“In fact,” Teddy said, “studies have shown Americans put in longer hours than anybody and take fewer vacations.”
“I don’t see how that can be true,” Mickey replied. “Half the people I know are on disability and don’t work at all. The other half are musicians. Anyway, no work this evening, either one of you. Tonight we eat barbecue, drink beer and listen to rock and roll played at a very high volume.”
After he left, Teddy had a long shower, then put on fresh jeans and a T-shirt and took his manuscript back out onto the deck. He realized after marking up a few pages that they’d actually captured his interest, and rereading the ones he’d edited on the ferry yesterday he found that they, too, were better than he remembered. Which maybe shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He knew from experience that in the run-up to his spells, his judgment was dubious. Food he normally enjoyed tasted off. Movies seemed vacuous, music grating. Was it possible that confiding in Theresa had somehow forestalled the attack he’d assumed was right around the corner? Had the truth set him free? Could a truism really be true?
His phone vibrated, Lincoln texting back: Make America White Again? See you soon. Teddy smiled. Though Lincoln was a lifelong Republican, their politics probably aligned more closely now than ever before, though in the voting booth they’d likely tick their preferred boxes.
At some point, working on the manuscript with renewed interest, he became aware of loud voices down at Troyer’s place. An argument between him and the perpetually naked girlfriend was his first thought, but no, unless he was mistaken, both voices were male. An old gray pickup truck that hadn’t been there before now sat in the drive.
* * *
—
THROUGHOUT THE WOOLLY, disjointed narrative there was a flapping sound, like wings, that Teddy couldn’t account for. Identifying its source seemed urgent, though he couldn’t imagine why it should be. Hearing heavy, actual footfalls on the stairs, he swam toward consciousness, grateful it was only a dream and he could stop trying to figure out what was flapping. Rotating in his deck chair, he started to apologize to Lincoln for napping in the middle of the afternoon when he saw that the man lumbering up the steps was instead a beefy, red-faced guy wearing cargo shorts, flip-flops and no shirt. From the top step, Troyer cocked his head and squinted at him for a long, insolent beat and then, pleased with himself, said, “I remember you,” as if by doing so he’d qualified for a prize.
The gentle breeze that had sprung up before Teddy drifted off had apparently strengthened while he dozed, and a sheet of manuscript magically leaped out of its cardboard box and took flight—the sound of it identical to the one in his dream. Troyer, who could’ve snatched the page floating by, watched it sail past, unconcerned. And Teddy, rising from his chair, saw to his horror that the deck was littered with sheets of manuscript. So, less densely, was the sloping lawn below. The box, nearly full when he’d fallen asleep, was now half empty.
“I’d help you chase those all over Chilmark,” Troyer told him, “if I wanted to look like an idiot.”
Because he had another copy of the manuscript back home, Teddy himself was momentarily inclined to let those pages go. Chasing them around the yard, as Troyer looked on, would be humiliating. Unfortunately, many of them had been edited, and to do it all over again would take more hours than Teddy wanted to count up, so off he raced. On the lawn below he found himself in a Charlie Chaplin movie. Every time he bent over to pick up a page, it danced away on a fresh gust. “This is wonderful!” Troyer called from the deck. He was, Teddy saw, filming the whole thing with his phone.
Give the man this much credit, though. By the time Teddy returned to the deck, having recaptured maybe seventy-five pages of text, Troyer had picked up the ones lying on the floor and put them back in the cardboard box and secured them with a stone. He was now stretched out on the chaise lounge, reading a page Teddy had just edited and chortling nastily. “You wrote this?”
“No,” Teddy said, holding out his hand for it.
“Thank Christ,” Troyer said, passing him the page. “I mean, how bored would a man have to be to commit