Craig Smith - Cold Rain

Though Johnna Masterson could hardly imagine it, the deepest wound for me was observing what this had done to her. Catching the gossip, as I was sure she had, she imagined some kind of salacious joking about her figure that turned her talent into TALENT!

I wanted desperately to sit her down and explain it all to her, but I knew I couldn’t. Even if I were allowed to talk to her about the case, I could not persuade her.

I could only say Walt Beery had said it. Walt had turned her into a joke. Me? Well, I was just sitting there.

Going along with it.

I decided at some point during the second half of class that maybe I was wrong about Buddy Elder on a lot of counts. Maybe my discussion with Walt about the new talent had made its way through the grapevine, and Buddy Elder, actually believing I was coming on to Denise, had brought her together with Johnna Masterson because he believed I was misbehaving. Call it theory number three: all complaints legitimate. I had quarrelled with Buddy because I was jealous. I had crossed some kind of line with Denise, taking liberties that if not overtly sexual were nonetheless intrusive and unprofessional. Denise had talked to me about her job, but it wasn’t my business where she worked or who paid the rent. And Johnna? Well, she was pretty.

Maybe I liked to mention the title of her story because ‘Sexual Positions’ prompted certain satisfying fantasies involving the two of us. Maybe I had enjoyed my talk with Walt without understanding the dehumanizing dimension of it.

Such is the nature of accusation: first we are surprised, then we are angry. Finally, we believe what our enemies tell us.

I was still coming to terms with my guilt when I talked to Molly that night. I was tired and so I admitted to being partially at fault for some of it. A misunderstanding, I told her. Two misunderstandings, Molly said. Knowing how it must sound I waited for the inevitable questions. Was I having an affair with one or both of them? Thankfully, these did not come. Molly listened with the impatience she reserved for all matters relating to the university and when it was finished she simply asked if she could read the complaints.

I passed them across the table to Molly. She studied each sheet as if to memorize the actions or reconcile them with what I had just told her. I ran through the complaints in my mind again. In that dark silence I did not invest Buddy Elder with fabulous powers. He was just a young man who did not like someone like Johnna Masterson being turned into a joke. If I was capable of that, certainly my intentions with Denise Conway were less than honourable. I was Walt Beery’s friend after all.

‘This is bullshit!’ Molly said.

I looked up from my masochistic reveries greatly encouraged.

‘Gail Etheridge says nothing is going to come of it,’ I offered.

‘What about your promotion?’ I shook my head.

Molly threw the papers across the table. ‘I hate that place! I think you should quit. Tell those bastards to go to hell, David.’

‘That’s just what they want!’

‘Who cares what they want? You’re better than this!

You don’t need their money. We don’t need it!’

I tried to explain that I had spent over half my life trying to get where I was. It was insane to throw it away because other people had a political agenda.

These charges, I said, would come and go. I could apply for promotion next year or the year after. The important thing was to keep a sense of proportion.

We had been here before. Molly listened, but she did not understand why I was so desperate to keep a job I did not especially enjoy. Before she had gone independent, buying and selling houses, she had run rooftops for various contractors. Hard and dangerous work, but the air was clean and complaints were straightforward, delivered to your face. At Johnna Masterson’s age, Molly had joined a new crew. This was right after we were married. One fellow on the crew gave her a rough time because she was a woman and because she was beautiful. She answered him straight on. ‘You either stop or I’m going to hurt you.’

He was a perfect fool and just laughed at her. She let it go, thinking he would back off with the comments.

The next day, though, as she was climbing the ladder, he whistled and whooped, ‘Look at that ass, boys. Is that good enough to eat, or what?’

Molly had climbed back down the ladder and walked up to this giant. He got bigger every time she told the story. By the way she came at him he figured he was in for a speech, and he was all set for an amusing, girlish temper tantrum, exactly what he wanted in the first place. Molly’s boot caught him behind the knee, and he went down flat on his back. Then she broke three of his ribs.

That was how Molly McBride filed a complaint.

We decided, foolishly, to keep Lucy out of it.

I don’t know what she imagined in those first weeks.

There was tension in the house. Molly was angry. I was depressed, looking by turns either guilty or distracted. Because she was seventeen, Lucy probably thought it was something she had done.

My colleagues had the story almost at once of course.

I heard the echoes of the jokes I hadn’t quite told.

Monkey. Bodacious. Talent. I saw Randy Winston talking to two women from the Department of History.

They might have been discussing Caesar’s assassination, but I felt reasonably sure by their sudden silence the topic was mine.

I saw Denise Conway with Buddy Elder only a few minutes before my night class was scheduled to begin.

She had to know I would be there, but she looked frightened and surprised when I walked toward them.

Before I could speak, she walked away. Buddy approached me while I was still watching the sway of her hips. I felt my gut tighten, my fists clench.

‘Johnna asked me to tell you she couldn’t make it to class tonight. She had to go to the infirmary.’

I blinked in confusion. ‘Is she all right?’

Buddy Elder met my gaze without ever losing that slight, cynical smile of his. ‘I think she’s got bleeding ulcers, Dave.’

Wednesday night I included Johnna Masterson’s health in my litany of moral failings. Thursday I went online to browse for psychologists. Most of them listed among their specialties depression and work-related stress. I had not slept for a couple of weeks. For the past several days I had been nursing a sharp pain in my chest. I found three good candidates, and decided if I did not feel better Friday I would start making some calls. I was not sure they could really do any good. It seemed to me I was beyond treatment. This was not the usual helplessness of depression, seeing no way out of my troubles. I could not decide what my trouble was. Was I the victim or the one who had victimized others? The true penitent confesses the sin and so begins a journey back to faith and wholeness.

In a medical sense, this was supposed to happen between psychologist and patient. But what exactly should I tell a doctor? I might have made a mistake?

I believe this could be a conspiracy? Perhaps we could cut right to the essentials. I could talk about Tubs: the last honest man.

I had a better idea on the way home. I stopped for a beer. After three the pressure in my chest eased. After another, I could almost laugh. I got in my truck and headed home. I was cured, at least as long as the buzz lasted.

I called Molly along the way, but there was no answer.

A wind had kicked up late in the day. The first chill of winter came as the sun dropped under the horizon.

Molly’s truck was parked close to the house, but Lucy’s Toyota was gone. The horses were in the barn. The dogs were in the kennel for the evening. Like the old drinking days. If I didn’t show up, they got taken care of anyway.