Let Me Be Frank With You by Richard Ford Page A

makeover makes him feel. His wrecked house, I’m certain, will be gone by New Year’s.
    â€œI don’t know, Arnie. What universe is our universe inside of? Why do so many people have pancreatic cancer all of a sudden? How does a thermos work? I could come up with several.”
    Arnie unfolds his crossed arms, pushes his palms back through his hair, both sides, Biden-like, clears his throat, then steps away from my car as if he’s realized he was keeping me out of it (my chance now to get out of the chill). Arnie has creases deep as the Clipperton Trench in both his big earlobes. Possibly he feels dark intimations, but wouldn’t recognize them.
    I inch forward. My neck is already stiffening up after my partial tumble. I’ve strained something. Arnie’s standing back as if he’s sold my car to me and is watching me enjoy it for the first time. I’m trying not to be in a rush to get in. Precisely what’s happening here between us, I don’t really know. A small-scale mystery in itself.
    â€œDid you ever meet Obama, Frank?” Arnie’s harsh mouth is raveled by a look of familiar distaste. Why he’d ask this is beyond me.
    â€œNever have, Arnie. No.” My hand’s on the door handle, squeezing it. “He’s not really my kinda guy.”
    â€œYou voted for him, didn’t you?”
    â€œBoth times. I think he’s great.”
    â€œYeah, yeah. I figured.”
    My guess is Arnie did, too, but can’t admit it.
    Over the berm, from where saw and hammering noises have previously floated, the scratchy radio comes on again, at first too loud, then softer. You’re once, twice, three times a la-a-dee . .  . Who sings that? Peabo Bryson? Ludacris? “Eees like, okay, Serena Williams if she was a man,” a man’s Spanish-spiced voice begins into the cold air over the music. “Se-re-na Williams eees a man!” another male voice says back. “Nooo! Hom-braaay! ” They all crack up. Life’s good if you’re them.
    â€œYou’re taller than you used to be, aren’t you, Frank?” Arnie’s coming toward me now, a smile opening on his strange, half-woman face—as if he knows he’s wasted my time but means to make it right before all is lost, the beach returned to the dominion of the gulls, all trace of us gone.
    â€œI have the personality of a shorter man, Arnie.” I’m trying to get in my car before Arnie gets closer. I fear an embrace. It could damage my neck and render me an invalid. Bonding heads the list of words I’ve ruled out. Emerson was right—as he was about everything: an infinite remoteness underlies us all. And what’s wrong with that ? Remoteness joins us as much as it separates us, but in a way that’s truly mysterious, yet completely adequate for the life ongoing.
    Arnie (the idiot) does indeed mean to clap his surprisingly long, leather-cased, net-minder arms around me and pull me—like a puck—into his bosom. A save. I have nowhere to escape to, but try to duck my head as he engulfs me, awfully.
    â€œEnough,” I say, my mouth muffled against his goddamn mobster coat, which smells like the inside of his Lexus but also like some epicene men’s fragrance Arnie no doubt sprays on, après le bain , with his Russian wife keeping stern watch, tapping her toe like Maggie to Jiggs.
    â€œIt is rough, Franky,” Arnie mumbles, wanting me not to feel as bad as I feel about whatever he thinks I feel bad about (being hugged). Clearly he’s here for me (also on the inventory). A harsh shiver caused by the ocean’s chill rattles my ribs—though Arnie may think I’ve shuddered, possibly even sobbed. Why would I? My house hasn’t been ruined. I try to pull away. My back is against the metal door frame so that if I try any harder I’ll hurt my neck even more; or worse, fall back in my car with Arnie on top of me, drive the