"Yes?"
"You still owe me the twenty you borrowed for us to get married on."
"To get back to the subject," I said, "those children were really a handful, weren't they? Of course, they still go their own merry way, but compared to how they used to be—when Patricia was about six and Sharon three and Mike two..."
...those kids—our kids—Pat, Mike and Sharon. They took one long look at us as they entered the world, decided that we were no more than well-meaning imbeciles, and thenceforth paid us no heed whatsoever. As far as authority was concerned, one would have thought that they were the adults and we the children. They would have nothing to do with high chairs, sleeping cribs, toidy pots or the other impedimenta of infancy.
Each insisted on his own double bed. Each insisted on using the regular toilet, nor were they at all chagrined when, as frequently happened, they fell into it. High-chairs, milk, baby food—such was not for them. Before they could walk, they were sitting at the table; they demanded to so sit, backing up the demand with hunger strikes. Elevated by stacks of books, they wielded their long razor-sharp carving knives—each had his own pet blade. And while Alberta and I looked on in helpless horror, a whole ham or a nine-pound roast would disappear as though by magic.
They smoked my cigarettes. They appropriated my beer. They took full charge of our household, three firmly autonomous powers, and everything therein or around that household.
Pat, our eldest, and seemingly the least loony of the lot, gave us relatively little trouble. 'Relatively,' mind you. Pat seemed to have been born with a college professor's vocabulary, also a penchant for dramatics, and she used the first attribute to satisfy the second. Left alone with a telephone for five minutes, Pat became "Mrs. Thompson" or "Mrs. Thompson's social secretary." She would call store after store, ordering stuff that she wanted as theatrical props. And she was so damnably glib about it that she frequently obtained credit where Alberta and I ourselves had been turned down flat.
Mike, our youngest, was what I have always regarded as the most horrid of humans, the direct bane of humanity—a practical joker. Visitors to our house invariably found diapers stuffed into their hats, purses and the like. Diapers which looked much more unwholesome than they actually were. Like Pat, Mike had an artistic bent. Mixing dinner leftovers with mustard and mayonnaise, he achieved messes so hideously realistic as to deceive even his mother and me.
Sharon, our middle child, and the second oldest...Sharon. I could write a book about her—a dozen books. But being limited spacewise, perhaps I had better concentrate on her principal and most troublesome peculiarity.
Sharon collected, and ran a school for, wild animals.
Pushing a perambulator which we had bought during Patricia's infancy, and which she and our other kids had flatly declined to ride in, Sharon patrolled the alleys and byways, taking into custody the biggest, the ugliest cats and mongrels she could find. She loaded them into the buggy, dogs and cats together. And there was such a peculiar charm about her, such a fey-ish quality, that they never fought nor protested.
"You be dood," she would say, hoisting a bulldog in one arm and a tomcat in the other. "Be fwiends." Then, into the buggy they would go, and while they did not become friends, their behavior was impeccable.
When she had a full cargo, she wheeled them home and into the bathroom. She washed them there, bandaging any wounds they might have, then escorted them into the kitchen. Stuffed with several dollars' worth of groceries, they were next taken into the living room—her "school." And here, having seated them in a row, Sharon lectured them on personal hygiene, the importance of being "fwiends" and similar assorted subjects.
I don't know what the qualifications were for "graduation," but some classes met them very quickly, were dismissed within an hour or so, while others were held far into the night. In any event, no post-graduate work was required; and each day's student body was composed of a new group of animals.
Well, to get on with my story: with three kids like ours, a home of our own began to seem imperative. So, a few months before I left the writers' project, we moved into one. I didn't buy it outright, of course. As with the furniture—eight rooms of brand-new stuff—I made a substantial down payment and mortgaged my earnings into eternity for the balance. But with all my dread of debt, I felt that the move had been a wise one.
The house was a rambling, roomy tapestry-brick cottage, with an enormous back yard, a garage and servants' quarters. The price was incredibly cheap. It was so low, in fact, that I had been a little alarmed, feeling that there must be something seriously amiss. But I knew quite a bit about building, and even a very superficial investigation of the premises told me that this was first-rate construction. So, as I say, we bought it and moved in.
It was a happy time, that first afternoon in our own home. The kids were pleased with it, impressed with the new furniture. Pat promised to lay off the charge accounts. Mike agreed to forgo the diaper-and-mustard trick. Sharon...
"That child," Alberta sighed wearily. "One minute you see her, and the next one she's gone."
"Well," I said, "at least we know where she's gone. She took the perambulator with her."
"Well, go out and find her, for goodness sake! We've got a nice place now, and I want to keep it that way. Tell her—ask her—please not to...Now what are you grinning about, Mike?"
"Mike's grin widened. "Sha'n," he said. "Sha'n unner house."
'"What?"'
"Uh-huh. Unner house wif tats an' dogs."
It was true, we discovered by stamping on the floor. We went out into the yard, and Sharon presently emerged through the foundation air vent, covered with cobwebs and dirt and followed by her coterie of animals.
"Buds unner house," she explained placidly. "Otsa bad buds. Twied to dit wid of 'em."
Alberta said that of course there were bugs under the house, there were bugs under any house. "What I want you to get rid of," she said, "is those animals. And for heaven's sake get yourself cleaned up."
Sharon dismissed her class without protest; apparently their practical experience in "bud hunting" had earned them a diploma. We were about to reenter the house when Pat yiped suddenly, slapped a four-inch centipede from her neck, and took a hearty swing at Mike.
"Doggone little brat! I'll teach you to put spiders on me!"
"Did not." Mike kicked her on the shin, his face puckered indignantly. "Don't wike buds."
"Tol' you," said Sharon. "Buds unner house. Inna house. All over everywhere."
"Well, they probably are now," said Alberta grimly. "You dragged them all out with you. Now, get cleaned up and stay out of trouble for a few minutes!"
We dragged Mike and Pat into the house and locked them in separate rooms. With Sharon occupied in the bathroom. Alberta and I began preparing dinner.
All was peace for a time, while Alberta pounded the steak and I peeled potatoes. Then, abruptly, she too let out a yipe, and dropped the frying pan she was holding to the floor.
"Jimmie! L-look at that!"
I looked. And my skin crawled. For a small army of centipedes was oozing up from the stove, dropping down from its sides and slithering over the floor.
I got rid of them, stomped on every one in sight. But Alberta remained shuddery and nervous. Probably, she admitted, a thing like this was to be expected in a house long unoccupied; but couldn't we have a cold dinner tonight?
I said we could, naturally, and drove to a nearby delicatessen. When I returned some thirty minutes later, she and the kids were all out in the front yard. And all were squirming and scratching uneasily.
"Jimmie," said Alberta desperately, "we just can't stay in there! The place is literally crawling. The beds and the chairs and the tables and—and they're even in the refrigerator! The more we move around the worse they seem to get."
"Oh, now," I said, "surely they can't be that bad. We'll all get busy killing them, and—"
"Well, they 'are' that bad, and the centipedes are only part of it. That house is just absolutely alive with bedbugs, millions of 'em! You can't even sit down in a chair without getting all bitten up."
Well, I investigated personally, and found that she had not exaggerated the situation. Every stick of our brand-new furniture was infested. Just looking at it closely, at the swarms of ugly brown bugs, made me itch from scalp to toes. I could think of only one explanation, that they must have been in the furnishings when we bought them.
Since it was not yet six o'clock, I called the manager of the furniture store and told him what had happened. Or, I should say, what I believed had happened. He sputtered indignantly.
Vermin in the great B—furniture store? Incredible! Outrageous! "I think it much more likely, Mr. Thompson, that—"
"You made the delivery from your warehouse," I said. "Probably they were in there. Some of the second-hand furniture you handle was infested, and they got from it onto mine."
"B-but—" he hesitated uncertainly, "but all our secondhand items are thoroughly fumigated before storing! It's one of our strictest rules. I'm sure that none of our workmen would ever be so remiss as to—"
"Let's face it," I said. "I've had this furniture barely three hours, and it's damned near jumping with bugs. It couldn't have got that way out here, so they must have been in it all along. It's the only plausible explanation."
"Well—" he coughed uncomfortably—"if we are at fault, and it seems we must be..."
"Get the stuff out of here," I said. "Get it out tonight, and replace it with new. And for God's sake look it over good before you deliver it."
"Yes, yes," he said hastily. "But—uh—tonight, Mr. Thompson. I'm not sure that we can—"
"You'd better," I told him. "You won't get another penny out of me unless you do, and I'll sue you besides."
He surrendered, mumbling apologetically. Within less than two hours the buggy furniture had been removed and replacements installed. The family and I examined them carefully. Satisfied that they were bug-less, we ate our long-delayed dinner and retired.
I can't say which of us hollered first, who was the first to leap scratching and clawing from his bed. The insect attack seemed to have been launched on all of us simultaneously, and we reacted en masse.
Cautiously, our hides smarting with welts, we reexamined the furniture. Only Sharon seemed unsurprised at the result.
"Tol' you," she said placidly. "Buds unner house, inna house. Wiv wight inna bwicks an' wood."
Alberta and I looked at her, looked worriedly at each other. "Jimmie, do you suppose—I mean, could it be that way?"
"I don't know," I said. "But I'll sure as hell find out."
I called the real estate dealer who had sold me the place. He was completely blunt and unapologetic.
"I sold you that house as is, Mr. Thompson, remember? If you don't remember, you'll find the fact stated clearly in your sales agreement."
"Then you knew it was like this?" I said. "You deliberately and knowingly—"
"As is, Thompson. There were no guarantees. It's your house...as long as you make your payments. The bugs are your problem, not mine."
He slammed up the telephone. I tried to call him back and got no answer. Cursing, I called an insect exterminator who advertised night service.
It would cost several hundred dollars, I supposed, to get a house this size renovated. But if I didn't spend it—and, offhand, I didn't know where in the hell I could get it—I would lose everything I had invested.
The owner of the exterminating company answered my call. He promised to send some men out right away, and then he broke off abruptly and asked me to repeat the address.
I repeated it.
"Oh, oh," he said, softly. "Mister, you are stuck."
"How do you mean?" I said. "How do you know when you haven't even—"
"I've been out there. Been there twice in the last year, and the job looked worse the second time than it did the first. For one thing, that house is built right on top of a centipede city—a big colony—and God only knows how far and how deep it extends. And them bedbugs, now; when they get dug in like they are, you've practically got to take a place apart to get 'em...I'm not saying that the job can't be done, understand. It could be, but—"
"Yes?"
"It would cost you more than the place is worth."
I hung up.
Pretty drearily, we shook out our blankets and bedded down in the backyard.
For a week after that, until I could scrape up the money for an apartment, we camped out there, cooking over an open fire and sleeping on the ground.
With so much space available, Sharon enlarged her animal classes and Pat staged theatrical spectacles and Mike's practical joking expanded to ultra-hideous proportions. In a word, the kids loved every minute of it, and we were only able to get them to move with threats of flagellation and promises of expensive treats.
As for Alberta and me, with a small fortune in savings and borrowings gone down the drain, the less said about our feelings the better.
Pop, Mom and Freddie settled in Oklahoma City about a year after my return. Freddie got a cashier's job and Mom found part-time work as a saleswoman. Pop also got a job, but he held it briefly. It was menial and monotonous. He could not, willing as he was, give it the necessary attention. He became increasingly absent-minded, retreating into the memories of better days, and his employers fired him.
Poor as the job had been, its loss was a severe blow to Pop's morale. He felt useless and cast aside, and his distress saddened and worried me as nothing else could. As boy and youth, it had been impressed upon me that I fell far short of Pop's standards. He was always kindly, but I was obviously not the son he had hoped for. Well, that was past, and I could do nothing about it. But I felt now that I had to do something to lift him out of his despondency. Help given now, when no one else could give it, would do much to offset my failings of the past.