57. Who Do They Talk To?

 

I don’t know whether Mrs. Littington knows about the man whose body was found in the basement. The body with my name. Maybe the lady whose name I never knew told her. Then again, I suspect not. Why would they begin speaking now? But you never know what circumstances will prompt.

There’s no reason—I hope—for either of them to talk to me now. I’d had a close call on the way to the bathroom when the lady whose name I never knew followed me—or so I thought. For sure, she’d turn the glance she caught of me into a cross-examination. When you’re a kid on this block, it seems that adults are always doing that to you—even the ones who’d never talk to you, or let you talk to them, under any other conditions.

Even if they know, it won’t matter. Or so I hope. Who’s Mrs. Littington going to tell, anyway. Wherever she’s going, I’m sure there’s no one to whom any of this’ll matter. As for the other woman: With mother gone, who can she talk to? I don’t think she gets out—of this block—much; she never did. What she’s wearing now looks like one of those housedresses she always wore, only in black.

Shehasn’t angled her head toward Mrs. Littington the way she did with mother. I’d never see her actually turn her eyes, her nose, her mouth, in the direction of mother. But I could always tell when she was turning her attention toward mother, when she was about to speak as soon as I couldn’t hear.

I’m hoping she doesn’t, for the first time (at least to my knowledge), do the same with Mrs. Littington. They’d’ve had at least one common topic—mother—for gossip or whatever. And if they talked about her, I imagine they’d talk about me, whether or not they realized I was in the room with them, not in that cellar on that last cold afternoon before summer, when the police found the body to which they’d attach my name—my former name.

Hopefully, I won’t have another close encounter today. I never could’ve explained myself to anyone on this block when I was living here—at least, not in any way that they could hear. Then again, I never could’ve told them anything they’d wanted to know. Nothing’s changed.: I know, therefore I can’t say.

Could they’ve recognized me, even after all those years and all the changes? Of course, they say some things never change. Once, by chance, I met a friend of Vivian’s in a café, far away from this block or her town. “I recognize you from someplace. Your eyes…” Her name flashed into my mind, but of course I couldn’t say it. I pretended to ignore her, and she left.

56. Identification

At least I haven’t seen any cops. Maybe it wouldn’t matter if I did. Could they make a positive ID of me? They couldn’t with that body in the basement; how could they identify a living person? Especially if that person’s changed since the police started searching?

Not that they have any reason for stopping or questioning me. Not really. Then again, the cops, especially the ones around here, know how to extract confessions from mouths that never had to hold secrets. Vivian used to talk about the “highway blues,” when an officer could tail you, pull up alongside you and pull you over even though you hadn’t gone over the speed limit or in the wrong lane, and somehow you’d do something—you couldn’t deny it—and the officer would write a summons. Really, officer, I didn’t kill anyone. Especially not mother. Of course not. I hadn’t even been on the block at the time she died—or when the body in the basement gave up its last. Everybody—at least the woman whose name I never knew—knows that. I hadn’t been here in years. How many? Well, gee, officer, I’m not quite sure. So much has happened and well, you know how time flies.

But they’re not here now. Just me, Mrs. Litttington, the woman whose name I never knew—and mother’s body, in the casket.

55. Before Tomorrow

 

Today. Just today. I just have to get through this day in one piece. It’s the only way anybody’s ever lived on this block and it’s the only mode of life I’ve known since I left.

I can’t say whether anything’ll change after tomorrow. I know that I’ll never come back to this block again. It’s not a choice: I have no choice. Not that I’ve ever wanted to return. But I have no such choice in any event. Never did, probably never will.

Just today. Tomorrow, if it goes the way I foresee it, we bury mother. Hopefully, nothing’ll complicate maters until then. Mrs. Littington and the woman whose name I never knew glance in my direction, but neither speaks to me. Maybe they talk to each other when I’m out of sight, but I don’t recall that they had much, if anything, to say to do with each other when we were on this block. Their only connection was mother, and I’ve no idea of how much they talked about each other to her.

I’m not even sure that Mrs.L. and the lady recognize each other now, although—somehow not surprisingly—Mrs. L. seems not to’ve aged beyond a few gray flecks in her darker-than-chestnut hair. The edges of her hair that frame her forehead, temples and ears have softer, wavier edges than those of the sharper cut she wore when she lived on this block—but somehow even that seems not to’ve changed much, either. For that matter, the lady whose name I never knew doesn’t seem much older than I recall her, either; but her loose and dry skin always made her seem older than mother, or most of the other people on this block. Then again, I’d just barely passed puberty the last time I saw her. All the adults—which is to say the women—on this block seemed like fixtures that’d always been there.

Every once in a while, she catches my gaze. Maybe she won’t ask questions. That’s the unwritten—That goes without saying!—code of this block. Then again, she never needed to ask questions, or so it seemed.

Another code is not to tell, at least not so the person who’s being told about knows. Would she? Could she? Who was it who told me, “Them that know don’t tell; but them who tell don’t know”? What did thatt person know? What does she know? What—who—would she tell? Being on this block, still, she had to’ve heard about the body in the cellar. The one with my name—my former name—on it. And my date of birth. But not my date of death. Surely she had to’ve known better than to believe that version of the end of a life. On this block, who’d’ve remained, by that time, who’d’ve had any reason to kill me? The men—the boys—were all gone by then. Including me.

Who, then, ‘d’ve gone through the trouble of striking him on the head hard enough to knock him to the ground, but not hard enough to prevent him from regaining consciousness. Who’d’ve been anygry, obsessive or whatever enough to tie him by his hands and feet and tape his mouth while his eyes were shut? To peel the too-tight black pants and bikini brief away from his hairy midsection? Or—when he regained consciousness and grunted because he couldn’t beg for mercy—took a sawtoothed switchblade and gnarled at the base of his scrotum and removed an organ which to this day has not been found? And finally pulled—actually, slid and slogged—the briefs and pants back over the bloody crotch, hooked the waist tab and zipped the fly shut just as red heat began to ooze through them?

Could she’ve known t he answers, or enough to question what I –or the man whose body was identified as mine—would’ve been doing anywhere near this block at that time? As far as she knew—or so I thought—I was long gone, and possibly dead. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what mother told her. Or if she said nothing at all, except that I don’t think that lady’d’ve let her.

Hopefully, she won’t ask any more questions—or talk any more—about him or me, or to me—before this day is over, before I can leave for good, like mother, tomorrow.

One more day and mother finally gets to rest. And I’ll be able to continue—and hopefully complete—my transformation.