Tom Mendicino - Probation

Clete from Oklahoma City is unmoved by the Legacy of Camelot. He doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Just another kid born with a silver spoon in his mouth. The country has lost its mind, weeping and wailing over this spoiled brat because of his last name. The talk show host is indignant, cutting off the naysayer, enraged by his heresy. The caller from Oklahoma has created a firestorm. Patty from Pittsburgh is leading the lynch mob. The Kennedys have given us so much, she insists. They’ve earned our respect. Tom from Tioga challenges the apostate to a fist fight. Even Merrill from Provo, Utah, a militant Republican, is calling for the blasphemer’s head.

Distracted by the funeral choir, I nearly rear-end a BMW sedan parked in the driveway of the Monument to Heat and Air. How much are we paying these private-duty nurses that they can afford to indulge their appetite for luxury imports? The car is a beauty, right off the showroom floor, probably less than three thousand miles on the odometer. There’s a Princeton decal in the rear window. What a racket, I swear as I grab my bag from the trunk of my sorry little Toyota compact. I’m subsidizing the German auto industry and paying Ivy League tuition. I take the long march to the back door. The overgrown lawn is a rebuke to my commitment to my domestic duties. I’ll call a lawn maintenance company tomorrow, conceding that assuming any responsibility for the upkeep of our house is beyond my capabilities. I’ll hire a painter and a contractor to replace the gutters while I’m at it. The Monument to Heat and Air is starting to look like the residence of the Addams Family.

“I’m home, Ma,” I shout, praying for no response, hoping she’s in her bedroom, resting, exhausted by the chemical cocktails racing through her bloodstream. But she calls out immediately, not answering me, but announcing my arrival.

“He’s home! You’re not going to miss him!”

And as I step in the kitchen, a familiar figure rises to greet me.

Ambushed! I’m in shock, denial. This can’t be happening. I must be further gone than I think since the only possible explanation for this hallucination is end-stage delirium tremens. My soon-to-be-ex-wife, the woman I haven’t seen since I was kicked out on my ass, is rising from her chair. Our one brief telephone conversation was deceptively easy. This unexpected face-to-face encounter is awkward, worse than awkward, painful. Alice could never play poker: it’s obvious, to me at least, she’d called ahead, knew I was out of town. Running late this morning, she didn’t want to disappoint my mother by canceling; she’s been sitting anxiously, too polite to cut the visit short, trying not to be distracted by her watch and dreading the possibility of this uncomfortable moment. How do you greet a woman you’ve lived with for nearly twenty years, who vowed to stay with you through better or worse unless the worst meant being rescued from a police station, no toothbrush or mouthwash available and the smell of cock still on your breath? A handshake is too formal; even a chaste kiss on the cheek is too intimate.

“Please, please, sit down,” I say.

“Barry’s family is from Charlotte. They’re down visiting his folks for the weekend,” my mother says, as if this reunion is as casual and relaxed as an old chamois shirt.

“Who’s Barry?” I ask.

The uncomfortable look they exchange answers the question. Barry is obviously the individual responsible for this insult to Alice ’s once robust and healthy body. She’s the exception to the old adage that all pregnant women glow. She looks exhausted, with an unhealthy pallor, and the pouches under her eyes are as dark as mine. Her feet and ankles are swollen. Most shocking of all are the gray roots of her still stylishly cut hair. How long had she been coloring it before her obstetrician banned tints and rinses for the duration? Had she kept it a secret from me or had I simply not noticed?

“I really have lost track of the time,” she says to my mother with forced cheerfulness. “It’s good to see you,” she tells me. “Call when you can.”

Why? So we can chat about Barry?

“I’m so glad you came by,” my mother says as she and Alice embrace. I can see Alice is shaken. By me? By my mother’s condition? “I just know you’re going to have a beautiful baby,” she promises.

My mother has defected to the other side! She’s a pom-pom girl for Alice and her wonderful new life with beautiful, perfect Barry who would never be caught dead showing up like me, scruffy, rumpled, not quite clean, Jack Daniel’s on his breath. Beautiful Perfect Barry wakes up clean-shaven, rinsed, gargled, armpits shellacked, hair stylishly spiked. Beautiful Perfect Barry, the Princeton Man, has accomplished in record time the achievement my feeble sperm were incapable of producing. Alice must have pulled his photo out of her wallet so they could coo over this paragon of manhood with the piercing eyes and the Clark Kent cleft in his chin, her ultimate triumph, her reward for the years of humiliation and perseverance.

See, Ruth, this is my Beautiful Perfect Barry, my vindication, proof at last I wasn’t to blame for the failure of my marriage, none of it was my fault.

“I’ll be in touch,” she says to my mother. “We’ll be back in Charlotte planning the…” Her voice trails off, avoiding mentioning the sacred ceremony.

“I can’t wait to see the baby,” my mother says.

I’ve stumbled upon a conspiracy of estrogen! Why don’t we plan a big Sunday dinner together? My mother, Alice, Barry, the baby. How about inviting Barry’s parents? I bet they’re lovely people. While we’re at it we should ask Curtis to join us. Time heals all wounds. The two of us can bury the hatchet.

“I need to move the car,” I say, impatient for her to leave. “I’m blocking you.”

I leave the two of them alone for one last embrace and an opportunity to whisper their concern over the wreck I’ve become. He’s just not adjusting, they commiserate, we wish there was something more we could do than hope and pray it all works out.

“I’m glad I came,” Alice says, emerging from the house.

“Yeah, thanks. It meant a lot to her. I know this can’t be easy for you.”

My instinct is to hold her when she starts to cry; her instinct is to be held. We take one step toward each other and stop.

“Andy, she looks terrible.”

I refrain from commenting she’s doesn’t look so hot herself.

“They’re considering a bone marrow transplant,” I say instead.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

“It’s hard to believe that this time last year…”

This time last year. Is she rubbing salt in the wound?

“…she was so full of life.”

This time last year.

“I’d really like to help,” she says. “I can, you know.”

Last summer. The very recent past. Practically yesterday.

“You didn’t waste any time, did you?” I say abruptly, the words sounding harsher than I’d meant.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I’m talking about. It hasn’t even been a year and you show up here pregnant.”

She stares at me, not responding, not backing down, her body language challenging me to keep going until I go too far.

“You’re already knocked up by some guy you didn’t even know a year ago.”

“I knew him,” she says, quietly, deliberately.

She’s not even kind enough to look away. Her face is a mask, impassive, refusing to confirm or deny the awful, unbearable possibility of her infidelity and betrayal, her secret life. I regret the words before I can spit them out.

“You fucking bitch.”

She opens the car door, tosses her purse on the seat, and crawls behind the wheel. A blast of music assaults me as the engine turns over. “Girlfriend.” She’s playing my fucking CD in Beautiful Perfect Barry’s Princeton-mobile. She wouldn’t even know who Matthew Sweet is if it weren’t for me. She turns off the music, pauses, then looks up, mocking me with an indulgent smile.