Gryphon_ New and Selected Stories - Charles Baxter [50]
“No?”
“No. He can sit by himself. When he works, he listens to the boss, Mr. Glusac, giving him orders, and he has this so-what look on his face. He’s sweet. Like he’s always making plans. He’s a dreamer. Can’t fix a car.”
“I don’t think he ever learned.”
“That’s the truth. Doesn’t know what gaskets are, says he never learned to use a socket wrench. That car of his was hard-starting and dieseling, and I told him to tune it, you know, with a timing light, and he tells me he’s never removed a spark plug in his life. ‘We didn’t do that,’ he says. Jesus, it’s a long way down.” She was gazing at the frozen pond in the park.
“Eleven floors,” Mr. Bradbury said. “You can’t hear the harlot’s cry from street to street up here, more’s the pity. I look down on it all from a great height. I have an eleventh-floor view of things.”
She said, “I can see a man walking a dog. Eric says you write commercials.” She sat down on the sofa and glanced at the muted newscaster on the television set. He noticed that her fingernails were painted bright red, and that the back of one hand was scarred. “Is it hard, writing commercials?”
“Not if your whole life prepares you to do it. And of course there are the anodynes. If it weren’t for them, my heart wouldn’t be in it.”
“Anodynes.”
“I’m sorry. Painkillers. Things that come in bottles and tubes.”
“I only had a year of community college before I had to go to work,” Darlene said, and just as Mr. Bradbury understood what her remark was supposed to explain, she said, “I’m always afraid I’m boring people. Eric says I don’t bore him. Do you know your TV set is on?”
“Yes.”
“Why’s it on if you aren’t listening to it?”
“I like to have someone in the room with me, in case I get a call from the fraud police. Ah, hey, here’s the kid.”
Eric had reappeared silently. His father turned to look at him; he might have been standing in the hallway, out of sight, listening to them both for the last five minutes. Eric sat down next to Darlene on the sofa, putting his arm around her shoulders. She snuggled close to him, and Mr. Bradbury resisted the impulse to close his eyes. He sat down in his Barcelona chair. “So,” he began, with effort, “here you are. Give me a report. How was nature?”
“Nature was fine.” With his free hand Eric brutally rubbed his nose. The nose was running, and he wiped his hand on the sofa.
“Fine? Did the flora and fauna suit you? I want a report. Did you discover yourself? Let’s hear something about the pastoral panorama.” Darlene, he noticed, was staring at his mouth.
“It was fine,” Eric said, staring, without subtlety, at the ceiling.
“I hate it when you look at the ceiling. A world without objects is a sensible emptiness. Come on, Eric, let’s have a few details. Did you from outward forms win the passion and the life, whose fountains are within?”
“My dad is a quoter,” Eric said. He glanced at Darlene. “He quotes.” He saw his father looking at him. “It was fine,” he repeated, facing his father.
“He won’t talk about that time alone in that cabin, Mr. Bradbury, so you might as well not ask. Lord knows I’ve tried.”
“Just between him and his psyche, eh?”
“ ‘Psyche,’ ” Eric said, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ.”
“There you go, criticizing my vocabulary again. When will I be allowed to use the six-dollar words they taught us at college? Never, it appears.” He smiled at Darlene. “Pay no attention to me. I inflict my irony on everybody.”
A long pause followed. Eric’s father had begun counting the seconds in groups of two when Darlene said, “You wouldn’t believe all the city people who come up north to commune with nature. Like that woman Lorraine, her family. We see them all summer. They buy designer backpacks and dehydrated foods they don’t eat. Then they sleep on the ground for two weeks, complain of colds, and whiz home in their station wagons. Me, I’m lucky if I can sleep in a bed.”
“Darlene has insomnia,