by Tom Perrotta
He pointed to the small gray house where Mrs. Klinghof lived.
“You bastard,” the woman said. “Don't blame her.” Her words came in gasps, as though she'd been running Windsprints.
“Hey!” my father broke in. “Watch your tongues. Both of you.” Then, softly: “Go on inside, Buddy.”
I stood in a daze in the middle of the living room. On TV, the white-haired guy from Wild Kingdom had changed out of his safari clothes. He was dressed in a suit, sitting on a stool in an otherwise empty room. “As Jim found out tonight,” he said, “the African jungle is a dangerous place. But you don't have to be standing in the path of a charging rhinoceros to put yourself and your family at risk …”
Outside, there were sirens.
On the way home from school a few days later, I saw the strangler in front of Mrs. Klinghof's house. He was unloading suitcases from the trunk of a car.
“You must be Buddy,” he said, stepping onto the sidewalk to block my path. “I'm Mr. Norman. We're going to be neighbors.” He stuck out his hand. “Come on. Shake.”
We shook. For some reason, I wasn't scared. His hand was big and soft. “Nice grip,” he said. “You're a pretty strong kid.” He touched a green and red plaid suitcase with the tip of his workboot.
“Say, how would you like to carry this up to the porch for me? I'll pay you a quarter.” He reached into his pants pocket, pulled out a handful of change, and gave me three nickels and a dime. The suitcase wasn't even heavy.
At home, my mother did her best to answer my questions. Her explanation was complicated but logical, like the solution to a word problem. Mr. Norman had been cheating on Mrs. Norman with Mrs. Klinghof. Somehow Mrs. Norman had found out, so now Mr. Norman had to move in with Mrs. Klinghof. Pretty soon, Mrs. Klinghof would become Mrs. Norman.
“Mrs. Klinghof has been very lonely since Mr. Klinghof passed away. Now she won't be so lonely anymore.”
“But what about the other one?” I asked. “The lady on the porch?”
“She's better off too,” my mother said, after a brief hesitation.
The late Mr. Klinghof had been my friend. We used to play catch on summer evenings, standing on our respective lawns, lobbing the ball back and forth over his driveway. He wore a tattered four-fingered mitt that looked like it belonged in the Hall of Fame. We were both Yankee fans, and he talked endlessly about the team, comparing current stars to the heroes of the past. Mr. Klinghof was personally acquainted with Phil Rizzuto, the great Yankee shortstop and announcer. Just before he died, he got me the Scooter's autograph, scrawled on the blank side of a panel torn from a Parliament cigarette pack. “Holy Cow, Buddy!” it said. “Best Wishes from Phil Rizzuto.”
For a long time after his death, Mrs. Klinghof moped around the house, trying to keep herself busy with yard work. She raked the lawn even after all the leaves were gone, and swept the sidewalk once a day with a push broom. In the summer, she cut the grass with hand clippers instead of a mower. She was alone in the house. Judy had been living for years in a commune in Canada with her boyfriend, who was dodging the draft. My mother told me she hadn't even come home for her father's funeral.
Mr. Norman tried hard to be a good neighbor. He knew he'd made a bad first impression. He was always ready with a wave and an optimistic statement about the weather. He shoveled our sidewalk after snowstorms and gave my father helpful hints on lawn care, but it didn't work: my parents were barely polite with the Normans. They never stopped by the fence just to chat, the way they did with our other next-door neighbors.
The funeral was on Friday morning. I had the day off from the sheet-metal yard where I was working that summer, driving a forklift for minimum wage. My alarm clock didn't go off until eight, two hours later than usual. I had stayed awake thinking about Patty until almost three in the morning, so I was grateful for the extra sleep.
Patty was my ex-girlfriend. She was a year younger than me, a senior at Harding High. For most of my freshman year in college, we'd managed to conduct a fairly successful long-distance relationship. And then I botched it.
Near the end of spring semester, this girl named Brenda from my intro psych class invited me to a party in her dorm room. We slept together that same night. The next day I wrote a long letter to Patty, who was still a virgin. I didn't mention anything about Brenda. I just said that we should start seeing other people. Three days later Patty called. She was crying.
“I don't want to see other people,” she said. “I want to see you.”
Brenda and I only lasted a few weeks, just long enough to discover that except for the ability to get on each other's nerves, we had absolutely nothing in common. When I called Patty to apologize and patch things up, she told me she'd already started seeing Brian Kersitis, this guy in her class. I liked Brian; he was the lead singer in a pretty good heavy metal band called Warlock.
“I guess I messed up this time,” I said.
“Yup,” she said. “I guess you did.”
I didn't realize how badly I'd messed up until I got home from college and didn't have anything to do at night. I had no desire to hang around the house with my parents, and I didn't feel like going to the woods to get wasted with my high school friends. I just wanted to be with Patty. I missed her even more now that it was graduation week. I should have been going to parties with her every night, drinking beer, sharing the fun. Instead I spent hours in bed with my eyes wide open, imagining her and Brian Kersitis in the back seat of a car. On the night Mr. Norman died, a dark brown Chevrolet zoomed by me while I was walking down Grand Avenue near McDonald's. The car was decorated with blue and gold streamers, the colors of Harding High, and the word “PARTY!” was soaped across the side in big letters. Patty and a couple of her friends were leaning out the windows, shaking their fists and screaming at the top of their lungs, the way you do when you graduate.
My parents had already left for work, so I had the house to myself when I got out of bed. After I took a shower, got dressed, and ate a bowl of cereal, there was still time to kill. I turned on the TV and watched a rerun of The Munsters, an episode in which Herman makes a fool of himself trying to win Eddie's love, only to find out that Eddie loved him all along.
At nine o'clock sharp, Judy's husband Bob knocked on the front door. He and Judy were staying next door, looking after Mrs. Norman. Since we were both pallbearers, Bob had suggested that we drive together to the funeral. Woodley's was providing limo service for Judy and Mrs. Norman.
Bob stepped into the hallway and shook my hand. He was a tall, baby-faced man with hair that was parted in the middle and feathered back over his ears. Like me, he was wearing a dark blue suit, but his tie was wide and colorfully striped, a bit too cheerful for the occasion.
“I'll be ready in a minute,” I said.
“No rush,” he said. “You got any coffee? There's only Sanka next door.”
“I could make some. But doesn't the final viewing start in fifteen minutes?”
“I don't know about you,” he said, “but I could do without the final viewing. I sat in the funeral home for two hours last night and two hours on Wednesday. That's enough for me.”
Bob followed me into the kitchen. He sat down and drummed his fingers on the table.
“You ever been to a wax museum?” he asked.
I poured water into the coffee maker and tried to remember if I had. “I'm not sure. Maybe a long time ago.”
“Judy and I were in Niagara Falls a few months back and we went to one. This was on the Canadian side.”
“Yeah? How was it?”
“Awful,” he said. “No one looked like they were supposed to. Bob Hope looked more like Nixon than Nixon did. It was a rip-off.”
“Sounds like it.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I'd forgotten all about it until I saw Jerry in that coffin. He looked like one of those wax statues. Some celebrity you never heard of.”
I sat down while the coffee brewed. It wasn't a very hot day, but Bob's face was red and swea
ty. There was a napkin holder on the table beside a bowl of artificial fruit. He took a peach-colored napkin and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Christ,” he said. “It's a scorcher. What a day for a funeral.”
“How's Mrs. Norman holding up?”
He picked a plastic pear from the fruit bowl and examined it closely. He tapped it against the table a couple of times, then put it back. “Not too good. I think Judy's gonna have to stick around here for a few days to make sure she doesn't fall apart. I have to drive back tonight. Can't miss work tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow's Saturday.”
“I manage a restaurant,” he said. “Saturday's our big day.” He turned his head to check on the coffee. The pot was filling slowly, one brown drop at a time. He wiped his face with another napkin. “Christ, you wouldn't believe what it's like over there. Millie doesn't eat, she doesn't sleep, she just prowls around the house searching for God knows what. Like last night, three in the morning, she comes into our room, turns on the light, and shoves this can of shaving cream into my face. ‘Here, Bob, I want you to have this. I bought it for Jerry, but he doesn't need it anymore.’” Bob shook his head. “This whole thing gives me the creeps. I mean it would be different if I knew him.”
“You didn't know him?”
“We only met once. Last year at my wedding.” Bob smiled at the memory. “Jerry was crocked. You should have seen him on the dance floor.”
When I was a sophomore in high school, I spent most nights alone in my room learning to play the guitar. After a few hours of staring at my fingers, I'd put down the guitar and go for long walks around town to clear my head.
I used to meet Mr. Norman a lot on the quiet residential streets in our neighborhood. He walked slowly, with his hands jammed into his pockets, whistling melodies I recognized from the “beautiful music” station my parents listened to in the car. At first we just nodded and went our separate ways, but we bumped into each other so often that year that it became something of a private joke between us.
One night in late spring, he stopped at a corner and waited for me. It was earlier than usual, and he asked me if I wanted to watch the Yankee game at his place. His wife was bowling, he said, and he could use the company. I was glad for the chance to prove that I didn't share my parents’ grudge against him.
It was strange to turn the corner and walk past my own house into his, as though I were another person. The house seemed not to have changed since the last time I was there, back when Mr. Klinghof was alive. It was still dark and cluttered, with the same peculiar smell in the air, a permanent odor of breakfast. There was even a picture of Mr. Klinghof on the TV set. He looked older than I remembered him, and had a sad, kindly expression on his face. I realized suddenly that I'd missed him.
Mr. Norman turned on the Yankees. I pretended to watch the game and waited for him to start a conversation. A couple of innings passed.
“You want something to drink?” he asked.
“Water would be great.”
He pointed to the kitchen. “Glasses are above the toaster.”
I turned on the faucet and let the water run for a while. The sink was filled with dirty dishes. I looked in the freezer for ice, but the old metal trays were empty, coated with frost.
Back in the living room, Mr. Norman said, “Millie tells me you're a big baseball fan.” He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth that bobbed up and down as he spoke.
I took a sip of water. “I used to be.”
He patted his thighs and chest with both hands, then spotted his lighter on the coffee table. “You got a girlfriend?”
“Not really.”
He lit the cigarette and blew a long stream of smoke at the TV screen. He nodded thoughtfully, then reached under the couch and pulled out a thick stack of magazines.
I was used to seeing Playboy and Penthouse, but these magazines were different. They had names like Swank and Juggs and Twat, and the models in them weren't all young and beautiful. Many were older, tired-looking women who didn't appear to be enjoying themselves.
I was staring at a picture of a woman painstakingly shaving her pubic hair when Mr. Norman got up from the couch and came over to where I was sitting. He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned forward to get a better look, his face so close to mine that I could smell his hair tonic.
“Look at that,” he said, shaking his head and rubbing his chin like a philosopher, “Amazing. Where'd she get those tits?”
We heard a car pull into the driveway. “Better give me those,” he said. “She wouldn't appreciate me showing them to you.” He shoved the magazines under the couch and quickly took his seat. He crossed his legs and looked perfectly relaxed by the time the front door opened.
Mrs. Norman set her bowling bag on the floor and smiled when she saw me. She was wearing lime green stretch pants and a double-knit top with big orange flowers on it. I noticed that she had a decent body for a woman her age.
“Buddy,” she said. “How nice to see you.”
“Hi, Mrs. Norman.” I felt my face turn red. I remembered that years ago, on our front porch, Mr. Norman had called her a whore. At the time, I hadn't even known what the word meant.
“I better get going,” I said.
“Don't leave on account of me.” There was an odd singsong quality in her voice, and I had the feeling that she was flirting with me.
“It's not that,” I said. “I have some homework.”
She pouted momentarily, but then her face brightened. “Okay, but before you go, just let me get my camera. I want a picture of this.”
She left the room. I looked at Mr. Norman, hoping for an explanation, but he just shrugged. “Millie's camera-crazy,” he said.
Mrs. Norman took two pictures of me and Mr. Norman sitting together on the couch. She used a flash, and when I got home, black spots were swimming in front of my eyes.
On the way to the funeral home, Bob asked me if I'd ever been a pallbearer before.
“Not me,” I said. “You?”
“You probably won't believe this,” he said, “but until two nights ago, I never even saw a dead body.”
“Never?”
He ignored the question and started fiddling with some controls on the dashboard. “Could you roll up your window? I'm turning on the AC. It's like an oven in here.”
The air conditioning came on full blast. I had to adjust the vent to keep it from gusting in my face.
“It's a weird thing,” Bob said. “My father died when I was a little kid, but I didn't go to the wake or the funeral. Ever since then, whenever somebody died, I've always been out of town. Away at school, on vacation, whatever.” He groped in his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a peach-colored napkin. He'd grabbed a whole stack of them as we left my house. He wiped his face, then crumpled the napkin and tossed it over his shoulder into the back seat. “I'm telling you, I wasn't ready for it. It shocked the hell out of me to see Jerry in that coffin. I just didn't expect him to look so goddam dead. Christ, it really gets you thinking, doesn't it?”
It was a beautiful day, and the streets of downtown Cranwood were bustling with people going about their business. I watched them through the car as they put change in parking meters and checked both ways before crossing the street, and they seemed familiar and alien at the same time, like sea creatures when you visit an aquarium. I thought about Mrs. Kelly, my sixth-grade math teacher, who died of a heart attack before she had a chance to give us our grades for the final marking period. On the night of her wake, a big group of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders met in the schoolyard and walked together to the funeral home to pay our last respects. No one expected us. Adults looked on in astonishment as we filed past the coffin, a seemingly endless line of girls in pretty dresses and boys in suits that didn't quite fit. Many of us were crying, even though Mrs. Kelly had been an unpopular teacher, known for giving pop quizzes and making kids stick gum on their noses if they were caught chewing it in class. I kept my composure until I reached the foot of t
he coffin; then I froze. I had never seen a dead person before and didn't know what to do next. There was a painful little smile frozen on Mrs. Kelly's face, like she was trying hard to be polite. The girl in front of me, Mary Jane Zaleski, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, so when my turn came I did the same thing. I kept my eyes closed, and her face against my lips felt as cool and smooth as a blackboard.
“You're in college, right?”
Bob's question brought me back to reality. We were driving down a wide, tree-lined street not far from the funeral home.
“Yeah. I'll be a sophomore in September.”
“You like it?”
“Beats working.”
He nodded. “No kidding. I wish I was back in school.”
The funeral home was a red brick house with a wide front door and a perfectly manicured lawn. Bob pulled into the circular driveway and found a parking space behind the building, next to the dumpster. He left the engine running and turned to me.
“Appreciate it while you can, Buddy. These are the best years of your life.”
“If they are, I'm in big trouble.”
He sat there for a few seconds, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, gazing straight ahead at a sign that read, “FUNERAL PATRONS ONLY.” Then he reached down and cut the ignition. The air conditioning expired with a sigh.
“You'll see,” he said. “You'll wake up one morning ten years from now with a job and a wife and you'll say to yourself, oh yeah, I didn't realize it at the time, but that's when I was really happy.”
The funeral director, Mr. Woodley, was tall, well-dressed, and extremely formal. He reminded me of a butler in an old movie. Bob and I followed him to the end of a dark corridor where the two other pallbearers were waiting, leaning against a wall on either side of a water fountain.
“Robert and Buddy,” Mr. Woodley said, “I'd like you to meet Al and Bernie, colleagues of the deceased from the New Jersey Freight Company, Incorporated. Al and Bernie, please meet Robert and Buddy. Robert is married to the stepdaughter of the deceased. Buddy was his next-door neighbor for many years.”
