Page 64 of On Fire Island
“Thanks, honey.”
Andie begrudgingly got up and headed downstairs, surprised to see that the door was indeed wide open. She shut it and turned to see a light coming from the kitchen. She thought she had closed up before they went to bed, but they hadn’t partied like that since before Pam was pregnant, so she wasn’t really sure.
A large, dark-haired man with a crew cut (the complete opposite of Goldilocks) stood at the sink washing his hands. He reached up and dried them on Pam’s new curtains. Just last week Andie had splattered grease on them and Pam had threatened divorce.
“Oh no, not the curtains,” Andie pleaded, with little thought.
“Who the hell are you?” the man shouted, grinding his teeth as if he were strung out on drugs. Andie wasn’t as afraid as she should have been. Looks and attitude aside, she was still assuming it was the Goldilocks Interloper, who had been billed more as a menace than a threat.
“This is my house,” Andie answered.
“This ismyhouse,” the seemingly strung-out man insisted.
Andie, still not afraid, tried reason.
“Listen, it’s dark out, and raining. You got the wrong house, bud.”
The stranger sat down at the kitchen table. Andie grabbed a box of cookies from the cabinet and handed them to him.
“Take these if you’re hungry.”
With a somewhat appreciative look, the man took the box, before mumbling something resembling, “Thank you, OK, bye.”
Relief flooded Andie’s face. She exhaled and waited for the intruder to stand up and leave. But the man looked up from his chair and yelled.
“I said BYE!”
She was now officially afraid. She ran out of the kitchen and back upstairs as the man rested his head on the table.
“Call nine-one-one, call nine-one-one! There’s a man in the kitchen. He’s very angry. He thinks this is his house.”
“Is it the Goldilocks Interloper? What a misleading name.”
“Well he didn’t name himself—just call nine-one-one!”
She left, closing the door behind her, and headed back down to monitor the guy. A quick peek in the kitchen revealed that the uninvited guest was still resting his head on the table. Upstairs, Pam was having a hell of a time on the phone with the police.
“There is no house number. It’s two houses in from Midway. On ‘A’ street, please hurry. No, not the Blancs’ house, closer toward the bay, not the beach.”
It wasn’t uncommon, even for the authorities, to have no idea which house you were referring to. Every attempt at directions came with confusing descriptions of flowerpots and door colors and third-house-from-the-left or the right or nearer to the beach or to the bay. There’s a bizarre house numbering system in that there is none. People would walk up to my house weekly asking for some person or another who didn’t live there.
Andie returned as Pam hung up the phone.
“Are they coming?”
“I hope. They seem so confused.”
“Then call Bay Harbor Security, call the Ocean Beach Police,keep calling till someone comes. I think this guy is on something—and it’s not porridge.”
She ran back down to the kitchen, where the man was still sitting at the table, now rocking.
This time, he saw Andie and bolted from his seat, yelling, “I told you to get out of my house!”
“I told you, this is my house—it’s time for you to leave, before this turns into something.”
The man stood right up to Andie. “It’s time foryouto leave, before this turns into something.”
“I’ll give you a minute,” she managed, as she slowly backed out of the kitchen. She opened the front door all the way, turned on every light, and ran back up the stairs. Pam was now on the phone with Bay Harbor Security. Andie grabbed it.
