Uncross My Heart (3 page)

Saturday morning I lay in bed, Ketch sleeping at the foot, and stared at the farmhouse just in my line of sight across the acres leading to the Browns’ farm, where Sylvia slept and where she had brushed my lips with hers. Nothing, until now, had unearthed the feelings I had long hidden, challenged my decision to end who I was and let the robes forever cover the rest. Sylvia had stirred something in me that threatened to awaken the dead. A longing I suppressed. An intimacy I avoided.

I contemplated all the religious men who’d flagellated their bodies for thinking of sex, covered their women in tentlike garb to stave off temptation, advocated sex only for procreation. Throughout history, the evils of sex, the preempting of sex, and the anguish over sex had been a male-dominated topic. And now, here I was making it mine—thinking I shouldn’t have thought about Sylvia sexually, should never see her again so I wouldn’t be tempted to think about her. And since we were certainly not going to procreate, sex with her was out of the question.

Not to mention the fact that she was married, which was on the do-not-do Biblical Top Ten.

My father’s face came into focus, his dark green suit with the shiny gold buttons bearing an eagle and gold braid on each shoulder and medals on his chest. And I heard him say, “Tradition, duty, honor.”

Ironically, war and religion relied on the same tenets.

My cell phone beeped, signaling I had voice mail. I stretched across the white comforter, pressing down its puffy, cloudlike surface, to grab the phone from the bedside table. The message was from Vivienne Wilde, saying we hadn’t selected a meeting place.

“Let’s plan on finding each other across from that fountain—the one with the gigantic Mother of God. I have no idea what I’ll be wearing but I should be able to spot a woman priest. See you at ten.”

I smiled in spite of myself. Claridge’s honoring the Blessed Virgin by making her enormous and seating her in the fountain was a bit odd, if I stopped to think about it. I played the message several times, letting Vivienne Wilde’s voice seep into my skin like tanning oil on a blistering day, anointing my soul to keep it from burning. I started to erase her message, then kept it.

Suddenly, I realized I was going to be late for lunch with my father, and I jumped out of bed and hit the shower. Tardiness was unacceptable.

* * *

He stood steel-beam straight, his custom-made suit cut exactly like a military uniform. The only missing elements were the gold braid, row of medals, and the brass nameplate inscribed General Archibald McClellan Westbrooke. His civilian suit was so starched I was betting it could maintain its stiff position independent of human form. My father’s braided hat, a vestige of his long military career, was tucked under his left arm, and he extended his right hand as if hailing a cab, not his daughter.

I smiled at him and gave him a peck on the cheek and he patted my back lightly, and then, the emotional greetings over, we settled into our routine. Lunch at the Café Creole—red beans and rice, strongly brewed coffee, and our bimonthly update that quickly took on the tone of a military briefing.

My father dished out battle strategy at every meal as if we were currently under siege and he needed to pass along military survival techniques, his mind moving across the Egyptian desert with Field Marshall Montgomery in victory over the wily German Rommel at El Alamain, then jumping to the Battle of the Bulge and his anger at Eisenhower.

“Patton didn’t run out of gasoline—a dozen tankers were diverted away from him to the Communications Zone. Eisenhower gave fuel that might have helped him to Montgomery who, despite his 5th Army credentials, was a whiner. Old Blood and Guts Patton was a military man’s man.”

Next to Patton, father revered George C. Scott because he played Patton, and nowadays, I wasn’t sure my aging parent could tell the difference. When, after years in retirement, Father started carrying his military hat under his arm, I knew the past had gotten mixed up with the present, and I feared for his future.

He tied military tactics to religious strategy, clearly believing everything in life is how you prepare, attack, and regroup.

“Your friend Hightower is so progressive the others can’t keep up. He outruns his supply line,” he said, knowing I would understand the military shorthand for getting ahead of what kept you alive.

“He does seem to be running faster than his funding.” I was constantly amazed that my father knew what was going on at the highest levels at Claridge, but not in his own closet. Perhaps he cared on my behalf, thinking it would please me. In fact, it troubled me that my father thought someone as consummately boring as Hightower was bright or ahead of his time.

“So tell me about your advancement. Are you making progress?”

Father sipped his hot coffee and ate with a masculine daintiness born of military manners, lifting his spoon slowly and brandishing his butter knife like a tiny baton.

I told him I didn’t think Hightower was stepping down anytime soon and, if he did, I was certainly not on the short list for chancellor.

“Why not? You’re smart, dedicated, and provide just the right blend of progressive conservatism a school like that needs. You’ll be a splendid fit. I’ll be very proud to come to the ceremonies. There’s always a military band and of course a twenty-one-gun salute,” he said, forgetting that we were discussing the seminary and not the military.

For a moment I envisioned the traditional invocation in the chapel with a marching band and rifles fired through the roof and I smiled, thinking perhaps that’s exactly what was called for…certainly shooting of some sort would ensue if I were ever made chancellor.

I stared at the strong, square face with the large jawline and resolute stare that seemed to look beyond me to something only he could see, something bigger on a distant shore that required focus, a quality he had less and less of without my mother. A catch in my chest reminded me that a time would come when he wouldn’t be sitting here on Saturday and I would never be able to pass this café without sadness.

I let a few minutes of silence pass. “You haven’t finished your meal.”

He seemed startled. “I’m taking my time, as civilized diners are wont to do. You should try it some time.” He recovered nicely, the old gleam back in his eyes as he glanced down at my empty bowl.

“Apparently no chow at your place.”

I grinned. “Guilty. Starving and no manners.”

“Before I forget, there’s a fellow named Emerson, formerly at Claridge—State Department involved in some funny business about his sexual preference. Know anything about him?”

“I never knew him personally. Why?”

“Military comrade asked me about him. Gays in positions of power always a dangerous thing.”

“You know gay men who are stellar military. Your friend Jerry—”

“A drunken dalliance. He’s dating a wonderful woman now and I think they’re getting married.”

I nodded pensively, thinking that Jerry was gay as a goose and that I could not imagine him dating a woman.

“Well,” he pushed his chair back from the table and rose stiffly, “it was good to see you, dear.” He sounded as if he were speaking to someone he knew only casually. “I’ve got to get back. I’m rereading
Great Battles of World War II
.” With that, he was gone, a wooden soldier carved without knee joints, marching stiffly down the street toward his car, perhaps battles past and present raging in his head.

I sat down and my body relaxed so noticeably even I wondered why I had been tense. The waiter cleared away lunch debris and offered me more coffee. I decided to stay for a cup and unwind. Flipping open a book I’d brought with me but concealed during my lunch with my father, I intended to stay and bone up on the topic for which I was a panelist at an upcoming religious conference.

This old text had helped me sort things out about Christianity and Manichaeanism when I was a seminary student. The two sects competed in a medieval membership drive, and the anti-sex Manichaeans drove the Christian church fathers to a more rigid celibacy stance. I glanced down at a passage about St. Augustine, a fallen Manichaean, who led the way—so obsessed with his concubine that he concluded sex was an evil siren that must be ridded from everyone’s life. I closed the book.

So we are haunted by the sexual demons of the saints.

A familiar-looking woman made eye contact from across the room and suddenly ran toward me. “Westie, is that you?” Jude Baker was overweight, with a stocky body, short-cropped hair, and no makeup, decked out in dyke-wear—flip-flops, cargo shorts, a black fanny pack, and a statement tee: Clinton Could Get You Pregnant But Bush Will Get You Killed.

“Jude?” I grinned at her. “Last I heard you’d moved to San Francisco.”

“I did and I’m back.” She gave me a big hug, then held on to me, pushing me back at arm’s length to stare. “You look good.”

I thanked her. I was almost convinced that “You look good” was the new “How have you been?” because almost everyone said it, and many people simply didn’t look all that good. She pulled up a chair and straddled it, hanging over the bentwood back, and I was sure the store owners were cringing in the background over antique-chair abuse.

“I’ve met someone,” Jude announced, as if after nearly four years of not having seen her, this would be my most urgent question.

“That’s great.”

“No, for you.” She laughed self-consciously. “I always said there’d be no one for you, but when I met this gal, I said she’s just weird enough to be perfect for you. Wanta meet her? We’re doing the bar scene tonight and—”

My shoulders and neck tightened up as I analyzed how loudly “her” sounded in this small café with its cold echo. “My life has changed. I teach now at Claridge Seminary and I—”

“How cool is that. Karma. She teaches at—”

“I’m seeing someone.” Not totally untrue. I was seeing a lot of people—as in viewing, not sleeping.

Over her shoulder I caught sight of a young curly-haired guy by the pastries. He held a camera at shoulder height as if about to raise it to his eye and then quickly lowered it, letting it dangle from the wrist strap.
Was he about to take my picture?
Below his khaki shorts at calf level an American eagle’s flag-draped wings flexed with his muscle spasms, evoking images that suddenly invaded my consciousness. A military vehicle, a limo with a uniformed driver, the fear as I sat in the backseat. I pushed those images back and tried to focus on Jude, but the effort left me nervous and irritable.

“We could just have dinner, then,” Jude remarked, and I realized I wasn’t getting through to her. She didn’t understand that my life was full now—obligations, responsibilities, and no desire to relive the past, any part of it.

The tattooed man turned and left the café, and a distrustful little voice in my head whispered that my father had sent him to spy on me.

That’s insane and paranoid,
I thought.

“How’s your dad?” Jude asked, seemingly wiretapped into my head.“Fine,” I said, then apologized for having to make a quick exit, explaining I had a class to teach as I gathered up my books. “Come to mass.” My invitation was too loud. Several patrons glanced my way and smiled benignly.

I left the restaurant upset for blatantly wrapping the church around me like a shawl to ward off unwanted advances. While I was far more liberal than anyone else on campus, I certainly didn’t want gay women knocking on my office door. As my father often said, military or missionary, one must avoid even the perception of sexual wrongdoing.

Monday morning Roger Thurgood III entered my office looking like a very unhappy Chucky. His clothing never appeared quite right, bunched up around his sweat-crumpled middle where the waistband met the first button of his grimy white shirt, but it was the peanut-butter-smeared lenses sitting thickly inside his plastic black frames that disturbed me most. I wanted to yank the glasses from his head and wash and dry them so I could see into his tunnel vision.

His sloppy stance seemed to say he was annoyed at being told to show up here in my office and he wasn’t the slightest bit contrite about the trouble he’d caused me by reporting me to Hightower.

“You trash everything I believe in.” Roger glared at me, or I assumed from the fixed position of his head that he was glaring at me.

He didn’t look like a young man who’d ever had a carefree weekend, or would know one if it hit him in his pocket pen protector, so I assumed he was referring to my Friday lecture and had seethed over it for the past forty-eight hours. I began by telling him I was sorry the lecture had upset him but that since he was most likely headed for ordination at some point in time, he might think about tackling difficult subjects head-on. Use conflicting religious viewpoints as a debate opportunity, rather than turn in the person to the Gestapo.

“It’s not personal, Roger. It’s my attempt—my duty—to give you a perspective other than the one you bring with you to seminary.”

“The Bible is the Word of God.”

“Literally, Roger? Every single word speaks to you as truth?”

Roger nodded solemnly, and I was familiar with the kind of brainwashing that went into twenty-three years of convincing a young person like Roger that God had dictated the Bible to his scribes, who had precisely translated the chapters into several languages before they chose English, and had perfectly edited it over the centuries to give him “the Word,” the religious certainty he needed for his own sanity. How else could Roger explain the evils of the world, if not caused by the devil, and how else could he hope to escape them if not delivered by God? Without the devil, misfortune was random. Without omniscience, existence was frightening. Without the truth inscribed on vellum and bound in black leather, how would Roger ever know what to do with his narrow life?

“Roger, do you think God wants you to sell your daughter into slavery or put people to death for working on the Sabbath, as described in Exodus? Or declare them an abomination for eating shellfish, or stone them to death for cursing, as thoroughly outlined in Leviticus?