Today I went on what can only be called a scavenger hunt. I had to start early so I could reach places before they closed, but I made it. I purchased one black candle, some dark blue wool and matching thread, a needle, ten yards of blue yarn, one yard of white. Then I found an all-night grocery store and picked up some fresh basil.
So much for the purchases. The other stuff was harder, it still being winter, but I took a shaving from the stem of a wild rose, and bits of some mountain ash and even a few nettles, although it took me nearly all night and I came back cold and irritated.
When I returned, Jim said, “What’s in the bag?”
“I’m going to sacrifice a child,” I snapped. “Gotta problem with that?”
He looked troubled until he realized that I was jesting, which hurt my feelings a little.
For all that it has taken me, maybe ten minutes to write this down, getting it done was very lengthy and irritating. But at least I’m done, and as ready as I’m likely to be.
The moon will be new in five days.
Winter is holding on with great determination this year, which annoys me even though I know what is causing it. In New York, spring is meaningless as far as I’m concerned, and in many places I have been it never actually seems to happen, but Ohio, I’m told, usually has one, and this year we are being cheated out of it. It snowed again today, then the snow turned to rain which froze on the sidewalks after making a halfhearted effort at melting some of the snow it had just deposited on us. It had stopped raining by the time I arrived at Susan’s door. The smells of spring, which are how I identify the condition, have not yet occurred, and for all I can tell will not at all this year.
We walked to the Tunnel and strolled along the Ave; one of a number of couples fighting the weather, hand in hand or arms about each other. Susan had her black-gloved hands on my arm; I had eschewed my ugly coat entirely, but wore a thick gray sweater. There is something about this particular pose-her hands on my arm-that makes me feel tall, proud, masculine, and extraordinarily tender.
I felt oddly akin to the other couples on the street, as if we were all part of an elite-the young and in love, to coin a hackneyed phrase. Most of us, I think, knew that somewhere along the line most of us would join the young and miserable, followed by the young and resigned, followed by the middle-aged and bored; but ought that to diminish the pleasure of the moment? Au contraire, if I may.
I said, “How is Jill?”
“She seems to be doing very well. She was up all day today, and didn’t seem nearly so pale. In fact, she went out a couple of hours ago.”
“Good. I will speak to her.”
“You might want to wait a day or two.”
“Perhaps. How did things go with Jennifer?”
“What a bitch.”
I chuckled. “Is that all there is to say about it?”
“Pretty much.”
I shrugged. “If you were to suddenly leave me for someone else, I’d be a bitch too.” What is it that makes us want to defend our late rival? I suppose the fear that we may be in need of such defense sooner than we would like.
Susan, however, brushed off my comment and said, “Would you start listing all the things you’d done for me, as if I’m supposed to stay with you out of gratitude?”
I shook my head. “No, I’d simply find the other person and dismember him, or her.”
She laughed, thinking I was joking. Or maybe not.
A couple of birds were complaining about the weather. The rats played in the sewers, the cars played on the streets. I turned my head away when patrol cars went by, which they rarely did on the Ave.
She squeezed my arm and remarked, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”
“About dismemberment?”
She laughed. “About maybe coming along when and if you leave.”
“Oh.” One of the amazing things about Susan is her ability to talk about the most serious things without losing the laughter in her voice. I said, “What about it?”
She was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I know so little about you.”
“You know that I love you; that’s a start.”
“Now,” she said, “you’re being trite.”
I sighed. “I suppose I am. What do you want to know?”
“Well, what do you do for a living?”
“Many things. I play cards, for one.”
“Gamble?”
Deja vu. “No gamble,” I said, and smiled.
She laughed. “What else do you do?”
“Pretty young girls.”
She laughed again. I love her laugh. It somehow manages to be simultaneously contrived and natural. She said, “All right, then where do you live?”
“With a friend, a few miles from here.”
“What’s it like?”
“Do you wish to see it?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
She shrugged. “There’s no hurry.”
“All right. Tomorrow, then.”
“That would be splendid.”
“What else do you want to know?”
“Everything about you. Where were you born?”
“Far away across the sundering sea. I was educated in London, though, and that probably has more of an effect on me than my birthplace.”
“You seem to have lost most of the accent, although I like what’s left.”
“Thank you. What else do you want to know?”
“My, we are in an expansive mood today, aren’t we?”
“Anything your heart desires, my love; today it shall be yours.”
“Well, in that case.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s go back to my house.”
And we did.
F.D.S.N.
The deed is done, the bird has flown.
Or something like that.
And I had never suspected what sort of bird it was; I’m not certain I know now, only-
But let me tell it as it happened.
I awoke, and decided that it was time to finish things with Jill. I admit I thought seriously of killing her, but it was too likely to cause complications, and it was really only a matter of convenience and saving myself some annoyance, which made it a poor risk.
I brought her to mind, and was startled at once; I recognized where she was and what she was doing.
Well, one place was as good as another. It took me half an hour to walk there, and that was because I strolled; keeping an eye out for the police, but also because of the weather, which had become colder, and kept the sidewalks treacherous. The stars were out, blazing, and the moon had not yet risen, nor would it until nearly dawn.
I’m certain that Jill did not hear me approach her, yet when I got there she was sitting on a tall stool, waiting for me. She wore a dark blue smock over whatever else she had on. The blue was, in fact, only theoretical; the smock was covered with paint splatters and would probably have been stylish, somewhere. There was another stool, a few feet from hers, so I sat on it, and looked at the easel.
