Maybe an explanation is in order. You see, when Chad set up the date with Stacy, there’s no way he could have known, no way anyone could have known, that something terrible was going to happen. What’s more, no one could have foreseen that when the terrible thing did happen, Stacy’s townhouse sublet would be situated at the epicentre of the crisis. Two days before the date, not half a block from Stacy’s front door, a young man in a rental van careened down the sidewalk killing ten people and injuring another fourteen. The city was in shock. This was all anyone talked about. How could such a thing have happened? What would drive a person to do such a thing?
People had spontaneously set up a memorial for the victims. It was just around the corner from where Stacy lived. There was a growing mound of flowers laid at a wall where people scrawled condolences and laments and whatever in different coloured magic markers. It had rained and some of the messages dribbled down the wall and mingled with sodden plush animals and sputtering candles with pictures of Jesus on them. On his way to Stacy’s, Chad paused to read messages on the wall. He had no choice seeing as the sidewalk was choked with people who had come to pay their respects.
People assumed Chad was there to pay his respects, too. In fact, respects were the furthest thing from Chad’s mind. While he read about how nameless dead people were in the thoughts and prayers of nameless living people, he considered that if everything went as planned, he might have sex tonight. It all hinged on how well he got into character. Stacy needed to believe he was a sensitive man.
An older woman with tears welling in her eyes turned to Chad and remarked on what a sad and horrible day it was. In his most serious and tremulous voice, Chad agreed, but he was puzzled by the woman’s response. She looked up at him, eyebrows raised in an expression that verged on shock, then, like a hippopotamus doing a pirouette, she whirled around and lumbered away. It was then, in the reflection of a passing car window, that he realized the whole time he’d been wearing a broad goofy grin that was out of step with the gravity of the moment. He looked around him and found a couple men his age who carried themselves very much in step with the moment. He observed how they stood, somebre-faced, heads bowed, shoulders narrowed, hands clasped together in front of them as if they were cradling their balls. If he tried, he could pull off the look. He was sure of it.