WIDOW (13 page)

She had gone so far as thinking of wedding plans; she probably had two hundred and fifty people on a list at home. She might even have rolls of stamps ready to lick, and a dress picked out, and a wedding bouquet. He never should have let this thing slide until she believed it so much.

At home, after his shift that ended at eleven p.m., Pavlov met him at the door with a pillow in his teeth, grinning. Polyester clumps were stuck in his ears and covered the floor like snowfall. Mitchell dropped his keys on an end table. His wallet and badge joined them there. He hoisted his coat and gun holster off to the floor. Then he knelt, made Pavlov drop his prize, and hugged him around the neck while the dog slobbered kisses on his face.

“A man and his dog,” he whispered. “What do we need with women, anyway?”

Yet his words were hollow and his stomach did a flop act that not even Pavlov's unconditional love could cure.

 

Eleven

 

Son walked slowly around the perimeter of the front lawn looking for ant beds to poison. He hated red ants worse than anything—except maybe roaches. Once red ants took over a lawn, they owned it. They were nearly impossible to eradicate.

He stepped right into the crumbling center of a small bed, his shoe sinking, and ants surged over the worn Reebok, swarming up his sock. He stomped and brushed at them, but was bitten half a dozen times before saving himself. “Bastards!” he said. “Little sons of bitches!”

Rather than using the scoop provided with the ant poison, he took the round container and poured a pound of the contents directly onto the teeming pile. The ants were supposed to take the minute pellets into the nest and kill off the colony. To make sure, he picked up the shovel and dug into the bed's center, dumping even more of the poison inside.

Before moving on around the yard, looking for more of the beds, he stopped to rub the stings on his ankles and hands. He peered closely, saw the bites were already swelling redly. “Bastards,” he repeated.

It took him all of two hours, but Son managed to find every new bed in the front and back yard. When outside his mother's bedroom window, he saw her draw back the curtain and wave to him. He waved back, but a corresponding smile was too much to ask. When involved in a task he single-mindedly tackled it, and to request a convivial smile from him was too demanding.

He had been out here trying to rid the place of red ants not more than two weeks before. They were a plague, one that never disappeared no matter what poison he tried, or how diligent he was.

He put away the container of poison and the shovel in the metal garden shed. When heading for the back door, his neighbor called over the hurricane fence. “Get ‘em this time, Son?”

Son caught himself stiffly, hand on the door, and swiveled his head slowly toward the voice. He didn't like people calling him “Son.” No one had that right except his mother. Did the snoopy neighbors think he was their son, too? Assholes.

“I got most of them,” he said.

“They keep coming back like bad pennies, don't they? You know what, you kill ‘em over there and they move over here.” The neighbor waggled a bald pate and hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I kill them off, they move back over there. I don't think we're gonna win this war.”

Son thought he would, but what was the point in debating it? He pulled the door toward him, hoping to dismiss the neighbor.

“Hey, how's your book coming along?”

Son sighed, turned to look frostily at the man again. “It's fine. Great. In fact, that's what I've got to do now, go write something. Goodbye.”

Son might be the only person on the street who ended his conversations with such formality. No one ever said “goodbye.” The neighbors were always left smiling tentatively, hands raised in farewell to Son's retreating back. They thought this standoffish attitude just came with being a writer. Artistic temperament, they told one another. Those writers, they're eccentric, everyone knows that.

The truth was, Son simply didn't want to get involved. People, for the most part, got on his nerves. If he had to speak to them longer than five minutes, he started sneering at their provincial, bigoted, ignorant comments. The bulk of humanity had individual IQs that left much to be desired. They didn't understand politics, language, religion, current affairs, where they were headed or where they had originated. It was wasteful to spend time with them.

Inside the house, Son set up the ironing board and plugged in the iron. He checked on his mother to see if she wanted anything before beginning the next chore on his list. For three hours he dedicated himself to the pressing of sheets, pillowcases, his mother's gowns, and his own baggy, pleated pants and short-sleeved white shirts that he wore around the house.

It was Saturday, and every Saturday he tended the lawn, cleaned the house, and ironed the wash. He worked on his books during the weekdays, reserving weekends for the more difficult, time-consuming chores he had to ignore during the week. On Saturday nights he often visited Sherilee.

At a quarter to eight, after his bath, clothes change, and the preparation of his mother's dinner tray, he stood in the door of his mother's room. “I'll be back before midnight,” he said. “If you need anything, you've got that number to call me.”

“I'll be all right, Son. Enjoy yourself, you hear?”

She thought he visited a married couple he had met while in college. She thought he played pinochle with them and that his partner was Sherilee. She thought his social life was rather restricted and that he should date nice young women, but she hadn't brought that subject up in years.

What she didn't know didn't hurt her.

Sherilee lived four miles from Son's home. He drove there and parked along the street. He hitched his pants as he crossed the curb. This was the one part of his scheduled and patterned life that he most enjoyed. He had read a book or seen a movie where a man very much like himself, a man with an ailing mother, and a strict routine to his life, took up visiting a woman no one knew about. Son loved to copy things that made good sound sense to him.

Sherilee was turning into an old, and not-very-much-requested hooker, having to take her trade from the street. But when Son first began going to her, she had been young, supple, and eager to please him. She did what was asked. She didn't question or show any disgust. Despite her age now, Son was not put off. He too was aging, his hairline receding, his jowls sagging a little more each year, the spare tire around his belly going as soft and cushiony as a feather mattress. He and Sherilee suited one another. He'd never start over with a young prostitute, one he'd have to teach the ropes. It was Sherilee all the way. They were like an old married couple. He might be a traveling-salesman husband, she his devoted and willing wife.

Except that he paid her. And he never spent the entire night in her bed.

She met him at the door of the deteriorating house she had bought with savings ten years before, when it looked quite a lot better—just as the two of them had—and stood aside as he strode into the dim entrance hall. She wore a thick quilted pink bathrobe that looked snagged all over the fabric, some of the quilting coming loose, threads hanging. She was freshly bathed—he could smell the Irish Spring soap she used—and her hair, just now showing silver at the crown, hung damply around her shoulders.

She was black. Not brown or cream or mocha, not high yellow, either. She was black as a midnight with no moon or stars, her skin reminiscent of those crude African carvings that were all the rage in the Sixties. Her forehead was wide and shiny, her eyes like black olives. She had full, purple-gray lips that sat in a pout on her face unless he asked her to smile. She never smiled on her own. She had said once, “What's to smile about? I got this life and it ain't got a happy goddamn smile in it.”

Son led the way down the hallway to the door that opened into her bedroom. He didn't relax until she had entered behind him and closed the door. There were no other inhabitants in the house, but he didn't like the door standing open, it made him feel vulnerable, as if someone might be spying. He checked the windows, saw the curtains were closed tightly, the shades drawn behind the curtains' sheer length.

He turned to her clothes closet, a walk-in one with mirrored sliding doors. He slid one side back and stepped inside the huge space. She already had the overhead light on for him in there. For the shape of the house and the smallness of her bedroom, the closet was out of proportion and well-built. A client had built it for her, taking over a bath and a portion of the hall to enlarge it to her specifications. It was twelve feet wide and twenty deep. Along each side of the closet hung her costumes. On the floor were arranged a multitude of shoes, from black patent-leather Baby Janes with straps, to white satin spike heels. Above the clothes ran a shelf down each side, and on these twin shelves were her hats, wigs, rolled belts that reminded Son of coiled snakes, corsages, veils, and other accessories that fit with her various costumes.

It smelled different in here compared to the bedroom and the rest of Sherilee's house. It smelled of cedar and lace, of leather and brass. An orange pomander hung from a ribbon in the center of the closet giving off hints of cinnamon and clove. The closet was a veritable potpourri of scent.

Son went to the back left of the hanging clothes and found first the dress. It was long, mid-calf, and flowered in an old blue and maroon print you did not see in fashion today. It had a long waist and a high collar of delicate lace. The bosom was pleated and would balloon over Sherilee's large, full breasts. It came with a fabric belt of the same print as the dress. He took it down from the hanger and laid it carefully over his arm.

He searched among the pairs of shoes for a match. “There,” she pointed out, coming to him. “Those will work.”

She was right. They were black and high-topped, button shoes with a small heel favored in the early part of the century. He lifted them and set them into her waiting hands.

“Wig?” she asked, raising one plucked eyebrow.

“Yes.” He reached overhead to the shelf for a gray wig cap of curls.

He sat on the side of the bed, hands folded, while she dressed for him.

She completed the picture by donning the wig, tucking her still damp hair beneath. She pointed to her dressing table where there were myriad cosmetics.

He shook his head no.

She took on an imperial attitude, moving around the room fussing with bottles and jars on the dressing table, closing the closet door, her black old-fashioned shoes tap-tapping every step she made. She completely ignored Son.

“Tell me what to do,” he said finally, tiring of watching how she moved, though she did it as well as any actress who knew her craft, stiffly, like a woman fighting with arthritis.

“Get up and make that bed.” She was in character, her eyes flinty and unyielding. Her hands rode her hips just beneath the belt.

“Don't spare me anything,” he instructed, standing to do as she ordered. “If I don't do it right . . .”

“You will do it right, my man. You will do it right, or I will strip your hide to the bone, do you hear me? Answer if you hear me, none of that mumbling and lollygagging the way you always do.”

“I hear you.” He had his back to her, trying to straighten the sheet. His tone had softened considerably. She was in charge now. He was free of responsibility; he need not do anything except what she told him to do. But he understood he must do it with infinite care and always be courteous.

“That's not how you make the spread lay. Take it off and do it again. Tuck it beneath the pillows. No! Fluff those pillows first, you stupid idiot!”

He peeled the plain white comforter from the bed and fluffed the pillows. He tucked the spread under them.

“That's better. That's much better.”

He turned, head down in submission. “What are you waiting for?” she asked and his head snapped up. “Go to the kitchen and bring the tea things.”

He hustled to the closed door and let himself out. In Sherilee's kitchen he almost lost the illusion. There were roaches here that scuttled across the dirty counter and the tea bags were crumpled in their box where she'd accidentally set a five-pound bag of sugar on top of the container.

He heard her calling imperiously from the middle of the house as the teapot heated. “If you don't hurry, I won't be responsible for my actions. Son? Do you hear me or are you deaf?” Sherilee was allowed to call him Son. In her house, that's who he was.

He answered her and hurriedly poured the water over two tea bags in the chipped china teapot. He arranged it all on a Hanna-Barbera-cartoon tray —the cups, the saucers, the sugar, the cream, the spoons—and he moved like a butler to her door again. “It's done,” he reported, elbowing open the door, stomaching the tray before him.

She was at the side of the door, peering down her strong, wide nose at him. She stood a good three inches taller than he and used that superior height during these scenes where she must dominate. “Is it hot?” she asked. “I didn't hear the kettle whistling. Did you even heat the water?”

He ducked his head as he set the tray on the bedside table. “I think it's all right.”

She sniffed and arched her neck just a few centimeters. “I'll trust you this one time.”

He poured their tea and they drank, Sherilee standing over him, sipping delicately from the cup. When the teapot was empty, she ordered him to take it back to the kitchen.

When he returned to the bedroom he knew what he would find. She was out of the dress, the shoes kicked off her bare feet, and she lay naked, pinned, legs spread, in the center of the made bed.

His lust was overpowering. She had done her part so well, excelled, actually. His erection throbbed and jittered as he flung off his clothes and jumped on top of the compliant woman. She was purple in more places than her lips, and he settled there, suckling her. She did not move or moan or show any response. If she did it ruined it for him. No matter what he did, how he tried exciting her, she lay wooden, her face a weathered black stone. When he couldn't withhold orgasm any longer, he straddled her body and rode her mercilessly, the covers bunching, the pillows falling to the floor, the headboard of the old wooden bed knocking crazily against the wall.