Every Moment After

by Joseph Moldover

  I sniff; I can smell the blood, too, over the vinyl. Metallic, a strange but natural smell. It’s familiar. “Am I under arrest?” I ask.

  “For what?”

  “Hitting a police officer?”

  “Son, you couldn’t have hit that man if I hung him up for you like a piñata.”

  “I started it.”

  “Well, you certainly did do that. Although last time I checked, walking into a bar and saying something stupid wasn’t a crime. If it were, I’d never get any rest.”

  I cautiously breathe out through my nostrils. The punch must not have landed squarely; if it had, my nose would be broken. The chief continues.

  “Even if I could take you in for something, Matt, I wouldn’t be inclined to do it. Your dad and I, we go back.”

  “I don’t want any special treatment.”

  The chief shrugs. “There’s a difference between what we want and what we get.” He looks at me steadily. “You’re lucky I know your dad. Lucky you weren’t hurt worse tonight. You’ve always been the lucky one, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t feel lucky. I never have.”

  “No?” He sighs deeply and turns to the window. “I suppose the truly fortunate ones never do.”

  I know what he’s thinking. People don’t talk about it, but it’s always just below the surface. He must have been there. He must have seen everything.

  “You think I was lucky that day, don’t you?” I ask.

  He turns back to me. “I do. We all do. You were the one who wasn’t there. The day Greg Jessup carried your friend out of that classroom, he left most of your classmates behind where they lay.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you don’t look at that as good fortune on your part?”

  “I look at it as my mother worrying too much about my diabetes. I missed a lot of school in those days.” I look down, my own blood drying on my hands. “Were you there?”

  “I was. For seventy-two hours straight. With seventeen families. Their children didn’t come out for a day and a half. Coroner, state police, FBI. They all had to do their work.”

  “What was it like?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve never told a reporter what I saw inside that school, and I’m not going to—”

  “No, the families. What was it like with them?”

  He’s silent for a long moment, and I don’t think he’s going to answer. And then he does.

  “You know what they all told me? They told me that their kid was really good at hiding.” He pauses, his eyes still searching my face. “You know? Hiding? They had heard we were having trouble making identifications. It was a comfort to them. They wanted to believe that their child wasn’t in that room after all. That they’d escaped and were hiding somewhere in the school. A locker, the boiler room. They asked me if we’d checked every single closet.”

  The smell of blood is flooding my nostrils. He goes on.

  “No one was hiding. They were all inside.” The chief looks away for another moment, and then back at me. “You know how many stories I heard about kids being great at hide-and-seek during the thirty-six hours before the official notifications?”

  I shake my head.

  “Like I said, I know your father, Matt.”

  “Yeah, I think he knows everybody.”

  “I’ve known him for a long time, since before the shooting. He’s a good man.”

  “Sure.”

  “You don’t think so now. You think he’s just another suburban dad, a corporate hack. You’ll never be like him, right?”

  “You’ve got me all figured out.”

  “I remember him in the days afterward. Most of the other parents, the ones who had survivors, they went into hibernation. Locked up their houses, turned off the lights. Christ, I’m a father, I would have done the same. I would have put my son in my bed and wrapped my arms around him and held him close for a week straight if he had been little at that time, if he had been in that school, in that classroom.

  “Your dad, though, he was different. He was everywhere. Not on TV; he avoided all that. He was helping. I had officers who wouldn’t go talk to the parents who had lost their kids, grown men whose job it was, and they couldn’t handle it. But your dad went to each one and did everything he could to help. He fed people, literally fed them. He paid people’s bills for months on end. He bought the Thayers that van. He’s an old-fashioned man; he didn’t want any credit and he didn’t want any limelight. He just took care of people the best he could. I’ll always remember that about him.” He looks at me again. “You ever talk about it with him?”

  I shake my head. I had no idea about the van. I had no idea about any of it. “I guess I want to leave it behind,” I say. I know it’s a lie. If it were true, I wouldn’t ask all these questions. I wouldn’t hound Cole for memories. I wouldn’t have the box.

  The chief nods, rubs his leg again and cracks his neck, and looks past me at the empty sidewalk. “Let me tell you something, Matt, that I’ve learned and I wish I’d been told. There are some things you can’t leave behind. They cling to you like cobwebs. They leave you with empty spaces. And the only thing you can do is to keep on going, as well and as gracefully as you can, without your missing parts.”

  We sit together for another moment. I feel exhausted. I put my head back on the seat and close my eyes. “I’ll take you home,” the chief says. He gets out of the car and closes the door and climbs into the front seat.

  We drive through twilit streets, neither of us speaking, the silence occasionally punctuated by comments from the police radio on the dash. We pull into my driveway, and the chief gets out of the car and opens my door. He bends down and looks inside.

  “Part of being the chief of police is telling people how things are going to be. So now I’m going to tell you. You were never in the bar tonight, you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. You’re going to go inside and ice your face. I’ll call you father later—”

  “But—”

  “I’m going to call your father later. You’re going to go inside and stick your face in some ice, and you’re not coming out again tonight. Officer Lucas—​who, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never seen before—​is going on vacation to get his head in order, and he won’t be back until after Labor Day, if ever, and at any rate by that time you will be shagging fly balls on a baseball field in Pennsylvania instead of shagging women who are far too old for you back here in Jersey.” DeLong coughs and shakes his head. “You were right, by the way. I knew Jessup for years. The last thing his daughter will ever need is another cop like him in her life.”

  I don’t say anything. The chief looks at me again, studying my face.

  “Am I being clear enough, Mr. Simpson?”

  “Yes, sir. But sir, my friend, Cole Hewitt—”

  “I know. I had a chat with the cashier while you were resting, and she told me about your conversation with Officer Lucas. He won’t be within one hundred yards of Mr. Hewitt; you have my word on that.” The chief steps back and lets me climb out of the car. “Do I need to worry about what will happen when you come back home for Thanksgiving and see Officer Lucas on the street, in or out of uniform?” he asks.

  “I don’t see myself coming back much.”

  “You may not see it, but it will happen. If I were a betting man, I’d lay money on your being in partnership down at your dad’s firm in ten years.”

  I laugh out loud and shake my head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “My father was a cop. So was his father, and his brother. You know what I said I was never going to be when I grew up?”

  “A cop.”

  “A cop. Our fathers give us something, and it’s not so easy to give it back.”

  I decide to let that go. I nod and thank the chief for the ride, and for everything else. DeLong nods back at me and leaves me standing in the driveway.

  M
y truck is back in front of the restaurant, and I’ll have to retrieve it tomorrow. I should go inside now and get cleaned up. There’s blood on my shirt and on my face; I would be lucky to slip into the bathroom without being seen, and I should probably just throw my clothes away. But I’m not feeling tired anymore. I’m not sure whether I slept in the back of the chief’s car or whether I just rested my eyes, but my head has cleared, and the inside of my house is the last place I want to be.

  My father’s car isn’t in the driveway, but my mother’s is, a Land Rover just slightly more up-to-date than my truck. She has the bad habit of leaving the doors unlocked, and there’s a copy of the key tucked in the glove box. We’ve told her that she’s just asking to have it stolen, and that’s exactly what I do now. I open the door and get inside, smell the new-car smell, turn on the engine, and back out of the driveway.

  I am gone.

  Seventeen

  — Cole —

  The smell of weed overwhelms me as soon as I come in the front door. There’s no time to use the trellis; I have to grab what’s left of Dad’s meds and get out to the fairground. I’d told Mom I was going to be at Matt’s, and she’d said that she was going out with a friend anyway, but the lights are on, and there’s music playing somewhere. And there’s the weed.

  I make my way through the front hall—​it looks like she actually did some tidying up—​and into the kitchen. There’s an open bottle of wine near the sink, cork still mounted on the corkscrew next to it. I silently step to the counter, mind reeling, nose filled with the dank scent of Dad’s pot, and I peer into the living room half expecting to see him reclining in bed, smoking, the hospice nurse next to him on the couch reading one of her magazines.

  That’s not what I see. The bed is empty, but there is someone on the couch. Two people, actually, and they’re not just sitting there. One of them is my mother, and the other is a man with longish white hair. She’s leaning back, and he’s sort of half on top of her, kissing her, and it occurs to me that I’ve seen that hair before, that it’s a hairstyle for a younger guy and that now that he’s gone white, he ought to cut it. There’s a pipe on the table in front of them, and the package from the mini-fridge is open next to it. Neither one of them has any idea that I’m standing here, peering in at them from the kitchen, and I have absolutely no idea—​none—​what to do.

  The problem solves itself when the smoke detector goes off. We always took the batteries out if it when Dad smoked. The guy with white hair—​it takes my brain a moment to accept that it’s Mr. Finn—​jumps up and looks at the ceiling. He steps up on the coffee table and reaches for the detector. He’s laughing. Mom sits up, wipes her mouth, sees me in the kitchen, and screams.

  There’s chaos for a few moments because Finn seems to think that she’s screaming at him for almost stepping on the pipe. He jumps down off the table, moves it, gets back up again, gets the batteries out of the smoke detector, and then finally sees me. Mom is sitting on the couch, face in her hands, and he’s standing on the table holding the batteries. I walk into the living room.

  Mom takes her face out of her hands. “Cole, baby,” she says, “sit down.” She gestures to the recliner on the far side of the room. Mr. Finn has gotten down off the table and sits on the couch next to her. I don’t know what else to do, so I go and sit. I’m trying to make sense of two things at once: one, what the hell is going on here; and two, how am I going to empty out the mini-fridge with the two of them sitting right in front of it?

  I look at them looking at me. It’s a weird tableau; I feel like I’m meeting a girlfriend’s parents for the first time, waiting for her to come downstairs, everyone trying to think of something to talk about. Not that I’ve ever actually been in that situation.

  “Cole, baby,” Mom says again, “I didn’t want you to find out like this. I thought you were at Matt’s for the night.”

  “Find out what, Mom?”

  “Well, about Mark. About Mark and me.” It takes me a second to remember that Mr. Finn’s first name is Mark.

  “Look at you,” I say. “You’re sitting right next to the bed where Dad died.”

  She looks at the bed, and Mr. Finn looks down at his shoes. “Cole,” she begins again, “you have to understand. Or no, you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything. I know that someone your age won’t understand it, but please—​I’m trying to move on. I just want to—​have some happiness. It’s not that I don’t miss your dad . . . oh, God, this is so awful. We have to get rid of this damn bed. I just thought it would upset you if it disappeared—”

  “You’re not well, Mom,” I say. “You’ve got Complex Bereavement. I’m not going to college so that I can stay here and take care of you.”

  She looks at me in surprise. “Baby, you’re not going to college because you weren’t ready to go to college. Which I completely understood, and supported you on. What happened with your dad was terrible, and I want you to have as much time as you need. But you don’t need to stay here for me.” She pauses in midsentence, her mouth still open. She and Finn are both studying me like I’m some sort of rare specimen. “Is that what you thought?” she asks. “That you needed to stay here for me?”

  No, no, no. That isn’t right. What the fuck is she talking about? She’s been in her room, in bed. She looks like shit ninety-nine percent of the time. Sometimes she starts crying for no reason at all. I’ve driven her to the doctor, to the therapist. She’s why I’m staying; I’m staying to take care of her.

  “Cole, love,” she whispers. I look at her and can’t see her clearly, and that’s when I realize I’m crying.

  I’m not going to do this, not in front of him. “I was ready, Mom,” I say. My voice is too shaky. “You needed me. You needed me here.”

  She stares back at me, unwavering. “Cole, you need to hear this. This is important. Cole, I am all right. I’m okay. I will always miss your father. Always. And you’re right, I’ve grieved for him. I didn’t move ahead with things, cleaning this room out for one, although that was mainly because I thought it might upset you more if I did things too fast. I see that I was wrong. I see that we should have talked about it more. But Cole, you need to understand that I am all right. I will be all right. You can go, Cole, whenever you are ready.”

  This is bullshit. This isn’t true. Finn looks embarrassed. “I should probably leave,” he finally says.

  “No,” I tell him. “I’m going.” I stand, turn away, and leave the house without another word. I hear my mom calling. She sounds more disappointed than upset, and that makes it even worse. I get back in the car, turn on the engine, and gun it backwards down the driveway, sending up a cloud of dust.

  Where is Finn’s car? How did he get here? Is he parking down the street? Is everyone sneaking around and getting laid but me?

  It’s 6:09 when I get to the fairgrounds. I hate being late. The truck is in the middle of the field, but there’s no balloon. Materials are spread out on the grass around the wicker basket. I get out of the car, and Eddie emerges from the back of the truck, covered in sweat.

  “Motherfucker,” he says. “Where have you been? You think I can get this all done by myself?”

  “You were supposed to have someone with you.”

  “Well, I don’t,” he says. “He couldn’t make it, and I’ve been hauling this all by myself.”

  It’s all right. We set it up before. We can do it. We can get it up in fifteen minutes.

  “Let’s do it,” I say. “We can make it.”

  “Where’s your shit?”

  I reach into my glove box, my hands shaking, hoping that Matt’s contribution will be enough to satisfy Eddie. I pull out the packed ziplock and hand it to him.

  “I know it doesn’t look like much,” I say, “but it’s supposed to be really good, uh, quality. Good stuff. Good, uh, shit.”

  Eddie marches to the hood of his truck and throws the bag down, opening it up and taking out one pill and then another, squinting at them carefully
, brow furrowed. I shift from one foot to another and stare at the gear. Seconds are passing.

  “Cole,” Eddie finally says. His voice is ominous. “Cole, come here and look at this.”

  I go and stand next to him. He’s pinching one of the pills between his thumb and his index figure. It’s an oval, sort of sea green.

  “Cole, do you know what this is?”

  I shake my head.

  He holds it right in front of my face. “Take a close look.”

  “Eddie, I’m not the expert—”

  “So let me tell you. This is a generic erectile dysfunction drug that was discontinued three years ago because it put guys in the hospital with boners that wouldn’t go away.”

  “Oh.”

  “And it looks like someone used a pin or a needle to scratch the markings off of it. And this”—​he holds up another pill—​“is ibuprofen. Also scratched. It’s crap. Half the stuff in this bag is crap.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah. ‘Oh.’ So, let me ask you something else, Cole. Do you think I’m a fucking idiot?”

  I do. Although I may have underestimated him, given the knowledge of pharmacology he’s demonstrating here. That’s not what I’m thinking when I smile, though. I smile because it’s dawning on me exactly what happened. Whatever Matt’s source was for the pills must have dried up, and instead of telling me, instead of calling the plan off, he took old bottles from his parents’ medicine cabinet and sat in his room for hours, scratching at them with a safety pin, putting them into this bag one at a time, pill after pill after pill.

  Smiling turns out to be a mistake. I never see Eddie’s fist coming; it catches me on my lower lip, and then I’m on my back in the grass, looking up at him, dazed. “I can get you more later,” I manage.

  “There is no ‘later,’ Cole,” Eddie says. “There is a bigger picture here. That package is expected tonight. There is going to be a shit storm, and I am going to be right in the middle of it, you fucking asshole.” With that, he turns his back to me, surveys the scene in front of him—​the wicker basket, coils of rope, and the deflated balloon spread out on the grass—​then shakes his head, spits on the ground—​barely missing my outstretched feet—​and gets into his truck.