The Punch

by Noah Hawley

  [6] And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. [7] Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. [8] So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. [9] Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

  David read this and felt hollow. He pictured the tower, a spiraling brick obelisk, winding up into the clouds. Was it really hubris that built it, or hope? He imagined all the people of the world working in harmony, aspiring to a greater knowledge. This was the first, the original tower. What must it have felt like to stand at the top looking down? To be the first human to stare out at the plains, the sea? For the first time, from a brand-new vantage point, men had a sense of perspective, of clarity. They saw their lives in context. They looked upon the world they inhabited and understood themselves in relation to it. Why was this so threatening to God? Why was his reaction so severe? Reading the Bible, David began to worry. He had only reached page twenty, but already the Bible was full of expulsions and recrimination. The God of the Old Testament didn’t seem very kind at all.

  He takes Tracey’s hand and squeezes. She squeezes back reassuringly. Last night after the kids had fallen asleep, he lay in her arms. Snow fell outside the window, lit from below by the streetlights. Lying next to her, feeling her skin on his skin, he started to cry. She stirred beside him, touched his face, only half awake.

  “Poor baby,” she murmured, the way she would to one of her children. She thought he was crying because his father was dead, but that wasn’t it. Not entirely. He was crying because he was a sinner, because he had hurt so many people, but they didn’t know it yet. He was crying because he knew the first step toward redemption involved telling the truth, owning up to his mistakes. Only in repentance is there forgiveness. But he was scared. He had gotten in so deep. It seemed impossible that he could be saved.

  “I’m a bad person,” he said.

  She mumbled into his shoulder.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she said. “No.”

  “You don’t know,” he said. The world was crushing him. All he wanted was to throw off the weight he had been carrying. Sitting at dinner earlier, playing word games with the kids, watching Tracey cut Chloe’s food, it had hit him. What have I done? He felt the blood drain from his face, the floor shift under his feet. As if from a tower he saw his life. He saw the mess he’d made, the people he’d hurt. He saw his hubris. He was a selfish monster. He didn’t deserve to be happy. In that moment he had decided. He would tell Joy it was over. She was his weakness, his pathetic attempt to fill a void that only God could fill. From here on out, David needed to be strong. Tracey was his wife, the mother of his children, his first and only true love. He owed it to her to come clean, to recommit to their family. He had made a vow in front of God and everyone. He had broken it out of fear and sorrow. His father’s illness had made him crazy. He could see that now. For years he had been living in some evil fog. He had acted out of selfishness and need, even as he told himself he was fine. Not only had he lied to everyone he cared about. He had lied to himself.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said. The room was dark, just a sliver of window exposed, and through it the glimmering reflection of moonlit snow. Tracey had her hand on his chest. Her head was on his shoulder. She was breathing deeply, almost asleep, unaware that the moment was pregnant with danger, unaware that her husband was poised to ruin everything, to upset the delicate balance he had worked so hard to maintain. He could smell her shampoo, and under it the slight musk of her body. It was a smell he knew in his bones. I love you. I love you. I love you, he thought. Don’t leave me. I promise I’ll change. I swear. God strike me dead where I stand if I don’t.

  “Hmm,” she said. “It’s late. Could we—maybe tomorrow?”

  Relief. He kissed her scalp. He would kill himself if he lost her, cut his own throat. He deserved it. Everything was so clear now. It was like a fever had broken. The lie was a Band-Aid he had to rip off, exposing the raw wound below. He should do it now, fast, while the courage was in him, but he was afraid and she had given him an out, and he took it. He lay there under her familiar weight. The Bible was in the bedside drawer. He should take it out, slip from under her, and retreat to the bathroom. More than anything, he needed guidance, and yet deep down he knew what he had to do. He had to tell Tracey everything. He had to get down on his knees and beg for her forgiveness.

  Tomorrow.

  But this morning, with the kids and the blizzard, there had been no time to talk. And by ten-fifteen it was time to get ready for the memorial. The kids escaped from the room. They ran down the halls in their underwear and had to be captured. The baby felt hot. Everything was so close and there was no time for confession. He could have pushed it, but he didn’t. Every time he felt the words move to the front of his tongue, he froze. It felt like drawing a gun and not pulling the trigger. He told himself it was for the best. This was a conversation that needed space, time. It would have to wait. He would tell her when this trip was over, would sit her down and in his calmest voice lay out for her the mistakes he’d made. He would beg her forgiveness, the way he had begged God.

  Standing in the White Horse Tavern, he looks around for his brother. Come on, he thinks. Where are you? Families are supposed to help each other. They’re supposed to stick together, and right now he could use the help. His mother has been acting weird since they got here. She disappeared into the bathroom for twenty minutes, and when she came out she sat on a bar stool near the front door and greeted people. She was warm, bubbly even. She has yet to order a drink. Nobody knows what to think. David himself is hard pressed to explain it. Maybe this is her final step into madness. She is like his Bizarro World mom, dressed all in white, smiling, telling people how nice they look. Having grown up with her, he is waiting for the other shoe to drop. It feels like the setup to a joke, and it is, but it’s a joke he won’t get until it’s too late, and it will be on him, on all of them.

  Across the room, his daughter sits on a table. She is surrounded by grown-ups and she is holding court, entertaining them with facts and figures. When the new Messiah comes, he thinks, she’ll be a little girl. She will make everyone see the futility of war. She won’t be vengeful. No one will have to strap explosives to his or her body in her name. As he walks around greeting relatives, he thinks about Joy, his sweet, effervescent second wife. There is rubble in his heart. What did she ever do except believe his lies? What did she ever want except to be happy? What will he say to her? How will he explain? On the ride down from the hotel he was excruciatingly aware of how close to her apartment he was getting, how dangerous this excursion was. The only chance I have, he thought, stroking Tracey’s hand, is if I can control the way the story breaks. Climbing from the cab, helping his mother onto the curb, he glanced around in a manner he hoped would be perceived as nonchalant. Please God, he thought, don’t let her see me. Inside he tries to keep his back to the window as much as possible. The last thing he needs is to be recognized from the street. He has come this far without discovery. Another twenty-four hours, and he’ll be out of here. Another twenty-four hours and he can resolve this all from the road. Standing there, he makes a deal with God. If you let me make it through this trip, then I promise I will fix this. I will stop lying. I will be a good father to my children, a good husband, a good son.

  He approaches Tracey, takes the baby. He wanders the room thanking people for coming. He is the host, the oldest son, the boy, now a man, who has replaced his father. Sam is warm and sleepy in his arms. Everyone who approaches gushes and coos. Look at the baby. He’s darling. They are mostly older relatives, peers of his mother’s, her younger cousins. Their own children are no
where to be seen. This is how close David’s family was to their relatives. The cousins feel no connection whatsoever, no allegiance. David shakes hands. He kisses cheeks and talks about the pharmaceutical industry. They all have questions. At their age, pills are a major focus. Everyone wants to know how they can get them cheaper. Can he send them samples? He discusses pending legislation, talks about political lobbying. He reassures them that drugs are getting less expensive. It’s not true, but this is what they want to hear. He tells them not to bother going to Canada or Mexico. It’s a myth that you can get the same drugs cheaper there, he says. They are generic knock-offs, filled with God knows what substitute chemicals. You’d be better off praying for your arthritis to go away. He says this and he thinks it might be true. He has been praying for the last twenty-four hours and today he feels like he just might have a chance.

  “Your mom looks good,” says Uncle Albert.

  “She’s had a rough time,” says David, “but I think she’s starting to come out of it.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  He bobbles the baby in his arms.

  “We’re good,” he says. “It’s been tough, but I think it’ll be really helpful to have this memorial. To say it out loud.”

  From the corner of his eye, David sees his Uncle Jack arrive, carrying a large piece of poster board. Doris greets him. David excuses himself, walks over.

  “Hey, Jack,” he says.

  Jack gives him a hug. He is Joe’s youngest brother, gray haired, stocky.

  “I didn’t know if you guys did one already,” he said, stripping the brown paper from the poster board, “but I thought we should have it.”

  He turns the poster board around. It is a photograph of the family blown up. The four of them, Joe and Doris and the two kids, taken in Maine. In it they’re all sitting on the front porch of the house they used to rent. Joe has his arm around Doris. He is wearing a checkered, snap-front shirt. His beard is wild. He has a broad, effortless smile on his face. Doris is in jean-shorts and a T-shirt. She is in her thirties, skinny, with long hair, freckled legs, and a cigarette jutting out from between two fingers. The two kids sit on the step below them, smiling. They have bowl haircuts, two boys having an out-of-city adventure.

  Happy. They look happy.

  Seeing the photo, David feels a strange kind of vertigo take hold of him. Everything slopes and winds up around him. The room spins like a twister, drawing into a knot, and then unfurls, settles back down again. He wonders: Is it the father who is dead, or the family?

  Tracey comes over with Christopher and Chloe, and David hands her Sam.

  “See?” she says pointing to one of the kids in the picture. “That’s your daddy when he was your age.”

  David touches their little heads, trying to ground himself.

  “We were in Maine,” he tells the kids. “See your uncle Scott. He was younger than you are even. Six, maybe.”

  “Who’s that?” his son asks, pointing to Joe.

  “That’s my dad, your grandfather. You remember him.”

  But they don’t, not the way he looks in that picture.

  David remembers the last words his father spoke to him, hollow-cheeked, morphine-addled, lying on his deathbed. Stop it. He said, Stop it. What did it mean? David glances at his mother. The photo has moved her off her stool, like a magnet to a piece of metal. She is subdued in the face of such evidence of better days, stares hypnotized at her husband’s beaming face.

  Stop it.

  David takes her arm.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Mom? You look a little shaky.”

  He leads her to a table. Jack takes the photograph and props it up on a table by the bar. Once again, David searches the crowd for his brother. It would be just like Scott to miss this. He is so selfish sometimes, so caught up in his own navel-gazing. David takes a deep breath, exhales. He doesn’t want to have anger in his heart. He is tired of all the negativity. He wants to forgive, to let things go. He looks at his wife. She smiles at him sympathetically, bobbles the baby. He will be a better man for her. He will start over. He swears. He has made his deal with God. Standing there, he is willing to cut himself, if that’s what it takes, to sign the deal in blood. He will simplify his life. He will be true to his word, the kind of man his father would be proud of.

  Stop it.

  Cousin Florence and Cousin Alice come in. Florence is with Daniel, her mustached husband. She is wearing mink. There is lipstick on her teeth. She has had work done. David can see it now, an eye job. The wrinkles around her mouth have been smoothed. Who does she think she’s fooling? God sees the truth and so does everyone here. Seeing them, Doris stirs, comes out of her daze.

  “Florence,” she says.

  He nods.

  “I have something to say,” she tells him.

  “To her?”

  “To everyone.”

  “Maybe we should wait for Scott.”

  “Is he coming? I got the feeling he wasn’t coming.”

  David squats down in front of her.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him.”

  And at this moment, in this place, he loves his mother with a burning ferocity. He wants to protect her. Maybe it’s the onus of the day, the fact that finally, after all these years, there is nowhere left to run. Maybe it’s the recognition that after seven years they have come to the end of their long journey, that all the fighting and resentment, all the unmet needs, are redundant now, pointless. Now, what matters is that they stick together. It’s what his father wanted, what David promised. A boy should take care of his mother.

  “I love you, Mom,” he says.

  She looks at him.

  “No matter what?” she says.

  “No matter what.”

  She nods, looks around the room. So many memories, so many ghosts.

  “I have something to say,” she says.

  He nods.

  David helps his mother up. Among the sea of black suits and dresses she looks like a tooth, the first hint of a smile. He leads her over to the bar, to a space near the photograph. He picks up a glass and taps it lightly, the way you do when you want to make a toast.

  “Excuse me,” he says. “Hi.”

  People settle down, stop talking. Traffic sounds bleed in from the street. Next to David, the photograph offers its nostalgic wink. It is evidence of the unstoppable nature of time. Moments can be captured, frozen, but only in two dimensions. We can seize an instant and look upon it, but it only serves to remind us how fast the universe is moving. David puts a hand on his mother’s arm. His wife is behind him, shushing the kids.

  “Thank you for coming,” he says. “All of you. We’ve had a hard few years. This isn’t the way any of us wanted things to go. But I’m sure my dad, wherever he is now, would want me to thank you for being there, for supporting us. Every little bit helped and for that we’re all grateful.”

  His mother is staring at him like he’s talking Chinese. He wishes she could forgive people the way he has, that she could forgive herself. He never took her harsh view. He always felt that their friends and relatives were generous with their emotions, their time. How much can you ask? It’s not their job. The bulk of care falls to the wife, the children. This is the way it goes. For everyone else, a visit is great, a phone call, maybe a little more in a crisis. For David, looking out over his relatives, there is a sense of unity. He is a big believer in family, a strong proponent of reaching out to people, including them. Looking around now, he sees only friendly faces. He is warmed by their presence, their support.

  “Before I turn it over to my mom,” he says, “I just wanted to offer a little prayer. I know most of you aren’t religious, but I think times like these bring us face-to-face with what we believe. I know I’ve struggled with it over the last few months. What does it all mean? Why are we here? In the last few days I feel like I’ve come to an understanding, a place of acceptance.”

  He looks down and sees his son, head bowed. He b
elieves in me, thinks David. He wants his son to love God always, to never stop seeing the wonder in the world. No doubt, no fear, no heartbreak. Every night, he tells himself, I’ll kneel beside him. We’ll pray together. I’ll tell him, Don’t be like me. Don’t give in to weakness, fear.

  “I’d like to think that there is a heaven,” he says, “and that my dad is there now, and he isn’t sick. He isn’t in pain. That there is a place after all of that suffering that is healing. I’d like to think he’s at peace, really, and looking down on us and feeling happy that everyone who loves him has come together in this”—he looks around—“bar to remember him and keep his memory alive. And for that I say, Thank you, God. Please bless my father and keep him safe. Amen.”

  People are crying. A few say Amen, but not many. They are irreligious Jews and lapsed Protestants, reluctant to pray out loud. No one wants to look like a fool.

  “Okay,” he says. “My mom would like to say something. But before I let her, I just want to say how awed I am by the love my parents had for each other, by the strength and longevity of their marriage. There are very few things you can do in this life that actually mean something, and being married for forty years is definitely one of them.”

  People start clapping. Looking out at them, Doris is reminded of the soldiers in the Los Angeles airport, the way people applauded as they rolled off the plane with their missing limbs. She looks out at all the familiar faces and where David saw friends, she sees sharks. She steps forward shakily. David puts a hand on her arm to steady her. In his mind she is about to deliver a powerful, moving speech, a sweet-tempered acknowledgment of the good times. She will be gracious, forgiving. She will bring a resolution to all the years of infighting and defensive posturing. More than anything he wants her to find closure. He wants healing—the kind you would find in a movie.