We sat on a large rock in the park. On a hill over a playground. Kids on swings pushed by fat Negresses. The place crawling with police. I flinched when one came close. She saw. Seeing my sweat, she trembles.
She tells me her father and mother divorced. The father in Cleveland, a tax lawyer. Says she feels like an orphan, glancing at me when she says it. Lives with her aunt (which I knew), her father’s sister, who works during the day. When I said why don’t we go up there, she said no.
No mention of Curtis Parks.
I told her I was an adopted child. Both parents died when I was born. She nods to herself. Even when I lie, it comes out true.
If she didn’t suspect, she would tell me about the attack in the park, would invite me up.
I have to find out if Parks is seeing her.
July 2
I dreamed I was pissing out the window. The stuff burning holes in whatever it touched. People scattering, falling. There was more, but it was gone in the morning, my mother shaking me awake.
Police say they have a lead on the Cripple Killer. Some children reported to have seen him well enough to make identification. No description given.
I followed Parks most of the day. Nothing interesting. He didn’t meet Rosemary.
He asked me at dinner what kind of grades I expected. I said I didn’t know. He shook his head. “Tell him,” he said to my mother, “if he wastes his life, he wastes mine.”
“He’s not wasting his life,” she said. “You think anything that’s not your life is a waste.”
“You’re lucky you have a mother,” he said in his sarcastic voice. “She’d defend you if you went around slaughtering people in the street.”
“I would,” she said. “Whatever he does, I love him.”
After they went to sleep I took ten dollars from her pocketbook.
July 5
With Rosemary in Washington Square Park. (She said she wanted to watch me play chess. Two moves from mate, I let the old man take my queen. No one noticed — Rosemary looking away, daydreaming.) Then on the way to the subway, Parks is coming toward us. He looks like he wants to run but since I’ve seen him, keeps coming. We shake hands. His smile stuffed into his face. We are all pretending something. (Was he following us?) He invites us to have a drink with him. Rosemary says that she has to get somewhere. “What about you, Chris?” I say no. We stand around, Parks asking how she is, how I am. We are all well. He stares at Rosemary, who won’t look at him. When he leaves, my stomach hurts.
In her aunt’s apartment on Central Park West she tells me that she and Parks were (I listen as if I didn’t know) close. She talks about it. Says she no longer sees him. Starts to cry. My pants bulge. Her confession.
All ears and nose, I listen. I’m sorry, I say, hands in pockets. She kisses me on the forehead. I am stiff. Nothing happens. The aunt, a spidery bird of a woman, breaks in.
When I get home my mother tells me someone named Curtis Parks called, left a number for me to call him back.
I call Rosemary after dinner. The aunt says she’s out for the evening. When she asks who’s calling, I tell her Curtis Parks. “Oh, how are you, Professor?” she says.
In my room at night, I mount Rosemary, watching myself, my rolling pin between her legs. She is screaming.
Running from the station, something fierce in him, unappeasable. Something mad in him.
I sit on a bench across the street, smoke a cigarette. Wait for her to come home. He sits on my back, offering advice. “I bear the burden for both of you,” he says. I get up and throw him off. He clings. In a phone booth, I dial Parks. His wife says hellohello. Is he sleeping? Hellohellohello. “I’m sorry,” I say. A police car goes by. With my last dime I call home. My mother says who is it. I bang the receiver down. Choking her. I want him. With my scout knife I saw at the wire. Stab and saw. It is hard, a plastic spiral covering it. When there is blood on the blade I stop.
Knife in hand, I move toward him. “Do you have change of a quarter?” He fiddles in his pocket, his eyes on my face. (What does he see?) No change. We pass. I sense him turning, following me. I don’t look back. Someone is coming from behind, goes by. A man in a flowered shirt, dark. He goes under the turnstile. A train coming on the other side. Afraid to commit himself to the wrong direction, he scrambles back and forth, looking for a way to the other side. For a moment, arms in front of him, he thinks of going across the tracks, of jumping the gap. There are policemen coming from both sides of the platform, two from one side, one from the other. In panic, he sits down on the floor. Rolls himself into a ball and moves, fuse in mouth, toward the pair of cops. The train comes and I get on. The cops are shouting at the human bomb. The lone one has his gun drawn and is saying something in a sweet voice. The other two go into the men’s room to hide. The train pulls out. My finger in my pocket bleeds a stain.
July 7
All morning I expect something to happen. In a dream the police pick me up as the Cripple Killer. My mother not home when they arrive. My father in his study yells at them through the door, doesn’t come out. A child on a pony identifies me. Also Parks and Rosemary, who have collected evidence against me, they say. Everything fits. I am unable to explain where I’ve been. And then, awake, I can’t shake the feeling that it is so. That they will come for me. It is a matter of time. I stay in bed till noon in a sweat. No one home. I have a half glass of my father’s Courvoisier for breakfast. And a Coke. I dress, clean my room. Call Rosemary. Have to tell her, get it over with. “Come over,” she says. “Please come over, Chris.”
I delay. I call Parks, who is out. His wife, who has this cultured voice, says from what she’s heard she’d like to meet me. Has been looking forward to it. (What has she heard?) I say I am also looking forward to it. When I hang up I’m in a sweat again. My nerve gone. Regret everything. My skin like a sheet over a corpse. I give her the business in my room, the door closed, confess to her my crimes as she writhes under me. I am best alone.
When I get there she isn’t home. I wait five minutes then leave, free of my promise to myself.
Headline in Post:
MAN IN WOMAN’S
GARB, PERVERSE
KILLER’S FOURTH
MISTAKEN FOR A WOMAN,
TRANSVESTITE IS KILLED IN HALLWAY,
THOUGH NOT MOLESTED, POLICE SAY
Someone taps my shoulder. I drop the paper. When I turn she looks frightened, her arms in front of her face. “Don’t be angry with me, Christopher.” She has been running after me. Was asleep when I rang the bell.
In her apartment, I look out the window twelve flights down. Expect to see myself waiting on the bench across the street. Only a park. A flight of cars between. She is wearing a pink-and-white dress. Like a candy cane. I can’t look at her. She is too close. Sweat burns my neck.
Nothing is said. I think of telling her — it pushes against the top of my head. The longer I wait, the heavier it is. Prick or conscience? Between my legs there is more eye than sight.
I am sitting next to her. She pretends trust. Her head against my face. I want to smash the room. It is not the time. I tell her that I am in love with her. She looks frightened and shakes her head. Then, her face in her hands, she cries.
She tells me that she doesn’t feel love for me. It is the reason she cries (she says). Wants to but doesn’t. It is the way it is. “Oh, Chris, I’m sorry.” Kissing my face.
I hold her down on the couch, force my weight on her. (What more can I confess?) She whispers in my ear, sobs. Without resistance, there is nothing. I let her up.