Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [178]
“Okay. Start with this: How old is he?”
“He’s ten.”
“Well, that’s a good age. Anyway, that’s what they tell me. Never had kids myself. Never was blessed with children.”
“Would you please leave me alone?” Ellickson asked.
“No. Tell me what’s going on. At least tell me what you did. Tell me why your family isn’t here with you.”
Ellickson began to weep. “Why should I tell you?” he asked, enraged. “You’re nothing.” Dead trees and caverns yawned open for him, and the devils in bow ties stood ready, and he couldn’t stop himself. The sobs broke out of him in a storm. “I was drunk,” he said. “And I … was angry at him. At Alex. My kid. I can’t even remember the reason. It can’t have been anything. And I … I don’t know why, but … I hit him.”
“You hit him,” the murderer repeated, sitting next to the gift apple pie. “What’s so bad about that? People sometimes hit their kids.”
“Not if they love them,” Ellickson said, still weeping. “I hit him in the face. With a book.”
The old man stood up, gazing at Ellickson. “Eric, you poor guy, you’re as bad off as I am,” he said. “Yes, after all. Thank you. I needed to hear that. I’ll be going now.”
Ellickson stared at the murderer’s back. “Go back to your spaceship. But I’m still sober! Goddamn it, I’m sober now! Sober and proud!”
“Look where it’s gotten you,” the old man said gently, letting the screen door slam.
Two days later, Ellickson called his mother-in-law’s so that he could talk to his wife, and Laura answered. “Laura? Honey, babe?” he began, speaking with his eyes shut and his hands shaking. “Don’t hang up, please? It’s me. We have to talk. Really, we have to talk. You know I’m sober now—you know that, don’t you? These days? And the effort it’s costing me? It’s all for you. I know you want to hang up—”
“I’m pregnant,” Laura said, interrupting him. “Can you believe that?”
“Oh, Jesus,” Ellickson said, “can’t you—”
“We should talk soon. But not now.”
She had broken the connection.
Ellickson put down the receiver and walked into the kitchen, where he removed a carton of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured a small glass for himself. He swished the orange juice around in his mouth as if it were mouthwash; then he swallowed it. Opening the refrigerator again, he did an inventory of its contents: eggs, milk, salad greens, English muffins, spreadable butter, strawberry jam, leftover chili, salad dressing, yogurt, biryani paste, and a bottle of root beer. The contents constituted the most hopeless array of objects the world had presented to him in some time, and he shut the door against it with a shudder. One of Alex’s drawings of a dinosaur and a vampire was still stuck with magnets to the refrigerator door.
He took two deep breaths before leaving the kitchen, exiting through the back, crossing the driveway, and knocking at the murderer’s front door. No one answered, Ellickson rang again, and still no one appeared. He tried the doorknob, and the door opened with a slight squeak. Ellickson entered the old man’s living room.
“Macfadden?” he called out. “Are you here? Mac?”
Ellickson walked into the kitchen. The phone was off the hook, as if the old man had gone to get something or had left in a hurry. Ellickson went down the back stairs to the basement. He wanted to see the spaceship.
Macfadden Eward sat in a reading chair next to a lamp, the history of Robert E. Lee in his lap. He was listening to music through headphones. “Oh,” he said, taking the earphones out, “it’s you.”
“I rang the bell.”
“Well, I didn’t hear it.” He waited. “I’m sorry. My hearing’s not so good.”
“The phone was off the hook.”
“Yes,” the old man said. “I don’t like to be bothered when I’m down here.”
“Where’s the spaceship?” Ellickson asked. “I don’t see any spaceship down here.”
“That’s because you’re not looking. I tell you what it is, Eric,” the murderer said, “and you should listen to me. When you’re in prison, you get used to prison. When you’re in the desert, you get used to the desert. You get interested in cactus, you know what I mean? And what I’m saying to you is,