New Hope For Small Men: Chapter 29

Was it any better that Bree had talked to the manager about his treatment of Robert — that that was all they had been doing in his office with the blinds drawn? This struck Robert also as the sign of some intimacy between the two of them that Robert could not fathom, or could fathom but did not like to think about. He thought about it in his bed, and then tried not to. He thought about Kate but then remembered the failure of his kiss and tried not to think of that either and then remembered the naked man standing in the hallway from her bedroom. All of this was no good. He thought about Bree’s legs, the backs of her knees, but the manager’s hand kept slipping into frame.

Why would the manager have drawn the blinds anyway, unless he was expecting something else when she came in? Why would he expect something else unless he had gotten something else before?

He got out of bed and smoked a cigarette by the window. What might be the joys of other people’s lives were as unbearable as the sadness.

The street was dark and quiet. The cable installer trucks were parked for the night. The cable installers were home with their wives, their children, their pets, their girlfriends, their vast collections of pornography.

There were three stars in the sky. Just three. There were seldom any more. He thought about making a wish on a star but which one had he seen first? They had appeared together, or were already there in the view from his window when he got up to smoke. And he did not really think about making a wish on the star. He thought about thinking about it. He remembered doing it as a child and not believing even then. He remembered his mother or maybe his father teaching him the rhyme about star light star bright and even then knowing that the star was distant and indifferent to whatever he might think or want.

This was better. This was better than thinking about the manager’s hands on Bree’s thighs or his failed attempt to kiss Kate. And now that he thought about that (again) it seemed to Robert that his life had taken on a complexity that it had not known the year before or the year before that. He was not sure this was a good thing. There had been a peace and simplicity in being without prospects. There had been him alone, and occasionally Mr. Carleton, whose daughter would be visiting soon complicating Mr. Carleton’s own simple needs of a cup of tea or water by the window.

Even the letter by itself had complicated Mr. Carleton’s life and Robert saw less of him now and when he did see him, Mr. Carleton would often sit and stare out the window for what seemed like hours while Robert sat on the edge of his bed and grew sleepy.

Sometimes Mr. Carleton would take the letter out of his pocket and look at it — not reading so much as admiring an artifact. He never offered to let Robert read it and Robert, in fact, emphatically did not want to read it. What if he saw, between the lines, the resentment, the bitterness and false hope that Robert suspected was there? His daughter had run away to the west when she was still a young woman, and certainly there was some tragedy or drama behind that. Time did not always heal and erase, sometimes it amplified and some memories did not fade but were remade constantly with better production values and less quiet actors.

Three young boys were walking down the middle of the street. They were not talking. They each walked about three feet away from the other and they looked as if they could be brothers. What’s that about, Robert wondered and shortly after that he was able to go to bed.