“I am homosexual.”
The policeman was no more astonished than I. He said, “I don’t get it.”
“I live with my friend; that young man downstairs. I am — capable — of a wider range, but my preferences are set. I am very fond of Emily, I felt sorry for her, the life she had with Ed. I told you our physical relationship was infrequent. And often not very successful.”
Oh, Emily. Oh, poor Emily.
The policeman said, “Did Thornburn know you were, uh, that way?”
“I have no idea. I don’t make a public point of it.”
“All right.” The policeman gave one more half-angry look around the room, then said, “Let’s go.”
They left. The door remained open, and I heard them continue to talk as they went downstairs, first the policeman asking, “Is there somebody to stay the night? Mrs. Thornburn shouldn’t be alone.”
“She has relatives in Great Barrington. I phoned them earlier. Somebody should be arriving within the hour.”
“You’ll stay until then? The doctor says she’ll probably sleep, but just in case—”
“Of course.”
That was all I heard. Male voices murmured awhile longer from below, and then stopped. I heard cars drive away.
How complicated men and women are. How stupid are simple actions. I had never understood anyone, least of all myself.
The room was visited once more that night, by Greg, shortly after the police left. He entered, looking as offended and repelled as though the body were still here, stood the chair up on its legs, climbed on it, and with some difficulty untied the remnant of rope. This he stuffed partway into his pocket as he stepped down again to the floor, then returned the chair to its usual spot in the corner of the room, picked the key off the floor and put it in the lock, switched off both bedside lamps, and left the room, shutting the door behind him.
Now I was in darkness, except for the faint line of light under the door, and the illuminated numerals of the clock. How long one minute is! That clock was my enemy, it dragged out every minute, it paused and waited and paused and waited till I could stand it no more, and then it waited longer, and then the next number dropped into place. Sixty times an hour, hour after hour, all night long. I couldn’t stand one night of this, how could I stand eternity?
And how could I stand the torment and torture inside my brain? That was much worse now than the physical pain, which never entirely left me. I had been right about Emily and Greg, but at the same time I had been hopelessly brainlessly wrong. I had been right about my life, but wrong; right about my death, but wrong. How much I wanted to make amends, and how impossible it was to do anything anymore, anything at all. My actions had all tended to this, and ended with this: black remorse, the most dreadful pain of all.
I had all night to think, and to feel the pains, and to wait without knowing what I was waiting for or when — or if — my waiting would ever end. Faintly I heard the arrival of Emily’s sister and brother-in-law, the murmured conversation, then the departure of Tony and Greg. Not long afterward the guest room door opened, but almost immediately closed again, no one having entered, and a bit after that the hall light went out, and now only the illuminated clock broke the darkness.
When next would I see Emily? Would she ever enter this room again? It wouldn’t be as horrible as the first time, but it would surely be horror enough.
Dawn grayed the window shade, and gradually the room appeared out of the darkness, dim and silent and morose. Apparently it was a sunless day, which never got very bright. The day went on and on, featureless, each protracted minute marked by the clock. At times I dreaded someone’s entering this room, at other times I prayed for something, anything — even the presence of Emily herself — to break this unending boring absence. But the day went on with no event, no sound, no activity anywhere — they must be keeping Emily sedated through this first day — and it wasn’t until twilight, with the digital clock reading 6:52, that the door again opened and a person entered.
At first I didn’t recognize him. An angry-looking man, blunt and determined, he came in with quick ragged steps, switched on both bedside lamps, then shut the door with rather more force than necessary, and turned the key in the lock. Truculent, his manner was, and when he turned from the door I saw with incredulity that he was me. Me! I wasn’t dead, I was alive! But how could that be?
And what was that he was carrying? He picked up the chair from the corner, carried it to the middle of the room, stood on it—
No! No!
He tied the rope around the beam. The noose was already in the other end, which he slipped over his head and tightened around his neck.
Good God, don’t!
He kicked the chair away.
The instant I kicked the chair away I wanted it back, but gravity was turning my former wish to its present command; the chair would not right itself from where it lay on the floor, and my 193 pounds would not cease to urge downward from the rope thick around my neck.
There was pain, of course, quite horrible pain centered in my throat, but the most astounding thing was the way my cheeks seemed to swell. I could barely see over their round red hills, my eyes staring in agony at the door, willing someone to come in and rescue me, though I knew there was no one in the house, and in any event the door was carefully locked. My kicking legs caused me to twist and turn, so that sometimes I faced the door and sometimes the window, and my shivering hands struggled with the rope so deep in my flesh I could barely find it and most certainly could not pull it loose.
I was frantic and horrified, yet at the same time my brain possessed a cold corner of aloof observation. I seemed now to be everywhere in the room at once, within my writhing body but also without, seeing my frenzied spasms, the thick rope, the heavy beam, the mismatched pair of lit bedside lamps throwing my convulsive double shadow on the walls, the closed locked door, the white-curtained window with its shade drawn all the way down. This is death, I thought.
1978
The Girl of My Dreams
Yesterday I bought a gun.
I’m very confused; I don’t know what to do.
I have always been a mild and shy young man, quiet and conservative and polite. I have been employed the last five years — since at nineteen I left college due to a lack of funds — at the shirt counter of Willis & Dekalb, Men’s Clothiers, Stores in Principal Cities, and I would say that I have been generally content with my lot. Although recently I have been finding the new manager, Mr. Miller, somewhat abrasive — not to overstate the matter — the work itself has always been agreeable, and I have continued to look forward to a quiet lifetime in the same employment.
I have never been much of a dreamer, neither by day nor by night. Reveries, daydreams, these are the products of vaulting ambition or vaulted desire, of both of which I have remained for the most pan gratefully free. And, though science assures us that some part of every night’s sleep is spent in the manufacture of dreams, mine must normally be gentle and innocuous, even dull, as I rarely remember them in the morning.
I would date the beginning of the change in my life from the moment of the retirement of old Mr. Randmunson from his post as manager of our local Willis & DeKalb store, and his prompt replacement by Mr. Miller, a stranger from the Akron branch.
Mr. Miller is a hearty man, cheeks and nose all red with ruddy health, handshake painfully firm, voice roaring, laugh aggressive. Not yet thirty-five, he moves and speaks with the authority and self-confidence of a man much older, and he makes it no secret that some day he intends to be president of the entire chain. Our little store is merely a stopover for him, another rung on the ladder of his success.