Authors: Tom Winton
Then all I'd have to worry about was keeping my ass alive.
Of course, lying in bed those long nights, I prayed that Theresa would call. Whenever the phone rang I'd jump out of bed, make a mad dash through the living room into the foyer and snatch it from its cradle. But every time, it was somebody else, usually Dad's lady friend from Saint Leo's or one of the guys. With each call, my hopes died a little more. And each morning when I woke, nothing had changed. Those mornings were rough too. I'd lay there thinking how, had I been faithful, she would have gone with me to Viet Nam. She would have been my strength over there, stood by me forever if I made it back. We would have someday gotten a Cape Cod with a white picket fence, I'd have finished off the attic, we would have had kids, a dog, maybe a collie. But no, I thought, none of that would ever happen. I had trashed all those lovely dreams.
One evening, a week and a half after Theresa walked out of my life, less than two weeks before I was to be inducted, I did get an unexpected phone call. But it wasn't from Theresa. It was from someone I'd never met, a call that would bring me to my knees, literally, alongside my mother, in front of her tea cart altar.
Almost all hope of hearing Theresa's voice gone by then, I picked up the receiver and said, "Hello."
"Hello! May I speak to … er, Mister … Cassidy … " I could tell the guy was reading our name, "Mister Dean Cassidy, please?"
Who the hell is this, I wondered. The man's voice was rigid, wooden and emotionless. Was it the cops? I hadn't done anything illegal lately.
"Yeaahhhh, this is Dean Cassidy."
"Mister Cassidy, my name is Herbert Filmore … "I thought he had a black guy's voice, now I was sure. " … I'm with the Board of Health in Jamaica." He paused, letting that sink in, then went on. "The purpose of this call, Mister Cassidy, is to advise you that someone you've had sexual contact with has been diagnosed as having a venereal disease, and that, in the state of New York, it is mandatory that any person who contracts such a disease provides us with the names of every individual that they have come in sexual contact with."
"Whooah, whooah," I interrupted, the blood pounding in my temples, my voice breaking now. Could this be legit? Goddammit, I can't take anymore. "Is this … is this some kinda joke or somethin'?"
He'd obviously been asked that same question before. His answer poured through the receiver like it had been rehearsed. "I'm afraid not, Mister Cassidy," he said. "This is not a prank call. Somebody has provided us with your name and we need to have you tested."
"Who is it? What's their name?" As if I didn't know.
"We aren't permitted to divulge that information, Mister Cassidy. I'm afraid I can't even tell you the sex of the person."
"Well don't worry about that, I can answer that one, I ain't no homo." By this time, my demeanor was a brew of mad and scared. I was thinking,
Oh man, I can't drag Theresa into this mess
. "I don't have to give you no names, do I?" I asked.
"If you prove negative, no; if positive you would be required to."
"Shhhit," I heaved a deep sigh into the receiver. "Where in Jamaica are you? When can I get this over with?"
First thing the next morning, I took a bus to the Board of Health on 168th street. I thought it ironic that the bus I had always taken to Theresa's, the Q-65, was the same one I was taking now to the opposite end of its route, in Jamaica. During that troubling ride, I envisioned every possible scenario. What if I had contracted syphilis or gonorrhea, or something, and passed it on to Theresa that one last time we had sex, three nights after I'd been with that tramp?
After they drew my blood, Filmore told me it would take three days to get the results. Needless to say, I was scared to death the test would come back positive, and I had lots of time to worry about it. I just couldn't handle this additional burden--not alone--like I had everything else. With nowhere else to turn, I actually told my parents that night. My father said he'd pray for me at church, and I prayed side-by-side with my sick mother by candlelight for four consecutive nights. I did a lot of soul-searching. I thought back to my last confession a year earlier just before I'd met Theresa when, in a dark booth, that priest told me after hearing my sins, "Son, you have been living the life of a pagan."
Maybe I had, but I knew people living much worse existences. And, anyhow, wasn't I just a product of my environment? Freak that priest! That was the last time I ever confessed my sins to any man.
Mom and I prayed and prayed. Totally consumed by my black concerns, not once did I leave the apartment during those days. What would it do to Theresa if the blood test results came back positive? Hadn't I already done enough to her? I swore that if the results came back OK I'd never bother her again. I swore to myself. I swore to Christ. And I kept on praying.
Of course, the day that they were supposed to have the test results, they didn't. Filmore told me, "Sorry. We've been so overburdened, so backlogged, that your results won't be available until tomorrow, after three PM." The horror would have to be prolonged.
The next day I called him at one o'clock, two, and three. Still no results. I made Filmore promise he'd call me the minute he heard. I told him I'd be sitting by the phone, waiting. I had talked to him enough times by now that we had established a relationship of sorts. He was a nice enough guy, all differences considered, but still, this was one relationship I would rather have lived without.
Four, four-thirty, still no call. They closed at five. "This is bullshit," I said aloud, then dialed Filmore's number again.
"Yes, Mister Cassidy, hold on. They just this minute put them on my desk," he said, sounding preoccupied, thumbing through his paper stack of potential VD candidates. "Here you are, DEAN Cassidy!"
"C'mon Herbert, tell me something good." That was the first time I'd called him by his first name. Somehow, this small nicety, this sign of familiarity, made me feel as if I were increasing the odds of a favorable report.
"Just a second …" he said, then started mumbling under his breath, an indiscernible flow of fractured words, just syllables I could get no meaning out of. As I waited, I bit off part of a thumbnail too low. When I peeled it off, a tiny piece of stubborn flesh tore with it. Dark blood rose instantly. I sucked at it, looked at the thumb and watched the blood reappear. I repeated this process a few times.
"Negative, Mister Cassidy! Your results have come back negative."
Thank Christ! Thank you, Jesus!
"You sure, Herbert? I don't want anybody callin' me back saying it was a mistake."
"Your social security number is 094-42-2237, right?"
"Yeah that's it. Look … thanks a lot Mister Filmore … Herbert. Take care."
At last something had turned out well. A few flames of my personal hell had been extinguished. I'd been on such a bum streak I thought it would never turn around. At least now I wouldn't have to drag Theresa into some VD network. You can't imagine how relieved I was. But true to my own form (my emotions always coming in pairs), I suddenly felt foolish as well as relieved. Now that this dilemma turned out OK, I felt ridiculous about all the hours I'd spent on my knees alongside my mentally-damaged mother. Now that the heat was off, I felt a little cracked myself. Now that my spirits had brightened a few watts, the whole four-day ordeal seemed way too melodramatic.
I've never prayed on my knees since. Not once. Matter of fact, it wasn't long after that that I stopped praying altogether.
Chapter 16
The week before my induction, I made two last-ditch attempts to get Theresa back. It had been only two weeks since our breakup so, of course, I hadn't even begun to get over her. Hell, here it is now thirty years later and I'm still damaged. But I was in the beginning stages of accepting my loss. It was like I had, due to my own neglect, lost an arm or a leg and woke each morning to great pain but was growing accustom to that limb not being there. The gash in my heart was still fresh also, but I was learning to live, I mean exist, with that too. But I still cried. In my bed, each morning and every night, I bawled like an abandoned infant. Big tough city kid! RIIIIGHT!
Time was running out. I was leaving for Dix the following Monday. By Thursday I was certifiably crazy. I couldn't take it anymore. I had to see her. The desperation festering inside me came to a head and burst, bringing me to a state of unrestrainable recklessness. All this time I had abided by Theresa's wishes, I'd left her alone. But by now I had to talk to her, no matter what.
By the time I got off the bus at the Point, I thought I'd surely implode from all the anxiety raging beneath my skin. I quickened my pace. Tramping up Broadway, my heels pounding the cement so hard I could feel the shockwaves traversing my spine, fragments of desperate thoughts raced through my head, none of them staying long enough to make any sense. Running on pure adrenaline now, not having an inkling as to what I would say to Theresa, or rather how I would say it, I did notice something. Changes. Everything that had been so familiar now seemed very different. Bogart's Bar looked seedier and more hostile. The streets were narrower. The clear winter sky didn't seem as blue and it no longer held promise. The snow that had fallen white a few days before was now depressing old city-snow, brown hard ice-piles lying like miniature mountain ranges alongside storefronts where it had been shoveled aside days before. Hoofing along, my hands clenched tight in the front pockets of my Levi's, I felt like I no longer belonged in College Point, like I was an intruder in a foreign country or an unwanted guest at a party.
When I reached the bookstore, I stood outside with my back to it. God, I thought, I hope Theresa's alone in there. I drew a long cold breath, held it a moment, then spewed a misty stream from my nostrils. Here goes. This is it! I spun around and peered into the glass. Theresa wasn't there! Some other girl was, a girl I'd never seen before stood behind the counter. Theresa always worked weekday afternoons, two to six, since she graduated from Saint Agnes's. Could she have quit? No. That wouldn't be like her. Since she'd been moved around so many times she'd developed this strong sense of stick-with-it-ness. She wouldn't just quit. Her job here had enabled her to save enough tuition money to take a few classes at Saint John's University. She'd planned all along to continue working there.
"DAMMM!" I said, stomping a Converse All-Star on the sidewalk. A passing couple, two little moribunds, arm-in-arm, hunched within their somber black coats, gave me a short, skittish peek then sped up a little. It had been one of those deals where you build yourself up to face some monumental hurdle, put yourself through holy hell preparing for it, and then it's got to be postponed. Talk about a bummer! Totally discombobulated now, completely out of options, I went straight to Theresa's house.
When Mrs. Wayman answered the doorbell, she soon negated whatever hopes I'd had, no matter how remote, that Theresa and I might get back together again. The stench of cheap-ass whiskey on her breath, she wedged herself between the door and the jamb and started reaming me out. She told me I had some ass coming around after what I had done to her daughter. Suddenly she'd become such a concerned mother. Toward the end of her verbal assault, yelling for the whole neighborhood to hear that I'd better quit calling on the phone too, after scaring off a flock of sparrows, she suddenly shut off, mid-spiel, as if someone had lifted a hi-fi arm from a loud, grating record. She smeared a nasty, contented smirk across her mush and with great satisfaction, and bared teeth, snarled, "On second thought, go on, knock yourself out. Call all you want!" She extended her neck now, high as she could, and began bouncing her head from side to side cockily. Continuing to have a jolly good time devastating me she said, "It don't matter, `cause next week, this time, the phone'll be disconnected."
Then she lurched backwards into the hall and with both hands heaved the door closed, right in my face. As I back-stepped from the stinko, whiskey-breeze she and the slammed door had created, I realized what was happening. When she had stepped from the door in order to shove it in my face, I got a glimpse inside the hallway. Stacks of cartons lined the walls - at least the one I could see - big empty cardboard boxes like egg boxes and Charmin boxes. Theresa and her mother were preparing to leave. Taking off again, for God knows where this time.