handle it? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means what it means.”
My parochial school teachers gather behind me in the shadow of memory, behind them the images that freak me out above all others from my Catholic education. To the teachers’ left is the crucifixion in all its graphic splendor, right down to Jesus’ wounds on his hands and feet—the wounds I could never resist fingering on the oversized crucifix that hung over my bed. “The wounds your sins created and continue to infect,” the nuns used to be so fond of reminding me. To my teachers’ right, a triptych of photos proceeding by trimester—a translucent arm and leg floating on top of a quarter in a pool of amniotic fluid, a pruned corpse placed in a miniature casket for a Pro-Life photo op, and of course the ubiquitous black garbage bag overflowing with the bloodied, grizzled body parts of dead babies.
“No, Laura.”
“I’ve already made up my mind, Hank.”
“But how can you get the procedure without…”
“My parents’ permission?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m eighteen years old. Don’t need their permission. I have an appointment in two weeks at a clinic down in Jeffersonville.”
“Two weeks? Isn’t that moving a little fast?”
“Fast? I’ve been pregnant since before Memorial Day. I should’ve done this last mon—”
“I don’t want you to get an abortion!”
It takes me awhile to find my way to the words, but I say them. If anything, I think my candor strengthens Laura’s resolve.
“It’s not your decision to make,” Laura says. “I think maybe you just should go home now.”
“But I’m heading out for Hoosier Boys State tomorrow morning. We can’t just leave things like this.”
“My appointment is still fifteen days away, and nothing’s going to change in the next week. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“Laura, I can’t leave now. I can’t let you do this.”
She grabs me and kisses me on the lips. She reaches her arms around me and leans into my ear. “I’m not asking you to do anything, so don’t say something you’re going to regret. I’ve dropped a lot on you tonight. It’s taken me a month to deal with this.”
“A month? You’ve known for a month?”
“At least that long. I’ve been taking a pregnancy test about every other day since the beginning of June, hoping it’ll come up negative or that I’ve spontaneously miscarried without knowing about it.”
“A month, Laura?”
“My point being, I’m sure as hell going to give you more than a half hour to…”
“To come around?” I wiggle from her grasp, open the car door. “Is that what you want me to do?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“And what if I never come around?”
“I don’t want to think about that right now.”
“Well, maybe you should.”
“Come on, Hank.”
“This is a huge deal to me.”
“Are you trying to make this a Catholic thing?”
“It’s a little more than a thing, Laura. It’s my faith.”
“I realize that, and I’m trying to be respectful here.”
“Well, you’re failing miserably.”
“Okay then, what’s your faith say about premarital sex, condoms, or masturbation?”
“That’s different.”
“Really? If they keep track of those things, my guess is you’ve masturbated your way to hell and back by now.”
“I’m going to go, Laura.”
“To hell?”
“Maybe. But for now, just to my house.”
Laura wipes her eyes. “I think that’s best.”
I get out of the car. I hold the door open, staring at my feet. I want to add something to this moment. Something poignant. Something insightful. Just something. But all I can think to do is shut the door.
I step over to the Subie and open the door. I sit in my car, shut the door, and stick the keys in the ignition. The car fires twice before it starts. I sit there for five minutes with the motor running. Laura is still in her car. She’s crying.
The Subie is a manual transmission, so I pop the clutch, throwing the stick shift in reverse. I forget to press the accelerator. The car lurches backward a few inches, and then the engine dies.
I hear a car door shut. Laura is out of her car. I open my door. “Laura, I…”
Her back is to me. She slumps her shoulders and leans her back against the driver’s side door of her Calais, head down.
I run around the back of the car and embrace her, both of us crying. This is my moment. I can feel it. It’s my time to say my piece, one way or the other. Either take a stand or else just support her.
“Laura, I knew this girl in eighth grade…” No, I didn’t.
“She got mixed up with an older guy…” I should stop while I’m ahead.
“I was there for her. Saw her go through so much. She had an abortion, and it ruined her. Almost ruined me seeing her go through it…”
A one hundred percent fabrication. All of it. I ramble on for a couple more minutes. My story doesn’t register with Laura. Her eyes are vacant and her tears have stopped. She’s just hanging in my arms.
Not that it matters.
I was given my chance to step up. My chance to be a good Catholic or a good man or a good boyfriend—to be a good something. And instead, I plagiarized the plot of The Last American Virgin.
Jesus might have wanted to be a carpenter, but I got no fucking tools for this.
Chapter eighteen
Hoosier Boys State, Hoosier Boys State
We are one and all for you…
We will fight for, we will strive for
All the things we’ve pledged to do…
Ever loyal, ever faithful
And we’ll always be true blue…
All the rules of right we will follow honor bright,
Hoosier Boys State we’re for you!
Laura called me at Hoosier Boys State to tell me she was vomiting a lot and couldn’t keep anything down. I told her I was running for governor and was stressed out about the primary election.
I didn’t even make it out of the primaries. I lost my party’s nomination to a scrawny cross-country runner from Fort Wayne. The guy was a relentless coalition builder. I won our debate, but he had sixty percent of the votes in his pocket before he even opened his mouth. He went on to win the governor’s race. I left the campus of Indiana State thoroughly disenchanted with two-party politics.
I drive straight to Laura’s house. Her car is the only one in the driveway. The front door is unlocked. I let myself in.
“Laura!”
The house is quiet, the lights turned off, the curtains drawn throughout. I step into the hallway off the foyer. The master bedroom is the only room in the hallway with its