The Cheeseman Cometh

The Cheeseman arrived on the first day of spring. From the upstairs window, Ira watched him unload items from his jeep and carry them into the house. No suitcases. No electronics. No furniture. Just plastic grocery bags. Dozens of them.

Some were stuffed with clothes. The rest were stuffed with cheese: six packets of Monterey Jack sticks, two logs of chèvre, one ball of fresh mozzarella, two dozen slices of Swiss, three blocks of cheddar, four of pepper jack, a packet of American shingles, a round of Brie, a tub of crumbled feta, two pounds of queso fresco, and a wedge of Cotswold. No fruits. No vegetables. No meat. No nuts or seeds.

Just cheese.

The Cheeseman’s cheese took up the entire middle rack of the refrigerator, a section of the door, and one of the vegetable drawers. Technically, it occupied only the space allotted to Duncan—that was the Cheeseman’s name—but there was still something obliquely confrontational about his storing all that cheese in a common facility, where Ira and Tyrell would come face to face with it whenever they opened the refrigerator.

Ira had long since given up on losing weight specifically and on losing battles in general. Starting sometime around his fortieth birthday, when it had dawned on him that his academic career in sustainable urban agriculture, in which he’d invested for over a decade, never was going to get off the ground, he’d begun consuming chocolate donuts by the trayful to blast that bitter flavor from his mouth. He would construct gourmet paninis—mushrooms, peppers, onions, ham—to stem the ebb and flow of existential paranoia, upon which he bobbed like a balsawood dinghy on a tsunamic tide. Whenever the depression came on, he would help himself to beer and Fritos. Platefuls of Ranch-soaked popcorn chicken gave him just enough strength to keep going through the second presidency of Donald Trump, against whom he’d spent nine years fighting in every way that he knew how, short of pole-vaulting into the Rose Garden mid-press conference and punching the man in the face. Finally, whenever he simply couldn’t take the state of the world anymore, he would smoke a copious quantity of weed.

Even so, he did eat his vegetables. He’d never stopped eating his vegetables. It struck him as indecent somehow, monstrous somehow, that anyone should feel so entitled to life without consequences that he would stop eating his vegetables.

There was no such thing as life without consequences, of course. The Cheeseman’s body could attest to that. He was not as tall as Ira, but he was as wide. His womanly bosom preceded him into every room like a gelatinous reputation. He had a brie-like complexion, and his flesh, like a fine raclette, seemed always on the verge of melting. One of the few things he and Ira could agree on was that the house stayed much too hot these days. Alone, Ira had kept it at a balmy 58 degrees, but since Tyrell had moved in, he’d taken to sleeping—or not sleeping, as was more often the case—with his window open, even during snowstorms.

With the exception of Carlyle, who’d moved out last autumn to live with his girlfriend, Ira had been in the house longer than anyone. To it and its facilities, he felt he exercised a certain claim. It was Ira who wheeled the trashcans up and down the driveway every week, Ira who made sure to open the cabinets and drip the taps in winter, Ira who kept a can of WD40 in his room to spray on squeaky hinges, and Ira who reported to Carlyle whenever the cleaning supplies were running low. Carlyle still stocked the cleaning supplies, as well as kitchen staples, cookware, printer cartridges, and toiletries, even though he didn’t live there anymore. He’d raised three children in the house, and all a stranger had to do to tap the advantages of his residual paternal affections, as it turned out, was to move into one of their rooms.

The sheer arbitrariness of Carlyle’s parental feelings had only recently come home to Ira. For twenty-eight months, while Carlyle had fought his way through twin disasters, first a stroke, then a grinding divorce, Ira had sat up late with him night after night, sipping Guinness, smoking marijuana, and commiserating. Now it seemed his part was done, and Carlyle’s room would be occupied, henceforth, by the Cheeseman.

* * *

One week after the Cheeseman’s arrival, Carlyle called a meeting in the downstairs sitting room. Ira and the Cheeseman sat facing each other in armchairs. Carlyle and Tyrell sat on the floor, on the cushions that Carlyle’s Indonesian music group used when they gathered to practice the Gamelan on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Since the stroke, only the layers of sweaters and scarves with which Carlyle draped himself disguised his emaciation. His recovery was nearly complete, but Ira still obsered telltale signs: the way he spoke, carefully gauging each syllable to make sure that it came out as he intended, and his stately and deliberate gait, and the additional effort he had to exert when using his left arm, or when attending to anything occurring on the left side of his field of vision. His memory, too, was no longer as sharp as it had been. In preparation for the meeting, he’d printed several pages of notes. These, he spread on the floor and consulted periodically, licking his fingers and shuffling the papers.

There was no minute taker in attendance, but if there had been, the following transcript would have been generated:

Carlyle: “Welcome, gentlemen. Welcome. I’m glad to see that everyone could make it this evening. I hope you’re all enjoying your accommodations. Let’s see. Our first order of business tonight—let’s see—our first order of business is the thermostat. It seems that there has been some disagreement regarding the thermostat.”

Tyrell: “Yeah, I been blasting that thing! I apologize.”

Carlyle: “Oh, Tyrell, there’s no need to apologize.”

Ira: “I appreciate that you’re apologizing, but I would really appreciate it more if you’d stop cranking up the thermostat.”

Tyrell: “For sure, man. I can do that. No problem. But you did say you’re okay with me turning up the thermostat.”

Ira: “When you moved in, I told you that at night, I need it cold.”

Tyrell: “That’s true, I do remember that, but then you said you were going to try and find some personal solutions.”

Ira: “I did try to find personal solutions. I tried shutting the vents. I tried opening my window. Remember when it was negative six degrees? I had to leave my window open. I had a freezing arctic blast blowing across my bed for five days. I don’t know how I still have all my toes. My feet were getting frostbite, and the rest of me was roasting. Honestly, this winter has been so confusing.”

Tyrell: “But you did say it’s cool if I turn up the thermostat because you had your personal solutions. You did say that.”

Ira: “That was six months ago.”

Tyrell: “But you never said anything different in six months, so how am I supposed to know it’s not cool?”

Ira: “I didn’t want to keep harping on it. I didn’t want to be that guy. I just don’t know what else to do. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in months. I’ve been trying personal solutions, but nothing is working.”

Tyrell: “Look, I want you to be comfortable, but how am I supposed to accommodate you when we aren’t communicating? You need to be communicating.”

Ira: “I am communicating.”

Carlyle: “All right. Good. I’m glad that we’re communicating. I will say that from my point of view as your landlord, it seems somewhat inefficient to be running the thermostat at 76 when the windows are open. That’s true from an environmental point of view, also. But we all have different bodies. Duncan, do you have anything to add regarding the thermostat?”

The Cheeseman: “No.”

Carlyle: “You’re comfortable?”

The Cheeseman: “I like it cold.”

Carlyle: “All right. Very good. We are communicating. On to the next item, then. Noise has been brought to my attention as a potential concern. Shall we talk about noise?”

Ira: “Yes. Like I said, I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in six months.”

Tyrell: “Because you haven’t been communicating!”

Ira: “When you first moved in, Tyrell, the very first day you moved in, I communicated to you that your shower makes a lot of noise, that I can’t sleep when it’s running, but you’re still showering at 4:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m.—”

Tyrell: “Because you said you were doing personal solutions!”

Ira: “I have been trying personal solutions. I ordered heavy-duty earplugs, the ones that flight crews use on runways, but the noise the water makes going through the pipes when you’re showering, that shrieking, rattling noise, it cuts right through those earplugs.”

Tyrell: “Probably because no one takes showers on runways.”

Ira: “I would really appreciate if you would stop showering at 4:00 a.m.”

Tyrell: “I mean, I work. I’ve got to be fresh for work, know what I’m saying?”

Ira: “Fine. Then it sounds like a facilities problem.”

Carlyle: “Facilities. That would be me. I am facilities.”

Ira: “Yes.”

Carlyle: “Unfortunately, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do. Duncan, have you had any problem with the sound of the pipes?”

The Cheeseman: “No.”

Carlyle: “All right. Good to know. I’m glad we’re communicating. Moving on. Dishes, I believe, was the other concern—”

Tyrell: “I didn’t really appreciate Ira putting my dishes in that dirty tub on the floor last weekend.”

Ira: “They’d been in the sink for three weeks. Where was I supposed to put them?”

Tyrell: “You didn’t have to put them in that dirty tub is all I’m saying.”

Ira: “You like when I find personal solutions, don’t you? That was me finding a personal solution.”

Tyrell: “I just didn’t realize that you weren’t able to wash them is all.”

Ira: “If they are not my dishes, then I am not able to wash them.”

Tyrell: “I mean, I don’t mind if you wash them. I just kind of mind you leaving them on the floor like that, in that dirty tub. That felt kind of disrespectful.”

Ira: “I needed the sink. There were dishes in the sink. They were not my dishes. I was not trying to disrespect you. I was trying to find a personal solution. Apparently, personal solutions are not working for us, which is why we are having this meeting.”

Carlyle: “Good. All right. That’s good. I’m glad we’re finally doing this. It’s good that we’re communicating. Duncan, do you have anything you’d like to say about the dishes?”

The Cheeseman: “No.”

Carlyle: “No concerns? No questions?”

The Cheeseman: “I don’t use dishes.”

Carlyle: “All right. Good. That covers just about everything, I think. And I did promise you all a short meeting. I know you all have business to attend to. I think we may as well adjourn.”

Ira caught up with Carlyle on his way down the stone walk to the driveway. “You do realize,” he said, planting himself in Carlyle’s path, “that nothing was accomplished in that meeting.”

“Oh?” Carlyle’s silver eyebrows leapt up his forehead, the left one lagging. “It seemed to me that everyone was communicating.”

“I told you we were going to have issues,” hissed Ira. “I told you, if you want this house to work like a community, you can’t just keep bringing random people in here and throwing us all together. We need a process. I would like to meet the people who are coming in. We need to vet them. We really need some sort of rental agreement.”

“Tyrell seems happy,” said Carlyle. “Duncan seems happy.”

“But I am not happy.”

“I’m sorry, Ira.” Carlyle gave Ira’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “I know this isn’t easy, but I really think we are going to make things work. It’s just going to take a bit of patience. Duncan seems flexible. Tyrell is eager to accommodate you. You know how to keep the house running. We are all bringing our own unique gifts to the table. I think we are building a beautiful community.”

“It’s not a community,” said Ira. “It’s three strangers living together. That’s not a community.”

“But it will be.” Carlyle gave his shoulder one more squeeze. Behind Ira, Carlyle’s car blinked, the doors unlocking. “We’re going to make this work. You three have a lovely evening.”

* * *

If anyone had bothered to read the transcript from the meeting—if there’d been one—they might have concluded that Ira and the Cheeseman would be natural allies. Certainly, Ira and Tyrell were natural adversaries. Tyrell was a musician, like Carlyle. Tyrell was also young, and although he’d fled a dysfunctional family and had even spent a few months on the streets, he was now piecing his life back together. Ira’s life was more or less what it was going to be.

Ordinarily, this should’ve represented common ground between Ira and Carlyle, who was pushing eighty-one, but Carlyle had recently found a new lease on life. He was dating a woman in her sixties, leading the Indonesian music group, teaching himself to code, and taking cooking classes. He seemed determined to squeeze as much life as possible out of his remaining years, and the more tenants he could find, with or without Ira’s advice and consent, the more cash he would have on hand to fund his late-blooming passions. He and Tyrell shared the vitality of souls reborn.

Even as this united front loomed large, however, Ira could not bring himself to throw in his lot with the Cheeseman’s. The fact that he owned a car, a gas-guzzler by the looks of it, did not signal that they were simpatico. In his twenties and thirties, Ira used to walk and bike everywhere. He now took the bus everywhere. He’d never learned to drive. Learning to drive, as far as he was concerned, would’ve amounted to a moral concession, an assertion that his own personal mobility mattered more than the lives of the roughly three billion people and counting who lived within two hundred kilometers of a coastline and would suffer due to warming skies and rising seas.

Sometimes, when he passed the Cheeseman’s door on his way to the stairs, he would overhear snippets of audio—White House press briefings, interviews with Trump’s cronies—accompanied by the Cheeseman’s heavy breathing. Once, he even found the Cheeseman in the kitchen, gnawing on a block of stilton, and in the time it took him to get to the door to the laundry room, two names crackled from the Cheeseman’s phone—Jordan Peterson, and Albert Camus—which sent him into a tailspin from which he did not recover for the rest of the afternoon. It was not just that the Cheeseman was watching a video essay that casually cited Jordan Peterson as if he were anyone else, without acknowledging the man’s depravity. It was also that if anyone in the house should’ve been listening to a creator who casually namedropped Camus, it should’ve been Ira, with his one Master’s and his three halves of three different PhDs. Not the Cheeseman.

Then there was the cheese itself, which Ira found both seductive and sickening. From the day that the Cheeseman arrived, Ira found himself dreading every trip to the fridge, when he had to fight the urge to sneak a block of Tillamook or a disc of Laughing Cow back to his room. He wasn’t sure whether the Cheeseman kept a careful inventory, or whether he would notice if any went missing, but he did know that if he were to sink to the level of petty theft, he would not be able to live with himself anymore.

The Cheeseman worked at Whole Foods, as the cheese buyer, naturally. He could afford imported delicacies. Ira had been working odd jobs for two years, supplementing his fluctuating income by dipping periodically into his savings. Carlyle’s cheap rent and generous amenities made this possible, but the countercurrent of inflation kept Ira living close to the bone.

Not like the Cheeseman. You couldn’t even see the Cheeseman’s bones. They were buried beneath layers and layers of subcutaneous cheese.

“I’ll need to have the surgery again soon,” he said to Ira one morning in the kitchen. This comment—the first he’d ever made to Ira, and one of the longest sentences that Ira had heard him utter—was entirely unsolicited. They’d been in the kitchen together for nearly fifteen minutes already, Ira making pancakes, the Cheeseman sitting quietly at the table, listening to a lecture about Starlink and working his way through a package of string cheese, without saying a word to each other. At first, Ira thought the Cheeseman had been talking to himself. Then, sensing the expectant tension in the silence, he glanced over his shoulder.

The Cheeseman was staring at him.

He wore a gray robe, but the robe would not close all the way. His great bosom cascaded through the curtain of fabric like a fleshy waterfall. Experimentally, like a child hefting a water balloon, he was cupping one of his breasts in his hands.

“Again?” was all Ira could think to say.

“Uh-huh,” said the Cheeseman. “I did it five years ago. Had these little guys removed.” He gave his breast a jiggle, then set it gingerly back on the table, next to the six plastic sheaths he’d just emptied. “But they grew back.”

“Oh,” said Ira.

“The doctor said I should stop eating cheese,” said the Cheeseman. “He says I’ll have a heart attack and die. My dad died of a heart attack. My cousin died of a heart attack. My brother had a heart attack but didn’t die, but he might die if he has another heart attack. My grandpa died of a heart attack. If I’m going to die of a heart attack anyway, why should I stop eating cheese?” He tore open another stick of string cheese with his teeth.

“Then how come you want to have the surgery?” asked Ira.

“So I can get laid.”

“And your health insurance covers that?”

“It did last time.” The Cheeseman sighed. “I said it was gender dysphoria, and they were like, ‘Yeah, go ahead.’ But now we’ve got Trump in there. I don’t know if it’ll work this time.”

“You told them you were trans,” said Ira, “so you could get liposuction?”

“I don’t know what it was.” The Cheeseman shrugged. “Some surgery. But now I need it again.”

Ira slid his last pancake onto his plate. He ran water over his pan and put it in the dishwasher. He took his plate up to his room. He had forgotten the breakfast syrup. That was good because it meant he wouldn’t waste the syrup. He slid his six pancakes into the wastepaper basket. His stomach was a pair of headphones knotting in a pocket. His head was being stepped on. He sat breathing heavily and looking out the window.

Carlyle was out in the yard, running a weedwhacker along the wooden fence. Summer was just around the corner. The globe was warming. Everything was green.

* * *

The incident that should’ve finally forged an alliance between Ira and the Cheeseman occurred three weeks later. The fact that it did not result in an alliance seemed to demonstrate once and for all that no such alliance would ever be forged.

Both Ira and the Cheeseman awoke to notifications. Tyrell had tagged them in a Facebook post he’d made, announcing a new song. “Contributing vocals” was how they were credited.

The vocals that they had contributed, as it turned out, were their snores. Without their knowledge or consent, Tyrell had crept into the hall at night and stood outside their doors recording them. He’d then woven their snores into a Nu Wave jazz- and metal-inflected electronica mishmash titled “The Cheeseman Cometh.”

Immediately, a household meeting was called.

Had there been a minute taker in attendance, the transcript would have read as follows:

Ira: “This is unacceptable. This is unacceptable. This is unacceptable.”

Carlyle: “If we could all just calm down—”

Tyrell: “It’s art, bro. It’s fair use. What part of fair use do you not understand?”

The Cheeseman: “I like art. But I don’t like this.”

Ira: “This is a violation of our privacy. A violation.”

Carlyle: “Ira, Duncan, I do think I see where you’re coming from, but it doesn’t seem to me that any particular harm has been done.”

Tyrell: “I thought you two would feel good about being credited and all. You’re going to be famous!”

Carlyle: “Tyrell, one musician to another, perhaps it would have been wiser for you to discuss terms and conditions with these gentlemen before publishing your song. For example, arguably, they are entitled to royalties.”

Tyrell: “There’s no royalties. It’s public domain.”

“And perhaps they would have preferred to be credited under pseudonyms.”

Ira: “I didn’t consent to being recorded!”

Tyrell: “Bro, I was picking it up anyway. Whenever I tried recording anything in my room, I’d end up with one of you guys in the background, snoring. You two are like a couple of hippopotamuses.”

Ira: “This is unacceptable.”

Tyrell: “You said you haven’t slept in months, but bro, I’ve got evidence to the contrary!”  

The Cheeseman: “This is discrimination.”

Tyrell: “Discrimination? What are you talking about, discrimination?”

Ira: “We breathe heavily because…you know why we breathe heavily.”

Tyrell: “So have some pride, man. That’s what that song is all about. Pride.”

Carlyle: “I would just like to say—and this is me speaking in my capacity as an individual, you understand, not as your landlord—but I would like to say that it can be challenging for us, as artists, to navigate these sensitive social issues. I do believe that art must be kept free of censorship, free of any sort of infringement or cancellation, as long as it is made in good faith. I understand that there may be other valid ways of looking at things, but that is what I believe.”

Ira: “If we sue you, we will win.”

Tyrell: “I do not believe that’s true.”

Carlyle: “I think it would be lovely, gentlemen, if we could all agree to hold in reserve any threats of legal action until after we have exhausted all other possible avenues of reconciliation. I’m speaking as someone who has just been through a rather grueling legal battle, and believe me, it’s not something you want.”

 Ira: “Then he needs to take the song down.”

The Cheeseman: “Yes.”

Ira: “And delete it from everywhere. All his devices.”

The Cheeseman: “Yes.”

Ira: “And anything with us in it, anything he’s ever recorded—that needs to be deleted.”

The Cheeseman: “Yes.”

Ira: “And he needs to sign a contract saying he’ll never again record us without our knowledge and written permission.”

Tyrell: “Listen to this, bro! They’re killing art!”

Carlyle: “It seems to me that we can begin, perhaps, by deleting the Facebook post and removing the track from any streaming services. I think that will address everyone’s immediate concerns and give us a bit more wiggle room to work out a creative solution that takes into account both Tyrell’s artistic freedom and Ira and Duncan’s valid privacy concerns.”

Tyrell: “I want you both to know how hard I worked on that track. I made you two sound good.”

Ira: “But you’re going to take it down.”

Tyrell: “For now. For now I’m going to take it down.”

Ira didn’t bother to corner Carlyle this time. Back in his room, he sent messages to three ethical hackers he used to know, kids who’d helped dox and report January 6th rioters. Then he drank a beer. And then another beer.

Thirty minutes later, none of them had gotten back to him.

Two and a half hours later, none of them had gotten back to him.

Twelve hours later, none of them had gotten back to him.

None of them was going to get back to him. Not in twenty-four hours. Not in twenty-four years. None of them needed him anymore. Maybe none of them remembered him, not even the one who’d crashed on his couch for two weeks. He no longer lived in DC. He no longer had an eighty-square-foot urban farm, or academic pipe dreams, or even a place of his own, with beers in the fridge, and produce that he’d grown himself, and a couch for ethical hackers to crash on. He was no longer relevant. He was no one. He’d come shambling back in defeat to the middle of the country, the morally bankrupt heartland where he had, against his will, been born and raised, with mountains of debt, and multiple substance dependencies, and no patience left, and no hope, and still, even after all that, he was still eating his vegetables. He’d never stopped eating his vegetables.

What was the Cheeseman’s excuse?

* * *

The Cheeseman collapsed on the fifth of July. Ira, who hadn’t slept at all the night before thanks to the fireworks, and the rattling of the shower, and the Cheeseman’s snores, rose early and padded unhappily downstairs to use the common bathroom, which he preferred over the one that he shared with Tyrell.

The Cheeseman was already at the kitchen table, a paper bowl of cheese curds in front of him, breaking his fast. Ira grunted good morning, slipped into the bathroom, shut the door, and sank onto the toilet.

The next thing he knew, his own fart startled him back to consciousness, resonating in the toilet bowl. He hastily wiped himself, flushed, and emerged. The clock on the microwave said three hours had passed.

When he glanced at the table, the Cheeseman was still there, but no longer upright. His head rested in the bowl like an enormous curd. His flesh was no longer the color of brie. It had turned the mottled, blue-gray shade of gorgonzola.

Ira thought about calling 911. Then he thought about not calling 911. Then he thought about the smell and decided to call 911. Once the ambulance was on its way, he texted Carlyle. He texted Tyrell. He almost texted one of the ethical hackers, whose name also started with T, but caught the mistake just in time.

The ethical hacker still hadn’t replied to his message. He deleted the thread. Then he stood in front of the refrigerator, looking at the Cheeseman.

He’d never seen a dead body before. At least not a real one. On TV, he’d seen plenty of bodies, but his father’s funeral had been closed-casket, and he had never known who his mother was. Once, one of his friends had died, but no one had been allowed to see the body. That had been in middle school.

He wondered whether the Cheeseman was really dead—whether he might still be resuscitated. He’d never bothered to learn CPR. Maybe he should have. Maybe, if he’d learned CPR, and if he’d stayed awake on the toilet, and if he hadn’t wasted so much of his life, he’d have been able to revive the Cheeseman. As it was, the Cheeseman’s life, whatever remained of it, was in the hands of ER nurses spread too thin, exhausted after a long night of treating drunks who’d blown their hands off with fireworks and children who’d wanted to see what would happen if they stuck lit sparklers up their noses. His chances were not good, even if he was still breathing—and Ira couldn’t hear him breathing.

Ira thought about opening the refrigerator. Nothing in his moral code explicitly forbade him from eating the cheese of a dead man—indeed, there was something to be said for fighting food waste in this way—but still, the thought made his heart clench.

He did not open the refrigerator. He went out and sat on the steps, waiting for Carlyle or the ambulance to arrive. The weather was hot. The sun’s glare and the acrid residue of smoke stung Ira’s eyes. All around him, streets and laws were littered with the cast-off paper husks of sparklers. Across the street, the neighbor’s garbage can, which had spent the night burning, bubbled in a plasticky puddle in the driveway.

Ira sat on the doorstep, massaging his chin. His head was pounding. His throat convulsed. He tongue yearned for cheese. The rest of him—his mind, his stomach, his entire being—were in revolt, revolted by the thought of cheese. Somewhere in the distance, sirens rose above the roofs. The melted remnants of the neighbor’s trashcan smoldered, sending up a twisting plume, and it occurred to Ira that he’d wasted these last one hundred seven days: that all the resentment he’d felt toward the Cheeseman, all the bitterness, all the anxiety, all the agitation, all the feeble indignation were now sifting off him like smoke on the wind.