by Paul Griner
Leaves were blowing, brown and brittle. I had to rake, to muck out gutters, I had undone freelance work, our household budget was two pounds of nails in a one-pound bag. And there was the recently defiant Liam. We’d asked him to clean his room and instead he’d played computer games, and when I found out I sent him up to do it again while I drew. I heard a ball bouncing and breaking glass.
He was standing against his bed with his arms folded when I came in.
What the hell are you doing?
Surprised by my tone, he said, Nothing. The window broke.
Liam. You threw the ball in the house, which you’re not supposed to do.
I did, he said, and smiled, which angered me.
All right, I said. You can’t go to Latrell’s house for a week.
He shrugged. Okay. I’ll just have him here.
No, I said, you won’t. You won’t have anyone here.
Then I’ll play games with him online.
Nope. You’ve lost computer privileges for a week. TV too.
A losing proposition, ratcheting up the punishments in response to each new act of defiance, but I wanted him to stop. Sunlight flashed on the jagged glass.
That’s not fair, he said.
It’s not fair that you don’t do what you’re asked, and now I have to replace a window when I need to work.
I’ll stay after school and play with him there.
I’ll be picking you up. You’ll be coming home right on time.
I might get detention and have to stay after. You’ll probably have meetings and won’t be able to get me. Then Mum will but she can’t leave work either.
Fine, Liam, take the bus. I pocketed the tennis ball. But no art at home. In the morning, you just get up and go to school.
Good, he said. I was going to stop anyway. That erasure book was your idea.
It hadn’t been, but I didn’t bother arguing. Go get the broom and dustpan, I said. And a couple of brown paper bags. We’re going to tackle the window first.
He stomped down the stairs while I tried to figure out what was going on, with him, with me, and took a picture of the broken window to remind him of what he’d done if he started complaining about a week without privileges. I began jimmying the shards of broken glass from the frame, carelessly, it turned out, and cut my hand, which I was rinsing when he clomped back upstairs holding the broom.
You cut yourself? he said, noting the bloody trail. Good. I hope you bleed a lot.
I am, I said, angry that a bandage would throw off my control of pencils. Take the glass out now, I said. And if you cut yourself, you’re on your own.
May heard Liam’s version first and told me I had to apologize. For what? I said. A poor decision? I lined up my pencils to show I wasn’t angry.
May said, A poor decision is spreading mayonnaise on a brownie. This was glass. He’s eight. He could have cut himself, badly.
Yes, he could. And it would have been a useful lesson about consequences.
Well, these consequences have could have been disastrous. So I’ve restored his computer privileges.
No, you didn’t.
She turned to go. Yes, I did.
I followed her out. And I suppose you want him to have a party with all his friends now too? I said to her back. That would certainly teach him a valuable lesson.
Don’t be foolish, Otto. She sorted through her purse and refused to look at me, because she knew that made me angry and that, angry, I argued poorly. The grounding is fine, she said. Deserved. But you went far too far and you know it.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, all of us silent around the table; my night to cook but I refused to. Liam drank his glass of milk in a single long swallow. We all had milk mustaches. Normally I’d have pointed it out and we all would have laughed but instead I listened to the hum of the old electric clock on the wall, which May and I found in a tumbledown store on our honeymoon. Liam had sliced one of the pages in the erasure book, which he and I had been working on together. Where had all his anger come from? Perhaps he needed comfort.
I read to him at bedtime, his warm body curled against mine, though that didn’t mollify May, nor did I want it to. I’d been wrong, though I wasn’t ready to admit it. When she came to bed she organized her bedside drawer—pens, glasses and vitamins had to be in their places—then turned out her light and said, You shouldn’t be on the computer either, for a week. You’re acting just like a child.
And like a child, I rolled over and went to sleep without a word.
Crash Course in Anatomy and Physiology
OCTOBER 11, 2015
On the second morning we sat in high-backed stools in the café window and looked out through our reflections on the dark glass at the passing trains while May stirred five sugars into her coffee though she usually drank it black, the spoon clink-clinking against the thick white ceramic mug. She made a face when she tasted it and pushed it aside with her thumb. We waited as long as we could for visiting hours to begin and when we couldn’t wait any longer we left our coffees unfinished on the counter and stood leaning together into the wind waiting for the train to pass, even though we were still an hour early, and when the final graffitied boxcar shuddered past we crossed the tracks to the hospital as the train clicked away down the rails.
The sky blued with the first light of dawn and turned yellow during our walk down the long echoing hallways. Beeping monitors in other rooms, otherwise the hospital hushed like a church; the officer on duty outside Liam’s room didn’t even check her watch. Liam’s face was swollen, the skin stretched so tightly it shone. Go away! May said, and banged on the window to shoo away a pigeon on the ledge.
What’s that about? I asked. She wouldn’t say. The doctor arrived.
Tell me why that’s happening, May said. His face?
I understood May’s peremptory tone. Efficiency was the way she interacted with the world, and a mask; all the emotions could come later. Would the doctor?
It’s normal, the doctor said. Swelling will be worst today and tomorrow. Then it will go down. She flicked through charts on her iPad and seemed distracted.
The nurse said, But you should prepare yourself. It will discolor badly.
May and the doctor frowned. The doctor said, Yes, best to be prepared.
How long will it last? I asked, looking from one to the other. I still didn’t know anyone’s names. I’d seen these two multiple times but their names wouldn’t stick, something about processing. Their names were on pins but I couldn’t make them out without my glasses and so I didn’t look, not wanting to seem as if I was staring at their breasts. Better to be thought rude than a perv. A couple of days? I said.
No, the doctor said, and pushed her weave back over her shoulder. It’ll be a lot longer. Purple at first and over a week or so fading to yellow. But it won’t mean anything except that the body is healing. This will be a long process. Probably best if you accept that. She straightened her red weave again.
Okay, May said. She didn’t seem turned off by the doctor’s lecturing tone, though I was. But how did it happen? May asked. All those broken bones?
The nurse had short electric-blue hair that stood up in tufts like meringue, thick with a faintly rose-scented product. She glanced at the doctor.
What? May said. Her face paled. Tell us.
It might be from the fall down the stairs.
What else might it be? I said.
The doctor sighed and said, Or the shooter might have struck your boy with the butt of the shotgun or his pistol. The injuries are consistent with that.
The gurgling noise from May’s throat was half-sorrowful, half-angry.
The door opened and a short elderly orderly with a prosthetic arm came in with Liam’s breakfast. He won’t need that, the nurse said. She bustled over and took the tray and seemed glad to have something to do.
First Texts from a Stranger
As a mum myself, your wife is proof that the “massacre” never happened. I saw pi
ctures of her at Latrell’s “funeral.”
A lovely skirt and jacket in earth tones.
The first reaction to grief is ALWAYS guilt, even though it’s irrational. In the pictures she’s wearing lipstick and a beautiful pair of matched earrings.
If one of my babies had been shot, I’d feel so guilty that I hadn’t protected them (even though there was no way I could have!) that there’s no way I could put on lipstick or would think to reach for earrings. Let alone those EXPENSIVE GORGEOUS clothes.
Putting yourself together JUST after having your child SHOT would NOT be possible
Liam at Three
OCTOBER 2010
After a lunch of grilled cheese and my own tomato soup I’d barely eaten, with Liam napping and May watching him, I draw an alphabet, playing with letters; a local dry cleaner’s wants something unusual, something different. The look I’ve chosen, the pictures, the graphics, the logo, they love it all. Love it. Except maybe the font. Somehow, that’s a little off. Six times so far, and each version is great, but …
This will be my last try. If this one doesn’t work, I’ll thank them, bill them for my time, and write them off; it happens. Frustrating, but I’m okay with it, though I want to get it right. The struggle is part of what I love about the work, the breakthrough, when it comes. Instead Liam walks into my office with his pink blanket over his head, holding half the grilled cheese I didn’t finish.
Do you don’t like the grilled cheese? he asks, and takes a bite.
What’s with the blanket? I ask, thinking he must be cold in the drafty house.
He chews and swallows before he answers. I’m a nuns.
I pull him up on my lap and he leans forward and before I can stop him puts one buttery finger on the letter M, smudging it.
Look, he says. M. That’s May’s letter.
It is, and it’s slightly different now, better. Perfect. Liam’s font, I think, and know I’ll use it. After I get him settled in bed, the plush red comforter with blue foxes and green dogs tucked under his chin, I create it. Cleaners who clean things up, dirt disappearing from a stained shirt, the smudged font changing to a clear one.
Kate
Kate’s good. I’ll give her that. She’s at her best about Liam. The hoaxers who confront me, and the number of letters I get because she’s so convincing. And because Alex Jones picked up one of her videos and ran with it.
The letters are always forwarded, no matter how many times I move; you’d be surprised at the number of people who still take the time to write them. Dozens a week, usually, though it varies. Anniversaries are big, of course, but beyond that it seems random. Some are filled with invective, nearly all are filled with questions.
The local trauma helicopter company says they were ready to go within minutes of hearing about the “shooting,” but were never called. Everyone knows that trauma helicopters are the swiftest way to transport victims. If so many people were shot, why were no trauma helicopters ever summoned to the school? And why weren’t paramedics and EMT’s allowed in to try and save lives?
Kate was so right aboutyou. I wish I’d listened earlier. I wish we all had.
Hearken to her voice, and give ears to her.
The Fishermen of Souls
OCTOBER 2015
The echo fades, but the first school shooting after Liam’s was dire, a day with a freak early snow and a bitter wind. May came early to the hospital from work but didn’t stay long; neither did I. Improving, playful, Liam joked with us both and the doctors said he could use the extra rest. 100/59. Perfect BP, his nurse said.
Home, May unplugged the house phone and turned off her cell and shut all the shades and took two sleeping pills and kicked off her Ferragamos and went to bed fully clothed. No TV, she said. Please. Not a word about Paramount Springs.
She was shaking and I lay down beside her and held her, face pressed against her silk blouse. She didn’t still, even after she fell asleep, her body hot as a griddle, and I wondered if that was a medical condition but found nothing about it on the internet. When I checked on her after an hour, she was cooler and had stopped shaking, though her scent was a mixture of sweat and perfume.
I unclasped her silver necklace and brushed her hair back from her pale forehead and kissed her and left to warm up a Lean Cuisine and with the volume down flipped between channels, inhaling news reports, avid for the smallest detail, adrenaline surging when a new casualty number appeared or a reporter speculated on how old the shooter was. Narrow and tense, I leaned forward like a carrion bird every time I switched channels to find a slightly different version of the same story, twitching as I waited for something to stir; the thrill of doom. I zeroed in on the first survivors and their affectless voices. Two teachers.
Liam’s shooter’s mother was a teacher. I wished she’d been in that school, forced to live through it, physically unscathed if mentally and emotionally wrecked, but I knew that she was wrecked and, not wanting to feel sympathy for her, I snapped off the TV and made a series of violent drawings and burned them all. I didn’t want them and I didn’t want them to affect whether Liam lived or died.
Irrational, I knew, but I burned them anyway and scattered the ashes on the new-fallen snow in the cold dark, a cold so sharp it froze my lungs. That way they’d be gone in the morning, covered, as if nothing had happened. I scrubbed the ash from my hands and threw out books and expired cans of food from the pantry and dozens of letters, which changed nothing. Nothing.
Voices echoed on the street. No one was outside the window, no group of boisterous drunken friends, no couple quietly conversing, no dog walker on her phone, and the streetlight showed that no footsteps other than mine had disturbed the freshly fallen snow in any direction. I shivered and thought of Liam, his soft voice.
At six, the story of Samson was his favorite. He loved it, asking to hear it night after night. Once, after listening, eyes glowing from the hallway light, he said, God is everywhere. Like at night and you’re sleeping and you hear voices out on the street and you think it’s ghosts, it isn’t. It’s God. So you shouldn’t be afraid.
Everybody loves their kids. How many want them to be prophets?
Letters
Dear Mr. Barnes,
We, the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of San Diego, are writing you with profound wishes for a blessed Thanksgiving. The world is inflamed with hatred, from which you and your family have so grievously suffered. But God’s love also exists, and in the end will triumph, though in the solemn hours of the night, it must often seem otherwise. For us, the way to that path is to raise ourselves to Christ, who is our heaven, while our shadows fall in charity upon earth, trying to do good to all people.
We pray for your union with God, we pray with deep love for Jesus, we pray with devotion, we pray for your soul to find peace. We pray that the meaning of this season—that even as we speed toward the darkest night, we have harvested joys to buttress our strength—will help you find it. And we pray day by day that those who torment you will come to witness God’s love and be altered.
We believe in apostolic works as well as prayer, so we write letters on your behalf as well. To them, to all we can find who doubt what you have endured. This is a mission of the heart, a labor of love. You do not know us, but you have been entrusted to our care.
Limbo of the Infants
OCTOBER 14, 2015
Hunched over in the waiting room, I sorted through illustrations, freelance work I was supposed to have done, a big contract and a real break for me, the first since we moved. Holiday sales. It seemed foolish, almost immoral: thinking of money as my son lay in a hospital bed—so I found it difficult to concentrate.
I sketched a swan on my phone for Liam in red ink, something he’d be able to complete or correct. I’d begun drawing for him, sending texts and pictures to make him laugh, things he would stumble across in the future while he recovered, which was my superstitious way of making sure he did. Someone entered and walked across the floor and st
ood over me. A national reporter, I decided; his boldness, and the shoes. Polished but old, with turned-up toe boxes; you had to run a lot as a reporter, and loafers wouldn’t do the trick. He could go fuck himself.
One reporter had pretended to be Latrell’s mother; her pictures from the morgue were splashed all over the news. A few reporters were kind and thoughtful, but it hadn’t taken long for most of them to become the enemy, so for longer than necessary I just looked down at those black sensible shoes, making the reporter wait.
When he said my name, I shivered in recognition; Nash, the detective. It didn’t make any sense but I thought, Bad news, and stood so abruptly that I bumped into him. Please don’t let it be May.
Nash smiled and touched my arm. Hey, he said, it’s okay. I breathed deeply to relax, and smelled coffee and cigarette smoke, seemingly a police force requirement.
Nash said, The father gave him the guns, but because no one else was involved, and because the father bought the guns legally, giving them to his son is the only illegal thing. Well, he said, and flicked his jacket aside and put his hands on his hips so that his gun showed. That is, he said, aside from the shooting.
He didn’t have to tell me why they wouldn’t be leveling charges against the father. The shooter killed him first.
And the mother? I asked. What about her? She must have known too.
No. He looked disappointed and rubbed one elbow with the other hand, a gesture I’d already grown used to. Some aberrant random pain, or a self-comforting gesture. Liam’s was to suck three fingers at once, even now.
Nash said, His parents are separated. Were. Just in the last couple of years. She didn’t know about the guns. Thought they were stolen from neighbors.
I so wanted her to be arrested. For her to feel her life being crushed around her like a Dixie Cup. Lust for her destruction surged through my body; I snapped my pencil and had to still my breathing.