Tom Mendicino - Probation

“Mother is a dilettante,” he says, with a voice fueled by cocaine and bitterness, a modestly talented watercolorist who’s shown in galleries as far away as Boston. She has a small but solid reputation. Art in America once called her an important regionalist. But her true vocation is reigning over the Gulf panhandle arts scene.

“Oh, Mother is a cunt.” He laughs. “A real card-carrying cunt,” he says too loudly, drawing angry stares from other tables.

The thought of my own mother, insisting on driving me to the airport and waving good-bye at the gate as if she will never see me again, makes me want to grab my fork and stab him in his glassy eye. The waitress drops the grilled cheese on the table and warns us we’ll have to leave if we can’t behave ourselves. I want to protest, explain to her I’m here alone, that he’s intruded on me just like he’s intruding on the nearby tables. He rolls his eyes and zips his lips with his fingertips, mocking her prudery. He sees he’s embarrassed me and reaches across the table to touch my hand. His apology sounds almost sincere.

“Please stay,” he says. “I don’t like sitting alone.”

Why shouldn’t you have to sit alone? I do. And I may not be somebody, but I’m somebody better than you. But instead I settle back in the booth and play at eating the greasy grilled cheese. He looks at his watch, then asks me the time. Whoever he’s waiting for is late and probably not going to show. He asks why I’m in Hawaii.

“An anniversary gift,” I say.

He looks addled. He must have heard me wrong. He says he thought I’d said I wasn’t married. He’s either done too many drugs or not enough. He doesn’t understand.

I’m not going to confess what I’ve done to deserve spending my anniversary in a House of Pies six thousand miles from home, the captive of this nasty creature with tinted hair who’s being stood up by someone who most likely charges by the hour.

“Excuse me for just a minute,” he says, apparently having decided that the drugs he’s already snorted aren’t sufficient. I’m not going to play this one out. Not this time. Not anymore. I grab the waitress as soon as he is out of sight. I stuff a twenty in her hand, mutter a quick apology, and bolt. She calls after me, aloha, I think she’s saying. I can’t really hear her. The piped-in ukuleles crackling in the speaker over the door are too loud.

Kuluha luha, kala halaki, kaluha luha…

Or something like that.

What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

Well, that’s obviously one commandment the Bible-thumping legislators of the State of North Carolina neglected to codify. In fact, they’ve gone out of their way to make my divorce quick and easy, an exercise in politeness and consideration, a mediation, nothing like the messy marital battles you read about in the tabloids. No angry accusations of adultery from the witness stand. No tearful recriminations. No hostile exchanges under oath. No blame. No fault.

No-fault divorce. The lawyers have handled it briskly and efficiently and are polite enough to conceal their disappointment at not being able to run up the bills because I insisted she get everything. Needless to say, the King of Unpainted Furniture made short work of Alice ’s refusal to take it all.

The separation agreement and the property settlement were signed months ago. There’s nothing left to do but wait. The divorce will be final one year and one day after the date we established separate residences; that is, one year and one day after Curtis kicked me out on my ass. The house went on the market the day the deed was transferred. Alice held out until she got her asking price, not because she needed the money, but, I suspect, out of a reluctance to let go. The message came through my lawyer. Everything had been packed and moved, everything but the clothes I’d left behind, a few boxes of books and records, my bicycle, and a set of weights. It was my responsibility to pick them up. The locks haven’t been changed. Settlement is Monday, twelve noon.

I was up before dawn this morning, dreading the long drive to High Point. Thirty miles out of Gastonia, I realized it had never occurred to me I might need something larger than a two-door compact to haul away my few remaining material assets. Ah well, too late now. Maybe the new owner is athletic or has a kid who might appreciate a customized racing bike worth a few thousand bucks. Might as well throw in the dumbbells too. And I’ve read all the books. They can keep the ones they want and throw away the rest. And who really needs all those clothes? Not me. Maybe the husband is my size. If he isn’t, they can call the Salvation Army and take the tax deduction. Come to think of it, there’s no reason not turn the car around and head back home.

Except that I can’t do that to Alice. She’s the one who will have to go to settlement and face the pissed-off buyers who’d just come from the walk-through and found the last vestiges of my former life cluttering the rooms of their dream house. Besides, the time has slipped by and I’m almost there anyway.

REST STOP

TWO MILES AHEAD

I press the accelerator to the floor and fly past the scene of the crime at ninety miles an hour.

I’d prayed for rain and was rewarded with a beautiful, sunny Sunday, an unseasonably warm spring day full of the promise of summer. The kind of day to inspire my former friends and neighbors to turn on the spigots and slip into their flip-flops and spend the morning waxing and polishing their BMWs and Range Rovers. I can see the double takes at the sight of the notorious criminal pulling into the driveway.

What is he, honey, a pederast? Or is it a pedophile? A child abuser? Sodomite? Yeah, that’s it, a sodomite. So how did he look, dear? Did he say anything to you? Did he look you in the eye? God, the nerve! If he had any decency, he’d never show his face around here again.

How could they forget my departure on that beautiful sunny day, much like this one except much hotter? The sirens and dome lights of the squad cars had alerted the entire neighborhood to the spectacle at 12 Virginia Dare Court. The whole cul-de-sac had a front-row seat and an unobstructed view of the King of Unpainted Furniture of late-night television fame ranting and raving in the flesh, threatening to break every bone in my body.

What the hell do I care what they think? Put it in perspective. It all happened months ago, almost forgotten now. If they think of it at all, it’s only as a salacious little tale to reinforce their self-righteousness, threatening their complacency, the perfect order in their perfect worlds disturbed, if only momentarily. I pull into the cul-de-sac and am surprised to see that nothing’s changed. I ask myself why I would have expected it to change since I’ve been gone. It must be because I’ve changed so drastically since then. How exactly, I’m not quite sure yet. I may never have been the man they thought I was, but I’m no longer the same man they didn’t know.

There’s not a soul in sight. No doubt the suspense on some putting green has them glued to their television sets. Thank you, God. Forgive me for doubting You exist. The lawyer was right. The keys still work. I put the car in the garage, not risking the unwanted attention a strange vehicle in the driveway would attract.

The boxes are stacked neatly in what used to be the dining room. The bicycle is in the garage. The free weights are nowhere to be found. I could just pack the car with as much as it can hold and take off, in and out in a few minutes. But something is slowing me down, nostalgia perhaps, or maybe a nagging regret that I’d never had the opportunity to bid the rooms of this house a formal farewell.