Joe's Black T-Shirt

by Joe Schwartz

  The words frightened John. As cliché as it sounded, he felt like the pastor was speaking directly to him. Was this why Debbie had so suddenly and mysteriously gone? John could only confess his purest thoughts in regard to the pastor’s excerpt.

  “It certainly cuts deep.”

  “Yes it does, doesn’t it,” Pastor Maury said admiringly to himself. “This church is due a revival, a re-declaration of the faith. Are you aware tithes are down by thirty percent? Abominable! Did you know that during the Great Depression tithes never wavered by more than seven percent?”

  “No,” John answered honestly surprised. How did you calculate such things as eggs and livestock given to the church in ways comparable with today’s economy? They were a business, like any other, at war with mass market for the consumer’s dollar. Unlike Wal-Mart or Sears, people left magnanimous gifts to them in perpetuity. The church had hundreds of thousands worth in premium Blue Chip stocks. It was simply a matter of time before they could be collected. Even the most devout parishioner did not live forever.

  “It’s not finished of course, but just you wait until Sunday, brother.”

  “Looking forward to it, Pastor,” John lied.

  The pastor consumed with his work bowed his head back to the page, deep in thought.

  ***

  In his office, John swished his computer’s mouse in tight, concentric circles. He had closed his door, as he presumed the pastor had, as not to have to stare out onto the sight that was Betty Sue.

  The monitor flashed to life asking for his password. Entering JOHN316, an enigmatic play upon the famous scripture, it was merely his name plus his birthday. It still delighted him that he had been so clever.

  Immediately opening his e-mail account, he reviewed the unopened items for spam. As he checked off the electronic solicitations for enlarging his penis, sexy cam talk with hot sluts, and the usual pleadings for assistance by the scam artists in Nigeria, one caught his attention.

  He opened the message titled ‘Lunch…?’ from Dmartel@wowmail.com as his right hand trembled with excitement.

  John,

  I had to rush my mother to the hospital late last night. She had a shooting pain in her side and insisted it was a heart attack. Four hours later, she was diagnosed with severe cramps due to constipation. After getting back home around three this morning, I called in sick.

  However, after getting the kids off to school, I feel much better than expected. I would love to re-pay you for such a wonderful time yesterday. The forecast is for sunny skies and there is nothing better in the whole world to me than a picnic lunch at Laumier Sculpture Park. I understand if you’re too busy, but thought I might be able to tempt you with my world-famous tuna salad on whole wheat.

  I’m going out to run a few errands but will check my messages when I come home. Let me know.

  Debbie :)

  ***

  John parked his car on the south lot. He walked through the thick, green grass, passing works of outdoor art without any regard for their creativity. The ground was moist. Spring had come early and the mild temperatures had yet to turn the ground hard.

  Debbie had said in her last e-mail she would be waiting for him by the Liberman sculpture. A tremendous, five-story work of welded steel silos crisscrossed and painted a vibrant red. It was considered to be the artist’s masterpiece according to an on-line search he had made in between e-mails. Aside from its monumental size, John was not impressed.

  Debbie wore blue jeans and a flannel blouse. She had pulled her hair back in a ponytail. It made her appear young as a college student. John suddenly felt overdressed in his suit and removed his tie. It was as casual as he could become without taking off his shoes. He had thought of going home to change his clothes, but that would have meant seeing Nancy. There would have been an inevitable interrogation as to why he needed such things, where was he going, blah, blah, blah. It wasn’t worth the hassle.

  Debbie bound toward him in an exuberant skipping fashion and captured him by the hand. John was surprised he found it necessary to sprint to keep her pace. He was not completely out of shape, not yet anyway, but it reaffirmed his continuing resolution to start using his treadmill again.

  The table looked as if Martha Stewart herself had set it. Covered in a red and white-checkered tablecloth, place settings for two had been set. Real china plates accented by gold plated silverware and crystal goblets had been set side-by-side. It exceeded any expectation he had.

  “Wow,” John said.

  “I know,” Debbie said jubilantly. “I’ve been dying to do something like this.”

  Released from her hand, John sat down as Debbie proceeded to serve their meal. From a quaint wicker basket she placed fried chicken, potato salad, and a small green salad onto each plate. John busied himself by filling their glasses with an already open bottle of moderately expensive wine.

  Finished with serving the food, she sat close to him. Debbie would never admit she had begun to prepare the moderate feast before John had accepted her invitation.

  Debbie raised her glass. “To new friends.”

  They taped the fine glasses together with a ring. The cool wine was sweeter than John expected. It was more like liquid candy than an adult beverage. It took will power not to drain it all in one greedy gulp.

  The food was a delight. Debbie’s culinary skills were at par with her office talents. The rich and creamy potato salad mixed excellently with the spicy chicken. Not much of a greens enthusiast, he rather enjoyed the taste of the complimentary salad lightly coated in an balsamic vinegar dressing.

  With the ingestion of each bite, he habitually complimented the meal as “Wonderful,” more times than he could count.

  Embarrassed, but delighted, Debbie dismissed his compliments. “It’s nothing fancy, I swear.”

  “I’m surprised David isn’t big as house. If my wife could cook like this, they would have to bury me in a piano box.”

  Debbie wiped her hands and took a large drink of her wine. The glass empty, she liberally filled it again, and immediately drank half. “David isn’t home much. More often than not he’s too busy with work or church projects for something like this.”

  “Nancy is a good mother, but a lazy wife.”

  John couldn’t believe what he had said. He loved his wife. The second they knew she was pregnant was one of his happiest memories, overshadowed solely by the second time it happened.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have told you that.”

  She placed her hand over his. The warmth of her soft flesh shot an electric bolt through his body. Debbie began to sob, burying her face into his shoulder. Automatically, he embraced her. As he did his best to comfort her, John nervously looked about the park for any looky-loos. The ever-watchful flock had taught John to be cautious in all things. Certain they had total privacy, he pulled her closer, petting her back.

  He kissed her brow. In a tender whisper he pleaded with her not to cry. Then he kissed her again. Her muffled crying finished, she turned her face up to meet his. They passionately kissed, desperate to taste one another.

  Debbie stood abruptly and began to clear the table.

  John, feeling like the world’s biggest asshole, tried to apologize. “Debbie, I’m sorry. Seriously, as stupid as it might sound, it was an accident.”

  Not saying a word, not looking toward him she continued with the removal of the last few accouterments.

  “Please, Debbie,” John said, “say something.”

  Debbie stared down at him with the wicker basket hung in the crook of her arm. Her face was an emotionless palate impossible to interpret. Her hand held out toward him, she pulled him to his feet.

  Silently, he followed her back to her car, his hand never leaving her grasp.

  ***

  John’s mind was Swiss cheese as he rummaged through dresser drawers and closet shelves. Holes where memories should have been made it impossible to remember.

  He gave up for the moment and
stumbled to the kitchen. The best remedy to this problem, as to all his problems these days, was to have a drink. He spilled as much liquor over the granite countertop as he did to fill his glass. Quite certain he would soon blackout, he did his best to think about where he had hidden it before all hope was lost.

  In a momentary flash of intelligence, it came to him. The details, murky as they were, gave him enough insight as to his next destination.

  He navigated the stairs to the basement on his ass, too inebriated to walk and carry his drink. The firm concrete floor was slightly sobering. He stood slowly up using the stair rail for balance. Before he could regain his equilibrium, the full contents of his stomach erupted until he dry heaved.

  His pajama bottoms drenched in vomit, his slippers sloshed with the bile. It was here, somewhere. John walked with the directional challenge of a lost, blind man. He felt no pain, but did stop when he rammed his big toe into the immovable object. A government issued footlocker, a surplus leftover he had bought in college that held his most precious things.

  He knelt before it in a flop and studied its large, steel latches. It took all his drunken strength to unfasten each one and practically exhausted him. He opened his eyes to find his hands were at work, busily searching through the remnants of his life. Things such as Beatle and Bob Dylan records, a photo album cataloguing his life from infancy through matrimony, and odd little pieces of brick-a-bract he couldn’t recall as to why he would have saved them. Then, deep under all the useless shit of his misspent life, he found it.

  A black, hard-shell case the size of a lap-top computer. The slides easily pushed out and the lid flopped open. John had mistakenly opened the box upside down. Its contents fell to the concrete floor in a deafening boom. Once the ringing in his ears subsided, John heard the distinct sound of liquids pouring down the built in floor drain. The washing machine was steadily hemorrhaging water through a perfectly round puncture.

  He picked it up and held the gun’s barrel to his nose. The smell of fresh gunpowder was unmistakable. It must have discharged when he dropped it. Oh well, he thought, as he drunkenly lifted himself up, following the trail of his wet footprints back to the stairwell. At least he wouldn’t have to bother trying to load the damn thing.

  ***

  Pastor Maury, by his own admission, held one vice. He was nosy. When he was twelve, an older cousin had taken him to an R-rated film. He remembered little of the movies multiple shoot outs and car chases. What had stuck with him was the main character’s advice to the man who eventually killed him. “Keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer.”

  For years he made it a habit to know what everybody was doing. His wife didn’t know it, but he sometimes he had followed her to the grocery store or the mall. One time, at the library, he had lost sight of her in the stacks. Ready to turn around and give up she stood right behind him. As luck would have it, he was standing in the reference department’s theology section. Easily able to defend his trip as a research, he picked a book at random without so much as ever reading the jacket. His wife thought it all a wonderful, coincidental surprise and out of sheer guilt he took her to lunch at the good Chinese buffet.

  After that little experience, he decided distance was his best friend. No one thought anything unusual of the pastor at his desk surrounded by piles of documents. That was the early nineties, a Jurassic period in comparison with today’s technology. No longer did he have to go line-by-line over voluminous phone records, credit card bills, or occasionally having to dig endlessly through file cabinets. Thankfully, those days had passed with the evolution of spyware.

  His eyes diligently scanned a computer screen. The program he used now was the best so far. It automatically compiled reports that recorded what websites were viewed and how often, cell phone activity, documents saved and deleted, and most especially how church funds were allocated. He was particularly pleased with the innovation of GPS.

  He had replaced all church cell phones with modern Blackberry models. Able to know the whereabouts of each holder via a GPS signal gave him an omniscient rush so awesome he had to reconcile himself against the idea of it being a sin. He did so by convincing himself he was living up to the standard of ‘WWJD.’ A good shepherd kept count of his sheep.

  He had nothing to worry about, yet his paranoia would not rest. Occasionally, he might catch someone perusing Craigslist too often or making personal on-line purchases. It was easy enough to block the user from those sites. If an employee called in sick, he would monitor their location via a chip in their phone smaller than the head of a pin. He had discovered even his most obedient to falsely claim incapacitation by the flu, yet took their phone with them out of habit, while they played hooky at a distant golf course or amusement park with their family. For this he would deliver a penance upon them of endless work until he believed the exhausted sinner had learned their lesson. Thus far, the system worked. He had not once had to reprimand the same person twice.

  It was on a crisp fall morning, remotely logged into the network from the comfort of his home study, he noticed the anomaly. At first, he dismissed it as coincidence, but as a precaution, he compiled a spreadsheet that would allow him to see if a pattern truly existed. To his great disappointment, it did. Concurrent to the puritan doctrine he subscribed, it was rare liars told only one lie.

  After hours on his computer reviewing personnel files, cross-referencing sent and received e-mails, and calculating text messages by time and volume, he was personally ashamed. How could he have been so naïve? It had been so obvious. Even if he was acting in the best interest of the church, his sin was no less forgivable.

  ***

  John was back on the couch. The gun and the bottle sat beside each other on the coffee table. When the bottle was empty, he could do it. He knew what the mind conceived, prior to a blackout, the body would follow. It was no more difficult than setting an alarm clock. He couldn’t count the number of times since Nancy’s left that he awoke to find dishes smashed, holes in walls, or lying in one of the boy’s beds without a clue as to how it had happened. He knew if he continually repeated instructions mantra-like to himself, he could do this thing. A hopeful consolation was that it would be painless.

  The idea of an express ticket to Hell did occur to him. John thought he deserved nothing less. If it would make everything right again, it would be worth it.

  If it didn’t, well, at least he tried.

  ***

  In the pastor’s office Monday morning, John sat ready and prepared to dole out a litany of economic voodoo. He wanted to diverge funds to a Japanese start-up. The NIKKEI was becoming much stronger. Investor’s money was returning from the east at a minimum two-to-one. If they moved fast, John could easily triple the holdings of his offshore accounts.

  Eager as he was to speak, Pastor Maury was laconic. It was obvious something was on his mind. He got like this sometimes. An unfavorable yet unsubstantiated rumor in regards to a recession had been on the news all weekend. It was the kind of thing liable to disturb any figurehead with a sizable portfolio.

  Unable to contain his enthusiasm any longer, John broke the silence.

  “Bill, we have an excellent opportunity. If we get moving---”

  “Shut-up, John,” Pastor Maury said.

  His reproach silenced him as if he had cut his tongue out.

  “Certain discrepancies have recently come to my attention. I think it would be best for all parties concerned if you were to tender your immediate resignation.”

  “Bill,” John said trying to find an alternate solution, “I’m certain whatever this is, it can be worked out. I can’t possibly imagine why you---”

  “Stop it,” the pastor commanded him. “No more lies.” He removed a stapled report from a manila folder and handed it to John. The photocopied list was a compilation of e-mails, text messages and geographic whereabouts that left no doubt any longer as to the reason for the pastor’s dismay.

  Some of he and Debbie’s most persona
l messages were laid out cold upon the paper. Yellow highlighter lines, smeared across various passages by Pastor Maury, were direct allegations. Intimate thoughts he had shared with Debbie about work, his wife, the pastor and particularly covert messages in regards to his dalliances with church funds were clearly exposed. Each highlighted quotation was an indictment he could not possibly refute.

  “Please, Bill,” John pleaded, “can’t we leave her out of this?”

  “I don’t possibly see how that is an option.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to be a part of this. Debbie’s a good person, regardless what I’m guilty of doing. This will destroy her reputation, her family. Can’t you show her some kind of leniency seeing as all David has done for the church?”

  “I wish I could, John,” the pastor said without sympathy.

  “Unfortunately, when you choose to lay with dogs, you’re bound to get fleas. I have already called Mrs. Martel informing her services shall no longer be required, and furthermore sent a letter outlining the reasons, as I have to your home, as to why your immediate ex-communication from the church is necessary. An emergency private meeting of deacons has been scheduled for three this afternoon. By then, I suspect this matter shall be closed.

  “I never meant for any of this to happen,” John said. “Please, I’m begging you, let me stand before the congregation, explain myself, apologize. Throw stones and whip me if you want, but leave her out of this. I’m the one who doesn’t deserve mercy, not her.”

  “Noble as that sounds,” said the pastor, “I have made my decision. No matter what you say, there is nothing you can say to me any longer that I am willing to hear. You disgust me.”