Break and Enter

by Colin Harrison

  “My mother’s got a place a block down. She suffers from Alzheimer’s, so I live with her. She walks the apartment. I finally had to throw out the rugs—she wore a track right through them. But she’s physically healthy. Least I pay no rent. And rents are going up around here, let me tell you.”

  Peter nodded. “Looks like there’s work going on across the street.”

  “Everybody’s fixing their shit up,” the man grunted in agreement.

  “What’s that big dumpster out there for? In the alley?”

  “For the house they’re rehabbing on the corner.”

  “How do the people next door feel about it?” Peter asked. “All that noise.”

  “Next door is a bunch of fucking neo-Nazi fundamentalists,” the clerk spat out. “House full of them. They come in here and tell me we should have dropped the bomb on Hanoi. Kids, mostly. They think Satan’s giving me a blowjob, so they put me on some mailing list. All those TV preachers send me shit. Hate their fucking guts. But they’re moving back to Odessa, Texas, or whatever place spawned them. Most racist people I ever met.”

  One house down, two to go. “What about the rehab house?” Peter asked. “Owner doing a good job?”

  “I don’t know anything about carpentry. I was a medic, now I work in a grocery. The painters come over here all the time on their lunch break. All women. Bunch of lesbians. I see them hanging on each other at lunch, kissing and hugging and shit like that. A couple of them are pretty goddamn good-looking, too. Hell, I can deal with unshaved armpits, same as the women in Europe, right? You should have seen some of the whorehouses in Saigon. ‘Course some of those places up in North Philly are pretty bad, dirty needles all over—”

  Peter ceased listening, sipped his juice, and felt a sudden ease. That the corner house was being painted by a group of women painters was good evidence that it was where Janice was staying—virtually conclusive, knowing the sociosexual-political spin of the governing ideologies of Janice, her friends, and the shelter. Perhaps the house belonged to the women painting it. He stepped out of the store and returned to the corner house, pausing at the front doorway to listen for the sounds of power tools or hammers or people inside. He heard nothing.

  Would he do it? Yes, of course—he had to. He pushed his way in past the peeling doorframe, sliding his feet cautiously over the dusty floor of the vestibule. He could see the empty living and dining rooms, every wall in both pocked by smooth white stains of joint compound. Wires twisted from unfinished electrical sockets. He moved quickly into the kitchen, hearing his footsteps echo, aware of his escape route. The kitchen appeared to be in working order. Through the back window he saw the painting crew eating lunch at a picnic table in the backyard beneath a half-dead elm tree. The rest of the yard included some leafless forsythia bushes, an ancient cracked patio, assorted trash and rotten lumber and a jungle of runty, untrimmed ironwood trees at the back. One of the painters was unscrewing a Thermos, which meant, he figured, that they had just sat down. They were squinting happily into the oddly warm sun, chatting among themselves. He’d have a few minutes to look around. Dishes in the sink, a box of cereal in the cabinet. He pulled open the refrigerator. The old door stuck, but when he got it open, he saw a block of tofu soaking in a bowl and a pot of tabouli salad. Grapefruit, a jungle of veggies on the second shelf. Bottled water. Janice was here, in all her organically grown, vegetarian glory. Uncooked wheat-germ. Half a bottle of wine. Red wine unlocked in Janice a happy, celebratory lust. She was well moved in. Of course she slept upstairs.

  Someone rattled at the door. Quickly Peter opened his briefcase and pulled out a legal pad. A short, powerfully built woman in a jean jacket and T-shirt pushed open the door. She was lightly speckled with paint and her breasts bounced heavily beneath her thin white cotton shirt. She thrust an empty soda can under the faucet and filled it up.

  “What’re you here for?” she demanded of Peter, looking up into his face.

  “I’m with the real-estate company.” He clicked a pen.

  “How did you get in?”

  “The front door was unlocked,” Peter replied. “But I do have the key.” He smiled easily. From his pocket he drew out his ring of keys, and selected his own house key as if he were very patiently willing to demonstrate to her that he was legitimate. The woman barely looked at it.

  “You know what this place is going to be used for?” the woman asked suspiciously, dumping the water from the can.

  He didn’t know why she was testing him.

  “Yes,” he began, “but I’m not sure if I’m at liberty to discuss it. The owners … have asked me … I, uh, hope you understand …”

  The woman found this acceptable, and even nodded as if she knew exactly what he meant. She refilled the can and opened the back door. Peter motioned to continue the conversation.

  “Before you go, how’s the upstairs coming along? The plumbing was one of the things we—”

  “That’s shot to hell,” she interrupted agreeably. “They’re going to have to tear up a lot of flooring under the tub. The plumber won’t be back till three. Go see for yourself. I got to get back to lunch.”

  She closed the door and strode across the backyard. Peter watched to see if the other painters looked back at the house when the woman arrived at the picnic table. He decided he couldn’t wait and darted up the back stairs through a hall past several empty bedrooms. Janice would take a room with morning sunlight. Hers was the last bedroom, a mattress on the floor—a single: That’s a good sign, he told himself—and a telephone beside it. In the middle of the room sat an old kerosene space heater, the same device the Philadelphia Fire Department hated so much. Who would put that there? In overcrowded slum houses, the heaters had a tendency to be knocked over and start fires. He considered dismantling the heater and buying Janice a good electric one, but of course he couldn’t do that, and instead offered a small prayer that she be careful around the heater. By the phone were stacks of file folders, all shelter stuff. A quick glimpse: funding proposal, architect’s plan for renovation, contractor’s agreement. The house belonged to the women’s shelter—what else would a renovated house being painted by women painters and lived in by Janice using a quasi-secret phone number be? Legal habit getting the better of him, he took his time with the funding proposal. “… need for the establishment of a satellite home, due to the eroding confidentiality of the West Philadelphia address and to our strong desire to serve women in a different part of the city. This unit will comprise temporary emergency facilities for 8 to 10 women and their children. Our effort continues to be crucial and inadequate in a city in which thousands of women live in crisis each day. Referrals and counseling will continue to be centered in the West Philadelphia unit…”

  That explained the renovation, the untagged phone number, and Janice’s new parking habits. He felt disoriented, suddenly full of grief, for Janice had not even mentioned the house to him, even though it must have been at least six months in the planning. She had been preparing to leave long ago, and he hadn’t seen it coming. He wondered if she had thought about her plan while he had been on top of her, sawing away like a goddamned fool, fat-headedly believing she was half-dead with pleasure. Had she thought about her carefully planned stages of escape while they had breakfast? While he told her about office politics? While she chatted with his mother on the phone? While they gave their last dinner party three months back, smiling and making clever conversation with their guests? While she folded laundry, while they argued, while he told her—crying on a few occasions—that he loved her? That seemed impossible, yet it had to be true.

  Sadly, he replaced the folders, pulling his hand away from the cardboard file separators with the strangely disturbing knowledge that he had just left his fingerprints all over them, probably several dozen already in the house, enough for a basic breaking and entering charge. Next to Janice’s perfectly made bed was a clock radio, a ghetto box with a bunch of tapes—her tastes ran to the lyrical and rhapsodic—and a new
journal. Oh, how he knew his wife! Janice’s periodic decisions to completely reorganize her life were often accompanied by her purchase of a tiny spiral-bound notebook or a bound black-and-white-covered composition book, or, when the desire for sweeping change was most acute, a beautifully bound diary of blank pages. These she kept with her until sooner or later she forgot about them, until they migrated to the miscellaneous drawer of her desk, joining a pile of predecessors. Peter picked up the new journal.

  He really must not read it. He really needed to read it. The first entry was dated about two weeks prior.

  —Exercise—run, aerobics class, swim

  —Eat right (950 cal./day), stay away from caffeine, dairy fats

  —Watch money

  —Don’t expect too much too soon

  Saturday: Moved into new unit house today. Needs a lot of work, none of it structural. I’ll supervise renovation and keep the property lived in for the time being. Lorraine suggested this; she knows what’s happened with Peter. And my ambivalence about keeping the apartment. She’s wonderful, the only woman who gives me what I never got from mother, except for Mrs. Scattergood, the other Mrs. Scattergood … I’m going to miss Peter’s mother. So, life will be simple for a while, just going to take care of myself.

  Tuesday: Bad about keeping this journal. Told myself I’d do it religiously, that it would provide a backbone of personal time for the days and let me release emotion. Let me understand what I went through when all this is over.

  Thinking about how Peter’s doing. He’ll grind himself down so that he doesn’t have to deal with it. So annoyingly capable most of the time. He’s been working so hard the last couple of years. I ask myself if he works so hard because he doesn’t love me the way he used to, or is it that he works so hard because he is drawn to it and it just takes away the time and energy for me? Is it something I do? Not worth trying to sort out. I’m just going to let it go. I decided today after meeting with Mr. Brackington to not write in my journal about the divorce proceedings, just put Mr. Brackington’s letters in a file. He’s kind, an older man who lost a leg somehow. Very protective.

  Peter has been good about not calling me. I wonder what’s happening to him.

  Fucking good question, Peter thought.

  He seems almost to despise the work. What stupid irony; he worked so hard to get there, and gave up so much to work for the D.A. I remember one night when I was home early and looking for the checkbook in the den and I came across a stack of his work files, just papers he had thrown on his desk the previous evening—between the two of us and our work, I sometimes think this city is one of Dante’s nine circles of Hell. So much suffering. I guess he didn’t need the files at work that day. It was a trial prep report. I remember I felt curious. I opened up the file and saw this photograph of the young girl they found in the trainyards out by 30th Street. The one who was found under the pile of railroad ties. She and her boyfriend had been arguing, the boyfriend drinking. He killed her, hid the body, was arrested after being questioned. I remember standing in the den thinking that this is the kind of stuff Peter has to deal with each day and he brings it into the house. How can a man think about this stuff and also be thinking about love and raising kids?

  Sometimes I try to touch myself but it seems so uninteresting, so pathetic. We always thought no matter how badly we fought that it would bring us back together. We could be screaming at each other and it was as if we were actually preparing to make love, the anger becoming incredible until either we destroyed each other or made love, which sometimes was the same thing. Foolish. We tried to fill up the emptiness of the other time by getting in bed. The thing I finally understood about Peter was that we underplayed his sexuality. He softened himself, so not to threaten me. I think it scares him. I think he doesn’t understand his own urges. He used to say that one reason he loved me was that I let him go someplace and come back safely. That state where it was all just in one direction, where he couldn’t think. I sort of understand—I translate to my terms, just that warmth all over, feeling so full. But sooner or later the sex goes. It has to.

  More sad truth blasted from the coal mine, chunking its way to the surface for him to inspect, the faulted facts on which he’d been standing. Peter put the journal aside. He’d tried to hug Janice and kiss her and she would go rigid in his arms, like a high-school girl terrified of getting pregnant. He got tired of reaching out and stopped trying to warm her up. That had only made things worse. And as for Janice thinking that he was scared of his own urges—well, he had to hand it to her, she knew him down to the cells in his marrow. Yes, so often he needed either to have sex or to break something or fight. That’s why he loved being in court. You were allowed to fight, to escape from all that pacifist Quaker stuff! The combat was verbal and stylized and played within rules, but you were still fighting, fighting to put somebody away, fighting to soothe the victim’s family. And just fighting for the pure pleasure of disagreeing and slicing up the other guy and generally scaring the shit out of the defendant. How pleasurable it was to fight, to push against an invisible wall of existence, the searching that is sex, just pushing and shoving and trying to drive toward whatever was on the other side … He glanced at his watch, decided to read a few more pages.

  I’m 30 and Mother had a miscarriage at 33. It happened in her bed—she only mentioned it once. I see young mothers and I just want that baby. Almost a hurt.

  Wednesday: The house is coming along. The carpenters rehung the windows on the first floor today. They had to pry out the sides of the frames and get at the long heavy iron weights inside the wall that make it easier to open the windows. The furnace is still not working very well. Tomorrow the plasterer comes. It’s exciting to re-create a house. It makes leaving Delancey Street easier. I just feel small and contained and autonomous here, here amongst the starkness.

  The police electrician came today and wired the house for the police call button. The one at the other house gets used maybe five times a year. But we made a few changes. Instead of in the living room, we’re putting the button in the upstairs office, which is my bedroom for now. It’s done with the phone lines, somehow.

  Thurs.: I weigh 118 pounds. The carpenters are men. We wanted all female crews but it turns out that getting work at the best price means we should hire a contractor who has a crew of men. The foreman’s name is John Apple. He has a marvelous beard, reminds me of a pirate. I trusted him immediately and asked him if he knew the purpose of the renovation. He said he guessed it. I told him to please not inform his crew, and he said this was fine. I wish we could just keep the location an absolute secret, but that’s impossible.

  Friday: Today a woman came in. We did the intake. Twenty-four, never finished high school. Three kids. Kept saying she wanted to return to her boyfriend because she loved him. In the past I’ve tried to give a non-directive response in such a situation, though inwardly thinking the guy is probably a jerk, and hoping she would see that. But today I felt for her. I wanted to cry for her and for myself and for all the screwed-up, best-intentioned love that chokes so many hearts. Why is it hard? I’m not stupid or insensitive. I’m strong and good and Peter is a good man and would give me anything and it didn’t work.

  Had another dream about Mother last night. Following her along a path and trying to keep up. I was young. I remember the espadrilles she used to wear in the summer and the shoulderless summer dress with the big square pockets. I loved that dress. I could bury my face in that dress. I wanted so much to hold her hand. I reached out but her hands were so small I couldn’t hold them. It was like they were far away even though I was almost touching them. I called to her. Mother turned around on the path and looked at me. Her face was perfectly made up, a mask. I always thought Mother was beautiful and now she was so beautiful it hurt me. I said something to her and I could see she was trying to talk. But her face was stuck—I could see the face under her face, I could see her weeping and the contortedness of her brow and yet I was looking at a perfe
ctly calm smile at the same time, like those trick 3-D pictures that flick back and forth. She opened her mouth, to speak, I thought. She stuck out her tongue and there was a razor blade sticking in it, straight up and down. She looked at me. Did she hate me? Then she pulled her tongue back in and smiled at me. Eyes crinkling, lips pursed daintily, hating everything so prettily. I woke up feeling confused, scared. I looked out the window until the streetlights went off. I do miss Peter.

  Saturday: John Apple carried a heavy trash can outside today. He was wearing only a T-shirt and heavy work pants. I like the way his armpit hair stuck out from under his shirt and was sweaty-wet. I started a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Scattergood this evening but I couldn’t finish it.

  Sunday: One of the women at the shelter ran into her estranged husband in front of her child’s schoolyard and he pulled her into his car. She jumped out at a traffic light and pulled her daughter out of the car. A taxi cracked into the car and the child suffered a concussion. The father drove off when the police came and now the child is in University Hospital and her mother is in the shelter, more or less hysterical. All because some jerk yanked her into his car. Today 450 calories. Wasn’t hungry.

  Monday: Almost called Peter last night but told myself why? What is the point? We’ll just rehash. Maybe there’s a chance for us, but for now I’ll continue to go ahead with the divorce. I guess.

  Tuesday: Last night was such an amazing time that I want to get everything down before I forget. I didn’t think it would happen so quickly—

  This was what Peter had worried about. Janice’s handwriting was small and unusually controlled, which meant, he knew, that she was writing slowly and thoughtfully.

  —I was in the kitchen, just back from my run and had taken my sweatpants off. I was sweaty. John came downstairs from the second floor and said, “Miss Scattergood, I’d like to show you something.” There’s something boyish and shy about him. I was all hot from my running and I felt sort of self-conscious in my shorts. He didn’t seem to notice. Maybe I was noticing him. Probably. His back is so wide. I’m used to Peter’s face, which is so fine and sharp. But John has a simpler kind of face, kinder looking, actually. He looks at me and I can tell he feels kindly toward me.