Siegel, James - Derailed

She opened the door, stepped through the open space, and shut it behind her.

ATTICA

Sorry, I have to interrupt here.

I think I should come clean.

Three things happened.

On Wednesday, a man rang our doorbell to see the house. He’d gotten the listing from a real estate agent, he said.

My wife answered the door and told him the house wasn’t for sale. It must be some kind of mistake.

Your husband’s a teacher, isn’t he? he said.

Yes, she said. But it was still some sort of mistake. The house wasn’t for sale.

The man apologized and left.

He didn’t look like a man who was in the market for a house, she told me later.

Well, what did he look like? I asked her.

Like one of your students, she said.

A high school kid? I said.

No. Like one of your other students.

Then the second thing happened.

A CO called Fat Tommy informed me in the lounge that I was going to be ass out soon.

What did that mean? I asked him.

It means you’re going to be ass out soon, he said.

Fat Tommy was over three hundred pounds and had been known to sit on unruly prisoners who’d been shackled face-down on the floors of their cells.

Why? I asked him.

Cutbacks. I guess somebody finally realized they’ve got better things to do with our taxes than teach coons to read.

I asked him if he knew when.

Nah, he said. But I wouldn’t start teaching them War and Peace.

When Fat Tommy laughed, his three chins jiggled.

Then the third thing happened.

The writer penned a note on the bottom of chapter 10. At first I thought it was just part of the story, something Charles said to Lucinda or even to himself. But it wasn’t. It was to me — a kind of editorial aside.

“Like the story so far?”

That’s what he wrote.

The answer, by the way, was no.

I didn’t.

For one thing, the story lacked suspense.

It was missing the one crucial ingredient needed to make it suspenseful.

Surprise.

Because suspense depends on not knowing what’s going to happen.

But I did know what was going to happen.

I knew, for example, what would be on the other side of the door of room 1207. I knew what was going to come in when they opened that door. I knew what that man was going to do to Lucinda over and over for the next four hours.

I remembered it all from a previous life.

In this previous life, I woke up every morning wondering why I preferred to remain sleeping.

I showered and dressed and tried not to look at a blood meter sitting on the kitchen counter. I took the 8:43 to Penn Station, with the exception of one morning in November when I didn’t. The morning my daughter made me late and I took the 9:05. The morning that I looked up from my paper and was asked for a ticket I didn’t have.

This was my story.

I’ll take over from here.

ELEVEN

After Lucinda left, I went to the doctor.

It was 130 blocks uptown from the Fairfax Hotel. I walked because the man had taken my wallet and all my cash in it.

I had a broken nose and a bloodstained jacket, but no one seemed to notice. There were other things to look at, I suppose — a homeless man with no clothes on, for instance. A woman on Rollerblades dressed entirely in purple. A black man shouting about something called the Sons of Jonah. My swollen nose and bloody jacket slipped right under the average city dweller’s radar.

A funny thing happened as I walked. And walked and walked.

I started counting blocks but ended up counting blessings.

Because there were blessings. I was alive, for instance. That was blessing number one. I’d been half-sure the man was going to shoot me. So being alive was a blessing. And then there was my wife and daughter. Blessings, both of them. My unknowing wife, blessedly ignorant of the fact that I’d just spent the morning in room 1207 of the Fairfax Hotel with a woman other than her. Watching that woman get brutally and repeatedly raped, of course — but still.

And Anna . . . how could I have done a thing like this to her? I felt as if I’d been deathly sick for a long time and that my fever had finally broken. I could think clearly again.

Dr. Jaffe asked me what happened.

“I fell getting out of a cab.”

“Uh-huh,” Dr. Jaffe said. “You’d be surprised how many times I hear that.”

“I’m sure.”

Dr. Jaffe set my nose and gave me a sample bottle of codeine. “If the pain gets bad,” he said.

I felt like telling him that the pain was already bad, but then I was kind of welcoming the discomfort. Like the 130 blocks of arctic air I’d just stepped out of, it grounded me.

I walked all the way to the office. I suppose I could’ve gone home, but I was going to make this a day like any other. A late-starting day, a day with a morning I’d rather not think about, but wasn’t there a whole afternoon ahead? And another morning and afternoon after that, and so on? I was jumping back in with both feet.

When I got to the office, I trotted out the same story for anyone who asked. And everyone who saw me did. Winston, Mary Widger, and three-quarters of my creative group. The cab, the street hole, the unfortunate fall. They were all sorry for me; they all tried not to look at my nose and the two raccoon like rings appearing under both eyes.

When I finally sat down in my office, I felt the kind of relief that comes with being back in your own environment, an environment that had been feeling a little sad and hopeless lately, but suddenly felt warm and welcoming. Life itself feeling warm and welcoming—richer than I’d been willing to give it credit for. There were all my things, for example. My very own phone and computer and couch and coffee table. And all those industry awards I’d managed to garner—gold and silver and bronze—and who could say, despite recent setbacks, that there wouldn’t be more to come? And on my desk, a photograph of us: Deanna and Anna and me, taken somewhere on a beach in the Caribbean. My family, secure in the knowledge of my love. And I did love them.

But looking at that picture made me think about that other picture, the one in my wallet. The one the man had ogled, then polluted by holding in his hand. The one he still had with him.

“Darlene,” I called.

“Yes?” My secretary appeared at my door, wearing a look of motherly concern.

“I just realized I lost my wallet. It must’ve fallen out when I broke my nose.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Can you call the credit card companies for me and cancel the cards?”

“No.”

“What?”

“ No. You’ve got to call them yourself. They’ll only listen to the cardholder.”

“Oh. Right.” I probably should’ve known that. I probably should’ve known a lot of things. For instance, that shabby-looking hotels look shabby for a reason—because they are shabby. The kinds of places that attract lowlifes and persons with criminal intent. Persons who loiter in stairwells, waiting for persons with adulterous intent to cross their paths. I was in my forties and still learning.

I called the card companies. American Express and Visa and MasterCard. Canceling your cards is an easy thing to do these days; you just tell them your mother’s maiden name — Reston — and poof. Your card number ceases to be. And I pictured the man standing in some store being told that his card was no good. That one, too. And this one as well. All of them no good.