Time he shot a man in the heart but always said it was in self-defense. Came out again when he said to his wife “Is there anything you ever held back from me?” and she said “Plenty of things, why?” “What were they?” and she said “I don’t know — things. Little. Big. All forgotten or unimportant by now and probably not so important or potentially memorable then.” “Anything big that you can remember?” and she said “What is it, you want to tell me something big you’ve kept back from me? Go ahead then.” “No, I don’t have anything, I’m just making conversation. Because of that movie on the VCR the other night and you fell asleep to — what was it called? Anyway, the woman asks her husband that and I thought it was a good question for conversation starters so thought I’d ask you. Actually, though, now that I think of it there is something I never told you.” “So just say so.” “It’s not so easy. You tell me something first that you’ve kept back.” “I don’t want to, or I can’t think of anything.” “Then I’ll keep to myself what I thought of telling you.” “As you wish,” and she continued eating her salad, sipped some wine, smiled at him over her glass, he didn’t know what for. Nor could he make out what the smile could mean by the kind it was, for it was a small tender smile, nothing he right now deserved. “You ever say anything to anyone you particularly regretted saying and which had grave consequences but which you never told me about?” and she said “Maybe once, twice, but it’s all gone. Probably with my first husband, maybe a couple of times with you.” “Ever steal something as an adult or do something against the law — worse than running a light — you never told me about?” “No.” “Something really terrible to the kids, but same thing — where I didn’t know?” “No, I don’t think so. Screaming, yelling, humiliating them a few times, but I never once even spanked them or smacked their hands.” “An affair with someone while we’ve been married — even a one-night stand or quick afternoon thing?” “Not since we met and I would have told you.” “Anyone kiss you at a party or dinner or someplace?” Shook her head. “Then one from the past — not a kiss but a fuck or an affair that you never told me about, all the way back to when you were a kid. Because I think you said you must have told me, as I’ve done with you with I think all my women and girls or all I could remember up till the last time I told you, about all your guys starting when you were fifteen with number one.” “Seventeen. Listen, this is getting to be too much like a grilling. You don’t want to tell me what you seem to be aching to, save it for when you do. Some little chickadee you’re doing it with now or some time back? — sure, I’d like to know. I think we should always get those things out. But you never tell me and don’t give any suspicions that’s happened, I won’t be curious.” “It’s not a woman. There’s been nobody since we met.” “As I’ve said, same here.” “Good, but you’ve got to be a little curious what’s on my mind.” “A little but not enough to try and squeeze it out of you or where I’ll remember tonight’s curiosity tomorrow and want to follow up on it.” “You know that fellow I killed just maybe a year before I met you?” “What of him? It’s not exactly something I’d forget.” “I didn’t kill him in self-defense as I said.” “You murdered him?” “Not that far, or I don’t know what you’d call it. I was afraid, that after I turned him in, he’d come and kill me when he got out of prison. I didn’t know what to do — I had the gun on him — so I thought — the gun I took from him—” “I remember; wrestled it.” “I didn’t even know if it’d work or there were bullets in it but thought the best thing to keep him from — well, you know, because he could surprise me sometime in the future and next time I wouldn’t be so lucky — was to kill him.” “Wait wait.” “Because I didn’t think much of his life. I was almost sure he would kill me if I ran when he had the gun on me. He was a freak; I could see it in the way he stood and spoke and his face.” “Wait, I mean it, wait. This is hard to take in such a fast lump. Go slower.” “All right, from the start. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t give him all my money. After he grabbed me from behind, stuck the gun to my head. Kept it there. Right on the street. Then on my neck. Kept it there. Then when he marched me into the park, close in the small of my back so nobody in a car passing would see it I suppose. I gave him all the money I had in the park. He looked at it, ripped the wallet apart for more-all this is nothing new to you but I’m getting to where what happened differently happened — and said there’s almost nothing here, ‘give me what you’re hiding.’ I said I’m hiding nothing. He said ‘Bullshit you’re not.’ That’s when I thought he’s going to kill me for nothing and I better do something quick or I’m dead. So I said — this came to me to say and do it—’Holy shit!’ and looked up at the big park wall behind him on the drive and he sort of turned, sort of thought I was faking and turned back to me but by this time I had shifted a bit out of his gun aim and jumped his gun arm to hold the gun up and started wrestling with him for it. But the gun didn’t go off accidentally into him when I was wrestling for it. By the way, I saw some people looking over the park wall at us but they just kept looking and then left even though I yelled for help. But I wrestled it away from him, got it, backed up and pointed it and said ‘One step and you’re dead. I’m gonna kill ya, you fucking bastard, just as you would’ve killed me, if you come a step closer.’ That’s when I noticed those people and asked for help and when I thought does it have bullets in it and suppose it doesn’t go off? He probably has a knife and he’ll kill me with it while I’m trying to bang him over the head with the gun butt. I also thought this because he seemed so casual when I said that about killing him — and you notice those people never came forward to say they saw me pointing the gun at him — and he said ‘What’re you talking about, man?’ and started walking toward me. I yelled ‘One step, just one step,’ as a threat, but I now see it could have been misinterpreted by him as meaning he’s allowed to take only one step toward me. But the gun was no doubt jiggling in my hand but still pointed at him and I wasn’t backing up and he suddenly looked scared as a man who thinks he might be shot would and that’s when I knew it could go off. Then I didn’t know what to do. Something hit me. A thought. Suppose I let him go or turn him in, what then? Turning him in’s what he probably thought I would do, and by the way, he’d stopped, meaning stood still, second he looked scared of getting shot, if that’s what it was. ‘Let me go,’ he said, ‘you got the gun,’ and threw the little money he took from me at me. I let it fall, blow away, didn’t take any chances looking at it or to stop it. Maybe that was his plan — I didn’t think that then — throw something innocent at me to distract me, and people are always jumping for money, and then he’d grab and kill me on the spot. But I couldn’t let him go, first thing. He’s a murderer and a thief. Surely he’s killed before. Maybe lots before. That’s what came out in the police report and newspapers. I thought it then but the papers said he’d been in prison when he was sixteen for killing someone during a robbery and then killing a friend he robbed with in that robbery to guarantee him shutting up. So, two at least that we know of. But he was a kid, did good behavior, model prisoner — graduated high school in prison, the Bible also — so they let him out in about seven years. All in the papers; I didn’t know a thing. He was in fact still on parole when he robbed me. You remember, or you don’t. And if I turned him in, I thought — even when he was asking me to let him go — he could come out and kill me for putting him in. For what’ll he get? This was really all in my head then. One, two years, he’ll get — since I didn’t know of his murders and being on parole — but short enough time to remember me when he gets out. He was also such a mean tough-looking guy. He looked like a savage. His hair, expression, grin he had when he was robbing me. He smelled and his speech was awful and vulgar and his clothes were so sharp I just knew almost everything about him and his attitudes and such and he pushed me into the park and treated me before I got the gun as if he’d slit my throat as much as he’d tie his shoelaces when it was over. Meaning they meant the same thing to him. He could care less. Maybe shoelaces more because he could trip if they were untied, hampering his escape a little, while me dead on the ground wasn’t a worry unless he got caught, and he looked for a while till I got the gun from him like someone who didn’t think he could ever get caught. Another reason for hating him, his fucking smugness. He told me ‘Don’t call the cops, man, don’t.’ Now we’re dealing with only what’s new to you, never been said to anyone. ‘Just let me go, you keep the gun,’ etcetera. And I said ‘No, I’m holding you for the cops’—that’s what I suddenly decided to do, though how to get them I didn’t know or think about just then — and he said ‘Come on, they get me for this I could do a long turn. I’m scared of jail. I won’t be the same when I get out. I’ve never been in, this is the first thing I’ve pulled like this and only because I was desperate, and