A Builder's Tale Chapter Seven
A Builder's Tale - Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
There are homecomings wished for
And homecomings feared
The blue-green arms of the drawbridge rose to their accompanying bells, welcoming him home. He wished he could have extended his cruise from Beaver, North, then east again, to that more majestic bridge at Mackinac and then continued on to Georgian Bay…escape the present, ignore the future, but this was impossible, and if Walshinksi was correct, greater hassles awaited him in Beauville
The afternoon was calm and bright, and the little town bustled with traffic and tourists. Boats were anchored around the small, round harbor. The marina appeared full. Beauville’s doors were open to early summer. A festival of tourists filled the stores of needy merchants who would starve without the summer trade.
The little harbor town was almost too cute. Old buildings sat high above it on sand bluff banks, the sand buried beneath lawns and loam and foliage. It was perfect, he thought, almost, because on the south side of the harbor an architect had made it his own special project to relieve the cuteness and that architect had sadly run amok in trying. South of the marina, occupying three hundred feet of shore, were two condominium buildings that were Frank Lloyd Wright gone surely and horribly wrong… weird faux Mayan flat-topped pyramid oddities that made Wilson think that no matter what happened, he would never be as untalented as the man who monster’d these. In fact, if he thought about it, these structures made no sense from any perspective, so close to the old Victorians adjacent and above them. Burtelsby, their architect, was known for bringing his travels home. These might have worked in Mazatlán, but never in Beauville.
Since their erecting ten years previous, Wilson thought of human sacrifice whenever he returned to the harbor, his imagination filling with short squat brown bare-chested, feathered, gold draped priests ripping hearts from naked virgins. Human sacrifice … wondering if it was what the Architect, Benjamin Burtelsby, had in mind. Wilson had never asked him, not knowing how to phrase the question with any sense of diplomacy. “Looks like you were thinking bloody thoughts when you designed those. Or…were you drunk on too much tequila when you thought those monsters up?” Neither question would have produced a positive, and he usually kept such thoughts to himself unless he was the one drinking tequila. But these were soon in the distance as he left his thoughts behind… Red-right-returning…homeward, where the channel met Lake Arnaud.
The small white answering machine at the far end of his all-white kitchen was full and flashing… littered with messages. Beep, nope, beep, nope... “This is the association of northern Michigan Sheriffs,” nope… “This is the boy scouts. Help send a scout to the jamboree.” How had they found him again? Last time, he had told them they were a militaristic organization, and bad for children, a bunch of fascists…that he would only give them money when they admitted gay-girls? He had been prepared. He had been drinking. And they were still calling. There was another from the Petunia Project. He deleted that one too. The town had enough flowers. “Support your ducks. Save your wetlands.” He waded through these. Then, three from Colorado... and surprisingly Five! from Grace… “we must talk”, beep, “we must talk”, beep. And then there was one from Tim. He would listen to that one in the morning… listen to all of them in the morning, except the boy scouts, and the sheriff. These he erased. Then he returned to the first message, one he had skipped, from his accountant… “You owe the IRS 25,000, due tomorrow, unless you wish a penalty.” This one caused him to snatch his machine, open the slider and move to the glass railing, about to send machine and message flying off his deck. Mid-fling, gauging the distance, looking downward and away… he paused. Beneath him on the lower-level deck where geraniums had been in flower two days before, the large clay pots were now empty of any flowers. Dirt was flung about, one was tipped over, and it and the two still upright might as well have been attacked by a weed eater for all the red, pink, white and greenery that was left. Deer… This distraction caused him to pause, saving the machine and Robert Scheinbaum (his accountant) from extinction.
He returned inside, deciding that he should listen to them all… Beep, Beep, Alicia, “I enjoyed last night.” How refreshing, he thought, something positive. Daphne, “Where are you? Tim called and now I’m calling. Where are you?... where are you?” Beep… “Where are you?” Beep. And then “I’m worried about you and my house.” Beep.
She sounded drunk, long slurped, and lugubrious words, dribbling from the machine, drunk, and unpleasant. Glad I missed that one. The cat was scratching at the door. Better call Scheinbaum...
His accountant, Robert Scheinbaum, was the typical ‘man for the job.’ And as Wilson sat in Scheinbaum’s office, taking in the thin walnut veneer, the marginal English prints, and paintings of ducks so poorly rendered that Audubon could never have imagined them. Wilson thought—He is perfect. He so fits… Why do I like him? He is such a goof.
Robert Scheinbaum was a caricature of accountancy. Penurious as scrooge, in a shadowed light the man had a green continence, and if one was being unpleasant, it might be said that when Scheinbaum frowned, he resembled a large toad. His redemption was that he was funny, because when smiling, Sheinbaum presented differently, resembling a shorter version of Groucho Marx, albeit with an extra fifty pounds about him…You were never sure if he should have the eyeshade, the cigar, or both.
Scheinbaum was also known for a tendency to complain. It could have been his ugliness or that he was short, or his profession, but he always thought someone was trying to screw him. Over the check at dinner, or because he got the meager extra free portion at the country club awards affair. There was no question about it. The man could be a pain in the ass and a tight-ass pain in the ass, to boot. Even his wife thought so. But he had three redeeming qualities. He knew who he was. He was funny. And most important, he had spent his entire life figuring out ways to hoodwink Uncle Sam!
Scheinbaum saw no hypocrisy between the Reagan on his wall and the flag at the door, and his attempt to keep the government from screwing his clients while they, and he in turn, sought to screw the government back. After all, it was the system, the game you were supposed to play. It was all a contest to Scheinbaum, and Scheinbaum knew how to beat Uncle Sam. This talent alone, it was his only one, caused him to have many acquaintances whom he regarded as friends.
And, at least he is real, thought Wilson. I know he knows. He knows I know, and he doesn’t care. What a putz.
“What’s this about a penalty?” said Wilson.
“You owe them the 2nd quarterly payment.”
“Why,” said Wilson. “I haven’t even made any money yet this year.”
“Oh, but you will. At least we hope you will. And the IRS says you will. You made money last year. They assume you will this year. There is no such thing as going backwards to the IRS.”
“Fuck em,” said Wilson. “I haven’t. Don’t pay them. Tell them I died, I’m in the hospital, my medical bills are wiping me out, and will exceed all possible income. I may not survive. Just tell them we live in a Dumbocracy of dolts and dollars, and I’m no dolt and I got no dollars. Fuck em. Tell them I will pay when I have enough dollars so that my vote matters.”
“You’re in a good mood.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Scheinbaum loved America. He loved the tax system. He was a Republican and… of course he loved the system, it paid for his existence. The more rules, the better, for Scheinbaum. In fact, the paperweight on his desk said ‘Congress is my best friend’… Wilson’s rant concerned him, jest or not, one cannot not pay… penalties cost… However, he knew Wilson well enough to know that reasoning with him in his current mood would be like trying to persuade a noisy obdurate rock. So, he simply harrumphed and stared at Wilson with the serious dismay of a surgeon regarding a necessary, but messy job, requiring great skill. Then he tried, anyway.
“You’ve got to pay. They’ll charge you.”
“Don’t!” said Wilson. “Give me the form.”
Wilson signed the bottom, initialing where it looked required. “Now… Fill in income unknown, uncertain, estimated payment zero, and leave me alone.”
“Do you want to get together for dinner,” said Scheinbaum? “How about tonight? I heard some rumors about your project.”
“No Robert, not tonight, tomorrow maybe, just lie to the IRS, would you? I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Wilson left the accountant’s office. The bridge was clanging again. Every half hour; if in demand, the traffic would stop, the lights flash, the barriers fall, and the bridge would rise. You could almost set your watch on it. At least when in high summer, and today even at five, there was a parade of assorted craft arrayed in Prussian lines heading out and heading in. Back from a day on the water or out towards the sunset, which would not fall in this latitude for hours yet.
Exhaust sputtered from the waiting cars. And from the other side of the bridge, as if held at bay by some castle portcullis, people were waiting to cross while gawking, pointing, and dreaming on the boat parade. From this crowd of idlers, he saw a frantic waving and heard his name. Loud across the wind. “Wilson, Wilson, Wilson, get over here.” He knew who it was without looking. What other woman would so presume to shout like that at him? “Get over here.” It was Grace.
She stood, hands on her hips, a floppy yellow straw with daisies on her head—One leg thrust forward in impatience, serious, staring at him across the water. As soon as the bridge descended, he walked towards her. Grace stood there waiting, her arms folded.
“Hurry up, what have you been doing, sailing? I saw you, you’ve got trouble buddy, I heard! Trouble, and you, you were out on that silly boat! Are you nuts?”
Well, at least she doesn’t change, he thought. But Grace, for all her command, did care and she proceeded to tell Wilson what he already knew. Somehow, she knew of the punch, had heard of Philippe, knew of the meeting, and after making this abundantly clear, she said. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“How do you know this? It just happened Saturday, today’s Monday.”
“It’s all over town,” she said. “I heard it from Alice, Jane… Even that tassel-loafer’d-weasel Longbottom knows about it.”
“Longbottom, how did he find out? How did anyone?”
“Hey,” she said. “This is Beauville. Remember! Anyway, that client of yours, what’s her name?”
“Daphne, Tim Stevens,” he said.
“That was the name… She called Longbottom to complain about you. It seems Longbottom sold them the lot. And Longbottom told Dingler, and Dingler told his maid, and the people at Rotary, and they told the President of the bank.”
Grace started laughing, “I don’t really know all that, but you know, that is what happens in this place… It is true of Longbottom. You are today’s soap opera!” As if to emphasize, one of his acquaintances, the realtor Billings, walked by. “I heard it was a good punch.” Billings stopped for a moment. “Yeah,” said Wilson. “Can’t talk now, I’ll call you.”
Grace grabbed his arm. “Come on, you’ve got more troubles.” “More?” he said. “Janet…” Before Grace could go farther Wilson interrupted, “I heard.”
“How,” she said.
“Walschinski, on Beaver.”
The absurdity of this gossip stream caught them and they both smiled, mirth twisting their faces. “I need a drink,” said Wilson. “Come on,” said Grace, grabbing his arm again. “I’ve got some rose’ at my place, better for you, than that damn whiskey.”
Within minutes, Wilson was following Grace back across the bridge to leave his car behind and join her as she honked at pedestrians and swerved through traffic as if the road was hers alone, and the other cars, mere trespassers on her highway.
Grace lived on a narrow asphalt road that traversed and followed rolling farmlands to the north and east of the town… Northern Michigan farmland with a shorter growing season and soil less productive than the farmland of the south. A rocky, sandy, fragile soil of tough farming and apple and cherry orchards, which in the spring made the hills undulate in apparent carpets of pink and white. But the spring had come and gone and he was not building. Wilson thought of this as he and Grace bounced along the road in her ‘farm vehicle’, a rusted out old Plymouth Fury that she drove anywhere, and always, until it became stuck or broken-down and some neighbor would need to arrive with their tractor and tug her out of this hole or that ditch or simply tow her home, for lack of oil or tortured fan belts.
The farmland bordering her home was a few hundred feet and high bluffed above the lake, and from the road one could see Lake Michigan stretching north and south and west in deep blue brilliance.
First, they went north and then east, inland through the drumlins…rolling steeps, which the glaciers of the last ice age had left behind…then moving on above and perpendicular to them. Most of the houses were old, simple, run down except here and there where some downstate squire wan-a-be had purchased the land and house, then tricked out and remodeled the old or torn down and rebuilt new. Mixed with these were tarpaper-rambles, tumble-downs, and doublewides, all with magnificent views of lake Michigan.
Grace’s house, in contrast, had no view at all except from the lawn. It sat on a cross shaped intersection appropriate to its original purpose. She lived in an old church; old from a century or more with white paint fading and peeling here and there, long narrow double-hung windows, double doors, and a steeple narrow and gothic peaked, complete with a bell, and a rose window facing west. There was no view from inside her home because undoubtedly the builders of the church had realized that God’s majesty reflecting in the lake’s beauty would never do for sermon times, when thoughts need be of God and lecturing, and not what he might have made from nature…except for the church and man, and perhaps the Devil too. It was a Lutheran church, simple, with few indulgences. Its rose window, the one bit of popery that had somehow made it into this high ceilinged, and without it dour space, was the structure’s only savior because it provided the fractured colored streams of light that filled the high spaces of her home.
Grace had ripped out most of the pews, leaving only a few scattered asymmetrically about, some with cushions, some the original hard old oak. And she had left the complete space open, except for a central kitchen with a great hood, which soared to the ceiling. Her small bedroom was behind the pulpit, a room where a minister might have once composed or prepped for sermons. To further divide her space, tapestries and Indian prints draped here and there, and for added light she had installed skylights down both sides of the structure’s single ridge. Plants hung about and above the entry, these were lifted and lowered by hemp lines run through wooden blocks to old brass sailboat winches salvaged from history.
This was an Astarte house, and no Martin Luther madness set foot here any longer. When the pulpit was used at all, it was used by drunks at parties, or by her cat, who this afternoon sat where the preacher used to stand, pure black and yellow demon eyed, staring at them as they entered. Grace had acquired the cat Beelzebub, Beezle for short, with her acquisition of the church, proclaiming, he remembered. “That any church of hers must have a black cat to live there, and if this one had not happened by, she would have needed to fetch one.” But Beezle had wandered in along with the unloading of her furniture, and from time-to-time Grace was known to say, “the cat had arrived with God’s departure and that it was just alright with her.”
With their entrance came a bark and clatter, and from the hidden pulpit stoop and down the pulpit stairs came the dog Barney, barking, sliding, then pawing and sniffing at Wilson’s groin. “Get out of here you beast,” he said, pushing the dog away, as Barnie leapt upon him, about to slobber on his face. “Barney” shouted Grace, grabbing the animal by the collar and kicking him out the door.
“He likes you,” she said.
“I wish he didn’t. Of course, maybe then he’d be biting me, instead.”
“Sorry,” she said. “He’s lonely. I’ve been gone all-day. He’ll go chase some rabbits now.”
Grace moved to the central kitchen island and pulled a bottle of rose’ from the fridge, an old Philco, rounded, small, from the early fifties. She had salvaged this a few years before, and the style, as all fashion tends to do, was now recycling back into vogue. It was the artist about her, he thought, staring at the refrigerator. She was always ahead of the curve when it came to junk. For his money, retro or not, it was still junk with a noisy power gorging compressor, even if he had recently seen one just like it in Architectural Digest… Not even a defroster…Junk.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the rose’ and a corkscrew in his face. “Open it.” Grace busied herself now with a baguette and Kalamata olives arranging them on a plate, grabbing some olive oil and dribbling it on the bread. “To life,” she said as Wilson handed her a glass, clinking it against the one he was pouring for himself.
Light streamed from the skylights, forming shafts of drifting dust in the upper spaces of the old church vault. Grace put on some music. The Doors and Jim Morrison singing “People are strange when you’re a stranger. People look ugly when you’re alone.” She took the corkscrew from Wilson and began a syncopated banging of countertop and utensil, accompanying Morison’s loneliness. This was no amazing Grace, this was the Doors, and Wilson was sure that the old church echoed better, for, and because of, it. To balance the Morrison was the rose window, which with Wilson’s second glass of wine seemed to float in the high gable of the building’s Western wall, letting in a kaleidoscope of blues and reds, oranges and hallo yellows.
“I love this place,” he said. “Every time I come here, I wonder what I am doing, building and designing extravagance while living in my house when I could have one of these for a tenth of the money. I could retire to one of these, if that house would just sell.”
“Good luck with that,” she said. “How long is it now, five years? You will be working to pay for that thing and living in it until you are ninety. Anyway, you won’t find another one of these around here. I’ve looked. God or his minions have been drifting to huge and crystal cathedral or industrial lately. Last time I was downstate, I saw a new church that looked like a Wall-mart, with lawn ornaments…plaster saints stuck here and there like Frog-Holler Gargoyles. I don’t think there are too many old country churches around anymore, and most people would have bought this one just for the lot and torn it down. It’s not cheap to heat.”
“Probably,” he said. “But it would have been a shame, and I hope you're wrong about my house.”
“I’m not,” she said.
Grace, he thought, there always needs to be the downer. What could you say, a stormy, sometimes kind, and recalcitrant package…Grace?
“So,” said Grace. “Tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
“What occurred… Give me the details.”
Wilson told her. The story was already becoming old and tiresome, but he repeated it anyway. The scene, his plan’s rejection, Philippe, the graph paper, the Daphne, the Tim, feeling more the fool as he told her of his actions, his now clearly inappropriate losing of it.
“How could you have been so dumb?”
She didn’t need to say that. “Can’t you say something positive?”
“How?” she said. “You fucked up, but about the plan… sure. They should have loved it, old looking, rich looking, quietly immense...if that is possible? I don’t know how you could have done bad any better.”
Wilson nodded.
“Graph-paper,” she said, summing-up the situation.
“Graph-paper,” he replied.
Grace poured them both a little more rose’.
“Good, isn’t it? I bought a couple of cases, if you like it.”
“Delicious,” he replied. “Tart and tawny, so tell me of my other worries.”
“Janet! She does not want you to build.”
“We knew that. What’s changed that I don’t already know? What’s changed that Walshinksi didn’t tell me?” Grace continued, but it was old news, and he told her this.
“What do you recommend to fix it?”
“We’re going…you’re going to Janet’s party. She doesn’t know you’re coming.”
Grace turned towards a grandfather clock that was starting to chime.
“In fact,” she said, looking at him and then back towards the clock. “You need to change. I better get you home, so we aren’t late. You smell like your boat... stinky.”
Wilson knew Grace well enough not to protest, and he supposed it was a necessary idea. So, he and Grace bounced back down the drumlins towards his home, where he would take a shower and ready himself for a party he did not wish to attend. More work... more work…