The Dark House

by John Sedgwick

  He didn’t tell Marj everything. He glossed over the fact that he’d made a hobby of following people back to their homes for the last several years. He focused on the part that was too large for him to take in alone, namely the monstrous peculiarity of the gaunt man entering a dark house and never turning on the lights.

  Marj listened to his tale intently, without interrupting.

  “So what do you make of it?” Rollins asked finally.

  “I’m amazed you did that.”

  Rollins colored. He was in deeper than he’d thought. “Haven’t you ever wondered about people? What they…do?”

  Marj looked at him. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

  Rollins reached for his water glass and took a long, cool drink.

  “Well, you are a devil!” Marj’s eyes flashed. “And here I thought you were some boring Republican like all the other creeps in the office. God, what a relief.”

  Rollins set the glass down. He was startled by that glimmer in her eyes. Did it convey interest, or—he didn’t quite know how to think about this—a kind of ferocity? It was like a car with its brights up, coming straight at him in his lane. As far as he could remember, no one had ever lingered on his face quite so shamelessly. He’d had a girlfriend or two, years back, but nothing that went anywhere. But these eyes of Marj’s, they were like twin suns. He tried to match her gaze, but after a few moments he had to return his attention to his water glass.

  Still, he did hope that, despite his shyness, she might find him reasonably attractive. At thirty-seven, he was still fairly young. He dressed well, all his clothes—like the blazer, rep tie, and summer-weight flannels ensemble he was wearing right now—were selected with care at the Exeter Shop, where he was on a first-name basis with the owner, a charming Trinidadian. He hadn’t gone gray, or bald, or fat, like some of his Williams classmates. If anything, the years had given his face a sleek angularity that he thought might possibly be considered handsome in the manner of certain thirties’ film stars he admired. As he followed Marj in his peripheral vision, her gaze felt tender, like her hands (or so he assumed) now slowly bringing a bottle of Sprite to her lips. A good sign, surely.

  Their lunches arrived, and Rollins took refuge in his salad, while Marj turned to her gazpacho. He ate in silence, concentrating on each bite: the satisfying crunch of the lettuce, the little explosions of the tomatoes on his tongue, the tang of the dressing.

  “You should go back, you know,” Marj said finally.

  Rollins dabbed at the corner of his mouth with his napkin. “You think?”

  “Or perhaps I should go,” Marj added.

  It was remarkable how a new bit of information about a person could transform all that had come before. Suddenly, he didn’t mind her extra earrings and dyed hair. “By yourself?”

  “He’s never seen me.”

  “Absolutely not. It wouldn’t be safe. Who knows, the fellow might have a gun.”

  “Then maybe we should go together. You can protect me from this ‘fellow.’” The corner of her mouth quivered as if she were trying to suppress a smile.

  This was trouble. Rollins didn’t have many guiding principles for his nightly pursuits, but one of them was the Garbo rule. He had to be alone. That had always been inviolable. Solitude allowed him to focus his energies on the object of his pursuit. The sole attachment had to be to the stranger in the car.

  Marj finished off the Sprite and set the bottle down. “I’m not doing anything tonight, you know.”

  Marj lived in an apartment building on Washington Street just down the hill from the sprawling Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in the Brighton section of Boston. As arranged, Rollins double-parked out front at exactly seven-thirty and honked three times. Marj threw open a window three flights up. “Be right there!” she shouted, waving. Her hair was wet and she was wearing only a bath towel. Rollins had seen such things before, countless times. He had seen more. But it’s different when you know the person. There’s an extra connection, a line of unspoken communication, that makes the sight all the more revealing. He put the car in neutral, pulled the hand brake, and switched on the emergency blinkers.

  Fifteen minutes later, he heard a rap on the passenger-side glass. He leaned over to pop the lock. From that vantage, peering up at her through the side window, he could see an inch or two of the downy flesh under her loose cotton T-shirt.

  Marj jumped in with a rush of perfume. “Hey.” She had a Walkman draped around her neck like a necklace, and artfully torn jeans. A rhythmic scratchiness leaked out from the headset. Everything about her seemed strange, but it was the immediacy of her being there, right there in his car, that got to him most of all. The Nissan hadn’t seen many passengers. He tried to assure himself that it wasn’t so unusual for a single man in the city to be so private about his car, but deep down he had his doubts. A few months back, he’d driven his brother Richard out for Thai food in Central Square when he’d come through on a business trip from Indiana. And he’d had a woman in the Nissan last fall. That was adventurous. A Cindy someone, whom he’d met at the Laundromat around the corner from his apartment. They’d gone to a Red Sox game for a few innings before Cindy started to complain about the noise and spilt beer. Actually, Rollins had started to enjoy himself, the marvelous expanse of green that was spread out before him, the leisurely pace of the game. He’d held open the possibility of dinner, but Cindy insisted on being driven straight home.

  “You okay?” Marj tipped her head to look at him at an angle, as if trying for a new perspective. “We don’t have to do this, you know. If it’s too weird.”

  “It’ll be fine.” Rollins switched on the ignition. “Really.” He moved the car out into traffic and headed across town.

  “Sorry to be so slow. I got a phone call.”

  “No problem. It’s still a little light out.” He pointedly didn’t ask who called. Out of habit, he scanned the license plates on the nearby cars, checking for vanities.

  “Say—look at you.”

  As usual for his night work, Rollins had dressed down considerably. He wore his driving clothes—loose chinos, an old pair of sneakers, and a sweatshirt his mother had once sent him in a failed attempt to get him to exercise.

  “I wanted to be comfortable,” Rollins explained.

  Marj looked at him again. “You’re not married, are you?”

  “Me? No.” He nearly laughed at the thought.

  “I didn’t think so,” Marj said. “But my mom thought I should ask.” She paused a second, looking out at the other cars on the road. “Since you’re older.”

  “You asked your mother about me?”

  “I’m from the Midwest. Well, originally. Morton, Illinois, the heart of the heartland.” She practically sang it out, as if it were a jingle from an advertisement. “Just east of Peoria. Got it? White frame house, picket fence, the whole bit. I split about ten years ago, but my mom still likes to check in. Don’t worry, I just told her we were going out for a drive. That’s something people do in Morton.”

  “I’m from Brookline,” Rollins said. “I’ve spent about my whole life around here.” Marj seemed to incline toward him a little, but Rollins stopped short. It didn’t seem like enough of a life to merit a conversation: dancing school; woodworking classes at the Brookline Community Center (his one experience with what his mother termed “mixing”); the “pre-prep” Grant School, with its faint smell of sawdust; puberty at Middlesex; then going west to Williams, his one big adventure. Why go into it? And as for the other life—the one he really lived—God, where to begin?

  They were up on the turnpike now, passing the big screen over the famous left-field wall at Fenway Park. He passed through the dim tunnel, done in grimy bathroom tiles, under the plastic-looking Prudential tower to the expressway—reasonably clear at this hour—and across the nameless bridge at the mouth of the ruffled Charles to 93.

  For a while, Marj rode quietly, too, and Rollins let the silence enfold the two of them. In his
car, he was used to silence, but it had an unaccustomed edge to it now, with Marj there. Usually, as he embarked on a pursuit, the silence tokened concentration, focus; now there was a pervasive sense of expectation that Rollins found unsettling, but that he didn’t know how to dispel.

  Once they were up on 93 heading north, Marj shifted in her seat. “So—any family?”

  This was one of Rollins’ least favorite topics. For simplicity’s sake, he decided to leave out any reference to the illustrious, so-called greater family: that vast herd of overenthusiastic near-strangers who gathered for the annual fall family clambake at his grandmother’s big place by the sea in Gloucester. Ditto the first cousins, whom he knew fairly well, but who were an impenetrable thicket all their own. Several moments passed—until Rollins realized that, despite all the thoughts that had coursed through his head, he hadn’t actually said anything, and, further, that Marj was waiting for him speak. Finally, he explained about his younger brother, Richard, in Indianapolis. “He’s married with two children, the V.P. of the Coca-Cola bottling plant there. I guess he’s the big success in the family.” He tried to keep a sound of complaint out of his voice.

  “That’s it? Just the brother?” Marj asked.

  If his sister Stephanie had lived, she’d be older than Marj. “That’s all.”

  “How about your parents? They still alive?”

  Rollins kept his eyes on the road ahead. “My mother lives in a retirement center outside Hartford. My father is out west.”

  “Divorced?”

  “When I was eleven.” He’d clung to his father’s pant leg the last time he came to the house, a ridiculous scene. His father was so tall then, over six feet, but Rollins himself was fully that height now. Harder to believe, he was almost exactly that age. Rollins reflexively stroked his chin. He seemed to be inheriting his father’s jawline, too, along with his deeply inset eyes. Hawklike, he’d always thought as a child. “My father remarried—twice, actually. He has a young wife now. About your age.”

  “You’re older than your mother?”

  “Stepmother,” Rollins corrected her. “I haven’t met her, actually.”

  “You’re not close to your dad, I take it.”

  Father down on the oriental rug with him. The living room of the big house. Father in his greatcoat, his silk scarf drooping, as he held one of Rollins’ treasured toy cars, an Aston Martin, in his gloved hands. “Vroom, vroom,” Father was saying, as he flicked the wheels with the tip of a leather-clad finger. The gloves were black. The tone icy.

  Mother beside him, her hair up, her pale neck glittering with jewels. “We should go, darling. The car’s waiting.”

  Then he was off with Mother again, to another party.

  “Well?” Marj persisted.

  “Not particularly.” Rollins had heard of the most recent marriage only by postcard. A Hawaiian beach scene, if he remembered right, from their honeymoon. He should check; he still had the card somewhere. He tried to keep such things.

  “My dad’s dead. My real one, I mean.” Marj finally switched off the Walkman. “He died before I was born, so it’s okay. Well, okay for me. Well, relatively okay.” Her hands fluttered in her lap, several silver rings flashing. “He was stationed in Germany during the Vietnam War, and something exploded. I never got the full story. My mom married my stepdad when I was six.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, what can you do?”

  As they went along, Marj told Rollins she had the man in the dark house all figured. He was either passing nuclear secrets to foreign governments or molesting children. Rollins smiled, sure she got such wild ideas from television. His eyes roved to a crimson Mercedes with darkened windows.

  “I’m boring you,” Marj said.

  “Not at all.”

  “I tend to talk too much. Especially when I’m nervous.”

  A flutter pulsed outward from his heart. Rollins slowed the car a little and turned to her. “We don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “No—that’s not what I meant.”

  She did sound jumpy. This was going to be like that Cindy. A big mistake, he just knew it.

  “I want to,” she continued. “It’s just, oh, I don’t know.” She lapsed back into silence. Her glance turned to the other cars on the road. “You could follow any of these?”

  “I suppose.”

  A sly look came over her. “Ever see anything good? Sex or something?”

  “Heavens, no,” Rollins said. “You’d be surprised how boring people are.”

  “So why do you follow them? You some kind of pervert?”

  He smiled, hoping that was her idea of a joke. When her eyes stayed on him, his smile dimmed. “I don’t do it very much. Very often, I should say.” Her eyes stayed right where they were. “I mean, I don’t.”

  “But when you do, I mean.”

  Rollins took a breath, hoping the fresh air would clear his mind. He had never put this in words before; he wasn’t sure there were words. “Just to see where they’re from, what they do. I mean, look around.” He gestured to the other cars on the road—several Hondas, a couple of minivans, a Jeep. “Don’t you ever wonder about all these people?”

  Marj glanced about her. “Not too often.”

  “Well, I do,” Rollins said.

  “Jeez,” Marj muttered. “You might have followed me.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  But, of course, he had followed her, a month ago. He had been waiting at a corner not far from the downtown Boston high-rise where they worked. Because he had splurged on a very nice ’42 Côtes du Rhone the night before, he decided to tail the forty-second car. It was Marj’s, a beat-up Toyota Corolla. He recognized her immediately. Rollins had a policy against tailing people he knew, but, having settled on car forty-two, he had to see the matter through. Marj proved to be an erratic driver. She never signaled before turning and routinely scooted through intersections well after the light turned red. This made for a challenge, but Rollins had stayed with her, his visor down. There was something about knowing her that roused him, gave the evening an even sharper edge than usual. She seemed remarkably carefree, and Rollins had to admire that. His own cautious introspection could be a burden. He followed her back to her Brighton apartment and waited there for two hours while she passed from one of her apartment windows to another in various states of undress. Finally, she emerged again in a lovely little red dress and heels. This time she hailed a cab, which ran a red light, and he lost her in traffic. He had not followed her again, although he had been tempted.

  It was after eight when Rollins and Marj turned onto Elmhurst Drive in North Reading, and pulled up at the dark house.

  “It’s that one.” Rollins pointed to number 29. All the other houses along the street were lit up, with sounds of life streaming from the open windows. But number 29 was dark and silent. The driveway was empty. Next to it, the metal-sided exterior glowed dully in the lamplight. The few shrubs and one scruffy hemlock were nearly black on the unlit side.

  “Creepy.” Marj scrunched down deeper in her seat.

  “I thought you were interested.”

  “Well, I was.” Marj hesitated. “But it’s…it’s not what I expected. It’s like seeing a corpse or something.”

  “It’s just a house.”

  “With maybe a guy inside!” Marj exclaimed. “And he might have a gun, you said so yourself.”

  “I doubt he’s home. Besides, I really don’t think he has a gun. He didn’t seem the type.”

  Marj seemed unconvinced. “Can’t we go get a coffee or something?”

  “Let’s wait a little, since we’re here.”

  They sat there for a while in silence. Time didn’t mean much to Rollins. It was an abstraction, something to pass through. But Marj started plucking at the crease on her jeans, then smoothing it out again.

  “All right, Rolo,” she asked finally, “are we going to stay here all night?”

  “Just till something happ
ens.”

  “Like?”

  “Somebody comes in, somebody goes out. Something like that.”

  Marj crossed her arms in a sulky gesture that Rollins suddenly found irritating. He said nothing, however, and merely continued to sit there. That’s what a pursuit was, after all. Watching and waiting.

  “Why don’t you go look around? Do something, at least.”

  Rollins was tempted to explain his principles of pursuit to her. He’d have declaimed them with an edge in his voice, laying down the law to her with a sentence that started “Look here…” But he didn’t dare be too combative with this nymph, for fear he might only provoke more questions about the frequency of his nightly travels or, worse, scare her off. So it was with only the slightest pique that he reached for the door handle. “And you?”

  “I’ll wait here, thanks.”

  Rollins opened the door and climbed out. Black shadows sliced this way and that from the streetlamps. He regretted leaving the protective cocoon of his car and striking out toward the dark house. But so much of life is a matter of simply getting started. You start out in a certain direction, you keep going. Rollins kept on, across the road, along the sidewalk, up the steps, all the way to the door of the house. He stood there on the landing, his heart pounding as if he had sprinted the whole distance. He glanced back to the car, to see if Marj had noticed how daring he had been, but Marj had ducked down out of sight. Rollins was afraid she’d pulled on her Walkman again, tuning him out in favor of acid rock. He paused, weakened, and retreated down the steps. He went around to the side of the house and, pushing between some rough shrubbery, squeezed through to a window whose interior shade had not been pulled tight to the sill. He bent down, cupped his hands on the glass, and peered inside.

  The whole house was empty except for the wall-to-wall carpeting. Not a stick of furniture anywhere. His nose was still up against the cool glass when he heard the crackle of tires on loose asphalt close by. He felt a bright light on him. He turned. A huge car had turned into the driveway and lit him up with its headlights. All he could think to do was to raise his hands. A door opened and a man got out. The headlights remained on. Squinting, Rollins braced himself for a bullet.