The Paper Shepherd

by Olivia Landis

  “How long?” she asked finally.

  “Four years from now,” Max said, swallowing hard.

  “No,” she said, growing frustrated. “How long have you known this is what you wanted to do.”

  “I’ve been thinking pretty hard about it for the past six months,” he confessed.

  “Six mo...” Tiar couldn’t even finish the words. How could I have been so stupid? she thought. The letter. Serve the Trinity. Vow of poverty. Don’t hurt mom. Don’t hurt Tiar. Why didn’t you give it to me? Why didn’t you just explain… “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” she asked once she managed to compose herself.

  “Tiar, you must have seen signs of this coming, for years now,” he said in his defense. “You can’t tell me this comes completely by surprise.”

  “There were signs, yes,” she admitted. “But there were also reasons, I thought, to believe things would turn out differently between the two of us. Like that there would be a ‘two of us.’”

  “I’m sorry, Tiar.” It was all Max could say.

  “Sorry? Why didn’t you just tell me Max? Why in the hell did you sleep with me? For God’s sake, Max. What were you thinking?” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  “I had to make sure,” Max said weakly.

  “Sure of what?” Tiar asked hesitantly.

  “Sure there was nothing between us I couldn’t give up,” he said, already cursing himself for how that sounded. It hadn’t come out how he had intended. There was no way to express what he was trying to explain. Surely, if there was, this was not it. Tiar looked justifiably horrified by his comment, trying to sort through what it meant. There was a chance, she thought. There was a chance he wouldn’t go through with this and I ruined it? I could have stopped him, but I didn’t? Tears were welling up in Tiar’s eyes. She struggled to keep them from escaping. She wanted to talk this through. She wanted to salvage something of their friendship, but she couldn’t stand to cry in front of him.

  “Max, I need you to leave,” she pleaded. “I’ll call later, but I need some time alone right now to think.”

  “Tiar, no,” Max protested. “Don’t send me away. I need to talk to you.” Tiar knew she had merely a minute or so before a deluge of biblical proportions escaped her eyes. Why won’t he leave?

  “Please, Max. Just go. Call me when you get back to school.”

  “Tiar, please...”

  “I said leave,” her voice was getting louder. She pulled off the chain holding his ring around her neck and threw it at him. The silver glittered in the morning sun as it sailed though the air. Max dodged to the side and watched the ring disappear harmlessly into the bushes next to the stairs. “Never speak to me again.”

  “Tiar, listen to me....” he protested once more.

  “Maxwell Franklin,” Tiar shouted, her eyes full of fury. “If you say one more word to me I will get a knife from the kitchen and stab you to death, so help me God.”

  Max’s jaw dropped open. He had never seen anyone this angry in his whole life. He climbed down off of the porch and walked around the house to his car. It was now 8:00. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t face his parents. He would wait for them to leave the house, round up his belongings, and go back to school. He hoped they wouldn’t be to hurt by his early departure. He had had his fill this week of hurting people he loved.

  Six hours later, Tiar still lay on her bed sobbing. She thought Max might call when he got to his house, but he hadn’t. She waited until she thought he must be back at school. Surely, he would call then. She couldn’t stab him from there… there was no danger. But the time for him to arrive at school came and went. Another hour passed. The phone didn’t ring. How could she blame him? I told him never to speak to me again, she thought, tears streaming down her face. I told him I would kill him.

  The pain she was feeling was all of her own making, she thought. Max had never promised her anything. He had been very careful not to, and now she knew why. But thinking this was her own fault didn’t make it hurt any less. Her friend had decided to do something noble with his life and she had threatened to kill him. He was walking in the foot steps of their Savior and she couldn’t follow him. Where I am going… The sobbing returned. Every time she thought it would stop, her body began to shake again. Then she began vomiting. She vomited everything in her stomach, and then vomited some more, lying on the bathroom floor in dry heaves, as if her body was trying to physically reject the news it had received.

  When she was confident there was nothing left in her digestive system, she washed her face. Seeing herself in the mirror, she was filled with shame. Max had taken nothing from her that she had not given him. She forced herself on him. She defiled him. Her hand trembling, she opened the medicine cabinet. Surely something she had taken from her uncle’s house would help her. She took out several different pill bottles. Among them was something for nausea and something for sleep. She took two of each without bothering to read the labels and closed the medicine cabinet again. The same face stared back at her. This is the face that defiled a priest, she thought. This is the face of that sinner. She went into her bedroom to lie down. She needed it to stop, the sobbing, the pain. She just wanted to sleep through it, to wake up in a time when all of this would seem like old news, like something that couldn’t hurt her anymore. But, every time she thought she was about to fall asleep, she would start to cry all over again. She took two more sleeping pills. Fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t remember if she had taken any pills, and she took two more.

  “Tiar, are you there?” Max’s voice called to her from the answering machine. “If you’re there, please pick up. Tiar, I am so sorry. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. Please talk to me. You can yell at me all you want. You can hate me. Just please talk to me. Look, I’ll call back in a little while.”

  30

  Tony had been back at school for less then twelve hours when he decided to go to Pugs for a round of darts and spotted Max in a booth in the corner. He was surprised that Max was already back at school, as classes didn’t start for another day and a half. He imagined Max would want to spend every minute possible with Tiar reminding himself why a celibate life was not in his future. Instead, he was staring blankly into a half empty mug of beer. Max did not appear excited to be back at school. Nor did he appear refreshed from his time off. He looked, if anything, less cheerful now then he had ten days ago when Tony left him in nearly this exact spot. Tony sat down across from him uninvited.

  “So, how’d it go?” he asked, casually. Max didn’t look up. He just continued to stare into his glass.

  “Fine,” Max said flatly.

  “And?” Tony prodded.

  “I have an appointment to see Father Raleigh tomorrow at nine.”

  “No,” Tony said in stunned disbelief. “No. Are you sure?” Max nodded. He pushed his empty glass away, and when he spoke again, he mumbled weakly.

  “I can now say unequivocally that I can happily live the rest of my life without making love to another human being ever again.” Tony’s eyes darted around the bar, wondering if anyone had over heard their conversation. Again? What does that mean?

  “Max you didn’t...” Max’s face tensed.

  “I did exactly what you told me to do,” he said forcefully.

  “I didn’t tell you to.... shit, Max. I asked you if you wanted to. I was trying to get you to understand what you would be giving up.” Tony was understandably distressed. He had tried to help two people he cared about and his advice had gone terribly wrong. He feared that what he found out so far was just the tip of the iceberg.

  “So, what happened?” Tony asked gently.

  “It was a disaster,” Max began, unable to even make eye contact. He stared intently at the space an inch or two in front of his nose, as though he could see there the horrible events he was recounting. “It was so… awkward. I…can’t… It’s like… some horrible dream that won’t go away.” Max squeezed his eyes shut and began again. “I told Tiar when she wo
ke up the next morning that I was going to join the seminary. She said....” Max swallowed hard. “She said she never wanted to speak to me again.”

  “She was hurt, Max, confused. She’ll calm down.”

  “She threatened to kill me,” Max revealed. “She had a plan. She said she was going to stab me.”

  “Wow.” It was all Tony could say. “Have you tried calling her since then?”

  “Three times a day for the past four days. She won’t even pick up. I think yesterday she unplugged her answering machine so I couldn’t leave any more messages. I’ve barely left my room, hoping she would call back.”

  Tony’s heart sank. This was not at all what he had meant to happen. “Max, I am so sorry.” They were silent for a moment. This is impossible, he thought. If all of human kind were killed by a plague and God had to start from scratch sculpting the prefect human woman, Tony was fairly certain that new woman would look exactly like Tiar. When Tony had told Max to consider that joining the priesthood would mean giving up being physically intimate with her, he thought he had stacked the deck heavily in her favor. But, to actually have sex with her and then be able to give her up... There’s only one way he could do that.

  “You sabotaged the whole thing, didn’t you?” Tony thought out loud.

  “I had to,” Max admitted, finally looking up at his friend.

  “But why?”

  “It’s like I tried to explain to her,” Max said defensively. “I had to destroy the possibility… any desire, no matter how slight… that we could get back together… in that way. I had to make sure there was no chance she would feel romantically toward me any more. I didn’t think I’d ever have the will power to just not want her physically anymore, so I had to make sure neither of us would ever want that again. I had to make sure there was nothing between us I couldn’t leave behind.” Tony looked at Max with an expression of genuine pathos. You poor, stupid…

  “You already made your decision before you even went home.”

  “I think I made this decision four years ago,” Max stated plainly.

  “Is that when you first wanted to become a priest?” Tony asked gently.

  “Tony, I never remember a time when I didn’t want to be a priest,” Max admitted. “It was something I always knew about myself.”

  “I thought you wanted to be an archeologist or a historian or something,” Tony argued.

  “I did,” Max explained. “At least, that’s what I told everyone since I was ten. But, when I dreamed of all the exciting adventures I’d go on, I didn’t want to be like Indiana Jones. I wanted to be like… like Father Marron. He was my hero.”

  “Father who?” Tony asked, his brow knit in obvious confusion.

  “The priest from the Exorcist.” Tony nodded dubiously, remembering his friend’s obsession with the horror classic.

  “Right,” he said non-judgmentally. “Only, he wasn’t an archeologist.”

  “At the beginning of the movie, he was racing around the deserts of Iraq looking for some little evil figurine,” Max explained. “That doesn’t matter. But, look at the Exorcist, the Omen, and on and on, there is always some priest in some dusty library or oppressive desert trying to find the secret identity of one of the apostles or unearth a relic of some saint or something. And that’s where I always envisioned myself. Digging through the sands of time to unleash the powers that created heaven and earth… using ancient words to fight immortal evils. And Tiar let me be that man.” Max stared off into the distance and for a moment seemed almost happy, walking through the familiar streets of a favorite memory. “Tiar loved me for being that man,” he added. After a moment, his face fell, and he went on.

  “Eventually I realized that only a tiny minority of priest actually do that kind of research and it is laborious and hard. But, there was no reason I couldn’t still try to do both and if I ended up being one of the majority of priests who served at a nice little parish somewhere, that was okay too. But, I could still pursue both. I didn’t have to choose one path or another.”

  “So, what happened four years ago?” Tony asked.

  “It was the first time I realized Tiar was... available to me in a way I couldn’t have. And, I realized I wanted her to be. I knew I couldn’t have her. I knew these were not two goals I could pursue at the same time. I tried to keep her at arms length. I really did. But, I couldn’t resist being with her, so I tried to chase her away. She was loyal to me anyway. Then I dated other women so she would have to stay away from me. That kept her away for a while. The problem was, I just didn’t want to be with any body else. I couldn’t even fake it.”

  “But, you guys were dating for a year,” Tony said.

  “I think I just told myself that I could give up being a priest for her. I wanted so badly for her to tell me not to come here, to stay with her in New York or go to a state school close by. But, she didn’t. Still, we were so happy together and that was enough. But, things kept coming up to tell me this is what I am supposed to be doing.”

  “Like the thing with St. Paul,” Tony offered. Max nodded.

  “I mean, if I am really honest with myself… if I really think about it… I think it was my brain telling me that I was getting too close to her… that I was about to do something I couldn’t undo. So, I just latched on to something external as an explanation. All these signs I was looking for, all the arguments with pros and cons and why I should or should not go through with this, that was all made up after the fact, wasn’t it? I didn’t know that’s what I was doing, but probably, I was, right?”

  “Probably,” Tony agreed quietly, nodding.

  “I mean, you don’t decide to be a priest based on job security or that the commute will be short or you like the wardrobe, right?” Max asked, thinking about the list he was now embarrassed to have ever written. “You are called by the Holy Spirit. It’s not logical. It’s not supposed to be.” Tony was quiet for a long time thinking about his own journey to the seminary. It was tortuous and sometimes torturous, but it was never logical.

  “I can’t speak for anyone else,” he said simply. “But, that’s how it seemed for me.” There was a long silence as they sat with their own thoughts. Finally, Tony continued. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell her,” he said as gently as he could. “Were you afraid she’d try to talk you out of it if she knew?”

  “No,” Max said, closing his eyes. “I don’t know. Who can say what I was thinking? Maybe part of me tried to tell her. Part of me thought she already knew. Part of me thought I couldn’t tell her because I knew she wouldn’t talk me out of it. I knew she’d support my decision and do everything in her power not to tempt me. She’s such a good person, Tony. She’s such a loyal friend. If she knew this is what I wanted—I mean, really knew for sure, but knew she was tempting me physically, she would turn off her affection all together. And, how could I give up one minute with this perfect person? To have such an enchanted little creature love you… how could I give her up until the last possible second? I know it was greedy. But, tell me you could do it.” Tony sighed and furrowed his brow.

  “Do you regret your decision, Max?” Max shook his head firmly.

  “No,” he said honestly. “I regret not being strong enough to be honest with everyone in the first place. I regret not just telling Tiar years ago why I couldn’t reciprocate her affection. I regret… hurting her.” Max shook his head, his eyes beginning to mist up. “I love her, Tony. Even sitting here talking to you now, I love her. I know I can’t be with her. I accept that. But, what I did to her was unforgivable. She won’t even let me try to apologize. And, it hurts me that I hurt her like that. I mean, it seriously physically hurts. How can I make it stop, Tone?”

  “Confession?” Tony suggested.

  “Tried it.”

  “Beer?”

  “That’s you answer to everything,” Max said, trying vainly to laugh. Tony shrugged.

  “Try singing.”

  “Singing?” Max asked. “Now I know
your nuts.”

  “No, I’m not kidding,” Tony shot back. “When I decided to tell my mother on her death bed that I didn’t want to take over the family restaurant, she put a curse on me and then died before we could reconcile. Singing was the only thing that got me over it.” Max considered this highly doubtful tale but decided not to question its veracity. Without Tiar, Tony was his best friend. He had no one else to trust.

  “Can you sing?” Tony asked.

  “Like an angel,” Max answered without emotion

  “I thought you said you sang like a manatee,” Tony said, recounting the previous summer.

  “I lied,” Max said plainly, and then took another sip of beer. “I lied about a lot of things. What would I be singing?”

  “Well, in my case, it was songs about living up to expectations, loving your parents, etc,” Tony recounted. “So, in your case, I figure, love songs.”

  “Love songs?” Max asked, surprised.

  “You know, songs about loosing the woman you love and how she’s so far away and doesn’t love you anymore,” Tony explained.

  “Won’t that make things worse?” Max objected.

  “In the short term, yes,” Tony predicted. “Frankly, it will make you feel like shit. But, it’s cathartic. You sing about love and pain and loss until you just want to throw up, and eventually you just get tired of pitying yourself.” Max mulled it over.