No.
But you’re a collector. You’re a card collector.
No. I’m not a sucker, either.
On TV, Brian’s smile freezes a little, the corners of his mouth tensing.
I’m glad to hear that, he says.
Fifty bucks for a pack of trading cards.
He’s still smiling, but it’s harder, tighter. These are highly collectible, he says, yes.
You’re smarter than you look, Brian. All these dummies calling up to give you money.
I don’t see it that way at all, Jonas.
Sure. You’re really excited about these cards. I can tell.
You think I’m acting.
You said it, not me.
He’s stopped smiling, but he hasn’t hung up, or motioned for someone to cut me off.
Well, I don’t know how to convince you, Jonas, he says. I think you either get it or you don’t.
You don’t think I get it?
It doesn’t appear that way.
If I buy a pack of cards for fifty bucks will I get it?
If you buy a pack of cards for fifty bucks, he says, and you don’t get it, you can send them back, no questions asked. Even if they’re opened. Even if you’ve eaten the gum. He smiles again, looser now, confident. My personal guarantee.
I sit looking at the TV, Brian smiling at me in the living room. The phone’s cradled between my ear and my neck. Your personal guarantee, I say.
Yes, sir.
Eleven beers.
Okay, I say. Send me one. I want to get it.
* * *
Nobody’s technically in the Tuesday night class for hitting his wife or girlfriend. Technically, everybody’s here for something else. If you get arrested for hitting your wife or girlfriend they don’t send you to this group, they send you to another one, over at the courthouse. Or they send you to jail. This group is for if you got into a fight at a Dodgers game or pushed somebody at work or mouthed off to a cop who pulled you over. If you’ve got a history of these things. It’s not supposed to be as serious as the group at the courthouse, but everybody still knows, everyone’s still done it at some point. We know; Connie knows. Wife beaters. Woman hitters. It’s like a smell in the room.
Tonight, Connie says, I’d like to talk about triggers.
We all sit in the same seats in the cafeteria. Connie hasn’t told us we have to, but we do anyway. I sit halfway down the table on the right side, between Fabio and the Traffic Guy from Channel Four. Everybody was real impressed when the Traffic Guy showed up. They wanted his autograph, wanted to shake his hand. They wanted to know what it was like to pilot a helicopter. I’m not a pilot, he said, I just sit in the passenger seat and talk. He may not be a pilot, but he has the look of one, or the movie version of one, a commanding officer, brush-cut, block-jawed, and intense. He was embarrassed to be here and wanted to make sure no one was going to tell anybody. The guys all laughed because who the fuck are we going to tell? We all work late on Tuesday nights. This is what we tell people. We’re all at the gym, at a poker game.
Every action has a trigger, Connie says. She writes this on the board: Trigger. Action. She draws a line connecting the two. What we need to do, she says, is break the connection between the Trigger and the Action. She wipes out a section of the line with a corner of the eraser. We need to start recognizing the things that make us angry and stop responding physically. Once we do that, she says, we can get to the root of the problem.
Give me some things, she says, that make you angry.
My boss, Luis says.
Connie writes it on the board. Boss.
What about your boss? she says.
He’s an asshole.
What about him specifically?
He’s a fucking asshole.
Things he does that make you angry.
Luis thinks. My boss got this look, he says. Like he doesn’t want to be working there. Like he’s better than that. And how’s that supposed to make us feel, if he doesn’t want to be working there and he’s the boss?
Inferiority, Connie says.
How’s that?
He makes you feel inferior. Makes you feel like you’re wasting your time at that job.
Yeah, like how the fuck are we supposed to feel?
Connie writes Inferiority on the board across from Boss and draws a line connecting the two.
Who else has something?
The middle manager guy raises a finger. My neighbor, he says. Diagonal from my house.
And what does he do?
What does she do. She doesn’t do anything. She walks down her driveway in the morning. Gets in her car. I sit at the kitchen window and drink my coffee.
And how does that make you angry?
She’s so much hotter than my wife.
Connie writes Disappointment on the board. Draws a line to Anger.
Who else? she says.
Traffic, the Traffic Guy says.
Everybody laughs.
I’m serious, the Traffic Guy says. He looks serious. The stupidity of it, he says. People making the same mistakes every single day.
Connie writes Traffic, draws a line.
My dick’s too big, says a guy in the back. My girlfriend keeps complaining that it hurts.
Everybody laughs. Connie writes Delusions of Grandeur on the board.
So we see, she says, that the nature of the Trigger isn’t really important. Anything can set us off. What’s important is recognizing the emotion caused by the Trigger and taking the time to figure an appropriate response. Not just jumping from Inferiority or Disappointment or Traffic straight to Anger straight to Violence. The important thing is not to get ahead of ourselves.
We’ve all had to buy notebooks for the class, just regular old spiral jobs from the supermarket school-supply aisle. I got mine thirty percent off. Employee perk. Some of the guys are writing things down in their notebooks, some are doodling. Some of the guys are ignoring their notebooks and ignoring Connie and staring out the cafeteria windows, even though it’s almost ten o’clock and pitch black out. My notebook’s blank.
Connie says, This week I want you to keep your notebooks with you at all times, and when something sets you off, write it down. Write it down and then write a one-line explanation, just one sentence, about why it’s setting you off.
While it’s happening, Luis says.
While it’s happening, Connie says. Is that doable?
Sure, sure, it’s doable.
Connie looks down at her watch on the table. We’ve got fifteen minutes left, she says.
The middle manager guy raises a finger. Can we go early?
No, Connie says. You can’t.
Lots of grumbling in the cafeteria.
That sucks, the middle manager guy says.
Connie pulls up a chair, sits. Put it in your notebook, she says.
* * *
I see it, I see it, she says, this flat-faced, big-boned woman in line at the checkout, smiling wide. Not many people in the store. One thirty, quarter of two in the morning. My checkout’s the only one open.
I see it, I see it, she says, pointing toward the dark windows at the front of the store, then up toward the ceiling, and then she falls flat on her back and starts to shake and froth at the mouth.
Holy shit, Ricardo shouts and drops his mop and runs the rest of the way down the cereal aisle to my checkout.
The woman fell on the guy behind her, this little hairy guy with a perm and a greasy face. She’s lying on top of him with her eyes rolled up into her head, frothing and shaking, and he’s trying to crawl out from under her.
Get her off me get her off me, he says.
I come around the checkout to where they’re tangled in a heap. Ricardo’s at the checkout now too and he says, She’s having a seizure, Jonas—we got to hold her steady, so I kneel down and grab on to her shoulders.
The guy with the perm is struggling and yelling, Get her off me get her off me.
Shut up, don’t move, I say to the guy, but he k
eeps struggling, trying to push the woman off him.
Fucking stop moving, I say.
Somebody get some juice, Ricardo says. Nobody in the store moves so Ricardo yells, Somebody get some juice, please, and this time the please is pained and sharp and this chick over in produce with a bunch of tattoos drops her shopping basket and runs toward the beverage cases.
I’m yelling at the perm guy, Fucking stop moving, because the woman is starting to choke on her froth and my hands are so sweaty I can’t get a good grip on her shoulders.
Ricardo says, Jonas hold her steady.
I can’t I fucking can’t.
Help me get her mouth open, Ricardo says. Clear away some of that spit.
Shit shit shit, I’m saying.
Get her off me get her off me.
Jonas, open her mouth, Ricardo yells. Just keep her steady and open it.
Fucking stop moving, I scream at the perm guy, but he keeps pushing at the woman so I grab him by the shoulders and pull him out, across the floor to the front of the checkout, but he’s still saying, Get Off Get Off, so I kneel down and put a hand over his mouth and slap him on the side of the head, slap him again, and now he’s yelling and Ricardo’s yelling and the tattooed chick’s yelling and I’m punching this guy in the temples and now Ricardo’s on top of me, pulling me away, and the tattooed chick is screaming, That woman! That woman! and Ricardo gives me another shove and stumbles back to the woman who’s now thrashing on the floor. The tattooed chick hands Ricardo a carton of orange juice and he tears open the top and pours a little down the woman’s throat. He pulls her head up on his knee and some of the juice spills out so Ricardo starts massaging her throat saying, Come on baby, come on baby please, let’s get this down, let’s get this down baby, and finally some of it goes down, finally she swallows. Shaking less and less. Just little jerks now, her head one way, her body the other. Her face is white and shiny, covered with sweat and juice.
I get to my feet and just stand there, watching. The perm guy is still lying on the floor, crying now, his arms folded over his face.
Jesus Christ, Ricardo says.
The ambulance comes. The paramedics rush in, radios squawking.
* * *
Deb’s stuff is still here. Every night I get home from work and expect it all to be moved out. She has a key. But every night it’s still here.
I imagine she’s staying at her parents’ house out in Riverside. I don’t know where else she’d go. Probably getting an earful from her dad. Deb’s mom was always really nice when I was over at their place for dinner or whatnot, but her dad never cared for me. After my first DUI he told Deb that how she lived her life was her business, but he didn’t want me in their home anymore. So it was a really big deal when they invited me to dinner this last Thanksgiving. I can only imagine the shit Deb had to wade through. I told her that I was perfectly fine eating frozen pot pie at home and squinting at the Cowboys game in the kitchen, but she said it was all settled. There was going to be a truce between me and her dad. I said that there couldn’t be a truce because we weren’t fighting in the first place, that I honestly couldn’t care less what the old fucker thought of me. Deb put her hand on the back of my neck, fingertips light at my hairline, whispering, shhhh into my ear until I unclenched my fists and teeth.
Deb’s dad’s a high school principal. He makes good money, I guess. Their neighborhood looks right out of a TV commercial: tree-lined street, SUVs in the driveways, lawns like putting greens. No one talked much during dinner. Deb kept asking her dad and me questions, trying to get the conversation started. We both answered in one word or less. Her mom served sparkling apple juice instead of wine. I could tell her dad was jonesing for a drink but wouldn’t break down and have one in front of me after he’d said that shit about the DUI. I kept watching him, his hands shaking a little whenever he lifted his glass.
After dinner, Deb and her mom cleared the dishes, started futzing in the kitchen. Her dad went into the living room and turned on the Cowboys game. I sat at the table alone for a few minutes, then I thought, What the hell, I don’t want to miss the game. We sat on opposite ends of the couch. Every once in a while he’d say something about one of the players, what kind of season they were having, and then I’d say something and after a while I started to think, Well, this guy might be a blowhard but at least he knows a little about football.
Deb suggested we all play charades. Some kind of Thanksgiving tradition. And now, she said, wasn’t it great because there were enough players for actual teams. It was Deb and her mom on one team, me and Deb’s dad on the other. Deb’s mom told her dad that he should turn off the game while we were playing, but he said, Let’s leave it on for Jonas, which I thought was an all right thing to say.
It came down to the last round, Deb’s dad stumbling around the living room, squinting, pawing the air in front of him, and when I guessed Mr. Magoo to win the game he was so excited he grabbed me around the shoulders with one arm and thumped me on the chest, laughing and shouting. This man knows how to play charades, he said, and I put my hands on his shoulders, too. We stood there squeezing each other, smiling like idiots.
* * *
I can’t get that woman out of my head. Seizing in the aisle. And the perm guy, I just couldn’t fucking take it anymore, but what if Ricardo had taken too long pulling me off him and that woman had choked on her own spit?
Ricardo saved that woman’s life. Jonas the Whale couldn’t ignore the perm guy, couldn’t get past that. Jonas the Whale got into a fight and almost let her die.
Walking up my front yard, I’m planning to go straight inside for the fridge and the beer, but I step on something on the front porch, stop and bend. A yellow padded envelope. I wonder what the fuck this could be, and then I remember and open it right there, shake out the blue and white pack. Official Movie Photo Cards with 1 Stick Bubble Gum. Picture of a red planet on the front, hanging in space.
Six cards inside, with scenes from the movie on the front. Captions under the scenes: Diomedes-1 Lifts Off, Desert Planet, Building the Water Generator, Rebellion!, The Flood, Pod Escape. There’s a pink stick of gum stuck to the back of the last card. I peel it off, hold it up, sniff it. Smells like gum. Put it in my mouth and chew. It breaks apart into hard pieces, but I finally force it into a chewy ball. Tastes like gum.
I dig out my notebook and try writing.
I want to beat the shit out of somebody right now.
What did Connie say? Draw a line. Trigger—Action. So I draw a wobbly line and try to remember why.
Brian Lang’s on the TV, smiling into the camera.
We’ve got Sara Jane on the line from Wichita. Hello, Sara Jane.
Hello, Brian. I’m so glad I got through.
We’re glad to have you. What are you interested in tonight?
The figurines.
Davey or Goliath?
Goliath, for sure.
I moved the TV from the living room into the bedroom. Deb has these little ceramic teddy bears that her parents get her each Christmas, and they’re all lined up on a shelf in the living room. They each have a costume that represents different parts of her personality: salesgirl bear, track-and-field bear, chef bear. It got impossible to watch Collectors’ Corner with those stupid bears smiling and staring.
I think Davey and Goliath set such wonderful examples for children, Sara Jane says. I wish they were still on the air.
Brian says, I couldn’t agree with you more.
I fan the trading cards out on the bed, arranging them one way, then another, trying to see if I can get them to tell a story. Chewing, sucking the sugar out of the gum.
What did she see, that woman? I see it, I see it, she’d said, right before she had the seizure. What did she see?
I take the phone into the bedroom so I can see the TV. I almost hang up when the operator asks for my name, almost chicken out, but when she asks again I tell her and she says to please hold, she’s going to put me on the air.
We h
ave Jonas on the line from Los Angeles. Hello, Jonas.
Hey.
What can we do for you tonight?
Do you remember me?
I do now, Brian says. I recognize your voice.
I got those cards in the mail today.
And what did you think?
You mean, do I get it?
Do you?
I look at the cards, the TV. I don’t know, I say.
You didn’t eat the gum did you?
I did.
You did? Brian’s smiling again now. How was it?
It wasn’t too bad, Brian.
Brian laughs. You’re a brave man, Jonas.
I don’t feel so brave.
Pardon me?
I don’t say anything. Brian stares into the camera, eyebrows raised.
Jonas?
A woman almost died at work tonight, I say.
Oh, Brian says. I’m sorry to hear that. Is she all right?
I think so. One of the other guys poured orange juice down her throat.
Where do you work, Jonas?
At a supermarket. I’m a checkout clerk at a supermarket.
I’m sorry to hear that. About the woman. I really am.
Yeah, I say. I guess I was pretty upset.
I can see where you would be. Brian looks into the camera, nodding, almost like he’s waiting for me to calm down.
Stay with us, Jonas, he says. We’re going to have a good show tonight.
* * *
The big news at class is that Luis was in a high-speed chase this morning and got arrested. The neighbors heard his girlfriend screaming and called the cops. He was hitting her with a shoe and the cops came and he ran out the back door and got in his truck and drove off through the neighbor’s lawn. He got on the freeway and went up through downtown and then back through Hollywood, driving on the shoulder around the stopped traffic until they got him with one of those wheel-spike strips and he blew out his tires and had to hoof it. He jumped over the side wall of the freeway and rolled down the hill and started hauling ass but he was missing a shoe and they got him.
The Traffic Guy was covering the whole thing from his helicopter and he tells us the story. Connie watches the Traffic Guy and listens and when he’s done she asks, What was that like?
What was what like? the Traffic Guy says.
A Perfect Universe Page 10
