The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides [77]
With narrow blue eyes the priest scrutinized him.
“You read the books I gave you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Any questions?”
“I’ve got more of a concern than a question.”
“Shoot.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking that, if I’m going to become a Catholic, then I’d better be able to obey the rules.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Most of them I can handle. But I’m not married. I’m only twenty-two. I don’t know when I’ll get married. It might be a while. So the rule I’m worried about, mainly, is premarital sex.”
“Unfortunately, you don’t get to pick and choose.”
“I know that.”
“Listen, a girl’s not a watermelon you plug a hole in to see if it’s sweet.”
Mitchell liked that. This was the kind of no-nonsense spiritual advice he needed. At the same time, he didn’t see how it made celibacy any easier.
“You think about it,” Father Marucci said.
Outside, the neon signs of Greektown were just coming on. Otherwise, downtown Detroit was empty, just this little block-long glow, and, across Woodward, a night game getting under way at Tiger Stadium. On the warm summer evening breeze Mitchell could smell the river. Tucking the catechism pamphlet into the pocket of his vest, he walked to the restaurant and went to work.
He spent the next eight hours busing tables. He assisted people in their feeding. Customers left chewed pieces of meat on their plates, gristle. If Mitchell found a kid’s retainer in a pile of pilafi, he returned it in a take-out carton to avoid embarrassment. After clearing tables, he set them again. He could clear a four-top in one shot, carrying the plates stacked in his arms.
Q: What does the term “flesh” mean when referring to the whole man?
A: When referring to the whole man, the term “flesh” means man in his state of weakness and mortality.
Geri, the owner’s wife, liked to commandeer a back booth. She was a large, disordered woman, like a child’s drawing that didn’t stay within the lines. The waiters supplied her with a steady stream of scotch and sodas. Geri started the nights bright with drink, as if expecting a party. Later, she became sullen. To Mitchell one night she said, “I never should have married a Greek. You know what Greeks are like? I’ll tell you. They’re like sand niggers. No difference. You Greek?”
“Half,” Mitchell said.
“I feel sorry for you.”
Q: In which shape will the dead rise?
A: The dead will rise in their own bodies.
This was bad news for Geri. In previous jobs, Mitchell had always found ways to goof off. Restaurant work made that impossible. His only down-time was the fifteen minutes when he bolted his dinner. Mitchell rarely ordered the gyros. The meat wasn’t lamb but a beef-and-pork composite, like an eighty-pound can of Spam. Three separate spits revolved in the front window, while the chefs poked and prodded them, carving off slices. The wife of one of the cooks, Stavros, had a heart condition. Two years ago she’d slipped into a coma. Every day before coming to work he stopped into the hospital to sit by her bedside. He was under no illusions about the prospects for her recovery.
Q: Who says that prayer is always possible even while cooking?
A: It is Saint John Chrysostom (around 400 AD) who says that prayer is always possible even while cooking.
And so the summer dragged on. Busing tables, scraping uneaten food, bones and fat, and napkins used for nose-blowing into the huge plastic-lined garbage bin, adding greasy plates to the never-diminishing pile dwarfing the Yemeni dishwasher (the only guy with a job worse than his), Mitchell worked seven shifts a week until he’d earned enough money to buy a plane ticket to Paris and $3,280 in American Express Travelers Cheques. Within a week he was gone, first to New York and, three days later, to Paris, where he now found himself with no place to stay, walking in the rain along Avenue Rapp.
The gutters were overflowing. The