Glen Hoggarth

  “How’s summer school?” Glen asked.

  “Chinese is fucking deadly, especially without Justin around to help. Why’d he have to fuck off back to Taiwan, eh? I need him.”

  “He’s got a Chinese wife there.”

  “She doesn’t need any help learning Chinese.”

  They stood face-to-face, Glen taller but slighter by far.

  “I haven’t got anything for you,” Bill said.

  It took a second for Glen to catch on. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “The bookstore job didn’t pan out.”

  “I see. That’s a shame.”

  “There’s not a lot of part-time stuff floating around.”

  “Okay, I see.”

  “University takes all my energy, so I can’t work full-time. It’s tricky because if I fuck up this summer, it could wreck my plans to graduate next year. I don’t want to do another year of summer school. You know how it is, right?”

  Where the hell does that leave me? Glen wondered. What was he supposed to do, according to Bill Decker—the selfish, thoughtless, smug bastard? Give in and forget the fucking rent altogether? Yet, Glen couldn't honestly say that he knew how it was. No, he didn't know what being poor or broke felt like. The wealth Martha had piled up in the revenue property business meant he had attended university without financial worries. In that sense, good fortune had been his since birth. He had got plenty of breaks, a whole lifetime-full.

  A guy like Bill Decker deserved one too, didn’t he?

  “I’m gonna keep looking for something part-time,” Bill said.

  “That’d be great,” Glen replied, backing out of the doorway.

  “I wanna make a start on the rent soon.”

  “Fantastic. Great.”

  That night, Martha called.

  “Since you haven’t phoned lately, I’m assuming everything’s hunky-dory.”

  “I’ve got everything under control.”

  “Mind telling me what everything is? Maybe I can help.”

  “No, really, there’s nothing. Thanks for asking.”

  “Just don’t wait until it gets to be too much.”

  “Right, Mom, right. There's nothing.”

  “Nothing has a way of turning into something.”

  “Just give me a break! Things are fine.”

  “Boy, as bad as that.”

  Martha’s nettled humor was one thing—it merely irked. But a searing Marthian rebuke was something else entirely: Glen knew he absolutely could not end up a liar or, worse, a lying fool. The measures he took from this point on had to equal the problem. Anything less would be disastrous. Christ! His mother always called when things were going badly. She had the uncanny ability to gauge his stress level wherever she was then call to pester him.

  The woman lived inside his head like a tumor.

  Chapter 12

  Glen sat at the kitchen table, waiting for sounds of movement in the basement. It was early morning but this time frayed nerves wouldn't let him delay the visit until later; he had to go down first thing and not come back empty-handed. At eight thirty, he heard footsteps which were accompanied by a faint tremor in the floorboards—his tenant was up! He was fucking up! Glen besought his Maker: Please make Bill come through for me today. Make the impossible happen. Make the rent happen. Even a couple week’s worth would be pretty amazing. Heading down the steps he felt wretched, like a condemned man. A firing squad awaited down below.

  After standing at the door and knocking on and off, Glen’s mind grew more alert. An odd vacantness whispered to him. The house had a hollowness to it. He dashed around to the side, the front and then the far side, stooping to peek into each window as he passed. Dishes were stacked beside the sink, a can of beans and loaf of bread from the evening before. In the bedroom a pair of socks lay strewn over rumpled bed covers. Only the windowless bathroom remained hidden from scrutiny. Could Bill be waiting it out in there—but why on earth would he do that?

  No pickup truck peeling away from the curb, no figure in flight down the street, but Bill Decker was definitely gone. Fucking hell! Glen took a deep breath and peered inside the knee-high windows once more. What he'd thought he had noticed at first glance now was clear as day. Not only was his tenant gone but he was gone for good. His hats and two pairs of shoes no longer sat side-by-side inside the door. The bedroom closet had been left open, the hanger rod all that was left. Glen remembered thinking about taking measures equal to the problem posed by Bill Decker. Apparently, Bill had been thinking along the very same lines.

  Back upstairs Glen picked up the phone. The conversation started off garbled: he was unable to provide a coherent account of events. He referred to Bill as Justin absentmindedly.

  “You wouldn’t tell me what was going on,” Martha said, “though I invited you to do so several times. Now deal with it yourself. Jesus Christ! I have health issues!”

  “Okay, Mom, but how?”

  “It was your decision to keep this mess to yourself. Now you know it isn’t smart to keep secrets—at least not from me. Haven't I always just tried to help?”

  “Yes, okay.”

  Martha paused to add drama her words, a verbal posturing she often indulged in. The breath on the other end of the line licked at Glen’s innards like a blue flame.

  “I’m too old to be chasing tenants or, for that matter, putting right the messes you create for yourself. You know I haven’t been well.”

  “Yes, I know that.”

  “My bones are bad. I'm always in pain.”

  “Of course.”

  “Jesus, every job has its downsides—no job is easy. And you’re only managing the one apartment right under your nose.”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “You said you’d manage it.”

  “Yes, I did I think.”

  “So do it!”

  “Okay”—he'd hate Martha for the rest of her fucking life!

  “You’ve needed something like this.”

  “Yeah, probably.”

  “Now just grow up.”

  Glen hung up and punched another number into the telephone. To remove himself as far away as possible from the perfidious basement, he curled up on his bed in the attic. Here only the roof and shingles, and perhaps a smattering of sparse clouds, separated him from his odious Unmaker. Why be passive about it and wait for God to send an invitation? Why wait around for more of the same dreary deal? He could easily unmake himself right now and save himself decades of tedious sick psychology. Suicide, jumping off a bridge, sounded pretty good.

  A light-knuckled rap summoned Glen back downstairs. There was Russell standing on the porch. “Shit, this isn’t good. Just look at you, you're green.”

  “Turn away, please, if I sicken you.”

  “It's a good thing you called.”

  “I'm feeling ill over this whole mess.”

  A few sympathetic words was all Glen needed. Some distraction to help him get out of his head for a while. They might rent a movie, drink some beer—much beer.

  “When does Justin get back?” Russell asked from the armchair. “Kick the bastard out of the apartment and cut your losses. Know better next time.”

  But Glen knew eviction involved arbitration which rarely favored the landlord. And even if the landlord won the case, that didn't mean he could right away chuck Bill Decker's belongings out of the apartment. A bonded sheriff had to be hired to handle the tenant's possessions, the fee for which was prohibitive. Martha would flip out over the expense.

  “Did Justin know Bill was going to pull this stunt?” Russell asked. “I mean, they're friends, right? How much do you think you can trust this Justin guy?”

  Glen mulled over the question. There had been a whole nine months to evaluate what kind of person Justin was. Maybe he had been blind to Justin’s real nature the whole time.

  “I know nothing about him. Not really.”

  “What did I tell you about tenants.”

  “I have one tenant and he fucks me ove
r.”

  “Your mom beat you up over this?”

  “She keeps hoping I'll be another her. When that doesn't happen …”—If only Martha would die in a car accident. Walk under a falling piano. Blood tests: inoperable cancer.

  “Well, fuck it. She's not being realistic.”

  “She can be harder on me than you.”

  “You shouldn't let either one of us get away with it.”

  Russell noticed the oil painting on the wall above the TV set. It depicted the Garden of Eden, the two soon-to-be banished lovers cowering under a leafy tree. The Tree, in fact. God was hectoring the pair from above—limpid sky, ethereal clouds, God's white tresses fluttering in the breeze. He and a gang of cherubs swept into the foreground aboard flowing red drapery.

  “This is new,” Russell said. “Kind of interesting.”

  “It’s from the pool house. My dad's.”

  “I haven’t seen this one.”

  Adam—eye-catching, dynamic—was the star of the painting. His statuesque physique curved gracefully as he pleaded his case. Meanwhile, Eve languished in the work's bottom corner, arms plump as a grandmother's and knees pressed modestly together. In spite of all the drama, she looked strangely unfazed. Glen adored the pair’s unabashed nudity; under the Italian master's brush, the naked body was something voluptuous, worth celebrating in bold, pleasure-seeking coitus. This was the usual Renaissance style.

  “Is it too much for the living room?” Glen asked.

  “It does kind of take over. It belongs in a church.”

  “It's museum standard.”

  “It belongs in the mansion of some old rich people.”

  Russell was now leaning forward. “Are those tiny winged cabbages?” In the painting three cherub's heads—golden-haired and rosy-cheeked—hovered at tree level. In the corner below there was a lamb, a lion, and a horse, each animal symbolic of something.

  “Honestly, I have no idea.”

  “Your dad painted fat broads a lot,” Russell commented. “I think they're hot, only this one could maybe use implants. A big woman needs jugs to go with everything else.”

  “That was their time's ideal female beauty.”

  “Was your mother ever fat?”

  “Tall, never fat.”

  “So your dad only fantasized about fat broads.”

  Eve's pink toes and plump, dimpled knees. Her curvaceous, big-boned legs, which were her most attractive feature. Glen imagined their marble smoothness.

  Sliding a hand along a soft thigh.

  Chapter 13

  Glen made out a low-cut scarlet dress, bare shoulders, and sandy blonde hair. Whoever this woman was—rapping nonstop on the door—upon seeing Glen appear in the doorway, she lowered her arm back down to her side. And what a lovely arm it was, too. One straight out of a classic Italian painting. Voluptuous, Glen saw.

  She huffed, “How long does one have to knock?”

  But Glen’s jealous bed had been reluctant to set him free. The cozy mattress, those warm bed sheets and pillows: their soporific embrace. Glen had then drifted half-awake down the stairs and needed a moment to pluck up the courage to answer the door, for the hard pounding had struck him as sounding hostile. Now, to avoid embarrassment, he lied.

  “Sorry, I had my earphones on.”

  The woman glared defiantly. “You just got out of bed and it's eleven-thirty.” Her lips were painted bold war-paint red. Her eye-catching hair cascaded over her shoulders like sheets of lustrous silk. Then there were the clothes she wore. Even to a fashion-ignorant beholder like Glen, the dress she had on appeared to be lifted from the pages of a fashion magazine. To his eyes, the cut fit perfectly her both ample and amply curved dimensions.

  Blue eye shadow, aquamarine eyes. Stylish footwear to match the outfit. Here was a woman who knew how to create a look, only—something odd—the right weather for a summer dress had already long gone. It was late October, quite chilly. Nobody wore thin cotton now.

  The woman maintained a sturdy stance on the porch, as immovable as a tree stump. “Are you Glen?” she asked. “I’m Doris Keppler. I’m here about Russell, your friend.”

  “Russell?”

  She barged in without warning. Suddenly they were face to face in the living room, Glen’s back turned to the open door as if he were the brazen intruder. “Let’s get right to the point,” she said. “I regret disturbing another person’s privacy but Russell has been missing for five days. That’s quite enough now, don't you think?”

  “He’s missing?” Glen began a muddled count of how many days had passed since he last saw his friend. Not sure he could manage on the spur of the moment, he left the task for later. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “What do I mean? You’re asking me?”—Doris's poise wavered. Glen saw that he had somehow scored a direct hit, badly wounding her feelings. But he hadn’t intended to be hurtful. He felt completely at a loss. Partly, his brain was still asleep.

  “You might help me just a little bit. You might try.”

  “I don’t understand,” Glen said. “What’s going on?”

  “He isn’t here. That’s your story?”

  “Why would you think he's here?”

  “Don’t simply deflect my questions with questions of your own.”

  “But I’m afraid you and I—we’ve never met before, and I don’t even know how you’re connected to Russell. Am I not getting something here?”

  Doris shook her head with matronly severity. There was something peculiar about her.

  “If you’re somebody he knows,” Glen continued, realizing he was repeating himself but unable to stop, “that still doesn’t mean you—could you fill me in a little? I'm pretty confused right now to be honest.”

  Doris nodded, as if having confirmed her suspicions. “He’s here, I'd say. You've got Russell tucked away somewhere. Upstairs maybe?”

  “Is there a reason he should be hiding from you? If there is, I’d like to hear it.”

  An appalled rage, poisoned betrayal, then further injury; Doris grew moist-eyed, her body again recoiling from a blow accidentally delivered. All in a matter of seconds.

  “Please,” Glen said.

  “There’s no reason for him to hide since I can’t change a thing. Nevertheless, he should treat me with a little human kindness and deal with me respectfully before moving on. A person can’t just trample over another person—over any other person—like he has me.”

  “I see. Of course, not.”

  “He’s here!” Doris seethed. She spun around and looked capable of barging the rest of the way into the house. “I know I’m in the right. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Glen hurried to block her advance. “Russell isn't here, like I said. But if you leave your phone number, I’ll definitely have him call you.”

  “When?”

  “When it suits him, I guess.”

  “He has my number.”

  Regardless, Doris unclasped her bag with a vicious twist. Pressing a slip of paper on the wall, she jotted the her number down. The contour of her marble-sculpted arm led to the rise of her breasts. Marvelous, stunning, Glen observed. Even overwhelming.

  “Have him call,” she said.

  “I certainly will.”

  Glen was now wide awake. No sooner had he shut the door than he grabbed his phone out of the change bowl. On his lips were the words, Who the hell is Doris? Why would she show up here? Did you really give her my address? As the phone rang, he parted the curtain to look outside. Doris was on the corner, looking out of place in the street. Far too voguish.

  Russell's phone had been switched off.

  The land line. Nobody answered.

  Glen called Russell's parents. But they hadn't heard from their son for almost a week, not that that was anything unusual. “Tell him to give his mother a quick call sometime,” Russell’s father said. “She’s starting to get a little curious.”

  Chapter 14

  The next day Glen yearned to call Doris. He had not
hing to lose—nothing, nada, not a damned thing. To spur himself on, Glen told himself that if Doris didn’t sound friendly when she first answered the phone, he would simply hang up and drop the whole idea.

  Everything was set. There was no reason to feel nervous; nevertheless, the sense that he was re-enacting his shy teenage years rattled his confidence. He hesitated and began cursing himself. At his age, a grown man, he should be able to call someone of the opposite sex without dying twice over for it. Finally, shame became anger, sparking a grab for the phone.

  “Hi, Doris, can we meet?” he blurted out.

  “Beg your pardon? Who is this?”

  But she knew who it was. She did.

  “It’s Glen Hoggarth. You dropped by my place yesterday.”

  “Hello, Glen. Meet did you say? Do you have any news?”

  She spoke with the same aloofness. Now, however, distinctly cheerful.

  “Russell hasn’t turned up and he’s not answering the phone for some reason. But would you be open to getting together for a coffee?” An absolute silence greeted the invitation. “A quick cup somewhere. Just to chat,” he added.

  “I guess we might meet—once. So, no word?”

  “Like I said, none. But he often goes off the radar for a while.”

  “I must admit I'm seeing Russell's dead body washed up on the shore somewhere. I have these awful nightmares. Would you say he’s the suicidal type?”

  “Really, you’re thinking suicide?” Yesterday, Glen recalled, Doris had accused Russell of running off on her, even hiding out in his best friend's house; today Russell had thrown himself in the sea. What had changed over the last twenty or so hours?

  “You think that’s silly?” Doris asked.

  “It’d never have occurred to me, that’s all.”

  “That's comforting. You'd like to meet, you say?”

  “When you have free time. Even today if you can.”

  Short notice but Glen hoped Doris would agree.

  “Would you be a gentleman and come out to Surrey? It’s the Whalley area, actually, where I live. Surrey, as you probably know, covers quite a large area.”

  “No problem. I live right near a Skytrain line.”

  “I’m in one of my states. I can't go far from home.”

  “I'm more than happy to make the trip.”

  “It isn't a normal way to be. But I can't be stuck on the other side of the river with no place to go. If something should happen—some terrible event—I need to be close to home.”