“Nice,” said Angus.
No one got out of the car. Angus shot Tommy a bitter look, then took a roach from his pocket, lit it and smoked in silence. When he held it out to me and Tommy, we demurred. I’d become adept at fine-tuning the cocktail of drugs I needed to filter out the world, and Tommy’s school job mandated random drug testing.
“So Tom.” Angus replaced the roach. The hand he’d kept on the steering wheel relaxed somewhat. “Where’s your man?”
Tommy stared at the cabin. His face had that expression I loved, unabashed wonder struggling with suspicion and a long-entrenched fear of ridicule. It was a slightly crazed look, and I knew from long experience what could follow. Weird accusations, smashed guitars, broken fingers. But the alcohol and Xanax had done their job.
“I don’t even care if he’s here or not,” said Tommy lightly, and stepped outside. “Remember when we used to come out to the lake all the time?”
“I do.”
I hopped out and stood beside him. A warm wind blew off the water, bringing the smells of mud and cedar bark. A red-winged blackbird sang, and a lone peeper near the water’s edge. Tommy put his arm across my shoulder, the Folding Man’s map still in his hand. A moment later I felt Angus on my other side. His fingers touched mine and his mouth tightened as he gazed at the cabin, but after a moment he sighed.
“Yeah, this was a good idea.” He looked at me and smiled, then knocked Tommy’s arm from my shoulder. “No hogging the girl, dude. Let’s check this place out.”
Tommy headed towards the front door. Angus walked to the side to check out the broken window.
“Hey.” He grabbed the cardboard by one corner and tried to wrest it from the window frame.
I came up alongside him. “What is it?”
“It’s an album. Well, an album cover. Watch it—”
The cardboard buckled then abruptly popped out from the window. Angus examined it cursorily, slid his hand inside the sleeve and shook his head—no vinyl—then held it up for me to see: a black square with an inset color photo of two guys in full hippie regalia and psychedelic wording beneath.
“Is that T. Rex?”
He grinned. “I always, always wanted this album. I could never find it.”
“You could probably find it now on eBay.”
“I never wanted it that much.” He laughed. “Actually, I totally forgot I wanted it, till now.”
I took the cardboard sleeve. It was damp and smelled of mildew; black mold covered Marc Bolan’s face and cape. When I tried to look inside, the soft cardboard tore.
I handed it back to Angus. “Is it worth anything?”
“Not anymore.” He glanced at it then shrugged. “Nah, it’s toast. It doesn’t even have the record inside.”
“I bet it’s been rereleased. You should get it, it might give you and Tommy some ideas for Estelle.”
Angus grimaced. “Trust me, Tommy doesn’t need any more ideas about goddamn Estelle.”
The song cycle had been my idea. “You’re like a troubadour, Tommy,” I had told him back when his obsession with the broker had spun completely out of control. “Their whole thing revolved around idealized unrequited love. You would have fit right in.”
“Did their whole thing revolve around stalking women at Best Buy?” I remember Angus asked.
“That was an accident,” said Tommy. “A total coincidence, she even admitted it.”
“Did the troubadors ever get laid?” said Angus. “Because that would clinch the deal for me.”
“I think you should channel all this into something constructive,” I suggested. “Music, you guys haven’t written anything together for a while.”
The first songs Tommy wrote all used the woman’s real name.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Tommy,” I’d said when he played me the CD he’d burned from his computer. “Considering the restraining order and all.”
“But I love her name.” He had appeared genuinely distressed. “It’s part of her, it’s an extension of her, of everything she is—”
“You don’t have a clue as to who she fucking is!” Angus grabbed the CD. “You went out with her once before she dumped you. It was like you dated a blow-up doll.”
“She didn’t dump me!”
“You’re right—you were never involved enough to be dumped. You were downsized, Tommy. Admit it and get over it. Lot of fish in the sea, Tom.”
Tommy got over it, sort of. In the song, he changed the woman’s name to Estelle, at any rate.
It remained a sore point with Angus. He turned and skimmed the album cover towards the lake. I walked to join Tommy on the cabin’s front steps.
I asked, “What’re you doing?
“Mail tampering.”
A stoved-in mailbox dangled beside the door. I watched as Tommy prised it open, fished around inside and withdrew a wad of moldering letters, junk mail, mostly. He peeled oversized envelopes away from sales flyers, releasing a fetid smell, finally held up an envelope with the familiar ConEd logo.
“It’s a cut-off notice,” he said in triumph. Angus had wandered back and looked at him dubiously. “It’s got his name on it. Orson Shemeltoss.”
“Orson Shemeltoss? What the hell kind of name is that?”
Tommy ignored him. The wind sent the screen door swinging; he pushed it away, then knocked loudly on the front door. “Mr. Shemeltoss? Hello? Mr. Shemeltoss?”
Silence. Angus looked at me. We both started to laugh.
“Hey, shut up,” said Tommy.
Angus pushed him aside, cracked the door open and yelled.
“Yo, Orson! Tommy’s here.”
Tommy swore, but Angus had already stepped inside.
“It’s okay.” I patted Tommy’s shoulder. “You’re sure this is his place, right? So he’s expecting you.”
“I guess,” said Tommy.
He pushed the door open and went after Angus. I followed, almost immediately drew up short. “Holy shit.”
The room—and what was it, anyway? Living room? hallway? foyer?—I couldn’t tell, but it was so crammed with junk that walking was nearly impossible. It was like wading across a sandbar at high tide, through stacks of newspaper and magazines and books that once had towered above my head but had now collapsed to form a waist-high reef of paper. Things shifted underfoot as I moved, and when I tried to clamber on top of a stack it wobbled then flew apart in a storm of white and gray.
“Vivian, over here!”
I pushed myself up, coughing as I breathed in paper dust and mold. A dog barked, close enough that I looked around anxiously.
But I saw no sign of a dog, or Tommy; only Angus standing a few feet away, surrounded by overflowing bookshelves.
“It’s better over here.” He reached across a mound of magazines to grab my hand, and pulled me towards him. “C’mon, thatta girl—”
“It’s like the print shop exploded,” I said, still coughing. The smell of mold was so strong it burned my nostrils.
“It’s a lot worse than that.” Angus stared in disbelief. “This guy has some issues about letting go.”
Everywhere around us was—stuff. Junk mail and books and magazines, mostly, also a lot of photos—snapshots, old Polaroids—but other things, too. Board games, Bratz dolls, stuffed animals; oddments of clothing, stiletto heels and lingerie and studded collars; eight-track tapes and a battered saxophone, all protruding from the morass of paper like the detritus left by a receding flood. Vinyl record albums filled a wall of buckled metal shelving. Here and there I could discern bits of furniture—the uppermost rungs of a ladderback chair, a headboard.