5
“Oh, Mr. Bennet. I didn’t expect to hear from you un-6
til at least tomorrow.”
7
“I call into my messages every six hours unless I’m 8
somewhere where I can’t get to a phone. You’re interested 9
in renting me your basement?”
10
“We can talk about it.”
11
I thought I heard the hiss of a sharp intake of breath.
12
Maybe it was the bad connection, but I got the feeling 13
that Mr. Bennet was not a patient man.
14
“I don’t have time to come out there again, Mr. Blakey.”
15
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you then.”
16
We were silent for a few beats while the chatter of the 17
static went merrily along. At one point I thought the con-18
nection might have broken off.
19
“I can come out there on Friday,” Bennet said in a re-20
strained tone. Another conversation interfered with us 21
over the lines. It was some foreign tongue, sounded Ara-22
bic but I’m not too good with languages.
23
“What time?” I asked over the new conversation.
24
“Four. Four in the afternoon.”
25
“I’ll see you at four then.”
26
“Four,” Anniston Bennet said one more time, and the S 27
connection was broken.
R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
There I sat, listening to phone static from some foreign 2
land, happy even though I had just made the first step 3
toward giving up my solitude. I tried to imagine the little 4
white man coming into my kitchen while I was standing 5
there in my drawers with a hangover.
6
From there I wondered about the word hangover for a 7
while. Was it an old seafaring term? Was the image of a 8
sailor throwing up over the side of the ship, hanging on 9
for his life? That brought me around to thinking about 10
liquor, Southern Comfort to be exact. Ricky loved South-11
ern Comfort and I did too.
12
“Hey, Cat,” I said into the receiver.
13
“Charles, hey.”
14
“You doin’ anything?”
15
“Uh-uh, man. Not me. Clarance out with his wife an’
16
kids. He sure don’t wanna see you after Thursday night.”
17
“Yeah.” I paused, anticipating the drink. “Hey, Ricky?”
18
“Hey what?”
19
“You wanna pick up a pint of SC and come on over?”
20
“Shit.”
21
“I’ll pay you for the whole thing when you get here, 22
man.” That was a good offer and Ricky knew it. “I need 23
some help with my basement.”
24
“Okay,” he said. “I gotta give my sister a ride, but then 25
I’ll be over.”
26
27 S
■
■
■
28 R
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The Man in My Basement
“Is it dry?” Ricky asked, holding his tumbler of iced 1
Southern Comfort and peering down into the darkness of 2
the cellar.
3
“Yeah. These doors are triple ply and high. No rain can 4
get in.” I took a few steps down and pulled the chain on 5
the light.
6
Ricky followed.
7
“Big down here,” he said.
8
“All this junk, man. I gotta get rid of it.”
9
“Why? You gonna rent to that white man?”
10
“No,” I lied.
11
I’ve lied all my life. To my parents and teachers and 12
friends at school. I lied about being sick and not coming 13
in to work, about romantic conquests, my salary, my fa-14
ther’s job. I’ve lied about where I was last night and where 15
I was right then if I was on the phone and no one could 16
see me. I have lied and been called a liar and then lied 17
again to cover other falsehoods. Sometimes I pretend to 18
know things that I don’t know. Sometimes I lie to tell 19
people what I think they want to hear.
20
It’s not such a bad thing — lying. Sometimes it pro-21
tects people’s feelings or gives them confidence or just 22
makes them laugh.
23
But I never told a lie like that one-word fib to Ricky about 24
Anniston Bennet. Somehow I knew that I shouldn’t talk 25
about the little man who calls from Arabia about a base-26
ment sublet. I wanted to keep those cards close to my vest.
S 27
R 28
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Walter Mosley
1
“Damn, you got some old stuff down here,” Ricky was 2
saying.
3
“Junk.”
4
“Uh-uh, man. This is antique-quality shit.”
5
“Shit is right.”
6
“No, Charles. These old dolls and wood toys are valu-7
able. So’s the furniture, the trunk, probably the clothes in 8
the trunk, and maybe even these old paintings. You can’t 9
tell, man. These people out here spend five hundred dollars 10
on an old broked-down chair in a minute.” Ricky had lived 11
his teenage years in Brooklyn with his father. The way he 12
talked was different than the way most of my friends did.
13
But he had an eye for profit. One summer he and Clarance 14
ran a nighttime hot-dog stand in East Hampton. Charged 15
three and four dollars for hot dogs, and got it.
16
“How do I sell this stuff ? Yard sale?”
17
“That’s sucker shit right there, man. Uh-uh. There’s 18
some dealers in East Hampton and Southampton. I know 19
who they are, but you know they wanna rob you. But 20
there’s this sister out around Bridgehampton run a little 21
store that specializes in old quilts. Narciss Gully. If we 22
could get Narciss out here to look at your stuff and then 23
broker it with the other dealers, then you might make out.”
24
“You know her?”
25
“Ten percent.”
26
“Say what?” My tumbler was empty and I just felt the 27 S
Southern Comfort in my blood.
28 R
“Ten percent,” Ricky said again. “I don’t do any man-52
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The Man in My Basement
ual labor and I’m not responsible if at the end you don’t 1
think you got enough money.”
2
“What does she get out of it?”
3
“I’ll suggest ten percent for her too, but she might ask 4
for as much as twenty.”
5
“Thirty percent gone and you two don’t do nothing but 6
introduce?” I was arguing, but I knew it was a lost cause.
7
I had the woman’s name; I could have called her on my 8
own. But that would have cut Ricky out — I would never 9
have treated a friend like that.
10
11
12
I spent the next day pulling junk out of my basement. It 13
was a day full of the dry husks of spiders and centipedes, 14
and dust on top of oily grime that had been laid down be-15
fore the Civil War. I washed and swept and scrubbed with 16
every brush I had — even my uncle Brent’s old tooth-17
brush. My work yielded six boxes of old books (including 18
three diaries from three generations of Blakeys and 19
Dodds), wooden toys, tools that I couldn’t even figure out 20
how to hold, and so many piles of old clothes that I could 21
only make a stab at separating them. Tuxedos and jeans, 22