Not the act itself, but the things it changes.
Leonard Crawley is scrambling up out of the cot, Monk
reaches into his pocket, looking confused, the broken shotgun awkward
in his hands.
Peter watches it happen from a long ways off, watches
himself stand up, knocking over the chair, and put the mouth of the
gun in the middle of Leonard’s throat. His arm jumps again, and the
noise fills the room, and overfills it, and he is insulated in
silence.
A certain feeling settles, and it seems to him it is
snowing.
Monk closes the breech of the gun in his hands and
brings it up even with Peter’s chest. He stops, not knowing what to
do. He looks from the stairway to the cot. He whispers, "The
fuck did you do?"
The two men stare at each other, and small noises
return to the room, and the place fills with the smell of cordite.
"Peter," he says again, "the fuck did
you do?"
When they walk upstairs, the old man is back in his
chair by the window, holding his cat. "Something’s happened,"
Peter says.
The old man nods and stares out the window. He does
not turn to the voice. Peter sees he is waiting for something, and
understands what it is. He touches the old man’s shoulder, to let
him know this isn’t his time, and the old man jumps at the touch.
"Everything’s over," Peter says. "I
ain’t going to hurt you."
The old man nods and
stares out the window, waiting to be shot.
* * *
S
he comes out of her
sister’s house carrying a package. The box is long and narrow,
wrapped in black paper. A single pink ribbon is wound once around the
top.
She puts it between them on the seat of the Buick as
he starts the car. "Where have you been?" she says.
He backs out of the driveway. His cousin is dead less
than an hour; he wonders if the old man has called the police. The
smell of the basement is all over him. She leans across the seat,
across the package, and touches his neck with her lips.
"I brought you something," she says, so
close to his ear he can feel her breath. He thinks of the concussive
noise as the gun jumped. Her hand runs the length of his thigh and
then is gone.
She straightens to her own side of the seat and picks
up the black package.
"What is it?" he says.
She shakes her head. "Wait," she says. He
turns onto Route 70 and heads for the expressway. She moves in her
seat, hiking her skirt up her thighs. He reaches to hold her hand, to
begin to find a way to tell her what has happened, but she stops him.
"You’ve got to wait for everything," she
says.
And he sees that is true, and he waits for her to see
something has happened.
She picks up the present and taps it lightly against
her lips, and leaves it there a moment to consider him. Her lip
swells and creases against the edge and he sees the pink inside the
crease.
She lays the package across his lap. "You have
to be undressed when you open it," she says.
He looks at the package, the tiny wet spot where it
touched her mouth. "That’s the only way," she says, "I
can tell if you like it or not."
The next time he looks
across the seat, she is taking off her underwear. They are on the
Atlantic City Expressway. She slides her panties off, her hands
between the fabric and her legs all the way to her shoes. She drapes
them across the seat back, near his shoulder.
* * *
S
omething happened with my
cousin," he says.
"I don’t want to hear anything about your
cousin."
They have turned south on the Garden State Parkway,
headed toward Cape May. The heel of her hand moves up and down his
leg, dragging her fingernails an inch or two behind. He looks out the
window; a heron rises out of the tall grass.
"You ought to get
away from him," she says.
* * *
H
e parks the car on the
street in front of the house. He sits quietly a moment, staring at
the place, trying to tell her. The words aren’t there; the thought
itself is blurred. He wants something that doesn’t have a name.
She puts her lips against his ear and kisses him.
"Let’s go open your present," she says.
He steps out of the car; his ear is wet and feels
cold in the breeze from the ocean.
He opens the front door with a key that is as old as
the house. The familiar, dark living room waits on the other side,
its air cool and ancient. He steps into it and feels her behind him,
close enough to touch.
"Come on," she says.
He follows her up the stairs and into the bedroom. He
opens the windows and smells the ocean. When he turns back into the
room, she puts the present in his hand. The box is heavier than it
felt in his lap, the wrapping paper is slick under his fingers.
She steps closer and he feels her hand on his zipper.
It will not open for her at first, and she holds the top to pull it
down. Her hand comes inside, sliding under the elastic of his shorts
until she finds his penis. It is soft in her hand, and she smiles.
"Stay just like this," she says. "Take
off your clothes but think of something, don’t let it get hard."
He sits on the bed, still holding the gift. He
wonders if there are television cameras outside the old man’s
house, waiting to take pictures of Michael as he is brought out in a
bag.
He leans forward and unties his shoes. She watches
him, he watches himself. He takes off his shirt and then his socks.
He thinks of the feel of the sheets, the drop of the bed. He is
tired. She watches him take off his pants. The present sits beside
him on the bedspread, and he is naked.
"I didn’t think you could do it," she
says, looking at his penis.
He is still lost in what has happened. He sees this
room and he sees the other room, with Michael lying on the floor.
Her hands go to the waist of her skirt, and a moment
later it drops around her shoes. She stands still, the line of her
blouse falling even with her pubic hair; the curtain rises and falls,
a shadow as soft as stockings wraps her legs, again and again. He
looks at the box, then back at Grace. The room and everything in it
is balanced so carefully he is afraid to move.
"Michael’s dead," he says. He cannot hold
still forever. "I did Michael."
Something is put into motion then that he cannot
stop. She stands in the middle of the room, in the middle of her
skirt. And then she bends at the waist. Her bottom shines, and when
she stands up again she brings the skirt with her. She turns,
checking herself in the mirror. There is a certain familiarity to
being in the bedroom when she looks at herself in the mirror, but
that is gone even before she is.
She picks her purse off the chair and steps toward
the door.
"The car keys are downstairs," he says.
"You can leave it at your sister’s."
He hears her on the stairs, then opening the front
door. He stands up and walks to the window and watches her get into
his car. He sits down in the chair, the wood is cold against his
skin, and she drives to the end of the street and then turns left,
headed for Cherry Hill.
Her present lies in black paper, unopened on the bed.
He is still sitting in the chair when the car with
Pennsylvania plates stops across the street. An hour has passed,
perhaps more. He watches the car a moment—three men inside it,
talking—and then goes back to the bed and begins to dress.
He waits until he hears them knock downstairs, and
then opens the window that faces east to the water and fits himself
into the frame.
They knock once, wait a moment, and then come in. He
hears them in the kitchen and the closets downstairs, opening doors,
and then they are on the stairway.
A breeze comes in off the salt water, a smell as old
as the world.
He thinks of Nick, wondering what he will make of
this. He remembers something he said, gratitude . . .
The door opens and the Italians walk into the room,
holding their guns. The last one closes the door behind him, and then
looks at Peter; a glint of recognition. As if he has caught him at
something, as if they know each other’s thoughts.
There is a white dog in that look and it freezes his
heart.
He sees the dog, and then the child, bundled in her
snow suit against the cold, floating toward him through the air. The
ground shudders as she lands.
Distinctly shudders.
And then he is floating too, breathless, the familiar
stillness of falling fills his chest in an unfamiliar way, and he is
watching himself from an unfamiliar place.
And in the moment he hits the ground in the back
yard, he sees himself in perfect focus; he sees that he is forgiven.
March 22, 1991
Useless Bay