The Punch

by Noah Hawley

  “She’s eight, Mom,” says David. “I can’t believe you don’t know that.”

  Doris raises her eyebrows, her mouth set and aloof. She can dish out guilt, but she steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when it’s lobbed back at her.

  “Your father just died,” she says. “You’re lucky I can still tie my shoes.”

  Touché. She knows the best defense is a good offense. David wants to tell her to go fuck herself, but he doesn’t.

  “How’s the apartment?” Tracey asks Doris, a rookie mistake she recognizes instantly. Doris, the defensive tackle, pivots easily around the block, rushes the QB. Never ask the woman to express an opinion. Given the opportunity, she will always complain.

  “It’s like Nazis,” she says, “that building. It’s run by Nazis.”

  “Well,” says Tracey, “I’m sure they’re not actual Nazis.”

  “There’s never anyone in the halls,” says Doris. “It’s like something out of Kafka.”

  “Ask her about Joe,” says Scott mischievously, a glint in his eye.

  “Who’s Joe?” David wants to know. He says it cautiously, knowing he’s being set up.

  “He’s nobody,” says Doris.

  “Joe is her roommate.”

  “Her roommate,” parrots David. He hates not having all the information beforehand, having to plod his way around in the dark. Ignorance is the fastest way to lose a sale.

  “He’s Cindy’s father,” says Doris.

  “And a nudist, apparently,” says Scott. “Not to mention a close personal friend of Jesus Christ.”

  Doris makes a face.

  “He’s harmless, and he runs errands.”

  “Are you making this up?” David wants to know. A nudist Christian with the same name as his father, it seems like a joke. Two dead fathers walk into a bar.…

  “I swear,” says Scott. “I’ve seen him with my own eyes. All of him. Believe me, I wish I hadn’t.”

  “Okay,” says Doris, “so he’s a little weird, but what choice do I have? I don’t see any of you up there taking care of me.”

  “We have lives, Mom,” says David. “Responsibilities.”

  “And what am I—a stranger?”

  “Doris,” says Tracey, reacquiring her target, moving in for the block, “we’ve talked about you moving down to L.A., about finding you a place.”

  “I can’t breathe this air. You know that. It’s brown.”

  “Well, we can’t move to Portland now, can we?” says David, using his senior-vice-president voice, his most patronizing tone. “I have a career and the kids are in school.”

  He glances at Scott, who shakes his head.

  “Don’t look at me. I have a life, too, a job, friends.”

  “It’s nice to know I’m such a burden to my children,” says Doris.

  David sees red. He refuses to be manipulated, blackmailed in his own house. He starts to speak. Tracey sees his anger rising, reaches over, touches his arm. They’ve talked about this, about not letting Doris get to him, her emotional bullying.

  “You’re not a burden,” she says. “We love having you, it’s just you can’t expect us to drop everything. You have a place to live, people who take care of you. You seem like you’re doing fine.”

  “Well, I’m not,” she says.

  They sit in silence for a moment. David stares out into the yard, watches his kids play. He would give all the money he has to be out there with them right now, pitching the Wiffle ball, running the bases. He takes a deep breath. It’s a question of time management. They’ll eat in half an hour. He’ll drive Doris to her hotel. Then there are only nine more days to get through. You just have to put your head down and muscle through. He is a man with two wives, for God’s sake. If he can navigate that, he can navigate this, nine days with his mother.

  Scott’s cell phone rings. They watch as he pulls it from his pocket.

  “Excuse me,” he says, and goes into the kitchen. There is another quiet moment, then Tracey speaks up.

  “You’ll like the hotel,” she tells Doris. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Trying to get rid of me already?” Doris says.

  Tracey smiles.

  “Not at all. Like I said, we love having you. We’d ask you to stay, but I know you can’t do the stairs.”

  With this she stands, hoisting the baby onto her hip.

  “Excuse me. I have to check on dinner.”

  David throws her a pleading look, but her back is to him. His heart rate increases, sweat beads forming on his brow. His defender is abandoning him, giving up, leaving him exposed. She walks off the field without looking back, and then he is alone in the living room with his mother, like the whole front four of the Chicago Bears bearing down.

  “You look good,” he says.

  She smiles to show him she knows he’s kidding.

  “I’m lonely,” she says.

  He doesn’t want to do this, to have her open up to him. It’s easier to joust, to have her play her role—the kvetching mother—and have him play his—the all-suffering, responsible son.

  “I’m sure you are,” he says. “But you have people up there taking care of you.”

  “Strangers,” she says. “Everyone keeps asking me, where’s your family? I say, what family?”

  He watches the kids play on the swings in the backyard.

  “Remember when we were little,” he says. “A thousand years ago. You and Dad—how you kept all those beer cans for us to make a robot out of? And we spent like a week gluing them all together, made this crazy robot, and then the cleaning lady threw it out?”

  Even as he tells this story, he sees how fucked up it is. He and Scott were like that damn cat, playing with the refuse of his parents’ addictions, fashioning toys out of wine bottles, cigarette wrappers. But now that he’s told it, he is forced to embrace the story in an effort to find common ground. He is trying to wrench his mother out of the present and into the past, a better time. Trying to relate to her as a parent, an equal. Isn’t it fun to have kids? Aren’t we both grown-ups now, deserving of respect? He can see from her face that it isn’t working. The obstacle between them is too big, her descent too deep.

  “Your kids got so big,” she says. It is an accusation, like he has done it on purpose, hidden them away, fed them steroids, urging them to greater and greater heights.

  “They’re amazing,” says David, responding to the statement, not her tone. “Christopher just got his green belt in karate, and Chloe is—we’re thinking of skipping third grade. She’s reading at such an advanced level.”

  “And she’s got tits.”

  David doesn’t know what to say to this. Doris sips her wine.

  “I just wish someone would tell me what to do,” she says. “Where to go.”

  “Well, what do you want to do, Mom?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just so tired.”

  Maybe if you stopped sedating yourself, he thinks.

  “It’s still really soon,” he says. “It’s only been a few months…”

  Since Dad died. David can’t bring himself to say the words out loud.

  “You ask a question, you get a symphony,” says Doris, smiling her most self-pitying smile: the brave warrior struggling against overwhelming odds. How can you not feel sorry for me, rush to my rescue?

  “No,” says David, “it’s fine. I like symphonies. I just think you need to go easy on yourself. Rest up. Make sure you eat. You’re exhausted, underweight. A few big meals, a good night’s sleep, you’ll feel a lot better.”

  “Hmm,” she says, and he can tell she doesn’t believe in such a thing, recovery. She has no proof such a thing exists. In her mind, once you fall, you don’t get up again.

  Tracey comes back from the kitchen with Scott. David looks at them the way a castaway eyes his rescue helicopter.

  “Do you want to start the grill?” Tracey asks him. He can see from her face that she feels bad for abandoning him. This is her out. She is like a wrestler rea
ching into the ring for the tag. My turn.

  He jumps to his feet.

  “Consider it done,” he says, and goes out into the backyard. It is a thing of beauty, his backyard, a plush green expanse, surrounded by eucalyptus trees. There is a tasteful black fence around the pool, the water a deep, satisfying blue. The color of a glacier, a summery Italian sky. The whole thing, the house, the yard, is a symbol of arrival, a magazine spread for achievement. I made this happen, he thinks, and the thought is soothing, reassuring. All of it. Look where I came from, the apathy, the impulse to fail. Look what I’ve accomplished. The yard is his pep talk, his halftime locker-room speech. Standing in his yard, looking at his pool, his kids, he feels like a hero, a survivor who has triumphed in the face of overwhelming odds. Mind over matter. The kids are still on the swings, kicking their toes toward the sky. He opens the lid of the grill, turns on the gas. The burners light with a satisfying woomf, blue flame leaping. He runs the steel brush over the grill, even though the Mexican woman who cleans scrubs it every other day. But this is part of the ritual. You prep the grill, clean it, heat the metal, then apply the meat, the vegetables, inhaling the malty aroma, enjoying the percussive sizzle.

  Scott comes out of the house.

  “Hey,” he says. “I’m not gonna stay.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve got, like, a splitting headache. I need to lie down.”

  “Just go up to our room, close the door. The kids won’t bother you.”

  Scott looks at him. The look embodies in seconds the following conversation:

  Scott: Don’t do this. You and I both know that I’m leaving because I’ve spent the last three days with her, listening to all the complaints. If I don’t go now, I’m gonna split someone’s head open, probably my own.

  David: Just a little longer. I can’t do it by myself. I’m not ready.

  Scott: Buddy, there’s not enough money in the world to keep me here. I’m twenty minutes away from a beer and a swimming pool, and a crowd of beautiful women in bikinis.

  David closes the lid of the grill.

  “The kids will be disappointed,” he says. Don’t leave me.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow.” Don’t make a scene. Let me slip out quietly and one day I’ll return the favor.

  “Do you need me to drive you?” Can I escape, too?

  “That’s okay. I called a cab.” Nice try, but you’ve gotta stay to cover my tracks.

  Tracey comes out with a platter of meat.

  “Scott’s going,” says David, sounding wounded.

  Tracey looks at Scott sympathetically, nods.

  “I understand completely,” she says.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow to play with the kids,” Scott tells her.

  “Great,” she says. “They’d love that.”

  A taxi pulls into the driveway, honking. The three of them head back into the house.

  “What’s happening?” says Doris.

  “I’m heading to my hotel,” says Scott. “I’ve got a splitting headache and I need to lie down.”

  Doris looks at him. She knows she is being abandoned, scraped off on her other son, like a game of hot potato.

  “I guess I’ll see you back there,” she says.

  “Actually,” says Scott, “I’m not staying at the same place. Too expensive.”

  This catches Doris off guard.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she says. “I’ll pay.”

  He feels the trap closing but won’t succumb.

  “That’s okay. I like staying someplace a little more downscale. It’s more my speed.”

  David and Tracey watch this exchange the way you watch the Nature Channel, wondering if the lion is going to catch the gazelle.

  “Who’s going to watch out for me?” Doris wants to know.

  “I’m sure the staff at the hotel will be more than happy to get you anything you need,” Tracey offers.

  Scott gives her an appreciative look. The taxi honks again. He leans down, kisses his mother’s cheek.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, heading to the hall for his luggage. They watch him go, a sailboat floating off into the sunset, leaving behind all the woes of the world.

  * * *

  They eat in the dining room. After everyone is served, Christopher bows his head.

  “God bless Mommy and Daddy. God bless Chloe and Sam. God bless Grandma and Uncle Scott. Amen.”

  Doris looks at the boy like he’s insane.

  “What the fuck was that?” she says.

  David shakes his head at her. Language.

  “Christopher likes to say grace before we eat,” says Tracey. “We respect his right to do it.”

  Doris shakes her head. In her mind, religion is the sign of a weak mind, the crutch of the lowbrow and the average. As far as she’s concerned, whatever promise her grandson once showed, he is now destined to end up in a trailer park drinking beer from a can and giving all his money to fish-eyed televangelists on TV.

  Tracey begins a long monologue about the kids, how they’re doing in school, what they dressed up as for Halloween. She tells Doris that she and the kids will follow Doris and her sons to New York on Friday after the kids get out of school.

  “Don’t put yourself to too much trouble,” Doris says. She is now clearly drunk. A stranger might not be able to tell, but David can. He notes the telltale slowness, the subtle lack of focus. In his mother, true drunkenness looks just like sleep, the way his kids can’t keep their eyes open after ten o’clock at night. The way they fall asleep in mid-sentence. Another glass of wine and his mother will pass out right where she’s sitting.

  “Don’t be silly,” says Tracey. “It’s Joe’s memorial. Of course we want to be there.”

  David nods. The whole thing is very tricky. New York, after all, is home to the other wife, Joy. For weeks he considered the logistics, before deciding that the only way he could go to New York for the memorial and have Tracey and the kids come would be to tell Joy that he couldn’t make his regular weekly visit, that he was staying in L.A. In other words, to lie. But then, of course, one lie leads naturally to another. The key is not to run into Joy or any of her friends, to slip into town and operate under the radar, as they say, which is why he’s booked them rooms at the Waldorf, well above Joy’s usual urban circle. He will be in New York for three days, and his plan is not to go below Fourteenth Street, except for the memorial. All he has to do is steer clear of their usual downtown terrain and he should be fine.

  After dinner David suggests that Christopher show his grandmother some of his karate moves. Chris runs upstairs to put on his uniform. David goes into the garage to see if he can find a board. He is still flushed with pride in the boy, wants to show his mother that no matter what she thinks, the impossible is sometimes possible. Miracles do happen, if you believe, if you banish doubt from your mind. Look at him and Joy. If you’d asked him in the beginning, he would have said there was no way he could maintain two families on two coasts without either discovering the truth, but it has been almost a year now, and they have all settled into a comfortable routine. So don’t tell me there’s no magic in the world. I have proof.

  He comes back into the dining room carrying a piece of three-quarter-inch plywood. Christopher is already there, showing his grandmother some of his moves, arms sweeping smoothly, legs kicking. He grunts under his breath as he hits each pose, brow furrowed with concentration. He is as adorable as any child has ever been, so true and pure of heart. His sister claps after each routine, licking ice cream from her spoon.

  When Chris is finished with his floor exercise, David stands with the board.

  “Wait till you see this,” he says. He holds the board up in front of his stomach. Christopher approaches, touches the wood with his fingertips. He studies it, familiarizing himself with the grain, even leans forward and smells it, inhaling the pulpy aroma, the musty odors of the garage.

  “He can’t break that,” says Doris. “Are you crazy?”
r />   “We don’t say can’t in this house,” David tells her, still energized from this afternoon’s lesson in the power of positive thinking. “We believe in visualizing things.”

  He holds the board tight, looking down at the top of his son’s head, that sandy brown spiral. How many nights has he breathed in the boy’s smell, listened to his gentle snoring? And now his son is becoming a man, capable, competent. It is a testament to good parenting, he thinks. A sign of their success.

  “Well,” says Doris, “I’m visualizing a lot of weeping and carrying on.”

  David reaches out and touches his son’s head.

  “Don’t listen to her,” he says. “You can do this.”

  Christopher steps back from the board. He measures the distance with his arm. David steadies the board. Everyone’s eyes are on him. He glances at his wife, his daughter. They are hypnotized, nervous. Everyone wants this trick to work. They want to demonstrate the magic of which their family is capable, to share it. Even the baby is watching, food splattered across his pudgy face.

  Do it, thinks David. Do it. Show her that in this house we can accomplish anything we set our minds to.

  Christopher closes his eyes, takes a deep breath.

  “For God’s sake,” says Doris. “He’s just a kid.”

  Christopher opens his eyes. He looks up at his dad, and in that moment David sees doubt. Just a kid. The words hang in the air, dismissive, reductive.

  “Don’t listen to her,” says David. “You can do it. Just like this afternoon.”

  Christopher nods, readies himself. Watching him, David is filled suddenly with doubt. This afternoon was a fluke, he thinks, an anomaly. It was someone else’s son breaking that board, a tough kid from a confident family, a well-balanced kid who doesn’t have the gene of collapse lurking in his blood.

  Christopher pulls his hand back, strikes. There is a sickening whack. The board shivers in David’s hand but doesn’t break. Christopher cries out in pain, clutching his fist to his stomach. The sound of impact lingers in David’s mind, the meaty smack of failure. There is no magic in the world. He sees this now. There is only disappointment, raised hopes, and the predictable descent of ruin.