starting with liking and respecting her, and moving on to her husband already thinks I’m trying to steal her away.”

  “That’s the suit talking . . . Are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Trying to steal his wife.”

  “I’m engaged, and even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t go for Rainyday.”

  “Rainy Day? That’s her name? I think I like that name.”

  “Her husband was the other guy I sent to interview.”

  “That guy has a panty-wearing wife?”

  “Women pretty much all wear panties.”

  “Seems like it ought to be reserved to a limited few. The word has a special place in my head, and that guy shouldn’t have a wife with admission to that special place.”

  “What should the others wear?”

  “Boxers or something, like the rest of us.”

  “This is exactly the kind of speculation you cannot make working at the Center—or any place else in the world, actually, but especially not at the Center.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t talk about any underwear whatsoever. Except maybe teddies. You can talk about teddies in church.”

  “When was the last time you were in church?”

  “I’m taking this job seriously. Time for a new start. I’m exercising these days, and—”

  “When did this exercise regimen begin?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes ago. You forget we’re supposed to meet the Haos at the bar?”

  Recalculating, Candler thought and exited the freeway. The Calamari Cowboys required his help. A decent guitarist played in an otherwise atrocious cover band Thursday nights at Toad’s Tavern, a bar near Candler’s house. Clay Hao and his brother had formed a country-and-western band that needed, among other things, a decent guitarist. Candler steered the Porsche through a burger joint before reentering the freeway. Egri would be appalled at their eating in the Porsche, but Candler was resigned to being a crummy sports car owner. He decided, too, that he didn’t care about the diesel. It was gone for now, which made him feel like he had won a bet. As they were passing the last of the three Onyx Springs exits, Candler’s cell phone rang.