Something Is Out There

by Richard Bausch

  She said aloud, “What the hell is the matter with you, girl?”

  Her shift mate, Colleen, had warned her that she would be alone in the first part of the morning. She opened the diner, went inside, and looked in the little lost and found box. The playbill with its scribbled note and name and number inside was still there. She got things ready for breakfast, and drank more coffee as she brewed it. Colleen called just after seven to say she would be later than planned. Her boys were in trouble at school, again. She had conferences with teachers this morning, and one of the teachers would be delayed. She couldn’t possibly be in until after ten o’clock. “Are you so busy?” she said.

  “Not a soul yet.”

  “Oh, I hope it’s a light morning.”

  “Mr. Green won’t like that.”

  “Is he there?”

  “You know he never comes in before noon.”

  But Mr. Green came in scarcely five minutes after the conversation with Colleen. There were only two customers in the place. A boy from the high school on his way to early swim practice, and an Episcopal priest, a regular, who had spent the night in the emergency room with one of his parishioners.

  “Slow?” Mr. Green said to her, coming in.

  “You’re early.”

  “I thought you’d need help. Doesn’t look like you do.” He took an apron from the hook on the wall, tied it around himself, then went to the grill and turned the bacon that she had put on. She made an English muffin for herself. The place was always a little slow on Friday mornings. The tourist crowds would start wandering in toward noon. But when the priest paid to the penny and left, they were alone for a time. They talked about the skinflint priest, with his dour morning moods.

  “He has an excuse this morning,” Elaine said.

  “It’s your tip,” said Mr. Green.

  She leaned against the counter and gazed out at the street, the prospect of antiques shops, boutiques, restaurants, the line of stores, the public parking lot up that way, and the trolley stop. She expected to see the man come walking along. But there was only the ebb and flow of traffic gliding past Third Street, the shine of the cars out there. People began to trickle in: several men apparently on their way to some kind of landscaping job; a woman with two preschool children; a couple who had clearly come from the superhighway, their car full of boxes and clothes, with a portable carrier on the roof, and two bicycles on a rack behind.

  Through the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, she was too busy to think. At her lunch break she walked up to the sushi place, Bluefin. This part of Main Street was closed to automobile traffic, and she sat out on the patio in the warm breezes and watched the trolleys and the horse-drawn tourist carriages go by. She was aware of herself purposely not looking into the trolley cars that passed. The waiter was a tall willowy girl with a stud in her nose and an enormous pair of rings expanding the lobe of each ear. Looking at the stretched-thin flesh of her ears undermined Elaine’s appetite. She kept her attention on the street, with its stores and attractions, and the girl bustled around her, bringing edamame and water and chattering about the weather, which was in fact seasonably unremarkable: Memphis was always this hot in late July.

  Where we go, leaving the rooms

  of others, is “away.”

  Arriving here, bearing the glooms

  Of worry, why, we say

  “Here I am, glad of this dome

  Of instances & fright,

  This dim place I now call home.

  The insects screech all night.”

  When she was with Sean, the two of them used to come to this part of town and walk down past Beale Street and the Orpheum Theatre to the galleries along South Main. A man who worked in a boutique near the train station was a source for Sean. They’d buy a nickel bag from him. Sean would make four joints out of it, and Elaine would put it in her purse. They’d go into some of the galleries, walking back toward Union Avenue. And sometimes they would take a table on the outdoor patio of Bluefin. Sean would light a joint. They would pass it back and forth under the table, while they waited for the food to come. She would watch the young families walking by—couples with babies in strollers or toddlers tagging along. Sean called them “citizens” in a dismissive tone and with a little tilting back of his head, as though the word itself contained some power to cause a recoiling, like the kick from a pistol shot, and his phrase to describe what they were doing, sitting there on the open patio, was “watching the citizens.”

  She ate her edamame and some soup. The sky above the city was gray, and that fit her mood. When she got back to the diner, she peeked into the lost and found box. The playbill with its unreadable note and number were still there. She took it out and tried to read the writing. She could make out one word: can’t. She was pretty sure that was the word. The rest of it was smudged ink, draining down the little page. She put it back and turned to Colleen, who was carrying two plates on one arm and one on the other, crossing to a table by the window.

  “Am I glad to see you,” she said.

  She was run ragged, and Mr. Green had stayed to help at the griddle. As the hours wore on Elaine lost herself in the bustle and stress of keeping up with it all.

  Just before the end of her shift, the man in the straw hat entered.

  She looked up from taking the order of two women from the university, and saw him. Something turned over in her blood. He went up to Mr. Green and said something, and Mr. Green reached for the lost and found box.

  “Excuse me,” Elaine said to the women. “Be right back.”

  She moved down the crowded counter to where the man stood. He had retrieved the contents of the box and set them down. He was nearsightedly holding the note up to his eyes, very close.

  “Hello,” she said to him.

  He only glanced her way. “Hi.”

  “You were gone by the time I found it.”

  Now he stared. “Do you expect a reward or something?”

  “Oh, no.” Her heart sank. And then she seemed to pause in herself and observe that fact. It made her repeat the phrase, with exactly the same emphasis. “Oh, no.”

  He looked back at the note. “Can’t read it anyway.” He folded it into quarters, and put it in his pocket, then rolled the playbill. “Well, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Elaine said. “I think I’d call the number. You can read the number.”

  His eyes narrowed, and he took her in. “Pardon me?”

  “Just a suggestion.” She thought how foolish to suppose that yesterday had made any kind of impression on him, or that it meant anything. “Never mind,” she said.

  He took the note out again. “The number’s mine. My new one. I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it.”

  She said nothing.

  “The note, well, that’s something else. Something my daughter wrote. She came through town and left it on the door of the house I just left. I was out getting tested for a tumor that wasn’t there. She comes through town. She hasn’t spoken to me in three years.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well.”

  “Order up,” Mr. Green said behind her.

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine said again to the man, because it was all she could think of to say.

  “What do you reckon her note says? Did you try to read it?”

  “I only looked at the number. I thought if you didn’t collect it in a couple of days, I’d call it.”

  “Maybe you’ll call it anyway.”

  “Well, I didn’t memorize it.”

  He handed her the note. “Here. You can have it. You’ve got it now.”

  She held it up to the light. She read again the word can’t. She thought to say that to him, but he had turned and was moving to the door and out. He walked on down toward Third Street.

  She put the piece of paper in the pocket of her apron, and then brought it out and looked at it again.

  “Well?” Mr. Green said. “You work here or not?”

/>   She put it in her jeans pocket, and went on with her day, avoiding eye contact with Mr. Green.

  By the time she left for her mother’s, she had tried to put the whole thing from her mind. It was perfectly silly, and she was more interested in her reaction to it all than to the thing itself. She drove across the bridge into Arkansas, thinking about the strangeness of stumbling into someone’s private life. Then she was thinking about the secrets of a lived life: the chain of events that made up the desperate seriousness of the private self, all that worry—everyone had some version of it. How did Keats put it? “The weariness, the fever, and the fret.” Something about the temper of her own last few days must have produced it—that bizarre sense that things were about to change because a stranger walked up from three blocks away and looked at her through a window, a man peering into an establishment, looking to see if it was open. This little moment, mingled with the genial exchange that followed and the fact of the twice-abandoned and unreadable note, with its one clear word, had brought her to her present state of odd disturbance and speculation.

  By the time she reached her mother’s house, the sun was going down among flaming red and orange and burned-looking clouds, and she was sleepy, tired, and putting the whole stupid business behind her. She got out of the car and started up the sidewalk, talking to herself.

  “Ridiculous. Stop it. It means nothing.”

  Her mother stood in the entrance, holding the screen door open.

  “I hope you didn’t eat,” she said. “Who the hell are you talking to?”

  “Myself.”

  “Well, don’t do it so publicly. People will think you’re crazy.”

  “Maybe I am.” Elaine stepped up on the little porch.

  “Hungry?” Mother asked.

  “Not really, yet.” Elaine kissed her cheek.

  “Have I got a shock for you, kiddo. Guess who’s here?”

  She looked into the dim space of the living room, with its clutter of antiques and its heavy-curtained windows looking out on the back patio, where her mother spent most of her time.

  “Come on,” Mother said, leading her inside. “You won’t believe it.”

  They walked through the living room and the little kitchen to the patio doorway, and there, seated on the lounge chair next to the TV tray full of bottles and glasses, was her father.

  “Hello, kid,” he said, without rising. It was as if this were a normal visit, and he was sitting in his normal place. It had been more than three months since she’d heard from him, and that was a bought birthday card, merely signed with his full name under the word love. Long ago, she’d stopped wondering about him. He sent cards on birthdays, at Christmas; she flew out there one Thanksgiving, and he introduced her to his new wife, whose kindness made Elaine hope for her, knowing her father. Within the year that woman, too, was gone. He had been married twice since then. The old man went about life cheerfully, without the slightest concern for anything but his own requirements. There was no malice nor any conscious greediness in anything he did. That was just how he was: a happy, funny, appealing man congenitally unable to sense in the slightest way the reality of other people. What she had from him was what all others ever had from him. A kind of customary attention, something that he knew intellectually was the expected norm by the society in which he lived, but which he did not truly feel. In all this, he could have been the standard Sean aspired to, if Sean had it in him to aspire to anything. But thinking this made her feel petty, and mean, and she put it away from herself. People were what they were.

  “Good to see you,” he said, smiling. He had gleaming white, straight teeth. This was part of his charm, of course.

  She stepped out onto the patio, but did not cross to where he was. Suddenly, her breath had seized up. She drew in air and held it. “You’re a ways from home,” she managed to say.

  “Long time,” he said. “Why’re you hanging back on me? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she told him.

  “Don’t I get a hug?”

  She walked over and embraced him, bending down into his reaching arms. He still did not get up, and she had the thought that maybe he couldn’t. She smelled the coffee he had drunk, and the bay rum he always wore. Mother looked at her with something like expectation. “Aren’t you the slightest bit hungry?” she said. “You didn’t eat already.” But her eyes said Please don’t say anything mean.

  “I’m fine,” Elaine told her.

  “I’m on my way east,” the old man said. “Driving. Been on the road for four days, taking it slow. Going back to visit my uncle Freddy. You remember Freddy?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you were young.”

  She nodded, then watched Mother pour him a glass of water on ice. The ice bucket was full and a lot of melting had taken place; apparently, the old man had been sitting here for some time. Elaine’s mother sat next to him, in her own lounge chair. The TV was on without sound.

  “Uncle Freddy’s having his seventy-fifth birthday party.”

  “Actually, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of him,” Elaine said.

  “Sure you have,” said Mother, rising. “I’ve got to tend to dinner. We’re having pork chops.”

  “My favorite,” said the old man. He leaned slightly toward Elaine. “I know we’ve talked about this, but I think Sean’s out of his mind.”

  They had never talked about it. Elaine said, “Well, you know, Dad—it was mutual.”

  “I know, but he should’ve fought for you.”

  “He might’ve done that but I didn’t want it.”

  “Well, I always said you’re a match for anything.”

  A pet phrase of his. She reached over and touched his wrist. “Excuse me,” she murmured, and followed her mother into the kitchen. There, she picked up the spatula and opened the oven to turn the chops. Her mother sliced a carrot, and two stalks of celery. They worked side by side for a minute, without saying anything.

  “I think he wants to stay a few days,” Mother said.

  “And you’re gonna let him.”

  She shrugged. “Kind of nice having him around.”

  “You’re really thinking of it.”

  “Hey—he’s your father.”

  “A biological accident.”

  “Oh, stop it, Elaine. For God’s sake.”

  “You aren’t thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Elaine said.

  “It’s a visit,” Mother said. “Leave me alone.”

  They worked quietly for another few minutes. Elaine began cutting up the potatoes her mother had set out, and placing the pieces on a baking sheet. The old man liked to pour the juice of the chops over potatoes broiled in garlic and butter.

  Her father walked in, looked at them both, smiled, opened the refrigerator, and stood there staring into it. He was already making himself at home. He reached in and got a beer, glanced at them again, and then went on outside.

  “I don’t like being alone,” Mother said. “Okay? I’ve decided that I hate being alone. For you, now, it might be just the thing. I’m sure it is. I’m proud of you for it. And I was all right with it myself for a good while after we—after he was gone and you all were out in the world. I really was. But I’m tired of it now, Elaine. I am. I’m sick and tired of it all the way into my bones. And I like the sound of him in the rooms. He’s a mess. He’ll never be anything but what he is. And I don’t care anymore. I’ve tried with others and you know I have. And it was always so dull. Always so tense all the time and having to learn the new habits and running around pretending all the time, and I missed him and you can look down on me if you want to. But if he wants to stay, I’m going to let him stay. And you all will just have to live with that.”

  “God, Mom. Okay.”

  “Well, don’t look at me like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Mother opened the refrigerator and brought out a bottle of salad dressing.

  “How long’s he been here?” El
aine asked her.

  “He got in yesterday morning.”

  From the patio, he called to them. “You guys gonna stay in there all evening?”

  “Do you want me to ask him how long he’s staying?” Elaine asked.

  “No! Have you been listening to me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve already told him he can stay as long as he likes.”

  “Have you talked to the others? Chloe?”

  “Why would I want to do that? Look, this is my house.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elaine said, and leaned over and kissed her cheek. “You’re absolutely right. I really am sorry. And good for you. Good for both of you.”

  “Don’t patronize me either. I don’t need that from you or the others. This isn’t cute or sweet. It is what it is. It’s my life and my well-being, and I won’t have you all talking about me behind my back. I have a history with this man that none of you can know. I have a life with him. A whole life you all never saw. And whatever his faults have been, we got along pretty well, usually.”

  “I know,” Elaine said. “I am sorry. I know. I know.”

  Mother looked like she might cry, but she sniffled into a crushed paper towel and waved Elaine away, moved to the sink and washed her hands, then went back to working on the salad. Elaine finished cutting the potatoes, then walked over and hugged her.

  “Sweetie,” Mother said to her.

  “Actually, it makes me happy,” said Elaine, forcing a smile.

  A little later, she excused herself, claiming a headache, and went up to her old room. It always surprised her, coming back, how small it was; her memory kept adding length and breadth to it. The closed feel of it now made her a little breathless, so she stood out in the hall for a spell, breathing slowly. Her mother and father began laughing at something out on the patio. Back in the room, she sat at her old night table.

  The pictures on the walls

  Are as they have been since

  I lived here: dusty halls—

  Museumlike with prints

  I hung at seventeen.

  The lady’s quite archival,