He introduced himself to the class as Jack, and explained that he had been a member of a motorcycle club, had spent time in jail and at one time had a bad attitude to women. It was quite a long speech but omitted some important information. I assumed he was being modest. When he asked if anyone had questions, I raised my hand.
‘What are your professional qualifications?’
He laughed. ‘The university of life. The school of hard knocks.’
I would have liked more information as to the disciplines, but did not want to dominate question time. As it turned out, nobody else asked anything, and it was our turn to introduce ourselves. Everyone provided only their names. Due to mumbling, Jack had to ask several times for a name to be repeated before he could match it on his list. When Dave’s turn came, Jack shook his head.
‘You’re not on the list. Don’t worry, they screw this up all the time. Spell your name for me, slowly.’
Dave provided the information.
‘Bechler. Yugoslavian?’
‘Serbo-Croatian, I think. Way back.’
‘We get quite a few Serbs. Something in the genes. Not that I want to encourage stereotypes. Any other Serbs here?’
No hands went up.
‘Your wife’s pregnant?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who told you to come here?’
Dave indicated me.
Jack looked at me for a few moments. ‘You’re his buddy?’
‘Correct.’
‘You brought him along because you thought it’d be good for him?’
‘Correct.’
‘Smart move, Don. If we all looked after our buddies like Don here, there’d be a lot less mothers showing up at the emergency room, a lot less babies shaken to death by men who won’t ever be able to look at themselves in the mirror again.’
Dave appeared more shaken than the hypothetical baby.
‘Now,’ said Jack. ‘Everybody’s here for a reason, including Dave. You’ve all done something to someone that you probably regret. I want to hear about it, and I want to know how you feel about it now. Who’s first?’
There was silence. Jack turned to Dave. ‘Dave, you look like—’
I interrupted. I needed to save Dave from being revealed as a non-violent imposter.
‘I’m willing to commence.’
‘All right, Don. Tell us what you’ve done.’
‘Which incident?’
‘Sounds like there’s been a few.’
Few was accurate. There had been three in my adult life, but the frequency had increased recently.
‘Correct. Two in the past month. Prompted by the pregnancy.’
‘That’s not good, Don. Maybe they’re a bit raw to think about now. Maybe go back a little, to an incident you’ve had time to do some thinking about. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Of course. You’re suggesting that analysis of recent events may lack a broader context and be clouded by emotions.’
‘Yeah. That. So go back a bit.’
‘I was at a restaurant. My costume was criticised. There was an altercation which escalated, and two security personnel attempted to restrain me. I responded with the minimum force needed to disable them.’
One of the other men interrupted. ‘You took out two bouncers?’
‘You’re an Aussie, right?’ This was another student. ‘You took out two Aussie bouncers?’
‘Correct and correct. I disabled them in self-defence.’
‘Two guys diss his threads and bam. Bam, bam, bam.’ The student performed a punching action in time with his bams.
‘No bamming was required. I used a low-impact throw and a simple hold.’
‘Judo?’
‘Aikido. I am also proficient in karate, but the aikido is safer in these situations. I used aikido on the neighbour who damaged my clothing—’
‘Do not mess with this man’s threads.’ The student was laughing.
‘—and on the police officer—’
‘You threw a cop? Not here? In New York? Where was his partner?’
Jack interrupted. ‘I guess there were consequences for Don. Whoever won the fight, you got arrested, right?’
‘Correct.’
‘And then?’
‘Total disaster. Threat of criminal prosecution, deportation, lack of access to my child, restrictions on working with children, forced attendance… And the necessity of deceiving my wife, which is incredibly stressful and has unpredictable consequences.’
‘You were too ashamed to tell your wife what you’d done, right? That you’d got yourself into trouble again.’
I nodded. Although my justification for not telling Rosie had been to protect her from stress, there was some truth in Jack’s observation.
Jack addressed the group. ‘Doesn’t sound so clever now, does it? We all get angry and we fuck up. Why? What makes us angry?’
Again, nobody raised his hand. I could empathise with Jack. It was like the first class of the semester with new students. As a fellow teacher, it was my responsibility to help Jack out.
‘To understand anger,’ I began, ‘it is necessary first to understand aggression, and its evolutionary value.’ I continued for approximately a minute. I had not even begun to explain the consequent evolution and internalisation of anger as an emotion when Jack stopped me.
‘That’ll do for now, Professor.’ The use of the formal title was encouraging. I was surely the top student at this point, and I could not see any challengers. ‘We’re going to take a break, and afterwards I’m going to be looking for some contributions from the rest of you. Don, you’ve earned your gold star and you can shut the fuck up.’
Everyone laughed. I was class clown again.
Most of the students walked outside and the requirement for the break became obvious. Several, including Jack, were nicotine addicts. I stood in the courtyard drinking my instant coffee with Dave.
One of the students, a man of about twenty-three, BMI approximately twenty-seven as a result of muscle rather than fat, approached us, dropped his cigarette, and stamped it out with his boot.
‘Wanna show us some moves?’ he said.
‘We will be returning inside shortly,’ I said. ‘Exercise will make us hot and uncomfortable and unpleasant to others.’
He performed some shadow-boxing moves. ‘C’mon. I wanna see what you can do. Beside talk.’
This was not the first time someone had challenged me to demonstrate my martial-arts skills. I did not need Jack’s advice to know that it was unwise to spar with an unknown opponent in poor light with no protection. Fortunately I had a standard solution. I stepped a few paces away to create some space, removed my shoes and also my shirt to minimise the perspiration problem, then performed a kata I had prepared for my 3rd Dan karate grading. It requires four minutes and nineteen seconds. The students gathered in a circle to watch and at the end clapped and made noises of appreciation.
Jack walked up beside
me and addressed the group. ‘This stuff’s pretty, but nobody’s invincible.’ Without any warning, he grabbed me in a chokehold. It was competently executed, and I suspected he had used it many times with success. I predicted that this was the first time he had applied it to a 4th Dan aikido practitioner.
The safest defence is prevention and I automatically moved to block him from applying the hold. Part way through the manoeuvre, which would have ended with him immobilised on the ground, I made a decision to allow Jack to complete the hold. He was attempting to illustrate a point, and my action would undermine his lesson. I expected that Jack would hold me for a few moments to demonstrate the technique’s effectiveness and then release me.
Before he could do so, a strange voice said, ‘That’s enough. Let him go. Now.’ The voice was strange because it was Dave doing his Marlon Brando-Woody Allen combination. Jack let me go, looked at Dave, and nodded.
Dave was shaking.
We returned to class, and I followed Jack’s instruction to shut the fuck up. Nobody else spoke much at all. Jack’s advice on self-control consisted of two principles, repeated numerous times:
1. Don’t get drunk (or consume methamphetamines).
2. Walk away.
They had zero relevance to my interaction with the police, but there was a clear connection to my meltdown problem, though on the most recent occasion I had run rather than walked. What if it was infeasible to walk away? What if I was in a lifeboat after a shipwreck? Or in a space station? I needed Jack’s advice, but was under instructions to remain silent.
I whispered to Dave, ‘Ask what to do if you can’t walk away.’
‘No.’
‘It’s further practice for self-confidence,’ I said. Dave had stopped shaking.
He put his hand up. ‘What should someone do if they can’t walk away?’
‘Why wouldn’t you be able to walk away?’ said Jack.
Dave was silent. I was about to offer assistance when he said, ‘Maybe I’m minding the baby, and I have an anger attack. I can’t leave because I need to look after it.’
‘Dave, if you can walk away, walk away. Better to leave the baby for a while. But you need to calm down fast, that’s what I’m hearing. So, deep breathing, try to visualise a relaxing scene, talk to yourself, say a calming word or sentence over and over.’
Jack made us all choose a calming phrase, and practise saying it multiple times. Dave began saying calm, calm. It struck me that the word might have a paradoxical effect: it reminded me of someone trying to shut me down. The man on the other side of me began chanting in a language I could not identify, but one of the words triggered an association, due to its similarity to Ramanujan, the name of the eminent Indian mathematician. The Hardy–Ramanujan number is the lowest natural number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. Mathematics. The unassailable world of rationality. As Jack passed, I was repeating the name of the number in the same tone as my chanting neighbour. The technique seemed to have the required effect; I felt distinctly relaxed. I mentally filed it for future use.
At the end of the class, Jack asked me to stay. ‘I want to know something. Could you have gotten out of that chokehold?’
‘Yes.’
‘Show me.’
He applied the chokehold and I demonstrated, without actual impact, three techniques for breaking it. I also showed him how to prevent it being applied, and a refinement which made it more secure.
‘Thanks. Good to know,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, out there, you know. Bad example. Solving a problem with violence.’
‘What problem?’
‘Forget it. No problem. You ever hit a woman or a kid?’
‘No.’
‘I figured. You embarrassed a cop and they threw the book at you. Wasting my fucking time again. Ever thrown the first punch in a fight?’
‘Only in class. There have been three external confrontations, none of which required striking, excluding one with my father-in-law which took place in a gymnasium with appropriate equipment.’
‘Your father-in-law. Jesus. Who won?’
‘There was no judge or referee, but he suffered a broken nose.’
‘Look me in the eye and tell me you’re never going to hit a woman or kid. Ever.’
Dave had been listening. ‘Better he doesn’t look you in the eye.’
‘Go on,’ said Jack.
I looked directly into Jack’s eyes, while I repeated the promise.
‘Jesus,’ said Jack. ‘I see what you mean.’ But he was laughing. ‘I’m in deep shit if I give anyone an early pass out of this class and they reoffend, but I think I’m safe with you. Better for both of us.’
‘I don’t need to come back?’
‘You’re not allowed to come back. I’ll tell your social worker you’ve graduated.’
He turned to Dave. ‘I can’t make you come back, but you ought to think about it. You’re dealing with some dangerous thoughts.’
Dave and I detoured via a bar before going to our respective homes, as I would have aroused suspicion if I returned from a boys’ night out without smelling of alcohol. Dave had similarly not told Sonia about the Good Fathers Program.
‘There’s no reason not to tell Sonia,’ I said.
‘Best she doesn’t know. Men’s business.’
Sonia of course knew about the Good Fathers Program, but she couldn’t tell Dave without revealing the Rosie impersonation.
Rosie was in bed but not asleep when I arrived home. ‘How was your night?’ she asked.
I had solved one part of the problem arising from the Playground Incident and gained new knowledge. Dave had increased his self-confidence in dealing with conflict, although he had needed two burgers to recover from the trauma.
I wanted to tell Rosie all about it, but everything led back to the Playground Incident and Lydia. The potential of the revelation to cause stress had diminished, but I was now worried that a full explanation would reveal Lydia’s assessment of my competence in the father role, and increase Rosie’s own doubts.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Nothing to report.’
‘Likewise,’ she said.
The martial-arts demonstration had reminded me of Carl and his attempts to surprise me with a punch. The routine had been mandatory on visits to Gene and Claudia’s, and inevitably ended with Carl immobilised and minor damage to decorative objects. Now, there was a risk that Carl’s punching ability would be applied to his father.
‘Have you spoken to Carl yet?’ I asked Gene the following evening.
Gene had purchased some port, which had three advantages over cocktail ingredients:
1. Existence. We had largely exhausted the supplies of anything alcoholic, except George’s beer.
2. Improved taste. Some cocktail ingredients are not palatable by themselves.
3. Lower alcohol than spirits. I had identified alcohol as the likely cause of recurrent morning headaches.
‘Carl won’t speak to me. Believe me, I’ve tried. There’s no way past the fact that I was unfaithful to Cla
udia.’
‘There’s always a way.’
‘Maybe with time. But it’s my problem, not yours.’
‘Incorrect. Rosie wants you to leave, hence I am required to ask you to leave. The best solution is that you return to Claudia, but you can’t until we solve the Carl problem.’
‘Apologise to Rosie on my behalf. I’m working on somewhere to live. I’d give anything to sort out the situation with Carl, but I can’t change the past.’
‘We’re scientists,’ I reminded him. ‘We shouldn’t be defeated by problems. If we think hard enough, a solution will present itself.’
22
The Lesbian Mothers Project protocols were straightforward to review. The obvious limitation was the absence of a control group of heterosexual couples or unrelated adults.
‘There were no same-sex couples in the original study,’ B2 said.
I had been instructed by B1 to conduct all liaisons with the team via B2 who had recently completed her PhD. ‘That was an exploratory study,’ I said.
‘This is an exploratory study, too. We’re entitled to equal consideration.’
My police clearance had come through, presumably because Margarita Cop was still holding my report, pending advice from Lydia, and I was now permitted to observe the experiments.
The B Team had constructed a small living room with sofa and armchairs. The protocol was trivially simple: B3, the nurse, took a sample of oxytocin from the baby; then one of the baby’s carers cuddled the baby. B3 then took another sample. At a later time, the carer would return and repeat the exercise, except that this time she would play with the baby rather than cuddling it. Then the experiment would be repeated with the second mother.