The Forgiven

by Mike Shepherd

  “No,” she said, taking her mouth away from mine. “I’m not on the pill. Do you have a rubber?”

  “No.”

  “Then we can’t do this.”

  She got up and brushed herself off (I didn’t need to, I’d already been brushed off) then finished milking the goats. She’d garnered about five gallons.

  “With some cheese, this will fetch a slab of bacon and a couple of pork chops, along with more wine. I’ll take it to the farmer right away. We can have the chops for supper. Tomorrow we’ll have fish, if I can catch any in the pond. Because I’m Catholic, I’m in the habit of having fish on Fridays.”

  “Tomorrow is Friday already?”

  “Yes, and I usually go into town on Friday nights to Mr. Natural’s for the poetry readings. Mostly anti-war music and poetry. Not that I’m against the war any more since my brother became involved in it. But it’s interesting to hear other people’s perspectives.”

  Early Friday afternoon we finished in the garden and went fishing in the pond. We caught several sunfish and ate them for supper after taking baths, then we dressed to go to Mr. Natural’s. Cathy wore a paisley-patterned linen dress and sandals; I wore a white cotton shirt and jeans. She brought two bottles of red wine from the cellar, and we drove to town in her pick up truck. The radio was tuned to an FM station that played soft rock. It went well with the beautiful rolling wooded hills surrounding the winding blacktop. I saw an occasional rocky outcrop through the hardwood trees.

  We didn’t talk much on the drive. The music and scenery obviated conversation until we reached the outskirts of Carbondale and drove past a stretch of strip malls.

  “Like the song says, ‘…they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot,’” Cathy said as we drove into the old inner town where Mr. Natural’s was located. We parked across the street. From the truck I could see through the windows that the place was crowded, but we found an empty table.

  “I’ll get glasses for the wine,” Cathy said, and she went to the counter while I looked around. Through open double doors to another room I could see what appeared to be an old-fashioned grocery store. Fans hung from the high, ornate tin ceiling. A white porcelain scales sat atop a white porcelain and glass cooler. Packages of various kinds of nuts and dried fruit lined shelves, and wooden bins sat on the wooden floor. I couldn’t see what the bins contained -- maybe potatoes, onions, rice and other staples.

  When Cathy came back to the table, she noticed that I was looking into the other room.

  “By midsummer a lot of my produce will be in that store.”

  Before long a bearded man with glasses sat on a stool and addressed the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised and especially proud to hear that he’d be reciting Vachel Lindsay tonight because the poet was from Springfield, my hometown. I had learned that he was popular with the Beats in San Francisco, and apparently also with the hippies of Carbondale.

  “Lindsay was known as the ‘Prairie Troubadour’ back in the teens and twenties,” the man said. “He traveled about the country on foot trading rhymes for food and shelter. He was also an ant-war activist during World War I, and he wrote poems protesting it. I’ll begin with one of them.”

  The man recited a Lindsay poem one of whose stanzas impressed me

  To go forth killing in White Mercy’s name,

  Making the trenches stink with spattered brains,

  Tearing the nerves and arteries apart,

  Sowing with flesh the unreaped golden plains.

  In the trenches of Khe Sanh I saw many badly wounded soldiers and, indeed, the trenches were spattered with brains and other body parts. Lindsay’s graphic poem was uncomfortable to hear. It paralleled my own war experiences, and caused my post traumatic stress disorder to flare up. My hand trembled as I raised the glass of wine to my lips and gulped it down, hoping it would settle my nerves. It did, so I drank some more. Cathy did too, and we were well on our way to getting drunk.

  “Let’s go back to the house and continue the party,” Cathy said.

  Back at the house, she brought another bottle of wine from the cellar, popped the cork, poured two glasses, and sat next to me on the couch.

  “So have you learned anything about organic farming since you’ve been here?” Cathy’s speech was slurred from drinking.

  “Yeah, that it’s hard work, and it smells bad.”

  “Oh, but it pays off so nicely at harvest time,” she said. “And I can feed myself with it year round by canning. The potatoes, onions and carrots store well in the cellar, and I’m able to trade the goats’ milk and cheese, and eggs for other things that I want. A pound of cheese brings in a pound of bacon; a dozen eggs, two pork chops and a bottle of homemade wine.”

  She clinked her glass with mine and drank. We were both drunk.

  “I could use some help in the summer, harvesting, Mick. I’d make it worth your while.”

  As she sipped her wine she grinned and glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. Her body language gave me the impression that perhaps she was talking about something other than money.

  In response to what I perceived to be a sexual innuendo, I said, “Why wait until then? I’ve done plenty of work already.”

  “This is true,” she said. “I guess it’s time for me to pay up.”

  We set our glasses down and reclined on the couch. I unbuttoned her dress and fondled her breasts.

  “This is too cumbersome with our clothes on,” she said,

  so we stood up, undressed quickly and lay down again; two naked bodies intertwined, and I automatically slipped inside of her. Everything had happened so fast and in our drunken state of mind we didn’t think about birth control as we had when we were sober in the barn during the thunderstorm.

  Heedless of the consequences of our love making, we climaxed, then we both passed out in each others’ arms, oblivious to the risk we had just taken.

  In the morning I awoke with the sun beaming on my face. Cathy was gone. I went to the window and saw her watering the garden, and I concluded that there was nothing more I could do to help her. Everything had been planted. I packed my things and went out to tell her that I was leaving.

  “I’ll try to get back to help you with the harvest.”

  “Okay. Keep in touch, goodbye, Mick.”

  We hugged and I left.

  A month later I got a phone call from Cathy. She was pregnant.

  “I’m going to get an abortion,” she said. “Since you’re a part of the equation, I thought you should know.”

  “Hold on, Cathy, not so fast. Since, as you say, I’m part of the equation then I have something to say about it. I don’t condone abortions, unless the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest.”

  “But it’s my body and I choose not to carry a baby in it.”

  “Well, what about the body of the baby? You’re just going to throw it away like a piece of trash?”

  “Don’t put it so crudely.”

  “How else can I put it. That’s what you’d be doing.”

  “Let me ask you this then, Mick. Would you be willing to help raise the child?”

  “I’m in no position to do that.”

  “And I am?”

  “Your little farm would be a great place to raise a child,” I said.

  “Not without a father. If nothing else I believe in two parent households - a man and a woman. Studies show that it’s conducive to raising a well-balanced child. Listen, Mick, just because we had sex once doesn’t mean we’d be good partners in raising a child together. My mind is made up. I’m having an abortion with or without your approval!” and then she hung up.

  Granted, when a woman is pregnant the embryo becomes a part of her body enveloped in the womb and connected by the umbilical cord, but at the moment of conception, the man is initially connected to the woman through intercourse as his sperm fertilizes
her ovaries, making him an integral part of the pregnancy of course, thereby giving the man parental rights.

  Thinking the argument would hold up in court I retained an attorney friend of mine. We sued Cathy to prevent the abortion. Because it was first case of its kind there was no legal precedent. If the judge ruled in my favor, it would be a landmark decision.

  “But be careful what you wish for,” my friend Bill advised. “Your parental rights could lead to parental responsibilities like child support, if she’s prevented from going through with the abortion.

  “We’ll have to file quickly. Most abortions are done in the first trimester. If we can prolong the pregnancy past that, then there is a good chance the baby will be born. Then the question arises, who will be given custody? Could be a joint situation. Adoption would be a possibility if neither of you would be willing to raise the child.”

  “Adoption, huh? Now that’s something I haven’t considered. But of course Cathy would have to agree to give birth.”

  “We’ll have to present her with that alternative immediately. If we can appeal to her maternal instincts, which I believe are inherent in most women, then perhaps we can convince her to continue with the pregnancy.”

  “I’ll call her right away, Bill.”

  “I’m scheduled for the abortion at the end of the week, and to be perfectly honest I’m having second thoughts about going through with it. I can feel the baby inside of me – that changes things. I’ve calculated that most of the pregnancy would take place after the harvest. The baby is due in late December. If I decided to forego the abortion in favor of an adoption, I’d want it to be arranged beforehand so the adoptive parents could take the baby immediately, before I become too attached. As I’ve told you before, Mick, I’m in no position to raise a child, nor are you, but I don’t want to kill it.”

  CHAPTER 13

  My mother, who had found religion through AA, called on Easter morning to remind me that the reason for the season was not bunny rabbits and colored eggs, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I told her about Cathy’s pregnancy and the dilemma we faced – abortion or adoption. “Abortion is a sin,” she said. It’s murder. By all means, choose adoption. I’d be happy to adopt the baby,” she said without hesitation.

  “I’m sober now, and remarried to a loving, sober man. Toghether I believe we’d make good parents. True, we’re a little older now, but we’re also wiser. We’ve learned from the mistakes we made raising kids when we were drunks.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll tell Cathy we’ve found someone to adopt the baby, and I’ll have my attorney begin the required paperwork right away. I imagine the state’s adoption agency will want to interview you and your husband ASAP. You’ll have to come to Springfield for that.”

  Cathy was happy to hear the good news that someone would adopt the baby right after birth, depending on whether my mother and her husband were approved.

  Cathy was due in late December – the 24th – to be exact, so my mother planned to be in Carbondale around that time. I’d be there too. It would be the first time we’d faced each other since she abandoned my sisters and me many years before. I was a apprehensive about the reunion. I feared the stress of the situation might cause her to relapse which alcoholics sometimes did, as I well knew. But when we met on the 23rd, I was relieved to see that she was sober, and she seemed resolved to what she was about to do.

  A baby girl was born early in the morning on the 25th. Cathy gave her up without hesitation, to avoid bonding with her. It was a cold thing to do, but not as cold as having an abortion. I admired Cathy for choosing not to go through with one. When I went to her room to tell her as much, I saw that she was in tears.

  “I didn’t think it would be so difficult, but when my breasts began leaking milk my maternal instincts kicked in and I envisioned nursing the baby.”

  “Take heart, Cathy, someday when you’re ready to raise one, you’ll have another child. With someone who’s a willing partner, unlike me, I’m sorry to say.”

  “That’s okay, Mick, I wasn’t so willing either. Besides, the baby wasn’t conceived in love, but rather lust, fueled by alcohol.”

  Although I was pleased that the baby had been adopted, I was still her father, and I experienced a bout with depression and guilt over not being responsible enough to raise her myself, with or without Cathy. It was irresponsible for us to conceive a baby at all.

  Because my mother adopted my daughter, I was comforted that I might be a part of her life. After only a week since the baby’s birth I had time to consider the possibility.

  Meanwhile the time had come to celebrate the beginning of 1981 at a New Year party at DiLello’s. It was also the beginning of a new chapter in my life, and I resolved to finish the book in the next year, so I sat my ass down at my desk and wrote. By the end of February I had written several chapters. One of them follows:

  In early April in 1968, I walked along Tan Son Nhut’s flight line and past a row of hangars, looking for airmen to record for hometowner interviews, I heard a special news bulletin blaring on Armed Forces radio: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot by a sniper at a motel in Memphis.

  Several men, most of them black, congregated around the radio, waiting for more news about the shooting. I thought of 1963, when my high school principal announced over the intercom that President Kennedy had been shot. When we heard a short time later that King had died, most of the men bowed their heads, closed their eyes and prayed. A few stood up and strode away defiantly, muttering to each other about the good reverend being an Uncle Tom.

  The whites, who continued working throughout most of the broadcast, stopped when Dr. King’s last speech, delivered just the day before in Memphis, was replayed.

  “Well I don’t know what will happen to me now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountain, and I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And so I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

  Not even the cavernous hangar could contain his powerful voice. It blared all over the base in stereo as thousands listened to King’s haunting words on their radios, but those words did not unite us in the aftermath of his murder. The next morning at chow, there was a pronounced divide between blacks and whites. They sat on one side of the mess hall, we sat on the other. What next, separate barracks, water fountains, latrines, separate bunkers to go to when the rockets came in? Separate units, separate nations? This was not what Dr. King had envisioned when he said, “I have a dream that one day, on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”

  The night King died, Bobby Kennedy stood on a flatbed truck in Indianapolis and addressed an angry, grieving crowd. “Those of you who are black can be filled with hatred, with bitterness and a desire for revenge. We can move toward further polarization. Or we can make an effort, as Dr. King did, to understand, to reconcile ourselves, and to love.”

  When news of the assassination made the headlines of the Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper, it was accompanied by stories of looting and rioting in more than 100 U.S. cities. In Washington D.C., Stokely Carmichael, the fiery black militant, called for armed violence against whites: “Go home and get a gun!” he reportedly shouted to hundreds of people in the street, while waving a pistol.

  Hanoi Hannah (North Vietnam’s version of Tokyo Rose) wasted little time in widening the schism. “The Pontius Pilates of American racism have crucified your peace-loving black brother. Rise up against them. Join the Viet Cong. Heed the words of H. Rap Brown, ‘wage guerrilla war on the honky white man!”

  Thank God, such pleas went unhe
eded, at least in Vietnam, but it was a different story back in the world (U.S.), from what I gathered from the Stars and Stripes and various magazines. In Chicago, violence erupted, and Richard J. Daley, the city’s no-nonsense mayor, gave police permission to “shoot to kill” anyone suspected of looting, rioting or arson.

  Amid this disturbing news, I wanted to talk to my black coworker Bruce Samuels about how he felt about King’s killing, and how he thought it might affect black/white relationships now, in ‘Nam and back home. We met at the club, where, again, the division between blacks and whites after the assassination was all too apparent – in the way some people looked at each other, and even in the way we didn’t look at each other.

  Bruce and I wouldn’t let it come between us. I shook his hand and said I was sorry, not in an apologetic way, but with empathy because King’s loss was a sad thing for us all.

  “I think he knew that was his destiny,” Bruce said. “He said he might not get there with us.”

  “Where, Bruce?”

  “That place where we all play nice together. In that promised land he had seen from the mountain the night before he was killed.”

  “Does such a place even exist, Bruce?”

  “I believe it does. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t know, man. Lately I’ve seen a little too much of that place where we don’t all play nice together. My faith is being tested.”

  “Keep the faith, brother,” Bruce said. “Just keep the faith. Say, by the way, did you know that I’m leaving on assignment for Khe Sanh tomorrow.”

  “Dangerous place.”

  “Yeah, so do me a favor, my man. If anything should happen to me, when you go through Chicago on your way back to Springfield, stop downtown at Ebony Magazine and say hello to my folks. I’ve written about you in my letters. They know we’re tight. Ebony’s across the street from Grant Park on South Michigan Avenue, not far from Soldier Field.”