It Won't Always Be This Great

by Peter Mehlman

  As Plato said, “Maybe I should wear a sweater.”

  Oh: I also Googled Ted Kaczinski. Turns out he once looked into getting a sex change. So there you go.

  Alright. Here we are, onto the tough stuff.

  Just as I was looking at my schedule and saw that I had a patient coming in 15 minutes, Sylvia poked her head in and said, “There’s a detective Byron here to see you.”

  You never get over that fear of cops from when you were a kid, but the shiver I felt seemed justified.

  “Just him? No partner?”

  “That is correct.”

  Jesus.

  “Sylvia, I want you to tell him I’m just wrapping something up. I’ll buzz you in about a minute, then you can send him in.”

  Sylvia caught my anxiety and nodded like, Roger that, sir.

  You won’t believe what I did next. I buzzed Arnie on the intercom. He picked up and I said, “Remember that cop I told you about who was leering at Alyse?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “He’s here.”

  “What does he want?”

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good. I’m a little freaked. I was thinking maybe if I start feeling a little threatened, I’d buzz you.”

  “Don’t buzz me. Call me on your cell now and stick it in your shirt pocket. I’ll stay on the line and listen in. If anything sounds bad, I’ll casually drop by.”

  “That’s a great idea. You’re the man, Arnie.”

  I called Arnie on my cell, put the phone in my shirt pocket, and went out to the waiting room to bring in Byron personally. He was standing over Sylvia’s desk, tapping his feet, with poor Sylvia cowering like a hostage.

  II.

  After the toe-tapping, the first thing that struck me about Byron was that he wasn’t wearing the jacket and loosened tie that make up the standard TV detective uniform. Instead, he wore the kind of Members Only black jacket you see on sex offenders in Law & Order SVU. My instant Members Only/Megan’s Law profile, accurate or not, started to unnerve me until I remembered from TV that maniacs like this feed off fear. Don’t look scared, I told myself. I looked Byron in the eyes and waved him wordlessly into my office.

  He looked around like he’d just stepped onto a crime scene. Habit, I guess. Now get this, Commie: His eyes stopped on the Intra-Fraternity One-on-One Basketball Tournament trophy I keep on a small shelf behind my desk.

  “What, did your kid win a basketball trophy?”

  “No, Detective, I won a basketball trophy.”

  “Somehow I can’t imagine that.”

  That crack sent me flying from scared to pissed. My head went right back to the stick-it-to-him attitude I’d had in my driveway.

  “You don’t have to imagine it. You want to go to a gym right now and play some one-on-one?”

  I visualized Arnie in his office hearing me say that and thinking, Holy shit!

  “I’m not here to play basketball.”

  “That’s good. The game wouldn’t be fun for you.”

  “You’re pretty ready to play for a guy who claims to have hurt his ankle Friday night.”

  He kind of nailed me there.

  I tried to recover by putting my foot on my desk, pulling up my pant leg, and showing him the still multi-colored swelling. “I didn’t claim I’d hurt my ankle. I stated it as a fact. As a podiatrist, I can assure you this is how a severe ankle sprain looks after two days. Maybe I should take a photo of it in case I wind up needing to mount a defense.”

  “Maybe you should,” Byron said, keeping his foot on the gas. “Then you can post it on Facebook.”

  “Facebook?”

  “I noticed you were on Facebook. I’m on it too. I like to post gruesome crime scene photos.”

  Byron was clearly trying to freak me out and truthfully, it was working.

  “Where’s Detective Shelby?” I asked.

  “He’s got a cold.”

  “Don’t you get assigned a different partner for the day?”

  Byron smiled and said, “I forgot. You watch a lot of cop shows, so you know all about my job. Well, I’m not on duty right now.”

  At that point, I started to feel creeped out. An antsy cop visiting me on his own time—this was personal.

  “Have a seat,” I said, trying to seem relaxed.

  Byron sat on the other side of the desk and tapped his fingers. I noticed his nails were bitten way down, receding into stubby, fleshy fingers. My first thought was: How the hell does this guy open a soda can? My second thought was about Jerry Orbach’s character on Law & Order saying something about adult nail-biters having major psychopath potential. All in all, everything going on in my office was highly nerve-wracking.

  I felt for the outline of my cell phone inside my shirt pocket, and asked, “So, what can I do for you?”

  “I got flat feet.”

  “Sorry, can’t squeeze you in. I have a patient in 10 minutes,” I lied, then quickly, “Actually, less than 10 minutes.”

  “I had a suspect cuffed to a chair at my desk this morning and just as I was about to squeeze the details of how he made eighty grand selling baseballs signed by Lou Gehrig with a Sharpie, guess who phoned me?”

  “My wife. I know.”

  “Yes. Your wife.”

  “So?”

  “Well, with my forger hovering around my desk, I was tied up, so I told her what she needed to know and then hung up.”

  “She appreciated your help.”

  “I’m sure she did. But a little while later, I wondered: Why would she choose to call me, of all people, for information on the penal system?”

  “You and Shelby may be the only people connected to the criminal justice system that she’s ever met.”

  “That’s possible. But then, I thought, why would this high-class babe want to visit an anti-Semitic convict in a scummy joint like county detention?”

  Babe? This is not good.

  “What did you conclude?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “Well,” I said, standing up, “when you figure it out, be sure to let me know. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Why? It’s only been a minute or two. Your patient’s not here yet. I gotta say, business seems a little slow. You sure you can support Alyse in the manner to which she’s accustomed?”

  Now he’s calling my wife Alyse.

  “I appreciate your concern, Detective, but my practice is quite healthy.”

  I was holding my own, clinging to my flat, casual demeanor. But, at the same time, I was kind of hoping Arnie would decide it was time to come to my rescue.

  Byron smiled and said, “You Buffalo-nosed bagel-biters know how to make money.” Before I could respond, he said, “Maybe that’s what you’re up to. Maybe it’s all about money. Trying to drive up the price of that whack-job’s art. Jailed artists are almost as valuable as dead artists. Whatever. I’ll find out. You and Alyse will be seeing me again.”

  Every time he said “Alyse,” I got both livid and terrified. The terror was starting to win out. Shakily, I said, “I don’t want to see you again.”

  “I bet you don’t,” he said. Then he leaned forward and almost whispered, “Maybe we can make a deal.”

  “What? A deal? What kind of deal?”

  “I can offer to get out of your life. And what do you have that I might want? Oh, I know! I really like Alyse’s ass. Can you give me a piece of her ass?”

  I wasn’t prepared for that. Not prepared at all. That moment kicked off another Teutonic shift, an inevitable quake of dread and agonized regret about everything that I’d done over the past three days.

  If only I’d just allowed myself to call the cops and confess the second after I threw the bottle through the window, I’d have been set back a few grand but none of this would have happened and
I’d have never fucked around to the point of putting my wife in the cross hairs of a rapist cop. Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God . . . Yeah, Commie, once again, I conveniently found religion. Hiding my terror became a finger-in-the-dike kind of totally impossible thing. Byron was eating it up.

  “You know what?” he said. “Forget it. That’s not really a good deal for me. You know why? Because you don’t have to deliver Alyse’s tight JAP ass to me. I can just grab it up myself.”

  I specifically remember feeling Charlie in my face at that moment—the pleading, helpless look he gets when something makes him feel his world is about to disintegrate. For the first time in years, my emotions slipped past the Zoloft guard gate. The peach pit in my throat, the popping sweat, the racing heartbeat, the dizziness—the whole deal. My mouth opened.

  Feebly, “You stay away from my wife!”

  Commie, I can’t even replicate the tone of my voice when I said those words, so you’re not getting the full effect. And frankly, I’m glad I can’t replicate it. I sounded like a fucking weasel, a sniveling little sissy laughably defending the honor of his mousy little sweetheart. When Byron laughed at me, I felt like I didn’t have a bone in my body. I’d turned into everything an American male is supposed to hate. The cowering little pussy getting sand kicked in his face. I know it sounds like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. In fact, here’s another thing I’ve never told anyone in this whole wide world: When Byron stopped laughing, he said, “Yeah, that ass bent over the couch in the den with that nice TV. It’s just waiting for me.” Well, you know what I did when he said that? I’ll tell you, and only you.

  I peed in my pants.

  III.

  Please, Commie, of all the confidential things I’ve told you, that one is the secret I most need you to keep under your hat. Getting into podiatry school without applying, whacking off to Jenji McKenna for 30 years, throwing the horseradish bottle through the window—you can tell anyone any of those things. Just not the peeing in my pants thing. Not even your wife, okay?

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  Apparently, Arnie decided that Byron’s reference to “Alyse’s ass” was his cue to launch into my office.

  Byron looked at him and said, “Who the fuck are you?”

  Arnie had no pee in his pants. He stiffened to his full 6’3” and said: “Who the fuck am I? I work here. Who the fuck are you?”

  “I’m a Nassau Fucking County detective.”

  “Wow! That means you must have had almost a 1.5 grade point average in high school. Do you think that gives you the right to say ‘Who the fuck are you?’ to anyone who comes into this office?”

  Byron answered, “No, I’d have that right even if I wasn’t a cop.”

  Arnie, in full condescension mode, said, “Actually, it’s not illegal. But there is a difference between liberty and license.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “The difference between liberty and license. For instance: If you come into my friend’s office—his property—and act menacingly toward him or me, I have the liberty to beat the living shit out of you. But since this is a civilized society, I probably don’t have the license to beat the shit out of you. Which is kind of a drag because I have this black belt I’ve always wanted to use to, you know, fuck up a guy like you.”

  Arnie seemed like he’d waited his whole life for this moment. After all the petty little confrontations of life, Arnie finally found the real deal. He was eating it up.

  I wasn’t.

  All I remember thinking at that point was, I gotta call Alyse and tell her to grab the kids, buy a disposable phone, drive to her sister’s house in Pound Ridge, and hire private security. I felt like a jittery little bird. I actually asked myself, I wonder if this ever happened to Jack Bauer?

  Anyway.

  Byron calmly said to me, “Gee, I guess I should be scared of your office-mate and his black belt.”

  Arnie said, “That’s true. But there are other considerations that should be scaring you even more right now.”

  “Really. Like what?” Byron pressed.

  Arnie dropped his head toward his shoulder with an air of empathy and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that right now.”

  I looked at Arnie, wondering what the hell he was talking about. If anything, I thought he was bluffing, making it seem like he had the goods on Byron. Cops like Byron probably have enough dark shit in their closets to get pretty paranoid.

  Sure enough, Byron got a glazed look. Unconvincingly, he said, “I got nothing to be scared of from a dick like you.”

  Arnie shrugged and said, “Maybe not. But you probably should go now. Just in case a dick like me is in possession of something that would make you look really bad down at the station.”

  It dawned on me that Byron could reach for his gun and that would be that. But then I thought, no. Because if he killed Arnie and me, he’d have to take out Sylvia and then wipe down the front door and my desk, kill my next patient, steal some stuff to make it look like a robbery, throw a bag of some stranger’s DNA on all the dead bodies, and grab up all the footage off the security cameras hanging in the lobby and the elevator. Cops are good at covering up their own felonies, but they’re not that good.

  As if he knew that I’d peed in my pants and wanted to see if he could squeeze a few more drops out of me, Byron shot one more spine-tingling smile my way and said, “Best to Alyse,” then walked out of my office at an exaggeratedly relaxed pace.

  Arnie and I were frozen, listening for the sound of the front door opening and closing, the elevator arriving, opening, closing, and dropping to the ground floor. Arnie looked out the window and saw the unmarked car pull out and drive off.

  Then Arnie turned to me and said, “Motherfucker parked in a handicap spot—can you believe it?”

  IV.

  I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Sensing my fallen balance, Arnie added, “What a douche!”

  I nodded lamely.

  “I’m not sure I got that whole thing right about liberty and license, though.”

  I dropped my head and shook it to make it seem like I was laughing along with him. The truth is, my head was all I wanted to move because of a (possibly) irrational fear that I’d set free a whiff of the urine in my boxers.

  Then Arnie said, “Hey, man, do you smell piss?”

  Okay, he didn’t say that. I’m just kidding. I don’t know why I thought that would be funny. It wasn’t funny.

  Arnie said, trying to prop me up, “I can’t believe you told him you’d kick his ass in hoops. That was fucking great!”

  Finally, I spoke over my gag reflex. “It felt great when I said it, but it was pretty stupid from where I’m sitting now. I’m a fucking mess, Arnie.”

  Arnie lowered his voice, “Look, pal, you couldn’t have been ready to hear him say that stuff about Alyse. It was totally beyond the pale. You’d have to be dead not to be majorly shaken by a threat like that.”

  “Thanks, but what am I going to do? I mean, I’m really scared this guy’s gonna stake out my house.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry? We can’t go to the police. They got that whole blue wall or whatever they call it. If I claim that Byron threatened my wife, it’ll be my word against his.”

  That’s when Arnie got this huge grin on his face.

  “What?”

  Arnie pulled out his iPhone and hit the touch screen. It coughed out a few seconds of static, then:

  “What, did your kid win a basketball trophy?”

  “No, Detective, I won a basketball trophy.”

  “Somehow I can’t imagine that.”

  “You don’t have to imagine it. You want to go to a gym right now and play one-on-one?”

  Arnie tapped his iPhone, stopping the recording, then said, “I got
the whole conversation right off my speaker phone.”

  “You’re a fucking genius, Arnie.”

  “I’m always ready for things that hardly ever happen. It’s the shit that goes on every day that catches me by surprise. Oh, wait.” Arnie stuck his head out my door. “Sylvia! Can you hang up the phone in my office?” Then he turned to me. “You got any booze in here? I could use a shot of tequila.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem. I got a patient soon anyway. All he has to do is smell booze on my breath just as I’m about to crack his fucking back.”

  I didn’t respond, but Arnie knew where my mind was. “So, I guess the question is, who do we let listen to the tape? I don’t even know who the boss is at a police station. The Lieutenant? Captain?”

  “There would be a lieutenant in charge of detectives, but I think I have a better idea.”

  “What?”

  “I know someone with the FBI.”

  Before I tell you about my call to Agent Horton, I think I should say a few words about having someone threaten to rape your wife.

  I’ve always had this secret theory that no one really puts anyone ahead of themselves. I know it’s kind of an inhumane thought, completely lacking in empathy. It’s more of an objective conclusion that I’d always hoped I was wrong about, but still always believed on a purely scientific level. It’s somehow connected to the survival instinct, I think. It was this idea that, no matter what afflicts other people, even the ones you love, it’s still not happening to you. Horrible, right? I hated that I believed that, but I believed it anyway. Maybe Byron did me a favor, because he kicked the hell out of that theory.

  When Arnie left my office, I had ten minutes to myself before my next patient. I immediately—and I mean immediately—went to a closet where I always kept an extra set of clothes just in case of . . . whatever. I’d certainly never imagined this whatever. As I replaced the pants hanger, I remembered my lie to Charlie about my being a bed-wetter when I was a boy. I wondered if this was karma, but I decided to use the same lie if I had it to do over. It worked for Charlie and that’s all that matters. That led me into another realization—I would be willing to die in exchange for Alyse not being subjected to—