The Land of Steady Habits: A Novel

by Thompson, Ted

  In hindsight these things were always head-smackingly clear, but at the time he figured they would recoup the money when the house was sold. Call him crazy for assuming that since he and Helene were now childless, she might not mind selling their five-bedroom home, and also for assuming that a housing market that had spent the last hundred years going nowhere but up would continue to do so. He had been wrong on both counts, and given Helene’s last-minute demands in the divorce, not to mention his reaction (The house? All you want’s the goddamn house?), it all made his current situation—sitting at a bar in the middle of a workday trying to figure out, for the first time in his life, how to ask a friend for money—seem somewhat suicidally regrettable.

  “Her new boyfriend was your college roommate?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well.” Larry shook his head. “That takes care of that.” He touched his glass to Anders’s pint. “Here’s to the good life.”

  It was their third drink already, and, not surprising for a Monday, the Master’s Sports Bar and Grill was empty. Strings of plastic flags were hanging, left over from the weekend’s NFL games, though now all that was on the bar’s many screens were muted grids of yelling sportscasters. Larry Eastwood was the last friend Anders had made without Helene. He had big, unfashionable glasses, a face of papery pale skin, a wisp of hair that he combed over his dome, and a loud midwestern voice with an accent that had been formed during his early years on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, so his a’s were as flat as if they had been squeezed from the tip of a deflating balloon. For all those reasons, not to mention Larry’s endless stock of bawdy jokes and his astounding inability to know when to leave a party, Helene couldn’t stand him.

  But in the world of finance, a culture of risk addicts with three-inch collar clips and guys who shouted their way onto Fast Money and into early graves, Larry was one of the rare few who had the humility to know when to quit. He’d been an analyst at Morgan, a real virtuoso, and he’d liquidated everything at the height of the market to concentrate on his tomato garden. It was virtually unheard-of, a guy with his reputation and future throwing in the towel, and during the carnage of ’08, which Anders had watched with a mixture of terror and pleasure from his living room, he had often thought of Larry, who’d gotten out at the top with a mountain of cash and had nothing to spend it on but fertilizer.

  “You know what? She may have done you a favor.”

  “How is that?”

  “Because I’ve seen you these past couple of months and you look like shit.”

  “I appreciate that, Larry.”

  “I’m serious. You’ve been walking around with this stricken look on your face like you’ve made some terrible mistake. But we both know you did the right thing. And now she went ahead and made the decision for you. That was a favor, the best thing she could’ve done. It’s time to move on.”

  Larry’s wife had left him over ten years ago for a man who ran a horse farm on Long Island, and though he still spoke to her on the phone every week, sometimes for hours, he often talked about her in the past tense, as though she had died.

  “I followed her to a party.”

  “You what?”

  “I know. It’s just that I was invited and I thought—” Anders wasn’t sure what he’d thought. He’d thought it would be normal. He’d thought he would be accepted. “Anyway, it was a bad idea.”

  “This town,” Larry said, swirling his Jameson. “This place. It’s all ‘sanctity of the family’ and ‘good public schools’ and ‘what’s best for the kids.’ You saw the same thing I did. It’s a life of work, empty work. And by the time anyone figures that out, they sell their house to the next sucker and leave. You of all people know this. How many conversations have we had about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you got out. Stop beating yourself up over it.”

  Larry put a hand on Anders’s shoulder. “Okay,” he said. “I’m drunk. Dinner’s on me.”

  They took Larry’s town car down to Howie’s, the snack bar by the beach, and ate their cheeseburgers as they sat bundled up at an abandoned picnic table. The wind was blistering and there was no one around except for the occasional dog walker. When they were done, Larry reached into his pocket, took out two miniature bottles of Dewar’s, and handed one to Anders. “Like a private fireplace,” he said and sucked half of his down in a single swig. The ocean was gray and lazier than it was in the summer, the whole thing thick as joint compound.

  They sat for a long time, listening to the soft lapping of the waves.

  “I need money, Larry,” Anders said. It sounded so crass.

  Larry looked at him. He seemed surprised.

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t think you’d get caught up in this thing. But I guess everybody got flattened.”

  “No, it wasn’t the market,” he said. Larry waited for him to elaborate. “It’s for Helene.”

  Larry reached into his pocket and cracked another bottle.

  “I lied to her,” Anders said. “I told her she could keep the house, but I can’t afford it, not even close.”

  “How much?” Larry said.

  “A lot.”

  Larry watched the lights from a power plant blink across the water.

  “Jesus, Lar, you know I never thought I’d have to ask. But here I am, and I’m asking.” He sighed. “They’re going to toss her out on the street!”

  Larry nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Whatever you need.”

  Anders took a long scotch-warmed breath. “Thank you,” he said, though he felt like collapsing in the sand. “And it goes without saying this is a loan—I want to make that clear. You know I’ll pay you back for it, every penny, right?”

  Larry stood up. “What is it, Monday?”

  “I guess.”

  “Let’s have some fun. This is killing me out here.”

  Anders held up his bottle. “I’m already having plenty of fun.”

  “No, I mean like real fun. Like forget-your-wife fun. Want to go to a strip club or something?”

  “I’ve had my fill of humiliation for the day.”

  “Gah!” Larry tossed his empty bottle into the wind. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

  They went back to Larry’s car and he turned on the heat, then pulled out of the beach and drove down the quiet streets, watching the lights blink on inside houses as people finished dinner and watched Jeopardy! with their ties off. They cruised down the Post Road, past the boutiques on Main Street and the movie theaters that had been turned into houseware chains. They rolled past the town hall and the newly renovated middle school, with its soccer fields abandoned until spring. By the time they made it to the station, the sun had set and the world was dark.

  There was a line of station wagons and luxury SUVs idling by the platform, cars loaded almost exclusively with women and their children, the map lights on as they read magazines in their laps.

  He hadn’t been here in nearly a year. It felt smaller somehow, and dirtier. The lamps over the platform threw jaundiced light on the few people standing there, domestic workers or affirmative-action prep-schoolers who were headed back to the broken cities up the coast, but otherwise the tracks were empty, a sad industrial stretch that everyone on the platform stared at quietly.

  “What’re we doing?”

  “Wait for it,” said Larry.

  It was hard to believe how important those tracks had been to him at one time, curving off toward the bright center of the city, the umbilical cord that connected his work with its purpose—a house and a family, a project that the larger world seemed to affirm was as meaningful as you could have. It had gone without saying—the tie and the trench coat and the college names decaled to the back of the station car.

  A few moments later the tracks went bright and a silver train blurred into the station. The doors hissed open, spilling dark-coated people onto the platform like a gutted fish. The figures rushed past o
ne another for the exits, then scattered, half of them speed-walking to their cars in the outer lot, half searching, chins up, for their rides, drivers who were waiting for them politely, white tails of exhaust flicking from their cars’ mufflers. The commuters looked angry as they searched for their spouses and children, as though somehow the swarmed sidewalks in midtown and the oversold train had been their families’ fault, as though no matter how hard they worked to maintain homes in this town, they could never, in these first moments back, completely conceal their disappointment.

  The cars disappeared in a line, like a motorcade, and soon the station was quiet and dark again, Larry’s lights the only ones shining on the sandy lot.

  “Miss that?” he said, his blue eyes tracing Anders’s face up and down.

  * * *

  There were all different kinds of inebriation, Larry insisted. There was the sort of buzz you got from a lunchtime sip or two, after which you squinted your way back into the world feeling joyful and empty, and there was the sort of sniveling drunk you descended into on the beach in winter when you were feeling sorry for yourself and downing all your friend’s stolen minibar bottles. But if you could push past that, there was a happiness waiting to be reached that was worth all the trouble—a few healthy pulls of Cuervo with the car windows down as you careened past the twinkly mansions along the sound and you became invincible.

  “Where are we even going?” said Anders. Larry hung a left at the entrance of Fairfield University.

  “A little place I know.”

  There was a stone church, its two ancient steeples lit from beneath, and across a lawn there were dormitories with lit windows that revealed walls of posters and plastic shelving and, in one, an impossibly young boy reading in an empty lounge.

  Larry pulled the car to a stop in the faculty lot. “What?” he said. “It’s open to the public.”

  The bar had all the makings of an actual pub, with a long row of decorative beer handles and a polished oak bar. It even had neon signs in the windows and bowls of popcorn, but since it was attached to the student union, whose bulletin boards abutted its interior entrance, it had a cleanliness that made it feel more like an Applebee’s in an airport. They ordered a pitcher and sat in a corner booth next to the stage, where a man with a walkie-talkie on his belt uncoiled a wire and tested the PA. The place was empty except for a table of teenagers who looked as though they might have been tasting their first sips of beer.

  “Welcome,” said Larry.

  Though Anders understood it was how most of the population had fun, situations that were built around cutting loose and losing yourself for the night only made him feel worse about himself. Once in St. Lucia, after a bottle of wine with a beachside dinner, Helene had talked him into going to the local nightclub, a bumping shack with a pool and a hot tub and a clothing-optional area. After bobbing uncomfortably for two endless reggaeton numbers, he took a seat with his warm seltzer and had to watch as Helene danced for the rest of the night with a local kid in a linen shirt he left unbuttoned to his navel.

  “Let’s hear it for finals week!” said a young man at the microphone who was wearing a cowrie-shell necklace and a baseball cap pulled down so far that you couldn’t see his eyes. There was a smattering of polite clapping; the microphone was turned up so loud that the smacking of the young man’s gum seemed to vibrate their booth. “All right,” he said. “Tonight we have some two-for-one Bud specials going on, and also we’ll be treated to a visit from the Bud girls.”

  The teens at the far table clapped, and two young ladies in shiny red dresses stood up in the corner, waving blinky buttons. They made their way onstage and the taller girl uncoiled the microphone from the stand.

  “All right, you guys,” she said. “Just because there aren’t too many of us here doesn’t mean it can’t be a party.” She pointed at their booth in a way that reminded Anders of all the humiliating audience participation he’d been subjected to—Cirque du Soleil, Blue Man Group, that drag show in Key West. “So stick around, ’cause we have some awesome stuff to give away.”

  “Look,” he said when the girls left the stage and turned up the music. He stood up. “I’m sorry, but I think I’ve seen enough.”

  “Sit down,” said Larry. “Finish your beer.”

  Anders picked up his pint and downed the last of it. “I’ll take a cab.”

  Larry let loose a powerful whistle that cut through the music and brought one of the Bud girls to their corner.

  “I know you,” she said.

  “It’s a pleasure to see you,” said Larry. “Listen, my friend here thinks he’s leaving.”

  “Why would he do something like that?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Well, hmm,” she said and walked over to Anders. “How about another drink?” She smelled of vanilla, with a hint of something earthy, like maybe basil. “It’s on me.”

  It was easier for Anders to take a seat.

  “You know her?”

  Larry smiled. “Heather.”

  Anders knew this was an act. The one time he’d stopped by Larry’s house unannounced, he’d found him out back tending to his tomatoes, rows of leafy pillars that covered his entire yard. He wore soiled chinos and rubber clogs and a white bucket hat, and after he’d described everything that was planted, down to the blends of the compost, flicking gently at the bugs that landed on him and retwisting the occasional wire, he’d taken Anders inside to show him his plans for a greenhouse. Also, Anders had noticed, Larry still had a cloudy snapshot of his ex-wife hanging from his keychain.

  “To your mother, your sister, and your bicycle,” said Larry, as the three of them touched the wobbly glasses of complimentary shots. “Next one’s on me.”

  And so it went, round after round, with Heather taking the microphone every half hour to direct a trivia question to the two tables, and even if they all answered it wrong, they got Budweiser koozies and more free beer. After a few hours, the kids at the other table left and she stopped using the microphone altogether, and since Larry was buying imports and top-shelf stuff, the girls stuck around, relieved, it seemed, to no longer have to talk about Budweiser and to drink for free while still, Anders supposed, clocking the hours.

  And it was nice, the attention. The smaller girl, who said her name was Mona, “like the Lisa,” pinned a blinky button on each of them, set Styrofoam cowboy hats on their heads, and finally reached into her plastic goodie bag, brought out fake mustaches, blond and curly, and diligently stuck one on each man’s face. She did it all with a silent seriousness, never once cracking a smile. It was the way a little girl would play dress-up, placing the granny wig on her father’s head and talking to him between sips from an empty plastic teacup. It reminded Anders of Emma, his granddaughter, who he knew had never felt comfortable enough around him to play, which he also knew was his failing, and not hers, and five or six drinks in, he made a private resolution to set that right.

  “There,” Mona said, standing back and looking at them, the two new cowboys who’d sauntered in. “Wait.” She leaned forward and straightened the mustache on Anders’s lip, touching it with four fingers. “Now that’s right.”

  Heather clapped, and the men smiled bashfully, as though they were enduring something, though neither of them took any of it.

  Heading to the men’s room, Anders looked at his watch. He hadn’t realized how late it was—nearly two—or how much he’d had to drink. The student union was dark, lit only by the exit lights; the music coming from the bar seemed boomy and far away. It was like being in an empty train terminal—it didn’t feel right. There was something about it that he liked, though, the palpable excitement of college that lingered in the smells and the very walls of the building. He felt it in all of these student buildings, these little incubators of generations. He could feel it in the empty pizza boxes and the half-finished coffees that littered the big, dark room. Anders sat down on one of the sofas and leaned his head back. He thought of the info desk,
Helene’s name tag, the night he’d watched her from a distant table, pretending to listen to the Red Sox on his pocket radio. She’d had on a down vest and her hair was in a braid that was on the verge of coming undone. It was an image that made him enormously happy. The beginning. He thought of her in her nightgown at the Longfellow Inn, the smell of those dusty rugs, that big crackling fireplace and his head swimming in youth. That was a good place. That was a pure place. He could go back up there, stay at the inn, try a life as a professor. That would be a new beginning, a bold beginning, and it’s what he would do.

  He reached into his breast pocket and felt the stiff rectangle of Sophie’s card. He took it out and tried to read it, but it no longer made much sense. It was the alcohol and the handwriting and the faded ink. It was the stupid amount of money he’d just asked for and the fact that he couldn’t pay it back and the fact that, in so many ways, Sophie had been right. He crumpled the card in his fist, or tried to, but it was too stiff to be satisfying, so instead he tore it into fresh pieces and let them litter the floor.

  He was spinning. He sat up, a little nauseated. He had forgotten how badly he needed to pee. He walked around a corner, a little off balance, past the dark wall of mailboxes and the red glow of a Coke machine to the blinding light of the men’s room. The bank of urinals was new and gleaming, recently scrubbed with bleach, which lingered in the air, and as he swayed there, he glanced at himself in the mirror. He’d forgotten about the cowboy hat and the mustache, which was again crooked on his lip. He pulled it off.

  Maybe he should grow a mustache. He stepped away and the urinal flushed quietly. He put the mustache back on, pressed the adhesive as hard as he could to his lip, chuckled at its sad lopsidedness, lost his balance, and grabbed onto the door. “Jesus, fuck,” he mumbled, and was answered by the unmistakable sound of a child retching.