Therapy Mammals

by Jon Methven

  “What do you want?” He knows from my stare, possibly my sobriety, that I am here about Moveable. He has spoken to Harry Sedlock. He knows what tomorrow is, the arrival of the murder culture writers who will initiate the onset of wealth.

  “You know what they say about bridges, Jackson?”

  “Don’t burn ’em down.”

  “The same is true the other way. You can’t just give the bridge a little kick in the cement. You have to blow it up.”

  “Geezus, don’t say anything more.”

  “Take the family out of town. Just get in the car and drive.” Jackson knows better than to ask. He has been with me in felony mode. He knows something inside my cryptic chamber has awakened, something sooty and untamed from a place we do not acknowledge. He has touched this world and turned back to the familiar warmth of wireless convenience and motion sensor luminosity. Already he is calculating the lies he’ll need to tell Jason. They likely have plans to be at the location when the bus of journalists arrives, some fruit punch and cookies, summer trousers and jackets, a casual hello. Jackson will have to cancel with the Sedlocks. He’ll have to feign excitement, a spur of the moment lifestyle that Jason loathes, be convincing and enigmatic to encourage his husband of his nomadic jaunt.

  “Wait.” He slides the door and walks onto the porch, where he offers a hand. “Good luck, Pisser. If we don’t see each other again.”

  “You haven’t heard.” I lean in and hug my friend. “It’s Pistol.”

  Here Come the Worthy

  “If we abide it, pretend it does not belong to us, it is the same as performing it. If we choose to ignore it, we condone it. To say it is something else or someone else’s is a dull validation, in the manner that litter is not a communal tribulation. To object quietly, in what passes for indigenous prayer, is not enough. Prayer requires intention. Prayer requires grit. I must purge this to be whole again.”

  The grimy stillness of a Saturday morning in June, when we require more sleep after a long bout of contention, several parents are awake, boosting my post to the forefront of the most read list. Is this about prayer in school, of which WorthyMom28 does not approve, or does “purge” refer to rumors that members of the ceramics club have been vomiting in the girls’ locker room?

  Today is my tiny offering, my substantiation as a father and member of the parenting sect. In the same manner I chaired the committee that saw the school eaves troughs reengineered so the facilities room did not flood when it rained; or how I sat on the Gopa Parents Think Recycle committee to argue with other concerned guardians about global warming and recycling bins that match our school colors; or attended every parent-teacher meeting since Iliza’s enrollment—today is how I give back. My action, while illegal and purposefully excessive so the media must pay attention, is momentous in its resolve. This is a worthy endeavor. This is a silent reinforcement of our species’ evolution that we are progressing on the proper trajectory.

  Toby rides with me and the money. Josey, Phil, and Linda are in another car tailing the bus where Little Petty will amuse guests with gothic notions of American butchery. “Did you know most gunmen have been linked to antidepressants and processed meat?” he will say, a chuckling head bob. “Did you know blood makes up seven percent of human body weight?” Bill Chuck and Lieutenant Misch, along with a fleet of drug enforcement agents, wait in undercover vehicles surrounding Gopa Academy. Capra is causing the traffic congestion, police agencies eager to arrest a drug trespasser that, up until my involvement, has been untouchable, the Al Capone of the private school community.

  The fifteen scribes who write murder culture were given ample warning. Eleven heeded the threats and opted out of the inaugural Moveable Memorial Tour, with four arriving at JFK last night along with Conner Mack. This morning, from Tug’s phone, Whitman issued each a final caution, which according to Little Petty went ignored, one man actually boarding the bus with his wife, which by my count tallies six.

  “Thirteen passengers.” Little Petty’s voice is calm through the two-way radio, seated on the bus parked outside the Sheraton JFK. He sounds casual, as if he runs these sorts of tours every weekend. “I make fourteen in case anyone cares.”

  “I count six,” I tell him. They are: Pietre Graeme of Leichenbestatter, Hansa Schultz of Voldtage, Meniza Perl of Rebinada, David Gillard of Grincer, along with his wife Tonya, and Connor Mack.

  “Harry is on the bus.”

  “Harry?” The name seems distant. My neighbor, Harry. The man who ruined my daughter’s junior year—that Harry. Father of two, husband, the best of what Slancy can become, homeowner Harry. I thought it arrogant that he did not hire security for this event. Instead he opted to chaperone it himself, which will make an exchange of drugs and money laborious. If Harry is on the bus, it means Allie is with him, which means no one drove Tungsten to Gopa this morning to prepare for her role as one of the dozen shooting victims. The Sedlocks have rented the cafeteria to reenact a school massacre, which will be a mainstay of the tours. Tungsten makes nine passengers. She takes her therapy dog, Muggly, with her everywhere, making ten. Solidarity in numbers, Harry brought along the other members of the investment club who chose to participate. Jason would not be swayed by Jackson, which makes eleven, and my nemesis Olivia is twelve.

  “Who’s lucky number thirteen?” Josey asks from her radio.

  “It’s sitting on Olivia’s lap,” I say. Snotty, allergic Maddie.

  Little Petty clicks his tongue. “People make choices.”

  The route was set days ago. It should be thirty-five minutes until the bus arrives at Gopa, where the passengers will be treated to a continental breakfast—scones, muffins, fresh squeezed juice—along with a simulation of every mass shooting that happens on a monthly basis. The school is empty this Saturday, the administration renting out the cafeteria to the Sedlocks, who hired the cast of Our Town to flex their thespian skills, the school brimming with an invisible anticipation that precedes every catastrophe.

  The plan is for Little Petty, using his horse blade knife, to halt the driver a block before the school. The exchange will happen and the bombs will explode a safe distance from Gopa, outside the radius of dozens of students expected to be waiting in the glass lobby. Whitman will livestream the fortuitous scene for an insatiable viewing public, which enjoy violence and terrorism on Saturday mornings in the way past generations sought animated superheroes. With Harry on board, things are different. He is directing the driver’s route, running ahead of schedule, seated in the first row so that Little Petty, Steven as he is known to the Sedlocks, does not have access to the driver’s neck. The bus is not stopping until it parks in front of the lobby.

  Inside my Subaru Forester, Toby is giddy, smashing air drums on the dashboard, ignorant of my intermittent radio communication. He is actually excited, having gotten in the car with his lacrosse equipment, asking if I could drop him in Red Hook after we are through, a Saturday intramural league to hone those college skills. He has no idea that he is soon to be arrested for purchasing drugs with the intent of selling them to minors. I am certain his father will buy him out of this mess, although his expulsion from Gopa will be a blow to next year’s lacrosse campaign, a subtle fuck you from the departing Pistilini clan.

  On the phone, Bill Chuck. “Bus at the Williamsburg Bridge. That’s a few minutes ahead of schedule. We aren’t ready.”

  “It’s Harry. He’s on the bus.” I outline the passenger list. “It’ll be okay.”

  Bill disappears, consulting with Misch. He comes back agitated. “Fuck, Tom. That doesn’t play. Kids on board, we don’t like it. Call it off.”

  “We’re not calling it off.” Josey’s voice, running the operation. We might not like it the way we did hours ago, but we listen. “It happens today.”

  Whitman now. “Kids weren’t part of this. Pistol, what do I do?”

  “Tom isn’t in charge,” says Phil. “We g
o as planned.”

  “Kids, Josey,” I say.

  “What kids?” Toby asks. “Tell me what’s happening, Pisser.”

  Josey’s voice is less sure. “Don’t you think I know it?”

  “Cargo has to be on that bus,” Bill says. “Otherwise none of it works. Which means the bus has to stop like we planned.”

  Toby taps along to a song. It is the tapping that strings it together. His fingers on his knee draw my eyes to his sneakers, eventually his helmet dangling on an overloaded lacrosse stick. I consult a map of lower Manhattan to find the bus on paper.

  Someone, “Fuck.”

  “There’s no way to stop the bus. Let’s call it while we can.”

  Little Petty, “We’re turning.”

  “Listen to me, Bill. That bus will stop. Just like we planned.”

  “How will it stop?”

  “Just have everyone ready.”

  “On our way,” someone calls.

  Whitman: “Be safe, Pistol.”

  There is little time to consider strategy. I turn off the ignition and dial Capra. “Everything as planned. In three minutes.” Capra won’t go near the bus. Misch’s men are following him, and he’ll be near enough to arrest when the time comes. It’s questionable if Capra’s man will make the exchange after he sees what is about to happen. But he has one hundred thousand reasons to board that bus, and I’m counting on capitalism.

  I hang up and retrieve the duffel bag from the backseat, unzipping it to reveal all of Ray McClutchen’s optimism. Inside, I place Tug’s phone, rezip, and toss the bag onto Toby’s lap.

  “You set, kiddo?”

  “I’m just putting the money on the bus. That’s what you said.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you bring the drugs by later?”

  “Something like that.” Toby is a child, as green as Iliza or Gus or Maddie. He will grow into an evil, wretched, hungry consumer who will never appreciate his privilege in this world. But for now, he is a kid deserving of my protection, or at least some wisdom. “Listen, Toby, learn something today.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “A teachable moment. Watch what I do. Think about why I do it.”

  “You’re a role model, Pisser.” He laughs. “A regular mentor to the youth.”

  I slap the back of my hand into his face, knuckles into skin as he bounces off the window. My tribe has a misogynistic fascination with inflicting violence on his perfect features. He comes up ringing. “I’m a father. I have a responsibility you will never understand, not for a long time. But hear this, boy. Sometimes the right thing, the worthy thing, does not come packaged neat and honorable. Sometimes it looks like me.”

  He knows better than to smirk. Toby would like to argue, but there is a bag of money on his lap and I have assumed a leadership role in the Pistilini-Dalton drug cartel. I reach between his legs and wrestle the equipment out my door.

  “That’s my stuff. What are you doing?”

  “Game time, Toby. No matter what happens to me, the money must be on the bus in the next three minutes.”

  I like the fear in Toby’s face, the shape of his mouth, that he has finally tuned in to the proper emotional frequency. He wears a baseball cap and holds a pair of sunglasses, no stranger to crime. “What could happen to you?”

  “I could get hit by a bus or something.”

  “Pisser, what are you talking about?”

  “Figure of speech, Toby.”

  I close the door, leaving him to ponder why a grown man is undressing his lacrosse stick on a busy avenue in Lower Manhattan. There are gloves, shoulder pads, a helmet, a jersey, and a jockstrap that I toss into the street. I cannot figure out the shoulder pads so I toss those as well, fitting the jersey over my swollen frame. It is tight but I manage, the word WORTHY over the number twenty-nine. I squeeze my head into the helmet and slide on the gloves, holding the lacrosse stick like a club.

  Weather is faulty. Weather is constantly changing. We can issue calculations based on nifty models and tracking software, but in the end we are mostly reacting to it once it occurs. I know how it looks as I step onto the street, an oversized child where he ought not be. Cars race, bodies in motion. In one of these tin huts Bill Chuck and Lieutenant Misch wonder about their participation. Somewhere Josey tunes in to the shifting pattern, discussing logistics with Linda and Phil. Somewhere Laura and our children are safely stowed. They will receive a call that I have been involved in a traffic accident, but even I cannot predict the weather this time, a fatality or otherwise.

  There is no traffic, the morning calm. I hear a wave of revving motors several blocks away, the overhead hum of a city that will barely blink at a traffic accident. From beneath Toby’s cage, I glimpse the bus, the black outline over a silver grill that might pardon me death while subjecting me to a lifetime of motorized mobility and mechanical sympathy, three blocks away. From inside the car Toby bangs on the window, confused. Is he worried about my safety, or his lacrosse equipment? Two blocks now, a sense of movement around me, a vague notion that things are happening, Whitman’s voice from atop a bench as he films martyrdom. “Get out of the street, Pistol!” My tribe is tuned into the frequency of Josey’s worry—no, no, no—of Bill Chuck’s instincts—this is it, here we go—one block, the traffic flowing, the gentle slump of the bus motor as the driver approaches a bend, lets off the gas, giving me a fighting chance.

  I gauge the movement at about twenty-five miles per hour, fast and solid but slow for this avenue, taxis racing past. This is the moment courage is either there or fleeting, the ability to step in front of a moving vehicle or gently succumb to the sidelines and live forever with regret. The tribe is with me, all of us summoning the motion that fosters my numb legs into the path at the last second, the bus bearing down as I turn to face my contribution. And then it happens. Tribes of savages, my saving grace. Bus versus man is no contest. Bus versus tribe is different. I cannot help it as my eyes close and I fall away from the impact. The brakes screech. Everything goes silent. A woman screams, Whitman actually. Mayhem.

  My knees buckle as the impact spits me forward, a plastic bottle twisting on the pavement before I come to rest near the curb. I lie in a puddle between two vehicles, one leg on the sidewalk that halts my trajectory, the strangest thought: from whence this puddle, did it rain, did my streak of prognostication cease? The impact scatters my helmet, which absorbs the cement, Toby’s screams drowned out by my Japanese made metal. I assess my condition. I vomited on myself. The wind is knocked out of my gut as I retch on the ground, possibly broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a concussion, alive, my tribe bellows, hooting in my spirit. The lacrosse stick is bent in half, a crooked teepee as I hear movement and voices behind me, boots on cement.

  “Geezus hell, came out of nowhere,” the driver says, assessing the fender.

  “Was it a kid?”

  “I don’t know. One minute it’s not and then it is.”

  “Did you hit a kid?” Harry is shouting. “Where is it then?”

  They wander the street as hands slap glass overhead. I listen to the commotion, breathing, slightly asleep. I hear a car door, Toby, in spite of the situation, walking the money through the middle of the confusion toward the bus. From the far side of the street, another door. I turn my head but cannot make out the boots that belong to Capra’s man. It happens, both the money and the drugs are on the bus, no one watching the door as they search the street for a child’s limp body. According to plan, Petty is on the bus, no one paying attention as he switches the phone from the money to the drugs, making sure the evidence is certified before he powers the pressure cookers. Seven minutes until detonation. Wheels screech. Doors slam. Sirens.

  I come around sensing movement, a foot into my side. The trees have blossomed, a nascent shelter for the birds that rubberneck our morning nonsense. These silly, fucki
ng, bipedal mammals, what are they doing now? A shadow in the shape of Harry Sedlock enters the frame. He stares down at my WORTHY jersey, a frown, surprised to see his neighbor dressed like his son. I am oddly happy to see Harry, to be alive, and I offer a bloody smile, which causes a second thud, his foot into my stomach.

  Josey is over me, talking fast. Capra knew enough to steer clear of the drop, but Misch and his team were following him. Both Capra and his bag man are in custody, the street filled with sirens and familiar boots. “They got him,” Josey says. I smile and bleed. “Toby, too. They’re arresting him now.” Officers have confiscated both bags. Inside the drugs, they will find a phone that belongs to Tug, aka Russ Haverly. After the explosion, they will track it to purchases of all the equipment needed to assemble bombs; sorry about that, Capra, a repercussion for selling drugs to kids, specifically my child. Josey tries to lift me, encourage me to move, but I cannot feel my body as I grab for Harry’s leg.

  “Bomb,” I say. It comes out in breath and spit.

  “Fuck you say, Pisser.”

  “Tom, stop talking,” Josey says. “Get up and move.”

  Harry shoves me again with his foot and Josey slaps him and Phil wrestles her away. Harry does not understand the crime scene. He mistakes the sirens as police arriving to deal with a fender bender, though what kind of traffic accident summons such a battalion? I wheeze as I explain. “On the bus, Harry. Bomb.”

  Harry calls to a police officer, pointing out my condition, hoping to expedite his involvement and move the bus two hundred yards forward to deposit his constituents at their destination. The others remain on the bus, having been ordered to stay seated and calm by Harry. That is when it arrives, my tribe’s movement. These are someone’s parents, perhaps, someone’s brothers and sisters, someone’s children. The things we do for our children.

  Josey and Phil try to help me again but the mechanics do not work, the pain forcing me to the ground. I am a tribe, not one man. On a second attempt, we climb onto elbows and eventually feet, talking loudly. We are not leaving anyone behind, comes our voice. Dizzy, a ringing, I still wear one lacrosse glove, which clutches the bent shaft of Toby Dalton’s stick. An officer, his hand perilously close to Harry Sedlock’s nose, orders my neighbor onto the bus to sit quietly.