Therapy Mammals

by Jon Methven

  “Make me understand, Pistol.”

  I point into his chest. The lacrosse dads watch, hoping for a fight into which they will throw their support for Ray, a fellow lax dad. “It’s not a game, Ray.”

  “I know it isn’t a game.”

  “I need information. When do they arrive? Where are they going? How many?”

  “The murder writers,” he says. “Fine. But I want to know what you’re planning.”

  Nannies and moms arrive, another slow rain. From the sidewalk, I look through the windows into the lobby. Doug Whorley, Todd McClutchen, and Rhen Sedlock are surrounded by girls, one of whom is Iliza. The nannies are huddled near the coffee. I lean into Ray’s neck. “We’ll warn them to stay clear. But no one gets away with glorifying school shootings.”

  “What will happen?”

  “I don’t know that yet.” And it’s the truth. In the way I do not trust Ray, Josey does not trust me. “I haven’t been told.”

  The storm and the drug overdose have eclipsed another announcement, that Jackson’s and Jason’s son, Damian, was one of two students accepted overnight into the ECI program, the first Slancy kid. From the sidewalk, I wait for Jackson to glance my way. It feels unnatural of me to stand here, a grown man ignoring someone I love, someone with whom I have swapped stories in front of a fire and committed larceny. But I am not permitted inside, nor would my friend accept my congratulations.

  “Jackson,” I holler, slapping the glass. A security guard whispers into a fist. “Hey, Jackson.” Mothers pretend not to notice. My large friend glances toward the window, his family sheepish behind him. I hold up a thumb that transforms into a fist. Jackson turns his back.

  Pistilini-Dalton Drug Cartel

  He waits in my backyard, lounging in a chaise. His eyes are closed, a faith I find satisfying and foolish. Toby thinks we are of the same tribe, teammates helping one another out of a strange pickle, our similar skin color and Gopa sweatshirts ensuring that we do not have to fight and stab deceptively.

  “Finally get expelled?” I ask.

  “I felt I deserved a snow day.” He sits up. “Geezus, Pisser, aren’t you a weatherman?”

  “Not anymore.” I assess the yard. The flowers are likely ruined, though I might be able to salvage some of them. There are several downed branches that I will carve into chunks for the fire pit.

  “Good news. I have work for you.”

  He stands to negotiate. He has a slight cut above his eye, according to the nannies a falling out with Doug Whorley. Purportedly, word of Toby’s secret video has gotten around, several lacrosse players concerned about their own cameos. I could knock him unconscious and chainsaw him apart and have most of him buried before dinner. With his parents living overseas, several weeks would pass before anyone would miss him.

  Having sold the video to Allie Sedlock, Toby could have done the smart thing and paid off his debt. He did not do that. He knows I had something to do with Russ Haverly’s death and he needs a go between with Capra. I am his drug mule.

  He hands me a list. “This is for starters. We’ll arrange weekly drop-offs.”

  Like a weather pattern forming in the periphery of my conscience, my tribe is anxious for the task, having already determined the conclusion. “You owe money. He won’t give me drugs if you don’t pay your debt.”

  “Look at it as an investment. Float me a loan. I’ll get you back next month.”

  “If you want me to buy you drugs because you’re too much of a pussy to do it yourself, pay me upfront.”

  Toby smiles, shakes his head, the irritation of dealing with a middle-aged father. He turns over an envelope and sits down. “About fifteen grand. It’ll have to do.”

  Fifteen grand. Allie Sedlock bought the video cheap. I walk to the chaise and dump him onto the lawn. “Get out of my yard, Toby.”

  Feline Bedrest

  I locate Clint Eastwood beneath a tree near the seventh tee. Her belly bloated, she is unable to move and has not eaten. She allows me to carry her home and accepts a bed in the shed where Gus runs warm bowls of milk until she falls asleep. Josey arrives with a woman she introduces as a veterinarian, who shakes golden hoops and burns incense, announcing that Clint Eastwood will give birth to four healthy kittens any day. My therapy beast is on bedrest until then.

  With the wedding days away, the mother of the groom has gone quiet, Missus Ferguson not returning phone calls. Laura spent most of the afternoon tracking her down, the two thousand standing pancakes dressed in tuxedoes that she ordered already in production. We need the money in the way Capra needs money to survive, in the way Harry and Allie and Jackson and Jason and Ray and Olivia need it, all of us starving for redemption.

  “It’s not just greed that corrupts goodness,” I penned in a blog post, which I recite in front of my fire pit, “but an assimilated greed entwined in everyone else’s business, a complete organism. To hold back on personal indulgence means to steal the food from another mouth. Those who earn money and have money enjoy spending money. Those who enjoy food buy food. Those who enjoy toys buy toys. Those who enjoy sex buy sex. Those without money will accuse them of greed, but if they withhold their indulgence, if they do not reinsert the means back into the organism, the organism dies. The organism exists because the beast requires indulgence.” Bill Chuck is at the fire tonight. Ray McClutchen is here. Little Petty wanders in somehow, as do several people I do not recognize. We talk about politics and big retail and prostitution while Jason Isbell sings about lost mothers and dusty lands and busted boats. “Indulgence is natural. It is a feral entity. It must grow and eat. But wickedness is also an indulgence. Evil is an indulgence. Greed forsaking goodness is an indulgence. They grow pestilent until they are contagious and infect the future, carve a hole in the bottom of our skiff. The worthy always rise up to contain the leak before the ship is lost.”

  Tragedy Abounds

  The Fire Mouth FM Weed Apocalypse Propane Vapor Torch Backpack and Squeeze Handle retails at VillageShop for $650 with a Zenith Membership. Industrial hose a length of eight feet, dispensing five-hundred-thousand BTUs of flame, it can decimate a motor vehicle in traffic, not to mention the occupants of a city bus, a subway car, or the waiting area of most coffee shops. My chore requires a more direct flame. I have turned down the gauge to a concentrated needle aimed directly at the fuse box, a steady stream of lava that burns the paint and alloys until they drip and erupt in sparks. If not for soldering goggles, my eyes would tear so badly I would not be able to watch the flames catch the wood, which would be a shame. The nice thing about this felony, or rather the surprising thing, is that I did not end up here during a blackout. I am present, of sound mind. I stopped taking the Luderica a week ago.

  Laura drank herself to sleep last night, distraught over the Fergusons canceling the order of two-thousand delicacies long after the pancake battalion was complete. We threatened legal action, but it is an empty threat. We can no more afford a lawyer to oversee a pancake lawsuit than we can sit idle while our investment in Moveable Museums disappears. Standcake is stuck with it, the cost of doing business with wealthy degenerates.

  Fortunately, Laura has a deranged husband with a tribe of vengeful demons who have not vacated the chemically augmented premises. When I ceased the medication, along with the untimely erections and blackouts, the tribe was supposed to disintegrate into the folds of my subconscious, along with the notion of playfulness that I never discovered. Instead the animals have stuck around, demonstrating the ins and outs of arson. Bill Chuck handles the investigation, the arriving fire chief a poker buddy and September-Eleven alum who has been briefed on my battle with the school tour faction. Earlier, I walked backward down the nature trail toward the seventh tee, then into the Hudson and waded around the eastern side of the island until I reached the clubhouse. The equipment I floated in, a swan raft (nine dollars for Zenith Members) I do not recall ordering, the swan’s head
complete with a smile and a jerky wink. Once finished, I placed the equipment in the swan and set it adrift, the wind taking it toward Staten Island, the direction of Russ Haverly’s final voyage, though the choppy current will ensure the propane tank and torch end up in the river.

  By the time I arrive home, the sun creeps east over Brooklyn, the last Saturday in May. I enjoy a cigarette and water what is left of the flowers and listen as Laura calms Missus Ferguson, who is coming to grips with news that her venue is aglow with flame on the morning of her daughter’s wedding. It was set to be a beautiful event, a golf course overlooking the Manhattan skyline. She has not inquired if anyone was injured and has no one to turn to but Laura, who is smart and brash with the contacts to salvage the day.

  Laura suspects what I have done, although we are bound by our sins and beyond discussing rational reactions. What loved ones did is less fortuitous than what they are willing to do, and a dozen other bumper sticker sayings to adhere to our marriage. We listen to the roar of sirens over our bridge, watch the parade of neighbors make their way to the pyre, imagine the well-planned golf outings that are being destroyed this very minute. Six o’clock in the morning, and already Laura has put in calls to seven possible locations, Missus Ferguson apologizing for the pancake mix-up and offering to pay double for the mistake. All of our former friends are invited, and soon they will receive scrambled calls that the venue has changed. My animals have made sure there is nothing suspicious about the conflagration. Days after the macabre storm, Bill Chuck’s fire chief will know the cause: delayed malfunction from a lightning strike that sat dormant in the fuse box, the glitch eventually getting the better of the wiring. A freak event.

  Petunias are survivors. Throw a late season thunderstorm at them, freeze them with hail and snow, gusts of wind that would flatten mortal petals. But give them a few days to dry out and douse them with fresh water and sun, and they glow like the cunning offshoots of wedding lilies. Gus watches from the porch, studying my odd accuracy with the hose, which is when I realize I am still wearing the goggles, a cigarette wiggling out of my lips. It should be weird except my son is donning thick slippers, a towel around his head, Laura’s bathrobe, his arms crossed against his bony frame.

  “What’s all the noise?”

  “Morning kiddo,” I call over the thick, wet stream. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  I nod, shake the hose at him, inhale.

  “We’re supposed to sleep in on Saturdays.”

  “Come on out and talk to me.”

  “The grass is wet.”

  “Take off the goddamn slippers, Gus.” I do not mean to yell, but we are long overdue for a man to nanny talk.

  He kicks off the shoes and wanders to the edge to watch the petunias. Since Slancy does not have its own fire department, we contract with companies in Brooklyn. The bridge cannot support the weight of large fire trucks, or rather no one knows if it can. The trucks thunder up to the entrance of Slancy and phone Bill Chuck, who offers conflicting directives. There was no one inside—we made sure of it—so there’s really no rush to salvage what is already an insurance loss.

  “What’s that smell?”

  “The clubhouse. It’s on fire.”

  “Oh dear. Was anyone hurt?”

  “Nah, it was empty. Want to go have a look?”

  By now it is a mass of splintering debris, the flames carving through the four-year-old roof and pushing out a black smoke that hovers over the island. If one concentrates, beyond the gentle whisper of the cell phone trees, one can hear the conflagration spiral. It is a scene of violence and destruction that I know Gus does not wish to see. I slap the porch for him to sit.

  Gus is strange, but he is a gentle soul. I have pushed him into combat and logical hobbies, neither of which suit his timid being, hoping to eke out a vigilance I believe he needs in his artillery. Pitted against his peers, there is nothing exceptional about his resume. And yet he is a kind child, caring, he worries about others—default goodness, is what Josey would call it. One morning in February, a new kid arrived at Gopa, the parents unsure what to make of the lobby or how they fit into our complicated cliques. An innateness to it, Gus approached the boy, introduced himself, and offered to have lunch with him on his first day. The boy took one look at the old lady standing before him and knew intrinsically to decline. Too gentle for this world.

  I sense lately that Gus is scared of me. I cannot blame him. I smell like the outdoors. I have a beard and fresh wounds. I rarely wear pants in the backyard. Children are wiser than we give them credit for, and he has heard the rumors. I doubt that he believes I killed his nanny, but even if he does believe it, I hope he considers it was for good reason. I am his father, after all, required to make tough decisions.

  “I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Okay.”

  I put an arm around him. “Remember what the therapist said about caterpillars and butterflies?”

  “How I’m in a cocoon, sure.”

  “It’s time to emerge from the cocoon.”

  A literate boy, Gus does not enjoy metaphors. “What does that mean exactly?”

  “Stop being Millicent. Start dressing like boys your age.”

  “Emerge from the cocoon.” Gus sighs, watches his lap. “I might need more time.”

  “There is no more time. Emerge, Gusser. Spread those wings and let her rip.”

  “Let her rip how?”

  I have no idea. “Live life. Enjoy childhood. Get after it with other boys your age.”

  “Get after it.” He thinks about the wording. “Like with wrestling?”

  “Sure, if you enjoy it.”

  “Chess?”

  “Do you even know how to play Chess?”

  “What about lacrosse?”

  “Something we should consider, sure.” I hug him toward me so hard I could bruise him. Protective gear suggests kids cannot hurt each other, which makes them rougher than necessary. Gus is wiry, weak, but it is his soul I hope to protect from terminal catastrophe. He does not have the savvy or looks to hang with the lacrosse team, an outsider before he is even issued a jersey. Or perhaps, in Gus’s estimate, being a lacrosse dad is something I would enjoy, a designation that would lift my spirits even though I know I don’t belong with them either. “Look, kiddo, I just want you to do things that make you happy. Don’t try things you think will make me happy. What is it that would make you happy?”

  Gus glances around the yard, searching for an answer that will please me. He connects with an idea until a smile invades his face. “Rhythm,” he says.

  “What about her?”

  “She runs around the golf course naked. At first her fathers were okay with it. Then later, when other parents found out, they made her stop. I think I’d like to try that.”

  “Run around naked?” I have been unhappy for a long time. Being unhappy makes other people unhappy, which creates a circular snare of unhappiness. We are bargaining over something I do not quite understand but will later realize is a test. Gus is testing to see if I am true to my word, that his happiness is my profound goal. “If I allow it, you’d take off the robes?”

  “I like the Gopa uniforms. The gray and purple work nicely together. Uniforms at our age imply a common pursuit.”

  “And you’ll stop acting like a nanny?”

  “Not all at once,” he says. “I’ll think about it for sure. One other thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “You smell. If I start dressing like a boy, you have to start dressing like a dad.”

  “It’s a deal.” I rub a hand through his soft hair. “Don’t tell your mother about the streaking.”

  Stealing Back My Unborn Children

  Slancy feels apocalyptic by early evening, smoke mingling in the shadows of precocious trees that sense their near destruction
. The island is empty, many neighbors having traveled to the Fergusons’ new wedding locale, a Long Island golf course, where they plan to spend the evening to escape the fumes. The fire was the main story on the evening news, schadenfreude to the larger island as entitled Slancy succumbs to its decadence. Laura is gone as well, although she left instructions to sneak into the McClutchens’ house and steal back what belongs to me. Bill Chuck chaperones. We enter through the garage door, Bill showing me the mechanics of my fifty-piece lock pick set I will never use again. I do not know when my hatred of Olivia McClutchen began. It was nothing specific, neither of us good enough to sustain our unions, the ugly ducklings of the Cooperative Marriage. If we were different people, it might have brought us closer. Instead our revulsion extends into stolen semen.

  I feel badly about what my actions will do to the financial prospects of my neighbors, Jason and Jackson, even the Sedlocks and Ray. But I want to see Olivia McCluthchen’s scowl when it sets in that her investment has failed her future, that divorce is expensive, that to maintain a Gopa lifestyle she must rejoin the ranks of the working class. I want a personal association with her defeat when I reach into her freezer—where she keeps Popsicles for Maddie and ice packs for knocked heads—to retrieve three vials of pure Tom Pistilini, the dumb bitch not even bothering to hide it.

  Bill eats a Popsicle. “Tell me again why you have frozen semen?”

  “We were thinking of having a third.”

  “Kids,” he says. Bill is a survivor of three marriages, three divorces, four kids, two stepchildren, eleven grandchildren. “Used to be easier when all we had to do was fuck.”