Tumbleweeds (23 page)

I
n his room, John heard the television come on, his father’s first order of business when he entered the house, followed by the thump of his boots hitting the floor beside his La-Z-Boy, the second indicator he was home. Next came the solid thud of his socked feet to the kitchen for a beer—to which he felt entitled after his sobriety during football season—and then the pad back to his chair, where he settled with an audible sigh of contentment.

“John! You in your room?” he called loudly.

“Same!” John yelled back.

“You getting packed?”

“Same!”

“Come out here when you’re through. I’ve got a surprise for you!”

It was the way they’d always communicated—hollering through walls, from different rooms. John had yet to inform his father that, rather than to the University of Miami in Coral Gables, he’d be leaving for Loyola University in New Orleans in the morning.

He’d already made the rounds to say good-bye. He’d gone first to see Bebe Baldwin at her father’s gas station, where she was manning the cash register for the summer before she and Cissie Jane Fielding left for the University of Texas in the fall. Bebe was behind the counter
when he walked in, her face lighting up at his unexpected visit. He felt the usual twinge that he was unable to return her feelings. Now he had an excuse. Her face dimmed when he told her the news.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“But I am, Bebe.”

“But you’re too… virile, too sexy, too
gorgeous
to be a priest!”

He’d grinned. “Being a priest doesn’t make a guy less those things, Bebe.”

“But it’s such a
waste
! You’ll never be able to beat the girls away from you.”

“I guess I have to find that out.”

She’d sighed. “Well, thanks for the memories, John. If you change your mind and want to make more of them, give me a call.”

Next, he’d driven to Aunt Mabel’s house, an empty and echoing place without Trey, then on for a final visit with Miss Emma at the library, and finally to see Cathy at her grandmother’s. Cathy had stood at the front door with tears in her eyes when he’d left and Rufus had followed on his heels to his pickup, jumping on him before he could get in, his whine begging John to stay. His throat had closed as he’d knelt to bury his face in the collie’s ruff.
Take care of them for me, Rufus.

“Have you heard from Trey?” Aunt Mabel had asked.

“No, ma’am,” he’d said, noticing the brownish circles beneath her eyes, symptoms of worry and shame. “He’s probably not had time to answer my letter.”

“Sweet liar,” she’d said, and patted his cheek.

He’d answered the same to Miss Emma’s similar question and noted the deeper crevices in her lined face. “I just don’t understand it,” she’d said.

Cathy had not mentioned him. She’d said in French, “Dieu être avec vous, mon ami.”
(God be with you, my friend.)

And he had answered, “Et avec vous aussi, mon cher amie.”
(And you as well, my dear friend.)

He’d telephoned Coach Turner to inform him where he was headed. His change in plans had not had time to get around town. Coach would be surprised and saddened but not shocked. He had been aware of John’s deeper involvement with St. Matthew’s the past year, and he would figure that Trey’s desertion of Cathy had been the deal breaker that had led his All-State wide receiver—“our moral compass” as Coach had described him in the
Dallas Morning News
—to follow his heart, not Trey’s rear end to keep him out of trouble.

But John had not expected Coach Turner’s vehemence. “He’s a piece of work, that boy,” he’d said, surprising John by the personal bitterness in his tone. “You’re better off without that Judas.”

Now the only person remaining on John’s farewell list was the man who, for real or imagined, called him his son. Already John found himself wondering if he could ever completely think like a Jesuit and embrace the sanctity of all human beings as children of God, no matter their embarrassment to their Maker, but he would try. Bebe had asked, “When did you slip away from us, John, and none of us saw?”

He could have said it started the November evening he’d gone to St. Matthew’s to beg God’s forgiveness for his act of that afternoon. He had lit a candle and knelt before the altar and prayed. A lot of afternoons after football practice in the following weeks, he’d driven back to St. Matthew’s without telling Trey. By then his onetime constant companion was with Cathy for the rest of the day. But Trey had guessed. “Say one for me, too, when you’re at St. Matthew’s, will you, Tiger?”

Father Richard had noticed his comings and goings and sat down beside him on the pew one afternoon before the state play-off game.

“Are you praying to win the game?”

The thought had never occurred to him, but rather than offer another explanation, he had remained silent.

Father Richard had given him an understanding smile. “There’s nothing wrong with asking for direction around and through the obstacles that would prevent us from reaching our goals.”

Father Richard had been speaking of John’s opponents, but he had taken the larger meaning and had begun to pray for a direction in his life that would allow him to atone for what he had done and bring him peace. He began to feel a pull toward the priesthood and the Order of the Society of Jesus, in particular—the Jesuits—but he had read enough of the formation steps to ordination to realize that he might not be cut out for the ministry. At Loyola, he planned to get his bachelor’s degree in business and go through the candidacy program that was designed to help the candidate decide if he wanted to become a Jesuit. Acceptance into the program carried no obligation, and he could withdraw from it at any time.

His last bag packed, John walked to the door of the living room and stopped short. His father was sitting in his easy chair wearing a green and orange and white baseball cap with M
IAMI
H
URRICANES
stitched across the crown. A huge grin spread across his face. “I’ve got one for you, too,” he said. “It’s in that box on the table. I ordered two. I figured we could wear ’em when I take you out for a little celebration supper tonight.”

“Dad…” He hadn’t called Bert that since he was eight years old. “I have something to tell you. Maybe you’d better turn off the TV.”

“Well, sure, Son.” Bert hurriedly clicked off the remote, John wincing from shame at his father’s eagerness for the chance to chat with him. He withdrew his socked feet from the ottoman and pushed it toward John. “Have a seat and tell your old dad what’s on your mind. But first, are you all gassed up to get off to Coral Gables in the morning? It’s a long stretch between filling stations until you get out of the Panhandle.”

“I’m all gassed up, but I’m not going to Coral Gables, Dad. I’m driving to New Orleans.”

Bert blinked. “New Orleans? But aren’t you supposed to be at Miami for fall practice two days from now?”

“I was, but I’m not going to Miami. I’m enrolling at Loyola University in New Orleans.”

“What?” Bert’s eyes bulged. He wriggled to a straighter position in his chair. “To hell you are! You’re going to Miami, where you have a scholarship, and play football!”

“I’ve turned down the scholarship. I’m going to Loyola to consider preparing for the priesthood.”

Bert gaped at him like a landed fish. Furiously he pushed himself up from his chair and glared down at John. “It’s that goddamned fuckin’ Father Richard that’s done this to you, hasn’t he?”

“He has nothing to do with this.”

Bert punched the air with his fist. “He has
everything
to do with this. Johnny, listen to me—” Bert sat down again and drew toward John. “Do you realize what you’re giving up: the chance to be one of the greatest receivers in college football, to go to the NFL, to make tons of money, to live the kind of life that most of us can only dream about—”

“Yes, Pop, I know,” John said, getting up from the ottoman, “but I don’t want that anymore. I need something else. I’m going to Loyola.”

Bert looked up at him, his lip curling contemptuously. “To live without sex the rest of your life? What’s wrong with you?”

“Lots. That’s why I’m considering the priesthood. The first step to becoming a Jesuit is to know you are a sinner.”

“Oh, hogwash! Johnny—” Bert’s face twisted from his effort to get through to John. “You’re a good boy, the best I know. You don’t need no ‘freshening up.’ You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to make yourself better.”

“I wouldn’t do it for that reason. I’d do it to make other people’s lives better.”

Bert scowled at him, disgust and disappointment molding the look
he’d wear when he thought of him from now on, John suspected. “I don’t suppose we’re going out for that celebration supper,” he said.

“Hell, no!” Bert sailed the baseball cap across the room. “I’m going to get drunk.”

John spent the rest of the evening with Father Richard in his study going over details for his admission into Loyola University.

I
’ll sell the house,” her grandmother declared. “The money from Buddy’s insurance policy will give you more than enough to see you through until the baby comes, and by then the house will have sold and you’ll have another grant. I’ll move to Miami to look after the baby while you go to school. I have to retire at the end of the year anyway….” They were huddled around the kitchen table a few days before Cathy was to be at the University of Miami to register, their anxiety hanging in the air like smog. “Cathy, honey, there is no other solution—”

Cathy put up her hands to end the argument. “No,” she said. “I’m not going to allow you to sell your house and move from your friends and the town you’ve known all your life because of my dumb mistake—make that
two
dumb mistakes.”

The first was getting pregnant. The second had to do with her decision at the beginning of the year to accept the full four-year scholarship awarded her through the First Baptist Church. Upon its acceptance, the recipient had to forfeit all other scholarships with the exception of the National Merit Scholarship, which, while prestigious, would cover only a fraction of her college costs. As a result, Cathy had relinquished several she’d been offered that would have made a
considerable difference in the financial dilemma she now faced. Because of a morals clause, the full scholarship from the church she’d attended since she was eleven years old had been rescinded.

It had been the hardest decision she’d ever made to report her condition to her pastor. She’d weighed the pros of waiting to disclose her unmarried state until she was at Miami and her pregnancy became obvious (there was always the chance that Trey would come around once they were on campus together), but if he didn’t, she’d be in a deep financial pickle and forced to come home if the church yanked her scholarship in the middle of the first term.

The minister had bestowed a word of warning after he’d asked if her predicament was generally known. When she’d told him no, he said, “I’m afraid that once I inform the board of deacons of the change in your… er, status, news of… your situation will come out, Cathy. People talk, you know, no matter that they’re charged to silence. The board meets the middle of September. You have a few weeks’ grace period before it does.”

In her panic, every bit as mind numbing as Cathy’s, her grandmother had overlooked several obstacles to her resolution of the crisis—one that Cathy had even thought of herself until she realized that selling the house offered no salvation even if she’d been selfish enough to agree to it. The house needed costly, unaffordable repairs before it could go on the market, and with its limited appeal and lack of house buyers in Kersey it could sit for a year, probably longer, before it sold—if ever. Her grandmother’s old Ford was on its last wheels and would soon have to be replaced. There would also be medical bills to pay. Financially, there was no choice but for Cathy to remain in Kersey and get a job until she could apply for grant money that would allow her to go to a school in state next year—that is, if Trey did not come for her.

Her expectation that he’d come in time to save her from the discovery of her pregnancy lessened each day. But late was better than
never. The more she thought about it, the more she found hope and comfort in the fact that Trey hadn’t asked her to have an abortion or put the baby up for adoption. That surely meant he was giving himself time and space to come around to the idea of marriage and fatherhood.

“I’ll ask Dr. Graves for a full-time job and stay here until the baby comes,” she said. “That will give me enough time to figure out what to do and make plans. Meanwhile, I’ll make the best of it.” Cathy took her grandmother’s hands, speared once again by guilt for the extra worry lines she’d put on her old face. “I’m so sorry for putting you in this predicament. I know it’s what you always feared….”

“Yes, I did, but I believed that even if it happened, what was the problem? You and Trey would marry, raise your baby. Life would go on, not in the way you’d planned, but maybe even better.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand it. As crazy as Trey has always been about you, I never dreamed he’d behave like this. I look back on the way he looked at you the night of the junior prom, and—even as young as you were…” Her voice trailed off.