An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England_ A Novel - Brock Clarke [89]
Nothing. If it were possible to slip out of silence into deeper silence, then Peter did so. His eyes, which were pale blue and already set back, receded even further into his face. His forehead and chin jutted out at me like weapons.
"Because I went there on my honeymoon," I said, "with my wife, Anne Marie. We're having some troubles, but I hope we can work them out, but it's too complicated to go into right now. I lied to her, but she thinks I lied to her about something I didn't, but I can't tell her that, because the actual lie is worse than the lie she thinks I told. Although she might be thinking I'm lying about something else entirely now. See, complicated. To Quebec, though, that's where we went on our honeymoon, even though I didn't speak French. Still don't. I've kind of always regretted not learning another language, although I have all these other regrets, too, to keep it company. I bet you do, though. Speak French, that is. Although maybe not. Did you ever learn it in school? I hear it helps to live in the actual country. Did you ever live in the actual country? Although maybe your parents taught it to you."
Still nothing. I could hear the dog howling outside, and again I wished I were with the dog in the doghouse and not in the trailer with Peter, because at least the dog wasn't mute and had something to say.
"What's your dog's name?" I asked him. "How old is he? Or she? I've never had a dog. Or a cat. No pets at all. Is your dog neutered? Spayed?" And so on, until I began to get sick of myself and my babbling. Then I changed my mind and got sick of him, Peter, and it, his silence, and then I got sick of stoic men in general. Did they not have anything to say, these stoic men? Did they have plenty to say but not the right things, or not even the ability to say those wrong things the right way? Well, so what. Had that ever stopped me? Did people not know that talking was good for you, like medicine or juice? Had someone told Peter that you had to be silent and gloomy to be a man? Was that what reading about mopey, inarticulate Ethan Frome had taught him? (I'd already kicked the book out of my kicking range, but I kicked it again, in my mind, for good measure.) I was so sick of these silent men, it seemed as if I'd been around them my entire life: not enjoying the silence, and not wanting it, either. Their silence was like an ugly hat someone had told them they had to wear, and so they did, but bitterly. I almost missed Thomas Coleman, who could at least talk and wasn't shy about doing so, even if the stuff he said was hurtful and sinister and some of it out-and-out deceitful. And of course he was saying this stuff to my wife, and ― now that I thought about it ― maybe he was with her right now. Suddenly I was sick of Thomas, too, and maybe it wasn't just that I was sick of silent men but of all men, which was troubling, since I counted myself one of them.
"Listen," I said. "Like I told you earlier, I'm Sam Pulsifer. I need to know now. Are you Peter Le Clair? Are you the Peter Le Clair who wrote me years ago, asking me to burn down the Robert Frost Place?"
Peter didn't put down his plunger at this news, and he didn't smile or say anything. But he did shrug. It was, as I learned over the next several hours, Peter's favorite gesture, one probably used to communicate knowingness, confusion, sleepiness, hunger, loyalty, drunkenness, impatience, empathy, sexual longing. It was an economical gesture, and I admired it so much that I thought about doing it myself right back at him. But then I remembered that time in prison when I said, "I'm a grown-ass man," after playing basketball, and Terrell beat me; there were no prison guards to protect me this time. So I didn't shrug. But I wanted to, and I bet, if given a chance, the mimicry would have done our relationship a lot of good. Because it seems to me that the world would be a nicer, more empathetic place in which to live if we were only allowed to mimic each other without the one being mimicked taking offense and threatening violence.