“She lose the race?”
“Completely. There was basically a geek riot. The physics club made a pneumatic catapult and shot a dummy dressed in a cowl-neck sweater across the football field. This kid named Marshall won her seat. She never knew what hit her.” Asa stared off into the distance, then said, “What if we did something to that sign before we leave?”
“Revenge of the Nerds–style?”
“That’s right.”
“I could get into that,” I said.
THAT AFTERNOON WE HATCHED TWO plans, one to avenge me and the other to avenge Asa. I was a little surprised that he would agree to something like this, since he was working so hard to become a man of peace. He said he needed something to help him break from New York psychologically. He wanted something that would make it hard or impossible for him to come back. He didn’t want to see the inside of a television studio again, but he knew he was weak.
“So you want to burn your bridges,” I asked him.
“That’s exactly what I want to do,” he said.
I’m not proud of what we did, but it was necessary, and it allowed me to return to the magnetism show I would never finish. It brought me back, in a way, to the beginning. During his interview Pablo told us how he had erased his parents’ videocassettes with an electromagnet he learned how to build from one of my first shows, a show in which we did move iron filings around on a card.
I’d go out the way I came in. It felt dizzy and delicious.
Asa, believing he had been robbed of his creation, wanted to make Milo unavailable to the network, which he knew was impossible—copies of the programs were surely vaulted away somewhere in Brooklyn or the Library of Congress—but he wanted to cause a little bit of what he called the “right kind of trouble.” He wanted their decision to have consequences they didn’t expect. So he suggested we try to erase the digital archive (without damaging the servers permanently, of course—Asa didn’t own the servers, but he felt like he owned the shows). The shows wouldn’t be gone, of course, but this plan meant the network would have to go back to the beginning of the digitization project. Asa wanted someone at the corporate office to be pissed off.
I wanted to rat out my wife in some public way, and I wanted it to hit suddenly with news coverage. I was entranced by Asa’s story of this Stavros girl and her public trouncing in the high school election, so I proposed this: we spray-paint Barb’s offshore account information on the billboard across the street from our lunch spot. Asa thought that would be a good idea, but we needed something catchy, not just the numbers. A signature, he called it. Something that would enrage Barb in public. The problem was, we couldn’t think of anything, and we needed to leave.
During lunch on our last day of work, we went down to the hardware store and bought a few simple items: a spool of copper wire, two wire nuts, and a lamp timer. The project was simple. We’d carry the wire in on a spool, hang it between two of the servers, pull enough of the wire to make it to an outlet, strip the ends, jam them in the timer, set it to go off later, and then walk out. The current running through the spool would, well, you’ve seen my show.
It would certainly rile all the people we wanted riled.
We set our magnet bomb at three in the morning on the day of our departure. With our luggage in the car, we left the network, the timer ticking, and we headed to the billboard across from Ray’s Pizzeria. We were working on what kind of stinging barb we could leave behind, and we were also nervous because our plane would be leaving in three hours. Asa suggested something like. “My husband is leaving me for a balebatisheh yiden.”
I shrugged.
“Respectable Jew,” Asa said.
“First off, no one in this part of town will get it. Second, let’s not let her know where I’m going,” I said.
“But it is funny, right?” Asa said.
“It’s shpasik.”
“You’re learning,” Asa said.
We pulled up to the billboard and parked, got out, and looked for a way onto the roof. Asa went to a dumpster and flipped the lid back against the wall and used it like a ladder to get onto the low roof. I threw our bag of spray cans up and followed. It was remarkably easy. We took a look at the street below. From that height we could see a number of blocks in each direction. We were completely clear. I gave one of the account numbers to Asa and kept one for myself. We mounted the sign and began rattling our cans, laughing, looking at our watches, waiting for the timer to click. We had another ten minutes for that mayhem to begin, so we painted away.
Asa wanted to be sure his numbers were big enough, so he suggested we make them as big as ourselves. Writing at that scale, stopping to shake the cans, was intoxicating (I’m sure it also had something to do with the butyrolactone or other volatiles in the paint). Just as I was finishing my part of the job, a spotlight clicked on us, and we heard an amplified voice saying, “HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, YOU MORONS!” It sounded like my brother, but the flashing blue and red lights told me it wasn’t. We both turned and put our hands up before they even asked us to. “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING UP THERE?”
Asa turned his head to me and said, “The truth will set you free. Maybe.”
“It could keep us from getting on that airplane,” I said.
“SHUT UP. I SAID, ‘WHAT. DO. YOU. THINK. YOU’RE DOING UP THERE?’”
“I’m serious,” Asa said. “Tell him the truth.” He glanced at his watch. “Three minutes and counting,” he said.
I told the cop that it wasn’t what it looked like. “We’re not in a gang or anything. I’m Max Condit. I have a show called Dr. Science.”
“Dr. Science? No way!” the cop said without amplification. “I love that show. I used to watch it with my kids.” The other cop seemed to agree.
“Thanks,” I shouted. “This is Asa Kirschbaum. He’s the man behind the puppet Milo.”
“FROM MILO’S TREEHOUSE?” the cop asked through the megaphone.
Asa shouted, “Yes.”
“HOW’D YOU GET ROBERT DE NIRO TO GO ON?”
Asa told him that De Niro called him.
I told the police that I recently discovered my wife, Barbara Stein, was having an affair with Chuck Vogel, and that the numbers we’d just painted on the sign would embarrass her immensely. The cop said that my wife’s shows and magazines had turned his wife into a certifiable nutcase. When we told him we couldn’t really hear, he went back to the megaphone. “SHE CAN’T JUST PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE ANYMORE. SHE’S GOT TO ARRANGE IT. WHEN I GET ON HER ABOUT IT, SHE KEEPS SAYING, ‘AIN’T LIFE SWEET, TONY.’ I JUST WANT MY CHICKEN SO I CAN WATCH THE KNICKS. THAT’S SWEET, HONEY. JUST GIVE ME MY DINNER AND SCULPT THE NAPKINS ON THANKSGIVING.”
I said, “Can you imagine living with her?”
The cop said he’d felt sorry for me. The second cop grabbed the megaphone from his partner and said, “THAT VOGEL HAS DESTROYED MY WEEKENDS. MY WIFE’S ALWAYS GOT ME TILING BATHROOMS AND PUTTING IN NEW FIXTURES. I’M READY TO PULL THE CABLE OUT OF THE WALL SO I CAN CATCH A BREAK.”
“That’s my whole life,” I said. The second cop told me I should be glad, said those two deserved each other. Of course the cops didn’t arrest us. They thought our project had wide-reaching importance. One of them even compared it to the Boston Tea Party, at least as far as he and a million other project-laden husbands were concerned. It was a strike against the tyranny of lifestyle porn.
They even suggested the icing on the cake, a simple grace note for the whole project. We crossed out “sweet” and added something crude.
Once we were done and down, they drove us to the airport and wished us well. It was easy to see that they were already savoring the story they’d be able to tell one day about the celebrities they helped jump from the tabloids to the mainstream news. Asa and I would hear only ricochets and echoing aftereffects.
THE MAGNET BOMB WORKED POORLY as a weapon of mass destruction. Everything was backed up in a separate server array on a different floor, and the bomb drew too muc
h power and tripped the breaker. All the better, I’m sure, for our karma, or whatever it is called in Hebrew. Our message to the people of New York worked better. Barb is under indictment, and Vogel has been implicated. Simon Barclay turned state’s evidence, which likely carried more weight in court than our graffiti.
On the first leg of our flight to the Holy Land, Asa turned to me, removing his earbuds carefully. “Max, I think I know why God says that vengeance belongs to Him.”
“What brings this up?”
“You know, our escapades last night didn’t seem particularly holy.”
“But they felt good.”
“That’s what I’m saying. I think God wants us to keep away from vengeance because it’s addictive. For the last hour, I’ve been thinking of all the people who could use a little taste of spray paint or electromagnetism—you know, or people I think deserve it.”
“You thought about that for an hour?”
“Pretty much without stopping.”
The FASTEN SEATBELT sign came on, and the pilot announced some turbulence. The plane bucked almost imperceptibly. “How did it make you feel?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Asa said. “A little lost.”
I gestured to the overhead video console that showed our plane’s parabolic arc over the Atlantic. In the lower right-hand corner, I could read our latitude and longitude. The thought came to me that I’d never been so certain of where I was in my life. I was about to tell that to Asa, when I saw him wiping a tear from his cheek with the back of his wrist, and I understood exactly how much the both of us were leaving behind.
4
Unscripted
THE JESSUP HOUSE IN ANADARKO, Oklahoma, was the last location on our shooting schedule. The house in front of us didn’t match the one in the production file. Could have been the wrong address, but Margot, our producer, was there when they shot the original episode, so the look of horror on her face confirmed two things: we were in the right place and something was very wrong.
The lawn was dead, and the yard was strewn with junked cars. An orange freight container blocked the turnaround so you couldn’t actually drive all the way through. Next to that, a galvanized trash can sprouted rebar and fluorescent light bulbs. A blue tarp had been nailed to the side of the garage and staked into the ground, making a shelter for an odd assortment of cardboard boxes. Junk was everywhere: an extension ladder leaning against the eaves, half a trampoline rising from the tall grass, a pink wading pool full of plastic bottles, a garden hose hanging inexplicably from an upstairs bedroom window. You could zoom in on any part of this house and another universe of garbage would emerge.
Our camera guy, Bill, said, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” then he grabbed the file and started flipping through pictures that showed the house we’d built for this family five years ago. It looked like all the homes we do for our show, Revive Your Dive. I grabbed the photos back from Bill and held them up for comparison. It was the same basic size and shape. The roofline was the same. A front entry stood to the right, big windows ran all the way across the ground floor, and dormers with more windows punctuated the upper story.
“I don’t want to start unloading if this isn’t the place,” Bill said.
“Hey, Margot,” somebody yelled. “Where are you going?”
I turned and saw her on foot, heading down the driveway toward the street. I got out of the van and jogged after her. When she heard me coming, she sped up without looking back. I like Margot. She and I are as different as two people can be, but we get along. If you were in a scrap, you’d want this lady on your side. She’s in charge. I’m just the driver.
“Would you quit?” I said. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
She slowed, and I eventually caught up to her and turned her around. She shook my hand off and said, “I needed a moment.”
I held up the photos and pointed at the monstrosity behind us. “That house is this one?” I asked.
Margot looked away.
“Margot,” I said, lifting my voice. “We can’t shoot a follow-up segment here if that house is this one.”
“I know that, Darryl.”
“What’s Vogel going to say?” I asked.
“He’s going to detonate when he sees this place.”
“At this point there’s probably no way around it,” I said.
“Yeah, there is. We leave.”
“Running off doesn’t build confidence,” I said.
“I know,” she said.
“How come you didn’t tell us what we were getting into?”
“I didn’t know they were going to do this again,” she said.
What did she mean again? I thought about asking, but Margot looked agitated, so I dropped it. “Doesn’t matter what happened before,” I said. “We have to figure out our next steps.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Do we unload?”
She shook her head.
“Vogel’s supposed to be here tomorrow. If we’re gone, he’s going to split open and melt.”
“I know,” she said.
“What do I say when they start asking what’s up?”
“Tell them it’s the wrong place,” Margot said, and then she fell to thinking. I turned around and gave her some space.
Back at the house, two teenage girls and their father came out. The father didn’t look 100 percent happy about things.
“Too late,” I said to Margot. “Cat’s out of the bag.”
Margot turned and saw them, too. “We have to stop this,” she said. “Where is June?”
The crew gathered on the porch to meet the family. It looked strained and uncomfortable.
“June?” I asked.
“The mom? Did you see her?”
“No,” I said. “That guy and the daughters is it. Don’t get mad, but you need to get it together.”
“I’ve been down this road before,” she said, hustling back to the house. “We just have to get out of here before anyone talks to … her.”
The mom came to the door, a short woman in turquoise pants and a pink sweatshirt. She set her hands on her waist like Superman and looked around. It was obvious that she did not like what she saw.
When I caught up to Margot, she said, “That’s June Jessup. She’s in charge. This mess is her thing.”
“Pack rat?” I said.
“Something like that.”
Margot opened her mouth to say more, but June spotted her and pointed and said, “I recognize you. You was here before.”
Margot tried to bolt, but I held on to her. “Be cool,” I said.
Margot hissed at me, then she straightened up, caught her attitude, and walked through everyone, smiling like Michelle Obama. “Hello, June,” she said, “Of course I remember you.” She stuck out her hand, which June would not shake. She turned to the husband and tried to greet him. He looked for his wife’s approval, which he did not get. The girls stayed back and waved, which appeared to be too much for June.
“I hope you got our letters,” Margot said.
“Probably in the stack,” June said, motioning toward the house with her thumb.
Margot looked like she was going to fire a comment right back at June, but she didn’t. “Okay, well, then it’s time for introductions. This is the crew who’s here to shoot the ‘Has It Really Been Five Years?’ segment,” Margot said, smiling. “Bill will be doing the camera work. Gavin is the sound guy. He’ll have the boom. Karin is our art director, and she also does a little hair and makeup. Farm handles the electrical. And Darryl is our driver and road manager.”
“Oh yeah,” June said. “If we knew you was coming, we’d have baked a cake.”
Margot drew in a breath and then exhaled. She didn’t take the bait.
“And let’s see if I have it right. We have June and Hoot. Jaymee is the older daughter—probably a senior, right? And Lexi. You were nine when I was here before, so that makes you fourteen.”
“Fifteen,” she
said. “I’m a sophomore.”
The Jessups didn’t show a lot of interest in the introductions, but they did clearly say they weren’t ready for us. Margot said we’d come back tomorrow with Mr. Vogel. June called Vogel a pig and said she didn’t want him inside her house.
Margot said, “I’m afraid it’s not your house just yet.”
Before it turned into a brawl, she hustled us all back into the van, and we got out of there.
EVERYONE WANTED ANSWERS, AND MARGOT said she’d tell us what she could, but she wanted a shower and a meal first. So, we all checked in and went to our rooms to clean up. The plan was to meet back in the lobby at six and go to dinner at a Mexican place we’d seen on the way in.
“Mexican food?” Bill said, and stuck out his tongue like a five-year-old.
Margot burned him with a look and said, “There’s no Fuddruckers around here. You’ll have to get by.”
Margot said nothing about the Jessups until after we ordered. We were all aching to know what was going on, and she knew it. “You’re probably all wondering what happened this afternoon and why I didn’t say anything about it before now.”
“Correct,” Karin said.
“When we left before, they seemed happy with the house. Glad it was over, but it seemed like we’d been able to do something good. We helped them, and they helped us. Our first season was rough. Ratings were in a nosedive. The market was saturated, with shows like this one everywhere, but this family was built for reality television. Viewers drank these people up. This was all before Duck Dynasty. It happened in a time when people made their own clips and shared them on the internet. The Jessup family was what convinced the network to put our own clips of the show on online. Have any of you seen the videos?” Margot looked around. Nobody had.
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