Blood Relatives (87th Precinct) Read online

  I didn’t mention any of this to Andy because I don’t want him to take a fit about nothing.

  Sunday, August 24

  In church this morning, I prayed to God that Andy would change his mind about going on to college in the fall. Registration is September 8, which is just a little more than two weeks away. Please, dear God, I ask you again. Let him change his mind. We love each other a lot, but telling Aunt Lillian about us now would be the wrong thing to do, I feel. Besides, I think he’s rushing things. It’s not as if I was pregnant, which I’m not.

  Monday, August 25

  Jack came over to my desk this morning and asked if I would like to have lunch with him. The first thing I thought was that Andy would get very angry if he ever heard about it, and then I figured there’d be nothing really wrong with it, except of course Jack is married. So I said, Well, thanks a lot, Jack, I really appreciate your asking, but you’re a married man and all, I happen to know you’re married and have a four-year-old daughter. (It was Heidi who’d told me this.) So Jack said, What difference does that make, all I’m asking is whether you’d like to have lunch with me. I’m not taking you to Singapore for a six-month tour of the Orient. Well, I thought that was pretty comical, and also pretty honest, so I said, Sure, why not, let’s have lunch together.

  He’s a very fascinating person.

  He’s not what you’d call good-looking, but he has a very interesting face with a lot of character in it. His hair is brown, I guess, but so dark it could almost be black. And his eyes are blue, and I suppose he’s just about six feet tall, give or take a few inches.

  He told me that his father used to be a coal miner in a place in Pennsylvania, I forget the actual name of the town, but the people there call it Scooptown. And he said he himself had never worked in the mines, that he’d been fortunate enough to get a football scholarship to college, and to get out of Scooptown when he was just eighteen. He met his wife while he was an undergraduate out in Michigan, and then she’d worked for a while to put him through school while he was going for his master’s. He started at the bank only four years ago, just a little before his daughter was born, but he expected he’d be promoted to assistant manager before long.

  He also told me that he absolutely did not want me to get the wrong idea about us having lunch together. He wasn’t on the make, in fact he’d tell his wife all about it, that was how innocent the whole thing was. Besides, he knew I was only seventeen, he certainly wasn’t about to rob the cradle. Though I was very pretty, he had to admit that. In fact, if his wife asked him tonight, he guessed he’d have to say I was beautiful. He made me blush, I mean it. I mean, I’m not beautiful. I’m just not. But it was nice of him to say so.

  I told Andy I’d had lunch with him.

  I didn’t tell him Jack had said I was beautiful.

  Andy was very quiet when I told him. He didn’t say anything for a long time afterward. Then later, we were watching television, everyone had gone to bed, and we were sitting in the living room watching Johnny Carson, and out of the blue Andy said, You don’t really love me any more, do you, Mure?

  I told him he was crazy.

  He blew his nose then. I think he was crying.

  Of course I love him.

  I adore him, in fact.

  Tuesday, August 26

  Today I got an answer to the letter I wrote to United Airlines. I hadn’t told Andy I’d written to them (and also one other airline) and now he wanted to know why I’d done that behind his back. I told him I hadn’t done anything behind his back, and he said that writing to an airline was something behind his back. What did I plan to do? he said. Take a job with an airline? And go flying all over the world? I told him United doesn’t fly outside the United States, and he got angry and grabbed my wrist and said I shouldn’t kid around when he was being serious. He said I knew exactly what he meant, whether it was all over the world or all over the United States didn’t make a damn bit of difference. What he meant was that I’d be taking a job where we’d be separated a lot. I told him I wasn’t taking a job, I hadn’t even applied for a job, all I’d done was write some letters of inquiry, that was all. Besides, in the material from United, it said I had to be a high-school graduate and at least twenty years old to become a stewardess. I’d dropped out of school, and I wasn’t eighteen yet, I wouldn’t be eighteen till March. So it was a long-range thought, even if I did decide to maybe become a stewardess one day. He said that an airline stewardess was nothing but a waitress with wings, did I want to become a goddamn waitress? And that’s when I blew up and said to him what did he want to become? A waiter in a steak joint?

  That’s when he told me he planned to register for college, after all. We were in his car, we were parked on a street about six blocks from the house. I turned to look at him, I said, Andy, that’s wonderful. I’m very happy to hear that, Andy. And he said, Sure, I know why you’re happy. You’re happy because my going to college means we won’t be able to get married for a while, that’s why you’re happy. I told him that getting an education was more important than rushing off to get married, and he said again that I didn’t love him any more, he could tell I didn’t love him any more.

  I don’t know what’s the matter with him, I mean it.

  Wednesday, August 27

  In bed tonight, I was reading the Bible. Patricia asked me how come I was suddenly interested in religion. I told her I was only interested in the stories, there were some interesting stories in the Bible. What I was looking for was proof that what Andy and I are doing is wrong. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t find anything in the Bible that says so. Even so, I know that if I’d have been pregnant that time, we could have had idiot children, I know that for a fact. There has to be something wrong with it, otherwise you’d see plenty of cousins married to each other, brothers married to sisters even. But a society protects itself by making laws against that sort of thing—though I don’t know if there’s a real law against it. I’m sure there’s a religious law, though.

  Carella looked up at this point, puzzled, and then opened the top drawer of his desk. From it he took a paperbound edition of the state’s criminal law, and thumbed through the index at the rear till he found the word INCEST and a referral to page 151. On that page, he found:

  Incest

  —

  PL 255.25

  —

  Class E Felony

  and alongside that, under the word “Elements,”

  Marrying or engaging in sexual intercourse with a person whom one knows to be related to him, either legitimately or illegitimately, as an ancestor, descendant, brother or sister of either the whole or the half blood, uncle, aunt, nephew, or niece.

  No mention of cousins. Whatever the Bible had to say about matters incestuous, the Penal Law was clear. If you were kissing cousins, that was quite all right with the state. Carella couldn’t quite understand the niceties that made it okay for a boy to marry his cousin whereas that boy’s father, who would be the girl’s uncle, could not marry her unless he wished to be charged with a Class E felony and sent to jail for a maximum of four years. In the eyes of the law, however, Muriel and Andrew hadn’t had a thing to worry about. Carella turned back to the entry for August 27.

  But a society protects itself by making laws against that sort of thing—though I don’t know if there’s a real law against it. I’m sure there’s a religious law, though. That much I’m sure of.

  As I write this now, Patricia is watching me from her own bed across the room. She interrupted me not a minute ago to ask what I can possibly find to write about each night. I told her that a million things happen every day, and I just try to put them down so I won’t lose track of them. She told me that all the things that happen to her are just boring, and it would bore her all over again to write them down.

  Well, she’s really very young. I love her a lot, but she’s only fifteen. There’s a difference.

  Thursday, August 28

  Jack took me to lunch again today. />
  He’s really a very mature and level-headed person, different from Andy in so many ways. I can’t imagine Jack, for example, taking a fit about a little old diary. This morning I happened to mention to Andy that Patricia had asked about the diary, and he immediately wanted to know if I’d written anything about us in it. I said, Yes, I’d written a lot about us. He said I mean about us, you know. I said, Yes, about us, you know. I was smiling when I said this, and imitating his voice a little, and he suddenly slapped me, we were sitting in the kitchen having coffee, he slapped me and the cup of coffee fell on the floor, and Aunt Lillian called from her bedroom, wanting to know what was going on. The walls in that apartment are paper-thin, you can hear everything all over the house. Andy said there’d been an accident, cup of coffee fell off the table, and Aunt Lillian said to be sure to wipe up the linoleum, and Andy said he would.

  Then, while he was wiping the floor, he looked up at me and said there was nothing funny about any of this, he couldn’t understand why I’d begun taking it so lightly. I said I didn’t think it was funny at all. In fact, I was the one who kept saying it was wrong whereas all he wanted to do was get into my goddamn pants all the time! He told me to shut up, the whole house would hear me, but I really didn’t give a damn by then who heard me, I mean it. That slap had really hurt. He had no right slapping me that way. I finally told him the diary was none of his damn business, and when he asked me if he could read it, I said absolutely not.

  The point I’m making is that Jack never would’ve reacted that way, I’m sure he wouldn’t. He’s very big on privacy, Jack is, which is one of the reasons his wife drives him up the wall. She can’t stand him doing anything without her. He sits down to read a book, his wife comes over, asks him what he’s doing. He’s sitting there reading a book, right? So she asks him what he’s doing. What he usually says is he’s riding a camel across the Sahara or he’s building an ark for when the rains come—ask a stupid question, you get a stupid answer. But she does that all the time, whenever he’s trying to read or listen to some music, or even when he’s down in the basement working on something, she’ll come over and pester him—What are you doing, Jack? He said it’s because she’s really quite an empty person inside—vacuous was the word he used, if that’s the way you spell it—and whereas he still loved her, there were times when he wished she was more self-sufficient. He told me this in all honesty, and said it wasn’t just a “My Wife Doesn’t Understand Me” pitch. He hoped I realized he wasn’t coming on with me, he just found me very interesting to talk to, and besides, he liked looking at me because I was so damn lovely. Those were his exact words—”so damn lovely.” He covered my hand with his when he said this. He put down his fork and covered my hand. I didn’t mind it at all. I thought I’d feel embarrassed, his being married and all. Instead, it made me feel good. He’s a very nice person, and I’m sorry he’s having trouble at home. If some people could just understand that a person doesn’t want to be owned. Well, I guess it’s very hard for some people to understand that.

  Friday, August 29

  I had to lie to Andy today.

  It was such a beautiful afternoon that around 3:30, 4:00, Jack said it might be a good idea if we took a drive into the next state at the end of the day, he knew a nice little place over there where we could go for a drink. Andy usually picks me up outside the bank at a little after 5:00, which is quitting time. The bank closes at 3:00, of course, but we stay on till 5:00. I told Jack I didn’t know whether or not I could make it because my cousin would be coming down to get me, and he grinned and said he was beginning to wonder about this cousin of mine, was I sure this guy was a cousin? I said, Oh, sure, he’s a cousin, all right, and he’s supposed to pick me up. So if I can’t get him on the phone, well then, we’d have to forget about it, or I’d have to take a rain check for some other time. I also told Jack that a person had to be twenty-one to drink in this state, and they were always asking me for my ID, but he said I didn’t have to worry because it was eighteen over the bridge there, and I certainly looked eighteen and he didn’t think anybody would bother me. Well, I called Andy and told him I had to work late, there was $104 we couldn’t account for, and we were all going crazy trying to track it down. I told him I’d catch the train home, and he said, Okay, he’d see me later. He also said he had some good news for me.

  The place Jack took me to was about twelve miles over the Hamilton Bridge, a very nice little cocktail lounge attached to a motel. He was right about nobody asking me for my ID, though the man who served us did look me over very carefully. When I mentioned this to Jack, he said that’s because I was so beautiful. He said if a man didn’t look me over carefully, he had to be crazy. I really get kind of fluttery when he says things like that, I don’t know what it is. He told me again today how devoted he is to his wife, though she’s been pestering him about taking a vacation before the summer ends. Leave the kid with her mother, go away just the two of them. He told her he didn’t think he could get away right now, and suggested that she go alone—but of course she doesn’t understand or need privacy. He said he was sort of wishing she’d go. He’s a very nice person, I’m really sorry about the situation with his wife.

  When I got home, Andy was waiting for me downstairs. He told me he’d gone to see a priest, and he’d asked the priest whether the Catholic Church objected to marriage between first cousins. The priest said the church would permit the marriage of persons related to the third degree of kindred, which meant that we would have to be third cousins in order to get married with the church’s blessing. So I asked Andy why he considered that good news, and he said the priest had told him special dispensations were sometimes granted, and that it was possible one might be granted for us. I told Andy it seemed like a lot of trouble to go through, just to get married, and he looked at me very strangely and said he thought the news was going to please me. Then we went upstairs, where supper was waiting, and neither of us said a word all through supper. Aunt Lillian wanted to know if anything was wrong. I told her, No, nothing was wrong.

  Saturday, August 30

  Andy came into my room at 10:00 this morning. I thought he was crazy at first, but he told me everybody was out of the house. He was wearing only pajama bottoms. I told him he should get out of there before someone came home, and he said he didn’t care if they all found out about us, he loved me and wanted to marry me. I told him the priest had said first cousins couldn’t get married, and he got very angry and said I hadn’t listened to him at all when he’d told me about the special dispensation that was possible. I told him I had listened very carefully, but I was sure dispensations weren’t just handed out every day of the week, that it was probably very rare that the church allowed first cousins to get married. He admitted that the priest had told him as much yesterday, and had also added something about it being bad to mix the blood. But he said he honestly didn’t give a damn what the church thought—who said we had to get married by the church? We could go right downtown and get married at City Hall, what the hell was so special about getting the church’s blessing? I said, Andy, if it isn’t so special to get the church’s blessing, then why did you go to see a priest yesterday? Andy, I think it is important to you, and it’s also important to me. And if the church is so against it, there must be a reason, and we ought to reconsider, maybe we ought to think about it for a while instead of rushing off and doing something we’ll regret for the rest of our lives. He was in bed with me by then, and he was on top of me and trying to get my nightgown off. I told him to please stop, I didn’t feel like it right then. He said I used to feel like it all the time, but now I never seemed to feel like it, and I said, That’s right. With you harping at me all the time about getting married, that’s right, Andy. You’re killing any desire I might be feeling, that’s absolutely right. He got out of bed and went out of the room, and I heard him getting dressed next door, banging closet doors and dresser drawers, and then I heard him storming out of the house. I didn’t see him all day today
.

  Sunday, August 31

  In church this morning, I prayed that God would help me to break off with Andy.

  I can’t bear it any longer.

  I have to be free of him.

  He didn’t say a word to me all day. At supper tonight, he looked sullen and angry, and finally Uncle Frank told him to please leave the table if he didn’t know how to behave with human beings. Andy got up and went straight to his room. I’m sure they’re all going to know what’s going on if he doesn’t quit acting this way. He must think they’re all fools.

  Monday, September 1

  Today is Labor Day, which means the bank is closed and I won’t get to see Jack. All this weekend I’ve been longing to talk to him. I just can’t go on this way, I’ve got to have someone to talk to about this situation. I’ve been thinking of running away from here, but I know that would hurt Aunt Lillian, and she’s a dear sweet woman who I love a lot. If only I hadn’t started with Andy. If only I’d been stronger. I have to tell somebody about this.