by Paul Griner
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Yes, I said. It makes us all nuts.
And always will, Jia said, looking up at the brilliant stars. Forever.
You seem pretty calm, I said, saleswoman aside. What’s your secret?
Oh, you know, she said, and waved her hand. Faith. And we basically have a Lexapro lick in the kitchen.
I laughed. An owl hooted.
She said, You know what really gives me strength? Seeing how Liam’s fighting. And that we endure. Watch. Lamont will apologize. She rested her slim hand on my arm. And I just know Liam’s going to make it.
Superstitious under those wheeling, long-dead stars, I didn’t say a thing.
The Wondering
DECEMBER 2015
Grandmummy was dead, right? Liam said. Can you tell me how they did it?
Did what?
The burning thing.
I shivered. Did the astringent scent of cleaning fluid make him think of fire? Not wanting to get graphic, especially here, I said, It’s a very complex process, Liam.
You mean it’s hard for you to explain?
He sounded just like his mother. It was nice to laugh in the Neuro-ICU, and I was glad he was talking coherently; I charted his days and good ones were becoming more infrequent so this, like the others, gave me hope. When May saw the chart, she told me I was using an incorrect formula, though not where I’d gone wrong. Yes, I said, to Liam. It’s hard to explain.
He fell silent. Monitors beeped, a curtain swished shut farther down the ward—an invasive procedure or last rites—rain drummed on the roof. In the next bay, a ventilator pumped away, a teenaged girl pulled from a ruined car.
But tell me this, he said at last, and put a small hand up in the air and spread his fingers, studied his pale palm. His gown shifted and the circular bullet wound on his shoulder shone like pewter in the light. He said, They burned her body, right?
Yes.
He let his hand drop at his wrist, like a wilted flower, and turned his bright blue eyes on mine. If she was already dead, why did they want to kill her again?
Words of Sorrow, to Which Neither May nor I Replied
December 22, 2015
Dear May and Otto,
I hope my writing you will not cause more pain than you have already suffered. I would not presume to write, except that to not do so would be cowardly, and would make you think I did not care about the enormous grief my son has caused you.
I have prayed every day that your son Liam recovers swiftly from the shooting. I read that he has had three surgeries so far and that he may have one or two more to go, but that he is expected to fully recover. That is perhaps the one bright spot in all this darkness.
We have never met, but this tragedy has linked us, us and so many others in this town that I grew up in and have always loved. From reports, I understand you moved here less than a year ago. It must have seemed a perfect place then, and must now seem as if the move was a horrible mistake.
I want to apologize for the suffering my son has caused you and your family, for the wounding of your son, for making you worry night and day, for making this place seem less than the paradise I always found it to be, for making the world seem a less-safe place, a cruel place. My son did this, my son caused this unspeakable tragedy, which is something I will struggle for the rest of my days to understand.
No doubt you will too. I pray that that struggle will pale in comparison to the joy you will feel, as your son returns to health and comes to be always by your side. May each step toward his recovery, however small, bring you hope as well.
Sincerely, and with profound sorrow,
Letters
Ask your friend Lamont this question: If your child died, why did you not allow his organs to be harvested? Other children, real children, needed them. Two were on the registry THAT DAY at the hospital. Both those registry kids later died, so either his child didn’t die, or he’s an asshole. To which does he want to admit?
Send me his answer, when you have it. The prick won’t respond to my letters.
Interim 4
Number of school shootings since:
145
Number of school children killed:
242
Wild Again
CHRISTMAS, DECEMBER 2015
I sketched the nurses’ six small umbrellas, open and upside down, drying in a corner, translucent in the light. Lilac and lime green and silver blue and a lacy red one flanked by two black ones like guards. When Dr. Wild walked by I wanted to reprimand her off-handed mention of shearing, to say that maybe that wasn’t the best way to deliver potentially devastating news, but I worried that it might anger her, and, after all, she was responsible for my son’s care. Superstitious and cowardly, I held my tongue, watching her write out notes in her surprisingly beautiful hand.
Superstition didn’t matter, and cowardice didn’t help. Liam stopped breathing again and after they revived him he got violent and had to be restrained. He got loud too, screaming and cursing, and they cleared out all visitors from the Neuro-ICU except May and me. His bay was too narrow for both of us to be with him so we took turns sitting beside him or in the waiting area, just outside.
Liam’s yelling leaked through the heavy closed doors into the windowless room. Bellowing, really. Not words, just noises, the eviscerating sound of relentless pain. They were evaluating him so I squeezed May’s hand and got up and walked the hallways to find a deserted office where I let go, not wanting May or other visitors to see me cry, but when I came back his screams thrilled me; if he was screaming that loudly, he was fighting, and I wanted more than anything for him to fight because his life depended on it. Scream!
The man in the bed next to Liam was forty-two, Dominican American; he’d had a stroke. His family, huge and close, rotated in and out of the waiting room hour by hour, taking up two entire rows of chairs facing one another. Liam was screaming still and the man’s immaculately dressed father touched my knee and said, It breaks my heart to hear that. So young.
They were the only words I ever heard him speak in English. The rest of the time he was the voice of reason and reassurance for everyone in his family, always in Spanish. I understood about half of it.
At dusk, his wife brought stacked, overflowing Tupperware containers of fragrant home-cooked rice and beans, plantains, and chicken and offered me some, and at first I said no, but once I took a plateful I couldn’t get enough; it must have looked as though I hadn’t eaten in months. She refilled my plate three times. We never exchanged names, no one in the waiting room did, but huge smiles, all around. I don’t know if I’ve ever eaten anything so good. May didn’t want any. I took a picture of my plate and sent it to Liam. Spicy foods were his favorite.
Later, I went out and bought a big box of donuts and a container of coffee for the whole family because May said the Dominicans she worked with loved sweets. The snow was heavy and when cars took corners too fast sheets of it flew off their roofs. All the way back my boots stove dark ovals in the deep snow. In the waiting room, the father brushed snow from my shoulders and helped me off with my coat.
A small moment of communion in an unlikely place during an unholy moment; I wouldn’t forget it. My fear and grief didn’t lessen, but I did for a few minutes feel less alone.
To Do List:
Move.
Drink bourbon.
Move again.
Find Kate.
Drive across state to pick up mail.
Work.
Try to work more.
Try to work again.
Find more work.
Find Kate.
Check car for tails.
Drink bourbon with Lamont.
Watch TV.
Read.
Draw faces and their spheres: nose, cheek, chin and eye.
Buy paper, pencils, stumps and tortillons.
Find Kate.
Drive across state to pick up mail.
Draw.
Practice shading: cast s
hadow, shadow edge, halftone, reflected light, full light.
Work.
Go for walks.
Check the car for tails.
Find Kate.
Go on dates.
Talk to May.
Talk to Liam.
Talk to Lamont.
Work.
Mark the solstice.
Mark a day of good work with a bad movie.
Drive across state to pick up mail.
Move.
Find Kate.
Move again.
Don’t forget Liam’s clothes.
Jazz’d
DECEMBER 2018
Lamont sneezed again, allergic to something in my apartment, and then again, so loudly I missed the announcer’s call of a touchdown, so I moved the bowl of chicken wing bones and the empty beer bottles ranked on the ottoman, the remotes covered in orange dust. Finally Lamont said, It’s the poinsettia.
A gift from Palmer. She’d left it at the door with a note—I understand. Want to try again? Call me if you’d like to go for coffee! When Lamont saw the note he urged me to. Nice woman, he said. And she always smells good. That’s underrated. Cocoa butter. Just has problems in love.
Then how come you didn’t go out with her instead of getting remarried?
Never mix shit and cookies, he said.
Should have, I thought. He and Akane looked like they were getting divorced. He’d called me one night, plaintive. Thought she was an afromantic.
We both cheered a big hit. Then Lamont said, Got a good letter this week. You’re fictitious, so how can you file a lawsuit? I smell a wet pile of BS yet again.
Wait, I said. You don’t exist?
No. I’m a government creation.
With all their resources, they should’ve come up with someone better looking.
Fuck you, he said, and laughed. Then he said, Still waiting.
For what? An apology?
No, he said, and swirled his beer, studied it. The thing about time. For it to mellow it out. It’s just an endless pit in my stomach, morning till night. He sipped the beer, then drained it and cracked another and chased it with bourbon.
At halftime, we switched to the news. Two American soldiers killed in Gabon. When I clicked to the other game, he said, Switch it back, and leaned forward to watch more intently. Any idea how many places our military is in? he asked, and didn’t wait for me to answer. One hundred forty-three countries. Ninety percent of all the countries on earth. He sounded appalled. The military that we love, he said.
You’ve changed your mind about the war in Afghanistan?
He narrowed his eyes and said, I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things.
Kind of a forever war, I said.
Nah, he said, and slid forward on his seat. You ever notice that when armed whites get shot, the NRA speaks up, or when armed whites get shit from the cops? But when Blacks do, the NRA says nothing?
It’s a racist country, Lamont. We know that.
Great, he said. You’re woke, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got a seat at the cookout. You need to get woke to this. When there’s a mass shooting? Press is a-l-l over it. Seventy-five dead, twenty, even four or five, our screens light up for days. The real toll is quieter though, and a fuckton worse. About seven thousand dead in the two big wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, after twenty years. But right here? he said. In our country? Thirteen thousand killed each year by guns.
It’s not just the numbers, I said. It’s the cost. All that money, all those soldiers deployed, the civilians who die in those countries too.
That’s right, he said and nodded. Drank. That’s right. But let’s be fair. Let’s go back to what started it all. 9/11. They say we’re fighting to stop another one of those, three thousand dead. But with thirteen thousand murdered each year with guns, if there’s a forever war, it’s against our own.
I drank quietly, thinking that it was maybe more complex than that. What 9/11 did to the economy and to the lives of so many people—those firemen who died in the building collapse, those firemen who lived but grew sick and died in the years following, their families, the families of the victims, our forever-punctured communal sense of safety. But then I realized the same thing was true for all the families of the murdered. The sorrow and loss of safety, the shredded lives.
You support gun control then, I asked him.
Hell no. When those hoaxers come to punch my ticket, I want to be armed. The hoaxers, he said again, and sipped his drink. The government, he said, and sipped again. White people.
I laughed at the last one, but he didn’t. Poured himself more bourbon and said, Cops and school shooters. You’re doing us in.
Not all of us.
Doesn’t have to be all. Just enough that have hate in their DNA.
You could be a hoaxer, I said. Believing in all these conspiracies.
He got up, left. When he came back in he was holding a bat and a surge of fear jolted my body. Was he really going to come at me?
Look, he said. He flipped the bat and held it out by the handle, a peace offering, one long finger under my name burned into the barrel. I’ve got an identical one, he said. We can use these to dissuade the hoaxers when they come around.
You think that’s a good idea? I said.
He tapped the bat in the palm of his hand, looking at me. Listen, he said. You got to let that shit out at some point. It’s eating you up. Was me too, but now I’m letting it loose. So should you. Never know how soon it’ll be too late.
He rapped the barrel on the ground and stood it upright in the corner. You use that, he said. Let them know what you’re made of. Otherwise, I’ll change your name from Bismarck to Gandhi, and you know you don’t want to be in the coward’s union.
Because we’d approached something so raw, we didn’t say anything else until the game returned. Then we cracked open new beers and watched a few plays until an ad came on for wedding cakes from a bakery, not Silver’s.
Lamont said, I ever tell you Karlene and I eloped?
No wedding cake for you then, I said.
Nope. Disappointed Latrell. We were sitting around a table at my cousin’s wedding. First one he went to. About four or five years old. He asked if his mama and I danced at our wedding and I said no. Then he asked if we cut the cake and Karlene said no. You could see disappointment building. Frustration. He had this idea of weddings and we weren’t living up to it. Finally he said, Did you at least do the part where Daddy stuck his penis in your vagina?
Good Will to All
I feel bad, not sending Palmer anything, so I dash off a card and sign it.
Time to Get the Christmas Spirit! I vote for Bourbon.
May Calls—Schism or Reform?
DECEMBER 2018
Sometimes she makes the late night calls, sometimes I do. We always pick up. Residual love, guilt. To show we’re not sleeping with someone else, though, divorced, we’re certainly allowed to and sometimes have.
I feel so guilty at times, she says, and I put her on speakerphone, readying for a long conversation, one I’ve had many times in different apartments, in person, on holidays and anniversaries and random days of the week.
Guilty about what? I say, though I suspect I know, my Nash radar buzzing.
She’s silent so long I think she’s fallen asleep and I’m about to hang up when she says, You want guilt, Otto? It’s Nash. Bingo, I think, and she adds, I had the worst thought when we first met him. I thought he was hot.
Oh, I say, surprised. Probably his shoes. She always noticed shoes.
May says, What kind of person thinks about someone being hot when they hear that their son has been shot?
May. He looks like a young Idris Elba. If the detective had been a woman who looked like Margot Robbie, I’d have thought she was hot too.
Margot Robbie’s a blonde, she says.
An exception, I say. Anyway, no one’s rational in those situations.
Which is true. I’m not blaming her for that, though I’m
also thinking of myself. How I’d noticed Dr. Wild’s legs, her small chest and silver necklace, the kind of woman I’ve always gone for. That, I don’t tell May about. Instead I repeat that she shouldn’t feel bad. The mind reacts to stress in peculiar ways, I say.
Not that way, she says. I don’t know anybody whose mind does that.
You should get out more, I say, or you two should get married.
Otto, she says, exasperated.
No, I mean it, I say, despite her tone, or perhaps because of it, to break her free. How many times has she done that for me? You could marry Nash and he could take your last name and then he’d be Nash Barnes. Sounds like an action figure.
She giggles. That’s your last name.
Yours too, I say. In the following quiet, I wonder why she hasn’t reverted to her maiden name. In stores, cashiers recognize it and want to talk about the shooting, where they were when they heard.
She says, He’s taking me to lunch next week.
New updates in the case? I ask.
No. Just a lunch lunch.
Oh, I say. A date, and realize that must be the source of her guilt, that she’s going out with someone else, and that that someone else is involved in Liam’s case. After the slightest pause I say, Good! Good for you. You need to date.
I don’t tell her anything about Palmer, waiting for her to ask, but she says in a quiet voice, Well, what about hooky?
Hooky? But I know she’s referring to the day of the shooting. If we play hooky again, it’ll become a pattern, she’d said, and not one we want to set up for him.
A tradition, I’d said, but she hadn’t relented.
By saying no that day I ruined everything, she says now.
You didn’t ruin everything, I say. I don’t hold it against you.
But I do. All the therapists say: forgive, and they’re right, only I can’t. I don’t tell her that and never will; she probably knows I nurse that grudge as if time won’t put an end to it, though I don’t want to. The grave clears everything up, even regrets.