Having delved into the lives of Leopold and Loeb (here), I turned my attention to Patrick Hamilton, the author of Rope, the play that has traditionally been cited as having been based on their case. I felt there were some loose threads left hanging in my comments about him. So I untied a few knots, at least in my own understanding about the play and its idiosyncratic author (below, in his apartment at the storied Albany.)

Rope was staged to great acclaim in London’s West End in 1929 and starred a very young Brian Aherne in the key role of Wyndham Brandon, the mastermind of the murder which takes place moments before the curtain rises. The hit was then brought over to New York (sans Aherne, below) where it was renamed Rope’s End (after Complex was ruled out) so as not to be confused with an earlier play named Rope. The drama was a smash on Broadway and ran for several months. Times drama critic, J. Brooks Atkinson (he still used the initial then), said in his review that “those who can stomach it must be prepared to relish an evening of pure morbidity.”

Reading the actual play, I discovered a few surprising things (at least to me). First the play is not more explicitly homosexual than the film by Alfred Hitchcock done several years later. That seems to be a fallacy which has been passed on for decades by critics dissing the movie. The play is more subdued, even stilted. Aherne’s character states melodramatically: “I have done murder…I have committed passionless – motiveless – faultless – and clueless murder. Bloodless and noiseless murder.” Underscoring the point again, he describes it as “an immaculate murder.” His motive for such a clean, thoughtless act? “I have killed for the sake of danger and for the sake of killing. And I am alive. Truly and wonderfully alive.” The final speech in which Rupert Cadell chastises his friends for their brutality is basically a moral argument that murder is wrong because it hurts other people.  Ultimately it reads like a defense of capital punishment. The “rope” used to strangle the victim becomes in the end the instrument of justice since the two boys, curses Cadell, will certainly hang for their crime.

The gay element one could argue, parsing words, is hinted at but only in the most superficial brush strokes. The house shared by Brandon and Granillo is “furnished in a luxurious and faintly bizarre manner.” Brandon has large hands and “his build that of the boxer.” Granillo, the queenier one who frets a great deal, is of Spanish descent and wears a diamond ring. He is described as “something between a dancing master and a stage villain.” It’s Rupert Cadell, the all-knowing friend that uncovers their nefarious doings, who is the predominantly gay character. He is “a little foppish in dress and appearance and this impression is increased by the very exquisite walking-stick which he carries indoors as well as not.” He is lame in his right leg, due to a war injury (no doubt a symbol of impotence). “He is enormously affected in speech and carriage… His affectation almost verges on effeminacy, and can be very irritating.” It sounds to me as if Hamilton were channeling Lord Henry Wotton from The Picture of Dorian Gray.

If anything it is the film which accentuated the gay relationship between the two protagonists. Whether this was deliberate on the part of Arthur Laurents who co-wrote the screenplay with Hume Cronyn has been oft debated. Perhaps it was inevitable with two predominantly gay stars in the leads: Farley Granger and John Dall (above, with the hopelessly miscast Jimmy Stewart). Or possibly it was Hitchcock himself who emphasized the more perverse elements of the story line through his witty direction. But reading the actual play (seen below with John Barrowman in a recent staging), I was surprised to find that there is little of the camp humor and coy double entendres of the film. It is basically a lurid thriller about the unfeeling upper class.

The other fallacy regarding the play is the much-touted claim that Patrick Hamilton based his play on the Leopold and Loeb case (or the Loeb-Leopold case as it was commonly called back then before Loeb was murdered and Leopold became the more dominant character merely by having survived.) Hamilton denied that his play was inspired by any criminal case. He said at the time that he had never heard of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. And reading the play one is struck by the fact that aside from the “thrill-kill” aspect of the murder there is very little in common with the Chicago case. First of all, the Oxford roommates have killed a man their own age, rather than a boy. They have not stripped him naked and stuffed his body in a culvert and demanded ransom from his parents. Instead they have placed the body in a chest on which they serve dinner. Only the boy’s father is invited to attend the cocktail party they throw in the victim’s honor. And third, the character of Rupert Cadell, who gives the all-important moral speech at the climax of the play, is a complete figment of Hamilton’s imagination.

Why then have writers (myself included) persisted in saying that Rope is based on the Leopold and Loeb case? Patrick’s brother Bruce wrote a memoir of their close friendship (The Light Went Out, 1972) in which he states candidly that “The idea of murder for ‘kicks’, given body by his reading of Nietzsche, came from the Loeb-Leopold case in America.” He claimed that Hamilton had written the play in a white heat, “the first draft scribbled on old envelopes and odd scraps of paper in saloon bars and small Lyons teashops.” Hamilton, he says, had become obsessed with the “divine hysterias” of Thus Spake Zarathustra. But in his preface to the published version, Hamilton went to great pains to deny any connection. So was he in denial?

That’s a question Hamilton’s biographers pondered. There have been two biographies, one by by Nigel Jones (Through a Glass Darkly, 1991) and Sean French (Patrick Hamilton, A Life, 1993). French doubts Hamilton’s denial of being influenced by the infamous Chicago case. “Books about famous trials were, with trashy westerns, always his favorite leisure reading. His contention that he was not influenced by the Leopold and Loeb case is simply not credible.”

Jones’ book questions whether Hamilton himself might have had homosexual tendencies. “We have Bruce’s word that Patrick did not have physical homosexual affairs, although he admitted to his brother in later life that this was less from a lack of desire than from a failure of nerve and intrigue.” Like many Englishmen of his class, who went to boarding school, Hamilton had been exposed to adolescent affairs between boys. But he seems to have ignored it. “I myself had passes made at me as a boy,” he said, “but they just didn’t take.” French agreed with Jones’ assessment, categorizing Hamilton’s marriage as basically “a platonic relationship,” adding “There is no evidence of any homosexual side to Hamilton after his schooldays, but Bruce had various fears about his brother’s sex life…”

If anything, the odd relationship between the two men in Rope seems to be more a reflection of the strange bond between Patrick and his brother Bruce. In letters Patrick wrote him, in breathless prose — “Your truly loving, loving, loving, loving, loving…” etc  — his intimacies take on an almost incestuous tone. The friendship was deeply co-dependent. As Bruce puts it, “he and I became all in all to each other.”

In fact it is fascinating to read Patrick Hamilton’s letters to his brother which are kept at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in Austin, particularly those that touch upon the enormous success of Rope. Patrick seems to have felt that his having “made it” on the stage would solve the pair’s financial woes. Indeed, Hamilton lived off the royalties from it, and other hit plays, for the rest of his life. “How can I begin to describe to you the uncanniness of my success?” he wrote Bruce (quoted with permission). “It is all a strange Byronic dream. For it is not only the money, it is the fame. And by this, I do not mean a petty notoriety… I have done exactly what Noel Coward did with The Vortex. I am known, established… the world is truly at my feet… And all through Rope. It’s all too funny.” He ends the letter by saying “Remember that we have come into our estate.” Clearly for Hamilton, Rope represented a means to draw an even closer tie to his beloved brother.

Reading about Hamilton’s unusual life and childhood (his father had married a prostitute, and he in turn had a mad affair with one and was a flaming alcoholic) I was struck by how much of the material I’ve haphazardly written about on this blog over the years stems from his imagination! I did not know, for instance, when I first posted about Rope that Patrick Hamilton had written the novel Hangover Square on which the film starring Laird Cregar which I wrote about in my piece about The Lodger had been based. The film was a horrible bowdlerization of the novel, having changed time periods, characters and plot to concoct a Victorian vehicle for its stars Cregar, George Sanders and Linda Darnell. Hamilton hated it so much he reportedly was sick after seeing it. But the link to Rope is there in its macabre themes of insanity and murder.

So too Gaslight which Hamilton first wrote as a play for the London stage. It was made into a marvelous British film, above, starring Diana Wynyard and Anton Walbrook (of Red Shoes fame). Then it ran for years on Broadway renamed Angel Street. Later it was turned into a Hollywood vehicle for Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman. (A curious side note: in the film of Rope, the characters gossip about Ingrid Bergman who was Hitchcock’s pet obsession at the time. In the play they discuss Joan Crawford!) As for Gaslight, the original British film was bought up by the American producers and reels destroyed. Luckily a few copies survived. The original is in many ways superior to the George Cukor version, although it lacks the other’s soaring romanticism and cinematic flair. What it does reveal, however, is Hamilton’s fixations on class, money, power and influence, themes which were at the heart of his play Rope.

Patrick Hamilton also wrote The Gorse Trilogy, a trio of clever novels about an amoral, good-looking cad who takes advantage of the men and women around him. It was turned into a marvelous TV series called The Charmer starring handsome Nigel Havers. It’s witty, shocking and brilliantly acted.

In America, Patrick Hamilton is barely known. Ironically when I went to look at copies of the three biographies of him which the University carries here, the library did not carry a single work of his. In England, by contrast, his reputation has grown enormously. He’s a highly praised writer whose star rises and falls depending on attention being paid to his very diverse novels rather than his plays, which are only occasionally mounted. Hangover Square, despite the lingering effect of its Hollywood version, remains a cult favorite. Recently many of his books were reissued by Black Spring Press and other firms.

So what did Patrick Hamilton think of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope? (That was the official title). According to his brother, “Although he had taken part in the early stages of the making of the picture, he had disliked it intensely, and felt that he had been bamboozled over it.” Patrick himself stated “I was heartbroken by the film of Rope… [Hitchcock] finally produced a film which I think (and all intelligent friends agree) was sordid and practically meaningless balls…”

What Patrick Hamilton could not have predicted is that it is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope that has stood the test of time, balls and all, while his well-made play remains merely a curious relic.

[Among the things I found recently while spring cleaning is this short story I did 20 years ago. I had completely forgotten having written it! It feels unfinished and is obviously unpolished. But it can't hurt to air it out. Who knows, I might even take another stab at it.]

It was one of those distressingly hot and humid summer days when the air is as thick as mucilage and one senses, with a vague sense of unease, that a storm is in the offing. No one wanted to stir, but there were a thousand last minute arrangements to be made. It was the day of Madeline Ryan’s 80th birthday party — she had one every year on the last Saturday of August. It had become a summer ritual for the folks on Further Lane. Madeline had been celebrating her 80th birthday now for six years even though she was really 87. She’s the kind of woman who likes to lie even when she’s lying.

I was waiting for my father to arrive. He lived in Manhasset, a hundred miles away from Amagansett, where Madeline lives during the summer. Usually it takes Dad just an hour and a half to get here. But lately, he’d been having trouble driving and I was increasingly worried that he might have had an accident. At seventy-six, he was just beginning to become senile. Some of Madeline’s friends told me they thought he had Alzheimer’s, like Trip, Madeline’s husband who had died ten years before. But Dad always told me that Trip had died from alcoholism. Trip used to go to the Russian Tea Room and after several vodkas, would insist on eating his meal on the floor. Dad liked to drink too, but I’d never seen him drunk. His deterioration came from an unknown source. Sometimes when I looked at him, I would only see an old man struggling to survive. There was nothing left of the man who was my father.

I’d been spending my summers at Madeline’s place on Further Lane for the past 25 years, ever since my mother died when I was eight. Everyone in the Hamptons had heard of Mrs. Ryan. Her family were among the first settlers in the area, arriving back in the 17th century. Madeline owns more than 5,000 acres of farmland in Amagansett, East Hampton and Montauk. There are ten houses here on Further Lane. Since Trip died, she’s been renting out the three biggest ones. The rest are filled with her family and friends. She lets me stay in the small studio behind the garage. Although it doesn’t have a shower, and I have to stumble into her house every morning to bathe, it does have an astonishing view of the ocean. At night, I fall asleep, counting the waves crashing against the shore.

Madeline’s caretaker, Buzz, a man in his 80s who’d been working at the Ryans all his adult life, and who was constantly surrounded by a pack of aging beagles, had erected an enormous white and yellow striped tent in the field next to the croquet court. I had helped him lay down some planks to serve as a makeshift dance floor, and set up three dozen round folding tables. A team of waiters and busboys from a catering firm were setting out the dinner.

It was already after eight o’clock and time for the party to get underway. Guests had already begun to arrive, leaving their Mercedes, Cadillacs and Jaguars on the lawn outside the house. Madeline usually invited 300 guests to her birthday affairs. A waiter, dripping sweat, passed by carrying a tray of fluted champagne glasses. Had he been here the year before when I’d made such a scene? High from a hit of Thai stick I’d gotten from one of the band members, as well as too many bourbons, I had done a striptease in the middle of the dance floor and then jumped in the pool stark naked. I thought I was being funny, but Madeline was upset and hired a limousine the following morning to take me back to my apartment in the city. To make matters worse, one of Madeline’s sons had videotaped the entire thing and for several months afterward would show the tape to anyone who happened to drop by. I’d promised myself that this year, I wouldn’t make a spectacle of myself. And I would definitely stay away from the band.

Rory, the maid, had laid out a mountain of baby shrimp under the lattice gazebo at the center of the rose garden. I spotted Eleanor de Vere there. The daughter of a former Senator, she was winding her way through a field of folding chairs. Dressed like a disheveled Aphrodite in a long diaphanous white gown and a string of pearls, Ellie carried a plastic tumbler in one hand and her bright yellow Manolo Blahniks in the other. The plastic tumbler was a bad sign. It meant that she had come to Madeline’s party from another, and was already fairly lit.

Dropping her shoes, and hugging me with her wrists, so as not to spill her drink, Ellie kissed the air beside my cheeks and then drained her cup. She smelled of rose water and Bordeaux wine. The pancake she was using on her face didn’t cover the burst capillaries along her nose and below her eyes. She smiled, revealing a poorly realized set of dentures, stained a ruddy brown from too many cigarettes, and much too much red wine.

“Denver, dear, I see you have your clothes on!” she said. She giggled like a school girl. “I do hope you’ll perform for us again this year.”

“I’m afraid I’ve turned a new leaf,” I replied, attacking the shrimp with a large silver spoon.

“Where’s your father?”

“He’s on his way,” I said, not wanting to confide in this infamous gossip, suddenly wishing she’d go away. I ate a mouthful of shrimp and downed it with a swig of champagne. Suddenly Eleanor let out a shriek and ran behind me. Turning around, I saw her throw her arms around Bucky Sands, the designer who was renting the largest of Madeline’s houses. Behind Bucky was his pal Roger Lezniak, a former weight-lifter, now “bodyguard.” Bucky nodded in my direction, but made no effort to say hello.

I slipped past the three of them and made my way back to the bar. Several more people had shown up, including Mrs. Mary Jackson Cumberland de Almaviva Knightridge Schutz. Three of her husbands had died. The other two she divorced. She was now working on a sixth, a man one-third her age whom she’d met on a cruise along the Amalfi Coast. Mary once told me, after a few too many, that my father had once proposed to her, but she turned him down because she couldn’t stand the idea of raising someone else’s children. A heavyset woman, Mary had a wardrobe of designer tent dresses, a different color for each day of the week. Tonight she was wearing purple and gold. And underneath her clip-on earrings, Mary always wore band-aids to relieve the pressure against her lobes. She grabbed my arm the moment she saw me.

“I heard your father’s not well,” she said, her eyes entreating me to tell her all.

“Who said that?”

“Madeline. She says he was supposed to be here hours ago. He missed the croquet game.”

“He’s 76 years old, Mary. He’s a little slow, that’s all.”

“You have to do something,” she said, clenching her false teeth and squeezing my elbow. “He’s not like he used to be.”

I wanted to warn her to mind her own business, but I smiled and told her I would do everything I could to help him, and thanked her for her concern. All I could think of at that moment was getting another drink — this time a Wild Turkey. When it was my turn at the bar, I ordered a double. It was the same bartender from the year before, a local kid with a swimmer’s build and a harelip. I remembered making a play for him, but had been rebuffed. He poured the drink and handed it over, without looking at me.

I felt a hand on my shoulder as I was leaving the bar. It was Cal Reeves, another of Madeline’s hangers-on who worked at a decorator’s shop at the Plaza. Close to six feet, three inches, with a mop of blinding white hair, and an equally blinding white linen suit with a red cravat, Cal liked to pretend he was in his 50s, but I knew better. Once while taking the train back to Manhattan with him, I noticed he handed the conductor his senior citizen’s card to get a discount.

“Did you see that number working the buffet?” Cal asked, his voice hoarse from decades of chain-smoking Pall Malls. He pointed a perfectly manicured but tobacco-stained finger at a young man in a rented tux standing behind the red and white checked buffet table. I hadn’t noticed him before. He was handsome: a short trim figure, like a wrestler’s, with dark curly hair, a boyish face and a thick five o’clock shadow.

“What’s his story?”

“His name is Brian,” Cal said. “A freshman at Brown. He’s working part-time this summer with Sarah Whitfield.” Sarah was the local caterer.

I looked at Cal. His contact lenses were yellowed and too large for his bloodshot eyes. “I suddenly feel famished,” I said, hitting Cal playfully on the shoulder.

At the buffet table, I helped myself to broiled salmon, steamed vegetables and some mysterious curried rice. From the corner of my eye, I could see that Brian was watching me. I glanced up and caught his gaze. He smiled.

“Pretty damn hot,” I said, approaching his spot at the end of the table. He handed me a napkin, wrapped around a knife and fork.

“It’s supposed to rain later tonight,” he said. He had no discernible accent.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Buffalo. But I live in Providence now.”

“Do you go to Brown?”

He blushed momentarily. “Yes. I do. How did you know?”

“It’s obvious. What are you majoring in?” I suddenly felt like I was back at college myself, meeting new friends on the first day of classes.

“Psychology.”

“I see. Well, I better be careful around you,” I said, the booze loosening my tongue. “I don’t want my behavior to be analyzed.”

“It already has been,” he laughed. “I’ve been observing you since I first arrived.”

Now it was my turn to blush. I stared into Brian’s eyes for a second to determine whether he approved of my behavior up until then. Not finding an answer in his expression, I smiled and waved goodbye.

I found a seat at a table not far from the band area, and dug into my food. I made a mental note to get some coffee as soon as possible. The band launched into a raucous tune. A few of the younger guests scampered onto the dance floor and started spinning around, bumping and grinding to the beat. One of them, Pamela Capriano, flew towards me and landed in a chair by my side. She had a wild look in her eye; she was probably on something.

“Fucking bore, isn’t it?” she said, lighting a Marlboro that she pulled out of a pack stashed in her glittery disco purse. She didn’t wait for a response. “Madeline’s really on the rag, and her jack-ass nephew is driving me nuts. He’s always looking down my dress like he lost his car keys or something.” I didn’t laugh at her joke. She leaned towards me conspiratorially. “Wanna get high?”

“No. You know I don’t smoke pot.”

“Oh, Denver, don’t be such a stick in the mud. This is a party!” She took a long soulful drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke out of her nose. “Where’s your adorable playboy father, Mr. Whitney Tate?” I remembered the time, several years earlier, when I had stumbled upon the two of them in the shower outside the beach hut, rinsing off together, after a swim in the ocean. I had noticed then through her wet bikini top that her nipples were erect.

“I don’t know. I’m starting to get a bit concerned. He’s not usually this late.” But my last few words were drowned out by a flourish of horns from the band. They were playing “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog.”

“Oh, Denver, please dance with me!” Pamela had already jumped to her feet and stuffed her cigarette into my drink. “You always put on the best show.”

I glanced at my watch. Almost nine. “No, thanks, Pam. I’ve got to make a phone call.” Pamela scurried off in search of a dance partner. I made my way around the back of the house, into the kitchen, where I could use the phone. Halfway there, I looked over at the buffet. Brian was staring at me, a devilish smirk on his face. I took a chance and winked at him. He burst into a broad, beautiful smile.

Inside the kitchen, I greeted Rory, the maid, and her Spanish speaking assistants. They might have been her daughters, or nieces, or cousins. She’d never married, but she had had several lovers. Rory was busy carving a large lamb. I didn’t stop to chat with her. Behind the group, in the pantry, Sarah Whitfield was overseeing the preparation of a panoply of pies and cakes.

Dialing my father’s number, I felt a chill as I recalled the many times I had called from college to tell Dad that everything was okay, not to worry, that I was happy at school. He hadn’t asked me to. He never did. But I had felt back then that he must be concerned, and I wanted to alleviate any suspicion on his part that I was, in fact, having a hard time adjusting to life in the dorms.

Now the phone rang several times. Each ring seemed to pierce the silence with more urgency. Finally, after a dozen or so rings, someone picked up, but then immediately hung up. I dialed the number again. This time it was busy.

A surge of panic gripped me. Dad was one hundred miles away, supposedly alone in the house, and either he or someone else had picked up the phone. Had I dialed it correctly? I tried it again. This time there was no answer.

I didn’t know what to do. My father was not well. He may have fallen down trying to answer the call. He may be sick. He may have had a heart attack.

I opened the refrigerator and removed a Budweiser from the bottom shelf. Then I left through the back door, by the garden, and headed for Madeline’s table under the tent. Once there, I bent down beside her wheelchair. “Madeline, I think something’s happened to Dad. I’m going to drive home and see if he’s all right.”

“Are you sure you should be driving?” she said, glancing at the beer in my hand.

“I’ll have some coffee first,” I said. “Rory’s just made a fresh pot.”

“You do that,” Madeline said, her voice a tiny scratch. As I was about to leave, I saw an old man, partly bent over, shuffling across the gravel driveway. The silver-haired man’s mouth was open and he was staring directly at me. It was my father.

“You see! I knew he’d make it,” Madeline cried out, thrusting her hand to Dad who grabbed it like a life line. He collapsed in a seat next to her.

“Richard,” he said, staring at me. Lately, he’d been calling me by my eldest brother’s name. Sometimes he’d forget that Richard lives in California, and he’d think that I’m still at prep school. I was too dumbfounded to greet him. Then leaning over, I yelled over the music, “I just called the house. Someone answered the phone. I thought it was you.”

“Your uncle Stratford,” he said. Dad’s speech was slurred. Some spittle had formed at the side of his mouth. He kept his mouth open, as if something had startled him.

“Why?” I hollered.

“Thrown out. Mary– fight. Needed to stay.” He was mumbling and I could hardly make out what he was saying.

“Was he drunk?”

Dad didn’t answer. He simply smiled. His eyes glazed over with tears, not from sadness, but old age. He suddenly laughed very loudly. He didn’t seem to know where he was.

Seeing that he and Madeline were safe in each other’s company, at least for the moment, I told them that I needed to go to the bathroom and headed for the bar.

Two hours later, after dancing up a sweat with Pamela, and downing several more glasses of champagne, I noticed that Brian was carrying the last of the dinner trays into the kitchen. I cornered him and motioned for him to follow me.

“Where are we going?” he asked, touching my elbow tentatively. In the moonlight, his white shirt shone like a beacon. The sheen in his tight, starched black pants danced up and down his legs as we edged along the noisy gravel path. The late night air was thick with salt-air, and the smell of freshly mown grass. In the distance, above the sound of the crashing surf, were echoes of disco music, and sporadic laughter.

“It’s not far,” I told him. He had nice square shoulders, and his large, open eyes were framed by exquisitely long lashes.

“How old did you say you are?”

“Eighteen.”

We didn’t say anything else until I stopped in front of my studio behind the garage.

“I want to show you where I live,” I said. I reached into my pocket to pull out my key, but I dropped a lot of change on the ground. Brian knelt down to pick it up. I made sure I got the key in the door on the first try and opened it. The boy was silent. But after a pause, he stepped inside.

The moonlight that streamed through the two side windows illuminated the tiny room. Against the wall opposite the front door was a wood stove. In front of it sat an old stuffed chair that had been draped with a sheet. By its side was a lobster trap that doubled as a coffee table. Inside a conch shell hung suspended in the netting. Built into the far left wall was my bed.

Brian broke the silence. “I really should get back to the party. Miss Whitfield will kill me if she notices that I’m missing.”

I pulled him close to me and kissed him. His lips were dry and they did not respond. “You’re very beautiful,” I whispered.

Brian sighed, closed his eyes and parted his lips. I pulled him closer to me. I could feel him growing aroused. “This isn’t right,” he said, pulling away.

“I won’t hurt you,” I said quietly, letting my hand gently graze against his back. He sighed and pressed into me. Quickly I undid his trousers and pulled them down around his ankles. The boy trembled. The moon illuminated his thighs, as if they were made of stone.

I don’t know how much later it was. The door to the studio was open. It was cold. I was alone, curled up into a ball on the sheeted chair. The moon had shifted and the room was completely dark. The clock by the bed read 4:22. Parched and feeling a headache coming on, I tried to stand up, but my legs were stiff and achy. I recalled Brian’s face. His expectant eyes. My own face lost in the dark. How long had he stayed?

I moved to the small galley kitchen, and opened the cupboards. Empty.

Suddenly there was a terrific bolt of lightning and the entire room was illuminated in a blinding stark gray light. Then almost immediately a clap of thunder. The storm was directly over head. I needed a cigarette desperately. But where could I go and get one? In the main house? Certainly not now, with the rain coming down in sheets. I gazed out the window and listened intently as pebbles of rain pelted the roof above me. I thought I saw a face against the window peering in, knocking against the glass. But it was only a branch, scratching against the pane.

The branch made me think of another evening, several years before, when I was nine years old. My brother Richard and I had had a terrible fight when we’d both been left alone in the house on a Saturday afternoon. My father had gone to the city. I remember I was sitting at the bottom of the staircase, playing with Phosphero, our cat. I heard someone above me laughing, and looked up. My brother was at the top of the stairs on the third floor. He dropped something. Something silver. There was no time to move out of the way.

When the pair of scissors hit me, it felt like I’d been burned with scalding water. The sharp tips skidded off my back and the shears landed after several spins on the hall floor. I felt a pain in my shoulder, and noticed blood beading from a minor scrape. Without even thinking, I ran out the door, forgetting my coat. It was pouring rain outside, but I flew as fast as I could down the block, past the mailbox, past the stop sign, and across Revere Road to Eakins Road, then down towards the large Tudor-style grade school on the hill. There on the corner of Northern Boulevard and Woods Road, catching my breath, I thought I’d be safe. I could wait there for my father to come home.

It was the corner which my father always turned on when driving home, since it was the shortest route. I took a seat on top of a wooden fence that lined the road, under a large oak tree that served as a canopy. Nevertheless, the rain soaked me from head to toe. It was quite cold outside and I shivered in my wet clothes, without a coat. My teeth clattered like a pair of castanets.

I was too afraid to go back home, to my laughing brother, to the physical threat. But also, even at only nine years of age, I knew I didn’t belong in that house. But what escape did I have? As the hours passed, I prayed that my father would come along and fling open the car door and tell me that he’d been looking for me all afternoon.

I don’t know how many hours I waited. How many cars passed by. But the sun had gone down and the street lights came on. People in their houses sat down to supper, or watched the nightly news. I must have seen thirty cars go by that looked just like ours. But none had Dad in them. Finally, as the rain let up, I surrendered to the fact that I had nowhere else to go, but home. Maybe I could sneak in to the basement, I thought, and hide out in the furnace room until Dad got back.

I walked the long blocks back to the house. I saw a light on in the living room. And knowing that I couldn’t be seen, I sneaked up to the patio and peered in through the french doors that led into the living room. Music was playing. My father was sitting in his favorite chair, a martini on the octagon-shaped marble table to his side. He had on his reading glasses. Then I saw him put down the magazine he was reading, and smile at someone across from him. I heard the sound of a woman laughing. I moved to the right and saw a blond lady on the sofa, with her legs folded beneath her. Her high heel shoes lay on the floor. She too had a martini. She was laughing warmly.

I opened the front door, slipped inside, and raced up the stairs to my room and slammed the door shut. I threw myself on the bed and shook uncontrollably. A few minutes later, there was a knock at my door. But I didn’t answer it.

*   *   *   *   *

Due to a confluence of factors, including spring cleaning, travel, deadlines, and taxes, I am taking a hiatus from the blog for a short spell. I hope to be back soon with new stories, updates and long-winded diatribes. Stay tuned. And thanks for checking in.