Chapter Twelve

Thoughts on a Death Not Feared

 

One of the most maddening things in the world, Lou thought, was catching yourself being shallow and selfish, something you condemned in other people but one day note a glimpse of in yourself. He had his own shallow opinion that had been gnawing at him in recent years. It was based on the fact that when men of his generation realized they were homosexual, they saw no way through it. He had dropped his marriage to Sally because he decided it was better to hurt her then than to hurt her much more later. Being a man of his generation, and a man of the closet, had helped make him the bitter person he had become.

And now he was ashamed to admit to himself that the success of the gay rights movement made him angry. He knew he was simply jealous because of his bad timing at birth. It was like being the last one to die of a disease right before the cure is found. Now you saw gay couples walking hand in hand, openly acknowledging their relationships, even trying to get married and live happily ever after.

When did it get so chic to be gay? Lou’s experience with heterosexual males as friends, for example, had not gone well. Everything would be fine, but when their friendship got to the point where not telling them would be living a lie, and Lou took that step toward honesty--”leveling” with them--they ran in fear. The male heterosexual friends Lou had made in his life had all abandoned him when he told them the truth. They’d act like it was “cool” with them at first, but then they’d disappear. Lou assumed it was because they would always be afraid he would eventually hit on them. The real truth was, most of them had vastly overrated their own sex appeal.

Now it was almost like everyone wanted to be gay; it was all over television like a circus act. Lou’s love life had been a waste, and the repercussions had spilled over into all other aspects of his existence. He knew he should be happy for the people some would call his brothers and sisters, but he could only feel covetous. “The love that dared not speak its name” had said very little to him over the course of his life.

Lou did not fear death because he would not miss his life. He had never really felt in control of it. The restrictions others placed on his happiness had shackled him.

His thoughts turned to Jesus, the Jesus of his mother, the Jesus of love. Lou missed his mother’s version. Jesus never condemned homosexuality; he condemned divorce and adultery. But people in this day seemed to forget that. They frequented drive thru divorce courts like they were fast food restaurants. Most modern people who professed to be Christians often read the Bible with the discerning concentration of a television viewer, sifting out the little they wanted to notice and disregarding the rest. They used their bigotry to plaster others with shame, then ran off to live their lives as they pleased. Lou was so disgusted with much of humankind that he could not help but believe that wherever he was going next had to be better than where he had been in this life. He coughed up more blood into his handkerchief. He was . . . disappointed.

The chicken soup with mushrooms simmered into the air. The reflection of the sunset on the eastern sky illuminated the colorful pub, making it look like a room full of popsicles. Porter and Dora lit candles. Lou sat at the bar with a coffee cup of water and watched Thomas as he wrung out the dish cloth until it looked like a dead gray rat, flattened it out on the counter, folded it over the edge of the sink, turned around 360 degrees and picked it up again. He scanned the counter before him, hunting for something to wipe down.

Okay, well, Lou would admit, he was nervous too. It was their first night with a customer and he wanted it to go well for Thomas. It was enough pressure learning to cook for a group of people anyway, and now Catherine had added a hot new spice to the mix. He’ll do fine, Lou told to himself, but just in case I better keep him busy. The soup is ready, the bread is baked--let’s make cookies; you can’t go wrong with cookies.

Lou helped Thomas lay out the ingredients. This is hardly fair for the girl, Lou thought to himself. Her olfactory senses will sell her out. The smell of chicken soup, baked sourdough, and soft chocolate cookies with cinnamon and nutmeg--she doesn’t stand a chance. And Thomas looks great in his bright white t-shirt and long apron, except for the slight problem about the way his eyes keep darting around the room. He looks a bit like the trapped fox, Lou thought, flight or fight.

Lou showed Thomas how to cream the shortening with the brown sugar. When the door opened, Thomas froze, and Lou decided he better handle the cookies himself. It was Catherine, and a woman who was obviously her much older mother, a distorted, drooping Catherine, really. They stomped their boots and smiled around the room as if stunned by it.

“Say hello,” Lou mumbled to Thomas.

“Hello,” Thomas said softly as he turned to Lou.

“No, to them,” Lou said through his lips.

“Oh.” Thomas turned to Catherine. “Hello.”

It sounded good, Lou thought. Pretty normal. The women moved toward the bar. Catherine smiled at Thomas and spoke to him.

“This is . . . .”

“Your sister,” Thomas interrupted.

The women smiled and looked at each other. “Why no, it’s my mother,” Catherine said. They laughed.

That was either incredibly smooth or astonishingly lucky, Lou thought. No one else could have gotten away with that.

“Mom, this is Lou and Thomas. Guys, this is my mother, Agnes.”

They shook hands across the red bar. Dora and Porter walked over and introduced themselves.

“Welcome! You’re our first official customers,” Dora said. “Like a drink?”

“Atta girl,” Agnes said.

Catherine had a glass of red wine. Agnes had a beer and wished out loud that they had a shot of something.

“So, chicken soup, eh?” Agnes asked.

“With portabello mushrooms,” Lou added.

“With what?” Agnes turned up her nose.

“Portabello mushrooms that are reconstituted with red wine and I don’t know how they got that way but they just are you ever feel like that because I know I have?” Thomas stood before them, blinking, the slight smile softening his delivery. He turned around and started wiping the clean stove.

“Huh?” Agnes said.

“I’ve certainly felt a bit reconstituted before myself, especially some mornings,” Catherine said. “I know exactly what you mean.”

Thomas turned back around and smiled at her as if he had just heard the voice of an angel.

Young love, Lou thought. Beautiful thing.

“Hey, handsome,” Agnes said to Lou. She was missing most of her teeth. Lou cringed. “How ‘bout another beer.” She had finished her first in one long swallow.

“Sure,” Lou said. He decided to stay behind the bar for a while where it was safe.

“I think the way you painted the place is . . . it’s just refreshing,” Catherine said, looking around. “Everyone else goes for the dark wood look in a pub. You know, traditional. Each place always looks just like the last one you were in, and the one before that, and the one before that.”

“Don’t be knocking the traditional pub, Catherine,” her mother said, wagging her finger. “The pub is the institution of Canada, just like the cowboy bar is the institution of the Yanks.” She nodded her head and drained her beer.

“It is?” Catherine said.

“It is?” Lou repeated.

“Gee,” Dora interrupted, “I always thought the bordello was the institution of America. All of North America--Canada, the U.S. and Mexico--united on at least one thing.”

“Wait a minute,” Porter said. “I think it’s the schools.”

“But I always thought it was the restaurant, mainly the kitchen, the center of everything,” Lou said. He was surprised at what they were saying--of course it was the kitchen.

“Hospitals,” Thomas said, nodding.

“I met Catherine’s father at a pub,” Agnes said. “The Blue Whale, at the other end of the island. That’s where I dumped his sorry ass too.” She lit a cigarette, holding it up between her two fingers in front of her as if everyone should wait until she let out her breath. “It just made our relationship a complete circle. I wanted closure, and I got it, damn it.”

“Closure for a rough relationship?” Dora asked her.

“Huh?” Agnes said.

“Mom needs everything to be a complete circle,” Catherine said. “She was born and raised on the island here. She hasn’t left since she was a child, so it only works if you can complete everything.”

“I don’t understand,” Dora said.

“Well, for example, we drove one kilometer to get here, counter clockwise on the south road. But when we go home, we can’t just go back; we have to continue around the north road, ten kilometers to the other end of the island and nine back on the south road to our house. Complete the circle. Always counter clockwise.”

“I see,” Dora said.

“It works out okay going to the store on the west end,” Catherine continued, “because it’s just eleven kilometers one way and nine the other, two scenic drives. But it’s a little less convenient for these short trips.” She smiled and shrugged her shoulders as if stating mere fact. Agnes just blinked her eyes and finished her beer.

Lou pointed at her glass and she gave him a single nod. Catherine still sipped her first glass of wine. Thomas dished up two bowls of soup and set them in front of his guests. He paused for a minute looking quite proud of himself, then seemed to suddenly remember spoons. He jabbed his hand under the bar and produced two. There was another pause and he jumped for napkins. He set another bowl in front of the third bar stool, on the opposite side of Catherine from Agnes, and motioned for Lou to sit down with it.

I am tired, Lou thought. So he took the seat, took a deep breath of the aroma, and tasted the soup. It was perfect, really, he knew Thomas could figure it all out. The boy had the eye for detail; he just had to learn how to focus the eye.

“This soup is delicious,” Catherine said.

Agnes picked up her bowl and slurped down the last bit. She ripped off a chunk of sourdough and gnawed at it with the side of her mouth.

“So how do you Yanks like living in Canada?” Catherine asked them.

“It doesn’t really seem any different from the States so far,” Dora said. “But I haven’t ventured very far inland yet. I’ll make sure I go counter clockwise when I do, though.”

“That’d be a good first start,” Agnes said.

“Thomas and I went shopping at the other end,” Porter said. “Other than the accent they had, it didn’t seem to be any different than any other small town.”

“Huh,” Agnes said. “We heard it was you folks who had the accents.”

“You heard?” Porter asked.

“Everybody’s heard about the Yanks that bought the boathouse.” Agnes laughed. She motioned to Thomas to refill

her beer glass. “Did Ben tell you it was a pub? ‘Cause it’s really more like a clubhouse for those boys.”

Porter walked behind the bar and stood next to Thomas. “He said it had a pub license. We have the paperwork.”

“Well, then, I guess it is a pub,” Catherine said. She raised her glass to toast.

“Good soup,” Agnes said. “What do you call those shrooms? Port-ou-prince?”

“Portabello,” Thomas said.

“Well, we ain’t the same here as you folks are down there, that’s what I hear.” Agnes lit another cigarette.

“What have you heard?” Lou asked her.

“Well . . . .” She leaned back, reflecting and blowing out a perfect smoke ring. “I hear you all got guns and you shoot at each other over fences. Neighbors do. They shoot their own neighbors. They shoot their own families. You shoot each other from your cars and everyone wears bulletproof vests all the time, because they have to.” She shook her head in disgust.

“Like I told you,” Catherine said, “she hasn’t been off the island much.

I heard that’s why you’re always in wars, because you don’t even like each other,” Agnes said, ignoring her daughter.

“You may have something there,” Lou said.

“How can you not like each other if you’re all the same?” she asked.

“But we’re not all the same,” Dora said.

“But you want to be,” Agnes turned to her. “Don’t ya? Isn’t that what all Yanks want?”

“See,” Lou said, slapping his hand on the bar, “that’s exactly what I’ve been saying.” He would have felt absolutely vindicated if anyone but Agnes had said it.

“I also hear you drive each other off the road with big trucks; if you don’t have a SUV you’re dead meat--road kill in the U.S. of A.” Agnes’ eyes danced in disbelief. “You crash into each other so you can get to work faster, that’s what I hear.” She let out a big sigh and shook her head. “Who’d do a thing like that--hurry to work?”

“Our top speed limit on the island is 30 miles per hour,” Catherine said. “And all the drivers she sees on TV are in chase scenes. Add it up.”

Is it true,” Agnes asked Porter, staring at him and moving close to his face, “that all the men down there read pornography and take Viagra all the time?”

Lou, Dora and Thomas laughed. Porter looked shell shocked.

“Okay, Mother, it’s time for us to go.”

Thomas wrote out a paper check, then put their coins in the cigar box. He handed Catherine a folded napkin. “Round around soft chocolate cookies for your ride around around the island,” he said. He smiled slyly and looked at her through his shaggy hair.

“Is there a back door to this place?” Agnes asked him. “Because I like to go through a building, not in and out of it.” They let her climb out the back window.

“The trick to baking bread is the kneading,” Lou told Thomas. “It has to be done by hand.” Lou showed him how to fold the dough toward him, then press it down and away with the heal of his hand. “If you can bake consistent, fresh bread from scratch, the world will love you.” It feels so good, Lou thought, to not just pass along my cookbooks and knives. I don’t want all I’ve learned to just die off with me.

“Thank you, Lou,” Thomas said as if reading his mind.

Lou smiled at him and assumed he was thanking him for the lesson. “You’re welcome,” Lou said. “We’ll set the dough in the oven with just the pilot light on, so it can rise. It needs a gentle warmth.”

While they waited, they started to prep dinner, corn and crab-meat chowder. But a few minutes into it, Lou felt lightheaded. “I have to sit down for a minute,” he said. He leaned against the bar to steady himself, then eased onto the stool. “You’re going to have to finish it; just look at the recipe in the book. You can follow it, and I’ll be right here to help.”

“I know you will be, Lou,” Thomas said. “You’ll always be here with me.”

“I’m tired,” Lou said.

“I know you are, Lou. You’re tired and you’re angry, too.”

The kitchen seemed suddenly warm, as if sealed. “I’ve been very disappointed. In people,” he said. “In my life. I let them steal it from me.” The room was moving, waving slightly like the motion of heat. Lou gripped the bar.

“’Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.’”

“What?” Lou said.

“What?” Thomas repeated.

“What did you just say?” Lou started to think maybe he had just imagined it.

“What?” Thomas asked. He seemed truly miffed.

Lou rested his forehead in his hands. He listened to the rhythm of Thomas’ chopping, the potatoes, the onion, the heart of celery, and he seemed to lose consciousness for a moment. He did not know for how long. He thought about forgiveness, dreamed of it as if it were a mighty ship towering high above him as he stood on the wharf. Forgiveness--he did not know who he would, or could, forgive. Or, for that matter, who would forgive him. Who had not trespassed? The ship steamed away, disappearing over the horizon.

When Lou realized he was back in the pub, on the stool at the bar, he focused on Thomas who stood before him. Thomas had rolled the dough and he held the loaf out before him. “’I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, he who believes in me shall never thirst.’” He turned around and slid the dough into the oven.

Lou blinked his eyes to clear his vision. The room rotated, counter clockwise.

“’A man should forget his anger before he lies down to sleep, Lou.’”

“What? Did Jesus say that? I don’t remember . . . .”

“Jesus?”

“Did he?”

“What?”

Lou looked up at Thomas, who smiled down at him.

“’Forgive them;” Thomas said, “for they know not what they do.’”

Lou watched Thomas, his mouth moving; the voice was coming from him but from someplace else, too.

“I do,” Lou said, quietly. “I forgive them.” He started laughing, feeling so happy and free and light that he found it all funny, how serious his whole life had been. Oh, he had been so grave and solemn, even as a boy, and now he didn’t have to be so staid anymore.

Lou laughed harder. He felt the cool rush of air as the door opened behind him. He heard Dora and Porter laughing as they came in, laughing and in love. Lou laughed with them.

Lou blacked out, slumping against the bar, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Thomas caught him and eased him to the floor.

“Oh my God,” he heard Dora say. “Porter, go call a doctor. Come on, Thomas, let’s try to make him comfortable.”

He could hear their voices but could not see them.

“How’s he doing?”

“He’s coughed up so much blood.”

“I called.”

“What are we going to do?”

“The doctor’s on his way.”

“Oh, Lou,” he heard Dora say.

Thomas moved past her and knelt down. He patted Lou’s face with a cool cloth and Lou opened his eyes.

He smiled up at Thomas, touched his cheek. “You are Jesus,” he said to the beautiful boy before him.

Thomas nodded, leaned over, and kissed Lou’s forehead. “It will be better where you’re going,” Thomas whispered in his ear.

“Thank you, Thomas,” Lou said. “I died laughing.”