Ash Wednesday

by Ethan Hawke

  I turned and looked at my fiancé. He was frantically defending against this teenager, sweat dampening his hair, his boots moving around clumsily, his face all splotchy, Irish, and red. The pipsqueak bystanders were looking concerned now, so the game must be close. Jimmy kept shaking his head, tossing it up in the air like a horse, gasping for more oxygen. He stole the ball and quickly put it in the basket. His eyes looked for me and met my gaze. I wanted to smile but he’d looked away before I could. I’ve never been very good at sports. I was tall so girls were always trying to drag me out for baseball or basketball, but whenever people started getting super enthusiastic, I just wanted to go home. Jimmy was huffing and puffing while this kid was dancing around him in three-hundred-dollar sneakers. If he didn’t win this game, the rest of my week was gonna suck.

  I couldn’t help it. Before I knew what I was doing I’d reached up onto the dashboard and taken a mutilated cigarette from Jimmy’s pack: my fifth one in the last two days. He’d been giving me grief about smoking, yet he wasn’t quitting. My mother smoked when she was pregnant with me, and I turned out all right. I mean, I’m tall, at least.

  Then I realized, sitting there on the cracked leather seat, that I could not under any circumstances smoke. It was one of those times in a person’s life where they either show up or don’t, a moment that determines your mettle, defines your character. You couldn’t smoke through a pregnancy and pretend to yourself in any way that you deserved to be a mother.

  The bass of the car radio was thumping away at my insides. No outside noise could penetrate the bass line.

  I wanted my grandmother’s arms around me. I thought of how much I loved to hear her play the piano and sing silly songs. There was one about a fish that I loved best: “Sing a Tune of Tuna Fish.”

  I put the cigarette in my mouth. It was a little crooked but I straightened it out.

  I wanted this cigarette more than I wanted anything. I told myself again that I couldn’t have one. I shouldn’t. I thought if you were pregnant you would be able to feel the soul, but I didn’t feel anything.

  I touched the skin above my womb. Was there someone there?

  I flashed on a memory of my father, in the Broadway Diner on 54th Street in New York City eight years earlier. I had asked him to sign my emancipation papers so I could work and get married. He was asking me to come home, but I needed him to stop me and not let me go. But he did it; he signed the papers. I was wearing my leopard-skin zip-up jacket that day, and I could tell he was scared of me. It repulsed me, that he could let his seventeen-year-old daughter walk out alone into that city.

  I remember him asking, “What makes you think you can hate me so much, and I’ll just keep on loving you? Huh? What makes you think that?”

  Pretty soon I was gonna start crying. Maybe it was the progesterone, but I seemed to be crying a lot.

  What had I done? I was going to be a mother. Everything was getting so serious. I felt like the real me was sitting in a bar somewhere doing shots. I wanted this baby, Jimmy’s and my child, but there was so much responsibility. I hoped I didn’t have to have an episiotomy.

  What if it is a girl child? The thought filled me with hope.

  I tried to breathe.

  Now was a perfect time to quit smoking. As good a time as any.

  With the cigarette still in my mouth, I took out my little pink lighter.

  I’ve been smoking since I was twelve. My girlfriend Danielle and I put on a pile of makeup one Sunday, walked over to the Crystal Diner and put our quarters in the cigarette machine, ignored the frightening glances from the big cashier woman, pulled the squeaky metal lever on a pack of unfiltered cigarettes, and snuck out back to smoke them. Unfiltered cigarettes were a must for us, we’d both just read a biography of our idol, James Dean, and that’s what he’d smoked. In fact, a few nights earlier the Ouija board had told us that Danielle was James Dean in her last life. We stood out back by the Dumpsters and smoked two in a row, both getting dizzy, and then all of a sudden Danielle bent over and vomited. I’ve never forgotten that moment, because when I heard Danielle had died at twenty-three the first time she ever did a speedball, I immediately thought of her puking that day. Her chemical makeup or something just couldn’t hack abuse. I thought of her, sparked up the little pink lighter, and drew the smoke deep into my lungs.

  I apologized to my baby.

  I said, I can do better than this.

  I said, I’m sorry, but sometimes I’m weak.

  I took another drag and rolled down the window.

  “Out on you, motherfucker, out on you!” I heard Jimmy bellow across the Ohio valley.

  All along the horizon you could see the beginnings of little spring redbuds hidden in the gray mass of bristling trees outlining the park and the cemetery around us.

  “My ball,” Jimmy said, mostly to himself, exhausted and out of breath. “What are we looking at?” he asked. The cropped hair on his head was dripping wet with perspiration, and his cheeks were cherry red. I’m sure his feet were bleeding, and his eyes were wicked intense.

  “Seven–six, me,” the kid said, passing the ball in to Jimmy. I wished the game were over. “Ball’s in.” The kid was serious and nervous, always twitching some part of his body.

  Jimmy quickly grabbed the ball and without hesitation jumped up and shot. It rattled in. “What’s the score now?”

  The kid didn’t answer but threw the ball back in to Jim.

  “Ball’s in, Buster Brown, seven–seven.”

  Jimmy quickly shot the ball up again, making his second shot in a row.

  “Oh, gosh darn, Scooter, I didn’t mean to make two in a row like that. I know how badly you want to win.” Jimmy was grinning a contemptuous smile.

  “Just play,” the kid said, under his breath.

  “You wanna put a little extra money on whether I make that same jumper again? Huh? Thirty bucks says I can’t make that shot three times in a row. Not a pathetic dirtweed like me, huh? Isn’t that what you called me, a dirtweed? Whatcha say, Scooter?”

  “Just play.”

  “Okay, Your Highness. I’m sorry. Am I talking too much? I’m sorry,” Jimmy said again, faintly, out of breath as he dribbled easily around the perimeter of the court. “You see, the good Lord didn’t give me no rich daddy to buy me fancy sweatpants like yours. The good Lord didn’t give me no rich papa to buy me them sweet purple sneakers you got on your feet,” he taunted. “The good Lord didn’t give me no sweet mommy to give me a hundred bucks to go out and play. But do you know what the good Lord did give me? Huh, Scooter? Do you know what the good Lord did give me?”

  “Just play,” said the kid, keeping his eyes on the dribbling basketball.

  “The good Lord gave me a jump shot,” Jimmy said quickly, leaping up way far back from the basket and shooting the ball. It swished in again for the third time. I felt like this was the closest I would get to meeting Jimmy’s father.

  Watching Jim play basketball, I wished so much I could free him from his past.

  “What’s the score now, big shot?” I heard Jimmy ask the boy as he passed the ball back in.

  “Nine to seven, you,” the kid muttered.

  The boy was barely out of breath, whereas Jimmy was obviously fighting for every gasp.

  I threw my cigarette out the window, opened the car door, stepped into the damp air, and sat up on the hood of the car. Jimmy looked over and smiled. His victory could now be complete. It wouldn’t have been good enough for him to win, I needed to watch.

  Never again would I smoke, I vowed. It was a firm decision, a moment of clarity. The guilt of smoking had become so unbearable that the only relief I’d been able to find was to smoke. I thought of Antonia, a client of mine back at the hospital. She was an attractive twenty-three-year-old woman from Guatemala addicted to crack cocaine and in her first trimester of pregnancy. I was fairly sure she wa
s a prostitute. She’d already lost one child to foster care. I pleaded with her to enter a rehab program so she could maintain custody of this new baby.

  “Drugs are the only thing keeping me alive,” she’d told me. “If I got clean and took a good hard look at what kind of person I am and the things I’ve done and left undone, I’d have to blow my brains out.”

  I talked her into coming to the hospital for a check on her pregnancy. She wore a long red evening gown, her only presentable outfit, she’d said. The nurses left her in the waiting room for six hours, refusing to address a crackhead. Finally she left. I never saw her again.

  I sat on the hood of the Nova. The one great thing about these old muscle cars is that they don’t dent every time you touch them. The dusty taste of smoke was still present like a dry film inside my mouth. I cursed it: no more coffee. I would eat broccoli and start taking those horse-sized prenatal vitamins. If only my stomach wasn’t always so nervous and edgy.

  Jimmy scored again. This time he said nothing. The silence was his most menacing and intimidating approach yet. There was only one point to go.

  “Come on, beat ’im, Jamie,” the boy’s friends encouraged him. You could see clearly the fear in the boy’s face. I wasn’t sure but I thought he was trembling. Jimmy didn’t notice him at all; he simply lunged toward the basket and then spontaneously jumped back and shot the ball up one last time. Nothing but net, as he would say. Then, without speaking, he walked over to the picnic table, lifted up the stone, grabbed the money, divided it in half, walked back to the boy, and slapped a hundred bucks on the boy’s chest.

  “Don’t say shit about a man’s dead father, OK? Don’t make fun of someone older than you. You have no idea what it’s taken for me to become the lame-ass dirtweed I am. You understand? You have no idea.”

  The boy’s lip was now shaking uncontrollably, and fat tears were welling up in his eyes.

  “Success isn’t measured by what you achieve, it’s measured by the obstacles you overcome,” Jimmy added, with his hand holding the money still firmly fixed on the boy’s chest. I wanted the boy to say, Euphemisms are the tool of the feebleminded, but he didn’t say anything; he was simply staring at the ground trying to will his tears away.

  Jimmy went to step back, but the boy wouldn’t take the money and let the twenties fall and scatter on the pavement. There was no breeze, so the bills lay motionless where they fell. Turning back to look at the kid, I could see his face begin to contort.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Fuck that guy,” his friends called out, but the boy still kept his back turned on his peers.

  “Hey, what are you crying about?” Jimmy said softly, walking back in front of him, trying to bend low so he could see up into the kid’s eyes.

  “Fuck you,” Jamie said, through a buildup of snot.

  “Watch your language, OK?” Jimmy was trying to get the kid to look at him. “How old are you?”

  “Twelve,” he said simply, looking up.

  “Oh, my God, you’re only twelve? You look seventeen.” Jimmy turned and looked back at me. “Jesus, where’d you get a hundred bucks?”

  “I borrowed it from my brother.” He inhaled deeply. “He’s gonna fuckin’ kill me.” The kid looked up to the sky, trying to keep the tears from dribbling down his face.

  “Here, don’t be a creep, take the money back.” Jimmy had an exasperated expression on his face as he picked up the bills and put them in the boy’s hand, but still the boy wouldn’t take the money, refusing to close his fingers.

  “You kicked my ass,” the kid said, shaking his head furiously.

  “Do you realize I’m almost thirty years old? I didn’t kick your ass, I barely beat you. You kicked my ass. Let me tell you something. When you’re thirty I pray you won’t be playing little kids for money, OK? In two years you’re gonna be out of my league. I’m the loser. I’m gonna have to go get in my car and explain to my girl why I behaved like a teenager, and I’m gonna have to look at that question myself. You’re still a child, you got that going for you, but trust me you’ll do yourself a lot of favors if you stop being such an arrogant prick.”

  “Fuck you,” he said, sniveling.

  Jimmy looked down at the ground and shook his head. “See? That’s unacceptable. You can’t say that to me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because first off I could shove your head up your rectum. But that’s just the obvious reason.” Jimmy paused. “What’s your name?”

  “James.” The kid sniffled and wiped his nose.

  “Your name is James? So’s mine.” Jimmy ran his tongue across his teeth, taking in the irony. “OK, the real reason, James, you don’t say that to me is you don’t talk that way to anybody. ’Cause if you don’t respect other people it becomes real hard to respect yourself. You hear me?”

  The kid nodded his head.

  “Trust me.”

  Jimmy looked so much like a father. He was getting a few little lines around his eyes, and his chest and arms were beginning to look thick and substantial. It occurred to me then that there was a plus side to aging. Staring across the playground at Jim’s sweaty head and his HEARTSOCK baseball jersey, I understood that in attempting anything you position yourself for almost certain humiliation, but I would bet on love. Beats the hell out of the alternative. I loved Jimmy and would marry him as soon as possible, tomorrow if we could. Hopefully the gods would witness my humility and feel my willingness to accept whatever fate befell us, but they would also see my effort. In less than six months I would give birth to our child. I was ready to get married. I wanted it. Jimmy was the father, a member of my family, and my next of kin.

  THE SAD LAMENT OF JAMES AND CHRISTY HEARTSOCK ON THE EVE OF THEIR REBIRTH

  CITY HALL

  On our second day in Ohio we went to apply for a marriage license. My knees felt all buzzy like it was the first day of school. Standing there in city hall checking out all the pale, twitchy couples, I noticed that the waiting area was done entirely in shades of brown: tan walls, wood paneling, beige linoleum floors, faded gold ropes sectioning us off. There were no paintings or designs on the walls, only red placards reading MARRIAGE LICENSE $30 and lists of rules and required items of identification. It looked like a line for tickets in a train station just after Christmas—depressed faces, bits of garbage on the floor, and a peculiar funky human odor. The other couples didn’t look nearly as excited as we were—well, as I was, anyway. Christy was rather subdued. I couldn’t stop moving and cracking jokes, smiling at everybody, pinching Christy’s fanny. The whole process struck me as comic. I like doin’ ordinary shit, waiting in line, asking someone where the john is, ordering a cup of joe, talking about sports or the weather. I don’t think those conversations are banal; I like them.

  Behind us in line was another couple our age. They were Hispanic, and the guy had on a John Deere baseball cap. I wondered if his girl was pregnant as well.

  “I’ll meet you here in fifty years,” I said, “and whichever one of us doesn’t bring a wife has to buy the other a twelve-pack.”

  The dude smiled at me, but Chris turned away in a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. Everyone in the place was so sober, like it was a library or something. There were two armed security guards with disapproving expressions standing around, not helping the mood. I wondered why they were positioned there. Did fights break out a lot or what? Nothing was gonna slow me down, though. I was fuckin’ elated. Getting a marriage license made me feel very “normal,” positive, upstanding, legit. Sign the papers, give ’em your information, document your actions: I like that. Put your love on the books.

  It was strange how glum everybody else was, especially the Chinese guy behind the bulletproof registrar glass. When I gave him the thirty bucks, I said, “Now, when we get divorced, do I get this back?”

  He just looked at me expressionless, like a tree. Christy pinched a
nd twisted the skin on my back. Whenever people get über serious I can’t help but get all twitchy and goosey. In high school during a big football game, the coach would huddle us up and be cranking himself up into a zealous reverie about the work ethic and fighting through the pain, the regular “heart of a champion” speech, and I’d start humming “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I got kicked off the team for that kind of horseplay—well, that, and I got busted for doing a couple rails of coke in the back of Deke Hammerle’s Oldsmobile in the gym parking lot. It sucked for Deke worse than me; he’d been stoked with a football scholarship to Ohio State, but that flew right out the window. He never spoke to me again; I don’t know why. It was his blow.

  Anyway, standing in line waiting for our license I couldn’t keep my legs still. I was literally bouncing. I kept thinking about Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey. Branch Rickey was the manager for the Brooklyn Dodgers and he was searching for the perfect man to break the color barrier. He knew he needed not only a Hall of Fame ballplayer but a real man: a man who could play with death threats; a man who could handle some nationally famous second baseman whispering heinous racial slurs in his ear; a man who could face the world’s spotlight, smile, stand tall, be mocked, ridiculed, and still get a base hit. Rickey immediately passed over the single men. A single man wouldn’t know about sacrifice. A single man wouldn’t intimately understand “the greater good,” delayed gratification, the end, not the immediate result. The family man understood these values. The family man had specific personal reasons why he didn’t kick the living shit out of that second baseman; he had a son and a wife and was accountable to them before baseball. A family man “with a quiet faith” would be the only man strong enough to withstand the heat.