The Shooting (35 page)

At the meeting, Bloomberg dominates with a monologue about how much money he spends on gun control. —Fifty million this year, fifty million last year. Year before that? Fifty million. Next year? Fifty million. I give Jenny more money than anyone else. Right, Jenny? If there is an afterlife, I'll be let in through the pearly gates on the express line. The NRA paints me as an out-of-touch big-city elitist, but people
love
me! Wherever I go, people shout at me through the window of my limousine,
Go Michael, go!
I'm a rock star!

At precisely the thirty-minute mark, an aide breaks up the meeting, saying the former mayor has lunch with Warren Buffett in
fifteen minutes. Bloomberg says to them as he stands up and leaves the room, —Per Se. Have you been? Go.
Go.

They leave, go down in the elevator and out into the street to the car Jenny has waiting for them. They are looking forward to going home now, but Jenny has a last-minute meeting she confirmed during the Bloomberg meeting. —It's a huge one. Very important for us. This guy's a huge donor, with, like, a jillion followers on social media and he's been tweeting about Clayton.

He says, —We are tired. No more meetings. We go home.

—Just this one more, then you can go home. Jim is very excited to help and he's only in town today. And like I said, huge donor. He's about to start shooting a movie and I think I can get him to donate his salary to us and talk about it on the press tour. So, you know, pound a coffee or wheatgrass shot or something and be gracious because this meeting is important.

They go to a restaurant on the Upper West Side. He and his wife do have coffee but it does not rejuvenate them. —I am heartbroken, the odd man, Jim Carrey, says. He says he wants to go further than just donating his money; he says he wants to produce a film about Clayton's story. It will be the
Roots
of gun control, he says, the
To Kill a Mockingbird
, the
Uncle Tom's Cabin.
He even knows who will direct: it's this young filmmaker who has made several great difficult films that no one saw; he lives out in Brooklyn, has been working on a film about guns, and Clayton could be the missing piece. This filmmaker is ripe for his breakthrough, this will be it. —This movie will change everything, Jim Carrey says. At one point Jim Carrey seems to cry very hard, his head in his hands and bony elbows knocking a knife off the table as they watch in confounded silence. At the end of the meeting he gives them his personal cell phone number, they give him theirs. He asks if they have considered doing an RSA commercial, because if not, they should.

—Good work, Jenny says in the car heading home. —That's really going to help Clayton a ton.

On the radio is this: —
Whether or not it is true that this known thug was
sleepwalking—
what was Fisher supposed to do in that situation? Was he supposed to ask him,
Oh, hello, Mr. Thug in a Hoodie Standing
in My Living Room at Three in the Morning, how may I help you tonight? Are you by chance sleepwalking? Are you on Prozac? Did your mommy not hug you enough? Can I get you a cup of warm milk?
No! No! No, Lee Fisher owed that thug nothing. Nothing.

Jenny apologizes and tells the driver to turn it off, but he says, —No. Leave it on. He can feel his wife staring at the side of his face but he does not care.

—If you are in that situation, you are a man and a father and you must take action, you must advance on the threat, your child is depending on you to protect his life, this is what you have been training for at the range, you must be a man and protect your family. Call me a bigot, call me a racist, and they always do, because
they
are racist,
they
are hateful, but this is a matter of individual liberty, this is a question of accountability and freedom. That they are even considering charging this man who behaved heroically in nightmare conditions with murder is an outrage, an injustice, it is sick. If anyone is charged with murder it should be the folks who truly did get that boy killed and those are his
parents.
Every American should be up in arms about this. We crucify an innocent father acting within his rights and let the negligent, lazy, irresponsible, entitled parents off the hook.
Outrageous.
The city of New York has for one hundred and fifty years operated under flagrant, wanton violation of the Constitution of the United States by denying American citizens their right to bear arms as granted them under the Second Amendment, and enough is enough, folks. Things have come to a head. They have come to a head. The time has come. Things have never been more dire for the future of our freedom, our nation. They are trampling it. This does not end well, folks. We have defeated tyranny once before and we will do it again. If Lee Fisher is prosecuted for murder, then we are all prosecuted, each and every one of us. Hear what I am telling you, folks. Listen closely. They will come for you next. They are coming. Do not for one second doubt that. You and you alone must protect yourself. Lock and load. Hold your children closely tonight. Tell them you love them. Make sure you are stocked up on ammunition and your firearms are cleaned and ready. Please, please, please, be vigilant out there tonight, patriots. Your country is depending on you.

—Okay, he tells the driver. —You can turn it off now. He looks out the window and says, —We will do your commercial.

It is very simple, as Jenny described. They do not even have to think—she has cards written out and all they must do is read from them.

—We come from third world country, they say. —We grow up without education, suffering always. To us, America greatest country in world, to us America our only hope to one day have good life. Where we could have freedom. We go through so much to come to America. We work so hard. Only to have Clayton murdered by white man with gun. We are victims of obsolete Constitution. Constitution designed to be changed. Now is time for that change. We must repeal the Second Amendment, for it is killing us. We do not have to live this way. We must finally remove pro-gun, NRA-controlled government from office. We must pass the ammo tax in the state of New York. Vote money, not bullets. Support Repeal the Second Amendment today. This month every new membership receives free tote bag.

After the first take, Jenny comes over. —That was pretty good, she says, —but it can be better.

He says, —This isn't true. Poor? Without education? I was a doctor, she was a professor.

Jenny looks at him, smiling, but her eyes are not smiling. She leans in closer to him and says, —Have you considered the possibility that maybe I know what I'm doing? She claps her hands once and backs away, yelling, —Again!

When it is over and Jenny and her people have gone, he and she lie in Clayton's bed. —I do not feel good, she says.

—Me neither.

—Why did we do it?

—I don't know.

—I did not like it.

—No.

—What is wrong with her? Why did she act like that?

—I don't know.

It is the morning of Clayton's memorial service. They are in the car with Jenny, en route to a church they have never been to that has volunteered the use of its space for what, thanks to RSA's publicity
people, is expected to be a very large turnout. Jenny says, looking at her phone, —
60 Minutes
wants an interview. I'm telling them today at two o'clock, okay?

He looks at his wife.
Take control of it or I will bite her head off,
he says to her telepathically, and she understands and says to Jenny, —We already do interview, we did not like it, no more interviews.

—No, no, honey, she says, —that was the commercial. That was for local TV and target ads online.
60 Minutes
is national, big-time. This will help the repeal effort and put big-time pressure on Congress to get serious about the ammo tax. I know you don't want to do the fucking morning show circuit, don't worry, you're not going to be chittering on the couch at
Good Morning America,
but
60 Minutes
is serious and tasteful, they are journalists. And it comes on after the NFL, so people watch it.

—Please, not today.

She sighs and says, —Fine, I'll see if they can do it tomorrow. But the window is small with these people, they lose interest very quickly, you have to strike fast. We can do it later today, can't we? What else do you have to do?

He cannot believe what he is hearing. He says, —We are finished. We are not interested in this. We want you out of our lives.

Jenny kind of laughs. —Oh, you do?

His wife touches his arm. —He does not mean it, we are very upset.

Jenny says, —It's okay, I get it. Today's not the best day. Fine. But try and see the bigger picture here. The greater good. I'm only trying to help.

—Yes, help yourself, he says. —You help yourself, just like everyone. Just like all of you.

Jenny eyes him in a new way, the air between them changes. He gets a very disturbed feeling, the way she eyes him. He wants to get very far away from her very quickly. —Maybe I was callous to bring it up on the day of his service, she says, her voice slow and quiet, —but callousness does not concern me anymore. We need this interview or Fisher will
walk and nobody will care.

—
Please,
he nearly shouts, —just
please let us bury our son.

—Tell me if you're with me or against me. Tell me now. Do you think Clayton's the only kid who has been shot this week? If you won't cooperate, maybe one of
their
parents will.

—
Please.

They are pulling up to the church. People are everywhere. They are getting out. Jenny grabs his arm. —Tell me now.

He cannot speak, so his wife says, crying, —
Yes, yes, we are with you
, and Jenny lets go and they exit the car.

Inside among the crowd in pews are Raul and Kenny. Raul looks like it was somehow to be expected that someone would one day take Clayton from him. And Stacey, there she is too, with Hector. She shivers uncontrollably though it is not cold. Still looks like she has not slept or eaten. She does not know what it means yet, he thinks. No friend is someone to have fun with, or even to talk with. No sweetheart is someone to adore or even to love. A friend, a sweetheart, is an agent of change in one's life, and vice versa.
We all change each other. You can hide away and arm yourself, but you cannot avoid it. And now, because of Fisher, there are fewer friendships and less love and less change in our world of strangers. We cannot keep going like this,
he thinks, his city of friends all embracing him and his wife, kissing them,
we cannot keep taking love from girls and friendships from boys and denying them chances to change, we cannot keep going with these holes in our hearts and no one there to fill them.

His sole task during the service is to make sure his wife is okay. She is the open vein, and he is the bone—exposed and excruciating and broken but hard and supporting the body through this amputation. An amputation with no drugs and no warning. It is not a limb that has been amputated but the whole. And only limbs are left. Everyone in here knew Clayton and loved him, many of them since he was an infant. He remembers when Clayton was a baby, grinning on park blankets, clapping his hands at passing dogs, pointing at birds and trees and people and saying,
Dere.
Many of these people here held him then. Babysat him, bathed him, changed his diaper. Look at all these people.
This is our life,
he thinks.
What a life we have made for ourselves. To be loved by a city. To be loved like this, all at once, by the friends that are your family. What if we did not have them all? What if we
had been afraid to know them and give to them—they would not be here now to give to us. Look what a good young man you were, Clayton. See how you moved all these people to come here today. I will remember this feeling, I will carry it around in my own hole-ridden heart and it will never leak out. I do not want to remember you with grief or in tragedy but with pride and gratitude for the little mercy you were to me and your mother and to the city and to the country and to all of it. All of it. If a man's life is measured not by his intentions and not by his actions but by what kind of friend he was, and how unafraid he was, and how much faith he lived with, then you lived the best life of all.

After Clayton's service the house is silent. The food rots in its Tupperwares. They do not throw it away. He keeps expecting him to come home. He will not have eaten, he will need to eat. It is too silent without him. No doors slamming. No music on too loudly. Sometimes he goes to Clayton's room and turns on his music for him, since Clayton cannot turn it on himself. He turns it up very loud the way Clayton likes it. It thumps and pops and whines. He has always hated this music, its grating, agitating alarms and shrieks and digitally altered slurred voice saying disgusting things. Try to read a book with this blasting through the house. Try to watch a film. Or have a conversation. He turns it on now, turns it up, leaves, closing the door behind himself. The walls shake. It is heinous. It is perfect.

There is no one to call him Dad anymore. No one to call her Mom. It is like there never was.

He wears Clayton's shoes around the house. He chokes on his own breath and takes them off and waits for him to come home.

Picking up more Klonopin at the Duane Reade, ignoring his friends who work there, the hell with everyone, that is how he feels today, everyone is vicious and selfish and not to be trusted. Stands in line at the pharmacy counter, prescription in hand. There is a knock on the door in the night and he opens it. They force their way inside, and he and she flee the country and they are in the basement of a homeless shelter. Everything is ready. He has the long needle in his hands. Her knees are spread. He is between them. He is reaching with the needle. She says,
Stop.
He keeps going.
Stop, stop,
she says. Ignores
her. She tries to slide away, he holds her down. She kicks, but he is very strong and he keeps pushing the needle in.
Stop
, she shouts.
It is too late
, he says,
it is done.
A few weeks later the dead fetus slides out in the bathroom. She goes to get pizza. An old man sits there. He has connections with the United States. He does not notice her. Nor she him. She gets her pizza, leaves. They remain in the shelter, and there is no pain, no autopsy or Jenny Sanders or Klonopin, and no idiots with guns and no
thug
and no
hoodie
and no NYPD telling them nothing. He mops the floor of the shelter and she lies in bed and there is nothing else, and she gets pneumonia and dies of it, then the country undergoes a wave of nationalism and throws out all its undocumented immigrants and he is returned to his home country, where men snatch him right away and shoot him on the side of a highway and that is fine, that is better than this today.