The Critical List

by Wenke, John;

  Mulekick

  I don’t know how it is exactly, but sometimes fifteen minutes turns into twenty years.

  The gray bearded priest with the lavender vestments held the big book and recited words from many different pages. For the infant, there were prayers of welcome, thanksgiving, and hope. They weren’t so bad. After all, that’s what a baby is—the freshest of starts, the universe’s next genius—pure possibility squirming and grunting in a crinkling diaper. But let’s face it: Hitler, Dahmer, and the rest of the killers had all been babies. I’m sure they coo-cooed and gurgled with the best of them. That’s the trouble with pure possibility. Things generally slide in the other direction. If grown-up babies don’t often achieve the magnitude of mass slaughter, they do get tangled in the everyday malaise. I’m counting myself in this, even though I live in Hollywood and write for one of the more successful soaps. People think I lead an exciting life, but I don’t. My dullness simply includes worse traffic jams and frequent poolside parties. Don’t get me wrong: I loved my only nephew, soon to be my godson, but I didn’t know much about him. No one did. How did I know he wouldn’t turn into a mean son-of-a-bitch? I didn’t, couldn’t.

  The prayers for adults really slowed down time. First, we renounced Satan and all his snares. Then Father Stubbings offered prayers of obeisance, penitence, and supplication. With extended hands, he invited us to lapse into silence and make wishes. We had seven-and-a-half years to beg for new cars, better looks, miracle cures, and winning lottery tickets. I concocted my vision of happiness: paradise in the form of an unpolluted beach with a spacious cabana, a new wife at least marginally compatible, and leisure to read and then re-read all the novels ever written by Charles Dickens. Not that reading Little Dorrit would help me write better scripts. Applying Dickens would only make them worse. It’s just too bad that moral resolution and narrative closure have so little to do with life on the post-contemporary tundra.

  “Now, I will anoint young Thomas John with the Oil of the Communicants, one of the sacred oils of the church. The sign of our Savior’s cross signifies this child’s entry into Christian trial and redemption.”

  Linda Elmore sniffed, maybe by accident. She was standing next to me and was the godmother, the only sister of Peter, my brother-in-law. He was a thin nervous man with round shoulders and a slithery walk. He was circulating on the edges, making everybody nervous with that mini-cam. When the priest came over, Linda stiffened, as if waiting to be slapped. When she hefted the baby up her thin chest, you’d have thought she was handling a bug-infested log. Father Stubbings smeared a greasy cross on the kid’s blotched forehead and stained the satin cap. Linda grimaced. At the house, before we came over, she had barked about paying forty bucks for the outfit. Thomas John didn’t like the way things were going, either. He kicked and writhed. Linda I didn’t care about, but I felt for the baby. He couldn’t have been comfortable swaddled inside those eighteen layers of satin. Like his godfather, I’m sure he wanted to get the hell away.

  Through a long snowy winter, we recited the Lord’s Prayer. I moved my lips, played with my fingers, and observed the mumbling crowd of thirty or so, mostly the married friends of Loni and Peter. There were a lot of strange children, no eligible women and a single decrepit, aging cousin we called Uncle Billy. He was propped up on metal crutches.

  Outside the church, before the ceremony, while we had huddled and sweated in the broiling sun, Uncle Billy had given my left shin a knock.

  “Hey, Dave, I just found out we don’t gotta sit through Mass.”

  He meant we just had to get through the Baptismal rite and then scoot back for the eats and drinks.

  I shrugged and sighed. “Loni told me I had to be ready for Mass. It’s one of the reasons I promised to go to confession. So I could take Communion and not embarrass her.”

  “Don’t worry,” he cackled. “They do Communion at these jobs. I just don’t know when.”

  We did it right after the Lord’s Prayer.

  Father Stubbings trudged to the tabernacle and took out a gold chalice filled with wafers. He stomped back and held one to Linda’s face. She fused her lips and went, “Uh-uh.”

  Linda was an atheist—the atheist godmother—but she was there anyway, hating every minute of it. Don’t ask me why. I was (had been?—am?—I don’t know what) a Catholic, but had totally fallen away. In some dim part of me, I still believed something, though I didn’t know what. Since at least one godparent had to be a Catholic in good-standing, I had succumbed to the pressures of sibling love and made the great sacrifice: I got reconciled. Fortunately, after asking around, I found a radical priest chilling out in a run-down parish two blocks east of Hollywood Boulevard. Late last Saturday, I went to confession. I was surprised: they no longer make you kneel inside a box and whisper to a shadow behind a screen. Now they let you humiliate yourself face to face. I went into a small room with two wooden armchairs, a ratty rug, and a vivid painting of the murdered Jesus. It was like a job interview. Waiting for me was a bald, ex-hippie priest with long straggly side-hair and a walrus mustache. I had never forgotten the introductory lines.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been twenty-seven years since my last confession.”

  His eyes lighted and he smirked. Tonight he’d have a real sinner.

  “What brings you back to our Holy Mother, the church?”

  I told him and he grinned.

  “Do you come back to us with an open heart and a true desire for reconciliation?”

  I took this as sarcasm.

  “I certainly have,” I said. “I’m here to confess my sins. I can be general or specific. Whatever you prefer.”

  “Be as specific as you like.”

  He was leaning forward, all ears, as if I were about to tell dirty jokes. In a manner of speaking, I did. Forty-five minutes later, we agreed I had consistently committed all Seven Deadly Sins but intermittently violated only seven of the Ten Commandments—murder, theft, and overt dishonor to my parents being foreign to my nature. Father Donadio absolved me in the name of God and gave me a difficult penance: “Try to stay out of jams, especially ones that violate the sanctity of the flesh.” I agreed to try.

  The following Monday, I dropped into the rectory and filled out a parish registration form. On Wednesday, I picked up my stamped, signed, and sealed certificate of good standing. Next day, before I left for the airport and my flight east, I checked my mail and found a three months’ supply of collection envelopes.

  “Body of Christ!” Father Stubbings proclaimed.

  “Amen,” I replied.

  The Savior’s wholeness settled and dissolved on the parched porch of my tongue.

  It took a solid year for the crowd to take Communion, and before I knew it, fall turned to winter and winter came back to spring, and here we were at the baptismal font, a green marble basin three feet deep, four feet in diameter. It looked like a Jacuzzi for sacred midgets, this tub of gently circulating holy water. The priest held a gold scooper and asked Linda to extend Thomas John above the waters of life. She struggled to get his cap off, tossed it at me, and with quaking arms, she held him out. The priest slowly baptized him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. For each person of the Trinity, he scooped a whole ladle of holy water. On the third pour, the baby jerked around, gushed a mouthful of puke on to Linda’s throat, and then screeched and kicked. Linda panicked. Her mouth wobbled and her head bobbed. Lumpy chunks dropped inside her dress.

  “Take him! Take him!” she hissed. I hunched forward, bumped a tall candle, and slipped my hand under the satin swaddle. I brought him back to my chest, away from the basin. I had a better grip on the clothes than on the child. When Thomas John spit up in my face, I flinched and gagged. He wrenched and spun, turned once and tumbled. With my heart seized, I stabbed my hand through air clotted with sudden cries and gasps. I snagged a foot and pulled. He swung back and for
th, wailing, in metronomic motion, grotesquely resembling those movie-moments of upside-down birth. He then slithered out of his satin bootie and fell. With a deft soccer-style kick, I shoveled him sideways. He just made it over the basin and splashed, achieving total immersion.

  Loni shoved the startled priest, plunged her hands into the water, and gathered her choking, dripping, hysterical darling to the safety of her non-lactating breasts. The baby sputtered and gasped. My knees wobbled. The room tilted. I smothered in a rapid strangle, the near swoon of merely averted disaster.

  Back at Loni’s house, at the edge of an elaborate buffet spread beneath the center of a rented backyard tent, I ate five deviled eggs and four rolls: the awful yoke, mustard, and mayonnaise fluff was gastronomic penance. I wolfed it all down in hopes that gobs of egg and stale dough would soak up my third double bourbon. I hadn’t intended to drink—I almost never drink before evening—but I was trying to neutralize the radiating ostracism. I was breathing it, the fumes of my expulsion: I was not the hero who had saved the baby, but the villain who almost killed and then kicked him. I’d been at the party for nearly two hours and no one wanted to talk to me. When I angled into conversational circles, talk sagged and people slinked away. It was Loni’s fault, actually. They were taking sides with her. In church she had called me a dumb ass—an irresponsible, obnoxious, self-absorbed child-killer. I was “as bad as Herod’s soldiers.” She’d actually said that. If I lived to be a thousand, she’d screamed, she never wanted to speak to me again. She was going to have my godfathership annulled. There was more, but you get the drift. By the time Loni got home, she had simmered into a kind of murderous politeness, a cold-smile stare that said I belonged in hell. Only Uncle Billy wanted anything to do with me.

  Soon after Loni went into the house with the baby, he whacked my shin with his crutch.

  “That was some stunt. I thought for a second we’d be into some serious brain damage. That floor’s marble. Did your mother ever tell you about this kid we knew growing up? He’d be a man now, unless he’s dead, but he was four, see, and one day he got up fast under a table and cracked open his skull. Pip was the name. At least that’s what we called him. He never got mentally older than seven or so. But he was one happy son-of-a-bitch. It’s a friggin’ lesson in life. He could only get jobs that—”

  I broke loose and went off to kill a few conversations. I finally got the message and staked out turf by the buffet. You’re probably wondering why I came back to the party at all. Linda certainly hadn’t come back. If I could’ve gone home, just taken a hike, I might’ve left. But my stuff was up in the guest room. My return ticket was for Thursday. It couldn’t be changed without hundreds in penalties. Even with what I make, I wasn’t interested in paying full coach fare. A one-way ticket—I did make a call—with a five p.m. departure from Newark International cost more than my round trip ticket. You figure it out. But this is by the way. The real reason I didn’t bolt—who needs a dull afternoon party, et cetera, et cetera?—was because I didn’t want to lose Loni, my only sibling. I needed to stick around and make up. By the end of the day, maybe she’d get used to me almost killing her miracle baby. She needed to loosen up and see the bright side. Almost doesn’t count, et cetera, et cetera.

  I was rattling the ice in my fourth drink when Uncle Billy crutched back over. Mirth made his red puffy face look like it wanted to explode.

  “You’re the funniest son-of-a-bitch I ever met. Know what you are? You’re a friggin’ card-and-a-half.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’re inside opening presents, and I seed what you give the kid. Now how in hell did you think up a thing like that?”

  Instantly, I got the sweats. I had forgotten all about my gifts. I had brought a nice gift and a gag gift. Stuck them both in the big pile. The nice gift was a beautiful hardback illustrated edition of The Complete Mother Goose and the gag gift came with apologies to Flannery O’Connor. Two Sundays before, this actress I’m seeing—on and off—dragged me to a massive Orange County junk-fest. For six dollars I bought a large hollow bible. Inside I put—what else?—a pack of condoms, a pint of bourbon and a deck of pornographic playing cards. For my infant godson.

  “Damn!” I blurted. I left Uncle Billy, splash-filled my glass, and hustled into the house. Since I had almost killed the kid, I had lost all latitude—the space to make jokes in mild bad taste. I would apologize and find the real gift.

  When I entered the room, the gaggle of ladies went quiet. They were disgusted with me. I could smell the fumes. This, in itself, was something of a joke. At least five of them had already told me what great fans they were of Dawn Becomes the Darkness. Every day they ate fattening lunches and reveled in the sleazy capers of Dawn Desiree, a character I created. By day, she runs an interior decorating business in Beverly Hills. By night she operates an escort service to the stars. One reason the show is a mega-hit is we use celebrity look-a-likes. We change the names. You’d be surprised how many out-of-work actors are Rob Lowe, John Travolta, Woody Allen, Madonna, or Elvis Presley look-a-likes. Sure, we use dead ones, too. They’re the best, actually, being less likely to sue. Recently, we’d put in Bogart, Marilyn and Winston Churchill. The producers have only drawn the line on Abe Lincoln and Martin Luther King. Frequently, I have Dawn give sensible advice to politicians on zoning matters, tax law, and international crises. Last week, though, she told someone resembling George Bush the Younger that we should have gone all out and bombed Tehran. All the show’s regulars have acute or latent psychological disorders. None of them can manage money. Without exception, they want what they can’t have. Even when we let them get it, they immediately want something else. Without exception, their desires are lewd and disgraceful and normally involve shocking betrayals of spouses, close friends, relatives, or associates.

  I looked past the revolted ladies and found Loni. My smile cracked like a shattered windshield. Her face twisted and wrinkled like crushed silk.

  “I’m just glad Mom and Dad aren’t alive to see the mess you’ve made of my baby’s big day.”

  “That was a joke gift, a literary joke. You were an English major. O’Connor used the hollow bible bit in ‘Good Country People.’ It was meant to be funny.”

  I looked around the room. Silence. I hated seeking their approval. I recognized Mrs. Fanshaw. Outside the church, she had gushed and asked for my autograph. She referred to Dawn Becomes the Darkness as “my story.” She said she lived for it. Pathetic. Now, her bunched-up jaw emanated outrage. Ridiculous.

  I decided to take charge. I put down my glass.

  “I got a nice gift, too,” I explained, crossing the crowded room. “I’ll find it.”

  I kicked a couple of purses and stepped on a lady’s foot. I plunged into the pile, flailing at presents, flattening boxes, popping bows, dislocating cards. I couldn’t find my package. I couldn’t even remember what color wrapping they used.

  “David!” Loni yelled. “Cut it out! Go outside! Have another drink!”

  I picked up a box with bluebirds circling blue baby carriages. I tugged at the paper.

  “The gift I got is nice.”

  “Go away. You’re drunk.”

  “I’m not.” I was only a little drunk.

  “I was an idiot to invite you.”

  “You had to invite me. I’m your only brother. Don’t you think you’re overdoing the anger bit? You shouldn’t be so uptight.” I was trying to cut tape with my fingernail. “Lighten up: I got him something that’ll take you back. You like to go back.”

  “Whatever it is, I’ll burn it.”

  It got to me—her reaming me out like this. I got a temper, too.

  My voice hiked to a higher pitch. “I can’t believe you’re so pissed. You should be grateful I saved the little bastard.”

  “David!”

  “Here’s my gift.” I tore up the bluebirds. “Mom used to rea
d this to us.”

  I raked through the tissue and yanked out two pairs of blue pajamas.

  Peter was next to me. He clamped my elbow.

  “Let’s go. You need a nap.”

  I dropped the box, suddenly depressed as hell, the steam all gone, docile and defeated. I picked up my glass. He led me through the crowd. My shoulders slumped. He got behind me going up the stairs and placed his hand on the small of my back.

  “Why’s she so mad?”

  “No one’s mad.”

  “I got him before he hit.”

  “I know. I got it on tape.”

  “What’s a little water? It was holy water.”

  “She’ll listen later. She’s just all worked up. She’s been looking forward to this day for more than a decade. With what she’s gone through, the thought of losing the baby…”

  He let the sentence hang. It made sense—having the baby had been her fulfillment. All those pregnancy specialists; her settling her heels into chrome stirrups in Boston, Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia; him squirting his juice into more and more test tubes. At her age, thirty-nine, it took guts to go in vitro. I slumped even more.

  “Tell her nothing really happened. Nothing bad.”

  “It’s your parents, too.”

  Both of them had died during her pregnancy. It was another miracle she didn’t miscarry. Now, I was the only one left—my parents’ flawed and suspect surrogate.

  He opened the guest room door and gave me a little push. I was going on ice. He tried to take my glass. I tugged it and raised it way up. He’d have to wrestle me for it. He gave me another push, harder this time. I was letting this twerp move me around. It was my penance. I stepped back. He pulled the doorknob.