The Punch

by Noah Hawley

  One thing is for sure. No one in that room has any idea that the big picture has finally revealed itself. Our moment of true understanding watching them from outside is their moment of absolute confusion. They are all caught up in the fractured chaos of broken promises, of things not working out as planned. They are all stuck irreparably in the narrow focus of their own lives. Scott falls to the floor. David drops down on top of him and, without an ounce of mercy in his heart, breaks Scott’s nose.

  And in the orgy of aggression that follows it is ten minutes before anyone notices that Doris Henry is dead.

  EPILOGUE

  THE GIANT STEPS

  There is snow on the beach. The ocean is a cold gray sheet. Underfoot, there is no sand, only rocks, the beach a three-mile horseshoe curving outward, flanked on one side by towering clay cliffs. When they were kids, Scott and David would collect beach glass from among the pebbles here. They would bring the faded gems home in their pockets and dump them out onto the kitchen table. They would wash them in a colander and present them like jewels. Their parents kept a jar on the mantelpiece, a treasure chest of broken beach emeralds. This was Bailey’s Island, Maine, the opposite of New York City—sleepy, bucolic, slow. It was their escape, their Fresh Air Fund. Every summer for a month they left the confines of New York. They escaped the concrete labyrinth and drove north. For four weeks the boys lived outdoors among the poplars and saplings, crouched down in the lanky seaweed, hunting for crabs. They went barefoot. Their hair grew long. They went days without putting on a shirt. When you’re young a month can seem like a lifetime, all those lazy days stretching together. When you’re young, time is irrelevant. There is so much of it, it spills from your cupped hands and tumbles to the ground. They would lie in the grass and stare up at the sky, listening to the sound the wind made rustling the tops of the trees. In the afternoon they would ride their bikes from one end of the island to the other and back. They would sit in the shade of a tree and read Tarzan books, Robert Heinlein, The Stainless Steel Rat. There was a hidden fortress next to the house, a womb in the trees, inside which, if you climbed under the low-hanging branches, you found yourself in a shaded hollow, completely hidden from the outside world, the floor a musty weft of pine needles. This was where their wars were planned, their secret mission, mapped out in the dirt—dreams of enemy soldiers in their bunkers, and then the stealthy deployment, two boys crawling through the tall glass, reconnoitering the nearby houses.

  Their parents sat on the back porch and read. The pace of the world was the resting heartbeat of a sleeping dog. They listened to the radio, then went inside to fix lunch. In the stillness of the country there was nothing but the sound of the breeze, carrying with it the distant cries of seagulls. From the porch they could see the ocean. It lay just a few hundred feet away, down the winding path through the blueberry patch, and then left through gnarled crab apple trees to the sloping dirt path that wound down twenty feet to the rocky outcroppings of Pebble Beach. You could be there in minutes, seconds if you ran, if you kicked up your ten-year-old heels and took off, the tall grass whipping at your bare legs, the salt air burning your lungs. There were gardener snakes out there and tennis balls they had lost. Birds hopped through the weeds, hunting for worms. Once the brothers had stood at the edge of the cliff and thrown fish heads into the air. In seconds they were descended upon by seagulls. Their parents watched from the porch, drinks in hand, as their sons disappeared into a fluttering cloud of white. It was a feeding frenzy, an orgy of indeterminate character. Were the boys in danger? Were they being absorbed into some exotic avian tribe? Watching, their parents waited for them to break free, to take flight.

  If you ran in bare feet, scanning the ground for rocks and pricklers, if you scrambled down the grassy hill and stepped gingerly onto the vertical shale outcroppings, the stone sheered and jagged like the teeth of a comb, you could jump the last few feet into the hot sand (which existed only in tiny pockets between wave-smooth rocks). You could stand panting on the beach and listen to the crashing waves. In front of you was a field of seaweed floating in the middle tide. It was a verdant, blackish green, all tentacles and bulbous air pods. Under it lay all kinds of life, hermit crabs and barnacles and periwinkles. Flip the seaweed back, turn over a rock, and all manner of crustaceans would scramble forth. Scott and David’s parents would send them down here sometimes in the evening to collect seaweed for the lobster pot. If you walked far enough, there was a rock shaped like a boat that you could stand on and pretend to be captain. There were boulders you could climb, digging your naked toes into worn pockets and pulling yourself up by your fingertips. From the top you could pretend to be a giant. You could stand on the beach and know in your heart that the summer would never end. That you could be a kid forever. It was true because you would make it true.

  This is what Scott thinks as he climbs down the rocky path today. It is twenty-plus years later. He is a thirty-five-year-old man making the trek one last time with his thirty-seven-year-old brother. They are both carrying cardboard boxes. It is February 18. The air is a creaky, low-pressure gray, clouds hanging just out of reach. They have spent the last few days in a daze. There have been hospitals to visit, funeral homes. There have been forms to sign, decisions to be made. What should they do with their mother’s body? Should they continue their journey or fall back, regroup? After everything that had happened, it would have surprised no one if the two brothers had given up and parted ways, if Scott had gotten on a plane and flown home, leaving David to deal with the mess he’d made, but instead the two brothers clung together. After the emergency room, after the endless wait for a verdict—a stroke, their mother had a massive stroke and died where she sat, still clutching the paper record of her birth—the boys returned to their hotel, where Scott packed his things and moved into David’s room. Tracey had already been there, had already packed up and left with the kids. There was no note, no bitter farewell jab. In her wake she left only judgment and silence. David and Scott sat in that silence for two days. What was there to say? Their mother had died. David had proven to be a polygamist. Scott had shown up at their father’s memorial with his brother’s second wife, and now it was over. It was all over, and they thought if they just sat still and didn’t say anything, if they didn’t hope or dream or wish, then nothing else would happen. No more calamities, no more asteroids falling from the sky, no more self-inflicted wounds. If they just sat still and didn’t try to do anything, then maybe the world would let them be.

  For twenty-four hours they didn’t leave the room. They stayed in bed and slept. The world had proven to be bigger than they could handle. It had risen up over them and crashed down with deafening thunder. They lay on their beds in the climate-controlled stillness of their room and stared at the ceiling. They were exhausted. They were in shock. They turned off their phones. They had been humbled by the magnitude of their tragedy. It literally took their breath away, so they made themselves very small and burrowed down into their bedding, and they waited for the worst to pass. In the middle of the night Scott could hear his brother crying. He didn’t try to comfort him. There was no comfort. This was the world they lived in. Their parents were dead. Scott and David had gone mad with sorrow and stumbled into mayhem. Here was the ruin they had found. To look for comfort would be a further sign of madness. Instead they tried to accept the things they’d experienced, the crimes they’d committed, the pain they’d suffered.

  On Wednesday they got out of bed and packed. They did so without speaking, both knowing somehow that it was time to go. When David picked up the phone to call the front desk and arrange for their rental car, it was the first words he had spoken in thirty-six hours. His voice sounded weak and apologetic. He wouldn’t speak again for six more hours. In silence they rolled their suitcases to the elevator. Scott dragged his mother’s valise, red scarf still tied to its handle. He hauled her black turtlenecks and her smuggled packs of cigarettes. He carried her pants and shoes, her jewelry and glasses. They put them i
n the trunk of the rental car and drove west across the park to the funeral home. There they picked up the box that held their mother’s ashes and put it in the backseat next to the box that held their father’s. It was a twisted variation on the family vacation, children in front, parents in back. David slipped the car into gear, pulled out into traffic. He took Tenth Avenue north, got on the West Side Highway. They drove up through the Bronx, past the Cloisters. They were heading for Maine. It was a seven-hour trip with no traffic. The road was still icy in places, the trees loaded down with snow.

  Somewhere around Connecticut, Scott spoke for the first time.

  “I feel like one of us should smoke a cigarette,” he said. “You know, for old times’ sake.”

  David put on his blinker, changed lanes. He had a hard time looking at Scott without feeling waves of shame. There was the cut on Scott’s cheek, the tape on his nose, his two black eyes. David knew he could never make it up to him, to anyone. It is a humbling feeling to realize you’ve ruined everything. Such utter destruction is no mean feat. It must be worked at with intensity and perseverance. The follow-through it takes to destroy your own life is enormous. Driving north, David revisited all the opportunities he’d had to take a different path. So many moments he could have turned back, but he didn’t. The thought kept him awake last night, tossing, turning. Scott was snoring gently in the next bed. As quietly as possible David turned on the TV. They were playing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was the scene at the dinner table where Richard Dreyfuss keeps putting more and more mashed potatoes on his plate. The shape they make reminds him of something. He is crazed, obsessed. He smoothes the potatoes into a mountain, takes his fork, and slices off the top. His daughter starts to cry. He still has a sunburn on one half of his face. His children are afraid of him. His wife doesn’t understand him. David watched the scene without sound. He thought, I know exactly how he feels. He recognized the husband’s fevered state, saw in his sculpting the true sign of his own madness. A man who would take a second wife, who would, as the walls closed in, try to recycle himself through God, to skip the reckoning and go straight to forgiveness, he is a true lunatic. David thinks about Tracey, his children. All they ever wanted was to love him, and yet living among them, he felt so alone. His family was right there reaching out and he couldn’t feel them. And he thought the problem was them, but it wasn’t.

  It was him, all along.

  He drives the speed limit. It feels good to get out on the open road, to leave New York behind. He is afraid to think too far ahead. There are craters up there, dark tunnels with no light in sight.

  “Are you okay?” his brother asks.

  “Compared to what?”

  Scott doesn’t answer. This is how it goes. For the next few hours they make brief attempts at conversation, neither of them pushing too hard. In Massachusetts, Scott turns on the radio, finds a rock station, and for a few miles this feels good, to have something aggressive and quick blaring from the stereo, but then the music begins to feel like an assault and David turns the radio down, then off.

  “I liked her,” says Scott.

  “Who?”

  “Joy,” says Scott. “If you’re gonna have a second wife, I mean, she seemed like a good choice.”

  David winces. He can’t bring himself to think about that moment, that nauseating instant of recognition, his two families’ tragic, all-at-once collision. The chaotic clusterfuck of it flashes through his mind from time to time like rape and he has to cover his eyes. Tracey: Your husband? He’s my husband. Joy: What do you mean? David, what is she talking about? At the White Horse Tavern, the whole thing unfolded with such painful clarity, such clean precision, he was struck mute by the awful beauty of it. He knelt on the floor of the bar with his brother’s blood on his hands, staring up at their stricken faces, his wives, his children. David? Daddy? All they wanted was for him to explain, to tell them that what seemed like an epic betrayal was really just a bad joke. But what could he say? The words just wouldn’t come. And then, in some sick reprieve he will revisit for years in therapy, a scream came from the back of the room, and he turned to find his mother dead. Punishment. It felt like punishment. In one second he went from having two wives and a mother to being womanless, childless. And he can’t even be mad. It’s all his fault.

  “I am such an asshole,” he mutters.

  Scott nods.

  “I am such an asshole,” David repeats.

  “Louder.”

  David yells.

  “I AM SUCH AN ASSHOLE!!!”

  Scott studies his brother. He finds, in David’s ruin, his humiliation, a kind of relief. He loves his brother more for his flaws, accepts him. Now that he is human. Now that he is fallible, weak. This was all Scott was looking for. A correction, a lessening, an unmasking. The emperor has no clothes. He is human and hurting just like the rest of us.

  “Feel better?” he asks.

  David doesn’t answer. He adjusts the rearview mirror so that he can see the boxes that hold his parents’ ashes. The whole thing boggles the mind. There are no metaphors, no advice books. They are past the point of no return. Everything is white now, empty.

  “Hungry?” he asks Scott.

  Scott shrugs. They haven’t eaten more than a packet of peanuts between them in two days.

  “Should we stop at that seafood place in Portsmouth,” David asks, “like in the good old days?”

  “We could hit the liquor store in New Hampshire.”

  David shakes his head.

  “I was thinking more clam chowder than beer.”

  Scott looks out the window. One year when they showed up at the house, there was an egret standing on the back porch, a tall, white bird with spindly legs. It betrayed no interest in leaving. They would go to bed at night and wake up in the morning, and there it’d be, standing on the back porch drinking water from a dish. After two days they put it in the car and drove to the marshes. Only there did it remember it was a bird and fly away.

  “You should call Tracey,” he says.

  “I’m afraid to,” says David after a minute.

  “You should call, anyway.”

  David nods. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Not to me. To her.”

  “I meant for the”—he gestures—“hitting.”

  “Whatever. You’ve hit me before. You’ll hit me again. We’re brothers. You’re just lucky you sucker punched me. If I’d seen it coming, I’d have knocked you into Sunday.”

  David switches lanes, accelerates around a station wagon.

  “How is it possible,” he wonders, “that you found her? The one woman?”

  Scott thinks about it.

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  David sighs. Just because he doesn’t like the way God operates doesn’t mean he has completely given up his faith. If you’d asked him two days ago he would have said, absolutely, I’m an atheist again. But last night, like a flower in a lava field, his faith started to blossom, rising from the ashes. No one was more surprised than him. The thought that fed it is this: You don’t get to choose the God you believe in. You don’t get to decide to be reverent based on whether things are going poorly or well. You have been selfish for too long. You can’t control your God. You don’t get to dictate under which circumstances you will believe. God doesn’t make deals, and he doesn’t like to be threatened, especially not by someone as arrogant and fault-ridden as you.

  It is only in recognizing your true powerlessness that you can restore your hope.

  Faith is a promise you make to yourself.

  Because, lying in the rock-bottom abyss of his despair, he finally realized what his father meant when he said, stop it. He meant stop hiding. Stop pretending everything’s okay. He meant stop putting up walls and acting like none of this is affecting you. Stop lying. Stop running. Stop it, he said, his eyes flaming, and what he was really saying was, Stop shirking your responsibilities, even as you claim that it’s your responsibilities that make it imposs
ible for you to help us. Stop fighting so hard. Stop pretending to be invulnerable.

  We’re your family. We are all you have.

  “Thank you,” David tells Scott. He doesn’t have to say for what. They both know. Thanks for not leaving me. For being here. For seeing this through.

  “No problem,” his brother tells him.

  For both brothers it feels like a huge storm has finally passed. They can’t bring themselves to say it out loud, but the truth is it’s over. They will not have to carry their mother through her long, dying years, will not have to watch as she falters and slowly suffocates. It has been seven years, and for the first time they can remember, there is no sickness ahead of them. There are no agonizing decisions, no brutal sacrifices. If they think about it too long, they feel giddy, a dizzying mixture of joy and sorrow brewing in their hearts. There is that buoyant, unreal feeling that comes from finally dropping the heaviness you have carried all these years. You feel unbalanced, fragile. You walk with your arms out. Scott and David are still reeling from the speed of it, the suddenness. But the reality is slowly setting in: They have reached the end of the road here on the East Coast, back where it all began, and now all that’s left is to say good-bye.

  They drive north through tree-lined states, reaching Bailey’s Island at four P.M. They rise up over the great stone bridge from Orr’s Island, having made the turn-off near Brunswick. Everything looks familiar. There is the sensation of driving into the past. Neither of them has been here since they were teenagers, and yet both of them could close their eyes and retrace every road, every field. They can picture the walk to the General Store, past the church that had the rummage sales every Sunday in the basement. You take that road back past Cook’s Field and there on your right is the jolting blue of Mackerel Cove. Keep going and you reach Land’s End and the turn-off for the Great Steps, a natural rock formation that looks like the staircase of a giant. It is here where they stood when they were kids watching the waves pound the stone, imaginations engaged, picturing the colossus that must have strode from the sea, climbing those stairs onto dry land. They could imagine him stepping from island to island, his massive head way up in the clouds. The crash of the waves echoed the jarring concussion of his footfalls.