Free Man in the Dark by Paul Auster

Duke is none too happy about his presence in the house.
    Managing to fall asleep again after the ruckus in the bedroom dies down (sounds of copulation: a grunting Duke, a yelping Molly, squeaking mattress and springs), Brick then floats off into a complex dream about Flora. At first, he’s talking to her on the telephone. It isn’t Flora’s voice, however, with its thick, rolling r ’s and singsong lilt, but the voice of Virginia Blaine, and Virginia/Flora is begging him to fly—not walk, but fly—to a certain corner in Buffalo, New York, where she’ll be standing naked under a transparent raincoat, holding a red umbrella in one hand and a white tulip in the other. Brick begins to weep, telling her that he doesn’t know how to fly, at which point Virginia/Flora shouts angrily into the phone that she never wants to see him again and hangs up. Stunned by her vehemence, Brick shakes his head and mutters to himself: But I’m not in Buffalo today, I’m in Worcester, Massachusetts. Then he’s walking down a street in Jackson Heights, dressed in his Great Zavello costume with the long black cape, looking for his apartment building. But the building is gone, and in its place there is a one-story wooden cottage with a sign above the door that reads: ALL-AMERICAN DENTAL CLINIC . He walks in, and there’s Flora, the real Flora, dressed in a white nurse’s uniform. I’m so glad you could come, Mr. Brick, she says, apparently not recognizing him, and then she’s leading him into an office and gesturing for him to sit down in a dental chair. It’s such a shame, she says, picking up a pair of large, gleaming pliers, it’s such a shame, but it looks like we’re going to have to pull out all your teeth. All of them? Brick asks, suddenly terrified. Yes, Flora answers, all of them. But don’t worry. After we’re done, the doctor will give you a new face.
    The dream stops there. Someone is shaking Brick’s shoulder and barking words at him in a loud voice, and as the groggy dreamer at last opens his eyes, he sees a large man with broad shoulders and muscular arms towering above him. One of those bodybuilder types, Brick thinks, Duke the boyfriend, the guy with the bad temper, dressed in a tight-fitting black T-shirt and blue boxer shorts, telling him to get the fuck out of the apartment.
    I paid good money—Brick begins.
    For one night, Duke shouts. The night’s up now, and out you go.
    Just a minute, just a minute, Brick says, raising his right hand as a sign of his peaceful intentions. Molly promised me breakfast. Coffee and toast. Just let me have some coffee, and then I’ll be on my way.
    No coffee. No toast. No nothing.
    What if I paid you for it? A little extra, I mean.
    Don’t you understand English?
    And with those words, Duke bends down, grabs hold of Brick’s sweater, and yanks him to his feet. Now that he’s standing, Brick has a clear view of the bedroom door, and the moment he catches sight of it, out comes Molly, securing the sash of her bathrobe and then running her hands through her hair.
    Stop it, she says to Duke. You don’t have to play rough.
    Pipe down, he answers. You made this mess, and now I’m cleaning it up.
    Molly shrugs, then looks at Brick with a small, apologetic smile. Sorry, she says. I guess you’d better be going now.
    Slipping his feet into his shoes without bothering to tie the laces, then retrieving his leather jacket from the foot of the sofa and putting it on, Brick says to her: I don’t get it. I give you all that money, and now you throw me out. It doesn’t make sense.
    Rather than answer him, Molly looks down at the floor and shrugs again. That apathetic gesture carries all the force of a defection, a betrayal. With no ally to stand up for him, Brick decides to leave without further protest. He bends down and picks up the green backpack from the floor, but no sooner does he turn to go than Duke snatches it out of his hands.
    What’s this? he asks.
    My stuff, Brick says.