by Rod Davis
Before Gus could anticipate what was about to happen, the young woman leaned forward and a spew of the day’s lunch—pasta Florentine and Caesar salad—shot across the top of his desk and directly into his chest. Since it was more a spray than a stream, the expulsion also speckled his face, his trousers, and a good part of the white-paned window overlooking the dormant soccer field.
Stephanie’s head dropped onto a stack of absentee reports and turned slightly to one side. For a moment, she looked like a chicken waiting for the mercy of the hatchet. In reality, she was the possible salutatorian of the senior class. In further reality, she was breathing from the corner of her mouth into a green-brown pile of half-digested lunch. Her dark blue T-shirt was damp and wet down to breast level, and her hair was thick with her own misfortune.
Gus sagged against the leather head rest on his chair, thoroughly splatted. Like someone shot but not yet ready to accept the reality of the bullet, he enjoyed an instant of denial. Pell-mell in his head, compressed into one of those moments which constitute infinity, came a cascade of conflicting insights. The proof of his theory about the value of punishment during the criminal act was one of them. That was quickly followed or superseded or overlaid by an escapist path of thought—this time, not of sex—in which he was back in the Tennessee hills worrying about attendance figures at the Garden of Dixie and whether the log plume scaffolding needed a safety inspection. I.e., Gus was not here, in the aching, pungent Present.
He snapped to right away. He had promised Bonita he would stop wishing he were somewhere else. He had promised to Occupy Space. That space was now. “Oh, shit,” he said, and got up.
Stephanie was sick. Completely. She was sick in his office. She was sick all over herself. She was sick all over him. She was sick all over his Mac. She was sick over portions of the walls. And it was an excellent bet she was pregnant.
“Ohhh . . . ohhh . . .”
Now up from his chair, with but a cursory flick of his hand to dispatch some of the larger chunks, Gus was around the desk and gently lifting her, then maneuvering her back to the couch. She slumped back, moaning low.
Gus locked the office door. The shade already was pulled, as was the courtesy during chaplain hours.
“Don’t move. Don’t get up.”
“Ohh. . .”
He gathered a stack of paper towels next to the coffee pot and knelt in front of the girl, wiping her as clean as possible. That wasn’t much. Looking around, he saw a bottle of mineral water Jackie Numann had left and used it to dampen more cloths and so eventually wipe the worst of it from Stephanie’s face and hair.
She seemed to have nearly passed out but as Gus ministered to her, the blood returned to her face. Then her eyelids opened and she was looking at him. He had a terrible, terrible thought. She was quite pretty. But the thought passed—no more of a thought than the kind which comes on an accidental glimpse of exposed thigh on a stranger in a restaurant, or church pew.
“I’m so sorry—”
“It’s okay. Don’t worry.” He gave her a cup of water.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“I know.”
She started to get up, but fell back again. She shivered an instant, and then began to sob so deeply Gus thought she might be choking. The sobs became more regular. She cried a long time. Somewhere in there, she said, “I know I’m pregnant,” and then cried again.
Gus held her hand, then cradled her.
When she stopped, they sat silent for some time. Footsteps and voices came from the hallway and at least once person knocked but that was in another world and Gus and this young woman were in a place all too familiar to some and all too terrible if you weren’t wanting to be there.
He had no idea what to do. He had decided very early on in the counseling game that he would not divulge confessions. It was Angie Ballew’s admission about sleeping with Agon Hapsenfield that enlightened him in that regard. The sanctity of the confessional was good for all parties concerned, not least the confessor. Gus had learned plenty in two months on the front lines of young women’s hearts. They trusted him—even the wild ones like Angie who mostly liked to see if they could shock him, and often did.
Essentially, they were correct. Gus could be trusted. He could keep his mouth shut. And yet, that same Gus-within-a-Gus, the Shadow Gus, the Gus known to Corina Youngblood and possibly to Bonita, the Gus which dared him to lie in order to get a job and had even perhaps sent him South to seek his fortune was also capable of who knew what when in possession of the secrets of the daughters of the rich and powerful? Gus did not like this about himself and often swore to maintain a high ethical posture. The philosophers would say: What is that? Gus knew—anyone does. But did not St. Peter himself succumb to weakness in what should have been his finest moment?
Gus poured fresh water on another towel and wiped Stephanie’s brow and lips, where a slight, unsightly crust had formed. “Why do you think so?”
Her mouth crinkled again but she set it firmly. After a moment, she answered, “You know.” Her eyes fastened on him as if they were in some kind of primordial understanding.
Gus moved back. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
She shrugged and sniffled. “It was stupid,” she said, and began to cry.
Gus stood, pulled over a chair from the other side of the desk, sat down, and watched her.
“My parents will kill me.”
“Well—”
“They will. Oh, God—”
It went on like that for a quarter hour. Mostly crying. Fear of Family. In that time, the obvious occurred to Gus. Stephanie was telling him all this because she had no one else to talk to. No one else to trust.
He felt like his spine had been plugged into the wall socket.
She was totally dependent on him.
She thought he was a Man of God.
Quickly reviewing his qualifications, he reached the expected conclusion. Well, he could talk to her as a wise uncle, maybe.
He inched his chair closer and took her left hand, pressing it between his own. It was cool, damp. Scared. “Let me just ask you, are you sure this could have happened?”
“Yes.”
He took a breath. “Why do you think that?”
“Because he did it to me.”
“Sex, you mean. Made love.”
“Yes.”
“And this was without a condom or anything.”
“Well it wasn’t like we planned on doing it. We just did it. We didn’t—”
“Okay. I’m just trying to be sure.” In fact, he was trying to buy time. He couldn’t tell anyone in the school, and he couldn’t tell Christopher Daedaleux, and the Hapsenfields weren’t on the list at all. But what could he do?
“Have you been to a doctor?”
She stared up at him. “You mean a doctor?”
“Yes. A gynecologist, something like that.”
She looked down and attempted to corkscrew into the couch. In a very quiet voice, she said, “No.”
“How about a test? Have you used one of those tests like on TV?”
She shook her head. She continued to avoid his eyes.
“But you think it’s true? That you’re pregnant?”
She nodded.
“Have you told the boy?”
Her eyes shot up in a flash, held his. He looked away.
“Have you told anyone?”
She shook her head.
He nodded and sat back. “More water?”
“Yes, please.”
He took her glass and went over to the bookcase to fill it up with Evian. As he poured the glass, late afternoon light drifted across the room and into the glass and the glass grew rosy yellow in one of the fullnesses of physics that interfaces with our consciousness and translates as beauty. Then the light was blocked—a cloud, unaware
of its aesthetic sundering. The refraction ended and the glass was as glass: clear and full in his hand. And his head was possessed of a bizarre idea.
Gus carried the water to Stephanie, standing like some kind of shy waiter, as she drank. When she had finished he sat back down. Moving the glass aside, he took her hand again.
“I have to tell you the truth. I’m a little new at this, and I’m a man. I think I’d like to have you talk to a friend of mine. A woman. She might be able to help you decide what to do.”
Stephanie’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Someone here?”
“No,” he shook his head vigorously. “Definitely not. No, not at all. I had in mind someone no one here knows. But someone I find, well, insightful.”
“I just don’t know what to do.”
“I know. But I think Reverend Youngblood could help you.”
“A preacher?”
“Yes, a minister.”
Stephanie’s eyes softened again. “I’m Catholic. I should go to a priest, if anyone.”
“Sure, of course.”
She looked at him carefully. He could tell she was weighing it. “But I can’t—I mean I don’t want to—I don’t like them.”
“She’s black.”
Stephanie’s head cocked slightly.
“Does that bother you?”
“Well—” Weirdly, he could tell it didn’t, but that she was waiting to see if he wanted it to bother her. Rather than pursue all those implications, he dropped the line of inquiry altogether.
“She’s very good.” He pressed Stephanie’s hand in reassurance, even enthusiasm. “I go to her on occasion with my own problems.”
Stephanie seemed to come to full attention. He had the feeling she was suddenly trying to peer inside him. He wouldn’t let her.
“What kind of problems do you have?” In her shift of topic, he knew she had consented to go. It was the way of Southern women, sidling up to that which was too demanding face-on.
“I don’t want you to worry about that. So you’ll go?”
She looked away. “I guess, if you say.” Then she fastened her eyes on him again. “Can I go soon?”
“I’ll call her now if you wish.”
She nodded.
He went back to his desk and dialed information. St. Jude Lamb of Light had a working number. He smiled at Stephanie as he wrote it down. Then he called. The reverend answered. Yes, she remembered him. Why hadn’t he come back? He had “unfinished business,” she said.
He told her about the girl, and lied only slightly in saying he was her teacher. He didn’t want to get into the chaplain saga in front of his referral. Referral? How easily it rolled from his tongue. The reverend said she would be more than happy to read the girl—did she want to come on over? Could she make it before nine?
“Want to go now?” Gus asked Stephanie.
She nodded. “But I have to clean up.”
He relayed the agreement and said the girl would be over in an hour or so. The matter of a fee came up. Gus said he’d take care of it, but, not wanting to discuss details in front of Stephanie, listened to the terms, saying only “yes” or “yeah, don’t worry” or “I will.” The agreement was that Reverend Youngblood would take the referral and Gus would pay when he came by, which was to be no later than Monday.
It was now well after school hours and the halls were silent. Stephanie arose. She could say she’d spilled something on herself if anyone caught her before she got to her room and the shower. She was worried about the smell and Gus didn’t have anything so he sprayed her with Lysol, which transformed vomit to lilac with far more success than either of them expected. She thanked him and promised to call him at home after she got back. He gave her cab fare and the address.
8
Gus’s brow furrowed as he tried to take in what Corina was telling him. He unsnagged a kink in the cord and carried the phone into the kitchen.
“What you mean, pregnant? You some kind of fool?”
“You mean—”
“She got flu. Ain’t nothin’ in her. My mind, never was.”
“But how can you be sure? She said she was.”
“Men.”
“What do you mean, ‘men’?”
“I mean what you don’t know about women I could write a book about and I can’t even write.”
“Maybe. But I still wonder how you know.”
“That’s what I do. I know things. Spirit tell me and I know. And I know this. That child no way pregnant. She very sick, and she got a boyfriend and she late with her time but she is not pregnant. I don’t even say she even done it with that boy.”
Gus listened. He felt relief. He felt exasperation. He felt in way over his head.
“How long ago did she leave?”
“Leave? She still here. The fruit bath take another hour to be finished.”
“She’s there at the botanica?”
“Well, not now. She lying down in the church. I let her go in there to stretch out on a bench because the cot in here all piled up with junk Paulus was supposed to put on the shelves today.”
Gus looked quickly at the clock. Seven-thirty p.m. Getting dark. Seventeen-year-old blond student in his direct care over in a part of the city whites had long ago abandoned—but that was another story. This one was about Stephanie. It was about his stewardship with his charges. About the salutatorian at Miss Angelique’s Academy for Young Ladies holed up in a voodoo church next door to a botanica. Having a fruit bath. With the flu. He’d never even make it to jail. He’d be lynched from a lamp post on St. Charles.
“And she believes what you’ve told me? That she’s not pregnant.”
“Of course she does. Spirit don’t lie. The Bible don’t lie. And anyway, she’ll start by tomorrow.”
“Her period?”
“Yes, child, of course her period. Lord have mercy!” Gus could hear laughter through the receiver.
“Well, then. I guess I was wrong.”
“I guess to Jesus you were.”
Gus leaned against the kitchen cabinet. Bonita was already gone to work. “Look. I’ll come over and pick her up. Tell her not to take a cab.”
“That’s a very good idea. And when you come over, you and me have us a talk.”
“A talk?”
“That’s right, Mr. Candy Man. I want to know how it is you have yourself a job telling these young girls what’s what when you don’t have the slightest idea what you talking about.”
“Candy man?”
“You know, that name you tell me. Candy. Paulus call you Candy Man.”
“Candide.”
“What I said.”
“Not Candy—Candide. It was the name of a famous book.”
Silence. “Well, you Candy Man to Paulus.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“So, you want to talk to me?”
“You mean about my job?”
“Not your job. About how you do your job.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you could use some help.”
A rush of exhalation spewed from Gus’s lips before he could stop it—like the old spit-takes on TV, except he had nothing to spit. What came out was nothing more than breath.
“Amen to that.”
“Don’t you take the Lord in vain.”
“No—I mean it. I mean, you’re right.”
“I’m always right.”
“I’ll be right over,” he said. “Tell Stephanie for me.”
“I’m letting her rest. I’ll tell her when you get here.”
“See you soon.”
Before he left, he opened a beer and drank it while he watched the new orange tabby bounce around on Bonita’s wicker sofa. His true love was down at The Hellhole serving the first of many Jägermeister shots to g
uys with tattoos on their earlobes and women with rings through their nipples. Or the other way around. So what would Mr. Doucet, her daddy, say about that if the ol’ boy were still alive? Would he rather his baby girl were wet with spiritual fruit in a church pew over near Broad Street? No, he would rather she be among bikers than niggers, fine ol’ Cajun tool pusher from Thibodaux that he had been.
As for Gus? Well, he liked where Stephanie was just fine. He liked that she wasn’t pregnant. And he liked that preacher. He just hoped that if what he thought was about to happen actually did happen, that the Reverend Youngblood liked him, too. Because this was going to be her show.
He walked downstairs and started up the K-car, which was actually a used Mustang Gus had gotten for almost nothing from the Garden of Dixie fleet. Bonita called anything made in Detroit a K-car. She drove a Honda, which her father called Jap Crap, and may have had a lot to do with why she bought it, but Gus wasn’t thinking about cars or the Doucets. He was headed down Magazine Street, through the Irish Channel, across the trolley tracks, and up around the haggard uptown side of the business district. The city was all lit up. The streets were full of people entirely too disoriented, or desperate, or drunk, or detoured from Des Moines, or all of that, for him to have had any reasonable chance of explaining to them exactly what he was doing, impersonating a chaplain and flirting with the gods.
It was not a good week for Elroy. His arm hurt and business was slow and the architects were giving him a hard time and now there was some question that an underground gasoline storage tank at the site of the SuperBotanica had leaked into the ground back from when a Tiger Oil station had been there and construction might have to be delayed until the Spring.
He was eating cornflakes and watching a morning news show on TV, trying to figure out if he could bribe anyone at City Hall about the gas tank. Shit—who knew about things like that? Nobody could even remember how long since the gas station had been there. Nobody at the bank or the washateria had said anything about a gas station at all.
And anyway, so what if something had spilled? Who cared? It was all under the ground. Mother of God, he was getting ready to concrete over the top of the whole damn block and put up a fifty-thousand-square-foot store so what chance was there anybody could be harmed by a couple of gallons of premium that might’ve “leached out,” the little maricón inspectors from the city said, thirty years ago? Fucking city. Fucking whoever.
