The People's Court

        I tell him that I found Wapner in the closet.
        I hear him laugh. He says that he hid him when he came to get some of his stuff.
         He really scared me. I almost don’t tell him. I threw him out, I say.
         You threw out Wapner?
         And you shouldn’t be coming over.
         Did you put him in the dumpster?
         I sigh loud enough so he can hear it through the phone. It doesn’t matter, I say.
         Can I just come over and talk to you?
         Carolyn says we need to create a distance between us.
         I’m right across the street, he says. I can see you.
         Mentally, I stress, turning to the window. He’s standing in a bright kitchen one floor up from mine, watching across the avenue between us. He waves at me.
If I told you I didn’t want to talk to you again would you believe me?
         He stops waving. I don’t think so, he says.
         Then I just won’t say it.

Carolyn says that if she deserved anything good she would have it already. These horrible people fall in love with me, she says. I don’t know where they come from.
         It’s like that doctor-patient love thing. What they really want is a mother.
         I’m not a doctor, she says, or a mother.
         Therapist-patient thing, I correct myself. A hand-holder.
         More like a testicle-holder.
         That’s all part of it.
         Carolyn smears ketchup around her plate with a fry but doesn’t bother to eat it. I ask her what about her boyfriend? Wasn’t he just one of these annoying guys before she knew him?
         Anal sex is still his idea of a birthday present, she says, staring at me.
         I shrug. He doesn’t seem like such a bad guy.
         He’s not, she admits, sighing deeply, her hands holding onto each other at her edge of the table. He just doesn’t know what not to say.
         At least he’s honest.
         This doesn’t register because she’s now digging around in her purse. She nods, stopping her search suddenly, asking how everything is going with the separation. I hate that she calls it that. It makes it sound so permanent.
         I tell her it’s fine. He’s staying with his friend across the street for now.
         Who’s his friend?
         Mark, I say. His golfing buddy.
         Oh right, she says, then adding, He golfs?
         They sneak onto the courses sometimes at night. They play with light-up stuff.
         Isn’t that like illegal?
         I’m sure it is.
         She pulls a hot pink wallet out of her purse and sets it on the table. Have you seen him? she asks, searching for something still.
         I tell her that I haven’t.
         Do you miss him?
         I grab my soda and hold it tightly. I tell her that I do.
         She nods carefully. Good, she says. Then it’s working.

When I get home I can’t even watch TV. I vacuum the living room, the kitchen floor since the mop is missing, and half of my bedroom. I turn off the vacuum when I see Wapner standing in the window across the street. His presidential gray hair, half of his judge’s robe showing from the waist up in the window. It’s dark but I can still make out the look on his face.
         I put away the vacuum. I turn off all the lights in the apartment and wait for him by the open window, sitting, watching at the bottom of my bed. He appears after a few minutes. He’s in the kitchen with Mark, talking, laughing about something.
         I grab the phone and dial his number. He moves to answer, passing Wapner in the living room window but I hang up before he gets there. He returns with the phone held to his ear, looking across for me in the dark. I hold my breath until I think I might disappear, until he steps away where I can’t see him anymore.

         He stole Wapner from me.
         Technically Wapner belongs to him. And you threw him out. Carolyn examines her hot pink fingernails. Threw them both out, she adds. He’s also just a cardboard standup and not a real person.
         He was ours though. And why does it matter who started all of this? It’s both of our problem.
         You were the one who was getting bored.
         It’s not that I’m bored. It’s just different now. I pause, unsure if I should say it but I do. I don’t think this is even doing anything, my nice way of saying that it isn’t working the way it’s supposed to.
         It’s not just for him. It’s for you too, she says like I don’t already know this.
         It still isn’t working. For either of us.
         Carolyn looks around for our waitress. She sighs, says that maybe at first it’s a little like a vacation for him. You know, she says, he gets to hang out with his guy friend. She makes an ambiguous gesture. Like being single again.
         I shake my head.
         But, she touches my hand, then that gets old. He’ll get over it. She tries her hardest to be reassuring. Give him another day or two.
         I could be losing him. This could be like proof for him that he doesn’t actually need me. I tell her that the worst thing about it is that I might be making a case against myself.
         Don’t worry, she says. If he really loves you he’ll stay. I choke on my water a little when she says this. Carolyn stares at me, offering me a napkin. All right, she says, I’m sorry. But he does love you.
         I cup my mouth with the napkin. I thought therapists were supposed to have all this original advice.
         We’ll all tell you pretty much the same thing, she admits.
         Then if I ever really need one, I’ll pick the cheapest.
         Carolyn tells me to just get out of my apartment and go do stuff. Go shop or something, she says.
         For the next however many days? Or weeks?
         I don’t know, she says. Go hiking, build a birdhouse. More importantly than anything you need to get distracted.
         
After work I rent a stack of movies that I know—that I hope won’t make me cry and watch them straight through until just after midnight. I keep the blinds pulled down; I’m not sure for him or me. But even when I go out to my car now I make sure to watch my feet on the pavement instead of looking anywhere else.
         I wake up sometime after five to my bedroom shades flashing red and blue. Outside I see a police car parked on the street, on his side of the street between our apartment buildings. Wapner watches from the window as a man dressed in blue crosses and disappears around the side of my building.
         I put on any tank top I can find from the floor, my pants from earlier still hanging on the back of the desk chair.
         The air is warm outside even at night. I hear the police officer yelling as I walk around the corner of the apartment buildings. Out on the golf course, the grass almost black, sloping down off the side of the road, I see a glowing yellow stick moving up and down across the green, a dark figure running with it out into the desert. The officer charges down the slope and almost slips near the bottom, catching himself with his hands in the ground before the dirt.
         I see Mark come around the side of his building across the street, sneaking past the police car into the front entrance before I can ask him anything about what’s going on.
         Out on the course the light-up club is still pulsing, changing colors in the dark with the world turning white all around, up in the sky above the mountains.

         Maybe he’s acting out.
         Against what?
         Maybe he’s just angry.
         He’s not fourteen. He was chased by the police last night.
         Guys do stupid stuff. Where’s the revelation in that? She takes a sip of her diet something and smiles a little at me, raising her bleached eyebrows slightly. Maybe this is his way of showing how he misses you.
         I don’t get it. Why can’t he just call?
         She shrugs. It’s his job to be frustrating and ambiguous.
         I doubt he has to think much about it.          
         Carolyn puts down her drink and folds her arms, looking confused at me. What? she asks.
         I called him the other night.
         Carolyn leans forward in her chair. Why?
         I hung up before he got to it.
         So he didn’t know it was you.
         Maybe, I pause. Probably he did but I don’t know.
         She leans back again. Don’t call him, she says finally.
         I’m trying not to.
         He’ll call eventually. Just think of it like a stakeout, Carolyn says. This time you wait for his move.

Late again. No one has been at Mark’s apartment all day. I worry that maybe he was arrested. How long can they put you in jail for trespassing? I tell myself that it couldn’t even be a night. Possibly a hundred dollar fine. I try to imagine him and Mark making a run for the border in a vintage convertible, helicopters swooping in low above the white and black cars that trail close behind them.
         I spend most of the afternoon looking for new cutouts on the internet because at lunch Carolyn suggested a Wapner replacement. She thinks having both of them gone is making me act intensely. Irrationally, she said. I don’t tell her that what I want to do is go over there and take him back. I can’t tell her that. I don’t think she knows what it’s like to need or miss someone, to need to feel missed.
         I find an Abe Lincoln, a Monroe, a cardboard standup of the entire Rolling Stones. None of them feel like they could be a part of my life.
         I decide to start dinner, hungry finally but still worrying about something. I stir the empty water and think about maybe buying the JFK. Before the water’s boiling I’m at the window, watching his apartment across the street while I dry my hands. The light comes on and Wapner watches back at me from the living room. He’s smiling at something still. I want to knock him over. I imagine the way his cardboard frame might sink to the floor and decide it would probably not be satisfying enough, and that I would be sad if I dented him.
         In the kitchen I pour the pasta into the now boiling water. I stand, watching it for a few minutes. The phone rings loud through the apartment. The only other noise between rings is the soft sound of the boiling water.
         I bring the phone with me to the window. Hello.
         He’s a dark figure in the kitchen. Hi, he says. I saw you watching.
         I was just about to go to bed, I tell him, lying.
         He looks down at his feet. I’m not so sure, he says. But I can let you go if you need to.
         Where’s Mark?
         He leans against the wall. He had to leave this morning for some manager’s conference in Phoenix.
         So I guess it’s just you and Wapner then.
         Yeah. He’s not much for company.
         I don’t let myself laugh. Instead I pretend to be slightly annoyed. I was just making some dinner, I say.
         This late? he pauses. I thought you were going to bed.
         Did you get arrested last night?
         He doesn’t say anything.
         I saw you on the golf course.
         He shakes his head. I got away, he says, but I fell on a cactus.
         I feel like you’re enjoying this.
         What are you talking about? I have holes in my hands. He puts a palm up to the window, spreading his fingers like he’s on the other side of prison glass.
         You won’t be serious with me about any of this.
         He’s quiet. Behind me I can hear the water boiling louder. You should come over so we can talk about it, he says.
         I can’t.
         Why? he asks, standing away from the wall now. Because Carolyn says you can’t?
         Because I can’t. I walk away from the window so he doesn’t see me crying. I wait almost a full minute before I tell him that I need to go to bed.
         Can we talk tomorrow?
         I don’t know, I tell him, pulling down the blinds.
         There’s a long pause. Static phone silence. Good night, he says and hangs up so when I say it back into the phone I’m talking to no one.
         
It’s not until halfway through our lunch that Carolyn asks me what’s wrong.
         Nothing.
         You called him, she says mid-bite, guessing.
         I shake my head.
         He called you? Carolyn perks up, suddenly interested. How did it go?
         Not well.
         Is he mad at you?
         I think he is.
         That’s all part of it, she says. He’ll be mad for a while but-
         I don’t think I want to do this anymore, I say, cutting her off.
         What? she looks at me directly as if to make sure I’m not joking. You can’t stop now. It’ll just confuse him.
         I’m confused, I tell her. I don’t know why we even started this.
         You said you wanted to miss him, like last year when he was working in Oregon.
         I stare at her for a long time. I feel like you don’t know me, I say finally.
         What do you mean?
         I feel like you think I’m someone else, who maybe has a harder shell. Maybe someone more like you.
         It’s my job to read people. I don’t think I’m very far off, she says dismissively.
         I miss him already, I say. I missed him three days ago. We should’ve stopped it there.
         She shrugs. Maybe you needed this to figure that out, she says.
         I love you, Carolyn, I reach across the table to touch her hand. But you are sometimes full of shit.
         
Wapner is missing from Mark’s apartment window when I get home. I park my car and rush across the street, almost stepping in front of a white golf cart, the old man behind the wheel honking its tiny horn at me wildly.
         I take the stairs, up three flights, knocking but nobody answers. The door opens, unlocked, and I walk into the empty living room. Outside I can see my window, the shades still pulled down from yesterday. Everything is bright, the sidewalk molten and orange in the setting sun. The apartment is bare and white; it is hardly the bachelor pad that I remember it to be. Everything is silent except for a tiny scratching sound like a mouse in the wall. On the floor in the living room is a pile of blankets and pillows from a makeshift bed that must’ve been on the couch. I step over them, toward the scratching noise that’s coming from the cracked bathroom door.
         He’s standing in the shower, holding Wapner tightly around the shoulders like a hostage. In his other hand he has a Bic lighter, the flame lit, trying to burn another of many dark black spots into Wapner’s two-dimensional chest. I open the bathroom door further and he freezes, the flame wavering against the judge’s robe.
         Don’t hurt him, I say.
         What are you doing here?
         What are you doing to Wapner?
         I don’t know, he says, letting the flame go out. He seems to be fireproof.
         Maybe you should let him go.
         He releases his hold on the cardboard figure and steps out of the shower. What are you doing here? he asks again, adding warily, Is this another one of Carolyn’s tricks?
         I tell him that it isn’t.
         He moves closer but is still some distance from me. I reach out for him with an arm that isn’t long enough. Wapner watches from over his shoulder; neither of them move.
         Would you believe me if I told you I was sorry?
         He starts to smile, his eyes all water. Yes, he says. Tell me.