by Jim Grimsley
We’ll want to end the series with a bang. Nothing revolutionary; we’re not the type to go around pushing the boundaries of television for frivolous, selfish reasons, or even for artistic ones. We’ll be content with the run-of-the-mill major ratings success that enriches everybody in sight. But we’ll want to do something special for the ending. Maybe Carmine and I will get that divorce and part as old, dear friends. Maybe there’ll be a horrible car accident that kills Frank, his wife, and his children, knitting the rest of the family closer together. Maybe Ann and her partner-du-jour will have triplets and move to their own chic lesbian spin-off series, “Which Mother Knows Best?”
Maybe I’ll cut Carmine’s throat at the end of another hilarious argument, slicing that carefully tended skin, blood sprouting all over the kitchen, and I’ll lay her carefully on the new floor, some kind of fashionable tile I can’t remember, from the last time we re-did the kitchen, right after I got fired.
At Last My Exclusive Interview!
BARBARA WALTERS, CHIC AND POLISHED, wearing a designer suit, expensive jewelry, is seated in an elegant armchair in my living room, beautifully lit from every angle, face conspicuously immobile, though I, an expert at paying for plastic surgery, cannot actually detect any on Barbara. Maybe a facelift? But very well done. The picture of aging gracefully, but purposeful at the moment, leaning toward me, that patented voice about to ask another question, meeting my eye so calmly, even though I am a triple murderer.
Barbara: When did you decide to kill your son and your daughter, too?
Charley: When my daughter came over to my house, caught me naked in the bathtub, accused me of abusing her, and asked me for fifty bucks to pay for a manicure.
This takes her aback for a moment, but she’s a pro, she knits her brow and plunges forward.
Barbara: Did you snap? Was this some kind of mental breakdown, forced on you by the years of unemployment?
Charley: Yes. I’d had a very hard time.
Barbara: Three hundred dollars in your pocket?
Charley: One hundred.
Barbara: The mortgage past due. About to lose your house.
Charley: (Hanging my head a bit, nothing too overt) Yes. Things were about to fall apart.
Barbara: Finally, after three years of living a lie.
Charley: More like two years.
She’s pausing; she’s ready to follow up my earlier statement, now. She furrows that brow, considers her next question for a moment.
Barbara: Did you ever abuse your daughter?
Charley: No.
Barbara: Why would she accuse you of such a thing?
Charley: Her anorexic girlfriend put her up to it. I wasn’t supposed to know they were girlfriends, either. Ann thought she had me fooled.
Barbara: Ann is your daughter.
Charley: Yes. She was.
Barbara looks me over in that classic, neutral, lips-primped way that she has. Even celebrities who thought she was their friend get that look sometimes. Martha Stewart, for instance, the night Barbara asked her whether or not she was ready to go to prison. Strip searches, group showers, Barbara leaning forward in the chair, and Martha giving a look, the shock of recognition a vampire’s victim gives to a vampire, not the horror, of course, because Martha is basically fearless, but the recognition of the predator’s teeth.
Barbara: Yet you say she walked in on you naked in the bathtub. Was this the first time she ever did a thing like that?
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: You never invited her to come in and watch you take a bath.
Charley: No. I never invited Ann to watch me bathe. I never abused her.
Barbara: Is that why you killed her, because she accused you?
Charley: No. I told you. I snapped.
Barbara sits back into the lamplight. At the same moment, a bit of floor-lighting comes up, to soften the shadows of her face.
Barbara: How does it feel to know so many people want you to die, Charley?
Charley: Awful. Just awful. I’m so sorry for what I’ve done.
Barbara: Remorseful.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: You hoped to get away with these crimes?
Charley: (I shake my head. I’m looking at her legs. She’s fit, the legs are tanned. She’s obviously older but still a good looking woman.) No. I never thought I would get away with it. Not even for a moment.
Barbara: Why your son? You haven’t talked much about him?
Charley: I’ve always hated my son.
Barbara is taken aback. Her eyebrows arch up a bit. Her tightly drawn mouth clenches a bit more. The lower part of her spine stiffens and she sits a bit straighter.
Barbara: Are you serious?
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: That seems almost. Well, almost monstrous.
Charley: Maybe hate is too strong a word.
Barbara: It’s a strong word.
Charley: Dislike, then. I always disliked my son.
Barbara: Very much.
Charley: Yes. I disliked him a lot.
Barbara: Why?
Charley: He made more money than I did. Half my age and he’s earning more than I am.
Barbara: You weren’t earning anything.
Charley: Than I was earning the last time I was working.
Barbara: For Arthur Andersen.
Charley: Yes. I was making a lot of money then.
Barbara: But not as much as your son.
Charley: No.
Barbara: Frank.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: Did he offer to help you when he knew you were struggling?
Charley: No. Not a word about it. He never even asked how I was getting along.
Barbara: Perhaps he disliked you, too.
Charley: What?
Barbara: Perhaps he disliked you in the same way that you disliked him.
Charley: He hated me.
Barbara: You think that’s a fair word?
Charley: Yes, hate. That’s the only word for it. He hated his own father.
Barbara: Had he always hated you, ever since he was a little boy?
Charley: I think so. Yes.
Barbara: Did you spend time with him? Did you take him to ball games, take him to the zoo? Did you give your son a quality part of your life?
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: You’re sure of that.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: But he disliked you anyway.
Charley: Hated me.
Barbara: According to the trial records, you were standing behind him and you attacked him without warning. You stabbed him in the chest.
Charley: Yes. I was alone in his kitchen and I got the knife.
Barbara: You had already killed your daughter.
Charley: No. I killed my son first. Then I called my daughter and told her to wait at her house till I got there, because I had a surprise for her.
Barbara: A surprise?
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: Your daughter, who claims you abused her, was willing to wait for you at her home because you were bringing her a surprise?
Charley: Actually, she didn’t really accuse me of abusing her. She asked me why I hadn’t. She was feeling insecure. And she was always ready for a gift.
Barbara looks at me with that well-known air of almost-not-even-there skepticism, which appears to come from the reptilian quality of her luminous eyes. I realize there is some contradiction in referring to her eyes as “reptilian” and then claiming that they are also “luminous,” but Walters is a quixotic woman.
Barbara: What did you do when you got to her house?
Charley: Her roommate let me in. Her girlfriend.
Barbara: The girl you say was anorexic.
Charley: She was well known to be anorexic.
Barbara: Perhaps you don’t realize it, Charley, but you’re not being at all sensitive to this girl’s problems.
Charley: I’m about to die, I have to tell the truth. I mean, I’m about to die
when all my appeals are exhausted. Ann’s girlfriend was the size of something you would use for kindling. I killed her first.
Barbara: You killed a fourth person?
Charley: Yes.
She has to think about this for a moment. No lighting change this time. She keeps her head unnaturally still. She has the same look as N— K— in the Starbucks, as if she is watching herself spin at the center of the universe.
Barbara: What was her name?
Charley: Helen.
Barbara: Hilda. Her name was Hilda.
Charley: Yes, that’s right. I stabbed Hilda in the chest. She didn’t even bleed. All the air went out of her and she collapsed onto the floor as this kind of filmy gauzy stuff that completely vanished without a trace. That’s why there was no body.
Barbara is simply staring at the floor. She’s angry, she thinks I’m making fun of her.
Charley: I’m not making fun of you.
Barbara: Let’s move onto something else, shall we? You killed your daughter.
Charley: Stabbed her to death. (I am trying to feel some emotion, trying to picture Ann in the tub. Her plump, soft, white flesh soaks in the water. I open the door and she stares at me in shock. “Dad,” she says, “What are you doing?”)
Barbara: You loved your daughter? Her name was Laura?
Charley: Ann. Laura Annette. Yes, I loved her.
Barbara: But you’re quoted as saying you were disappointed in her.
Charley: I wanted her to grow up.
Barbara: She was constantly asking you for money. Even after you lost your job.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: Do you think you had anything to do with your daughter’s apparent selfishness?
Charley: You mean, was she selfish because I was a bad father?
Barbara: Perhaps.
Charley: She was spoiled. She refused to take responsibility for herself. She had it easy and was never the least bit thankful for that. She was a lot like me, I guess.
Barbara: So you’re saying yes, you were responsible. At least partially.
Charley: I thought I was a good father but I probably wasn’t. I know I wasn’t a good husband.
Barbara: Let’s talk about your wife for a second.
I make a sound and sit back in my chair.
Barbara: Did you love your wife?
Charley: That’s a very complicated question.
Barbara: Nevertheless, I’d still like you to answer it.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: You don’t say that with an enormous amount of conviction.
Charley: On the whole, I loved my wife.
Barbara: ‘On the whole.’ What does that mean, ‘on the whole’?
Charley: When all is said and done.
Barbara: You mean, now that she’s dead, you love her.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara: How did it feel to stick a knife into your wife’s body? Did it make you sad?
I can feel myself tearing up. It’s as if her voice, her earnestness, the smoothness of her question, and the fact that she speaks only from the center part of her lips, with the outer parts never moving, call tears out of my ducts and make me feel, all at once, the immeasurable sadness she is describing.
Charley: Yes. I feel so sad. I miss her so much.
Barbara: You feel remorse.
Charley: Yes, terrible, terrible remorse.
Barbara: Do you think your punishment is fair?
Charley: No.
Barbara: You don’t?
Charley: No.
Barbara: You don’t think the state should put you to death for what you did?
Charley: Absolutely not.
Barbara: What do you think should happen to you?
Charley: I think the governor should pardon me, or maybe the President should, and then I should go free, and somebody should give me a really good job.
She sits there stunned.
Charley: I’ve been punished enough. I have to live with what I’ve done for the rest of my life. I think that’s enough.
Barbara: You can’t be serious.
Charley: I’m perfectly serious. Look how penitent I am.
Barbara: You stabbed your wife nearly sixty times. You stabbed her in the front and then turned her over and stabbed her in the back, too.
Charley: True.
Barbara: You killed her savagely, brutally. You can’t expect the Governor of XXX to pardon you and let you walk free.
Charley: My lawyer thinks there’s a chance.
Barbara: Your lawyer.
Charley: Yes.
Barbara sits there for a moment, and I believe she is wishing she had some papers, some notes, in her lap, to rearrange. She looks at one of the crew behind me in an uncharacteristic fashion; for the most part she has fixed her attention on me, or on herself, in so fierce a fashion that it is as if we are completely alone. She is staring at a piece of art Carmine bought from some gallery or other.
Barbara: When your round of appeals is over and the state finally shoves that tiny lethal needle into your arm, what do you think your last words are going to be?
Charley: I don’t really think it’s going to come to that.
Barbara: Do you think you’ll be thinking about your wife, and the terrible, terrible death you inflicted on her? Do you think she’ll be uppermost in your thoughts?
In the background, a phone is beginning to ring.
Charley: That’s probably the governor calling with my pardon. What do you think?
Frankly
IN THE MORNING, when I wake hung-over in my bed, my tongue feels like fungus, and my mouth is so dry my lips have cracked. I lie tangled in the sheets with a clammy feeling of sweat on my skin, wet on the outside and dry on the inside. I want to piss but at the same time I know if I move I’m going to throw up.
Last night was the night I was supposed to kill my wife. I fell asleep drunk instead.
Something is glittering on the night table in my line of vision. The bottle of potato vodka I’ve been drinking, nearly empty.
At the same moment that I want to reach for the vodka, the gall in my stomach rises and I know I have to get to the toilet. I lurch out of bed, my stomach churning, my lower parts wrapped in sheets, so that I stumble and hit my head on the door jamb, a good lick that smarts. I know I make some kind of groan and heave onto the tile of the bathroom floor but manage to get my head over the rim of the toilet before I let go whatever stringy bitter bile wants to come flying out of my gut. I clutch the toilet and feel my body churning, my face puffed and red, head throbbing. Most of the vomit hits the toilet but a little spatters the floor.
At some point I become conscious of voices, first the sound of the TV playing in my bedroom, something on the Turner Classic Movie channel, which has been playing all night, then another sound, real voices in the house. Maybe because I’m hung-over my hearing is acute. Carmine has company for breakfast.
I’m kneeling at the toilet soaking up the spray in wads of toilet tissue. The smell is sharp and acrid and I flush the mess away and stand, none too steadily. I got my pants off but fell asleep in my shirt and there’s throw-up on the front of it, so I take it off and leave it in a heap on the floor. I find my bathrobe where I last tossed it, outside near the bed, and pull it over my arms. My skin feels cool, clammy, unhealthy. I take a swallow from the glass of tepid water by the bed.
In the kitchen sits my son, Frank. He occupies most of two chairs. He is not so much large as enormous, the size of Carmine and me put together, though impeccably dressed in a starched shirt and tailored suit, even at this hour of the morning. His hair is black as coal and gleaming, arranged in an even layer, like a cake, across his wide skull. His eyeglasses have an expensive look, thin black metal in a complex boxy-ovoid shape. To my knowledge there is nothing wrong with his eyes; he began wearing fake eyeglasses in college to make himself look more serious in class, about the same time he stopped dressing like a gangsta. He wears the best silk tie two hundred dollars ca
n buy. He drips affluence even when he is not dripping sweat due to his bulk, nearing four hundred pounds by this point. Chins hang from his jaw like veils. He gives me a sharp, hard look.
Carmine, completely dressed, is leaning against the granite countertop near the stainless steel juicer. “You’re awake.”
“Yes. Did you make coffee?”
“What’s to make? I turn on the machine and press a button. If you want a cup, push the button for yourself.”
I say to Frank, “This is what I get from her. She won’t even so much as push a button on my behalf.”
“You’re starting a little early this morning, Dad.”
I blink at him, and look from him to her. “What do you mean?”
“You’re drunk.”
“If I’m a little drunk it’s from last night.”
“He never sobers up any more,” Carmine says. “It’s like living with a pickle.”
Frank is clutching a lilac colored handkerchief in his stubby fingers. I expect the handkerchief came with the suit. Frank uses it to wipe his forehead. “Won’t that be a problem when you head off for your job interview thing this morning? Oh. That’s right. You don’t have one.” Frank’s expression and voice brim over with disdain. His voice grates on my skin. “Man. You look like a wreck.”
“You want to know what you look like, Frankie?” I ask.
He blinks at me.
“You want to know what you look like, spread out there like a pond?”
“Leave him alone,” Carmine says.
“You look like twins, stuffed into one shirt,” I say. “So don’t tell me I look like a wreck when there you are.”
His eyes narrow. His lips thin. A father who has ever had any hold over his son can always score a hit. Frankie and I were friends when he was young.
“He’s over here trying to help us,” Carmine says, her voice raised.
At that point, I note that Frankie’s meaty pink hand is resting on a fair-sized pile of envelopes. I see my name on one.
“What are you doing with my mail?” I ask.
“Opening it,” Frankie says. “Which is more than you’ve done in weeks. Months.”
“How dare you? You have no business in my office for any reason.”