Chapter 2 – Chapter 2

Chapter Two

I am a member of the lucky sperm club in more ways than one. Genetically, I was fortunate to be a 6'4" mesomorph, long and languid like my then crush, golfer Dustin Johnson. My auburn hair was curly, and I wore it long and loose. My eyebrows and eyelashes were thick and dark, darker than my hair and much darker than my light green eyes. My nose was long and narrow, and my lips were thin, but a bright red that was redolent of lipstick.

My shoulders were wide, my arms, chest, and legs were naturally muscled and lightly covered with very straight hair that, like my eyebrows, was much darker than the hair on my head. I had to fight to keep weight on, but had to do little to keep my muscles toned. It was a good thing, as I hated working out with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Smiles do not come easily to my face. Jess told me I tended to look "put out," even when I wasn't. I told her I was a natural counter to her constant sunniness.

Even when I smile, it's not broad. I've always been self-conscious about smiling big. One, it makes me feel like a fool. Two, I have never liked my teeth, as they have always seemed too big for my lips, especially my canines. When I bare them, I feel like a dog or a vampire. When I smile, I tend to keep my mouth closed.

Financially, I was even more fortunate. I had grown up in St. Charles County, west of St. Louis. When St. Louis desegregated its schools, St. Charles County became the fastest-growing county west of the Mississippi. The desegregation plan stopped at the Missouri River, and everyone from St. Louis County who could not afford private schools moved west of the River to St. Charles County.

My grandfather had gone in with two partners to buy the first McDonald's in St. Charles, on Fifth Street. As St. Charles County grew, my grandfather and his business partners had a right of first refusal on any additional McDonald's within a certain radius of the original. They never refused, and he owned all or part of a dozen restaurants at one point, back when McDonald's was thriving and there was no "Fast Food Nation" or judgment associated with eating a burger and fries.

My grandfather believed in working hard and owning land. With his restaurant profits, he bought as much of St. Charles County as he could. An eighth grade dropout, he was prescient. As St. Louisans moved west, he sub-divided holding after holding, using the money he made to buy the next ring of land he could. For twenty years, it was a continuous cycle. By the time he died in 2003, his son — my father — was the Administrator of a trust that would provide approximately $5 million each to me and my brothers when it vested. Until then, my brothers and I received equal shares of the nearly $1 million it generated in income.

Jess and I had also over-insured ourselves. When she was younger, her uncle had died very young in a home fire from smoke inhalation, leaving behind her aunt and two toddler cousins. They had been under-insured, so her stay-at-home aunt was fretting about money almost immediately and as she tried to grieve her husband and comfort her children. As soon as she could, she went to work. She had to.They were always behind and without. Their plight had scarred Jess.

When we married, Jess was insistent that neither of us should ever experience that "insult to injury." We purchased $5 million term life insurance policies for each of us. I thought it was a waste of money, as we were 25 years old and extremely unlikely ever to invoke either policy before they expired 20 years later. The insurance company agreed, charging us little annually for the slight risk that tragedy would strike either of a perfectly healthy pair.

But, strike it did. And, the $5 million I received from New York Life — especially when coupled with the income from my grandfather's trust and the promise of the principal sooner than later — meant I had not actively worked for the past year or so.

I had tried to work for awhile after Jess died, both for something to do and because I had, for six months or so, totally spaced the existence of the insurance policy. In fact, I had remembered it only when I received a notice that our annual premiums were due, at which point I collected on Jess's policy and cancelled mine.

My heart and mind were not in the work. I could not bring myself to care about that which I no longer cared about. And, I was distracted by my guilt and by the return of my internal strife. A decision or struggle I thought had been resolved now re-presented itself, and I had no idea what to do.

I took a leave of absence and then resigned on my 29th birthday. Since, I had spent my 30th year pretty isolated and in my own thoughts.

In a failed search for peace, I went to a yoga class four mornings per week and to a meditation class two mornings per week. Whether as penance or to feel closer to Jess, I ran her route every day. I prayed the Rosary as I ran, hoping that increased piety would aid me in making sense of her death and in making sense of my life. When I passed the spot at which she had died, I crossed myself and asked Mother Mary to intercede on her behalf.

Not long after Jess died, I had returned to church. For something to do, I drove into Kansas City for mass at Our Lady of Sorrows every weekday at noon. On Sundays, I attended the 8 a.m. mass at my parish. Some Sundays, I left when it was finished and went about my business. Other Sundays, I stayed through the 9:30 a.m. version and, if I was particularly bereft or lost, the 11 a.m. version as well.

My widower status was well-known in the parish and believed by all to be the source of my angst and the reason for my presence. It was, but only in part. The bulk of my angst resulted from trying to reconcile being created in His image and being fixated on his image, regardless of who "he" was at the time. For the past month or so, "he" had been Alex, a un-married man (at least according to the absence of a ring on his left hand) who was at every yoga class I attended.

Alex was shorter than I, but most men were. I suspected he was an accountant or a lawyer or some other professional. He wore his black hair parted on the side and very neat. His face was always clean shaven. Even in his t-shirt and sweats, he looked tidy. And ripped. I suspected Alex put nothing in his body that tasted good. He could not have had more than 5 or so percent of body fat. His muscles were long and sinewy. His waist was narrow. He was as flexible as a gymnast. He seemed to view the class as a competition, always holding the pose long after the instructor released us to move to another.

I stared at the back of him through most classes. I tried daily to bump into him on the way in or out, hoping we'd make eye contact, he'd introduce himself, and we'd engage in small talk. He never did. He barely noticed me or anyone else. I learned his name only from the instructor complimenting his flexibility and focus.

I was disappointed when Alex stopped coming to class. I was also worried. I feared he had noticed my attention and stopped attending out of discomfort.

Even when lusting after Alex, I actively contemplated the priesthood. I was alone, and expected to stay that way. I'd never find another Jess, and I didn't believe it was fair to even try.

I also accepted the Church's position on homosexuality. If I was gay — or even gayish — then I had to be celibate. If I had to be celibate, then why not be celibate in the priesthood and try to make something out of it other than self-deprivation.

My parish priest — Father Tim — talked me out of it. He told me that, if I was called to the priesthood, then I'd feel a pull toward it, not a push away from something else. He assured me I should not choose it as a palatable alternative to what I either could not or would not accept.

Even if I accepted what I could or would not, he was unwavering in his insistence I remain celibate. Although only slightly older than I, he was a Ratzinger Recruit, joining the seminary and the priesthood after Cardinal Ratzinger's reactionary election to the Papacy. Like almost all Ratzinger Recruits, he was doggedly devoted to traditional Catholic doctrine. He insisted sexual relations were only to be between a man and a woman and only within the confines of a Catholic marriage.

He also insisted the attraction I felt toward men was a psychological feint to lessen the pain of my wife's death. In his words, I was deluding myself to ensure I never again experienced the pain I experienced when I learned they had found Jess's body.

I knew he was wrong, but I didn't argue. Talking to Father Tim was like talking to an aircraft carrier. He was unpersuadable. He was certain in his certitude.

I also believed Father Tim did not believe what he claimed to believe. His attention to me and his effeminate gestures and voice betrayed that he had done what I was contemplating doing. He had chosen the priesthood as a place to hide and then deluded himself into thinking he had not. I always suspected the most ardently anti-gay boys at Denison were the ones giving head in the woods behind the Rec Center. I also suspected the most ardently anti-gay priests were the ones who had gay sexed their way through seminary and into the priesthood.

Advertently or inadvertently, Father Tim did me a solid. He forced me not to make the same mistake he had.

He did not, however, enhance my relationship to God. As a Ratzinger Recruit, he lacked the compassion and empathy I expected in a priest. He was very good at identifying rules and at insisting upon blind adherence to them. But, he was not very good at explaining how that adherence would lead me to a closer relationship with Christ or to being more Christ-like in my relations with others. The rules were the rules, whether they were tethered to grace and mercy or not.

In fact, the Church's insistence on rules pushed me the opposite direction. As I sat through Mass after Mass, I learned much more about what the Church was against than what it was for, I heard far more denunciations than I heard proclamations, and I saw many more pushed from the table than welcomed to it. I slowly became appalled. Where mercy was needed, judgment was delivered.

Two specific experiences completed the rupture. The first occurred over the Winter before my thirtieth birthday. A homeless man had started attending the noon weekday mass at Our Lady of Sorrows, almost certainly as a means to get warm. After about a week, the elderly usher was clearly annoyed by the man's daily return and started hassling him about his appearance and urging him to leave. When the homeless man stopped appearing, the usher was obviously self-satisfied. I felt Christ shudder at the usher's merciless act, and I denounced him for it. I told him the homeless man was not harming anyone by attending mass, but his merciless act of expulsion may have deprived that man from encountering the Holy Spirit through the only means available to him. The usher was nonplussed by my denunciation, responding only that the man could have joined the Church, if he had wanted. The usher seemed to me to be the opposite of what we were called to be.

The second was just as offensive. One of the teachers at my parish's grade school misplaced trust and confided in one of her peers that, when she was 15, she had gotten pregnant and had an abortion. The busybody peer reported the affront to the Pastor, who reported it to the Bishop.

The Bishop fired the teacher. The Church didn't care that the teacher was 60 years old, had taught at the school for 20 years and in Catholic schools for 35 years, and was a devout Catholic and zealously pro-Life, with part of her zealotry inspired by her adolescent experience with abortion.

When parishioners protested the heartless act, the Bishop shouted them down, eschewing forgiveness and insisting the teacher needed to be held accountable for her sin. An abortion, even one from 45 years before, meant she was not fit to teach Catholic children, no matter what penance she had endured and served in the meantime.

I left the Church. I could not be part of any institution so merciless and heartless. I also could not believe an institution with so many planks in its own eyes could be so fixated on the specks of dust in the eyes of others. The Church had, among other things, unrepentantly harbored pederast priests, exposing generation after generation of children to the most base, rank violations of their dignity and innocence. Yet, here it was, ignoring the simple message of Christ ("whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers, that you do unto me") and expelling the homeless and holding a woman who had devoted her life to teaching Catholic children — at far less than she'd have earned in a public school — accountable for a teenaged mistake to which she had confessed and for which she had sought — but had apparently not received — forgiveness. A merciless institution deserves no mercy, and I had none to give the corrup, hypocritical church in which I had grown up and had once loved.

I still prayed the Rosary when I ran. I still begged and pleaded with Mother Mary to intercede on Jess's behalf. I still begged St. Michael, the Archangel, to defend me in battle and to be my protection against the wickedness and the snares of the Devil.

But, the men who ran the Church were, to me, heartless, power-hungry who had betrayed humility and who had bastardized the teachings of Christ and turned the Church into yet another tool of oppression. I did not need or want to be a part of that. The world was a cruel enough place without "men of God" perpetuating the cruelty.

The rupture was permanent. I knew the Church was too arrogant and too ignorant to change. It reminded me of that which is true: The enlightened are too uncertain, and the ignorant are too certain.

*****

I was thinking of Luke, not the Church, as I showered before bed. In my mind, it was Luke's hand, not my own, running through the hair on my chest and stomach as I soaped myself clean. It was also Luke's hand, not my own, that was responsible for the mess I made all over the shower wall.

I dried off and headed to bed. I always slept nude. I used to joke to Jess that I was going to be ready if and when she ever went tap tap tap in the night.

She had more than I expected. Unlike many of my married friends, I had no complaints in that department. Jess had loved me, and she loved me inside of her, her mouth to mine, her hands on my backside trying to force me to give more than I had to give, and her wetness signaling I could take all that I needed or wanted. She had not used sex as a bargaining chip or as a reward or weapon. If she was horny, I was accommodating. If I was horny, she was accommodating. If we were both horny, well, then we were in for a long night.

I also always slept with the bedroom door closed and locked. Jess had insisted on it for safety, and I had continued the habit once she died.

I continued a lot of habits. With her gone, I didn't need a suburban house, as schools were no longer a reason to live south of the city, where the cookie cutter prevailed. But, I couldn't leave the last place she had lived. In fact, I couldn't move anything she had touched. Everything was where she'd left it. Two years on, I could still smell her in her clothes, all of which still hung (or lay wrinkled) in her closet. Sometimes, I'd kneel in there and move my face from garment to garment, imagining she was still there. Other times, I'd sleep on the floor, surrounded by her discards.

It had taken me forever to change the sheets on our bed. I did not want to wash her out of them. When the smell of me and sleep overwhelmed the last smell of her, I finally gave in and stripped the bed. I still did not wash the sheets. I folded them, put them in her closet, and bought a new set.

I deviated from all of my habits that night. I unlocked and opened the bedroom door. I did not in a million years imagine Luke would join me in the night, but he was not going to find a barricade if he did.

But, he would find a shield. For some reason, I slipped into boxer briefs.

I laughed at my schizoid behavior. The door was open, but I was clothed. Some time between seeing Luke's giddy smile at Gate E5 and watching him undress in my spare bedroom, I had lost my mind.

My obsessiveness kept me awake. After two hours of tossing and turning, I got up, stepped out of the briefs, and closed and locked the door. Relieved, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I awoke with a start. As I often did, I dreamed of Jess, although I could not remember the details of the dream. I was fortunate not to. They were almost never good. Invariably, she'd be in peril, far enough away that I could not help her, pleading with me to save her.

Even in sleep, I was tormented by the thought her lying in that ditch, slowly dying, her pelvis shattered so she could not move, her mind begging for, hoping for, pleading for salvation, in whatever form it would come. I wondered if she struggled against it, if she saw the light and tried not to walk into it. I wondered if she knew the end was near. I wondered if she died in pain, relieved at the warmth of peace as it washed over her.

I had hoped the autopsy would confirm she died instantly or that the force of the impact had rendered her unconscious. It did not. She died from internal bleeding. She may or may not have been aware. She may or may not have felt life slipping away. She may or may not have known the end was nigh, the softness of the ditch betraying the hardness of the reality imminent death presented.

My eyes wet, I dressed, slipped on my running shoes, and took to her route. I prayed the Rosary and wondered what she'd have been thinking in those final moments, if and when she knew no one was coming. I hoped peace had washed over her. I feared all she felt was fear and panic. With each step I took, fear and panic gripped me. It rushed into my brain like adrenaline, like it wanted me to know what she had known, when what she knew was evanescent.

Luke was still asleep when I returned from my run, my thoughts more troubled than they had been when I started. At times, running cleared my head. At other times — like that day — the pounding of the blood in my arteries and veins was matched only by my pounding thoughts.

I was soaked with sweat as I opened to the door to the spare bedroom to check on my guest. He was splayed on his stomach. The sheet was to his waist, and his left leg was sticking out and hanging off the side of the bed. I had failed to close the blinds, and the room was bright. He had adjusted by burying his head under a pillow and holding it down with his arms.

I stood beside the bed. Luke's back was lightly muscled and heavily moled. I reached my hand toward him, wanting to connect the dots with my right forefinger. I stopped myself before I touched him.

I looked at his left calf and foot. Like his back, his calf was lightly muscled and heavily moled. His left foot was large, probably a twelve or so and out of place on his smallish frame. The arch was high. I imagined he had spent his childhood barefooted and outside.

I left the room while I still could. I made coffee and took it on the screened porch with my iPad. I was reading the New York Times when I heard "Sir" after "Sir" from inside the house.

Luke was in the kitchen in his threadbare jeans and his Hollister shirt, staring at the pictures of me and Jess that littered our refrigerator. "Sorry," he said, turning around. "But I couldn't find you." The grin was back.

"I was on the porch. Would you like coffee?"

"Yes, please, black. . . . Your wife was very beautiful."

"Yes, she was."

"You two look very happy together."

"We were. You couldn't help but be happy with Jess. She was contagious."

"Did she call you Jammer?"

"No, to her I was always Jimmy. She's the only one who was allowed to call me that."

"Jimmy suits you a lot better than Jammer. You look like a Jimmy."

"I don't think so. I think I look like a James. Jimmy seems younger and more playful than I've ever been."

He stared at me, still grinning, like he was studying me. I felt bare, turned away, poured him a cup of coffee, and led him to the porch. As he drank and stared at his phone, I watched him over my iPad. His hair had partied while he slept, the top of his head now a jangled mess. His protruding ears were even more endearing than when they were topped by a hat.

He looked up and caught me watching him. I could have pretended I was not doing what I was doing, but it was plain I was. So, I continued to stare. Luke raised one eyebrow at me, a move Jess had used thousands of times to question me wordlessly. I smiled at the memory, which Luke seemed to mis-take as a smile at him.

"What do you want, Sir?"

"Oh, nothing, Luke. My wife used to raise an eyebrow at me like that. I was smiling at the happy memory of it."

"Why were you watching at me, Sir?"

"I was trying to figure this situation out," I pretended. "It really doesn't make sense to me. Have you heard from your family?"

"Not yet, Sir."

"So, how is it that you were so excited to see them and they seem almost equally unexcited to see you?"

"It's a long story."

"It's early, and the coffee pot is full."

Luke unlocked. Over the next hour, he told me a little of the story of Luke Rydell, including that he had kept a shoebox of letters under his bed, the shoebox included letters from "someone" he had met online when he was sixteen years old, the letters were more graphic than they should have been, his mother had found and read them, and his parents had then sent him to live with relatives in White Plains, Missouri, "to heal." If you don't know, White Plains is fundamentalist and in the buckle of the Bible Belt. In some White Plains churches, they still use serpents. In all White Plains churches, they take the Bible literally and condemn those who don't.

During his year in White Plains, Luke had no computer or phone, was allowed out of the house only with an escort, had a monitored weekly call with his parents, and met daily with a Preacher who performed exorcism after exorcism to force out any demon that resided within. He was browbeaten and bullied, returned to Belton for his delayed Senior year of high school, and then forced to join the Army to become a "real" man.

He told the story with no emotion and less regret. To him, it was what it was.

"Do you think they're avoiding you?" I asked.

"I ain't sure, Sir. My last two years were tough on them. My mom and dad looked at me like I was from outter space. I ain't heard much from them since I left. I thought doin' what they wanted me to do would make it all better, but . . . ." His voice trailed off. I don't think he wanted to say out loud what he would have to say to finish that sentence.

I suspected the "someone" was not a woman. If it had been, he'd have said so. He had made a confession without confessing.

I tried to use words in place of actions. "I'm sorry, Luke," I said, contrasting his parents in my head with mine. "I guess sometimes those who are supposed to love us the most also hurt us the most."

"I ain't hurt," he insisted. "I just wish it was't what it is. It's wasn't nothin' to me, but it's still somethin' to them. A big somethin'."

I felt the need to match his honesty with some of my own. I told him the long story of Jess, how we met, how we married, how I learned she was missing, and how I learned she was found. He listened like a solider, silently and rapt.

When I was finished, Luke put a point on it all. "Sir, I ain't the sharpest knife in the drawer. But, it seems to me you were luckier to find her than you were unlucky to lose her."

His pithy summary brought a bigger smile to my face than I was used to. I had been trying to embrace his view, that I should be grateful for what I had than I was sad at what I lost. But, it was harder than the words made it seem.

"You're sharper than you think you are, Luke."

"That's mighty nice of you to say, Sir. But, I ain't never been any good at school."

A thought struck me. "Why is the tattoo on your chest backward or upside down or both?"

"It's backward. So I can read it in the mirror."

"What does it say?"

"'Saved by grace, alive in Faith.' I got it the year I was down south. It was one of the first things they had me do. It's to remind me how lucky I am to have been saved, of who I am, and who I'm to be. Anytime I am tempted, I just gotta look in the mirror to be reminded of the path I'm to take."

I didn't know whether to cry or laugh. I could not believe this dear, sweet boy had been permanently marked through the bigotry of others, forced to bear a scarlet verse simply because he wrote letters to another boy or to a man, somewhere.

"What's the one on the back of your arm?"

"This one," he asked, raising his left arm and revealing his lightly haired armpit. "It's Latin. 'Ego sum a milite.' It means 'I am a soldier.' I just got it a few weeks ago. All of us did. I love it."

"Me, too."