LOCKS

After Eugene Cripe inherited his father’s toolbelt, he felt it necessary to quit teaching high school history and become a handyman. His second wife, Sarah, said Yes, yes, yes, quit, Eugene—it’s not like you can make less money. She said, We’re fine for now, right? Cripe inherited his father’s loyal customers, too, people he’d known since the age of twelve or thereabouts, when he rode around with his dad every summer, off to hang doors, replace window panes, clean gutters, wallpaper, and paint. Though he didn’t possess his father’s skills with all things electrical, he knew enough to replace fuses or deal with a crawlspace’s rodent-chewed lines. He could replace shingles, whether slate, cedar shake, or normal asphalt. He could plant trees, lay brick patios in a herringbone pattern, repair decks. Outdoor fire pits happened to be his father’s specialty, and thus Eugene’s, these twenty-plus years later.

Word of mouth, and gated communities, kept Eugene’s father busy six days a week, and although some of the older customers didn’t trust a younger handyman—especially one who brought up allusions to Louis XIV or Marco Polo while replacing molding in an octagon-shaped room—Eugene worked steadily enough, nine to five, Monday through Thursday.

We bought the doorknobs we want, but we need someone to put them in, a woman called to tell Eugene. She called and said, Hello, this is Mrs. Tisdale, in a way that sounded like she might be on the set of Leave It to Beaver. I got your name from Mrs. Curtis, who said your father turned their attic into a playroom.

Eugene stood in the kitchen, a flat carpenter’s pencil in his hand. He said, I remember that job. I helped my daddy back then, the summer before my senior year in college.

We bought this house, Mrs. Tisdale said, before knowing that the previous owners had a mentally challenged adult son who lived with them. We’re afraid he might have a key, you know, and come back. He supposedly had anger issues.

Eugene tried to remember if mentally challenged adult son was the correct term nowadays. He’d attended a number of required symposia, especially the last ten years of teaching, in order to learn the latest taboo terms. He knew his pronouns. Eugene knew, also, that most women hadn’t called themselves Mrs. Something since about 1972.

He said over the phone, How many doors do you need changing?

Well, six. Front door, back door, a door into the garage, another back door onto our screen room, the one that comes out of the kitchen, and the one beneath the house that leads to our safe room. How much do you think that’ll cost?

Eugene said, You have all the doorknobs, you say?

Yes.

I can’t imagine that taking me more than a couple hours. Probably about a hundred dollars.

Mrs. Tisdale blew air into the receiver. Maybe she smoked, Eugene thought. Maybe she suffered from asthma.

Fifty dollars an hour? That’s what you get, fifty dollars an hour?

Eugene didn’t say, Well, there’s gas to get over there. I have to pay for my own insurance. He said, The world is my idea, straight out of Schopenhauer, a philosopher he wished he’d studied in college, instead of a whole semester on the Civil War.

Well, okay. Mr. Tisdale would appreciate it if you can try to do this job in an hour, I have to tell you.

Eugene Cripe didn’t say, Go buy a screwdriver. Figure it out yourself. He didn’t say, It is just as little necessary for the handyman to be a saint as for the saint to be a handyman, toying with another one of Schopenhauer’s great sayings, swapping philosopher for handyman. He wanted to say such a thing, but held back. He looked at his Timex. He said, I can be there in about twenty minutes. Call up the guardhouse so they’ll let me in.

The Tisdales bought a 4500-square-foot, two-story brick house overlooking the seventh green—a par three hole—in Rolling Green Estates, a gated community that charged $25,000 a year for residents to use the golf course, pool, tennis courts, and dining facilities. Eugene thought, I got a clapboard house and a toolbelt, as he turned into the serpentine driveway. He thought, I barely made twenty-five grand a year when I started teaching.

It is just as little necessary for the golfer to be a saint as for the saint to be a golfer.

Handyman Cripe, Mrs. Tisdale said one minute after Eugene pushed the doorbell. I see that you found us okay.

Eugene wore his father’s toolbelt—claw hammer, flathead screwdriver, Phillips head, tape measure, pliers, channel locks, carpenter’s pencil, utility knife, socket wrench, putty knife, torpedo level, chalk line, nails and screws, needle-nose pliers. He wore an apron and a ballcap that read VAGINA—for Veterans Against Guns in North America, a group his father supported—plus leather work boots with double-tied laces.

Mrs. Tisdale stared at the cap for three beats, but said nothing.

She looks like she had her hair done by the same beautician who fixed Mary Tyler Moore’s hair on the Dick Van Dyke Show, Eugene thought.

A sullen boy appeared from behind Mrs. Tisdale, wearing flannel plaid pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that advertised Coco Joe’s Tiki Bar. He looked to be about fifteen, Eugene thought. His straight brown hair swooped down over his eyes. Eugene looked at his wristwatch and thought, No school today? He said to mother and son, I just go by Eugene, not Handyman Cripe.

The boy said, Handyman. Cripes!

Mrs. Tisdale led Eugene to the dining room table, where she’d set out the six relatively cheap and unremarkable single-cylinder knobsets. She said, We couldn’t even figure out how to open these hard plastic containers.

The boy said, Did you go to Handyman School or something? He swung his hair twice. Eugene wished he kept scissors in the toolbelt.

Mrs. Tisdale said, Why don’t you go back to your room and play one of your video games, Plyler.

Eugene said, I don’t mind. He thought, What the fuck kind of first name is Plyler? He thought, Someone ought to write a dissertation on rich people naming their children weird shit.

Plyler said, I already played. I won.

Eugene took out his utility knife and opened the six doorknob packs. Without looking up he said, What grade are you in, Plyler?

Plyler said, More than you went, probably.

It is just as little necessary for the pissant to be a misanthrope as for the misanthrope to be a pissant, Eugene thought. He thought, If I get this kid alone, and if I find his father’s golf clubs, I’ll bash his head. He thought, Don’t look for the golf clubs.

He said, Believe it or not, son, I went to college.

As soon as he said Son—he’d learned not to say such a thing during one of those required conferences—he knew he’d made a mistake.

I ain’t your son, said Plyler, bowing up.

Plyler, Mrs. Tisdale said. He didn’t mean anything. Hey, have you fed your fish yet?

Plyler didn’t answer. He stared at Eugene, who said, This shouldn’t take long.

Eugene thought, There’s a reason why I’ve never had children. He thought, Peter the Great killed his own son. He thought, Schopenhauer had no children.

How much would you charge per hour if I help you? Mrs. Tisdale asked.

Eugene learned how to answer such a question from his father: A hundred dollars an hour. He said, There’s an episode of the Andy Griffith Show wherein Barney’s cousin Virgil comes to visit. He can carve and fix anything, so long as no one watches him. I’m like that character. I work better completely alone.

Mrs. Tisdale didn’t offer water, or iced tea, or coffee. She looked blankly, and Eugene understood that she tried to grasp why he’d charge more with her help.

Eugene said, I’m bonded. I’m not going to steal anything from you. I’m not here to case the house. By the way, Virgil was played by Michael J. Pollard, who might be best known for his work in Bonnie and Clyde.

Mrs. Tisdale said, We have security cameras all over the place, which wasn’t true. Eugene recognized all the fake alarm system signs people bought nowadays, placed at the ends of driveways, near the front porch, on the roof.

He said, Seriously, if you got hurt—like if you accidentally stabbed yourself with the screwdriver—I’d be liable. I saw a case like that on Judge Judy, or the People’s Court, one time.

And then it occurred to Eugene that he spent too much time in front of the television. He realized that he knew some Schopenhauer, certainly, but also every thirty-minute program aired between the late 1950s until the present. He said to Mrs. Tisdale, It is just as little necessary for the TV addict to be a saint as for the saint to be a TV addict.

Hey, handyman, can you do sheetrock? Plyler yelled out from another room. Then Eugene heard what he understood to be a blunt object going through a wall. Then he turned his head toward the back door and, through the window, watched a man wearing knickers kick a golf ball onto the green. He thought, Well, free will, I guess.

Mrs. Tisdale yelled, Plyler, get back down here.

Hey, handyman, can you do anything with Venetian blinds? Plyler yelled, followed by the sound of plastic slats getting raked down manually.

I better go check on him. Come with me, Mrs. Tisdale said.

Plyler’s room was decorated with a number of anime posters and bands Eugene didn’t know. Twenty or so participation trophies lined his chest of drawers. He’d used one of them to stab into the sheetrock. Eugene said, I bet if we took down those posters, there’d be more holes in the wall. He thought about that movie with a prison escape.

Goddamn it, Plyler, said Mrs. Tisdale. Eugene noticed that, over the course of five seconds, her face aged and her hair lost that flip. She said to Eugene, Okay. I’ll pay a hundred dollars an hour to have Plyler help you.

Eugene wished he’d said three hundred. To Plyler she said, If you help Handyman Cripe, I’ll buy you two more video games.

Plyler said, Four.

Okay, four.

So Plyler followed Eugene door to door. He held out his hands to take screws, then he dropped them to the floor on purpose. He sang a death metal song that sounded like a large dog growling. He slid into a rap song, crossed his arms, made hand signs, said, How does it feel to be such a loser at your age?

Eugene didn’t make eye contact. He said, Hand me the knob.

I got your knob right here, Plyler said, grabbing his crotch.

Off somewhere in the house Eugene felt sure that he heard Mrs. Tisdale sobbing, talking to someone on the phone.

Eugene never said, If you were my boy. He didn’t say, Son, you have a lot of things to learn about life. He thought about spouting off, The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom, from Schopenhauer, but didn’t.

As he installed the last doorknob, Mrs. Tisdale appeared, her mascara blotted somewhat. She held a check in her hand. She said, These doorknobs came with only two keys apiece. Could you do me a favor and have another made for each lock? Where do people go to have keys made?

Handyman Eugene Cripe smiled. He looked at the check, which, sure enough, Mrs. Tisdale made out for two hundred dollars.

She said, I’ll have one, my husband will have one, and Plyler will have one.

Eugene nodded. Already he foresaw his going down to Piedmont Hardware and making two extra keys for each lock, so he’d have one also.