by Paul Griner
Why on earth not? May’s hand cut the air like a blade.
Bullets are hot. They cauterize wounds, so the risk of infection is small. Then the question is, is it an immediate problem? In the heart, say, or adjacent to blood vessels, or causing an abscess? I’d go after it then. But most often we don’t, because surgery can create complications. Further injuries, or infection. Or death.
So you’re just going to let him die slowly now? Is that the plan? Because you’re a doctor, you want to understand why something happens? Not to fix it?
If it was going to lead to his death, I’d operate right now. I’m a surgeon.
And you don’t think it is, May said. A capitulation, not a question. Her clothes were baggy; she seemed to have shrunk two sizes. He’s not getting better, is he?
I’m afraid not, Dr. Wild said, rubbing her wrist. Nor do we know why.
He’s fighting, though, May said, standing taller. He hasn’t given up.
Neither will we, Dr. Wild said.
Home, I unwrapped a new fruit basket and put it with the half dozen others on the counter as May flipped through the stacked mail. Bills, mailers, one personal letter. She tore them all up and said, I recognize the handwriting. Another fucking hoaxer. We were getting notes of anger or mock concern daily, and, most often, of moral outrage that we played along with a government conspiracy. Usually I found them first, sparing her. Nash couldn’t do much unless they specifically threatened us.
I got out Zhao’s lasagna and cut two slices to warm.
Just for yourself, May said. I’m not hungry. She turned a pear in her hands.
Come on, May. You have to eat something. It won’t help him to waste away.
And you, putting on pounds? That’s really transformed him, hasn’t it? He’s so much better now, after moving him to the other ward. Up and around all the time!
Come on, May, I said. That’s not fair, turning on me.
What isn’t fair is that our son is dying in a hospital and no one wants to do anything and you somehow can think only of food. She dropped the pear in the trash.
May, I have to do something.
Really? I’ve got news for you. The only thing you’re doing is acquiescing. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing you could do would help. So why don’t you just go draw?
I wanted to throw the lasagna at her, but I put it in the microwave and reheated it while she showered, because it was better that I should eat than that we should continue devouring one another. I felt guilty that I liked Zhao’s lasagna so much, had been looking forward to it. I wanted to protect her and couldn’t.
A long shower, as if she was washing each strand of hair individually.
As I ate, I pieced together the letter she’d torn up. A few words, in a crabbed hand. Fuck you and your fake child.
Interim 5
Number of school shootings since:
146
Number of school children killed:
242
Saudade
LATE MARCH 2016
Liam had to be sedated for his MRI; the clanking buzzing noises spooked him. And me. After looking at the results, Dr. Wild said he should go back to the Neuro-ICU.
This time we walked beside him as he was wheeled to the elevator, taken up three floors, and down the long empty hallway to the Neuro wing. May held one of his hands, as small as an infant’s. He titled his chin up and glanced back over his head at the ceiling. You all right, Liam? I asked.
Yes. The lights, he said. I like their pattern, how they come and go.
When he was settled, I rounded the ward, checking all the bays. The only two I recognized were the Dominican who’d had the stroke and the old Ukrainian nanny, both smaller now. The nurse on duty said both were stable.
That must make her visitors happy, I said.
She hasn’t had visitors for a couple of weeks, she said.
I stood by her bed for a bit. Had they taken her money? Had I helped them to?
Please God, I thought. Don’t let me be the agent of her disaster.
When Trece saw me, he smiled. Liam all better? The trauma ward helped?
He must have thought I was there to provide good news. No, I said, looking down. He had on green socks. You didn’t hear? I said. He’s back here now, Dr. Wild thought it best for him.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a doctor look so sad.
The 10 Questions Cowards Like You Never Answer
1. Why on “shooting day” did FEMA offer an already-scheduled course in Planning for the Needs of Children in Disasters?
2. Why were the entire school grounds demolished and rebuilt?
3. Why did everyone who worked on the demolition of the school have to sign confidentiality agreements?
4. Why did they post guards at the site throughout the demolition when that’s not standard industry practice?
5. Why did the state bar any information about where the demolition rubble was buried?
6. Why did the demolition company have to provide the state with proof that metal from the site that couldn’t be crushed was hauled away and melted down?
7. What are they so worried about getting out?
8. What are they trying to hide?
9. What are you trying to hide?
10. Does this remind you of how the metal scraps from 9/11 were immediately shipped to China so they couldn’t be examined for evidence? It should. I heard you investigated that. Tables turned, now.
Birthday Fungo
MARCH 30, 2019
Houses grew visible in the blue light of dawn and the high clouds flocked east, turning pink. I was waiting for hoaxers, a bat across my lap. Liam’s birthday and Kate out with a new video, quoting a friend of Palmer’s: Otto Barnes told her he’d never had kids! They can’t lie forever! I hadn’t seen it, but references to it were all over the hoaxer websites, so I knew they’d show. I should have been home working, since I had a deadline for Silver and I wasn’t close to done, but I’d had enough.
The front porch light snapped on and May pushed open the storm door with her green coffee mug in her robe and slippers—Liam’s alligators—and stood on the porch looking toward the fading darkness in the west, trembling. Perhaps the cold.
She looked good; she’d put some weight back on. She walked down the steps to pick up the paper and went back inside without glancing at it, and she’d make his birthday breakfast next, pancakes and hash browns and maple syrup, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, then eat it when he didn’t. That was tradition too. He never liked breakfast and his birthday breakfast became hers.
The porch light turned off and the cab light came on in a dark green pickup with Wyoming plates on the opposite side of the street; I should have picked it out beforehand. The door creaked as he closed it. He stretched, hands to his back, a long drive behind him; I planned to make the drive home even longer. Gandhi, my ass.
He tucked his hands into his parka and walked by the house to the end of the block, where I watched in my rearview mirror as he crossed to my side and started back. Boots and a white cowboy hat, he really took this western thing seriously. I almost gave him points for that; it wasn’t as if he fit in to his new surroundings. When he was at the car behind me, I stepped out and stood sideways in case he rushed me and his eyes flicked to the bat. He wasn’t going to get by me, but he had nowhere else to go; boots made him slow and wherever he fled I could follow.
Hello, friend, he said, and smiled. Can I help you? He slid one foot forward and slipped his hands out of his pockets and shook his arms like a boxer.
No, but I can help you. I studied him before speaking again. About my size and age with skin darkened by a life spent outdoors; he could have been me but for twists of fate. Right now, I said, you’re thinking about ringing May’s doorbell.
Who?
I tapped the bat against my shoulder and said, No games. I know who you are and why you’re here and what you’re thinking of doing. You’re one of Kate’s spawn.
So, here’s
what we’re going to do instead, I said. You and I? We’re going to walk to your truck. I’m going to take a look through it when we get there, and then you’re going to get in it and drive away and never come back.
Long, even breaths as he thought. He fisted and unfisted his hands, figuring his chances in a fight, but the morning was so quiet he must have decided that no reinforcements were coming, even in the shape of witnesses. At last he swallowed and cleared his throat and let his arms hang loose. All right, he said and sighed.
You think I’m a crisis actor, paid to do this, don’t you? I said. How much do you think they’re paying me to confront you?
No idea, but it must be plenty.
Nah, I said. Not a thing. I’d do this for free. I cocked the bat and swiveled and smashed it against his hip. The satisfying sound of wood on bone, of his shout of pain, is there anything like it on this earth? But I stood looking down at him, thinking: Here’s the pity. I couldn’t tell him what I wanted, because I didn’t know, and he couldn’t tell me what he feared. I mean, what he feared other than me and my bat in that moment, the bruises it might inflict, the broken bones, the thing that had launched him cross-country from his life to interfere in mine. Neither of us knew. I wondered if we ever would.
I decided to let him go, as much as I wanted to hurt him, as much as hurting him seemed right. Deserved. If we could only exchange fatigued souls for a bit it might have fixed everything, but of course we couldn’t, so I hit him again and helped him up and walked him to his car. It felt good to hit him, and to plan magnanimity. He didn’t realize he was in the presence of grace. The bat, maybe. My wild eyes. He said, God is watching. Do you think He’s on your side?
Give me your keys and lie down, I said, having forgotten to search him.
What? He looked terrified, convinced I was going to smash his head in once he did, which filled with me the gleeful desire to do just that. Instead I patted him down. No gun. I took his wallet and cell phone and asked for his password and once I had it thumbed through his contacts until I reached May’s, which I showed to him, then erased.
Clouds streamed toward the east, turning pink, and my own red heart beat so loudly I heard it. I rested the palm of one hand against his stubbled cheek, scraped and bleeding from the pavement, patted his warm skin. Do you feel that? I thought. In the presence of evil, I’m a good man. You won’t ever ask for her info again, I said, and sent all his contacts to my email. You have my email now. Write any time. Or invite me out. I’ll come.
And as for God, I said and stood. I hope I’m on His side, and I sure as shit hope He’s watching.
I tossed the phone and the wallet down a sewer drain and opened his truck and searched it—checking now and then to be sure he hadn’t moved—pocketing the registration and insurance cards. Hardy Starling; the name matched the one on the phone, so it was probably real. No guns, no knife either, which disappointed me, as I wanted to shred the leather seats, but flyers with May’s picture, and mine, and with both of our addresses, though mine was out of date.
I said, I’m only going to chase this dog off the porch once. When you leave, don’t come back. And be smart. Drive at the speed limit the whole way home.
You won’t get away with this, he said.
I looked around. His car was in sunlight while he lay in shadow, trembling. I was trembling too. You see anyone coming to stop me?
I’ll go to the police.
You do that, I said, and smashed one taillight with the bat, the sound shocking in the early morning quiet. I wanted to smash all his lights, his mirrors, to send his window glass flying, but I didn’t want him pulled over, so I contented myself with humming. A dog barked in the distance. Another stranger in another neighborhood, I thought, and imagined an army of hoaxers, spreading out through our town, dispersing their poison, and had to contain myself. Ask for Nash, I said. He’s a detective. The one in charge of all this crap. Crap like you.
I knelt over him and pressed the bat against his head. I felt large, giant, kind. He’ll love your story, I said. He’ll have all kinds of good things to say to you. Out back where he’ll take you, near the dumpsters. No cameras there.
I stood again, and raised the bat. He was shaking; the end had come. My shadow stretched out before me as tall as a tree. I had that power, and it ached not to use it. Now go, I said and dropped the keys beside him. Before I change my mind.
He scrambled to his feet and limped to the truck and opened the creaking door and didn’t put his seatbelt on and pulled out and drove away and gave me the finger through the empty gunrack on the rear windshield. I thought of chasing him, but decided against it; I might have missed a gun. Besides, why let him think he’d rattled me? At the stop sign he paused, before turning right toward downtown instead of left toward the interstate, but I knew he’d figure out his mistake sooner or later. I’d done what I needed; I wasn’t going to help him straighten out his life any more than that.
When I got back in my car, I was shaking, so much I didn’t trust myself to drive, so I put my hands under my armpits and squeezed my arms and rocked, trying to make it stop. No luck for minute after minute, and great heaving sobs built up inside me, until I was startled by someone rapping on my window, a man in a long yellow coat with his small brown dog on a leash beside him.
Sir, he said. Are you all right? What are you doing here? The dog’s ears pointed in concern when he heard his tone.
I rolled down the window and said, I used to live here.
But you don’t now, he said, and straightened. He had a birthmark on one cheek shaped like the state of Florida. So maybe you should move along. I don’t know you, and we watch out for each other here.
Not well enough, I said. If you did your job better, I wouldn’t have to.
His face reddened and he was about to respond, but I started up the car and drove off. I was already too much Lamont this morning and I didn’t want to go full. The bat was still beside me, and his head had looked inviting.
Home, I found blood on the cuff of my shirt and stripped off my clothes, showered to scrub away my guilt and exhilaration, the evidence of a crime. It felt so good to hit him, so fulfilling, that it could become addictive. I would become large, gigantic, colossal. Was that what I wanted?
A transitory dizziness and I knelt in the tub, the water scalding my back, where I foresaw years and years down the road, when my vision would fade, my balance fail, my body falter. Would I be happy, beating strange men with bats, one after another after another, year after year after year? They would keep coming, I knew, as relentless as rust.
No, I thought, and bowed my head, water streaming from my eyes and chin, no. That wasn’t my future. It wasn’t the army I wanted; it was the head. The face of it.
Kate.
To Do List, Revised:
Refocus and get a handle on it, ffs.
Move.
Work.
Try to drink less bourbon.
Try to find Kate.
Talk to Liam.
Work.
Check car for tails.
Drink even less bourbon.
Talk to May.
Don’t buy a gun.
Practice shading: cast shadow, shadow edge, halftone, reflected light, full light.
Check the car for tails.
Drink nothing at all.
Move again.
Don’t forget Liam’s clothes.
Try to find Kate.
Try to find Kate.
Still don’t buy a gun.
Find Kate.
Letters
How could some autistic psyco with no military training shoot small frantic scurrying targets 3 to 11 times each with guns that hard to control?Maybe the adults, but the kids? They’re not even big enough to shoot eleven times. In Iraq, I was lucky if I got two bullets in a single body. With the kids, it was hard to get even one.
Club Lucky
APRIL 1, 2019
Lamont bounces outside my door, without bourbon and with his dog.
Winter is back; my balls clench in the cold. Yo, he says. Let’s check out some music.
You look different, I say.
He holds his arms wide. Losing weight and living large, he says.
He is, getting back into shape, and happier too. Does he know about my run-in with Hardy Starling? Music and what? I say. Molly’s a magnet for women.
Hey, if you only got wet when you should’ve drowned, would that be so bad?
Work isn’t calling to me, and the contact high from roughing up Starling didn’t last the morning hours; depression rolled in by noon. Maybe accompanied drinking will give me the clarity to face Silver’s work in the morning. Sure, I think.
Molly stands by the passenger door, tail wagging. Sorry, girl, Lamont says. Otto cops shotgun. To me, he says, Just kick that aside and hop your ass in.
What is it? I ask, taking in its long, glinting brass length. An umbrella stand?
Spent artillery round, he says, fired in anger. Afghanistan.
That bassist is mustard, Lamont tells me. He ain’t along for the ride.
We’re sitting ten feet from the bassist on the dimly lit stage, his smooth copper face bobbing in time with the music while Lamont beats time on our table. What’s that mean? I ask. I could write a bible with what I don’t know about jazz.
It means his rhythm is the trio’s pulse, and that he keeps the harmony going by sliding his notes in just under the piano. Three things, he says, ticking off his fingers. Rhythm, harmony, and melody. The bassist is responsible for the first two.
I nod, though I don’t understand. Hookahs on some nearby tables; maybe smoking one would help. The bassist’s purple-and-gold pants flash in the light.
Did you catch that one-finger tremolo? Lamont asks, after a solo. Timing and feel and a slow build, all that beautiful pain. It’s like a middle finger you can dance to.