Dem

by William Melvin Kelley

  “You didn’t tell me he was an eccentric.” She had remained at the top of the steps.

  “Who said he was an eccentric?” Godwin had a full assortment of liquor. “He just had an argument with his wife.”

  “Honestly, Mitchell. You can explain away anything.” She descended the steps, her heels wobbling in the rugs. “At least he could stop and bring us inside.”

  “You don’t understand anything. He doesn’t want to bother us with his private affairs. And he’s honoring us by not treating us like guests.”

  “All right, Mitchell. Forget it.”

  He had begun to mix their drinks, but now put down the bottle. “For Christ’s sake, Tam, the man wants to finish mowing his lawn!”

  She did not answer. Sitting now, her legs crossed, she was squinting into her purse. “You have a cigaret?”

  “Here.” He took the cigarets from his pocket and tossed them to her. They landed near her feet.

  She picked them up. “Thank you.” While he finished the drinks, she lit one. “Come on, Mitchell. I’m sorry. I don’t want to argue with you all day. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, but…” He stopped, not wanting to start it all again. “I mean, try to be a little tolerant.” He put the drink into her hand, sat across from her. There was a dull childhood scar on one of her hard little knees.

  “All right, Mitchell.” She thrust her puckered lips toward him.

  Leaning forward, he kissed her quickly, and retreated to his drink. “You like this house?”

  She nodded, but was not listening.

  “Come on, Tam, don’t sulk on me.” On the wall above her head was a long curved Japanese sword.

  “I wasn’t sulking. Honestly. I was thinking.”

  Mitchell sighed; she was quibbling about words. “What about?”

  “I was just trying to figure out what’s happened to us.” She shook her glass, an ice-filled rattle.

  “And what has happened to us?” He wished Godwin would come inside and rescue him.

  “If you don’t really want to know—why ask?” Her brown eyes were steady on him.

  He rested his drink on the arm of his chair. “Because you’ll tell me anyhow.”

  “I don’t think you really love me anymore.” She spoke softly, with no more feeling than if she had told him his shoelace was untied.

  He shook his head, covered his eyes with his hand. “Oh, come on, will you?”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” She hesitated. “You still like me well enough. But all the romance is gone, do you know what I mean? We’re not in love like we were when we were dating. You’re not making love to me and then going home and thinking how nice it would be to live with me. You don’t have to win me. All the romance is gone out of it for you and you feel cheated.”

  For a moment, he could not answer. Surprisingly, she was right. He hid behind a question. “What about you, may I ask?”

  “Oh, it goes for me too. I miss your being polite to me because you know you have to win me. I miss being chased.” She sipped her drink. “The funny thing is: I don’t mind staying married to you.” She looked at him. “And I don’t think you mind staying married to me.”

  She was right about that too. It would be too much trouble to divorce her—especially with no other prospects—and remarry, just to have the same thing happen again. But he did not say this aloud. Instead he stood up. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  She smiled at him. “So do I. Tell me where it is when you get back. And don’t worry. We’re just like everybody else now.”

  He looked in the kitchen, but finding nothing, returned to the front hall, from plastic tile to carpet, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. On the landing, he paused to look out of a window, down onto the front lawn, where Godwin still worked, three rows from the sidewalk.

  All the doors on the second floor were closed. He had opened a closet, and a child’s room, when he found Godwin’s family—his wife, whose name, he remembered now, was Cindy, and two children—on the bed in what must have been the master bedroom. The room was neat, the bed under them made, the closet doors closed, the cushions on a small love seat rounded, dent-free. Cindy lay on her back, an attractive woman, short, blond, nicely built, her purple skirt bunched around plump thighs, flowered underpants looping one ankle, her eyes and mouth open. The children, a boy in a blue bathrobe and a little girl with pigtails, one tied with red, the other white ribbon, had been placed so that they seemed to be nestling, asleep, against their mother. Godwin had even wrapped Cindy’s arms around them.

  At first, Mitchell watched them from the door, but strangely excited and wanting to see more, he crept closer to the bed. Cindy’s neck had been broken, he was sure. The children had probably been strangled; dark blue marks ringed their necks.

  He waited until his heart grew quiet, then tried to decide exactly what he would do, how he would protect himself, how he would remain uninvolved. He hoped Godwin had not mentioned their visit to anyone at the office. He decided not to tell Tam; she might do something stupid, like flee, filling the quiet street with screams. In a few more minutes, they would start home. Whatever Godwin did after that was his own business.

  After another look at Cindy’s thighs, he continued to search for the bathroom. He would have to give Tam explicit directions so that she would not blunder into the bedroom. A few moments later, surrounded by pink tile and washing his hands, he heard the power mower stop.

  6

  HE DRIED his hands quickly, but Godwin had reached the living room before him—was sitting deep in a soft chair, a drink in his small right hand. Tam was leaning toward him, her breasts almost touching her crossed knees, listening.

  “…so I just pushed the needle right on through.” He glanced at Mitchell, but went on talking: “It’s one of those things you’d only do in the middle of a war. A lot of crazy things were happening.”

  “Mitchell, you didn’t tell me John wore an earring. How could you forget that?”

  He shrugged, sitting so he could see them both. When Godwin was looking at Tam, his blue eyes tired and half-closed, Mitchell searched his face for signs—of anything. But Godwin might have been sitting in a business conference, neatly dressed, listening intently, talking easily. He had not changed, except that now work in the yard had made him sweat.

  “So, Mitchell, you had a look around the house.” He held Mitchell’s eye, without guilt, or sadness, or even a threat. But he knew that Mitchell had found his family.

  That interested Mitchell most, that Godwin knew, but did not care, was not afraid of his knowing. He realized he was not in danger. “It’s a nice house, John, especially the way the bedrooms are laid out. A family could be very happy here.”

  “Yes, I guess it could.” He stared into his drink, then bolted a mouthful. “I’m sorry you had to come today, with us scrapping and all.” He smiled at them both and went on: “It’s not quite the way we planned it, huh, Mitchell?”

  Mitchell shook his head. Godwin seemed so calm, so harmless that curiosity was overcoming his desire to leave quickly, although he had no idea how he would use what he might learn, or even about what he was curious.

  Godwin was explaining to Tam: “We were going to make you and Cindy take the kids for a ride so we could watch the ball game in peace.”

  Tam laughed, charmed. “Oh, I see, it was a plot.” But suddenly she was quite serious. “Are we really so hard to be around, John?” She closed her eyes; when they opened, she was looking at Mitchell.

  Godwin shook his head. “No, you aren’t hard to be around, at least not the way I think you mean it.” He laughed, a snort. “Come to think of it, you don’t even understand why we do need you around. You think it’s love or sex or something like that.” He stood up then, drained his glass, and walked to the liquor table. “It’s hard for us to have you around in the same
way it’s hard for a lunatic to have his attendant around. Does anyone want something?”

  “I do, thank you. That’s a terrible thing to say.” Smiling, Tam slid to the edge of the sofa, her pink skirt tangling in itself so that Mitchell could see the darker nylon at the tops of her stockings. She set her glass on the low table and returned to the sofa. “If it isn’t love or sex, what is it?” Looking at Mitchell, “I’d like to know.”

  Godwin brought her drink, sat down, and smiled at Mitchell. “So you two had a fight today too?”

  “Yes, we did, John.” Mitchell glanced at Tam, who did not seem embarrassed. “But I don’t think it was as bad as yours.”

  “Oh, Mitchell.” Tam sucked her tongue. “You can’t compare the fights two different couples have. They’re always about different things.”

  Godwin was silent for a moment. “You’re wrong, Tam. It’s always the same fight, for everybody. The thing that is different is how bad the fight is.” He hesitated. “At least for us, here. What I mean, when I was in Asia, I didn’t see men and women have the same kind of fights we have.”

  “I know that. But there women aren’t really free…”

  Godwin laughed. “And you think you are?” He leaned forward, so close that Mitchell’s heart, remembering Cindy’s open mouth, beat a little faster. “An Asian woman isn’t asked to do anything she can’t do.” He smiled. “You have the hardest job in the world.” He was pointing at her now, a finger that could break a neck jabbing the air in front of her nose. “You have to try your best to keep us from growing up.”

  She sat up, slightly angry. “Now you sound like Mitchell. Why do men always say that women keep them little boys? Why blame us?”

  Godwin shook his head. “I don’t blame you for anything. I sympathize with you. You’re right to keep us little boys. I only blame you when you fail. Cindy failed. That’s why we had a fight today.”

  Mitchell was interested. “What did you fight about?” He was not certain that he understood Godwin. Perhaps knowing why they had fought, would help him understand why Cindy was dead.

  “I wanted her to move to San Diego.”

  Tam looked around the room, at the soft chairs, the rugs, the tables of dark, deeply grained wood, and the paintings of children with large, black eyes. “But why?”

  “Mitchell knows. Don’t you.” Godwin lifted his glass, toasting him.

  For some reason he was getting nervous. “He’s…he’s been called into the Marine Corps.” He covered his eyes, as if the headache gathering itself in his head might be eased by darkness.

  “Well?”

  “And I wanted her to move to the West Coast so that when I got a leave, I wouldn’t have to travel so far to see her. But she wanted to stay here. She had friends here, she said, and she’d be lonely out there, making new friends and all, and the kids…they were sitting right there with us, eating breakfast, you know. They saw the whole thing. A fight like that, that’s a bad memory, you can never be happy after you see your parents fight like that. You understand, Mitchell? It was a bad fight. An awful fight.” He shook his head. “I…I hit her and the kids saw the whole thing. You see what I mean, Mitchell? So I made them go with their mother. Isn’t that what you would’ve done, Mitchell?”

  Mitchell thought it would be easy to say, No, but he could see the children sitting over their cereal, or cold scrambled eggs, watching. If it were anything like his fights with Tam, it would have begun quietly, a word, or a sentence studded here and there in the breakfast clatter. Cindy would be moving all the time, to the stove for more coffee, to the toaster, to the cupboard for sugar and jam. Godwin would remain at the table, asking a question, waiting for her answer, its sentimentality and lack of reason angering, disgusting him, until finally, when she was within range, he would let his hand speak for him, and, his training forever in mind, would see nothing but the column of white skin, small bones and muscle exposed between her chin and the top button of her sweater. His children would be looking at him, and he would know that his duty to them was to stop their minds, their memories. But still, Mitchell could not allow himself to be definite about such a thing, and answered: “I guess so, John.”

  “So she left you.” Tam was staring at her hands. “Oh, John, I’m sorry.”

  Godwin nodded, smiled at her. “You see, she shouldn’t have argued with me. She could’ve gotten what she wanted, in all kinds of roundabout ways. But she tried to be honest with me. That’s what I understand now. It’s like when a kid wants something you don’t want him to have, you fool him. You give him something else and tell him it’s a surprise, or it’s special. But you don’t argue with him. You don’t go down to his level. And a woman can’t fight a man on his terms or she’ll lose everything. That’s why it’s so hard for a woman. She can’t let a man grow up, because then terrible, terrible things will happen.” He tilted back his head, emptied his glass, and tears ran across his cheeks and spotted his white collar. “Terrible things.”

  Mitchell looked at Tam, and found her motioning toward the door. He did not understand until she stood up. “May I use your ladies’ room, John?”

  Mitchell got up quickly. “You can go on the way home.”

  “You know we can’t leave now, Mitchell.” She stopped in front of Godwin, touched his shoulder. “When I come back, John, I’ll fix some dinner and we’ll stay until you feel a little better.”

  “But, Tam, I said we have to go,” Mitchell tried again.

  Godwin stared at him for a long moment, then turned to Tam. “It’s the second door on the right.”

  “But, John, that’s the—” He stopped, realizing she would find out now, no matter what he said or did. “The second door on the right.”

  Godwin waited until her heels disappeared into the hall ceiling, then leaned toward Mitchell. “You agreed with me about the kids, didn’t you?”

  “Well, I didn’t actually…” He couldn’t continue.

  “It’ll be all right. You have it made now.” Godwin smiled. “You’re safe.”

  Tam did not scream. She came down the stairs slowly, and for a moment, stood in the doorway, a little pale, staring first at him and then Godwin. Then she walked to Mitchell, slapped him hard, and stepped back, waiting to see what he would do. A monster inside him wanted to tear at her, but his fear of it was greater than the cold pain across his cheek. He held the monster until the pain was gone.

  “Good night, John.” She bent down and kissed Godwin’s lips. “Call the police.”

  Godwin nodded.

  “Say good-bye, Mitchell.”

  He thought it best to do as he was told.

  7

  UNDER A FIST-SIZED SUN, the road was clear. He drove slowly, to the right, away from the fence, streaked with the paint of cars that had gotten too close, which separated the two sides of the highway. Tam had not spoken since they left Godwin’s house. She had put on her sunglasses, large green ovals with black frames.

  “Tam?” She did not answer, did not move. Inside the pink skirt, her legs were crossed and once again, he could see the dark part of her stocking, and even the plastic button and silver loop that held it up. “Listen, the reason I didn’t tell you what I’d seen upstairs was that I didn’t want to scare you.” She had opened her purse, shook a cigaret from the pack he had thrown her, and pressed in the lighter. “He seemed calm enough. You know what I mean? Besides, in a crime of passion like that, a man’s not apt to kill again. Tam?”

  The lighter snapped out and she lifted it to her cigaret. Her words came in smoke. “Do you think he raped her?”

  “Are you all right, Tam?” The highway was not straight and he wished he could take a good look at her.

  He saw her nod. “Do you think he raped her, Mitchell?” He was waiting for tears to flow into her voice, but it remained dry, though now she spoke more deliberately.

  “When
?” He thought. “I mean, he probably…hit her in the kitchen. When would he get a chance…” He did not finish, the answer coming to him.

  “Do you think after he killed the children, he carried her upstairs and put her on their bed and pushed up her skirt and pulled down her panties and raped her?” She took a drag on her cigaret, held, then blew smoke into the space above the dashboard.

  “No, Tam.” He shook his head. “God, that would be crazy.”

  “I know.” Her voice was soft. “Do you think he did that?” She shifted in her seat and faced him from behind the green ovals. “Put yourself in his place, Mitchell. I know you can do it. If you killed me, would you do that?” She smiled. “Would you want me that much?”

  “Come on, Tam. You shouldn’t even joke like that.” They rounded a curve and for an instant her glasses filled with sun.

  “You understand why he killed the children. I’d like to know if you’d do that to me.”

  He laughed. “You see? You always get the wrong idea. Sure, I can understand his reasons, but that doesn’t mean I’d do the same thing.” The air conditioner did not seem to be filtering off her cigaret’s smoke; he felt his stomach beginning to fill with it. “Besides, he probably didn’t want to kill her. It was just what they taught him in the Marine Corps. I mean, he forgot his strength. If I ever hit you, I probably wouldn’t even hurt you.”

  “Maybe so.” She shifted again, and somehow her knee was touching the soft part of his thigh. “Of course, John’s a special case. But suppose you did happen to kill me—with a paperweight or something—would you go on with it? Would you maybe feel my breast to see if my heart was beating and then get excited, looking at me with my eyes closed and peaceful, and carry me into our bedroom and slide down my panties and make love to me?”

  “But I wouldn’t kill you! I wouldn’t even hit you!” He took a deep breath. “I mean, when you slapped me today, I wanted to hit you, but I didn’t.”