by Marcus, Ben
The building thumped, and a hoarse cry—from deep inside a bag, was it?—sounded. He steadied his cup of water. Oh it could have been anything. Offices make sounds, don’t they, and what did he even know about the immense workings of a building like this? Someone must have run the chart on this and checked it out. Of course they had. Clearly it was not for him to worry about. Oh for more of this bait not taken. Where would they store it now that he couldn’t be fooled?
Thomas would ride the day out. If he heard something he’d say nothing. He’d do only the fair work on his desk. At five he’d shed the Crawford bibbing in the changing room and slip on his coat and hat. A glass of water would be nice. Perhaps some more water to splash on his face and wake him up for his journey. It’d be good to get home. When the doors shooshed open he’d be swept into the street with the rest of them and he’d tuck into the wind, lean hard against it, and start the long walk back. See you, he’d say, to anyone listening.
With luck, his boy will be waiting at the door when he comes home and Thomas will gather him up and take him inside for his dinner and bath. Tonight he’ll sit with the boy over food at the low wooden table he’d once built. There’ll be the usual chores and the materials to be readied for tomorrow’s trip to work. Everything in the house just so, the surfaces sponged clean with soap, and he’ll certainly be sure to remember to lock the door tonight.
It will feel especially good to remove his clothes and pull on his night shorts and sleep shirt. They are soft and always clean and this is an outfit he loves to wear.
Off with the lights downstairs and a story read aloud at the foot of the lad’s bed. A story about a horse who is lost for such an incredibly long time. The horse grows old and forgets it was ever lost and the girl who has lost the horse becomes a distracted adult, too busy to say anything nice to anyone. Until one day she is reminded of her horse and she weeps and thinks of the wonderful times she had as a girl. On the day the horse dies, thousands of miles away from her, the girl, a young woman now, stirs in her sleep and suffers a terrible dream.
After he reads the story, a last check of the house and a shush and a kiss to the boy before shutting out his light. His son’s eyes will shine for a moment in the darkness, and Thomas will, as is his habit, wait there in the silence of the doorway and listen for a softly whispered “Dad.”
And even if June is already in bed and plugged into her machine by the nurse when Thomas comes into the bedroom, well, he will still lower the bed guard, lift the wires, and crawl in next to her, if just for a moment.
When the streetlights sizzle out finally and the cries from his son’s room grow quiet, he will take the moment for himself, he will take it and hold it and try not to squeeze so hard that he kills everything that is beautiful about it. These are the most perfect seconds ever delivered to the world, aren’t they? It is like someone has packaged them in a soft bag that you can unwrap until they flow over you. Quiet, with cold air, and everyone else so wonderfully hushed, when all you can hear is the far-off singing that has always meant everyone around you, every last creature, is doing fine. What a perfect time it is to be alive, a great time to breathe in the sweet air.
He will hold himself perfectly still next to his sleeping wife and listen so hard it hurts, until all sounds but his own breathing are vanished from the air, and then Thomas will sit up and look at his Juney.
“I missed you today,” he will say.
And then Thomas will lean over to kiss his wife good night.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the editors and early readers of these stories: Heidi Julavits, Denise Shannon, Deborah Treisman, Jordan Pavlin, Andrew Carlson, Andrew Eisenman, Deb Olin Unferth, Matthew Derby, Rob Spillman, Ben Metcalf, Halimah Marcus, Sumanth Prabhaker, Marty Asher, John Freeman, Ellah Allfrey, and Bradford Morrow.
For insight, generosity, and friendship, thank you to Michael Chabon. Thank you to Sam Lipsyte, for everything. Thanks to Matthew Ritchie and Anne MacDonald, Artspace Books and Madras Press. To Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, thank you for the space and time. Thank you to Chris Doyle and Michael Sheahan for the most ideal space of all.
To Peter Mendelsund: Thank you for your beautiful work.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Marcus is the author of three books of fiction: The Age of Wire and String, Notable American Women, and The Flame Alphabet, and he is the editor of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. His stories have appeared in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Granta, Electric Literature, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Tin House, and Conjunctions. He has received the Berlin Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, three Pushcart Prizes, and the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York with his wife and children.
Other titles by Ben Marcus available in eBook format
The Flame Alphabet • 978-0-307-95751-1
Notable American Women • 978-0-307-42705-2
Visit: www.benmarcus.com
Like: www.facebook.com/Ben.M.Marcus
For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com
ALSO BY BEN MARCUS
The Age of Wire and String
Notable American Women
The Father Costume
The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories (Editor)
The Flame Alphabet
