Unknown Man #89

  In a cooler, Ryan remembered. Unless it was winter. Open the trunk like it was a refrigerator. Drive with the can between your legs. He looked at his watch.

  Nine o'clock. Another half hour. The room was close and he could feel himself perspiring. All the hot coffee and cigarettes. The ashtrays around the table were full. Walk into a room like this anywhere, and if everybody was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes it was an AA meeting.

  A man was saying that two years ago, when he and his wife were in Europe, they'd taken a boat trip down the Rhine. He didn't see much, though. The only thing he looked for along the river was liquor stores.

  The table leader said to Ryan, "I'm sorry, I don't know your name. Would you like to say a few words?"

  Ryan had lighted a cigarette, getting ready, knowing his turn was coming. He said, "Thank you." He paused. The people at the table waited.

  "I was going to pass," Ryan said then, "or make something up ... but I might as well tell you where I am.

  I've been in the program three and a half years." He paused. "I'm Jack, and I'm an alcoholic. I got drunk yesterday and the day before, and I thought I'd probably keep going a few more days. Why I started drinking again, I don't know. Maybe because my car needs new shock absorbers. Or it was King Farouk's birthday. The reason doesn't matter, does it? I slipped-no, I didn't slip, I intentionally got drunk-because I've stayed away from meetings too long, four months, and I started relying on myself instead of the program. I forgot, I guess, that when you give up one way of life, drinking, you have to substitute something else for it. Otherwise all you've done, you've quit drinking, but you've still got the same old resentments and hang-ups inside. You're sober but you're miserable, hard to get along with. You're what's called a dry drunk. Sober, but that's all. Well, I've been very happy the last couple of years. Not only because I've been sober and feel better physically, but because the program has changed my attitude." He paused. "A friend of mine has a sign on the wall at his office, it says No More Bullshit. And that's the way I feel, or want to get back to feeling again. I know I can be myself. I don't have to play a role, put up a front, pretend to be something I'm not. I even listen to what people say now. I can argue without getting mad. If the other person gets mad, that's his problem. I don't feel the need to convince everybody I'm right. Somebody said here tonight, 'I like myself now, and it's good to be able to say that.' I had fun drinking, I'll admit it. At least, I had fun for about ten or twelve years and, fortunately, I didn't get in too much trouble or hit bottom and sleep in the weeds. But once I realized I was thinking about the next drink while I still had one in front of me-once I started making up excuses to drink and got drunk every time I went out-I was in more trouble than I realized. You know what happens after that, drinking not to feel good but just to feel normal, to get your nerves under control. What I'm saying, I'd be awfully dumb to go back to that when I can feel good and be myself-that's the important thing-without drinking. I don't know where we got the idea we need to drink to bring ourselves out."

  Ryan paused again, not sure where he was going.

  "I'm glad I'm here and can tell you what I feel," he said then, "instead of sitting in a bar thinking. The best thing we can do, besides staying out of bars, is try to stay out of our heads."

  It was a good feeling, coming out instead of beating himself down. He picked up his empty coffee cup, and the guy's cup next to him, and went over to the urn and filled them up. When he sat down again, a girl at the end of the table was speaking.

  She was saying she thought the sign was a great idea. No More Bullshit. Because that's what the program, to her, seemed to be all about. The idea, quit pretending and be yourself ... a way to self-awareness that everybody, not just alcoholics, seems to be more interested in today. That's what had surprised her most about the program, the positive aspect of it. Not simply abstaining from alcohol, but as Jack said, substituting something positive for it, a totally different way of life, not inner-directed anymore, but outgoing.

  The girl stopped.

  Ryan was sipping his coffee.

  "I'm sorry," she said then. "I started talking-I forgot to say I'm Denise, and I'm an alcoholic."

  Ryan lit another cigarette and leaned forward with his elbows on the table, watching her. It couldn't be the same girl. But now the voice was familiar.

  "I have the feeling everything I say you've heard before," Denise said, "but I guess that's part of it too. We can empathize, put ourselves in each other's places."

  The nose was the same. Her face was different, it seemed narrower, smaller. Her blond hair was much shorter. It fell in a nice curve close to one eye, and she'd brush it away with the tips of her fingers.

  "I reached the point finally, I guess I did think about killing myself, but even then I put off thinking how I would do it, whether to go off the bridge or turn the gas on or what. I'd think about it tomorrow, after I finished the half gallon of wine."

  The empty Gallo bottles on the kitchen floor. The girl lying on the daybed with her hair in her face. Hair and lint on the dark turtleneck. Ryan remembered it. The greasy blue jeans and pale white unprotected feet. Moving her foot and not knowing someone was there watching it move. The girl at the table would be about the same age, twenty-eight. She wore a navy-blue sweater with the collar of a print blouse showing. She looked fresh, clean.

  "It was a feeling that I wanted to get out of myself. Do you know what I mean? Every once in a while I'd see myself, what I'd become, and I'd say, 'What am I doing here? This isn't me.' I couldn't stop thinking. Do you know what I mean? Going around in circles, afraid of not particular things but everything."

  The voice on the phone had said to him, "I don't want to be here. I don't want to be inside me, but I can't get out."

  "I had some help. Right at the end, when I didn't know what to do. I remember someone tried to help me."

  She was looking this way, but her gaze might be directed past him, or at the table leader a couple of chairs over. Ryan wasn't sure.

  "But I guess my pride screwed things up. I had to do it myself, so I ran away. Which is a pretty good trick, running away from yourself. Then I got the idea I was going to go home, the little girl wanting her mommy. But I didn't do that either, thank God, which was probably a good thing. If I'd gotten the lectures and all the shoulds and shouldn'ts, and Mother taking my screwing-up as a personal affront, trying to hurt her-I didn't need somebody like that, who wouldn't even begin to understand the problem. My mother's idea of drinking-well, never mind."

  Good, Ryan thought. It would've been a bad move.

  "Somehow I got to a meeting. It was at Holy Trinity in Detroit, you know, in Corktown, and there was a real mixture of people there. I remember a black woman who kept referring to her higher power as God Honey. That was my first meeting. I'd find a meeting every night somewhere, and finally I came out here." Denise paused. "I got a job, I start Monday. I'm living in Rochester in a very nice place and-the amazing thing, it seems like such a long time ago, and yet it's only been three or four weeks. I'm still a little fuzzy about periods of time."

  Three and a half weeks, Ryan thought. Twenty-five days.

  "I just hope it lasts, the good feeling." She paused again and looked at the table leader. "Thank you."

  After the meeting they stood in lingering groups talking. Most of them seemed to know one another. Ryan got a half cup of coffee and waited. She was standing with the man from their table named Paul and the woman who used to wake up in motel rooms. Paul finally left them. They glanced over this way, then came toward him, both of them smiling. She was a good-looking girl, neat and trim, Ryan's idea of the perfect size. The other one, he couldn't imagine her waking up in a motel room with anyone.

  "It's Jack, isn't it?"

  "Right. Denise and .. ."

  "This is Irene. I was just telling her-you said this was your first time, but I know I've seen you somewhere. Do you ever go the Teamsters' Hall on Sunday?"

  "No, I've heard about i
t, but I've never been there."

  "It's a good meeting. Eleven o'clock Sunday morning."

  "I'll have to go sometime. Yeah, I've been in the program three and a half years, but this is my first time here. Usually I used to go to Beaumont."

  He was letting it get away. He wanted to ask her a question to be absolutely sure, but Irene stood there smiling at him. It had to be the same girl, now with trusting eyes, a pleasant expression, looking at him and sensing something but not remembering. He wouldn't have recognized her on the street.

  "It was a good meeting, wasn't it?" She seemed eager to keep going.

  "Yeah, I enjoyed it. I guess I always do. Everybody's straight, it's the one place people tell you honestly what they think."

  "No More Bullshit," Denise said. "I love that. I think I'll paint it on my wall."

  "The guy I mentioned has it," Ryan said, "is with an advertising agency. I don't know if it helps him or not. Maybe."

  Denise smiled again. "Are you in that business?"

  "No, I'm a process server."

  She nodded and seemed to be thinking about something.

  "You know what that is?"

  "I've been served, evicted, and repossessed. I know exactly what it is. Not lately, though."

  "Not in the past three or four weeks anyway, huh?"

  It went past her or she didn't hear him. She was looking at the people beginning to leave.

  "I told Paul and some of the others I'd meet them for a bite," Denise said. "Would you like to join us?"

  "Fine. I've got a car."

  "I came with Irene. Why don't you follow us over, unless you know where it is."

  "Where are we going?"

  "I'm sorry, I thought all AAs went to Uncle Ben's after meetings. It's the pancake house on Huron."

  "Maybe he sick," Tunafish said.

  "Got sick all of a sudden," Virgil said. "Park his car and walk in the hospital, say he's sick."

  "Then he visiting somebody."

  "That's where we're at," Virgil said. "Who? Bobby's woman? Maybe so. She was in bad shape."

  "Ask him," Tunafish said. "You know the man."

  "The man ain't talking much. He don't call me back. But all of a sudden he got this interest in Pontiac, going to the bars, going home, come back out here. He know something he ain't telling."

  They sat in Virgil's white Grand Prix in the visitors' parking lot, Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital. If Virgil were to pop on his headlights, the beam would show part of Ryan's light-blue Pontiac Catalina. Tunafish was cold. He held himself tightly with his hands in the pockets of his leather coat. He didn't know what he was doing here, keeping Virgil company. Virgil was smoking a joint, the new quiet Virgil. He had smoked hash all the time and was never this quiet before. He spoke so slow Tunafish wasn't sure he'd ever finish what he started to say, the joint putting spaces between his words. Virgil kept his window open a few inches. That's why Tunafish was cold, feeling the damp night air.

  He wished he knew what he was doing here. He didn't like to ask, but he didn't like the way it had been going lately, Virgil calling him, getting him pulled into some shit going on about Bobby Lear and Bobby's wife. People asking about her, looking for her. He didn't like not knowing who this man Ryan was. The man seemed familiar, like he'd seen him someplace, and he kept thinking of the man as a cop, even though Virgil told him he wasn't. Tunafish wanted to know things, but he didn't want to know too much, in case anybody was to sit him down and ask him questions. He got a little excited and sat up straighter when he saw Ryan come out and get in his car.

  They followed him through Pontiac, around Wide Track Boulevard and out Huron to Uncle Ben's Pancake House, the second time tonight.

  "Man's ape shit about pancakes," Tunafish said.

  Virgil didn't say anything. He watched Ryan wait in front of the place, by the door, until two women and a man walked up to him. They went inside. Some more people came and went in about the same time, everybody all of a sudden hungry for pancakes. Ryan had planned to meet some of them here, Virgil was sure of that. But who were they? When had Ryan talked to them? Uncle Ben's, another place to check on, though it didn't look as good as the hospital.

  "What you're doing," Virgil said to Tunafish, "you're learning how to do it. How to sit and wait for the man. The other thing is to write down every place the man goes, and what time."

  "I don't have no car," Tunafish said.

  "We talk to Lavera, she let you use the car," Virgil said. "If we have to rent it from her."

  "I follow him around, huh? Wait for him while he eats?"

  "I'm going to the hospital tomorrow, see if Bobby's woman's staying there. If she is, you don't have to do nothing else. If she ain't, you follow the man where he goes."

  Tunafish wanted to ask Virgil what Virgil would be doing, but he didn't. He worked down into his leather coat to keep warm and sat there most of a half hour.

  Virgil watched Ryan come out with one of the women. Skinny little thing, blond hair-he couldn't see much else. Ryan helped her on with her raincoat and they stood talking, facing each other, neither of them moving. It looked to Virgil like the man had something going. But the other woman came out and the two of them walked off together. Ryan remained where he was, watching them. He watched them drive off and still he didn't move right away.

  "Something's going on," Virgil said, spacing the words. "I'm looking at it. But I don't know what it is."

  Chapter 15

  Ryan got up to answer the phone Monday morning. It wasn't quite seven.

  He had been lying in bed thinking. He should have called Mr. Perez Friday or Saturday. Sunday had been all right to let go by. But he had to tell Mr. Perez something today. Either say it was hopeless and he was quitting, or give Mr. Perez Denise's address and stop worrying about her. Those were his options. He had to make a decision and quit thinking.

  But when Mr. Perez said, "How you this morning?" Ryan started thinking again, trying to talk and sound pleasant.

  "I didn't get back to you last week."

  "Yes, I know you didn't." Mr. Perez sounded patient, as though he didn't mind.

  "I wanted to," Ryan said. "I was pretty much on the go all day."

  There was a silence.

  "What I think I hear," Mr. Perez said, "are words. What're you trying to tell me?"

  "I'm saying there's only one way to find out if she's around, and that's to keep at it." Ryan managed a good straightforward sound.

  There was a silence again. Ryan waited.

  "I hope," Mr. Perez said, "you're not making plans of your own."

  "I don't know what you mean."

  "Feel you don't need me, can handle this yourself."

  "Well, I don't see how I could do that."

  "I don't either," Mr. Perez said, "but you still might be considering it, thinking maybe she knows about the stock, heard the name of it one time."

  "She hasn't even claimed his body."

  "I mean, if you were to bring it up, poke at her memory a little bit. If you've got something like that in mind," Mr. Perez said, "I'd suggest you forget it. After all the work and effort I go to compiling a list, it wouldn't be fair of you to steal one of my names, would it?"

  "No, it wouldn't," Ryan said. He hadn't even thought of the possibility before.

  "It not only wouldn't be fair, it would be poor judgment on your part. If you understand me."

  "I'm working for you," Ryan said. "I'm not interested in your business. I don't know anything about stock, I wouldn't know how to go about anything like this."

  "It is tricky," Mr. Perez said. "You'd be much happier in what you're doing."

  "No, I'm not for getting into anything over my head," Ryan said. But why hadn't he at least thought of it? "You don't have to worry about that."

  "I'm not going to," Mr. Perez said. "I'm not going to worry one bit."

  "You want to give me a few more days, then? See if I can find her?"

  "Yeah, you may as well. I've dug up the names
of a couple more lost souls that might live in the area, so you keep at what you're doing," Mr. Perez said. "I'll be here waiting."

  And watching. He didn't say it, but that's what Ryan felt. Mr. Perez on one side. Virgil Royal somewhere on the other. While he stood in the middle with Denise Leary, playing games.

  Monday evening Ryan drove to Rochester to pick up Denise. She was living in a colonial complex of red-brick apartment buildings. He didn't go in. She came out when he buzzed, and they went to a meeting at Saint Andrew's Episcopal in Drayton Plains.

  At the table Denise told about a new experience she'd discovered and was enjoying. Eating breakfast in the morning. Cereal, eggs, toast, the whole thing. Unbelievable. Instead of throwing up and having a few glasses of wine and trying to remember what had happened the night before. She told them today was her first day on a new job, check-out girl at a supermarket. She was amazed how friendly and willing to talk most people were. She said she had a strange feeling, as though four or five years had been taken out of her life and she was starting over. Each day was new and interesting, whether anything interesting happened or not. She said, "God, I sound like Little Mary Sunshine, don't I? But I can't help it, it's how I feel. I hope I don't get used to it or find out it's a phase you go through." She looked at Ryan across the table from her. "I like feeling good. I like being excited again about little things and wondering what's going to happen next, without being afraid."

  Outside, after the meeting, Ryan said, "Aren't you a little tired of Uncle Ben's? It's so bright in there."

  "I'm tired of drinking coffee more than anything," Denise said. "Is that all right to say?"

  "What we should do, go to a nice dim lounge with a cocktail piano. Order Shirley Temples on the rocks."

  "Or go back to my house," Denise said. "If you like red pop or tea."

  "I'd even drink coffee at your place," Ryan said.

  Tunafish wished he knew what the fuck the man was doing. One night he goes to the hospital. Look at this, Virgil. Next two nights he goes to church, different churches. Saturday night, nothing. He doesn't even go out. Then on Sunday he doesn't go to church, he goes to a building says LOCAL 614. Monday night he goes to church again.