Son of a Preacher Man

by Karen M Cox

  Dan shook his head. “Not for me, big guy.”

  “But it’s Friday night! It’s the Irish way, Danny Boy!” Richard spoke in a fake Irish brogue that had the whole table laughing.

  “And the German way!” John lifted his own glass.

  “Long live Coca-Cola!” Ed chimed in with his Georgia drawl, and I felt my lips twitch into a smile.

  They were all good eggs, those guys, but Richard and I in particular became good friends that first year. He was different from most of my fellow students, and different from my church friends like Charlie. At college, I knew straight-laced squares, like myself, and the party guys, whom I avoided, but Richard was the first guy I’d met who played as hard as he worked. He was from a large family in New Orleans, the second of seven boys, and from his description, he and his brothers were as wild as young bucks. His father was, in Richard’s words, “a tough old sonofabitch” who helped build the Higgins boats used at Normandy. Apparently, Mr. Donovan considered his son’s choice of profession, obstetrics, a “ninnified” way to make a living. That was a pretty stark contrast to my own father’s reverence for medicine. Dad always considered it a calling, a life’s mission.

  Sometimes Richard lived it up a bit too much in my opinion, but he studied hard too. He was easygoing and didn’t seem to take life too seriously. At first, I wondered if he had the dedication it took to study medicine, but every night I was up cramming for a test, he was right beside me with a cuppa joe instead of a beer mug. He had a quick wit and a way with people that carried him a long way—with professors, with other students, and also with the ladies. He went through about half a dozen of them that year: a pretty one, a smart one, a giggly one, an older one. I don’t know how he had time for girls. My spare time was next to nothing, and if he talked me into double dating with him, we always dropped my date off by ten o’clock. I went home to my books long before he did.

  Although I was busy, I didn’t spend all my time in the library or at my studio apartment. If there was some school-related social event, I’d find a date and go—always with a different girl, however. I never let any of them think there was more to it than a friendly outing. Growing up, I thought being the preacher’s son put me under a microscope, but being a medical student was even worse. I made sure I escaped any female entanglements. And scowling—I became very practiced at that. I certainly didn’t dare smile at any of them. To be honest, I wasn’t too interested in dating anyway, and the frenetic pace of first-year med school made it easy to put Lizzie Quinlan out of my mind. Those first few months, I stayed angry. As the year wore on though, that anger began to lose its intensity, and curiosity began to take root. I actually began to contemplate writing to her—just to see how she was doing, of course.

  Funny enough, it was one of those double dates Richard set up that planted the seed of curiosity about Lizzie’s new life. The girl he’d fixed me up with was, according to him, perfect for me.

  “She’s just as serious as you are. You should get along like tea and honey, and if you don’t, you can talk all about how the world should be but isn’t.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Jo Anne. She’s majoring in sociology over at Derby College.”

  “I don’t know. Those Derby College girls are a different sort.”

  “Intellectual. Not really my taste, but you two should hit it off. You’re just alike.” He grinned. “But she’s a helluva lot prettier.”

  He wasn’t wrong about that. Jo Anne was a pretty girl. She had sandy brown hair and eyes that were like ice, the lightest shade of gray I’d ever seen. She was short, about Lizzie’s height but not as curvy. And she smelled nice—like soap, not that cloying, heavy perfume that some girls wore.

  We went to dinner and then to see a movie that Richard found hilarious, I decided was silly, and Jo Anne thought demonstrated everything that was wrong with society. Richard’s date had no comment. She just watched in disappointment as Richard and Jo Anne argued themselves into a tug of war that became more and more laden with sexual tension as the night went on. At one point, I thought he was going to grab her and “plant one on her,” as Lizzie used to say.

  “She was an idiot,” Jo Anne insisted, referring to the female lead. “And he was the worst sort of misogynist.”

  I made a mental note to look up misogynist when I got home that night.

  “Of course, he is—he’s a caricature of the lecherous businessman. It’s a comedy, Jo Anne. It pokes fun at life.”

  “I think that film made some dramatic points—the emptiness of the American corporate ladder, suicide attempts, adultery.”

  Richard rolled his eyes. “Okay, okay, so it isn’t comedy—it’s satire. Happy now?”

  “The purpose of satire is to criticize, not just ridicule,” she replied, lifting her soda glass to her lips. For all her tiny, delicate-looking stature, she sure had a powerhouse of opinions.

  “Adultery is immoral,” I chimed in.

  “It so happens I agree with you, but why do you say that?” she asked.

  “It’s one of the Big Ten.”

  “Big Ten?”

  “Commandments.”

  Richard suddenly seemed to remember I was there. He grinned. “Bill is a P.K.”

  “P.K.?” his date asked.

  “Preacher’s Kid.”

  “Ohhh.” That seemed to make a lot of things fall into place for Jo Anne.

  “Adultery breaks a promise. When people start believing they can break their promises, all of society is in trouble.”

  “I don’t think Moses had the corporate ladder in mind when he wrote down the Ten Commandments.”

  “‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Exodus 5:3. I think that applies to—what did you call it? The emptiness of the American corporate ladder?”

  Richard smiled. “He does that Bible-quoting thing a lot, Jo Anne. I hope it doesn’t annoy you.”

  “Oh, I’m not bothered at all.”

  She did look annoyed though. Whether it was because I brought up the Bible while we were on a date, or interrupted her discussion with Richard, or just because I didn’t agree with her, I didn’t know.

  “See, I think the schmuck on the corporate ladder is the idiot,” Richard volunteered.

  “You would,” Jo Anne replied, but she smiled—and they were at it again.

  At the end of the evening, I walked her to her door. A biting, February wind stirred the dry, cracked leaves around our feet and seemed to draw the blood from my bones.

  “Thank you for dinner,” she said politely.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And the movie. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it more.”

  “I think you and Richard enjoyed it enough for all of us.”

  Before we were compelled to give the obligatory goodnight kiss that neither of us wanted, I stuck out my hand. “It was good to meet you.”

  She let out a sigh of relief and shook my hand. “You too.”

  “Better get inside—it’s cold out here. Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight, Bill.” She cast a quick look over my shoulder at the running car, where Richard and his date had their heads together, taking advantage of a private moment. Then she hurried into the house.

  I walked back to the car and tapped on the driver’s side window.

  “No goodnight kiss, Daddy-o?” Richard asked.

  “No, not tonight. Hey, I think I’ll walk from here. It’s only a few blocks to my place.”

  “Nah, Bill, get in. It’s too cold to walk.”

  “I think I’d like a walk. It’ll clear my head. I like that at the end of the day.”

  “You sure?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay then. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “’Night.”

  He drove off, the red taillights disappearing around the corner.

  It was cold, but I needed some fresh air, and Richard would be happier to continue his date without me.

  For the third time in as man
y weeks, my thoughts turned to Lizzie. I missed her smiles, her kisses, her hand in mine, but the evening’s lively discussion made me realize I missed our talks and her teasing just as much. And then, a piece of my anger blew away with the frigid wind. I wondered what Lizzie was doing in Hyden. Did she like school? Was she curled up with a botany book, learning about herbs and medicines? I imagined her sitting on a gently worn sofa in a dormitory common room or lying on a narrow bed under a comfortable quilt—and reading, always reading. I smiled at the thought.

  When I got back to my apartment, I made myself a cup of instant coffee and sat down to my own books.

  Instead of concentrating on anatomy, however, my mind returned to Orchard Hill, to Lizzie, and to the last time I’d seen her. I regretted so many things about that day.

  Mrs. Gardener was right. It was unfortunate that Lizzie told me her story in a letter, because I never got to tell her that she wasn’t ruined in my eyes. My anger had taken a turn over the last six months, and with some distance, it took a more proper direction. I didn’t blame Lizzie, but I still hated Seth Corbett, regardless of whether or not he was dead.

  Without thinking too much about it, I took out some paper and wrote:

  Dear Lizzie,

  It seems trite to ask how you are doing, as if nothing happened between us the last time we saw each other. But I honestly want to know. How are you?

  I’ve thought about you so many times these last months. Little things will remind me of you. A couple of weeks ago, I ran across that old biology book we shared. Over the weekend, I saw feverfew on a hillside on the outskirts of town. Tonight, it was a spirited discussion between my date and Richard. You’ll have to meet Richard sometime. And the date? Well…

  And here I flattered myself that she would care…

  Don’t worry about her. She’s a nice enough girl, but we didn’t have too much to talk about.

  This may surprise you, but I still have the letter you wrote. I must have read it a dozen times at least. In it, you asked if I was disgusted with you. Well, I’m not. I never was. I was angry though, and embarrassed, and I said things I wish I could take back. You once said you weren’t a mistreated innocent, but I disagree. I know you take responsibility for your own decisions, and I’ve always admired that. But in that situation, you made a mistake, a very human mistake, to trust someone you shouldn’t have. People have been making those kinds of mistakes since the dawn of man, and they will continue to make them until the sun sets for good.

  Thinking of Charlie’s advice about forgiveness, I added:

  I think it’s time you forgive yourself for that mistake.

  But enough about that. I want to talk about now.

  There is one thing I know for sure. You were right about medical school taking all my time. I study every weeknight with a group of guys from my classes and spend most of my weekends reading. It was a wise decision not to get married last summer. There. You were right. I can admit it.

  I went on and on for about three pages, telling her all about school, and the guys in my study group, and my dad. I asked her about her school and her family. About Jeannie and Charlie. About Doc Miller.

  When I finished, I hunted down an envelope, thinking maybe I’d send it. But when I searched through my book box for her address, the piece of paper Mrs. Gardener gave me was missing. I looked in every book I had without success. Remembering her smug smile in the back of her dad’s car made me suspect that Marlene had taken the paper out of my book the day I moved out. Should I write to Mrs. G and get the school address? Maybe losing the paper was a sign to move on with my life.

  Besides, I thought as some of the hurt resurfaced, I had offered my heart to Lizzie Quinlan, and she turned me down and left without a single word. I’d had no indication that she’d changed her mind about me, so why should I have to be the one to make the big gesture?

  I went round and round about it that night, and finally, I tucked the letter in my sock drawer. I’d think about whether or not to seek out Lizzie’s address. Maybe it was the right thing to do, but then again, almost six months had passed, and everything was different now for both us. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

  The end of that first year of medical school was approaching fast. Unlike the summers when I was in college, I had classes to attend over the summer months, so I wouldn’t be traveling with my father for the first time in many years. I’d done well in med school after I found my study group—or as Richard called it, “The Studly Group.”

  Richard sure had an interesting way of looking at things, and the name of our group was only one example. Actually, I don’t know where he got the idea to call us that, because, Richard excepted, it wasn’t an accurate description of the rest of us at all.

  We were sitting in the library on a rainy afternoon, cramming for final exams during that May of 1960. Richard came strolling into the library, medical journal in hand.

  “Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day!” he sang, tossing the paper on the table. “Everything’s going my way.

  “Look,” he said, pointing to the article title on the front.

  I read aloud: “FDA approves oral contraceptive pill.” Then I squirmed and blushed. I was trying to stop my automatic reaction to subjects like that—after all, I was going to be a physician, and I needed not to get embarrassed so easily—but old habits were hard to break.

  “Big deal.” Tony turned back to his book.

  “It is a huge deal,” Richard insisted, tapping the paper to emphasize his point. “That little pill’s going to change everything—for the ladies, sure, but for us too. Imagine, all those college co-eds no longer afraid of getting knocked up.” He shot us all a wicked grin. “It’s a guy’s dream come true.”

  We were used to his irreverent comments, so we ignored that last part. Tony answered him, eyes still on his book. “College girls won’t even be able to get them. I read that doctors will only give them to married women.”

  Richard turned on Tony, amusement all over his face. “Yeah, right. But in a few years, we’ll be the doctors, and we can give them to anybody who asks.” Then his smile dimmed. “I happen to know for a fact that the college girls will ask for them.”

  I was sure Jo Anne had told him that. After we had our double date in February, he cornered me at the next study group, wanting to know if I minded him asking her out, and they’d been dating on and off ever since. It was a tumultuous relationship. They argued as much as they made up. Richard confided once that he liked the making up enough that the arguments were worth the trouble. Jo Anne was leaving after graduation to get her master’s degree in social work, and though he tried to pretend that it didn’t bother him, I think on some level, it did.

  He closed the journal and left it on the table. “And if married women get them, single girls should get them too. Maybe if they aren’t getting pregnant to begin with, they aren’t going into back alleys to get rid of the consequences.”

  We all sobered at that. We’d heard the stories from the university hospital. Just last month, an undergraduate died from complications of one of those illegal procedures. It was those kinds of stories that made me realize I was in the real world where real tragedies happened all the time. Becoming cognizant of both the glorious and depraved sides of humanity had altered me in ways I’d only begun to understand. I’d never realized how sheltered I was under the protective wings of my father and Dr. Miller, but over the last year, it had become quite clear to me.

  Richard spoke up again. “I’m telling you guys, it’s all going to be different for our generation, in the way we practice medicine and in our own lives. Imagine, after a guy and a gal get circled, they can decide how many kids they want, and when—or if they want them at all.”

  “You make it sound like birth control didn’t exist before now,” John said.

  “But it’s never been as easy and reliable as this pill will be.”

  “The church is against it,” Tony added. Like Richard
, he was Catholic.

  “God should decide when a child comes into the world,” I heard myself saying.

  Richard rounded on me next. “Tell that to the woman who’s getting ready to have her seventh child when she can only afford to feed five. You ever seen that, Davenport?”

  “Actually, I have,” I said, remembering the Quinlans.

  “Well, so have I, all over Louisiana, and I think people should decide for themselves how many ankle-biters they can manage.”

  “Perhaps,” I conceded. He had a point. I remembered how Lizzie felt about her father giving her mother baby after baby. Yet I knew Lizzie was crazy about Lily and Baby Susie too.

  “All I know is, when I’m in my ob-gyn practice in a few years, I’ll be doling out these prescriptions like they were candy. You wait and see. And on the whole, I think it’ll be a shining example of medical progress.”

  “Science marches forward,” John replied, gathering up his books and papers.

  “Yeah.” Tony followed suit. “We’re meeting Ed at the cafeteria—you guys coming?”

  “I’m in,” Richard said.

  “I’ll be along in a few minutes.” I turned back to my book. “I want to finish this section.”

  “Suit yourself.” Richard set the journal in front of me, his index finger drilling a hole over the article title. He pointed at me and the journal, as if to say, “Read it, P.K.” and followed the other two out.

  Richard’s idealistic vision of this brave new world made possible by science and technology reminded me of what my father said about me glorifying the Old West. Dad would always shake his head, smiling at my naiveté, and say:

  “But here’s the thing, Billy Ray. People thought the West was the land of milk and honey, and sometimes it was, but it was a hard, brutal place back then. You don’t read about that in your Western novels, and you don’t often hear about the people who didn’t make it through, even in your history books.”