"How old are you, Mr. Baxter?" the judge asks.
"I'm forty."
"What's the highest grade of school you completed?"
"I got through three years of college before I quit and started my own landscaping business."
"How long have you been a landscaper?"
"For ten years," I say.
"How much money do you make?"
I look into the gallery. It's bad enough to have to say this to a judge, but there are all these other people in the courtroom. "About thirty-five thousand a year," I say, but this is not really true. I made that one year.
"You allege in your complaint for divorce that certain differences arose between you which caused your marriage to fall apart, is that true?" the judge asks.
"Yes, Your Honor. We've been trying to have a baby for nine years. And I . . . I don't want that anymore."
Zoe's eyes are glittering with tears, but she doesn't reach for the tissue box beside her.
We got together two months ago--after she was served with divorce papers--to hash out all the details the judge was going to need. Let me tell you, it's a strange thing to go back to the house you used to rent, to sit at the table where you used to eat dinner every day, and to feel like you're a total stranger.
Zoe, when she'd opened the door, had looked like hell. But I didn't think it was right for me to say that to her, so instead, I just shuffled at the threshold until she invited me in.
I think that--at that moment--if she'd asked me to come back home, to reconsider, I would have.
But instead Zoe had said, "Well, let's get this done," and that was that.
"Do you own any real estate?" the judge says.
"We rented," I say.
"Are there any assets that are worth some monetary value?"
"I took my lawn care equipment; Zoe took her instruments."
"So you're asking that you be awarded the items in your possession, and that your wife be awarded the items in her possession?"
Isn't that what I said, but more clearly? "I guess so."
"Do you have health insurance?" the judge asks.
"We've agreed to each be responsible for our own insurance."
The judge nods. "What about the debts in your name?"
"I can't pay them yet," I admit. "But I'll take care of them when I can."
"Will your wife be responsible for any debts in her name?"
"Yes," I say.
"Mr. Baxter, are you in good health?"
"I am."
"Do you understand what alimony is?" I nod at the judge. "It states here that you're asking the court to allow you to waive alimony today?"
"You mean, so Zoe doesn't have to pay me anything? That's right."
"Do you understand that it's a permanent waiver? You can't go back to this court or any other court and be granted alimony?"
Zoe and I had never had much money, but the thought of having her support me is completely humiliating. "I understand," I say.
"Are you asking for an absolute divorce today from your wife?"
I know it's legal lingo, but it makes me stop and think. Absolute. It's so final. Like a book you've loved that you don't want to end, because you know it has to be returned to the library when you're done.
"Mr. Baxter," the judge asks, "is there anything else you want to tell the court?"
I shake my head. "Not the court, Your Honor. But I'd like to say something to Zoe." I wait until she looks at me. Her eyes are blank, like she's looking at a stranger on the subway. Like she never knew me at all.
"I'm sorry," I say.
Because we live in Rhode Island, which is a predominantly Catholic state, it takes a while to really get divorced. After the seventy-seven days we waited to go to court, it's about ninety-one days before the final judgment, as if the judge is giving a couple just one more chance to reconsider.
I admit, I've spent most of that time shitfaced.
Bad habits are like purple loosestrife. When that plant pops up in your garden, you think you can deal with it--a few pretty purple stalks. But it spreads like wildfire, and before you know it, it's choked everything else around it, until all you can see is that bright carpet of color, and you're wondering how it got so out of control.
I swore I'd never be one of the eighty percent of recovering alcoholics who wind up making the same mistakes all over again. And yet, here I am, stashing bottles up in the ceiling tiles of Reid's bathrooms, behind books on his shelves, inside a corner I've carefully slit open in the guestroom mattress. I'll spill full cartons of milk down the sink when Liddy's not home, then gallantly volunteer to run out at night to get more so we have it for breakfast--but I'll stop at a bar on the way home from the convenience store for a quick drink. If I know I have to be around people, I'll drink vodka, which leaves less of an odor on the breath. I keep Gatorade under my bed, to ward off hangovers. I am careful to go out to bars in different towns, so that I look like someone who drops in every now and then for a drink, and so that I don't get recognized in my own backyard by someone who'd narc to Reid. One night, I went to Wilmington. I drank enough to get the courage to drive by our old place. Well, Zoe's current place. The lights were on in the bedroom, and I wondered what she was doing up there. Reading, maybe. Doing her nails.
Then I wondered if there was anyone else there with her, and I peeled away with my tires screaming on the pavement.
Of course, I tell myself that since no one seems to notice my drinking, I don't have a problem.
I am still living at Reid's, mostly because he hasn't kicked me out. I don't think this is because he enjoys having me living in his basement, really--it's basically Christian charity. Before marrying Liddy, my brother got "born again" (Wasn't the first time good enough? Zoe had asked) and started attending an evangelical church that met on Sundays in the cafeteria of the local middle school; eventually, he became their finance guy. I'm not a religious person--to each his own, I figure--but it got to the point where we saw less and less of my brother and his wife, simply because we couldn't get through a simple family dinner without Zoe and Reid arguing--about Roe v. Wade, or politicians caught in adultery scandals, or prayer in public schools. The last time we went to their house, Zoe had actually left after the salad course when Reid had criticized her for singing a Green Day song to one of her burn victims. "Anarchists," Reid had said--Reid, who listened to Led Zeppelin in his room when we were kids. I figured it was something about the lyrics his church objected to, but as it turned out, it was the character of the songs that was evil. "Really?" Zoe had asked, incredulous. "Which notes, exactly? Which chord? And where is that written in the Bible?" I don't remember how the argument had escalated, but it had ended with Zoe standing up so quickly she overturned a pitcher of water. "This may be news to you, Reid," she had said, "but God doesn't vote Republican."
I know Reid wants me to join their church. Liddy's left pamphlets about being saved on my bed when she changes the sheets. Reid had his men's Bible group over ("We put the 'stud' back in Bible study") and invited me to join them in the living room.
I made up some excuse and went out drinking.
Tonight, though, I realize that Liddy and Reid have pulled out the big guns. When I hear Liddy ring the little antique bell she keeps on the mantel to announce dinnertime, I walk up from my guestroom cave in the basement to find Clive Lincoln sitting on the couch with Reid.
"Max," he says. "You know Pastor Clive?"
Who doesn't?
He's in the paper all the time, thanks to protests he's staged near the capital building against gay marriage. When a local high school told a gay teen he could take his boyfriend to the prom, Clive showed up with a hundred congregants to stand on the steps of the high school loudly praying for Jesus to help him find his way back to a Christian lifestyle. He made the Fox News Channel in Boston this fall when he publicly requested donations of porn movies for day care centers, saying that was no different from the president's plan to teach sex ed in kindergarten.
Clive is tall, with a smooth mane of white hair and very expensive clothing. I have to admit, he's larger than life. When you see him in a room, you can't help but keep looking at him.
"Ah! The brother I've heard all about."
I'm not anti-church. I grew up going on Sundays with my mom, who was the head of the ladies' auxiliary. After she died, though, I stopped going regularly. And when I married Zoe, I stopped going at all. She wasn't--as she put it--a Jesus person. She said religion preached unconditional love by God, but there were always conditions: you had to believe what you were told, in order to get everything you ever wanted. She didn't like it when religious folks looked down on her for being an atheist; but to be honest, I didn't see how this was any different from the way she looked down on people for being Christians.
When Clive shakes my hand, a shock of electricity jumps between us. "I didn't know we were having guests for dinner," I say, looking at Reid.
"The pastor's not a guest," Reid replies. "He's family."
"A brother in Christ," Clive says, smiling.
I shift from one foot to the other. "Well. I'll see if Liddy needs some help in the kitchen--"
"I'll do that," Reid interrupts. "Why don't you stay here with Pastor Clive?"
That's when I realize that my drinking--which I thought I'd been so secret and clever about--has not been secret and clever at all. That this dinner is not some friendly meal with a clergyman but a setup.
Uncomfortable, I sit down where Reid was a moment before. "I don't know what my brother's told you," I begin.
"Just that he's been praying for you," Pastor Clive says. "He asked me to pray for you, too, to find your way."
"I think my sense of direction's pretty good," I mutter.
Clive sits forward. "Max," he asks, "do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?"
"We're . . . more like acquaintances."
He doesn't smile. "You know, Max, I never expected to become a pastor."
"No?" I say politely.
"I came from a family that didn't have two nickels to rub together, and I had five younger brothers and sisters. My dad got laid off when I was twelve, and my mom got sick and was in the hospital. It fell to me to feed the household, and we didn't have any money in the bank. One day, I went to the local food store and told the cashier that I would pay her back as soon as I could, but the cashier said she couldn't give me the food in my basket unless I paid. Well, a man behind me--all dressed up in a suit and tie--said he'd take care of my expenses. 'You need a shopping list, boy,' he said, and he scribbled something on his business card and set it on one side of the cashier's scale. Even though it was only a piece of paper, the scale started to sink. Then he took the milk, bread, eggs, cheese, and hamburger out of my cart and stacked them on the other side of the scale. The scale didn't budge--even though, clearly, all those items should have tipped the balance. With a weight of zero pounds, the cashier had no choice but to give me the food for free--but the man handed her over a twenty-dollar bill, just the same. When I got home, I found the business card in my grocery bag, along with all the food. I took it out to read the list the man had written, but there was no list. On the back of the card it just said, Dear God, please help this boy. On the front was his name: Reverend Billy Graham."
"I suppose you're going to tell me that was a miracle."
"Of course not . . . the scale was broken. Grocer had to buy himself a new one," Clive says. "The miracle part came from the way God broke the scale at just the right moment. The point, Max, is that Jesus has a plan for your life. That's a funny thing about him: He loves you now, even while you're sinning. But He also loves you too much to leave you this way."
Now I'm starting to get angry. This isn't my home, granted, but isn't it a little rude to try to convert someone in his own living room?
"The only way to please God is to do what He says you have to do," Pastor Clive continues. "If your job is baking pies at the Nothing-but-Pies Bakery, you don't go to work and decide to bake cookies. You'll never get your promotion that way. Even if your cookies are the most delicious ones in the world, they're still not what your boss wants you to bake."
"I don't bake pies or cookies," I say. "And with all due respect, I don't need to get religion."
Pastor Clive smiles and sits back, his fingers strumming on the armrest of the couch. "That's the other funny thing about Jesus," he says. "He's got a way of showing you you're wrong."
The storm comes out of nowhere. It's not completely unexpected, in late November, but it is not the light dusting that the weathermen have forecast. Instead, when I open the bar door and slip on the ice that's built up on the threshold, the snow is falling like a white curtain.
I duck back inside and tell the bartender to give me another beer. There's no point in heading out now; I might as well ride out the storm.
There's no one else at the bar tonight; on a Tuesday when the roads are slick, most people choose to stay in. The bartender gives me the television remote, and I find a basketball game on ESPN. We cheer on the Celtics, and they go into overtime, and eventually choke. "Boston teams," the bartender says, "they'll break your heart every time."
"Think I'm gonna pack it in early tonight," the bartender says. By now, there's nearly eight inches on the ground. "You all right getting home?"
"I'm the plow guy," I say. "So I'd better be."
My Dodge Ram's got an Access plow, and thanks to flyers I've printed up on Reid's Mac, I have a handful of clients who expect me to come and make the driveway passable before it's time to leave for work in the morning. During a good storm, like this one, I won't sleep at night--I'll just plow till it's over. This is the first big nor'easter of the season, and I could use the influx of cash it will bring.
My breath fogs the windshield of the truck when I get inside. I turn up the defroster and see the red devil lights of the bartender's Prius skidding out of the parking lot. Then I put the truck into gear and head in the direction of my first client.
It's slippery, but it's nothing I haven't driven in before. I turn on the radio--the voice of John freaking Tesh fills the truck cab. Did you know that it takes twenty minutes for your stomach to relay the message to your brain that you're full?
"No, I didn't," I say out loud.
I can't use my high beams because of the volume of snow, so I almost miss the bend in the road. My back wheels start to spin, and I turn in to the skid. With my heart still pounding, I take my foot off the accelerator and move slower, my tires cutting into the accumulation and packing it down beneath the truck.
After a few minutes, the world looks different. Whitewashed, with humps and towers that look like sleeping giants. The landmarks are missing. I'm not sure I'm in the right place. I'm not sure I really know where I am, actually.
I blink and rub my eyes, flick on my high beams . . . but nothing changes.
Now, I'm starting to panic. I reach for my phone, which has a GPS application on it somewhere, to see where I've taken a wrong turn. But while I'm fumbling around in the console, the truck hits a patch of black ice and starts to do a 360.
There's someone standing in the road.
Her dark hair is flying around her face, and she's hunched over against the cold. I manage to jam my foot on the brake and steer hard to the right, desperately trying to turn the truck before it hits her. But the tires aren't responding on the ice, and I look up, panicked, at the same time she makes eye contact with me.
It's Zoe.
"Nooooo," I scream. I lift up my arm as if I can brace myself for the inevitable crash, and then there is a sickening shriek of metal and the wallop of the air bag as the truck somersaults through the very spot where she was standing.
When I come to, I'm covered in the diamond dust of crushed glass, I'm hanging upside down, and I can't move my legs.
God help me. Please, God. Help. Me.
It is perfectly silent, except for the soft strike of snow against the upholstery. I don't know how long I
've been knocked out, but it doesn't look like dawn's coming anytime soon. I could freeze to death, trapped here. I could become another one of those snowy white mounds, an accident no one even knows happened until it's too late.
Oh, God, I think. I'm going to die.
And right after that: No one will miss me.
The truth hurts, more than the burning in my left leg and the throb of my skull and the metal digging into my shoulder. I could disappear from this world, and it would probably be a better place.
I hear the crunch of tires, and see a beam of headlights illuminating the road above me. "Hey!" I yell, as loud as I can. "Hey, I'm here! Help!"
The headlights pass by me, and then I hear a car door slam. The policeman's boots kick up snow as he runs down the embankment toward the overturned truck. "I've called for an ambulance," he says.
"The girl," I rasp. "Where is she?"
"Was there another passenger in this truck?"
"Not . . . inside. Truck hit her . . ."
He runs up the embankment, and I watch him shine a floodlight. I want to speak. But I am wicked dizzy, and when I try to talk, I throw up.
Maybe it's hours and maybe it's minutes, but a fireman is sawing through the seat belt that's kept me alive, and another one is using the Jaws of Life to cut the truck into pieces. There are voices all around me:
Get him onto a backboard . . .
Compound fracture ...
... tachycardic ...
The policeman is suddenly in front of me again. "We looked all over. The truck didn't hit anyone," he says. "Just a tree. And if you hadn't turned where you did and gone off the road, you'd be at the bottom of a cliff right now. You're a lucky guy."
The rush of relief I feel comes in sobs. I start crying so hard that I cannot breathe; I cannot stop. Did I hallucinate Zoe because I was drunk? Or was I drunk because I keep hallucinating Zoe?
The snow strikes me in the face, a thousand tiny needles, as I am moved from the wreckage to an ambulance. My nose is running and there is blood in my eyes.
Suddenly, I don't want to be this person anymore. I don't want to pretend I'm fooling the world when I'm not. I want someone else to have a plan for me, because I'm not doing a very good job myself.