Melba suspected that she was blathering. She couldn’t make out what she was saying but her voice droned on and on. Don Pond was leading her by the hand, that was the reason. Melba hadn’t been led by the hand in quite some time and had forgotten the loosening effect it had on the tongue.
Don Pond led her through thickening mist into a narrow corridor.
“Did you leave the tea kettle boiling?” asked Melba but Don Pond didn’t answer. Melba slid the fingers of her free hand along the dark paneling that seemed to press in against her. It was damp and rough and when she hooked her fingers they bumped and snagged again and again on little dips and rises. The animal sounds were louder, coming from both sides of the corridor, and from above: chirping, rustling, mewling, rapid, wheezy breaths.
“Here’s the phone,” said Don Pond. It wasn’t a wall phone, the kind one finds in a business, but a phone installed on a horizontal surface, in a small alcove in the wall at chest height, the kind of phone one finds in a house. Melba had never dialed her own number, but it happened to be one of the most common sequences of numerals, and she dialed confidently.
“It’s ringing,” she said. “Hello.”
“Hello,” said Mark Rand.
“Is everything quite alright?” asked Melba. “At the house?”
“You left dishes in the sink, Melba,” said Mark Rand, reprovingly. Melba tucked the receiver more firmly between her ear and shoulder and hunched into the wall, hoping Don Pond couldn’t hear her conversation.
“I didn’t,” she whispered. “One dish maybe. And my coffee mug.”
“Dishes,” insisted Mark Rand. “I’ve documented them. This isn’t the first time, Melba. Have you been watering your plants on a schedule? Don’t answer. You haven’t been. Two of them are dead and the rest are performing poorly. There are no towels in the bathroom. Your bedroom hamper is full of unlaundered clothing.”
Melba squeezed the phone receiver as hard as she could, hunching, and did not respond. She heard Mark Rand sigh.
“Melba,” said Mark Rand. “You may not know this, but many landlords do not provide their tenants with washers and dryers. Tenants don’t launder their clothing, say these landlords. Tenants are unkempt, disorderly people. They refuse to better themselves. I always disagree with these landlords. I provide my tenants with washers and dryers, I say. I give my tenants the opportunity to launder their clothing. I don’t want to see my tenants licking their coats on the street, I say. My tenants are men and women of quality. My tenants smell fresh, I say. It’s a pleasure to stand close to my tenants. Touching my tenants poses no significant risk.”
“I was planning on laundering my clothing just as soon as I could,” said Melba. “I’ll do it right now. I’m on my way home and I’ll launder at once.”
“No!” Mark Rand’s voice was hard. “I don’t want your explanations and promises, and if I did I would want them in writing. Sometimes I think the telephone was invented by a jealous manufacturer with an anti-landlord agenda as an instrument of torture. Manufacturers loathe landlords! Do you know why? Because landlords defy the mercantile system! Instead of obeying the dictates of the market and pursuing their self-interest, landlords selflessly pursue the interests of their tenants! I am speaking of true landlords, naturally, those who dedicate themselves to the broad human purpose of providing their fellow men and women with the benefits of roofs and walls, and in special cases, windows, doors, indoor plumbing, electric lights, etc., etc., and in the rarest cases, washers and dryers, dishes and cutlery, house plants, and precious antiques. True landlords expect to find enemies among the merchants, but it is more than the true landlord can bear when a tenant comes under the sway of manufacturers, plays into a manufacturer’s hands, uses the telephone provided by the manufacturers to plague and harry the landlord just as the manufacturers intended! Tenants should side with the landlord against the manufacturer, but tenants rarely act in their own best interests, which is precisely why they need landlords to begin with.”
“I know I need you!” Melba cried. “I’ve never even met a manufacturer, at least not that I know of. Don’t they wear tall hats? I’m sure I wouldn’t side with a person like that. I wouldn’t have called at all but Don Pond suggested it, I think as a formality, because it’s always polite to call home, not so as to plague or harry you!”
“Don Pond,” said Mark Rand. “Why are you taking suggestions from Don Pond?”
“I’m a guest in his house,” said Melba. She glanced over her shoulder at Don Pond who stood in the attitude of a man who was not overhearing a nearby telephone conversation but was rather immersing himself in his own thoughts, thoughts that were thoroughly amusing. His head was tilted to one side and he was looking up toward the ceiling, smiling steadily through his beard. “When the landlord is not present, shouldn’t the guest take suggestions from the landlord’s tenant? Isn’t that the chain of command?”
“And how do you know that the landlord is not present?” asked Mark Rand. “Is Don Pond’s house so small and devoid of mystery that you can be certain the landlord does not lurk undetected, perhaps in order to test you, and in so testing you, test me, to ascertain what kind of tenant I produce? Taking Don Pond’s suggestions, Melba, you are no doubt failing a test on my behalf. The only way to distance myself from this failure would be to terminate your tenancy.”
“Leslie Duck is Don Pond’s landlord!” said Melba. “Leslie Duck is not present. He left Dan to buy a banana plantation. He must be a thousand miles away, on an island, maybe on the exact island I drew as a little girl. I have no idea where that island is but it was the farthest thing I could imagine from Dan at the time I drew it. I didn’t know anything about the moon back then, or the wormholes that lead you through the galaxy into something entirely unknown and maybe nonexistent, that is, according to the instruments we use to determine if something exists. I’m sure the other side of wormholes exists for the creatures that live there. Leslie Duck probably isn’t as far from Dan as that, who knows if bananas grow on the other sides of wormholes, but he’s nowhere nearby.”
“Who told you that, Melba?” asked Mark Rand. “Think carefully. Who told you that Leslie Duck was far away, farming bananas?”
“Officer Greg,” whispered Melba at the same time that Mark Rand cried out “Officer Greg!” in a tone of exultation.
“That’s right!” said Mark Rand. “Officer Greg, who, as you well know, sleeps on a cot in the Dan Police Station. Who do you think owns the Dan Police Station?”