The House of Tomorrow (8 page)

Nana was right when she said I hadn’t retained everything I’d read under her tutelage, but I had retained that fact. And until that afternoon, I wasn’t sure I had ever believed the part about unlimited human possibility. But now that I was pedaling forward, the scenery rushing past me, it seemed plausible. My feet were flying. My calves were burning. I didn’t know where Jared’s house was, but I was traveling there.

Had I been looking at the town from above, I believe I could have located the place in a matter of seconds. But now that I was on the ground, everything was different. It was all so immediate and near. I had to ride over the avenues in nearly all directions before I happened to arrive randomly at Ovid Avenue. I stopped right below the sign, almost on the verge of giving up. But there it was. A green street sign with the letters perfectly placed. OVID AVENUE. I looked up and down the street. The address of the nearest house was only 440. How many blocks away was 3200? A thousand?

I briefly thought of leaving and coming back another day, but I found I was no longer concerned about painting the highway signs. There was nothing I could do but keep moving forward (like the universe). So I embarked down the street, getting my legs in a rhythm again. I watched as the wall of houses flashed past. White-White. Brick-Brick. White-White. I could see some people through their windows, the same way I was so often visible inside my glass dome. These people were on display, too: eating, viewing TV, conversing. I could see seconds of their lives happening.

I became so absorbed trying to see inside the North Branch houses, I nearly passed the Whitcombs’ home twenty minutes later. I only came to a stop because Ovid Avenue had reached a dead end. And Jared’s house was midway into the final circle of houses. I had to hop off my Voyager and walk closer to check the numbers, but I found it soon enough. 3200. Painted white on the curb. I leaned my bike against a large beech tree in the yard and stood on the sidewalk, staring at the Whitcomb residence.

It was not a dome.

I hadn’t presumed that it would be. Nonetheless, that was my first thought. It was not a dome, and it shared no quality with domes. All geodesic domes, like ours, were based on a concept that Fuller called
tensegrity
. The word was one of his hybrids, in this case a combination of “tension” and “integrity.” A tensegrity structure was one that had reached a perfect balance. Each part buttressed its neighbor part faultlessly to distribute pressure.

The Whitcombs’ house had little to no tensegrity. If anything, it had
tengility
. There was nothing wrong with the home. It was a modest two-story structure, tan brick, with a pointed gable roof. The windows were all rectangular except the big one on the second story, which had a curved top. I had seen many houses like it from the dome. But, up close, the structure seemed tenuous to me. There was a barely perceptible sag to the awning of the porch. The roof had recently been reshingled, but the pattern was not even. And the downspout had been partially detached from the side of the house.

I grabbed my brown bag from the front basket and stepped onto the lawn. I looked up and saw a pair of purple athletic sneakers hanging from a branch in the tree. I heard the tinkle of a wind chime, and looked to the porch where a swarm of aluminum angels clanged into one another over the door. Below the chime was a thick welcome mat that said, “God Bless This House.” The curtains were drawn on the bay windows, and the inside looked dark. I took another step toward the house, and when I did, I heard a voice.

“Sebastian?”

It came from behind me, slightly muffled. I whipped around and there was Janice Whitcomb, crossing the street. She was bundled in her beige coat and green-blue scarf. She carried a box of something rustling and rolling around.

“I thought that was you,” she said. “I was just down the street at this ridiculous candle party and I said to myself, ‘There’s a prowler on our lawn.’ ”

“I didn’t mean to prowl, Mrs. Whitcomb,” I said.

“I know that, Sebastian. Don’t look so nervous. I recognized you when I got closer.”

She stopped and looked me over. Her dark hair was in a ponytail that day, and a few long wisps hung over her round cheeks. She looked oddly exhilarated.

“Jared will be pleased,” she said.

“He’s at home?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Where else would he be?”

She walked over the porch and swung open the front door. Right away, a blast of warm air came out, stinging my eyes. Janice propped open the door with the box of candles. There were large thick tubes of wax inside, at least twenty, and it smelled like ginger-bread. “Everyone is home but my husband,” she continued. “He’s always flying somewhere. Sales. I’m glad you took me up on my offer, though. How’s your grandmother?”

“Nana is improved,” I said.

“Good to hear.”

I still stood outside. The door was open, but for some reason I hadn’t yet stepped through. Janice watched me, confused. I clutched my small brown bag tightly.

“You can leave your shoes on, Sebastian,” she said. “This is a shoes-on house. Just give them a wipe!”

I glanced down at the mat again, taking in each word individually.
God. Bless. This. House.
I wiped my feet, slowly. There were smells drifting from inside, the smells of another family. I inhaled sharply and stepped across the threshold. Janice kicked the box aside, and the door closed right behind me. Mrs. Whitcomb stood looking at me, and I realized I was still wearing my bicycling helmet.

“Jared’s in his room,” she said. “Upstairs and to the right.”

I took off my helmet and looked around. The living room was to my left. It was an adequate-sized room, but it appeared so much smaller than any space in the dome. The ceiling was low, and there was a lot of furniture. Two immense brown sofas fit together at a right angle across the room, and two leather chairs sat near the front windows. On the wall opposite the windows was a gargantuan television with an elaborate sound system attached. Above the television was a small brass cross with Jesus splayed across it. I had never been to church, but I’d seen the image.

“Go ahead,” said Janice. “Just go up and knock on his door. I’ll make some grilled cheese sandwiches.”

I walked to the end of the hall to a staircase. I was about to go up when I noticed a closed door with an enormous poster of a shirtless man covering it. The man was sitting on the hood of a shiny black car, and his hair was dripping wet. He seemed to be looking right at me. Across his broad hairless chest in thick black marker read the words “MEREDITH’S ROOM.” Then, on his flat, sweaty stomach, it said, “STAY OUT!” I could hear a slight murmur from behind the door, then a laugh. I hurried past.

The stair steps were covered in worn red carpeting. I ascended all the way up to a narrow hall about the same width as the staircase. At the end of the hall, on the right, was a door. The only thing that was on the door was a short command scratched into the wood. “Rise Above!” it said. I stuffed my helmet under my arm and approached the door. I knocked four times. A few long seconds passed, then the knob turned and the door opened a crack. An enlarged eye looked out at me through a fogged lens.

“Hi,” I said.

The door opened slightly wider, and Jared wiped the condensation from his glasses. He removed a mini white headphone from his ear.

“Hey,” he said.

He was wearing black pants and a black shirt that had the chest and arm bones of a skeleton on them. The shirt was supposed to create the effect that Jared was a skeleton-man. Unfortunately, the bones were way too big to be realistic.

“I apologize for not telephoning,” I said, “but Nana sent me on an errand nearby.”

Jared nodded. “What kind of errand?”

He still hadn’t opened his door all the way.

“Paint,” I said.

“Paint,” he repeated slowly.

He tapped his fingers on the door, then looked back into his room. I examined his hair. There were drops of moisture clinging to his individual scraggly black locks. He looked at my helmet.

“Did that come with a tampon?” he asked.

I didn’t respond. Instead, I just held out the paper bag I had been carrying.

“What’s this?” Jared inspected the bag.

“It’s for you,” I said.

I had been holding it so tightly that the paper was crinkled. It looked like a piece of trash now. Yet Jared’s skeleton arm took the bag. His glasses were clouded over again, and he wiped them and peered inside. He pulled out the disc. Despite the wear and tear of the sack, the compact disc itself was still shiny, the plastic wrapping untouched.

“Where did you get this?” he asked, staring at the cover.

“At a disc shop.”

“How did you buy it, I mean?”

“With a twenty-dollar bill.”

Jared blinked twice behind his lenses. “Come in,” he said.

He opened his door all the way and I followed him inside. The room had dark carpeting, and every inch of wall space was covered in photographs of musicians. Cutouts from magazines. Rail-thin men with bald heads or just a single row of hair down the middle. They were frozen midshriek, midleap. Guys with black guitars, spitting great arcs of water into the crowd. Across from his bed were two giant shelves of compact discs and record albums, some of them stacked on top of a computer (it must have been the one he used to contact me). There were also discs on the floor and on a bedside table next to some small plastic devices that looked medical. A humidifier huffed out dense clouds of mist in the corner. The temperature was balmy.

Jared picked at the wrapping on the disc. “I don’t have this one,” he said quietly.

“What’s that smell?” I asked.

Soon after I entered the room, I had noticed a strong vinegary odor.

“Nothing,” he said. “There’s no smell.”

He walked toward his stereo and placed the disc in its slot. While he fumbled with some knobs, I looked over at a bulletin board leaning against his wall. It was covered in “Get Well” cards. One of them was open and every inch of the card was covered in signatures. Jared pressed a few buttons on his stereo.

“This is a good one,” he said.

I sat down on his bed, unmade, the sheets knotted. He sat down at the opposite end. Three sharp drumbeats exploded at full volume. Then a chomping angry guitar started. And finally, that same operatic voice I’d heard first in the hospital.

Jared nodded and played some drums in the air. But he seemed far away. He continued wiping at his glasses. The song moved to its chorus.

The song ended after a minute or two, and Jared switched off the stereo. He stood there a moment, looking at the speakers. The only sound was the gurgle and hiss of the humidifier. I felt my hair dampening with sweat.

“It’s very temperate in here,” I said. “Warm.”

“What do you want?” he asked, suddenly.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you want from me, Sebastian?”

Jared faced me. “I mean, I never really said you could come over here, did I? Maybe I said you could call me up with times and everything like you asked. Maybe. But I didn’t say you could just pop over anytime you goddamned pleased. I didn’t say you could just waltz your ass in here and start talking about smells and heat!”

He was huffing.

“Have I done something wrong?” I asked.

“Just because you do stuff in a weird-ass way,” he said, “doesn’t mean the whole world has to be weird-ass to fit you. Some people have normal lives to lead.”

“You don’t like the disc?”

“That’s not the point,” he said.

“What is the point?” I asked.

“The point is you annoy people,” he said. “You fucking annoy people.”

I still had my helmet under my arm. I picked it up now and placed it back on my head. The sour smell in the room stung my nostrils.

“I’ll go now,” I said. “Nana doesn’t know where I am.”

“Nana doesn’t know where I am,”
Jared mocked.

I walked to the door and opened it. I stepped out into the hallway, trying not to cry. My throat was tightening. My eyes stung. And I was hoping I could just pad quietly down the stairs and out of the house. I could be back on my Voyager before Janice saw me. I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. I wouldn’t bother anyone ever again. Please, please, just let me go. But at the end of the hallway, just coming up the stairs, was another human being. It was Janice Whitcomb. She spotted me immediately.

“Sebastian, you’re not going?” she said.

I froze. “I have a lengthy bike ride,” I said.

“But the sandwiches are ready.”

She spoke with such gravity that her real words took a moment to sink in.

“Do you like grilled cheese?” she added.

I watched her face. She smiled, but it seemed to belie a kind of desperation.

“Sebastian has to go,” Jared said from behind me.

“Oh, come eat your sandwiches,” she said. “I’ll take him home in the van.”

I stood still between them.

“Are you feeling better?” Janice asked.

She was staring at Jared now.

“I guess,” he said.

“How’s your stomach?”

“Fine,” he said. “Please drop it.”

He met my eyes, then turned away. Mrs. Whitcomb looked at me again.

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asked.

“Oh, c’mon!” said Jared. “Jesus Christ! Let’s eat sandwiches.”

WE WERE SERVED OUR AFTERNOON SNACK ON BROWN plates with a blob of deep-red tomato ketchup and some sliced pickles stacked in a pile. To drink, there was grape-flavored punch, bright purple. I watched as Jared picked up a diagonally cut half of his sandwich, dipped it in the ketchup, and took a bite. I followed the same process, and was pleased to find a rich cheesy, tomatoey flavor bursting into my mouth. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I began chewing the golden-toasted white bread. It was buttery and made a loud crunch when you bit it. The cheese was salty and melted down to a near-liquid state. The ketchup was a tangy accent. The first half was gone in seconds.