62. Aftermath

There’d never been a fire on this block, at least not one that anybody remembered, until that body to which they gave my name was found in the basement of that house three doors away from the one in which mother and I lived. The brick shell remained; everything else—the walls, the tables and chairs that’d been left behind, the concrete in the basement—had burned into dusty ash. Including the body, or most of it, anyway.

Word on this block said a lot of things. Someone settled a longstanding grudge. But who? Mother? The lady whose name I never knew? From what I know, no woman ever killed a man on this block, mainly because men didn’t stay long enough. Or, like Adam—actually, there was nobody else like Adam; he lived here alone in every sense of the word.

The cause of the fire, like the death of the body in the basement, was never determined—at least not officially. There was no report of an inspection; as far as anybody knows, none was ever done. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised there wasn’t much of an investigation into the death discovered underneath the house.

It’s probably just as well. Some detective, some inspector, could’ve—if he’d wanted and was allowed to do some work—find some “evidence.” The could’ve used it to prove, or at least claim, that someone died at a certain hour from blows to the head, blood loss or shock, and that the body died before it burned. Or whatever. And that the fire began whenever they said it did, sparked by spontaneous combustion. Or whatever explanation they came up with.

And difference would any of it’ve made, anyway? If that body had been mine, the cessation of its movement would’ve mattered only to two people on this block. And mother’s on her way out. For everyone else, it’s another story to exaggerate or embellish in whispers. You can’t spread anything without stretching, bending or otherwise distorting it.

I was there to revenge or collect—what? And someone stopped me. That’s one story I heard. Another: some lover, some ex-lover did it. What would that person’ve been doing on this block, anyway? What would I’ve been doing there, for that matter?

Funny how nobody asked those questions. Not the cops, not the fire inspectors; nobody. Then again, I don’t imagine that anyone on this block would’ve talked to them. I know I never would. They wouldn’t know a murder if it were mailed to them. I mean, they listed Adam as a suicide. And up to the day I left, that’s what everybody insisted—if they mentioned him at all.

61. Exposure

 

Drizzly, rainy day. Late morning. Or later in the day, perhaps.

One window at the end of two long walls, my head at the other end. In between, gray grainy haze. Could be the rain, but I don’t hear it; I didn’t hear the window. Only the cold.

I pull the sheet over my face. The bed—just a mattress propped on iron bars—I don’t recognize it. These sheets bristle, grainy against my skin.

Otherwise, I’d’ve never noticed I hadn’t showered in a few days. In those days, I could get away with that. I could’ve—in fact, later I did—grow a beard and nobody would’ve cared. Except maybe for him.

He’s bored his head into my chest and tangled himself around me so I can’t see him. Only the gray, rainy haze; the sheets—I couldn’t see the color—bristling against my skin. And cold on the other side.

Dark hair. How did I know? His chest rasped against mine. But I never saw it, never saw him. Or his lips, at my neck or at the tip of my penis. Only felt his lips when they were around my soft slack slab of skin. Skin and saliva between my thighs.

Wet and gray and grainy. Then just wet, and cold outside. Wet, a sudden rush, I’m not ready. Never saw it coming; never saw it. Just a rush through me; I couldn’t hold it back. Not because he wouldn’t let me.

60. Without Witness

 

One of the first things you learn on this block is that you didn’t see. If anybody asks you what you saw, you didn’t. And if you’re asked what you know, you don’t.

Still, the stories—At least some of them are true, or all of them have some truth!—still, the stories go around. Even through all of the years I’ve been away, I’ve heard the stories.

Especially the one about the body in the basement. It startles—but actually doesn’t surprise—me that someone actually talked to the police. Or so I heard. Nobody’ll ever say who talked, or if anybody did. But they’ll all tell you that somebody left that house at three, three-thirty, four in the afternoon—nobody’s really sure of the exact hour.

And who might that person who left the house ‘ve been? Five foot seven, five foot eight, five foot nine. Not slender, but not quite stocky. Straight hair—everyone agrees on that—very straight, combed down past the ears, maybe to the shoulders. Blonde, reddish blonde, red, maybe even streaked. But definitely straight, and turned inward at the end—at the earlobes, at the collar or just past it. Straight, and hardly a strand rustled or tousled. As if that person combed or brushed it, carefully, before coming up from the cellar.

Things get really bizarre when people describe the clothes. Jeans, T-shirts and sneakers, they say, but that could describe the attire of any number of people standing or passing through this block at any given time. No colors, at least not from those witnesses. But somenone else saw a “long, dark coat”, which would’ve been strange, even though the day was unusually chilly for the time of year. Someone else saw a “smock;” still another self-proclaimed winess saw a “dress, light on top and dark on bottom.” Should I be surprised that someone else identified a skirt and a blouse or a top. But nothing more specific.

And the shoes: Things get even stranger here. Everything from candy-apple red stiletto pumps to running shoes. Ballet flats and combat boots, too. Even bare or stocking feet weren’t excluded. That would make that person tougher than me: I couldn’t go shoeless on broken concrete!

As for the identities of those self-proclaimed witnesses, I couldn’t say. I doubt Mrs. Litttington was one: After all, as far as I know, she hadn’t returned to this block from the day she moved away until today. The other people who might’ve remembered me are also gone, except for the woman whose name I never knew. There’re only two who’d’ve remembered my name or the person, the body, to which it was attached. One is dead now. Yes, mother.

And yes, I can keep a secret. It’s easy when there’s no one you can tell. Well, you know, that’s the only way a secret is ever kept. There was—is—mother. And the lady whose name I never knew, who’s here now and whose gray-on-blue eyes glance occasionally in my direction. She sees; does she know? She’d never say, except to mother. And for once, I hope that the one thing I’ve always said about this block—“Nothing Changes”---doesn’t change.

That, I know, is something lots of people say about wherever they’ve lived. People move away, die; things are built; other things fall down. But nothing changes, they say. You always recognize the place, no matter how long you’ve been away. And, like they tell you, you can’t get away from it.

Door squeaks. Who’s there? Man, in blue jacket—uniform! Oh—relief—it’s not one of them! Just a funeral home worker, a gardener or maintenance man. Maybe a security guard. It’s all right. They can’t bother me, I don’t think. I’m here, seeing mother, and I’m even in black. What would they know, anyway? Then again—They’re on this block. Nobody knows and everybody tells and everybody knows and nobody tells Even so, I’d guess—hope—they haven’t heard.

Then again, I have to wonder: Who would they believe anyway, if anybody? Why should they believe me?

Truth is, nobody will, at least not totally. Nobody does. But they don’t totally believe anybody else, not even mother. And she’s the most truthful person I’ve ever known; still is. And she’s believed—or at least never questioned—anything I’ve told her, at least not since I left.

That guy’s left, the door squeaking behind him, just like he came in. I always thought funeral homes were supposed to be quiet. I must admit, it was, at least until that guy came in and did whatever he did. Still, you’d think a funeral home director or somebody’d think of a detail like a door.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, he’s on this block, though I don’t think he’s lived here. It figures, though—the cops didn’t notice the door was missing from the basement when they got there. It’d been nailed shut and boarded over before the body was discovered. It squeaked—at least it did, way back when I lived here.--like no other door, at least none I’ve seen lately.: a full-throated squeal from old brass hinges. And from the looks of things, nobody’d fixed it or anything else on that house, ever since the last occupants moved out and someone sealed it shut—or thought that’s what he or she’d done.

I would imagine that it squeaked when the man who would die on the other side of it opened it—unless he somehow completely knocked it out of its well. Still, it’d’ve made some kind of noise, whether from the yielding of the boards or the blows to them. Nobody mentioned it—at least from what I heard. Nobody heard anything coming or going, or even from the man before his wrists and lips were bound by strips of tape.

Mother didn’t tell me that part of the story. At least, I don’t remember that she did. I;m not really sure of what I did or didn’t hear from her, at least about that man and that house. That’s what happens on this block. When you hear, you don’t recall who told you, or whether anybody did. Just like when you don’t remember being molested you and you're  left teetering between the fears of the consequences of being believed, or not. You can’t revisit it or recount it until one day, perhaps, when it rises from the rumbles that’ve muttered in your sleep and echo like stutters.

What was that? Another noise; I jump. Who else’d come to this funeral? Who will? Would they?

Pretend you didn’t see. No, don’t pretend. You didn’t. Nobody came in the door this time. You heard. Or did you? No one else did, or seemed to. No one else in this room flinched. And they didn’t seem to notice that I did.

All right, they didn’t. So I didn’t, either. No—there it is again. The squeal of that door hinge, low and almost croaky, perching into a higher-pitched squeak, echoed through the plywood boards. That noise—nothing drives me crazier! Well, not many things do. And nobody ever hears them.

That’s the only time people can agree: when they didn’t see or hear something. Like the ones who saw only jeans and a T-shirt or “long” hair. How would they know about the door?