The
squatter was standing just to the left of her garage when Annette pulled
in after work. He had been living next door for several months, but
before today they had only traded half-hearted nods. She didn’t know
which of them was warier. She could try turning him in, of course,
provided the authorities followed up on her call—an unlikely event in
Detroit. And he could…. well… he could do a lot of things. It
didn’t bear thinking about what they might be.
A
sudden bark gave her a start, and she busied herself with removing
Jump’s cage from the front seat. Newly released, the dog ran over to
the squatter and began sniffing him. From the looks of Jump’s swishing
butt, nothing seemed amiss to the dog although she hadn’t proved
overly wise about men in the past. She was all over the squatter now,
undeterred by his somewhat untidy appearance, wiggling her backside like
the randy, middle-aged female she was.
“Down, Jump,” she said in a firm voice, clapping her hands. Jump
backed away, disappointed to have interested the man so little—not
even a pat on the head. She looked at Annette expectantly— like she
was thinking—what do you make of him?
“Looks
like she’s been groomed recently,” he said. So he was not unfamiliar
with dogs—the gender was right and he recognized a new haircut.
She
nodded. “We’re just back from there now.”
“She
looks to be part poodle. I had a poodle —once upon a time. Smart
dogs.”
He
didn’t elaborate, and in the twilight, it was hard to see whether he
was being friendly or just stating a fact. He had flirty eyes though,
she thought, watching silently as he lit a cigarette and tossed the
match in the general direction of his house. Despite his general
scruffiness, there was a quality—an attractiveness about him—and he
carried himself like he knew it.
“Is
there something I can do?” she finally asked. But before he could
respond, Jump, deciding further overtures were useless, took off for the
house. They both watched as Cookie opened the door to his bark and let
him in. “Mom?” Her daughter’s voice was indistinct over the whine
of a lawnmower. “Are you still out there? Is everything okay?”
“I’ll
be right there, honey,” Annette shouted, sounding calmer than she
felt. She jingled the car keys, wondering why her chest seemed to be
home to a butterfly.
“I
wonder if I could use your phone,” he said at last, removing his
baseball cap and rotating it in his hands like a medieval supplicant.
“I don’t have one—just now.” He nodded toward the house. When
she didn’t move, he added, “Or you could make the call for me.
It’s a local number. Melvindale.”
“I
have a cordless phone you can use,” she admitted reluctantly. She
didn’t want him to think she was rich, or that she had things worth
money inside her house. He nodded, replacing his cap and straightening
his back incrementally—the meekness gone. Picking up the cage, she
walked to the house, letting the screen slam behind her. Inside, her
daughter, Cookie and grandson, Billy were watching cartoons in the
living room. A box of cereal sat on the counter, a carton of milk beside
it. Resisting the urge to put them away first, she grabbed the phone and
headed back out the door. “Is that you, Mom?” Cookie shouted from
the next room. “We’re all out of Cheerios.”
“Oh,
for Pete’s sake,” she muttered. “Just a—” Outside, she crossed
the lawn, noticing the squatter had moved closer during her absence. He
was inside the back gate now, leaning cockily against the fence. “Here
you go. My sister gave it to me for Christmas,” she explained
unnecessarily. “Sometimes these things work, but sometimes—”
Stepping away, she busied herself with a section of fence that had come
loose—Jump’s handiwork, no doubt.
“Thanks.”
He took the phone and made a quick call, but was at her elbow a minute
later, pressing the phone against her arm, his hand rough on her skin.
He
had the oddest scent, she realized. Where had she smelled it before? It
certainly didn’t come out of a bottle unless it was one of motor oil.
No, not quite that. She flinched slightly. “I’m Annette Mueller.”
“Gerry
Upson.” He stuck out a hand, waiting patiently while she shifted the
phone. “I moved in last winter. Been waiting for the right time to say
hi.” He had the earnest tone of a fellow parent at “back to school
night” even if his clothes belied it. “You don’t usually look like
you’re in the mood for talking, Nettie. Rushing around like—Well, I
don’t know what.” He smiled a little. “But tonight—tonight I had
some business to do so I took a chance.”
She
remembered the day he had come. It had taken him and a younger
man—probably his son— less than thirty minutes to unload the
borrowed van. She wouldn’t have noticed the move at all if she
hadn’t been outside to shovel snow.
“That’s
a cold month for moving. February,” she clarified. No harm in letting
him know she was watching things.
He
shrugged. “I don’t notice the cold much.”
A
good thing, she thought to herself. Would there be any heat in
that house? Water? Yet he had made it through the winter. None of
the boards had come down from the windows in all this time, big X-like
slashes of wood at every opening, probably letting in scant light; a
doubled-up piece of heavy plastic, now yellowish gray, still covered the
hole in the front door. Kicked in, she remembered.
“If
there’s nothing else….” She stood there waiting. He shook his head
and they both turned to go.
“I
can fix that porch step for you,” he offered suddenly, eyeing the
cement block that had shifted over winter. “A woman alone can use some
help. My way of saying thanks.”
“I’m
not alone, and it seems like an awfully big thank you.”
“I
may need to use your phone again. Either that—or something else. A
neighbor’s right, isn’t it?” He looked at her open mouth, and then
laughed. “To borrow things, I mean.” He moved away still chuckling,
not waiting for her response.
The
step had been repaired when she got home from work the next Monday. He
had moved it up a few inches and cemented it in. A neat job. Was she
supposed to go over and thank him? She was curious to see if the
inside of his house was any better than the outside. Except it wasn’t
his place, was it—even if he had her calling it that. It was nice to
have the step fixed without paying for it though. Making ends meet on
her salary was tough a lot of months. It had been hard enough before
Cookie and Billy moved back in. Now….
The
house next door had sat empty since before she rented hers—five years,
at least. It wasn’t the worst house in Detroit, nor even the most
dilapidated one on her block. You could actually see the charm it must
have had. She’d been hoping the city would tear it down, but the list
of buildings to bulldoze grew longer each year. At least this one had
never attracted the crack trade. The sole, criminal incident so far was
the removal of every saleable fixture by some kids that first spring.
She had called the cops that day, but the kids must have had radar,
disappearing in a ratty-assed old van as the cruiser turned the corner.
The cop had come out of the house shaking his head. “Even took the
fuses out of the electrical box,” he told her, brushing a cobweb from
his starched slacks. “You said they were kids?”
She
waited until Billy was asleep and Cookie had disappeared with her
girlfriend, and then went out on the porch with a newspaper, taking a
seat on the glider, propping her feet on the lower rail. If he turned
up, she would thank him for his work, not making too much of it,
indicating firmly their transaction was complete. She had to consider
the four-year old child asleep upstairs, his attractive twenty-four year
old mother, who slept in the bed next to his. The squatter didn’t seem
like a rapist or a child molester, but who knew what he was up to? What
clean-living man of forty or more squatted?
He
showed up about eight-thirty, just as it grew too dark to read the
print. She put the paper aside and rose. “The step looks
great…Gerry. Good as new.” Despite her intentions, a flirtatious
tone had crept into her voice.
“Porch looks like it needs some work, too.” Reaching up from the
sidewalk, he shook the railing harder than he needed to demonstrate. His
shirtsleeve slid up, revealing a muscular arm and a partly obscured
tattoo of a dragon.
Reaching
out a hand to steady the railing, she said, “I can’t really afford
to hire someone just now. There’s a million other things—you know
how it is.”
“I
could do it. Or show you.” He put a foot on the first step. “It’s
not like I got a lot to do lately.” She glanced at his house and he
followed her gaze. “Right,” he laughed a little. “Well, I won’t
be making any more improvements over there— until I buy it, that
is.” He patted himself down, looking for a cigarette. “I
jerry-rigged electricity, of course. And no one ever bothered to turn
off the water. But other than that….” The night was so still that
the fresh smoke hung in the air between them for several seconds.
“Doing anything more wouldn’t be prudent,” he said, imitating
George Bush. “Besides I’m the lazy sort.” His eyes shone despite
the fading light.
She beat back a laugh. “You gonna to buy it then?” They both
squinted through the smoke at the house.
“When
it comes up at auction. The inside isn’t too bad.” His foot hit the
second step. “I got lots of ideas for the place. Once it’s mine,
that is.” He paused. “I hate having to pay for it at all.”
“When
it comes up? I didn’t know the city planned to sell it.” She paused
and then added. “Sure you got the right place?”
He
nodded. “Just for the back taxes. It’s on the schedule. A few
thousand should do it.”
“That’s
why they haven’t knocked it down then.” She pushed off on the wooden
pillar and began to swing lightly, wondering how he’d get even the few
thousand if he were the lazy sort.
He
nodded, on her porch now. “That tea sure looks good.”
Stopping
the glider with her foot, she rose. “I’ll get you a glass.” She
started for the door and then turned her head. “Better wait here.”
He nodded. Inside she felt like kicking herself. It was that old itch
again. That old flutter.
This
became their routine: it grew dark, she came out on the porch, and he
showed up. It wasn’t every night— maybe only two or three times a
week. He kept his distance until Cookie had gone out and Billy was in
bed, until Annette was sitting on the glider or fooling around in the
garden or garage. He never offered to fix much of anything again, but
once he borrowed her Phillips screwdriver, saying his had disappeared.
She comforted herself with the idea it was her companionship he was
after, not her phone or her tools.
And,
oh yes, he was wildly handsome. It was the kind of handsome you didn’t
see at first—when you were still looking at the state of his clothes
or his poorly cut hair. Or noticing his odd smell. He looked like one of
those guys who played cowboys on television in the fifties. Rory
Calhoun, maybe. “I do some welding when I need cash, Nettie,” he
admitted once. “The kind of job that don’t need a license. Auto
shops mostly.” She could picture him brandishing that fire-breathing
welding gun, the muscles in his arms flexing and relaxing as he
soldered—whatever it was he soldered. If he talked at all, it was
about how he hated the government. “You sound like those guys that
live up in the mountains,” she told him.
“Nothing
as fancy as that,” he said. “It don’t change me.”
In
June, Cookie came home unexpectedly and found him sitting on the rail.
Both of them pretended it was his first visit, easing into this
deception as if it were planned. He was almost too good at it,
making believe he didn’t even know Annette’s last name, putting on
an awkwardness they had outgrown. Cookie gave them both a dark look
before she swept into the house. Both of them began to giggle as soon as
she was gone. She couldn’t have said why.
At
breakfast the next morning, she reassured Cookie. “He never put so
much as a toe inside this house.”
Cookie
put down the juice carton. “Your call, Mom, but he seems pretty damned
sleazy. Did you catch his boots? It’s ninety-five degrees out, for
God’s sake!”
“The
ones with the lizards?”
“Where
are the lizards?” Billy asked, shaken out of his morning daze. He
looked around the room suspiciously.
“Not
real ones, Sleepyhead. It’s just something on someone’s boots.
He’s been talking about snakes and lizards ever since we went inside
the Reptile House at the zoo—” Cookie started to tell Annette.
“Those
little red guys on Gerry’s boots?” Billy asked, shoveling a spoonful
of Wheaties into his mouth. “Are those lizards?”
“How
do you know Gerry, Bill?” Annette asked, whipping around before Cookie
could even open her mouth.
“He talks to me sometimes…. When I’m playing trucks,” he said
warily. Billy had a sandbox in the backyard with a fleet of trucks to go
over the sand hills.
“Does
he come into our yard?” Cookie interjected, her tone too disapproving
to successfully cull information from a four-year old.
“No.”
He stirred his cereal worriedly. The women looked at each other
unconvinced.
Annette
tried a different tact. “What do Gerry and you talk about when
you’re playing trucks?”
Billy
resumed eating. “He told me how he used to drive real trucks— like
some of mine. Eighteen-wheelers.” He looked off into space,
considering his words. “Another time, last week, I think, he said he
might have some old trucks he could give me. Ones his kid used to play
with.” He looked at Annette. “But he never did, Grandma.”
“I guess he forgot.”
“Then
you can ask him, Grandma. When he comes on our porch tonight.”
Annette
flushed, avoiding Cookie’s eyes. “Where was he when he told you
about the trucks?”
Billy
closed his eyes. “He was standing near that funny stove. The outside
one.”
Both
women frowned, trying to decode Billy’s words. Remembering the old
brick fireplace in the yard next door, they let go of their breath
simultaneously. “Not in our yard then?” Cookie clarified. “Gerry
never comes inside our fence?” Billy shook his head vehemently,
understanding now what they wanted and eager to deliver it.
“Then
how could you see his boots?” Annette asked suddenly.
“He
put his foot up on the stove and I saw the little red guys,” Billy
remembered. “He got his boots out where cowboys still live. Can I have
boots like that, Mom?”
“We’ll
see,” Cookie told him. “But I don’t want you to talk to—Gerry—
anymore, Bill. Not till we know him better. Promise?” Billy nodded,
closing his mouth on the obvious question. Then why does Grandma talk to
him?
“He’s
the one who fixed our step,” Annette told her daughter.
“He’s
still seems off,” Cookie said shivering. “There’s something
creepy….”
“I
wish Gerry could come inside my yard someday,” Billy added. Both
women’s heads swiveled and the boy ducked instinctively. “He might
bring me that truck of his kid’s.”
They
had sex just the once. He had brought some beer over on a Saturday
night. Cookie was away for the weekend, taking Billy to visit his other
grandma in Bay City. She hadn’t told Gerry that Billy wasn’t
upstairs or that Cookie wouldn’t be home, but he knew somehow. They
had nearly finished off the six-pack when it started to rain. The rain
and the beer made it easier to let him inside. He walked around the
small house, not saying much. “You rent this place, right?” he
finally asked. She nodded. “How long you lived here?”
“I
moved in five years ago. The week Bush beat Dukakis. I needed a bigger
place when…”
He
made a face. “Eighty-eight?” She nodded. “Were things any better
then?” She looked around the room, hurt. “No, not in your house,
Nettie. In Detroit.”
She
shook her head. “Things were never better in my time. I didn’t come
north again until the mid-seventies though. Long after the riots.” She
started to tell him about her dual childhoods in Detroit and
Mississippi, but he’d lost interest and started drumming his hands on
his thighs.
“Damn,
it’s a hot night.” He adjusted the box fan until they sat directly
in its sweep. “Got any music in here?” He opened the last beer. “I
like a little music on a Saturday night.”
She
stood up and put the radio on. It was a country station and before she
could sit down again, he grabbed her around the waist and they began to
dance—if you could call it that; his feet didn’t move much. He just
stood there swaying, grinding his hips into hers; they were nearly the
same height, she realized, and if you subtracted the large heels on his
boots, she was taller. They stood there like that— getting horny—
until an announcer came on to give the local weather.
“Rain,
rain and more rain. Fall’s coming on,” she observed, stepping back
and taking a deep breath. She felt giddy from lack of air. “Even when
it’s hot, you can still feel it coming. Cold’s the natural
condition. In Detroit, that is”
He
nodded, and, with a groan pulled her over to the sofa before she could
take another breath, putting his mouth entirely over hers, kissing her
until she had no air left. Very quickly then, with no words, they were
upstairs making love. If she had to sum it up, she’d call his
lovemaking efficient: all the bases got covered but he didn’t linger
fondly anywhere. He didn’t linger afterwards either. He wasn’t in
her bed long enough to leave his scent—that strange yet seductive
scent—behind. She would have let him stay the night and that thought
both shamed and excited her. She had been alone since the night she
kicked Cookie’s father out of the house more than twenty years ago.
Alberto had come after her with a knife when she threw his stash of coke
in the toilet, managing to nick her twice before the cops came. He had
spent several nights in jail before disappearing from their lives. One
of his friends told her he was back in Mexico with a passel of kids, but
she doubted it. Life was too hard there and Alberto didn’t like hard.
She
expected things to change with Gerry after the sex, but he seemed to
have either forgotten or regretted the one time, and they went back to
meeting on the porch, although the shorter August then September days
made their time together brief. His eyes seemed to wander when he leaned
against the railing listening to her nonsense about Cookie and Billy,
about her job for the city. Turning up at all seemed like a habit he was
trying to break. If he had talked little about himself in the past, he
said even less about it now. He didn’t even rant about the government
trying to run his life anymore. She knew no more about him than she had
months ago.
In
October he was waiting in the driveway when she pulled in alone; Cookie
and Billy had gone to the mall in Dearborn for the Columbus Day sales.
He flicked his cigarette over the fence and moved toward her, looking
angrier than she’d ever seen him. She recoiled instinctively, but got
out of the car.
“They
sold the house out from under me—way before the auction. I didn’t
think they could do that! Fucking city! Try to play by their rules and
where does it get you?”
“Who bought it?” It was shocking that a second person was interested
in the place after all this time.
“I
don’t know,” he said, pacing the macadam. “It’ll be public
record soon, but for now—Goddamned government. They make the rules and
then break them.” He looked over toward the house. “I guess I’ll
have to be out of here in a day or two. If they think….”
“What?”
“I
put in a lot of time on that place. Scoped it out for weeks, making sure
it was empty, unclaimed, that no one could toss me out. Put in the
juice, fixed the worst of it.” He kicked a leaf hard and then looked
at her. “I don’t guess I could stay with you a night or two. Just
till I get sorted out. The sofa maybe….”
She
shook her head. “I can’t—Cookie….” Her voice trailed off.
He
nodded. “I guess I can stay with my son over in Melvindale for a few
nights. If his girl will have me.” He shook his head. “His mother
brought him up to—to—let women push him around.”
“What’re
you going to do after that?” She felt sorry for him but, on the other
hand, he could probably do again what he’d done here. Squat.
“Oh,
I’ll do something all right.” His lips hardened into a thin line and
he turned away.
It
was the smoke that woke her, a choking, airless burning in her lungs.
Last night had been Devil’s Night, and sirens, with the occasional
gunshot, wailed all night. She had gone to bed later than usual,
watching the melee on the late news with trepidation. Now it was close
to dawn on All Saints Day, and she leaped from her bed, remembering
after a second that Billy and Cookie were safe, spending Halloween at
her girlfriend, Trudy’s house in Warren. Billy had gone off with
Cookie at five last night—dressed like a ghost. It was safer to trick
or treat over there.
When
she looked out the front window, two fire trucks were blocking the
street, throwing everything in their arsenal at the blaze next
door—Gerry’s house. The hoses looked like tentacles, stretching
between the house and the trucks with a line to the fire hydrant; even a
green garden hose had been called into service. She couldn’t tell if
the thumping sounds she heard were fire axes or the force of the water.
Wrapping
a blanket around her and grabbing poor Jump, she burst through the front
door carrying only the dog and the single photograph she found in her
path. Later it turned out to be a framed print of her office picnic last
summer, forced on her on Secretary’s Day by her boss. People always
said, “Grab the picture albums and let the rest go.” But her albums
sat in a closet upstairs, and she’d be damned if she’d climb those
steps now.
Outside,
she saw the fire had spread roof-to-roof. The fire fighters were busy
taming the raging fire next door, but she rushed toward them, trying to
tell them through a choking cough that her house was burning, too. “We
know,” one of them found time to tell her, patting her shoulder. “As
soon as we—” It was impossible to hear him over the wail of sirens,
the whooshing sound of the fire, the shouts of the men trying to
coordinate their efforts. The smell had begun to change too, the
chemicals mixing with the flames and smoke and producing an even more
noxious odor. She watched silently, Jump shivering in her arms, as they
finished the mop-up on the house next-door and moved on to hers.
Suddenly
she felt him—Gerry—watching. She looked around, taking in the
growing crowd behind the rippling, plastic rope, the garage where her
car sat, the line of bushes that blocked the view of her other
neighbor’s house. He was watching; who knew where he might be hiding,
who had let him in? An arm went around her shoulders suddenly and she
jumped. It was a woman pulling her back from the fire. “You don’t
want to stand so close,” the woman, wearing official-looking clothing,
said. “The wind’s picking up. Let’s get away from the fire
ground.” She let herself be led away, grateful to put Jump down in a
neighbor’s fenced yard, realizing finally the dog had been barking for
a very long time—so long that the poor thing was hoarse.
With
the wind came rain, and the fire was soon extinguished although no one
would let her back inside until after the fire marshal, the insurance
agents, investigators and uniformed police showed up and took a look.
“You don’t want to go in there just now anyway,” the battalion
chief told her. “Even with the salvage operators here from the get-go,
it’ll be a mess. Come back tomorrow. Or the next day even. Just leave
a number with someone.”
“Got
somewhere to go?” various people asked her again and again. She
nodded, and finally called a friend from a phone in the house across the
street.
The
chemicals and water used to fight the fire ruined much of what was
inside the house, and what the chemicals and water didn’t ruin was
full of smoke. The roof was half-gone although someone from the salvage
operation had covered it with tarp when she returned the next day. Her
friend, Dinah—not particularly close, but the first one to answer the
phone at five o’clock in the morning— walked through the rooms with
her when she was allowed to go back inside, making sympathetic sounds.
She hadn’t even called Cookie yet, unsure of what to tell her.
“We
can get the smell out of most of it,” the insurance agent told her.
“You’ll be surprised.”
When
the investigator showed up, she told him about Gerry, surprising herself
with how few details she knew to give them. “He hates anything to do
with government—licenses, taxes, laws,” she finished weakly.
“Sorry I don’t know more.”
“I
guess he kept his distance,” the young man said when the information
she gave him proved so scant. “Probably a good thing for you.”
She
blushed, remembering how she’d slept with him, how she desired him.
“I think his son lives in Melvindale. You can probably pick him up
there.”
He
closed his book and looked up at her. “No one was hurt in the fire.
Unless someone’s hurt—” She was shocked silent—it felt like
someone had socked her in the stomach, but then the chores that lay in
front of her took over for an hour or two. She gave the information to
the insurance agent, the house’s owner, anyone who would listen.
When
there was no one else to tell, her mind returned to it. It didn’t seem
fair or right that nobody cared—that he—Gerry— wouldn’t be
arrested and thrown in jail for years. It was hard to let it go. And
every time she closed her eyes, she was back in that house, running
madly for the door, Jump in a death grip.
They
moved to Dearborn a few weeks later, renting a house that sat at the
rear of a treeless property. It was not on a line with its neighbors;
you didn’t notice it at all from the street. She stationed her bed in
the dining room for several months, where she could see both doors at
the same time. Her new neighbors were mostly recent émigrés from the
Middle East; few spoke English. The men kept their wives and daughters
inside and she followed suit, only making eye contact with the older
women, who moved like dark, mute ghosts through the suburban streets.
When Billy played outside, she was right at his elbow. When Cookie came
in late, she was waiting by the door. “Mom, how long you gonna do
this?” her daughter asked. “He’s done with us.”
“We’ll
see.”
His
call came around Christmas. “I planned on wetting down your roof,
Nettie, but Cookie and the kid hung around till dark. I had your garden
hose ready….” His voice had a self-pitying whine she didn’t
remember. He was making excuses for burning down her house, expecting
her sympathy. “Then you came home. I couldn’t take a chance on you
seeing me. I didn’t know what you’d do.”
What
she’d do? “How did you get my new number?” Her voice shook
with fear and rage.
He
ignored her question. “Anyway, I’m sorry for what happened. That’s
all I want to say.” He hung up, seeming miffed with her unwillingness
to sanction his acts.
He
didn’t call again until summer. The phone was ringing one day when she
came inside at dusk. When she heard Gerry’s voice, she sent Billy into
the other room. “What is it now?” she asked impatiently. She had
changed the number again, of course.
“I
thought you’d want to know something.”
“Yes.”
Her voice was calmer now than at Christmas, but her pulse still raced.
“I
don’t live in Michigan anymore. Some pipsqueak prosecutor in Oakland
County….”
“So
I can rest easy,” she interrupted him. “Well, thanks for the
call.” She couldn’t quite resist the natural question. “Another
fire, was it?”
He
chuckled, but didn’t respond.
“Do your people fight with fire instead of guns?”
“It
doesn’t matter, Nettie. I just wanted to say you can take the bed out
of the dining room. I thought it was only fair…..” He paused.
“Look, I’m not even in that stinking country anymore.”
Canada,
she thought. “Am I supposed to be surprised you know about the bed?
Well, I already moved it upstairs so you don’t know as much as you
think. You’ve been gone for a while, Gerry. And I don’t really care
what you did in Oakland County. It’ll always be something, won’t
it?”
“Anyway, I won’t call you again, Nettie. I thought you
deserved to know that.”
“Sure
you will, Gerry,” she told him. “Sure you will.”
Copyright 2006 by
Patricia Abbott
Patricia Abbott has published
stories in journals such as Fourteen Hills, Inkwell, The Potomac
Review and The Portland Review. Having come over to the
dark side now, forthcoming stories will appear in Shred of Evidence
and SHOTS.
