ODD NUMBERS

by M. Grace Bernardin

  “You look a little overheated,” the man of God said, and Vicky realized she was indeed drenched in sweat. “Can I get you a damp cloth or some water?”

  “No, I’m fine. My wings just melted a little, that’s all.”

  “Oh?”

  “Got a little too close to the sun.”

  “Ah! Sounds like Icarus.”

  “It’s what I was dreaming about. The first part of the dream was great. I was flying. Did you ever fly in your dreams, Reverend?”

  “It’s been a long time, but yes, I believe I have once or twice. You can have some pretty strange dreams when you’re going through what you’ve been through,” the man of God said. There was something about the way he said it that made Vicky think he might know what he was talking about. He looked familiar but she couldn’t place him.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “You were admitted three days ago. Do you remember anything?”

  “Yeah, I remember some. But, my Lord, three days! Time flies when you’re having DT’s.” The man of God said nothing in response but simply smiled enigmatically.

  “So how bad was I? Did I have to be restrained? Did I have a seizure? Was I puking up pea soup like some crazy possessed woman? Is that why they called you in? Are you the exorcist?” Again he said nothing, just smiled in that strange perplexing way as if he had some secret. “Hell, I don’t know why I’m asking you. You’re just the Reverend. You wouldn’t know the gory medical details, would ya?”

  “Mind if I sit down?” he asked, pulling up a chair as he spoke.

  “Go ahead, hunker down.”

  “As a matter of fact I do know a few of the gory medical details. I was in here to see you before, you know.”

  “You were?”

  “You called for me. You said you had to get right with God and you asked for someone to pray with you.”

  “Huh! Don’t remember that one. Okay, so tell me the gory details.”

  “You didn’t have a seizure and you didn’t have to be restrained. They managed to stave off the worst of the withdrawal with the medication. The big trouble was getting the medication right. They gave you the wrong kind and got you a little overmedicated at first.”

  “Yeah, I know. My liver ain’t metabolizing the Librium. You had to switch me over to… something or other.”

  “Apparently you do remember some things.”

  “I remember some crazy doctor rushing in here like his hair was on fire. He looked like his hair was on fire anyhow. It was stickin’ straight up on top of his head. Kinda like a cross between Billy Idol and Einstein.”

  “Dr. Anton,” the Reverend said looking amused. “He’s a little high strung but he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Three days, huh? Just call me Rip Van flipping Winkle. Was I asleep most of the time?”

  “Not really. Just after that first round of Librium you were out pretty cold for a few hours. You were up again after a while, a little nervous and shaky; some mild hallucinations.”

  “Mild hallucinations? What could be mild about seeing something that ain’t there? That’s sounds pretty serious to me. So what did I see?”

  “The angel of death. That’s what prompted you to send for me.”

  “The angel of death, huh? And that was mild? Shit, I’d hate to see one of my severe hallucinations.”

  “Well, I say mild,” he said with a slightly amused chuckle, “because you knew you were hallucinating. The whole time you knew where you were and what was going on around you.”

  “Angel of death,” Vicky said pensively. “Hmm, probably just one of them mean ass nurses. Some of them could pass for the angel of death.”

  “I have to agree,” he said and for the first time he laughed beyond just a polite little chuckle.

  “Did I take that crazy zero to seven test for drunks again?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Did I do better?”

  “I think you had a lower score each time if that’s what you mean.”

  “Each time? I only remember the first time. I was a wreck. I had this really sweet nurse. She let me pace the room. She wiped sweat, snot, and puke off my face with a cool rag. That was the only time I felt a little better–was when she put that rag on my forehead and the back of my neck and talked to me in that soft low voice. She said she’d be back. I don’t remember her coming back. I think I’d remember.” Vicky felt a little wistful. She wanted to find out who the nurse was, but then with a sigh she thought it really didn’t matter. She was only a nurse. She was only doing her job. She did it well, but it was just a job.

  “So did you pray with me while the angel of death was in here hoverin’ over my bed?” Vicky asked thinking how familiar this man of God seemed to her. There was something about the way he moved his head when he spoke and how he tended to smile more out of the left corner of his mouth. His voice triggered some memory in her. This was someone she recognized from long ago. She was recalling the same person only younger.

  “Yes, I prayed with you.”

  “Maybe that’s why you look familiar. I wish I could remember.”

  “Your memory will come back.”

  “You seem to know a lot about this kind of thing. You’re like me. You’re a drunk too, aren’t ya?” she found herself saying, not really stopping to think how he might react to the impertinence of such a question. Somehow she just knew.

  “Yes, I am,” he replied. “I’ve been sober eighteen years.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t I tell you? I’m Father Mudd, the chaplain here at Mercy Hospital.”

  Vicky’s memory riveted back some twenty something years ago to the time when, out of sheer ignorance and curiosity, she stumbled into the darkened confessional booth in the back of Holy Spirit Church where she’d gone to pray at a time of desperate searching in her life. And there was a much younger Father Mudd to whom she poured out her heart and soul and confessed with copious tears every terrible thing she’d ever done. She recalled how she smelled whiskey on his breath and how he seemed disheartened and unbelieving, almost bitter. She had more faith in what he was doing than he did. Yet he spoke of forgiveness and she begged him to say the words of forgiveness–what was it called–absolution? He told her he couldn’t do that because she wasn’t Catholic. She knelt at his feet and wept until finally he acquiesced. She remembered how he placed his hands on her head and pronounced her free of all that guilt. He forgave her for all the terrible things she’d ever done, though none of them were against him personally. He forgave her–and it was like God forgiving her. God forgave her through this tired, depressed, whiskey guzzling man. She felt forgiven when she left there, and somehow it gave her the strength and resolve to start anew, to change for a time.

  Of course it didn’t last. It never did. But she remembered. She asked him to baptize her that strange, cold, late afternoon around Christmas. He asked her to come back and talk to him about it some more. She waited too long she guessed because when she did return he was gone. Shipped off to rehab she was told.

  “Father Mudd. Of course! I never forget a face.”

  “Have we met before?”

  “You don’t remember me, do ya? But then why should you? It was a long time ago; long around ’83, ’84.”

  Vicky told him the story, including the part about asking him to baptize her. She saw no evidence of realization dawning upon him as she recounted the details of their previous meeting. She frequently stopped and said, “Remember?” But he’d just apologize and shake his head. He appeared to be trying, almost straining to recall, like someone carefully going through the files in a filing cabinet again and again.

  “You still don’t remember me, do ya?”

  “Please don’t take it personally, Vicky. Sometimes I believe God protects the people I minister to by helping me forget their confessions.”

  “Yeah, well, mine wasn’t your run of the mill confession. You know, you’d been drinking at the ti
me. I know ‘cause I smelled it on you. Maybe you were more shit-faced than you seemed. We drunks are good at that you know; looking sober when we ain’t. Maybe you had a blackout.”

  “Maybe,” was all he said shrugging his shoulders.

  Vicky was hurt. She understood why he wouldn’t recognize her after all those years. The alcohol had caused so much damage and disfigurement to her appearance. It had aged her well beyond her years. Still she thought certainly he would remember once she refreshed his memory. After all, how often does a priest have a non-Catholic stumble into confession and proceed to tell their life story?

  “Maybe you do remember only you’re thinking I couldn’t possibly be the same person you’re recalling. You’re remembering some tall long legged red head with big hazel eyes and high cheekbones and a full set of teeth in her mouth instead of holes here and there. You’re remembering someone young and strong; someone feisty with plenty of fight still left in her.”

  As Vicky spoke these word she realized she was sober–not drunk and not in the throes of withdrawal, or at least the worst of the withdrawal had subsided. She thought it interesting because she never felt good anymore; hadn’t felt truly good in years. She didn’t drink to feel good anymore. She drank simply not to feel at all. She couldn’t remember what normal felt like. The last time she felt normal was for a brief period of about two and a half weeks last winter, following the time of her last hospitalization and withdrawal.

  She wasn’t impressed with normal. Everything was too real, too solid, too concrete, and too unmovable. Perhaps seeing something that wasn’t actually there like the angel of death or the grey cyclone dust monster in the corner was actually preferable to all this reality. Time moved too slowly in the normal world, and every feeling and sensation experienced seemed heavy, crushing and oppressive. In this normal sober world it seemed that death was the only freedom from this long dark tunnel that one had to trudge through endlessly with never any light on the other side. In a word it all seemed hopeless. She turned her head away from Father Mudd as she felt the tears brimming in her eyes.

  “I know that person is still in there; that tall red head ballsy enough to walk into a confession and pour out her guts to a total stranger,” Father Mudd said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “So what if that person is still in there? She couldn’t have been that great. You didn’t even remember her. So what the hell are you trying to say, anyway?”

  “I’m saying you’ve got more fight in you than you know.”

  “Spare me the pep talk, reverend. I’m tired of fighting. That’s why I did what I did.”

  “I don’t buy it. You throw yourself in front of a lane of fast moving traffic at rush hour on the highway and you walk away still conscious with only minor injuries. Lucky for you the driver of that first car you caused to wreck saw you hop up on the guard rail and position yourself for a swan dive. He had quick enough reflexes to slam on the brakes, but still, you manage to collide with his right front bumper, get tossed several feet into the air, and land on concrete. You know what I see in that act?”

  “I don’t really care.”

  “I see lots of drama. Plenty of desperation and crying out for help. Plenty of futility, but underneath it all, some tiny little spark of hope. Underneath it all, a will to live.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know what you did after you landed on that hard concrete? You got up. You actually stood up on your own and tried to walk away. This is not someone who has no fight left in them. This is not some poor pitiful victim of life’s tragic mishaps. This is someone strong and tough. This is a survivor.”

  “Who you calling a victim? I ain’t no victim.”

  “I know you’re not but you like to play the part. It gives you an excuse to drink. It gives you an excuse to run from reality and escape life’s challenges. It gives you an excuse to keep yourself down, to hate yourself and kill yourself. Though you’ve chosen the slow painful method of suicide. Poor me, poor me…

  “Pour me another drink.” Vicky and Father Mudd said this last line in unison.

  “I heard it all before so spare me the sobriety pep talk,” Vicky said.

  “You know, victimhood doesn’t suit you,” said Father Mudd. A nurse entered the room on the heels of his words.

  “Hello,” the nurse said, an all too cheerful and out of sync voice erupting awkwardly on this all too real world. “Just need to get your vitals,” she said pulling out her equipment from the deep pocket of the colorful jacket that nurses wear nowadays. This one was particularly annoying. It had smiley stick people holding colorful balloons.

  “Hello, Father Mudd. Happy Thanksgiving,” she said running the digital thermometer across Vicky’s forehead for a reading. The nurse listened to Vicky’s chest, took her pulse and blood pressure while exchanging pleasantries with Father Mudd.

  “So how are things?” Father Mudd asked the nurse as he motioned to Vicky. Vicky found that these nurses never told you what your vitals were unless you asked. And Vicky didn’t ask because she didn’t care.

  “Everything looks good,” the nurse said addressing Father Mudd and not her. If they did give you any information at all it was usually very vague and general, chock full of words like “fine” or “not so good”.

  “How’s her blood pressure?”

  “Good. Climbing back up there–ninety-five over sixty-five.” The nurse left the room.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Vicky said sarcastically as the nurse made her exit. “So it’s Thanksgiving today?” she said to Father Mudd. “You gonna preach me a sermon about all I have to be thankful for?”

  “No, I’m through preaching.”

  “Excuse the poor pitiful victim while she has a good cry,” Vicky said and rolled onto her side, away from Father Mudd and toward the wall. She sobbed and sobbed, unable to stop it, for what seemed like a long time. She thought for sure Father Mudd would leave but she knew he was still in the room. After a while he lightly touched her shoulder and, without a word, handed her some tissues. She wiped her face and got enough control of her emotions to roll back over and face him. He said nothing but only gave her a sympathetic look, the one she’d seen so often from social workers, counselors, and do-gooder volunteers in soup kitchen and shelters.

  “Do they teach you that look in priest school? Do they set you in front of mirrors and say ‘okay, boys, on the count of three knit your eyebrows together and pretend you’re about to cry right along with your client?’ ”

  She didn’t know why but she really didn’t want Father Mudd to leave and she thought maybe he sensed this. She just didn’t want to be left alone. And so he didn’t leave. He simply sat there waiting for her to retaliate with more sarcasm; waiting for her to give him an opening; waiting for some enlightenment; waiting for something, God knows what and Father Mudd probably didn’t know himself.

  “Why are you still here?” Vicky asked.

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  “I really don’t care what you do.”

  “Perhaps it’s better if I leave and come back later.”

  He put his hands on his thighs and pushed himself up from his seat with a tired sigh. Vicky noticed his hands. They looked less aged than his face. They looked the same as she remembered–strong, vital; almost rugged. They were steadier now than they had been.

  “Father, you was right when you said I still got fight left in me.” The priest stopped his trek toward the door and slowly turned around. He resumed his seat in the chair next to Vicky’s bed.

  “Go on,” he prompted her.

  “I got plenty of fight left. But I’m afraid…” Fr. Mudd said nothing. He had a way with silence; a way that broke through the awkwardness that two virtual strangers feel when alone in a room together with nothing to say. Vicky found his silence comforting. This was something about him that hadn’t changed. Even with whiskey on his breath his silence was restful, in no hurry, waiting patiently for the other to share. He was o
f that rare breed of humans known as a good listener.

  “I’m afraid to let all that fight out because it hurts people.”

  “Hurts people?”

  “It destroys everything it touches,” Vicky was sobbing again. “Opportunities, friendship, love, homes, even lives. I told you about this before when I went to confession but you don’t remember so I might as well tell you again. I got in a fight with my Dad when I was seventeen, stormed outta the house, got in my car and drove. I was pissed off, reckless, going too fast. I hit a little boy on a bike and killed him. That’s how I got this,” she said touching the scar on her cheek. “Now do you remember me?”

  “Yes. Now I do,” Father Mudd said in his cool way, not gasping in startled recognition the way some people might have, but nonetheless, Vicky could see the final realization of who she was in his eyes.

  “And you know what, Reverend? I got off Scot free. No one could prove I was speeding; or so I was told. My grandma had some pull in that little town. No charges were pressed.”

  “But you were forgiven.”

  “I thought I was–for a while. But then it kept coming back to me that I hadn’t paid the price for it.”

  “So that’s why you’re killing yourself?”

  Vicky heard his words though he said them in a low voice and a reflective sort of tone with his eyes fixed on some spot in mid-air and not on her, as if he was speaking more to himself.

  “Maybe the price has already been paid,” Father Mudd said looking at her this time.

  “By who?”

  “Whoever it is that keeps that spark of hope alive inside you and keeps fighting for you when you say you have no fight left.”

  “My Higher Power?” Vicky said as facetiously as she knew how.

  “Maybe?”

  “Yeah, right. I’ve heard it before, rev.”

  “Vicky, you asked me once to baptize you. Now I’m asking you. Do you want to be baptized?”

  Vicky hesitated. For a moment she wondered if she should. And then she thought what difference would it make? Her mind quickly ran through all the people in her life she’d known who’d been baptized and were horrible human beings. It was just another one of her grandmother’s superstitions.