The Man in My Basement
looked at me, and there was something like pride in her 1
eyes.
2
“How much do you think we’ll get in the end?”
3
“I don’t know, maybe eighty thousand dollars.”
4
If I was in my own clothes, speaking my own words, I 5
would have probably yipped and shouted. Instead I stuck 6
my lips out and nodded.
7
“That sounds good,” I said. “Sounds like what I ex-8
pected.”
9
Narciss was happy to be appreciated. I was happy that 10
she was happy.
11
“I’ve been reading about your masks,” she said.
12
“They’re really interesting. They were used for tribal iden-13
tification, but they also were to remind their owner of 14
their home and family — their people.”
15
I was listening close enough to have repeated her words 16
but I wasn’t concerned. Her skin and fingers and figure so 17
slight that it seemed like they could be easily broken —
18
that’s what I was thinking about.
19
“You know I’m busy for the next couple of weeks,” I 20
said. “But maybe after that we could have that dinner we 21
keep missing.”
22
Miss Gully’s mind was in Africa and history and identity, 23
but I don’t think she was upset to switch over to dating.
24
“That would be nice,” she said. “You know, I’ve tried to 25
call you a few times, but there’s never been any answer.”
26
“I’ve been away some lately.”
S 27
“Oh? Where have you been?”
R 28
“Down to the city. I’ve been considering working in 141
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Manhattan for some time now. You know, I’ve been here 2
my whole life. I think it’s time for a change.”
3
“Oh. But the city is so crowded, so overwhelming.”
4
I laughed in a knowing way. “Sometimes I’m crowded 5
and overwhelmed just living in my own head.”
6
Who was it talking? Not me. At least I didn’t think it was 7
me. Whoever it was, Narciss seemed to like him. She smiled 8
and pinched my baby finger with her forefinger and thumb.
9
I left there, making a beeline to Bethany’s apartment.
10
She answered the door and we fell into each other’s 11
arms, not wasting a single word.
12
When our passions were satisfied, she lay against my 13
chest and started crying.
14
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
15
“I wait for this every day,” she sobbed. “I love you, 16
Charles. But you don’t care.”
17
“There’s a lot going on right now, honey. A lot that I 18
can’t talk about yet.”
19
“You got a girlfriend?”
20
“No. Not that. It’s inside my head. My head.”
21
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
22
“I have to go.”
23
“To her?”
24
“To who? I’m not going to anybody.”
25
“If you aren’t going to anyone, then why do you have to 26
go? Don’t you like being with me?”
27 S
“I can’t explain it, Bethy,” I said and then stood up from 28 R
the bed. I still had a half-hard erection. Bethany stroked the hard-on lightly underneath and it jumped at her 142
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touch. But I put on my pants anyway, being careful not to 1
do any damage to myself with the zipper.
2
“If you go now you can’t come back,” she said.
3
I didn’t answer. I didn’t really care.
4
She didn’t follow me from the bedroom. Her room-5
mate, Robin Talese, was sitting in the living-room chair. I 6
wondered if the chubby white girl had listened to our 7
hollering out love earlier on. From the way she was star-8
ing at my crotch, I was pretty sure that she had.
9
10
11
“Where have you been?” Anniston Bennet shouted when 12
I returned to the cellar at about 10:00 that night.
13
“I had car trouble,” I said. “Flat tire outside of Bridge-14
hampton. Sorry.”
15
I handed him a Kentucky Fried Chicken four-piece 16
meal that came with a biscuit, corn on the cob, cole slaw, 17
and a root beer. The large paper cup wouldn’t fit under 18
the bars, so I creased it and poured the soda into a squat 19
glass he’d used for lunch.
20
“You can’t leave me down here all day without a meal,”
21
Anniston said in an angry but soft tone.
22
“You want out?” I asked. “You can leave anytime.”
23
He didn’t have an answer to that.
24
“You want the light to eat by?” I asked.
25
“Please,” he said.
26
I left without sweating for the first time. And I slept the S 27
whole night through.
R 28
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2
3
4
5
17
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14 C
The next ten days passed as one. Every day was the 15
same as far as I was concerned. I delivered Bennet’s meals 16
at regular intervals. I pumped out his toilet twice and 17
gave him books. I never spoke to him except to answer 18
specific questions, and he was pretty quiet most of the 19
time.
20
Sometimes I’d come into the room after he’d gone to the 21
toilet. The smell was bad and I’d leave as soon as I could.
22
The air was pretty dead in there, so I opened the hatch 23
twice a day to freshen up the place with an electric fan.
24
For my part I dressed in my father’s clothes and went 25
down to Curry’s, an East Hampton bar where tourists 26
and summer residents went to mingle and get drunk. I 27 S
met people there and joked around and drank beers. Not 28 R
too much drinking. Just enough for a buzz. There were 144
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some nice white girls there who liked me, but I always 1
went home alone.
2
I
received two letters in that time. One was from 3
Bethany apologizing for how angry she got at our last 4
meeting. She understood, she said, that I was under stress 5
and that we didn’t have the kind of relationship where she 6
could make demands. She hoped that I would under-7
stand how strongly she felt about me and that I would call 8
soon. The words she used were different but that’s what 9
she said.
10
The other letter was actually a postcard. It was Narciss 11
saying that she was looking forward to our dinner and 12
asking when I would answer my phone.
13
I kept those letters on the windowsill next to my bed, 14
beside the passport masks that I had standing there.
15
Many nights I would imagine some Senegalese or Con-16
golese sailor on a Portuguese ship, carrying his mask to a 17
new land. A black man, infinitely darker than me, with 18
bright whites in his eyes, making his way to a world his 19
people had never even imagined. And when he saw 20
America, he jumped ship. The white people feared him as 21
the devil, so he probably took on a Shinnecock bride. He 22
came out to just about where I was now and built a life 23
that most people never even suspected.
24
Between my make-believe ancestors and the women who 25
loved my shadow, I was happy. Drinking and masturbating 26
and feeding my prisoner three times a day. Wearing my fa-S 27
ther’s clothes (sometimes even using his name) and preR 28
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tending that I was a summering lawyer or stockbroker. Life 2
meant nothing, but I was having a good time.
3
And then, two days before Anniston Bennet had agreed 4
to leave, I went down to serve his dinner.
5
“Will you let me have a whiskey?” he asked mildly.
6
“Sure,” I said. I was feeling flush and generous. Why 7
not give the convict a snort?
8
I went to the house and returned with a bottle and a glass.
9
“I don’t really want to drink alone,” he said. “Here, you 10
use the clean glass. I’ve got one from lunch.”
11
I poured the whiskey for both of us and then sat on the 12
large trunk used to deliver his books.
13
“It’s pretty odd being locked up down here,” he said.
14
“It’s great for reading. You can really concentrate if there’s 15
no phone or messages or radio. I mean, I don’t even know 16
what’s gone on in the world for almost two weeks. But 17
I know about the Renaissance as if it happened this morn-18
ing.”
19
He was the same man who came to my door two 20
months before. Friendly and humble in his gestures. He 21
didn’t fool me this time, but I was fascinated by the show.
22
“Tell me, Mr. Bennet . . .”
23
“Yes, Mr. Dodd-Blakey?”
24
“Doesn’t anybody miss you? Don’t you have a mother 25
or wife or good friend who you play golf with on Satur-26
days? Isn’t somebody asking where you are?”
27 S
“Does anybody wonder about you, Mr. Dodd-Blakey?”
28 R
His demeanor changed just that quickly. Suddenly he had 146
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an insight to my soul. My heart gave a quick gallop and I 1
groped for an answer. But I needn’t have worried.
2
“I mean,” he continued, “we all disappear sometimes.
3
We have to go to the toilet or sleep, go to work or down 4
the street for some bread. It might take five minutes or 5
ten. It might be overnight. Sometimes you forget to call 6
or have to stay an extra day. Sometimes you fall in love 7
with someone else or have an accident. One day you die.”
8
He smiled knowingly, toasting me with his glass. I joined 9
him in the drink and then poured the second round.
10
“One day you just don’t come back,” he said. “People 11
are worried at first. They make calls to the police and hos-12
pitals. They hire detectives. They lose sleep. Some people 13
are so close to their loved ones that they’d die without 14
them. But most of us don’t. Most of us adapt. We recog-15
nize thirst. We go to the toilet and close the door for 16
privacy. We eat. New lovers and friends take the place of 17
those we miss. People die every day, Mr. Dodd-Blakey.
18
We live in the valley of death. That’s our heredity.”
19
“But you aren’t dead, Mr. Bennet. You’re alive and 20
locked up in a cage in a stranger’s basement. You aren’t in 21
love or lost or the victim of some car crash or mugging.
22
You’re in a hole in the ground reading books and farting 23
out cornflakes.”
24
Bennet laughed. I poured two more drinks and relaxed.
25
In the back of my mind I worried about letting my de-26
fenses down against this crazy white man, but then I S 27
thought to myself, He’s locked up; what can he do to me?
R 28
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“But I could be dead,” he said. “Just like the man who 2
goes away to prison, I’m gone from the lives of my peers.
3
Anathema and death are the same thing. Most people 4
don’t want to go to prison or even to know about it. They 5
don’t want to go to the toilet with you or witness your 6
fear. No one wants to watch you starve or bleed or suffer 7
in any mortal way. We can’t help but to see ourselves in 8
one another, and what we want to see is beauty and life.”
9
“You don’t sound like a businessman, Mr. Bennet. You 10
sound more like a philosophy teacher.”
11
“I don’t teach,” he said. “But I’m not what you would 12
call a businessman either. I’m a specialist.”
13
“Yeah, yeah, I know, in reclamations.”
14
“That’s right.” He smiled. “But the word has a different 15
meaning than one might think.”
16
“Like what?”
17
“Suppose,” he said, “you knew that there were dia-18
monds in the ground somewhere in Montana. Dia-19
monds. Fabulous wealth. But worthless unless you could 20
retrieve them. As worthless as dirt.”
21
“Get a mining company going and dig,” I said.
22
“But you’re not quite sure where they’re located. You 23
have the knowledge to go looking, but
you don’t know 24
who owns the land. Maybe it’s government land, maybe 25
an Indian reservation. Maybe some old communist has it.
26
You don’t know.”
27 S
“That’s why they have corporations,” I said. “You go 28 R
into business with somebody and take your share.”
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“But you don’t know who to go into business with. You 1
don’t know where the diamonds are, and if you let the 2
word out, people will start looking on their own. If they 3
have your knowledge, then they don’t need you.”
4
It made sense and I nodded. The whiskey tasted rich. I 5
smacked my lips.
6
“No,” Anniston Bennet said. “The diamonds only ex-7
ist for the man who has imagined them. They only exist for 8
the man who knows and who can realize their extraction.
9
That’s where I come in. Through various means I locate the 10
wealth and then acquire the property that contains it. I’m 11
paid handsomely for every step, and then I receive a stipend 12
based upon the value of my reclamation.”
13
“But it’s not really something reclaimed,” I argued. “It 14
belonged to someone else and you took it. It’s more like 15
stealing.”
16
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Knowledge is the only 17
true prerequisite for ownership. If you don’t know some-18
thing, then you can’t work with it. There are only two 19
things that are important in ownership. The first, like I 20
said, is knowledge. The second is the ability to exert con-21
trol over the wealth. Seize the day. That’s what I do.”
22
“So you work in Montana?” I asked in a doubting tone.
23
He smiled at my insight. I was proud of his attention 24
and embarrassed by my pride.
25
“No,” he said. “America has been picked clean. There’s no 26
wealth here. Not in its natural state, at any rate. There’s no S 27
meat on the bone. I mean, I guess there’s some potential.
R 28
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I’ve been playing with the idea of real estate and graveyards.
2
That’s one natural resource that could give up a few bucks.”
3
I poured the glasses full. I drank and experienced a cer-4
tain tipsy joy, but it wasn’t just the liquor. I was in the 5
The Man in My Basement Page 15
