1.Morning has broken on Shaker''s pale sliver of the Republic. He stands upright on the riding mower, his feet held in stirrups, racing the machine in narrow swaths around the yard. His hair is blasted up and his face feels rubbery in the hard wind. And the noise. All this machinery roaring into him. The rest of the yard crew is sculpting the topiary at a leisurely pace. The houses in this neighborhood are not upscale but neither are they slums.
Their windows are full of people, slurry shapes of them, whole congregations, watching Shaker and his cohort beautify their property for an insufficient wage. After completing each circuit, Shaker salutes the windows but nobody ever salutes back. He''s wearing rounded black sunglasses and a seasonal tan. When autumn arrives and the grass stops growing, Shaker will be unemployed until springtime. He''s in hoarding mode now. It makes him strangely reckless. Shaker is saluting every man, oak, pillar, and shrub on site.When the cohort takes their lunch on the driveway''s sunbaked blacktop, standing against the company truck like homeless men in a police lineup, Shaker''s ears are ringing so loudly he can''t understand his coworkers'' conversation.
He hears only mumbles and thrum but nods politely along. He finishes his tuna fish early and kicks into the stirrups and waits there, patient, stationary in his machine, an orange pair of gun-range earmuffs clamped on his head, which continues nodding, still nodding, always nodding.*The Yarn Barn is not such a nuisance to Shaker. Even if it looks nothing like an actual barn. Darb stands in front of the strip mall on his court-designated, three-foot-wide allotment of pitted sidewalk, the signboard leaned on his hip. Shaker has to tip his head sideways and squint to read this one. Unravel the Yarn Barn Conspiracy inscribed in purple sharpie and shoe polish. Darb''s knotty fingers and the groin of his jumpsuit are likewise blotched.
Shaker itches his own chin stubble. He tries to nod intelligently. His cousin nods back at him while sipping something cranberry-colored from a crumple of Styrofoam. The sidewalk area around him is inundated, all variety of litter."It''s a reverse drive-thru," Darb says. "They throw it at me, I abide. Just this morning I got half a muffin sandwich, three french fry, and a melted Bomb Pop. They think they''re being uncivil but I''m flattered.
Dumb shits."Shaker swivels his head but there is no one else on the premises. Only his cousin, teasing out a long tangle of ear fuzz, adding, "Our kind is not to be trifled with."Shaker nods at this, stretching a leg that knocks over Darb''s sign."Don''t do that.""I had a dream last night," Shaker says."How romantic.""The dream was that I didn''t recognize myself.
""No?" Darb asks, only half-listening."Like someone had glued another man''s face atop my face. Kinda freaky."Shaker shrugs and shuffles in place. He realizes he''s still pawing his chin."Let''s get uncorked," Shaker says."You treating?""I am not.""My funds are slumped.
All my shoe polish is gone.""I see that."Among the detritus at Darb''s feet is a selection of empty cat food tins. Darb''s mouth is stained a mild brown. He follows Shaker''s gaze and grins. "Poppin'' ''em open is like pulling a grenade pin. I use my teeth, heave ''em overhand after I''m sated.""Sounds dubious," says Shaker.
"I got a whole coupon book.""Can we get any beers with it?""It''s feeling more like a whipped cream afternoon. Suck aerosol and murder some brain cells. Relive our younger days."Shaker chews his cheek. "My pantry has been bare a long time.""I ain''t even got a pantry.""Doris?" Shaker asks.
"Think I''m allowed back in?""Maybe if you keep on your belly and try not to upset the furniture.""I can do that, all of that.""Doris," Shaker repeats, verifying his contribution to the day''s agenda.Darb offers him the last of the cranberry and fetches his signage from the dirt. "My baby," he whispers, brushing the sign until it is clean.The cousins carry themselves against the loud tide of traffic to Doris''s meticulously maintained A-frame, which seems a direct reproach to the shoddiness her neighbors are cultivating in aluminum and junk. A longtime widow, Doris doesn''t stray much from the house anymore. But she lets all sorts of stray men inside.
Ten years of sordid rumor and the woman has relaxed into the gothic reputation. She is sitting on the parlor room futon in only a towel and hair rollers, her bangs pinned up from the cream on her face, tiny blooms of cotton swab partitioning her toes."Please and thank you," Darb says, entering without a knock. Shaker follows him into the fog of toenail varnish, ammonia odors. "We have come to be creamed and whipped.""Batten the hatches and nail down the credenza," Doris replies."That''s a hot look you''re wearing.""Some men could love it.
""Imagine," Darb grunts, down on his knees and pillaging the mini-fridge."Shaker," says Doris."Ma''am?""You are the gentleman your cousin will never allow himself to be trained to be.""That makes him sound like a circus bear.""What''s so wrong with that?""Look at the steep recession of that hair. He can''t be a bear if he''s bald."Doris rolls her eyes and says, "Is that what passes for wit on your end of the island?""What island?""Don''t be a rube.""Maybe I''m a rube," Shaker shrugs.
"My god, there isn''t much wet gray stuff left between your ears, is there? Maybe that''s what makes you such a gentleman.""I''m not so gentle," Shaker mumbles."A torrid love affair might change that.""She means fornication," Darb says, head in the fridge."Please don''t be despicable, darling.""I''m not easily romanced either," says Shaker as he envisions his seduction: nude and unshaven on a motel bed, in the final throes of heart failure, a fit of stroke, while the maid staff gathers around the mattress debating how best to change the sheets."I guess not," Doris sighs. "You emanate that middling vibe no sane woman wants to mingle her chromosomes with.
"Shaker nods."Stop nodding," she says. "I just insulted you.""I''ve had it worse.""Those seasonal employments of yours.""Yards this month. I ride a giant machine.""Dreadful.
""It keeps the dog in Purina.""Shaker, you don''t have a dog.""No," he says. "I do not."Doris unscrews a jar of avocado skin ointment and begins rubbing it into her bunions."The man who used to live across the way? He was another gentleman type, handsome, good build. Dumb as a poodle. One day he left the house all spruced and spangled in a new suit and came home with a snub-nosed revolver, one of those little cutie pie guns.
You know the type?""I know the type.""He sprayed his brain gore all over the bath. Landlord said the cleanup required two bottles of Lysol and six rolls of paper towels. The rest flushed right down. Imagine, Shaker. Half a century of handsome life on this dumb flying rock and all it takes to wipe it up is twenty bucks worth of custodial product."Shaker resists the urge to nod. From his current window vantage, Doris''s A-frame seems to be levitating.
Shaker glances down and his vertigo stirs. He turns away from the window, turns to Doris and her mess of cosmetics, then Darb half-hidden in the mini-fridge, and finally to the mirror fastened with thumbtacks between two framed lithographs of children. Shaker doesn''t recognize the children. They are smudged and antique-looking and comfortably caramelized in an earlier, more patrician era. In the mirror, something seems to be wrong with Shaker''s face."Eureka!" Darb announces, kicking shut the fridge and sauntering back to the futon, head tilted at the ceiling, a can of whipped cream balanced on his large frontal lobe."Circus bear," Shaker admits. Doris grins and takes careful aim at Darb''s head with her electric bang curler, unplugged.
"They always waltz right into the crosshairs," she says.