Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel

by Peter Cameron

“So I was popular in high school. We aren’t talking about me, James. We’re talking about you. I don’t know what you’re so scared of.”

  “I’m not scared of anything.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “I’m not not going to college because I’m scared, I’m not going to college because I don’t want to go to college.”

  “Yes, but why don’t you want to go? If it’s not about fear, what is it about?”

  “It’s about not wanting you to get a Mini Cooper convertible. That’s what it’s about.”

  “Very funny, James.”

  “It’s true. The reason I’m not going to college is I don’t want to participate in a world that involves such shameful finagling.”

  “Well, I hate to break it to you, James, but there’s only one world. And it’s full of shameless finaglers.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m not stupid.”

  “Then what are you? You’re either stupid or scared.”

  “Yes, and you’re either a moron or a termagant.”

  “Name-calling, James—the last resort of tiny minds.”

  “Well, you called me stupid or scared.”

  “Which are adjectives, which describe things. Versus nouns, which name things. Like termagant, which is, by the way, an unacceptably foul word because it only applies to women.”

  “Well, it applies to you,” I said.

  “I don’t think we’re making any progress,” said Gillian.

  “So why don’t you go away and leave me alone?”

  “That isn’t like me, James. I think we both know I’m a stronger-willed person than you, and besides, I think I want a Mini Cooper more than you don’t want to go to college, so if you weren’t brain-dead, you would simply decide to go to college and save us all a lot of time and trouble.”

  “Well, even if I did decide to go to college, which is not going to happen, I would make sure that Mom knew the decision was entirely mine and had in no way been influenced by you, so you wouldn’t get your stupid car.”

  Gillian said nothing. She stood up and began to walk around my room, looking at things, touching things. “You know,” she said, “you might not believe this, but I was scared when I went to college. I think most people are, no matter how confident or popular. You’re starting a whole new life in a way, which is scary. And I hated it at first. Do you remember that awful roommate I had, Julianna Schumski, who looked like Bozo the Clown and constantly farted? And everybody seemed retarded or from another planet—it was awful. But do I wish I had never gone to college? No.”

  “I am curiously unmoved by your little speech.”

  “How about this, then—you go to college, I get the Mini Cooper, and then you’re free to drop out and go live in an igloo if you want.”

  “How about this: you shut up and leave me alone.”

  “You’re so tiresome, James. Maybe it would be best for everyone if you did go and live in an igloo.” She opened the door, but didn’t leave, just stood in the doorway. “Did Rainer Maria call?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The phone rang a few times, but I didn’t pick it up.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wasn’t expecting any calls.”

  “Yes—no one ever calls you, do they?”

  “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

  Gillian shook her head and left, closing the door. I waited a few minutes and then took Miró out for a walk. We ambled slowly around the block and then sat on the front stoop. Miró likes to sit on the top step and look down on the people and dogs passing by. So do I, especially late on a summer night—it’s like a slow dark parade. A young man and woman walked past—a handsome young man and pretty young woman, the man in a seersucker suit and the woman in an old-fashioned summer dress—and they were walking a bit apart from one another with a space between them, and the man was looking straight ahead and the woman had her arms crossed against her chest, hugging herself, looking down at her feet, at her toes that peeked out the open fronts of her shoes, and they both had the same gleefully suppressed smile on their faces, and I knew that they were freshly in love, perhaps they had fallen in love having dinner in some restaurant with a garden or tables on the sidewalk, perhaps they had not even kissed yet, and they walked apart because they thought they had their whole lives to walk close together, touching, and wanted to anticipate the moment they touched for as long as possible, and they passed by without noticing me and Miró. Something about watching them made me sad. I think it was too lovely: the summer night, the open-toed shoes, their faces rapt with momentarily tamped-down joy. I felt I had witnessed their happiest moment, the pinnacle, and they were already walking away from it, but they did not know it.

  Miró always knows when I am sad. He put his paw on my knee and softly whined. Perhaps it was merely his way of telling me he wanted to go back inside and get his biscuit and go to bed, but there was, nevertheless, a tenderness in the gesture that comforted me.

  When I got in bed I could hear one of my mother’s self-empowerment CDs playing, leaking out of her open window and into mine. I lay in bed and listened. A woman spoke serenely, without inflection or expression, and every sentence was punctuated by the sound of a gong:

  The past does not control the future.

  You can do more than you think you can do.

  Love is never wasted.

  Never stop learning.

  Look for beauty.

  You are cleansed by sleep and dreams.

  You do not honor the suffering or sorrow of others by giving it power to defeat you.

  Have faith in nature.

  No one can do all the things that you can do.

  Honor the strength and beauty of your body.

  Be challenged by defeat.

  Believe in what you love.

  Doing good empowers you.

  Open yourself to the love of others.

  Re-create your life every day.

  Everything is always changing. Nothing lasts.

  After about ten minutes the voice stopped proclaiming, but the chime continued chiming. Each chime was quieter than the one before and the interval between chimes got longer and longer until there was no chime at all.

  13

  Tuesday, July 29, 2003

  JOHN DID NOT COME TO WORK THE NEXT DAY. BY THE TIME I arrived at ten o’clock he had already left a message saying he felt “under the weather” and would be staying home. It was a sunny hot day, so I hoped that he had gone to the beach, but I worried that what had happened the night before might have something to do with his not being at work.

  I felt very bad that I had alienated John.

  My mother also failed to appear that morning, but there was nothing unusual about that. My mother had this notion that nothing of any importance ever happened before lunch, so that only the little people—assistants and such—worked in the morning.

  I sometimes got spooked working alone in the gallery. Anyone could walk in off the street and often anyone did, and the problem was you had to be cordial and welcoming even if you instantly knew they were freaks. John told me that if anyone really seemed dangerous I should tell him or her that the gallery was closing early and escort them out and lock the door. If they refused to leave I was to call the building’s security guard, but since he spent most of his time out on the sidewalk smoking and saying things like “Baby, baby, you don’t look so happy, I can make you very happy, baby” to the women walking by, and since the elevator (if it was working) took about half an hour to reach the sixth floor, I knew I would be dead before any help arrived.

  Since there was no one in the gallery and nothing to do, I decided to call the real estate agent for one of the houses in Indiana I had seen the night before. I knew it would be easier not to go to college if I had an alternative plan in place, because then it could be seen as a positive thing—I’d be doing something rather than not doing something. I went to realtor.com and searched for the listing. The brokers were a ma
rried couple named Jeanine and Art Breemer. There was a tiny photograph of them beside the photo of the house. Jeanine was seated and Art was standing behind her with his hands pushing down on her shoulders, as if she might pop up if he let go. She appeared to be a rather squat woman, smiling in a studied, somewhat maniacal fashion, and wearing what was obviously a wig. Art wore a powder blue sports coat over a white turtleneck and looked glum. A caption beneath the photo read: The Breemers: Two Heads, Four Hands, One Heart. Besides being anatomically incorrect, I couldn’t see what that had to do with selling real estate.

  I dialed their number, wondering which of them I hoped would answer. I didn’t really want to talk to either. “You’ve reached the Breemers,” a voice said. “This is Jeanine, how may I help you?”

  I said, “I’m calling about a listing I saw on the Internet.”

  “Marvelous!” she said. “Which listing are you interested in?”

  I told her the number and she said, “Is that the one on Crawdaddy Road? Yes—it is, and I’m not at all surprised. That house is just too lovely for words. Would you like to see it? I’d love to show it to you.”

  “Yes, I guess I would.”

  “Well, we’d better move fast, because I know it won’t stay on the market for very long. How about two o’clock?”

  “Today?”

  “Yes. Or I could do it this evening, if that’s better for you. I’d just love you to see it in the afternoon, though—it gets such wonderful light.”

  “Today doesn’t really work for me,” I said.

  “Well, what about tomorrow? Any time would be fine.”

  “Actually the weekend would be better for me.”

  “All righty. Should we say Saturday, then? Two o’clock? How does that sound?”

  “That sounds good,” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “And may I have your name?”

  “James Sveck,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Sveck. Do you have any questions about the house I might answer now?”

  “Well, I’m curious about the name of the town. Why is it called Edge?”

  “Oh, you’re not from Edge?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Oh, where are you from?”

  “I’m from New York.”

  “Oh—where in New York? My sister lives in Skaneateles.”

  “I’m from New York City.”

  “Oh my goodness—New York City! And you’re interested in a house here in Edge?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am. I plan to relocate.”

  “Well, I can’t say I blame you. I don’t know how anyone’s still living in New York City. I think you’ll just love Edge. It was voted the seventeenth-best small town in Indiana, you know. It beat out Carlisle and Muggerstown and many of those other hoity-toity places.”

  “So why is it called Edge?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” she said, and giggled.

  This seemed an odd response to me, even coming from Jeanine. “I’m not worried about it—I’m just asking.”

  “Well, good,” she said. “Because there’s no need to worry. Who was it said, ‘What’s in a name? A rose is a rose is a rose’?”

  “Mmmm—that would be Shakespeare,” I said. “And Gertrude Stein.”

  “Oh, you’re good!” she said. “I used to know all that—all that poetry stuff. You know that poem Hiawatha? I used to be able to recite that from memory. ‘On the shores of Gitchygoomie … Where the buffalo did wander … lived a girl named Pocahontas …’ Well, I forget the rest, but I knew it all. It’s a lovely poem. Do you know it?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t.”

  “Well, I’ll find my old poem book and read it to you when you get out here. I know you’ll love it. It’s chockablock with rhymes.”

  “That’s all very reassuring,” I said. “I’m still a bit concerned about the name, though.”

  “Well, I told you, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s perfectly safe here. Safer than New York City, I can tell you that. I think you should just come out here and take a look at that house. I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it.”

  “I’m just curious about why the town is named Edge. I’d like to know that before I come all the way out there.”

  “Well, I don’t have the faintest idea. Towns just have names. Why is New York called New York?”

  “Actually, the British named it after York, a city in England. After the Dutch had already named it New Amsterdam.”

  “Well, there’s an exception to every rule. But I don’t think we’re getting anywhere at all quibbling about such a silly matter. Tell you what—why don’t you just come see the house, and if you don’t fall in love with it, I’ll eat my hat.”

  Even though I knew this was an idiomatic expression, for a moment I had a vision of Jeanine Breemer eating a hat. For some reason I pictured one of those transparent rain bonnets that fold up into a little packet. My grandmother always had one in her pocketbook, and when I was little I loved to take it out and open it and try to get it to fold back up. (I never could.) “I think I’ll keep looking,” I said.

  “Oh, I just hate to see you pass up this opportunity, but I suppose you must suit yourself. Did you take the virtual tour?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Most of the damage is merely cosmetic,” she said.

  “What damage?”

  “Oh—I didn’t mean damage. I just meant you’ll want to paint and wallpaper. It’s amazing what a lick of paint can do.”

  “Well, I think I’m going to pass on this one, but thanks very much.”

  “Seriously? You’re not even going to look at it?”

  “It just seems a long way to go to look at a house I’m really not interested in.”

  “Did somebody tell you about the transfer station? You know, it’s not at all sure it will be moved to Crawdaddy Road.”

  “What’s a transfer station?”

  “It’s where people bring their refuse.”

  “Do you mean a dump?” I asked.

  “Lord, no. It will be much more than just a dump. There’ll be a recycling center and a Kit and Kabooble.”

  “What’s a Kit and Kadooble?”

  “Kabooble. Well, it’s this little shed where if you have say a blender or toaster or something like that that you don’t want anymore, if it still works, or even if it’s broken but you think someone else might be able to fix it or maybe use it for parts, or maybe use it for something else, like you might use the blender as a flowerpot or something—well, you put it in the Kit and Kabooble instead of throwing it in the dump and then someone else can come along and take it. It’s just great. People have been known to furnish a house from the Kit and Kabooble. It would be so convenient for you with a new house—you could just pop over and grab up all the good stuff before anyone else had a chance!”

  “Well, that does sound great, but I don’t think I want to live next to a dump.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t be next to it—you’d be across the street. And they’re going to build a beautification wall around it, so you won’t even see it. At least not from downstairs. And of course that’s where you’ll be spending most of your time, since the second floor isn’t heated.”

  “What’s a beautification wall?” I asked.

  “Well,” she said. “It’s a wall, a big tall wall, made of wood, I guess, or maybe concrete, but real pretty with maybe flowers or something painted on it. They let the school kids paint the beautification wall that hides Route 36 and it’s as colorful as can be. It always cheers me up driving past. Oh, and there will be shrubs, too—I think there’s a rule that there’s got to be a shrub every ten feet, so you can see when all is said and done it will only add to your property value.”

  “Well, it’s been nice talking to you and I appreciate all your help, but I really don’t think I’m interested anymore.” I said goodbye, and quickly hung up. I waited a moment, thinking she might call me back. I didn’t want to be stalked by Jeanine Br
eemer. And then I felt very sorry for her. The only real estate agents I’ve ever known are women like Poppy Langworthy, a friend of my mother’s, who sold several million-dollar apartments a year simply by showing them to people who could afford million-dollar apartments, of which there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply in New York City. I wondered when Jeanine’s last sale was. She seemed a bit desperate. I hate dealing with anyone who works on commission. For a long time I never knew that this type of employment existed, and then when I was about ten I went with my father to a BMW dealership in New Jersey to buy a new car and the salesman that helped us was so aggressive he practically tackled my father when he said he was going to look around some and started walking toward the door. I remember I asked my father what was wrong with the man and my father told me nothing was wrong with him, he was just a shark; that in some jobs you had to be a shark, and everyone understood it, and it was okay. I asked my father if he was a shark and he said no, he was more like a vulture, he let other animals make the kill and dined on the remains. I was very unnerved by these revelations, and wanted to ask my father if there were jobs for lambs and rabbits, but somehow I knew I shouldn’t ask that question. I thought maybe I’d become more aggressive as I aged, but that hasn’t been the case, so actually this is a problem I’m still dealing with. I thought people in the art world might be lamb-y, but they’re not. John’s definitely a shark in his groovy, laid-back way and my mother can get very vulture-y at times. So this was another compelling reason to move away from New York City and find a means of supporting myself that did not involve savage instinctual behavior.

  A woman had come in while I was chatting with Jeanine Breemer and was carefully studying each of the garbage cans. She had a little notepad and was copying information off the labels on the walls that identified each piece.

  #21. Aluminum, paper, found objects, shattered rabbit skin glue, felt-tip pen, beeswax, human hair. 24” × 30”.

  After a while she strolled over to the desk, incredibly nonchalantly, as if she were walking somewhere else and the reception desk just happened to be in her pathway.