Trouble

by Jesse Kellerman

  “What happened to the Corner Project.” For three months, Lance had been shooting out the window, single-position shots of Avenue A and 11th that lasted three hours.

  “Fuck that shit, I’m through with it.”

  “You said it was like a Warhol film.”

  “In terms of how much it ate. This is much realer.”

  “I’m glad you’ve found your muse.”

  “She found me, dude.” Lance positioned a camera above the living-room TV.

  “Not in here,” Jonah said.

  “It’s not a camera on you, it’s a camera on the room. If you happen to be in—”

  “No.”

  A moment’s pout, then Lance began pulling up tape. “Fuckin killjoy.” He slid the sofa back into place and surveyed his handiwork with satisfaction. He coiled up the excess cable and scurried down the hall to the third bedroom, designated as the editing studio. A moment later he reappeared holding an ornately carved wooden box—a souvenir of Egypt-and-Morocco, junior year—from which he fished the raw materials for a joint. “What’re you doing here? I thought you had work. Is it a legal holiday? Is it Veterans Day?” He licked paper. “Fuck me, I have lost all sense of calendar.”

  “I had to stay late. I got back this morning.” Jonah paused. “I saw a woman being murdered.”

  “What?”

  Jonah told him. Lance’s pupils expanded as though he was already high. “Holy shit. This whole time I’m yadda yadda yadda, why didn’t you tell me?”

  Jonah shrugged.

  “Are you okay? What happened to your elbow? Fuck, dude, fuck.”

  “I’m tired. I need to do some reading, I have work tom—”

  “Are you retarded?” Lance waved the unlit joint. “You should spend the day in homage to yourself.”

  “I don’t see anyone giving me a trophy.”

  “Done and done.” And Lance ran out.

  Shaking his head, Jonah went to the corner of the living room, where a card table sagged beneath a stack of dense, outsize paperbacks. Like most med students, he bowed to the fiction that knowledge increased in proportion to textbook ownership. He picked out a surgery primer at random and opened to a section on wound management.

  Lance returned. “I love the Internet,” he said.

  “Did you really order me a trophy?”

  “Fuck yes I did. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this earlier. This is a moment that deserves to be enshrined. Look into the wireless.”

  “Put it away.” He flipped pages and found himself staring at the vasculature of the neck. His gut churned and he dropped the book on the floor.

  “Lo, the hero is weary, but he shall overcome—and prevail.”

  Jonah got up and headed for his room.

  “Hang on, you’re moving too fast.”

  He closed the door in Lance’s lens.

  You can’t escape me forever, Stem. I’ll make a star out of you yet.

  Gashed trachea, rent esophagus, major vessels misrouted, whistling blood, coughing blood, drooling blood, hissing it from nostrils and ears, a human Roman candle.

  Hey, dude, you think you’ll be on TV?

  Why was it so much worse than surgery. Fluids were fluids; wounds were wounds. He had been operating to save her. That was it: he was a surgeon, he’d removed a man’s violence. A violencectomy. He had saved a life. He was a healer.

  He heard Lance give up and walk away.

  The man the woman the moon.

  He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the area rug. Talking to Vaccaro had been a mistake, he decided. At the time she’d asked him to sign away his rights, he had been half out of his head. There had to be legal refuge in that. He hoped.

  The Post would carry the story with or without his consent. His parents got the Times, but he couldn’t count on keeping the news from them for long: Erich would find a copy of the Post lying around on the train; Erich would tell Kate, who would tell his mother, who would, upon recovering her composure, tell his father. If not Erich, then someone else; it was inevitable.

  His mother got anxious and distant in the face of bad news; his father, analytical and directed. Jonah’s usual role in this minidrama was to let them run their course, reassure them of his well-being, and field their advice before discarding it. He tended not to listen even when he knew they were right, a habit he supposed he shared with most of the world. But this was a new sort of problem. He needed help.

  You have reached the home of Paula and Steven Stem.

  “Hello,” he said into the machine. “Hello hello hello hel—”

  “Yonah.”

  “Hi Madonna, is my mother there, please?”

  “I get her.” The phone clattered down.

  His parents had a policy of screening all calls, whether it was noon or midnight. He had lobbied unsuccessfully to convince them to invest in caller ID. Although far from technophobic—his father was a gadget-freak—on this point they remained firm.

  What if it’s important?

  I pick up when I hear you, Jonah.

  What if I’m in prison and they allow me three rings before they cut me off, and you never get to hear my voice, and I rot for the rest of my life?

  That’s a risk I’m willing to take.

  He wondered if she’d make that joke now.

  His mother’s wryness sprung from too much education crammed into too domestic a life. She had a WASPy knack for coolly picking apart histrionics, and an equal knack for dismissing those same criticisms when she was the one losing it. Jonah didn’t relish the idea of either reaction.

  “My darling son, I think it’s so charming that you’re calling me from work. Just like your father.”

  “I’m at home.”

  “Then I think it’s so charming that you’re calling me on your day off. What a good boy.”

  He had to smile. “How are you, Mom?”

  “I’m making Peking duck. It’s a lot trickier than I’d’ve thought. You make these itsy-bitsy garnishes with scallions. In my previous life, I was not a Chinese chef.”

  “You never made Peking duck for me.”

  “I didn’t feel the need to impress you. Besides, it would have gone unappreciated. Did you know that for two years you refused to eat anything other than macaroni and cheese? We began to worry you’d get scurvy. That was why we started buying you Flintstones vitamins, so you wouldn’t end up looking like a sixteenth-century sailor.” Her knife scraped against what he guessed was the big bamboo chopping block. “I’m so happy you called. Do you need money?”

  “That’s not the only reason I call you.”

  “Of course not. Do you?”

  “Listen, Mom—”

  “Oh boy.” He heard her put down the knife. “Is this going to be serious?”

  “It might be.”

  In the background he heard her telling Madonna to dice these, please; he heard the phone brushing against her bony shoulder as she wiped her hands on a gingham towel. He could see her perfectly. He did not feel up to this.

  “All right, I’m all ears.”

  “Are you in the den?”

  “I’m in the breakfast room. Why?”

  “I…wondered where you were.” He paused. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too.” She sounded alarmed. “What’s the matter?”

  Telling her was much harder than telling Lance. Midway through, he began to shake. She said nothing, her long, clear breaths filling the silences.

  “Nothing happened to me,” he said. “Understand? I am perfectly fine. Not a scratch. Mom. Tell me you understand.”

  “I understand.” She swallowed. “What did the police say?”

  “It was an accident.”

  “Do they know that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did they say about you?”

  “They didn’t say anything.”

  “Have you called your father?”

  “You’re the first person who knows. Besides Lance.”

&
nbsp; “We should, we can conference call him. Hang on.”

  He started to object but she had already moved the receiver away.

  “Mom.” Hearing her dial, he groaned and slammed a fist into his bed.

  “I’m sure he’ll know what to say,” she said, coming back on over the ringing. “To be perfectly honest I don’t.”

  “I was going to call him right afterward.”

  “Well now we can all talk together.”

  “Doctor’s office.”

  “Hi Laurie, it’s Paula, it’s important.”

  While they waited he said, “You’re getting angry at me.”

  “Why would I be angry at you?”

  “You are,” he said, “and it’s not helping. Not at all. This is hard enough—”

  “Hello?”

  “Steve, it’s me.”

  “Laurie said it’s important. I’m about to eat, what’s on your mind.”

  “You’re eating? Why are you eating now?”

  “I haven’t had a moment, I’ve been on my feet all day.”

  “It’s three o’clock. If you eat now you won’t be hungry for the dinner I’m making.” She sounded hysterical. Please, Mom, please.

  “All right,” his father said, “then I won’t eat. I am putting the sandwich down. Here it goes, down on the desk. Better?”

  “Excuse me,” Jonah said.

  “Jonah?”

  “Jonah’s in trouble.”

  “N—Mom.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Everybody stop talking. Mom, I will explain what happened, and I don’t need any help, so please do not interrupt me.”

  “Someone please tell me what’s going on.”

  With the fourth retelling, he was too preoccupied with managing his parents’ panic to get worked up over the gory details.

  “You talked to them without a lawyer?”

  Here we go. “I should have called you first. I was too tired to be rational and I wanted to set the record straight before they could think that I’d done something wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” his mother said.

  “I know, which is why—”

  “You could have been killed. Jonah? You could have been stabbed.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “What I’m concerned about,” his father said in his steady, scholarly way, “is that you might have said something incriminating without realizing it.”

  “There’s nothing incriminating about what he did.”

  “Fine, Paula, but I’m imagining how a prosecutor might spin it.”

  “I didn’t get the impression that she thought I was guilty of anything.”

  “That’s her job, Jonah,” said his father. “To get you to talk.”

  His mother said, “Do they know what’s going to happen next?”

  “She said she’d be in touch if she needed to.”

  “I’m not sure I like the way that sounds,” said his father.

  “They must have a way of proving it was an accident,” his mother said. “From the, I don’t know, the position of the body. They do it all the time.”

  “No witnesses,” said his father.

  “The girl,” Jonah said. “She saw it.”

  “Her word is gold on this, I suppose. We should get in touch with her.”

  “‘We’?”

  “I want you to go tomorrow—or, better yet, I can call him now—hang on.”

  “Who’re you calling?”

  “Chip Belzer. He’s an old friend.”

  “He’s one of the top defense attorneys in New York,” his mother said.

  “I don’t need a defense attorney.”

  “Not yet you don’t. Laurie—” His father put down the phone.

  “This is not what I needed from this conversation,” Jonah said.

  “What you need is to protect yourself.”

  He started to argue, then thought better of it. Parents defended, by definition. That’s what they had to be worried about. His worry, however, was a whole nother beast. His heart was tripping along at a frightening clip.

  He saw it again.

  STOP.

  He saw it again. stopstopstopstopstopstop

  “Jonah? Are you listening to me?”

  “…yes.”

  “I asked if you knew your schedule yet.”

  “For when?”

  “Thanksgiving,” she said. To his mother, Thanksgiving outranked Christmas, birthdays, and anniversaries. She began planning over the summer and used it as a star by which to navigate the year’s shortcomings and victories. “You said you’d let me know when you got your call schedule.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you have it?”

  “It’s August.”

  His mother ignored this. “Kate and Erich are bringing their nanny.”

  “They brought her last year.”

  “It’s hard for me to get used to new people.”

  “You got used to Gretchen pretty fast.”

  “She’s not a person, she’s an angel.”

  At least her sense of humor was returning, and not in a brittle way. He decided to capitalize. He told her he could run out and father a child, if that made her so happy.

  “I thought you did already,” she said. “I always assumed that I had a whole slew of illegitimate grand-progeny, running around in, oh, I don’t know. Canada.”

  “All right,” his father said. “I spoke to Chip. He can see you, but he has a limited amount of time so you should probably get moving.”

  “What—now?”

  “He’s at Forty-seven East Fifty-fifth between Park and Lexington. The name of the firm is Belzer and MacInnis.”

  “I can’t go now.”

  “You have to,” said his mother.

  “I told him you’d be there in a half hour. Take a cab.”

  “And Jonah? Remember to tell me when you get your call schedule.”

  “All right.” He thumbed TALK, lobbed the phone onto his bed, and began hunting for a spare pair of shoes.

  • 4 •

  DESPITE TWO Harvard degrees and a spate of highbrow publications, Chip Belzer spoke old-timey street punk, like he’d tap-danced out of West Side Story. Jonah was glad they were on the same team.

  In Belzer’s opinion, the possibility of a formal charge was remote. To prove his point, he read the homicide statutes aloud.

  “‘With intent to cause the death of another person…’ blah-dee-blue-dee-blah. Except—listen to this—except if you had ‘reasonable ground to believe that any other participant intended to engage in conduct likely to result in death or serious physical injury.’” He set the book down. “That includes carrying a weapon. Trust me, kiddo: they ain’t wasting their time on you. Meantime, be on the safe side, say nothing.”

  Jonah said, “Do you think I did anything wrong?”

  “Wrong?” Belzer appeared to consider the concept distasteful. “As in, morally? Absolutely not. Do you?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do.” Belzer smiled. “Look. The girl was in trouble.”

  “Yes.”

  “And the guy pulled a knife on you.”

  “I think so.”

  “You think so, or you know so.”

  “We were fighting. It was dark.” Jonah paused. “He had a knife.”

  “Right. You saw it and you felt threatened. Unless you meant to assault him.” Belzer raised an eyebrow.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Good question. You wouldn’t, and you didn’t. You’re not a homicidal crackhead. You’re a medical student. You saw a woman being killed, and your behavior was commensurate. That’s appropriate force. You get me? You’re as innocent as the day you were born. At least with regard to this. I dunno what you do in your free time.”

  “…all right.”

  “You’re being kinda rough on yourself, don’t you think?”

  Jonah shrugged.

 
“The guy tried to kill someone. He tried to kill you. You should be congratulating yourself. You did good. Anyway you got to move on.”

  It was hard for Jonah not to scoff. Move on. He bet that if he looked hard enough, he could still find flecks of dried blood on his back. And he was not a big one for moving on, especially not under duress.

  But a defense attorney’s job was to see behavior in discrete packets: defensible or not. He probably parceled out the same wisdom to men who had committed real crimes, stolen and raped and killed. So you crushed her skull with a brick, kay surah surah.

  Belzer tossed the criminal-law handbook in a drawer and laced his fingers. A large gold pinkie ring glinted on his right hand. “Your dad’s a great guy, y’know that?”

  “I do.”

  “One of the smartest guys I know.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And you look like your mom.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “Look,” Belzer said, twiddling the ring, “put it out of your head. Nobody ever felt better worrying about the past.”

  WITH THE PUBLICATION of Friday’s Post, however, putting it out of his head ceased to be an option.

  Yo Superman!

  Word got around fast.

  Lookee, Superman, whyncha open this jar for me? Careful don’t break it.

  Hey, Superman. Mr. Massive Intestinal Cyst needs X-rays. Go use your powers.

  Up went the article, on bulletin boards and in bathrooms; it papered the freight elevators and the cafeteria; it had been enshrined in the locker room and pasted over fliers for talks on RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN RENAL TRANSPLANT and FMRI IMAGING OF CONGENITAL CARDIAC LESIONS.

  Everywhere Jonah went, he faced himself: the lousy photo that Christopher Yip had dug up. It looked like the portraits they printed of murder victims—grainy, smiling, apple-cheeked—and it sent the residents on his service into gleeful fits.

  Up, up, and away!

  They furthermore harangued him with quotes from the text: a half-page of pap plagued by an outbreak of modifiers and crowned with a lurid, forty-point headline. In it, Jonah was variously a “resident,” a “third-year resident,” and a “surgeon.”