Real Estate in New Jersey

Abstract

REAL ESTATE IN NEW JERSEY / David R. Schanker IT WAS A FRIDAY NIGHT at the end of August, a mild night without a trace of humidity. There was not a breeze to be felt, and it could almost be said that it was a night without temperature, so still and comfortable was the air. A party was taking place at the house next door to where Irwin Neuman and his father lived. It was a huge, noisy, end-of-summer party; more than a hundred people filled the neighboring house and overflowed onto the second floor terrace and the deck around the backyard pool. Irwin sat observing the party through their den window, which overlooked the strip of grass, no more than ten yards across, that separated the two homes. It was after midnight, yet guests were still arriving. Pressing his cheek against the glass, Irwin watched the cars driving up and down the street looking for a place to park. Every few moments, a group of guests would stroll up the front walk with wine and beer and bakery boxes. No one seemed to be leaving, and as people went in the front door, others came out the back, carrying drinks and paper plates laden with food onto the deck and beyond into the lightly wooded backyard. Irwin recognized only a few of the guests as he watched them cluster and uncluster. On the terrace, leaning their backs against the wrought-iron railing, were the Fitzgeralds—the hosts—and their son, Daniel, a classmate of Irwin's. Sitting at a picnic table on the deck were Dr. Stewart, pediatrician to both Irwin and Daniel, and his wife; they were chatting with the Diamonds, an elderly couple who lived on the other side of the Fitzgeralds. Within the house, in the living room under the brightly gleaming chandelier, Irwin saw Marjorie Fitzgerald, Daniel's older sister, hugging one of the recently arrived. Her face, like the faces of all of those around her, seemed flushed with merriment. Everywhere inside and outside the house were faces in giddy motion. Irwin took off his glasses and wiped his face with a kleenex. Irwin was sweating, and when he sweated his face poured forth an oily veneer that caused his glasses to slip uncomfortably down to the end of his nose. He grimaced at the dirty kleenex, wishing he could open the window, but Irwin was afraid that the noise from next door would rise through the house and awaken his father, who, always a light sleeper, had come to sleep less and less soundly since the death 28 · The Missouri Review of Irwin's mother ten months before. On one occasion Irwin's father woke at the creak of Irwin's bedroom door as Irwin opened it to go to the bathroom; henceforth Irwin left his door open, but then one night his father was awakened by the soft scrunch of Irwin's footsteps in the hall carpet. "Irwin? Is that you?" His voice drifted weakly down from the attic, which he had recently taken as his bedroom. "Yes, Dad," Irwin whispered. "Please try to be more quiet," said his father. "I can't sleep with you moving around." "I will, Dad," said Irwin, and he peed against the side of the bowl, as silently as possible, and left the toilet unflushed so as not to make further noise. His father, however, who always rose at six a.m., reprimanded Irwin so severely for being unhygenic that Irwin tried to solve the problem by drinking nothing after eight p.m. But he awoke in the middle of each night nonetheless, with a terrible thirst. Not daring to move from his bed to use the sink, Irwin lay awake, struggling to stifle the cough that fluttered maddeningly in his throat. Thereafter Irwin placed a glass of water at his bedside before retiring. This worked so well that the glass of water came to be a gratifying ritual for Irwin; he went to bed at eleven, after watching the ten o'clock news with his father, and slept in complete peace until three, when his eyes would open and he would find himself instantly...