“Mr. Bennet? This is Charles Blakey from out in the 21
Harbor. I guess I’d like to talk to you about what it is you 22
want exactly. I mean, maybe uh, maybe we can come to 23
some kind of arrangement. I don’t know. My number 24
is . . .” Leaving information on an answering machine al-25
ways seems useless to me. Most of the messages I’ve left 26
have gone unanswered. I didn’t have much hope that any-27 S
thing would work out. Anyway it was early May and all I 28 R
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The Man in My Basement
had was a pocketful of change. A summer rental wasn’t 1
going to do much for me right then.
2
So I called my aunt Peaches. That was her real name.
3
Her mother was Clementine and her father was actually 4
named Apollodorus. My father used to say, when we were 5
going to Clemmie’s for Thanksgiving dinner, “Well let’s 6
go over and visit the mouthful.”
7
“Hi, Aunt Peaches. It’s me — Charles.”
8
“Yes, Charles?” She wasn’t sounding generous.
9
“How’s your family?”
10
“Everybody’s fine.”
11
“That’s good,” I said and then waited for her to ask af-12
ter my health.
13
She did not.
14
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you, Peaches.”
15
“Has it?”
16
She knew full well that it had been more than three 17
years since I had been by, and I was only allowed in then 18
because her husband was at work. We didn’t live more 19
than two miles apart, but the only time I ever saw her was 20
if we happened to bump into each other in town. That 21
was because of her husband, Floyd. Floyd Richardson was 22
a lawyer who practiced in Long Island City. When I 23
dropped out of college, he hired me —
25
Well, I was only twenty-one and not really ready to 26
work that hard. I didn’t like the law or research. I wanted S 27
