The River in Winter

by Matt Dean

  "Tell me anything you can think of. One thing leads to another, as they say."

  I told him. One thing indeed led to another: "Jesus Loves Me." "Go Tell It on the Mountain"-how I'd loved shouting "Go Tell It on the Mountain" with the other kids in Sunday School. A jar, a clear glass jar, shaped like an apple and filled with M&M's that I'd won in Vacation Bible School. How I'd won it, I couldn't quite remember. Memorizing the most Bible verses? Perfect attendance? Random luck?

  "How old were you when you stopped going?"

  My father wore a leisure suit to church every Sunday; it would have been the late 'seventies. I said, "I must have been-what?-eight or nine?"

  "Why did you stop?"

  "My mother left my father and took me with."

  "Why?"

  I closed my eyes. "I don't know." But again, I wasn't telling the whole truth. Barbara and I had never talked about it, and so I didn't know why she had left, but I could guess.

  "You were very young," Eliot was saying. "At that age, and at that time, parents tended to hide their emotions from their children." I kept my eyes closed. He spoke quietly, rounding the edges of his voice. "What about your father? Is he still in your life? Jonah?"

  I looked at him. He wore a powder-blue Oxford shirt, open at the neck. Staring at the pale triangle of skin at the base of his throat, I felt salt prick the corners of my eyes. "I haven't seen him since we left."

  "Can you remember anything about him?"

  The rainbow of leisure suits. Sky blue, mint green, chocolate brown, mustard yellow. I couldn't picture him without a Bible tucked into the crook of his elbow. At church he'd always carried around another book, a little paperback with a photograph of a smiling baby on the cover. I couldn't remember the book's title, but I remembered the name "Stinson" in large white letters along the book's creased spine. Any mention of the book, or of Stinson, had been enough to set my father fulminating against lax discipline, against the pestilential surfeit of unruly children he saw all around him.

  I shook my head.

  "Nothing at all?" Cupping his left hand over his right kneecap, Eliot rolled up his sleeve until the rectangular cuff nestled in the crook of his arm. "Let's back up." He started on the other sleeve. "Have you had any exposure to religion, or to spirituality, or to-well, to God-since you were a small child in Sunday school?"

  With two narrow fingers he canted the face of his watch toward him. He wore it with the face against the delicate vein-tangled bones on the inside of his wrist. My eyes followed the curves and slim bulges of his forearm muscles.

  "Are we over?"

  He shook his head. "We have about twenty minutes. Tell me about your relationship with God."

  A laugh escaped me. "It won't take the whole twenty minutes. I don't have one."

  Eliot tilted his head, tugged his ear. "Do you consider yourself an atheist, then? An agnostic?"

  "I've just never thought about it. I never cared enough about it to choose a label for myself."

  "You laughed a second ago. Why?"

  "As I understand it, you talk to God by praying, but evidence for his ever talking back is-. Well, let's say it's anecdotal and subjective. It sounds like God may be just a little bit passive-aggressive."

  "Have you considered that the trouble you have in your human relationships are caused by not having a relationship with God?"

  I had nothing to say to that. Where my heart had been, I felt a small, jagged shard of stone. What had been a smile tightened into a grimace.

  "Jonah?"

  "I've never considered that."

  "Does it sound reasonable?"

  "Is our time up yet? I might need to leave a little early. I just remembered-." I paused, trying to think of an excuse, any remotely plausible previous engagement. Laundry? Grocery shopping? Dinner plans?

  Again he checked his watch. "It's only been a minute, Jonah. Why is this such a touchy subject?"

  "I don't know."

  "Tell me what you're feeling." He leaned forward and placed his hand on my wrist. "It can't hurt to tell me what you're feeling, and it might help."

  He'd made his voice into velvet. Peace lived in the heart of that voice, and in the warmth of his palm through my sleeve. "It scares me," I said. "If-. Even if I want any of it, and I have to take all of it, it scares me."

  "I don't understand." He scooted his chair a few inches closer to mine. He moved his hand from my wrist to my hand. Our fingers intertwined. "Make me understand."

  Blood pulsed in my ears. Was it fear, now, or Eliot's hand in mine? Again as on Monday, I thought of Spike's hands, encircling my neck as if I were territory he wished to claim. "If I want God, but he only comes as a package with Sam Stinson, then it scares me. If I have to become a hateful, self-righteous bigot, then it scares me."

  An inch closer. "What makes you think that's the way it works?"

  "Onslaught: How Political Correctness Erodes Our Culture and Belittles Our Values, by Sam Stinson."

  With his free hand he waved Stinson away into air. "That's not how it works, Jonah, and if you let go of the fear, you'll see for yourself."

  Freeing my hand, backing away my chair, nearly knocking it over, I stood. "I'd better go."

  He stood, too. "Do you want to make another appointment?"

  "Let me call you. I have to check my schedule."

  He nodded. His face was grim. I could tell that he knew what I meant. He knew that I had no intention of calling him or seeing him again.

  I turned toward the door, then turned back. "What do I owe you?"

  He frowned. He looked at his desk, scanned the neatly arranged accessories, the pencil cup, the blotter, the empty file tray. He picked up his stapler, snapped it open and shut. "I looked into some programs, like I said. It's-. You know, don't worry about it. I'll need some more information, but there's no rush. I think I have your number. I'll call you." He looked at me. "Take care of yourself, Jonah."

  I felt him watch me as I crossed the room, as I yanked open the door with a clatter of mini-blind slats and a squeal of hinges in need of grease. Outside I jogged through icy, needling rain to my car. Turned the key, tugged open the door. Slumped into the driver's seat. Ignition.

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  I'd parked at the far end of the parking lot, in the row facing University Avenue. An eastbound MTC bus passed. Yes. The buses.

  I locked the car door as I climbed out. Slammed it behind me. Heedless of traffic, I jogged across the street. The bus shelter on the far corner had been stripped of its schedules, leaving a messy collage of ripped paper and jagged graffiti scratched in the plastic. To the west I saw nothing but cars. To the east, one block away, the bus that had just passed sat taking on passengers. Just as I started toward it, it pulled away from the curb. Even by doubling my walking pace I couldn't catch it.

  I ran.

  * * *

  8 - Love and Discipline

  By the time I reached the next corner, the bus had traveled blocks. I ran until my shins and my lungs ached. The rain burned my cheeks and forehead. Phantom teeth gnawed at me. At Snelling, I stopped, doubled over, caught my breath. Panting, I limped across the street, toward home. I crossed against the light. Car horns sounded around me; I ignored them.

  From more than a block away, I could see white-no, yellow-rectangles of paper plastered to the house. Three of them on the front door at cockeyed angles. Two more on the front window. More, I thought, on the steps. I quickened my pace.

  Sam Stinson bumper stickers. Love Is All Around. They started at the sidewalk, stuck directly, if tenuously, to its rough wet surface. Dozens of them formed a ladder-another kind of hopscotch grid-to the house. I stepped over and around them. On the stoop, seven of them overlapped each other in a wagon-wheel pattern. The three on the door, I saw now, formed an arrow pointing toward the mail slot.

  Fumbling for my keys, I looked around me. There was no one. No one on the street, no sign of anyone stirring in any of my neighbors' houses. My keys clatt
ered to the ground. Moving quickly but shaking hard, I at last unlocked the door and fell through it. I slammed it behind me. Locked it.

  The outside mail slot fed a copper-lined compartment built into the stucco. A matching trapdoor on the inside gave access. I opened it. A sheet of yellow paper fell out. A duplicate of the one I'd found on my car: "Protect Freedom" and "Save America" and "Love Is All Around" on one side; "Homosexuality Is An Abomination" on the other. Nothing more.

  I called Luther, my landlord, at work. While I waited for him to pick up, I realized that I still held the leaflet. "The Liberal Media," it read, "may already have sent Clinton to the White House, but according to our sources, he's going straight to Hell."

  Luther answered. In a clumsy rush, I started to tell him what had happened.

  "Tenant," he said. "Tenant. Tenant. Whoa. Hush. Slow down. I can't make heads or tails of what you're telling me. Breathe. That's it. Now. Start again."

  I felt feverish. The story comprised one sentence, maybe two. Had I really made such a muddle of it? I started over. While I described the prank, I went to each window in the house and looked for bumper stickers. Each save the bathroom window wore at least one.

  "Bumper stickers?"

  "Everywhere." Cradling the phone against my shoulder, I slid the bedroom window up its warped and rusty track. "On the porch, the door, the windows."

  "Sam Stinson bumper stickers?"

  If I kept the window mostly closed, I could stick my hand out the space at the bottom and reach the bumper sticker. With my thumbnail I picked at one corner of it. "Don't you just feel how love is all around?" I said. The sticker wouldn't budge. "Should I call the police?"

  "You could, but I don't think it'll do much good. It's a funny kind of vandalism. There hasn't been any damage, not really. Nothing a razor blade won't fix. And there was no breaking and entering."

  To close the window, I brought my weight to bear on its lower frame. It rattled home. I locked it. "That's your lawyerly opinion?"

  "That's my landlordly opinion. Speaking of landlordly stuff, have you heard from Tom's parents?"

  I felt my jaw working, heard the hinge snap like a cracked knuckle. "Why would they-?"

  "They called me to ask for his half of the security deposit. They implied they were hassling you for it."

  "I doubt they'd ever contact me." And if I sent them a check, I doubted they would cash it. "Are they-? Are they even entitled to it?"

  "As long as you still live there, it's up to me to decide," he said. "I can be nice." He cleared his throat. "Or not."

  "I'm not leaving any time soon."

  "Good. Good. I don't like to lose good tenants. Not the ones who give me presents at Christmas. By the way, the wife and I have been wanting a bread machine."

  "Good to know."

  "I'll come over tonight and take care of the bumper stickers. Have doughnuts and coffee."

  "It's okay. I'll take care of it."

  "Are you sure?"

  "It's buttons," I said.

  "Buttons? What the hell?"

  * * *

  Next, I called my mother. "This is Barbara Murray," she said. "We won Oregon and lost Colorado." Her voice was thick.

  "What? Oregon?" I looked at my watch: six-twenty-two. Only four-twenty-two in San Francisco. "I'm sorry. I woke you."

  "Jonah? It's okay. I'd be up in another-another eight minutes anyway. What's wrong?"

  "There was this book," I said.

  Through a noisy yawn, she said, "Book?"

  The radiator gurgled. My face still felt febrile from running through the winter air, but my fingers ached with the cold. "A book that Dad carried around a lot. It had a baby on the cover. A pink-skinned smiling baby in pink blankets."

  After a time, she said, "You remember that?" Her voice was clear now, bright and hard.

  "I remember he hit me with his belt. With the buckle." During our first night together, Tom had found a few crisscross scars in the small of my back. I'd told him I'd fallen off my bike.

  For nearly a minute, she said nothing. "Why are you thinking about this?"

  "I'm seeing a counselor. It came up today in our session. What did I do to deserve the belt?"

  "A counselor?" She paused. "Do you know that that's why I left your father? That one time? That was all it took."

  "What did I do?"

  She cleared her throat. "It was nothing." Her voice was shaky and too loud, as if she were trying to sound more assured than she felt. "You asked him if 'fuck' was a bad word. I think one of your playground friends tried to convince you that it was, but you didn't believe it. It sounded like an innocent word to you. Duck, truck, muck, luck, fuck. Fuck, fuck, goose," she said, and gave a humorless laugh. "He set out to show you just how bad he thought it was."

  "Did he hit you too?"

  She said nothing.

  "What was that book?"

  "It was a book he taught in the adult Sunday School. I can't remember the name of it." I heard, on her end, the squawk of bed springs. "Love and Discipline. Discipline and Love. Something like that. It was a small book, a couple hundred pages at most. It was a kind of meditation on 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' interspersed with some sort of weird expos? of Dr. Spock's personal life and political ambitions. He ran for president, you know."

  "Stinson?"

  "No, sweetie. Spock. Spock ran for president. Excuse me one second." With a muffled honk she blew her nose.

  "Are you all right?" I said. "I don't blame you for any of this. You know that?"

  She said nothing.

  "I'm sorry to wake you up with this," I said. "I'll call you on Thanksgiving?"

  "In the evening, after everyone's gone." Every year, she invited forty of her closest friends for a potluck. Usually she provided a turkey roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. "Or any time you want. I'll be here."

  Barely a second after I pressed the button to end the call, I pressed the button to redial. "Me again," I said.

  "What did I-? Did I-?"

  "No, I hit redial. I was thinking-."

  "Mm?" she said.

  "What if I came out for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas?"

  "That'd be lovely." I could hear that she was smiling. "Just lovely."

  "Can you-?"

  "Of course, darling, I'll call my travel agent tomorrow."

  "Call me with the details?"

  "The second I know, I'll call you," she said. She rang off with a squeal of joy.

  * * *

  I looked everywhere, but couldn't find my gloves. Maybe I'd left them at work. Bundled up in mittens, sweater, and parka, armed with the ice scraper from my glove compartment, I peeled the bumper stickers from the windows, from the front door, from the walk. The rain had stopped, more or less, but the temperature had fallen a few degrees. All the darkened windows of the neighborhood seemed to conceal watching eyes. I looked over my shoulder so often that I felt like a dog chasing its tail. My lungs smarted as I filled them with the frigid air. It felt good, in a way.

  When the windows were as clean as I could make them, I walked across University to the auto center at Montgomery Ward. All of the tow trucks were out on calls, but the service manager promised me the next run. I sat in one of the orange-upholstered armless chairs in the narrow hallway that passed for a waiting room. A tempest of torn magazines covered a low, square table. I shuffled through the pile and found an old issue of People, its pages folded open to an article declaring Patrick Swayze the sexiest man alive. I picked it up. Underneath lay a book of children's Bible stories. It had long ago shed its cover, and a crazy crosshatch of crayon marks covered it from its naked end papers to its stitching. I dropped the People and opened the book.

  Pictures-impossibly colorful drawings, their subjects happy enough for the Sunday comics, missing only thought balloons and symbolia-filled every other page. I started to read about Noah's ark, but the second and third pages of the story were missing. Only scraps of torn paper remained to show wh
ere they had been. The story of Jonah and the whale came a few pages later. I checked; the story was entire. I began to read.

  Perhaps it was a stretch to equate Jonah's flight to my own. But after all, hadn't we both chosen one form of mass transit or another? And hadn't we both lost our rides? And of course, we'd both run from the same thing.

  The service manager reappeared with a broad-shouldered Latino man-the tow truck operator-at his heels. A few inches shorter than I, he wore greasy coveralls, heavy black boots, and a threadbare twill jacket. His silky black hair was swept back, held in place with gel or pomade. When the service manager introduced us-the driver's name was Jaime-we shook hands. His warm, callous palm stayed in mine a second too long. His easy grin was a whisker too broad.

  "Ready?" he said. "Let's go."

  I followed him outside. The seat of his coveralls fit his trim ass neatly. Looking over his shoulder, he waved toward his truck-it sat across three spots along University Avenue. Catching my eyes on him, he smiled again.

  Nodding, I said, "Nice." No lie: as tall as some houses, its red doors and chrome brightwork sparkled uncannily in the dim and watery November twilight. It sat idling, its engine surprisingly quiet. White plumes of exhaust billowed upward into the cold air. "Is it yours or Ward's?"

  By now we had reached the truck. Stepping up to unlock the door on the passenger's side, he said, "Mine and Norwest's." He lighted on the ground and held a hand out to help me up. For a second, as I climbed aboard, his hand filled the small of my back. The bucket seat welcomed me coolly. I sank into it. The spotless interior smelled of leather and new carpet.

  The driver's-side door opened with a hefty clunk. In a single smooth leap Jaime settled into the driver's seat, a clipboard in hand, a grin crinkling his face. "University and Fairview?" he said, scribbling on the clipboard.

  "In the Midview Center lot."

  "Won't start, huh?"

  "It's an intermittent problem," I said, and wondered if "intermittent" might be too pretentious a word. "I don't think it's the battery."

  He was still writing. "Maybe the starter." Sliding the clipboard into a slot on the console between us, he shifted the truck into gear. "Ready?" he said.