The Damage Done
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Synopsis
Imagine a world devoid of violence—a world where fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. In this tantalizing novel of possibility, this has—suddenly and inexplicably—become our new reality. The U.S. president must find a new way to wage war. The Pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant. A dictator takes his own life after realizing that the violence he used to control his people is no longer an option. In the first days after the change, seven people who have experienced violence struggle to adapt to this radical new paradigm: Dab, a bullied middle schooler; Marcus, a high-school student whose brother is the last victim of gun violence in America; Ann, a social worker stuck in an abusive marriage; Richard, a professor whose past makes him expect the worst in the present; Gabriela, who is making a dangerous border crossing into the U.S.; the Empty Shell, a dissident writer waiting to be tortured in a notorious prison; and Julian, a white supremacist plotting a horrific massacre. As their fates intertwine, the promise and perils of this new world begin to take shape. Although violence is no longer possible, mindless cruelty is still alive and well—and those bent on destruction still seek the means to achieve it. For fans of Ben Winters and Sarah Pinsker, this mind-bending and thought-provoking novel pushes the limits of fiction, questioning the violence sewn into our DNA.
Release date: March 8, 2022
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Print pages: 352
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The Damage Done
Michael Landweber
DAY
1
JUST RUN.
Dab careened up the stranger’s driveway, heading to the side of the house. He was going too fast, losing control. Looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t behind him. The car surprised him, even though it was quite large and stationary, parked right in front of the garage door. Still, Dab came at it hard, holding his wrist out to push off of the unforgiving metal. He recoiled from the pain, a jolt up his arm that he knew would linger for a few days. It didn’t take much to hurt Dab; he bruised easily.
Still, he ran. Not slowing until he was around the corner of the house out of sight of the street. Only then did he pause, trying and failing to catch his breath, feeling a bit light-headed, the world tilting gently around him while his vision blurred for a brief moment. Dab had never been able to keep up with the other kids. He always felt unsteady in his own small body when it came time to display the physical prowess that seemed to come so intuitively to his peers. They sprinted in a straight line; he always felt himself lilting left, then overcorrecting right, never true to his goal. His mother had made him play soccer in elementary school on a team with all the other boys from his class. He would watch them gather the ball between their feet and move with it down the field, the rolling orb an extension of themselves, drifting away then pulled back as if on a tether. When the ball was in the air, it would appear to float softly toward a teammate, who’d let it bounce off his chest to the ground directly in front of him. When Dab had tried to do the same, it had hit him square in the face, knocking off his glasses and sending him sprawling to the turf. Now that he was in middle school, Dab’s mother had given up on making him participate in organized sports. He knew his mother didn’t really like sports; it was just something she’d believed she needed to make him do, part of playing the role of good parent.
Dab sucked in air, leaning against the stranger’s house. There was no time for this. He had to get home before they found him. Once he got inside and locked the door behind him, he would be safe. For today. He could consider tomorrow tomorrow.
For most of sixth grade, he had managed to stay off everyone’s radar, not an insignificant feat given his name, which only got worse when you said the whole thing—Dabney—and his small stature and his hopelessness at sports and awkwardness in social interactions and just generally everything. Jane always told him that those things would be his strength someday. She had a way of making him believe everything she said. But his sister was away at college now, and he only heard her voice from a distance and saw her face on the computer screen, which diminished her power.
The problem now was that Dab had gotten on the wrong side of Connor and his buddies. It was a big problem.
Just run.
The backyard of the stranger’s house opened up into the backyards of many other strangers’ homes. This block was unusual in this town, in any town really, in that the lawns were continuous and contiguous, bleeding into each other out into the distance. No fences, no dogs, no swimming pools. Just an expanse of green, even more lush in these early spring days. There must have been an agreement between neighbors to be contrarians living without walls. Dab ran straight down the middle of the backyard, unimpeded, past the houses on either side. The only thing that could stop him was an unseen hole in the ground or tripping over his own two feet. He avoided both. This was the home stretch. Once he cleared this block, he would be just one corner away from his own house and safety.
Dab veered toward the house on the end of the block, again feeling that unsteadiness of needing to make his body execute specific movements on short notice. But he didn’t slow down, proud of himself for pushing through the discomfort. He was feeling confident, an unfamiliar sense of control, when he burst back out onto the sidewalk and nearly ran into the woman pushing a stroller.
Someone screamed. Dab thought it might be him. But he had other problems. The world was spinning out from under him. He had managed to will his momentum sharply to the right and barely avoided barreling full force into the stroller. Time slowed. He could see the toddler watching him from her perch in her chariot. His heavy backpack sped his rotation, spinning him like a top, until he finally landed with a hard thud on the grass between the sidewalk and street. He lay there for a moment, staring up at the cloudless sky, his backpack anchoring him to the earth. His wrist throbbed where it had hit the car.
“Be careful!” the young mom said, sounding like every mom. “You could have seriously hurt her.”
The mom was pointing to her own child. The little girl looked up at her mother, expression indistinct as she determined whether she was being yelled at. When she realized Dab was the victim, she laughed. Dab couldn’t help but smile at the joyous sound. But the mom was not amused.
“You think this is funny,” she said. “You’re just lucky you didn’t cause an accident!”
“Sorry,” Dab said, rolling himself over awkwardly and struggling to his feet. “Sorry.”
Dab ran away from them. As always, he wanted to say more. To find words that were more eloquent. It was how he always felt at school. The answers to questions sounded great in his head and barely coherent when they came out of his mouth. His sister had assured him that would change too. All kids sound like idiots, she said.
Almost home. Dab ran into the street, checking for cars only at the last second. Luckily, the world was empty around him. No cars, no people save for the woman and her daughter, who were receding away into the distance. Just around the corner was his house, his refuge. Another day of not getting beaten up. Dab was eleven years old and had never been in a fight. He was looking forward to extending that streak.
The word accident hung in the air next to him as he turned the corner. Dab hated that word. His brother, ten years his senior, used to call him that. Jane would defend Dab but had never corrected the slight. In her mind, accident was the best-case scenario. Dab had never known his father. He didn’t even know where he lived. The closest guess he had was somewhere north, gleaned from an overheard drunken conversation his mother had had with a friend where she also accused her ex of spending most of his time now smoking pot and sleeping with prostitutes. Dab had no idea what was true. All he knew was that his brother had said Dab was the reason his father had left. His parents hadn’t expected to have three children. During another argument between his sister and brother, Jane had paused to explain to Dab what a vasectomy was before his siblings got back into debating exactly what the nature of the accident was.
Dab coasted around the corner, right up to the edge of his front lawn, lost in thoughts of arguments past—watching his siblings fight had always been his favorite spectator sport—before he realized that Connor and his three henchmen were waiting for him on his front steps.
Just run.
Connor stood up first. The other three boys leapt to their feet behind him, puppets on strings. Dab’s quick breaths filled his head like claps of thunder, making it hard to think. He couldn’t get past them to his door. He could run down the street, but he didn’t know his neighbors very well. He couldn’t guarantee they would take him in even if they were home. And he couldn’t outrun the boys. He was already winded, having far exceeded his usual daily exercise.
Dab made a quick decision that turned out to be horribly wrong. He sprinted toward the side of his house. He would go in the back door before they could get to him. It was only when he got to the sliding glass door off the back patio that he remembered he didn’t have that key. His only worked on the front door. And his family and their neighbors were not quite as neighborly as the folks on the other block. These yards were boxed in by high fences that were impossible to see over or through. They weren’t soundproof. People could hear him scream. But would they care?
“Hey, Dibs,” Connor said. “What are you running from?”
One thing about having the name Dabney was that it was hard to come up with derogatory nicknames worse than the real thing. Dab found himself admiring Connor for the effort. That was the problem. He had a wide variety of feelings about Connor. For example, at this moment he was scared. But he also couldn’t help but look at his hair. It was Connor’s hair that had gotten him into this situation.
Dab had been in class with Connor all year. But only recently had he found himself staring at the other boy’s hair. All the time. Without even realizing it. It didn’t look remarkable. Sandy blond, like so many other kids’. But it kind of swept over Connor’s forehead in a wave that Dab felt was mysteriously appealing. And sometimes a strand would fall out of place, drifting down over Connor’s blue eyes. Dab had an almost unbearable urge to move it back into place when it fell, letting his fingers brush the skin of Connor’s forehead.
Today, in class, he had been caught staring at Connor by one of his henchmen, who had alerted his leader to the transgression. There must have been something in Dab’s expression, something intrusive, an assumption made even though he had no idea he was making it. Whatever it was, Connor was caught off guard. It made him very angry. Dab had looked away and felt himself redden, certain that other kids had noticed. He figured their teacher would care. But something must have happened at lunch, because Mr. Kaufman came back distracted. He went through the motions of his lesson but kept glancing down at his phone, which he occasionally tapped to refresh. That would have been the most interesting thing of the day if Dab hadn’t been preoccupied with not riling Connor.
But his attempts to pretend that he had not been watching Connor in class had failed. Dab had avoided looking at Connor for the rest of the day. But maybe that had been too obvious. Maybe that had made it worse. By the end of the day, when Dab finally did glance at Connor again, it was clear that the strategy had not worked. Connor had that familiar expression on his face, the one every kid in the school knew meant he was about to beat someone up. Dab hadn’t lingered after the last bell, knowing he was the source of Connor’s anger.
Now that was confirmed. Connor and his henchmen were standing on Dab’s front lawn. Connor’s expression hadn’t changed. And there was no one else around to beat up.
“Why were you staring at me?” Connor said. “You want a problem?”
Dab found his voice, but only half a sentence. “I don’t want.”
The boys waited for more, then laughed when nothing came.
“He’s a retard,” one of the boys said, seeking approval from the others. He looked at his feet and clenched his fists as his insult fell flat.
“We’re going to kick the shit out of you now,” Connor said.
This was not how Dab had expected it to go. Too much talking, too much prelude. Maybe they didn’t want to hurt him. He had a fleeting thought: maybe this was like the movies, where the bully was actually a sensitive, misunderstood soul. Maybe Connor had been watching him too.
But just in case he was wrong, Dab took off his backpack and set it on the patio table. Then he removed his glasses and also placed them on the round table, slowly, deliberately.
“Not the face,” Dab said.
He didn’t know why he said it. It sounded like something he had heard in a movie. He desperately wanted this to be like a movie. Dab backed off the patio onto the lawn. He somehow felt this would hurt less on the grass.
Connor rushed toward him. Enough talk. The other three followed. Surprised that this was actually happening, Dab backpedaled, stumbling over his own feet, falling to the ground. He had been right; it hurt less on the grass.
The boys surrounded him. Dab squinted up at them. In class, Dab had wanted to touch Connor. He didn’t know why. Or how that would ever happen. But now, looking into the grimace on Connor’s face, echoed in the eyes around him, Dab did not want to be touched. He tensed himself, ready for the blows.
“Kick him,” Connor said.
Simple and declarative, an order easily followed. Dab closed his eyes and waited. He thought of Jane, wishing she were still here. These boys wouldn’t stand a chance if she came storming out the back door right now.
Dab had once asked her how she knew which boys she liked. That was her junior year, and she was dating a real jerk.
“You can’t choose who you’re attracted to,” Jane said.
“Even if he’s an asshole,” Dab said, repeating what Mom had called him.
Jane laughed and gave him a hug. “You can choose who you spend time with.”
Something touched Dab’s side. It felt like a foot, but not a kick. More like a nudge. The way you might poke a motionless animal to check if it was really dead. Another tap from his other side. Then another. Each one softer than the last. Dab opened his eyes. The boys’ expressions had changed. They were deeply confused.
“What the hell are you doing?” Connor barked.
The boys shied away from Dab as if he had caused them to fail. But he was as confused as they were. Did they not want to kick him? It wasn’t that they weren’t capable. Dab had seen all of them throw kids into lockers and get into fights. Kicking someone on the ground was certainly in their skill set. But now they looked scared. Something had happened and they didn’t understand what it was, didn’t even have the words to make an excuse to Connor.
Dab was also baffled. He raised himself on one elbow, still a deferential posture, just to test the waters. Maybe this was over. No one was paying attention to him. Connor was staring down his crew, and they were exchanging accusatory glances among themselves. They continued to back away—from Dab, from each other. Enough space opened up that Dab got bolder, pulling himself up to his knees. He was going to get to his feet when Connor turned back to him.
“Did I say you could get up?”
Dab found himself shaking his head. He stayed low, in a crouch. It would be the perfect position to launch himself at Connor. If he decided to take the offensive. No one had ever taught him how to fight. The closest was when Jane had shown him how to hold his keys between his fingers to stab an attacker in the eye. Dab’s keys were in his pocket. But he didn’t want to hurt anyone. Connor’s eyes narrowed, his lips curled in a sneer. He clearly didn’t feel the same way.
Again, Dab closed his eyes as the fist came toward him. And again, there was no pain. He felt fingertips brush his cheek, nearly a caress. Then he was tumbling back to the grass, the full weight of Connor landing on top of him. Dab breathed in and out in quick short blasts, his chest pressing against Connor’s with each inhalation. Dab had never felt this before, the sheer density of another person on top of him. It was scary and he didn’t want it to end. For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Had Connor pulled his punch on purpose? There was no way he’d just whiffed it. Dab tried to understand how he had avoided first the kicks, now the punch. Had he done something to move out of the way? Instincts kicking in? Superspeed?
Connor raised himself off of Dab by pushing his hand hard into his chest. A different kind of pressure. More threatening. But still not causing pain. Just holding his breathing in check. Connor looked down on him, wild-eyed, teeth clenched. He rolled his fingers deliberately into another tight fist and cocked his arm back. Dab knew he couldn’t avoid this one. He didn’t close his eyes this time. He stared directly at that fist. It flew toward him full of deadly force. But it never made it to his face. About halfway to his chin, it unfolded, fingers unfurling like the petals of a flower at dawn. The open hand hung between them. Connor gazed at it in wonder as if it were an alien object that had just landed on the end of his arm.
For a moment, Dab thought maybe the hand was for him, just as the fist had been a second before. He reached up with his own and took it. But that was another misjudgment. Connor pulled his hand away as if he’d been stung. Then he was on his feet, looking at Dab with disgust. Dab was both relieved and saddened that the weight of the other boy had left him.
“You’re not worth it,” Connor said. “Faggot.”
Connor stormed off first. The other boys lingered for a beat. Dab could see them attempting to puzzle out what had happened. But it was too much to process. So they just followed.
Dab lay back and stared up at the perfect blue sky, amazed that nothing hurt except his own hand from that encounter with the car. He laughed to himself. The world had changed. He could feel it. Soon he would go retrieve his glasses and backpack and go inside. He would call Jane. He wanted to tell her that her ideas about attraction were both right and wrong. But first he would stay here and enjoy the ticklish grass against the back of his neck, the warm spring air in his lungs, and marvel at his good fortune.
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