Dem

by William Melvin Kelley

  “I just don’t want to leave the city.” She held out her hands, palms down, inspecting her nails. “This is the best summer I’ve had since I got here.”

  Mitchell tried to think why. As a matter of fact, because of a new situation at his office, he was spending very little time with her. “I know you want to stay with me, Tam. But you really need a vacation.”

  “From what?” She stared at him.

  “Just the city.” He paused, thought. “Are you worried about the baby?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” she answered, it seemed, almost too quickly.

  “But I spoke to your doctor. He said it would be good for you to get away.”

  “Then I’d better finish packing.” She turned toward the bathroom. “With this stomach, I probably wouldn’t be able to do very much anyway.”

  He fell asleep before she came to bed, and thought he dreamed that he heard her on the phone, wishing someone a happy summer…

  The Search for Love

  1

  TAM MADE HIM stop in Truro to buy two pink-and-white donut-shaped life preservers. Without them, she insisted, it would be impossible to sun her back.

  At Ballston Beach, she dropped one donut onto the sand, knelt before it, and into it inserted her unborn child. Using the second donut as a pillow she slowly settled onto the sand, lifting the top of her loose-fitting maternity swimsuit above her shoulder blades. Hers was the kind of skin that burned. At home that night she would have to sit at attention so the ladder-backed dining room chairs would not whip her. Still, she was determined to return to New York with a tan.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Mitchell?” It was more an order than a question. The life preserver looked like a fat halo under her head.

  “I was thinking I’d run down the beach.” He looked at himself. In recent years his navel had begun to sink into the flesh of his stomach.

  “Sit down.” She looked at him over her sunglasses. They were perched on an already blistered nose. “Before you give yourself a hernia.”

  There was a girl down the beach. Just as he and Tam arrived, she had run out of the water. She had taken off her bathing cap, shaken out her hair, dried her hands, and lit a cigaret. She was wearing the kind of bikini Mitchell had seen only in European movies. Now, like Tam, she was lying on her stomach, but without the aid of a preserver. She seemed quite tan already, though Mitchell had never before seen her on the beach.

  “What are you looking for?” Tam spoke through the sunglasses now. They were not prescription glasses and she could see no more than ten feet in any direction.

  “I thought I saw Linfoot down there.”

  “Linfoot never gets up before three.” She rested her head on the donut. “You’re crazy. Sit down.”

  Linfoot, a psychiatrist from New York, had rented the house next to theirs. He gave a party every night. Because Tam was pregnant they did not often go.

  “All the same, I think I’ll run down and have a look.”

  Before she could stop him, he jogged off.

  Tam had made them sit halfway between the water and a high bluff covered with tough grass. Mitchell jogged down to where the sand was wet and firm; it was easier to run now. He was still watching the girl and as he got closer he realized she had untied the top of her bikini. Her breasts were flattened beneath her like small pillows.

  He tried to think of something that would attract her attention, that would force her to lift her head, something that would impress her. He ran harder, hoping she would hear his footsteps through the hard-packed sand and look up. He called on his legs to give him all their speed, but the left one betrayed him and exploded. On his chest, he slid along the wet sand, a bomber without wheels.

  “Hey, you all right?” She was looking at him now, her head raised, her nipples hovering just above the sand. His leg felt as if it had been torn off at the thigh. He could not even keep his mind on her nipples.

  “Sure. Okay.” He turned away, toward the sea, to hide the pain on his face. When she got up, investigated, and discovered how badly he was hurt she would think him brave. But a moment later, when he turned back, she was dozing.

  He tried to get up, could not, and remained there, too ashamed to call for help.

  Just when he was getting quite chilled, Tam waddled up, almost tripping over him. “What the hell are you doing down there? You scared me. I thought you were some dead animal.”

  “I think I tore a muscle in my thigh.” His teeth were chattering and he found it difficult to speak.

  “Oh, Mitchell, how’d you do that?” She was annoyed.

  The girl had long since left the beach; she had not looked at him again.

  “I was just seeing if I had any of the old speed left.” The tide had been coming in; waves broke over his ankles.

  Tam began to laugh, her stomach poked out and shaking. When all the laughter had left her, she helped him home.

  2

  HE SPENT MOST of September in bed. The first two weeks were the most boring of his life. He missed work; nothing interested him. In the morning Tam usually left the house. Soon after that, the new maid, a German woman, would take Jake for a walk in the park. That left Mitchell alone in the late-morning silence known only to housewives. He would try to read, but it was too tiring to hold up the books. He usually surrendered within the half-hour. He would doze and wake fully rested, unable to sleep again until after lunch. He would look at the ceiling.

  Then he discovered daytime television. At first he watched the game shows, but they did not challenge or excite him. One day he pressed the remote-control channel switch in anger—and came upon Evansdale, New York, three hundred miles from New York City, on the Thruway.

  He would sit in bed, a second cup of coffee warming his aching thigh, and wait for Search for Love to begin.

  “This…is Search for Love…” a voice would tell him. Then an organ, with celeste attachment, would play the theme, filling the bedroom. “Brought to you by the makers of…” He would finish his coffee while the residents of Evansdale coped with heartbreak and tragedy.

  He began watching in the middle of the breakup of Virginia (Ginny) Knickerbocker’s marriage. Virginia was twenty-two. This was her second marriage. Her first had lasted only four weeks. As an act of teenage rebellion she had married a man who worked on the assembly line of her grandfather’s textile factory. She had soon discovered that her husband was a fugitive from an insane asylum. He had tried to kill Ginny and, very easily, she had secured an annulment.

  Her second marriage turned out no better, although this time her husband was sane. But he was fifty-seven years old. Ginny had married him in haste, causing the citizens of Evansdale to gossip. But they did not know that Ginny had just learned that she was adopted. Her second husband, the town doctor, whose daughter had died in an automobile accident three hours after her wedding, had understood when Ginny asked him for a divorce.

  Actually, Search for Love was not primarily concerned with Virginia (Ginny) Knickerbocker (Reilly) (Spaulding). The main character was Virginia’s stepmother, Nancy Knickerbocker, who was thirty-three—a year younger than Mitchell Pierce—and had once wanted to become a concert violinist. But Nancy’s hand had been mangled (not noticeably) in an automobile accident and her ambitions had been mangled with it. She had returned to Evansdale and married Greg Knickerbocker, the editor of the Evansdale Sentinel, whose first wife had died of cancer.

  A week after Mitchell joined the show, Greg hired a new secretary, Crystal Blair, a dark-haired girl from New York, who was fleeing her husband, a smalltime gangster. Soon Greg was coming home late and the Knickerbocker marriage began to limp.

  (NANCY sits on the sofa, her hands knit in her lap. The living room is dark. Offscreen a door opens. There are footsteps. The door closes. GREG appears in the archway leading from the front hall.)

  GREG: You ne
edn’t have waited up, Nancy. It’s well past midnight. (He comes to her and kisses the top of her head.) How’s Ginny?

  NANCY: She’s all right. She went to her room directly after supper.

  GREG: (He mixes himself a drink.) I had a very hard day. We didn’t get the paper to bed until eleven-thirty.

  NANCY: Greg, I’ve waited up because I want to talk to you.

  GREG: I just told you, I’m very tired, Nancy. (He sips his drink and sits in an easy chair across from her.)

  NANCY: We must talk tonight, Gregory.

  GREG: You only call me Gregory when you’re upset about something. (He sips his drink.) What’s wrong, Nancy?

  NANCY: (Tears glisten in her eyes.) You know very well what’s wrong, Gregory.

  3

  DURING THE COMMERCIAL, Tam returned from the beauty parlor. Her brown hair had been waved and lacquered. Compared to Nancy Knickerbocker’s simple pageboy, Tam’s hair looked stiff and wooden. “How’s everything in Evansdale?” One morning, they had watched together.

  He smiled, aware she was making fun of him. “All right.” He had lost track of the time and wondered if there was one more scene.

  “Ginny come to her senses yet?”

  “Honestly, Tam, that happened two weeks ago. She got a divorce.”

  Tam walked into the closet; she could barely squeeze through the narrow door. “Is that so? That must’ve been something to see all right. Sorry I missed that.” She backed out of the closet and sat in the easy chair. “Listen, Mitchell, we have to decide about Jake and nursery school.”

  “Yesss…” he started, but the organ music had already begun; there was one more scene. “Wait a minute, Tam.” Nancy appeared.

  “Mitchell, we have to decide. Enrollment closes this Friday.”

  “For next February?”

  “Yes, and we—”

  “Tam, please wait a minute.” Nancy was talking, but he could not hear her. He leaned forward, though his leg hurt.

  “Mitchell, I want you to listen to me!” As she spoke, she struggled to her feet, advanced on the television, and snapped it off.

  Mitchell felt as if she had pulled out a fistful of his hair. He fell back into his pillows, his head and leg throbbing. “You could’ve waited.”

  She put her hands on her hips, slightly fat now despite a strict diet. “For God’s sake, Mitchell!”

  She was probably right. It was all nonsense. But something about the people of Evansdale, and especially Nancy Knickerbocker, had reached into him. They had more than their share of problems, but there was something simple and clean about their lives. A man might die violently, but he did not have to worry about wearing the correct tie, or who would notice it.

  “Well? What’ll we do about Jake?” She moved closer to him, threatening him with her stomach.

  He looked at her from his sickbed and coughed once. “Perhaps it is time Jake got out and began to learn the ways of the world.” The words came out hard and slow, like ball bearings too big for his throat.

  “He’s only going to nursery school, Mitchell.” She laughed at him, turning away. “I’ll call the woman.”

  “All right.” He sank deeper into his pillows, and closed his eyes. “Do what you feel is best.”

  4

  IN ANOTHER TWO WEEKS, Mitchell returned to work. The night before, lying next to the already sleeping Tam, he found himself wondering what would become of Nancy Knickerbocker. She could expect a bad time. Crystal Blair had turned the normally sensitive and level-headed Greg Knickerbocker into a love-crazed boor and Mitchell did not doubt that soon Greg would leave Nancy. There was no one in Evansdale to console her. Mitchell worried.

  The next morning, he did not think about Evansdale. Late getting up, he rushed breakfast. The people at work seemed glad to have him back. On the desk in his office were two dark ties and seventeen greeting cards. He could not remember when the office had ever been so friendly.

  He had worked two hours, catching up on correspondence, when his eyes began to itch, as if he had a grain of sand under each lid. He rubbed them until his secretary asked why his eyes were red. He paced his office, rubbing his eyes like a sleepy child, and decided finally to wash his face. Bending over the washbasin, his leg began to pain him, a hatpin through the muscle and bone. Then the bathroom musak began to play the theme from Search for Love.

  He dried his hands quickly. Two floors above was a small room where executives sometimes watched baseball games. He could not even wait for the elevator; he chose to limp up the stairs. He was sweating as he closed the door and turned on the television.

  “Oh, Greg, Greg, Greg.” A white dot grew into Nancy Knickerbocker, who sat on the sofa, her hands knit into her lap. “Oh Greg, you don’t know what you’re doing. Crystal Blair has clouded your judgment.”

  “I won’t hear you speak against Crystal. I’ve tried to be fair. I didn’t plan for all this to happen. Don’t you understand?”

  “But it has, Greg. It has.” Nancy looked at her hands. “It has happened and now you’re asking me for a divorce.”

  Greg put down his glass on the coffee table. “I’m going now, Nancy.”

  “Going to her?”

  “Yes, Nancy, going to her.”

  “I love you, Greg, and—”

  “Don’t say that, Nancy. It makes things no better.”

  “I love you, Greg, and I’m certain you still love me. I’ll not give you a divorce.”

  “But you’ve got grounds…even in New York!”

  “You mean…?”

  He nodded.

  Nancy swallowed. “It makes no difference, Greg. I love you and I know you love me. You’ll not get a divorce.”

  “You wait, Nancy. Just wait. When I’m through, you’ll beg for a divorce.” He glared down at her.

  Nancy returned his look bravely, as the screen went blank.

  Mitchell was still sweating, only now his palms most of all. He sat back in his chair and sighed.

  “You don’t really watch that stuff—do you, Pierce?” It was Naughton from Accounting. Mitchell had no idea how long the man had been standing just inside the door.

  “No,” he lied. “I’m watching to see if the show is suitable for one of our products.” He left the room quickly.

  5

  MITCHELL BEGAN to schedule his appointments so that he was always free from eleven to eleven-thirty. Five minutes before the hour, he would start the climb to the small television room, careful not to be seen. He always locked himself in now, leaving at the end of the half-hour, tired and upset. Greg was making Nancy’s life miserable, badgering her for a divorce. Mitchell worried so much about her that his work suffered; he wrote the wrong letters to the wrong people. Mr. Cook was lenient, knowing Mitchell had been ill, but a threat was present in the man’s voice whenever they spoke. Mitchell did not care, or rather cared a great deal that he did not care at all. Simply, Search for Love had become the most meaningful half-hour of his day. His morning built to it, and his evening began as its theme faded. The rest of the day held nothing for him—lunch, the office for three more hours, and then home to discussions about Jake’s nursery school, or Tam’s hair.

  “You do like the way he did it, don’t you?” She was standing in front of him, patting at her head.

  “Sure, Tam.” He looked at her, then away, trying to find something that would hold his eye. “But, why don’t you wear it simpler, like…” he started to say—like Nancy’s—but stopped himself. Tam did not know Nancy as well as he did, and besides, no woman liked being compared to another woman.

  “Like what?” Her voice was insistent, slightly angry. “Like what? Like who, Mitchell?”

  “Like in a pageboy, Tam.” He tried to sound reasonable.

  “I wore it in a pageboy when you met me and the first thing you did was ask me to
change it.”

  Mitchell did not want to argue with her because he had nothing at stake, no point to defend. He stared at her, at her hair, solid and carved. “Okay.”

  “Don’t okay me, buster.” She started out of the room, stopped and came back, stood over him, her hands on her hips, as if she had just knocked him down and was waiting for him to get up. “And by the way, at this point I don’t really care, but when are you planning to make love to me again? You better put in your order. Pretty soon the doctor’ll cut you off.”

  The toes of his bedroom slippers were beginning to give way. He had bought them a size too small.

  “What about it?”

  “Please, Tam.” He did not know what she wanted of him. “All right then. Come on. Take off your girdle.”

  “Thanks a lot. You’re going to service me, like some mechanic. Give me a tune-up, check my oil and water, make sure I work all right. I told you I don’t really care. I’m trying to keep my part of the bargain. But if that’s your attitude, no thanks. I have better things to do.”

  “Why are you such a bitch, Tam?” He almost thought she might be able to answer.

  But she did not answer. Instead, she removed her shoe, a suede loafer with a hard rubber heel, limped toward him, one leg shorter than the other now, and began to beat him on the shoulder. He listened to the smack of the rubber heel against flesh-covered bone, then very slowly got up and walked out of the apartment.

  6

  HE HAILED a taxi and went downtown. He did not tell the driver where, just downtown. The driver was a large man with a pink, creased neck—and a shrunken head hanging from his rearview mirror. It looked like the head of an hour-old baby, made of black rubber. Its eyes and mouth were sewn shut. Strangely enough, its hair was red. Mitchell asked the driver where he had purchased it.

  “No place. Given to me.”

  Mitchell sat on the edge of the seat and rested his chin on his arms on the back of the front seat. “A joke?”