“This is it. Right here. I’ll try and get the car key,” I said.
“Well, hurry up,” Edith said.
“We’ll wait outside,” the other woman said.
“Jesus!” Edith said.
I unlocked the door and went downstairs. My father was in his pajamas, watching television. It was warm in the apartment and I leaned against the jamb for a minute and ran a hand over my eyes.
“I had a couple of beers,” I said. “What are you watching?”
“John Wayne,” he said. “It’s pretty good. Sit down and watch it. Your mother hasn’t come in yet.”
My mother worked the swing shift at Paul’s, a hofbrau restaurant. My father didn’t have a job. He used to work in the woods, and then he got hurt. He’d had a settlement, but most of that was gone now. I asked him for a loan of two hundred dollars when my wife left me, but he refused. He had tears in his eyes when he said no and said he hoped I wouldn’t hold it against him. I’d said it was all right, I wouldn’t hold it against him.
I knew he was going to say no this time too. But I sat down on the other end of the couch and said, “I met a couple of women who asked me if I’d give them a ride home.”
“What’d you tell them?” he said.
“They’re waiting for me upstairs,” I said.
“Just let them wait,” he said. “Somebody’ll come along. You don’t want to get mixed up with that.” He shook his head. “You really didn’t show them where we live, did you? They’re not really upstairs?” He moved on the couch and looked again at the television. “Anyway, your mother took the keys with her.” He nodded slowly, still looking at the television.
“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t need the car. I’m not going anywhere.”
I got up and looked into the hallway, where I slept on a cot. There was an ashtray, a Lux clock, and a few old paperbacks on a table beside the cot. I usually went to bed at midnight and read until the lines of print went fuzzy and I fell asleep with the light on and the book in my hands. In one of the paperbacks I was reading there was something I remembered telling my wife. It made a terrific impression on me. There’s a man who has a nightmare and in the nightmare he dreams he’s dreaming and wakes to see a man standing at his bedroom window. The dreamer is so terrified he can’t move, can hardly breathe. The man at the window stares into the room and then begins to pry off the screen. The dreamer can’t move. He’d like to scream, but he can’t get his breath. But the moon appears from behind a cloud, and the dreamer in the nightmare recognizes the man outside. It is his best friend, the best friend of the dreamer but no one the man having the nightmare knows.
Telling it to my wife, I’d felt the blood come to my face and my scalp prickle. But she wasn’t interested.
“That’s only writing,” she said. “Being betrayed by somebody in your own family, there's a real nightmare for you.”
I could hear them shaking the outside door. I could hear footsteps on the sidewalk over my window.
“Goddamn that bastard!” I heard Edith say.
I went into the bathroom for a long time and then I went upstairs and let myself out. It was cooler, and I did up the zipper on my jacket. I started walking to Paul’s. If I got there before my mother went off duty, I could have a turkey sandwich. After that I could go to Kirby’s newsstand and look through the magazines. Then I could go to the apartment to bed and read the books until I read enough and I slept.
The women, they weren’t there when I left, and they wouldn't be there when I got back.
COLLECTORS
I was out of work. But any day I expected to hear from up north. I lay on the sofa and listened to the rain. Now and then I’d lift up and look through the curtain for the mailman.
There was no one on the street, nothing.
I hadn’t been down again five minutes when I heard someone walk onto the porch, wait, and then knock. I lay still. I knew it wasn’t the mailman. I knew his steps. You can’t be too careful if you’re out of work and you get notices in the mail or else pushed under your door. They come around wanting to talk, too, especially if you don’t have a telephone.
The knock sounded again, louder, a bad sign. I eased up and tried to see onto the porch. But whoever was there was standing against the door, another bad sign. I knew the floor creaked, so there was no chance of slipping into the other room and looking out that window.
Another knock, and I said, Who’s there?
This is Aubrey Bell, a man said. Are you Mr. Slater?
What is it you want? I called from the sofa.
I have something for Mrs. Slater. She’s won something. Is Mrs. Slater home?
Mrs. Slater doesn’t live here, I said.
Well, then, are you Mr. Slater? the man said. Mr. Slater .. . and the man sneezed.
I got off the sofa. I unlocked the door and opened it a little. He was an old guy, fat and bulky under his rain-
coat. Water ran off the coat and dripped onto the big suitcase contraption thing he carried.
He grinned and set down the big case. He put out his hand.
Aubrey Bell, he said.
I don’t know you, I said.
Mrs. Slater, he began. Mrs. Slater filled out a card. He took cards from an inside pocket and shuffled them a minute. Mrs. Slater, he read. Two-fifty-five South Sixth East? Mrs. Slater is a winner.
He took off his hat and nodded solemnly, slapped the hat against his coat as if that were it, everything had been settled, the drive finished, the railhead reached.
He waited.
Mrs. Slater doesn’t live here, I said. What’d she win?
I have to show you, he said. May I come in?
I don’t know. If it won’t take long, I said. I’m pretty busy.
Fine, he said. I’ll just slide out of this coat first. And the galoshes. Wouldn’t want to track up your carpet. I see you do have a carpet, Mr. ...
His eyes had lighted and then dimmed at the sight of the carpet. He shuddered. Then he took off his coat. He shook it out and hung it by the collar over the doorknob. That’s a good place for it, he said. Damn weather, anyway. He bent over and unfastened his galoshes. He set his case inside the room. He stepped out of the galoshes and into the room in a pair of slippers.
I closed the door. He saw me staring at the slippers and said, W. H. Auden wore slippers all through China on his first visit there. Never took them off. Corns.
I shrugged. I took one more look down the street for the mailman and shut the door again.
Aubrey Bell stared at the carpet. He pulled his lips. Then he laughed. He laughed and shook his head.
What’s so funny? I said.
Nothing. Lord, he said. He laughed again. I think I’m losing my mind. I think I have a fever. He reached a hand to his forehead. His hair was matted and there was a ring around his scalp where the hat had been.
Do I feel hot to you? he said. I don’t know, I think I might have a fever. He was still staring at the carpet. You have any aspirin?
What’s the matter with you? I said. I hope you’re not getting sick on me. I got things I have to do.
He shook his head. He sat down on the sofa. He stirred at the carpet with his slippered foot.
I went to the kitchen, rinsed a cup, shook two aspirin out of a bottle.
Here, I said. Then I think you ought to leave.
Are you speaking for Mrs. Slater? he hissed. No, no, forget I said that, forget I said that. He wiped his face. He swallowed the aspirin. His eyes skipped around the bare room. Then he leaned forward with some effort and unsnapped the buckles on his case. The case flopped open, revealing compartments filled with an array of hoses, brushes, shiny pipes, and some kind of heavy-looking blue thing mounted on little wheels. He stared at these things as if surprised. Quietly, in a churchly voice, he said, Do you know what this is?
I moved closer. I’d say it was a vacuum cleaner. I’m not in the market, I said. No way am I in the market for a vacuum cleaner.
I want to
show you something, he said. He took a card out of his jacket pocket. Look at this, he said. He handed me the card. Nobody said you were in the market. But look at the signature. Is that Mrs. Slater’s signature or not?
I looked at the card. I held it up to the light. I turned it over, but the other side was blank. So what? I said.
Mrs. Slater’s card was pulled at random out of a basket of cards. Hundreds of cards just like this little card. She has won a free vacuuming and carpet shampoo. Mrs. Slater is a winner. No strings. 1 am here even to do your mattress. Mr. . . . You’ll be surprised to see what can collect in a mattress over the months, over the years. Every day, every night of our lives, we’re leaving little bits of ourselves, flakes of this and that, behind. Where do they go. these bits and pieces of ourselves? Right through the sheets and into the mattress, that's where! Pillows, too. It's all the same.
He had been removing lengths of the shiny pipe and joining the parts together. Now he inserted the fitted pipes into the hose. He was on his knees, grunting. He attached some sort of scoop to the hose and lifted out the blue thing with wheels.
He let me examine the filter he intended to use.
Do you have a car? he asked.
No car, I said. I don’t have a car. If I had a car I would drive you someplace.
Too bad, he said. This little vacuum comes equipped with a sixty-toot extension cord. If you had a car, you could wheel this little vacuum right up to your car door and vacuum the plush carpeting and the luxurious reclining seats as well. You would be surprised how much of us gets lost, how much of us gathers, in those fine seats over the years.
Mr. Bell, I said, I think you better pack up your things and go. I say this without any malice whatsoever.
But he was looking around the room for a plug-in. He found one at the end of the sofa. The machine rattled as if there were a marble inside, anyway something loose inside, then settled to a hum.
Rilke lived in one castle after another, all of his adult life. Benefactors, he said loudly over the hum of the vacuum. He seldom rode in motorcars; he preferred trains. Then look at Voltaire at Cirey with Madame Châtelet. His death mask. Such serenity. He raised his right hand as if I were about to disagree. No, no, it isn’t right, is it? Don’t say it. But who knows? With that he turned and began to pull the vacuum into the other room.
There was a bed, a window. The covers were heaped on the floor. One pillow, one sheet over the mattress. He slipped the case from the pillow and then quickly stripped the sheet from the mattress. He stared at the mattress and gave me a look out of the corner of his eye. I went to the kitchen and got the chair. I sat down in the doorway and watched. First he tested the suction by putting the scoop against the palm of his hand. He bent and turned a dial on the vacuum. You have to turn it up full strength for a job like this one, he said. He checked the suction again, then extended the hose to the head of the bed and began to move the scoop down the mattress. The scoop tugged at the mattress. The vacuum whirred louder. He made three passes over the mattress, then switched off the machine. He pressed a lever and the lid popped open. He took out the filter. This filter is just for demonstration purposes. In normal use, all of this, this material, would go into your bag, here, he said. He pinched some of the dusty stuff between his fingers. There must have been a cup of it.
He had this look to his face.
It’s not my mattress, I said. I leaned forward in the chair and tried to show an interest.
Now the pillow, he said. He put the used filter on the sill and looked out the window for a minute. He turned. I want you to hold onto this end of the pillow, he said.
I got up and took hold of two corners of the pillow. I felt I was holding something by the ears.
Like this? I said.
He nodded. He went into the other room and came back with another filter.
How much do those things cost? I said.
Next to nothing, he said. They’re only made out of paper and a little bit of plastic. Couldn’t cost much.
He kicked on the vacuum and I held tight as the scoop sank into the pillow and moved down its length—once, twice, three times. He switched off the vacuum, removed the filter, and held it up without a word. He put it on the sill beside the other filter. Then he opened the closet door. He looked inside, but there was only a box of Mouse-Be-Gone.
I heard steps on the porch, the mail slot opened and clinked shut. We looked at each other.
He pulled on the vacuum and I followed him into the other room. We looked at the letter lying face down on the carpet near the front door.
I started toward the letter, turned and said, What else? It’s getting late. This carpet’s not worth fooling with. It’s only a twelve-by-fifteen cotton carpet with no-skid backing from Rug City. It’s not worth fooling with.
Do you have a full ashtray? he said. Or a potted plant or something like that? A handful of dirt would be fine.
I found the ashtray. He took it, dumped the contents onto the carpet, ground the ashes and cigarets under his slipper. He got down on his knees again and inserted a new filter. He took off his jacket and threw it onto the sofa. He was sweating under the arms. Fat hung over his belt. He twisted off the scoop and attached another device to the hose. He adjusted his dial. He kicked on the machine and began to move back and forth, back and forth over the worn carpet. Twice I started for the letter. But he seemed to anticipate me, cut me off, so to speak, with his hose and his pipes and his sweeping and his sweeping.. . .
I took the chair back to the kitchen and sat there and watched him work. After a time he shut off the machine, opened the lid, and silently brought me the filter, alive with dust, hair, small grainy things. I looked at the filter, and then I got up and put it in the garbage.
He worked steadily now. No more explanations. He came out to the kitchen with a bottle that held a few ounces of green liquid. He put the bottle under the tap and filled it.
You know I can’t pay anything, I said. I couldn’t pay you a dollar if my life depended on it. You’re going to have to write me off as a dead loss, that’s all. You’re wasting your time on me, I said.
I wanted it out in the open, no misunderstanding.
He went about his business. He put another attachment on the hose, in some complicated way hooked his bottle to the new attachment. He moved slowly over the carpet, now and then releasing little streams of emerald, moving the brush back and forth over the carpet, working up patches of foam.
I had said all that was on my mind. I sat on the chair in the kitchen, relaxed now, and watched him work. Once in a while I looked out the window at the rain. It had begun to get dark. He switched off the vacuum. He was in a corner near the front door.
You want coffee? I said.
He was breathing hard. He wiped his face.
I put on water and by the time it had boiled and I’d fixed up two cups he had everything dismantled and back in the case. Then he picked up the letter. He read the name on the letter and looked closely at the return address. He folded the letter in half and put it in his hip pocket. I kept watching him. That’s all I did. The coffee began to cool.
It’s for a Mr. Slater, he said. I’ll see to it. He said, Maybe I will skip the coffee. I better not walk across this carpet. I just shampooed it.
That’s true, I said. Then I said, You’re sure that’s who the letter’s for?
He reached to the sofa for his jacket, put it on, and opened the front door. It was still raining. He stepped
into his galoshes, fastened them, and then pulled on the raincoat and looked back inside.
You want to see it? he said. You don’t believe me?
It just seems strange, I said.
Well, I’d better be off, he said. But he kept standing there. You want the vacuum or not?
I looked at the big case, closed now and ready to move on.
No, I said, I guess not. I’m going to be leaving here soon. It would just be in the way.
All right, he said, and he shut t
he door.
WHAT DO YOU DO IN SAN FRANCISCO?
This has nothing to do with me. It’s about a young couple with three children who moved into a house on my route the first of last summer. I got to thinking about them again when I picked up last Sunday’s newspaper and found a picture of a young man who’d been arrested down in San Francisco for killing his wife and her boyfriend with a baseball bat. It wasn’t the same man, of course, though there was a likeness because of the beard. But the situation was close enough to get me thinking.
Henry Robinson is the name. I’m a postman, a federal civil servant, and have been since 1947. I’ve lived in the West all my life, except for a three-year stint in the Army during the war. I’ve been divorced twenty years, have two children I haven’t seen in almost that long. I’m not a frivolous man, nor am I, in my opinion, a serious man. It’s my belief a man has to be a little of both these days. I believe, too, in the value of work—the harder the better. A man who isn’t working has got too much time on his hands, too much time to dwell on himself and his problems.
I’m convinced that was partly the trouble with the young man who lived here—his not working. But I’d lay that at her doorstep, too. The woman. She encouraged it.
Beatniks, I guess you’d have called them if you’d seen them. The man wore a pointed brown beard on his chin
and looked like he needed to sit down to a good dinner and a cigar afterwards. The woman was attractive, with her long dark hair and her fair complexion, there’s no getting around that. But put me down for saying she wasn’t a good wife and mother. She was a painter. The young man, I don’t know what he did—probably something along the same line. Neither of them worked. But they paid their rent and got by somehow—at least for the summer.
The first time I saw them it was around eleven, eleven-fifteen, a Saturday morning. I was about two-thirds through my route when I turned onto their block and noticed a ’56 Ford sedan pulled up in the yard with a big open U-Haul behind. There are only three houses on Pine, and theirs was the last house, the others being the Murchisons, who’d been in Arcata a little less than a year, and the Grants, who’d been here about two years. Murchison worked at Simpson Redwood, and Gene Grant was a cook on the morning shift at Denny's. Those two, then a vacant lot, then the house on the end that used to belong to the Coles.