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The good man is not at home

Michael Howard

    It was dark and freezing cold when Christian left the corrosive atmosphere of the office. His breath steamed as he crossed the half-empty parking lot, backpack full of marketing reports and sales numbers and company laptop slung over one shoulder, the black leather housing his feet stained with salt. He grunted as he stood beside his car, fishing the keys from his pocket with frozen fingers. He turned the engine over and while he waited for the windshield to defrost, his breath still making steam, he sent her a message—Be there in twenty minutes—and once the car was warm he put it in drive and navigated around the other vehicles and steered left out of the parking lot, anticipating the next hour of his life, the hour that allowed him to tolerate the surrounding ones.
    It was a crummy sort of place she’d chosen this time, which Christian had to admit was more than appropriate. Half the letters in VACANCY were burnt out. It read VA A Y in the dark, and he stared at the broken word through the windshield as he pulled in, chose a space, parked, suppressed a negative feeling and looked around. She was there already, waiting, her red sedan situated at the far end of the lot, isolated from the other cars, standing quite apart. He got out and started walking. Room number twenty-seven. He said it aloud. It didn’t seem like there were that many rooms. He began counting them and gave up after four. As he walked on, past the little office window lit up from within, fragments of verse whizzed like bullets through his mind ... an ox to the slaughter ... a bird to the snare ... a dart piercing liver ... “Twenty-seven,” he said again, stopping, and he inhaled smoothly and knocked and heard movement on the other side. The door swung open and she was there, clad in a white t-shirt and ripped blue jeans, no bra, her brown hair piled into a sloppy bun, her face glowing with youthful exuberance, and she smiled and he smiled back and she told him to come in before she froze to death.
    “It smells good in—” was all he managed.

    Afterwards Christian lay sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling while she showered and straightened herself up in the bathroom. The real world came roaring back. All the fucking problems. He laughed uselessly at his situation. The shitty motel room. The mendacity. In this moment it was funny. It was easier to laugh. He closed his eyes. He wanted a cigarette. The bathroom door opened and out she came. He craned his neck to see her.
    “What’s so funny?” Her hair was slicked back with wetness; it looked black, and Christian thought about how he liked it that way. He thought she should wear it like that more often.
    “Who said anything’s funny?”
    “I heard you laughing.” She sat down on the bed and he groped the air for her hand, too lazy to look, and she helped him find it.
    “Why’d you pick this place?”
    “Why not?”
    There was silence for a minute—the unspoken words danced around mockingly in the air. He had to ask, but he didn’t want to ask, because he knew the answer, and ignoring the issue, evading it, always seemed better than addressing it. Presently he wished he could disappear.
    She sighed, started to say something, stopped. More silence. It would have to be him, then.
    “I don’t suppose there’s been any change down there.”
    “No.” She paused before adding, “I took a test.”
    “Yeah?” He sat up, his elbows digging into the mattress, and looked to her hopefully, but what he was hoping for he had no idea.
    She looked at him for a moment and their eyes locked, and then she simply lifted her brow and nodded her head.
    “Well, that’s that, I guess,” he said, and started laughing uselessly again.
    “I’m glad you find it funny.”
    Suddenly he was serious. All business. He wiped his face with his hand. “Sorry. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. It’ll be alright.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’ll pay for it. No problem.” He was lying back down, his arms spread out on either side, cruciform.
    “There’s nothing to pay for, Christian.”
    “What’s that?” He lifted his head.
    “It’s mine. I’m keeping it.”
    The laughing started again. He couldn’t help it.

    That night Christian sat on the couch with his wife, chewing his thumbnail, blinking, trying not to breathe too loudly. His chest felt constricted. His face felt warm. The room was dark. The TV showed a program about ruined civilizations, its volume just loud enough to penetrate the looming silence. Pretending to watch was getting tedious. He clenched his abdomen tighter. He wanted to be alone. Why couldn’t she see that? If he went to bed she would only follow him, and in this moment Christian felt contempt for his wife. Resentment—a novel degree of it. He resented her ignorance and her fidelity and, most of all, her love. It was her love, constant and tyrannical, that cut him up. It suffocated him. It imposed upon him a duty he couldn’t fulfill, so he hated it. If she just knew how much he hated it.
    “Don’t you like it?” Valerie asked, meaning the wine.
    Christian eyed the glass on the coffee table where it sat untouched. He’d never liked wine. He only ever drank it for her benefit. He took his thumbnail from between his teeth and breathed in, and he was about to say something, God knew what, when a small voice cried out from the bedroom. Valerie sighed and stood up and disappeared down the hall, and when she sat back down she was cradling their baby in her arms. The crying kept on. It struck Christian as a knowing cry, and he felt strangely absent as Valerie reassured the child, going “Shhhhh” and saying, “We’re here.”

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