The Abstinence Teacher

by Tom Perrotta

  Tim opened his mouth to agree, but he was distracted by a powerful rush, a warm tingly surge of well-being that seemed to radiate up from the deck and into his blood. For one breathtaking moment he was weightless, untroubled by gravity. He heard himself giggle.

  “So how’s the soccer going?” George asked.

  “Okay,” Tim said, sinking back down. “We’re playing for the championship on Saturday.”

  “Damn.” George placed his hand on the back of Tim’s neck and gave a friendly squeeze. “I envy you. We’re lucky if we end up in fifth place.”

  “This was a great season,” Tim said, polishing off the dregs of his beer. “I’m not gonna know what to do with myself when it’s over.”

  “You can always sleep late on Saturday morning. Maybe even get it on with your wife.”

  Tim shook his head.

  “I just really love this team.”

  George pondered this for a moment.

  “Let’s go back inside,” he said. “See what’s happening with the game.”

  “You go ahead,” Tim told him. “I gotta make a pit stop.”

  AFTER GEORGE went in, Tim took a walk around Fox Hollow, ostensibly looking for a secluded place to relieve himself. He understood that this was an unnecessary precaution—aside from the poker players, there wasn’t a soul around—but he kept going anyway, wandering down the hard-packed road past empty houses in varying stages of in-completion, big dumb boxes rising like monuments out of the desolate terrain, not a tree or car in sight, his head muddled, his heart beating a little too fast.

  I am so fucking stoned, he thought.

  It was almost creepy how it had happened, so smoothly and slyly, the way George had summoned him outside and offered the joint without asking, not even giving him a chance to refuse, as if he’d known all along that this was the real reason why Tim had come. Of course, Tim had already begun drinking by that point, so it was hard to blame George, or pretend he hadn’t made his own decision. But for some reason, it didn’t feel like that. Being stoned just felt like something that had happened to him, a matter of circumstance rather than will.

  He just wished George hadn’t mentioned soccer, because that had spoiled what had been shaping up as a pretty nice buzz. It was a nightmare—all he’d done was say a simple prayer of thanks, and now his team was in shambles. Several angry parents, including his own exwife, were threatening not to let their daughters play in the championship game; meanwhile, Pastor Dennis had devoted his entire Sunday sermon to what he called Tim and John’s “youth sports ministry.” And now it looked like the shit had really hit the fan, because he’d come home that evening to find a stern message from Bill Derzarian on his answering machine, insisting that he call back ASAP, as well as one from a friendly reporter from the Bulletin-Chronicle, eager to get “your side of the story.”

  I’m wasted, he thought. That’s my side of the story.

  About halfway around the main loop, he spotted a Port-A-Potty that appeared to be a pretty popular destination, judging from the foul cloud that surrounded it. He briefly considered ducking inside, but settled for standing in its shadow, peeing on it rather than in it, enjoying the sound his urine made splashing against the plastic wall of the outhouse.

  He zipped up and continued around the bend, back toward The Parkhurst. The model home was all lit up, a bright island in the middle of all that darkness, but Tim felt a chill come over him as he approached the edge of what would eventually be the front lawn.

  This is a mistake, he thought, listening to the loud voices and lewd laughter seeping through the windows. I don’t belong here.

  He turned before he could talk himself out of it and veered across the road to the parking area. He hated leaving like this, without saying good-bye or connecting with Mickey Dunleavy or offering a word of explanation for his peculiar conduct, but he didn’t think there was any other way to do it. George would worry, he understood that, and the other guys would call him a flake, so he took a moment to scratch the word “JESUS” into the passenger door of Billy’s Hummer with the sharp end of a key, so they’d at least have some kind of vague idea about where he was coming from.

  IT WAS a school night, but Randall didn’t seem to want to go home. Ruth had dropped as many hints as she could think of, clearing away the coffee cups, yawning without covering her mouth, and talking about how early she and the girls had to get up in the morning, but none of it made an impression. Randall just sat there, with that same dazed expression he’d had all evening, chewing over his long list of grievances.

  “I did everything for him. The shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, all that fifties housewife crap. If he lost a button, who do you think sewed it back on?”

  “You didn’t have to,” Ruth reminded him. “You did it because you wanted to.”

  “I did it because I love him,” Randall admitted. “But do you think he ever thanked me?”

  “I’m sure he was grateful.”

  “He just thought it was his due. It was his mother’s fault, you know. She treated him like a little prince.”

  “A lot of men are like that,” Ruth pointed out. “Frank sure was. If he had a cold or a tummy ache, the whole world came crashing to a halt. But if I was in bed with the flu, he’d come up and ask what I was cooking for dinner.”

  “It was worse because Greg’s an artiste,” Randall said, pronouncing the word with bottomless disdain. “He truly believes he has more important things to do than buy groceries or clean the toilet. That sort of thing is for lesser mortals like me. Sometimes I just wanted to grab him and say, Hello? You ’re not Pablo Fucking Picasso. You ’re just a real-estate agent who plays with dolls!”

  “That’s not fair,” Ruth said in a gentle voice. “You always loved his work. And he couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “That’s not what he thinks.”

  “I’m sure he knows. And if he doesn’t, he’s going to find out the hard way.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him. He’ll find someone else to take care of him. He just bats those big blue eyes, and the boys come running.”

  “Maybe they used to,” Ruth said. “But he’s not a kid anymore. It’s not so easy to find someone new when you get to be our age.”

  “Good. Let him find out what it feels like to be rejected for once.”

  “He didn’t really reject you. You kicked him out.”

  “Because he wouldn’t commit.”

  “You’ve been living together for ten years. You co-own a house. How much more of a commitment could you ask for?”

  “I want to get married. That’s something that matters to me, okay? It didn’t used to, but it does now.”

  “It’s kind of a moot point, isn’t it?”

  Randall shrugged. “I just want him to propose. I want him to ask me to marry him if and when it becomes legal. He knows that, and he refuses to do it.”

  “It seems kind of crazy, breaking up a good relationship over a completely symbolic proposal.”

  “It’s not symbolic,” Randall insisted. “I’m talking about a real proposal. Actual words coming out of an actual person’s mouth.”

  “I don’t get it,” Ruth said. “Why don’t you just propose to him?”

  Releasing a soft groan of frustration, Randall leaned forward, letting his forehead drop heavily into the palm of his hand.

  “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

  There was an edge in his voice Ruth didn’t appreciate. All she’d done all night was listen. She’d tried three different times to bring him up to date on Maggie and Eliza’s sudden interest in Christianity, and her own uncertainty about how to deal with it—the girls had come home from church on Sunday bubbling over with excitement about the fact that Esther Park had gotten the entire Living Waters Fellowship to say a prayer for Ruth’s soul—but he just kept changing the subject back to his own broken heart.

  “You’re tired,” she told him. “You should go home and get some rest.”

  Ra
ndall looked up, his eyes puffy and frightened behind his smudged lenses.

  “I can’t go home.”

  “Why not?”

  “If I have to spend another night alone in that bedroom, I’m gonna kill myself.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.”

  Randall shook his head, as if to say he wasn’t joking.

  “We’re gonna have to sell the house. We can’t get married, but we can sure as hell get … divorced.”

  For some reason, this was the word that set him off. His face tightened into a childlike mask of grief, and he burst into tears.

  “Oh, honey,” Ruth said, rising from her chair.

  The phone rang before she could make it to the other side of the table, sounding way louder than usual. Ruth froze in her tracks, torn between her desire to comfort her friend and the natural urge to find out who could be calling at such a ridiculous hour.

  “Oh, God,” Randall said, in a pathetically hopeful voice. “Maybe it’s him.”

  Ruth snatched the phone off the cradle, hoping to silence it before the third ring. The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number.

  “Hello?”

  There was a long silence on the other end. She repeated the greeting.

  “Hey,” said the staticky voice on the other end. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “Gregory?” she said.

  “No, Tim.”

  “Tim?”

  “The soccer coach.”

  “I know who you are,” she told him. “I just don’t know why you’re calling.”

  “Who’s Gregory?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Oh.” He sounded a bit put out.

  Randall mouthed the words, Who is it? Ruth shot him an apologetic look and wandered down the hall, out of earshot.

  “Why are you calling so late?” she whispered into the phone.

  “Excuse me?”

  She repeated the question at a higher volume. Tim chuckled strangely.

  “I was, uh, wondering if maybe I could come over.”

  “Now?”

  “Is that all right?”

  “No, it’s not all right. It’s eleven o’clock on Tuesday night. My kids are asleep.”

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  “We’re talking now,” she pointed out. “What do you want to tell me?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t mean talk to you about anything special. I just mean talk to you talk to you. You know, like we’ve been doing.”

  Ruth’s bewilderment had worn off enough for her to realize that Tim didn’t quite sound like himself. There was a peculiar lilt in his voice she’d never heard before.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Depends how you look at it. I’m a little messed up, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Drunk?”

  “Stoned, too. A nice all-around buzz.”

  “I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”

  “Me, too. Guess I was wrong.”

  “Is that what this is about?” she said. “You got high and decided you might like to see me?”

  “Now you’re catching on.”

  “And what? I’m supposed to be flattered?”

  “I didn’t really think it through that far. I was just hoping you’d be awake.”

  “You’re not driving, are you?”

  “No, actually I’m parked.”

  “Good.”

  “Right in front of your house,” he added, with another cryptic chuckle.

  “I hope you’re kidding.”

  “I can honk the horn if you want.”

  Ruth walked to the end of the hall, pulled aside the curtain, and peered through the window of her front door. He was right where he said he was, a shadowy figure in the driver’s seat.

  “This isn’t funny,” she told him.

  “No,” he said. “At least we’re in agreement on that.”

  Ruth let go of the curtain and turned around, startled by the raggedy sound of her own breathing. Randall was standing at the other end of the hall, watching her with a quizzical expression while he dabbed at his eyes with a Kleenex.

  “Tim,” she said. “I’m going to hang up now.”

  “So can I come in?”

  “No,” she said. “You can’t.”

  “But I need to talk to you.”

  “Come back when you’re sober. Right now you need to go home to your wife.”

  TIM DIDN’T get home until after midnight. He’d thought about heading to a bar after Ruth sent him packing, but his conscience—or maybe just some instinct of self-preservation—had kicked in, and he drove to the Tabernacle instead. The building was locked, of course, so he knelt down by the door and prayed for strength and guidance until a cop pulled up in a cruiser and told him he needed to take it somewhere else.

  “I hate to bother you,” he said, “but no one’s allowed on the premises after eleven.”

  “This is my church,” Tim told him.

  “I understand.” The cop was an older guy with a mustache and a melancholy expression. “I don’t make the rules.”

  Tim couldn’t help himself. “That’s what Pontius Pilate said.”

  “Yeah.” The cop mustered a wan smile. “Right before he busted Jesus for loitering.”

  Heaving an ostentatious sigh, Tim rose to his feet. His knees were stiff, but his head was a lot clearer than when he’d started.

  “I guess I can finish up at home.”

  “I appreciate it,” the cop told him. “Have a nice night.”

  “You, too,” Tim replied.

  He’d warned Carrie that he might be late and told her not to wait up—not wanting to mention the poker game, he’d told her he had an “important meeting” with a big developer—so he assumed, when he saw the light on in their bedroom, that she’d fallen asleep while reading. But she was awake and waiting for him, sitting up in bed in a flowered bra-and-panty set he’d never seen before.

  “Whoa,” he said, raising both hands as if she’d pulled a gun on him.

  “You’re lucky,” she told him. “Five more minutes, and I would’ve conked out.”

  She looked good, he thought, giving her a furtive once-over. The new lingerie was sexy but reassuringly wholesome—a lot of the stuff he’d gotten her was too slutty for her to wear with any conviction—and there was a shy, eager smile on her face. Any man in his right mind should’ve been thrilled, but Tim felt unaccountably irritated, as if she’d spoiled his plan for a good night’s sleep.

  “We don’t have to do anything if you’re tired,” he said. “I’m pretty bushed myself.”

  Her smile didn’t go away, but he could see that her confidence was shaken. She glanced down at her lap, running a tentative hand over her belly.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t like what I’m wearing?”

  “No, it’s fine. Very nice.”

  “You mean it?”

  “I do,” he said, with a little more sincerity. “You look pretty.”

  “Good.” She patted his side of the mattress. “Then why don’t you come over here and kiss me?”

  Tim considered her request. It would’ve been so easy to lie down beside her and give her what she wanted, so pleasant and painless. But that was the problem. He’d been taking the easy way out for too long—this was one of the things he’d just been praying over—and he’d come to realize that it wasn’t fair to either of them.

  “Carrie,” he said. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now. Something important.”

  “What? Is something wrong?”

  He heard the fear in her voice and knew that he should sit down beside her and take her hand. But all he could think about just then was the beer on his breath and how alarmed she’d be if she smelled it.

  “I had a long talk with Pastor Dennis a couple of weeks ago, and, uh, and we came to the decision that I—well, that you and
I need to take a break for a while. Sexually, I mean.”

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “What does that mean, take a break?”

  “You know, take a break. Not have sex for a while.”

  “But we just did. The other night.”

  “That was my fault,” Tim explained. “I’ve been weak. I should’ve told you a long time ago.”

  Her voice turned wary. “Is this some kind of punishment? Did I do something wrong?”

  “This is my problem,” he assured her. “It has nothing to do with you. I was talking to the Pastor about my … spiritual condition, and he said that he didn’t think I should be physically intimate with you until I took care of some issues.”

  She nodded, but her face expressed nothing but bewilderment.

  “What issues?”

  Tim found himself staring intently at the hot pink bottle of Sizzlin’ Strawberry lube on the nightstand. They’d ordered it a few months ago, tried it once without much success, and then promptly forgot about it. He wondered what had possessed her to rescue it from the drawer.

  “About Allison,” he said. “I still have a lot of lustful feelings for her, and they’re interfering with my ability to be a good husband.”

  Even as he said this, it occurred to him that he hadn’t been thinking about Allison anywhere near as much as he used to; in any case, she certainly wasn’t the worst demon he was grappling with at the moment. But the confession was out, and he couldn’t just take it back.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Carrie asked. “You think I don’t see how depressed you get every time you go over there?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t think I ever really stopped loving her.”

  Carrie pondered this for a moment, then shrugged.

  “Fine,” she said. “Whatever. I don’t care.”

  A small laugh escaped from Tim’s mouth.

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious,” she insisted. “You love your ex-wife, and we’re just gonna have to live with that. I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing, right?”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “It’s not really that complicated,” she replied. “It would be a problem if she still loved you, but she doesn’t. She married someone else and had a kid, and you said yourself that she seems pretty happy. So it doesn’t really matter, does it?”