“A paranoid defense system,” he might have called it, or “delusions of immunity brought on by anxiety anchored in the feeling of profound guilt.”
Whatever it was, I was feeling no pain. I recognized that for years I had secretly wanted to be where I was at that moment: free from the commitment to a meaningless marriage; released from the dreary repetition of binary code and the counting of other people’s money.
I walked down Broadway slowly, stopping in stores and resting on the occasional bench. I reached Cooper Union’s Great Hall at 5:45, just in time to be admitted to the talk I had looked up the day before in the Village Voice.
The doors had only recently been opened but the eight-hundred-seat hall was already half full. I took an aisle seat in the far back row on the right side. There I waited peacefully, like a man who had awakened in paradise that morning and who was still stunned by the rapture.
I watched the audience as they filed in. Hundreds of faces and I didn’t know one of them. It was reminiscent of my walk every morning from my apartment to work. I took the same route every day, passing thousands of commuting workers, but rarely did I see a face I recognized. I was unknown and I didn’t know anyone — like a ghost haunting a city destroyed by deluge or plague and then repopulated by some alien race.
The lights went down at last and a spotlight struck the podium. A plump man in a light bluish suit walked up to the stage. He had white hair that was too long and dark shoes that clashed with the pastel hue of his clothes.
He introduced himself, but I forget the name, and then launched into a self-referential introduction.
This preamble was long and laborious. The speaker was a lawyer who specialized in death row cases. He knew a lot of famous and infamous people and mentioned all their names. He had been involved in many high-profile cases and there were many corrupt and racist prosecutors who had fallen to his legal scythe.
I didn’t care about any of that.
He talked about the number of poor people and people of color in prison. He spoke about how the law was anything but equal and fair.
I didn’t care about any of that either. I’d been a black man in America for five decades, almost, and nothing about that meant anything to me. Life for all Americans, whether they knew it or not, was like playing blackjack against the house — sooner or later you were going to lose.
The winners were my bosses’ bosses’ bosses. They lived in the Alps or Palm Springs or somewhere else where the world is run from.
Black people in prison, Iraqis blown up on job lines in Baghdad, or Vietnamese peasants in their rice paddies becoming target practice for passing American helicopters — we were all dealt a losing hand.
Finally the lawyer got tired of hearing himself crow and so he said, “And now let me introduce the person you’ve come to hear tonight: Barbara Knowland.”
Fifteen hundred and ninety-eight hands came together for Star, the woman wrongly accused of aiding and abetting a serial killer.
With her peacock shawl fluttering behind her, Star ascended the stairs to the podium. She air-kissed the lawyer and stood aside for him to go down into the audience.
Star was carrying a folded square of paper that she placed on the podium. Then she went about moving the microphone down so that it would accommodate her shorter stature. She unfolded the paper, looked at it, looked up, squinting at the spotlight, and then down at the audience.
She took in a quick breath, as if she was about to speak, but no words immediately followed.
“My name is Barbara,” she said at last. And everything else was exactly the same as that Sunday night at the launch party for Diablerie.
I was amazed at her ability to make even this, her own memoir, a tedious and repetitious task, a deadly dull chore without the slightest variation or added nuance.
I listened to her for half an hour, after which I felt that I could make the same presentation if only someone would lend me a peacock shawl.
After it was over, people gathered in the lobby to buy the book and to line up for her signature.
I bought a copy and waited in line.
Both Mona and Harvard Rollins were standing behind Star. This didn’t surprise me, as the ad for the reading had said that it was sponsored by Diablerie.
The adulterous couple weren’t holding hands or touching in any way but you could tell that they were drawn to each other. They weren’t looking into the line or they would have seen me.
“Excuse me, sir,” a young woman said. She had Elizabeth Taylor eyes and the plainest of plain faces. She was carrying a small block of yellow stickies and a blue felt pen.
“Yes?” I said.
“Do you want your book personalized?”
“Excuse me?”
“Do you want Ms. Knowland to put your name along with her signature?”
“No. No, her name will suffice.”
The young white woman found my turn of phrase unsettling. She stared at me and backed away, bumping into the woman behind me in line.
I didn’t blame her. There was something off about me, something slightly sinister or even evil. I waited patiently, coming up behind the throng of mostly women — ladies who wanted to touch the woman who had seen and survived the daily, unspoken threat of all women’s worlds: malevolent men with sharp knives and manacles who are only here on earth to destroy beauty.
I put my book down when my turn came. Mona noticed me then, but instead of saying something to me, she touched Harvard’s shoulder. This gesture would have been heartbreaking if only I had loved her.
The faux detective was turning to see what she wanted when Star Knowland asked, “Do you want me to inscribe your name in the book?”
She hadn’t even bothered to look at who stood before her.
“To one of my oldest and dearest friends,” I said. “Ben.”
Star’s head shot up.
“What are you doing here?”
“I thought we should talk, so I came to buy a book and ask you if you’d have coffee with me.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me.”
“I was confused when I saw you. I really didn’t remember.”
“Do you remember now?”
“Only little pieces,” I said. “And most of that might not even be real.”
“I’m staying at the Fairweather until Monday,” she said haltingly. “Call me... and we’ll meet someplace.” She signed the title page and closed the book, giving me the same stare that the homely woman with the beautiful eyes had.
“Ben,” he called as I made my way out the front door of the hall.
It was Harvard Rollins. He caught up quickly and grabbed me by the right biceps.
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk,” he said, looking around as if contemplating committing a crime.
“I know everything I need from you,” I said.
I tried to move away but he held on to my arm.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mona told me.”
“Told you what?” he asked.
“She said we had to break up because you two were lovers now.”
“What?”
“Yeah. She said that you were together at her mom’s place and that she asked you to wear a condom but you just pushed her down on her knees and fucked her bareback.” I smiled. “Then she said that you made her suck on your thing and that she couldn’t have unsafe sex with me if she was having it with you too. Now if I want to have sex with her, I have to wear a condom... to protect you.”
There was just enough truth in what I said to make him question Mona. I liked that. I wanted to fuck with him.
He was bothered by my words but he had an agenda that would not be derailed.