Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth

by Ray Garton

  When that did not happen—when the pain grew worse and the calls continued to come and he drank more and more to numb the fear and pain, and when someone left a large dead rat at his door—Roger bought a gun.

  He told himself he was just buying it for protection, but when the man in the store told him he could not have it for two weeks, he suddenly knew the truth about his motives.

  "Why two weeks?" Roger asked.

  The broad black man behind the counter flashed two rows of bright teeth and said, "California law. We call it a cooling off period. Say you get really pissed at the wife, decide to blow her head off, and you buy a gun. Two weeks later, maybe you'll be cooled off. But then again," he shrugged, "maybe not."

  "Two weeks," Roger said, thinking, That'll give me plenty of time to make arrangements and to decide where to do it.

  Two weeks later, Roger knelt over his bathtub and eased the trembling barrel of the .25 caliber automatic pistol into his mouth as rain thrashed against the windows.

  He stayed that way for a long time, feeling disoriented, wincing at the jagged fragments of thoughts that cut through his mind.

  The phone rang three times—three long meandering rings—and the answering machine picked up. It was Barry Leese, one of his writer acquaintances from Tiny's.

  "Hey, Rog," he said, "if you wanna try your hand at screenwriting, I think I can get you something. It's just a cheap-shit horror flick, but maybe it'll get you out of your cave. Give me a call tonight, let's get together."

  All Roger heard was, "Maybe it'll get you out of your cave." He heard it over and over as his sweaty palm slid against the butt of the gun.

  Something about the call jarred him and he sat up and pulled the gun away. His stomach was hurting and he realized he had shit his pants.

  He called Laurie's number and told her answering service that he had an emergency and needed to talk to Dr. Yee. When he finally heard her voice on the line, he began to cry. It was embarrassing but uncontrollable. He couldn't fight it.

  They talked for almost an hour. He told her what was happening, what he was feeling and doing. She got him to promise her that he would not hurt himself until after he had spoken to her the next day. When he saw her the following morning, she told him what she thought he should do. It was ultimately up to him, if course, but she thought her advice would be productive.

  By early afternoon that day, Roger admitted himself to Sylmar Neuropsychiatric Hospital.

  "I really think it's the best thing for you now, Roger," Laurie told him. "You can't be alone like this, and you know it. It's entirely voluntary, so you can spend the night and if you don't think you'll benefit from a stay there, you can leave. Anytime you want. I promise."

  Laurie was unable to keep her promise. She was called out of town shortly after Roger was admitted. "A personal emergency," her service said. "She's turned her caseload over to Dr. Henry Stanwick until she returns next month."

  Next month?

  Roger repeated those words to himself as he waited to see the chief of staff, Dr. Lyle Abbott, who said, "A voluntary admission means nothing if you're still suicidal, Mr. Carlton. And I'm not so sure you've passed that stage yet."

  He repeated them as he waited to see Dr. Stanwick, a short, stern gray-haired woman who told him, "You've only been here two days, Mr. Carlton, and I sense no sign of improvement over the symptoms described in these records."

  He repeated them silently to himself as he was questioned by Dr. Abbott:

  "What do you think of when you see the color black?

  "What does 'a rolling stone gathers no moss' mean?

  "Do people talk about you behind your back?"

  Next month, next month, next month, he thought.

  He had a double room all to himself for the first week until he was assigned a roommate, a zombie-like young man named Doug who did not speak, barely opened his eyes and spent most of his time lying in bed. Roger was seldom in his room. He spent most of his time in the TV room reading, watching TV, or chatting with other patients. When it was discovered that Doug had a case of the crabs, Rob was quarantined in his room and had to take a long shower with special soap while an attendant watched.

  Next month, next month, next month ...

  He attended group therapy, took an arts and crafts class (he was surprised to learn that basket weaving in mental hospitals was not just an old joke), and twice a day, he accepted the little paper cup of pills handed out to all the patients. He hated the way the drugs made him feel, the way they seemed to slow time down to a tedious crawl.

  Next month, next month, next month ...

  Most of the patients in Roger's ward of the hospital were women who had suffered a great deal of abuse and had either tried to hurt themselves or someone else. One night, a movie aired about a woman who burned her abusive husband alive in his bed. As the movie played out, the women in the TV room became more and more agitated, some of them pacing with increasing speed. By the end, the room—the entire ward—resonated with their sobs and wails.

  It reminded Roger of the last day of every Week of Prayer ever held at the Adventist schools he had attended. By the end of the guest speaker's highly emotional altar call, at least half the girls would be worked into a state of sobbing; it was such a regular occurrence that faculty members were always on hand with boxes of tissue to pass around to the emotional, spiritually moved girls. But Roger had always known the girls would recover and come to their senses—he was not that confident about the poor women in the hospital that night.

  Next month, next month, next month ...

  Laurie returned three weeks later. Roger was polite and reserved when she came to see him. He smiled a lot and answered all of her questions positively, hating her all the while. Pleased with his disposition, Laurie authorized his release. He made an appointment to see her later that week at her request, but he only did that to avoid questions from her and had no intention of keeping it. He returned none of her calls and could not even bear to listen to her messages on the answering machine. Her voice was no longer pleasant and sincere; now it was the very sound of deceit and betrayal. It was the voice of a used car salesman, a carnival barker, a politician during election season. Because he had once trusted it, he could no longer listen to it.

  As before, he spent most of his time alone in his apartment trying to write, drinking, and thinking a lot about that gun in the closet.

  13.

  Leo had been dead for more than a week and Betty still had not come into the deli. She slept until one or two in the afternoon and drank until she went back to bed.

  "Should I be worried about you?" Roger asked her one evening.

  "Probably. But don't be. Give me just a little more time."

  Each night, Roger went to the deli after watching Johnny Carson. There he would write, listen to the radio and sometimes sip scotch. He found it easier to work at his table in the Munch Room, even at night when the place was quiet and dark except for his small lamp. The novel was beginning to unfold and draw Roger into its pages. It was called Personal Sacrifices and was about a frustrated young man who, in order to spend more time with a woman he's interested in and also as an act of rebellion against his strict religious upbringing, joins a Satanic cult, never for a moment taking it seriously. The cult members, however, are very serious, and he is drawn into an underworld of human sacrifice and ritualistic abuse.

  One afternoon, Roger took a break from the deli and drove to the book store in Napa where he used to work. There he picked up eight books on devil worship and Satanism, hoping to give his book as much authenticity as possible

  He immersed himself in his work each night and usually lost track of time, sometimes looking up to find that it was four a.m. when just a moment ago it hadn't even been one. He usually left the deli at about the time Sidney, the bread man, delivered the day's supply from the bakery in Rutherford. Sidney let himself into the storeroom in back, usually whistling a tune, and greet
ed Roger as he left the deli with, "Hey-hey, still at it, huh?" Roger would get a few hours of sleep, then shower and go back to the deli.

  Although he was not accustomed to a nine-to-five routine, he did not mind getting up in time to open the deli. He tried to tell himself that he even looked forward to it; secretly, he knew that what he looked forward to was seeing Sondra.

  Roger found her very attractive, but knew better than to pursue that because it would be...ridiculous. Still, there were times while they talked quietly at a table in the Munch Room when he had to clench a fist to keep his hand from touching her face, her hair, her slender neck.

  For god's sake, Roger, he remembered Betty saying, She's only seventeen.

  While she still seemed guarded, Sondra had relaxed somewhat over the past week. Her smile came easier, she held her head a bit higher, and she made eye contact when they talked. More than once, she quickly turned away when Roger caught her staring at him from across the deli.

  They talked during her breaks. She asked questions about his writing, his experiences in Adventist schools, and he ended up doing most of the talking. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to get her to talk about herself. She no longer seemed afraid or guilty when he asked questions about her but remained closed to him.

  But something was bubbling inside her and he wondered when it might come to the surface. There was a chance he was imagining it, but he sensed that she was developing trust in him, that soon she would take him into her confidence. He did not know if that was a good idea, but against his better judgment—which, in this case, was speaking in a hushed voice—he welcomed it. He wanted to get to know her. Spending time with Sondra was not unlike spending time with himself as he'd been ten years earlier. It was like having a conversation with his own past.

  Except Sondra, of course, was much prettier.

  When she asked about his background in the church, her interest was tempered with caution. She seemed especially curious about his initial feelings of doubt about the church and his abandonment of it altogether. He wondered if Sondra were beginning to ask herself some of the same questions he had once asked:

  If there are so many different Christian denominations, how could only one be the true church?

  What kind of God would slaughter everyone except the members of one little group?

  What kind of God would slaughter any of his "children?"

  How could the bloodthirsty, monstrous God of the bible be called loving and merciful?

  Why is the fiction I write so wicked when the bible—supposedly God's infallible revealed word—condones child abuse, slavery, rape, incest, murder and genocide?

  If this is what God wants me to believe, then why did he bother giving me a functioning brain that sees it all as contradictory, nonsensical bullshit?

  He hoped she was asking herself those questions, because they were the only thing that could save her from a life of confusing guilt, suppressed desires, and endless self-loathing.

  It wasn't until halfway through the second week after Leo's death that his suspicions were confirmed.

  Roger and Sondra were sitting in the Munch Room during her break on a slow Wednesday afternoon. She had asked him about his two years at the Adventist boarding academy in Healdsburg and he was telling her about the time he and a friend played on AC/DC tape over the chapel P.A. system during services, when she interrupted him.

  "Did you ever think there was something...wrong with you back then?" she asked. The fingers of both her hands were tangling nervously on the table and she sounded near tears.

  "Sure," he said, puzzled by the sudden change in her behavior. "All the time. I didn't fit there. I used to think it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me. But I eventually realized the only thing wrong was that I didn't fit. And the only thing wrong with that was that I was pretending I did."

  For a moment, Sondra's big eyes darted all over the room as if searching for words, and her mouth worked to find a voice, but she said nothing. She finally nodded, as if in agreement.

  Roger leaned toward her and whispered, "Are you pretending you fit, Sondra?"

  Her nostrils flared and tears glistened in her eyes as she nodded. Through her tears, the golden flecks in her eyes seemed to grow a bit larger, as if they were opening to reveal what lay beyond.

  "I know how that feels," he assured her. "I went through it and it hurts. Deeply."

  She shifted in her chair, turning away from him, and wiped her face with a palm, trying to compose herself.

  Roger ached for her then; he ached with sympathy and, he was half-ashamed to admit, desire. He wanted to hold her, tell her she was going to be okay in a few years, maybe in a couple of decades, if she could get out from under whatever cloud the church had put over her.

  "Look, Sondra, I want you to know that whenever things get tough and ou need someone to talk to—" He reached over and took her hand.

  She pulled away and hissed, "Stay away from me."

  Roger flinched, shocked.

  "I'm sorry, but...you really should. Stay away from me. I'm bad. For you. For everybody." She rushed out of the Munch Room and went back to work.

  Sondra did not speak to him again all day.

  14.

  Roger taught his first class that night. It was small—only nine people—but after twenty minutes of talking about writing with his students, Roger decided they were all genuinely interested and not just taking creative writing to avoid a standard English class.

  Then Marjie walked in.

  Roger felt a surge of vertigo and had to check his surroundings to make sure he wasn't back in high school or college.

  She stood in the doorway a moment, wearing a rust-colored skirt and brown sweater, a notebook tucked under her arm, a denim bag slung over one shoulder. Her hair was longer now, but otherwise she looked exactly as she had the last time he had seen her. When a breeze whispered through the open door behind her, he realized she even wore the same perfume.

  Her smile seemed big enough to swallow her whole head as she stepped inside and said, "Sorry I'm late, but I was held up at work and..."

  They stared silently at one another long enough to make the students fidget uncomfortably in their seats.

  Marjie finally seated herself and Roger spent a few minutes stammering through the course outline, then dismissed the class early for the first of its three hourly ten minute breaks.

  The students headed for the restrooms and smoking areas except for Marjie, who remained in her seat smiling at Roger.

  "I can't believe you're taking this class," he said, sitting on the edge of his desk. He did not return her smile.

  "Oh, it's not for the grade, or anything. I've always wanted to take a shot at writing." She stood. "But mostly...I wanted to see you." Moving toward him, she said, "Don't I get a hug?"

  "No."

  Her smile went away.

  "I can't believe you're doing this, Marjie."

  "Doing what?"

  "Acting like...like nothing happened. Like you're glad to see me, like we're old friends."

  "I am glad. And we are old friends."

  "We were."

  "Please, Roger," she said softly, her eyes becoming sadly apologetic. "That was a long time ago."

  "Six years is not my idea of a long time. But even if it were twenty-six years, this would be a surprise. You're...convictions—" He spat the word. "—seemed pretty firm back then."

  "Oh, you know how it is, Roger, you've been through it. They hold a Week of Prayer on campus, get some loud, charismatic guest speaker to give two sermons a day and work everybody into a religious frenzy, get them to burn their novels and rock albums and get re-baptized, and by the altar call at the end, you're practically glowing with Christian love and enthusiasm. On fire for the lord. You try to clean up your life, read the bible every day, it's like...I don't know, like brainwashing."

  "You think?"

  "But it doesn't last. It f
ades."

  "There was no Week of Prayer then, Marjie. You worked yourself into a religious frenzy."

  "I know, but...well, it's the same principle. I was going through one of those stages."

  "Did you chase off any other friends during that stage?"

  Marjie sighed and moved closer to him. "I tried to find you, Roger. I called your parents, but they wouldn't tell me anything. I wrote a letter to your publisher, but I never heard anything. You just disappeared."

  "You expected me to hang around? I had to disappear, and don't act like you don't know why."

  "I know, there were some people who...overreacted."

  "Overreacted? Jesus, I'm glad they didn't get pissed off, they probably would've burned my house down with me in it!"

  "A lot of people were...disappointed in you, Roger. I don't condone what they did, but they just didn't know how to handle it."

  "Handle what?"

  "The way you disappointed them."

  "Disappointed them? It's not my job to fulfill their expectations with my life, Marjie. And don't try to pretend that they were the only ones who overreacted. You were doing plenty of overreacting yourself. And by the way, they kept overreacting because they followed me all the way to L.A."

  "I'm sorry," she whispered, lowering her gaze for a moment. "I promise you, I had nothing to do with any of that. I...I've missed you."

  When she was finally close enough to put her arms around him, Roger could not resist. Six years quickly melted away as he held her, smelled her, heard her sigh against his ear.

  "I've...missed you, too, Marjie," he said, startled by how good it felt to say her name aloud again. He whispered, "But you really hurt me."

  She said, "I always prayed—"

  ... it would go away ...

  "—I'd get to apologize to you for that." She pulled back and placed a hand to his cheek. "You're—"

  ... sick ...

  "—still very important to me. Hey, you're—"

  ... sick sick sicksicksick ...