The Axe Boy lived downstairs. We were friendly because he was forever walking an ugly little dog I patted when I bumped into them in the hall.

As you've seen from the pictures, he was nothing special to look at. The only odd thing I noticed was his eyeglasses: they were almost always dirty – that foggy, smudged look which makes you want to take out your own hanky and give them a good cleaning.

«A good boy.» Why do newspapers always use terms like that? «Everyone who knew him thought of the murderer as a good boy who loved his parents, was a member of the Eagle Scouts and spent his spare time collecting Asian stamps.»

Even my wonderful husband Danny said that after most of the grisly details came out. «He seemed like a good kid, didn't he, Cullen? 'Axe Boy'? Jesus, what a thing to call someone!»

«Danny, our young friend 'Axe Boy' Alvin Williams chopped his mother and sister into _pieces_ exactly one floor below our apartment. A good boy he is not.»

Danny had that quality and most of the time I loved him very much for it: the world is to be forgiven. Axe Boys, dogs that shit in the middle of the sidewalk, dangerous drivers . . . they know not what they do.

_I_ forgive nothing. If you stole my orange crayon in the fifth grade, you're still on my hit list, buster.

We were eating breakfast and Danny was reading the story to me from the paper. The thought of that murderous creep snoozing below us not long before still made my fanny tingle.

«He says he didn't know what came over him.»

«Oh, really? Well, I hope the next thing that comes over him is a noose!»

«Cullen, you've interrupted me four times since I began reading this article to you. Would you like me to go on, or would you rather do a monologue?»

But he smiled when he said this because he wasn't really angry. When Danny got angry, he became quiet. Then you ran and hid under the bed for a very long time until he spoke again.

«You can go on, but he doesn't deserve any sympathy.»

Danny ruffled the paper and cleared his throat. «He said he didn't know what came over him because he loved his mother and sister very much.» He shook his head. «My God, what would it be like if that was your kid?» He looked at me as if I had the answer. «Whenever you see the parents of a kid like this on television, being interviewed, they always look so hurt and confused. All that time and effort they've put in over the years. The new bicycles they bought, trips to the doctor, packages from Grandma . . . So what ends up happening? Mom borrows his pen and for some reason he goes totally berserk. I wonder if it was this bad in the old days?»

«Danny, please don't start. 'The old days' were probably just as bad as now; people just use them as an excuse to condemn things.»

«I'm not going to 'start'. It's just that whenever I read about something like this, I get all guilty. You know what I mean? Why should we be so lucky? We still love each other, the baby's great, I make good money. . . .»

He shrugged and drank his coffee. There wasn't anything I could say because he was right – we _were_ lucky people, and if I could do anything about it, it would stay that way for the next fifty years. I fell in love with Danny James when it was unfashionable to fall in love with anything but causes. Spell that with a capital «C,» please. That was back in the 1970s when everybody hated the war in Vietnam and stores sold only incense and tacky Indian clothes by the million. I shouldn't be so snotty, because I wore too much patchouli perfume and carried my very own copy of _The Prophet_ with me wherever I went. Thank God things change. Is there anyone around whose past doesn't make them cringe?

We met in college in New Jersey and were introduced by the girl Danny later married – Evelyn Hernuss, who was my roommate in freshman year.

He was in love with her. But at the time I was in love with Jim Vanderberg, so I didn't pay much attention to Danny James. Jim and I were convinced we were destined to get married and go off to a Peace Corps posting in some ravaged section of the world, where they would desperately need us and we would go around feeling like little saints for a couple of years. But the worm turns!

Jim and I later broke up over an advanced case of apathy. And three months after their marriage in junior year, Evelyn Hernuss James died in a car crash with her mother and father on their way home from one of Danny's basketball games.

I had taken the semester off to campaign for a Presidential peace candidate and was in Chicago when I heard about her death. There was little I could do besides write Danny a letter telling him how sorry I was. Evelyn was one of the good ones – all the way down the line.

In what seemed a week, I received a thick letter back from Danny, spilling every gut he had on to the page. I wrote back and he wrote back and I wrote back. . . . And when I returned in the winter, he met me at Newark Airport looking like someone who had barely survived Dachau. He looked so bad he scared me.

All of my «Earth Mother» instincts woke right up. Believe me, I had no intention of loving him – I was there to be his friend in need. I had also decided I was going to be «off» love that semester. I was going to be serious, chaste, industrious, unapproachable . . . and eat only whole-grain foods.

We spent a lot of time together. He needed someone he could cry in front of; I needed someone who would make me feel a little less self-involved. Things worked out fine.

That was the year he set a school record for scoring and, hate sports as much as I did, I went to as many games as possible. At the beginning I sat in the stands and did my homework, but I couldn't help admiring how smooth and graceful he looked on the court. Soon I stopped doing my homework, became a great fan and knew more about basketball than a serious girl should.

When college was over, Danny was offered two tryouts with professional teams, but true to his Marco Polo nature, he decided to play for a team in Milan instead. I thought it was a nice idea but nuts at the same time – and had no hesitation in telling him that. He shrugged and said he didn't want to play basketball for the rest of his life anyway, so here was a way he could play and see things at the same time without the pressure and worry of big-time American pro sports.

European pro basketball turned out to be rough and often about as subtle as a brick over the head. The finesse and ballet of the game at its best in the United States is lost. American players who come over are often appalled at the steamroller way they go at it in the «elegant» part of the world.

Danny's letters to me that first vear abroad were full of wonderful descriptions of games played in youth centers, military bases, gymnasiums that doubled as town halls. The team gave him a car that blew up, and just enough money to keep his elephant's appetite at bay.

I was working for a magazine in New York as a researcher and feeling lonely most of the time. Live in New York when you're rich or in love, but avoid it when all you have is a job, a smelly apartment on Tenth Street and an empty dance card. That was the year I spent devouring all the books you're only supposed to read at the beach in the summer. I learned how to cook, and thanked God someone had had the compassion to invent television.