Probation (23 page)

It was poetic justice, you goddamn fucking bitch. The Lord has not forsaken me. All your best-laid plans torn asunder by that one phone call, denying you the opportunity to humiliate me, hurt me, reject me, pity me, cast me as the victim in our marital melodrama. I got there first and I have just one regret. I wish I had a photograph, irrefutable evidence of my insatiable hunger as I sucked that enormous musky cock with a look of pure and unconditional pleasure that you never, not once, saw on my face.

The voices on the radio are still babbling about the dead Kennedy. The host is repeating himself. The subject’s exhausted. There’s nothing left to say but no one wants to talk about anything else. I drive aimlessly for an hour, turning left, then right. I lived in this town for eighteen years. It’s impossible to get lost. I’ve got nowhere to go but back to my mother’s house.

A
dios!

Aloha!

Au revoir!

Arrivederci!

No, make that…

Addio!

Sayonara, Mothra!

Bring out the cake! Blow out the candle! Give me my present! It’s almost our anniversary. Our first and last. We’ll crack open the Veuve Clicquot and celebrate!

“I just assumed you’d be continuing in therapy,” Matt says, sounding disappointed, almost dejected.

Why would he assume that?

“You’ve got a lot going on, what with your mother and all.”

“I can handle it.”

“And there’s the question of medication.”

Can’t he just call in refills as needed?

Each of his arguments is swept aside, inconsequential, and he’s forced to accept my decision and concede he can’t hold me here any longer. Our work is nearly finished as far as the State of North Carolina is concerned. And I’m tired of not having a level playing field. I’m tired of not being able to ask questions or, more accurately, tired of asking questions he never answers.

This evening, I had a chance encounter with one of the priests who share the house. The front door was open and Matt wasn’t in his office. I wandered into the kitchen, looking for a glass of water. A radio in the backyard was playing dance music, ancient and out of style or maybe so retrograde as to be fashionable once again. An emaciated blond in floppy shorts and a muscle shirt was slumped in a lawn chair, one long thin bare foot twitching to the beat as his bony fingers tapped the arm rest.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. Love to love you, baby.”

“Can I help you?” he asked, using his sermon voice, a deep rumble resonating from that scrawny chest.

“I’m here to see Matt…Father McGinley.”

“His office is at the front of the house. You passed it on your way back here.”

He held a pair of glasses up to his eyes and squinted, assessing whether I was one of Matt’s juvenile delinquent sociopaths, on the prowl, compulsively pilfering small objects. He saw I was nothing more than a garden-variety neurotic who, once chastised, would pad sheepishly back through the house. He dropped his glasses and turned his attention back to Donna Summer.

All I’m able to squeeze out of Matt is the blond’s a Jesuit from Wisconsin on loan to UNC–Charlotte for the academic year. He’s teaching a course on the French Deconstructionists for the comparative literature department. Matt studiously deflects any further questions, but I persist.

“Why is this so important to you?” he asks.

“It isn’t.”

“Then why so many questions?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Curious about what?” he asks.

About that priest, about you, about whether you are what you seem to be, controlled, engaged in life yet detached, distant enough to remain objective, not a prisoner to whims and urges, highs and lows. I’m curious about whether it’s all a façade and, just like me, you toss and turn in your spartan single bed, your beefy, hairy legs twisted in the sheets, kicking at the hobgoblins crawling out of the woodwork. Where do you hide from your demons? What’s the antidote for desire? Dropping to your knees for a rosary and a pair of novenas for the strength to resist temptation or a quick jack-off and a week without candy as penance?

“Nothing…actually, I am curious about something.”

“What?”

“How do we end this?”

“Haven’t you talked with your lawyer?”

“Right. We show up before the judge. No arrests. Completion of counseling verified. Listen to a word or two of wisdom. Look abashed, no, look reformed, like I couldn’t even conceive of fucking up again, like I’m a whole different person than the loser who stood there a year ago. Record expunged and I rejoin the ranks of solid citizens.”

“So there you are.”

“But I’m still curious. What’s your role in all this?”

“I submit a final report to the Court.”

“Have you started it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it finished?”

“No.”

“When do I read it?”

“You don’t.”

“What does it say?”

This line of questioning makes Matt uncomfortable.

“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that.”

I nearly jump out of my seat. One more question he won’t answer, one more secret he’s hiding.

“Whoa, calm down.”

“What do you mean you can’t disclose it?”

“It’s a confidential report to the Court. It belongs to the State. That’s how it works. It’s not mine to give you. It’s the judge’s decision whether to share it. Your lawyer will have to file a motion to get a copy.”

“Wait a minute!”

“What?”

“Who the fuck are you working for here?”

“Well…”

“Haven’t you been preaching to me for months that I’m your
patient?
”

“Yes.”

“Then give me the report. I have a fucking right to see it. I’ve spent too much time in hospitals and doctors’ offices. I know about patients’ rights. You
have
to let me see it.”

“Andy, it’s not that simple.”

“It’s not that fucking complicated,” I shout.

“Andy, if you want to see your medical record, fine, but this is different. It’s a report that…”

I realize I’m crying and reach for the box of tissue on the low table between us. They’re oily and they stink, scented to suggest floral bouquets. It’s nothing but frustration, this outburst. I’m tired of him shutting me out, blocking me off. He watches, silently, and the longer he observes, the harder I cry. I point to the closed door. He understands, knowing I don’t want to be humiliated.

“Don’t worry. No one can hear you.”

He waits until the tears have stopped and I’m dabbing my nose obsessively, worried about stray strings of snot.

“I really wish you’d reconsider your decision,” he says.

I shrug and mumble.

“We have one more session. And you can do something for me.”

“What?”

“Write your own evaluation and report. We’ll see how it compares to mine.”

I agree. I work on it all week. On planes, in hotels, at counters, in my little book where the customer thinks I’m scribbling measurements. I edit, revise, tinker until it’s perfect. The honest, unvarnished portrait of the salesman as a no-longer-young man. This is what I write:

Subject
: Caucasian male homosexual floating through his late thirties. Divorced, no children. Above-average intelligence and uninvolved in current occupation. Pleasant, unremarkable appearance. Average social skills, but no friends at present time and emotionally detached from family members despite current residence with mother with end-stage lymphoma for whom he acts as primary caregiver.

Pathology
: Subject demonstrates certain narcissistic qualities and exhibits tendency for self-obsession without self-awareness. Subject has difficulty forming intimate emotional relationships and his resultant isolation is further exacerbated by a fear of exposure. Subject’s prime motivation in personal interactions is to avoid reviving residual sense of shame created by paternal disapproval of his childhood mannerisms and conduct.

Subject is currently in thrall to deepening depression over recent dissolution of his long-term marriage and the anticipated adverse outcome of mother’s treatment. Subject’s current medication regimen is yielding diminishing results. Subject has difficulty sleeping and self-medicates by increasing alcohol intake and using marijuana when available. Sleep, when finally achieved, is unsatisfactory, coming in fits and starts, seldom extending beyond four hours and often accompanied by hallucinatory images that force his eyes open and render him unable to fall back into unconsciousness.

Subject is morbidly preoccupied, no, obsessed, with death and disease. His current personal situation requires him to spend endless hours in hospital cancer centers where he is constantly confronted with, no, assaulted by, evidence of the precariousness of life. Subject cannot differentiate himself from the fragile creatures surrounding him. Broken things, crumbling, shattered by disease, shriveling to dust, noses plugged with tubes and clamps, lips too dry and cracked to form words, they must rely on their hollow, bruised eyes to communicate their message: Now it’s our turn, soon it will be yours.

Subject experiences panic attacks, hyperventilating as he compulsively calculates and recalculates the ever-dwindling pool of days and the shrinking distance between himself and the intubated and catheterized population of the hospital. Subject responds by seeking temporary relief and gratification in sexual contact. Subject’s panic intensifies at the recognition that his impulsive conduct could be accelerating his projected arrival time at his final destination.

Prognosis
: Poor. Subject’s few remaining meaningful contacts are falling away like fish scales. Subject is becoming delusional, with fantasies of drifting away, a Dowager Empress in Splendid Isolation, freeze-dried in the lotus position, afloat, miles above the chaos and cacophony of human interaction. Subject has conversations, dialogues with himself, as there is no one else to listen and respond. The sound of subject’s own voice assaults his eardrums. Subject is exhausted by the endlessly repetitive content. Me. Me. Me. Subject has reached the end of the journey, there’s no fresh laundry in his baggage.

Subject is not, repeat
not,
planning anything dramatic or irreversible, being, after all, at his deepest core, a good Catholic boy.

Recommendation
: Ignore all of the above. Subject has not dropped to his knees in a public place in a year. Ergo, Subject has been cured of what ails him and should be set free.

“Why do you insist on being so hard on yourself?” Matt asks after reading my assignment.

“I think I’m letting myself off pretty easily.”

I light a cigarette, self-conscious about my shaking hand, a side effect of drinking too much, secretly, alone with the lights off. Matt doesn’t comment on the slight tremor.

“I’m going to break the rules for you. I trust you’ll keep this between you and me.”

At last, a secret he’s willing to share!

I race through the document and, astonished, reread his conclusions:

The therapeutic regimen has been successful with the patient exerting appropriate impulse control. His sexual habits are unremarkable in the sense that that there has been no reoccurrence of public sexual activity. It is this observer’s professional opinion that the patient is unlikely to revert to prior behavioral patterns. Further therapeutic treatment is recommended to facilitate his successfully achieving his self-realization goals, but such further treatment should be voluntary and not imposed as a condition of any further court-ordered program.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Why did you do that, break the rules?”

“I thought it needed to be done to reestablish your trust in our relationship.”

“Do you like me?”

“Yes.”

“Why couldn’t you just say you did it because you like me?”

“Because that’s not why I did it. I did it because I didn’t want to risk invalidating the work we’ve done together over the last year.”

“But you do like me?”

“Yes, Andy. I like you.”

“Well, would you sleep with…no, let’s not use euphemisms here, would you fuck me if you weren’t a priest?”

“No. I’d still be your doctor.”

“Would you fuck me if you weren’t my doctor?”

“No, I’d still be a priest.”

“Fuck you.”

“Go ahead and ask.”

“Ask what?” I say, playing dumb.

“Would I fuck you if I weren’t a priest or your doctor?”

Does he really think I’m going to give him the opportunity to reject me?

“Why does a fucking priest become a fucking doctor?”

“He doesn’t. At least, I didn’t. I was a doctor who became a priest.”

I’ve learned that meaningful silence can elicit more information than the most probing questions. He recites his curriculum vitae. College (Loyola, summa) and medical school (Georgetown, with highest honors). Residency training program (Penn, selection as chief resident, of course, let no one mistakenly believe these Jesuits take a vow of modesty). Board certification. Novitiate. Dual master’s in theology and health care ethics (Georgetown again). Ordination. Practice. Ministry. All black and white, clinical, just the facts.

“Very impressive. But you haven’t answered my question. Why?”

“Because I believe I have two callings.”

“How did you know that?”

“I didn’t, at first.”

“When did you learn it? I mean, how did it happen? Was it like Saul on the road to Damascus, were you knocked off your horse?”

“Very funny.”

“I didn’t mean it to be. Really.”

“No. It was a decision I made after much thought and prayer and spiritual counseling, not unlike what we do here together.”

“If you had to give one up, which would it be?”

He shakes his head, signaling he’s done answering questions, and smiles.

“Would you struggle with it?”

“Everyone struggles.”

“Even you.”

It’s an affirmation, not a question.

“Even me.”

What is it you struggle with? I know I can’t ask you that question. Well, I can ask, but you’ll never answer. You’ll turn the tables, ask why it’s so important to me. And I would tell you I need to know if you and I struggle with the same thing, if you use that Roman collar the way I used Alice. Why would that matter? you’d ask, crossing your legs as you settle back in your chair. Because I need to know if, unlike me, you’ve kept your vows. I hope you have. In fact, I need you to. I need someone to be winning their battles.

“Do you ever preach?” I ask.

“Most weeks,” he says, telling me he’s an assistant weekend pastor of a small parish just over the state line.

“Can I come hear your sermon?”

“You don’t need an invitation to come to Mass.”

“I’d like that.”

“Fine.”

“Then maybe we could have breakfast. Go to the Country Buffet and pig out. My treat.”