“I’m not trying to blame anybody. If anything, I blame myself—”
“Mom, stop it. Seriously, stop. That is the last—”
“Eddie, give her a second. Give her a second to talk.”
“You’re interrupting me.”
“You’re interrupting her—”
“Hi. Hello. Excuse me.” I step closer. I jam my hands into my pockets. “The Earth is in orbit around the sun.”
There’s a voice I use in situations like this: cool and calm, firm and definitive, authoritative but not aggressive. It gets the result I want: everybody draws down to a hush. Everybody looks at me at once. It’s like I’ve pulled a curtain around the four of us, here at this table along the wall.
“Hello,” says the woman. “And the Moon is in orbit around the Earth.”
“Always has it been.”
“Always shall it be.”
She takes a deep breath. Keeps her eyes on mine. The sons glance at each other.
“How are you folks doing this morning?”
“We’re okay. We’re just fine.”
That’s one of the two boys. Now all three of them are looking up at me with the same stunned expression, me looming over them like a dark planet blocking the sun.
“I’m sorry to bother you folks, but I overheard your conversation.”
The restaurant has gone quiet. People are looking at us, nudging each other—Look. The old man and his old wife have set down their spoons and are watching, waiting to see what happens. I take out my Day Book, take out my pen, click it open. The mom blinks, and her lips are pursed and there is emotion in her eyes, a little fear and a little confusion. It’s a strange feeling, sometimes, to be seen the way I know that I am seen—the way the world reacts to my presence. But it’s part of the job and it helps. You want to have control of a situation. You want to have people focused on you. You want to know that they know that it’s serious.
“I hate to bother you folks. But I was eating my own breakfast just over there—” I point back over to my booth, but all the while I am keeping my eyes carefully on the table, on the three participants in this conversation, making my quiet assessment of who the liar or liars are among them. “And I found that I was troubled by the presence of dishonesty in the atmosphere.”
“What?” says the mother.
“No…” begins one of the sons; the other is just looking down. “That’s…”
I wait a moment, one eyebrow cocked. That’s what? But nobody finishes the sentence.
It’s the mom, the lady, who speaks next. “How do you—why would you say that?”
“It’s not an accusation, ma’am,” I tell her. “It’s not a matter of opinion. It is part of what is Objectively So.”
My voice remains composed, reasonable. You gotta keep these things calm for as long as possible. That’s important. In a moment or two, someone is going to confess, or someone is going to do something stupid. There aren’t any other ways this thing goes.
I smile, but I know that even my smile can at times appear less than friendly. I’m over six two and over 260 pounds—how far over 260 varies depending on (for example) how recently I’ve been to Terry’s. I’m in the unofficial uniform of my service, black suit and black tie, black boots, and a battered pinhole with the brim angled slightly down. My hair is thick and red and I wear a big beard, thick and unkempt, not for any visual effect but because I’m too lazy to shave.
“Can I ask your name, please?”
“Kelly.”
“Your full name, ma’am.”
“Kelly Tarjin. Elizabeth. My middle name is Elizabeth.”
“So Kelly Elizabeth Tarjin?”
“Yeah. Right. Do you want to see my identifications?”
“No, Ms. Tarjin. That’s not necessary.”
I don’t need to see her identifications. Even in the general discomfort I’m feeling over here by the liar’s table, her asseveration of her name doesn’t add to the discordance. Maybe she was lying to the others just now, but she’s not lying to me right now. I can tell. When it’s bad, it gets bad. Two days ago I had a guy on a false claim, a guy begging at 4th and Alameda with a hungry and homeless sign, though he was neither, a guy who then clung to his demonstrable untruths even when contrary evidence was presented, stood there proclaiming and reproclaiming his lies, swearing to them until the air was so thick I felt it way down in my throat, like a clot in a drain.
“These are your sons, Ms. Tarjin?”
“Yes. Todd and Eddie. Edward.”
“Hey,” says one of them. Todd. They’re both looking at me, both of them wary, both of them uncertain. I cough once, into my fist.
“And what are you folks discussing this morning?”
The boys glance at each other. Ms. Tarjin taps one hand on the table, next to her plate.
“Well,” she says finally, and then one of the sons interrupts: “It’s personal.”
I smile. “I’m afraid it’s not anymore.”
I want to keep everybody cool for as long as possible. Keep the situation in neutral. I have other voices I use in other situations.
“Yes, sir. Of course.” That’s Mom, that’s Ms. Tarjin, who is afraid. You can tell she’s afraid. I don’t want her to be afraid, I don’t want anyone to be afraid of me, I’m like anyone else, even though it’s not me she’s afraid of, it’s the clothes and the position, it’s the black pinhole with the felt brim, it’s the boots, the outfit metonymic for the whole system of which I am a representative. Still, nobody likes to make other people fearful.
But the atmosphere continues in its roil. It’s here. It’s close. I cough again.
“We were talking about some… some uh…” The woman, the mom, she’s choosing her words carefully. That’s what folks do, with me standing here, all the weight of what I am, me looming like a dark planet. It’s okay. I’m patient. “We were just having a conversation about some medication of mine.”
“Medication.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What kind of medication is that?”
“Dreams—that’s all. For dreams.” She has lowered her voice, as if it were possible for us to speak confidentially. As if everybody in the room weren’t listening by now, customers and waiters gawking, fascinated; as if the place wasn’t bristling, too, with captures—captures in the ceiling fans, captures on the kitchen’s large appliances, the pinhole that constantly captures my own personal POV. The whole world under constant surveillance, everything on the Record, reality in progress. “I take Clarify, that’s all.”
“Oh. Well, that’s all right.”
While I write it in my Day Book, Ms. Tarjin swallows, swallows again. “Dream control, you know. Prescribed. To reduce or—how does it go?—to reduce or eliminate the confusing effects of dreams in my waking life. I have the prescription. Do you—” She glances at her purse, and I shake my head, raise a hand—That’s not necessary. I don’t think she’s lying about being prescribed the dream dampener. The boys, meanwhile, are stock-still, frozen by some combination of protective impulse and fear for their own safety. In another moment, no doubt, I’m gonna know which guy has more of which. Like I said: either someone confesses or someone does something dumb. That’s how it always ends.