It Won't Always Be This Great

by Peter Mehlman

  Big of me, huh, Commie?

  “Charlie, you remember the friendly Detectives Byron and Shelby from last night, right?”

  “Uh huh,” Charlie said. “Did you guys come for more coffee?”

  I had a thought that Charlie could be cute in the clutch, then I said, “That’s a nice offer, Charlie. But why don’t you let Mommy take you in the house while I talk to the detectives, okay kiddo?”

  I glanced over at Shelby, the reasonable cop, and hiked my eyebrows into question marks. You’ll give me this one little break, right?

  Shelby didn’t object, but he didn’t give me any kind of reassuring look either.

  Alyse put her hand on Charlie’s head and said, “Why don’t you use your key and go inside? Daddy and I should talk to the officers together.”

  Everyone looked down at Charlie and clearly he could sense the sudden tension in the air. He bit his lower lip, his telltale sign of edginess. Actually, I think I do that too. Heredity’s some wild shit. Alyse motioned for Charlie to go inside and, after a pronounced swallow, he followed orders.

  The door closed behind Charlie and I looked at the cuffs dangling from Detective Byron’s belt, and the bulge of his gun under his jacket. Wow, I thought, so this is it. All those times I’d put myself in the position of a perp on Law & Order. The arrest, the Miranda reading, the fingerprinting, the DNA swab, the arraignment, the bail, the trial date, the media, the explaining of everything to my soon-to-be ex-wife. It all ticked off in my head with full visuals as if I were imagining my own life going to shit in the same way Steven Spielberg imagines a movie. Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies.

  “We came back because we’d like to know why you failed to mention yesterday that you had a known anti-Semite in your home yesterday.”

  It wasn’t about me.

  Exhale, then a thought: They’ll never take me alive.

  Okay, honestly? I had that thought maybe twenty minutes later.

  Of course, while I reveled in beating the rap, Alyse froze. She knew where this was going but looked lost as to how it got there. Detective Shelby caught her wobbling and said, “Your daughter had dinner at the home of a Gil and Janis Binder last night. During the course of the dinner, Mr. Binder says your daughter mentioned that a man at your home that afternoon had said to her . . .” Shelby checked his notes. “‘You buffalo-nosed bagel-biters really know how to make money.’ Do you recall that statement?”

  I looked at Alyse sympathetically, now having no urge to add to her bad parenting guilt. “Neither of us were present when that statement was made,” I said. “Esme told me about it over the phone. Although in her telling, she omitted the term ‘buffalo-nosed.”

  “But by the time of our visit last night, you knew of . . .” another check by Shelby of his notes “. . . Mr. Radmonovic’s anti-Semitism.”

  Alyse and I looked at each other: Radmonovic?

  With full-throttled sarcasm, Detective Byron said, “He also goes by the name, You-ey Brushstroke.”

  Alyse, now marginally recovered from her initial shock, said, “Look, Mr. Brushstroke is a client of mine. He’s an artist and, yes, he was here yesterday and, yes, we did later learn that he’d made that comment to our daughter, Esme. But, to be perfectly honest, neither of us ever made the slightest connection between his slur and what happened at the store. Maybe we should have, but I talk to Mr. Brushstroke all the time and I’ve never picked up any hint of his being prone to violence or rage or whatever it would take to have done what you suspect him of. Plus, in all honesty, he may have smoked a little pot on his way over here because he was really mellow. And hungry.”

  Again, the detectives gave no ground. Byron turned to me and said, “While you were in the taxicab last night, did you witness a man standing on the hood of a car removing a street sign reading ‘Stratification Boulevard?’”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Really, I didn’t see anything like that.”

  “We find that odd since your cab driver says he not only saw that happening but insisted that he pointed it out to you.”

  Commie, remember when I told you to remember that the cab driver said, “What’s this maniac doing?”

  There you go.

  “Detective Byron, I do remember him saying that, but at the time my ankle was throbbing and I was looking for a sheet of paper to write out directions to the highway for the driver. So I never saw what he was referring to. I’m sorry.”

  “And you didn’t think to ask?”

  Again, not an inch. In fact, he was talking to me like I was an idiot, so I got a little ticked off. “Detective, are you accusing my wife and I of somehow aiding and abetting in a hate crime against a religion to which we both belong?”

  The grammatical structure of my question definitely gave off a whiff of condescension and I didn’t care if it was obvious. For the first time in dealing with these cops, I was actually telling the truth.

  Finally, Shelby eased off some. “Sir, there’s no need to get indignant. We just find it odd that your child experienced an anti-Semitic slur in your home and yet you made no connection to an anti-Semitic act perpetrated shortly thereafter just two miles away.”

  Alyse said, “I guess we concentrated all of our focus on the impact the comment had on our daughter.”

  Shelby nodded, seeing the sense in what Alyse had said, but Byron cut right in, “Were you aware of the suspect’s criminal record in the state of Rhode Island?”

  Alyse nodded her “It never ends” look at me, so I said, “Are you going to arrest Mr. Brushstroke?”

  “He’s in the custody of Brooklyn NYPD and is on the way here as we speak.”

  Wow! I commit a felony and they not only arrest the wrong guy, but he happens to be a client of my wife to boot. That’s as far as my thoughts ran at that moment. Really, the whole emerging moral dilemma didn’t sink in for a few hours. For the time being, my instinct was to subtly poke holes in their case.

  “So, you must have an eyewitness, huh?”

  Shelby slumped a bit. “Someone who saw him throw the bottle through the window? No. We have no eyewitness.” Then he smiled. “But we do have a woman who claimed the bottle of horseradish.”

  “What?”

  “An elderly woman claimed that her grocery bag broke while she was getting to her car on that grassy strip across from the store. When she got home, she realized she hadn’t picked up the horseradish.”

  Alyse tried to pick up on the humor of the moment, saying, “That should make for a real Perry Mason moment in court.”

  Shelby laughed and said, “Yeah, I bet.”

  Unfortunately, Alyse’s effort to lighten the mood didn’t have much staying power. Byron snapped the moment by adding, “The suspect was seen removing the street sign within a few blocks of the vandalism just over twelve minutes later. NYPD found the sign in his home when they arrested him. We have the anti-Semitic remark he made to your daughter and the other one he made to the NYPD when they cuffed him.”

  Alyse said, “The other one?” and cringed as Shelby rifled through his notepad.

  “Oh, here we go. After being read his rights, Mr. Brushstroke said, ‘I didn’t do nothing. They’re all Jews out there. It’s another conspiracy. Just like the Holocaust.’”

  “Oh God,” came flying out of Alyse’s mouth. “I can’t believe I let that man in our home.”

  Right on cue, Charlie poked his head out of his bedroom window. “Mom? Dad? Are you coming in soon?”

  Alyse turned around and said, “One minute, honey.” While her back was turned, I caught Detective Byron eyeing her behind. This time, however, it wasn’t a passing gaze like the night before with her midriff. Now I felt like he was leering. Then, as if to confirm my suspicion, he looked at me all snide, like, Yeah, I’m checking out at your wife’s ass. Problem?

 
Alyse turned around. “Is it okay if we go inside now?”

  Without taking his eyes off me, Byron said, “Yes. We’re done here. For now.”

  Alyse said, “Thank you. Sorry we didn’t make the connection last night.”

  Again, without turning, Byron said, “Forget it.”

  Alyse took my hand and started leading me back into the house. I hate to say I could feel Byron’s eyes still on me, but I could feel his eyes still on me, so, as we got to the door, I turned to Byron and said, “Your case against this guy sounds pretty damn thin.”

  Byron stiffened in a way Shelby must have seen a hundred times before because he took his arm and said, “Let’s go, partner.”

  VIII.

  We got inside, closed the door, and Alyse looked at me like I was whacked. “Why did you say that? You totally antagonized the guy. He looked like he wanted to beat the crap out of you.”

  “Alyse, I said it because, when you turned to tell Charlie we’d be inside in a minute, Defective Byron made an incredibly obvious point of checking out your tush.”

  My wife dropped her shoulders about three feet.

  “Alyse, he blatantly stared at it, then blatantly looked at me to make sure I knew he was blatantly staring at it.”

  “So what? Let him look at my ass! That’s what it’s there for. That’s why I shlep that stupid yoga mat into town four times a week.”

  “Alyse, what he was doing had nothing to do with you. Not directly. It was all about intimidating me. I mean, first, he hints that we’re covering for a rabidly anti-Semitic criminal, and then he tries to let me know he could rape my wife and get away with it anytime he wants? Fuck him.”

  “Rape?” Alyse whispered. “How did we get to rape?”

  “Okay, I may have extrapolated a bit there. But still, I wanted to let him know I wasn’t scared of him, so the best way of doing that seemed to be by highlighting his own lame-o incompetence. Bam! Hit him right where he lives.”

  “Honey, I think I’m going to have to lock you in a room for a week or so.”

  “I’d find a way out. Besides, we have dinner plans tonight.”

  “Oh, right. I’ll try to remember to wear loose-fitting pants.”

  “Wear whatever you want, honey. I got your back.”

  You know, the first time Alyse met my parents, she was wearing a cowl neck sweater. We met at The Silver Star on 65th Street. First thing my mother says is, “Boy, that’s some sweater.” Alyse says, “It’s a cowl neck.” So my mother pulls from her pocketbook a notepad stolen from Brown’s Hotel in the Catskills and jots down, cowl neck. A few days later, my mother got a package with a kelly green cowl neck sweater and a note saying, “Thought you’d look stunning in this. Love, Alyse.”

  My mother, bewildered by the concept of a gift for no occasion, said to me, “Should I accept the sweater?” After begging her to accept it, she looked around to make sure no one was listening and whispered, “This Alyse is a very refined girl.”

  It was as if she expected my girlfriend to be more along the lines of Squeaky Fromme.

  I mentioned my family’s underdog mentality, right? It was a full year later before I let Alyse see the apartment where I grew up.

  Oh man, Commie, it’s after two in the morning already. You probably need a break. I have one dopey seminar at ten tomorrow morning, and then I’ll pick up the story where we left off.

  Right, where I left off.

  Jesus, Commie, when did you start grooming fleas?

  SATURDAY NOW

  I.

  I know, Commie—I’m early.

  Get this: A podiatrist named Richie Waddle—yes, a podiatrist named Waddle—was scheduled to give a seminar this morning entitled, “Interpretations of Jurisdictional Conflict in Foot Care.” Put in plain English, it was a talk on who should treat what—podiatrists or orthopedists. I’d met Richie a bunch of other times. He’s a nice enough guy from Philly who went to BU and then podiatry school in St. Louis. For at least four previous conferences, he’d submitted proposals for seminars, and this was the first time one of his ideas was accepted. In the last few months, he’d taken classes in public speaking and even hired a private voice coach. He called me twice to make sure I was coming. For the trip down here from Philly, he rented a Navigator so he could bring along his wife, his mother, and his four daughters. He has cousins in Chapel Hill which, as you know, is a haul from here, but he begged them to come also. On top of that, after reviewing the work of every videographer in Charleston, he hired a guy to tape the seminar. And he bought an Armani suit from Barney’s. You’d think he was hosting the fucking Grammys.

  In gratitude for their attendance/indulgence, Richie took his entourage to dinner at a steak joint, I forget which. Is there a Chart House here? Anyway, Richie sprung for a massive meal, then returned to the hotel, where he’d reserved a conference room so he could practice his presentation one last time before the big event.

  I should say that the details I’ve got of what happened in the conference room are a little sketchy because they’re totally based on a conversation another podiatrist overheard between Richie’s wife and the EMT, who chauffeured Richie off for a thorazine night cap.

  Apparently, in the corner of the conference room to one side of the podium where Richie was practicing his speech, there was a paper shredder with a blinking light. Richie kept angling his body to try not to look at the shredder. But, you know how once you tell yourself to not look at something, you can’t not look? According to what was overheard, as the EMT was strapping him down, Richie kept saying, “The shredder was flirting with me.”

  Yes, that’s what he said. The shredder was flirting with him.

  I guess it was a pretty comely shredder because Richie took his entire speech, which was around twenty-five pages and, six sheets at a time . . .

  When he was done, he started wailing like a dinosaur. A nervous breakdown always seemed to me to be more of a personal option than a disease, but this story has me rethinking that. Someone from Housekeeping passed by and called 911.

  The world is too fucking sad.

  Just the goddamn breakability between who you are and the wreck you can be. It’s too much. I mean, I consider myself to be as sane as anyone can be. Maybe even too sane, too controlled. But I still relate to people who snap and shoot the guy who’s tailgating them on the LIE. Is my grip on the social contract really so strong that I’ll never lose it like that? I honestly don’t know. My whole respectable, decent, low-impact, relaxed-fit, gluten-free world sometimes feels so shaky. I could be in the checkout line at Whole Foods behind any woman and have this thought force its way into my head: All I have to do is move my arm a few inches forward to fondle this woman, and then my whole life collapses. That’s how easy it is to undo everything.

  Sometimes I have to shudder or bite my hand just to push the compulsion back into its cave. I guess Richie couldn’t push hard enough. When I think of the aftermath of this for him . . .

  Should I go to the hospital to visit him? That’s probably the last thing he’d want.

  Maybe I’ll send something.

  Or leave a message on his cell.

  The soap at the hotel is incredible. I took about five bars off the chambermaid’s cart.

  Anyway, I should get back into the story, if only to get my mind off Richie Waddle.

  That afternoon was kind of an emotional stock market graph. That was actually the afternoon that Alyse called me a fucking idiot. Remember I told you about that? Whatever. I had to come down off my little conflict with the detectives. For a while, my parental responsibility head kicked in, so I played ping-pong with Charlie in the basement just to reassure him that nothing serious had happened with the cops. And I thought it was working until he asked me why it took so long for the conversation in the driveway to end. I gave him some Mayberry version of how the police operate and how
sometimes they need our help as much as we need theirs and they’re just doing their jobs as well as they can, ba-da-ba-da-ba-da.

  Charlie seemed to accept it, but I guess I felt like he accepted it too easily, so I added, “Like anyone else, Charlie, there are really smart policemen and some that are less smart. Of the two you met, the short one with the mustache, Detective Byron, between you and me, kiddo? He’s not that smart. I had to tell him a few things he should do if he had any hope of solving the case. The other guy, Shelby, he’s quieter and does less talking and more listening. That’s how you can tell he’s smart. Really listening to what people say is something smart people do.”

  Charlie nodded fast like he’d been freed up to say something he’d been holding in. “Last night, I was thinking that I liked Detective Shelby more than Detective Byron.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Detective Byron kept looking at Mom in a weird way.”

  How about that, Commie? My kid was onto the horny pig just like I was. On the other hand . . .

  If I hadn’t thrown a bottle through a window, I wouldn’t have had this weird state of mind telling me to take my kid to a rally because there never would have been a rally and we would have just hung around the house and Charlie wouldn’t have this haunting imprint in his little head.

  I told Charlie not to worry about it, that cops are trained to observe people, and they wind up staring in ways different than normal people do.

  Jesus. It was exhausting coming up with plausible ad-libs just to give Charlie the false illusion that adults aren’t so vile.

  Charlie picked up his ping-pong paddle and said, “The score’s 11-8, I’m up. Your serve.”

  Apparently, my crap worked. After all, Charlie not only wanted to get back to ping-pong, but he cheated on the score. He was only up 10-8. One of the guys in my Thursday night hoops game constantly fudges the score by a point and he’s one of my favorite guys in the group, so I decided: Let the kid cheat. He wants to win.