“Sign right here,” she commanded Terence. I stared, struggling to understand why this was happening. She looked back at me and winked. “Gotta quarter?”
Now I sat and smiled benignly as Terence signed and wrote special greetings to grandchildren and bowling partners. I drank some more wine.
I thought back to the first time Terence and I went out to a “public” do, an opening night of some sort. We got out of the car holding hands, and a young man with a camera asked for a shot of Terence “alone.” I smiled over at Terence as if to say, “What brass!” Terence gave me a gimlet eye, then a quick nod that meant “move it, Myrtle.”
I, Myrtle, moved it. Now I could see him kindly trying to hurry the woman along—turning down (astonishingly) an invitation to appear at her bowling league banquet.
Still, our mood was kind of lost.
I ordered some more wine. “I suppose you’re aware that we’re still husband and wife?” I asked, with the terrible coyness a second glass always lends.
“What do we do about it?” He looked grief-stricken suddenly. He cupped one hand over his left eye, squinting at me as if I were a high-intensity bulb. He sighed, collapsing into himself: a beaten man. It was diverting, but I remained unmoved. I recognized these gestures from a film he wished he’d never made (and I wished I’d never seen) called Condo Bondage, or something like that. He had terrible unconscious throwbacks (in moments of stress) to the physical movements of his character in that flick. Something like LSD flashbacks.
I pushed ahead.
“We divorce, right?”
He shrugged. “Right, I guess.”
I was getting depressed. “You wanna sue me or should I sue you?”
“On what grounds?”
“I could sue you for mental cruelty,” I said helpfully, trying to grease the wheels.
“Mental cruelty? … Mental cruelty? That’s interesting. I was actually thinking that I might sue you for mental cruelty.”
“That is interesting. Well, I could go with … what’s that archaic-sounding charge? ‘Refusal to cohabit’ or something like that? I was leaning in that direction too. You know the one, when one of the partners refuses to …”
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “I know. So what you’re saying is that there was physical incompatibility.”
“And spiritual.”
“Ah!” He finished his wine with a flourish. “Ah! Spiritual as well! Then I suppose that accounts for the rather large debit on your side of the ledger; I guess we could call it willful abandonment of your spouse.”
“Abandonment!” I whooped. The couple next to us looked over. “That’s rich! I abandoned you? You abandoned me every time we entered a room with a mirror.”
“Who left our domicile, huh? With forethought and malice? Who moved out on me? Back into her place downtown that she never gave up?”
“Who went to goddamn Egypt?” I squawked. The couple was staring unabashedly. “Did I go to Egypt? Did I see the pyramids? Nooooo, you were the one who got to boogey with Tut!”
Terence turned and smiled at the couple. They smiled back with a dreamy tenderness at him, gradually recognizing him from something—a TV drama, a play.
“Give ’em the teeth, Terence,” I said, hating myself.
He got up. I got up. He threw money on the table. I threw money on the table. Then I reconsidered and took back a dollar or two.
“Listen,” I said, “in New York all you have to do is file for separation and stay separated for a year and divorce is automatic: no fault.”
He turned up his jacket collar, put on his sunglasses, and growled, “No fault, my ass.” Then he looked at the floor. “Fine, let’s get it over with.”
“That’s what you said on our wedding day, do you remember?”
He shook his head sadly.
“I’ll file for separation,” I said.
We marched out. Bright sun. We said a terse good-bye on the curb—what else was there to say?
Nine
I OPENED THE New York Mirror and there it was—Exclusive to the Mirror—reports of sexual abuse of patients by staff at Brookheart State Hospital. It headlined low on the front page, but it was a long, well-researched article that meandered back through the first section.
Patient charges of sexual abuse were substantiated by secret staff sources, a part-time physician, and a reporter posing as a nurse.
One patient, quoted extensively throughout the article, maintained that the abuse had been going on for five years or longer. Another patient pointed out specifics of the violation:
I am aware of my physical attractiveness but I am no bimbo! When I first understood that I was being abused (I was drugged and seminal fluid was being pumped into my precious body against my will), I became so angry that I vowed that I would kill my tormentors if I ever lay eyes on them. It’s bad enough being crazy, without having to contend with seminal fluid.
The article went on to describe items recovered from patients as possible evidence of wrongdoing: a syringe filled with chloral hydrate allegedly used to sedate victims, S & M paraphernalia found in a male nurse’s file drawer, some photographs of Brookheart patients in pornographic poses taken from an administrator’s desk drawer by a patient.
The State District Attorney’s office is expected to announce an investigation of patient allegations and will begin to subpoena witnesses next week.
I put the paper down. I was working late. Outside the windows the lights were coming on at seventy stories and up. What a sight in the pink dusk! What a world, I thought. I laughed out loud and threw my rabbit ears up in the air. What a world, Iris! Then: Way to go, Iris!
The last mailbag of the day leered at me from the shadows. I pulled it to me like a lover. I could stand anything now—Iris was an inspiration! I shook the bag upside down, and the postmarked shower fell.
I tore one open at random.
Dear Letters Editor,
I love your new format! I thought your comeback to the redneck sexist creep really put him in his place! And your answer to that psychotic Peeping Tom: bravo. I’ll bet no one’s ever published a letter like that before! Keep up the good work!
A Reader
There were fifty or so enthusiastic letters in the same vein—lots of them from women who had received weird communications: letters, phone calls, street assaults. Anonymous notes under the door.
And there were some dead set against the new style. They were a distinct minority, but very outspoken:
Are you kidding? Letters was a serious information column, now it’s a forum for retards!
and:
Cancel my subscription at once! “WJD” has insulted every thinking reader, woman or man, with her smart-aleck sewer-talk!
and:
Letters like that should never see the light! To publish them, not to mention respond to them, invites disaster, puts everyone in the dark!
A note from Iris at the bottom of one pile, dotted with smiling faces and stars:
Dear Willis,
I talked to a newspaper reporter last week who said you preferred to remain anonymous, but that you were the one who tipped them off to Basil Schrantz, etc. They’re all over the place now—it’s great!! I gave them all the facts and showed them my collection of seminal-fluid-stained panties from the last two years! Wow, were they impressed!
Please come up to Brookheart, next Thursday in the afternoon, for our Crafts Fair. I’ll introduce you around; I’ll show you my room and my yucca plant and my Hot Line to the Supreme Somewhat Preoccupied Intelligence.
I took a pen and wrote on the bottom of her letter: “Will be there Thursday,” and sent it off.
There was also a letter from Terence, marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Dear Letters Editor,
Since we don’t seem to be able to communicate any other way, I thought I’d write to you. Let’s hold off on the separation proceedings for the time being. Okay? We’re both too angry to approach the problem rationally rig
ht now. Would you like to meet again for an attempt at conversation? Just call and tell me when. Call 555-2722.
Sincerely, your erstwhile husband,
Terence Major
I toyed briefly with the idea of publishing “Just call and tell me when,” plus his name and phone number—but it seemed extreme, even for me.
Dear Terence,
The line’s busy right now. Call back later.
Sincerely, your ersatz wife,
Willis J. Digby
P.S. Caught you on a rerun last night on the late late late—the one where you play Laverene and Shirley’s deaf gynecologist? Looking back, do you think you peaked early?
One last hit, I decided, before I called it a night. I looked uneasily at the bank of windows, exposed to the city night, exposed to the curious malicious eye. I poked nervously around in the canvas bag.
“Do you have a friend or boyfriend who might play a joke like this on you?” the precinct detective asked me when I’d called on the 17th and explained my situation to him.
“Jesus,” I said, “of course not. What kind of friend should do something like this? Write threatening letters about window peeking?”
“Lots,” he said. “We see it all the time.”
“And what do you do about it?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “In those cases these disagreements among friends have a way of resolving themselves. Also, serious threats through the U.S. Mail are a matter for the FBI. If you really fear for your safety, we’ll come down and talk to you.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll call you.”
I found the letter I guess I had been expecting from the beginning.
Dear Digby,
Oh, the wind is cold today. The mica in the pavement burns with cold. The cold is filled with voices; they come in under the door and through the hole in the wall. They’re all calling at once. All asking for mercy. Have you ever asked for mercy, Willis? Do you ever give mercy?
You printed my letter in your magazine. Then you printed your response. So that anybody could read it.
It takes love to watch someone the way I’ve been watching you. Not the selfish love men usually have for women, but a different kind of love. I loved you as Time—if Time could love us. I was going to heal you, as Time can.
But you have hurt me now with your response. Don’t you remember your Salinger—how in a seer, the eyes are the part of the human body that suffer the most? That when a seer is wounded, the cries come straight from the eyes? How could you forget?
Now I think I have to finish you. You are like a story I’ve been writing. Like a story, you’re coming to an end. But you chose this ending and there are so many others. Say, “The woman walks free, smiling a little, out the door, into the light.” Or, “The dreamer fell asleep in her lover’s arms.” No, there are other possibilities now, I suppose. “The woman picks up the gun, sucks on it, pulls the trigger,” or, “A man takes a sharp knife and cuts a woman’s breasts off, then cooks them and eats them,” you see what I mean? I don’t want to frighten you, but don’t you see how the ending can go wrong now?
I stopped reading. The glass of the window was burning with the last comeback of sunset, then out. Late dusk, blue dark, the day a has-been.
… so remember, all of what happens from now on is your choice. You are responsible for the blood to come, the way I must cut things. This is the thing I fear, the thing I feel I was sent to you to do. Please don’t be frightened. Please.
I pulled my rabbit ears off. Just then I heard a noise. It came from around the corner, past Page’s and my partition. I’d assumed that I was alone. My brain began forming a very clear picture of The Watcher. His cutting instruments.
There were footsteps down the hall.
Holly Partz poked her head in.
“Great! Willis! You’re here! God, I’m sorry I startled you, you look like a ghost! I have to talk to you!”
She sat down and smiled benignly upon my avalanche of mail.
“I just got a call from Moira Phillips at the Mirror. She says that you are the one who tipped them off about the Brookheart scandal. Her city editor spilled the beans. It’s been confirmed by the … resident at Brookheart—Ms. Moss? The woman who sent you the original information? Moira wants to know if you would agree to tell your ‘story.’ They’d like to send someone over to interview you. Also they’d like to talk about your new ‘Letters’ format.”
She grinned sheepishly at me. “I have to apologize, Willis. I had no faith at all in your vision of ‘Letters.’ I’ve been getting mail and phone calls all week from readers who think your approach is the best thing that’s ever happened to SIS. A few don’t like it at all, but everyone’s got something to say about it.”
“I know.”
“Will you do the interview? Tomorrow? Here, at two?”
“Sure,” I said. “What does it matter?”
“There’s one other thing, Willis. Something I don’t like. I think you went too far when you printed that personally threatening letter. I missed it on the page proofs. I would have asked you to pull it.”
Silence.
“Has this person threatened you again?”
I covered The Watcher’s letter with an envelope and laughed.
“Of course not,” I said. “The whole thing was theater, like most of these letters. He disappeared when his bluff was called.”
She looked hard at me. “I don’t believe that, not for a second. Be careful, Willis. The SIS collective still has final editorial sayso—you can’t keep operating on your own. And I don’t want to start printing disclaimers. Nor do I want to see you in danger because of bad judgment.”
“Thanks, boss.”
She turned and smiled patiently at me.
“Please don’t call me that, Willis, even in jest. We’re all equal here, you know that.”
After she left, I uncovered the letter.
Now that I know where you live, I’ll come to your address to finish the story. The ending is coming.
Soon,
The Watcher
Ten
HOME, I SALUTED Wally (“Whizzer”) Herbst, the slow-talking, snow-haired doorman, slumped into the elevator and slumped off at seven. There was a smudged note taped to my door.
I recognized the crabbed handwriting before I read it.
Greetings!
Your building should be protected better! That old guy downstairs misses a lot!
XXXXX
The Watcher
I decided to enter my domicile only briefly. I tore the note off the door, stuffed it in my pocket to show to the police, went in and took some money from a drawer. It was the night I was supposed to meet W.I.T.C.H. in the Park. I had earlier decided against going: I’d just changed my mind. I stood by the phone for a minute, then picked it up and dialed. I could see myself in a mirror on the wall. I looked like a person surprised to be looking in the mirror. I made a horrendous gargoyle face, just to bring myself back to normal.
“Seventeenth Precinct.”
“Hi. I called once before, about a guy who’s harassing me through the mails? Now he’s come to my house.”
“Hold on, please.”
After repeating the same thing three times, I found myself talking to a Detective Blair. I explained about the letters, about the threats, about the note on my door.
“The FBI handles threats by mail, but now that he’s come to your building, we can send an officer by tomorrow to talk to you.”
“Tomorrow? What if he shows up tonight?”
“Ms. Digby, these harassment situations don’t usually end up being a threat. This guy’s done what he wanted to do: scare you. But if you want me to, I’ll try to get somebody by there tonight.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m going out tonight and I’m sure not going to sleep here.”
I put on my running shoes and went off to meet W.I.T.C.H. for an evening of carefree pleasures, but after consulting the Yellow Pages,
I made a stop on the way.
Eleven
“IT’S BEEN A long time since I held one of these in my hand,” I said to the guy behind the counter. He looked like a black Ed Sullivan, but lacked Ed’s dynamite charisma.
I put the .38 caliber Midnight Special on the counter between us. I looked hard at Ed. He was, presumably, skilled at judging basket cases. I wanted him to think of me as sane but scared enough to be desperate.
“I’m very frightened,” I said. “There’ve been a couple of muggings right in front of my building. I’m terrified to go out at night.” I leaned over the counter in my eagerness to convince.
He nodded distractedly. He’d heard it all before.
“The thing is … I need the gun right away—I’m afraid something might happen. …”
He nodded again. He’d heard this too.
“You see, I’m experienced with guns. My father was a military man, and he trained me in the use of firearms, all kinds.” He had not often heard this from a woman, but he didn’t seem to care.
While I chattered on, he reached under the counter, fished out an Application for a License to Carry a Firearm. I began filling it out. Have you ever been convicted of a felony in the State of New York? Then I did something that astonished me, if not him.
I pulled a couple of very large bills from my wallet. I put them on the counter.
“I need the gun right away.”
The guy looked at me, then at the money. He covered the bills with a Time magazine.
“Lemme see yer driver’s license and yer other I.D.”
He looked at my license, my SIS photo I.D., my credit cards, and a bank card. He looked at me again.
“Fill out the form,” he snarled.
My hand shook so badly I could hardly write. What if Ed called the police? Here I was, guilty of attempted bribery. I concentrated on finishing the form. Then, as I started to tell him to forget the whole thing, I’d been joking, he took the application and left the room. He came back after five long minutes—with the application and the gun and six brass-and-lead bullets. I glanced at the form. It was dated fifteen days earlier.
Dear Digby Page 9
