A Hole in the Roof

Alan’s hand mined through the ice in the cooler. “Looks like all I have is domestic, buddy,” he said while glancing backwards at his companion. Morgan nodded and then shrugged. Alan handed him the beer and took a seat beside him in the other canvas folding chair. “Shit, I forgot to grab an opener…” Alan stood up and started fumbling around the barn.

“We don’t need it. Here, let me show you an old Marine Corps trick.” Morgan unsheathed the enormous KA-BAR knife from his side and positioned it behind the bottle cap.

“Is this like sabrage?” Alan asked.

“Like what?” he asked. Alan watched as ice water from the beer bottle dripped down the knife, collecting in the blood channel like melting snow rediscovering an old, dry creek bed.

Alan snickered and waved off the comment. With a mighty pop, the blade pried open the beer, and Morgan lurched forward to catch the foam. After a few slurps he opened Alan’s beer, and together they sat enjoying the sound of summer rain on the old barn’s roof. Through a tiny leak a puddle grew in front of them. Morgan tipped his beer forwards by way of acknowledgement.

“Yeah,” Alan said, breaking the silence and pointing upwards, “We’ve been meaning to get that looked at.”

Morgan grunted, and Alan wasn’t sure if it was meant to convey disapproval or merely confirmation. Four days earlier, a dusty Ford F-150 pulled up in the driveway. Alan and his wife Clarissa were enjoying their morning coffee when they heard the truck slow to a halt. Through their kitchen window, they watched a short, stocky man of about 50-years-old emerge from the driver’s side door, fix his baseball cap, check his phone, and then head down their path for their barn. You think this is the first time he has ever done Airbnb? Clarissa had wondered aloud. At the barn door he fished the key out from beneath the mat and then opened the padlock to disappear inside the old, red barn. He carried only a long, black case strung across his back.

For the first three days, Alan and his wife never saw Morgan. A few times, Alan had caught the truck missing from the driveway, but it was as if Morgan had been going out of his way to avoid the couple, something Alan mostly appreciated. Since he and his wife had started renting out their barn last summer, they had seen the full spectrum of guests: college kids looking for a place to party, families trying to have a rustic vacation, reclusive but strangely demanding writer types who never stopped pestering Alan about the Wi-Fi password, dog owners who picked up after their pets, dog owners who did not pick up after their pets, and even a travelling garage rock band (probably their worst guests of all). But Morgan was easily this season’s most low maintenance guest.

Earlier this morning, Alan was cleaning the house’s gutters when he heard footsteps from afar. Carefully turning, he saw Morgan approaching from the barn and for the first time caught a glimpse of his face: Deep-set blue eyes, creases at the sides of them, furrowed brow, dimpled chin, greasy gray hair popping out from beneath the same ball cap he had worn days before. Morgan waved to signal his approach and seconds later, he was standing 10 feet below the ladder. He asked if he could help and then began raking the leaves and sticks Alan had cleared from the gutter and dropped to the ground. Finished in record time, Alan descended the ladder, and the two men got to talking. That’s when Alan learned that the property had belonged to Morgan’s family for over 100 years from 1902 to 2003.

It was Morgan’s last night in the barn—he would be gone by morning—and together they sat watching the rain trickle down through a hole in the roof. Morgan had his hands clasped, but each time a droplet of water hit the puddle, his fingers twitched. “You really should get that looked at,” he said. He took a swig of beer and wiped it away with his other hand.

Alan sighed, “Money is tight right now, but I should be getting my bonus at the end of the month.” As he said this, he remembered that Morgan’s family had lost the property in foreclosure. Quickly, he added, “Not that it will probably be that large or anything…”

Morgan shifted in his chair. “I used to be a contractor,” he said distantly as if he had forgotten that he wasn’t alone.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It was before I went overseas. I probably couldn’t fix a damn roof now, but I still know plenty of guys who could.”

They sipped their beers and returned to silence. The rain was falling harder now, just as Alan was trying to make up his mind whether he should stay or leave. Not wishing to get drenched, he realized he was stuck in the barn, so he continued trying to make conversation. Deciding the barn was what Morgan seemed most interested in, Alan tried giving his best attempt at a survey, explaining to his companion all its little problems and what needed repairs, and Morgan listened with rapt attention. Eventually, Morgan recounted his personal history with the barn. He learned how to play checkers from his grandfather here, he helped his first horse give birth here, he had his first kiss on a warm summer night shortly after dark here, he even proposed to his wife here.

“You’re married?” Alan asked as a droplet of rain hit the puddle, launching little splatter marks into the surrounding hay.

“Not anymore.”

The two lapsed back into silence. The barn door rattled in the wind. The roof beams creaked with every swell. In the corners of the walls, Alan could see tiny paired glints of light—rats or barn cats taking shelter from the downpour, he guessed. Strewn across the barn, he noted a half dozen abandoned projects. Besides the beer cooler there was a sawing table with a hunk of wood still etched with black marker along grooves waiting to be cut. He had been trying to make a book shelf for his wife. He noticed Morgan’s black case there on the table amongst the dust, splinters, and DIY books.

“You really pack light,” Alan commented, trying not to sound too chipper or uncomfortable. Morgan did have a way of making him squirm. Some men are comfortable in silence, and even though he had lived in the country now for five years, he was not one of those men. Wow, he thought to himself: it had been five years since his wife had found Alan in a bathtub surrounded by empty pill bottles.

“In the Marine Corps I learned that every extra pound makes you that much slower,” he explained.

The rain continued to pour. They were on their third beers each now. Morgan drank with slow, deep gulps, Alan with tiny sips—his sensitive teeth clanged against every freezing sud. A mouse appeared and haltingly scampered closer to the two men. Morgan’s eyes darted around the barn. “You got any food in here?” he asked. This annoyed Alan slightly. He had regarded Morgan as an ideal guest until now, but just as he was about to deny his request, he saw something in Morgan’s face. It was fleeting, but deep in Morgan’s eyes, there was something, some kind of emotion; Alan couldn’t name it, but it seemed to sit just to the right of nostalgia and just to the left of loss.

“Yeah…let me see.” Careful not to startle the mouse, he slowly reached beneath his chair, found a pack of peanuts, and tossed it to Morgan. He studied Morgan now as the man gently ripped open the corner of the package, delicately cracked the shell, and tossed its contents to the mouse. Squeaks and nibbles cut through the wind and rain, and Morgan, for the first time, smiled.

“Cute little guy,” he said. “I used to feed them like this when I was a boy. One day, my dad caught me and beat the ever lovin’ shit outta me. ‘Told me these were pests that were ruining our stores. But I never stopped feeding them. I even cleared the traps and the poisons. I didn’t want them to get hurt.”

When the bag was empty, the mouse scurried back into the wall. The storm was breaking, and now the falling rain sounded like the gentle sizzle of a breakfast skillet. Morgan seemed somehow lifted after feeding the mouse. He grew more talkative and told Alan all sorts of things about his life; he told him about the contracting business he had sold, his tours of duty, his grown children he sees twice per year, the tiny condo he lives in alone, his ailing mother, his job at Wal-Mart, his love of sports, especially football, his fishing trip stories, and even his failed marriage. He spoke about this for a long time—half an hour maybe—before he turned the subject to Alan’s marriage.

“You love that woman?” he asked Alan abruptly.

“Of course I do,” Alan said, a slight lump growing in his throat. “She saved my life.”

Morgan looked down at the beer bottle clasped in his hands. “Then never let her go.” He leaned back into his chair and drained his beer. Alan stifled a yawn. It was early morning now, and the rain now fell softly as if from a watering can tipped carefully over tiny, young spring flowers.

“Well, I better head back to the house,” Alan said, rising from his chair. Morgan rose too, and they shook hands. “If you ever come back this way, let me know. We can have another look at that roof.”

Morgan chuckled gruffly, “Yeah, sure. Thanks for letting me stay here. Good to be back in the old, red barn.”

Alan felt peaceful as he closed the barn door behind himself. It had felt good to talk to someone other than his wife or his clients. He didn’t even mind the rain as he walked. Rain was cleansing. Quietly, he entered the house, slipped out of his wet clothes, dried off with a towel, and laid down beside his wife. A light sleeper, she stirred and gradually awoke. “What were you doing?” she asked through closed eyes.

“Just hanging with our guest over in the barn. He actually helped me clean the gutters earlier. His family owned this place for like four generations.”

“Wow,” she said, “that’s really cool.” Five minutes later, she was snoring, and Alan was wide awake. Alan thought she sounded like a purring cat when she snored—it was a sound he found oddly relaxing, one that never caused him insomnia. It was not the rain or the snoring or the damp that held his eyes open, it was a thought. It was the old red barn and the hole he would never fix.