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  The House of Happy Mayhem

  Trent Zelazny

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2009 by Trent Zelazny and Wilder Publications. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  Originally published in The Day the Leash Gave Way and Other Stories.

  THE HOUSE OF HAPPY MAYHEM

  I like coming to the park.

  It isn’t a heavily populated park, nor is the acreage it covers much worth mentioning. There is a small river on the north side of it, with a street beyond (you have to cross a short bridge to get to the parking lot), and the east and west sides are flanked with houses. The west also has picnic tables and grills, the east a small basketball court, a jungle gym, and a couple of swings. The south side, where I like to spend my time, crests upward and has a chain-linked fence on the west end with an open entryway that leads to another, smaller street. The rest of it is trees, piñons, mostly, and it is in the shade of these trees that I like to sit. The fence, of course, extends all the way across the south side, but it is almost invisible amidst the trunks and branches and occasional large sitting rocks, though patches of light bleed through and you can see the little street with the little houses—cozy houses, safe and comfortable. The right kinds of houses for the right kinds of people, and all of the right people live in them.

  Sitting on a rock in the shade, I watch the people, always with a paperback stuffed into my back pocket, resting in my lap, or on the ground at my feet. I don’t ever read the book, but feel it’s good to have one with me. There aren’t many people, the park is quiet this afternoon, but I relax and watch them. For a while I watch the man with his dog, looks like a Labrador, and he’s throwing around a Frisbee for the dog to fetch. The man thinks more of his dog than he does any human being. My guess is that it’s not because he has been mortally wounded by humanity; in fact I bet he gets along quite well with most folks. But he’s afraid of them, he’s afraid of intimacy and the only intimacy he thinks he can afford—the only intimacy he knows is safe—is that of the black lab chasing after that sunny yellow Frisbee.

  Far down to my right, on the jungle gym, two kids hang upside down and swing around and scream with childish glee while the mother and father lean against the side of the nearby car, both with their arms crossed. They’re fighting. They hate each other and they hate their kids, and to me their kids are sexless. The parents are discussing divorce, or they’ve gone through divorce and are trying their best to get along for the children’s sake, which contradicts the fact that they hate their children and are only here with prayers for the little runts to burn off enough energy on the fucking jungle gym so that they’ll keep the hell quiet at home.

  There’s a guy shooting baskets, too, but I don’t much care about his story right now. Instead I pull the paperback from the back pocket of my jeans and flitter-flutter the pages rhythmically. It’s a novel by Louis L’Amour, not that it matters since I never read the books I bring with me. But I play around with it in order to give my hands something to do, and I watch the black lab jump high into the air and catch the Frisbee in its mouth.

  “Good boy!” the man calls out, and claps his hands twice.

  I glance down at the paperback and see it has a cowboy on it and then I hear distant, unintelligible conversation to my left. A couple has just stepped through the entryway and they’re making their way down through the grass and over to one of the picnic tables. I’ve seen this couple here many times before—I’m pretty sure they live in one of the cozy houses behind me—and as I look at them they look at their feet. They are a youngish couple. The man is good-looking and probably about my age, which would put him somewhere in his early thirties, and the woman is a little younger, mid- to late-twenties, I’d say, stunning, with long red hair that she doesn’t take well enough care of. They step up and sit down on one of the picnic tables, their feet resting on the bench and all of a sudden the entire picnic table is an intimate square.

  Some birds, pigeons, I think, fly by overhead. I give them a fleeting glance, then focus my gaze downhill to the couple. They are a happy couple, for the most part. Their heads hanging low as they walked was not the result of depression but rather of contemplation. I set the paperback in my lap as the man puts his arm around her, and for a brief moment they look more like father and daughter than they do boyfriend and girlfriend, or husband and wife, and I have a snapshot behind my eyes of getting water up my nose while in the middle of a swimming hole. Seeing the grassy bank off in the distance and then seeing the intimate square again, and I enjoy watching them, more than anything else in the park I enjoy watching this couple. They are well educated and make a decent living and I envy their happiness so I pick up the book again and flutter its pages once more.

  They read all kinds of books. I bet they read all the time. Sometimes they come out to the park and lie in the grass and each of them has a book, sometimes small paperbacks like the ones I carry and sometimes large volumes one would think it would take a forklift to move. With the exception of the woman’s hair not quite being properly cared for—and it isn’t bad; it is still quite lovely—they are very clean, always well dressed, and both have a genial manner that implies they have many friends and acquaintances. Nearly always smiling faces, as though every moment in their lives is a happy moment.

  I move forward, stick the paperback back into my pocket, then take it out immediately again and run my fingers through the pages as the man runs his fingers through her hair, and in watching this action an opinion does an about face. They might have a lot of friends, but now I wonder, and suddenly I feel bad for them. Maybe they’re sad and don’t have any friends. Maybe the smiles are masks, cover-ups, like make-up they put on movie stars to hide their blemishes. Suddenly I feel bad for them, I feel really bad and as I feel really bad I scoff at myself just as the sunny yellow Frisbee lands at my feet.

  The dog stops a couple yards away, excited, panting, bouncing. I reach down and pick up the Frisbee and fling it in the direction of the poor, lonely dog lover. “Thanks,” he calls out, and I reply with a wave and my hand is still in motion when I hear the girl scream. My attention jolts back to them and the man is tickling her and she’s laughing hysterically.

  I scoff at myself again, look down at my book, open it to a random page, skim a line and close it up again as I stand up from my rock. I stuff the paperback into my back pocket and walk to my left until the trees dwindle to fence and the fence opens up. Giving the couple one more glance, I step out of the park and onto the sidewalk. I debate going left or right, then decide to go right, as it is the quicker way home.

  As I pass by the houses I think of how wonderful it would be to live here. Christmas pops into my mind, and I can see myself in a sweater with a glass of eggnog and a black lab that worships the ground I walk on. In my home are all kinds of people, friends and acquaintances, and there is a Christmas tree in the living room, lit up all bright and pretty. One of those Starbucks Christmas compilation CDs is playing and everyone is laughing and having a good time. And standing in the corner, by the tree, talking with some friends, is my wife, a beautiful redhead. I excuse myself from my own friends and acquaintances, sneak up behind her and tickle her. She laughs hysterically, and in my mind her name is Laura.

  For the next several days I don’t see them at the park. I see the guy shooting hoops again, and decide that he drinks too much and can’t let go of his glory days as a high school or possibly a college ball player. He never m
ade it to the big time, though, and he probably works construction or at Home Depot and has a wife and child at home who resent him. I decide that the Lakers are his favorite team.

  I tuck away the Mark Twain book I have this time, make my way to the left to the fence opening, and just as I exit the park, the couple comes in, the man guffawing about something.

  “Excuse me,” he says as he sidles past.

  “Excuse me,” she says, and her voice is as lovely as she is.

  I stand aside and let them through. Then I stand on the other side of the fence and watch them stroll hand in hand down into the park. I bat at an insect that buzzes by my ear and want to know what the joke was about. I want to know what she said that made him laugh the way he did, or what he said that cracked him up so. Instead I watch them for a moment, and this time make a left up the sidewalk, along the chain-linked fence, running my fingers on it, looking at the houses to my right. I take note again of how sweet and cozy they are. Probably fairly expensive from the looks of them, though not too large. Nice, modest homes—the right kinds of homes for the right kinds of people, and I determine that my couple must live in one of them because they are, without a doubt, the right kind of people.

  When the fence and trees end, I reach the main street, at which point I make another left. Down the sidewalk and across a bridge, then a left curve and the river is on my left. I walk parallel with it until the bridge serving as the entryway to the park appears, and I walk in and enter the parking lot. There’s a couple making out in a parked car and the other guy is still shooting hoops. I retrieve my Mark Twain book and take a seat on one of the swings and stare across the grass field at the couple, listening to the bouncy-bounce of the basketball and the rattling sounds the backboard or the rim make when the ball hits.

  After half an hour or so the couple gets up. I climb off the swing and slowly make my way across the field, quickening my pace when it isn’t obvious I’m doing so. Behind me another car pulls into the parking lot blasting some loud rap music.

  I watch the couple crest the tiny hill and see that they veered to the left. I race up into the trees and find one of the tree-free splotches that reveals the world on the other side, and hear them talking but I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  They pass by my opening. I give it a couple of seconds and then move until I find another, and it’s in this second opening that I hit the jackpot. It’s an adorable little home, eight steps up to a short walkway, and the woman breathes in the fresh air with a smile on her face as the man unlocks the door and then they are inside.

  Casually, heading back to the fence opening, I once again step through it and go left. Their yard is small but well kept, and potted flowers flank the steps and the walkway. I can’t get it out of my mind what they are doing inside there, and I become overwhelmed with an almost uncontrollable urge to find out, right then and there. Instead, I remove my copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, flutter its pages, turn around and make my way home.

  The next afternoon, I walk up to the front door and ring the bell. When nothing happens I ring the bell again and follow it with a series of knocks. Still, no one answers. With the exception of a couple of birds—pigeons, I think—the block is empty. And once I realize the block is empty I do something I know I shouldn’t do but I do it anyway. First I look under the doormat. Then I begin looking under the potted flowers, cautiously, checking for on-lookers with every pot I lift. There are twelve pots in all and nothing under any of them.

  I approach the door and ring the bell again, having a stupid story in mind in case someone does this time decide to answer. A dumb story about losing a book in the park and if you’ve been to the park recently, might you have seen it? But no one answers.

  About to give up and await my next sight of them at the park, I see a small assemblage of stones to my right. Another check of the street shows me that no one is around. I rummage through the rocks until I find it. It’s lighter than the others when I pick it up, and when I turn it over it has a small plastic flap, which flips to the side and inside the small compartment is a key. I remove the key, set the fake rock back to the side, slide the key into the lock and turn. I hear the pop as the lock disengages, check once more for on-lookers, and step inside.

  The house is cool. Clearly air-conditioned. It is also tidy, as though they either have a maid or are adamant about keeping their place clean.

  I shut the door quietly behind me, and I’m in a nice living room, mostly contemporary southwestern style but with a comfort not usually found in such interior decoration. To the right is a large, comfy-looking couch, and across from it a large flat-screen TV. Directly beyond the right side of the couch is what appears to be a coat closet. Between the couch and the TV is a coffee table, a couple of coasters as well as a large book about painting throughout the ages set upon it. Hanging nicely all about the room are framed works of art. Ahead and to the left is a nice sized kitchen, packed with all the modern day conveniences and an enormous walk-in pantry. On the dining table is a stack of mail. I learn that their names are James and Lisa Cohan. Lisa, Laura, Laura, Lisa…wasn’t too far off. At the back of the kitchen is a sliding door leading out into the back yard, which I don’t bother to investigate. To the right is a clean bathroom with a beige, Native American motif, and in between the two rooms is a hallway. I walk down the hall. A room on the right with the door open—I peer inside and see an office, packed with bookshelves packed with books.

  Continuing on, I come to the last room: the master bedroom. The curtains are closed and it’s dark, but I can make out the bed, which has been nicely made, with a nightstand on either side. There is a dresser on the left of the room and a dresser on the right, and the one on the right also has a vanity next to it.

  I sit on the bed briefly and stroke the comforter. It is soft and light and clean and feels good on my fingertips. They have many pillows at the head of the bed. There is a smaller TV against the opposing wall, with a small stack of rented videos on top of it. Getting off the bed, I smooth out where I sat, and see what they rented. Jules and Jim, The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, The Secret of Roan Inish, and Life is Beautiful. I’ve seen all four of them, and liked them all. They have good taste in movies, I decide, and look to the right of the TV. A large bathroom and to the right of that is a large walk-in closet with lots of nice clothes hanging on hangers and the floor is a chaotic assemblage of shoes. They never have trouble figuring out what to wear, I think as I reach out and touch some of Lisa’s dresses. I bring a red sleeve to my nose and smell it. The scent is as beautiful as her voice, which is as beautiful as she is.

  Closing the closet door, I leave the bedroom, walk down the hall and into the living room. I look out the window onto the street and see no one. I open the door, step outside, lock the door and make my way back to the street.

  Later that night, when all the lights are out inside the house, I replace the key into the fake stone.

  For the next few days, instead of going to the park, I pass by the chain-linked entryway and walk up the eight steps. The movies they had rented have been returned and they haven’t rented any others. I sit on the couch and watch TV on the big screen in the living room. I watch a surprisingly interesting A&E Biography on Tom Selleck. During one of the commercial breaks I use the bathroom. I imagine stepping out of the bathroom and James and Lisa are on the couch, each on one side of it, and they’ve saved the middle for me. There are three sodas on the coffee table. I sit between them and we enjoy the rest of the Tom Selleck biography.

  When the show ends I switch off the TV and just as I do I hear a car door close outside. I hop to my feet and listen. I can hear footsteps coming up the steps, then up the walkway. I run into the kitchen but know I don’t have time to go out the sliding door, so I close myself in the pantry, in which, in addition to food, there is a washing machine and dryer, as well as a large hamper piled with dirty clothes and more dirty c
lothes piled on the floor. I crouch behind the hamper, in the darkness, as I hear the front door close.

  It’s Lisa. I can tell by the way she walks, dainty and beautiful, even her footsteps are beautiful and I hear a beep and I know she’s checking her phone messages. I can’t hear anything other than a tinny, sexless voice that rambles on for a minute, and then there is another beep followed by silence and I guess that’s it for the messages. I hear a door in the kitchen open, hear it close, hear the pop of a soda can then the solid sound of it being set on the dining table. Then the dainty footsteps grow louder as they approach and before I know it the pantry door is open and there is Lisa, looking to the shelves on her right. She looks so beautiful, wearing a white cardigan and a black skirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail as she reaches for a bag of chips. She doesn’t glance anywhere near the hamper, and then she closes the door.

  She opens the refrigerator again and makes herself a sandwich. I know she’s making a sandwich because what else would she be making? And now she’s sitting at the table, eating her sandwich and thinking her thoughts. Thinking about how she wants to renew her membership at the health club she used to go to, and how she misses playing tennis with her friend whose name is probably Valerie or Sabrina or some pretty name like that. Now she is contemplating the book she is currently reading, I bet, and it’s probably The Time Traveler’s Wife, or maybe Reading Lolita in Tehran. I wonder if she belongs to a book club. She probably does, or did at one time.

  For a moment the entire house becomes a vacuum of total idleness. Then I hear her get up and hear the clink of dishes in the sink, and at the same time I hear the front door close and heavier footsteps enter the kitchen and James says “Hi, honey.”

  “Hi, sweetie,” Lisa says.

  And I think, It’s only 1:30 in the afternoon. What are they both doing home at such an hour? They never come home for lunch. What day is today? Friday, yes, it’s Friday. So shouldn’t they be at work? Yes, they should be at work, they never come home for lunch and they should definitely be at work…Unless their jobs entitle them to a half-day on Fridays. That has to be what it is, that must be it, and now they’re both home, and I’m stuck in the pantry amidst dirty clothes until they either leave again, or I can figure a way out without being caught.

  I make a note to myself that, in the future, I need to leave by eleven on Fridays.

  Then something interesting happens. Their voices become quiet and I can’t make out what they’re saying, and it goes on like this for a while.

  Then James says, “Do you wanna hurt me?”

  “James, what are you even talking about?”

  “How do you think we pay for all this?”

  And then I can’t hear them again. Their voices have become like white noise with just the tiniest bit more distinction. The kind of a sound a ghost makes when it says something and can’t make itself understood. It is mysteriously luring, and I’m compelled to listen, even if I can’t make out what they’re saying.

  The spell is broken briefly as I recall my brother heckling me through my closed bedroom window. I try to punch him and I punch the glass instead, shattering the window and cutting up my hand.

  Then Lisa says, “Do you even believe what you’re saying?”

  A dismal and silent room, though soft words I can’t make out are being spoken. These soft words are the words of James, and though I can’t make them out, I know they are bitter and caustic. It’s an odd feeling to me, thinking how right they were, how right they are, living in the right house and being the right people to live in this house that is so full of rightfulness. Yet here they are, and I can’t determine if it’s a fight, a spat, a quarrel, a contest, or merely a struggle.

  Eventually James slams his hands down on the table and says, “That’s it, I’m outta here,” and I hear his footsteps retreat from the kitchen. I don’t hear the front door open but I hear it close and it closes hard. A moment passes and, harping on what’s happened, I hear Lisa cry. In my mind I can see her hands covering her face, I can see her using her palms to stifle screams. More than anything I want to step out of the pantry and comfort her, tell her everything will be all right—but I know I can’t do that. I know that I have to get out. Maybe she’ll go out after him and then I can get out.

  But she sits there crying for a very long time, and my feet have gone numb and I think, Hush, little angel. Everything will be all right.

  Eventually I hear her get up. Her dainty footsteps, less dainty than before, retreat from the kitchen and then the front door closes again and as I step cautiously out of the pantry I hear her locking the place up. I give it a minute, peruse their CD collection and wait until her car pulls out of the driveway. After another minute has passed I make my way out of the house, locking it up behind me.

  The next day at the park the only person I recognize is the guy shooting baskets. I want to tell him to go home to his wife and child, but know it wouldn’t do any good and I might suffer a broken nose or jaw as a result. So I leave him be and sit on a rock and flitter the pages of a Tom Clancy book, which has a picture of a submarine on it and that’s all I know. I think about what the Louis L’Amour book must be like and I wonder if Mark Twain is really as great as everyone says he is. I sit on a comfortable stone with a good view through the trees and the chain-linked fence to the Cohan residence.

  I think about how my dad had beat me for shattering my bedroom window, calling me a “Little shit,” then look up and see Lisa walking down into the park. Alone. She’s alone and James isn’t anywhere to be seen. She’s all alone and she doesn’t look happy and an idea crosses my mind.

  I look down and force myself to commit the Clancy title to memory: Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship. I heft the book in my right hand and then fling it out somewhere into the grass. Then I count back from ten and get up off my rock. I stroll down the slope, looking as bewildered as I can, and out the corner of my eye I see Lisa taking a seat on one of the picnic tables. She doesn’t look happy. She looks far from it, but my bewilderment and stupidity catch her attention, though not enough for her to say anything.

  Slowly and stupidly, I make my way over to her. I look up at her and say hello.

  She says “Hi” but her voice doesn’t have the beautiful magic it once did.

  “I’m sorry to impose upon you,” I say, and then I tell her that I’ve lost my book and ask her if she’s seen a paperback anywhere around.

  She tells me she hasn’t, and I tell her it’s a Tom Clancy book, and if she sees it, would she mind letting me know.

  “Tell you what,” she tells me, “I’ll help you look.” She climbs off the picnic table and starts searching with me. As she heads in the proper direction, I let her, and make a point of going the other way.

  “Found it!” she calls out, and walks over to me and hands me the book.

  I thank her, and for the first time I see the ring on her finger. I tell her I’m trying to learn about submarines and she says that’s pretty cool and then tells me to enjoy it and to have a nice day. And then I watch her go back to the picnic table. She hesitates before she climbs onto it, and instead she makes her way back up the slope and heads for home.

  I consider following her but don’t, and then I don’t see either of them for a few days.

  The next time I see either of them I see James. I’m hanging out at a place called the Catamount Bar and Grill and I’m having a couple drinks and watching the Red Sox lose. I tolerate some drunk bastard ramble on and on about the government for about twenty minutes, and then I see James walk in and he isn’t alone and the woman he’s with isn’t Lisa. The woman is a brunette, very pretty but lacking the charming presence Lisa possesses. To me, she looks like a slut.

  I pretend to watch the game but really watch James and the brunette, and after they’ve had a couple of drinks James has his hand on the brunette’s leg and he’s keeping his face close to hers and they’re
whispering things into each other’s ears. Something burns inside me and I get so mad. I get so mad because James is married to Lisa and he shouldn’t be out with this brunette, no matter how pretty she is, and he shouldn’t have his hand on her leg and his face shouldn’t be so close to hers and there shouldn’t be anything they have to whisper about.

  I try to shrug it off. I try to let it go because I love them and even though I love them their lives are none of my business. What they do is what they do and even though I love them and, in my own way, am a part of them, they are none of my business until I think about Lisa crying at the kitchen table. I think about their fight that Friday afternoon and how sad Lisa had looked when she helped me find that book in the park.

  I don’t smoke but I ask the bartender if he as one. Begrudgingly, he gives me one but doesn’t offer me a light, which is what I was hoping for. With three beers in me, I get up and approach James and the brunette and I ask if either of them has a light. They both tell me that they don’t smoke and I tell them that’s probably for the best and walk away, crumpling the cigarette as I make my way back to the bar. I watch the torn paper and crumpled tobacco fall from my fist into the ashtray and ask the bartender for my check. As he hands it to me I see James and the brunette kiss.

  Two days later I’m at the park again, this time with a copy of The Shining. Lisa is sitting on one of the picnic tables with a book of her own, a hardback but that’s all I can tell. I doubt it’s a copy of The Shining. Me, I’m sitting on one of my rocks, fluttering the pages, acting as though I’m reading when what I’m really doing is watching her. After a while she looks up from her book, presses her fingers to her eyes and then stretches out her shoulders. When she does this she sees me. She’s pretty far away but I can tell there’s a little bit of a smile on her face. And then she waves at me with the same hand she’d used to sooth her eyes.

  I wave back with the same hand I’d been fluttering the pages with. For a moment I wonder if we’re gonna talk, but I realize quickly we’re not going to and so I pretend to get back to my book. A minute later, when I glance up from page 347 without knowing what’s going on in the story, I see she’s buried back in her book, and so I don’t care about page 347 or any of the pages before or after. I care that such a sweet, beautiful woman is being treated the way she’s being treated, that James is two-timing her, and that makes me angry, really angry.

  It’s none of my business, I tell myself. It’s none of my business even if I’m in love with her. But I’m not in love with her. I can’t be in love with her because I don’t know her. To me she is someone for me to focus all that pent-up energy, even if I love her and care about her and want her to be happy. I’m not a Cohan, and wonder briefly if James is related to the composer, playwright, actor, dancer and singer George M. Cohan. James doesn’t look like any of those things, other than maybe an actor. I guess he’s a pretty good actor, given that he’s getting away with what he’s getting away with. I’m not a Cohan, but it hurts me, it pisses me off that he’s treating her this way, the son of a bitch. Good actor, lousy bastard.