by Chris Vola
Discipline.
MSNBC is on, the headlines streaming across the bottom of the screen: Craigslist Killer Wrote Ex-Fiancée’s Name In Blood Before Putting Plastic Bag Over Head. Bidding War Escalates In Race To Land Second 3-D Porno Movie. Bring Your Own Toilet Paper!
Lauren’s at the table, checking out financial stuff on her iPad, glasses trying to slide off the tip of her nose, manila folders stacked between us. Didn’t bother to put in her contacts this morning – she means business. Her olive-pale skin looks like ash in the impotent post-winter half-glare.
“…and as bedbugs overrun the city…” the jowly MSNBC man-puppet barks.
“Chase debit transaction…” Lauren mumbles to herself. “Was that pre or post?”
Pre and post, my “accident?” I gave her my PIN, passwords, and account numbers. Complete impotence. She looks out the window, bites off a strip of flaky skin adjacent to her right thumbnail.
I grab the remote, change the channel to E! News. A Joan-Rivers-in-training in a too-tight cardigan is using an iPen to circle skin imperfections on the likeness of a popular bikini-clad Costa Rican model. “Even in high-def,” the Joan Rivers says, “there are some things you can’t un-see!”
Lauren groans. “Alaska shouldn’t be watching garbage,” her lips bathed in the high-definition iGlow.
Alaska screams “DISCIPLINE!” and sends another batch of vestal LEGO people into the sacrificial Jenga-shaped hole.
“I don’t think she cares about unbalanced Hispanic love handles,” I say, but I mute it anyway.
More headlines. Official: Somali Tourism ‘Booming’.
Flashes on the screen, an image and some words. Some of the words form a name. This name, like a secondary character from a movie that’d been popular but not my favorite, a barely Netflix-worthy action flick.
Huh. Gone in second fragments. Back to the Joan Rivers clone. I lift the remote, deciding whether or not it’s worth rewinding the program. That name… Where –
“Josh!”
I drop the remote into the crevice between my hip and the chair’s arm, look at Lauren. She’s staring at me…frowning? Coal cheeks.
“You’re jumpy today,” she says, the maybe-frown evaporating into something sweet. “I’m all finished here,” she says, motioning at the iPad. “I’m going to pick up a couple things for dinner. Mushroom ravioli? And try to make sure Alaska doesn’t fall down the stairs or get locked in the basement again.”
I pat what’s left of my thighs. “Do my best, but I’m not the mid-distance sprinter you thought you’d married.”
Lauren sticks her tongue out at me. From her perch on the floor, Alaska mimics her. She has her mother’s eyes.
“Why don’t you take her with you,” I say. “Since you guys are both being creeps.”
“Fine, Grumpy,” Lauren says, blankly.
The headline at the bottom of the screen says, Oregon Inmate Hangs Self Less Than Week After Judge Commutes Sentence.
I point the remote, rewind the TV, press PAUSE. On the screen is the cover of a book. The cover is white except for a cartoony drawing of a mask that’s been made to cover an entire human head, with the exception of the mouth and chin. Two small patches sewn over where the eye holes should be. The text below the book:
TERROR KIDNAP EXPOSÉ
UNDER THE HOOD: MY LIFE AND ESCAPE FROM THE LAND OF SHADOWS
BY HAROLD BLUNDERTHAL
DEBUTS AT #7 ON NY TIMES’ BESTSELLER LIST
THE CHAIR’S TIRES keep dipping into invisible potholes on the crumbling, frost-crusted edge of Route 1, threatening to fling me into traffic at the speed I’ve been cruising – 10MPH – for the last twenty minutes. I ignore the befuddled faces and plumes of exhaust from the minivans and SUVs that throttle past, swerving away and occasionally beeping at me in the breakdown lane. Marshall’s, KFC, Burger King, and Starbucks pass by, invisible totems, flavored blurs.
The sole endpoint – make it to Wal-Mart.
Both of the bookstores in East Fairport – Sal’s on Main and The Golden Pig on Fairview – are vacant, replaced by an eBay financing center and a gay bar, respectively. Barnes & Noble liquidated; Wal-Mart’s got the only bookstore. Amazon is too slow. I need to see it.
I turn right into the parking lot, maneuver my way through the sedentary chaos. I pass a turkey-neck monster whose pink tee shirt has split open down the entire length of her back. The word PRINCESS stretches across her meat-box shoulders in Old English. I pause to examine her face and she flashes this weird, hollow grimace, then turns her head, abrupt.
I squint up at the impressive neon blue and gray storefront.
Slip through the automated doors, feel the rush of climate-controlled heat, nod at the liver-spotted geriatric greeter in polka-dot slacks and white New Balances. The names of departments float in a smiley-face kaleidoscope, visions of succulent warrantees and organic toilet paper. Full-service ! and poultry! F ! Garden center! Tire & Express!
I press REVERSE and sidle up next to the greeter, whose 85-year-old brain had already scraped away my presence.
He jolts back a step, adjusts his inch-thick bifocals. “Oh, um,” he says. “How can I help you, sir?”
“Books,” I mumble, hugging myself when I feel a chill. “Where are the books?”
The greeter thinks for a moment, stretches a scarecrow finger in the direction of a man with long, disheveled hair and an even longer beard who’s wearing a long green dress and picking through a bin of tricycles on clearance. “Take that aisle to Health & Beauty,” the greeter groans, “then a right. Go past Electronics, you’ll see them on your left, no maybe your –”
I shoot off, leave the ghoul standing there dumbly in my 10-MPH wake, his finger frozen by confusion or arthritis. The only good part about the chair is that everyone gets out of my way, even these creatures at Wal-Mart. The Mighty Machine must pass! I nearly clip a four-foot-tall Peruvian and her gang of three-foot-tall Peruvian children, then a spindly woman with bluish lipstick and an exaggerated jaw whose floral-pattern skirt has seen more than a few better, mothless days. But they’re too dazed by the bright shelves of hair wax, locking sprays, detanglers, and tea tree oils.
I skid around the corner, fast, fishtail into the next aisle, almost flatten the sneakers of a late middle-aged black woman with a cropped graying Afro in hospital scrubs. She looks up from the tin of shea butter she’d been inspecting.
“Josh!” Dr. Ridgeway says, her eyes light up in recognition.
“Uh,” I say. Deep-frozen.
Intent doctor-gaze, thin cheekbones. “Josh, I…since the accident, I almost didn’t recognize…”
The accident. The crash. That was what, more than... No, she means Lauren’s accident. Lauren’s word. But how does she…
“Nice to see you,” I mumble, weakly.
She’s still perma-smiling, but her left eye starts twitching. She looks older, more shrunk-down than I remember. The former tenor is now restrained, decibel-wary. A few feet behind her is a skinny goon with receding hair and wearing a pair of Bruce-Jenner-length short-shorts featuring an American flag pattern, and a tee shirt that says Dix Are For Chix. Tearing open canisters of Vicks Vapor-rub and snorting their contents, total disregard for the security cameras.
Dr. Ridgeway looks down at the shea butter, straightens her back a little like the twitch made her remember something. Not making eye contact, she says, “Josh, it was so nice running into you. Davis told me he heard you’ve been getting out of the house a little more the last couple months. And your wife, the little girl? Dr. Urban says they’re taking especially good care of you. Tell them I said –”
“Where is Davis?”
“What?” Whatever was behind the smile replaces it. Undefined. “You’d probably know better than I would,” she says, composed.
Smashes in the next aisle. “Why?”
“Why?”
The man in the American flag shorts screams, “Bio war!” and chucks the Vicks canister grenade-style over two
aisles, into what’s probably the Books section.
“You were the last one that saw him off, or so he tells me. Back at school, it’s like he’s 18 again. I practically have to fill up his inbox, voicebox, all the stupid boxes before I get a call back.”
School.
Her eyebrows purse together, not suspiciously, but concerned. “Feeling OK?” she asks, putting the shea butter in her shopping cart, stepping toward me. “How have you been with the meds? You know it’s not –”
“I’m fine,” I spit. My fingers fumble for the chair’s REVERSE button.
“Davis worries about you,” she says. “You’re the one who convinced him to go back to school. The personal essay he submitted, about…I’m sure he showed it to you. well, that was so touching. He’d kill me if he knew I’d seen the Word document open on his laptop.”
“School.” I can’t find REVERSE. Ice fingers.
She chuckles. “Don’t look so upset. It’s just UConn. Lauren could take you in the car and be there in –”
“I have to go,” I sputter. The sallow prison-gleam seeping onto her hospital scrubs. Her face darkens into an inverse Cheshire Cat. I’m hyperventilating. My fingers scurry, impotent spider legs.
“No something’s, something’s not…” She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a BlackBerry. Presses some keys, breathing over me now, the smell of orange-cream-flavored gum. Someone picks up – “Veronica, what’s the…” – on the speakerphone.
I find the REVERSE button and the chair shoots back, full-speed. Mrs. Ridgway looks up, turns and starts walking in the opposite direction. I slow down a little and try to do a doughnut and swing the chair around, but the turning radius isn’t great and before I can straighten out completely, I crash sideways into a display case filled with large pink bottles that say HYRDRALICIOUS. I also manage to rear-end and knock down the pink-shirted PRINCESS who’d been stuffing a dozen bottles into her almost-full cart.
“Motherfucking retarded cracker!” she screams as she reaches for one of her fat-swollen ankles.
The man in the American flag shorts sprints over to help her up.
THE MAN IN the navy suit rings the doorbell about thirty minutes after I’ve been back at the cottage and twenty minutes after I swallow what was left in the Lexapro bottle on the mantel I managed to knock down by hurling a picture frame. Through the porch screen, I study his thinning hair, a short buzz cut and the wad of gristle where his neck should be. Lauren isn’t back yet.
He sees me through the screen, smiles. A Ford Explorer, government plates, idling in the driveway.
I try to push open the door, and he steps up into the threshold all gung-ho to help, walks in. Before he says anything, he extends a firm cheese-dick handshake, an aw-shucks bucktooth grin. I stare up at him, not saying anything after the handshake, studying his sweaty meatface, my pupils shredded in the late winter sun-glare reflected off dirty snow piles, Alaska’s melting snowman in the front yard.
“Can I come in all the way?” he asks, smirking. Gun-bulge above the waist.
“Who the fuck are –”
“Rough day?” he cuts me off. “Dr. Ridgeway called Dr. Urban. Saw you alone at Wal-Mart. She was worried.” He steps around me, lumbers into the living room. I maneuver the chair around, follow him. “Where are Lauren and Alaska?” he asks.
“Lauren’s at work and Alaska’s at a piano recital,” I say. “Who are you?”
“Mmhm,” he turns, winks at me. “Sure.” He seats himself at the table, opens a leather briefcase I didn’t notice he was carrying. A BlackBerry blinks neon green in a matching holster on his love handle.
“Come on over here, X. Couple things we need to discuss.” He lifts out half a dozen manila folders from the briefcase, spreads them out on the table.
I don’t move.
He frowns, motions with a paw. “X, Josh. Whatever. Just come over here. Won’t take long.”
I wheel myself to the table, to his left. Something close to anxiety seeps in, but it’s distant, unrequited.
“Where are Lauren and Alaska?” he asks. He wipes a line of sweat off his glistening forehead.
“Your name?” How does he know them?
“You know me, Josh,” he says, sounding almost disappointed. I’m looking at the folders. “Hendricks,” he says. “Agent Hendricks.” He sighs.
Agent Hendricks. Homeland Security. NSA. God Squad? But something does register in the way this goofy bastard moves, how his fat neck ripples when he talks. Maybe I do know him from somewhere. Compensation for services rendered reverberates through my skull over and over. The Lexapro in full effect.
“Couple things to discuss,” he repeats. “Certain elements of your treatment, medication doses, maybe another few weeks away from home, get your head straightened. Things need to be fixed, like Billy putting in that gazebo with a ramp for you. This is something I’m here to talk about. We can have a dialogue. I want to hear where you’re coming from.”
He’s from the hospital, coming from D.C. Yes. Blue coat. The room vibrates with each of Hendricks" strained, obese breaths. I notice a pile of mostly crushed Hydrocodone and a half-smoked joint on the table a dwarf-arm’s length away.
“Don’t think so. Can’t talk. Not today, or ever. Sorry.” I try to find the REVERSE button but he grips his meat-fist around my wrist.
“None of what you’ve been doing is in your best interests, Josh,” Hendricks says, “yours or your family’s.”
A threat. Doing what. He lets go, sits back in the chair. “Wasn’t aware that anyone was concerned about my family’s wellbeing,” I say, sliding my hand off the chair’s control board.
Hendricks’ perma-smile beams. “All right, but this attitude is a little disappointing. Progress was happening. You could see it.”
Maybe it’s the Lexapro, the Hydrocodone I might have just snorted, but Hendricks changes. Another half-realized story. Maybe his stupid smile really is sincere. Maybe he’s here to help. Maybe his intentions are… He’s from the hospital. I know him from somewhere. The word family repeats.
“OK,” I say. “Let’s talk.”
“Yes?” Hendricks props his neck fat to one side, leans in.
“Come on,” I say, “let’s talk.”
He grins. “Hoping you made the right decision this time?”
“What?”
“Give me a second. There’s something I want you to read. When you’re done, I’m going to ask you to repeat what’s in the packet. Call it a quiz. Should be easy.”
The contents of the briefcase are spread across the table in no decipherable order. He rummages through the folders, organizing, sweating, staining the papers. Wondering whether or not he’s noticed the drug pile, whether or not I can swallow it without him noticing. Not the man in the blue coat, pretending.
BlackBerry vibrations and neon flashes slice through the ugly silence. Hendricks snaps the phone out of the holster with surprising dexterity. “I, uh, have to take this,” he mumbles. Smile gone. “But here,” he pushes the largest packet across the table, “read this and when I get back we’ll talk about it.” He strides quickly out of the room. The front door slams.
The first sheet of the packet is blank except for a small hologram and a serial number. I flip to the next page. The top line says Joshua Xavier Bennington in bold letters. Josh Bennington. Nice and waspy, it’ll blend right in! Below the name, several pages of uninterrupted text. The phrases …failure to comply will result… and …policies are to be maintained at all times…
I flip to the third page and there’s no words, only an image. A gold eagle seal. In one claw the bird clutches a butcher knife. The other claw holds what looks like a noose.
I throw the packet on the off-white carpet.
Hendricks comes back inside about ten minutes later, wipes sweat off his glistening forehead. He motions for me to wipe the Hydrocodone dust off my face. He leans forward, his BlackBerry blinking on his love handle. “So.”
“This isn’t what they tol
d me in the hospital.”
“How much do you remember from your stay in the, ah, hospital, Mr. Bennington?”
His eyes scan the pharmaceutical debris, the disheveled papers, before settling on the TV. “Is that the new LG LCD with the XD Processing Engine and Clear Voice technology?” he asks. “Forty-two inches?”
“Huh?” I say. “Oh. I don’t know. Lauren picked it out. She wanted it to match the –” “And you get HBO? Showtime? Skinemax?”
“Probably, I don’t know…”
“Hm,” Hendricks chuckles. “And you’re sure Lauren’s not out buying groceries with your daughter?”
Customized re-immersion program. It was in the packet.
“She’s not my daughter.”
Hendricks laughs. “I’d like to hear you tell her that. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with her and your wife, the last two years, watched her grow. Got your mother’s eyes.”
“Lauren can’t get pregnant,” I say. “After she had the abortion. They…screwed it up. Perforated uterus. I remember.”
“Hm,” he says, gum-sucking. “Lauren and I both agree that you’ll be safer with us. Like last time.”
Fingers convulse. Like last time. “I’m not going back.”
“Hm,” Hendricks grunts. Pulls a pink sheet of paper out of another folder, pushes it toward me. Photocopy of a government ID. The eagle seal. With my photo (identical to the one on my driver’s license), date of birth, rank, serial number. “We didn’t sign the release papers, X. I don’t think you’re ready. You’ll have to come back.”
“What about Lauren and Alaska?”
Sweat droplets trickle down his neck rolls, melt into his collar. Who he is. The thickness of flesh, the receding black hair. The smug accountant’s grin.
“You’re John,” I say. “John from Manhattan.”