Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  “Just a chance meeting, I think. No. Yes, so she said. No. She hasn’t told me a thing except how much she wants to be an actor. I see. Well, I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that. Of course you’ll get sued. This is America. That’s what we do here. Well, aside from watch t.v., shoot guns and sexually objectify children, but now that steroids have ruined baseball, lawsuits are really our national pastime. Sorry. What can I do for you Blair? MmmHmm. Yes. Me? Oh you must be joking. I’m sorry, I suppose I should be flattered, but I’ve never done anything like that in my life. I write novels. I write stories. It’s hardly the same thing. Yes. Yes. Blair, I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  I looked up at his face to find him looking at me, his features arranged in a reproachful scowl, as though the suggestion had been mine and I had been clandestinely orchestrating events. I shrugged stupidly.

  “Oh I understand it would give me more control. I get that. But, you see, Blair, it ups the ante, doesn’t it? Well, because then it becomes my work and suddenly we are dealing with my standards. No, the story is my work, the movie has always been your work. Your project, not mine; and what you are now proposing changes that. No…I’m not saying no. I mean, you’re going to make this thing no matter what, right? It’s not like I can talk you out of it. If I don’t do it, someone else will, right? Right, so if I care anything about this story – and I do – I suppose I would be an idiot to turn you down. No. No. Of course, Blair. That goes without… I’m saying I would have to think about it and I’m saying I will not do it without a lot more control over the project. Oh, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Remember our drink in Mombassa? The place with the blue umbrella in the window. Right. That’s what I’m talking about. Right. No. Just the principals. All of them. I know it’s a lot to ask, but it’s not unreasonable, Blair. I don’t think so. I don’t care about the money. I won’t accept money. Well, then I guess we both have a lot to think about. Yes. I will answer my phone and return my calls like a responsible citizen. Right. Not a word. Goodbye.”

  With two extended fingers he handed me my phone, still open and counting the call minutes on its little screen, as though it was a strip of rotting meat he did not understand.

  “I’m going up to take a bath,” he said sending a furtive glance skyward like the gods might have something to say on the matter.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “About Blair’s offer? Hello?”

  “I think Blair has a couple of sleepless nights ahead of him. Goodbye Matilda.”

  My brain, having no grasp on what had just happened, stalled in confusion.

  So it was another part of me that responded.

  “When will I see you again?”

  His back was already to me at that point and he had begun, hands in his pockets, casually threading his way through a colorful throng toward the entrance of the hotel. He did not stop, but slowed, and although it was faint, I did hear his response.

  “That … is entirely up to your boyfriend.”

  And then he was gone.

  * * *

  Despite my unrelenting pressure, Blair refused to enlighten me as to the substance of his conversation with Angus for five days. I was expressly forbidden to contact Angus myself. I need to think and I can’t discuss it right now became Blair’s favorite mantras, second only to his usual litany of flatteries regarding my body and his increasingly desperate entreaties for sex, which he had taken to calling making love and which he routinely mistook for seduction. I obliged his needs, but no longer happily, and mostly out of a selfish desire to stay enough in his good graces to learn more about Angus.

  Emotionally speaking, the only thing more difficult than servicing Blair’s increasingly amorous appetite was finding the strength to avoid the thought of Angus’ contempt. I found the very idea of his disapproval irresistibly compelling. I fondled it in the dark pocket of my thoughts, like a river stone or sea glass or a knot of petrified wood that one cannot help but obsessively rub and caress in the way of ancient forces of nature. It was that contempt at the heart of my longing – that old familiar force that had weathered my soul and given me shape. It connected me to Angus and I nourished the idea as though it were some rare, delicate and highly poisonous flower.

  Of course, at the time I did not recognize this force of motivation as the same that had once compelled my attraction to Blair and to so many others. In fact, I was hardly conscious of it at all. But I suppose it is the irony of attraction and of all irresistible forces that they are the most powerful at depths beneath our comprehension.

  What had become obvious enough was that Blair had fallen in love and, I could tell, entertained delusions of an actual relationship founded on alien principles like mutual affection and respect. My strong and inexplicable aversion to that sort of attention, combined with my strong and inexplicable need to romanticize Angus’ disdain, led me into the depths of sexual degradation the likes of which I had never experienced before, nor ever since. Entirely at my insistence, my time with Blair spiraled into a series of grotesque circus acts; implausible contortions which Blair increasingly loathed and I increasingly needed as both a bulwark against romantic assimilation and as a beacon by which I could locate Angus Mann’s justifiably uncharitable judgments about my character. The same carnal perversity that arrested any romantic relationship with Blair, brought Angus into sharp relief and, in that way, brought me strange comfort.

  It was on the sixth day following my sidewalk discussion with Angus, after a particularly vigorous session in the back of a moving limo, that Blair told me that he had spoken again with Angus.

  “The decision’s made,” he said, pulling on his pants.

  “What decision?” I asked. “Whose decision?”

  “His. Mine.” He pulled his shirt over his head. It was inside out. “We’re recasting The Lion Tree.”

  I stared at him, mostly naked, in utter disbelief as the limo crested a hill into the blue sky above Santa Monica. He knew the next question and spared me the trouble.

  “Starting with Ivanova.”

  CHAPTER 15 – Susan

  “Oh! Well there he is! My beautiful boy with his pajamas still on. Oh, goodness! Big hugs! Such big hugs. I know… I know sweetheart, Mommy’s sad. I know. It’s okay. Mommies cry sometimes too. But that’s okay. See? There. Wait. There. All better. Big smiles. See? Your big hugs made me all better. I’m folding towels. Do you want to fold towels? Ben. Do you want to fold towels? Okay. These are yours. This is your pile. What a big help you are. My goodness I’ve never had such a big help with the towels. When Daddy comes home they will all be folded and put away. Won’t that be nice for Daddy? He’s gone today. All day and I just don’t know where. Look at this; here’s your shirt. How did your lion shirt get in with the towels? This goes on a hanger. Let’s hang it on the lamp for now. There. What a pretty shirt. No. Here. Spread the towel out on the bed… like this… then fold it like this. That’s right. That’s the way. He’s helping a friend is what he said. Daddy’s friend is lucky to have Daddy’s help is what I say. Just like I’m lucky to have your help. Is that what you would say, Ben? Friends are good to have. Oh, look at you. You’re doing such a good job. Hey, that’s my pile. I gave you your own pile, little rascal. That’s okay. I know you’re helping. I appreciate your help. I know it’s nice to be appreciated and I appreciate you for helping and for being such a good friend and for such big hugs. You’re the best hugger in the world. Did you know that? You are. You don’t take Mommy for granted and Mommy doesn’t take you for granted. That’s because we love each other, isn’t that right Mr. Handsome? And when you love someone… no, here, this way, this corner touches that corner, that’s right… when you love someone, you’re not happy unless they’re happy and you feel lonely unless you’re with them and their interests are your interests. And when you love someone, you remember the things they have done for you and you remember who you were before you met them and you know that they are part of you. Maybe the
best part of you. Just like you are a part of me and I am a part of you. Forever. Now put it on top of that stack there. The blue stack. That’s your stack. This is my stack. That’s why I am so lucky. I’m the luckiest person in the whole world to have such beautiful, loving children. I have such good friendships with my children; with you and with David and with Tilly. Yes. That’s right. David and Tilly! David and Tilly! Yea! Does that make you want to dance? Oh, how lovely. Look at you. You are such a lovely, lovely dancer. Oh… why I would be honored, kind sir. Curtsy. And you bow. No, this is a bow, a deep bow. Oh, how gallant of you; and I curtsy to your bow. Oh, my beautiful boy. You dance divinely. You are my heart on wings. You are love itself.”

  CHAPTER 16 – David

  I am walking the halls. Students are shouting and high-fiving, slamming lockers and sucking up sugared phosphoric acid from aluminum balanced on top of new textbooks. They stream past me on both sides, yelling into cell phones as though this was not a high school but a small stock exchange amid a sudden collapse in the futures market.

  I am bumped and jostled and redirected. I am a fish, a salmon, swimming upstream, back to the place of my birth, where I was hatched into the waters of my education. They are all rushing past me, headed for open sea, and I am coming back to die in the place where it all began. Bertrand J. Wilson High School.

  And yet I am not coming back. This is the stream I never left.

  The bell rings. The hallway empties. Students are sucked into closing doorways. I am left to walk alone with the image of Bully the Bulldog affirming my suspension from atop the desk of Principal Robert B. Robertson III. Bob.

  This is not my place, the hallway. I should be on the other side of one of those doors, cajoling students into ending their phone calls so that the learning can begin.

  The grey lockers stretch out into the distance on either side of the hallway. They feel eerily like soldiers standing at attention, separated by bayoneted rifles, watching me warily, lined up against the wall to protect the precious imbeciles on the other side of the doors from… from… the pedophile in the hallway. I don’t know where to go or what to do in my new status. The investigated. The suspended. The accused. What would Hester Prynne do? I head instinctively for the teachers lounge where I have stashed my lunch.

  Five or six teachers are here, talking. They look up as I enter and I ignore them, heading for the refrigerator. They resume; something about Arnold Schwarzenegger.

  The refrigerator is jammed with paper lunch bags. I examine each of them at least three times; deciphering the scribbled, uneven names, looking for my familiar black scrawl, before I realize that mine is not among them. Someone has eaten my lunch.

  I repack the fridge and slam the door a little too hard, again disrupting the convention. Ken Phillips bellows at me from across the lounge.

  “Hey, Dave, two questions. Does an amendment to the Constitution have to be passed by two-thirds or three-fourths of the states? And would the Arnold for President Amendment be the 27th or 28th Amendment?” Ken poses these questions while looking significantly at the teachers assembled around him. Clearly some sort of bet is on.

  “There is no Arnold for President Amendment, Ken.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do. But that’s not the Amendment.”

  “That’s the only reason anybody voted for the bill. You’re just anti-Arnold.”

  The others laugh at Kenny-the-Card.

  “I dunno, Ken,” I say, heading for the door. “You been a citizen for twenty years, and manage the eighth largest economy in the world responsible for fully thirteen percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, maybe you should be able to run for president.”

  “Right, but it’s for Arnold, Dave. You do know that, right?”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “I thought you were a Dem,” he says snottily, like he is holding me to a confession of regularly peeing the bed.

  “I didn’t say I liked him, Ken. I just don’t want to be deprived of an opportunity to vote against him. It’s my right as a citizen.”

  I fling open the door to the hall. Ken shouts to stop me at the threshold. And I do, like his voice is some sort of leash.

  “So, it’s the 27th Amendment then?”

  “Twenty-eighth.”

  “And was it two-thirds of the states?”

  I splay the fingers on my right hand so he can count them.

  “Article Five, Ken. As long as you remember that if it works for Arnold it works for Madeleine Albright. And if it works for Austrians it works for Mexicans.”

  I am back out into the hall and the door is slowly closing on the sound of Ken Phillips trying to save face. Since he is our government teacher, this will not be easy.

  I am alone again with the fact of my suspension. I laugh out loud in disbelief. The very thought of being suspended from my job – my job! – out of some ridiculous suspicion that I am somehow responsible for Brittany Kline not coming home to mommy is so alien to me – so fucking preposterous – that the thought has no where to go inside my head. It circles and circles until ramming itself into my now swollen and bruised sense of irony.

  Shepp. I must see Shepp.

  I walk resolutely back towards and then past Principal Bob’s office; past the library and the cafeteria, down to the science end of the building.

  I peer through the square of wire-latticed glass imbedded in the door of the biology lab. Shepp is across the room holding an anatomical chart of a chicken over his chest. Mr. Shepherd is pointing to parts of the chicken. Mr. Shepherd is pointing to students and answering questions. Mr. Shepherd is making a joke and a ridiculous face. There is the sharp sound of laughter and youthful merriment pressing firmly against the door like carbonation against a cork. Mr. Shepherd sees my face and heads my direction.

  “Wassup, man?” he whispers, the class behind him quiet and straining to hear.

  “We’ve gotta talk, Shepp.”

  “Can’t do that, Dave.”

  “What? Shepp, I’ve just been suspended.”

  He grimaced. “Bastard. He said he wouldn’t.”

  “Who? Robertson?”

  “Yeah. Dave,” he looked cagily over his shoulder into his classroom, “I can’t talk to you man. I’m sorry. Strict instructions. If I discuss this shit with you, I’m fired.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “They can and they will and I do not want to lose my job.”

  My face feels hot. I can feel sweat along the hairline at the top of my neck.

  “You what? Now you don’t want to lose your job? Now, Shepp? Where was that concern at Billy Rocks? Where was that concern for your job when you were out there gettin’ you groove on?” Shepp slips out into the hall and closes the door. “What, Now you’re a stickler for law and order and protocol?”

  “Look, dude. You need to chill out. You’re not going to lose your job and I’m not going to lose my job. Okay?”

  “Shepp…”

  “Okay, Dave?” He is much taller than I am and I find his body imposing, as much for its perfection as for its size. “Calm down. She’ll turn up. Okay?” He stoops and looks at me directly, arching his brows in a gesture of hope, an expression of reason looking for permission to exist. “Okay? If you don’t know where she is then I’m sure she’s someplace safe and she’ll come home. Okay?”

  “What do you mean if I don’t know where she is? Of course I don’t know.”

  “Okay, okay, Dave. Sheesh…”

  “What did you tell them, Shepp?”

  “I gotta go, Dave.”

  “God damnit, Shepp…”

  “Dave, I told them everything that happened. You should do the same. They’re gonna look into it and they’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. Okay, dude? I have no control over that. Okay? I’m sure everything will be fine. So, you know, peace out. Go home.” He clamps his hand down on my shoulder and gives it a mighty squeeze. “I gotta get back in here. Go home, Dave. Wait, a paid
suspension?”

  I blink up at him. “Yeah.”

  “Fuck, dude.” He swats me in the chest. “Take a paid vacation.”

  The door closes in my face and I can hear Mr. Shepherd re-pressurizing the room with questions about nature’s preferred ratio of cocks to hens. I storm off towards the exit, my head filled with violent moving images that randomly feature Shepp and Bob and Brittany Kline and lots of panicked chickens, feathers everywhere as I push forcefully through the double doors into an explosion of sunlight.

  I am almost to the parking lot before I realize that my briefcase is still in the classroom. I resolve to leave it and to let them worry about what to do with it. Let them worry about having to call me to tell me that I left it behind, and about having to store it in a safe place, and about whether to allow me special dispensation to step onto school grounds for the purpose of retrieving it.

  But this is a bad idea. The briefcase is a gift from my brother; purchased by my mother, but handed to me by Ben upon receiving my teaching license. Abandoning it to any uncertain fate is enough to empty what’s left of my spirit. I re-enter the building and head back down the hallway. The phalanx of lockers stiffens at my unexpected return.

  I peer into the classroom – my classroom – to find Principal Bob pacing up and down the aisles of desks. He grooms his tie and nods as someone out of view is speaking. I start to knock but then resent so powerfully the idea that I need permission to enter this room that I simply turn the knob and push. Thirty-one heads rotate my direction. I wave politely, apologetically, stupidly, like I am a lost parent looking for the nearest bathroom.

  “Mr. Johns,” Principal Bob booms from the back, “what can we do for you?”

  He looks at his watch, which is his not-so-subtle way of telling me that he expected me off school property some time ago.