Michael Thomas Ford - Full Circle

by Michael Thomas Ford

  I stood up, pulling my coat around me. "I'm sorry, Jack," I said, looking down at him. "I'm really sorry."

  CHAPTER 17

  Winter came early in 1969. By the end of the first week, we had experienced our first snowfall. The grounds were covered in a blanket of white, and across the campus groups of students staged snowball battles, pelting one another and unsuspecting passersby with frosty missiles. Inspired, a group of guys from Pinchot gathered outside one of the girls' dorms in the middle of the night for a secret mission. When the women woke up and looked out their windows the next morning, they were greeted by a snowman sporting a top hat, scarf, and an erection made from the largest carrot we could find. With Christmas break, and the end of the fall semester, only three weeks away, we were all thrown into overdrive as we rushed to complete work we'd put off for too long. I myself had three papers due on my instructors' desks: a critical analysis of Keats' "Ode to Melancholy," a comparison and contrast of Mohism and Confucianism during China's Hundred Schools of Thought, and a business plan for a mock company whose product I was supposed to select based on its likelihood of earning a substantial return. Of these, the last was giving me the most trouble. In response to the recent draft, I'd decided that my company would produce antiwar buttons to be sold at rallies, charging only enough to make a small profit, most of which would be donated to groups working for peace. It was a good idea, but it suffered from the fact that my instructor, an avid supporter of the military operations in Vietnam, hated it. After handing in my initial proposal, I'd been encouraged to develop a more "traditional" business whose purpose was to make money for investors. With two weeks left to go, I'd yet to think of an alternative product, and I was becoming slightly nervous.

  Being around Jack didn't help. Since my refusal to do his work for him, he had, I suppose understandably, grown even more distant. I rarely saw him, partly because he was often out of the room, but also because I stopped seeking him out. Also, I'd returned to Andy. I told myself it was purely out of convenience. On December 4, Black Panther members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark had been drugged with secobarbitol-laced Kool-Aid by an undercover operative and then killed in their sleep by Chicago police during a predawn raid on Hampton's apartment. The next day, Chaz and several other Black Panther supporters elected to drive to Illinois for the funeral and had yet to return. Andy had offered Chaz's bed to me on a temporary basis after I'd complained of not being able to work with Jack around.

  I was foolish to accept the offer, and I knew it. But I did it anyway. Although Andy had yet to acknowledge his role in the dissolution of my relationship with Jack, he seemed to relish having me around him more often. I, in turn, elected to take this enthusiasm for growing interest in me. I began to view Andy's affections, such as they were, as a prize to be kept out of Jack's hands at any cost. Like the holder of a ball in a game, I was determined to retain control. What I wanted, of course, was to hurt Jack. What I believed I wanted was Andy.

  I did everything I could to get him. He without hesitation allowed me to resume my role as provider of sexual favors, all the while continuing to talk freely about Tracy and the other girls with whom he had affairs. As I had with Jack in high school, I considered these relationships inconsequential. What mattered to me was that Andy accepted my advances, and therefore me. I wove a relationship from these meager threads, convincing myself that I was in love with him.

  I suppose I was in love with him, although I now find it contradictory to logic that one would fall in love with someone who did not return the feelings. Become infatuated with, of course, but doesn't love need to see itself reflected back in order to truly flourish? In the absence of its mate, should it not wither and die, or at the very least reveal itself as the inferior impostor it really is? How can we go on truly loving another who doesn't share the emotion?

  I know, I know. It happens all the time. Perhaps. But I maintain that what we call love is often something less. It's only our need to see it as love that allows us to be blinded. In the end, though, it makes no difference. The agony we feel is the same. In matters of the heart, a counterfeit can be as intoxicating, and as dangerous, as the real thing.

  And so I believed that I was in love with Andy Kowalski. I proved it by demanding nothing of him, probably because I knew that he would be incapable of fulfilling any requirements I might impose. Wearing my love like a ring around my finger, I set out to humiliate Jack by making sure he knew that I held first place in Andy's attentions. In addition to regularly sleeping in his room, I was careful to be seen as often as possible in Andy's company. I took to wearing his clothes, which he found amusing, and I delighted in riding in his truck with him, particularly when he would put his arm along the back of the seat and, purely by accident of design, around my shoulder.

  Jack refused to take my bait, which only made me try harder. When he failed to start arguments I laid out for him, or to show anger after discovering evidence (Andy's lighter, a borrowed T-shirt) I strategically left in our room as proof of my flourishing romance, I responded by asking him how his schoolwork was coming. This alone sparked a reaction in him, which was to tell me to fuck off and mind my own business. I considered the slam of the door on his way out a victory claimed. I am not, by nature, a vindictive person. Like anyone, I hold certain grudges, and I resent deceit above all things. But I like to think that I am not unkind. During those final weeks of December, however, I was guilty of every imaginable hateful feeling toward Jack. I convinced myself that he had deserted me first, conveniently forgetting that long before his suggestion of different roommates, I had harbored feelings for Andy, and had, in fact, acted on them repeatedly. We were both guilty of the sin of omission, but I was the one who upped the ante by adding cruelty to my list of transgressions. That I might have gone too far didn't occur to me until a few days before the commencement of our winter break. Having handed in my final paper (I'd swapped my peace buttons for 8-track cartridge players and turned a tidy profit), I was now faced with the realization that I was supposed to return home in two days' time and that my means of transportation was the one person I'd been tormenting mercilessly. Jack had no reason at all to allow me to come with him, and I had no other way of going. I considered my options, which basically consisted of making up with Jack, at least for the duration of the holidays, or finding alternate transportation. I'd made a number of friends other than Andy, but none who lived near my town. I briefly considered trying to convince Andy to come home with me for Christmas, but I knew his grandparents were expecting him. Also, I feared I would not be able to hide my feelings for him from my mother, particularly were we to share my bed. With no other option, I approached Jack as he was trying to finish one of his many overdue assignments. Adopting a neutral tone, I asked, "Are you almost done?"

  "No," he said sharply.

  "Do you want some help?" I tried.

  Jack looked up at me. "Not really," he said. "Why?"

  "I just thought you might want some help," I said. "That's all."

  "Well, I don't," he said, returning to his work.

  I saw nowhere else to go with the conversation, so I decided to leave him and see what Andy was doing. As I opened the door to go, Jack said, without looking at me, "I told my mother we'd be there on Saturday around three."

  "Three," I repeated. "Okay." As we had so many times in the recent past, we'd come to a compromise without having to discuss it. My worries about getting home out of the way, I returned to Andy. Also done with his classes, he was getting into the Christmas spirit, taking the lid off a bow-topped tin of what looked like cookies when I entered the room.

  "Look," he said, taking out a cookie shaped like a reindeer and holding it up. "This chick in my bio class made these for me." "What are they?" I asked. "Gingerbread?"

  "Even better," Andy said, biting the head off the deer. "Hash."

  A half dozen pot-infused Rudolphs, Dashers, and Vixens later, I decided that I would give Andy my present a few days early. I brought out from under
the bed a package wrapped in cheery paper. I handed it to Andy and told him to open it, then watched as he pulled the paper off to reveal Jethro Toll's Stand Up .

  "Thanks, man," he said, getting up and putting the album on the turntable. "This is great." He sat down again and mimed playing guitar along with Ian Anderson. Feeling expansive, I got up and lit some sandalwood incense, which Andy kept on hand to cover the smell of pot. I also lit a candle, turning off the lights so that its glow turned the room into a rosy cocoon. When I sat down again, it was next to Andy. He leaned against me, still strumming his invisible guitar, and sang along to the song.

  "‘Spent a long time looking for a game to play.'"

  His voice was rough and out of tune, but the sound of it thrilled me. He looked over at me and smiled, nodding in time with the music. In the candlelight, he looked so beautiful that I wanted to kiss him. I leaned toward him, my heart racing, hoping he wouldn't turn his face away.

  "What are you dumb white-ass faggots doing in here?"

  I jumped as the door crashed opened and Chaz walked in, two other black men behind him. Andy stopped singing.

  "My brother," he said. "Where you been, man?" "I'm not your brother, and where I've been is none of your damn business," Chaz replied, slapping Andy's outstretched hand in greeting. He noticed the tin of cookies and took three, handing one to each of the men with him. "These here are my brothers, Cornell and William J."

  "Hey," Andy said. Cornell and William J. held their fists up in the black power salute, but said nothing. "Who's been sleeping in my bed?" asked Chaz, looking at the rumpled sheets. "Oh," I said nervously. "I have. I hope it's okay."

  "Who the hell do you think you are, boy?" he replied. "Goldilocks? Sleep in your own damn bed and stop getting your white dirt all over my sheets."

  "Sure," I said. "No problem, Chaz." I looked at Andy, who had started playing again. "I guess I'll go," I told him. "See you," he said. "Thanks again for the album."

  "Yeah," I said. "Merry Christmas."

  I got up, nodding at Chaz and his friends, who parted to let me through. Reluctantly, I went downstairs to my room. Jack was still working, and barely looked up when I came in. With nothing else to do, I got into bed and picked up the book I was reading, Joyce Carol Oates'sThem , which I'd recently checked out from the school library after hearing my literature teacher praise it as a masterpiece of American fiction. The bleak yet beautifully-written story of the Wendall family and their lives in Detroit had drawn me in from the first page, and in the novel's violence and turmoil I saw something of my own life. As only a young man in the grip of unrequited love can, I felt a connection with every soul who had ever longed for something and been unable to have it. Happily, I allowed myself to swim in self-pity until, twenty or thirty pages later, I found myself falling asleep.

  Andy left the next day without saying good-bye. I found out when I went to his room to wish him a safe trip and found Chaz and his friends looking at a copy of Penthouse magazine. They were, surprisingly, not looking at the pictures, but arguing over an article suggesting that the man accused of killing Martin Luther King was a scapegoat.

  "I told you Ray was just the fall guy," William J. said as I stood, listening. "Cracker's too stupid to shoot anybody." "Bullshit," Chaz said. "This is just more government cover-up. Who do you think reads this magazine?

  Uptight white men whose wives won't give them any pussy, that's who. They just put these shit-crazy articles in here so they won't feel like perverts for looking at a little cooch."

  "This cooch don't look so bad to me," remarked Cornell, taking the magazine and holding it open. Chaz finally noticed me standing there. "You looking for Andy?" he said. "He left a couple of hours ago."

  "Really?" I said, disappointed.

  "Really," Chaz said, perusing the magazine spread.

  Feeling stupid, I mumbled a confused thank-you, good-bye, and Merry Christmas and left them to their magazine. None of them responded. The following morning, I made one more ride home with Jack. It had begun to snow during the night (the winter of 1969 would end up being Pennsylvania's snowiest on record) and we drove all the way through in a semi-blizzard. Forced to go more slowly than usual, the length of our trip was extended by almost two hours as we watched the taillights of the cars ahead of us blink like eyes through the flurries. When we were about halfway there, Jack suddenly said, "I didn't do it."

  "Do what?" I asked, not understanding.

  "Get a two-point-oh," he answered.

  "How do you know?" I asked. "We haven't gotten our grades yet."

  "I just know," he said without elaborating.

  "But you were working so hard," I protested. "All that studying, and writing, and—" "It wasn't enough," Jack snapped, cutting me off. "It just wasn't enough, okay?"

  I shut my mouth and sat silently for a minute, watching the wipers wage their vigilant battle against the snow. Jack, both hands on the wheel, stared straight ahead. "What are you going to do?" I asked finally.

  "I don't know," said Jack.

  I didn't have any suggestions for him, at least not any that seemed reasonable. He could go to Canada, or hope for a medical deferment. Neither of those seemed likely, however. Maybe, I thought, he was wrong. Maybe he had managed to squeak by. But he seemed so certain of his failure. Never before had I seen him admit defeat.

  "It's my fault," I heard myself say.

  "It's not your fault," said Jack.

  "Yes, it is," I argued. "I should have helped you."

  "I can take care of myself," Jack said. "We're not kids anymore."

  He was right about that. We weren't kids. We were men, men who after walking the same road together for many years were now at a crossroads, each of us looking in a different direction. Where the paths we chose would take us, I had no way of knowing.

  "I'm sorry," I told him for the second time in our lives. This time, I meant it.

  CHAPTER 18

  Why is it that so many people who never otherwise step foot inside a church decide that they will make an exception on Christmas Eve? This is a rhetorical question. Yet it bears asking. To me, it's rather like making an annual birthday visit to a convalescent home so that a bilious elderly relative whose failing internal processes and yellow, thickened nails fill you with revulsion might be moved by your expression of devotion into leaving you something in her will. Do we really believe that God, if he is indeed keeping score, will forgive our general lack of attention simply because once a year we come to wish his son many happy returns? Perhaps the understanding God of the New Age might overlook such blatant attempts at currying favor, but he of the New Testament would surely not. Still, even for those of us who find faith a challenge, there is something magical about a Christmas Eve service. Each December 24 for the past fifteen years, Thayer and I have become temporary members in the congregation of St. Gregory's Episcopal Church, our tenure lasting for exactly the length of that evening's service. We go because it is a tradition, and because we like the music. Also, we go because there is something undeniably beautiful about a church viewed through gently falling snow and lit from within by candles. Entering such a place, even a confirmed old pagan such as myself cannot helped but be moved by the eternal story of hope arriving on Earth in the form of a child. On Christmas Eve of 1969, I was not feeling so hopeful. I was, in fact, filled with great sadness and agitation. Since learning of the almost certain loss of Jack's scholarship, I had been punishing myself for what I had determined was an obvious desire on my part to see him harmed in some way. Why, I asked myself, could I not have helped him? Why had I outright refused to do so? There was, in my mind, only one answer to that question: I was a terrible person.

  In the days since arriving home, I had tried to lift my gloomy spirits by throwing myself headlong into the familiar holiday rituals. With my father I had selected and set up the tree, a full-figured spruce whose top reached almost to the ceiling. Together we had strung the lights, and together we had cursed when a single failed bulb
caused the entire string to wink and go out, resulting in our having to replace every single one in the line until we found the troublemaker. Then came the decorations, an involved process during which my mother kept us supplied with a steady stream of hot chocolate and cookies while providing a running commentary on the origins of each painted wooden bird and jolly glass Santa. The house, filled with the cheerful voices of Mitch Miller and his gang, was near to bursting from all the Christmas spirit.

  And still I was depressed. Even my parents' murmurings of a mystery gift of extraordinary wonder failed to lift my flagging mood. I feigned joy for their sakes, but alone in my room I lay on my bed and tried to think of some way to make it up to Jack. Because of me, he was perhaps going to end up fighting a war that had nothing to do with him.

  Then came Christmas Eve and the annual rite of attending the Ebenezer Lutheran Church nativity pageant. We'd been coming for years, at my mother's insistence, although we were neither Lutheran nor religious, apart from the occasional saying of grace at meals. I think my mother chose the church because she liked the stained-glass windows, which as I recall were indeed remarkable. For whatever reasons she'd selected it, we'd come there since I was a baby, and if any of the regular attendees found our presence irritating, they were kind enough never to let on.

  The program was the same every year. It began with a procession of tiny shepherds. These were followed by the three kings, Melchior, Balthasar, and Caspar, carrying their gifts for the baby Jesus. Jesus, along with his parents, was already ensconced in his manger at the front of the church. Once all those who wished to adore him had arrived, the angels appeared singing "Hallelujah!" and the rest of us joined in welcoming the Son of God into our midst.