by Jon Methven
“That’s an awfully big window.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tom was home just after seven. We had dinner.” Lieutenant Misch is dubious of this information. “Fish and asparagus. Cod that I bought and breaded myself.” Laura’s voice is stern and getting louder. “Would you like to see the receipt, Lieutenant?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
I think Misch would not mind getting a look at that receipt, which does not exist. I do not remember where I was, but I know I was not eating fish with Laura.
Misch is tense, angry. “I have a few more questions for your husband.”
“You have a few more questions for both of us.”
Misch frowns. “What is the nature of your relationship with Mister Haverly?”
“Friends,” I say. “Golf, dinners, drinks. That sort of thing.”
“You’re in business together,” Misch says.
I am surprised how much a school security officer knows about my life. “More of an investment club. Moveable Museums.” When this does not click, “Bike tours through wine country, Native American civilizations, rugged terrain if you’re into it.”
“Bike tours. That’s what you call it?” Misch closes the notebook, frowns. Bill seems disturbed.
“That’s what Tom calls it because that’s what it is,” Laura says.
“Odd way to make money if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you, Mister Misch.” Laura has recrossed her arms, seems ready to lawyer up or call in backup. “Why are you asking questions about our affairs?”
“It’s an investment club,” I say. “Bill?”
Misch mumbles but loud enough that we all hear, something about yuppies and boats and a lack of decency. Suddenly it matters that he spoke with my employer. The only person I discussed Moveable Museums with was Whitman. We occasionally encounter bigotry in the form of mainlanders who hate the concept of artificial islands popping up in waterways. Lieutenant Misch strikes me as a bigot, which is troubling since he’s in charge of my children’s safety and believes I am possibly involved in a missing person investigation. He wants to know how we can live with ourselves. He mentions Tilly and if I would be willing to discuss it.
“We’re done,” Laura says. “Bill, show Lieutenant Misch off our property.” She stares him down. “Don’t come back unannounced.”
Bill has a hand on his shoulder, turning him to the street. “Good luck with your investment club,” Misch calls. “I hope you people are proud of yourselves.”
Another Blackout
There is excitement in the living room as Laura relays Misch accosting us at our front door, bringing up both the investment club and deceased nanny, Ray coming to her aid and patting a knee. That’s his thing, the knee-pat, which is analogous to the ass-pat in professional sports—keep everyone’s mood up when the storm waters crest. The McClutchens are investors as well. We have forgotten the Cooperative Marriage and our missing friend, and instead we are aghast that our way of life is under attack. We volley the possibility of taking this encounter to the Gopa administration, see if we can get Misch fired. Laura opens another bottle of prosecco.
“Pisser, a moment.” Devin pulls me back into the den. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others.” He shoves a bulky envelope at me. There’s a dead chipmunk inside. “It was mailed to my office.”
It looks like a stuffed animal. I feel the giggles build. “I didn’t send this.”
He opens the envelope and points out the evidence. “It has a bullet wound, right there in the neck.”
I peer closer. “It’s a BB gun wound.”
“It’s a projectile wound,” Devin says. “You’re the only one on this island carrying a weapon to a marriage counseling meeting. Also, I noticed the erection when you stood up.” He mentions it the way he might alert someone to food on a lip.
I scratch my head. Part of me is relieved that my aim is not as bad as I assumed, although I do not remember mailing roadkill to my therapist. “I’m sorry, Devin. I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“It’s okay. It can’t happen again.” He pats my shoulder, which transforms into a neck rub. We close up the envelope and decide it probably belongs to me now. “Blackouts can be dangerous, Pisser. Still taking the Luderica? I warned you about that. It hasn’t been approved.”
“I feel like they’re working.”
“It gives you a euphoric high, screws up your chemicals. You need to be careful.”
This jogs my memory of Russ snorting the stuff. There is a rumor that high school kids are doing the same with Luderica for the high, although my experience is much different. The drug never brought me blissful moments, but rather the understanding I bear a primitive horde that has been dormant.
“Blackouts, psychotic episodes, suicides,” Devin continues. “From what I know about it, Luderica may one day work wonders, but it is extremely dangerous. Where are you getting it, may I ask?” I consider telling him about Russ, who he knows, and then realize I could have mentioned to Misch and Bill that their missing person was involved in narcotics. “Don’t answer that,” Devin says. “Let me put you on a more manageable prescription, something I’ve had success with.”
He begins writing a prescription. He has wandered into a bad domestic situation, and I loathe him for trying to make the Cooperative Marriage work between the McClutchens and us. But Devin is just trying to help.
“I appreciate it. But once these are gone, I’m going cold turkey.”
“I don’t recommend it. Everyone needs a little help, especially you. Say.” He hands me the prescription and leans close. “I heard some talk.” Devin meets with many faculty members and Gopa families. I know before he asks. “The Dalton kid. You really strangle him in the bathroom?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“Nannies were talking. You know his father? GPS mogul, owns a bunch of satellites? He nearly disowned Toby when he was kicked out of his last school.” Devin smiles, another neck rub. “How does his neck feel?”
“Soft. He has great skin, Toby.”
“Pictures of your daughter, right?” He slaps my shoulder. “You may have done the right thing. Too early to say for sure. Don’t let anyone tell you different, Pisser.”
“Thanks, Devin.”
He holds up a finger. “But that cat. You need to get rid of it. It’s shitting in the bunker over on seven. And we cannot have that.”
Polyethylene Living With Fiberglass Poles
Wine tastings and cocktail hours are how the nanny chain thrives. Olivia will mention it near her nanny—a rumor that Tom Pistilini was the last person seen with Russ Haverly, according to school security—and the nanny will understand it is part of her domestic duties to spread the slander. By the time I reach the backyard, there is already a blog post on the Gopa website suggesting as much. The guests left long ago. I light a fire, pitch my Moonwhisper Four-Person Tent between the Jacuzzi and the retaining wall, just beneath the water dropping toward my lagoon. After a while Laura checks on me, leaves disgusted, and returns with a blanket.
“What’s wrong with the den?”
I tell her about the chipmunk I mailed to our marriage counselor. I mention the blackouts again, which she already knows about. I explain that during tonight’s meeting I imagined a scenario of punting Olivia’s head across the room, though I do not mention the sex with the corpse. “It’s not safe if I sleep inside. For you or the kids.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I don’t think so. The blackouts are getting more frequent. And we really don’t know for certain what happened to Tilly.”
“Don’t start that shit again, Tom. You may have wanted to kill her, but you didn’t do it. The police are certain it was an accident. Drop it.”
I drop it. I am carrying a BB gun to Gopa and work. I do not tell thi
s to Laura because this is the closest we will come to being a married couple: hunkering down, talking low, strategizing our lives. “I’ll be fine. I have reading material,” I say, showing her the Sedlocks’ fundraising pamphlets. “Have you gone through this?”
“Yes, several times.”
“What Misch was saying?”
“He was an asshole, Tom.”
“But he knows. You heard him. He was disgusted. Whitman said the same thing. Maybe we need to rethink things.”
“You hate Whitman. Why are you discussing this with him?” She sighs, hopefully infers I have no one else in my life to discuss important matters with other than my sniveling, younger boss. If we bothered to speak anymore, we would have had this discussion weeks ago. “What’s there to rethink? We invested the money a year ago.”
“We just received the new material. Whitman says it’s borderline illegal.”
“It’s not illegal. They’ve had the attorney look it over. Besides,” she stands now, shivers. “School security has no right to address it. I have a good mind to speak with Heather about it tomorrow.”
“We’re not allowed to discuss it. Say anything to Heather Pace, it’ll be in Allie’s ear in an hour.” Laura knows I’m right. I fumble the pages and reposition myself. “I want to read through this tonight.”
Laura is anxious, tired, the bane of her existence camped out in the backyard. “Good night, Tom.”
“Goodnight, Laura. I love you.”
Harry and Allie Sedlock conceived Moveable Museums five years ago, a concept that married exercise with tourism. Bike trips through historic regions, hiking through preserved lands, adventures through uninhabitable terrain that proved thrilling for vacation goers. The costs were titanic: equipment, personnel, permits, insurance concerns that made a bank loan difficult. Instead they came to their closest neighbors for seed funding, and along with the Jays, McClutchens, and Russ Haverly, Laura and I dumped a portion of our savings into the venture. The return was impressive, enough to renovate the backyard and expand Laura’s pancake business, and even put a little away for college.
A year ago, the Sedlocks came back for another round of funding. This time they promised a larger return, and though Laura and I do not have the money to spare, we believe in Moveable Museums, in how well it paid out the first time. We tripled our earlier offering, taking loans against both the house and the business, I even cashed in half of my 401K, with ludicrous penalties. If the venture fails, we will be ruined financially.
Clint Eastwood has curled up near the tent, enjoying the fire. My pants buzz, a familiar number.
“Mister Reynolds?”
“Angela, how are you?”
“I’m well. How are you this evening, sir?”
“Just Tug, not Mister Reynolds.”
“There was another order placed to your credit card from this phone. It’s still going to the wrong address, the Hendersons.”
“My neighbors.” The first time can be dismissed as a mistake. Angela knows this is no mistake, and because I feel like we know each other, I am slightly embarrassed at what I may have ordered. “What are the items again?”
Angela reads. A twenty-inch gas-powered chain saw, wire cutters, goggles, ten eighty-pound bags of concrete mix, and a gas canister. What am I planning to do now? “I’m doing some work around the house.”
Angela types it on her side. “The thing is, Tug, you’re purchasing these items through a community school account.”
“And these items might raise a red flag if the wrong person sees.”
“That’s my position, yes.”
Angela is an accomplice in this caper, having already made disappear the weapons I purchased. I sense she is willing to do it again, a strange friend the internet has bestowed on me. “Just some basic landscaping, Angela. Perhaps the easiest thing is to delete these from that account, as well.”
“Possibly.” She taps away on her side, not hanging up, not entirely sure if I am a nice guy or a serial killer masquerading as a confused customer. If she has access to the Gopa community VillageShop information, she would know everything we order. The groceries we eat, the chlorine granules and mineral sanitizers I use to treat the Jacuzzi, our brand of toothpaste. “Your cat. What’s its name?”
“Clint Eastwood.”
“It’s a boy?”
“I haven’t any idea, Angela.”
A hesitation, maybe a smile. “No more guns, Tug.”
Mornings Are For Fistfights
The Multicopter Power Tree Pruner retails at VillageShop for just over $2,000, an item we cannot afford and do not need. It is a drone with dual eight-amp power saws attached to the bow and stern, maneuvered from the ground by remote control. Lately, I fly the Multicopter through the Gopa lobby during drop-off and trim out some of the undesirable objects I have noticed taking up space and desecrating what should be the better portion of my morning. Some of the men wear the collars up on their jackets and shirts, as if their necks are cold, and I trim these off, along with most of the unnecessary winter boots the moms feel are stylish. Therapy puppies annoy me with their size and yipping, and because they despise me, I cut them out of designer handbags like a do-it-yourself cesarean, their moist and trembling bodies spilling onto the world to self-mobilize like the rest of us mammals.
Occasionally, I fly the Multicopter in too tight, it is a crowded lobby after all, and I nick an ear lobe or jugular. I have killed Ray McCrutchen seven times this spring. I have watched nannies bleed out. The dean of recruitment, who suggested a portable web-cam for Gus so we know what he’s doing at all times, was accidentally disemboweled by the Multicopter. Harry and Allie Sedlock suffered massive contusions to their faces this morning when emotions steered the drone, pummeling them over what I feel is an unethical use of my life savings. Many of the moms rehearsing math cards or spelling bees in the lobby, filling the last seconds of companionship with rote memorization, I desecrate their knowledge props with dive-bombing precision.
Halfway through my juggernaut, I catch myself, a mini-blackout, recognizing that I am smiling and holding an imagined remote control, that I do not own the Multicopter Power Tree Pruner with dual eight-amp power saws. Lieutenant Misch watches me from the guard station. I do not know how long I was out, or if anyone saw, and this is what disturbs me about the Luderica. It has dug up something feral inside my mind, perhaps closer to my gut, a possibly unholy and morbid realm that is as much a part of me as my understanding of meteorology, my love for my children. It was meant to find my buried playfulness and joy, but there also exists buried resentment, buried fear, buried alcoholism and gambling and vice, buried tribes of animals. Buried terrorism. Buried irrationality when it comes to protecting my family. There is a reason we humans limit our sins, push them deep where they are hidden, and to unearth one is to chip away at the foundation of things we do not want shown.
I am dressed in a gray and purple zip-up Gopa sweatshirt, which I wear over my suit each morning to show school pride. Many parents do the same. I love the capital G and lowercase opa, as if we are more than just a meaningless acronym full of oversized letters, but a community of students, parents, and faculty with an identifiable notation. Gopa is not even the correct acronym for the Gifted and Purposed Academy, which would be Gapa. We are often mistaken for the Gifted on Purpose Academy, as if our children had been chosen by a higher force to walk through the marble archway. This misunderstanding comes mostly from parents who could not get their children enrolled here, which causes us to be scorned by the larger private school community. All our shirts and bags and jackets and hats are monogrammed with the Gopa pride, the merchandise available on VillageShop at a discount, and it is impossible to gaze upon the word and not smile at another parent, shaking hands and kissing cheeks and sterilizing hands to know we are one.
The school occupies the old Trembley building on the Lower East Side, an Italian Re
naissance style hospital that was once used to house, and shock treat, the city’s sexually depraved. It transitioned from a hospital to a warehouse to a storage unit, and was on the verge of being gutted and turned into condominiums when self-righteous neighborhood purists were contacted by Gopa’s leadership, and a for-profit school was born, the building sold at a ridiculous value of what developers would have paid. There is a full pool in the basement and nap room on the seventh floor.
A middling Tuesday in April brings a different vibe to drop-off. One of the mentally challenged bunnies bit a first grader and the parents are threatening a lawsuit if the entire population is not exterminated. This has brought a cackle from the animal rights purists, who insist the bunnies are not dangerous, and because of birth deficiencies were born without teeth and some without eyes. It would be impossible for them to physically bite a child. Instead, one of them probably gummed a finger too hard, which should not result in murder. The consensus is that since we pay $40,000 a year to send our children here, we should be able to afford bunnies that are cute and cuddly with regular eyes, and not fucking or dying by the bushel.
On top of the bunnies, one cannot turn anywhere without hearing the name Russ Haverly. He has been missing for more than a week, and with the big game only two weeks away, the lacrosse season is in jeopardy. The pride of the athletic staff, Russ was recruited from a private school in Darien, Connecticut, years earlier, having just taken the squad to the state championship. He is handsome, a determined coach, a mentor of young men who want to grow up to be just like him, except wealthier, not working with a bunch of snot-nosed athletes, or living on a boat. The junior class advisor, he was voted by the parents to sit on the committee choosing the eighteen students to participate in the ECI. Along with Heather Pace and Thomas Turk, director of talent, Russ seemed like a solid choice to tip the scales toward the Slancy families.
Worse than harboring our lacrosse aspirations, I am beginning to understand Russ’s wider role in the Gopa community. He is a drug dealer for the nannies and parents, quietly and safely providing illegal narcotics that we might otherwise have to obtain from nefarious strangers. My stash of Luderica has dwindled, and, according to the whispers, the same thing is happening in households from Chelsea to Westchester. It is an inconvenience because we count on Russ to win games and advise the juniors, and I think he teaches a few algebra courses. But also he keeps us chemically sane and properly medicated, and his disappearance is an incomprehensible pain in the ass.