But, of course, the big attraction would be the shrines.
Covered moving sidewalks, that’s what Jill’s folks had in mind. That way, rain or shine, the shrine route could be run even during inclement weather. We’re talking miles of covered walks.
Apparently, Jill’s parents overestimated what even a best-selling author makes.
But it wasn’t just the money. It’s the fact that, well, it was a stupid idea.
I’ve noticed that, even if parents are held in scorn by sons and daughters, they’re still off limits for everyone else. Jill had said often enough that her parents were crazy, bonkers, off the deep end. And I didn’t even say that Jill’s parents were stupid; just that their idea was.
Jill took it for the same thing.
And I made sure she was the one to tell them “no.”
I wasn’t making things easy on myself.
But we were at least in the process of mending fences somewhat when, out of the blue, my parents showed up. And they had their pastor with them.
Gyms for Jesus. That’s why my parents were there, pastor in tow. To pitch Gyms for Jesus.
Of course, it would start at my parents’ church. A big gym would be built; Christian virtues would be taught alongside basketball skills—jump shots for Jesus, free-throw line of grace (where, yes, the shot is free, but you have to put some of your own effort into it—after all, it was a Methodist church we’re talking about), slam dunk the devil (the devil actually barked a laugh at that one), passing parables, etc. You get the idea.
From the home gym, there would be “missionary” gyms. They would start in Appalachia, but the pastor had big ideas. Even northerners, he decided, could be saved through Gyms for Jesus. Even in Chicago. Put a nice gym in the slums, bam! A whole load of saved welfare kids, ready to jump off the free-lunch wagon and become productive Christian citizens. My parents and their pastor saw this as, possibly, the only thing to save America, morally and financially, it turned out.
When I didn’t say “no” right away, Jill took it to mean that, rather than “our” money, it was really “my” money to do with as I pleased. I did say “no,” finally. When I did, my mother pulled me aside and asked, a stage whisper if I ever heard one, “Is it her, dear? Do we need to keep this our little secret?” Of course, Jill heard. Not throwing my mother from the balcony of the apartment at that point constituted treason, as far as Jill was concerned. For days, all she would say was, “So, blood really is thicker than water. Should’ve known.”
But as I talked, and let all the steam out of my pent-up anger toward Jill, I began to listen to myself. I made it sound as if everything were fine until she went wacky crazy over these parental schemes. It just brought a few things to the surface, I suppose. Things Jill and I should have talked about but didn’t. A day of wonderful sex followed by a day of silence; a hand-holding afternoon followed by an evening of shouting.
The session, truthfully, helped me. Then the devil had to ruin it a bit, make a little fun, cast his ironic tone over the whole conversation. I got to the end, talking about how, at first, we’d believed love would get us through everything—having no money, parents mad at us, very different backgrounds ethnically and religiously. And such different personalities. Jill was a go-getter; I wasn’t. I think that’s what she meant when she got angry that last time and said I was stunted.
Still, I thought we could work through it (or, actually, I thought we could just slide through it; Jill pushed for the work part and I never picked up on it). It’d just take love. And that’s what I told the devil. Seems funny now, thinking I’d made this final pitch at the end of a sad-sack separation story for love, and to the devil no less! Well, I was green; I’d never spent any real time talking to the devil, so I just blurted out this appeal for love.
Love, I told the devil. We just needed to love more.
I’d had my eyes closed; after a while I didn’t want to deal with looking at the devil’s Sigmund Freud face. Love, I’d said.
Then I heard that tenor voice, riffing on a 70s love song.
At the tune, my eyes shot open. The devil sat behind a white baby grand, lyrics rolling out of his mouth with a lilting melody, for all the world sounding like Karen Carpenter, crooning on about the world needing “love, sweet love.” And as he sang, the devil morphed into Karen Carpenter (which means he wasn’t being careful; Richard, her brother, was the piano player, not Karen). My face turned red, him making fun of my confession, especially after I had said I still loved Jill. And as he sang, Karen got thinner and thinner, leaving only a skeleton. Poor Karen; musical sweetheart of the seventies, ravaged by anorexia. A sad end for a girl with such a sunshiny smile.
“Love and food,” the devil declared after he finished his performance. “The world needs both.”
“That’s pretty cruel,” I said, again not giving much thought (it was the first day, all right?) to whom I was speaking.
“Cruel?” the devil said, hurt peeking around the edges of his voice. “Cruel?”
He stood up. With a whisk of his hand the piano disappeared. By the time he came over to where I sat, he was JFK Jr. again.
“Cruel?” he asked, left eyebrow arching up like a third-rate actor’s. “Let me tell you what’s cruel,” he said. “It’s cruel to let the notion get out that love takes care of everything. Maybe love’s great, I don’t know. But what I do know is this. Without food, you DO die. And there seems to be a whole lotta love in the world for there to be so many starving people.”
“Well, sure, but . . .” I began.
“But what?” the devil asked. “There is no ‘but’ that makes it okay for mommas to watch their babies die of hunger. And not just physical hunger. Poor Karen, I think she had some love, but she was missing something. Some food of some kind. And she starved, inside and out, because, baby, love ain’t enough.”
“Love,” the devil went on. “About as useless an idea as you can have.”
He threw himself down into the chair next to me.
“I loved Jill,” I persisted. “I do love Jill. Now.”
“And that’s just great, sonny boy,” the devil said, casting a tragic look my way. “But don’t you know by now? It makes no difference in the way the world runs. That’s the big lie. A great feeling, everyone agrees.” Then his eyes narrowed as he leaned over toward me, bringing me into his orbit, his sphere, his confidence. With a tone of a fellow conspirator, voice low, he asked, “But it don’t really pay the bills, now does it?” Then he winked and said, “And make no mistake. Whether it’s the gas company, or the tax man, or God, or the devil, or you and Jill, or you and anybody else, even those who say they love you the most, your own flesh-and-blood parents, it all finally comes down to paying the piper.”
That’s all he said. But suddenly a wave of images splashed across my mind, the strongest being my parents, sitting there, wanting something from me. Gyms for Jesus. That was the bill. I’d been fed, clothed, sheltered; I’d taken their time, their money, their love. And the bill had come due, and I hadn’t paid up. And because I wouldn’t put out the cash, the bill had been paid out of the stock of love and affection they had for me. I knew it as soon as I saw the look on their faces. The bank account of affection had been overdrawn to pay what I owed. I’d still be their son; they’d send cards at Christmas; they’d call now and again because they’d see it as their duty. But the relationship had fundamentally changed when I skipped town on the debt.
I’d never thought of my relationship with my