possible—between, say, ten-fifty and eleven o’clock—to feel as if nothing had happened. To feel nothing. To see no images besides the sweating green bottle, the burning cigarette, the TV commercial for Pizza Hut, the furniture that would always smell as if it was wrapped in plastic.
Was that peace? A cool blank ten minutes before the news came on. A blond-haired anchorwoman named Kyle. I knew her well from just such tidy domestic scenes as now, sitting here on the gray leather sofa with beer and cigarette in hand. I leaned forward. Unless war had broken out somewhere—and it had better concern at least one country that was damn Big and Important— the eleven o’clock news in this corner of the state usually began with a local tragedy of some sort. And the truth is, they were rarely without the kind of juicy material that made men like me— solitary, beer-drinking, failed dads who knew more than a little about the workings of the criminal-justice system—sit up and pay attention. Forget football. Every night somebody out there lost control of car, body, mind, and somebody else suffered for it. Blood was spilled. People went missing and were never found. Children died.
Tonight it was a three-car pile-up on Route 8 coming out of Waterbury. Two boys, both seventeen, were dead; another, eighteen, was listed critical. Names were being witheld. Drinking was strongly suspected. Behind the TV reporter—not Kyle any more, but some hardier, at-the-scene type—red lights whirled. A police squawker could be heard clearly through the open window of a parked cruiser, a single word: “Negative.” After that, gibberish.
Police, Fire, EMS: red lights whirling like a cheap light show. A few bystanders were standing at the edge of the cordoned-off stretch of hardtop, drawn to the scene first by mayhem, or even worry, then by the hallucinogenic lights of television. Where were the victims’ parents? Send your boy out on a Sunday evening for sandwiches and bumper pool, get him back in a bag. Hear all about it on the eleven o’clock news. . . .
The spell was broken. I found myself in the den, sitting on the gray leather sofa with the same old beer and cigarette (or maybe, by now, a different beer and cigarette), when gravity returned.
Coming out of the second turn, the car had been mine again. I had regained the touch, found the road. Tod’s three-letter sign came shining out of the trees like a fractured beacon, and I saw the tall, dark-haired man with glasses step out of the bright-lit office into a night he knew nothing about. I saw him look up, right at me, felt the connection of surprise and dread and pain draw tight like a noose around us both. Forever.
The boy’s name was Josh.
On the news at this moment, sudden and pointless, the week’s lottery pick; Ping-Pong balls with numbers written on them were being shot up out of a modified popcorn popper into a clear plastic tube. I got up from the sofa, went to the fridge for another beer. Half of it was gone by the time I reached the Formica counter on which my keys and wallet were sitting. There, too, was an empty cigar box (from headier days) in which I kept important odds and ends, such as the spare garage-door opener. I lifted the lid of the box and pressed the rectangular white button on the opener. Through the far window of the den, above the TV, I had a view of a section of lawn and driveway, and I watched as an expanding chunk of light appeared in front of the far side of the garage, the grass there suddenly turning yellow in the surrounding darkness, the pavement suddenly turning brown. And then I knew my car was visible from the road, lit up like the spectacle it was.
Still, it wasn’t enough. I took the car keys and went outside. Light spilled through the open front door onto the lawn that I kept mowed short and crisp (I was a good citizen and neighbor). Anybody driving by then would have been struck by the odd light-show of my existence, this formerly
Was that peace? A cool blank ten minutes before the news came on. A blond-haired anchorwoman named Kyle. I knew her well from just such tidy domestic scenes as now, sitting here on the gray leather sofa with beer and cigarette in hand. I leaned forward. Unless war had broken out somewhere—and it had better concern at least one country that was damn Big and Important— the eleven o’clock news in this corner of the state usually began with a local tragedy of some sort. And the truth is, they were rarely without the kind of juicy material that made men like me— solitary, beer-drinking, failed dads who knew more than a little about the workings of the criminal-justice system—sit up and pay attention. Forget football. Every night somebody out there lost control of car, body, mind, and somebody else suffered for it. Blood was spilled. People went missing and were never found. Children died.
Tonight it was a three-car pile-up on Route 8 coming out of Waterbury. Two boys, both seventeen, were dead; another, eighteen, was listed critical. Names were being witheld. Drinking was strongly suspected. Behind the TV reporter—not Kyle any more, but some hardier, at-the-scene type—red lights whirled. A police squawker could be heard clearly through the open window of a parked cruiser, a single word: “Negative.” After that, gibberish.
Police, Fire, EMS: red lights whirling like a cheap light show. A few bystanders were standing at the edge of the cordoned-off stretch of hardtop, drawn to the scene first by mayhem, or even worry, then by the hallucinogenic lights of television. Where were the victims’ parents? Send your boy out on a Sunday evening for sandwiches and bumper pool, get him back in a bag. Hear all about it on the eleven o’clock news. . . .
The spell was broken. I found myself in the den, sitting on the gray leather sofa with the same old beer and cigarette (or maybe, by now, a different beer and cigarette), when gravity returned.
Coming out of the second turn, the car had been mine again. I had regained the touch, found the road. Tod’s three-letter sign came shining out of the trees like a fractured beacon, and I saw the tall, dark-haired man with glasses step out of the bright-lit office into a night he knew nothing about. I saw him look up, right at me, felt the connection of surprise and dread and pain draw tight like a noose around us both. Forever.
The boy’s name was Josh.
On the news at this moment, sudden and pointless, the week’s lottery pick; Ping-Pong balls with numbers written on them were being shot up out of a modified popcorn popper into a clear plastic tube. I got up from the sofa, went to the fridge for another beer. Half of it was gone by the time I reached the Formica counter on which my keys and wallet were sitting. There, too, was an empty cigar box (from headier days) in which I kept important odds and ends, such as the spare garage-door opener. I lifted the lid of the box and pressed the rectangular white button on the opener. Through the far window of the den, above the TV, I had a view of a section of lawn and driveway, and I watched as an expanding chunk of light appeared in front of the far side of the garage, the grass there suddenly turning yellow in the surrounding darkness, the pavement suddenly turning brown. And then I knew my car was visible from the road, lit up like the spectacle it was.
Still, it wasn’t enough. I took the car keys and went outside. Light spilled through the open front door onto the lawn that I kept mowed short and crisp (I was a good citizen and neighbor). Anybody driving by then would have been struck by the odd light-show of my existence, this formerly
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