The “playground” is only a halfway thing, mainly grass and bushes and trees, with a brook running down the middle that’s really the head of Anacostia Creek. One or two rustic benches are there, but no restrooms or supervision, so parents don’t like it and forbid their kids to go there, with the results it’s usually deserted. It was deserted today, as I drove past on Forty-fourth, except for two people, lolling around on the grass, one Burl Stuart, the other Sonya Kirby. I drove by in a hurry, then at East-West stopped and took a U-turn, to go back. When I did I spotted their cars, her Valiant down near the bridge, his Pinto behind it. I drove by once more, slowing down a little to stare, and at Understood pulled in and stopped. I debated whether to go back, to stop and have it out, with her, with him, with both of them, but somehow couldn’t. I wish I could say I had some good reason, a deep reason that made sense, but it wouldn’t be true. I just lost my nerve, couldn’t make myself.
I drove back to the office and sat down at my desk again. Helen Musick came in, had a look at me, and wanted to know the trouble. I told her, “Nothing.” But she took me down and drove me around in her car, making me open the wing, so the cool air blew on my face. Then she took me in People’s and bought me a Coke. It revived me enough so I was able to carry on, the rest of the afternoon.
At last, around six, I got home and Sonya got up from reading the afternoon paper, the Evening Star. She brought me the cocktail tray, but I said: “I don’t care for anything.”
“Well you may as well have one.”
“I said I don’t want it!”
“Listen, you don’t have to yell.”
So we sat there a minute, and then, very casually, she said: “I saw you drive by today. Why didn’t you stop?”
“Some particular reason I should have?”
“Well after all it was me.”
“And also Burl Stuart.”
And then, as sour stuff boiled up in my throat, I went over and bellowed: “Why? Why was he there with you?”
“I said you don’t have to yell!”
“Answer me! What was he doing there?”
By that time, I was in slapping range, and might have fired one at her, except that she turned into something I was always forgetting she was, a brash teenager. She snapped a kick at my stomach, which I flinched away from in time, but it shut me up. She sulked a moment, then said, as though talking to a child: “What was he doing there? Well if I told him to meet me there, how could he, without being there?”
“You? Told him to meet you there?”
“That’s right. Now you know.”
“He called you, he...”
“No, no! I called him!”
“You? Called him? At his home? And...”
“Well you seem to know all about it.”
“Sonya! I’m asking you!”
“At his office I called him, of course.”
“What did you call him about?”
“To ’gradulate him, on his marriage. It was the least I could do, I thought. After all we had been friends.”
“And, he raped you — a real friendly thing.”
“I try not to think about that.”
“I do too, unsuccessfully.”
“You needn’t make cracks, Gramie.”
“Couldn’t you ’gradulate him over the phone?”
“Yes, of course. I did.”
“Then why the grass sandwich out in the park?”
“That was his idea. He said come up to his office, he wanted to see me. But I said meet me outside.”
“What did he want of you?”
“Screw me, was all.”
“I told you to refrain from using that word!”
“Well you asked what he wanted of me!”
“And what did you tell him?”
“Told him no, for the reason he already knew, as I’d told him that day at the house. So he said I should reconsider, as he didn’t stink any more. He said he’d used that lotion, the one that’s advertised, which he realizes now is no good, but he went for the girl in the ads. So I said after what I’d said, I owed him to give it a sniff, but I’d do it out in the park, on account if I had to throw up I could do it on the grass. So he said okay, and that’s why we were there.”
“And how did he smell, if I may ask?”
“Not good, but better. Enough, anyway, that I had to ’pologize for those various things I had said.”
“Did he ’pologize for raping you?”
“That subject didn’t come up.”
“...Or did he?”
“Did he? Did he? Did he what?”
“Rape you?”
“I thought I told you he did.”
“You did, and now I’m telling you, it’s not true, what you’ve said — or if it is, it’s not the whole truth, or even a fractional part of it. Sonya, on TV one night, in connection with White House stuff, I heard a guy say: ‘The truth bears its own thumbprint, right in the middle of its forehead — and so does a lie, except bigger, from having a bigger thumb.’ It’s all a lie, what you’ve said, so maybe the other was too. Maybe it wasn’t rape, maybe you weren’t held by two kind friends of his. Who were they, anyway? Do you realize you’ve never said? And why didn’t you tell your mother, until you got knocked up? Then, and then only, did you remember you were raped.
“You know what it reminds me of? Of Lincoln’s story, of the man he was defending, as a lawyer, in Illinois, from a woman’s charge that he raped her. She took the stand and he asked her: ‘Madame, if it is true, as you say, that this defendant raped you on Tuesday afternoon, how come you didn’t tell your husband till Friday night? ‘Well I just didn’t recollect,’ she answered — and that’s how it was with you!”
I could have said more, but didn’t, and went back to my chair, where I slumped down, with no more steam in my boiler. She came over, knelt beside me, moistened her thumb, pressed it against her brow, and said: “I was raped — now what does the print say?”
“You were raped.”
“Yes.”
“Now rub again, for today.”
She stared, then got up again, without rubbing, and went back to her place on the sofa. “Okay, it was the truth, every word, but not the whole truth, of course, so it was really a lie, with an extra big thumb. Gramie, what I left out was why. And that I’m not going to tell you. I told you before, our cloud went pop, soon as Miss Jane came back, so I know what I have to do, get out. And I’m going to. I said I wouldn’t be inny pest, and I won’t be, that I promise you. But I have something to do first, something that has to be done, and be done by me, as I was the cause of it all — and because I’m the one and the only one that can do it. So my time hasn’t quite come. But until it comes, can I ask that you give me some peace? That you quit bugging me? I’m not going to lay up with Burl — maybe he thinks I am, but Burl can make a mistake. But I am going to use him, I hope, for what I must do, what I must!
“What I hafta!”
She almost screamed it, being suddenly all wrought up. I went over, sat down beside her, and took her in my arms. I whispered: “Fine, anything you say. But why do you have to go?”
“Because I love you is why.”
Chapter 20
I reported to Mother next day, driving over there as soon as I’d checked in at the office. She listened and said: “Well I wouldn’t know what to tell you — Sonya is smart, and I would swear she’s decent, so she’s not playing Burl’s game, that we can be sure of. As to what game she is playing, I don’t know how you find out, unless you hire a private detective, but not even he can tell you why, which is what you want to know.”