Jess Walter: The Zero

“Fuckin’ raghead motherfuckers,” the street cop was saying.

“Yeah. That’s right. That’s right.”

REMY’S EX-WIFE Carla lived out past Jericho with her new husband Steve in a grand new house – four bedrooms, three dormers, two baths, something called a great room, and a lovely brick façade – and that’s where Remy found himself, sitting on the couch, drinking weak coffee from the good china. About six months before the divorce, Carla had declared that she needed to start living my life or else go crazy, and the next day she’d opened the big oak cabinet and begun using their good wedding china for every meal; that morning, Remy came downstairs to find little Edgar eating Cap’n Crunch in a shallow, hand-painted bone bowl. Six months later, Remy and Carla were separated.

Steve pried his lips from the rim of a Bud Light. “Personally? I don’t see that it matters who we bomb, long as we do it while we still got the upper hand. Line ’ em up. Clean house. But I don’t need to tell you that, right?”

“No. You don’t.” Remy looked up at a triptych of school portraits above the mantle: brilliant Edgar at six, at ten, and now at sixteen, long black hair parted on the side and swooped in a spit over the front of his lineless forehead. He was wearing a rugby shirt and sticking his bottom lip out in this latest picture, not defiant, but like someone contemplating the workings of the camera. He didn’t look much like Remy anymore, not like when he was little, when Remy would look at Edgar and fight the urge to feel for the pieces that had been taken from him to make the boy.

“See, we’re never going to have a better excuse,” Steve continued. “I’d use the Times as my guide. Go to the UN and say, ‘Let’s make a deal. If your country shows up on the front page of the Times for anything other than a travel feature, you’re toast.’ We should’ve had the Stealth bombers in the air before the smoke cleared.”

“The smoke hasn’t cleared,” Remy said quietly.

“My point exactly!” Steve swallowed a big mouthful and pointed the neck of the beer bottle at Remy. “See? You know what I’m talkin’ about. Don’t waste time separating guilty from innocent. Let them sort it through later.”

Remy cleared his throat – start living my life or else go crazy – and leaned forward. “Steve? Do you think you could tell me what I’m doing here?”

“That’s exactly what I mean!” Steve sat back on the couch. “If we ain’t gonna make the assholes pay… what are any of us doin’ here?”

“I mean… could you tell me where Carla is?”

“Well… I think she agrees with me on this, but you know how women are, Brian. A little squishy when it comes to actually pulling the trigger.”

“I mean where she is physically, Steve. And Edgar?”

Steve laughed. “That’s good. You’re so funny, man. I tell people that. You’re hilarious. I tell people, if I was Carla, I might’ve stayed with you. You’re a hell of a lot funnier than me. You could even make an argument that you’re better looking, although, classically, I’d probably be considered more handsome. And younger. Obviously. And I make more money.” He waved his hand around the house. “I’m taller… more of a man’s man, probably, athletically… although you, being a former cop and all, could probably kick my ass if you wanted… at least back in the day… are you losing weight?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What size pants you wear?”

“I don’t know… thirty-two.”

“What about the length?”

Remy looked down. “Thirty-three?”

“Thirty-two, thirty-three? No shit?” Steve stood up and lifted his shirt, patted a wide stomach. “I’m a thirty-five, thirty-four now. That’s when it starts getting messed up for guys, when our waists get bigger than our inseams. No shit, right?”

Remy took a drink of coffee and closed his eyes, wondering if he could induce a gap, open his eyes and find himself somewhere else. He watched the marionettes dance behind his lids for a while, tracking their drift across the vitreous. When Remy opened his eyes, Steve was still there, watching him intently.

Remy heard footsteps on the stairs and nearly cried out in relief as Carla came up the stairs, lips drawn tight, followed closely by the loping Edgar. Carla wore thin, tight, low-waisted teenager jeans, a big, wide-necked T-shirt, and tennis shoes. The older she got, it seemed, the younger her clothes became. They sat on the couch next to Steve, across from Remy.

“Sorry,” Carla said. “He was in the middle of a video game.”

Edgar wore a black armband over his gray T-shirt. He smiled patiently at his mother. “It’s not a video game.” He looked up at Remy. “It’s called Empire. It’s a communal computer experience… like an alternate world. It’s character-driven and action-reaction oriented. Just like the real world.”

Yes, Remy thought, the real world is action-reaction oriented. He needed to remember that.

Carla smiled. “More coffee, Brian?”

“No,” Remy said. “Thanks, though.”

“So… would you like to start?” she asked.

“Uh… why don’t you,” Remy said.

Irritation broke on Carla’s face. As if she’d grown hot, Steve removed his arm from her shoulder. “I’m gonna get another beer.” He winked at Remy. “Let you-all talk.”

Carla took a breath. “Well… apparently… this is another important issue your father would like me to handle… so, Edgar… it has come to our attention…” She looked at Remy again, as if to see if this were the right way to start.

Remy nodded. He felt sick. What had come to their attention? Drugs? A pregnant girl? Honestly, he’d prefer drugs. He wasn’t ready to be a grandfather, to be responsible for another person. Suddenly, he felt guilty for not worrying more about the boy. Edgar had been only nine when Remy realized that his son was smarter than he, and from that moment they had started growing apart, as if Edgar had reached his father’s height and had begun growing out, in directions that Remy couldn’t comprehend. And, honestly, Remy had simply stopped worrying about him then. There didn’t seem to be anything more Remy could do to help him. And now… whatever this was, he hoped it wasn’t permanent. He hoped this problem was something manageable. An F. Or a messy room.

But surely he wouldn’t have been summoned to Jericho for a messy room.

“It has come to our attention that… well…” Carla searched for the words: “Brian, are you sure you don’t want to do this? It really has more to do with you.”

“Uh… no. I think it’d be better coming from you.”

Carla turned back to Edgar. She took a breath, looked once more at Remy and then back at their son. “Edgar. Honey. Your physics teacher called yesterday… and… said…” She seemed to hit a dead end, and tried reshaping her point into a question. “Apparently you’ve been telling everyone at school that your father died the other day, in the… well… in the events of the other day?”

Edgar nodded as if his mother had just proposed a math problem. “Mmm,” he said. “Ri-i-ight. I had a feeling that’s what this was about.”

Remy slumped forward with a mixture of relief and something a few miles south of relief.

“Well… you do realize… your father isn’t dead. He’s right here.”

Edgar looked up at his dad, brushed the hair out of his eyes, and nodded again. “Ri-i-ight.”

Carla looked over at Remy for help. He offered none. But Steve had come back into the room with another beer, and he leaned on the arm of the couch and jumped in. “Edgar, why would you go around telling people that your old man was dead?”