May We Be Forgiven

hearing, and the proverbial ax is going to fall, and, well, we’re worried about the children,” he says.
    “The children are at school.”
    “It’s enough already. We think they shouldn’t be a part of this.”
    “They’re doing very well.”
    “We think you should take them somewhere.”
    “I saw Nate a couple of weekends ago, at Field Day—he’s quite the athlete.”
    “They don’t need to be exposed to the brouhaha that’s going to surround this whole thing.”
    “And Ashley called a couple of days ago. We had a wonderful phone call—really bonding, it was like we went through something together.”
    “Shmuck,” he says. “Are you hearing anything I’m saying? We think it would be good if the children were out of the country.”
    “Where?”
    “You could take them to Israel.”
    “They don’t speak Hebrew. They barely know they’re Jewish.”
    There is silence. “Look, you giant creep,” Jane’s father says. “I was kidding when I said Israel.”
    “It was a joke? What Jew makes a joke about Israel?”
    “Who sleeps with his brother’s wife while his brother is in the nuthouse? I meant you should take them somewhere, get their minds off all this crap, I don’t care where.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Listen, asshole, I will pay you to take the children someplace.”
    “They’re at school,” I say. “But, more to the point, if you want to take them someplace, why don’t you plan a little vacation and let me know the dates.”
    “At the moment it’s all I can do to care for my wife and myself,” he says. I hear him cry out, a single deep, bellowing sob, and then he hangs up.

    I walk the dog; the morning sky is a rich benevolent blue, filled with promise and opportunity. It’s overwhelmingly optimistic—in other words, it makes me nervous, sets the bar too high.
    I dress for court and lunch in one of George’s charcoal-gray suits, a white shirt, and a blue tie. Blue seems more about justice than red, which signals aggression. An impending sense of doom is gnawing at me from the inside. I dress as best I can, putting deodorant not just in my armpits but in a thick line down the center of my chest, a ring around my lower back, as far up each side as I can reach. I’m a sweater—under duress I drip raindrops of stress; I can soak a shirt in two minutes.

    I n White Plains, I circle the Court House; there are “No Parking Anytime” signs posted everywhere. I end up parking at the Galleria shopping mall and walking through the mall.
    Like all modern courthouses, this one is a characterless fortress, testament to paper pushing, bureaucracy, and the incipient insanity of our system. Going postal is no longer reserved for those who pledge that “Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night would deter its couriers from their appointed rounds.” It’s become a kind of rite of passage: disgruntled employee returns and shoots boss, disgruntled wife kills kids, disgruntled husband wrecks car, kills strang-ers, and then kills wife. Hard not to be surprised, when the bulk of public conversation goes like this: “Paper or plastic?” The loss of the human touch scares me.

    I approach expecting a media circus, TV trucks, satellite dishes—this is Amer-ica, everything is a circus. The fact that it is not a “scene,” no red carpet, just business as usual, is all the more unnerving. Is it still “real” if it’s not documented and delivered back to us in the media? Does anything have meaning if it’s not covered? And what does it say about me that I feel these events are not legitimate without a camera crew? Inside the building, an anonymous recording plays: “Welcome, please empty your pockets into the bins provided and pass through our screening process.”
    Reflexively, the man ahead of me takes off his shoes.
    The guard says nothing and simply ushers him through the metal detector, ignoring that he’s clutching his well-worn lugs close to his chest. Looking at the heels, I see he walks on the outsides of his feet—is that pronation or supination?
    My turn. I dig deep into my pocket and throw my handful into the basket; it misses, splatters, nickels and dimes hitting the floor like shattering glass and rolling this way and that.
    “Sir, please step to the side.”
    “Is there a problem?” I ask
    “Is there?” the guard repeats.
    “I worry that I was too enthusiastic,” I say. “I’m a little nervous. My brother is coming today.”
    “How