The Saint

On the day I became a literary critic, Suzi became a saint. Needless to say, our sex life was over. Oh, we kept at it for a while, but our abandon was never again total.

The decisive incident occurred in a priest's office, a dark brown cubicle smelling of American cheese and bologna just off the main sanctuary in the largest Catholic church in south Dallas. The year was 1975. Peter Frampton topped the charts: a pretty boy with curly blond hair and a flat singing voice. I should have known the future was bleak. (Suzi praised the rocker's perfect pitch, especially on "Baby, I Love Your Way," but then, she'd already developed a saint's forgiveness.)

The priest had spent two and a half hours hearing confessions. After that, he'd delivered an afternoon sermon to a sparse group, including Suzi and me. Was he an associate priest? An assistant? How did he get stuck with this tiny office? I'm not Catholic, so I'm not privy to the Virgin's pecking order. The man cleared his throat and waved us into plastic orange chairs beside his desk. "So," he said. "You two want to get married?" I glanced at Suzi.

"I'm getting married," she said. "He's-"

"Along for the ride," I said. And for the first time I wondered why Billy wasn't here. Why wasn't he there last night, instead of me, when I flipped Suzi over in their bed and took her from behind?

"May God bless you," the priest said, "but I don't understand-"

Suzi explained that she and Billy were engaged to be married, but Billy had music rehearsals all afternoon, so for moral support she'd brought a "friend" to today's meeting. I smiled at the priest. I didn't know how Billy spent his afternoons, but I didn't buy the rehearsal story. He played folk tunes-three sets of twenty songs each, Dylan, Judy Collins, Joan Baez-in the Greenfield Pub every night. By himself. The same songs, six nights a week. How much rehearsal did he need? I remembered the first night Suzi took me to hear him. I'd just met her that morning, in a Faulkner class. In the pub, we sat at a table lighted by a sputtering candle. Between songs, Billy ordered Irish coffees and drank them like water. Through all three sets, Suzi bit her bottom lip until it bled. "Isn't he good?" she said. She touched my sleeve, lightly.

About three weeks later, Suzi and Billy called me to eat pizza with them in their small apartment, to celebrate the delivery of their bed. Above it, they'd hung a charcoal sketch of Suzi, nude, made by an art student in an advanced class for which Suzi had posed. The figure's breasts were bigger than I estimated Suzi's to be. Billy joked that the bed's iron railings were perfect for handcuffs. Suzi raised her arms, spread-eagled above her bright red hair, and I choked on my Coors. Billy looked at me thoughtfully and laughed.

"So what is it you do?" the priest asked Suzi. "You and your fiancé? He's a musician?"

"Yes. And I'm a grad student at SMU. Working on my master's."

The good father turned to me. I said, "Me too. American literature."

"Oh. So my little homily must have seemed silly to you."

I smiled again.

"The Great White Whale," he said, blushing a little. "I'm not really familiar with the novel. I just used what I've heard."

"That's all right," I said.

I hadn't listened to his sermon, his homily, whatever. I'd sat in the pew, picturing Suzi bottoms-up in bed. Christ writhed in agony in a dark painting on the sanctuary's front wall. After we left the priest's office, Suzi told me he'd used the Great White Whale as a metaphor for the spiritual life that will elude us and drive us insane if we approach it without the proper humility.

"Forgive me," the priest...