What Comes Next

by Jonathan Baumbach

  “I’d like to go swimming,” she said. “It’s too hot to drive in the heat of the day.”

  He thought of leaving her somewhere at the side of the road, taking her car and her money, maybe screwing her again for good measure. Would she forgive him that? Was there no end to her capacity for forgiveness? It would be better, less dangerous, he decided, to have her with him.

  The news was on—the time eleven o’clock—Rosemary talking about some book she wanted him to read. Christopher thinking about the war, about Parks. His orders to report for induction on August 4. There were two days left.

  “Five women and a child were killed this morning in a Pearl City, Texas, beauty parlor by a handsome eighteen-year-old named Calvin William Hoover,” the newscaster was saying. “This is the fourth mass killing in the past year, which is, unofficially, a new record. The previous unofficial high for a year was three.” The voice went on, but for a moment he had stopped listening.

  “After discarding the idea of suffocating his victims with plastic sandwich bags, the youth entered the beauty shop today, forced his victims to a back room, and calmly shot each of them. When asked why, the former honor student is reported to have said, ‘I wanted to make a name for myself.’”

  “It’s frightening,” she said.

  She was saying something else, but he wanted to hear the news—181 of the enemy killed in a search-and-destroy operation—and told her to be quiet.

  “A New York priest, thirty-five-year-old Father James Gatz Fitzgerald was brutally shot down by enemy fire today while giving last rites to American soldiers in War Zone C. Notified of Father Fitzgerald’s murder at his desk in Washington, the President vowed that this tragic loss of life shall not be in vain. ‘God will take His just vengeance,’ he told reporters.” He shut off the radio, angry at its noise.

  Went off the parkway to look for a motel with a pool. His clothes like skin—the red upholstery like another flesh, open, bleeding. He swam through the heat, a fish in the belly of the car’s flesh. Turning and turning.

  If there was something he had to do, something important, he felt himself getting farther and farther away from what it was. In losing his pursuers, losing himself.

  Mr. and Mrs. James Hoover. He signed the register, paid eight dollars in advance. Rosemary waiting for him just inside the office door. He admired her cool, envied it. How impressive she seemed in her dark glasses.

  The shower felt good. It was the first thing he did. Rosemary reading a magazine, lying on the double bed. For all he knew, calling the police or some priest to get him. He wouldn’t be able to hear if she phoned—the shower roaring like the ocean inside a shell, the shell his head. Or was it the air-conditioning, which the manager had insisted on turning on for them? The faint distant humming, a sound he had never, no matter where he was, gotten away from. In the city it was always there, the whine of some machine. He didn’t wash, just stood there under the nozzle letting the water rain over him. A sweet private pleasure. He stood, eyes closed, like a flower in the rain. Brave in his skin. Until he began to worry what Rosemary was doing—could she be trusted?—what lay ahead, what was next? His balls ached from the cold. What was he, standing there, kissed by the water, burned, torn? What kind of thing was he?

  She moaned when he came in as if awakened from a bad dream, though she hadn’t been asleep.

  “What are we doing here?” Her voice uncomplaining.

  “You said you wanted to go swimming.”

  It was six medium-size steps from the plastic-tan door of the room to the pink wall at the other end. He counted them as he paced. Sometimes five. When he increased the length of his strides, four … three and a half.

  “Is that why we came here, so I could go swimming?”

  Sometimes three. “I’m not going to touch you if that’s what you’re afraid of.” He was sitting at the edge of the bed, staring at her feet.

  “If I were afraid of you, why would I have gone off with you, without asking where we were going, without any questions?”

  “You want something from me,” he said. He saw his reflection in her eyes, hunched over, swollen, not quite human. Glowing. Her pity like a light.

  Someone was knocking at the door—he thought the police or Parks, she thought her aunt; the facts of the city closing in on them. “Hey, do you want these here suits?” a voice called. “Should I wrap them up or will you eat them here?”

  “Tell him to go away.”

  The manager knocked again. “It’s Mr. Quick,” he bellowed, his voice coming at them as if he were in the room, his mouth to their ear. “I have those items you wanted, folks. One boy’s suit, one girl’s suit.”

  Christopher opened the door just enough to reach for the suits, but Quick, before relinquishing his items, wedged his foot in the opening. “This is the best time of the day for the pool, kids,” he said, peering into the room. “Don’t forget to return them when you’re through.”

  He made a move to close the door, but Quick’s foot remained as if it belonged permanently to the space it occupied.

  “Just about two weeks ago, a young married took off with a couple rented suits—these very suits, come to think of it. It was a lucky thing I had their license number.”

  “He wants a deposit,” she said. Rosemary at her purse, a brown shoulder bag, which was on the white imitation-wood dresser. “Ask him if five dollars will cover the suits.”

  “Anything, anything is fine,” Quick said, wiggling his mustache. “So you won’t forget.” He had both feet in the room, was looking around. “You got to plug in the television. It’s not plugged in.”

  His arm tingling as if there were needles in it, Christopher wanted to smash Quick’s face. Instead, pretending a smile, gave him five dollars. Quick winking at him in receipt.

  “Enjoy yourselves,” he said, beaming, smacking his lips, “but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and there ain’t a thing I wouldn’t do.”

  “Get out,” he said, and Quick was gone.

  Borrowing her razor—an old-style straight razor with a jeweled handle—he went into the bathroom to shave. Take it off, take it off, take it all off, the television voice whispering to him in the mirror. He felt his flesh slide down the inside of his legs, falling with a splash to the white tile floor. A flushing sound. For moments he felt remarkably light. All loss, he discovered, an easing of the burden.

  He took his mustache off, as much as he could get with a dull blade, cutting his lip, the blood on the inside of his mouth. It took a long time to shave his face, the mirror fogged over from the shower, a long time.

  Put some fun in your life, the voice said. Become a blonde. Rosemary in the green rented suit, a scarf over her hair, was going out the door.

  He came back to Carolyn. “I’ve just shot the President,” he said. “I need a place to hide. The Army is looking for me, the National Guard, the police. The President’s wife.”

  She told him to hide in the closet. “Christopher is coming with his army to protect you. They’re all Negroes now, you know.”

  While he was in the closet, the police broke in. They couldn’t find Parks so they raped his wife and beat her.

  Parks hid himself inside the vacuum cleaner until they were gone.

  Christopher awoke in a strange mood. Angry at something, aroused. The room in shadow, glowing as if everything in it were luminescent. The funereal cold of the air-conditioning giving off a smell like damp wool. Where the hell was she? Where had Parks gone?

  Rosemary appeared in the doorway of the bathroom in a green silk dress, as beautiful and remote as a model or a movie actress, one of the most lusted-after women in America.

  “How long was I sleeping?” He shouted the question at her, angry at having lost a sense of time. He had been separated too long from himself.

  She sat on the edge of the bed as if she were weightless, a stricken heroine in a ballet, a fallen swan. “Do you know you look like a child when you sleep?” Looking at her hands. “You were s
hivering so I covered you. I hope you don’t mind.”

  He was shivering still. Something in her tone. She was like a marvelous statue, too exquisite to be borne in an ugly place. Wanted to smash her, but couldn’t bear the idea of the room without her.

  “I want to make it up to you for what I’ve done,” she whispered. “Please let me.”

  There was no one there talking to him. He had the idea his hands were bleeding and put them behind him.

  “I knew you had been following me,” she said, as if continuing a conversation they had been having. He made no response.

  She took a deep breath, a hard confession to make, not looking at him, unaware of the way he was watching her—the blood stare of his anger. “I don’t know why I didn’t say anything. I wanted to talk to you. Something about you … I think I had the idea you understood something about me.”

  He was very still, as if all his energy were compressed inside him into nothing.

  She touched his arm, then took her hand away as if it had transgressed. “I’m sorry I’m so bad.”

  It was as if he had dreamed his entire life and woke on his deathbed to find himself still an infant, hardly formed.

  “You didn’t know.” He pulled her down from behind, her face in reverse. The silence holding the walls of the room apart. Rosemary, wide-eyed, nailed to the bed.

  “Don’t hurt me,” she said in a dull voice, resigned to misuse.

  “Who have you told?” he said like a cop. “Who knows about it?”

  She pretended not to understand, moved her head from side to side as if someone were hitting her.

  He wanted to put his head on her breasts but didn’t. “Who have you told? I won’t hurt you if you tell me. Did you tell the police?”

  “Is that all you care about?” Her eyes like a snowstorm.

  “It’s because I don’t care I want to know.”

  “I told them.”

  It didn’t matter to him.

  “Nothing about you. I told them I didn’t know who it was.”

  Then why were they following him? What did they think he did? Was he responsible for his dreams?

  “What can I say to make you believe me? I try not to lie.”

  Her breasts occupied his vision as if they were born in his head. “What does Parks know?” he asked. His chest pained him.

  She shook her head, whispered something. Crying. Her tears like leaves.

  “Does he suspect me?”

  “I think he suspects himself.”

  He laughed until the pain left his chest. But then it came back, heavier than before.

  She started to talk, stopped. “If I asked you to, would you come with me to church? You don’t have to pray or talk to anyone. Just be with me there.”

  “What in hell for? Do you think you can offer me to God?”

  “Only you can do that, offer yourself.”

  “I was born a Jew.”

  “I thought you were Jewish, though I wasn’t sure. The name Christopher …”

  “I’m nothing.” He inhales her into his lungs until she burns his chest like smoke.

  “I want to help you and I don’t know how.”

  Climbed, swung himself from the pivot of her shoulders, on top of her. “Help me,” he pleaded, mocking her. “I want you to help me. Will you help me?”

  She slapped his face gently, harder. Harder. Harder. Harder. Her hand out of control, killing him.

  His eyes burning as if there were a flame at the deepest part. Aware of the power of his position, the weight of his knee (like a foot in the door) between her legs. There was nothing to keep him from doing what he wanted. Nothing. Afraid of wanting what he didn’t want. Afraid of who he wasn’t.

  Kill a Commie for Christ.

  He left her, went to the bathroom, and locked the door. With the shower on, though he didn’t go under it, he felt better. His hopes murdered.

  He lay next to her on the motel double bed, feeling nothing, married to the dead feeling in himself. He held her hand. The panic gone.

  She kissed his face where the slaps still burned. “What are you running from? Would you tell me?”

  He ducked his head, smirked. “I just wanted to get out of the city.”

  “You have a beautiful face,” she said, “and I love you. Do you know?”

  He didn’t say anything, his eyes wet; thought of the return trip—in a hurry to get back. All time somehow connected for him with the city, who he was, what he had been. The panic again in his chest. “No one loves anyone,” he whispered. (Parks would return, would want Rosemary, would not go away again without him.)

  “I love you, Christopher.” Her saying it burned more than the slaps.

  He laughed, the sound unreal, scratching his nerves. She kissed his eyes. “Believe I love you, Christopher. Believe in me.”

  “I believe in you,” he said, his chest hurting. He thought of going on—the two of them in her car—until they found someplace they wanted to stay, but the idea held no joy for him. Even if they weren’t caught (the past pursuing him, the Army now), what would they do? What choices would they have? There was no life to be lived, only anonymity and death wherever you went.

  Love? If he didn’t watch out, her love would suck out his life.

  She looked at him with proprietary affection, her hand on his shoulder. “I’m willing to go wherever you want to go,” she said. “If we need money, I can wire my father in Cleveland to send us some. He said whenever I needed anything to wire him. I feel, do you know, that we can make something between us.”

  He was like stone. “After dinner we’ll go back.”

  She wanted to argue but saw it would make no difference, kissed his eyes, which were open. They closed at her touch. “What are you feeling?” she asked.

  He couldn’t answer.

  “You’re not as bad as you think,” she said.

  They were having dinner at Howard Johnson’s—fried clams. Christopher watching her eat, not hungry himself. Watching himself in her eyes. He had gotten larger, was no longer quite so deformed. Rosemary, smiling to herself, humming as she ate. Her pleasure unaccountable, infectious, dangerous. He had the idea someone else—someone innocent—was being punished for his crimes. Without a word he got up and walked away. On his way to the men’s room, as if an accident, looking to see if he was being watched, he slipped into the phone booth next door.

  He asked the operator to get him the Brooklyn Police Department.

  “If you want to find me,” he said, “just trace this call. I’ll be here for twenty minutes more.”

  “Why should we want to find you? Hold on.”

  He held on, heard voices.

  “Hello. Why do we want to find you? Who is this?”

  If they didn’t know, he wasn’t going to tell them. He hung the phone up. It wasn’t what he had to do.

  SIXTEEN

  PRESIDENT VOICES

  HOPE AND CAUTION

  REPORTS GAIN IN WAR

  BUT PREDICTS NO EARLY END

  He had to walk six blocks to keep his appointment. The weather threatening. The pain a great distance from where he was.

  At the intersection between the second and third block the traffic was backed up, horns barking. A woman was standing, her arms out, in the middle of the street, talking to the cars. A lipstick mouth covering almost half her face. Dancing jerkily in front of a car that was trying to dodge her. “Come on. Come on. Go through me. What’s a matter with you things?” The car, a yellow Citroën, went on the curb to get around her. “Chicken,” she shrieked after it. Turned to block the next one. A red Buick. “Go through me. Come on. Go through me.” The Buick moving toward her. “Come on.” She held out her arms, swung her hips as if they were a weapon. “You’re all mama’s boys.”

  “There’s never a policeman around when you absolutely need one,” a fag in a gray silk suit announced to a boy who was walking with him. The Buick bumped the woman to the side, knocking her down. The fag clapping. The boy w
ith him, his white shirt half open, whistling.

  The light changing, he had to run across, barely getting out of the way of a car. “I had right a way,” the driver, a middle-aged woman, called to him.

  The fourth block. The sun gone. The sky swollen. Rumbling somewhere like bombs falling, or thunder. He told a girl with glasses, pushing a baby carriage, that it would be safer for her inside. Something was going to happen. She thanked him.

  Christopher had started to cross between the fifth and sixth block when a faded gray car of indeterminate model, turning illegally, cut him off. He recognized the eyes looking at him, like something trapped, from the other side of the glass.

  “Get in,” the driver said (the face with the familiar eyes), holding the door open. He, Parks, was wearing a gray seersucker suit, sucking on his pipe. The suit looked like it had been slept in for a week.

  “We’re holding up traffic. Will you get in?”

  He got in without saying anything. There was nothing to say.

  They turned onto an expressway, the former peace marcher driving as if he expected to be shot at. His head down. He was wearing a gray hat.

  “I haven’t seen you in a long time, Christopher,” he said after a while. “What’s new? How have you been?”

  He started to tell him about some plan he had for the two of them but saw Parks wasn’t listening.

  “On a nice day like today, I thought this would be a good way for us to have a talk.”

  “It’s going to rain,” he said. “Look how dark the sky is.”

  “We’re going to Coney Island,” Parks said, something else on his mind. “That is, if you have no objections, Christopher.”

  He told him he didn’t know if he had objections.

  “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  The car edging, edgy, going no miles an hour like sixty. The closer they got to Coney Island, the more congested the traffic became, the slower they moved. The streets moving backward.

  He noticed, not surprised, that his briefcase was in the back of the car.

  Something frightening had happened at Coney Island. What he remembered—red, full of mouths. He said he didn’t want to go to Coney Island. If Parks wanted to talk, there were other places.