After the eviction, she gathered her strength and moved us into an apartment, and for several weeks Neil and I thought things were going to be all right.
Then, just as abruptly as she’d gathered her strength, she retreated back into her bedroom. On my first day of school Neil walked me to kindergarten. God only knows who signed me up.
We lived two years like that.
Then she started drinking. Wine at first, then gin, vodka, anything with a kick to it.
In many ways her first year as a drinker was our best year with her. She began to regain some of her function. She cleaned the apartment and from time to time took us to movies, even shopped for Christmas presents.
My brother and I often spoke about the pyromaniac. Even then, three years after our father’s death, after the hero’s funeral I had absolutely no recollection of, even then we both believed the pyro would be apprehended and punished. We believed that the appropriate officials would arrest and convict the man who’d murdered our father.
As it was, nobody ever heard from the pyro again.
I know I made a fool of myself last night with the housekeeper.
I don’t know why. If I had to guess, I would say it was because I felt a spark between myself and Pennington’s granddaughter, and it scared me. The more I felt the younger Pennington trying to relate to me, the more I had to show off with the housekeeper.
I’m not cruel by nature. At least I try not to be.
The housekeeper kept asking what we wore underneath our bunking pants, and I told her there was only one way to find out. Good God. It was as if we were both in heat.
When we first ran into the Pennington woman on the front porch, my mouth went dry; I could barely get any words out.
The housekeeper was different. She and I are two of a kind.
Neil is the same as me. All his women have been lowlifes too.
There were so many things I might have said to the younger Pennington. I thought of every one of them on the walk home that morning to my condo on Lake Washington.
On Lakeside Avenue, I retrieved yesterday’s mail and went inside the Water’s Edge. In every apartment building there’s a guy who never says hi. Who never looks at you. Who you always think is a dick. I guess you could say I’m the resident dick at the Water’s Edge.
It was starting to drizzle when I walked through the front door and checked my messages—none; my e-mail—none. I took a shower, then put Patricia Pennington’s
River of Dust
into the VCR, turned the sound low, and dragged my father’s large black trunk out from its hallowed spot in the back of the coat closet.
On the TV a seventeen-year-old Patricia Pennington was being given her first horse by her on-screen grandfather, Charles Coburn. I watched her ride up and down green fields and jump over a fence. It was strange to realize the young woman on film was now the elderly pill-popper I’d rescued last night.
The top portion of my father’s trunk was filled with letters and some of my father’s fire department paraphernalia. A half-melted firefighter’s helmet—the one he died in.
I set the helmet aside lovingly and sorted through the newspaper clippings, picking one out more or less at random.
The yellowed clipping was dated by hand in blue ink. November 3, 1978. I never knew for certain, but I thought my father had penned the dates on these articles himself before he died.
RAMPAGE OF BLAZES CONTINUE
SEATTLE —Areas of Capitol Hill and the Central District were struck again last night by a series of arson fires that continue to baffle fire investigators and are thought to be part of a string of arsons stretching back to last summer. Fire department Chief Frank Hanson says, “We believe the same person is responsible for most of the arsons we’ve been getting since August.”
Last night during a two-hour period firefighters fought five blazes, the largest outside a Safeway on East John, which was started in a garbage bin and quickly
Then, just as abruptly as she’d gathered her strength, she retreated back into her bedroom. On my first day of school Neil walked me to kindergarten. God only knows who signed me up.
We lived two years like that.
Then she started drinking. Wine at first, then gin, vodka, anything with a kick to it.
In many ways her first year as a drinker was our best year with her. She began to regain some of her function. She cleaned the apartment and from time to time took us to movies, even shopped for Christmas presents.
My brother and I often spoke about the pyromaniac. Even then, three years after our father’s death, after the hero’s funeral I had absolutely no recollection of, even then we both believed the pyro would be apprehended and punished. We believed that the appropriate officials would arrest and convict the man who’d murdered our father.
As it was, nobody ever heard from the pyro again.
I know I made a fool of myself last night with the housekeeper.
I don’t know why. If I had to guess, I would say it was because I felt a spark between myself and Pennington’s granddaughter, and it scared me. The more I felt the younger Pennington trying to relate to me, the more I had to show off with the housekeeper.
I’m not cruel by nature. At least I try not to be.
The housekeeper kept asking what we wore underneath our bunking pants, and I told her there was only one way to find out. Good God. It was as if we were both in heat.
When we first ran into the Pennington woman on the front porch, my mouth went dry; I could barely get any words out.
The housekeeper was different. She and I are two of a kind.
Neil is the same as me. All his women have been lowlifes too.
There were so many things I might have said to the younger Pennington. I thought of every one of them on the walk home that morning to my condo on Lake Washington.
On Lakeside Avenue, I retrieved yesterday’s mail and went inside the Water’s Edge. In every apartment building there’s a guy who never says hi. Who never looks at you. Who you always think is a dick. I guess you could say I’m the resident dick at the Water’s Edge.
It was starting to drizzle when I walked through the front door and checked my messages—none; my e-mail—none. I took a shower, then put Patricia Pennington’s
River of Dust
into the VCR, turned the sound low, and dragged my father’s large black trunk out from its hallowed spot in the back of the coat closet.
On the TV a seventeen-year-old Patricia Pennington was being given her first horse by her on-screen grandfather, Charles Coburn. I watched her ride up and down green fields and jump over a fence. It was strange to realize the young woman on film was now the elderly pill-popper I’d rescued last night.
The top portion of my father’s trunk was filled with letters and some of my father’s fire department paraphernalia. A half-melted firefighter’s helmet—the one he died in.
I set the helmet aside lovingly and sorted through the newspaper clippings, picking one out more or less at random.
The yellowed clipping was dated by hand in blue ink. November 3, 1978. I never knew for certain, but I thought my father had penned the dates on these articles himself before he died.
RAMPAGE OF BLAZES CONTINUE
SEATTLE —Areas of Capitol Hill and the Central District were struck again last night by a series of arson fires that continue to baffle fire investigators and are thought to be part of a string of arsons stretching back to last summer. Fire department Chief Frank Hanson says, “We believe the same person is responsible for most of the arsons we’ve been getting since August.”
Last night during a two-hour period firefighters fought five blazes, the largest outside a Safeway on East John, which was started in a garbage bin and quickly
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