Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes Read online

  “You make a good point,” Lemry says, “but for our discussion we need limits, or the next thing you’ll hear is Mr. Ellerby making a case for every self-proclaimed prophet and cult leader and tribal shaman and TV huckster, and your spiritual argument will get lost. You’ll say once again that the Bible is the word of God and Ellerby will say tell that to twenty billion Moslems and Chinese, because Ellerby is prone to exaggeration. Then you’ll bring in faith, and Ellerby will counter with biblical interpretation, which you will point out is nothing more than cheap rationalization in order to avoid being responsible to God. Both of you will feel right, nothing will be resolved, and the few members of the class who remain awake will hate both your guts.” She said it all in one breath. Not bad. “So just let it be understood that your belief says anyone who participates in abortion will be punished in the afterlife and let it go at that.”

  Megan Buckman raises her hand. “Abortion is not murder,” she says. “It’s a decision.”

  “I agree it’s a decision,” Brittain says. “It’s a decision to commit murder.”

  Megan talks right through him. “It’s a decision not to have a baby. Calling it murder is just a way to ignite the issue; get emotions in the way of rational decisions.”

  “A fetus is a life,” Sally says back. “Pure and simple. The taking of a life is murder. There’s nothing emotional about it.”

  Ellerby watches intently, holding back, which is unusual; nothing excites Ellerby more than a good fight. I’m also surprised we haven’t heard from Jody.

  Megan takes a deep breath. “There’s some question among scholars about when life actually starts.”

  “Only among scholars who have a need for abortion to be okay,” Sally says. “It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to know that if something is growing and using nutrients, it’s life. If they discovered it on Mars, they’d sure say it’s life.”

  That’s a good point.

  Megan is unflappable. “By that reasoning, anything that can swim upstream and bang its head against the walls of a female egg until it crashes through is also life, which means every time one of these guys takes his love life into his own hand, that’s murder, too. Willful destruction of sperms is mass murder, using that argument.”

  Ooh, Megan! Gettin’ close to home.

  Lemry has the hint of a smile on her face, but she says nothing. I guess she dropped her tight rein somewhere.

  “It’s not human life until the two are united,” Sally says. “That’s the beauty of two people being together.”

  Megan won’t be moved. “But we’re looking for the line here. The line between when there’s life and when there’s not. That means we have to look at capability. By your definition, knowingly killing a sperm would have to be murder, particularly if you know it could be put to good use—and every guy in this room has taken sex ed.”

  Christ. A minute ago I was just a big old husky bugger out there turning in most of my homework and getting from one end of the pool to the other in a hurry. All of a sudden I’m a Son of Sam. I hold world records in this field.

  “Sally and Megan are taking this argument in the classic direction, though maybe a little far,” Lemry says. “And I must say, ladies, you’ve done your homework. Anyone else have thoughts? If you don’t, you’d better get some. This issue won’t go away. What about you, Mobe?”

  “I was just thinking of what to say when I turn myself in to the authorities,” I say, staring at my desk. “‘Yes sir, detective. I knew they could make a baby, but I gave them a home in my sock anyway.”’ It gets a laugh, and even a few female shrieks.

  “People who joke about something this serious,” Sally says evenly, “are either poorly informed, or they’re afraid to stand up for what they believe.”

  That embarrasses me a bit. “Look, Sally. The reason I haven’t said anything is that Coach will ask for a solution, and I don’t have one. If I took seriously what I’ve heard so far, I could wind up thinking all the guys in the room are going to have to spend the bulk of their adult years in prison, to get out just in time to go straight to hell. And I guess there could be a case made for bringing charges against any girl who knowingly lets an egg drop without trying her best to get it fertilized, but by Brittain’s standards she’d have to be married to do that, so everyone should be married by the time they’re twelve just in case. In other words, it gets pretty ridiculous.”

  “The sperm and egg argument isn’t mine,” Sally says. “It’s Megan’s. And she used it to make a rational argument look silly.”

  I say, “Maybe. But even if you drop the sperm and egg argument, that still leaves room for some question about when human life begins. Yeah, from the moment of conception it could grow up to be a baby. But it ain’t a baby. It doesn’t have baby trappings. You know, arms, legs, eyes. They’re coming, sure, but they ain’t there yet.” Actually, I’m remembering most of this from listening to my mother. I really don’t have much feeling. I’m just reacting to Sally calling me down in front of the class.

  “But once there’s conception, it’s all continuous; there’s no way to draw the line,” Sally says.

  “Sure there is,” Megan breaks in. “We draw the line wherever we want to draw it. Changing abortion law proves that.”

  Brittain explodes. “There’s a law higher than that! Don’t you understand? There is higher law! And it’s not flexible!”

  Lemry raises her hand. “Mark, take it easy. We’ve got a pretty orderly discussion going here, all things considered. Jody, what do you think?” Boy, there’s a mischievous side to Lemry.

  Jody glances sideways at Mark. “I’d like to agree with Mark,” she says, and there’s a strength in her voice I haven’t heard, “but every time I think something is absolute, it turns out not to be. So I guess I don’t know.” If looks could kill, Jody would be meat.

  Lemry scans the room. “Mr. Ellerby,” she says, glancing at her watch, “I’ve never been in a room with you for more than five minutes without having to tell you to shut up. You’re making me crazy.”

  Ellerby smiles. “All right! I knew you cared.”

  “You’re wrong,” Lemry says back. “It’s just that if you’re terminally ill and you drop dead in my classroom, I’ll have to answer to the school board. I’m too close to retirement for that. Don’t ever get it in your head that I care.”

  “Methinks she doth protest too much,” Steve says to the class. “But now that you’ve sought my opinion…” He scans the room quickly. Ellerby loves an audience. “I think this ‘When does life begin’ argument is kind of cute, but it’s dead end. If we let it go long enough somebody will get punched in the nose, or Brittain will have a coronary incident. No offense, Sally, but most of the right-to-lifers I know—and I know a lot of them because they call at our house pretty regularly to say how much they hate my dad—get all wrapped up with life in the womb, and life after death, for that matter, but they don’t give a rip about life after birth. All you have to do is look around to see we’ve got big trouble in that area. People are starving to death all over the world. Their lives are spent trying to get something into their bellies, which they never get, and then they die. And to tell you the truth, the people who seem willing to fight to the death, or who are at least willing to carry a poster in front of the Deaconess clinic, are politically against giving them anything. The second they’re born, they’re on their own.”

  Ellerby shakes his head in exasperation. “Or take right here in this country. Take babies who aren’t starving to death, but who nobody wants and are only going to make their mother’s life impossible. I know this mom in my dad’s church, she’s had one baby who was permanently brain damaged because her boyfriend beat the kid when he was only four months old. No shit, broke his skull. She has another baby born with fetal alcohol syndrome, because she was drinking so much grieving the first baby that she marinated the second one. Now she’s pregnant again. She doesn’t want the baby, but she also knows if she has it, she won’t adopt it out
. She just can’t. She just wants to not have it. She’s in school and her life looks almost manageable, but she says this pregnancy will take her under. And let me tell you, I know this lady. If she says it’ll take her under, believe it.” He puts up his hands. “I just don’t think you can have this argument without talking about quality of life. Not just life. Quality.”

  Sally is quiet, seems to be thinking about the woman Ellerby described. Lemry snatches control. “So where are we?”

  “If we buy into Steve’s BS,” Brittain says through gritted teeth, “we’re lost. The world is tough. There are strict rules. Ellerby’s story is sad. But the rules here are clear. If you fornicate, you take the chance of pregnancy. If you get pregnant, you have the responsibility to have the baby. You have the obligation to have the baby. Ellerby said a lot about that woman, but he didn’t say she didn’t know how babies are made. She fornicated; she needs to step up and take the consequences.”

  If I could hold back, I’d just humiliate Brittain in the pool again, but we won’t be in the water for several hours and I can’t wait. Brittain’s “Christian way” is so goddamn unforgiving. Maybe it’s because I grew up fat, or maybe it’s because I grew up with Sarah Byrnes, but when he gets righteous about people having hard times, I get hostile. But I have to be cool, or Lemry will step in.

  “I don’t think a baby who is born as a ‘consequence’ has much of a chance. Maybe an ingredient in the ‘When does life begin?’ argument ought to be want. Life begins when you have a sperm and an egg together with some want. Or maybe Ellerby’s right, the ‘When does life begin?’ question should only be on game shows. But I know one thing. This religious argument, at least the way Mark Brittain presents it, is one cold damn argument, and it doesn’t address human pain. And maybe this is more an argument about your particular religious view, Mark, but whether we’re talking about Sarah Byrnes, or a baby with brain damage, or a mother who can’t face another pregnancy, you are one heartless SOB.”

  Lemry cuts me off. “That’s enough, Eric. That’s personal. It has no place in this discussion.”

  “That may be,” I say. “But Brittain argues in a way that isn’t fair, either. He goes for people’s open wounds, then brings God in with air support. You have to agree, there’s a certain cowardice to that approach.”

  Lemry hoists herself up on the desk. “This might be a good place to stop for today,” she says, but Brittain interrupts.

  You can almost take his pulse from across the room, but he speaks in measured tones, looking at his watch. “Tell you what, Ms. Lemry. We’ve got fifteen minutes till the class ends. Let Moby and me have this out. Nobody calls me a coward.”

  “It’s tempting, Mark. But we’re trying to look at this from a scholarly perspective.”

  Mark’s hands shoot up, palms out. Intensity thick enough to choke him gathers in his throat. “We’ll keep it scholarly. Agreed, Mobe? No punches.”

  “No punches.”

  Lemry shrugs, looking, somewhat amused, around the room. “This is not mandatory,” she says. “Anyone who doesn’t want to participate may be excused. Just don’t hang out in the hall.”

  No one moves a muscle.

  I try to take away a little of Brittain’s steam. “First of all, Mark, I didn’t call you a coward. I called your approach cowardly.”

  “No difference,” he says. “You can’t separate me from my actions. A man is known by his works.”

  I shrug. “Have it your way.”

  He nods as if to say, I intend to. “Number one, your argument is the cowardly one, and you have to be a spiritual coward to make it. The rules that God made to govern the world are strict, but they’re the same for everyone. They don’t change because some female doesn’t have the brains to stay out of situations that lead to fornication. They don’t change because you got born into a family with no dad, or because your father is a misguided, permissive preacher who lets you drive around in a car that screams blasphemy. They don’t even change if you’re scarred all over your face and hands like your friend.

  “We’re all born into different situations, but the word of God is the word of God and everyone has to adhere to it. Everyone. If you choose to have an abortion, you’re a killer. If you’re a killer, you’re going to have a tough time staying out of hell. It doesn’t matter what kind of a hard time you give me, Calhoune. How many times you trick me in the pool or mock me in front of others. When the time comes for the real judgment, guys like you and Ellerby are going to have to stand up and face your actions.” He raises his eyebrows. “Then we’ll see how clever you are.”

  Brittain’s tone has a Mautz ring to it: Let me tell you something, young man, you’re not as smart as you think you are. I can tell he’s scored because the old Calhounian sweat glands are creaking open. I have to be careful not to spin out of control. “Here’s my problem with your argument, Mark. I’m not a big-time Christian. I haven’t spent a bunch of time locked in my room with my Bible. But when I close my eyes and imagine God the way you paint him—and Jesus, too—I just can’t buy it. They’d have to be a pair of horses’ asses to treat people that way, with no consideration for their circumstances. Think of any king, any president, hell, any mother or father, who could treat people that way. One mistake and you’re out of the ball game. That just doesn’t make sense.”

  “And that’s my point,” Brittain says, more to the rest of the class than to me. “It doesn’t make sense because Calhoune doesn’t want it to make sense. If it makes sense, then he has to answer to it. He says he hasn’t spent any time with the Bible. Then he shouldn’t even be in this argument, because he hasn’t gone to the one place where the answers about abortion are.”

  “Wait a minute,” Ellerby breaks in, “I’ve spent a little time locked in my room with a Bible, and I think you’re more full of shit than Moby does. Certainly I’m for birth control before abortion, but I’ll tell you one thing, Brittain, if God kept as close an eye on us as you say he does, and if he felt the need to intervene in daily human problems, he’d put on his steel-toed holy boots and come down here and kick your butt for making him look like a mean-spirited, unforgiving ayatollah. I mean…”

  Lemry breaks it off. “Listen, guys, I could watch you beat each other to death all day and never get enough, but the bell is about to ring.” Ellerby opens his mouth to continue, but she hits him with a look that has knockout written all over it. “What you’ve seen in here today is not unusual when we deal with emotional issues. But it dramatizes something important in looking at any contemporary American thought. No issue is isolated. We started out talking about abortion, but the discussion quickly drifted to general beliefs. No amount of effort could have stopped that, because our points of view—the way we perceive things—are inextricably linked to our beliefs. If you don’t leave with anything more than that today, leave with that. What I hope we can learn is to be aware of how our beliefs color what we see.”

  I wanted to tell Brittain that Lemry was trying to tell him that his own little view of the universe wasn’t the only view possible; that if there’s a heaven, decent people all over the world who have never even heard of Jesus Christ would get to go there. Even if they’d made mistakes. Even if they’d had abortions.

  Headed for my locker, I pass Brittain and Jody in an animated exchange, probably discussing which level of hell Ellerby and Megan and I will inhabit.

  As I dig through the primordial ooze for my Government book, a hand touches my shoulder. “You never answered my note.”

  I turn, speechless.

  Jody says, “Could we talk?”

  “Now?”

  “Not right this minute. I have class. What about after school?”

  “I have to swim.”

  “After that.”

  “Sure. How about we go get a burger? Five-thirty? I could pick you up.”

  We agree to meet at the Burger Barn, and after shyly asking me to keep our meeting to myself, at least for now, she’s gone. And I stand dazed
in front of my locker, having forgotten where my next class is, or what it is, for that matter.

  CHAPTER 9

  I push through the double doors of the Sacred Heart psych ward, spotting Sarah Byrnes in her now-familiar position on the end of the couch. The on-duty nurse waves to me as if I worked here. Several patients greet me by name. On my way out I’m going to ask for a white coat, or at least a stethoscope.

  “How’s it goin’?” There will be no response, no head movement, nary a twitch of the eye.

  “I’ve been better,” she says.

  If my eyes popped as far out of my head as it seems, I’d have to dive to catch them.

  “Don’t be a jerk,” she says in a whisper, lips glued to her teeth.

  “Jesus, you’re talking. You’re coming out of it.”

  “I was never in it. Keep talking. Nurse. Don’t you blow it.”

  “How’s it going?” the approaching nurse asks, nodding at me.

  “Same,” I say back.

  “Would you like some juice or something? It’s snack time.”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. Be right back.” She walks around behind the front desk to the kitchen.

  “What the hell…?”

  “I needed some time off,” Sarah Byrnes says.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Listen. She’ll be coming right back. I’m only going to say this once. Don’t you go trying to put your head together with Dale Thornton to figure out what happened to me.”

  “Dale Thornton already knows, doesn’t he?”

  “Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t. But you leave it alone.”

  I want to tell her what I know, and I want to know the rest, but I promised.

  “I don’t know if I can still kick your ass, you lifting all those weights and swimming like there’s gonna be another flood, but I’ll sure give it a try.”

  I think a second. “I’ll make you a deal. This has something to do with how you got up here, right?”

  Her eyes slide sideways. “None of your business.”