by Nancy Adams
“I did.”
“Why?” was his surprising reply.
“Because he committed a crime to get it.”
“He conned conmen in their own den,” Dad put to me. “I’m not saying that it wasn’t wrong, and I don’t condone his actions, but he was going to use the money for good. And I imagine this would have been a one-off.”
“But he overstepped an important line. If I allow him to do this now, then what about the future, huh? What about when he decides that he’s tired of thrift store clothes and wants to be decked out in Versace, or that he can’t stand living in our humble apartment anymore? Will he commit fresh crimes to support this?”
My father stood before me with a face dripping in contemplation, before answering.
“You’re right, of course. But you don’t know for certain that he’d overstep the line again. This one time was out of true desperation; the wish to get himself back in school and see out his future now, rather than postpone it with backbreaking labor. You can’t say for certain that he’d feel so desperate to break the law for a pair of Italian leather shoes and a penthouse suite.”
A pang of guilt ran through me like a steel spike. It was true, I’d been very harsh on Josh. I’d judged him in a way that stuck to the rigid thought that this one criminal act would lead to dozens more. But Dad was right; there was a supreme desperation in this one offense.
“Out of interest,” my father then said, “which casino did he con?”
“One of his father’s.”
“Hah! Then isn't there some divine justification in that?”
“It was criminal,” was my blunt reply. “If he’d been caught, he wouldn’t be able to guarantee against prosecution—maybe his father would have delighted in teaching Josh some new, even more severe lesson for crossing him. I can’t be with someone that takes the law into their own hands, no matter how justified they may be.”
“And where is he now?” Kay asked.
My heart dropped through the floor of me, and, my throat going dry, I replied in a hoarse voice that I didn’t know.
“Ah! He’s probably sleeping it off at one of his buddies’,” Dad intervened on my trepidation’s behalf. Then glancing over his shoulder at the church, the congregation already filing in, he added, “Anyway, we have to get inside. Service is about to begin.”
The whole way through service, I couldn’t concentrate on the minister as he spoke about the joy of giving and of this age being more important than ever for realizing and lessening the burdens placed on others. It was probably a lovely service. Minister Carlos was such a wonderful orator, with a kind touch to his words, but all I could do was catch the odd sentence, the odd word, my mind occupied by dizzying thoughts of infidelities, of my heart being trampled underfoot, of my relationship crumbling to ashes in my hands, a gust of wind sweeping them clean. Josh’s angered face just before he’d left last night repeated in my mind, his flexed jaw, bulging eyes, face filled with blood, expression filled with rage. I felt responsible for his absconding. I should never have said that about his father. I should never have burned down the house of his joy with such rapidity. I felt so guilty. My reaction had been quick-tempered and stupid. I should have let him have his fun and worked him slowly over the coming days. Or perhaps—as another voice inside of me suggested—I should have let him enjoy the fruits of this one misdemeanor, should have allowed him the money and the attainment of his future now. It would have surely worked out better for us in the long run. He, back at college, would have been so much happier. The bitterness that, even after only two weeks’ work, had sown itself into him would have been no more. Before, when he thought he was returning to college like normal, he had been so loving, and I had found true glee in returning home at night to find him sitting at the little table studying over his books, or writing notes onto the laptop. He would immediately sit me down and begin making tea, as well as put the dinner on. As he’d do these things for me, he’d begin talking excitedly about what he’d learned that day, finding such joy in sharing it all with me like some little boy returned home from his first day at school. My reaction to his cheating the casino, possibly aided by my tiredness at having been woken up, was far too swift and pointed. I’d struck him with a harpoon straight through the tail as he’d cloven majestically through the waters of elation.
When church was over, I called Josh after hurriedly saying my goodbyes to my fellow parishioners, and my seething heart was dealt a further blow when I reached his voicemail.
“Josh, I’m so sorry about last night,” I said desperately into the phone. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. Please, accept my apologies. I should never have said those things about your father and I should never have exploded like that. Please, I love you so very much.”
I put the phone down and drove to my father’s for Sunday lunch, my whole body twisted in grief.
JOSH
Surrounded by opaque shadows, the only form I could see clearly was Sarah’s. There she stood, so much taller and bolder than me, towering above my own pathetic form, an endless stream of tears falling from her glittering emeralds. I was stricken from shame, pleading for a forgiveness I knew I didn’t deserve.
And it was from this despairing realm that I slowly awoke, opening my eyes to the sight of Amy’s room, the feel of her hands around me, her face buried in the nape of my neck, her touch feeling so very cold in that moment. My eyes alighted on the door and saw standing in front of it the Sarah of my dreams; a pale specter, her sobbing eyes trained upon me and Amy. I didn’t make a move and merely kept my gaze fixed to her, feeling so very ashamed of myself and wanting to bolt from the bed into her arms. But as this thought became all-powerful, her apparition faded and I was left alone with my contemptible reality.
It’s safe to say that you may have guessed what happened after I got into Amy’s car, but I feel the need to expose a few details. Driving like a maniac, Amy got us to her room in quick time. Before we’d even made it through the door, our hands were all over one another, like feral dogs going over a particularly wholesome piece of carrion. By the time we bounded through the door, her dress was already off and she’d nimbly removed my belt and revealed me. I lifted her up in my arms, her thighs balanced on my forearms, and so began two hours of animalistic sex, all my former frustrations spilling out and consuming her like I’d never done before. The beast was off the chain and I gorged myself on her flesh.
But don’t chastise me just yet; or at least not totally. Because I did regret every part of it all the way through. I knew that it was all wrong. I knew it the moment I allowed Amy to kiss me on the dance floor, to balance her body against mine. Somewhere inside of me, my prudent conscience stood thumping his fists against a glass wall, screaming for me to stop. “You can’t,” he screamed. “You love Sarah. You love her and you’re destroying her, as well as your own selfish self.” But his voice was dimmed by the glass screen of booze, drugs and lust, and his pleading was ignored. My animalism had taken over and I was set free of restraint. For every shout of ‘no,’ a hundred shouts of ‘yes’ came spilling out of the darkness.
However, awake and alone, Amy’s hands clasped round my chest, the glass screen was down and my conscience was in full swing as the beast slumbered, having had his fill and feeling particularly tired after such a heavy meal. A scathing hatred, directed inward, buried me now under its colossal weight. I had soiled my feelings toward Sarah. Sure, I still loved her. Sure, I still wanted to be with her. But at the same time, I sensed that I’d brought a terrible veil down upon us, one that would infect our love even if she never found out. Because I would always know. I would always find some sudden thought of this time floating back to me whenever happiness reigned between us. Every happy occasion would mischievously bring my debauchery careering back to me. I would never be able to experience the purity of our love again knowing that I’d muddied its waters.
The first thing I had to do was get the fuck out of Amy’s. Instead of doing the usual a
nd sidling out unnoticed, I decided to wake her. I wanted to talk to her about what had happened and let her know how upset I was about it, without, of course, insulting her in any way. I pulled myself out of her arms and sat on the edge of the bed with my back to her. While I sat there, Amy roused, my movements having woken her up.
“What time is it?” she asked in a hoarse voice.
I found my phone on the bedside cabinet, switched it back on and looked at its screen.
“Twelve,” I said, before observing the list of missed calls I’d received from Sarah and feeling even more wretched than I already did.
“Too early,” Amy complained, turning back over within the covers.
“Amy, we gotta talk.”
“No talk. Just sleep. You really wore me out last night. I feel I could sleep for a millennia.”
“You can, just as soon as we’ve spoken.”
“What about?” she inquired with her back to me.
“About what happened last night.”
“You mean the amazing fuck we had. I have to say, I lost count how many orgasms I had.”
My conscience ached all over at her casual recollection. I also appeared to notice the strong scent of sex in the room for the first time, and this filled me with even greater regret, bringing to my mind a cinema show of last night.
“Please,” I begged her, “just lay off the details.”
“Ah! Your Christian.”
“Yes,” I uttered, glancing over my shoulder at her. “Because of Sarah.”
“Sarah,” she repeated, the sound of the name sounding awful from Amy’s mouth. “Nice name.”
“Yes.”
“So, are you going back to her now?”
“Yes…probably…I don't know.”
I threw my head in my hands and was close to tears. And no, they weren't for myself—in that moment I hated myself more than anything—they were for Sarah and the grief that I’d poured on her; because I had undoubtedly done that.
“You can stay here with me if you want,” she suggested. “We could make a day of it.”
And with that, she placed her hand on my shoulder blade and I jumped from it as though it were made of ice.
“Please,” I insisted, standing up and facing her.
“Calm down, cowboy. I was only offering you what you want. You weren't so against it last night.”
“I was drunk and high last night.”
“That’s a flimsy excuse. We are who we are. Alcohol and drugs remove walls to our true self.”
“Do they? Or do they just numb us from our true self? Take away a part of us which is human and leave nothing but the animal?”
“We’re all animals, Josh. Especially you. Look how you beat those boys last night.”
Another shudder emerging from the previous evening ran through me like a spear as I glumly sat in my wilderness of shame. I looked down at my right hand and saw the bruising on the knuckles, recalling instantly the crack upon the college kid’s jaw that had sent him over.
“I gotta go,” I said, grabbing up my things from the floor.
“Do what you gotta do,” Amy replied as I hurriedly dressed. “But you’ll return. Especially with your Sarah—your sweet, sweet Sarah—not giving it up.”
I turned to her sharply.
“I told you that?” I hastily inquired.
“You told me everything. How she wants to…”—she broke into snickering here—“wait until marriage.” And with this final word, her face creased up into an appallingly mocking look of mirth and she continued with her hardly suppressed giggling. “I mean, how sweet is that in this day and age? It’s like she’s living in the forties. Although I’m not sure that even that far back people were as chaste as your sweet Sarah.”
“Leave her alone,” I boomed, pointing my finger straight at her. “She has principles. Principles that people like you and me would take an eternity to understand. She’s good in a way that only a pin-prick of humanity is. How someone like you can mock her shows us just how low we’ve come as a society. For all your big words and high sentiment, you’re just another creature joining the herd, pre-programmed and living life the same as everyone else; bored and unhappy.”
“How dare you!?” she exclaimed. “How fucking dare you? I’m not one of them.”
“You are,” I interjected.
“I’m my own woman and if you—”
But I heard no more. Before my shoes were on, I’d left the room, slamming the door, and her voice, behind me. I continued on my way down the corridor, carrying my shoes in my hand.
“If I’m like them,” came Amy’s voice chasing after me down the corridor, the girl standing unashamedly naked at her door, “then so are you.”
“I already admitted that,” I shouted behind my shoulder as I made it to the front door.
“Come back,” she screamed with a rabid frenzy that made me fear she’d come running up behind and strike me. “COME BACK!”
But she didn’t and I made it out of there, putting my shoes on at the sidewalk. I then began walking across campus, a terrible hollowness eating away at me. I took my phone from my pocket and pondered whether I should call Sarah this minute and confess everything. But a voice inside held my shoulders back. “Make it up to her instead,” it told me. “There’s no need for confessions. Just promise to yourself never to do it again and make every day with her as special as you can.” But I replied that I’d broken enough promises made to myself already in my life, and it was possible that I would break this next one just as readily. Other voices battled for the floor in my brain, some arguing for confessions, others for redemption through abstinence and altruism. Yet another, the beast waking, argued that I should go back to Amy.
I was a loathsome creature. A loathsome, loathsome creature.
I decided against calling, and instead listened to the voicemail she’d left. The moment her voice came on and she began apologizing, my loathsomeness increased to such an impassioned state that tears emerged in my eyes. “I love you,” at the end of the message felt like the final declaration on my abhorrent behavior.
Now that I was outside, I could smell Amy’s perfume all over my clothing, its aroma invading my nostrils and feeding my shame. I had to get showered and changed before I got back to the apartment. Sarah was supposed to be at church and then her father’s for lunch today, but I couldn’t risk the possibility that she’d stayed at home waiting for me. So I called up Charlie and arranged to go round to his, take a shower and get my clothes washed. It made me cringe to hear his still-excited voice on the other end of the phone when he first answered. My own desolate tone, however, soon dampened his spark of enthusiasm.
“What’s up?” he asked, once he'd realized that all wasn’t well with me.
“I’ll tell you when I get there.”
A twenty-minute cab journey later and I was walking into Charlie’s apartment, Mrs. H still away in Texas, so the place a little more scruffy than usual.
“What happened?” Charlie wanted to know when I came through the door. “Why’re you still dressed in last night’s clothes? And why do you look like you’ve hardly slept since I last saw you?”
“Please, Charlie, let’s just sit down first.”
I trundled past him like a man half my size, neck bowed. As I threw myself on the couch, Charlie took to the kitchen and began pouring me a cup of coffee. I looked up from my feet for the first time when he brought it over.
“You look like you need coffee,” he stated as he handed it to me.
“I do,” was all I felt able to reply.
Charlie took a seat at the other end of the couch and merely watched me sip my coffee. We sat like that for a while, Charlie biting his lip, eager to say something.
“Right,” he announced suddenly, his impatience getting the better of him, “what the heck’s happened? You left here last night full of high spirits, and now you’re moping like it’s the end of the world. Did someone rob you on your way home? Is that it?”
<
br /> “No, the money's safe. I spent some, but only a little.”
“So you went out celebrating then?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then for the love of God what happened?”
I inhaled slowly and exhaled at an even more leisurely rate, before telling the kid everything, not sparing myself with any excuses nor using language that might portray me in better terms. I told it how it was; that I was an asshole.
JOSH
Having cleaned myself up in the shower, waiting for my clothes to finish in the washing machine, I sat back down with the kid, a towel wrapped around my waist, and we talked some more.
“I guess you don’t wanna hear this at the moment,” he began in a solemn tone, “but I gotta say it.”
“Go for it,” I muttered.
“You know that Sarah’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you—possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone, right? I’d kill for a girl like her. Not some Amy Houston plastic rich girl, but something real, beautiful both on the outside and in, not just an empty husk. You’ve got that and you’ve royally fucked it up. Or at least tried your best.”
“Thanks, Charlie,” I groaned. “Anything to add to that?”
“Plenty, I’m afraid. But I can see by the look on your face that you already know most of it, so I’ll leave off.”
“What do you think I should do?” I felt the need to ask him.
“I really don’t know that. My experience with women is zilch, so I can't say.”
“But you’re a human being, with morals, better morals than I’ve got. Do you think I should tell her?”
He rubbed his chin and mused for a minute on this.
“I’d probably say nothing for the moment,” he finally said. “I know it’s dishonest, but I’d try to make it up to her first, show her that you're dedicated to her. You do love her, don’t you? And you are dedicated to that love?”
