The Book of Otto and Liam

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The Book of Otto and Liam Page 14

by Paul Griner


  A message for me, I was sure. But what was she saying?

  Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

  MID-FEBRUARY 2019

  Lamont stood out in the street yelling my nickname. Bismarck! Open up, Bismarck, or I’ll start charging movers’ rates for my help! I know you’re in there!

  I hadn’t answered his texts or calls or the buzzer. I was tired and needed to get work done and I didn’t want to drink, but letting him in was better than angering my new neighbors. Shut up, you fool, I said. You’ll wake the dead.

  Lamont brushed by me in his Elbow Benders shirt, purple script raised like a scar. He said, A guy on the other team brought his dad. Sixties, in diapers, his mind gone. If I ever get like that? Pull the plug. He poured bourbons and we sat on the couch to watch the recap of the DA’s news conference about the shooter. A mouth guard fell from his pocket; he blew dust off it and pocketed it again and I thought, Who rolls with a mouth guard at the ready? That’s not good.

  I said, You ever think we drink too much?

  Fuck no, he said. I was raised in Kentucky. Breastfed on bourbon.

  The DA said, We couldn’t have prevented this. There’s no record of us being called to his house. We just didn’t know. She fiddled with her blonde locks.

  Bullshit, Lamont said, and leaned toward the TV. Some of his anger was Akane; she’d moved out and filed for divorce, but there was more to it than that.

  The DA went on, sallow and tired, uncomfortable in the glare of TV lights. The rumors were that the police had been called to the shooter’s house, two years before it happened. Hence the news. How do you know it’s bullshit? I said.

  Venny Bosc. Like what you’ve done to the place, he added. Unpacked boxes are always a nice touch.

  Who’s Venny Bosh? I said, ignoring the jibe.

  Venny Bosc. The shooter’s neighbor. She called the cops.

  The DA answered another question. No, she said. You’d have to ask Ms. Bosc. We have no record of any interactions with her, either.

  Lamont was sitting on the couch with the afghan thrown over it, to hide the rips. The reporters have it right, he said. I told them about Bosc.

  I didn’t doubt it. Reporters went to him for juicy quotes; he never held anything back. He’d told me that whenever someone gave him the finger while driving now, he’d drag them out of their car and beat them. I believed it; I’d heard all about him and Tanner Weeks, and maybe that’s what the mouth guard was for.

  Venny tracked me down, Lamont said. She wanted the truth out there.

  The DA stopped taking questions and turned away, Lamont said, Watch. Her lies will come back to haunt her. But it’s all good. I prefer this shit to be out loud.

  He drained his bourbon and poured another, and, to be sociable, to make up for making him yell to be let in, I joined him, while adding the DA to my mental list of people who’d pissed me off.

  Later I dreamed that Lamont slid off the couch clutching a pillow and began to smother me. I slipped away from him, riding a wave to shore, and when it retreated, I was left on dry land, awake and unhappy, staring at the ceiling.

  It was getting to be that time of year.

  Letters

  Why would a police officer by the name of Lt. Fox, who never appears on any paychecks in the town or state records enter room eleven (11) at 8:55:31, which was supposudly the grewsome crime scene with dead children and school staff with blood and etc. and bodies and tell a male boy kinder-gardner found in the bathroom, who’s name is redacted, and tell them (so it must be more than one), to stay and they will bot be back when it is safe? Why?

  Kate

  Got her! Helen Nix, 39, Atlanta-born and still living there now, near the zoo.

  For a while I just sat in front of my computer, studying her apartment on Google Earth, saying her name over and over, silently at first, then aloud, her name echoing from the walls of my apartment. Luxuriating in triumph, the months of hard work that finally paid off. Oddly, it made me think of Palmer, how her lips might taste as sweet as carrots if we kissed. I decided to figure that out later.

  A listing on ZabaSearch had led to a name I entered on Pipl Search that led to an archived article with yet another name that, when punched into TruePeopleSearch, returned Possible Associates: roommates, co-workers, friends, a smorgasbord of possibilities, which I relentlessly tracked over hours and through days, each and every name, one of which turned out to be hers. To be Kate.

  I wanted to call May, Lamont too, to tell them both all about her, I wanted to run around the apartment shouting with joy, but it was three a.m. and the people beneath me needed to sleep—jobs and a new baby—and neither May nor Lamont even knew she existed, so I decided to hold off on notifying anyone or on marching in my self-congratulatory parade until it was all over.

  Instead, three small satisfying actions:

  • Ordered online a red cake with vanilla cream frosting from Silver’s, Liam’s favorite.

  • Texted Palmer, Maybe we can try again? and included the drawing I’d made of her after our date. Too much, maybe, but worth a shot.

  • Rescheduled freelance meetings, pushed back project deadlines, and bought a plane ticket. The bat would have to be packed in my suitcase, since I couldn’t bring it as a carry-on, but Atlanta was in its future.

  Cattle and the Wild Beasts, All the Birds of the Air, Your Whales and All That Swim in the Waters

  FEBRUARY 20, 2016

  I was late for Liam’s physical therapy session because I’d stopped to sketch. Small moments of concentration. May frowned as Liam pushed Linh away. I don’t want to walk, he said. And you can’t make me. He was lying down.

  She’d been trying to stretch his legs but now his arms were flailing, striking the bedrails, though with little force. He was weaker than when we’d moved him.

  Come on, I thought, overcome with a sense of dread. Do it. Get better.

  Can you evaluate him? I asked. Do the animal thing? May looked at me. It’s a dementia test, I said. But Linh had said it also worked sometimes for TBIs.

  All right, Linh said, and told Liam she was going to check his memory. Will you tell me the names of as many animals as you can think of, as quickly as possible? She set the timer on her watch. He said nothing at first. May gripped the handrail. At fifteen seconds, Linh said, A dog. A dog is an animal. Can you tell me more?

  Dog, he said. Puppy. Flies, he said. Flounders. Farts. Cats.

  He paused for a few seconds, then Linh said, Any more animals?

  Giraffes, he said. Elmer. May laughed and he looked at her for a long time and closed his eyes.

  At sixty seconds, Linh stopped her watch and frowned. He only got four.

  Five, May said. Dog, puppy, flies, flounders, giraffes.

  Puppies are just another developmental stage of dogs, she said.

  Well, May said, I distracted him. By laughing.

  Perhaps, Linh said. I’ll tell Dr. Wild about this. Ask her to follow up.

  What number do you look for before deciding there’s a problem? May asked.

  In sixty seconds? Anything above fourteen is good. Below that is concerning.

  She left. May made animal noises, asking Liam to name the animals; he seemed to sleep. Why’d you ask her to do that test? she said.

  I thought it might give us some good news.

  Well, it didn’t. And you shouldn’t have been late just to sketch.

  No, it didn’t, I said, and pocketed my hands. Too late; the silver sheen of lead.

  She didn’t pick up on my tone. Or if she did, she decided to strike back. I don’t think this ward has been any good for him, she said.

  Of course it has, I said. He’s sleeping better. He’s not violent anymore. I think he’s getting stronger.

  You wish he was stronger. And you sort of have to believe it, don’t you?

  What? I said, surprised she’d turned on me.

  It was your idea to move him here, she said. Out of the Neuro-ICU.

  That wasn’t ho
w I remembered it, but I didn’t want to fight over conflicting memories. What was the thing with Elmer? I asked, switching the conversation.

  She waved her hand dismissively. Elmer the giraffe. It’s a game we play. He wants a giraffe as a pet and I say he can get one if we name it Elmer.

  When did you play that? I asked. I’d never heard about it.

  It’s okay, May said, trying to soothe me. I’m only trying to protect my son.

  Our son, I said. She didn’t say anything, but at least she nodded.

  If Only

  If Detective Sawyer had checked the computer during his visit to the boy’s house, he’d have found a recently downloaded article about patron injuries at theme parks. Also a list of school shooters and their body counts. More and more and more.

  Other missed signs included that the boy had been disciplined twice at school, once for cursing on the school bus and once for losing his temper over a failed math test, when he’d punched a thermostat hard enough to break it, then formed a gun with his index finger and thumb and pointed it at the teacher who confronted him and said, Rat-a-tat-tat, you’re dead. The school sent letters home, but his parents claimed never to have received them. He might have intercepted them; he was home sick on the days when the letters would have arrived. He was capable of that.

  The last clue was the boy’s handwriting. It deteriorated badly in the months before the shooting. But in the journal two years earlier it looked fine, and most of his work for school had to be typed. One teacher noticed, that last week. An in-class composition about future plans that was illegible and, oddly, in the shape of an hour-glass, as if time were running out. That handwriting, the teacher joked. Planning on becoming a doctor?

  No, the boy said. He sat back and laced his fingers together and put them behind his head, elbows out, and pushed his legs out and crossed them at the ankles. Like a man in his recliner. No, he said again, and smiled. I’m planning something else.

  In Sawyer’s notes about it, from an interview after the shooting, the teacher shivered when he told him. I knew then something was wrong. Why didn’t I say so?

  Liam at Four

  2011

  On his birthday, sunlight streaming through the windows onto his bed, he woke up and said, How come I’m four and I’m still the same size?

  Later in the day I overheard him singing to himself.

  Happy Birthday dear to Me.

  Later still, while playing with pots in the kitchen, blue balloons tied to one wrist, he kept grabbing his crotch, like a dancer in a rap video.

  Exasperated, May stopped frosting the chocolate cake and said, Can you just let go of your penis?

  May, he said, and stood. The pots clattered together when he dropped them. That’s bathroom talk.

  Well, what would you like me to say?

  You could try wiener.

  Letters

  I was a U.S. Customs Inspector and Virginia State Trooper and an elementary school Vice Principal at two different school. I would have been a principal but they had a quota. Turn America brown!

  Anyway, that’s how I know this is all lies. I do this for a living. I’m a school safety consultant. If this was true, I would know about it in order to help other schools.

  You must have been in on the planning. My guess is that it took at least three years to write the scripts for all of you. Did you call it an exercise or a drill? I’ve talked to the school board twice. They wouldn’t answer my questions either. Why? BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

  I posted the video of you on your porch. Your street address. Don’t think we don’t know where you live. Don’t think we can’t find you. Don’t think that in due time, your foot won’t slip. Your day of disaster is near and your doom rushes upon you.

  Fails

  Helen turned out not to be Kate; a little more sleuthing uncovered the truth.

  Palmer was furious when I didn’t follow up, anger that built up over days and weeks and ended with a three a.m. text, the exact same time I’d sent her mine. I’m glad you ghosted me. Know why? My middle finger gets a boner when I think of you.

  I understood, but I couldn’t explain without revealing my obsession. I’d listened to the voice telling me that I should contact Palmer, when I should have listened to the smaller one warning against it. The cake I made myself eat without milk, in punishment, without even water. Hard, by the end of it, but I choked it down.

  The plane ticket I couldn’t get a refund on, only a credit, but I comforted myself with the thought that I’d use it at some undetermined time in the future, when I at last had the location I wanted to go. Kate was out there, and I was still after her. And she was still after me.

  I pulled the window shade down and rolled it back up again a half dozen times, then drank some hot water and lemon before climbing into bed. Liam’s favorite drink, even in summer.

  Incident on 7th

  MARCH 15, 2019

  I was on my way to see Silver with the next series of illustrations. A warm spring afternoon, a day it felt good to be alive. So rare! A woman about my age walked up next to me, slim and tall, her spicy vanilla-scented perfume familiar. The same as Palmer’s, I realized, and took a quick glance. Dramatically asymmetric black hair, the sleeves of her white blouse rolled halfway up her thin forearms.

  For an entire block she walked beside me, loose black pants flowing. She smiled when I glanced over, and I had to keep from staring at the way her smile shifted her cheekbones, making her look Slavic. I tracked our reflected progress in the hardware store, restaurant, hair salon, consignment shop and bookstore windows, and fantasized about sketching her after languid sex in this same afternoon light, a vase of pink tulips behind her. Springtime, the warming earth, a touch to break the long loneliness.

  She smiled at me in our reflections. Was she coming on to me? Foolish, I decided. For two stores I looked straight ahead, but at the liquor store I glanced again and, between posters advertising French wines and a coming play, her reflection was looking too.

  I wondered if there might be something about me that attracted women who wore that perfume, some pheromone I was unaware of but that woman picked up on. Then I felt silly; May never would have liked it. Too floral, she’d have said, almost soapy, and with far too much sillage.

  A skateboarder wove through pedestrians and swerved, blonde dreads flying, and when the woman sidestepped she bumped into me.

  Sorry! she said, and gave a nervous laugh. Her shoe had fallen off, a black wedge worn at the toe.

  It’s fine, I said, and knelt to help her back into it. I listened to the skateboard disappear behind us, wheels clacking over the curb. You okay?

  Fine, she said, and steadied herself with a hand on my shoulder. Just spooked. I thought she was going to run me down. You never know what’s coming for you!

  No, I said, and retied my shoe, to linger beside her.

  And on such a beautiful day, she said.

  Being gallant, I said, It is. And it seems as if it just got better.

  Really? she asked, and smiled again, and her face changed again too; it almost seemed like a trick, it was so dramatic, not just the shapes but the shadows. That’s so good to hear, she said. That makes me happy. You like brunettes, don’t you?

  That threw me, but before I could answer she asked how far I was going and I forgot about it, temporarily.

  Just a couple blocks, I said. To a bakery. What’s your name?

  What’s in a name, Otto? My name in her mouth startled me, and kept me from realizing at first that she was holding something in her hand, pressing it into mine. Have a good day, she said, and turned and left.

  How did you know my name? I said to her retreating back. And that I liked brunettes? She didn’t stop or answer, and when I unfolded the flyer she’d given me, my ears burned with shame. WANTED! OTTO BARNES!

  My picture, and my new address and phone number, and my email too. Let him know we’re onto him. Let him know the hoax has been exposed.

  I yelled Hey
! and she looked back over her shoulder, allowing me to snap her picture, but she darted into the liquor store, and inside there was a dense crowd in its narrow aisles, gathered around tall tables with open bottles of wine—a tasting. I made my slow way sideways through the buzzing customers toward the coolers along the rear wall, awkwardly because of my portfolio, and by the time I figured out she wasn’t in the store any longer and followed her out the back door, she’d vanished, down the alley past the trashcans or up another street.

  Back inside, I clanked down a bottle of gin on the tin counter, paid, and made my way through the assembled crowd to the street, where I turned toward my apartment after texting Silver that I had to cancel. Something sudden, I wrote. Nothing terrible, but important to attend to, I’m afraid.

  Okay, she replied. But this is time sensitive. Let’s meet soon.

  In my apartment, I cracked the bottle and poured a drink and went to the front windows, standing just back from them to watch the street. Passing cars, parked cars, an old man with a dog, two school-girls, three men in overalls and yellow hardhats. A waste of time, I decided, and took a picture of the flyer and texted it and the picture of the woman to Nash, along with a quick description of our interaction. Then, depressed I’d have to move again, I tried to find her.

  Nothing, when I loaded her picture into Social Catfish, and Google Images drew a blank too, as did TinEye. Fuck her, I said, and still half wished I could.

  Conflict Resolution

  MID-MARCH 2016

  Liam lay in bed, getting worse, Dr. Wild said. Struggling to breathe.

  May gripped the bedrail, her knuckles white. She asked if taking the shotgun pellet out of his brain would help. You missed it at first, she said.

  We did miss it, Dr. Wild said. We shouldn’t have. And perhaps that makes you doubt our later decisions. But even if we’d seen it, we wouldn’t have taken it out.

 

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