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SHORT STORY: Actually, Chapter 5 of a work in progress,

CHICKASAW: The Good Life and Hard Times of Dr. Christopher Jacques.

by John R. Guthrie

Chapter 5: Passional

Dr. Jacques walked past the desks with the rows of computer monitors to the end of the patient examination area. He made a right walking down a short hallway with three doors, the first two marked Grief I and Grief II, the third marked CLEANING SUPPLIES. He passed Grief I and entered the half-open doorway of Grief II. There were two fake leather covered upholstered chairs to the right and left, a matching couch on the far wall, all of a sepia tint. Each of the two end tables by the couch had a protestant Bible, the King James Version, and a small flat gray square box of hospital style tissues. A cheap print hung over the couch, a picture of Jesus with auburn hair highlighted blond, his eyes turned heavenward. Each chair had a plaque over it, a Bible quote: The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer above one, I am the resurrection and the life above the other.

A woman of substantial proportions, as rumpled as an unmade bed, occupied the couch. She held a crumpled tissue in each hand, and her eyes were puffy and red. She barely looked up as Dr. Jacques, escorted by the triage nurse, entered.

She reached out and grasped his hand with both of her, the two soggy tissues falling silently to the floor. “Oh, Doctor, thank God you‘re here. I’ve been worried sick. And this here is Deacon Simmons and Mrs. Frady, both church friends.” Deacon Simmons, a chunky and raw-boned man with wind-reddened cheeks, in his mid-fifties, stood and nodded, fidgeting, not knowing what to do with his hands, so he finally put them both in his pockets and said “How do, Doc.”

Mrs. Frady, a thin and angular woman with the cold and armored face of a praying mantis, remained seated, simply nodding her head to acknowledge the doctor’s presence.

Doc took the chair next to Ginger, the heavy woman who was Chastity’s mother. “I’m glad you have some friends here with you, Ginger,” he began.

She grabbed another tissue from the box, nodding. “Oh, Lordy, tell me ever’ things alright.”

“Ginger, Chastity is….”

“I know Chastity’s all right. She’s as strong as a horse. But what about the baby?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Frady interjected, her mouth parts barely moving. “How is her unborn child?”

Chris, one worry wrinkle vertical between his eyebrows, said, “Well, the…the fetus she was carrying had a lot of problems. It, the baby, didn’t make it.”

Mrs. Frady started weeping. Oh, Doctor, say it ain’t so. Say that poor baby didn’t die by Chastity’s hand. Don’t tell me you saved Chastity and let that little baby die. Didn’t anybody even think about that little baby?”

“Oh, Lordy,” Deacon Simmons interjected as he clapped his hand onto his thighs and shook his head widely. Ginger had her face in her hands, weeping in great and dreadful choking sobs, her chest heaving, began wailing, a protracted, “Oh, Jesus, Oh, sweet Jesus, Oh, sweet Jesus...”

Mrs. Frady added to the cacophony by falling to her knees. Turning and leaning against the couch with her hands folded before her face, she began to pray loudly. “Oh, God, bless the soul of this unborn child that was so cruelly and wickedly taken from us….”

Deacon Simmons, who had few words any way, was now beyond words. He sat and stared fixedly ahead, small piggy eyes flickering slightly from side to side as he dealt with whatever inner visions transfixed him.

Doctor Jacques waited for them to become quieter, then said, “Ginger, I’m sorry about the fetus too, but I need to tell you about Chastity.”

Ginger peeped over the tops of her hands at Dr. Jacques. “What about her?”

“Your daughter,” he added the slightest emphasis to the word daughter, "she’s going to surgery right away to repair the damage to her pelvis, to make sure she doesn’t start bleeding again.”

Ginger put her hands in her lap, kneading the tissue in her right hand, then looked up, straight past Dr. Jacques to the opposite wall. “What can I say, Doctor? You’ll never know how much trouble Chastity gave me, and that from the day she was born. And like the Bible says, I didn’t spare the rod of chastisement. Not one bit. But no matter what I did, no matter how I instructed her before the Lord, no matter if I prayed myself hoarse with her, both of us on our knees every morning and evening, no matter if I had her in church ever’ time the doors was open, she wouldn’t do right, Doc. She wouldn’t do right, and this is her reward and shame and my great sorrow.” Lowering her face into her hands, she began to scream, “I can’t take it no more. Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeee.” It was the cry of an animal wailing its beastly heart out at the cold and icy stars that twinkle in the night. On the hospital sound system, the Muzak sounded Ray Stevens’ fine tenor voice: “…everything is beautiful, in its own way…”

Doctor Jacques reached over and placed his hand on her forearm. “Ginger. Ginger…” she continued screaming and slid forward into the floor and sat there.

He turned to the triage nurse who had entered a moment before, “Sam, would you please give Ginger 5 mg of Haldol, stat?” He hesitated and looked at the bulky woman, legs splayed before her, still screaming away. “Better make that 10, please Sam.”

***

Ginger, her life being even more dismally unhinged than it usually was, was admitted to the psychiatric unit for continued sedation and observation. Deacon Simmons and Mrs. Frady left, decrying as they went the moral wreck that was Chastity Lee Howard. Finally Dr. Jacques sat alone in grief II. He slumped into a corner of the brown leather couch, leaned forward, and propping his hands on his knees, placed his face in his hands and sighed. “Jesus,” he said, reflexively appealing to the ancient Nazarene who had never seemed more distant, improbable and unobtainable than he had during the time spent with Chastity’s uber-Christian mother and friends. He saw a flip-top box of Marlboro cigarettes and a Bic lighter on the floor besides the couch, evidently left there by a previous visitor. Though he hadn’t smoked a cigarette since he was in the eighth grade, he reached down, picked up the pack and the lighter. He opened the cigarette package, pulled one out, sniffed it, put it in his mouth. He flicked the ignition wheel of the lighter and it blazed into blue topped by yellow flame. He lit the cigarette, then released the gas valve, and the flame disappeared. He drew in a mouthful of smoke and puffed it out in a blue cloud that curled up over his face. He coughed slightly, and took another drag and blew it out in a plume, watching the folding curly cues of smoke evolve through the air.

The Ray Stevens Muzak continued; “Jesus loves the little children…” Of course I care about the fetus. I’m a good Baptist. But at best it’s a potential human being, like an acorn is to an oak tree, an egg to a chicken. What about Chastity, in so many ways a child herself, the child that’s here and now, and needing our love and care more than just about anybody I know? Somehow that seems to be the way of so many. Care about children until they get here, then no care, no sympathy, no mercy…

The doorknob twisted the door opened slightly, and Lilith stuck her head in the door. “Chris?” Seeing him sitting there, weary and dejected, she stepped in, closing the door behind her and sliding the privacy latch into place. She stepped over and sat on the couch beside him. “When’d you start smoking?”

“About two minutes ago.”

“Oh,” she said, tilting her head. “I know the Mama’s bad news, buddy, but no use to self-destruct over it. Everybody’ll miss you, you know, if you get eaten up by the big C.”

“I guess.” He said, smiling up at Lil in spite of himself. Maybe you’d miss me? That would make terminal cancer better, somehow. “Jesus, though, poor Chastity. She has enough problems without going back home. I’d put her up at my house, but it wouldn’t look right, people would talk, you know.” He stubbed the cigarette out in the glass ash try on the end table. He stared at the floor.

Lil reached over, placed her hand on Chris’s forearm. Resolutions are made to be broken. This guy deserves a little TLC. Doesn’t have to mean anything. She said, “Hey, Chris, cheer up. She’s alive. Sometimes things work out. Listen; here’s a real deal for you. I get off shortly. Let’s you and me go get something to eat. My treat, someplace decent; no tofu quesadillas. I need to spend up my sign-on bonus anyway.” She hesitated a moment then added quickly, “Just a little break, a little chit-chat for two professionals is all I intend, of course.”

He looked up at her in surprise, doubting that she meant it. She did. “Sure. That’s decent of you, Lil. Let’s spend up that bonus on debauchery and riotous living. Or if you insist, professional chit-chat. ”

***

They worked their way through the champagne, the duck with orange sauce and the crème broulet at a small café across the county line known as Le Bistro, talking mostly about work, as they enjoyed the meal.

“Funny,” Lilith said, “What we’ve talked about. We haven’t talked a lot about ourselves. Except we now know we both like classical music. Bach especially.”

“But we both have to have a Willie Nelson fix occasionally,” Chris countered. “And you have mastered the art of cooking venison well, ‘cause your daddy was a hunter. That’s a start.”

“But still,” Lil said, “though we came here to get away from work, we’ve talked mostly about work. I guess for both of us, that’s what’s worked best.

He smiled back at her as he spoke. “Oh, sure, my work is my good thing. I see all kinds of people, patch up their cuts and burns and bruises, treat their flues and colds. They tell me their secrets, the most interesting things sometimes. I couldn’t ask for more. Sometimes there’s a little more of it than I would like, but it’s good.”

“A generalist. You do a little bit of everything, right in your own home town. I can tell you like it. Not just the way you do things when you’re with patients, but the way your eyes sparkle when you talk about it.” She leaned toward him. “I like my work too. For sure for me it’s been my constant, my anchor.”

“Me also,” Chris replied. “My work never let me down, even when everything else went to the dickens, like my marriage.” He shook his head, he bit his lower lip lightly at the memory.”

Lil looked intently at him. “Sounds like you got bruised up pretty bad.”

“I did. Of course, when it’s all done, what worth is a divorce, with its pricey lawyers, its scowling judges, the rejection, the abuse, the vile and scandalous gossip, the accusations and condemnation from those whose love and support you need the most, the obloquy from the community that surrounds you, of what value is it without it being a construct of the outer reaches of Hell?”

She replied, “You sound more than a little cynical, Chris.”

“No, just realistic.” He replied. “As much as I love seeing patients, it’s hard to do both, to bee a god family man and a good doctor. Maybe Docs should take vows, not of celibacy, heaven forbid, but of bachelorhood.”

She smiled. “What a concept. Same for me though, sort of. When everything else went to the dickens, I mean. My work kept me going.”

“You mean you went through a divorce?”

“It’s more complicated than that. Maybe we should…lets talk about it some other time.”

Chris looked quizzically at her, then said “Sure, some other time.”

Edith Piaf sang Je Ne Regrete Rien --I Regret Nothing- with all her heart over the sound system, Lilith sniffed a narcissus from the vase on the table, and her brow wrinkled as she said, “It has been fine, just fine.” She smiled at Chris. “I guess we better be going before too long, though.”

“It’s been a fine evening,” Chris replied, “a good ending for a long day. How about a Nightcap at my place?”

She hesitated only a brief moment then replied, “I’d like that. Sure.”

***

The two were kicked back in front of the fireplace at Jacques house, shoes off, feet on the coffee table, sipping the Irish coffee Jacques had brewed as they listened to the guitar music of Julian Bream.

“It’s good to relax,” Lilith said. “It’s been a helluva day.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to slow down in the evenings after a day like today,” Chris replied.

She slipped off her shoes, and drew her legs up on the couch. “Right. So loosen up, tight-ass,” she said, laughing, white teeth flashing, raising one eyebrow. She pinched him on the butt.

Chris rubbed his butt. “Maybe we both should.” Then, standing, grabbed both her hands to pull her to her feet as she looked at him quizzically.

“Ok, Nurse McGee. Loose? You want loose?” he dropped to his knees in front of her, and now two feet shorter, knee-walked to her and circled her thighs with his arms as she looked down in smiling astonishment. “Christopher, what perversity is this?”

He spoke into her groin, his voice muffled. “Est non perversité, Madam McGee. I only want to know for sure how madam would feel about me if I were Henri de Toulouse-LaTrec instead of Christopher Jacques. If I were a dwarf, barely four feet tall, a poverty-stricken but masterful artist who frequented brothels as did Toulouse-LaTrec.”

She laughed and placed her hand behind his head, and pulled him even closer. “Ummmh, let me think. Well, yes, Doctor, I’d cherish your friendship even if you were four feet tall, poverty stricken, and had bad character. I sure would.” Smiling now, Chris looked up at her as she shook her head sadly, looking up at the ceiling and continued. “Of course, I couldn’t be seen in public with you, though.”

Downcast, Chris replied, “I was born Toulouse.”

Lilith raised her eyebrows at the pun, the they both laughed out loud, a good laugh, right from the belly.

She looked down at him, stroked his hair, then dropped to her knees before him, the both of them still giggling a bit at their Toulouse-LaTrec theater. He took her face in his hands. As time stood still, zippers being undone sang their small and plaintive imperatives. Her breasts were white, the nipples carmen in the subdued light before the fireplace.

She drew him to her, her mouth hungry against his. He looked at her there in the subdued lighting, her face enticing and exquisite with its high cheek bones. They leaned toward each other, closing their eyes as their lips came together.

She tasted of musca

dine, of the sweet earth from which the vine sprang, of jasmine, of honeysuckle, of civet and musk. Their hands explored plains and valleys and elevations of each other.

She unbuttoned his shirt, caressing him, appreciating the scent of him, knowing that this was supposed to be. Soon the shirt was lying beside the couch to be quickly joined by the remainder of their clothing. He caressed the fullness of her breasts, then leaned over to circle each nipple in turn with his tongue.

She lay back, pulling him closer, the curves and fullness of her ripe and rich, as timeless and enticing as a garden with flowers. She put one hand behind his neck and, grasping the appendage which he felt to be now fit for the cutting of diamonds, she drew him to her. He entered her, and they were lost in each other and the timeless rhythms that increased in intensity until they both found release in a series of great and final spasms.

When their timeless rhythms were spent and they sat nude, huddled together before the fire in primordial comfort, it was Chris who spoke first. “Lilith McGee, you’re something,” he said, his voice still warmed by their passion.

She drew closer. “Yes, in some ways, I am. You too, Christopher.” She took a breath considered a minute, then continued, “Somehow I always knew this is the way it would be with us, even though I didn’t want it too. I knew the first time I met you.”

“Knew?”

“Oh, that we’d probably,” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “care about each other, like each other a whole lot.”

He spoke into her hair. “Oh? Just how did you know that?”

She smiled over at him. “’Cause I’m a witch.”

Christopher said nothing, but leaned back and looked at her to see if she was joking. She wasn’t. She continued. “Think New Age. And at least some of the time, I seem to know things before other people.”

Chris considered this. Oh God, please don’t let this lovely woman be a nut case. Why can’t she just be a good Baptist, believe in the Trinity, in the resurrected Savior born of a virgin, in being saved on faith alone and going to heaven on judgment day?

Then he felt again the warmth of her, the celebration and joy he’d found in her presence, the glory of the exquisite form and shape of her, and found himself approaching theological considerations from a different perspective than ever he had before. Why should she believe in the Holy Ghost, which is a pretty weird concept after all, or in Christ born of parthenogenesis, executed by the state but who experienced a spontaneous resuscitation on the third day despite the heat and resultant rapid decomposition expected in the Middle East? Why should anybody believe that the Welch’s Grape Juice and crumbled Nabisco Premium Original Saltine Crackers of Baptist communion services really turn into Jesus’ hematological and neurological tissues, bone, tendon and muscle after the preacher prays over them?

Then his internal dialogue stopped and continued with the following heresy, unheard of for Christopher. But then, maybe one belief system is no more nonsensical than the other. What really matters is how you treat people. All kinds of people. Who knows. Maybe he will loosen up, like the LaTrec thing, which was as loose as I’ve ever seen.

He finally pulled her closer, smiling. “A witch? It wouldn’t even bother me if you were something really weird, like a Methodist or something.”

Lilith rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway. Save me, Oh Goddess. What an uptight, button-down collar, this anal retentive with his regimental striped tie, and his button down collar, entirely sweet and delightful man is. He did a good LaTrec, though. Really cute! Who knows, maybe he’ll make a good pagan some day. She pictured a smiling Christopher Jacques here, the horns of the satyr on his head, brow encircled by a garland of flowers, a warlock of the first order, sky-clad, exuberant. Neat, really neat, constant companion, lover, confidant, friend, the two of us skipping naked through the sun-dappled glades of – Austerity?

Chris’s internal rationalization continued; Am I not trained in scientific methodology? Don’t I view the cosmos from a scientific perspective? Even though I’m a good Baptist? It’s hard to be a good Baptist sometimes. She’s not a good Baptist at all, but she’s beautiful inside and out. Maybe she’s just highly intuitive, better tuned to the phases of the moon, the cycles of the universe. Actually long about now, I don’t care if she paints herself blue and runs naked though the woods.

What a concept! Lilith and I, bounding along in exuberant, paganistic nudity, her red hair in ruffled abandon by the breeze of her passage, breasts bobbing with each stride, through the sun-dappled woodlands of Chickasaw. Part of my anatomy would surely be bobbing also as she smiles sideways at me. What a smile, a smile illumines my life like the dawning.

Maybe I violated my personal code of ethics, my own resolve not to become this involved, but…

“Chris, please, listen to me. As much as I love being here with you, I’m so sorry, but I have to tell you something.”

He looked at her, one eyebrow raised slightly. “Sure. Whatever you want to tell.”

She hesitated, then began. “I tried not to get involved like this.”

“Me too.” Chris replied, turning sideways so he could see her better.

“We can’t let this happen any more,” she said, as much to herself as Chris. “I hardly know how to begin. So I may as well just say it.”

“Sure. Go ahead,” Chris said, his tone guarded and neutral now, as it he were talking with anyone but the woman he had just made love to so passionately and well.

She hesitated again. So this is it, the end of the best relationship I’ve ever had before it really gets started. But you can’t hide stuff forever. No use putting it off. That only makes it worse, more painful when it does come out. And I can’t help it. This isn’t how I planned things.

“Chris, I’m married.”

***

To be continued.

The Chickasaw Plum - Volume III - Number 3 - March 2006

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