Sons of the 613 (24 page)

I can see Senior's jaw muscles. His fists are clenched.

“You're lucky I got a back injury,” he says to Josh.

“Wow, I really dodged a bullet there,” says Josh, mocking him, and it's worse because you can see that they both somehow know the truth: Even in his prime Tim Senior would have gotten his head handed to him. Josh is smiling evilly now. He's enjoying himself, rubbing Tim Senior's nose in it.

I'm going to be honest: I'm starting to enjoy it too.

At this moment I love Josh. At this moment there is actually justice in the universe.
Here, shit bully, meet my asshole brother, Josh. Have fun.

Tim Senior isn't backing down, but he's not saying anything else. The two of them are just facing each other in a standoff, Josh still smiling. I'm smiling too.

But then there's a subtle shift, Josh's expression darkening as he remembers something.

“You know what?” he says, quieter now. “Your shit kid called my brother a ‘stupid Jew.' Who taught him that?”

The instant I hear that tone all the fun drains out of it.

Run, Mr. Phillips,
I nearly say out loud.
Go now.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” says Senior.

Don't talk.
Go. Now.

“Really,” says Josh, in that same quiet tone. He's uncrossing his arms. All that pacing back and forth in the cage, and now someone has wandered too close to the bars.
I'm going to kill your dad,
he said to Tim Junior, and I honestly think it's about to happen.

“Josh,” I say. “Josh . . .”

“Is that how you talk at home?” says Josh. “You got a problem with Jews? 'Cause here's your chance.” He's now stepping toward Senior, who is backing up, feeling with his feet behind him to find the stairs off the front porch.

“Hey, I got no problem with anyone,” says Senior, his hands coming up, palms out. He
really
didn't expect this.

“Yeah? Well, I got a problem with you,” says Josh, and I can already see what's going to happen the instant before it does, the jarring shove that sends Tim Senior backwards to trip over the low evergreens that border the front path and land on the lawn on his ass. He has barely stopped skidding when I'm turning and sprinting back to the kitchen.

“Patrick. Patrick!”

He's at the table, reading one of Josh's gun magazines. Terri and Lisa have moved to the back porch, Terri braiding Lisa's hair.

“What?”

“Get out here, quick!”

I have to pull him out of his chair and then push him along the hallway to the front door and out onto the front porch.

“Oh, damn,” says Patrick when he takes in the scene, “he's gonna kick that guy's ass.”

They're in the middle of the lawn, Tim Senior alternately backpedaling and trying to get around Josh, who keeps moving to cut off access to the driveway. Tim Senior has a grass stain smeared on the back of his pants and on his shirt. He has stopped talking, everything happening too fast for him. He looks frightened, finally understanding exactly what sort of creature he's dealing with.

“Josh, stop it,” I say, “stop it!”

Josh is not stopping it.

“I think you got Jew issues,” Josh is saying. Shove. “I think you're a shit bigot.” Shove. They're big grown men, but it's just like on the schoolyard, the shoving thing, one kid the aggressor, the other moving backwards and trying to look brave, bringing his own arms up and sort of pushing back at the same time he's shoved.

“Josh, stop it!” I say again.

Whap.
A taunting, glancing whap on the side of the head.

“Damn,” says Patrick.

“You have to stop him!”

“What?”

“Stop him!”

“I'm supposed to stop Josh?”

“Yes!”

WHAP!
Josh smacks Tim Senior again. He's toying with him, humiliating him, and it's a tossup whether he's going to be satisfied with these relatively harmless blows or if he's going to unload on him for real.

“Patrick, do something,” I plead.

Patrick scratches his head. “Yo, Josh,” he says, not very loud.

I get behind Patrick and shove him in Josh's direction. “Get in there. Stop him!”

Patrick sighs and walks cautiously over to the two of them, slowing even more as he gets close. Then he does the hockey ref thing, waiting for an opening and then stepping between them and hugging Josh and walking him backwards and doing his best to create space between the two.

“C'mon, dude, leave it. Leave it,” he says while Josh continues to jaw at Tim Senior, tossing out more schoolyard prefight epithets and making a few efforts to get past Patrick. He's still between Senior and his car, though, and each time Senior tries to go around him Josh moves to block him.

Tim Senior, meanwhile, is pointing at Josh with one finger while fishing in his back pocket with the other hand.

“You think you're tough?” Senior is saying. “You're gonna be real sorry about this, tough guy. I got lots of friends on the police force,” says Senior.

“I bet you do,” says Josh. He then tells Senior exactly what sort of friendship he thinks it is, a particularly intimate and unsavory type.

“Oh, that's clever. That's real clever,” says Senior, and now he's pulling out his cell phone and trying to dial while still keeping an eye on Josh.

“Yeah, the big guy thinks he's tough,” says Senior, punching numbers—three numbers, to be exact. “You can show how tough you are when the cops come and Taser you.” The phone is at his ear. “I'll be standing here, laughing.”

He's right, of course. Now the tide has reversed and is flowing in the other direction.

“They deal with assholes like you every day of the week, big guy. Every day of the week,” says Senior, and Josh is hesitating. “Yeah, that's right,” says Senior, nodding in satisfaction, “you're gonna see just how tough you are.”

He's back in control. Josh
is
in huge trouble, because this is how grownups deal with situations like this: They don't have fistfights, they call the cops and the lawyers. “I thought I could settle this with an adult conversation with your folks,” says Senior, now looking at his phone like he's not getting a signal, “but I guess”—he redials—“we'll just . . . do this the hard way.”

Then someone roughly pushes past me.

“Hey,” says Terri. “HEY!” she says again, and she's got that voice that could penetrate a reinforced nuclear bunker and kill everyone inside. Senior turns.

“I
know
you!” says Terri.

The look of horror on Senior's face indicates he really,
really
didn't expect this.

“I see you in the club all the time, you pervert!” says Terri.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he says, but anyone who says that line the way he says it knows
exactly
what the other person is talking about.

“Oh, yeah? How'd you like me to tell your wife what you do in the club?”

“Now, listen,” he says, but she's already in his face, crowding him.

“You know what we think of bastards like you, guys who are always groping the girls?”

“Look—”

“You know what you are?” she says. “You're a . . .”

It's astonishing. I don't think I've ever produced a sentence that long and complex in my entire life, and it's pure obscenities, a nonstop chain-gun explosion of abuse at full volume. I look around, fearful/hopeful that the neighbors are watching, and yes, of course, there is Mr. Olsen, standing in his front yard, not even trying to disguise his fascination. Tim Senior is trying to interrupt Terri, trying to get a word in edgewise. “Now just hold on a minute—”

Fire-hose power stream of insults.

Now he's switching to holding up two hands to placate her: “I can see you're upset.”

Increased intensity of insults.

Attempted counterattack: “You listen to me!”

Insults reach white-hot fever pitch.

And then he's just turning tail and fleeing toward his car as she dogs him at every step, still going, determined to drown him in her ire.

It's all a farce now, an episode of
Cops
playing out right there on our front yard. It's going to be okay! Terri saved Josh! There's no way Senior got that 911 call off. He's going to drive away, and we'll go back in and it's all going to be fine! Patrick is laughing. I'm laughing. I think even Mr. Olsen is laughing. It's all fine.

But then Senior kind of pushes Terri away, and Josh escapes from Patrick and strides across the lawn and grabs Mr. Phillips by the shoulder and spins him around and gives him a lightning punch in the stomach.

“OOOoohh!” says Tim Phillips Senior, or something like that, but I can't hear it, because it's blotted out by a harsh staticky squawk coming from the police car that is pulling up to the curb.

M
ERIT
B
ADGE
: L
EGAL
K
NOWLEDGE

Important lesson, learned just this very instant: When the cops show up to your house, do
not
run toward them waving your hands as they're climbing out of their squad car and say, “Please, you don't need to Taser my brother!”

It's immediately apparent that my request has had the exact opposite effect from what I was hoping. They exchange a look, and one of them reaches to undo the snap on his Taser holster.

“Go back inside, please,” says one of them.

There's no way they got here this quickly from Tim Senior's call. It had to be a neighbor. It's the two officers from the day of the fire: generic Minnesota faces, almost identical in their blandness, except one has a white patch in his cropped blond hair.

“Inside, please,” repeats White Patch.

Instead I run back across the front yard to Josh and say, “Josh, do
not
resist arrest,” because he's got that look.

Patrick has a different look, a completely blank expression, the sort you must learn to produce after years of being stopped by the police. Terri is still shrieking at Tim Phillips Senior, who is bent double, one hand on his gut, the other resting on the side of his SUV for support. I'm praying that Lisa is still on the back porch.

“What's going on, Josh?” says the other cop, the wrestling fan from the other day. White Patch is talking into his radio.

“What the hell do you think is going on, you dumb bastard!” bellows Tim Senior, who I don't think is making any friends today. “This sonofabitch assaulted me!”

“Josh, can you come over here for a moment?” says Wrestling Fan. It's not really a request. Both of them have their batons out. Josh hasn't budged.

“That bastard
hit
me!” screams Senior again, his voice breaking on “hit.”

“The EMTs are on their way,” says the tall one.

“I don't need any goddamn EMTs, I need you to arrest him!”

“Josh,” says Wrestling Fan, “I need you to put your hands on your head and turn around. Josh, hands on your head and turn around. There's an easy way and a hard way.”

“Josh,” I hiss. “Don't. I can see what you're thinking.”

There are other neighbors out, watching. A car has slowed.

“He hit my kid, too!” says Senior, who is now standing mostly straight up.

“We'll talk to you in a moment, sir,” says White Patch. They're walking slowly toward Josh. Wrestling Fan has put away the baton and drawn the Taser.

“Josh!” says Wrestling Fan, Taser trained on Josh. “Hands on your head and turn around! Now! NOW!”

Strategy.
Think! Chessboard! Consequence mind! What would Josh respond to?

“Josh, if you resist, they'll Taser you. They'll beat you up with their batons!”

Nothing. He's still keyed up, not hearing me.

“Josh, if you get arrested, Mom and Dad will kill you!”

Of course that's not going to work.
Think!

“Who's going to take care of us?”

A glance at me, then he refocuses on the cops. He does a little neck roll, a move I've seen him do right before a wrestling match, except this time he's warming up to a felony.

“Josh! If you get arrested, I'll tell Lisa that you're a drug dealer and that you've been dealing drugs to little kids.”

This gets him to actually look at me.

“I swear to God, I will,” I say.

 

He lets them cuff him and put him in the back of the patrol car. They call things in on the radio, and an ambulance shows up, only to have Tim Senior shout the EMTs away. He's furious, screaming at the cops, saying, “A fifth-degree misdemeanor? A citation? What the hell does that mean! He assaulted me!”

“Looks to me like he punched you in the stomach,” says Officer Thomke, the wrestling fan. “Once.” Both he and Federson, the one with the white patch, have been using their professionally polite tones, disconnecting their mouths from their emotions.

“He resisted arrest!”

“You know what?” says Federson, writing something in his notepad. “I actually know what resisting arrest is. And you can be sure we would have handled this pretty differently if he'd resisted arrest, 'kay?”

“Now, you said something about him hitting your kid?” asks Thomke.

Blink and you'd miss it—Tim Senior glances over at Terri, who is watching from about ten feet away. She raises an eyebrow.

“He hit your kid?” repeats Thomke.

“No . . . forget it,” says Senior.

Another lesson learned: If you punch someone in front of a cop in Hennepin County, they don't arrest you and take you to jail unless they think you're planning to commit another crime. Instead they give you a citation for a fifth-degree misdemeanor, just like Tim Senior was complaining about. You have to go to court, though.