Probation

by Tom Mendicino

  I want to go back to sleep, to crawl back into bed and not leave the room until Sunday evening. The day ahead, or what’s left of it, stretches and yawns, mocking me with its leisurely pace. The coffee does the job. I have to shit. It’s inevitable.

  I’d hoped to get through the weekend without the need to take a crap in this tiny bathroom. It’s an add-on, its walls nothing more than drywall partitions. The family still goes to the outhouse for privacy when the weather is warm. There’s one advantage to sleeping late. At least I’m not spurting while foot traffic passes outside the door. While I’m at it, I might as well shower and shave. The water is tepid and keeps me from lingering. I wrap a towel around my waist and walk back to the bedroom, surprising JR. He slaps shut the book he’s holding between his legs and self-consciously covers the title with his broad hand.

  He smiles and tries to act nonchalant, telling me I can have the room to myself, now that he’s found what he was looking for. Mildly intrigued by the kid’s odd behavior, I scan the paperbacks on the shelf by the bed. Nothing out the ordinary for a seventeen-year-old boy, certainly not anything that raises any red flags. Franny and Zooey. Stranger in a Strange Land and Dune. Silas Marner and The Mayor of Casterbridge (neither spine creased, required reading, no doubt), the mandatory Tolkien and Orwell. A bottom-of-the-line Taylor acoustic is propped in the corner. There’s a chord book with leaves of loose sheet music. Some pretty hip stuff. Old Velvet Underground songs—“Sweet Jane,” “Head Held High.” A stack of printed e-mail messages slips out of the book.

  Jesus H. Christ! Holy shit!

  I’ve stumbled across the mother lode. I read them once, then again, letting it sink in. It’s hard, no, impossible, to believe the clean-cut kid I just shared a bed with has a secret identity as WrestlerJoc2071. Bobby’s son is maintaining a heavy correspondence with some unsavory characters. Mongoloids, probably, who can’t string a coherent English sentence together, but who demonstrate a definite affinity for constructing pithy screen names trumpeting physical attributes and sexual predilections.

  Leantight8.

  NCbtm4U.

  JOBuddy.

  NCtop4U.

  Sukitall.

  Once I get over the shock, I feel almost giddy discovering another aberration in the family tree. A little twinge of guilt for invading his privacy doesn’t keep me from reading his e-mails. WrestlerJoc2071 tries hard to go mano a mano with the hardcore sexualists, peppering his talk with descriptions of throbbing cocks and quivering assholes. But his phrases have a tentative cadence that reveals his tender, young heart. He’s naïve enough to believe the love and acceptance he’s seeking can be found in this miasma of pornography pecked onto a screen by sticky, dirty fingers. The object of his affection calls himself OnMiKnees4U. They’re embarking on a romance, one so deep and real and full of promise and undying devotion they actually share their names, their first ones at least.

  Dear Cary,

  Thanks for the pic. I hope you aren’t too disappointed by mine. Some people tell me I’m handsome, but I don’t believe it. If I had seen your pic first, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to send mine. I hope you will still write back now that you know what I look like.

  I can’t believe we found each other online. I can’t believe that in only five months I will be at Chapel Hill too. I know there’s so many things you can teach me. I am reading the book you suggested. It kind of scares me. But I like it very much.

  And I love you very much.

  Robert

  Robert? He’s already begun his double life, taking a new name. But then again, who really expected him to go through life answering to JR, called that only to distinguish him from his father?

  And this Cary? Why do I expect it isn’t a real name? Why do I suspect JR is fated to spend many lonely evenings in September, wandering the streets of the campus, looking up at windows and wondering if the boy sitting, reading, writing, staring at a computer screen, is the Cary who disappeared into cyberspace without a last name or address or telephone number?

  I rifle through the papers looking for the picture of Cary. But JR hasn’t printed it. It’s safe in his program file, secured by his password. What would it mean anyway? The face in the picture probably doesn’t even belong to “Cary.” JR is too young, too trusting, to even imagine such duplicity.

  Who is this predator? Some ancient, overweight tenured faculty troll, belching after indulging in rich meals and glasses of port, sublimating his sexual frustrations? Some scrawny graduate student in Birkenstocks with clove cigarettes on his breath and an ass that smells like macrobiotic rice? Whoever this creature is, he’s putting JR at risk, laying the foundation for a lifetime of heartaches.

  And what the hell was JR doing in that notorious toilet at the mall? Did he have an agenda more sinister than taking a piss and washing his hands? I have to find him and warn him. He’s starting down the wrong road, one that could lead to a dead end on the interstate on a sticky summer night, to arrest and probation (if he’s lucky).

  Neither my mother nor his knows where he is. Bobby’s wife looks out the window and says his car is gone.

  “He’ll be back, probably with that girlfriend of his. Wait till you see her, hard as nails and looks like she’s been around the block a few times. Bobby has a fit every time he brings her around. But I tell him to calm down. JR’s at that age that it would only throw gasoline on the flame if we started bitching about her. Let it go and it’ll die out. Hope I’m right or Bobby’s gonna put me six feet under.” She laughs.

  I ought to tell her not to bother measuring the shroud, but keep my mouth shut.

  He’s back home in time for dinner, the notorious Mandy in tow. She doesn’t disappoint the low expectations of her. The leather jacket must be a second skin. Again, she refuses to take it off despite, or maybe because of, Bobby’s wife’s many gentle suggestions and Bobby’s very apparent irritation. Me, I’m feeling a little sympathy for Mandy, much to my surprise. Each little grunt, each shrug of her shoulders, each toss of her stringy hair betrays the feelings of inadequacy stirred by the big, beautiful boy sitting next to her. He’s unfailingly polite despite his juvenile delinquent gear and engages my mother in conversation almost to the point of flirting with her. He tells Mandy to just wait until tomorrow, she’s never tasted anything like Aunt Ruth’s ravioli. Bobby almost chokes on the unexpected invitation.

  Mandy has heard my mother is very sick and manages a smile in her direction. You have lovely eyes, my mother says, finding the silver lining in every cloud. Thank you. Mandy blushes, immediately turning to JR to see if he agrees.

  I’ve seen that look a thousand times before on Alice, abashed by compliments on her hair, her skin, her waist, her dress. Like Mandy, she’d look to me, seeking confirmation by the only one who really mattered, the only one who seemed oblivious to her wonders and mysteries. I’ve seen that same expectation in her eyes, never giving up hope that, suddenly, the scales would fall from my own and I would see her as the world saw her.

  But JR’s attention is fully on me. He wants me to join them tonight. They’re going to the movies. A “chick flick,” he says, rolling his eyes, thinking Mandy can’t see him. She tells him the name of the movie. They’re all the same, he says.

  “It’s Julia Roberts,” Mandy says. “She’s really beautiful.”

  Even Bobby’s interest is piqued by Julia Roberts. Everyone at the table has an opinion about her eyes, her lips, her hair, her body, and, of course, her smile. I wait for JR’s turn, curious to hear his remarks.

  “She can’t act her way out of a paper bag,” he says.

  I laugh, agreeing.

  “Then you gotta come,” he pleads. “Misery loves company.”

  Once again Mandy must accept the inevitable. She’s counting the hours until I leave and she has JR to herself again. She hasn’t given up yet. Someday soon she’s going to prod him beyond soul kisses and titty squeezing. She’s going to get her hands on that thing in his pants and put it inside her.
But time’s running out. Only a few months until he disappears. She’s desperate, knowing he’ll never return except for the occasional holiday, which she’ll spend sitting by a phone that never rings.

  I take him up on the offer. Why not? The alternative is another night listening to Bobby snore in front of the television, sprawled in his Barcalounger, erection rising in his pants, dreaming of Julia Roberts.

  Good old Julia works her movie magic and cracks the crust of Mandy’s heavy makeup. She’s sobbing by the time the credits roll, the prince having swept Julia to his Manhattan penthouse where they live happily ever after. JR feigns studied indifference but his eyes are a little red when the lights go up. I barely remember anything about the movie. I’d expected Mandy to sit between us, but JR stepped aside, letting her in the aisle first, leaving him and me knee to knee the entire two hours.

  A whirlwind had raced through my mind as Julia cavorted across the screen. What should I say to him? How would I even broach the subject? I could tell him about myself, not the disgusting, dirty details, just enough to highlight my mistakes, warning him about paths not to take. We could talk about love. I could assure him a sweet and gentle soul awaits him. I could tell him not to throw himself away, not to let himself get bitter and callous and unable to trust love when it finally appears. I would promise him it will happen. If not for me, at least for him.

  And that’s why, when the lights go up, my eyes are red too.

  Mandy’s pimples need feeding. Over another plate of french fries, she quizzes JR about his reaction to every twist and turn in the plot of the movie, seeking the passionate soul she knows he’s hiding behind his placid demeanor. JR is distracted, lost in his own fantasies of Prince Charming. He insists on picking up the tab tonight. After all, I bought lunch.

  Without thinking, I say…

  “Thanks, Robert.”

  I might have just handed him the crown jewels of Russia. He beams, ecstatic. A look of absolute delight lights up his face. He knows I understand him, at what level he’s not sure, but I know he is Robert now, that JR will be left behind for good when he finally escapes Watauga County.

  We never have that soul-to-soul chat. This is Watauga County, after all, not a Julia Roberts movie. I wait in the car while he walks Mandy to her door and gives her a chaste kiss on the cheek. We listen to the car radio as we drive home. He can’t wait to get to Chapel Hill and hear real radio. WXYC is totally cool. The disc jockey plays an oldie we both love. “Kiss Me on the Bus.” I tell him I saw the band years ago; they played at a roller rink in Raleigh and got so drunk they fell off the stage. They’re his all-time favorite group, he says; he wishes he could have seen them.

  “Yeah, then you’d be as old as me.” I laugh.

  “You’re not that old,” he answers.

  Home, we go directly to bed. We undress shyly, careful not to look at each other, and crawl under the covers. Long minutes pass in the dark and I think he has fallen asleep. Then, sounding younger than he has all night, he asks me a question.

  “Andy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you happy?”

  Something about his tender solicitousness compels me to lie.

  “Happy enough.”

  “Good.”

  My answer seems to satisfy him and he rolls over on his side. He’s soon swept up in the arms of Morpheus, transported to a big, fluffy bed in a penthouse in the sky and Prince Cary is swearing his eternal love and the credits roll and they live happily ever after.

  Calling Dunkin’ Donuts

  I know better than to call from the phone at my mother’s house. The King of Unpainted Furniture is certain to have caller ID. He’ll have a stroke if the name Anthony Nocera pops up. (The phone is still listed in my father’s name even though he’s been dead for years.) I’m sure the King is screening her calls. Particularly today, traditionally an occasion for greetings and best wishes. I know how he thinks: Wouldn’t it be just like that little worm, that little piece of shit, to pick a day like today, when she’s even a bit more vulnerable than usual, to come sniveling around, tail between his legs, with promises of how he’s changed, how it was all just a bad dream.

  Over his dead body. No, more likely, over my dead body.

  He’s sure to have taken precautions. He’s probably thrown every single Catholic in the state of North Carolina at his daughter. He wouldn’t even bother to check out the portfolios of the older ones or the prospects of the young. What the fuck would he care? He’d floated me for years. Nothing he couldn’t do again. The screening wouldn’t be rigorous. Alcoholics, deadbeat dads, suspects under indictment, numerous cases of halitosis and body odor, countless fashion victims in poly-cotton blend khakis: they’d all pass with flying colors. There was only one qualification.

  None of them could be me.

  A shot of bourbon will bolster my confidence. A small one, just enough to give me a backbone. What if she hangs up on me? What if she tells me she doesn’t want to hear from me and threatens dire consequences if I try to contact her again? Worse yet, what if she laughs at me? That would be the cruelest response of all, more terrifying than a vicious, angry attack. Stop making excuses, I think. That’s not your Alice, she’s incapable of hate. How do I know? I know because she wrote me a letter after the house was sold. The sentences were so perfectly straight I could almost see the invisible ruler guiding the pen across the stationery. Her wastebasket probably overflowed with balls of expensive writing paper, discarded if the pen went an eyelash astray. The perfection of the handwriting and the symmetry of the pages affected me as much as the words themselves.

  No prosecutor could have drafted a more damning indictment of my indefensible betrayal and her humiliation.

  I finally found the courage to ask my gynecologist for the test. Knowing the questions she would ask didn’t prepare me for the shock of hearing her words. What are your risk factors, Alice? How often did you and your husband have unprotected sex?

  No judge or jury would have shown me such undeserved mercy.

  I would have preferred to say all this in person, but I knew I couldn’t. For too many years, I was willing to close my eyes to everything, ignoring the obvious, not because I thought things would change, but because I wanted them to stay the same. Living without a husband is easy. But every day I miss my best friend.

  I’ve read and reread it more times than I can count. I wanted to, meant to, reply. One epistle, carefully crafted in my head over several days in Denver, came close to being committed to posterity. It was apologetic, empathic. I wanted her to know I wished I were different. I’d change if I could. That even if I ever found someone to love, I’d never love anyone more. I should have scribbled it onto paper while I was euphoric and light-headed in the thin air of the Mile-High City. But my best intentions sank in the oppressive humidity of North Carolina. I never set pen to paper.

  Nothing has changed. I’m still rejecting her, sending her to the mailbox day after day, expectantly at first, certain I would respond, despondent when, after a few weeks, she realized I wouldn’t. Why doesn’t she curse me as the bastard I am and hate me with a blazing white passion? No, she still finds some excuse to exonerate my bad behavior, excoriating herself for the unpardonable transgression of making a small, kind effort to reach out to me. Drink me, I say, and she drinks and she keeps on shrinking, Tiny Alice in our little Southern Gothic melodrama.

  Tonight I’m going to make amends. I pull out my cell phone and dial the number. She answers on the second ring.

  “Dunkin’ Donuts!”

  Alice sounds happy and giddy, a little tipsy. I ought to try something witty, something half-witted, like “a dozen chocolate glazed to go.” But my mouth is too dry and my voice is cracking. “Happy Birthday” is all I can manage.

  “Oh my God!”

  Oh my God good or Oh my God bad?

  “Oh my God. I’m so glad you called.”

  Oh my God good.

  I hear the clatter of dishes, chatter, glass
es clinking. She’s on the kitchen phone.

  “Sounds like quite a bash going on there.”

  “Yeah.”

  She sounds a little hesitant, nervous, as if her deeply rooted Southern conscience is stricken. How impolite. Caught red-handed. She’s having a party and I’m not invited.

  Hold on a minute, she says.

  I hear her talking to someone. Just an old girlfriend, she says, calling to wish me a happy birthday. Who? Susie. You remember her. I’ll remind you later. I’ll just be a minute.

  I hear a door open and close as she steps outside, into the quiet evening.

  “That’s better. I’m so glad you called,” she says again as if she doesn’t know what else to say.

  “Hey, I’m sorry I never wrote back.”

  “That’s okay. I shouldn’t have written you.”

  “Stop apologizing.”

  “Sorry. How is Ruth? I heard about the cancer.”

  “Not too good.”

  “I’ve wanted to call, but I didn’t know if…”

  “She’d really like that.”

  “I’d like to see her. I miss her.”

  “That would be real nice.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I’ll tell her you’re gonna call. She’ll look forward to it.”

  “I’ll call tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  I ask after her sisters, her mother. She catches herself before she asks if I want to say hello to them.

  “Look, don’t tell them I called.”

  “No. I won’t.”

  It’s a nice, comfortable feeling to share a secret with her again.

  “Are you all right?” she asks.

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, I just mean with Ruth and all. It has to be hard on you. That’s all I meant.”