Wandering in Exile

by Peter Murphy

  ***

  “Danny, we’re a good team together and we will get all of this sorted too.” She raised her wine glass to clink against his. They were sharing a half carafe of red, to help set the mood.

  “Yeah, I suppose so.”

  He was reluctant and that was partially her fault. She was always so busy trying to improve things that she sometimes forgot to give him credit for all the changes he had already made.

  “Like with Grainne. I never seem to be able to get things right with her but you always seem to know exactly how to deal with her. I would be lost without you. I mean it.” She reached with her other hand and stroked the back of his, the way she did to encourage him.

  “Really? Because I always get the feeling that you think that I’m too easy on her, and that I’m too hard on Martin.”

  “See. This is the stuff we need to talk about. Being a parent has changed and neither of us had good role models when we were growing up.” She didn’t really think that about her mother but she didn’t want to sound like she was just being critical of his parents. “Sometimes I get scared. Do you?”

  “Me? No.”

  “Really?”

  “No, I got you to rely on.”

  “That’s so sweet of you.” She tried to squeeze his hand in hers. “Danny, do you ever feel like I’m pushing you into things?” She knew he did but she wanted them to talk about it.

  “Sometimes, only I’m sure that if you didn’t, nothing would ever get done.”

  “Thanks for saying that. You know I love you and I only want what is best for us?”

  “I do, yeah.”

  “And you don’t resent me for doing that?” She knew he did but she wanted that out in the open too.

  “Not at all,” he assured her but avoided her eyes.

  “You would tell me if you did?” She knew he hated talking about his feelings.

  “I would, ya, only I don’t see the point in going on about stuff like that.”

  “And that is where Marriage Encounter will help. We can learn how to open up about our real feelings and that way, in time, we’ll be able to talk about anything. This is what we all deserve, Danny, the freedom to finally share what’s going on inside.”

  He looked a little dubious so she sipped from her glass, carefully making sure some wine glistened on her lips. “So how do you feel about what we heard tonight?”

  *

  “I’m fine with it.” He pulled his hand away to take another slice of pizza. It really bothered him when they did that in public, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. It always looked like she was talking to him like he was an idiot.

  “Danny, what are you really feeling?”

  He really felt like having a few beers and a few tokes and having a quickie in the car on the way home, but that wasn’t the kind of stuff they were supposed to talk about. “I don’t know, Deirdre. I’m just tired.”

  “What did you think of what Shirley and Mike shared?”

  Danny thought Shirley and Mike were a pair of total assholes, the type that had to be better than everybody else. She had guilt issues and he made a point of assuring her in front of everybody. He was probably gay but couldn’t admit it, and she would benefit from a good fuck every now and again—to loosen her up a bit.

  “I don’t really relate to those kinds of people.” He knew he’d get brownie points for saying it that way, maybe enough to get her to drop the subject.

  “I think he is a bit controlling and she is not able to find herself in their relationship. I think she has lost her way but is afraid to say it.”

  Danny couldn’t help but feel that she was really talking about them, in some type of code, but didn’t let on. He was thinking about what it would be like with Shirley. She was a bit plump but she had great tits, bigger than Deirdre’s, and still firm.

  “A couple of times,” Deirdre continued when it was obvious that he wasn’t going to say anything, “I heard things that reminded me of you and me. Did you?”

  “Not when Shirley and Mike were talking. I mean, who gives a fuck if he bought her the wrong color car? I think they only came along to try to make the rest of us feel bad?”

  “Do you feel bad about us?”

  He’d walked right into that trap. Every time he opened his mouth to bitch, she was waiting. “No, I don’t. I just feel bad that the little free time we have to spend alone might be getting wasted, that’s all.”

  “That’s good, Danny. Tell me more. What do you think we should do, instead?”

  He wanted to say sex—on the way home—but he couldn’t. Sure it would be great and all, but afterwards she’d make out that it was another ‘benefit of Encounter’ and another reason for them to keep going.

  You know what, Boyle? You don’t make any fucking sense, anymore.

  He hated when Anto did that. It was bad enough when he came to him when he was alone.

  “I don’t know, Deirdre.” Danny tried to focus on her so he wouldn’t become distracted. “I just don’t think we need to be listening to other people. They know even less than we do.”

  “Maybe, but I find it helpful to know how other people manage their relationships.”

  “But that’s the thing, Deirdre. Our parents didn’t go around ‘managing’ their relationships . . .”

  He didn’t even finish the sentence. He had just proven her point. Again.

  You’re your own worst enemy—you know that. Right?

  “Danny, are you happy?”

  “Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know. You just seem to be getting . . . distracted, again.”

  “What do you mean by that? Are you saying . . .?”

  She pressed her finger against his lips. “I’m not saying anything. I just want you to know that we can talk about things.”

  “I do talk to you. We talk every day.”

  “Yes we do. I just want you to know that you can say anything to me.” For a moment, she looked the way she did that day in the Dandelion.

  “Well,” she decided after looking at her watch. “We should be getting home.”

  She paused like she was waiting for him to say something.

  Tell her. For fuck’s sake tell her that you want to fuck her.

  I don’t like you talking about my wife that way.

  Suit yourself, but if it was me . . .

  “By the way, I called about soccer and got Martin on a team. They start playing in a few weeks.”

  “That’s great. I’m sure he’ll love it.”

  “The man who runs the league mentioned that the parents do the coaching. Would you be interested?”

  “Me? No. I wouldn’t have the time to do it properly.”

  “But you will go to the games?” She rose and for a moment her dress clung to her thighs and against her breasts.

  Go on, for fucks-sake. She probably wants it as much as you do.

  Don’t talk about her that way.

  “I’m so glad we started doing this. It gives us time together.” She leaned forward as he held the car door for her and kissed him.

  Jesus Christ, Boyle. What does she have to do?”

  “Me, too,” Danny lied. He knew better. If he told her how he really felt, she would be horrified.

  When they got home, she did let him nibble for a while before she took his head in her hands. She said she loved what he was doing but she was too tired. “But, I promise I won’t be tired on Saturday. We could get the kids to bed early and we could . . .” She kissed him again and went to bed.

  *

  He sat outside and lit a joint. It was some new stuff that smelt like skunk. The guy who sold it to him said it would blow the top of his head off. Danny hoped so; it was getting very congested in there. It would be fuckin’ great, he laughed to himself as the stuff began to have an effect, to just open the top and let all the bullshit blow away.

  He looked up to check that the bedroom windows were closed and the light was off before he r
eached for the bottle beneath the deck. It was Tequila. He first tried it one night when Deirdre was making ‘Mexican,’ and liked it. Enough to keep a private stock—like a gentleman!

  It seemed fair enough. He had worked all day. And then he had gone to ‘Encounter.’ And Deirdre had gone to bed. He deserved a little ‘me’ time.

  He felt pretty good about himself after a few more hits and another few swigs. But then it started to grow dark inside of him. And hot. It had happened before. He’d slip from being fine one minute to feeling like something was poking at him. Not physically. Something would start poking around inside of him, tapping louder and louder until it threatened to shatter the glass walls he had tried to make between him and the realization of what he was becoming.

  He wanted to dismiss it as a bad trip but it was a lot more than that. It was all the shite they had taught him when he was a kid. Right and wrong, and sin, and unworthiness. It all came bubbling up like a broken sewer. It was always there, sludging around in the pit of his stomach, only now it was bilging up into his mouth, overwhelming all of his other senses. Before, he could make excuses for himself—he was just a dopey young fucker acting the tool, but now, married with kids and all, he was becoming a prize fuck-up. Even he had to admit—he was never going to grow out of it.

  He had tried. He had tried harder than anybody ever gave him credit for but there was always something, somewhere, that would trip him up. It got worse when he was drunk and that was the real fuck-up. Drinking was the only way he could manage it all.

  Mind you, just when he had a few. That was when he was at his best—when he could relax and deal with the kids and Deirdre. He knew she only wanted what was best for them all, but most of the things she wanted to change were things he liked.

  When they moved, she was after him to get rid of the car. It was getting old and roared a bit when the exhaust came loose. He said he’d get it fixed but he hadn’t. He liked the noise. It made the car feel more powerful. But things were starting to go and she wanted to look at the new minivans.

  “There’s a green one and a pink one

  And a blue one and a yellow one

  And they’re all made out of ticky tacky

  And they all look just the same,” he sang softly to himself and that almost made him feel better.

  It wasn’t just him. Everybody he talked to said the same thing. Women had taken over all the stuff that men used to do. They picked the houses and the cars, and they picked the type of lives they shared. And the men had to do more. Now that the women were working, the men were supposed to do half of everything.

  He didn’t mind some of it but he hated cooking. Deirdre always made real food but when it was Danny’s turn, he’d order pizza or take the kids to McDonald’s. It was another running skirmish between them. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about—as long as no one went hungry.

  None of it was turning out the way he had been led to believe, and he blamed the way he was brought up. Spending all that time learning about stuff that nobody believed in anymore, but it stayed with him. Like it was stuck to him.

  You can never really leave Catholicism, he explained to the Tequila bottle. They even have a name for people who try. The call them ‘Lapsed.’

  But as his insides began to tumble, he calmed himself. It was like Deirdre had said: it was just growing pains. She said that they had to break out of the shells they had been in. She was always saying shite like that. She’d read it in one of her magazines or heard it from one of her friends. She made it seem like you could just go out and get your own set of beliefs and things. He wanted to believe that but it didn’t seem to work for him. He could never outgrow the feeling of worthlessness that he had carried since he was little. He used to say that it was beaten into him. Frank and Jimmy used to laugh at that but Deirdre also reacted like it was something she was ashamed of—something that he really should leave behind him.

  That was the thing with Deirdre. She always made things sound so easy but she didn’t really know him. And he couldn’t really tell her because he knew she felt guilty about when they were kids and all.

  It wasn’t her fault, though; he was fucked from the start. He could work his ass off and try to change everything about himself but he’d still be the same person inside. It was okay for her to go around thinking that she could change her life and all, but he couldn’t. The past was still out to get Danny Boyle. He had done bad shit and no matter what you believed in, God, Karma, the luck-of-the-draw, bad shit always came back to you. That was one of the things they had beaten into him at school.

  It really doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

  He held up the bottle for a moment, as if it might explain why it wasn’t Anto’s voice, but the bottle was almost empty and had nothing to say. It had sounded like his Uncle Martin. For a moment he thought that was a good thing until he realized that he was just going crazier.

  “Enough,” he called out, louder than he had intended, and set a few dogs barking in the dark green gardens around. He hid the rest of the bottle, buried the roach in the flowerbed, and snuck off to bed before the whole neighborhood came out. Deirdre would never forgive him if that happened, and she’d be tired again on Saturday.

  *

  “You know you are supposed to be helping him?”

  Anto had a healthy respect for Martin Carroll. When they had been alive, they got in a fight one day. Anto and a few of his mates were slagging Martin as he walked by.

  “Are any of you brave enough to stand out?” he had asked over his shoulder. None of them really wanted to; Martin was known as a hard man but Anto had to. Even losing was better than not standing up.

  Martin had decked him with a flurry of punches and Anto’s mates ran off, leaving him bleeding in the streets.

  When he was obviously done, Martin helped him to his feet and gave him a clean white hanky to wipe his bloody nose. That was what Anto remembered most about the whole thing—the clean white hanky. That, and to never mess with Martin Carroll again.

  “I’m tryin’.”

  “Well you’re not doin’ very well. They sent me down to have a chat with you.”

  “I’m doing my best, Martin, but you know what he can be like.”

  “Have you tried frightening him?”

  “What? Like acting ghostly or something?”

  Martin looked at him like he was stupid. “Didn’t they tell you how they wanted this dealt with?”

  “No one told me anything. They just sent me back and told me I had to keep an eye on him.”

  “And they didn’t tell you anything else?”

  “No.”

  “This life is as fucked-up as the last one.”

  “You’re right there.”

  “Well, I’m going back up to find out what is going on. In the meantime, try not to make things any worse, will you?”

  “I’ll do my best, Martin.”

  Martin didn’t look too impressed as he faded away.

  Fuck’s sake, Anto muttered to himself. No one told me it was a test.

  *

  John Melchor liked to walk around the campus when he was troubled. He did not venture beyond it where the light of truth was dimmed by the darkness of the souls of the rich. He often tried to be more Christ-like in the way he thought about them, but he couldn’t. What value was a man who denied another the basics so he could amass yet more? They paid their soldiers as brigands and lords had done since time began. Hard-hearted men who beat the poor into submission with the assurance of their master’s law as a shield.

  Philippe had joined the army, despite all that John had not said between his carefully chosen words. He understood. What choice did the sons of wealth have? Philippe would serve his class or be cast out. John had no right to judge.

  That was what was bothering him. It was all very well to be teaching what Jesus said about disparity, but even Jesus was circumspect when it suited him. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the thin
gs that are God’s.” Hardly the words to start a revolution with and hardly the words of a man that had come to die for humanity. John was disappointed by Philippe, but deep in his heart, he was angry at Jesus. He had left the trail of breadcrumbs for honest men to see, but those who followed ended in forests of doubt with nothing but blind faith to lead them out.

  John had spoken kindly to Philippe before he left, but in the time that had passed, his heart hardened. Philippe had written breezy, newsy dissertations on the absurdity of military indoctrination. John understood; it was the same when he joined the Air Force and, he reminded himself to boost his flagging spirits, when he joined the Society of Jesus.

  He was, in so many ways, a mercenary too. He had fought the Japanese because of his own outrage. It was such a simple matter back then. They went to war to protect themselves against Imperial aggressions. But in the night sky, over Tokyo, when he was dropping napalm on the bedrooms of women and children, it felt a lot more like revenge. Through his sights, he could see each little fire spread into one, leaping around on its own gales, sucking oxygen, and leaving those below to suffocate until the heat melted them into ash. Most of Tokyo caught fire and nearly two hundred thousand people died.

  Many of those people were women and children and old people. Some of them were burned alive, while others suffocated before they were burnt.

  Afterwards, everyone said the Japanese had it coming after Pearl Harbor, but John Melchor could no longer believe that. Instead, he could picture his handiwork on the streets below. He could see it in his dreams—mothers covering their children that they might shrivel into ashes together. Ashes that were tossed around on the raging winds until they all became a cloud that blocked out the sun that had once shone directly into his heart. He was just twenty years of age.