HOUSE WAR

HAL

She threw everything out.

Hal stared at his basement.

His empty basement.

The fuck...

Apparently, Hannah, his wife, had performed a late Spring cleaning while he was away for work. In fact, it was less a cleaning and more of a scouring. Hal’s subterranean refuge was once overflowing with stuff--his stuff, his things, his glorious shit--but was now so clean as to be thought the scene of a murder. The very absence was evidence of the crime. It was premeditated. It was to cause inestimable harm.

She came down here and absorbed it all like a black hole.

That’s too fucking generous. There’s no knowing what’s at the center of a black hole and scientists may still find a heart on the other side after all.

Like he needed this now. His job was kicking his ass, his kids were kicking what was left, and the heat was already so heavy--so fucking heavy--he felt like he was still in Florida, but in August. Or any month for that matter--fuck Florida. Fucking runoff state. Honestly, it’s where all the sweat of the nation pours out into the Gulf and kills everything for miles out to sea. Hal’s hatred of Florida ran deep and could not be explained away by his current mood. It was just always there.

What the fuck happened?

Spring had gone well enough for the family--he thought--and Summer was just around the river bend, but Hal knew it, knew it in his bones it was going too well, that in truth it was going to descend into a disaster, into despair, into the destruction of something of his. He felt it. I fucking felt it.

Why didn’t he stay home? If he had, he might have talked some sense into her, found out what was the matter, and at least pretended to understand so that she wouldn’t drop a thermonuclear warhead in the heart of the household, vaporizing a man’s life in the process.

She threw everything out.

Hal didn’t have to take one more step in to know that it was all gone, that she hadn’t left a trace, that not one molecule of his concrete past was left for searching out, that she did it to send a message.

What fucking message?

What did he do? What did he ever do?

Hal pondered.

Did she want him to leave? If so, this was the most aggressive passive-aggressive boot out the door he could think of. It was a wholesale erasure of his place, his position, his station in this house—this world even. He kept everything below, nothing above. Above was for sleeping, eating, shitting, and entertaining whatever douche-bags were invited that week. Below was for him.

For him.

Shit. She threw out things he hadn’t even remembered he had but knew he wanted to keep, and now he would never know what those things were. You always keep those things, right? For Hal, it was like growing up with a blanket from when he was a toddler, one that he kept tucked out of sight for the embarrassment it might bring, but shit he’d have words with any asshat who said that he was too old for that kind of thing.

The hell with them. The hell with all of ‘em. Hal bet that if you went through their closets you’d find a thing or two, skeletons and odd whack-job things no one wants anyone to know about, but, in fact, might make them the least bit interesting. Or just really creepy.

She threw everything out.

For Hal, knowing that old stuff was there was part of his foundation, a tangible, visitable nostalgia he could call upon in case the day went to hell and he felt like decking the drive-thru clerk or setting his neighbor’s house on fire.

But he didn’t. He doesn’t, and millions of other men like him don’t, because there it is, right there, waiting to be held:

Old movies--VHS, DVD, hell even blu-rays were relics now. It didn’t even matter what movie it was or who was in it. There was comfort in the idea of a movie holding a place and time when you first saw it.

Worn posters--rock and rap, basketball and baseball, Pamela and Heidi, Hadid and Kardashian. He knew it was juvenile, but what else did a man have in his forties?

Ancient albums--Zeppelin, The Stones, Prince, Green Day, Stone Temple Pilots, and that one New Kids On The Block cassette no guy worth his man salt would admit he bought, but each of them knew the other had in their possession. It was never said, simply an unsaid agreement to never speak of such things. In fact, most agreements between men were unspoken as they were considered natural, encoded in DNA, and immutable throughout time.

Then there was that stack of comics he hadn’t cracked open in fifteen years, but he knew every word and every panel and if he wanted to start digging his very own excavation into the depths of the basement of 33 Broadway East it would all be there to talk him down, soothe him, remind him that he didn’t want to lose any of this. Whatever it is, let it pass. It’s not worth it.

If he was being honest, basements like his, man-caves, bar hangouts, biker gangs, race tracks, gun ranges, and all those subterranean dives of sweat, beer, cursing, and masturbatory celebration of a shared manliness that was both as indefinable and shallow as a kid’s inflatable pool. They were a kind of psychological insurance that probably saved the country billions a year in damages from potential maniacs from tearing it all down. Without such a refuge, a hundred million men might be set loose upon the nation, looting and pillaging their own country with wild abandon, only to return home in a daze wondering who the fuck burnt the neighborhood down.

It didn’t matter if anyone understood that or not. It was a civic duty, more vital than taxes, and more effective than law enforcement.

But now?

It’s all fucking gone.

It should then go to reason that if Hal were to go off the handle, if he were to, say, lose control of his higher brain functions and tap into a more primal state of being it wouldn’t be his fault. There has been an obvious and unrepentant breach of security; a robbery has taken place and though he may not be able to call the cops on her, she has broken a sacred law and would need to face justice.

He was caught in the fantasy of such justice when he heard the front door open and a familiar voice called out to him. “Hal, you here? Are you home?”

She threw everything out.