nesting instinct

Jerry’s house has many rooms. 

He must have had a family once, and the memory of them crowding in on all sides is at least a minor factor in his new house’s relentless minimalism; whoever his relatives might have been they’re figures on the periphery now, the memory of old faces. He has no sentimentality for any of the places that might be generously described as the old country – soot-smeared shacks and shivering stone hallways, never enough air, never enough to eat. He was a sailor once, and left a girl behind him, but he doesn’t remember her face. He was a sailor once, and only remembers the escape: the dark sea, the stands of trees, black wood and myrtle, caves along the shoreline and the dark wet earth crumbling.

He is a long way from the sea now – a castle in the desert, an island of lonely women. There’s always a hole to fit into – missing husbands, missing sons, missing fathers, unattended girls by neon light, children running stray – and him, ancient and alone, ready to drink up their pain.

Jerry is setting down roots. There is a hole beneath his house big enough for a hundred bodies, a thousand if they don’t mind getting friendly with one another. Foundation problems, he’d said, and the realtor next door believed it – tearing up the earth, pouring in concrete, scouring out unnecessary things. They lie buried for later, buried and waiting, until their number approaches critical mass. There’ll be other houses before long. It’s a buyer’s market – buy now, when people still talk about you know, the recession as if it compares to famine, or fire, or war. Dig. Hunt. The rest of the empty houses will fill up in time.

Deep below the earth, and he’ll keep digging – past electrical cables and water mains, down to the bedrock and deeper. Atomic earth, salted with radiation. The Cold War taste is noticeable, sunk like a cancer into locals’ bones and settling like dust on newcomers – but people come and go from Las Vegas all the time, following work or looking for love. Lonesome strippers, suit-and-tie types, various easy marks for fun and profit. Now he’s retreated to the clean new peripheral edge of the city, and found a place for himself in the desert bosom of Clark County. It’s here he’ll foster up his own sons and daughters. Lovers, friends, reinforcements.