The Practical Navigator (29 page)

“Just how well do you know him?”

The room seems very quiet. Fari suddenly has the terrible feeling that there are telltale spots in the rug.

“Ever run over a guy in your car?” Anita asks softly.

“The session,” Fari says, “is over.”

 

48

The weather, thinks Luis, has gone crazy. Temperature in the eighties. Hot, dry winds coming out of the west,
Aliento del Diablo
—Devil's Breath—blowing dust and palm fronds everywhere. Fine for tourists with nothing better to do than go to the beach in their air-conditioned cars but brutal for men working construction. Even the boss, Miguel, on the second deck, nailing plywood with the pneumatic nail gun, is shirtless. And maybe it's the heat as well but Luis is finding Leo and his nonstop opinions tough to take today.

“This ain't the friggin' Dark Ages, Luis. Your wife wants to work, you let her work.”

“A wife of mine, she don't work.”

“Why? 'Cause she has to make you lunch every day?”

Maybe it isn't the heat. Leo has been out of sorts of late. Women on the brain. Luis has certainly had his fair share of trouble with women. Fortunately, he learned at any early age to pay no attention to the pretty ones, not when their less attractive sisters were more attentive. Unfortunately, the pretty ones, realizing they were being ignored, could still cause you problems.

Luis looks up as a Mercedes pulls into the entryway and
el gusano,
the pale earthworm, the homeowner, Caulfield, gets out. He looks around a moment as if lost and then he sees Michael up on the beams.

“Mike! Hey, Mike, can I talk to you?”

Luis wouldn't be a boss in a million years. Working is one thing. Dealing with
idiotas
is another skill set entirely.

“Leo, how you doing?” the man calls out as Michael climbs down the ladder.

“Fine, yeah, thanks,” grunts Leo, head down, face dripping with sweat. His friend really is off, thinks Luis. Normally a greeting from
un propietario
would be a reason to stop work entirely.

*   *   *

“Great day, huh?” says Robert Caulfield as he and Michael make their way down the sidewalk.

Since being hit up for back wages and unpaid bills, Robert Caulfield has been a friendly and careful client. On several occasions, he's stopped by bringing pizzas and soda for the crew. Much to his surprise, Michael is tentatively beginning to like the man. “It's why we live here,” says Michael.

“Exactly. And it's why everybody wants to move here.”

Michael is silent, waiting for the shoe, whatever style it is, to drop. He's read recently that it costs seventy-five-thousand dollars a year to support a family of four in San Diego. Even with nice weather it seems like a lot of money. Maybe that's why people are living in cookie-cutter housing developments in east county.

“So, listen,” says Robert Caulfield. “I was really sorry to hear about your mother's house. What are you going to do?”

“We're not sure yet,” says Michael, surprised the man would know anything about Penelope or her house. The weekly village newspaper. It has to be. “Right now, it's sitting.”

“It's a heck of a piece of property. Shame not to do something with it.”

So that's it.

“What's your point?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Caulfield seems surprised. “I want to buy it, Mike. I checked it out. We could put a high-end, six-, seven-thousand-foot house on that lot. This area, this market? We could sell it in a second, double our money.”

“We,” says Michael. The thought of anyone checking out the remains of his mother's house, even if it was from the sidewalk, feels a bit like trespassing.

Caulfield stops and turns to Michael. “You'd be my contractor, Mike. I put up the money, you do the work, we split the profits down the middle. Simple. Sweet.”

“It's my mother's house, not mine.”

“It's not a house anymore, it's an empty lot. And it's sure not doing your mother any good. With what you'd clear on it, you could move her into a nice, furnished condo.”

“She'd hate that.”

“How do you know?”

“She has Alzheimer's.” It's popped out of his mouth. They don't even know if it's true yet. She's getting old, that's all. “At least, she might.”

“Oh, God, Mike, that's a bitch. But frankly? I've been there, and let me tell you, it's even more reason to act. You move her into a home, get her the best possible care, twenty-four seven. You'd have the money to do that. To give her what she needs.”

What does his mother need? Michael wonders. They should have had this conversation by now. He's been avoiding it. Waiting for yet another problem to solve itself without him having to think about it.

“Look, I don't want to push,” says Robert Caulfield. “You've obviously got a lot on your plate. But the property's going to be yours eventually, right? So why not do you and your mom and your son a favor and take advantage of it? Strike while the iron's hot.”

The guy's a salesman, no doubt about it. Funny, how the wrong answers can suddenly seem so rational.

“I appreciate the advice. I'll think about it, okay?”

“Fine,” says Robert Caulfield. “Get back to me whenever.”

“And now, there's something else I want to talk about,” says Michael.

 

49

“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.”

Anita recites the serenity prayer to herself by rote, not really thinking about it anymore. This local chapter of AA meets in a building upstairs and behind a church, has been easy to find, and is very much like all the others she's ever attended. Outside the room, people are drinking coffee and talking. Inside, others are already seated in the semicircle of chairs, some together, some quietly alone. As usual, she takes a seat close to the door, the better to make a quick exit. As more people enter and take seats, some of them nod at her, a few say hello, inviting conversation. She nods and looks away. She likes it better when people keep to themselves.

As always it seems to take forever to start. The first meeting she ever went to, the one in Brentwood, the wait was so interminable, she left. It was only when she got to the car that she realized she'd been inside all of five minutes.

A tall man on the other side of the circle is staring at her. This is why she likes the women-only meetings. Men have a tendency to want to be “helpful.” They seem to believe a drinking problem makes people compatible.

Finally a well-dressed, middle-aged man takes a chair into the center of the circle. Funny, thinks Anita, he doesn't look like an alcoholic. She's gotten over being surprised at how few of them do, especially when it's a meeting of so-called professionals. This man looks like he could be a stockbroker or a lawyer. I wonder what I look like? A deadbeat mother? A porn star?

It was the traffic accident that got her to the first meetings. They were a waste of time but she had to do them to get her driver's license back, and once she had it, she stopped. She started them again several weeks after the porn shoot, feeling she'd never have done it if she'd been in even half a cogent state of mind. Something had to be punished, so why not her good friend alcohol?

As a participant gets up, introduces herself by first name, admits to being an alcoholic, and begins to read the 12 steps, Anita still isn't sure it all fits. Not really. She wasn't and isn't powerless over alcohol. She can stop for weeks at a time, has done so regularly to prove it to herself. Did so, in fact, before coming down here. It was stress that made her start drinking again. Combined with the antidepressants, it made her lose control. She'll attend a few meetings, get a handle on this maddening desire to be blotto all the time, and she'll be out of here.

The woman in the circle is now at the part about putting her trust in a higher power in order to restore her sanity, the part that always makes Anita uncomfortable. Anita doesn't believe in God, and though she's troubled, she's not insane. Her mother, on the other hand, an infinitely sane woman, came to Christ in her forties, and immediately went nuts.

The woman is making an inventory of her life. Good for her. Anita has as well. She has done it fearlessly, and yes, she has found herself lacking in moral inventory and good judgment. Why else would she have ever thought, even drunk and on both illegal and prescription drugs, that shooting sex scenes with strangers might make for a fun weekend. She is messed up, there is no doubt about it. She is more than willing to admit it and she is more than willing to have these defects excised from her character. The problem is she's still waiting. Sometimes it seems to Anita that this God, whom everybody in AA professes to believe in, really likes to rub it in.

Now the woman in the circle is tearfully making a list of all the persons she has harmed, stating she is willing to make amends to them all. They are at the crux of it. It is why Anita is really here, why she keeps inevitably coming back. If the message of these meetings is atonement and a chance for forgiveness, then she is ready to listen. She is ready to be the messenger. She is
dying
to make amends. When it's her turn, she rises.

“My name is Anita Beacham Hodge and I'm an alcoholic.”

*   *   *

Eight people later, the meeting breaks and Anita collects the coin she came for, the coin that symbolizes her desire to start a new way of life. She has a lot of them and she hopes eventually they'll add up to something.

“Anita?”

Anita turns. It's the tall man, the one who was staring at her across the room. And she'd almost made it to the car too.

“Yes?”

“It's me, Tim.”

“Tim.”

“Tim Warner.”

Recognition sweeps through her. Holy shit, it
is
him. The boy who used to stare at her, who attacked her, now a man. Or two thirds of him. The figure that stands in front of her in slacks and a crisp navy T-shirt is as lean as a post. The hair is prematurely gray. There is something different about the face, as if it's been broken and reassembled into something both harder and softer at the same time. Abe Lincoln with a close shave.

“Oh, my gosh. Tim. Yes, hi,” she says. Not sure if she should run for the car.

“I saw you inside.” The voice is soft, almost but not quite a rough whisper. “I thought it was you.”

“I saw you too,” she says. “I didn't recognize you.”

“I look a little different, don't I?” he says.

“Yeah, you do.” No way around it.

“You look the same as always.”

She can tell he means it as a compliment. She really should go now. She really should. He looks different, that's all. People don't change. Not people like Tim “Time” Warner. “I'm just back visiting,” Anita says, still not moving. It seems important that he know this is a chance meeting, that it won't ever happen again.

“Me too. Helping my mom move into a senior residence.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

“No. It's good.
She's
good.”

“Nice.”

“Do you, uh … come to these often?” Tim Warner seems almost embarrassed to ask.

“Not really. No.” Anita hesitates. “Do you?” She winces inside. Mistake. Asking a participant how often they come to meetings is like asking them how far they've fallen. Which is silly, really, because
supposedly
there are no part-time alcoholics, which means there are no partial falls.

“Every chance I get,” says Tim Warner. “It saved my life.”

Oh, shit.

Now she's supposed to hear his story. Now she's supposed to tell him hers. Does she want to? She's surprised she's still standing here, let alone talking to him. And all of a sudden she knows why. For the first time since being back she feels she's in the presence of someone who isn't judging her. Tim Warner looks like he's gone through hell. She is curious as to what's been burned away.

*   *   *

“I started doing steroids and HGH in high school. By junior year at Arizona I was two sixty-five. I could bench-press two hundred twenty-five pounds thirty-eight times, did a four point six in the forty. I was going right to the NFL.”

At his suggestion, they are at the old coffee shop and are at an outdoor table, mugs in front of them. A latte for her, a decaf for him. He has insisted on buying.

“Then in the second-to-last game against Oregon I shredded my knee and it was all over but for the burial.”

“That must have been tough,” she says, thinking of Michael. What is it with men's knees that they can so easily derail dreams?

Tim Warner shrugs. He is quiet, staring into his coffee. She waits, patient.

“I'd always partied hard. I partied harder. Twenty-four seven, anything I could get my hands on. Needless to say, I did not finish my college education.”

He smiles at his own joke. A stoic, Anita thinks, also like Michael.

“I began working as a bouncer at local clubs. Still worked out, did the 'roids, still liked hitting and hurting people. I'd put you in the hospital for looking at me wrong.”

We're getting to it now, thinks Anita.

“One night four of us were in a car. Beyond wasted. Driver was doing a line of meth off the top of his hand and he lost control. We crossed the centerline doing ninety. Only by the grace of God we didn't take someone out coming the other way. Hit a ditch, the car flipped, went into a tree. Only one survivor.”

“The driver,” says Anita.

Tim Warner stares at her a moment and then nods imperceptibly and again looks down into his coffee. Again, is quiet for a while. Anita sips her coffee and waits.

“I was in an induced coma for three weeks. Head injuries. Pretty much needed a whole new…” Tim gestures at the sharp bones and shiny patches of his face. Anita recognizing them now as the signs of reconstruction and skin grafts. “… but other than that…”