Epilogue - The Book of Job Revisited

Back in Heaven Angelo toiled away at large desk. His vagrant clothes hung on a hook on the door of a spacious office. He had a new flat screen monitor and a nice corner office with a view of the cosmos.

Imp entered the door left open a crack, “Okay, nice digs… what happened here  for ya ta get you this?”

Angelo leaned back on his chair and passed a pint Heavenly nectar to Lucky. “Oh, nothing much… just doing my job.” 

“Heh-heh, you mean job, or Jōb, eh?” Lucky was only a little sour about having lost his bet; but, what the hell, he had been wagering with Angelo for millions of years. There would be plenty more chances to make up for this loss.

“You want to double up on another one?” Angelo was delighted, as Lucky squirmed at the prospect of losing another bet.

“Hey, the Big L put me in one of the darkest corners of the lower levels of Hell for that last wager.” 

Lucky knew he wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation to gamble and he knew Angelo knew it.

“Lookie here, this girl…” Angelo showed Imp a picture as it came up on the screen. The Fu, splayed out on the Tibetan rug, overdosed as a couple E.M.T's applied the paddles.

“Oh yeh…, the Fu!” Imp smacked his lips and took a long draw off the pint, “You betcha, I’ll bite…. Double or nothin’?”

In a flash, Angelo transformed into the Vagrant; the Kahuna; the Imp; and danced the dance of creation as Shiva, proclaiming the sequel, Adrienne.

“Now, that’s another story...”

It can be said that it is love
that destroys us
 and I have found it so.
But the kind of love that destroys us
 is the same fire from which
 the Phoenix of renewal arises.

The End

Part III - Chapter 1 (19). The End of the Beginning

The beginning of this tale started with a phone call from the Fu. Yes, she owned her own phone, a land-line and, fancy that, a cell phone. It was also true that her husband had his own phone and he too had a cell phone. She owned a house on a hill far away and down the coast. Her husband lived with her there but everything belonged to her. She was incredibly wealthy but was not averse to having a bottom-feeder like me as a friend and, for an oh-so brief-moment, as a lover.

All the while I was married I longed for a relationship with a woman that could drink like I did. Celeste was one of those people who’d have a few drinks; wine with dinner, maybe a cocktail or two after dinner, but walked away leaving half a glass when she felt a buzz coming on.  I assumed that this was a character defect of some sort because losing control was what I loved about booze. It seemed to me that her moderation was based on fear of her loss of control. I saw her do that but once in the nine years we were together. It was at her cousin’s wedding that she had one too many glasses of champagne and suddenly developed an English accent. I got a kick out of her bouncing around the reception and interrupting conversations, to talk about merry old London. She never did get good and drunk after that nor had she ever been in merry old England.

Man, that Fu was the first woman I’d ever hooked up with that drank worse than me. Even Nunnie didn’t hit it as hard as the Fu did. The Fu moved into town and bought a house on the Riviera to separate from Nick. He was still with her but their relationship was disintegrating. He spent most of his time going back and forth between Buellton and Santa Barbara, leaving the Fu alone in her place to do as she pleased. My job-site happened to be a remodel on a house just up the hill from hers. After work, I stopped by her house and we messed around in her studio. If I wasn’t in love with her before, I most certainly was in love with her after she bought that house.

Her house was modest by Santa Barbara standards but it was worth more on the market than I could earn if I had fifty working years left. There was a music room with a baby grand and French windows on three sides at the end commanding a view of the city all the way to the Channel Islands. It was full of light, tastefully, and sparsely, decorated. We spent most of our late-night hours in that room. Hardwood floors in all the rooms were covered by distinctive oriental carpets of a unique and simple design. She said that they were Tibetan in origin and I haven’t seen anything the likes of them since then.

The master bedroom upstairs opened up on one side through double doors to her art studio. The other side had French doors that seemed to invite us out onto a balcony for breakfast. We spent considerable time in the studio. I stretched her canvasses, or pounded out poetry on my Remington, while she worked on her jewelry or just stood nude for my appreciative attention as I sketched the contours of her lithe body. Her studio overlooked a terraced garden that arose to a Koi pond midway up towards a raked Zen garden overseen asymmetrically by a huge granite boulder she called “The General.” The whole garden could be seen and appraised best from the studio but, when down there in it, the whole picture revealed itself enticingly like a first-time lover disrobing.

The house drew me in as much as her sleek gymnast’s body. My apartment was a dark and mildewed place and Homer was my only companion most of the time. I tried to stay away but a combination of my reticence, and her fear of getting close enough to be hurt by anyone, drew us together like the opposing poles of a magnet. This last round started one night, after a few hours in Pal’s. We found ourselves in an embrace that ended after a few hours of rolling around in her bed, talking about her marriage and how she loved me and how she’d grown to loathe her Nicky.

“What are we going to do about it?” I asked, hoping for the right answer.

“Max, I love you but I don’t know. I’m confused. I haven’t felt like this about anyone since… oh, I don’t know.” Her eyes darted like sparrows from phantom to phantom across the ceiling as we lay on the bed, twisted in the sheets, sweating from love-making and smoking a bit of herb.

“I want you, Adrienne,” I was surprised at my words and knew that more powerful ones were to follow had she not pressed a hand to his lips.

“Please, Max, I know what you are going to say.” She brought her hand down to his chest. “You have a good heart. I know that you love me but it is useless. I am a … oh, what’s the use? I’m a drunken junkie and can’t have love in my life.”

“What if we quit drinking and help each other?” I was willing to go to any lengths for her; even the suicide of sobriety.

“Oh, yeh, that will work out real well… look at me now. That’s what Nick and I were doing when we got married.”

If a stake were driven through my heart it wouldn’t have been any less painful, “But Adrienne, this is our chance to be real with our feelings.”

“Yes, maybe you are right, Max.” She held me desperately. That embrace was so much like that last embrace from Ariel, I could’ve wept. A horrible knot dammed up inside my throat and chest but still no tears… no release.

“Please, go to sleep, my dear eccentric American friend, my Max.”

Her affection was infused with a passion that faded into the oblivion of slumber.

A nudge pulled my consciousness out from that void. It was the Fu shaking me saying, “Max, wake up. Wake up, Max.” she whispered urgently.

“Uh? Wha…”

“Nicky’s home. He’s downstairs in the music room.”

“Does he know I’m here?” I grumbled. Then the fear, the realization of what she was saying stirred me to full alert.

“I don’t know. I went down to feed the dogs and I saw him sitting there on the couch with that damned pistol. I couldn’t tell if he was awake.” She was out of the bed and putting on a pair of jeans.

“What do you want me to do?” I wasn’t so sure of myself now and wanted nothing more than to be far away from Nick and his forty-five automatic and back in my place with Homer.

“Go, you can get out through the kitchen… go Max, I’ll call you later.” She gathered my briefs and socks from the floor where I’d thrown them. I stepped lightly down the stairs, slipped out through the kitchen and put on my jeans and boots without socks while hiding behind a fern in the garden.

She called that night and it was final. That is where this story had begun. Again, I entered that purgatory of “just friends”. She’d come to my place to smoke a joint and beg some pot to bring to her latest lover… but that was all. She had finally kicked Nick out of the house. Having done so, I harbored some remote hopes. Her pattern of drawing me in and pushing me out had been completed. I was out now and she was getting it on with an ex-Navy SEAL. I had to admit that I couldn’t compete with that.

She was still leading me on by complaining about her Seal, like she had done with her Nicky. She said she was in love with the SEAL but the SEAL wasn’t in love with her. She resorted to espousing nothing but contempt for him but, regardless of her contempt, she still bedded down with him whenever she could.

The SEAL drowned in a diving accident: a yacht had ignored his diving buoy and the propeller cut off his air. She mourned the SEAL like a widow at his beach memorial along with several other women who were in love with him. After he was gone I thought once more that I might have another chance with her but she hooked up with Rod, an unemployed construction worker.

Construction was booming in Santa Barbara at that time and it was impossible to be unemployed unless one’s reputation was shot. That was one of the benefits and curses of a town the size of Santa Barbara in the construction trades. Reputation was everything. If you worked well, showed up when you said you would, fairly conscientious about your work, and maybe even got along with people, you never went without a job unless there were no jobs to be had. If your reputation was like her latest beau, you sat at the bar in Manuel’s all day waiting for a call or someone like the Fu to show up.

She did show up one day and the free loader did move in with her. They started doing heroin together as a way to stem her alcoholism. Two months later she complained to me that she couldn’t get rid of him.

She still wouldn’t have me though she came by to smoke a joint and complain so I asked her, “Am I such a loser that you prefer a free-loading junkie to me?”

She didn’t answer.

I demanded, “Is that a yes?”

“Yes,” she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks. Where else was she going to cop her junk?

I should have known. After all, wasn’t she doing exactly what I’d been doing since Celeste packed the Audi and took what was left of me away?

“What are you guarding your heart from, girl?” I turned to the Remington, with my back to her, and put a blank sheet of paper in the roll. I waited to hear the screen door slam and looked out the window to watch her walk away.

I took some time off to go on vacation for a Labor Day annual get-together with family and friends at Priest Lake Idaho. The afternoon before I left for Idaho, the Fu stopped by my place. I saw her coming towards the door with a six pack of beer. She had been crying and, though I’d rarely seen her wearing make-up, her cheeks were streaked with mascara. I let her in the door hoping she would tell me that the Freeloader was out of her place.

“Is he gone?”

“Who?” She said as she passed me an imported beer. She drank imports but I had no use for paying more for anything I was just going to piss away. Still, I appreciated the gesture.

“Rod, the Freeloader.” I was getting impatient with her and was ready to get rolling. The van, I’d dubbed, Furthurmore, was packed and Homer was already boarded at the Cat Palace.

“Oh, him,” She sat on my couch and cracked a beer.  “Yes, he is still at my house. When he isn’t at Manuel’s, he’s drinking my vodka, smoking my pot, shooting my dope, and eating my food.”

“So, why is he still with you?” I could taste the bile rising in my throat and washed it back down with a sip of beer. This crap was getting old. My heart was breaking with the realization that there was absolutely nothing I could do about her bullshit and that I was doomed to forever being the sounding board for whatever jerk had put his hooks in her.

“He is like a fungus… a parasite.” She spat out in disgust.

“Well, the parasite has found a host in you,” I countered.

She bent her head down and sobbed but there was something I sensed was fraudulent about her remorse.

I continued, “I wouldn’t be so upset with you had you not rejected me for someone I could respect but… to take up with… with this sad excuse for a man… this toy-boy!”

She motioned, patting the cushion, for me to sit next to her on the couch. I cursed myself for following her summons. I put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her head to my chest, “Fu, you know I love you and you know I care for you more than anything…”

“I know, please stop saying that…” she put her forefinger to her lips, “Shhh…,” and nuzzled closer into my chest.

Her affection stirred my longing but it also cemented my resolve, knowing she would pull back as soon as the hunger gripped her.

I threw down the gauntlet, “I can’t take this any longer. I’m leaving for Idaho in an hour and, when I come back, he has to be out. You have to choose.”

“But, Max, whatever I choose, it won’t be you.”

“Then take your imported beer, your spoiled brat impulses… take ‘em out my door and leave me alone,” I tugged her by the arm off the couch, picked up the six-pack, and towed her to the door.

She turned towards me. Our lips met. I jerked away. She cried out, “Max, don’t do this. You know I love you but I can’t be with you.”

“Then good-bye Fu. It has been Hell knowing you.” I broke away from her and closed the door.

I watched her walk out to her car, “Why GAWD, why do you put these women in my face only to have them ripped away?”

I hadn’t really cared one way or another about any woman after I’d packed my little Ariel and the dogs into the Audi to be driven away by Celeste over a decade ago. This was the one time I’d given my heart so completely to anyone since then. To suffer the indignity of having it stomped on and trashed was more than I could handle. I was prepared for the run to Idaho and hoped to sort things out… to get my priorities straight on the long ribbon of asphalt.

Before I met the Fu I felt my soul had been a roach that prowled in the dark for a scrap of hope and scurried away, back into hidden crevasses, from the light. Now that I had laid my heart bare, the Fu stepped on it as though I was the cockroach an annoying and insignificant bug... and, in the vocabulary of the exterminator, a pest.

Part III - Chapter 6 (or, ebook, 24). The Divine Switchboard

That morning after the meeting, I enjoyed the sweat of hard labor in the sun while digging a footing for a foundation. When I had something to mull over, this was the kind of work that suits me best. The things that were said came to mind throughout the day. They were somewhat trite at times; but, none of it sounded convoluted or arcane. Most of the slogans were so simple I might have missed their importance if I hadn’t experienced them first-hand, like; Keep it Simple; that first drink is the one that gets us drunk; this isn’t a debating society; One Day at a Time”; and a handful of other slogans. But mostly it was the things that were read from a book they fondly referred to as “the Big Book” that made me pay attention. I feared, “Oh shit, another group with a Book!”

I got home to a message on the answering machine from, John. “Max, come on down to the bar: we gotta have a talk.”

Word had gotten back to him about the tirade.  He wasn’t the sort of guy who would use an eviction notice. There was never a lease beyond that first handshake.

I jumped into the van and hurried to John’s Jon where he was seated at the end of the bar by the pool table with his usual cup of coffee. I took the stool around the corner of the bar from him so that we could face each other, eye to eye.

We sat there for a few long minutes before he grumbled, “So, what the fuck happened?”

“I have no explanation John…. drunk.”

“Drunk? That ain’t no fuckin’ excuse.” He spoke softly in that raspy voice I’d learned to respect. The man was an honest man and it tore me up to see the expression on his face that read disappointment more than anger.

We sat there for what seemed several more excruciating minutes. But then, a calm came over me before I spoke, “Yeh, I know. Let me repair the windows before I clear out of there.”

Several more minutes passed.

At last he grumbled, “If you stay…” He took his eyes off me long enough for a sip of coffee, “Don’t bullshit me, what do I have in order to believe it won’t happen again.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had nothing left in me for promises so, I said, “Nothing… I have nothing besides my word.”

I was gone and, in my mind, already loading the van.

“It won’t happen again?”

I was stunned he was even asking. I couldn’t say more than, “My word’s all I’ve got.”

“Good then: Keep it.”

I reached over to shake John’s hand.

He held his palm up, “Now go home and fix those fucking windows by tomorrow.”

I understood what it meant... It was a condition. Keep your word and then we’ll shake on it. 
“My word then… thanks, John.”

I wondered then what sort of cosmic karma was going for me now as I walked away that afternoon. Was it possible that there was something… a deity a vibration of some sort that resonates… knows and cares about my problems?

Fifteen years later John passed away and I visited his grave with gratitude for being able to keep my word, but more so because Jonn had always faithfully accepted it.

Meetings at the Alano Club were unlike anything I’d ever imagined. First, the leader gave a short talk about his, or her, own triumphs and problems. Rarely did I hear anyone preach the evils of drugs and alcohol. Instead, more often than not, a fondness; hell, a downright affection was expressed. Secondly, the leader only picked a topic but in no way did anyone moderate the meetings other than perhaps and occasional admonition to cut-off a windbag or maybe bring the discussion back to the topic. The leaders were just one of the members that was chosen each meeting. No one seemed to be in charge at all except for a secretary.

All lines are lit up with calls from countless stars and galaxies. God’s heavenly answering service on the Earth-Line takes calls faster than the speed of light. There have always been calls from; floods in Bangladesh, famines in Ethiopia, suffering from wars all over the globe… Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria… similar disasters on billions of other planets and all are handled by the same service. 

Miraculously folks get through right away, “You have reached the Heavenly Hot Line. If this is an Emergency of global proportions, press one. If it is an emergency of a personal nature, press two. If this is a matter of finding a parking space, a team victory or similar requests, press three. The Big Kahuna is no longer in the business of smiting enemies. If you want an enemy smitten you should hang up and call: 1-(800) 666-H-E-L-L. Your call will be answered in the order it is received.”

Then you are on hold for a remarkably short time with a Bach fugue played live for you while you wait, “Hello, welcome to the Heavenly Earth Desk, how may we be helpful?”…

“Oh, you want to quit drinking?”… 

“Uh-huh, you have tried AA?”…

“Uh-huh… once before.” …

“Uh-huh. Oh, I see, you want to speak with the Big Kahuna. Let me put you on hold again.” …

“The Big Kahuna is busy with other calls at this time but should get to you within a few minutes.”

While on hold, the service Angel calls in on a special line; “Big Kahuna? I know you are busy but Max down there is on the Earth Line calling from Santa Barbara and wants to get sober. Can you help him? He sounds desperate…. oh, I see.”

Taken off hold, the Angel says, “Yes, the Kahuna is dealing with some serious disasters right now, an earthquake here and a tsunami there…and can’t get to you at this time; but, after you’ve gone to a few AA meetings…” …

“Oh, how many?” …

“I see, call back after attending ninety-meetings in ninety-days and we’ll see what can be done for you.”

“There’s no charge for AA?”

“It’s the Betty Ford for poor people. Take a bit of free advice from one that has watched these things for more than a few millennia; be careful where you look for the truth. Any truth you have to pay for is an iffy proposition. It will liberate your wallet but rarely your soul.”

“Yes, thanks.”

“Think nothing of it, that’s what we do here.”

The idea was an absurd one but I went with it anyway. What else was there for me to do? I had no insurance and I couldn’t afford to check myself into anything like a Malibu recovery spa. At least AA didn’t cost anything. Besides, maybe a few of these people were on to something after all. I remembered asking the Fu how sitting in a room full of admitted; liars, thieves and manipulators of every sort, could somehow fix anyone? But, after that morning’s meeting, I knew that I’d come to the right place because these people seemed to be authentic about the process and the Fellowship. If all I needed to do was to get over the hump anyway, maybe I could cut back on meetings then; maybe after I got some creative juices going… after restoring some confidence and able to handle sobriety like I did in Nicaragua.

Creativity: it took some time. I dreamed of getting back to it but I found that the Muse was a jealous mistress. She has to be your only lover or she’ll move on. I’d made an obsession of alienation and despair; of the oblivion of drugs and booze; of chasing that connection with the divine ache in my soul everywhere but where it could be healed. It was all a priority to me and more important than any vague relationship with a Muse. For this, I was lost on the Island of the Lotus Eaters and there seemed no escape from it. Like the crew of cunning Odysseus, I was sidetracked and bamboozled at every turn by forces beyond my control. That one-eyed monster; that single eyed tunnel-vision of Cyclops, had been devouring me in the darkness of its cave and I had surrendered to my fate until the Fu came along and rekindled the fires of creation. She was my Calypso. I was awakened by the paradox of a neurotic, and erotic, obsession for her to desire freedom.

The Fu helped me realize too that I needed to want to live more than anything else and that, though she had awakened my heart to love and then rejected me, she restored a commitment to a clouded idea of a better world. I had reason to be worthy of life... even the lives I had taken in the jungles of Central America or the abandonment of my daughter, Ariel. I instinctively knew that the Fu was only the fulcrum the Great Whazoo used to leverage me back onto a relationship with the universe that meant something.  I once laughed at the notion that the Prime Mover of the cosmos would even notice my speck of existence among all the atoms that make up the universe. It was too much to swallow to believe that a grandfather in the sky would care whether I drank myself to death or went on to a happy and fruitful life.

Two years later I went back to driving a taxi. I was still sober and still going to those damned meetings. I found myself sitting behind of the wheel of my own cab and hauling folks around Santa Barbara on the graveyard shift. I began putting money in the bank and damned near forgot all about my obsession with Adrienne. Sober enough for me to let go of it, the obsession, we became good friends before she went back home to France. I felt nothing but gratitude for her, as it was said before, and I believed she was the wedge that put my feet on this path. We weren’t done with each other yet.

It took a few more years for me to bury the hatchet with Celeste and, in my core, I never really could. We forgave each other but the resentment still simmered. I’d been able to make up for some of the lost time with Ariel. It is still hit and miss and I understand that it would always be hard for her to forgive me my absence. As it stands, she has decided it is too much for her to bare and I have to swallow it with a modicum of grace. There is no fairy tale conclusion along those lines but, through it all, I have begun to grasp a steady and powerful flow to life that I prefer to think of as nothing more than the universe conversing with itself. I believe that three-letter word, God, is too limited for me and carries a lot of excess baggage through the doors of sanctity. Besides, I’d seen too much suffering to accept a Pollyanna take on the sometimes violently explosive wonder in the way things careen around about the cosmos. I sense, rather than believe, that I could be in the flow of it and have a chance to come out on the other end with the love of the Muse. She is my one true love and I have recaptured enough of a vision, and fire in my soul, to court her now.

A vagrant came to the door that same day asking for spare change. He said he needed it to make a call to heaven. I gladly emptied my pockets saying, “I bet you will.”

Homer wants to be fed. Good morning...

Part III - Chapter 5. Purgatory

There are worse places than
Purgatory

The bar is dark and there are plenty of stools for strangers here.

No one asks your name. Nobody cares.

They too had worn out their welcome everywhere else before you sat down...

but the glasses are clean… not a germ on ‘em.

The house is so full of disease that a germ couldn’t live here.

It won’t do to make excuses.

I didn’t come in to find the answers.

But I’m not dodging the questions either.

I’ve got outstanding warrants but it doesn’t matter…

They are all warrants from Hell.

They don’t serve them kinds of warrants in purgatory.

No one thinks of damnation or redemption in places like these.

It is a matter of the Passing of Time.

“What is your favorite pastime?” the washed-up talk-show host asks the has-been actor…

“Looking for work,” he quips.

The bartender pours three fingers of bad scotch into a germ-free glass…

Everybody has all the answers.

 “What?”

“Got any questions?”

“Yeh, I have a few questions.”

“Shoot.”

“Resurrection?”

“Ain’t no resurrection in Purgatory…. Just the Passing of Time. What else can I do for you?”

“Another three fingers of scotch? … better scotch than that. Pour it into the same germ-free glass.”

“I’m lost,” I whisper, but none but the bar-keep is paying any attention.

“You’re in Ithaca, sailor.”

“New York?”

“No, Ancient Greece.” He says, like he is used to people lost in his bar.

“How do I get outa here?”

“Why would you want to leave?”

“Just curious.”

“Well now, you don’t get out of here if you are… just curious.”

“I see what you mean”

“Do you? Can you get off your dead-ass and walk out the door?

 The way out of here is away?”

“A way?”

“If you will.”

The bar is full now and the Juke Box filled the sordid silence with something that throbbed in a perfect imitation of a living, a writhing, gnashing, breathing, angry, animated thing.

I got up and, as I rose, my stool was already taken.

Aquella eternal fonte esta ascondida

en esta vivo pan por darnos vida,

aunque es de noche.

A way.

Via Dolorosa.

Away from the bar and onto a dark street… a way.

That step out of the door and into the night was such a one like Armstrong on the moon.

No longer doing time, there is no time to do.

One step out of Purgatory… even the nothingness of the dark night

 holds a promise that can’t wait.

Airless and void… surrendered without words…

One giant step for… raise a white flag on the Sea of Tranquility… claim this emptiness for all mankind.

I surrender to the cosmos… suffering and murderous treachery absolved in one purifying stroke,

I breathe-in the void.

-“The eternal fountain is unseen

in living bread that gives us being

in the black of the night.”-

Saint John of the Cross is huddled in an alley as I pass, embracing a jug of white port, I thought I heard him say something about her and then…

“Keep moving, Boyo. They can’t bury you if you keep moving.

Part III - Chapter 4 (or 22). A Burning Bush

I woke up around eight AM reaching for the phone to call-in sick but forgot that it had been tossed through the window during my holy tantrum. My neighbor, Teddy, was in the front yard checking out the scene of the crime.

I went out to retrieve the phone. He scratched a sore on his bald spot and asked, “You were making a racket yesterday, Max. Who’s Lucky?”

I was relieved I hadn’t imagined an apparition and waved him off, “Some old guy from Pal’s.” 

Still picking at the scab on his pate, and knowing how drunk I'd been, he prodded, “Well, you were alone. I checked. Every time you broke a window you’d shout, Ata Boy! Or, Bravo!” 
Shit, I thought: Lucky wasn’t there. I wouldn’t let on that I wasn’t sure. Why does he do that, I asked myself, prod and poke into my business? I couldn’t let him know whether I remembered any of it… I did, after all, I did remember in a way… just not the way he saw it.

 I dismissed Ted, tried out the phone after retrieving it, and was surprised that it still worked. Not that I cared. I called the boss anyway and left a message explaining that I was back from the trip but wasn’t coming in to work. I had a whole list of reasons for my tardiness but didn’t give any of them other than, “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

I pulled the covers over my head, curled up in the fetal position, and tried to sleep. Fits of excuses and regrets bubbled-up through the goo of a booze saturated consciousness and I didn’t sleep until about three-thirty or four PM. Every time I started to fall asleep, the Fu was saying, “Don’t call me. I don’t want to see you ever again.” The pain was unbearable. I wanted to kill myself but suicide just wasn’t something I’d ever been inclined to do.

Staring up at the ceiling, I remembered all of the times I’d prayed and had gotten out of situations. Praying to some kind of phantom like God was out of the question. I wasn’t about to pray to an imaginary deity. Still, the idea grew on me… after all; no one else was taking my calls.

Okay, I figured I’d give it a shot… not expecting anything, “Whoever you are, I don’t want to talk to second in command. I want to talk with the chief. If there’s some kind of Satan, it can fuck-off too. What’s the deal? What can I do? What do you want of me? Give me a sign of some sort: a reason to believe in a reason to believe!”

Lying in bed, I waited for an answer.

There was nothing.

“That’s what I thought: nothing.” The idea occurred to me that I ought to do something for emphasis… like that time in jail… get on my knees. Reluctantly, I rolled out of bed and knelt… if only to seal the deal… to confirm by disbelief and that there was nothing on the other end of any effort I made.

“All right; you bastard, I’m on my fuckin’ knees. Moses got a burning bush… where’s my sign? Give me some direction, anything, damn it!”

As I suspected, there was nothing.

“That’s what I thought,” I prayed, and got back in bed …defiant, but then fell into a deep slumber.

A cop-knock on the door woke me. I looked at the clock… it read eight PM. I noted it had been almost exactly twenty-four hours since I left that half drink on the bar at Pal’s.

I crossed the room to the door, in bare feet on broken glass, past a bag of weed and several roaches in the ashtray on the desk. It didn’t matter; I was probably going to jail if the knock on the door came from a cop. I peeked through the blinds in front of the broken-out window.

Yep, I saw a dark blue uniform with a shiny badge pinned to it. I recognized him. It was Ryan.

“Are you Max McGee?” he stood back when I opened the door. He held a clip-board with a bunch of paper that looked like reports.

“Yeh, I am, what can I do for you?” Hell, I knew what was next. I waited for the order to turn around and be cuffed.

“We’ve received a report today about something that happened yesterday.” Ryan flipped the papers to read but hesitated a minute, “Were you in Manuel’s at six-thirty AM yesterday?”

“Yeh, I was.” I wasn’t nervous or worried about going to jail. I was hung-over big-time and nothing mattered. I was surrendered to whatever was going to happen.

Then he said something I hadn’t expected, “I’m not here to make an arrest. There are no charges yet. I’m simply here to fill out a report on the events of yesterday.” His eyes went from looking me over, to the baggie on the desk.

 “Oh? It wouldn’t be so bad if you did… arrest me, that is.”

He held a report on a clipboard where I could read it. I shook my head indicating I was in no shape to read anything.

He might have smiled… like he understood, “Okay, I’ll read the report to you of these events and then you can make your own report if you disagree with what Rodney Goldberg and Mrs. Adrienne Baker told us.”

He read the report and I listened. Rod’s version of events cited several witnesses who weren’t there in case I planned on fighting it. I saw a bit of humor in that. I didn’t know that was his surname, Goldberg, until then. How close could I get calling him the Gold Brick?

I knew that the only real witness was Manuel. He insisted that he hadn’t seen anything and that his back was to the bar when it happened.

“It’s all pretty much as it’s written,” I heard myself answer.

“I have a recording of your phone calls to Mrs. Baker. Can you verify if it is your voice in the recording?”

I listened to the venom that was coming from the recording, “Yep, that’s my voice.”

“Then you agree with the report?”

“Yeh, well, the essence of it’s true… Rod lied about some of the witnesses, but, hell…”

“Would you like to file your own report?” Ryan was going out of his way to be helpful.

“Naw… It is no use. It happened pretty much as, what, reported?”

“I thought I should a mention that Mrs. Baker didn’t want to have you arrested but Mr. Goldberg wanted you charged for an anti-Semite Hate Crime… you know, you called him Gold Brick. She talked him out of filing charges. He has three months to do so and, if he doesn’t, you’ll be okay.”

When he said this, a lump lodged in my throat. Tears started to flow down my face. I couldn’t stop it from happening… I wasn’t crying… but I started saying something I had never said seriously before, “You’ve been straight with me, officer, but I don’t know what I am going to do. I almost wish you’d arrest me. I think I’m an alcoholic and, trust me, I’ve tried everything to control it. Damn it, I even went down to the VA in LA… tried to check in but they were short of beds.”

Ryan said something that annoyed me and that I had no intention of following through with, “You seem like a decent man. Why are you messing around with these losers? They have AA meetings a few blocks from here. I think they’re around six. You could go to one before work in the morning.”

I must have looked hesitant. He started to walk away but added, “You might meet a better class of people to hang out with there too.”

I closed the door thinking; shit, I’d rather drink myself to death than meet with a bunch of fuckin’ drunks at a pathetic A.A. sob-fest. A better class of people, indeed: Didn’t he know that the Fu was probably from a classier bunch of folks, worth more than anyone in Montecito or Hope Ranch? Immediately following that thought, when I sat down at my desk, was; oh, yeh, she’s classy alright!... fooling around while married, the dalliances with low-life creeps, the weekly, and sometimes daily, visitations by police, the booze and heroin… yeh, it was the material of trailer-trash… high-end, Riviera-Trailer-Trash, for sure… we weren’t all that different from the people on Cops.

I went back to bed.

The next morning, I got out of bed completely refreshed. There was no urge to have a drink and I was compelled by an overwhelming desire to get to the Alano Club at six.

I drove over there but the meeting didn’t start until six-forty-five. I waited for the doors to open and was the first in line at the coffee machine. The rooms looked different in the room to me that morning. The people were brighter and more cheerful as they greeted each other. A nice looking blond woman welcomed me with a hug. A white-haired, well dressed, Hispanic man, crossed the room. He greeted me, and shook my hand with the AA salutation; “I’m Angelo, I’m an alcoholic. We have been saving a seat for you.”

I’d heard it before, and mocked it, but this time it seemed natural and a perfect way of saying, “Welcome, I’m like you, have some coffee and take a seat.”

The meeting began with some formal readings that I would have normally ignored. This time the words rang true as they described alcoholism. Then something extraordinary happened. The leader of the meeting asked for newcomers to stand and introduce themselves. I found my legs following suite as that damned lump arose in my craw and I admitted, like I had to Officer Ryan the day before, “My name is Max, and I’m an alcoholic.”

Tears again rolled down my cheeks. I had no control over my emotions and I was glad no one expected me to say anything more. I knew then that I had gotten the direction I’d been seeking for so many years.

Part III Chapter 3 (21). The Bottom

I passed out that night at my desk, after sitting up until 3 am, pounding out my heart on the trusty Remington Noiseless.

It Was Check-out Time at the Mad Hotel!

The streets were buzzing with traffic and no one was afoot.

A haze diffused the Sun’s light into a cruel mockery of itself.

Heat radiated from the sidewalk.

The air above it boiled.

There was no shade.

Resurrections are like this. Crosses aren’t built for comfort

and to die to yourself ain’t no parlor game.

Jesus had a view from up there that tourists can’t get.

The Via Dolorosa has to be taken solitary by foot…

too narrow for the tour buses.

A taxi can drop you off but you have to carry the cross

on your own.

That is just how it is.

A flat earth would foster our fantasies otherwise.

There is no grace to fall from at this point.

Take one look into those deep dark eyes at this juncture

and try to find a soul.

In there I can tell you more about them being the window to her…

Just dark…

Just deep brown to black

And gone.

No more.

The room is already rented out to a new guest.

I haven’t even been missed.

Empty rooms get attention around these parts.

You want eternal love?

Only the room gets that.

A change of sheets and fresh towels

For Veronica’s veil.

It goes like that in every hotel on the Via Delarosa.

Mad about the madness

I jumped in there and swam with it.

God, how I loved it!

A great dervish dance of insanity:

Words flying from mouths free of fettered concerns

By a witches brew of toxins aflame

From hormonal howls and gyrations…

And then it stopped.

One day she sat on my couch to tell me, “No more.”

“No more,” she said.

It all stopped right there.

It was over.

I stood in line for a whole lifetime for one ride with her…

Not getting in another line.

No more.

Hearts bruised like mine Don’t break.

Burned hearts like mine simply crumble away.

A pile of soot and a few embers is all…

Far too charred to do anything like breaking.

Check-out time is at noon.

After that the maid comes in and sweeps up the dust of last

Night’s labor lost… the Do Not Disturb sign is hung back

Inside the door where it warns no one to Not Disturb the

Occupants of the world outside of that place where

No one cries after check-out time.

I crushed, wadded it up, and circular-filed it. Wasn’t cathartic enough. I could have titled it, Oh Boo-Hoo. I finished off what was left of a fifth of Jack and went to Willy’s at 6 am for a refill.

“You okay?” Willy politely asked out of an authentic concern.

“Yeh, I just been driving almost non-stop from Northern Idaho.” I answered, twisting off the top of the new fifth and swallowing hard.

“Hey, c’mon Max, you know you can’t drink it in here.”

“I’m sorry Willy, I forgot.” I wrapped the brown paper bag around the bottle and headed back to my place.

The idea struck me as I passed Manuel’s that Manuel’s was Rod’s digs and was usually at his stool at opening time. Manuel’s was Rodney’s office, as Pal’s had been mine. I drove up there and parked across the street. Rod was sitting at the bar when I walked in the door. The bar was empty except for Rod and old stinky Lucky. Lucky grinned as I took a seat at a table behind Rod. I didn’t order a drink. Manuel had been cleaning the bottles behind the bar and hadn’t noticed me yet. It all had that slow motion feeling like a movie… a saloon… a set in an old Western movie. Rod turned and nodded recognition. I nodded and tried to stare a hole in Rodney’s back before I got up and approached the bar. I plopped down on the stool next to him.

“Hullo.” Rod spoke under his breath.

“Hello, Rodney, how are you today?”

“Uh… Fine?”

“Oh, you bet. You are a fine piece of work.” I watched Rod turn his face to his drink. He must’ve wished I’d disappear. I asked, “Did you pay your rent with heroin today?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, you’re doin’ just great living off Adrienne’s dime,”

“What Adrienne and I are doing is none of your business. You have to talk to her if you have a problem with that.” He turned, eyes pleading towards Manuel, probably hoping Manuel had heard enough to get his attention.

“You’re right… but I’m making it my business,” I said and my fist rose in autopilot blindsiding Rod with a right-hook… knocking the weasel off his stool backwards but still standing.

Manuel looked over to see what the commotion was, “What are you doing Max? You’d better go home now. I’m calling the police.” He added some more in Spanish.

I loved old man Manuel and knew I’d just pissed in my own mess kit.

Rod stood stunned, held his jaw, spit out blood that ran down from his nose and whined, “I think he broke it… he broke my fuckin’ jaw!”

I stood by the door a few minutes but thought better of it when Manuel began punching the buttons on the phone.

“I apologize, Manuel.” I watched long enough for the adrenaline to tremble its way from my knees and to see whether Rod would follow me out the door. When he didn’t, I let Manuel know, “I’m out of here… sorry, again, Manuel.”

I got over to the Sportsman for a drink, gulped it down, and ordered another. The bartender there cut me off, “Go home, Max, get some rest.”

I figured I’d have a friendly shoulder to cry on with Claire at Pal’s but I didn’t even get the first few words out before she too told me I ought to go home and get some rest.

I gave up and went home where I called Jimbo, hoping he could give me an ear. I barely got into the story before Jimbo excused himself, saying; “Max, Helen just made lunch. I gotta go. Call me tomorrow… you okay?”

“I’ll be alright, I guess.”

“Sober up a bit and call me tomorrow…”

I called my sister in Idaho. I started out telling her I made it home safe but she could tell how drunk I was and brought up a story of her own, “Do you remember our talk on Labor Day at the lake?”

“Yeh, sure, I remember. Why?”

“Max, do you remember walking around with a joint in your mouth, saying, ‘My name is Max and I am an alcoholic… does anyone have a match?’”

“Vaguely, Sis, I thought I was being cute.”

Then she let me have it with, “Max, there were children there, the children of your nephews and nieces… and kids of friends. They were all watching their Uncle Max act a fool.”

“That bad, eh?”

“Yes, that bad. You have to do something about drinking.”

“Aw, shit, Sis. It was my vacation.”

“I said it once and I’ll say it again, you just might have to vacation somewhere else next year if everyone is as pissed at you as I am.” She hung up.

I paid no attention to what she said and passed out at my desk again. I came to around 8 pm. I thought I might as well go to Pal’s and see if Claire had forgiven me by then.

“Max, what are you doing here?” it wasn’t Claire. I’d lost track of time. Mike had the evening shift, “Hey buddy, the cops were looking for you today.”

“I’ll have a shot of Jack and a Bud.” I didn’t want to hear about whatever went down before.

“Did you hear me? The police were here today. They were looking for you.” He wasn’t pouring a shot nor was he pulling a bottle of beer out of the cooler. He had that look of pity on his face I hated but all I feared was that Mike was cutting me off.

“Are you going to serve me or not?”

“I don’t think so, Max,” he came over to face me directly.

“What did they want?” I didn’t really want to know but maybe Mike might give me a drink if I acted concerned enough.

“Something about punching out Rod at Manuel’s, I think. The cops didn’t say, but someone that heard about it told me you broke Rod’s jaw.” Mike served a drink to someone else down at the other end of the bar and came back.

“C’mon, Mike, don’t make me beg. I’ll just have one and leave.”

Mike didn’t say a word but poured a shot of Jack into a glass of Coke. He knew I thought it was a crime to mix Jack with anything; least of all Coke. Mike stood there with his back to me before he finally spoke, “Drink it up and don’t come back on my shift tonight.”

I had one sip out of the glass… stared at it… shoved it away… stepped off my barstool and walked home with an aching longing in my chest. I had been eighty-sixed from my bailiwick … my home away from home: eighty-sixed from three bars in one day.

Homer didn’t want anything to do with me either when I first got home. I undressed and crawled into bed but Homer positioned himself warily over on the desk. I stayed awake a couple of hours, tossing, turning, and reviewing the day, I thought, “My God, I’d made a mess of things.”

But I wasn’t done yet. I got out of bed and picked up the phone.

The Fu answered, “Max, what do you want?”

My rage frothed at her indignant tone, “You fuckin’ bitch. You know what I want. I want to see Rod staked out on the ground with ants eating his eyes out. I want your skanky ass and I will do anything to have it!”

“Max, don’t call me again. Nick is here and he’s recording your calls.”

“What? What happened to your dear Gold Brick?”

“He is here too. I know all about what you did. Don’t call me. I don’t want to see you ever again.”

The window shattered as I threw the phone through it with all the polite pretense of civilized behavior. I thought I saw old stinky, Lucky, out there where the phone landed under the orange tree. Lucky was cheering me on, “Right on, Max! Break ‘em all out!”

I got a thrilling sense of cathartic relief out of the sound of glass breaking. I picked up an empty bottle and tossed it at the other window. Lucky cheered again, “Bravo!”

I didn’t care about the window, the phone, or my land lord. I went around the apartment breaking out the remaining windows in the kitchen and bathroom. It was my last stand, a fucking beautiful rage.