In the Dead of Summer (33 page)

“Don’ want you livin’ out of a shopping cart with newspapers over your head,” Mackenzie said as we stood in the rain watching firemen toss a ruined, smoldering sofa and my best beloved suede chair out onto the street. “Let alone draggin’ Macavity down with you.”

Call it charity on his part, call it pragmatism on mine, call it whatever you like—we call it living together. And so far, I call it fine. Mackenzie—he calls it “fahn.” And the groupie ingrate cat thinks the sunny loft is heaven.

We’re testing the cop’s theory of balancing the scale, adding a little bit of love as a counterweight to the hating all around us. It’s not a bad way of making a difference.

My Mustang was found. After all, the thieves weren’t pros at car disposal. They were too busy studying hate and bombs and tooling around on a joy ride. The insurance company felt sorry for me and assumed all of the pocks and scrapes were caused by the thieves. Car had a new paint job and has never looked better.

As for those thieves, Five’s
boys
—
they are on probation, being counseled, and doing long stretches of community service, and I have hope for them. Tony, who admitted to shooting Vo Van, is awaiting trial along with his accomplice, Guy. April is still in New Jersey, and Woody in physical therapy. I try to stay in touch with both and not to think how uncomplicated and ordinary their story could have been. It was nothing more than an adolescent lover’s triangle that would have been resolved by time, had not hatred and prejudice and wrongheaded theories been added to the equation.

On the home front, my accumulated bumps and cuts and bruises warranted the much-coveted sick leave. Do be careful what you ask for.

My little house didn’t require much of a bomb to be
totaled, but some of the third floor’s contents were
saved—my roll book, for example. And Miles’s poem.

As for the loft, we’re fixing the plumbing and electrical system. The For Sale sign is down, and the rent-a-room folk have retrieved C.K.’s cloying faux-Southwestern furniture. I have insurance money to buy replacements. Or my half of them. We’re doing it slowly, picking items together, assigning each piece to one of us, against such a time as we no longer cohabit. But meantime, the purchase of each new pillow feels amazingly like an upholstered form of commitment. So far, neither of us has gagged on the concept.

We still have our own credit cards, our own checking accounts, and our basic conflicts.

We still have our unmatched suitcases at the ready—but on high shelves, difficult to reach.

*

Last week
Condé Nast Traveler
did a survey of
friendly cities. They set up all sorts of tests for the citizenry, and once again the City of Brotherly Love scored highest. Beat out all the sweetness and light sites in the U.S.

So the most hostile city is simultaneously the most friendly.

Fate and surveys work in mysterious ways.