by Jon Methven
Since the accident Gus has taken it upon himself to cover the former nanny’s chores, doing the laundry, cooking, even shopping for decorative pillows he claims complete a room, one of Tilly’s signature skills. Gopa is the type of community to foster my son’s strange identity crisis and help him through a failed set of standard tests, which via the nannies has become widespread banter with the other parents. Everyone here is politically correct. Everyone is progressive and understanding and has experienced the fortune in life that they do not pass judgment on another family’s tribulations.
Like any community, we have our cliques—and within those, sub-cliques, and within those, tighter cliques, and within those, two-person cliques, husband and wife—battling for the limited resources we believe life affords. One resource, in particular, has hung over our dealings the entire school year, the Extended Cultural Immersion, or ECI, a pilot program that has taken hundreds of hours and dozens of applications and is open for the first time to next year’s senior class. There are eighteen spots available for a class of a hundred and fifty. We all wish it for our children, which indirectly means we do not wish it for other children. We care about each other and loathe each other. We are on our best behavior, still sharing hand sanitizer but in ever-smaller squeezes.
Our community is broken into three tribes: Manhattan parents, typically the wealthiest; Westchester and Brooklyn and New Jersey, who commute to Manhattan for jobs and Gopa; and myself and other parents from Slancy, a manmade island off the coast of Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, who view the Westchester-Brooklyn-Jersey clan as the true imposters. We Slancy inhabitants bond on the shuttlebus, which leaves each morning at a quarter past seven. The only exception being Ray McClutchen, who bikes through Red Hook and over the Brooklyn Bridge, just to make a point about global warming and exercise.
Gopa is not all cliques and walls. In the end we want the best for our children. We appreciate the camaraderie. We support our impressive drama department and sports teams. We volunteer for inconsequential committees. We have a growing Asian community of which we are proud. We even have one mother, Sharon Li, who dons a prosthetic leg that none of us think is strange or creepy or stare at too long as it taps away during morning drop-off. She is peppier than most moms, playful and sprightly in a way I find irritating and impossible to maintain. She has a son, Whisper, also a junior, captain of the chess club, which I have forced Gus to join. Whisper’s ethnicity and nerd power ensure he is a shoe-in for ECI.
“Hey there, Pisser.” It’s Grant Wheeler, father of Crenshaw, eighth grade, and Amen, whose gender I cannot recall. “What’s on tap for today?”
Death. Agony. Some fetid hell the most imaginative Hollywood scriptwriters have not thought up yet. I shove my hand into his sweaty, unsanitized palm. “Nippy this morning but should give way to a beautiful afternoon. Some fair clouds out of the south will resemble vapor trails from missiles our government will launch at our enemies, and our enemies’ children, so that our children can grow up without the constant worry of foreign terrorism. None of that will make the news to bother you.”
“Like to hear it. Good day for a round.”
“It’ll be a cold round. Still only April. People are starving right here in this country, some just down the street. I think I’ve come down with the flu, but I’m playing this afternoon because I’m avoiding going home to see my family. See you there?”
“Might happen. Sorry to hear about the test trouble Gusser’s having.” He slaps my shoulder. The nannies? The comment section of the Gopa website? “Anxiety’s a bitch. He’ll get his head around it. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried. Say, Grant, did I hear Amen had similar test anxiety?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“How’s that?”
“We don’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
Grant has located his hand sanitizer and is scrubbing away my aura. “Might give the impression there’s something to talk about, something wrong with Amen, which there isn’t. Amen is an excellent test taker. Always has been as far as we’re concerned.”
This is how we communicate. “But can you confirm that some kids do have test anxiety. Maybe not your Amen,” I say, hands up, letting him know that Amen’s testing ability is off the table. “And that with a sympathetic tutor and proper confidence instilled, they get better at test taking?”
He shrugs uncontrollably. “Wouldn’t know, partner.” He slaps my chest. “See you on the course. By the way, you look like shit, Pisser.”
This morning everyone talks around the typical issues. Some parents would like the children to have thirty minutes of phone time in the middle of the day. Otherwise they are gluttonous when they get home. A rumor that the ground beef served during last week’s Burger Day was not sourced locally has sparked a gathering of concerned moms, a potential committee that none of us believe in but would do well to join since we could take partial credit for locally sourced meat. The big lacrosse game is approaching, as is the spring play. The bunny epidemic has worsened. During a yearlong lesson of the life cycle for the first graders, the science department bred two Angora rabbits. Angoras being tiny fur balls, everyone fell in love with the photographs that were circulated (pre-breeding) on the Gopa website. The actual bunnies were born different. Aggressive was mentioned. Mentally challenged was bandied. They are constantly turning up dead, or fucking uncontrollably when it’s time for the six-year-olds to nurture them. A decision has to be made—euthanize, allow the sophomore biology classes to dissect. No one can agree and the longer the rabbits await judgment, the faster they breed, increasing the problem.
“Morning, Pisser.” Someone I do not recognize slaps my shoulder. Without thinking I offer him sanitizer, which he accepts expectantly. “Heard about Gus. We’ve got a great tutor. Have Laura call Janie. We should do dinner. Go see a doctor.”
“Definitely,” I say, bumping fists.
Dead Chipmunks And Wine
Tonight is a wine tasting for Gopa Parents for Trees. It is a sign of social standing to sit on a Gopa committee board, and because I am a meteorologist people think I know more about global warming and tree preservation, which I do not. But it feels important to be involved, to have a hand in the four large, potted trees, which were assembled in the ballroom, and into which we have deposited members of the Gopa administration. It was my idea to harness them to the structures to prevent injuries since they also are consuming wine, the fundraiser an invitation to get slightly tipsy without judgment. Each time we raise $10,000, a ladder is procured and we hoist down one of the administrators. For now, Heather Pace, head of the school, and the others sip and wave to constituents. I consider how pleasant it would be to watch someone plummet to the floor and splatter, a giant bag of pinot.
Parents kiss and reintroduce themselves and sanitize. Like marbles of different sizes shaken through suitable perforations, soon we wander the ballroom until we are among our preferred sect. I grip hands and triple kiss cheeks of my fellow Slancyites, a tight-knit group of four households: me and my wife, Laura; Ray and Olivia McClutchen, who I only pretend to like; Jason and Jackson, our next door neighbors; and Harry and Allie Sedlock, who look perfect and behave perfect, whose children are also perfect, and who because of their perfection have raised the profile of Slancy families within the Gopa community.
Together we are inhabitants of the city’s first, fully functional artificial borough, which when we are not present everyone describes as gaudy and stripmall-ish. We know each other’s children. We socialize together. We have invested our savings into the Sedlocks’ startup, and one day we will all be wealthy together. These are my people and I love them. Except for Ray McClutchen, who I believe fakes his optimism to sell motivational books. This evening they stare, pitying me, preparing to make jokes at my expense, which serves as our bonding ritual.
“What happened to your face?” Olivia McClutchen is Indi
an, jeweled, attractive skin if not always bunched into a judgmental scowl. She has a fake accent she did not learn growing up in Long Island, which disappears when she experiences emotion. “You look like you’re dying.”
“We’re all dying.” I touch my face to feel the numbness. “I’m not well, no.”
“It was a dog, wasn’t it?” Jason references the scratches, the welt on my forehead. “They shouldn’t be permitted anywhere. It’s unsanitary.”
“It wasn’t a dog,” I say.
Harry Sedlock steps forward, commandeering the examination. “You need to put something on that, Pisser.”
My wife stays out of it. Laura is tired of me, tired of my grumpiness and insomnia, tired of everyone feeling badly for me ever since I returned from the retreat in February. I have conjured a reputation of perpetual injury, a man forever on the cusp of destruction. Somehow, impossibly, she knows as I do that the conversation will turn to the chipmunks and the steps I have taken to keep the little fuckers out of our backyard. They all think it—that I lost a fight with a chipmunk—and any minute…
“It was a chipmunk, wasn’t it?” Olivia brightens, the accent fading as she delights in this misfortune. “One finally fought back.”
“It wasn’t a chipmunk. A stray cat got me.”
“It’s in the homeowners agreement. You cannot kill the wildlife. The land belongs to them.”
In fact, the land belongs to Laura and I, an insurmountable monthly mortgage that makes us nostalgic for our West Village days and the tiny one-bedroom above the bakery that smelled of warmth and poverty. Specific to the claim of chipmunk ownership, the actual land consists of tons of dredged material arranged into ninety-five acres of artificial real estate that crooked developers learned too late could not support skyscrapers, onto which an ecosystem was introduced of earthworms and warblers and picturesque chipmunks that were bred in a laboratory with immaculate features. They were placed in Slancy by our homeowners association that thought they would drive up property values, which they might. But they are impossibly stupid or brave, venturing into my Jacuzzi lagoon as if it is their own water source. Our chipmunks have no history. They have no parents or children, which means they have nothing to worry about but swimming and drowning and getting stuck in my filter.
“A cat, geezus,” Jason says. “In the neighborhood?”
“Near work. An alley cat,” I guess.
Olivia again, “And stop feeding them nuts. Our chipmunks have nut allergies. You’ve already desecrated their hibernation routine with that lagoon. They think they can stay awake all year and be warm next to your deathtrap.”
That Olivia McClutchen has researched the life cycle of laboratory-grown chipmunks strikes me as pretentious. She chairs Slancy’s preservation committee, which includes two men who only joined so they can take photographs of the warblers in neighbors’ backyards without seeming odd. I concentrate on not smiling which makes it impossible. I burp out a laugh and think of Gus and the standardized tests and the old woman glasses and I cannot control myself.
“It’s not funny, Pisser.” She pronounces it Pissah as the accent wanes. “I found a sick one last week. Wandering, drowsy. I know it was poisoned.”
I laugh into my glass. “Now, dear,” Ray says. He rode his bicycle to the event, a tricycle actually, which folds into an efficient carry-on, a nifty product that retails for $600 at VillageShop. Ray wears his fold-up trike on a strap over his shoulder as he sips wine. I have a deep need to crush his cheek with a wine bottle.
“How do you know it was poisoned?” asks Jackson, coming to my defense. “Unless you ran it over and then performed an autopsy?”
“Olivia, you cannot run over chipmunks and cut them open to see why they’re not sleeping.” We all pretend to laugh at Harry’s joke, which diffuses the tension.
Olivia again, no hint of inflection, the accent gone. “It isn’t funny.”
“Seriously, Pisser, stop killing them,” Harry says. “Allie found one on the doorstep the other day.”
Allie Sedlock, flawless and sensitive, smiling innocently that the dead carcass was no bother, no bother at all. She is dressed seductively for a parent event, makeup on and hair pulled back in a graceful ponytail. She gives a fast curtsy and shrug, which means nothing, though we all come out of our shoes at this gesture.
A waiter pours more wine. “What about the gun?” Olivia asks.
“Let’s just drink wine and stop being dramatic.” Laura takes my side, finally says something, anything in defense of her idiot husband who is only protecting their property from the creeping sophistication of Designer Rodentia. “It’s a BB gun. And he couldn’t hit a moving car much less a tiny rodent.”
I am somehow grateful for my wife’s attack on my manhood, the insult to my innate frontiersman, the evening has turned into a coming together of our marriage. Everyone knows about the BB gun, but not about the crossbow, nor the scythe, and certainly not the titanium-handled hammers or the chainsaw. Jason and Jackson know about the bow because it was delivered accidentally to their house after it was delivered accidentally to the Hendersons. When you have a rodent problem like I have, you never know how much firepower you might need. My intention is only to scare the chipmunks, not have the BB projectiles lodged in their fur and kidneys and soft brains, which could lead to blood clots or slow bleeds. I would use a high powered air rifle if I wanted clean kills, or the crossbow that sits in its packaging in the attic.
“I only fire warning shots so they don’t get close to the water. Otherwise, they drown.” I perform a public service for the chipmunks, I say. “Imagine a chipmunk paddling its tiny paws for hours, trying to stay afloat. Eventually it gives out to exhaustion, drowns, and gets caught in the filter. That’s the problem—the filters are expensive.”
“You should have thought of that before you installed a Jacuzzi in their habitat.”
“For chrissakes.” Laura again. “It’s our property.”
“You all enjoy taking a dip,” I say, to which Jackson clinks my glass.
“Not since,” Ray says.
“Nor ever again,” Olivia says. Everyone finds something else in the room to watch.
“It’s lovely,” Allie says, and so is Allie when she slips out of a fluffy bathrobe to reveal a charming, red one-piece that accentuates her symmetrical breasts, dips a toe in the fiery Jacuzzi as the steam rises over a drunken end to a community picnic. That was six months ago. No one but Jackson has joined me in the Jacuzzi since the nanny drowned. In fact, it’s not even a Jacuzzi. It’s a backyard lagoon with water jet propulsion, the entire infrastructure purchased on VillageShop for a small fortune.
Despite the verbal attack on my backyard oasis, and the suggestion I have been murdering the wildlife, I enjoy these rituals. They offer purpose to my life, a bedrock affirmation that I come from somewhere, belong to some people, that their concerns are my concerns. I am happy. I think I am happy. Happy is not really the point. Rather, I am not unhappy most of the time. I am content. I am glad to know we are raising good children in an evil world with the camaraderie of neighbors.
“Sort of probably maybe definitely not sure unlikely improbably no, we have plans on Saturday and there’s a meditation seminar for the kids we want to attend…”
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window, slightly chubbier than I expect, rounder in places that need chiseling. I try to remember if the principles of appearing overweight on camera also apply to anonymous windows at charity wine tastings. I look like the other fathers, pleasant, well fed, with places to be. Except I have a tribe of savages that have taken refuge inside of me and are clawing their way into the future, creatures I believe were released by my trial medication and will not retreat back to their caverns even if I stop taking it, which I cannot. At first look, I am Tom Pistilini, Channel Fourteen weatherman. But a closer observation indicates they have moved in beneath my eyelids
, around the tension in my mouth, in the manner I hold my hands into fists when discussing committees and sanitizer and school plays. I do not want them to leave. No one calls the savages Pisser, even when I have told them I prefer Pistol as a nickname version of Pistilini, or just Tom.
“Pisser?”
“Tom!” Laura shouts, shaking me back to the ballroom. I blacked out again. I never know how long I am gone, but when I reappear everyone watches my hand that shakes, scattering red wine on my sleeve and the floor.
Jackson rubs my neck. “You okay, Pisser?”
“Sorry about that.” A waiter arrives to assist. “Daydreaming.”
“You were talking and then you weren’t talking. You were here and then you were gone.” Laura awaits an explanation. Everyone else has drifted into their phones, though I cannot tell if it is legitimate communication or they are just being kind, allowing Laura and I a private moment to adjust our cohabitation oversights.
“Yes, well,” I inform everyone. “Better recheck those harnesses. They were my idea,” I remind them.
Tom Pistilini With The Weather
The Channel Fourteen news team is neither a winner nor a loser in the twenty-four-hour dispatch bonanza. Rather we are a solid band of broadcast junkies who hate what we do and are too old and well paid to do anything else. There are three main news segments—nine in the morning, one and four in the afternoon—a schedule that ensures we do not have to compete with the larger, better-funded teams, which get up earlier and stay later and race around this metropolis in teched-out vans as if their contributions mean anything more than a whiff from the shit pile of inanity our industry spews onto an insatiable public. We have no news-copter. We rarely go live to the scene. We are the stay-behind team that gathers happenings over coffee.