Uncommon Type

by Tom Hanks

  —

  In the dying light of that first afternoon, the street quieted down as everyone broke for various family suppertimes. Bette fed the kids ham slices and a salad of lettuce and tomatoes that had made the move from the condo. Earlier, Darlene Pitts, the mother of Keyshawn and Trennelle, had brought a basket of flowers picked from her own garden along with a card asking Won’t you be my neighbor? As they were chatting on the porch, her husband, Harlan, showed up with two big bottles of Sprite and Diet Sprite. Together they gave Bette the rundown on some of the neighbors.

  “The Patels have first names that hurt my tongue,” Harlan joked. “I call them Mr. and Mrs. Patel.”

  “Irrfan and Priyanka.” Darlene shot a look at her husband. “And would it hurt you to learn their kids’ names?”

  “Actually, yes it would.”

  These were Bette’s kind of folks.

  Darlene rattled off the names. “Ananya, Pranav, Prisha, Anushka, and the youngest boy is Om.”

  “Om, I got,” Harlan said.

  The Smiths over there gave away apricots from their tree by the bushel. The Ornonas over there had the ski boat that never left their driveway. The Bakas family in the big blue and white house had huge parties every Greek Easter and if you didn’t show up the family would bring up your absence for the rest of the year. Vincent Crowell operated a ham radio at all hours. His was the house with a huge antenna on the roof.

  “And Paul Legaris teaches science at Burham. The college. Has two older kids.” Harlan reported. “Heard his son is joining the Navy.”

  “A teacher,” said Bette. “Thus the footware.”

  “Come again?” Darlene asked.

  “He gave us a ham in flip-flops. On his feet, not on the ham. I thought a man wearing flip-flops in the middle of a weekday was, you know…”

  “Comfortable?” said Harlan.

  “Unemployed.”

  “No classes in session in August.” Harlan sighed. “I envy a man in flip-flops on a day like today.”

  Pop! Bette saw Paul on campus, between classes, sitting on a bench on the quad, surrounded by coeds, pretty girls who had Legaris for Introduction to Biology, and he was always so free with his time. One of those coeds was sure to have a thing for older men in positions of authority, or so Paul Legaris hoped.

  The warm summer evening beckoned the kids back out onto Greene Street as Bette cleaned the dishes, then headed upstairs to find linens and make the beds. From the window of the bedroom shared by Dale and Sharri, Bette saw Paul wheeling a large tube out of his garage—his aforementioned telescope—on a hand-made dolly, aided by some kids. By the time darkness fell completely, Bette had plugged in her Bluetooth speaker and paired it with her phone so Adele could provide a mournful score for the evening’s chore of lining closet shelves and untangling hangers. Bette was still organizing dresser drawers when she heard one of the kids slam the front door and stomp up the stairs.

  “Mom?” Eddie yelled, coming into what was going to be his room. “Can I make a telescope?”

  “I admire your spunk.”

  “Professor Legaris made his own telescope and it’s amazing to look through.”

  “Professor Legaris, huh?”

  “Yeah. The man who lives right next door. His garage is full of amazing stuff. He keeps a bunch of wires and tools in a big wooden thing called a chifforobe. He has three old TVs with knobs on the side of them and a sewing machine you have to pedal.” Eddie jumped onto his bed. “He let me look into the Cosmos, whatever that is, through his telescope. I saw the moon and, like, a shadow of the sun was covering part of it.”

  “I’m no professor, but I think it’s the shadow of the Earth.”

  “It was funny. With just my eye, the moon looked like it was being sliced out of the sky, but through the telescope, you could still see the cut-up part, but it was red. Craters and everything. He made the telescope himself by hand.”

  “How do you make a telescope?”

  “You get a round piece of glass and grind on it for a long time, then make that part shiny, then put it on one end of a tube, like for carpets. Then you buy eyehole things.”

  “Lenses?”

  “Opticons, I think he called them. He teaches a class on how to make your own telescope. Can I?”

  “If we can find a tube, like for carpets.”

  The kids went to bed late that first night on Greene Street, but having spent so much energy running around they all conked out, pronto. Before she could forget, Bette put three dollars under Sharri’s pillow in exchange for that tooth, the fairy being rather flush with cash.

  The day finally over, Bette opened a bottle of red, red wine and called Maggie, telling her about all the neighborhood kids, the Pittses and the Coke connection, and yes, her vision of Paul Legaris.

  “What is with your luck with men?” Maggie asked.

  “It’s not my luck,” Bette said. “It’s the men. They are all so sad. So obvious. So desperate for a woman to define them.”

  “Desperate to fuck you,” Maggie deemed. “And there you are, right next door. If he comes over next time smelling of some Rat Packesque cologne? Bolt the door. He’s after you.”

  “I hope he’s aiming for his students. Teaching assistants. Sorority girls.”

  “Those could get him fired. The hot divorcée who moved in next door is legal game. He may have binoculars trained on your windows right now.”

  “If he does he’ll see Eddie’s Star Wars curtains. My room is on the other side of the house.”

  —

  As August yawned deeply into its dog days, Bette avoided contact with her next-door neighbor, not wanting to hear Are you doing anything tonight? again. She drove home, scanning Greene Street for signs of Paul Legaris. Once he was on his front lawn and he waved as she pulled into the driveway, calling out, “How you doing?”

  “Just super, thanks!” she said. She hustled inside like she was very busy with something when, in fact, she had nothing going on. Another time, there he was watching the neighbor kids kicking footballs in a game called Pig on the Fly, so she grabbed her idle phone and pretended to be on a call as she went into the house. Paul waved at her, but she just nodded back. During the evenings she feared the doorbell would ring and there he would be, freshly showered and smelling of Creed, asking if she wasn’t doing anything, would she be interested in dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory? She had once taken her dentist up on that very offer. He turned out to be such a narcissistic bore she changed her dental care provider. Around then she declared an Armistice in the Dating War, and now she was hell-bent on keeping her new life on Greene Street void of attachments and thus disaster free.

  As it turned out, the kids saw more of Paul Legaris than she did. He was washing his car on a Friday evening (who washes a car on Friday evening?) when Bob picked them up for his weekend of custody. Bette showed her ex-husband around the lower floor of her new house as the kids packed their weekend bags, then she watched as they all piled into Bob’s car. Paul came over when Eddie wanted to introduce his dad to the guy who taught Cosmos at the college. The two men chatted longer than necessary, Bette decided. When Bob and the kids drove off, Paul went back to washing his car. Though she did not have a vision about the exchange, she wondered if the two men had compared notes on, well, her.

  The next morning Bette slept in, wonderfully late on a Saturday morning without the kids. She came down the stairs of the quiet house barefoot, in a pair of yoga pants and a light cotton hoodie, carrying her iPad.

  “Hey, big boy.” In bare feet she steamed up her morning elixir, taking it out to the backyard before the sun broke over the roof and the heat became too much. She took her iPad with her; it seemed like years since she had used the thing anyplace other than in bed. She sat in a plastic Adirondack chair under the backyard tree, scrolling through back issues of the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday magazine, then lingering too long on the Daily Mail website, when she heard klock klock klock klock klock.

  A woodpecke
r was doing the woodpecker thing somewhere.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  She scanned the branches of the trees for a sign of the bird but found none. Klock klock klock klock klock.

  “Persistent fives,” Bette said, counting the klocks.

  She looked at the exterior of the house, happy she didn’t see the bird damaging the siding by digging for insects, then came again klock klock klock klock klock.

  The sound was coming from over the fence, from Paul Legaris’s backyard. The tall fence—which even on Greene Street made for good neighbors—blocked any view of next door, save the higher tree branches. There were no signs of Mr. Peckerhead up in them, but the klock klock klock klock klock sounds kept coming, which made Bette curious. She wanted to see how big this woody-bird was, so she moved her chair to the fence and stood on it, hoping to see the bird in action.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  Paul Legaris kept his backyard neat and organized, with a vegetable garden with drip irrigation and beanpoles. An antique plow, rusted and in need of a horse, sat in the center of a patch of grass beside, incongruously, an array of solar panels. Toward the back of the yard, distant from the patio, was a massive brick BBQ and one of those freestanding, mail-order-catalog hammocks.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  Paul himself was sitting at a picnic table on a redwood deck under a sloping canopy, already dressed in his uniform of baggy shorts, polo shirt, and those flip-flops. His too-cool eyeglasses were set on the top of his head, and he was bent in concentration over a hunk of machinery that looked like it had been made in the 1800s.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  The machine was a typewriter, though it looked like no typewriter Bette had ever seen. The thing was ancient, something out of the Victorian era, a mechanical printing apparatus with hammers arcing onto paper rolled into the carriage. Paul hit a key five times—klock klock klock klock klock—added a touch of oil to the inner levers of the typewriter, and repeated.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  This was how Paul Legaris could ruin a peaceful morning on Greene Street, servicing a writing gimcrack straight out of Jules Verne.

  Klock klock klock klock klock.

  “Yowza,” Bette mumbled. She went back inside for another jolt of caffeine and stayed there, reading her iPad in the relative quiet at her kitchen table, still hearing the muffled klocking of her neighbor’s ironclad word processor.

  That afternoon, when the sun was turning Greene Street into both the frying pan and the fire, Bette was on the phone with Maggie.

  “So he’s got telescopes and typewriters laying around his house. I wonder what else,” Maggie wondered.

  “Old toasters. Dial telephones. Washtubs with wringers. Who knows?”

  “I checked some of the dating sites on the Web. Couldn’t find him.”

  “CreepyNeighbor.com? SadSacks4U?” Bette was looking out the front window when an unfamiliar car pulled up across the street—one made in Korea the color of red nail polish. A young man, the driver, got out along with a girl a few years younger, no doubt his sister. As they walked across the street, angling toward Paul Legaris’s front door, Bette recognized the Legaris gait in the boy.

  “Kid alert,” Bette told Maggie. “Guess who just showed up.”

  “Who?” Maggie asked.

  “Pretty sure it’s the offspring of Professor Lonesome next door. Son and daughter.”

  “They showing tattoos or Birkenstocks?”

  “Nah.” Bette eyed the kids for signs of youthful rebellion or oddity. “They look normal.”

  “Normal is a setting on a washing machine.”

  The girl let out a squeal and ran toward the front door of the house. Paul Legaris was heading for her when they intersected on the lawn. She took him in a headlock and bulldogged him into the turf, laughing. The son joined the fracas, two kids dog-piling on the father they had clearly not seen in a while.

  “I may have to call 911 soon. I think a separated shoulder is due,” Bette opined.

  That night Bette, Maggie, and the Ordinand sisters met for dinner at a Mexican cafe made of cinder block and with paper shades over the lights, a place so authentic they were afraid to drink the water, but not the margaritas. The night filled with laughter and stories about former husbands, lousy ex-boyfriends, and men who lacked both common sense and sanity. The talk was fun and saucy, much of it about Paul Legaris, none of it flattering.

  When her Lyft driver dropped her off at Greene Street, the sky had been dark for two hours and once again the telescope had been wheeled out onto Paul’s front yard. His car was not in the driveway; his kids were manning the search of the heavens. Bette was making straight for her door when the son’s voice reached across the driveway.

  “Good evening” was all he said.

  Bette gave a nod and made a sound like g’deve but didn’t slow.

  “Wanna see the moons of Jupiter?” This was the girl asking. “Smack in the middle of the sky and cool as hell?”

  “No, thank you,” Bette said.

  “You’re missing one gorgeous show!” The girl had a voice like Dale’s, open and friendly, prone to enthusiasm over the smallest things.

  “No eclipse tonight?” Bette was getting her front door keys from her purse.

  “Those are infrequent. Jupiter is out all summer long,” the girl said. “I’m Nora Legaris.”

  “Hi. Bette Monk.”

  “Mother of Dale and Sharri and Eddie? Dad said your kids are a hoot.” The girl headed Bette’s way, stepping onto the driveway. “You bought the Schneiders’ house. They moved to Austin, the lucky punks. That’s my brother.” Nora pointed to the telescope. “Tell Ms. Monk your name!”

  “Lawrence Altwell-Chance Delagordo Legaris the Seventh,” he said. “You can call me Chick.”

  Bette looked confused, like a woman with three margaritas in her, which she was. “Chick?”

  “Or Larry. Long story. You want to see what Galileo saw centuries ago? Changed the course of human history.”

  To wave off such an invitation, to flee into her house, would have been rude, very un–Greene Street. Nora and Chick were charming kids. So Bette said, “Put that way, guess I better.”

  Bette crossed the boundary of her house into Legaris territory, her first ever visit. Chick stepped back from the telescope, offering Bette access. “Behold Jupiter,” he said.

  Bette put her eye up to the lens at the open end of the carpet tube.

  “Try not to bump the telescope. It should be lined up right.”

  Bette blinked. The glass of the lens brushed her eyelash. She couldn’t make any sense of what she was looking at. “I don’t see a thing.”

  “Chick,” Nora sighed. “You can’t say ‘behold Jupiter’ and fail to have Jupiter beholdable.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Monk. Let me see.” Chick looked through a much smaller telescope mounted on the huge carpet tube and made adjustments up and down and left and right. “Bang solid fat as a goose!”

  “I sure hope you behold Jupiter now,” said Nora.

  With her eye again so close to the lens her mascara could have marred it, Bette saw, at first, nothing, and then a brilliant pinhole of light. Jupiter. Not only Jupiter but four of its moons in a straight line, a single moon to its left, and three to its right, as clear as could be.

  “Yowza!” Bette cried. “It’s as clear as can be! That’s Jupiter?”

  “King of the planets and the Jovian moons,” Chick said. “How many can you see?”

  “Four.”

  “Just like Galileo,” Nora said. “He put two bits of glass in a brass pipe, pointed it at the brightest object in the Italian sky, and saw just what you are looking at. Slammed the door on the Ptolemaic theory of the universe. Got him in some hot water.”

  Bette could not take her eye away. She had never looked deep into the Cosmos and seen another planet with her own eyes. Jupiter was gorgeous.

  “Wait till you see Satur
n,” Chick said. “Rings and moons and the whole shebang.”

  “Show me!” Bette was suddenly hooked on celestial views.

  “Can’t,” Chick explained. “Saturn doesn’t rise until very early morning. If you want to set your alarm for quarter to five, I’ll meet you here and line it up for you.”

  “Four forty-five a.m.? That will not happen.” Bette stepped away from the telescope and those Jovian moons. “Now, explain Chick to me.”

  Nora laughed. “Abbott and Costello. The skinny one was Chick in one of their movies. We watched it about a thousand times and I started calling my brother by it. Chick stuck.”

  “Better than La-La-La-Larry Le-Le-Legaris.”

  “I get that,” Bette said. “I was Elizabeth, along with seven other girls in fourth grade.” She looked at Jupiter again through the telescope and once more marveled at the sight.

  “Here comes the old man.” Nora saw the headlights of her father’s car coming down Greene Street. Bette thought to bolt for her front door, but to do so now would be such an obvious dis that she waved off her flight instinct.

  “What are you punks doing on my lawn?” Paul said, getting out of his car. Another fellow, a redhead not much older than Chick, climbed out of the passenger seat. “Not you, Bette. These two scalawags.”

  Nora turned to Bette. “Dad uses words like scalawags. Sorry you witnessed it.”

  “This is Daniel,” Paul said, pointing to the redheaded fellow, who, Bette could not help but notice, was very, very thin, possibly malnourished. He was wearing clothes that were brand new and surely not of his own taste, he wore them so uncomfortably. The kids exchanged greetings and Bette said hello.

  “You have the Big Guy in sight?” Paul looked at the gas giant in the sky. “Daniel, you ever see Jupiter before?”

  “I have not.” With no other comment, Daniel stepped to the big tube and looked into its eyepiece. “Wow,” he said with no expression.

  “Bette? You have a gander?” Paul asked.

  “I did. Made me say yowza.” Bette looked at Nora. “Sorry you witnessed me saying yowza.”

  “Yowza is good,” said Nora. “A catchall superlative. Like big-time or super-duper.”