Lunar Park

Hearing voices from upstairs, I breathed in deeply as I reached for our local paper, preparing myself, because I was still—even without a hangover—having trouble adjusting to the schedules everyone inhabiting this house maintained. So after Marta left the kitchen to get Sarah (who was practicing a second language on flash cards) I roused myself and poured a large glass of freshly squeezed OJ and dosed it with a half-empty bottle of Ketel One left over from the party and neatly hidden among all the olive oil at the end of the counter. It was a small miracle no one had gotten rid of it. I sipped the cocktail carefully and returned to the table.

The newspapers kept stroking my fear. New surveys provided awful statistics on just about everything. Evidence suggested that we were not doing well. Researchers gloomily agreed. Environmental psychologists were interviewed. Damage had “unwittingly” been done. There were “feared lapses.” There were “misconceptions” about potential. Situations had “deteriorated.” Cruelty was on the rise and there was nothing anyone could do about it. The populace was confounded, yet didn’t care. Unpublished studies hinted that we were all paying a price. Scientists peered into data and concluded that we should all be very worried. No one knew what normal behavior was anymore, and some argued that this was a form of virtue. And no one argued back. No one challenged anything. Anxiety was soaking up most people’s days. Everyone had become preoccupied with horror. Madness was fluttering everywhere. There was fifty years of research supporting this data. There were diagrams illustrating all of these problems—circles and hexagons and squares, different sections colored in lime or lilac or gray. Most troubling were the fleeting signs that nothing could transform any of this into something positive. You couldn’t help being both afraid and fascinated. Reading these articles made you feel that the survival of mankind didn’t seem very important in the long run. We were doomed. We deserved it. I was so tired. (What worried Jayne besides the upcoming reshoots? The kids were mimicking our facial expressions, which for the last month had consisted of hassled grimaces.)

And so many children were missing that it bordered on an epidemic. About a dozen boys had disappeared since I arrived in July—only boys. Their photos were flashed on the Internet and updates were posted on special Web sites devoted to them, their solemn faces staring out at you, their shadows following you everywhere. I read about another missing Boy Scout—the third in the last year. This boy, too, was Robby’s age, and his witless, angelic face now graced the front page of the newspaper. But none of these children had been found. No bodies discovered in the ravine or in the concrete drainpipe; no remains in the dry creek bed or in the suspicious duffel bag tossed off the turnpike; nothing lying naked and defiled in the woods. These boys had vanished without a trace, and there were no hints that any of them was ever coming back. Investigators were on “frantic searches.” Parents of the missing boys were urged to appear on CNN and humanize their child in case the abductors were watching. Except for increasing ratings, these news conferences accomplished nothing beyond serving as a reminder of “the incidental malice of the universe” (courtesy of Time). This publicity was supposed to mobilize volunteers but people were giving up hope—so many boys were missing, people had simply become alienated and longed for a lesser horror to take this one’s place. There were candlelight vigils where families linked hands and lowered their heads, grief-stricken and praying, though to me they more often resembled participants in a seance. Various organizations proposed plaques to memorialize the lost. Students at Buckley (the private school Robby and Sarah attended) were encouraged to e-mail condolences to the bereaved parents. We were supposed to rehearse our children on the usual tired litany: don’t talk to strangers, ignore the well-dressed soft-spoken man looking for help to find his puppy; “Yell and Tell” and “Rehearse a Route” and “Avoid the Clown.” Distrust everybody was the message. Everywhere people heard the sound of children weeping. Silly Putty was used in school classes for squeezing out tension. We were advised to always keep recent photographs of our children on hand.

And now the missing Boy Scout inevitably provoked the flicker of worry I experienced every morning before Robby and Sarah went off to school, especially if the hangover was bad or I’d had too much coffee. This wide- awake nightmare lasted no more than thirty seconds, a rapid montage that nonetheless required a Klonopin: a rampage at the school, “I’m so scared” being whispered over the cell phone, what sounds like firecrackers popping off in the background, the ricocheting bullet that hurls the second-grader to the floor, the random firing in the library, the blood sprayed over an unfinished exam, the red pools of it forming on the linoleum, the desk spattered with viscera, a wounded teacher ushering dazed children out of the cafeteria, the custodian shot in the back, the girl murmuring “I think I’ve been hit” before she faints, the CNN vans arriving, the stuttering sheriff at the emergency press conference, the bulletins flashing on TV screens, the “concerned” anchorman offering updates, the helicopters hovering, the final moments when the gunman places the Magnum in his mouth, the overcrowded hospital emergency rooms and the gymnasiums transformed into makeshift morgues, the yellow crime tape ribboned around an entire playground—and then, in the aftermath: the .22 rifle missing from the stepfather’s cabinet, the journal recounting the boy’s rejection and despair, a boy who took the teasing hard, the boy who had nothing to lose, the Elavil that didn’t take hold or the bipolar disorder not detected, the book on witchcraft found beneath the bed, the X carved into his chest and the attempted suicide the month before, the broken hand from punching a wall, the nights lying in bed counting to a thousand, the pet rabbit found later that afternoon hanged from a hook in a small closet—and, finally, the closing images of the endless coverage: the flag at half-staff, the memorial services, the hundreds of bouquets and candles and toys that filled the steps leading up to the school, the bloody hand of a victim on the cover of Newsweek, the questions asked, the simple shrugs, the civil suits filed, the copycats, the reasons you quit praying. Still, the worst news comes out of your own child’s mouth: “But he was normal, Dad—he was just like me.”

Though I hadn’t realized it, Jayne had walked into the kitchen without saying anything to the sniffling blob wrapped in the sheet hunched over the table. She was standing over the stove waiting for a pot of water to boil (she was making oatmeal for the kids), her back to me. I tried to translate her body language and failed. I zoned out again on the countertop specifically designed for the placement of olive oil bottles. Victor soon shuffled in. The dog stared at me. You bore me, it was thinking. Go ahead—make my day, it was thinking.

“Why does that very rude golden retriever bark all night long?” I asked, glaring back at the dog.

“Maybe because he got freaked out by the sight of your nineteen-year-old students screwing in our garage,” Jayne said immediately, without turning around. “Maybe because Jay McInerney was skinny-dipping in our pool.”

“That doesn’t sound like . . . the Jayster,” I said tentatively.

“Someone had to haul him out after you disappeared,” she said. “With a net.”

“Who’s Annette?” I realized something. “Oh, what net?” I asked flippantly. “We don’t own a net.” Worried pause. “Do we?”

“I looked around but you were already passed out in the guest room.” She said this with the fake nonchalance she had been developing since I moved into the house.

I sighed. “I did not ‘pass out,’ Jayne. I was exhausted.”

“Why, Bret? Why were you so exhausted?” she asked, her voice now clenched.

I sipped my drink. “Well, that dog’s been doing its big barking routine and begging for attention the entire week. You know, honey, this happened to coincide with me starting my novel and so it’s extremely distracting and suspicious.”

“Yes, I know, Victor doesn’t want you to write another book,” Jayne said, turning the stove off and moving toward the sink. “I’m so with you on that one.”

“I never see that dog frolic,” I muttered. “He’s been depressed ever since I moved in and I never see him frolic.”

“Well, when you kicked him the other night—”

“Hey, he was trying to eat a stick of butter,” I exclaimed, sitting up. “He was going after that loaf of cornbread on the counter.”

“Why are we talking about the dog?” she snapped, finally facing me.

After a contained silence I sipped my juice again and cleared my throat.

“So, you wanna read me my rights?” I sighed.

“Why bother?” she said tightly, turning away. “You’re still in a coma.”

“I suppose we’ll be discussing this in couples counseling.”

She said nothing.

I decided to change the topic, hoping for a softer reaction. “So who was the guy who came as Patrick Bateman last night?” I asked. “The guy in the Armani suit with all the fake blood on it?”

“I have no idea. A student of yours? One of your legions of fans? Why do you care?”