Neighbors

by Thomas Berger

  Harry asked Enid: "Can you believe this? That a civilized man would be so devoid of common decency?"

  "Talk about someone with a bias!" said Keese. "Listen, you quarreled with Greavy about the price, you said. What was his reaction?"

  "I didn't say we quarreled. I said we disagreed. He stuck to his position, I to mine, and he shrugged and drove away."

  "You mean the old man?" asked Keese. "What about the son?"

  "He was in the toilet."

  "Well, there you are," Keese said. "He was starting the fire. It's clear enough to me."

  But Harry would not submit to reason: he stared defiantly at his neighbor. "First you hated my being in what you call your neighborhood, and then, when I try to leave, you stop me. What do you want, Earl?"

  "I just wish you acted right," said Keese. "That's the only thing I've ever had against you, Harry. It's like that breakfast thing. I didn't even want any pancakes until you brought up the subject. Why did you mention them if you weren't going to make them after all? What's the point? To ingratiate yourself at that moment, to hell with the next? But the next always comes, doesn't it? And it reveals you as a liar."

  "Earl," said Enid, "is this the time to be moralistic with Harry? He just lost his home."

  Harry said: "That's when old Earl swings the boot—when a man's down."

  Keese realized that there was some justice in the complaint. "O.K.," said he, "but I am being accused of arson. I'm going to defend myself. I tell you it was the Greavys, one or the other. They are degenerates. Funny, I didn't realize that until last night, though I've dealt with them for years."

  Harry put his head on the side. "You're serious about this, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am," said Keese. "The old man hit me without warning in the pit of my stomach, and the son threatened me."

  "First I heard of it," said Harry, with a puzzled look at Enid, who shrugged in return.

  "Earl," said she, "why not have a bit of breakfast?"

  Keese looked back and forth between them, as if they were playing table tennis. "You don't believe me, do you? Either of you." To Enid he said: "Yes, I'll have half a grapefruit, a lot of bacon and eggs, toast with butter and jam, and coffee."

  "Uh-huh," said she.

  "You don't have any food, do you?" he asked harshly. "You've taken up Harry's style. Some nerve!"

  Enid rose and silently stole away.

  "All right, Earl," said Harry, "suppose I believe your theory? What should I do?"

  Acting on it had not occurred to Keese. He was momentarily embarrassed by the question—a failure which could do no good for Harry's sense of his reliability. "Well," he said finally, "we can at least tell the fire inspector of our suspicions."

  "Ours?"

  "Mine."

  A noise not loud but massive came from outside. Keese left the house by the kitchen door and looked across to Harry's property. The building burned heartily, but a good deal of it was still there. The heat cast by the fire had increased, and the firemen continued to hose down Keese's house. They had pushed his car around back, and they had wet it as well and soaked the garage.

  Keese went to Doc. "I thought I heard something."

  Doc held a bullhorn and gestured with it. "Second story fell onto the first."

  "Who runs the drugstore when you're here?"

  "The boy. I'm semiretired anyway."

  "You're doing a great job keeping my house out of it," said Keese. "Thanks, Doc."

  "'Chief,'" said Doc.

  "Sorry. Chief—say, could I get you a cup of coffee?"

  The chief said nobly: "Not when my boys don't get any. And you wouldn't have that much." He had everything well worked out.

  "I'll have my wife make enough," Keese said. He went inside and told Enid.

  She sighed. "You won't believe it."

  Keese looked at her and his eyelids drooped. "You don't even have any coffee, do you?"

  "All out, I'm afraid."

  Keese blinked. "No humiliation is too petty to be denied me." He then noticed an absence. "Where's Harry?"

  "He's looking for Elaine."

  Keese felt a rush of terror. "Oh, no, he doesn't!" he cried, and went rapidly in search of his neighbor.

  He found Harry in the upstairs hallway, lingering before the closed door of the master bedroom. Keese felt vulnerable when he remembered his moment with Ramona, though in all truth nothing had happened.

  "Harry," he said, "feel free to use the bathroom to wash up. Then take any clothes of mine that'll fit you. My closet's on the left side of the bedroom."

  Harry put a finger to his lips and pointed to the door with another. Keese came near. Harry beckoned him even closer and bent and whispered into his ear: "They're making a pair."

  Keese suddenly understood he meant Ramona and Elaine.

  CHAPTER 13

  KEESE rapped smartly on the door.

  "Yes?"

  "Which one is it?" He couldn't tell who it was from one word.

  "Who wants to know?"

  Keese regarded this answer as insolent. "I am the owner of this house!" Furthermore, he still couldn't identify the person on the other side of the door. All at once he understood why. The speaker was using falsetto!

  He cried: "I demand to know who this is!"

  "It's Baby," said the high-pitched voice. "I can speak only behind closed doors. If you see me, I'll never say another word. I'll just go woof, woof!"

  This mockery caused Keese to lose his patience, and he would have entered the room without further ado had he been able to, but the door was locked.

  "Look at this," he said to Harry, twisting the knob.

  "They certainly seem to be hitting it off," Harry said.

  Keese boiled over and attacked the door with both fists. "Get out, get out, get out!" Somewhere along the line he remembered the inner door that opened into the bathroom. Could it be that they had overlooked it? He pounded once more for good luck, then dashed at the bathroom door. He had, from his angle, assumed it was ajar, but when he reached the entrance he found the door to be not only shut, but locked! In other words, they had themselves a little self-sustaining private suite under his roof.

  "Look at this!" he said again to Harry.

  Harry shook his head. He seemed utterly confused, and of course he was still filthy and dressed in what could be called, loosely, tatters. Keese doubted that Harry would be of much help to him, but it was good to have him there.

  "The damnable thing is," Keese said, "I wanted to get you some clean clothes, Harry."

  Harry shrugged, and then he smiled feebly. "Well, what does it matter, eh, Earl?"

  Keese reflected that there was something noble in the man, to be so stoical in view of all that had happened. "Your luck can't always stay bad," he said, knowing it was a useless banality and in many cases not true: losing was routine enough.

  Keese went back to the bedroom door and shouted at its off-white paneling: "How dare you commandeer the bathroom too?"

  He was answered by Elaine, speaking in her normal voice. "Ramona is taking a bath, Daddy. For God's sake will you stop making a racket out there!"

  He was silent for a moment, and then he said: "I'm ready to drive you to the bus station now. Let's go."

  "That's just a ruse, Daddy," said Elaine. "Besides, I've decided not to go back to school. Actually, I haven't even been enrolled this entire term."

  Keese turned to Harry. "Don't think you're the only one who has lost everything this weekend."

  Harry said wisely: "She's just trying to impress Ramona, Earl. You know how they are—"

  "Who?"

  "Women."

  Keese supposed it made sense. "Harry," he said now, "you're really helping. I wanted you to know that. I've been on my own too much. It's good to have a pal."

  Harry squinted at him. "Sure you didn't burn my house down?"

  "Aw—"

  "Well," said Harry, "who wouldn't be suspicious? If I had left, you would have been the only man at the
end of this street."

  "But I was that before you came," said Keese. "I did not burn your house."

  "I suppose it doesn't make much difference," Harry said. "It's destroyed. Now I've got to decide what to do, where to go. Funny, now that I've got no choice but to leave, I'm not all that eager to do so. This neighborhood is not the worst I've lived in."

  "Good!" said Keese. "I'm glad you're beginning to think better of it."

  "I've been here less than twenty-four hours," said Harry, "but already history has been made—and isn't that what makes a place a home?"

  "Of course," Keese pointed out, "unusual incidents can take place on a vacation."

  "But so many?" asked Harry. "And in such a sequence? We're talking of something more than getting the shits or buying fake antiques."

  "You're right, of course," Keese said quickly. "You've made your mark here already: I didn't mean to cast doubt on that."

  Harry put out his hand. "I know that's sincere, Earl. It took a long time to get around to this, but it's worth waiting for."

  Keese shook hands with him. They were still standing in front of the bedroom door. Keese stuck his thumb at the door. "I'm in a quandary," he said. "I don't know what to do about them."

  "Want me to handle it?" Harry suddenly asked.

  "Would you?" Keese asked Harry. "After all—"

  Harry smiled in a distant way. "Remember, Earl, when I was jealous? How I warned you to stay away from Ramona?"

  Keese shrugged. "Well—"

  "No, no," Harry said, "it doesn't bother me."

  "The best thing I could do now, I think," Keese said, "would be to leave you here. I believe you would prefer to be alone for this job."

  Harry said: "You're right about that, Earl. I'll get everything straightened out in short order, and when I do, I think my plans for the future will follow suit."

  Keese waved at him and descended the stairs.

  Enid was still in the kitchen. When he entered she said brightly: "I found some bouillon cubes!"

  "All right, I'll have a cup then." He drew out a chair for himself. "Listen, Enid, suddenly it has all come together. This is quite exciting, really. It took all these things to happen for a whole new vista to open up before us. God, isn't it strange, though?"

  "You've done enough now to set up suspense," said Enid. "Unless you tell me right now what you are talking about, the result will be an anticlimax."

  "All right," said Keese. "Here it is—"

  And she turned then and began to run water loudly into the teakettle. When this was done she clattered the kettle onto the stove, and then she made crockery noises in the cupboard where the cups were stacked.

  Keese said: "I've decided to murder everybody and commit suicide." Just as he supposed, she went on making a pointless kitchen din. When she put a cup and saucer before him he picked them up and hurled them against the refrigerator.

  "Will you listen?"

  "You haven't become more reasonable throughout the morning," said Enid. "I hope this is not the beginning of another last night."

  "We're going to move to the city!" Keese cried. "And Harry and Ramona are going to live here."

  Enid swept up the fragments of crockery and disposed of them. She brought him a new cup and saucer. On her next trip she dropped an adamantine cube of bouillon into the cup and rushed it with steaming water.

  "I don't hear your huzzas," said Keese, "and no wonder. It sounds demented on the face of it, I grant you." He smiled wildly and took a sip at, rather than of, his bouillon. The aroma was rather more medicinal than beefy. He lowered the cup. "Here's my thinking: we're on the verge of a new phase."

  Enid made some bouillon for herself and sat down at the table across from him.

  Keese went on. "And we are at that time of life when contracting our holdings makes the only sense. Why do we need three bedrooms, or a dining room, or two and a half baths? Why two stories? Why a yard?"

  Enid sipped her bouillon. "Why indeed?"

  "Perhaps you're being ironic," said Keese, "but if you reflect you'll see I'm right."

  "That may well be," Enid said gravely.

  "And this may shock you, but I don't intend to reveal our new address to Elaine."

  "That would be unnatural," said Enid, "but, from your point of view, effective."

  "You're damned right," Keese said vehemently. "She's almost twenty-two. How long are we required to keep rocking her cradle? When I think of the sacrifices we made—"

  Enid frowned. "I can't think of a one."

  "Still, the principle is valid," Keese said with heat. "And we're growing stale here, Enid, with so-called friends like the Abernathys. We belong in a different kind of crowd, Enid: people with more depth but at the same time a lighter touch. Suavity without unctuousness, genial but responsible—I'm sure they can be found, but not out here."

  "And Harry and Ramona will take this house?"

  "Rent or purchase," said Keese, "it wouldn't matter to us. But what a favor to them! Harry is not the world's worst. I may have misjudged him. His ways are a bit eccentric at times, but that can be said of us all. The important thing is that, underneath it all, he means well, unlike so many of the people who pose as friends."

  "You may be right," said Enid, "but he makes my flesh crawl."

  Keese shook his head to clear his ears. He could not have heard that correctly. "I thought you liked him all the while I was having trouble with him?"

  "Me?" asked Enid. "He turns my stomach."

  "Well," said Keese, "you certainly like Ramona."

  "That disgusting little bitch?" Enid made a face.

  Keese did not want to become emotionally exercised again. He had had no sleep for more than twenty-four hours and nothing to eat. This bouillon smelled like kerosene and was already cold. "Then are you saying that we shouldn't turn over the house to these people?" he asked, as calmly as he could manage.

  "No," said Enid, "I'm not saying that at all."

  "Good," said Keese, "because I happen to think that my idea's flawless. It combines self-interest with care-for-others."

  "And perhaps if Elaine is so attached to the place she might rent her old room from Harry and Ramona."

  Keese peered closely at his wife, to see whether she might show a smirk of irony, but her face was expressionless. "Elaine will survive," said he. "I hope you are thinking of the advantages of living in the city: no matter where we are, we'll be near a novelty shop. Various public-library branches have collections that are peculiarly strong in certain subjects: magic, for example, or aeronautics. Scores of educational institutions offer courses in every imaginable subject: bookbinding, the folk dancing of all nations—"

  "I'm not saying your idea is bad," said Enid, after drinking deliberately from her cup.

  "But," said Keese. "I feel a but coming on."

  "I hope you won't take this as a slight," his wife said, "but I think I'll ask Harry and Ramona whether they might be willing to rent a room to me too."

  Keese flapped his elbows, bird-fashion. "Then my plan is out of the question!"

  "You're not moving to the city?"

  "Not alone." He pushed away his bouillon and sighed. "I guess there's nothing I can do for Harry, then."

  "You might have his car repaired."

  Keese scowled. "I'm not looking forward to that: replacing an axle, wow. That won't be inexpensive." He laughed bitterly. "You see—between you and me—I was hoping to do him a favor from which I too would profit. Does that seem so terrible?"

  "Who am I to say?" asked Enid. "Of all people."

  Keese looked narrowly at her. "You've seen my dark side this weekend. I realize that your opinion of me has probably been altered."

  Enid seemed startled. "Certainly not!"

  He didn't know whether he liked that answer. On the one hand it was reassuring, but on the other it might be disingenuous. Of some of his stunts of the night before it would be no more than justice to say he had made an ass of himself, and to pretend ot
herwise did no service to him.

  "I played the fool," he announced now. "This morning I see things in a different light. This idea about moving represented my new approach—not so ponderous, so humorless, so, uh, passive. Why defend this place any further? Who cares? I wanted to turn it over to Harry and get a little apartment in town. But if you say no, so be it."