by Jon Methven
I was up much of the past two nights combing through the Moveable Museums business plan. I am furious with Harry and Allie, but mostly with myself. We have called an emergency meeting of our investment club for this evening, at which point Harry has promised to talk us through any concerns.
This morning everything irritates me. Iliza runs through lines from Our Town, an admirable endeavor for a high school girl, Tungsten her reading partner. And yet I cannot help watching my teenaged child and her friend, and loathing their existence the very moment they peek up at me from their pages, watch me too proactively, and whisper. Iliza has done something. I know she has done it. She knows that I know. We do not discuss it. Tungsten’s subtle smirk solidifies my suspicion. Gus is congregating with the nannies that pinch his cheeks; he is dressed in antiquated layers of cotton and wool. He is flunking everything but some mysterious writing program that only offers two grades, pass and fail.
Look for a smattering of clouds and tense moments of insanity for much of the afternoon, a violent uprising somewhere peaceful and morbid that will cause the sports broadcast to be delayed. A chance of light rain and low winds, and war to the east. Today “14 Ways to Make Facial Hair Cooler” is trending on LustFizzle. The subject of this week’s Cooperative Marriage email is titled “Spring Feelings.” I hate my phone. I am one with my phone. To look away is to reenter this sphere of exhaustion and expectation. I have correctly predicted the weather for thirty-seven days.
Laura was introduced to my tribe’s indignation this morning, a rant about Moveable Museums and Ray McCrutchen and the perceived American dream we are carving out on the isle of Slancy. My mood spreads like a pandemic, Laura calling Ray with my point of view, who shared it with Olivia, who called Allie. I was quickly on the phone with Jackson, who I could hear telling Jason, who thought we already knew. Jackson promised to sort it out with Harry, but the damage is done. Even two doses of Luderica is not enough to find the joy on this Tuesday morning when black patches in honor of Russ Haverly have crept up among the lacrosse players and parents. I glance at my arm to notice I am wearing an RH patch that I do not remember donning.
Once at Gopa, we remain silent about the collective conniption. Laura stands next to Allie, who stands beside Olivia, who stands beside Harry and Ray and Jason, who is next to Jackson, all of us civil and smiling, sanitizing and pretending to enjoy each other. Jackson is to my right, completing the circle, and he appears to be remarkably diffusing a dispute I am not entirely sure I entered into voluntarily. The man’s name escapes me, Rick or Dave or Topher, and he has a kid on the lacrosse team, Ayden or Jayden or Topher Jr. He dresses like a banker, a black patch like mine, a Gopa lacrosse hat that has been removed or knocked to the ground in what I am guessing is a tussle, a hopeless spaghetti-ness to his haircut, a few strands manipulated into an identity.
The father touches my shoulder, telling me he read on the Gopa website about school security visiting my home and the possible misunderstanding with the Dalton boy. As a father, he understands my plight, but as a supporter of the lacrosse team, there is a better way to address the situation if I do not want trouble. Ray and Harry are also lacrosse fathers and know this man. They are stuck in the middle of what, it occurs to me, has become known in the lobby as “my disagreement.” I think about weed whackers, not the one I own but the one I borrowed from Jackson, a 1.6-horsepower two-stroke engine with a fifty-inch steel shaft that could make quick work of Topher’s haircut. It was not my intention to mention the whacker aloud.
He’s shouting. “Are you threatening me?”
“Is this about the ECI program?” I ask, casual. “Because I don’t think it’s responsible to bring that up over this dispute.”
“You touch my kid like that and you’ll know a thing.”
“I don’t even know your kid.” I glance across the room to see the lacrosse team watching, Rhen Sedlock and Doug Whorley and Toby Dalton and other arm-patched lookalikes. “I know of your kid I suppose. Self-entitled, lacrosse some kind of messianic pardon…”
Security is involved, Misch’s hand on my shoulder. We are hustled out the marble archway to the front sidewalk where we are broken into two camps. Harry and security restrain Topher, Jackson and Ray are on me. Ray is explaining a four-step process for dealing with conflict, which was outlined in his near-bestselling business manual, Best Road Ahead. He recites phrases like “cognitive dissonance” and “constructive behavior” and “attraction redemption.” I notice the bike strap and the oversized three-wheel trike. It strikes me as hilarious, a grown man on a tricycle. Ray means well. He truly yearns to be a sunshine breeze in a field of decomposing cadavers. He believes his own bullshit, that optimism gives him dominion over an uncontrollable universe, and I have to respect that every morning, regardless of the ethnicity of the blood spilling on his TV, he comes out of the shower chanting, “Everything happens for a reason, stay positive.”
Deep down where we differentiate alliances, far below the ego of whether or not my wife favors his cock over mine, I like Ray. He wishes to teach me something about the world and I understand what Laura sees in him. If we could airdrop Ray into Afghanistan or Syria, countries with continuous warfare, send him off to disputes in tough neighborhoods and seedy bars and devout protests, we could accomplish civility.
“Why are you smiling?” Ray asks. “This is serious business.”
“Knock it off, Pisser,” Jackson says. “You’re just aggravating the situation.”
“I wasn’t going to bring this up, but it relates to your aggression toward me, toward everyone lately.” Ray explains my role as a kind meteorologist and father that this aggression is not to my nature. “Aggression, just like kindness, is contagious. It begets further aggression. Do you hear me?”
I laugh too hard to make sense, but I explain to Ray and Jackson that I am changing, that there are mammals growing inside me that they cannot see, primitive war chants echoing in my guttural chambers that are seeping out of my pores, a tribe of derelicts stabbing my heart to sip the warm gore. It sounds poetic in my forehead. Through the laughter it is much less beautiful to security and bystanders.
“Stop laughing, Pisser,” Jackson says. “You’re not making any sense.”
Ray takes me by the shoulders. “I found a dead chipmunk chained to my trike this morning, a roadkill necklace. Is there something you’d like to say to me, Pisser?”
Topher is tearing off his sweatshirt. He wishes to engage me in a fistfight. I return the embrace, two hands on the back of Ray’s neck. “‘Church bells are ringing for those who are easy to please.’” There is so much I want to say to Ray as I stop laughing to lick the sweat molecules from his cheek. “‘And the frost on the ground probably envies the frost on the trees.’ Jason Isbell, off his Southeastern album. You think about that a minute, Clutch.”
Economic Benefit Of Dead Kids
The Sedlocks’ house sits on a slight bluff just north of the East Bridge leading into Slancy. The front yard has open views of lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge, a wraparound porch that eavesdrops on millions of tiny worlds that call this metropolis home. The backyard opens onto the bicycle path. It is a lovely home designed exactly like every other house in Slancy, but the bluff gives it an edge over the rest of us, a superior landmark status that I cherish. When I cross over the bridge and see the single-family craftsmanship, the rooms lit up with a tawny glow, I am certain we made the right decision to set down roots and purchase a home we cannot afford. I feel privileged to share this journey through parenthood and adulthood, through Gopa and life knowing we are doing it with people like Harry and Allie Sedlock.
More than smart entrepreneurs, they are gifted shoppers, which as a mobile-shopping addict I appreciate. Harry has an eye for clever pieces of yard equipment he might use only twice a year, but which adds to his impressive shed that bears museum-like organization. Allie is responsible for the interior design. Every piece of f
urniture, every sculpture and photograph and candle holder has been thoughtfully placed so that the doorknob in the front entrance has the same shade and grip as the bathroom fixtures and the cabinet handles, a deliberate message that what people will touch should have an interconnected feel. They get more deliveries from VillageShop than even we do, the trucks stopping at the Sedlocks first. I know the male delivery personnel just want to see what Allie wears each day, but there is a level of respect that the Sedlocks command. Everything about them—from their belongings, to their clothes, to their manners—is better than what I have, better than how I do it. The only entity in which they finish second is the school play, Tungsten the understudy to Iliza, and only because Allie suggested her daughter take up theater to juice her resume.
“Admissions officers like that sort of thing,” Allie once told Laura, regarding the hundreds of hours Iliza’s invested into acting classes.
I’ll be the last member of our investment club to arrive, with the exception of Russ. Whitman from work put together a video of catchphrases he would like me to adopt. “It’s wetter than a paper man at a scissor party” and “Windy as a barroom door at last call.” My style is not to make the weather the main portion of the broadcast, but rather a sideshow to the digital destruction of news and traffic. Nevertheless, we had to try out a few, which caused the delay.
I shower, change, slip the BB gun into my waistband, and as I am heading out the door I notice a fresh delivery of boxes at the Hendersons. I have a mobile-shopping addiction that is as bad as alcohol or gambling, my love for the anywhere-anytime-nonverbal nature of the transactions. Outside of my children and my backyard, nothing in the world completes me like sitting down with a phone to browse VillageShop for hours. The logo sets me off, the smell of cardboard and torn postage tape, the way young children feel about brightly wrapped toys. Laura hates the boxes. I know seeing them will cast a pall over our already hectic marriage, so I spend ten minutes miraculously tearing into them wondering what kind of trouble I have ordered. It is nothing dangerous, some propane tanks for the grill, Tiki torches for the backyard, several spools of cable wire rope for which I have no need, though I am impressed I had the foresight to order. I dump the equipment in the shed and get rid of the boxes, then hustle down to the Sedlocks.
My hope is to blend into the room without sanitized handshakes and kisses. Instead I wander into a dire beginning. Tungsten’s therapy dog, Muggly, has taken exception to Jason, who is sitting where the dog usually naps. From the foyer, I hear it yipping. By the time I reach the living room, a grown man stands on the sofa to escape attack, terrified and pleading with Allie to intervene. Rhenium is filming this, which the Sedlocks find hilarious—Rhen is the prince of the household, and Harry and Allie eagerly approve all of his decisions. Jackson chases Rhen around the living room, while everyone looks on horrified, expected to enjoy this large black man and small white boy and medium-sized homosexual and therapy canine mashup, a multicultural evening. I snatch the phone from Rhen’s hand and shutter it. All charisma halts.
Muggly forgets about Jason to growl at me. The room seems disappointed at my appearance, even though it was my rant that inspired the meeting. Rumors of my marriage failure and disputes with both Toby and Topher make it difficult to look me in the eye. On top of this, everyone has been told to be kind to me since the breakdown. I have deflated the evening. Surprisingly, Laura seems relieved to see me, assuming I would forget altogether.
“Good, Pisser’s here,” Harry says. “Let’s get started.”
The Sedlocks have transitioned their media room for tonight’s presentation, a projector flashing images onto a screen that is slightly larger and nicer than the one in my backyard, a cart with coffee and liquor and beautiful standing pancakes. Allie has joined Harry at the front of the room, their shadows blocking the bar charts. Everyone is upset with the Sedlocks, an emotion with which we are least familiar, but looking at them, I only feel forgiveness. Harry wears jeans and a blazer, professional but blasé. Allie wears a red dress that stops just above the knees, a pendant necklace that draws eyes to her breasts and neck, her hair tied up in a floral scarf. How could we be angry with them?
“First things,” Harry says, head bent. “Allie and I would like to apologize. I know some of you feel we’ve been less than forthcoming with our plans, but I assure you it was unintentional.” He seems genuinely upset at our fallout. “This entire project came together in the past month, then this thing with Russ…” He fights back sudden emotion. Russ is close with the Sedlocks, old friends. “Look, we just want to put all the cards on the table so everyone is on the same page.”
“That’s right,” someone says. I turn to find the Sedlocks’ attorney who has snuck into the back of the room. Or rather, he was probably always here and I did not notice. I was the one who crept.
His approval sparks something in Harry, who shifts direction. “I should mention, before we get started. Legally, there is nothing suspicious about the timing of the strategy pages you’ve all received. I asked Dan Mathers here tonight in case anyone had questions. He’ll be available after the presentation.”
It is unsettling to have Dan Mathers at our investment club. He does not live in Slancy. He is not one of us. He sits in my blind spot, and I have concealed the BB gun in the stern of my waistband, making it impossible to get a fluent kill shot if it comes to that. I have no questions for Dan Mathers because Jackson has already spoken to his own attorney, who I note is not in the room, and who agrees with Harry’s assertion of legality. The Sedlocks were up front with us, claiming there would be a new round of fundraising but that they could not divulge the nature of the expansion. We were free to hold our investments until more information was available, but we trusted the Sedlocks and saw big returns the first time and we wanted to be part of the new endeavor before the opportunity vanished.
Harry walks to the back of the room to work the slideshow. Allie stands alone at the front. It is a strategic decision to let Allie do the talking, a natural congeniality that puts everyone at ease. Furthermore, she sips wine, which is a relief. She is not pregnant, which implies I am under no pressure to produce a sample this week. I turn to see if Laura notices, but her refusal to look at me is nondescript.
Allie begins with a summary of Moveable Museums and recounts bike tours and adventure hikes through remote parts of the world, how we are, quite literally, changing the nature of what it means to vacation. Moveable Museums is for people with an active lifestyle, intellectuals who crave fitness and knowledge and do not want to sit on a beach or eat at buffets on vacation, which is what I like to do on vacation. She does not say it in these words, but we have invested our hard-earned money into vacations for people who are better. People like us. Except for me.
There are bar charts and line charts and pie charts showing us how our investments grew. She stealthily jumps into the new tours and how they will work, the number of tour guides, tour directors, a fleet of buses, contracts with national hotels, contracts with local communities, county officials, lawyers, a security force, an extensive marketing campaign that is due to kick off in a month. A new set of charts illustrate the latest round of fundraising, and we all reposition ourselves in our plush chairs, gaping at the numbers.
Can this be accurate? We are due to earn a fortune. Laura and I have tripled our investment in the latest round, and should everything go to plan, we can pay off the house and the credit cards, pay for college, turn the Standcake idea into a national business, and there will be enough leftover that I will never work again. Goodbye Channel Fourteen. Goodbye cold fronts and humidity and Whitman and Lustfizzle. We thought we were investing in raft tours down rivers, bike expeditions through pristine lands. This is heavier.
“What is a museum?” Allie says, her hands pushed together so that her breasts prepare to catapult from the red dress. “Is it a stuffy building where no one can speak or touch anything? Or is it mountains, communitie
s, outer space. Our investments are redefining the concept of museums.”
Fresh charts hit the wall. Allie has moved into a future round of fundraising, in which we will sit intrepid vacationers on the tips of rockets and fire them into space. It sounds so rehearsed and thoughtful, I have to mentally remind myself why we are here—this round of fundraising, the critical one, that will call into question our ethical flexibility and make us all wealthy, the big break everyone awaits. We have invested in vacation excursions that will allow foreigners obsessed with American violence to tour the black stains of our culture. At a hefty cost of $15,000 per couple, what people spend to travel to Italy or Hawaii or Belize, they will be bused across our continent to visit the sites of our worst shooting massacres, an emphasis on the schools. They will learn the history, stand in the very offices and cafeterias and kindergartens where the bloodshed happened, speak to the survivors and parents of the gunmen and teachers. They will be led by trained tour guides through the escape routes that the survivors took, speak with retired faculty who were there and listen as they recount the fateful minutes, driven to the shooter’s neighborhood and home and playground where he spent his fondest hours. Then, once that is finished, they will hop on luxury buses and head to the next location with stops at hotels with pools and restaurants with cheeseburgers.
With the new tours, we are tapping into a massive population of murder culture enthusiasts, and there is no better place to tour carnage than America. A series of beautifully synchronized charts proves it: bigger than parents that want the perfect beach holiday, than the baby boomers who enjoy resorts, than bike and raft misogynists hoping to conquer the world. We have more than two thousand preregistrations before the routes have been finalized, the marketing campaign rehearsed. Harry and Allie Sedlock did not come to us, their “friends,” with this opportunity. We are their Ponzi scheme, the stupid money. They groomed us to believe in them when no pragmatic bank would offer up a loan, regardless of the financials.