Joe and Phyllis Markham, when I reached them, were as meek as mice on hearing they’d missed their chance on the Houlihan house, that I was now fresh out of good ideas and a long way from home, that my already afflicted son had been poleaxed playing baseball and was at that moment in ominous surgery at Yale-New Haven and would probably lose his vision. In my voice, I know, were the somber tonalities and slow, end-stop rhythms of resignation, of having run the course, made the valiant try in more ways than ten, endured imprecation, come back from the trash heap with no hard feelings, and yet in a moment or two I would say good-bye forever. (“Realty death” is the industry buzzword.)
“Frank, look,” Joe said, annoyingly tapping a pencil lead on the receiver from within his medium-priced double at the Raritan Ramada and seeming as clearheaded, plainspoken and ready to own up to reality as a Lutheran preacher at the funeral of his impoverished aunt. “Is there any way Phyl and I could get a peek at that colored rental property you mentioned? I know I got away from myself a little on Friday when I flared up that way. And I probably owe you an apology.” (For calling me an asshole, a prick, a shithead? Why not, I thought, though that was as close as we got.) “There’s one colored family in Island Pond who’s been there since the Underground Railroad. Everybody treats ’em like regular citizens. Sonja goes to school right beside one of them every day.”
“Tell him we want to look at it tomorrow,” I heard Phyllis say. Changes had occurred aloft, I realized, a storm pushed on out to sea. In the realty business, change is good; from 100 percent for to 150 percent against, or vice versa, are everyday occurrences and signs of promising instability. My job is to make all that seem normal (and, if possible, make every nutty change in a client’s mind seem smarter than anything I myself could’ve advised).
“Joe, I’ll be home tonight around eleven, God willing.” I leaned wearily against the window glass at the Mobil, the da-ding, da-ding, da-ding of the customer bell going constantly. (There was no use picking up the racial cudgels to try explaining to Joe that it was not “a colored house” but my house.) “So if I don’t call you, I’ll meet you on the porch at forty-six Clio Street at nine a.m. tomorrow.”
“Four-six Clio, check,” Joe said militarily.
“When can we move in?” Phyllis said from the background.
“Tomorrow morning if you want to. It’s ready to go. It just needs airing out.”
“It’s ready to go,” Joe said brusquely.
“Oh, thank God,” I heard Phyllis say.
“I guess you heard that,” Joe said, brimming with relief and craven satisfaction.
“I’ll see you there, Joe.” And in that way the deal was sealed.
The car alarm goes just as suddenly silent, and quiet morning reconvenes. (These almost never herald an actual robbery.) Down the block some kids are hovering around what looks like a red coffee can they’ve set in the middle of the street. No doubt they’re following through on plans for an early-morning detonation to alert the neighbors that it’s a holiday. Fireworks, of course, are unthinkably illegal in Haddam, and once the explosion blows, it’s automatic that a cruiser will idle through the neighborhood, an HPD officer inquiring if we’ve heard or seen people shooting or carrying guns. I’ve noticed Myrlene Beavers twice behind her screen, her walker glinting out of the murk. She seems not to notice me today but to concentrate her vigilance on the boys, one of whom — his little face shiny and black — is sporting a bright Uncle Sam costume and will no doubt be marching in the parade later on (assuming he’s not in jail). There is yet no sign of the Markhams, or for that matter the McLeods, whom I also have business with.
Since arriving at eight, I’ve mowed the small front yard with the (supplied) hand mower, watered the parched grass and sprayed the metal siding using my hose from home. I’ve cut back the dead hydrangea branches and the spirea and the roses, hauled the refuse to the back alley and opened windows and doors front and back to get air flowing inside the house. I’ve swept the porch, the front walk, run the tap in all the sinks, flushed the commode, used my broom to jab any cobwebs out from the ceiling corners and finished up by taking down the FOR RENT sign and stowing it in my trunk just to minimize the Markhams’ feelings of displacement.
As always, I’ve noticed an awkward, flat-footed sensation involved with showing my own rental house (though I’ve done it several times since the Harrises left). The rooms seem somehow too large (or small), too drab and unhopeful, already used up and going nowhere, as though the only thing to truly revive the place would be for me to move in myself and turn it homey with my own possessions and positive attitudes. It’s possible, of course, that this reaction is only compensatory for some wrong take a potential renter might fall victim to, since my underlying feeling is that I like the house exactly the way I liked it the day I bought it almost two years ago, and the McLeods’ house the same. (I’ve seen a curtain twitch there now, but no face shows behind it — someone observing me, someone who doesn’t enjoy paying his or her rent.) I admire its clean, tidy, unassuming adequacy, its sturdy rightness, finished off by the soffit vents, the new wrought-iron banister on the stoop, even the flashing to prevent ice dams and water “creep” during January thaws. It would be my dream house if I were a renter: tight, shipshape, cozy. A no-brainer.
In the Trenton Times I find holiday news, most of it not good. A man in Providence has sneaked a peek down a fireworks cannon at the most imperfect of moments and lost his life. Two people in far distant parts of the country have been shot with crossbows (both times at picnics). There’s a “rash” of arsons, though fewer boating mishaps than might seem likely. I’ve even found a squib for the murder I stumbled upon three nights back: the vacationers were from Utah; they were bound for the Cape; the husband was stabbed; the alleged assailants were fifteen — the age of my son — and from Bridgeport. No names are given, so that all seems insulated from me now, only the relatives left to bear the brunt.
On the briefer, lighter side, the Beach Boys are at Bally’s grandstand for one show only, flag-pole sales have once again skyrocketed, harness racing is celebrating its birthday (150) and a kidney transplant team (five men and a black Lab) is at this hour swimming the Channel — their foreseeable impediments: oil slicks, jellyfish and the twenty-one miles themselves (though not their kidneys).
Though the most interesting news is of two natures. One pertains to the demonstration at the Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday, the one that diverted Paul and me off our course and onward to what fate held in store. The demonstrators who blocked the Hall’s doors for an important hour were, it turns out, rising in support of a lovable Yankee shortstop from the Forties, who deserved (they felt) a place, a plaque and a bust inside but who in the view of the sportswriter pundits was never good enough and had come by his obscurity honestly. (I side with the protesters on the principle of Who cares anyway?)
Yet of even more exotic interest is the “Haddam story,” the discovery by our streets crew of a whole human skeleton unearthed, so the Times says, Friday morning at nine (on Cleveland Street, the 100 block) by a backhoe operator trenching our new sewer line under the provisos of our “well-being” bond. Details are sketchy due to the backhoe operator’s poor command of English, but there’s speculation by the town historian that the remains could be “very old, indeed, by Haddam standards,” though another rumor has it that the bones are a “female Negro servant” who disappeared a hundred years ago when the Presidents Streets were a dairy farm. Still another theorizes an Italian construction worker was “buried alive” in the Twenties when the town was replatted. Local residents have already half-seriously named the bones “Homo haddamus pithecarius,” and an archaeological team from Fairleigh Dickinson is planning to have a look. Meanwhile, the remains are in the morgue. More later, we think, and hope.