The Vision by Daniel R. Vollaro
They're made from silver-plated nickel alloy.
No, I don't press them myself, ma'am. The convent uses an
outside vendor to make them. The design is mine, and all the other
symbols around the edge there, see. They're all from the vision. The
chain is silver, but I sell them on leather straps also. I'm 24 years
old, but I'll be 25 in December, God willing. The story's all here on
the back of this card. Go ahead, take one. No, I'm not really hot
with my head covered, sir, it keeps the sun off. Thanks for asking.
Everyone thinks I'm a nun. They see the medals and assume a
whole life for me without even asking. Some people won't actually say
anything to me -- they take a card and stand off to the side reading it.
They watch me out of the corner of their eyes and try to figure it
all out from a distance -- me, the booth, the medals, the vision. You
know what's it like here -- everyone's polite, but they've got their
guard up too.
I'm glad you took the time to ask.
Some of the vendors out there would kill for my spot -- right at
the corner at the end of an aisle -- that's prime real estate at a flea
market. But it's not always great for me. I might feel differently if
I were selling ceramics or purses or T-shirts or something, but I get
a lot of folks who just stand and gawk at me. The teenagers are the
worst. They'll stand there in a pack, whispering amongst themselves
until they choose some sacrificial lamb to come over and ask me these
ridiculous questions. "Can I buy some pot, lady," they say, or "I
hear Mary wasn't a virgin when she had Jesus." Sometimes the boys
stride over and just stand there with their arms crossed staring at
me, like they're trying to spook me. Sometimes they mouth dirty
things to me from across the way, but I just ignore them. They call
me the "virgin priestess" now, sometimes to my face even. That's
really hard, mother, because they've just pigeon-holed me. They push
me into their little box and shut the lid. They think they have me
completely figured out. Sometimes I just want to shout out, "I'm not
a virgin, leave me alone." The words are poised like drops of venom
on my lips, but then I remember where I am, and who I am, and this
calm washes over me. Is that the power of God do you think? Sometimes
Derek from next door chases them off. He's this older man, forty-five
maybe. He and his wife sell silver jewelry in the booth to the right
of me. He dragged one of those kids down to the security booth one
Sunday while his wife Angie minded the store. I never saw that kid at
the flea market again. Angie doesn't like me much; she's polite and
friendly, but I notice she brings a few books with her every weekend
just so she can avoid making eye contact with me when things are
slow. I make her. . . uncomfortable. Derek likes me though. He's
always ribbing me about sales. "How's the Blessed Mother selling
today," he'll say in his awful Irish brogue," or "Man alive, Medal
Lady, you really attract `em. Can I be next to you next weekend?" I
think the adults at the market call me the Medal Lady behind my back,
but I don't mind that. Derek is always winking and laughing and
poking me in the arm and telling a joke. He makes me smile, and I
think maybe that's why Angie isn't too keen on me. I'll be
honest -- sometimes I curse God for doing this to me, and when I think
he's not listening, I curse myself for being so faithful to Him.
It happened about four minutes to midnight on St. Patrick's Day.
I was standing at the bottom of the highway embankment with my
panties around my ankles when I felt it. I know that's not on the
card, but the whole story never fits on a postcard, does it? I was
down there relieving myself; I mean, that's the whole truth of it. I
was drunk, I'd been in a bar since 5 o'clock, and my bladder felt
like a water balloon. I couldn't hold it in until I got home, so I
pulled over, hopped over the guardrail, and practically killed myself
sliding down to the bottom of that hill. Man, it was so dark that
night. I heard one or two cars pass on the highway up there, and
then, dead quiet. It was one of those nights that soaks up all the
sound except for your own body. I could hear the blood pumping in my
temples. I could hear the fabric on my jeans jacket rustle when I
moved. I could hear the breath through my nose, wheezing. My heel got
caught in the rocks down there, and when I yanked it out, it sounded
like I started a little avalanche. I was spooked anyway, because I
was so drunk and disoriented. And then, I heard my name. Lara! Just
like that, a whisper. I turned around. My heart was pounding. Every
muscle in my body went tense. My stomach did that rolling thing.
Nothing. But I was so sure I'd felt something, like when you feel
someone standing behind you. That's how it all started. Everything
that was real just didn't seem real anymore.
Why do you make fun of what you don't understand?
I was in a Christian youth group when I was a kid, but I didn't
take it very seriously. It was ecumenical, so there were Catholic
kids, Baptists, Methodists. My best friend Ginny was a member, so she
would drag me along with her. We used to have a bible study every
Thursday night, and I remember one night driving there with one of
the older kids, Cara. She was already out of high school two years by
then, so I guess she was nineteen or twenty. Cara was the oldest one
in the group. I think maybe she held on too long, but she wasn't in
college then, and she was working at some diner, so I guess her life
was pretty empty. Cara was one of the real holy roller types. She was
always praying in tongues and dropping to the floor and all that
charismatic slain-in-the-spirit-faith-healing stuff. We used to call
her witchy woman when she wasn't around, and we'd sing part of the
song. Cara was driving us all to the meeting that night in her
parent's 1968 Mustang, and we were just cutting up having a good time
when she starts talking about the kids in high school who used to
make fun of her for being a Christian. It was just so out of the
blue, we all stopped talking and listened to her. The mood got really
serious I remember, and she then starts crying almost over this stuff
that happened two or three years earlier, when she was a junior.
Ginny reached over the seat to put her hand on her shoulder, but Cara
just shrugged it off. She was really angry. I'll never forget what
she said after that: "When the rapture comes, they're all gonna
suffer." You should have seen the look on her face; she was
fantasizing about it. She was picturing them all burning in hell,
everyone who'd ever hurt her in this life. Sometimes I feel that way
at the flea market, and I hate myself for it.
I listen to the nuns tell their stories, and you can just tell
most of them never lay in bed with a man. Sex is so distasteful to
them; they spit the word out like a bad grape or stale gum. It was
never like that with me.
Two years ago, I got dumped hard by my boyfriend, Timothy. I was
crazy in love with this guy, although now, I wonder what the hell I
was thinking. I guess he was my first real love affair. I wasn't a
virgin when we started going out, but sometimes I refer to him as my
first real lover. The others -- there were two others -- they melt away
from my memory. What is he like? Do you know that tall, dark-haired
guy from the James Bond movies. Well, he's like a younger version of
him. He's got this shock of perfect dark brown hair -- you'd think it
was black -- and green eyes that look right through you, and he walks
without a care, like he owns every piece of land he sets his feet on.
He was a law student at Columbia, which also impressed me for some
reason. We met at a Carnival actually. He came up to me and said hi,
just like that. He didn't have a line or anything, just Hi, I'm
Timothy. I had to kick-start the conversation after that, because he
just kept smiling and staring right into me. Anyway, we dated for six
months. It was an incredible time. I remember I would watch him sleep
sometimes, and take my fingers like this and run them gently across
his shoulders and back hoping that the sensation would leap into his
dreams. I would fantasize sometimes about he and I getting married,
having children -- four to be exact, two boys and two girls. The girls
looked a lot like me. We lived on a farm in the Catskills, he had
finished law school by then and was working in New York City three
times a week. I was home with the kids and happy. My visions were
always jubilant and full of passion, but looking back, they had
nothing to do with reality. Timothy gave me scraps from the table,
whatever spare time he had left over after school and work. He never
bought me anything in six months. I don't mean to sound mercenary,
but nothing. Not even a flower out of the blue once in a while.
Whenever I tried to talk about the future, he would change the
subject somehow, by telling a joke or tickling me, or saying
something goofy. I should have seen it coming, but I was in love.
Timothy dumped me after six months. No explanation, and he did it
over the phone like the coward he turned out to be. I was
disappointed at first -- like he didn't live up to my shining knight
image of him. I don't think I believed he was really gone at first.
Then the sledge-hammer landed. Bang! I missed a week of work. I was
laid up in bed for almost as long. I lay there, curled up in the
fetal position with the curtains drawn crying all day long. I didn't
shower for days. It was like I wanted to die but didn't know the
first thing about how to make it happen. If I could have willed
myself to die, by just lying there with my eyes closed praying for
breath to cease in my lungs, I think I would have died there in my
own bed that week. Eventually, I pulled myself together enough to get
through the day. I could manage eight hours of work without crying,
but I'd come home and bawl like a baby. I had to let it out, all that
controlled emotion. I spent about a thousand dollars at the video
store over the next few months. I never went out. I seldom returned
my phone calls. I stopped crying after awhile. I made myself do it. I
said, Lara, it's time to get out there and walk around in the sun.
You're an attractive, bright woman with a future. You'll meet someone
nice. But mother, the truth is, I didn't want to meet a nice guy, and
if I did, I would have injured him badly. My rage was so enormous, I
could only see its edges, never the whole thing for what it was. My
friend Erin kept telling me, `a fling is the best way I know to
forget a guy' and I remember turning that over in my head. The mere
possibility made me feel. . . strong, powerful, independent. I don't
know exactly, but good somehow. I got this rush of adrenaline. Every
Catholic school girl cell in my body was screaming out those things
they told you in CCD to scare you -- no way, no guy will respect you,
you're going to get pregnant, you're going to get AIDS -- but there was
this other voice, deeper down, that said who cares. I asked Erin if
she'd ever just had a casual fling, even though I think I knew the
answer already. I wanted to hear about it. She said she had, when
she was in college, and once afterwards too, with a guy she met at a
booksellers convention in Chicago. She was surprised I hadn't. She
kept ribbing me about being a good Catholic girl who never has any
fun. So I did it once. It wasn't planned or anything like that, but I
suppose the seed was planted and germinating for a few months already
before it happened. It was an accident more than anything else. I was
at a party down the shore at Erin's beach house and I met her cousin
Steve from Philadelphia and one thing just led to another. We were on
the couch kissing, I was drunk, he was drunk. And then we were in the
bedroom. The leap didn't seem as momentous as I'd expected. It didn't
seem odd or strange. It wasn't awful or good or anything really. I
didn't feel anything, except when it was over, and he was just lying
there staring up at the ceiling, I had this smirk in the dark. He
couldn't see it, but I could feel it all the way down to the pit of
my stomach. I was in control of this moment. I could curl up next to
him and talk, or I could get up and leave, or I could close my eyes,
wiggle my nose, and make him disappear, and the next day, it would be
like it never happened. After that, I remembered something my
father's secretary Stephanie once said to me. Stephanie is older than
me, maybe 32 years old and still single. We met at a 4th of July
party at my dad's company when I was still in high school and became
friends. She told me once she wished she could find a guy who would
agree to come over once a week and have sex with her. No dinners or
movies or any other pretext, just straight sex. And he would leave
the next day, no guilt, no expectations, just, "see you next week,
same time, same channel." He had to be very good looking, she said,
and he had to be great in bed, but most of all, he had to stick to
the rules. Stephanie was pretty jaded about men I think. I told her
that was really cold. I also told her it shouldn't be too hard to
find a guy like that. We laughed about it then, but later after the
Steve incident, I remember thinking Stephanie's dream guy might not
be so bad. No complications, no bullshit, no emotional attachment.
And no pain either.
The money goes to the Sisters of Charity, Mother Theresa's nuns.
No, I'm not a nun myself. Yes, they let me live in the convent. I do
chores, just like the sisters. I pull my weight. I don't know for how
long. God hasn't shown me how long.
I don't pray to Mary or the Saints. Mary's not a God, but she
did appear to me. She was as real as you are.
She was standing there when I turned around, just like on the
medal. She was glowing. Her feet seemed to float off the ground. She
was holding something in her hands, but I couldn't see what it was at
first. Her expression was completely tranquil, like a person who
can't be touched by fear. My Uncle Holden was like that when he came
back from the Vietnam War; I remember him when I was very young,
before he died of an embolism. His voice came from far away and his
eyes were always glazed over with this expression of bliss and
detachment. My dad used to call him Uncle Buddha behind his back. He
would never talk about the war, but sometimes, if you asked him why
he was so calm all the time, he would say, "I've seen the worst we
can do, I've lived through the worst. Nothing can touch me now." Her
expression was like that, invincible. Not strong or hard-core, but
victorious. She had endured the worst a woman can endure.
There were a few others after Steve. I'm not proud of it, but it
happened, and I can't pretend it didn't. I dated Larry for awhile.
He was cute, really well built, blond, from California, washboard
stomach and all that. He worked out a lot. There were moments with
him when I felt like I was dating one of those guys on the Olympic
Volleyball team, you know, the guys who spend their lives jumping
around in the sand all day long looking beautiful. Only Larry was a
Honda salesman from Elizabeth, and he was five years older than me,
which is way too old to be on the Olympic team. I met him when I was
shopping for a new car. I never bought a car from him, but we dated
for awhile, a few months. I can't explain it, but I knew from the
first time we went out that we would never amount to anything, and I
was right. We were sitting in this little Italian restaurant on our
first date -- one of those places with red and white checkered
tablecloths and big portrait of the owners on their wedding day right
there on the wall. He was going on about Hondas versus Fords, telling
a funny story about one of his colleagues shopping for a toupee, and
it was pleasant, but there was no. . . moment between us. It was like
we were on stage or something, rehearsing the same lines over an over
again until we got it right. The things I said to him that night. . .
they were little lines in a play, and I had a bit part, and so did
he. He kissed me that night; I wanted him to. We were up against his
car making out, and then in his car parked in front of my apartment.
We slept together on the third date I think. Two months later we were
back in that restaurant again because I complained that we didn't go
out anymore. In the beginning, we did things, but towards the end, I
would just go over there after work and we would have sex. It didn't
feel dirty; it felt appropriate even. It was the actual dating
stuff -- the dinners, the videos on a Friday, the Sunday mornings
lounging in bed with bagels and the New York Times -- that's what felt
out of place to me. Maybe that's why we stopped doing all that after
awhile, because it felt like pretense, but neither one of us could
verbalize it. I didn't feel anything really. Anyway, during our
second trip to that restaurant, we sat there across the table from
each other without saying much, and I noticed he had that bored
distracted look, like he couldn't wait to get out of there and head
back to the apartment, but maybe even that was getting old for him. I
felt this sadness welling up inside me; I wanted to cry, but I made
myself stop. I pushed it away, and the rage came back. It was there
all along. I made it easy on him. I dumped him in the parking lot
when we were done with dinner. We both came in separate cars anyway.
It was like we both planned it that way.
You keep dancing around the word delusion, I can feel it. You
want to say it, but I guess it's not good manners or something, or
maybe it's against the code of ethics. Never actually tell a patient
they're imagining things. Make them admit to themselves.
There was Tim Robertson, not my first Tim, but a different guy.
He was my friend Isabelle's cousin, this lawyer from Jersey city.
This Tim actually worked as a lawyer, which impressed me I guess. I
was supposed to impressed by all of that crap, so I went along. She
introduced us because she said she didn't like the bimbos he was
going out with. We all got drunk over at her apartment, and I ended
up sleeping with him. She kept hounding him to call me after that,
but I told her to give it up. "I guess I'm just another bimbo to
him," I said, really sarcastically. She gave it up after that. There
was Greer Stucky, the mail-room guy I met through work. That was a
one-month thing. He dumped me. And after him, my friend Abbot from
high school. We always had a thing for each other, and he was on his
way to the Peace Corps, so we got it out of our systems. Or at least
that's the way he put it. It was tender and even a bit moving at the
time, but looking back on it, I was just stupid to think it was
anything more than just a fling. And while all of this was going on,
most of my friends were cheering me on. Isabelle and Erin wanted the
blow-by-blow. They were hungry for details. Stephanie was the only
one who asked me if I was all right. She said she was concerned I
might not be thinking before I acted, that I might get myself into
trouble. I remember thinking, you're such a hypocrite. I hope I'm not
making you uncomfortable, mother. I need to get this off my chest,
and I feel completely at ease telling you this stuff.
Thank you for saying so, ma'am. The Blessed Mother saved me too.
I had a life before this. I worked as a network administrator
for AT&T up in Morristown. I lived in a condo with a friend of mine
from work, Jeanne. I had a Honda CRX, red, with a sunroof. I partied
with my friends. I dated guys. I don't want you to think I'm some
freak of nature, some kind of sheltered convent type. Believe me, I
didn't want this to happen to me. It changed everything. Can you
understand that? It changed everything.
Tim Number One came back into my life a few months after the
Abbot thing. He kept calling me, just to talk, he said, but there was
something else in his voice, an urgency I understood. And then he
wanted to come over one night. I put him off, because I knew what it
was all about. I knew he was just feeling lonely, and he thought I
was an easy mark. But I was still in love with him, I couldn't help
that. He showed up at my door unannounced two days later. I let him
in, and I kept telling myself to keep away from him, sit on the other
side of the couch, polite but cool. Offer him a drink. Jeanne wasn't
home, and I kept praying she would show up. He got close to me on the
couch. He smelled so good. He tickled my ribs and told me he missed
me. We started kissing, and I told myself, a kiss is harmless. But
then his hands were on me, under my blouse, warm all over my body. He
felt so good. It was so natural. He whispered that he'd been thinking
about me non-stop. We walked up to the bedroom, and at the top of the
stair, he pushed me up against the wall and ground his hips into me.
"I love you," he said. I heard him say it. When it was over, we were
lying there still wrapped up together and I was listening to his
breathing get shallower and shallower. I could feel the tension wash
out of his body. He stared up at the ceiling. He didn't say anything
after that. He got up and brushed his teeth with my spare toothbrush.
He climbed into bed and faced the wall and said, "let's go to sleep,"
and then I knew it was all bullshit, everything he said to me. I
didn't use a condom with him. I wanted to feel everything; our
reconciliation was so special to me. I told him to pull out, but he
didn't. I should have made him use a condom, because two weeks later,
after he didn't return any of my phone calls, I missed my period, and
I started getting really sick in the mornings. I knew what was
happening. It was a bad dream. I could feel it taking hold of my
body. I cried on the phone with Erin for two hours after I heard the
bad news from the doctor, and she kept saying over and over again,
"I'll take care of you, Lara. It's going to be all right."I never
discussed it with anyone but her and Isabelle, and they were both
there for me that day. Neither one of them ever suggested any other
course of action. I never discussed it with them, I just kept nodding
my head and saying "ok, ok." I was so numb inside. I wanted to ask
them if they thought there was any other way, but the words kept
stopping up in my throat. And then, this calm came over me and I
began to think I wasn't really pregnant at all, that this was just a
procedure to yank anything that remained of Timothy out of me for
good. They would suction his spirit with surgical precision, like
lancing a boil or extracting a tumor. On the drive to the clinic,
Erin kept saying "that bastard" over and over again. She wanted me to
focus my anger on him, I think, but I couldn't feel the anger. I felt
nothing. Later, when I was lying in that room in that awful bed, and
it was just me and the nurse, Timothy did enter my thoughts. I wanted
him there beside me. It wasn't rational, I know, but I wanted him to
hold my hand. Erin kept talking about the "procedure" that day, about
how it doesn't hurt at all, and it didn't, not at first. I was a
little sore afterwards, but it went away after a day or so. I held on
to my numbness for days. It made me feel invincible. But that began
to wear off too, like Novocain, and when it did, I could feel this
hollow feeling in my gut, in my womb, mother. I could feel the hole
there as real as if some unseen hand had just reached into me and
yanked my baby out. I lay there curled up in a ball with my hand on
my stomach, and I knew I was going to feel that for the rest of my
life, that it would never ever fade away completely. And all I could
do was cry.
No, I'm not joining the convent. I just live there.
They're made out of silver-plated nickel alloy.
I'm so sorry I've shut you out this past year. I've really
missed your friendship.
Stay on your side, ok. Just cut it out, will you.
She's purity. It's as simple as that.
She said, "Don't be afraid, Lara. I have something for you." I
was watching her drift closer. She had something in her hands, a
little bundle. And I knew right away what it was. She held it out to
me, and I took it in my arms. I could smell it through the wrappings,
that sweet baby smell, and I felt it stir in my arms. "Go ahead, rock
the baby," she said. "Don't be afraid." So I rocked the baby in my
arms.
The Couple from Danbury
The Black Girl from NYU
Mother Superior
The Black Girl from NYU
The Kid with Both Eyelids Pierced
Mother Superior
The Black Girl from NYU
Mother Superior
The Old Lady with the Macramé Purse
The Jehovah's Witness
The Black Girl from NYU
Mother Superior
The Therapist Mom Hired
Mother Superior
The Catholic Lady from Englewood
The Black Girl from NYU
Mother Superior
Erin
Stephanie
Derek
The Catholic Lady from Englewood
The Black Girl from NYU
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The Blue Moon Review, All Rights Reserved.