Killing Everybody

by Mark Harris

  Louisa and Catherine entered the house. Catherine carried, in addition to her lunch-pail, several poems she had written, covered with silver stars. For a moment, as they entered, they doubtfully halted at the sight of James, but not for long. “I’m James Berberick of the Chronicle,” he said. “I located your dog.”

  “Does my mother know you’re here?” Louisa asked.

  “She’s upstairs bathing your dirty brother,” said James.

  This amused the girls, and they smiled at each other, but they did not correct him. Their secret smiling slightly puzzled James. What was the state of mind of little girls? What did they know? What did they care about? What were their sensations? If you petted them you depended upon their guilt to keep them silent. They retreated from James, walking politely backward, their eyes upon his face, for he was handsome, heroic, and exceptional to them, for he stared intently at them in a way no man had ever stared before. It was a new feeling for them, and they cautiously savored it. “What grade are you all in in school?” he asked.

  They began to tell him. How boring he found it! But they had the most marvelous white teeth when they talked. “What are your names?” he asked, to change the boring subject, and then he asked, “What time do you all go to bed at night?” Ah, they went to bed at nine o’clock on “school nights.” Was tonight a “school night”? Yes. They smiled again at one another, having met a man who didn’t know the meaning of “school night,” “What time does it get dark these nights?” he asked, and Catherine replied, “I remember last year it was dark when the polls closed, so what time do the polls close?” A logical girl she was, James thought. Go to bed right now, he thought, and leave the world to your mother and me. Catherine’s cheek was scarred by dog-bite, and she held her face averted. She’d be shy about her scarred face for years, thought James, though ultimately it wouldn’t matter, some gentlemen would love her all the same, she’d find a very nice husband, he was sure. Everybody bore a cross. He knew a girl with hair on her chest. It was charming, really. “Do your friends have dogs, too?” he asked, and the girls named several friends who owned dogs. “Do their mothers wear fur coats?” he asked.

  “Here’s a riddle,” said Catherine. “What animals give fur coats?”

  “I’m lousy at riddles,” said James. “I give up.”

  “Rich fathers,” Catherine said.

  “Fathers aren’t animals,” said James, pretending indignation.

  “Men are mammals,” said Louisa, supporting her sister, “and mammals are animals.”

  “Women are mammals, too,” Catherine shyly said.

  “We’re all mammals together,” said James. “Make love, not war.”

  When Lala opened the bathroom door the steam rolled forth, and Christopher called after her, “Close the door, close it, close it,” in panic, and yet with excitement, too, leaping from hiding to close the door, but in the process, perhaps by intention, standing full shining naked at the door, for the audience below to see. The girls smiled condescendingly. Together they looked at James to see if he had been looking, and, if so, whether he knew what he had seen.

  Only Lala had not seen. She descended the stairs. “It was a hard fight but I won,” she said. “Have you met our gentleman visitor from the Chronicle?”

  “Your daughters are certainly beautiful,” said James in a businesslike voice, although he had not yet decided which business to introduce — whether to explore with Lala the question of their entering the massage business, or whether to continue in the Classified vein.

  “You girls are free to go about your business,” Lala said. To James she said, “I found your man.”

  “I wasn’t looking for a man,” he said.

  “I want to show you something I came across,” she said, showing James the letter from McCracken Black, so-called, of the Child Welfare Federation, addressing “My Very Dear Mr. Stanley Krannick,” and she added, “Let’s use first names; just call me Lala and I’ll call you . . .” but this ruse was of no assistance, he did not complete the sentence for her. “I’m going to ask you to keep this in strictest confidence because I’m going to copy it over and take it up the street and put it in Christopher’s family’s mailbox. Sit down and be comfortable.”

  “I sure will,” said James, sitting on a straight chair to read the letter. “Much obliged. This is supposed to remind me of the letter I got, right?”

  “Doesn’t it sound to you like my dog letter, too?” she asked. “Threatening to poison Paprika?”

  “Now that you mention it it does,” he said.

  “Mr. Brown wrote them all,” she said.

  “How do you know?” James inquired.

  “I found them in his house,” she said. “I stumbled on them accidentally.”

  “Housebreaking,” said James. “That’s a crime. But why would he have cared if I smelled or not?”

  “Because he’s a kind man,” she said.

  “I was grateful ever since,” said James. “If somebody hadn’t tipped me off about my stink I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

  “I feel indebted to him too,” she said. “At first I was angry, but now I understand. The barking is really awful. I don’t blame him for the telephone calls, either. He’d telephone us in the middle of the night, barking at us.”

  James smiled. “Maybe it was a real smart dog telephoning,” he said. “Just kidding, because I can understand it, too, because I’ve done the same thing myself once in a while to get back at somebody, like you yourself did this morning — it’s been going through my head all day” — and here he lowered his voice so that the children, wherever they were, wouldn’t hear: “Bomb your ass, you bitch,” he said with intensity, with strong feeling, leaning forward on two legs of his chair and staring into Lala’s eyes with an anger irrelevant to the moment. His anger confused Lala. Perhaps it arose from accumulated anger of his past.

  “I guess I’ll never hear the end of that,” she said.

  “Housebreaking and obscene phone calls,” he said, returning the letter to her.

  “I’ll make a few changes,” she said.

  “Update it,” he said. “Put in the true facts about the Welton plant; they’re planning to blow up the world. They claim they keep their explosives separate from their ignitions, but they don’t. I’d blow them up if I cared to be a human torch. It’s easy. You just drench yourself in gasoline, set yourself on fire, and run through the plant like your life depended on it. But suicide’s not my line. I already risked enough. For what? For who? I murdered by the dozen, and they made millions while I was supposed to die for my draft board. No sir, let the draft board die for me.”

  “You murdered?” she inquired. “Housebreaking’s not much compared to murder.”

  “They’re trying to murder us,” said James, “because they don’t love living enough. They’re afraid of it. They can’t enjoy themselves, so they kill people who do. No wonder that bucko’s at his wit’s end over something or other” — indicating here the chair on which Brown had sat for lunch — “barking dogs or smelling people or neglecting children or maybe those aren’t the only letters he wrote, either. He may have written others you and I never even saw. He’s riding around warning the whole world like Paul Revere.”

  “Barking on the telephone?” Lala inquired.

  “They were planning on bombing the underground heating pipes in Washington, D.C.,” James said, speaking of furious people. “Then another bunch was planning on bombing Radio City on Mother’s Day. That would have been a blast. But why do they move around in bunches? He travels fastest who travels alone.”

  “I see where they bombed the capitol of Louisiana,” Lala said.

  “I noticed the headline,” James replied. He noticed, too, the steam pouring from the bathroom. “I love steam,” he said. “Our studio will always be full of steam.” Steam was a part of any good massage parlor. Lately he had be
en vaguely angry at Luella for discontinuing the baths. The steam half-hid you, making the studio more like a bathhouse in Saigon. Those Asians had really perfected the industry there. He saw his neon sign atop their studio:

  Lala & James, Saigon Massage

  or perhaps

  James and Lala, Bath & Massage

  or perhaps she’d prefer some variation on her name, of the sort Luella had cleverly discovered:

  Jim & El, Tropical Massage

  or perhaps

  James. Masseur

  Lala. Masseuse

  That had dignity.

  “What studio?” Lala inquired.

  “We want a dignified name,” he said.

  “I know this sounds peculiar,” Lala said, “but for the moment your first name slips my mind.”

  He smiled. “Why, James,” he said.

  Now Lala, too, noticed the steam pouring from the bathroom. “Christopher,” she called, “turn the water off.”

  “Your teacher will be the best in the business,” James said.

  “My teacher of what?” she asked.

  “Get out of this house. Be free of this daily slavery,” he said. “Learn massage.”

  Her face brightened, but then it darkened. “Oh sure,” she said, “I’ve heard that one before. Learn it on you, I suppose.”

  “No, no,” he said, “way beyond that. I’m not just handing you some kind of a line, believe me, although I’m capable of handing a woman a line occasionally. I’m talking about a regular partnership. I thought you wanted to be free of this house. You’re in a prison here. You’re everybody’s prisoner. You’re throwing your life away because you think it’s your duty. I’m talking about making a great deal of money in a friendly environment. I’m talking about mixing maximum pleasure with maximum earnings. There’s a wonderful lady I know in the massage industry. An old friend. I just happened to run into her today. She’ll get us started, she’ll put up the cash, she’ll locate us, she’ll get us past all the Health Department shit, and after that it’s fun and profit while the money rolls in; you’re as free as a bird in the air. Psychiatrists recommend it. We’re going to close the deal tonight.”

  “I don’t think Harold would go for it,” Lala said.

  “Harold wouldn’t know,” said James. “For example, my friend has a real-estate office, a perfect situation, nothing could look more legitimate to her friends and acquaintances.”

  “Her husband doesn’t know?” asked Lala.

  “I don’t know,” said James. “I never met him. It’s a girl’s dream.”

  “I know,” she wistfully said. “I realize that. Massage, massage, just the very words are rather beautiful.” Her eyes glowed. Perspiration glistened on her forehead.

  James saw her eyes dwelling on some distant vision. She was breaking through; catch a lady on her breakthrough — that’s the time, when she’s just daring to be free of mother, husband, house, and yet not jaded, either, when she has just begun to confess to herself her own true nature, when excitement has not yet declined into mere habit . . . Then! Strike then when the blood is hot!

  “Harold would go for the maximum money-making all right,” she said.

  “Look at the steam pouring out of the bathroom,” said James.

  Lala called: “Christopher, turn off the water or close the door.” To James she wittily said, “I’ll tell Harold I’m an organist. I’m just wondering, though — is it really legal? It doesn’t sound legal. It sounds too good to be true. They always make good things illegal. Oh, the damn bathroom. Excuse me,” and she hiked the skirt of her robe, which she had worn all day for housekeeping, for voting, for talking on the telephone, for riding on dog safari in Officer Phelps’s police car, for serving lunch for four, for visiting somewhat unauthorized the house of her neighbor Brown, and for running upstairs now to the source of the billowing steam, calling ahead of her, “Christopher turn the water off, Christopher turn the water off,” thinking Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, Polly put the kettle on, we’ll all have tea. Oh, all those verses she had read to the girls until they were too big to be read to, and she had read to Harold in bed in the early days, but when she asked Harold to read to her he wouldn’t. She’d bet James would read to her, holding a book in one hand and caressing her with the other. We’ll have tea, she thought. She sensed his following her up the stairs; here was a strange fellow she’d never heard of until this morning offering her a business deal, borrowing an automobile tire, following her up her staircase to these intimate rooms of her house, running as if pursuing her, though no doubt he meant to be helpful somehow with the steam pouring out like smoke. Suppose Harold walked in this minute for his bowling shoes! Explain it. And there stood Christopher naked upon the toilet seat, his head shrouded in the steam above, exhibiting his penis erect to Lala’s daughter, Louisa. “Goddam you,” said Lala. “Where’s Catherine?”

  “This is disgusting,” said James to Christopher. “What kind of a kid are you?”

  “Louisa, you get out of here,” said Lala. “I’ll speak to you later.”

  “It was a boner,” said Christopher.

  “I know what it is,” said Lala.

  “It’s like a massage parlor in here,” said James, “with all this steam.”

  “I’m awfully embarrassed,” said Lala, and she asked James then, “Is this normal?” rather fascinated, actually, by Christopher’s penis, for, although the boy was only thirteen years old, still a penis erect was a penis erect, and Lala had led a life limited to Harold. Certainly she had never before found herself in such a situation as this — this triangle, this one penis more provocative and certainly more enlarged than she could have imagined it would be, and on the other hand this grown man playing whatever game he was up to, whether classified-advertising or looking-for-the-lady-walking-the-dog-in-furs or setting-up-in-the-massage-business or relocating-his-lost-pencil or borrowing-a-BMW-tire. If only life could be like this every day! She was lightened, relieved, free, floating, overcome by her awareness of herself, her flesh, this man, this naked boy, this intimacy, this steam, this heat, this roaring water, this clinging moisture. My God, see his boner, it was swelling, swell, advancing upon the boy now and seeing in his eyes his mingled confusion or fear or question, his eyes asking, “Have I done a bad thing or a good thing?” He must have seen the answer to his question in Lala’s eyes even before she knew she had answered, for he smiled at her as if he had at some time in the past given himself to her, which could never have occurred, actually, and which therefore must have been only a memory of an occasion unknown to him but known to men, man, erect, in time before the boy, and Lala seized him with her lips, her tongue, her whole mouth, and her robe flew high, James behind her bombing her, she was never so delighted.

  Above the tea she asked, “Are you sure the door was closed?”

  “Pretty sure,” said James. “I kicked it closed.” He doubted that he had kicked it closed (he’d been too preoccupied) but he said so to comfort her. She worried about Louisa’s having seen those goings-on.

  “Did you hear it click?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t listening for clickings,” he said. “This is marvelous tea.”

  “It’s nothing but Safeway teabags,” she said. “It’s not as marvelous as something else I can think of.”

  “You’ll make a terrific masseuse,” he said. “You’re a natural cooperator.”

  She asked in a whisper, “How did you get it out so fast?” Her lips were wet with tea. She admired the marvelous thing James Berberick had done — a whole new world awaited her — and she was passionate about details.

  “Practice,” he said.

  “There’s certainly no danger of pregnancy that way,” said Lala.

  “You and I are compatible,” said James.

  “Here’s my letter,” she said. “I added a little to it.” To the basic letter,
originally addressed to one Stanley Krannick, apparently the former husband of “Mrs. Brown,” she had added the following, which she read softly to her partner, James Berberick, and which he pronounced “excellent, perfectly right.”

  If these facts are true you are guilty of a violation of your sacred responsibility to that child. There is no telling what things he will encounter running around unsupervised in that way, or what sights he will see, or what paths of danger he will be led into.

  But she was at a loss how to sign it — what name to give to the Supervisor. “Think up a name for the Supervisor,” she said.

  “I write a lot of letters in my head I never mail,” said James.

  “I do too,” said Lala. “To my mother.”

  “I’ll think up a name while changing the tire,” he said, and he left the house, driving his BMW into Lala’s garage, whose door she raised by electric eye, and closed again behind him. There stood two green BMWs side by side, like an optical illusion. He examined her tires, seeking the newest, but they appeared equal all around. “It’s hard changing a tire,” he said, “so soon after an orgasm.” In spite of that difficulty, however, he worked ably, jacking up her car, jacking up his, and switching right front tires. Lala stood watching him, her arms folded, holding in one hand the transmitter which controlled the electric-eye door, and breathing the rising odor of his working sweat. He lowered each car to the floor again, Lala reopened the garage door, and James backed out. He parked his car on the street again, and reentered the house for a second cup of tea. “This is a great neighborhood,” he said, moving his chair around the table from his side to hers and punctuating their conversation with little kisses for her upon her lovely neck.