Brazil would not trespass, would not even think of it. But there were numerous tiny
public parks in Fourth Ward, sitting areas with fountains and a bench or two. One such
cozy spot was tucked next door to Hammer’s house, and Brazil had known about this
secret garden for a while. Now and then he sat in the dark there, when he could not sleep,
or did not want to go home. There was no harm done or imagined.
It wasn’t as if he were on her property. He wasn’t a stalker or a voyeur. All he wanted,
really, was to sit where no one could see him.
The most he invaded was the window of her living room, where he saw nothing, for the
draperies were always drawn, unless a shadow passed by, someone who belonged in that
house and could walk wherever he pleased. Brazil sat on a stone bench that was cold and
hard beneath his dirty uniform trousers. He stared, and the sadness he felt was beyond
any word he knew. He imagined Hammer inside her fine house, with her fine family, and
her fine husband. She was in a fine suit, probably talking on a portable phone, busy and
important. Brazil wondered what it would be like to be loved by a woman like that.
}/^ry W Seth knew exactly what it was like, and as he finished loading his ice cream
bowl into the dish washer, he entertained violent thoughts.
He had been lacing his late-night Chunky Monkey with butterscotch and hot fudge when
Chief Wife came in with her bottle of Evian. So what did she do? Nag, nag, nag. About
his weight, his coronary arteries, his propensity for diabetes, his laziness, his dental
problems. He went into the living room, flipped on “Seinfeld,” tried to block her out, and wondered what had ever attracted him to Judy Hammer.
She was a powerful woman in uniform the first time they met. He would never forget the
way she stood out in dark blue. What a figure she cut. He had never told her his
fantasies about being overpowered by her, cuffed, pinned, held, yoked, and hauled away
in the paddy wagon of erotic captivity. After all these years, she did not know. None of it had happened. Judy Hammer had never restrained him physically.
She had never made love to him while she was in uniform, not even now, when she had
enough brass and gold braid to impress the Pentagon. When
she went to police memorial services, banquets, and showed up in dress blues, Seth turned fainthearted. He was overcome, helpless and frustrated. In the end, after all these
years and disappointments, she was still splendid. If only she didn’t make him feel so
worthless and ugly. If only she hadn’t driven him to this, forced him into it, caused it,
and willed abject ruination upon his life. It was her fault that he was fat, and a failure.
The chief, his wife, honestly was not privy to any of her husband’s ambitions or lustful
imaginings or the complete set of his resentments. She would not have been flattered,
amused, or held responsible, for Chief Hammer was not aroused by dominance, or prey
to control, or quick to assume that others might be smitten and excited by her position in
life. It would never occur to her that Seth was eating ice cream with butterscotch, hot
fudge sauce, and maraschino cherries at this unhealthy hour because he really wished to
be shackled to the bedposts, or to be searched inappropriately and for a long time. He
wanted her to arrest him for animal desire and throw away the key. He wanted her to
languish and doubt herself and all she had done. What did not interest him in the least
was to be sentenced to the solitary confinement their marriage had become.
Chief Hammer was not in uniform or even on the portable phone. She was in a long,
thick terry-cloth robe, and suffering from insomnia, and this was not unusual. She rarely
slept much because her mind kept its own hours, the hell with her body. She was sitting
in the living room, “The Tonight Show’ droning on as she read the Wall Street Journal,