CHRISTOPHER: (Thinking: She’s mad, doesn’t know who she’s talking to, who’s drinking her red wine, eating her stew, corkscrew on the table leering at her. Breasts like soap bubbles. What does Parks want from us?)
CAROLYN: One of the difficulties of our marriage from the start — I say this as a fact, you understand — is that I’m smarter than Curt. (Sniffing strange odor with exaggerated repugnance.) Christopher, put your shoe back on, please.
CHRISTOPHER: (SCRATCHES HIS FOOT. DOES NOT PUT SHOE BACK ON.)
CAROLYN: My husband has some illusion of himself as a great man. How boring he can be. Oh, God, how dull he is!
My mother was telling us how my father was the most exciting man she knew — everything he said was original and brilliant. That’s why she married him, difficult as he is. “If you think he’s so brilliant,” Phyllis said, “why is it you never listen to him when he talks?” She said how cute we were, her eyes floating out of her head, hugging Phyllis, hugging us both. How cute.
“I don’t think he’s dull,” I said.
CAROLYN: (Tongue moving between her lips, nervous sexual antenna.) He has a solemn manner, which I’m sure you’ve noticed, which passes, I imagine, for brilliance among his students. He can be very impressive, very high-serious if you don’t listen too carefully to what he’s saying. Blah blah blah blah blah.
SEIZE BERSERK KILLER AFTER 16-HOUR SIEGE
TWO BYSTANDERS WOUNDED
CAROLYN: When he finished describing what I had done to mar his potentially beautiful life, his packed suitcase was at the door waiting for him. So: out. (Points blindly in direction of window, her bearings off.) So clear the hell out if you’re not happy here. I don’t want it anymore.
CHRISTOPHER: (If they found her dead would they blame him for it? The evidence — his fingerprints too many places to be undone — would point to him, though he would be innocent. Who else would kill her?)
“Don’t go yet,” she said.
I sat down on a chair close to the couch, my chest heavy. Some untouched terror — a vulture’s dense need — creasing the walls with its shadow. “Would you take him back?”
CAROLYN: (Coldly.) If you had understood what I was saying, you wouldn’t have asked that. (Nodding significantly to herself, tongue snaking out.)
CHRISTOPHER: Do you think I don’t understand you?
CAROLYN: (Laughs like glass breaking.) I don’t think anyone understands me. (Getting up.) You can tell my husband if you see him, though of course you won’t, that he’s made his choice and he’s going to have to take responsibility for it. Tell him that, please. (She exits to bathroom.)
She returned with new makeup on, her hair combed, looking softer and more tired. Wearing perfume.
“Are you still here?”
I thought of going but there was no place, the streets dark. “Do you know where he is, your husband?”
“Don’t you?” She winked conspiratorially. Her eyes trying to get out of her skull. Gnawed on her lip, head tilted as if listening to something she couldn’t hear. “He’s always been a self-concerned bastard.” Covering her face with her hands. “Why are we all so miserable? Why is it nothing we do gives us satisfaction?”
Went to the bathroom, face out of focus in the mirror. Eyes like small red birds. The place had an overripe smell, a heavy mother smell. Black bra and flowered panties on the towel rack, a red towel between them. Rabbit, slightly mutilated, in the bathtub. A knuckle bleeding, skin scraped off, without any sense of how it happened. No Band-Aids in medicine cabinet. Only bottles of things. Brown-stained bottle of iodine. Couldn’t get thing out. All kinds of pills but not a fucking Band-Aid. Scrubbed at the stain, hot water scalding my hands. The stain remained, dots of red around it. Thought someone had hurt her.
When I got back, she was all right. Knuckle still bleeding, I asked for a Band-Aid.
“Let me see your hand.”
“It’s nothing.” Holding it out for her to examine.
She made a face of mock horror. “Come on in the bathroom. I’ll do it for you. Come on.”
She stopped the bleeding, washed the cut and bandaged it. I let her do it, acted helpless. Her doing it like I was her child, my hand in her hands, made me nervous. Sniffing perfume like airplane glue.
“You said that you thought I knew the girl Parks was with. Do you have the idea he’s with Rosemary?”
“If that’s her name. I told you before I don’t know where he is or who he’s with. I assume he’s with this girl, whatever her name is.”
“He’s not with Rosemary.”
The only thing alive was her tongue. She wet her lips from crack to crack. “That’s your concern, not mine.” Stood in the middle of the room like a statue. “I’d like you to go now. I’m very tired.”
“Can I stay on the couch? I’ll leave in the morning. I promise I’ll leave as soon as it’s light.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to go, Chris. It’s not so hard — just tell yourself to get up and before you know it you’ll be on your feet.”
I wasn’t going. “Are you afraid of me?” I asked her.
“Why should I be afraid of you?” Her motor quivering. “I just want you to leave.”
“I’d like a cup of coffee first. Something. You go to bed if you’re tired. I’ll let myself out.”
“You’ll go when I tell you to go.” Like some schoolteacher punishing you. (I hadn’t done anything to her.)
I shook my head.
“Christopher, I want you to go.” She extended her arm, pointed to the door.
Without reason I started to laugh.
She slapped me in the face, my eyes burning. I got up, burning. She screamed (though I hadn’t touched her) and kicked me twice in the leg. “You bastard. You idiot bastard.” Running from me.
I heard her barricading the door to her room.
Two police cars drove up. I watched them park across the street, their red lights flashing. A cordon of men surrounding the building. Curtis Parks with them, pointing his finger at the window. Someone had his gun drawn. I ducked back out of sight. Under the couch, pressed flat. Pretending to be unconscious, I waited, the gun in my hand under me. When they turned me over to see my face, I would start firing. The voices came and went. They looked everywhere but didn’t find me. When they lifted the couch I wasn’t there.
Walked around, my leg stiff where she had kicked me. Three-twenty on the kitchen clock.
She wandered in as if she were lost. “What’s the matter?” she said, a thin bathrobe over her nightgown, her eyes barely open. “Can’t you sleep?”
“What does Parks have against the war? Someone has to kill someone.”
“We’re all for peace in this house, Christopher. Would you like a sleeping pill?”
“No.”
“I’m a light sleeper. Please try not to make so much noise.” And she went back into her room.
A Post on the floor next to the couch. July 28. Yesterday or the day before. I’ve lost track. When did the days pass?
HOUSEWIFE
IS RAPED
IN MINEOLA
A 35-year-old housewife was raped and beaten by a masked intruder waiting in the bathroom of her Mineola, Long Island, home today.
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