And Bogus finds the tape recorder with his foot, dragging it toward him like an anchor. He restores his balance by kneeling on the control panel. The recorder is confused; one knee says full speed forward, the other says play. In a high voice, Merrill Overturf blurts, '... off the Gelhaft's dock the tank's top hatch opens, or flut--!'
'What?' says Biggie. 'What are you doing?'
'I'm fixing the screen,' Trumper says, and waves reassuringly to Mr Fitch, who waves his rake. Not in the least distressed at window-dangling or odd shrieks, Fitch is used to various demonstrations of imbalance from this house.
'Well,' says Biggie, with one hip cocked out, making a seat for Colm. 'Well, the diapers aren't done. Someone will have to go back to the laundromat and take them out of the dryer.'
'I'll go, Big,' Bogus says, 'just as soon as I fix this screen.'
'That won't be easy!' hollers Mr Fitch, leaning on his rake. 'War-built!' he cries. 'Damn war-built things!'
'The screens?' Bogus asks from his window.
'Your whole house!' Fitch shouts. 'All these jiffy one-stories the university put up! War-built! Cheap materials! Woman labor! Junk!' But Mr Fitch isn't really being unpleasant. Anything vaguely connected with the war effort sets him off. A bad time for Fitch; he was too old to go, even back then, so he fought the home front with the women.
At the see-through curtains of his front-porch window, Fitch's tiny wife is stirring nervously. Do you want to have your fifth stroke, Fitch?
When Trumper examines the rotten screen, he finds the accusation to be true. The wood feels like sponge; the mesh is rusted brittle.
'Bogus,' says Biggie, straddling the sidewalk, 'I'll fix the screen. You're terrible at that kind of thing.'
Trumper slides back inside, moves the tape recorder to the safety of an upper bookshelf and watches Mrs Fitch at her see-through curtain waving Mr Fitch inside.
Later, Bogus goes to get the diapers. On his way home, his right headlight falls out and he drives over it. Changing his front tire, he thinks he'd like to meet a man who thinks he's got a worse car. I would trade with him in an instant.
But what Trumper thinks he'd really like to know is whether there was anyone under the top hatch of that tank. Or if there really is a tank, at all; if Merrill Overturf really saw it; if, even, Merrill Overturf knows how to swim.
3
Old Tasks & Plumbing News
Bogus Trumper
918 Iowa Ave.
Iowa City, Iowa
Sept. 20, 1969
Mr Cuthbert Bennett
Caretaker/The Pillsbury Estate
Mad Indian Point
Georgetown, Maine
My Dear Couth:
How are you keeping the seventeen bathrooms, now that all the Pillsburys have left you with their plumbing?
And have you decided in which master bedroom, with which sea-view, you will spend your winter?
Biggie and I appreciated your convincing the Pillsburys we were safe guests for the boathouse. That was a nice revival week for us, Couth - and a break to be able to leave my genitors.
It was a curious summer we had with my genitors. Great Boar's Head is the same summer scene as ever - a convalescent home for the dying, who seem to think that three months of wheezing in the salt air will preserve their lungs for another winter. My father's business thrives in the summer. He once told me something about old people: their bladders are the first to go. A urologist's heaven on the New Hampshire shore!
But it was something for the old boy to open his basement to us for July and August. Since my disinheritance, Mother has obviously been feeling grandmotherly urges; their summer offer must have stemmed from Mum's desire to see Colm, not Biggie and me. And my father seemed to unbend his previous financial ultimatum - though the unbending was no more appealing to me than his cutting me off. Also he charged me rent on the basement.