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The Search, Part Four, ConclusionJan 02 '05 (Updated Jan 04 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Copyright 2005 David MacDonald
http://www.epinions.com/content_4202406020: part one http://www.epinions.com/content_4202471556: part two http://www.epinions.com/content_4202537092: part three http://www.epinions.com/content_4202602628: part four My eyes felt as if they were bleeding salty water after being scarred by the sunlight. Yet I was still able to trace the outline of Carol’s body through the blurry smudge. She appeared very much the career woman. A body thinned from all that occupational metabolism she sweated away over the last three years. Her blouse was little but cheap and flimsy fabric, but it was redeemed by her smart gray business-styled jacket and baige-coloured skirt. “Hey, Sandra.”, she smiled. “Have you been waiting long?” Her question was uttered with the utmost lack of seriousness. She simply performed her half of a summer-long running gag. “No worries,” I joke. And I performed my half. She sat down on the seat opposite me. Her cheek was blemished with the bruise she received when she tripped over the stairs, the night she was at the house party. She kept drinking the wine the hostess kept supplying her -- not realizing until it was too late to undrink those glasses that the hostess’s continual topping off of the glasses all added up to a toxic amount of alcohol. Carol was the sort never to leave a drink untouched. She had to have a mouthful, just to maintain her leveling of thirst. The hostess was the sort never to leave a glass half-empty. It was a turbulent partnership -- or more like a one-night stand which ended roughly. “I wasn’t able to get out of there. One of the girls is pregnant.” she said. “So naturally, you have to ask the standard questions. When is it due, will it be a boy or a girl, do you want it to be a boy or a girl, can you feel it kicking?” Her voice had a low, gravely cadence which still retained some femininity, even as it must have tasted like smoke and cynicism against her tongue. “I see.” I squinted. I think Carol assumed my eyes crinkled from the warmth of the images she painted of hopeful motherhood, and not from that damn sun. “Would you ever want to have kids?”, she asked. “I’m sure you’d be a great mommy.” She rested her hand close to mind. Her fingers wanted to touch my knuckles, but they wouldn’t let me fell that touch. She smiled a wide and toothy grin. I tried to pawn off the appearance of being amused at a ludicrous comment. The truth was that the declaration haunted me. Brian would have said something like that. Well, he would have when we first met. Now he’d probably say I’d make an okay aunt or something like that. “I suppose,” I laugh nervously, “if someone were to make areally persuasive case, then perhaps I could manage.” “Awww, I know you can!”, she said. Her faith in me smoothed out the gravel in her throat. “I know you can - I mean, look at you. You have the voice and the face of an innocent child.” If I did, then I wouldn’t be much of a parent, would I? My kids would think I was their friend. “..... and you are just a generally decent person. You’re obviously much more advanced than I am. You’ve never went out to the clubs at all in the last few months. You’ve left me alone in search of more ..... higher pursuits.” Her voice became like runny sandpaper again. “I don’t think I’m as pure as you’d believe.”, hoping to persuade her I wasn’t some humorless Christian. “Well, then what’s the deal with the crucifix around your neck?” Huh? Oh..... I never realized I was wearing it. It was just a tiny, inconspicuous silver cross - but apparently not inconspicuous enough for Carol. I bought it one day a few weeks back. I thought it looked nice. “Well.... I think there’s a long way to go before I step into the realm of reclaiming innocence,” I said, “..... especially since we’re about to commit the sin of gambling!” I removed two lotto scratch tickets from my purse. I’d always buy two tickets to go along with the coffee. “This could be the day, my friend, where I don’t have to worry about money or if I’m going to marry some rich guy.” She examines the card. “We’ll always worry about money.” “Not you. You work for the government. You’re set for life!” “Don’t count on it.” “I think they pay you to say that,” I tease. I knew she wasn’t getting paid forty dollars an hour. But she’ll be making at least as much money in one week as I would in two, even including tips. “I wouldn’t mind having your money.” The conversation was being molded into something more pointed and she knew it. “All you need is a better job. You’re such a cute girl, you know.....” God, tell me why they always say that! “.... you can go so far, Sandra.” she insisted. “I don’t think my ugly face would help me get a job. There’s not that many around here, ya know.” If I keep saying I’m ugly, then other people will think I’m ugly. Could work. “Oh well.... maybe you’ll win, then.” she said. “And you won’t have to worry about money!” The first thing I was going to buy if I won the jackpot, I thought, was sunglasses. My pupils were going to burst all over this table. I’d rub my eyes, but I was wearing contacts and didn’t want to further damage my eyes with my own hands. I grasp a quarter in my palm, so I won’t get any of the flaky stuff inside my nails. As I began scraping the stuff off the ticket, I could feel Carol’s eyes gaping at my hands. I look up at her, as her eyes abruptly went from my hands to my face. “Well, aren’t you going to scratch that ticket?” I asked her. She rests her chin on her fingers, which looked like a tangle of pale straw on a country field. “It’s only the lottery. I can do that later on.” She used to do this with me every week. It went along with the coffee. I didn’t understand. “Besides......” she grieved, “lottos are a tax for the stupid anyway.......” The harsh consonants were enough to form abrasions along my soul. Carol was turning out to be even more of the moralist than Brian was. Carol’s face broke out into a winking aside. “Oh, but you’re not stupid of course. I’m just talking about those welfare bums who try to hit you up for a quarter for a cup of coffee, but who can magically afford a few lottery tickets every week? Why can’t those fuckers get a job?” Carol worked for the human resources department. She probably saw a vast majority of those fuckers who can’t get jobs - she’s probably handled their paperwork. “Bad day at the office, then?” I mumble, keeping my eyes away from her as I furiously scratched my ticket. Has she changed over the last few months, or have I? “Nah, just the usual. People wondering why they can’t get more money than they are. They expect us to pay for their Friday nights out and to maintain whatever habit they’ve got going. They get all defensive when I open their file and tell them they can’t collect any more money because of something they forgot to fill out in their application........” “Can’t you just overlook it if it’s something so small as that?” “No way. It’s part of my job to do this to people. We’re not their enabler, you know.” Part of her job? “Well, some people are poor like me. And others are very poor like the people you deal with.” “Yea... but at least you try your best. These people don’t. They expect a lottery ticket will yank them out of their woes. Don’t they realize there’s a one in thirty-million chance they’ll win.” She pulled out a thin brown cigar from her pocket. A cigar? “Sandra, it’s like trying to believe in God. Millions of people believe in Him, yet it’s no different from that flaky shit over those tickets.” She lit the thin brown stick before letting her lips hold it in place. “We want to believe that beneath that shit is the truth. That we’re gonna win the big jackpot! In both case we keep scratching for our entire lives deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re going to win. We don’t do anything for ourselves -- we just turn our lives over to something else......” I found the sight of Carol with a cigar in her mouth toxic to my eyes. Niether the hazards of smoking, or even the odor of the hazy smoke from the burning tip, repelled me, even thought the smoke circulating within my nostrils made me want to sneeze. It just looked so unnatural, so unfeminine. I suppose this was just me hanging around church people, wasn’t it? “Some of us may believe in God, you know!”, I say, not knowing who or what I was defending. “Yea, I’m well aware of that.” she said, “You also believe in winning big jackpots. So you really do rule your life on faith.” She was trying to be funny. “Well, do you think I’m going to cry if I don’t win?” I smirk. I had to become sarcastic, because I just lost. “You lost, didn’t you?”, she asked. “Uh-huh......” I laughed. The sounds were conceived within my womb of embarrassment. “What gave you the idea ... to go to church every weekend?” Carol asked. “Just curious.....” “I.... I just wanted to check it out.” “Did you do something bad?” she asked. “Is there a dead body buried somewhere you haven’t told me about?” “No.” I laugh. “I.... it’s just all about giving you some helpful guidance.” I didn’t want to tell her the truth. And I found it difficult to speak a glaring lie. I didn’t want to tell her, oh, the reason I went to church was because I was getting bored with the stuff I was doing every weekend, because I felt all I was getting out of it was a bunch of drug-induced small talk. I had the impression I would never really get to know anyone. And I didn’t want to lie and say I went to church to be saved by the good Lord Jesus Christ or any of that stuff. Consciously, I didn’t consider it. Although for a time, I almost thought maybe I was being saved by some person who performed a lot of miracles so long ago. For a very brief time, maybe I suspected a miracle was about to occur within me. But it was not to be. In reality, I just wanted to find a different crowd, fine someone who was different from the people who I was with before. But it didn’t work out. “Well, my philosophy,” Carol said, “is the weekends are for enjoying your own time. After working all week, I don’t want to be preached to on what I’m doing wrong with my life. I want to forget about my life.” “It’s... it’s not that bad.” I said. No, church wasn’t that bad. It was just one of the parishioners who wanted to remind me of what was wrong with my life. “I don’t need the church....” “Well, there’s some good people there.” It was true. They all were good, in their own way. “Maybe next time I go, I’ll take you there sometime.” “No... no thanks. I don’t want to be around people who think that, despite all the stupidity in the world, God is offering something really good for humanity.” Carol sucked a large breath with her cigar. Her expression seemed more belligerent. “I think,” she said, “if God really existed, He must be one sadistic prick...... I mean, if hundreds of children in Russia can be killed in their own school just for laughs, then what else would He be?” My gag reflex tremoured. I had lightening images in my brain of crying children, bloodied and in emotional agony, running away from something even adults could not withstand without permanent inner damage. “Wh.... what are you talking about? This isn’t funny, Carol.” I choke. “Oh, really? A bunch of terrorists shooting up innocent children and their parents in their own school? A bunch of terrorists killing kids because they believe they’ve heard a message from their so-called God saying they should do so?” Her head was clouded with thin cigar smoke. “Believe me, it’s so fucking funny!!” I didn’t care how cold my coffee was getting at this point. I needed to drink as large a mouthful as possible to dilute the tobacco which seemed to settle on my tongue. What was wrong? Carol was so angry. She was saying things I never realized she thought about. Was she always like this? Did I just realize this now, after seeing life from a different angle? I didn’t want this to continue. I was going to make her stop this attack. “Carol, I just went to church to meet some guys, okay.” I said. “I thought maybe there’d be some hot guys who dressed themselves up nice and were a little more ... sophisticated .. than some of the others I’ve known.” She took her cigar out of her mouth. Her lips curled in an unsure attempt at a grin. “..... the only reason I went to church every week,” I continued, “was because there was a guy there I kind of sort of went out with. Actually, I really just hung out with him, because nothing happened. He just ... wasn’t my kind of guy. “ “Oh really!” she said. Now I think she wanted to smile. “Yea..... you see, I was nothing but a cheat. I pulled the wool over their eyes so well. They all thought I was looking for a higher purpose. They all thought I was a damaged soul who needed to heal. I made a few friends, went to gatherings with them. And I was lying to them all the time.” I got more excitable as I spoke. I believed what I said. I guess I was as shallow as I thought I was. “Oh God, Sandra..... you’re so going to hell.” she laughed. “Maybe so.... and the thing is, I’ll probably not come back this Sunday. I’m going out with a guy from work to play beach volleyball with him and his friends.” “Ha.... you mean Bruno, the one you were with a few months ago.” She knew a few of the details. “Yea.... him.” “Well.....I guess I should have known all along.” she said, smiling. She crushes the flaky tip of the cigar against the stained glass of the ashtray. “Yea.....” Well, I guess this ended that part of the conversation. “H....how about another coffee?” I mutter. “I feel like another one, anyway.” “Sure.” I walk back into the cafe. My stomach felt sick. I probably shouldn’t be ordering another coffee. I didn’t feel good about myself at all. I started to believe I did wrong. Not necessarily by God. Just by something more personal, more simple. I was one real bitch. Sure, Brian was a bit too much for me. But I can’t say I regretted my experience. I met some nice people. Good people. I learned a few things. I learned a lot more than I might have every weekend at the clubs. And yet I told Carol I was just treating the church as a meet market. The thing was, that might have been true. I went to the bathroom, and began to weep. Not too strongly, just enough so I had to wipe a few tears off my cheek. The cross still hung around my neck. I wasn’t going to remove it. It’s true; I didn’t fully believe everything it represented. But it meant something.... I’m not sure what it was, though.... * My palms stung as they held the styrofoam cups holding fresh, simmering coffee. I carefully walked back to the table to see Carol looking out at the street. “Sorry about that.” I said. “This chick with purple hair just wouldn’t make up her mind. Coffee isn’t brain surgery, ya know.” Don’t ask me how I came up with that one, but it sounds a lot better than I was crying in the bathroom. I expected Carol to come up with a snarky rejoinder, but instead she turned to me with a face of despair. “Yea.... I bet....”, she said with a tremble. “What’s... wrong?” I noticed a bottle of pills on the table. The cap was open, and the bottle was half-empty. “What’s that?”, I ask, dumbly. “I overdosed on my medication.” Her voice was calm despite her expression. “What the fuck are you talking about?”, I growled. I don’t think I swore that harshly in a very long time -- church apparently gives you the inspiration to clean up your language. “I took this bottle out of the purse and opened it. I kept popping pills, until I realized what I was doing. And now I can’t turn back.” “Jesus, you’re just screwing with my head. I know you are!” I try to fake a laugh, but it comes out like a cough. “I wish I was, Sandra.” Her eyes were sorrowful. “Carol? You didn’t do that!” I tried to convince myself nothing happened. “If you did, I’d have to take you to the hospital. Or I’m going to have to stick my finger down your throat so you can puke your guts out.” Carol continued to observe me with her haunted eyes. “.... and that’s gross!”, I completed. “Sure, I didn’t do it!” she snapped, moving her gaze away from me. I was still wanting to doubt her statements. “You’re right? You... you’re kidding, right?” “Damn it, don’t you know I’m kidding?”, she asked. I could see her eyes tear up. “You’ve known me long enough to know I’m just this fun-loving chick who never has any problems! I’m sure if you weren’t as busy as you were the last few months you would have realized that.......” Her eyes examined the bricks which made up the historical part of Richmond Street. I could swear her eyes were becoming darker, that her pupils were shrinking. Or maybe it was just that damn sun again, affecting my vision. Maybe the sun was affecting her in its own way as it did with me, I don’t know. There was a pay phone on the other end of the block. If Carol’s condition did indeed worsen, at least I’d be able to get professional help quickly. Thank God she decided to pull this prank here in Charlottetown. At least this town still had an emergency room. END  |
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