When Jason arrived at the principal’s office, he was greeted by the new secretary, a round woman with the body of a frozen Thanksgiving turkey. The school was still trying to hire a second secretary, but their only hope lay in someone coming in from out of town who was blind to the situation. Jason entered the principal’s office, where Ms. Ylarregui sat at a table with Mr. and Mrs. Asumendi. Stacy’s mother had a puffy face and plenty of makeup, topped by hair that was done up a little too tightly, as though she were too timid to go for the full B-52, with a foot-high cylinder of hair on her head. Her husband looked young, and was trying for the hipster look, with Birkenstocks and a soul patch under his lower lip.

The incident with their daughter had taken place less than an hour ago, and the parents were already here. This was a classic case of helicopter parenting, with the kid immediately texting mom and dad at the tiniest imagined slight, and the parents dropping everything to rush in to save their baby. It made Jason want to join his grandfather and live without a cellphone, which he saw as the bane of human existence, if only he could figure out a way to do it, and wouldn’t suffer social media withdrawal.

Mrs. Asumendi immediately launched into her complaint. “Stacy says you made her throw her milkshake away, but told her she couldn’t throw it away in class.”

“She was hanging around outside the door with a group of friends before class. The policy is for students to enter class before the bell rings, and get started on the bellwork,” Jason replied. “Then she tried to enter the room with a milkshake, which she knows isn’t allowed.”

“Before class?” the father asked. “Don’t they have until the bell rings?”

“According to my classroom policy,” Jason explained, “students must be in their seats when the bell rings, or they’re marked tardy. It’s based on the Harry Wong in-service, which every new teacher in the district attends.”

Jason looked at Ms. Ylarregui as well. In these parent-teacher conferences, a teacher never knew who the principal was going to side with, especially in a small town where everybody knew each other, and was either a neighbor or a relative. By citing the Harry Wong training, which was district policy, he hoped that it gave him support, and that the new principal would have to back him.

“By why throw it away outside?” the mother shot back.

“Because I don’t want students dumping food inside my classroom—it smells. And students shouldn’t be bringing food to my classroom in the first place.” If Jason had his way, he’d get rid of the wastebasket in his room entirely. “The question is, why does Stacy have a milkshake between sixth and seventh periods? She knows that no food or drinks are allowed in class. That’s school policy to prevent damage to the carpet.”

“She says that you told her something like ‘yo no importo.’” The mom looked at Jason accusingly.

“No me importa,” her husband interjected. “It’s Spanish for ‘I don’t care.’”

Jason looked at the man, and wondered if he grew up in a Spanish-speaking home. Jason offered another translation. “Or, ‘it doesn’t matter to me.’”

It sounded bad, Jason telling a student he didn’t care, and Jason felt the advantage shifting over to the parents. “Look, I’ve got 33 students in that class, which is really crowded. It’s the noisiest, rowdiest class I have all day, and every day I struggle to get everybody settled down and get the class started. It doesn’t help that I have a group of students hanging out in the hallway as the bell’s about to ring.”

Only now did Jason realize that the subject had changed. How did Stacy get a milkshake between sixth and seventh period? There are only four minutes between classes, which is not enough time to go to the 7-11 next to the school, and the campus was closed, meaning that students were not allowed to go off campus except at lunch. Did Stacy’s parents, or perhaps her mom, who often substituted at the school, supply their daughter with the milkshake?

From that point, Jason forgot where else the conference went, but eventually the mom was satisfied that she’d made her point and protected her daughter, and the two parents left.

After they were gone, Jason turned to the principal. “I don’t get it. I had her brother Jeremy, who was the greatest student ever, and we got along just fine. I think that shows what kind of teacher I am, and that I’m not out to persecute students.”

The Asumendis’ son Jeremy was one of the brightest students to ever grace the school, and a model of good behavior. He eventually went on to earn the Bill Gates Scholarship, which was a rare honor only given to a small number of high school graduates each year. The scholarship gave each awardee a free ride to any school in the United States, all expenses paid. Jeremy was the kind of student that teachers dreamed of.

Ms. Ylarregui stood up and walked Jason to the door. The lumpen woman resembled globs of lead stacked on top of each other. “I had Stacy in the middle school, and I soon realized that Stacy is nothing like her brother Jeremy. The two are completely different, and mom is quick to jump in like a tiger if she thinks Stacy is being mistreated.”

The principal smiled, and to Jason she seemed like a normal, rational woman, unlike her insane defense of Amiri’s cheating. In fact, earlier in the week Jason told Lynn in the lunch room about the cheating incident.

“Oh yeah,” the attractive teacher replied. “I caught Amiri cheating and she accused me of the same thing, like I have some kind of axe to grind. And I was sensing this vibe like it’s because he’s black, and I’m racist.”

“That’s crazy,” Jason replied, “but honestly, I’m glad to hear that. I was actually doubting my own sanity there for a moment, like, was Amiri really cheating, or was I just imagining things?”

Jason waved good-bye to the principal and secretary as he headed out to his car. In that one brief moment when the principal confided in Jason, she had shown herself to be a compassionate, understanding woman, unlike the other times when she harangued staff, bulldozed her way through gruff one-sided conversations, and rejected offers of help. If she could be as sympathetic as that moment all the time, she would be successful as a principal.

Jason had survived the parent-teacher conference, but he hated having to go through the experience, which felt like a Viet Cong interrogation. Why couldn’t this sort of conflict just slide off his back, like it did for other teachers? He felt miserable all the way home, and had trouble relaxing until he fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

“Hello, Jane, this is Jason.” He held a black rotary phone, and if the game were historically accurate, he would have had to ask the operator to patch him into Jane’s line on the other side of the city.

“Oh, yes, Jason,” she replied, her voice brimming with enthusiasm.

It’s like Jason could hear a connection, a vital link between the two of them in her voice. “What do you say we go out on the town tonight?”

“I would love that,” Jane replied.

“Great. I’ll be by at nine.” Jason hung up and went to the men’s dorm to take a shower before he napped for a bit.

Jason woke up at eight, feeling refreshed, and got dressed, changing into his best suit. He slipped his palm sap into his jacket pocket, deciding that it was the least conspicuous of his weapons. Jason shaved and checked his appearance in the bathroom mirror, then left the room and used the key to throw the new deadlock bolt that he’d installed, which gave him a greater feeling of peace.

He walked down the hallway and smiled at Sister Jamie when he saw her in the dining room wiping tables, but she quickly looked down as though focused on her work. Jason waved to the pastor as he strode to the double doors at the head of the stairs, but he suddenly stopped. He was undecided, but finally felt compelled to turn around and approach the pastor.

“Pastor Roy,” Jason asked, “do you have a spare moment?”

The big man, who was leafing through his Bible behind the lectern, looked up. “Sure, brother. What is it?”

Jason approached him, and after looking around him to see that no one was listening in, spoke in a confidential tone. “That man who died last night…I planned to kill him. I didn’t actually kill him, though—he died when he ran into traffic, but I intended to kill him. I’d already made the decision. Is that wrong?”

Jason looked at the pastor, whose bald head glistened, and he thought that it was crazy that he felt pangs of conscience in a video game.

“Were you acting out of anger?” the pastor asked.

Jason shook his head. “No.”

“Revenge?”

“No.” Jason shook his head again and rubbed his hands together. “I thought that the guy was a risk, that he’d come back and hurt you, the sisters, or the men here, and if that happened, I’d be responsible. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“Killing man is a serious act,” the pastor explained as he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his beaded brow. “Ultimately, God judges, and it’s certainly nothing you can do lightly, because it’s irreversible—you can’t take it back. But if you acted out of concern for others, out of love for others, then that is the purest of motives. Jesus said, ‘Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend.’ That just might mean taking a murder rap if necessary to protect others. Pray about it, brother. I really can’t give you the answer.”

“Thanks,” Jason said as the pastor patted him on the back. “That helps.”

Jason realized that he wasn’t bothered in the least by the mayor’s henchman that he and Frank killed by pitching him over the stairway, but why was that? The man he planned to kill last night (Was “kill” just a soft word for “murder”?) was a bum, a homeless drunk like the men in the mission. Was Jason capable of killing one of the men at the shelter? What if one of the men at the Healing Hands Rescue Mission became erratic and threatening?

As Jason headed to the stairs he saw Sisters Belinda and Jamie watching from the kitchen. He smiled cheerily and waved good-bye, then took the subway to the Jane Goodall Institute.

From the Institute, the two of them took a taxi to a non-descript building, which had no exterior lights, then walked down an alleyway where a door was lit by a light with a cone-shaped shade. Following a knock, a section of the door like a mail slot snapped open. “Rico sent me,” Jason told the man through the peephole. The door opened and the two were allowed to enter, before the door was shut again and a heavy bolt drawn across the door into the jamb.

The two of them looked around at the art deco ballroom, with neon lights and jazz music playing a fast, upbeat tune. In violation of the “law,” which was illegally imposed by the mayor’s emergency powers decree, no one in the club wore masks, there was no regard for social distancing, and the liquor flowed. What had gone wrong with this great city when a scene like this, of citizens out having fun, was illegal on multiple fronts?

Jane wore a royal blue dress that complimented her sapphire eyes, with several strands of pearls over it. She didn’t wear the short, wavy flapper hairstyle, but Jason loved her shoulder-length hair the way it was, which highlighted her slender beauty. He took her hand and escorted her to a table, were he pulled out a chair for her and helped seat her.

“What would the two of you care for this evening?” the vested waiter asked. He held a pewter tray, and spun several napkins down onto the table in front of them.

“I’ll have a gin Rickey,” Jason said, and then looked at Jane expectantly.

“I’d like a pink gin,” Jane told the waiter.

“I’ll be right back,” the waiter said.

“Pink gin.” Jason knew that the drink was made with cold gin, and several drops of Angostura bitters to give it a pink color. “That’s an unusual drink.”

“It’s a British affectation,’ Jane told him. “My father was in the army, and that was his favorite.”

When their drinks arrived, Jason paid the waiter, including a tip. The waiter and Jane both thanked him, and the two of them tasted their drinks. Apparently New York city hadn’t reached the bathtub gin phase yet, because the gin in his drink tasted good. In a gin Rickey, which consists of gin, lime, and soda water, there is little to mask the harshness of bad gin. As for Jane’s drink, pink gin is pretty much just cold, flavored gin, and not a sweet or watered-down lady’s drink. Jane sipped her drink, which was served in a martini glass.

“Thanks for inviting me out tonight.” Jane smiled at him, but then her face turned serious. “I’m going back to Africa in several days. This is like a last hurrah.”

“I hate to see you go,” Jason told her, “but I know it’s your life work.”

It was disappointing for Jason to have her leave, just as he felt the two of them were starting to grow close, but Jason decided he wasn’t going to mope. Unlike his stressful, frustrating job at school, here he had the chance to unwind, to live without limits, and that’s exactly what he proposed to do. He was going to make tonight the most memorable night of Jane Goodall’s life.

The next jazz tune sounded horrible, like an organ grinder playing, and Jason knew who was sitting beside him before he even turned to look.

The capuchin monkey smiled his comically wide grin, exposing teeth and eyes bulging like glass doorknobs. “Sorry for the interruption. Don’t worry, we’re in freeze frame. I thought you might want to know that the police, led by the RAPE squad, are raiding the place right now. They’ll be here in thirty seconds.”

Jason looked at Jane, who sat immobile, like a statue of Venus. 30 seconds. What in the hell was he going to do?