American Masculine (23 page)

Opening the door and stepping over her, he left the bathroom for one hour and bought a ten-foot coil of rope from True Value Hardware in the U District. As he reentered the house he hid the purchase under his polo dress shirt and returned to the bathroom and closed and locked the door again. He felt capable of nothing. The rope was half-inch nylon boating rope, smooth and flexible. He didn’t acknowledge Sarah anymore, or her pleas. She’d made a bed for herself and Tamar and he heard them breathing, the sounds subtle as soft harmonies. They didn’t need him. They needed each other. He’d have the water running hard a good while before he did it. Past midnight he heard a loud knock on the door. Please, his wife said, talk to Tommy. Tommy Vigil was a youth pastor in Dallas, Texas. Sean and Tommy had taken the first two summers of Crusade courses together. Miles away, Sean thought. He cracked the door; he didn’t look at Sarah. She placed the phone in on the bathroom floor. He pulled the door shut. On the other side she was seated cross-legged, listening. The child slept in her arms. She prayed.

The first sentence Tommy spoke was, “You’re having sex with prostitutes again, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Sean said, and his chin quivered.

He opened the door and sat down next to Sarah and the child. His tongue felt thick. He handed her the phone. “Sean has something to tell you,” Tommy said. She put the receiver faceup on the carpet between them. Crying, he told her everything.

This time they went further, taking six years to gain back what they’d lost. Him working odd jobs, carpentry, road work, sand and gravel. Inpatient. Outpatient. Six years of counseling, mentoring, sponsors, recovery, self-reflection, vulnerability, responsibility; seeking to be pure, hoping to be. In year seven there was a public laying on of hands when he was reinstated as worship leader at the University of Washington. Same Crusade director, new flights of students, Sean was afraid and praying for courage. At night in his study working out the chord progression to a song called “I Will Sing of Your Love Forever,” he paused, thinking. From the kitchen he overheard his wife on the phone talking to a friend. He’s beautiful, his wife said. He’s beautiful now. And Sean felt beautiful, and believed he might be beautiful forever.

DAILY, JOHN WATCHED men walk through the door and borrow against the future.

Borrowing from unseen places, from family and friends, from loved ones or strangers, they borrowed and were broken. They were broken; they were healed.

Many men fail, John thought, but some succeed.

BY YEAR FOUR in Seattle, Elias Pretty Horse was heading steadily downhill. He hadn’t run for two years. He didn’t sing anymore. And when once in the corner of his closet he found an empty jewel case of his Seattle drum group he decided not to return to work. He gained weight. Called himself pig. Lost his job. He needed to get on his feet. He hocked his dad’s drum mallet, his grandmother’s coin purse. He spent the money on fumes. He lay in bed morning to night for three months, but on a day in December under winter rain and bleak skies he rose from his stupor, stood outside on the balcony of the master bedroom in his townhouse, and called his dad. Elias asked his father if he could borrow some money. His father wired him the necessary amount and they met the next day at the airport in Great Falls.

By early evening Elias was home.

His mother prayed over him, he slept eleven hours, woke at dawn and started running again.

The next day he saw Josefine outside the Boys and Girls Club. He parked his father’s truck and got out and when he approached she walked directly to him, held his hands, and said, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I need to get right,” he said. “I’m all wrong.”

“You’re here,” she said, touching his face. “You’re here now,” and when she brought him close and kissed his forehead he sobbed in her arms.

AT NOON on a bright day in the city, a Saturday, John drove his truck to the modern cathedral in Edmonds. He glanced in the rearview mirror at his dad in the off-white Chevy Monte Carlo, his mom next to his dad on the bench seat, Dad’s arm around Mom.

What we borrow who can repay? John thought.

He entered the wide wood doors of the church on the corner of Olympic and Pearl. He wore his grandfather’s wingtips polished bright black. Next to his heart in the silk-lined pocket of the tuxedo, he kept the ring in its velvet box. He’d be giving it to Samantha’s nephew, receiving it back in front of five hundred witnesses, and placing it on her finger.

Samantha heard him come in. She cracked the dressing room door. He hadn’t seen her. She watched him move across the foyer into the sanctuary. At the head of the aisle he turned and looked back. He faced her directly. He still hadn’t seen her. She loved his face, strong man looking out at the world. The skin was brazen, broken nose, pale eyes.

He turned and walked resolutely down the aisle.

With all his faith he’d say it to her out loud in front of everyone.

Say it with all his tenderness, all his love.

I do, I will.

The stories in this collection appeared in the following magazines: “How We Fall” in
Montana Quarterly
(Spring 2009), nominated for
Best American Short Stories
by editor Megan Ault Regnerus, winner of the
Pacific Northwest Inlander
Award for Fiction, and selected as a notable story in
Best American Nonrequired Reading
(2010); “The Great Divide” in
McSweeney’s
(issue 12, lead story 2003), nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Dave Eggers and Eli Horowitz, nominated for
Best New American Voices
by faculty of the Inland Northwest Center for Writers MFA program at Eastern Washington University, and selected for the best of
McSweeney’s
anthology
The Better of McSweeney’s, vol. 2
(Spring 2010); “Three from Montana” in
Big Sky Journal
(Winter 2005); “Rodin’s
The Hand of God,”
winner of the
Crab Creek Review
Fiction Prize (Summer 2009); “When We Rise” in
Aethlon
(Fall 2005); “Mrs. Secrest” in
Narrative
(Winter 2005); “In the Half-Light” in
Talking River Review
(Winter 2005); “The Dark between Them” in
StoryQuarterly
(issue 41, 2004); “The Way Home” in
South Dakota Review
(Fall 2001); “The Miracles of Vincent van Gogh,” selected by David James Duncan as the winner of the
Ruminate
Short Story Prize (issue 15, Spring 2010), and nominated for a Pushcart Prize by editor Brianna Van Dyke.

To the editors, thank you: Megan Ault Regnerus, Kerry Banazek, Brian Bedard, Michael Bowen, Claire Davis, Carol Edgarian, Nick Ehli, Dave Eggers, Eli Horowitz, Tom Jenks, Brian Kaufman, Amy Lowe, Joanna Manning, Jesse Nathan, Scott Peterson, M. M. M. Hayes, Kelli Russell Agodon, Annette Spaulding-Convy, and Brianna Van Dyke. You ask the great questions of life, and help us find our way.

To those who burn like torches, I give love: to Jennifer, you are my beloved, you are my friend, you are the one my soul loves; to my wife’s father, Fred Crowell, for your joy for life and God; to my dear friend Jonathan Johnson for your devotion to wilderness and truth; to James Welch for
Fools Crow;
to A. B. Guthrie Jr. for
The Big Sky;
to Mary Oliver for
Thirst;
and to Sherman Alexie for
War Dances.
Viktor Frankl said what is to give light must endure burning. Thank you for taking me into the fire.

To those whose quiet power transforms people, I give my heart’s blessing: to my three miracles, Natalya Alexis, Ariana Alexis, and Isabella Alexis for being the defenders of human kind; to my mom and dad, Sandy and Tom Ferch, for the light of forgiveness; to my brother, Kral, for your brotherhood, for basketball, and for rising up and throwing down; to my wife’s mother, Susie Crowell, for your healing presence; to my family’s intellectual and spiritual father, Dr. Bernie Tyrrell, SJ, for continually opening us to the generosity of God—you are strength and peace.

To those whose gifts astound me I give thanks: to my good friend Jess Walter for your kindness and selfless vision; to poet Christopher Howell for
Light’s Ladder;
to Eli Horowitz and Dave Eggers at
McSweeney’s
for believing; to Emily Forland for seeing before it came to be; to Robert Boswell for selecting
American Masculine;
to Michael Collier for the call; to Steve Woodward for your care and discerning eye; and to Fiona McCrae for your devotion to the life of the artist, and for the great honor it has been to be influenced by the Graywolf family.

The Katharine Bakeless Nason Literary Publication Prizes were established in 1995 to expand the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference’s commitment to the support of emerging writers. Endowed by the LZ Francis Foundation, the prizes commemorate Middlebury College patron Katharine Bakeless Nason and launch the publication career of a poet, fiction writer, and a creative nonfiction writer annually. Winning manuscripts are chosen in an open national competition by a distinguished judge in each genre. Winners are published by Graywolf Press.

2010 Judges

Arthur Sze
Poetry

Robert Boswell
Fiction

Jane Brox
Creative Nonfiction

Born and raised in Montana, SHANN RAY spent part of his childhood on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. He holds a PhD in psychology and a dual MFA in poetry and fiction. His work has appeared in
Poetry International, Northwest Review, Narrative,
and the anthology
The Better of McSweeney’s, vol. 2.
He has served as a panelist of the National Endowment of the Humanities and a research psychologist for the Centers for Disease Control. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Spokane, Washington, where he teaches leadership and forgiveness studies at Gonzaga University.

Book design by Connie Kuhnz.
Composition by BookMobile Design and Publishing Services,
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Manufactured by Versa Press on acid-free 30 percent
postconsumer wastepaper.