And now Sensei gave me a name for it: Toothpaste Syndrome. I suffered from a syndrome, not a personality defect. Not a character defect. A syndrome. Which, according to Sensei, I could control with ki breathing. This consisted of deep, controlled breaths where you filled your lungs to capacity and released the air in a slow exhalation that left your body relaxed and energized. Concentrate on the air, he said. Focus on air, focus on breath, and as the body relaxes so does the mind. The toothpaste remains in the tube.
Sitting before the microphone on a soundstage twenty-two years later, I tried to engage in ki breathing. As soon as I stepped into the room and saw the lights and microphones and headphones and the coffee cups and the computers, I suddenly understood that in a matter of minutes a powerful transmitter would broadcast my every stutter, stumble and mistake to thousands of listeners. Not just in Alamance County, but as far as the AM waves would reach.
“Ever been on the air before?”
Billy Horton, the host of AM 1110’s Alamance Talks, sat in one of the chairs before a single desktop computer. He looked exactly as Tom Spicer had described him; fat and old. He had a head of messy gray hair shot through with white. His body overflowed the edges of the chair, drooping towards the ground like the wax of a melting candle in the same way as the lower half of his face hung below his chin. Some of his hair had migrated from his head to other places, and remnants of it grew in his ears and his nose. He’s fat and old, Tom had said. And he’s a son of a bitch. If you want to punch him in the face at some point during the program, do it. I’ll post your bail.
During Tom’s unsuccessful run as the Democratic candidate for the state Senate in 2010, Billy had run a segment every weekday evening called Stupid Things Tom Spicer Says, culled from Tom’s statements to the press and the myriad closing arguments he’d made in Superior Court over the years. During the run, Billy came to be known in our office as The Fat Satan. Consequently, when I entered the studio, I walked in expecting horns and a tail, or at least a forked tongue. I found none of that.
“No,” I said. This came out unsteadily, which alarmed me. The program hadn’t even started yet, and I had already mangled the simplest word in the English language. What would happen when I had to say my name?
“It ain’t no big thing,” Billy said with a chuckle. “Most of the time, hardly anybody’s out there. My wife don’t even listen no more.”
Not true in my case. I could count on Allie tuning in, and Abby, too. Abby’s friends and their parents. Everybody at the firm. Every lawyer who knew me. All of my clients, past and present. Every man and woman in broadcast range who had ever worried about a home invasion but read in the newspaper that Kevin Swanson had foiled one. Six months later, the community still basked in the warmth of one of those rare occasions when the good guys had won. And they would all listen tonight.
“We’re on in thirty seconds,” said the engineer, a young intern from one of the Greensboro colleges. Unlike his boss, he was rail-thin and boasted a head of shaggy, Beatle-esque brown hair. Billy had introduced him as Dylan, or maybe William. I hadn’t really been paying attention, so his name had sailed in and out through the same ears as his college.
“Remember what I told you,” said Craig Montero from a seat in the corner. He had insisted on coming to supervise me, he said. To make sure I behaved myself. “Try to imagine what a well-adjusted family man in his mid-thirties would say and channel him. You say anything crazy, I’m cutting you off.”
“Just be yourself and don’t say any cuss words,” Billy added. “You’ll do fine.”
“Back on in ten,” said Dylan or William.
Everyone fell silent. Billy cleared his throat.
“Five…four…three…two…one.”
And I went live.
“Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, you’re listening to Alamance Talks, the voice of conservatism in Alamance County. I am, of course and as always, Billy Horton. I’m in here tonight with a very special person, a man who needs no introduction because every one of us knows him, likes him and wants to be him—a man whose index finger did more for society in five seconds than most men do with both hands their entire lives—Kevin Swanson. Good evening, Kevin.”
I opened my mouth. A tumbleweed fell out, but recognizable English words followed it. “Good evening, Billy.”
“Now, just in case there’s somebody out there who spent the last six months in a coma, Kevin here is a lawyer from Burlington, but in February of this year, Kevin used a privately-owned firearm—an AK-47, am I correct?”
I nodded. Then, remembering nobody could see this on the radio, I said, “Yes.”
I looked to Craig for approval. His features unreadable, he nodded once.
“Kevin used an AK-47, people—a weapon your liberal opposition thinks common folk shouldn’t have—to defend his home against two criminal punks who came over from Durham to make trouble here in Alamance County. Bad move, guys, bad, bad move. Kevin, if you could…tell us what happened.”
I swallowed. Billy looked at me expectantly. Craig looked at me warily. On the wall, the ON AIR sign glowed bright orange as the dead air crackled before my lips.
Ki breath, I remembered.
“Well,” I began in a voice a good register or two higher than normal. “It started in my basement. I fell asleep on the couch watching a Carolina basketball game.”
“Go Tarheels,” Billy interjected.
“Yes,” I said. “Go Heels.”
And I told my story. I told it without freezing up, without shaking, without crying—and without boasting. The whole time, Craig watched me like a parent watching his three-year-old pour milk over cereal, waiting for me to drop the jug and make a huge mess. But I didn’t make a huge mess; I got through it, and when I reached the point in the story where I shot the
(vermin)
(rats)
(snakes)
(roaches)
intruders, I paused.
Shooting human beings, Craig had told me earlier, is supposed to be difficult no matter who they are. I want you to pause a little bit like you’re having trouble with the memory. Sigh. Pretend it bothers you.
“And then I pulled the trigger,” I said.
“And then you pulled the trigger,” Billy echoed.
“Yes. And…”
Another pause. Craig raised his chin as he stared at me.
And then I stood over their bodies and I grinned at them and I pulled the trigger again to make sure they were dead, but I had fired every round in the magazine and so the hammer fell on an empty chamber, which sucked because I’d really just gotten started.
“…and that’s it,” I finished. “That’s where it ends. My wife called the police, they came out, and they took it from there.”
“Wasn’t much to take after you got done with them, though, was there?”
“No,” I said. “There wasn’t.”
“Kevin, I’d like to open the phones to our listeners, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” I said.
“All right, then. Our first caller is…Randy from Burlington. Randy, good evening.”
I actually did mind. I’d feared the call-ins the most; I could prepare myself for an interview with Billy Horton, but I had no idea what any of these callers would say. They could ask me anything. I’d have to think on my feet, never my strong suit. Preparation, strategy, planning, yes, yes and yes, but spontaneity? Decisive reaction? No. And no.
Ki breath. The Mind of No Expectation.
The only people who listen to Billy Horton’s show, Craig had assured me, are right-wingnuts who are probably going to drool when you talk about shooting these two guys. Nobody’s going to ask any hard questions. They’re just going to call in and tell you how awesome you are.
And Randy from Burlington did just that.
“I just want to say that…uhh…good shooting. That’s it, right there, that’s how you do it. Good friggin’ job. You’re our hero, man!”
The next caller wanted
to praise me, too. As did the next. And the next. In fact, I didn’t get a single hard question the whole time, right up until Billy clicked the mouse on his computer and said, “Looks like we got time for one more caller. Thomas from Mebane, you’re on.”
A moment of silence. In the corner, Craig frowned. Billy reached for his mouse, but then Thomas from Mebane spoke.
“Good evening, Kevin.”
Devoid of emotion and accent, the voice possessed a flat quality so different from the other callers that every red light in my head suddenly blazed to life and I thought, here it is. Here is where somebody asks me something hard and I screw everything up. Here is where I come out looking stupid.
“Good evening, Thomas,” I replied. “Uh…how are you doing tonight?”
“Great. But I have an observation or two.”
Craig leaned forward in his chair. Billy looked from his computer screen to me to the computer again, then back to me. Dylan or William just blinked.
“You killed two burglars,” said Thomas from Mebane. “Bravo. You must be very proud.”
I cleared my throat to give my mind time to get unstuck. “I don’t know if proud is the right word.”
“Oh, yes it is. Everyone loves you, Kevin. Everyone admires you. So bravo.”
“Thanks,” I said. My throat tightened. Sweat sprang forth from my armpits and collar.
Thomas from Mebane, if that was even his name, hadn’t called to praise me, I realized. He’d called to destroy me on the air. Suddenly, I saw this very clearly.
“It’s incredible, really.”
“What’s incredible?”
“Everything about this little tale of yours.”
Tale. The way he said it, the amused inflection, spiked my heart rate and made my face flush. “What are you getting at, Thomas? Are you saying…this is just a story?”
I hadn’t prepared for this accusation. In my head I’d rehearsed somebody calling in and accusing me of being a bloodthirsty killer, saying I didn’t have to kill them, I could have just wounded them, I should go to jail for murder. I’d rehearsed that. Not somebody calling me a liar.
“I’m saying it’s incredible that you have one solitary weapon, which happens to be an AK-47. Most people who buy assault rifles have dozens of guns; you have one.”
“I inherited it,” I said. “My father died and left it to me. Otherwise, this would be a completely different story.”
He continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “I also find it incredible that these intruders struck you in the head with a bat and it not only failed to kill you, not only failed to crack your skull but also failed to knock you out for an appreciable length of time.”
My face burned. Stage fright gone now, I felt only anger. I envisioned this man sitting in his house, his apartment, his trailer, whatever hole in the ground he occupied when he wasn’t out torturing small animals, and I saw the upturned corners of his lips. Smirking. Ensconced in comfortable anonymity, seeing if he could make me squirm.
The trigger finger on my right hand twitched. Fuck him.
Craig must have seen these thoughts on my face, because he locked eyes with me and shook his head.
“And then,” continued Thomas from Mebane, “these men dilly-dally on the first floor of your home while you recover from the bat strike, unlock your gun safe, load the rifle and sneak upstairs. Where you find them lined up in your hallway like ducks in a shooting gallery.”
I leaned forward into my microphone. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Craig’s head-shaking intensified.
“I don’t know, Kevin, what do you call a man who fabricates a story like that? Makes it up out of whole cloth?”
Craig leapt up. He had known me ever since both of us had come aboard as rookie associates at Carwood, Allison ten years ago, and he knew what I would say next.
But he’d positioned himself on the other side of the room. Too far away.
“You, Thomas,” I said, “are an asshole.”
Billy’s fat face turned white and he grabbed his microphone. He made a cutting motion to Dylan or William, who didn’t see it because he was busy staring at me.
“And you know what?” I continued, “You’re batshit crazy. How could I make up a story like that?”
“You tell me,” Thomas from Mebane replied, emotionless. “You’re the one who did it. You’re truly a coward, Kevin. You’re a sniveling, worthless coward who…”
“Coward? Why don’t you come on down to my office tomorrow morning and I’ll beat your ass? And hey, what’s your real name? Too pussy to share that, you little bitch?”
Now Billy lunged sideways to push Dylan or William out of the way. The boy hit the floor at the same instant as Craig’s right hand fell on my shoulder, pulling me backwards exactly as his left pushed the microphone away from my face. Billy began furiously fingerstabbing buttons on Dylan or William’s console.
Thomas from Mebane’s voice glistened with amusement at the commotion he’d caused. Classic psychopath. “Oh, that’s not important,” he said. “Why don’t you just call me…”
Pause.
“…the Bald Man,” he finished.
At that moment, Billy found the button that ended the call. He slid back over to his own station to announce a commercial break, ostensibly to give everybody time to get me under control, but he needn’t have bothered. Every joule of anger had drained from my body just as the blood had drained from my face. I found myself sitting in shocked silence as Dylan or William climbed up off the floor and Billy tore off his headphones and Craig was saying something in my ear about what was I thinking, saying ass and shit and pussy on the radio? What was wrong with me?
I didn’t answer him. Three simple words—The Bald Man—and all my hot water turned cold. Because while nobody else could have known it, not even Allie, I’d heard those words before.
4.
I’d like to say that I’d reached this station in life—job at my city’s largest law firm, big house out in the country, BMW, beautiful wife who didn’t have to work for us to live—through nothing but the strength of my own character. But I can’t. I grew up in a house on the golf course of the Rock Barn Country Club in Conover, North Carolina, right outside the larger city of Hickory. My father, a prominent cardiac surgeon, made sure that my family never had to worry about money. The closest my brother Bobby and I ever came to the school of hard knocks was attending public school, which meant that we mixed with the proletariat.
But life can suck in any number of ways. In our case, we never had to worry about subsistence issues only because our father worked his ass off, meaning he stayed gone all the time. He left us in the care of our mother, who had this nasty habit of clocking out every day before lunch. We only saw her in the mornings, a red-eyed, irritable presence that burned the toast, overcooked the eggs, never smiled and occasionally fled into the first-floor powder room to vomit. On days when my father left before breakfast, we had to burn our own toast because she wouldn’t even get out of bed. Every afternoon, I’d find her lying down either in her bedroom or on a couch.
“Your mother’s depressed,” Dad explained. “Leave her be.”
“Our mother’s a sorry drunk,” Bobby explained. “Want to order some pizza?”
We spent our afternoons and evenings watching television, playing Nintendo, eating junk food and occasionally doing homework. When Bobby reached driving age, we’d cruise around Hickory in Mom’s Mercedes with Kate, the girlfriend who would later become his wife, and look for reasons not to go home. A lot of my memories of childhood take place in that Mercedes, or somewhere I went in it, with Bobby and Kate. By virtue of the location of her parents’ single-wide trailer in relation to the Rock Barn Country Club, she and Bobby met in kindergarten. They became such good friends that we actually took her on vacation with us. I remember my mother and father arguing about her once when I was really little, on the way back from one of the rare family dinners out that Kate didn’t attend.
�
�We’ve got two kids of our own,” Mom protested in response to something Dad said. “Two. Not three.”
“What are we supposed to do? You saw how they live.”
“They’re her parents.”
“They’re sorry drunks,” Dad snapped. “They lay around getting plowed all the time and it’s shameful. You know that? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Those aren’t parents, those are sorry, worthless sacks of alcoholic trash. I have absolutely no respect for people like that.”
My mother fell silent. The conversation ended there.
One Saturday morning during Bobby’s 12th grade year and my 8th, we went to the flea market at the fairgrounds on Highway 70. This wasn’t special in and of itself; the fairgrounds always hosted a flea market on weekends, and that Saturday wasn’t the first time we’d gone there to kill time. But I always remembered that particular Saturday, because that was the day we went to the palm reader.
The flea market had always reminded me of a scene from the first Star Wars movie, where Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi navigated the hardscrabble streets of Mos Eisely on Tatooine. Closely-packed clumps of Hmong jostled for space with Mexicans, Cambodians, everyone chattering in the indecipherable—to me—tongue of his or her people. We saw white people, but they were different from us—they wore tattered jeans, denim shorts, T-shirts, arms and necks tanned leather-brown by the sun and nicotine. They also seemed to speak a different language, perhaps because they didn’t all have their front teeth. They sold; they bought. They haggled to save a dollar here, a nickel there. They inspired a deep, strong desire to finish high school.
We didn’t go with the expectation of consulting the palm reader. We ended up at a table under an awning on the back lot, rifling through the seller’s offerings with no particular retail goal in mind. The table had grabbed our attention because of the brace of rifles and shotguns standing with a steel cable running through their trigger guards, threaded there to keep anyone from stealing them. Bobby and I picked up and inspected the weapons like we’d been handling them our whole lives—barrel’s in good shape on this one, Bobby commented, to which I responded with a yeah, it is, as if I knew a decent barrel from a crappy one.
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