Gunmetal Blue Read online

  I remember when I met you. You walked through the door to that party and I said: look at the princess.

  Yes, and then what?

  And then you glared at me like I was the craziest guy you had ever set eyes on.

  Because you were the craziest guy I ever set my eyes on.

  But I’m not crazy, am I?

  You’re crazier than most of the guys I have ever known.

  How so? How am I crazy?

  Do I have to tell you how you’re crazy now? We’ve been together all these years and you don’t know how I think you’re crazy?

  Meg is crazy too, don’t you think?

  No. I don’t think Meg is crazy. I think Meg takes after her mother. She’s perfectly sane and rational and like me. She has never liked Princesses.

  She liked Dungeons and Dragons.

  That was a phase. And what’s more, it wasn’t about Princesses. She also liked rock and roll.

  If you call the Grateful Dead rock and roll.

  If it isn’t rock and roll what is it?

  The Grateful Dead?

  And so our conversations went. Round and round in a circle. Who knows what it all meant? What it means. What can it mean when the conversations are remembered, but the sound of the voice isn’t remembered? I remember the words, but the sound of her voice. The sound of my wife’s voice talking, this I am having the hardest time remembering.

  •

  Talk to me, Adeleine, talk to me.

  Why should I talk to you? You do so well talking to yourself.

  I’m not talking to myself. I’m speaking to you.

  How can you be speaking to me? I’m no longer here.

  But I am still speaking to you. You know that as well as I do.

  I suppose so.

  I suppose so.

  Yes, we suppose so.

  •

  I was her revolt. And when she was determined to do something, she did it, even if it was revolt. And so, that afternoon early in our relationship—not long after we met and I had mistaken her for a princess—we sat on her parents’ sofa. Adeleine seemed so nonchalant about the whole business. I was thrilled to be in the room with her and I felt hyper alive. I couldn’t believe my luck.

  I hate this house, she said.

  Are you crazy? It’s a beautiful house!

  I hate it. I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem like home, I suppose.

  Are you crazy?

  It’s a claustrophobic house. She took off a bit of clothes.

  I disagree. It’s open and airy.

  I dislike it. It’s too corporate. It’s like an office building.

  You may dislike it, but to me, coming from where I stand—the bungalow belt—it’s a wonderful house. You’re lucky to live here.

  I’ll be lucky to move.

  Why don’t you show me around? I’ve never seen a house like this before.

  Sure thing, she said, smiling. That I can do.

  I didn’t think it then, but later when I left her house it occurred to me that I would call Cal and tell him what had happened to me, and he was a guy first and foremost who wouldn’t be jealous, and he would listen in disbelief to what happened to me.

  I can hear Cal’s laughter even now as I recounted the good fortune that had befallen me, running into this woman at a party, and then bumping into her again at the grocery store, and then before I knew it I was getting the complete tour.

  Later we would marry—the lavish wedding on the lake. I didn’t care for it all: the display of wealth, her parents’ country club friends, the snobbery of it all. And frankly, neither did Adeleine, but she recognized it was part of the thing we had to do.

  But after the wedding we did what we wanted to, and we drove in a car all the way to a tiny little town, Chokoloskee, on the Gulf of Mexico near the Everglades in Florida, and we stayed in a shack for fourteen days right on the beach and we didn’t do a thing but lay in our bed with the window open to the surf and mosquitoes that we swatted with a fly swatter and at night we would walk on the beach feeling the tug of the tide and the moon and the stars overhead and how they made us feel, not tiny and insignificant, but grateful to be alive even briefly to experience such cosmic grandeur and how many years would go by with us married and intimate and loving.

  But the passion of that first day we spent in her parent's house getting to know each other after we first met, while her parents were away—it was a one of a kind experience that started us off on our journey, and she gave it to me, she’s the one who made it happen. It was a gift and I’m grateful to her for having given it to me but I’m sad even as I write this that the soulmate I had shared this experience with is no longer with me. I can’t turn to her even if I wanted to and say: remember that time at your parents’ house when you first brought me home after we ran into each other in the grocery store? In fact, all that was left of that moment was what I could remember of it, and memory was one of those things: maybe you worked it as hard as you could to squeeze all the details out of it, but the problem with memory as far as I could see was you could never quite be sure if what you remembered really happened. Memory was like standing on the sand in the surf. Here you are with your feet planted firmly in the sand, and yet as the cool bubbly surf rolls in you feel the sand erode under your feet and what seemed like terra firma is suddenly less firma and less terra too for that matter.

  Oh, memory! What part of you is real and what part imagined, and even real or imagined, who else could possibly care what occurred in the privacy of her parents’ bedroom that afternoon so many years ago? For even if I said, this is what happened, exactly as I describe it, is there a soul in this busy hectic world who would care? Meg maybe, a little, but no kid really wants the details of that, and after that it matters less to each generation, so who would even care?

  •

  I lay in bed in the hotel room with Rita and I couldn’t decide whether to retain the memory I had had of that afternoon with Adeleine or to banish it from my memory forever.

  Like Adeleine, Rita too had removed her clothes, and we tried to have sex, but it didn’t work so well. I couldn’t escape the sense of déjà vu, not to mention I was older now, so much water under the bridge this time, and when she seemed miffed after a few minutes of her effort failed to register on me she looked up and spoke.

  What’s the problem?

  Should I tell her I’m an old man? Old and broken?

  There is no problem.

  This is a problem.

  This is life, I told her.

  It’s not a very friendly life. I thought you liked me.

  I do like you.

  I mean I thought you found me attractive.

  I do find you attractive.

  Then what’s this?

  The tone of Rita’s response after that first time established forever the tone of our relationship. It didn’t take any time at all, I tell myself now, to go from hellos to hell. And once I was in hell I haven’t been able to figure out a way to escape.

  •

  It was the first time but not the last time I had had a problem with Rita. I hated having problems in bed with Rita but I knew what my problem was. I had never had such problems with Adeleine.

  But of course I couldn’t say that. All I could say was: I’m sorry Rita. I don’t mean to have problems.

  OK, then. Let’s not have any problems.

  I’ll try.

  And try I did, but I still had problems.

  Is it me? she asked.

  Of course it isn’t, I said, which was true and not true.

  I don’t like the way you said that.

  What do you mean?

  You weren’t convincing. Maybe it is me that’s the problem.

  She got up from bed and started putting her clothes on.

  No. Come back to bed. You’re not the problem.

  Then what’s the problem?

  There is no problem.

  She took off her clothes and came back to bed.

  OK, let�
�s try this again.

  So we tried it again, but I had a problem.

  You’re still having a problem.

  I hate to have this problem. I don’t know how to explain it.

  It’s me.

  No it’s not.

  Yes it is. If it were someone you were attracted to, you wouldn’t be having this problem.

  The problem is I cannot believe my wife is dead. I think this without saying it: the problem is I cannot believe my wife is dead. Her death is like smelling salts in my nose. I can’t get the strong sensation of those smelling salts out of my nose. The problem is: How do I tell Rita that my problem is related to my dead wife? Is this how I say it? I’m having a problem because I cannot believe my wife is dead.

  I didn’t know how to say it.

  I thought of opening a bottle of champagne. I thought maybe that would help. I told Rita that’s what I was going to do. I had a bottle chilling in my office across the street.

  Do you want me to come with?

  No, just stay here. Watch a movie or something. I’ll be right back.

  But you’re coming back, right, Art?

  Right.

  Promise?

  Promise.

  You wouldn’t skip out on me, Art, would you?

  No.

  Not over this? I can live with this.

  Baby I’m going out to get champagne so we can fix this. Or if not fix it, just sit and have a little champagne. I’ll be back. Promise.

  Thank you, Art. Seriously. I thank you.

  It’s good we found each other.

  Yes.

  OK. Bye.

  Bye.

  I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.

  Fifteen. I’m counting the minutes.

  So long…

  I took the elevator down. The lobby of the hotel was packed with business people just in from meetings at a convention. They were making dinner plans. Outside the hotel, cabs cruised the streets like sharks. I crossed the street and went up the elevator to my office on the fifteenth floor. This was where I had found her, three months before. Before that, my office had meant other things, but now it will always mean that, in addition to those things.

  •

  I found her in my office, on the floor. She wasn’t supposed to be there, but she was there. There wasn’t a part of her body that was spared a bullet.

  I don’t want to tell you where she was shot but her body, from her head down to her feet, was riddled with bullet holes. He shot her hands—was she blocking herself with them, and he shot right through them? He shot her feet—why her feet? Did he tell her dance, and take aim at them? He shot her in her private parts and he hit her belly and he unloaded several shots into her side and into her core—the bullets breaking ribs, shredding the spine, shattering femur and shin bone and shoulder blade. There was a graze wound to her throat and a point-blank shot to her forehead…two more shots to her face…a missing eyeball…

  There wasn’t a place on her body—my wife’s body—without an entry or an exit wound. Bullets ricocheting all over the place through her body…

  And my hand…I touched every one of those holes: soft, the heat mostly disappeared from her body, the sticky blood coagulating. I touched gingerly, unable to believe what I touched, unable to get my mind to slip forward into a comprehension of what had happened, unable, practically, to move—except for my finger, which traced a slow circle around each of her wounds.

  When the police came, they asked me to step aside. Get outside the perimeter, they said. One of the police actually pushed me so I almost stumbled backwards. Step outside the perimeter. He was wearing blue surgical gloves.

  Another officer stood next to me. He said something into his radio mouthpiece, which was firmly attached to a strap on his torso. He said: Victim. Female. 42 years old. Gunshot wound to temple. Gunshot wound to forehead. Two gunshot wounds to face. Gunshot wound to neck. Three gunshot wounds to abdomen. Two gunshot wounds to pelvis. One gunshot wound to kidney. Gunshot wounds to both hands—left and right. Gunshot wounds to legs—shattering femurs. Gunshot wounds to left foot and to right foot. Seventeen 9mm casings at site of shooting.

  He turned and asked me:

  Who was the dead body?

  I told him it was Adeleine Topp.

  Did you know the dead body?

  She was my wife.

  Did you touch or disturb the dead body?

  Yes. I touched her wounds. I fell on her.

  Did anyone else touch or disturb the dead body when the dead body fell?

  No.

  As far as you know, did anyone else touch or observe the dead body when the dead body fell?

  No.

  Was the dead body dead when the dead body fell?

  I don’t know.

  And on the questions went, and so too the investigation into her death, until it all stopped, and then I found myself alone and wandering.

  •

  I crossed the street and went up the elevator to my office on the fifteenth floor and said: Good afternoon, Wanda.

  Hello, Art.

  How goes it?

  She was bent over a crossword puzzle.

  Where’ve you been? Out searching for business?

  Sort of…

  Any luck?

  Sort of.

  How ‘bout here, Wanda? Any calls I need to be made aware of?

  Finnegan’s Wake wife?

  What?

  The crossword puzzle. Three down. Finnegan’s Wake wife?

  Who’s Finnegan?

  That’s what I want to know.

  Sounds like an Irishman.

  Fin. Finnegan. Think of an Irish name for a woman.

  Mary?

  Mary. I’ll try Mary.

  Any calls?

  Cal called.

  What did he want?

  He didn’t say.

  Any others?

  Three calls. All wrong numbers. I really think we ought to change the number around here. We keep getting confused with Triple AAA Plumbing.

  I should have been a plumber.

  Well, you’d certainly get more calls if you had been.

  If I had been…had been.

  Where are the champagne glasses?

  There—on the shelf in the closet where you keep your extra clothes.

  I met this woman…

  Oh, Art! I’m so happy you’re moving on!

  Not moving on yet.

  But a woman? Who is she?

  I don’t know really. Some lady I met at the…Get this, I met her at the cemetery.

  Better to meet someone at the cemetery, Art, than at the…

  At the what?

  Oh, Art…I’m just so happy you’re getting out and meeting people.

  I was putting flowers on my wife’s grave is all. And then this woman…

  Is she pretty Art?

  I don’t know, Wanda. I’ve forgotten what pretty is. I’ve been in love too long with my wife to know pretty.

  You’ve never been in love too long to know pretty.

  You’re pretty, Wanda.

  Thank you, Art. But be careful what you say. It can get you into trouble. Harassment.

  Are you going to sue me now, Wanda?

  No. Not you Art. You’re too nice to sue—though I might get you in trouble for all the useless clues you give me on my crossword puzzle.

  I said Mary.

  It’s not Mary.

  Where are the champagne glasses?

  What do you want those for?

  She’s in the hotel waiting for me.

  She…

  This woman I met in the cemetery.

  What’s her name?

  I don’t have time to talk about her now. She’s waiting for me in the hotel room. At least I think she’s waiting for me. She may be gone by now.

  She’s waiting for you in the hotel room? Art, what did you go and get a hotel room for?

  I don’t know, Wanda. I met her at the cemetery and we had lunch at Giovanni’s, and before I knew
it one thing led to another.

  Were you drinking?

  We had a few.

  A what?

  We had some wine.

  Oh, Art…

  She’s in grieving mode too. Grief. We both are. She wears a veil.

  Her husband?

  No, her mom.

  What about her husband?

  Her husband—I don’t know that she has a husband.

  Can you think of a word for ‘handy’ that starts with a ‘k’?

  No. Can you?

  It’s five letters.

  I can’t think. Where are the glasses?

  Over there, Art, on the shelf in the closet where you keep your clothes, like I said.

  Sorry Wanda. I’m a bit confused today.

  I imagine so.

  Thanks for being here.

  It’s my job to be here.

  No it isn’t. Or yes it is. But thank you all the same. I’m going to be going.

  What’s her name, Art? You must remember her name. That’s so important for a woman—to remember her name.

  Thanks for asking. As a matter of fact I almost forgot.

  What is it?

  It’s a four-letter word that starts with R.

  Rena?

  No. Close.

  Give me a clue.

  Sounds like pita.

  Such a lovely name. Rita. Is she pretty?

  I’ll tell you tomorrow.

  Do you want me to lock up when I leave?

  Yes. Lock up. And krafty.

  What?

  Crafty with a ‘k.’ Those handymen are always spelling things with Ks. For your krossword.

  Crafty has six letters.

  Oh.

  Goodnight Art.

  Goodnight Wanda.

  Good luck to you.

  And to you.

  •

  I took the elevator down to the lobby of my building. The bellman was nowhere to be seen. He was thought to be having an affair with a woman on the thirteenth floor. We were all thought to be having affairs, I thought, as I walked out of there. I’m having an affair, I thought. I’m having an affair behind my wife’s back. This isn’t right.

  And then I heard my wife.

  It is right, Art.

  No it’s not, Adeleine.

  Honey, I’m dead. No use in worrying about me anymore. Go on and live your life.

  I don’t want to live it without you, Adeleine.

  Oh Art. That’s such a funny thing to say.