by Alex McElroy
“Get back,” said Pop. He clutched a small can of Mace but seemed ill-fit to use it, his arm trembling, barely aiming it in my direction.
I stepped back with my hands held high.
“It says you killed a man.” Mom leaned close to the screen. “A pastor. A father of three.”
“It’s an exaggeration,” I said. “Clickbait. Do you know what that is?”
“I sensed something evil about you,” said Pop.
“I’m calling the cops,” said Mom.
I slapped the phone out of her hands. Pop didn’t point the Mace at me but geysered it straight up into the air. Through coughing and tears, I swept Dyson’s credit card and the clothing into my arms, raced to the car. They followed as far as the sidewalk. “Thief!” they shouted. Muscled cross-fitters in tank tops and formfitting sweatpants darted across the parking lot. I pulled onto the road before they could reach me, but they gave chase down the sidewalk and caught up at the first red light. They spread out along the driver’s side and squatted, gripped the frame of the car. “One,” said the men. “Two!”
The cross street’s light ascended to yellow, to red.
I gassed the engine at “Three.” Behind me, the men shook the hurt out of their hands.
ten
THE NIGHT BEFORE Lucas Devry’s death, Cassandra and I went out for dinner at a trendy Iberian restaurant in Dumbo. She knew every chef in the city by name—the ones who mattered, the ones who would matter—and had gotten us a table despite the restaurant’s three-month wait. We sat beneath a blunted red lantern that added blush to Cassandra’s natural pallor. She wore black high-waisted pants and a denim jacket and smelled faintly of berries.
We were there to celebrate the first major break in my—our, according to Cassandra—career. Earlier that day, I had booked an appearance on a network morning show to discuss ABANDON. The production assistant was shocked that her email had gone directly to me instead of a manager. We’re booking you as a favor to Kandace’s daughter, she told me. Kandace Heather cohosted the show. Her daughter was a client of mine, and she had demanded that her mother share my program with the world.
“We’re going to be on tee-vee,” Cassandra kept saying, dragging out the letters as if they were separate words. She lifted a flute of champagne to clink against mine.
Cassandra wasn’t actually scheduled to appear alongside me. But she spoke with such joy and presumption that I couldn’t bear to tell her as much. It would ruin the night. A half bottle of champagne made me swimmy, giggly, but Cassandra ordered another and topped off my glass. ABANDON demanded sobriety, so I rarely drank, in public. But tonight was a special occasion.
Cassandra lifted her flute. “A toast to the launch of our lives. Our real lives. To the futures we deserve. Next Tuesday we’ll be on TV and by Wednesday we’ll be everywhere—not just in our bubbles online but bursting, spreading, expanding.”
“Infecting,” I joked.
“There’ll be profiles about us. Photo shoots. Sasha, they’ll say, we need more fire in your eyes. Flip your hair up.…Cassandra, cradle this tiger.”
“I want the tiger,” I said.
“Then I get the python.” She mimed draping it over her shoulders, made a biting gesture with her free hand. “We’ll march our animals through the High Line.”
“Times Square,” I said.
“Oh, it’s so tacky I love it.”
I blushed.
“There will be books,” she said.
“Self-help is for hacks.”
She gagged in disgust. “Hack is too generous. I’m talking memoirs, empowering stories of triumph, ghostwritten by middling out-of-work novelists. These ghostwriters, they talk to you, they listen, they expand, and the books just appear. It’s all your ideas and your thoughts, but you don’t do the typing—and you shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. Because the book is just the beginning. The book will evolve into a lifestyle, and that lifestyle will become a phenomenon. And what comes after a phenomenon?”
“World domination,” I said.
She cackled so hard her glass slipped out of her hand. It shattered. The servers’ heads swiveled, their eyes hunting for someone to blame. “It’s only glass!” she shouted. “It won’t cut you unless you take off your shoes.”
I leaned over the table in laughter. She didn’t usually act like this, so vocal, so dramatic: so drunk. “People are staring,” I said.
“Of course they’re staring. We’re stars.” It occurred to me, then, that Cassandra depended on fame to give her life meaning. Anything less would not have met the expectations imposed on her by family, by birth. She was the only child of a glossy magazine editor and a museum curator; her maternal grandparents had both been in the movies. It was assumed she would succeed, that people would not only see her but look to her as a model of how to exist. No one in my family expected much from me. If I flamed out, anonymity would rock me to sleep in its arms. But Cassandra feared irrelevance the way tourists fear strangers in alleys. For the first time, I pitied her. I incubated this feeling; I longed for it to survive.
A waiter brushed the shards into a dustpan.
Cassandra said, “Close your eyes.” She asked me to imagine a future of plenty and ease: summers on Mediterranean islands, loose gowns billowing in the breeze, lounging on hulking white yachts, how our faces would draw glances on Manhattan sidewalks, the way our words would wind through the minds of strangers, steady them in times of crisis. Vacation homes in the Alps, photo shoots in Chilean vineyards, luncheons with diplomats, and consultations for Austrian monarchs. She stretched for my hands. “You’ll be everywhere,” she said. “Complete and total ubiquity.”
She made it sound like a good thing.
That night, I followed her through the city, weak-kneed with champagne and wonder. I had work the next day, but Cassandra demanded I fling away all responsibilities. “You’ll call in sick,” she assured me. “This is far more important than your little day job—your temporary job.”
It was impossible not to feel important around her. She was friends with every flowering tree, every fire hydrant, every lamppost, every grinning puppy, every brick wall worth taking a photo in front of. She knew the names of weeds sprouting through cracks in cement, the dreams of bodega cashiers. If she crossed streets without looking, cars swerved around her in deference. Dyson and I were always in awe of people like Cassandra. City Kids. We’d known a few in high school, transplants beset by restlessness and self-assurance, possessed of indifferent magnetism and the will to explore. They wanted in ways we never could. Desire came naturally to them. They were born in its belly. That night, Cassandra led me to underground bars and rooftop bars and garden bars and bars housed in abandoned apartments and whatever pity I felt for her in the restaurant hardened into handcuffing envy. We ended the night at a club that required a password—delivered forward, then backwards.
I regret not dancing more with Cassandra. I regret that, although I drank, I didn’t drink to excess and wake up on her living room couch—our night a blackout blur of nothingness. In the club, I nursed a vodka-and-soda in a tucked-away booth, refusing Cassandra as she begged me back onto the dance floor. My perch granted me a sense of superiority, which I believed I deserved. From this vantage, the club played like a performance put on for my enjoyment. Blades of light swept through the room. Confidence welled inside of me. I was sure that everything Cassandra predicted would come true: The islands and the yachts and the photo shoots. The fame. She had given me a beautiful future. And I could do nothing for her. I couldn’t even tell her she wouldn’t appear on TV. The Cassandra on the dance floor was already lost to me, already embittered by my success, and I liked looking down on her, thinking more would come of my life than of hers.
She gave me a waist-cinching hug at the end of the night. Drinking always made her a little too grippy—normally, I resisted the intensity of her touch, but there was something gentle in it that night, an obvious sense of pride. “We’re doing this,” she said. “Me
and you. We’re really doing this.” We split into separate cars.
I posted a photo of us posing in front of the Iberian restaurant earlier in the night. A crowd of walk-ins packed the glass lobby behind us. The caption was simple, meant to intrigue: Big News Soon. On the ride home, I scrolled through congratulatory comments, liking as many as I could—to show I cared—and bottling up an impulse to spill to everyone begging for me to tell them my news. I tingled with joy, impatient for my new life to begin.
Lucas Devry commented using his latest account—he made a new one whenever I reported him. DevLuke42937814666: ur finally gonna put your mouth on my cock.
It was standard for him. Unimaginative and vile. I normally deleted his comments and reported him, but these weren’t permanent solutions. And that night I was drunk on my future—and champagne. Reporting Lucas Devry to the social media cops was now beneath me. I felt a responsibility to confront him. No: I wanted to confront him, to stomp him out, to flatten him, ruin him, to shame him so he never wrote to me ever again. He responded this way to every photo I posted. It wasn’t enough to report him because he always found a way back. There was always a new name to use, a new email to plug in. I wanted him gone. Forever.
I replied: I’m trying to make a beautiful world. And the world would be so much more beautiful if you and everyone like you were dead.
eleven
IT WAS NEARLY night by the time I got home. Dyson waited for me outside the cabin as if he were about to ground me. He tilted back on the rear legs of a chair; his feet were crossed on the railing. Barney purred in his lap. “I saw you on TV,” he said.
I dropped the uniforms on the porch, too tired to answer.
“A story about you.” He made scare quotes: “ ‘Elderly Small-Business Owners Robbed by Disgraced Influencer.’ It’s all over the internet.”
“I thought we didn’t have internet,” I said.
“We have a hot spot for emergencies. Emergencies like local news reports about you robbing a print-making shop.” He trailed me inside.
“They held the uniforms hostage.”
“You’ve brought a lot of attention to us,” he said. “A lot of attention to yourself.”
“We needed these uniforms. To fix your men.”
“They’re everyone’s men. They’re society’s men. And we’re the ones taking responsibility.” He inhaled deliberately to settle himself—four enormous breaths.
“You’re being combative. I’ve been out all day dealing with an aggressive elderly couple as you swim and Skype with the men. Your men. Can I shower before you interrogate me?”
“Take all the time you need,” he said without meaning it.
I slammed the bathroom door and locked it behind me—the first time I’d locked it since I arrived. I unlocked and locked the door again, as loudly as I could, to ensure Dyson knew I was walling him off. Both of us could be dramatic when angry. And I wanted to be more dramatic than him. I dunked my head under the running faucet. A whitehead appeared in the crease between my left nostril and cheek. I pinched two fingernails into the crease. Vertically, horizontally, angling my head like it might offer leverage—it didn’t. How many times had I advised my clients to do nothing in this same situation? Ignore it! Have patience! Breathe! Meditate and relax! Everything painful will pass! I had never felt like more of a fraud than I did in this moment. Of course my clients had ditched me. I’d failed to see the great pleasure in doing something, the joy of making things worse. I continued digging and scraping, until the whitehead bled a slim string of red over my lips to my chin.
I left the bathroom without showering. Dyson paced from the kitchen to living room, rearranging objects, decluttering out of impatience.
“What happened to you?” he asked. Threads of dried blood were all over my face.
“Do you wanna watch it or not?” I flopped onto the couch.
Dyson started the clip.
Reporter: “In their thirty-one years of business, Louis and Beverly Hertz were lucky to never face their greatest fear: a robbery. But today their luck has run out.”
Mom, with a microphone in her face: “We feared for our lives.”
Pop, with the microphone in his face: “We really did.”
“We feared for our grandbabies’ lives,” Mom said. “God knows what she’s capable of.”
Reporter: “Beverly and Louis—known as Mom and Pop around this neighborhood—are referring to the disgraced self-help guru Sasha Marcus, who stole over four hundred dollars of merchandise from Hertz Shirts earlier this afternoon.”
“Guru is so dismissive,” I said. “It’s code for scam artist. It’s racist, you know.”
“Marcus is most well-known for bullying Lucas Devry—a father of three and small-town pastor from rural Michigan—into taking his own life last winter.”
“Can we turn this off?” I asked.
“I knew there was something wrong with her,” Mom said. “I felt it in my chest. Her vindictiveness. Her evil. Some people, you just know they’re evil the second you see them.”
Reporter: “Many might be wondering why a disgraced self-help guru like Sasha Marcus would rob a shirt-printing shop in suburban New Jersey. Investigators think her purchase order may offer a clue. Marcus arrived at Hertz Shirts to pick up clothing emblazoned with the phrase”—the newscaster blundered over the name—“The Atmost-per-her-uns,” he said. “Investigators are still determining what The Atmost-per-her-uns are, but if you or someone you know has any information on Sasha Marcus and her connection to The Atmost-per-her-uns, contact our tip line directly.”
Barney hissed at me. Dyson grumbled like a fussy child. “They’re gonna think The Atmosphere’s yours,” he said.
“That’s what you care about?”
“That’s not all I care about. I care about—”
“I might get arrested and you’re only worried you won’t be the face of a cult.”
“You won’t get arrested,” he said.
“Jail. Prison. Drawn and quartered. My parts fed to runaway dogs. It’s yours, Dyson. All yours. Your doctrine, your sheds, your barn, your grass, and your pond. When they put me on trial, I’ll tell the jury it’s your brainchild. That better?” I trembled with spite and anxiety, but when he embraced me, I didn’t bat him away.
His touch was an apology. “It’s okay,” he repeated, rubbing circles on my back.
A new clip played automatically. Dyson stretched to shut the laptop, but I stopped him. Onscreen, a brown-haired woman with burgundy lipstick arranged sheaths of paper on her desk. “Now,” she said, “to the story that has captured the nation’s attention: man hordes.”
“You don’t want to watch this,” said Dyson.
I shushed him. I couldn’t want to watch anything more.
“Last week, a man horde in Bernice, Louisiana, heaved thirty-four bricks through the front window of Fine Finish Nail Salon. Seven customers were treated for injuries. The owner of Fine Finish Nail Salon, Susan Cho, an Asian American resident of Bernice, has joined local activists in calling on the Bernice police to charge the assailants with hate crimes. But police are reluctant to charge the men—all of whom were white—without evidence of premeditation.”
The video cut to a cop at a podium: “These are good men. Men from our community. Men we’ve grown up with. They would never act like this under normal conditions. Something infiltrated their brains.”
The newscaster continued: “As episodes of man hordes increase across the country, researchers are racing to uncover their cause. For Susan Cho, however, cause doesn’t matter.”
Cho, on the sidewalk in front of her boarded-up store: “These men committed a crime. Assault. Destruction of property. Attempted murder. Drunk drivers don’t intend to kill anyone—but when they do? Manslaughter. These men need to be charged for the crimes they committed.”
The camera returned to the newscaster. Five men were sitting beside her at a gray table shaped like a bean. “Man hordes,” she said. “Are they a
blessing, or a curse? Tonight we hold a debate.” She listed incidents from that day:
A man horde in Columbus, Ohio, rescued a ten-year-old girl’s kitten from a very tall tree.
A man horde in rural North Carolina carried an elderly woman too old to drive to her doctor’s appointment.
A man horde in Milan, Ohio, toppled a statue of Thomas Edison.
A man horde mowed twenty-six lawns in Drain, Illinois.
A man horde in Plano, Texas, kicked a German shepherd to death.
The debaters included a psychologist, a sociologist, a biologist, a zoologist, and a part-time plumber named Hank who’d been part of a horde. The -ologists speculated on causes and origins: man hordes were the consequences of our nation’s decimated mental health system; man hordes were a social phenomenon unique to a society rife with alienation; bacteria in groundwater aquifers have scrambled the nervous system of melanin-deficient middle-aged males, causing them to lose control of their cognitive agency and horde together for safety; hordes were a natural practice across the animal kingdom and men were returning to their base, animal instincts through hording; hordes were hard to remember.
Hank had little to say—he remembered nothing of his experience—and the others greedily spoke over him. But I kept my attention on him as the -ologists shouted and pointed and scoffed and dramatically laughed at their counterparts. He wore a purple button-down shirt and no jacket. His face was shaved and flaky, eyes squiggled with red, and he kept cracking his knuckles as the others suggested that Hank—who had been part of a horde that broke into cars in a Walmart to change their oil—ought to be imprisoned until the occurrences subsided. Hank dunked his face in his hands and wept. No one acknowledged his crying.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” Dyson said. He closed his browser. I didn’t ask him to clarify: He couldn’t watch such an inane debate, or he couldn’t watch a man weep on TV?
Dyson unzipped the disk case on the trunk. Inside were all the movies in which he appeared, dozens of them. He put on a biblical thriller called Stranger in the Manger and paused it during a scene at a crowded church service. “Do you see me?” he asked. He’d done this the previous night, too, midway through a horror movie called Brain Drain. I hadn’t seen him last night and I did not see him now, but he had been so hurt when I failed to spot him last night that I lied to him, said, “There you are,” hoping to settle back into the movie.