“Calm down, it’s OK. No one’s hurt,” Carmela reassured him.
He stormed over to the other vehicle, where he was met with the squinting sneer of an elderly woman.
“Well, I don’t know how you drive where you’re from,” she scolded him, “but around here we stop at red lights.”
Manny stood dumbfounded a moment, then informed her, “I come from here. And my light was green.”
“Look, look here,” she said, “You just got your paint scraped. You should consider yourself lucky that I don’t report you.”
“Holy moley!” Manny roared. “Lady, you’re paying for a new fender.”
A nearby homeowner called the police, who came and talked to Manny and the other driver, a Mrs. Enid Kartch. They were given an incident report and the advice to be careful.
“Damn,” Manny mumbled as he paced around the porch. “Damn, damn, damn.”
“We’ll get it fixed, it’s OK.”
“But it was perfect—perfect when I got it, and perfect until now. Until tonight, when old lady Kartch rammed into it with her lame-ass old Caddy. Damn.”
Carmela tried to calm him down. “Lighten up, man.”
Manny was having none of it. “See that car?” he pointed into the darkness. “That’s not the same car anymore. That car used to be perfect, and now it’s not anymore.”
Carmela arched an eyebrow. “It’s just a car, Manny.”
“I know, I know,” Manny said. “It’s just a car. But goddamn, I’ve kept it like I wanted it for this long and now— just like that—it’s totally altered. From this point on, it’s a different car. Thanks to old lady Kartch. What the hell kind of name is that, anyway?”
By way of distraction, Russell offered the comment, “Looks like that storm’s passed by us.”
Lightning sparked in the distance, too far away to resonate on this calm porch. Carmela and Russell watched Manny walk out to his car and disappear into the shadows. They heard him walking in the gravel, then silence, then the striking of a lighter. As a pinprick ember glowed in the driveway beneath them, Russell turned to Carmela.
“You want to know about Gloria,” he began, scratching his chin. “I just remembered something. Once we were in bed and we were fighting about something—who knows what, we were always fighting about something—and at one point she just gave me this lame crap like, ‘You’re right. You’re always right. I should know better than to ever voice my opinion.’ God, that just irritated me. I shouted, ‘No, I am not always right. In fact, I am frequently wrong!’ And then I punched the wall. Only the wall was weaker than I thought, or I was stronger, and my fist went right through it. Then I punched it again and made the hole bigger and I yelled, ‘See? See? I am not always right!’”
Carmela stared at him with a wide grin, then broke into a deep laugh. “You’re funny, Russ.” She hugged him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Manny shuffled back up the walk and onto the porch. He stopped by the door and offered a beer to Russell, who accepted. Carmela got up and followed him into the kitchen. They were inside awhile as he sat lazily swinging, watching the flashing sky. The night droned with cicadas, crickets and frogs. A mosquito bit him. Manny came out with the beers.
“Here,” he said, handing one over, and seating himself on the railing.
They sipped their beers in silence. Then Manny came over and sat beside Russell on the swing. He took his shoes off and urged Russell to do the same. Then he put his left foot against Russell’s right foot and said, “Look at that.”
“What am I looking at?” Russell wanted to know.
“At our feet. See mine, and how regular the toe progression is? From the big toe—”
“That’s the one who went to market,” Russell interrupted.
“Right. From the big toe to the little toe—”
“Wee, wee, wee!” squealed Russell.
“Yeah, well, you see how regular all the toes are? Perfect, you might say. Each one proportionately smaller than the next. Now, you take yours. Boy, look at your toes. Those are some ugly toes you got on your feet. Are you a human, or a marmoset?”
Just as Russell was withdrawing his unworthy feet from the scrutiny of his perfect-toed friend, Carmela came out on the porch. Seeing Manny sitting with his toes splayed, she made an assumption and asked, “Is he getting off on his toes again?”
She sat between the two men, patted her husband on the knee and said in an overly patronizing tone, “We all know your toes are perfect, dear.”
They swung together silently, until Russell spoke up.
“Hey, what’s with the house numbers on this street?”
“Oh,” Manny began with a low growl. “I don’t know, but if I ever get my hands on the person responsible I’m gonna slap some sense into him. I talked to the postman, or postwoman, I guess, and she said she didn’t know how it got to be so screwed up, but it’s been screwed up so long that no one’s going to do anything about it at this point. So I’m thinking I’ll just change our address randomly. Right now it’s 21. Tomorrow I’ll change it to 32. Next Thursday it’ll be 1508. Why not? It obviously doesn’t matter.”
Carmela got up and went inside again. They sat and drank their beer.
“Say, Russ,” Manny turned to him. “Did you turn off the lights in the sewing room?”
Russell nodded that he had.
“OK. Just leave them alone next time. They’re special fixtures with a ballast that should be turned on and off only once a day. Carmela knows that, and she takes care of it herself.”
With this point understood, Manny moved to another topic of interest. “Hey, did she show you The Wiggler?”
“The what?” came Russell’s reply.
“The Wiggler. It’s in our basement, left over from whoever owned the place before. It’s this antique exercise device. It’s got this kind of platform you stand on, and there’s this big rubber belt you put around your waist, and when you fire it up the belt starts moving and jerks your body around like a spaz. It’s supposed to, like, vibrate your fat off or something. It’s major machinery—I can see why they left it behind for someone else to deal with. Want to try it out?”
Russell shrugged and consented. As they were getting up, Carmela came back out and said, “What now?”
“I was going to introduce Russ to The Wiggler.”
“No,” she insisted. “God, no. Don’t go down in that basement and get that thing going. It shakes the whole house. Sheesh—just give it a rest.”
They all settled back. The sky was purple, the air was heavy.
“Hey,” Russell began, “Nestor totally freaked me out tonight with something out in the gazebo. You know what we were talking about this morning, the roller-rink organist? Well, it turns out Nestor’s been writing a piece of music about him, calling it The Phantom of the Roller Rink.”
She looked at him with a slightly skewed smile. “He’s putting you on, Russ. I talked to him this afternoon, told him you were in town. He asked what you were up to, and I got to talking about what we talked about, and told him you’d mentioned the skating rink. He’s goofing on you, pulling one of his jokes.”
Russell rocked tranquilly, then said, “So, what should I make of the story he told me about