The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike Read online

  “It’s reasonably priced,” Runcible said, enjoying the situation. It was your idea to come here, he said to himself. When I’m finished showing you around Poor Man’s Hollow, you’ll be glad to buy a house up on the Ridge.

  “It’s so barren,” Mrs. Diters said.

  With a touch of compassion, he said to them. “It is a little lonely out here, at first. But you get accustomed to it. People are friendly. They’ll always give you a helping hand. Nobody locks their doors.” He started up the car and drove on.

  In gratitude, the two old people bobbed their heads.

  Runcible himself had come to this area as a stranger. He had lived in Los Angeles before World War Two. In 1940 he had gone into the Navy, and by 1944 he had got command of a sub chaser operating off the coast of Australia. His greatest glory had come in that year; as he told it, he was the “only Jew in the world to sink a Jap sub on Yom Kippur.” After the war he had gone into real estate with a partner in San Francisco. In 1955 he had bought a summer cabin in Carquinez; he wanted to be near the water, and he had at once organized a yacht club—actually, revived an older yacht club that had fallen into disuse. In 1957, three years ago, he had moved his office to Carquinez. His competition was a slow, flabby local named Thomas, who had sold real estate and insurance in Carquinez unopposed for thirty-five years and was due (according to Runcible) to die. Thomas still handled the sale of houses by the older inhabitants to other older inhabitants, but Runcible Realty got all the new people coming into the area, young and old.

  His ads in the San Rafael newspapers had attracted many homebuyers who otherwise would never have heard of Carquinez, which was slightly north of Bolinas on the ocean coast, cut off from the rest of Marin County by Mount Tamalpais. At one time, no one would have thought of trying to live on the west side of the mountain while working in San Francisco or the flat part of the county. But roads were improving. And so were cars. And more and more people were moving into Marin County each month. The large towns had already become overcrowded, and property prices were going up.

  “Such nice trees,” Mrs. Diters said. Now they had driven back into the woods once more. “The shade is nice, after the sun.”

  Along the road a group of children walked, following a man whom Runcible recognized. His own child was in this group, his nine-year-old son Jerome. The teacher, Mr. Wharton, carefully waved his group back away from the passing car; the children halted on the grassy shoulder, and some of them, recognizing the Studebaker, waved. He saw his son’s face light up, and then Jerome’s arm whipped up and down.

  “Out for a hike,” Runcible said to the Diterses. “The fourth grade from our grammar school.” He felt pride, a relaxed pleasure, at the sight of the hands waving at him, his son’s smile, and then, as Mr. Wharton recognized him, the teacher’s nod of greeting.

  When you’ve lived here a while, Runcible thought, they will wave at you too. That would please you, you two fragile lonely old city people, at the end of your life, yearning for a place in which to belong, to be safe and comfortable and wanted.

  What a favor I would be doing you, he thought. To locate you here in the area. Where everyone knows everyone else. He waved long and soberly at the fourth grade of the Carquinez Grammar School, and the Diterses fixed their eyes on him. What hunger there. The envy.

  He knew for certain that he would sell them a house. Perhaps on this trip. It was in the bag.

  2

  At the door of the ground-floor workshop, Walter Dombrosio set down the two cans of enamel. To the men at the lathe he said, “You got the game on? Willy fell down just now.”

  The clean-up boy, standing with his pan full of wood shavings, said, “Anyhow, the Giants scored.”

  “That new second baseman is really hot,” one of the workmen said. They had started up the lathe; its whine put an end to the talk. Both Dombrosio and the clean-up boy waited, and then when the noise ceased, the conversation resumed.

  “Boy, I’ll tell you,” Dombrosio said. “It’d kill me to fall down in front of forty thousand fans.” He did not actually care about baseball, but he felt required to mention the game, when he came downstairs here, to the shop; he showed them that he, too, followed the game. That in spite of the fact that he worked upstairs and wore a suit and tie he was no different from them. “He’s trying too hard,” Dombrosio said. “It proves there’s such a thing as trying too hard.”

  The workman nodded, but once more the lathe started up. They did not care about his opinions; feeling his face redden, Dombrosio picked up his cans of enamel and moved towards the stairs. Smarting somewhat, he passed on back upstairs.

  Here, on the main floor with its ceiling lost in the rafters, fluorescents on stems did the trick; no sunlight up here, as in the workshop. Cool and dim in the corners…the cellotex kept sounds from echoing and gave the premises that modern quality, that taste. An outfit that conceived new packages for rice and beer could certainly dress itself properly. Even here, in a warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront. The bare wooden beams; it all fitted in. At the front, the receptionist’s desk. And the display of samples: their commodities.

  He himself had installed the cellotex and done the painting. Oddly, the cellotex had so diffused the sound of the receptionist’s electric typewriter that no one could guess how large the place was. The sound appeared to recede. But actually Lausch Company was small. Doors that might have opened into labs actually opened onto storage closets. Now, with the enamel, he entered the secret area where the new containers were designed. But even this, the principal area, was no larger than the ground area of a ladies’ tea shop. And the desks filled it. The designers, all three of them, with their easels.

  At the first desk sat a designer looking as if he had renounced his responsibilities; on the work-table before him Lucky Lager beer cans hid him. Being upright, the cans appeared full. And the shiny metal tops had not been punctured.

  “Hi, Walt,” Bob Fox said, smiling up at him. Lifting a beer can he offered it to Dombrosio. “Join me.”

  The cans, of course, were cement. Dombrosio accepted one; it felt heavy and inert, unconvincing to the touch. Only visually did it succeed, but that was enough. In a photograph, or on the shelf of their simulated grocery store, it would appear genuine; agents from the Lucky Lager Company could use it as a basis of decision when the time came either to accept or reject this new container design.

  Holding the beer can as if drinking from it, Dombrosio joined Fox in the ritual customary with the two of them, the fanciful consumption of the non-existent contents of their containers. Some days it was beer; other days they ate invisible cereal, ice cream, frozen vegetables, smoked pretend cigarettes—once, even presented the receptionist with a pair of nylon stockings that she could not see. Land of make-believe…

  “Not too warm for you, is it?” Fox said, indicating the beer cans. “There’s some in the refrigerator, if you prefer.”

  “No,” he said. “This is fine.”

  Taking the beer can he absently walked through the room, towards his own bench.

  “My artifact,” Fox said, following him to retrieve the can.

  Dombrosio returned it, seating himself at his desk and once more picking up his own work where he had left off.

  “What’s that you’re doing?” Fox said. He reached down and picked up a break-mold made of plaster; expertly, he studied it. “I’m not familiar with this project. This isn’t the bumper-guard for that little French car, is it?”

  “No,” Dombrosio said, taking the mold back. “It’s something I’m doing on my own time.” He explained. “It’s a gag.”

  “Ah,” Fox said, nodding knowingly. “Another of your practical jokes.” Another designer, Pete Quinn, had stopped momentarily, and Fox said to him, “Remember this guy and his gag about Henry Ford?” He went on, then, to repeat Dombrosio’s tale of madcap college escapades.

  In those days, back in the 1940s Walt Dombrosio had known a number of men slightly older than himself who had g
one to work at Dearborn for the Ford Motor Company. At that time he had had a workshop in his garage, at home, and he had made himself a costume. First, a rubber mask that gave him a greenish cadaverous face, with protruding teeth, sunken cheeks, hair like moss dribbled across his forehead. Then a faded frock coat, a cane, spats, black oxfords. Groping along, he had invaded the houses of the several Ford designers, looking to them, in the first horrified moment, like the Old Man himself come back from the grave.

  A hobby, then. But a business now.

  “I’d like to have seen those guys’ faces,” Fox finished. “When Walt came in, tapping at the door and drooling and mumbling, poking around sort of blindly.” He laughed, and so did Quinn.

  “What other gags did you pull?” Quinn asked. He was the newest of the designers, having come to work only a month or so ago.

  “Hell,” Dombrosio said, “I pulled so many I can’t remember them all. That Ford gag was nothing. I’ll tell you one that was really one.”

  This gag had been a cruel one, and he knew it. When he told it, he altered it so that it became much more original and much funnier; he made it, in the telling, become jolly. The two men, listening now, put on appreciative smiles, and that goaded him into even further ornamentation. He found himself gesturing, painting in the air the shape of the gag; it became three-dimensional for all of them.

  When he had finished, and Fox and Quinn had gone off, he sat at his desk alone, feeling let-down.

  First of all, he felt shame at having embellished the story. While talking he could let the excitement carry him away, but afterward, left by himself as he was now, he had no emotion, no involvement, to protect him. For one thing—from the practical standpoint alone—he faced the prospect of becoming known as a bullshitter. Perhaps, among the others at Lausch Company, he had already got that reputation; the men went off laughing at his story, but as soon as they were out of his sight they winked at each other and said what he had heard said of others: that they could not be trusted. And of course it was important to be trusted. In matters of veracity especially.

  A man who did not narrate the truth perhaps could not distinguish the truth, he reflected. So their minds might work, when applied to him and his tales. And in his work, being able tell fact from fiction had grave economic significance—at least by extension.

  Sitting at his desk, he tried—as he often did—to put himself in their places; he tried to imagine how he looked to them. Tall, no doubt, with a bulging forehead, hair beginning to thin. Glasses too dark and heavy, giving him that “double-domed” appearance, as his wife put it. Somewhat of a scholarly manner, the intense, worried expression.

  Sliding his chair back from his desk, he glanced to see if he was unobserved. He was. So cautiously, he put his hand down and reached inside his trousers. Many times, over the months, he had done this. Examining his groin, his attention attracted there by a jolt of pain. While carrying the cans of paints he had felt that pain again, and now he had to see; he could not resist.

  No, there was no protrusion at his groin. No puffy, doughlike swelling off to one side. He caressed the familiar region, disliking his own flesh. How little he enjoyed doing this, but how necessary it was. Suppose, one day, after a pain, he did find that swelling once more, as he had, years ago? What then? An operation, at last?

  The hernia was probably gone. But not absolutely. And, even if it was healed, it might return. Over-exertion could bring it back; he might lift cartons too heavy, or reach up to screw in a lightbulb…and the dreadful tearing would once more occur—followed by more years of belt-wearing, or—the long-postponed operation.

  And the risk, the terrible risk of the operation, was that it might make him sterile. He, with no children, yet; sterile before he had even begun.

  As he sat indecisively rubbing his groin, a flash of motion from the corner of his eye caught his attention; someone was coming to his desk. He jerked his hand from beneath his trousers, but at the same moment the person appeared at the desk, halting before him as his hand came out. Knowing that he had been seen he felt terrible guilt, a sense of childhood shame…the person, a woman, too. His face flushing, he glanced away, catching only the sight of a woman’s coat, purse, a smartly-dressed short-haired woman—and then he realized that it was his wife. Sherry had come by the office; here she was. Now he looked up and found her staring at him. His guilt grew worse; he knew that it showed on his face.

  “What were you doing?” she said.

  He said, “Nothing.”

  “Is that what you men do down here during the day?”

  Head down, he sat clasping and unclasping his hands.

  “I came by to get a check cashed,” Sherry said merrily. “I’m going to get my hair cut and have some lunch.”

  “How’d you get into town?” He had of course brought the car in, to get to his job. And right now it was in the garage being worked on; it wasn’t even running.

  “Dolly Fergesson drove me.” Seating herself, she opened her purse, got out her pen and checkbook, and began writing a check.

  “You came all the way in just to get your hair cut?”

  “That’s right.” She passed the check to him and began putting her pen and checkbook away in her purse.

  “Don’t give it to me,” he said. “Take it to the business office. I have work to do.”

  “You weren’t working when I came in,” his wife said. “Look, I’m in a hurry.” She faced him coolly and levelly. At last he reached out and accepted the check. “Thanks,” she said.

  A few minutes later he stood in the business office, waiting for the bookkeeper to bring the money. He could, from here, still see Sherry. She was moving among the desks, chatting with the designers. Everybody in the place knew her, of course; they smiled at her. Presently she was peering to see the different works-in-progress.

  If they knew what she’s really like, he thought, they’d keep their work to themselves.

  She’ll steal your ideas. Just what you’re always worried about, a spy getting in. She’ll peddle them down the street.

  How happy his wife and the designers looked. How easily they mingled, Sherry seated on the edge of a desk, so stylish with her sandals and handmade earrings. So competent in her brown wool suit.

  Returning as rapidly as possible, he came up beside his wife and Quinn; they were both inspecting a drawing that Quinn had made, and neither of them noticed him. Evidently Sherry had picked out some detail; Quinn was frowning. She’ll tell you what’s wrong, he thought.

  Aloud, he said, “She’ll improve it.” He said it in a bantering tone, and both Sherry and Quinn smiled. But Quinn continued to study his drawing.

  “Sherry took a year of art in college,” Dombrosio said.

  “Three years,” Sherry said calmly.

  “Oh,” he said, with extravagance. “I’m sorry.”

  “And,” she said, “you’re forgetting my work.”

  “Your what?” he said.

  “My mobiles.”

  To Quinn, he said, “Driftwood.”

  Sherry said, “And my leather work. And my jewelry-making. Which I’ve managed to keep up, in spite of everything.”

  “In spite of being home all day with nothing to do?” he said. “With all the time in the world on your hands?”

  “Wait’ll you have kids,” Quinn murmured.

  “That’ll be the day,” Sherry said.

  Trying to catch Quinn with a wink, he said, “I’d like to see her working away with a power lathe. You know what she’d do? I’ll tell you; get her hand drilled through.” He reached out and took hold of his wife’s right hand. But she very forcefully drew it away; he saw her smooth fingers with the green-tinted nails slide away from him. “Green,” he said. To Quinn, he said, “Didn’t we do a display with some woman with green nails and—what was it? Metallic silver hair.” He laughed. “She looked about eighty.”

  “That’s quite acceptable now,” Sherry said. Rising, she took the money from him. “Thanks for c
ashing my check. I’ll see you tonight.”

  She walked towards the door, and he followed.

  “By the way,” she said, pausing thoughtfully. “There’s something I wanted to ask you. You know the field back of the house, where the septic tank is? Past that, where the patio is. Does it mean anything if there’s water seeping up? I noticed a pool this morning, about the size of—” She made a vague motion. “Not very big. There’s green grass growing, so it must have been there for at least a week. That’s where the leaching lines are, isn’t it? It must be seeping up from the leaching lines.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Overflow.”

  “Should we worry?”

  He said, “No. It’s supposed to do that.”

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Oh, my,” she said. Her alert gray-blue eyes fixed themselves on him. “We should be wary of being positive in this world.”

  Irritably, he said, “When liquid pours into the lines, like for instance when you take a bath or use the washer—”

  “I thought the washer recirculated its water.”

  “Eventually it gets into the lines. That water you see seeping up to the surface—that’s evidently a low spot. It’s probably done that from the start, but you just now noticed it.”

  “In winter it’s going to get worse.”

  “Sure,” he said, being patient. “Because the ground won’t absorb much water.”

  “Should I call John Flores?”

  That was the local septic tank man. “No,” he said.

  “Anybody, then?”

  “No.” From a nearby desk he took, a scratch pad. With his pen he sketched. “Don’t you understand how the leach lines work? Stuff goes into the septic tank and there the solids sink down and bacteria go to work on them. The liquids drain right on through and out of the tank.”

  Watching his sketching, Sherry said, “Very profound. But I called Arbarth. The contractor who built the house.”