Jacob's Folly (6 page)

I
t was Monday. Vibrating in the back of the now-allowable Edelman van, I crouched in the fuzzy folds of Masha's woolen cap, near the crest of her forehead, and breathed in her scent: almond-scented soap, milk. Through the thick woolen hairs that blurred my view like tree trunks, I could see Mordecai Edelman's everyday black felt hat brushing the ceiling of the car as he drove. His peltlike beard was etched against the blare of light pouring through the windshield, the cloth of his coat bunched up at the elbows whenever he turned the steering wheel. Pearl was twisted around in the passenger seat, one arm stretched back so she could hold Masha's hand. Masha held her mother's hand loosely in her own, playing with the fingers.

The lurching of the vehicle was making me feel queasy. Backing into the dense copse of mohair, I was made to see, in my mind's eye, Leslie Senzatimore parked in his white truck by the side of the road, his big arm hanging out the side, his thumb and middle finger tapping out an impatient rhythm on the door of the cab: di-di-di-BA-di-di-di-BA-di-di-di-BA. Parked just behind him was a car, red and blue lights flashing ominously from its roof.

Dennis Doyle had some very irritating characteristics. He had stopped Leslie for speeding three times since he was stationed six months ago on this flat stretch of the Montauk Highway, which Leslie had to take to get to work and had an absurdly low speed limit. Each time Dennis had stopped him, he'd asked to see his license, then took the laminated rectangle between fore- and middle fingers and walked leisurely, bowlegged, back to his squad car, leaving Leslie cooling his balls while Dennis ran a check on him to make sure he wasn't a terrorist or wanted by the police in some other state or possibly a scofflaw with outstanding moving violations, even though he and Dennis lived three streets away from one another, had shared teachers from the first through the twelfth grade, and were both on the same Neighborhood Watch Committee. Dennis went by the book. Yet Leslie couldn't help chuckling as he watched his old buddy in his side mirror, cropped curly hair obscured by the police cap, legs stiff from too much gym work, belly swollen under the tight blue shirt, waddling up to him, pad in hand, like he was going to take his order at a drive-in hamburger place.

“Everything okay with my record?” Leslie asked him, sunglasses still on just like Dennis's were. He knew a cop was meant to ask you to remove your sunglasses and he wanted to make Dennis Doyle ask a man he had smoked his first joint with to please remove his eyewear so he could compare the photo on the license with his actual visage. Dennis declined to take the bait. “If you don't like being checked, don't speed,” he said.

“Okay, officer,” said Leslie. Doyle stalked back to his car with a straight-backed, offended air. Leslie wondered if this man could still be classified as his friend.

It was already quarter to nine; as a rule, Leslie liked to be at work by eight-thirty. It set the tone for his guys. The large sign reading
SENZATIMORE MARINE
was visible from the highway. Whenever Leslie saw it, his chest warmed with pride and a glimmer of surprise that he had amounted to anything.

The great rolling door was open as he drove up. Leslie walked in, scanning three boats on blocks for signs of progress. The men waved to him as they caught sight of him. He greeted them with the usual good cheer. Once he got his coffee, he would talk the day through with his team and get to work. Leslie did most of the fine woodwork himself. He looked through the glass windows of his office and saw that the coffee machine was fully loaded. Vera, his secretary of the last thirteen years, was sitting at her desk, her curved back to him. Leslie found Vera comforting. He walked into the office and poured himself a cup.

“Hiya,” said Vera.

“Dennis Doyle gave me a speeding ticket,” said Leslie.

“Who's Dennis Doyle?” asked Vera in a nasal whine, swiveling toward him in her seat. About sixty, wizened, with whipped-up gray hair and manicured arthritic hands, she was a model of efficiency.

“A guy I went to school with,” Leslie said, taking a sip.

“Well, if you knew what I know, you wouldn't have been in such a hurry to get here,” she answered, turning back to her desk.

“Why?”

“I have bad news.”

Leslie sat down at his desk. “Shoot,” he said.

“Remember how I've been chasing down a final payment from that Mr. Croft, for the job you did on his speedboat last December?”

“Yeah.”

“He's filed for bankruptcy. I don't know when—if ever—we're getting paid for that job.”

Leslie took this in quietly. “How much did he owe?”

“Ten thousand. So that makes twenty K in owed bills I can't get people to pay. They all blame the banks for not lending. Who knows? We can get a collection agency onto them, but some of these people are good customers. Like Mr. Clancy.”

“Clancy?”

“He just closed his store up. Says nobody's buying high-end furniture.”

Leslie leaned back in his chair. It made a squeal.

“What you need is some blue-chip clients,” said Vera, turning to him, her skinny arms waving in the air. “Truly wealthy people don't feel the pinch; they keep spending.”

“Okay,” said Leslie. “So find me some truly wealthy people with leaky boats.”

“You think I'm kidding,” said Vera, arching her plucked brows. “I'm not. You're in the wrong niche. I'm telling you. You need to cater to the very rich.”

“Vera,” said Leslie, chuckling in spite of his worry, “I'm glad you have it all worked out. Because it's looking pretty dire at the moment.” He rubbed his eyes, thinking of Stevie. There was a private elementary school they had found for him, but it cost thousands. His parents-in-law, his stepson, stepdaughter-in-law, step-grandchild, wife—they all depended on him. Leslie had to find a way of making more money. As often happened when he felt cornered, and for reasons he could not understand, Leslie escaped into the worst memory he had.

On the Saturday his father killed himself, Leslie had finished his pancakes and dumped the plate in the sink. He was late to meet his buddies down the block. Evelyn, his mother, was buttering the two-year-old's toast. His sisters were putting each other's hair in a bun for ballet class. His brother was attempting to tie his own shoes. No one was talking. Everyone in the room seemed to be indifferent to one another, yet if you walked in as a stranger you would get the feeling that they were all doing something as a team, so thick was their complicity, despite their silence and focus on their own activities. Even the slap Evie gave Martha was a little percussive ping in the calm symphony
of Saturday morning in the Senzatimore home. Leslie wanted to get his bike out before his little brother Will looked up from the wit-twisting activity of learning to tie his own shoes and demanded to tag along.

He walked outside, head down, whistling randomly. There was a chill in the air for the first time all summer. He'd be back in school in two days. The shed had the light on in it, he noticed; his dad must be in there. Charlie Senzatimore repaired boats for a living, mostly holes in fiberglass and ripped upholstery, but when he wasn't at work he fiddled with wood. He loved to spend time in the shed outside his house where he had his table saw, band saw, lathe, hammers, glue, nails, screws, clamps, sawhorses. He could make bookshelves, tables, jewelry boxes—almost anything. He always made the kids a present on their birthday, and gave it to them as a side dish to whatever bought toy Evelyn wrapped up for them. It was in fact hard to get Dad out of the shed at all when he wasn't at work or in his armchair reading the paper. Charlie wasn't a sociable guy. If anyone came over to visit unexpectedly, he'd slip out the back door and stay in the shed till they had left. He couldn't even stand to have people who weren't his wife or kids see him eating. If he was at the table and the doorbell rang, he'd just take his plate and finish his meal in the shed.

Over the last few months, Leslie's father had been working on a secret surprise. He didn't want anyone to see it and kept it covered with a tarp. He worked on it through the night sometimes. His mother joked she thought maybe Charlie had a woman tucked under that tarp, he spent so much time there these days. When she said this, Charlie would let a little air escape from his mouth, smile, and look down shyly. He was still a very slender man, no taller than Leslie at thirteen. He had dark hair, swarthy skin, and brownish circles all the way around his eyes, which made him look Italian and exhausted. The thing he was building in the shed must have been important to him; a couple of times Leslie had started to open the door and his Dad had shouted to him to wait a minute. Charlie almost never raised his voice; when he did, it made an impression. After a couple of these incidents,
Leslie had taken to knocking on the door of the shed to see if his Dad was in there working on his secret project.

This particular morning, Leslie knocked on the rickety little door, but there was no answer, so he figured it was safe to walk in. The first thing he noticed when he opened the door was the canvas tarp his dad used to cover the secret thing, crumpled on the floor, and the thing itself, displayed on a sheet of plywood resting between two sawhorses. It was a wooden replica of a battleship, about four feet long. Leslie walked up to it, awed. Every gun turret, miniature helicopters, everything but the two aluminum propellers and the helicopter blades, had been constructed out of wood. The hull of the ship had been made with interlocking pieces of wood. Somehow Charlie had cut each piece for the body of the boat with just the right curve, and he had joined them all like a huge puzzle. The wood was raw, sanded, except for the words
USS
NEW JERSEY
carefully lettered on the side with red paint. It occurred to Leslie that this must be his birthday present. Guilt at having seen it months ahead of time, twinned with amazement at the mind-boggling love it would have taken his father to produce such a marvel, overpowered him, and he made ready to leave the room and pretend he hadn't seen it.

As he turned, a little explosion of light, like a flashbulb, bounced off an aluminum ladder in the corner of the room. The A-frame ladder was on its side, and open, like an arrow pointing toward Leslie. Above it, in the deep shadow of the corner, among several of his father's old coveralls that hung like deflated figures from hooks in the low ceiling, the face of his father turned toward him, eyes wide and glassy. His father was flying. That's what Leslie thought for a quarter of a second. Then he realized the man was hanging by his neck from an orange rope that had been looped over one of the rafters, the body pivoting lazily, like a Christmas ornament that twists this way and that way on its branch. Leslie spotted his dragonfly-green Schwinn leaning on the wall behind his dangling progenitor. He inched up to it, grabbed it by the smooth plastic handles, backed it up a foot, then
rolled it in an acute semicircle, just avoiding his father's feet. He walked it, freewheel ticking, across the room, kicked the door open, swung his leg over the saddle, pedaled it as hard as he could out the driveway, sped down the street to Dennis Doyle's house, and screeched to a halt at the gaggle of kids already assembled at the base of the cul-de-sac. He spent the day with Dennis, Chuck Tolan, and Danny Morano playing James Bond and fighter pilots, every second expecting his mother to arrive in a state of hysteria. He didn't go home for lunch. He didn't care if he never ate again. If he could have made the day last forever, he would have. He considered running away. He stayed with his friends till evening sucked all the light out of the little cul-de-sac and the mothers started hollering. His mother called Mrs. Doyle on the phone to tell him to come home for dinner, but there was nothing in the woman's facial expression to indicate that his mother had mentioned finding her husband hanging in the shed. Leslie rode home and walked into the house, his belly leaden. Dinner was on the table and the girls were already sitting down. Will was washing his hands.

“Where's Dad?” Leslie found himself asking.

“In the shed,” said his mother curtly.

“Don't you think he's hungry?” asked Leslie. He had to get her in there somehow. He couldn't tell her, not now that he'd waited all day.

“I don't want to disturb him when he's working on his project,” his mother said bitterly. “He'll come in when he feels up to it.” Leslie tried to eat. He chewed every mouthful until the food was like sludge. The crickets outside seemed to be screaming. He realized the poor man would be stiffening up in that shed all night, plus on top of that he'd be in the doghouse with his wife for staying in there, when really he was just dead.

“Want me to take him a plate?” he asked in desperation. Evelyn made up a plate in silence and handed it to him, adding dryly, “Make sure to give him our best regards.”

Leslie walked to the shed, closed his eyes, and prayed. “Please let it not be true,” he murmured. Then he opened the door, shut it, and walked back across the lawn and into the kitchen, still holding the plate of food.

“Mom,” he said. “You need to go in there.”

After Evelyn's shrieks; after the children had come storming into the shed; after Leslie had pushed the children out of the shed; after he had called the police, the ambulance, the relatives; after he'd put the other kids to bed, having magically become the oldest child, unofficially but permanently superseding his older sister Evie, who started sucking her thumb that night and never stopped, her ongoing pupa status manifested by an endless changing of careers into her forties accompanied by serial dating of stunted and puerile men who tended to either have strange sniggering laughs or be married, doughy, and unavailable; after mad Mrs. Bobik had come in wielding a coffee cake which she cut up and ate three pieces of, talking all the while in whining, breathless tones about how mysterious men could be; after he had sat up nearly all night with his grieving, furious mother, transformed from a fairly normal thirteen-year-old kid into the head of a family eviscerated by a man who jumped at his own shadow—Leslie lay in his bed and thought about his birthday present. He knew quite a bit about woodworking, having been trained for years in Senzatimore Marine, helping put the boats back together with his dad on weekends or sometimes after school. Occasionally there was woodwork involved, especially on the older boats, and those were Charlie's favorites. Leslie knew that you wouldn't make a model of a battleship like that, with all those interlocking pieces, unless you intended to have it taken apart. The boat was a puzzle.