Providence (23 page)

I didn’t answer. I didn’t have an answer.

“Jack …” Jenny opened her mouth to speak calmer words, but they came out like a pained scream, “DON’T LEAVE!”

Fear lifted the hair on my neck.

“I have to go.”

~
T
WENTY-FOUR
~

I never meant to be so bad to you
One thing I said that I would never do.

—Asia

“Heat of the Moment”

“So you left Providence and came to Chicago?” Bud asked, refilling his coffee mug in the white tile kitchen, where it always seemed cold.

“Right. It was mid-October 1986.”

“You left the woman who loved you?” he added.

My silence was all the answer he needed to that question.

Bud ferried the hot mug back into our work area, setting it down on a cork coaster and returning to his notepad. He set the small Panasonic tape recorder on the coffee table between us.

I’ll hire someone to come in and ghostwrite for you. All you have to do is remember and talk. You can do that, right?

“You got yourself to Chicago and … what?”

“Moved in with Brian. He was working at a club called XN-tricity and said he could get me a job there.”

“I remember that place,” Bud said with a fondness in his voice. “It closed down about ten years ago, but I was there.” He whistled. “Very hot.”

“Anyway, I moved into Brian’s crummy apartment on his invitation to come up and have a good time, and at the beginning it was fun. Within a few days I was working at the club and making exactly the kind of money Brian had described.”

“What was it like working there?”

Bud kept his eyes on his notes as he asked his questions, typing notations on his PowerBook and sometimes writing on his yellow pad. I ignored the intense feelings of paranoia generated by the slow-turning spindles on the recorder, trying not to think about where the tapes might someday end up. Bud wasn’t my shrink, although by all appearances, it looked like he was. He wasn’t bound by client confidentiality, either. I didn’t trust him, but I trusted God, and so I recounted my story as clearly as I could.

“The first night was frantic and exhilarating. It was hard work because it was busy and we were in constant motion, but the money was great. Two hundred dollars a night minimum—cash. Some nights I left with as much as three hundred dollars. Of course, quitting time was three in the morning. We’d all roll out of the club half starving, too wired to go to bed.”

“You’re no stranger to money, are you, Jack?”

“I worked hard for it from 5:00 p.m. until 3:00 in the morning, on my feet, with no breaks.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, and you used to walk five miles to school in ten feet of snow.”

“Why is it you don’t like me, Bud? Is it something I’ve done to you? I’d really like to know.”

“I retract the comment.” Bud held up his right hand with his black felt pen in it. “Let’s keep it moving.”

Bud was playing chicken with me, but he’d flinched. It was true he didn’t like me, but he either didn’t know why or he didn’t
want
to know why.

“What did you do with your little fortune?”

“You’ll be happy to learn that I blew it all on myself. I bought new clothes to fit my new lifestyle. Bought a car. Paid my rent a month in advance. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted. No restaurant was too exclusive.

“Sounds very wholesome. And what were Mitchell, Erin, and Jenny doing all this time?”

“They stayed at school. Mitch kept the apartment, and Brian’s old roommate, Reggie Mohler, moved in. I kept in touch with Mitchell, but not often.”

“How often?”

“I don’t know. Every month, I guess. He kept me informed about what Jenny was doing. By Christmas I was missing her and wanted to call, but—”

“You hadn’t talked to her in all that time?”

“No. I didn’t think it was right to remind her I wasn’t around. I thought she needed space.”

“I thought it was you who needed space.”

“Ah … good catch. Right. I guess I thought it would be easier just to break contact for a while.”

“So, had you broken up?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t feel like it. It was more like a break, an indefinite break, but I think I was still hoping there’d be another chapter together.”

“Did you two ever talk again?”

“Yeah, that next Christmas. I called her parents’ house and spoke with her mom. By then she was convinced I’d been bad news in her daughter’s life.”

“She was right.” I didn’t appreciate Bud’s caustic ad-libs, especially when they were true.

“A lot had changed in the year since I’d come home with Jenny for Christmas.”

“What happened?”

I stood up, placing my hands on top of my head, and walked away from the interview.

Bud looked up. “What’s the problem, Jack?”

“Stupid, stupid …”

I pulled a bottle of water from out of the icebox, a sickening feeling intensifying inside me. “The problem is locked up twenty years in the past, Bud. I have the key now, but it’s twenty years too late. That’s the problem.”

“You … you still have feelings for the girl.” Bud laughed. “So, you made the wrong move at the wrong time, and she hung you out to dry. Ouch, that hurts pal. Isn’t it about time to get over her, Clayton?”

As difficult as it was remembering these times alone in the privacy of my own home, it was galling going through them alongside a hostile collaborator.

“Let’s take a break.”

Fifteen minutes later I rejoined Bud, and we picked it up again.

“Sorry about the laughter, there, Jack. Won’t happen again.”

“You may not realize it, but you’re doing something good by me. You’re tearing out the last traces of pride from my character. For the past twenty years, I’ve felt like I was being squeezed in a vise. I believe you’re here to help beat out the last bits of me.”

Bud stared. “You’re not exactly what you might call easygoing, are you, Jack.”

I laughed; we both laughed.

“So did you get to talk to Jenny or what?”

“Yes. Angela put down the phone, and when I heard Jenny’s footsteps approaching, I braced myself for rejection.”

“What’d she say?”

“‘Hello.’”

We both laughed again, punchy from the long hours of work.

“Hey, don’t laugh; this is serious stuff!”

“Jack, you’re better when you’re not so serious. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Not anyone I like.” I smiled.

“Can I say something here? You’re too down on yourself, Jack. I mean, you were in love during college, and you didn’t commit for life. So what? Every other guy who’s gone to college has that story. I dated a girl named Bethany Carson at Illinois, and we talked about marriage all the time. But it didn’t happen. I’m sure she’s as happy about it as I am. My wife, Katie, is happy it didn’t happen too.”

“For you, there was a Katie. For me, there wasn’t. That’s not the only reason I think about Jenny … And let me say for the record, my life hasn’t been all about years of lonely pining. I’ve more than made peace with the things I can’t change. Still, she’s someone who never acted against me, never said an evil word, even when I acted my worst.” I leaned forward; I wanted Bud to hear the weight of my words. “Yet I treated her so commonly, acting like her kind were a nickel for nine. But the truth is, we were together even when we were separate. Different towns, different places, but still always connected. There’s hardly been a day I haven’t thought of her.”

“You got fixated. Nobody’s worth that much mind play.”

“It was obviously more complex than that.”

“All right, no argument. What’d you say when she picked up the phone?”

“I apologized for the way I’d treated her. Asked if she’d be able to forgive me. I expected she couldn’t, but she was light-years from
un
forgiveness. She was delighted to hear from me. Time apart was irrelevant. She just repeated what she’d said before—that she knew we were meant to be together.”

“Were you seeing other women in Chicago?”

“No. Sometimes a group of us went out on the town, but life was pretty superficial.”

“Then what happened?”

“We talked for an hour. I told her I was doing well and invited her to Chicago and told her I’d show her the town. She said, ‘You shouldn’t say that unless you mean it. I might just take you up on it.’”

“She forgave you?”

“Yes. I’d sent her something in the mail a few days earlier.”

“What?”

“A coffee-table book of London gardens—something I knew she’d love—and a pair of sapphire earrings I hoped would help heal the wounds.”

“Nice touch.”

“She told me there was nothing that would ever break her love for me.”

“Did she come to Chicago?”

“No. We hung up and didn’t speak again for months. She was in her last semester at school by then, and I wasn’t coming back. We went on with our lives, a kind of suspended animation. I ran wild, and she waited for meaningful commitment.”

The telephone rang. I glanced over at the caller ID. “Arthur Reed Pub” appeared in the letter box, and I put the call on speakerphone.

“Hello, Arthur.”

Bud went into the kitchen to make a sandwich.

“Jack, Jack, Jack. My rainmaker friend.” Arthur’s voice came through giddy and greedy.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m calling you with news, Jack. Thought you could use a little break from the writing. You’ve heard of the Hollywood director Adi Seffe, right?”

“No.”

“Well, you should get to know him, because this morning he bought the film rights to
Laborers
.” Arthur let out with a burst.

“You’re kidding.”

I looked at Bud spreading mayo on a slice of bread. He rolled his eyes, disgusted by the freight train of blessing pulling once again into my town.

“I never kid about money. He’s developing a full-length feature film based on your book. It’s a natural when you think about how successful it’s been as a vehicle.”

“But it’s nonfiction.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s a great story. I spoke with him and his agent this morning. It was the
Time
cover that sealed the deal. He said they’re considering Nate Hillman and Rachel LoMack for the leads.”

“Playing who?”

“You and your love interest, of course!”

“I don’t have a love interest.”

“That’s Hollywood.”

Bud and I exchanged grimaces.

“They
are
going to keep the faith content though, right?” I asked. “You wouldn’t make a deal with them without a guarantee …”

“Adi Seffe is an Oscar-nominated director. It’s my understanding he’s a Christian. He said he wants to explore the ‘spiritual story inside the human story.’ He talks a lot like you.”

Arthur waxed on about the movie. After interpreting Bud’s hand signals, I reminded Arthur to send him a check.

The two of us worked the rest of the afternoon, taking a three-hour dinner break so he could go home and see his family. I called Bud at home and told him to just stay put. We could get back to it after Christmas.

Bud’s wife, Katie, had picked up the phone. She told me she’d read
Laborers
and loved it. Imagine that. Bud Abbott living with a Jack Clayton fan. I still didn’t trust Bud, but I had hopes.

That night under the twin shadows of doubt and fear, the writing continued. The next stop on the journey would be the most difficult of all.

~
T
WENTY-FIVE
~

This is the sound of my soul,
this is the sound.

—Spandau Ballet

“True”

Had I known that in five short hours, my best friend would be dead, I would have sobered up enough to jettison my Chicago life, or simply have given up my own life. As a hot iron leaves its scalding brand on leather, so that day left its brand on me. The world forever changed the moment Mitchell’s life forever ended. I carry the guilt and the grief inside me like a tumor, and not a day goes by that I don’t think of a death I was responsible for. I’m sorry, Mitch. I’ve said these words to you thousands of times before, but not enough.

“When I get done in here, I want to be out of this apartment in like two seconds,” Brian called from the bathroom, where he stood shaving at the sink. He had the attention span of a spastic gnat.

Over his right shoulder, I could see my reflection in the medicine-cabinet mirror. A thin black belt held his pants to his one-hundred-thirty-pound frame.

Mitchell sat with me in the living room. It was early June. Jenny had just graduated. She sent me an announcement card with a pretty graduation photo and a two-page letter. Erin and Jenny went back to Indianapolis after the ceremony, and I had asked Mitchell to come up to Chicago for a visit.

Mitch was working hard to catch up with Erin. He’d sold the Cutlass to pay his tuition and put his Harley-Davidson up for sale in Overton to help pay for an August wedding. He rode the bus from Providence that afternoon, and I was planning to drive him back on Sunday, a quick five-hour trip.

“What do you think of Chicago?”

“It’s cool. I’ll like it even better when we get that pizza you promised.”

“We will … tomorrow. Tonight I’m taking you to a party that’s going to knock you out.”

“I didn’t come here to party; I came here to spend time with Jack Clayton. No one’s really sure what’s become of him.”

“Take a look.” I extended my arms, showing off the new me.

He wasn’t impressed. “I don’t understand why you left Providence for this. You didn’t talk it over with anyone, not even me.”

“I traded bad grades and going broke for less stress and a lot of money. All in all, I’d say it’s worked out rather well.”

“Not so much for Jenny—”

“Now don’t start …”

“What about school? Are you dropping out?”

“No … But what’s the rush? I’m happy
you
found Erin. Why can’t you be happy for me?”

I went to the kitchen.

“Hey, as long as you’re in there, grab me a beer,” Brian shouted from the bathroom. After every cutting stroke of the razor, he would swish the blade in the dirty water in a way that reminded me of a pendulum swinging inside a clock.