"Normal? Wishing someone you love would hurry up and die is normal?"
He looked down at our hands. The tears felt kind of nice, in a sick way, and telling him what an ogre I was helped, even though I didn"t believe for a minute it was normal to choose whiskey over someone"s life.
"I"m scared to death I"ll fail," I said.
"But you"re equally scared you"ll succeed."
I nodded. "I can"t conceive of my life without Jack. I can"t go on like this forever."
"Just go on for today. We"ll make it through tomorrow tomorrow."
I got angry. "Don"t spout AA slogans at me. I"m no wino off the street."
As soon as I said it I knew the words were bulls.h.i.t. I was a wino off the street-or something just as bad. Looking at the lines on Lloyd"s face, I had that same powerlessness feeling I"d had when Armand prepared to rape me.
"So, how do people quit?" I asked.
Lloyd"s eyes were totally Jesus. It was as if he"d felt all the pain anyone anywhere ever felt and knew there was more to come. "Most alcoholics do something so awful, they scare themselves off the binge," he said. "You hit bottom hard and say to yourself "My G.o.d, what have I become?" and you stop for a while."
"I"ve been there. I am there."
"But I"ve never known fear alone to cause a long-term cure. In a few weeks the denial sets in and you take another drink. To really quit, you must replace the fear with something that lasts. You"ve got to change your entire self."
I wiped the tears from my eyes so I could see him. "I"m so whacked out tonight I don"t know what the h.e.l.l you"re talking about."
"I know."
We sat there not talking clear through the sports. Basketball. First of June and I was in a place where the sports guy talked about basketball. Everything was upside down.
Lloyd fished a bandanna from his overalls pocket. I blew my nose with a sound like a honker. "You said you"d stay with me."
"I will."
"There"s bunk beds in Shane"s room. Will you sleep on top of me in case I need you?"
"We"ll talk all night if you want."
I tried to smile and screwed it up. "I probably won"t talk. I just want you close by."
49.
Dear Dad, Because I was selfish I didn"t let you go. I held on for nine months, same as it takes to make a baby. I love you, I won"t forget you, but life and death are separate and I must choose for both of us.
I choose life for me, death for you.
Good-bye, Maurey ***
Wednesday-Shane still lived. Strawberries aren"t like potatoes or wheat where you harvest a field and go home. With strawberries, the same field has to be picked every other day for nearly two weeks as the berries ripen. To my horror, I found myself bent over the same plants I"d bent over two days ago. That night I used Marcella"s foundation powder to cover my scar. Made me look like a corpse.
Thursday-Shane slipped into a coma, but he still lived. At noon, I heard Paul Harvey"s voice coming from a transistor radio in Patrick"s breast pocket. Maybe it was the radio speaker the size of my thumbnail, or maybe it was my new expectations, but Paul no longer resembled G.o.d or Dad either one. I dropped off my six quarts and walked away.
That night Lloyd and I sat with Shane three hours while I prayed he would and wouldn"t die. The cough was back, and his skin had gone mushroom-colored. I talked like a maniac-told Shane everything I could remember about my life up until the day I lost my virginity. Granma and Brad got in a fight over Merle in the house. The kid stood up to her, but both boy and cat ended up in Moby d.i.c.k for the evening.
Friday-My appet.i.te showed up. Even though I ate a number of strawberries, I still cracked twenty-five dollars for the day. Lloyd never left my side. I made him sit on the closed toilet lid and talk to me while I took a shower. He told me about his wedding. He and Sharon got married at the Chapel of the Little Lamb on the Strip in Las Vegas. The "Wedding March" record had a bad scratch, and he drank two magnums of champagne. I asked Lloyd if I bought him a pair of jeans and a shirt, would he wear them? He said, "No."
That night I got suckered into a game of Chutes and Ladders with Andrew. Granma let Brad and Merle back in the house. Lloyd said tomorrow was the day Shane would die.
"How do you know?"
"He told me."
"Shane told you he would die Sat.u.r.day?"
"The night he made you make the promise, he asked me how long you could be forced into sobriety and I said a week."
"But I was planning to quit forever anyway."
"Would you have made it this long without the promise?"
I didn"t need to think about that one. "h.e.l.l, no."
"See."
Although my brain sizzled like a walking case of emotional hives, the only physical symptoms left over from the cold turkey experience were messed-up sleep patterns and a sense of smell about ten times better than anyone needs. Maybe my nose was only normal and it"d been numbed so long I couldn"t remember what normal smelled like, but I don"t think so. Sober people don"t usually smell each other coming from sixty yards. Sticking my head in Moby d.i.c.k was like morning sickness all over again.
The messed-up sleep pattern had me dozing off at midnight, then snapping awake around three-thirty. I"d lie on my back, hyperalert, mind racing like a revved-up truck with a blown clutch, until six when I fell into the sleep of the dead. Lloyd yanked me out of bed a half hour later.
Friday night, early Sat.u.r.day morning, I was dreaming about Frostbite and another horse I didn"t much like named Buster Keaton. Buster bit horses, dogs, and people, mostly people. In the dream they were swimming across a river toward me. Frostbite stayed downstream with his head pointed up, facing Buster, and when he reached dry land he pulled himself out by his front legs, and the truth hit me: it hadn"t been a week.
I came awake in a heartbeat. Outside, the rain did a soft background number, while Lloyd"s gentle snore made the air above me familiar. The blowout with the fifth of Yukon and pills had been last Sat.u.r.day, but I drank a juice gla.s.s of Scotch late Sunday afternoon. Shane must have forgotten, and Lloyd never knew. Shane didn"t have to die yet. I owed him another day.
Careful not to wake Lloyd, I slipped into my jeans and shirt and padded downstairs barefoot. The house had a museum smell in the dark, as if it were being preserved for future generations of tourists. The air was like inhaling that blue stuff Mom put in our toilet tank. I hesitated before pushing open the door to Shane"s sickroom. My mission smacked of irrationality. Why was it important to tell a man in a coma he"d miscounted the days? What"s a day to the dead, anyway?
Granma was asleep at her desk. She hadn"t slumped forward or anything you"d expect, just sat there sleeping with perfect posture. The circle of light from the lamp made her appear etched, which enhanced the closed museum feel. I wiped Shane"s forehead and the twin tracks of blood coming from his nostrils. He"d lost flesh and color in his face; his hair looked dirty. When I touched his forehead with the damp washrag, his shallow breathing stuttered, then went on.
"It hasn"t been a week," I said. "You told Lloyd you"d keep me sober for a week." It"s so weird watching a person die. It"s magic-I mean, the definition of magic is to make things appear and disappear, right? And birth and death are the only times things appear and disappear from nothing into nothing. Doesn"t seem possible.
"I"m sorry," I said.
"Andrew had an interesting life," Granma said. "No matter where he"s going next, he said being here was worth the trouble." Her eyes were open-other than that, she hadn"t moved.
"Where does he believe he"s going next?" I asked.
"Andrew agrees with my views on that question. We"re both taking a wait-and-see att.i.tude."
I sat watching his face, trying to memorize it so I could draw a picture of him in my mind after he was gone. I"m not good at picturing people after they"re gone. I see Dad, and I don"t know if I"m seeing Dad as he was at the end or earlier when I was little or the face is something I remember from a photograph.
"Where is Shane"s mother?" I asked.
"Gone. She was the daughter of a hired man. Pretty girl, had curly hair, but she couldn"t take criticism. She gave birth to Andrew and fled. He and Marcella have different mothers. My son had a way with women."
"Where is he now?"
"Dead."
The door opened and Lloyd slid in. He took a stool from Granma"s desk and sat next to me, only lower, on the same level as Shane"s face. No one said anything. A half hour later Brad came in, carrying his charcoal and sketch pad. He stood behind me with his hand on my shoulder, looking down at Shane. After a while, Brad went over by Granma and sat on the floor with his back against the wall and his knees up, supporting the pad.
Just after dawn, Marcella came in. I gave her my chair and moved over to the wall, beside Brad. From the floor I could no longer see Shane"s face, but I could see Marcella"s and Lloyd"s in the gray-pink light. Lloyd blinked with slow deliberateness; Marcella leaned a little forward with one hand touching the quilt. Losing Shane would change the way I looked at people and things around me, and I"d only known him a couple of weeks. For Marcella and Lloyd, this must have been one of those intense moments that only happen four or five times a life.
Brad was drawing a picture of Shane tipped back in his chair while I lowered him over a curb. I recognized Memphis in the buildings behind us. Shane held the harmonica to his lips with one hand while the other hand controlled the wheelchair wheel. His eyes rolled upward, toward me. My mouth was open. Brad"s fingers moved with amazing speed, shading and filling, capturing a moment I couldn"t remember.
The light changed to a morning greenish yellow. I heard Hugo Sr. and Andrew slamming drawers in the kitchen. Out in the yard a pair of birds we don"t have at home argued over something territorial. Or maybe they were doing a mating thing-who can tell the difference between arguing and foreplay?
The room was really quiet for a long time, then Marcella said, "He"s gone."
I discovered I"d been holding my breath. Granma stood up, walked over to the bed, and touched Shane"s eyes. I went over to look at him. I can"t say he looked at peace or like his spirit had flown or any of that other stuff you hear. Right then, he just looked like Shane, only not breathing.
Lloyd patted his shoulder and said, "So long, pal." I didn"t know what to do.
Lloyd and I wandered out on the porch to look at the new day. The rain had stopped, but the trees still dripped and the sky looked washed. The birds I"d heard earlier were perched on the bath, jerking up and down and walking with a tic. They resembled what we call ouzels back home, but they weren"t ouzels, probably some Appalachian form of sparrow.
Lloyd stretched with both his hands in his back pockets. He squinted into the sun. "I suppose you"re off for the nearest liquor store?"
"I suppose."
"If you"re willing to wait long enough for me to find my shoes, I"ll give you a lift into town. I"m heading in for an AA meeting."
"AA, huh?"
He nodded and rubbed his hand on his leg. Lloyd"s Adam"s apple was more p.r.o.nounced than ever, looked like he had a rock in his throat. "Seven-thirty morning meeting for the working folks. Starts their day with a boost."
A milk truck went by on the highway. The more colorful male bird took off west, followed quickly by the female. I felt as if I were telling a life good-bye.
I mumbled to Lloyd, "Mind if I tag along to the meeting?"
"What"s that?"
"You heard me."
Lloyd"s eyes got smoky, as if he were looking at things I couldn"t see. When he swallowed, that Adam"s apple took on a life of its own. "I"d be honored. So would Shane."
"Just one thing. You mind if we borrow a cup from Granma? My stomach goes queasy at the thought of drinking coffee out of Styrofoam."
Lloyd turned toward me. "I"m certain we can arrange something you"ll find acceptable."
I bit my lower lip and thought of Auburn. "Let"s do it."
Lloyd smiled and said, "Banzai."
I smiled and said, "Motherf.u.c.ker."
50.
Three months later, Labor Day morning, the gang lined up for the good-bye scene from the Wizard of Oz. Or I tried to line them up. The entire city and all major characters paid strict attention when Judy Garland clicked her heels. I couldn"t even get my primary three to cooperate. Marcella chased Andrew through the brand-new barn, Brad sat on the steps playing "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" on Shane"s harmonica, and Lloyd was on his back under Moby d.i.c.k, doing whatever he did on his back under Moby d.i.c.k.
I loaded my day pack, suitcase, and Sam Callahan"s tent into the ruby slippers-in this case, Hugo Sr."s Oldsmobile-which would take me on the first step home. The day was hot, by my standards, anyway, but for a change the humidity had dropped into the livable range. Maybe that"s autumn in the South-summer with less humidity.
Granma had a man out from a tavern in Gastonia to give her an estimate on the fourteen cases and then some of Coors. Lloyd and I had been too sentimental to sell it or even talk about selling it. Plus, now that I was what us AA types call a recovering alcoholic-we"re not allowed to use the word ex-I didn"t feel like making money on booze. Even if Coors is cow p.i.s.s in a can, no one can deny it pa.s.ses for booze. I wondered if back in Wyoming Dothan had filed the necessary papers to make himself my recovering husband.
Granma, on the other hand, wasn"t a woman who allowed sentiment to interfere with working capital. Now that she had a barn, she aspired to chickens and a milk cow. I was bailing out in the nick of time. Hamburger cows are labor intensive enough, but at least in the summer you can turn them loose on the national forest and let them eat. Milk cows require attention every single crack-of-dawn year-round. And don"t even get me started on the living nightmare that comes with chicken ownership.
Granma haggled. "My grandson said you would receive five dollars a bottle, therefore I want three fifty."
"Your grandson was wrong, ma"am." The beer man wore a Gamec.o.c.ks cap and had that pot belly guys in the South seem to equate with manhood. "I can"t get more than three, so I"ll give you two." As I recall, Shane planned to sell the stuff for ten bucks a six-pack. We bought it for four eighty-five a case.
Brad jumped in from the steps. "He"s lying like a dog. Any less than three and you"re getting screwed."
Granma cast her hawk eyes on Brad. "I know he"s lying like a dog. You don"t have to tell me he"s lying like a dog. And I won"t have you using disgusting language on my property."
"What"s disgusting about screwed?"
Brad and the old lady had adopted a kind of domestic churliness toward each other, like a married couple who"ve been ragging for fifty years and no longer hear the words. Lloyd and I had never quite reached that depth of homey familiarity. We still listened to each other.
Since the Tin Man wouldn"t come to me, I went to the Tin Man.
"I hear you"re starting school tomorrow," I said to Brad.
He blew a flat note. "Granma says if I skip a single day, she"ll throw me off the farm."