God-Shaped Hole

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  Before Joanna had a chance to bring up God, I asked her how she felt about Thomas Doorley. “Do you forgive him?” I said.

  “I understand why he left. We were young, too young to know how to be a family.”

  “But what about what he did to Jacob? Don’t you think he should’ve thought about the consequences of his actions, and how those consequences were going to hurt his son? Even if he didn’t want to be with you, couldn’t he still have been Jacob’s father?”

  “I would never try to condone what he did to his son. Never,” she said. Then she leaned in closer to me. “But I’m proud of the man Jacob is. I don’t know that he’d be the same man right now had Thomas Doorley been part of his life, and I wouldn’t want him any other way. Everything happens for a reason. That I do believe.”

  I wish I believed that. Joanna Grace was a fucking saint.

  “I certainly don’t think Jacob met you by accident,” she said, and rested her hand on mine.

  Jacob may have had one of the crappiest fathers known to man, but he sure as hell lucked out in the mother department.

  I told Joanna that I’d read Thomas Doorley’s book. I told her what my interpretation was, how I thought it was about Jacob.

  “I know,” she said. “Jacob will figure that out in his own time. For whatever it’s worth.”

  TWENTY

  “Goddamn it, Trixie, it’s a surprise,” Jacob said as he chewed on the tip of a Twizzler and almost swerved off the road.

  “Leave at least one hand on the wheel, why don’t you?”

  “Just give me the map,” he said, trying to slide his hand under my ass—I was sitting on his map. I plucked a hair out of his arm so he’d let go.

  “Ow. Shit.”

  “Tell me where we’re going and I’ll give you the map,” I said.

  “It’s a surprise. Do you understand the meaning of that word? Surprise.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise, now will it?”

  Jacob’s birthday and my birthday were ten days apart. Except that he was two years older. Plus, he was a Scorpio and I was a Sagittarius. According to the little horoscope propaganda I bought at the famed astrological house of Chevron when we stopped for gas, that made Jacob a water sign and me a fire sign.

  “That explains why you’re drawn to the ocean,” I said.

  “That explains why you’re so hot.” He laughed at himself. Sometimes Jacob thought he was God’s gift to the world of comedy.

  “Water puts out fire. That’s no good. You extinguish my flame,” I said.

  “No, I squirt you with just enough to make a blaze.”

  I told Jacob what the paper supposedly said about him: that he was creative, intense, moody, the most passionate sign of the zodiac. So far, so good.

  “And it says you have a knack for picking stocks,” I said. “Maybe you should get on that. Then we can kiss Hell-Aye good-bye for good.”

  “What does it say about you?”

  I looked up my sign. “I’m a philosopher. Very independent. I can also be curt and brash and irrational.”

  “Bingo,” Jacob said, and pointed his finger about a millimeter from my cheek. “Does it say anything about how people born under your sign feel in regards to surprises on their birthday?”

  My birthday wasn’t for another few days, but Jacob decided that we needed a vacation. We left L.A. on Thanksgiving day, and planned to make a long weekend out of it. I hadn’t quite recovered from my chance meeting with Daddy-o the week before, and Jacob thought a little trip would do me some good. We’d never gone away together, had never even fucked outside of our apartment before, so I was excited by the prospects the upcoming four days had to offer. I just wanted to know where we were going.

  I threw a Hot Tamale at Jacob. It flew right past his head and out the window.

  “Chill out, Trixie.”

  “Slow down, Speed Racer,” I said. “Get it? Trixie and Speed Racer?”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  I threw another Tamale at him and it landed in his lap. He picked it up, smelled it, and tossed it in his mouth. After three chews he made a face like he’d just swallowed a fur ball. He coughed. “What flavor is this supposed to be?”

  “It’s cinnamon,” I said.

  “More like shit-a-mon.” He spat the candy out the window, took a swig of his Coke, and put another Twizzler in his mouth, all the while trying to drive and seize the map at the same time. His attempts proved futile. He played the angry father: “Beatrice, don’t make me turn this car around!”

  He was just pretending to be mad, of course. Jacob was too content to be mad. The windows were down; his hair, which he hadn’t cut in months and was longer than mine, was flapping around his face; the radio was up; the sun was out; his belly was full of junk food; and he knew I wasn’t wearing any underwear. What more could a man want? In profile, he looked eighteen.

  “It’s like we’re skipping school and sneaking off to some secluded hideaway where teenagers go to lose their virginity,” I said. “Not that I would know exactly where that would be, since I never really had sex in high school, but I’m sure there is such a place.”

  “You never had sex in high school?” Jacob said. “That surprises me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  “I don’t know. Because you’re so…enthusiastic about it. I figured you’d been practicing a long time.”

  “In other words, you thought I was the class slut. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong, buster. I did it once when I was sixteen, but I don’t count that. It only lasted sixty seconds and it felt like a gynecological exam.”

  “I have news for you, if the horse made it through the gates, it counts.”

  “Not this horse. He was a friend of Chip’s. He was sleeping over and he snuck into my room in the middle of the night, then he never spoke to me again. Looking back on it now, I realize I should have sent him to jail, or at the very least, lured him back into my bed and bit his dick off, but at the time, I figured, why add another headache to my life.”

  I’d never told anyone that story before. Not even Kat.

  “How old was this asshole?” Jacob wanted to know.

  “Twenty-two.”

  Jacob touched my cheek with the back of his hand. “That’s really sad,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  I tried to play it off like it was completely trivial. I didn’t want to hamper the festive mood. “I know,” I said. “Being raised without a positive male role model can really fuck a girl up.”

  I wish I’d known Jacob back then. He would have been the kind of guy I could have actually liked. He probably sat in the back of the classroom with Leaves of Grass and Ham on Rye, wondering why the hell he was surrounded by so much stupidity. When I imagined Jacob in high school, I pictured him as this character from a movie I had to go see when I was a kid. One of my dad’s clients was in the film, and my mother made us get all dressed up for the premiere. It was a story about a woman who had some really heavy problems in her life. Then, to make matters worse, she has a heart attack and somehow ends up back in the fifties, in high school. She befriends the cool, outcast guy that she was too popular to give the time of day to the first time around, and he teaches her about poetry. At least that’s the way I remember it.

  During the screening, my brother turned to me and said, “Hey Beatrice, that’s who you’re going to marry. Some freak who dresses in black and talks like a fag.”

  “He’s not a fag, he’s smart and sensitive,” I said.

  “Yeah, a fag.”

  “Cole, watch your mouth,” my mother said, as if he’d insulted me or something. But I thought I’d be lucky to find a guy like that. Not a fag, mind you, just an intelligent, sensitive man. One who played a musical instrument inste
ad of a contact sport.

  “Jacob, can you play any instruments?” I had to shout because the radio was on full-blast, and Jacob was singing along with The Smiths as loud as his vocal chords would permit.

  “Yeah, I can play a little guitar. Why?”

  I suddenly thought my life was perfect. Or, at least, more perfect than it had ever been. It was as if all the melancholy I’d ever known, all the nights I sat alone thinking life sucked, had added up to our place in the world—finally a good place—and the spirit of that rightness was meant to echo on until the end of time. In one fleeting moment I believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Jacob was going to sell his book someday, and that we were going to break free from whatever it really was that held us back. It had to happen. It was part of the order of things. It was the way the universe was supposed to work.

  “Maybe the next time we take a road trip,” I said, “we’ll be driving east. For good.” That prospect made me so excited I gave Jacob back his map.

  He grabbed it quickly, pulled over, studied it for a few minutes, then headed back onto the highway. “I know exactly where we’re going,” he said. “You may now eat the map if you so desire.”

  “Smile,” I said, camera in-hand. With licorice hanging out of his mouth, Jacob gave me his broadest grin—the one that made the apples of his cheeks pop up, the thin skin around his eyes crinkle, and his pouty upper lip spread out. I snapped his picture.

  “Listen. Do you recognize this song?” Jacob said. He turned the radio back up.

  It was a good song. Kind of gloomy. “I like it,” I said. But I didn’t think I’d ever heard it before.

  “Does it ring any bells?”

  I was about to deny any and all bell-ringing until I heard a familiar line, a line I still saw at least once a day, every time I opened the refrigerator.

  “Hey…” I said, and listened:

  Call me now it’s all right

  It’s just the end of the world

  You need a friend in the world

  ‘Cause you can’t hide

  So call and I’ll get right back

  If your intentions are pure

  I’m seeking a friend for the end of the world

  “That’s kind of morbid,” I said when it was over.

  “It can’t be that morbid, it brought us together. We’ll have to play it at our wedding.”

  That was the first time Jacob had mentioned marriage. Truthfully, I didn’t think I would ever be dumb enough to get married, but if I did marry anyone, I said to myself, it would be Jacob. Jacob or no one.

  I would never say no to Jacob.

  For the rest of the drive we played a game called You Suck. We invented it when we got to the part of the state where the only music we seemed to be able to tune in to was classic rock. When a song came on, the first person to say the title, and/or the band who was performing it, got points. Extra points were given for additional pieces of trivial knowledge, things like the name of the album the song came from, or the names of band members—if they were obscure, that is—no points could be obtained by naming Kurt Cobain, or a Van Halen brother. But I did get one for a guy named Neil Peart—he’s the drummer from Rush. Jacob thought it was funny that I knew the names of the members of Rush.

  “What the hell is so funny about Rush?” I said.

  “Nothing’s funny about Rush. It’s just that they seem like a boy band to me. You’re the only girl I know who likes them.”

  “Their lyrics are very intelligent. Especially for Canadians.”

  The title of our game came from the habit of saying “You suck” every time the other person beat you to the punch. It also alluded to the winner’s prize. The rule was we played to fifteen points. I won the first round by a landslide. By the middle of the second round, the score was thirteen to nine. I was in the lead again.

  A new song began. As soon as he heard the first note, Jacob cried, “‘Baba O’Riley!’ The Who! Who’s Next!” He thought he was a force of musical knowledge to be reckoned with.

  “You suck,” I said. I had two pieces of Ballistic Berry Bubble Yum in my mouth. That’s the only reason he beat me on such an easy one. My teeth were stuck together.

  “Twelve to thirteen. I’m on a comeback,” he said with pride.

  “Everybody knows this song.”

  “Did you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sure you did. But I knew it faster.”

  I knew the next song too, as soon as it began, but I waited to see if Jacob had any clue who it was. At the end of the first verse he shouted, “The Beatles!”

  “Wrong,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “This isn’t the Beatles.”

  “It is too.”

  “No it’s not.”

  “Listen,” he said, “if that isn’t Paul McCartney, I’ll eat the entire box of cinnamon shit candy.”

  “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Then who is it, smart-ass?”

  “It’s Badfinger.”

  “Badfinger? What the fuck is Badfinger?”

  “One of the only acts to be signed by the Beatles’s Apple Record label. The song is called ‘Come and Get It.’ Recorded August 1969. Written by Paul McCartney. Produced, I believe, by Paul McCartney. Performed, as I’ve already stated, by Badfinger.”

  “Are you making this up?”

  I didn’t have to answer. When the song ended, the DJ confirmed most of my story.

  “You didn’t get out much when you were a kid, did you?” Jacob said.

  “Let’s see, that’s one point for the band, one for the writer of the song. I could even name two of the band members but I won’t rub it in. I win again. Here, eat up.” I handed him the Hot Tamales. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you give me my prize the next time we stop for gas, you don’t have to eat them.”

  The person with the most points always won the same reward: oral sex.

  “You know, any way you look at it,” Jacob said, “there are no real losers in this game.”

  My first destination hypothesis was that we were going to Big Sur because of Jacob’s reverence for Henry Miller. I saw our entire weekend in a flash: a little inn overlooking the Pacific run by a couple of hairy-legged, lacto-vegetarian lesbians who sat around a fire singing folk songs in the evenings, cultivating the kind of place that made you want to go hiking with a notebook. Jacob and I would find a nice spot on the rocks to picnic and write sonnets to each other. Not that I was much of a writer or anything, but it was around that time I decided to start a diary. I had visions of becoming the twenty-first century’s answer to Anaïs Nin. When I’m dead, I want strangers to read about all the awesome sex I had and wish they could be so lucky.

  “Jacob, do you think I could write? I mean, keep a journal or something?”

  He thought it was a great idea. “Everyone should keep a chronicle of their life.” Easy for Jacob to say. His journals read like perfectly lyrical prose. He wrote truth in sharp sentences and concrete metaphors.

  “You should do it, Trixie. It’s good for your soul. If you have a desire to write, that means there’s stuff in you that wants out. And if you don’t write things down, you just forget them,” he said. “Think of all the stuff you’ve forgotten over the course of your lifetime.”

  “How can I think of it if I’ve forgotten it?”

  “My point exactly.”

  I bought a notebook in the next town. Jacob promised he’d make sure I wrote in it once a day. “We could do it before we go to bed. Fifteen minutes or so, that’s all,” he said.

  “What if it’s crap?”

  “So, no one’s going to see it. Except me, right?”

  “If you’re nice.”

  “Besides, you won’t write crappy. You read too much. Reading is the best way to learn how to write.”r />
  “Big Sur?”

  “What?’

  “Is that where we’re going? To Big Sur?”

  “No, but that’s a great idea. Next time.”

  When we finally turned on to the 580 off-ramp, I was pretty sure I knew where we were headed.

  “San Francisco!” I said. I love San Francisco—it’s the anti-Los Angeles.

  I leaned across the seat and kissed Jacob on the neck. He looked pleased that I was pleased. But hell, he could have taken me to Bakersfield and I would have called it heaven.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There was a six-month period, back in college, when Kat and I went to San Francisco once a month. We’d made this crazy rule for ourselves that we weren’t allowed to date men who smoked, men who drove convertibles, or actors. That pretty much canceled out every penis in Los Angeles. We had to head north for our dicks.

  The last time we’d gone, it was because Kat had insisted the party of the year was some big rave our lives wouldn’t be complete without attending. It was in an old warehouse just south of Market Street, and supposedly, a world-famous DJ was hosting it. There are few things I hate more than fraternizing with large crowds of college-aged kids wasted on cheap alcohol and hallucinogenic drugs, so needless to say, I put up a fight.

  “What else are you going to do all weekend? Sit in your room and read?” Kat said. “If you think I’m schlepping up there all by myself, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  Neither Kat nor I had boyfriends at the time, so the main goal of the trip became finding some. Kat, as usual, had the easier time. She picked up an advertising executive who lived in Noe Valley, drove a BMW, and seemed gay to me, but Kat said he was straight. Actually, what she said was, “He’s straight enough.” She never saw him again.