Holy Water (10 page)

“
Holy—
”

“
It
’
s a miracle. Why are you not ecstatic? Where is the beaming face of the proud father-to-be?
”

“
I. . . It
’
s . . . Considering what we
’
ve ... it certainly is. . .
”

“
What? Don
’
t say shock. Our first child will not be considered a shock.
”

“
How about ironic?
”

“
We wanted this, Henry. We desperately wanted this, and now our prayers have been answered.
”

“
Yeah. Great, Rachel. My God, but. . .
”

“
Well, if you
’
re not ecstatic, your mother certainly is. Maybe she
’
ll stop pitying my barren womb now.
”

“
She never . . . You told my mother?
”

“
And my parents. I knew you
’
d be home late and I didn
’
t want to tell you over the phone and I couldn
’
t sit on this all by myself.
”

“
Did you see a doctor?
”

“
No. Tomorrow. I used a strip. Then I got another test at the drugstore. Positive-positive. Isn
’
t it amazing?
”

“
Yes,
”
he said, and as he hugged her his gaze drifted out the kitchen window and over to the murky surface of their pool.

The next day her ob-gyn confirmed that Rachel was two, maybe three weeks pregnant. They took the house off the market and told the Manhattan broker they were no longer interested in moving. She went back to the health-food store with a vengeance, loading up on products with names like Fetal Fortifier, Mother
’
s Essentials, and Living Womb. At night after dinner he painted constellations on the ceiling of the baby
’
s room.

Rachel still wasn
’
t herself, still wasn
’
t the carefree woman he had fallen in love with and married, but she was happy, and that was an improvement. Regarding having a baby just then, he wasn
’
t sure what he wanted beyond wanting Rachel to be happy. For the first time he thought of his approach to their relationship in terms of saving her. And him, and them, of course. But he was convinced it had to begin with her.

At eleven weeks her mother and sister began plans for an extravagant surprise baby shower.

At fourteen weeks she began to spot blood.

At sixteen weeks she was put on bed rest and given medication, a special foam wedge to put between her legs.

At nineteen weeks they made their first trip to the emergency room.

The fourth time they went, at twenty-one weeks, they lost the baby.

That night they cried together on their living room couch. Later, in bed, he promised her they would try again. They would have another child. He was still crying, but Rachel wasn
’
t. She rolled over without answering.

~ * ~

The Ministry of Meat

“
Gentlemen!
”
proclaims host Gerard Fundle.
“
Honorable members of the Ministry of Meat, behold the bounty and the spectacle, the revolting beauty that is. . . Meat Night!
”

He raises the platter of assorted meat over his head as if it is the Stanley Cup, the Holy Grail, something more than dead flesh.

“
The carne-
val
of carne!
”
shouts Victor Chan.

Marcus LeBlanc raises a glass.
“
The fusillade of flesh!
”

“
Meat! Meat! Meat!
”
The Osborne brothers are pounding on the glass-topped table, fists clenched around knives and forks.

Henry would laugh if he hadn
’
t first been exposed to each of these
“
spontaneous
”
outbursts via an embarrassing string of e-mails, messages bearing subject headings such as
“
A Meat-
eater
’
s
Manifesto
”
to
“
Man Rules for Meat
”
(number three:
“
Gristle is our friend
”
).

He would laugh if it weren
’
t for his own sad contribution to the spectacle: Kobe beef hot dogs.

Besides Henry there are five of them gathered in the bluing twilight, all fathers at least eight years older than Henry. They all live within a half-mile of Gerard
’
s house, and all except for the Osborne brothers, who grew up in the first iteration of this subdivision, have landed here through the randomness of corporate migration.

Gerard is working three separate cooking stations: a coal-filled Weber kettle for the indirect heat purists, a massive stainless-steel
Weber gas cooker for bulk, and a smoker that for the past sixteen hours has been working its magic on Gerard
’
s self-proclaimed (yet never before attempted) world-famous brisket. There
’
s a red plastic tub filled with an eclectic variety of international beers—Belgian ale, India pale ale, German
Hefeweizen
, Slovakian pilsner, and, in a nod to Gerard
’
s less exotic college years in upstate New York, Genesee Cream Ale. Henry randomly selects a bottle of Blue Point Toasted Lager (Long Island), which, as he fumbles with the opener, Gerard is quick to point out
recently won a gold medal in Munich. Henry hears himself saying
“
Wow!
”
even though, except on nights like this, he doesn
’
t drink, especially beer, and he could give a shit about Munich or lager or medals. But after his first sip he has to admit that while nothing about this beer tastes particularly toasted or medal-worthy, it is good. He says as much to the group, because saying no to beer on manly Meat Night or poker night is much more of a lightning rod for sarcasm than nursing one or two until it
’
s time to go home.

He takes another swig, laterals his bag of exotic hot dogs over to Gerard, and begins shaking hands with his geographically mandated friends. Forty-something WASP Gerard; the forty-something Irish American brothers Osborne, John and Eric; forty-two-year-old Chinese American Victor Chan, who has a yet-to-be-explained purple and black shiner around his left eye; and forty-one-year-old African American Marcus LeBlanc.

They
’
re all employed in some form of corporate middle management. Financial services. New media. Apps. Digital widgets. They
’
re all wearing cargo shorts with cell phones clipped on the waistband, sport sandals, and colored cotton T-shirts stamped with the logos of places and things that might be cool if any of them actually existed.
Freddie
’
s Bait and Tackle. Death Valley Road Rally. Chattanooga Charlie
’
s Chile Sauce.

They
’
ve been gathering like this, once a month or so, since they recruited Henry two years ago. Not only for Meat Night, but for everything from Lawn
Jarts
and horseshoes to bocce and
Wiffle
ball. Last fall they even had a brief beer pong season, which concluded on an ugly note, with that night
’
s champion and subsequent former group member Louis Bell getting a DUI from a state trooper on Route 9.

The games themselves don
’
t matter. What supposedly matters is the ritual of talking them up for days and sometimes weeks prior to the event. At first Henry wasn
’
t interested in any of it. The drinking, the
“
I
’
m a
Jarts
God
!
”
e-mail shit, and especially the company of men much older than he.

At first he went out of politeness and because Rachel encouraged him. She said it would be good for him. Then later, during her obsession with getting pregnant, her obsession with staying pregnant, and her prolonged depression after she lost the baby, he found himself wanting to go, looking forward to it. Anything to get out of the house.

But now he
’
s unsure of where he
’
d rather not be: in his giant empty home with Rachel, ignoring each other or, worse, talking about his vasectomy; or here, feigning camaraderie in the universal epicenter of displaced manliness.

Before settling down, he announces to the others that he has to take a piss. That
’
s what you do on Meat Night, you announce it—
I
’
m pissing in your
house whether you lik
e it or not, perhaps with the seat down
—because excusing oneself is a sign of weakness, is for pussies. He stops in the kitchen to look at the corkboard near the phone. Besides the preponderance of takeout menus, which reinforce his theory that Gerard
’
s wife and kids may be
“
vacationing
”
in Long Beach Island longer than Gerard wants to admit, there are two calendars, both turned to the month of June, even though it is now mid-August.

The first calendar is for Gerard
’
s soon-to-be fourth grader, Gerard Jr., and every day is meticulously inked in, from morning until bedtime, with appointments for everything from soccer practices to karate and alto saxophone lessons to three-times-a-week SAT prep tutoring with a woman who, Gerard has told Henry, virtually guarantees that Gerard Jr. will be accepted into an Ivy League school if he sticks to their long-term, increasingly expensive plan. The second calendar is for Gerard
’
s other son, Phillip, who is in preschool. There are no written words on it, only hand-drawn smiles for the days on which young Phillip hasn
’
t bitten anyone. Of June
’
s thirty days, there are only three smiles.

Back on the patio, while the meats sizzle and sputter on clean-brushed, recently oiled grates, Henry takes the only remaining seat at the glass-topped patio table, in between the Osborne brothers. The seat is empty for a reason. The brothers are notorious for their passionate discussions, with one taking the opposing view of everything the other believes in, from sports to how to light coals to, of course, politics. Henry
’
s never seen it, but several times the Osbornes
’
arguments have escalated to the physical, the most famous of which was a 2004 St. Patrick
’
s Day dance that left the basement of the Catholic church in ruins and Eric cupping his hands over his bleeding, shattered septum.

Henry
’
s not even sure which one is Eric and which is John. He
’
s known them long enough that he should (it
’
s not as if they
’
re twins), but to ask for clarification this late in the game would be counterproductive. They give him the slightest of nods before resuming their debate on immigration. One wants to close the borders and build an electrified wall and the other, he wants to . . . Henry stops listening. Lately he
’
s been doing this a lot. As soon as someone starts in on health care or taxes, playgroups or some neighborhood committee, he glazes over, shuts down. Same goes for stories about Face-book or Twitter or the social network du jour. Sports too, especially golf. And office crap. Lately, even the parts that involve him. Sometimes he daydreams and others, such as now, he wonders how he ever got himself living this doomed existence, at his age.

~ * ~

Rachel became convinced that their troubles were some kind of sign, that their having children just wasn
’
t meant to be. As soon as he agreed to at least
consider having a vasectomy, she threw herself into the research. She downloaded articles and printed diagrams for him that were intended to allay his fears about loss of libido and the pain of recovery. What he was most concerned about, beyond the mental state of his wife, was having someone take a scalpel to his testicles, and no chart or penis-friendly phrasing could make it go away.