by Paul Griner
MAY DID I SEE YOU AT STARBUCKS ON THURSDAY MORNING?
May I could’ve sworn I was right behind you in the drive-thru line at Starbucks on State Street Thursday morning around 8:00 AM. It looked like you looked at me through your rearview mirror. I know it was the car you usually drive. If it was you, contact me. I never got true closure with you and need to talk to you.
Stretched Out, Held Flat, Pinned Down
APRIL 3, 2019
I fished from the shore, the radio on. Homer Brannock had been right; gulls and cormorants clustered twenty yards out by the reed beds. The reeds bent toward me in the chilly wind and the birds faced into it and small waves pushed the green water onto the rocky shore. Cast after cast caught a fish. Liam always loved fishing and I told myself I felt his spirit, but it was only the wind and a few swift high clouds whose shadows raced over the water and passed over me and vanished.
A turtle paddled up, hoping I’d feed him, his back green with moss, and at the top of the hour the news came on, at the end of it a promo for an interview later in the day, the mother of Liam’s school shooter.
I turned the radio off and ate the sandwich, squatting on the shore: tangy ham, sharp cheese. Lapping water, a chilly wind, vees of northbound geese strung across the blue sky, their calls muted; so much peace. But the NPR announcement had soured the day, so I packed up and drove to Joe Lay’s, the local antique store whose familiarity was comforting. Dusty light shone through the stained-glass window over the heavy dark furniture and the piles of Life magazines, faded by time and darkened by dust. I snapped a picture of an old map and a voice startled me.
Can’t you read the signs? Oh, Otto! Carol said, and hugged me. Some gray hair now, some extra weight, the same citrusy perfume. She fussed about my black eye.
It’s so hard, she said. I wasn’t there and I’ve never had a child shot and yet I can’t ever stop thinking about Liam. I haven’t slept a night through since then.
Me either, I said. Or May. Or any of the other parents, from what I can tell.
Listen to me, she said. Asking you to comfort me. I should be ashamed.
PTSD is odd, I said. Kids who were there and saw their friends killed, some of them are just fine now. Some of the teachers who were wounded. And then some of the teachers who were in the school and only heard the shooting had to quit. Two are gone, so don’t feel bad. I didn’t tell her that one was by suicide.
She squeezed my arm by way of thanks and said, Take as many of those maps as you want. Ruddy’s idea. They were going to be big sellers. We haven’t sold any.
I’ve always loved maps, imagining vanished worlds; Liam too. Once I pinned a large antique map to his floor while May had him at her parents’. When they came home, I said, Hey, buddy, how was your trip? I was thinking you might want to take another. Let’s go up to your room and see where. May and I followed behind.
Cool! he yelled, and squatted and put his finger on it and said, This is where I want to go, right here! French West Africa!
Oh, good, May said. We’re raising a little colonialist. She went to unpack while Liam crawled across the continent, sounding out the names.
Now, I selected a bunch of maps, thinking that I’d meant all I’d said to Carol, but thinking too that comforting her had drained me, so I paid for them once Carol disappeared through an old, thin four-panel door behind the wooden counter and left without saying good-bye. I got into the car and wished that when I’d sped across the valley floor with my eyes closed just a day before, the Mormony clerk had been the one heading toward me. That I hadn’t swerved.
Letters
Your boy was declared dead in the first 11 minutes. By who? Why was that later overruled?How did he come back to life? Why did the entire country have an “accurate” death toll within 11 minutes? How could that even be possible in a scene that was supposed to be so chaotic and so gruesome? Who could count so many dead children so quickly?
And who decided it would be smart to have a “wounded child” that we could all root for? I think that’s maybe the most devious and the cruelest thing you people did, all those news reports updating “Liam’s” status. I had three neighbors who checked it every day, even though I told them it was a lie. Do you have any idea what your lies do to people? Do you even care?
April Is the Cruelest Month
APRIL 3, 2019
I don’t want to listen, but I do, Terry Gross, interviewing the shooter’s mother. It shouldn’t surprise me, but it does, Gross says. That you still love him.
Of course, the mother says. He’s my son.
But a boy who did something horrific?
No silence before she speaks again, meaning she was ready for this question. Yes. He murdered other children and adults, including my ex-husband. Ruined many people’s lives, including my family’s. But that isn’t all of my son.
It is to me, I say. Yell, my face distorted in the mirror.
He was a human being, she says, as if in answer. Later, she says that sympathetic neighbors sent her food in the aftermath. When she finally went home, when the media horde had given up and left her alone.
That must have made you feel welcome, Gross says. Glad for the kindness. You’ve talked about the outpouring of hatred. So, a ray of light must have mattered.
It did, but my lawyer said I had to throw it out, that it might be poisoned. I wanted to call the police to have it tested, to show him he was wrong, but of course I couldn’t ask that they spend resources testing donated food, when so many were working so many hours to try and figure out what had happened.
Anyway, she says. It’s part of why we buried him in an unmarked grave. To avoid having it vandalized. And to keep it from becoming a shrine. To a certain segment of the population, a twisted segment, it would be.
When she gets to her self-loathing, I’m glad I’ve listened. All the hatred I’ve harbored for years, the desire to confront her, to shove Liam’s bloody clothes in her face. Terry asks, Could you have done more?
Yes. I’m not saying I did anything wrong, because he was raised in a loving household, an inclusive household. So he didn’t learn his rage from us. But he was depressed. I realized that in the aftermath. And that I had missed certain signs. So now, I write everything down. Every memory. Every thought. And search it over and over for signs of what was to come. For places I could have intervened.
After that she switches to dreams, dreams I recognize, of her boy endangered and she unable to protect him. Falling from a ladder, a roof, a moving car. Each time she reaches for him, he slips from her hands at the last moment, which is when she usually wakes, to a split second of relief that it’s only a dream, in turn overtaken by dread and anguish that the reality is even worse.
I don’t like the familiar sound of that, so I snap off the radio, but ten miles later, realizing I’m furiously speeding past the glinting birches and somber pines, I turn it back on. Better to hear her perfidy than to turn a few small nuggets over and over in my mind. She’s on to letters now. The hatred in some, the forgiveness in others, and the troubling nature of the rest. Again I recognize myself in her description, again it infuriates me. We are not the same, you and I, I want to tell her. Face to face.
She talks about the girls who wished they’d known him because they would have taken care of him, would have made sure he knew he was loved and desirable, so he’d never have had to kill to get the attention he deserved and was no doubt denied. Almost always with pictures, she says. Of their cleavage or their bottoms in bikinis and underwear, of them suggestively sucking popsicles.
All the broken people in the world, she says. They puzzle me. And they’ve persuaded me to do something about them, to help them.
Enough, I think, and snap it off again, and don’t care that I’m speeding. I speed up more, and signs blur. I know Lamont will have heard all about it soon. Will probably have listened to it. Will, like me, want to do something about it, which is the one thing that scares me, so when traffic picks up and I slow down, I call him. Did you hear
it?
Of course I heard it, he says.
Well, maybe we can call the bookstore, make sure they don’t invite her.
They won’t invite her, believe me, Lamont says. I took care of it. They won’t have her in any bookstore within two hundred miles.
Lamont, did you call them up? The highway is crowded now, cars pinning me in on either side, making me panic.
You’re damn straight I did.
Lamont. I drive with my eyes closed again, just for a second, trying to will it all away. You know the cops are going to come by. They have to.
Let ’em, he said. Going by that kid’s house didn’t do a damn thing either.
I open my eyes and slam on my brakes, just in time. You’re older, Lamont. You’re Black.
Yes I am, he says. And I have guns.
Interim 6
Number of school shootings since:
147
Number of school children killed:
247
Nash Calls Me In to Call Me Out
APRIL 5, 2019
For all our contact, this is the first time I’m at Nash’s desk. Yellow and blue paperwork, an old baseball, a coffee mug with devil and angel emojis, a framed picture of his sons dangling strings of trout. One looks like Nash himself, younger. As if accidently, he covers the picture with some paperwork, a kindness that cuts.
Sorry, he says, but I thought it would be best if we did this here.
Sure, I say, and let out a deep breath through puffed cheeks. I understand.
Have a seat, he says, and scratches the palm of one hand with the fingers of the other. Listen. I know this time of year is really hard for you.
I give him my stone face. Knowing he’s trespassed, he gets right to it. So, some background, this guy who was beaten. Turns out he demanded proof that the children were real at a town meeting. Got jumped after. Found lying on the ground, a pink dildo shoved in his mouth. A wonder he didn’t choke on it.
Maybe the balls weren’t big enough.
Nash ignores my comment. His name is Hardy Starling. You know him?
I shake my head no, but my poker face must slip, because Nash’s eyes narrow. Did you know the hoaxers were in town for the select-men meeting? And did you have anything to do with his beating?
No. Nothing. How could I? Didn’t know of the meeting. Is he going to make it?
Yeah. He’ll be okay. He was in the Neuro-ICU for a bit, but he’s talking now. Maybe some residual damage. He leafed through pages of notes. There might have been two different attacks. The docs said some bruising looked older, and he was found without a cell phone or wallet. John Doe, until a patrol noticed all the parking tickets, and that his car was filled with shredded paper.
His truck?
His eyes come up. I said car. We’re trying to put the shredded paper together, see if it offers any clues. You sure none of it is yours?
Could be. I pick up his stress ball. Hoaxers steal my garbage all the time. For credit card numbers, my customers’ names. Who knows what they do with the rest.
Anyway, he says. From the truck we got his registration, and from the registration we got his name. Then we got his cell phone number and followed its usage. Last place it picked up a signal was near your old house. May’s place.
I know if they go through his records, they’ll find the sent emails. The sent contacts. I shiver at the thought. Nash notices.
Yeah, your story’s all wet, so here’s what I think. Maybe you hit him and he fought back. That’s how you got that shiner. It’s about the right vintage. Purple still.
Polygraph me, if you want. This came from a bar fight with Lamont.
You two have a falling out? I thought you were friends.
Friends fight. You know that. I say nothing about the bassist.
I do, he says. But this guy was nobody’s friend, and frankly I wouldn’t blame anyone for jumping him. Especially not you. But let’s say it wasn’t you. Anyone else it might have been?
Lamont, of course, but I won’t give him up. Yes, I say. I’m sure you have the list already. Any of the parents. All of them.
He ignores me. Happened about four Tuesday afternoon. Where were you?
You have witnesses? The thought makes my stomach tighten.
Would they have seen you?
If so, you wouldn’t be asking me. But I was on my way up to Vermont, looking for freelance clients. Found one in fact. Homer Brannock. Ask him, if you need to.
If I need to?
I don’t know, I say, and drop the stress ball on his desk. Maybe asking him isn’t the best thing. If clients think I’m bashing in people’s heads, it hurts my work.
He nods, taps the pen against the page. All right, for now I’ll take your word on it. But if we don’t develop any leads, I can’t guarantee anything. Looks like someone used a bat on him. That doesn’t give you any ideas?
Sure, lots of them, but you wouldn’t like any.
I won’t tell Lamont, because I’m his hope, his touchstone. That I haven’t snapped means there’s still good in the world. Only Hardy Starling and I know I have, and it seems likely he won’t remember.
And if we search your car and apartment, we won’t find a bloody bat?
Actually, you would.
He rubs his face with both hands, looks at me, sighs. Leans forward so our faces are only inches apart. The good cop part, I think. Otto, he says, his voice low, his breath minty. I know these people are relentless. Brazen. If I were in your shoes, I’d be doing the same thing. Hell. I’d want to kill him if I was you. But if you were in my shoes, you’d tell me to knock it off. These people are their own worst enemies.
I laugh. Not while I’m alive, I say.
He shakes his head and sits back. Listen. Once we catch a couple, charge them with stalking, get them into the system, jail them, it’ll discourage others. They think they’re heroes, waking up America to governmental false flag operations. But they don’t want to pay the price to be real heroes. Eventually, they’ll move on.
So they’ll just be someone else’s problem.
Yeah, he says. They will. But we’re coordinating now, police departments in different cities. Different states even. Give us a chance.
I have, I say, my glance roving over his desk. Three years. On his calendar is a Thursday lunch date with May. So they’re still seeing one another. Good for them.
They’ll go away, Nash says. I promise you. They will. Just let us do our job. And give me something, if you can. Anything.
I nod, look to the side as if I’m thinking, then sit forward.
He sits forward again too, ready for my confidence, so I ask for paper and a pencil. He hands them to me and I begin to sketch, quickly, broad strokes, the forms of a body and a bat. As I work, I say, You still interested in drawing lessons? I wave the pencil. You asked about them once.
Oh, right. He laughs. Must have been a passing fancy.
Okay, I say, and draw on. Here, I say, turning it around once I’m done.
What’s that?
A possum. Hit him with my car first, bat second. Hence the blood, if you test it.
For a minute he just stares at it. A ringing phone, which he ignores, a small plane passing overhead, radiators knocking, the sour smell of burnt coffee. Okay then, he says at last, and drops it on his desk. We’re done here. I didn’t order any bullshit for lunch and here you’ve gone and served me a four-course meal.
I feel a little bad and want to ask about his sons as a peace offering, but from his expression I don’t think it’ll go over well. As I stand, he says, May’s right about you, you know. Your stubbornness.
She’s right about a lot of things, I say. I hope one of them is you.
Was she right about you and the pink dildos?
Excuse me? I say.
Never mind, he says. I was hoping she was right on that one. So say I’m wrong. How about Lamont? he says. Think he could have done this?
You know Lamont, I say, smart enough not to pause or look
away. He lives his life now like he’s driving a stolen car. I don’t think he has time for pink dildos. And you’re wrong, by the way. I don’t want to kill hoaxers.
That’s good.
I want more.
Outside, the warming air smells of wild chives. I text Lamont.
Not asking, and don’t want to know. But a hoaxer was beaten last week. Police just questioned me. Lose the bat, or douse it in Coke, and erase this text.
I’d seen the thing about Coke on a crime show, how it ruined blood evidence. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it’s worth a shot. Better than bleach, according to the show. On the way home, I pick up a six-pack to douse mine.
First Anniversary—Paper
APRIL 5, 2017
What’s this? May said, and sat up in bed.
A fleeting smile, her taut skin shiny. I put the tray beside her, coffee steaming, and said, Wait, there’s one more thing, and was back before she even took a sip. She adjusted the straps of her floral nightgown, a birthday gift from Liam, his most recent one. Here, I said, and handed it to her over the tray, careful not to whack the juice glass or the plate with the steaming eggs and sausage. Her Mother’s Day meal.
You know I can’t wait on presents. Her cheekbones looked like wooden knobs; she’d lost twenty pounds in the last year. A gust of wind blew against the house, rattling the windows and startling us; outside, the tall firs bent to the south.
Going to be cold, isn’t it? she said. Maybe a storm. I nodded. But she was looking at the sky, at space, at nothing. Probably better, she said. I don’t think I could stand a beautiful day. The paper crinkled as she unwrapped it.
She inspected the painting, the white church with its Egyptian-blue stained-glass window. So many times she’d said she wished she could paint it, hints, of course, that I should. But the hints had had an expiration date, which only became clear in that moment. We had each become our own galaxies, drifting slowly apart, and I’d thought the painting might forestall that, might call up the essential from memory. As stupid as trying to hold back a river with a spoon.