Tom Mendicino - Probation

DATELINE: SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI

He opens his eyes and snuggles against me, getting as close as he possibly can. He’s purring, as coy as an irresistible and yielding French sex kitten. But cooing and mewing can’t eroticize his prissy turned-up nose and thin lips and the pinched squint that makes him look as if he’s sniffing a perpetual fart. It’s embarrassing, this performance, like being forced to watch a middle-aged maiden aunt do a striptease.

“Good morning, sunshine,” he gurgles, his pale eyelashes crusted with sleep.

He goes down on me, sucking like a Hoover, trying to get me hard one last time.

“Mmmmm,” he says, straddling my hips, his pencil stub of a cock at full attention. His little titties jiggle on his soft pink chest, reminding me of the piglet in Winnie-the-Pooh.

“In the mood to get fucked?” I ask.

“Always,” he murmurs.

Good. I want to drop this load quickly and get it over with.

“…but it’s quarter to eight and I need to shower,” he snaps as he jumps off the bed, leaving Little Andy at full salute and pointing at the ceiling.

What I’d give to wring his scrawny neck, wipe that smug little smirk off his face, shove him through the window, see him splatter on the sidewalk twenty-six floors below.

“She’s not coming back, Andy, and you know it.”

“I know that. She hates me.”

“I doubt that. But you’ve made it impossible. You realize it, don’t you.”

“I made a mistake.”

“You think it’s as simple as that? You made a mistake? One mistake? Which of the many was the fatal one?”

The one where I let her fall in love with me.

The one where I believed her love would save me.

Goddamn. Son of a bitch. Motherfuck.

The damn priest’s got me crying.

Not really crying. More like “a little misty,” red-eyed, maybe a little tight in the throat. Not sobbing, not snot-nosed and dripping. I do not need a tissue from the fucking box he’s shoved in my face.

“You know, Andy, it’s not a sin to be lonely.”

“Who says I’m lonely? I knew we’d get to sin eventually,” I say, trying to inject a little levity into this pathetic scene, anything to avoid to the bleak future I see in the crystal ball.

“Well then, it’s not a sign of weakness.”

“I suppose I better get used to being alone.”

“Why?”

I snort, not believing I’m paying someone who is stupid enough to ask this question.

“You can have another relationship,” he says.

“I’ll just wait for Prince Charming to arrive and sweep me off my feet.”

“Doesn’t work that way.”

I can’t believe I’m getting advice for the lovelorn from Father Celibacy.

“Let’s try one more resolution,” he suggests.

“I’m all ears.”

“We agree that these sexual encounters leave you feeling demoralized.”

“No. You tell me that. I don’t agree. Why do you insist on keep moralizing about it? It’s just sex.”

“That’s exactly my point. It’s just sex and you’re looking for love. Or at least a little emotional intimacy. What you used to have with Alice.”

“Sex. Love. What’s the fucking difference?” I say, exasperated, aware that I’m making no sense.

“I’m surprised that you, of all people, would make that comment.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, your marriage, for one thing.”

I start to protest, then surrender, unable to refute his professional observation.

“Not that they have to be mutually exclusive,” he says.

“Yeah, well, good luck finding true love and happiness out there. Tell me how it goes,” I snort.

He shrugs, conceding for once, he’s not speaking from any vast experience of affairs of the heart.

“Well, I’ll have to take your word for it. See you next week.”

It’s the second week of February. Pitchers and catchers have reported to Florida and Arizona. Position players are due in camp next week. The rituals of spring have begun. It’s been a successful off-season for our Braves. The states of the old Confederacy are galvanized; Dixie will rise again. The wily general manager has won the lottery, signing the hottest bat on the free-agent market. He’s completed a spectacular trade for a top-of-the-rotation pitcher and patched the leaks in the bullpen. Sporting News is predicting Atlanta will take the division and league championships, but go down in six to the reviled Yankees in the Series. What do those idiots know?

USA Today is reporting ice storms in the Plains and blizzard conditions in the Northeast. Even the Carolinas and Georgia are suffering through the deep freeze. But it’s sunny and balmy in West Palm, perfect conditions, seventy-four degrees and no wind to speak of. It’s too nice a day to waste kissing the ass of another leather-faced broad with flammable hair, pretending to be interested in increasing her sales volume per square foot by maximizing the display space for hideous porcelain figurines with ticket prices that could feed a family of four for a week. Air traffic is snarled throughout the eastern half of the country and it’s entirely plausible when I call to cancel the appointment, using the excuse that my flight’s been cancelled, leaving me stranded in deepest, darkest Indiana. Yes, I’m disappointed too, I lie, remote control in hand, muting the volume on the television in my hotel room a half mile away. Let’s e-mail tomorrow and reschedule next week. I decide to go for the extra point and call my sister. I’ve promised to spend tonight in her guest room in Boca Raton. I don’t control the airlines, I tell her, there’s nothing I can do about the weather. Do you really think I want to spend another night in Terra Haute? I check in with my mother, spreading the little white lie. She says she’s not feeling any better. She can’t seem to shake whatever it is that’s got her down. She’s lost more weight, she’s exhausted, and the swelling has spread to her face. She has an appointment with her doctor next week. I’m sure it’s nothing, I say. You’ve got the winter blues. Cabin fever. Just wait a few weeks until we’re standing at the nursery, picking out annuals. You’ll feel like a million bucks by then, I promise, still refusing to believe she’s suffering from anything that can’t be cured by a good multivitamin. Nothing bad seems possible on a beautiful day like today. Clearwater, the Gulf Coast, is only a few hours away. If I leave now I’ll be there by happy hour.

Come on, Andy, try, Matt prodded last week, skeptical of my insistence of being unable to summon up even a single affectionate gesture by my father.

I arrive on the west coast of Florida at the peak of the afternoon rush hour. Urban growth has outpaced the ability of civil engineers and city planners to accommodate the army of refugees from the industrial wastelands up north. Traffic snarls along the new Tampa/St. Pete causeway, hundreds of SUVs and four-door sedans headed for Red Lobster and Hooters, Midas Mufflers and Walgreens. Clearwater ’s now just another Columbus, Ohio, or Arvada, Colorado, with palm trees growing in the traffic islands. But this town was probably never the place it has become in my memory. I remember the beach being wider, the sand whiter, the gulf warmer. Orange trees probably never lined the sidewalks, and that neon-lit Tastee Freez that glowed at night, where every gigantic swirl cone was dipped in chocolate sauce and sprinkled with jimmies, must have been a figment of my imagination. What made me think I’d find our pink and green L-shaped motel, the one with the huge pool that sparkled in the sunlight, where the old man and I competed to see who could make the biggest splash cannonballing off the diving board?