Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock

She clamps it on around her neck, holds the cross in front of her nose, and gives it a good stare before tucking it into her shirt. Then she smiles beautifully.

“Did God really tell you to buy this for me?”

“He sure did,” I lie. “I’m really thinking about turning around my life and avoiding hell. Giving my life to Jesus and all the rest. I just have to sort through some issues first, but your dedication, the fact that you stand out here three times a week, the strength of your faith is amazing and really won me over.”

Her eyes open wide and I can tell I’m totally making her day, like she was waiting for some sort of signal from god, some sort of affirmation, and I’m her miracle, so I just keep piling it on, talking about being a changed man, and wanting to live a good life, and spending eternity with her in heaven.

Inside I start to feel terrible, thinking about how disappointed she’ll be when she sees the news tonight—how crushing that will be for her—and I wonder if her faith will be able to withstand it.

I think god is just a fairy tale, but I’m really starting to like the fact that Lauren has faith.

Don’t know why.

It’s weird.

A contradiction, maybe.

Or maybe it’s like wanting little kids to believe in Santa after someone else already ruined it for you, or you just figured out that your parents were Santa after all and the magic of Christmas instantly evaporated. But thinking about my destroying her faith by tricking her and then killing myself really starts to bring me down, until I just can’t lie to her anymore.

“Life can be really hard, you know. It makes it difficult to believe in god sometimes, but I’m trying—for you, and maybe for me too,” I say, and then I just start to fucking cry. I’m not sure why. Man, I bawl and bawl.

She hugs me and I clutch her, sob into her neck that smells like vanilla extract baking inside cookies—so fucking wonderful!

The sad suits and briefcases pass us in droves, but no one even seems to notice us as I drink her up.

“God works in mysterious ways,” she says, and rubs my back all motherly. “This world is a test. It’s hard. But I will continue to pray for you. We could pray together. You could come to church with me. It would help you. My father will help you too.”

She’s saying all of these really nice things, trying to comfort me the only way she knows how, and I love just being on someone’s radar so much that I start kissing her neck and then her mouth. Our tongues touch, and she kisses me back for a fraction of a second—

Her mouth is so warm

and wet and mint-y

from the gum she’s

chewing and my

heart’s pulsing spikes

of adrenaline through

my veins, which is

exciting and

animalistic and

primal, but maybe not

quite what I was

expecting, because I

thought kissing

Lauren would be like

the epic kisses in

Bogie films, like the

string section would

kick in and I’d get

that swirling feeling



Baback’s playing

produces, and Lauren

would pause to gaze

at me and say, “I like

that. I’d like more,”

just like Bacall says—

in that infamous

husky voice—to

Bogie in The Big

Sleep, and when I

kissed her glossy

battleship-gray lips

again, she’d say,

“That’s even better,”

but instead it’s just

the hot sweaty rush of

bodies mangling

when they maybe

shouldn’t even be

mingling—and she

tries to push me away,

but the rush forces me

to hold on to her tight,

even though I want to

let go, even though I

should really LET

GO!, so she turns her

face from my mouth

and yells “Stop” in

this high-pitched

squeal that is the

complete antithesis of

Bacall’s warm sexy

brassy voice and

when I keep kissing

her cheek and ear, she

smashes my chin with

the heel of her hand,

jolting my brain back

to reality and

knocking off my

Bogart hat in the

process.

I stagger backward and then pick up my fedora.

The warm rush freezes into a heavy lump in my chest and suddenly I feel so so shitty—like I need to vomit.

“Is there a problem here?” says this subway rent-a-cop who has magically appeared. He has this dirt moustache that makes him seem about twelve years old. He’s hilarious-looking in his official uniform with the little silver badge. Almost cute. Like a kid wearing a Halloween costume.