“It looks as though the early 21st century is exactly when humans’ need for tribal belonging started the Fall."

Russ Higgins let out a satisfied breath as he leaned back in his chair and took his blue cloth napkin from his lap. His weary eyes and begrudging smile rested on his wife Janine across the white tablecloth as she finished her last green bean.

“Ahhh, not bad for a salad,” Russ joked, making sure Janine remembered his choice. Janine gave him a pleased look, still chewing.

Across the restaurant, Russ heard a television above the bar with a news anchor speaking. “Here we are, the closest humans have ever been to extinction, yet most people are still concerned with petty differences….”

“Oh, whatever,” Russ mumbled. He turned away to see a waitress presenting a bottle of red wine to a young couple holding hands across their table. The wait staff bustled around them, wiping off tables and filling drinks. Russ was pleased with himself—he hadn’t left off the appetizers to keep the check down even though the latest round of Janine’s medical bills had nearly bankrupted them. His plump ring finger—banded in a tarnished gold band, which he had considered selling more than once—tapped the table with an anxious twitch.

“I’m going to the bathroom, hun.” Russ pushed his chair out and gave his wife a soft touch on the shoulder before walking away.

In the bathroom, Russ hummed to himself as he washed his hands. To his left was a tall, thin man with an untucked shirt, which Russ noticed with a brief sideways glance.

“Russ, Russ Higgins?” The man said, looking into the mirror to see Russ’s face. “It’s Phil. Phil Barkley from soccer boosters—Maddy’s dad.”

Russ immediately remembered Phil as the dad who had forgotten the team card for the coach at the end-of-season dinner last year. “Oh, yeah, of course. How are you?”

“Date night. No complaints. This place is great, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” Russ looked down at his hands, hoping Phil would take the hint.

Phil finished washing a moment later, then found that the paper towel dispenser immediately to his left was empty. He gave a bit of a shrug and walked around to grab a paper towel on Russ’s side of the counter—the last one. Russ hesitated momentarily, wondering if he should say something, but turned his head down.

“Good to see you, Russ. Enjoy your night!” Phil threw the paper towel away and walked out.

“Yeah, you too,” Russ mumbled, staring at the empty paper towel dispenser to his right.

Russ returned to the table, still shaking the water off his hands.

“Everything alright, Rusty?” Janine said with an inquisitive look.

“You aren’t going to believe what just happened in the bathroom.”

Russ sat down and told Janine about the paper towel theft. His stout arms stayed crossed while he talked, but his right foot bounced under the table in his decade-old Bostonians worn down to the cushion. His dark ocean eyes—deep-set and beady sitting in his loose, leathery skin the color of dark sand—implored Janine to understand why it was so rude, but she didn’t get it.

“That is strange,” she replied with a quick laugh.

Just after the story ended, Russ heard the voice from the bathroom call his name from a table behind them.

“Russ, long time no see.” Phil laughed at his joke. “This is my wife, Jessica.” Phil leaned forward, eager to introduce his wife and talk further.

“Nice to see you both.”

“What did you have? I love the filet!”

“I’m a ribeye man myself, but it’s all great. Tonight, I went with salad,” Russ said, patting his protruding stomach lightly with a polite, self-deprecating smile. Phil looked at Janine to try and elicit an introduction, but before the conversation could continue, a server walked over with a large circular tray.

“Ahem, ma’am, you ordered the Tiramisu? And for you, sir, the brownie fudge Sunday?” Phil nodded and smiled at the server.

Russ looked at the desserts placed on Phil’s table with thinly veiled disgust. He had just read an article about how sweets lead to other indulgences like drugs and sex. The report also explained why sweets manufacturers were responsible for skyrocketing medical costs.
“Dessert, eh?” Russ said.

“Best part of the meal,” Phil said. “I wouldn’t leave here without it. Have you had their brownie Sunday?”

“I don’t care much for sweets. I like savory things.”

“Well, your loss.” Phil took a slow bite, savoring the mix of chocolate and caramel heaped up in front of him.

“I’ll leave you to it. Great seeing you both,” Russ said, friendly but distant. He turned back around in his chair, raising his eyebrows to Janine in a look that said, “Can you believe some people?” Russ signed the check, and they walked out quickly to avoid further conversation.

“I don’t know about that Phil guy,” Russ said on the drive home. He turned away from the road for a split second to gauge Janine’s reaction, but she didn’t move.

“What, the guy sitting behind us? He seemed harmless. He’s a soccer dad, Russ, just like you.”

“First, he takes the last paper towel in the bathroom—my paper towel. Then, did you see his dessert? Did you know the owners of those companies—ice cream, candy, raw sugar—all of them are the money behind the major hospitals? That’s why we’ll never be out of debt from your heart surgery. Plus, I don’t care what anyone says: cavemen didn’t go out and kill a God-damned brownie Sunday—it’s not natural!”

“I wouldn’t mind a little indulgence once in a while.” Janine chuckled as she looked out her window at the local hardware store.

“Christ, Janine! You know what our world would be like if everyone thought that way,” Russ said, looking at his wife reproachfully.

“OK, sure, honey,” Janine said without much thought.

Their Ford Explorer was tidy. A small drawer by the cupholders held a wallet, pens, and a few slips of paper. A classic rock station played a Steely Dan hit in the background while Janine hummed along. Russ pulled up at a light across from a movie theater where a group of teenagers were eating ice cream and chasing each other around—the boys showing off for the girls.

“You see,” Russ mumbled, looking toward the teenagers. “Someone is going to end up pregnant.”

“Just get us home, Rusty, I’m tired.”

After arriving home, Russ trudged upstairs without saying a word, turned on cable news, and changed into his red plaid pajamas. After brushing his teeth in front of the television, he got in bed, where Janine kissed him on the cheek and then put the pillow over her ears to muffle the sound. Russ watched well into the night, alternating between the incessant commentary of the television and a game on his phone called Dot Commander. Around one o’clock, a segment came on about sweets. Russ put his phone down to listen.

“You know what I bet?” The tan pundit with a buffed head of hair said, pointing into the camera. “Actually, you know what I know? Sweets are a crime. I talked to a very prominent doctor, and he told me that sweets are manufactured with this chemical, Gliox-17, that makes people lose control. That same chemical has been linked to Cancer, Parkinson’s, Heart Disease—every major disease! Oh, and by the way, who do you think profits when you go to the hospital? You got it—all the big sweets manufacturers. Anyone who eats sweets is a threat to America. If you see someone eating something sweet, confront them. Tell them they’re worthless; tell them they're stupid.”

Russ recalled a moment just after Janine’s bypass surgery when the nurse came in and gave her a scoop of sherbet. “Exactly what I was saying! Janine, are you hearing this?” Russ nudged his sleeping wife with his elbow, but she didn’t wake up.

The following week, Russ was consumed by the need to read, watch, and listen to everything he could on the dangers of sweets. While driving into the office, he listened to a podcast called Sweetless America. Then, he spent his mornings scrolling through forums instead of managing his project plans. He took extended lunch breaks to sit and scroll through videos on his phone, most of which came from a pundit who went by the handle Truthsayer who demanded deserters give themselves up to the police or leave America.

Russ was eating potato chips in the break room of his office, scrolling through Truthsayer’s posts, when Trevor, a young, eager guy from Finance, approached Russ from behind.

“Everything alright, big guy.” Trevor lightly put his hand on Russ’s shoulder as he sat beside him.

“Yeah, of course. I’m fine.” Russ responded, still scrolling.

“I’m sure you’ll get that McCarrell project back on track.”

“It’s not that.” Russ looked up at Trevor and was jolted back into reality. He suddenly couldn’t remember what he had been scrolling through for the last hour. He stretched back to put his phone in his pocket with an agitated grimace. “You aren’t going to believe what happened to me last week?”

Trevor began eating a bag of Doritos. “What’s that?”

“I saw this guy, a dad, from Katie’s soccer team. I’ve met him a few times before. Anyway, I’m out with Janine, and he’s sitting next to us at Ruben’s Steakhouse. We’re chatting, and the waiter comes over, and he delivers this enormous brownie Sunday. I mean, this thing was the size of your head.”

Trevor shook his head with his mouth open slightly to whistle. “You’re kidding?”

Russ knew from his incredulous look that he agreed with him. “Nope.” He said, pounding the table.

“I honestly can’t believe they still have stuff like that on the menu.”

Russ shook his head in outrage. The top button on his grey polo shirt was incorrectly done, making him look frazzled, and adding an element of volatile cantankerousness to his speech. “I’ve been reading about the big five—hidden meetings, secret messages. This one article said they’ve been testing Gliox-17 on kids to see how they can get them hooked early to begin paying medical bills. This is what our country has come to.”

“I know,” Trevor said regretfully.

“I wish I could turn this guy in. I mean, how can you read something like that and not want to kill these people? If I see this guy Phil again, I’m going to say something. I don’t want Katie associating with a family like that.”

“I’m with you, buddy. The world’s gone crazy.”

Several days after his conversation with Trevor, Russ found himself staring at the soft drinks in his local grocery store with a suspicious squint. He was paralyzed, trying to decide if he should purchase the next item on Janine's list—a pack of Lipton’s sweet tea. A younger woman who was laughing and writing a text message pushed by Russ, and he peeked into her cart to see whose side she was on. Annoyed with Janine and unsure of what to do, Russ pulled out his phone. Five minutes later, he was in the same aisle watching a video of a man in a trucker hat running over a crate of Chips Ahoy.

Russ entered a long checkout line and noticed Phil, two customers ahead of him. He nodded a quick hello, and Phil waved back with a smile over the two other people waiting—a mom with a kid asking for candy and a guy wearing a sweaty workout shirt buying a package of ground meat. Russ watched closely as Phil put his items on the conveyor belt—A bag of tortilla chips, Tide, a few apples, cereal, and two bags of Oreos. Russ chuckled when he saw Phil put the cookies on the conveyor belt. “Of course.”

The clerk had droopy eyes and wore a beaded necklace over his green, store-issued polo with one too many buttons undone. Phil whistled the tune to Jeopardy while the clerk scanned the items.

“Actually, those were buy one get one,” Phil interrupted.

“Oh, really?” The clerk said, with his eyebrows raised, trying to decide what he should do based on the new information. “OK, let me call someone.”

“C’mon!” Russ threw his hands up and looked at the mom in front of him. “Can you believe this?!” The mom looked back at Russ, confused.

“Sorry about this,” Phil said, looking at Russ. “I just figured I might as well save a couple of bucks. Shouldn’t be more than a minute.” Phil drummed the tiny platform meant for writing checks while they waited for a manager to come to the checkout line.

The kid behind Phil asked for candy. “Snickers? Tic Tacs? Sour Patch Kids,” the kid said as he pulled the different candies off the shelf.

“No, No, and No,” the mom said. Russ was becoming red, trying to keep silent. A minute ticked away.

“Can’t you just buy the damned cookies?” Russ yelled, peeking above the mom to make sure he locked eyes with Phil. Phil didn’t respond, but Russ kept looking at him, “It’s not like you fucking need 'em anyway. I’m surprised you aren’t stealing them.”

Phil stepped back out of line to look at Russ. “Is there some sort of problem, Russ?”

“I think you know what the problem is!” Russ stared back at Phil with both hands, now gripping the handle of his cart as if it were going to blast off. “The problem is those damned sweets. They’re ruining this country.”

“What’s wrong with Oreos? I can buy Oreos if I want. You don’t have any right…”

“The hell you can.” Russ became apoplectic, waving his hand at Phil. “I bet

you’re just going bring 'em back to some sex party—whips, chains, candle wax dripping on your nipples—while the rest of us can’t afford our prescriptions.”

Phil laughed, trying to figure out if Russ was serious, and then saw that the clerk was ready to finish his checkout. “I don’t need to take this,” Phil said, and he turned away from Russ to finish.

“Sure, go ahead. Ignore it. When we’re all homeless because we can’t afford a two-night hospital stay, we’ll know who to blame.” The child stared at Russ with an open mouth, and Phil hurried out of the store.

The drive home provided ample time for Russ’s resentment to bubble over. At each stop light, he picked up his phone, expecting some interesting notification from the anti-Desserters group he had joined. His right foot anxiously tapped the gas after each stop light. His head shook, and he talked to himself like he was scolding a child. Janine was chopping tomatoes when he burst through the front door.

“Janine, no more sweets in this house,” Russ barked.

“OK honey, whatever you say,” Janine said.

“I mean it. No funny business,” Russ said with lowered eyes to tell her he was serious. Then he went upstairs to be alone with his phone in the hour before dinner.

The annual Elmwood High sports auction was usually something Russ looked forward to, but this year, he walked in without stopping to chat with any of his fellow parents. Everyone, everywhere, was complicit as far as he was concerned—walking around utterly oblivious to the fact that they were destroying the American dream and all civil order—and it was time to act. Maybe he’d run for mayor to put an end to all this. That’s all people understand anyway; they won’t listen until they’re forced to!

“As soon as you let your guard down, they offer you the cake,” he said to Janine, walking through the parking lot. “Stay away from the desert table.”

They took a seat in the back after showing up just as the fundraising auction was about to start. Russ straightened his pleated khakis, checked his pocket for his phone, pushed his charcoal hair back, and then sat upright in his folding chair with one hand on each side of his lap. He moved his eyes to the right and saw Phil sucking on something in the aisle about twenty feet away—probably one of those mints from the entrance booth. A jazz version of Thriller played as the crowd around Russ and Janine chatted. A man in a blue and green checkered shirt sitting in front of him was peeling the paper off a cupcake, so Russ inched his chair back. The auctioneer adjusted the microphone at the center of the stage and prepared to start.

“Alright, everyone. Who’s ready to raise some money for our Hornets!” The auctioneer was the basketball coach, a thirty-year-old man who wore futuristic Nikes with blue chinos and spoke in his version of a game show host’s voice. “Our first item is a set of four tickets for a Capitals game. Who doesn’t love escaping the cold by sitting around a huge block of ice? Am I right?” The crowd chuckled. The host took an envelope off the table next to him and waved it to excite the crowd.

“I’m sick of this guy already,” Russ whispered to Janine.

“You usually love Mr. Callahan,” Janine said, confused and upset by Russ’s mood.

The bidding began for the Elmwood High Sports Boosters. There were baseball tickets, nights out at La Colombe, guided river trips on kayaks, and framed paintings from local artists. Mr. Callahan told bad jokes between items. More than once, Janine put her hand on Russ’s thigh to try to get him to smile, but his face was frozen in an impatient grimace like dough left out too long. Instead of watching the event, Russ moved his eyes from parent to parent with a look of scowling disdain, and he kept jerking his head back to the section of the gym where Phil stood.

“OK, next up, a gift certificate to Cora’s Bakery here in Elmwood. Oh, they make the best sweet treats. Those raspberry Danish, I would sell a kidney for one of those. This guy in the front knows what I’m talking about.”

Russ had no interest in Raspberry Danish, tarts, or macarons, but his bushy eyebrows perked up, and he uncrossed his arms to lean forward.

“OK, a hundred dollars, do I hear a hundred?”

Phil raised his hand with a smile, then turned his head to his wife and quietly made a joke.

“Two hundred,” Russ said quickly, lifting himself off the chair to ensure his hand was visible.

“What are you doing, Rusty? You don’t even like this stuff?”

“Not now, Janine!” Russ’s loud whisper could be heard across several rows. Janine put her hand on her forehead to hide her face.

“I’ve got two hundred. How about two-fifty?”

“Two-fifty,” Phil said from the aisle. He looked at Russ and gave a slight wave to provoke him.

Russ stood up suddenly, waiting for the next call.

“Alright, two-fifty, do I hear three hundred?”

“Four hundred!” Russ yelled.

“Alright, we’ve got a showdown at the OK Corral. Remember, gentlemen, Cora’s isn’t filled with expensive jewelry. It’s a baked goods shop. We have four hundred, do we have four-fifty?”

“A thousand,” Phil said, looking at Russ in the eyes with a challenging stare.

Russ pushed his way through the open space in his row, mumbling profanity along the way. The people standing in the aisle moved aside like high-school students do before a fight.

“What’s your problem?” Russ said after coming within an inch of Phil’s face. A younger dad wearing a red baseball hat and a green fleece pullover took out his phone and started recording.

“My problem? You’re the one telling me what I can and can’t eat—telling people that I’m a scourge of the community! That they shouldn’t associate with people like me!”

“I’m not the one with the dirty habit. I knew you were trouble that night at Ruben’s.” Russ gave Phil a push, causing him to fumble back. Phil didn’t know how to react, but quickly, his face changed into a strange amalgam of outrage and nerves. The school principal, an older woman with jet-black hair and a way of always looking like she was monitoring something, rushed onto the stage to take the microphone. But before she could speak, Phil charged Russ, causing him to fall backward into one of the concessions tables. While Russ was down, Phil gave him a wild, flailing hook and caught his right cheek. Russ sprung back and tried to hit Phil in the face but only managed to connect with his shoulder. A chorus of “ooohs” floated up from the crowd. Phil swung again, this time hitting Russ in the ribs. Russ tried to grab him and roll them over, but it was too late. By the time Russ had brought Phil around, two other parents were there to pull the two men off each other. Spit was dripping down Phil’s face, and blood from Russ’s lips. The principal was too shocked to say anything, realizing that maybe it wasn’t the kids she was there to educate.

Russ went for a walk every Saturday morning to clear his head. Although he wouldn’t have admitted it this week, he really needed it—he hadn’t slept well since the fight due to his sore ribs, his loose incisor, and the fact that Janine made him promise to stay off his phone at night. So, without waking anyone up, he put on his New Balance sneakers and a comfortable windbreaker early on Saturday and left the house. It was overcast and quiet as he walked down his sidewalk, past the dying Petunias and Zinnias Janine insisted on planting when she got home from the hospital (great use of $300!). The Fall air had just moved in, so there was a slight chill. Russ wiggled his tooth to make sure it was still there. Mrs. Jacoby was outside on her porch with her Cairn Terrier, staring at him. “What are you looking at, you old bag?” Russ said as he gave a slight wave.

He left his neighborhood and walked into town past the large Magnolia at Chase Park. It was early enough so that the stoplights were all still green. There was laughter from the coffee shop on the corner from runners and early-morning cyclists, which made Russ want to walk over and pour a boiling cup into someone’s lap. Of course, Janine didn’t understand. How could she? She didn’t even know that their savings, and Katie’s small college fund, was gone and soon they’d have to sell—that he was waiting until after pay day each month to take care of the mortgage. It must be nice not to worry about it, but she’s been through so much. If she would only read some of the stuff he gave her, she’d know that people like Phil are responsible! They have to be stopped. Fuck them, Fuck him. I wish I’d broken a bottle over his head.

It was then, while Russ was shaking his head and mumbling to himself with his hands clenched in the pockets of his windbreaker, that he noticed Phil about a half mile ahead of him on the opposite side of the park. Phil walked with his hands in his pockets, whistling.

“Why is this guy always whistling?” Russ said.

Russ squinted to make sure it was him, stopping where he was to peer across the park. Why hadn’t he ever seen him on one of his Saturday walks before? Was Phil trying to ruin this part of his life, too? Russ let Phil walk ahead, hoping he would turn right down Central after the park instead of staying straight, which was his route. The way Phil looked at the crows in the trees and noticed the leaves that had changed colors made Russ furious. The serenity of the morning suddenly felt like dread.

Russ fell further back, so he was out of Phil’s peripheral vision. He heard a loud guitar sound coming from behind him on Maple. It was thrashing hair metal, Whitesnake, maybe? The sound came from a faded red truck with its windows down and a confederate flag bandana hanging from the rearview at the park's far side. The driver, a red-haired man with a scraggly beard, smoked a cigarette while his left arm hung out the window, waiting for the light to change. The engine revved, and the truck inched into the intersection. Laughs and jeers came from the front seat, a lunatic cackle from a person driving home for the night.

The light turned, and the truck blasted off the line. It swerved across lanes, making wave outlines with its tires. Russ looked closer, unable to turn his attention away. The truck turned right, then left, and the body of the truck leaned. The driver hollered and bounced in the front seat like he was on a rollercoaster. Just ahead, Phil was crossing the street—one block before Central. Russ could tell the driver was blind to Phil since the truck’s tires showed no signs of slowing. The truck sped up. A moment later, Phil yelled, “Hey, stop!” The truck swerved, but it was too late. The driver hit Phil, and Russ saw Phil’s lifeless, lanky body fly to the curb.

The man turned down his music, opened his door, and stepped down. He looked around to see if anyone had seen it happen. Russ hid behind a Dogwood tree that lined the edge of the park. The man knelt over to look at what he had done, still smoking his cigarette, trying to decide what to do, and staring at Phil like he was deciding on a rack of ribs. A moment later, with an apathetic “huh” and a toss of his cigarette butt into the park grass, the man turned around and walked quickly back to his door to drive off.

Russ looked around and walked quickly across the park. He came within ten feet of Phil and could see blood coming from his head, spilling out over the crosswalk. His legs bent backward in a way he thought was only used for chalk outlines. A low but constant groan was coming from Phil’s mouth. Phil tried to lift himself on one of his arms but fell back down immediately. Should Russ call someone? Someone else would come along and know what to do, right? Phil would probably survive, which means he would get taught a lesson! Somebody had to pay for all the hard-working people that had been made poor by the Phils of the world. Even if he died, so what? People die all the time. Russ stood there, frozen, peering over the sidewalk at Phil. Then he looked around—there wasn’t anyone in earshot. A crow swooped down from one of the power lines and hopped over. Russ’s heart pounded, and Phil’s groaning was getting louder, more painful. And just after Russ inched closer, he turned around suddenly and kept walking.

***

“OK, let’s stop it,” A voice said into a speaker in the wall.

“Astonishing, isn’t it?” A man in a white lab coat said to his partner. He stared at a monitor frozen on the image of Russ walking away from Phil just outside the park.

“Yes, truly remarkable. Another subject that walked away!”

“It looks as though the early 21st century is exactly when humans’ need for tribal belonging started the Fall. The subjects are completely unable to see past their loyalties—whether it’s to a country or a food group.”

“It’s promising that we found the origin, but what next?”

“Let’s rework the simulation and recruit a new sample. We need to look at a different part of the brain to understand what is wiping out people’s foresight so completely. At this point, anything’s possible.”