The Captain walks to the front window to look at the lawn and see how it’s fared after the mysterious-hole incident. The sight of the lawn usually calms him down, but not today, because it’s back — the hole — and exactly where it was before, so for a second he thinks maybe the patch job didn’t work; that everything just dropped straight down again, but then he sees a ring of dirt around the edge, just like the first one.
He takes his cup and walks outside, though clearly at this point there is nothing new to see: just dirt and what might be the print of a shoe. The air is still cool. He’ll call up his gardener again and tell him: “We’ll just have to do better the next time.” Maybe have him dump a shitload of poison down the hole, stuff it with a few sacks of ready-mix cement, hose it down so it gets good and hard, and then replant the top. That should do it.
He walks back inside and calls the man, who says he’ll be over as soon as he gets his pickup out of the shop. What’s wrong with vehicles these days, the Captain wonders, that they always need repair? It occurs to him he ought to inquire of someone whether this holes-in-people’s-front-lawns business is a citywide phenomenon, or if it’s directed specifically at him. He’s made a lot of enemies along the way — who hasn’t? — but this seems a strange and unnecessarily complicated way to get revenge. Could the guy in the beard and lumberjack shirt — Plaidman — be behind this attack on his lawn? And if so, why?
Meanwhile, all over town, grass, flowers, weeds, nameless trees are pushing their way up through the soil, into the light and the air, into something they have no name for.
On the other hand, if he just calls the police and asks them to investigate what the fuck is happening to his grass, sooner or later word is going to leak out to the press, who, for reasons of their own, will probably see it only as one in a long line of cheap publicity stunts. The Captain can picture the headline: “Aging Windbag Claims Mysterious Lawn Cavity.” And then, before the ink is even dry on that morning’s paper, everybody will be at the edge of his lawn — or on the lawn itself, for that matter — to take a look. And when they’re done, they’ll leave behind their soda cans and potato chip bags, gum wrappers, and those tiny plastic boxes breath mints come in. What is it with this modern obsession with the smell of your own breath, anyway? Many a time he has seen a complete stranger hold a hand out in front of his face and breathe into it. Never once, in all his years at sea, did he ever observe a sailor doing such a thing. And the result — his house, the one thing he loves these days, will become a sideshow. That would be all he needs, and, at the very least, he’d have to hire a security guard, which wouldn’t come cheap. Or even worse, expense-wise, he might have to raise the wall around the place. Neither of these prospects makes him happy.
And so, like an unsteady midshipman climbing to the top of a swaying tall mast having been sent up there by the first mate on some made-up errand that is supposed to initiate him into the unstinting demands of a seafaring life, the Captain can feel his Death Quotient rising.
Episode One, The Burrow, Scene Four
JEFFERY and VIKTOR are sitting at the kitchen table. It is late at night.
Jeffery:
Viktor, I’m going to make myself another bagel. You want one?
Viktor:
What kind of bagels did we get this week?
Jeffery:
Onion and sesame.
Viktor:
That’s all?
Jeffery:
That’s it. If you want something else, I guess you’ll have to go out and get it. Do you want cream cheese?
Viktor:
I’ll take an onion with cream cheese.
JEFFERY gets up, cuts two bagels in half, and puts them in the toaster oven.
Jeffery:
Listen, I have a question, and it may sound a little odd.
Viktor:
Shoot.
Jeffery:
How long has it been since you’ve been out?
Viktor:
What do you mean, “out”? I have investments to keep track of. I can’t be going in and out every time I want a breath of fresh air. I could lose real money here.
Jeffery:
No, I don’t mean that. I mean when was the last time you were even outside the Burrow?
Viktor:
I don’t know. A couple of weeks ago. Maybe more. Maybe a couple of months. [pauses] Actually, if you want to know the truth, I can’t remember.
Jeffery:
You find that odd?
Viktor:
Not particularly. I never thought about it.
Jeffery:
Neither had I, because I’ve been really busy working on this screenplay I’m writing. But then I got to thinking:
Jeffery, when was the last time you were out of doors?
Viktor:
You call yourself by your own name when you talk to yourself?
Jeffery:
Of course. What else would I call me?
Viktor:
You must have been talking to Madeline; she talks to herself sometimes, too. So what did you answer? When was the last time you were out?
Jeffery:
I couldn’t remember.
Viktor:
And this proves?
Jeffery:
So I said to myself, “Well, you should make it a point to go out right now, right this second, not that you need anything, because everything we need is here, but, you know, just to do it.”
Viktor:
And?
Jeffery:
And do you know what? Right then I started to make a list of all the times I’d tried to go outside before, including the last time, when I was about to leave and was standing right at the door and Raymond stopped me. Then, by the time I finished the list, it was too late. I never did go out.
Viktor:
The Duck Man! A nutcase, in my opinion. And anyway, I don’t see what’s so wrong with a person staying here and working. Maybe that screenplay will make you rich. Then you’ll be glad you didn’t waste your time walking around in the fresh air and leaves and stuff. You can get that anytime.