Jess Row - Your Face in Mine

You’ve waited all this time to tell me that I’m a liar? Or, what, a murderer?

You tell me.

Seriously?

Seriously. That’s not a rhetorical question. Tell me, Kelly. Whatever it is. I’ll take it. I’ll take your version. I’m not into justice on principle. But I’m still waiting for an explanation.

The backyard has emptied now; a young woman from the catering staff circles the pool, stacking abandoned glasses in a bus bin. On the far side of the house, soft screeches and pounding feet: the roundup of the children has begun. Every animal, every being, is ignoring me. This is what I tell myself. No one, no one but these two people, has any interest in what I’m about to say.

It’s very simple. I went to see him; he looked bad. Tired. Said he needed his insulin shot. I got him the needle and went downstairs to make him some soup. When I got back upstairs he was asleep. He’d cooked up and hid the evidence; I realized that later. So I left. End of story.

And you never told anyone — because?

I raise my hands over my head in a parody of a sleepy stretch, trying to slow my breathing, to give myself a window of coherent thought.

Why the fuck do you think? Because of this . Because of how you reacted just now. I didn’t want to complicate things any further for anyone. He died by his own hand. By choice. Whether I was there or not didn’t matter. He would have just gotten up off the couch and found the syringe himself. Maybe not that day. But the next day, or the next. Believe me. He was ready to die. He wanted to die. In his mind it was as good as done. Was it selfish? Of course. I take full responsibility for that. Was it criminal? Was it immoral ? I don’t think Alan would have wanted me to fuck up my life because of an absolute, incontestable accident. With the wrong DA I could have been accused of involuntary manslaughter. Do you know that? I could have spent five years in jail.

You talked to a lawyer?

Years later. In graduate school. After an acute attack of conscience. And you know what he said? He said, you’ve suffered enough. Go live your life. And so I did.

An enormous lump rises and beats in my esophagus, a vibrating tumor. I feel like a bullfrog.

And so I have to ask you. Are you going to let me live my life, Martin?

He gets up and throws his arms around me, around my arms, confining me in a reckless hug.

I want to do more than that, he says. I want to give you a life. You’ve had too much wretchedness for one already. Let it go, man! We both ought to let it go. Don’t you think? We can help each other do this thing.

Is that what all this has been about?

Of course not. What am I, some kind of stealth therapist, some self-help guru in disguise? This is about business. This is a transaction . But sometimes in a transaction more than just money changes hands.

So you can buy happiness, after all. What a relief.

Don’t start on me with that liberal BS. Money isn’t happiness. Money is life , the energy circuit, the good and the bad. Turn the circuit in your direction and you get happiness. But it’s never just about accumulation, it’s about use. Use value. You feel me? The way things are going, I could probably retire in five years and play golf. Do I look like someone who wants to spend the rest of his life playing golf and avoiding capital gains?

See? You are a self-help guru. With a clientele of one.

Well, hopefully not just one, he says. Listen, is this enough? I’m worn out. Worn out and revivified , true. But I need some sleep. Bangkok’s in three days.

That’s not quite enough, I say. I need a commitment from you. No — more than that. I need an oath.

An oath?

This dies with us. Saying the words, I feel like a character in a Hitchcock movie, like the hapless tennis player in Strangers on a Train. This conversation never happened.

He grins at me. Yeah? Okay. Scoot over. He reaches down and rolls up his right pants leg, flap over flap, tighter and tighter, a tourniquet he pulls up over his knee. Right above his kneecap is a wavering of the skin, a ridge of scar tissue in the shape of a parenthesis.

Eight years old, he says. Corner of Lorraine and Barclay, right outside New Po Shun Carryout. The bullet hit the back of my leg and passed out here. Missed the knee by an inch. Otherwise I wouldn’t be walking. If it had nicked the femoral artery I’d have bled out before the ambulance arrived. As it was I spent a good ten minutes with my hands wrapped around the base of a pay phone before they picked me up. One ambulance, two paramedics. Policeman finally put me over his shoulder and drove me to the hospital himself. Black policeman. Weren’t so many in those days. Put my eyes against his neck. I fell asleep and dreamed my father was carrying me. My real father, not the one back at home. I dreamed up a black man to be my father, right then and there. Tall. Kept his hair in a close Afro. People called him Eight Ball. Wore two silver rings on his left hand, index and pinkie fingers. Smelled like baby powder and witch hazel. Always picking me up. Always putting his hand over the top of my head, like he was measuring my height. When I woke up in the hospital, when I woke up from that dream, I hated my life so much I wished I had died.

So what are you telling me, Martin?

I swear an oath to you, he says. Swear on this scar. Will you take my word? Jesus, I sound like Gandalf. But I mean it. Take my word?

—

Only later that night, at the blurring edge of sleep, as a police cruiser passes silently under my window, lights flashing, do I bolt up in bed and see what he has done. The double bind. I’m not his employee now. I’m his servant. His dependent. If it weren’t wrong, if it weren’t terribly, terribly wrong to say so, I might almost say that Martin Wilkinson owns me.

In Maryland, there is no statute of limitations for involuntary manslaughter. I learned this from Steve Cox, whose office, above an antiquarian map store in Harvard Square, had a sign that advertised All Legal Questions Answered $50 . He had a silver mustache, rimless glasses, and wore, in the middle of winter, a guayabera with a pocket protector. Every surface of his office was crowded with Mexican curios: dancing skeletons, carved santos, miniature sombreros. It doesn’t look great, he said, when I finished my tale of woe and he’d checked the state database on his computer. Maryland’s common law, and the definition of manslaughter is wide open. The prosecutor might get hung up on establishing cause. But I wouldn’t bet on it. You’d be looking at ten years in one of the state prisons down there — Jessup is the biggest. Not happy places. Good behavior, no previous record, you might get it down to three to five. Maybe even a suspended sentence, five years’ probation. But then you’re still a felon for life. Does anyone else know about this?

No.

You sure? You never got drunk and told some nice bartender, some girl you hooked up with in college? Ever taken acid? People tend to confess crimes when they’re on acid. Happens all the time, don’t ask me why.

Never. Never.

Well, okay, then. The best thing is to keep this tamped down for good. You married? She know?

No, I said. Not exactly. She’s from China, I added, as if it helped.

Don’t tell her. Think divorce. Think blackmail. Hate to put it this way, but that’s the situation you’re in. Give you another piece of advice? Quit drinking. Or at least take it one drink at a time. Don’t take drugs. Avoid anesthesia. Keep it straight and sober. Keep it till your deathbed. Either that or move to Costa Rica. I’ve got friends in real estate there. Set you up real nice for next to nothing.