"Charlie, listen. I told you you're in time out. You need to sit near the back door and stay there until I say you can get up," Michael said one evening. Fiona was in the shower. Another one of Michael's students, Phillip, had practiced on her that day. Phillip, unfortunately, was more like Neal than Joshua. He didn't tie her up, but he did interrogate her like a cop in a bad movie, screaming right in her face and spraying her with spittle several times. She was furiously scrubbing his spit off her face and his stench off her body.
"NOOOOO!" Chucky was lying on the living room floor, kicking the coffee table. Who's Chucky? He's the doppelganger that'd been overtaking Charlie's body with alarming frequency over the past week.
"Yes. You were hitting me. We don't hit. So you sit in time out until I think you can control yourself and not hit."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO! No time out. I stay hee-uh!"
"Charlie, you can take yourself to the back door or I can take you," said Michael, remembering what his new book told him to say. He had gotten a book because all the ways Michael knows to get a person to move are illegal when used on a two year old.
Nothing.
"Okay, I'll take you." Michael walked over to Chucky and picked him up. Chucky flailed his arms, delivering a decent punch to Michael's right kidney. "OW," Michael yelled. "We. Don't. Hit, Charlie. Stop it." Startled by Michael's volume, Chucky was momentarily silent. Then he began to bawl. And bawl. And bawl. Loudly.
Michael preferred the kidney punch to a tantrum-throwing two year old bawling next to his head.
Michael deposited Chucky next to the back door. "Stay there," he commanded. He didn't stay there, of course, but Michael was prepared for that. At the first sign of Chucky's trying to crawl away, Michael sat down and bear-hugged him from behind. Chucky fought and squirmed for a minute or so, then exhaustion set in, and then slowly but surely Charlie emerged. The crying stopped, the thumb went in the mouth, and the body crumpled over in a heap, desperate to rest.
Michael let him stay that way for a minute before speaking. "That's better, Charlie. Seems like you're in control of yourself now. Are you?"
Charlie just sucked his thumb and gazed at Michael in response.
"Okay. Well, when you're ready, you can get up and go back to playing for a few minutes, and then we'll eat dinner as soon as Auntie Fi gets out of the shower." About five seconds later, Charlie scooted off.
Michael was exhausted himself, this being the third tantrum of the evening.
Really was easier just to shoot someone.
"You want milk, Charlie?" Fiona asked a while later.
"Yah."
Fiona poured milk into his Cars sippy cup and brought it to the table. Charlie chugged it. Michael was in the backyard, taking mahi mahi, skewers of shrimp, and ears of corn off the grill. A few minutes later, the three sat down to dinner.
"I wahn dat," Charlie said, pointing to the steaming ears of corn.
"Okay, in just a couple of minutes, Charlie," Fiona told him. "The corn's too hot to touch right now."
"I wahn coh-un!"
"I know you do, Charlie. In a couple of minutes." Fiona could feel herself getting angry. She, too, had handled her share of tantrums over the week.
Charlie stood up on his chair (offense number one), reached across the table, and grabbed an ear of corn. "Owwww!" he cried. He dropped the corn and jerked backyard, which caused him to lose his balance, which caused him to fall off his chair, which caused him to bang his leg on the table leg, which caused Michael and Fiona to look at each other and try not to laugh. They sat for 10 or 15 seconds while Charlie bawled. Then Fiona leaned down to him.
"Charlie, why did you do that?"
Still bawling, Charlie didn't even attempt to answer.
"All right, well, Uncle Michael and I are going to eat our dinner now. You can join us when you've calmed down." Michael had made Fiona read a couple of chapters in his book, so she knew what to say.
"Would you reach behind you and grab a lemon, please, Michael?" she asked. He stretched back to the bowl on the counter and got one. She quartered it and squeezed one of the sections on her fish. Michael seasoned his as well.
"You know what would be good with this?" he said, chewing. "Mango. Like a mango salsa."
"Mmm, yeah. Do we have any?"
"Yeah, actually, now that I think of it." He got a ripe mango from the fridge and went to the cutting board to begin the dissection process.
"I wahn mango," came a quiet voice from the floor. "Peez."
And with that, tantrum number four ended. Not with bang, but with a mango.
"What's the evolutionary purpose of tantrums, you think?" Michael asked the next day, sipping his iced tea. "Surely our ancestors would've told their kids, 'Fine, kill your own food.' Or just killed them. They wouldn't have used time outs."
"Ya know, that's a good point. The little-shit traits should have extinguished themselves," Sam said. He and Michael were on the patio at the Carlito, waiting for Fiona to arrive for lunch. Charlie was on a guy date with Jesse. At Chuck E. Cheese. Jesse swore he was doing it for Charlie, but everyone knew better. He was going back to investigate the basketball machine.
Michael's phone buzzed on the table. "Fi's going to be late," he said, reading her text message. "Hold up at the salon. She said to start without us."
"Hold up?" Sam repeated. "As in a delay or as in an armed assault?"
"Fi likes her hairdresser, so there'd be no reason for her to hit the place. And she didn't use a smiley, so I'm going to assume there aren't any bad guys for her to kill."
"Ah. Bittersweet, then." Sam flagged down Andrés, one of his favorite waiters. Well, actually, they were all his favorites. Sam's a very agreeable sort.
"Hola, Andrés. Como estás?"
"Muy bien, muy bien, Señor Axe. What will you have today?"
"Let's start with three of those empanada plates, and we'll do chicken, pork, and beef today. What are they, three to a plate?"
"Sí, three in an order."
"Okay, yeah. Three of those plates, and also a media noche. And will ya throw some of those mariquitas on there?"
"Sí, sí, claro."
"Thanks, buddy."
"And for you, Señor Michael?"
"Hang on just a second, Andrés," Michael said. "Sam, did you just order nine empanadas, a sandwich, and plantains?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Is that for us to share?"
"Jeez, Mikey, I'm buyin' today. You can get your own food. You don't have to share with me."
Michael rolled his eyes and turned back to Andrés. "Can I get whatever fish looks good back there? Grilled, please, and a side of black beans."
"Sí, claro, we got some beautiful snapper today. Delicioso. Okay, I'll be back out in just a minute with more cerveza, Señor Axe. You going to have some cerveza today, Señor Michael? I notice you don't have it no more."
"Nope, no cerveza for me while we've got Charlie."
"Ah, sí, sí, your own little Carlito. Okay, I'll be right back."
Sam took a long swig from his beer. Michael did nothing.
Sam finished his beer. Michael was still silent and motionless.
"You okay there, Mikey?"
"What? Yeah, I'm fine. Just tired."
"Why's that?"
"Oh, just from all of Charlie's tantrums. Trying to modify a two year old's behavior is exhausting. My dad modified mine by slapping me. And obviously I know that's not the answer, but . . . ." He trailed off.
"But what?"
"We're violent guys, Sam. We both have the capacity for violence. Me probably way more than you. When something is making me mad, my first instinct is to hit it or shoot it."
"Everybody probably feels that way to some extent, Mikey, 'specially with a little kid. C'mon, you told me just the other day what all your mom friends were saying in that online group of yours. That sometimes they just have to walk away so they don't hit their kid. It's normal, Mike. Come on." Sam chuckled nervously a little.
"I love Charlie."
"Well, yeah, brother. 'Course ya do. Where'd that come from?"
"I love him, but my first instinct when he makes me mad is to hit him."
Sam was quiet.
Michael held his face in his hands. "I've killed dozens of people, Sam," he said in a muffled voice. "Probably more than a hundred by now. I've killed from far away and I've killed with my bare hands. I've killed for good reasons and bad reasons. Maybe no reason."
"I know, buddy." Sam saw Andrés walking over with their drinks but waved him away.
Michael sat up and looked at Sam. "If I can kill a hundred people, I can hit Charlie."
Sam leaned in. "You are not your father, Mike."
"He wasn't at first, either."