Nicebomber

by Charles, Colleen

  Shane looks genuinely hurt, and I feel bad, but I still can't stop hiccupping with laughter. No one ever taught him to think things through to their logical conclusion and that’s sad. To be lost in a world where you just do things without having the capacity to fully grasp their consequences? His father has a lot to answer for, and I find I’m predisposed to dislike the man before we’ve ever even met.

  “Come on, it's not exactly like I'm that random!” he insists. “I was on TV!”

  “As a bad guy,” I remind him. “And what, former reality TV contestants can't be weird perverts? Who made that rule?”

  He struggles with this concept, but he finally nods. “Okay. You're right. I can't just offer to babysit for some complete stranger.”

  “Good,” I agree with a sigh of relief. “Glad you've come to your senses, even if your heart was in the right place. So, getting back to the food bank...”

  “Not so fast,” he interjects. “What about non-strangers? I could offer to babysit for someone who knows me, right?”

  I nod. “Um, I guess? Do you know anyone with kids?”

  He lets out a frustrated grunt. “No, I don't. I don't usually hang out with people who have kids. They can be kind of a drag. It's all they talk about, and that gets boring in a hurry.”

  I ask myself if there's any way I can talk him out of this before it's too late, but the eager gleam in his eyes tells me that would be futile. I'll do everything I can to help him, even if I've got a bad feeling about this.

  “Do you know anyone with kids?” he asks hopefully.

  God help me, I almost lie. But I can't bring myself to do it.

  “Yes,” I admit with a sigh. “There's definitely someone I can ask.”

  Several hours later, Shane and I stand in front of Lucinda's swanky house in Lincoln Park. I knock on the door, then wait almost a full minute and a half without an answer. Shane raises his fist to knock again halfway through, but I hold up a hand to stop him.

  Finally, Lu opens the door, looking frazzled and exhausted. Everything about her attitude suggests that she's ready to get sprung from the self-imposed servitude of motherhood. “Glad you decided to show up. I almost gave up on you and canceled the plans I'd made for tonight.”

  Shane offers his hand. “Hi! Lucinda, right? I'm...”

  “Oh, I'm very aware of who you are,” my friend interrupts, raking him up and down with her disapproving gaze. “I saw you on The Fiancé. Now, you're not going to wait until the very last minute and then tell me you've already made plans to babysit for someone else or something like that, are you? Break my heart that I might actually get a date night with my hubby for the first time in months? I suppose you don’t believe in date nights either?”

  Red spots appear high on Shane's cheeks, and my heart aches for him. I don't watch reality shows, so I have no idea how often he must get recognized for that or the rude comments he probably has to endure from assholes on a frequent basis. Since Lucinda’s opinion of him is already colored with shades of black, I wish I knew someone else for him to babysit for, but I don't—since I don't generally have a lot of time to get out much or make new friends—and he was so insistent on doing this today, I wanted to help him.

  But judging from her resting bitch face, I'm starting to feel like I've made a big mistake here.

  Lucinda impatiently gestures for us to come in. Her two children sit on the couch, watching television. Trenton is eight, and Talia is five. Both of them have the same white-blond hair, and for a bizarre moment, I'm reminded of Children of the Corn. A chill runs through me. I haven't spent much time around these kids—Lucinda doesn’t take her kids to see Pinky that often, and when she does, she usually keeps them occupied so they don’t tire out their grandpa. I really have no idea how this evening of babysitting is going to go.

  “This is Trenton and Talia,” she says, waving her long, manicured nails vaguely in their direction. “Kids this is Keeley’s friend Shane.. They'll be taking care of you while Daddy and I go to dinner.”

  “Hi, Trenton! Hi, Talia!” Shane's voice rises several octaves higher than normal as he plasters a huge smile on his face and offers his hand. “It's a pleasure to meet you both! I can't wait to spend time with you! I hope you’re up for some fun!”

  Both kids tilt their faces toward him in perfect sync, staring him up and down suspiciously as though he just pulled up in an old van and offered them candy. To be fair, I can't blame them. He's well-intentioned, but he's trying a bit too hard, and the result comes off as eerily manic. After a few seconds, he’s dismissed, and their eyes return to the TV screen.

  “I'm going to get margaritas with Ben once he leaves his office,” Lu announces. “I'll be gone for about three or four hours, so you should have plenty of time to do this... app... project... thingy that's obviously so important to both of you.” Not even the edge comes off the frost. This behavior isn’t like Lu, but Shane seems to bring out the worst in people even while he’s trying so hard to bring out the best in himself.

  I glance at Shane, but if Lu offends him, he hides it well. “Where are you guys going?”

  Lucinda scowls at him. “I don't know! Wherever we want. What business is that of yours? You wanted to watch my kids for fame and fortune, I'm letting you watch my kids. Just make sure their faces are blurred out on any video you take.”

  He raises his hands to placate her. “I just figured I should know where you'll be and how to reach you in case there's an emergency.”

  “'Emergency? What are you talking about?” Lucinda turns to me, nostrils flaring. “You said he was up to this, and now all of a sudden he's acting like he isn't? Which is it?”

  “He's just trying to be responsible and ask the right questions, Lu. Take a chill pill.”

  “I'll have my cell phone with me,” she huffs. “You've got the number. Beyond that, you can just watch the kids and do your best. You already seem to be making this a lot more complicated than it has to be, and frankly, I'm beginning to have doubts about leaving you with them at all. If Keeley weren’t here, I probably wouldn’t.”

  More posturing. Based on her makeup, hair, and wardrobe, she's clearly already made up her mind to go, and even as she's lambasting us, she's checking her purse to make sure she has everything she'll need.

  “Everything's going to be fine,” I assure her. “I wouldn't have said he could do this if he couldn't. Now, before you go, do you have any special instructions for Shane?”

  Lucinda reacts again. “'Special instructions?' Just watch them and make sure they stay out of trouble! How hard is that? They're kids, not Gremlins!” And with that, she leaves, slamming the door behind her.

  As I hit the record button on the Nicebomber app and set the camera up in the corner, Shane approaches the children. We’ll have to use the video editing feature before posting live. “Hey, so that's kind of an idea right off the bat. Have you guys seen the Gremlins movies? They're really good, I loved them when I was your age. We could probably find them on Netflix, or some other...”

  His voice trails off. If the kids are listening to him, they give no sign. They just keep staring at the screen, glassy-eyed.

  “I mean, okay, those movies can be a little scary,” he continues, swallowing hard. “There are a couple of intense moments. But I'm here, and if you get too scared, you can just...”

  The words die in his throat again as he looks at the TV. I follow his eyes and see what's caused him to clam up. They're watching a rerun of Law & Order: SVU. Richard Belzer and Ice-T hover over the slashed and bloody corpse of a nude woman, casually discussing sexual violations, stab wounds, and swabs for semen.

  “Then again, I guess you can probably handle it,” Shane concedes. “Yikes. Your mother actually lets you watch this stuff?”

  Trenton and Talia nod together like tiny automatons programmed for synchronization. “It's our favorite,” Trenton adds.

  “You know, maybe relying on television when babysitting isn't the best approach,” I suggest. “
Maybe we should go out for ice cream. There’s a diner just down the street and it’s a lovely evening for a walk.”

  He nods and lowers his voice as he steps out of camera range. “You're right. It'll come across as lazy, not to mention bad for them. But after Lucinda’s reaction, I don’t want to leave the apartment.” He turns to them, modulating his voice again to sound like the host of a kid's show. “Hey, do you kids have any good board games? Maybe even some jigsaw puzzles? That could be a fun way for us to pass the time together.”

  The children continue to ignore him.

  “Okay,” he continues slowly, “I'll, um, go take a look in the closets and see what I can come up with.” He wanders toward the kids' rooms, and I hear him rummaging around.

  I think of Pinky and wonder if it would have been a better idea to do this at his place, so he could moderate things and keep Shane out of trouble. It also would have given him a chance to be back in the spotlight, something he really would have enjoyed.

  I follow Shane into Trenton's room just in time to see him discover a board game under the bed and my heart starts to race in anticipation. I remember playing it over and over again as a grade-schooler. Operation, featuring the hapless patient with the light-up nose. “Wow, I haven't seen one of these in forever,” he marvels. “I didn't know kids still liked to play with it. I’d always get the buzz and it would scare the shit out of me.”

  “I'm not sure that they do, based on the layers of dust and cobwebs on the box,” I point out, blowing them off.

  Some of the dust goes up Shane's nostrils and he sneezes. “I don't know. So far, this is the best thing I've come up with. Five minutes in, and I feel like I'm already totally blowing this whole thing. Good thing the camera’s in the living room and not in here.”

  I lean in and give him a peck on the cheek but linger a heartbeat too long, surprising both of us. “You can do this, Shane,” I assure him gently. “I believe in you.”

  First holding his hand, and now this? Where is this coming from? What's happening to me? And am I just feeding him bullshit so he'll be able to go through with this—or do I really believe in him after all? I'm certainly not known for trusting people easily. It feels like my emotions are playing cruise director with my life.

  He blushes for the second time this evening. “Thank you. I guess I'd better get out there and sell some good old-fashioned family fun, huh?”

  When we return to the living room, Trenton is still riveted to the TV, and Talia plays around with Shane's cell phone. “Do you have any cool pictures or videos on your phone?” she asks mildly, sounding like Cindy Lou Who from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

  “Um, actually, I'll need that back...” Shane says, reaching for it.

  Talia pulls it away, studying the screen. “Sometimes when mommy's asleep, I look at her phone, and there are all kinds of weird pictures and stuff on it. Like, sometimes people doing funny stuff without their clothes on. Those make me laugh. Do you have any ones like that?”

  “Yeah, Shane,” I chime in teasingly, wondering about what goes on behind Lu’s closed doors. “Do you have any ones like that on your phone?”

  Cue blush number three as Shane continues to reach in, trying to take the phone from Talia. “No, I don't! There's nothing cool or fun on my phone at all because it’s owned by my dad’s company, so you may as well just hand it over, okay? It’s a work phone. Besides, I have the camera turned on, and I need it to stay exactly where it is while I'm over here.”

  “So the phone is filming me? Right now?” Talia immediately launches into a series of funny faces and dramatic poses into the camera.

  Shane plucks the phone from Talia's chubby little fingers. Without warning, she immediately lets out a long, sustained shriek that sounds like an air raid siren. Her face turns a nuclear shade of red, and tears stream down her cheeks.

  “No! Give it back! I wanna be in the movie!” she howls. “Mommy says I’m a star!”

  “Good job,” Trenton comments sardonically from the couch, lifting a blond eyebrow. “Now she’ll never shut up.”

  “Shh, shh, it's okay,” Shane hisses at Talia, clearly terrified by the Jekyll and Hyde transformation. From his posture, it looks like he wants to try hugging her but he's afraid of making it worse. “Please stop crying! Everything's all right! You are in the movie, see? Look, there you are, right on the screen! You are the star of the movie.”

  He reverses the camera on the phone so Talia can see herself. Her scream cuts off instantly, and she stares, mystified.

  “You don't want all the people to see you cry now that you're a movie star, right?” he finishes weakly. “You have to be prepared for your close up.”

  Talia wipes away her tears, beams a huge smile, and starts playing in front of the camera again cheerfully, reciting broken movie lines and gibberish. I imagine how hard this video will be to edit. Hopefully, Shane’s company has a digital media department.

  “So anyway,” Shane says, taking a deep breath, “who wants to play some Operation? Remember, 'Don't touch the sides,' am I right?”

  “Operation sucks ass,” Trenton informs him matter-of-factly. “Why do you think we don’t play those stupid, boring games? I thought that old thing ended up in the trash.”

  “Okay,” Shane replies slowly. “Why don't you tell me what games you like, and we'll do those instead?”

  Trenton shakes his head. “Nah, we're fine watching this. They've got a marathon tonight.”

  Shane turns to look at the screen again. In this scene, Chris Meloni listens intently to a murderer tearfully describe, in agonizing detail, how he strangled a woman to death with a length of clothesline and then had sex with her pets.

  This is going terribly, terribly wrong. I may never have kids.

  “Guys, come on, you shouldn't be watching this horrible stuff,” Shane pleads. “It’s going to give you nightmares.”

  And scar you for life.

  “You were about to show us movies where a Gremlin gets pulped in a blender and another one explodes in a microwave,” Trenton points out. “Cool! I’m down for that. If you can deliver.”

  “Gremlins aren't real.” Desperation creeps into Shane’s tone. Should I intervene? And if I did, what would I do? I'm a nurse, not a nanny. I'm used to dealing with people at the ends of their lives, not the beginnings.

  “Neither is the girl this guy killed.” Trenton points at the screen. “She's just an actor. They all are.” He tilts his head suspiciously. “You... know that, right? You're not slow or something? It’s not like… real.”

  “And besides, I was wrong to suggest that anyway,” Shane adds. “If your mother had wanted the TV to babysit you, she wouldn't have asked me.”

  Trenton snorts and pounds the sofa with his tiny hand. “She said she didn't ask you. She said you asked her. She also said you went on TV and acted like a total douchebag. Says she hates your guts and wonders why Keeley would even give you the time of day. We could watch that instead, if it'd make you feel better? Like a binge run. We have Netflix, Hulu, and Prime. I’m sure you’re on at least one of them.”

  “No,” Shane sighs, “I don't think I would like to binge-watch myself.”

  Trenton chuckles and glances away. “Cool. Law & Order it is, then. Glad we worked that out.”

  Shane goes to the television and switches it off manually, standing with his hands on his hips. I can see that he's trying to mimic Lucinda's menacing posture, and I hope it will work—but somehow, I doubt it. I sense a meltdown of epic proportions on the way. Since Lu got pregnant with Trenton back in college and got married later, Trenton ended up a little spoiled.

  “Look, you seem like good kids—not to mention extremely smart ones—and I want to do everything I can to make sure you both have a nice time tonight while your mother's gone. I don't want to have to put my foot down here. But just sitting and watching TV all night is unhealthy, not to mention lame.”

  “You're lame,” Trenton sneers, grabbing the remote and turnin
g the TV back on. “This isn’t your house, loser.”

  Shane clenches his teeth, trying to keep his cool. Oddly, though, he doesn’t look to me for advice or help. God bless him, it looks like he's actually determined to do this himself. I'm not sure if in this situation, that's brave or suicidally stupid.

  Shane holds out his hand. “Give me the remote.”

  Trenton jumps to his feet, bounds onto the arm of the sofa, and holds the remote high over his head. “Say please.”

  Shane forces a big, toothy grin. “You know what? You're right. Manners are very important, and it's good that you know that. I apologize for being rude. May I please have the remote, Trenton?”

  Trenton just keeps jumping and laughing. Suddenly, he slaps the back of his palm over his forehead with this thumb and pointer at an angle. “Loser—loser—loser!”

  “Trenton,” Shane says slowly, “you said you'd give me the remote if I said please.”

  “No, I didn't. I just wanted to see if you'd do it, to see if you’re a loser. And you are! You are so lame. I can’t believe they put you on TV.”

  Shane lunges forward, grabbing for the remote. Trenton deftly wriggles away, hopping over the back of the couch and holding the remote up even higher. “Dude, you can't even snatch a remote from a little kid?”

  Shane fumbles over the couch, his face twisted into a grimace. “Give me the remote! Now!”

  Trenton giggles, staying just beyond Shane's reach. “Hey, Talia! Catch!”

  He tosses the remote and it bounces off the hardwood floor, splitting open and spilling its batteries. Talia catches it on the rebound, proudly holding it up in front of the camera. “I caught it! I caught it! Yay! Cuz I’m a star!”

  “Keep it away from him, dumbass!” Trenton yells. “Girls are so worthless!”

  “Trenton, language!” Shane stumbles toward her. “Talia, please give me the remote!”

  “No! You're mean! And I don’t like you at all!” She holds it away from Shane as he closes in... and slips on one of the rolling batteries, crashing to the floor. On the way down, his shoulder catches the sharp corner of an end table and it goes down on top of him, its lamp shattering next to his head.