Free Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes by Chris Crutcher Page A

Americans fought on the same side in WWII, I’m Switzerland. Good-bye, Jody, my love.
    â€œGive us more information, Steve,” Lemry says. “If you’re right, what does it mean?”
    â€œI’m not sure what all it means,” he says. “But I’ll tell you what made me bring it in. The other day when Mobe was trying to figure out whether the world was a good place or a bad place, and he used Sarah Byrnes for an example, I was ready to agree with him. No question, she’s got a rough road to go down. But when I thought about it more, I realized the world is a good place for me, most of the time anyway, and that got me to thinking about fairness. If God is fair, how do you explain me and Sarah Byrnes on the same planet? And if he really rewards piousness and public prayer and all that, like Brittain seems to think, how come he lets me drive my car around without blowing out my tires, and how come he lets me kick Brittain’s butt in the pool?”
    Lemry says, “Watch it…”
    â€œI had this Sunday School teacher,” Ellerby goes on, “and every time I asked her a tough question—like ‘How come nobody ever caught Jack the Ripper?’ or ‘Why did my big brother get killed when he got straight A’s clear through college and was going into the seminary?’—she’d say the Lord works in strange and mysterious ways that we may not understand.” Ellerby leans forward on his desk now, his intensity as visible as the pulse in his temple. “But I think there’s nothing strange and mysterious about it. I figure if those things were in God’s jurisdiction, he’d do something different about them. But they aren’t. Those are in our jurisdiction.”
    I glance over to check Jody’s reaction, but can’t read a thing. Brittain, on the other hand, is having blood pressure difficulty, and explodes. “This is so much BS!People throw out this line of crap for one reason: so they can do whatever they darn well please. It’s a bogus way of not having to be accountable to God.”
    Ellerby ignores him—I mean like Brittain isn’t even in the room—and continues. “From a distance,” he says, “my car looks like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she’s going to get help, she’ll get it from herself or she’ll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn’t know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven’t found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.”
    Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby’s cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.
    â€œSo,” Lemry says quietly, “your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?”
    Ellerby shakes his head. “My subject will be shame.”

CHAPTER 6
    From across the ward I watch Virgil Byrnes sitting next to Sarah Byrnes on the couch, his eyes burning into the side of her head, teeth clenched so tight it looks like there’s a marble below his jawbone. He’s talking, but his lips barely move. Dressed in his traditional black, angular as a hawk, he cuts a fearsome, dangerous profile. I can’t see her eyes, but Sarah Byrnes’s head moves not one iota, and I’m guessing she’s locked onto her favorite spot. Mr. Byrnes sits back, breathing deep, then momentarily puts his mouth close to her ear and stands to leave.
    Virgil Byrnes really is a scary dude. He’s one of those shadowy people you can’t imagine ever having been a