God-Shaped Hole

by Tiffanie DeBartolo

  “I was never cut out to be a father,” Thomas said.

  The band’s singer, a bean pole with long, perfectly straight hair, joined the rest of his buddies on stage. He looked like one of the twelve apostles. He kept saying, “Check one, two, three,” into the microphone.

  “I had a pretty shitty father myself,” Thomas said. “You were better off without me, trust me on that.” He gulped down the remainder of his third drink.

  “I think this was a mistake,” Jacob said, and rose from his seat. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry if we bothered you, if we disturbed your family or anything.” Jacob flipped through his wallet and slammed a twenty dollar bill on the bar.

  With a deep, almost penitent sigh, Thomas said, “I don’t know what you want from me, kid.”

  “I don’t want anything,” Jacob said, and walked away.

  That’s when I stood up. But I remained standing next to Thomas while he rolled an empty glass around in his palm.

  “It was good to meet you, Mr. Doorley.” I offered him my hand, and when he took it I held on longer than I should have. I squeezed hard. I tried to tell him, silently, all the things Jacob was feeling, all the things Jacob needed to hear to be complete. I begged him with my eyes to stop Jacob from walking out the door.

  “I can’t do it, baby doll,” Thomas said.

  When Jacob reached the door, he opened it and the afternoon sun flooded the dark room. I almost had to squint to see.

  “I have nothing to give him,” Thomas said to me. “I never did.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “Jacob’s a really good guy,” I told Thomas. “You’d like him if you got to know him.”

  “I already like him,” he said. “That kid’s got heart. I can see it all over his goddamn face. But it’ll be the death of him. He better toughen up or he’s in for it. Life ain’t no picnic, missy.”

  Where did he get the nerve? Did he think for one second that the last thirty years of Jacob’s life had been some kind of fucking picnic? Did he think Jacob hadn’t suffered, in large part, because of him? I had half a mind to grab Thomas Doorley by the shirt and shake the living daylights out of him. I had half a mind to slap him in the face. Instead, I just turned to go.

  “Hey,” Thomas said.

  I spun back around.

  “His writing any good?”

  “Better than yours,” I told him.

  That made Thomas smile. Sort of. The corners of his lips rose anyway.

  Quickly, I scribbled our address and phone number on a napkin and set it on the bar. “Drop your son a Christmas card or something. It’s the least you could do.”

  Thomas didn’t acknowledge my request, but he took the napkin. I saw him put it in his pocket.

  Just to make myself feel better, I imagined a tear rolling down Thomas Doorley’s cheek as his son walked away. Of course I knew that was a big lie. He never looked at us again after we left. I knew because I watched him.

  As we drove back over the bridge, Jacob’s gloom permeated the car like thick smoke. Thomas Doorley had broken his heart yet again. I felt like I’d instigated the whole event and, ironically, I of all people should have known better. But nobody ever really learns, do they?

  There’s nothing more pathetic than dreaming dreams you know can never come true.

  You’ll never find your gold on a sandy beach

  You’ll never drill for oil on a city street

  I know you’re looking for a ruby in a mountain of rocks

  But there ain’t no Coupe de Ville hiding at the bottom of a Cracker Jack box.

  “Coupe de Ville?” Jacob said bitterly, speaking directly to the radio. “Hell, a Pinto would’ve been a prize.”

  “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” was the last song in the world I felt like listening to. It was Jacob’s day of pain. We had no time for any of my traumatic childhood memories. That one took me back to the night a strange woman named Violet Lyngstad called our house. I answered the phone and she said, “Hello, my name is Violet Lyngstad. Tell your mother that Curtis is in love with me. Violet Lyngstad is my name.”

  “I got ‘Violet Lyngstad’ the first time,” I said. The whore didn’t need to say it twice.

  When I told my mother what Violet the Whore Lyngstad said, my mother threw a platter of pasta at my father, and dragged me and my brothers out the door.

  “Curtis, I’m leaving! This is it!” she said.

  As soon as we got in the car, Mom turned up the radio. That was so she wouldn’t have to explain anything to us. While we drove down Mulholland, Chip complained about having homework to finish; Cole, who was only about four at the time, curled up next to me and sobbed himself to sleep; and over the airwaves, Meat Loaf tried to convince us that it was okay to settle for less than we deserved by accepting being wanted and needed, by just throwing in the towel on ever being loved. Groovy. Just what I always hoped life would hold for me: nothing special.

  My mother checked us all in to the Beverly Hills Hotel for the night, and when we went back home the next day she thought Dad would be waiting for us, a changed man, but he’d just gone off to work like normal. He might have been an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew we’d be back. Instead of being met with flowers and apologies when she returned, all my mother got was cold spaghetti and broken glass all over the kitchen floor. When I thought about the lack of rewards my mother reaped from her marriage, two out of three wouldn’t have been half bad for her.

  I can’t lie

  I can’t tell you that I’m something I’m not

  No matter how I try

  I’ll never be able

  to give you something

  Something that I just haven’t got

  Jacob reached over and slammed the radio off.

  “Good move,” I said. “With our luck, Harry Chapin would be next on the play list.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Jacob was, understandably, in an extremely shitty mood. When we got back to the hotel he ripped off his boots, slammed the closet door, and brushed his teeth like he was scraping paint off the side of a house. Then he closed all the drapes so that it seemed like midnight in our room. He flinched with every move I made, making me feel like a complete and utter annoyance. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to write about what had transpired. I wanted to do the same thing, actually. At that point, I’d only been writing for a few days, and shit, did I pick an ideal weekend to start a journal. Two weeks prior, I would have been jotting down things like: slept until ten, mailed the rent check, had sex in the shower. This was in another realm altogether. But I knew I could write later. First and foremost, Jacob needed space.

  I spent my time walking around, looking for a place to get take-out. I was sure Jacob would be hungry by the time I got back. I picked the cleanest sushi bar I could find and ordered a few rolls to go. They said it would take twenty minutes. I went back outside and searched for temporary entertainment. There wasn’t much to see on the block. Basically, I had two choices: the empty laundromat next door or the card reader across the street.

  I had no dirty clothes on hand.

  The sign in the window read: Maria. Tarot. $15. I liked to say I didn’t believe in mystics, but for fifteen bucks, I decided it might be worth something. I hadn’t had my fortune told since I was twelve, and I pretended to deem that woman a complete charlatan. It was time for an update.

  After three long knocks, an aloof teenaged girl finally opened the door and let me in. As I followed her through the living room, I realized I was in somebody’s house. A little boy was sprawled out on the rust-colored carpet sucking his thumb and watching cartoons. He didn’t even look up when I walked by.

  The girl escorted me to the kitchen and told me to sit down. The room made me woozy. The walls were bright blue, the tiles on the counter w
ere yellow and pink, and the little round table was red. I felt like I was inside a piñata. I focused on the three things I saw in the middle of the table: a votive candle, a dish of potato chips, and a deck of cards. The girl told me to help myself to the chips while she went to get her mother. Something in the oven smelled like burnt cheese.

  “You want your cards read?” the middle-aged woman said when she came in.

  “Yes, please.”

  She sat down across from me, grabbed a cluster of chips, and crammed them into her mouth. She was a good thirty pounds overweight—I could see her plump body outlined by the tight sweat pants and Oakland Raiders T-shirt she had on—and I contemplated advising her to opt for a lower-calorie snack while predicting futures, but I was afraid I’d offend her and she’d tell me something awful.

  “Are you Maria?” I said.

  “No. I’m Margaret. There is no more Maria.”

  That seemed weird. Maria was probably bound and gagged and stuffed in the coat closet.

  Margaret shuffled the pack of picture cards and placed them in my hands. They were greasy and salty from the chip residue on her fingers.

  “Hold them tight. Close your eyes. And make a wish. After you’ve made your wish, spread out the cards and pick five for me.”

  Jacob would have laughed so hard if he’d seen me there.

  “You are not concentrating,” Margaret said.

  I tried to focus. All I could see was the look on Jacob’s face the moment he made eye contact with his brother. Silently, I wished for Jacob to be happy. I opened my eyes, picked out a few cards just like Margaret instructed, and handed them to her.

  She turned the cards over and studied them, shaking her head and picking at a zit on her chin.

  “This is six,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You gave me six cards. I asked you for five, but you gave me six.”

  “Shit. I never was very good at math,” I said. “Is it bad? Does it mean something horrible is going to happen?”

  “No. It’s good luck. Did you make a wish?”

  “Yes.”

  “It will come true,” she said. “When is your birthday?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  Margaret raised her head at breakneck speed and looked at me, like my birthday being the following day was monumental. She began turning the cards over, one by one.

  “The World Card. This indicates you have chosen the right career. You will never want for money.”

  “Whatever,” I said. I couldn’t have cared less about money. All I cared about was love. “Can you tell me anything about my current relationship?”

  “What I can tell you is that you have already met the man who should be your partner for life. Your soulmate. Whether or not it’s the man you are with, I do not know.”

  “It is,” I told her. Not that she cared, that was obvious.

  She turned over another card. It was something called the Knight of Wands. She said it indicated a change of residence in the next twelve months. If I bought even a word of her crap, that meant Jacob was going to sell his book and we’d be off to Georgia within a year. Good news. I wanted to kiss Margaret.

  The next card was the Nine of Swords. With a straight face, she said, “This is a vision of impending doom.” I immediately changed my mind about kissing her. She was a bitch. It didn’t bother her one bit that I was doomed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means be careful,” she warned. “Don’t let your loved ones wander.”

  I asked her what she meant by wander.

  “The cards say there is risk in wandering. That is all I know.”

  “Come on, this is important,” I said. “Don’t you see anything? Try closing your eyes or something.”

  She did—she closed her eyes just like I asked. “I see a water tornado,” she said.

  At first I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Then I tried to picture it.

  “The whirlpool!” I gasped. Just like in my dream. Jacob was now officially banned from hot tubs for life.

  “What else?” I said.

  The next card was the Empress. Margaret said it represented fertility, something maternal. I was afraid she was going to tell me I was pregnant, but she said, in laymen’s terms, it could imply that I had to mother someone, which was true. Sometimes Jacob needed mothering.

  The next two cards were the Three of Swords and the Ten of Swords.

  “What’s with all the swords?” I said.

  “They suggest an inevitable ending. Something you have no control over. But remember that there is light at the end of every tunnel. Every end promises a new beginning. Okay? Thank you. That is your reading.”

  “That’s it?” I said. My reading was too vague and wrought with cliche. I should have threatened Margaret. I should have told her I knew about Maria’s decomposing body in the closet, and unless I got a more concise vision of my future, I was going straight to the cops.

  I was already in the doorway when I asked one last question.

  “Can you at least tell me if I’m going to live in Georgia or Mississippi?”

  She looked at me like I was insane. “I don’t see you in a warm climate.” Then she shut the door in my face.

  When I got back to the Ritz, Jacob was sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard. He was on the phone with Joanna. I put down the sushi, took off my shoes, and curled up next to him. Across the front of the black notebook on his lap, he’d drawn the word TRAVELER. Jacob had dozens of notebooks that he kept strewn about our apartment, and he named them all like that. He had one he wrote in first thing in the morning, he kept it by the bed for dreams, it said phoenix. The one he wrote poetry in he called The Juggernaut. My favorite was the one he jotted story ideas in, that was Father, Son, and the Holy Toast. He’d drawn a picture on the cover of it, a cartoon of a crucifix, only the crucifix was spread out over a piece of bread, but the bread wasn’t just bread, it was the earth shaped like bread. What I mean is, it had all the continents drawn around it, and the parts that were supposed to be the oceans were shaded with a blue pen. He also had another little pad he kept in his coat pocket—that was Roy.

  I wanted to draw some cool word or phrase on my notebook too, but I couldn’t think of a good one.

  “I missed you,” Jacob said when he got off the phone. He touched my hair. That’s the way he greeted me sometimes—he petted me.

  “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better,” he said. Then he flipped through half a dozen pages of chicken scratch in his notebook. “But there’s nothing like a little heartbreak and pain to inspire.”

  I asked him if he was sorry he went to Mill Valley and he said no, he had to go. “I just wish…” But then he stopped, as if it wasn’t worth it.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “I don’t know, I just feel like all these years I kind of gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even through my anger, I made excuses for him. Like he said, he didn’t want a kid, didn’t want the responsibility, the whole family thing. And for some stupid reason, I think that would have been acceptable. But he didn’t not want a family, he just didn’t want our family. My family. He didn’t want me.”

  I didn’t agree with Jacob’s assessment of his father and I told him so.

  “First of all,” I said, “Thomas Doorley didn’t appear to be any more into his current family than he was into you. The fact that he lives with them seems completely inconsequential. Second, from my perspective, the man is just totally lost. Maybe he’s one of those people who never fit in. Maybe he’s not so different from me and you. Only he goes about dealing with his pain in the worst way possible—by drowning it with whiskey. He puts up walls. He shuts people out. Not just you, Jacob, but everyone. It’s like what you always say about that hole we all have in our souls. Your father ha
s a big one. And instead of trying to fill it up with anything real, he left it empty and day by day, year after year, it started to swallow him from the inside out. That’s what I think.”

  Jacob planted a gentle kiss on my shoulder. “That’s pretty good for a woman who spends most of the day working with metal.”

  I could tell that in between the rock of Jacob’s anger and the hard place of his disappointment, lay a glimmer of hope that shone directly above Thomas Doorley’s head, a glimmer that no amount of mistreatment was going to make disappear. I admired Jacob for having even a tiny bit of that faith. I didn’t think I was strong enough to feel an emotion like that. If I were, I said to myself, I would have been in Malibu for Thanksgiving.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “We can’t spend our last night in San Francisco all cooped up like a couple of chickens,” Jacob said. He got claustrophobic when he was stressed out. If we’d been at home, he would have wanted to go to the beach. Luckily, the bay was too cold for a midnight swim.

  “Let’s go grab a beer,” he said. He already had his coat on.

  We went back to the bar on Valencia. There was no Ryan Chuck outside, and no live band inside, just a crummy DJ who spun a load of half-assed pop songs from the early eighties. Jacob neither cared nor noticed. He hadn’t gone for the tunes. We were barely through the door before he had a seat at the bar and a bottle in his hand. He ordered us both beers, even though I said I didn’t want one, and we sat there like a couple of lonely sots. I tried to get him to dance but he was unequivocally glued to his chair. He finished his beer in five big gulps, had two quick shots of tequila, then started drinking from my bottle.

  “Thirsty?” I said. He ignored me. “Jacob, why don’t we just go back to the hotel?”

  “I don’t want to go back to the hotel,” he snapped. “If I go back there, all I’m going to do is sit around and think about it.”

  I assumed it meant his father, as well as the brother he never knew he had. He sucked on my beer and gazed at his reflection in the frosted mirror behind the bar. He stared straight into his own eyes, and I can’t say for sure what he saw, but I would have bet my inheritance he wasn’t looking at himself. I found it funny that he thought going back to the hotel was going to make him think of it, because there he was, sitting on a barstool, thinking so hard on it that he couldn’t even recognize his own goddamn face.