As if that were the cleverest thing. But look, those ranch houses with their clerestories, open rooms, tongue-and-groove ceilings, and pocket doors were exactly what serious architects were aping these days, even as the dodos in our zone were tearing them down.
At least that’s what Joan had made me see.
Just between you and me, though, I had to admit that I loved the new house. Okay, not that I loved it exactly, just that seeing a house like that come together blew out all the fog in my head. All the fog that enabled me to pass through the world without looking. I looked forward to it day upon day. Here was the ugly of it: as long as things were being thrown up around me, I’d never feel stuck in myself.
At my feet, a bumblebee dragged itself across the gravel.
I picked up shards of wood, stuffed my pockets until they were fat with it. This was how I filled the hour after dinner every night except Tuesdays: I walked through the new houses just as the sky went dark. It was my time to be alone, time to be apart from Laura and Joan, who stirred up the rooms they passed through, agitating the air. So much energy between them, energy and nerves, voices stormy, legs impossibly tall and tapered. How could I stop from being lost? I loved them, don’t get me wrong. They were excitement; they were beauty to me: a big bright bank of redwoods sparking at the edge of the sky. But sometimes a man needed to know who he was again. I went from one house to the next, standing inside their privacy, their loneliness. Boards aching, smell of dust still hot from the blade. Little shifts like murmurs above my head. So this is how I’ll spend the foreseeable, said the pieces of the house. So this is the weight I will carry. And somewhere, deep inside, the memory of the woods where they came from: the dense, mossy thick, three-thousand five-hundred miles away.
“I take it you set your own rules.”
A ruddy fellow, a little soft in the belly, trudged up the ramp. I couldn’t help but think of some fuming hen, body swaying side to side, head pecking. For some reason, I thought this particularly funny, and I started to laugh before I had the chance to explain.
“What’s up?”
“I take it you’re not a reader.” He pointed to the hand-lettered sign on the fence I’d pushed through:
ACTIVE CONSTRUCTION SITE: TRESPASSERS PROSECUTED TO FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW.
“You think I’m up to something?”
I kept the reaction from my face, stony and plain. It was a trick I’d taught myself, years back, in the guidance counselor’s office, or in front of my moody father just before the thought of spanking me passed over his face.
He raised his chin some. “I do.”
“You’re asking to pat me down?” I half-turned, held up my arms against fresh drywall. I couldn’t get a laugh out of him, though. Instead, the air buzzed as if he were convinced that I wanted to be boned by him.
“How do I know you’re not going to come back in an hour, walk out with some pipes and fixtures?”
“You don’t.” I looked him over without reservation: the orange crew cut, the puckered white star to the right of his nose, as if someone had pushed a screwdriver into his face.
“What’s in your pockets?”
I folded my arms, pushed up my biceps with my fists. I used the grin I depended upon when a little charm was in order. “So you really are after me.”
“Fuck you.”
“What makes me think you’re going to believe what I say anyway?”
“We’ve been missing three cords of wood from this property in the last week. A good two thousand dollars’ worth in supplies. At least.”
“You want to come over to my backyard and check?”
The guy cleared his throat, part awe, part disgust. Nothing like zoning in on the thing he least wanted to hear. To serve it up to him, to force his face in it, and make him eat it on his knees. The dolt. If I truly liked guys, he’d be the last person I’d fool around with. Try losing that mushy ass, pal, I wanted to say. Then maybe someone, woman or man, would want a roll in the hay with you.
He started swinging his arms freely, a little violence in it, not aimed at any particular target. Was someone going to get hurt? I could take him down, I knew that. I could send him straight to the hospital if that was what he wanted. But the scenario was almost too easy: the thin red drip from the nose, the squint of vulnerability. No golden, molten rage. I’d have rather been blindfolded, force-fed raw chicken with a knife to the throat.
The truth was I hadn’t hit anyone since high school. Joe Batschelet, in the far back corner of the library, throwing tiny balls of wet Juicy Fruit at the back of my head. I was skinny back then, half of the weight I am now. In his thickness, Joe had decided that I was a worthy target just because I kept my head down all the time and didn’t say a word in class. The bad part wasn’t the punch; it was shocking how easily my fist fit into his face. It was as if my whole life had been leading toward that moment: his face, my fist, our marriage. What bothered me was the aftermath. Joe had lost part of his sight in his left eye. And wasn’t I reminded of that each time I passed one of his friends in the school hall? They looked at me as if I’d held a sour, curdled secret. And I wanted to say, but I’m not what you think I am. I’m good, I’m good.
Another guy, much taller than the ruddy fellow, walked toward us now. I couldn’t see who it was, but the sheer height of him was wonderful to take in. The insides of my bowels froze. And I felt shorter than I’d felt in ages.
“Evening, gentlemen.” The police badge he flashed managed to catch the light from the street lamp.
“Craig,” I said with a relief too broad, too long.
He wasn’t in uniform. Instead, he had on a navy-blue polo shirt that he’d tucked into his jeans to hold the fabric as close as possible to his torso. He looked like he’d been airbrushed in real life, up and off the page. “Someone isn’t happy here?”
“The man violated a no trespassing order,” Red said.
“The gentleman thinks”—I couldn’t stop the smile on my face—“the gentleman thinks I’m here to steal property.”
“Oh yeah?”
“And he doesn’t think I can read.”
Craig Luckland looked at the guy as if he were expecting someone to come out behind a tree to take his picture. He had the kind of face that had always known it was handsome. The man behind that face knew that it could get him anything he wanted. Luckland’s love for himself would have enraged me if it hadn’t been so weirdly magnetic. Still, it helped no one in town that Luckland had just appeared in a reality show about bachelor cops. Now he couldn’t even concentrate without thinking about every lift and turn of that expensive face. The truth was he’d eat off his underpants on another reality show if it ensured his place in front of the camera. But that didn’t mean I didn’t like the guy.
“We’ve lost ten thousand dollars this week,” Red said.
“And you saw Mirsky stealing something.”
“I happened to be walking around the property,” Red said.
“I guess I missed the sign,” I said, shrugging.
“Well, then,” Luckland said.
Then Luckland took him by the arm and drew him aside.
He drew his head to the guy, talking in low, confidential tones, more counselor than policemen. He kept almost aiming his face of great concern and patience at the guy’s lesser face, blond-red, with babyish features. It didn’t take long for Luckland’s eyes to harden. They gave up a shock of raw feeling above the practiced smile. The guy simply wasn’t giving him what he wanted. What was it that Craig wanted?
Then I got it: he was waiting to be recognized.
Luckland walked over to me, still