Frog (69 page)

Time he shot a man in the heart but always said it was in self-defense. Came out again when he said to his wife “Is there anything you ever held back from me?” and she said “Plenty of things, why?” “What were they?” and she said “I don't know—things. Little. Big. All forgotten or unimportant by now and probably not so important or potentially memorable then.” “Anything big that you can remember?” and she said “What is it, you want to tell me something big you've kept back from me? Go ahead then.” “No, I don't have anything, I'm just making conversation. Because of that movie on the VCR the other night and you fell asleep to—what was it called? Anyway, the woman asks her husband that and I thought it was a good question for conversation starters so thought I'd ask you. Actually, though, now that I think of it there is something I never told you.” “So just say so.” “It's not so easy. You tell me something first that you've kept back.” “I don't want to, or I can't think of anything.” “Then I'll keep to myself what I thought of telling you.” “As you wish,” and she continued eating her salad, sipped some wine, smiled at him over her glass, he didn't know what for. Nor could he make out what the smile could mean by the kind it was, for it was a small tender smile, nothing he right now deserved. “You ever say anything to anyone you particularly regretted saying and which had grave consequences but which you never told me about?” and she said “Maybe once, twice, but it's all gone. Probably with my first husband, maybe a couple of times with you.” “Ever steal something as an adult or do something against the law—worse than running a light—you never told me about?” “No.” “Something really terrible to the kids, but same thing—where I didn't know?” “No, I don't think so. Screaming, yelling, humiliating them a few times, but I never once even spanked them or smacked their hands.” “An affair with someone while we've been married—even a one-night stand or quick afternoon thing?” “Not since we met and I would have told you.” “Anyone kiss you at a party or dinner or someplace?” Shook her head. “Then one from the past—not a kiss but a fuck or an affair that you never told me about, all the way back to when you were a kid. Because I think you said you must have told me, as I've done with you with I think all my women and girls or all I could remember up till the last time I told you, about all your guys starting when you were fifteen with number one.” “Seventeen. Listen, this is getting to be too much like a grilling. You don't want to tell me what you seem to be aching to, save it for when you do. Some little chickadee you're doing it with now or some time back?—sure, I'd like to know. I think we should always get those things out. But you never tell me and don't give any suspicions that's happened, I won't be curious.” “It's not a woman. There's been nobody since we met.” “As I've said, same here.” “Good, but you've got to be a little curious what's on my mind.” “A little but not enough to try and squeeze it out of you or where I'll remember tonight's curiosity tomorrow and want to follow up on it.” “You know that fellow I killed just maybe a year before I met you?” “What of him? It's not exactly something I'd forget.” “I didn't kill him in self-defense as I said.” “You murdered him?” “Not that far, or I don't know what you'd call it. I was afraid, that after I turned him in, he'd come and kill me when he got out of prison. I didn't know what to do—I had the gun on him—so I thought—the gun I took from him—” “I remember; wrestled it.” “I didn't even know if it'd work or there were bullets in it but thought the best thing to keep him from—well, you know, because he could surprise me sometime in the future and next time I wouldn't be so lucky—was to kill him.” “Wait wait.” “Because I didn't think much of his life. I was almost sure he would kill me if I ran when he had the gun on me. He was a freak; I could see it in the way he stood and spoke and his face.” “Wait, I mean it, wait. This is hard to take in such a fast lump. Go slower.” “All right, from the start. He said he'd kill me if I didn't give him all my money. After he grabbed me from behind, stuck the gun to my head. Kept it there. Right on the street. Then on my neck. Kept it there. Then when he marched me into the park, close in the small of my back so nobody in a car passing would see it I suppose. I gave him all the money I had in the park. He looked at it, ripped the wallet apart for more-all this is nothing new to you but I'm getting to where what happened differently happened—and said there's almost nothing here, ‘give me what you're hiding.' I said I'm hiding nothing. He said ‘Bullshit you're not.' That's when I thought he's going to kill me for nothing and I better do something quick or I'm dead. So I said—this came to me to say and do it—'Holy shit!' and looked up at the big park wall behind him on the drive and he sort of turned, sort of thought I was faking and turned back to me but by this time I had shifted a bit out of his gun aim and jumped his gun arm to hold the gun up and started wrestling with him for it. But the gun didn't go off accidentally into him when I was wrestling for it. By the way, I saw some people looking over the park wall at us but they just kept looking and then left even though I yelled for help. But I wrestled it away from him, got it, backed up and pointed it and said ‘One step and you're dead. I'm gonna kill ya, you fucking bastard, just as you would've killed me, if you come a step closer.' That's when I noticed those people and asked for help and when I thought does it have bullets in it and suppose it doesn't go off? He probably has a knife and he'll kill me with it while I'm trying to bang him over the head with the gun butt. I also thought this because he seemed so casual when I said that about killing him—and you notice those people never came forward to say they saw me pointing the gun at him—and he said ‘What're you talking about, man?' and started walking toward me. I yelled ‘One step, just one step,' as a threat, but I now see it could have been misinterpreted by him as meaning he's allowed to take only one step toward me. But the gun was no doubt jiggling in my hand but still pointed at him and I wasn't backing up and he suddenly looked scared as a man who thinks he might be shot would and that's when I knew it could go off. Then I didn't know what to do. Something hit me. A thought. Suppose I let him go or turn him in, what then? Turning him in's what he probably thought I would do, and by the way, he'd stopped, meaning stood still, second he looked scared of getting shot, if that's what it was. ‘Let me go,' he said, ‘you got the gun,' and threw the little money he took from me at me. I let it fall, blow away, didn't take any chances looking at it or to stop it. Maybe that was his plan—I didn't think that then—throw something innocent at me to distract me, and people are always jumping for money, and then he'd grab and kill me on the spot. But I couldn't let him go, first thing. He's a murderer and a thief. Surely he's killed before. Maybe lots before. That's what came out in the police report and newspapers. I thought it then but the papers said he'd been in prison when he was sixteen for killing someone during a robbery and then killing a friend he robbed with in that robbery to guarantee him shutting up. So, two at least that we know of. But he was a kid, did good behavior, model prisoner—graduated high school in prison, the Bible also—so they let him out in about seven years. All in the papers; I didn't know a thing. He was in fact still on parole when he robbed me. You remember, or you don't. And if I turned him in, I thought—even when he was asking me to let him go—he could come out and kill me for putting him in. For what'll he get? This was really all in my head then. One, two years, he'll get—since I didn't know of his murders and being on parole—but short enough time to remember me when he gets out. He was also such a mean tough-looking guy. He looked like a savage. His hair, expression, grin he had when he was robbing me. He smelled and his speech was awful and vulgar and his clothes were so sharp I just knew almost everything about him and his attitudes and such and he pushed me into the park and treated me before I got the gun as if he'd slit my throat as much as he'd tie his shoelaces when it was over. Meaning they meant the same thing to him. He could care less. Maybe shoelaces more because he could trip if they were untied, hampering his escape a little, while me dead on the ground wasn't a worry unless he got caught, and he looked for a while till I got the gun from him like someone who didn't think he could ever get caught. Another reason for hating him, his fucking smugness. He told me ‘Don't call the cops, man, don't.' Now we're dealing with only what's new to you, never been said to anyone. ‘Just let me go, you keep the gun,' etcetera. And I said ‘No, I'm holding you for the cops'—that's what I suddenly decided to do, though how to get them I didn't know or think about just then—and he said ‘Come on, they get me for this I could do a long turn. I'm scared of jail. I won't be the same when I get out. I've never been in, this is the first thing I've pulled like this and only because I was desperate, and all my friends tell me prison's hell. You see, this whole thing with my voice and threats and that gun was an act, man, a big fat act. So please, let's forget it and that will be it between us, you'll be rid of me forever.' When he said that I thought if I turn him in I won't be rid of him forever. I mean, I didn't believe what he was saying now about this the first time, because earlier on he'd convinced me when he talked about killing me. He actually had said—something I must have told you—'You don't turn up more dough than you got here,' meaning my wallet, ‘you're going to get killed in your fucking head with this,' waving the gun. ‘Bullets, though,' he said, ‘in the mouth.' And put it right up to my mouth and then shoved the barrel through my lips and I had to pull up my teeth or he would have broken them with it shoving it in. I remember I gagged it went in so fast and far. And that was the exact moment when I thought he means it, or close to that moment—somewhere around when the gun was going in or was in—and that I've got to get the gun away from him or run. And run, he'll shoot me in the back, then stand over me and shoot me in the head. That's also when—I'm talking now about when I had the gun on him and he tried to con-talk me about being rid of him forever—that I thought his life is nothing to me, nothing. That I hate his guts and face. That I should even kill him because he's such a horror and threat. That then I'll be rid of him forever. That his life is worthless, useless, by anybody's standards. More than that, he'll kill others when he gets out and probably look for me to kill and besides that he still might be able to trick me now, so sooner I kill him the better. For these guys are full of tricks, I thought. And he's fast and clever, and I was strong but no kid, and he'll do something very soon to get the gun from me before I can yell for people up on the drive, if anybody who hears even answers me, to get the cops down or before I can get him up the park steps to the drive and then hold him there for the police. And then with the gun back on him he'll kill me sure as I was standing there, nothing I'd say making a bit of difference to him. So, a little jumbled up these thoughts—then, and the way I'm now trying to convey them—but around then when I thought I had to kill him to save my life. One way or the other—I'm repeating myself a lot now, but I want to make sure I get you to understand what was going on in me then—one way or the other, now or a year or two from now, he was going to trick me and kill me, for that at that moment was what I was absolutely sure of. That the chances of him doing that there before I could get him to the cops were probably a lot better than the chances of my getting him to the cops, so I shot him. Put the gun right up to his chest where I thought his heart was—he made no move for it but looked no more frightened, as if he didn't sense what I was going to do—and pulled the trigger twice. I was glad when I heard it go off. Relieved because it went off and had to have hit him badly and probably killed him. Pulled it twice just to make sure he wouldn't get just slightly wounded. He flew away with the first shot but the second got him too. But you don't want to hear the details. I didn't want to do it into his brains where I knew I could kill him or seriously disable him because the whole head up there is just about brains so it's not as if I would have missed them, but I didn't want brains shooting out. I thought that then. Later I was glad where I'd shot him because the other way would have been difficult explaining to the police. Anyway, I wanted to tell you, to get it out.” Pause, she drank, he drank, she kept looking at him, then said “That it?” “That's it. I'm sure there's more, but that's it.” “Whew, that's some story,” pouring them both more wine. “I don't mean to sound light or trifling about it, or look it, even, pouring this wine, but I don't know what to say. Maybe what I don't understand is why you chose to tell me it now. It's almost as if it can't be true. You've told me everything about your life, or essentially so, so
something of it would have come out by now.” “No, it's for real. Maybe none of it came out because when I want to I'm good at being a great fake. And I never told you before because, well, when I met you, first years of our marriage and so forth—I thought you'd be afraid of me if I told you. That if I had this in me, what else like that could he possibly do? That sort of thing. I mean, you've seen my anger before. Rages sometimes, throwing things, screaming at the kids, kicking doors—and that you'd remember the killing story and think maybe he's capable of something much worse than rage. That the rage could lead to something not like a killing but a beating. That I could start smacking out at people—you, the kids. Anyway, some instinct in me you'd be scared of. Impulse, I mean. Then I forgot about it for years or a couple of times thought of it but it was the wrong moment to tell such a thing and then I saw this stupid movie you fell asleep to and the question thing came up and then from that to this and that I'd never told you, never told anyone, never wrote about it, never did anything with it except maybe hid it in some things and works I did, and that a long enough time had passed where I could tell you. So that's my big secret. It's all true. The whole thing stuck to me clearly and you can well understand why it would. Maybe talking and writing about it gets rid of it, and since I never did either, but there it is.” “I've nothing comparable to it,” she said. “You don't have to. That was just a lead-in on my part, that movie question thing; or something that led to my disclosing it, anyway.” “Nothing. I slept with an old boyfriend—the architect—a few weeks after I first met you, and that's my big secret. I've never told you, right?” “No.” “That's all I've ever held back to you of that magnitude, small as it is. I didn't think it'd do any good telling you so early in our relationship, since I didn't know you that well and so didn't know how you'd take it—jealousy, for instance. Just telling me to get lost forever, which I didn't want you to do but thought you were capable of saying. And then I never thought it worth mentioning after a while or what would be the use of telling it? or just forgot it, mostly.” “Where was I when you were sleeping with him?” “It was once, and you mean literally? I don't know. Home, maybe. Yours. But he called up—I forget his name…” “Bill. Bill Williams. I remember the name because of the double Bill and that there was a popular deejay by that name when I was a young man. And when I was a boy, also an actor whom I liked—curly blond hair, nice face, the sailor look at the time, and that your Bill used to call you up for the first few years I knew you. ‘Who is it?' ‘Bill.' ‘Who is it?' ‘Bill.' And of course also the poet though he, like the deejay, but not the actor, used a middle initial and kept to William.” “Anyway, this Bill was the only time and the only one once I started seeing you. In fact—OK, this just came—you and I had broken up for a few weeks and it was a number of months, I believe, after we'd first met. I thought we were completely through. And he called, wanted to go out for dinner; I thought why not? After, he wanted to come home with me for a coffee or drink; I thought why not? though most likely had some idea what would happen. Then I thought why not when he wanted to go to bed with me after we'd had some brandy, maybe too much brandy, though that wasn't the fault. He'd always been a good lover and you weren't part of my life any longer, but that was it; once, done. The next day or that night he left and he called again—you and I were still through for good—and I told him I was sick—I was, I think. And then you and I got together again, I forget how but we did—” “One of us called. Something about a book. You had one of mine or I had one of yours—” “Something though. And so the next time he called after that, and the next and the next and so on, as you said, I had to tell him we were together again and then deeply involved and then that I was marrying you and I couldn't see him for dinner. For tea, perhaps, if he wanted, and I think he said he'd think about it but didn't call back. And then even when I was pregnant the first time, while he probably thought that by then our marriage had busted up or was giving that idea a chance.” “Tell me, are you making all this up to have something—a big secret—to tell me to sort of take some of the awfulness off what I said? In other words, for me?” “No. And that was the end of him. But are you making up about killing that man the way you say you did to have something interesting to say to me?” “No, swear it.” “Or to get a big secret out of me, which if it was so I must have disappointed you with.” “No again; what a thing to say.” “Then are you sure you didn't simply imagine it happening that way but after all these years have come to believe it? That the gun really did go off accidentally while you were tussling for it?” “No. I shot him in the heart intentionally or intentionally where I thought it was. I knew I was close to it and I happened to have been right.” “What'd the police say about shooting him twice? For once would have been enough, it seems.” “The police? Nothing. They seemed to immediately believe me. Patted my shoulder consolingly till they saw I didn't need it, but mostly dealt with the body. Then some routine questioning at the police station—paperwork, formality, they even told me so, though maybe that was a ploy, though I don't think so—and I was out in an hour and even offered a car escort home. And later at this inquest the city set up, it wasn't a big deal either. They believed I squeezed the trigger twice because my finger was on it. In other words, that I did it that way instead of once for no other reason than that I did it. Impulse, instinct. That it wasn't unfair or unusual or unjustified force or whatever the legal term is when you have a district attorney's inquiry into it. ‘Improper defense'? A man's scared to death, his life's at stake, so in that state—and of course I made them convinced that was the case and said nothing about knowing where his heart was. I told them I didn't know how many times I pulled the trigger. I think I could have emptied the clip into him, if there were more bullets in it—I didn't check and never found out but at the time I was aware if I pulled it three times I might be in serious trouble—and they still would have bought it. In other words, they knew the guy was a killer and they wanted me to get off.” “Let me ask you this. You think the man, when he got out of prison, would have tried to kill you, if let's say you had got him to the police and the city had been able to send him to prison for holding you up?” “At the time, yes. Now, I don't think so. I doubt he would have remembered my face after so long. Because he would have had to be there, with his record, a couple of years, maybe a few. Though it was in the newspapers, my address and although no photos, though some were snapped of me when I left the inquest, so maybe he could have found me out that way. Sure he could have. But I doubt, judging by his speech and looks, he would have been smart enough to know how to go about it or remembered where he'd put the news articles when he went in. Then again, a relative or friend of his might have kept the articles—for some reason, such as thinking he was a celebrity because he was in the papers, cut them out and he got hold of them when he got out and there it was, my name and address. But it wouldn't have made the papers if I hadn't killed him. But if it had—after all, ordinary man stops killer from killing him and holds him for the police with the killer's gun, they could have said. That doesn't happen too often and especially in a fairly nice Manhattan neighborhood and everybody loves it when the good guy, we'll call me for this supposition, wins. But by then, if it had made the papers and he hadn't died and he'd got a copy of it or saved it himself, I had met you and moved into your place about two years after the incident, so he might not have been able to trace me. The post office doesn't forward mail after a year, and to tell you the truth I wouldn't have asked them to for even a day and also would have kept my name out of the phone book forever.” “What's the mail got to do with it?” “He could have come looking for me and not finding me at my old address, asked the mailman where I moved to. They're not supposed to, of course, but the killer could have conned him into giving it. ‘I owe him a hundred bucks.' ‘He said he wants to sublet my girlfriend's apartment.'” “So the mailman would say ‘Write him, it'll be forwarded.'” “And he could say ‘It has to be done today. By tomorrow I'll have blown the cash,' or ‘The apartment will have been rented.' Anyway, if he had come for me, then without knowing it I might have been protecting you too by killing him. He might have only been out for me but you were with me so he killed us both. Witnesses; get rid of them. And let's face it, he was a killer, so in one more time, they could throw away the key, and what was one more life to him? Ah, maybe I shot him because I wanted to shoot someone or even kill someone most of my life and knew I could get away doing it to him. Perfect opportunity; gun, which I never had, and easiest way to kill someone, right? And ideal victim, someone just about everyone wants killed. No, that's not it. Anybody I wanted to kill I've done it same way most people do, in my head.” “What'd it feel like after you shot him? I mean, were you disgusted, horrified? I've never asked you, and as long as we're on it.” “I just looked at him and thought ‘Good, he's dead, he won't bother me anymore, the sonofabitch, but now I've got to start concocting a good case for myself. Also, there was some ecstasy to it. I stopped some filthy creep from threatening me and probably killing me when he had the jump on me and here I am to say it—'Unbelievable!' I screamed. One word, and twirled around once with my hands in the air like this, like some Hasidic nut dancing, and then yelled ‘Help, police,' but by this time some people were already looking over the park wall and said ‘Hey, what's going on?' And then I thought Holy shit, they saw me spinning around, I'll have to give some excuse for that too.' So I brought it up first to the police and said I was dizzy after I shot the man, didn't know where I was, in some crazy mental state from what happened, and they bought that too. But that's enough, right?” “You don't want to go on? I could understand that.” “There's nothing more really to say. I've brought you up to where you know the rest.” “Most of what you told me in the past, if I can be honest, I forget, but all right. The police came, I remember that, and then the questions there and at the precinct, which you mentioned before—all right.” “So what do you think?” “About you in all this? It was so long ago. What's there to say? You might have been justified. Maybe there's no justification in killing someone cold-bloodedly like that. But you might have been in such fear and panic for your life after being so menaced by him that you didn't know what you were doing so you shot him, maybe to stop him from attacking you with what you thought might be another gun or a knife he had hidden. Did you think of that?” “Sure. I'm almost sure I said so. That he'd trick me somehow. But no, I was perfectly rational, or just rational about it, all the time. I thought I might get killed during the robbery but once I got the gun away from him—” “It's amazing how you were able to do that. Just having done it successfully must have put you—or could have—into some strange state of mind. Power. The superhumanness of it. I mean, people are often having fantasies about it, but who actually does it? The adrenalin must have been overflowing. So much so—” “I suppose. That I don't remember so I can't say. Anyway, where was I?” “I don't know—where, do you mean on the street?” “And it's getting a little tiresome as a subject, don't you think?” “It is a bit much, of course, but if you feel you want to go on with it…” “Nah, let's forget it for now and maybe forever. I've told it all. Now maybe it can start dropping away from me; I wouldn't mind. Finished?” and he pointed to her plate. “I'll take them in.” “No, I'm getting up,” and stacked their plates, put the silver and wine glasses on them and brought them into the kitchen and put them in the sink. He finished her wine and his, though didn't know whose glass was which, and went back into the dining room. She was still at the table, looking at him as if she didn't know what to think. “Did I take your wine too soon?” he said. “No, I was done with it; you finish it.” “Yeah, I might.” “As long as you're up and dealing with the dishes, mind if I just sit? The whole thing—what you did, went through that night, all that stuff—is really coming to me. It's horrible. People shouldn't have to go through such things but they do, right?” “For sure,” and took the bowls and platter and bottle of wine, brought them into the kitchen, poured another glass. “If you want to know what I'm doing—did you hear that pouring sound?” “No, what?” she said. “I was in some other thought.” “Well if you want to know what I'm doing now—I'm drinking some more wine, after finishing both of ours, to sort of obliterate—help make disappear faster and maybe for the rest of the night if I'm lucky—the memory of what I did.” “Do. It's what I would. You deserve it.”