Title: Roger Singer
Featuring: Chandler Tsonda
Date: 8/5/09
Location: Part V of "Anomie"

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche

July 20th, 2009
10:47 A.M.

"I want to transfer my son out of this place."

Marisa Sepulveda's voice was like obsidian, volcanic and transparent. She wanted her son out of the Dike. She knew that Dr. Tom Barius, the Head Psychological Officer of the place, couldn't be trusted. The thin sneer across his face said just as much. Her son, Dixon Morales, was a resident, a hostage by another name, in Barius's youth detention facility. And with the same fervor a mother grizzly summons when her cub is in danger, Marisa was standing tall, roaring at Barius without raising her usually dulcet voice.

"Ms. Sepulveda," Barius began, folding his hands in the middle of his desk, "Dixon is progressing quite well. Not only would a transfer stunt his rehabilitation, but he would be thrown into the general population with unsalvageable monsters, offenders with no future but the one behind bars." He ran a serpentine finger up and down the metallic ankh he wore around his neck. "I simply can't allow it."

"Unsalvageable? They're kids, for Christ's sake!"

That was neither Marisa nor Barius. That was me. Now you may be wondering how I'd gotten embroiled in one woman's quest to save her son. It was, as all stories worth telling are, about a girl. Marisa had phoned me the night of ReV 200, and the desperation in her voice had prompted me to help. But now, even I didn't know what we were doing, marching into Barius's office as though with some kind of heavenly mandate. Would chewing out this warden-cum-professor accomplish anything other than making things worse for Dixon? I didn't know, but I was intoxicated by Marisa, following her blindly.

"Mr. Tsonda, when one spends his life tending to the incarcerated, he realizes certain facts that, while they make the average citizen squirm, are inescapable. I have read study after damned study, all of which very candidly relate the very real possibility that many of these young offenders will not be able to keep themselves out of prison. While this is not ideal, it also is not something I'm prepared to ignore for the sake of wide-eyed optimism." He spoke with exactly the type of clinical language that made me wonder whether he saw the Dike as a youth rehabilitation center or a giant psychological experiment.

"We're here to talk about my son, Dr. Barius. What Dixon did..." Instead of letting Barius hear her voice weaken with emotion, Marisa let that thought fade off. I wanted to step in and come to Dixon's defense, but it wasn't my place. I was just here to be chivalrous in supporting Marisa's attempt to pull Dixon from Barius's grip. "...it was awful. But he's not one of these boys who's going to spend his life behind bars. He was just..." Her voice died down to a whisper.

She didn't say the words: just trying to protect his mother. Like any good son, Dixon wouldn't let some stranger whack on his mom. After seeing her walk out of the bedroom with bruises over and over, he'd done something about it. In court, they used the word "snapped," as if some evil instinct overwhelmed him to beat that full-grown men into a comfy bed at the ICU. But that wasn't the right word. He had been pushed just far enough by this intruder, this man whose very presence offended the ghost of his father. And all this, the proud march into Barius's office to defy him, this was the only way Marisa could repay what Dixon had done for her. Thinking about my own mother, about the hate I'd harbored towards my father for leaving her, I understood. Between a single mother and an oldest son, it was a cycle of fighting for (and with) the other.

"Like most criminals, Dixon believed he had noble intentions. I think that, through months of prolonged therapy and behavioral correction, he finally understands that what he did was wrong. Switching facilities will disrupt all the progess we've made."

"Spoken like a true jackass." That, obviously, was my editorial on the situation, not Marisa's. "What you should've been doing is figuring out why Dixon thought what he did was right, instead of villifying the kid for protecting his mother."

"If Ms. Sepulveda had called the authorities on her violent partner, instead of being complicit, than maybe we wouldn't be having this conversation."

Only her outstretched arms stopped me from lunging across the table at Barius, who bounced up into a defensive position. It was an outrageous thing to feel, but Marisa's arm was smooth against mine. I snorted my disgust and folded my arms, refusing to sit down.

"That's right, Mr. Tsonda. This isn't your make-believe world of professional wrestling. We don't just get to assault the people with whom we disagree. Barbarism like that is what got Dixon locked up in the first place."

"Fuck you, Barius."

All he did was smile back at me with those shiny white teeth, a devil's grin if I'd ever seen one.

"Mr. Tsonda, this may come as no surprise, but due to our continually frayed relationship, I'm going to have to take you off the visitors' list. I know that Tsuperstar Enterprises and Allan North vouched for you as a potential role model, but I just don't see your presence helping anyone." He thought he was ending all this by taking away my "permission" to visit the kids in his prison, but I was going to help this woman get her son back. Maybe I didn't have purely selfless aims in doing so, but I didn't think that made it wrong. Someone had to stick it to Barius.

"Dr. Barius," Marisa said, pushing me back with an extended forearm that I didn't struggle against, "either you transfer Dixon or I'm gonna start digging into your past. Whatever it is that you hide from behind these bars all day, I'll find it. And when I do-"

"When we do," I crudely cut in, glaring at Barius.

"...it's going to end your career here. So you can make a choice. Either you keep my son or you keep your job."

"I could act in the honest interest of trying to save you time and tell you any attempt to unseat me is futile, but I have the feeling the two of you are already set on this course." He stretched his arms high overhead, then brought them to rest behind his head as he leaned back. He didn't put his feet up on his desk, but it would've been a nice coup de grace for the "I'm a douchebag" body language. "I wonder, though, Mr. Tsonda, how Dixon would really feel if he knew that just how far you were willing to go for him. It wasn't that long ago that Dixon blew up at you, told you to stay away from him. It does make me wonder why, all of a sudden, you're ready to throw this whole volunteer project away. I thought it was for the kids."

"The best thing I could for them would be to make sure they never spend another day around you."

"For many of these boys, the only thing keeping them within the realm of sanity is the routine and safety that I provide them with. This is my passion and my career, while your only object in all of this seems, quite transparently, to be a carnal relationship with Ms. Sepulveda."

WHAM!

Barius was lucky to jump out of the way as his desk toppled over towards him, courtesy of my foot. He looked down at the damage, then shot his gaze towards me, an eyebrow pensively cocked.

"Really tearing down that 'roid rage' stereotype, Mr. Tsonda." He pulled his right loafer out from underneath a stack of files. "I hope your lawyer is truly the best that money can buy, since you just committed vandalism on state property."

Marisa pulled me, by my shirt, towards the door at the back of the office. She gave me a soft smile; it was rather cathartic to see that asshole's desk crash to the ground, even if it'd mean a large settlement check, to the state of California, put on my tab.

"Chandler, I appreciate your desire to help, but I need to speak to Dr. Barius alone for just a moment. Do you mind stepping outside?"

"Yeah...I...sorry."

Leaving me uncharacteristically speechless outside the office door, Marisa talked with Barius. I couldn't hear anything, only two relatively calm voices; they were both the sort not to lose their respective cools. After a minute or so, Marisa re-emerged from Barius's lair, her brow furrowed.

"What'd he say?"

"He said he couldn't transfer Dixon."

"I'm...I'm sorry, Marisa. We'll find a way to make this right."

"I...I know one way." These words came out in a strangely reluctant manner. She didn't want to tell me whatever this way was. "I know a private investigator. The type of guy who can know anything about anyone for the right price."

"That sounds like our dude," I quipped. But Marisa's unchanging facial expression meant there was more. Another string.

"I don't think I can afford it. Even if I scrapped together my rainy day money, I'd be short. The guy isn't cheap."

She looked at me with those eyes.

"I know that you have no reason, but you know that Dixon's a good boy, Chandler. I'm not ashamed to beg if it'll help my son. If you could help us, I'd find a way to pay you back. But they're cutting my hours at the library as is, and I...I just don't know what to do."

"I can help you." When I met eyes with her, I could see that hers were glossy; it was shame. "I don't need you to pay me back. We'll just call it an investment in Dixon's future."

She flung her arms around me, and without thinking about the fact that Tom Barius was just a thin wall away from this moment, I put mine around hers. She nuzzled her wet eyes into my shoulder, and I wondered if this was what I'd been searching for all along.

/~/~/~/~/

July 23th, 2009
2:13 P.M.

"Chan, you gotta stop with this. The kids were one thing, and I was happy to play pretend with you, but we're talking serious cash here."

"I don't care, Allan. It's the right thing to do."

At Tsuperstar HQ in Providence, Rhode Island, Allan North and I were "discussing" my plan to help Marisa Sepulveda. We were in his penthouse office, one that I never missed an opportunity to remind him that I had given him. He was the objective business mind. I was...biased for my owns reasons.

"Chan, you met this broad not ten days ago and you're ready to start throwing money at her? I think you might need to hit a strip joint to get it out of your system."

"It's not for her." Big fat lie. "It's for her kid. Listen, I'm convinced that this fuck Barius is dirty. And her kid's locked up with him. Who's to say what goes on when the big iron doors close and he's left with all these kids?"

"If you're trying to appeal to my paternal sense of right and wrong by intimating that this asshole is a pedophile, it's not working. They check up on people like him, Chan. A state like California's not just gonna let some sex predator run the tyke prison."

"I'm not saying the guy is a sex offender." Barius was scum, true, but he was human scum, not some animal who'd put his hands on these kids. Still, he was destroying lives with his indifference, with his laissez-faire attitude towards young men allegedly destined to be career criminals. "But he's playing sick fucking mind games with these kids. You know he spent months convincing a kid that defending his mom from her abusive shitheel boyfriend was wrong?"

Allan sighed, taking a seat behind his desk as he gazed out at sheets of rain that disrupted the surface of the Providence River. He wasn't made of the right stuff to debate matters of the heart, but he was doing his best. It was times like these that I missed the steady hand of Doc DiPendo.

"Chandler, there are a great many of us who live in a world where laws aren't just circumstantial guidelines, they're the rules that keep us all sane. I'm sure this Dixon kid has a good heart, but he broke the law. Do you really think that because this Barius guy made him feel guilty for that, that the guy requires a full-scale investigation?"

"It's not just that," I shot back, buying time to try and explain myself.

"Yeah, sounds like it," Allan snorted.

"Whassat supposed to mean?"

"Oh, c'mon, Chan," Allan said without looking up. This was something he wanted to say without eye contact. "I understand, I do. You spend your life romping around with models and socialites. Beautiful, but they're all empty vessels. Now you meet this Marisa Sepulwhatever-"

"Sepulveda."

"-and I'm sure she's not bad to look at. And she's got all these problems that you think that you can solve with your money and your fame and your charming one-liners. And she's got a kid. She's a real person, you know? Of course you know. But she's the first real woman you've met in years and you don't want her to walk away."

For someone who continually assured me he wasn't my shrink, that sure sounded like it was a sharp psychological breakdown. Of course, this was back when I wasn't listening to reason.

"I'm sure you'd love if this was me thinking with my dick, Allan, but it's about the kid. I've met him. He's not some street thug or a basket case." I felt my blood pressure rising; I was getting frustrated with this whole argument, with the idea that I couldn't do what I wanted with consequences as a flighty afterthought. "Allan, I appreciate the advice, but I'm doing this."

"I was never going to be able to stop you anyway," he maligned. "Why'd you fly back East with this, anyway? You're stubborn as all hell, you knew I'd say it was dumb, and yet you came out here."

"I need the company to foot the bill."

"What," Allan asked, throwing his hands up in the air exasperatedly, "am I supposed to say to that?"

"Cut me a check. Five thousand," I muttered. I didn't like it anymore than Allan did. But this, I imagined, was a time to do the right thing, not the easy thing.

"Chandler, this is so far beyond the realm of acceptable that I don't know what to tell you. If I scold you, you're only going to stick harder to your opinion. You can't be reasoned with or argued against, and I'm not gonna be your yes-man. So if you want Tsuperstar to fund this, you can sign the check yourself. You're the Chairman. You've got that power."

I took a deep breath. What Allan had said was completely true. But I hadn't flown from New York to San Diego back to Providence just to pick up a check and get a good start on training for ReV 202. No, there was more unpleasant news to give Allan.

"I can't do that, Allan."

"Oh? You abdicating your throne to give that to this woman too?" It was the perfect lead-in to one of my "funny one-liners," but I didn't have time for that. There was real work to be done.

"It can't look like I'm doing this as a personal favor. When we find the dirt on Barius, we're gonna take it straight to the state. And if the name of a former volunteer is on the check that hired the investigator, that's gonna arouse suspicions."

"Good Lord...are you kidding? Am I being Punk'd? Chandler, do you know what you sound like? You're gonna 'take down' some glorified psychologist? You're skipped right over crazy and into delusional!"

"You'll sign the check or you're fired." It was a knee-jerk reaction, but when the silence ensued between us, I wasn't ready to take it back. I was sure that this, not some sissified volunteer job, was the only way I could change Dixon's life for the better.

"Don't say it unless you mean it."

"I know what I said, Allan, and I'm four hundred percent sure it's no bullshit."

"Fine," Allan said, reaching for a pen as he stood up, taking a look at the merciless grey of a summer rainstorm. He flipped the pen towards me as he walked away from the desk. "Find someone else to be your check-signing monkey."

/~/~/~/~/

July 27th, 2009
9:58 A.M.

As I rapped my knuckle three times against the door's fancy calligraphy-style writing, I was struck with a familiar sense of foreboding. It was the same feeling I'd woken up with every morning since Allan had walked out on me. I had my check, sure, but this wasn't right, no matter how many ways my mind split it. As the door opened, a pudgy face with fuzzy eyebrows poked out from behind it.

"You here to see Singer?"

"Yes," Marisa called from over my shoulder. I stepped slightly out of the way so the pudgy face could lay eyes on Marisa.

"You again, huh?"

"This time she's with me," I defended, bringing a strange look from the face behind the door. "I can pay."

The pudgy face turned into a stocky human body as the door opened. He was a little taller than me, with narrow shoulders and generally oversized features. He was wearing one of those awful short-sleeve collared shirts, with a red tie sloppily tied about two inches under the shirt's collar.

"I'm Singer," he stated flatly. He didn't bother to extend a hand to me. "Step into my office."

Within the messy office was one chair, which Singer immediately took for himself.

"So you're still dead-set on getting this Barius guy, eh?"

"Yeah," Marisa replied before I could say anything. Fair enough, I thought. It was her kid, after all.

"What'd you do," he asked absentmindedly, while typing some information into his dilapidated computer, "to get this big wig to foot the bill? He a drug dealer or something?" Clearly, diplomacy was not part of the job description for the man known simply as Singer.

"Do I look like a drug dealer?"

"You're wearin' some kinda fancy logo t-shirt and pants tighter'n a virgin's snatch, and you're one of them Cambodians, so yeah, that's my first guess."

"Vietnamese."

"Whatever," Singer scoffed, "it's all Chinese to me anyway." Marisa saw me ball my fist up and defused the situation with a light touch of her fingernail to my shoulder.

"Singer," she said, "Tom Barius is dangerous. I think he's hurting my boy."

"Not physically, of course," I corrected, "but he's a smart cookie. He's playing mindgames with this kids and it's not safe."

"I mean," she continued, "we don't know that he's not touching the boys."

"Well, has Dixon said anything?"

"No, but my son's proud. He would never admit a shameful thing like that."

As I shot Marisa a puzzled look, Singer stepped back into the conversation.

"Hey Mr. and Mrs. Cambodian Drug Dealer, can we get back to the task at hand real quick? Whatever murky past this sonofabitch has, I'll find it. You say your kid's locked up in this guy's juvie hall?"

"Yes," she replied. "His name is Dixon and-"

"-and he doesn't matter," Singer snapped. "I'm interested in two things: finding out everything there is to know about Dr. Tom Barius of 5711 Beach Street, and depositing the swollen check that you're about to give me."

"What kind of guarantee do I get for my money?" Not that five thousand dollars was a large slice of the ol' bank account but considering it was company money, I needed to keep track of it.

"You get a guarantee that if I can't find some dirt, no one can. I know the gutters of California like no other P.I." I found that not hard to believe, but strangely comforting. What would we do with the dirt on Barius? How would we force him out at the Dike? Ex post facto was the only answer I had.

"I won't be able to get back out here until after Colossus, but when I show up, I'm going to expect the most comprehensive goddamn report you've ever put together. Find something."

"Yeah, yeah. You'll have your money's worth."

"Marisa, I gotta run, but I promise I'll be back here with you in a couple weeks, alright?"

She nodded with a smile.

"Singer, do your job."

He muttered something about "damn bossy Cambodians" as we opened the door.

"Ey fella, can you date this check for me real quick?"

"I've gotta go straight to the airport, anyway. You go on ahead, I'll take care of this."

"Chandler..." Her voice was so real. "Thank you. For everything."

Her hand lightly traced against mine as she turned to leave.

"She's really gotcha vexed, huh?"

"Shut up, Singer."

"It's my job to see what people are really doing, ya know."

I walked towards his desk, once again struck by the near-compulsive level of messiness.

"Where's that check?"

"She's been in here before, begging and pleading. The Spanish bird."

"You do whatever you need to to take care of your kids," I replied, voice harsh and fed up with those who would ignore the plight of the kids in the Dike. "I'm sure you couldn't understand."

"She's been in here before with another guy." This, on the other hand, made me look up and meet eyes with the generally repulsive Singer. "That's what I'm sayin', Bruce Lee. Right when the kid first got locked up, she comes in with some mouthbreathin' fuck, real big guy. Had a buncha scars on his face. He in your drug dealer Rolodex?"

"I'm not a...was she, like, with this guy?"

"They weren't holdin' hands or nothin', but he was real protective of her. Body language was like a lion protecting a fresh kill, like she was his."

"Why didn't you help her the first time?"

"Pay to play 'round these parts. And the mutt didn't have any money."

It was such an insignificant detail, but Marisa's lie by omission made it seem important. My mother's wisdom, ever since I was a kid, said that even the smallest lie conceals something big enough that it's worth hiding. Who was this guy? Not that it mattered for my helping Dixon; that had to be done.

"Well now you've got the money."

"And from the looka you, you've got doubts."

"I know what I'm doing," I shot over my shoulder as I trudged away, eager to have the last word.

I did.

Didn't I?
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