Conceived Without Sin (20 page)

"I saw the Golden Dome while watching
a Notre Dame game on television. I wasn't a fan. But I played football, and something about that dome called me. I saw it during that corny plug they always give at half time. You know, 'Penn State has the world's largest facility for researching mountain lion leukemia and over eight hundred thousand students–blah-blah-blah,' with an aerial shot of the campus.

"During the Notre Dame plug that
day, I saw Mary in the aerial. Maybe it was the snake. I know this sounds awful, but I noticed the snake under her foot when they zoomed in on her statue. You know, I told you I was into details. I really wanted to see that snake in person. Somehow, this equated with getting in there as a student. I had done pretty well on my PSATs–not spectacular, but okay in math and very high in English. I was
all-conference on the football team at nose tackle.

"Maybe I'm exaggerating about the dome attracting me. Who knows how we pick a college? Now, I look back, and I think that maybe it was as simple as God wanted me to go there, and He used a television program to pique my interest.

"I told the guidance counselor, and he pooh-poohed the idea. He tried to get me to go to Slippery Rock State College.
Slippery Rock,
can you believe it? I still don't know where it is. Could be in Montana or the next exit for all I care.

"Then I did a bad thing. I lied like hell on my application. I made up that I was part of a bunch of student activities like being the president of the chess club, and that I made all-state in football. Big, bold, bald-faced lies. There were two essays, and they really were hilarious
looking back on it.

"Now, today, I'm not proud of lying on that Notre Dame application. When I filled out my UPS application, I was perfectly truthful. But Notre Dame was different. Well, okay, it was lying. But it wasn't serious lying. I was laughing the whole time. I looked at that empty application form, and pictured all the preppy students from the west side of Lakewood and Shaker Heights
and Bay Village, and how they were going to write perfect, boring essays and have their parents type it up, or even have their parents write the essay for them. I knew that my first two years would weigh against me, along with the weak courses. I was ranked 75th in my class.

"I threw caution to the wind, and decided to roll the dice on being different. I knew I was different on the inside by this
time, so I embellished my high school career to reflect that.

"Except for Mr. Snodgrass, I even wrote my own teacher recommendations on stationery I pilfered when the lady behind the desk wasn't looking. Stuff like 'young Gwynne is destined for greatness' and so on.

"For the big essay, I wrote about my family. Brothers and sisters I didn't have, basing them on fictional characters. Not too fantastic.
The part about my mom dying in a car accident and dad having cancer that would take his life right around the time I would graduate from college was good, solid fiction writing. I called a hospital to find a cancer that takes five years to kill its victim. I forget what it was–some Latin name. I even wrote that I would be the first person from my family to go to college; this was not true,
either. Dad went to Glassboro State.

"For the other essay, I wrote about dedicating myself to being a quarterback in football,
despite not having two fingers on my throwing hand.
I wrote about lifting weights every morning, and then walking to school while tossing footballs in the air. I wasn't a quarterback, of course, and as you can see, I'm not missing any fingers; maybe a few marbles. I got
the school photo of the best-looking guy in school–he just gave it to me when I asked for it, and he didn't even know me. His name was Jim Lynn. I stapled the photo to the application and signed it without a scruple. I scrounged up the application fee.

"I sent it in, and forgot about it. I was sure they would catch the lies, or simply reject me anyway. I didn't apply to other colleges. It was
N.D. and the snake under Mary's feet or nothing. I got on the waiting list, and got in just before summer ended. I believe the guy in the admissions office told me that I was the second to last student accepted.

"I was poor. Even when Dad kept jobs, he didn't make much, and a lot of money went into the pocket of Old Grand Dad, if you get my drift. I got through with loans, a couple of small 'poor
kid' scholarships, and working two jobs during school and three during the summer and lived like a pauper. It was touch and go every semester. I was still in thrift store clothes, but they came into style, so that wasn't so bad.

"Today, between child support and alimony and student loans, I barely make it through the month. I don't have any savings. My extra money still goes to books. I've never
had money.

"That's it."

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Donna felt sorry for Buzz. She had no idea that he had been so lonely his whole life.

"There's got to be more," she said softly, with tenderness. "What happened at school?"

"Nothing, really. It was the most dull college experience in history."

"Tell us anyway," Sam said, clearing his throat. "After this rest stop. I have to be excused."

Buzz saw the sign for the
rest stop exit. He put his blinker on. They pulled up to the ugly, bureaucrat-designed building. Buzz got himself a Pepsi and a pack of smokes. After they were back on the highway, and with a bit of prodding, he took up the story again…

"I'll never forget the first night I went to bed in my dorm room. I didn't have a roommate. I had a single. I knew that my four years at Notre Dame wouldn't be
normal. I stared at the ceiling and was both excited and disappointed.

"I had high standards. Everybody was so plastic. In my quest for things with no words, I was becoming arrogant and insufferable. But there was something repulsive about the materialism of the place. They had a god at Notre Dame, and it wasn't Jesus. I think their god was getting good reviews. Having people speak well of them,
think well of them, and donate well to them was the god. Taking a couple of thousand students as freshmen and turning them into corporate ants by senior year, all sugarcoated with condom-covered Catholicism, was the result.

"Do you know what it's like going to a school where everyone loves it except for you? I didn't tell anybody this, of course. I moved off-campus, lived alone, worked my jobs,
and tried to enjoy my English classes, where most of the teachers couldn't hold a candle to Mr. Snodgrass. I didn't care. I got poor grades. I'm not sure why I didn't just quit school. Everyone else had a mom and a dad to write to, or to come visit, or so it seemed. I didn't go to one football game. I couldn't afford the tickets anyway.

"I knew what it was like to be poor. I had always been poor,
but compared to the spoiled, upper middle class kids at Notre Dame, I stuck out. I never had enough money for food. One time, I saw this guy rummaging through a dumpster behind the ALDIs on Eddy Road, and jumped in with him. I found a huge box of Oreo cookies, a mother lode. I stuffed them into my mouth. Dad never could afford cookies, much less the kind with the soft sugary stuff in the middle,
and I felt like I won the lottery. Man, stores throw away lots of food. Campbell's soup, cans of salmon, stale bread in the bags, Pepsi, you name it.

"People don't believe this, but one semester I spent less than thirty bucks on food. Thirty bucks! Mostly for milk and eggs and stuff. Putting up with some stink and getting ultra-ripe bananas on your sneakers makes you feel like you earned it. I
found other stuff at the mall dumpsters. Books, clock radios. One time, I found seven pairs of leather Converse All-Stars in my size, and ten pairs in other sizes. I sold the other ones, and I'm still working on the seven pairs. I've got three left!

"Anyway, I don't feel poor now. I don't ever think I'll ever feel poor again. Not after living like that. Not after watching those Notre Dame students
spending more on pizza and beer in one night than I spent on food in a semester. It doesn't sound dignified to pick food out of a dumpster, but I didn't look at it that way. It wasn't degrading. I was being resourceful. I was proud that I found a way to get by. It was a secret thrill. Now, I know I can live on whatever amount of money I make. This is America, dumpster heaven.

"Then, in junior
year, I met Kelly Pauling, fell in love, and my world fell apart."

+  +  +

"Time out," Sam said. "That's quite an introduction. Have you ever told us about Kelly before?"

"Never," Buzz said.

"But you'll tell us about her now?" Donna asked. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

"But I want to," Buzz said, his voice barely audible above the noise of the engine.

Sam and Donna were silent. Their
silence asked him why he wanted to tell them about Kelly Pauling.

"Because you're my friends," Buzz added.

"…I met her in a bar on Eddy Street. It was called the Black Horse Cafe or something like that. It was winter, late January. It wasn't a loud bar, but there was dark, jazzy music in the background, and it wasn't the kind of place students hung out at. I saw Kelly Pauling sitting in a booth
in the back, alone. For some reason, after walking in and spotting her, and getting myself a Screwdriver, I went to sit down with her.

"She didn't say hello when I sat down; she just asked me for a light. She acted like I had always known her the way she asked. She smoked and smoked–all the time. Marlboro Reds.

"I remember what she was wearing. Worn-out jeans, very tight, and a plain blouse. Compared
to the preppy clothes most Notre Dame girls wore, she was a breath of dirty air. In the following weeks, it seemed like she wore the same outfit every day. She was really skinny. For some reason I've always been attracted to thin women. Her clothes made her seem thinner, almost starved. Her hair was long, thin, brown, and completely unstyled, parted in the middle, falling just below her shoulders.
Her skin was about average, but her blue eyes, while not striking, had a joyless, far away quality. She had the fine, long features of an aristocrat, and an air of world-weariness that was as thick as a wool blanket. I liked that. Just like I told Sam that we would be best friends, I knew I would have a history with this woman.

"We didn't talk about much that first night. She talked more than
me, and mostly it was complaints. Complaints about Notre Dame and complaints about the plane flight back from Paris before school started. Nothing pleased her. She wore her dissatisfaction with all things on her sleeve, but delivered her complaints in a way that made it seem like she didn't really care.

"I guess I connected to her. After all, I didn't like Notre Dame either, but never found a
way to express it. She seemed to make hating life cool. She was a sophomore, and her daddy was a rich N.D. grad who had practically forced her to go there. Compared to the perky coeds at Notre Dame who ignored me, she was different and exotic and exciting.

"I got my courage up and asked her to dance. We danced slow, and close, and were the only ones on the floor. The music put a field around us,
and to me at least, it was like we were the only two people in the world. I remember the mix of wine and beer on her breath when I kissed her.

"I took her home that night, and we made love. It was all so decadent, with her feigning complete detachment in the middle of her, uh, pleasure.

"Remembering it now doesn't excite me; it's distasteful. I wish I could wipe the images from my memory, like
how Sam cleans off a hard drive.

"Without getting too much into it, it was like we were there but we weren't there. We used contraceptives, of course, which added to the detached effect. She even compared me out loud to other men with a disdain for the others that made me feel proud and at the same time, like a trained seal or something.

"I fell hopelessly in love with her. It was like selling
my soul to something. To the devil? I wouldn't go that far, but there was an evil, a modern evil, that was on the altar she worshipped at. The music we listened to, the dark humor we shared, the contempt for Notre Dame; being above the crass materialism it stood for, or at least we thought it stood for.

"We shared all that. It was like sharing the darkness in your heart. We never laughed, or smiled,
except when tearing something down. Not that we talked much. Talk was cheap. We sang, though. We sang with our bodies, and the songs we sang were hopeless, bluesy, low, and mean. We sang and danced with death.

"I started skipping classes to be with her. She was failing out. I quit one of my night jobs to have time for her. I spent all my money on her and booze and drugs, though mostly we drank.
In fact, I think that's when I became an alcoholic, even though I stopped drinking by degrees after it was over. A month later, after she got bored with me, and found another guy, she dumped me. She left me a note. 'It was great while it lasted. I'll always remember you, Buzz.' I didn't try to get her back. I knew her.

"Just like that, Kelly Pauling was gone from my life. I lost track of her and
I think she dropped out before the year was over. I sometimes, but not often, wonder what became of her.

"You know, we think of sex and sin as something that men corrupt women with, but it was the opposite with me. She corrupted me, but I was a willing participant, enchanted by her corruption. I became depressed, and almost failed out that semester. It seemed like I went for months without talking
to other students. I could see it in other students when they looked at me. I was different, a pariah. An outsider. Maybe I imagined that.

"I got another job loading boxes for UPS, to kill time, and to distract myself. I needed the money. I'd strap myself up in the giant web of conveyer belts in the shipping center, sorting thousands of boxes by zip code. You should see it. You can't think when
you do work like that. I couldn't face going home a failure. Not that Dad would have cared. He would have told me 'Nice try, son. Nice try.' That would have been that.

"One time, I wandered into the Crypt, a chapel in the basement of Sacred Heart, and prayed for help. I even cried. Nothing happened. I guess I felt better for crying–sorry, I cry easily. I cried during the national anthem when I
played sports in high school. I didn't get any lightning bolts from God. I guess I wasn't expecting any.