“Hey Julia. Just seeing if you were around. Call me, okay?”
“Julia, hey baby. Look, I’m, uh, here, alone. Gimme me a ring.”
“Hey Ray, hey Julia. It’s me, Phil.” Laugher. “Like who else would call you. Man, do either of you guys ever answer your goddamn phone?”
“Hey Julia, it’s me Phil. Remember me? That guy, you know, in L-A. Hey, what about Guns N’ Roses huh? I bet you have the album, don’t you? Don’t you Julia, don’t you?”
“Hey sweet child o’ mine, it’s me, the lumbering crooner in Los Angeles. Axl called me the other night, talked to him for an hour. Forgot what it’s like yakking to someone out of their head. No, she’s not around right now.” Laughter. “So, gimme a call. I dare you.”
“Hey Julia, I, uh, could you call me as soon as you get this? I don’t care what time it is. I, uh, need to talk to you. I love you. Okay, so, yeah, gimme a buzz. Please Julia.”
“Hey Phil, pick up, okay? Phil, are you there? Phil?”
“Hey Julia, hey. I, uh, she’s, uh, shit. I don’t know where she is.” Laughter. “Maybe I’ll call Axl, maybe he knows. You know who he’s dating? He’s dating Don Everly’s daughter. But I’m Phil, not Don, and my girlfriend is, Sunshine is… She’s, uh, shit. Not here. She’s not here and I don’t know where she is. Well, that’s not entirely true. She’s in LA somewhere, I do know that. Julia, listen, you don’t have to call me back right away. I mean, it’s not life or death. Well, it is, but I mean, you know what I mean.” A pause. “I don’t know what happened. She was fine, really. School was going so well for her. My life’s down the toilet, well, my career, but she’s been great, it was really good until she met some guy.” A chuckle. “Yeah, some guy in her English class who used to see her at work. At the club. He knew her from the club and wanted to know why she wasn’t there anymore, why she’d quit work, you know. And so she told him, then she told me all about him, like she wanted to help him, Christ! He hasn’t done her any favors. But now, maybe she’s doing him some. She’s, uh, been gone about three weeks, I saw her three weeks ago last night. She said she was gonna stay with him just while he got clean. God, how dumb does she think I am? It’s fucking two years since the miscarriage, you know that? She’s been sober for almost two fucking years! But some asshole shows up, some motherfucking piece of shit and now that’s all gone. Oh Christ Julia, I love her and she’s gone, she’d been doing so well! We were talking about coming up there this summer, staying in San Francisco. She wants me to record an album, says to just make the music and worry about the rest later. She was willing to take the summer off from school, but now, shit. Now, what’s now? What’s today? I don’t even fucking know, except that she’s off shoving blow up her nose. What the fuck? You know what, fuck her! I don’t care anymore. I should’ve known, I should’ve seen this coming. She was gonna fall back into it again, goddamn her… Click
“You and your goddamn machine Julia! Shit. Okay, listen, I’m here. Just call me, okay? Call and I promise I’ll pick up.”
“Phil, Phil? PHIL! Shit. Pick up the goddamn phone asshole!”
“Phil, are you there? Shit. Phil?”
“Phil, Sunshine, anyone? Anyone there?”
Reaching Phil’s house, Julia parked behind his Honda. The front lawn was sparse, a willow tree planted last year looked sickly, flowerbeds along the front steps were full of weeds. Julia cringed, then knocked, then let herself inside.
“Phil? Sunshine? Anyone home?” The room was dark, and she set down an overnight case. Walking toward the bedroom, Julia heard a semblance of life in Phil’s deep snores. She inhaled; it was three thirty in the afternoon.
She stood in his bedroom doorway, the floor strewn with clothes as if Phil didn’t own a single laundry basket. He was covered by a sheet, his feet sticking out, and Julia wanted to touch his toes, confirm he was living, not a rumbling corpse. Instead she sat on the open side of the bed, looking at his grizzled cheeks, the stubble ready to be called a beard. “Phil,” she whispered.
He rubbed his face into the pillow. The sheets were rank, not from sex, only ages of use; Sunshine had been missing for nearly a month and Julia wondered if Phil had stopped washing laundry at the same time.
“Phil, baby, wake up honey.” She didn’t touch him, staring at his wasted face, then into the room. “Phil, please, I’m here now. Phil?”
“Sunshine?”
“No, Julia.”
“Julia?”
“Yeah baby, just me.”
“Shit.” He mumbled, then rolled over, exposing himself. Julia had never seen him fully naked, but he wasn’t conscious enough to pull up the sheet, lying there as if dead.
Julia draped the linen over him, then lay beside him. “Phil, oh baby, I am so sorry!”
He curled into her, started crying. “She called last night, was so high, oh my God. I thought she’d come home.”
“No, sorry, just me.”
He clutched her. “Julia, it’s, oh my God. I love her and she’s, she’s…”
“It’s okay Phil, it’s okay.”
He bawled and Julia held him tightly, as if she let go, he would lose his mind. Then she sighed. “Phil, what’d she say?”
“Oh Jesus, just a bunch of shit. She’s fucking him, she told me that.”
“Oh Phil…”
“Said she was gonna stay with him. Told me to go to San Francisco by myself. Christ, when she’s like this, she’s the meanest cunt in the world.”
“Phil…”
“Julia, oh Jesus.” He sighed, then shook his head. Then he looked at her. “Listen, I, uh, need to pee.”
“Well, the toilet’s right outside the door.”
“I, uh, don’t have any clothes on.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“You flashed me a few minutes ago.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“Oh. Well, okay then.” He stood, not looking at her, walking buck naked from the room. Julia scooted up in bed, smiling from his sudden realization of modesty. Then she wondered how was he going to walk back in?
The room looked like a tornado had hit, dressers askew, food wrappers and music sheets littering the floor, even Stan’s guitar rested on the carpet. Julia got off the bed and picked it up, setting it in the stand near the closet. She heard the flush, Phil washing his hands. Then she smiled. Was he going to return as bare as he left?
“Hey, how long’ve you been here?” He came in with a hand towel draped over his groin.
She laughed. “That’s pretty decent of you.”
“Fuck you.” He sat on the bed, pulling the sheet over his middle. “How long have you been here?”
“Just long enough to wake you up. How long’ve you been a zombie?”
“I, uh, don’t remember. Hung out with Axl and Izzy last night. God those guys can party.”
Julia leaned toward him, stroking his shoulders. “You’re a lightweight Gideon. They’re professionals.”
“No shit. Could teach Sunshine a thing or two, God, no one here’s immune.” He turned to face her. “Honey, it’s over. I, uh, can’t do this and live.”
“Oh Phil…” Julia knelt next to him.
“You know, if she was just fucking him, or just getting high with him, just one. Maybe that sounds sick. But both? She’s snorting and blowing him?” Phil laughed. “Christ! I am losing my mind.”
“Phil, I know she loves you.”
“She doesn’t love anyone. She’s fucked in the head.”
“Phil…”
“No, she is. I heard it last night in her voice, just like before we lost the…” He looked at the floor.
“Phil, I love you. I am so, so sorry.”
“I know. Believe me, it helps. At least I know I’m not insane.”
“You’re not. She isn’t either, she just needs…”
“A shot in the head.”
“Phil! Christ, don’t say things like that!”
He sto
od, not bothering with the sheet or towel. “Julia, on Valentine’s Day I asked her to marry me. I gave her a ring, the whole fucking ball of wax. She took it, probably pawned it by now. But she took it from me, cried, said yes. I didn’t tell you because, because I don’t know why. Because maybe I wanted to see how long it would last. You know why I asked her?”
Julia shook her head.
“Because I knew things were reaching the end, I mean, not The End, but some end. She was starting to get fuzzy, starting to talk about us going to see you and Ray. She was getting the itch, needed to be away from here, and I knew that and ignored it. Instead I added to the pressure, I mean, maybe I added to it. All I fucking did was ask her to marry me, shit!” He looked at his body, then smiled. “I haven’t had sex with her in two months. Now, one of those has been due to her absence.” He glanced at an empty drawer, then to the floor. He picked up a pair of briefs, smelled them, then tossed them aside. The next pair he didn’t sniff, but put them on, followed by a pair of jeans. Then he sat on the end of the bed. “One of those was because she was fucking somebody else. But the first month I couldn’t, I mean, I could but she didn’t want to, said she wasn’t in the mood. She has never not been in the mood. She was in another mood, and I knew that, and so fine, we didn’t do more than make fake wedding plans. Marry here, marry there, marry marry marry shit! Then she tells me she met someone in class, someone who knew her from the old days. The old days, right. The old but more like the new days, ’cause then he’s all she can talk about, how she’s gonna help him get him clean, just like she is. I know I can do this, it’s gonna be okay. Honey, I’m gonna be late tonight. Phil, I’m not gonna be home tonight. Phil, I’m not gonna be home ever again. Phil, Phil, Phil…”
“Phil,” Julia said, then stopped. Then she sighed. “Honey, I love you.”
He stared at her. “She told me that last night Julia, said she loved me. I heard him in the background, laughing. You know how that makes me feel?”
“No.”
“Like the biggest fucking moron in the world! You think Axl and those guys are idiots? They got nothing on me baby, not a single goddamned thing.”
Julia stood, stepping over dirty clothes, glancing at Stan’s guitar. Then she reached Phil, his bare sunken chest like that of an old man. Julia caressed his face, then kissed him. Phil responded, no tongues, just a warm moist reminder. He tasted stale, but she didn’t flinch. “Honey, I’m sorry.”
“How long’re you staying?” He set his hands along her upper arms.
“As long as you need.”
“Forever?”
“Maybe.” She gazed to the floor. “Gonna take that long just to get you back in clean duds.”
When she looked at his face, tears had fallen. “Julia, I wanted to kill myself.”
Her lips trembled, and she set fingers to his temple. “Phil…”
“I did. Maybe I still do.”
“You can’t.”
He nodded. “I know. You know why I didn’t.”
“Phil, oh God, please.”
“Honey, I wouldn’t do that to you. Or to Grandma and Grandpa, but Julia, I know. I understand. I never thought I would understand.”
She pulled him close, but this time Julia burst into tears. Phil gripped her, would later leave small bruises over her flesh. They were gone when she returned to San Francisco, the only time a man would mark her skin.
She stayed in Los Angeles for a week, doing laundry and various other household chores. During that week Phil made arrangements to move to Berkeley, renting a house for the summer. It was closer to Chuck and Lee than to Julia and Ray, but Julia didn’t complain. It was far from this hellhole, which she didn’t say to Phil, but to her boyfriend and sisters. Most of those in California knew about Sunshine. In Ohio, the story was a little different.
“Yeah Grandma, we’re just taking a break. No, I mean, well, I’m hoping to get the record done by August. She’s got school you know, I mean, we talked about her taking it off, but she’s doing so well right now, I’d hate for her to get out of the groove. Yeah, I know. Yes Grandma, I’ll tell her, you bet. Okay yeah, tell Grandpa I love him too. Okay. Okay Grandma.” A small chuckle. “Yeah, okay, okay. Bye.”
Phil inhaled, then sucked back most of a Pepsi. “Well, at least that’s done.”
“What’re you supposed to tell her?”
He sat at the kitchen table, bringing the soda with him. He finished it, then crushed the can. “That they can’t wait to see her at Thanksgiving. Ha! At Thanksgiving she’ll be dropping her G-string.”
“Phil…”
“No Julia, it’s over. If she knocked on the front door right now, I’d tell her to get fucked.” He stood, dropping the smashed can in a small wastebasket near the back door. “Really. I mean it. I can’t do this anymore.”
“You’re such a bad liar.”
He laughed. “Takes a good one to spot that.”
She ignored him. “All right, well, there’s a load of towels in the dryer. I’m gonna get those, then start dinner.”
She stood, passing by him to reach the garage. “Julia,” Phil gripped her arm. “Thanks.”
“What? They’re just towels. Not like I’d touch your grungy underpants.”
He gazed at the floor, then met her eyes. “I can’t keep waiting for her. It might take years, decades, never. I can’t do that.”
“Phil, I’d rather have you in Berkeley alive than down here waiting for her. All I’m saying is that you can’t just write her out of your life. You can’t do that.”
He nodded.
“Honey, I wish it was that easy.” She sighed. “Look at me with Arthur and Claire. God, I try to pretend they don’t exist. But they do, Christ, same fucking plastic covers on that goddamn couch! You know how long that sofa’s been entombed?”
“No, honey.”
“Neither do I! But I was there, just last Christmas, and it still is. Why do I go back there Phil? Why do I do that to myself? I don’t want to, I wanna tell them to fuck off.” She giggled. “Baby, I know you wanna say that to her, and maybe you will. But don’t just assume it’s that easy. Loving and hating are both pains in the ass.”
He laughed. “No fucking shit.”
“No fucking shit.” She kissed him. “All right, towels aren’t gonna crawl back in here on their own. Your underwear might,” she smiled. “But not the terrycloth.”
“My underwear are pretty damned clean right now, thank you very much.”
“Don’t be thanking me. I wouldn’t touch those stiff boards if you paid me!”
In June 1988, Julia left Los Angeles, but didn’t fly north. She flew to Florida, where her grandfather was recovering from receiving a pacemaker. She wouldn’t have traveled east for any other reason, and she spent a week in Tampa, but didn’t stay with Claire. Julia rented a motel room right along her favorite stretch of beach, but the old fat woman with exposed pubic hair never made an appearance. Instead Julia talked to Phil on his dime, long evening conversations revolving around his immediate departure to Berkeley, and her anticipated return to San Francisco. A few words were spoken about her writing, not for Rolling Stone, but in her notebook. Phil reminded her to stick that journal in her suitcase, as he didn’t have time to fly to Florida on another rescue mission. When she prepared to leave, it was the first thing placed in her luggage, then was nestled between dirty clothes and her toiletries bag.
Julia flew non-stop from Tampa, Florida, to San Francisco, where Ray and Phil met her. She hugged her boyfriend, then embraced the other man standing. Phil looked weak, and she kissed his cheek. She gave her duffel to Ray, walking arm in arm with Phil as they left the terminal.
They were eating dinner at Julia and Ray’s apartment when the phone rang. All had been drinking, and by the time Ray reached the phone, the machine had picked up. They ignored the message, returning to their meal. Julia checked the machine before she and Ray headed to bed. Then she stirred Phil from his spot on the sofa. “Hey honey, wake up.
It’s Sunshine.”
“What, she’s here?”
“No Phil, on the machine. She called at dinner.”
Phil moved slowly, suffering a small hangover. “She called here?”
“Yeah, come listen.”
With Julia’s assistance, Phil stumbled to the phone.
“Hey, Julia? It’s, uh, me, Sunshine. Listen, I’m at home, in LA. Phil’s gone. I, uh, he didn’t leave a note. I, uh, need to talk to him. If you know where he is…” Slight laughter. “Well of course you know where he is. Maybe he’s there, at your house, right now. That’s okay, maybe better. Julia, or Ray, whoever hears this, if one of you could tell him I called, tell him I was looking for him.” A long sigh was followed by muffled tears. “Oh God Julia, please tell him I love him, how sorry I am. Oh my God, I’m, uh, just tell him, if you see him. When you see him, I know you’re gonna see him. Oh God Julia, please pick up, please? I, uh, really need to talk to him. I, uh, tell him I’m here, at the house. His house, our house, oh my God, you know I love him, you know I do. Please, anyone, just tell him I love him, please?”
Phil shook, then squatted.
“Are you gonna be sick?” Julia asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Was she high?”
“Maybe. I can’t, I dunno. I’m not sure.”
Julia knelt beside him. “You want me to call her?”
“No, she’s probably sleeping. I’m sure she’s sleeping. She didn’t sound that high.”
“Phil…”
He looked at her, then lost his balance. Julia tumbled with him, then he curled into a ball. “I can’t, oh my God, all I’ve wanted is to hear her voice and now, Jesus Christ, I can’t! I can’t Julia, I can’t!”
“Let me just call her, so she knows where you are.”
“No, she, uh, probably doesn’t know how to check the machine.” He laughed, then lay flat. “Julia, I can’t, I just can’t!”
“I went back and saw Claire and Arthur.”
“Oh Christ, that’s not the same.”
“It’s totally the same. They’re never gonna change, and she’s not either.”
They stared at each other. “But Julia, I love her. You’re not gonna fuck your grandparents.”
“Phil, it’s the same thing. Now come on, get up. Go back to bed. Then call her in the morning.”
She stood, holding out her hand. Phil shook his head. Then Julia kicked his leg.
“Hey, what the fuck?”
“Get up asshole. You’re not gonna be some whining piece of crap here in my apartment.”
“What? Julia?”
“Do you want my help or not?” Her hand was still extended.
Phil rolled to his knees, then stood from the floor. “I don’t need your fucking help. Shit! Fuck you Julia Penn!”
“No fuck you Phil. She made it home, hoping to God you’ll come back. Get over yourself Phil. You’re not the only one.”
He stared at her, then stomped to the sofa where he sat down, putting on his shoes. “Fine! Fuck you Julia. I’m going home.”
“To LA?”
“No, to Berkeley. Fuck Los Angeles.” He stood, then glared at her. “Fuck you, fuck all women.”
“Yeah right.”
Phil stalked to the door as Ray joined them. “What’s going on?”
“Phil’s being an asshole, nothing new.”
“She’s a bitch, good luck Ray.” Phil threw open the door, then closed it with a slam.
Chapter 6