Unconventional

by J J Hebert

  Perk Up, here I come.

  There is a reason.

  * * *

  Perk Up Café. 8:55 am.

  Never been here before now. The walls are brick, festooned with art of sorts . . . the logo of Perk Up Café, an unoriginal silhouette of a cup of coffee with steam rising from the cup and with the café’s name in cursive letters printed over the illustration; abstract paintings of chairs, tables, and cups of coffee; and framed prints of people sitting around tables, drinking from cups or laughing with mouths open, heads tilted back. Mirrors span the entire ceiling and form one giant mirror, which is practical if you’re looking for an aerial view of yourself. The floor is checkered black and white, a giant chess board. A neon sign that reads Fresh Eats, Lovely Treats blinks from the wall behind the counter area and makes me grateful that I don’t have epilepsy. Tall red stools surround numerous square, rectangular, diamond, and circular tables, which people burden.

  I think of Leigh’s café, the dream of hers. Where are the umbrella tables? Where is the ocean, the iced coffee, and the vibrant walls? I scope out the crowd, don’t spot Meranda amid the faces, then find, after a minute of strolling around the café, craning my head all about, the only vacant table, a square table that hasn’t been cleaned. I sit on one of the provided stools. A female worker (late thirties?) approaches and says she can wipe down the table if I don’t mind. “Thanks. That’d be great,” I say. While she follows through with her offer, I wonder how Meranda will tell me apart from this crowd, and I begin to worry that she won’t be able to.

  My watch reads 9:02. She’s late. The worker says, “All clean.” I thank her and she walks away with the damp cloth and gets lost in the sea of bodies. In my mind: Meranda walks in the café, looks for me, can’t see me, decides I’ve stood her up, thinks screw this, leaves, and I’ve missed my chance.

  I stand, trying to make myself more visible. I would leave the table and stand next to the front door, but then this table would get stolen and when Meranda arrives, we would have nowhere to sit and engage in conversation. Well, I guess there’s always the floor . . .

  I wait—9:15—and wait—9:30. I wait, 10:00, wait, 10:15, remaining in my standing position, eyes peeled, and wait, 10:30. Finally, I sit. Is she sleeping, drinking, doing whatever sixty-something prize-winning writers do, other than meeting a young person who wants to write for a living? I order a coffee from a pimple-faced waiter, drink slowly from the cup, prolonging my stay, pretending that her tardiness doesn’t bother me and that I enjoy coffee. I look down at the cup, stir in a few more packets of sugar, attempting to make this bitter coffee experience a bit more tolerable, then . . .

  I hear the voice of Meranda Erickson: “Good morning . . . ”

  I nearly jump from my seat. My attention flies upward. “Morning!” If this were anyone else showing up almost two hours late, I wouldn’t be quite so energetic. Guaranteed.

  Her hair is unkempt, she’s wearing a stained white blouse, and she has a pocketbook slung over a shoulder. “Sorry I’m late, I think, probably,” she says. “It was a night and a half, I’ll tell ya.” She sits on the stool across the table, and I can smell whiskey, I think it is, on her—from her breath, her clothing, her skin? Her attention darts around the room.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, then take a cautious sip of coffee.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah.” Her bloodshot eyes finally rest on me. “I’m dandy,” she says. “So what am I doing here?”

  “You don’t remember the e-mails?” I set the cup on the table, but I really want to chuck it across the room, discontented about the brew.

  “Perk Up Café,” she says. “Sometime in the morning. Jimmy Frost. Care to fill me in on the rest?” She chuckles hollowly.

  I envision her as I did yesterday, at her computer holding a wineglass, trashed. “You told me to meet you here at nine o’clock,” I say. I can’t get over the booze aroma floating this direction, devouring all available untainted air. I look around, try to tell whether anyone else notices her stench, if anyone from the multitude is remotely aware. No one is checking us out.

  “Well,” she says, “what does an old lady have to do to get a coffee around here?”

  “Oh . . . right,” I say, then flag down our waiter. He comes to the table.

  “Chad, how ya been?” Meranda looks up at the pimpled, greasy waiter.

  I’m appalled that he’s allowed to serve food or beverages or edible items of any kind. “I’m pretty good,” he responds. “The usual, Meranda?”

  She nods. “And make it snappy, got it?” She smiles.

  “You got it,” he says, chuckling. I want to tell him to forget the coffee and bring a vat of perfume instead, so we can douse her in it, but he disappears from the table.

  “You come here a lot, huh?” I ask.

  She says, “I enjoy my daily routine. Coffee is part of it.”

  “What else?”

  “Getting personal, are we?”

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to intrude.”

  She laughs. “I do a whole lot of nothing these days. The Internet is an entertaining time killer—and that’s what I use it for, killing time. I go for walks. I used to run back in the day. Hard to believe, I know.” She reaches for her pocketbook, sets it on her lap. “Staring into nothingness is a hoot. Very enjoyable. Ever try it?”

  “Can’t say it’s a hobby of mine.”

  She laughs again. “TV’s a hoot, too. Those soap operas are wonderful. No thinking involved. Can watch them numb, the way I like it.”

  “When do you find time for writing?”

  “Come on, not more of this.” Her voice sharpens. “I write e-mails and grocery lists. . . . You probably expected a glamorous answer?”

  My head bobs. “I just didn’t know if you wrote anything to keep you busy,” I say meekly.

  “I’m busy enough, all right? All I ever did was write and go on book tours. Enough is enough.” She stands abruptly, holding the pocketbook by its straps. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, Jimmy, I need to take care of another part of the daily routine.”

  “Sure. Not a problem,” I say, and she walks away from the table and into the crowd.

  Did I say something to offend her? I went too far with the questions. Must have gone too far. Where’s she going? What’s she doing? What is the other part of her daily routine? Is she coming back? If she was offended, telling me she needs to take care of the other part of her routine might have been a polite way for her to ditch me. Instead of: Jimmy, you’re an intrusive idiot and I don’t want anything to do with you, so I’m ditching you now. Don’t know why I ever invited you to meet me here in the first place. Must’ve been really drunk last night. Couldn’t have thought it through. Have a good life, nosey boy . . .

  Five minutes pass. Chad drops off her coffee. A couple seconds after his visit, she appears and sits. The booze smell is more intense than before. She sets the pocketbook on the table and speaks unhurriedly, “Much better.”

  “What was wrong? Are you feeling better?” I notice a metal flask poking out of the top of her pocketbook. This is an assumption, but it’s one based on decent evidence: She doesn’t have juice in that container.

  “What were we up to?” she asks.

  I don’t dare bring her writing back into this. “Your routine,” I say.

  She struggles to speak clearly. “Yes, that’s right. I like Internet checkers and backgammon and chess and solitaire—again, a hoot.” She drinks from her cup.

  “Do you get out much?”

  She peers over the top of her thick glasses. “Yes, Jimmy. Believe it or not, I do get out. I’m not Salinger. Remember the Luncheon?”

  “Of course.” I nod.

  “That was me getting out. . . . I grocery shop, too. Yes, renowned Meranda Erickson buys cheese and meats and frozen dinners and toilet paper and paper towels and—liquor. Mind-boggling, right?”

  I cock my head.

  She says, “And you won’t believe this: Sometimes renowned Mer
anda Erickson goes to theaters and watches movies. Inconceivable, right? Humanizing. She eats, sleeps, bathes, pees, poops, listens to music, to CDs, to the radio, watches the news, tools around on the Internet, gets hammered, gets angry, gets sad . . . drinks coffee.” She holds up the cup, smiles, and winks. “It’s your turn now. What do you do?”

  “Everything you mentioned, except for getting hammered, and add writing to the mix,” I say.

  “You don’t drink?” Meranda sounds horrified, unable to imagine a world without inebriation.

  “No, I don’t drink.”

  “Why not?” she asks, shaking her head as if to say, Shame on you for not being a drunk.

  “Alcohol doesn’t interest me.”

  “Ah . . . you’re probably better off that way.”

  I watch her hands begin to shake. “Yeah. Better off.”

  “Your friends don’t drink either?” she asks.

  “My friends are gone. I have a girlfriend.”

  “A girlfriend is a friend.”

  “Good point,” I say. “I’d rather write and spend time with Leigh than drink.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Leigh.” I nod. “That’s her.”

  “I used to feel that way.”

  “What way?” I ask.

  “Would rather spend time writing and with Eddy.”

  “Your husband?”

  “That was him.” She stands, eyes watering behind her specs. “I’ll be back in a minute. Save the seat for me, will ya?”

  She vanishes with her pocketbook, that flask, and returns after ten minutes, staggering, her eyes glossy, her body and breath and clothing, her presence in general, reeking of whiskey even worse.

  She parks on the stool, leans her elbows on the table, hands trembling. “Thank the man above for that,” she stammers. “Where would I be? How would I feel?”

  My mind wraps around Randy and Gramps and Dad in his drinking days. Meranda is all three. The Trinity of Lushes. “Are you feeling okay? You look really pale,” I say.

  “I’m okay. Really . . . okay,” she says loudly.

  Her hands don’t stop shaking. “Are you sure?” I ask.

  She begins to sway on the stool. “Forget the feeling. Forget . . . feeling, all right?” Her voice raises an octave. People notice.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, reaching for her.

  Her eyes roll into the back of her head. The swaying is out of control. She loses her balance, falls off the seat.

  Down she goes.

  She hits the floor, as does the stool, both on their sides.

  People notice.

  “Meranda!” I jump off my stool, stoop to her, see that she’s unconscious, her eyes closed, mouth gaping.

  Chad materializes at my side, his pizza face fearful. People crowd around us, chattering, shouting, “Call 9-1-1!” I hear Meranda’s voice in my mind. You won’t believe this: Sometimes renowned Meranda Erickson passes out. Astonishing, right? Humanizing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I follow the ambulance, its whiney siren, its flashing lights, weaving in and out of traffic, through sets of lights, down a narrow street, a right onto a wide road, bumping over potholes.

  I pass a man stumbling on a sidewalk. He’s wearing a dingy sleeveless T-shirt, blue jeans that hang from his waist, cowboy boots, and in his left hand is a bottle of some sort of alcohol—it has to be alcohol because look at him stagger on that sidewalk, drunk, disastrous. I give him another look from the rearview mirror and notice him muttering something to himself.

  Concentrating on the road, on following the ambulance, I think of Meranda lying in that box-shaped van, out cold as when they lifted her into it. She’s unaware that they just drove by her double. How long before he collapses? How long before he winds up in the back of an ambulance? That could have been me walking unsteadily on the sidewalk, a bottle of beer or whatever in my hand, tanked, and mumbling. That could have been me slurring my words at the café, passing out, crashing to the floor.

  My heart swells at those thoughts. I want to turn around and go after that guy, grab the bottle from his hand and chuck it, hear that vessel of self-destruction shatter on the sidewalk, watch the dumb-juice wash over the road, shake him by the shoulders, tell him to smarten up, to find some other way to cope. I want to take him off the streets, bring him to his house, warn him that he is going to find himself in the back of an ambulance heading to a hospital one day if he doesn’t quit drinking now. Now! I want to scream in his face for Meranda and for Randy and for Gramps and for the younger edition of Dad—“Wake up! Don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself? Don’t you understand where you’re headed?” My mind flips to Gramps, to his lifeless body spread over the couch, the beer bottles on the floor.

  The ambulance takes a left. I follow.

  * * *

  My cell rings. I flip it open. It’s Leigh.

  “Hey, hon.”

  “Have you thought about what you wanted to do today?” she asks.

  “I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to get together.”

  “Why not? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, but Meranda isn’t.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “She passed out at the café, and now I’m sitting here.”

  “Where is here?”

  “The ER. The waiting room. It’s already been about an hour. Still no word from the doctor.”

  “Was it a heart attack?”

  “No.”

  “Stroke?”

  “No.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you still?”

  “I’m nervous, yeah. The ER isn’t a good sign.”

  “Don’t worry about hanging out with me. I certainly understand.”

  “Thanks. I feel like I’m supposed to stay here for her.”

  “Aw, take your time. I’ll find things to do around the apartment.”

  “Talk later?”

  “Sounds good,” she says. “You’ll have to fill me in on the details.”

  “I will. Love ya.”

  “Love ya.”

  We end the call. A doctor in a white coat appears before my chair, clipboard in hand.

  “Doctor Gillman,” he says, holding out his free hand, impassive, detached.

  “James.” I stand, shake his hand, attaching us. “Is she gonna be okay?” I let go.

  “Your grandmother should be all right.” There’s no comfort in his voice, like he’s speaking of a nonentity. He’s a cyborg. Wires instead of veins. A motherboard instead of a heart.

  My grandmother? He assumes because I’m young, she’s old, and I’m here waiting for her, that I’m her grandson? I roll with the presumption: “Is she awake?”

  “Yes. She’s conscious. She’s undergoing observations for acute alcohol poisoning. I’ll keep you updated regarding her progress.” The Cyborg speaks in a monotone.

  “What type of observations?”

  “She’ll be observed until she’s deemed clinically sober and we’ve determined that she has no complicating injuries or illnesses. I did notice some inflammation on her left hip due to the impact of a fall.”

  “When can I see her?”

  “I’ll keep you in the loop, James. Hang in there, okay?” says the Cyborg, almost human. He shakes my hand again and, with a swish of his coat, he is gone.

  I sit, glance at the woman sitting adjacent from me—the only other person in this room. She has short, wavy blonde hair. Her face is round, and she has the outline of a mustache. Smack, smack, smack. Chewing gum, reading Good Housekeeping (some woman who I’ve never seen is on the cover, smiling, wearing a straw hat). The lady blows a bubble, then pops it handless. Tongues the gum back into her mouth, blows another bubble, and pops it again. I find something about this unsettling.

  My eyes redirect to the TV hanging on the wall to the left of her. It is tuned to The Weather Channel. Tomorrow, a high of eighty-five degrees. Mostly sunny. Who cares? P
eople agonize here. Die here. I start to wonder why anyone waiting in the ER would be interested in the weather. Hey, Johnny’s dying but let’s keep tabs on the weather . . . Marcy just OD’d but tomorrow is supposed to be mostly sunny with a high in the eighties . . . Phillip just had a heart attack but hey, who cares? High of ninety tomorrow . . .

  My eyes fall from the screen, run along the white wall, sweep across the room of blue plastic chairs. I examine my chair. One would think hospitals could afford seats with more comfort—the millions upon millions they make. They could do better, could supply the weeping with cushioned seats.

  I look on the table to my left, the one full of assorted magazines—People, Star, US Weekly, Seventeen, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated. I scan those magazines, thumb through the pages. Celebrities over-glorified. Page after page of superficiality. Buy this cologne, this MP3 player, these sneakers, this car, this handbag, this watch. Purchase this plasma television, this DVD. Get this cell phone, your choice of pink or blue or green or silver or black. You will be cool. We promise. You will find enlightenment. This actress is dating that actor. He called her stupid, and she fired back, calling him arrogant and dull-witted. Everyone, hold your breath, the world is coming to an end. So and so broke up with so and so. He’s cheating on her and she’s cheating on him. Pop diva went off the deep end. Will she recover?

  All the while, Meranda Erickson is lying in a hospital bed. Why hasn’t anyone shown up yet? Doesn’t she have family? Doesn’t anyone care other than me? Did the ER receptionist—or whoever—inform her family of this incident? Honestly, I’m partly, and selfishly so, I admit, relieved none of her family members have arrived, because I would then have to explain why I am being referred to as her grandson.

  I close my eyes. In this reverie, I’m in the hospital bed instead of Meranda, tubes stuck in my arms, one jammed up my nostril. I wear a hospital gown, a slit in the butt region. My face is covered with wrinkles, my hair grey, and I’m sixty-two-years-old. I write for a living. My father is dead. My mother is dead. My sister is a grandmother. She lives in Nevada, and doesn’t have much to do with me. I lie here and hope for a call, a visit from anyone, proof that someone in the world cares for me. The doctor—a cybernetic organism—and the nurses are the only familiar faces.