Nothing Better To Do - a novel in stories - Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Somewhere in his thirty-third year, Marvin Payne suddenly, and without any logical explanation, achieved a new level of intelligence. Brain-damaged at birth and virtually uneducated, folks around Serena never figured Marvin, or House of Pain, as they called him, would ever be meaningfully employed. They wondered what would become of him after his mother passed on. But one hot summer day, so the story goes, he walked into the house carrying a copy of the Serena Daily Banner and started reading the financial pages to his mama. Mona Payne supposedly told a neighbor that he had had the smell of beer on his breath that day and that prior to that he had never imbibed. There had been rumors that he had been seen in the Blue Moon Tavern that afternoon with Phil Rowley and Hank Pitts. House of Pain, himself, denied these reports, probably out of a sense of loyalty to the two old culprits.

Whatever the source of his new found abilities, House felt he was ready to go to work. For the next two weeks, he hounded his mother incessantly to help him find a job. This she would gladly have done, but for his insistence that she first try The Daily Banner. He wanted to be a reporter. She knew that was out of the question. And so, they were at an impasse. Finally, one morning, House took matters into his own hands and walked downtown to the offices of the newspaper.

On this special day, he wore a black child's cowboy hat perched atop his large pumpkin of a head, a gray tee shirt that didn't quite cover his considerable belly and black sweat pants that didn't quite reach down to his red Converse canvas high-tops. This cowboy hat, which would have blown off his head, were it not secured under his chin with a red draw-string, was a significant departure from his usual dirty white and green Oakland As baseball cap. You might say that he had dressed for the occasion.

When he returned home that afternoon, House was the proud holder of his first job, not as a reporter, but as night janitor. Gar Findlay, the Managing Editor of the newspaper, had told him he would give him the opportunity to work his way up. House was content with that compromise, figuring that it would only be a matter weeks before the folks at the Banner recognized his true worth. He would start sweeping up on Monday evening.

A few days earlier, Gar had received a phone call from Phil Rowley, apprising him of House's ambitions and asking him if there was any kind of job they could give him. He assured him that House had somehow become more intelligent and could probably hold down some kind of position. He had actually helped Phil on a plumbing job. Gar had already heard the rumors emanating from the Blue Moon, and, having always felt sorry for House, agreed to take him on.

On Monday afternoon, Mona Payne packed Marvin a lunch consisting of three bologna sandwiches on white bread with mustard, two slices of pound cake and a can of Genesee Cream Ale. She hadn't packed him a lunch in twenty years, since he had been a twelve-year-old in the third grade, but she still remembered what he liked. The beer was her own idea. She figured that his intelligence might need a little boost to get him through his first night on the job, so she inquired about the brand of choice at The Blue Moon and purchased a six pack at Dot's Market. That having been done, she convinced him to dress the way he had, the day he had worked with Phil, and sent him on his way.

House arrived at the offices of the Banner five minutes before his starting time of 4:00 p.m. He was met at the loading docks by the night foreman and handed the biggest push-broom he had ever seen. The brush portion was six feet long. Once they entered the area behind the docks, it was easy for him to understand the necessity for such a broom. The room was the size of the gym over at the grade-school, but darker and dingier. The cement floor was knee-deep in crumpled newspaper.

"This is easier than it looks," the foreman explained. "You start at the edges and sweep everything toward the middle. Come 'ere, I want to show you. You see this hole?" In the middle of the room was a rectangular hole about four feet by six feet. "You sweep everything into this hole. Underneath it, in the basement, is a baler. You don't have to worry about that. I'll run it. You sweep the paper into the hole and when the baler is filled, I'll run it - bale it all up. You see all this paper? We should be able to compress it all into one bale."

"You mean like hay?" House's eyes were wide in disbelief.

"You got it Bunky."

"House."

"What?"

"Just call me House. Everyone else does."

"You got it Bunky. You should be able to finish this job by the lunch break. After that, I'll take you up to the offices and show you what to do." The foreman left and House walked to one corner of the large room and started sweeping toward the middle.

As the foreman had said, the work was easier than it looked and House began to enjoy it, especially about half-way into the job, when he started to see some results. Whenever he reached the hole and swept papers down into it, the foreman would call up to him, "You're doin' fine Bunky. Keep up the good work!" House felt good about the job he was doing, although he suspected that the foreman was supposed to be up in the big room with him, helping him to sweep. After a couple hours, when the foreman came up to see how House was doing, House thought he smelled the odor of whiskey on his breath.

"You're a good worker, Bunky," he had said, as he looked around the room at the almost cleared floor. "The sooner you finish up, the sooner you can take lunch."

House liked the idea of that. He had already started thinking about those bologna sandwiches that were sitting in the brown bag which he had left by the door. He had even considered sneaking over and getting one to eat as he swept. Now, that bit of connivance wouldn't be necessary.

After he swept the last of the paper into the hole, he called down to the foreman and told him he was done.

"Get your lunch and come on down here, then." The foreman told him.

House found his brown bag then looked around, confused as to which door the foreman had gone through when he left him. He went over to the hole and started to climb into it.

"Jesus Christ, you don't want to do that Bunky! Use the door directly opposite the hole."

House found the door and went down the stairs which opened into the baling room. House looked around. In the middle of the room was a large piece of heavy machinery directly under the hole from upstairs. Along one wall was a steel table with pipe legs bolted to the floor. In a corner was an old recliner which looked like it had been salvaged from someone's trash. Next to it was a copy of the current edition of the Banner, opened to the sports section.

"Put your lunch over there!" The foreman indicated the steel table. "Then come over here and I'll show you how to thread the baling wire and I'll run the compressor."

When they finished, the foreman declared that it was lunch time and that since they had finished early, they would be able to take an extra fifteen minutes over the normal half-hour. He slumped into his recliner, reached under it and pulled out a flask.

"Lunch," he said, pointing to the whiskey. "What you got, Bunky?"

"House," Marvin corrected him. "Bologna."

"Now that I've seen that you can work, you can call me Norm," the foreman said.

House found a steel folding chair leaning against the wall. He opened it and sat. When he pulled the can of beer from his bag and opened it, Norm nodded in approval and gave him the thumbs up.

Norm dozed for awhile, then awoke with a start. He looked at his watch. "We'll give her another five minutes, then we'll go upstairs. They should all be gone by now."

***

The upstairs offices were a combination of cubby-holes in the center of a room about the size of the one House had just swept, surrounded along the walls by small offices with windows and doors that looked in upon the maze in the center. Norm handed him a smaller broom this time and gave him a canvas mail wagon to push around with him. "First you go around to all the rooms and cubicles and dump all the waste baskets into the wagon. Then you go back around and sweep every floor. I'll be down in the bailing room, tidying up. Come down and get me when you're done."

House had the place to himself. All the reporters and secretaries and whoever else worked here had long-since gone home. He felt good after the beer. So this was where he would be working when he got promoted to reporter, he thought. He smiled, trying to imagine which of the desks would be his.

He started in the outer offices. Most of the waste baskets were overflowing with paper waste. He began dumping them, stopping occasionally to read something that would slip to the floor.
The offices belonged to the different editors of the paper. Gar Findlay's office was clearly marked "Managing Editor" in gold leaf lettering on the glass pane in its door. It was in the corner and bigger than the others. House had been here before, the day he was hired. He had saved it for last. All the other baskets had been dumped, all the other floors swept. House looked at the clock on Gar's desk. Once again, he appeared to be ahead of schedule. He sat in Gar's large leather upholstered swivel chair and began handling the nick-knacks on his desk, fingering them as carefully as if they were rare treasured items. He opened and closed drawers.

To his right, on the floor was a wire waste-basket. House thought this was odd. He had already emptied a large brass one that had been quite full. This one had a label taped to the side that read "Letters to the Editor". House began to leaf through the pile. Every one of the letters was from someone named Harry Kresge. House had heard of this Kresge fellow. Freddie the bartender at The Blue Moon had been telling Phil and Hank about him. He was a lawyer from New York. He wasn't sure if he should dump this one. He went downstairs to find the foreman.

Down in the bailing room, Norm was laid out on the recliner, snoring loudly. House had to shake him to rouse him. "What? What? Geeze, don't ever do that! You done already?"
"Almost..." House went on to explain his dilemma.

"Yeah, you can dump it. It's like the Editor's private joke or something. When I first came on the job, I wasn't sure if I should dump it or not, so I asked, too. Go ahead. It's just more rubbish."
House went back upstairs. He dumped the can on top of the pile of trash which almost filled his wagon. He wondered what kind of special trash would get its own basket, labelled "Letters to the Editor." He pulled one off the top of the pile and began to read it:

Dear Editor:

It may not seem like much, but I suppose I should be grateful for the fact that I am no longer tailgated by tiny peroxide blondes in over-sized pickup trucks. This I attribute to having recently registered our car with the Ohio BMV and consequently having removed our telltale New York number plates. That first step toward immersion in Buckeyedom notwithstanding, we continue to be harassed, if not on the road, then at home.

The new neighbor's kid sets off firecrackers on our front lawn at all times of day and night in an apparent effort to get a second look at our teenage daughter. Just once, she came to the front door and excoriated him when he attached several bottle rockets to one of the small oaks in our front yard and sent them whistling onto our roof like a battery of Patriot Missiles in pursuit of an enemy Scud. Last night I had to go over there and remind him that it was 11:00 p.m. When I asked him to stop, he replied, "Oh, okay," staring at me as is if I had two heads.

I migrated to southwestern Ohio in an attempt to get away from the everyday noise of living in New York, the honking horns, garbage trucks, police and fire sirens, three-Concordes-a-day landing at JFK. I chose this place because I was somewhat familiar with the area, my son from my first marriage having attended college in nearby Hollowbrook. It looked like a nice quiet place to pursue a career as full-time writer.

There is an object lesson in what I am about to tell you, and it is this: Before you buy or rent a house, ask the owner if you can sleep in it for a couple nights.

The woman who lives next door to the little house we have rented here in Serena is deaf-mute, a fact that would be of no consequence to me but for certain aggravating factors. She is a pleasant woman who smiles and waves when she sees us. The problem is that she has a barking dog. Barking dogs are probably something Serenans don't even notice, much in the way that New Yorkers don't notice the yellow cabs which constantly have them in their cross-hairs. But a New Yorker will be acutely aware of a barking dog, tuning in to its every menacing growl, frightened yelp, off-pitch howl, and full-throated woof.

Imagine complaining to someone who can't conceive of that which is the very sum and substance of your complaint against them. If complaints to the non-hearing-impaired owners of barking dogs usually fall on deaf ears, try complaining when the owner really is deaf. So I haven't. I continue to smile and waive whenever I see her and she smiles and waives back, content in the silent world which I so long to attain. Ignorance is bliss.

A little about the four-legged offender himself: It looks like a ten-year-old miniature poodle that hasn't had a trim or a bath in a decade. As there is no logic to its barking, I have come to suspect that the dog itself may very well be deaf and/or blind. The usual things that will set a dog off, such as our ten-year-old son gliding his model airplane in the backyard or a boy setting off firecrackers, do nothing for this mutt. But when all is quiet and not another creature is about, he will suddenly let out with a string of barking that will continue, uninterrupted, for fifteen minutes, then, just as suddenly, stop. We might not hear from him again for an entire day. "Not bad," you say? You might be convinced to retract that, if you were subjected to the barking which occurs at unpredictable, random times, such as 4:30 a.m. and outside our bedroom window, while his owner sleeps soundly through it.

But there's more. Remember our young demolitions expert? He happens to be the son of the lady who can't hear and, therefore, operates with equal impunity to his furry sibling. If complaints to the non-hearing-impaired parents of unruly children usually fall on deaf ears, try complaining when the owner really is deaf. But you've heard all this before.

Ignorance truly is bliss. So is silence.

As I write this, I hear something that sounds like a dog whimpering in the yard of the house on the other side. We have lived here for all of two weeks. There has never been a dog there before. I look out the window and see something that looks like the mutt from the "Our Gang" comedies, right down to the black spot over one eye. Please tell me he's just visiting!

I guess I won't truly be a Serenan until barking dogs are as ordinary as the medallion cabs of my former life.

Very truly yours,

Harry Kresge

***

House liked the letter. It made him laugh. Freddie had said that this Harry Kresge was a funny fellow. House wondered if he knew that his letters to the Editor had all been thrown in the trash. Without knowing why, House decided to retrieve all the letters and take them home. There were about a dozen of them. He found a large envelope that had been in one of the waste baskets. He emptied it and used it to hold the letters. He filled it and stuffed it under his shirt. He decided it would be best not to mention this to Norm.

It was midnight, time to go home. The foreman was pleased with the job House had done. He promised to put in a good word for him. House knew that Norm liked him, because he worked hard and kept his mouth shut. If he could avoid waking him in the future, they would get along just fine.

That night House slept soundly atop the envelope full of letters which he had stuffed under his mattress. In the morning he would read them all.

***

Harry Kresge stopped to check his Post Office Box on his way to the Blue Moon. There was one letter, addressed to him in what he would later describe as a psychotic scrawl. The return address, also scrawled, purported to be that of the Serena Daily Banner. Harry opened it in the car, before pulling out of the Post Office parking lot. The letter was in the same hand:

Dear Mr. Kresge:

I regret that, due to space limitations, we are unable to publish your letter. I am, however, sympathetic to your plight and would like to offer you some advice.

My solution to your problem of the barking dog is to fight fire with fire. Get a dog of your own, a large vicious one. If you do not wish to own such an animal, borrow one. I have reason to believe that such a mongrel might be available. If you are interested I suggest that you speak to Morely Stevens. The dog's name is Godzilla. Need I say anything more?

The Editor

Kresge was both amused and a little bit frightened. He was certain that it had not been authored by the Editor of The Banner. But by whom? He would seek counsel at The Blue Moon over a cold one.

***

"Godzilla?" Freddie Edwards set the letter back down on the bar. He smiled wickedly. "Godzilla could swallow that mutt in one gulp."

"Well then, I'd have to say this letter contains nothing but sound advice," Kresge quipped. "But who could have written it?"

"Beats me. Morely should be in later. Maybe he'll know."

But Morely Stevens did not know. Neither did any of the other denizens of The Blue Moon. Phil Rowley, however, acted rather strangely when the letter was shown to him. Harry had the feeling that he knew more than he was letting on. Had he recognized the handwriting? If he had, he wasn't saying.

"So, you want to borrow Godzilla for a week or so?" Morely asked Harry.

"Christ Almighty!" Hank chimed in. "Talk about the cure being worse than the disease... I was scared to feed that son-of-a-bitch over at Morely's place. I'd be damned if I'd take him home with me."

"All you got to do is chain him up in the yard," Phil said.

"Yeah, and push his food bowl over to him with a long stick," Hank added.

"Must be some dog," Harry said. "If it's alright with you, Morely, I'm game."

"Hell yes, it's alright with me," Morely said. "Just keep your girlfriend's kids out of the yard.

***

Morely Stevens arrived with Godzilla in a big wire cage in the back of his pick-up. The dog looked like a cross between a Doberman Pincer and a German Shepherd. Before he removed the dog from its cage, he carried a large pipe and a heavy galvanized chain into Harry's backyard. He pounded the pipe into the ground with a sledge hammer, having chosen a spot where the length of the chain would allow the dog to roam along the fence between Harry's yard and the yard next door.

"That should do her," he said when he finished rigging the chain. "Let's get the dog."

Harry's girlfriend and her two children watched wide-eyed out the windows as Morely removed the large snarling dog from the cage. Godzilla was on a short leash and Morely was having all he could do to control him as he led him into Harry's yard. When he finally managed to get the dog chained to the pipe and had set out bowls of food and water, he shook Harry's hand and turned to leave.

"I never liked that goddam dog."

"You are going to take him back, next weekend, aren't you?"

"We'll see..." Morely smiled wickedly.

***

"You got video?" Freddie asked, expectantly.

"Not this time, pal," Harry said. "It must have happened in the middle of the night."

"What exactly did happen?"

"All there is is circumstantial evidence. A hole chewed through my chain-link fence, bits of gray fur scattered about my yard, and a hole in the ground where Morely had pounded in the pipe."

"What did your neighbors say?"

"Not a peep. Who knows..? With that stereo thumping away all the time, they might not have noticed their dog is missing. Of course, I did clean up the fur. But there wasn't much I could do about the fence. Hey, both dogs are gone. Who's to say their dog didn't chew the hole and attack my, er..., Morely's dog?"

"Does Morely know yet?"

"Sure. I called him right away. Says he hopes no one ever finds Godzilla. He's glad to be rid of the dog."

The phone rang. Freddie answered it at the back bar, by the cash register. "It's Morely, for you." Freddie stretched the long chord and handed Harry the receiver.

"Harry?" Morely's voice was grave.

"Yeah?"

"You'll never guess who just showed up at my place, carrying the mangiest carcass I've ever seen."

"Godzilla?"

"You got it. Animal Control pulled in the driveway, right after he got home. Seems they've been following him for an hour or so, afraid to go after him."

"What'd they say?"

"They gave me a summons for not having a dog license. It's a fifty dollar fine."

"I thought Godzilla had a license."

"He does. The other mutt didn't have one. I told them he was mine, too. I figured it would be easier that way - less questions. I got a fifteen dollar fine for Godzilla being loose without a leash. They figured that since the other dog was dead, they'd let me go on that one."

"Har. Come on down here, I'll buy you a beer and give you the money for the fines."

"You know what the worst part of it is?"

"No, what?"

"I wanted them to take Godzilla and put him away, but they wouldn't do it. I told them, look what he did! He killed my other dog! You know what they said?"

"No, what?"

"They said, how'd they know the other dog didn't die of natural causes? They was just afraid to deal with the son-of-a-bitch."

"Where's Godzilla, now?"

"Chained up out by the barn, again. You want him?"

"Hell, no. Get your ass down here. I'll buy you a beer."

"Make that a shot and a beer."

"You got it."