Exile on Kalamazoo Street (6 page)

“Your hair is much longer, Professor Carter,” she said. “I like it.”

“Thanks. I'm auditioning for the Allman Brothers Band,” I said a little too snarkily.

Matt arched his eyebrows. “I never heard of that band.”

“Before your time,” Elsa said.

“And before yours, too, Elsa,” I said, dropping the snarkiness.

“But I
have
heard of them,” she said sweetly.

“You play an instrument, Professor Carter?” Matt said.

“I can tap my fingers to the beat pretty nicely, Matt, but, no.”

“Who are these Allman dudes?” he said.

“Half of them are dead now,” I said, “like The Beatles.”

“Who's dead from The Beatles?” Matt said.

Elsa sniffed and punched his arm.

“Matt Whitehouse,” she said sternly, her eyes narrowing. “You've never heard of John Lennon?”

“Heard of him? Sure. He's dead?”

“Years ago,” I said.

“How'd it happen?” Matt said.

“Someone shot him,” I said. “A fan.”

“That was no fan,” Matt said, shaking his head.

“George Harrison's dead, too,” Elsa said. “He was my favorite Beatle.”

“Not Paul?” I said.

“Paul was cute. Even now. But George was … soulful.”

I nodded and felt ‘soulful' was about as good a word for George Harrison as any other.

“Did someone shoot George, too?” Matt said.

“Cancer,” I said.

“Bummer,” Matt said, “but I guess he was old.”

“He was fifty-eight, Matt,” I said. “Is that old?”

“It's not old at all,” Elsa said.

“Are you fifty-eight, Professor Carter?” Matt asked.

“Not for a good number of years yet, Matt.”

“God, what a thing to ask, Matt Whitehouse,” Elsa said.

Matt shrugged, frowned. I figured Matt mostly listened to rap and concluded that somehow people talking was actually music and somehow actually art. Black Kitty slipped off the sofa and rubbed against my legs before jogging off toward the kitchen.

“So, Professor Carter,” Elsa said, trying to steer us back to the mundane, “what do you do these days to keep busy?”

I shrugged, unsure what to say.

“A new book is coming along, I hope,” she said, edging forward on the sofa as though awaiting an announcement. “Another new novel, maybe?”

“I keep busy around the house, Elsa. Laundry and plenty of chores. Maybe I should get that doorbell fixed.”

“Aren't you writing?” she said with a frown.

“I'm not, no.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Don't forget about posterity,” Matt said, no doubt hoping the line was still funny.

“I'm afraid I mostly sit on my posterity, Matt.”

“Good one, Professor Carter.” He nodded approval.

“But, if you have the time,” Elsa said, “you could write a new novel.”

I shrugged and eased back farther in my chair.

“Maybe I don't have anything to say, Elsa.”

“Yeah,” Matt said. “Maybe he doesn't have anything to say. Stick to your guns, Professor.”

“Thanks, Matt. That's what helps get me through my hours of need.”

Matt nodded, grinned. “No problem.”

“A writer always has something to say,” Elsa said, and I suspected she felt that was the right answer. True, even.

I had learned that it was never that simple.

“Not always,” I said. “Writers take days off, too.”

“But you've taken years off,” she said.

“A few,” I said. “That's how it works sometimes. Or how it doesn't work, that is.”

“Nobody wants to work all the time,” Matt said. “For sure.”

“There you go,” I said and Matt grinned again. I suspected that it was all the validation he needed.

“Wisdom from a guy still looking for a job,” Elsa said, pointing at Matt and then thumping him lightly on the forehead.

“But it has to be work worth doing,” Matt said. “Right, Professor Carter?”

I hesitated. “Certainly we want our work to have value, Matt.”

After another awkward pause, I offered more tea. They glanced at each other and Elsa said, “Well, I guess we should be going. We don't want to take up too much of your time.”

“Nobody else is asking for my time,” I said, “so you're welcome to theirs, too.”

“Good one, Professor Carter,” Matt said.

“Life's a series of one-liners, Matt,” I said.

“Very much so,” Matt said.

Elsa thumped his forehead lightly again.

“Don't speak, Mattboy.”

He nodded, appeared confused again. I was betting Matt was getting real tired of being thumped on his forehead. Clearly she wore the pants.

“He's in outlaw mode,” Elsa said to me as though Matt was not there.

I walked with them down the stairs to the side door and held it open as they filed out to the driveway.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I said. “Good luck with that outlaw thing, Matt.”

“Keep listening to Tom Petty,” Matt said, saluting and then drifting slowly down the driveway to their car. He had already shifted mentally to wherever and whatever their next stop was.

“Keep after posterity, Matt,” I said, and he turned and grinned. Matt was clearly an ass man. An ass outlaw.

Elsa offered a hand and the lingering handshake revealed the soft warmth of her hands. Pink hands. Small hands. I tried not to think about fucking her and couldn't quite manage it. Then I had to try not to think about Matt fucking her. I wasn't successful.

“Keep writing, Elsa,” I said. “It all starts somewhere.”

“I know,” she said, “but where does it end?”

“That would be a good story to tell, I suspect.”

“Maybe I'll try.”

“You should,” I said.

“What about you,” she said. “What stops you?”

“Inertia, maybe. Gravity.” I shrugged, tried to smile gamely. “Who knows? Some days I think I might sit down and never get up again. Maybe melt into the sofa.”

“You won't do that,” she said.

“You can't be sure, Elsa. I can't be sure.”

“I'm confident you won't.”

“You have the confidence of youth.”

“But you have the confidence of experience, right?” she said. A breeze swept her hair across her face and she pulled it back and smiled.

“You should write something, Professor. You were good.”

I frowned slightly. “Maybe I will. You never know. And just call me Bryce the next time.”

“There's always a next time. Do you believe that … Bryce?”

“I will if you will.”

“Then I'll believe it,” Elsa said. “For sure.”

She turned and walked a few steps, then halted and looked over her shoulder at me, not quite smiling but not quite frowning, either. I watched her all the way to her car, noting that Matt was right about posterity—she certainly had a good one.

O
ne day I looked for Black Kitty and found him sniffing curiously at the side door. I looked out the little window, but did not see anything or anyone, and so I opened the door and stuck my head out—careful not to violate the prime directive and set a foot outside. As I pulled my head back and began to shut the door, I saw an envelope sitting in the mailbox. Retrieving it, I saw that it had no stamp and no writing at all, and anyway it was too early for the chirpy-voiced mail carrier to show up to drop mail and critique the state of my driveway, which looked okay to me, with just the thinnest of white coatings. I did notice that there were tracks in the snow leading to my door and back out to the street, which had been cleared, and there the tracks ended and the envelope mystery began.

The sealed envelope became a test of will of sorts and remained on the coffee table for days. Each day I challenged myself not to open it, not to learn what mystery might be behind it, who might be behind it, what its purpose might be, whether there was mystery at all. I felt very satisfied every day that I managed to avoid opening it, and sometimes I congratulated myself for not even glancing at it. Once, Black Kitty knocked it on to the floor and I did not notice for hours. When I did pick it up, I tossed it back onto the coffee table without giving much thought to the fact that it was an unopened letter. I felt sure the envelope was not a bill, or from a family member, or anyone I could think of or even imagine, and I was not expecting an envelope from anyone in the universe, or even the universes of Mormons and Scientologists. The rules and boundaries of my self-exile had eliminated the expectation of any mail other than bills. I was sure this letter did not come from the chirpy letter carrier and so it was an x-factor as far as fate was concerned, and as far as I was concerned. The letter might well exist outside of the normal channels of fate. Perhaps it was a wild card, the joker in the deck, a mutation, and I was happy to believe that I controlled the letter's effect on my destiny regardless of whether I opened it in a week, a month, a year, or never.

After a time, I realized the envelope had no magnetic pull, no overwhelming power over me, and that to resist the letter might be a very good thing because in resisting it I was asserting myself in my relationship with fate. I was declaring that I had a say in things—in fate—and a degree of control, perhaps a large degree of control. By not opening it, I was establishing that my life might go on fatefully without receiving whatever message the letter carried and which might be a factor in fate if I opened the envelope and allowed what was inside to become activated along a channel of fate. After a few more days, I secured the unopened envelope to the side of the refrigerator with a magnet so I would not automatically encounter it every time I pulled open the door.

* * *

Bennie came back, of course. Drunks are stubborn, and so it didn't surprise me to hear him knocking again on the side door. Drunks want a drinking partner and don't give up easily. It was tempting to just not answer the door, but of course he knew I was home. I was always home.

I eased down the steps to the door, still hoping he'd get tired of knocking and move on. That depended, I knew, on how recently he'd taken his last drink. If he hadn't been to Louie's yet, the gravitational pull from the bar could soon suck him away from my door. But if he'd stopped somewhere on the way over, he was fueled for a bit and might linger. No doubt he was convinced that a drink could yet be had at my house.

“I know you're home, Bryce,” he called as he knocked again.

I looked over my shoulder, up the steps. Even Black Kitty had a skeptical look on his face. I waited a few more seconds and opened the door.

“About fucking time, Chief,” Bennie said, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

“You're not coming in with that cigarette, Bennie. That rule hasn't changed.”

I had meager hopes we could fight our skirmish at the door and he would soon be snatched by the drunks' tractor beam from Louie's and sucked up into the sky and out of sight.

He smirked, blew smoke my way.

“Have it your way,” he said, and flipped the butt toward the street.

“In my house, it's always my way, Bennie.”

“Used to be, you didn't much care what happened in your house.”

“Used to be,” I said. “Now we're beyond ‘used to be.' ‘Used to be' is fifty miles behind us.”

“The clever writer.”

“I can claim to have been a writer. I'm not claiming clever.”

“Lost your mojo, Bryce like in ice?”

He had the ugliest smirk I'd ever seen. I knew better than to allow the conversation to drift into mojos and writing.

“What do you really want, Bennie? I'm not going to Louie's with you.”

“Who said anything about Louie's, Chief?”

“Have you already been there … Chief?” I said. “Or are you on the way?”

“Does it matter?”

“Not to me,” I said. It was cold and I began to hope the cold would motivate him to seek out a drink.

“Can't a guy look up an old pal?” Bennie said, attempting to smile sweetly, but his bad teeth defeated the effort.

“We did that already, Bennie.”

“You won't invite an old buddy in? It's cold out here, Bryce.”

“There's no booze here, Bennie. That rule hasn't changed, either.”

“So you said, Chief. But it's still cold out here.”

“Okay,” I said, hoping that giving in meant I was the better man and simply demonstrating good hospitality. He followed me up the stairs to the kitchen.

“How about some tea, Bennie?”

“Iced tea?” he said,

“I was thinking hot tea, Bennie. It's a cold day, in case you hadn't noticed.”

“I noticed. But I'd prefer iced tea.”

“All right,” I said. “Iced tea it is.”

“I'll go sit with your cat, Chief,” Bennie said as he headed to the living room.

“The cat doesn't want to go to Louie's, either,” I called.

“Funny guy,” he called back. “You should be a writer.”

“I'll give it some thought,” I said, too quietly for him to hear.

When I took Bennie his tea I was pleased to see that Black Kitty was keeping his distance. I figured cats knew horseshit when they smelled it.

I sipped my tea and watched Bennie sip his and then make a face.

“Not enough sugar, Chief?” I said.

“The sugar's fine,” he said. “But something's missing.”

“You want some honey in it?” I said. “I've got honey.”

“Honey's for pussies,” he said. He dug into his coat pocket and produced a pint bottle of whiskey. “This is what she needs, Chief.” He poured a good amount into his tea and gulped it. “Now that's tea, Chief,” Bennie said.

“You're an asshole, Bennie,” I said quietly.

“But a thoughtful asshole,” he said, holding up the pint bottle. “See? It's Canadian Club, Chief. Your old favorite.”