I knocked on the door of their red brick mansion uneasily, and it opened immediately, as it seemed somebody had been waiting. It was Thomas; I recognized him from pictures I had seen from a New Yorker profile a few years back. But he wasn't just a bit older; he looked, from his eyes, impaired. His pupils were heavily dilated, and the whites of his eyes had red lines in them so pronounced that it looked like his corneas were held in place by red strings, or were caught in the center of red-dyed spider webs. He offered his hand, which I shook, though he let go immediately, abruptly grunting and looking to the side. He motioned me in with a convincingly nonchalant manliness, and I entered the anteroom, seeing Jane standing there, looking concerned and sweet.
Thomas then motioned for me to follow him toward the living room. So much for pleasantries. As Jane and I trailed behind him I looked around the anteroom. On an understated oriental there was a beautiful oak secretary set against a pink patchwork wall hanging, and I was as charmed by the robustly understated sexuality of the pink colors on the cloth as by the elegant simplicity of the secretary. Its wooden board swung outward on its delicate hinges to form the tiny platform which seemed to demurely boast of its own status as the genial guard to a magic cabinet it was proud to be a part of—a piece of furniture that almost heralded a moral message. That, or only a warning. The three evenly-spaced crystal vases standing on the top were beautiful, even to my untrained eye, and for some reason I thought of how nice it would be to give Jane some flowers placed in one of those vases. She loved stuff like that, and even with all we'd been through—and were going to go through—giving her a vase like that would probably go some distance toward making things right.
On the light gray walls hung a handful of paintings, not all terribly memorable—a landscape painting, I think, a seascape, I think, and a portrait of a young woman, her naked breasts exposed, I am most certain. The anteroom gave way to the massive living room. It was large with off-white walls absorbing the light from open-curtained windows, and it was entirely beautiful. Jane sat down wearily with a large glass of red wine on a matching red couch, but Thomas remained standing, looking directly at me with his red-striped eyeballs.
"I just wanted to see you to make this official," Thomas said. "I don't really need to add much to what I said over the phone, regarding our outward presentation of ourselves. In fact, I have absolutely nothing to add to what I said. You could put a gun to my head, and threaten me to add something new or I'd get shot, and I'd be forced to tell you to shoot."
He smiled, and there was a pause. I looked at him, and then questioningly at Jane. She just looked straight ahead, staring blankly at the mantle above the fireplace, upon which lay three civil war muskets. Thomas suddenly walked to the mantle, picking one of the muskets up and holding it in front of him so that the bottom part of his face was blocked. "This musket," he said, "is for all modern purposes of fucking people up, an absolute piece of shit. But during the civil war, it was a real weapon. It took at least a full minute to load, and there could be all sorts of problems with it—rainy weather, for one. If the gunpowder got wet, then there would be no reaction and the ball wouldn't fire. Because misfires were so common, you had to be brave if you were going to rely on the musket to save you. Or, if you had a target who fucked your wife and you were running behind him, closing in at 20 feet but losing steam, imagine how frustrating it would be if the gun didn't go off."
I nodded nervously. Thomas paused and then said, "I think that given what we've been through—all three of us—maybe a little Russian roulette, with the threat of injury, not death, is what is called for. It seems an appropriate way of building trust among us, a casual form of bonding, since our bodies could be as big as buildings and the media would still need new flesh to mutilate. Why not a little mutilation among friends? We can do it here with these muskets, and we can use rubber balls, not lead ones, which means it is highly, highly unlikely that there will be any really serious injuries, or any that should take us to the hospital. There could be some blood, though."
"No thanks," I said.
There was yet another moment of silence as Thomas looked at me with insolent inquisitiveness. I in turn looked at Jane a bit angrily; she was doing absolutely nothing to help. When she turned to look at me she just shrugged.
"No," I repeated, "that's juvenile and sick, and I'm leaving. You know I know a few lawyers—you know that very well, and if I ever see you again, well, I'll be cautious, believe me." I thought and decided. "And by tonight I'll have a bodyguard, maybe two —I've been thinking about getting one anyway, with all this negative attention. So you go play with your muskets, Thomas."
I got up to leave, thinking that if Russian Roulette was going to be performed with muskets that only shot rubber balls, I was probably not in any danger just then. But just as I thought that and was halfway out the living room, I heard a bang, and felt a tearing—a mean sting—on the side of my chest. Jane started screaming, and I started crying out in intense pain. It really was very painful, and maybe a bit absurdly, I crawled back to the chair and climbed back up on it.
"You motherfucker!" I screamed as well as I could, bending my torso over and hugging myself. "Ow! that really hurt!" Tears started coming to my eyes. I looked at the side of my chest. I lifted my shirt; there was no blood, only a bruise.
For whatever reason, it only occurred to me just then that there really was no way to play Russian roulette with a musket. Muskets only shoot one ball at a time; they don't have cylinders. Maybe he was suggesting we dampen the gunpowder first or something, but I doubted it; it was his little joke.
I looked over at Jane pleadingly. She just shook her head as if in disapproval. Seeing that I had only gotten a bruise, she had immediately stopped screaming.
I decided, I think wisely, that I needed to pretend to get over the pain quickly. I was in no position to whine, but that is what I did in silence for a minute or two, while Thomas watched. I am sure he didn't mind seeing me writhe a bit, but I bet he wasn't in the mood to hear me complain too much. I was, however, in no position to get up and start running. It would be days before I could even think of walking fast. The pain was terrible.
"Look," I said, continuing to hug myself, "you've had your fun. Point taken. I deserve some pain. I can understand that, and you've helped me understand that. But if you go much further..."
Thomas shook his head and smiled. "No, if you involve others then I will say we were having a duel. And that you lost." He walked back toward the mantle, picked up the second musket and walked back to within a few steps of me. "You lost twice." He then took a step nearer, aimed, and shot me in the head.
After things had gone black with the impact, I just sat there in a daze slowly regaining consciousness. There was blood this time, and the second wound hurt even worse. I heard Jane screaming at Thomas, and saw her unsuccessfully trying to hit him in the head, the blows of which he blocked with his wrists. She had managed up till then to hide her drunkenness, which by her inability to keep her balance was now obvious. I didn't try to get up from the chair, but I remember being intensely flattered by Jane's reaction. I don't think I've ever felt more pleasure in feeling that a woman had good feelings for me.
Soon their fight ended and Thomas left the room. Jane walked over to me and I felt her hands on the head wound and saw her hair fall over her cheeks, her breasts against the silk of her blouse.
"Thomas and I looked at it while you were out. It's not pretty, and you'll need stitches," she said, "but in a few months it'll clear and anyway your hair will probably cover it."
"You know, I really like you," I said.
"But you didn't know Thomas was a jerk when you started hitting on me. I don't like him anymore since he turned 40 last year, which is why I let you seduce me. I actually like him better like this, on drugs."
"You're going to get divorced. You should hang out with me."
"Ah, but those things that start out as adultery—they don't have a reputation of lasting."
"But he's an entrepreneur! I knew that!"
"So what? You're an investment banker—nobody's perfect. Bye, Dave," she said, turning around and walking away, her behind tight against her skirt, "I'll call an ambulance for you."
Elmore Snoody is 38 and is currently endeavoring to make it through graduate school.
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