Doing it together can be a family affair. Billy: Precisely. A do-it-yourself project represents a way of building something together. Not just the project itself, but a foundation for living.
Gilly: Eloquently said, Billy.
Billy: In other words, it's a way of cementing your marriage.
Gilly: Ummm. Scraping paint side by side. Billy: Putting up wallpaper together.
Gilly: Pairing on the paneling. Billy: Laying tile in unison. Gilly: That does sound like fun.
Billy: When you're working together, you're building together.
Gilly: And that's the solid kind of value that results in a successful marriage.
MORTON EARBROW
Morton Earbrow waited for the sweat to dry. He lay on rancid sheets, too tired to pull off his boxer shorts and grope in the darkness for his pajamas. And there, in the dark, he could hear the clicking, the familiar clicking, the clicking which would continue until sleep dulled his senses.
"What time is it?" he called out. "What time is it anyway?"
"One-fifteen," his wife answered.
But the clicking didn't stop. The pattern of sound didn't even change. She was down at the foot of the stairs scraping paint. She was down there with her can of McBry's paint remover and a scraper. She was down there wearing rubber gloves. She was down there scraping paint and it was Saturday night.
"Why don't you quit for the night?" Morton asked.
"Quit now?" she said. Click-click-click. "When I'm almost finished? Few more minutes."
He knew the clicking would go on and he would fall asleep and in the morning Gloria, she of the golden hair and honeydew breasts, would be draped over the other side of the bed. She'd still be wearing slacks and sweatshirt, too exhausted to undress.
All this he knew, but he had to give it one more shot. Pulling his tortured body from the bed, straightening out his crippled body – crippled from having painted ceilings in eleven different rooms – he limped from the bedroom and down the stairs.
"Thought you were going to sleep," Gloria said, never turning her head from her work.
"Couldn't sleep," he said. "Gloria…."
"Mmmmm," she said.
He had nothing to say and they both knew it. He tried to deliver the message in another language, a language they had both understood so long ago. He put his arms around her waist and rubbed his weekend beard into the dampness of her sweatshirt. He raised his hands until they touched the honeydew melons that were her breasts.
"Morton! For God's sake!"
"For my sake, Gloria," he said. "It's been so long."
"Soon we'll be caught up," click, click, click. "Soon we'll be caught up with the house. Then we'll have the time."
"Soon is too late," he said. "Gloria…."
"Think of the house," she said, pointing her index finger at the woodwork that was finally showing through the layers of paint. "Think of what we're building, the home our children will have."
"Children," he said. "To have children you've got to……"
"Mor-ton." It was a warning.
He knew when he was defeated. He slunk back up the stairs, crawled into the rancid sheets, waited for sleep to hammer him into unconsciousness. As he sank, he cursed the old house they had purchased, the structure that was once the carriage house of a prominent American millionaire. He cursed the suburban community, cursed the neighbors, cursed the crabgrass, cursed the ceilings he had scraped and painted, cursed the Long Island Expressway and finally, just before going under, cursed the rancid sheets. He must remember to ask Gloria to change the sheets.
In the morning he was better. He was always better in the morning. The great ache in his groin was subdued and the stiffness in his muscles seemed gone. He wished he were older. He wished his recuperative powers were less good. If only he could be fifty and have the excuse of being tired. But no. He and Gloria were both twenty-five. They were able to work eighteen hours a day. They did.
Gloria had left a list on the bureau. "Mow the grass," the note said. "Prepare for fall seeding." Unquestioning, he pushed the old mower over the crabgrass. It was automatic labor and he welcomed it. For he was a dreamer, and he liked tasks that allowed his mind to wander. There were dreams of coolness and cleanliness, dreams of clean sheets and women fresh from hot showers, dreams of hands without blisters and breasts free of sweatshirts. He dreamed of air-conditioned apartments overlooking urban rivers, of stereo sets and soft lights. Horny was the word.
Gloria was deep in the bowels of the house, scraping paint that had been