The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors (21 page)

Rhonda laughed. Rhonda's mouth was a sneer. Rhonda knew better than to draw attention to herself, however—though Daddy loved his
sweet little pretty girl
Daddy could be harsh and hurtful if Daddy was displeased with his
sweet little pretty girl
so Rhonda fixed for herself a very thick sandwich of Swedish rye crisp crackers and French goat cheese to devour in a corner of the room looking out onto a bleak rain-streaked street not wanting to think how Daddy knew, yes Daddy knew but did not care. That was the terrible fact about Daddy—he knew, and did not care. A nasty fat worm had burrowed up inside Daddy making him proud of silly Brooke speaking of him in such a tender voice, and so falsely; the
stepmother
who was so much younger and more beautiful than Rhonda's mother.

Here was the strangest thing: when Rhonda was living away from them all, and vastly relieved to be away, but homesick too especially for the drafty old house on Broadmead Road where she'd been a little girl and Mommy and Daddy had loved her so. When Rhonda was a freshman at Stanford hoping to major in molecular biology and she'd returned home for the first time since leaving home—for Thanksgiving—to the house on Winant Drive. And there was a family Thanksgiving a mile away at the Hodge Road house of elderly Mrs. Hay to which numerous people came of whom Rhonda knew only a few—and cared to know only a few—mainly Madeleine and Drex of course—there was the disconcerting appearance of Drex's brother Edgar from Chevy Chase, Maryland—identified as an
identical twin
though the men more resembled just brothers than twins. Edgar Hay was said to be a much wealthier man than Drex—his business was pharmaceuticals, in the D.C. area; Drex's business was something in
investments,
his office was on Route One, West Windsor. The Hay twin brothers were in their late sixties with similar chalky scalps visible through quills of wetted hair and bulbous noses tinged with red like perpetual embarrassment but Edgar was heavier than Drex by ten or fifteen pounds, Edgar's eyebrows were white-tufted like a satyr's in an old silly painting and maddeningly he laughed approaching Rhonda with extended arms—
Hel-lo! My sweet li'l stepniece happy Turkey-Day!—
brushing his lips dangerously close to Rhonda's startled mouth, a rubbery-damp sensation Rhonda thought like being kissed by a large squirmy worm. (
Call me Ed-gie
he whispered wetly in Rhonda's ear
That's what the pretty girls call me.)
And Madeleine who might have observed this chose to ignore it for Madeleine was already mildly drunk—long before dinner—and poor Drex—sunken-chested, sickly pale and thinner since his heart attack in August in high-altitude Aspen, Colorado, clearly in some way resentful of his “twin” brother—reduced to lame jokes and stammered asides in Edgar's presence. And there was Rhonda restless and miserable wishing she hadn't come back home for Thanksgiving—for she'd have to return again within just a few weeks, for Christmas—yet more dreading the long holiday break—wishing she had something useful to do in this house—she'd volunteered to help in the kitchen but Mrs. Hay's cook and servers clearly did not want her—she'd have liked to hide away somewhere and call her roommate Jessica in Portland, Oregon, but was fearful she might break down on the phone and give away more of her feelings for Jessica than Jessica had seemed to wish to receive from Rhonda just yet … And there was Rhonda avoiding the living room where Hay relatives were crowded together jovial and overloud—laughing, drinking and devouring appetizers—as bratty young children related to Rhonda purely through the accident of a marital connection whose names she made no attempt to recall ran giggling through a forest of adult legs. Quickly Rhonda shrank back before her mother sighted her, or the elderly white-haired woman who insisted that Rhonda call her “Grandma”—sulkily making her way along a hall, into the glassed-in room at the rear of the house where Mrs. Hay kept potted plants—orchids, African violets, ferns. Outside, the November air was suffused with moisture. The overcast sky looked like a tin ceiling. A few leaves remained on deciduous trees, scarlet bright, golden yellow, riffled by wind and falling and sucked away even as you stared. To Rhonda's dismay there was her stepfather's brother—Drex's twin—wormy-lipped Edgar—engaged in telling a story to a Hay relative, a middle-aged woman with a plump cat face to whom Drex had introduced Rhonda more than once but whose name Rhonda couldn't recall. Edgar was sprawled on a white wicker sofa with his stocky legs outspread, the woman in a lavender silk pantsuit was seated in a matching chair—both were drinking—to her disgust and dismay Rhonda couldn't help but overhear what was unmistakably some crude variant of the story of the stabbing of long ago—narrated in Edgar's voice that managed to suggest a lewd repugnance laced with bemusement, as the cat-faced woman blinked and stared open-mouthed as in a mimicry of exaggerated feminine concern
My brother's crazy wife she'd driven into Manhattan Christ knows why Maddie'd been some kind of hippie fem-ist my brother says those days she'd been married to one of the Commie profs at the university here and so, sure enough Maddie runs into trouble, this was before Giuliani cleaned up the city, just what you'd predict the stupid woman runs into something dangerous a gang of Nigra kids jumping a white man right out on the street—in fact it was Fifth Avenue down below the garment district—it was actual Fifth Avenue and it was daylight crazy “Made-line” she calls herself like some snooty dame in a movie came close to getting her throat cut—which was what happened to the poor bastard out on the street—in the paper it said he'd been decapitated, too—and the Nigra kids see our Made-line gawking at them through the windshield of her car you'd think the dumb-ass would've known to get the hell out or crouch down and hide at least—
as Rhonda drew nearer her young heart beating in indignation waiting for her stepfather's brother to take notice of her. It was like a clumsy TV scene! It was a scene improbable and distasteful yet a scene from which Rhonda did not mean to flee, just yet. For she'd come here, to Princeton. For she could have gone to her father's house in Cambridge, Mass.—of course she'd been invited, Brooke herself had called to invite her, with such forced enthusiasm, such cheery family feeling, Rhonda had felt a stab of pure loneliness, dread.
There is no one who loves me or wants me. If I cut my throat on the street who would care. Or bleed out in a bathtub or in the shower with the hot water running …

So she'd had a vision of her life, Rhonda thought. Or maybe it was a vision of life itself.

Not that Rhonda would ever cut her throat—of course! Never. That was a vow.

Not trying to disguise her disgust for what she'd heard in the doorway and for Edgar Hay sprawling fatuous drunk. The ridiculous multicourse Thanksgiving dinner hadn't yet been brought to the dining room table, scarcely five thirty
P.M.
and already Edgar Hay was drunk. Rhonda stood just inside the doorway waiting for Edgar's stabbing story to come to an end. For maybe this would be the end?—maybe the story of the stabbing would never again be told, in Rhonda's hearing? Rhonda would confront Edgar Hay who'd then gleefully report back to Drex and Madeleine how rude their daughter was—how unattractive, how
ungracious
—for Rhonda was staring, unsmiling—bravely she approached the wormy-lipped old man keeping her voice cool, calm, disdainful
Okay then—what happened to the stabbed man? Did he die? Do you know for a fact he died? And what happened to the killer—the killers—the killer with the knife—was anyone ever caught? Was anyone ever punished, is anyone in prison right now?
And Edgar Hay—“Ed-gie”—looked at Rhonda crinkling his pink-flushed face in a lewd wink
How the hell would I know, sweetheart? I wasn't there.

The Beheading

FRANCINE PROSE

A
S A CHILD,
I was fascinated by decapitation. Not what we think of now: grainy terrorist videos, or Hong Kong sword-fight films, or serial killers with trophies grinning in the freezer. And not by every beheading, but only certain ones. The virgin martyrs left me cold, as did John the Baptist, though the volume of
The Lives of the Saints
on our otherwise sparse suburban bookshelf featured an illustration of a luscious Salome with the Baptist's head on a platter. Marie Antoinette held me for a while, but finally what drew me were the legal executions with which kings got rid of their wives.

I was obsessed with the history of the court of King Henry VIII. I read through the school and library books and asked my parents for more. It was how I learned about sex—that is, something beyond the basics. What other reason could there have been for a man to tire of one woman and divorce her if he could, kill her if he couldn't or when the divorces got to be too much trouble? Why else would he keep marrying his dead wife's ladies-in-waiting, and what charges convinced a judge to execute them so cruelly? Had the women really fallen in love with those handsome young nobles? This was nothing I could have learned at home, where my religious parents stayed lukewarmly married until they died, months apart. Like only children everywhere, I got a partial education: isolated, by turns removed, and unhealthily attentive.

I used to imagine the moment when the head is severed from the body. What
were
head and body, one without the other? Where did the person go? Was there such a thing as a soul, and where did it reside? I became a child expert on the mind-body problem. I used to imagine what it was like to order your wife's head chopped off, or to be married to a man who had done that to his wife. I imagined being the executioner's child, and the odd mood in the house at night when Dad came home from his job. I imagined being a courtier, being formally presented to the new queen and everyone trying their hardest to ignore what had happened to the last one.

I should say that I was good in school, I had friends, I played sports. Beheading was only part of what I thought about in my spare time.

I was eleven or maybe twelve when I began to have a recurring dream. It began with me knocking on a door, always the same door, which was opened by a man, always the same kind, friendly, handsome man, who led me to the same room in which there was a chopping block, an ax, and a pyramid made from the heads of children. And I always understood that I was about to join them.

The dream returned fairly often. Each time I woke up screaming. Worried, my parents took me to the family doctor. He said, Sure, I'd been an easy kid, but—winking at my parents—the next few years might be bumpy. He advised us to fasten our seat belts.

Around this time a new couple moved onto our block. The wife was having a baby. I learned this from my parents, who met them before I did. I also learned, without anyone saying so, that this young couple was thrilling; everyone wanted to be their friends. There had been competition about who would invite them for dinner first, and, lucky for once, my parents won.

My mother cooked for days, tested family favorites, green beans with fried onion rings, along with elegant experiments, beets halved and stuffed with dollops of lightly bleeding egg salad. Multicolored liquor bottles lined up on the sideboard, though my father never drank more than a few beers on weekends.

Two by two, the guests arrived, filling the house with the exotic aromas of gardenia and tobacco. My mother had begged me to dress up and help, and it was easier to agree. I was bringing out a bucket of ice when the new couple arrived.

The wife was tall and graceful, with a column of smoky blonde hair twisting up the back of her proud head. Probably it was the first time that anyone in that crowd had seen a pregnant woman in black. This alone sent a tremor through the already charged, bright room.

Her husband followed, guiding her elbow. He smiled at everyone at once and somehow made everyone think that his smile was intended for each of them, alone. I recognized him from my dreams. I watched him from the kitchen.

How hard it is to remember a dream, even the morning after—and how exponentially trickier when decades have elapsed. I have said he was the man in my dream, but the truth is I can't exactly remember the man who opened the door in my nightmares, nor can I precisely recall the man who walked into my parents' house. Did he really look like the man, or did he just give me a similar feeling?

Fortunately, I was a sensible kid. I knew such things didn't happen. You didn't dream about people, then meet them. I watched as coats were shed, introductions made, hands shaken, kisses exchanged. The strangers kissed our neighbors, they kissed my mom and dad.

Finally my parents brought the new couple into the kitchen. The pretty wife shook my hand. Then her husband turned my way and shone his blinding light on me. Never had a grown person smiled at me like that—a movie-star smile, friendly enough, but intimate and suggestive. A smile like the rosy heat lamps that kept food warm at our neighborhood diner.

Who knew what his smile conveyed? I was sure that I did. Did it mean he was glad to meet me? It meant that he knew me and knew that I knew. He knew that I had seen the ax, the chopping block, the heads.

I screamed, the scream I'd practiced to wake myself from the dream. I dropped the ice bucket and the cubes crashed and skittered across the floor so violently that everyone scrambled as if I'd broken a glass.

Perhaps my mother recognized the scream. Without a word she scooped me up and led me off to my room. She felt my head and a few minutes later returned with an ice pack, made from the ice I had dropped, which she pressed to my forehead until I fell asleep.

By morning, I had recovered. At breakfast my parents seemed to feel that their party had been a success. Apparently their new friend had been gracious about my behavior. He said he'd never gotten that reaction from a kid before, maybe he'd better work on it, now that he was about to have one.

As it happened, their new friends did not become their new friends. Maybe because their child was born, impeding their social life, but the heartfelt promises of returned invitations were never kept. Maybe it was my fault. My parents didn't blame me, they never asked what happened. They seemed fractionally more disappointed, though by such a small fraction, how could it have been measured?

Not long afterward, my father was transferred to a distant office. Our home dissolved and recrystallized in another house, another suburb. The bad dreams stopped, as did my fascination with beheading and with the wives of King Henry VIII.

Since then, whenever I read or heard a story about a killer of children, I found myself searching for evidence accusing my parents' former neighbor. But of course there was none. Where did my suspicion come from? What evidence did I have? A child had had a bad dream. A man had done nothing wrong. But whenever I think back on that time, I reach a different conclusion.

I think, He got away with it. I think, They never caught him.