Probation

by Tom Mendicino

  “No. Home. My home.”

  “You mean with Alice?”

  “Yes.”

  “What would you do differently if you could go home to Alice tonight?”

  Everything. I would be devoted, attentive, thoughtful, gentle, caring, committed, selfless, kind, affectionate…romantic…passionate…faithful. Am I being overly sentimental, insincere? Is that why I can’t bring myself to actually utter this declaration in actual spoken words? Am I afraid that my trusted counselor will call my bluff?

  “Were you happy living in Alice’s house?”

  “Our house,” I correct him.

  “Sorry.”

  “Sure, I was happy. I wasn’t unhappy. Remember, I didn’t leave. It wasn’t my choice.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  Of course not. The Green Goblin put a gun to my head and, finger on the trigger, marched me out of the house. He threatened to splatter my brains across the tile walls of that damn rest stop if I didn’t drop to my knees and take that stranger’s huge cock in my mouth. The King of Unpainted Furniture had set me up, paid the goddamn gremlin for the hit job, and, mission accomplished, booted me out on my ass. I had nothing to do with it.

  “Do you think Alice was happy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “She never said she was unhappy.”

  “Has she tried to contact you?”

  “She can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Curtis won’t let her.”

  “How could he stop her?”

  God, this priest can be obtuse. Curtis keeps the Green Goblin on retainer, a hired gun, muscle to enforce his will. Alice has been kidnapped, held against her will, chained in the basement, bound and gagged, threatened with starvation and dehydration if she even entertains the thought of attempting to contact me.

  “You don’t understand,” I say.

  “Do you?”

  Maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I’m not ready to accept the possibility that Alice, my wife, doesn’t want to see or hear from me, not now, not just yet, maybe not ever.

  “Have you considered the possibility she’s trying to move on?” he asks.

  Move on, go forward, proceed, progress, advance…

  Why not…go back, retreat?

  No, no way, that sounds too much like a military maneuver in the face of defeat.

  How about…repatriate?

  Yes! Repatriate, reclaim, restore, rebuild.

  Has he considered the possibility that she’s just called a time-out to consider her negotiating strategy, to finesse the conditions of the truce and draft the terms of the treaty?

  I’ll sign it. Unconditional surrender. I’ll be the best goddamn fucking husband in history. As devoted as Winston to his Clementine, Ronnie to his Nancy, Edward to his Wallis.

  One more chance. That’s all I’m asking for, Alice. I’ll be perfect, just wait and see.

  “I would imagine she needs some distance to move on and she’s trying to help you do the same.”

  “Isn’t that your fucking job?” I say, sounding more hostile than I feel, suspecting he’s placating me, sugarcoating the obvious fact that my wife hates me by deceiving me into thinking that her motives are altruistic, Saint Alice of the Little Flowers. Not that I need her help, or his for that matter, to move on. A raging success, a whopping triumph, a touchdown, a home run, no, a grand slam home run—how should I describe my remarkable achievements in the arts and sciences of relationships as I’ve scoured the lower forty-eight of Our Great Nation for Shelton/Murray over the past few months?

  DATELINE: BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

  He takes me by the hand and leads me to a king-sized mattress and box spring. Unfolded laundry is tossed everywhere, underwear on stacks of yellowing newspaper, unpaired socks in open dresser drawers. His desktop is cluttered with broken pencils, twisted paper clips, dry felt tips of every imaginable hue, junk mail circulars, cheap plastic pens chewed nearly beyond recognition, invitations for credit cards with 6% interest and forgotten utility bills. Sneakers, wingtips, loafers, sandals—all creased by sweat and worn at the heel—collect dust at the foot of the bed. The nightstand’s well stocked with a supply of lubricants and poppers and a pile of loose condoms he scooped up by the handful on his way out of the baths. The sheets are stained by his old enthusiasms. He makes love like he’s starved, as if it’s his first time, or his last.

  Then he cums and shuts down in a flash.

  “Should I leave?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says, a mocking smile on his lips, “I’m a real bitch in the morning.”

  I break a shoelace, racing against the stopwatch.

  “Got everything?” he asks. “Wallet? Gloves?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good.”

  Meaning get out.

  “I have no idea where I am.”

  “Just ask the doorman to turn on the cab light. You’ll be back at your hotel in fifteen minutes.”

  And then I’m out on the street, shivering in the cold New England night, waiting for a taxi that never comes.

  DATELINE: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  The bar is packed, shoulder to shoulder, but the bodies miraculously part, allowing him to rocket by, swept along by the winds whistling off the whitecaps of Lake Michigan. Just as he’s about to disappear into the sea of flannel and black lambswool, he snaps to attention. He’s picked up a scent. He grabs my elbow, peers into my face and says “hey.” “Hey,” I say back. He does a Popeye two step, mimicking my deep voice: “Hey.”

  “I can’t believe this,” he laughs. “You’re too young for me.”

  We determine that I am sixteen, almost seventeen, years older than him.

  “See,” he says. “You’re way too young for me.”

  “Are you wooing me, Rocket Boy?” I ask.

  “Do you want to be wooed?”

  More than he can ever know, for as long as he’s been on this earth.

  Four, five, is it six?, beers later, he tells me what he is seeking. Someone he enjoys being around, someone sweet and sincere. Sweet and sincere…Here! I know he’s been waiting for me. Why don’t I wrap him in my arms, squeeze the air out of him, fold him in a neat square, tuck him in my pocket, and carry him away?

  Our romance ends as abruptly as it started. He announces he has to work in the morning. It’s late. The alarm will go off soon enough. It’s only nine o’clock, I protest. I need a lot of sleep, he says. I walk him to his bus stop, saying nothing as he climbs the steps and drops his coins. I see his paw clearing a circle on the frosty window. He presses his face against the glass, searching me out. I step back so he can’t see me. The bus rumbles down the street, stealing a piece of me I can never retrieve. The exhaust pipe spits a black chunk of ice at me. It splatters on the street, missing my feet.

  DATELINE: SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

  He opens his eyes and snuggles against me, getting as close as he possibly can. He’s purring, as coy as an irresistible and yielding French sex kitten. But cooing and mewing can’t eroticize his prissy turned-up nose and thin lips and the pinched squint that makes him look as if he’s sniffing a perpetual fart. It’s embarrassing, this performance, like being forced to watch a middle-aged maiden aunt do a striptease.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” he gurgles, his pale eyelashes crusted with sleep.

  He goes down on me, sucking like a Hoover, trying to get me hard one last time.

  “Mmmmm,” he says, straddling my hips, his pencil stub of a cock at full attention. His little titties jiggle on his soft pink chest, reminding me of the piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh.

  “In the mood to get fucked?” I ask.

  “Always,” he murmurs.

  Good. I want to drop this load quickly and get it over with.

  “…but it’s quarter to eight and I need to shower,” he snaps as he jumps off the bed, leaving Little Andy at full salute and pointing at the ceiling.

  What I’d give to wring his scrawny n
eck, wipe that smug little smirk off his face, shove him through the window, see him splatter on the sidewalk twenty-six floors below.

  “She’s not coming back, Andy, and you know it.”

  “I know that. She hates me.”

  “I doubt that. But you’ve made it impossible. You realize it, don’t you.”

  “I made a mistake.”

  “You think it’s as simple as that? You made a mistake? One mistake? Which of the many was the fatal one?”

  The one where I let her fall in love with me.

  The one where I believed her love would save me.

  Goddamn. Son of a bitch. Motherfuck.

  The damn priest’s got me crying.

  Not really crying. More like “a little misty,” red-eyed, maybe a little tight in the throat. Not sobbing, not snot-nosed and dripping. I do not need a tissue from the fucking box he’s shoved in my face.

  “You know, Andy, it’s not a sin to be lonely.”

  “Who says I’m lonely? I knew we’d get to sin eventually,” I say, trying to inject a little levity into this pathetic scene, anything to avoid to the bleak future I see in the crystal ball.

  “Well then, it’s not a sign of weakness.”

  “I suppose I better get used to being alone.”

  “Why?”

  I snort, not believing I’m paying someone who is stupid enough to ask this question.

  “You can have another relationship,” he says.

  “I’ll just wait for Prince Charming to arrive and sweep me off my feet.”

  “Doesn’t work that way.”

  I can’t believe I’m getting advice for the lovelorn from Father Celibacy.

  “Let’s try one more resolution,” he suggests.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “We agree that these sexual encounters leave you feeling demoralized.”

  “No. You tell me that. I don’t agree. Why do you insist on keep moralizing about it? It’s just sex.”

  “That’s exactly my point. It’s just sex and you’re looking for love. Or at least a little emotional intimacy. What you used to have with Alice.”

  “Sex. Love. What’s the fucking difference?” I say, exasperated, aware that I’m making no sense.

  “I’m surprised that you, of all people, would make that comment.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, your marriage, for one thing.”

  I start to protest, then surrender, unable to refute his professional observation.

  “Not that they have to be mutually exclusive,” he says.

  “Yeah, well, good luck finding true love and happiness out there. Tell me how it goes,” I snort.

  He shrugs, conceding for once, he’s not speaking from any vast experience of affairs of the heart.

  “Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. See you next week.”

  The Great DiMaggio

  It’s the second week of February. Pitchers and catchers have reported to Florida and Arizona. Position players are due in camp next week. The rituals of spring have begun. It’s been a successful off-season for our Braves. The states of the old Confederacy are galvanized; Dixie will rise again. The wily general manager has won the lottery, signing the hottest bat on the free-agent market. He’s completed a spectacular trade for a top-of-the-rotation pitcher and patched the leaks in the bullpen. Sporting News is predicting Atlanta will take the division and league championships, but go down in six to the reviled Yankees in the Series. What do those idiots know?

  USA Today is reporting ice storms in the Plains and blizzard conditions in the Northeast. Even the Carolinas and Georgia are suffering through the deep freeze. But it’s sunny and balmy in West Palm, perfect conditions, seventy-four degrees and no wind to speak of. It’s too nice a day to waste kissing the ass of another leather-faced broad with flammable hair, pretending to be interested in increasing her sales volume per square foot by maximizing the display space for hideous porcelain figurines with ticket prices that could feed a family of four for a week. Air traffic is snarled throughout the eastern half of the country and it’s entirely plausible when I call to cancel the appointment, using the excuse that my flight’s been cancelled, leaving me stranded in deepest, darkest Indiana. Yes, I’m disappointed too, I lie, remote control in hand, muting the volume on the television in my hotel room a half mile away. Let’s e-mail tomorrow and reschedule next week. I decide to go for the extra point and call my sister. I’ve promised to spend tonight in her guest room in Boca Raton. I don’t control the airlines, I tell her, there’s nothing I can do about the weather. Do you really think I want to spend another night in Terra Haute? I check in with my mother, spreading the little white lie. She says she’s not feeling any better. She can’t seem to shake whatever it is that’s got her down. She’s lost more weight, she’s exhausted, and the swelling has spread to her face. She has an appointment with her doctor next week. I’m sure it’s nothing, I say. You’ve got the winter blues. Cabin fever. Just wait a few weeks until we’re standing at the nursery, picking out annuals. You’ll feel like a million bucks by then, I promise, still refusing to believe she’s suffering from anything that can’t be cured by a good multivitamin. Nothing bad seems possible on a beautiful day like today. Clearwater, the Gulf Coast, is only a few hours away. If I leave now I’ll be there by happy hour.

  Come on, Andy, try, Matt prodded last week, skeptical of my insistence of being unable to summon up even a single affectionate gesture by my father.

  I arrive on the west coast of Florida at the peak of the afternoon rush hour. Urban growth has outpaced the ability of civil engineers and city planners to accommodate the army of refugees from the industrial wastelands up north. Traffic snarls along the new Tampa/St. Pete causeway, hundreds of SUVs and four-door sedans headed for Red Lobster and Hooters, Midas Mufflers and Walgreens. Clearwater’s now just another Columbus, Ohio, or Arvada, Colorado, with palm trees growing in the traffic islands. But this town was probably never the place it has become in my memory. I remember the beach being wider, the sand whiter, the gulf warmer. Orange trees probably never lined the sidewalks, and that neon-lit Tastee Freez that glowed at night, where every gigantic swirl cone was dipped in chocolate sauce and sprinkled with jimmies, must have been a figment of my imagination. What made me think I’d find our pink and green L-shaped motel, the one with the huge pool that sparkled in the sunlight, where the old man and I competed to see who could make the biggest splash cannonballing off the diving board?

  I go upscale—what the hell, it’s only money—and check into a pricey “beach resort” with an ocean view. I flop on the bed, crack open a beer from the minibar, and scan the sports page of the local paper. Not a whole lot of news to report. The reigning MVP has arrived in camp five days early and twenty pounds lighter. The ace of the staff threw a bull-pen session this morning. I’ll be at the retail furnishings expo in California by the time the first pitch is thrown at home field in Clearwater. In the morning I’ll try to find that diner where the waitresses wear player jerseys and they call hot dogs Phillie Phrankfurters on the menu. There must be one happy memory that hasn’t been bulldozed and redeveloped.

  At least I’ll be able to report back at Therapy Central I made the effort.

  “All that boy wants is to be with you. Why can’t you give him that?”

  My mother’s voice had a hard edge, bordering on confrontational. She was frustrated, angry, torn between divided loyalties, constantly running interference between the men in her life.

  Didn’t you promise him you’d take him for ice cream?

  Weren’t you going to let him help you paint the garage door?

  I thought you said he could hold the ladder.

  Would it hurt you to try to be enthusiastic when he wants to tell you something?

  Can’t you try to be a little patient?

  She hadn’t planned on spending my entire childhood playing umpire, but there she was once again, standing behind home plate, calling b
alls when my father’s sure he’s throwing strikes, awarding first base to her little boy.

  “Why did you tell him you were going to take him to the movies if you were planning to play golf this afternoon?”

  There was defeat and submission in my father’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs. I turned my face to the wall when he opened the door. The mattress sank under his weight and he sighed, not knowing what to say. He reached over and patted my hip.

  “Come on, come on,” he said, his voice registering somewhere between irritation and resignation. “You’re getting too old to cry. Come on, come on,” he said, tugging gently at my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

  I knew this was more than a half-baked act of contrition to get my mother off his back. This was the real thing. His deep voice rumbled and he spoke softly. He didn’t say he was sorry often and he didn’t want anyone to hear him, not even me. I knew I could get away with anything at that moment, even throwing my arms around his neck without him pushing me away.

  Then he bounced me on the mattress and told me to put on my shoes. It’s any movie I want to see. Just me and him. Gina’s not invited and this time my father, who always surrendered whenever his little girl sulked or threatened to turn on the tears, was resolute, knowing it was less dangerous to disappoint his daughter than to upset his wife. I knew the old man didn’t want to squirm through some stupid Disney cartoon and would agree to any horror movie I chose, the bloodier the better. My mother would lay into him good when I woke up screaming with nightmares. After the movie, we went for hamburgers and fries and I didn’t even care when he chewed with his mouth open. And, that night, I went to sleep happy, believing every day was going to be like today, only to be crushed and defeated when he ignored me at breakfast in the morning.

  I don’t recall exactly when I began my guerilla campaign. My first acts of rebellion were benign enough, like leaving the new catcher’s mitt out in the rain, then “losing” its replacement two days later. He assumed it was just carelessness, not yet recognizing outright defiance, and he hollered until he was red in the face. My efforts to capture his attention never failed to provoke paternal eruptions that fueled my courage and pushed me a little closer to the edge of outrageousness until, finally, one sunny afternoon when any true son of my father would be fielding ground balls, I burst out of my bedroom, shaking and twitching to the Original Cast Recording of Hello, Dolly!