I own my own home, I have a car and enough money to go up to Grossingers once each Summer mainly on the prodding of Charlotte, who feels I should broaden myself more. We keep up with the Joneses, without too much trouble.
I do my job well, I’m a climbing executive type and I’m well-adjustedly happy. I’m a steady sort of fellow and I keep my nose out of other people’s business primarily because I have enough small ones of my own. I vote regularly, not just talk about it, and I gab a lot with my fellow suburbanites about our gardens—sort of a universal hobby in the sticks.
Forty-seven minutes into town on the train five days a week (and sometimes Saturday, which was happening all too frequently lately) and Lexington Avenue greets me. My health and the family’s is good, except for an occasional twinge in my stomach, so most 0f the agony in the world stays away from me. I don’t get worried easily, because I stay out of other people’s closets.
But this time I was worried worse than just,badly.
I drew a line and started writing in the liabilities column:
Item: Clark Da Campo has a million-tentacled staring plant in his garden that is definitely not of normal botanical origin.
Item: There has never been a wisp 0f smoke from the Da Campo chimney, even during the coldest days of the Winter.
Item: Though they have been living here for six months, the Da Campos have never made a social call, attended a local function, shown up at a public place.
Item: Charlotte has told me she has never seen Mrs. Da Campo buy any groceries or return any empty bottles or hang out any wash.
Item: There are no lights in the Da Campo household after six o’clock every night, and full-length drapes are drawn at the same time.
Item: I am scared witless.
Then I looked at the sheet. There was a great deal more on the asset side than the other, but somehow, after all the value I’d placed on the entries in that first column, those in the second bad suddenly become more impressive, overpowering, alarming. And they were so nebulous, so inconclusive, I didn’t know what it was about them that scared me.
But it looked like I was in Da Campo’s closets whether I wanted to be or not.
Three hours later the house had assumed the dead sogginess of a quiet Saturday afternoon, three pages of note-paper were covered with obscure but vaguely ominous doodles, and I was no nearer an answer that made sense than when I’d gone into the den.
I sighed and threw down my pencil.
My back was stiff from sitting at the desk, and I got up to find the pain multiplied along every inch of my spinal cord. I slid the asset-liability evaluation under my blotter and cleaned the cigarette ashes off the desk where I’d missed the ashtray.
Then I dumped the ashtray in the waste basket. It was Saturday and Charlotte frowned on dirty ashtrays left about, even in my private territory.
When I came out the place was still as a tomb, and I imagined Charlotte had gone into the downtown section of our hamlet to gawk at the exclusive shops and their exclusive contents. I went into the kitchen and looked through the window. The car was gone, bearing out my suspicions. My eyes turned themselves heavenward and my mind reeled out bank balances without prompting. “Want to talk now, John?”
I could have sworn my legs were made of ice and they were melting me down to the kitchen linoleum. I turned around and—that’s right—Da Campo was in the doorway to the dining room.
“What do you want?” I bluffed, stepping forward threateningly.
“I came over to borrow a cup of sugar and talk a little, John,” said Da Campo, smiling. The utter incongruity of it! Borrowing a cup of sugar! It was too funny to equate with weird plants and odd goings-on in the house across the street. It took the edge off my belligerence quite effectively. “S-sure, I suppose I can find the wife’s sugar.” Then it occurred to me: “How do you know my name?” “How do you know mine?”
“Why I—I asked the neighbors. Like to know who’s living across the street, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s how I know yours, John. I asked my neighbors.”
“Which ones? The Schwachters? Heffman? Brown?”
He waved his hand absently, “Oh…just the neighbors, that’s all. How about that sugar?”
I opened one of the cabinets and took out the sugar bowl. Da Campo didn’t have a cup, so I took one down- -one of the old blue set—and filled it for him.
“Thanks,” he said, “feel like that talk now?”
Somehow, I wasn’t frightened of him, as I was by that sheet of items. It was easy to feel friendly toward the big, grey-eyed, grey-haired man in the sport shirt and slacks. Just another typical suburban neighbor.
“Sure, come on into the living room,” I answered, moving past him.
When Da Campo had found a reasonably comfortable position in one of Charlotte’s doubly-damned modem chairs, I tried to make small conversation. “I’ve never noticed a TV antenna on your house. Don’t tell me an inside one works over there. No one this far out seems to be able to make one of those gadgets bring in anything decently.” “We don’t have television.”
“Oh, “ I said.
The silence hauled itself around the room several times, and I tried again. “Uh—how come we never see you at the new Civic Center? Got some sweet bowling alleys down there and the little theatre group is pretty decent. Like to see—”
“Look, John, I thought I might come over and try to explain about myself, about us—Ellie and me.” He seemed so intent, so earnest, I leaned forward.
“What do you mean? You don’t have to—”
“No, no, I mean it,” he cut me off. “I know everyone in the neighborhood has been wondering about us. Why We don’t go out much, why we don’t invite you over, everything like that.” He held up his hands in fumbling motions, as though he were looking for the words. Then he let his hands fall, as though he knew he would never find the words.
“No, I don’t think anyone has—”
He stopped me again with a shake of the head. His eyes were very deep and very sad and I didn’t quite know what to say. I suddenly realized how far out of touch with real people I’d gotten in my years of commuting. There’s something cold and impersonal about a nine-to-five job and a ride home with total strangers. Even total strangers that live in the same town. I just looked at Da Campo.
“It’s simple, really,” he said, rubbing his hands together, looking down at them as though they had just grown from the ends of his arms.
“I got mixed up with some pretty strange people a few years ago, and well, I went to jail for a while. When I came out I couldn’t get a job and we had to move. By then Ellie had drawn into a shell and…well, it just hasn’t been easy.”
I didn’t know why he was telling me all this and I found myself embarrassed. I looked around for something to break the tension, and then pulled out a pack of cigarettes. I held them out to him and he looked up from his hands for a second, shaking his head. He went back to staring at them as I lit a cigarette. I was hoping he wouldn’t go on, but he did.
“Reason I’m telling you this is that you must have thought me pretty odd this afternoon. The only thing I have is my garden, and Ellie, and we don’t like living as alone as we do, but it’s better this way. That’s the way we have to do it. At least for a while.”
For a second I got the impression he had skimmed the top of my mind and picked off my wonderment at his telling me the story. Then I shook off the feeling and said, “That’s understandable. If I ever did wonder about you and Mrs. Da Campo, well, it’s something I won’t do any more. And feel free to drop over any time you get the urge.” He looked thankful, as though I’d offered him the Northern Hemisphere, and stood up.,
“Thanks a lot, John. I was hoping you’d understand.”
We shook hands, I asked him if he wanted to call up the Missus and come over for dinner, but he said no thanks and we’d certainly get together again soon.
He left, and I wasn’t surprised to see the cup of sugar sitting on an end table where he’d set it down. Nice guy, I thought to myself.
I Then I thought of that staring plant, which he hadn’t explained at all, and some of the worry returned. I shrugged it off. After three weeks I forgot it entirely. But Da Campo and I never got together as he’d suggested.
At least not at the Civic Center.
Da Campo kept going to the City on the 7:40 and coming back on the 5:35 every day. But somehow, we never sat together, and never spoke to one another. I made tentative gestures once or twice, but he indicated disinterest, so I stopped.
Ellie Da Campo would always be waiting at the station, parked a few cars down from Charlotte in her station wagon, and Clark Da Campo would pop into it and they’d be off before most of the rest of us were off the train.