Hanging Time

63

It was supposed to be better at night. It was always better at night. Depression moved in on Camille in the mornings, rumbling into the city by the bridges and tunnels in a caravan of eighteen-wheelers that pitted and dented the streets so badly, no one was safe negotiating the potholes.

Starting at four or five on bad days, she could feel it coming. She could see in inches, how the blackness of night began to break up into little pieces. And like the night fading away, she disintegrated, too, as unrecognizable bits of herself plunged into the Bermuda Triangle of another dawning day.

Camille was constantly, perpetually afraid. The knot in her stomach pushed up from below, crushing her chest and heart. It was painful to breathe. An animal stuck in her throat, chewed away at her from the inside. Sometimes she saw it as a tapeworm, thick and gray, sometimes as a cloud of poison gas. Today when she shut her eyes, she saw a formless thing, all mouth, eating her heart out. There was nothing in her, no human organs, nothing. Her body was an empty package with a bomb inside. She could hear it ticking away.

Bouck was in the hospital. The doctor told her that, but she didn’t cry. The policewoman at the police station said she couldn’t locate Milicia to take care of her, and they couldn’t keep her there, so they had to let her come home. Still she didn’t cry. She was numb.

The doctor said he would talk to her again so they could figure out what happened.

“When?” she wanted to know.

“Sometime tomorrow,” he told her.

No, she meant, “What happened when? What happened now or what happened a long time ago?”

He didn’t say.

Camille and Puppy came home in a police car. Her heart pounded all the way. A policewoman, big as a house, guarded her in the back seat, then let her out. She opened the doors of Bouck’s building with Camille’s key, then walked behind Camille and Puppy up the stairs.

The pounding in her chest intensified when she saw blood all over the hall floor. There was blood on the walls, too, and sticky tape marking off the places where no one was supposed to go. No one had cleaned the blood up. It left a sick smell in the moldy place.

The bomb inside Camille exploded. She tripped and pitched forward. The policewoman behind her reached out to stop her from crumpling on the floor.

At her touch, Camille started shrieking.

She grabbed the banister, smearing the blood, a shrill sound of pure terror pulsing from her throat. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”

The wall of blue recoiled. “Honey, I’m not going to hurt you—”

Not a second later the other one lunged through the door. “What’s going on?”

It was the one who drove the car, a man. He looked nervous.

Camille screamed, a cop on either side of her. “No, no!”

The power that kept her safe was gone. Bouck wasn’t there to protect her. “Get away from me!” she cried.

Her heart started pounding again. There was blood on her hands. “Where’s Bouck?” she whimpered.

She didn’t know what happened to Bouck. Puppy yelped, trying to jump out of her arms. The wall of blue moved closer.

Camille froze. Bouck must have killed a policeman with one of his guns and left all that blood behind. Or a policeman had killed him. She stared, bug-eyed, at the two cops.

For a moment no one moved. Then the woman said, “It’s okay, honey. No one will touch you.” She cocked her head at the cop by the door and moved away from Camille to show they wouldn’t touch her. Then she looked around the warehouse of the second floor in amazement, but didn’t get any closer to Camille, or say anything about the place.

Camille was too upset to tell her they were redecorating.

It took a long time before she could ask what happened.

The policewoman said she didn’t know. Camille didn’t believe her, didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t go upstairs to the room where she slept, wouldn’t stay on the second floor with all the blood. Finally she went to Bouck’s room, to sit in the bergère she had chosen for him, the new one that he liked.

The policewoman sat by the door in a hard wooden chair she had brought from downstairs, and watched Camille all night. Her eyes didn’t droop. Camille could feel them, wide open, gaping at her. All night she could hear another bomb inside her ticking away.

It was bad, very bad, by morning when the telephone rang. Camille listened to it for a while, not wanting to pick up. By the tenth ring she knew she had to pick up. It might be Bouck calling from the hospital. She reached for the receiver.

Milicia’s voice came out of it like a snake out of a charmer’s basket. “Bouck, what’s happened to Camille?” Her voice was harsh and wild. “I’m so worried about her.”

Camille didn’t say anything.

“Talk to me. I know you’re there.”

Still Camille didn’t say anything.

“You son of a bitch. You’re responsible for this. If Camille is sent to prison, I don’t know what I’ll do. Poor Camille, you did this to her.” Milicia was sobbing.

Milicia was crying for her. Camille didn’t want Milicia to cry.

“Bouck, just tell me where she is. I want to see her.” Milicia’s voice was pitiful.

“I’m here,” Camille said in her little-girl voice.

“What?” The crying stopped abruptly.

“I’m right here,” Camille said.

“I thought—I came by, looking for you last night. There were police all over the place. They said you weren’t there.”

“Well, now I’m here,” Camille said, watching the big policewoman by the door.

“Didn’t they arrest you?”

“I didn’t shoot. I think Bouck did.”

“What? Are you crazy? They were hung, not shot. Don’t play dumb. You know they were hung.” Milicia sounded annoyed.

“They were shot, Milicia. There’s blood all over the place.”

Milicia thought about that for a second.

“Camille, let me talk to Bouck,” she said finally.

“He’s in the hospital.” Camille started to cry.

“Which one?”

“They didn’t tell me.”

“Shit, are you alone there?”

“No. They’re watching me.” Puppy stirred at her feet, stretched, then squatted on the rug.

“Who’s watching you?” Milicia demanded.

“Police,” Camille whispered.

“Look, I’ll be right over.”

Camille shook her head. No, Milicia, don’t come over. Don’t. But Milicia had hung up. She was already gone. The policewoman started talking into the radio she carried on her belt. Camille couldn’t hear what she said. She glanced at the puddle Puppy had left on the floor, then picked Puppy up and hugged her.