Chapter 16
Rickie, having emerged from Dr. Black's office completely exhausted, and agonizingly sore from the prior surgical intrusions at the hands of Dr. Lerner, beseeched Judy to take her back to the beach cottage immediately, whereupon she'd fallen into a heavy sleep, awakening at the cusp of a fast-falling winter's twilight. She awoke under a soft down comforter in Judy's bed and was attracted by voices and pleasant food smells coming her way through the bedroom door from the living room. Having donned her favorite thick terry robe, she'd walked out to discover Shank, Judy, and Jesse Edwin hard at the business of demolishing a trio of heavily pepperoni'd pizzas with extra cheese, washing down the delightful mixture with iced mugs of Coke, the exception being Shank, who nursed his usual, a large Starbuck's coffee. Rickie, finding herself ravenous, set upon a hunk of pizza eagerly, wolfishly, in fact, forgetting manners for the moment. Her renewed stamina thus suitably fortified against the coming winter's night, she broached the subject of Jesse Edwin's forthcoming opportunity to profit from Hirschfeld's patronage and found herself rebuffed by the young man.
"Mom," Jesse Edwin said. "There’s no way I can justify working for Hirschfeld."
"Your stepfather is going to a great deal of trouble for you," she said. "It's time you showed him you're worth it. And you're not working for him. He's turning you over to Freddy Kopelsen."
"Don't call him my stepfather," Jesse Edwin said. "I have a father, and I don't need a fake one."
Shank let out a long whistle. "I hope you're worth it," he said to Jesse Edwin.
"Worth what?"
"All the time and trouble your mother's spent on your behalf. Maybe you're right, Jesse Edwin. Maybe you're not worth the helping hand she offered you. Maybe you need to keep hanging out at meetings and hiding from the world."
"Shank!"
"Now it seems to me," Shank said, "somebody who plays the guitar as well as you would look forward to a chance to bring that talent to the front where we mere mortals can enjoy it."
"Not if it means kissing up to my step-dad. I nearly killed him the other day. Why should I suddenly feel different today?"
"Nobody's asking you to feel differently," Rickie said. "I don't care if you hate Hirschfeld. I'm sure you do. Even if you do, you ought to at least take advantage of him. Use him. Perhaps that will be your best revenge. Take advantage of the opportunity he'll give you and make it on your own from there."
"We've got churros for desert," Judy said, attempting to move the mood to a lighter plane. "I picked them up at the pier earlier today. They're warming in the oven."
"Mmmm!" Rickie said. The churros were her favorite Mexican desert, shaped as they were like the grooved, cylindrical trunk of a saguaro cactus, dusted with the sands of cinnamon, cleverly comprised of ridged, sugar-coated dough, deep fried crispy on the outside, hot and moist on the inside, the able confectionery providing to the eager eater a major league chomping experience which really kicked the taste buds into new domains.
Judy returned from the kitchen with a tray holding a plastic thermos of coffee, four coffee mugs and a napkin-lined wicker basket piled high with the toothsome stack of churros. "We're having something special. Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee. It cost three hundred bucks a pound. I got it as a prize for making a money-saving suggestion at my work."
"What the heck did you suggest?" Shank said. "A new way to travel in space?"
"No. I told them if they moved the printer the secretaries share; we'd save over 15,000 minutes extra a year travel time walking to and from the darn thing."
"You should be running the company," Shank said.
"I'll settle for the coffee and not having to walk as far. I've been saving this stuff in the freezer for over a month, but now seems like exactly the right time." Stepping to a sideboard next to the window, she selected a bottle of Kahlua. "I hate to do this, especially because you guys are such big AA'ers and all, but I'm sorry ... I usually enjoy a little something in my coffee after dinner. Is the sight of me having this going to make you guys slip or need to run out to a meeting or something?"
"We want you to be yourself and be comfortable in your home, Judy," Jesse Edwin said.
Shank raised an eyebrow. "I'll try to hold off the urge to drink myself to death until I can be alone."
"Rickie?" Judy asked, proffering the Kahlua.
"Please," Rickie said gratefully, selecting a churro and nipping off the tip. "Spike the coffee. I'm sick of feeling everything I have to feel. Numb me, Judy. I refuse to feel guilty around you two holy men."
"You don't have to," Shank said. "Just be yourself. What could be simpler? Besides, it's good training for Jesse Edwin. When he begins his music career, he'll have to hang out with a lot of spineless groupies, kissy-faced schmoozers, and hacks, boozers all, who not only drink excessively, but do many other things besides which aren't recommended in the Big Book, the Good Book, or any other legal publication."
"Don't alcoholics have to avoid places where alcohol is served?"
"This is America. Where in America isn't it served? The country is floating in the stuff. Alcohol is the national beverage. We alkies don't have to stay out of the bars, or avoid certain social occasions, not if we have a legitimate reason for being there. Remember, sobriety is between an alky and his God. It's not dictated by the outside circumstances of this world. If an alky decides to drink, he can find a bottle of booze in the middle of the North Pole. If he decides not to drink, he can swim in a vat of beer and never take a sip."
Rickie took a generous gulp of the most excellent coffee and Kahlua and followed this with an even more generous mouthful of the churro, savoring the mix of sugar, cinnamon and crispy dough. "I saw my shrink today," she said. "I can't share with you what happened there in that room, but I can tell you I came away determined to make a fight of it. That's why I must insist, Jesse Edwin, that you accept Hershey's help and force him to make good on his promise to help you. Whether or not he and I ever have a future together, I think he certainly owes us a few things."
"Talk about owing you. He had your car towed away on a flatbed truck this afternoon," Jesse Edwin said. "I hope he plans to return it."
"He’s going to replace the tires he ruined," Rickie said.
"Are you sure?" Judy asked. "Maybe he wanted to strand you here so he can stalk you more easily."
"That thought occurred to me."
"I'm not being completely fair," Judy said. A contractor stopped by to talk about putting in a new bay window and, get this--a brand-new roof! They're starting work tomorrow. It will be great to have the roof fixed so it doesn't leak. They're going to spray some kind of miracle sealer on it."
"The heck they are. Tell them we want real wood shakes, not some miracle age gunk that'll peel off in five years."
"Okay, Rickie. I'll tell them."
"I'm glad, Judy. Although I don't see why you don't simply sell this place. The lot alone is probably worth at least a million. You could move to Santa Barbara. I might even join you."
"You know why. This place is all I have left to remind me of my family. My father was one of the first surfers around here."
"Not to change the subject," Rickie said, "but what's important here is not what we old farts are doing, but Jesse Edwin's future. Shank, Judy already knows it, but you may not realize this. Jesse Edwin's been playing the guitar since he was two years old."
"Two years old!"
"I'm serious. As a toddler, he used to walk around our apartment, picking up anything he could find and strumming it. He even used to strum an old golf club."
"It's true," Jesse Edwin said.
"Now listen to me, Jesse Edwin," Shank said. "You're going to have to put the best face on this you can. You're going to take that call from your step dad and take advantage of whatever he can do for you."
The younger man looked helplessly around him. "Mom, how can I do it? I have to confess something. Something
pretty horrible. I lost all my instruments."
"What?"
"I lost everything. That Martin 12-string I played yesterday belongs to a friend of mine in the Program."
Rickie was aghast. "Jesse Edwin, what happened to all your equipment?"
"When Hirschfeld kicked me out, I hocked some of it to support myself," he said. "Some of it disappeared right before I went into rehab. You know how it is when you live with losers. They ripped me off."
"You lost your entire collection of guitars?" Rickie looked dolefully at Judy and Shank. "My son owned a collection of more than twenty-five guitars. One of them once owned by John Cippolina, the one he used on Piece of My Heart. We lived on macaroni for years to be able to save up for each new guitar."
Jesse Edwin didn't know it, but he was crying. On his face was a dazed, confused look as his thoughts returned him to a dark past, a place peopled by demons that lurched about in smoke and unquenched flames, waving aloft his precious guitars, hooting and jeering at the broken spirited young man with the bottle of booze clutched in his fingers where a guitar should have been.
"It's okay," Rickie said. "I realized the night I nearly died none of it matters. Then I saw the lady in the purple cloud, and I learned we can't take it with us."
"It sounds like you saw the Blessed Virgin, Shank said, interested, perking up.
"Are you Catholic?" Rickie asked.
"Well," Shank said, "it was all so long ago. Are you Catholic?"
"My answer is the same as yours," Rickie said. "Judy and I went to Catholic school. But that was about it. Which is why the sight of the lady in purple surprised me."
"What do you mean?" Shank asked.
"I told you I experienced a spiritual awakening when I passed out in the hotel room. What I didn't tell you was I saw Our Lady. I can't talk about it. The truth is I can't remember most of it. I see a small piece of it once in a while inside my head. It's like a movie clip that plays without warning. I can only say all we can take with us when we leave this life is our name. It's the first thing we receive when we're born, and the only thing we take with us when we die. The only thing that matters is whether or not we're taking a good name or a bad name with us when we leave. Jesse Edwin, tomorrow, you're heading over to McCabe's and replace your guitars as best you can. Then you're going to make music and get yourself a good name among the people of this earth."
"Mom," he said. "I can't. Don't you see? I can't keep taking your money. I can never repay you."
"You are my son," she said. "Don't you get it?" She spoke slowly, mouthing carefully each word. "I ... am ... your ... mother ... you ... are ... my ... son. I gave you your life. You can never repay me anyway, so what's the difference? What you can do for me, is to start obeying me when I tell you to do something. You can start by honoring your mother."
"That's good advice," Shank said. "If every kid did what his mother told him, he'd be a millionaire by age thirty, marry the right lady and never have an unhappy day."
"What about my pride? Doesn't anybody in this room care about that?" Jesse Edwin said.
Judy sipped her coffee carefully. Rickie stared at her fingernails. A fresh winter's wind whipped up outside, shaking the tiny dwelling, enhancing the sense of connectedness for those gathered inside.
"Screw your pride," Shank said, a hint of a smile parting his lips. "That's what got you into such a mess in the first place."
"Why are warning bells ringing in my head?" Jesse Edwin said. "Two days ago, my mom nearly died. Today she asks me to get help for my music career from her wanna-be killer."
He looked at her, and in the light from Judy's faux Tiffany lamp, Rickie noted with awe the regal bearing he'd obtained out of his Navajo ancestry; the fascinating ruby glow burning like fire beneath his high cheeks, his long black hair resting on his slim shoulders. My son is beautiful.
"You should braid your hair," she said. "The way your father used to do."
He looked at her. "Okay. I'll braid it."
"Forget about Hershey," she said softly, exercising her raw intuition. "Put your anger where it belongs. Put it on me, son. I can hold it, you can't. Put the anger on me." She opened her arms to him.
Trembling, he leaned over and hugged her to him. She could almost feel his rage winding down. The tears were coming faster now, finally nourishing the taproot at the bottom of his soul. His body began to shake. As soon as it began, it was over, the young man standing up and turning away from them all, wiping his eyes on the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
"Tomorrow I'll go to McCabe's. I'll take Hirschfeld's call."
"Judy, I need my pain medication," Rickie said. "For some reason, there's pain everywhere inside of me tonight."
"It's the pain of healing," Shank said. "Welcome it."
Judy left and returned with the capsules, of which Rickie took two and washed them down with the sweetened Kahlua and coffee.
"By the way, Mom," Jesse Edwin said. "I've got some news for you. Several things, actually. The first is a receipt for a new car ... you're going to kill me, but I blew thirty-five grand on a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. It's parked right outside. Am I dead?"
"No," Rickie said. "That's good. They took the credit card?"
"Without question," he said. "It was a real power trip, walking in there with the card and pointing to the best car in the showroom and saying that’s the one."
"I want to see it in a moment, as soon as I feel strong enough to walk outside. You said there was something else. What is it?"
"I'm glad you're sitting down. I started a search today for my father. I used some of your money to hire an agency to find out what happened to him."
"I feel dizzy," Rickie said. "Did you say you're looking for Bobby Q?"
"I am. There's a good chance I'll find him. Although they warned me he might not still be alive."
"I'm overwhelmed. I'm sorry, son. It's simply that I've spent the past thirty years trying to keep it all carefully contained. The thought of actually seeing your father again after all this time, or even knowing what happened to him, it's almost too much for me to take in."
"There's one other thing I have for you."
"Show me."
"I'll show you when your pain meds kick in," he said. "Because you'll have to walk out back with me to see it."
Rickie frowned in puzzlement. "It?"
"Perhaps we should call it her. She's a new addition to our family. I should warn you. She's not your everyday cat."
Rickie's face grew hot and her voice trembled. "Dr. Black's cat. I completely forgot. Well I simply have to say, if these are my final days, I couldn't ask for them to be spent in any better way than to be here with you guys tonight."
"I'll drink to that," Shank said, hoisting his coffee.
"Me too," Judy said, raising her mug aloft.
Rickie's eyes caught Shank's in mid toast. He was locked on to her gaze in a way that seemed to say, you’re starting to rub off on me. She broke contact, feeling the brief exchange carrying with it a quality of intimacy that shocked her, and possibly revealed things to him about herself she wasn't fully aware of, or at least ready to acknowledge.
Why am I doing this? The man will think I'm pursuing him. Suddenly, conscious of an obligation, Rickie slowly rose to her feet. "Let's get this old lady moving," she said to Jesse Edwin. "We've got a cat to greet."
"And how," he said.