The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

He said nothing to this.

‘You’re crazy, you know.’

He still said nothing.

She looked at the books some more. Most of them were on religion. Finally she turned her eyes back to his. ‘If I do this and you fuck me, I’ll make you sorry.’

He showed no discomfiture at her choice of language. ‘I’ll honor my commitment. You may be sure of that.’

‘You speak almost perfectly now. Not even a lisp, unless you’re tired.’

He shrugged. ‘Being with me has trained your ear. It’s like learning to understand a new language, I suppose.’

She returned her eyes to the books. One of them was called The Problem of Good and Evil. Another was titled The Basis of Morality. That was a thick one. In the hall, an old Regulator clock was ticking steadily. Finally he said it again: ‘Well?’

‘Isn’t just putting this in front of me sin enough to satisfy you? You’re tempting us both, and we’re both considering the temptation. Isn’t that enough?’

‘It’s sin in thought and word only. That will not satisfy my curiosity.’

The Regulator ticked. Without looking at him, she said: ‘If you say well again, I’ll walk out of here.’

He didn’t say well or anything else. She looked down at her hands, twisting in her lap. The most appalling thing: part of her was still curious. Not about what he wanted, that cat was out of the bag, but about what she wanted.

At last she looked up and gave her answer.

‘Excellent,’ he said.

With the decision made, neither of them wanted the actual act hanging over their heads; it cast too big a shadow. They chose Forest Park in Queens. Chad borrowed Charlie Green’s video camera and learned how to use it. They went to the park twice beforehand (on rainy days when it was mostly empty), and Chad video’d the area they decided on. They had a lot of sex during that period – nervous sex, fumbling sex, the kind teenagers have in the backseat of a car, but usually good sex. Hot, at least. Nora found her other major appetites dwindling. In the ten days between her agreement and the morning when she executed her part of the bargain, she lost nine pounds. Chad said she was starting to look like a college kid again.

On a sunny day in early October, Chad parked their old Ford on Jewel Avenue. Nora sat beside him, her hair dyed red and hanging to her shoulders, looking very un-Nora-like in a long skirt and an ugly brown smock top. She was wearing sunglasses and a Mets cap. She seemed calm enough, but when he reached out to touch her, she shied away.

‘Nor, c’mon—’

‘Have you got cab fare?’

‘Yes.’

‘And a bag to put the video cam in?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Then give me the car keys. I’ll see you back at the apartment.’

‘Are you sure you’ll be able to drive? Because the reaction to something like this—’

‘I’ll be fine. Give me the keys. Wait here fifteen minutes. If there’s something wrong … if anything even feels wrong … I’ll come back. If I don’t, you go to the spot we picked out. Do you remember it?’

‘Of course I remember it!’

She smiled – showed her teeth and dimples, at least. ‘That’s the spirit,’ she said, and was gone.

It was an excruciatingly long fifteen minutes, but Chad waited through every one of them. Kids, all of them wearing clamshell helmets, pooted past on bikes. Women strolled in pairs, many with shopping bags. He saw an old lady laboriously crossing the avenue, and for one surreal moment he thought it was Mrs Reston, but when she passed by, he saw that it wasn’t. This woman was much older than Mrs Reston.

When the fifteen minutes were almost up, it occurred to him – in a sane and rational way – that he could put a stop to this by driving away. In the park, Nora would look around and not see him. She would be the one to take the cab back to Brooklyn. And when she got there, she would thank him. She would say, You saved me from myself.

After that? Take a month off. No substitute teaching. He would turn all his resources to finishing the book. Throw his cap over the windmill.

Instead, he got out and walked to the park with Charlie Green’s video camera in his hand. The paper bag that would hold it afterward was stuffed in the pocket of his windbreaker. He checked three times to make sure the camera’s green power lamp was glowing. How terrible it would be to go through all this and discover he’d never turned on the camera. Or that he’d left the lens cap on.

He checked that again too.

Nora was sitting on a park bench. When she saw him, she brushed her hair back from the left side of her face. That was the signal. It was on.

Behind her was a playground – swings, a push merry-go-round, teeter-totters, bouncy horses on springs, that sort of thing. At this hour, there were only a few kids playing. The moms were in a group on the far side, talking and laughing, not really paying much attention to the kids.

Nora got up from the bench.

Two hundred thousand dollars, he thought, and raised the camera to his eye. Now that it was on, he felt calm.

He shot it like a pro.

II