The Man in My Basement

5

“It was a nude, a foot high and nine inches wide. She 6

was peach colored and leaning over a blue chair. Picasso.

7

Just threw it in my suitcase while Embado’s daughter was 8

sleeping in my bed. She slept late that day, and I managed 9

to leave without waking her.”

10

I allowed the idea to seep in. It wasn’t the painting or 11

Brazil or a beautiful young woman coming to him for sex 12

in her own father’s home. It wasn’t any one of those things 13

but all of them together. Thinking about his access to 14

power and wealth, about his almost innocent lack of 15

morals, set off an empty feeling in my chest.

16

I looked into his blue eyes while I thought of how to 17

phrase my next question.

18

He saw what was going on in my eyes and said, “My 19

turn.”

20

I counted to myself and then nodded.

21

“Have you ever killed anybody?”

22

I wanted to get up and leave right then, to run away 23

from Bennet — and everything else. I thought that I 24

could free him and then I’d drive to New York. From 25

there I could make it down to Atlanta, change my name, 26

get a job unloading boxes.

27 S

But there was something about the peach-colored nude 28 R

and the naked woman in the bed — something about me 188

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The Man in My Basement

spending an entire lifetime up in my room reading comic 1

books and masturbating while there was a real world out-2

side that I was too scared to acknowledge. These things 3

held me. Bennet’s question was the deepest contact that I 4

had ever had with another human being.

5

Brent was dying. He was almost dead already. The hos-6

pice nurse came in every morning to see about him. She 7

changed his diapers and washed him. She fed him break-8

fast and then a volunteer would come later in the day to 9

feed him dinner. The meals were the same, just a can of 10

vitamin-enriched milk-shake–like stuff. Chocolate for 11

dinner and banana in the morning. The nurse said that I 12

should look in on him at night, but I never did — letting 13

him sleep, I said to myself.