Harm’s Reach

‘Your loved one will retreat,’ said the speaker, ‘or run … or hide from you. Or at least will attempt to. They don’t yet know that what they are running from is pain. Overwhelming pain: loss, rejection, grief, fear. They don’t know yet, because they’re having too much fun. Secret fun. They can’t admit that while you’re sick with worry, they’re having a blast. They may see your tears, but they don’t feel them. They’re waiting for a text or a drink or a party or a pay check or new friends who don’t know who they are or who loves them or what really lies in their heart or what needs to be protected. Your loved one may endure your interventions, your attempts at reasoning with them, but really? They’re in their own world. It takes different things to get through to different people; it won’t always be obvious. And what worked once before may not work the next time.

‘Until you find a way, they will dig their heels into the bright green grass of their dazzling universe of plenty. They will tune into whoever is emitting the same Day-Glo frequency. Imagine a fluorescent pink jagged line running through the city just above head height, visible only to the manic or the drunk, or the drugged, or all of the above. And they are each holding a magical hook and they can just reach up and ride around on that line all night long. And they will do that until, eventually … days, weeks, or months later, they will lose their grip.’

Ren closed her eyes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the beautiful, damaging world I miss.

She walked to the back of the room and quietly made her way out.

The name is Mania … Mrs Mania.

I-80, Nebraska

Laura Flynn changed radio stations until she heard what she needed: words that would find her in the dark; a song that would fill this little car with the right message, a song that would back up her journey. This wasn’t her first life-changing decision. There had been others; some borne of tragedy, others borne of happiness or kindness or love. This was different – this was the consequence of an extraordinary misjudgment. She was halfway across Nebraska, halfway into a cross-country expedition and, if she stopped too long to consider it all, she should have been searching for a song with madness in the title.

Here I am, twenty-six years old, a girl from a small coastal village, yet it is in the Midwest I find myself at sea.

She changed station again. She heard an evangelist; deep, male tones of crazy. This is what I’m talking about.

‘Right here, right now,’ came the voice, ‘in the terrible darkness of our world, sins – like rats – are crawling out of every gutter, creeping into our homes, burrowing under their foundations, the foundations of righteousness and virtue. A virus of sin is finding the weakest chambers of our sinful bodies, where it will fester, from whence it will spread. I’m talking about diseases of the mind, the soul, the heart, the loins.’

Laura Flynn laughed out loud.

The presenter’s voice cut through. ‘Those were the words of Howard Coombes, who will be speaking at Monday night’s service to honor the victims of the Aurora Theater shooting.’

‘Oh, Lord, have mercy, we are both headed in the same direction,’ said Laura. It might just be hell. She laughed again.

I can laugh. At least, I can still laugh. Even at my ‘seriously, is this really my life?’ moment, the ‘how did it all come to this?’ Janey Mac!

‘Janey Mac’ was a polite alternative to Jesus Christ. It was years since her sister had told her about a guy called Janey Mac who used to drink in the dive bar where she had worked in Yonkers. Janey Mac got his nickname long before then. It was a three-story nickname. His last name was McMullen. Mac. He thought he was God. Jesus Christ. And he was a supplier of guns. Janie’s Got a Gun. The result was: Janey Mac. When he fled to Chicago to get away from a warrant, he became Janey Mach 3. Laura liked that. And as a story, it always raised a laugh.

Laura’s sister had once mixed with the wrong kind of people. But sometimes the wrong kind of people ended up being exactly the kind of people you needed.

The car filled with flashing lights; headlights from behind. They flashed again. It wasn’t a police car. She drove on. The lights flashed again.

Maybe I have a broken taillight.Maybe the trunk is open.

This was her first time driving the car, maybe she was missing something. She checked the panel in front of her; no warning lights. She pulled in. Her heart was pounding. The car behind pulled in too. Should I be nervous? She could see someone, a man in black, pulling a mask up over his face, running toward her. Oh my God. Her heart rate shot up. Then he was in her side mirror. Right there.

No, no, no. She began to scramble for the door handle. Her fingers were numb. Move. Move. Move. But he was there, he was opening the door. It was open. He was holding a gun. Laura stared up at him, willing herself to speak, willing herself to tell him no, don’t do this, why are you doing this. Nothing came out. Speak! Scream! Shout! She managed to turn her body toward him. His eyes, vaguely familiar, stark in the rectangular cut-out from his black mask, flickered.

Confusion? Fear? Did it matter?

Laura closed her eyes, squeezed them shut. The blast deafened her. There was a second one. She felt a searing pain in her ear. She could smell earth, the grass, the night. She felt a breeze. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard footsteps. When she opened her eyes, he was gone. Her ears still ringing, she could make out the sound of his car door open, then slam shut, the engine starting, the car skidding, turning, leaving her behind.

Her whole body started to convulse.

What was that? What the hell was that? How could he miss? He was right there. He must have more than two bullets.

Minutes passed. She sat with her hands clamped onto the steering wheel, her forehead pressed against it.

She thanked the same God she had once cursed for taking away her mother and her sister before their time. Her father was a different story, he had danced with death from the moment he brought a bottle of whiskey to his lips. He was no match for even the slowest of the Devil’s quick steps.

I am one of those people from those blighted families, my life’s journey a series of join-the-dots tragedies.

She put her foot on the gas.

But I’m alive. Thank you, God. Thank you. This is not my time.

New York

Robert Prince’s vast TriBeCa office was lit only by the antique desk lamp on his custom four-thousand-dollar desk. There was one framed photo on top – his wife, Ingrid. He sometimes Googled her, just for fun. He had been reading a gossip piece on them from two weekends previously, their ‘rumored baby news!’, and was now looking at a Tumblr page dedicated to her early modeling work, created by someone who was probably in junior high at the time. Robert wondered if it was easier for a man like that to idolize an image from the past; was the extra remove a small way of justifying why he couldn’t have her? Not because a woman like that would always be untouchable to a man like him, but simply because she no longer existed in that form. This man had described her as a woman of exceptional beauty. Robert felt a small stab of envy that it was not he who had formulated this perfect description of his wife, that he had not presented it to her himself, maybe on a hand-written card on a tray at breakfast time. He loved her like no other woman. Not that there had been many. He had never been a ladies’ man. He respected them too much. He was Ingrid’s man.

His cell phone rang and the face of exceptional beauty flashed on the screen. He picked up. ‘Hey, sweetheart.’

‘It’s me!’ said Ingrid at the same time.

Robert loved how she announced herself on the phone. Of course it was her. But she spoke every time as if it would be a surprise to him. Maybe it was something about her bouncy Nordic twang.

‘I just got a PDF of our magazine spread,’ she said. ‘The official announcement. Oh my goodness, listen to this: “The Baby Prince”! How pregnancy suits me. They call you my “besotted husband”; I have “tamed Robert Prince”!’

‘I am your besotted husband,’ said Robert. ‘But can you tame a mouse?’

‘Mouse!’ said Ingrid. ‘Tiger.’

Robert laughed. ‘With you, I’m a mouse.’

‘Well, journalists see you in a different way …’ she said.

‘As they see you …’ said Robert.

There was a short silence.

‘The photos are great,’ said Ingrid.

‘Good, good,’ said Robert.

‘I have to warn you, though, they’ve used that old shot of you with the Lotus—’

‘Well, you can get them to remove it – I presume the purpose of the PDF was for pre-approval.’ Robert had a collection of eleven historic racing cars. The Lotus Series 2 Super Seven had been his favorite. And it had been totaled on New Year’s Day, through no fault of his.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Ingrid. ‘But I love it. It just captures you so well. You look so happy.’

‘Well, now I feel a little sadder,’ said Robert.

‘It’s only a car, everyone’s alive,’ she said.

‘I know that,’ said Robert. ‘I know. Speaking of precious lives, is Laura back?’

‘No,’ said Ingrid, ‘but I was expecting her about an hour ago.’