Cautionary Tales (16 page)

At last came the Day: the doctors cleared Romeo for release. He was moved to a separate rehabilitative unit, where he would work his way back toward employability. He could walk well enough without Juliet's assistance. For some reason he was not completely pleased with that.

There were many people at the rehab unit, in all stages of recuperation. Romeo shared a room with two other men. There was no privacy. Juliet, of course, could not protest; they did not know about her, and it was best that they never know. Young men couldn't keep their mouths shut.

Home at night, in her bedroom on the second floor, she brooded. She had been several days alone, as it were. She knew it was best that she wean herself away from Romeo, but all she wanted was to be in his embrace, kissing him, with one of his hands on her breast and the other on her butt. Hearing him tell her how he needed her. She condemned herself as a foolish twit, but still she longed.

There was a faint sound. She paused, listening, but now there was silence. Then the sound came again, from the window, as if sand was hitting it.

Could it be? She went to the window and opened it.

“Juliet,” came the whisper. It was him!

Suddenly she was frightened. “Romeo, get away from here! If my folks saw you—”

“Juliet, I must hold you, kiss you. Only that will sustain me.”

“But it's dangerous!”

“Please.”

She melted. “I'll come down. Keep quiet.”

She made her way downstairs. Mom was cleaning up in the kitchen; dad was watching TV. She was able to sneak by without alerting either of them. She opened the back door with excruciating care and slipped out onto the dark porch.

Romeo was there. He swept her into his embrace and kissed her. “Juliet, I love you!” he breathed, putting a hand on her butt just the way she had imagined.

“I love you,” she echoed. Then something occurred to her. “You know, we're reenacting the balcony scene in the play.”

“It was in my mind,” he agreed, kissing her again.

“How did you find me? I never told you my real name or where I live.”

“I Googled ‘Juliet.' They had your whole story.”

“No!” she exclaimed, appalled.

“I'm joking,” he said quickly. “But I did do a statistical survey of all the houses in your neighborhood, orienting on those with girls your age who go to the local school. I got pictures, and there you were. I had to come.”

“You're so smart,” she said adoringly.

“I'm so in love.” He kissed her again, squeezing her buttock. How she loved that!

Suddenly the porch light came on. The door flung open. Disaster! Her folks had caught them!

“Get your hand off her ass!” her father barked. “Get the hell out of here, you lecher!”

“Go!” she breathed tearfully, needing to save Romeo if not herself.

Romeo faded back and away. Juliet turned to face her angry father, who had plainly seen that she was avidly cooperating. To face the end of her world.

Vision

“God forgive me,” Juliet said aloud. Then she started swallowing the sleeping pills she had raided from her mother's cache, washing them down with a cup of water. She hoped they would be enough.

When she had downed them all, she went to her desk and wrote a brief note for the world. I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT ROMEO. I LOVE HIM. I'M SORRY. She wasn't condemning her folks, just explaining. She had always known her folks wouldn't understand. They were locked in the sterile conformity of the chaste married state. If she ever got the chance to marry, she would make sure it never got to be like that. Not that she would get that chance.

Then she lay on her bed. “Romeo, I love you,” she said. “I hope we can be together in the other realm.” She closed her eyes, relaxing. What would be, would be.

Time passed, an instant or an eternity. She stood at the pearly gate of Heaven. She tried to enter, but it closed before her. She was not completely surprised; suicides were reputed to be unwelcome here.

She looked around. There was a desk to the side, with a female clerk sitting at it. “This way, miss,” the woman said. “We have to process you in.”

Oh. Of course. They wouldn't even know who she was, without the paperwork. Bureaucracies were like that. She went to the desk. “Juliet,” she said, identifying herself.

The woman rifled through a sheaf of papers. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my!”

This was not looking good. “I'm a suicide,” she said. “I guess you have a problem with that.”

“It's not just that. There's a codicil attached. You must answer to God directly. And is He ever wroth.”

So it was the worst case scenario. “I'll save you the trouble. Where's the road to Hell?”

“Nuh-uh! You don't get off that easily. Go that way.” A door opened in the wall behind the desk.

Juliet wasn't eager to go there, but found herself walking through the doorway and down a short hall. Then she was in a huge glorious chamber, and the passage she had used was gone. There was no exit. Obviously they didn't fool around with bad souls in the afterlife.

And there was God, sitting on a giant golden throne, wearing a brilliant crown sparkling with diamonds. At His right hip was a terrible swift sword. His eyes swung around to bear on her, transfixing her.

“I'm—I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“You OD'd on pills, you idiotic little snit?” He demanded imperiously. “Whatever possessed your minuscule mind? It's not your time.”

She fell to her knees before Him, sobbing in terror.

“Oh shut up and listen,” He snapped. “Don't you dare quit now. I am not through with you, you selfish twit. Not by a long shot. I need you to sustain Romeo. Why the Hell did you think I sent you to him?”

Now she found her voice. “But God, I can't be with him,” she quavered. “My folks forbid it. I'd rather die.”

“You want to take the easy way out, you little ignoramus. I want you to take the hard route, go to school, pass your classes, be the best that you can be, little as that is.” His gaze bore down on her crushingly. “Even math. You can make a D in that, can't you, if Romeo helps you study? Do it.”

“But God, I'm not smart or beautiful or courageous or anything. I have no future.”

“Your future is not the point, you feeble excuse for a girl. It is Romeo I'm trying to save. You are merely the instrument.”

This was confusing, even in her humiliation. “The what?”

“The instrument. The necessary mortal tool to accomplish My purpose. Do you think it was mere coincidence that brought you to him when that spawn of Hell sideswiped his van? I had to preserve him, and there were no good prospects handy, so I had to make do with what pittance offered. You were the closest, so I used you, and you used what little you had to sustain him the minimum necessary time.”

“My meager breast,” she agreed wanly.

“Any port in a storm,” God agreed. “I had to enhance its effect, of course. Even so, it was a shoestring operation. At least you pulled him through that crisis. For that I am obliged to give you credit.”

“Thank you,” she breathed.

“But now he is fixated on you, and it would be complicated to change that, so I have to work with it. Have patience. In due course you will become eligible. Then you will truly support him while he completes his degree.”

This was getting interesting. “But why is it so important?”

“He is destined to become an outstanding chemist, and to fathom the catalyst that will enable coal to yield its energy efficiently and cleanly.”

“Clean coal? That's important?”

“Trust Me. It represents about half of the problem. The other half is the mess coal extraction makes, making molehills of My mountains, polluting My pristine streams, generating piles of useless contaminated rubble. But that's a separate problem. Romeo must handle the energy aspect.”

“That seems so—so great,” she said, awed. “I had no idea.”

“It is not your business to have an idea,” God said. “It is Romeo's. You just have to be there to support him, so he doesn't do something stupid on his own.”

“You mean I can really, maybe, be with him? I don't have to go to Hell?”

The phenomenal visage frowned at her. “Are you attempting to bargain with God?” he demanded.

She was cowed again. “Oh, no sir, no no! I was just trying to get it straight. Can I let him touch me?”

God sighed. “The limit is defined by what you have allowed before, you naughty nymph. Privately. For now. Thereafter more, to hold his interest until he can marry you. Is that satisfactory?” The sarcasm was divinely huge.

“Oh, yes, yes, sir! I didn't want to do more anyway, really. Not much more. Yet. Just—”

God grew impatient. “So be it. You may have him in life. Now stop wasting My time. Get your silly little ass out of here before I spank it.” The flat of his sword glowed.

“But—”

“GO!” God roared like thunder, his body flaring like lightning.

“But I don't know the way! It's all opaque.”

“Oh.” God reconsidered as the special effects faded. “I forgot how meager you are. Take My hand.” He rose from his throne and extended it.

Timidly she took His hand. It was warm and firm and comforting, not deadly at all. She realized that beneath his gruff exterior, God loved her.

Then they walked forward, together, into the sparkling darkness that surrounded the glorious chamber.

She emerged into light. “Juliet!” Romeo exclaimed gladly. It was his hand she was holding.

“Romeo,” she agreed. She was back in the realm of the living. In a hospital bed.

“Don't ever leave me, Juliet!” he said. “I could never survive without you.”

She believed that. “How come you're here?” she asked as she got her bearings. “I thought Dad forbid you to ever see me again.”

“Your pastor brought me. I had to come. It was as if God told me to get my stupid ass the hell over here, or else.” He paused, embarrassed, for the pastor was standing by the other side of the bed. “I mean—”

“That was God, all right,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, Juliet, if I lost you, I'd kill myself!”

“Shut up a minute and listen,” she said. “I have something to tell you.”

“You're just everything to me. The pastor made a deal with your folks, when the stomach pump didn't bring you out of it. If I could take your hand and bring you back, the way you did me, I could date you, supervised. So now—”

She glanced at the pastor. “Can you give us a minute?”

He nodded, understanding. He left the room.

“I love you,” Romeo said. “Nothing will ever change that.”

She took his hand and threaded it into her hospital gown, on her breast. He was abruptly silent, transfixed.

“Listen,” she repeated. “Now what do you plan to do with your life?”

“I will love you forever! All I want is to be worthy of you.”

She pressed his hand closer, silencing him again. “I mean, what kind of a job? To support a family?”

“Well, you know I want to be a chemist. But there are many specialties, and I haven't decided—”

“Coal.”

“What?”

“Coal. Study the chemistry of coal.”

“But that's the worst pollutant of all!”

“Right. Find out how to make it burn clean. That's your mission.”

“But—”

“Trust me.” Then she bought him down for a kiss. She knew his future, and hers. It was almost as if she could see God smiling in the background.

Note:
This is one of my favorite stories in this volume, maybe because of Juliet's vision of God. I wrote it early in 2009. In the original Shakespeare play,
Romeo and Juliet,
Juliet is thirteen, Romeo older. By today's standards their romance is illicit. I have never been one to sneer at young love; it can be as intense as any. I remember my love for a schoolmate when I was eleven, she twelve, as real as anything since. So at age thirteen, Juliet could truly love, and she does. But the notion freaks out publishers, and I had to fudge it to get it published by Excessica, to whom I donated it, receiving no royalties. I am annoyed by erotic publishers who refuse to address reality, such as the fact that the average woman has first sex at about age fifteen. That means some do it older, some younger. There are even child prostitutes plying their wares. Publishers are afraid they'll get sued for publishing fiction that comes too close to reality. It's past time to let fiction be relevant to real life.

Caution: instructive essay

11. Editing

As I see it, there are two main aspects to writing a novel, and a number of sub-aspects. The main ones are Writing it and Marketing it. I love to write, but hate to market. That's why I use a literary agent. (No, you can't have one; that's a whole 'nother subject.) The cards are stacked against the new writer, so that no matter how great his (that's the generic his, meaning his, hers, and its) novel is, chances are it will never be commercially published. That's just the beginning of why I hate marketing.

But this is not about that. It's about the Editing part of Writing. It seems that many writers hate to edit. I don't understand that. I love to edit my own work. I find it easier to polish an existing manuscript than to create it. But of course I've been at it since 1954 when I realized in college that my dream was to be a writer. I suspect I have learned something about the process in that intervening half century. If you had been at it that long you would find it easier too. The first years are the hardest, and that's where you are now.

So let's see if I can get into your skin. You have bashed out a 50,000-word effort in a month or so, responding to a foolish creative challenge, and now you're stuck with this obscene lump of verbiage that you half-wish you could bury six miles deep. But that would mean admitting that you are a failure, that you have no talent, and that your mother-in-law or other frightful authority figure was right about you all along. That's too much to choke down at the moment. It's not that they're necessarily wrong, but that you'll be darned if you'll give them the satisfaction. So somehow you have to grind this thing into shape so that it doesn't reek too loudly of month-old cabbage. Great literature is too much to expect, but at least let it somehow achieve the illusion of average.