My Losing Season

by Pat Conroy

  In his office the next day, I writhed in discomfort as Colonel Doyle read them aloud. The great gift that John Doyle gave me at The Citadel was treating every word I wrote for him as though it was literature itself. He read my stuff to me in the same reverent voice that he read Pound or Spenser to his English classes. There was no letdown or bemusement or even gentle irony to betray that he knew he was reciting harmless drivel. When I left his office, he handed me a sheet of paper that said, “A for your work in poetry, Mr. Conroy. You’ve made a fine start. A for your superior performance against the Spiders of Richmond. As always, it’s been a pleasure teaching you. John Doyle.”

  On Monday afternoon, I took the exam for literary criticism and spent the afternoon writing an essay on the theories of William Hazlitt, something I have not thought about since. I had to sprint to the field house when that exam was over and was almost late to practice which began precisely at 1600 hours. The practices never let up in intensity during exams, and it never failed to surprise the team that Mel granted us no quarter during this period. The Citadel basketball team, as always, practiced hard then studied hard.

  On Tuesday, I took my exam in English drama and the one on the modern novel the following day. I chose to write an essay on the theme of betrayal in Portrait of a Lady because I wanted to spend another two hours in the presence of Isabel Archer, even though I felt unfaithful to Anna Karenina in doing so. I filled up two blue books, then ran across the parade ground to practice, the air delicious and winey and clear. I loved the whole shut-down feel of the South in the cold.

  There was a sameness to exam week I found comforting and solid. The whole campus turned inward and serious, as the results of the tests were published on the doors of our professors’ offices. No names were given, but we found our grades listed beside our cadet serial number. Cries of “Fuck!” or “Jesus Christ!” echoed through the halls as disappointed cadets filled the air all over campus with their grievances. The Citadel felt more like a college during exam week than any other time of year. I had made four A’s and a B in my ROTC studies when the roof fell in on me, and I was faced with a decision I thought could get me kicked out of school.

  I was walking up the R Company steps when an orderly of the guard called out, “Emergency phone call for Pat Conroy.” Rushing to the guardroom, I picked up the phone and could not understand a single word a drunken, hysterical woman was saying to me.

  “Please slow down,” I said. “I don’t know who this is.”

  “It’s Isabel, Pat,” she said. “Just Isabel.”

  It was the voice of the mother of the only young woman I had ever been completely in love with, the one whose break-up with me still left me shivering with hurt. During my junior year, I had lost myself as a ballplayer. I learned that unrequited love could cripple an athlete as effectively as a broken bone or a torn ligament. I did not know how to bear a life that Isabel’s daughter had walked out of.

  “Calm down, Isabel. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “My ex-husband’s in town. I got a letter from him today. The bastard says he’s going to slit my throat. He’ll do it, too, Pat—he was a Marine like your old man. You’ve got to help me! You’re all I’ve got.”

  “I’ve got to go see the Boo, Isabel,” I said. “But I’m coming. Hold tight.” Then her line went dead.

  I raced over to Lieutenant Colonel Nugent Courvoisie’s quarters on the Citadel campus and banged on the door. His wife, Elizabeth, let me in and told me the colonel was upstairs in his bed. I took the stairs two at a time and found myself facing the assistant commandant of cadets in his pajamas. The sight startled me, and the Boo said, “Sorry I’m in my pj’s, bubba, but a man gets tired running after reprobates like you. You got a half hour before taps, bubba. Sound off.” During my freshman year, every upperclassman passed down one law of the land: if you ever get into real trouble, go see the Boo.

  I told him about Isabel’s phone call and he took down her address and phone number.

  “Can I go out there and stay with Mrs. Gervais, Colonel?” I asked after filling in the details.

  “Have you noticed this is a military college, Conroy?” he said.

  “I did, sir. Yes, sir. Just once, though.”

  “I’ll cover for you, bubba,” the Boo said. “But just this once. I’ll nail you for something later. Now get out there fast. That woman needs you.”

  When I got to her house, Isabel was passed out in her chair with her door wide open. I picked her up and took her to her bedroom and covered her up. I checked to see if there were any signs that her ex-husband had already showed up and made sure the house was locked tight. Beside her chair I found the letter her ex had sent her, as nasty a letter as I have ever read. It seethed with hatred and at the end of it, he swore that he would slit her throat and take his time doing it.

  I lowered the blinds and turned out all the lights and did a slow surveillance of all the windows of the house. The phone rang and I jumped. When I picked it up, I heard the Boo’s unmistakable voice. He said, “You okay, bubba? I worry about my little lost lambs when they wander off the pasture.”

  “I’m fine, Colonel. If this guy’s coming, he’s not here yet.”

  “I called the cops on Sullivan’s Island. They’ll send a patrol car to circle your block every hour. They know the situation, bubba. Call if there’s trouble. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Thanks, Colonel. I can never thank you enough for this.”

  “Caring for my lambs. Part of the job.”

  Ten minutes later I saw a patrol car cruise in front of Isabel’s house for the first time. It made the circuit every hour of that long night. I sat in absolute darkness surrounded by butcher knives, a baseball bat, and a jarful of nails. On the electric stove, I kept four pans of water boiling all night. If her ex-husband made it through the front door, the boiling water would be his first sign that he had erred in assaulting Isabel’s South Carolina home.

  When morning came, I let Isabel sleep as I made myself a cup of coffee. In the trash can in the kitchen, I found the envelope the letter had arrived in. Though it had a Charleston return address, I noticed a postmark from St. Louis, Missouri. Strange, I thought, and I dialed for directory assistance in St. Louis and asked for a phone listing in the name of Isabel’s ex-husband, getting one under the name of a retired master sergeant in the Marine Corps.

  For an hour, I waited and plotted until I came up with a usable plan. Then I dialed the man’s number in St. Louis. “This is Colonel Donald Conroy, USMC, Sergeant. I’m here between assignments at the Pentagon, and your name came across my desk yesterday. I got a call from a Charleston, South Carolina, police chief with a warrant for your arrest. Do you know one Isabel Gervais?”

  “I was once married to the bitch,” he said.

  “The police chief wanted the Marine Corps’ help in tracking you down, Wilson. He said you threatened to slit this woman’s throat. That couldn’t be true. You’re a semper fi guy, Wilson. I know you’re retired, but Marines don’t turn to shit that fast, do we?”

  “Sir, how do I know who I’m talking to?” he said, growing suspicious.

  “Surprise, Wilson. You don’t. But look me up, pal. I’m a fighter pilot, jocko, but because someone fucked up my orders, I’m lucky enough to find myself privileged to call losers like you who get their rocks off threatening their old girlfriends. Write it down. Colonel Donald N. Conroy. N stands for nothing. No middle name. Call my number at the Pentagon, and you’ll get ole yours truly on the horn. Want my fucking ID?”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir. Just checking, sir.”

  “Let me run an idea past you,” I said in my father’s voice. “The Marine Corps is a little sensitive about its image these days and tell the truth, Wilson, an ex-Marine who slits his ex-wife’s throat does not make the PR guys happy. Get my drift?”

  “Yes, sir. I do, sir.”

  “So let’s come up with a plan. Say I call this chief of police guy. I get folksy with the son-of-a-bitc
h. Then I tell the shitbag that I chewed you a new asshole. Get my drift, Wilson? You got drunk. You wrote the bitch a letter. You couldn’t remember a thing in it. You with me, Wilson?”

  “Sir, I see where you’re going,” Wilson said.

  “Okay. I tell the police chief that I talked straight to you. Marine to Marine. I said to you, ‘Wilson, can you leave that broad alone? You give me your word as a Marine?’ We semper fi the shit out of each other. You swear to me on the honor of the corps that you’ll leave that broad alone? You gotta mean it. Make me happy, Wilson. Leave the broad alone.”

  “I will, sir. That’s a promise.”

  “Promise me as a Marine, Sergeant.”

  “You have my promise as a Marine, Colonel,” Wilson said.

  “Then that arrest warrant will be ripped up today, Wilson. Semper fi, Sergeant.”

  “Semper fi, Colonel Conroy.”

  I hung up the phone and found Isabel on her couch, bent double laughing. She had listened to my entire performance.

  She fixed me breakfast that morning before I went back to take an afternoon exam. I left to go back to The Citadel as soon as she brought her daughter’s name up. The mention of that name still carried the power to hurt me.

  IN MY ENTIRE FOUR YEARS AT THE CITADEL, there was one young woman I truly loved and one woman only. In the novel The Lords of Discipline, I wrote a fictionalized version of this young woman and called her Annie Kate Gervais. She will remain Annie Kate Gervais in this book. Annie Kate ended up marrying a fine man, and I know her three children rather well. When I lived in San Francisco, Annie Kate and I lunched fairly frequently although neither of us ever alluded to the events that altered both of our lives forever. We did not discuss the thing that burned most brightly between us. I never once mentioned the ecstasy of my love for her and Annie Kate never once mentioned the baby. I still do not know if she ever read The Lords of Discipline or not, and she knows I will never ask that question. Our lost love is a secret that lies mysteriously between us. Our friendship is shallow, brittle, and lacks intimacy, yet remains important to both of us. When I look at Annie Kate I remind myself that I was once a boy who thought this woman was a goddess and her body a field of fire. When she looks at me, her eyes find the boy I once was, the lost, lost boy who woke up in the middle of his life a stranger to himself and heard a hurt and pretty girl call out his name. The boy did not know then he could only love hurt women, nor did he know that all the women in his life who would call his name would come from the cold country of hurt. The sons of beaten women do not often make the best selections among the women in their lives. In my own life, the women I did not choose remain the lucky ones.

  I met Annie Kate by accident. At the end of my trying plebe year at The Citadel, one of the seniors I was assigned to in the alcove room next door to me in R Company told me he needed me to date a girl who had been stood up by another cadet. Since the recognition of the knobs had taken place several days before, I could double-date with him without any fear of his being accused of fraternizing. I now belonged to the brotherhood.

  D. G. Keyser picked up his girlfriend first, then drove to a more unlucky neighborhood to pick up Annie Kate Gervais.

  “You’ll just love her,” the girl dating D.G. said. “She doesn’t know how pretty she is.” When we came to her house, she bounded down the steps as soon as we pulled up and was in the car before I could hold the door for her. She held out her hand to me and said, “Very pleased to meet you, Pat. I’m Annie Kate Gervais.”

  Her voice was country and high-pitched, but her perfect oval face and comely figure were rare enough to leave me speechless. Her smile broke like a thunderclap in that car. Riding to James Island High School that night, I let D.G. do all the talking and I sat in paralyzed silence trying to conjure sentences that would delight Annie Kate and make her happy to be in my part of the world. Wordless, I arrived at James Island High School for the Mr. James Island contest among the senior boys.

  I took my seat on the aisle of the auditorium still trying to think of something to say to Annie Kate when there was a tap on my shoulder. A pleasant-faced woman said, “It’s traditional to have a Citadel cadet help with the judging. Citadel men know what to look for in a young man.”

  That might have been true, but I wanted to spend the evening next to Annie Kate and I pointed to D. G. Keyser down the row. D.G. would have none of it and solved the problem by saying, “Hey, smackhead. You do it. That’s an order.”

  As I got up to follow the woman to the front row, Annie Kate grabbed my hand from behind and pressed up against me to whisper a boy’s name in my ear. “He’s the cutest boy in school. By far,” she said. I took that boy’s name into my consciousness and went to join the group of judges. I had liked the touch of Annie Kate’s hand and the whisper of her breath in my ear. I had liked it very much.

  The judges retired to a room backstage where we winnowed the senior boys down to five finalists. With my single vote, I made sure that Annie Kate’s favorite made the cut, although the other four adults in the panel met my vote with some discomfiture. The boy who won the Mr. James Island contest was a short, stocky boy who radiated goodwill and the theater exploded in applause when his name was announced. We judges sent the whole high school home happy that night, and Annie Kate was delighted that I had fought for the boy she liked. It was the mother of Mr. James Island who stopped me on King Street the following year and said, “You’re the cadet who judged the Mr. James Island contest, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “You’ve got great taste,” she said. “That was my son who won the contest. Do you remember the girl you dated that night?”

  “Annie Kate Gervais. I tried to get in touch with her.”

  “Her family situation is somewhat unfortunate,” the woman said, and briefly filled in the course of events that had befallen Annie Kate during the summer. She concluded her story by telling me that a group of mothers and teachers were searching for Annie Kate and wanted to help her. “She’s a very nice girl, considering the circumstances. She had people in Blacksburg, Virginia, and a neighbor thinks she might have gone there with her mother.”

  “I’m going to Blacksburg next week,” I said. “The basketball team’s playing Virginia Tech.”

  “Let me write you down her mother’s family name.”

  The name was Caldwell. When I arrived in Blacksburg and checked into the hotel room with my team I turned to the Blacksburg phone book and began calling every Caldwell in the book. On the third call, I reached Annie Kate’s uncle and he gave me an address on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina, just north of Charleston. I wrote her a letter telling her I had heard about her circumstances and it sounded like she could use a friend. I began writing her letters every day.

  When I returned from the long road trip, there was a letter in my post office box 587 from Annie Kate and it was a cry of pure despair. “I have ruined my life,” it said, “and the life of my mother. And the life of this poor child I am carrying. Please be my friend, Pat Conroy. We have no one. We see no one. We listen to Citadel basketball games on the radio. We cheer every time you get in to play.”

  On the following Tuesday, I drove after practice over to their small apartment on the north end of Sullivan’s Island. Annie Kate was dressed in a raincoat, a prop that she would wear until the birth of her child. She pulled it tightly around her when she opened the door and she burst into tears at the sight of me. Though she hugged me, I did not return the hug, worried that her mother might misinterpret the gesture. The mother’s fiery eyes were already aglitter with the easy malice one finds in women whose lives have gone sour in the middle years.

  Annie Kate said, “Mama, this is Pat. The one who writes the letters—the basketball player.”

  Isabel Gervais answered in a gravelly voice out of the poor-born and hardscrabble South of my mother. “Let me get this straight. You’re a Citadel cadet in the prime of your life. You play on the basketball team, ain’t to
o hard to look at, and you get to spend your Friday nights with an old woman and her knocked-up daughter.”

  “Oh, please, Mama,” Annie Kate wailed.

  “Mrs. Gervais,” I said, “my social life needs a little work. I admit that. But a boy’s got to start somewhere.”

  Mrs. Gervais laughed out loud, then eyed me, her pupils yellow like a lioness. “I like a smart-mouthed boy. The letters you write my daughter, Cadet,” Isabel said. “Are they love letters?”

  “Mama,” Annie Kate screamed and I blushed hard.

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “This is only the second time I’ve ever seen your daughter.”

  Then turning to me again, she said, “You write beautifully, Cadet. I wait for your letters as much as Annie Kate does. But I’m curious. Why do you write my daughter now? What are your motives? Is it sex?”

  “Mama. Please stop, Mama. Please don’t do this to me. To us. To all of us.”

  “She’s ruined herself for a boy like you. A boy from a decent home. A boy with prospects. It’s got to be the sex. You know she’s easy, don’t you, Cadet? Because she went and got herself knocked up?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said in the astonished air of that sad house. “I’m in it for the sex.”

  Later, Annie Kate asked me if I wanted to go for a walk on the beach. We crossed the street and walked through the backyard of an old Victorian that looked out on Fort Sumter and the shipping lanes of Charleston Harbor. On that first night, I mostly listened to Annie Kate tell the details of her life since I last had seen her. I learned all about the boy she had been in love with since her ninth-grade year, their courtship, and her first missed menstrual cycle. The boy wanted her to get an abortion, but offered no money nor the name of any illegal abortionist. He began to slap her around every time he saw her. Eventually he quit calling and refused to return her phone calls. Then his mother called to let her know that her son had moved to Atlanta and had left no forwarding address. Annie Kate would not hear from this boy for the rest of her life.