I Regret Everything (23 page)

We rode in dissatisfied quiet.

The first sign of autumn occurred in the August heat when whispers of color started to show up in the trees, the early yellows and browns. The towering maples and elms were less threatening now, the pines more benign. None seemed like they were leaning toward me anymore.

At the Stamford Police Department, a middle-aged black woman sat at a desk in the reception area reading a celebrity magazine. Edward P said, The Simonsons are here, like we were at a cotillion. She picked up a phone and repeated this to the person on the other end then told us to take a seat. After a brief wait a man in a gray suit came out and said he was Detective Yee. He was a tall, thin Asian who walked with a slight hitch and we followed him down a dimly lit hall, the fluorescent light greening our faces. We stopped at a gray metal door with a window in it. Detective Yee asked me to take a look in the room.

—Is that the man who assaulted you?

At a table, his hands shackled behind him, was a scraggly guy with a beard who appeared to be in his twenties. You've seen him on the F train, you've seen him pushing a shopping cart loaded with his belongings in Riverside Park. My Grendel.

—We picked him up an hour ago, the detective said.

—Edward P asked, Who is he?

—Karl Bannerman. His father is a doctor in Fairfield. We think he's got some form of schizophrenia. When I asked him about your case, he pretty much admitted it but since it looks like he's mentally ill, he could admit to killing Jesus. That's why we want you to ID him.

—Spall, is this the guy?

It was, but I hesitated. Now that I saw my monster chained in a police station, I didn't want to have any part in making more trouble for him. He looked like he had bugs crawling on his brain. They were going to stick him in an institution, probably forever. Did it matter what I said? I was stricken with an overwhelming sense of empathy for him, his condition, the broken life that looked beyond repair.

—Can we get the guy who was with you to ID him? This was Detective Yee and it took a moment before I realized the question was addressed to me.

—What guy?

—Bannerman gave a statement and said there was a guy with you that attacked him.

—Spall? My father looked at me.

—He's got a lump on the top of his head the size of a golf ball and a laceration as well, Yee said.

—I was alone.

—Looks like someone hit him, Yee said.

The detective's tone was neutral but it felt like an accusation. I felt myself seizing up but desperately didn't want my father to have any inkling I hadn't been alone in the house. My jaw started to hurt. It had been hours since I had taken a painkiller. They both looked at me. Again my father asked if anyone else was there.

—He's crazy, I said, pointing toward Karl Bannerman. You can't possibly believe what he says.

The truth was that we were both crazy, just varying shades. Through luck, mostly, I was not the kind of batshit insane that Karl Bannerman appeared to be. But presenting as “normal” was a challenge. At that moment it was a struggle I was winning. I stared them down, the two men, my father and Detective Yee, who I was pretty convinced didn't believe me.

—Spall, are you sure you were alone?

—Who would I have been with? And by the way, Detective Yee, his blood is on our rug. You guys can do a test.

Detective Yee said he would get a technician out there to do that. Edward P thanked him and we left.

My father knew something had occurred at the house but wasn't remotely certain what it was and lacked the confidence to press. The sick son of a local doctor had been crowned, but by whom? It was all too confusing for Edward P and as I looked over at him driving his second wife's car, staring silently at the road, and trying to think about sailing or clients or whether he remembered to get the 0% fat milk his wife required or had accidentally purchased the 2% kind, I knew he wanted nothing more than to take refuge from the dark carnival that was his only daughter. I wanted that for him, too.

—Spall, I am really truly sorry. I should not have doubted you. Honestly, there's no excuse. It's my job to protect you and I dropped the ball. That could have been Katrina in the house or the boys and you took the hit for the family. I wish you had come to the reunion.

—You were doing so well there, Dad, with the apology and everything. But even if I had gone to the reunion, you still didn't believe me, did you? And that sucks.

—What do you want me to do? I already apologized.

—Nothing, I said.

Back in my room, I removed the Ganesh from my purse and placed it on the nightstand. Then I lay on the bed and stared at a cluster of early 20th-century American poets on the ceiling. The collection of faces shifted and dissolved into one huge set of features and murmured,
Spaulding, flee Connecticut
. My mother's apartment was no-man's-land. There was Gully in Seattle and that was a definite maybe but how would I get there? I didn't have money for a plane ticket and I couldn't expect my brother to support me while I looked for a job, something I was bound to be terrible at. College awaited but it was going to be a challenge to hang on for the few weeks before the semester started. The turn life had taken made it increasingly difficult to see myself as a student in September. And none of this mattered anyway because what I needed wasn't Gully, or college, or a job. I needed to be with Jeremy.

A
biblical plague of summer associates descended on the better firms of New York City every June. From the most prestigious law schools in the land, these sparkle-eyed, business-suited beginners spent their summer vacations in the purview of starched legions that had already blazed the path. They swarmed to firms large and small that competed with one another to overpay the neophytes in the hope that the more promising ones, the ones best suited to the high-end rough-and-tumble of our profession, would carry pleasant memories back to campus and so return when they graduated. Their tenure was a long seduction of cocktail-fueled outings to baseball games, concerts in Central Park, and leisurely boat rides like the one I was on. The section of the craft I occupied was called the fore. Or maybe it was the aft. Who cared, really? I hated jargon. It kept people from having a genuine connection. Let's just say this: Location-wise, I was on the upper deck, above the revelry whose festive hum and drone mixed with the head-splitting beats of electronic dance music.

In the morning I had gone to the hospital for a scan that would reveal whether or not the treatment was working. The results would be available early next week. I needed a drink and so, given the circumstances, decided to allow myself a “cheat day.” The chemo made me more susceptible to alcohol than usual. Slightly buzzed, I stood on the upper deck of a large motor yacht cruising past the Statue of Liberty, sipped my second whiskey sour, and, contrary to my prohibition of communication, attempted to compose a text to Spaulding.

As the sun narrowed in on New Jersey, pockets of genetic-lottery-winning summer associates mingled on the lower deck. Most of the Thatcher, Sturgess & Simonson partners and associates were on the cruise (the only acceptable excuse was a court-related deadline the following morning) so my presence was not required below.

There: A circle of lion cubs riveted by the story told by a handsome lacrosse star. Soon-to-be law school graduates, the coiled studs and alpha girls, shoulders thrown back, smiled perfectly. The sun's dying rays bathed unlined faces in amber flame, eyes wide mirrors that reflected the disappearing light, everything possibility, a rising road that would go on forever and ever warm in the glow of an always afternoon.

There: Reetika, laughing with several of the paralegals. Was she telling her audience about the nascent romance? She had thanked me profusely for introducing her to Margolis. He gave her all of his plays. In one night she read them ecstatically, convinced of his genius.

Partners preened, associates aspired, and all attempted to impress. Did I want to be here on this seductive summer evening to partake in the orgy of ambition? No, I did not. Rome beckoned. There was a passport in my pocket. And now this pivotal point that found me standing above my current life, surveying everyone below: I would, I could, I should, but I was so cowed by the existence I had chosen, so emotionally hemmed in, so terrified of leaving a digital information trail, that I couldn't allow myself to have what I desperately wanted which was not a partnership but for Spaulding Simonson to accompany me. I missed being with her, the sense of adventure she brought, that feeling I had of being stupidly alive when we were together. Why did I need to deprive myself?

The text:
Spaulding . . .

Uncharacteristically, that's where it ended. The words would not come. All of this was stirring my pot when I sensed Pratt's presence. He took a swig from the bottle of Heineken he was holding.

“That girl with the polka-dot blouse?” He pointed to a summer associate in a fitted gray suit with reddish hair that fell to the middle of her back. “She's working in corporate. NYU Law.” I watched a tugboat make for Brooklyn and wished I were on it. Pratt took another swig of beer. “Think she's a spinner?” With cells possibly multiplying in who knows how many vital organs and my complete fixation on Spaulding, the sexual proclivities of this particular summer associate were not a subject of the slightest interest right now and I hoped my non-responsiveness would send Pratt back to the lower deck. But he would not be deterred. “Best.”

“What?” I nearly shouted. I hoped he would ascribe my tone to a wish to be heard over the engines of the boat, the party chatter, and the music. Though annoyed with the intrusion, it was important Pratt not think my decibel level was about him. I suddenly realized I was high and didn't want my dissonance to leak out.

“I asked if you think Miss Polka Dots is a spinner?”

“Why don't you ask her?”

If Pratt was disturbed by my refusal to pick up the conversational ball, he didn't show it. Instead, he withdrew two cigars from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and offered me one. When I declined, he shrugged and slipped it back into his pocket. He lit the other, took a deep draw, and exhaled a blur of smoke so dense it momentarily obscured several of the buildings south of 14th Street. That my cancerous lungs were rotting in the shadow of this smug smokestack was unbearable. It would have been hard to find someone more satisfied with his lot in life than Kevin Pratt. He was handsome, successful, and brimming with vigor. I willed a seagull to crap on his gelled head.

“We missed you at the African Horizons benefit, Jeremy.” This was our colleague Amanda Carr. She sipped a vodka and tonic as she emerged from whatever they call the steps on a boat. “George Clooney was super inspiring.”

“Family in town,” I lied. “Sorry about that.”

“But thanks for your contribution.”

Ordinarily I would have analyzed Amanda's tone for the next five minutes. Was it sarcastic or sincere? Had I strengthened a friendship or lost a supporter? But my mind no longer worked in the usual way. While the two of them discussed a pending case my attention was drawn to the lower deck and a familiar nimbus of blond hair. Spaulding was in deep conversation with several summer associates. She gesticulated with ringed fingers and pointed toward somewhere in Manhattan. Their eyes followed the languid movement of her hand as if under a spell. Talking to these frat boys in suits and ties clutching plastic beer cups like they were at a Delta Chi Epsilon mixer, she wore a sleeveless dress with a floral print and sneakers. Her weight was on her left leg. She angled her right foot behind her and the tip of her toe touched the deck. The gulls cut back and made for the eastern horizon. The boat hit a wave and juddered but Spaulding held her pose. When she drained the can of soda she was holding, the harbor breeze rippled her hair. Then she turned her head and glanced in my direction. I didn't know whether to give an insouciant salute and risk Pratt asking questions or ignore her. I felt transparent, exposed, exhilarated. The annual summer associate cruise was no place for this kind of perturbation.

Amanda excused herself and joined a pair of nearby colleagues. Pratt turned his attention to the revelers below.

“Did you ever take a good look at Ed's daughter?”

Quickly, I said, “No. Why?”

“I'd like to fuck her.”

“You didn't really just say that.”

“Seriously? Wouldn't you?”

“Kevin, for God's sake . . .”

“I'd like to bend her over the custom-built credenza I'm going to get when I make partner and shove my rock-hard cock right up her sweet little ass.”

“You need to apologize.”

“Best, are you gay?”

“Apologize, Pratt.”

“Blow me.”

Only when my fist collided with his chin did Pratt understand what was happening. His head snapped to the side, my class ring sliced his cheek, and I cut my knuckle on his incisor. There was no real buildup, no significant escalation of tension leading to catharsis, just stimuli and explosion. It was a reaction brought on by the volubility of my emotional state and the sudden rupture of the membrane between impulse and deed. Although I had nearly killed someone less than a week earlier, never in my life had I acted to defend anyone's honor, and I can only attribute it to my upset at the imminence of death, a desire for repentance, and a heretofore-unacknowledged taste for violence unleashed in Connecticut. And I was drunk. Because I had caught him entirely by surprise, Pratt staggered back. My nerves jangled like a tambourine and I noticed my drink was gone.

“What the fuck, Best?” He touched his cheek, looked at the smudge of blood on his fingers, incredulous. I shook my injured hand to ease the pain. “You realize if I hit you back I would kill you.” He had held on to his beer.