you or me or the people we touch. We’re just mistakes 10
who got up and walked off. The only things that are cer-11
tain are death and the will to survive . . .”
12
He was a tiny man talking as if he were a giant. But he 13
was convincing too.
14
“. . . We make our own victories and our own mis-15
takes,” he said, and for a moment there was a sad little 16
chink in his armor of certainty. “There is no justice unless 17
the judged agree. Without understanding and repentance 18
there can only be revenge.” He reached over to the stair 19
next to me and refilled both our glasses.
20
“What are you talking about, Mr. Bennet? What kind 21
of crime and justice and revenge do you mean?”
22
“The worst,” he said. “You think of the worst crime you 23
can imagine and then make it worse. And then you will 24
have a glimmer of what I have done.”
25
The whiskey was having an effect on both of us. My vi-26
sion was skewed and the tone in his voice tended toward S 27
humanity.
R 28
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“I don’t need to know this,” I said. “I don’t need to be a 2
part of it.”
3
“But I paid you.”
4
“To rent my basement, not to start a private prison.
5
Damn, man. I don’t know you. The police could come 6
down here and find you all locked up. They could get me 7
on kidnapping and who knows what else? No. No.”
8
“Have you spent my money?” Bennet asked.
9
“I’ll give you back what I have and then repay the rest.”
10
“You need money, Charles. Why not take it when you 11
can?”
12
“What do you know about me? What do you know 13
about what I need?”
14
“Everything.” He smiled and nodded.
15
“Like what?”
16
“I know where you went to high school and who your 17
friends were. Clarance and Ricky, who you also call Cat.
18
I know that you worked at Harbor Savings and that 19
you embezzled four hundred and thirty dollars from your 20
drawer . . .”
21
Whiskey softened the blow. I wondered if it was part of 22
Bennet’s plan to get me drunk.
23
“. . . The bank president, who liked you at first, felt be-24
trayed, and blacklisted you among the town business com-25
munity. Your mother and father are dead and no one else in 26
your family is much interested in your well-being. You 27 S
drink too much and you cried for five days after your 28 R
mother’s death. You had three years at Long Island City 122
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The Man in My Basement
College. But you dropped out, didn’t you? I don’t know 1
why you left. You had passing grades.” Bennet peered at me 2
with a Milquetoast expression on his face. “You’re broke, 3
you don’t have a job, and there’s a thirty-thousand-dollar 4
mortgage hanging over your head that might lose your line 5
their home.”
6
“Where the hell did you get all that?”
7
“There’s a man who used to work for me, a Filo Nunn.
8
He now has a job for the investigation division of Mor-9
ganthau and Haup.”
10
“Who’s that?”
11
“You wouldn’t know, Charlie, but the bank president 12
did. He started stuttering when Nunn got on the line. He 13
understood that even the smallest toehold with that firm 14
would completely transform his career in finance.”
15
Bennet refilled my glass. I didn’t even know that it was 16
empty.
17
“So this guy, Nunn, found all that out? But you said 18
that he doesn’t even work for you anymore.”
19
“Filo Nunn owes me his life.” Anniston Bennet smiled 20
again. If he had been a child, I would have said that he 21
thought he was cute.
22
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bennet, but I can’t go along with this.
23
No. I will not be a part of this.”
24
“That’s final?” Bennet asked.
25
I nodded.
26
“But what if I made you a deal? What if I gave you the S 27
twenty-five thousand dollars now and we went ahead as R 28
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we’d planned? Then in two weeks you tell me what you 2
think. If the answer is still no, then I’ll leave. If it’s not I 3
stay the rest of the time and double the final payment. All 4
in cash. Always in cash.”
5
I don’t think the money interested me even that far 6
back. And I was worried that once Bennet dug in, he’d be 7
hard to dislodge. I was drunk but not that drunk. I re-8
member the night and every word that was spoken. Maybe 9
the whiskey made me less fearful. The consequences that 10
bothered me earlier (and the next morning, for that mat-11
ter) seemed manageable.
12
But that’s not why I agreed to Bennet’s request.
13
I agreed because of knowledge and intimacy. Anniston 14
Bennet knew more about me than any other person —
15
and he was still willing to enter this business deal. Those 16
shocking blue eyes looked right into mine and knew what 17
they were seeing. Not like Bethany and not like Clarance.
18
Unlike Uncle Brent, Bennet made no judgments. If he 19
felt he was better than me, it was only because he felt bet-20
ter than everyone, and that, in some strange whiskey-21
soaked way, made me an equal in the world — at least in 22
the world as seen through his eyes.
23
“Yeah, all right,” I said. “Let’s do this thing.”
24
Bennet smiled and retrieved the satchel from the floor 25
next to his cell. He took five bound stacks of twenty-26
dollar bills.
27 S
“Twenty-five thousand, as we agreed,” he said.
28 R
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The Man in My Basement
Then he came out with an ugly chunk of black metal 1
that had some mechanical purpose that was not immedi-2
ately obvious.
3
“It’s an original lock used to hold down a line of slaves 4
in the old slaving ships,” Bennet told me. Along with the 5
&nb
sp; lock there was a brass key with a cylindrical tip that had 6
teeth and slats made to fit the archaic mechanism. “It’s 7
over a hundred and fifty years old. I got it in Mali.”
8
As far as I knew there was no one in the Blakey family 9
who had ever been a slave. We came over as indentured 10
servants and sailors on Spanish and Portuguese ships. It 11
was even intimated that one distant cousin was himself a 12
slaver, selling black bodies on the wharves of New York 13
City from a ship called the Dahomey.
14
Many of my relatives didn’t like to think that they were 15
a part of the mass of blacks in this country. They would 16
say, secretly, that they were no different from the English 17
or Irish immigrants. But most Negroes, even the old fam-18
ilies that dotted our neighborhood, understood that racism 19
doesn’t ask for a pedigree. I knew that many white people 20
didn’t like me because of my dark skin. I wasn’t stupid. At 21
the same time I didn’t feel the pang or tug of identity 22
when slavery was mentioned.
23
But that lock was a vicious thing. It must have weighed 24
four pounds. The loop of metal used to secure the bolt was 25
half an inch thick. I could imagine that ugly device hold-26
ing down twenty men in the cold fastness of the Atlantic.
S 27
R 28
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Bennet worked the key, which was new, in the lock and 2
the long loop came away from the barrel-like body.
3
“It fits the center hinge on the door,” he said.
4
He crawled into the cage, dragging his red chair, and I 5
fit the lock through and slammed it shut. Then I pulled 6
hard to make sure that the lock held.
7
The loud crack of the lock snapping shut had a pro-8
nounced effect on my self-proclaimed prisoner. His face 9
visibly paled and he grabbed onto the bars of the door 10
with both hands.
11
“I thought you wanted this,” I said.
12
“I do.”
13
“Then why do you look so scared?”
14
“I had certain experiences thirty years ago that made 15
me nervous about close spaces and locked doors,” he said.
16
“So then why you want to lock yourself in a basement?”
17
“This is a punishment, Mr. Blakey, not a vacation.”
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27 S
28 R
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1
2
3
4
15
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
After I’d locked him in, I brought my prisoner some C 14
water and a dry ham-salad sandwich that I made from 15
white bread and a can off the shelf. There was a small 16
space between the bottom of the cell door and the floor.
17
This space was large enough to pass the tin plate and 18
squat glass through.
19
“Lights out,” I said at the hatch.
20
The look in his eyes was both frightened and resolved.
21
I pulled the string on the lightbulb. I decided to put a 22
lock on the hatch door in the morning. For one night in 23
the hole, he could go without security.
24
I didn’t sleep much that night. Fidgety and nervous, I 25
broke out into sweats every now and then. Sounds that 26
could have been the hatch to the basement drove me from S 27
the bed a half-dozen times. I looked out the window and R 28
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once even ventured into the yard. I didn’t lift the cellar door 2
though. I didn’t want to show Bennet how scared I was.
3
He was locked up in a nine-foot cell and I was still 4
afraid of him. Actually the fear started when the lock en-5
gaged. He was empowered by the fact of his helplessness.
6
And I was at risk. I lay in bed worrying about kids sneak-7
ing into the cellar and finding Bennet. Then they’d tell 8
their parents and then the police would come . . .
9
One of the few times I fell off to sleep, I dreamed that I 10
was in a courtroom. Lainie and Mr. Gurgel and Ira Min-11
der testified that I was a bank robber. They said that it was 12
armed robbery because I had carried my pocketknife to 13
work and, somehow, the pocketknife turned into the 14
.22 rifle that was in a box on the shelf in my father’s li-15
brary. The judge found me guilty. I was convicted, sen-16
tenced, and put into Bennet’s cell. But it was much 17
smaller than nine by nine, more like three by three. I 18
couldn’t stand up and there was barely any light. A wave 19
ing next to the bed before I came awake. I wanted to run.
21
I wanted to cry. I definitely wanted Anniston Bennet out 22
of my life.
23
I roamed the rooms of the house after that, going from 24
floor to floor trying to figure out how I could beat this 25
thing. I wanted a drink but my stomach and intestines 26
were roiling. I couldn’t even make out words in the books 27 S
I paged through.
28 R
I was up in the old fortress, my mother’s sewing room, 128
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when the sun hit my great-grandfather’s old oaks. Amber, 1
orange, a hint of yellow, and deep-blue strips made the 2
horizon line. They were the colors of majesty’s approach.
3
I was arrested by the promise of morning light. I imag-4
ined those deer I had seen all dewy and shivering in the 5
morning chill. The night was behind them, and if the air 6
smelled clean and clear of danger, they marked another 7
night gone with hunger and thirst for the next.
8
I awoke with my head on a bag of pieces my mother 9
kept for quilting. The sun was hot on my ear and my own 10
loud breath was like a wind tunnel.
11
Outside the granite headstones stood in the high weeds 12
like soldiers hunkering down in the grass before a morning 13
assault. My mother spoke to me then. “You should cut 14
those weeds,” she said as clearly as if she were still alive. It 15
was the first time I ha
d ever imagined hearing her voice.
16
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
17
I showered and shaved, brushed and ironed. Anniston 18
Bennet’s breakfast — a boiled egg, cornflakes, and apple 19
juice — was ready at 9:23.
20
When I opened the hatch, a scent assailed me. It wasn’t 21
strong but it was living — the man in my basement tak-22
ing ownership with his spoor.
23
“Good morning, Charlie,” Bennet said as I stooped 24
over to slide the tray and glass under the cage door.
25
“The name is Charles Dodd-Blakey. You can call me 26
Mr. Dodd-Blakey, Mr. Bennet. That will keep us civil S 27
over the next two weeks.” It was a voice I hadn’t heard in R 28
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1
many years — fourteen years. The tone I used on Uncle 2
Brent when he was lying in his bed dying, smelling up my 3
home with death.
4
Bennet’s thin eyebrows raised. He took up the tray and 5
stood, using his toe to push the previous night’s tray out.
6
I realized that I was expected to take his dirty dishes and 7
wash them — like a manservant, a butler doing his mas-8
ter’s dirty work for him.
9
“Okay.” He paused. “Mr. Dodd-Blakey. Good morning 10
to you. Did you sleep well?”
11
“I’ll connect a hose from the sink that you can use to 12
wash your dishes,” I replied. “It’s just cold water but 13
that’ll have to do. You want me to leave the light on?”
14
“I didn’t get my books last night,” he said. “Would you 15
get them for me?”
16
“Which one did you want?”
17
This curt question caught Bennet up short. He put out 18
a hand and touched the metal slats of his cage. For a mo-19
ment hardness shone in his eyes, but then he said, “The 20
first volume in the Story of Civilization. ”
21
I complied without comment. The book was a tight fit 22
under the cage door and the cover ripped.
23
“Maybe you could open the door for the other ones,”
24
Bennet suggested.
25
“The only reason that lock comes off,” I said, “is when 26
you get your ass out of here.”
27 S
“You sound angry, Mr. Dodd-Blakey.”
28 R
I regretted having asked him to refer to me in that way.