You Could be Anywhere

Jameson made sure he kept smiling as he shuffled the mortgage papers into his briefcase. On the other side of the kitchen counter Mr. Harrigan clutched his wife's hand as the documents slid from sight.

“Well, again, congratulations to you both,” Jameson told them. He snapped the house key on its plastic ring down square against the counter's glossy edge, almost dropping it from his wet fingers. They were all sweating in the hot, close air of the empty house. The sunny day outside, cloudless and dead still, pressed right up against the windows.

“The paperwork goes through in a few days,” he continued. “Welcome home.”

The Harrigans both let out their breath in a rush, and Anne Harrigan kept still as her husband wrapped her in a squeezing hug. She patted his back and slipped free.

“Finally,” Mr. Harrigan said. “We'll just look around again, if that's all right.”

“The house is ours now,” Anne told him, breathing out. “We don't have to ask.”

Jameson waited on the front steps while they wandered again through the house's empty rooms, half-surprised he couldn't hear their every step and hushed, happy little murmur through the walls. Why did people always keep their voices down in empty houses? And anyway the place was junk, no doubt about that, and he'd stopped kidding himself otherwise weeks ago. But he'd sold away just the same.

“This is the kind of house that's built for something,” he'd told Anne at the open house. A decanter of box zinfandel and whole wheat crackers grew stale on a card table at his waist. “A good house is something to really -” he paused for effect. Customers usually understood the pause as sincerity. “Well, it's a place you can just pour yourself into, you know?”

“No.” Her wide eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“You know,” Jameson said. He didn't usually have to explain. “This is the kind of place with a future in it.”

He threw his cigarette into the street that smelled pungently of fresh tar, squinting to see any loose nails left lying around. He could admit that he felt sorry for them both, their bent-forward shoulders and moist eyes, but the house was their problem now and the rest of the units were still his. Designed as the replica of a London neighborhood but built in a wildflower marsh a half-hour north of Baltimore, Victoria Crossing stood by itself with piles of wood slats, roofing tiles and insulation debris surrounding its edges like the pickets of a battlefront. The bow windows of eleven empty homes gaped at him in the cloud-buried dusk, For Sale signs propped against the inside of their glass. Some of the signs displayed a photo of Jameson with his necktie cinched tight and a helpful smile pooling across his weary-looking face.

He'd seen straight through the tinsel of the corniced eaves, the wrought iron stair rails and the other cheap effects on his first visit. The units felt cheap, slapped together too fast and with too little planning. The contractor had rolled his eyes and grinned when Jameson told him so.

“Oh shit, man,” the contractor said. So far as Jameson knew he always wore the starched polo shirt and tight slacks of a high school football coach. “On a clear morning you'll see sunlight come right through the walls.”

Then he said he heard Jameson wasn't doing so well on his own, that maybe selling these townhouses might turn things around. Jameson swallowed hard and took the job. The Harrigan sale, just weeks later, was his first commission.

He was about to head inside to begin herding them back into the city when Alex called. Jameson let the phone buzz while debating whether to let it go to voicemail. The buzzing stopped and began ringing again, finishing his patience. “What do you want?” he answered.

“That's nice, that's a nice way to talk,” Alex told him. “Listen, will you come over tonight?”

“I'm tired,” Jameson said. He nudged a chunk of gravel with his shoe. “And I've got work to do.”

“Whatever.” Alex cleared his throat. “You need to see something. Listen -”

Jameson set the phone down and counted to five. When he picked it up again his brother was still talking.“ – And I'm not asking you for money. Don't even think that.”

The Harrigans emerged from the front door. Anne Harrigan waited for her husband to go first down the steps. Alex was still talking. “Come on, man,” he said. “How about it?”

“I'll be there in a little while,” Jameson told him, hanging up. “I'm not staying long.”

He waited until they were all headed back to his office before congratulating the Harrigans a final time. The edges of their bodies were just visible in his car's rearview mirror. “I know you'll be happy there,” he said.

“Well sure,” Mr. Harrigan said. “Why wouldn't we be?” Anne twitched in the car's deep seats, keeping her face towards the window.

“I just mean…” Jameson said. “Look, it's a good choice. It's a good place.”

Their parents' rowhouse was near the waterfront, in a neighborhood gone sour years before. Jameson stopped for beer at the corner liquor store three blocks uphill. A few teenage boys in Ravens jackets leaned or stood along its side wall. As he came out the largest of them, beefy necked with slicked-back hair, stepped towards him.

“Hey listen, man,” he said. “How ‘bout five bucks for me and my friends?” He kept talking but Jameson hurried to his car and pulled away. At the other end of the street he parked beneath a streetlight and waited to see if they followed. They looked back at him. One of them waved while another blew a kiss.

The house's front door was open, and Jameson let himself into the chemical-smelling living room. He was raising his voice even before his brother came up from the bottom stairs. “Lock the damn doors,” he said. “We've gone over this.”

“I was expecting you.” Alex was still in his work clothes, starched khakis and an oxford shirt with the company logo stenciled on the breast. He held a battered paperback open with one thumb. He pointed down. “C'mon. You know better.”

“You're worried about dirt,” Jameson said, “While I'm telling you about burglary.” He kicked off his loafers, shuffling them a little to scuff the front tile. The rest of the living room was spotlessly clean, with deep vacuum tracks in the carpet and their parents' dark wooden furniture dully gleaming with polish. Jameson grunted, allowing the noise to vent his pained distaste. To him the furniture and everything else in the house still belonged to his parents, like the house itself still belonged to them. Alex was only keeping the lights turned on rather than find his own place to live.

“All right,” he said, his throat itching already from the chemicals. “Show me what this is all about.”

Alex gestured upstairs. “It's in the spare bedroom,” he said. “Come on.” Jameson followed him up the bright main stairway, his brother's balding head shiny with sweat. Coming into the cramped extra bedroom Jameson didn't recognize what he saw stacked neatly atop their father's desk.

“They're movies,” Alex told him. “On actual film.” He picked up one of the round plastic containers. “I bought them online for almost nothing.”

Jameson guessed the containers were older than either one of them. “Someone sold you these?”

“I told you already.” Alex picked up a pair of blue plastic gloves that lay crumpled, half-inside out, at the desk's edge. “I'll be forever getting them cleaned up, but yeah. I got all of them.”

“I'll bet.” Jameson picked up the nearest case. It was battered and cracked, with pieces missing and grimy masking tape along the rim. Something about a monster was half blotted out across the tape. “Well, this is great,” he said. “Really. Good luck.”

“You're skeptical, fine.” Alex held his hands up. “But let me show you one more thing.” He snapped the gloves on, then lifted one of the crates, then another. “It's around here. Wait.”

“Alex,” Jameson said. “Can I use the bathroom first?”

“You know where it is.” He kept rummaging. “Remember the soap.”

“Yes. I always remember the damn soap.” Jameson went into the hall bathroom and turned on its overhead fan to clear his head of the fumes. Three unwrapped bars of bitter-smelling antibacterial soap stood unwrapped next to the sink. He used one to wash the sweat and what he swore were globules of cleaner from his face and hands. When he was finished he threw the soap bar into the lined trash can by the door. He pulled his tie away from his neck, wrenching the collar free from his throat.

When he came out Alex handed him a stack of loose leaf pages. “I found it. Here. It's the inventory.”

Jameson scanned the pages. Each one was organized into rows, with different colored inks marking the films according to year, genre, and director.

“They're not all great,” Alex told him. “Like some are smaller, you know? They're for showing on home projectors. But here.” He pointed to a column of hand-drawn stars running down the right edge of one page. “These are collectors' items, every single one of them.”

“And you think you can sell these?” Jameson said. “For money? Actual money?”

“Why not?” He crossed his arms. “I looked them up online. You buy them cheap and bump the price up, right? That's anything. You do that with anything.”

Jameson put the pages back in order. “So what do you want from me?”

“You're a salesman.” Alex chuckled. “What do you think?”

“I don't know, man.” Jameson thought of the Harrigans, wiped the idea from his mind. “They look like shit, right? Selling anything depends on condition.”

“They're collector's items,” Alex repeated. “Please. Even you can appreciate that, can't you?”

Jameson dropped the papers onto the desk. “And now I'll be going.”

“Oh come on.” Alex raised a hand. “You know what I meant

“Save it.” Jameson headed for the door, his brother following him down the stairs.

“Listen,” Alex said. “Be smart, Jamie. Those things are a goldmine. I'll share the money with you. Fifty-fifty, all right?”

“I've listened,” Jameson said. At the door he made a show of twisting the lock. “I came over and I listened. I'll see you later.”

Out at the corner the kids were still hanging around. One of them stepped forward as Jameson ran the stop sign. He shot them the finger and hurried on.

The next morning he listened to talk radio inside his office, smoked a cigarette at his desk despite the building lease, and busied himself with waiting. There were no more visits to his company website, and the virtual tour of homes hadn't been used in almost a week. He read a trade magazine cover to cover, got up and emptied both wastebaskets, and sat down again.

When nothing had happened by noon he drove out to Victoria Crossing and stood outside the Harrigans’ unit until he couldn't help himself. Going through all three floors took more than an hour, opening closet doors and sniffing at light switches, and running the water taps while peering beneath the cabinets for leaks. In the downstairs bedroom the door was set so far off the jamb he could wedge his fingers into the splintery gap. The soldering on the basement water pipes still fumed when the taps ran. The kitchen sink leaked rusty water onto the tile floor.

He finished his tour in the sweltering attic, standing between two sheets of insulation already sagging off the plywood roof. The whole place was a disaster. The things needing immediate repair would take days, even with a professional crew working faster than their glacial pace. He called the contractor.

“This house needs work,” Jameson told him, fanning his shirt. “I don't know. It's pretty bad.”

A nail gun popped in the distance on the other end of the line. “What, this again?” the contractor said. “The house is sound. It's all up to code.”

“Never mind that,” Jameson said. “Look, you should come see this. I don't know.”

The contractor whistled. “Pay attention,” he said. “It's not any of our business now. Relax and start counting your money. You'll have a check next week.”

Jameson climbed down from the attic, into the relative cool of the second floor. “It's our business if they sue me. Or us.”

“Hold on a second.” The contractor kept him waiting for several minutes. Jameson wandered through the house, feeling it close around him.

“Look, I can't talk right now,” the contractor said at last. “Call me later.”

“Oh come on,” Jameson said. “I know how that works.”

“I said call me later.” He hung up.

Jameson was driving home before he considered the money. His commission was over three thousand dollars, with eleven more payouts just like it, and every dollar swung on keeping his mouth shut. Despite himself he imagined the money turning to dust on his office desk, blowing out through the window. The thought left him gasping for breath, his clothes tight around him and his collar squeezing his throat.

He spent the afternoon in a movie theatre, watching two films one after the other by himself under the screens, rather than go back to his own condo and sit around alone. As the house lights dimmed a message on the screen told him to turn off all communication devices. He stood and took his phone to the opposite end of his row, leaving it in the cup holder and going back to sit the farthest distance from it.

Mr. Harrigan was waiting outside his office several days later. Copies of the mortgage paperwork flapped in his shaking fist. “I have to talk to you,” he said, his jaw rigid. “It's about the house.”

Jameson stopped still, bracing himself for the worst. “Come inside.”

Harrigan followed him through the stale-smelling waiting room into the main office, talking fast. “We've been going out to the house, just to plan for the move,” he said. “And we've well, I guess there's no easy way to say this.”

“Go ahead,” Jameson managed. “It won't bother me.”

“We've found a few defects,” Harrigan said. He blinked too much, and his voice sounded like he was caught at something. “I mean, there's some real problems here.”

Jameson hurried to his seat, sitting down with the big desk between them. “All houses have problems,” he managed. “Every one I've ever seen, anyway. So-”

Harrigan spread the papers across the desk. His fingers left oily swirls over its glass surface. “Now, you told us an inspection wasn't necessary,” he said. “You said the place was new so don't worry about it. You did, remember?”

“Well, that may be true.” Jameson cleared his throat. “But you have to understand-“

“Understand what?” Harrigan asked, his voice rising. “All those problems? The whole house is damaged goods.”

“Mr. Harrigan.” Jameson made himself think about the commissions. He tried for the voice he used on customers who failed their credit check. “Legally the house is yours now. You know that, right? You signed the papers.”

“All… all right,” Harrigan said. He kept blinking. “Of course I know that. But look. We found these issues – and there's a lot of them, and we thought maybe you'd get them fixed. In good faith, you know? That's what I mean. In good faith.”

“Okay,” Jameson said. He gripped his chair's arms as hard he could. “Listen, to me, Mr. Harrigan-”

“Don't lecture me.” Harrigan turned, walked halfway to the opposite wall, and turned around again. “It was Anne's idea to come talk to you, okay? She told me you'd listen.”

“I'm listening,” Jameson said. His nerve circled a drain inside him. He could feel it go, like breathing out. “So what do you want?”

“I don't know,” Harrigan said. “But do something.”

“Look, you're right,” Jameson said. He pulled himself closer to the papers and thought of the money turning into dirt. “I'll do what I can. But I can't promise anything. Do you hear that? Don't expect anything.”

Harrigan's mouth opened and closed. He backed towards one of the office's two rickety chairs, falling into it. “Really?” he asked, stammering. “Oh God, thank you. I mean it's just… no, thank you.”

“Give me a day or two,” Jameson said. He tried to hold his hands up, but they didn't budge. “Please.”

“Thank you,” Harrigan repeated. “You know buying the house was my idea, right?” He slouched until about to fall to the floor. “It's our first house. Anne's parents helped us, too, and they thought - well, when we found all that stuff after we'd already signed the papers…”

Jameson pulled a hand free from the edge of the desk and used it to chop at the air. “Look,” he interrupted. The urge to just get the man to finally shut up was overpowering. He swallowed it. “I don't want to be rude. I've got other business here, unless there's something else.”

“No, of course.” Harrigan wiped his sweating face. “It's fine, thank you.”

“Remember, don't expect anything, okay?” Harrigan's face started to sink, and he continued, “But I'll do what I can.” He managed to get Harrigan out of the office with only a little more cajoling. When he was gone from the hallway outside he dialed the contractor's number, reaching the man's voicemail.

“You need to talk to me,” he told the machine. “I'm dead serious. They're complaining already. Call me back the minute you get this.” He found some paper towels and wiped Harrigan's sweat off the desk. There was nothing else to do. The contractor never called.

When by lunchtime nothing else at all had happened Jameson shut the office down and headed out, leaving his coat and tie tossed on his desk. He had a vague idea of lunch somewhere cheap and then a matinee, even dozing off inside the cool theatre, but Harrigan waited for him by his car.

“You bastard,” he said. “That's twice you sweet talked me. You knew the house was rotten from the start. I know it. You did.”

“Listen,” Jameson told him. “Yelling won't fix anything. I already said I'd try.”

Harrigan pointed at his face. “You will fix this.” His voice rose to a wail. “You and whoever else did this with you.”

“Fine,” Jameson said. “Is that all? Is there anything else?”

Harrigan thought, shook his head. “We're moving in next week. We'll sue you if we have to. We will.”

“I know.” Jameson stepped away from the fist. “Fine.” He waited until Harrigan climbed into an SUV and drove away before leaning against a support pillar to steady himself.

Inside Alex's living room their mother's oil painting of snow-capped mountains was down from its place on the wall, revealing a pale rectangle of fresher paint. Alex pointed the ancient reel-to-reel film projector towards it, twisting the lens focus.

“Sit down,” he told Jameson. “I was about to watch one of the films.”

Jameson wiped his neck. “Have you even heard about air conditioning? Can I get you a brochure?”

“Aw, sit down,” Alex told him. “You've got nowhere else to go, or you'd be there.”

Jameson found the thermostat in the hallway, twisting its dial. “I just went to the movies today. And the day before that, actually.”

“Whatever,” Alex said. “It's about to start.” The projector's fan coughed to life, the noise competing with the filmstrip clacking its way through the machine. The picture came to life blurry and distorted, and Alex played with the lens until an old spinning-needle countdown rotated into clarity.

“So what is this?” Jameson asked.

“It was on TV in the sixties.” Alex raised his voice over the projector. “It's what they call a cult favorite. The prices for this kind of stuff are so jacked up it's not funny.”

The picture onscreen revealed a spaceship flying through space faster than the stars blurring into dirty streaks around it. Jameson settled into the couch as the film popped and jumped ahead, jolting the ship into orbit around a planet covered by roiling pastel clouds.

“You gotta love these old special effects,” Alex said.

“Why?” Jameson blew cigarette smoke into the tube of light between the lens and wall. It twirled around and broke apart. “You know, this has to be on DVD already. Like everything else.”

“It's not.” Alex played with the focus. “I've looked it up twice.”

The film skipped again. Now the ship's crew fought rubber-headed aliens, with crewmen and aliens disintegrating in swirls of psychedelic light. Jameson watched until he couldn't stand the boredom.

“All right,” he said. “I'm getting a drink.”

Alex flipped a switch. The image froze in place. “Hurry up.”

“Sure,” Jameson said, “Whatever you say.” He went down the stairs and groped for a light switch at their bottom. In the spotless kitchen the deep wood grain cabinets soaked up the overhead fluorescent light. All the plastic counters were cracked and mildewed at their edges, and on the dinette table the same plastic flowers stood in their wicker basket. Takeout menus from different restaurants hung fanned above the rotary phone. He finished one glass of water from a jug in the ancient refrigerator and poured another. Out in the service alley all the street's air conditioners were droning into the evening, bleeding through the old window above the sink. Jameson leaned against the counter, gulping the water. The pristine, useless room waited inert around him. Even it was better made than the Harrigan place. When they built these places, who did they expect to live in them after thirty years? Didn't they figure out new houses would await the people living then? He washed the last mouthful around his teeth, spit i t into the sink, and went back upstairs.

“Come on already,” Alex was saying. He'd settled into the room's only other seat, a cracked leather recliner. “They're getting to the good part.”

“They'll probably want to negotiate,” Jameson told him.

“Who is?”

“Whoever we get to buy those films.” He dropped himself onto the couch. “We'll do it later this week. Okay?”

“When?” Alex asked.

“Man, I don't know.” Jameson swung his legs up, stretching out. “Maybe this weekend.”

“Oh, man, that's great.” Alex got up and shook his brother's shoulder. “Hey, thanks, Jamie. I really think this'll be good.”

“I hope so,” Jameson said.

Driving home later, he thought as he got off the interstate that only another three exits down he could see the Harrigan house at night. The flaws might not be as obvious, the imperfections less visible somehow. But the sense of the place was frightening too, a vague sense of bad news coming despite his best efforts. He headed to his condo instead.

When he called the contractor's office the next morning a secretary told him the contractor was out of town for the rest of the week.

“Tell him he can't hide forever,” Jameson said.

“He is certainly not hiding,” the woman said, stressing every syllable. “He's very busy.”

“Busy?” He clutched the phone. “Okay, he's busy. Has anyone figured out at what?”

At the Harrigan place that afternoon he found Anne Harrigan standing by herself in the empty living room. She frowned seeing him come in.

“I thought maybe I'd just come out here alone,” she told him. “To see it by myself.”

“I'm just getting some measurements,” he said. He held up the tape measure and notebook he'd brought from his office. “I won't be long.”

Her sad expression eclipsed the rest of her. “Listen,” she said. “George doesn't know I'm here, okay? I just wanted to see if it's as bad as we think.”

“Maybe it's not,” Jameson said. He tried to keep his distance moving past her into the kitchen. The completely empty living room, with its faint echo of their voices, made him feel larger than anything around them. She followed him between rooms. “So you've sold real estate a long time?”

He put the tools down on the counter. “A little while now. Long enough.”

“My parents think you might be new at this.” She picked up the tape measure, turned it over, set it down again. “They think maybe you got in over your head.”

“No, that's not it,” Jameson told her. “If you'll excuse me…”

She stepped to the side, out of his way. “We never realized.” Her arms folded around her chest. “That contractor… We got his number off the sign out front of the subdivision. He won't call us back.”

"I know,” Jameson told her. “He's not speaking to me, either.”

"Look,” she said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Take your best shot.” He waited while she cleared her throat, wishing she'd get on with it. As he stood waiting, trying to seem relaxed, he was surprised by the simple grace of her features.

“Did you sell us this place anyway?” she asked. “Did you know it was like this and just not let it bother you?”

“Well.” He stared down at the hardwood floors. “Mrs. Harrigan,” he started.

She put her hands on the countertop. “Oh, please. It's Anne.”

“Anne.” He paused. “There's something wrong with every house ever built. You know that, right? There are flaws everywhere. They sort of hide in plain sight.”

“Well, maybe that's what you think.” The shock in her voice surprised him. She hurried back into the living room. Jameson went to work and was measuring a crack in the wall plaster, a long seam rising from the baseboard, when she came back to stand over him.

“You're awfully cynical,” she said. “I can see that already. I think you did mislead us, but I think now you feel bad about it.”

“Yeah, that's about right,” he said. His hands were spread, mid-measurement, on the wall. “But I'll do my best. I'll get him to do something.”

“Well, what if you can't?” she asked. “I mean, what if he doesn't?”

“I don't know,” he said, turning around. Then, without really thinking about it: “Maybe I'll go to his house and force him. See how he likes that, having his own house knocked around a bit. Yeah. Wouldn't that do it?”

“Would you?” she asked. She grinned, but forced herself to stop. “Really?”

“No,” Jameson said. The impulse passed. “But I'll call you when I know something.”

She nodded. “We'll look forward to that.”

He busied himself with going through the house another time, double-checking and writing down all the flaws and broken pieces. When he went to tell her the upstairs repairs weren't as bad as he first thought she was gone.

He explained his decision over drinks at Alex's house, showing up that night with whiskey and a bag of ice from the corner store.

“Two visits in a row,” Alex said, letting him in. “I'm either living right or you're punishing me.”

“Don't push it,” Jameson said. He fixed them highballs while explaining how he'd helped rip the Harrigans off.

“So what?” Alex told him. “Caveat emptor, or whatever.”

“Let the buyer beware.” Jameson held his glass up. “That's like playing ‘why are you hitting yourself?' with a smaller kid.”

“You used to make me do that,” Alex said.

“I know,” Jameson said. “It was stupid of me.”

“Eh.” Alex half rose from the recliner. “Hey, you want to watch another film?”

“Absolutely not,” Jameson said.

“Come on,” Alex said. “Hey, remember that one you liked in third grade? I found it in one of the boxes.”

“Can't we just sit here?” Jameson asked, wiping his neck. “We're so close to not ruining this.”

“Well,” Alex said. “I thought we should sell the stuff tomorrow. I need to talk to you about that.”

“No,” Jameson said. “No, not right now.”

“Why not?” Alex hadn't touched his drink. The ice was melting, dripping long beads of condensation onto its cork coaster.

“Because I'm busy,” Jameson said. “I'm doing something else tomorrow.” He traded his glass for his brother's full one. “Come along if you want. We'll do your thing the day after.”

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. “You better tell me first.”

“I'm kind of thinking,” Jameson said, “I might threaten a guy. I mean go to where he lives and make him do something.”

“And you want my help?”

“No,” Jameson said. “Yes. I don't know.”

“Look” Alex said. “Why don't we watch one of those films? Just to laugh at it.”

“Oh, hell. Fine,” Jameson said. “Let's at least see what you've got.”

They settled on a monster film from the 1950s because it was in better shape than the others and would fit the projector. Hordes of giant ants, mutated after exposure to atomic bombs, devoured a town in the desert Southwest. Jameson fixed more drinks and they talked about finding the contractor, getting excited as the idea became more logical and they both settled into getting drunk. When the movie was over and the filmstrip slapped against the back reel Jameson passed out in his clothes. In his dreams two praying mantises chased the contractor across the middle of Victoria Commons.

He woke to his cell phone buzzing near his ear. The display screen showed Mr. Harrigan's phone number, and Jameson jammed it beneath a couch pillow. Pulling himself into the bathroom he stood under the shower's cold spray until he woke up enough that he felt up for driving to his condo. After sleeping until late afternoon he found directions to the contractor's house online and took his time getting cleaned up. Three cups of black coffee burned the hangover from his head, letting raw thoughts coalesce in its place.

The purpose of what he was doing chilled his nerve solid. The contractor couldn't avoid him forever. He had a right to talk with him and to get an answer.

He dressed in comfortable clothes and went to pick Alex up from work at the video store. His brother was filing old videocassettes on their shelves. He blushed when Jameson walked up.

“I don't think I should go,” Alex told him. “It seems like a really bad idea.”

Men in jackets and baseball caps wandered through the rows of movies around them. Jameson tried to stay out of their way. “You were fine with it last night.”

“Well, it was late. The logic sort of melts in the daylight, you know?”

“No, I don't.” Jameson twisted around while two customers slid past. “If you don't do this, then I'm not helping you with your thing.”

“Hey.” Alex almost yelped. Lowering his voice, “That's not fair.”

“Sure it is. Are you coming or not? Tell me now if you're not coming.”

“Fine.” Alex looked around over the shelves. “I'll see you outside.”

He walked out five minutes after his shift ended, climbing into Jameson's car. “I still can't believe this.”

“Don't worry about it,” Jameson told him, starting the engine.

“It's stupid,” Alex said. He pulled a plastic bottle of sanitizer from his shirt pocket. “And probably illegal, too. But I bet you thought of that already.”

“Look,” Jameson said. “I'm not really gonna beat the guy. I just want him to fix some things he did wrong in the first place.”

“Isn't this guy your boss?” Alex asked. “Look, we could get arrested. You know that, right?”

“Calm down.” Jameson reached to pull the bottle from his brother's hands. “And don't slather yourself with that shit, either. I don't wanna breathe it the whole drive.”

“Oh, relax yourself,” Alex said. “Smoke a dozen cigarettes, or whatever you do.”

“Just sit there.” Jameson started the car forward. “Really, just sit there till we get where we're going.”

A half hour later they were in a suburb northeast of the city, turning down a serpentine country road lined on both sides with houses that stood separated by fir and spruce trees cut into towering cones. Jameson kept his directions spread out on his leg. Deep fields of grass rolled back to Colonial and French Cottage-styled mansions rising behind curved driveways. The contractor's cul-de-sac sat off the main road, half-hidden by towering elms and two brick pylons on either side. He stopped the car in the middle of the circle. “You know,” he told his brother, “I used to love the sight of a new house.”

“Tell me again why we're doing this.” Alex gripped his knees, squeezing them. “It still seems stupid.”

“Just follow me,” Jameson told him.

“I'm gonna wait here.”

“Alex –“ Jameson controlled himself. “We came all this way.”

“I know.” Alex rolled down his window. “I'll be here if anything happens, okay?”

“Fine.” The contractor's house was one of the Colonials, its high walls and shingled roof soaking up sunlight. Electric candles twinkled in the front windows, and round flagstones led the way to a front porch draped in cool shadows. Jameson went across the neat, short grass straight towards the front door.

“Jamie,” Alex said. He got but left his door open, stepping away from the car and keeping a hand on the window. “Please come back and get in the car.”

“Shut up.” He rang the doorbell. Deep, brassy chimes sounded somewhere inside. He rang again. The chimes repeated the same tones. The door stayed shut, without another noise from the other side.

“Nobody's in there,” Alex said. “We're wasting time.”

“Quiet.” Jameson walked alongside the front wall, towards the nearest window. He pulled at its edge, jerking the whole frame straight up. A breeze of cool air drifted around his legs.

“Hey,” Alex was shouting now, climbing back into his seat. “Now, that's illegal. Don't be an asshole.”

“It's okay.” Jameson knelt and peered into a dining room of antique furniture. Off to the right a foyer rose high out of sight, a pool of sunlight blazing across its tile floor. Another room was just visible past the foyer. More cool air drifted across his face, chilling the sweat on his neck.

He closed the window and headed back to the porch. “Nobody's home.”

Alex had gotten out of the car but kept a hand on his door. “Jamie, please,” he said. “Let's go. Let's just go.”

Jameson tried pounding on the door. He thought he heard a door close inside, but nothing else happened. “Fine,” he said, turning back. “Have it your way.”

Once they were out of the neighborhood Alex groaned, clutching his stomach. “You ass,” he said. “I thought you might ransack the place. What was with the window?”

“I was kind of making that up as I went along,” Jameson said. “Sorry to scare you”

“Well, what now?” Alex asked. “Maybe we could start a search party for this guy. Since you're so bent on getting us arrested.”

“I'll drop you off,” Jameson told him. “Let's just forget about this.” As they made their way back to the city he imagined the contractor's panicked reaction when finding the open window, a gap in his house just waiting for anyone. He would deserve it - Victoria Crossing didn't have alarms. Even the locks on the windows looked cheap.

Finally they got back to their parents' house. Alex hopped out. “Don't forget about tomorrow,” he told Jameson. “You said you'd help me.”

“Alex-,” Jameson said. He gave up. “Okay, fine. Is there anything else?”

“No,” Alex said. “I don't know.”

“Just try to relax.” Jameson tried to see down the block, to look for the kids outside the store. “Go get some sleep.”

As soon as Alex was inside, Jameson drove out to the Harrigan place, past all the other units surrounding it that were just as shabby and sad. The faux gaslight lampposts in the square had ignited on their timers, burning the summer humidity into glowing halos on the concrete and brick. He stood for a long while on the flat new road, picking up one rock after another and hurling them at the Harrigans’ front bow window and then at the smaller panes on the second floor. Most of the rocks hit, so that the hissing and crinkle of breaking glass went on for some time. When his throwing arm burned with strain he ran to the Harrigans’ front door.

He'd sold houses for years but never anything this cheap. He always took it for granted the quality would be good enough. Not great, but those were the chances anyone took these days. The world was built on things that were just barely good enough. Everyone knew that.

Bracing himself with the railing he kicked at the door just below the knob, so hard the jolt reverberated all the way up into his hip. The door shook but held. Jameson gripped the railing harder and kicked again. The door slammed backwards on its hinges and bounced off the wall behind it. By the time it slowed down he was already half running, half limping back to his car. He threw himself inside and grabbed for his phone. The contractor's voicemail answered as always.

“Asshole,” he told it. “The door on the Harrigan place just got kicked in. The house isn't sound anymore.” He took a deep breath, holding his thigh. “The windows are punched out, too. Now, fix at least that much or I'll show them how to file a complaint with everyone they can. I'm talking to you here. Listen to me.”

By the time he got home his leg was on fire from the ankle to the waist. He sat up all night keeping ice on his knee and congratulating himself, long after the cold and ibuprofen turned the muscles too numb to support his weight.

His brother waited for him outside the video rental place. Several of the canisters were jammed in a duffel bag at his feet.

“I got us organized,” Alex said. “I made a list of places last night. You ready?”

“I'm resigned to it.” Jameson rubbed where his thigh hurt the most. Sleep pawed at the backs of his eyes. “Where do we start?”

“There's a vintage movie place out in Catonsville. Let's start there.”

The store was two quiet rooms in an old brick cottage off the state road. Alex showed the filmstrips to the owner while Jameson watched. He spoke forcefully about their value, but Jameson could see they were wasting time. The owner shook his head and grimaced when the films were taken out from the bag. Every filmstrip was smeared with fingerprints whose whorls twisted the sunlight into dirty rainbows as Alex held them up to the daylight. Dark crusty edges on some of the films flaked off as he pulled them from their canisters.

The owner set a reel down and dusted his hands. “I'm sorry, but they're worthless,” he said. “Look at the emulsion. These were damaged years ago, and not taken care of since.”

“Are you crazy?” Alex said. “That's a collector's item.”

“It's garbage.” The owner brushed gritty dust off the display case. “I don't know what you think, but they look like they were kept in a hothouse.”

Jameson took his brother's shoulder, keeping his voice down. “Come on. We'll get the next place.”

“He's not listening,” Alex said. “He doesn't get it.”

“So what?” Jameson took him by the arm towards the door. “Better luck next time.”

They went to four more stores, every other place on Alex's list. A clerk at the second store suggested Alex sell the films online. At a boutique specializing in rare videocassettes Alex lied about the histories of each filmstrip and promised each one was a certified rarity or owned by an actual director. The manager laughed and said it was time to close.

They finished at a second-run movie theatre near the city college. The projectionist, an aging woman with eyeglasses on a nylon strap, came down from her booth and held the strips against the fluorescent lights of the snack bar case. By her blank expression Jameson expected the worst before she even finished. He'd seen her look of bored disappointment walk out of vacant houses countless times.

“Well, the movies themselves are fondly remembered,” she said. “But these strips are falling apart. And they're the wrong size.”

Alex pulled the others closer to him. “I don't understand,” he said.

She pinched a filmstrip by its sides. “These are for home projectors,” she said. “Theatre-format projectors would chew them up. We can't use them.”

Jameson put his hands atop the glass case, but feeling his fingertips stick pulled them away again. “We sort of need to sell them,” he told her.

“My husband will be here tomorrow.” She coiled the strip back into its canister. “He might want them for himself.”

“You think so?” Alex asked.

She handed him the canister. He took it but put down right away. “It's possible,” she said. “But you have to understand they're not worth much.”

Jameson spoke up. “Thanks for your time.”

With nowhere else to go they went back to Alex's rowhouse. “What a pisser,” he said, dumping all the canisters across the living room floor. “I thought people would jump for these things.”

Jameson stayed in the doorway. “It's not the end of the world.”

“Whatever.” Alex kicked one of the film cans, knocking it across the room. It hit the baseboard and popped open. “And you might have helped a little,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Jameson asked.

“You're the salesman,” Alex told him. “What good are you, if not selling things?”

“Well,” Jameson said, heading for the door. “I'm going home now, and you can go to Hell.”

Alex shook his hands. “I mean, that's your specialty, isn't it? You sell stuff. But you just stood there.”

Jameson opened the door. “Okay, Alex. Whatever you say.”

“You know what I mean.” Alex spread his arms, as if measuring something. “You're a salesman. You sell. You could be anywhere and do that.”

“Oh, go scrub your hands,” Jameson told him.

At the corner the group of boys was hanging around the liquor store. The muscular one waved to him as he went past. Jameson stopped in the middle of the intersection and jumped out.

“Hey,” he asked the kid. “What are you looking at?”

The boy pointed at the car. “I'm looking at your money, man.”

“What money?” Jameson asked.

“The money in that car, man.” He pointed at Jameson's feet. “In those shoes. Why not?”

“That's it?” Jameson asked

“Hey,” the kid said. “How about a few bucks for me and my bro's?”

Jameson looked him over, then at his friends. “I don't think so.”

The boy turned to the others. “Short!” he yelled. They all laughed.

“Get a job,” Jameson told them.

By the time he got to his own place Alex had put three messages on his machine. “Man, I'm sorry,” he said on the last one. “I'm just… I mean, where am I supposed to go with this stuff?” Jameson counted to twenty before picking up the phone and calling him back.

He bought as much plastic piping, electrical wiring and fiberglass insulation as could fit in his back seat and trunk. Bits of the fiberglass blew loose and flittered through the air as he drove, leaving him coughing and wheezing as he pulled into Victoria Crossing. A moving van sat parked outside the Harrigan unit, its gaping cargo bay trailing lamps and smaller pieces of furniture into the street.

The broken door was replaced by a new one with plastic wrap still on its doorknob, and the fresh windowpanes' plastic coating tinted them shiny and bluish. Jameson sat down on the front steps and gave himself five minutes before knocking. As he waited the door opened creaking and Anne came out.

“The doorbell still works, you know,” she said. “Someone from the contractor's business came by yesterday. He was very polite.”

“How'd you know I was out here?” Jameson asked.

“Please.” She sat down on the step above him. Her hair was tied back and the blouse and jeans she wore were smudged with paint and dust. Under the grit her skin was freshly pink with sweat. “We heard your car. It's quiet as a church at night out here.”

Jameson looked at the house rising over their backs. Mr. Harrigan appeared in a window and went away again. “How's the place?” he asked.

She scratched at her hair. “About what you suspected. Or knew about. We're still not sure which.”

“I know,” Jameson said. “Look, I brought some stuff. Just sort of out my own pocket.” He hoped she would smile or act surprised, had imagined such the whole drive out, but she didn't. He went through the motions of getting out a cigarette, to give himself something to do.

“You've got another one of those?” she asked.

“You don't smoke,” he said.

“Not normally,” she said. “Today I don't care.”

She coughed lighting one up. “Ugh. I forgot how nasty this is.”

“You get used to it,” he told her.

“I don't think I will.” She waved away the cigarette's trail of smoke. “Well, thanks for coming.”

The eleven other empty units surrounded them, the For Sale signs still in their windows, his picture grinning at them. Jameson wondered if he'd have to keep them when they came down. “It's all right,” he said.

“Hey, Jameson?” she asked. “Do you enjoy this? Selling houses?”

“I'm starting to think I sort of hate it,” he told her.

“So what do you want to do?” she asked. “Anybody's got a choice, right?”

He shifted his leg, easing the pain in his hip. “I'm not sure.”

“You should figure it out,” she told him. “Figure it out quick.”

“It's something to look forward to,” he said.

They sat together without speaking until he rose and began unpacking the car. As he picked up the first armful of supplies, Jameson wondered if an idea might come into his head any moment. Maybe when he turned around and saw the lovely girl waiting outside the shabby house.

Michael Kabel grew up all over Louisiana but now lives in Memphis, TN where he teaches high school and college. His previous publication credits include Cairn, The Baltimore Review (where he now works as an editor), JMWW, and Rogue Scholars. He also publishes film commentary at bluemoviereviews.wordpress.com.