The Window Is a Mirror
Add to Wishlist
The Window Is a Mirror

The Window Is a Mirror

by Michael Andreoni

Overview

In gritty, penetrating prose, the short stories in THE WINDOW IS A MIRROR deftly mine both working-class and privileged sensibility to extract common elements. Characters of varying social strata are subjected to merciless scrutiny as they pursue prizes of dubious value, heedless of cost. Whether or not they get what they want is the least of their problems. In the end their disparate futilities mix them into a single tribe that looks like us.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781948540384
Publisher: BHC Press
Publication date: 03/05/2019
Pages: 184
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

For nearly ten years Michael Andreoni lived as an itinerant farm laborer throughout Michigan. At times residing in barns, he nevertheless dreamt of a larger destiny, and behold! He became a janitorial contractor. Twenty years later he began writing. No one knows why. Instructed to write what you know, he found that tricky indeed when you're a janitorial contractor. Better, he thought, to write something up-market, with highly educated characters habitually sore from working out with their personal trainers. He is convinced he will someday accomplish such a story. Until then he writes the life he knows.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

STUMP

* * *

THE KEFTS were on the right, and their windows documented everything. On the other side Craig and Jada Appelton practically lived on their deck, smirking into lemonades as he, Gordon Ing, finance guy, city lover, chopped tree roots outside his new house in this wasteland between city and country. The horrible compromise Sheri stuck him with.

Which was unfair both to him and her, but marital compromises ran that way, and now he had this three-foot-wide sprouting stump Craig Appelton called a birch, as though defining it revealed anything useful. Too bad no one said anything useful back in May before Gordon felled the overgrown tree with the brand-new $400 chainsaw he'd never in his life desired. Less than a month later the stump rose again like an arboreal vampire. A foot-long tangle of green shoots waved from the top. He cut them off — they came back thicker. "Don't you know birch regenerate?" Ed Keft shouted from his lawn tractor, rumbling past on his weekly ten-minute conquest of the one-sixteenth-acre Keft Estate.

The stump grinder guy (what did a stump grinder look like?) said no. The utility lines were buried too close. If he called Miss Dig, maybe then, though only if Gordon agreed to pay extra, because it was more time getting the equipment in and out when the houses were so close together, and I'm really busy right now, the guy said, and it's a big stump, and, and, and finally, and. Gordon already had paid what he considered a ridiculous amount to have the tree carcass hauled away, so the first lost summer Saturday had been framed by shelling out for an axe, two shovels, a pair of heavy gloves, plus something that looked like a pick but was called a mattock.

"Do you want me to help?" Sheri offered when he came in before lunch to lie on the couch and rest his aching back. She hit exactly the same tone as the two previous Saturdays, leaning against the wingback, watching him with both hands supporting that enormous belly. Gordon flipped onto his side with his face pressed into the back cushions to consider if this was her reproach. He could just imagine the neighbors getting an eyeful of very pregnant Sheri ponderously clambering down the hole he'd excavated around the stump.

* * *

THE PRINCIPAL lesson Gordon had taken from a big-city internship was the importance of scale. Big-city banks were bigger. The happy harvest of that simple datum — the larger salaries — was chaff under Sheri's feet. Nothing in their marriage had so shocked Gordon as her pronouncing "We're not raising kids in the city" in the midtown cafe he remembered as the last place they had eaten good bread. It was as though she saw no connection between his assistant vice presidency at tiny Redfield Savings and the gooey tuna salad on supermarket squish-bread sandwiches they chewed for lunch. Linoleum floor tract homes on postage stamp lots had not figured in their discussions of the future. The assumption he had once thought mutual, of artisanal foods, a nanny, and the ability to hire any service needed, now belonged to another couple.

He began digging in June. By mid-August the stump was almost completely undermined yet wouldn't budge. Ed Keft came over on his tractor dragging a chain one Saturday, and Craig and Jada Appelton descended from their deck to shout encouragement as he spun his wheels smoking hot. The irresistible whine of tortured machinery drew neighbors from up and down the street, prompting Sheri to tote out their entire supply of discount Merlot. Everyone stood around marveling at how tenaciously this hunk of wood and root clung to its native soil. They held paper cups bled through with purple stigmata, spoke of gorgeous weather, the ruinous cost of swim camp — kids whooped through the maze of adults ringing the stump. Gordon periodically snuck in the house to nip from the bottle of Absolut which clung less tenaciously to its native shelf in the freezer.

Later on, he jumped into the hole to pantomime painful weekends severing roots and trenching. Explosions of mirth greeted his demonstration of the disinterment and subsequent escape from a nest of stinging ants. He'd never been funnier, except the laughter quickly became cloying; the sun and the booze had given him a headache. "I'm sick of it," he said, gesturing at the stump, but he was a little drunk, and his hand betrayed him in encompassing the neighbors, Sheri, their unborn child, and all the little houses in their open-plan development.

A root plunged deep under the house out to the street. It went left at the stop sign and ran a hundred miles alongside the Amtrak Commuter into the city. Gordon never found out where it ended because the Appeltons appeared with Ed Keft in tow. They were grossly pregnant and floated just above his nose, chanting, Nobody put a gun to your head. He woke sweating an acrid vodka redistillation that had Sheri shifting uncomfortably until her belly pronged him.

And that, whatever else had been cut away, still left him a stump on another tinny tuna Saturday. He sat hunched over the new secondhand kitchen table, watching Sheri load leftovers into a plastic container. "Plenty left for dinner," he could almost hear her thinking, but more to the point, could he imagine anyone worse than him? The cards dealt, the game just beginning, and he was ready to cash out. "Are you going back out to work?" she asked. He instantly calculated in the cant of her eyes, the set of her jaw, if she meant it as a test. But the dishrag was in her hand. She wanted to wipe the table.

"I suppose I must." A forearm hid his face in classic imitation of an overemoting actor. He got the voice just right: the patient acquiesces to another unpromising biopsy. Sheri tittered obligingly while decrumbing, and Gordon slipped out to consider the plan of attack. Craig Appelton had dropped a word at the "party" as though bestowing a magic talisman. Taproot: A large root running straight down from the middle. Cut that and the stump would roll over and die, ol' Craig promised. Crouched on all fours with his head pressed into the dirt — Gordon could see it, gnarled and thick, yet oddly vulnerable with the other roots and the dirt removed. This was the secret heart exposed. This was the mouse squirming in the trap. He choked up on the axe, tapped the root as a test. It was tough, though just another root after all. A dozen strokes would kill it.

He already thought of it in past tense. A hunk of wood weighing three, maybe four hundred pounds, needed to be disposed of. Gordon was pretty sure the Tuesday trash service wouldn't take it, even if he got Ed and Craig to help with humping it from the backyard out to the street. The dirt pile as tall as him needed shifting back, smoothing, grass seeding — Christ, and watering every day. Gordon sat on the stump and had a look at his house and yard. It was indistinguishable from any other in the complex but for the stump. That they could end up staying here long enough to raise children seemed weirdly possible. That he might die in this house, with this tiny yard, was awful.

* * *

THE TRICKY part was grading the dirt around the mound so the lawn mower could roll over it cleanly. He'd get enough jokes from the neighbors about his "hill" without the added embarrassment of scalping the grass. Late afternoon thunderclouds were massing by the time Gordon called it finished. The rake fell from his hand as he collapsed onto the mound. He saw lightning scythe a promise to the seed buried under him. The grass would soon cover the bare mound, and maybe something buried deeper would sprout with it.

He'd mow it down every week, the grass, and the other. All the hopeful little shoots poking up in search of larger destinies, for years, decades — Gordon felt he could bear it for as long as the stump remained rooted. It, he, would abide, and do everything expected, until he appeared as featureless as the houses.

Fat drops smacked the mound with the pop of a boxer punching a bag. The soil darkened under questing trickles that quickened the grass seed before sinking deeper. Gordon got up to a thunderous fanfare just in time to see the rain drive Craig Appelton off his deck. He smiled and wondered if ol' Craig had a secret like him. Maybe everyone in every house had a secret, and that's how you did it, day by day, that's how you slept at night, with your backyard dreams buried deep.

Sheri was bent over the bed folding laundry when he came in to strip off his filthy clothes. She straightened carefully. Her weary smile was a hundred miles off. "Did you finish your project?"

He traveled at least that far in kissing her. "No more stump."

She passed him something from the basket, an impossibly small white top trimmed in pink. Her smile came closer, turned impish. "Just in time."

Rain promised the roof while they folded and stacked.

CHAPTER 2

THE WIND IS A MIRROR

* * *

FIRST THING Monday, Chessie — that's really her stupid name — says get upstairs and check the windows in 403. I tell her get real. Those windows are new, and I should know because I did the work since this cheap-ass company wouldn't pop for installation. She gives me the look she's so good at, that "I went to community college while you didn't make it through high school, so shut the fuck up" look, and asks if I'm happy with my raise. I have to say no ma'am, I am not happy with 1 percent, and Shelley, my wife, who's on her feet ten hours a night pushing drinks at Asia City, is also not happy, and let's not forget Melissa, who barely sees Mom and Dad and didn't get the bike she wanted for her birthday. She's definitely not happy.

I don't know. It's like I'm a mime. My mouth opens and closes, I flap my arms, but nobody understands. Boss-bitch shakes her head while shoving the work order over the counter. Maybe the raise had something to do with your attitude, she lays on me like I never heard that before. Maybe your attitude toward cheese had something to do with your weight problem, fat-ass, I'm dying to give her, except my performance review wasn't the best. Why the fuck are there four grades if they're only going to check "Must Improve?" Anyway, I clamp the work order on the clipboard and get out of the office before she takes back my stinking 1 percent.

The thing I learned about working maintenance at luxury apartments is you need lip implants to fit in all the asses. We got PhDs who can't figure out how to change a halogen. I guess they need a grant for that, but it's easier emailing Chessie to send over the monkey. Crown Heights Apartments, Inc. loves putting you through webinars on kissing up to the tenants. I leave early. Let them try Angie's List if they want somebody's tongue up the tenants' crack. I'm raising a kid on $11.62 an hour and the tips Shelley promotes by leaning over the bar in a low-cut top. They're lucky I'm not taking hostages.

So, up to the fourth floor with my steel box of tricks. Ring the buzzer; ring it twice, three, four times. Not a peep from the other side of the door. Check the work order in case the tenant gave the OK to enter with a master key. Nada. I write "No Response" all over the order because Chessie doesn't like it. Eight twenty in the morning and one job already completed. That's a good start on a shitty, wet, fall Monday after the weekend separated me from part of the rent money when the Lions won a game everyone said they couldn't.

Halfway down the hall to the elevator, and here's what I should have done when I heard the door open ... what the hell, everyone knows what the idiot in a story like this should have done. Thing is, if I hadn't turned around and gone back, the tenant could have complained to the office, and there's idiot me, Danny Girolomo, getting written up again for poor attitude.

This little shit with a scraggly beard is waiting in the doorway. Even worse, he's looking at me, making eye contact. He's not staring into his iPhone, or whatever screen scraggle-beards are staring into this week. Months go by without a tenant looking at me. A woman answered the door last Thursday with a kid hanging on her, a Rottweiler's ugly snout pushing between her legs trying to get me — and her eyes were stuck to a screen. I held up the toilet plunger and got a grunt that could have been from the dog.

This is bad. They only see you when you fuck up. I'm already figuring what to say if his windows fell out of the frames. Telling a tenant I'm not licensed on window replacement is the same as begging the company to fire me. The factory! That's it. The factory fucked up and delivered defective windows. No problem, sir, I'll replace them immediately, and no, really, you don't need to call Chessie. I'll take care of that.

The bastard's smiling like he already knows everything. I give him my wage-slave grin even if I am scared. I need this job that doesn't pay anything or my kid's never getting that bike. Maybe it's not as bad as I think.

"You're Danny?"

Oh man, he's already got my name. "Yes, sir. I have an order here ... problem with your windows?"

"Come on in. Would you like something to drink ... some tea?"

Tea. I'm working this job two years. Nobody ever asked if I want tea. I check him out for real — black shirt with a gold dragon flying across the chest, tight jeans nobody could do any work in. He's around my age except my hair is already going gray and his is still black. Christ, I hate everyone with money. He must be new here because I don't remember him from the window job.

"Sure. Whatever you got."

"Go on through and make yourself comfortable."

He disappears down a hall. Sitting in a tenant's apartment is against company policy, but screw it, I have to know how pissed he is about the windows. I go left from the entry into what the company calls the great room and what Shelley and I call the TV room, living room, screaming at each other when the rent's late while Melissa tries to do homework room, in our three-room love nest. I open the blinds — officially, I'm supposed to say window treatments — and damn, the windows are OK, so I take a peek at what he's done with the place. It's way up there with the dream house shows on TV. Marble floor, crown moldings, granite fireplace, twenty-foot ceiling, the whole ruling- class thing going on. There's a giant leather couch that looks like it cost more than my whole apartment building. Feels like it too.

Dragon boy pops in with two bottles of something yellow. "Here you go." He smiles and swigs.

"Thanks," I give him back and do the same. Holy fucking shit. I get it swallowed only because he's watching. It's piss in a bottle. I read the label. "Kom ... boo ..."

"Kombucha tea with goji berry juice." Dragon piss boy swigs again. "I buy the Kombucha and add a little goji. It's full of antioxidants."

He's actually proud of it. "Really ... good." I gurgle through the gallon of spit trying to bust out of my mouth. The price tag on the bottle says six — fuck me — fifty. I hate him for making me say I like expensive piss.

"I'm Phil," he says, holding his hand out. That's another first — me shaking a tenant's hand. "I just moved in."

The damn webinars are always spouting how we're representatives for Crown Heights with the community members, so all right — "We're really happy to have you. How's everything going?"

He runs a finger along the arm of the couch with a little smile. "This place is definitely rockin' it. I came from New York. Amazing how far your money goes in Michigan."

Yeah, that's a friendly little service we've been providing rich fucks since the last recession. "That's great," I give him, because what else is there to say? "So, what's going on with your windows?"

Dragon boy gets comfy in a nifty twisted-metal chair. He gives me this look. Shit, here it comes, but he only looks, and after a while, he smiles. No way I'm saying any more until he does, so I smile too, and we're smiling like long-lost brothers reunited after winning the Powerball jackpot.

"Do you know you're a perfect type?" he says after another swig of yellow death.

No idea what he's babbling. I nod like when I'm going around the guy who sleeps in the alley behind my apartment and is always screaming, "The snakes! The snakes!"

"Yeah, I get that from everyone."

"Do you?" He leans toward me, eyes all shiny. "It's really true! I've been noticing you around the building since I moved in. Danny, you own maintenance man."

All right, he's gay. I get it. No problems with that. I never did a guy, but if there's any money involved ... maybe Daddy makes the rent plus Melissa gets a mountain bike.

"Thanks. I aim to be professional."

"You're way beyond professional, Danny. You're perfect."

He leans back in the chair as if it's my turn to say something nice to him. I just look at the patterns in the marble floor. Things are moving a little fast. I'm not real clear about the mechanics of boy- on-boy. It feels like my first week of Intro to Boiler Maintenance. The great thing about that class was by week three the instructor was telling everyone I'm a natural. This is probably the same thing. I'll start out slow ... maybe say I like the beard —

(Continues…)

Excerpted from "The Window is a Mirror"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Michael Andreoni.
Excerpted by permission of BHC Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

  1. Stump
  2. The Window Is a Mirror
  3. Edwin Floating
  4. Drambuie Tam
  5. Julian’s Crunchy Apotheosis
  6. Pastoral
  7. Possum Haw
  8. Moving Day
  9. Brown Black No Ink
  10. The Devil-Ape of Goma
  11. Consolidated Freight
  12. Fifteen Tops
  13. Soft Power
  14. The Symmetry of Children
  15. Tea Party
  16. The Approach to the Bridge

Customer Reviews