basic instinct thing that the female is protected by the male? We’ve upset some kind of natural order.”
“I don’t think she’d feel safe with anyone right now. This is really not a reflection on you, Hank.”
“I wanted to save my family. I still want to save my family. Maybe another husband, another man, could’ve done something dramatic, or heroic, or at least mildly effective.”
“You’re confusing real life for any number of fictional Bruce Willis characters. If you would have been the one left out in the cold that night at the camp you would have done as much or more than Alison.”
“I don’t know that. You didn’t see what she did.” Hank stops pacing and leans against the large desk. His voice becomes distant. Doctor Cartwell listens with great focus and lets Hank’s thoughts wander aloud. “Even though we are aware on some practical level from hearing the news every day that there is no such thing as “fair” we still function as though there is. I guess we have to. We live in this pathetic illusion that if we are good people then life will be fair. Maybe that’s the only thing that keeps us civilized. The bottom line for us all is the belief that being good will lead to some kind of cosmic fairness, maybe we all believe in that kind of karma. Maybe that’s why religions invented an afterlife: how else could you explain the unfairness except to believe there had to be more, that there must be a payoff later? And even when people say all the time, well you know life isn’t fair, of course you know that,” Hank throws up his hands, “we all know that, but we still live every day as though it is fair, and we still act surprised when it isn’t. When Mike hit the floor dead at my feet, I knew that fair thing was over for me. Life is random. Death is random. Goodness is a choice with no predictive value. Any one of us good or bad can die face down in the gutter tonight. I remember reading about this woman who had been a foster mother to like fifty kids, and who was a revered and loved woman in this poor neighborhood, and she was murdered one day on her front lawn for the four dollars in her purse. There is no balance. The lady holding the scales of justice isn’t blind so she can be fair, she’s blind so it is random, she’s blind because the facts don’t matter, the circumstances don’t matter, she’s blind because it’s a game to her, she’s like a little kid with her hands over her eyes playing fucking hide ‘n seek with all of our lives! And, you know what, Doctor, knowing all of this is not particularly comforting.”
Cartwell waits before he speaks as a show of respect. Hank’s words have been heartfelt and revealing. Then, he says gently, “Perhaps goodness is its own payoff.”
“Resorting to platitudes, Doctor? What if people start to actually believe, believe every day the real truth, the truth that life isn’t fair, does civilized society fall apart?”
“I don’t know. But it is not that life isn’t fair all the time, it is that sometimes it’s not fair.”
“Fair is an all or nothing thing. How do I explain that to a regular guy sitting here in his expensive office playing by the rules and watching the days go by with seeming predictability, and believing that people are civilized, believing you are in control of your life, and that there’s some rationale behind things. How do I explain how helpless you actually are, how everything you’ve learned in one moment can mean nothing the next, how the person you are is completely irrelevant? You look at your life and you see you’ve been kind and lived considerately and you think that matters, and then some guy points a gun at your little boy’s face and your little boy looks to you for help and all you can do is screech like a rodent in a glue trap. I can’t explain to you what it is to be that kind of powerless. Turns out you are not a man like everyone has told you. You are worthless. This is a world full of monsters and predators and without the biggest weapon, you are just so much meat. And when you understand that then the screaming starts inside of you and it doesn’t stop. I don’t know