by JP Bloch
“Crybaby,” I said to my image in the mirror. I stuck around to answer a few questions and that was that. The machine was on when her heart stopped, and my fingerprints were not on it. The same doctor I talked to before shrugged and told me that coma patients sometimes briefly woke up before dying.
“I’m curious,” he said. “Was she lucid?”
“Stick your curiosity up your lucid ass,” I replied.
I knew I should stay for Marty and his mother and baby daughter.
When they arrived shortly thereafter, the doctor pulled them aside. Marty put his hand to his mouth and called out, “Oh my God,” but he did not cry. His mother, holding the baby, turned to look at me. I wasn’t sure why she did this. I gave her my most sympathetic expression.
“I wanted to be here when you heard,” I said quietly, as Marty approached me.
“Thanks, Doc.” He gave me another of his awful hugs. I felt I had to hug him back under the circumstances.
“Let us be alone now,” his mother said. “You’ve done enough.”
I wondered what she meant by “enough” and shivered a little. Fortunately, Marty interjected. “He’s done more than enough, Ma.”
“Call me if there’s anything I can do.” And with that, I left them alone.
What I did was probably wrong. Yet even if it was, it felt like the one selfless thing I had ever done. Not that I felt good. Far from it. I felt like I was burning up inside from guilt. And obviously I was afraid I might get caught.
Linda was only part of it. I knew perfectly well that what made me do it was not her cries for help but that fucking identity thief. If I couldn’t control that asshole, at least I could control Linda. It was a relief to have her secrets rest with her death, and it was cathartic to feel that something was completely up to me. Maybe I was rationalizing, but I told myself that the identity thief made me do it, like a child blaming something on the devil.
Even the one selfless thing I ever did was also totally selfish.
Back at my home, Esther immediately asked, “Is everything okay?”
“I suppose.” I kissed her hard and held her like I might never let go.
“Well, whatever it was, I wish it happened more often.”
“Esther, let’s sit down and talk.”
She shrugged. “Okay.” We walked to the patio table by the swimming pool. It was a lovely night, filled with fragrance from the gardens Esther installed.
“Look, I’ve been thinking. If we have to change our names, we might as well get something good out of it. So maybe we should start over again someplace else.”
“But we just got done doing that.”
“Not really, if you think about it. We left because of—well, because of my stupidity. But this time, we’ll be in charge. We have to believe that we are or else we’ll completely fall apart.”
Esther thought about it. “Well, I do have only one job to finish up. And I did always love it more back home where Sabrina is.”
I only wanted to get the hell away from anything to do with Linda Goldstein. Yet the more I thought of it, it made good sense to move back where we came from, since the identity thief was almost certainly back there someplace. I’d catch him myself, if I had to move into my bank with a sleeping bag. And if anyone became suspicious about my behavior in light of Linda’s death, I’d tell them the truth: we changed our names because my lawyer said to, and we’d moved because my wife wanted to be closer to our beautiful daughter.
“Great. We’ll change our names and move by the end of month, back across the country. Back home, where we belong.”
The next day—after a sleepless night—I saw my two male patients. The first one was the guy who was full of himself. He told me that he should’ve won first prize at a karaoke contest the night before but that someone else got more applause because everyone felt sorry for her.
“Can I sing for you, Doc?” he asked. “It would validate me.”
“Sure.” I smiled encouragingly. I had to endure his thin, mediocre voice as he crooned, “This Guy’s in Love with You.”
Next came that morbid male patient. I always dreaded seeing him, though of course I couldn’t give the slightest indication of this.
“You know what really gets me?” he asked.
“No,” I replied pleasantly.
“When people say really nasty things, but afterward they say they didn’t mean it.”
“Why does that bother you?”
He became agitated, twisting his fingers and breathing hard. “It makes no sense. Why would someone say something cruel and then supposedly not mean it? If you ask me, anger is when people are alive. They’re honest and raw. It’s the polite bullshit afterward that’s the lie. ‘I didn’t mean it!’ Like hell you didn’t mean it. You did mean it. What you don’t mean is your apology.”
I didn’t like hearing all this, but I had no choice. “Do you ever say things you don’t mean?”
He slammed his fist on the table. “Of course I do. It’s all the nice bullshit I tell people because I have to. That’s what drives me crazy.”
“That’s very interesting.”
He sat in silence before finally saying, apropos of whatever went on in his head, “Is it normal to think about killing people?”
Patients confide all sorts of nutty things, but I couldn’t help feeling this was some sort of cosmic retribution. “Why do you ask that?” I replied evenly.
“Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to end up killing someone. Or it’s more like I know I will. The anger, you know? It gets to be too much. I stay awake all night, listening to Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ and thinking about killing my parents. It feels like the only way out. The only way I’ll ever stop being angry.”
I shrugged. “I think everyone has at least one moment in life thinking about killing someone. In fact, I wouldn’t believe people who told me they never did.”
“You’re saying I’m normal?”
I thought carefully before speaking. “Let’s say I think you should also see a psychiatrist. The right medicine may help you even more. In fact, I’ll drive you to the hospital right now.”
His face brightened. “You will? Gee, thank you, Dr. Falcon. You’re the best.”
“It’s my job,” I replied neutrally.
"I WANT TO MEET BETSY,” Sequoia said brightly, as if deciding she was in the mood for a cup of tea.
We were in bed together, which had become like an office for us. While other couples watched TV in bed, we were always shuffling papers and checking our laptops and making major decisions in between another round of going at it. Sex, money, identity theft, divorce, McShrink, the shared secret of Biff’s death and Scotty’s abuse, take-out food for breakfast, lunch and dinner—it was all part of a singular whole that transpired on the exotic island of black satin sheets that was our bed. Given Sequoia’s food fetishes, I had developed a passion for pizza with white sauce and black olives. Yeah, love brings all the pieces of your life together. But sometimes those pieces are better off apart.
At the moment, I was answering my latest batch of McShrink e-mails. One guy wanted to know if his transsexual brother-to-sister should still be best man at his wedding, and a woman wanted to know if she should punish her son for punching her so hard he broke her nose. She said she’d never punished him before but always tried to reason with him as if they were best friends. My mom would’ve had fun answering that one.
It took me a moment to comprehend what Sequoia said. When I did, I sat up, startled. “Let me get this straight. You want to meet Betsy? It’s too bad Attila the Hun is dead, or maybe you could meet him, too.”
Sequoia giggled. “Now that’s no way to talk about the mother of your son.” She put her arm around my shoulder, easing me back into bed. “Seriously, sometimes women can work things out between themselves, without a man around.”
“Work out? What is there to work out?”
Sequoia wore a mischievous grin. “Oh, you know, to leave you alone to let
us raise Scotty.”
“That’s Ondine’s job.”
She rubbed behind my knee with her bare foot; this was a super turn-on spot on my body. “Ondine’s very good at what she does, but she’s a lawyer. I’d talk to Betsy as one woman to another. Besides, Ondine doesn’t know everything, and I do.”
It was true. By the time Ondine was back in town, Sequoia had long since convinced me to tell her nothing more. As far as my lawyer was concerned, Biff was still mysteriously missing, I had never stolen anyone’s identity or money, and Scotty would be moving in as soon as Sequoia and I found a place for the three of us—assuming the judge agreed, which seemed pretty much a no-brainer. Scotty had met Sequoia twice so far and thought she was “intelligent,” which was his nerdy kid’s way of saying he liked her. Mom, for her part, shrugged and said that anyone was better than Betsy. I had to explain to Sequoia that my mom was not one for warm fuzzies. Mom, of course, knew nothing about Sequoia being the niece of Jesse Falcon.
I hadn’t heard from Betsy since our crazed meeting in the coffee shop. This brought me comfort and alarm at the same time. I enjoyed pretending that she’d simply vanished, like someone I’d only imagined to have existed all those years. Or maybe she was in the Bahamas or Timbuktu searching for Biff. But the same silence could’ve meant she was up to something. According to her lawyer, she was still fighting for sole custody.
Sequoia put a silencing fingertip to my lips. “Wait, hear me out. I know that if I talk to Betsy, I mean really talk to her, I can convince her to leave us alone. And drop the custody thing with Scotty.”
“How?” I sat up on my elbow, stifling a yawn.
“She obviously can’t hack into the system by herself. And I’m sure her hundred grand from Biff’s parents is ancient history. So we pay her off. She can go on a fancy cruise to meet a billionaire with a bad heart.”
I did a little mental arithmetic. “I don’t want to keep stealing. And McShrink doesn’t do that well—I mean, not well enough to satisfy Betsy. Knowing what she knows, seven figures is the least she’d go for.”
“But we could put it—I mean I could put it—in investments for her. She can live on the interest of a well-invested quarter mil, especially if we also pay off the mortgage.”
“You don’t know how she spends money.”
Sequoia absently braided her hair, which was so soft that the braid kept falling right out again. “Oh, I think I have an idea. And the thing is, you have serious communication issues with her. You shouldn’t be talking to her at all.”
“‘Serious communication issues.’ That’s one way of putting it.”
“What you don’t see, dummy, is that in her mind if you offer her money, she’s a whore. But if I, the quote-unquote other woman, do it, it’s like she can convince herself she has the upper hand. Everyone needs to feel sometimes like they’re in control.”
I sighed in resignation. Something told me that there was no stopping Sequoia on this one. “Okay, on the condition that you meet in a public place, and I’m nearby, just in case.”
Sequoia laughed. “You mean you’ll wear a disguise?”
“Of course not. But I’ll . . . I dunno, I’ll be in my car right outside the restaurant or whatever it is.”
Sequoia snapped her fingers. “Wait, I’ve got it. Why don’t we get one of those wire things? You know, like the cops use to record conversations.”
I thought about it. The last conversation I had with Betsy had her confessing to a murder she didn’t commit. Her story was absurd, yet she also talked all about Jesse Falcon. But Sequoia had a way of making me trust her, as if I were a fish that after some perfunctory struggle enjoyed getting hooked and reeled in. “I suppose it could be fun. Where do we get one?”
“Oh, there are stores that sell all kinds of junk like that.”
I’d never seen such a store, but then I’d never been much of a shopper. “I wonder what such a store would be called. Paranoid Plaza?”
“Leave it to me.” She squeezed my small nipples; the gesture took me by surprise. And so the plan went into action.
Sequoia sent Betsy an artsy card asking to meet with her. She explained how she wanted to know her because she was an important part of my life, and it would be good for Scotty, and so forth. Betsy normally hated other women—I guess she pretty much hated everyone—but like many people, she occasionally fell for an innocuous, flowery message.
I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall when they met at a trendy wine bar. But I needn’t have been envious. Their conversation only lasted maybe five minutes. Sequoia emerged with flushed cheeks, as though she’d heard a bad word for the first time.
“Well, that’s that.” Sequoia pulled her car door shut; it didn’t quite catch, so she closed it again. “Why are you staring at me?”
“Why do you think?” I revved up the engine. “What the hell happened?”
She cupped her chin in her hand and stared out the window. “I wrote her a check. She’s dropping the custody hearing. I didn’t even need to record anything.”
“And?”
“And what? I told you I’d get her to do it. Well, I did it.”
“So in other words, you sat down and said, ‘Hi, my name is Sequoia and I fuck your husband and how much would it cost for you to go away forever?’”
Sequoia turned on the car radio. As always, it was important for her to have light pop music on in the car, even though she played it so softly you barely could hear it. “Well, there was a little more to it than that. First, she refused to shake my hand and said how I was probably wearing a wire, and she would frisk me right there in public unless I turned it off. I pretended to have no idea what she was talking about, but I kind of subtly scratched at my chest to turn it off. Then she said how probably I put on a King Kong suit every night and gave it to you up the ass because that’s the only way a man could ever want me. I said that even as insults go, that made no sense, and Betsy was like, ‘What doesn’t make any sense is why any man would want you over me.’ I tried to lighten things up by saying, ‘Well, whoever understands what a man wants?’ But she goes, ‘Certainly not you, you frigid, gangrene twat.’ So I go, ‘It takes one to know one.’ Anyway, I guess she got insulting me out of her system, or maybe she realized it wouldn’t make me burst into tears, because then she turned all haughty and said how she couldn’t possibly see how I could have anything to say to her. I didn’t point out the obvious—that she showed up to the meeting voluntarily. Instead, I’m like, ‘Well, I have two hundred and fifty thousand reasons why.’ She goes, ‘Ha!’ Just like that, you know? ‘Ha! What makes you think I can be paid off? Love has no price tag. The love between a mother and her son can never be bought.’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh, brother,’ but of course I don’t say that.”
“All that happened in like two minutes?”
“It was seven minutes. My watch is excellent. But obviously you don’t know women nearly as well as you think.”
“No, indeed.”
“Anyway, instead I ask if a half mil will do the trick, and after batting it around for a while, she settled on two mil.”
“Two million bucks? I don’t have that much money. I still want to pay back Jesse Falcon, and I feel like hell every time I take more money from him. I can’t do it.” Some prick in front of me was driving at about two miles an hour. I honked at him and shot him the finger.
“No, but I have a little to throw into the pot. Plus . . . well, you have to promise you won’t be mad at me?”
Finally, the idiot in front of me changed lanes. “I promise.”
“Well, I’ve watched how you hack into my Uncle Jesse’s account, and I guess I . . . you know, took a little myself. Don’t worry, it’s in a secret offshore account. I figured he owed me, plus I had to prepare for the worst with Betsy, from what you told me. I mean, this is hardly the first time in history a quarter million turned out to be two million. It happens all the time.”
I looked at her angelic face, trying to
comprehend what she said. “Sequoia, I trusted you.”
“Yes, Your Holiness. And your point is?” She sighed and patted my shoulder. “Seriously, I think you need to stop being in denial about something important. You know you have no intention of ever paying my Uncle Jesse back. It’s something you tell yourself. It’s like someone who will never look for a job who keeps saying that tomorrow he’ll start looking for a job, or someone who will never stop drinking saying tomorrow he’ll stop drinking, or someone who never plans to diet and exercise saying that tomorrow—”
“Yeah, okay, I get it.” I was grateful for a red light to gather my thoughts. “Look, I know you did it for us. And for Scotty. Life is hard enough with Betsy for a mother, especially after—well, you know. But you act like you said you spent too much money on a new pair of shoes. These are serious crimes. I really—I mean, we really need to be careful.”
“I don’t appreciate that stupid remark. Very sexist. I expect better from you. But you need to admit that you love what you’re doing. Wrong, shmong. Even cops break the law. Even presidents. Sometimes people—”
All of a sudden, she grabbed my arm, shoved me over, and put her foot to the gas pedal, flooring it. We barely missed hitting a city bus and caused a cacophony of honking horns.
I quickly regained control of the car. “What the fuck was that? Have you lost your mind? What if Scotty was in the car?”
I’d never known Sequoia to yell at me before or for that matter, to swear unless quoting someone like Betsy. “Shit, it was my Aunt Esther. As in Esther Falcon. I haven’t seen her in years, but I’m sure of it. She was walking into a realtor’s office. Jesse, don’t you get it? They’re moving back.”