The Innocent

Brian was a friend who, according to him, had a very difficult childhood. He was never specific about it, except to say his father “wasn’t a nice man.” We met in an Aikido class, and I eventually learned that he kept a gun under his bed for protection because “the world wasn’t a safe place.” I didn’t totally agree with this assessment, but I understood; I was taking Aikido for more than the exercise. Brian had also begun attending a nearby church. While I had always been thoroughly secular, I thought this was a good move on his part, and during one long phone chat told him as much.

“Well, I guess,” he said. “I think it’s probably too late for me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I did some bad, bad things when I was younger.”

“How bad? Were you running around murdering children?”

“No. But I wasn’t a good person. I’m probably going to Hell.”

I told him he was absolutely not going to Hell, and that sitting around thinking he was didn’t help anything – but he’d have none of it. He was already condemned, and he was only waiting to serve his sentence when the time came.

I hung up, filled with thoughts of good and evil and forgiveness. I wandered out to my mailbox and fished some envelopes from it. Two were from agents, and seeing them I was filled immediately with a familiar mixture of excitement and dread. I reminded myself neither held my future, that whatever the answer there were more agents, more books to write, more life to live, but I could still feel myself pinning so much on what these strangers thought of my pitch.

I would wait a few minutes to open them. I felt sure there would come a time when I would never have to send or receive these letters. There would also come a time when I wouldn’t be waiting tables, unable to hide how I’d committed the sin of failure. One good letter, I still hoped, would wipe clean that stain, and reveal the innocent man beneath it.

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Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
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