Rummies

  Dan poked his head up. "Duke!" WHOP! Natasha swung the club and clipped just enough of him to knock his granny glasses across the room and into the leaves of a rubber-tree plant. He ducked down again and shouted from his refuge behind the chair. "Duke! I'm warning you! Participate!”

  "You're the boss." Duke dropped to his knees again and pushed forward.

  Butterball wasn't having a bit of it. "You don't even know what love is!" She hit Duke with her hip.

  "Sister, I'll be brutally frank with you," Duke said. "I don't give a shit." Then he feinted with a little dipsy-do and whacked Butterball with his own hip.

  Because he was taller than she, and stronger, and because Butterball was off balance, she pitched face forward directly on top of the box-office queen, who, with an enraged yelp, was driven forward into the chair and knocked it up on two legs so that it, in turn, collapsed onto Dan. Two other worshipers, evidently assuming that this was all part of the script, piled on, shrieking, "Natasha! Natasha! We love you!" and "I feel the love all over!''

  From somewhere far away, muffled by upholstery and flesh, Dan could be heard crying, "I think that's enough for today!"

  Duke rolled to his feet and surveyed the wreckage.

  Clarence Crosby crawled free and joined him. "Man! What you make of that? That's love!”

  "I think it's time to break for a gin-and-tonic and a shrimp salad," Duke said.

  And then the voice that had cooed to a billion ears in half a hundred films over two-score years called out, "Get the fuck offa me! I think you broke my goddam leg!”

  Marcia knelt before Cheryl's chair and held Cheryl's hands and looked up into her face as if hoping to lure her eyes out from their hiding places. "Don't grieve for it," Marcia said. "Cherish it. It was a sober friendship and it was wonderful. There'll be others."

  "Maybe." Cheryl wouldn't free her eyes to look Marcia. "Maybe not for me."

  Marcia sighed. Without turning around she said "What do you think, Scott?"

  What did he think? What would anybody think? This is a sad, sick little girl. But he couldn't say that. " think ... I think maybe it's wrong ... no, I don'1 mean wrong, but . . . maybe it doesn't do any good t( worry about what's going to happen . . . maybe it's better to be happy for what has happened, and to have hope." Oh shit. I've probably said something asinine, Now Marcia 'II whip around and kick me in the teeth.

  Marcia didn't react to him at all. She stroked Cheryl's hands and said, "Do you hear what Scott's saying? He may not know it, but what he's saying is, One day at time. That's the only way we can make it, any of us By being grateful for every day we've had and living today the best we can. One day at a time."

  Cheryl nodded.

  Lewis wrapped an arm around her again and said "It's higher-power time, hon."

  Marcia looked at her watch, stood up and extended her arms out to the sides.

  Immediately the others stood too. Hector took one of Marcia's hands and held his other out to Cheryl, who took it and held her other out to Lewis, who took it and held his other out to Preston.

  What now, O Lord? Ring-around-a-rosy? Preston let Lewis take his hand, felt him squeeze it, conquered an impulse to snatch it back and wipe it on his trousers and jam it into his pocket. Marcia took his other hand.

  They bowed their heads and (with Preston humming in incoherent harmony) together prayed, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. . . . Amen."

  Nice, Preston thought, and he was about to ask Marcia who had written the prayer when Lewis suddenly spun on him and embraced him and said, "Welcome, welcome. . . . You'll find love here."

  Help! Preston panicked. The guy's flipped his wig. Holding hands was too much for him, Preston's arms stuck out like branches, his hands flopped helplessly. He thought of tripping Lewis, throwing him to the floor, subduing him till medical help could be summoned.

  Then he saw, over Lewis's shoulder, that Hector was embracing Marcia, that Marcia then embraced Cheryl, that Cheryl then embraced Hector.

  I guess it's hug time. Tentatively, he let his hands pat Lewis on the back. Abruptly Lewis pulled away and was replaced by Hector, who obviously didn't like hugging men any more than Preston did and squeezed him quickly and violently—like crushing a fly—and pulled away, to be replaced by Cheryl, who flitted in and out of his arms like a hummingbird.

  Marcia hugged him last. He did his best to respond, but it wasn't much—about as convincing as social kissy-face in the Grill Room at The Four Seasons.

  Marcia knew. She winked at him and said, ''You are one hard-ass nut to crack. But I'm gonna do it."

  The doors to the two therapy rooms opened simultaneously, and as the patients poured out there was the instantaneous combustion of a dozen cigarettes.

  “You look like shit," Duke said to Preston.

  “Thanks." He glanced over Duke's shoulder. "Hey! Did that used to be Natasha Grant?"

  "Don't get in her way," Duke said. "She makes Clarisse look like Mary Poppins."

  "I was going to marry her, live in her mansion and cover her with unguents." Preston couldn't take his eyes off her. "She could be somebody's maid."

  "She was never true to you. All the time you thought you were her one and only, I was boffing her brains out."

  The crowd was ambling toward the front door, and they followed.

  Preston said, "It sounded like you were playing rugby in there."

  "This is dangerous stuff, man. I never knew treatment was a contact sport."

  A cigarette machine stood against the wall by the front door. "A buck and a half!" Preston said. "When I was smoking, cigarettes were fifty cents." He fished in his pocket and found four quarters.

  "Welcome to the wonderful world of addiction." Duke dropped two quarters into Preston's hand.

  Preston studied the machine. "What's a good brand?"

  "That's not the point."

  Preston looked at him, nodded. "Right." He pumped the coins into the machine, closed his eyes, ran his fingers along the levers and pulled one.

  As they followed the crowd toward the main building, Preston said to Duke that if he believed in such things, he'd place bets that Marcia had ESP: She knew more about him than he knew about himself. At least, that's what it seemed like.

  "Go on," Duke said. "They got you believing it now?"

  "I don't know about believing. But she's sure got me wondering."

  The dining hall reminded Preston of prep school: a white, brightly lighted, antiseptic room bisected by steam tables. One side was reserved for counselors and staff, the other for patients.

  They collected plastic trays and sets of flatware wrapped in paper napkins, and joined the line.

  "I figured out the trick to survival here," Duke said as he reached a bony arm under the plastic "sneeze bar" and grabbed a Jell-O salad. "Keep 'em focused on other people. Then they can't zero in on you."

  Preston took cottage cheese with a cherry on top. "You'll never learn anything that way. You're here. You might's well get something from it. Besides, you've got an ego like everyone else. You want some attention."

  Duke took a plate of meat that looked orange under the heat lamps. "Listen: After today, I don't even want old hippie Dan to think about me. I was lucky to get out alive. You shoulda seen that loopy Natasha. If that chair'd been one of her eight husbands, man, he'd be nothing but a smear on the rug."

  Preston took a bowl of stew full of mocha things and a glass of iced tea, and he and Duke turned to find a table. Most of the tables were occupied, and though the atmosphere in here was congenial, if not merry, and everybody seemed to be chatting and nobody was looking mopey or hostile, he didn't feel like sitting with strangers. He and Duke found an empty table for four.

  "They've got you coming and going," Preston said as he sat down. "They say you're only here to ask questions about yourself; then they say if you have to ask questions that means you've got the problem
. Bang! Gotcha!"

  "I'll admit anything," Duke said. "For twenty-eight days, I'll admit I'm a Chinaman if they want."

  A voice behind them said, "An idiot, yes, but a Chinaman . . . that's a reach."

  It was Lewis, and with him was Hector, and without being invited they unloaded their plates on the table.

  Lewis said, "Hector told me to tell you we'd only join you if you promise not to make a pass at us."

  "Like hell!" Hector protested. He did not appreciate being teased. "I never said that."

  Duke waited until they had settled, and then he said, "Lewis, you can worry about earthquakes, you can worry about terrorists, you can worry about being buggered by guys from the planet Mercury, but me you do not have to worry about."

  Lewis smiled. "I'll count my blessings."

  Preston had his fork poised over his stew when he noticed that Hector was muttering some Spanish words and had his eyes closed and his hands folded before him. He put his fork down.

  Hector finished his prayer and pulled a medallion from under his T-shirt and kissed it. "Amen," he said. ‘Fuckin' starvin' . . ." He grabbed a slab of white bread and scooped a glutinous brown mash of beans and wiener sections onto it and folded it over and packed it into his mouth.

  Preston took a couple of bites of stew. He looked at Lewis. "You said . . ."He hesitated. "Is it all right to I talk about what went on in—?"

  "Of course!" Lewis laughed. "Nobody has any secrets here. Nobody can. I've already heard about Natasha's Tennessee Williams act, and that Mr. Wonderful here"—he pointed at Duke with his fork—"tried to start an orgy."

  "Hey-" I Preston cut Duke off. "Lewis, you said, before she stopped you, you said you have the gift of alcoholism."

  "Indeed I did," Lewis said. "I like to think of it as a gift, like Mozart's, only malignant. Not everybody has it, and having the gift alone isn't enough. To be a real alcoholic you have to practice. The trouble is, they insist it's a disease, and they don't welcome theories that muddy the waters."

  Hector spoke through a shoal of franks and beans. "Bein' a junkie ain't special. Anybody can do it."

  "I couldn't," Lewis said. "I tried heroin once. It made me deathly ill." He turned to Preston. "I don't bother to fight the powers that be. I just clutch at every straw of dignity in life that I can."

  "Why are you limping?" Marcia asked Dan Farina as they walked to the dining hall. As always, he tended to walk closer to her than was smart; as always, she edged sideways and kept a full yard of daylight between them.

  Dan told her he had been crushed by half a ton of drunks. **But it was great! I finally got Natasha in touch with her anger. After four weeks of holding out on me, I think today she killed all her husbands and her mother and her sister who's always resented her."

  “How do you know she wasn't acting?"

  "Just to please me? She doesn't give a hoot about me. She's the most perfectly self-absorbed person I've ever seen. I don't think anybody else exists in her world, except as a foil for her. You know: 'Enough about me. Tell me what you thought of my performance.' There's a word for it."

  "Solipsism."

  "Solipsism. Right."

  "But that's what I mean. You have power over her. If you don't give the okay, she doesn't leave here. Or at least doesn't get her medallion and the kiss on the cheek. Maybe she thought: This guy wants to see me bust loose. Okay, I'll bust loose. Here we go. Busting Loose, Take One."

  "No, she was genuine. I can tell genuine anger."

  "She's an actress.''

  "Would she do that?" Dan frowned as he held the door to the dining hall for her.

  "I'm probably wrong." Why spoil his day? she thought. "Your glasses are still cockeyed."

  As they joined the food line, Marcia looked around the patients' section and saw Preston sitting with Lewis and Hector and someone she didn't know.

  She said to Dan, "What's your new one like? The beanpole over there."

  "Duke? A lulu. He's still locked up in his bad space. But I’ll reach him. I'm pretty sure he felt the love today."

  "I wish mine was a lulu. They're down in black and white. They try to deny they've got a problem, you show them the court order. I've got myself William F. Buckley, Jr."

  "No kidding?" Dan looked over his shoulder.

  "You know what I mean. Ivy League. Smart. Articulate. This whole unpleasant business is all a ghastly mistake."

  ''They 're protected.''

  "Genetically and socially. They don't do the real colorful stuff, don't get arrested, don't stab somebody, almost never end up in the gutter. They don't bottom out. Denial's real easy."

  Dan took some pears on a bed of wilted lettuce. "Even when they die of it, the obit says 'congestive heart failure' or 'a long illness.' " He picked up a bowl of chopped apples and nuts and put it on her tray.

  "Don't do that!" she hissed.

  "You like fruit. You put fruit on your cereal every morning,"

  "That's at home. This is here. Here we're colleagues, nothing more. You don't know squat about me except for lunch."

  Dan grinned and shook his head. "You're paranoid."

  "Bet your honky ass I'm paranoid. I like my job. I'd like to keep it."

  "Lecture time," Lewis said as he piled his plates on his tray.

  Preston had been smoking a cigarette with his coffee, watching Marcia and the other counselor go through the line. He saw the guy put something on her tray, saw she didn't like that. Interesting. Is there something going on there? He wanted to ask Lewis, but Lewis was already walking to the line of people waiting to pass their dirty dishes through the window into the kitchen. He stacked his dishes and got up.

  He stood in line behind Lewis, who was behind Cheryl.

  When Cheryl passed her tray through the window, the matronly scullion looked at the untouched food and leaned down and said to Cheryl, "You gotta eat, child. Else, you never get well."

  Cheryl said, "I didn't feel so good," and she turned away.

  Lewis waited for Preston to dispose of his tray, and they walked together toward the door.

  ''Everybody seems 'up' here," Preston said. "Everybody but her." He pointed ahead to Cheryl.

  Lewis nodded. "Poor baby. She's twenty-two. She's got cirrhosis. They've already done two liver biopsies, and the tissue they got was dead both times. They want to do another one, but she's terrified that if they pull another dead plug it'll be her death sentence. You can live with half your liver gone, even two thirds, but if three quarters is nothing but scar tissue, then it's just a question of when."

  "How do you get cirrhosis at twenty-two?"

  "Well, one fabulous way is to start at fourteen putting nothing—nothing—in your mouth but beer." He opened the door and held it for Preston, and they walked down the corridor toward the lecture room. "She knows what it'll be like. Both her parents went that way: confusion, disorientation, hallucinations—they come from ammonia the liver won't process—then maybe coma, maybe not, then probably esophageal varices."

  ''A what?"

  "The liver can't handle anything more, so it shunts it all by. All the blood goes up through the esophagus. Basically, you puke away your life blood. All of it."

  Jesus Christ! Preston felt his blood draining into his shoes. They reached the door to the lecture room, and Preston leaned against the jamb and took a deep breath. He saw Lewis looking at him, concerned, and he tried to smile. "It's been a long day."

  Lewis nodded. "Sensory overload. You've heard about taking life one day at a time? Cheryl's a little girl who has no choice. All the shrinks can do is help her appreciate every day as a gift. Not so easy v/hen you hate yourself so much for trying to kill yourself that you feel like . . . killing yourself." Lewis paused and looked at Preston—gray, weak, clutching the dooijamb. He winked and said, "Isn't it beautiful? I told you: It makes Mozart's gift seem almost . . . well, pedestrian."

  VII

  THE BLACK Daimler circled the roundabout with the silent grace of a crocodile and stoppe
d before the front door of the clinic. The chauffeur got out, tugged at his jacket to erase the wrinkles from the shoulders, and opened one of the back doors.

  A young woman stepped out of the car and, while the chauffeur went to the trunk to fetch her suitcase, stared at the simple adobe building. She wore sunglasses, though night was well on its way and stars could already be seen in the violet sky. Her long blond hair gleamed against her navy blue cashmere sweater. She had not known how to dress for the occasion, so she had taken her mother's advice—"Make believe it's a regular hospital, darling. Wear something simple and understated, something that won't say too much"—and had worn a white silk blouse, a pleated linen skirt and medium-heel navy pumps to match the sweater. She had left her jewelry at home, all except her signet pinkie ring and her gold Rolex.

  "It's cold," she said.

  "Only at night." The chauffeur shut the trunk. "I don't imagine you'll have much call to be outside at night."

  "No."

  Carrying the suitcase, the chauffeur started toward the building, but the young woman took a couple of quick steps and caught up with him and put a hand on his arm.

  "I'll take it," she said. "I'd rather."

  "Of course." He handed her the suitcase and tipped his hat and said, "Good luck, Miss 'Cilia."

  "Thank you, Simpson. For everything."

  The lobby was empty; the two offices on the left were dark. A light shone in an office to the right, so she set her suitcase down and walked to the office door. A large woman in a white uniform sat at a desk, making notes on a file in a manila folder. She sensed a presence at the door and looked up.

  "Hello, dearie." She grinned. "Checking in?"

  The young woman nodded, and the nurse gestured to a chair beside her desk.

  "I'm Nurse Bridget. And you're . . . ?"

  "Godfrey . . . Priscilla Godfrey?"

  "Oh yes." She opened a drawer and searched for an admission form.

  Priscilla noticed an ashtray on the nurse's desk. She opened her purse, took a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with a gold butane lighter.

  Nurse Bridget waited until Priscilla had returned the lighter to her purse. Then she took Priscilla's free hand in hers and looked at it. The fingernails had been bitten to the nubs, the skin around them ravaged and scarred.