Back Story

56

Alone in my apartment on Marlborough Street, I sat at my kitchen counter with a tall Scotch and soda and cleaned the Browning. I had just killed three men, two of whom I didn't even know. What kind of business was I in, where I had to kill three men on a pleasant moonlit night in an Ivy League football stadium. Hope tomorrow isn't parents' day. There had been two people at Taft awhile ago. If I shot anyone else on a college campus, I'd probably be eligible for tenure. I drank half my drink.

Sometimes the work helped people. But who was getting helped this time? Did Daryl want to know what I had learned? Would it help her? Was I the one to decide that? Several people had died so far in pursuit of information that no one might wish to acquire. They hadn't been good people. But I had known I'd have to kill them when I led them to the stadium, where I knew the layout and they didn't. I hadn't known there'd be backup. But I hadn't known there wouldn't be. Did I stick at it because I was curious? Because I was a nosy guy who wanted to know what everyone had been covering up? Now I knew. Or at least I knew most of it. Was it worth a lot of dead guys? I did this work because I could. And maybe because I couldn't do any other. I'd never been good at working for someone. At least this work let me live life on my terms.

I ran the swab through the barrel of the Browning, and it came out clean. I looked down the barrel. Spotless. I wiped the gun off with a cloth and let the receiver forward, let the hammer down, and had more Scotch. The nearly full half gallon on the counter gleamed reassuringly in the light from under my kitchen cabinets. I fed cartridges into the magazine of the Browning. They went in economically, each one taking no more space than it needed to. Nice-looking things, bullets. Compact. Bright brass casing, copper coating on the slug, leaving some gray lead exposed at the blunt nose. When it was loaded, I slid the magazine into the pistol butt.

My glass was empty. I made another drink and took it to the front window and looked out at Marlborough Street at 2:15 A.M. The brick and brownstone faces of the buildings were blank. No windows were lighted. The cars parked on the street seemed abandoned in their stillness, and the bleak street lamps made the street look lonelier than I knew it was.

I was doing this because I had started out to do this, and if you are going to live life on your own terms, there need to be terms, and somehow you need to live up to them. What was that line from Hemingway? What's right is what feels good after? That didn't help. I took a long drink of Scotch and soda. There was that line from who, Auden? Malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man. I could see my face reflected in the window glass. It was the face of a guy who used to box-the nose especially, and a little scarring around the eyes.

I went back to the counter and sat and looked at the Browning 9mm semiautomatic pistol as it lay there. As an artifact, it was nice-looking. Well-made. Precise. Nice balance to it. Blued finish. Black handle. Everything it should be and no more than that. Form follows function. The magazine was full and in place. But there was no round in the chamber. As it lay on my countertop, it was less dangerous than a sixteen-ounce hammer.

Maybe Harvey lived life on his own terms, too. And maybe he was faithful to the terms. Maybe that was why he'd kept coming in the dark unknown stadium when both his backup were gone. What would he be doing tonight if he'd won? Was that the only difference? That it maybe bothered me more than it would have bothered him?

I took my drink with me and went around the counter and picked up the phone and called Susan. Her voice was full of sleep.

"Guess I woke you up," I said.

"It's quarter to three," Susan said. "Are you all right?"

"More or less," I said. "I needed to hear your voice."

The sleepy thickness vanished from her voice.

"Where are you?" she said.

"Home."

"Are you drunk."

"Somewhat," I said.

"Do you need me to come over?"

"No," I said. "I need you to tell me you love me."

"I do love you," Susan said. "Sometimes I think I have loved you all my life."

"You haven't known me all your life."

"A meaningless technicality," Susan said.

"I love you," I said.

"I know," Susan said. "Has something bad happened?"

"I've had to shoot some people," I said.

"You're not hurt."

"No."

"You've had to shoot people before. It's part of what you do."

"I know."

"But?"

"But," I said, "rarely in pursuit of so measly a grail."

"The truth?"

"The truth sometimes sounds better than it is," I said.

"I agree. But it's no measly grail."

"And the violence."

"You are a violent man," Susan said. "You have been all your life."

"How good a thing is that," I said.

"It's neither good nor bad," Susan said. "It simply is. What makes you who you are is that you have contained it within a set of rules that you can't even articulate."

"Sonova bitch," I said.

"You know it's true," she said. "Even bad as you feel right now, and some of that is booze talking, at the center of your soul you know you didn't do a wrong thing."

"Maybe that's a lie I tell myself."

"No," Susan said.

"Flat no?"

"I'm a shrink. I'm allowed to say that. Besides," Susan said, "you are the damn grail."

"I am?"

"You are," she said. "A lifelong quest to be true to who you are."

"And that's a good thing?" I said.

"It's the only thing," she said. "Good or bad. It is the simple fact of you." I could hear the smile in Susan's voice. "And for what it's worth, I wouldn't want you to be different."

"Even if I could be," I said.

"Which you can't," Susan said.

"So what makes me better than Harvey?"

"Would I ever fall in love with Harvey?"

"No."

I didn't say anything. Susan let me be quiet for awhile. Silence was never a problem for us.

"No," I said. "You couldn't."

"There's your difference," Susan said.

"I'm okay because you love me?" I said.

"No. I love you because you're okay."

Again we shared a silence.

Then I said, "Thank you, Doctor."

"Take some Scotch," Susan said. "Call me in the morning."