“Nah,” my father says. “Don’t listen to your mother. The truth won’t do you any good. You tell them what they want to hear, you hear me. Now we have to go, I’m sorry to say. You’re not our only child.”
Funny. I thought I was.
“If dad says so, it must be so,” she says without perceptible irony.
In a flash, they’re out the door, my mother blowing a kiss, my father saluting.
Dinner doesn’t arrive at the usual time, but of course the wall clock has stopped and so my only gauge of time is whether I’m hungry or not. Not is the preferred alternative. They haven’t fed me in a dog’s age.
When there is food, I usually spend the first hour or so trying to identify its source.
Soon the interrogators will return, sometimes in a group of three (in reverse size place), more often one at a time and I will be urged to confess yet again.
I work on a confession that could well be appropriate to whatever they might ask.
67th Night
“Fuck you,” I answer. It is the voice of outrage speaking.
“Fuck you is not going to get it done,” the number two interrogator (he’s the Klaus Kinski type with the ripe German accent) says. “You want to get your hands untied, you got to do better than that. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if your arms were coming out of their sockets.”
“Please untie me,” I say. “I’ll give you what you want.”
“You got to give us something first,” says the head man.
“Why don’t you untie him,” says number three, who is a woman and less abrupt in her manner than the others. “If you don’t get what you want, you can always tie him up again. I think he ‘s ready to cooperate.” She puts her hand on my crotch.
“Yesterday, you told us you knew those girls in high school,” number one says. “The thing is, we know Winifred and Antonia didn’t go to the same high school. So what’s the real story?”
“Fuck you is the real story,” I say.
“You’re a terrorist, aren’t you?” two says.
I’m wondering which answer will get them to untie me. “No,” I say, which induces no response. “Actually, yes.”
“Were the girls working with you?” the woman asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Yes.”
“Cut him down,” one says. They look around for a knife, find a pair of scissors in one of the drawers and, after a few agonizing minutes, cut the ropes, permitting me to lower my arms.
I am prepared to tell them anything not to have my arms strung to the pipe thing again.
“Did they take orders from you or you from them?” one asks, placing a recorder on the edge of the bed.
“Sometimes one way, sometimes the other,” I say. “They were driving alone in their open car and when they noticed me on the side of the road with my thumb in the air, they slowed down.”
“And when was that?” two asks, interrupting my train of thought.
“Five years ago,” I say.
“You’ve known them for five years?” the woman asks, seemingly surprised by my answer.
“Perhaps it was three years ago,” I say.
They look at their notes, huddle in the far corner of the room.
Buzz buzz buzz buzz. “In our first interview,” says the woman, “you said you only knew them for a short while. Were you lying then or are you lying now?”
“In my profession,” I say, “which I have only the vaguest recollection of having practiced, I feel obliged to tell whatever seems the best story at the time.”
The interrogators leave the room, the woman returning moments later. “When you say ‘in my profession,’” she asks, “what profession exactly are you referring to?”
The answer comes to mind, then slips away. “Don’t you know?” I say. “Who do you think I am?”
“It’s an old trick,” she said, “to try to turn the tables on the questioner. Would it be accurate to say that the profession you’re referring to is the commission of seemingly random acts of violence? Please answer if you don’t wish to be tied again with your arms in the air. I think you know that I’m the only friend you have in here.”
“I appreciate your kindness,” I say, only half aware that I am dissembling. “The profession I was referring to is that of storyteller.”
“You are saying that you’re a professional liar, is that it?” she says, turning away. “And I was beginning to like you, sweetheart.” She takes a tiny cell phone from her pocket to answer a call or perhaps to make one.
The word “storyteller” makes itself known from time to time.
“Look, I am not a professional liar,” I say when I have her attention again, “though I admit there is a connection between liar and teller of stories.”
I confess that I have violent mood swings and a bad temper and that a former therapist said — I think he meant it in a positive way — that I tend to be self-involved.
“That isn’t anything I want to know,” she says. “Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless it was your uncontrollable temper that got you into the situation we’re talking about,” she says.
“I made every effort to avoid fights because of my temper,” I say. “I knew that once I got started I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. So I avoided all provocations except for this one time.” I have no idea what I am going to say so I pretend I am censoring myself from telling the story while at the same time trying to come up with something vaguely credible.
“Were you with Toni and Win when this happened, storyteller?” the woman asks.
“I must have been,” I say. “I mean, your asking me about them must have stirred up this memory. That makes sense, doesn’t it?”
She turns on the tape recorder, which she holds out in my direction and clicks it on. “I’m listening,” she says, but that isn’t what she means.
“One of them was dancing with this drunk aggressive guy who was leaning into her. It might have been that I was the guy. I don’t think so. I think it was someone else and that I was sitting across from them. I had the sense that Win was appealing to me to help.”
“Where was Toni?”
“I think she was in the bathroom at this time. The drunk — he was a big guy, burly — forced Win to go outside with him. I seemed to be the only one aware of what was going on, which urged a certain responsibility on me, wouldn’t you say. Win had this imploring look on her face.”
“Did she?” the woman says. “Would you repeat that? You had your head turned. …Questioner is asking prisoner to repeat his remarks.”
“So I went outside to see what was going on.”
“Was this man who was in your words forcing Win to leave the establishment in his custody a law enforcement officer”
“If he was, and I can’t be sure one way or another, he wasn’t wearing a uniform.”
“Describe what the man was wearing.”
I’m not very observant so even if my memory was working on all gears, I wouldn’t be able to answer her question. “He had on a plaid shirt,” I say, “and shit-kicking boots.”
“And as you say, you followed them outside. Is that right? To what purpose?”
“To protect her if there was no other way.”
“And why would you think she needed protection? The man, who you say was forcing her, might have been taking her outside in his capacity as a law enforcer. Isn’t that a possibility?”
“You’re right, of course,” I say. “I’m just describing what I saw and what I did.”
“Go on.”
“I didn’t see them at first but then I heard what sounded like a call for help and I went in the direction it was coming from. I was holding a wrench in my hand, though I’m not sure how I acquired it.”