from above, had the outline of a plumped square, like the tube of an old black-and-white television set. In the fifties, those conjoined curves had been the shape of the future. Peter thought about Indian-chief test patterns, the Monsanto House of the Future at Disneyland, and how such curvilinear dreams had become part of the deep and forgotten past.
Their past.
Phil liked old black and white movies best. His taste in music was even more conservative than Peter’s: Bach and Haydn and Mozart, no rock, just big bands and fifties jazz up to early Coltrane. No Monk, even.
For some reason, it was taking time to get used to the idea that he had the house to himself. He kept thinking Phil would show up and grin and apologize, and then show him around, pulling books from shelves, removing their plastic bags to fondle his many little treasures.
Materialism, with a difference. Give me ideas, stories, music. Forget booze and diamonds, forget women. Pages filled with printed words and grooves in vinyl are a guy’s best friend. So Phil had once told him.
Peter found the kitchen. He filled a plastic glass with water from the tap. The sideboard was neatly piled with clean dishes. No cats or dogs, that was a blessing. Phil had never been enthusiastic about pets. Most of the cupboards in the kitchen were stuffed with old pulp magazines, G-8 and His Battle Aces, The Shadow, thick compound issues of Amazing Stories. One small corner shelf was reserved for cereal boxes and three more plastic glasses. The refrigerator held a six-pack of cheap beer, vanilla pudding cups, yogurt, clam chowder in plastic pouches. White foods.
Phil loved mashed potatoes.
Peter searched for coffee or tea. He needed something warm. Finally, he found a jar of instant coffee and a mug, right next to each other on the window sill over the sink. He put on a saucepan of water and set it to boil. Then he pulled up an old-fashioned step stool and sat with a whuff, wiping the long drive from his eyes with a damp paper towel. He did not want to sleep in the house, but there wasn’t enough money left for a motel. The couch did not look inviting. Peter could not just sleep anywhere these days. His muscles knotted if he lay down wrong. Finally, cup in hand, he turned on all the overhead lights in the kitchen and hall and the back bedrooms, inspecting each one until he came to Phil’s. More shelves, mostly new and empty, as if waiting to be filled. It was not a mess; it was actually pretty neat. Spartan. Someone had made up the queen-sized bed. Phil never made his bed.
Peter gritted his teeth. Lydia did not say where they had found Phil. The room did not smell. Still, he decided against sleeping in here. He took blankets from the hall closet and reluctantly settled on the couch. The window looked slantwise across the Bay at San Francisco, framed by two willow trees farther down the road. It was a beautiful view.
‘Jesus Christ, Phil,’ Peter said. ‘If you come back, I’ll punch you. I swear to God I’ll punch you right in the face. You should have told me you were sick.’
He was so tired. Against all his intellectual rigors, all his best intentions, he was still hoping to find Phil somewhere in the house. Hoping to grab one last minute together. ‘Where are you, buddy?’
He finished the cold coffee. Caffeine had little effect on him, but he doubted he would be getting much sleep tonight. ‘Come on, Phil,’ he cajoled, his voice like a small bird in the big living room. ‘One more time. Show up and give me a heart attack. Don’t ditch me.’
Peter leaned back and pulled up a small wool blanket. He kept rolling around on the old cushions, pushing his legs out as his knees felt antsy. Sleep came, but it was uneven. Finally, awake again and bladder full, he got up, stumbled around the boxes, and walked down the long hall. Never afraid of the dark. Never have been. Empty dark. He touched his way along the wall to the bathroom door and turned right.
A small plug-in nightlight illuminated a claw-foot tub, a round-mouthed porcelain toilet, and a standalone corner sink that must have dated from the teens or twenties. He lifted the toilet lid, unzipped his pants, and peed. Sighed at the relief from the sharp incentive nag. Not as bad as some his age, but still. Jiggled the stream around with childish intent, roiling the water. The little things we do when facing the big things, the imponderables. Peter softly sang a Doors song, ‘This is … the end … beautiful friend.’
His stream finally faltered and he shook loose a few drops, harder to get the last dribble out, a small indignity, meaningless in the face of that awesome and final one. ‘My only friend … the end.’
Something passed the open door, black against a lesser dark. Peter’s last squirt splashed on the floor. Half asleep, he stared in dismay at the puddle, zipped quickly, then bent to dab it up with a folded piece of toilet paper.
What?
Glancing left, he lowered the lid. His fingers slipped and the lid fell with a loud clatter on the ceramic bowl. Crap. Tell the world.
He poked his head through the doorway and looked up and down the hall. His eyes were playing tricks. He wished Lydia, somebody, anybody, would pop out and go, ‘Boo!’ just to show him how ridiculous he looked and sounded. How much he was betraying his vows to be skeptical.
He might be doing it again, deceiving himself, hoping beyond hope, beyond the material world, and if it kept on this way, sliding into this painful, hopeful retreat from the rational, he knew where it could all lead: straight into another case of Wild Turkey.
Trying to find the one who did it. Asking for Daniella. One last conversation with my daughter, oh my God.
Something moved again in the hall, making not so much a distinct sound as a change in the volume of air. Now Peter was sure. Someone had come into the house while he was sleeping – not Phil of course; a burglar. He reached into his pants pocket, feeling for the knife he sometimes kept there, and did not find it. It must have slipped out in the car or on the couch.
He pushed open the bathroom door with a, this time, deliberate bang and stepped into the hall, looking both ways. Dark left, dark right. ‘Whoever you are, get the hell out,’ he called, hands clenched.
Peter had no tolerance for burglars. He had been robbed often enough – the house four times, his car three times. People who stole deserved no mercy as far as he was concerned.
He found an antique button switch and pushed it. The hall light came on. Empty. The door at the end of the hall, leading into Phil’s bedroom, was open just a crack. He stood for a moment, listening.
Someone crying. The sound could have come from outside, from another house. But there were no houses close enough, not here at the end of Hidden Dreams Drive. Peter could feel heat rising again behind his eyes, steamy. Tropical. Such a weird sensation.
He realized he was making little hiccupping gulps as he finished his walk toward the end of the hall, Phil’s bedroom. The door’s closing had been blocked by wire hangers hooked over the top. He was astonished by how clearly he saw everything in the light of the hall fixture: wallpaper pastel flowers in diamond patterns, dark-stained baseboards, antique oak floor, worn oriental-design runner rucked up and curling on one side, boxes on the left stacked almost to the ceiling, WEIRD TALES 1943-48, the bedroom door and the hangers again, the darkness beyond the crack.
It sounded like a woman crying, soft, silky sobs, voice like dusty honey. Not Phil, then, of course, and probably not a burglar. A lost little girl, maybe. Some out-of-it doper marching around late at night. Peter forced his breath to slow. Maybe it was someone Phil knew, a lover come back to pick up her toothbrush, her underwear, her jewelry, as unlikely as that might be – Phil had kept so much
