Bedtime, old lady. Put the spooks to rest.

Have I mentioned the heat? I don’t generally whine about weather. I’ve never much seen the point, but Jesus fuck. I’m about a hairbreadth from breaking down and getting a little window unit AC of my own, stick it on the damn credit cards, and worry about it later, after I haven’tdied of heat prostration. The meteorologists say there are cooler days ahead, and I do hope they’re not just fucking with us.

Constance came down from the icy sanctum sanctorumof her garret this afternoon, as paint-stained as ever, but somewhat more talkative. I must admit, it was something of a relief, at least at first. My own company wears so goddamn thin. Even that of a flaky, temperamental artist is preferable, at this point. However, one of the first things she did was comment on the heat downstairs, and I briefly contemplated murdering her and hiding the body in the basement. Or taking it to the red oak, in hopes that Hobbamock the Narragansett demon might be pleased, take pity upon me, and grant a boon of cooler weather.

“You should come upstairs,” she said, and “You should ask me,” I replied.

Constance laughed, but did not proceed to invite me back to the attic. We sat on the living room floor for a while, talking and sweating, before moving to the kitchen table, which was even more cluttered than usual. She looked over a few pages of Dr. Harvey’s manuscript, offering no comment. We drank cold beer and nibbled at Spanish olives, whole-wheat crackers, and slices of Swiss cheese, because, lunchtime or no, we were both too hot for an actual meal.

“You know what it makes me think of?” she asked, and nodded at the window, nodding towards the tree. This was fifteen or twenty minutes after she’d returned the pages to the manuscript box, and it took me a moment to realize what she meant.

“No,” I replied and took another sip of my beer.

“It’s like something from Violet Venable’s awful garden in New Orleans. You know, in Suddenly, Last Summer.”

I forced myself to stare out the window, north towards the tree and the steely shimmer of Ramswool Pond, for a moment before answering her. “I think, technically, it was Sebastian’s garden. Mrs. Venable had merely become its caretaker after her son’s death.”

“Is thatwhat you think?” and now, suddenly, there was a trace of derisiveness in her voice, something verging on contempt. I looked at the tree again, at the high blue sky suspended above it, not a cloud in sight. The sun seemed to have robbed the entire world beyond the window of shadows, or even the potential for shadow. Given the topic at hand, it was impossible for me not to be reminded of Catherine Holly’s fevered description of the sun on the day of her cousin’s murder — a gigantic white bone that had caught fire in the Mediterranean sky.

“Is it?” Constance prodded.

“It’s too hot to argue with you about Tennessee Williams,” I told her.

“I didn’t know we were arguing, Sarah. I only thought we were having a conversation. I thought you might be getting lonely, down here all alone. I thought maybe you would appreciate someone to talk with.”

“Sebastian planted the garden,” I said. “It was Sebastian’s garden,” and she laughed and lit a cigarette.

“The garden, it’s a womb,” she said. “The green and, in the end, barren hell of Violet’s own womb, guarded by carnivorous plants. I mean, really, those pitcher plants and the Venus flytrap and whatever the hell else Violet was keeping in that miniature greenhouse, that garden within the garden, those plants she hand-fed — if that’s not the vagina dentata,I don’t know what would be.”

I turned away from the window and stared at Constance a moment or two before saying anything more. The smoke rising from her cigarette curled into a sort of spiral above her head.

“I tend to avoid conversations about vaginas with teeth,” I said, finally, and she laughed again and tapped ash into an empty saucer.

“So not a big fan of Freud?” she asked.

And, by this point, I was growing angry, what with the heat and the sunlight and the fact that Constance was clearly, for reasons known only to her, trying to pick a fight with me. Thinking back on what I said next, I’d like to believe it was something more than me being a cunt, that she had the embarrassment coming, whether or not it’s the truth of the matter.

“The vagina dentataisn’t a Freudian concept,” I replied. “I’m not sure Freud ever even addressed it, as that image runs counter to the whole Oedipal thing. Freud said that little boys are afraid that their mothers have been castrated, notthat their mothers’ vaginas have teeth.”

Check.

Constance glared at me and narrowed her hazy red-brown eyes, taking a long drag on her cigarette and then letting the smoke ooze slowly from her nostrils. I could tell that she was choosing the words that would form her retort with exquisite care. I glanced back to the window.

“What about our friend out there?” she asked. “You believe that old tree has teeth?”

Checkmate.

“You’d think it would fucking rain,” I said, and I suppose that can stand as a white flag of surrender, my refusal to acknowledge her question.

“Screw it,” Constance muttered, and I didn’t look at her, but I could hear her standing, could hear the legs of her chair scraping loudly across the floor as she pushed back from the table. “There are better ways than this to waste my time.” And when she’d gone, and the attic door had slammed shut, I sat alone and watched the red oak, pretending that I didn’t feel like itwas watching me.

Home again, home again.

Home. Does that word, and the concept behind the term, retain any meaning whatsoever for me at this point? If not, how long since it has? Did Amanda and I ever have a home? Any of the women I lived with before Amanda, did wehave homes? Was that shitty little house I shared with my parents, back in the dim, primeval wilds of Mayberry, was thathome? I can hardly look at this old farmhouse of Squire Blanchard’s and see it as anything more than a place where I am presently sleeping, eating, writing this idiot journal, hiding from New York and the ruins of my career, and so forth.

The house I share with Ms. Constance Hopkins. A few nights ago I fucked her, and briefly thought I’d found some sort of fulfillment or satiety or surfeit, whatever. This morning, I came very goddamn near to murdering her. I don’t know whatshe’s doing up there, in the chilly seclusion of her ivory garret. But unless she has contrived some daring new oil-painting technique that involves hammers, power tools, and stomping about as loudly as possible, I’m left to conclude she’s just trying to get on my nerves.

Late this morning, after washing my breakfast dishes, I was trying to read, nothing important, nothing of any consequence, nothing I was really even interested in reading, but still, I wastrying to read. In this house where I also live, and for which I also pay rent, whether it is or is not a “home.” Finally, I got the broom and banged the handle sharply against the ceiling several times. She responded with about fifteen minutes of complete and utter silence, after which, the noise resumed anew, with the addition of Very Loud Music (it might have been the Pogues, but I’m really not sure, as I could only clearly make out the bass lines). Maybe the right thing to do would have been to knock on her door and politely ask her to hold it down. But, I know myself well enough to know that what I would have done, instead, is poundon her door and orderher to lay the hell off before I strangled her. A fight would have ensued.

So, I got in the car and drove up the road to the Tyler library in Moosup. I’m not sure what effect my retreat might have had on Constance. Did she see it as a victory, having chased me from the house? Or, if her objective was to bedevil me, did I rob her of the satisfaction? I don’t care,not really. I’m only thinking out loud. I realize that, either way, the trip to the library merely delayed some inevitable confrontation. If she’s spoiling for a showdown, I cannot hope to avoid it indefinitely. Sooner or later, tomorrow or the next day, I’ll find the proverbial end of my proverbial short fuse and tell her to lay the hell off or die. Jesus, how many times haveI, directly or indirectly, threatened the bitch’s life in this entry? When they find her rotting corpse in the basement, this will be the document that sends me to the chair. Or to the room where the lethal injections are administered. Does Rhode Island have the death penalty? I should hope so. I’d hate to actually serve a life sentence for the death of Constance Hopkins.