The Household Spirit (16 page)

Howie agreed.

“Right?” she said, excitedly. “Right? Tell me about it!”

“You're right,” Howie had said. He meant it. He said, “I like Drew very much.”

“That means so much, you don't even know. But you know that he likes you too. Too much, I'd say. He's always telling me to lay off, you know?”

Howie nodded. He said, “You don't need to lay off. You say what you have to say to me. It's OK.”

“Thank you, Howard!”

“You're welcome.”

“It's hard to believe.”

“What is?”

“Me, you; everything. But it's good. It's really freaking
good
.” She laughed. She tottered. “Howard, you goofball. I forget how much I like you sometimes. Please try to remind me more often, would you?”

Howie thought that this was a reasonable request. “How?” he asked.

She hugged him. “Just hug me, Howard. For starters? Just freaking hug me.”

—

Drew removed a metal flask from who knows where. He said, “The secret to a happy marriage. Care for some?”

“What is it, Drew?”

“Works for ex-husbands too. Laphroaig single malt whisky. Quarter Cask. It tastes like smoky rope and”—he paused—“burning tires, Pepsi, charcoal, honey wheat, tennis ball, marmalade…”

Howie tapped the steering wheel.

“Right, got it,” Drew said. “Good man.” He took a long pull on the flask.

They headed north.

Interstate 87 was before them. They passed billboards and towns lit up like auto dealerships. Clifton Park. Round Lake. Burnt Hills. Malta. They also passed an actual auto dealership: cold white and yellow lights and still, deep expanses of asphalt carved into the forest. Gigantic flags, lit up and billowing in the night. Yellow signs for jumping deer,
ADOPT-A-HIGHWAY PROGRAM NEXT 1.5 MILES
, and soon the hills began lumbering up on either side of them, keeping pace. Then the mountains.

Howie said, “You'll pick up your car tomorrow?”

“Mm,” Drew said. “What? My cat? Cat's dead. Hey, how about some music, Howard?”

Howie did not know where exactly on the radio one found music that Drew might enjoy. Drew, he knew, was appreciative of culture; he was a retired high school English teacher with a single gold earring, short grey hair. He always recommended books and
articles about books on Facebook; he had political convictions and frequently attended Broadway musicals in New York City. Howie found a station that played music.

Drew laughed. “Howard, that is not OK.”

“Sorry?”

“What
is
this? Is this what you listen to?”

Howie found another station. “Nope.” Then another. Drew shoo-shooed Howie's hand away from the radio. He found what he was looking for. Drew said, “There we go. You into Dire Straits?”

Music was the opposite of fish. Music made Howie uneasy in the same way that people in Walmarts and parades made Howie uneasy. Dire Straits was an affront to the idea of a lake, of ripples and the occasional small, white splash. Howie respected Drew but couldn't understand why Dire Straits existed.

Drew patted Howie's arm. “Harriet, you know, she still tells the story of that concert when she was sixteen. Oh, what was it again?”

Howie said, “Maroon 5.”

“Mary mother of God, Howie, you crack me up sometimes! Exactly. Taking your goth daughter to see Maroon 5!”

Fourteen, actually. Howie had planned it for months. He could not help noticing how important music had become to Harri. She was always lost in her headphones,
earbuds
she called them, and so he had asked around at work, wanting to know what exactly they called the kind of music that fourteen-year-old girls listened to with earbuds. Maroon 5, apparently, was what a lot of folks called it. They were age appropriate. They had a song called “This Love” that Dube played for Howie. His own daughter, Tegan, forget about it. Tegan was nuts for those guys. Tegan was a popular and attractive young lady.

Howie purchased two tenth-row tickets to see Maroon 5 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. It had been a particular happiness for him, planning their special, cool night out.

But on being presented the birthday Maroon 5 tickets in the Saratoga Performing Arts Center parking lot, Harriet had all but
screamed. She had this way of making her entire body a fist. Howie said, “But I thought that you liked music.” He floundered. “Your earbuddies.”

“My
what
? Jesus, Dad! You can't be serious. What do you think? Who do you think I am?”

“Have you heard the Maroon 5? Maybe you haven't heard the Maroon 5. I've heard them, Harri. I think that they're very cool.”

“Oh my God!”

Harri wouldn't budge. She said that Howie didn't know shit about her if he thought she'd want to be here: here with him, first of all, Jesus F-ing Christ, and second of all, Maroon freaking 5—seriously? Seriously? He couldn't be serious! It was so embarrassing and messed up and all he'd have had to do was
ask
her. Talk to her. But no, talking to her would involve talking with her and when did he ever freaking want to do that?

Howie drove them home in silence, hoping that she'd change her mind. They didn't have to miss the concert. He suggested that they swing by and get one of her friends, Bea maybe, Bea could have his ticket. Because perhaps Maroon 5 wasn't the problem. The problem was
him
. Harri was rightfully embarrassed about going to an awesome Maroon 5 concert with her age inappropriate father, and that was OK. That was how it should be. He told her that he would forfeit his ticket.

“Stop stop stop saying Maroon 5!” she screeched. “Are you insane?”

Plus, she'd said, what the hell, she hadn't been friends with Bea in like two years. Three years! Bea'd probably
love
Maroon 5, actually, sure, Harri sneered, and so why didn't he just take Princess Beatrice to see the concert? He and Bea could be lame together. They could boogie.

She said, “You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“What? No, Harri. I wouldn't like that.”

The drive home was desperate, irretrievable.

Harri ran to her room, slammed the door. The sound of that
echoed. Howie stayed up half the night waiting for it to stop, for the silence of Route 29 to be silent again, for his daughter to open her door, come back downstairs, and see the birthday cake. It made no sense. He was sorry. He called in sick. He'd purchased Harri the birthday cake from Price Chopper, a pink cake that said
HAPPY FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY, HARRI!!!
The cake person had asked what his daughter liked and Howie, with pride, had told her that his daughter liked music, so they put candy tubas and trumpets and drums on the cake. Howie needed to be in the kitchen with the cake when his daughter reemerged. He would light the candles as soon as he heard her feet on the stairs. He set it all up on the table and he waited. Everyone likes cake.

D
rew looked back at Harri's painting. He snapped on the overhead light. “It's amazing to think, isn't it?” he asked Howie.

“The French and Indian War?”

Drew guffawed.
“What?”

Howie had been thinking about the French and Indian War.

“I mean, it's amazing that she's still sleeping under that,” Drew said. “But sure, that French and Indian War was something!” Drew looked at his metal flask. “Maybe it's time I had some of what you're having?”

“I thought because the painting—” Howie started.

“Howard, that is not a painting of the French and Indian War,” Drew said. “You sure you're under the legal limit there, boss?”

“Yes.”

“Well, besides the wife, I can assure you that there are no people in the painting. French, Indian, otherwise.”

That was the point, Howie wanted to say. They were hiding. It was likely that Harri herself didn't know the full story of Rogers Rock. Howie, feeling misunderstood, and in an atypically loquacious turn, decided that Drew might appreciate the history. “Do you know about Rogers Rock?” he asked.

—

In 1758, during the French and Indian War, Robert Rogers was an English officer known for the wily, brutal guerrilla warfare that he
deployed against the French and their Indian pals. Howie didn't say pals.

Robert Rogers was more bear than man. The story, which Howie only partially told Drew, and only in the most basic and likely dull fashion, went that Robert Rogers and about 180 of his men, who were rangers and ex–fur trappers, a ragtag group of woodsy, godly, eccentric wanderers conscripted into the English army, made a deep-winter trek from Queens Falls up to the northern end of Lake Jogues toward the French stronghold of Fort Ticonderoga. Howie was not sure why. Usual French and Indian War reasons, he assumed. Famously, Robert Rogers had gone up there before and freed captured English officers, plus had led the occasional provisions raid and Indian massacre. But so this winter became brutal. The snow was deep. The frozen sky a taunting, uncharitable blue. Rogers's men, especially the less hearty ones, began dying off after a week: some were taken by coughing diseases, others by the endless trudging. There were wolves. Toes felt like pebbles stuck in their boots, then fell off. Like teeth. One by one. Fingers and ears fell off. There was little to eat. Then there was nothing to eat. No fires, Rogers insisted, not even little ones, because fires would compromise the whole operation, whatever that operation happened to be. Nobody asked. These were, Howie imagined, silent, staring types, every last one. But he did not tell this to Drew. To Drew, he said, “Many of them died of the cold.”

They gnawed on carcasses left by wolves. Some died of that, too. But not Rogers. By the time that they reached what is now known as Rogers Rock, at the northern end of Lake Jogues, he and what remained of his men were finally ambushed, beset by hundreds of murderous Francophile Indians. They'd been hiding. They had obviously been tracking Rogers for miles, waiting until the climate and the lack of provisions had done most of the work for them. This became known as the Battle on Snowshoes because Rogers and his men had been wearing snowshoes.

Howie said, “It is very hard to run with snowshoes.” Let alone survive an Indian massacre.

“I like that,” Drew said. “The Battle of Snowshoes. It's like sponsorship. This afternoon's battle is brought to you by
snowshoes
.”

It was too cold for prisoners. Rogers's men went down by musket, knife, hatchet, and stones hurled from invisible Indians in trees. None was spared.

“Crazy,” Drew said. He looked again at the painting. “This place is right up the road and I could tell you far more about the Eastern Front of World War Two, you know, about Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, or about the War of the Roses in Tudor fucking England, excuse my English. It's like the forest and the lakes ate our own history. Swallowed it up.”

Howie did not understand. He said, “There are a lot of books about the French and Indian War.”

Rogers Rock was a massive, sloping cliff, hundreds of feet high. It looked like the crumbling, antagonistic side of a grey, concrete glacier. Few trees grew on it—only some wretched, wiry bushes, a few daring little saplings, ferns, moss. Boulders were always cracking from its side, especially in the frozen winter months.

Drew yawned. He clicked the overhead light off. “So you're saying that this Rogers was killed there?”

“No,” Howie said. “Rogers escaped.”

Relentlessly pursued. That was the legend. He'd lose the screaming Indians, they'd find him, and they wouldn't stop screaming, the entire forest screaming—the trees screaming—and this hide-and-seek continued for almost an entire day. Finally, Rogers approached the most brutal edge of the cliff and tossed down all of his supplies, even his rifle and his distinctive bear-head hat. He tossed down the already frozen body of a comrade. Then he walked backward from the edge of the cliff, making it look as if two people with snowshoe prints had gone over the edge. Howie thought that this maneuver was called doubling back.

“Something like that,” Drew said. “Sure.”

“Rogers found another way down to Lake Jogues.”

The Indians, catching up with Rogers's trail, looked down at the part of the rock that would come to be called Rogers Slide, and knew that Robert Rogers's game was up. Nobody could survive that fall, slide, whatever. They noted his stupid, distinctive hat, and a British body–like shape, and a bundle of supplies. However, as they were leaving, one Indian saw something unbelievable. There was the hatless figure of Robert Rogers himself, running from the bottom of the cliff, across the frozen lake. It was impossible. Thinking that he'd survived the fall as well as their righteous massacre, the Indians decided that this Rogers was surely protected by the Good Spirit. They let him run.

“The Good Spirit, huh?”

“Yes,” Howie said.

“That's what they called it?”

“I believe so.”

Howie felt strangely dejected. This wasn't at all what Howie had wanted to tell Drew. But what, then, had he wanted to tell him?

Drew shouted at Rogers Rock in the backseat: “You comfortable back there, honey?” He tapped the side of the painting. “She's comfortable,” he told Howie.

“That's good.”

“She's sleeping,” Drew said. “So maybe, Howard, hey, let's you and I have that talk?”

Howie thought that they had been talking, but OK.

Drew turned the music up a little louder. He said, “You know, she has a point sometimes.”

“OK.”

“I mean about the money you give to Harriet. Look, I don't mean to pry, she's your daughter, but it has to be said. You know what I'm talking about here.”

“The money that I give Harri.”

“Well, yeah.”

“OK.”

Drew sighed, said, “Maybe it's not OK, Howard. Maybe not. Hear me out. Look, you two, you and Harriet, you've got a really special bond, one that, to be honest, you-know-who back there has always been jealous of. The way she comes up here five, six times a year, stops at our house for an afternoon argument at most and then it's off to your house for a week or two.”

This was confusing. Howie had not seen Harri in over a year. Perhaps he'd misheard or was Drew more inebriated than he seemed? Howie said, “OK.”

Drew said, “It bothers her to no end, Howard. How you can do no wrong in Harriet's eyes. She thinks you inspire her misanthropy, that you set a crummy example. Now, fine, you and I know better. Harriet is and always has been
Harriet
, but there could be a kernel of truth to this, correct?” He stopped. “Hon, you awake back there?” Nothing. “Look, she's a good woman, Howard. She's a good mother. She's a great mother. She tries her best, you know that she does. But Harriet is difficult, to say the least, and those two, I swear, they're like fire and ice, temperamentally so different, and my wife isn't perfect. She'd be the first to admit. She doesn't understand Harriet's art, not like you and I do. Harriet says that she doesn't even try to, but that's not fair. That girl has no idea how much her mother tries. I guess what I'm saying is how long do you think that this can go on?”

“I don't know.”

“The point is, New York City. Harriet can't keep living there as if she's some kind of trust fund kid. You're not doing her any favors. She needs to find a real job. Let me ask you something: Harriet says that you've been saving up for a boat?”

Harriet knew about that? How? Howie said, “Yes.”

“Well, how is that going?”

Howie said, “Good.”

“Really, because the way we see it, and correct me if I'm wrong, you've been giving most of your money to Harriet these last few years.”

“Not all of it, Drew.”

“Understood. Not all of it. I hate to pry and I'm not saying she's using you, exactly, but, I'm sorry, when do you think this is going to end? When Harriet becomes a rich and famous painter? Do you know how many rich and famous artists there are in New York?”

“No.”

“There are three,” Drew said.

“There must be more than three.”

Drew laughed. “But you know what I mean. It's not only difficult, it's nearly impossible to succeed as an artist in New York these days. Might as well say you plan to make a living playing the Lotto. Be a starving
lottoist
. Can we agree on that?”

“Sure we can, Drew.”

“Harriet worries about you,” Drew said. He paused. Drank from his flask. “It's why she's up here visiting you so often. Plus, and don't tell our painting back there, but she's always on the phone with me, you know? Not her mother, Howard. Me. Trying to get me to take you out for a drink, check in on you, make sure you're OK. She's got a big heart when she chooses to show it. But she really shouldn't have to worry about you. Is that fair for someone her age? That girl loves you so much.”

Howie said, “Drew, I haven't seen Harri in a long time.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Drew grew angry. “You saw her last week, Howard!”

Howie said, “OK.”

“OK? Look, I'm sorry, just think about it. I'm sorry. I know that you can't help being the way you are. I get that. I appreciate that. But listen. The question is, man-to-man here, what are we going to do about our daughter?”

Howie was genuinely touched by Drew's
our
. He said, “I don't know, Drew.”

Howie no longer loved his ex-wife. He only occasionally missed the idea of her, even if this was an idea that hadn't survived the first few years of their marriage, anyway, and probably wasn't his idea to begin with. Besides the first one, Timmy—just that name,
Timmy
—Howie had never experienced what he'd identify as jealousy. He maintained a certain warmth toward his ex-wife's boyfriends and husbands. They felt familial, like brothers—or, possibly, more successful versions of himself. They were like sports teams that Howie wanted to win.

They'd exited I-87.

They were approaching Howie's ex-wife's house in Saratoga Springs. Howie did not want the drive to end. He and Drew had settled into a comfortable conversation; it was like bantering, almost, something that Howie recognized from TV. Drew told Howie about a book that he was reading. Then they'd watch the road. Drew would joke about politicians whom Howie didn't know; Howie would smile. Drew recommended a movie that Howie might enjoy. Did Howie like a particularly sexy actress? Howie did not know but promised Drew that he would look into it.

Drew told Howie about his ex-wife, a vile woman named Pam. They had a son, also a teacher, who was married to a Baptist and living down in godforsaken Maryland. Drew was a grandfather. He said, “Did you enjoy your party?”

“Well, Drew,” Howie said. “I guess they really partied the shit out of me this time.”

Drew paused, then laughed so hard that he sprayed whisky onto the dashboard, just like in a movie. Drew couldn't stop laughing. “What the
fuck
?” he said. “I've never—they partied
the what
out of you, Howard?”

“Did they party the shit out of you, too, Drew?”

“Stop, you're killing me!”

This had been an easy, wonderful evening and Howie didn't even care that he was smiling. Who cared? Not the road. Not Drew.

“Yeah, well, the stone anniversary,” Drew said, finally. “I gotta
say. Those guys, they're good guys, Howard. You're lucky. They're really a good bunch of guys.”

“They are.”

“But we really should go out for a beer sometime, Howard, you know?” Drew said. “Me and you.”

“That would be nice, Drew.”

“Nice,” Drew repeated. Laughed. “Now, full disclosure time. You haven't told me about that woman. Did I notice something? Don't tell me I didn't.”

Howie had no idea what Drew was talking about. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“We don't do coy, you and me, OK? We've been married to the same woman. Why do coy? Do brothers do coy?”

Howie asked if this was part of the joke.

Drew said, “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Howie said. He thought about this. “That we're telling jokes.”

“We're not telling jokes!”

But they were. Or, rather, they had been laughing. Howie felt stupid. “OK,” he said. Probably he should stop talking now.

“Don't tell me you weren't picking up the same vibes I was from that woman, what's her name? I'm sorry, I forget. She was handsome. Outdoorsy and a little on the, you know, the full-figured side. Really sweet face.”

“Marcy?”

“I met Marcy, Howard. She's married. She looks like a mongoose.”

Suddenly, Howie knew. Drew was talking about Rhoda Prough. Rho. It was something he'd always kind of known but forgotten; it was obvious, wasn't it?