Men, Women & Children: A Novel

by Chad Kultgen

  Mrs. Rector ran to the nearest of these panic buttons, entered her faculty code, which armed the button, and then pressed the button itself. The Goodrich PA system emitted an alarm, causing most of the students surrounding the fight to disperse, but the fight itself continued. Mrs. Rector did as she’d been trained to do and remained by the button she pressed. She recalled the exact phrase from her Emergency Violence Scenario course: “Remain near the emergency indicator and wait for armed security to arrive. Never attempt to approach the situation of violence.”

  In the parking lot, Officer Blidd, Goodrich Junior High School’s armed security guard, was enjoying a Newport cigarette when he heard the alarm sound and received the accompanying signal on his two-way radio. This was the first time he had ever been called into action in his ten years as an armed security guard. Not knowing what to expect as he entered the building, but assuming it would be something akin to a Columbine massacre if a member of the faculty saw fit to press a panic button, he drew his gun and, being a religious man, said a quick prayer asking his god to aid him and to keep him safe.

  By the time Officer Blidd arrived in the cafeteria, Tim had used his advantage in both size and general athletic ability to turn the momentum of the fight in his favor. He was kneeling on Tanner Hodge’s chest, striking him in the face repeatedly.

  Not sure if either of the students was armed, Officer Blidd approached them cautiously, allowing Tim to land several more punches than he would have otherwise, knocking Tanner Hodge into unconsciousness. Once he was close enough to assess the situation as a standard fight between two male students, Officer Blidd holstered his gun, said, “Break it up,” and pulled Tim off Tanner Hodge, who remained unconscious on the ground.

  Brandy Beltmeyer watched the event unfold. Although she had no taste for violence, being protected by Tim, and watching his brutal victory over Tanner Hodge, made him seem much more attractive than he already was to her. She hoped that he wouldn’t get into any serious trouble over this, because she found herself wanting to see him again as soon as possible.

  Officer Blidd found it slightly absurd that he had to handcuff both of the boys involved before taking them to the principal’s office, but that was the protocol his training dictated for any kind of violent altercation. He valued his job and didn’t want to be held responsible for any wrongdoing that could result in his losing it. So he removed two pairs of handcuffs from his belt and said, “Can you put your hands behind your back, please?” The students watched as Tim complied, none of them having seen anything like this before. With Tim handcuffed, Officer Blidd moved to Tanner Hodge to find that he was regaining consciousness. Officer Blidd said, “Sorry, kid, I have to cuff you.”

  Tanner said, “What?”

  Officer Blidd could tell he was more than shaken from the beating he’d sustained. He said, “You were in a fight. I have to cuff you and take you to Principal Ligorski.”

  Tanner said, “Are you serious?”

  Officer Blidd said, “Yeah, sorry. I have to.”

  Tanner Hodge offered no resistance as Officer Blidd handcuffed him, stood him up, and then walked both him and Tim down the hallway to Mr. Ligorski’s office, with Mrs. Rector following them to give her account of the event for the official record—which was that she hadn’t seen the initial moments of the episode, but it was her opinion, judging from the aftermath, that Tim was clearly the aggressor. She added that she knew nothing about the nature of the brawl, or the reason for its occurrence, before going back to her classroom, slightly shaken and hoping that she wouldn’t be further involved.

  Mr. Ligorski brought each student in individually to hear his account of the interaction. Tim’s recounting of the incident was the more accurate of the two, allowing for some embellishment only in the description of the damage caused to Brandy Beltmeyer from the orange thrown by Tanner. Tanner’s account was much less truthful, taking any opportunity he could to paint Tim as the initial assailant and provoker of the entire event. After hearing both of their renditions, Principal Ligorski came to the conclusion that they were both to receive punishment in the form of three-day suspensions, which, for Tanner, also carried with it the added punishment of ineligibility for the upcoming game against the Scott Shining Stars. Both Tanner and Tim were then made to undergo individual, hour-long counseling sessions with Ms. Perinot, the school counselor.

  Tim’s father was in his office, reading reviews of restaurants in neighboring cities that might serve as possible romantic settings for his second date with Dawn Clint, when he received a phone call from Laurie Fenner, Principal Ligorski’s receptionist, informing him that his son, Tim, had been involved in behavior that required disciplinary action. That action, Kent was further informed, involved Tim being held in the principal’s office until a parent or guardian could pick him up from school. Kent told his supervisor that he had a family emergency that required immediate attention and took the rest of the day off. He used his drive to Goodrich Junior High School to calm himself, to defuse the anger that ignited almost instantaneously in him. He thought that he and his son had been doing well the past week or so, certainly better than they had been since Lydia Mooney moved to California. He couldn’t help thinking that, if Tim had still been playing football, everything would be fine, none of this would have happened.

  When Kent Mooney arrived at Goodrich Junior High School, he was told that Ms. Perinot, the school counselor, wanted to speak with him. She told him that after talking with his son, Tim, for an hour or so about various things in his life that she felt led to his violent outburst, she came to the conclusion that he might be suffering from some form of clinical depression. She recommended that Kent take Tim to see a psychiatrist, due to the fact that she was not qualified to give a valid medical diagnosis.

  Kent, deriving some hope from Ms. Perinot’s suggestion, asked her if she thought his depression might be the cause behind his decision to quit football. Ms. Perinot couldn’t be sure, but she told Kent Mooney that depression in teens, as well as in adults, can be the cause of erratic behavior or behavior that is highly abnormal for the person afflicted. She told Kent that he was, of course, free to take Tim to anyone he wished if he sought further help for his son, based on her suggestion, but she recommended Dr. Ray Fong specifically. She had known Ray for several years, since high school. They had engaged in a brief romantic relationship during their college years that ended amicably and, although Ray Fong was married and had children and Ms. Perinot had a boyfriend of four years, they still met once every few months for drinks or dinner that led to sexual intercourse. Ms. Perinot handed Kent Mooney Dr. Ray Fong’s business card and thought about the last time they had sex. She had asked him to ejaculate on her breasts, and he had obliged her. Sex with her boyfriend was never pornographic, and she used her encounters with Ray Fong to explore her more carnal desires. She thought that Ray probably used her for the same purpose.

  Kent found his son waiting in Principal Ligorski’s office. He said, “Come on, let’s go home.” Nothing was said by either Kent or his father on the drive back to their house until Kent said, “Your counselor thinks you’re depressed. Do you?”

  Tim said, “I don’t know. She told me the same thing.”

  Kent said, “Do you want to see a shrink?”

  Tim didn’t know if he was depressed or not. He felt that, if he had been, it had been fleeting. He had experienced a strange feeling of detachment from his own life after finding out that his mother was getting remarried, but he felt that detachment slipping away the more time he spent with Brandy Beltmeyer. Nonetheless, the prospect of having someone he could talk with about anything that might be happening in his life was interesting to him. Brandy was beginning to fill that role, but he still felt uncomfortable about bringing up anything regarding his mother with anyone. He said, “I don’t know. I guess.”

  Kent said, “Okay, I’ll set it up.”

  Tim went to his bedroom and logged on to World of Warcraft, looking forward to using his suspe
nsion as a time to do some valuable midday raiding and rep grinding. Kent called Dr. Ray Fong and set up an appointment for his son the following day. He hung up hoping that whatever psychological mending Tim needed to get back to his former self would happen soon enough for him to return to playing football before the end of the season.

  Dr. Fong’s office was exactly what Tim expected: dark wood bookshelves, various diplomas on the wall, and a couch. As Tim came into his office, Dr. Fong said, “Hello, Tim. How are you doing today?”

  Tim said, “Fine.”

  Dr. Fong said, “Good. That’s good to hear. So why don’t you have a seat wherever you feel comfortable, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to use our first session to just get to know you a little bit and to give you a chance to tell me anything that you want to about you, or your father or your mother, or anything that might be going on at school. Just anything, really, that you feel you want to talk about. That okay?”

  Tim said, “Yeah,” and sat down on Dr. Fong’s couch.

  Dr. Fong took out a small notepad and a ballpoint pen, crossed one leg over the other in his chair, and said, “Okay, then, let’s begin.”

  Tim was surprised by how clichéd the entire situation was, how much it seemed like a scene from any movie he had ever seen that involved a psychiatrist and a patient. He said, “Well, what do you want to know?”

  Dr. Fong said, “I want to know what you think you should tell me, Tim. Whatever’s important in your life right now.”

  Tim said, “Well, I guess, my dad thinks I should be playing football. That’s probably the most important thing to him right now.”

  Dr. Fong said, “And how do you feel about football? Is it important to you?”

  Tim said, “It was last year, but this year I guess it’s not as important. It actually kind of seems less than important, really. Pointless, in fact. I guess most things are pointless, though.”

  Dr. Fong said, “And what are some of the things that aren’t pointless to you?”

  Tim said, “I don’t know. I play World of Warcraft.”

  Dr. Fong said, “And this is a game of some kind, a Nintendo game maybe?”

  Tim said, “No, it’s a video game, but not Nintendo. It’s a computer game. You play it online with millions of other people.”

  Dr. Fong said, “And you’re probably very good at this game?”

  Tim said, “I guess. It’s not really about skill, though. It’s more just about how much time you put in and how familiar you can get with the different enemies and stuff in the game.”

  Dr. Fong said, “And these other people you play the game with, are they your friends from school?”

  Tim said, “No. They’re just my friends in the game. I mean, they’re my friends, but I’ve never met any of them in RL.”

  Dr. Fong said, “RL?”

  Tim said, “Real life.”

  Dr. Fong said, “I see. And do you have any friends in . . . RL, at school perhaps, that you interact with as often as you interact with your friends in the game?”

  Tim said, “I used to, but since I stopped playing football, I’ve kind of lost most of those friends. There’s a girl, though, that I’ve kind of been hanging out with. She’s cool.”

  Dr. Fong said, “Very good. And do your mother and father approve of her?”

  Tim said, “We just started hanging out. My dad’s cool with it. My mom isn’t really in the house anymore. She moved to California with another guy.”

  Dr. Fong said, “I see. I didn’t see that in the file I got from Counselor Perinot.”

  Tim said, “I haven’t really told anyone about it.”

  Dr. Fong said, “Well, I’m glad you’re comfortable enough here to tell me. It’s important that you feel free to discuss anything you feel is relevant to your current emotional landscape.”

  Tim had held the secret of his mother’s remarriage for some time. He felt that this was as good a time as any, and as good an environment as any, to divulge it. He said, “I also found out, through my mom’s Facebook page, that she’s getting remarried to the guy she moved to California with.”

  Dr. Fong said, “I see. And what is your reaction to that?”

  Tim said, “At first I was pretty sad, I guess—or just confused, really. Then I started not to care that much about her or about anything. Have you ever seen ‘The Pale Blue Dot’?”

  Dr. Fong said, “No. I haven’t. Is this a movie? Or a video game?”

  Tim said, “No, it’s this thing—it’s a thing that Carl Sagan wrote and then some people made videos to go with it and put them on YouTube.”

  Dr. Fong said, “I see. And is this something you used to watch with your mother?”

  Tim said, “No, it’s something I just started getting into not too long ago. It basically lays out the fact that we’re all insignificant and nothing we really do matters in the grand scheme of existence. It was what kind of made me get over the fact that my mom is with some other guy now. Wait, do you tell my dad anything we talk about in here?”

  Dr. Fong said, “No, I don’t. Anything said in this room stays in this room, between you and me.”

  Tim said, “Okay, cool, because my dad doesn’t know about my mom getting remarried.”

  For the remainder of the hour, Tim and Dr. Fong discussed Brandy Beltmeyer, the Olympian football team, Greg Cherry, California, World of Warcraft, the altercation between Tim and Tanner Hodge, and the awkward silences that he and his father seemed to have become adept at in the past months.

  As the session came to a close, Dr. Fong told Tim that in just the hour they’d spent together he was able to come to a diagnosis of clinical depression. Dr. Fong told Tim that he hoped he felt comfortable enough with the environment they had created to continue seeing him. Dr. Fong recommended a treatment that included a continuation of their sessions, in conjunction with the use of an antidepressant called Anafranil. Dr. Fong explained that the drug was used to treat patients diagnosed with depression, as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder, and he also found it to be especially effective with depression in teens.

  In actuality, Dr. Fong knew the drug was no more effective than Zoloft, Prozac, or Luvox in teens. But his wife worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative for Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactured the drug Anafranil. When given a choice among antidepressants, Dr. Fong always prescribed Anafranil in order to boost his wife’s sales numbers, even if it was only by a small increment. Dr. Fong wrote Tim a prescription and told him to schedule an appointment for the following week, which Tim did.

  When Tim’s father picked him up from Dr. Fong’s office, Tim handed him the prescription. Kent said, “What’s this?”

  Tim said, “Some kind of antidepressant.”

  Kent liked the fact that Dr. Fong had wasted no time in administering concrete treatment to his son. If all that was needed to get him back on the field was a pill, then this process would be easier than Kent had first imagined. Kent said, “Okay,” and drove to the CVS pharmacy nearest to their house.

  Before going to sleep that night, Tim looked at bottle of pills. He was curious about their effect. Dr. Fong had told him that the pills must be taken regularly for a few weeks before any effects would be felt, but the swallowing of the first pill was symbolic to Tim. It was an admission that something was wrong, that he could not handle whatever he was feeling without the aid of drugs. Tim swallowed his first Anafranil, and as he was lying in bed he took out his phone and sent Brandy a message on her Freyja account that read, “I missed eating lunch with you today.” She sent a reply that read, “Me, too.”

  chapter

  fourteen

  Five weeks passed.

  Tim Mooney was starting to feel less disconnected from his life and also less concerned with the things that had made him feel this way. From time to time, he even imagined what it would be like to meet Greg Cherry, and he came to the conclusion that Greg Cherry was probably a very nice person if he possessed qualities that lured Lydia
Mooney all the way to California to live with him and even marry him.

  Kent saw the change happening in his son. He was less brooding—not necessarily happier, but certainly things between them seemed to be more civil, more amicable. Kent continued to date Dawn Clint. Things were going well between them, so well that Kent knew the next time they saw each other would likely result in a sexual encounter. He felt that their last date could have ended in this manner had he wanted it to, but he was too nervous. He had convinced himself that, after such a long time without sex, he might not be able to perform. Since that last date, Kent had visited his doctor, told him about his concerns, and asked if he could get a prescription for Viagra. His doctor obliged him, writing a prescription that could be refilled five times for five 100-milligram tablets. Kent was excited to see Dawn again.

  Dawn was excited to see Kent again as well. She found it slightly strange that at the end of their last date, after a long kiss at her front door accompanied by her giving his buttocks a playful squeeze, and an outright invitation to enter her house, Kent declined her offer. She decided that he was probably nervous about engaging in a sexual relationship with the first new woman after his wife. This served to further reinforce her estimation of Kent as a nice guy. She was happy to take their relationship as slow as Kent dictated. She kept herself busy by focusing on her daughter’s career.

  The producers of the reality show Undiscovered contacted Dawn to inform her that they found Hannah’s application to be among a chosen few that exhibited certain qualities they were looking for. Hannah was being advanced to the next round of the casting process, which included the production of a short video showcasing some of her talents and her home life. After the video’s review, the producers would then decide if she would move on to the next round of casting, which would consist of a personal interview with the executive producers of the show in Los Angeles. When Hannah was informed of all of this, she asked her mother if she could post something about it on her website to let her fans know that she was about to be famous. Her mother discouraged her from doing this, remembering her own experience with the television pilot she’d had a role in. She told Hannah that she hadn’t made it on the TV show yet, and even if she did, it was a much more celebrity-esque thing to do to let her website fans find out about it for themselves. Dawn had a feeling that Hannah’s website might hold her back in the future. She thought about shutting it down, erasing any evidence of its existence, but the money generated by the website was good, and Dawn had seen countless compromising photos and videos of beauty pageant contestants and other minor celebrities surface into the mainstream media that only served to augment their exposure. She chose to leave it up.