Small Town

forty-one

The first thing she thought was that he didn’t look so bad, not as bad as she’d feared. And her second thought was that he didn’t look so good, either. His face was so pale, so drawn, and there was gray in his hair that hadn’t been there before. He had tubes coming out of him, monitors hooked up to him.

His eyes were closed, and she drew a chair up next to the bed and just sat there for a while, watching him. Then she said, “Franny?”

His eyes opened, focused on her. Light came into his eyes, and his lips showed the slightest suggestion of a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t call you that here.”

“That’s okay.”

His voice was weak, but it was his voice, with the force of his personality behind it. He brought his hand out from under the covers and she laid her hand on top of it.

“I hate to tell you this,” she said, “but I can’t give you a blow job. I had to tell them I was your sister. Oh, shit, did I do something wrong?”

His face was twisted in pain. He got hold of himself, said, “Jesus, don’t make me laugh,” and set himself off again. And she struggled not to laugh herself, and of course that was hopeless, like trying not to laugh at a funeral. She slapped herself in an effort to make herself stop, and evidently that struck him as the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

And she thought, isn’t that a fine thing, I spent all that money on handcuffs and dildos, when all it takes to torture you is a funny line.

Somehow she managed to keep the thought to herself.

“You’re a hero,” she told him, when they’d both got hold of themselves. “You went out single-handed and caught the Carpenter.”

“If I’d gone in with backup,” he said, “the Boat Basin would still exist, the Circle Line wouldn’t have lost a ship, and a lot of people would still be alive.”

“Possibly. Or he may have gotten away. As far as the city’s concerned, you’re a hero. There’s a lot of speculation that you’ll run for mayor in 2005.”

“I’d rather shoot myself,” he said.

“Really?”

He nodded. “But not in the belly. Once is enough. A doctor came in the other day and told me there was no reason I wouldn’t be able to perform sexually. I said I’d just as soon wait a while, if it was all the same to him.”

“So you wouldn’t have wanted the blow job anyway, is that what you’re saying?”

“I’ll take a rain check. You didn’t really tell them you were my sister, did you?”

“It was the only way I could get them to let me in. You’re tired, I’ve stayed longer than I should have. Franny?” She leaned over, kissed him. “Feel better,” she said. “What’s so funny?”

“I figured we’d get around to kissing,” he said. “I didn’t realize what it would take.”

She took a cab from the hospital, showered at her apartment, changed into jeans and a blouse and flats, and walked down to the Village in time to meet John at the Waverly Inn, just down the street from his apartment. They ate in the garden, then sat over coffee and watched the sky darken. They took the long way home, walking all the way down to Bleecker and returning via Perry Street and Greenwich Avenue.

“I think he’ll be all right,” she said, “but I don’t think he’ll be the same.”

“None of us will.”

She thought about that, nodded. No one was ever the same, she thought. Every day changed you. Some days changed you a little, some days changed you a lot, but each increment of change was essentially irreversible.

A little later he said, “I don’t suppose the Carpenter told him anything about a woman he ran into on Charles Street.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I somehow doubt it came up while they were blasting away at each other and waiting for the boat to blow up. And now we’ll never know.”

“One thing we know is that you’re innocent.”

“We know there are no charges against me, and won’t be. So we know I’m not guilty. But we don’t know I didn’t do it.”

“How much does it bother you?”

“I’m not sure it does. I know I think about it. I sort of wish I knew.”

“Sort of?”

“Well, I tell myself I wish I knew one way or the other. But what I wish I knew is that I didn’t kill the woman. If I killed her, then I’d just as soon not know. And don’t tell me that doesn’t make sense, because I’m well aware of that.”

“It makes sense to me.”

“And that,” he said, drawing her into his arms, “is why you’re the girl for me.”

And a little later she said, “Am I?”

“Huh?”

“The girl for you.”

“Damn right.”

“Good,” she said.

And in bed, after they had made love, slowly, lazily, and with a sweet urgency at the end, after he’d smiled at the reflexive urge for a cigarette, less frequent now, less intense, but still there, after all of that he said, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“That night, whenever it was. You’ve wanted ever since to ask why I put your hands on my throat.”

“You’ve known.”

“Yes.”

“And just went on waiting for me to say something.”

“And wished you would and hoped you wouldn’t,” she said. “John, I love you.”

“But?”

“No, it doesn’t come with a but. When I first became obsessed with you — and yes, that’s the right word, it was an obsession—”

“If you say so.”

“You spoke to me right away, through your books. But I was ready for your books to speak to me. From the very beginning, I wanted something from you. I didn’t know it, not consciously. John, do you know what I wanted?”

“I think so.”

“But you don’t want to say it. Well, in that case you know. I wanted you to kill me.”

“You didn’t know it consciously. When did you find out?”

“When it stopped being true.”

“And when was that?”

“When I put your hands on my throat. When I asked you to do it.”

“ ‘Please.’ ”

“Yes. That’s what I was asking for. And you wouldn’t, of course, and I suddenly realized that was what I was begging for, and realized, too, that it was no longer something I wanted. That I had probably stopped wanting it our first night together. Or even earlier, when I went to Medea.”

“The piercing lady.”

“Yes.”

“Shave and a haircut, two tits.”

“When I started expressing myself sexually,” she said, “and making art out of my madness. When I started to discover that I could be me and still be alive. But there was a part of me that never woke up and caught on, and that part didn’t stop wanting you to kill me.”

“Until I didn’t.”

“Until you didn’t.”

“Maybe it really doesn’t matter what happened on Charles Street.”

“Duh,” she said. “Haven’t I been saying that all along?”

“You know,” he said, “all things considered, there’s really only one thing that makes me think I might have done it.”

“The rabbit.”

“The rabbit. It’s not like me to take something. I must have been in a bad way to do it, and if I was that far gone...”

She got up, brought the little rabbit back to the bed with her. “It’s adorable,” she said, “but I can’t believe you took it intentionally. I think it was inadvertent. I think you were looking at it, holding it in your hand, and then she called for you to come into the bedroom, or whatever, and halfway there you noticed you still had the rabbit in your hand. And you didn’t want to go all the way back to where you found it, and you didn’t know where else to put it, so you stuck it in your pocket for the time being.”

“Intending to put it back later.”

“And then you went to bed with that poor crazy lady, and when you were done all you wanted to do was get out of there. So you forgot all about the rabbit, and when you came home you thought, oh, hell, I’ll have to give it back, which means I’ll have to see her again.”

“I could have put it in the mail.”

“And would have,” she said, “if you’d seen it first thing the next morning, but you didn’t and by the time you did...”

He thought about it. “You know,” he said, “that’s perfectly plausible.”

“I know, and it’s a lot more plausible than your taking it on purpose, no matter who killed the woman.” She looked at the rabbit she was holding, then at him. “I mean, it’s not as though a rabbit’s a likely totem animal for you. I see you more as a bear.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m sort of bearish.”

“Ursine,” she said. “And if anyone’s a rabbit, it would probably be me.”

“Well, you sure do fuck like one.”

“It’s settled, then,” she said. “You be the bear. I’ll be the rabbit.”