Chapter 15: If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home Now
The screen showed a green one-storey house with a covered porch and a metal roof. Grass crowded the porch stairs. A walkway led through the yard to the sidewalk, where it ended with a wooden pole topped by a mailbox. A lone weed grew up next to the pole as if to show that the person who lived here was neat, but not so tidy that he needed to pull every weed.
The front door opened and a young man stepped onto the porch. He wore a nice shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He locked the door with a key, descended the stairs, and walked across the yard to the sidewalk. At the sidewalk, he started walking down the street and Naomi followed him.
Houses lined the street, each one well-kept and cute. A man dressed in a suit came out of one of them. He set down his briefcase, picked up the morning paper, and glanced at the front page. The younger man gave him a little wave.
A woman approached from the opposite direction, walking two dogs. One was big and brown, with wrinkly skin. It reminded Naomi of a little horse. The other was tiny and white, its legs as short as fingers. When the young man met the woman he stopped to scratch the big dog behind the ear. The little one jumped into the air.
The young man continued walking until he reached a stop sign. Down the street, a church spire poked at the sky. Even farther down was a factory that looked a lot like the paste factory, but was cleaner and brighter. Huge flags flew from the smokestacks. There was no black smoke. On the contrary, the sky behind the factory was blue, blue, blue like a clean, cold creek. The sign on the factory said Mill. Men and women walked towards it from every direction.
Children loitered around the steps of another building, probably waiting for school to begin. Two young boys raced each other in the road. Then two white horses pulled a wagon driven by an older boy.
Unlike the scared horses in the turbine room, these horses were confident as they trotted through the intersection. The boy on the wagon waved to the kids in the street. Then he looked up at Naomi. Her eyes met his and he waved again. She started to wave back, then stopped herself, feeling stupid for falling for the screen’s trick. The boy’s hand went back on the reins. The two boys chased the wagon down the road.
The young man crossed the street. Naomi followed. He passed Town Hall. He passed a window with the word “Mom’s” painted on it. “Breakfast Anytime” was under that. “Eggs Any Way w/ Bacon, $2” and “Hot Fresh Coffee” were there too. People sat on a bench below the window, waiting to get a seat in the restaurant.
As Naomi continued to follow the man, she passed a store with shovels, rakes, and brooms in the window. There was a bookstore, and a laundry shop, and a store selling TVs. There was a fabric store, a furniture store, and a pharmacy. Naomi realized these shops sold all the same things the Pastery sold, but each of these stores was totally unique.
A woman in a checkered apron stood outside another store and the young man stopped to talk to her. The woman pointed at the things beside her to show what she was selling.
Large mounds of green, red, and yellow things sat on top of wooden racks. Hand-lettered signs jutted from the piles with the words “Apples $.30” and “Peppers $.50” and “Onions $.10”. There were signs for “Squash” and “Lettuce” and “Leeks.” Then she saw the sign “Strawberries $1 a Bunch.” These were what Mrs. Fitzpatrick was talking about—tiny red hearts with green stems sticking out like a hat.
The young man took a couple apples from the wooden rack and handed the woman some coins.
Naomi ached for this world. She felt longing swell in her chest like a balloon. She wanted to talk to this young man and ask him, “Where are you? What is this town you live in that looks so much like my town, but isn’t? What does your food taste like? What are the townspeople like? Do you really have choices, instead of just paste? Are you allows to live your life as you wish?” Of course, Naomi could not ask the man these things. They were separated by the glowing screen. Tears beaded in her eyes. And still the man walked on.
He passed a storefront with the word “Bakery” on it. Unlike the nasty, doughy white mush they sold at the Pastery, golden brown loaves hovered in the window. Inside, a man appeared with a white face, dressed in all white clothing. Naomi’s heart stopped. Not here too, she thought. But her fear disappeared when she realized this man was not a white person. He was the baker, covered in the flour he used to make the loaves. He held a tray lined with golden loaves shining like a row of little church bells. Steam rose from them as the baker slid the tray into a rack with the others. Naomi could almost smell the bread. Her mouth began to water, and she realized she was starting to get hungry. Where she stood, looking from her world into the next, her hunger felt like a sprinkle of hope mixed with a pinch of despair.
The young man passed a movie theater. The theater was familiar to Naomi, with its box office and velvet ropes and the lighted marquee. It was in a theater like this one her mother would buy tickets and a large bag of paste candies, and watch new movies every couple of weeks. Here she had seen her favorite films. But Naomi didn’t recognize the name of the movie on the marquee here: If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now.
The storefronts thinned and the man passed a few more houses. Naomi looked out over a rough-cut fence. Past the fence lay a huge stretch of grass. A gate gave way to a dusty roadway. The man turned into a huge, flat building that dwarfed a couple of nearby wagons. She entered the building after him and saw a long hallway filled with stalls. Horse noses jutted out as the man passed them.
Naomi reached out and took Sammy’s hand in hers. Sammy squeezed. He turned toward her.
As though he had read her mind he said, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” His voice hung in the air like a question. She tugged his arm and the two of them walked to the end of the hallway.
On the screen, horses grazed in the field on the other side of the stable. The sun on their backs lit up the warm hues of their hair: white, brown, red, and every once and a while, coal black. Horses of all sizes and ages were scattered about the field. A red foal nuzzled its mother while the mother’s tail swished against her daughter’s side. Toward the middle of the field juveniles played, leaping into the air like toads, kicking their legs in a formless hopscotch. One ran in joyful circles through crowds of its mates, galloping, turning, and twisting. The adults barely seemed to notice as they stared at each other with their big eyes, noses sniffing at the grass.
Oh, how Naomi longed for the world on the screen! And though she knew it was a projection, she couldn’t help but think maybe it existed somewhere, maybe in a place other than Endless Ranches.
The young man entered the field carrying a black bucket. The horses lined up behind him as he plodded past them. He reached a fence, opened the gate, and slipped through.
A speckled horse lay on its side in a patch of dirt. It lifted its head when the young man set the bucket down. The horse rolled and stood. It was a stallion, bigger than any of the horses Naomi had seen so far. The man stepped closer to him, and the horse backed away, limping as he touched his hind leg to the ground. The horse teetered and Naomi thought he might fall. The young man put his hands out, palms flat, and approached the horse. The horse’s ears went flat against his neck and he bobbed his head up and down. He stamped the ground with his front hooves, sending little puffs of dirt in the air. Though Naomi did not know anything about the moods of horses, she could tell he was in a bad one.
The man stopped. He reached into the bucket and, with a flash of purple, pulled out something Naomi recognized. He shook the fabric in the wind, put his arms into it, and pulled it over his head and onto his body. Naomi’s mouth dropped open. The young man was wearing a horse-flavored T-shirt.
The stallion’s mood totally changed. His ears lifted from his neck and he raised his head. The man picked up the bucket and reached inside. He took out the apple he had bought at the market. He held the apple out to the stallion. The stallion hobbled up and sniffed the apple in the man’s hand
. He opened his mouth and grabbed the apple with his lips, chewed it with a few crunches of his big teeth, and pushed the top of his head into the man’s hand.
The man moved along the horse’s flank, keeping his hand against the horse as he went. The man reached the back leg and put the bucket on the ground. The stallion raised his foot and the man caught it, lifting it to take a look. Naomi could see a long gash just above the hoof. The young man cleaned the wound with a cloth. The stallion stood calmly, turning once to gently nudge the young man on the bottom with his nose.
After cleaning the wound, the man wrapped the stallion’s leg in gauze. When he finished wrapping, he gave the stallion a smack on the rump. The stallion tried his foot in the dirt, walking tenderly at first, then with more confidence. When the young man seemed satisfied, he looked right at Naomi.
Naomi saw something familiar in his face, like a stone skipping through time. There were features she recognized: strong cheekbones, a clean forehead, the look of kindness in the man’s eyes.
The young man’s face echoed her own. She knew then that this man—the man she had followed through the all-too-familiar town, this man with the quick step and bouncing hair, sociable with all he encountered, kind and caring with horses, and wearing the horse-flavored T-shirt—was her father.
Tears ran down Naomi’s face. She crumpled into a heap on the cold floor. Sammy tried to catch her, but only fell to the ground with her. They sat together, bathed in the screen’s blue light.
Naomi cried against Sammy’s overalls, trying to control herself. She had been strong so far, but the sight of the town looking healthy and clean, seeing her father happy and free, was just too much for her. Naomi clutched at Sammy and could not stop crying.
Sammy said nothing. He shifted uncomfortably at first, but then seemed to give up, just holding her and holding her.
“That’s my dad,” she finally snuffled through her tears.
“Uh-huh,” he said,
“And the T-shirt.” She almost whispered.
“Uh-huh,” he repeated, and held her just a little bit tighter.