by Jon Methven
The frown is an unusual ensemble for Ray. Regardless of bad news or terrorist explosions that cause the rest of us to purchase more life insurance, Ray thrusts onward. His books about inspirational thinking and positive visualization, while a pebble into the rock pile of self-help manuals and law of attraction bunk, have earned him a comfortable living. DVDs, mugs with clever inspirational sayings, T-shirts, calendars, speaking engagements, retreats. Clutch Thinking, Best Road Ahead, and Like, Now, while all essentially the same wimp-osophy, have been described by critics as essential reading for modern tension. “Chin up,” “tarry forth,” “do not let it ruin your day”—all catchphrases I have heard Ray mutter in the Gopa lobby, except he honestly means them, clenching a fist to show he’s there should the shit go down.
In truth, I did, and still do, respect Ray McClutchen for maintaining the silver lining. I am a trine loophole of personalities—mediocre Tom Pistilini, which everyone expects; the savage tribe occupying the terrain somewhere between my esophagus and colon, which everyone fears; and Ray McClutchen doppelganger, expected to keep the spirit with a multicultural bent and pleasant nod. A man who came up similar to me, the same challenges and responsibilities, the same affluent pressures from Gopa, and through it all he was able to keep a healthy optimism. I have to believe it is not easy living with Olivia. Maddie is a trying child with her array of inhalers and influenzas. Todd, while a nice kid, reeks of a mediocrity that no one could wish on another being. Through it all, Ray has preserved a positive attitude, or at least he pretends to. Often I consider whom I would want to take my place if I could not do the job of father and husband. I would not want a tough guy, someone rugged and cynical and armed with paranoia and steel. It would be someone like Ray McClutchen who, just like Rocky, keeps climbing off the mat.
That does not imply I do not find Ray irritating or his dropping by suspicious. He shows up with a bottle of wine, which means he is hoping to share it with Laura, only to discover the front door locked. Upon checking the backdoor, he encountered my Rocky marathon, pretending he had come to see me all along. I am weaning myself off them, but I ingest a Luderica hoping to summon some playfulness so I do not awaken to discover I have chain sawed my neighbor into miniature McClutchens.
“I just don’t get it,” he says again, after the second glass, mistaking me for someone who cares about his failed Cooperative Marriage. “Everything was going so well. Now she’s…”
Now she’s fucking someone else, Ray. “Now she’s what?”
“Distant.”
“Women,” I say, turning up the volume to drown out his moping.
“No, not this woman. Laura is special.”
“That’s why I married her.”
“We don’t deserve her. Neither of us.”
I refill my glass, enjoying the fight scene overhead. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. I don’t deserve her. But you—you’ve got a lot going for yourself. Those books, your tricycle. Lot going for you, Ray.”
“Then why is she shutting me out?”
“Maybe she didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
“It’s Tuesday. Tuesday is our night. I reminded her earlier.”
“Maybe she forgot.” I know Laura. She did not forget. If she wanted to sip wine with Ray he’d be sitting on my sofa looking at her breasts. “Maybe she’s busy with work.” I fucked her, Ray, not more than twenty yards from where we sit. “Sometimes when she gets her mind on work, she can’t think of anything else.” I have an erection just thinking about her fingernails tracing fuck slits in my flesh.
He leans forward, an idea. “Can you let me in the backdoor? Maybe she’s still up and didn’t hear my knocking.”
“Can’t do it, bub. Don’t want to get involved if there’s trouble with you two. Remember what Doc Brenner said about respecting boundaries.” I turn up the volume another notch. “Besides, you don’t want to seem desperate. Give Laura some space. That’s my advice.”
He sips the wine. “I appreciate it, Pisser.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I really like her, you know? I sometimes get strange feelings.”
The Luderica sets in, time for a blackout. “Hmm, like what?”
“Like Laura is sleeping with someone else. Something about her lately.”
“It’s not like Laura. Once she settles on something.” I do not finish.
Ray talks and I doze and listen and watch the stars as Rocky beats the piss out of Tommy Gunn in a street brawl, a scurrying behind us I take for Clint Eastwood who settles beneath my chair, and I try not to move so as not to disturb my cat, passive therapy, whatever works. Ray is a heartbroken man, as damaged as any of us, and only another heartbroken man can understand his worthlessness. He is also dubious about Moveable Museums, feels that we are wandering toward a dark frontier, his trajectory through the cosmos having shifted, that maybe he is not a motivational speaker after all. Maybe he is one of my tribe, having escaped from my thoughts to wander the cold, hard world.
“What do you say, Pisser?”
I tell him something I read on the Gopa website by the author ndr_cnstrctn, who is no longer with us. His postmortem quip from weeks earlier was left in the comment section of a blog post about the prospect of a prophylactic machine in the student restrooms. The comment had nothing to do with the topic, only that “all of us are bumbling around, concentrating, making lists, investing in four-oh-one-ks, buying insurance, taking vitamins, minding the rules, avoiding doom when doom is inevitable, doom is all there is, so if we must face doom—and we must—best do it with a smile. The smile is the test.”
My mouth is dry when I finish. I am not sure if it sounded sane to Ray but he smiles, and pours us another tumbler; two drunk dads watching the stars writhe across the island.
“Thanks, Pisser. I needed tonight.”
Juice Of Broken Dreams Makes Sad Wine
During one of my blackouts, I cannot determine a time frame, I came across Duffy O’Neal walking his dog. This was prior to the transformation, before I stopped showering and using deodorant, when dogs despised me. His poodle mutt strangled itself attempting to ingest my flesh while Duffy explained the religious features of canines. A Catholic, he talked about heaven and hell and reincarnation, though not the traditional variety. His dog hated me, he explained, for something I had done in a past life, which animals can sense, although the past life was occurring right then. There was no past or future or present. Everything was happening at once, all the tenses, with one man’s heaven—an actor on break from her latest blockbuster enjoying a condo in Barbados; watching another man’s hell on television, genocide in Darfur; while unknown purgatory occurs elsewhere, a New Jersey man, adequate apartment and job, rolling his eyes at the flat screen while he awaits the entertainment report. The past did not exist, Duffy insisted, nor was heaven a distant pursuit. It is here, a simultaneous juggernaut, and it is up to us to determine how we belong.
“What about God?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. Many.”
“I thought you said you’re Catholic.”
“Don’t get snippy. I’m just telling you how it works.”
“Are these gods here with the rest of us? What about mass shootings, kids with cancer?”
“I won’t get into it with you. I was trying to teach you something about why dogs hate you.” Duffy picked up his mutt, scared I might crush it with my heel. “Get on out of here, Pisser. I catch you urinating in my yard again, I’ll have you fined.”
I am reminded of Duffy as I walk down a city street passing treats to dogs. The furry critters adore me. They come out of shops, wander on their leashes from owners, notice me across desolate avenues in the late-morning spring just as the sun crests the East River and climbs cautiously to observe the dirt and prosper with equal disregard. I carry biscuits in my jacket and offer them to each hound, cooing as they nibble and chomp, depositing
drool on my hand and sleeve and sniffing at my dander. A large collie follows me to work, gaining entrance to the studio and interrupting a segment. It leaps its forepaws onto my chest and balances there as I speak about clouds, and it occurs to me—I am this animal’s deity.
“And bones. And lice. And detritus. And food carts. And foreign hair. And myths. And bullied children. And used baggies. And expired milk. And discount cookbooks. And the man who cannot find a lost valuable, checking his pockets on the sidewalk on which you just passed—not your problem, no idea what became of his evening. All these are connected. All these are valued. These are to be appreciated on cloudy days.”
The segment seems staged, the dog on my torso, tongue out, me smiling and continuing the report, even Whitman uncharacteristically without the turn of phrase.
“Wow, Pisser. Just, wow.”
Six weeks remain in the school year. With Russ Haverly planted in his hometown, the ECI embargo has lifted, the names expected to come quickly. Laura and I have been called to a meeting this morning with the Gopa administration. It can mean only one thing, the news we have awaited for months, the butterfly of our unceasing cocoon—Iliza has been accepted into the program.
As soon as we enter the room, I know this is not the case. Something unholy has transpired. If I did not just see my children three minutes ago in the lobby, I would assume one of them has been murdered, shot execution style in the back of the head, trampled by a maniacal police horse, an accidental death no one can explain and for which Gopa has arranged an official apology. Laura takes my hand. I bow my head and squeeze.
Gopa’s director, Heather Pace, is charged with delivering the message, but it is the duo of attorneys that ruin our composure.
“Tom, Laura, I’m terribly sorry to be the bearer. A video involving Iliza has come to our attention.”
I gulp, squeeze Laura’s finger, shift to contain my tribe.
“Legally, we have little choice. We have to ask Iliza to step down from her role in Our Town.” Heather pauses. We look at each other and leave it there. I have not shared with my wife the things I have done. She deserves better. It will kill her to actually witness Iliza on the video, a failure of parenthood, even though it was not our child naked in a shower with a Gopa faculty member. “To be clear, we have not seen the video,” Heather continues. “But we can speculate on the fallout.”
“What fallout, exactly?”
“Illicit drug use.” She does something with a hand. “Other things, from what I hear.”
“What things?” Laura says.
“I know this is a shock. Gopa’s morality clause is clear.” This from a woman who was getting regular deliveries from Russ Haverly, who claims they engaged in sex during the pill exchanges. “If this comes out in the press during the play, it will be worse to deal with then. We’d have no choice but to expel her. Our decision, while difficult, is the only one.”
“She’s worked so hard.”
“You have no proof,” I say. It sounds like a lie as it leaves my mouth. My daughter is guilty of exactly what she’s being accused. But without the intercession of other entities, there is no validation to the charges.
“Others have come forward,” Heather confesses. “There is pressure from the parent community.”
I hear Laura gulp. We know what we’re up against: the money, the machine, the organized vitriol of the Gopa community. This is payback for the bus, for Russ Haverly. The role in the play is just the start. The ECI program, applications that took months to fill out, college essays, extracurricular activities, volunteer posts—all of it fizzling like a stabbed balloon. This is the Sedlocks, the lacrosse parents, Sharon Li and her brood, the Gopa network pressuring the administration.
“I know Iliza,” Heather says. “She’s a nice kid. But it’s for the good of the school. We’re here to assist in whatever help she needs.”
“Who will be playing the lead?” Laura asks. It’s a cold question, direct and cutthroat, why I love and fear my wife.
“The understudy, I suppose.”
“Say the name, Heather.”
Heather Pace has been sent here against her will. “Tungsten Sedlock.”
Through childbirth and bad nights, premature fears and sad afternoons and funerals, our marital woes, the fights and accusations, Laura never wept. As the tears build, I can sense she is ready to fall apart. It is time to go, to gather my wife in my arms and get us through it. Yet my tribe will not vacate the seat. I am their God. They are my descendants. I should be able to command their actions, but they are not listening.
“I know you were fucking Russ Haverly. In exchange for drugs,” I hear myself say, growl really.
Her mouth falls open. She looks to Laura for an explanation, covers her teeth to stifle a gulp, then appeals to the two lawyers for intervention. The male lawyer, homosexual, young, reaches to touch my arm, a gentle suggestion to retreat. I punch him in his forehead. He plunges to the ground. The other lawyer, female, maybe Jewish, bends to assist him.
Laura, weeping. “Tom.”
“What are you doing?” Heather asks.
Laura watches as I shove the desk out of the way, Heather Pace twisting her legs toward her chest to protect herself from what I can only assume she believes is certain retribution. She has had parents threaten her position and career, sic lawyers on her. She has never had a parent physically assault her.
“Admit it,” I say. “You were having sex with him.”
“I don’t…”
“It was my idea to harness the administration to the structures during the save the trees benefit. So you could enjoy some wine without injuring yourselves. I suggested it even after I knew you were fucking Russ.” I pick up a chair and start swinging it randomly, at lights, wall mounts, lofting it at a window, breaking glass that ignites an alarm, my reflection in the other panes appalling, unbathed, hairy, wild. “Admit it and we’ll leave.”
Breathless, weeping, the lawyers hugging on the floor, Heather covers her face. “It was just a few times. I’m not married. There was nothing wrong about any of it.”
The phone is ringing, the security desk locating the window and calling to interpret the emergency. Outside the office, I pop one of the Luderica that I am trying to quit. Laura does not mention my outburst. We make our way through a quiet hallway where Josey Mateo waits. Her arms and neck are red from hard ink, her eyes tearing and ornery beneath the lights.
“We’ll get those fuckers.” She spits, her fist clenched, muscles tight. It scares an already terrified Laura who has just witnessed me dismantle an office. Josey wipes tears from her own face and then from Laura’s. “Iliza’s a good kid, Missus P. We’ll get those fuckers for this.”
On the far end of the hall, our children wait for the news, Iliza buried in her phone, Gus staring hurriedly against a wall. For the first time in months, Gus is not dressed as a nanny, donning his purple and white uniform in honor of his sister’s day. Dressed in her Gopa uniform, Iliza spent longer than usual in the bathroom, ensuring her hair and makeup were perfect, her shirt cinched into an ornate style. We were expecting different news, all of us having tried so hard.
I shake, furious. My arm bleeds from something I do not remember. Laura takes my hand and we watch each other. “You look like shit,” she says, wiping my lip. “Have you calmed down?”
“I’m at war. Harry will pay for this.”
“It isn’t Harry. This is Allie. She always wanted it for Tungsten.”
“We can ruin them,” I say. “Don’t forget where I work.”
“If you talk about it, they’ll sue us for everything.”
Laura is right, of course, possessing the same business sense that Harry displays. The friends we still have would abandon us. The Sedlocks would send Dan Mathers for as long as it took. We would lose the house. We would lose Standcake. We would declare bankruptcy.
“Besides,” she says. “Iliza did it. She might not deserve this, but she deserves repercussions.”
I grab her in both arms and kiss her forcefully as I summon some Ray McClutchen. “We’ll survive this. No matter what. Do you believe it?” Laura nods. “Take Gus to the lobby. I want to be the one to tell her.”
Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune
I crouch in the tree line that runs adjacent to the seventh tee bunker, the highest elevation in Slancy. I am dressed in black, the crossbow I promised Jason and Jackson would never leave my shed lying in the grass. From here, I have access to the bicycle path as it extends along the length of our neighborhood and condenses into a walkway that encircles the golf course. I have had enough target practice with the BB gun that I know a steady posture is key to striking a target, though, because of my neighbors, and a dearth of arrows, I have not practiced with the bow.
My intention is not to kill Allie Sedlock. A neck strike would be devastating to my reputation, and because I have been sleeping in a tent a hundred yards from this spot, an alibi is out of the question. Instead I am aiming for the meaty part of her tender thigh, just before gluteus meets hip, flesh that can absorb a bolt, leaving the shaft sticking out to let her know the battle is only commencing. I assume she will crash the bike and ruin that pretty face, maybe scuff her pink skin against the pavement. But if I miss, just a fraction higher than I intend, and it strikes Allie in the face, and she goes over the handlebars and smashes into the pavement to leak brains all over Slancy’s sole path—well, then, that is the main argument against fucking with Tom Pistilini’s children.
There is constant humming at this hour, the sound of New York City’s churn, the cell phone towers waiting, the warblers awakening and preparing to relieve the fairways of plump worms. The decorative chipmunks are still idle, pondering their fate, if they will survive the day or be torn to shreds by the pregnant she-beast. I hear the bicycle in the distance. Allie Sedlock is right on time. Dawn has not broken, taking its time behind the Long Island suburbia, but there is enough light to catch her as she approaches, and I find her long legs through the tactical scope. The optics are precise, they cost as much as the bow, and she does not notice the red dot finding pavement and then her left thigh, her headphones blasting a ritualistic anthem that leaves her oblivious to danger—who would be crouching in the weeds, at five o’clock in the morning, aiming a weapon at her?