The Passion
It
was four o’clock in the afternoon when The Chris felt an irresistible desire
for nonpareils. It was not a mere twinge of appetite, a hankering, a yearning,
or even a craving. It was a true desire of the body, a stirring of the roots, a
minor earthquake in the solar plexus, the peculiar expression of a unique soul-hunger:
a matter not of choosing but of chosen-ness. The desire for nonpareils was not to be satisfied by M&M’s or Kisses. Maybe a
Cadbury bar would do, as long as it was dark Cadbury bar, but he doubted that
English Pleasures, his usual source for that variety of imported indulgences,
had stocked up on dark chocolate
since he cleaned out their stock.
Oh, he might find a few dusty boxes of Chocolate Roses there, gathering dust on
their bloom since Christmas, but the desire for chocolate, the right kind of
chocolate, was a true calling of the higher Chris, and he wasn’t going to try to
fob it off with anything less than what he truly desired. Tending to the flesh was, after all – in a way – his
religion. Whether it meant a visitation to
the overpriced English treat store,
the Paky’s convenience store, or the
hand-dipped candy store with the
cutesy name (“O Fudge!”), he had received a calling which required an answer.
The
Chris had his coat on his shoulders and his hand on the kitchen door when he
remembered that such pleasures were, as of the last forty-eight hours, denied
him.
He
had given them up. Remembering this struck him like a splash of cold water. His
emotional state altered, plummeting to
an afternoon low. A seasonal low. Maybe an annual low. He hated himself for
being weak in the face of appetite – the pleasures of the flesh – and equally
despised his willingness to offer a
pledge of renunciation simply to
show off his power. Behold! All this can
be yours. Why had he done it? Sacrifice was a virtue he did not even
believe in. Unlike those who had come before, he pretty much gave the whole
virtue industry a pass. Yet in a moment of vanity and human weakness, he had
accepted the challenge of his devil-spinster sister, Olivia Killjoy (The Eater
of Herds), to give something up –
something he would really miss – for Lent.
“Oh, not meat,” she had
chided, “you don’t even eat red meat, not really, Chris. When’s the last time
you’ve had a steak? Whenever I see you in a restaurant you’re always eating the
linguine and snails or something weird and totally
unamerican.”
“All
right, I’ll give up linguine and snails.”
“No
you don’t. You don’t get off that easy. How often can anybody eat linguine and
snails?”
“All
right, pasta. All pasta. All forty days.”
“Better,”
she said, pursing her lips in that dangerous, thoughtful, scheming way of hers,
so that he knew, and dreaded, that she would come up with something still
better, that is to say worse,
something that would push him to
take a stand he didn’t want to do
take. Just to prove something – to her. The
Devil Woman. Getting him to do
things he didn’t want to do,
maneuvering him into a position
where he could not refuse, seemed to
be her purpose in life. How did she do
it? There was something truly diabolical about her.
“I’ve
got it,” she said, turning and fixing him with her steely pincer eyes. The
Chris cringed internally, awaiting his doom, but maintained a wise, accepting
visage on his outwardly noble brow. “Chocolate. That’s it. That’s what you
don’t want anybody to bring up,
isn’t it? It’s your weakness. Your dirty little secret. You don’t want people to notice, do you, Chris, bubba – Momma’s little darling – when you pop your
M&M’s like a handful of uppers. You go sneaking off into a corner where you don’t think anybody sees. I’ve watched you. I know you do it. It’s
your secret vice, isn’t it?”
“I
don’t hide it, Olivia. I’ve always loved chocolate.”
“Then give it up.” She stared at him,
gazing coolly at the unruffled exterior he labored to
maintain. “Give up chocolate for Lent, Chrissy. There’s a real test.” Accompanying
this demand – this command – with a raised finger. A nasty, pointing, school
marmish finger.
“What
do you care about Lent, Olivia?” Bitch. Witch.
“You’re
afraid.”
He
shrugged, as if the matter were too
absurd to argue about. He snapped
his fingers, riposting the dark woman’s raised digit. “Done. Whatever you say,
Olivia. No chocolate for Lent.” Piece of cake, he told
himself.
“You
don’t fool me, buster.” She glared some more. “You’re sweating. You’re sweating
bullets.”
He
was sweating, perspiring with guilt and anxiety. Who would know, he asked
himself. Who would know if he failed? Olivia?
Who would tell her? He certainly wouldn’t. Did he really believe she could read
his mind? Just walk out the door, he told
himself, sotto voce (so the part of
himself he was trying to get around
– the anointed part – wouldn’t hear), go down to
your favorite store, any one of
them, and get yourself a goodbar, mister. Then come back home and feed your
face. Nobody has to know. Nobody
will know.
Nobody,
The Chris thought, but me. I have a table with the Father.
He
had known two days before, when Olivia the Scourge of God had made her awful
demand, putting the screws to him in
her inimitable fashion. Known that he would pay an awesome price for his pride,
his sense of superiority, his ego,
his determination to prove he was
capable of doing what other people cared about, though he couldn’t care less.
An awesome price to prove that very
superiority. And that he was not sure – not truly certain – that he could bear
it.
Let
this cup, he thought then, pass from my lips. No thanks. I’m fine, really. If it were possible. But if not, Pops,
thy will be done.
Who did he think he was he talking to? Was he losing his mind?
The
Chris shook his head. Foolishness. Just words. Words he had not meant to say, words his miserable pleasure-hating sister
had forced out of him. And yet here he was, barely forty-eight hours later,
standing like a stone jockey in his
own doorway, paralyzed with indecision, unable to
move. Sweating.
The
Chris took his coat off, hung it on
the rack and walked circles in his kitchen. Around two o’clock, he recalled, he
had slathered a spoonful of beach plum jelly on top
of peanut butter on a rye crisp cracker and called it lunch. Except that he had
called something else lunch an hour before that. So that had actually been his
two o’clock fix. It lasted a while, not too
long, and then somewhere around three o’clock he had sampled – something
special. Something he was saving – saving for a low moment.
He
forced to himself to remember. Something that came in a bag. He
pictured a bag of big round brown balls mixed together
with pink and rather grayish pieces, and various nutty bits – all held together by a concept. Not an obvious concept. He
thought hard, sweat forming on his upper lip, and suddenly the name came to him.
Yogurt
Passion. Sweet, he thought. Not bad. And not chocolate; a kind of idolatrous
stand-in for the true God.
The
Chris had not known it would be this hard. One day his world had been awash in
chocolate, fat nonpareils, fat Ecolier cookies compounded of sweet biscuit and
good dark chocolate, homemade fudge (in the freezer) left over from Mom’s
holiday baking season, a few foil-wrapped chocolate coins, a completely
unopened package of Minty Elfmen purchased on the excuse that an ex-girlfriend
with a kid might visit (fat chance) – and the next day he was entirely bereft.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of fatigue. He had bagged the remaining
nonpareils himself and handed them to
his sister, Olivia the Bride of the Tomb, to
take with her when she stalked out the house, pleased with her latest torture session.
“Here,” he said, sweeping the candy out of the
cut glass bowl, “take them with you. Don’t want to
hear any nagging suspicions later when it’s all over.”
She
had considered not accepting them. “You mean you don’t want to have any temptation around? Is that it?”
“Fine.
Leave them here.”
“No,”
she said, changing tactics immediately, “I’ll take them.”
That was the way
she played the game, countering his every move in the blink of an eye. Slipping
the dirk in, pulling it out, slipping it in somewhere else.
It
had been a long thirty-eight days. Many of them unbearable, but also
forgettable, so in the end they ran together
in his memory like powdered hot chocolate mix on a sea of time. He had thrown
away the hot chocolate mix and then the old package of baker’s chocolate, even
though it was unsweetened and utterly inedible. After the first few weeks he seldom
went to his desk any more to keep track of the financial news – he penned the
occasional market trends commentary for the local rag; it helped to position him as a financial wizard and drum up
business as an investment counselor – because it reminded him of snacking by
the keyboard, a favorite pastime in the good old days before the archfiend
Olivia Bane of Good Hopes had destroyed his peace of mind by offering him the
world if he would give up chocolate and denounce the Father. Is that how it had happened? He wasn’t
sure any more. Did he get the world, the flesh or the devil? Two out of three?
Things were
running together in his memory – the
old days, the new days – and he was afraid he was beginning to see things. Little somethings – demons, he
suspected – played in the corners of his vision. Ugly little buggers,
cavorting, dancing around evilly, poking each other with sharp stakes like
figures out of Bosch. It was as if his whole house had been re-wallpapered in
“The Gardens of Earthly Delights.” Loathsome little creatures wavered in and
out of focus. Afternoons were the worst, as they always were for him. He kept
his appointments to the morning,
afraid he couldn’t see straight enough to
drive as the day wore on.
As darkness
fell on the thirty-eighth day, a soft pre-vernal day, while the amphibians were
slithering out of their tombs of mud
and whispering sweet nothings in the orgiastic night, The Chris settled down
for an evening of television and peanuts. Salted nuts kept his mind off
chocolate, barely. He would stuff himself, drink a beer. It was Thursday, a
Maundy, Maundy Thursday. Maundy, Maundy!
Can’t stand that day! So was that the Last Supper? Were these his
sacrifices of bread and wine? The peanut and the beer? Where were the damned
apostles? Didn’t they know it was time for the picture? Did somebody forget to send the epistles to
the apostles? Could you not wait one hour with me?
Why was he thinking these crazy thoughts?
The Chris
blinked. The demons, nasty little buggers, retreated to
the corners of his vision. Something hummed inside his head but he told it to
shut up. On the tube Conan the Governor of California had just turned down the
teen vixen Princess’s offer to rule
Slabonia. No, he says – I will rule my
own kingdom. I will have my own queen.
The Chris loved that part,
even if Conan was a bit thick, in all directions, to
be a role model. Independence,
not knuckling under, going his own way. Just say no – telling off the Princess
(kind of a white chocolate bunny).
The evening
would be over soon. Tomorrow would be a Friday, a good Friday. And The Chris
will be in a passion.
Friday
was gray, not warm, though admittedly no longer cold. But things went rapidly
downhill, starting from his coffee, which he made too
weak. First he could not find things, familiar things, like his date planner.
He had a vague recollection of having marked the date, something about a court
appearance, much ado about an accumulation of motor
vehicle violations. A minor legal wrangle, like failing to
sacrifice on the right day, render unto
Caesar what was salad, or drive the monkey changers from the thimble? His head
began to hurt. Better not to go anywhere today.
Though it would be a bummer if some stood-up
client (“Trust The Chris: He Loves Your Money”) rang him up all pissed off,
which the self-important little Judas would express as “frankly a little put out.” Pissed off he could accept; everyone was pissed off. “Frankly” and
“put out” he just could not deal with. Not today.
The weather built, and his head hurt. The whole mockingly pointless day seemed to be set aside for some sort of crisis. They have betrayed me to
mine enemies. Yea, though I walk through the dilly of the dally.
When
the house shook – miserere!— it was some kind of genuine Weather Channel storm, he realized, rain lashing his windows, not
just sunspot activity in whacked out Chris-land. His hands were shaking.
Thunderclaps struck him, one after another, like blows. They mocked and reviled
him. They know not what they do, he thought. He turned this way and that, but
there was no place to hide. Time
refused to pass, the darkness grew
into an enormous craving filling the
hole that was The Chris – chest, belly, loins, head. A thirst, or perhaps a
hunger. Hunger was a kind of a scraping, hollowing pain, he had read (though
never experienced), and a carving, craving pain was what he now felt. Miserere!
He needed a
fix, bad. Where where where would he find it?
Where
had he put his passion? It was sweet, and he needed it.
He
began taking things apart. He took the
books off their case. He looked under the pillows and cushions of the
furniture. He raged at the cat, who hid under the coffee table. Thou hast
prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies. He stormed into
the kitchen, where he pawed through take-out menus and unwanted coupons,
throwing them on the floor, until his finger landed on an old thumbtack. He took two tacks from the drawer and laid them flat on
his palms. He pressed his hands together.
The pain shot through him, consuming the other pain, eating it up. Finito, he murmured. The day grew black. He fell asleep
face down on the cushionless sofa.
When
he woke it was night, but he had left a light on in another room. The light
made shadows on the wall opposite the sofa, and as he gazed at the shadows, the
dark shapes on the wall resolved into
a face. It was a woman’s face, he saw, round with gray eyes and wisps of hair
that wriggled as he watched. The wisps wiggled and squirmed. They were
creatures, he told himself, ants.
Chocolate
covered ants.
He
screamed.
He
was unconscious for a long time. A whole day passed, and when he woke for good
he was hungry, very hungry, but his mind felt calm and dull and empty. He made
coffee and was drinking it when his mother called to
remind him that the Easter egg hunt was that morning. He had promised to help – don’t
tell me you’ve forgotten, Chris!
“Olivia is
already here,” she pleaded.
He told her he would be right over. The morning sky was
overcast and the air had a bite. The Chris drove in a kind of blank, bodiless
trance.
Mom
still lived in the house Dad built on a wide corner lot in one of his
subdivisions. The grass in the yard was just beginning to
come up in weedy patches. Elephant grass was ideal for concealing eggs, and
there were plenty of shrubs and trees around to
make for a decent hunt. She kept hosting the Sunday school children’s Easter egg
hunt, Mom reminded him, because she had no grandchildren to
treat on Easter morning.
“And here
are my own children,” she said,
opening her hands in a fluttery gesture to
welcome The Chris and waving vaguely toward
Olivia, who stood framed in the
doorway, hands in her pockets. The Sister of the Grave threw him an evil smile,
a look of mocking triumph. Olivia: Consumer of Hearts, Sucker of Blood. Fear
pushed up from the deadness inside him like weeds through the spring earth.
“Oh good,”
she purred, an evil burr too soft
for Mom to overhear, “Wonder Boy’s
back from the grave. Have some chocolate, sissy Chrissy.”
The
Chris brushed his mother’s cheek and pushed wordlessly past the Destroyer of
Hope to enter the house. He felt the
devil woman’s nails rake his ear as he passed.
On
the buffet table the prizes for the Easter egg hunt leaned in a tall brown cellophane
wrapped huddle. He moved silently toward
his apotheosis of renunciation and triumph, chose a victim and tore the plastic with his teeth. By the time his
mother entered and gasped, The Chris was tearing a bunny apart and stuffing
pieces in his mouth. He could feel liquid, blood perhaps, running down his
chin.
“Oh
dear,” Mom said, as lightly as she could, “those were for the children.”
Olivia
had begun to laugh, a harshly
sibilant sound, which she broke off to
hurl a mocking command at her mother. “Better call nine-one-one, Mom,” she
commanded. “Your baby boy’s flipped out.”
Mom’s
gazed from one of her babies to the
other, dry washing her hands. Olivia’s laugh had become an uncontrollable
cackle, pitched to wake the dead.
The
Chris turned to her, wiping his
fingers on his pants. “What are you laughing for, you devil?” he demanded. “It’s
Easter. You’ve lost.”
First we
attack the icicles. 
Anne forced
up the window, applied the hair drier -- that age-old homemade remedy against
the forces of ice and cold -- and loosened the hold of ice on glass until the
storm window slid free up and down as well. What remained, a frozen lake in the
well, she attacked with a hammer. Until, when the battle was over, she harvested a buck of icy
chunks, a strange fruit of this winter's assault of snow, ice and freezing weather. 
