“Do you remember that man’s name?”
“Yes.”
“If you could say anything to him right now, what would you say?”
Without a pause I said, “I’d ask him to forgive me.”
“For?”
“Not bringing him home.”
A tear dripped off Suzy’s cheek. The silence in the restaurant was deafening. Suzy leaned across the space between us and kissed me on the cheek.
Turning to the microphone, she said, “This is our last night here on Cape San Blas. To all of you listening, we’d like to dedicate this show to Sergeant Jo-Jo Brooks and to all of you brave men who served like him.” Then in her signature fashion she signed off. “You are not forgotten.”
When I walked out the front door, several hundred people were standing around a dozen or so bonfires holding a beer or coffee or child, listening to the interview on vehicle speakers. I stepped out on the porch and they applauded. It lasted several minutes. Several hundred people hugged me or shook my hand. Asked me for a picture. It made me feel uncomfortable.
Unworthy.
At midnight, Allie found me on the beach. I was crying. No, I was weeping. And had been. Snot and tears smeared across my face. My soul was spilling out my mouth. Allie put her arm around me and just held me. Finally she turned me toward her and squeezed me tightly. I cried an angry, bitter, broken cry forty-five years in the making.
She asked me, “What can I do? Tell me. Anything.”
I stared out across the ocean. Then down at my feet. “I need someone to forgive me.”
She cupped my face in her hands. “For?”
“For living.”
35
Suzy came by at lunch the following day to report that last night’s listening audience was the largest in their history. She said her television production company wanted to film today’s show at the restaurant, live, and she asked Allie and me if we were okay with that.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
Allie, knowing the pain of last night, paused. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
The two-hour show aired live at four o’clock. The corner of the restaurant had been turned into a TV set, complete with down-lighting and microphones and twenty people moving around like ants pulling cables. When the show started, Suzy, ever the force to be reckoned with, took me back through many of the questions of the previous nights, replaying the audio for the television audience. Then she asked expounding questions. We talked for almost thirty minutes before she broke for commercial. When we returned, she continued with her line of questioning. I answered as best I could.
Sixty minutes into the show, one of her producers came to her during commercial and showed her several slips of paper. Suzy grew instantaneously angry and verbally reamed the producer a new orifice. Fifteen minutes later, again during commercial, the producer returned with more paper. This time the producer was white as a ghost.
As was Suzy.
When we returned to the show for the final segment, Suzy sat ashen, staring at the papers on her lap. When the red light flashed green and she gathered herself, her face was hollow. She turned to the camera. “Years ago, I started this gig trying to find the truth about my dad. I could not, but I soon discovered that a lot of other people were also seeking truth. So that’s what this program became. A search for the truth. About the guys that went. Those that didn’t come home. And . . .” She turned to me. “Those that never went.”
If there was any air in the room when she started talking, it was sucked out the moment she said the words never went. She held the papers in her lap. “I have here documents, signed by witnesses, showing that during the years in which you say you were in Vietnam, you were actually in California. They say your favorite drug was LSD, though you were no stranger to heroin, and that you always had a vivid imagination and loved to spin a story. I have a signed lease agreement with your name on it. Pay stubs from a bar where you worked. Further, I have your birth certificate showing you were never drafted—as you were only sixteen when you claimed to enter the service. And furthermore . . .” Her voice was growing in volume and tone. “I have confirmation from rather high-up military sources that you do not possess a military record or identification number and that you never served in the United States military. The evidence is irrefutable.” Suzy choked back a sob.
I could hear my heartbeat throbbing in my ear. She leaned toward me. The pain and anger in her eyes were pulsating through the veins in her head. She was shouting now.
“So tell me, Joseph Brooks, what makes it so easy to lie to us? To me!” She was spitting when she spoke. “How long did it take to become so convincing? What’d you do, park yourself at the VA and listen to other men’s stories, stealing them as your own?”
Two tables back, a bearded guy about my age, wearing black leathers and motorcycle boots, stood up, holding a beer bottle. He pointed. “You lying, Jo-Jo?”
I just looked at him.
He gestured with his beer. “I drove up from Miami.” He shook his head and walked toward the stage. I knew what he intended and I didn’t stop him. He swung the bottle, breaking it across my forehead. Beer and blood ran down my face.
A woman, probably a widow, walked around behind him and dumped her plate of food on top of my head. Another guy squeezed an entire bottle of ketchup across my face and chest.
Allie was the last one. She stood shaking her head, tears pouring down. “You said you’d never lie!” She slapped me across the face. Then again. She poured an entire pitcher of beer over me, then swung the pitcher down on my head. At this point, people were throwing anything they could get their hands on.
I stood, walked out of the restaurant, down the steps, and out into the crowd, where people spat on me and threw more food at me. One skinny kid walked up and punched me square in the mouth. I stopped at my truck, where Gabriella and Victor stood holding Rosco by the collar. Gabby didn’t understand what was going on, but she was crying.
Rosco stood, wagging his tail. I held out my hand like a stop sign and said, “Stay.” He sat on his butt. I climbed into my truck, backed up, and drove out as men threw beer and soda across my windshield.
Sometimes the truth catches up with you, and when it does, life just hurts.
36
I tossed both my flip phone and my smart phone out the window as I drove north. In a couple days I reached my cabin. I gathered a few things from inside, then doused the rest with ten gallons of diesel fuel and lit it. I backed out of the drive as the flames grew forty feet in the air.
I drove to the same diner in Spruce Pine where Catalina and the kids and I had eaten. My waitress friend had managed to lose a few of her pregnancy pounds and seemed more comfortable in her jeans. She smiled when she saw me. “You need a table?”
I shook my head. “Wanted to bring you something.”
“Really?”
I laid the keys to the F-150 inside her hand. “Take care of that boy. A good momma is hard to find.”
“But I can’t—” She eyed the keys, then the truck, and started crying.
Her boss appeared over her shoulder, a spatula in one hand. “What’s the problem here, bud?” He put his hand on my shoulder with some force and not-so-good intention, so I sent him to the concrete. He lay there trying to breathe.
I turned to go, but the waitress clutched my arm. “Please . . . but why?”
I kissed her forehead, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked ten miles to the storage unit in Micaville, where I cranked the Jeep.
I drove west. Tennessee. Arkansas. Missouri. Kansas. At Iowa I turned north and drove to Minnesota and into Canada, where I spent a few weeks. When I returned to the US, I came in through North Dakota. Drove through Montana, Wyoming, Colorado. From Colorado I meandered through Arizona and New Mexico, eventually into Mexico and the Baja Peninsula. From the sun and heat of Mexico I returned north up through Nevada, Oregon, and Washington, finally making my way back into Canada, up through British
Columbia, and into Alaska. I didn’t watch the news. Didn’t read the papers. Didn’t listen to the radio. I sat in my Jeep and stared out through the windshield. And drove.
Eight months into my trip to nowhere, I found myself in Seattle in the rain. I had not shaved or cut my hair since I left. Despite my news avoidance, I picked up on the fact that my charade had made Suzy famous. Both her radio and TV spots sat in their respective number one spots across all time zones and markets. Her discovery had launched her into the stratosphere, and I had been labeled the greatest soldier of fraud in the history of modern media.
A month later I found myself in northern California. Sonoma. Sitting in an outdoor coffee shop, watching the city square, when a giddy couple, just kids in their late twenties, sat down and started talking about their winery. Every morning they showed up. A week passed. The picture of the two of them was tender. I came back each day just to watch them hold hands and listen to their laughter. Their love for each other oozed out of their pores like garlic. Not gooey like two people who need to get a room, but simple and pure affection. Tender love. Two kids enjoying the adventure of this life and wanting to live it with each other. They were young enough to be my kids, and maybe that was part of their appeal too.
One day the guy turned to me and said, “Pardon the intrusion, but I’m just curious. You’ve been here all week. You always order two cups of coffee, then drink one and pour out the other. There’s got to be a story there. And what’s with the lit cigarette you don’t smoke?”
We started talking.
I learned that they had some big problems. Not with each other, but with the life they lived. From what I could piece together, Tim and Becca had partnered with a majority investor, and while these kids knew wine, the investor had the money and called all the shots. The Becca Winery was teetering on the verge of losing it all.
Sitting at the café, I applied for a job.
Tim looked at me and said, “How old are you?”
I had to think about it. “Almost sixty-three.”
Becca looked uncertain. “Can you handle it?” She palmed her sweaty forehead. “It’s difficult work.”
“If I can’t, you can fire me and don’t have to pay me a penny.”
Over the weeks, they taught me to tend the vines. They knew more about wine, how to make it, and what makes it really good, than I’d ever know. They had lived a decade in Italy, France, and Spain and poured their life’s savings and everything they could borrow into this venture. I also learned about their partner. The money guy. And how his profit-making decisions were often at odds with their award-winning, wine-making intentions. Tim educated me on cabernets and chardonnays and tried to help me understand what my palette was trying to tell me. He was a good kid, but I sensed a growing heaviness in him I couldn’t place.
Oddly enough, they didn’t own a TV, so they spent their evenings wrapped around each other like two vines, listening to a transistor radio on the porch. What would they listen to? Suzy True. They never missed a show.
The only window into the outside world that I had came through Suzy. I still didn’t watch the news. Didn’t read the papers. Didn’t own a phone or a TV. But one thing became painfully obvious. My interaction with Suzy had shattered something inside her. Whatever she believed about me, and the pain my betrayal had caused, had cracked open the only remaining reservoir of hope she had. Her tone of voice changed. Where she once was intimate and would crawl through the airwaves, she now seemed distant and indifferent. Callers praised her for her extreme weight loss and asked her how she did it. She danced around them, talking about “deciding she needed to do something,” but the truth was, I had broken her heart and she’d lost the taste for food.
Harvest came, and it was a good one. Tim and Becca made me a manager, and for the next several months I tried to help them climb out of the hole their partner had dug. But one day I came into the barn and found Becca crying. Tim holding her. They had come to say good-bye. They were going to lose everything.
I started asking questions. Didn’t take me long to learn that when they’d signed their agreement with their partner, they had inserted a buy-back option. Meaning if things went badly and the assets had to be sold, either party could end the partnership for a predetermined sum. I don’t know how they arrived at the sum, but it was pennies on the dollar compared to what had been invested, and if I didn’t know any better I’d say the partner had scripted the agreement this way so that he could own his own winery for a fraction of what it would cost otherwise. He knew they had poured everything in, and he knew he controlled both the purse strings and the decisions.
As I listened to them relate the decisions he’d made, all I could think was nobody with any business sense whatsoever would do what he’d done. My conclusion: he had purposefully sunk the winery. Or devalued it to the point that it was almost worthless. He had also crafted the agreement in such a way that he had veto power over any other partners they wanted to bring in, so even if they found the money he could deny them. Very clever. Becca and Tim didn’t have two nickels to rub together, and no bank in their right mind would lend them money, and their partner knew this.
They had dreamed of a winery. Of building something together. Their partner had never dreamed at all. The more I heard, the angrier I grew.
The sun was going down, and Tim opened one final cabernet. A long silence passed as they stared out across the vines they had pampered, sung to, and nurtured. Everything they loved had come crashing down.
I swirled my wine, watching the dregs drain down the inside of the glass. “Just curious, how much do you owe? What’s the buy-out clause?”
They told me.
“How long do you have?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
I said, “I have a proposition for you.”
I had not cut my hair in a year. Had not shaved. Had not bought new clothes. Wore flip-flops. Overalls. Admittedly, I did not look impressive.
“Oh, really?” They chuckled.
“How about if I loan you the money?”
They looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“I’ll transfer the money today, now. Tomorrow you can enjoy the sweet satisfaction of walking into your partner’s office and laying the check on his desk. After you two unwind all his bad decisions and turn this thing around, you can pay me back.”
Becca didn’t quite know what to make of me. Tim looked incredulous.
“Are you on the level?” he asked. He’d been burnt by one partner. He’d vowed not to let it happen again. “And what do you want in return?”
I sipped my wine. “I loved a girl one time. Still do. We were a couple of dreamers just like you two. But something got in the way. Never got straightened out.” I pointed out across the vineyard. “I want to see your dream come true.” A tear broke loose and stained my face. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to help.”
TO SAY THEIR PARTNER was surprised would be an understatement. He was furious. He’d played chess and lost. Tim said he threw quite the conniption when Tim laid that cashier’s check on his desk. Paid in full.
Becca and Tim became sole owners and offered to name their first child after me. I laughed. “No need. But you want to do something for me?”
They nodded.
“Two things.”
Tim said, “Name ’em.”
“First, nobody knows my name. Not ever. Look up ‘silent partner’ in a dictionary and you’ll find me. When you tell your story of this place and what happened, you just refer to me as the old man. That’s all. Besides, the mystique will create publicity, and publicity boosts sales.”
Tim raised his glass. “Done.”
Becca leaned in. “And the second?”
I stared out across the vines. “Love each other. Even when it’s hard.”
With our harvest, Becca and Tim set out bottling this year’s production. And in a rather slick marketing move, given that the name of their winery was simply a girl’s first name, they began na
ming all their subsequent wines with other girls’ names. A rather romantic notion. For reasons I can’t explain, a sommelier of serious reputation tasted Sonoma’s latest boutique label, the Allie, and gave it 97 points.
Things took off from there.
The media and the tourists arrived in busloads. People were dying to know what happened, but Tim kept his word and I worked under the radar. Given my haggard appearance, nobody gave me a second look. I let my overalls get dirtier, stopped wearing deodorant, and pretty much everybody left me alone. As for Becca and Tim, they started making money hand over fist. The more they refused to reveal the mystery around the reclusive, ascetic owner who kept to himself and preferred seclusion over recognition, the more the label grew.
Everything I touched turned to gold. Except people.
MEANWHILE, IN FLORIDA, A wine distributor who had picked up our label was making his rounds of the Florida restaurants. He sat down with Allie and presented the Becca label and last year’s award-winning Allie. “What a coincidence,” he said with a laugh.
Allie studied the brochure, which showcased Tim and Becca and told their story. The up-close picture showed the two of them with their vineyard rolling out behind them. Grapes about to explode. Along the edge of the picture, some distance away, stood the gardener. Tending the vines. His overalls were dirty and tattered. Hair long. Beard longer. Flip-flops on dirty feet. He was turned slightly away from the camera so his face was obscured, but something trailed out of his left front pocket. A small clear plastic tube. The kind used to detect blood sugar levels in diabetics. Allie stared at the picture, the name of the wine, the gardener, and the angle of his broad shoulders.