Look at Me Now, Dad | Community | Jeff
Look at Me Now, Dad
~4,000 words
Jeff Winger
Four ways Jeff doesn't reunite with his father. A story told in tropes.
I.
Jeff watches the van through his rearview window. He can see the six of them, following him even though he’d told them not to come, Shirley behind the wheel and Britta riding shotgun, Annie sandwiched between Troy and Abed in the middle seat, Pierce in the back, slumped against the window. He tries not to watch them too much, tries to pay attention to the highway in front of him, but it’s easier to look back and not forward. He’s secretly glad they’re there, behind him always. Like his backup.
His GPS guides him off the exit and his heart starts racing as he stops at a red light. Shirley waves from the van and he holds up a hand in reply. His phone beeps and he grabs it off the dash. It’s a text from Annie consisting of emojis: a happy face, a puppy, a mug of coffee. He doesn’t text back, but he knows she knows he’s seen it.
The light turns green and he steps on the gas. He follows the computerized female voice. Left here, right here, third exit off the traffic circle. The center of the town is quaint. Parents drag their children down the street by the hand, the kids’ little faces covered by scarves and puffy winter coats.
Jeff pulls into the parking lot and Shirley pulls the van in next to him. He turns off the ignition and they wave to him, forced smiles and a nod from Abed. He gets out of the car and adjusts his jacket, his tie. They all pile out of the van and he makes a show of rolling his eyes at them.
“I thought I told you not to come,” he says.
Britta smirks and Annie and Shirley smile and the boys all scoff.
“You shoulda stayed home,” he lies.
“Oh, Jeffrey,” Shirley says in her best motherly voice. “Are you ready to go in?”
He nods and they take formation around him, surrounding him like they’re his bodyguards or his entourage. He thinks that’s what they kind of are, his guardians, keeping him safe from himself. He’s glad they’re stubborn because navigating even the parking lot without them seems unbearable.
His search results had yielded a phone number, which led him to another phone number, and so on and so forth until a woman named Theresa answered the phone. “Oh, Jeff,” she said sadly, as if she knew who he was, had known him forever. “You’re just too late.”
When they get inside the smell of flowers overtakes Jeff’s nostrils. It’s overpowering, nausea inducing, and his stomach rolls.
There’s not many people milling around, just a pitiful amount, really, and Britta gestures to a row of chairs. “We’ll just meet you over there, okay? We’ll save you a seat.”
They leave his side and Jeff feels cold. He starts for the front of the room with hesitant steps. A woman with dark brown hair catches his eye. She’s pretty, with laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, wearing a long-sleeved black dress and heels. “Jeff?” she calls.
He nods and she holds out her arms for a hug. “I’m Theresa. I’m so glad you could come.” She smells of nice perfume. “You look just like him,” she whispers in his ear.
They part and Jeff notices the gold band on her finger. “I’m… sorry.”
She turns toward the coffin and sighs. “Me, too. I’m sorry you called too late. He talked about you so much. I tried to get him to call you but he was-he was ashamed. Of what he did.”
Jeff doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t want to defend the behavior he spent so long resenting. “There are a lot of things I’m never going to be able to say to him,” he says honestly. “Some of them weren’t so nice.”
“I know. He wasn’t perfect, Jeff. He was far from it. But he did love you, in his way. It was a frustrating way, but it was all his.”
“My friends came with me, they’re over there,” Jeff says with a knot in his throat. “I’m going to go sit by them. I’ll come say goodbye before I go.”
She nods, gives him a watery smile. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Hey,” Britta says as he takes the seat next to her.
“Hey,” he returns.
“I know this is not the right time to say so, Jeff,” Troy begins. “But your stepmom is kinda banging.”
“Troy!” Shirley and Annie admonish in unison.
Pierce gives Troy a high-five and Abed shrugs. Jeff shakes his head.
“Can’t take you guys anywhere,” he says.
“You okay?” Britta whispers. “You can cry if you want. I won’t look.”
He rolls his eyes at her but takes her offered hand anyway. Shirley takes his other hand and Annie, behind him, lays a hand on his shoulder. They’re surrounding him again, a gaggle of black, and he thinks of all the funerals they’ll eventually attend together. Last time it was for Pierce and next time it won’t be for him. He’ll be one of the surrounders and he’ll hold hands and touch shoulders and ride shotgun in Shirley’s van.
A preacher steps to the front of the room and leads everyone in a prayer. Jeff closes his eyes and thinks of all the expectations he had, the things he wanted to say. Shirley squeezes his hand on the “Amen” and he lets them all go. It’s over now. It’s done.
II.
“What are you going to say to your dad?” Britta asks. Her voice is small and anxious. She looks helpless. Jeff would remind her that it doesn’t matter because money doesn’t just make people appear but Troy’s hiding from LeVar Burton in a bathroom right now, so. That’s that.
“Maybe I won’t say anything. Maybe I’ll let him do the talking.”
“But don’t you think-?”
“No.”
They wait. Britta’s on his left and Shirley’s on his right. Annie’s on Shirley’s other side, fingering the tiara. It looks dull underneath the fluorescent lights. Abed and his film crew circle the waiting room. Abed opens his mouth a few times to speak but Britta shoots him a dirty look and he stops.
They don’t talk. Nurses and doctors rush around, loved ones pretend to read magazines at least two years old. LeVar Burton eats a bag of potato chips in the corner, checking his watch and looking confused. Troy is probably still in the bathroom.
The blonde nurse comes out with her clipboard. “Mr. Hawthorne wants to see you, Mr. Winger.”
Jeff rolls his eyes because really? This probably isn’t happening. Pierce is a doddering old fool who plays mind games with his friends. He doesn’t know William Winger, couldn’t find him for all the money in the world. William Winger doesn’t want to be found. He hasn’t for the last twenty-five years. He’s certainly not going to show up at this run-down Colorado hospital. Probably hasn’t had one foot in Colorado since the ink on the divorce papers was still wet.
“Jeffrey,” Pierce greets as Jeff rounds into the room. “There’s a conference room down the hall. I’ve secured it for you and your father. He should be here within the next half hour.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jeff deadpans. The air in the room feels tight, as if Pierce cut the circulation off. He probably did, just to make them all more uncomfortable. This is all a bit ridiculous, even for them.
“Just trying to give my friends the same joy they’ve given me these last two years.” Pierce’s face is blank but Jeff can hear the sarcasm. He wonders if he could get Abed to turn off the cameras so he can suffocate Pierce with a pillow. “Abed will take you to the conference room.”
Jeff runs his tongue over his teeth and nods. Abed motions for him to follow and Jeff looks at Pierce one last time before he leaves. Pierce has a small smile on his face, just a tiny one, and he lifts one hand to wave at Jeff.
“What are you going to say to your dad?” Abed asks as they start off down the hall.
“Stop asking me that,” Jeff mutters.
“Jeff!” Britta, Shirley, and Annie jog down the hall to catch up with them. “What’s going on?”
Abed adjusts the camera on his shoulder. “Pierce set up a conference room where Jeff’s going to meet his dad. We’re going there now.”
Shirley puts her hand on Jeff’s arm and squeezes. “Are you okay, Jeffrey?”
Jeff takes in a deep breath. “Please go back to the waiting room,” he says gravelly.
“But-” Britta starts.
“All of you. I can find it from here.”
They do stay, though, standing in the middle of the hallway, expressions of sadness and pity on each of the girls’ faces. Jeff doesn’t turn around to look at them but keeps walking. He passes a bathroom and hears Troy crying.
He waits in the conference room. He sits, his feet up on the table, mirrors his usual pose from the study room, pretends he’s just in there. The girls each text him smiley faces and words of encouragement and, in the case of Britta, a promise of cheer-up sex when this is all over. He texts back thank yous but doesn’t send them. He checks Twitter, the weather, the news.
He hears footsteps and the door swings open.
His dad is shorter than him, with obviously dyed brown hair and blue eyes. His face is covered in stubble, stubble in the same pattern as Jeff’s own.
“You wanted to see me?” he says.
Jeff stands up, swinging his legs off the table and onto the ground. “No, Pierce wanted me to see you. I don’t think I do.”
William Winger sighs and flops into a chair. “Look, Jeff. I don’t know what you want from me, but I can’t give it to you. I was never cut out to be your dad. You’ve been better off without me, I bet.”
“Have I?” Jeff is still standing, looking down on his father. His voice is quiet but not meek. He’s been waiting for this moment for twenty-five years and yet... he doesn’t need it anymore.
“I’m sorry that Pierce dragged you all the way here. But everything I thought I wanted to say to you, I don’t want to say it anymore. So you can leave now.”
William stares up at Jeff for a minute and then nods. He stands and holds his hands up as if in surrender. “I’ll leave. But you have some really good friends out there. The blonde one yelled at me.”
Jeff watches his father walk out the same way he did at ten years old. But it doesn’t hurt the same way. He doesn’t feel peace or anything stupid like that, and maybe he doesn’t feel better. But he does feel something and it’s not regret, which is more than he could have asked for.
His phone buzzes on the table and it’s a text from Shirley: I keyed that bastard’s car.
III.
Jeff’s mom gets into a car accident and it’s nothing serious, but there is a small article about it in the newspaper. He doesn’t go to visit her but he does send flowers to her hospital room. She calls to thank him but he ignores it. She still thinks he’s a lawyer.
No one in the study group knows: partly because no one in the study group reads the newspaper but also because a) Jeff doesn’t tell them and b) his mother’s been using her maiden name since the divorce so even if by some chance they did see a newspaper, they wouldn’t know it was Jeff’s mom.
So on Monday morning when Jeff saunters in late to study group and sees Pierce poring over a copy of the Denver Post, he doesn’t think anything about it. But then Pierce starts talking.
“An old lover of mine was in a car accident,” he announces. Everyone turns to look at him. “Doreen Fitzgerald. There’s a name I never thought I’d hear again.”
Jeff feels his eyes widen but he doesn’t say anything. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth like he just ate an entire jar of peanut butter.
“She was about to marry some guy. Don’t know his name, but he was probably a jerk. Had time for one last run with old Pierce Hawthorne, if you know what I mean.”
Troy screws his face up in disgust. “We always know what you mean.”
“Was she hurt in the accident?” Annie asks.
Pierce turns back to the paper. “Mild concussion. Says she’s just over at University of Colorado Hospital. Maybe I should go pay her a visit.”
“No!” Jeff shouts. The six of them look at him curiously and he clears his throat. “I mean, we really have to get to work on that Anthropology diorama. You don’t have time to traipse off to Denver.”
Annie eyes him suspiciously. “Since when do you care about our homework, especially for that class?”
Jeff raises an eyebrow. “Uh, since I need to pass the class so I can get out of here in four years so I can go back to being a lawyer. Duh.”
Annie rolls her eyes but turns her attention to Abed, who’s talking about some Cougar Town viewing party he’s having in his dorm room later. Jeff lets out a sigh of relief and plays with his phone until it’s time to go to class.
That night, Jeff answers his mother’s phone call, mostly out of guilt but also out of a masochistic sense of reliving that morning’s conversation with Pierce. She thanks him for the flowers, says that she’ll be going home on Thursday morning, and talks a little about how nice the nurses are to her.
“Also, the weirdest thing happened to me tonight,” she says. “I don’t know if you saw, but there was an article in the Post about my accident. Well, he must have seen it, because an old friend I knew from when I was younger came to see me tonight.”
Jeff’s heart starts racing and he grunts in acknowledgement.
“And he saw the flowers you sent on my bedside table and I had mentioned they were from my son, Jeff. And then he said he had a friend at school named Jeff. He goes to community college, you know, to keep his mind sharp. But of course, I told him you were a lawyer but then he said his friend Jeff used to be a lawyer.”
He recognizes that tone: the tone she adopted and perfected when he was little and she knew he did something wrong but wanted him sweat, to suffer, to admit.
“Ma, look, I gotta tell you-”
“And wouldn’t you know. I have a picture of you on my cell phone-it’s from a couple years ago but still-and I showed it to him and do you know what he said?”
“Really, I should have-”
“Apparently my Jeff is his Jeff! He said you’re his classmate at Greendale. That you’re in his study group and you’re his best friend! Imagine that!”
Jeff breathes a ragged breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s just that, well, the whole thing was kind of humiliating and I didn’t...”
“Uh huh,” she says. “So glad I heard it from a man I once... knew instead of from my own son. Is this because of your dad? Because he walked out? Are you acting out?”
“Ma, adults don’t act out unless they’re girls in their twenties with self-esteem issues. I’m thirty-five years old.”
Something clicks in Jeff’s mind. Numbers and years and dates and something.
“Wait. Wait. I know about you and Pierce. You didn’t... sleep with him right before you married Dad, did you?”
She clucks her tongue. “Jeffrey Winger, that is none of your business.”
On the day they met, on the first day of study group, before there technically was a study group, Pierce told Jeff “You remind me of me at your age.” It didn’t mean anything back then for a lot of reasons, mostly because even within a few short hours of meeting him, Jeff knew the last thing he wanted to be in his life was Pierce Hawthorne.
But now that memory rises like bile in the back of his throat and he can only plead with his mother. “Ma, just... come on. Please tell me that there is a zero chance of Pierce being my biological father.”
It’s too bad Abed isn’t here, he thinks. It’s crazy for him to be thinking of Abed right now, crazy for him to be thinking of anything else except growing old to be crotchety and racist and lonely and sad. But Abed would pull out a movie reference-Star Wars, probably-and would talk about how sloppy this is, how it makes both no sense and all the sense in the world, how these things don’t happen in real life.
“Jeff. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. I mean, does it even really matter now?”
Sometimes Jeff forgets what William Winger looks like. His face is mainly a shadow in Jeff’s memory, a loud voice yelling, the smell of Jack Daniels. Jeff doesn’t have pictures of him, doesn’t know if they share the same eyes or jaw or nose.
He’s thought about it, a million times, what it would be like to run into his father again. To admonish him for abandoning him and his mother, for giving him this stupid complex, for causing any little struggle he’s encountered in his life. But never in his life has he thought about the fact that maybe William Winger left because he actually wasn’t ever anybody’s father.
Jeff manages to make it to the bathroom before he throws up. But just barely.
IV.
Jeff dropped $3,000 on a suit last night. It’s stupid, really, because not only will he no longer have the income to pay for it, but this is probably the last opportunity he’ll have to wear it for quite a while. His wardrobe-something he’s cultivated and taken pride in-will no longer be overflowing with expensive Italian jeans and cashmere sweaters.
He might as well just give up and start wearing fucking track pants.
But he woke up extra early this morning, despite only actually sleeping for maybe three hours at most, and relished in the feeling of stepping into each pant leg, of buttoning up the crisp white shirt, of the weight of the jacket over his shoulders. This suit grounds Jeff, reminds him that he was someone once. This is just a setback, a speed bump. He’s a man who wears $3,000 suits. He won’t be down for long.
But then he pulls up to the courthouse. It’s a place he feels most comfortable, most like himself. He’s made quite a living and quite a reputation for himself here. He’s never been on the other side, though, a judge judging him, a mentally written useless defense. It’s all surreal, like a dream, like he’ll wake up tomorrow morning at his desk he fell asleep on while reviewing case notes and he’ll cash his paycheck and buy a new Lexus.
Jeff’s never been more thankful that he paid off his Lexus in his entire life.
He turns off the ignition and with a deep breath, walks up the courthouse steps. He’s done this millions of times, briefcase and maybe a cup of coffee in hand. He doesn’t bother with the briefcase today, and he’s too jumpy for coffee, but he catches his reflection in the glass of the front doors and his suit, his talisman, is a good enough replacement for both of them.
There are lawyers rushing around the lobby, real, actual lawyers. Lawyers who grew up honest and true and went to college and did everything right. Even if now these lawyers are crooked and bad, at one time they were good. Jeff doesn’t think he was ever good.
The hearing doesn’t last long; there’s nothing to say. Jeff doesn’t mount a defense. The degree is fake, the first time he set foot on a college campus was last week when he registered for classes at Greendale, disbarred, the end. The judge-whose chambers Jeff has been in, whose desk drawer scotch Jeff has drank-has the courtesy to give Jeff a pitiful look and Jeff breaks his gaze to stare at the polished and shiny wood floor.
On the way out of the courtroom, Jeff collides with a court stenographer, one he’s seen a million times. She has an uncovered cup of coffee in one hand and with a sickening splash, the coffee spills over the sides. Most of it falls on her and her white shirt and before Jeff can avert his eyes he sees the lace of her bra.
“Oh, I’m so-” he starts.
She sighs heavily and waves her free hand. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine.” Smoothing excess coffee off her shirt, she walks off, muttering to herself and that’s when Jeff notices it.
A stain, on his right pant leg, on his brand new suit, the last part of him that is something and not nothing. The coffee is soaking into the fibers, he can see it, and Jeff has the horrible urge to punch something, to break something, to drink until he can no longer see.
“All right, Winger, you’re up,” a gruff voice from behind Jeff says.
He spins around to find two police officers flanking a man in handcuffs. The man is tall and thin, with graying hair and sunken features. He is familiar in an awful way. His eyes are Jeff’s eyes.
He is wearing a crumpled suit: brown pants and jacket, wrinkled beyond hope, and a yellowing button-down shirt. His tie is the color of rust.
He catches Jeff’s eye as he walks past and it takes a minute, but he gets there. Jeff is frozen in place. His feet are stuck to his shoes and his shoes have rooted themselves to the courthouse floor, buried deep into the foundation, anchoring him to this place that has meant so much to him.
“Jeffrey,” William Winger says. His hands are in cuffs. “Hey, can we stop for a second right here? That’s my son.”
The police officers look at each other. “One minute,” the one with the gruff voice says.
He approaches Jeff with a sheepish expression on his face. “You in trouble, too, kid?”
Jeff’s mouth is dry. “Lawyer,” he says. His voice sounds like sandpaper. “Was a lawyer. I’ve, uh, been disbarred.”
William lets out a sadistic chuckle. “So you fucked up. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?”
“I faked my degree,” Jeff says flatly. “Defrauded the state bar.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying this. He doesn’t owe his father anything, surely not an explanation. And definitely not a description of how terrible he is, how his apple never even fell, got caught up in the branches and leaves and is stuck, dangling over the edge.
“Embezzlement. That’s what I’m here for. You’re not so different from your old man, Jeff. Remember that.”
Jeff shakes his head and begins to protest but the police officers grab William by the shoulders.
“Time’s up, Winger.”
The shorter officer nods at Jeff and William shoots him a sadistic smile.
“See you around, kid.”
The courtroom doors close and the lobby is quiet. Jeff looks down at the coffee stain on his suit. He could take it to the dry cleaner, the one on Fourth that gets all the stains out of everything and that presses his work shirts so neatly and perfectly. But he won’t, probably.
It’s sunny outside. Jeff thinks it should be raining.
~4,000 words
Jeff Winger
Four ways Jeff doesn't reunite with his father. A story told in tropes.
I.
Jeff watches the van through his rearview window. He can see the six of them, following him even though he’d told them not to come, Shirley behind the wheel and Britta riding shotgun, Annie sandwiched between Troy and Abed in the middle seat, Pierce in the back, slumped against the window. He tries not to watch them too much, tries to pay attention to the highway in front of him, but it’s easier to look back and not forward. He’s secretly glad they’re there, behind him always. Like his backup.
His GPS guides him off the exit and his heart starts racing as he stops at a red light. Shirley waves from the van and he holds up a hand in reply. His phone beeps and he grabs it off the dash. It’s a text from Annie consisting of emojis: a happy face, a puppy, a mug of coffee. He doesn’t text back, but he knows she knows he’s seen it.
The light turns green and he steps on the gas. He follows the computerized female voice. Left here, right here, third exit off the traffic circle. The center of the town is quaint. Parents drag their children down the street by the hand, the kids’ little faces covered by scarves and puffy winter coats.
Jeff pulls into the parking lot and Shirley pulls the van in next to him. He turns off the ignition and they wave to him, forced smiles and a nod from Abed. He gets out of the car and adjusts his jacket, his tie. They all pile out of the van and he makes a show of rolling his eyes at them.
“I thought I told you not to come,” he says.
Britta smirks and Annie and Shirley smile and the boys all scoff.
“You shoulda stayed home,” he lies.
“Oh, Jeffrey,” Shirley says in her best motherly voice. “Are you ready to go in?”
He nods and they take formation around him, surrounding him like they’re his bodyguards or his entourage. He thinks that’s what they kind of are, his guardians, keeping him safe from himself. He’s glad they’re stubborn because navigating even the parking lot without them seems unbearable.
His search results had yielded a phone number, which led him to another phone number, and so on and so forth until a woman named Theresa answered the phone. “Oh, Jeff,” she said sadly, as if she knew who he was, had known him forever. “You’re just too late.”
When they get inside the smell of flowers overtakes Jeff’s nostrils. It’s overpowering, nausea inducing, and his stomach rolls.
There’s not many people milling around, just a pitiful amount, really, and Britta gestures to a row of chairs. “We’ll just meet you over there, okay? We’ll save you a seat.”
They leave his side and Jeff feels cold. He starts for the front of the room with hesitant steps. A woman with dark brown hair catches his eye. She’s pretty, with laugh lines around her mouth and eyes, wearing a long-sleeved black dress and heels. “Jeff?” she calls.
He nods and she holds out her arms for a hug. “I’m Theresa. I’m so glad you could come.” She smells of nice perfume. “You look just like him,” she whispers in his ear.
They part and Jeff notices the gold band on her finger. “I’m… sorry.”
She turns toward the coffin and sighs. “Me, too. I’m sorry you called too late. He talked about you so much. I tried to get him to call you but he was-he was ashamed. Of what he did.”
Jeff doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t want to defend the behavior he spent so long resenting. “There are a lot of things I’m never going to be able to say to him,” he says honestly. “Some of them weren’t so nice.”
“I know. He wasn’t perfect, Jeff. He was far from it. But he did love you, in his way. It was a frustrating way, but it was all his.”
“My friends came with me, they’re over there,” Jeff says with a knot in his throat. “I’m going to go sit by them. I’ll come say goodbye before I go.”
She nods, gives him a watery smile. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Hey,” Britta says as he takes the seat next to her.
“Hey,” he returns.
“I know this is not the right time to say so, Jeff,” Troy begins. “But your stepmom is kinda banging.”
“Troy!” Shirley and Annie admonish in unison.
Pierce gives Troy a high-five and Abed shrugs. Jeff shakes his head.
“Can’t take you guys anywhere,” he says.
“You okay?” Britta whispers. “You can cry if you want. I won’t look.”
He rolls his eyes at her but takes her offered hand anyway. Shirley takes his other hand and Annie, behind him, lays a hand on his shoulder. They’re surrounding him again, a gaggle of black, and he thinks of all the funerals they’ll eventually attend together. Last time it was for Pierce and next time it won’t be for him. He’ll be one of the surrounders and he’ll hold hands and touch shoulders and ride shotgun in Shirley’s van.
A preacher steps to the front of the room and leads everyone in a prayer. Jeff closes his eyes and thinks of all the expectations he had, the things he wanted to say. Shirley squeezes his hand on the “Amen” and he lets them all go. It’s over now. It’s done.
II.
“What are you going to say to your dad?” Britta asks. Her voice is small and anxious. She looks helpless. Jeff would remind her that it doesn’t matter because money doesn’t just make people appear but Troy’s hiding from LeVar Burton in a bathroom right now, so. That’s that.
“Maybe I won’t say anything. Maybe I’ll let him do the talking.”
“But don’t you think-?”
“No.”
They wait. Britta’s on his left and Shirley’s on his right. Annie’s on Shirley’s other side, fingering the tiara. It looks dull underneath the fluorescent lights. Abed and his film crew circle the waiting room. Abed opens his mouth a few times to speak but Britta shoots him a dirty look and he stops.
They don’t talk. Nurses and doctors rush around, loved ones pretend to read magazines at least two years old. LeVar Burton eats a bag of potato chips in the corner, checking his watch and looking confused. Troy is probably still in the bathroom.
The blonde nurse comes out with her clipboard. “Mr. Hawthorne wants to see you, Mr. Winger.”
Jeff rolls his eyes because really? This probably isn’t happening. Pierce is a doddering old fool who plays mind games with his friends. He doesn’t know William Winger, couldn’t find him for all the money in the world. William Winger doesn’t want to be found. He hasn’t for the last twenty-five years. He’s certainly not going to show up at this run-down Colorado hospital. Probably hasn’t had one foot in Colorado since the ink on the divorce papers was still wet.
“Jeffrey,” Pierce greets as Jeff rounds into the room. “There’s a conference room down the hall. I’ve secured it for you and your father. He should be here within the next half hour.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jeff deadpans. The air in the room feels tight, as if Pierce cut the circulation off. He probably did, just to make them all more uncomfortable. This is all a bit ridiculous, even for them.
“Just trying to give my friends the same joy they’ve given me these last two years.” Pierce’s face is blank but Jeff can hear the sarcasm. He wonders if he could get Abed to turn off the cameras so he can suffocate Pierce with a pillow. “Abed will take you to the conference room.”
Jeff runs his tongue over his teeth and nods. Abed motions for him to follow and Jeff looks at Pierce one last time before he leaves. Pierce has a small smile on his face, just a tiny one, and he lifts one hand to wave at Jeff.
“What are you going to say to your dad?” Abed asks as they start off down the hall.
“Stop asking me that,” Jeff mutters.
“Jeff!” Britta, Shirley, and Annie jog down the hall to catch up with them. “What’s going on?”
Abed adjusts the camera on his shoulder. “Pierce set up a conference room where Jeff’s going to meet his dad. We’re going there now.”
Shirley puts her hand on Jeff’s arm and squeezes. “Are you okay, Jeffrey?”
Jeff takes in a deep breath. “Please go back to the waiting room,” he says gravelly.
“But-” Britta starts.
“All of you. I can find it from here.”
They do stay, though, standing in the middle of the hallway, expressions of sadness and pity on each of the girls’ faces. Jeff doesn’t turn around to look at them but keeps walking. He passes a bathroom and hears Troy crying.
He waits in the conference room. He sits, his feet up on the table, mirrors his usual pose from the study room, pretends he’s just in there. The girls each text him smiley faces and words of encouragement and, in the case of Britta, a promise of cheer-up sex when this is all over. He texts back thank yous but doesn’t send them. He checks Twitter, the weather, the news.
He hears footsteps and the door swings open.
His dad is shorter than him, with obviously dyed brown hair and blue eyes. His face is covered in stubble, stubble in the same pattern as Jeff’s own.
“You wanted to see me?” he says.
Jeff stands up, swinging his legs off the table and onto the ground. “No, Pierce wanted me to see you. I don’t think I do.”
William Winger sighs and flops into a chair. “Look, Jeff. I don’t know what you want from me, but I can’t give it to you. I was never cut out to be your dad. You’ve been better off without me, I bet.”
“Have I?” Jeff is still standing, looking down on his father. His voice is quiet but not meek. He’s been waiting for this moment for twenty-five years and yet... he doesn’t need it anymore.
“I’m sorry that Pierce dragged you all the way here. But everything I thought I wanted to say to you, I don’t want to say it anymore. So you can leave now.”
William stares up at Jeff for a minute and then nods. He stands and holds his hands up as if in surrender. “I’ll leave. But you have some really good friends out there. The blonde one yelled at me.”
Jeff watches his father walk out the same way he did at ten years old. But it doesn’t hurt the same way. He doesn’t feel peace or anything stupid like that, and maybe he doesn’t feel better. But he does feel something and it’s not regret, which is more than he could have asked for.
His phone buzzes on the table and it’s a text from Shirley: I keyed that bastard’s car.
III.
Jeff’s mom gets into a car accident and it’s nothing serious, but there is a small article about it in the newspaper. He doesn’t go to visit her but he does send flowers to her hospital room. She calls to thank him but he ignores it. She still thinks he’s a lawyer.
No one in the study group knows: partly because no one in the study group reads the newspaper but also because a) Jeff doesn’t tell them and b) his mother’s been using her maiden name since the divorce so even if by some chance they did see a newspaper, they wouldn’t know it was Jeff’s mom.
So on Monday morning when Jeff saunters in late to study group and sees Pierce poring over a copy of the Denver Post, he doesn’t think anything about it. But then Pierce starts talking.
“An old lover of mine was in a car accident,” he announces. Everyone turns to look at him. “Doreen Fitzgerald. There’s a name I never thought I’d hear again.”
Jeff feels his eyes widen but he doesn’t say anything. His tongue is stuck to the roof of his mouth like he just ate an entire jar of peanut butter.
“She was about to marry some guy. Don’t know his name, but he was probably a jerk. Had time for one last run with old Pierce Hawthorne, if you know what I mean.”
Troy screws his face up in disgust. “We always know what you mean.”
“Was she hurt in the accident?” Annie asks.
Pierce turns back to the paper. “Mild concussion. Says she’s just over at University of Colorado Hospital. Maybe I should go pay her a visit.”
“No!” Jeff shouts. The six of them look at him curiously and he clears his throat. “I mean, we really have to get to work on that Anthropology diorama. You don’t have time to traipse off to Denver.”
Annie eyes him suspiciously. “Since when do you care about our homework, especially for that class?”
Jeff raises an eyebrow. “Uh, since I need to pass the class so I can get out of here in four years so I can go back to being a lawyer. Duh.”
Annie rolls her eyes but turns her attention to Abed, who’s talking about some Cougar Town viewing party he’s having in his dorm room later. Jeff lets out a sigh of relief and plays with his phone until it’s time to go to class.
That night, Jeff answers his mother’s phone call, mostly out of guilt but also out of a masochistic sense of reliving that morning’s conversation with Pierce. She thanks him for the flowers, says that she’ll be going home on Thursday morning, and talks a little about how nice the nurses are to her.
“Also, the weirdest thing happened to me tonight,” she says. “I don’t know if you saw, but there was an article in the Post about my accident. Well, he must have seen it, because an old friend I knew from when I was younger came to see me tonight.”
Jeff’s heart starts racing and he grunts in acknowledgement.
“And he saw the flowers you sent on my bedside table and I had mentioned they were from my son, Jeff. And then he said he had a friend at school named Jeff. He goes to community college, you know, to keep his mind sharp. But of course, I told him you were a lawyer but then he said his friend Jeff used to be a lawyer.”
He recognizes that tone: the tone she adopted and perfected when he was little and she knew he did something wrong but wanted him sweat, to suffer, to admit.
“Ma, look, I gotta tell you-”
“And wouldn’t you know. I have a picture of you on my cell phone-it’s from a couple years ago but still-and I showed it to him and do you know what he said?”
“Really, I should have-”
“Apparently my Jeff is his Jeff! He said you’re his classmate at Greendale. That you’re in his study group and you’re his best friend! Imagine that!”
Jeff breathes a ragged breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s just that, well, the whole thing was kind of humiliating and I didn’t...”
“Uh huh,” she says. “So glad I heard it from a man I once... knew instead of from my own son. Is this because of your dad? Because he walked out? Are you acting out?”
“Ma, adults don’t act out unless they’re girls in their twenties with self-esteem issues. I’m thirty-five years old.”
Something clicks in Jeff’s mind. Numbers and years and dates and something.
“Wait. Wait. I know about you and Pierce. You didn’t... sleep with him right before you married Dad, did you?”
She clucks her tongue. “Jeffrey Winger, that is none of your business.”
On the day they met, on the first day of study group, before there technically was a study group, Pierce told Jeff “You remind me of me at your age.” It didn’t mean anything back then for a lot of reasons, mostly because even within a few short hours of meeting him, Jeff knew the last thing he wanted to be in his life was Pierce Hawthorne.
But now that memory rises like bile in the back of his throat and he can only plead with his mother. “Ma, just... come on. Please tell me that there is a zero chance of Pierce being my biological father.”
It’s too bad Abed isn’t here, he thinks. It’s crazy for him to be thinking of Abed right now, crazy for him to be thinking of anything else except growing old to be crotchety and racist and lonely and sad. But Abed would pull out a movie reference-Star Wars, probably-and would talk about how sloppy this is, how it makes both no sense and all the sense in the world, how these things don’t happen in real life.
“Jeff. Don’t talk about things you don’t understand. I mean, does it even really matter now?”
Sometimes Jeff forgets what William Winger looks like. His face is mainly a shadow in Jeff’s memory, a loud voice yelling, the smell of Jack Daniels. Jeff doesn’t have pictures of him, doesn’t know if they share the same eyes or jaw or nose.
He’s thought about it, a million times, what it would be like to run into his father again. To admonish him for abandoning him and his mother, for giving him this stupid complex, for causing any little struggle he’s encountered in his life. But never in his life has he thought about the fact that maybe William Winger left because he actually wasn’t ever anybody’s father.
Jeff manages to make it to the bathroom before he throws up. But just barely.
IV.
Jeff dropped $3,000 on a suit last night. It’s stupid, really, because not only will he no longer have the income to pay for it, but this is probably the last opportunity he’ll have to wear it for quite a while. His wardrobe-something he’s cultivated and taken pride in-will no longer be overflowing with expensive Italian jeans and cashmere sweaters.
He might as well just give up and start wearing fucking track pants.
But he woke up extra early this morning, despite only actually sleeping for maybe three hours at most, and relished in the feeling of stepping into each pant leg, of buttoning up the crisp white shirt, of the weight of the jacket over his shoulders. This suit grounds Jeff, reminds him that he was someone once. This is just a setback, a speed bump. He’s a man who wears $3,000 suits. He won’t be down for long.
But then he pulls up to the courthouse. It’s a place he feels most comfortable, most like himself. He’s made quite a living and quite a reputation for himself here. He’s never been on the other side, though, a judge judging him, a mentally written useless defense. It’s all surreal, like a dream, like he’ll wake up tomorrow morning at his desk he fell asleep on while reviewing case notes and he’ll cash his paycheck and buy a new Lexus.
Jeff’s never been more thankful that he paid off his Lexus in his entire life.
He turns off the ignition and with a deep breath, walks up the courthouse steps. He’s done this millions of times, briefcase and maybe a cup of coffee in hand. He doesn’t bother with the briefcase today, and he’s too jumpy for coffee, but he catches his reflection in the glass of the front doors and his suit, his talisman, is a good enough replacement for both of them.
There are lawyers rushing around the lobby, real, actual lawyers. Lawyers who grew up honest and true and went to college and did everything right. Even if now these lawyers are crooked and bad, at one time they were good. Jeff doesn’t think he was ever good.
The hearing doesn’t last long; there’s nothing to say. Jeff doesn’t mount a defense. The degree is fake, the first time he set foot on a college campus was last week when he registered for classes at Greendale, disbarred, the end. The judge-whose chambers Jeff has been in, whose desk drawer scotch Jeff has drank-has the courtesy to give Jeff a pitiful look and Jeff breaks his gaze to stare at the polished and shiny wood floor.
On the way out of the courtroom, Jeff collides with a court stenographer, one he’s seen a million times. She has an uncovered cup of coffee in one hand and with a sickening splash, the coffee spills over the sides. Most of it falls on her and her white shirt and before Jeff can avert his eyes he sees the lace of her bra.
“Oh, I’m so-” he starts.
She sighs heavily and waves her free hand. “No, it’s not your fault. It’s mine.” Smoothing excess coffee off her shirt, she walks off, muttering to herself and that’s when Jeff notices it.
A stain, on his right pant leg, on his brand new suit, the last part of him that is something and not nothing. The coffee is soaking into the fibers, he can see it, and Jeff has the horrible urge to punch something, to break something, to drink until he can no longer see.
“All right, Winger, you’re up,” a gruff voice from behind Jeff says.
He spins around to find two police officers flanking a man in handcuffs. The man is tall and thin, with graying hair and sunken features. He is familiar in an awful way. His eyes are Jeff’s eyes.
He is wearing a crumpled suit: brown pants and jacket, wrinkled beyond hope, and a yellowing button-down shirt. His tie is the color of rust.
He catches Jeff’s eye as he walks past and it takes a minute, but he gets there. Jeff is frozen in place. His feet are stuck to his shoes and his shoes have rooted themselves to the courthouse floor, buried deep into the foundation, anchoring him to this place that has meant so much to him.
“Jeffrey,” William Winger says. His hands are in cuffs. “Hey, can we stop for a second right here? That’s my son.”
The police officers look at each other. “One minute,” the one with the gruff voice says.
He approaches Jeff with a sheepish expression on his face. “You in trouble, too, kid?”
Jeff’s mouth is dry. “Lawyer,” he says. His voice sounds like sandpaper. “Was a lawyer. I’ve, uh, been disbarred.”
William lets out a sadistic chuckle. “So you fucked up. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?”
“I faked my degree,” Jeff says flatly. “Defrauded the state bar.” He doesn’t know why he’s saying this. He doesn’t owe his father anything, surely not an explanation. And definitely not a description of how terrible he is, how his apple never even fell, got caught up in the branches and leaves and is stuck, dangling over the edge.
“Embezzlement. That’s what I’m here for. You’re not so different from your old man, Jeff. Remember that.”
Jeff shakes his head and begins to protest but the police officers grab William by the shoulders.
“Time’s up, Winger.”
The shorter officer nods at Jeff and William shoots him a sadistic smile.
“See you around, kid.”
The courtroom doors close and the lobby is quiet. Jeff looks down at the coffee stain on his suit. He could take it to the dry cleaner, the one on Fourth that gets all the stains out of everything and that presses his work shirts so neatly and perfectly. But he won’t, probably.
It’s sunny outside. Jeff thinks it should be raining.