The Punch

by Noah Hawley

  Like me.

  He bundles himself against the cold. There is a part of him that thinks he will never be warm again, like you could run a blowtorch over his body and he would just melt like a block of ice. Nearby a siren begins its deploring cry. He stands silently, waiting for it to pass, the sound overwhelmingly urgent, like a baby in need.

  “Sweetie,” says Joy. “Where are you?”

  There is a jolt in his spine as he realizes that she can hear the siren, too, both through the window and over the phone.

  “I told you,” he says. “I’m in San Diego.”

  She comes over to the window, peers out. He shrinks into the doorway, his haste loosening the phone from its precarious cradle. It clatters to the street. He crouches, fumbles for it, trying to keep his body in shadow.

  “Are you here?” she asks excitedly, peering out. “Did you come to New York to surprise me?”

  “I wish,” he says, shrinking back into a doorway that smells like piss. “I’ve been in a windowless conference room all day listening to men in suits drone on about pain relievers.”

  She sighs.

  “Why can’t you just live here full time?” she wants to know. “I think I’m officially getting tired of missing you.”

  “I know. Just a few more months.” He says this, though he knows it’s not true. A few more months until what? Until he leaves his family? Until he gives up everything sane and grounded? He was an idiot to come here, to call. It’s worse than drunk dialing, this late-night, grief-stricken booty call, all his weakness bubbling to the surface, his need. What happened to being a man with rules? What happened to sticking to the plan? He watches the window, and the second she turns away, he is running. He darts out of the doorway and heads up the block to Hudson Street. His frozen legs feel like they might just shatter, feet fracturing against the pavement. He pumps his arms, his legs. The air in his lungs is like a knife, but once he starts running it’s hard to stop.

  “What are you doing?” she says.

  “I’m late for this dinner,” he pants. “I’m trying to catch a cab.”

  He hears her cluck.

  “I didn’t know they had cabs in San Diego. I always thought you could just catch a ride on the back of a dolphin.”

  He runs south on Hudson past the park, past the White Horse Tavern, where two days from now his family will assemble to mourn their absent father. He runs toward Canal Street, away from the New York he knows. There used to be two towers you could see from this spot. He watched them being built when he was a kid, saw them rise like magic into the sky, but now they’re gone. It’s like his life. His father is dead, and without him the world seems so unfamiliar. His landmarks are missing. He has become disoriented. It seems impossible to know if he’s going in the right direction.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he says, gasping.

  “I love you,” she tells him, and it makes him close his eyes. Everything is too bright, too powerful. New York was a terrible place to come. All the memories. Everything is so extreme here, exaggerated. New York is all Scott’s crazy ladies wrapped up into one giant landscape.

  “I love you, too,” he says, and buries the phone in his pocket. He is wearing the wrong shoes for this, his body stuffed inside a heavy black overcoat. He runs south, passing women in parkas walking dogs in seven-hundred-dollar sweaters. He crosses against the light, racing cars. His sleeves make a whisk whisk sound as he pumps his arm, wool scraping wool on the torso of his jacket. He runs as if someone is chasing him, like he ran back in sixth grade when Pete Amandallo threatened to scrape his face off on the sidewalk and pursued him for thirteen blocks shouting dirty words and spitting. His breathing is ragged, lungs burning. Things have gotten out of control. He wishes he could consolidate his life, somehow meld his two worlds together, force his two wives into each other until they became one. He wishes he could calm down. He’s always been so steady, so sure of himself. What happened? How did everything get so fucked up? And yet there is something beautiful about breaking down, letting go. I’m a mess, he thinks. He has fought so hard for so long to be in control, and yet the thought is a relief. I’m a fucking mess. He runs toward SoHo, jumping potholes, a thirty-seven-year-old man in flight. Maybe he should ditch everything, move to another city, change his name. He can’t think of any other way out. How could he ever choose? There’s no way to navigate this, to go back to a simpler time, one wife, one family. He has passed the point of no return.

  He runs faster, arms pumping, fingertips reaching for the future. His face feels like a sheet of ice, eyes watering, nose running.

  It’s a test, he thinks. The idea comes from nowhere, just pops into his head. What kind of test? he wonders. A test from who, for what purpose?

  A test of faith.

  He hears the words in his head. A test of faith. The idea of it seeps through his body like warm water. He doesn’t know what it means, not exactly, but there is something liberating about the words, contextual. He is like Job, like Jonah and the whale, like Noah on his ark for forty days and forty nights, wondering if he’ll ever see the sun again. It’s a test, all of it. His mother, his two families, his father’s death. He remembers his son’s karate, tiny fists flying forward, splitting the board. When you apologize to God, he said, you can’t pretend. You have to mean it.

  David grimaces. He feels both heavy and light at the same time, elated and exhausted. He is literally gasping for air, head low, knees bent, his impractical shoes pounding the pavement.

  I’m sorry, he thinks. I’m so sorry. He apologizes to his father, to his mother. He apologizes to Tracey for betraying her, apologizes to Joy for lying. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He mouths the words, grunts them. He apologizes to Scott for always feeling superior, apologizes to his children for being such a terrible person. He apologizes to everyone for everything. He thinks, If there is a God, then please, please help me. Please believe that I have never been so sorry in all my life.

  Please God. Please. Help me.

  This is when the cab hits him.

  He wakes in a puddle. People are standing over him. Everything is cockeyed, skewed.

  “Don’t move,” says a man, kneeling beside him. “You’ve been hit by a car. An ambulance is on the way.”

  Behind the man’s head a traffic light turns from red to green.

  “I’m okay,” says David, sitting up. And he is. Miraculously. Not even a scratch. He gets to his feet. How long has he been unconscious? It can only have been a few minutes, but somehow he feels rested, rejuvenated, like he has slept for weeks.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” says the cabdriver. “This is what I want to know. Are you a fucking nutjob running out into traffic?”

  David straightens. He sees the taxi’s windshield is cracked from the impact of his body. The smell of burning rubber hangs in the air from when the driver slammed on the brakes, and yet David doesn’t feel a thing. He takes a deep breath, exhales. There is no pain.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “Really. It’s my fault.”

  “You heard him,” says the driver. “He admitted it.”

  David steps up onto the curb. He feels elated, redeemed.

  “Maybe you should wait for the ambulance,” says the man who was kneeling beside him. He is tall, well dressed. His wife or girlfriend stands on the curb, a look of concern on her face.

  “No,” says David. “I’m fine. Really.”

  He walks away, leaving the scene of the accident. His hat is gone and the cold air musses his hair. He has no idea what happened, can’t really remember the moments before the accident. All he knows is he feels alive, deeply, truly alive.

  It was a test, he thinks. It’s all a test.

  The words taste strange in his mouth. They seem familiar, like there’s an important thought in there trying to get out, but he can’t remember what it is. What kind of test? Then it hits him. The feeling starts low in his belly, spreads through him. He knows what this is all about, his life, his problems, th
e taxi.

  God.

  The idea of it is so simple. He smiles, embarrassed. Can it really be that simple? He stops walking, stands on the corner catching his breath. He touches his chest, his arms. He has been struck by a car and emerged without a scratch. It feels like a miracle. This is how it happens. You hit bottom and then there is a light at the end of the tunnel that shows you the way. He wants the light to be real. He wants the way to be righteous. He is so tired of remorse, so tired of doubt.

  I believe, he thinks.

  He wants to shout it, actually has to cover his mouth with his hands to stop himself. The words rise up inside him. He pictures his son in his animal-print pajamas, praying on his knees. What is that line, And the children will lead us?

  He wants to hug everyone he sees. He is man who has built a life on keeping secrets, and now he has the biggest secret of all, and he wants to yell it in the streets. God, fate, luck, Mother Earth, the Universe, whatever you want to call it, he believes now. He believes there is some higher power. There has to be. All of this can’t be random. The things that happen happen for a reason. They must. He feels giddy, shy. God is like a celebrity he’s run into on the street. There is that same blush of familiarity. In recognition there is fear and awe. There is power and joy. He feels embarrassed. What does he really know about God? Nothing. Just a few TV clichés and hackneyed catchphrases. David feels delinquent. He should buy the Bible or the Torah or the Koran or something. He should familiarize himself with the Lord’s work. You don’t want to get on your knees and talk to God and say something stupid, like seeing Paul Newman and saying, “I loved you in On the Waterfront.” David should know about the Garden of Eden and stuff. Where was Jesus born again? Bethlehem, right? And what about Mohammad? He was a prophet or something. The whole thing feels overwhelming right now. Belief is one thing, but he needs to do his research. The feeling is in him. He knows he believes. Now he just has to figure out in what.

  But he doesn’t let that dampen his spirit. He can feel the faith inside him, even if he doesn’t know its exact name. Words just get in the way, anyway, he tells himself. People pass him on the street. He tries to look them in the eye, but this is New York and people don’t do that. We’re all sinners, he thinks. Where have I heard that before? He doesn’t know, but the idea of it makes him feel better, to know that everyone out there is just as fucked up as he is, that the world is full of people all puking and shitting and making a mess of their lives. He is standing on the corner of Hudson and West Houston. It is exactly midnight, marking the thirteenth of February. His father’s memorial service is in thirty-six hours.

  David smiles at everyone who passes him, his feet moving again, heading back uptown. He has been saved, reborn. The realization is like a lightning strike. I have been thinking about the world all wrong, he thinks. It is not a matter of order. It is a question of love. To have two wives, two families, it’s not a crime. It’s a blessing. What’s wrong with wanting to make people happy, with trying to provide for them? He is a man with two wives, four children, a mother, and a brother. He loves them all. How can this be wrong?

  The future is a freight train bearing down.

  PART TWO

  BARRIERS

  And consider this: If the center of this story is the punch that broke Scott Henry’s nose, then all other events revolve around it. If the blow is a stone dropped into the center of the timeline, then it sends ripples into both the future and the past. It is an event with gravity, and as you move farther away from it in either direction, that gravity lessens. So, too, does the event become less clear, a series of words, of images, of sounds.

  If you think of this story as a composite of three stories all moving from different directions at the same speed toward a single destination, then you understand that we are on a collision course. Each line on its own, like a chemical, is inert, but throw them together and you have combustion. If you believe that at every moment in life we are faced with choices, and each choice we make presents us with an infinite number of possible choices, then you know there’s no way the future could be predetermined. But if, like Gödel, you believe that there is no such thing as time, then you realize that every choice you make in your life, you make at exactly the same moment. Therefore, we know a thing will happen because it is happening as we speak.

  But this is not the way time feels. And in the end isn’t that what really matters? What difference does it make if time moves backward if we perceive it as moving forward? Who is to say that our experience of time is not accurate? Where one person sees time as moving quickly, it moves quickly. For the person who sees it move slowly, it moves slowly.

  And what about this: If time has a beginning, mustn’t it also have an end? And if this is so, does it mean that time itself is taking a journey? But what is the goal or end of that journey? Is it simply a date, time, and place, a set of coordinates that will signal the end, or is it the accomplishment of some goal, the realization of a dream?

  If time does indeed move in an arrow shooting in one of two directions (backward or forward), then we must wonder about the beginning of the universe. If in the beginning there was complete chaos, it only makes sense that at the end there would be complete order, and if at the beginning there was complete order, then the end would be complete chaos.

  People would like to feel that the universe is moving away from anarchy into order, because then we would know that life improves with time. We could relax, knowing that our lives will become more meaningful, more comprehendible, with each passing year. We think this, because we believe that at the end of any story we will know the whole tale. Think of every story you’ve ever heard. At the beginning you have no idea what to expect. In the beginning there are an infinite number of possible stories you may be about to hear, but the more you learn, the narrower the scope, until in the end you see that there was really only one finite story being told all along. In this way, we have been trained to believe that every story we encounter will have a beginning, middle, and end.

  As a result most of us secretly believe we will see the big picture of our lives when we are older. Our lives are stories, too, are they not? But what if time moves in the other direction? What if at our birth things are at their most ordered, their simplest, and at our death our lives are at their most disorganized and complicated? What if when we die nothing makes sense? What if only when we are born is the universe truly understandable?

  Doesn’t this make storytelling inherently unlike life?

  Scott Henry is still awake when the sun comes up. He doesn’t mean to be. He had every intention of going to bed early last night, curling up in his hotel room and sleeping the night away. God knows he needs the rest. But one thing led to another and now look at him, staggering out of an after-hours club in the Meatpacking District at seven o’clock in the morning, squinting at the sudden glare. For a moment he doesn’t know what to make of it. He feels like a convict caught in a prison-tower spotlight. His hands go up reflexively to protect his face. He considers running. He can’t, for the life of him, figure out where the hours went. Seven A.M. How is that possible? He remembers checking his watch at two and then…what?

  It started innocently enough. He had a drink with David and then walked to the subway. It was what, eight, nine P.M.? He had every intention of heading uptown to see a movie, but inside the station he found himself walking to the downtown platform, climbing onto a southbound 6 train. His head was full of so many thoughts. Being back in New York did that to him, sent his mind racing in every direction. The city is one big what if? for him. The streets are filled with paths not taken, smoky contrails of what might have been. Where you and I see a map of Manhattan, he sees a grid of memories, sectioned into streets and avenues. Being here brings it all back. He used to think of memory as a kind of library with books you could take off the shelf, but now he sees it as a motion picture, a movie you mount on a projector, flicking on the lamp, engaging the gears.

  As he rides downtown, S
cott watches old footage in his head, memories of Sally Embrecht, the first girl he ever loved, the girl to whom he gave his mother’s jewelry. It was at Grace Church School on Tenth Street in the Village. He was twelve. She was like this tiny swallow, this beautiful young bird. He had never been in love before. The feeling came over him like some terrible avian flu. There was fever and congestion. There were aches and pains. How many times has he sat in a subway car on the East Side thinking these same thoughts, passing Forty-second Street, passing Twenty-eighth? She was a mousy thing, dark-haired, bug-eyed, but she made his heart tack like a Geiger counter. What was this crazy new sensation? More. He needed more. He couldn’t stop thinking about her curtain-straight brown hair, her twiggy little legs. She was better than a fly ball, better than waffles, better than a Hundred Thousand Dollar Bar. To show her how much he cared, he left notes in her desk, followed her around the school yard at recess. He stole things from people he loved and gave them away.

  Do you see how much I love you? Do you see why I’m worthy?

  Across from him on the subway, a man with a handlebar mustache reads the New York Post. KNICKS CHOKE AGAIN​ is the back-page headline. Overhead, the loudspeaker screeches, a computerized voice announcing their arrival at Fourteenth Street. Scott closes his eyes and dreams of Sally Embrecht. He has had these memories before, of course. He has them every time he comes back to the city. It makes him wonder how many times in his life he will revisit the same places. How many minutes will be filled by the same internal visions? Imagine now, if you can, that though Scott is remembering Sally while riding the 6 train downtown, he is also recalling her as he sits in the third row of his tenth-grade science class. He is remembering her as he steps out of Ray’s Pizza on Sixth Avenue and Eleventh Street, eating a paper-thin slice; the year is 1992. Imagine him passing over those memories as he sits at his father’s memorial service the day after tomorrow, everyone drinking solemnly, chatting in whispers. You see what we are doing, jumping around in time. It is all happening at once, right before your eyes like a giant wheel turning.