Michael Chabon

“I don’t think so. Oh, I don’t know.” There was an unusual warmth in his voice, a note of truth or of plainness. “Okay, maybe later today. I guess we have to talk about this?”

“I’m home today. Call me after work. Oh, and, Art—”

“Yes?”

“Have a nice day.”

Not only did Boardwalk suffer under the curse of having to sell books; there seemed also to be a curse on the premises themselves, so that throughout the summer entire days of business were lost, here and there, to the need to remedy some minor disaster or other: Sometimes a pipe would burst in the basement, ruining overstock and making the place stink of wet books, and sometimes the air-conditioning froze and quit working, and once some vandals smashed the huge display window; on this day, there was a fire. It was a small fire, caused by a paramedic cigarette, but Valerie closed the slightly blackened bookstore and sent us all home.

I decided to walk to the Weatherwoman House through the clear, hot Monday morning. For some reason, many crews of men with tar-burning wagons were scattered across the rooftops of East Pittsburgh, and the smell of tar made everything seem even hotter, more yellow, more intensely summer. At the corner of St. James, a green Audi convertible passed, and then stopped short with a squeal ten yards beyond me. Dark man, big smile; Mohammad. I came up alongside and we shook. I said hello, comment ça va, where are you going, and where are you coming from? Momo told me one long semistory about both his having to appear in traffic court and his sister’s passion for Charles Bronson, which were in some way connected. Periodically he stepped on the gas pedal, making the engine race, to punctuate his story at crucial junctures.

“What kind of mood is Arthur in today?” I said, just after we shook hands again.

“He is in an ugly mind-state as hell,” said Mohammad. He smiled and put the car in gear.

Either Mohammad was inexpert at reading Arthur, or Arthur’s mood had changed on the Arab’s departure, or perhaps the change came with my surprise arrival; in any case, when Arthur opened the door, his smile was the one he occasionally gave Cleveland, loose and puckish. I was touched.

“Wonderful. Come in, come in,” he said. “Nice shirt. Nice pants. Nice shoes.” We both had on the usual dungarees, white shirts, and brown loafers. I had shaved, he had not. Neither of us mentioned Mohammad.

He led me into the bright, uncomfortable living room. The decorator had made an effort, it seemed, to create the illusion that the whole house existed in some remote future, in the wan, empty years after the extinction from the planet of furniture and cushions. I sat down on three wide dowel rods and a piece of beige canvas and tried not to lean back.

“Is it as lovely outside as it looks? Yes? We should take a walk,” he said. He spun on his heel and walked away. “Want coffee?”

“Please. Do you know why I’m off today?” I shouted after him, into the kitchen.

“Why? You quit?” I heard him pouring, then the little rhythm of cup and spoon.

“Sure, I quit. No, I didn’t quit; there was a fire.”

“My. What happened?”

“The one copy of anything by Swift in the store, Gulliver’s Travels, finally couldn’t stand the indignity of living at Boardwalk anymore, and burst into righteous flames.”

“I see.”

“It was a very small fire.”

Arthur came back with two white cups. “How do you know Swift started it? Maybe it was Fahrenheit 451.” He let himself down onto another odd tripod and made a display of easily seating himself, with a look of mock hauteur.

“To the twenty-fifth-century manner born,” I said. “Ha ha.” I was a little nervous. We weren’t talking about anything.

“Perfectly plain, isn’t it? Do you have a smoke?”

I gave him a cigarette and a light, and my hand shook. Then we sat there, looking at the creamy walls. I decided I didn’t really want to talk about Phlox, but it had been very good to hear him say that he was sorry, and I would have liked to hear him say it again.

“So,” he said finally, and it came out in a wobbling ring of smoke. “Do you want to walk? We can walk through Chatham.”

“Sure.” I rose, or rather fell, from my chair thing. “What’s this kind of furniture called, anyway?” I said. I drained the tepid sour tail of my coffee.

“That’s called science furniture, son,” he said. “For the spine of tomorrow.”

He locked the door behind us; we stepped out into the stinking, lovely day and headed for Chatham College, a destination that made me think of the party the night we’d met, of our short face-off in the doorway at Riri’s, of all the possibilities for brown women, in that already distant June, which I’d surrendered with the advent of Phlox. I thought for a quiet second or two; Arthur’s antennae operated inexorably.

“We could drop by Riri’s,” he said. “Every time I see her she asks after you. She said she thought you were a very sweet boy.”