The House in Scarsdale by O'Brien Dan;

Author:O'Brien Dan;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 5835966
Publisher: Oberon Books
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

6: Dead Ends

DAN: Did you go there, Dan? of a seed.

DAN: You went with me, Dan.

DAN: And what happened?

DAN: We walked down the dead-end

looking—

DAN: For what?

DAN: Like a child molester

skulking in the cul-de-sac, skunk cabbage

and wild grape vines, The seed growing

DAN: scrub oak and mud-soft weeds like a thread of

we used to call The Swamp. water.

DAN: That brook seething

with broken bottle glass and rotting leaves,

rusted car batteries.

DAN: What else was there?

DAN: A haunted house. But smaller. The grass is Becoming grass.

greener than it was. The dogwood is bare

and of course taller. A tree.

DAN: This is not the house,

this has never been the house.

DAN: And then where

did we go?

DAN: “Old Ridge.” Above the thrumming

of the parkway. Atop the highest hill

in the county, with a view of the Sound The tree

beyond.

DAN: While Mexican landscapers blow drops its leaves.

waves of gold and ruby leaves to the curb.

DAN: Chain-link girds the acreage now. This gate is

all that’s left.

DAN: Oxidized green pikes with words

overhead in soldered iron that read

like the entrance to Dante’s Inferno:

“Old Ridge.”

DAN: Stooping to peer through the shifting Leaves become a

bare branches, labyrinth.

DAN: I’m straining to imagine

the house as it was when my mother was

only a girl,

DAN: and you can’t help but feel The labyrinth

you were right. You know you’ve always been right becomes a house

about her.

DAN: The brick house sprawls. Twin lions of dead leaves.

poised in marble. Sandstone steps. Antique cars

line the driveway.

DAN: The glass of the greenhouse

smears the fire of a November sunset

romantically.

DAN: Somebody else lives here

now.

DAN: Who could possibly live here?

DAN: Should I

ring the bell? Could I just walk inside and

see her suspended in a party dress

at the foot of the stairs?

NANCY: You’ll never know

how bad it was for me, Danny.

DAN: I know

I’ve always known the truth.

DAN: A Dalmatian

swivels its ears and leaps barking across

the rolling lawn racing.

DAN: I turn tail and

run for the station laughing. This house of

DAN: So tell me dead leaves gets

blown apart.

what’s wrong.

DAN: I don’t know who to reach out to

next.

DAN: You’ll always have me.

DAN: Nobody else

wants to talk to me.

DAN: Why do you want to

talk to them then?

DAN: Cause I’ve hit this dead end

and I’ve got to find the truth.

DAN: And to find

the truth you’ve got to ask people questions

DAN: —and people have to answer them.

DAN: So who

do you want to talk to still? Who is it

that could finally answer this for you?

—Let’s go!

DAN: I drive over to Cahuenga

Boulevard:

ADAM: You want to go off the grid Sunlight through

you can. But it’s no piece of cake. E.g. Venetian blinds.

no credit cards, no cell phones. No address

or medical records. Cash is king. Wives A little noir-ish.

call me up all the time asking, Adam,

my husband’s cheating!—can you surveil him

please? And I’m like, Ma’am, surveillance runs you

two-three hundred an hour. Might I suggest

you go online and look at his statements

cause invariably there’s bouquets, bistros

that are inappropriate for business

lunches. Shit like that. It’s like—how stupid

can these jagoffs be? It’s like I tell them,

Go find yourself a woman you despise

and buy her a McMansion: it’s cheaper

than a divorce!

DAN: Ha ha ha!

ADAM: So tell me

who you looking for.

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