Forgiveness 4 You

by Ann Bauer

  He paused to breathe. “I didn’t like her. I mean, I didn’t even know her. But it was really late, and she was, Jesus … really hot. So we stole a bottle of Chardonnay from the executive conference room, and the next thing I know we’re going at it on the media table.” He shook his head. “I was just a guy thinking with his dick, you know what I mean?”

  I froze. Because, in fact, I knew exactly what he meant. My scan of the room had pointedly excluded Madeline, because one look at her might set my own to aching and commandeering my thoughts again.

  “It’s the most fucked-up thing, Father. When I got to know her, I really didn’t like her. She’s kind of spoiled and whiny. Always looking for an angle. Seriously, I think she might be a … what do you call it … psychopath? Psycho-something. But that didn’t stop me. It just made the whole thing this sick, sexy game. She’d be talking at me in that, Christ, nagging voice of hers, and I’d get so angry, I’d cover her mouth with my hand. But then we’d both get turned on, and it would morph into this crazy bondage thing.

  “When she was really getting to me, I mean grating on every brain cell …” he gazed into the distance with his lazy California eyes as if he were composing something profound. “Then, I’d fuck her in the ass.”

  I sat for a few seconds, trying to come up with an appropriate reply. Finally, I defaulted to the old standby. “Do you love your wife?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” His voice was ragged, and when I glanced at his face, there were tears in Scott’s eyes. “Things have sucked between us since before our daughter was born. We probably shouldn’t have had her. Magenta.” He grimaced. “That was Dana’s idea. I wanted to name her Grace.”

  “You had the baby to save the marriage?” I asked and took a long swallow of beer. I was warming to Scott by the moment, making a note to tell Madeline—if I could ever face her again—that she should give him another chance. But if he was going to stay on this prosaic route: shaky marriage, baby, infidelity, etc., I might as well drink. This old story I could counsel with half a brain.

  “Yeah, I guess. Stupid,” he said, then grinned at me exactly the way Aidan used to, with only the right side of his mouth upturned. I gripped the table, holding on because very abruptly it was like I was both here with Scott and more than twenty years in the past.

  The last time I was in a bar like this, I’d had an expertly-made fake ID in my wallet, and Aidan was with me. He’d just washed out of an auto repair program, and his father had called, pleading with me to talk to him. He had to learn to stand on his own two feet, Aidan’s father pleaded. Yes, his son had problems but other “slow kids” eventually made a life. Underneath it all I heard the man’s real wild cry: He felt bound by his son, anchored by him. The man was terrified.

  I agreed to do what he asked, but when I called, Aidan didn’t want to talk. All he wanted was to watch the lights over a tiny dance floor while “Rhythm Nation” thumped through the speakers. His head swung just out of time with the music, and he wore a dumb, dazed expression on his face that had only deepened with the drugs.

  He wanted coke. My coke. It was finals week at BU, and I had five, six hours of studying to do every night if I wanted to pass Physics II. The gram in my pocket was essential to getting me through the next several days. But at a certain point during that evening, somehow both long ago and now, I pressed the small manila envelope into his hand and stood, draining my beer, willing to give anything to be done straining to hear his high, nasal voice. Those kindergarten words he used.

  “Dana wanted to get pregnant.” Scott’s flat voice brought me back fully, and I was grateful to leave Aidan in the past. “She thought a baby would help our marriage. And I didn’t really want to, but I went along to shut her up.” He rubbed his cheeks and his late-night whiskers made a pleasant scratching sound.

  “But Magenta,” he went on. “She is the best thing that ever happened to me. I would die for her. You want to know what happened? Right after she was born I was carrying her down the stairs and I tripped, but instead of putting my hands out …” He demonstrated, palms flat like he was saving himself from a fall. “I just tightened my arms around her and took the entire staircase on my back. I had bruises for like six weeks. And my neck hurt like a mother.” He shook his head. “But that didn’t matter. My daughter was okay.”

  “So what are you going to do?” I asked.

  Scott’s face clouded. “I don’t know. I was hoping you’d have, uh … advice.”

  “Stop having sex with a woman you don’t like who is not your wife,” I said.

  Scott laughed, a surprisingly jolly sound. “Yeah, right? You’re a genius, Father.”

  I raised my sticky, empty glass. “Like the beer.”

  “What about Dana? he pressed, moving even closer. I could smell his meaty sweat. “Do I stay just because we have this kid?”

  “You’re getting out of my area here. I used to be in the business of telling people to stay together. But these days, I just help them deal with what they’ve already done.”

  “I get that.” Scott stared at his feet. “I’m not asking you to forgive me because what I did was pretty shitty. I mean, I wouldn’t forgive me.” But he gave me the look of the hopeful.

  “What you did was pretty biological, Scott. I can’t speak for your wife but on a broader world level, infidelity is part instinct: it’s as old as time and probably forgivable. Just quit it, okay? Try to figure out what’s best for your family.”

  “Deal,” Scott said and raised his hand with two fingers up, for the number of beers we needed. “This one’s on me.”

  “She’s leaving,” I said rather abruptly.

  “Who?” His questioning face was childlike. Even I could see why women were taken in by his dumb surfer’s charm.

  “Joy.” I pointed to the door. “She just slipped out, and it looked like she didn’t want anyone to know.” I didn’t tell him that I’d been watching because I was terrified Madeline would leave with everything unresolved between us, and the next time I saw her she’d act like nothing happened and we’d never get back to where we were.

  “Yeah, Father, you gotta watch out for Joy.”

  “You mean in general or me personally?”

  “Uh, both, I guess. Thanks.” He handed our barmaid a twenty and waited while she counted back four one-dollar bills. Eight dollars a beer? So many things had changed over the past eighteen years. “So, Joy grew up Catholic, and she’s been having these, like, random moments of guilt about what we’re doing to the Church. Or at least, that’s what she says.” He took a long draw and blotted his mouth with the back of his hand. “I think she just likes fucking shit up.”

  He leaned closer. “You know what else I did?”

  I shook my head, wondering what—after he’d already admitted to sodomizing a woman not his wife—would qualify for this more covert unburdening.

  “Joy sent me a note with a suggestion for the campaign that wasn’t half bad; it’s the one that got you into this whole photo shoot today. So anyway, I told Ted and Madeline and Isaac, and I acted like it was me, my idea. I’ve never stolen like that before, ever, in my whole career. I don’t know why I did it now; it was stupid and I’ll probably get caught. But she makes me …” he gripped his beer so tightly his fingers went white and waxy. “God, I just wanted to do something, show her she can’t go around manipulating people to get whatever she wants. Give it back for once.”

  We sat for a few moments in silence, listening to the whisky-laced voice of Willie Nelson sing about Spanish angels.

  “Okay,” Scott said, rising as if something had prodded him out of his chair. “It’s almost eleven. I should probably get home. Thanks for the talk, Father.” He held out his hand and I shook it.

  But Scott walked only a few feet away from the table before doubling back. “Listen, I gotta be honest. I’m gonna smoke a joint before I take off and I was just wondering if you want to …” He trailed off, looking at my no-doubt startled expression. “No, I
guess not. That was stupid. Sorry, Father. No harm, no foul. Right?”

  “No, no.” I was, inexplicably, nodding. “That’s not it.” I stood swiftly; my body had made this decision long ahead of my brain. “Let’s go.”

  I filed through moving bodies, my eyes on Scott’s broad back. And I could feel that thing happen: anticipation cracking open like a sunrise, filling me with its golden light. We pushed through the door and out into the cold wet night.

  “I’m over here.” Scott pointed to a black SUV that hulked over the other cars, taking up one and a half spaces in the lot. When I climbed into the passenger side, I had to place one foot on the sideboard and use the other to spring me off the ground.

  “You sure we’re going to be okay out here?” I asked as I closed the door.

  “Absolutely.” Scott was digging in a compartment between the huge, padded front seats. “Cops have so many murders to worry about this year. Two numbnuts smokin’ a doobie downtown just ain’t worth their time.”

  “Where’d you grow up?” I asked.

  “Why? Is my redneck showing?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Tulsa, Oklahoma.” He pulled out a tightly-rolled joint and a Zippo, leaning to one side—he must have had long hair when he started smoking; old drug habits rarely die—as he lit up.

  “South Boston,” I said, taking the joint from him. “It’s the reddest-neck part of New England. Trust me.”

  Then I concentrated. First, I sniffed the thin gray smoke coming from the tip. It was good, Hawaiian or perhaps Colombian. Green and piney with a little bit of spice.

  “Hey, Father?” Scott was already round-eyed, melting into the seat. “You’ve done this before, right? I’m not, like …” He paused, puzzled, searching for the word. “Corrupting you?”

  “Yeah, I’ve done this before.” I raised the joint to my lips and drew steadily, then swallowed the hit and sat perfectly still.

  “Yup, I guess you have.” Scott reached, and we passed as I exhaled.

  I waited, thinking that it had been twenty-one years—exactly half my life—since the last time I had smoked pot. Then that thought trailed off into softness, and I lay back against the seat, which felt more plush and comfortable than any bed. In my mind, it detached from the car and flattened so I could sleep. Scott could go where he liked. I would stay here in this cocoon.

  “You want one more before I take off?” Scott said from far away.

  I reached, eyes closed, and took another long hit. “Thanks.”

  “Hey, sorry, Father. I really have to get going.”

  I was tempted to ignore him. What, after all, could he do? Scott had a critically drug-addled priest in his front seat, drugs in his car, and a psychopathic (probably sociopathic, I corrected silently) mistress ready to call his wife. He was not a man in charge of much.

  But I roused myself and fumbled to open the door, turning to look at the cement ground from my perch. It was a long way down. “Thanks,” I said, as I started the treacherous slide: one foot on the running board, my hands gripping the seatbelt and using it like I was rappelling. “I’ll see you at the …” I bumped onto solid ground. “Office.”

  “Ten-four, Father,” Scott said and waved. Then he turned a key, started the engine with a rocket ship whoosh, and drove away.

  That’s when I realized I was stranded. Buses ran infrequently at this time of night, and walking my Southside block was not advisable—particularly if you were an out-of-shape middle-aged ex-priest stoned out of your mind. For all I knew, everyone from Mason & Zeus had left the bar while I was in the car with Scott. But all these thoughts came to me very, very slowly, and I did not judge but simply acknowledged them with interest. There was no reason to worry because everything felt like it was happening according to some wise master plan. I might have been standing there two minutes or twenty when I heard a voice.

  “Gabe? What are you doing out here?” Madeline appeared in front of me, her face lit by a streetlamp, and I blinked with righteous fortune. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Without thinking—because I did not need to; the world was as predestined as a dream—I walked to Madeline and drew her to me, lifting her. She was so light in my arms I imagined the lupine photographer had cast some spell, giving me superhuman powers as I struck his ridiculous poses.

  “Gabe, why do you smell like …?

  I didn’t let her finish but kissed her hard, hungrily, the way I’d wanted to earlier. Now I was brave. This, I reminded myself utterly without shame, was why I used to enjoy smoking pot.

  Time stretched on. I heard a group of people leaving the bar, laughing, but it sounded as if they were separate from us—on some other plane. Madeline and I remained joined, mouths and tongues, hot darting whispers, her heart against mine. She put her hand to my hard cock and my legs buckled slightly but held. It was miraculous to me how long I had been lifting her. I felt immensely powerful. Also, suddenly, painfully thirsty. I needed water to continue this, gallons of it. I wanted it nearly as much as I wanted her.

  “Where’s your car?” I asked hoarsely and turned us both in the direction she pointed. “Now. Let’s go.” We walked together briskly. I was calculating as quickly as my stagnant brain would allow. “How far is your place?” I asked, and it came out almost angry. I was about to apologize, but Madeline moved in closer and leapt a little to glance a kiss off the edge of my jaw.

  “I’m right downtown. About a mile and a half from here.”

  It sounded like a forty-day journey through the desert to me. But I calmed myself by thinking about her sink, the water gushing out of it. Or maybe she would have a refrigerator stocked with many green bottles of cold, bubbly exotic water, as so many of my Assumption parishioners did.

  We rode through Chicago’s streets, alternately dark and illuminated with showers of light. But unlike last time when I’d been lulled by the drive, I leaned forward, urging Madeline with all my powers to go faster. I could think about only two things: slaking my thirst, then ramming into Madeline with the pent-up force of twenty years.

  We bumped down a ramp into an underground garage, and Madeline drove slowly through the aisles—too slowly—until she came to the spot marked 2213. I was rabid but working to appear calm, unsticking my tongue from the roof of my mouth. “We’re here,” she said, presaging a talking moment that I knew I had to deflect.

  I opened my door and jumped out. “Let’s go,” I called, resisting an urge to knock wildly on the top of her car.

  She came silently then and we walked, my arm wrapped around her so that I could have closed my eyes and simply been led.

  We took an elevator that rose grandly, with barely a lurch. Her apartment was 2213. When I made the connection with her parking space I felt proud, then vaguely aware that the high was wearing off.

  Once inside, I scanned for a sink, a tub, a fountain, anything with water. It was hard to make words in my sticky mouth but I said as casually as I could, “Do you think I could get a drink?”

  Madeline looked startled. “I may have some gin. But there’s nothing to mix it with.”

  I shook my head and swallowed. Entirely dry. “No, water,” I said.

  “Oh!” She laughed but it was hollow. “Sure.”

  I followed her through a living room I barely saw; there were large dark chairs hulking in a manly way. Then we were, blessedly, in the kitchen, a black and gray stone place with wrought-iron stools. She opened the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of cold water. I was riveted, following her hand like a hunter. She took out a glass, poured, handed it to me.

  When I drank, finally, the relief was greater even than I could have imagined, washing my mouth, my throat, then everything below. I felt saved. I set the empty glass down and Madeline refilled it. That’s when I noticed she was on one side of the shiny countertop and I was on the other. Somehow we would have to come back together. And it was clear now that the drug that had emboldened me was wearing off.

  “Thank you,” I said
to Madeline, placing my hand on the one she rested on the tile. It took every ounce of my courage to do this, but she did not pull away. “I was very thirsty.”

  “Gabe? Where did you go when you left the bar? I thought maybe you’d called a cab and gone home.”

  “I was talking to Scott.”

  “Scott Hicks? Our Scott?” A look of disgust crossed Madeline’s face, and she wavered ever so briefly between being the woman I desired and the one I did not.

  “Yes,” I said and got up to circle the counter. “He needed to talk in private. We went out to his car.” I gave mental thanks to Scott, who I knew would forgive me for using him this way. “He’s a better man than you think, Madeline.” I put my hands on her shoulders, testing. “You should give him a chance.” I moved in closer, and she put her arms around me, resting her head on my chest. “Let him work.”

  “Okay,” Madeline whispered into my shirt. We swayed for a moment, locked together. Then she asked, “Gabe, what are we doing here?” And her haunted voice filled me with longing again. But it was different this time.

  My mind was clear and quiet. I was no longer high. Madeline felt like a small, warm spirit against me; I stroked her hair and she made contented sounds. “I am here to understand you,” I whispered. “To worship you.”

  The noise she made then sounded almost like anguish, but she took my hands and pulled me to the threshold between kitchen and living room. The front door was to my left. A shadowed corridor ran toward the recesses of her apartment to my right.

  “Will you come with me?” she asked.