Authors: Tom Winton
Chapter 14
The next day was hell. Forget my four-star hangover - I'd weathered those before - this was much worse than physical trauma. From the moment I opened my bleary eyes that Sunday morning (and vomited in the aluminum trash can alongside the bed), I was overwhelmed by guilt in its darkest form. I suppose that's one of my few commendable traits; I don't carry guilt well. I suffer hard for my misdeeds. Some people can simply write off all their dishonourable behaviour, just dismiss it, forget about it, but not me. I can only handle it for so long, and then I weaken. Once the burden of my deceitfulness becomes too heavy, I can't handle it. I have to shed it. And now, keeping the truth from Theresa, seeing her suffer was beyond torturous. She kept looking at me with such sad, sad eyes. So concerned, she kept asking, "You sure you're OK, Dean? Did I do something wrong? Are you getting tired of me?" Hearing these innocent questions from my best friend, my lover, my soul mate, ate at me like a malignancy. My guilt was only compounded by each of her questions, her pleas, and each one brought me closer to a confession. After just a few days I was on the brink.
By the time Friday lumbered around, I'd admitted to myself the inevitable, that I could no longer handle it, that I couldn't contain this immense burden. I had to tell Theresa everything. It's funny, but just coming to this decision allowed me a small feeling of consolation, like a bit of my black soul had lightened-up again. You know the feeling. You've had it! We all have, albeit some more than others. Coming clean can be damn hard, but be that as it may, as early as the planning stages, just thinking about fessing-up always rejuvenates one's hope in themself.
Anyway, getting back to my story, the small relief I'd enjoyed quickly disappeared when I got home from work Friday. When I came upon the entrance to my building and saw Ma's extra sad face waiting for me in the kitchen window, I knew something was up. Normally she'd be in 'the chair' or on her knees so this had to be something real serious. Two steps later, when I pulled open the heavy steel and glass entrance door, I realized what it must be. Instantly my stomach felt like it had stretched and dropped to my knees, like someone had dropped a ten-pound mushroom anchor in it. Next, before I could even put my key to the lock, Ma opened the door to 1B. She began to sob as she lifted an official looking envelope to me. Inside that envelope was a subway token and a letter that began with the word "Greetings”.
My suspicions had been correct. I had been drafted.
At seven-thirty, I met Theresa under the clock. My plans had been to tell her all the bad news after we took in a flick at the Prospect. But as soon as we started toward the theater, I knew there was no way I could sit through a two-hour movie. We looked at each other in silence as we crossed Main street with a herd of other people. We hung a left and, as we passed in front of Triple Nickel Pizza where you could still get a slice and a Coke for a quarter, a tear rolled down my cheek and I said, "Theresa … we need to talk … "
I remember the smell of cheese and sauce wafting from the parlor's street-front counter when I asked Theresa, "Do ya mind if we go to Jahn's for awhile … before the movie … have coffee or somethin' … We have to talk."
"Of course," she said. "Sure … whatever's bothering you … we can work it out, honey." She, too, was tremendously relieved that this thing was finally coming to a head. But when she smiled up at me from beneath my arm I also saw that apprehension had shoved the brightness from her eyes. Her face lost its glow like the sun does when a dark cloud drifts over it. She too had been frazzled for almost a week, and by now she just had to find out what was wrong.
Two blocks later, when we stepped inside Jahn's Ice Cream Parlor, she tightened her grip on my waist even more, stretched her lips, though they didn't part, and looked at me with as much assurance as her big chocolate eyes could muster. We took a booth at the back of the rustic establishment where a much better Tiffany lamp than the one at Theresa's house provided a subtle glow on a lacquered, mahogany table. The place was almost empty, unlike it used to be after one of our school basketball games or it would be after the movies let out later on. The waitress was upon us almost instantly and she didn't do much to hide her disappointment when all we ordered was coffee. Nevertheless, by the time I pulled out my cigarettes, offered Theresa one, and just lit only one for myself, the waitress was back with two steaming cups. When she left, I took a long hit and prepared to spill my guts. "There's two things I have to tell you, Theresa." With hopes of softening her up, maybe getting a little sympathy on my side, I figured I'd tell her about the lesser of the evils first, that I had been drafted and might get myself killed. I paused, took another hit from my Kool, wearily exhaled the smoke with my words. "The first is that I got my draft notice today. I've gotta go down for my physical next week. I'll be going to Fort Dix in a few weeks … for basic training."
At first she took this news as if she'd expected it, because she did. As much as she'd tried to block it out of her mind, she knew deep down that since I was pushing nineteen, I'd probably be drafted before I could get enough credits to go to school full-time and qualify for a student deferment. We'd both known it was all but inevitable. But her resignation quickly turned to shock just like mine had a couple of hours earlier when I had read the notice for the first time. Now the inside of her eyebrows arched high and the tears I'd expected welled. Mixed with mascara, they fell in dark rivulets down her cheeks.
"Oh shit! Oh no, Dean! Tell me you're kidding. Tell me this is just a bad joke."
I punched out my KOOL, took her hands in mine, and held them on the wooden tabletop. "I wish to hell it was. But it's true. I've gotta' go. It's … " I paused and looked at our hands piled together, and tried to be brave. " … It's just two years. It'll go fast," I lied. I knew this was complete bullshit. We were still at the age when a summer lasted forever. To us, twenty-four months was no different than twenty-four years. Anyway, it wasn't just the time thing that was on our minds. We both knew there was a damn good possibility I might wind up in combat, or worse.
"I'll write every day and call when I can … " I said, trying to force a reassuring smile. It didn't work. It was too much of an effort. I couldn't prevent my face from drooping when I said, "Ahhh shit, Theresa, I don't want to go."
We just sat there for awhile holding hands on the table, saying nothing, just taking in, no, adoring, each other's teary face. Then I glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to hear, sucked in a long breath, let it out real slow and said, "I've gotta' tell you the other thing too, Theresa. But, I want you to know … this isn't gonna be easy for me … matter of fact it's gonna be even harder than what I just told you."
"What? What?" she pleaded, trying to coax the words out of me as fast as possible. "What could possibly be worse than you getting draaaf…?”
It had dawned on her!
Her eyes widened like I'd never seen them. Her jaw fell. She looked at me as if I'd just slid a honed steel blade into her chest and turned the handle. Her face blanched. "Ohhh no! Nooo! Don't tell me, Dean."
"Yeah, Theresa, I did," I said in a defeated tone. "I had sex with another girl … I mean a woman. Last weekend … the night of the bachelor party. But Theresa, honey, I was drun …" She jerked her hands from mine now. Like they were suddenly in a fire, she yanked them away. She dragged them across her eyes, then her cheeks and put them around her neck like she was fighting off a strangler. She froze like that, staring at me, no, through me, seeing who I really was. Shock, disbelief, hurt, and then disdain flashed over her face in that precise order. I saw these emotions evolve in her eyes and in the configurations her lips took on.
In a weary voice, like someone drawing their final breath, angry tears spilling from her eyes, she asked weakly, "Why … Dean … why?"
I almost upended my coffee as I desperately reached my hands across the table, palms up, hoping she would take them. But she didn't. She pulled way back into her seat, putting as much distance as possible between us.
"Theresa, honey, please, I told you … I was drunk. I would never, never in a million years … "
"Never mind, Dean," she snapped. "Save it." Her voice had gone icy, icier than I'd ever heard it. Her tone was more hateful now than it had been to her mother the night she introduced me to her, more than during the misplaced camera episode on our prom night. I knew then there was no turning this mess around.
She jammed her cigarette pack into her purse and she stood to leave. "Don't even tell me why. I don't want to know all the details. I know enough already. Myyy God, after all we've been through together, after all the plans we had … and … everything we shared. The special feelings, I, like a sucker, thought we shared." She paused briefly, sniffled once, then raised her voice and summed it all up, "My friends were right about you, once a run-around always a run-around. You turned out to be some bastard, Dean Cassidy!"
But then, as quickly as she'd shot out of her seat she plopped back into it again.
A glimmer of hope - maybe the worst was over, maybe she'd stay with me, eventually accept and forget the horrible mess I'd made. Well, not really. She'd never forget. But maybe the memory of my despicable infraction of our love and trust would eventually grow dusty and fuzzy, fade with time.
But that wasn't why she sat back down at all. Though my view was obscured by the table top when she lifted her left ankle over her knee and began fumbling with it, I knew exactly what she was doing. She was undoing her ankle bracelet, the one I'd bought for her, the one she'd admired in the jewellery store window the night we met almost a year ago, a symbol she'd worn on her left ankle to let all of Queens know that she had a special guy.
"No, Theresa, please no."
"Sorry Dean … If you only knew how sorry I am that you did this to us," she said, placing the impossibly-delicate, gold chain next to my coffee cup. "Hmph! And to think I believed you were the real thing. You've broken my heart."
Standing up again she noticed that a pair of old ladies, bingo types two booths away, had been eavesdropping. She fixed her eyes back on me and placed her palms on the table top. Leaning toward me, she lowered her voice to a whisper, a cutting whisper that dug deeper into me than if she would have screamed it. "Dean, don't come after me. Don't call me. I-don't-ever-want-to see-you-again!" She pivoted her head back and forth slowly and said, "This is not just talk … I-am-dead-serious!"
Had she screamed those words at me, I might have been able to attribute them to momentary anger, but she looked me square in the eyes and, though there were tears in her own, her tone had been even and deliberate. She meant what she said!
She walked out of Jahn's, and out of my life. I didn't chase after her. I knew her too well. She wouldn't have spoken to me if I had. My breach of her trust was unforgivable. As much as she had loved me, maybe still did, she was too ethical to overlook my loathsome deed. She would never have done such a thing to me and couldn't fathom how I could. I owed it to her to at least let her walk away now, without making it any more difficult.
I called Theresa the next morning, a Sunday, but she hung up on me. The following week I called her every day in the evening, right after work, including Thursday, the day I passed my physical down on Whitehall Street. Soon as I stepped into the apartment, even before saying hello to my mother, and my father if he was there, I'd stop in the foyer and dial her number. I prayed that she'd come around, reconsider. But no, each time Theresa or her mother answered they'd hang up as soon as they heard my voice. I'd call right back but the phone would ring and ring and ring, each ring another unanswered plea for forgiveness.
Chapter 15
That first week without Theresa was hell in its purest form. Every waking hour I dwelled on what a mess I had made of my life. At night I got plenty of rest but little sleep. I went to bed around ten like I always did during the week, but it took hours to escape into sleep. Lying in that open door bedroom, my pillow over my sorry head trying to muffle my father's goddamned TV shows and the steady rhythm of the avenue outside, I wondered what Theresa might be doing. How was she taking it? How bad was she hurting? I had premonitions of how horrible it would be in a steamy-hot jungle full of enemies, snipers obscured in trees, lining me up in the sights of their rifles. Tried to imagine the smell of death but couldn't. Would Theresa and I ever get back together again? Would I come back in one piece, minus a piece, or in a body bag? Surely Theresa would have another guy by that time even if I did make it home safely. Jesus, I'd fucked up! If only I could relive that night.