I tossed him the ball and went up the front steps. Charlotte was running one of those hideous claw-like attachments over the drapes, and the vacuum cleaner was howling at itself. I had a vague urge to run out of the house and go into the woods somewhere to hide—where there weren’t any drapes, or vacuum cleaners, or staring tentacled plants.
“I’m going into the den. I don’t want to be disturbed for about two hours, Char—” She didn’t turn. I stepped over and kicked the switch on the floor unit. The howling died off and she smiled at me over her shoulder, “Now you’re a saboteur?”
I couldn’t help chuckling, even worried as I was; Charlotte’s like that. “Look, Poison, I’ve got some deep thought to slosh around in for a while. Make sure the kid and the bill collectors don’t get to me, will you.” She nodded, and added as an afterthought, “Still have to go into the city today?” “Umm. ‘Fraid so. There’s something,burning in the Gillings Mills account and they dumped the whole brief on my desk.”
She made a face that said, “ Another Saturday shot, “ and shrugged. I gave her a rush-kiss and went into the den, closing and locking the big double doors behind me. Symmetry and order are tools for me, so I decided to put down on paper my assets and liabilities in this matter. Or, more accurately, just what I was sure of, and what I wasn’t. In the asset column went things like:
Name: John Weiler. I work for a trade association. In this case the trade association is made up of paper manufacturers. I’m a commuter—a man in the grey flannel suit, if you would. A family man. One wife, Charlotte; one son, Jamie; one vacuum cleaner, noisy.
I own my own home, I have a car and enough money to go up to Grossingers once each Summer mainly on the prodding of Charlotte, who feels I should broaden myself more. We keep up with the Joneses, without too much trouble.
I do my job well, I’m a climbing executive type and I’m well-adjustedly happy. I’m a steady sort of fellow and I keep my nose out of other people’s business primarily because I have enough small ones of my own. I vote regularly, not just talk about it, and I gab a lot with my fellow suburbanites about our gardens—sort of a universal hobby in the sticks.
Forty-seven minutes into town on the train five days a week (and sometimes Saturday, which was happening all too frequently lately) and Lexington Avenue greets me. My health and the family’s is good, except for an occasional twinge in my stomach, so most 0f the agony in the world stays away from me. I don’t get worried easily, because I stay out of other people’s closets.
But this time I was worried worse than just,badly.
I drew a line and started writing in the liabilities column:
Item: Clark Da Campo has a million-tentacled staring plant in his garden that is definitely
Item: There has never been a wisp 0f smoke from the Da Campo chimney, even during the coldest days of the Winter.
Item: Though they have been living here for six months, the Da Campos have never made a social call, attended a local function, shown up at a public place.
Item: Charlotte has told me she has never seen Mrs. Da Campo buy any groceries or return any empty bottles or hang out any wash.
Item: There are no lights in the Da Campo household after six o’clock every night, and full-length drapes are drawn at the same time.
Item: I am scared witless.
Then I looked at the sheet. There was a great deal more on the asset side than the other, but somehow, after all the value I’d placed on the entries in that first column, those in the second bad suddenly become more impressive, overpowering, alarming. And they were so nebulous, so inconclusive, I didn’t know what it was about them that scared me.
But it looked like I was in Da Campo’s closets whether I wanted to be or not.
Three hours later the house had assumed the dead sogginess of a quiet Saturday afternoon, three pages of note-paper were covered with obscure but vaguely ominous doodles, and I was no nearer an answer that made sense than when I’d gone into the den.
I sighed and threw down my pencil.
My back was stiff from sitting at the desk, and I got up to find the pain multiplied along every inch of my spinal cord. I slid the asset-liability evaluation under my blotter and cleaned the cigarette ashes off the desk where I’d missed the ashtray.
Then I dumped the ashtray in the waste basket. It was Saturday and Charlotte frowned on dirty ashtrays left about, even in my private territory.
When I came out the place was still as a tomb, and I imagined Charlotte had gone into the downtown section of our hamlet to gawk at the exclusive shops and their exclusive contents. I went into the kitchen and looked through the window. The car was gone, bearing out my suspicions. My eyes turned themselves heavenward and my mind reeled out bank balances without prompting. “Want to talk now, John?”
I could have sworn my legs were made of ice and they were melting me down to the kitchen linoleum. I turned around and—that’s right—Da Campo was in the doorway to the dining room.
“What do you want?” I bluffed, stepping forward threateningly.
“I came over to borrow a cup of sugar and talk a little, John,” said Da Campo, smiling. The utter incongruity of it! Borrowing a cup of sugar! It was too funny to equate with weird plants and odd goings-on in the house across the street. It took the edge off my belligerence quite effectively. “S-sure, I suppose I can find the wife’s sugar.” Then it occurred to me: “How do you know my name?” “How do you know mine?”
“Why I—I asked the neighbors. Like to know who’s living across the street, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s how I know yours, John. I asked my neighbors.”
“Which ones? The Schwachters? Heffman? Brown?”
He waved his hand absently, “Oh…just the neighbors, that’s all. How about that sugar?”
I opened one of the cabinets and took out the sugar bowl. Da Campo didn’t have a cup, so I took one down- -one of the old blue set—and filled it for him.
“Thanks,” he said, “feel like that talk now?”
Somehow, I wasn’t frightened of him, as I was by that sheet of items. It was easy to feel friendly toward the big, grey-eyed, grey-haired man in the sport shirt and slacks. Just another typical suburban neighbor.
“Sure, come on into the living room,” I answered, moving past him.
When Da Campo had found a reasonably comfortable position in one of Charlotte’s doubly-damned modem chairs, I tried to make small conversation. “I’ve never noticed a TV antenna on your house. Don’t tell me an inside
