Double Take (9 page)

The front door closed too loudly behind me. I leaned up against the wall and listened to my parents' breathing. I tried to walk carefully across the dark living room but smashed into the table at the foot of the stairs. Six months of mail slid onto the floor. The dog stirred a little in his basket but didn't wake up. Upstairs, my parents still breathed evenly.

I bounced off the kitchen walls to the refrigerator and stood staring into its light. I poured myself a glass of milk, then went to the cupboard and took out the cookies my mother had bought because they were on sale, three packages for a dollar. I examined a cookie. It appeared to be a piece of cardboard covered with orange sugar. I had always been an aficionado of cookies, and I had never been able to understand why my mother bought those cheap ones. They tasted horrible and had no substance. I popped five of them into my mouth and swallowed without chewing.

It took about half an hour for me to wash down all three packages with milk. Then I went back to the fridge, found a half-gallon of Walgreen's spumoni ice cream, and started in on that. I finished what was left in the carton but still didn't feel full, though I had a strange feeling of heaviness, as if all my limbs had turned into sandbags. I sat in the dark and wondered if Joey's secrets had weighed me down, if I had gained twenty pounds just from hearing them. I wondered if he felt better now that he'd told me and I felt worse. Well, I had told him, I know a little bit about guilty secrets. He didn't seem to believe me, so I had to tell him that it really was my fault that Clay got shot.

“Did you pull the trigger, Cookie?” he asked me.

“No, okay, I didn't, but I could have prevented it,” I said.

“You ever been in therapy?”

I didn't know quite how to take that.

“It's like you got to be responsible for every little thing that happens,” he explained.

I said, “Hear me out, motherfucker.” Which shut him up. “The day Clay got shot—”

Then he interrupted me again. “You sure you even remember any more?” he asked. “I mean the way it really happened? Do you ever wonder if you're just remembering your memory of it and touching up the paint every so often, and soon it's bright and pretty like nothing in real life?”

“Are we talking about me or you?” I asked him. He didn't say anything so I looked him right in the eye and said, “No shit, it was my fault. Right before it happened, someone called on the pay phone and said they were looking for Clay. They said they were Levar, but I knew it wasn't Levar. I was good with voices, see, and I knew then that something wasn't right and I should have run and told Clay, but instead I went around the corner looking for Bando and by the time I got back to 57th Street it was too late, Clay was dead, and I couldn't stop screaming. I went home and told my mother I had the flu, and it felt like the flu, I had a fever and I was shaking, and I lay in bed all week and didn't even go to school because I knew it was my fault, I knew I could have stopped it.”

“Whose voice was it, then?” he asked casually. “I mean, if it wasn't Levar, whose voice was it?”

“I don't know if I want to tell you. I never told anyone this before,” I said. “Except for Michael, but that didn't matter because he didn't know any of the people. It was just a story to him. I guess I always thought that if I didn't talk about it, then it wasn't real and I never saw what I saw. The blood against the car. At first I didn't even know what it was, these red streaks.” We sat for a moment, not saying anything.

“Who did it?” he asked again.

“I guess it doesn't matter now that he's dead.”

“Brunette,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, “Brunette. No one saw his face when he did it because he had a stocking over his head. And you know about the stolen car. The funniest thing about it, I said, not funny ha-ha, was the car itself, how he had stolen it from some narc, hot-wired it, then left it over by the lake.”

When I said the word “narc,” Joey gave me a weird look and said, “I'm going to tell you another secret.”

“I don't think I want to know. Why are you telling me all this shit?”

“I don't know, honey,” he said. “It feels good to tell you, that's all. And I trust you.”

“The last person who trusted me was Michael and look what I did to him.”

“What did you do?”

“I don't even know,” I said. “I just quit writing to him, I wouldn't take his phone calls.”

“Sure, don't blame Michael,” Joey said. “It's all Cookie's fault, everything that happens.”

“What the fuck do you mean?” I was starting to get that prickling feeling you get in your scalp when the truth is about to pop you upside your head.

“Well, sugar, it's not like he's making any sacrifices for you. Went ahead and applied to law school and shit like you was supposed to follow him like Mary had a little lamb. If I wanted you to be with me, baby, I know what I'd do.”

“What would you do?” I asked.

“I'd make you an offer you couldn't refuse,” he said.

“You mean if you really wanted to be with someone you would explore some kind of commitment with them?”

“I don't even know what that means, Cookie. But yeah, I guess so. Don't think about it,” he said. “It don't pay to dwell on shit like that.”

Now I sat in the dark at the kitchen table and words whirled all around me.

“Guilt's a funny thing,” Joey said. “After Bando died, I was eating and sleeping guilt, thinking, hey, it should have been me, I was the informant, not him. I felt so bad I almost started hitting up again, like when Pam died only worse, because at least with her it wasn't my fault, I tried, God, I tried so hard to save her.”

“That's all anyone can do,” I said. But I didn't really believe that. I felt I could have done something to keep Bando from dying, but I didn't know what it was.

“So then I joined the force,” he said.

“You what?”

“Joined the force.”

“
You what?
”

“That's my other secret.”

“You mean you became a
cop?
”

“I needed a job, and being an undercover cop seemed like the best thing for me to do. I wasn't qualified for much that was legal.”

“Hey, I'm not judging you.”

“I wouldn't never have become a cop in the sixties. Shit, you know how it was, how they used to bust people for standing on the corner. I mean, Pam got cracked for loitering in Old Town one time while she was waiting for the traffic light to turn green. And how about those cops downstate that pulled Jupiter over and shaved his head? I hated them, Cookie, the pigs—they had those big red faces and little piggy eyes. But I tell you what, I got to know some people I liked even less. Hey, it's another country now.”

“And besides, the wench is dead,” I said.

“The wench is dead,” he echoed, though he was probably not aware we were quoting a Renaissance playwright. “That's the truth. Guilt's a funny thing. I been in court and I heard them say those words, not guilty, when I knew I was guilty as hell. But I didn't feel guilty, it was just a little bit of smoke they was talking about.”

“Yeah, guilt's a funny thing,” I said, trying not to think about all the things I felt guilty about. “So that stuff about being an ombudsman is bullshit?”

“No, it's true. And it's my cover. So Brunette killed Clay,” he said. “I figured.”

“You knew?”

“I wasn't sure. See, I always kind of figured Brunette was the one that killed Bando.”

I went over to the fridge and opened the door. I noticed a hunk of leftover roast beef on the top shelf, so I took it out and brought it over to the table.

“Why would Brunette think Bando was an informant?” I asked him.

“Had to be someone, and nobody was gonna think it was me. Hell, I was too cool, and everyone knew me from way back. But for me everything changed after Pam died. The cops had been after me to narc for them ever since the first time they busted me. It wasn't until Pam was gone that I said okay. Oh, I never tricked on my friends—except for Brunette, the motherfucker got six months. I did thirty days just to prove I wasn't the one that burned him. Why did I trick on Brunette? I don't know, I guess I just didn't like him. It might sound funny, but I thought he was evil. But when I started to narc for them, I was trying to bust the dudes at the top, the money men. They were the ones that killed Pam, as far as I was concerned. Of course I found out later when I joined the force, there ain't no justice any damn way.”

“If you knew that Brunette killed Bando, why didn't you try—”

“I did try, but then the motherfucker went and got himself killed and that was the end of it.”

I stood in front of the fridge, holding the door open, contemplating everything within by its eerie light. I clung to the door handle as if afraid a tidal wave might wash through the kitchen and I would need a flotation device. Of course I was figuring out that if I had ever told anyone that Brunette had killed Clay, maybe he wouldn't have killed Bando.

“Why didn't you ever tell anybody about Brunette?” Joey asked as we walked outside and stood on the street corner next to Bert's.

“Who would I tell? I wasn't going to go to the cops, was I? I thought about telling Sam, but I couldn't help wondering if he already knew, know what I mean?”

“Wasn't much Sam didn't know.”

“Anyway, I didn't have any proof,” I said. “It was just something I knew, and I didn't really know how I knew it. And I didn't want to know it.”

As I opened the door to my parents' car, I asked him, “Exactly how did Brunette die?”

“Some kind of explosion. His whole house blew up. He and Fletcher were playing with dynamite.”

“I thought that was a figure of speech,” I said.

“Nope.”

“But Fletcher didn't die?”

“No, but from what I heard, he wishes he had. He's like some kind of monster now.”

“My fault,” I said. “If Brunette had been busted for killing Clay—”

“That's enough,” he said. “I don't want to hear no more of that shit.”

“Goodnight,” I said, getting into the car.

“Sweet dreams,” he said, getting into his.

“It's all my fault,” I said to the refrigerator. It hummed and stared at me with its one blind eye.

I went into the bathroom and threw up.

1975

I was looking for a coffee cup. From the kitchen window, the first few streaks of daylight threw a syrupy pink glow over everything. I was opening cabinets and rummaging through drawers as a kettle of water heated up on the stove. I managed to catch it before it whistled and woke anyone up.

I couldn't find a clean cup, so I took a dirty one out of the sink and washed it. I ignored the pile of dirty dishes. They were nothing to do with me. I put two spoonfuls of instant coffee into the cup and absent-mindedly licked the spoon. In the fridge, I found a box of ancient-looking chocolate doughnuts, a half-empty carton of Chinese take-out, half a loaf of Wonder bread, some Grey Poupon mustard, and a pint of milk. I took out the milk and smelled it. The smell was so disgusting I jumped back. I closed the carton and put it back in the fridge. I was not in a very good mood.

In a drawer, I found some packets of sugar, the kind you steal from coffee shops. There were pictures of orchids on them that looked like female genitalia, though the resemblance was subliminal. I sat at a kitchen table covered with old sections of the Sunday
New York Times
and threats from the electric company. These, too, were not my problem, so I shoved them aside and rested my elbows on the table. The surface felt gritty, but I didn't care. It was light out, although I couldn't tell exactly what time it was because there was no clock. There was a clock in the front bedroom, but I didn't want to go back in there.

Lying on the table was a blue and white checked potholder. I picked it up and stroked it. It was exactly like a potholder Michael had bought it because we kept burning our hands on pots and pans and setting fire to dishtowels. He had found it at some fancy store in Beverly Hills, and at the time I was mad at him because neither of us could afford to spend ten bucks on a potholder, and I asked him if he had gone insane. He said yes, he was definitely insane, but we needed a potholder so there was no reason to buy an ugly one. I said I was going to K-Mart to buy one for $1.49. I was not used to the idea that objects mattered enough to take pains with them, but at some point I realized that he cared about the way things looked because he was an artist. He brought home straw baskets or candelabras from some hippie store in Pasadena, weird things he'd find at swap meets, china flamingos, Fiestaware bowls, an Elvis lamp, enormous jungly-looking plants. These things annoyed me when he arrived home with them, but every morning when I got up and staggered into the kitchen for coffee, I found myself in an interesting world. The aesthetic was quite different from that of my parents' house, crammed with klutzy old furniture, musty books, and creepy paintings by people they had known in graduate school, everything decaying and waiting to be replaced by some unseen force. The house Michael and I shared was small and enchanted, a tiny cottage behind the villa of our landlord, a screenwriter. We had stained glass panels in the bathroom and handpainted ceramic tiles in the driveway, as fanciful as a movie set. I loved the sense of unreality this created, but it made me nervous. I was afraid I might wake up.

I finished the last dregs of cold coffee and shivered. These old apartments were drafty and badly heated, and the weather was already nasty. The sky outside the kitchen window had lost its pink streaks and was now the luminous dark-gray of clouds that were
dying to snow. I wanted to get the hell out of there, but I was in no hurry to go home. If I waited long enough, I would miss my parents when they went to work. I didn't feel like seeing their polite faces while they didn't ask me where I had been all night.

I was still clutching the pot holder. I wondered if I should have another cup of coffee. It had tasted horrible, but it gave me something to do. There was no sound from any of the bedrooms, which I was glad about. Even more than I didn't want to see my parents, I didn't want to see the occupants of this apartment.

The three guys who lived here were my customers. They came in regularly and always ordered a turkey club, a tuna melt, and a cheeseburger. If they were feeling festive, they'd share an order of saganaki, a cheese dish I would bring to their table in flames. I had suspected what their kitchen confirmed, that none of them could cook. Last week, one of them had asked me out—the cheeseburger one. I examined his face to see if he was kidding. He smiled at me, earnest and young. He was wearing a wrinkled flannel shirt, and his hair was tousled—obviously he was still in college. He seemed so sweet and well-meaning that I said I would go. We went to see
Exterminating Angel
at the university and ended up in his bed. Now, here I was in his kitchen, fondling his potholder. Unlike mine, his had stains and burn marks all over it. I figured his mother had probably bought it for him at Bloomingdale's and ruining it was his form of rebellion.

Our potholder had hung on the wall next to the stove where it would always be on hand if we needed it. Whereas I was generally completely unaware of my environment, Michael thought of things like that. He picked up after me, smoothed sofa cushions, made the bed, though I never saw the point of making a bed when you would just have to mess it up again. Whenever I came home from class, he'd have exactly the right music on the
stereo as if he had read my mind. He'd make me ice tea with fresh mint in Mexican glassware. Sometimes when the right song came on, we'd do a bop step I had learned in high school. I wondered if cheeseburger guy could do it. I didn't think so. You could tell when people could.

I allowed myself to picture Michael in our back yard, shirtless in the hot sun. I wondered if I would ever again meet a guy with shoulders as beautiful as his, or if I would ever sit in the hot sun again. Everything was dark now, like I had fallen down a hole, and it was my own fault. I held the potholder to my cheek. It smelled burnt.

“Hey,” said a voice above me. My eyes shot open. A burly, disheveled boy stood over me in a blue terry-cloth bathrobe. It was the roommate who ordered tuna melts.

“Hey,” I said, casually peeling the potholder from my face and setting it back on the table.

“Where's Lawrence?” Tuna Melt asked. (Cheeseburger Guy's name was Lawrence. I knew how he spelled it because I had looked at his driver's license to see what his name was. I liked to know the names of people I had sex with.)

“He's still asleep. I guess.”

Tuna Melt looked at me with groggy eyes. “Want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I already had some. Delicious. Well, I need to get going. I want to catch my parents before they leave for work.”

“Okay, see ya.” He was yawning at the sink, pouring water into the kettle as I tiptoed down the long hallway, grabbed my mother's coat from where I had tossed it the night before, and slunk away.