Mr. Tall Read Free

get tired of looking at the ocean—he studied the half-mile-long track over which the lighthouse had recently been dragged to keep it from toppling into the Atlantic. Someday the ocean would threaten the spot where the lighthouse now stood. Eventually there would be no place left to move it to. They were all going to die and there was nothing they could do about it. Darryl edged back toward the door.
    â€œWeather coming,” the ranger said.
    â€œTell me about it,” Darryl said.
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    Darryl and Cheryl were married in a civil ceremony in South Carolina because the idea of their families mixing at a formal wedding was simply too painful to contemplate. When they came back from their honeymoon in Myrtle Beach, people made fun of them because their names rhymed. Cheryl told them they could kiss her white ass, but she wasn’t really mad. Darryl tried to explain to everyone that, well, technically, it was only a close rhyme. The hours they worked at the paper weren’t any better, but at least now, late on Tuesdays, they could lock Mr. Putnam’s door and clear the fog out of Cheryl’s brain. Mr. Putnam, God bless him, left them the paper when his liver gave out. Darryl became editor and publisher; Cheryl promoted herself to production manager.
    Real estate boomed in the mountains around Argyle. Florida Yankees moved in by the Town Car load. Golf courses spread like mold through the valleys, and gated communities climbed up the ridges. Argyle grew a bypass, and a Super Wal-Mart sprouted like a toadstool alongside it. Ad revenue skyrocketed. They hired a couple of kids straight out of J-school who didn’t know anything useful and took the paper biweekly. They took out a loan that caused muscle spasms in Darryl’s neck for the better part of a week. They built a bigger building and bought a new press. Cheryl had a baby. She picked the name Misti Renee and stuffed the baby into a sling and went back to work. They hired another kid from J-school and two more ad salesmen and somehow, miraculously, the Argus blossomed into the Daily Argus. Misti learned to walk by holding onto the receptionist’s desk. She hummed happily underneath the light table. Darryl walked through the building and wondered, who are all these people?
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    They drove into the fog—an honest-to-God, Graveyard of the Atlantic bank of fog—just north of Avon. Cheryl rolled down her window. Darryl could hear the surf smashing itself into spray somewhere close by, but he could not see it, a sensation he found unnerving. He imagined a bridge out, a causeway unfinished, a flimsy barricade, the road disappearing into the sea. He wouldn’t be able to stop in time. He leaned closer to the windshield. He couldn’t see where he was going.
    â€œRoll that window up,” he said.
    â€œNope,” Cheryl answered. “I want to hear a foghorn.”
    When Darryl reached for the master switch on the console, Cheryl stuck her arm out of the car. Darryl bumped the switch a couple of times, nudging her arm with the glass.
    â€œDarryl,” she said calmly. “Trust me. You do not want to do that.”
    Actually, that was exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to roll Cheryl’s arm up in the car window. He wanted to jam the switch forward until it broke. Cheryl reached over with her left hand and placed it on top of his right hand.
    â€œIf Misti lets that weasel get in her pants, it’s all your fault,” he said, surprising himself, knowing as he said it that it was the most unfair thing he had ever said to anyone.
    Cheryl lifted his hand off the console and dropped it into his lap. “I don’t know what your problem is,” she said, “but if you touch that switch one more time I will backhand you in the mouth.”
    Darryl placed his hand on the steering wheel. He felt a laugh fluttering irrationally inside his chest. Now that he’d gotten this thing rolling, he found that