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  “Well, this guy who owned the bookstore went out of business completely. As a matter of fact, he didn’t average selling more than a book a day over a six-month period.”

  I put my car in park. The driver of the pickup truck pulled to the pumps and got out. I yelled, “You got the world’s largest alligator in back?”

  Lorene pulled me by the arm. “Listen. This is important to me, man. You need to listen to what I have to say.”

  The guy pumping gas said, “I did. You ain’t seen her, have you?”

  Lorene pulled and pulled. I said, “Goddamn. I wonder if that thing escaped.”

  “It ended up that this man with the bookstore had all of his feng shui books in the wrong spot. He had them in the wrong corner of the room, and pointed in the wrong direction. Faced the wrong way.”

  I looked at Lorene and imagined what her tears would do should she cry. She needed a gutter hanging off of her chin, I thought.

  “She’s loose? Wait a minute. You lost the world’s largest alligator?” Lorene asked.

  I stared straight ahead. “That guy lost her.” I put the car in drive and took off. “Now that’s bad feng shui. He won’t be able to espouse his find anymore.”

  Lorene said something about how she appreciated how I listened to what she had to say. “My father never listened until he had no other option, and then he only used what I said in his speeches across the country.”

  I turned back onto Highway 10. I turned up the radio. There was a local talk show going on. The guest and the disc jockey spoke of changing weather conditions. The guest was some kind of avant-garde meteorologist. He said it wasn’t impossible to imagine the earth reverting to another Ice Age. Likewise, it wasn’t farfetched to envision total water. I thought about saying how my business would probably go downhill if the world went all water. I stuck my tongue out and said nothing. Lorene turned toward me. She closed her legs intentionally and said something about how she got tired sometimes of dragging from one spot to the next.

  A MAN WITH MY NUMBER

  THE MAN INSISTED THAT I NEEDED STICK-ON NUMBERS. He carried a special case that looked like a shrunken steamer trunk, with one handle and three large metal clasps. By large I mean the length and width of a playing card. I didn’t check the thickness of each clasp. Most clasps aren’t any bigger than the ones on old lunch boxes, or maybe briefcases. These were big clasps. I became enamored with them, and thought about buckles on the shoes of Puritans. I remember thinking to myself, This guy should be out selling clasps, not stick-on numbers. Clasps like that—hell, you could keep roofs from flying off during tornado or hurricane season with some clasps like that.

  The man himself looked normal enough, if standing five four and being thin enough to crawl into ductwork without grunting is normal. I was glad that I noticed this feature of him later. Also, it looked as if he combed his hair after a careful diagnosis from a slide rule, T-square, and micrometer. He had the eyes of a tent revival preacher, part blank and part bloodshot. I said, “Say that all again, man.”

  This was at the front door. No one ever came to my front door. Hardly anyone ever came to the side door either, except for the mail lady when one of my machetes, oversized boots, or special bolt cutters finally arrived. Or the UPS guy. Or someone with a stray dog saying it showed up at their house and everyone says it’s probably mine—which it never has been seeing as I keep my dogs under control. If I had some kind of running-off dog, I could use one of the stick-on numbers guy’s trunk clasps to reinforce the dog’s collar and chain.

  But my dogs never feel the need to roam. People who know me—people who don’t show up unannounced with a stray wondering if it’s one of mine—know that my dogs somehow understand boundaries. They show up at my house for a reason, then settle in. Dogs seem to sense things we cannot fathom. They know fear, sure, that’s all been documented. But they also know what kinds of people won’t feed or pet them if they (the dogs) run out into the road or chase birds on a whim. Dogs know good music when they hear it, too.

  The man said, “I notice you don’t have any street address numbers out there on your mailbox, or anywhere on the side of your house. So it’s your lucky day. I’m here to show you some stick-on numbers that won’t rust, peel, bleed, fade, or become compromised by the elements. You ever seen that number ten over there in London, where the prime minister lives? They’ve been showing that entrance with the number ten now since Winston Churchill. Those are our numbers.”

  I said, “The nursery’s closed. I’m out of plants right now. But I’ll have some cypresses in the next few weeks.” I had kind of presupposed, I suppose, what the man came for. When it wasn’t dogs or lost people or the mail lady, it was people confusing my one-man nursery across the street with my private abode. I said, “Wait. I have numbers on my mailbox and right there on the side entrance so in case there’s a substitute mail lady or UPS driver they’ll know that they’re at the right place to bring my machetes, oversized boots, or bolt cutters.”

  From the front door, you can’t see the side of my house. It’s around the corner. There’s a jut. “I hate to contradict you, Mr….” This guy was good. This guy had something else going for him besides the mesmerizing buckles. He had a clipboard that he could hold in such a way that I couldn’t tell if he really had any names written down, in up-and-down-the-road order, standing for the people who lived on Snipes Road.

  I said, “Beaumont.” It was the fake name I used when I needed to use fake names when people showed up. People always felt non-threatened, at first, around anyone named Beaumont. It was the last name of the actor who played Mr. Ward Cleaver.

  The stick-on number guy said, “Here it is. Beaumont.”

  So I was on to him. Ha! To me he wasn’t much of an authority on the stick-on numbers game anymore. I kind of wish I hadn’t mentioned the things I collected, should he be one to collect the exact same things and want to come back and break in. I said, “Or when the mail lady or UPS driver brings me one of my many assault rifles and booby traps bought from down in South America.” I looked way out at the mailbox. I faced it directly, so couldn’t see if the numbers might be missing. I said, “What’s your name, man.”

  He placed his clipboard down atop the trunk. He reached in his shirt pocket and produced an ID that can be bought at about any flea market worth its while. I had about twenty of the things I carried around with me at various times when I went out. He said, “Mack Morris Murray. Three M’s. That’s one of the reasons I always knew I’d be perfect for this job. 3M, like the company that makes the best adhesives going around. People call me Mack Morris.”

  First off, I thought, Who would come up with a fake name like Mack Morris Murray? Me, my fake IDs weren’t all that different than John Smith, John Jones, Joe Smith, Joe Jones, Mike Smith, Mike Jones. People like to make the acquaintance of people with easy fake names. People don’t like other people with either A) a bunch of names that’re all first names like “Mack” and “Morris” and “Murray,” or B) a bunch of names that’re all last names like “Pinckney” and “Calhoun” and “Sanders.” Dogs don’t like people with those kinds of names, either. Go introduce your dog to someone named Mack Morris Murray or Pinckney Calhoun Sanders and see what happens. Growling dog, that’s what happens.

  I closed the door behind me, not thinking. Looking back on it all, that’s another reason not to trust people with three first or last names in a row. They get a person too distracted.

  I walked out into my front yard, which was four narrow acres, on a slant, until I noticed that, sure enough, someone had stolen the numbers off of my mailbox. There’s a place where I can look through the pine trees, winter or summer.

  I walked around the jut of the house, stood on the gravel driveway, and learned that the same thing had happened to my house numbers. In my mind, walking back to this fancy-clasped salesman, I remembered what my numbers looked like in both places. I foresaw his opening the trunk, my seeing my numbers that he’d stolen some time in the
past couple days, and then my going inside to get one of the machetes.

  I said, “I don’t have a lot of patience, Mr. Morris.”

  “Murray. Mack Morris Murray. Please call me Mack Morris,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the law around here, but in some towns it’s the law to have visible and easily identifiable house numbers. For the fire department, you know.”

  I said, “Uh-huh. Well, ‘Mr. Beaumont’ might sound like a real nice guy, but he isn’t always. You can ask his sons, wife, or that kid Eddie Haskell.”

  I kept eye contact. So did Mack Morris Murray. And he smiled one of those smiles everyone’s seen. In Australia, smiles are frowns and frowns are smiles. I figured this Mack Morris Murray man to be Australian. He could disguise his frown just by living north of the equator. Mack Morris said, “I’m not so sure I follow you. Maybe it would be best I come back at another time.”

  A couple of my dogs barked inside. There were more in the back, behind the Leyland cypresses I planted myself, which hid the stone wall I built myself, which hid the cedar plank privacy fence I built with the help of a man named Guillermo some years earlier when the dogs started showing up.

  I said, “No, you stay right here. Why don’t you open up that fancy trunk of yours and let’s you and me take a close inspection of what kinds of numbers you got for sale. I got a long address number, you know. It’s nineteen, thirty-three, seventeen. It’s one, nine, three, three, one, seven.”

  Mack Morris said, “I got you. It’s a hundred ninety-three, three hundred seventeen.”

  “It’s one hundred ninety-three thousand, three hundred seventeen,” I said as fast as possible. I’d practiced it before. Sometimes I like to give out my telephone number like that, too.

  He said, “We don’t offer any discounts on big numbers, if that’s what you’re asking. I can sell you one number at a time, though, if you’re hurting for money right now. I can come back every month and sell you a number.” He unclasped his trunk, right there on the brick walkway I also built myself. “They’re two dollars apiece.”

  Mack Morris Murray opened the case full, and leaned the top of his trunk against the side of my house jut. Sure enough, there were about six different styles of numbers in there—the best ones were tile, the worst thin metal numbers cut on an angle. I didn’t see any of my own, though. I said, “You got these numbers over at Monkey Grass Estates, didn’t you. I know these numbers. All the big houses over at Monkey Grass Estates have these kinds of numbers, on their special stone mailbox holders, and on the exterior of the stone houses.”

  I used to live way out in the country. Within about a ten-year period a bunch of children and grandchildren of farmers inherited their family land, then sold it off without conscience. Land developers took that opportunity to either A) build subdivisions made up entirely of houses that weren’t under 5000 square feet, or B) plop down house trailers that had been repossessed. There were no zoning laws, is what I’m saying. And evidently there had never been any kind of special course the land developers could take on How to Name a Subdivision. The rich places on down Snipes Road had names like Monkey Grass Estates, The Rookery, and Neck of the Woods Acres. The trailer parks had signs leaning out on the road advertising Camelot, Belle Meade, and Vista Bella. It never made sense to me. Snipes Road ran a long way, too, unfortunately. You’d think the goddamn land developers would hurry up and make me an offer for the land where my nursery stands. Hell, those old boys could sink a good sixty or thousand trailers down on the two acres I own across Snipes.

  He closed the lid to his trunk. Mack Morris said, “I guess I could get you a two-for-one deal. Or a six-for-three deal. That would come out a dollar apiece.”

  In his eyes I could see that he wanted to take off running. Where was his car? I wondered. I said, “How did you get here? Where did you come from?” I started laughing. “You walk down the road in one direction at night, stealing people’s numbers, then come on back through in the opposite direction, trying to sell them back.”

  “I’ll just give you some numbers,” Mack Morris said. He reopened his trunk.

  Listen, I’ve never had anything against scam artists and practical jokers. Me? I’m the man behind going out at night in boots four sizes too big, with a machete and bolt cutters—and sometimes spray paint—changing signs so they read Monkey Ass Estates. Neck Acres. The Nookery.

  I said, “Are you a drinking man, Mr. Mack Morris Murray? Let’s you and me go inside and partake of some schnapps I got holed up for a special occasion. I like your style, man. Or some brandy.”

  “I’d like just a plain old can of beer, to be honest.”

  “I got beer,” I said.

  Then I turned around to learn that I’d locked myself out of the house. I rang my own doorbell and both Now and Later showed up wagging their tails and barking at the long pane of glass beside my front door. One thing about non-running, boundary-knowing dogs, you can’t teach them how to unlock a door. They can be kind of lazy.

  “Is the side door open?” Mack Morris asked me. I shook my head. I held my finger up for Mack Morris to wait right there, and I jogged out on the gravel driveway, checked the knob, then jogged back.

  I said, “I think the back door’s closed, too, but there’s a window I got that’s unlocked. Thing is, I got one of my bolt cutters lodged in such a way that the window won’t open but about ten inches. Let me give you a leg-up over the stone fence and the cedar fence, you go back there, lift the window, shimmy in, and come to the front door and unlock it.”

  Mack Morris said, “That’s not the first time you’ve mentioned bolt cutters. Why do you have so many bolt cutters?”

  We walked toward the side yard and wove through the Leyland cypresses that now touched each other side-by-side and stood twenty feet high. I said, “Cut bolts, what else?” I didn’t say how sometimes I used them on my dogs’ toenails.

  When I got the number stealer balanced right so he could see my backyard, he said, “I ain’t going over this thing. How many dogs you got, man? Those things will tear me apart.”

  I pushed him over. I’m no strong man, but like I said, Mack Morris Murray couldn’t have weighed two big bags of cheap dry chow. My outside dogs barked, but they ran off to the far corner of the property, scrambling through a variety of potted azaleas, Leylands, boxwoods, wisterias, crabapple, and whatnot that weren’t quite ready for me to take over to the nursery. I had a three-month rule when it came to people’s—or at least land developers’—memories as to what plants got sold to them, stolen, then sold again. I’d like to say that these particular dogs were good judges of character, or that I trained them such, but, to be honest, they were mostly pussies. Mack Morris Murray called over to me, “Goddamn you. You better have two cans of beer in there.”

  Then I thought, What if he gets inside my house and starts stealing things? I thought, I’m an idiot—a man who steals numbers off of mailboxes isn’t exactly trustworthy roaming around inside someone’s house. I looked through the cracks in the fence and said, “Hey. Hey, wait a minute.”

  He said, “I found it. This window here? I found it,” and I heard the window go up a little. Then I heard him slide right in, and close the window behind himself.

  So I ran around to the front of the house, grabbed his trunk of numbers, touched the giant clasps all three, and thought about how at least I had this thing for ransom until he came out. I figured that if he found my machetes and came out the front door swinging, I could block some of the blows with the trunk.

  But he opened the door presently. Now and Later stood there beside him, practically smiling, wagging their tails. I set down the trunk, and went inside. I said, “Thanks, man.”

  “You got to buy some numbers after all that. That’s only fair,” he said, stepping aside.

  I said, “Uh-huh,” and walked the long way around toward the refrigerator, inspecting everything to make sure nothing had been slipped into Mack Morris Murray’s pockets.

  Mack Morris sat down at
the kitchen table. I pulled out four cans of beer and set them on the table. I reached into the cupboard and pulled out half a bottle of peppermint schnapps and half a bottle of peach schnapps. Mack Morris looked around the kitchen and said, “I can tell that your wife left you. Mine, too. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing, trying to get by. Yours take you for everything, too? Maybe they’re together, living it up.”

  I tried to imagine the wife of such a small, slight, perfect-haired house number salesman. I said, “It’s been a while. I still don’t talk about it much.” I didn’t say, “Especially to strangers.” To be honest, I’d only talked to the dogs about it, and most of them were either too young to remember my wife, or they hadn’t been thrown out of moving cars yet, abandoned.

  Mack Morris opened a can of beer. He scooted back his chair, leaned back, and extended his short legs. “I’ll tell you my story if you tell me yours. First off, my wife—let’s call her Barb, seeing that’s her name—Barb was a churchgoer. Hell, so was I. We went to church. You can’t condemn a man for going to church and believing that the Ten Commandments are a good thing. Or the Golden Rule.”

  I unscrewed the plastic top from a bottle of Mr. Boston Schnapps. I didn’t even look down to see if it was the peppermint or peach. Sometimes I did this. Well, every day I did this. It was my little game. I looked up on the wall at two machetes displayed, and wondered how long it would take me to get up, grab one, and take a hundred-and-eighty-degree swing at full force. Answer: two seconds. I’d timed myself often, over the last few years, when all the dogs were out back and out of harm’s way. I needed to know how fast I could cut off one of Mack Morris Murray’s arms should he stick it out with a Bible attached, wanting to pray for me, this house number selling only a ploy to offer testimonials to the unsuspecting. I said, “Okay.”