took her to the fanciest restaurant we knew, the Captain’s 6
Table in Amagansett. I told her up front that I was going 7
home alone, and she proceeded to spend the rest of the 8
night being all sexy and seductive. Every move of her 9
shoulders set my heart to thrumming.
10
I kissed her for a long while at her door. But then I told 11
her that I had to get home, that I had an important meet-12
ing the next day. And that was no lie.
13
Every night I sat up late with my ancestors. Leonard, 14
the geeky-looking one, JoJo, the warrior, and Singer, the 15
mask with his lips set into an O. I named them and 16
thought about them. I had made up their characters and 17
histories, but they were real to me.
18
Singer was a priest. He knew songs all the way back to 19
the first songs. He was from the Congo, I believed, and 20
not related to Leonard, who dealt in slaves, or JoJo, who 21
protected Leonard even though he knew what his brother 22
did was wrong.
23
I talked with them in earnest for hours. JoJo’s voice told 24
me that death was nothing to fear. Leonard suggested that 25
I get the money while I still had the man locked away and 26
powerless.
27 S
Singer I did not understand. His placid face always 28 R
chanting. I learned the most from him.
I wasn’t crazy. It’s just that my world had disintegrated.
3rd Pass Pages
ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 233
The Man in My Basement
Or maybe it was that I never really had a life but hadn’t 1
known it, so I was blissful in my ignorance. Everything 2
began to fall apart when I started talking to Anniston Ben-3
net . . . No. Before Bennet and I started our talks on evil, 4
when I started cleaning out my cellar . . . Or maybe it went 5
all the way back to Uncle Brent or before him to when my 6
father died.
7
8
9
I put on a dark suit with a yellow shirt and a splashy red-10
and-blue tie to go see Bennet. His beard was filling in and 11
his dark eyes were intense. It took him a full five minutes 12
to get used to the light. He had lost weight, and from the 13
smell of the room, I thought he might have had an intes-14
tinal disorder.
