18
“Give me a couple of days.”
19
“Could that baby ask you that?”
20
Maybe I was crazy. I didn’t hate Bennet. I was his em-21
ployee. Somehow I felt that he was still calling the shots, 22
that he was making up his own mind to starve in darkness 23
four days more. He was tortured behind those black eyes, 24
under that scorched head. I was the tool of his penance.
25
He was a slaver of souls in the twentieth century. He 26
was a killer and a liar and a thief, but that didn’t matter to 27 S
me. From what he had said I understood that he was a 28 R
torturer of black people, but I believed him when he said that it wasn’t out of malice or even intent.
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ManInMyBasemnt_HCtext3P.qxd 10/24/03 8:16 PM Page 235
The Man in My Basement
My domination of him came from a personal conflict 1
we were having.
slaves. I was foolish enough to believe that I could take his 3
money and keep my freedom.
4
5
6
The next four days were spent pretty much as the last. I saw 7
a lady three out of four nights. The first day I went fishing 8
and didn’t catch a thing. The next day I saw Clarance and 9
Ricky together for the first time in months. I picked them 10
up in my car and treated them to drinks at the American 11
Hotel in Sag Harbor. We sat in the front room talking about 12
old times and drinking port. Clarance smoked a cigar.
13
“What’s goin’ on with you?” Clarance asked me in the 14
middle of our talk.
15
“What you mean?”
16
“I mean you never answer your phone and we don’t see 17
you. You don’t have a job, but you’re still in your house 18
and goin’ out buyin’ port. Somebody said that they saw 19
you at Curry’s in East Hampton. One guy saw you hitch-20
hiking down the road to Southampton.”
21
“I don’t know, Clarance,” I said. “Things are changing.
22
You know I haven’t done much with my life and I’d like 23
to change that if I could.”
24
