“What?”
“Pay for your drinks and keep up with me.”
Mark put some cash on the table and the three race-walked toward the elevators.
“The program facilitators released a statement that a weapons dealer was caught attempting to smuggle an armed suitcase bomb through Yap Airport.”
“Yap Airport?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, that’s what it’s called.”
“Why through Micronesia?” Mark asked.
“Precisely,” Billie said, although not one of the three knew even approximately what that meant. “We’ve already started to get offers from Pakistan, Iran, and, weirdly, Luxembourg.”
“Offers?” Mark asked.
“They want us to sell them the bomb.” And then, to Julia: “You understand, right?”
Julia gave an uncertain nod.
“So explain it to him later. It’s a whole new ball game!”
“Let’s round up the kids,” Julia said to Mark.
“I’ll get the ones on eleven, you get the ones on twelve. Meet in your room?”
“Why mine?”
“Fine, mine.”
“No, mine is fine, I just—”
“Mark’s room,” Billie said.
Mark got on the elevator. Billie held Julia back for a moment.
“Is everything OK?” Billie asked when the elevator doors closed.
“It’s confusing to have a nuclear weapon.”
“I meant you.”
“What about me?”
“Are you OK?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look like you’re about to cry.”
“Me? No.”
“Oh, OK.”
“I don’t think I am?”
But maybe she was. Maybe the artificial emergency released trapped feelings about the real emergency. There was a trauma center in her brain—she had no Dr. Silvers to explain that to her, but she had the Internet. The most unexpected situations would set it off, and then all thoughts and perception rushed toward it. At the center was Sam’s injury. And at the center of that—the vortex into which all thoughts and perceptions were pulled—was the moment when Jacob carried him into the house, saying, “Something happened,” and she saw more blood than there was but couldn’t hear Sam’s screaming, and for a moment, no longer than a moment, she lost control. For a moment she was untethered from rationality, from reality, from herself. The soul departs the body at the moment of death, but there is a yet more complete abandoning: everything departed her body at the moment she saw her child’s flowing blood.
Jacob looked at her, sternly, hard-hearted, godlike, and made each word a sentence: “Get. Yourself. Together. Now.” The sum of everything she hated him for would never surpass her love for him in that moment.
He put Sam in her arms and said, “We’ll call Dr. Kaisen on the way to the emergency room.”
Sam looked at Julia with a prehuman terror and screamed, “Why did that happen? Why did that happen?” And pleaded, “It’s funny. It’s funny, right?”
She gripped Sam’s eyes with her eyes, held them hard, and didn’t say, “It will be OK,” and didn’t say nothing. She said, “I love you, and I’m here.”
The sum of everything she hated herself for would never surpass her knowledge that in the most important moment of her child’s life, she’d been a good mother.
And then, as quickly as it had seized control, Julia’s trauma center relented. Maybe it was tired. Maybe it was merciful. Maybe she had looked away and looked back, and remembered that she was in the world. But how had the last thirty minutes passed? Had she taken the elevator or the stairs? Had she knocked on the door of Mark’s room or was it open?
The debate was under way and roiling. Did anyone notice her absence? Her presence?
“A stolen nuclear weapon is not an occasion for bartering,” Billie said. “We want this thing disarmed, pronto, period.”
“We didn’t steal it. But I totally agree with what you just said.”
“We should just bury it.”
“Can’t we turn it into energy somehow?”
“We should give it to the Israelis,” said a boy in a yarmulke.
“Screw that, let’s bury it in Israel.”
“If I can butt in for just a moment,” Mark said. “My role here isn’t to suggest conclusions but to help you ask provocative questions, so try this one on for size: Is it possible that there’s an important option we haven’t yet entertained? What if we kept the bomb?”
“Kept the bomb?” Julia said, making her presence unignorable. “No, we can’t keep the bomb.”
“Why not?” Mark asked.
“Because we’re responsible people.”
“Let’s just play this out.”
“Play is not the right word for a discussion about a nuclear bomb.”
“Let him talk,” Sam said.
Mark talked: “Maybe this is a chance to finally control our destiny? For most of our history, we’ve been at the mercy of others: overrun by the Portuguese and Spanish trading goliaths, sold to Germany, conquered by Japan and the United States…”
“I don’t suppose anyone brought an extremely small violin?” Julia said to the kids. Nobody understood the joke.
Mark lowered his volume, asserting calm: “I’m just saying, we have never been fully self-reliant.”
“There hasn’t been a fully self-reliant country in the history of the world,” Julia said.
“Oh, you just got served,” a boy said to Mark.
“Iceland is fully self-reliant,” Mark said.
“Oh, you just got served!” the same boy said to Julia.
“No one’s getting served,” Mark said. “We’re thinking our way through a very complicated issue.”
“Iceland is a Hooverville,” Julia said.
“Look,” Mark said, “if I’m being an idiot, the only thing my blathering will have cost us is three minutes.”
“I just got a text from Liechtenstein,” Billie said, holding her phone as if it were the torch and she were the Statue of Liberty. “They’re offering us a deal.”
“Now, clearly we have no nuclear program of any kind—”
“Liechtenstein is a country?”
“—and wouldn’t have the means or motives to acquire a nuclear weapon on the black market.”
“Jamaica wants in,” Billie said, holding up another text. “They’re offering three hundred billion dollars.”
“They know we’re talking about a bomb, right? Not a nuclear bong? Can I get a hallelujah!”
“Xenophobic,” someone muttered.
“And yet,” Mark went on, “we suddenly find ourselves nuclear, with the ability, should we choose to exercise it, of entering the league of functionally autonomous nations, nations capable of dictating their own terms, nations that aren’t subservient to other nations, or to the predicaments of their histories.”
“Right,” Julia said, her famous composure now in witness protection. “So we have some gripes, so life hasn’t been a trip to Epcot, and hey hey, as it turns out, we just click our uranium heels and boom, life’s bouncer lets us into the greatest of all parties.”
“That’s not what he was suggesting,” Sam said.
“He’s an unclear suggester.” And then, turning to Mark: “You’re an un-cle-ar bomb, that’s what you are.”
“I was trying to suggest that we explore, if only to dismiss, the potential upsides of having a bomb.”
“Let’s bomb someone!” someone said.
“Let’s!” Julia echoed. “Who? Or does it even matter?”
“Of course it matters,” Billie said, puzzled and upset by Julia’s behavior.
“Mexico?” a girl asked.
“Iran, obviously,” Yarmulke Boy said.
“Maybe,” Julia said, “we should bomb some war-torn, famine-ravaged African country where orphans are so skinny they’re fat?”
That killed the buzz.
“Why would we do that?
” Billie asked.
“Because we can,” Julia said.
“Jesus, Mom.”
“Don’t ‘Jesus, Mom’ me.”
“We’re not going to bomb anyone,” Mark said.
“But you see, we are,” Julia said. “That’s how the story always ends. You’re either a country that never bombs, or you’re a country that is open to bombing. And once you make yourself open to bombing, you will bomb.”
“That doesn’t make any sense, Julia.”
“Only because you’re a man, Mark.”
The kids looked at one another. A few giggled nervously, Sam not among them.
“OK,” Mark said, calling and raising Julia, “so here’s another idea: let’s bomb ourselves.”
“Why?” Billie asked, confused to the point of anguish.
“Because Julia—”
“Mrs. Bloch.”
“—would rather die than save her life. So why draw it out?”
“See what you did?” Sam said to his mother.
“Jamaica went up to four hundred billion,” Billie said, holding up her phone.
Someone said: “Yah, mon.”
Someone said: “Jamaica doesn’t have four hundred dollars.”
Someone said: “We should be asking for real money. The kind we can take home and buy real stuff with.”
Sam pulled his mother into the hallway by her wrist, as she’d many times pulled him.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“What am I doing?”
“I told Dad I didn’t want you to come on this trip, and you made a big deal when I said don’t make a big deal, and you’re more worried about coming off as a cool mom than actually being a good mom.”
“Excuse me?”
“You make everything about you. Everything is always you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, and neither do you.”
“You’re making me apologize for words I didn’t write, so I can have a bar mitzvah that only you want me to have. You not only check my online search history, you try to hide the fact that you don’t trust me. And do you think I think the pencils on my desk sharpen themselves?”
“I take care of you, Sam. Believe me, it brings me no pleasure to be shamed in front of the rabbi, or to organize your pigsty desk.”
“You’re a nag. And it does bring you pleasure. The only thing that makes you happy is controlling every last tiny detail of our lives, because you have no control over your own.”
“Where’d you learn that word?”
“What word?”
“Nag.”
“Everyone knows that word.”
“It’s not a kid word.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You’re my kid.”
“It’s annoying enough when you treat your kids like kids, but Dad—”
“Be careful, Sam.”
“He says you can’t help yourself, but I don’t see why that makes any difference.”
“Be careful.”
“Or what? I’ll realize there’s Internet porn, or break a pencil tip and die?”
“Stop now.”
“Or I’ll accidentally say something that everybody already knows?”
“And what would that be?”
“Be careful, Mom.”
“What does everybody know?”
“Nothing.”
“You don’t know as much as you think you do.”
“That we’re all just scared of you. We’re unhappy because we can’t live our lives, because you’re a nag and we’re scared of you.”
“We?”
Billie came into the hallway and approached Sam.
“Are you OK?”
“Go away, Billie.”
“What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything,” Julia said.
Sam continued to lay into his mother, but now through Billie: “Will you please just mind your own business for three consecutive seconds?”
“Did I say something?” she asked Julia.
“You aren’t wanted,” Sam told her. “Go away.”
“Sam?”
Tears brimming, Sam scurried off. Julia stayed there, an ice sculpture of frozen tears.
“It’s kind of funny, right?” Billie said, her eyes overflowing with the tears neither mother nor son could release.
Julia thought about her injured baby pleading, It’s funny. It’s funny.
“What’s funny?”
“Babies kick you from the inside, and then they come out and kick you some more.”
“It’s been my experience,” Julia said, her hand moving to her belly.
“I read it in one of my parents’ parenting books.”
“Why on earth do you read those?”
“To try to understand them.”
SOMEONE ELSE’S OTHER DEATH
Jacob went online and didn’t scan for breaking news in the worlds of real estate porn, design porn, or porn, and didn’t scan for the good fortune of people he envied and would have preferred dead, and didn’t spend a soothing half hour in Bob Ross’s happy little womb. He found the tech support number for Other Life. No great surprise, he had to navigate his way through an automated service—a sedentary Theseus with only a phone cord.
“Other Life…iPad…I don’t know…I really don’t know…I don’t know…Help…Help…”
After a few minutes of saying “I don’t know” and “Help” like an alien impersonating a human, he was connected to someone with an almost impenetrable accent who did everything possible to conceal the fact that he was an Indian impersonating an American.
“Yes, hi, my name is Jacob Bloch and I’m calling on behalf of my son. We had an accident with his avatar…”
“Good evening, Mr. Bloch. I see that you are calling from Washington, D.C. Are you enjoying the unseasonably nice weather this late evening?”
“No.” Jacob had no patience to lose, but being asked to pretend that the phone call wasn’t international found him some nastiness.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Bloch. Good evening. My name is John Williams.”
“No kidding! I loved what you did with Schindler’s List.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Jurassic World, not as much.”
“How can I assist you tonight?”
“As I said, there was an accident with my son’s avatar.”
“What kind of accident?”
“I accidentally sniffed a Bouquet of Fatalism.”
“Fatality?”
“Whatever. I sniffed it.”
“And can I ask why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Why does anyone want to smell anything?”
“Yes, but a Bouquet of Fatality offers instant death.”
“Right, no, I get that—I get that now. But I was new to the game.”
“It is not a game.”
“Fine. Can we just fix this?”
“Were you trying to kill yourself, Mr. Bloch?”
“Of course not. And it’s not me. It’s my son.”
“Your son sniffed it?”
“I sniffed it on my son’s behalf.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Isn’t there some kind of Other Life mulligan, or something?”
“Mulligan, sir?”
“Do-over.”
“If there were no consequences, it would only be a game.”
“I’m a writer, so I really do understand the gravity of mortality, but—”
“You can reincarnate, but without any of your psychic upholstery. So it will be as if you are beginning again.”
“So what do you suggest I do?”
“You could reacquire psychic upholstery on your son’s behalf.”
“But I don’t know how to play.”
“It’s not play.”
“I don’t know how to do it.”
“Simply graze for low-hanging resilience fruit.”
“Graze what?”
“Apothecary vineyards.”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“It’s extremely time-consuming, but not difficult.”
“How time-consuming are we talking about?”
“Assuming you became proficient fairly quickly, I would estimate six months.”
“Only six months? Well, that’s fantastic news, because I was sitting here worrying you were talking about something really time-consuming. But this is great, because I don’t have time to get the manifest-destined mole on my breast looked at, but I can certainly spend a thousand hours clamping shut my carpal tunnels while committing brain cell genocide as I scour apothecary vineyards for low-hanging resilience fruit, whatever the fuck that means.”
“Or you could purchase a complete rebirth.”
“A what?”
“It is possible to revert your avatar’s profile to a designated moment in time. In your case, to immediately before sniffing the Bouquet of Fatality.”
“Why the hell didn’t you lead with that?”
“Some people find the option offensive.”
“Offensive?”
“Some believe that it undermines the spirit of Other Life.”
“Well, I doubt that many fathers in my position would feel that way. This is something we can do right now? Over the phone?”
“Yes, I can process your payment and remotely initiate the complete rebirth.”
“Well, this is just the best news I’ve heard…maybe ever. Thank you. Thank you. And really, I’m sorry about being such an asshole earlier. A lot is on the line here.”
“Yes, I understand, Mr. Bloch.”
“Call me Jacob.”
“Thank you, Jacob. I will have to obtain some information about the avatar, and the reversion date and time. But to confirm, you are purchasing the twelve-hundred-dollar complete rebirth.”
“Sorry, did you say twelve hundred dollars?”
“Yes.”
“As in: a one, followed by a two, followed by consecutive zeroes, with no decimal?”
“Plus tax. Yes.”
“How much did the game cost?”
“It is not a game.”
“Cut the shit, Williams.”
“Other Life is free.”
“Is this some kind of joke? Twelve hundred dollars?”
“It is not a joke, Jacob.”
“You realize we live in a world with starving children and cleft palates, right?”
“I do realize that.”
“And you still think it’s ethical to charge twelve hundred dollars to correct an accident in a video game?”