In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Age of Heroes
  • Scott Landers (bio)

The arrow is doing its skyward thing, a vain attempt to morph into some kind of symbol. But a symbol of what, precisely? Hope? Progress? Virility? Henderson rejects each of these in turn as he stares angrily out of his upstairs room, his so-called in-home office. His window looks down upon his backyard and the backyard of the house directly behind his. A small boy named (tragically, he thinks) Victor, stands next to the cyclone fence that separates the two yards. Victor holds a fiberglass bow in one hand while shading his eyes with the other, as he gazes up into the sky. The arrow, which has traveled up and out of sight, abruptly reappears in Henderson’s frame of vision, its direction now reversed, and plunges into the soft center of Henderson’s formerly green lawn. The feathered shaft juts from a ragged clump of grass, reminding Henderson that he still has no money to pay the landscapers.

Once the chair of Comparative Literature at a thriving private university in central California, once a savvy investor who took extended European vacations on dividends pouring in from REITs and foreign stocks, Henderson now finds himself reduced to the status of adjunct faculty at a junior college, incarcerated in a house whose mortgage payments he can no longer meet.

On this morning the market is in the toilet yet again. In less than a month his portfolio has lost 38 percent of its value. When he should have taken profits like everyone else, he’d held on, convinced he could earn back some of what his future ex-wife had extracted from their joint accounts. He’d even bought more on margin. And now it isn’t just the Mexican gardeners he can no longer afford, but also the Irish carpenter and the Vietnamese foundation specialist. (A few visits with his wife’s WASP attorney had made that much clear.) Work on the new addition, sporadic since Amanda filed for divorce, has now been postponed indefinitely. Stacks of dry wall fill the downstairs living room. Spools of Romex lean against exposed studs. Pieces of the new kitchen lie scattered about the property, the new appliances consigned to the garage, the oak cabinets stashed under a tarp in the side yard, rolls of linoleum huddled together on the front porch.

Even six months ago, buying a spec house still seemed like a smart move. A quick remodel was supposed to double its value. But hidden costs began to reveal themselves, and then other things that should have stayed hidden also came to light. His brief affair with Shannon, one of his former grad students, came to Amanda’s attention. [End Page 38] And then a scared workman revealed Amanda’s cannabis garden to a couple of sheriff’s deputies investigating power outages in the area.

A sudden gust of wind jiggles the arrow slightly, transforming it into an accusatory finger (perhaps here was the symbol he’d been trying to think of) that wags at Henderson’s pigheadedness.

When Victor spots his arrow, he puts his bow down and begins climbing the fence. The fence’s metallic rattle stirs a memory in Henderson. He recalls climbing just such a fence many years earlier, in another state, thousands of miles away, wedging the toes of his good shoes into the holes, tearing the crotch of his woolen slacks as he hoisted himself over the top. The dread, but also the secret pleasure, of destroying his Sunday best.

A woman’s voice, sharp with anger, broadcasts from the back porch of Victor’s house.

“Victor! Get down off there!”

“But Mom—”

Their conversation develops along lines now familiar to Henderson. Victor insists upon the necessity of recovering his arrow. His mother is intent upon his leaving the arrow just where it is, as punishment for Victor’s dangerous habit of shooting into the sky.

“Ah, Mom,” Victor calls over his shoulder, still hanging from the fence. The whine in his voice already concedes defeat. Still, Henderson finds himself hoping Victor will defy this pinched-nosed matron, trespass a little, and retrieve his property.

“My best...

pdf

Share