He walked over to me and took my hands. “I know I’ve been a bastard these past seven years. But will you try, could you try and…forgive me…just try?”
I looked at him, and I felt triumphant. For once Clive January was begging me for something, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of getting his way. Not this time. I shook my head slowly, remembering the tears that I’d cried, the baby I’d lost, the humiliation of everyone knowing that your husband was playing you for a fool with another woman. “No. No, I will not forgive you. Ever. Never.”
Clive turned and walked out of the room. And through the dream I remembered that that was the last time that I saw him alive. Except for now. Because the dream had ended, and now it’s present time and we’re talking.
I asked him, “Clive why did you marry me?”
He didn’t hesitate, saying, “Because I thought I loved you and because you reminded me of someone that I had loved, like a mother. She had loved my father, and he’d loved her. But I was jealous, and I wished that something would happen to break them apart.”
“And it did?”
“Yes it did. My father was killed, so I got my wish. They were never together, but I lost my father, the only person who had ever loved me unconditionally without asking anything of me. So I married you thinking that maybe if I could make you happy, it would make up for the pain and sadness that I had caused my father and this woman. Instead, I only caused you more pain and sadness.”
I wanted to go over to him and comfort him, but I couldn’t. I was still too angry with him. I couldn’t let myself release the anger. It felt like a cancer eating away at my flesh, but I wouldn’t let it go.
“Do you know why I wanted to leave New York?” he asked.
“No.”
“Because I was running.”
“From what?”
“From her. My mother. She had found me, and I knew that she would torment me like she had when I was a child. So I had to get away. Until I could figure out how to get away from her for good in my head, so that even if she found me again, I wouldn’t care.
“Every day I wondered if she’d come back to the apartment. If she’d try and ruin everything for me, like she’d tried before. So I figured that I’d close everything down before she could somehow snatch it away from me. I’d get away and figure out what to do with my life and figure out why I was still running from a woman whose only power was in my head. But I was afraid to take you or Ariel, because it seemed as if everyone that I’d ever loved had died because of me: my father, Red. And I didn’t want that to happen to you.”
I injected softly. “Or to that other woman.”
“Or to her.”
“That’s why you were leaving alone.”
“Yes…that’s why.”
“And where are you now?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not free. I’m trapped somewhere, and I want so much to get out. But I can’t. Something is holding me back, pushing me further and further into this darkness where I am.”
Suddenly, I felt sorry for Clive, and I wasn’t angry anymore. Because I saw him as he was, not the distant, arrogant man who’d been my husband, but a soul struggling to come to terms with his past.
“Did you ever love me, Monique?”
“Yes. You know I did.”
Then I don’t know why, but something pushed the words from deep inside of me. “I forgive you, Clive. I forgive you for everything.” The minute I said it, I felt as if I had been absolved and purified from all of the anger and hatred I’d felt for him. And now I was being reborn and cleansed. And I wasn’t afraid anymore. Looking around me, I saw that the place where I’d been was covered in a warm pink light that seemed to rotate around me. For a moment I saw Clive’s eyes flash in front of me and I heard them say, “Thank you.”
* * *
John
I bolted awake. I’d been dreaming about Monique, hearing her say—I forgive you. I had this wrenching feeling in my stomach, knowing I didn’t deserve her forgiveness. Knowing that I had planned to walk away from her for my own ambition. Feeling this putrid sickness rising up in my mouth, I ran into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. Hating myself.
I don’t know how long I sat there on the cold tile floor. Long enough to pass over my life and examine painfully what it had become. My marriage had begun with the best of intentions. I did love my wife when I married her. The only problem was that I was so young that I don’t really think that I knew what love was. And when I found out, I realized that I was married to the wrong person.
I stayed out of duty, out of obligation to my children and probably most importantly because I refused to admit failure. So I stayed. And stayed. Well past the time of boredom into the season of contempt. For that is what I felt for my wife now, contempt: for her pettiness, and meanness and her hardness of heart. For the fact that she didn’t love me either but still she stayed, for her own reasons.My career. An auspicious start, Harvard Law School, the best firm, then my own practice, well respected, turning away business I had so much. A roller coaster of success that wouldn’t end. Until my ambition, my ego, my need to prove that I could be more, that I could have it all, money and power, knocked me into the ditch. A disastrous Congressional campaign, forced withdrawal. But not a failure, I would not admit failure. I’d run again. They’d want me again. And they did, the Lieutenant Governor’s race was just the beginning. They had plans for me, bigger than the ones I imagined for myself. So no, I could not turn my back on it. It was the right thing to do. To hell with everyone and everything else.
So then why did I feel like I could never look at myself in the mirror again? Why did I have this sour feeling in my stomach ever since my wife shoved the paper in my face, crowing triumphantly over my lover’s fate? As if she secretly knew the truth. Why did I dream of Monique every night? And why couldn’t I live with myself another minute?
Is it worth it? I’d never squarely asked myself that question. But now I had to. Is it worth it? Is losing any goodness that I have left in my soul worth it? A Faustian dilemma if ever there was one. I always knew the answer, even without asking. I just had to hear her say “I forgive you” to push me into the inevitability of what I must do. Not just for her. But for me so that I could live again. And live with myself.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Detective Bob & Clive
Cameras flashing. A parade of lights and reporters. I was watching it all, seeing the reporter shove the microphone in John Lanier’s face as he held tightly to Monique January’s hand. “Mr. Lanier why didn’t you come forward as soon as Mrs. January was charged? Why did you wait until now to tell the police that she was with you?”
“Mr. Lanier, are you going to withdraw from the race for Lieutenant Governor?”
“Mr. Lanier, what was your wife’s reaction? Are you and Mrs. January going to marry?”
“Mr. Lanier, we need a statement!” Lanier and Monique January ducked their heads, trying to skirt away from the knot of photographers following them out of the station.
I just stood there thinking. Shit. What the hell just happened?
It had all started yesterday. Lanier had come in to give a statement. He admitted that Monique January had been with him that night and that between the hours of 11 and midnight, they were in some cottage that he rented. He gave the statement under oath. It turned out that someone else had seen her pull up to the place. A kid riding around, lived in the area, he identified Monique’s car and remembered seeing it pull up around ten. When the kid rode past there around midnight, he said the car was still there.
My head was spinning, but what about the gun? It was the murder weapon. It checked out with ballistics. I’d even had them run the test again. How had it gotten there? I was thinking all of that as Monique January and Lanier ducked into a waiting car. Driving away to freedom.
Snatches of things were stacking up in front of me. The Japanese connection, Haven and Simmons—the gun. Laurel Davenport—the gu
n. The gun. I couldn’t get away from the gun. I knew it was the murder weapon. I’d stake my whole fuckin’ career on it. How did it get there? Dolly. No…Maybe…who else…who else…And then I started running, ‘cause I knew this time.
She opened the door, and I looked into the eyes of Clive’s murderer. “You did it, didn’t you?”
“What you talkin’ ’bout?”
“You killed your son, and then planted the gun in Monique’s closet to make it seem like she did it! Didn’t you!”
She laughed—a cruel, hard-edged laugh, not scared, not defensive. “Yeah…and so what of it? Who’s gonna send an old woman to jai? I’ll be dead ‘fore the trial begins anyway.” She slumped down into a chair, her thin, bony face looking more gaunt and pained than I remembered.
“Naaana…” Ariel wandered in the room, clutching her blanket. She climbed into Clive’s mother’s lap. She stroked Ariel’s hair tenderly, kissing her on the top of the head and saying gently, “You go on upstairs and play for a bit…Nana’ll be right up.”
Ariel gave her grandmother the sweetest smile. “O…kay.” She skipped out of the room, humming to herself.
Clive’s mother turned to me and all the gentleness was gone. “That’s why I did it…’cause of her…my grandbaby. He was gonna take her away from me. He wouldn’t let me be with her.”
With an intensity that looked like it would burn through me, she sat up. “That boy took everything from me, everything. I tried to send him away when he was young, so I could get some life of my own, but ‘stead he took my husband from me. Like I said, he took everything from me, and he wasn’t taking her, too. I wasn’t gonna spend the last days of my life alone ’cause of him. And that chile is all I got.”
She sank back in the seat, closing her eyes. “I got cancer. I don’t have much time, so what did I have to lose? Nothin. Nothin at ‘tall. So I went out there. I knew he’d be goin’ out to that place of his, and when his girlfriend left, I shot him. In the back. And then I left.” She squared herself off and gazed into my eyes. “And I ain’t sorry.”
I was trying to shout out something, but I was frozen. In front of me I saw a darkness blotting out the lamp in the corner of the room, suddenly coming up through the floor, surrounding Clive’s mother. I could barely see her through the darkness. Then I saw Clive. Anger and disbelief were on his face, as if for the first time he understood who had done this to him.
He shouted, “I hate you! I hate you. I’ve always hated you!” Clive’s voice cracked with all the pain he must’ve held in since he was a kid. “You were always the one who spoiled everything for me!” I could see tears on Clive’s face. “You could never just let me be happy!”
His mother turned and hissed back at him, “You didn’t deserve happiness. You ain’t never been nothing but trouble for everybody you ever been around, yo wife, yo girlfriend, you brung nothin’ but pain to everybody!”
“You’re the one! Not me! That’s why Daddy left you. That’s why he took me with him and left you.” The darkness around Clive was getting thicker as he shouted. “I wished you’d died instead of Daddy!”
“Yo Daddy, yo precious Daddy, always yo Daddy.” His mother laughed cruelly and then stopped herself, almost like she’d wanted to say something for years, but then didn’t.
I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. My hand was shaking hard. My whole body was vibrating. The darkness had taken shape. I could clearly see that it was apart of Clive. Its face was distorted with hatred, ugly and twisted with anger. I wanted to shout out—Clive stop, don’t say anymore. Can’t you see what’s happening—but I couldn’t. My voice was frozen. This ugly part of Clive was getting stronger and was shouting out, “Why couldn’t you’ve died instead of Daddy? Daddy loved me. My life would’ve been so different if he’d still been here. Why were you the one who lived, instead of Daddy?!”
His mother pulled herself out of her chair and hurled words at Clive, “He wasn’t yo daddy! I don’t know who yo daddy was! Four of ’em raped me! You ain’t got no daddy!”
For a minute it was quiet, like something had been yanked out of Clive. I could see his eyes through the darkness, tears clotting his throat as the words tumbled out of him, “I already know everything! Daddy told me the truth. He wrote me a letter. He told me what had happened, and he told me he loved me. That I was his real son, no matter what. He didn’t care what had happened. He told me he loved me!”
“He didn’t love you. Nobody could love a chile like you that come in the world in shame like that. He didn’t love you no mo than them that done it to me—that day—that day God punished me. I don’t know why God punished me with you…”
Her voice kinda trailed off, and she stumbled over to a chair, sinking into it weakly, like even after all those years she couldn’t stand to remember what they’d done to her. “Did he tell you how it happened? Did he tell you I was walking through the woods taking the shortcut Ma had told me not to take when I heard ’em? They was drunk, and then when I seen ’em I thought I was gonna be all right ’cause I knowed ’em. We’d growed up together, played together. I thought they’d leave me alone. They was like brothers to me, but they didn’t. They wanted me, and they took me. All four of ’em. Even though I knowed ’em. That’s why nobody believed me. ’cause I knowed ’em, they told everybody that I’d asked for it. That I was always actin’ so uppity with everybody. Like I thought I was too good for the boys there. That I asked for it. They said, that’d show me tryin’ to put on airs and act like I was too good for that town. And when I tried to tell ’em what really happened, nobody believed me. Nobody. Not even my own pa. Nobody believed me!”
“But it wasn’t my fault!” Clive’s voice sounded like he’d broken in two, cracked with the wear and tear of never being loved by your own mother. “I didn’t ask to be born! All these years you’ve blamed me for something that wasn’t my fault!”
His mother whirled around, and I could see tears on her face as she barely choked out the words, “It wasn’t your fault? Well it was your fault the whole town turned on me. Sheriff wouldn’t do nothin’, nobody cared ’bout a sixteen year old colored girl that got raped by four sixteen year old colored boys. Nobody gave a damn ’bout me. An’ then when I got real big with you, they kicked me outta high school. A pregnant colored girl couldn’t finish high school.
“So all my dreams of getting out, of doing something big with my life was gone. Jus’ like that. An’ every time I looked at yo face, I seen the reason I spent my life in a factory sewin’ on buttons ’stead of making something of myself. I seen the reason I never married the man I loved, ’cause he dropped me after I got pregnant with you, left me jus’ like that. I never loved yo daddy. The man I loved left me ’cause of you!”
“That’s why you stole my college applications, because you hadn’t done anything with your life, you weren’t gonna let me either. I hate you. I wish you’d been the one who’d died instead of Daddy. I wish you’d been the one!”
Now I could see that with every word, the dark part of Clive was taking over him, wrapping itself tighter around him. First his legs. Then twisting around his arms. And his neck. Like a hungry boa constrictor. Strangling him slowly. He was being strangled and choked by this evil twisted version of himself that he couldn’t run from ’cause it was him.
A shaft of light cut through the blackness. Little pinwheels of brilliant color were shooting toward Clive. The shape of a man had started to form. I heard a voice come out from the bright light saying, “Clive…we don’t want to lose you…”
Clive could barely get the words out. “Who is it? Who’s out there?!” He was drowned out by screeching voices coming from the dark part of himself. Even louder than before.
Now the whole room was shaking with the cries. “Don’t listen to him, remember everything that she did to you, remember!”
The light grew stronger. I saw a man step out from the brightness, walk out to Clive and put his hand on his shoulder. A tall black man, and
he whispered, “You can escape. You have the power. You just have to use it.”
“Daddy!” Clive tried to reach out to his father, but the darkness in him was so thick that he couldn’t get through.
I could hear the twisted mocking version of Clive’s voice say, “Don’t listen to him. He’s lying. He’s not your father!”
Some part of Clive, the goodness that was resisting the hate, still knew the truth. He cried out, his voice choking with pain, “Daddy, I’ve been trying to come to you, ever since…I…died, but I can’t. Something’s holding me back…Daddy, help me, please, help me!”
His father seemed to glow with an inner light that was bigger than him, coming from some far away place. But he shook his head sadly saying, “They won’t let me, Clive. You’ve got to do it yourself.” “But, Daddy, I don’t know how!”
Clive’s father started getting fainter, but his words rang out clearly. “Remember the love they gave you.”
“Who, Daddy, who are you talking about?”
Clive’s father was getting fainter and fainter. Clive cried out desperately. “Daddy, don’t leave me. Not again!”
His father’s image was completely gone, and his voice was just a whisper in the room saying, “Remember the love.”
Frantically, Clive tried to push the darkness in himself away, begging, “Daddy, please don’t leave me here!” Before his father could answer, Clive’s mother rushed over to him, blotting out the last slivers of his father’s light.
“I told you he didn’t love you! Nobody’s ever loved you. Not him or none a them. They jus’ used you, like you used them. You don’t know nothin’ ’bout lovin’ nobody,”
“You’re wrong, you’re the one who could never love me or anybody, and I’m not like you!” Clive raised his hands to his mother’s neck. The thick blackness pouring out of Clive covered them both. I could barely see anything but I could hear him, “I’m not like you!”
A Dead Man Speaks Page 32
