Neighbors: A Novel Read online

  "I didn't know you were acquainted with him," Enid said with an apparent hint of jealousy. "I looked after him all day while they were moving in."

  "I wish you had told me," Keese said in a severe tone.

  Enid simpered at Harry. "They spoil him awfully." She used that affectionately chiding tone which was the favorite style of certain women associated with Keese in his childhood, though not his own mother.

  Harry responded in such a solemn voice that his joke was not instantly apparent. "I want him to have every advantage I was denied as a young dog." He then silently showed his teeth to Keese: they were in proportion to the rest of him, i.e., large. "Well," he said then, rubbing his palms together with the sound of sandpaper on cinder block, "let's tie into this food before the sauce congeals."

  Keese began to worry about Ramona. He wanted to get his meal put away before the matter of the car intruded. "Should I look for your wife?" he asked Harry.

  "If you want to," Harry said, sinking his hands merrily into the first of the bags, "but you'll have more to eat if you don't!"

  Given Ramona's slenderness, this seemed an empty threat. Keese hahaed politely and let himself out the back door.

  Even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw Baby coursing through the back yard: its white fur caught the illumination from the kitchen windows. Therefore he had damaged nothing but Harry's car, which was enough, perhaps, but at least it was not a thing of flesh and blood. Wolfhounds, however, gave Keese the creeps: it was that weird curve made by their back and hind legs.

  "Earl." It was Ramona's voice, at his elbow. "Baby survived."

  "That's fine," said Keese. "I'm glad he's O.K."

  "Mum's the word on the car."

  "Excuse me?" He could hardly see her; her olive skin and the lilac turban did not reflect much light.

  "I realize it was an accident," said she.

  "Then you saw it?"

  She pressed against him, but not with any intimate part that he could feel. She seemed to be enlisting him as a coconspirator. "Happen to anybody."

  She was certainly being good about it. "Look here," said Keese, "I'll take care of it. Least I can do. It's awful of me, but I'm afraid I was actually too embarrassed to confess. Isn't that terrible? It wasn't the money or anything—I want to pay the damages now. It was pride, I suppose. Do something so stupid—well, it's hard for me to admit it before other people, especially ones I have just met."

  "It seems to bother you much more than it does me," Ramona assured him. "But, if you insist, I'll accept your kind offer. Fifteen hundred should take care of it."

  "Fifteen hundred!"

  "Look here," said she, "I think I am safe in saying that fifteen hundred is a conservative estimate."

  He saw the time had come to be completely literal. "The fact is, I'm sure that your comprehensive insurance will cover most of it. What I meant was that I would pick up the 'deductible,' which is probably a hundred dollars or so."

  Ramona smiled at him. "You're speaking of the car, I think. What I mean is your own trouble. What was that, vandalism, malicious mischief? I won't go into the motive why a man would push someone else's car down a hill."

  "Do you mean—" Keese forced the words through almost closed teeth. He was both furious and frightened, and he would not have been able to say which emotion was foremost.

  "I can't believe it," he said. "You're blackmailing me?" He had never expected to use that word in real life: it seemed too cinematic.

  "Well, wouldn't you, if you had somebody cold?"

  Despite his anger he believed her question to be authentically ingenuous. She was a terrible young woman, but he could not find it in himself to declare her evil in a positive sense. He decided to explain himself. He told her of Harry's trick in borrowing the car and pretending to get the food from a restaurant when actually he cooked it himself, and how rolling the car into the Keese driveway was supposed to pay Harry back in the same coin. "So you see," he concluded, "there was no criminal intent, nor am I a maniac who ruins valuable property willfully."

  She peered at him for a long moment. "How far would you go to avoid humiliation? That's what I always think when I look at somebody like you." Again, detestably, she tweaked him in the rump, snorted, turned, and went indoors.

  He found it impossible to follow hard upon her heels. Instead he called to Baby, but though the wolfhound approached him immediately it soon skittered away. He preferred cats because with them there was never any pretense that they would come on call.

  When he entered the kitchen at last the three of them were seated at the table, tucking into the spaghetti. It amazed him that Enid had not emptied into a decent bowl Harry's paper bucket, which bore the printed name of a takeout-chicken business; nor had she provided proper glasses for the red wine from the jug he had brought along. The trio were drinking from Styrofoam cups.

  Alcohol was what Keese badly needed at the moment, so badly that he abandoned his plan to go as far as the dining room and get a wine goblet from the cabinet there. He seized a spongy white cup and splashed it almost full of wine. He drank it all in one lifting of the hand, three swallows. He was no connoisseur; wine for him was merely a less damaging source of alcohol than spirits, less fattening and in general less obnoxious than beer.

  "Help yourself, Earl," said Harry, coarsely shoving the spaghetti bucket towards him. He had tomato sauce at the corners of his mouth. More than one strand of pasta had strayed from bucket or plates onto the usually spotless lemon-yellow tablecloth. There were wine stains as well. It was, in truth, a loathsome place, and they were, all three of them, including Enid, feeding like beasts.

  It disgusted him to watch them, but suddenly he was overcome by a violent hunger, and he seized a plate and, from a standing position, heaped it with a cargo of spaghetti. He would have eaten it while erect, but all three of them lowered their cutlery at this point and he was brought to his senses by their disapproving stares. Depraved as they were, they evidently had some values they would preserve.

  He hooked a chair leg with his toe, pulled it from the table, and sat down, all without the use of his hands, which held the plate high and level, as if it were some sort of offering he was taking to an altar. He lowered his face and forked into his mouth the slippery ends of a clump of pasta and then ingested them by suction: a style he had not used since boyhood and not then with impunity if his parents were near.

  He was being deliberately provocative. He washed the spaghetti down with a draught of wine from the new cupful to which he had helped himself. He could hardly bear to look at Enid, who usually was an impeccable diner and ate like someone in a movie, i.e., as if contemplating the Platonic idea of food and not actually filling the belly. Now her mouth was encarmined with tomato sauce, and as if in sympathy her eyes were bloodshot. There was a wine stain on the collar of her beige blouse at its bustiest protrusion.

  "I see your appetite is good," said he, "despite the absence of chicken or antipasto." He turned to Harry, to deliver the telling thrust: "I must call up Caesar's and commend the chef."

  Ramona swallowed and said: "That's a mob place if I ever saw one. You know how you can tell? Look at the name on the laundry-service trucks and the deliveries of soda."

  "Naw," said Harry, "that's not a good way."

  "Yes it is!" cried Ramona.

  "You're full of shit," Harry said quietly.

  Ramona quailed, though he had not suggested physically that he would touch her. "O.K., O.K.," she whined, putting up her hands as if to fend him off, "I don't want to lose my teeth over it."

  Keese looked to see how Enid was taking this, and was interested to note that she seemed oblivious to all but her spaghetti.

  He tried again with Harry: "Were they crowded this evening?"

  "What?" Harry wrinkled his nose and resumed chewing.

  "Caesar's!" shouted Keese, who now could smell blood. "Friday night, the only place in town. I imagine they're turning them away in droves."

&nbs
p; Harry's eyelids became heavy and fell. "Earl," said he, "knock off this line. You probably called them and found out they haven't opened for business yet. But does that give you something on me?"

  "I think it does," said Keese, glad that the matter was in the open at last. He took another pull at the wine, which he had begun to feel by now.

  "All right," Harry said, leaning back from the table, his arms thrown wide. "You've nailed me. By your lights I'm a liar, is that it?" He pointed. "But with a little charity towards the human race, you might not be so quick to condemn. Maybe in all good faith I went down to Caesar's and found they were closed. So I got a bright idea: I bought some spaghetti and a jar of meat sauce and cooked them up myself."

  "Where?" asked Keese. "Everything's shut at this hour. And where'd the wine come from?"

  Enid spoke at last. "Earl, this is disgraceful! You let a new neighbor provide us with dinner, and if that isn't enough you insult him while wolfing it down. Have you no decency whatever?"

  "No, Enid," Harry said protectively, "I don't mind confessing to Mr. District Attorney. You know that little Mom 'n' Pop deli? Across from the movie theater and next to the Singer Sewing Center?"

  Keese took his time, sucking in spaghetti, and he polluted his napkin further: these serviettes would have to be discarded when the meal was done; never could they be washed clean. Then he said: "Harry, I don't say this lightly. But there is no deli in the village. There is a proper grocery or market, self-service. But even if your terms were badly chosen—two youngish Italian-American brothers own this place—the establishment is not situated where you say, because—and I'm afraid this is devastating—there is no movie theater and there is no Singer Sewing Center in the village."

  Harry smirked and said: "You wouldn't want to put money on it?"

  "No," Keese said wearily, "I wouldn't, because it's too ridiculous. I've lived here for more than twenty years, and I know that village absolutely. You might be thinking of Allenby, except that I know of no such arrangement over there either. They certainly don't have a movie, for one, and for another, a round trip of nine miles is too much for you to have made just now and also have time to cook the spaghetti."

  "What do you expect me to do, then?" asked Harry. "Beg your pardon, as if I'm guilty of some horrible crime? Has anybody been hurt? Isn't this meal just about as good as any you've had in the routine wop restaurant, if it comes to that? So what's the difference?"

  "That, Harry," said Enid, with an affectionate look at the large blond man, "is precisely my point."

  "Anyway," Harry added, "it's just your word against mine."

  Keese now came to suspect that it was all an elaborate joke on Harry's part. His own sense of humor was rather too keen to appreciate such foolishness, but neither was there reason to make an ugly thing of it. The spaghetti was O.K., and the jug wine was ideal for such swilling. He and Enid had had no rousing plans for a Friday evening in many a year. If they had dinner guests, or were entertained, it was invariably on Saturday night. They had a small, fixed corps of local friends, and except during the winter holidays nobody participated in more than one social event per weekend since reaching, most of them, their mid-forties.

  Thus it might be inspiriting to forget the petty occasions for annoyance and have a bit of gala now with younger companions.

  "My gosh," said Keese, "aren't we serious?" He chose Enid to ask: "Where's your sense of humor?" To Harry: "I'm ribbing you. Listen, I'm sincere now, welcome to the neighborhood, if it can be called that, but we do have garbage pickup." He felt slightly drunk.

  "Why did you say that?" asked Ramona, who was to his right.

  "To show you that we aren't exactly in the wilderness," he answered. "And there are a few people worth knowing hereabouts. We have a little circle of kindred souls, and generally eat dinner at one house each Saturday. Tomorrow night it's at Marge and Chic Abernathy's: I'm sure we could haul you along." It was an unfortunate phrase; he understood that the moment it emerged. He was usually more careful, and he didn't know why he was not now.

  Harry closed his eyes and shook his head from left to right.

  Ramona said: "Yuhkkk. It sounds awful."

  Enid smiled across the table and said: "It is awful, dear."

  Trying to fit in, Keese said: "It can be painful if too much coconut and banana come into play, in some South Seas concoction, but fortunately that's rare enough. But if the food is good, I enjoy myself and I don't mind admitting that I do."

  Harry appeared to be offended by this. "Well, I don't," he said, flushing angrily. "Your suggestion stinks, Earl. Forget it. We don't want to know any of your boring friends. The people who live in areas like this are deadly."

  Keese made mild objection: "Of course, you've just moved here, haven't you?"

  "I may be in the country," said Harry, "but I'm not of it."

  "Do they have any fairs around here?" asked Ramona. "Where they do things like see which bull has the biggest balls?"

  Keese couldn't help flinching. "This isn't the real country," he explained. "This is mainly commuting territory. The locals are small trades- and service-people, not farmers."

  Enid, holding a sagging forkful above her plate, spoke solemnly to her husband: "Can't you see how offensive it is to our new friends to persist on this subject?"

  "O.K., O.K." Keese grinned, though in fact he felt ill used. He was amazed to see that Enid continued to stare reprovingly at him, and he watched helplessly as a thick droop of spaghetti developed from the underside of her fork and got heavier, heavier—yet did not fall.

  "Well," said she at last, speaking through pursed lips, "we're waiting."

  "Waiting?" He had no sense of her aim.

  "For an apology, Earl." Now, when in anger he looked away for part of a second, the spaghetti fell onto the tablecloth with a loathsome plop, and the excess of tomato sauce in which it was swathed burst in droplets and one or two reached the back of his hand.

  "I should apologize for inviting somebody to dinner?" Keese shook his head. "Come on, Enid." He turned to Harry and Ramona. "Excuse us, folks. Must be embarrassing for you. Suffice it to say that if you were insulted, I regret having been the cause of it. I certainly had no evil intention." He looked into the middle distance and really addressed himself: "This is crazy."

  Harry shouted: "That does it!" and pushed his chair away from the table. He stood up. "I don't have to take this, Keese. Let's go outside and settle it man-to-man."

  Keese was frightened by the irrationality of it: that was far worse than the threat of taking a beating from Harry, large as he was.

  "Please calm down," he said. "I don't quite understand what it was I did, but I apologize for it, Harry. I apologize for everything." He tried to keep his mind off the prospect of having these wretched people as neighbors, if they were so terrible on first meeting. He was aware that most men could be placated by being flattered on their size and strength, and therefore he proceeded to do this with Harry and furthermore denigrated himself in a lighthearted style. "Do you think I would take you on, anyway? I'm no fool. You look like a professional athlete. I haven't touched my toes in twenty years, you know." He waited for Harry's cold expression to change, and when it did not he was irked. The man was fifteen years younger than he, a head taller. It was monstrously unfair of him to challenge a man like Keese. In fact it was a kind of cowardice.

  In despair Keese finally said it: "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

  Of all things (Keese thought it possible that Harry would be further enraged), Harry winced as if he had been slapped in the face. "Wow," said he, breathing heavily, "you don't call your punches, do you? I think you suckered me with that one. I guess I do seem like a skunk, leaning on a little old fat guy. O.K., I'll ask your pardon. Gee, you're old enough to be my dad."

  Keese smiled in the bitterest irony. Apparently if he fought back in any way he would be punished severely. Nevertheless he could not forbear from saying, "You mean, your grandfather!"
r />   Harry winked at him and silently mouthed some words, which to Keese looked like: I'll get you for that. But he couldn't be certain, nor could he understand why Harry wanted revenge on him. Until he remembered destroying the car. But Harry didn't yet know about that, did he?

  He decided to lance the boil, if it was the right one; he couldn't stand a continuation of this bad feeling. "Look," he said, "it isn't easy to say this, but about the car—"

  Harry's wide shoulders slumped, and he sat down violently. "Insurance will cover that," said he. "But even so, it was my fault and I feel lousy about it."

  Keese put out his hand. "Just a moment. Your fault? Hardly."

  "See, I thought it was in gear," Harry said. "The grade isn't that much, either. So I didn't set the brake."

  Keese smiled and shook his head. "No, no, Harry, you see—"