Roy had never been inside the house. The Saturday passing back and forth of Rhett always took place on the front steps. Brenda, Gordo’s wife, had once asked Roy what the house was like inside. Gordo had given her a look. Roy didn’t know, didn’t want to know. He followed Rhett into the house.
First came a big square entrance hall, with a high ceiling and a polished hardwood floor. Roy could see that it was a stylish kind of room, but there was nothing in it except a chandelier tilted against the wall in one corner, some of the crystals loose on the floor. They went through another high-ceilinged empty room, possibly a dining room, and into the kitchen.
The kitchen had built-in appliances, three chairs and a card table piled with unopened mail, and a phone blinking its red message light.
“Hungry?” Roy said.
Rhett was staring out the back window. A pile of dirt lay by a hole in the backyard. Roy opened the fridge.
A big fridge, the biggest he’d ever seen. There was a bottle of Absolut on one shelf, two containers of mocha yogurt on another, and three lemons in the fruit drawer. Roy closed the door.
He went over and stood by Rhett. “What’s the hole all about?”
“Who cares?” Rhett said. He left the room.
Roy stood in Marcia’s kitchen. He found himself staring out the window as Rhett had, his gaze on the dirt pile. A strange feeling overcame him, a sense of being cut off from his own life, completely disconnected. At the same time, he started having problems with his air supply. Roy turned from the window, eyed the mail on the table: bills, almost all of it. The disconnected feeling didn’t go away. He took a deep breath, or tried to, and went to find Rhett.
Roy walked back through some more rooms-one had a big-screen TV and a futon, the others were empty-and up a broad, winding staircase. At the top was a long corridor with four or five doors off it, all ajar. Roy glanced in the first two rooms, both bare, and then the third.
The third room was furnished. It had a rug, a king-size bed, unmade and rumpled, another big-screen TV, and a desktop computer. A man sat at the computer, his back to the door. The man, who might once have been in shape but wasn’t now, was in his underwear. This was Barry. Roy had met him only once, in the course of one of those front steps exchanges. No shaking hands or anything: just a nod back and forth. Barry had been dressed for golf that time, in a silk polo shirt and a big straw hat. Seeing him like this, with his pudgy pale back and a little crack showing above the band of his briefs, was a lot different. Roy rapped his knuckles on the inside of the door.
Barry spun around. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“I knocked.”
“Anyway you’re late. It was supposed to be ten.”
Roy remembered that Barry was from Boston or somewhere. He had a way of talking that Roy didn’t like.
“You’re the electric guy, right?” said Barry.
Roy put a few things together: Ms. Steinwasser’s calls from the school, the blinking message light, Barry here the whole time, not picking up. Barry says I can call him Daddy too.
“I’m Rhett’s father,” Roy said.
Barry squinted at him. “So you are.” He hunched forward a little; his hands crossed over his groin. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“Where’s Marcia?”
“Momentito there, amigo. I asked the first question.” He rose, a flabby guy but big, much bigger than Roy, and confident even in his underwear. “Or maybe you’re forgetting this is my house you barged into.”
“I’m not forgetting anything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barry came closer.
Roy said an ugly thing. It just popped out, popped out of some pit of weird and angry confusion inside him. “Your tits are bigger than hers,” he said. He regretted it at once. To cheapen Marcia like that, to mix her up with this guy in a physical way, was sickening.
Barry reddened, but just from the neck up. The rest of him went even paler. Roy knew this was crazy, two grown men moving toward violence. He knew that, but deep inside him a voice that sounded like his, but rawer, was saying: Take a swing at me. His lungs suddenly filled with oxygen, rich and potent.
Moving toward violence, with Rhett in the house. Wouldn’t there be something very wrong with a father like that? Inside him, the raw voice went silent.
At the same time Barry’s computer beeped. “You’re going to regret this very much,” said Barry. “Trust me. Do I have to tell you what Marcia will say when she gets home from the hospital?”
“Hospital?”
Barry turned back to the computer.
“What’s she doing in the hospital?”
On the computer screen, something happened that Barry didn’t like. He banged his fist on the desk.
“Is something wrong with her?” Roy said.
“Time’s up,” said Barry.
“What are you talking about?”
Barry’s eyes were on the screen. “Can’t you see I’ve got a play going here?”
“Play?”
Barry shot him a glance, so brief Roy almost missed the strange look on his face, almost triumphant. “I’m shorting Yahoo,” he said. “There’s a freebie you don’t deserve.”
Roy backed out of the room. The last thing he saw was the king-size bed. Mixing Marcia with this guy in a physical way: maybe the dumbest thought he’d ever had. How much more mixed could they be? They fucked in that bed every night. Shouldn’t say fucking. And Barry didn’t even bother getting dressed in the morning.
Roy went down the hall, tried the next room. Rhett was inside, lying on the bed, face to the wall, hand between his knees. It was a bigger bedroom than his old one, and had things his old one didn’t-a TV, compact stereo system, video game console. The little tuft of hair was sticking up at the back of Rhett’s head.
“I thought Barry owned a mortgage company,” Roy said.
There was a long silence. Roy heard Barry banging his fist on the desk again. “He did,” Rhett said. “Now he trades online.”
“Is that a step up?” Roy said.
Rhett laughed, soft and quickly ended, but a laugh.
“Let’s go home,” Roy said.
Rhett turned over, head at a funny angle to get Roy in view with his good eye. “Home?”
“Just for the night.” The counselor had advised that Rhett not sleep in his old bedroom: We like to smooth the transition. “I’ll get you to school in the morning.”
“I’m not going back to school.”
“Got to go to school, Rhett.”
“Why?”
“If kids don’t go, the whole system falls apart. Then where would we be?”
“Is that meant to be funny?”
“Guess not, if you have to ask.”
Rhett smiled, not much of one and quickly erased, but a smile. He got off the bed. Roy walked him down the hall.
“We’ll be at my place,” Roy said as they passed the master bedroom.
Hunched over his computer, Barry made no reply. Roy was getting plenty of air now, his lungs working effortlessly. Maybe the Buckhead atmosphere agreed with him.
THREE
Rhett loved Monopoly. Roy ordered pizza, got out the board. Rhett chose the cannon, Roy the top hat. Pizza
