by Owen Thomas
And if they want to interview Mae, who else do they want to interview? Principal Robertson, for one. That’s a given. Whap! My students? Of course. Whap! Every fucking one of them. Have you ever seen Mr. Johns kissing one of your classmates? Have you ever seen his penis? Has he offered you drugs? Crack? Speed? Heroine? Has he tried to use you as a drug mule? Has he ever made you ride in his trunk? Do you know if he has dismembered your friend Brittany? Of course, children cannot be interviewed without parents present, so … well that’s just great. That’ll liven up those parent-teacher conferences. Whap!
Oh! Fuck me! My parents. Whap! Whap! Whap! They’re going to call my parents. Whap! I see my father answer the door. Ben is by his side. Mr. Johns, I’m Detective Charles North with the Columbus Police Department. As I’m sure you already know, your son is headed to trial on felony drug charges and he’s also looking pretty good as the lead perp in a child rape, kidnapping and murder investigation. Do you mind if I come in and chat for a couple of hours? Any reason to believe David is not a responsible adult? Any problems in the past with sexual misconduct with underage girls? Our records show that he was kicked out of The Vanguard Academy when he was an adolescent. Care to shed any light on that Mr. Johns? Hello, young man. Ben is it? Ben, have you ever seen your brother kill small animals?
Glenda is still working on this case. Whap! For my benefit. Whap! I have fired her in the dead of night without paying her bill, I have traded her for Lonnie Lumkin, I have rejected her professionally and maybe even sexually and, yet, she still fights the good fight, for free, she and a caustic elf and a bunch of Chinese masons, working to keep the cops from getting to me through Mae. I cannot imagine that is her choice. Nor can I imagine the things she must say about me under her breath. I feel as though I have betrayed her loyalty. I fear that I will pay the price for that betrayal and that Lonnie will help me pay that karmic debt. Whap! Leaving only my actual debt. Whap! Which, I assume, will be the only thing waiting for me when I make parole. Whap!
Mae certainly will not be waiting for me. She made that point clearly enough. I did not, of course, have the presence of mind to press her for actual reasons. I settled, like a chump, for the whole grown-apart, different-needs, criminal-indictment-shit-storm speech. I sat there and took it on the nose. I sat there and listened to how much she cares about me and how important it is to remain friends. Not just friends. Close friends. Oooo, close friends. What the fuck does that mean? Friends-with-benefits close or loans-without-interest close or let’s talk about my new boyfriend close? Speaking of which. I did not bring up the boyfriend question. I should have. I should have pressed her about Shepp. I should have told her that I never believed her stupid, totally transparent explanation about Shepp’s job-hunting sister. I should have told her that I’ve known all about them. That I saw them. Caught them pre-inflagrante delicto. Whap! Whap! Whap! That I was waiting for her to come clean and then she lied about it – Lied! She lied! That she can’t break up with someone who has already washed his hands of her. Because I was done. Done! Me! I was the one who didn’t want any more. I should have told her that. I should have. But I didn’t. Because I’m an idiot who always sits politely and takes it on the nose. I said nothing. I did nothing. I did not upend the table. I did not hurl my water glass. I did not stand on my chair and scream. I could have done all of that. Which is probably why she picked Leoni’s in the first place; just in case I was inclined to make a scene. Fucking Mae. Fucking Leoni’s. Fucking Dean Martin. Fucking Bank of America. They could have allowed one over-limit charge. One. It was fucking lasagna, not a flat screen television. It was my only chance for a dignified exit. I had insisted. Oh, no, David, please, let me. I’d feel too guilty. But I had insisted. And then the fuck-face gay waiter, and then the purse and the cash and the oh, don’t worry about the change.
And then the kiss on the cheek.
Whap.
My tiny home broods at my approach. It is the only dark patch in the row of identical town homes that line my street, all of which are brightly lit in some way or another. Mine is a patch of dark matter among stars. A black hole. From a thousand feet up the street looks like a gap-toothed smile. The window by the door gleams with a glossy black emptiness that says, no one lives here any more; that says, foreclosure; that says, plague. I anticipate the coming assault on my peace of mind like a beaten spouse. The walls will amplify every feeling, every worry, every paranoid itch like a magnifying glass focusing the sun on the back of a beetle. My only hope is cable television.
I pull alongside the curb and stop at the mailbox. There are four items inside. A bill I cannot pay from the people that provide me with electricity. A bill I cannot pay from the people that provide me with fully digital, premium video entertainment. And two rectangular envelopes that I am afraid to open. One from Chaney, Baker, Smith & Lyons and another from the Office of the Treasurer of the Columbus Board of Education.
I pull into the driveway trying to stay focused on the utility bills. I decide to keep the cable provider current and stall the electric company. It is a decision from the gut that is more a reflection of emotional need than anything rational. I need to know that the endless stream of other worlds into which I can escape for hours at a time will not be interrupted. There are lives worse than my own. There are people that are eaten alive by sharks. People that burst open like popcorn for baby aliens. There are people blown to bits for trying to sneak off speeding buses wired with explosives. There are people with scissors for hands. I need to know that these poor souls are out there; the poor Pete Millers of the world. I ignore all rational suggestion that cable programming is worth very little without electricity.
I cut the engine and turn off the lights and look at the other two envelopes, weighing them in my mind. Lawyers first.
Dear Mr. Johns:
I am in receipt of your request that this firm cease its representation of your interests in all pending criminal matters effective immediately. Since receiving your request, I have been contacted by the Ohio Public Defender’s Office and I will immediately transfer our files to Mr. Lumkin. I have also notified the Columbus Board of Education of your decision. In the meantime, please remember that your hearing is scheduled for the 25th.
Enclosed please find a final accounting of amounts owed for services rendered. New charges, which are in addition to amounts previously owing, are due upon receipt. Since I know that finances are an issue, I remain open to discussing any proposals you may have to bring the account current. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Glenda C. Laveau, Esq.
There is an invoice attached. It says I owe my ex-lawyers an additional six thousand dollars on top of the fifteen thousand I already owe. I go numb as my autonomic defenses kick in. It is the only thing from keeping me from vomiting. I close my eyes and fold the papers back into their envelope. Because denial is really my only option, I turn the envelope upside down on the seat so that when I open my eyes it will look like an innocent white rectangle; as though just another utility bill. I try to explore the ambiguity she has loaded into the word “proposals” but this requires far too much energy and I am suddenly exhausted.
It is a full five minutes before I open my eyes. I hold the unopened envelope up to the map light, turning it over. I look for anything that might tell me whether I will be able to handle whatever is inside. I have no idea. Shit.
Dear Mr. Johns:
This notice is provided pursuant to O.R.C. §3319.16.
As Treasurer of the Columbus Board of Education, it is my obligation to acknowledge receipt of your Request for Hearing on the Board’s intent to consider termination of your teaching contract for the reasons previously identified in writing to you and your counsel. As you are aware, the Board has suspended your employment, without pay, pending resolution of this dispute. Ohio law specifically permits suspension in cases where the Board has initiated termination or non-renewal proceedings and the employee is
alleged to have committed an act that is unbecoming to the teaching profession or other disqualifying offense.
Consistent with your counsel’s request, a hearing on the issue of termination will commence on the 25th of this month at 1:00 p.m. in Room 204 at the above address. Basil R. Archoni, a neutral referee appointed by the Superintendent of Public Instruction pursuant to O.R.C §3319.161, will preside. Since I have just recently received notice that your counsel of record has withdrawn, I am providing this notice to you directly and have enclosed a copy of the legal standards that will govern the hearing.
Please be advised that, pending final action by the Board, you are prohibited from visiting the schools or other property of the Columbus School District except for reasons specifically approved by Superintendent Harris.
Have a nice day.
I think the tears actually begin before I am done reading my name, but I am not conscious of them until they have made the loopy-blue signature of Arthur K. Bennett, Treasurer almost unreadable. I put my forehead on the steering wheel and let it come. These are not convulsive sobs, but more the product of an unbearable, unfathomable, involuntary constriction. I am a tube of fluids. I am cosmic toothpaste. The Old Testament God in whom little Kashawnda Davis puts so much faith has reached down his wrathful, Anglo hand and has gripped me in the middle of my body and is squeezing me with a such relentless force that he brings streams of saline and mucus to every possible non-sphinctered duct, passage and opening. And I am sorry for questioning His ethnicity and the literal meaning of His Word, even if it condones slavery and stoning. I am sorry for calling Jesus a black Jew. I am sorry for everything. Everything. I give it up in the front seat of my Civic like Dick Cheney himself has asked for my confession. I am sorry for Billy Rocks, for the dance I did not want, for the kiss I did not initiate, for the drugs that were not mine, and the pot that was not mine, okay, okay, it was mine goddamnit, it was mine, I admit it, there, I was using it every goddamned day and it was as much mine as it was Cait’s and I’m sorry, and I’m sorry for the violin I do not have, and for the harm to that damn kid that I have not done. I’m sorry for not calling the cops or her parents. I’m sorry for the graffiti on my car. I am sorry for the money I do not have and the bad client that I am. I am sorry for being too weak to have sex with my lawyer and to ask my father for money. I am sorry for teaching the truth, for hating my principal, for thinking Christopher Columbus was genocidal, for wanting kids to think for themselves. I’m sorry for being so out of touch with my own culture. I’m sorry for giving Clinton a pass on Lewinski and for wanting to talk about Bush’s drug and alcohol problem and for believing his first election was really a coup d’état. I’m sorry for hating Freedom Fries instead of the French. I am sorry for the Iraq War and I’m sorry for being sorry. I’m sorry for September 11 and for the Department of Homeland Security and for the Transportation Security Administration. And I am sorry for apologizing for my country, for helping the terrorists every time I open my liberal, appeasement-monkey lips. I am sorry, Mae, for not being enough, for being too much, for being the type of person that makes Mark Shepherd seem like an attractive option. I’m sorry I can’t pay for dinner and that I live in a crappy condo and that I don’t own a working computer and that I lost control and spanked you too hard and that you broke your head open in my parents’ living room while my sister, who you hate, listened on the phone. I’m sorry, Ben, you who are twice the person I am. I’m sorry, Tilly, you who are twice as smart as I am and fucking fearless, for being an absentee brother and for leaving you to fight your own way out. I’m sorry, Dad, for the football and for sending Tilly in through the window and for the carpet and for the Van Susterens’ dead fish. I’m sorry for the Vanguard Academy and for getting caught not having sex in the bathroom with Katie Compson. I’m sorry for not wanting to fish or play golf or sign up for football. I am sorry for this goddamned condo and this stupid go-cart of a car. I am sorry I did not become a banker, for not measuring up, for not being you. I am sorry for the hurricane. Oh, New Orleans. New Orleans, I am so sorry. I am sorry for Bush and for heck-of-a-job-Brownie and for the spectacle of ugly desperation. I am sorry I ever left you to that third-world fate. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.
I am slow to come out of it. I look up and around, the clouds in my head have parted just enough to make me conscious of the possibility that the neighbors have surrounded my car and are filming this pathetic breakdown for their children. That was David Johns; just before it all came crashing down around him. Poor David. In the mirror I can see the mark of the steering wheel arcing across my forehead.
I pull myself together and wipe my face with my tie and gather the mail into a wad and climb out. There is a coolness in the night air that opens my sinuses and I can feel a hint of perspective returning. There are crickets. A dog is barking a mile away. Someone is laughing. The smell of cut grass. A car door. An engine revs. A deep breath and I make my way forward. By the time I reach the front door I have regained enough presence of mind to realize that something is wrong.
The screen to the tall window next to my door is not in the window frame. It is leaning next to the window frame. The window itself is mostly closed, but not completely. While it is common for me to forget to close that window, it is not common for me to remove the screen. I have never removed the screen.
I try the door. Unlocked. I listen.
Nothing, outside of my own body. I can hear my own heart. My own respiration. The sound of listening. I look around. No strange cars. No one loitering. I crack the door and put my ear up to the dark space. I hear emptiness. I hear absence. Whatever has happened here, has happened. Whatever has been taken is gone.
I push the door open and step into the hall. I stand motionless for thirty seconds, just to be sure, listening, peeling away the layers of stillness with my senses.
There is nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
I push the door closed, reaching for the switch with my hand full of crumpled mail. I miss.
The quiet stasis explodes with dark movement from the doorway of the bedroom. There are two of us now in the hall, one moving fast and away, the other frozen. There is a violent pulse of shock in my ribcage followed by an adrenal surge beyond my control. There is a scream. Alien and ferocious and profane. It is my voice, only I cannot tell whether it is in my head or whether I have actually split the air with such hostility.
I rocket forward, a flurry of energy not meant for this small space, closing the distance in two long steps. Something hard and big drops between us and is instantly under my foot. I struggle for balance, finding a shoulder that is almost out of reach. We pitch together wildly sideways, into the fish tank, and then forward into the living room over the back of the couch. The coffee table is heavy and holds its own, bluntly deflecting our trajectory.
Behind us there is a wet, sickening shattering of glass in the hall. In my mind I am relinquishing control to an ancient self I do not know, ready to start swinging madly, to gouge, to choke, to break bones, to inflict pain, steeling my nerves for combat even before our bodies have come to a complete rest.
But the unfurling of my reptilian brain snags on a semi-conscious burr; a glitch in what should be an unthinking process of lethal reaction. Something is wrong. I cannot do battle. I cannot make a fist. The mail in my hand has jammed up the fight-or-flight reflex and has brought me to the surface, breathing hard.
That is when I realize that there is no movement beneath me. Not just submission. Not surrender. Complete stillness.
And something else.
I stand, stepping on flesh, stumbling, falling back to my knees and crawling to the end of the couch. The smell of blood has found my brain. I reach up for the lamp. But I can’t. I throw the damn mail. I reach again. A showering of light.
It is … her.
Not the her of Billy Rocks.
But the her who believes that Mozart made the world beautiful in a way that no one ever had before.
CHAPTER 43 – Susan
“I feel like an ass.”
“Gayle.”
“I do.”
“You shouldn’t. I’m flattered. Why do we talk about this every time you call?”
“I was … stoned.”
“I know.”
“It was … you know, romantic.”
“Stop apologizing. It was a great kiss. Really. Very… enthusiastic.”
“You hated it.”
“I didn’t. It was great. I liked it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Really.”
“But?”
“But I am married.”
“I know.”
“And a heterosexual. And I am a good fifteen years older than you.”
“So.”
“Gayle.”
“I’m an ass.”
“No.”
“Is that why you’re not coming?”
“No. Of course not. I’m not coming because I need to be here. I need to be home. You should have seen this place when I got home.
“You sure? This is going to be really big, Susan. We need you.”
“You don’t need me. That’s silly.”
“It isn’t silly.”
“It is.”
“We changed the venue. Whose idea was that?”
“Everybody’s.”
“Bullshit, Susan. It was your idea and you know it. We’ve now got three events and a march through Columbus that’s going to piss everyone off. Whose idea was that? Make people uncomfortable, you said. Get in their face, you said. Pull them out of their complacency, you said. And that’s what we’re doing. How can you not be a part of this?”
