monday muddlings: the irrational season

As it is Monday, I am posting fiction. If you’re new to the blog, welcome! I appreciate you being here. I’ll be honest, this is not my best, so I strongly invite you to give another piece a read before this one if you happen to be new. If you’re old hat to this blog and have borne with me through good and ill, here’s a troubled mess for you. I love and hate this story. It feels a bit clunkier than usual, I admit, but there’s elements in it I desperately want to keep. Sometimes we have to write the gunk out. Now, I also need to add a few things: sorry to the Presbyterians in my life, this is not a good example of you or Calvinism, you know that’s not how it works; there’s pot in this; there also happens to be references to nudity and a handful of uses of the word sex. I think this is no more severe than you would hear in a youth group series on sex, so for the most part, I think it is safely PG-13. But, anyway, the little piece that demanded to be done, at least:

“The Irrational Season”

They had made love under the magnolia tree next to the river in the hottest part of the day. Now they lay intertwined on his spread out shirt and the blanket they had brought under the guise of having a picnic. He passed the blunt to her, which she took a deep, strong hit of before offering it back. Her mother was testing her urine every morning, so she hadn’t been able to do anything more than pot for weeks. The THC would still show up on the little strip, but she had begun to keep a small bottle of makeup remover in her pocket that was filled with bleach. A few drops in the cup and no one was the wiser. There were other methods of hiding the hemp, but they only lasted a handful of hours and there was no certainty of when in the day her mother would test her. The bleach was cumbersome, but if she still wanted to get high—and she still wanted to get high—it was worth the price.

“Do girls go on mission too?”

“They can, if Heavenly Father tells the elders that they should go.”

Alice sat up, raking a hand through her golden strands and looking away from him, out to the ripples that flecked across the river and teamed with the ebb and flow. “Is that your answer or the answer they taught you to give?”

He sighed. Why did she have to be like this? Before, when he picked her up from her house, she was the blithe, free enigma with the slightly neurotic mother, the girl who charmed him into sin a handful of times during the week. But afterward, when they were physically sated, when the afterglow had promised that they could just lie there while the world came to an end, quietly gazing up at the falling sky, she rebuked the silence, as if she were frightened of it, and always seemed to want to talk theology. “It’s the answer I know to give,” it was slightly grunted. “I don’t know what else you want from me.”

She felt heavy, beautifully stoned. “No,” she trailed off, as if the single word held a cosmos in it, a mockery of the Word who had sung all things into being, parodied in her own creative proclamation, though it was negative, against being. Alice took another hit and then passed it back to him. Lying down beside him once more, she placed her head on his chest and her blonde strands formed a pillow. He liked the feeling and wished she would be quiet long enough for him to enjoy it. She could hear the beat of his heart, trembling softly beneath her ear, through her hair. He was supposed to be leaving on his mission the next day. This was what they did. They grew up in their weird little sect and then shuffled out into the world to chase Heavenly Father to the land of the heathen, be it Budapest or Orlando, Florida.

For her part, Alice was Presbyterian, a source of deep inconvenience for her and most of the choices she had made in her seventeen years.

“Do you believe all of it?”

He sighed, deeply. It wasn’t the first time she had asked but he had hoped to have their last time be free of it. “Not really.” He took a hit.

“But you’re willing to go somewhere and convince other people to believe it?”

“It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

She worried her bottom lip. “Have you ever read those books?”

“You mean the Scriptures?” He was distant.

“Yeah.”

Another sigh. “A couple times.”

“And it doesn’t bother you? The stuff about inheriting a planet and populating it through multiple wives.”

He laughed, nearly coughing, Alice jostling slightly on his chest. “I think that’s the part I’m more comfortable with.” He laughed a bit more. He wondered if he had remembered to bring his secret stash of cigarettes from the car. The pot was fine but Alice was the one who liked to be numb.

She grimaced. “Be serious.” He could never quite focus on her as a person. She was always that thing in his line of view, providing a service at best.

It reminded her of the first time they had had sex.

His parents had been out of town. She had managed to slip under her mother’s suspicion by a coordinated effort with Lydia, Alice’s best friend, who had a frightful ability to mimic her own mother’s voice over the phone. Lydia, playing as her mother, assured Alice’s mother that Alice was staying the night with them.

But Alice had been with Peter.

The morning after, her eyes had slowly slid open, body laden and heavy. A dull haze had clouded her vision and she was, briefly, uncertain of where she was. The window shade of Peter’s bedroom had been open; the intensity of the sun’s white light had turned her stomach. They had done it with the window shade open. She hadn’t been sure what that meant, but she knew it meant something. She had had a headache, her temples throbbing dully.

Alice’s hand had gone to her hair, just like it had this time, pushing the sweaty mess back. It was then that she had been able to see Peter’s room accurately for the first time, without the softening ministrations of shadows. There were trophies, a bookshelf that was littered with a mixture of school-required classics and sports autobiographies and a very untouched Book of Mormon. There had been a magazine peaking out from beneath the bed-skirt. The cover had depicted, from what Alice could see, a woman only covering herself with auspiciously placed palm branches. Nausea had overcome her and her head had spun.

After awhile she had looked over at Peter, who lay beside her, naked and exposed. The sight repulsed her. It wasn’t that he was unattractive, but the aftermath. It was grotesque. She had slept with him. She had given her virginity to him. In a haze she had remembered that he had been surprised when he discovered it. She in turn had been surprised when he was prepared, pulling out from his night-stand the first thing she had asked him about, having been trained in school for years about what to do when abstinence wasn’t an option.

In the end, why had she been so shocked that he had had one, more than one? Peter was a stereotype. A stock-character that would make a perfect punch line if he ever were paired with the right poetic justice. She had known that from the first time she had spoken to him. She had known that deep in her bones, in her womanhood.

And she had slept with him.

And why? Because he had pot. Alice had a thing for pot. Pot let her escape the unbearable weight of being and existence. She could be high, far away from it all, and no longer captive to the pursuit that kept too close to her that had followed her for what had seemed to be her entire life.

So Alice and Peter had lain together that first time, naked and caught in the accusing rays of the morning sun, their action no longer something only they shared privately. The light had been invited in to bare witness, and it seemed to censure and judge and not be overcome. Alice had clutched the sheet to her nakedness, lay back down on the bed, and rolled over, though somewhat farther away from Peter than before. And there, a vast wasteland had existed between them and had every time since.

But things were different now.

He was leaving and the reality of just how much none of this mattered had suddenly crashed into her. Alice was reminded of the youth minister who had once said that losing your virginity meant that you were no longer anything special and would be next to nothing for your future husband. By that point, Alice and Peter were skipping fourth period at least once a week to fool around in his car. Those words were inscribed on Alice’s heart, set in stone. After that she didn’t care about much. She would rather be high and in Peter’s arms, used and lusted for, than sober and untouched, abandoned and shunned.

Every morning she would wake up and read her Bible, pray, promise herself, promise God, she would never do it again. Any of it.

Her mother had discovered her small bag of weed one day while doing the laundry. It had almost become a game for Alice, pushing the edge just enough to see what would happen. Leaving it in her pocket was just the last straw, just enough to send her mother over the edge. Her mother had screamed for what felt like days and had bought out three drug stores of every at home drug kit they had. All the while Alice had sat on her bed, wondering if she could sneak just enough cough syrup to feel numb again.

She blamed it on her father, for him leaving. Then she blamed her mother, because it was easier that way. Alice could see the pain she inflicted with her words, could see it and secretly, hating herself for it, she liked to do it. She liked to hurt her. She liked to get back at her for whatever she had done to drive her father away.

That had been months ago. Now Alice had freedoms again. Some, anyway. Dating a Mormon, though terrifying as a spiritual prospect, was at least a safer route than other faiths, so her mother had begrudging given way. It was enough to satisfy Alice, the sex and the pot, to make her feel wanted for just long enough. So, she had been damaged forever because she lost something that someone told her she couldn’t get back, at least she could make Peter’s eyes roll back into his head.

That meant something, at least she thought it did.

But he was leaving. He was leaving and he didn’t really care that he was leaving her behind. The thought sank upon her like an unwanted lover.

Alice sat up, taking her bra and blouse from the blanket hastily, covering her exposed breasts with a crossed over arm, as she looked back at Peter. “Don’t watch me.”

Peter arched an eyebrow, uncertain. “What does it matter?” He asked. “I’ve seen it all before.”

A blonde, soft curl fell down across her back. “It matters,” she murmured, turning away from him to put on her clothes. As she stood, Alice was mortified when she realized that she hadn’t even bothered to take off her shoes. Now they mourned along with her, as they pressed hard into the dead grass beneath them. He had simply hiked up her skirt and that had been that. It was juvenile and condescending, like they had been playing at being grownups. Peter was off to the war and she was the girlfriend who would wait for years until no more letters came and she thought him dead. But his war was a lie, just like their little skit they had acted out on the blanket under the magnolia tree.

It hadn’t been love after all.

She felt heavier than she had ever felt before, stoned or sober.

Alice was aware that Peter had stood, calling after her. She wasn’t going to turn around, but a slight sense of weightlessness suddenly wrapped around her leg and then tickled up her spine so that she turned back, more to steady herself than to look at him. Seeing him in a daze, she noticed that he had been good enough to pull his jeans back on.

“What are you doing?” he grunted, walking toward her.

“Leaving,” she replied quietly, blinking.

“Why?”

Alice slumped, bent over slightly as she made the terrible effort to breathe. She always felt like it was a great work to breathe her chosen breath. Chosen, because that was what God did. He chose people. Alice had always thought, quietly and never admitting it to anyone, that her mother had become Presbyterian just for the assurance that Alice was guaranteed to go to Heaven. Chosen by God and, with any luck, that choice came as a family plan. But what about when you didn’t want the choice, she would wonder. What then?

Secretly, deep within her soul, Alice believed. She believed and she didn’t understand why she did.

Finally she spoke. “Because I don’t think of it the way you do,” Alice exhaled, slowly righting herself and feeling the first tinges of sobriety flickering at the edge of her mind.

Peter wondered why he had bothered to get up if she was going to be like this. He swore and Alice avoided the temptation to point out that Mormons were supposed to be nice all the time. He rolled his eyes. “What does that even mean?” It was grunted, shoulders falling as he readied himself to turn his back on her for good.

“It means,” she began, but didn’t try to finish the sentence. Carefully she shrugged, feeling the world lift with her shoulders, then fall with grace back down. She raised a hand and swept it about her, indicating the forest. “This is the irrational season,” Alice announced, to him or to the cosmos she was unsure. “I believe, fully and terribly, that God exists. But I don’t want to live like I believe that. But nonetheless He does. He does. And I think that maybe what you have to do, what it means to get by, is to pretend that you want it to be true.”

Peter crossed his arms, indignant. “We’re not so different.”

Something about how she spoke the words, not so much the words themselves, held him in place. He was fixated on a leaf that was caught in the tangles of her hair, which flicked and flitted, trying to break free.

“No,” Alice shook her head and the leaf shook with it. “You don’t believe in any of it, Peter. I believe in all of it. But believing and living are different, irrational things. And that’s terrible, because it makes you responsible for too much and yet just enough.”

The leaf finally freed itself and drifted away, falling between them.

“I believe that there is a god.”

Alice took a deep breath and sobriety came with it. “You say that so sadly. I think I just realized that an indefinite article is a damnable thing. Goodbye, Peter.” She pursed her lips. “I hope for your sake that your mission fails.”

With that she turned, walking the rest of the way in the forest alone. Under her breath, she murmured as if to make a song the words she had read that morning when she had risen, taken her Bible, and promised to never sleep with Peter or take a hit of pot or yell at her mother again: “‘It will no longer be said to you, ‘Forsaken,’ nor to your land will it any longer be said, ‘Desolate’; but you will be called, ‘My delight is in her.’”

The magnolia tree swayed in the summer heat as Alice walked out of from under its branches, into the watch of the afternoon light. There were clouds on the horizon. Rain was coming.

 

© 2011, Preston. All rights reserved.