The traffic cop didn’t see things my way. The night Deb left I got pulled over, driving to I don’t know where. Around. The cop made me get out of my car, empty my pockets. He saw the roll of quarters I always keep, asked me what they were for. Laundry, I said. The cop asked if I’d been drinking. I said that I had. He said, Where were you drinking? and I said I’d bought a six-pack at the junior market and had sat right down in the parking lot. He said, Aren’t you a little old to be drinking in parking lots? and I said, Aren’t you a little old to have that stupid fucking mustache, and so here I am.
There are enough guys in the cafeteria to fill two long tables. Some rough-looking characters. Even the chubby accountants—the middle managers or whatever, guys in suits and ties—even they have a threatening edge. They don’t have to smile in their office or cheer at their son’s ball game or be anything but what they really are. This is reality in here. This is no bullshit.
A couple guys know each other from previous classes. Nods and handshakes. Long time no see.
Our instructor walks into the cafeteria. She’s in her forties, I’d guess, a short woman with frizzy hair, big glasses, wearing a dark blue pantsuit. She says her name is Connie, thanks us all for being on time, crosses to a small table at the front of the room. She’s carrying a large purse and a larger book bag, and when she gets to the table she lets each of them slide off her shoulders. While her back is turned, one of the guys whistles—a long, low wolf whistle—and Connie turns and gives him a look because she knows she’s not the kind of woman who gets a whistle like that. Her look says, If you’re going to be a fucking asshole then be a fucking asshole but don’t pretend you want me up on this table, legs in the air. Let’s not make this about something it’s not.
The guy nods, lowers his eyes. His name is Luis—we’d already introduced ourselves. He’s the youngest guy in the class, seems like a real smartass, with a nasty scar cutting down through his mouth and black teardrop tattoos up at the corner of each eye. He keeps his eyes down, nodding; such is the fierceness of Connie’s look. Okay. Understood.
Connie says, Somebody’s got to wheel in the chalkboard from out in the hall.
A couple of guys go out and come back in pushing the chalkboard.
Where you want it?
Right here is fine, Connie says. Just turn it so everybody can see.
She pulls a couple of books out of her bag, a couple of folders, a fistful of pens tied with a rubber band. She takes off her watch and sets it face-up on the table.
You’d better go get your coffee and pop and M&M’s now, she says, because we don’t do the break at 8:30.
There’s always a break at 8:30.
Not here.
It’s the law.
Not here.
Everybody goes out in the hall to the vending machines, gets their coffee and sodas and candy. Rolled eyes, clucked tongues. Can you believe this bitch? What happened to the other guy, Doug, the guy who did class last time? Doug was a good guy.
Back in the cafeteria, metal chairs squeaking, soda can tabs popping, wrappers tearing. Connie waits for the noise to finish.
Okay, she says. Who can tell me why we’re here?
To learn to deal with our hostile emotions in a safe and responsible manner. A lumbering chorus of voices, a follow-up snickering wave.
Good to see we have some veterans in the class, Connie says. Yes. To learn to deal with our hostile emotions in a safe and responsible manner. Connie writes this on the board.
The middle-manager type sitting behind Luis clears his throat. And how do we go about doing that, he says.
Connie turns. What’s that?
You’re supposed to ask us how we go about dealing with our hostile emotions in a safe and responsible manner.
Connie turns back to the board. If you knew the answer to that, she says, you wouldn’t be sitting here.
* * *
After class, a group heads to the parking lot while another group of us heads down to the corner to wait for the bus.
Luis is walking at the back, kind of dragging one leg, trying out a tough-guy limp. After a few drag steps, he calls out to the middle manager guy.
Who you got?
The middle manager guy turns, still walking. What are you talking about?
I’m talking about who breaks first, Luis says. Every class there’s a couple guys who lose it, get popped, maybe put away for a while.
The middle manager guy thinks for a second, nods across the group to a tall dude with a ponytail. Him.
Fabio? Luis says. Nah, man, Fabio’s a lover, not a fighter.
That’s my pick, the middle manager guy says.
Fabio calls back from the front. I got Luis. Luis has been here, like, fifteen times.
Luis cackles, slaps his hand against his thigh.
We keep walking. I can see a few cars double-parked by the bus stop. Mothers, girlfriends, babies in car seats. Rides home.
How about you? Fabio says.
Luis drags his limp, moving through the group, looking. He finally settles on me. I got this big fucker, he says. He throws a crooked-toothed smile back at the group. This big fucker looks about ready to blow.
* * *
When I was a kid, my grandma called it Getting in the Red. She got the phrase from a TV commercial where this dumbass hadn’t changed his oil for fifteen years or something and burns out his engine. They show the engine glowing like a hot coal, cycling faster and faster until it sputters and smokes out. Stop your engine before it gets in the red, the commercial announcer said.
Some kid out on the street or somewhere would call me Jonas the Whale or Jonas the Giant and I’d get so worked up that I’d start to shake and spit and just want to kill him for saying that.
Jonas! Grandma yelling, running down the lawn, apron and hands flapping. Jonas, you’re getting in the red!
She’d pull me off the little fucker and drag me inside and I’d have to sit with my head on the kitchen table and a cold washcloth on the back of my neck. As soon as I felt that washcloth I’d start crying like a baby. The anger sucked out through my skin, into the cold wet cloth. My eyes closed, I could hear Grandma moving around the kitchen. Cooking sounds, dishwashing sounds, pots and pans clattering in the sink. Every few minutes she’d come over and change the water in the washcloth or just stand with her hand on the back of my neck while I choked through the end of my crying jag.
Jonas, you get so overwhelmed, she’d say. Jonas will you ever not be like this.
Maybe, Grandma, I’d say, sniffling snot, wiping my eyes. Maybe. I’ll try.
Jonas, Grandma saying, you get so overwhelmed I don’t know what to do.
* * *
This is a different life now. This is a waiting life. This is a life of standing through the day, legs aching, back aching, dragging items across the scanner, giving change, reading the customers’ Rewards Club savings from their receipts. You saved four dollars and thirty-eight cents. Would you like help out to your car. Ricardo here will help. Thank you. Come again.
This is a different life now, since Deb left.
The house is mine, technically. My name is on the lease. A tiny two-bedroom place with security bars on the doors and windows; a jagged, waist-high fence around the mangy front yard. Not one of your better neighborhoods. I rented it because I could afford it and because it had a rickety old front porch. Grandma always said there was no point in living in a place without a front porch.
The afternoon Deb moved in she said, You’ve lived here for five years and still haven’t bought curtains? It never crossed my mind to buy curtains, I said. Who cares about curtains. The next day there were blue curtains on all the windows. The day after that there was a toothbrush holder on the bathroom sink. When there’s more than one toothbrush you need a toothbrush holder. What have you done to my house? I said. Deb pulled a new shower curtain from her shopping bag, started hanging it around the tub. I made it habitable, she said.
We always kept the TV on the kitchen counter. A little 13-inch job Deb bought with her employee discount at the department store. She liked to watch it while she cooked. I never had any goddamned use for the thing, except when the Cowboys were on, and then I’d have to pull a folding chair right up next to the screen to watch. Deb would say, Why don’t we get a bigger TV so you won’t go blind sitting so close to that thing? and I’d say that we didn’t need a bigger TV because I didn’t have any use for the thing except for every Sunday when the Cowboys were on. Not counting the playoffs. Or the Super Bowl. Then Deb would laugh at me and after a moment I’d laugh at me, too.
I’ve moved the TV out into the living room. The kitchen is not the best place to be right now because of this little chip in the Formica at the edge of the countertop. I keep telling myself that the chip has always been there, or that it’s from Deb dropping a pickle jar or something, but I know how it really got there, what hit against the countertop hard enough to chip the Formica. So I carried the TV into the living room, which is where it belonged in the first place.
I’ve started watching the home shopping channel. I guess it reminds me of my grandma because she always used to watch it those last few months in the rest home. Also, it’s the only thing on when I get out of work at three in the morning. Used to be that I would get home and have a few beers out on the front porch and watch the traffic go by on the freeway, and then I’d get in bed and just lie next to Deb until I fell asleep. But now Deb’s gone and I can’t sleep and so hence the home shopping channel.
There’s this guy, Brian Lang, who’s always on when I get home, this nerdy-looking guy with a kid’s bowl cut and glasses. He hosts the Collectors’ Corner where they sell all types of Star Wars spaceship models and Land of the Lost painted plates and shit like that, all numbered and authenticated limited edition stuff. Two hundred bucks for a plate. He takes phone calls while he’s showing the stuff and people talk about how much they love this plate or that comic book and when’s he going to have some of those commemorative coins on the show. He really knows his stuff, all the details and facts and trivia. I might think this shit is stupid and maybe he does, too, but you’d never know it from watching him. He can talk about this stuff for hours, make it seem like he cares. People call and love talking to him because here’s this normal guy with a job on TV who knows as much as they do about Farscape or whatever.
Tonight he’s selling trading cards from some old space movie. Brian’s into these cards because they’re from thirty years ago and really hard to find. This kind of history is disappearing, he says. But the producers of the shopping channel found a whole case of them at an estate sale in Calabasas, still in their packages of six cards with a piece of bubble gum, although Brian says he wouldn’t recommend trying the gum.
People are really going apeshit over these cards. All the usual losers are calling up, the people who call a couple times a week. They can’t believe he found these cards. One guy yells into the phone, Thank you, Calabasas!
I play a drinking game while I watch. I drink a beer every time somebody says they’ve been waiting all night for these cards. I drink a beer every time somebody says they feel blessed. It’s getting boring, though; the game is too easy tonight, everybody is so worked up, so I decide to up the ante. If I get up to ten beers, I’m going to get on the phone and see what this idiot has to say for himself.
I feel so blessed, a caller says. I’ve been waiting for these cards all night.
Nine beers. Ten.
We have Jonas on the line from Los Angeles, Brian says. He looks into the camera. Are you there, Jonas?
I’m here.
You got on right in time, my friend. We’re nearly out of cards.
My lucky night.
Are you a movie buff, Jonas?
No.
But you’re a collector. You’re a card collector.
No. I’m not a sucker, either.
On TV, Brian’s smile freezes a little, the corners of his mouth tensing.
I’m glad to hear that, he says.
Fifty bucks for a pack of trading cards.
He’s still smiling, but it’s harder, tighter. These are highly collectible, he says, yes.
You’re smarter than you look, Brian. All these dummies calling up to give you money.
I don’t see it that way at all, Jonas.
Sure. You’re really excited about these cards. I can tell.
You think I’m acting.
He’s stopped smiling, but he hasn’t hung up, or motioned for someone to cut me off.
Well, I don’t know how to convince you, Jonas, he says. I think you either get it or you don’t.
You don’t think I get it?
It doesn’t appear that way.
If I buy a pack of cards for fifty bucks will I get it?
If you buy a pack of cards for fifty bucks, he says, and you don’t get it, you can send them back, no questions asked. Even if they’re opened. Even if you’ve eaten the gum. He smiles again, looser now, confident. My personal guarantee.
I sit looking at the TV, Brian smiling at me in the living room. The phone’s cradled between my ear and my neck. Your personal guarantee, I say.
Yes, sir.
Eleven beers.
Okay, I say. Send me one. I want to get it.
* * *
Nobody’s technically in the Tuesday night class for hitting his wife or girlfriend. Technically, everybody’s here for something else. If you get arrested for hitting your wife or girlfriend they don’t send you to this group, they send you to another one, over at the courthouse. Or they send you to jail. This group is for if you got into a fight at a Dodgers game or pushed somebody at work or mouthed off to a cop who pulled you over. If you’ve got a history of these things. It’s not supposed to be as serious as the group at the courthouse, but everybody still knows, everyone’s still done it at some point. We know; Connie knows. Wife beaters. Woman hitters. It’s like a smell in the room.
Tonight, Connie says, I’d like to talk about triggers.
We all sit in the same seats in the cafeteria. Connie hasn’t told us we have to, but we do anyway. I sit halfway down the table on the right side, between Fabio and the Traffic Guy from Channel Four. Everybody was real impressed when the Traffic Guy showed up. They wanted his autograph, wanted to shake his hand. They wanted to know what it was like to pilot a helicopter. I’m not a pilot, he said, I just sit in the passenger seat and talk. He may not be a pilot, but he has the look of one, or the movie version of one, a commanding officer, brush-cut, block-jawed, and intense. He was embarrassed to be here and wanted to make sure no one was going to tell anybody. The guys all laughed because who the fuck are we going to tell? We all work late on Tuesday nights. This is what we tell people. We’re all at the gym, at a poker game.
Every action has a trigger, Connie says. She writes this on the board: Trigger. Action. She draws a line connecting the two. What we need to do, she says, is break the connection between the Trigger and the Action. She wipes out a section of the line with a corner of the eraser. We need to start recognizing the things that make us angry and stop responding physically. Once we do that, she says, we can get to the root of the problem.
Give me some things, she says, that make you angry.
My boss, Luis says.
Connie writes it on the board. Boss.
What about your boss? she says.
He’s an asshole.
What about him specifically?
He’s a fucking asshole.
Things he does that make you angry.
Luis thinks. My boss got this look, he says. Like he doesn’t want to be working there. Like he’s better than that. And how’s that supposed to make us feel, if he doesn’t want to be working there and he’s the boss?
Inferiority, Connie says.
How’s that?
He makes you feel inferior. Makes you feel like you’re wasting your time at that job.
Yeah, like how the fuck are we supposed to feel?
Connie writes Inferiority on the board across from Boss and draws a line connecting the two.
Who else has something?
The middle manager guy raises a finger. My neighbor, he says. Diagonal from my house.
And what does he do?
What does she do. She doesn’t do anything. She walks down her driveway in the morning. Gets in her car. I sit at the kitchen window and drink my coffee.
And how does that make you angry?
She’s so much hotter than my wife.
Connie writes Disappointment on the board. Draws a line to Anger.
Traffic, the Traffic Guy says.
Everybody laughs.
I’m serious, the Traffic Guy says. He looks serious. The stupidity of it, he says. People making the same mistakes every single day.
Connie writes Traffic, draws a line.
My dick’s too big, says a guy in the back. My girlfriend keeps complaining that it hurts.
Everybody laughs. Connie writes Delusions of Grandeur on the board.
So we see, she says, that the nature of the Trigger isn’t really important. Anything can set us off. What’s important is recognizing the emotion caused by the Trigger and taking the time to figure an appropriate response. Not just jumping from Inferiority or Disappointment or Traffic straight to Anger straight to Violence. The important thing is not to get ahead of ourselves.
We’ve all had to buy notebooks for the class, just regular old spiral jobs from the supermarket school-supply aisle. I got mine thirty percent off. Employee perk. Some of the guys are writing things down in their notebooks, some are doodling. Some of the guys are ignoring their notebooks and ignoring Connie and staring out the cafeteria windows, even though it’s almost ten o’clock and pitch black out. My notebook’s blank.
Connie says, This week I want you to keep your notebooks with you at all times, and when something sets you off, write it down. Write it down and then write a one-line explanation, just one sentence, about why it’s setting you off.
While it’s happening, Luis says.
While it’s happening, Connie says. Is that doable?
Sure, sure, it’s doable.
Connie looks down at her watch on the table. We’ve got fifteen minutes left, she says.
The middle manager guy raises a finger. Can we go early?
No, Connie says. You can’t.
Lots of grumbling in the cafeteria.
That sucks, the middle manager guy says.
Connie pulls up a chair, sits. Put it in your notebook, she says.
* * *
I see it, I see it, she says, this flat-faced, big-boned woman in line at the checkout, smiling wide. Not many people in the store. One thirty, quarter of two in the morning. My checkout’s the only one open.
I see it, I see it, she says, pointing toward the dark windows at the front of the store, then up toward the ceiling, and then she falls flat on her back and starts to shake and froth at the mouth.
Holy shit, Ricardo shouts and drops his mop and runs the rest of the way down the cereal aisle to my checkout.
The woman fell on the guy behind her, this little hairy guy with a perm and a greasy face. She’s lying on top of him with her eyes rolled up into her head, frothing and shaking, and he’s trying to crawl out from under her.
Get her off me get her off me, he says.
I come around the checkout to where they’re tangled in a heap. Ricardo’s at the checkout now too and he says, She’s having a seizure, Jonas—we got to hold her steady, so I kneel down and grab on to her shoulders.
The guy with the perm is struggling and yelling, Get her off me get her off me.
Shut up, don’t move, I say to the guy, but he keeps struggling, trying to push the woman off him.
Fucking stop moving, I say.
Somebody get some juice, Ricardo says. Nobody in the store moves so Ricardo yells, Somebody get some juice, please, and this time the please is pained and sharp and this chick over in produce with a bunch of tattoos drops her shopping basket and runs toward the beverage cases.
I’m yelling at the perm guy, Fucking stop moving, because the woman is starting to choke on her froth and my hands are so sweaty I can’t get a good grip on her shoulders.
Ricardo says, Jonas hold her steady.
I can’t I fucking can’t.
Help me get her mouth open, Ricardo says. Clear away some of that spit.
Shit shit shit, I’m saying.
Get her off me get her off me.
Jonas, open her mouth, Ricardo yells. Just keep her steady and open it.
Fucking stop moving, I scream at the perm guy, but he keeps pushing at the woman so I grab him by the shoulders and pull him out, across the floor to the front of the checkout, but he’s still saying, Get Off Get Off, so I kneel down and put a hand over his mouth and slap him on the side of the head, slap him again, and now he’s yelling and Ricardo’s yelling and the tattooed chick’s yelling and I’m punching this guy in the temples and now Ricardo’s on top of me, pulling me away, and the tattooed chick is screaming, That woman! That woman! and Ricardo gives me another shove and stumbles back to the woman who’s now thrashing on the floor. The tattooed chick hands Ricardo a carton of orange juice and he tears open the top and pours a little down the woman’s throat. He pulls her head up on his knee and some of the juice spills out so Ricardo starts massaging her throat saying, Come on baby, come on baby please, let’s get this down, let’s get this down baby, and finally some of it goes down, finally she swallows. Shaking less and less. Just little jerks now, her head one way, her body the other. Her face is white and shiny, covered with sweat and juice.
I get to my feet and just stand there, watching. The perm guy is still lying on the floor, crying now, his arms folded over his face.
Jesus Christ, Ricardo says.
The ambulance comes. The paramedics rush in, radios squawking.
* * *
Deb’s stuff is still here. Every night I get home from work and expect it all to be moved out. She has a key. But every night it’s still here.
I imagine she’s staying at her parents’ house out in Riverside. I don’t know where else she’d go. Probably getting an earful from her dad. Deb’s mom was always really nice when I was over at their place for dinner or whatnot, but her dad never cared for me. After my first DUI he told Deb that how she lived her life was her business, but he didn’t want me in their home anymore. So it was a really big deal when they invited me to dinner this last Thanksgiving. I can only imagine the shit Deb had to wade through. I told her that I was perfectly fine eating frozen pot pie at home and squinting at the Cowboys game in the kitchen, but she said it was all settled. There was going to be a truce between me and her dad. I said that there couldn’t be a truce because we weren’t fighting in the first place, that I honestly couldn’t care less what the old fucker thought of me. Deb put her hand on the back of my neck, fingertips light at my hairline, whispering, shhhh into my ear until I unclenched my fists and teeth.
Deb’s dad’s a high school principal. He makes good money, I guess. Their neighborhood looks right out of a TV commercial: tree-lined street, SUVs in the driveways, lawns like putting greens. No one talked much during dinner. Deb kept asking her dad and me questions, trying to get the conversation started. We both answered in one word or less. Her mom served sparkling apple juice instead of wine. I could tell her dad was jonesing for a drink but wouldn’t break down and have one in front of me after he’d said that shit about the DUI. I kept watching him, his hands shaking a little whenever he lifted his glass.
After dinner, Deb and her mom cleared the dishes, started futzing in the kitchen. Her dad went into the living room and turned on the Cowboys game. I sat at the table alone for a few minutes, then I thought, What the hell, I don’t want to miss the game. We sat on opposite ends of the couch. Every once in a while he’d say something about one of the players, what kind of season they were having, and then I’d say something and after a while I started to think, Well, this guy might be a blowhard but at least he knows a little about football.
Deb suggested we all play charades. Some kind of Thanksgiving tradition. And now, she said, wasn’t it great because there were enough players for actual teams. It was Deb and her mom on one team, me and Deb’s dad on the other. Deb’s mom told her dad that he should turn off the game while we were playing, but he said, Let’s leave it on for Jonas, which I thought was an all right thing to say.
It came down to the last round, Deb’s dad stumbling around the living room, squinting, pawing the air in front of him, and when I guessed Mr. Magoo to win the game he was so excited he grabbed me around the shoulders with one arm and thumped me on the chest, laughing and shouting. This man knows how to play charades, he said, and I put my hands on his shoulders, too. We stood there squeezing each other, smiling like idiots.
* * *
I can’t get that woman out of my head. Seizing in the aisle. And the perm guy, I just couldn’t fucking take it anymore, but what if Ricardo had taken too long pulling me off him and that woman had choked on her own spit?
Ricardo saved that woman’s life. Jonas the Whale couldn’t ignore the perm guy, couldn’t get past that. Jonas the Whale got into a fight and almost let her die.
Walking up my front yard, I’m planning to go straight inside for the fridge and the beer, but I step on something on the front porch, stop and bend. A yellow padded envelope. I wonder what the fuck this could be, and then I remember and open it right there, shake out the blue and white pack. Official Movie Photo Cards with 1 Stick Bubble Gum. Picture of a red planet on the front, hanging in space.
Six cards inside, with scenes from the movie on the front. Captions under the scenes: Diomedes-1 Lifts Off, Desert Planet, Building the Water Generator, Rebellion!, The Flood, Pod Escape. There’s a pink stick of gum stuck to the back of the last card. I peel it off, hold it up, sniff it. Smells like gum. Put it in my mouth and chew. It breaks apart into hard pieces, but I finally force it into a chewy ball. Tastes like gum.
I dig out my notebook and try writing.
I want to beat the shit out of somebody right now.
What did Connie say? Draw a line. Trigger—Action. So I draw a wobbly line and try to remember why.
Brian Lang’s on the TV, smiling into the camera.
We’ve got Sara Jane on the line from Wichita. Hello, Sara Jane.
Hello, Brian. I’m so glad I got through.
We’re glad to have you. What are you interested in tonight?
The figurines.
Davey or Goliath?
Goliath, for sure.
I moved the TV from the living room into the bedroom. Deb has these little ceramic teddy bears that her parents get her each Christmas, and they’re all lined up on a shelf in the living room. They each have a costume that represents different parts of her personality: salesgirl bear, track-and-field bear, chef bear. It got impossible to watch Collectors’ Corner with those stupid bears smiling and staring.
I think Davey and Goliath set such wonderful examples for children, Sara Jane says. I wish they were still on the air.
Brian says, I couldn’t agree with you more.
I fan the trading cards out on the bed, arranging them one way, then another, trying to see if I can get them to tell a story. Chewing, sucking the sugar out of the gum.
What did she see, that woman? I see it, I see it, she’d said, right before she had the seizure. What did she see?
I take the phone into the bedroom so I can see the TV. I almost hang up when the operator asks for my name, almost chicken out, but when she asks again I tell her and she says to please hold, she’s going to put me on the air.
We have Jonas on the line from Los Angeles. Hello, Jonas.
Hey.
What can we do for you tonight?
Do you remember me?
I do now, Brian says. I recognize your voice.
I got those cards in the mail today.
And what did you think?
You mean, do I get it?
Do you?
I look at the cards, the TV. I don’t know, I say.
You didn’t eat the gum did you?
I did.
You did? Brian’s smiling again now. How was it?
It wasn’t too bad, Brian.
Brian laughs. You’re a brave man, Jonas.
I don’t feel so brave.
Pardon me?
I don’t say anything. Brian stares into the camera, eyebrows raised.
Jonas?
A woman almost died at work tonight, I say.
Oh, Brian says. I’m sorry to hear that. Is she all right?
I think so. One of the other guys poured orange juice down her throat.
Where do you work, Jonas?
At a supermarket. I’m a checkout clerk at a supermarket.
I’m sorry to hear that. About the woman. I really am.
Yeah, I say. I guess I was pretty upset.
I can see where you would be. Brian looks into the camera, nodding, almost like he’s waiting for me to calm down.
Stay with us, Jonas, he says. We’re going to have a good show tonight.
* * *
The big news at class is that Luis was in a high-speed chase this morning and got arrested. The neighbors heard his girlfriend screaming and called the cops. He was hitting her with a shoe and the cops came and he ran out the back door and got in his truck and drove off through the neighbor’s lawn. He got on the freeway and went up through downtown and then back through Hollywood, driving on the shoulder around the stopped traffic until they got him with one of those wheel-spike strips and he blew out his tires and had to hoof it. He jumped over the side wall of the freeway and rolled down the hill and started hauling ass but he was missing a shoe and they got him.
The Traffic Guy was covering the whole thing from his helicopter and he tells us the story. Connie watches the Traffic Guy and listens and when he’s done she asks, What was that like?
What was what like? the Traffic Guy says.
Reporting about someone you know who has the same problems you do.
While it was happening.
Connie nods.
It felt like I was betraying him, the Traffic Guy says. Honestly, at first, I wanted him to get away. I felt like, somehow, if he got away then it wouldn’t be so bad. That what he did wouldn’t seem so bad. But everybody back in the studio, the anchors and producers were all so disgusted by him, by what he had done, and they were rooting for the cops so I started rooting for the cops, too. I felt like shit for wanting him to get away. Like that made me just as bad as he was. I got so upset they had to mute me. I hope they get that fucker, I said. It almost got on the air.
Everyone’s agitated in the cafeteria. The story has charged the room. Luis should have been caught, but he shouldn’t have been caught. I should have been caught, but I shouldn’t have been caught. No one wants to be on TV, running from the cops. No one wants to be the thing people watch in the morning as they get ready for work.
Connie says, What are you all doing to make sure this doesn’t happen to you? Her voice is shaking and that adds to the agitation.
This is important, she says. We’re going around the room and you tell me what you’re doing.
The middle manager guy says, I’m writing in my notebook.
The Traffic Guy says, I’m writing in my notebook.
Fabio says, I’m writing in my notebook.
Spooked. Everybody’s spooked. Everybody waves their notebooks in the air, warding it off, keeping it away.
Grandma knew what to do, when I got in the red. Grandma knew what to do and then the fall in the shower and then the home.
Deb knew what to do. Deb knew what to do and then of course she didn’t.
I’m writing in my notebook, we say, waving them in the air. I’m writing in my notebook, I’m writing in my notebook.
* * *
I’m writing in my notebook. I wanted to watch Collectors’ Corner, but the cable is out. Sometimes it gets so hot in the summer that the TV just takes a shit. That and I keep finding Deb’s long black hairs on the pillowcases, so I went out onto the porch and started writing in my notebook. Just stupid shit about the day, watching the late night cars speed across the freeway overpass, trying to remember what I’d been doing this morning when Luis had passed over it getting chased by the cops.
We have Jonas on the line from Los Angeles. Hello, Jonas.
Hey, Brian.
Having a good night, I hope.
I’ve had better.
I know the feeling.
My TV’s out.
How are you watching the show?
I’m not. I’m out on my porch.
Getting some air.
I guess so.
Well, we’ve got bears tonight, Jonas.
Bears.
They’re authentic Star Trek bears. Hand-molded ceramic. They’re costumed like Captain Kirk, Spock, the whole crew.
I want to hang up. Through the screen door, I can see Deb’s bears on their shelf in the living room.
Instead, I say, I have some of those bears already.
Brian says, You have the Star Trek bears?
No, they’re different bears.
Well these bears are brand new, Jonas. Just released. The whole Star Trek crew.
How do they look?
Oh, they look great, Jonas. They have a lot of personality.
After a second, I say, Okay, I’ll order one.
Which one?
You pick, Brian. Whichever one you think.
I’ll do that, Jonas. I’ll put you on with an operator. Have a good night.
Brian.
Yes?
When I’m waiting for an operator, they play your show instead of music.
Yes, they do.
Could someone keep me on hold for the rest of the show, seeing as my TV’s on the fritz?
I don’t see why not, Jonas. I think that can be arranged.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you, Jonas. Stay with us.
* * *
But sometimes, the Traffic Guy says, you have to do something. Sometimes a response is called for.
But not a violent response, Connie says. There’s always another way.
Not always.
Yes, always. A violent response just leads to another violent response.
The Traffic Guy really has a bug up his ass tonight. What is this? he says. The Cycle of Violence?
I’ve heard it a million times. Breaking the Cycle of Violence.
A police siren, out of nowhere, the sound smearing as it passes the cafeteria. Everybody flinches except Connie.
Sometimes, Connie says, you hear things a million times because they’re true.
Sometimes, the Traffic Guy says, you hear things a million times because they’re bullshit.
Hey man calm down, the middle manager says.
Don’t tell me to calm down. He looks back at Connie. What if you’re in a fight, he says. Somebody attacks you and you do nothing. You stand and get pummeled. You stand and get killed.
You want to fight back.
Fuck yes, the Traffic Guy says. You have to defend yourself.
None of you are here for defending yourselves, Connie says.
Another siren through the open windows, front of the room to the back.
Fuck you, Connie.
I will ask you to leave.
For speaking my mind.
For speaking your mind in an abusive manner I will ask you to leave.
I apologize.
Don’t patronize me.
I fucking apologize, Miss Connie. Miss Perfect Connie. I am so sorry.
Leave.
I’m leaving.
Leave.
* * *
The night after Deb left, her dad showed up at the house. It was about three in the morning and I heard someone shouting from the front lawn so I went out onto the porch and it was Deb’s dad. He was standing on the other side of the fence yelling at the house. Come out here you son of a bitch. Come out here you batterer. He looked pretty ridiculous, this old guy standing there in a golf shirt and shorts with his socks pulled up to his knees, yelling at the house.
Go home, I said. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You son of a bitch, he said. I know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about her face. What you did to her face.
I didn’t do nothing to her face.
You son of a bitch.
He pulled open the gate and ran up the walkway, onto the porch, took a swing. He missed by a mile and I pushed him back, sprawling onto the lawn in his golf shirt and shorts and socks. Three o’clock in the morning. Some old man lying in the dirt, breath knocked out of him, looking like he was going to cry.
That’s my little girl you son of a bitch and if you ever go near her again I’ll kill you.
He got up and limped back to his car. I got a beer out of the fridge and sat on the porch and drank. I was really in the red then. If I’d had my notebook then, I would have written down that I wanted to kill Deb’s dad. And I would have drawn a line and written that the reason I wanted to kill him was because I would have done the same thing if I were him and some fucking monster had done that to my little girl’s perfect face.
* * *
When I get home from work, the first thing I notice is that no one’s stolen the TV from the front porch yet. The second thing I notice is a padded envelope by the door. I don’t even wait to go inside. I turn on the porch light and open the envelope.
There it is, the “Bones” McCoy bear. Hand-molded ceramic. Holding a small medicine vial in one paw, squinting at the liquid inside.
The phone rings. I unlock the door and go in.
Someone whispering on the phone, Turn on your TV. Turn on your TV to Channel Four.
Who is this?
This is Bob Shed. Turn on your TV to Channel Four. I’m calling everyone.
Who’s Bob Shed?
From the class, he says. Bob Shed from the class. I sit behind where Luis used to sit.
The middle manager guy.
What’s on Channel Four? I say.
Just turn it on and you’ll see.
I pull the phone cord out onto the porch and turn on the TV. Brian Lang is holding up an autographed poster from the TV show Quantum Leap. I turn to Channel Four.
There’s a helicopter shot of a pretty nice-looking house, Beverly Hills or Bel Air or somewhere. A spotlight from another helicopter, a police helicopter, moves back and forth across the front lawn and roof of the house. Squad cars block the street, a couple of cops stand in the driveway pointing their guns. The Traffic Guy’s kneeling in front of the house, hands in the air. The graphic on the bottom of the screen says Breaking News.
Do you see it? Bob Shed says.
I see it, I say. I see it.
There was a standoff, he says. He was in there with his wife and daughter and a handgun. The daughter’s like six years old. That’s his own traffic copter filming that shot.
I feel like I’m going to be sick. I don’t say this to Bob Shed, but I feel it.
I can’t believe it, Bob Shed says. That’s two of us in two weeks. Who’s next, do you think? Who’s going to be next?
I’ve got to go, I say.
Me too, Bob Shed says. I’ve got to call the rest of the class.
On the TV, the cops have the Traffic Guy lying face-down on his porch, hands behind his head. One cop’s got his knee in the Traffic Guy’s back while another cop cuffs him. The wife and daughter come out of the house and a cop pulls a blanket over their shoulders and leads them to a squad car. Big group of neighbors on the sidewalk across the street. They clap for the wife and daughter as they pass by.
* * *
I have this dream where Luis and the Traffic Guy and Brian Lang and I are on a talk show, and Connie is the host. Luis is wearing handcuffs and an orange prison jumpsuit. The Traffic Guy is wearing the same thing. We’re all sitting in a row on a stage in front of an audience and Connie asks us what it’s like to be TV stars. Luis and the Traffic Guy and Brian Lang all say that they like it all right, and then Connie asks me what it’s like to be a TV star. I say I’ve never been on TV and Brian says, But your voice has, Jonas, and Luis smiles and says, You’ll be on soon enough, man. You’ll be on soon enough.
* * *
The assignment this week, Connie says, is the toughest one. And if you don’t think you can do it safely, you are not to attempt it. I can’t emphasize this enough. Is that understood?
Everybody nods.
This week, Connie says, I want you to look through your notebooks and find a situation that set you off back at the beginning of the class. Something that you became angry about. And I want you to put yourself in that situation again.
Some raised eyebrows here in the cafeteria.
You all need to be able to deal with situations that have the potential to set you off, she says. You’re going to encounter them all the time once the class is over, and you and I both need to be confident that you can deal with those situations in a safe and responsible manner.
A guy in the back says, Even after Luis.
Even after Luis.
You are not Luis, Connie says. You are not the Traffic Guy.
This is like our final exam, the middle manager says. Bob Shed.
Yes, Connie says. This is like your final exam.
* * *
This is Deb’s TV, I say. I brought Deb her TV back.
I’m calling the police you son of a bitch. Get away from my house.
Deb’s dad shouts at me through his screen door. I can see Deb and her mom’s faces in an upstairs window, watching.
I’m on the phone right now you son of a bitch, he yells. I dialed nine-one-one.
I just want to give her back her TV.
Deb’s not coming out you son of a bitch. Deb wants nothing to do with you.
Then can you come out and get the TV.
Dogs barking. Lights snapping on in windows along the street.
Deb’s mom calls from the upstairs window, Carl don’t, but Deb’s dad puts down the phone and comes charging through the screen door. He’s carrying a golf club. A nine iron, looks like. Maybe a seven.
You son of a bitch, you won’t lay a hand on my little girl again do you hear me?
He’s running down the lawn, cocking the club over his shoulder. I’m gripping the TV so hard the corners are cutting into my hands. Ten steps away. I can feel the roll of quarters in my pocket. Leave them, leave them. Five steps away. Keep gripping the TV. You are not Luis, you are not the Traffic Guy. Maybe, Connie, maybe. One step away, Deb’s dad plants his feet.
Never again you son of a bitch, he says. Do you hear me?
I hear you, I say, I hear you, and I clench my teeth and keep gripping the TV so that I don’t do anything, I don’t cover up or hit back or even make a sound when Deb’s dad starts swinging.
* * *
About halfway home I find a pay phone with its receiver still attached.
We have Jonas on the line from Los Angeles. Hello, Jonas.
Hello, Brian.
How’s your night?
I’ve had better.
I hear you, my friend. Something on the show caught your eye?
My eye. My left eye is too swollen shut to see.
I’m not watching the show, I say.
Your TV’s out again.
I gave it back. It wasn’t my TV.
Brian laughs. How do you like the bear? The Star Trek bear.
It’s great, Brian. It’s just like you said it would be.
Our connection is bad, Brian says. Where are you, Jonas?
I’m at a pay phone.
Are you all right?
Are you all right, Jonas?
What do you have on the show.
Resin models. A Godzilla model and a Mothra model.
A lot of people are calling in.
They are.
I’ll take one of those models.
Which one?
You pick.
They take a while to paint, you know.
That’s okay.
I wipe something out of my eyes. Blood from my head, a throbbing cut somewhere under my hair.
Brian says, Maybe you should go home, Jonas.
I will, I say. In a while. But I’d like to listen. I’d like to go on hold and listen to the show.
From a pay phone.
I got a whole roll of quarters.
Jonas?
I’d just like to listen to the show for a while, Brian, before I go home.
Okay, Jonas, he says. Stay with us.
All right, I say. I’ll try.