by Jon Methven
“You said you didn’t want to know.”
“I don’t want to know.” She pauses, thinks. “It’s out there, Tom. Pictures of girls.”
“Iliza,” I say. “From the nannies.”
“They don’t always get it right.”
“No one knows for sure.”
We whisper over the counter. This is the closest I have been to my wife in weeks. When she is not busy planning and strategizing, scheduling our lives and returning emails and setting orders, she can be downright cuddly. I want to touch her hand, throw her naked body in the place our children eat their breakfast, cover her in syrup, devour.
A subtle transition back to Gopa mom and business owner. “You could go away again, Tom. Let everything settle. Say you need more time.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“We’re in trouble. Why not disappear for a bit?”
“Forty-two.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s been forty-two days since I made a faulty weather report.”
Hands on hips, trouble. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s some kind of meteorology record. Most people don’t even know. Our society has become so complacent in our meteorologists’ faulty calculations that we do not hold them accountable, like a shortstop that gets a hit once every four times. So, of course, there is no official body recording how well…”
She is not listening as I rattle off the reasons I cannot disappear to take a second whack at baptizing myself into a friendlier, playful version. I have a chipmunk infestation in the backyard that my pregnant cat cannot handle alone. Despite my resurgence as a weather prognosticator, I am about to lose my job to someone less qualified but possibly perfect to make random guesses about chaotic weather patterns that will impact property owners in the coming years. My son is transitioning into a nanny. My daughter has strayed. My wife has likely moved into the second phase of her affair with the optimistic weenie. I disappear for the darkest moment to imagine human hair and bloodstains and busloads of burning orphans, which is a sign my chemical composition demands another dose of Luderica, which I must conserve. When I return, Laura is weeping.
“I have to get ready,” she says.
“For what?”
“Geezus, Tom.” She unbuttons her blouse and heads for the stairs. “We have our session with Devin and the McClutchens.”
“The marriage cooperative,” I say.
“It’s a Cooperative Marriage, Tom. Start fucking cooperating.”
I am trying to cooperate, to maintain zeal for this diplomatic adultery, but my savages are not. They are there against their will, refugees streaming out of genocidal lands, just like the bunnies caged inside Gopa’s elementary science center where the first graders stare dazed at their disreputable anatomy. “I’m not available this evening.”
“You promised to try,” she says from the stairs.
It feels like one million savages are stabbing pitchforks into my conscience. “This is my trying,” I say, but she is gone.
Cut One of Us Do We Not All Bleed?
In the backyard, I discover $5,000 in chipmunk parts that Clint Eastwood left near the waterfall. The trees show blossom as a blind world of butterflies and birds, mosquitoes and earthworms practice genocide on each other. Besides the hum of golf carts beyond the junipers and the buzz of the cell phone towers decorated as trees, my backyard paradise is silent. I loathe the cell phone trees. Not that they are most likely weakening our molecular components, allowing radiation to infect us with cancer. But the subliminal meaning that they tie our children’s palms to a world we cannot control, all of them streaming Lustfizzle and pornography and instructions of how to build bombs.
I get dressed in my bathing suit but forget to take a dip, the Jacuzzi bubbling as a movie plays overhead. The film is Vision Quest starring Matthew Modine as Louden Swain, a high school wrestler who yearns to fight a stronger, more agile opponent. I purchased the movie for Gus hoping to inspire him. Louden is talking to Elmo, the cook, played by J. C. Quinn, who has just taken off a day for the first time in his life to attend Louden’s wrestling match when he says,
“I was in the room here one day…watchin’ the Mexican channel on TV. I don’t know nothin’ about Pele. I’m watchin’ what this guy can do with a ball and his feet. Next thing I know, he jumps in the air and flips into a somersault and kicks the ball in—upside down and backward…the goddamn goalie never knew what the fuck hit him. Pele gets excited and he rips off his jersey and starts running around the stadium waving it around his head. Everybody’s screaming in Spanish. I’m here, sitting alone in my room, and I start crying. That’s right, I start crying. Because another human being, a species that I happen to belong to, could kick a ball, and lift himself, and the rest of us sad-assed human beings, up to a better place to be, if only for a minute… Let me tell ya, kid—it was pretty goddamned glorious.”
Everyone at the fire pit is weeping. It is just me, alone in the yard, appreciating the touching scene. The pit and all-purpose starter were purchased as a combo item at VillageShop, along with the brick kit that encompasses the structure. I put it together myself, including the pizza oven we never use because we do not dine together, and the space below to store firewood, although I did something wrong with the brick chimney that results in occasional thick, black smoke streaming out of my yard. It’s a chilly night and the fire rages, my tent lit on the far side of the lagoon.
Relaxing in the chaise, I open my phone intending to browse the online retailer for some sod and driveway sealer, the members of the Cooperative Marriage pouring drinks and kissing hello in the kitchen. I can hear the house creak and settle, Devin Brenner standing at the backdoor, trying to decide if he should coax me into the living room or leave it be. There are twenty emails from the Gopa website, which means a conversation has sparked an uprising. I click into the site to find the epic blog post that has led to the firestorm. A parent uploaded a document outlining all the offenses, both minor and serious, that members of the junior class have been associated with in their time at Gopa.
Minor offenses of demerits, warnings, detentions, tardy arrivals, forgetting Gopa IDs; infractions such as cigarettes, bullying accusations, using a cell phone during school hours, caught making out in a bathroom stall, fashion that does not conform to the Gopa uniform; more serious issues, behavior that a teacher has to discuss with a principle, parents contacted, suspension considered; extreme issues involving the school’s attorney, drug use, fighting, fellatio, bribing a teacher or principle, sneaking off school grounds. This information is recorded by the administration and meant to be private, but here it is, in all its shit-storm glory, for public enjoyment.
It was uploaded by a parent with username Gopa_Sally, a handle I recognize. This is about the ECI program. If parents are planning to drag children through the mud, it should be fair and partial and we should drag all the children. Gopa_Sally has removed infractions by members of the lacrosse, rugby, and fencing teams, perhaps thinking the rest of the parents would not notice. The lacrosse players are barbarians. At least one each year is brought up on sexual assault charges that are always dropped in exchange for money. They are constantly bullying students in the lunchroom, spending ample parts of their morning in detention, and running the student lounge like a prison commissary. According to the nanny chain, students can purchase anything from cigarettes to drugs to pornography, all of it run through a meaningless, but slightly dangerous group of adolescent boys.
I do what every rational, obligated parent with an anonymous username would do—I go straight for the comment section, bursting into a rant that runs two thousand words before I hit the maximum limit, a Shakespearean jumble that “we will not live in fear of your princes, not be hectored or tormented by your wallets and attorneys, for our struggle is the struggle of all parents with an eye toward the future, far beyond you who
are not even hallow enough to call yourselves our enemy. Our enemy is invisible. Our enemy is called unfairness and brandishes keystrokes from anonymous quarters under the tyranny of good deed and…”
Parents are not up in arms that the document was made public. Most of their children are not implicated. We are enraged that the juniors on the lacrosse team have been excluded from the public shaming, a clear indication that a lacrosse mom is behind the subterfuge. Iliza is guilty of minor points: cell phone use, two stints in detention, the subject of a meeting between administrators that is not outlined. Todd McClutchen, a lacrosse player, is not mentioned. Tungsten Sedlock has also been pardoned as the sister of a lacrosse player. Damian Ferris, the tutor mainly responsible for ensuring much of the lacrosse team is eligible to play, has been listed for fighting and tardiness, arguably the most honorable kid in the school. Rhythm Ferris has been charged with indecency countless times along with several parent-teacher meetings.
The backdoor opens, Ray McClutchen. “Pisser, you better get in here.” They have discovered the same document. We are all in battle mode.
“I’m reading it now,” I say.
“Awful, just awful. This type of thing cannot happen.”
“Don’t interrupt me.”
“Okay, good,” he says, happy to see I’m on it. “I’ll leave you be.”
“Close the door, Ray.”
I hear trudging through my backyard, broken sticks, a stray foot into my eaves trough that loosens a curse. Jackson moves with the efficiency of blind cattle, tripping on hoses and stray edges of my footpath. The reason I installed the rape lights next to the path was so Jackson would not break his neck en route to my Jacuzzi, which he no longer uses.
He’s shouting. “You see it?”
“I’m reading it now.”
“Completely out of bounds. You saw what it said about Rhythm?”
Jackson is the closest thing to male companionship that I have, so I cannot tell him that if there are seventeen remaining spots for the ECI program in a class of one hundred fifty students, I do not believe his daughter will be rewarded with one of them. She participates in no sports or clubs, is an average student, and has disrobed multiple times on school grounds, not to mention my backyard. Because the Jays are homosexual and Jason works at the school, I believe they will receive unfair consideration for their child. And because Damian is almost guaranteed a spot, I do not think it fair the twins take up two of the nominations.
The flu is going around. I had it, but it spared Laura and the kids. Jason has it, Damian as well. Jackson is on triple duty with work, parenting, and bed nurse. I pour him a glass of scotch and get him situated on a chaise, Clint Eastwood wandering in from the hill to enjoy our agitation. I watch overhead as Louden Swain tosses an opponent around the mat.
“I appreciate you keeping it quiet about Rhythm,” he says.
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it isn’t nothing. Hell, you could have blabbed it all over the school. You’re a good man, Pisser.”
Though we have not discussed it, Jackson and I are in agreement that we have entered into something sinister with our investment in Moveable Museums, and there does not appear to be an exit strategy. We are aligned in our contempt for the lacrosse team, for all the athletic teams really, and he is well versed in the failures of my marriage, what the presence of Ray McClutchen means to my domicile. I would never say a bad word about Jackson or his children, and I know he views our relationship the same.
“Ridiculous.” Jackson leans, the chaise etching forward into the bricks. “Big game this weekend, which means Damian had to stay late tutoring the dumb little fucks. Like a game of lacrosse matters, everyone wearing those stupid arm bands—” He stops himself, remembers Russ Haverly who he never liked but still tolerated. “I’m sorry, that was poor of me.”
“It’s fine.”
“Just the way they treat Damian, like he’s there to serve them. The way they treat Jason.” He points a big, meaty finger at me. “They’ve been harassing you, too, Pisser. We should go to the administration.”
“We can’t do that,” I say.
“Why the hell not?”
I do not remind him that I strangled a midfielder on school grounds, or mention that Toby Dalton may have incriminating photos of my daughter. “ECI,” I say. “Laura and I don’t want to rock the boat.”
We listen to each other rant and read the comments on our respective phones, the camaraderie ensuring we do not make rash decisions. The scotch and the fire mellow out Jackson, and we watch the flames disintegrate. It is much later, after midnight but hours from dawn, when I come to inside a treehouse. I cannot decipher from the trees if it belongs to Duffy O’Neal or the McClutchens, the world looking small and identical from fifteen feet in the air. I have a power saw, a drill, a claw-tooth hammer, and a canister that feels empty until I shake it out and several bugs crawl onto the wood and my skin. I hold a towel over the motor to muffle the sound. I am drilling holes into the frame where it attaches to the tree, and shaking the canister into them. I know without question these are termites and, if hungry enough, one strong storm will knock this treehouse to the ground.
I blacked out again, an issue since I’ve been conserving the last of my Luderica. I have been gone for hours, evidence of my time away visible on the ground beneath me. I climb down to see what I have foraged. One of the cell phone poles disguised as a tree lies between my feet. It resembles the local junipers, although it is constructed out of resilient polyester, the branches and needles made of urethane and polyethylene, able to withstand winds up to 160 mph. Should a hurricane roar through Slancy, all the houses and trees will be destroyed, but these poles will endure, living on long after the fairways and houses and footpath are gone, totems that the gods we sought failed us.
There is a handle near the trunk. The cell phone tower is lighter than a tree, though it looks the same, and to residents up at this hour I resemble a Sasquatch lugging firewood across their property. The sensation of heaving something unorthodox feels natural to my muscles, labor I have performed in the not too distant past. Another cell phone tree. A tarp of glass clippings and manure, of dark soil and compost. A human body.
Transgenerational Therapy With Gus
Saturday in mid-April. The Gopa Worthy warriors are ready to defend our way of life, which means our Gopa boys are heading up the interstate to toss a lacrosse ball back and forth more efficiently, we hope, than the tribe from Darien. Our fleet of SUVs and overpriced hybrids are packed for battle, Gopa bumper stickers and seat cushions and wildly obnoxious picnic fare in purple and white coolers, the Gopa tones as we wait for our boys to run onto the field. “Here come the Worthy!” someone will call, and we will explode with pompous laughter and cowbell zeal and one last run to the coolers as the pride of our youth appears, helmets affixed, two perfect lines, the apex of our endeavors. Deviled eggs with salmon, tiny quiches crammed with duck confit and pork belly, mini blintzes bursting with asparagus and short rib, celery sticks, potato nibblers, kale shooters, champagne cocktails, pancakes dressed as lacrosse players for dessert. The Gopa crew never does hot dogs and beer.
I have a busy day, a reminder of my duties taped to the outside of my tent and, for good measure, also to the backdoor and refrigerator. I need to pick up four trays of Standcakes at the main kitchen in Brooklyn and transport them to Darien for the pregame picnic. Laura provides an assortment of the delicacies for free at each game, which always leads to additional sales. We push the desserts on parents of the opposing team under the guise of sportsmanship—“Go ahead, help yourselves, we have plenty”—when in fact we know they will not be able to resist the health benefits along with the overpriced feature that gives Standcake an exclusive feel.
After the pickup, I will drop a semen sample at the Manhattan Cryobank for reasons that neither Laura nor myself understand. I will drive Gus to his therapy session i
n Chelsea, followed by wrestling practice, followed by his chess club’s tournament against the Highline Academy, also in the city. I’ll leave Gus there and pick up Jackson in midtown where he is rehearsing a new score with a Broadway orchestra. We will drive to Darien to drop the pancakes and reconnect with the Slancy side of the picnic, at which point I will head back to the city to catch the end of Gus’s chess match. It’s best that I steer clear of the lacrosse parents, though critical that I transport the desserts to be shoved into their bitchy mouths.
◆
Tilly Sosa was our nanny for more than a decade. From Ecuador, or perhaps Chile or Paraguay, she helped Laura and I raise the kids while we both worked. She was an atrocious nanny who never cooked or cleaned or bothered with the laundry and who, in later years, took less of an interest in school gossip. Gus adored her. We kept her on long after the children were old enough, even after her vices became detrimental to our financial existence. Two bad knees required her to pop painkillers like gumdrops, prescriptions we covered, typically washing them down with Chablis we purchased by the case. Unable to do much else, she liked to sit around on her phone—the bill for which we also covered—and order discounted merchandise from VillageShop, charging it to a credit card she opened in Laura’s name, and then reselling the take online.
The mortgage, two cars, two children, my shopping addiction made worse by Tilly’s side business, Standcake and vans with special trays to hold the batter people upright and personnel, Iliza’s acting classes, tutors for Gus, it eventually became apparent that we could not afford the luxury of assisted parenting. Also, the stealing and Chablis had gotten out of hand, not to mention we were the last parents to learn about any juicy gossip. We talked it over with Tilly and promised six months severance. She did not take it well. She went straight to the nanny chain to begin a smear campaign. I found her that afternoon in January, drowned in my red lagoon, the two random blood smears on the deck. Cause of death was the most obvious conclusion—two empty bottles of wine, the buckets of revenge dye, an inadvertent collision with the pavement.