Chapter 16. New Years Eve and New Years Day
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It was the fifth New Year’s Eve in a row in Tucson for Arthur Randall. The previous four he had been in bed by midnight, thus avoiding drunken partying, sentimental reminiscing, and specious resolving, though at this time in his life he indulged in neither of the latter and enjoyed the former. Too, since Lee had been in bed with him all four Eves, he hadn't missed partying. Tonight he intended to drink at The Shanty. Tomorrow was Sunday and Lee planned to go to Holy Trinity for morning services, as the Rev. Samuels had urged. She also planned to begin a 7-day fast, which she took too seriously to go drinking tonight, but she thought a natural psychedelic would be as good a preparation for fasting as alcohol would be bad and accepted fifteen small psylocybin mushrooms from Stephen. An hour later he, Carol, she, and Arthur were in the bar, which was full but not over-crowded; all four pool tables were in use and several patrons were wearing pointed paper party hats.
"Can I sit on your lap, Honey?"
"Come ahead," he said.
Arthur was on his second beer and already felt loose and loving. Lee felt good too, and liked how the mushrooms made the air seem more liquid than gaseous. She doubted spirits were attracted to the bar scene as a routine matter, but she was glimpsing spooky activity in her peripheral vision; maybe New Years Eve was an exception.
"I like it here," she said.
"In The Shanty?"
"In your lap."
After their first love-making she had sat in his lap often when they were together. Arthur's hip had been broken only a few months earlier and was still not fully healed, so it had arguably been foolhardy, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
"You fit good here. You always have."
"I'm not making you sweat?" Sweating was a common effect of unwonted pressure against any part of his body that lacked normal sensation.
"No. You feel good here."
"I love you," Lee said.
"I love you too," he said. "Always. We haven't seen the last of one another's love."
It cut her to the quick that she was leaving him. She didn't understand it and guilt gnawed at her. "No, we haven't," she said, snuggling against him, smelling his beery breath, happy.
"Do you feel guilty, Lee?" asked Arthur. "About loving Rusty, leaving me?"
"Sometimes," she said, "I can't help it."
"I do too, you know," he said. "Sometimes I feel I'm pushing you away and betraying you by not acknowledging it, letting you feel guilty when I'm as guilty."
"Does there have to be a betrayer and guilt?"
"I don't know. A betrayer, no; guilt, probably." He paused. "Maybe we were lovesick and this had to happen for us to be cured." He loved alcohol, not least for its truthfulness. "But whatever betrayal there is, and whatever guilt, it's just another thing we share between us. It's there maybe. . .--but of course it is, since we aren't perfect."
"You are," she said.
"We are," he said, "tonight."
"Tonight," she said.
She felt absolved. He too. Shriven. As the old year slipped away and the revelers became louder, more animated, their absolution of each other deepened; as they made love early New Year's morning each knew that some night soon would be their last together.
When Alice, Lee, and Lucia returned from church New Year’s Day they told Arthur that the Rev. Samuels had had to stop in the middle of his sermon.
"He really lost it," Lee said, laughing. "The Rev. Barbara had to take over. Afterwards, he said he had had a similar experience once before and that he hadn't been the same for a long time and didn't expect to recover soon this time, either."
"What happened?" Arthur asked.
“He said he’d had a vision of Jesus. He said Jesus was crying and then He had looked right at him and said, ‘I pray for the world if it does not turn to Me this year.’” To Arthur this sounded like a threat, but it hadn’t to Lee. “When I looked around,” she said, “half the congregation was crying. My whole body tingled.”
“Mine too, Tony,” Lucia said.
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 front cover