Invisible Fences (7 page)

Some people I’d never met or barely knew came up to me and said what a good man my father was, told me he was proud of both his children.  

Equally? Pam and I had fought on the drive over, since I didn’t think she was doing her fair share of the necessary tasks. She refused to take any time off to help me get Dad’s house in order. “I’m not stepping foot in that house again,” Pam said. “I don’t want anything. You can have it.” As if there were some great inheritance to be found. Aunt Lora remained silent most of that drive. She clearly realized the cleaning job was too big, even for her. 

At some point during the viewing, both of my relatives had vanished from the main room. I knew where to find them: at the side entrance of the funeral parlor, smoking. 

Without energy for argument, I simply chose the sanctuary of familiar company. “Hey,” I said. 

“Your father has,
had,
a lot of friends.” Aunt Lora balanced a long cigarette from a hand twisted by arthritis. She rolled ashes neatly into the ash stand next to the four-paneled exit door, and tried not to flinch when Pam tapped her own ashes over the sidewalk.  

I stood between them, hands in the pockets of my black wool trousers. “The last time I saw him, I yelled at him about Mom.”  

“When you’re old, you’re used to getting yelled at,” Lora said. “People think we can’t hear.” 

I smiled. “For a while, he thought he was talking to you, Pam. Looked right at me.” 

“Wifty,” Pam said. 

“There you go. In one of your father’s ears, out the other.” 

“I guess. He told me one of his stories afterwards. Remember Pam? Like in the old days.” 

“Did you
believe
him?” It was a taunt, but Pam seemed good natured about it. She probably didn’t feel like fighting anymore, either.  

“God, he did that to me too when we were kids.” Aunt Lora crossed her arms in front, cigarette balanced carefully, and mimed a shiver. “Used to scare the wits out of me.” 

“I miss the old days,” I said, and my throat started to feel a little sore. “It’s so funny to think about that house in Maryland. Our dumb dog, Atlas, with his rope wrapped around the tree. The Lieberman’s swing set. And I miss my best friend, Aaron.” Then I started crying. I couldn’t yet manage tears over losing my Dad, but I cried anew about Aaron. I wondered where he was now. What would my life be like if we’d remained friends, if our family had stayed in the Maryland house? 

Aunt Lora reached out to hug me. “That was a long time ago, Nathan.”  

Pam studied me for a moment, then nodded her sympathy. She tamped out her cigarette in the ash stand and went back inside. 

Part Three: 

Excavations

 I began with the hallway bathroom, one of the few places my father had kept functional. I’d need to use the bathroom myself while I was working there, so it only made sense to clear that space first. Besides, there wasn’t much thought involved in sorting through bathroom items. Most of it I could toss immediately into one of the thick green trash bags I’d bought in bulk from Sam’s Club in Gadsden. A dozen or so toothbrushes, large packs of disposable razors, four different electric shavers (including one that looked like it ran from a wind-up key). Nail clippers and trimmer scissors (one shiny of each type, the others tarnished or rusty). Lots of prescription bottles, some of them with Mom’s name on the labels.  

The kitchen next, with a priority on perishable items. Each sweep through the chill refrigerator air mixed a new wave of odors: curdled milk, the sweet vinegar of spoiled ketchup, a yeasty tang of dried bread in an unsealed package. Why hadn’t I noticed things had gotten this bad? The answer, of course, was that fresher items toward the front gave a veneer of clean; expirations dates got older the further back I reached, where spoiled items were packed so densely they practically created an air tight seal until I disturbed them.  

Some of the items in the vegetable bins had liquefied. I held my breath as I pulled the clear bags from the bin and tossed their sloshing contents in the garbage. The last bag stuck to the bottom of the vegetable bin and burst when I tugged on it: orange and brown and green sludge poured out in chunks (baby carrots?), and a horrible stench rose up, a chilled bile I could taste when I swallowed.  

I stepped back, ready to douse the whole bin with Clorox and Sunlight detergent. Then I stopped myself. Whoever bought the house would surely install a new refrigerator—new cabinets, new tile and wallpaper, and a new stove while they were at it—so why waste time? I held my nose, pulled out the whole bin, and dumped it into the Hefty bag. I twisted the bag closed, sealed it with the locking-tie, then walked it to the end of my father’s long driveway.  

After three hours work, I’d placed four bags on the curb for tomorrow’s trash pickup.  

As a break from the kitchen, I decided to go to Pam’s room. My sister and I had made peace, but I still resented her refusal to help—it might be cathartic to toss some of her junk into Hefty bags. 

The box of stuff Dad had gathered for Pam was still next to the doorway. Everything remained exactly as she’d left it, except I noticed Dad had removed the Jesus painting—the only sign he’d been back in this room since the day of Mom’s funeral. I shook the box, retrieved my toy astronaut for a moment. On both arms, bendable wires had torn through the rubber elbows. I dropped him back in, then tossed the whole box into a new garbage bag.  

The appliances were easy to throw away—out-of-date, with black tape wrapped around worn sections of the electrical cords. The storage box was another matter, constructed of impractical heavy wood that pressed a flat rectangle almost an inch deep into the carpet. I’d eventually need to hire some help for the furniture, especially the stuff Dad had made. Maybe a yard sale, but the idea seemed a bit morbid at this point. 

Some of the cardboard boxes were surprisingly light, unopened UPS packages filled with Styrofoam peanuts and bubble wrap and some small item Mom probably forgot she’d ordered. I cut into one and dug through crumpled newsprint to find a plastic yellow fan the size of an alarm clock, battery operated and with a wrist strap. No date on the receipt, but the battery still worked.  

After placing three full garbage bags in the hallway, I could slide one of the bookshelves aside and get part-way to the bed. In with some of the record albums and Book Club novels, I found old issues of
TV Guide
in the digest format, plus the grid guides from the
Washington Post.
Mom had circled some of the programs she wanted to watch, and of course she’d filled in the crossword puzzles in the back. I also found two volumes of Pam’s high school yearbook, which I set aside in case she wanted them. A separate box contained a French textbook and a stack of different-colored pocket folders, subject names written atop the front in Pam’s bubble letters, and bored doodles scratched beneath—hatched lines, cones, shaded spheres. Graded tests were in a loose pile at the bottom, along with a few English themes, handwritten on notebook paper. A theme on
The Scarlet Letter
earned Pam 75% and lots of red marks. I wondered if Pam had saved these things herself, or if she’d just given them to Mom. 

• • • 

As it headed into evening, I decided to take a break and give Pam a call. I dodged the hallway bags and stumbled toward the recliner in the living room. When I sat down, the over-cushioned chair was a welcome comfort after a long day of stooping and sitting cross-legged on tile or worn carpet. The phone compartment was already open. I leaned over and punched in Pam’s number. 

She didn’t answer on the first ring. The thought occurred to me that Pam would notice Dad’s name on her Caller ID screen, which might be like seeing a ghost—one of those old
Twilight Zone
episodes about a call from the grave. I thought about imitating Dad’s voice, just to freak her out. 

“Nathan?”  

“Yeah.” I leaned closer to the open arm of the chair and spoke into a small circle of dots beneath the number pad. “I’m at the house. First day of cleaning.” 

“How’s it going?”  

“A lot of unidentified objects in the fridge. I’ll have eight huge bags of junk on the curb by the end of the night. Only about a million more to go.” 

“Wow.”  

“Hey, check this out.” I moved my arm over the microphone, the tiny fan hanging by its strap from my wrist. I pressed the plastic switch. 

“What is that? A bee’s nest?” 

“One of Mom’s prizes from the Shopping Club. A plastic fan about three inches square. It puts out more noise than air, though.” 

“Glad you’re having fun.” 

“You know I’m not.” 

An awkward pause. I switched off the fan. 

“Listen, there’s a lot of your stuff here. A whole box of tests and papers from high school.” 

“Damn, Nathan, I was probably stoned when I wrote those. Toss ’em.” 

“What about your yearbooks?” 

“Got nowhere to put anything. Apartments are small in New York.” 

“Okay. If you’re sure.” 

“Throw it all out. I’ll never miss it.”  

I twisted the fan from my wrist. It felt odd not to hold a phone to my ear. Sound projected from a speaker in the phone compartment, but Pam’s voice seemed to fill the air of the room.  

“There’s just so much stuff here,” I said. “Most of it’s junk, of course, and I don’t want it. But I keep thinking, somebody else might.” 

“Yeah, right. That’s the same logic Mom and Dad used to keep all that crap around in the first place. Don’t fall into that trap.” 

“I guess.” 

“Set some kind of limit. Save one thing from each room, maybe. If it makes you feel better you can pick something out for me—just one, though. Your choice.” 

“Okay.” 

“It seems like—I don’t know—you’ve come to terms with a lot of things lately. Don’t get sucked back in.” 

“Yeah.” 

“If it gets to be too much, don’t feel bad about throwing in the towel. Sell the place ‘as is’—let the buyer deal with all the crap.” 

“All right. Thanks, Pam.” 

• • • 

I found a half-dozen cans of Chef Boyardee mini ravioli in the kitchen cupboard, and opened one for my dinner. After that, I shifted to my old room for the rest of the evening. Just as much junk as in Pam’s room, in no particular order at first, but as I plowed deeper into the room I found more items with a “Nathan” theme. Two boxes of my school stuff as well (in better condition, and with fewer red marks on the English themes). I also found a collection of old horror paperbacks and movie memorabilia—some of which I’d bought at a fan convention in College Park when I was in ninth grade. Lots of books by Robert Bloch and by the
Twilight Zone
writers: Serling, Matheson, Beaumont. Rolled-up posters and 8 x 11” stills from
King Kong,
and from Ray Harryhausen’s dinosaur and Sinbad movies. I’d packed these away before I left for college—neatly, perhaps an early manifestation of a librarian’s cataloging skills. They really might be worth something on eBay. Unless I decided to keep them. 

I cleared off a corner of my bed and sat there to look at each item, returning it carefully to the box when I was through. I read a few short stories, paged eagerly through a “special effects” magazine and an issue of
Famous Monsters
with Chaney’s “Phantom” on the cover. The evening got late without my realizing it: I’d lost myself in things I hadn’t thought about in almost twenty-five years.  

Many boxes still covered the bed, but I was able to balance most of them atop existing piles along the wall. Eventually I unearthed larger portions of a ridged tan blanket, and two pillows at the head of the bed. I patted the top pillow as forcefully as I dared, and was pleased that not too much dust flew out from the pillowcase. My mother hated dust and dirt and germs, but most of her life she was too tired to do anything about it. At that moment I knew how she felt: I stretched myself over the cleared sections of the blanket and allowed the back of my head to settle into the pillow. Beneath me the mattress was sunken and uneven; bedsprings creaked with each new shift in weight. 

In the strange and familiar space of my childhood room, in the half-conscious moment before exhausted sleep, I lapsed into a childhood memory of prayer. Instead of looking to heaven, I cast weary eyes at a blank spot high on the opposite wall, where I imagined a framed portrait of a painted savior, still refusing to glow.  

• • • 

When I woke, I didn’t remember where I was. The overhead light was on, but I’d set my glasses somewhere. I tried to bring my apartment into focus, but instead saw tall stacks of boxes that seemed ready to tumble onto me. My feet stretched off the edge of a wooden bed, its shape similar to the one from my childhood bedrooms, the Alabama and Maryland houses conflated in a fuzzy blur. I held a shoebox close to my body; apparently I’d grabbed at it in my sleep, then hugged it near my chin as if it were a stuffed animal.  

The shoebox was sealed with string, tied in a bow. I held the box close to my face. Mom had scratched “Jamie” on one side with a ballpoint pen.  

When I shook the box, it made an odd, hollow sound. I slid the string off one end without untying it, then flipped up the lid. 

I recognized the colors first: red, yellow, green, blue, and orange. Two each, for a total of ten bowling pins. Beneath them was a pink, neatly folded blanket.  

The bed’s headboard had a thick flat ridge along the top. Without even thinking about it, I began to stack the pins in a neat line along the ridge, just as I’d stacked them on the edge of my little sister’s crib. 

The pins felt tiny, so frail I was afraid I’d squeeze them flat. When I moved them farther from my face, I couldn’t see them clearly; my memory superimposed a crisper image over the blur of colors. There wasn’t a bowling ball included in the shoebox, but Jamie never needed one.  

I knew what to do.  

I reached my hand next to the right-most pin, and swept through all ten in an even motion.  

The sound of those thin hollow pins colliding together was like magic. In all the intervening years, I hadn’t heard that distinct sound—it was packed away in a shoebox, muffled against the favorite blanket of an infant who’d died too soon. Now the past tumbled toward me with the tumbling pins. I was there again.  

I could almost hear Jamie’s laughter behind it all. 

• • • 

Then I heard a snap at the window, like a flat palm slapped against the glass.  

Old houses can settle and resettle, the wood expanding from humidity then cracking back into place. During the day the sound goes unnoticed, smothered in the hum of appliances and ventilations systems and human activity; at night, after a disoriented waking, the sound can startle like a gunshot.  

Followed by a scramble and slide, footsteps in dirt and fallen leaves? 

Maybe I really had heard laughter earlier—but not Jamie’s. 

Graysonville was a small enough town; neighborhood kids up for a dare would know the house of a man who’d recently died. The same house that, for years maybe, inspired whispered rumors of an unseen presence, a strange woman who locked herself inside its walls. Late on a chill November night, a group of children might wander there, be drawn to a lighted bedroom then laugh and run as the bravest boy reached to rattle the window frame.  

I stood up, my legs pinched in a thin wedge between the bed and stacked boxes. I felt along cardboard edges, and eventually found my glasses balanced where the lip of one box jutted next to the headboard. I pushed the glasses onto my face, bringing the world back into focus.