I Am the Cheese

  Adam looked down at a five-column headline that preceded a long news story. He didn’t have to read the story. The headline told him all he needed to know:

  BLOUNT REPORTER, WIFE, CHILD

  KILLED IN CRASH ON HIGHWAY

  A: I sat there looking at the clipping and thought, I’m dead. I’ve already died.

  T: Was it a shocking thought?

  A: I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore. I think I was numb. The way I’m numb now.

  T: Do you wish to suspend? It has been a grueling time for you. Important but grueling. A real breakthrough. But I think you should rest now. We can seek more details later.

  A: Yes.

  T: Let us suspend, then.

  END TAPE OZK012

  I emerge from the drugstore and walk to the parking meter and my bike is gone. The five o’clock crowd passes by on the sidewalk, hurrying home from the office or the factory, feet scurrying over the pavement. A bus halts with a hissing noise and its doorway exhales people. Traffic lights flash on and off and car horns sound. And I stand there isolated by myself on a small invisible island, and I look at the spot where my bike was. I shouldn’t have left it there unguarded. I have my father’s package in my hand and I hold it tightly, pressing it against my body, afraid that someone will rush by me and tear it from my grasp. I feel vulnerable, a headache beginning, a migraine maybe, a small spot of pain like a tumor throbbing in my forehead, above my eye. I touch the spot with my hand as if the pain is visible, touchable by my fingers. But mostly I stare dumbfounded at the spot where my bike was.

  I look around to see if someone has played a trick on me, a prank, has hidden the bike somewhere nearby. The mouth of an alley looms between two stores and I glance into the alley. Nothing but a few newspapers rolling in the wind, a rubbish barrel and a cat with arched back poised next to the barrel. The cat hisses and I turn away, glancing up and down the sidewalk. I encounter only strangers and no bike.

  But the alley draws me again. If I had taken a bike, I’d have gotten out of there fast and the most likely route was the alley, a quick getaway, instead of the open exposure of the street where someone could yell “Stop, thief!”

  I return to the alley. It’s narrow, barely room for a boy and a bike to pass through, but I enter anyway, running through the narrow passage, my shoulders brushing the rough brick exterior. The alley is so narrow that claustrophobia threatens me again and my palms turn wet with perspiration while drops of sweat gather in my armpits. I plunge onward, through the alley, bursting finally out of it, and find myself in a deserted area behind the Main Street buildings. Rubbish barrels; a derelict car, without wheels, sunk in the ground; boarded-up windows. Dusk hides whatever is in corners.

  “Lose something, honey?”

  I whirl around, surprised at the voice because there’s no one or nothing there.

  “Up here,” the voice says, a faint southern accent softening the words.

  He’s standing on the fire-escape landing, above me on the second floor. Squinting, I see that he is huge, a mountainous man, with a white shirt open at the chest although it’s cold in the New England dusk. As my eyes become accustomed to the twilight, I see that his face is moist, his plump cheeks wet, his forehead soaked. He has a handkerchief and he dabs ineffectually at his forehead. He leans against the iron railing of the fire escape and the railing creaks in protest. Instinctively, I back away a step or two, afraid that the entire structure will collapse, come crashing down. Did he call me “honey”?

  “Somebody stole my bike,” I say. “I left it in front of a store only for a minute or two and when I came out it was gone.”

  “That’s right, honey, they’ll steal anything these days. There used to be a saying, ‘They’ll steal anything that’s not tied down,’ but these days they’ll steal anything, even if it is tied down.” The more he talks, the more pronounced his accent becomes.

  I wonder if he can see my frown of distaste as I look at his monstrous body, all that sweat on a cold evening, and the way his lips pronounce the word honey. He repels me but I’m sure he knows something about the bike. Why did he ask whether I’d lost something when he saw me standing there?

  “Did you see anybody come running through here with a bike?” I ask.

  “You stay in one place long enough, you see a lot of things,” he says, his tone taunting now, as if he wants to play a game. “Know what’s hard? Being this way, stuck in a cage this way, and having to wait for everything to come to you, not being able to go after anything. See what I mean?”

  I see what he means. The iron railings and banisters and rungs of the fire escape are cagelike and he is a prisoner in his weight and his bulk.

  “You live up there?” I ask, not wanting to play games but not wanting to arouse his anger. He wouldn’t tell me anything if I turned him off too fast.

  “In an apartment here. Four rooms. I look out the front windows at Main Street and I stand here on the fire escape and look at the back alleys.” He gestures behind him, at a wide door, the kind of door through which deliveries are made. “At least, the place has a good-enough door. So I sit and wait and look, or I stand and wait and look, and sooner or later, I see something.”

  “I hope you saw my bike,” I say, “and whoever took it.”

  “Folks lose things, they sometimes put an ad in the paper. You know, saying: ‘Lost, one bike, Main Street of Hookset. Reward.’ Reward, honey! That’s the key. You get something, you got to give a reward.” His voice drips with a heavy southern accent now and he pronounces reward as ree-ward. But there’s more than a southern accent in his voice, something else lingers there but I don’t want to recognize it.

  “I’ll give a reward,” I say, almost imitating his accent. “I’ve got twenty-five dollars to give as a reward.”

  “There’s all kinds of ree-wards, honey,” he says. “There’s ree-wards and ree-wards.” And now, in the dusk, he begins to scratch at himself, scratching his chest where his shirt is open and where curly hair glistens. He scratches with both hands, descending to his stomach. “All kinds …,” he says, his voice lingering in the twilight.

  I am conscious again of the migraine, the throb in my forehead. A wave of nausea crests in my stomach and I taste acid and bile.

  “All I want is my bike,” I say, my lips trembling, and I’m sad and angry at the same time because I feel like a small boy again, still the coward I always was. There’s a whimper in my voice and I hate myself for the whimper and I hate the fat man up there on the fire escape for reducing me to this state. I also hate whoever took my bike and now I throb with more than a migraine’s pain but with hate and anger. I stand helpless before him, shaking and trembling in the chill of evening, and I feel tears of helplessness and rage cold on my cheeks. His huge figure wavers in the wetness of my tears, as if he is somehow underwater.

  “Aw, tell him who’s got his bike,” another voice intrudes, a sharp voice with the flint of New England in the words.

  I wipe the tears away.

  The fat man sighs a huge sigh that’s like a wind able to topple trees.

  “Go ahead, tell him.” The voice comes from inside the apartment, behind the fat man.

  The huge folds of flesh form a pout on the man’s face. “Never can do what I want,” he says, himself a little boy now.

  “Tell him, Arthur,” the voice says.

  “The Varney boy—Junior—he took your bike,” the man says. “Come through the alley there ’bout fifteen minutes ago. He’s always stealing something, someday they’re going to put him away.”

  “Where does he live?” I ask, sniffing, wondering how he can stand the cold.

  “Upper Main Street next to the First Baptist Church. That’s a joke—Junior Varney, biggest thief in town, living next to a Baptist church.”

  “You come in, Arthur, it’s getting cold out there,” the voice of the unseen man calls from inside, gently now, tenderly.

  The big man looks down at me with a sadness in his ey
es. Mournfully, he says, “I never get to do nothing.”

  “Thanks,” I yell up, not at the big man but at whoever’s inside. For some reason, I look at the massive man and find myself saying, “I’m sorry.” I’m still sick to my stomach and my head throbs and I dread the prospect of tracking down Junior Varney and I am still repelled at the lewdness of the big man but he really looks caged as he turns slowly away on the fire escape, so I say, “I’m sorry,” again, and then I get the hell out of there.

  TAPE OZK013 0800 date deleted T-A

  T: You are looking well this morning.

  A: Thank you.

  T: You are alert.

  A: I feel alert.

  T: We are making excellent progress, are we not?

  A: A lot of things are clearer now. Not everything. But enough. They give me the chills sometimes but the chills are better than the blanks.

  T: Good. I mentioned the necessity of specific details.

  A: You’re always talking about specifics—what kind of specifics?

  T: I mean specific details as opposed to general information.

  A: You mean, details of our lives in Monument and how we came to be there?

  T: Yes, that, of course. Also, the whys of your presence in Monument.

  A: But I’ve told you that. My father gave testimony. And this placed him in danger.

  T: Did he ever tell you about his testimony, its nature?

  A: No. There wasn’t time.

  T: What do you mean—there wasn’t time?

  (9-second interval.)

  A: I don’t know. I’m not sure.

  T: You appear troubled. You are frowning. Is anything the matter?

  Like a cloud, hanging in the distance, in his mind, something dark lurking there. And the edge of panic again, a shiver in his bones, deep in his marrow …

  T: Perhaps this line of questioning is disturbing you. Why not let the thoughts flow freely?

  A: All right. It’s just that, for a minute there, I felt the blankness again. There are still blanks, you know.

  T: And we shall fill those blanks eventually. Think of how far we have come to this point.

  A: Do we still have a long way to go?

  T: That depends.

  A: You mean, it depends on me?

  T: To a certain extent, yes. And on these sessions. And the medicine. Tell me, did you grow close to your father after you had discovered the truth of the situation?

  A: Yes. We spent a lot of time together. He kept apologizing for the predicament he had placed me in, had placed my mother in, too. But I was proud of him, really. I mean, he had done what he believed to be right. He had given up his career …

  He remembered asking his father, tentatively, afraid that he was invading his privacy, how much it had hurt him to start life over, to give up his old life, his career, his friends. Adam thought how terrible it would be if he had to leave Monument now, to give up Amy and start again in a new town, a new section of the country.

  “Of course it hurt, Adam,” his father said. “But it hurt your mother most of all. I didn’t mind leaving Blount—I had always figured that my career lay elsewhere. I had those dreams a young guy has, dreams of going to distant places, fame, all that stuff. But your mother loved Blount, the people especially. The hardest thing for me—and I still miss it—was giving up newspaper work. I still hope that the situation will change and I’ll be able to get back in the business someday. Grey figured it was too risky for me to continue in the same profession. Insurance didn’t appeal to me. But the Department always keeps its eyes out for legitimate businesses they can buy or take over that one of their witnesses can operate. The insurance agency was available for me at the time. We had to build a new life, Adam. It was hard, naturally. But when you think of the alternative, we were glad to have a chance. There’s always fear, though. Even today. Grey said our tracks are covered. Three bodies cremated ten years ago in Blount, New York. But who knows? Who really knows?”

  “Why does Mr. Grey come here to Monument so often?”

  “To keep in touch. He brings a special bonus of money twice a year. He also drops in to keep me up to date on developments. He also brings reassurances that we’re still safe. Once in a while, he probes my memory for some lost fact, some overlooked detail that subsequent developments have made important. And there’s another reason. He’s never mentioned this reason—I only suspect it. I think he’s keeping an eye on me.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe to see that I haven’t been reached by the other side.”

  They were always on the move during these conversations, talking in snatches as they strolled the streets, visited the bazaar at St. Jude’s Church, exchanging information as Adam aimed the ball at three wooden bottles arranged in a pyramid. Once they went to a drive-in movie and his father turned down the speaker while they conversed. A John Wayne film was on the screen—Adam had forgotten the title. But he remembered asking his father why all these precautions with Mr. Grey were necessary ten years after the testimony and threats.

  Watching John Wayne swagger across the street, gun riding low on his hip, his father said, “Because nobody knows how powerful these organizations—maybe there’s more than one—are today. Nobody knows how far they might have penetrated the government.”

  Adam was reluctant to use a certain word but he went ahead anyway, pulling his eyes away from John Wayne on the screen. “Does it involve the Mafia, Dad?” The word sounded ridiculous coming from him—melodramatic, belonging on a movie screen, maybe, but not in their lives.

  “I can’t say who or what, Adam. For your own protection. Anyway, the Mafia is only a handy word for people to use. There are a lot of words to describe the same thing. As far as time is concerned, the evidence I gave has been used and reused. But there’s a catch. No one knows whether I divulged all the information, everything I knew. That’s another reason for all this surveillance. And maybe it’s the real reason for Grey’s trips here. He keeps probing for more information and I tell him there isn’t any more, that I’ve held nothing back. And he just looks at me. That look gives me the chills. Sometimes, I think I’m an annoyance to him, an embarrassment. Sometimes, when he visits, we sit there like enemies. Or as if we’re playing a crazy game that neither of us believes in anymore but the game has to go on …

  T: This information your father talked about. Did he ever reveal its nature?

  A: No.

  T: Weren’t you curious about it? After all, the information changed your lives.

  A: He said he couldn’t tell me, for my own protection, and I didn’t press him for the information.

  T: He said he told Grey that he was not holding back anything. Was he specific to you about that?

  A: I don’t know what you mean.

  T: I mean, did you ever ask him whether he was telling Grey the truth or whether he was just being clever?

  (9-second interval.)

  T: Why this sudden silence? You are looking at me in a strange manner.

  A: I think it’s just the opposite. You’re looking at me very strangely. It reminds me of what my father said about Mr. Grey. My father said the look on Mr. Grey’s face gave him the chills. As if they were enemies. And that’s the way you were looking at me a minute ago, that look on your face when you asked about the information—

  T: I am sorry that you were disturbed by the expression on my face. I, too, am human. I have headaches, upset stomachs at times. I slept badly last night. Perhaps that’s what you saw reflected on my face.

  A: It’s good to find out you’re human. Sometimes I doubt it.

  T: I understand. It is just as well if you take out your anger on me. I don’t mind.

  A: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  T: Whenever we approach truths, basic truths that you’ve been trying to deny or hide, you turn upon me. But I understand. I am the only other target that’s available.

  A: What do you mean—the only other target? Who?
??s the first target, then?

  T: Don’t you know?

  A: You mean—me? I get tired of all this—the way you twist things all the time.

  T: You see? The anger again. Just as it happened when we were approaching an important area.

  A: What area?

  T: The information your father had, the information you say he didn’t give you.

  (15-second interval.)

  Adam felt himself shriveling into the chair. Figuratively speaking, of course, because he knew that on the surface he was just sitting here as usual, looking at Brint. Brint, who he was convinced now was not a doctor at all. But then, who was he? Adam recoiled from the possibilities. Was he an enemy? One of those men who had been his father’s enemy? He felt the panic rising in him again and fought to remain still, fought to ride out the panic as Brint had always suggested. And he realized that he was dependent on Brint. Whether he was an enemy or not, Brint had helped him discover himself, who he was, where he came from. Could he help him discover what he was doing here? In this place? So he knew he had to rely on Brint but he would be careful, wary about the information Brint wanted. And he thought, Was there really information lodged within him that he didn’t know about? Was Brint, then, right, after all? His thoughts scurried, like rats in a maze.

  T: Are you ill?

  A: No. I’m all right. All these discoveries. They keep throwing me off balance.

  T: That is understandable.

  A: The worst part is that my memories arrive piecemeal, in bits and pieces, the entire picture isn’t clear.

  T: Let us take it all one step at a time.

  A: Yes.

  T: We were speaking of your father—how he was telling you about the past—let your mind wander in that direction—you and your father …

  His father’s explanations went on over a period of weeks. Adam’s questions were endless and the information he received sometimes made him shake his head in wonder and surprise. How you can be intimate with people, live with them twenty-four hours a day, and not really know them. He was amazed at the deceptions that had been carried on by his parents through the years. Like his father’s glasses—plain window glass brought to Monument by Mr. Grey, the style changing every two or three years. “That’s why I avoid Dr. Huntley, the optometrist down the street from my office. I told him once that my closest friend is an optometrist in New York City—and that’s where I got my glasses,” his father explained.