Tom Mendicino - Probation

The beer settled the butterflies in my belly. The hamburgers were eaten, the last fry dredged through the ketchup. We split the check. I only had a twenty and he had to make change for me. He had a question to ask before he handed over the ones. Did I bring my own toothbrush? No, I lied, not wanting to sound presumptuous. He laughed and handed over the bills. Good, he said, now I know I didn’t waste three bucks when I picked one up for you this afternoon. He slept in my arms that night; I lay awake, enchanted by his snoring. Don’t forget me this week, he said in the morning, kissing me good-bye at the door.

He called me in Salt Lake City and said he wanted to make me dinner in his tiny bed-sitter when I got home from my trip. Four nights later, I sat on the bed in my underwear, listening to him chatter as he chopped and minced. He was eager to share his history, insisting I know him, or at least his romanticized view of himself.

I like you. I like you. I like you so much.

He kept repeating the words as we made love that night.

Why couldn’t I respond? Didn’t I like him too? No. I realized my feelings ran deeper than that. I couldn’t explain them without sounding crazy, obsessive. He couldn’t know the impact of his words; he wouldn’t understand I’d waited my entire life to hear another man speak them but had made conscious, deliberate choices to ensure I never would. And all that careful planning-compartmentalizing, rationalizing, justifying, avoiding, excusing, lying-where had it gotten me in the end? Locked in a fucking jail cell and kicked out on the street. But somehow I’d survived to make it here, at long last, to this tiny apartment, at the brink of an auspicious beginning. But my fear of the risks of intimacy, the possibility of rejection, still held me back. The only thing more terrifying than losing my home, my job, my good name, was the very real possibility of losing my heart.

I felt him squirming in his sleep. He rolled on his side, turning his back to me. I finally fell into a light sleep as the sun was coming up. He threw his arm across my chest, reaching for the alarm, then flopped on his back. I waited for him to touch me, to stroke my chest, to dawdle a few minutes, reluctant to leave the warm bed. He scratched his armpit and yawned. I rolled toward him, pretending to be asleep. He slipped out from under my arm. Then I heard the water running.

He seemed to spend an hour in the shower, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes. I hoped he would crawl back into the bed, all warm and damp. But he went directly to his closet and pulled on his scrubs. I opened my eyes and yawned. He noticed I was awake and smiled.

“Rise and shine,” he said, sounding like my mother.

He offered me a bowl of Cheerios. I declined and ducked into the bathroom for a long piss. I came out and dressed without speaking.

“Last chance for oats,” he said, tipping the bowl to his mouth. He wiped the milk from his chin with his sleeve.

“Where do ya live?” he asked, maybe realizing that last night he’d shared deep, dark family secrets and I’d volunteered nothing.

“Far suburbs, Gastonia actually.”

He looked puzzled. Local geography meant nothing to him.

“You married?” he asked.

“No. No.” I laughed, nervous. “Why?”

“I dunno. Sometimes you seem married.”

“I was once,” I admitted.

I broke down and told him the truth. At least part of the truth. That I lived with my mother, quickly qualifying it with the explanation that she had cancer. Someone needed to be with her, I said, afraid of sounding like a boastful knight.

“Hey, we gotta get going,” he said, obviously unimpressed by my dutiful sacrifice. I couldn’t find my watch. He seemed frustrated as he tossed aside the bedsheets and ran his palm under the bed. I read rejection in his helpfulness. He could have, should have, said, don’t worry, it’ll turn up, you can pick it up next week. But he didn’t. It meant that he was sick of me. He woke up this morning and stared at my unguarded sleeping face; everything changed once he saw me for what I am. I’m old. I’m puffy. I drink too much and smoke. There’s something shady about me. I’m dishonest. Or at least not forthcoming. I’ve gotten too comfortable around him. Let down my guard. He’d heard the occasional squeaky pitch that betrays my practiced baritone. He’d seen the unmanly flinch as he described some particularly gory medical procedure. He’d picked up the slip of the tongue that revealed an unhealthy interest in Rodgers and Hammerstein. He’d pierced the façade and exposed the little sissy Bride of Frankenstein. He was repelled, disgusted, horrified by his own bad judgment and he wasn’t going to give me the sorry excuse of a mysteriously missing watch to force him to call me now that he’d decided he was done with me.

“Ta-dah!”

He dangled the watch in front of my face. It was under the mattress. I looked back at the unmade bed as we left, wondering if I’d ever lie there again.

He asked where I was headed for the week. I gave him my itinerary, telling him I’d be back on Friday. He told me he was on the ER schedule for the weekend. We’ll talk, he said. Yep, we’ll talk, I answered.

My mother’s nurse caught me sneaking into the kitchen. You look like hell, she said. I went to the mirror and saw what he had seen this morning. I should have had a haircut last week. I should have clipped the hairs in my nostrils. I should have gotten more sleep in Utah. I watched the clock all day, imagining his routine at the hospital. Twelve-thirty. Lunchtime. He’d be sitting in the hospital cafeteria, talking excitedly about procedures I can’t even pronounce and crushing an empty milk carton to emphasize a point. I was the furthest thing from his mind.

Seven o’clock. He’d be having another hospital meal. Less conversation, more exhaustion. Maybe he would call to say hello. The cell phone stared up from the armrest, silent.

Eleven o’clock. He’d be trudging through the parking lot and driving home. He would be crawling into the unmade bed, falling into a deep sleep. I jumped out of bed to respond to the moans coming from my mother’s room. I wanted to call him but knew I couldn’t.

I awoke in the dark to make an early-morning flight. The morning paper wouldn’t be delivered until six, so I spread the Sunday magazine supplement beside the cereal bowl. Cheerios. The cover article was about something called the Cosmic Dark Age before the Big Bang that created the universe. The Charlotte Observer reported with firm certitude that the Dark Age extended “a billion years until the stars emerged to light the universe.” How do you measure a billion years? I looked out the window into the pitch-black morning. I panted, panicking over the brevity of life.

I wanted to call him, then and there at four-thirty in the morning, but I forced myself to wait until I landed in Denver, with two hours’ time difference. What was he doing while I was in flight? Sleeping? Alone? He didn’t answer. I couldn’t remember his schedule. Was he at work or was he at home, avoiding me? I left a message and regretted it immediately because putting the ball in his court forced me to wait for his return call.

An hour later my cell phone rang. He sounded relaxed, casual.

“I got Saturday night off. Wanna go to a party?” he asked.

I was distracted through my session Friday night, far less interested than Matt in probing the cause of my anxiety.

“How much are you drinking these days?” he asked.

“Not much.”

Compared to Dino Martin and Mickey Mantle.

“Are you smoking pot?”

“No.”

Well, only for religious purposes. Did I forget to tell you I joined the Rastafarians?

“Are you taking your medication?”