16

 

I’m just back from Hilton Head. Laura and I haven’t seen one another in 10 days, the longest time we've been apart since we got back together.

I walk into her house. “Heeey you,” she says through a yawn. Her voice sounds fatigued, weary even.

I give her a hug. “Don’t act so excited to see me.”

“I was napping,” Laura says.“How was Hilton Head?”

“Before or after I wrecked the van?”

“You got in another accident?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a full-fledged accident. The other car was stationary and unoccupied.”

“What happened?”

“I cut a corner too tight backing out of a parking space, peeled the side off a Ford Taurus station wagon.”

“What about the van?” 

“Just a scratch.”

“And by ‘scratch’ you mean?”

“A gaping wound about three-inches wide running nearly the full length of the van.”



“Your Dad had to be pissed off at you.”

“Pissed off for sure,” I say. “But not at me.”

“How’d you talk your way out of that one?”

“I lied, said I was the victim of a hit and run in the Winn Dixie parking lot.”

“Hank, you didn’t.”

“It was only a half lie,” I say. “There was a hit and run in the Winn Dixie parking lot. I just left out the part about me doing the hitting and the running.”

“Someday someone’s going to see through your bullshit,” Laura says.

“Probably,” I say. “Enough about me, you ready to go?”

Some of Laura’s friends, seniors mostly, are throwing party tonight. “Yeah,” Laura says. “Just give me a few minutes to freshen up.”

She emerges from the bathroom, still a little bleary eyed. Her hair a couple days removed from its last shampoo. She has on a baggy sweatshirt and wrinkled shorts. She looks ragged. Really ragged.

“You okay, honey?” I say.

“Never been better,” she says, her smile more rehearsed than genuine.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Hank.”

As forced and ordinary as these words sound, they ease my anxiety. Or at least I pretend they do. We walk outside. “You want me to drive?” I say.

“That’s okay,” Laura says. “I’m not in the mood to drink. I can drive.”



 

The party is at Gary Locke’s house. Gary is a good guy, a little nerdy maybe. Cross country runner. Thick, dark-rimmed glasses. Drives a Volkswagen Rabbit. Gary was Laura’s date to the senior prom, the safety valve after her personal life briefly imploded. They’re like brother and sister. 

Gary greets us at the door, drunk. “Laura…Hank… party’s in the basement…woooooooo!”

Two beers into the party, I notice Laura isn’t talking to me. If was the paranoid type—and I am—I’d say she’s going out of her way not to engage me. Floating around the room. Hanging a bit too much on Gary’s arm and laughing a bit too much at his unfunny jokes. Talking to people I’ve never seen in my life, fake laughing at their stories too. Constantly sipping on a bottle of soda water.

“Sheila!” I scream. I catch her out of the corner of my eye, cigarette in hand and about to make a break for the back porch.

“Hank,” she says. She gives me a hug, a plastic cup of keg beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other. “How was Hilton Head?”

“Fine,” I say. Sheila lives about three blocks down the street from my house. We shared the same bus as underclassmen. Sheila is cute in an unconventional way, thin-figured with a freckled pale complexion, straight orange-red hair and coffee-brown eyes. She used to be Hatch’s girlfriend, so I keep my flirting to a minimum. Sheila is in Laura’s circle of friends—maybe not her absolute best friend, but close enough. Hatch and I used to double-date a lot with these two. This double “dating” was nothing more than marathon makeout sessions at somebody’s house, the four of us usually in the same 

room, oblivious to the dual groping and slobbering, while Dirty Dancing played in the VCR. Laura and I would take the couch while Hatch and Sheila occupied the floor. Or maybe we were down in my room, and Laura I would commandeer my bed, with Hatch and Sheila hazarding the M&P Couch. The double daters came back and double dumped us after spring break.

“How’s Hatch?” Sheila says.

I wave off her more courteous than sincere question. “Never mind that, what’s up with Laura?”

“Laura?”

“Yeah, Laura.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She’s avoiding eye contact with me. She reaches to open the patio door. I hold the door shut.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Sheila,” I say.

“Hank, please let go of the door,” she says. “This isn’t something you and I should be talking about.”

“What shouldn’t we be talking about?”

“Hank!” Laura says. She’s right behind me. “Leave Sheila alone.”

I release the door, execute a half turn. Sheila flees. “Well, well,” I say. “Nice of you to acknowledge my existence tonight.”

“Please, Hank,” Laura leans close to me, finally. “We’ll go back to my house. I’ll explain everything there.”

“Explain?” I say, backing away. “Now you’re just scaring me.”



“Don’t be scared,” Laura reaches out, grabs my hand. “We’re fine. For whatever stupid reason, I just thought I could put off telling you.”

“Put off telling me what?”

“I can’t tell you now,” she says. “At least not here.”

 

The drive back to Laura’s house is interminable. She says nothing to me. I can’t get over how tired she looks.

Laura pulls into her driveway, beside my car. The family room and kitchen lights are on in her house. Her parents are home.  She takes the keys out of the ignition, sighs. She leans back in her seat. “I guess we can talk here.”

“Laura,” I say, now firmly entrenched in panic mode. I feel like I’ve been here before. “Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”

“You will?”

“I’ll try at least. You’re about to go off to college, a college that’s your backup choice even. You need to figure what you want in life. There’s a lot of stuff going through your head right now. “

“More than you know.”

“I love you, Laura.”

Laura raises her hand to my face, runs her fingers though my hair and over my ear. “I love you too, Hank.”

“And I love you enough to give you your space if you want it.”

“That’s not it,” Laura says.



“You mean this isn’t going to be your I-need-to-be-free-and-you’re-nothing-but-dead-weight speech?”

“No.” Laura shook her head. “Not at all.”

“You didn’t get drunk at some party while I was gone and end up mashing with Lee Barnes, just for old time’s sake?”

Laura makes the face I make when I drink tequila. “Oh God, no.”

“All this time you just pretended to like the Scorpions because I told you they were my favorite band? They’re really not my favorite band you know. I mean, I like their music, but…”

“This is serious, Hank.”

“Is it?” I say.

“Very serious.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“I don’t quite know how to tell you.”

“Just come right out and say it.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Sure it is.”

“No it isn’t.”

“I can take it.”

“But maybe I can’t.”

“As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”

“You say that now.”            “Come on, Laura. We’ve been through everything these last few months.”



“Not everything.”

“Okay, maybe not everything. But enough that you and I can handle whatever life throws at us.

“I’m pregnant, Hank,” Laura says. “I’m pregnant.”

 

I’m back at my Christian Awakening retreat, talking to Jesus. Someone has just handed me the crucifix. Jesus speaks to me: “It’s okay, Hank. Let it out. The Lord is listening.”

“Hey there, Jesus,” I say. “I did something I’m not too proud of.  I fell in love with this girl. And, well Jesus, we got in some trouble, my girlfriend and I.”

“Trouble?” Jesus says. “What kind of trouble?”

“As in ‘that girl’s in trouble’ trouble.”

Jesus breaks into song: “Oh, we got trouble, right here in River City. With a capital ‘T’ that rhymes with ‘P’ that stands for ‘pregnant’.”

I say, “I didn’t take you for a Music Man guy, JC.”

“Don’t call me JC,” the Messiah says. “And why is it everybody just assumes I fucking love Jesus Christ Superstar?”

“Well, you are the star and all. Although to be honest Judas steals the show. Not to mention Mary is one sweet-looking piece of…”

“Hank, that’s my mom you’re talking about!”

“No it isn’t. I’m talking about Mary Magdalene, as played by the sultry, olive-skinned actress Yvonne Marianne Elliman.”

“Same difference.”



“No it isn’t.”

“Did you not mistake her for the Virgin Mary the first time you saw Jesus Christ Superstar and fantasize about her for a solid decade?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“And what is your point, exactly?”

“My point is the whole theory about Mary’s perpetual virginity.”

“The whole theory?”

“It’s bullshit. Are you telling me Joseph never hit that, ever?”

“And now you’re blaspheming my stepfather. Terrific, Hank.”

“Don’t get me started on Joseph,” I say. ‘Oh glorious Saint Joseph, patron saint of workers, obtain for me, please, the grace to work conscientiously and to put devotion to duty before selfish inclinations.’”

“So you know the prayer?” Jesus says.

“Know it?” I say. “My Dad says it all the fucking time. Allow me to translate: Joseph is a patsy. A pushover. The Patron Saint of Grin and Bear It. Mary says, ‘Sure I’ll marry you, Joe. Cue wedding bells. Cue wedding night. ‘Silly me, did I forget to mention I’ve pledged to my God that I will live and die a virgin?’ Then low and behold, a couple months later, Joseph finds a home pregnancy test stashed in the bottom of a trashcan. Mary says, ‘Joe, I swear to you I’m not sleepin’ around. An angel knocked me up.’”

“In all fairness Joseph’s initial reaction was to have Mom stoned to death,” Jesus says. “And in some religious traditions, people believe Joseph and Mom did indeed shack up eventually after I was born.”

“Did they?”



“Hell no,” Jesus says. “But either way, I think you’re hovering dangerously close to smite territory.”

“You still do that?”

“No, not really. That was more Dad’s gig, back when Moses was around. Peter and Paul’s market research showed a demand for a kinder, gentler Messiah, especially with adulterers ages 18-34. That’s a growing demographic for us.”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. What is up with the Book of Leviticus? It’s like the Big Man shot his wad with ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and then got all Hasidic-ass freaky.”

“I get that all the time, although you might be the first to reference the terms ‘shooting his wad,’ ‘Hasidic-ass freaky,’ and the Father Almighty in the same sentence. Let’s just say Pops was having a bad day when he sat down and divinely inspired that book.”

“I should say so.”

“I thought this was supposed to be about you, Hank. You’re the one holding the crucifix.”

“One last point about Joseph,” I say. “What’s he get for his sacrifice?”

“What’s he get?” Jesus says. “Sainthood for one.”

“And with that, what? The distinction of being the world’s only eternal foster dad? A stand-in who’ll never be allowed to call the purest of sons his own?”

“That’s a little harsh, Hank. Joseph was a good man.”

“I’m sure he was. I’d also like to think that you, at least for the first few years of your life, were childlike and naïve, blissfully unaware of your destiny. I picture you 

fishing with Joseph, the two of you making the Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, you on his shoulder, laughing.”

“Those were some good times,” Jesus says.

“I bet they were. I can even picture Joseph tucking you into bed at night and you dreaming dreams of being a carpenter like your dad and taking his tools to show and tell.”

“As a matter of fact, I was pretty handy with a hammer.”

“See! Is it too much to ask that your eyes were those of a real boy who saw in Joseph a real father—the everything plus a little more that dads, good dads, are supposed to be to their sons, to their children?”

“You got some serious issues.”

“And you’re thinking to yourself right now, ‘Why didn’t I become a fucking carpenter?’”

“Touche, Hank,” Jesus says. “Touche.”

 

“How’d this happen, Laura?”

“How?” she says. “Well, Hank, when a man and a woman…”

“That’s not what I meant,” I say. “We were careful.”

“We weren’t careful every time.”

“Okay once, but that was our first…”

Laura arches her eyebrows.

“No way.”

“I’ve done the math, Hank.”



“Come on.”

“We got pregnant the first time we ever had sex.”

“Back in May?”

“That would be when we first had sex, yes.”

“A two for one deal I guess.”

“A two for what?”

“Nothing.” Laura is unfocused. Good. As much as I might want to scrutinize the tragic irony of getting my high school sweetheart pregnant at the exact same moment I lost my virginity, this conversation is probably best left on the cutting room floor.

“So,” I say, “What do we do now?”

“Just find a way to get through it,” Laura says.

“What did your parents say?”

“My parents?”

“I assume you told them.”

“Are you high?”

“You’re going to start showing pretty soon. I’m surprised you aren’t showing already. I’m surprised I haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.”

“You’ll handle it? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

My parochial school teachers gather behind me in the shadow of memory, behind them the images that freak me out above all others from my Catholic education. To the teachers’ left is the crucifixion in all its graphic splendor, right down to Jesus’ wounds on 

his hands and feet—the wounds I could never resist fingering on the oversized crucifix that hung over my bed. “The wounds your sins created and continue to infect,” the nuns used to be so fond of reminding me. To my teachers’ right, a triptych of photos proceeding by trimester—a translucent arm and leg floating on top of a quarter in a pool of amniotic fluid, a pruned corpse placed in a miniature casket for a Pro-Life photo-op, and of course the ubiquitous black garbage bag overflowing with the bloodied, grizzled body parts of dead babies.

“No, Laura,” I say.

“I’ve already made up my mind, Hank.”

“But how can you get the procedure without…”

“My parents’ permission?”

“Yeah.”

“Luck of the draw. I’m 18, so I don’t need parental consent. I have an appointment in two weeks at a clinic up in Fort Wayne.

“Two weeks? Isn’t that moving a little fast?”

“Fast? I’ve been pregnant since before Memorial Day. I should’ve done this last mon—.”

“I don’t want you to get an abortion!”

It takes me awhile to find my way to the words, but I say them. If anything, I think my candor strengthens Laura’s resolve.

“It’s not your decision to make,” she says. “And I think maybe you just should go home now.”



“But I’m heading out for Hoosier Boys State tomorrow morning. We can’t just leave things like this.”

“My appointment is still fifteen days away, and nothing’s going to change in the next week. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Laura, I can’t leave now. I can’t let you do this.”

She grabs me, kisses me on the lips. She reaches her arms around me and leans into my ear. “I’m not asking you to do anything, so don’t say something you’re going to regret. I’ve dropped a lot on you tonight. It’s taken me a month to deal with this.”

“A month? You’ve known for a month?”

“At least that long. I’ve been taking a pregnancy tests about every other day since the beginning of June, hoping it’ll come up negative or that I’ve spontaneously miscarried without knowing about it.”

“A month, Laura?”

“My point being, I’m sure as hell going to give you more than a half hour to…”

“To come around?” I wiggle from her grasp, open the car door. “Is that what you want me to do?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“And what if I never come around?”

“I don’t want to think about that right now.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Come on, Hank.”

“This is a huge deal to me.”

“Are you trying to make this a Catholic thing?”



“It’s a little more than a thing, Laura. It’s my faith.”

“I realize that, and I’m trying to be respectful here.”

“Well you’re failing miserably.”

“Okay then, what’s your faith say about premarital sex, condoms or masturbation?”

“That’s different.”

“Really? If they keep track of those things, my guess is you masturbated your way to hell and back by now.”

“I’m going to go.”

“To hell?” Laura says, cruelly drawing the joke out.

“Maybe,” I say. “But for now, just to my house.”

Laura wipes her eyes. “I think that’s best.”

I get out of the car. I hold the door open, stare at my feet. I want to add something to this moment. Something poignant. Something insightful. Just something. But all I can think to do is shut the door.

I step over to the Subie, open the door. I sit in my car, shut the door. I stick the keys in the ignition. The car fires twice before it starts. I sit there for five minutes with the motor running. Laura is still in her car. She’s crying.

The Subie is a manual transmission, so I pop the clutch, throw the stick shift in reverse. I forget to press the accelerator. The car lurches backwards a few inches. The engine dies.

I hear a car door shut. Laura is out of her car.

“Laura,” I say, opening my door.



Her back is to me. She slumps her shoulders, leans her back against the driver’s side door of her Calais, head down.

I run around the back of her car, embrace her. She’s still crying. I’m crying too. This is my moment. I can feel it. Time to say my piece, one way or the other. Either take a stand or else just support her.

“Laura, I knew this girl in eighth grade…”

No, I didn’t.

“She got mixed up with an older guy…”

I should stop while I’m ahead.

“I was there for her. Saw her go through so much. She had an abortion, and it ruined her. Almost ruined me seeing her go through it…”

A one-hundred percent fabrication. All of it. I ramble on for a couple more minutes. My story doesn’t register with Laura. Her eyes are vacant. Her tears have stopped. She’s just hanging in my arms.

Not that it matters.

I was given my chance to step up. My chance to be a good Catholic, or a good man, or a good boyfriend—to be a good something. And instead I plagiarized the plot of The Last American Virgin.

Jesus might have wanted to be a carpenter, but I got no fucking tools for this.