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For some people marriage is a callous, where their true self is hidden beneath a hardened layer of skin absorbing all the blows of day-to-day life. For Mary, marriage was like the disease that attacks trees, gnawing away their heartwood until they're empty inside, and you never know if the next strong wind will bring them toppling down, maybe to crush you underneath. For me, marriage was the hard pressure of the Earth that turns a worthless piece of coal into a diamond, waiting to be split and set, waiting for a moment like the ringing of my doorbell that day.
“I can't go,” I said to the man at the door. He was tall and heavyset. He missed a place shaving on the right side of his face, under his lower lip, about the size a pencil eraser, and I found myself talking to these bristly hairs rather than meeting his eyes, red-rimmed and hollow. “My wife won't know where I am.”
“Leave her a note, jackass.”
“Where would I tell her I'm going?”
“Out,” he said.
I wasn’t myself – hadn’t been for a long time. But even I could see that this guy was bad news. He had the same look I saw every day in the mirror: a tightly stretched look with a simmering behind the eyes. I didn’t know what had brought him to my door, but I felt – I knew – that if I left with him, I would never be coming back.
“I'm busy. Another time maybe,” and I started to shut the door. His wingtip shot between the sill and the door. Careless, I thought. That shoe had to cost more than ten steak dinners.
“Your schedule cleared when Mrs. Ketchum wanted talk to you.”
“Ketchum? What's she want?” I knew the name, only not with the Mrs. attached. Ketchum ran things at the mill I had worked at. His was the name that had showed up on both my check and my pink slip.
“You'll find out when we get there.”
“But...”
He shot his face closer to the sill, his mouth suddenly congenial. I smelled his breath. Anise, I thought, and sage. He had sausage for breakfast.
“Listen jackass, do you think anyone will care if I beat the living shit out of you right here in your own front yard? Personally, I think they'd be so glad to see the neighborhood pinko get his nuts ripped off that they would line the streets and cheer.” He was right. What had started as a benign indifference among my neighbors had progressed to outright hostility. So I went with him, against my better judgment. And I didn't leave a note.
His car was cool inside and he smoked deeply on a Lucky Strike, making me jealous. No work meant no money and I couldn’t bring myself to swallow my pride and ask Mary for pocket money. Now, I sat sucking in this lug’s second hand smoke and sizing him up, trying to figure out what had brought him to my front door. He wasn't as fat as I remembered mill security to be. The apes who cracked skulls in the mills when the rich said swing were guys too stupid to be Pinkertons who were picked up by corrupt cops in local lunch counters and bars for piecework. Most time they didn’t even care if they got paid; mill muscle like that worked just for the privilege to drive around in long black Lincoln and beat people up. Any money was pure gravy. This guy seemed to have a little class in his dress and demeanor, although his mouth ran like a duck’s ass.
“To tell you the truth, I don't know what Mrs. Ketchum wants with a load like you. Maybe she needs someone to clean up after her dog. All I know is she gives me your name and address and when I saw you, I recognized you, which made the chance of beating the living shit out of you all the sweeter.”
I bit my tongue and turned to face out the window. The streets were lined with the first falling leaves. They swirled behind us, and a squirrel ran in the street. The sun felt good on my face. I realized it had been weeks since I had last felt it. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the smell of the smoke and the warm friendly play of dappled light across my face. We slowed and then accelerated again hypnotically. When the well-dressed muscle finished his smoke, he flicked the butt out the window and popped a Sen-Sen. Anise, I thought, of course.
“Wakey-wakey, we're here.”
We were above the filth and choking air of the city. In ’41, just before I left, the mayor and city council passed laws to clean the crud out the air, by the war came, and then went, I came back, and you still had to drive with your headlight on at twelve noon downtown on most days. Here though, a couple of miles up and away from the river bottom downtown, the air was clear and the sun was shining. We had stopped in front of a gate and the muscle rolled down his window and buzzed in at the box.
“It’s Stosh,” he said. The gates swung open soundlessly and we started up a driveway that curved through a manicured lawn to the house. A big one with turrets, slate roofs, a twelve-stall garage bigger than two of my houses put together. It was a million dollar house in a million dollar neighborhood. I couldn't even afford to take out the garbage here. It was kind of neighborhood that, when I was a kid, my dad would drive us around to look at their Christmas lights before we headed back to our dark home.
Stosh and I pulled to the back where deliveries came, and when I reached for the door, the driver said, “Wait.”
I did and watched as he went to the door and rang the bell. The door opened slowly, words were exchanged and then he motioned for me to come up. Inside, everything was cool and polished; my run down heels clicking off the gleaming wood floor as I followed the driver to a set of pocket doors. He opened them a sliver.
“Mrs. Ketchum?" he asked quietly, and then turned to me. "Don't do anything stupid jackass, I'll be right outside.”
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