Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

BUILDING 55

— Do you know who I have next door?

— Where am I?

— You’re in a military barracks. Do you know who I have next door? You’ll never guess.

— Oh God.

— Shh. Guess.

— Thomas, what have you done to me?

— You’re locked to the post there, but it’s okay. It’s just to keep you safe.

— Oh Jesus lord Christ. Thomas, you have lost your mind.

— You know what’s so funny? I didn’t even need the chloroform with you. You never woke up. What the hell are you on? It couldn’t be just Paxil and wine. You must be mixing it with something else.

— Thomas, don’t do what I think you’re going to do.

— What do you think I’m going to do?

— I won’t say.

— You think I’m planning to kill you or something?

— I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. How did you get me here?

— You don’t remember?

— I don’t know if I do.

— Of course you don’t. You were passed out when I got to the house. It was the easiest thing. I put you in the van and then on the cart and that was that.

— Oh God.

— Stop. Don’t moan like that.

— Oh God oh God.

— Enough of that. Please.

— I can’t believe this.

— Believe it and let’s get started.

— Thomas, why would you do this?

— I know it seems extreme. I’m sorry. I really am.

— Jesus Christ.

— But you know I’m a principled person.

— Oh God.

— And this is the best way to get some things resolved.

— Oh Thomas. Please.

— Stop that. Don’t blubber.

— I’m chained here like a dog!

— I’ve chained everyone the same way.

— Thomas, this is how you treat your mother? Seriously, how did you get me here?

— I’m capable of lots of things you wouldn’t even know.

— Like kidnapping.

— Mom, I can do extraordinary things. I brought an astronaut here. He’s still here. I did that myself. You’re the fourth person I’ve brought. You know Mac Dickinson, the congressman? He’s here, too.

— Oh no. No.

— See, you can never give me any credit.

— Thomas, you’ve really lost it. They’ll catch you and put you in prison for life. Is this why you were at the house? I heard you skulking around and figured you were just taking something from the garage. I saw your car.

— Then what? You passed out? That is the best. That sums it up.

— Thomas, why did you do this?

— I had to. There was a vise around my head and now it’s easing.

— I blame myself.

— For once you do.

— What does that mean?

— It’s just amazing to hear you accept blame for anything.

— Like what?

— Like what? Like what? There you go. You’re back to denying the calamity all around. How do you do it?

— Ow. Damn it, Thomas.

— You shouldn’t pull on that.

— Thomas, see what this is doing?

— Then don’t move. It makes the shackle feel tighter. The whole setup works best if you just sit in one place. Especially at your age.

— Look at my ankle! It’s already purple.

— It’s not purple.

— Thomas, it would work best if you just unlocked this whole thing and we could really just sit and talk.

— Guess who I have next door.

— No, I won’t. I don’t want to know. An astronaut. A congressman. You told me.

— Yes, I have those guys. But guess who else?

— I don’t know, Thomas. The idea of you kidnapping all these people makes me want to vomit. I can’t believe my son would do this.

— You act like you had nothing to do with it.

— You’re saying there was something in my raising of you that would make you into a kidnapper? That is absurd.

— Absurd? Mom, everything you did brought me to this place.

— See, you were born ready to blame others for your mistakes.

— No, Mom. No.

— Thomas, it’s the truth. I’ve always felt the same way. I knew you were screwy. Always. You were screwy out of the womb. You were screwy as a child, screwy as an adolescent.

— Well, that’s a nice coincidence, because I have a remnant of that period in the barracks next door.

— Who?

— Think of sixth grade.

— I have no idea. Not Mr. Hansen.

— I knew you knew.

— You kidnapped Mr. Hansen.

— He was a lot easier than the astronaut. Almost easier than the congressman. He was so pliant. Weak.

— Son, I hope you didn’t harm that man. They’ll kill you if you did anything to Dickinson.

— Of course I didn’t. He’s an honorable man. Like me, like Kev. You don’t get the point of all this at all.

— That’s right, Thomas. I don’t.

— So do you remember sending me to Mr. Hansen’s house?

— I know you went there. I don’t remember sending you there. Now Thomas, let me out of this.

— Of course you sent me there.

— All your friends were going. Thomas, please take these handcuffs off.

— All my friends? Hardly. Don Banh went. He’s the only normal kid I remember ever going there, and he went because his mom spoke no English and thought it was the way to get Don better grades. You know Mr. Hansen targeted kids whose parents were absent or incompetent in some way?

— I don’t know where you get this anger.

— You don’t think I have anything to be angry about? Mom, what kind of parent lets their son go to “math overnights”? Doesn’t that seem irresponsible?

— It didn’t seem irresponsible at the time. You begged me to go. You begged me.

— No. No. No. No. No. You came home one day and you’d heard about this “opportunity” to go to Mr. Hansen’s house for enrichment. You thought it would help me, would get him to like me. You remember what you said? You said, “You could use a friend on the faculty at your school.”

— I didn’t say that.

— Then how the hell would I remember it after all these years?

— Your memory has always been given to opportunistic revision.

— You’re such a monster. Just the way you can say things like that. You know the statements like that I have in my head? Opportunistic revision! Jesus, that’s the one talent you have — saying nasty, nasty, unforgettable things.

— If I say I’m sorry will you let me go?

— No.

— Thomas, I’m worried about you. How long have you had the astronaut and the congressman?

— So you believe me.

— Of course I do. That’s what’s so scary.

— Well that’s a start at least. I didn’t think you’d believe I was capable of it.

— I know you are. I knew it when you burned the hospital.

— See, why would you say that? I didn’t burn any hospital.

— Thomas, please.

— Please? Please what? Who said I burned that hospital? I was never accused of that.

— Thomas.

— What?

— It adds up. You’ve kidnapped me. You’re capable of radical acts. Now it all connects.

— I can’t believe you’d make an accusation like that in your position.

— I’m your mother.

— But you’re shackled to a post.

— I’m still your mother and I know things. Children are utterly transparent to their mothers. I knew every time you did something. When the playground down the street was graffitied, I knew it was you. Your handwriting was obvious.

— See, you lie. If you’d thought that was me, you would have said something.

— I wasn’t in the best of shape those years.

— But you are now?

— You know I’m better.

— I don’t know that. You’re never better. You know how many times I wanted to do something like this with you, get you and lock you somewhere so you couldn’t do anything stupid? So you couldn’t mix meds and drive around, running into telephone poles? I dreamed of it since I was twelve. Just to have you locked up till you were clean.

— Well, I’m glad you didn’t. You would have been locked up yourself. As you will be when this is all over.

— Don’t threaten me.

— I’m not threatening, Thomas. I’m just stating the obvious. This one goes beyond any of the other petty crimes. This one means you’ll never be outside again. How many people did you take altogether?

— Including you, four so far. And I have one or two left.

— You’ll get twenty years for each crime. I won’t visit you in prison. I can’t handle it.

— I’m not going to prison.

— Don’t you dare kill yourself.

— That’s not what I mean. I’ll be gone.

— Thomas, you won’t survive wherever you plan to go. You don’t stand a chance.

— I don’t stand a chance? You’re telling me this? You can’t tell me about survival. I barely survived you.

— You did fine. You’re tall, you’re healthy.

— I’m tall? I’m healthy? That’s your defense? You did a good job with me because I’m tall and don’t have leprosy? You are phenomenal.

— Thomas. My point is that you turned out all right. Outside of this and the hospital, you’ve been fine. You’re functional.

— I’m functional? That was your goal, to raise a son who was functional? A tall and functional son? Your ambition is incredible. Do you remember what you did with our family photos?

— Excuse me?

— The family albums. Do you remember that?

— Of course I do. You bring it up every few years.

— I’ve brought it up once, and you were probably high when I last did. One of your boyfriends, whose name was actually Jimmy, stole them when he cleaned out our house. Do you remember this?

— Of course I remember.

— I have no idea why he needed to clean out the whole house. He took everything. He took my bed, my stuff, my clothes. He took my backpack. He took my homework.

— Well, first of all, he didn’t do it himself. He hired someone, Thomas, and they didn’t know what to take or not to take.

— You know this? You know he hired someone?

— Yes. He told me.

— He told you afterward that he hired someone?

— Yes. I called him because I knew it was him, and I asked him why the hell he had to take everything from that house, instead of just the TV and the stereo.

— I can’t believe this. You spoke to him afterward?

— I was trying to get our belongings back.

— Why the hell would he have taken that stuff in the first place?

— We owed him money. I’ve told you that.

— We owed him money? I was thirteen.

— You were old enough to contribute if you’d wanted to.

— Holy shit. Holy shit.

— Stop jumping around. You look like an idiot.

— You’re the one chained to a post. You look like an idiot.

— Please free me, Thomas. I’m sixty-two. You have a sixty-two-year-old woman chained up. Are you proud of that?

— And never insult me again. You get that? Never again. You’ve called me an idiot a thousand times and that was the last.

— You’re about to hit me.

— No. Even touching you would make me sick. You owed money to someone named Jimmy. You sold our belongings to pay him back. You sold my belongings. And now you say it was my fault.

— I didn’t say that. I am not saying that at all. His taking our belongings was not your fault. And when I came home and saw he’d done that, I called him immediately and told him it was out of line.

— Out of line. Holy God.

— He hadn’t done it himself. He hired some men.

— This is so much sicker than I ever would have thought. How much did you owe him?

— Three months’ rent.

— And that was what? A thousand dollars?

— Twelve hundred.

— And you had no one to borrow it from. No way to work for it. Were you employed at the time?

— I was on disability. You know I had my injury.

— Your injury. Your injury, holy shit.

— You want to look at my arm? It’s still healed wrong.

— And I should have contributed to the household income.

— I didn’t say that. All I’m saying is that some young men do work. In many parts of the world, you would have been considered the man of the house and expected to contribute.

— You are so great. One in a billion. You know, the reason I was bringing up all this was to note that in all my life I’ve seen no more than ten pictures of my childhood, but you’re making it all so much more fascinating. I give you a chance to explain one thing, and you remind me about a hundred other examples of your insanity. Your crimes multiply every time we talk.

— We had plenty of pictures of you.

— Do you know what kinds of pictures we have of me?

— I do know, because I broke my back reassembling those photo albums.

— Stop. Stop there. I knew the rest of the story, but now I can fill in the beginning. What you did was this. First you date a man named Jimmy, who I believe was a former taxi dispatcher from Salinas and was unemployed when you met him. A man on the way up in society. Then you bring Jimmy into our home and he pretends he’s my dad and mentor. He takes me for drives where the windows are closed and he smokes and tells me about how hot his sister is. He says he’ll set me up with her even though I was thirteen and she was twenty-eight. Then somehow you and Jimmy have a falling out. Next thing I know I come home and you’re making phone calls on the floor of an empty house. The kitchen plates are gone. The clothes in the closets are gone. My schoolbooks are gone. I go into my room and there’s nothing left, nothing but an empty aquarium. You tell me that we were robbed, but somehow I don’t believe you. Something seems wrong about that. All our photo albums are gone, so you call up your friends and my friends’ parents, and your sisters and cousins and ask everyone to send any pictures they have of me or us.

— I spent weeks on that. Why was that a bad thing to do?

— The result was an album with exactly ten pictures in it. And in every picture, I’m on the side, I’m in the background. These are pictures of my cousins or my friends and I’m incidental. I’m blurry and half my head is cut out.

— I thought I was doing something nice.

— That was my birthday present that year!

— You liked it.

— Oh shit.

— Thomas, I was there when you went to bed and when you woke up. I got you to school. I fed you. Beyond that, you’re quibbling.

— Quibbling? See, I guess the one thing I never gave you credit for was how entertaining you are. The things you say are just unprecedented. No one talks like you. Do you remember bringing me to your boyfriend’s apartment in New Mexico?

— Of course. He got you a bike.

— He gave me the bike his son left when his wife and kid fled him.

— It was a fine bike, and he bought it for you.

— No he didn’t. It had this kid’s name on it. Robin.

— Well, we can disagree about that.

— And why take me to Albuquerque in the first place? Why not just leave me with someone?

— You had fun on that trip.

— Your boyfriend hit me.

— Well, you two didn’t always see eye to eye.

— I was fifteen. Seeing eye to eye?

— How many times do I need to say sorry for that? It was twenty-five years ago.

— It was less than that.

— So what, Thomas? So what?

— So Mr. Hansen targeted me, knowing I had an addict for a mom. That’s how he could get away with it. He needed kids who had some kind of inadequate parental situation. Me, Don.

— Did he touch you, Thomas?

— Who?

— Mr. Hansen.

— He says he didn’t.

— Well then.

—“Well then”? “Well then”? You push me onto a highway, or off a bridge, and then if I come back alive, you say, Well then.

— Thomas, why don’t you unlock me and we can talk about straightening all this out? I can help you get out of here. I’m happy to take the blame for all this. I can tell the police it was my idea, that you weren’t here at all.

— That would be the most self-sacrificing thing you’ve ever done.

— Thomas, we have many more years together. We don’t have anyone else. We should look forward. You’re always looking backward, blaming and dissecting, and it’s hampered your ability to move ahead. You need to choose to look to the light.

— Listen to yourself! “Look to the light”? You’ve always had this bizarre mix — you’re so nasty, but then you spout these New Ageisms. Don’t give me advice.

— I want to be supportive. That’s all I want now. You know I’m better than I used to be. We can be partners.

— We won’t be partners. I don’t like you.

— We’re stuck with each other, Thomas.

— I’m not stuck with you. And you’re still using.

— It’s under control.

— That’s not possible.

— Thomas, I’ve had the same job for four years. Could I be doing that if I was out of control?

— You’re screwing the owner. I hear that you come into work twice a week.

— That is patently untrue.

— You always had situations like that, didn’t you? You’d screw some guy who could provide you with some kind of financial assistance or some kind of vague job on someone’s payroll. You did that at the hospital supply company.

— That was a legitimate job. I worked my ass off there. I hated that job but I did it.

— For a while you did. Maybe six months. Then you were on severance for a year.

— Is it my fault they gave me severance?

— A year’s severance for a half year’s work? Was that company policy?

— I have no idea.

— And still you dated that guy. Dalton. I can’t believe you brought a grown man named Dalton into our house.

— He took you to SeaWorld.

— You have an answer for every one of these guys. You act like every one of them was such a gift to my life.

— You were a lonely boy.

— I was a lonely boy? That’s the first time I’ve heard you say that. What does that mean?

— It means there was only so much I could do with you. You came out of the womb a certain way. You were always diffident. I tried to have you play with other kids but there was always some reason they didn’t appeal to you. You went off by yourself and then complained that you had no friends.

— You’re making this up.

— I’m trying to tell it to you straight. You want to blame me for everything, fine, but you were always a certain way. On your fourth birthday, you hid in the garage. At your eighth-grade graduation, you stayed in the parking lot, in the car, so I went alone. You never joined the big group activities. I would buy you tickets to everything, sign you up for everything, and you would stay home. How is that my fault? I put you in a position to be happy and you chose to be alone.

— I didn’t want to be alone.

— You drove people away. You tried to drive me away.

— I wish I’d been better at it.

— Then why didn’t you leave?

— Why didn’t I leave?

— Thomas, you lived at home till you were twenty-five.

— You lie. I left when I was twenty-two.

— For eight months. Then you came back.

— For a year.

— No, you came back for two years and eight months. You were twenty-five when you moved out for good. If I was so terrible why come back? Why stay with me so long?

—

— And you couldn’t keep a job. You know how easy it is for a white man to make money in this country? It’s like falling off a log. For so long I blamed myself for what happened to us. But all along I had a feeling there was something strange about you. And I know I’m right. You were born with certain tendencies, and I really don’t think I could have done anything to prevent them. I had a feeling something like this would happen.

— Of course you did.

— You had extreme tendencies. People thought you were gentle and lonely and harmless but I knew a different side of you. When you were seven you choked me. You remember that?

— I didn’t choke you.

— You did. This was just after your father left. It was at that rich kid’s house. His family had a lot of money. You remember this kid?

— How would I remember something like that?

— I don’t know where they got their money, something fishy, but they were sweet to you. He used to have you over to play after school, and he had a playroom and a million toys. They knew I was alone and working so they said you could come over anytime. You don’t remember this? They lived on the lake.

— Fine.

— There was one time I picked you up. I used to come to their house and get you after work. And always it was a hassle to get you to leave, but no more than any kid leaving any friend, I figured. But this time you were really resisting. You wouldn’t come, and I was standing there in the doorway to the kid’s room, with his mom, just trying to chat and be casual while trying to get you to put on your jacket and come with me. But you wouldn’t move. I think you thought maybe I’d just leave and let you live there. I mean, it made no sense because obviously you have to leave at some point. So finally it starts getting embarrassing, and the mom, I can’t remember her name, something like Aureola, she says she has to get something in the kitchen or something. She knew I might need some time alone with you. So she left, and she brought her son with her. Then it was just you and me alone in his room. And I got down on my knees and brought you close to me, and I whispered in your ear that we needed to go. I used to do that in public, get you close and whisper sort of urgently in your ear when you were misbehaving. And so I cupped my hand around your ear and whispered a few choice things about us needing to leave, you embarrassing us, how you’d be punished if you didn’t comply, and then I backed up a bit to look into your eyes and make sure you understood, and that’s when this look came over your face and you tried to strangle me.

— I did not.

— But you did. Why else would I remember it twenty-five years later? You put your hands around my neck and squeezed. I don’t even know where you learned how to do that. I’d never been so scared. Just the look in your eyes! It was pure hatred, pure evil. But then you held on. You were so strong and I couldn’t get your hands off me and then your eyes went dull, like a snake’s when it’s got something in its jaws. You know how they have some mouse in their jaws but their eyes stay open and seem so far away? That was the look you had.

— You’re making all of this up.

— So finally I got free, and I spanked you, and you still struggled. I had to carry you out kicking and screaming. You scratched my face and it took a month to heal. I mean, this was terrifying. Can you imagine? You never went back to that house. I was too embarrassed to let them have you over. From then on I always had an inkling you were capable of something like this. Capable of anything.

— You are so full of shit.

— Thomas, you want to attribute your behavior to a set of external factors. You want to cede your life and decisions and consequences to forces outside of you, but that’s the coward’s way. And blaming your mother? It’s so easy. You were not a lump of clay I molded. You and every other child comes into the world with their personality baked in. How else do you think a kid like Jim Avila is gay and designs dresses when his parents are white-trash farmers? The thing you always had was a need to blame. You get a bad grade, it’s because the teacher doesn’t like you. Some girl doesn’t like you and it’s because she’s a slut or whatever else. I mean, as a mother I was exasperated by all this. I wanted to be on your side but there were too many battles. You were at war every day, and it was exhausting.

— So you take no responsibility.

— I take the same amount of responsibility as any parent. Which should be limited. If you were raised in a standard two-parent family, with all the money and stability in the world, you would have turned out exactly the same. Maybe with some superficial differences. You’d have slightly different clothes.

— That’s an incredible statement.

— Thomas, I wasn’t one of those mothers who waited ten years to have a child. I wasn’t placing all my worldly hopes on the outcome of my womb.

— Wait. What’s that got to do with anything? What does that even mean?

— It means I wasn’t so awed by the idea of having a child that I went dancing around you like you were some golden calf. Most parents are so grateful to their children for existing that they become obsequious. I promised myself I would not be one of those obsequious mothers.

— Obsequious? You are amazing.

— I find all that disgusting. It begins a lifetime of perceived debt that does no one any good.

— I have no idea what you’re talking about.

— Thomas, I did not think you some miracle bestowed upon me. You were born and I was happy to have you. And I don’t think you thought of me as some miracle, either. We were, or should have been, partners. I was happy you existed and wanted you to thrive. My hope was that you were happy to exist and that you yourself would endeavor to thrive. But instead you were aggrieved by your existence and my role in it. I think that’s why you were so drawn to Christ.

— I wasn’t drawn to Christ. What does that mean?

— You used to draw the crucifix on your notebooks. Other kids were drawing spaceships or Grateful Dead skulls or penises, but you were drawing crucifixes. You thought that was you, suffering on the cross. I considered you a partner and an equal but you wanted to be beneath me and a martyr.

— You’re the one who brought me to church.

— I brought you once. You know how I hate Christianity and all that wretched iconography. You know what? You see pictures of Buddha and he’s sitting, reclining, at peace. The Hindus have their twelve-armed elephant god, who also seems so content but not powerless. But leave it to the Christians to have a dead and bloody man nailed to a cross. You walk into a church and you see a helpless man bleeding all over himself — how can we come away hopeful after such a sight? People bring their children to mass and have them stare for two hours at a man hammered to a beam and picked at by crows. How is that elevating? It’s all about accountability for them.

— What is?

— The Christians, the Bible. It’s all about who’s at fault. A whole religion based on accountability. Who’s to blame? What’s the judgment? Who gets punished? Who gets jailed, banished, killed, drowned, decimated. You want to know the main takeaway most people got from Jesus’s death? Not sacrifice, nothing like that. The takeaway, after all that Old Testament judgment, is that the Jews did it.

— Incredible.

— You loved it, though. Especially as a teenager. Young men love martyrdom. You get to be the victim and the hero at the same time. Do you remember when you said you wanted to be a priest?

— I didn’t want to be a priest.

— A monk? What was it? It was Don’s influence. Wasn’t his mom some Bible thumper?

— She wasn’t a Bible thumper.

— Don thought himself some kind of elevated young man, didn’t he? He took himself very seriously. The last time I saw him he was spouting some very pious stuff. He looked at me like I was one of his parishioners, like he was taking an interest in me — that he might save me.

— You’re faulting him for caring about you. I know how foreign that is to you. To care about someone. To care about their well-being.

— You mean me with you? If anything, I was too protective.

— Holy shit.

— What are you doing now? Don’t get so excited. Stop the jumping around, Thomas. Please. I didn’t make you get jobs. I allowed you to flounder. It made you soft. I let you quit college. I let you live at home.

— So why did you?

— I felt guilty. You guilted me into it. You made me feel like I’d done all these horrible things, so I coddled you. You’d have been better off in military school. The Army straightens boys like you out. You needed some discipline. You needed to be around people who wake up in the morning and go to work, do something.

— You didn’t keep me safe.

— I did keep you safe.

— Whether or not you felt responsible for my birth, you’re supposed to keep your children safe.

— I did as much as I could. As anyone could.

— You know what Mr. Hansen did with us? He played a game called “tailor.” It involved him measuring various parts of our bodies.

— Did he undress you?

— He says he didn’t.

— Do you remember him undressing you?

— No. But I could have buried that memory. We all could have.

— Oh get serious. So he took a tape measure or what?

— He put the tape measure against the insides of our legs. He did that to every kid, alone in his closet, and then we’d all lie on the bed together watching movies. He was breathing heavily the whole time.

— And that’s what has you thinking your life is irreparable?

— No. It’s just one of the many things I shouldn’t have seen or had to endure. Things I wouldn’t have been subjected to if you were present and sober.

— Thomas. I remember very clearly sending you to Mr. Hansen’s house. I was sober then and I’m sober now. It seemed like a fine idea, and a safe idea. There were kids going off on overnights all the time. Boy Scout trips, sports trips, band trips. Summer camp. It was not an outrageous proposition to allow a group of boys to sleep at a trusted adult’s house. And now you tell me that this man put a tape measure against your leg, and that this is the great crime of the world.

— I didn’t say that.

— Thomas, why don’t you kidnap some kid born with leukemia, or a woman who’s been sold into prostitution? You had a tape measure against your leg and it’s paralyzed you for life.

— I can’t stand you.

— Fine. But someone needs to give you some tough love. You’re soft. You need to find some steel.

— And you’re the embodiment of inner strength? Let me enumerate the places I found you blacked out. In the backyard. In your car, in the garage, as if you meant to kill yourself with carbon monoxide and fell asleep in the middle of the task. And growing up, I found you in my bed. That was once a week, at least, you’d be in my bed. I could smell the wine fermenting. You know that smell? It’s this musty animal smell, like your body was some wet sponge full of everything it wiped off the dinner dishes. See, the nice thing about having you here is that I can see what sort of withdrawal you go through. Are you already jonesing?

— No, I am not. I’m not the person you’re battling. You’re battling me from fifteen years ago. I have everything under control and I think you know that. You’re fighting the former, lesser version of myself — so why bother?

— You know, only a narcissist could come up with a phrase like that. “Former, lesser version of myself.” That’s evidence of someone who’s spent a lot of time thinking about herself, perfecting certain phrases. You know what? I just had an idea. I think, after I let the other people go, I’ll hold on to you. You’ll get clean, and I’ll have more time to get some things cleared up.

— You’ll be caught within twenty-four hours. Tommy, please, let us all go. I know we can start again. I want you alive. I don’t want to see you killed out here, but I have a terrible feeling that’s where all this is heading.

— You know what, Mom? I’m done with you tonight. The sun’s coming up and I’m tired, and when I’m this tired, I can’t listen to you spout your nonsense. I don’t even know if you’re on something now, so I’m going to leave you for tonight. And tomorrow we’ll have more fun like we’ve had tonight. Maybe you’ll be clearer in the head, and you’ll have given some thought to your culpability in all this. Okay?

— Thomas, stop. You can’t leave me like this.

— You’ll be fine.

— Thomas.

— Nighty night.