The Holdout

by Gracjan Kraszewski

  What is it with me and professors? My father is an English professor. My best friend is an English professor. My aunt is a former mathematics professor. I’m studying to become a history professor.

  Bat is a professor too. That’s why she is in Starkville now. She’s here to present a paper. I have never ever been more grateful to Mississippi State in my entire life. Thank you, Mississippi State. Thank you for planning this conference, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Bat is an assistant professor in the biology department at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa, Idaho. Bat is from Nampa! Yes, she says, she was born and raised in Nampa, attended Skyview High School (a school my high school, Boise High, hated because they were a bunch of stuck up rich snobbish doctor’s and lawyer’s kids…kind of like us at Boise High come to think of it. No, that’s Bishop Kelly. No one in Idaho likes them. Bunch of pretentious private school Catholic kids. Skyview’s great come to think of it) and then the University of Idaho. Bat a U of I graduate and me the “head coach” of the virtual Idaho Vandals on NCAA Football 2002. It’s meant to be!

  After U of I Bat went onto the University of Washington for her PhD. She finished two years ago. We’re the same age, well, almost, she is six months older than me. She turned 31 in October. I will turn 31 next March. I’ve always been attracted to older women. It’s meant to be.

  Bat came back to Nampa, to teach at NNU, because she wanted to be close to her family. She had job offers at Middlebury in Vermont and Azusa Pacific in California but she wanted to be close to her family, the Lindstromms. Bat tells me all about her family. She doesn’t stop talking, actually, the whole time through the coffee and the frozen yogurt, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Buddy boy, if I could sit on this metal chair at Local Culture and listen to this woman talk and watch her eat ice cream and just look at her…

  I think I am right about the general quality of Southern women. They are the gold standard. But my five years in Mississippi had made me forget about Idaho women. My summers back home didn’t help me remember. But Bat does. Bat jogs my memory. She reminds me that the only women in the whole world that might be a slight tick above Southern women are Idaho women.

  Bat is an Idaho girl through and through; lithe like a model but strong as iron; independent and familial simultaneously and without contradiction. Idaho women are, generally speaking, tough, resilient girls, girls who ride horses and mend fences and shoot guns and then come home and get dressed up for a night out looking like they’re heading to a ball at the Governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge; or to a Swiss ball in a snow covered Alpine palace for a night of Haydn and Mozart.

  Bat smells like fresh fallen Alpine snow, gently coating the Sawtooths in our Gem state, the first snow of the season with much more in store.

  Bat tells me all about her family and how much she loves them. About her parents, Sheri and Rusty, her younger brothers Tristan and Paul, and her younger sister Isabelle. Isabelle is currently a student at Bishop Kelly and a gymnast and dancer. Forget what I said about BK. I love BK. Bat pulls out her phone and shows me a video of one of Isabelle’s competitions. Proud older sister is written all over her face. I know that look. I’ve probably had the older brother version of that many times on my face regarding Konrad and A.C.

  This is one of those conversations. One of those conversations, you know what I mean? One of those we just met three hours ago but feel like I’ve known you all my life so I’m going to tell you everything about my life type conversations. We talk about our Catholic faith. We get more and more personal until Bat says, like it’s no big deal, that she is a virgin who is waiting for marriage.

  “I want to marry you and have your children,” I blurt out. What is more embarrassing? That I told a woman I just met three hours ago that I want to marry her, or that I told this woman I want to have a family with her, or that when telling her I want to have a family with her I misspoke, saying that I, the man, would be the one having the children?

  It’s all true, embarrassing or not. I don’t regret saying it. I’d say it again. It’s true.

  Bat laughs. Bat laughs so hard. I start laughing too. Both of us are laughing uncontrollably and we can’t stop. Neither of us can stop laughing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  (Idaho: Nine months later)

  I nod. Dawson sticks his hand into the ice and pulls out a beer. He shovels it to me underhand. He’s sitting close enough to hand it to me but why do that when you can shovel a beer like a shortstop to the second baseman turning a double play? I catch it with my glove hand, ready for a quick transfer; gotta watch for that runner trying to take me out.

  Dawson as in Dawson Pillar. Pastor Pillar of the wonderful sermon from the Noxubee revival. Dawson is a stud. Great guy. David didn’t end up moving to Pontotoc but he has gone up there a few times to hear Dawson preach.

  Dawson’s been in Starkville quite a bit too. He even joined our pick-up basketball game. He’s a horrible basketball player. Worse than White Geek, somewhere in between Black Marshamallow and White Disaster. What’s Dawson’s basketball nickname? Oh, no. No. I can’t share that. Sorry.

  Dawson doesn’t like being called Daws (and especially not “Daws-Jaws”; not his basketball nickname). We of course tease him about this. C’mon, y’all, he says, Daws-Jaws sounds like some kind of beach bum California surfer dude A Swedish beach bum surfer? Okay. Y’all, seriously, he says, I’m a preacher and I need to be taken seriously. Dawson is way more serious than Daws. Okay, I say. What-ever you say, Daws-Jaws.

  Dawson and I are sitting on the outer deck at the Cabin. The Cabin. It’s August in Idaho, here in Smith’s Ferry where we are, sitting on the outer deck of the cabin, the sunlight streaming through the trees and we overlooking the sloping hill in front of us that slopes down to the abandoned train tracks that border the North Fork of the Payette river. The cold, cold river. The river is cold but the outside temperature is hot. The thermometer reads 99.2 F. Time for a swim, Dawson says, standing up. Both of us are sitting on the outer deck, shirtless and in in our swimming trunks. Dawson finishes off a bottle of water by his feet and heads for the river.

  I’m now sitting alone on the deck, beer in hand, shirtless and in my swimming trunks, under the streaming sunlight poking through the trees and overlooking the sloping hill that slopes down to the train tracks and the cold, cold water. The water is still so cold, even in August, that it makes your skin red, makes it look sunburnt when you come out. I just came out of the water not more than half an hour ago. Beer down gullet. Mmm. Time to think. Being alone is a great opportunity to just sit and think and why not about the most important question in life?

  What do I believe?

  That’s not right. I’m Catholic, question answered. The real question that I should be asking myself is this: how would I explain what I believe if some person happened to ask me? Not that they would. Kids wouldn’t, too busy staring at some screen to ask any question, let alone an important one. Ah yes, technology: the great do it yourself lobotomy of modern times.

  Protestants wouldn’t ask me. Ask a papist? No, thank you. Atheists wouldn’t ask me. Ask a superstitious Dark Ager? No, thank you. Liberals wouldn’t ask me because I want to go back to the 13th century. I’m a wacko conservative reactionary. Conservatives wouldn’t ask me because the pope is for humane treatment of immigrants and therefore is a communist trying to set up a one-world government; I, guilty by association, am a revolutionary communist one-worlder or, worse, a liberal. Buddhists and “Buddhists” like Austin wouldn’t ask me because I’m too judgmental. Conservative Catholics wouldn’t ask me because I’m not judgmental enough. Liberal Catholics wouldn’t ask me because I’m not the right kind of judgmental, not too much and not too little, and, hey, after all, I don’t like heterodox modern music during Mass so I’m not even eligible to be asked.

  Oh, well. No one would actually ask me what I—a Catholic, just a Roman Catholic, neither liberal nor conservative nor anything else—believe. But with
if they did? More beer down gullet. What if? Mmm-hm, this beer sure is tasty. Nothing like an ice cold beer on a hot summer day. If they, anyone, actually asked me what I believe what would I say? Well, I’d probably explain my beliefs, our Catholic beliefs, something like this: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.

  We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

  I think that’s probably how I would sum up Catholic belief, a compact summary. The beer nears it’s final act. What’s that terrible itch? What—oh, no. It’s the tag on my swimming trunks. I’ve been wearing them backwards this whole time. No worries. Since I’m currently holding, and sitting in, the Father Will Taylor Smith’s Ferry Chair of Dogmatic Theology I might as well muse on some more things. I laugh out loud. Good one, Rhett. More beer. Beer all gone. Father Will, man I love that priest. What a priest. He’s concelebrating the wedding with the St. Paul’s parish priest, Father Chet Haasenvogel.

  Bat and I are getting married in three days.

  We got engaged in February, less than two months after we met. That’s so fast! Well, when you know you—, I hate those sayings. But I did know and she knew too and so why wait? Father Will is in town along with so many of my friends and family: not just Dawson, along with his wife Lucy and their two daughters, but also Konrad, A.C., Parker, Austin, Uwe and Shelby, Shannon, Bill and Anne, Brent, David, and Antoine. Konrad and A.C are co-best men. It feels good to be loved by so many people. Wait…Shannon is here? Brent? Yes, yes, but relax. Mmm-hm, nothing like that next beer pulled from the ice. Cheers, Uwe’s Corner. More on them soon. Now, from the esteemed Father Will Taylor Smith’s Ferry Chair of Dogmatic Theology, live from Cabin University and streaming worldwide on Catholic Answers Live with your host, the ever-dreamy Paaaaa-trick Coffin!!! Ha, h—ow, oh, man. Laughing beer out your nose hurts. Oh, that burns.

  I think I’ve made a breakthrough in understanding how the torpor relates to original sin. Here’s what I’ve got.

  Man is fundamentally good. Fundamentally good because man is made in the Image and likeness of God. But then, original sin. Now man, still fundamentally good, is tainted, wounded. The wound (concupisense) oozes, if you will, many different colors of puss (sin). My wound oozes lust, very gross colored puss. We all ooze puss but denying that there is a wound or puss only makes all this worse. Soon all the colors are coming out. That’s kind of the problem with the modern, and now post-modern world, too much multi-colored puss everywhere and the patients deny the wound, the doctors deny it, all bury their head in the sand. This head-in-sand syndrome metastasizes into torpor. Why torpor? Because Puss-wound denying patients, precisely because of denying the wound and the puss, mistakenly believe that they are neither tainted nor wounded and expect to be happy. They find they are not only not happy but miserable. And so the torpor. There is only one remedy for the torpor and I was mistaken to believe once that it was women. Women are only a Band-Aid on the torpor, such was my relationship with Kennedy—Band-Aid on the torpor, then the torpor oozes through and oh, boy, still gotta rip that Band-Aid off and now it’s going to hurt so bad glue-stuck to my skin.

  Jesus Christ is the only antidote to the torpor and the wound and the puss; of this I am convinced. Jesus Christ, and the grace found in the Sacraments of the One Church,—a Church He established upon that coward thrice Christ denying fisherman the least of the apostles and so the most fit to be the rock, for God’s glory is made manifest in weakness—is the only remedy to a meaningless, boring, paralyzingly absurd world of torpor where, where it not for God sending His only begotten Son to die for our sins and redeem us and be our Savior giving us not only daily divine help in this life, grace, but the hope of eternal bliss, all a person could do would be to lay on his living room floor and bite the carpet, engluphed by the torpor.

  Dostoevsky said that without God all is permitted. Certainly he is right, God is the sole arbiter of morality, the sole Judge, without divine justice, divine law, indeed there can be no such thing as right or wrong; all is relative. There is no such thing as secular morality. People can act decent. Or they can choose not to. Who can judge? No one, no one but God and without Him there truly is no such thing as good or evil or anything. So, yes, Dostoevsky is right but I would propose that without God it’s not so much that all is permitted but that nothing is permitted. Without God nothing matters. Without God life really is absurd and meaningless. So nothing is permitted because there is nothing but the torpor, nothing to overcome the torpor, nothing you can do that will ever matter or have any meaning, lasting or otherwise, and so nothing to do but lay on the floor, bite carpet, and wait to die.

  But what I do know? I am, after all, a papist Dark Ager, wacko conservative, revolutionary communist one-world liberal, judgmental not judgmental enough not good about judging at all, Catholic. The beer is all gone. No more beer and the ice is beginning to melt in the near hundred degree heat in Smith’s Ferry. Poor ice.

  What else have I done since meeting Bat? Besides getting engaged to the very same Bat. I celebrated my 31st birthday last March 19th and am now in my 32nd year on earth. What is 31 now, what’s the conversion for the present day? Is 31 the new 23 or the new 46? I’m not sure.

  I’m Doctor Rhett Lawson now. Yes, but if anyone calls me Doctor I don’t know what I’ll do. I have a reoccurring nightmare of one day being one of those doctors whose books say: Doctor William Williams, PhD, M.D., J.D., D.O., D.U., M.B.A., S.S. Everyone knows the type.

  Doctor Weathers met with me in January. Then again later that month and then a bunch of times after that until I was finally ready to defend. Did so successfully in early April. I owe a lot to Doctor Weathers. I couldn’t ask for a better advisor. Wouldn’t you believe it, the day of my defense, right after she congratulated me on passing, she told me to now call her Molly. Yes! I’m in the “club” now. It gets even better. Molly sent me and Bat a wedding gift, it arrived last week, and it was signed, Molls. Molls! Can you believe it! That Dr. Weathers—I mean Molly, Molls, Smokin’ Wendy—she really is something.

  I need to stop that. Smokin’ Wendy. No more nicknaming women.

  Our world is tearing apart at the seams. Society is in shambles and everyone has a theory on who’s to blame. Protestants blame the atheists and secular culture and liberals, the atheists blame Christianity and right-winged politics, black racists blame whites and sometimes conservatives, white racists blame blacks and sometimes liberals, the religious right blames gays, homophobes blame gays, the gays blame conservative right-wingers, the conservative right-wingers blame CNN and Anderson Cooper, Catholics are implicated everywhere and by everyone yet they can’t make up their mind on who or what to blame, the LGBTQ lobby blames the NRA and the NRA blames the ACLU and the ACLU blames the USA, Fox News blames Obama and southern rednecks blame Obama too, northern rednecks blame General Motors, black southern rednecks are mad at Darius Rucker but secretly they love him, Michael Voris blames the reasonable hope thesis, Mark Shea blames Michael Voris, New Agers blame the Universe and then ask the Universe for forgivenes
s and just go back to zoning out secret energies, American “Buddhists” blame Jack Kerouac and then themselves and finally Mitt Romney, and women blame men. All men. Men don’t blame anyone because all they do nowadays, in these late awful dreadful latter days of our dead-dead late Western Civilization, is sit on a couch for twelve hours on a Sunday, watch two football games simultaneously on a split screen hundred inch plasma, drink Miller Lite, get fat, and lose more and more brain cells by the second down a path that will end in their sole mental capability being asking for more wings, a larger pizza, and laughing at commercials aimed at teenage chimpanzees (or, have we already reached the terminus of this road? Either way, you win, Darwin. You did it, brother! You were right all along, it seems. We are nothing more than hairless apes). Women, most women not all, blame men. The lot of them. The whole dirty lot of men. Animals.

  I have a completely different theory but one actually not far afield from the women. I blame men too. I blame the many single male professors in Mississippi State’s history department for all that’s wrong with the world and society. None of them it seems have the intestinal fortitude to ask out the one Doctor Molls. She’s single, guys! Why is no one asking her out? America’s future hangs in the balance.

  Molls is no Beatrice Lindstromm. Girl ain’t no Shannon Hawthorne neither. But while she’s no infinity/10 or 1.34m/10 as the two above, respectively, she is, at minimum, a 14 out of 10.

  Thought experiment: Would I ever become a polygamist?