24
“Nothing,” said Dr. Bagdasarian. “I’m sorry, Tim.”
The scans had revealed nothing. That was neither positive proof of mental illness nor the negative confirmation of a medical disease. It was more of the same, exactly what he feared — greater inconclusiveness, additional absence of evidence, the final barrier removed from boundless interpretation. He was anything anyone wanted him to be — a nutcase, a victim, a freak, a mystery. He’d known to expect it from the moment he took the bicycle helmet out of Bagdasarian’s hands, yet the disappointment, so familiar, felt brand-new. He had no idea to what extent he’d allowed his hopes to rise once more. What a fool he was, an inveterate and self-punishing fool. He felt Jane and Becka looking at him. He turned to them and smiled.
The doctor made an effort to qualify these indeterminate test results. He cautioned again that the device was a prototype, that the sensors picked up only neural activity, and that a second-generation helmet might be made not only to improve the sensitivity of the readings, but to include electrical and hormonal changes, the flow of blood and other biological currents. He suggested they go back to the drawing board for a better device.
Jane shook her head. “This has been a mistake. I’m sorry I encouraged it.” She turned to her husband. “Tim, I’m sorry,” she said. She reached out for his hand.
“We’ve come this far,” said Bagdasarian.
“No, Doctor, thank you,” she said. “I think we’re through.”
Tim turned to her. “Why not give him another shot?” he asked. “See what improvements can be made?”
That night he went down to the basement after Jane and Becka had fallen asleep. He sat on the weight bench and put the barrel of the gun inside his mouth. The cold metal made him salivate. He angled the barrel up toward his brains.
He had told Dr. Ditmar, the psychologist beloved by New York magazine, that he would prefer the diagnosis of a fatal disease. Ditmar bluntly stated that he was being excessive and naive. Compare his situation to someone with Lou Gehrig’s, Ditmar suggested, dead within three months. Wasn’t it better to be on a walk than in a grave? “No,” he said. “I’d rather have something I understand.” To which Ditmar replied: “Do you think you’d understand Lou Gehrig’s?”
He had perfect conviction that killing himself was not only justified now but necessary, that the relief of death was the only reply to the torment of a life that had to be lived as a lost cause, and his mind told him to pull the trigger. But his body, which spoke a persuasive language of its own, singular, subterranean, objected with the most fundamental repulsion, and while he sat with the gun in his mouth, nearly gagging on the barrel, these two opposite wills worked to gain the better of each other in a struggle so primitive that it could not be named. And finally he removed the gun and set it back in the standing toolbox behind the blunt hammers and screwdrivers and returned upstairs. He lacked the courage and the will — although perhaps he had astonishing amounts of both and was simply defeated again, if barely, on a playing field most people never realize exists until the final days and moments of their lives.
25
Mike Kronish wouldn’t even deign to pick up the phone when he called. Sam Wodica broke the news. The caucus had convened, a vote had been taken, and his partnership was thereby revoked.
“It wasn’t just your appearance at trial, Tim,” said Wodica. “Your wife?”
“She’s not dying.”
“No shit.”
He thought he should have been present for the caucus. He should have been allowed to defend himself. They were lawyers. Weren’t they familiar with due process?
“Does R.H. know about my wife?”
“For fuck’s sake,” said Wodica. “You don’t just want us to lose the revenue? Let’s open ourselves up to malpractice, too?”
“I don’t see how what I did constitutes malpractice.”
“Just what the fuck did you do, Tim? Huh, please allow me to ask. Just what the fuck did you do?”
It settled in, the enormity of a crumbling life. Twenty-one years. The firm had been a second home. Now Frank Novovian would not even be required to greet him. Maybe Frank would look at him and say, “I’m sorry, Mr. Farnsworth. I’m not allowed to let you up.” And he might say, “Twenty-one years, Frank.”
He and Wodica briefly discussed R.H.’s conviction. The only good news was that New York State didn’t allow the death penalty. The presentencing report was due in a few weeks, and then R.H. would be sent off. How would R.H. have fared if Tim had been able to see his case through to the end? If Tim had been allowed to finish the pretrial preparations, to help in jury selection, to argue and object? He was certain that right now they would be celebrating R.H.’s acquittal.
He called Detective Roy from time to time, and Fritz Weyer to see what progress had been made on his end. Fritz had calls in to friends at the department and one of his guys searching databases for a possible match on the face in the sketch. Maybe they’d get lucky.
26
He was at the firm again, dressed in suit and tie and standing before his fellow partners. R.H. was there, as were Jane and Becka. He had to campaign for his job. He said he should not be blamed for R.H.’s conviction because R.H. was guilty. Detective Roy began to applaud. Tim looked at R.H. sitting at the defense table, attempting to conceal his weeping. He approached R.H. and whispered to him, “Don’t worry, I know you’re innocent.” R.H. thanked him. The assistant district attorney who had tried the case was now itemizing all of the infractions Tim had committed: the internal lies, the false statements to authorities, the unprofessional conduct. She concluded with a passionate plea to the jury that they expel him from the firm. The judge stood up and poured sand from his shoes. It was Sam Wodica in a black gown and sun visor. He peered over to the other partners in the jury box and gave them a big thumbs-up. Jane was at the defense table comforting R.H. Mike Kronish entered the courtroom and tried to yank Tim’s pants down. Tim grabbed at his pants to keep them up because he did not want his pants to go down when he was fighting for his job. But Kronish was strong. He wanted everyone to see Tim with his pants down. Tim tried to push Kronish away but Kronish was now on top of him on the courtroom floor in front of Judge Wodica while a sketch artist documented the scene. Kronish gripped the back of Tim’s neck to make it easier to take his pants down. Tim lost track of the people in the room because his head was pinned to the ground and little courtroom rocks were digging into his skin. He was trying to swat Kronish away. It was hard with Kronish on top of him. It was only when Kronish succeeded in getting his pants down and exposing Tim that Tim woke up and realized that his pants were really down and that his head was pinned against crumbling blacktop.
He was in Newark behind a boarded-up Safeway. Shattered glass and strewn garbage were illuminated by a single security light off in the distance. Some encampment of derelicts was living out of an abandoned semitrailer.
He used both hands to try and pry the man’s grip from his neck but the angle was awkward and the man punched him in the head with his one free hand. Tim’s skull dug into the blacktop. In the stunned minute that followed, the man got Tim’s pants off entirely. Tim swiveled under him, so that he and the man were face-to-face. A terrible burn had melted the man’s eye into his cheek and shriveled his right ear. Tim reached up and grabbed his neck. He dug his fingers into his windpipe as if to pull it out and at the same time grabbed hold of the man’s balls and squeezed, and the man’s horrible animal noises careened off the side of a dumpster. Tim kept squeezing while struggling to his knees. He got to his feet and kicked the man in the head as if punting a football. The man’s head hit the side of the dumpster and he fell back on his knees. Blood poured from his nose like some weak fountain. Tim could have walked away then but he couldn’t stop. He took up an empty forty-ounce bottle and beat the man over the head. The man’s blood jumped out of him and splattered the pavement. Tim fled without his pants.