The Water-Method Man

Who speaks: 'Get out of my way, then ...' which the manager tries to do, pressing himself against the counter while Biggie squeezes past him, grinding her hip against him. You'd rarely see the person who could fit with Biggie in one of those skinny aisles.

And she holds her dignity very well, out the hissing, electric doors - swaggering through the parking lot, a wake of Cheerios behind her. If she's thinking at all, it goes like this: If I were on my old skis, I would execute a tight kick-turn in that aisle. My edges, I keep sharp. Through his drip-dry shirt, one outside edge would cut that nasty fucker's nipples off.

But all she does is inform Bogus of her opinion about the root of the money problem: 'It's your father, the prick ...'

... and I can't help but agree when we're all home together, Colm groveling in the Cheerios. The light down the hall in our bedroom crackles, blinks and goes out. Biggie doesn't seem to notice that it's the only light that's gone out; the others have stayed on. 'They've shut us off!' she cries. 'Oh, my God, Bogus, you'd think they'd wait until morning, wouldn't you?'

'It's probably just the bulb, Big,' I tell her. 'Or that damn fuse.' And in my bumbling fashion I try to wrestle with her for a moment to make her happy, but it's then that she seems to notice the mess poor Colm and the Cheerios are in. She shoves me off and I'm left to investigate the nightly basement alone.

Down the damp stone stairs, remembering I must spring the trap so that mouse won't be guillotined. And calling up again to Biggie, 'A smart mouse we got, Big. He's sprung it again without getting caught.'

But this time I notice he's actually sprung it himself - sneaked in and snatched the cheese without leaving his soft little head behind. It makes me sweat to think of him taking such chances. I whisper to the musty basement. 'Look here, Mouse, I'm here to help you. Be patient; let me spring the trap. Don't take such a risk, you've got everything to lose.'

'What?' says Biggie from upstairs.

'Nothing, Big,' I call up. 'I was just swearing at that damn mouse! He's done it again! He got away!'

For a long time, then, I huddle by the fuse box, long after the fuse is replaced and Biggie has shouted down to me that I've got it, that the light's on again. I can hear the electric meter clicking through the outside wall. I think I hear the mouse, his little heart beating. He's thinking, God, what are the great awful trappers up to now? So I whisper into the darkness, 'Don't be frightened. I'm on your side.' After which the mouse's heartbeat seems to stop. I'm on the verge of crying out, frightened almost the way I'm frightened when I think Colm's breathing has stopped in his sleep.

Biggie shouts, 'What are you doing down there, Bogus?'

'Oh nothing, Big.'

'What a long time to be doing nothing,' Biggie says.

And I catch myself thinking. What a long time indeed! With nothing you could ever call real hardship or suffering. In fact, it's been quite a light pain, and sometimes fun. It's just the nightly things - all little - that seem not to have amounted to something very big, or finally serious, so much as they have simply turned my life around to attending almost solely to them. A constant, if petty, irritation.

'Bogus!' Biggie shouts. 'What are you doing?'

'Nothing, Big!' I call up again, meaning it this time. Or seeing, a little more clearly, what it is like to be doing nothing.

'You must be doing something!' Biggie hollers.

'No, Big,' I call up. 'I'm really doing nothing at all. Honest!' Bogus Trumper isn't lying now.

'Liar!' Biggie shouts. 'You're playing with that damn mouse!'

Mouse? I think. Are you still here? I hope you haven't gone upstairs, thinking it was your big chance. Because you're better off in the basement, Risky Mouse. There's nothing petty down here.

That's it! What I object to is that my upstairs life is so cluttered with little things - errors of judgment, but never crimes. I don't face anything very severe; I don't live with anything that's as basic to avoid or as final to lose to as that mousetrap.

'Bogus!' Biggie screams; I hear her flounce in bed.

'I've got it!' I call up. 'I'm coming now!'

'The mouse?' says Biggie.

'The mouse?'

'You've got the mouse?'

'No, Jesus, not the mouse,' I say.

'Well, Jesus, what then?' says Biggie. 'What have you got that's taken you all this time?'

'Nothing, Big,' I say. 'I've got nothing, really ...'

... and so another night puts Trumper at his window for the witching hour, which seems to lure old Fitch, the lawn-watcher, out of his bed for his brief front-porch constitutionals. Perhaps he's bothered by another Iowa fall; all that ominous dying going on.