What Comes Next

SIX

SOMETHING WARNS ME, some electronic voice in my head. Not to go out. Not to leave Parks’ house. If you can get by today, the voice says, tomorrow will be possible.

Parks and wife don’t look at each other. His eyes inside, hers on hands and feet. They talk through me as if I were a door between them. Parks moving around, looking for a place to be. We are all in his way. The tension in the air like bees.

He leaves after breakfast. Before he goes, he asks what my plans are. (He wants me to go with him.) I have no plans.

The television beauty whispers to me as I shave. Take it off, take it off, take it all off. I take it off for her, her mouth in the mirror leering obscenely. Your face is your past, she says. She keeps asking me things. What am I supposed to do? She wants me to do something to her.

Their baby, in another room, making scary sounds. “Boom,” she says. “Boom.” As if she were a bomb. “Boom boomboom.”

A siren outside. I hold on to the arms of the chair until it passes. She is talking. Her words like small rocks against a window. I remember Parks saying she had been a dancer. (“Carolyn, my wife, was serious about dancing when I met her.”) Had given it up to become a wife. Why cant a wife dance, Parks? So she blamed him, he said, wanted him to do something important to justify her. Wanted him to fail. Her hands dance as she talks.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking so many questions, but it’s been so long since Curt has had someone interesting to the house. Before he went out of his head about the war, his only friends were colleagues — I won’t mention any names — dull, without balls, who haven’t read a book since they got out of graduate school about two hundred years ago.”

“Two hundred years is a long time not to have read a book.”

Her eyes flutter. “It’s a very long time.” She gets up, says she ought to clean the house, but she hates cleaning.

When I close my eyes I can imagine them. His face screwed into her breasts. He tells her how American planes are napalming children.

“I don’t read books I don’t have to read,” I tell her.

“At least you don’t pretend to be something you’re not.”

“I do that, too.”

She nods, leaves, comes back. “It makes me nervous having someone else here. I’m used to being alone in the morning, Christopher. Could you find something to do — you know, something — till about one. I’m sorry to have to throw you out this way, but …”

“I won’t bother you,” I say. “If you’re cleaning, I’ll stay in one of the rooms you’re not working in.”

She pouts, taps her foot. “That isn’t what I mean. It’s just having another presence in the house the way I feel is … inhibiting. Please?” She cocks her head charmingly (she thinks), pleading.

“I’ll leave if you dance for me.”

“What?” Smiling, she hides her face.

“Parks told me you’re a dancer. I’d like to see you dance.”

“It’s polite of you to ask, but I’d be embarrassed to have anyone see me now. I’m badly out of practice. You don’t want to see an old housewife dance, do you?” Her laughter frightens her.

I tell her I’ve been looking forward to it, plead for a performance. C’mon, Mrs. Parks. C’mon. Show us why he married you. She says no, absolutely no. Then she says she will if I promise to baby-sit later while she “runs some errands.” “That’s your fee,” she says. Like a weather vane she dances. She is mother of the roof, wooden-winged, electronic wind in her feathers. Mad and colder tomorrow with chance of hail.

She goes on her errands while the baby is, as she says, down. Leaving me the house.

In their bedroom, the air-conditioning on, I make myself at home. (A month ago it would have been an opportunity to find out more about him. No time anymore to worry about him.)

What kind of life is it in this house, Parks? A handbill on the dresser: “Napalm Poetry Reading Sunday at Eight.” Someone had written underneath, “I’m tired of looking at burned children. Sick and tired of it.”

I ask my mother if anyone’s been looking for me.

“Where did you say you were staying? I can’t tell you how upset Dad’s been. I tell him there’s nothing to worry about, but … you know Dad. Every little thing …”

“Tell me who’s been there.”

“Is there someone you’re afraid of? We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s happening. Tell me everything’s all right.”

“Everything’s all right.”

“That you say so makes me feel better, Chris. You’ve had some calls; every time the phone rings it seems to be for you. Some young man — I can’t remember his name — who says you called him about a place to stay. He says to call him back immediately. And this girl with this very, very soft voice you can hardly hear keeps calling, though I’ve told her you’re not here. I assume you know who she is because for the life of me I couldn’t get her to say. Why is she so shy?”

“What else?”

“Someone wanted to know what television program you were watching. When Dad answered, he just said you didn’t live here — he’s very disturbed about your leaving the way you did, but that’s for the two of you to have out.”

“The man in the hat — he never came back?”

“Do you know who he is, Chrissy? He was rude to Dad. Yesterday morning he was here. Dad said he didn’t know where you were and the man kept asking as if he thought Dad was lying. He wouldn’t state his business and I had to restrain Dad — you know how he gets. In his anger at the man, he knocked me into the wall.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. Just a black-and-blue mark where he grabbed my arm. And he was so contrite afterward, like a little boy, I had to forgive him. Chrissy, what does this man want that he can’t tell your father? Are you in some kind of difficulty?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m confident — I told Dad this — that no matter what kind of trouble you get into you’ll make the best of it. When you were five or even younger than that, three or four, do you remember the time …?”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Christopher.” Her hand in the air like a bird. “Go back to sleep. Please.” Shaking her head at something. She was gone. My hope for America, my stake in the future, standing at attention. Bad manners in front of a teacher’s wife. (Am I to blame for bad dreams?) I heard her playing with her baby in the next room, calling it “love.” Feeling left out. “Here, love.” Here. Here.

Carolyn came in, said to give her my dirty clothes, that she was doing a wash.

I told her not to worry about it, I was all right.

“Christopher” (as if I were some child that belonged to her), “you’re wearing the same thing today you wore when you came here.”

I said not to worry about it, but she got some of Parks’ clothes. Throwing them at me. She said, only half closing the door, peeking in, she would wait outside while I changed.

“Have you changed yet?” she said, trying to catch me. I was staring at the ceiling.

“No.”

“Well, hurry up. I’m not going to wait much longer for you. If you stay here, you have to abide by the rules of the house.”

With my back to the door — she wasn’t going to see anything — I put on Parks’ clothes, threw her mine. His pants a little short. Loose around the waist. As a way of passing time, I imitated his voice to myself. “The trouble with you, Christopher, is that you have no commitments. Carolyn, Christopher has no commitments. Carolyn, you.”

Parks came home at about five, with a Post under his arm, looking burned out. The other Parks (his guest) refreshed from a day in his bed. He threw me the Post and went to the liquor cabinet.

I took the Post to the bathroom. The little girl, who had been playing in there, hammered on the door when I put her out. Their whispers, ice clear, under the hammering. “He never once left the house. Whose guest is he supposed to be? Did you think I was lonely here alone, is that why you invited him to stay?”

Headline on page five: REJECTED HUSBAND KILLS WIFE, LOVER. He wanted, he said, to start over from scratch.

“I can’t believe you spend the whole day in the library.”

“Don’t you think he can hear you?”

POLICE SAY THEY HAVE LEAD ON BROOKLYN CRIPPLE KILLER (a small box on page six). The evidence is mounting, the article says. Among those picked up for questioning are: “A Negro lawyer, a high school dropout, a father of nine with a homosexual history, a former professional football player, an Army deserter, and a writer under psychiatric care. Police sources indicate that the fiend or fiends, if more than one is involved, may still be at large.”

“You act as if your life depends on what a nineteen-year-old — who looks sixteen — thinks of you.”

“He’s more than nineteen, for God’s sake.”

“Well, if he is, he keeps it under his hat.”

The baby yelling while we ate. We pretending not to notice.

“Maybe she needs something, Carolyn,” Parks said, his face twisted as if the screaming were happening inside him.

“It’s very likely that she does. You know where the diapers are”.

“You’re the mother.”

“If you want her diaper changed”—nodding at me — “you’re the one who’s bothered by the noise, you change it. I’ve had it all day.”

He had been drinking for an hour and a half. Eyes rimmed with blood. His voice bleeding. “I want you to do it.”

Carolyn suffered in my direction. Smiling bravely as if secretly dying (sparing us the pain) of incurable disease. “It’s my fate,” she said. “I’m doomed never to eat a meal from beginning to end,” and she went off, doomed.

“Can I talk to you alone?” I said. Something wrong with my voice.

“Any questions you have, I’ll be glad to answer.” He stood up, staggered, sat down.

What kind of destiny do you have in mind for me? I took a drink of wine to clear my head. “I need a place to hide,” it came out.

“Christopher, if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it. You can stay here as long as you like. As long as I’m here you’re welcome to stay.”

“What do you think of someone who follows women around?”

His eyes moved back out of range. His face suddenly flaming. “Why are you always putting me on the defensive, you bastard? Do you think I approve of everything you do?” He pointed a wavering finger at me. “What kind of trouble are you in?”

I pointed my finger back at him. “Did you spend the whole day at the library?”

“It’s you we’re talking about, not me.”

She was standing behind us in the doorway (holding a child, patting its back). I nodded to her.

“Let’s not fight,” he was saying. “Not over a woman, for God’s sake. You know, when I saw you that time with her, I could have killed you.”

Trying to warn him, I knocked over his wineglass with my elbow. Wine spreading across the green tablecloth like a shadow.

“What are you trying to do to me?”

“Your wife …” When I looked back over my shoulder, she wasn’t there. Parks was laughing at something. “I’ll help you if you help me.”

“There’s no help,” he said. “What do you have in mind?”

She was back without the child, looking pleased with herself, no longer doomed. “I don’t know which of you is the more helpless,” she said, blotting the cloth with a sponge, something amusing her.

“It’s my fault,” he told her.

I said it was mine.

We moved into the living room because of what I had done. Parks said it looked like a battlefield, went into his room to change his pants. Didn’t come back.

“I think both of them are asleep now,” Carolyn said, and I followed her into the bedroom to see. Sprawled out as if someone had dumped him there, he looked like a corpse. Carolyn took off his shoes, covered him with her coat. She whispered something in his ear which hammered in my head. Parks moaned, turned his head to the other side. We went back as we came, quiet as insects.

“I think that what we both need is another cup of coffee,” Carolyn said. “At the very least it’s what we need.”

I was feeling sick. We were running from the police. Bombs falling. I flattened myself on the sidewalk, closed my eyes. Saw them charred, sticking to each other.

The pacifist, the voice was saying, by undermining the war effort puts our American boys in harm’s way.

“I’ll make the couch up for you as soon as you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

“I’m curious about something, Christopher. Why were you so difficult about accepting Curt’s clothes?”

I said I didn’t want to take what wasn’t mine.

“Is that right? I had the idea that it had something to do with Curt, that for some reason or other, maybe something he’s done to you, you don’t like my husband.”

“No.”

“You wouldn’t stay in his house if you didn’t like him,” she said, her tongue coming out. “I can’t believe that you would.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

She thought about it. “You’re Curt’s guest, not mine. It makes no difference to me what you do.”

I told her I liked the way she danced. The way she fluttered her arms like some kind of bird.

The blood left her face. Then she laughed, coughing.

“Forgive me, Chris,” she whispered. “Is that what they call you, Chris, Chrissy?”

“That’s what they call me.”

“And you’re very witty, Chris, do you know? Not just the things you say, but the way you are. Your spirit is witty.”

“Cut it out.” My voice too high, rising. It was like being hugged by one of my mother’s friends.

“That’s your charm, that you don’t know you’re charming. I’m embarrassing you, aren’t I? I can see. I’m sorry.”

I shook my head.

“I am. You’re blushing.”

My back to her. Looking at the red-and-gray hobbyhorse, the only nice thing in the room. It was slightly crippled. A mad screwed-up grin on its face. I thought, when she left to go to bed, I would try it out.

She sits trembling, her hands over her face.

“How you must hate him.”

I said I didn’t hate anyone.

“Is this girl — what’s her name — very lovely?”

I didn’t say anything, stared at her legs.

“What is it, that she’s young?”

I didn’t answer. Imagining Parks listening to us in his room. Carolyn, you cunt, I heard him thinking, get that boy out of my house.

“Is she sexy, a good lay?”

Imitating his voice, I said I could give her only name, rank, and serial number. No more. No less.

“What’s your rank?”

I looked at my watch, which had stopped at five after nine. Winding it (her neck snapping) between thumb and index finger. Whatever you do to her, Chris, I don’t want to know about it. The air heavier, the heat of her presence like smoke in the room. I thought what it would be to take advantage of her. Grinning to myself like the horse. Just turn the key, Christopher, and watch her take off.

“If you’re staying, sit down. It makes me nervous watching you pace like an animal.”

I sit down on the horse, side saddle, holding onto its head.

“Are you very attached to this girl?” she asked. “I can’t talk to you when you’re so far away.”

I sat next to her on the sofa.

“Are you deeply attached to this girl? Are you in love with her, Christopher?”

“Are you in love with Parks?”

She looked at me, her eyes slits. “I don’t think you know what it means. At your age, sex and love seem pretty much the same thing.”

“How do they seem at your age?”

“At my age, which isn’t such a great distance from yours”—she laughs — “both seem overrated.” I think she is about to touch my face. She picks something off the couch from behind my shoulder. A piece of lint. Blowing it through her fingers.

She puffs out her chest like a frog. “Let’s make a pact, Chrissy. No more of this ironic warfare, which I’m sure is boring us both to tears.”

A police siren outside. Starts. Stops. Lodges itself in the ear. The insects of my nerves climb the wall. The police arrive, knock down the door. Find the room deserted. I am hiding between Mrs. Parks’ legs.

“Do you feel that you and Curtis are competitors for this girl,” she says sweetly, “or are you content to have an affaire à trois? I have no idea what kind of arrangement you people want to make. No one keeps me informed.”

I don’t know why I do it. I start to get up. Wanting to smash something (wanting to get away), kiss her on the mouth. I mean to end it there, but she kisses me back, a long kiss. Her vengeance more calculating than mine.

“No,” she says. “I don’t want this.”

We sit next to each other on the couch, not touching, touching. I am not him, though in his clothes, imitating him while he sleeps. His blond voice. He has an erect and correct bearing.

“I’m not unattractive to you, am I?” she whispers.

“You dance beautifully,” I say in a perfect imitation of his voice. She smells of baby powder and perfume.

“Remember where you are, whose house this is.”

We will be back, the police say. Don’t try anything foolish in our absence.

Two women, one on each side, stroking a man’s face. “Combat After-Shave makes a man dangerous to be around.” The two women tearing the man’s clothes, making growling noises, the sleeve of his jacket coming off. Right arm torn off at the socket. The man looking dazed, his mouth smiling. “Give it to him, ladies,” the sexy voice whispers. “Give it to him before someone else does.”

She gets off the sofa. I want her to go, but when she is gone I miss her. Her hands. She is turning off the lights. In the dark, invisibly, she is back. Or moving toward me. Carolyn, you cunt, stay away from my student. His Combat After-Shave makes him dangerous to be around. Eyes shut, I see her smashed under my weight. Her head twisted, a bone like a finger sticking through her neck. My eyes come open. She is there, unharmed.

“Are you asleep?” she asks.

How can I answer?

Touching my face with her fingers, her breath lingering. “Good night, Christopher,” she whispers. She is gone.

(Good night, Mother.)

I took a cab home and, dozing in the back seat, wrestled with death, who was an enormously fat woman. Death on top pressing against me. “You’ll win your life from me by love,” she said, and though she was repulsive I gave her everything I had for the sake of survival, everything — both barrels — which woke me. Tangled in a sea of sheet on their couch. Carolyn’s odor in the air.

Getting up, I was stopped by a savage pain between the legs. A burning pain. I had the sense in the fire of it that it owned me. Saw myself on a roof. Looking through the sights of a carbine. A man wearing a hat, carrying a STOP THE WAR sign, passed. I squeezed the trigger and, holding his stomach, he sat down on the sidewalk. He looked happy I had stopped him. I shot the marcher behind him. Then another. Another. The pain easing with each shot. When it was gone, it had never been. My watch had five o’clock. Morning.

I left. My name being called as I went out, following me down the stairs. “Christopher. Christopher. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go without me.”