by Jon Methven
She peddles furiously, working up a sweat. My concentration drifts to Allie Sedlock’s wet asshole grinding into the bicycle seat, the laser on her torrid thigh, my body steady as I follow with the bow, finger on the trigger. It will give a little kiss when it enters her epidermis, the sensation a smack as it travels back and forth to her brain until her eyes look down and she realizes—what have I done, what freak lineage have I crossed? I begin the countdown as Clint Eastwood scatters through the tree line, having followed me to the bunker and now aware of the approaching bicyclist. Warblers warble. The horn of a barge explodes, announcing itself to the metropolis before everything falls silent and we are alone. My finger bends and just at the point of turmoil, an odd scampering to my right. A nymph, naked, chasing Mister Pickles. It happens quickly.
The red dot bounces from Allie’s thigh, to the ground, back to her thigh, to the handlebar, her forehead, the thigh, I hope. The arrow races out of my grasp and strikes metal, a crisp ta-chink, the handlebar most likely, and Allie Sedlock swerves. It ricochets into the trees as branches wisp and then a firm thwack and the crackle of leaves and sticks, a groan. I think: I just killed Clint Eastwood. And then, relieved to see the cat scurry toward the fairway, followed by a disturbed: I just killed Rhythm.
Allie stops the bicycle to check her equipment. She removes the headphones and watches the trees. I stay crouched in the bunker, wondering whether to reload. Spooked, Allie quickly turns the bicycle for home. I stay where I am, listening. A moment later, Rhythm is on her feet, a wounded deer running. In the morning light I can see the arrow protruding from her bare buttocks, the girl assuming she’s fallen onto a stick, and how to explain this to her anxious fathers. I try to call to her but no words come.
Out of breath, scared, there are no lights on in my house when I reach the yard. I hide the crossbow in the shed and duck into the tent, pulling my sleeping bag over my head. I wait. Because if I am sure of anything, if I am absolutely guaranteed of one action, I know that someone is coming for me, either to alert me to the accident or take me to prison. I hear things: slamming doors, an argument, weeping, Jackson’s voice followed by Jason’s. “That sonofabitch. That crazy sonofabitch.” A shed door. An engine, the Ferris’s golf cart. If it were serious, they would not be driving the golf cart to the parking lot to get in their car. An ambulance would be summoned. Instead they are doing what I would do: disappearing to a hospital upstate where no one has ever heard of Slancy or Gopa, where if anyone asks about their daughter’s exhibitionism, word will not reach the nanny chain. A drive suggests the injury is not life threatening, the realization causing the strangest thing to occur. I fall soundly asleep, peacefully, and dream of refugee chipmunks, duffel bags packed, hauling possessions and children over a war-town fairway that once had so much golf and promise and now is a symbol of tyranny and all they have lost.
Cells Must Fuse To Grow
Lying in my tent, the midday sound of golf balls and wildlife, I am aware I will awaken to this temperament each morning once they fire me. I have slept through work. There is no sense arriving this late. There is a note next to the coffee pot from Laura. She tried to rouse me, both her and Gus, but they were late. I check the street, nothing peculiar, the Jays’ house empty, the whisper of a car’s engine echoing through the silent morning. There is only one car in Slancy. Bill Chuck’s black sedan. In the passenger seat, Lieutenant Misch, who rarely leaves his post during the school day.
I assume the worst. I am the main suspect in a murder attempt, and in my paranoid haste it does not occur to me they would not send school security to investigate. It has been ongoing psychopathic behavior, first the nanny, followed by the coach, the equipment bus and dead chipmunks and cell phone towers and poor Missus Li’s leg. They will have been to the hospital, obtained fingerprints from the arrow, taken statements from all parties. They will ask to see the weapon, my whereabouts earlier this morning.
“Sorry to bother you, Tom,” Bill says. “Lieutenant Misch here needs a word.”
“Of course.” Always happy to help.
“Tried you at the office.” He’s apologetic, nicer it appears. “Your guy, Whitman, said you were out doing field research today.”
Unshaven, unbathed, pantsless, T-shirt. “Coastal temperature readings.”
The shrug seems choreographed. “Won’t take long. Ever heard the name Antonio Capra?”
I know half the name. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Didn’t think so. Associate of Russ Haverly.” He is not writing any of it down, ignoring that I have come to the door in underwear with muddy knees.
“You think this Capra had something to do with Russ’s death?”
“It’s possible. The more we know, it seems Haverly was a major dealer.”
“Major?”
“Kids. Parents. And not just Gopa. Throughout the private school community.”
“As far north as Connecticut,” Bill says, smiling. “Big drug ring.”
“Huge.” Misch whistles, which for the first time makes him seem human. “You hear anything that might help, you’ll let me know?”
I try to seem like an insignificant weather troll with two kids and a wife, who has seen enough police dramas to understand the protocol. But my tribe has latched on to a sentiment, an idiosyncrasy in their postures “Why would you think I might hear something?”
Misch and Bill exchange a look. It’s subtle, two old cops who know it when they see it. “I was wrong about you,” Misch says. “You’re one of the good ones, Tom.”
“Worthy ones,” Bill adds.
Misch taps the side of his head. “I hear things.”
“Things,” Bill says. “Like how you told Sedlock to fuck himself.”
Bill did not come here to ask about Russ Haverly. He came to join the tribe.
“How do you know about that?” I ask.
“I’m security around here,” Bill says. “What do you think I do all day, just watch the bridge?”
Mish leans close, a scent of aftershave and bacon. “Sandy Hook thing a few years back. You remember.”
He mentions the main stop on the Moveable Museums Memorial Tour, when a deranged gunman murdered six adults and twenty children all younger than Gus. The Sedlocks do not want to start the tour there, preferring to warm up sightseers with an office building in downtown Manhattan, where in 2002 an employee littered the cafeteria with grenades, injuring thirty and killing eight. I nod that I am familiar.
“I helped on the case, the both of us,” Bill says. “Certain law enforcement aren’t too fond of tourism in these parts.”
“You think you’re a hard man, a hard cop,” Misch says. “Right up until you see a dead seven-year-old. Then you ain’t shit.”
If they know, others know. That it has not been on every major news channel is a combination of luck and Connor Mack. Without the publicity giant, there would be cover stories, exclusives by the morning shows, intrepid reporters harassing the Sedlocks for details, Tom Pistilini, Channel Fourteen meteorologist, the public face, something at which to direct the hatred. The tribe has honed in on a detail I neglected. Harry Sedlock was counting on a fall guy.
“Anyway,” Bill says. They pull back.
Misch hands me an envelope. “You probably knew this was coming. You need assistance, you let us know.”
“Of course.” We shake hands. There’s a momentary intuition, a parting of the universe religious folk might say, when everything lines up, and I know there will be redemption. It only shows itself for the faintest moment and then disappears, and I am left with the aching feeling that I nearly murdered a child this morning.
Later that evening, after the houses have dimmed and the children are in bed, and no one came to accuse me of assault with a deadly weapon. I come in through the backdoor that Laura left unlocked. I find her naked in our bedroom and I do not ask permission. Where the Luderica was me
ant to discover playfulness, it discovered savagery instead, my odors chasing her perfumes and laundered sheets. It is this sentiment, my inner tribe, fucking my wife greedily, rolling her over to hear her squeal, passing her around our cavern like a massive feast. I have become a religious man, more than I admit. There is desperation to our lovemaking, something mythic about our resurgence, and in that redemption I remember. It comes back to me in a flash, the portions of my life I lost in the pivotal blackout. After I hit Russ Haverly with the golf club, drowned him, and dragged his body below the clubhouse to the western shore of Slancy, I drove the boat two miles south before finding shore. I pointed it toward the ocean and ignited the motor, jumping into the water and swimming to land.
I was freezing. That was how I got sick. I walked until I found a payphone and placed a call to the person I trust most. Laura picked me up and took me home, and listened as I explained what Russ Haverly told me about our daughter.
Her pragmatism against my lunacy. “Are you sure he’s dead?”
“He’s dead.”
“Iliza wouldn’t do those things. What if you’re wrong?” Pacing, late at night, I could not get my body warm. “You could go to prison. Both of us. The house. The business. Do you understand, Tom? You cannot talk about it to anyone. Not even Iliza.”
“I was protecting her,” I told Laura.
“You need to protect all of us. Don’t say anything to anyone. Not even me.”
Break A Leg
No phone. No television. No after school activities. Seven o’clock curfew. Computer use monitored. No sleepovers with friends. No weekend plans. Family dinner every night. No skirts. No dresses. No tight clothing. No T-shirts with witty sayings that might contain pop culture references Laura and I do not understand. No sex. No thinking about sex. No boys at the house. No undermining our home with cleverness. No kindness. No weakness. No fair. No justice. No end to our hypocrisy. No mention that I murdered someone. No discussion of the cover-up. Prisoners have more freedom.
“And wipe that pout off your voice,” I say.
“You brought this on yourself,” Laura adds. We do not look at each other for fear we’d be ashamed.
After explaining the meeting with the Gopa administration, I let Iliza know that not only will she not be in the play or accepted into the ECI program, forcing her to spend another year with us, but that I will not be permitted on school grounds for the remainder of the year. Mostly the punishment validates Laura and I, makes us forget our failures, gives us confidence that we can still dominate our children’s lives and they will not disappear forever to Hollywood or Miami, or just across the river. Destroyed. That is the word for Iliza. She worked hard for something and was failed by her friends, our friends, the Gopa factory. I have told her the Tom Pistilini lies. We do not do drugs in this family. We do not bring drugs into this house. We do not associate with people who do drugs. I have even relayed the Ray McClutchen lies. This will make you stronger. Harvest the positive. This will make you larger hopefully without making you harder. I am out of lies.
We have not been to Gopa Academy in three days. Laura and I remain at odds with the administration. Also, Heather Pace filed a restraining order against me that Misch was kind enough to deliver in the envelope without a lecture. We keep Gus at home with us. He is despondent and sad, wondering how to make his sister smile. He wears his nanny cloaks and awakens in the same state, rushing through the house emptying the dishwasher and offering to fix Iliza smoothies. Laura works from the den. I occasionally wander into the backyard to pull weeds or check on Clint Eastwood. This is our boycott. This is our nonviolent protest. There are entities demonstrating against sex trafficking and racism, nuclear annihilation and mass shootings, the destruction of the environment and gross corporate misconduct. Our battlefield is the private school theatrical production of Our Town, our Gandhi moment.
Three days in the desert, cut off from civilization. Without a nanny, our lifeline of gossip and communal parenting is gone. Two more kids have been selected into the ECI program, none of which matters anymore. Iliza is out for certain. No one from Slancy phones to check on our existence other than Bill Chuck. He is how I know that Rhythm was injured in the woods, a stick or contusion, and the Jays had to take her upstate for medical attention. It does not occur to me to phone and check on her, just as it did not occur to Jackson to check on my daughter. We have devolved into secular tribes, hunkering down in our caves to make sure no one steals our meat and fire.
We still have the Gopa website on which we can enjoy the bloodshed. Two fathers were charged with disorderly conduct for punching each other over a parking spot during drop-off. Someone took a mallet to the Carters’ Porsche. In the middle of the day, cement was dumped in the bicycle parking center. It congealed around the wheels and spokes destroying dozens of bikes. Most of the exterior cameras in the school have been tampered with, security at odds on how to address the vandalism. A child was elbowed while riding a scooter to school, the mother who did the elbowing claiming he was budging. A parent accused another family’s driver of sexual harassment for excessive leering. A blog post under my new handle, Feral_Tribe, referenced last week’s offsite brainstorming about whether sixth graders were too young to witness nude models during art history. During the discussion, I spiked the communal punch with Sharon Li’s batch of Viagra. One father was rushed to the emergency room, the nannies claim. Lifetime associations dissolve. Cliques grow more assertive. Parents settle in for battle, all over the ECI program. Administrators have called an emergency meeting next week for parents. We are neither predator nor prey, forgotten by the Gopa community.
Bill Chuck and Josey are with me tonight. Bill is a bulletproof veteran who has seen it all and stomped it all and come out with bruises. It was his job to remove Clint Eastwood, which he never did. While he may be retired from the police force, he can never absolve himself from right and wrong. Foes have been revealed. Sides have been drawn. Bill Chuck and Lieutenant Misch are in my camp and, by extension, are Josey Mateo’s allies. My backyard fire pit has become the planning ground for an insurgency to defeat Moveable Museums. Laura has joined us, slippers and a glass of wine to make it appear that rational adults have gathered to discuss politics, or the latest movie, or even the weather. The rest of Josey’s crew stays away. We are going after the Sedlocks’ property, first the office building they quietly lease in New Jersey and then, if it comes to it, the house.
Josey runs the meeting. “Laura, you should make nice with Ray McClutchen.”
“That’s not a good idea,” she says.
“He likes you. He has valuable information.”
Josey is not aware that we have renewed our conjugality. We have glossed over the Cooperative Marriage without ever discussing whether Laura and Ray engaged in sexual intercourse. In the manner that a family forgets moments after passing roadkill that did not impact their minivan’s bumper, we do not utter the word “McClutchen” in our domicile. A suspicious voice within my tribe volunteers for the assignment. “I’ll speak to Ray,” I say.
“Laura would be better,” Josey says.
“We have an understanding, Ray and I.”
“Laura has tits.”
“I should distance myself,” Laura says. “For the kids’ sake.”
Josey nods. Bill adds another log to the fire despite the eternal vigor of the cell phone combustion. “Dirty fucks. I know a dozen retirees. Good police. Be happy to get their hands dirty when the time comes.”
“The time is coming.” Josey carves a bull on her thigh, her dark skin scarred and flaky, in need of moisturizer. “We should be going.”
“This late?” Laura asks.
“Distance,” I say.
We do not discuss where I go, what I have done. For the good of Standcake, for the sanctity of our family, my association with Josey and Bill and all my vengeance must occur discreetly in the confines of Laura’s ignorance
. I have ingested two Luderica, not because I want them, but because they help me overcome my rote cowardliness that I am brainwashed to believe is acceptable. “We are a demographic of default coward,” I type into my phone during the short drive, the comment section of a blog post about ethically farm-raised cod served in the school cafeteria as opposed to wild cod caught under dubious fishing laws. “War is a reality show. Terrorism is good for ratings. We turn off genocide, ignore stories of babies used for target practice by creatures that loathe us. We donate to causes and say the right things, but the blackness of our hearts grows larger with each despondence, casting algorithmic shadows over a future we have worked perilously to disinfect for our children. Instead, let’s teach fight. Let’s teach roots. Let’s teach the value of dying for what is right. Let’s teach different than we are.”
I move in and out of the blackout freely, a Zamboni driver choosing the scratchiest path to cleanse. When I come to, Josey is dismantling a camera at the kitchen entrance of Gopa Academy. Bill Chuck eats a hot dog through an open window in his sedan. Little Petty wears a Bruce Springsteen tank top and bulky pants, a tool belt to complete the ensemble. He picks the digital lock with a cell phone. We are inside.
“That’s a Roger,” Bill Chuck mumbles through the window. “Check in soon.”
Two hours later, we have filled the theater and props with dead bunnies, bloodied machetes lying in a pile at the edge of the stage. We hacked off the legs and heads and ears, spilled their entrails over the sets and rubbed the carcasses on armrests and doorknobs. We do not slaughter any bunnies. We take the ones that already perished, having succumbed to whatever disease found them.