I guess everything’s bigger in high school, cause it’s the whole world shrunk down into Abraham Lincoln High.

So you see this guy coming out of shop class, old Mr. Killian’s class, he’s like a god, or a movie star. I noticed his walk, like there’s no hurry, but he’s going someplace and why not come along?

Oh did I want that close up.

We could have nice kids together. Nope, hey, I thought, don’t think about having kids, think about passing English, go to college, maybe. Me in college, wouldn’t that be a trip!

Wrote your name all down the side of the test. Chuck. Ratowitz. My mom said, “Is that Polish?”

Mom, Dad, what I ever got from them. Families, heck, you don’t expect love, I guess, if people got that they wouldn’t have to make movies about it. “Hey guys, if you can’t give me love, at least could you give me the waffle iron?”

Waffle iron says home to me. I wanted that so bad, and my sister got the waffle iron.

Chuck, could we get a waffle iron?

Promise?

Our sunrise was lovely this morning.

What’s your name?

Put it in your mouth.

Now spit it out. Just directly down there out of your mouth please.

Will that pipe be delivered tomorrow?

Miss Weatherlee’s spiritualist advised her that she would live only as long as she heard the sound of hammering around her. And so she continued construction on Weatherlee House all her life. Until her death. Despite the oddities, the quality of craftsmanship is very high.

Please stay together. People do get lost.

That’s pretty good.

Hey!

Didn’t you say you were gonna check on a job today?

They’re adding onto this house. Couple rooms. Some old lady, kind of a nut. Foreman’s ok. He’s married to a friend of my cousin or something.

Oh God, oh, why didn’t you tell me? Here I am being a bitch. I’m sorry— Oh Chuck, even if it doesn’t last, it’s— Just for you to be doing something that makes you feel good, and—

Hey, I was— We oughta think about— We could buy some rings?

There’s a lot of history here. Of course there’s history in your kitchen, knives and forks, dinner plates, many tales one might tell, if you knew them.

Although she was eccentric, those closest to her said she was quite sane. Her servants were very loyal. One carpenter stayed with her for thirty-seven years.

Dead souls. The first, I was five, they killed Mary. The Virgin Mary, you know. Broke her legs.

Of course not really. I just misunderstood the words of the priest. But I never forgave them.

And then in the course of time, it came clear to me that my father, lovely man, was guilty of so much. All the young boys in the wars, and that made us our money.

How easy was it, you think, for a girl to reconcile that? How easy, Marty?

Would you call Chuck in here, please?

Look inside.

Well?

Do you know how to use it?

I’ll ask to know tomorrow how you decided which of you owns this. I’d like a report on that please, Marty. And the wall. A plan for the wall.

Or a boy. Chuck. Charles. I don’t know. Don. Don Ratowitz. Ron Ratowitz. Arthur Ratowitz. Gerard Ratowitz. What goes with Ratowitz?

He will continue here as a carpenter, he’s a good carpenter, and he conveyed desperation in terms of livelihood, so that is the way it will be. What do you say?

So, yeh, so. . . Thank you, ma’am, and for the saw, you remember when you— Marty said go ahead take it, “You want it, take it,” but I never had a chance to say that I . . . so I appreciate it.

But it can wait.

Who are all these people!!!?

Now if I could have your attention. The house contains one hundred sixty rooms—

Forty-seven fireplaces, ten thousand windows, two thousand doors—

Fifty-two skylights, forty staircases, three elevators, six kitchens and thirteen bathrooms. The number thirteen appears frequently throughout the house.

Let me repeat. Do not wander off. People have heard voices.

She says it kicks like a boy. Second trimester. She’s damn glad to quit her job. I bought her this waffle iron. She’s always carried on about having a waffle iron, like now we’re a real family cause we got a waffle iron. She’s funny.

No, I just want you to know, Marty—

And my wife’s mom is a friend of your sister-in-law, and she said you needed a good carpenter.

It’s gonna be a while. She’s got this architect, I never saw him. Then she takes the blueprints and writes all over it. Ask what it means, you get this life history.

Who knows? Maybe it won’t stop. Do they stop building shopping malls?

No, I don’t need it. You go home to your little cutie, have her make you some waffles. I got a mortgage, two kids, one’s in college who’s gotta drop out, and a wife who’s so pissed she won’t even look at me—

You coming on Monday? You gonna show up and work?

Hey, what kind of a name is Ratowitz? Puerto Rican?

Roof needs fixing. They tell you, buy a house, you’re gonna love it. Boy.

It wasn’t your fault. You did what you were told. And those guys, sure, they were hurt, I’d be sorry too.

But nobody knew why they were under there. And she said it wasn’t your fault, you did what you were told, and she took care of those families pretty good, they’ll never have to worry. Honey. . .

We’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Let’s start over. How is the work?

How is your family?

You go to town, and you say you work for Sophia Weatherlee, and then what do they say?

Who have no home. So I am giving them a home, you see. That’s what they say. And that I’m crazy. So perhaps you should go.

It’s not generosity. It’s a question of need. The crews are scattered with their little hammers, and the security men, and the raccoons. But I sense that things are very very wrong, and I need you to be here. We’re working on the sixty-sixth room, and this is a dangerous time, we cannot live with sixty-six.

I hear things. They get in the foundations. I hear them in the basement. In the walls. Night and day, I hear it—

It wasn’t really my father’s murders. It was Tigger, my kitten, her name was Tigger. I didn’t give Tigger her pills.

And so she died. I put her in my closet, I thought she would dry up and fade away. But of course she stank. So what would you do? If you were nine years old.

You’d cry. You’d lie, you’d tell them that Tigger got better and ran away. You’d stop up your nose from the stink. You’d take a salad fork and stab her so she’d appear to have been killed by a rat with a salad fork.

It was an education. More vivid than statistics of many millions dead.

Marty— Chuck. Yes. Chuck.

I would like to ask you to move your family to this house. There are working bathrooms, kitchens, plenty of light, wouldn’t it solve your problems? You need time with your family, and I am very very sorry about that, I know I make demands that are absolutely insane. And I’m calling you Marty. That’s insane.

I need the energy of young people in this house. We build ballrooms where people don’t dance, dining rooms where no one eats, nurseries without babies, and bedrooms—

You have a wife, a beautiful child, you have needs, your family needs you, and there must be energy in this house, where the energy doesn’t die every day at sunset and the soldiers die in these wars that go on and on and on—

I think that’s what you should do.

“Lloyd, take care of this? You know she’s a fruitcake.” Never mind!

Dee sits at the kitchen table. Sophia rises, turns away from him. Tense moment. He shifts, anticipating the worst.

Well that was one idea. But you should select a room, for your own, and have your towels and a change of clothing when you need to stay over. Not on the west wing. You need the sunlight.

And we will see to the truck, and additional compensation. Could they hammer more quietly at night? I can’t sleep.

I don’t want to be this . . . character!

And a sense of mystery. We don’t find much mystery under fluorescent light, but there is a longing. You read about sacred groves.

It’s up and down. A woman asks where the horses drank. “They had horses, didn’t they? It’s historical.” Outdoors, I suppose. They had people to care for the horses. It’s not necessary to live your life in every detail. You live the highlights.

I did have a tourist who said that his wife had died at Mt. Rushmore. I said, “Really?” thinking this would be an interesting story. But that’s all he said.

It’s one day at a time. Once I start the tour, it always times out the same, and I have coffee before the next tour, and a good pension plan. So there’s no earthly reason why I should have the urge to come in some night and shit on the rug.

Why are you standing? Sit down. Get comfortable.

Look, we stay with this a while, what we talked about, we stay with this a while, and save up, and then I start my own company — isn’t that what we talked about? But, I mean, the experience — I was in way over my head— I’m telling you, the chance for craftsmanship— hardwoods, mahogany, teak, Japanese cherrywood, you wouldn’t believe it, ceiling panels, inlaid floors—

Now she’s got this idea for this dome, you know, and I didn’t think it was possible, but I found something in a book like in 1832, and what they did was—

As soon as it’s more stable. This wing we’re working on, then the west wing, when that’s finished— I talked to her Monday for some time off, and I’m working on it, but I can’t push it, cause Lloyd can do most of what I’m doing, and then maybe all of a sudden Lloyd’s the foreman. Same thing happened to me.

Oh, we’re getting a new pickup. And I can use that, so you can use the car whenever— Hey, did you get Joey the toy pickup? Red Ranger pickup truck?

Oh honey. . . Oh God, honey. . . I just reacted. . .

I just reacted, I wasn’t trying to hit you, I would never do that, I would never do that, I just automatically put my hands up and. . .

The thing is, we gotta save some money, and then I’ll have my own business, then I’m the boss and I make the phone calls. And all these guys working their asses off and we’re on a Florida vacation.

Is that gonna. . . Yeh that’s gonna be kind of a bruise there. I’m sorry, my hand just came up automatically, and you were coming forward, and I kinda lost balance. . .

Look, I’m going, I’ll be back, and ok, let’s talk about a baby, maybe that’d work out. . .

So I’ll be back and we’ll talk about a little sister for Joey, ok, and if I get tied up out there I’ll give a call, but I think it’s just windows banging. You know how many windows they got there?

Stairs that lead to a ceiling. Doors to blank walls. Doors into air. The thirteen bathrooms, thirteen-candle chandeliers, thirteen-panel walls, thirteen coat hooks, stairs with thirteen steps—

And then some with ten, or fourteen, or six.

At times I’ve thought she did not build at the direction of spirits. Out of guilt for the killing that made her fortune. Out of terror, no. She built it, simply, as a tourist attraction. And built it very well.

I like to think that. Imagine her sitting in the sun. Satisfied. Serene.

How is your little boy?

But I don’t know, I really feel funny wearing a—

The guy that put that window in, that was Marty, you remember Marty? He’s raising hell, he comes in drunk so he can’t work on the wall. Can’t hammer a nail straight.

You will go or stay. You will wear your new suit, or no. The wall will appear there in any case, the walls have a will of their own. Whether your man can’t hammer his nail or you have a beautiful baby daughter or I decide, “No, there will be no more walls,” there will be walls.

You know I rely on you, Chuck, but we are all so replaceable.

You don’t know how to tie a necktie. Here.

My daddy was very good with guns and taught me.

I pulled the clay pigeon for him, and then he’d shoot. Pull. Bang. Pull. Bang.

And then I shot the clay pigeons, and I was good.

And my father went off hunting, and took his hunting dogs. And when he came back, he brought a bag of birds.

The shot in the birds, it’s what we shot the clay pigeons with.

And the room was full of dead birds.

And I have dreamt about guns for many years, the sounds of hammers, you know.

And I never dream about birds.

Still, the gardens are lovely.

Child support, whatever you think is reasonable. I want to be a good father.

How bout your power boat? Storage bills are coming here.

Happy birthday.

You’re not afraid of me now.

That’s enough.

I don’t want land. I don’t want to expand beyond our boundaries. We displaced the people to the southwest, that was necessary, I made my donations, I have tried to atone, but there are limits. I will not displace more people.

Chuck? Do you still remember how to frame a roof?

If you’ll check over the plans at your convenience. No hurry. We’re pretty much under way. They’re very faithful to your intentions.

Souvenirs!

I can’t say it. I say, “People are said to have heard voices.” And I imagine the love that was not made. The song no one sang. The absence of pets. I’d like to buy her a pet. It wouldn’t be expensive, since it wouldn’t exist. There are some excellent bargains if you don’t insist on reality.

I do remember realities. I remember Stonehenge, the Pyramids. I remember hammering nails. I remember a woman speaking to me, enraged, and my thinking this was someone I loved. I remember when I was so happy I cried, and could not remember why.

Scuse me. (answering) Yes?

It’s clear.

Hold on. (on phone) Bob? Chuck. Go out back, there’s a squirrel problem, shoo away the squirrels, ok?

It’s fine.

Yes?

You sound upset.

The first times I cheated on you, I felt real bad, but I thought, hey, it’s his fault, so it’s not cheating, it’s just lying. And I messed myself up every way I could, diet pills, Twinkies, I thought, Who am I? Just three layers of fat with some guy lying on top of it? And living my life like a really stupid, sappy movie, and I kept sitting through it again. But I thought, I gotta hold onto Chuck, I gotta keep Chuck, I can’t lose Chuck, I’ll die.

I wouldn’t live that time over, but I will say that I learned a few things. About building what’s worth building.

I’m sorry I’m being mean to you, Chuck. I had in mind, I guess, maybe we could be friends, that wouldn’t be so bad, I remember he’d say funny things, why hold grudges?

My friends, they do things just as crazy as this. The one guy paints these pictures, I don’t understand’em, nobody buys’em. The other one’s a machinist, he talks the way you used to, how you’d love it when you did the job perfect, and it worked.

I keep trying to pull back from hurting you. You can’t help it. You just walked into it and put on the suit. You look really awful in that suit.

Hello?

Use is restricted, of course. Only taxpayers may defecate. The dispossessed must control themselves.

Whatta you doin? Hey! No! This is a union shop! Get me outa here! This is nuts! I’ll die in here. I’ll stink! You’ll smell me in every room! Stinko!

I’m not gonna die! I’m gonna file a grievance! I’m here! I’m gonna make a stink!

It’s entertaining if you wear the right shoes.

Did you wear the right shoes?

Did you keep your ticket?

Have you said your prayers?

It’s that time in the afternoon. They should be lighting the lamps.

Was it Susan said, “Don’t cry when you look at the lamp, your eyes run out, like silt.”

This is the house, and the hammers, and the weeping — the Weatherlee house!

Sunrise...? We need a skylight.

There were others. There were millions.

No. Our current phase is over the next three years, and there’s a ten-year projection—

I’ve done my share, but I can’t be responsible for housing the full population. One hour at Chancellorsville would fill the West Wing. And they come to the door, and they say, “We’re here from Gettysburg, from Verdun, Sand Creek, Okinawa, from Dresden, from . . . oh, where they came into that village, and they lined them all up, we’re from there.”

I can’t house them all. They wander about and have babies. In my rooms they have babies. They have names.

Don’t start that with me now. Cut it out. Didn’t we start here together? Haven’t I been good to you? I did it for you. You owe me.

Stop that! Stop it! There’s nothing to cry about! You got what you wanted! Everything you said! You’re happy!`

You don’t have enough corpses to fill the fucking rooms, we’ll order’em. I knew it a long time, and I kept right on because the fucking money’s good, and I had a family to support who are now gone and dead, but I have a coat and tie and I look good in a coat and tie, and stop staring at me. Stop it! Stop it!

It’s ok! We’re here! Stay calm! Don’t cry! Hush now! Smile!

What?

You need a map. You could get lost in here. That’s the hallway to the south section. No, we changed that. I built that.

This was a stairway, very low steps because of her arthritis. Thirteen steps here.

And then a number of years. I remember I put on a suit, and that was the end of the marriage, bye bye. And the boy died, he was killed. And we expanded. Which way’s north?

Like with Stonehenge, did they know they were going to build all those stones? Did they ever wanta stop?