Dancing in the Movies

The Darkness of Love

The Darkness of Love 65 THE DARKNESS OF LOVE The darkness oflove, in whose sweating memory all error is forced -Amiri Baraka DAY 1 When Handle woke at ten in the morning, he got up and walked to the far window. Hung over, he half expected the sound of traffic or the fading drone of an airliner as he lifted the window. He had lived in the city for so long that even after two weeks in Tennessee, he found the quiet of the green countryside severe and foreign. Trees just appeared outside his window, new, each 9Jorning. He had come to escape the city, but his dreams returned him each night to New York, sometimes in a patrol car but most often on his feet, in an alley, running after a bone-skinny black boy who would suddenly turn, knife in his hand, and Handle would wake, startled that the boy's face was his, a younger face, but essentially his. Handle dressed in the corduroy jeans he'd bought for the trip and pulled a blue T-shirt with white lettering over his head. His wife had given him the shirt, which read HANDLE WITH CARE. He walked back to look at the trees again. Wind through the leaves sounded like people speaking, and the sound of voices made him feel more at home. He closed the window quietly, as if the noise would disturb the trees, the grass, or his in-laws, who, he was sure, had been awake for hours. As he turned from the window to his unmade bed, he piCtured his wife stealing a few minutes' extra sleep, waiting for him to kiss her neck and shake her awake. The image of her brown body against the white sheets sparked a memory-a night before they were married. He had promised to meet her in the lobby of an auditorium and was running late. In the dim lights of the smoke-filled lobby, he'd had trouble finding 66 DANCING IN THE MOVIES her. Finally he spotted her across the room, leaning against the wall opposite him. That was the memory: Marilyn, tall, thin, dark against the white stucco wall, wearing a thick beige coat fringed with fur, staring into the crowd with an expression of anticipation and melancholy. At that moment, she looked as beautiful as anyone he'd ever seen. When she saw him crossing the lobby, she smiled and moved to meet him. But that whole evening, as Handle saw it, revolved around that one frozen image of his future wife leaning against a wall, looking sad, beautiful, eager. Handle had spent the past two weeks with Marilyn's parents , trying to relax, with mixed results. He'd enjoyed the time but couldn't escape the nagging discontent that had driven him away from the city, his home, his wife. Louise, Marilyn's sister, had arrived from Los Angeles two days ago, giving him someone else to talk to. She'd just completed her second year of law school. Marilyn would finish her finals today , and by tomorrow she would be in Tennessee as well. ''You sleep later every day," his sister-in-law said, smiling at him as he walked down the stairs. Louise's eyes had always fascinated him, the same light brown as her skin but luminous. He grinned at her. "I might have had a little too much to drink last night." "That's safe to say." She waited for him to say something more, then moved her hands from her hips to her shoulders, crossing her arms. In one hand she held a book of Emily Dick· inson. ''You've missed breakfast, but if you talk really sweet, I might be persuaded to warm up the biscuits and make some gravy." "Too early for me to think about food," Handle said, thinking how tired he was ofmilk gravy and flat biscuits. He thought he'd like a steak, a New York cut, but he smiled at his lovely sister-in-law. "Maybe later, Louise." "Later will be too late." She laughed and walked out of the room. Handle watched the swish in her hips and knew he'd 67 THE DARKNESS OF LOVE been away from his wife too long. But, then, the way Louise walked had always interested him. Her hips rolled like the shoulders of a swimmer. He and Marilyn had been...