Homebody

"Listen, you can stay tonight. OK? One night. Got that? Say it after me. One—"

She took two steps toward him—all the bathtub would allow—and spoke angrily right in his face. "Don't talk to me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like I was your daughter!"

The words stung him. His daughter, his little girl. She would never have grown up to be someone like this, homeless, derelict, squatting in someone's filthy bathtub. He would have raised her to be strong and free and able to stand on her own two feet.

But maybe she got taken away from her father. Maybe she got taken away and raised by an incompetent, negligent...

No. He would not let her become his daughter in some dark place in his psyche. "If you don't like the way I talk to you, you're free to leave."

"Talk however you like then." The implication, from her words and from her defiant ma

"You can stay the rest of the night," Don said. "In the morning, get out. And make sure you don't touch any of my tools. If anything's missing, I'll call the cops and you'll have a new home in jail. Got it?"

His tough talking didn't impress her any more than it did him.

"You want me to say it after you?" she asked.

"This is where I live and work now," he said. "And I live and work alone."

That was the simple truth, and she seemed to realize that this wasn't bluster or anger or fear or waking up in the middle of the night. This was how he felt in his heart. There was no room for anyone in his life, and his house was his life, and that was that. She seemed to realize he meant it, because she said nothing.

But she didn't agree, either. He'd have this quarrel all over again in the morning, if she didn't kill him with a two-by-four while he slept. And if he never woke up, well, then the house would be big enough for the two of them.

Yet as he left the bathroom, her continued sullen silence infuriated him until he had to call out to her as he stalked down the hall, "You want to live in a rundown old house, you do like I did, start with a small one! Find yourself a rundown abandoned mobile home somewhere!"

That got a rise out of her. He was halfway down the stairs but he could hear her piercing angry voice just fine, despite the echoey quality from the bathroom. Was she still standing in the tub? "Would you be happy if I found an abandoned rundown cardboard box?"

He thought of answering, How about an old truck tire? but then he thought better of it. He was arguing with her like a schoolyard kid. Like siblings, waiting for Mom or Dad to come in and stop them. It put them on the same level, and they were not on the same level. He was a property owner, for heaven's sake, and not by inheritance or dumb luck, either, he had earned this house by the sweat of his body.

Back in the parlor, he sat down on his cot and started taking off his shoes again, cursing himself for a fool. That stupid girl didn't have to argue with him, he was going to flagellate himself into giving her a place to stay.

She called down the stairwell to him. "Didn't a friend ever give you a hand sometime in your life?"

This stung him. He knew how much he owed to the friends who staked him to start his life over. "You're not my friend!"

"Well how do you know who your friends are, till you see who helps?"

He didn't have an answer for that. Instead, he flung a shoe against the wall.

"What was that!" Her voice was fainter. Where was she now? What room did she sleep in? They had all looked equally dusty and unkempt to him. Well, wherever she slept, she should go and do it and leave him alone. He had a closing in the morning. Thinking of that made him wonder: What would Cindy think if she knew there was a woman sleeping in this house with him tonight? That was a complication he didn't need.

He flung the other shoe against the wall.

"What are you doing down there!" she called.

"Whatever I want!" he shouted back. "It's my house! Now shut up and go to sleep!"

He lay back on the cot and closed his eyes. This was so unfair, to throw the burden of her poverty on him. That was what taxes were for, wasn't it? So that the poor would go deal with an institution instead of asking so personally for help. And not even out on the street, like the other beggars. No, she accosted him here in his own house. What should have been a sanctuary.

Of course, she had thought of it as her house, her sanctuary, and from that perspective he was the intruder here.

Madness, all of this. Kissing Cindy in the upstairs bathroom, that was insanity enough for one day, wasn't it? Then di

He muttered it again, like a prayer. "I live and work alone." But like all his prayers in recent years, it went unheard.

8

Closing

Don woke up shivering. He thought of crawling inside the sleeping bag in order to warm up—the faintness of the light told him the sun wasn't up yet, or at least the morning mist hadn't yet burned away. But he knew he wouldn't get warm enough to sleep, and besides, he needed to find a toilet. Not to mention a toothbrush and a shower. He thought of Cindy's offer yesterday. A shower, no questions asked, no strings attached. For some reason it reminded him of Esau taking a mess of pottage from his brother Jacob. He just didn't want to be that beholden to anyone.

This from the man who had taken a free di

And thinking of last night reminded him of how he had spent a half-hour in the small of the morning. Was she still in the house? He looked around at his stuff, glad that by habit he had put it all in the one room. Nothing missing. Even the Singing Sword was where he had put it last night.

So also were his shoes. He got up and rummaged through his stuff until he found where they had fallen after he threw them against the wall. In the process he found his work jacket, which had once been leather but now had a texture and stiffness approaching granite. Rain and sun weren't good on the old cowhide.

He was at the door before he realized: I'm going to a closing. Which ordinarily wouldn't be enough to put him in a suit. But at this closing there would be a woman he had kissed yesterday afternoon, and maybe yesterday's workclothes and a jacket bought when Bruce Springsteen was singing "Born in the U.S.A." on every radio station wouldn't make the right impression.

Then again, it was the man in the workclothes that she had kissed.

This is how it starts, he told himself. You start trying to guess how she wants you to dress, and pretty soon you bring her home so she can tell you herself every morning, but never until after you've put the clothes on yourself, at which point she can say, "You're wearing that?" Am I really ready for this?