88: Control

The world had slowed. The universe was in me. I didn't have time to think, let alone to act. The universe acted. I saw the splintered floorboards explode near my feet. I saw the gun hit the floor next to it. I saw Chase Sanborn/John Smith sink to his knees in front of me. I felt the carpal bones of his wrist grind beneath my fingers and crack. I heard him scream.

Then everything was at full speed again. People screamed all over the room. Samantha was dragging Doreen, Dani, and our babies back away from the open door. Sanborn hit the floor as I twisted his arm behind his back, never lessening the grip on his wrist as he unintelligibly screamed. My knee came to rest in the small of his back as I pinned his arm next to it.

And I threw up all over his back.

I didn't move. I don't know how long I was in that position, staring at the back of his head with my vomit on him. Listening to him scream. Holding him pinned in place. I didn't move until Sheriff Donaldson slapped handcuffs around his wrists and eased me up away from him.

The power of the universe drained from me and I fell back on my butt. My head felt light and I was woozy. Samantha was beside me again and I saw her foot come back to kick the man Sheriff Donaldson had not yet let up. My hand flew out to catch her foot and Sam collapsed on the floor beside me wailing.

The gun was collected and bagged. A few dozen photographs were taken, some before Smith was hauled outside and a bucket of cold water poured over him to wash off the vomit.

I sat.

Samantha cried next to me. Dani and Doreen had rushed to the big house with the babies. Taping of the last segment of Elaine's show was delayed, but audience members had to be interviewed. Rhonda reviewed footage with Joyce and then spoke to the final guest slated for the show. Her appearance was canceled. While sheriff's deputies continued to work around the crime scene, Elaine gave a wrap-up of the show with an encapsulated version of what had been witnessed. Then they cut the show and began putting together the tape back in the control room. The audience was led to the side door of the studio and back to the parking lot.

I sat.

My mind was still trying to process what had happened. He'd been so close to me. The gun was pointing at my stomach when he shifted his eyes to my right and began to move the gun. I realized he was not going to shoot me. He was going to shoot my child. The universe flooded my being and acted. I grabbed his wrist and forced the gun down. The pressure on the carpals forced his fingers to straighten, though he'd been squeezing the trigger when I grabbed him.

He wanted to kill my child and I let him live. Everyone survived. Only the shooter was hurt. Physically. Did I fail my family? Should I have killed him?

Is it over now?

Of course, I had to give a statement. I just described as much as was possible what I remembered. Rhonda had to give a statement. Why was she taping me at the door to the studio when I left? Had she known what was about to transpire? April's statement was brief. "I taped it." The tape, of course, was confiscated as evidence. By then Joyce had made copies and it was cut into the version of the show that she took to WIUB for the three o'clock broadcast. I didn't want to watch it. Neither did Samantha, Dani, or Doreen. We'd been too close.

By the time the show was on the air, reporters following the police scanner had already arrived at the ranch. After consulting with the sheriff, copies of the tape were distributed to each of the reporters. I was not allowed to speak to reporters. I don't think I could have. Rhonda and Elaine spoke to the reporters. I joined Samantha, my babies, and their mothers in the master suite where the six of us cuddled together until we fell asleep.

When I awoke, Dani was on one shoulder and Doreen was on the other. The babies lay on my chest. Samantha was up against Dani. Rhonda and Rose were next to Sam and I wasn't sure how they were staying on the bed. Probably the same way Doug, Rachel, and Sandy were staying on the bed next to Doreen.

I started to chuckle and bounced the babies on my chest. Dani kissed me on my left. Doreen looked up into my eyes on the right.

"What are you laughing about?" Doreen asked.

"We either need a bigger bed or we need to move upstairs. I love you, my cónyuge. Each of you and all of you. And I love you, my children. I love you Xan. I love you C-Rae. I love you Matthew, wherever you are. You have two sisters you need to take care of."

"Matthew is still with Theresa where I left him this morning to stay during the show. I should go get him or she'll think I've abandoned my baby," Dor said.

"I think they are downstairs," Doug whispered to his sister. "I'm so proud of you, Doreen. You protected our daughter."

"I what?"

"I watched the video. In its own terrible way, it is beautiful. You turned and sheltered C-Rae with your body. You protected our child," Doug said. "What's more, Danielle did the same thing with Xan. You are both the epitome of what mothers should be. You were both willing to sacrifice yourselves to save your children."

"But Brian..."

"Brian did what Brian had to do," Rhonda said firmly. "Brian always does whatever is necessary ... And not a bit more. I mean that positively, Brian. You did exactly what was necessary. I am so proud of you. All four of you."

"There's only three of them," Sandy said.

"Didn't you see what Sam did?" Rhonda asked. "She pulled them both back away from the scene and had them out the side door in seconds. Seconds. She acted to protect both our children and their mothers. She did exactly what was necessary."

"I suppose we should go downstairs and meet the onslaught of parents," I said. "Aren't Jim and Jill coming in this evening?"

"Oh shit. I forgot," Doug said. "I hope they got a rental car."

"I'm sure Mom, Dad, and Anna are here by now," I said. "I can't imagine how we managed to sleep without them all rushing in here."

"We locked the door and stationed Judy outside," Rose said. "No one is coming in with her outside."

"You didn't kill him," Whitney said flatly. "There was a moment as he started to move that you could have ripped out his throat. Then when he went down, you could have broken his back when you brought your knee down on him. But you didn't kill him. Why?"

"Rhonda said I did exactly what was needed. I don't know why I didn't kill him. Thinking back, I get very angry and wish I'd killed him. If I had, I'd be in jail right now."

"They'd never put you in jail. It was clearly self-defense."

"The whole thing is on tape. You identified places where I could have killed him. If I had, do you think it would be harder for a judge to identify ways I could have stopped him without killing?"

"You used fire. You moved so fast the camera only saw a blur. How did you restrain yourself from killing him?" Whitney asked.

"Did you feel anything?" I asked. Master Xi told me that he and Whitney had felt me call the universe last spring.

"Yes. It frightened me more than feeling you last spring."

"Why?"

"It was cold. Were you angry, Brian? Did you see red? Did you scream, 'No!'? Are you ready to go hunt him down and eliminate him?"

"None of the above."

"That's what was frightening when I felt you gather in the universe. It was cold. Dispassionate. Unmoving and immovable. It was pure. It was deadly. And you controlled it."

"I'm going to need to work in the sacred space tomorrow," I said.

"I will work with you, master."

Dealing with parents was more complicated. Jim and Jill didn't discover what was going on until they arrived at the ranch. Dad was at their home and got them up to speed. They were not happy and burst into the family room looking like they were ready to go to war. They found a tranquil family scene. The babies were nursing. Matt and Ellie were playing on the floor. The rest of us were dressed in informal gis. Really pajamas. We welcomed Jim and Jill and introduced them to their newest grandchild.

Dad put his arm across my shoulders and hugged me to him.

"You know what? I don't think this one will give you nightmares," he said. "There is no ghost to haunt you."

That was an interesting concept. Was it ghosts that gave me nightmares? Was that what I was battling when I dealt with Denise, Hawk, Lexi, and Wayne? Combat for and against those who were already dead?

I'll put that in my kit.

That wasn't the end of it, of course. There never is an end to it. The phones rang constantly. Jennifer had a prepared statement taped to each one and distributed to all the houses in the village. There was nothing we could do to control what audience members would say, but no one really knew who any of them were. When interviewed by deputies, their stories differed only by their angle of view and usually were about the reaction of their friends nearby. The deputies dismissed them pretty quickly and they were gone before more than one or two were caught by reporters.

But the whole thing had aired as part of our daily broadcast. Elaine had recorded a warning interrupting the flow before my segment in the kitchen. Of course, that meant everyone was glued to their screens. Part of the result was that we were up to over 300 visitors to the River of Life again on Saturday. TK got on the phone to her sorority sisters and a contingent of sorority and fraternity honor guards were on hand for Sunday.

I was back in class on Monday. I really couldn't afford to miss the last class before finals week. I was not looking forward to six hours of essay writing on Monday and Wednesday the next week. I kind of pitied the professor who had to read all of them.

Several of us had to give depositions regarding the event. Smith was hospitalized before parole could be set. His lawyer was heading straight for an insanity plea. This was going to drag on and on. I guess when the criminal is dead, there's a limited amount to work with. You might have to deal with a civil suit by the relatives or something. When the criminal is alive, you have to go through all the trial preparations. Someone once said a bad lawyer can drag things out for months. A good lawyer can drag them out forever.

Ironically, a person can be confined to a mental hospital for years more than the criminal penalty would have him in prison. If he succeeds in a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity, he can't be released from care until it is shown that the insanity is no longer an issue and he is no longer a danger. Either way, this was going to go on forever and I would be dragged through it as the cause of his mental imbalance. I knew a little about depression and hopelessness. I could almost feel sorry for him.

Almost.

The seventh of May, a few dozen clan and tribe members sat in the stands at the stadium to watch the commencement of our hearthmates, cousins, and children. I'd missed my commencement. So had the triplets, Jen, and Courtney. We all had binoculars trying to pick out the grads we knew as they filed into the stadium. Rose, Samantha, Whitney, Josh, and Cassie from our casa. Lionel from Casa del Sol. Sandy and Doug from Casa del Agua. Rachel was on a five-year architecture program and wouldn't graduate until next year. Brenda, Carl, and Louise from Casa de la Tierra. And Maggie and April had both managed to finish the last class required for their degrees. We were going to have one huge party back at the ranch.

Nicki flew in for commencement, which I thought was really nice of her, and we all called out to Pullman to congratulate Kevin. He said they'd be moving back to the ranch by the first of June. Nicki had to return to Rhode Island on Tuesday. Her novel had been submitted to the committee the week before, but she still had three finals to take over the next ten days. She was more nervous about what her committee would have to say about the book than she was about any tests. That wouldn't come for another couple weeks.

We'd be taping daily shows until the end of June. Then we'd take July and August off. We needed to decide what to do about next season. Rhonda and I were meeting almost every afternoon to go over business plans. More and more, Rose was in the office with us. Our roles had evolved. Rhonda and I were executive producers. Rose was unquestionably the CEO. We needed a clan meeting to confirm the positions. Sam, Jennifer, and Louise rounded out the business end of things.

If need be, I was willing to drop my degree plans and just focus on the show and the company. Rose objected strenuously. And I had to admit that I was enjoying the classes and learning more than I had my last year of chemistry. Rose had determined that she would return to school, possibly in the fall, to get her MBA with a focus on media management. We mght be in some of the same classes.

The biggest problem we had was programming. Since we'd consolidated Chick Chat and Young Cooking last year, we had only one daily program. Granted, it was a full hour, but it seriously cut the revenue stream. Redress ran weekly for 26 weeks and then was in secondary distribution for the next 26. We'd gotten on Oprah's radar when I went on a rampage last summer and she—or her people, rather—had approached us about releasing Redress as part of a package of programming Harpo Studios was producing. It looked like it was going to be a stab at Oprah creating her own cable TV channel. From what I'd seen when we recorded there, that wasn't a bad thing at all. At the very least, we needed to watch what her company was doing and learn from it. She was not just a television talk show host.

Rose and I planned to attend The National Show the second week of June in LA. We were looking for major distribution now, not just our affiliated syndicate. We just wanted to know what we were offering.

Right after taping on Friday the 21st, Liz and I took off. I thought it was a little crazy because I wasn't that great on a motorcycle. But Nicki's bike was at the ranch and she needed it in Providence. Liz had spent the past week making sure both bikes were fully tuned and ready to go. We headed east.

I'd love to say we had a lot of fun and talked non-stop. The truth is I was flat on a gas tank at 70 mph for eight hours and we were only halfway there. I understand how, theoretically, riding a motorcycle can make a girl horny with the vibrations centered right on her clit. It turned my cock numb. We checked into a motel southeast of Pittsburgh and I was ready to collapse in bed and sleep.