Tom Mendicino - Probation

His Excellency is retiring at fifty-nine years of age. He doesn’t just have the occasional binge anymore. He keeps himself permanently lubricated, which makes it easy for his predilections to slip into open view. The Vatican tolerated it longer than it should have in deference to his remarkable talent for fund-raising. Next week, he’s being cashiered to an isolated outpost where he can drink himself to death in peace. The diocese is honoring him today with fruit punch and hors d’oeuvres and the announcement that the annual golf tournament for Catholic Charities will bear his name.

Curtis is not a man given to intrigue and stealth. His course of action is the full-frontal attack. But the bishop’s audience is between us, making it impossible to make a direct charge. He has to maneuver through the bodies at the fringe to get to me. As he inches closer, I creep farther away. He’s a little tipsy. Not a good sign. Curtis usually carefully measures his intake, believing drunkenness to be a liability. But the sight of me caused him to throw a little fuel from the flask on the fire of the rage that’s been simmering on low heat since last summer.

His Excellency saves me, calling out to Curtis, insisting on a duet. The King isn’t actually drunk, he’s still in control and he gives the bishop a bear hug to compensate just in case it’s apparent to anyone that he wants to tell the old fag to fuck off. Then he realizes he should have. He’s mortified when he recognizes the first few measures of the song His Excellency has chosen. I take advantage of his temporary paralysis to slip away as the bishop sings the first few lines of “People Will Say We’re in Love.”

It’s cold and quiet on the sun porch. The squealing radial tires, the sound of cars sliding on ice and snow, tell me I need to find my mother. I’ve neglected her. Actually, I’ve forgotten all about her. She is probably looking for me right now. The snow is the perfect excuse to get out of here. The nervous headlights of a caravan of fleeing automobiles creep down the drive. There’s a loud outburst inside. Genuine laughter, not just polite mirth. I can imagine what’s happened. The King has salvaged his dignity with a self-deprecating joke. But it doesn’t douse his fury at being humiliated by His Excellency. He needs revenge more than ever. He’s going to hunt me down.

Maybe I can wander off into one of the snowdrifts, disappear forever. At least until the big thaw which, this being North Carolina, will be the day after tomorrow at the latest. No. No more hiding. Let him find me. I deserve it anyway. The King has every reason to hate me. He’s never liked me, not really. He’d suspected there was something slippery, untrustworthy, about me on first meeting, when I blew cigarette smoke in his face over the brunch table. But he’d let himself believe in the charade, made me his partner, the heir apparent, took me into his confidence and assumed I’d taken him into mine.

He thinks I’m malicious, venal, that I duped him. And now, his duet with the bishop over, he’s found me. He’s going to extract his pound of flesh. My resolve cracks and, coward that I am, I crash through the door and run into the snow. He follows like I knew he would. If I can only stay an arm’s length ahead, at least until I can lock myself in the car and huddle in a corner until he is tired of banging his fists on the window.

Snow is a great equalizer and all the expensive sedans and coupes are fluffy marshmallows, one indistinguishable from the next. I slip and slide, swiping every hood, looking for metallic blue, until I stumble upon my mother’s car. I hear him panting, he’s that close. My fingers, trembling, drop the keys. They disappear, swallowed by the snow.

He intends to finish what he started months ago. He grabs me by the throat. I don’t try to defend myself. His huge hands take him to the brink of breaking my neck, then he pushes me away. What makes him stop? He sees something in my face that won’t let him smash me in a pique of anger. There’s something he wants to say to me but my mother calls his name before he can speak.

The sight of this tiny frail woman high stepping through the drifts summons his innate chivalry. He wades toward her and wraps his arm around her shoulder, guiding her to the car. I hear them exchange pleasantries and polite inquiries about health and holidays. They don’t acknowledge anything out of the ordinary though I’m gasping for breath. I find the keys while they talk about the snow. Curtis kisses my mother on the cheek after he helps her into the car. I close the door behind her and, by instinct, offer my hand to thank him for helping her. I break down when he accepts it.

My mother stares down at her hands to give me a little privacy. My father-in-law holds me upright, at arm’s length, not knowing what to do with me, afraid I might collapse in the snow. It’s awkward, standing face-to-face with him, my eyes red and snot dripping from my nose. He seems reticent, almost shy, his meat-and-potatoes mug more Ronnie Reagan than John Wayne. Maybe we’re going to have a moment, a tipping point, a reconciliation.

“I knew there was something wrong with you the first time I laid eyes on you,” he says, almost sympathetically, as if I were born with a birth defect for which the March of Dimes will never find a cure.

“I’m sorry,” I say, though he’s not the one who’s owed an apology.

“You should be,” he says, wiping his palms on his jacket as he releases me.

Let it go, I tell myself as I walk away. He stands, watching, as I open the car door and slip behind the wheel. I turn the key in the ignition and press the accelerator. The tires spin on the ice, going nowhere, proving once and for all my total incompetence. I’m completely emasculated by a few inches of snow.

“Put it in neutral and let it drift to a dry spot,” Curtis shouts, his loud voice barely muffled by the windshield.

The King of Unpainted Furniture plants his size sixteen wingtips and grabs the hood with his powerful hands, drawing a deep breath as he rocks the car out of the ice rut. He stands in triumph, fists on his hips, as the tires gain traction on the gravel.

“I’ll say it was an accident if you run over the son of a bitch,” my mother says, smiling sweetly as she waves good-bye.

“It’s not worth it, Ma,” I say, just wanting this day to be over.

“Ah, but think how good it would feel,” she says. “I love this song. Turn up the volume,” she insists, as the DJ on the AM band plays Anne Murray’s “Snowbird” in honor of the blizzard.

It’s a new year.

Time for auspicious beginnings.

Time to kick start my new life.

Ready, steady, go.

“Look, I really don’t want to discourage you, but I’m not sure the timing’s quite right,” Matt says.

“What do you mean? It’s perfect timing. It’s January. When do you want me to make my resolutions? Sometime in the middle of March? Obviously you’re not big on New Year’s resolutions,” I say.

“Quite the contrary,” he laughs. “I took my last puff on a cigarette at eleven fifty-nine, December thirty-first. I broke my record this year. I was a nonsmoker for four and a half days.”

“Maybe you’re weak,” I say, perfectly comfortable sounding smug and condescending.

“You’re right. I probably am. Maybe you can do better. Go ahead. Tell me your resolutions.”

I haven’t come as prepared as I thought. But then how do I reduce stop doing what I’m doing and start doing something different to a laundry list of self-improvements?

“Well,” I say, “first, I’m going to start getting more sleep.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“I think I’ll look for an apartment,” I announce, a sudden inspiration that catches me off guard.