Walls are made of plaster, furring strips, nails, paint. Only mice and squirrels live in walls.
Walls can't bleed people the way a madras shirt bleeds colors.
But the walls of that beach house did. I saw those colors puddle up in various places on the floor, I saw them come together, I saw arms jut out, feet, legs, faces—while the great room erupted in flames beyond, the walls bled their people and built them up again. There was a man of thirty dressed as if for a wedding reception who rose up from the floor like bamboo, and a fat woman of forty or forty-five who wept soundlessly, her shoulders heaving; near her, a young boy dressed in white, and standing alone where the hall opened onto the great room, a blond girl of ten or so, the same girl who had crossed in front of the car.
"Forgive me," Abner said again. "I can't predict these things."
I turned open-mouthed to him. I wanted to tell him, We've got to get out of here, the house is burning down around us, but I couldn't; it would have been like yelling, just before the truck rolls over, My God, there's a truck rolling over on us; what are we going to do?
Because I was sure there was nothing we could do, sure that it was inevitable that the house was going to burn down with us in it. All of us. Abner and me. And the people who had been bled out of the walls. The house was going to burn down and destroy us all and there was nothing I could do about it.
Then Abner asked, "Are you worried?" very casually, as if he were asking if I'd had my dinner. "Don't be worried," he went on, "or frightened. Enjoy it. We are being entertained, Sam. These are actors here, showmen, enjoy it, they want you to enjoy it if you don't, they won't like it, and they'll hurt us." Over the frenzied roar of the flames pushing out of the great room and down the hallway, Abner's voice was calm and confident, like the voice of someone who feels it is his right and his duty to be a spiritual guide to others. He put both hands hard on my shoulders now, as if to hold me there, in that house, while it burned. He grinned broadly, as if he'd told me a joke.
"Let go of me, Abner," I said, my voice low and threatening.
"They're entertaining us, Sam. You've got to enjoy it."
Perhaps, I thought, he couldn't hear me above the rush of the flames. I yelled, "Goddammit, Abner, get your hands off me!"
He let go.
And I turned and ran past him to the door that led to the beach. I pushed on it; it wouldn't open. I pulled on it; it opened, and I ran from the house, toward the ocean. When the waves were licking at my feet, I stopped and looked back.
The ocean side of the house had a fresh coat of white paint on it and what looked like new black shutters at all the windows. There were half a dozen windows on the first floor, three on the second, and two, longer and narrower than the others, in the attic, where the roof peaked severely. I thought for a moment that I'd run farther than I'd supposed, and that I was looking at some other house. Then Abner appeared in the kitchen doorway and stood silently in it, his hands in his pockets, his body framed by the flames rising behind him.
I yelled, "Abner, get the hell out of there!" The flames danced brightly behind him. I yelled, "Don't do this, please don't do this!" The flames reached around from inside the house and embraced him. I fell to my knees. The ocean lapped at my feet. "Don't do this to me, Abner!" I pleaded. "You're my friend!"
He yelled back, hands cupped around his mouth to be heard over the noise of the flames, "Of course, I'm your friend. And you're my friend. We're two friends. Together. For life!"
"Sure we are," I called. "Friends for life, yes—Abner and Sam! Friends for life!"
"Thank you, Sam," he called, and walked back into the house and closed the door.
Within a minute, the flames visible through the windows were gone.
I got off my knees and sat on the sand facing the house, with my legs straight and my arms folded in front of me, my head down. The headache I had had earlier began to creep back. Tricked me, didn't you, Abner? I thought. Abner and Sam, friends for life! I thought. Maybe. The necessary elements were there—a common set of memories, a sort of gruff affection and concern. But whether we'd eventually turn out to be "friends for life" was something that only time could decide. He, I realized, was using whatever feeling existed between us as a sledge; he was using it to hammer me into place there at his tumbledown beach house. I sat on the sand and wondered when I'd get up and move away from the incoming tide. I couldn't blame him; I understood why he was doing it. Very simply, he was in trouble. He needed a friend. And I was willing to fill that role. But still, as my headache grew, so did my anger.
After a couple of minutes, I yelled, "Damn you, Abner!" and hunkered forward on my rear end, away from the tide. "Damn you!" I screamed again. He reappeared at the back door of the house and wandered out to me, hands thrust into his pockets, a stupid grin on his mouth.
He stood above me for a few moments. That stupid grin went away. Then he said secretively, as if he were playing some game of cops and robbers, "The coast is clear, Sam."
He was standing to my right, level with my ankles, his hands still in his pockets, his legs together, one knee bent slightly. I knew he'd be easy to knock over, so that's what I did. I tripped him and he toppled over onto his side, then rolled to his stomach, so his face was in the sand.
It was an impulsive, useless thing to do, but I realized that anything he might say to me would be bullshit, that he couldn't explain what had happened in his house. He might as well have tried to explain how life began, or how to cure the common cold.
So I tripped him. It was the same as slapping him around. It was designed to give him a good, gritty taste of what I saw as reality. And, futile and stupid as my action was, it made me feel worlds better, for a moment anyway.
I jumped to my feet, pointed stiffly at him, though his face was still turned away from me, and screamed, "What the hell do you mean The coast is clear? This isn't some stupid game. You sound like you want us to go up on some building and piss off the roof together, for Christ's sake!"
He turned his head and looked up at me. Sand caked his cheek because the beach was wet. He spit out some of the sand, and that same stupid smirk appeared on his mouth again. He said, "Can't get your hand out of the box, can you, Sam? It's stuck in there, isn't it?" He started to push himself up. I put my foot on his back, kept him down.
"Abner," I said, "you're not getting up until you tell me what happened in that house."
He let himself fall to his belly again, turned his face up to me. His smirk was gone. In its place was a mixture of pleading, desperation, and resignation, like the expression of someone bleeding to death inside a squashed car. He said, "Reality happened, Sam. Reality happened!"