Better Than People, Page 3

  She smiled gently at him. “Medium.” With a pat to his arm, she left him to make his way down to the basement.

  After a year, the graphic design business that Simon ran from home had become sustainable. The ability to make a living had been a relief, but the bigger relief had been the opportunity to quit his job working for the company where he’d dreaded going every morning and the cubicle that had left him open to social incursion from all directions.

  Now, he conducted all his communications via email. He made his own schedule, which meant he could take long lunches to spend time with his grandmother—or, more recently, take time to walk Jack’s dogs. He didn’t mind working on the weekends to make up for it if necessary. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere he wanted to go. In the quiet of his basement office, without the anxiety of the company work environment, Simon could lose himself in color, shape, font, and balance.

  Today, however, Simon was distracted. He’d get to see the animals again tonight and already his skin tingled with the promise of contact. After the third time he found himself staring off into space, he pinched his arm, hard.

  “Stop it.”

  He told himself that it was pathetic to be this excited about getting to hug some dogs or cuddle a cat. He told himself that he was an adult and taking a walk should not be the highlight of his day.

  He told himself a lot of things, but it still took him longer than usual to finish his work.

  * * *

  That evening, back in the clothes he’d worn to walk the dogs earlier, Simon stood once more before Jack’s door. This time, he was able to ring the doorbell and the sound was met with yipping and barking from within. After a minute, he heard a groan that could only be Jack and then a stream of swearing.

  When the door finally opened, Jack’s hair was flattened on one side and sticking straight up at the crown.

  “Hey,” he said, voice rough. “Sorry. Fell asleep.”

  Simon glanced at his face and took in the shadows under his eyes, like someone had pressed thumbs there hard enough to bruise. He took in the creases on one cheek and the tightness around his mouth that might have been pain, and wondered what had happened to his leg.

  He opened his mouth to say it was fine, but the words inflated in his throat until they were a balloon choking off his breath. There was the itch of panic and then he swallowed the words down and could breathe again. He nodded.

  Suddenly, exhaustion hit him. He should’ve anticipated it, what with the effort it had taken to drag himself here this morning, the effort it had taken to go inside, and now the effort of doing it all over again. It was an exhaustion that sapped all his reserves and put a certain end to any chance of conversation that might have existed.

  The anger rose and with it Simon could feel his chest get hot. The heat crept up his neck and his ears blazed. Before his face could turn red he clenched his hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. Then he closed his eyes, held out his other hand, and prayed that Jack would understand.

  “Listen,” Jack said, not understanding. “It’s probably too much to ask. Twice a day. Maybe—”

  Frustration consumed Simon and he drove his fist into the doorjamb. It hurt. He held out his other hand without looking at Jack and, after a minute of shuffling noises and barks, felt the leashes placed on his palm.

  Simon closed his fingers around them and nodded. Then he headed out into the cooling dusk without a backward glance, cursing himself silently all the way.

  Away from the house he sucked in deep breaths. Again. Damn it.

  “Your dad makes me nervous,” Simon told the animals. He could hear the misery in his shaky voice.

  Bernard woofed gently in reply and Dandelion trotted excitedly at his side.

  “I’m kind of crap with people,” he told them.

  Rat snarled at nothing.

  “It doesn’t help that your dad’s, uh...pretty hot. Even if he is kind of intimidating. But I’d be grumpy too if I broke my leg and couldn’t walk you. Wish you could tell me how he broke it.”

  Simon went on chatting to the animals until Puddles stopped short. Simon peered at the ground, keeping Jack’s list of the dog’s fears in mind. It was a stick shaped like a lightning bolt.

  He tried to guide Puddles to give the stick a wide berth, but the dog wouldn’t budge. Simon studied the stick, trying to intuit what it was about it that made Puddles so afraid.

  After a minute he snorted at himself. Who knew better than him that fear didn’t have to have a reason?

  “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll take care of it.”

  He picked up the stick and threw it deep into the trees. Puddles let out a yip of relief while the other three dogs surged forward in an attempt to chase the stick.

  “Whoa, whoa!” He pulled on the leashes, and managed to corral the dogs back onto the lane, even though it was clear that Bernard could’ve dragged them wherever he wanted if he’d chosen to do so.

  Puddles nuzzled Simon and he rested his hand on the dog’s head, appreciating the softness of his fur and the warm press of his body.

  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to talk to your dad,” Simon told him softly.

  Puddles barked.

  “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow will be better.”

  Chapter Three

  Jack

  Every day had dilated to a month, every night to a year, and Jack found himself wishing for anything—anything—to break the monotony of lying on the couch all day long and in bed all night. He wasn’t precisely incapable of doing things, but the effort it took to do something as simple as taking a shower left him hollow and trembling, every instinct of movement and muscle thrown into chaos.

  He’d thought the last eight months were bad, but now he was a prisoner of his own body. A prisoner in his own house. A prisoner without even the mental escape into the worlds he drew.

  When the sound of snapping branches outside caught his attention, boredom won out over comfort and Jack hauled himself to his feet, fished his binoculars from the windowsill, and lurched to the back door.

  Jack put the binoculars to his eyes, breath catching for just a moment, as it always did in that first second of extended sight. Who could ever know what such sight might reveal? What bit of the world it would alight on? First, the dizzying whoosh of dislocation and then the view steadied and he was projected yards and yards beyond himself.

  Once, he’d lifted binoculars casually and they’d revealed a boreal owl nestled in the crotch of a branch, wide yellow eyes fixed directly on him. For years after, every time he walked outside, Jack had thought about all the creatures that watched him unawares.

  Now, though, there was no such magic. It was an overcast, grayish day, and fog lay close to the ground. When nothing of interest revealed itself in the woods behind the house, Jack scanned farther afield. He’d never paid much attention to his nearest neighbor, who lived a quarter mile or so north, but now he found himself lingering on the smoke rising from the chimney just over the rise.

  Had he seen smoke coming from the chimney in the morning before? He didn’t think so. But he’d likely never looked, either. The smoke crawled into the sky and Jack wondered. The man who lived there was old and kept to himself, and the law of binoculars was that you minded your own business if you happened to catch sight of humans while observing animals. But Jack allowed himself a brief scan.

  The house itself lay invisible over a swell of land, but he could make out the chimney and a bit of the roof, and just to the east, the drive to the house that snaked back to the main road.

  Why had his neighbor changed his habits? Was he suddenly home during the days? Was someone else staying with him? What if, the voice that was usually linked to his drawing hand whispered, someone broke in and took Mr. Whatshisname hostage? What if they’re still there and have him tied to a chair or stuffed in a suitcase? What if they’re robbing him or
torturing him or taking revenge for an act of cruelty he committed long ago? They’ve just now tracked him down, thirty years later, and although he’s an old man, they believe he must pay for the pain he’s inflicted.

  Jack strained to see more but short of climbing on the roof—impossible in his current condition—there was nothing he could do. Gradually, the smoke lessened, then disappeared, and though he watched for as long as his leg would allow, he didn’t see anything more.

  Sighing as his one wisp of potential excitement disappeared along with the smoke, Jack dragged himself back inside, leg aching, armpits aching, ribs aching, and collapsed onto the couch with an oof that made him feel ninety years old.

  With nothing else to break the monotony of the day until Simon arrived for the evening walk, Jack watched the animals until his eyes swam. He counted the beams in the ceiling. Made lists of tasks he should do once he was back on his feet—the windows could use washing; there was a loose board in the entryway; maybe he should get some plants to liven the place up.

  Every crack, smudge, stain, and loose thread within his kingdom revealed itself, never to be unseen. He pet every animal that came near him until they bored of it and found a place on Mayonnaise’s fur that didn’t quite grow in all the way.

  Then, when all of that had taken only the smallest chunk of only one day, Jack turned the television on and resigned himself to numbing distraction.

  * * *

  There was a quiet to the house when the dogs weren’t there that Jack hadn’t experienced in years. He didn’t like it.

  Mayonnaise and Pickles snoozed on the easy chair and windowsill respectively, and Louis was in the bedroom, but cats had their own quiet.

  Jack was intimately acquainted with quiet. He’d grown up with it. The quiet of long, snow-choked Wyoming winters, of long, sleepless nights. The quiet of parents who had little to say to one another; the quiet of their absence.

  His menagerie had been an antidote to the silences he hadn’t chosen, and now that he was used to living with the soundtrack of their snuffles and thumps, their snores and yips and scuffles, the absence of sound echoed with deprivation.

  It would be dark soon and Jack found himself hoping Simon would be back by then. He wasn’t afraid of the dark; he just...didn’t want to be alone in it. Not tonight.

  Pickles’ small form oozed into a stretch that became a yawn, the black cat shifting from languid sleep to complete alertness in one graceful gesture.

  “I know. I’m not actually alone,” he told her.

  Finally, unable to lie on the couch for one more minute, Jack made his way slowly into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards for something he could throw together for dinner. With a sigh of resignation he texted Charlie to ask if he could drive him to the store tomorrow.

  Right away his brother wrote back, Send me a list and I’ll deliver.

  Annoyance burned in Jack’s stomach. It had been years since he’d felt like a burden to his brother and now, a single moment having rendered him infantile, here he was, once again depending on Charlie for everything.

  Twenty minutes into laboriously cooking a horror of egg noodles, tuna, and cream soup (throughout which he had to stop every two minutes to catch his breath and give his armpits a break from the crutches) he heard the familiar sounds of his pack returning.

  He’d told Simon not to bother ringing the bell anymore, so this time the sounds were just the happy yips of the animals’ return.

  “In the kitchen,” he called, though it was hardly necessary since the dogs were already padding toward him. Toward their food bowls most likely, but still.

  When Charlie had come over on his lunch break, he’d taken one look at the defiled floor and promised he’d solve the problem. He’d returned two hours later with a metal chute roughly welded, through which Jack could pour dog food and water into the bowls from a standing position without spilling anything. Charlie had always been a big one for solving problems.

  Bernard barreled in and panted up at him, mouth open, and the others followed less patiently. All except Puddles.

  A minute later, Simon stood in the door to the kitchen, Puddles tight at his side.

  “Hey,” Jack said. “Go okay?”

  Simon nodded jerkily, eyes on the animals. Mayonnaise shot past him and up onto the counter. Pickles had been there since he opened the tin of tuna. And, fine, he’d fed her a few bites of it.

  “You eating here tonight?” he asked Mayonnaise. She rubbed her cheek on his fist, then darted out the window cat door. “Guess not.”

  The pan on the stove bubbled threateningly and Jack turned the burner down, sniffing suspiciously.

  “Ugh,” he declared, and slumped against the counter.

  Simon picked his way across the kitchen as delicately as a cat and peered at the food.

  He raised one eyebrow at Jack and the look managed to convey amusement, derision, and empathy all at once. With a gentle movement, he shouldered Jack aside.

  Jack sank gratefully into a kitchen chair and watched as Simon stirred, salted, and stirred some more. His movements became more relaxed the longer he cooked.

  He opened a few cupboards, pulled out a casserole dish, and poured the contents of the pans into it. Top sprinkled with cheese, salted, and peppered, he slid the dish into the oven.

  “You know a lot about—” casseroles was what he’d begun to say but, awkward as this whole situation was, that wasn’t a sentence he could quite bring himself to utter “—cooking?”

  Simon shook his head and shrugged, then nodded, as if he couldn’t quite decide which was true.

  With a bit of distance between them, Jack realized again that Simon wasn’t particularly small. He seemed diminutive because of the way he stood—hunched shoulders and lowered head—and the way he moved, as if slinking silently from place to place might allow him to escape notice. But his shoulders were fairly broad and his hands sizable. Why did he make himself smaller?

  Watching Simon at the stove, the night of empty boredom stretching in front of him, Jack asked, “Do you want to stay and have some?”

  Simon snorted and shook his head quickly.

  “It’s no trouble,” Jack said, losing hope.

  Simon raised those startling blue eyes to Jack’s and made a face.

  “No,” he said, and though his voice was soft it had an edge to it Jack hadn’t expected. “It’s gross.”

  Jack barked out a laugh. “Yeah, it really is.”

  “Casseroles,” Simon said, shaking his head.

  “Yeah. Casseroles,” Jack echoed.

  The silence sat between them easily and it was a silence Jack enjoyed. Then, inevitably, the demands for dinner came.

  Chapter Four

  Jack

  There was definitely more smoke coming from the chimney of the house over the hill. Jack was keeping a list of when he saw the first tendrils and when they stopped because maybe if he could figure out the schedule he could figure out why this change had occurred. Was it a change, though? Or had he simply never noticed before? He couldn’t be quite sure.

  What he needed was some sort of periscope so that he could see more than just the roof and the chimney. Maybe if he got a ladder...?

  No. No, that was a terrible idea.

  Do you know who lives in the place over the hill from me? Jack texted Charlie.

  Nope, Charlie replied. Did you google it?

  Jack rolled his eyes. Charlie thought it was hilarious to suggest googling everything, even un-googleable things, as if he were eighty years old and it was a revelation. Or had Charlie genuinely meant to suggest it because he’d thought Jack hadn’t known? It was always so hard to tell with Charlie.

  Then Jack realized he actually could google it because real estate sales were public records. But he didn’t know the address and it turned out that Google Maps had
n’t taken much care to capture the fringes of Garnet Run.

  He typed, Could you drive over there and see who lives there??? and deleted it. He typed, Can we take a quick drive by it? and made himself delete that too. Finally he wrote, If you happen to drive past and see anything strange will you tell me?

  Charlie didn’t answer. Probably busy at work.

  He thought about texting his best friend, Vanessa. She did impulsive things all the time and might not question him wanting her to surveil a stranger to slake his burning curiosity. But he hadn’t responded to her last few texts or picked up the phone the last couple times she’d called and he didn’t want to deal with having a conversation about why. Hell, he hardly knew himself.

  * * *

  “Thanks,” Jack said as Charlie put the last of the bags of groceries on the counter.

  “Course,” Charlie said and began putting the groceries away.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Jack said.

  “It’s no problem,” Charlie said automatically.

  “Charlie, I can do it.”

  To prove the point, Jack shoved himself upright and grabbed for his crutches. He leaned one against the counter and tried to open the cabinet door above the refrigerator but the movement jarred his ribs and he hissed, recoiling. His recoil sent the crutch sliding to the floor and Jack panting.

  Charlie sighed and picked up the crutch.

  “Sit down before you break your other leg,” he said wearily. His jaw tightened and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

  Jack sighed. “Sorry, I just...”

  Hate being helpless. Hate being a burden. Again.