The Best People in the World (17 page)

8

Allegiance

Shiloh had left the door to his room open. I ducked my head in. He was stretched out on his mattress. He turned his head and looked at me.

“Come in,” he said. He might have been addressing a cat, that's the kind of hope he had that I would obey.

Alice had gone down to the porch swing to write a postcard to her sister. They kept a labored correspondence, partly because her sister didn't approve of Alice's general delivery address. She and her sister were close, but in a strange, uncertain way. In her letters, Alice
recommended her sister join a consciousness-raising group, not out of any conviction, but because she felt the need to argue for something. Whatever kind of parents they shared, Alice didn't say. She and her sister had both gotten far from home—that's all she thought I had to know.

I slipped inside Shiloh's room. Except for a dresser, there wasn't any furniture. A gooseneck desk lamp, a spiral notebook, some pens, and pocket change piled together by the head of the mattress. Shiloh propped himself up on his elbows and looked at me. His beard was coming in again, like a dark stain. A pair of canvas shoes, caked with pale mud, waited by the closet door.

“You're alone for once,” he said.

I said, “Look who's talking.”

He checked his bare wrist for the time. “Have a seat.”

I plopped down on the floor. “You look tired.”

“I was taking a catnap.”

“You should get a chair in here.”

“What would a chair do?”

There was a long pause while I tried to get more comfortable on the hard floor. Finally, I just said it. “What were you moving with Parker's van?”

“Moving?”

“You backed the van up against the front door.” I did my best to look inscrutable.

“We needed to get some things inside.”

I turned my head from side to side, his empty room. “You don't want to talk about it?”

“We were just doing fix-it-type chores. It's no big deal.” He looked, even then, as though he might slip backward into sleep.

“I could carry stuff or whatever you need. Wouldn't that make more sense than having Parker do the work? At least I really live here.”

“Trust me, you're doing a job already.”

“You mean the garden?”

“You're keeping Alice out of our hair.”

He read the look on my face and knew he'd made a mistake.

“That's just an expression,” said Shiloh.

“Why do you need her out of your hair?”

“I really love Alice,” said Shiloh. “I do. She's irrational sometimes. She's self-absorbed sometimes. She doesn't always take me seriously. These are her faults, basically. She also has many virtues, of which you are certainly aware. I'm not some idiot who thinks he can tell a guy what's wrong with his girlfriend and actually expect that the conversation is going to remain secret. That's what you expect when two adults have a conversation, but it's not what happens. So tell her what I said. Let her fume. Then remind her that it was my idea to come up here, that I found this place for us. Remind her who got the water running and the electricity. I would have been perfectly happy to come back here on my own. I was ready to do that. Maybe the problem is with me. I didn't have a family to coddle me or a fancy education. I have basically relied on my wits.” He'd stood up and wandered over to the window. “I know Parker is not making things any easier. He can be an abrasive guy. Alice would be happy to boil him.”

“So why do you let him stay?”

“Parker has nothing to do with you or Alice.”

He had these neat stacks of rocks balanced on his windowsill. They looked like the cairns you see on mountaintops.

“Is he hiding from people?”

“Parker's sense of self-worth is completely out of scale with the evidence.”

“You're talking in riddles.”

“Believe me, Thomas, that's the best I can give you.”

“Alice is going to want to know more.”

“Parker is a nobody. And Alice can ask me any question she wants.”

“Are you a nobody?”

“The only difference between me and Parker is that I know I'm a nobody.” He slipped on his dusty sneakers. Our conversation was coming to a close.

“What should I tell Alice?”

“Tell her whatever you want. I've said all along that I'm going to
take care of everyone. Nothing has changed. In a week or so Parker is going to leave. We might not see him after that. It would be great if everyone could keep cool until then, but I don't expect that's what's going to happen.”

“Where will Parker go?”

“Parker will go wherever he thinks the action is.”

Of course, if action had been his target all along, then his aim was off. Nothing happened here. The polar opposite of action was what we were all about. Instead of action we had habits. At some point habits became rituals. Alice and I had the bowls-of-cereal ritual. We had the sleeping-in-the-sunlight ritual. We had the ritual of being disappointed by what we found in the refrigerator. The ritual of being disappointed at discovering our savings were dwindling. We had sunset and twilight rituals. The closest thing to action was the ritual of shaking things up, the day we wore each other's clothes, the day we didn't leave bed.

But it didn't matter that I'd spoken with Shiloh. It didn't matter if I had tried to hide things from Alice. Shiloh and I had nothing to do with the problem. We were just some potential witnesses, biding our time.

Something in the atmosphere seized me. The reaction before the stimulus. Alice's voice reached us, a half-restrained shout, “Thomas.”

I raced to her, Shiloh close on my heels.

Alice and Parker stood toe to toe at the top of the basement stairs.

“He doesn't want me in
my
basement,” explained Alice.

No one had ever called for me before, not in such a way. By calling my name, Alice implied that I possessed some potential she wanted to harness. My muscles felt like hot grease.

A smile twisted on Parker's face. “I never said she couldn't go down there. There's a lot of stuff lying around, and if she doesn't pay attention she might get hurt, that's what I said.”

Alice shot me an unambiguous look. “What sort of stuff?” I asked.

“Exactly,” said Alice.

Shiloh acted as if he'd never seen a banister before in his life. Suddenly it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever run across.

“I don't get it,” said Parker. “Shiloh tells me you wander around like some horny zombies, not paying him the least bit of attention, and all I get is people sticking their fingers up my nose. How would you like it if I followed after you while you were flower picking or what have you? It's a lack of respect, basically. I don't want to have to use the
f
word, but you act like a fucking fascist.”

“How has it come to this?” asked Alice. “I let myself get baited into arguments with dropouts.”

It was a poor choice of words on her part. I've never felt smaller.

Shiloh stepped around me on the stairs. “Parker doesn't mean unsafe. If anything it's safer down there. But with the tools laying around, you have to be careful where you step. I asked him to make sure that no one went down there before we got the mess cleaned up.”

“We were just trying to be considerate,” said Parker.

Outside, the weather underwent some subtle shift. A breeze lifted the curtains in the window frames.

I suggested that they give us a tour so that we'd know what to watch out for.

Sweeping his hand in a grand, welcoming gesture, Parker said, “Excellent idea.”

 

The four of us descended into the basement. In the center of the room, construction materials had been piled beside a stone column. Three pallets rested on the dirt floor. Empty paper sacks were balled up on the ground. According to the block printing on the bags, at one time they'd contained cement. We saw two coils of garden hose, an immaculate green wheelbarrow, and the shovel.

“What's all this stuff for?” Alice asked.

Upon closer inspection, I saw that some of the bags had held sand.

Parker picked the shovel up and jabbed it at the column. Sharp pieces of mortar broke off. “Why do you think places like this get abandoned? No structural integrity.”

“You stole all this stuff,” Alice declared, grabbing the handle of the wheelbarrow.

“Prove it,” said Parker.

The chalky dust coated my tongue.

“Whoa,” said Shiloh. “Don't ask her to do that.”

Parker studied Alice. “We found it along the side of the road.”

Alice maintained her countenance.

“Are you going to let him lie to me?” she asked Shiloh.

“I'm telling you, it's not stolen,” Parker insisted.

“It's stolen,” said Shiloh.

“Thanks, friend,” said Parker. “Remember, it takes little people to bring big men to their knees. I've known the sting of arrows.”

“It was basically a matter of this stuff being overpriced,” said Shiloh. “Just about anything in this society that might be used to construct a building, a house or a factory, has a surcharge built into it. The only way anyone can afford those things is by getting a regular job. And when everyone buys into this, we have what is called capitalism. That is why bags of sand and limestone dust go for a price that is not proportionate to their manufacturing cost.”

Alice said, “I won't have people bringing stolen goods into my house.”

“Listen to you.
Your
house. Let's take a trip to the freezer. Huh?” said Parker. “Cool out. This was a one-time deal. The house needed some work and I suggested we do it this way. I'm not used to being part of such a gentle cooperative. I'll make a pledge right now. No more thieving. I think that would be a good idea. What do you think?”

Shiloh looked relieved that his friend might have found an escape hatch. “I can live with that,” he said.

“What about you, Alice, can you live with that?”

She stroked her hand over a bag of sand, like a favorite piece of furniture or a pet. “You make it sound like it's a compromise.”

“He doesn't mean that,” said Shiloh.

“We haven't asked Thomas what he thinks.” Parker walked over and put his arm on my shoulder. “What do you make of your girlfriend's rules?”

Parker's attention made me feel less certain about myself. I wasn't ready for his scrutiny. He'd compliment the way I cracked an egg into a skillet, so the next time I cracked an egg, I found myself trying to
recall how I had done it the time before. He made it his business to notice the things that nobody wanted noticed. It was Parker who'd asked me about my folks. What do you think they're doing right now? he'd asked. Do you wonder if they're pulling their hair out or celebrating? They let you call them by their first names, he said. Fran, right? Mary. They don't buy into that Mom and Dad business. I think that's a cop-out.

I wanted things back to the way they were before he'd arrived, or the way I'd imagined they were. We hadn't really been there that long.

That morning while I was washing dishes, Parker had started in on Pawpaw. He wanted me to know that he'd been close to one of his grandfathers, too. The two of them built model trains together.

“You know about model trains?” he asked.

“You mean did I ever play with them?”

“I know you haven't,” he said. “You gave yourself away by saying ‘play.' That was one of my grandfather's tests. If you liked trains you were okay in his book. Same thing with animals. You ever have a pet?”

“I had a fish.”

“Did you love it?”

I said, “I'm not going to play your game.”

“Everything is play with you. Huh?”

But it wasn't all play for me. Parker needed to learn that.

In the dim basement light, I looked him in the eye and said, “We still don't know why you're here.”

“Didn't anyone tell you? I'm a saint.”

“Cut it out,” said Shiloh.

“I travel around doing good.”

Shiloh said, “Shut up.”

9

Postcoital

Just because I wasn't talking about my parents doesn't mean they weren't on my mind. I could still imagine the spaces they moved
through. I carried them inside me. I knew what I had done. I really believed that I was in the process of doing something very important. And when I felt bad, I told myself I was being selfless. And when I felt good, I believed I was deserving. Sometimes I experienced a sensation like God's leaning over to whisper to me that I was his favorite. I found evidence in every moment.

Alice and I were having sex and we stopped. It was the middle of the night. Parker and Shiloh were working deep in the basement. We were having sex and we stopped. There was such a quiet to the house. The next moment the noises picked up in the basement, but our bodies had lost their temper and cooled.

I said, “Would you want to go for a walk tomorrow?”

“How long can their project go on?”

“Not too much longer, I don't think.”

“Can I say something?”

“Sure.”

“You won't like it.”

I said, “Shoot from the hip.” I was trying to teach myself to be cavalier.

“‘Shoot from the hip.' That's not the way you talk. You've started to sound like him.”

“That's not true.”

“You don't even do it like yourself.”

“Please take that back.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Just take it back.”

“Where are you going?”

I had gotten up. “The bathroom.”

“You never say mean things to me.”

“I don't know.”

“I'm horrible.”

I washed my face in the basin. I felt a bit nauseous. I felt a bit out of myself. Alice came in and dried my face with a towel.