Rose-colored Glasses

by Downing, John

  Langley willed myself not to wince. “If you knew she was like that, why did you marry her?”

  “I didn’t know it then, did I? Laurel had this‌—‌talent, I guess you would call it. She could not only get people to do what she wanted but make them feel honored that they were in a position to be of service to her. If she used you this way once or twice, three times, you would never be the wiser. Only by seeing her in action over a period of time did you begin to realize how manipulative she was.”

  What did Laurel want from you? Langley wondered. “How did the two of you meet?”

  “It was sometime in March,” Burden said. “I lived at the Y on Ninth Street at the time, and worked in Red Hook, in Coffey Park. Then, as now, I walked to work and back. I was on my way home from work…”

  Just as last time, he told the story in detail, except for his feelings, which he did not remark on at all.

  “I had just crossed the Ninth Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal. Night had fallen; in the darkness, I could barely see the canal. But I could smell it and I was walking fast to put the stink behind me. About a hundred feet past the bridge, there’s an abandoned trolley track that leads off the street into a large empty lot. Just as I reached the track, I heard a scream. I stopped and looked about.

  “Where I was standing it was almost completely dark. There were no streetlights in the vicinity, and the train trestle overhead blocked out whatever starlight there might have been. Back in the recesses of the lot, I caught a glimpse of two figures. They appeared to be dancing. And then they vanished once more into the shadows. I was half convinced I had imagined the whole thing, when I heard another scream.

  “Suddenly a figure emerged from the shadows and ran toward me. Before I could react, she‌—‌it was a woman‌—‌had run around behind me. At the same time, inside the lot, a second figure, a man, appeared. He took a couple of steps toward me. When he was about thirty feet away from where I was standing, he stopped. For maybe ten seconds, he just stood there. And then he turned and ran off.

  “And now the girl collapsed in my arms, crying. I held her while she calmed down.”

  How many women as beautiful as Laurel Rose had Burden held in his arms? Langley wondered.

  “She thanked me profusely for having saved her: the man had attacked her, she said, stolen her purse‌—‌who knows what else he would have done if I had not happened along. Could I do her one more favor? She had no money to get home. Could I lend her the carfare?”

  He would do better than that.

  “She lived in a hotel‌—‌the Bossert, on Montague Street. I took her home in a cab.”

  How many women, Langley wondered, had Burden taken home in a cab?

  “When we got to the hotel, she asked me if I would stay with her for a while.”

  He stayed.

  “We talked. She told me her name. She said she was from a small town in Indiana. She had been in the city only three months.”

  She was lying to you, Burden, Langley thought. At the time she’d been in New York nearly two years.

  “She told me about how most people she’d met here were cold and remote, how she felt alone and friendless.”

  So he had offered to be her friend.

  “She asked me if I would show her around town, teach her the ropes of living in New York.”

  He said he would.

  “We started seeing each other regularly, one thing led to another and one day in May I took her to Green-Wood Cemetery, where I proposed to her.”

  Had Langley heard correctly? “Where?”

  “Green-Wood Cemetery. It’s the most beautiful spot in Brooklyn. All the bushes, azaleas and whatnot, were in bloom. There’s the view of the harbor. And, best of all, no people. No live ones, anyway‌—‌dead people, I don’t mind. Anyway, she said yes.

  “We were married a couple of weeks later, at City Hall. I couldn’t afford to take her on a honeymoon. Laurel said she didn’t mind. We moved into an apartment above a candy store on Myrtle Avenue. Two months later I caught her fucking another man in our bed.”

  Tell me I’m wrong, Langley thought. He said, “It sounds as if you think the attack on Laurel was staged.”

  “Of course it was staged. A lot of things pointed to it, and if I hadn’t been so blind I would have seen them.”

  “What things?”

  “For one, I didn’t rescue Laurel; she rescued herself. I stopped when I heard the screams, but that was a reflex action. When I looked into the lot, I couldn’t tell what I was seeing. Before I could react further, Laurel had run around in back of me, sandwiching me between her and the guy.”

  “Otherwise, I suppose, you’d have left her to her fate,” Langley said.

  “We’re all left to our fate,” Burden said.

  Nice. “You said ‘a lot of things’ pointed to the attack being staged. What else?”

  “After Laurel ran away from her ‘attacker,’ she was not bleeding; her clothes were not torn, a bit disheveled maybe, but that’s all; her hair was barely mussed. When the man came toward me, I looked at his hands to see if he was holding a weapon‌—‌a knife, a club. All right, it was dark, but I didn’t see a thing. Remember Laurel said he’d stolen her purse? Well, if he did, I don’t know what he did with it. Like I said, his hands appeared to be empty. Before I took Laurel home, I looked around for the purse and couldn’t find it anywhere. Unless the guy stuck it up his ass, I don’t know where he put it. And then there was the question of what Laurel was doing in that neighborhood in the first place. Do you know the area? It’s the back end of beyond: warehouses, garages, small factories. The canal. The IND trestle. The area’s remote in the daylight; after dark, it’s desolate.”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Burden shrugged. “I don’t think I wanted to know. They say if something is too good to be true, it probably is. I suppose I didn’t want to find out just yet that it was all a lie.”

  “If in fact she staged the attack, why do you think she did it?”

  “To meet me, of course.”

  Of course. “Specifically you? Or whoever ran to her rescue?”

  “Specifically me.”

  “Why you?”

  “You’re asking me to read her mind,” Burden said.

  “I’m asking you to think out loud. I’m sure you’ve thought about why she did it. It seems to me if all she wanted was to meet you, she could have saved herself a lot of trouble by just walking up to you and saying, ‘Hi there, Big Boy. I’m Laurel Rose. What’s your name?’”

  “I think it was her plan from the start to marry me.”

  Dear God, Langley thought. The scariest part of all this was that Burden had had sufficient time to concoct a more rational story.

  “The Hi-there-Big-Boy approach‌—‌might not that have led to marriage?”

  “No. I might have taken her home and fucked her. Hell, I would have taken her home and fucked her. But marry her? Some floozy I picked up on the street? Not a chance.”

  “If she staged the attack, it would mean she’d have had to investigate you ahead of time.”

  Burden nodded. “Obviously.”

  “Had you ever seen her before that night?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  With a rare display of exasperation, Burden said, “I’d have remembered.”

  “Presumably she had to know who you are. How did she know that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did she know you were going to pass that precise spot at that precise moment?”

  “Only one way: she’d followed me previously.”

  It appeared that Burden didn’t have just one person following him, but a whole army.

  “When did you figure all this out?”

  “I still haven’t figured it all out.”

  “But you knew from the start that something wasn�
��t kosher? In that case, why did you ask Laurel to marry you?”

  Langley had noticed that the intervals between his question and Burden’s answer had gotten shorter. Burden still paused before replying, but only two or three beats, not the seven or eight he had previously. Now, however, the silence went on and on.

  “Were you in love with her?” Langley asked.

  “I was… taken with her. As you would have been. As any man would have been. I had never felt that way before. I didn’t believe there was such a feeling. When other people spoke of being ‘in love,’ when I read about it in books, I thought my leg was being pulled. It was like a giant conspiracy the whole world was in on to persuade me that I was missing out on something that everyone but me was enjoying, when from everything I’d experienced it didn’t exist at all. Call it what you want‌—‌‘being in love’‌—‌I was taken with her. She was a beautiful woman, she knew how to dress well, she carried herself with grace. When she was on my arm, other men looked at me with envy. My time with Laurel was like living in an alcoholic haze. If you’ve ever been drunk, you know that while you’re in the haze your problems disappear and you feel good. But eventually, as it must, the haze lifts, you’re dumped back into reality, your problems are all back and larger than ever and, as if that’s not enough, you’ve got a hangover. Waking up from Laurel Rose, I had the worst hangover of my life.”

  “When was that?”

  “When I caught her fucking another guy in our bed.”

  “You never suspected she was fooling around?”

  “Fool that I am, no. It was anybody else, I’d have seen it coming a mile off. But myself, I couldn’t see it. With my philosophy, I should have.”

  “What philosophy is that?”

  “Are you a Catholic?”

  Langley shrugged. “Sort of.”

  “You can’t be ‘sort of’ Catholic. It’s like being pregnant: you either are or you aren’t.”

  “I was raised a Catholic. I still practice it, but I’m not what you’d call devout.”

  “Did you go to Catholic school?”

  “Elementary and high school.”

  “Then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Somewhere along the line, surely, you had a nun like the one I had in 5B. She was always telling stories about the martyrs and missionaries who came to a ghastly end. I can still recall one particular story about a missionary who was tortured by the Indians by having his fingernails pulled out one by one. I used to have nightmares in which my fingernails were pulled out‌—‌not that I’m complaining: I like a good nightmare. Her stories were not just horror stories. They had a point. Two in fact. The first was that the martyrs had died the ultimate good death. By dying for their faith, they had secured for themselves a place in paradise. And instantly. No sitting around in purgatory for seventy-seven million years. The pearly gates open, and they get to walk right in. The second point was that the martyrs weren’t missing much by quitting this world early. I remember she said one day: We wear rose-colored glasses, all of us, which we never‌—‌but never‌—‌take off. If we did, the world is such a foul and loathsome place that to look at it without the glasses would be to go instantly and totally insane.”

  Is that what happened to you? Langley thought. “Have you ever taken off your glasses, Burden?”

  “And gone insane? Is that what you’re asking?”

  “I’m asking if you took off your glasses. If not, I’m wondering how you know what’s out there.”

  “You don’t have to look at the sun to know it’s shining. In fact, you cannot be unaware of it. Even a blind man can feel its heat. And sense its danger. Like you said, I knew from the start something wasn’t kosher with Laurel. After a while‌—‌maybe it was the haze lifting; maybe Laurel was starting to let her guard down: even a professional actress can’t be ‘up’ for every performance‌—‌it became impossible to ignore. I’ve been with enough whores to know when a woman is faking affection, and Laurel was faking it.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Do?” Burden asked.

  “Did you confront her?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was getting laid‌—‌and getting laid regularly‌—‌by a beautiful woman,” Burden said.

  “Was that the only reason?”

  “Isn’t that a good enough reason?”

  “Is it possible that you still loved her?”

  “I never loved her.”

  “That’s not what you said a minute ago.”

  “I said I was ‘taken’ with her. Which is something else entirely. There’s no such thing as love.”

  “No such thing as love?” Langley repeated.

  “Not the way I define it.”

  “How do you define it?”

  “Love is‌—‌would be, if it existed‌—‌selflessness: putting someone else ahead of yourself.”

  “And that never happens?”

  “Not in this world.”

  “There are people who laid down their lives for others.”

  “Because they were momentarily off their heads. They were drunk, or crazed with fear, or caught up in some kind of religious frenzy: the martyrs.”

  “There are people who perform acts of kindness for others.”

  “Only as an investment. They expect to be paid back with interest.”

  “There are people who give anonymously.”

  “Sure, and everybody knows who they are. Even when their giving is truly anonymous, there’s something in it for them.”

  “What?”

  “They get to feel good about themselves. Superior, in fact. ‘What an invention I am! Whatever would the world do without the likes of such as I?’”

  “Is it so bad that one gets to feel good for doing good?”

  “Good or bad, it has nothing to do with charity. It’s sheer self-interest. Do you commend a man for eating a hearty meal to make himself feel physically good? Why should you praise a man who does something only to make himself feel emotionally good?”

  “If there’s no such thing as love,” Langley said, “why do people marry?” He wondered why he was even discussing this with Burden.

  “Convention requires it. And then,” Burden said, “there are some people who believe in love. Just as there are people who believe the world is flat, and people who believe in astrology, or the tooth fairy, or God. Most of them learn, in time. Some never learn. Others know better from the start. Many of them marry anyway, but without illusions. It’s a tradeoff. He gets fucked when he wants to get fucked; he has someone to cook his meals, wash his underwear, darn his socks. She gets… whatever women want. He is using her and she is using him. He can’t say, ‘Baby, I want to fuck you till you scream,’ just as she can’t say, ‘Okay, as long as you provide for me all the creature comforts my heart desires.’ So he says, ‘I love you,’ and she says, ‘I love you, too.’ Are you married?”

  The question caught Langley off guard. Before he could stop himself, he said, “I’m engaged.”

  “Of course you ‘love’ her.”

  Langley hesitated. The last thing he wanted was to bring his private life into this discussion.

  “And of course,” Burden said, “she ‘loves’ you.”

  “She does,” Langley said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t think I should be talking about this with you.”

  “You have no answer.”

  “Only because I can’t read Fay’s mind.”

  “Fay‌—‌is that her name?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you can’t tell me why Fay loves you, then tell me why you love her.”

  With the question put to him, Langley found that he could not say why he felt the way he did about Fay. She had many qualities that he admired, but there were a million other women with those same qualities. So, what exactly was it that made her special? Unique, in fact. He didn’t know. U
nwilling to admit this to Burden, he picked the quality of Fay’s he valued above all others. It was… he didn’t know the name for it: whatever it was that she possessed that allowed him to be perfectly straight with her, knowing that she would be equally straight with him. There was nobody else in the world he trusted in quite the same manner.

  He said, “I love her honesty.”

  “You love her because she doesn’t cheat on her taxes?”

  Leave it to Burden to put it like that. “No,” Langley said. “Because I don’t think she would do to me what Laurel did to you.”

  A low blow, which he instantly regretted. Burden took it unflinchingly.

  And then he said, “Don’t be too sure.”

  “Did you ever figure out what Laurel wanted from you?”

  “No. But I know what Fay wants from you.”

  “Did Laurel ever ask you about your brother?”

  “She sees in you a coming big-shot lawyer and all that goes with that. Trade in your practice for a hot dog stand and see if she still loves you.”

  “Did Laurel ever ask you about your brother?”

  “No.”

  “Were there other men before the guy you caught her with?”

  “She was no virgin when I married her.”

  “Was she a virgin when you met her?”

  “I never touched her until after we were married.”

  “She put you off?”

  “She didn’t encourage me. But I didn’t want to.”

  “Why not?”

  “She was the girl I was going to marry. She was special, not some piece of ass I’d picked up for the night.”

  “Were you doing it with other women while you were engaged?”

  “Yes.”

  “Prostitutes?”

  “Yes. I should have stayed with them. You get what you want when you want it the way you want it. All you need is the money.”

  “And if you don’t have the money, what then?”

  “What do you do when you don’t have the money?”

  “Did you continue to visit prostitutes after you married?”

  “No.”

  “Out of fidelity?”

  This time Burden waited a good ten beats before replying. And then, almost as though admitting something he was ashamed of, he said, “Yes. Besides, I was getting all I could handle at home. Have you found the connection between Laurel Rose and Luray?”