Chapter 14
Sunday evening brought a quiet hush over Santa Monica as Mother and son were sitting in Judy's tiny living room sharing coffees together, Judy and Shank having departed for the finer, nobler, ex-bean fields of Beverly Hills to scavenge what they could of Rickie's necessaries.
"I'll bring the tent over tomorrow," Jesse Edwin said. "I've got it stored at a friend's place in Reseda. It's not a bad little tent. If I pitch it next to Judy's garage, behind her potting shed, it'll be out of the wind. Nobody'll even know I'm there. Shank will take me back to Our Lady of Grace tonight. I'll sleep in the basement one more time and catch the bus back here tomorrow."
"Bring me my purse, Jesse Edwin." He did so, and Rickie pulled out her Platinum Visa. "This credit card has a preferred customer limit of one hundred thousand dollars. I want you to walk down to Shutters and take this card and book yourself a room. In the morning, I want you to use this same card to go and buy yourself a new car. There'll be no more talk of tents. If they give you any static, have them call me."
"I can't do that, Mom. Shutters is way too expensive. I can't take your money like that. I haven't earned it."
"I'm not going to sit idly by and watch AA brainwashing destroy your life. Nobody makes it on their own in this rotten world. We make it by sticking together. You may have found God, but I was the one who screamed her guts out giving you birth. I'm still your mother and you'll do as I say. As of this moment, you and I are through living in humiliation. Six months' ago, your stepfather put you on the street and it nearly cost you your life. As far as I'm concerned, it's time he paid his penance for his cruel actions. He can start by putting you up in a fine hotel and buying you a car and seeing you get a decent meal three times a day. Besides, I'm going to be here at Judy's for awhile, and I want you close by. At Shutters, you'll be walking distance."
"I'll look for a job. It's time I faced up to my responsibilities."
"You'll look for no such thing. Tonight I realized the truth about you, Jesse Edwin. You're an artist. A rare talent. You'll never be able to fit into the workaday world. You're job is to play guitar and bring to others the joy you brought us tonight. Your stepfather is a man with many connections in the entertainment world. It's time he pony'd up some of those connections to give you a leg up. He's going to pay up, if I have to drag him into court to do it."
"I'm scared," he said. "There's been so many changes, lately. Last night, I wanted to go over to the house and kill Hirschfeld. If Shank hadn't been with me, I might have tried it. Shank forced me to say the Serenity Prayer about fifty times."
"You must stick close to Shank. If you let yourself get all stressed out over my problems, you might slip back."
"No. The Program works. The Big Book says, Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. I'm going to follow that path for the rest of my life."
Rickie sipped her coffee. "Jesse Edwin, you're a changed young man. I've been sitting here wondering exactly what it was that was different, and I finally identified it. You're not as angry as you used to be. Your music has changed. Last night, what you played was so beautiful, not like that heavy metal you played for all those years. For so long, I prayed you'd open up and lose your anger. Now that you have, I almost don't know what to do with you."
"I still play heavy metal," he said, smiling. "I've found a new home. It's a place where I'm accepted for who I am. I used to be so alone, so lonely. I think that's a big part of the reason why I drank so much. It helped me to kill the pain of all that loneliness. I feel like I've found my lost tribe."
"I'm still drinking," she said. "I guess I don't need to tell you that. I'd like to quit, but I don't yet have the freedom you speak of to abstain."
"It's okay, Mom. Please don't think I'm preaching about your drinking. I'm only sharing my experience, strength and hope. Right now, you're in a precarious emotional condition. Even a dangerous one. That's why Shank and I are hovering around you. Soon, you'll feel better and you'll be able to get on with rebuilding your life. Remember, you didn't create the problem. Hirschfeld did."
Rickie smiled faintly at her son's exposition of wisdom. She was exhausted. "I'll be fine, Jesse Edwin, really. I'm feeling better already seeing your improvement." Without warning, the tears gushed from her eyes, a strong searing emotion giving rise to a deep and tender grief within her.
"Mom, what is it?"
"It's nothing, son. It's nothing and everything all at once. Now go on and get out of here and be back for breakfast in the morning. In fact, have the hotel prepare breakfast for everybody and bring it over here when you come."
He left her and she was alone in the house as the surrounding city quieted down for the night. The distant roar of heavy breakers could be heard, their force still in effect from the earlier churnings of the storm. The deep grief within her continued its bittersweet vibrations. With a start, she realized the horrible truth about herself: she missed Hirschfeld. After all he'd done, after all she suffered, and she still missed him.
Dear God, it's an awfully lonely time for me. I need your help. I'm sick and caught up in something beyond my control. I still miss my husband. I want to go back to The Dell and sleep in my own bed and be surrounded by the things I love. I don't want to be dependent on the charity of friends. O Lord, I'm sorry. You know everything anyway. You know what's buried deep in my heart. God forgive me, but I'm so lonely I've even looked at another man.
The telephone rang.
"It's me, baby," Hirschfeld breathed into her ear. "I miss you. Your friends are here at The Dell picking up your things. I followed them all the way over here from Judy's. They don't know I'm watching. I won't try to stop them. I'm trying to change. I'm going with a policy of total non-interference in your life."
"Where are you spying on Shank and Judy from?"
"I'm standing right behind that big clump of pampas grass beside the garage. I can see everything from here. Although it's a little dangerous. I hear something rustling inside the clump. It might be that raccoon we've been having problems with. Hopefully it's not rabid."
"Hershey, why did you call me? What do you want?"
"To apologize for that scene in the hospital last night. That was wrong of me. I was drunk. I've stopped drinking for the moment. I decided to quit cold turkey. If I'm not an alcoholic, I'll be able to. At any rate, I'm going to get my head clear. I really love you baby. I'll do whatever it takes to be the man you need me to be."
"I'm getting ready for bed. So don't think I'm coming back tonight, or any night in the near future."
"That's okay. Rest up at Judy's for a few days. I know you're pretty upset at me. You know I'm hoping and praying you'll come back."
"Jesse Edwin's staying with me. I've put him up at Shutters. You're going to pay his hotel bill. Tomorrow he's buying himself a new car."
"Sure, baby. Hey, I'm through fighting with Jesse Edwin. He can move back in with us if he likes. It'll be like old times. No, better. With him not drinking, it'll be better. I'll try harder to be a father to him. Maybe he'll even convert me into admitting I'm an alcoholic like he is. Maybe we'll both go to meetings together, father and son. A new car, huh? Have him call Kasha over at Simonsen Mercedes and tell her I sent him."
"No. I want him to go out and do it by himself. It's time we treated him as an adult."
"Suits me."
"What if we hadn't lost the baby?" She said. "Have you ever wondered what our lives would be like? What if we hadn't suffered this tragedy? Would we have simply gone on like we were, unconscious? Is this what it took to open us up?"
"Baby, I know right now it seems like things will never be the same. Maybe it's better that way. Maybe we needed a wake-up call. Look, we can take it slow. We can have coffee brandies by the fire the way we used to do. We can chase lobsters around the living room like we did on our honeymoon. Rickie, we'
ve got five years together. We can make it."
Rickie remembered her honeymoon night. Hirschfeld hired a catering company to bring in a box filled with fifteen live Maine lobsters, which they prepared in a huge boiling pot on the verandah of their suite in Vegas. They'd stuffed themselves with the sweet, buttery meat and huge hunks of hot sourdough bread washed down with an earthy Italian red wine. At last it was time to consummate the wedding, but as Rickie and Hirschfeld prepared to slip beneath the sheets, an overlooked lobster scuttled into view from beneath the bed. They'd chased the thing around the room for a half an hour, laughing themselves sick.
Where did that man and woman go? The couple who could find joy chasing a lobster? It seemed like a million years had passed since then.
"Never mind the lobsters. If you want to get back on my good side, you're going to have to truly accept my son into your life. I don't want empty promises. You're going to do that before we even come close to reconcilement. You're going to finance his music demo, the one you refused to do six months ago, when you put him out on the street."
"I can do better than finance a demo that nobody'll listen to," he said. "I'll start making him into a star. We'll debut his skills at some of the local clubs. I'll call Freddie Kopelsen at home tonight and have him put together a pickup band and hype it around. We'll start collecting video clips for a summer release."
"Freddie Kopelsen tried to sue you last year."
"That was last year, this is now. Freddie owes me big time for helping him re-edit the Bruce Willis picture last Christmas, which I might add was a total mess before I stepped in and saved it. Even Bruce finally admitted it stunk before I streamlined it. I'll book our son into this new studio we've been using over at Sony Pictures, where they can actually live there, and stay up all night hanging out with the other artists in the Jacuzzi and stuff while they get creative. Have Jesse Edwin call me."
"No. Jesse Edwin's not one of your suck ups who has to beg for a favor. You're going to call him."
"Fine. I'll call him. I'll contact him in his suite at Shutters."
"Hershey, I just realized what you said. You called Jesse Edwin "our son". You've never called him that before."
"You see? I can change. I truly can."
"You're a rat and I hate your guts but I hate myself more because for some sick reason, I miss you. I miss what you and I could've shared together. I don't see much fun in all this right now. Right now, I hate myself for even talking on this phone to you. I should be getting my lawyer Lauren Shane to skin you alive, but instead I've hired a shrink who's going to help me sort it all out. Hershey, when you killed my baby, you stole my life from me. I don't know what it's going to take to get it back."
"We'll get it back. Look, I've got to get off the phone or they'll hear me talking behind this bush. Judy and Shank are coming out. They're piling into the man's limo. That was a nice touch on Shank's part, by the way, the limo I mean. I checked him out. He's a sleazy crook with mob connections. He used to help Ernesto Catalano launder money through the outlying economic empire of a certain very famous late show host."
"Shank worked for Ernie the Foot?" Rickie shuddered. Ernie the Foot, Godfather of the West Side, was an L.A. icon, his life a source of constant media inquiries, well known for his bloodthirsty business dealings and love of money.
"I even heard Shank killed somebody and served a little time back in the late '80's. I don't like the way he looks at you. You've got to promise me you're not starting anything with him."
"I'm not starting anything with Shank," Rickie lied. "There's nothing between me and him. Anyway, he's retired from all that mobster stuff. He's not a crook. He's helping Jesse Edwin stay sober, which is more than I can say for you."
"Maybe you're right. Maybe he's not a crook or a player anymore," Hirschfeld agreed. "If he was up to anything now, I'd know about it. He lives big, though. I hear he's got a fancy place in Bel Air. I must say, Shank and Judy look pretty friendly tonight. Maybe she's going to find a workable romance. They'll be back at your place in a half hour. I'm heading back downtown to the night shoot. I should've been there two hours ago. We're going to fireball the tenement down by the Greyhound station on 7th Street. Maybe we'll do the city a favor and allow the flames to spread to that roach infested rat trap of a bus station while we're at it. I love you. I'll call you in the morning."
"One more thing. Fail in this and we're definitely finished."
"Anything. Name it."
"Get that crew over here and get that doggone bay window installed. No wait. That's not enough to pay for your sin of striking at Judy. I want you to put a new roof on as well."
"A new roof? Because I broke a window?"
"She's entitled to decent shelter. Hesitate again and I'll have you painting the place as well."
Hirschfeld quickly agreed. The buyback of his wife was going well, which lessened his chances of having to feel all that terrible about what he'd done, or what he was rapidly escalating into, thus making the future promising for his chances of enjoying his life exactly the way it was, without the burden of having to change it.
Rickie wrinkled her lower lip and contemplated darkly this new information. Shank killed somebody? It was all moving too fast. Rickie felt her resolve to leave Hirschfeld dissolve under the pressure of his effort to intensify the attachment between them. She made a mental note to slow down. For now, she'd simply go to bed and avoid seeing the man. Perhaps things would make more sense in the morning.