Original Prin

by Randy Boyagoda

  “Are you going to let these men speak that way about your own mother?” Kingsley asked.

  Lizzie exited back to the bleachers as her ex-husband crowded over their fallen son.

  “Would Jesus let someone speak that way about His mother? Also, these men are Anglicans! Anglicans are beating you, on Good Friday!” Kingsley said.

  Grimacing, Prin got up from the lovely, cool floor and faced the giant, grinning, red-faced men standing across from them. This was the final game of the New Leaf Seniors’ Centre First Annual Father-Son Pickleball tournament, which was sponsored by a downsizing firm and a local medical-supply store.

  In games earlier that day, Prin had been amazed at how large and empty the other side of the pickleball court looked. But their prior opponents had been stumbling, swearing old men outfitted with elaborate back supports and shrugging, middle-aged sons. Neither could retrieve the deep-court lobs and simple drops and hard smashes to the side-courts that Kingsley and Prin delivered as they won game after game.

  Whereas in the final, Kiwi Ken and Craig got to everything. They seemed to fill the whole world on the other side of the net with their slabby frames and endless arms and legs. They were both aging athletes—massive shoulders and thighs, industrial knee braces and sandbag waistlines that sagged heavy and hard.

  Kiwi Ken pointed his racket menacingly at Kingsley.

  “Still our serve. You ready … Queensly?” he said.

  He looked so small just then, small and defeated, his father. What could he say to that much white man, already up seven points against him? Prin loved his father. In spite of much, he loved him. Also, Prin suddenly had some sugar in him.

  “Dad, I think the Aussie wants to know if you’re ready for his serve,” said Prin.

  “Oy! What did you just call my dad?” said Kiwi Ken’s son, Craig.

  “You said Oy!” said Prin.

  “I meant Ay! We say Ay! New Zealanders have been saying Ay for centuries! Anyway, Ay, you, five-foot-nothing four-eyes! I’ll ask you again. What did you just call my dad? How’d you like it if I called your dad a bloody—Ow!”

  Kiwi Ken smacked his son with his racket.

  “Careful, son. You know what they’re doing. Double standard in this country, never forget. You and I could be mistaken for used feminine papers, or even worse, for Australians, and no one would say boo. But if we said something off-colour, if you know what I mean, about our colourful friends across the net, we’d be disqualified from this tournament and probably kicked out of the country,” said Kiwi Ken.

  He glared over at Kingsley.

  “Am I right … Qu-Queensly? Shall we proceed? 11-4, four points to the championship. And aren’t I telling the truth?” he asked.

  “What is truth?” asked Kingsley.

  His face was lit up like he’d just discovered a Holy Grail filled with lottery tickets.

  “Yes, let’s keep playing. So please put another shrimp on the barbee, Crocodile Ken Dundee,” said Kingsley.

  Kiwi Ken’s serve went wide and out of bounds. After retrieving the ball with a new bounce in his step and then crouching to serve, Prin began singing “Tie me kangaroo down”—really only the first line, again and again. Kingsley sort of joined in and tapped with his orthopedic running shoes and then, from the front row of the impromptu and extremely sparse spectator’s section, Lizzie and Kareem began to hum and mumble it too. While their own defeated sons checked their phones, the other seniors still watching joined in, a few of them clapping, thinking this was an approved activity.

  Raging and red faced, Kiwi Ken and Craig began bobbling their heads and pretending to blow each other up while crooning “Thank you, come again!” in convenience-store accents after each point. Each lost point, that is.

  Because their effort, well, sorry mates but oy, it boomeranged.

  Because now Kingsley and Prin came at them again and again, darting and slamming and backhanding hard down the sidelines and clearing to the baseline before laying in feathery drops just over the net. The big men across from them lumbered and whiffed, staggered and groaned and hit wide, hit long, hit net, raged and raged and raged at their opponents’ Aussie antagonizing.

  The score was tied, 12-12.

  “I’m filing a complaint, Kingsley, to the management here, I’ll have you know. This is bloody bush-league stuff and it may work in your Calcutta, but not in my Canada,” said Kiwi Ken.

  “Son, did you hear that? Waltzing Matilda is filing a complaint!” said Kingsley.

  “Crikey!” said Prin.

  “Let’s hope for their sake they don’t do a background check and find out Ken’s grandparents were all convicts!” Kingsley said.

  “I’M NOT A FUCKING AUSTRALIAN!”

  “It’s my serve, you jailbird son of a kangaroo.”

  18

  His serving arm in a sling and smiling as he hadn’t in years, Kingsley held the victor’s trophy with his free hand—Precious Moments father-and-son figurines hot-glued onto an old oaken hockey-trophy base. Kareem took pictures of him and of him with Prin, and even, once, of Kingsley and Lizzie and Prin. Kingsley thanked Lizzie for coming out to watch and also nodded, not un-warmly, at Kareem. Between pictures, Kareem said he was going to write to the Aga Khan Foundation and propose they build pickleball courts around the world.

  Kingsley was very quiet in all of this. Here he was, for once, really winning at life. All these years getting from Sri Lanka to Canada, and all the struggle here, up through running the convenience store and losing his marriage and raising a son who wasn’t an actual doctor. And the loneliness. But today he’d defeated white giants. He’d won a pickleball trophy. He had an obedient son, a proud ex-wife, and also a Muslim man asking for his advice on convincing the Aga Khan to make pickleball a priority of the faith. The comet could hit the Earth right now and he’d be fine. Because from existence, just then, what more could he expect, realistically? This was a damned good Friday.

  “Let’s celebrate!” said Kingsley.

  “Dad, shouldn’t we take you to a walk-in clinic just to make sure Kiwi Ken didn’t break your arm when he tackled you?” asked Prin.

  “It’s just a strain. Maybe you can drive me to the restaurant and then, maybe someone else, I don’t know who, but maybe someone else can drive your car,” said Kingsley.

  “Oh, me!” said Kareem.

  “And then, then others can join us for dinner, if it’s not against their religion,” said Kingsley.

  “Nothing is, except hate! Islam is a—”

  “Okay, okay. Just come to dinner then,” said Kingsley.

  “Where should we go, Red Lobster?” asked Kareem.

  “Ha! There’s only one place to celebrate this victory, right Prin?” said Kingsley.

  “Where’s that, Dad?” asked Prin.

  “Obvious! We’re going to Outback Steakhouse!” said Kingsley.

  Prin high-fived his father, who walked out of the gym humming a happy mash of “Waltzing Matilda” and “Tie Me Kangaroo Down.”

  Lizzie wiped her eyes and pulled Prin close.

  “You know your father can’t tell the difference between Catholic and catnip, so don’t blame him. And I can still remember status naturae lapsae simul ac redemptae from convent school. But son, not even Pope Francis says we can have meat on Good Friday,” Lizzie said.

  But other than walking around each other at buffets after baptisms and first communions, his parents hadn’t eaten together in years. Prin hadn’t eaten with his parents, together, in years. Oh his heart ached in a way he didn’t know was still possible, about his parents, for his parents, for the prospect of their being together just for an hour, never mind the new Muslim husband filming it all and his father’s strategic ambiguity about the Sri Lankan matchmaker websites still showing up in his browser history.

  Prin had to find a good reason to do th
is.

  Christ didn’t want to be nailed to the cross any more than Prin wanted to eat a well-done New York strip. But love, wasn’t this done for love? Because he simply couldn’t go to a steakhouse with his father and order the fish. It went against nature, against love.

  But steak on Good Friday went against an even greater nature and love. He knew it didn’t compare to hiding in caves and being blown up during your baby’s baptism. But here, now, these too could be the great spiritual crises of a man’s life! Because they were. Disappoint one father and make one mother cry, or do the same to another father and mother. He decided he would take up a cross made of charbroiled strip loins and accept a crispy crown of Bloomin Onion. Because yes we are fallen and at the same time we have been redeemed. Because it was 3 o’clock on Good Friday but it was already Easter Sunday, always.

  19

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. But really, if you remember me, or at least my voice, I’m here for some advice, if you’re still up for offering it,” Prin said.

  “Okay! But tell me your sins first, my son,” the priest said.

  He spoke in a sing-song way. This wasn’t the same old man Prin had talked to the last time he’d come to this church. But you never know. And it was too late, anyway. He couldn’t just skip out now that he was already kneeling.

  “Father, the sin that weighs most heavily upon me is having just eaten meat,” Prin said.

  “On Good Friday! Naughty boy! Did you forget, somehow? It happens, I know. Back home in the Philippines, my grandmother used to always tell us peccatum ad rem, very bad! Peccatum per accidens non est peccatum? It’s okay!” the priest said.

  “No, Father, I ate it on purpose, fully knowing I was breaking the rule of abstinence,” Prin said.

  “Uh oh,” said the priest.

  “Yes. My own mother mentioned something she had learned in convent school, actually, about our natures being both fallen and at the same time—”

  “Are you really going to blame your sins on your mother and her convent school memories? Here comes everybody living la vida loca, right? But anyways, you are saying you ate meat on Good Friday on purpose?” the priest asked.

  “Yes,” said Prin.

  “That is a mortal si-in,” the priest said.

  “Yes, Father, and that is why I’ve come to confession. Shall I make an act of contrition now?” Prin asked.

  “I thought you said you came here for some advice,” the priest said.

  “Well, yes, but actually it was related to another conversation that I had with a different priest here at the parish,” Prin said.

  “There is no other priest at this parish,” he said.

  “I was here a couple of weeks ago and spoke with a … Father Tom,” Prin said.

  “And so now you have broken the rule of abstinence, and you are lying to a priest. I have been the only priest here for three years,” the priest said.

  Prin ducked out of the burgundy drapery and looked around. This was absolutely the same church he’d come to after that first meeting with Wende and the others. If not a priest, who the hell had been sitting on the other side of this filigreed window screen?

  “Father, I’m sorry, I’m not sure how to explain it. But you’re sure there’s no Father Tom associated with this parish?” Prin asked.

  “Maybe many years ago, when all the priests here were Tom and Dick and Harry types. But not these days, sor-ry!” the priest said.

  “So whatever absolution I received—probably isn’t valid, right? He tapped his watch to remind me of my sins,” Prin said.

  “Oh, wait, that fellow! Yes! He’s famous for doing that during confessions. I forgot, I took a group to Lourdes earlier this month and someone filled in for me. The Archdiocese must have sent Father Fernie. Father Tick-Tock Tom, we call him. Shhh, that’s a secret,” the priest said.

  “Yes. Okay then. So, I wasn’t lying to you, and I take it he’s not here today, and I do have that one sin in particular to confess—eating meat on Good Friday. But what’s really weighing on me, Father, is having to tell my wife something,” Prin said.

  “Uh oh. I don’t like the sounds of that!” the priest said.

  “Father, I have to go overseas for work, and it could be a dangerous trip, both in terms of the place I am going and the person I am travelling with, the woman I am travelling with, if you understand what I mean. The danger is at least in my heart and eye if not otherwise, due to a medical condition, but anyway, really, I don’t want to go but —”

  “Let me guess,” the priest said.

  There came a long, long pause.

  “God wants you to go,” the priest said.

  Where had the sing-song gone?

  “Father, it seems like you’ve heard this before, but—”

  “And also what you just said, and what you’re going to say next, what you all say next,” the priest said.

  What was Prin going to say next? He didn’t know. How could this priest know? How could he know Prin had heard a voice? The Voice? Yours?

  “So, say it. Say that the stripper really likes you and you’re concerned about her and her kids and that she’s actually an exotic dancer who wanted to be a ballerina when she was a little girl. You know this because you talk. You text. Say that you’re just doing research and that’s why you’re looking at those pictures. Say you’re taking the money because you’re planning to give it to charity,” the priest said.

  “It’s not like that at all!” Prin said.

  “Bingo again! Next, you’ll say that really you don’t want to do something, something that will probably get you in trouble, get your family in trouble, get your soul in trouble, but you think God wants you to do it, and you’re such a good Catholic boy and so you don’t want to disobey God. And now you want me to tell you it’s okay to do what you really want to do. But does God really want you to do this? And before you answer, remember the Third Commandment,” the priest said.

  “I am not going to commit adultery!” Prin said.

  “That’s the Seventh,” the priest said.

  “I meant taking the Lord’s name in vain!”

  Jesus, how could he get that wrong? Why did he get that wrong?

  “So, now that we’re talking the same commandment, go on,” the priest said.

  “Look Father, something really happened. I’m convinced I felt God’s presence a little while ago, and that it moved me to do this, that He has moved me to do this. I heard Him. He … spoke to me,” Prin said.

  “Then why not just tell your wife?” the priest asked.

  That was it? No jumping out of the confessional to dial 911 or the Vatican?

  “Because she probably won’t believe me, and for the same reason you don’t believe me,” Prin said.

  “What I believe about you doesn’t matter. Even what she believes doesn’t matter. EVEN what you believe doesn’t matter,” the priest said.

  “Then?” Prin asked.

  “If we could ask Him, right now, on today of all days, what He believes about you?” the priest asked.

  “Are you still there?” the priest asked.

  “I am,” Prin said.

  “So tell me, what does God believe about you, right now, and always, no matter what you believe about Him or believe He’s told you to do?” the priest asked.

  “Father, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know. How can I know, how can any of us know? Look, I just came in here because I ate steak on Good Friday and also because I need to tell my wife something strange but true. I still do,” Prin said.

  “Whatever it is, it can’t be stranger or truer than what God believes about you,” the priest said.

  20

  Milwaukee. It was the third of July, and as one of many, many compromises involved with Prin’s travel plans, the family had come to stay with Molly’
s mother for the summer. He had told her the real reason he wanted to go to Dragomans, the Real reason, and she took it in without much trouble at all. They’d been discussing it ever since, including the fact that Prin could not point to any sense of Divine wish or desire since that first and only moment he’d heard. Was this God’s silence, and was it to be taken as final? Or—and this was Molly’s position—had Prin heard what he wanted to hear, and now he wasn’t interested in hearing anything else? Molly thought surviving prostate cancer had turned Prin into a holy romantic.

  “Why do you need to go to extremes to prove yourself worthy of God’s love and attention, Prin?” she asked.

  “But isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Maybe it makes me a holy fool, but I think there’s a great tradition of that,” Prin said.

  “I’m not sure it’s even possible, dear, to prove ourselves so worthy. And yes, we should all try, but why can’t you try closer to home? Why can’t someone else be sent?” Molly asked.

  “Because no one else heard what I heard,” he said.

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “So you want me to begin canvassing colleagues?” he asked.

  “No, but—”

  “Look, we’ve gone over this many times, Molly. It’s just a week, and the State Department has lifted its travel warning about Dragomans, and do you really think the government over there, or the people at UFU, or Wende, want to risk this totally failing by putting a professor in harm’s way?” said Prin.

  “Maybe you are a holy fool,” she said.

  “I’m glad you’re beginning—”

  “Or maybe you’re just a fool,” she said.

  In silence they finished making four stacks of towels and swimwear and associated goggles and caps and sprays and toys for a trip to a city pool with the cousins.

  An hour later, Prin lifted a squirming, yuddering daughter into each of his arms and backed away from the giant black man screaming at him, at his children, at everyone, to Get out! Wearing a stretched-out tank top he rampaged around the edge of the kidney-shaped pool. It took Prin a moment to realize that the body the other lifeguards were dealing with, on the far side of the deep end, belonged to one of his nephews, fourteen-year-old John-Paul.