For Sherman, there were precious few ways to push the envelope of existence. Murder and flight were not only new experiences, they were exciting. And the worst-case scenario—capture—only meant that Sherman would get more new experiences: trial and prison. He had become the living embodiment of the cliché that idle hands make the devil’s work. Sherman and Satan were forming quite the partnership.
The way he lived his life, Sherman had consorted with no shortage of shady characters. Bobby was just another cog to Sherman, a piece to be used and discarded. Still, he thought the guy was so unsubtle that he was kind of funny.
“There’s a fuckload of security on that house,” Bobby told him.
“Yes, I know. If there was no security, I would just ring the doorbell.”
“Okay, okay, Richie Rich, don’t get your panties all twisted up.” Bobby laughed at his own inane joke.
“Can you help me?” Sherman asked, ignoring the nickname.
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “Me and my buddies can make sure no one will be awake to stop you from going into the house, and we can make sure the house goes dark.”
“I don’t need the house to go dark. I just want to get inside unseen, and then be able to get away quickly.”
“Fine, the house won’t go dark. We’ll make sure no one sees you come in or out. What are you doing in there, anyway? Is this some sort of heist?”
Heist? Sherman thought. People really say “heist”? “No questions,” he said.
“Fine. Going to cost you, though.”
“For Christ’s sake, I told you—”
“Relax, relax, I’m just fucking with ya. Fifty thousand dollars.” Bobby had a shit-eating grin, thinking he was about to take Sherman to the cleaners and back. It took all of Sherman’s resolve not to laugh in Bobby’s face.
***
The second episode of Life and Death was a master class in editing. As serious as Jared’s decline was, as uncertain as he was about himself, it seemed so much worse on television.
In real life, Deirdre would ask Jared a simple question—“Does the dog need to go out?”—and Jared would be a beat late in answering. On the show, Deirdre would ask the question, and the editors would cut back and forth between Jared and Deirdre five or six times. The cuts were artificial, and the bewildered and pained facial expressions on both husband and wife were culled from other scenes, reactions to questions or comments that had nothing to do with walking the dog. But television was television. If it was on the screen, it was true. This was particularly difficult for Jared. When he watched the episode back at night, he just assumed he was every bit as confused as the show made him seem. He would shake his head and grunt as he replayed the scene in his own head.
Jackie Stone wasn’t confused at all; she knew spin when she saw it. The whole thing made her blood boil, and something in her snapped. All of Jackie’s darker impulses bubbled to the surface, and she took action.
At five a.m. the day after the second episode aired, Jackie quietly barricaded the front and rear doors of the house with small pieces of furniture stacked one on top of the other. Once she believed the doors were secure, she started going through the house with black nail polish, painting the lenses on each of the tiny button cameras hidden in every crevice and corner. It took the crew most of the day to undo the damage Jackie caused. She waited silently in her room all afternoon and evening for a scolding from her parents, or at least a talking-to from the director, but it never came.
Jackie’s punishment came that night when episode three aired. Her attempted coup was, of course, captured on tape. It was cut together with footage of Jared lying on his office floor, of Megan talking on the phone to her friends, and of Jackie sulking. They showed every inch of Jackie’s bedroom—including a smiling unicorn holding a rainbow in its teeth; the ceramic trinket, a remnant from an earlier phase of Jackie’s life—while the voice-over painted her as a troubled loner with few friends who was having difficulty accepting her father’s condition. Jackie saw it as a secret message from the producer: straighten up and fly right, or else.
The next Monday at school, where she was alternately cheered and jeered, was the longest of her life.
Jackie wanted nothing more than to talk to her father, but she knew the conversation would only wind up on television. So she retreated to her room, turned out the lights, and lay on her bed. Let’s see if this makes for good viewing, she thought to herself. The producers didn’t care. Jackie, from their perspective, had been neutralized.
Where are all the good people in the world? she wondered as she lay there in the dark. Then she remembered the news story that had been taped to her locker.
Jackie turned on the light, retrieved her book bag, and pulled out the article about Hazel Huck and her efforts to raise money to save Jared. She read it again and again, trying to drown out the reality of the world around her. She wanted to lose herself in that article, in that world.
***