Men, Women & Children: A Novel

by Chad Kultgen

  After a few seconds of trying to discover how to move, Kent became aware of some green text scrolling up the left side of the screen. From a character named Selkis, Kent saw a message that read, “Yo nigger, your mom married to that homo in Cali yet? When’s the wedding again?” From a character named Kenrogers, Kent saw a message that read, “Why would that homo buy the cow when he’s getting the milk for free?” From a character named Mzo, Kent saw a message that read, “Is he a homo or a nigger? I thought he was a nigger?” From a character named Baratheon, Kent saw a message that read, “He’s both.”

  Kent was stunned. The language used by the people his son played this game with was wildly offensive, but beyond that, they were clearly talking about his ex-wife, and beyond that, they seemed to know that she was getting married—information that Kent himself didn’t have. All of which meant that Tim also had this information, and that he was more comfortable telling people he had never met than he was telling his own father.

  Kent tried to respond but had too much difficulty writing a message in anything other than general chat. After reading a conversation among Tim’s guildmates about how they all wanted to have various kinds of sex with his ex-wife before her wedding night, Kent shut the World of Warcraft program down and uninstalled it from his son’s computer. He logged on to Blizzard Entertainment’s customer-service website and canceled the account he had been paying for, enabling his son to play the game in exchange for fifteen dollars a month. The website offered the option of allowing his son’s playing time to continue for the remainder of the current month, which was already paid for, but Kent declined, choosing instead to terminate the account immediately.

  He didn’t know what was more offensive, the fact that his son spent so much time in the virtual company of people who seemed to be racists and misogynists, or the fact that they knew more about his ex-wife’s relationship status than he did. And then there was the information itself: Lydia was getting married. Kent had made some peace with the fact that his relationship with her was over. He had managed to find something in Dawn Clint that made it easier to move on. He had feelings for Dawn Clint, but the finality of Lydia marrying Greg Cherry was something he was unprepared for.

  Although he was no longer hungry, he ate the sandwich he prepared for himself and returned to work. He planned to go to the eighth-grade Goodrich Junior High Olympians’ final regular-season game after work and then return home to have a long conversation with his son.

  Hannah Clint called her mother from the girls’ dressing room in the gymnasium of Goodrich Junior High School an hour before the final game of the season. She said, “So . . . I’m pretty sure they said they were going to let us know by the end of this week, right? Well, it’s, like, the end of the week, so what’s the deal? Oh, also, the site’s down.”

  Hannah’s mother, who was driving to Goodrich Junior High School with her camera to document what might be the Olympiannes’ final performance of the year if the football team failed to claim a victory that night, said, “We need to talk about some things. I guess the best place to start is with the show. I got the e-mail. We didn’t make it, baby.”

  Hannah said, “What? Why? I don’t get it. I mean, I’m pretty sure I must have been one of the best ones. Did they not like the video or something? Should we have hired somebody instead of having Chris do it?”

  She said, “They didn’t like the website.”

  Hannah said, “Then screw them.”

  She said, “No, baby, I thought about it, and I think they’re right. I took the site down.”

  Hannah said, “What?!? Why? What about my fans?”

  She said, “Baby, if you want to act, you can act. We’ll get you in as many theater programs as we can. But that website, and that show, that’s not what you want to do.”

  Hannah, “Yes it is! It’s all I want to do!”

  Dawn said, “You know I’ve supported you in anything and everything, but you’re better than that stupid show and you’re way better than the website.”

  Hannah, “No I’m not! You have to put it back up!”

  Dawn said, “I can’t, baby.”

  And Hannah hung up on her mother.

  Hannah was enraged. She felt no sorrow and no self-pity. She felt anger and rage toward her mother and toward the producers of the show. She was certain that, as soon as she turned eighteen, she would move to Los Angeles and never talk to her mother again, if that’s what was necessary for her to achieve her goal of fame. As she slipped on her Olympiannes cheerleader skirt and made her way into the gymnasium to start stretching with the other girls, she thought about what she would do next, about how she would prove them wrong. She would start her own website. Chris probably knew how to make one, she reasoned, and on this website she could do whatever she wanted. She could interact with her fans directly. She could post any kind of video she wanted. She didn’t need her mother, or a reality show, to make herself famous. She was determined to do it by herself and by any means necessary.

  She envisioned herself sitting on a chair across from David Letterman as his featured guest. She heard herself telling him the story of how she was rejected from the first reality show she’d ever auditioned for. She heard his audience laughing in disbelief at the absurdity of the notion.

  Patricia Beltmeyer glanced back and forth from an episode of Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? to the printout of every keystroke her daughter had made for the past week. She read every instant-message conversation she had, every e-mail she sent, and every paper she wrote for school. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary—until Patricia noticed a username and password that were unfamiliar to her: username Freyja, password luckycat2, only a slight variation on the password Brandy used on her other accounts: luckycat1. Her daughter had never used these during any of her weekly checks or her surprise checks.

  Patricia’s heart rate increased. She began to sweat. The realization that her daughter was engaging in online activity that she was not aware of was almost too much for her to handle. Her initial reaction was to disconnect her daughter’s computer, give her an electronic typewriter for her schoolwork, and forbid her from any computer or cell-phone use until she was eighteen years old. She thought about logging in to the account immediately but couldn’t tear herself from the keystroke document that she had in her hand. She continued reading and discovered multiple messages to and from another Myspace user named TimM.

  Patricia read the messages, which detailed multiple visits to TimM’s house, lunches eaten with TimM, holding hands with TimM, and TimM’s continued promise to keep their relationship a secret from Patricia, who was conjuring images of TimM as a fifty-year-old pedophile luring her daughter to meet him in a seedy motel where he had no doubt defiled her. Patricia’s worst nightmares were all written in the black-and-white text of a keystroke-log printout.

  As she read on, she began to piece together that TimM was likely not the criminal adult that she had assumed he was, but rather one of Brandy’s peers. The many references to events, people, and locations at Goodrich Junior High School, and to spending time with each other between classes, made it clear that TimM was a student, not an adult. This realization made Patricia feel only slightly better. She was still barely able to breathe as she thought about her daughter lying to her, sneaking to this boy’s house when she was supposed to be visiting her friend Lauren, and maintaining a Myspace account she knew nothing about.

  After reading the entire keystroke log, Patricia went to Brandy’s room and logged into her Freyja account. She scoured the account’s friend list, blogs, comments, and in-box for anything that might give her a clearer understanding of how exactly her daughter was using this account. Patricia never got the chance to see any of the overly sexual photos or read any of the blog entries about sexual activity that her daughter had posted before deleting them once she began her relationship with Tim. She saw only her daughter’s Freyja account in its final form: a simple painted image of the goddess Freyja as a profile picture, no
incriminating comments or messages from any other users, nothing but innocuous and innocent e-mails to and from TimM, which outlined the beginnings of an extremely normal and nonthreatening teenage relationship. And, after seeing Tim’s profile picture, Patricia accepted that he was one of her daughter’s peers, not an adult sexual predator.

  From everything the e-mails contained, Patricia concluded that this TimM was likely her daughter’s boyfriend. Patricia found evidence that they had shared their first kiss but no sign that her daughter had engaged in any sexual behavior beyond kissing. Her daughter was merely growing up. Even in the face of this realization, Patricia was unwilling to accept the fact that her daughter was dating a boy behind her back.

  It seemed from the pattern of communication that her daughter had been lying about going to Lauren’s house every Friday night for the past several weeks and was, instead, spending her time at TimM’s house. Patricia assumed that her daughter would attempt to initiate the same lie that night, and she devised a plan in which she would confront her daughter, catch her in her lie, and revoke all of her online privileges for at least one month. That would take care of deciding the consequences for her actions.

  But the larger issue of what to do about her daughter’s relationship with TimM was more difficult for Patricia to deal with. TimM seemed like a nice enough boy. Patricia knew that her daughter would have to start dating soon anyway, and she thought that a boy like TimM would probably be better than most, at least based on the exchanges he shared with her daughter on Myspace. She was tempted to let their relationship continue, after the grounding ended, of course. But something deep in Patricia’s core, some need to control as many things as she could in her own life and in the life of her daughter, compelled her to end her daughter’s relationship with TimM. Ending it would send the message to her daughter that she wasn’t ready to date, and when she was, the first thing she should do would be to tell her mother.

  So, while still logged in to her daughter’s Freyja account, she assumed her daughter’s identity and composed an e-mail to TimM that read, “Can’t come over tonight and I don’t think we should see each other or talk to each other anymore. Sorry. Bye.” Patricia sent the message and thought about deleting the account, but instead opted to change the password to idontthinkso and log out.

  chapter

  twenty-two

  Kent Mooney, Jim Vance, and Don Truby sat next to one another in the stands of the Goodrich Junior High School football field, just as they had for every previous home game. Kent did not mention his discovery that his ex-wife was getting remarried. Don did not mention his discovery that his wife was cheating on him with a man who went by the moniker Secretluvur and whom she’d met on AshleyMadison.com. Jim Vance opened the conversation by saying, “So, I’m getting a vasectomy tomorrow morning.”

  Don said, “Good luck, man.”

  Kent said, “Yeah, good luck.”

  Don said, “Things going bad with Dawn or something? You seem fucking depressed, man.”

  Kent said, “No, things are fine. Just wish Tim was playing in this game. I thought he’d come around at some point during the season, you know—snap out of whatever funk he was in—but this is it, the last game.”

  Jim said, “It’s tough when they’re this age. There’s always next year.”

  They said nothing else as they watched the opening kickoff, which was returned by Tanner Hodge for twenty-six yards.

  Every member of the Goodrich Junior High School Olympians eighth-grade football team understood the importance of a victory that night. Before the game, Coach Quinn had told them all that they should leave everything on the field. He highlighted the fact that some of them might not make the cut when they moved on to high school football, and so, without a victory, this would be the last organized football game that some of them would ever play. For that reason alone, he expected all of his players to give the greatest effort they had ever given in their lives for any single event. Danny Vance knew that he would play football again, no matter the outcome of the game, but he agreed with the basic premise that each player should play to the best of his capability to maximize the team’s possibility of winning. It was with this attitude that he called the first play in the huddle: the Z cut left, a middle-distance passing play, with Chris Truby set up as the primary receiver.

  The Olympians approached the line of scrimmage, got in their various stances, and waited for Danny Vance to initiate the play. Once initiated, the play was executed flawlessly. Each member of the offensive line found his block assignment and kept him from reaching the quarterback. The running backs effectively deceived the linebackers into thinking the play was an outside run. The receivers entangled the secondary, except for Chris Truby, who beat his defender off the line of scrimmage to such an extent that the defender twisted his ankle and fell down, leaving Chris wide open. Danny Vance threw a perfect pass to him, which was caught. Having no defender near him, Chris Truby turned up field and ran an additional sixty-four yards for a touchdown.

  The play’s result infused the Goodrich Junior High School Olympians with a level of confidence that made them each feel the game’s outcome would be a predetermined victory for them. Danny Vance watched from the sidelines as the extra-point team took the field. Brooke Benton approached him and said, “That was awesome, babe. In my opinion, we should celebrate you guys winning tomorrow by”—and then she leaned in and whispered in his ear—“having sex.” Danny attempted to maintain his focus on the game, on the task at hand, but found it difficult, as thoughts of sex with Brooke crept into his mind. She kissed him on the cheek and then returned to the far side of the sideline area, where the other Olympiannes, including Allison Doss, were in the process of cheering.

  Brooke said, “I really think we’re going to win this game. Seriously. Don’t you?” Allison said, “Uh, yeah. Probably.” Allison hadn’t been thinking about the game’s outcome at all. She instead was thinking about a series of text messages she had exchanged with Brandon Lender earlier that afternoon. Brandon had initiated the conversation by sending a text message to Allison that read, “So when can I fuck you in the ass?”

  Allison had replied, “I don’t know. When do you want to?”

  Brandon wrote, “ASAP.”

  His enthusiasm made Allison happy. She wrote “I’m cheering tonight. After the game?”

  Brandon wrote, “K. Meet me at my house after midnight.”

  Allison wrote, “You live like 2 miles away.”

  Brandon wrote, “Yeah, it’s not too far to walk.”

  Allison wrote, “K.”

  Brandon wrote, “Make sure you shower good and get your ass really clean. If I can smell shit or anything, I’m out.”

  Allison wrote, “K.”

  Brandon wrote, “Just tap on my window when you get here and I’ll open it for you. It’s the one in front on the left of the front door.”

  Allison wrote, “K.”

  She had been thinking about her upcoming encounter with Brandon for most of the day. She hoped that she could clean her anus properly. The anxiety she felt about having anal sex for the first time had nothing to do with the pain she assumed would be associated with it, but instead was solely based on her fear of rejection by Brandon Lender for any reason. She hoped it would be over quickly and that he would hold her for just a few minutes before she would have to crawl back out of his window and walk home alone.

  Allison tried to calm her anxiety by focusing her attention on the game. The Culler Cougars answered the Olympians’ initial score with an eleven-play drive that resulted in a rushing touchdown. They followed the touchdown with an extra point and the game was tied seven to seven at the end of the first quarter.

  Danny Vance found the second quarter more difficult than the first. He couldn’t clear his mind of thoughts of sex with Brooke and as a result was unable to score again before the half. Over the course of two drives he completed only three passes out of seven attempts and the Olympian rushing game produced o
nly one first down. The Culler Cougars, too, had difficulty scoring in the second half, with three offensive drives that combined for a single field goal resulting in a half time score of ten to seven in favor of the Cougars.

  chapter

  twenty-three

  Brandy Beltmeyer had begun to think that her mother was becoming suspicious of her increased time spent away from the house. She and Tim Mooney discussed it at lunch and decided that she would not visit him that Friday night for the first time in many weeks. Nor would she spend her time online talking to him. Instead, she would stay at home and watch television with her parents in an attempt to allay any suspicions about her activities outside the house.

  Brandy had just finished eating dinner with her mother, father, and younger brother, when her mother said, “So, are you going over to Lauren’s house tonight?”

  Brandy couldn’t identify her mother’s tone. It wasn’t suspicious, and it wasn’t genuine. It was something in the middle. Brandy said, “No, I thought I’d just stay at home and hang out.”

  Patricia was surprised. She wondered if TimM had already read the message she sent him posing as her daughter and decided to initiate some kind of fight that led to a breakup. She hoped this was the case. She said, “Oh, yeah, it’ll be nice to have you home on a Friday night for once.”

  Brandy helped her mother clear the dishes and then went into the living room, where her father and little brother were already watching Deal or No Deal. Patricia was tempted to let the night continue without confronting her daughter. She was tempted to see what would happen in the coming days when Brandy found out that she would be unable to log in to her secret Myspace account because her mother had altered the password. She was tempted to do these things, but instead she came into the living room and said, “You know, since you’re home, we could just do your Internet check right now instead of waiting until tomorrow.”