The Gun

Again -- Candy. There. Right at the door. How? Belinda gasped when she saw her through the window, saw her before she heard the knock.

Candy’s car hadn’t been there. So – how?

But she was here, Candy, Candy the Killer, Candy the Unforgivable, with her silly black hair absurd against the pale clouds, blood red tennis shoes mocking real blood staining the ground.

Belinda breathed heavily, nervously. She must have parked up the block. In her new car, her new old car, whatever it was. Snuck up to the door. If only Tim were here.

If only Candy hadn’t killed Tim.

Belinda put down her coffee cup. Candy hadn’t seen her yet. Could she see at all? She looked numb, blind, her trembling lips her only moving part. If I had a gun, Belinda thought, I’d ask her in and shoot her as she crossed the threshold. As a joke. To be ironic.

There are ways to keep her away, legal ways. But Tim is gone. Candy is here. Why stop her? She wasn’t there to gloat, to rub it in. There had never been anything triumphant in Candy, how she’s show up in front of the house, how she’d sit there, in her car, or lean gloomily against its cold body, arms hanging like they were themselves dying. And then, after a while she’d go, fading away as cheerlessly as she had come.

But not this time.

Belinda wanted to fade away too, fade into pain, become pain.

There’s a sadness in her pretty face – what was that? Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen. “Candy’s Room”. That was Candy all right. She looked ready to die. A sadness all her own. “Candy’s Room”.

We are the same, Belinda thought. Tim. I am – was Tim’s wife. I was the closest to him.

But she, this Candy, was the one there at the ultimate intimacy, caused it. Tim brought us together, made us enemies – more: made us despair.

No: Tim didn’t do it. Candy did.

Belinda was at the door now, cracking it open, barely cognizant that she had gotten up and walked, barely aware of even the numbness in her own heart, the resignation, the indifference to letting this happen.

Candy -- just feet away. Her face was young but broken, her black sweater limp over her old jeans. Belinda looked worse, felt worse, and knew just what was up with Candy: necessities are being met, but only because they are necessities, performed sourly, resentfully, with no expectation they would mean anything. That was all – there were no luxuries, no perfume, no dessert. Candy, idealized as the perfect demon, now seen up close: pitiful and sad, a real person after all – one who had killed, to be sure, but injured herself as people get injured, as if the recoil had knocked her off a cliff, her flesh bruised, her spirit flayed like other broken humans. Like Belinda.

“What?” Belinda said, and it was as if that was the word Candy had been waiting to hear all these months, and hearing it was a relief and an opportunity and it was like she folded her face, crumpled it up, and the tears were squeezed out and whatever speech she had long ago prepared for this moment was blurted out as “I am so . . . oh please!”

Belinda closed her eyes and stepped aside. Candy was holding not a purse but a large wallet, and keys dangling haphazardly from her hand. She entered not triumphant but tentative, one halting step at a time, like Frankenstein.

What do you do, what do you say? Belinda sat, numbly, hesitant in her chair by the window. Candy, not invited to sit, stood next to the sofa across from Belinda, her eyes wandering over the clutter, the white rug dented with the impressions of furniture frequently moved or nudged, finally finding, on a nearly empty entertainment center, the thing she had longed to see and regretted seeing, the picture of Tim, Tim and Belinda, smiling, leaning into the camera, people moving in the background, colorful clothes and a sunny sky. Oceans of Fun in Kansas City? Their honeymoon?

Belinda stared at Candy, who had been staring at the picture but now, having seen it, bowed he head, stepped to the sofa and presumed to sit. A coffee table separated them, a couple of dirty dishes pushed to its edge, a crumpled napkin in the center, covering part of last week’s unopened Time.. Belinda took a sip of her coffee; it had cooled, intolerably.

Candy squinted at Belinda, saw a woman reveling in apathy and boredom, eyes just as sad as her own, maybe blue or green, looking back and regarding her with a mixture of curiosity, scorn and, oddly . . . indifference?

Dust floated aimlessly in a ray of light that lay glumly across the floor from the window behind Belinda. A car passed outside, slowed. The neighbor lady.

Belinda looked for a second, then back to Candy, then to the mess behind and around them. Neither Belinda nor Candy could stand the thought of children, any children, avoiding them, staying inside when neighbor kids were playing, into another checkout line if there was a baby in the grocery cart ahead.

Belinda’s head ached. “Cold?” she said.

“Yes. Not too bad.” Candy breathed heavily. “Rain stopped.”

Belinda turned. “Before you say anything,” she said, surprised by her own calm, “He would not have hurt anyone. He was not going to rape you.”

Tim took the bus to work. He didn’t mind, didn’t mind not spending money on a second car, didn’t mind leaving the Yaris for Belinda. Oh, she’d drive him sometimes if the weather was awful; but for the most part he didn’t even mind the half mile walk, in the morning especially, enjoying the last dimming black of the night sky, the first splash of colors in the east. “The moon was in the south, the sun in the east, a star between them” he had told her one day, calling from work to share this simple pleasure. “Like that old song – ‘we all shine on’.”

Recently there had been a series of rapes, and carjackings, in Candy’s neighborhood. She bought a gun. That evening, the evening it happened, she was far from her own neighborhood, parked about a block from Tim’s bus stop, waiting outside a friend’s house. As she waited, the man walking along the sidewalk, Tin, suddenly cut across the little square of grass toward her. The window was down, the door unlocked. She gasped, scrambled through her purse, grabbed the gun. The man opened the door, got in, looked at her, was about to speak. She fired.

Of course there had been a trial: Candy told her story. Belinda told Tim’s. Their lives were laid bare, Candy’s terror, Tim’s kindness, and in the end Candy was never charged: for all appearances she had shot Tim in self-defense. Belinda, crushed already, maimed by grief, now had the additional calamity of Tim convicted of being scum.

And Candy, devastated herself by what she had done, even if forgiven by society, was won by Belinda’s completely sincere and credible protests that Tim was as kind and wonderful a man as ever walked the Earth, that he had merely mistaken her beige Saturn for the neighbor’s beige Accord. “The only car he could tell on sight was an old Mustang,” she explained. “He just didn’t care.” She had smiled, then then pursed her lips to stem the tears that were stronger than the smile.

“Not in a million years,” she said now.

Candy, hand folded between her knees, nodded. She looked up, into the gray light around Belinda. She closed her eyes. “It’s this,” she said slowly, voice quavering, herself close to more tears. “I need to doubt that. For me, for me to not be evil. I need to think there’s even a little chance he may have wanted to hurt me. You see? You see I have to keep that?”

“No!”

“Yes – no. I believe you. But that’s the position I’m in. It’s terrible, I know. It’s torture. I have to think the worst of someone to not be the worst myself. It’s awful.” Her eyes were focused now, on Belinda, stern and shocked. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I feel this way. And, please, you have to believe me, I’m so sorry I did it.”

“You don’t want to be evil.”

“Well, right. Yes.”

“You want to be able to shoot my husband, but not be evil.”

“No. I just . . .”

“You want him to be evil.”

Candy gripped the arm of the chair. She was sitting up very straight, struggling willing the tears to be still. The air in the room felt heavy, undulating, hot. “I want there to be a reason.”

Belinda felt the air too, felt it being sucked away. She took a deep breath, almost a sigh, shook her head and said “Reason? You, you’re the reason.”

Belinda said it blandly, like it meant nothing, causing the words to reach deep, almost drowning Candy. Candy said, barely: “It was for protection, you know, because of, because all that stuff, the rapes. ”

“What?”

“The gun.”

“It . . . protected you.” Belinda spoke now as if she, too, were numbed by the effort.

“It was a mistake.”

An unexpected tear lit Belinda’s eye, weakened her voice. “Yes.”

Candy heard the tear, stopped one of her own, her voice becoming, not stronger but heavier. “The gun, I mean, buying the gun. “ Her chest heaved, twice. “I used it first, the first thing, because I had it you see. If I didn’t have it, I would have asked. ‘Why, what do you want?’ I could have done that anyway. But you see I had the gun. You see? I should have asked. But I had the gun. I was afraid! What do you expect? Oh, I am so sorry!” Great effort to hold in the tears, like trying to stop a car on ice.

“It was the gun’s fault?” Belinda’s question was more accusation than question.

“No! It was me, yes. I just, I wouldn’t have used it if it hadn’t been there. I’d have found some other way. That’s all. “ She sucked her lip, looked pleadingly at Belinda. “I could have talked, like we’re talking now. Weak people shouldn’t be given an easy way out. They take it.” And she sobbed with such despair that Belinda gasped, gripped the arms of her own chair, and leaned forward.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry too. But don’t you see? You want Tim to be evil. You want to excuse yourself by thinking my husband was something he’s not!” And now she sobbed, and Candy screamed “No!”

They both cried, not looking at each other, enveloped in red air, pain in their souls pervasive and vital like blood in their bodies, until Candy managed to squeak: “That’s not it at all.”

“No?” Belinda sniffed. “One or the other of you has to be evil. That seems how you see it, right? You can’t both be wrong, but one of you has to be wrong – and it sure isn’t you, is it? Is it?”

“It’s so much more difficult, Belinda!”

Belinda cocked her head, as if to a distant sound. “I’m dying to hear how,” she said.

“I don’t need to think he would have hurt me,” Candy said slowly, face dirty with tears, “but that he could have.”

“He couldn’t.”

“He could! Anyone could!”

Belinda stared, stunned. Could it be Candy was in more pain than she was? Or was Candy crazy? “I want another cup of coffee,” she said. “You?”

Candy was confused for a moment: coffee? A word from a calm world, reasonable. Something . . . not torture. Finally she said, as Belinda moved: “Yeah. Thanks.”

Belinda led the way to the kitchen, a small room with a small table, the coffee maker on a counter by the sink. The cabinets and drawers were deep brown. In the air lingered an aroma of something cooked not too long ago. Toast? There was just a puddle of coffee in the coffee maker. Belinda gave a cough of exasperation and dumped it out. After the clicks and snaps of the cabinet doors and the sigh of the scoop cupping the grounds, over the soft gurgle of the water resting in the reservoir and its easy flow into the pot, they sat across from each other, in the only two chairs at the small Formica table.

“You know,” Candy began slowly, “it can be anyone. It happens, something happens. No one is born a criminal. Nice people end up doing something awful sometimes.”

Belinda smiled, slightly but quizically.

Candy went on. “Anyone can – I certainly had never done anything like this before.”

“Tim just got into the wrong car.”

“Yeah. Please, for my sanity, I just need to have, there has to be a chance there was more. Not that it’s anything else, but there’s a chance.”

“Just because you had it in you to kill someone” – Belinda stopped for a second, closed her eyes, pursed her lips – “doesn’t mean Tim had it in him to deserve it.”

Candy considered this, allowed a little smile at the corners of her mouth. “Okay,” she said. “Coffee smells good.” Belinda nodded her head. Candy went on. “Would evil people be evil if they didn’t have a way to do evil things?.”

“What?”

“If Hitler, you know, didn’t get anyone to agree with him, and he was just a bum, would he be an evil bum? Or just pathetic?”

“I’m not sure . . .”

“He’d still hate Jews, still want to rule the world. He just, just couldn’t. do anything about it”

“He wasn’t just a bum.” Belinda’s eyes shone. “And you’re not Hitler.”

“No.” Candy looked away for a second, considering. She blinked rapidly, shook her head. “If I didn’t have the gun, you know – that’s all it took, just having the gun.”

“It’s the gun’s fault.” Belinda’s tone was dry, but too sad for sarcasm, for “as I said before”.

“It’s, it’s my fault, buying the gun.” Candy took a deep breath. “When he started coming I grabbed my purse. He got so close all I could see was his arm, reaching for the door handle.”

Belinda’s eyes were closed, her skin taut, her head shaking so tightly like was vibrating. “You said all this. In court. I don’t want to hear again.” Her voice grew louder as it became mournful.

“That small second I saw his face, there was surprise in his eyes.” Candy closed her eyes too. “I always thought it was because of the gun. It wasn’t, though, was it?” Her voice rose, slightly, and there were new tears around it. “It was because of me, because I wasn’t who he expected, and if I’d waited a second, if I hadn’t . . .”

“Stop!”

“He may have been embarrassed, maybe was going to say ‘Oh I’m so sorry.”

“Stop!”

“I’m so sorry, so sorry, so sorry, so sorry, Belinda!”

They were both sobbing, sobbing, engulfing each other in that most human sound, and Candy grasped Belinda’s hand across the table, and Belinda didn’t withdraw it, and instead her head slumped to the table and Candy, sobbing and muttering “Help me, oh please”, touched Belinda’s hair.

Belinda looked up, squeezed Candy’s hand. “You,” she started, sniffed, continued, “you need something that can happen. It won’t, but it’s possible. I don’t. Tim is gone. There is no hope for me. Not just that he’s gone. He’s gone for no reason. Senselessly.” Somehow, talking now calmed her. She continued, gently almost, smiling almost. “I believe I’ll see him next life. But that doesn’t make this life easier to bear.”

“You believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Wish I could.”

“We both had the same dream, a flying dream.” Belinda spoke as if she had just remembered this, or was surprised to have a chance to relate it. “We rolled off the roof of a house – they were different houses, buildings, in the dreams. Tim’s was in a crowded city and mine was, not this house but more suburban, I guess, more room – but no.” Her eyes were tearing, shining but with luminance this time, warmth. “You don’t want to hear this.” She smiled, breathed a slight laugh, blinked away from Candy’s returned smile.

“I do. Please?”

“That’s kind of it. The same night. In both dreams we rolled off a roof – that was the odd part. In his Tim rolled off his roof and right away got caught in the breeze, and he opens his arms and flies to wherever – different places, I guess. He was so happy. My dream, I fell to the ground, really green grass, and I bounce up, so high and thrilling, like jumping on a bed, you know, and then I’d be in the sky. Oh, look” The coffee pot was full, a gloriously deep color, the aroma magnificent.

. “Black?”

Candy said: “Thanks. Nice dreams.”

“It’s not the dream so much – yes, it was very nice – I haven’t had it again – but that we both had the same thing, the flying, really, the rolling off a roof. It’s strange, not – quirky, strange. Odd we had the same thing.”

“So that’s how you know.”

“It must have happened, right? You see?” She handed Candy a cup as she sat with her own, plain cup; and they sipped together, the first hot testing sips. Candy held hers for a moment. Belinda smiled at the taste, put her cup down and said, almost to herself: “He’s flown away, and I’m left here . . . to bounce.” A quick glance at Candy, because this sounded almost cruel, and she wanted Candy to understand the beauty in her life with Tim. “The point is, we knew we had been together before. And so we will again.”

“That’s something to believe – past life.”

“Future life.“ Belinda stopped, stunned, almost a new person as a sudden thought sank in. “You too,” she said, softly, but eyes boring into Candy.

“Me what?” Belinda’s surprise startled her.

“To be consistent, I guess.” Belinda was elsewhere now, not concerned with coffee and seemingly only vaguely aware she had an audience for her spoken, jarring thoughts. “You have such a close – because of what you did.”

“I’m not . . .I don’t get it,” Candy said, a bit of sincerely curious kindness in her voice.

“You have entered our lives so . . . forcefully” – she grimaced at the word – “because you did. . .something beyond just this life.”

“I’ve never had a dream like that.”

“I think it’s complicated.”

“I think I’m in your life because I had a gun.” Now it was Candy thinking, new thoughts occurring in succession, new feelings needing to be explored. “You wouldn’t know me, Tim would have forgotten me in ten minutes. He’d have been embarrassed, apologetic, and by the time he got home, what? Five minutes later? He would be joking to you about it – got into some woman’s car, scared the crap out of her. By the next day, gone, forgotten. Me too. Scared, yeah, and a weird story to tell.” Belinda started to say something but Candy cut her off. “But I had the gun.” Belinda waited, sad. “Sometimes I wish I still had it,” Candy said, voice wavering but looking Belinda in the eye. “Then. . .then I could leave your life,” and she gave a sad little smile, “as suddenly as I, as I . . .”

Belinda leapt up as Candy broke down, ran to the other side of the table, fell to her knees and put her arms around Candy. “No no no,” she said. “You won’t, will you?”

Candy leaned into her, accepting the hug, and they cried again, arms shaking but holding each other, until Candy managed to say, punctuated by tears: “I’ve been trying for so long.”

“I know”.

“To say how sorry I am.”

“I know. I know.”

“And I don’t, I don’t need – Tim was a good man, I know it.”

“Okay.” Belinda squeezed hard one more time. “Thank you, Candy, thank you.” She stood, her hand lingering on Candy’s shoulder for a second before she pulled it tentatively away, slowly, up to her own face. “Oh,” she said, almost dazed. “I don’t. . . Yes. Thank you.” She gazed out the window, into the gray air.

The weight of guilt lessened, the weight of debt now crushing, Candy lifted her head with great effort, quickly abandoned an attempt at a smile, said: “Whatever I can do?”

“We aren’t friends,” Belinda said quickly, turning as she spoke. “Can’t. Ever.”

“No.” Candy sniffed. She absorbed this, greeted it as enough, all she would ever have. “I can – I can frame pictures! Do you have something you could hang in the living room. Of Tim? Or anything?”

“No.” Belinda managed a little smile quickly withdrawn. “I may understand but you still. . . Look there.”

Candy looked, thinking there was something outside to see, but Belinda said nothing and just embraced her again. But there was something outside, in the neighbor’s driveway, the Accord, the car Tim had thought to enter, the car that wasn’t Candy’s, the illusion that brought out the gun that killed him. Belinda had to see it every day – did it hurt every day, pierce as it was piercing Candy now? Why didn’t they sell that car, that awful, awful car? Why wasn’t it there when Tim walked up to it?

She returned Belinda’s hug. “I should go,” she said finally.

Belinda watched from the porch as Candy disappeared up the block, toward wherever she had parked. It was cold, and Belinda lingered only a minute. Inside, she scooped the dishes off the coffee table and headed back to the kitchen.