Neighbors

by Thomas Berger

  He flung the towel around his waist and sought to tie the ends at his far hip, but in point of fact they barely touched.

  Holding the terry-cloth points with one hand, then, he said: "May I have some privacy in my own basement?"

  "Ownership means everything to you, doesn't it?" Ramona asked, not disapprovingly. Indeed, she seemed almost wistful. "Pride of possession." She enunciated this as a thing-in-itself, as a term to be displayed on a license plate by way of state motto or tourist-exhortation.

  "I don't know that it does, especially," said Keese, surlily deciding to challenge this too easily assumed judgment. "Did you come here for a particular purpose?" He snorted. "I doubt that you bargained for seeing me in the shower."

  "I opened the wrong door, I guess," said Ramona. "I was looking for Baby. You haven't seen him, have you? He kills chickens."

  There really was no good way of dealing with Ramona, who was obviously unbalanced. But no sooner had he arrived at that conclusion than she made perfect sense of her latest speech.

  "Does anybody keep chickens around here? Or ducks or geese, for that matter? Baby will kill them if he can. He thinks they are toys, soft stuffed things that he can tear up for fun."

  "No," said Keese, "not to my knowledge."

  "He means no harm," Ramona said. "He doesn't know they're alive."

  "I don't believe that," Keese said with stubborn conviction. "It's undoubtedly some natural instinct, but I don't believe that he, an animal, can't tell the difference between a toy and a living thing!" Keese had never subscribed to the sort of ethics which granted immunity to the innocent of heart. Murder, for example, was just as much murder when committed by a maniac—well, of course, it wasn't really, but he was fed up with the philosophies which disregarded the problem of guilt.

  "Don't get high and mighty about my dog!" cried Ramona.

  Keese shrugged. "Would you mind?" he asked significantly, meaning that he wanted to dry himself and get dressed. "Baby is not down here. You can go up to the yard by that door over there."

  But she turned and went in the other direction. The lights were not on, and while he had no benevolent interest in furthering her prowl, he didn't want her to fall and hurt herself on his property. He told her how to find the switch.

  "You've got a game room?" she said rhetorically, crossing the threshold of that to which she referred. "Ah, pool!"

  Keese took advantage of her absence and dried himself, and then, as he heard the balls clicking one against the other, donned the set of "work" clothing. He was the sort of fellow who looked as if he belonged in whatever he wore, so long as his costume had no particular style. But the incongruity would have been striking had he been attired in military uniform, dinner clothes, or, say, a hacking jacket, though as a stripling he had worn all of these, not without advantage.

  When attired he looked in at the game room. Ramona continued to slam pool balls against one another indiscriminately, her stroke looking very strong for a woman's.

  "Take you on?" she asked when she noticed him.

  In itself this was a reasonable invitation, but he still resisted her whenever she treated him as a guest in his own house. He believed that she and Harry worked by attrition. God knows what would happen if one let them abrade him to the point of surrender!

  "No, I don't want to play pool," he said decisively, his hand on the light switch. He was obviously suggesting that they return upstairs, but he was not astonished when Ramona ignored him. In fact, in anticipation of the difficulty he would have in getting her out of the basement he had formulated a plan to use the situation against her.

  Without saying another word he stole away and having locked the door to the outside and taken the key, he climbed the stairs to the kitchen, where Harry was seated at the table again, eating what remained of his spaghetti, which was surely quite cold now. Enid was not in evidence.

  "Say, Harry," Keese said aggressively towards the man's back, before reaching a position in which he could see his face, "I've got a pool table downstairs."

  Harry was chewing when his face came into view. "So?" he asked when he could speak.

  "I thought you might like the game," said Keese.

  Harry emptied his wineglass and poured himself more from the jug. The latter, Keese saw, was almost empty, but as yet he had no means of gauging how much had been drunk by whom.

  Finally Harry said: "I was waiting for the hustle, Earl. I knew it would come, though what I expected was cards."

  "What?" asked Keese. "I'm talking about pool, Harry. If you'd like to fool around with it, go on downstairs. Ramona's there."

  Harry made his eyes small and mean. "Stay away from her, Earl!"

  "I'm not going to get into an argument on that subject," Keese said. "It should be obvious who came down there without an invitation. I was with you until the moment I entered the basement from outside. What I am talking about here is my pool table." Because of his irritation Keese suddenly became authoritative. "I want you to go down there, Harry, and play pool."

  Harry looked up at him with astonishment. "Heil Hitler," he said. Nevertheless he put down his fork and he rose. He peered at Keese and scratched his ear with his little finger. "I hope you're ready for this," he said. "It could cost you some money."

  "Sure, sure," said Keese, patting him on the back and none too gently impelling him towards the stair to the basement. Harry accepted this. He always seemed compliant once the initiative was claimed by someone else. He was much easier to handle than Ramona, over whom Keese had not once had even the beginning of an advantage.

  Unless it could be said that he had one now. When Harry had taken two steps down, Keese, still in the kitchen, closed and locked the door and took the key. The neighbors were now confined in his basement. They had been deactivated for the moment. Keese felt the sort of emotion that must come to a member of a bomb-disposal unit when the last wire has been cut and the ticking stopped.

  He let out a suppressed breath and sat down on the chair lately vacated by Harry. There was still some spaghetti in the bowl and wine in the jug. Keese really had eaten only a mouthful or two of what had turned out to be dinner. In effect the new neighbors had done their best to deprive him of his daily bread. He moved Harry's plate and reached over to get the one he had himself used earlier.

  He had just mounted a heap of spaghetti on his plate and forked up a mouthful, which was cold and slimy, when Enid came in through the door to the yard. She pretended to be shocked when she saw him, uttering a small cry and lifting her hands at the wrists.

  "I didn't recognize you!"

  "In these clothes?" he asked, dropping his fork and its burden. "There's a tale in that, but I won't bother you with it at this time. The important thing is that I've taken control."

  "Is that what you wanted?" Enid asked idly. She went to the sink and rinsed her hands.

  "It's a thing I found necessary to take," Keese said. "That's a better way to put it. I was being forced into a corner by those people—not that I blame them entirely: they found what seemed to be an ideal victim in me. No doubt I encouraged them by my friendly manner. That brings out the worst in some types."

  Now Enid acquired at least a mild interest in the subject. While drying her hands on a paper towel she said: "I'd hardly call your manner friendly. Whenever I looked at you you were baring your teeth at them. And I wouldn't be surprised now to find that you have driven them out of the house. I have never seen you like this, Earl, in all the years I've known you."

  Keese stared at her. "Now, Enid," he said, "you're pulling my leg. You don't mean to say that you found them unobjectionable? What about that awful Ramona?"

  Enid shook her head. "I think I know what you're trying to do, Earl, but I'm afraid I am rather more aware of the situation than you think."

  Keese had taken a sip of wine and now he almost expelled it in a spray. Instead he suppressed the cough and the wine went acridly up his nose through the interior passages. He took a moment to recover from
this unpleasant effect.

  "What do you think you know?" he asked.

  Enid leaned her substantial body against the lip of the sink and crossed her arms. "I wouldn't try to bluff it out if I were you, Earl. Let's just forget it. But by the same token let's try to get along with our new neighbors. They're all right. Your grievances against them are imaginary, and I'm afraid your motivation is not in good conscience."

  Keese chewed his lip. He had the terrible feeling that he would never get a proper dinner this night.

  "Enid," he said slowly, "I demand that you explain your allusions. If you mean that I am responsible for their car being down in the swamp, I admit it. But it probably wouldn't have happened if they hadn't made me so nervous. That Ramona!"

  "No, no, Earl, you leave Ramona alone. She's behaved like a saint." Nor was Enid apparently saying this tongue in cheek: her lips were in a sanctimonious configuration of the sort she had worn when correcting Elaine as a child. "But for her restraining him, Harry would have beaten you savagely."

  "What?" cried Keese. "For wrecking his car? Don't be ridiculous. He wasn't bothered that much. Besides, he got his revenge. He pushed me in the water. Frankly, I thought it was childish, but then I guess he saw it as tit for tat."

  "We could skirt the real issue all night if you want," said Enid, "but it is painful to me to prolong this ordeal. It had nothing to do with the car, as you very well know."

  Keese looked disgustedly at the overhead light. "Now, you're not going to take that madwoman's accusation seriously, are you? Can you actually imagine me making advances to her? That's what I mean, Enid. She's sick in some way. She gives me the creeps, if you want to know. Harry's not exactly a great guy, but he's some improvement over her."

  "That's pretty lukewarm, isn't it?" asked Enid, with a bitter smirk. "For a man towards whom you feel the great passion of your life?"

  Keese drank some wine. He did not understand what was going on here.

  "Isn't the truth really," said Enid, "that your overtures to him grew so violent that he was forced to overpower you, knock you down in the swamp, and hold you underwater until you came to your senses?"

  "The truth?" Keese asked numbly.

  "To humiliate yourself in such a fashion! What did you intend to do—rape him? A man so much larger than you?"

  Keese kept his eyes on his plate. "Enid," he said, "I want you to listen to me. You know very well that I'm not homosexual, for one. But I grant you for the sake of argument that one might suppress such desires for many years and then be overcome by them—actually, mind you, I don't really believe that, but I'm trying to be fair to your side of the argument. But if this did happen, such a fellow would not try to impose his attentions by force on anyone, because that would be at odds with his personality."

  "I grant you that it was bizarre enough," Enid said, "because you were desperate, I suppose. But who am I to tell you what you feel?"

  "Now, no bogus sympathy, please," Keese said, his voice rising. "Can't you see that the accusation is the work of a warped mind? There's no point in our arguing or discussing what happened: it's an absolute lie, as you should very well know. I've never in my life made a sexual advance towards a man, but when I was a young fellow and slender and not the worst-looking guy, I had a few passes made at me, and I assure you that nobody tried any strong-arm stuff. That simply would not be done. It is different from the relations between different sexes, though for that matter it is rare enough even when a man forces himself upon a woman. Rape is not exactly routine, is it?"

  Enid made no response to this question, which was admittedly rhetorical.

  "Earl," she said sympathetically, "I've never pried into your secret recesses, which you undoubtedly have, as we all do. But what I do feel responsible for is how guests are treated in this house. I can't stand by and watch them being threatened, abused, insulted, perhaps even put in danger of their lives if the truth be known."

  "Oh, come on!" Keese cried. He pushed away his dish. Quite clearly he was to be denied all nourishment this night. He was not to be allowed even the basics of human life! Would they even find some way to prevent the air from reaching his lungs? "Why can't you understand that I'm their victim—they're not mine!" He pointed to the cold, red-streaked debris of the spaghetti. "I paid thirty-two bucks for that wretched meal." And then didn't even get to eat it! He felt like bursting into tears for the first time in forty years or more.

  He resisted his weakness. "That is, they want to make me their victim. But I've defanged them, rendered them harmless."

  Enid's large blue eyes grew larger but turned almost gray. "I was afraid of this," she said, putting a hand to her mouth. "You've murdered them."

  "Murder?" asked Keese. "Get hold of your imagination, Enid. I don't go around killing people, for God's sake. What a thing to say. I've never harmed anyone in my life." But he realized that he was sounding feeble again. "All right, then, maybe I have killed them. So what? Were they your friends? Would you miss them? You never laid eyes on them before a couple of hours ago."

  In the face of this challenge Enid seemed callous about the neighbors' dire fate. "You're right," she said. "I couldn't care less. They would hardly have worked out as friends anyway."

  "I wonder why not?" Keese asked speculatively. "Their age, maybe? But they're not that young. Anyway, Harry isn't. He's well into his thirties, wouldn't you think? I'd say he's much too old to have had me as a father, and certainly he must be within about ten-twelve years of you."

  Enid shrugged and came away from the sink at last. "I don't think you've murdered them, after all, else you wouldn't use the present tense."

  "What's happened to you, Enid? Did you really think I was serious? They're both down in the game room at this moment, playing pool, I guess."

  Enid marched to the door to the basement and tried to open it. She seemed not to consider that it was locked, but rather assumed that it was merely stuck, and she braced herself against the jamb and struggled with the knob.

  "You won't get that open without a key," said her husband. "That's what I meant when I said I had taken care of them; not that I had committed murder but merely that I locked them in the basement."

  "That's pathological," Enid said. She came to where Keese sat and loomed over him. "Let's have it." She put her hand near his chin.

  "Certainly not," said Keese. "I've got them where I want them now. You ask what am I going to do next? Frankly, I don't know. I'm playing for time, you see. I've got to work this out. At the moment the outside basement door is locked too, but what I thought I might do is to open that outside door, and they might get the idea to take the line of least resistance and leave. Remember the time that the starling got into the cellar? We opened the door and opened the windows and took all the screens out of them, and eventually the bird got the idea and left. But given his birdbrain, it took a great deal of work on our part to prepare the ground. Perhaps Harry will be a bit more intelligent."

  Enid went around to the other side of the table and sat in Keese's former chair there. She leaned into the table: her breasts were almost as large as her face in this perspective. Keese had begun to find her tenseness repugnant.

  She said: "Now look here, Earl. This is going too far. You can't deprive people of their freedom of movement. You can't lock them in your house!"

  "Didn't I say just now that I was going to unlock the outside door?"

  Enid put her hand across the table, between the spaghetti bucket and his dish. "Don't bother about that," she said. "Give me the key to this door and we'll forget about the problem. No one will know."

  Before Keese had an opportunity to respond (which he would certainly have done in the negative) a noise was heard from behind the door in reference—the knob was twisted, the panel was pounded, and Harry's voice, hardly dampened by the thin door, said: "Earl, are you there? Open up!"

  Enid leaned farther across the table. "Do it quickly," she whispered. "It's still not too late if you pretend the key was turn
ed by accident."

  Keese was certain he could smell hard liquor on her breath. He rose quickly and went to the basement door. "Go to hell, Harry," said he. "You're not getting back in here."

  "All right, Earl, ver-ry fun-ny. Now open up."

  Keese fancied that he could see Harry through the wood. Harry was probably one step down: unless the door was open there was really not room comfortably to stand on the very top step. Therefore their height was more or less equal.

  "Harry," said he, "forget about it. Go to the outside door. I'll come out and open it."

  Harry sounded baffled, not angry at all. "Would you mind giving me an explanation? Is the door stuck? Did it get locked by accident and then you lost the key? Or has some catastrophe occurred in the kitchen that it would embarrass you for me to see? You get my point, Earl? Without some explanation it would seem that you are being damned rude to your guests for no reason at all."