The Holdout

by Gracjan Kraszewski

  “Exactly!” the celebrity says, not picking up on the sarcasm. The crowd roars.

  “Doctor King-Obama comes up with the solution. The De-whitifier Psycho-Bonkers Extreme 4000. It’s this machine, highly intricate, very very scientific and everything, that, to make a long strong short, turns a white person into something else once they go through it.”

  “Go through it?”

  “Yes. It’s like a cosmic carwash. It washes the white right off you.” Crowd loving it. Loving it.

  “I believe in this mission,” the celebrity says, quieting the crowd with a gesture of his hand. The audience is eating out of his hand. Here is one of our own! they make known with their constant clapping and cheering. Here is the truth about everything I’ve been searching for my whole life! “My book is a dystopia but it ends in utopia. It’s a very positive message. Once all the white people are gone a better world is born, a new dawn. My book has a very happy ending, you see? A real goal we all can strive for together to make the world a better place.” The celebrity reaches down behind his chair and pulls out a water bottle. Time for some quick advertising. “Remember to save the planet. I am. This bottle is made of one-hundred percent recyclable materials. You can pick one up at my website at a real steal: only $69.95.”

  The host has a look on his face that is indescribable. I would pay a thousand dollars, minimum, to know what he’s thinking right now, all those things he is not allowed to say on TV. “Wow. Well, that sounds very interesting. Riveting, indeed.”

  “I know,” the celebrity says, “just imagine, right? All the people. All the people, the true diamonds of the human race—I’ve named this new, whiteless humanity, the Super Dynamites—together and living in peace; African-Americans, Asians, Native Americans, Mexicans, the Japanese, Swedes, African-Africans, Mexicans from other Spanish speaking countries. It’s just beautiful.”

  “Is there a name for this book? Do you have a title?”

  “Yes. Caucasian Apocalypse.”

  I love my Aunt Shelby. Anyone who knows me even a little knows how much I love Shelby. I have only a few, true role models in my life, people I really want to be like. This list is very short: my parents, John Paul II, Pier Giorgio Frassati, (the very recently added Father Will). Shelby is on this list.

  Of all the things Shelby has taught me, and they have been many, it is that a person should not be looked at as a black person or a white person or any other kind of person. A person is just a person. We’re all God’s children, she says, all equal (except for Patrick Coffin, he’s a little more equal, a Primus inter pares), all equally loved. The thing is Shelby is so good-hearted that she means it. These things to her are not platitudes or clichés. She really lives Dr. King’s dream—the real one, not the farcical parody in Caucasian Apocalypse—of an America where all of God’s children, from the red hills of Georgia to the Mississippi molehills, live in harmony and unity and color-blindness; in America simply as Americans. People who are simply people.

  Shelby has taught me a lesson about race that I have never forgotten and have often found to be true: those who are most often at pains to talk about how much they are for equality and color-blindness and how a certain group that in the past committed sins against another group should never stop paying for those sins are not only obsessed by race—the very thing preventing a true colorblind society from forming, impossible if the differences between people are always being highlighted— but they are also, very often, the worst kind of racists themselves. The make such a show of their distaste for racism out of a revulsion for the horrifying racism in their own hearts, an aching hate they live with daily and cannot escape.

  I had a hunch about this celebrity. I—no, Shelby—was right.

  I looked up this man on the internet. The interview had indeed taken place a few years ago. Shortly after giving this interview the celebrity was befallen by great personal scandal. A horrifying video surfaced showing him abusing the workers who worked in his home in Los Angeles. The amount of racial epithets hurled as these workers, all of them of Hispanic descent, was truly astounding. He used some insults that I had never heard before, ever. Other racial epithets were of the common anti-Hispanic variety…better not to be repeated, even in the safe space of my own thoughts. The Huffington Post printed the entire transcript of this man’s rant, word for word, in an article entitled “The Seedy Underbelly of Closeted Celebrity Racism.”

  The celebrity did some time in rehab. He emerged a new man. Then, a few months later another video appeared (TMZ go a hold of it and soon it was all over the internet) in which he told a black man that he wished “we” had shipped “them” back to Africa when “we” had the chance. The man was obviously, rightfully, offended. Who exactly do you mean by ‘we’ and ‘you’, sir? The celebrity’s response to this question was, verbatim, “Who the hell do you think? You, all of you stupid (it was here that he used one of the weapons of mass racial destruction: the ‘n-word,’)! The whole of you, all (again, n…), every (n…) ever who stepped foot in this country!” If I was the man on the receiving end of this verbal assault I don’t know if I could have resisted punching the celebrity. And yet this man acted like Jackie Robinson. I’ll pray for you, son, he said, sympathetically, as he walked away.

  More public fallout. More rehab. Then another incident and this time against everyone in his Super Dynamite group of new-dawn humans; no one, not blacks, Hispanics, Asians, not even Poles (those disgusting idiot stupid ass coalmining Polak pieces of dogshit were his exact words—“coalmining,” turns out he was born and raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) were spared this man’s foaming bigotry.

  He disappeared for a while. Then, a slew of arrests. Embarrassing things. Five arrests for public urination. Two for public defecation. He once walked into a McDonald’s in Bakersfield completely naked at two o’clock in the afternoon. No back story or accompanying details. Just that. Walked into a McDonald’s naked. Cops called.

  He has since completely disappeared from the public eye. Nothing heard from him for a long time now. Nothing. Caucasian Apocalypse is still unpublished. The final thing this celebrity did, shortly after his naked McDonald’s incident, was rack up his third, and hopefully final, citation for public defecation. He was quickly arrested after relieving himself on a statue of Thomas Jefferson somewhere in some park. This was the incident that caused him to disappear into his currently ongoing exile. There is a silver lining to this story; well, for me, at least. Perhaps the hardest thing for a history graduate student to do is to pin down an exact definition of postmodernism.

  A naked white liberal, white-hating racist actor turned novelist who hates everyone and himself the most, taking a dump on a Founding Father. Works for me.

  I shouldn’t be so hard on this guy I think; nor should society. I keep thinking of the black man on the receiving end of his verbal assault, I’ll pray for you, son. Shouldn’t that be all of our response? To pray for this man’s mental health and healing of heart, he obviously so in need of both.

  This celebrity is clearly a chronic sufferer of the torpor disease. I know. I struggle with the prime symptom of torpor every day—the gnawing feeling of meaningless and purposelessness and irrelevancy that is at the very heart of torpor—and have been more so than normal since Thanksgiving. If it wasn’t for my faith, I’d go crazy too. I guess this celebrity was right, after all. He was right about how terrible white people are, at least right about himself, even if indirectly. If white people really are all like this celebrity then I’ll be the first in line to get de-whitified.

  What have I done since Thanksgiving two weeks ago? I watched this interview last night, rather this morning. And then stayed up longer reading the celebrity’s backstory. Today is December 10th, the final day of the fall semester. That doesn’t matter to me. I’m done with classes. Done with teaching classes. But it is the last day of the fall semester.

  I was in Jackson two days ago. Father Will was asked to concelebrate the Mass for the Immaculate Conceptio
n of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Cathedral. He asked if I wanted to come with him. We had a great time talking in the car. Didn’t even put on any music.

  Been trolling around Starkville a bit. Tried to call Brent a few times but no answer. Shannon hasn’t called me. I’m not going to call her. No news from Doctor Weathers. Nothing until January, she said. Been at Strangebrew a bunch. 929 too. 929 is a new coffeeshop on Main Street. No rivalry necessary between the two. Both make delicious coffee, nothing else matters. Have been to Little Dooey’s, City Bagel, and I spent a night last week just walking up and down Main Street having a beer at different establishments. Once beer here. Another there. I know, I know.

  Father Will’s Perpetual Adoration idea has taken off with St. Joseph’s parishioners. All twenty-four hours are filled up most days of the week. I have an hour Tuesday night. Today is not Tuesday but I think I’ll still stop in and pray. It’s either that or back to Main Street, bar to bar knee-deep in beer foam. I think I’ll go pray.

  I open the door to the Adoration Chapel. It clicks open, loud against the silence in the church. I kneel down and silently pray the Tantum Ergo, eyes closed. I open my eyes and see her.

  Ten feet away from me no more. She is kneeling in the far corner of the chapel, eyes closed. Her fingers are slowly working their way around a rosary. Who is this?

  I don’t pretend to be an active member of the St. Joseph’s parish family. I have never missed Mass on Sundays. I often go to daily Mass. I come for Stations of the Cross and often for confession. But hang out with some parishioners after Mass? Uh. Come to this meeting, this prayer group? Well… How about just grab a coffee, get to know the parish? Yeah. Actually, wait, I have this thing I can’t miss. How did I forget? Yeah, I’m actually getting my appendix removed along with my tonsils. Complicated, experimental surgery. They do it at the same time. I’m actually late for it now. But you had that surgery last month, twice. Yeah. It’s not of those one-time deals. Very experimental. Sorry.

  I come to events and the like, sometimes, not often, mainly when Father Will asks me/forces me to. This woman is probably one of those active members of the parish family. If so, boy have I been missing out.

  She is, she is, how, she is, how can I…how do I? She is so, I, she is so absolutely, incredibly, breathtakingly, impossibly, incomprehensibly, beautiful.

  She is beautiful.

  I have never seen anyone like her before.

  Funny thing, too. This is the first time that I can ever remember looking upon a woman and not feeling lust. Nothing. Not a trace of lust. And from the first look at her it was immediately clear to me that Queen Shannon had been dethroned from her title of most beautiful woman in human history. Don’t get me wrong, please. Shannon is still a 1.34m out of 10 in terms of beauty and that is scientific fact. Awkward, ahem, if awkward is indeed the right word here, Thanksgiving incident at Shelby’s or not, you can’t argue with science.

  Shannon is a 1.34m beauty but this woman is unquantifiable. She is infinity out of 10 and this, like Shannon’s rating, is nothing less than another cold, hard, scientific truth.

  What does she look like you ask? Yes, yes. I’m getting there. Okay, I’ll discuss that now.

  She has a hair color that is somewhere between blonde and brown. Not dirty blonde, no. Rather a seamless, integrated, color that I can only describe as a toned down blonde. Perfectly natural. This is her natural hair color, no doubt. As natural as the slight wavy curls in that hair that are comparable both to Shannon and Strangebrew Volleyball girl’s hair but is really not like either of those women’s hair at all. Paradoxical, I know. Believe me my head is spinning. Her figure is just what a woman should look like. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just right, like Goldilocks’ porridge. She is kneeling but I can tell she is no taller than five foot ten and no shorter than five foot seven. She is not wearing any make-up and so her natural beauty shines forth all the more. Some of my friends from Arkansas like to carry on, in a combination of pride and nostalgia, about their home, “the natural state,” but I’ll tell you I have the evidence that they are wrong. Arkansas is not the natural state. I have seen the natural state. It is before me now in all its God-fashioned glory. I have seen, for the first time in my life, the natural state of woman. I imagine I am like Adam in the Garden seeing Eve, flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, for the first time and before the Fall.

  A sudden terror comes over me. Oh, no. Please, please no. I check. I can see across the chapel because I have always had good eyes, very good eyes, 20/10 vision. Yes!!! Oh, praise God! Thank you thank you thank you, Jesus! No ring. She has no ring on the ring finger on her perfectly shaped left hand. Oh, what a hand! What a hand and what fingers. Oh to just reach out and, to reach out and put but one finger on that hand. One touch and I can die a happy man.

  I look away. I’m before God, I remind myself. This isn’t the time for this type of daydreaming. But, to my deeper bewilderment, there is no lust. Again I am aware of it and again shocked: zero lust. Every woman I have ever been attracted to I have imagined…well, all of that. If there is one reoccurring sin I bring to God again and again it’s lust. I am the most lustful of lustful men living in the most lustful, certainly the most accessibly lustful, most catered to lust and lustful things, time in human history.

  But no lust here. None. Why? Certainly our location has something to do with it. She and I, whatever her name is—oh just to hear that name, I would run mad in the night and climb vines to her balcony to just hear her name—are before God. We are before the living God. Before Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament. Perhaps no sin and no lust can penetrate this sacred abode. Yes, but it’s not just that. I don’t feel any lust in me at all. It’s as if there was a lust box somewhere in my body and it has been physically removed. Perhaps it was during that tonsillectomy-appendectomy. Yes, they did mention something about getting the lust box, while we’re here. Why not? You’d be good to be rid of it. Very experimental type of surgery.

  My thoughts are racing and I can’t think and I’m starting to think that I’m about to not be able to see or breathe either. I look over at her. Hasn’t moved an inch. What a Catholic example! Totally absorbed in prayer. Fingers gliding across the beads, slowly. Not like me who thinks only of a thousand different things when trying to pray and can’t keep still if keeping still was required for only one uninterrupted minute.

  I go and kneel down a few feet from the door. I say an Our Father. I say a Hail Mary. I say a Glory Be. I leave. I can’t take it anymore. Lord, please help me. I can’t take it. I don’t know what to do. What should I do? I know. I’ll wait for her. Yes. I am going to wait outside of the Adoration Chapel for her, no matter how long it takes. I’ve waited a lifetime so what’s a few more minutes or a few more hours.

  Please don’t be about to enter a convent somewhere, I think. No ring, but what if she’s going to be a nun? More of that cold-washed terror washing over me like a rushing river. Oh no. No. That’s probably it. This is probably a penance. Please Lord, no. I’ll repent in sackcloth and ash. I’ll sleep with barbed wire wrapped around my torso. Please don’t let her be a future nun. I have to marry this woman. Please, I’ll put rocks in my shoes and never look at another woman in lust again. Please.

  This is probably a penance. I’m convinced of it. This is my penalty for all my lusting and fantasies and my disgusting objectification of women. I’m guilty. I deserve this. This is my penalty for all my lusts and my stupid nicknaming of women instead of taking the time to get to know their real names: Strangebrew Volleyball girl, Greek Mythology girl, Bookish but Fine Librarian girl, Wow girl, Perfect Milkmaid Farm girl, Sweet Baby Baby girl, Australian Outback girl aka Hot Koala-Honey, and Smokin’ Wendy—my nickname for Doctor Weathers (I always thought she looked much more like the Wendy’s spokes-woman than Amy Adams).

  I finally get to see a woman as God sees her, without any lust or objectification, just pure human beauty. And she’s going to be another Shannon. Another untouchable. A wo
man that I can never be with. Why, God? Why me? Why m—

  The door clicks open. Oh, no! I’m sitting on the floor and looking like a complete mess, certainly actin’ a fool as my Alabama friend Rodney likes to say, dishevelment oozing from me. As first impressions go…

  She closes the door behind her and looks down at me, sitting on the floor, and says,

  “Hi.” But soft, what speech through yonder lips breaks? It is my lady, O, it is my love! I am too bold; ‘tis not to me she speaks.

  “Hi,” she says again, stretching out her hand towards me. I wasn’t being too bold. She was taking to me. O that I were a glove upon that outstretched hand, that I might touch that cheek, that face.

  “Si,” I finally manage to say. I have blown it. I have blown everything. Poor me.

  She laughs. She laughs! O, laugh again, bright angel for thou art as glorious to this night as is a winged messenger of heaven.

  “Hola, then,” she says, smiling. “Me nombre es Beatrice. ¿Cómo te llamas?”

  What is she saying?, I wonder. Si and uno, dos, tres is all the Spanish I can remember now, deep in the clutches of this love-induced, trembling terror-filled daze of romantic delirium. Is she mocking me? If so, please continue. Please don’t stop. Beatrice? Beatrice. What a name!

  I manage to stand and to finally take her hand into mine.

  “I’m Rhett,” I say, “sorry. About, sorry about that. All that.”

  Beatrice laughs again. “No need to apologize. I’m Beatrice but everyone calls me Bat.”

  Bat? Oh, wow. Could there be anything more beautiful than the name Bat? I wouldn’t want to shorten Beatrice at all. But if you were going to then Bat is the way to go. Bat. Bat, Bat, Bat. Bat.

  “Do you, I mean,” I say, “would you? Would you like to go and get some, some coffee or something?”

  “Yes,” Bat says. “I’d love that.”

  I take Bat to Strangebrew. Is there anyplace else to go? We get some coffee there even though it’s close to seven o’clock at night. I figure she must be hungry, so we go to dinner at Local Culture and have frozen yogurt. It seems Bat likes coffee as much as I do. It seems she likes ice cream as much as I do. Frozen yogurt, like the frozen custard at Bop’s—Bop’s on Highway 12, stupid Highway 12, I hate that road, that stupid road with those crazy drivers and those crazy signs on the side of the road —is just like ice cream. Get over it.