Chapter 21
There was no answer to his knock. Harold went around back, entered the patio through the wooden privacy fence’s gate, and got the spare keys from inside the hollow ceramic cherub that was supposed to look like bronze. One key was small and brass and worked the sliding glass door. The other one was a green duplicate for the front door. Back around front he put it in the deadbolt, then undid the knob lock.
Harold went into the townhouse and looked around. Everything was as he remembered. Although it had only been a couple of months, it seemed to him he had been gone longer, and although there was nothing special about the stuff that cluttered it, the place was special. No matter where he ended up, he never wanted to forget the way it was right then. He wished Bonnie had been standing there. He was surprised at himself when he had the thought that this nothing-special townhouse, with exact duplicates on every side, was every bit as special as his grandparent’s house in the country.
Just to be sure she wasn’t there he went through every room and checked, collecting every wisp of loneliness she had left behind when she went. He was used to being outside, and all of the placed he’d been staying had no air conditioning. The condo was cold and the air was stale from cigarettes. That would be my fault, he thought. If either of us smokes we both smoke. He opened the windows as he went and afterward turned off the thermostat.
He realized that she might be home any minute, and decided the smart move would be to not look like a man who had jumped off a bridge, or to smell like a man who lately forgot to bathe and brush his teeth. His toothbrush was still in the stand. He recalled that when he had gone to live at the farmhouse he had left it there and bought a new one. He dabbled on some toothpaste, stuck it in his mouth, and turned on the shower.
With his back to the hot spray he brushed his teeth and tried not to think too much, concentrated on the gunk in the dimples between his teeth and tried to let the stress go. The water was great, and he remembered a song and wished he could recall all of the lyrics but could not. Right or wrong he sang it anyway. At least he had the tune, and he hummed it along until he was ready to get out. There was a towel on the rack and he used it. The mood was gone, the feeling of homecoming, the welcoming, the familiarity. It was very quiet, and his humming was a transistor radio in the Library of Congress.
He stopped humming. A few pairs of pants and a couple of shirts slouched on hangers in the closet for later. There were underwear and socks in the drawer. He put on boxers and for the first time in recent memory he did not flinch and suck in his gut when he passed in front of Bonnie’s full-length mirror. He had lost some weight and he looked better, but the difference was that he felt good in his skin.
Exhausted and comfortable in his body, but in his head a million miles from sleepy, Harold reclined on the bed on his back. The streetlights made the window shades and curtains glow aquamarine, the orange stripes in the curtains going up and down like the trunks of trees. The room was a faerie forest, the occasional headlight outside a will o’ wisp. A zephyr of air made the ruffles on the rocking chair’s trim flutter, and he jumped. Using a trick from childhood he put his forearm over his eyes, imagined the scene that always put him to sleep the fastest.
He was an Eskimo inside a dark igloo, and his family was all about beneath heavy skins to stay warm. The air was crisp and damp, but inside the furs it was snug. Everyone he loved was there and curled up with him, his grandparents behind, Bonnie in front, their little boy between. Someday there would be real child, but for now he imagined playing with his son’s hair, imagined how his breath would sound and smell. This was the image that made sleep come the fastest. Tucked beneath the warmest covers imaginable with his loved ones, the wind and snow arching over them all. It did not work this time.
The image of his sanctuary of snow had not worked. He opened his eyes and stared at the window again. The whole room was aquamarine. When his eyes opened he went from igloo to aquarium. Perhaps imagining waves and calm silent water would work. The peach stripes on the wallpaper became coral, the glow from outside the lights of boats passing overhead. It was working until he thought of the bay, and his eyes opened like clams in a pot.
He could hear the humming of the refrigerator’s compressor, and very faintly the sounds of insects in the shrubs outside the window. No Friday night partygoers pulled in to the complex, no big trucks rumbled by on the main road. There were no sirens, no stereos, no blaring TV sets.
Into the aquarium of the bedroom came the squeak of floorboards muffled by carpet. The delay between them was too long, as if whoever was coming didn’t want to be heard. He almost called out her name, but he was positive it wasn’t Bonnie. He stared at the door and didn’t know what to do. The door was on the side wall on his left, the hallway running out and away around the corner. The creaking stopped. The thought of someone waiting to jump around the corner, or slowly appear from around the edge of the doorjamb, put a hissing in his ears and a chunking in his chest.
“Come around the corner goddamn you!”
Whoever it was ran down the hall, he could hear the banging over he sound of his heart, and he got up and followed. When he burst into the hall he saw movement without a shape go out the front door. He ran and looked out but they were gone. Harold slammed and locked the front door, put his palms against it and let his head hand down, breathing heavily.
It had been the same way when he was kid. When he had a friend over to play he couldn’t stand it when they played hide and seek and he had to slink around the old house or in the yard peeking and searching. Lurking around a corner made the nicest playmate seem sinister. It was too much, the anticipation, the not knowing, he couldn’t stand it, never could.
He jerked at the door without thinking, stopped and undid the locks, lurched out onto the stoop in his boxers and called out, “Gator!”
“Gator!” he called, “Gator!”