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there’s no way they would ever behave.
    He hears faint footsteps and, he thinks, whispering. His thumb is bleeding pretty badly. He had momentarily sat himself down at his radio dissembly, inspired to pry the metal collar from a glass tube, and the glass gave way in his grip, imploding with a
chuck
, cutting his thumb. He has been sitting watching his blood, its beading up to form a drip, which grows heavy enough for gravity to take across his wrist, leaving a black trail, and
plick
, onto the tabletop. Five drips so far. It is slowing,clotting. He smiles at the final bead. Will it or won’t it? Such a tentative dissembling. He wouldn’t have the patience for it.
    So, the men are inside. They’re in the house, he’s in danger, and Eleanor was right. She is always right. The outside did come in. His guess had been that no one would dare.
    He hears them down there whispering. Which means they are afraid. So he’s still right. He’s still right.
    As is Eleanor. As are the men downstairs. Everyone’s right. Everyone’s always right. Isn’t that funny? He does believe exactly this impossibility: one may be deluded or mistaken but at one’s inmost core everyone’s always right. He thinks he truly understands this to be the human condition. He also understands his version to be far more tragic than the other one, that of original sin, which is nothing more than the church’s cheap bait. The tragedy is that, though we are all completely right, it’s hard to know what to
do.
    So the men are inside. So, his gargoyles have failed. But probably they were made impotent only because their secret was made known. His mistake had been to hire out labour, a carpenter with no allegiance to the project, and who no doubt had gone right off to the nearest pub to bellow details of this oddest of jobs, that he’d been well paid to haul away every door in the house, plus plaster over all recessions and screw holes, and replace these doors with nothing. And of course it would filter out that there was nobody inside this newly doorless house but a rickety old coot alone upstairs. Plus the carpenter had that little helper come out for the garage door, that’s right, and it’s not hard to imagine them in any number of bars, laughing about it. And so goes the secret behind the doorless house. Mystery is a gargoyle’s only power.
    You’d think the mystery of no doors would be limitless.
    He should have done the damn doors himself. His mistake was to doubt that he was up to lifting doors and mixing spackle. No, his
real
mistake had been age.
    He stands, almost falling. Stiff at the radio for too long, his shoulder has seized and he is crooked with no balance. He loosens up by the time he reaches the closet, where he chooses the gold silk robe instead of the white terrycloth. The silk robe lacks a waist tie, and he is wearing no underwear — he is glad and a little proud to see he still has a sense of humour despite three men crossing his threshold and invading his house.
    He hears hoarse whispers —
laptop
and
cut the fuckin’ cable
. They are taking the expected things. In their mousey rustling he can hear that his gargoyles worked in part. They aren’t barging about fearlessly. Drawers are being slid out with care. Cupboard doors are silent on their hinges.
    It doesn’t sound like they will be coming upstairs at all. So he will go down to them. He will confront the men with openness, welcome them into the logic of expansion, wherein no evil can survive. The men will either run or become odd friends.
    Richard watches his mother tilt her head back to empty the beer, the universal gesture so unlike her. She rises and takes the bottle to the kitchen, depositing it under the sink in a manner that tells him she won’t have another today but will tomorrow.
    At her new fridge she rests her fingertips on its surface as if to reacquaint herself.
    â€œAre you