The Illusionist (22 page)

He disgusted me. I knew what he had done. He was the same as a killer almost. And I kept away from him. Brian was sickness and evil walking among us.

But most people seemed to tolerate Brian. They figured Dean had asked for it, taunting people with his disguise. Dean had
challenged everyone, held himself up as a target. He had fucked with Brian. They figured Dean must have wanted it somehow. He was a weirdo, a freak, not subject to ordinary protections.

Meanwhile, Dean had completely disappeared this time. No one had seen him in days. And I knew, watching Brian and Jimmy, that they were uneasy about his absence, and perpetually on the lookout for him.

Tuesday, drove to work again. Had my secret life now. My own world—Dean, the husband, our child, the daily routine. Work. Return. Get food on the table, my body alert, tense under his gaze, his little smile, waiting only for Bobby to go to bed, knowing he knew that I was just waiting. Then, when Bobby was in bed, making love. Making love over and over again, our own world of the night.

And each time we made love, it was like entering a new room, a different place. A door would open and then close behind us; and beyond that, there was another passageway and then another door opening and another.

Money was a problem. Car insurance plus the car needed new tires. Mr. Schmidt, who sold it to me, had been totally honest about that. You gotta get new tires before the snow, he said. And now, I was buying food for Dean too. “I don't want you to support me,” Dean said. “I feel bad I don't have anything. But I can't look for a job now.” When this blew over, he'd get a job. I knew he really meant it. He had only stolen my money because he was desperate.

But then, why hadn't he
asked
me for money? I would've given it to him. I would've given him the world.

Fact is, I had to let him have his head. It was inevitable he'd come back, because he couldn't have what he had with me with anyone else in the world. No way. I believed him truly when he
said he never fucked Melanie Saluggio. With me it was different. With me he dared to show part of himself he'd never shown anyone before. I thought, just wait, he will be mine for good.

*  *  *

That night, after Bobby is in bed, we smoke some dope. Then, he gets me ready, torturing me with his tongue and his hard little fingertips pinching my nipples, and working the little knob between my legs, so hard it almost hurts and we are just on this side of his really hurting and I almost can't stand it anymore. “Please,” I say, “please,” my voice caught in the back of my throat, and I'm ashamed, but need overcomes my shame. “Please,” I say, wanting him to stop, to continue, to go on, and I hear a little chuckle come from the back of his throat. Suddenly he stops. The air grows cool and still around us. He's propped above me, leans over me on his fists. I can sense his smile in the dark.

“Y'know,” he says, “I didn't know you had it in you!” And then, “Hah!” he throws his head back, gives a laugh, and he plunges down again between my legs, where it is wet like the ocean, and water is flowing from me and it's like he's swimming underwater and he could drown there, both our bodies wet.

Afterward, I lie there with my cheek against his back. “When I first saw you,” he says. “You reminded me of like—a teacher or something. You seemed . . . older than you are. I didn't know you had it in you!” And he laughs. “You know, when I saw you, I liked the way you looked, but I didn't know you were beautiful.”

His words hurt me. “What do you mean?” I say. “You didn't think I was beautiful?”

“You had those thick glasses. Didn't do anything to your hair . . . It was all straight and everything.”

Same old thing. I am not beautiful. And I know it. My nose is too big. Always red in the cold. Even in summer, it's red.

“But now I know,” he says. “Now I know. And it's my secret.” He turns, smiles his cocky smile. “You are beautiful. But it's private, for me only. . . .”

Then suddenly he lunges at me—“
Look
at those tits!” He cups both my breasts in his hands, pushing them up so they are almost under my chin. “Look at those big titties!” He's practically hissing. “
Mine!
All mine! Everyone thinks you're a prude. But
I
know. I know, don't I?”

And down he goes again, my deep-sea diver, swimming, swimming, swimming. . . . “Didn't know you were beautiful till you met me,” he says from down between my legs, “did you?”

“Nuunh . . .” I can hardly talk.

His face buried in my bush. “I think of you, Miss Prim and Proper, they're all scared of you, Chrissie and B.J. You tell them what to do. . . . If they only knew what you're
really
like!” And he's at me like he's starving or something, a starving person, and I'm laughing because I've never known anyone so outrageous, so
ba-a-ad!

“Let me do it to you,” I whisper, with my last breath. “You deserve it. I don't want to be the only one. . . .”

“No,” he says. And then he stops suddenly, and pulls his legs together.

*  *  *

Getting up in the middle of the night, I walk to the bathroom, switch on the light. I look at myself in the mirror on the medicine chest, and I realize, I
am
beautiful, even in this sleepworn state. My skin is creamy and smooth like a girl's. I never wear makeup because it makes my skin feel all stiff, like soap is left on it, and lipstick makes my lips chapped. But now Dean makes me feel that I don't need makeup anyhow.

Standing in front of the bathroom mirror, I remove my glasses—hate those fishy-eyed things, always make those deep red ridges on the sides of my nose. It's the glasses that end it once and for all, I think, end any chance of my ever being pretty. But my eyes were too bad for contacts, I'd be blind without my glasses.

I lean in closer to the bathroom mirror, I can see that my eyes are luminous from fucking, and my hair, my no-color brown,
sort-of-slate-gray hair—though not gray in the sense that the color has gone from it with age—is clean and shiny and polished-looking now. My breasts high and full, my waist curved—when he touches it, it's like an electric shock. There is another kind of beauty, I think. Men like my kind of looks too. He is the only one who has ever made me feel beautiful and now I can look at myself in any light, and it is true I am beautiful.

Later, on my way back to the room, I glance in at Bobby asleep in his room. In the faint glow from the night light I can see the outline of his form. He sleeps on his back, arms thrown wide, legs apart, head to the side, mouth open. I step into the room, bend down over him. He's sweating, his cheeks are red, strands of dark hair stuck to the sweet white skin of his forehead. It's too hot in here, even in winter sometimes with the woodstove. Those sleepers are really hot and I unzip the top a few inches, pull the comforter down to give him some air.

In my bedroom, Dean sleeps on his side, his back to me. He always sleeps that way, in his own private world. So warm in here, I can smell the night smells, the odor of warm hair, of sweat from lovemaking, the fishy, salty smell of sex.

Dean mutters something, then flips over suddenly on his back. I lean down, my ear close to his mouth, trying to catch his words. His lips are moving. . . . I hear a grinding sound coming from the back of his throat, a sound like a whimpering, a sound meant to be words, but not words.

I whisper, “Wake up, honey. You're dreaming. Wake up.”

And his eyes suddenly open wide. He jerks up in bed, stares straight ahead, unseeing. He's still in his dream. He turns his face in my direction, seems to focus on me a second, then lies back down again. “Jesus,” he mutters. “Jesus . . .”

*  *  *

Next morning at the Nightingale Home, I'm counting out meds at the nurse's station when I see Chrissie coming toward me, pushing her chart wagon.

“You're lookin' good these days, Terry.” Chrissie speaks fearfully, respectfully. I'm her boss. “Like you're gettin' rest.”

“Thank you, Chrissie.” Have to keep aloof from her.

I can tell she wants to say something more, but is afraid. I hear her take a breath. “You seen Dean around, Terry?” she asks. Fake nonchalance, like she's scared to bring up the subject.

“Haven't seen him. Anyone else seen him? How
is
he?”

She hesitates. Like she knows the truth. “You heard about what happened?”

“No, what happened?”

“You didn't read the paper?”

“Nope,” I lie. I keep my eyes on my rows of tiny paper cups. “Two ampicillin, Mr. Ford . . . septra, Mrs. Alderfer . . .”

“Dean said Brian and Jimmy attacked him. They raped him or something. It was in the paper. They didn't use Dean's name. But it was him. You didn't see?”

I look up from my counting. “That's terrible,” I say, as if hearing about the death of a stranger. “I'm really sorry. That's terrible.” Pretending shock that I actually do feel.

Chrissie is staring at me. She knows I'm lying about not hearing, but she's afraid to challenge me. My reaction is too calm to be true.

“I wish Dean well,” I say. “But he's not really part of my life now.”

“They took Brian and Jimmy in for questioning and then they let them go because Dean was a known liar,” Chrissie says. “The cops already had him on that check-cashing charge from you, so they figured he was an unreliable witness.

“Now the Rape Crisis people are pressuring the cops. They say just because he's gay doesn't mean he can't get raped . . .”

I don't look at her, but I feel her dark eyes scrutinizing me. “Guess that's right,” I tell her.

*  *  *

That evening, arriving home, I find him on the floor, stretched out against the couch, watching Bobby. He's smoking—wish he
wouldn't do that, because of Bobby's asthma. But I can't tell him not to.

“How'd it go today?” I ask.

“He's a good boy,” he says.

“Did he cough?”

“Not once.” Bobby is pushing his yellow plastic truck along the floor, making engine noises, “Thrum . . . thrummm . . .”

“I got a piece of steak to broil for tonight. And wine, Folinari, to wash it down.” Every night a celebration.

“Good,” he says. “We went out in back.”

“You didn't drive anywhere?”

“Didn't want to take the truck out and be seen.”

I remove my coat, hang it on the hook, turn on the oven to broil. “Chrissie came up to me at work today. Asked if you was with me.”

He looks up. “Does Brian know where you live?”

“How could he? Unless Chrissie says something . . . and I told her I hadn't seen you.”

“He said he'd kill me.”

“He's not gonna do anything. They'd know it was him right away.”

“I shouldn't have told the cops.”

Something in him enjoyed this drama, I thought. “You're being melodramatic,” I said. “This is real life.”

“Real life is they fuckin' attacked me! They ripped me apart.”

Bobby had stopped playing, holding the yellow truck in midair. How much did he understand? He shouldn't hear this.

I walked over to Dean and touched his arm. “I know, baby,” I said. But inside myself, I still didn't know what he meant, what had actually happened. People sometimes said they were sexually attacked and it wasn't true, just said it because they were mad. The feminists created that. There was something in Dean, I thought, that was drawn to Brian and Jimmy, drawn to trouble like a bee to nectar. He wanted them to notice him.

“Poor baby,” I said softly. “I love you. Ain't nothin' gonna happen to you. If they come near you, the cops'll know it's them. Just lay low awhile. They'll get themselves in trouble sooner or later.”

I started dinner, unwrapped the meat. I'd bought it on sale. It was grayish, larded with fat, and now I lathered it with steak sauce.

“I don' want Dean to go to jail,” Bobby said suddenly, worry on his face. “Is Dean going to jail, Mommy?”

“Dean's not going to jail, honey,” I told him.

I studied Dean. What part did I love about him best—that groove on the back of his neck, where the hair was all soft and fuzzy? Tonight I would like to run my tongue down that groove, feel the fur on my tongue. Only with your tongue can you really feel, more than with your fingertips.

Today his hair is shiny again—you can see streaks of sun at the ends, golden strands in the brown, then it gets darker at the roots, almost chestnut in color. His hair is so soft. I see the beautiful white teeth between his lips, the long lashes that curl . . .

His fingertips go to his cheek, to the wound underneath his eyes, and he scratches at it, tentatively. “Fuckin' thing itches like hell.”

“You're supposed to go back and get them taken out.”

“I'm not going back there! You kidding?”

I scrutinize the ugly black strands. There are puncture marks in the skin from the needle.

“The nurse at work says when it starts to itch, that means it's healing.”

“I know how to take them out,” I tell him.

*  *  *

So, after supper, I sit him down in a chair underneath the floor lamp. I pour rubbing alcohol on a piece of kleenex, wipe the nail scissors and tweezers, lay them out side by side on another tissue as if I'm going to perform surgery.

I dab at his cheek with the alcohol. He gets up from the chair and starts hopping around the room. “Shit!” he shouts. “That burns! It burns!”

“You gotta disinfect it,” I say. “Sit down.”

He obeys and sits down again, I peer at the cheek, snip at the black strands, pulling them out one by one with the tweezers. “Owowowow . . .” he cries, jerking his cheek away from my hands. “Fuckin' owwwww!”