that today, eight hundred miles and seventy years away.
Now he carries a broom handle walking stick. He's driven a finishing nail headfirst into the end, just the thing for spearing a paper cup or an attacking animal's eyeball. He shakes it much like his father did at the kids who rush past his house on their bicycles and skateboards, not quite sure if he's missing something important and American.
The house watches Julian on his daily patrol. He follows the walkways through the golf course though he does not play. He squints at the other old men in their plaid hats and white shoes, sometimes raising the broom handle at them in either salute or warning. They chuckle and wave back.
The house realizes that it has never thought of how to call attention to itself. On windy days, you can hear the groan of rotting joists and the whistle of split shingles, but the air is stagnant during the Florida summer and the high drone of locusts would conceal them anyway. It can't whistle or snap its fingers, and houses can only whisper to their occupants.
After a week of waiting fifty yards off the seventh hole for Julian Macek to get a funny feeling on the back of his neck, the house decides to risk everything and just edges its corner onto the fairway.
Julian Macek sees it first one rainy morning. His broom handle clunks upon the concrete but stops about thirty feet from the house. He stoops, peering past the pine trees and curving palms at the leaning wreck, more snail than house.
Julian looks over his shoulder to the left and then to the right. He steps across the grass and touches the corner. A charge crackles along the old cloth-sheathed wiring.
Come inside, the house wants to say.
Julian limps around the house, examining every side: the missing back steps, the jagged windows, the wavy porch planks. The house waits and hopes for any sign of recognition.
Julian staggers back, holding his hand over his mouth. He bends gasping toward the ground while the house worries.
I traveled a long way, the house wants to say. Come inside.
Julian's face is white, but he steps onto the porch and tries the door. The last few months of humidity and vibration have finally rusted away the tumblers in the lock. The knob falls into Julian's hand and the door swings open.
Come inside.
Julian, holding his broom handle like a spear, walks into a living room he last saw over his mother's shoulder. He grimaces at the kitchen table. Cans and candy wrappers crunch under his feet as he shuffles from one room to the next.
In the master bedroom, he picks up his father's wallet in his shaking hand. He opens it, sees the Ohio license, and then drops it to the floor.
He runs now through the house, crashing into one wall and then the next, clutching his narrow ring of white hair. He drops his broom handle in the hallway. He slips on the mold-slick carpet and crawls the rest of the way from the house.
Wait. Wait.
Julian Macek, the son of a convicted and executed child murderer, scrambles for his life from his childhood home.
* * * *
That's not the way it was supposed to go at all, thinks the house. Confession turns out to be harder than it expected.
The house has a speech prepared, though it has no way to deliver it. âWe're brothers, you and I,â it would like very much to say. âMaybe we both crawled to get here, but we're both still standing. We wouldn't have made it this far carrying the things we know if your father hadn't done a good job. He was for building things, not destroying them."
But eloquence doesn't come easy to a house when all its words are only architecture. There's only so much to say by standing still, by still standing.
Just as the house resolves to finish the journey and crawl the quarter mile to Julian's backyard, a flashlight beam bobs over the fairway, coming closer. Julian, a bottle in one hand and the light in the other, cracks his knees against the porch and curses. He totters back and walks up to the
Now he carries a broom handle walking stick. He's driven a finishing nail headfirst into the end, just the thing for spearing a paper cup or an attacking animal's eyeball. He shakes it much like his father did at the kids who rush past his house on their bicycles and skateboards, not quite sure if he's missing something important and American.
The house watches Julian on his daily patrol. He follows the walkways through the golf course though he does not play. He squints at the other old men in their plaid hats and white shoes, sometimes raising the broom handle at them in either salute or warning. They chuckle and wave back.
The house realizes that it has never thought of how to call attention to itself. On windy days, you can hear the groan of rotting joists and the whistle of split shingles, but the air is stagnant during the Florida summer and the high drone of locusts would conceal them anyway. It can't whistle or snap its fingers, and houses can only whisper to their occupants.
After a week of waiting fifty yards off the seventh hole for Julian Macek to get a funny feeling on the back of his neck, the house decides to risk everything and just edges its corner onto the fairway.
Julian Macek sees it first one rainy morning. His broom handle clunks upon the concrete but stops about thirty feet from the house. He stoops, peering past the pine trees and curving palms at the leaning wreck, more snail than house.
Julian looks over his shoulder to the left and then to the right. He steps across the grass and touches the corner. A charge crackles along the old cloth-sheathed wiring.
Come inside, the house wants to say.
Julian limps around the house, examining every side: the missing back steps, the jagged windows, the wavy porch planks. The house waits and hopes for any sign of recognition.
Julian staggers back, holding his hand over his mouth. He bends gasping toward the ground while the house worries.
I traveled a long way, the house wants to say. Come inside.
Julian's face is white, but he steps onto the porch and tries the door. The last few months of humidity and vibration have finally rusted away the tumblers in the lock. The knob falls into Julian's hand and the door swings open.
Come inside.
Julian, holding his broom handle like a spear, walks into a living room he last saw over his mother's shoulder. He grimaces at the kitchen table. Cans and candy wrappers crunch under his feet as he shuffles from one room to the next.
In the master bedroom, he picks up his father's wallet in his shaking hand. He opens it, sees the Ohio license, and then drops it to the floor.
He runs now through the house, crashing into one wall and then the next, clutching his narrow ring of white hair. He drops his broom handle in the hallway. He slips on the mold-slick carpet and crawls the rest of the way from the house.
Wait. Wait.
Julian Macek, the son of a convicted and executed child murderer, scrambles for his life from his childhood home.
* * * *
That's not the way it was supposed to go at all, thinks the house. Confession turns out to be harder than it expected.
The house has a speech prepared, though it has no way to deliver it. âWe're brothers, you and I,â it would like very much to say. âMaybe we both crawled to get here, but we're both still standing. We wouldn't have made it this far carrying the things we know if your father hadn't done a good job. He was for building things, not destroying them."
But eloquence doesn't come easy to a house when all its words are only architecture. There's only so much to say by standing still, by still standing.
Just as the house resolves to finish the journey and crawl the quarter mile to Julian's backyard, a flashlight beam bobs over the fairway, coming closer. Julian, a bottle in one hand and the light in the other, cracks his knees against the porch and curses. He totters back and walks up to the
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