most
with carefully kept flower plots in front. Along the quiet Sunday
sidewalks, dressed-up children on the way to Sunday school, others
not so dressed up running and shouting at play—householders working
in front gardens this clear morning after the rain. This was all
Oriental along here, largely Japanese. When he stopped at an
intersection a pair of high-school-age girls crossed in front of
him—"But honestly it isn’t fair, ten whole pages of English
Lit, even if it is on the week end! She’s a real fiend for
homework—" One had a ponytail, one an Italian cut; their basic
uniform of flat shell pumps, billowy cotton skirts and cardigans,
differed only in color.
At the next corner he turned into Tappan Street; this
wasn’t the start of it, but the relevant length for him, this side
of Washington Boulevard. He drove slow and idle, as if he’d all the
time in the world to waste, wasn’t exactly sure where he was
heading: and of course he wasn’t, essentially. It was a long street
and it took him through a variety of backgrounds.
Past rows of frame and stucco houses,
lower—middle-class—respectable houses, where the people on the
street were Oriental, and then brown and black; there, late-model
cars sat in most driveways and the people were mostly dressed up for
Sunday. Past bigger, older, shabbier houses with Board-and-Room
signs, rank brown grass in patches, and broken sidewalks: dreary
courts of semi-detached single-story rental units, stucco boxes
scabrous for need of paint: black and brown kids in shabbier, even
ragged clothes, more raucous in street play. A lot of all that, block
after block. Past an intersection where a main street crossed and a
Catholic church, a liquor store, a chiropractor’s office and a gas
station shared the corners. Past the same kind of old, shoddy houses
and courts, for many more blocks, but here the people on the street
white. Then a corner which marked some long-ago termination of the
street: where it continued, across, there were no longer tall old
camphorwoods lining it; the parking was bare. The houses were a
little newer, a little cleaner: they gave way to solid blocks of
smallish apartment buildings, and all this again was settled
middle-class, and again the faces in the street black and brown.
At the next intersection, he caught the light and sat
waiting for it, staring absently at the wooden bench beside the
bus-stop sign on the near left corner. Its back bore a faded
admonition to Rely on J. Atwood and Son, Morticians, for a Dignified
Funeral. There, that night, Carol Brooks had got off the bus on her
way home from work, and some time later started down Tappan Street.
She had had only three blocks to walk, but she had met—something—on
the way, and so she hadn’t got home. . . .The car behind honked at
him angrily; the light had changed.
Across the intersection, he idled along another block
and a half, slid gently into the curb and took his time over lighting
a cigarette. Three single-family houses from the corner, there sat
two duplexes, frame bungalows just alike, one white and one yellow.
They were, or had been, owned by the widowed Mrs. Shadwell who lived
in one side of the yellow one. On that September night the left-hand
side of the white one had been empty of tenants, the tenants in the
other side had been out at a wedding reception, the tenants in the
left side of the yellow duplex had been giving a barbecue supper in
their back yard, and Mrs. Shadwell, who was deaf, had taken off her
hearing aid. So just what had happened along here, as Carol Brooks
came by, wasn’t very clear; if she’d been accosted, exchanged any
talk or argument with her killer, had warning of attack and called
for help, there’d been no one to hear. She’d been found just
about halfway between the walks leading to the two front doors of the
white duplex, at twenty minutes past nine, by a dog-walker from the
next block: she had then been dead for between thirty minutes and
with carefully kept flower plots in front. Along the quiet Sunday
sidewalks, dressed-up children on the way to Sunday school, others
not so dressed up running and shouting at play—householders working
in front gardens this clear morning after the rain. This was all
Oriental along here, largely Japanese. When he stopped at an
intersection a pair of high-school-age girls crossed in front of
him—"But honestly it isn’t fair, ten whole pages of English
Lit, even if it is on the week end! She’s a real fiend for
homework—" One had a ponytail, one an Italian cut; their basic
uniform of flat shell pumps, billowy cotton skirts and cardigans,
differed only in color.
At the next corner he turned into Tappan Street; this
wasn’t the start of it, but the relevant length for him, this side
of Washington Boulevard. He drove slow and idle, as if he’d all the
time in the world to waste, wasn’t exactly sure where he was
heading: and of course he wasn’t, essentially. It was a long street
and it took him through a variety of backgrounds.
Past rows of frame and stucco houses,
lower—middle-class—respectable houses, where the people on the
street were Oriental, and then brown and black; there, late-model
cars sat in most driveways and the people were mostly dressed up for
Sunday. Past bigger, older, shabbier houses with Board-and-Room
signs, rank brown grass in patches, and broken sidewalks: dreary
courts of semi-detached single-story rental units, stucco boxes
scabrous for need of paint: black and brown kids in shabbier, even
ragged clothes, more raucous in street play. A lot of all that, block
after block. Past an intersection where a main street crossed and a
Catholic church, a liquor store, a chiropractor’s office and a gas
station shared the corners. Past the same kind of old, shoddy houses
and courts, for many more blocks, but here the people on the street
white. Then a corner which marked some long-ago termination of the
street: where it continued, across, there were no longer tall old
camphorwoods lining it; the parking was bare. The houses were a
little newer, a little cleaner: they gave way to solid blocks of
smallish apartment buildings, and all this again was settled
middle-class, and again the faces in the street black and brown.
At the next intersection, he caught the light and sat
waiting for it, staring absently at the wooden bench beside the
bus-stop sign on the near left corner. Its back bore a faded
admonition to Rely on J. Atwood and Son, Morticians, for a Dignified
Funeral. There, that night, Carol Brooks had got off the bus on her
way home from work, and some time later started down Tappan Street.
She had had only three blocks to walk, but she had met—something—on
the way, and so she hadn’t got home. . . .The car behind honked at
him angrily; the light had changed.
Across the intersection, he idled along another block
and a half, slid gently into the curb and took his time over lighting
a cigarette. Three single-family houses from the corner, there sat
two duplexes, frame bungalows just alike, one white and one yellow.
They were, or had been, owned by the widowed Mrs. Shadwell who lived
in one side of the yellow one. On that September night the left-hand
side of the white one had been empty of tenants, the tenants in the
other side had been out at a wedding reception, the tenants in the
left side of the yellow duplex had been giving a barbecue supper in
their back yard, and Mrs. Shadwell, who was deaf, had taken off her
hearing aid. So just what had happened along here, as Carol Brooks
came by, wasn’t very clear; if she’d been accosted, exchanged any
talk or argument with her killer, had warning of attack and called
for help, there’d been no one to hear. She’d been found just
about halfway between the walks leading to the two front doors of the
white duplex, at twenty minutes past nine, by a dog-walker from the
next block: she had then been dead for between thirty minutes and
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