The Paper Shepherd Read online

  When they first met a little over a year ago, Sal thought Renee seemed like a basically happy person to who had just weathered some difficult event. As the fall dragged on, she explained her friend’s worsening mood to a difficult course load, and finally seasonal depression. It was now summer again. Renee had gotten a 3.5 GPA spring semester, which Sal was sure would cheer her up. Instead, Renee looked as hopeless as ever. What Renee needed, Sal reasoned, was to feel beautiful and new. Sal didn’t know any better way of bringing about this transformation than with a drastic new hair cut and a facial.

  Renee sat motionless in the chair as pounds of hair were removed from her head. She didn’t object when sections of her hair were wrapped in tin foil and harsh chemicals were poured over her scalp. She just accepted it, as though neither physical nor emotional pain could affect her any more. Now, the stylist’s work was nearly completed. He turned Renee around toward the mirror, and Sal stood behind her. Renee reviewed the damage. Her hair hadn’t been this short since she was eleven and she stopped going to her uncle’s barber.

  “What do you think?” Sal asked excitedly. Renee’s expression didn’t change.

  “It’s great,” she said, her voice completely devoid of emotion. “Thank you, Sal.” Renee promptly put a baseball cap back over her head and walked out of the salon. What am I going to do with you? Sal wondered.

  At home a few hours later, Renee finally took off her baseball cap and looked into the mirror. I look like a calico, she thought to herself. The stylist had clumped together small sections of her hair into one inch spikes that popped out from her head. That, Renee hoped, would probably undo itself as soon as she washed her hair thoroughly enough. But, he had also colored the spikes, alternating between blond and red. Oddly, he had kept the base of all the spikes, which coalesced at her scalp, brown. It was as though he wanted her to have roots immediately, to make it look like her hair had been neglected and had not been dyed or touched up in many weeks. The end result was that her head was speckled in at least three different colors. She looked like a calico cat.

  Renee sighed heavily. Guess it’s hats for another few months, she thought. She didn’t look like just any calico cat. She looked in the mirror and saw Gabine staring back at her. Gabine was a stray that had lived in a dumpster outside the hospital for years. Someone finally brought her into the animal shelter where Renee had recently started volunteering. She was skin and bones and mean from living so long in the cold. Renee nursed her back to health and tried to find her a foster home. Unfortunately, Gabine had been so abused, she didn’t trust anyone and no one wanted to claim her. Two weeks ago, the shelter had euthanized her. When is it my turn? Renee thought to herself.

  She slowly undressed, shedding her baggy jeans and over sized T-shirt on the floor. She never thought much about what she wore in high school. As long as everything important was covered, it was good enough. Working at the Fox tail had made her acutely aware that men could see shapes outlined by fabric as though they could see through it. They saw her legs under a skirt and imagined her skin from the knee up. She showed them a shirt stretched across her chest and they saw breasts. Everywhere she went now, she kept a tally. Every turned head when she stretched carelessly in the cafeteria during a yawn and thrust out her chest, one dollar. If she leaned too low across a table at the library or flipped her hair, fifty cents. If someone raised an eyebrow when she carelessly bent over to pick up a dropped pencil, five dollars. She knew she could not spare a dime, not a penny, if she wanted to graduate. She could not be generous…they call it “foolish” Renee—and careless. She could not afford to be foolish anymore. She covered her body and hardened her heart.

  Renee took a long shower, trying to wash all the styling products out of her hair. She wrapped a towel around her head and looked back in the mirror. With the towel hiding her new do, she looked nearly like her old self. She pulled the edge of the towel, loosening it in one fluid motion. Renee, Gabine. She draped the towel back over her head again. Renee, Gabine. Renee, Gabine. Renee, Gabine. Renee, Gabine. Renee, Gabine. Renee, Gabine. This was the right hair cut for her. She was a stray, an unwanted orphaned creature digging though dumpsters for the scraps of life. Once she collected all the scraps, she would hoard them, sharing them with no one. She would exploit the basest needs of humanity and lie to herself to make it seem like a noble sacrifice. This was the honest haircut for her to have, the haircut of a half dead mongrel cat. At least they’ll know what they’re getting when they look at me, she thought. At least they’ll know what they’re paying for.

  39

  There would surely be a frost tonight. Max’s hands felt stiff on the steering wheel of his car as he waited in the dark for Tiar to leave the Fox Tail. He drove the five hours from Hectortown hoping that this was all a mistake or a cruel joke. He hoped there would be nothing to see when he arrived.

  After Max’s first year at the seminary, he came home for the mercifully short 6 week break and worked at the Olympia nursery just like he had every summer since his sophomore year of high school. At night, he volunteered at St. Jude’s, supervising summer pick up basketball. When he wasn’t there, he was at Buck’s with his ever closer high school friends. It lacked the smoky, hazy ambiance of Pugs and the high brow sherry selection of Jake’s. But, it had a dart board and a steady supply of beer. More importantly, it did not contain the ever mournful and accusing eyes of his parents, who grew more distant every day. They appeared overly concerned about the loss of an orphan they used to look after. She was not their child, just a charity project, after all. She was not dead, maimed, or exiled. She had merely grown up and moved away. But, they seemed emotionally paralyzed by her absence and inexplicably blamed him for the loss. Max, early on, shared their feelings of mourning. But, any emotion, even mourning, left a door open. His unfortunate run in with Brandy, as involuntary and unwanted as it had been, had reawakened the memory deep in his body that it could feel pleasurable to have a female touch him that way. The right female, he thought sadly. He had woken up a dozen time over the next month reliving that day in the library. Except, in his dream, he wasn’t with Brandy. And, he didn’t fight back. I have to move on, he thought to himself. Distract myself. Forget her. He could not do that in the stagnant and stifling atmosphere as his parents’ home. He may not have been intellectually stimulated by his former high school team mates, but at least he was not permanently fixed in some time long passed. I have to stay out of that house, he told himself. I have to grow up. If that means avoiding Jack and El… At least, that was what Max had told himself to justify his absence around the Franklin household all summer. That was how he intellectualized and avoided his own emotions. That was what he told himself until he heard the news that made his moral obligation in regard to Tiar Renee Alfred an open question once again.

  It had been the last week of Max’s brief summer break. The fall had already begun to cool the evening air in Hectortown when Max walked into Buck’s for what would be his last time for the summer. Four of his friends were already seated in a booth near the dart board. Max heard raucous laughter as he approached. They were ruminating over particularly objectionable professors they shared at the State University in Henderson. Max let his mind wander until the conversation drifted to topics he could partake in.

  “Speaking of which,” Matt Ryder broke in. “We saw your girlfriend the other day, Max.” Max’s ears perked up at the sound of his name.

  “What do you mean?” Max asked, innocently. The giggling at the table subsided. Prentice’s face was suddenly serious and he elbowed Matt hard in the ribs.

  “Shut up, dick head,” he said quietly to Matt. “It’s not funny.”

  “I just thought he would want to know what happened to Ti,” Matt shot back at him, obviously annoyed at being jabbed.

  What happened to Ti. The phrase echoed in Max’s mind. What happened to her? The question now hung in the air menacingly.

  “What happened to her?” Max asked. He thought of the worst thi
ngs he could imagine. She was dead. She was in jail...

  “Max,” Prentice said, obviously taking no joy in what he was about to reveal. “The guys and I took a trip east to see friends of ours at Brighton. We ended up in this topless bar called the Fox Tail.” He went on, shame evident in his voice. “She was working there.” Considering how Prentice’s short courtship with Tiar had ended, he seemed unusually reluctant to have to report this embarrassing news. He almost seemed sorry for her. No one spoke for almost a minute.

  “I’m sorry, bud,” Prentice finally added. Max stared at the space over his glass.

  “We haven’t even spoken in over a year,” he said, trying to sound light, uninvolved. “Why would you be sorry for me?”

  That was how Max had ended up outside a strip club in Brighton, NY two nights before the start of his second year in the seminary. He had wrestled with the news for two days, struggling to keep the news from his mother, who was voracious for any clue about what had happened to her lost sheep. There was no reason to make her alarmed, after all. Perhaps it was all a joke. Maybe it was a different girl who just looked like this former family friend. But, when he arrived in the college town, there was a sign outside the door advertising, among the other dancers, Little Herodias. Max quickly understood the allusion. The dancer, Salome, the slayer of John the Baptist, was never mentioned by name in the Bible. She was referred to only as Herodias’s daughter. What are the chances of a girl working here knowing that? Max had to ask himself. Only Tiar would make such an obscure reference. He tried to shake off the idea that she had done it to mock him.

  Max reluctantly got out of his car and approached the front door of the club. Making the sign of the cross at the door, he went in. He tried hugging the back wall, not wanting to make a scene. His skin crawled every second he was there. It was like the horrific magazines in Matt’s basement, but three dimensional and smoky and noisy. There were no walls covered with words for him to distract himself with. The performers were not even what he objected to the most, but the other clientele—their greedy, lust filled eyes. He waited ten minutes, hoping and praying that Tiar not make an appearance.

  Finally, she came out. Boom boom, chuck-a-chuck boom chuck-a-chuck. Her costume looked vaguely middle eastern, covered with loosely tied coins that jingled as she walked. Chuck-a boom boom chuck-a-chuck boom chuck-a-chuck. With an obviously forced smile, she made circles on the stage, losing more and more of her costume as she went. Boom boom. Her hair was longer now, and curly; but, it was unmistakably her. Max couldn’t stand to watch, as more and more of her white skin became exposed. Despite the warmth of the bar, he pulled his jacket closed tight around himself, feeling exposed and wishing he could throw a blanket over Renee to hide her. But, he was powerless to cover her. Her rib cage sliding back and forth, her body moved like a snake. All the time, her eyes stared at something hundreds of miles away and years ago. Boom boom, chuck-a-chuck boom chuck-a-chuck.

  The manager never complained about Renee’s less than enthusiastic facial expressions. He knew there was a certain percentage of his clientele who preferred to fantasize about girls who were.... reluctant. As long as she uncovered and shook everything she was supposed to, he didn’t ask questions. But, Max could not bare it, the look on the men’s faces as they watched her. He felt flushed, nauseated. Boom boom, chuck-a-chuck boom chuck-a-chuck. The music was so loud it vibrated through the thick rubber soles of his running shoes. It was familiar to him, but not in a reassuring way. It seemed to be the anthem of doom in his life, forecasting unfortunate events yet to come. Boom boom.

  He decided to wait in his car for her. Leaving the bar, he felt initially revived from the cool autumn air hitting his face. But, soon, he would feel chilled to his bones in his thin denim jacket. He looked at the address he had gotten from information. It was only three blocks from here. He got out of his car and walked toward it. When he got to the building, he could see it was divided retail space. In foot high capital letters in the stone work over the door, it said “Michelson’s five and dime.” The lock on the front door was stiff from the cold, and so did not latch behind the occupants of the building as they left. Max, seeing no one around, entered the building. He bounded up the carpeted stairs into the narrow hallway. He tried to ignore the scratching sounds of rats scurrying through the walls.

  He found the right apartment number at the end of the hall and sat down on the window sill to think about what he was going to say to her. He didn’t fully understand why he was here. He was certain of one thing—he needed to stop her. Max sat on the window sill for an hour, in his head, going over and over the speech he had prepared. Would she even speak to him? He didn’t know, but he had to try. Max looked at his watch again. One thirty. Maybe this is not her apartment anymore, he thought to himself. Or, maybe she went home with one of her clients. Max swallowed hard, feeling again the urge to vomit.

  He was standing up to leave when he heard the front door open again. Footsteps lightly ascended the stairs. There he stood, back lit from the neon light from the store across the street. She was not surprised to see him. She spotted him in the back of the bar, watching her, afraid to come any closer. She almost didn’t recognize him. His black hair was much longer than she had last seen it and fell in curls around his face. He had a full beard. She may have missed him entirely were it not for the look in his pale blue eyes. He did not look on as everyone else in the bar did with excitement, lust, desire. He showed only pity, disappointment. She had never in the 8 months she had been dancing felt so embarrassed, so exposed. Not even when 5 of the varsity basketball players from St. Jude’s shown up and recognized her. She had seen him leave the bar and hoped that would be the end of it.

  But, here he stood. Renee paused for a moment at the top of the stairs. She approached him slowly, not having any idea what to say, what to feel. Approaching her door, she put her key in the lock and barely looked at him.

  “I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again,” she said, opening the door. She said it flatly, without any hint of emotion in her voice. As she walked by, the stench of smoke and stale beer wafted behind her, making Max want to gag. In the light streaming out of her apartment he could see that her nearly shaved head was adorned with a cacophonous mixture of ill matched colors in sharp triangles jabbing down her skull. She looked like a hedge hog who had gotten lost at a punk concert. If he had seen her this way on the street, he wouldn’t have even known it was her. She was more familiar to him now disguised then in her true form.

  He followed her into her apartment. “Who told you?” she asked, her back still to him. “It was Prentice, wasn’t it? Even now, trying to get even with me.”

  “You need to give up this job,” Max said simply.

  “And who is going to pay my bills, priest? You? The Church?” she asked pointedly.

  “You can get another job,” he insisted.

  “I had another job,” Renee retorted. “And you know what? To earn enough money for school serving coffee to rich kids, I would have to stop going to school myself.”

  “You could take out a loan....”

  “And be a beggar? Never,” she said. “And why should I? Men pay big money to see my boobs. It’s not illegal, Max.” Renee caught herself. She hadn’t said his name in over a year. It burned in her mouth. Stay strong, Gabine, she told herself. This man is nothing to you.

  “Listen to me,” he begged.

  “Why should I?” she asked. “What authority do you have in my life?” Her words were icy.

  “I’m your friend, Bird, and I’m worried about you,” he said. “This isn’t you.”

  “Friend?” The word stuck in her throat. At this point in her life, she thought she had earned the right to be more to him then just a friend. But, Gabine doesn’t have friends. Gabine doesn’t need friends, she assured herself. “And as my ‘friend’, you think you need to save me?” she postulated.

  “Something like that,” Max conceded, wishing he could muster more convict
ion in his voice.

  Renee stood up straight, her eyes flashing in anger. If Max had come to her door six months earlier, she would have curled up in his arms and begged him to fix everything. She would have begged him to be her friend again and tell her everything would be okay. But, he was not there for her when she was alone on Christmas day. He was not there for her when she ran out of money or got her first C on a report card. He was not there when they took her hair, or when she first felt the sting of embarrassment of having strangers whistle at her half naked body. She had had to learn to survive on her own, and she had done so. She understood much more about the world then she had in the refuge of his clapboard house. She had learned which emotions were essential to survival and which were a luxury.

  Renee stared at this man suspiciously. He had broken her heart when he left her, but that she could forgive, or at least forget. It was inconsequential to her life now. But, he had had four months to call her, to try to make peace, before she moved. He had had nearly a year to come to her aid when she was scraping by financially, lonely, homesick, with no one to turn to. Could he now take the high ground, play the hero, convert the sinner? It was too late for that. Him showing up now only reinforced what she already knew—that he did not want her. He did not love her. Maybe he never had. She wasn’t even a person to him, only an accomplishment, a soul he wanted to tally off in his “saved” column. And yet, even though he had nothing for her but condemnation, she loved him anyway. She had only exposed herself to this embarrassment and his condemnation to do better in school and make him proud. She couldn’t seem to stop trying to please him. Above all else, she hated him for this.