The Cave Dwellers

by Christina McDowell

  “Ready,” Stan says, hefting the bottle into the air. Billy takes three huge deep breaths, sucking in the handkerchief, before Stan tilts the jeroboam.…

  “Make sure to start with little drips,” Marty directs. Chase giggles with anticipation.

  “You fuckers are crazy!” Mackenzie says.

  There it goes, drip, drip, drip. Billy tries to gasp in between pours, drip, drip, drip…

  Stan counts, “… five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds, eight seconds…” He continues to pour, drip, drip, drip. “… eleven seconds…”

  Stan and Marty start laughing with Chase, cackling, the alcohol seeping into their guts, and Billy’s body convulses as the porcelain horse drops to the ground, shattering into tiny pieces across the polished wood floor.

  “Stop!” Marty yells. Stan loses control of the pouring and dumps a little more before Marty and Chase can untie the handkerchief. “Stop pouring!” Billy’s body convulses again, reaching a level of violence only seen in wounded soldiers.

  “Oh my God,” Bunny says, the iPhone in her hand tilting as she loses focus and watches in real time.

  “Oh God, stop it, you guys!” Mackenzie yells.

  Stan drops the bottle on the floor, a stream of champagne spilling out.

  “He’s drowning!” Marty yells. Snot and champagne spill out of Billy’s nose as they pull off the handkerchief and bandanna, his eyes watering.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Chase unties his body, limp now. Billy rolls off of the snowboard and onto the floor; spread out on his stomach, he vomits a combination of yellow snot and champagne.

  “Jesus Christ,” Bunny says, watching him… the phone still recording, but dangling by her side.

  Marty gets on his knees with Chase, Stan following suit. “Billy, man, are you okay?” Marty puts his hand on his back.

  “Fuck,” Stan says. “You okay, buddy? We’re right here.…” The entire room is still and scared, everyone staring at Billy groaning and gasping for air. The guys pull him up so he’s sitting and leaning against the wall, his hair wet with sweat and bubbles, the front of his shirt soaked in yellow bile. He comes to, opening and closing his mouth—squeezing his swelling eyes as they sting with alcohol, his cheeks flushed, his facial muscles so constrained it looks like the veins in his forehead might explode.

  “Fuck, man.” Billy breathes heavily, a little more normal now. Trying not to look scared. “That was fucking epic!” he says.

  Everyone looks to each other in a moment of silence—before they bend over laughing, laughing so hard they can hardly breathe, their faces burning bright red.

  Chase points to Billy in between guffaws. “If we ever go to war, dude, and they reinstate the draft, I’m going with you, man.”

  “Me too,” Stan says, swiping his hair out of his eyes.

  “Shut up, fucker, you’re Russian! We’ll be dropping MOAB bombs on your ass.” Chase takes a swig.

  “What we should do is drop a MOAB bomb on North Korea, extinguish them once and for all from planet earth!” Billy grabs the jeroboam sitting within arm’s reach, takes a swig, then slams it back on the floor while making an explosion noise with his mouth, the kind that little boys make when they’re playing GI Joes.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Church bells echo across Northwest Washington. Gothic towers of the National Cathedral reign outside in the fall chill. The grotesque gargoyles are perched, mouths wide, claws hooked below the stained glass windows and a holy cross as black limousines, town cars, and news crews line up outside the semicircular driveway. Three black hearses and several security details wait with the engines running while rubberneckers creep down Wisconsin Avenue.

  Inside, a draft kicks crumpled leaves around the grand aisle, swept in by careless footwork. Guests shuffle in rows before three closed caskets covered in white lilies, center stage. The void instead of a fourth casket: the housekeeper, her family unable to afford participation in the National Cathedral service, the church unwilling to provide a big enough discount, and yet no one seems to notice.

  Betsy enters the cathedral wearing a lime-green trench coat, tugging on the arms of Mackenzie and Haley, who have no idea why they’re at a stranger’s funeral, the dead girl from their new school resting below ancient stained glass windows and cold walls. Betsy smiles for a moment before she remembers it’s a goddamned funeral, pinching her mouth closed as they approach the Bartholomews.

  Chuck turns around to see Senator Doug Wallace and Betsy walking toward him.

  “Mr. Senator,” Chuck says, patting him on the back, a friendly reminder that Doug’s got his balls wrapped in Chuck’s donation dollars.

  “Chuck, wonderful to see you. I’m so sorry for your loss. I know David was an old friend of yours from those Hasty Pudding days.”

  “Ah yes, it’s a very sad day,” Chuck says.

  * * *

  Meredith approaches with Bunny. She wears a black Chanel suit with pearls and diamond studs, a simple eternity band on her ring finger.

  “Mer, sweetheart, you remember Senator Wallace.”

  “Hello.” Meredith delivers a polite but phony smile, then pulls Bunny into the pew beside them, avoiding Betsy Wallace at all costs, passing pockets of Bibles and heading for Phyllis Van Buren and her husband, John, their heads buried in the program as an organ sounds.

  “Why is that woman wearing lime green to a funeral?” Bunny whispers to her mother, in reference to Betsy’s coat.

  Without moving her head, Meredith slides her eyes like lasers to the side, then back again. “She’s a commoner.…” She opens her Bible.

  “Mom!” Bunny, shocked at her mother’s use of the word commoner, wonders if this is the first time she’s ever heard her say it… or perhaps she thinks Bunny is now old enough to hear it.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true, she grew up in a trailer park in North Carolina. There’s only one reason your father likes them. Now, pick up your Bible, don’t be rude.” Bunny rolls her eyes, pulls the Bible out of the back pocket of the pew, places it on her lap over her navy J.Crew dress.

  Mackenzie waves at Bunny from across the aisle as her mother pulls her into the opposite pew. Bunny sends her a Mona Lisa smile, then realizes that the woman she and her mother were gossiping about is Mackenzie’s mother. Bunny studies them. She watches Mackenzie fumble with the extension clip at the back of her head, something she noticed at school too, sensing her deep need to fit in, reminding Bunny of all the times she tried to impress Audrey at the end of middle school after she had pulled away from Bunny—like the iridescent Miu Miu jacket she begged her mom to buy her like all the popular girls. An irrational boil of rage emerges toward Audrey, and now that Audrey is dead, Bunny fears she’ll never be allowed to feel it. She feels disgust for that jacket now. Doug takes his seat on the aisle, blocking Bunny’s view.

  As the reverend begins, Cate comes tiptoeing down the aisle in a tight black Burberry dress, taking a seat directly behind the senator. He turns his head around and back again, so smooth that no one could catch him.

  * * *

  “We are gathered here today to pay tribute and honor the lives of David, Genevieve, and Audrey Banks. To express our love and admiration for this beloved family and to try to bring some comfort to those who are here and have been deeply hurt by such sudden, horrific death.”

  * * *

  Bunny looks around the nave, raised chins, stoic faces, she feels a lump climbing up her throat. She isn’t sure if she wants to cry or scream; she is reminded of her bike ride home that night… the raging fire truck horns as she crossed Massachusetts Avenue wrapped in her favorite hoodie. She was so close to her, she was so close… and why was it Audrey and not Bunny who was murdered? Bunny wonders if it was because Audrey could dangle trips to France on her father’s private jet for popularity, because she could host parties at their colonial mansion while her parents were racing in the Grand Prix, and drink anyone under the table. She wonders about all the Instagram posts taken in front of their c
hâteau in the South of France or the summer estate in Nantucket—or pictures with the president. But other girls do it too, Bunny rationalizes, even the parents do it. And Bunny thinks about that—the visceral lack of identity; Audrey was becoming nothing but a younger version of her mother. Is Bunny destined for it too? She’s a commoner.… Or maybe Audrey’s entitlement was a side effect of age or insecurity, or a kind of privileged life so impenetrable that no amount of experience would require personal identification or self-reflection. At least Bunny’s parents kept their wealth contained. Maybe it wasn’t Audrey’s fault that she was a bad person, or kind of a bad person, Bunny thinks. She wrestles with the thought that now she’ll never get to confront Audrey for abandoning her before high school. She’s angry with herself for it. And now it’s too late.

  * * *

  “All rise.” The reverend makes his way back to the podium. “Lord of Mercy, hear our prayer. May our brother and sisters, whom you called your son and daughters on earth, enter the kingdom of peace and light. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who lives and reigns with you, one God, forever and ever. Amen.”

  * * *

  As hundreds stand, Cate brushes against Senator Wallace’s shoulder as she exits her pew and heads for the winding stairwell behind Woodrow Wilson’s tomb, lit by flickering candles.

  * * *

  “We will now turn to Psalm Twenty-Three:

  The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want;

  He makes me down to lie

  In pastures green; he leadeth me

  The quiet waters by…”

  Doug pretends to get an urgent call on his phone, pulling it out of his jacket pocket. He motions to Betsy, then puts the phone to his ear as he ducks out of the pew. He whispers, “Hello,” into the phone as he makes his way down the winding stairwell, security detail standing above it, lips forever sealed. Doug’s dress shoes echo from the cold limestone walls. Finally reaching Cate, so young in vulnerable flesh, leaning against a brass crypt. Someday I will be buried here with the generals, the presidents, the saints!

  Doug grabs Cate by the face with both hands and kisses her. She gasps for air when he lets go. “You were so good on-air.” She kisses him back, rubbing her lips into his, and he does it again. Breathing harder, she moves his hand up her black dress—old enough to know better: it’s bad manners not to wear stockings to a funeral. Doug reaches the top of her thigh and she exhales as he slides his finger into her, yes, Cate’s head rolls left then right across the crypt behind her. Doug pushes harder, covers her mouth with his other hand, thrusts his erection into her upper thigh as she moves a little to her left—and that’s when Doug sees it, in letters and braille: HELEN KELLER AND HER LIFELONG COMPANION ANNE SULLIVAN MACY ARE INTERRED IN THE COLUMBARIUM BEHIND THIS CHAPEL.

  Doug starts to lose his erection.

  “What’s wrong?” Cate says, panicked.

  “It’s Helen Keller’s crypt.”

  Cate looks over her shoulder, chuckles, and places her hands on his cheeks. “Doug. She was blind and deaf, it’s fine.” She shoves her right hand down his pants. “Look at me,” she says, “just… keep… looking… at… me.”

  Doug puts another finger in her, their noses touching.

  “Harder,” Cate whispers as he thrusts. “Harder…”

  * * *

  Upstairs, Bunny scans the rows of social climbers and grieving friends standing and leaning on tombs. The reverend raises his hands, like a holy ghost in his big white robe, as two dozen men in black suits and white gloves approach the caskets. Bunny has never seen or heard of these men before. Who are they? Cousins? Brothers? And one by one, the bodies of Audrey and Mr. and Mrs. Banks are carried out and down the stone steps where a sea of grim photographers and reporters awaits beneath the carved mural of a God floating in the wind, chipped pieces of the world—a swirling universe.

  * * *

  The reverend bows his head:

  “Goodness and mercy all my life

  Shall surely follow me

  And in God’s house for evermore

  My dwelling-place shall be.”

  Georgetown Slave Trade

  Slave trading in Georgetown began in 1760 and continued for close to a century. Because of the nearby plantations in Maryland and Virginia, and its accessibility through the Potomac River, Georgetown would become the largest tobacco shipping port in the nation as well as the location of the most slave trading. By the year 1790, what is now known as the tri-state area was home to nearly four hundred thousand enslaved people, accounting for over 55 percent of the entire population of enslaved people in America.I It was no coincidence that this would become the nation’s capital. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton knew that they wanted the epicenter of economic power to be the location where the most powerful institutions would be built.

  After slavery was banned in the district in 1862, a huge population of formerly enslaved Black people remained in Georgetown. By 1890, an estimated five thousand Black people lived in the neighborhood, giving rise to the era known as Black Georgetown. But as segregation was implemented and then the Great Depression hit, many Black residents lost their jobs to white workers; and with President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, more and more white federal employees moved into the district, pushing Black families out of Georgetown and into more hardship.II

  I. Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove, Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital(Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).

  II. Kathleen Menzie Lesko, Valerie Babb, and Carroll R. Gibbs, Black Georgetown Remembered: A History of Its Black Community from the Founding of “The Town of George” in 1751 to the Present Day(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2016).

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When Anthony Tell, a twenty-three-year-old Black male, was arraigned and remanded without bail, the Banks murders splashed across national news outlets. Anthony’s round face was plastered on television screens in restaurants, bars, airports, and living rooms for approximately two days before the news cycle moved on. That same week, the federal court “coincidentally” ruled the contents of the docket would be sealed.

  It isn’t uncommon for news in Washington to be buried within minutes, particularly if an administration is riddled with scandal. Once the family television is turned off, residents of the Washington power structure configure themselves back into financial appointments, country club happy hours, church, family dinners, and lacrosse games.

  * * *

  Meredith grunts on her hands and knees, pulling weeds and dead roots under the tulip poplar. She knows why she’s doing it, tugging weak limbs from the ground in some kind of transcendental meditation, a pile strewn next to the infected tree like picked-off scabs. Her refusal to confront the spiritual crisis hanging over her: the meaning of her mother’s death, the Banks murders, the lawsuits facing the family business, which she’s just become privy to. Chuck has left her to meet with lawyers in Appalachia; do not answer their calls, he told her in an effort to keep her from worrying. Meredith decided to unplug the landline to hide everything from Bunny: that they’re being sued for millions upon millions, that their family company has been illegally dumping chemicals into small towns rife with poverty.

  Meredith tugs harder as she thinks about what could happen to her family, the possibility of losing everything that has been passed down to them, to her. Maybe the murder of the Banks family (and she feels a little guilty for thinking it) was divine intervention. After all, they had been a leading competitor to the Bartholomews in their expanded business, and Meredith didn’t particularly approve of the way Genevieve Banks was displaying their family wealth, which wasn’t self-made. Meredith would never say this out loud to anyone, of course. The idea of not living the only lifestyle Meredith has ever known is unfathomable to her. When she married Chuck, she’d moved a mere three blocks from her mother, had never lived anywhere other than Washington
—other than Georgetown, just like her mother and her mother’s mother and her mother’s mother’s mother. She wasn’t about to be the dead end of the gene pool. She yanks harder, a rip in the ground, and falls over, her bum smacking the dirt, holding the root in her hand, examining its long tentacles. She looks down and sees a brown worm squirming back and forth trying to rebury itself.

  * * *

  Bunny wakes to the sound of her mother’s grunts. She stretches her arm to the floor, pulling her MacBook Air into bed with her. A copy of Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers, which she threw off her nightstand before bed, is sprawled out like a tepee. Little paragraphs inside of it read like the sound of her late grandmother’s voice: You have to learn to tell a fish knife from a meat knife and a fish fork from a meat fork. If there is no fish knife and fork, use the smaller knife and fork for the dish. If you make a mistake, just continue eating. Don’t put the silver back on the table. Be nonchalant. It was the second time since the murders the housekeeper had picked up the book and placed it back on Bunny’s nightstand. She’s beginning to wonder if it’s a message of sorts, a constant reminder of who she is supposed to be and who she might become. Bunny reaches down, grabs it, and chucks it under her bed, then pulls her D. Porthault floral bedspread over her head as she opens her laptop. Bunny hates herself for knowing the names of patterned linens and things—toile, argyle—as if they mean anything, which, to most in her world, they do.

  Washington’s Fox 5 News link lights up the fort she’s created with her knees. For the last several weeks, Bunny’s been compulsively googling “Banks Family Murders” each morning. Nothing new pops up, just the same written Fox 5 News article proclaiming racial and economic vengeance, declaring Anthony Tell, who had been fired from one of Audrey’s father’s companies, just another disgruntled employee. She can’t find any other network covering it. But Bunny’s obsession with the case intensified after she saw his photograph everywhere, his young face, only a few years older than her. Did he do it because they deserved it? Is he innocent? This is what we do to Black and brown people. We lock them up and murder them.… It enraged Bunny that each time she brought it up, her mother dismissed her curiosity: “It’s done, Bunny, it’s done. Justice will be served.” But Bunny didn’t see it as done or just at all. She wanted to know the why, and each time Meredith brushed it off, Bunny sensed a kind of fragility in her mother—or a denial, an inability to confront any possibility of innocence—a block of ice she couldn’t pick through. Meredith didn’t care to know anything more about Anthony, his alleged crime superseding his private identity, indicating he was nothing more than a public criminal.