Breaking and Entering (11 page)

“I knew it, I knew it,” shouted Charlie. “There he’d be with his useless nuts.”

“You’d become a believer in past lives. You’d become fascinated with other forms of intelligent life. You’d become involved in the study of whale language.”

“Oh, I love whales too, man,” Charlie said, spilling coffee down the front of his button-down shirt.

“You’d curse the house in Nantucket that Rocky and Sandy had spent so many happy summers in.”

“Ahh, Nantucket built on blood. Let’s abandon this subject.” Charlie looked sadly at his shirt. “Whales are poets who are in tune with every aspect of their world. They sing these songs, man.”

Breakfast was placed before them on the table. Charlie looked at the food in surprise. “Our songs are so messed up. You ever thought of that? Our songs are so garbled.”

Liberty reached across to Willie’s plate and spooned up a small piece of fried mush.

“Who are you in love with?” Willie asked Charlie, pouring syrup on the mush.

“Janiella,” Charlie said.

“Janiella?” Liberty said.

“Janiella the heartless, Janiella the faithless, Janiella the demanding,” Charlie said.

“Janiella,” Liberty said.

“Janiella the indiscreet, Janiella the throbbing, Janiella the—”

“All right,” Liberty said.

“I am crazy in love with Janiella, but she has lots of lousy habits. She never shuts doors for example. I have to tell you what happened. I was there last week, right? I’m beneath the sheets truffling away and her kid comes in. Actually, he’s not really her kid. He’s her boyfriend Duane’s kid. He’s forgotten his spelling book. His spelling book! ‘Ma’am,’ he says, ‘have you seen my spelling book?’ I’m crouched beneath the sheets. My ears are ringing. I try to be very still but I’m gagging, man, and Janiella says sweetly, ‘I saw your spelling book in the wastebasket,’ and the kid says, ‘It must have fallen in there by accident,’ and Janiella says, ‘You are always saying that, Ted. You are always placing things you don’t like in the wastebasket. I found that lovely Dunnsmoor sweater I gave you in the wastebasket. That lovely coloring book on knights and armor that I ordered from the Metropolitan Museum was in the wastebasket also.’ The kid says, ‘I’m too old for coloring books.’ Picture it, they are having a discussion. They are arguing fine points.”

Liberty did not want to picture it.

Charlie sighed and looked at his food.

“Well?” Willie said.

Charlie seemed to be losing his drift. He looked at his food as though he were trying to read it.

“So what happened,” Willie insisted. “Finally.”

“Well, I don’t know man. The future is not altogether scrutable.”

“Janiella and Teddy,” Willie said, glancing at Liberty. “The spelling book.”

“I fell alseep, I guess,” Charlie said. “The last thing I heard was the kid saying, ‘I thought Daddy was in Miami at a car show.’ I passed out from the heat, man.”

“You see Janiella at Duane’s house?” Willie asked. “Who does Teddy think you are?”

“We’ve never met,” Charlie said. “I’ve only laid eyes on him in a photo cube. Cute kid. Spiky hair. Janiella wants to keep him out of the house so she’s got him busy every minute. He has soccer practice, swim team, safe-boating instruction. He’s hardly ever at home. Ask him, I bet he’s ignorant of the floor plan. After school he takes special courses in computer language, sea shell identification, God knows what all. Poor little squirt comes staggering home, his brain on
fire
. I think of myself as a fantastic impetus to his learning.”

“Liberty’s not happy with this situation at all,” Willie said.

“Liberty’s all right,” Charlie grinned, oblivious, showing his pale gums. “Liberty’s a great girl.”

Liberty spooned up another piece of mush from Willie’s plate.

“That’s extremely irritating,” Willie said. “You never order anything, then you eat what I order.”

Liberty blushed.

“Liberty,” Charlie cried, “eat off my plate, I beseech you! Let’s mix a little yin and yang.” He picked up a piece of coffee cake in his large hand and waved it at her.

“It’s just one of those things that’s been going on too long,” Willie said.

“Really, man, you’re losing energy with these negative emotions. You’re just going dim on us here. Your song is fading.” Charlie cupped the hand that was clutching the coffee cake to his ear. Crumbs fell. “Ubble-gubble,” Charlie said.

Outside, Clem lay beneath the orange tree, his paws crossed, yawning. Two deputies sat nearby in their cruiser, looking at him as though they’d like to write out a ticket. Circumstances had not allowed them to write out a ticket in what seemed to them to be an extraordinarily long time.
Look at the size of that dog
one of them said
you run over him and you’d know it
.

“What a great animal,” Charlie said, pointing with the diminished cake at Clem. “How did you get such a great animal, Liberty?”

“He came in on the night air and settled on her head as she slept,” Willie said.

“Gubble-ubble,” Charlie said.

“He was in the envelope with the marriage license,” Willie said. “We sprinkled water on him and he was expanded and made soul.”

“Leave this creep and come away with me,” Charlie said to Liberty.

Willie said, “We got him from the Humane Society. He ate a child. The police impounded him, but what could they do, after all, this isn’t the Middle Ages, we don’t hang animals for crimes. And he was an innocent, a victim himself, belonging to a schizophrenic, anorectic unwed mother who kept leaving her infant son alone with him, unfed, in her fleabag apartment. Clem, unfed, day after day. Although his name wasn’t Clem then, it was Sword and Pentacles. Or sometimes Sword, and sometimes Pentacles.”

Charlie said, “I mean it. I love married women. I treat them right. Your blood will race, I’m telling you. I’m also a cook. I make great meat loaf, no, forget meat loaf, I’ll make gumbo. I’m third in line for two acres of land in St. Landry Parish.
Only two people have to die, and it’s all mine. It’s got a chinaberry tree on it. We’ll pole the bayous and eat gumbo. We’ll drink beer and listen to chanky-chank bands.”

“I didn’t know you could cook,” Willie said. “You were the only Cajun I knew who couldn’t cook.”

“I cook,” Charlie said, affronted.

“Actually,” Willie said, “Liberty found Clem lying partially in the road, partially in a ditch of water hyacinths, injured by some vehicle. Blood all over the place. What a mess.”

“Everything’s so relative with you, man. I don’t know how you make it through the day,” Charlie said. He gazed at Liberty, absorbed.

“I found him in a mailbox,” Liberty said. “It was at a house where we were staying for a while, inland, in the country. Somebody had hurt him and then stuffed him inside the big mailbox at the end of the drive. He was just a puppy then.”

“That’s awful!” Charlie exclaimed. “You are on some bad mailing lists.”

“A linear life is a tedious life,” Willie said. “Man wasn’t born to suffer leading his life from moment to moment.”

“I’ve come to the conclusion that Janiella is not for me,” Charlie said. “For one thing, she’s mean, she’s not married and she talks too much. Even
in situ
she’s gabbing away. And she’s into very experimental stuff. There are not as many ways of making love as people seem to believe.”

“I’m splitting,” Willie announced.

Charlie rubbed his face hard with his hands. Liberty knew that he wanted a drink. He had that look in his dark eyes.

Willie stood up and leaned toward Liberty, his hands on the table. His hands were tanned and strong and clean. His wedding band was slender. Liberty remembered the wedding clearly. It had taken place in a lush green tropical forest in
the time of the dinosaurs. “I’ve got to shake myself a little loose,” he said. “Do you want the truck?”

“No,” Liberty said.

“Just a few days,” Willie said. “Later,” he said to Charlie. He left.

“A butterfly vanishes from the world of caterpillars,” Charlie said.

Liberty saw Clem get up and look after the truck as it drove away. He trotted over to the restaurant and peered in, resting his muzzle on a window box of geraniums. Liberty waved to him.

“He can’t see that,” Charlie said. “Animals live in a two-dimensional world. For example, like with roads? To a dog, each road is a separate phenomenon that has nothing in common with another road.”

“That sounds about right,” Liberty said.

“And so it is, the truth specific to each species. To each and all, one’s own dark wood,” Charlie said. He picked up Liberty’s hand and kissed her wrist bone. “I love you,” he said. “There’s only you. I have employed Janiella only for the purposes of obfuscation.”

“You’re a bottle man,” Liberty said.

“Liberty!” Teddy called. He hurried over from the bakery counter, holding a cruller and a bag in one hand, an egg in the other. It was a small brown egg. Liberty hugged him and ran her fingers through his hair. Charlie closed his eyes.

“I’m going to learn how to build furniture,” Teddy said. “I was a little late today because I saw a joke shop on the way, but the man let me hammer a piece of wood.”

Charlie’s eyes were shut.

“Is he all right?” Teddy asked Liberty. “Is he dead?”

“I am dead,” Charlie said. “I was in the Alps, hiking. I
started out on a spring day. The air was sweet and warm. As I went higher it grew cold. There was a blizzard. I took refuge in a cave and built a small fire for comfort. The small fire caused an avalanche, which flattened me. Ever since then I have been dead.”

“Who is this,” Teddy demanded.

“My man,” Charlie said, opening his eyes. “Liberty and I were just discussing running away together.”

“We weren’t,” Liberty said.

“You’re dead,” Teddy said to him somberly.

“I was a swimmer,” Charlie said. “I waded in. Soon I was out of my depth. Ever since then, I have been dead.”

Teddy put a napkin in an empty cup and placed the egg in it.

“My man,” Charlie said. “Why are you carrying around an egg?”

“I have to take care of it. Wherever I go, the egg has to go.”

“Wow, man, how did you get talked into something like that? Is the egg boiled?”

“Boiled!” Teddy said in alarm. “No!”

“I just thought it would be easier to take care of, if it was boiled, but you’re right, what a deplorable suggestion. What would be the sense of that, right? Let’s not even think about boiling that egg. Do you know that an egg knows when it’s about to be boiled? Its terrified acknowledgment can be measured.”

“How can it be measured?” Teddy asked cautiously.

“With one of those terrible instruments of modern times that records impulses on a graph,” Charlie said.

Liberty shook her head and smiled.

“Look at this pretty lady smile,” Charlie said to Teddy. “I love this lady. I’ve loved her for a long time. It’s been a secret, but now you know too.”

Teddy whispered in Liberty’s ear, then slipped something out of the bag he had put on the table. “Don’t you want some ketchup?” he said to Charlie.

Charlie looked at the red plastic bottle. It looked just like restaurant ketchup.

“I believe in bringing my own condiments too, man. See how alike we are! Always bring your own condiments. I chugged a bottle of ketchup once. Won a dollar.”

“No, no, put it on your food,” squeaked Teddy.

Charlie squeezed the bottle. A long red string leaped toward his lap.

“He didn’t jump,” Teddy said.

“I’ve been wounded.”

“He knew,” Teddy said.

“It’s just that my pulse is slow, sixty-eight, maybe sixty-nine, always. I should have been a pilot. Cool in the pitch, roll and yaw. Imperturbable when controls break down. This is great. Do you have the snapping pack of gum, the blackening soap, the fly in the ice cube?”

Teddy nodded.

“You got the lady in the bathtub?”

Teddy shook his head.

“You just can’t keep her in the bathtub,” Charlie said. “She keeps popping out. Well, I guess that’s something else.”

“If you run away with Liberty, I want to come too,” Teddy said.

“A beautiful woman, a little kid, a dog, and yours truly,” Charlie said. “We can do it! We will become myths in the
minds of others. They will say about us …” he leaned forward and lowered his voice, “… that we all went out for breakfast and never returned.”

“Good,” Teddy said.

“So where shall we go?” Charlie said. He kissed Liberty’s face. The line of people waiting to be seated, old women in bonnets, holding one another’s hands, looked at them.

“There’s no place to go,” Liberty said.

“There are many places to go,” Charlie said. “Hundreds.”

“Let’s make a list. I love lists!” Teddy said.

“We’re the nuclear unit scrambling out, the improbable family whose salvation is at hand,” Charlie said. “We’ll go to Idaho, British Columbia, Greece. No, forget Greece. The Greeks are mean to animals. We’ll go the Costa del Sol, Venice. We’ll go to Nepal. No, forget Nepal, all those tinkly little bells would drive us crazy. What do you say, we’ll go to Paraguay. That’s where Jesse James went.”

“Jesse James didn’t go there,” Liberty said. “That’s where the Germans went.”

“You’re right,” Charlie said. “It wasn’t Paraguay. It was Patagonia where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid went.” He was fidgeting now. His dark eyes glittered.

“They were outlaws,” Teddy said.

“They were outlaws,” Charlie said. “Successful outlaws.”

“Why are you crying?” Teddy asked Liberty. “Are you crying?”

“We’ve got to move along, it’s later than we think,” Charlie said. “How about some lunch?”

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