The Ninth Step

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “You worry too much,” Livie said.

  “You see him, you let JB know, you hear?” Charlie called after her.

  Livie waved and kept walking.

  Chapter 10

  Scott was in junior high and Cotton was still in elementary school the first time they added water to Delia’s bottle of gin. Like a couple of dopes, they assumed she wouldn’t notice. It had seemed reasonable to think they would save her, even that they had the power to make her quit. She’d blown up after the first swallow, chased them around wielding an old leather razor strop that had belonged to their grandfather.

  It had never mattered what they did. Delia drank anyway. Then Scott left home, left Cotton behind, and one day, he’d stood at the kitchen sink alone, holding the fifth of Gilbeys, ready to top it off with water, but a voice in his head said what good would it do? He’d only get an ass whipping, so he brought the bottle to his lips instead.

  Had a taste and then another and another. He remembered his mouth and tongue going numb. He’d started to laugh. He’d laughed like a freaking hyena, over nothing. He’d gotten shitfaced, blitzed, bombed, wasted.

  It had been his birthday, his fifteenth birthday.

  When Delia came in and found him, she thought it was cute. She poured herself a shot and saluted him. Happy fucking birthday. . . .

  Now Cotton looked over at Nikki. She was wearing her dad’s tool belt that went around her almost twice and a faded Houston Astros baseball cap that belonged to her brother. She was puttying dings in the new woodwork while Cotton hung the powder room door.

  “This stuff reminds me of cake icing,” she’d said earlier and then she’d prattled on about the plans for her upcoming birthday party.

  “I can’t believe I’m almost thirteen,” she’d said and that was when she’d asked Cotton for his best birthday memory.

  A hangover, he thought, but he wasn’t about to tell her that story.

  “Cotton? Did you hear me?” Thankfully she didn’t wait for his answer. “Trev says sixteen was his best ‘cause he got his driver’s license. Then comes twenty-one when you can drink, legally anyway. Trev’s eighteen, but I know for a fact, he already drinks.”

  Cotton swung the door on its hinges checking the fit. He glanced at her. “I’d advise you not to take the first swallow.”

  “That’s what Daddy says. He went off the deep end after Mom died. Drank like a fish. Wasted every night. It was bad for a while. He’ll freak if he finds out about Trev.”

  “I’m really sorry.” The words Cotton had test driven a jillion times through his mind were out of his mouth before he could think.

  Nikki shot him a questioning look.

  “About your mom, that you lost your mom,” he began and he was groping for the rest of it, teetering in total disbelief at his intention, but poised, nonetheless, on the verge of filling in the blanks when Nikki came back with, “Oh, that’s okay, it was a long time ago.”

  Cotton was dumbstruck. Okay? Had she said it was okay? Who did she think he was? Don’t you remember me? he wanted to shout. I was there. I heard your mother’s last words; I watched her last breath go out of her. Nothing about it was okaaay. . . .

  He tipped back his head, feeling pissed, hostile, disturbed. It was totally unreasonable, but there wasn’t a place in his mind where reason fit into it.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. No.” He swung around, plunged his hands into his tool box, keeping his head down, desperate to hide from her, scared now of what he’d almost done. “Just don’t say losing your mom was okay,” he told her. “Not to me. You don’t ever need to waste your time making me feel better.”

  She thought he was a kook; he could sense it, sense the thinner resonance of her anxiety. “It’s just you said the other day how much you still miss her.” Cotton made himself look at Nikki. He managed a one-cornered grin.

  “Well, yeah, ‘cause, you know, it’s like-- I mean Dad’s the best, but--”

  “He doesn’t get loaded now, does he?”

  “No! He doesn’t drink at all anymore. One morning I went in his bathroom when he was shaving and I told him how bad it scared me when he like slurred his words and staggered around and stuff and he stopped.”

  “Good,” Cotton said. “That’s really good.” He shifted the powder room door some more as if the way it was balanced was his major concern.

  Nikki scraped the putty knife across the wall. “Doesn’t change that it was my fault.”

  “What?” Cotton turned to her.

  “Mom was like really mad at me that morning; she was yelling and stuff before she--before-- That’s how come we wrecked. I made it happen.”

  “No way. You were just a little girl.”

  “I was six,” Nikki said stoutly. “I knew not to argue with her when she was driving. She told me enough times.”

  Cotton glanced through the open studio door. Humphrey was lying on the porch, on his back, belly exposed to the sun, looking foolish. He could whistle the dog over, create a distraction. But he didn’t. It was as if he were frozen in place, destined to hear Nikki out, to bear witness.

  She wanted to tell him; she trusted him.

  The same way her dad did--as if they knew him, knew he was an okay person, someone you could safely tell your troubles to.

  “I didn’t have on the right soccer uniform,” she said.

  I know. Cotton stared at Humphrey.

  Nikki wiped the blade of the putty knife on a rag making deliberate strokes. “I couldn’t find the shirt that matched the shorts. I told Mom it was because she didn’t wash it, but she was yelling that she did, that it was in my room and the reason I never saw it was because I was such a slob.”

  “No,” Cotton said, “you’ve got it all wrong.”

  Nikki tilted her head, curious, waiting for him to go on, waiting for him to explain what she could see on his face--that he knew something.

  She didn’t know what precisely, but something.

  Her mother’s final bit of broken speech wavered across Cotton’s mind. He opened his mouth to repeat it. Explain. Confess. It was right there, the perfect opening. Then what? Nikki’d hate him, obviously. He’d lose her. Lose the careful place he’d come to occupy in her life. Break the bubble of normalcy. Cause her further harm. If he said what he knew, everything that wasn’t supposed to happen would happen. That’s how he rationalized his silence. Of course, it was garbage. He knew it was, even then.

  Nikki stamped her foot; she said his name, “Cotton,” all adolescent protest and impatience.

  “How old are the kids you babysit?” he asked her.

  “Five and three.” She was still looking at him funny. What was he getting at now? Cotton could almost hear her.

  “So if they made you mad and you yelled at them and then slipped and fell down, would you blame them?”

  “Nooo.” She started to smile.

  “So you can’t blame yourself either, can you?” Cotton thought he was pretty slick, an ace, a real hero. “Whatever happened with your mom,” he told her, “or even, you know, with your dad and his drinking, it had nothing to do with you, girl wonder,” he added and her eyes widened.

  His use of her nickname intrigued her and had the effect of totally refocusing her attention. “That’s what Daddy calls me.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m too old for that name now.”

  “Maybe, but I hope you know you’ll never be too old to hear how terrific you are.”

  She shrugged, easing the tension from her shoulders, looking pleased, embarrassed, pretty.

  “I know you think I’m nuts,” Cotton said, on a roll, “but I’ve been in your shoes. My mom drinks; she drank the whole time I was growing up.”

  “Still?”

  “Uh-huh, and I used to blame myself like you, for everything, but trust me, the stupid stuff grownups do?--their dumb mistakes and bad decisions?--aren’t your fault.”

  Nikki studied the putty knife.

 
“ I mean it. Okay?”

  “Yeah, sure, okay.”

  “It is okay,” Cotton insisted.

  But of course it wasn’t.

  #

  He hadn’t intended to volunteer to speak, had only done it maybe three or four times at past meetings, but here he was, standing at the front of the Sunday school classroom. Behind him, a bulletin board was tacked with all sorts of notices about church doings, a Thursday night meet and greet Christian singles group, the spaghetti supper scheduled for the following Saturday evening. Before him, he confronted maybe two dozen pairs of expectant eyes. They were like headlights, Cotton thought, like laser beams. Invasive, probing.

  He wondered if they got off on it, all the confessing that went on, if getting to sniff around in everyone’s private business gave them a charge.

  “I’m Cotton O. and I’m an alcoholic,” he said. He almost choked on the words. He just couldn’t buy it. Some days he thought he stuck with the program for Anita. She’d get pissed if she knew; she’d say he was making dip shit excuses again.

  A low rumble of voices offered him greetings.

  “So, I went to see my mom last weekend and she was trashed, passed out on the couch. I had to wake her up. I don’t think she knew who I was right away.” Cotton crossed his arms, shifted his weight. This wasn’t his usual meeting; he came to a later one that catered to the after-work crowd, a bigger crowd than this. Somehow a bigger crowd in Cotton’s mind suggested anonymity. He felt exposed here; he fought an urge to abandon speaking and leave.

  “She wanted to have drinks like old times,” he said, “and I thought, yeah, why not? Old times. . . .”

  A guy with a cigarette tucked behind his ear was nodding like he knew. Hell yes, old times.

  Cotton rubbed a line beside his nose. “We went in the kitchen, that’s where we did the primary drinking when I lived at home, and she fixed a couple cocktails. Gin, she drinks gin. I liked the smell. Shit--” Cotton broke off, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What am I saying? I didn’t like it. It gagged me, but then, yeah, I wanted it.” He looked out over the small gathering and saw several nodders now.

  “Anyway, she started talking about my brother. Scott left home when he was eighteen and he’s never been back. She was crying about it, you know, but I couldn’t pay attention to her, really, because she put a drink in front of me. She got pissed, too; she knew I wasn’t listening. She started in on all the old garbage about what a screw-up I am. She said she used to think Scott was different, better, she meant, but he’s as big an ungrateful bastard as I am now for deserting her. I had a counselor once, in high school, who said I couldn’t take her verbal attacks personally, that it was just liquor talk.”

  Cotton paused seeing Delia in his mind, her tired, used-up face, the flattened shag of her hair. She was what?--fifty-eight?--and looked ninety. But she’d been giggling like a school girl the other night when she’d added tonic to the ice and gin she’d put in his glass.

  Cotton made eye contact with cigarette guy again. He felt like he could talk to this guy. It wasn’t so pathetic spilling your guts to only one person. “She wanted me to drink with her and I didn’t want her to feel bad.”

  “Yeah,” somebody murmured.

  “We’ve all been there,” said someone else.

  “I didn’t,” Cotton said. “Drink, that is.”

  Congratulations were offered as if they thought he’d done something laudable. Cotton’s cheeks warmed. He resumed his seat feeling like a total fraud. Any other night, who knew? He might have that drink and a dozen more. Any given moment, he was that close. . . .

  #

  “You’re thinking AA’s a lot of horse shit, right?”

  Cotton was descending the steps outside the church after the meeting when cigarette guy addressed him.

  “Like how can you be a hero when you’re about this far from your next booze fest.” He spread his thumb and index finger to allow a slim crack of late afternoon light.

  Cotton looked across the street. A couple of men were coming out of Starbucks. They wore their ties loose and the sleeves of their oxford dress shirts were rolled to the elbow. Banker types or lawyers maybe. Professionals at the end of a workday. They made him think of Nix who had graduated law school at the University of Texas with honors. They probably had families to go home to, somebody waiting who gave a damn. As Cotton watched them, a longing opened inside him so wide and deep, he nearly lost his breath.

  “Name’s Sonny,” cigarette guy said. “Sonny B for Bozeman.”

  They shook hands.

  “Haven’t seen you at this meeting before.”

  “I usually go to the later one, but I took off early from work today.”

  “You figured you better get your ass off the street. Yeah, I hear ya.” Sonny waited through Cotton’s nod, then looking from under his brows asked, “How long--?”

  “Forty-two days.”

  “So, you’re doin’ a ninety-ninety.”

  He assumed Cotton’s devotion, that like any good recovering alcoholic, he’d be in the middle of attending ninety meetings in ninety days.

  But Cotton wasn’t and he told Sonny no. “I’ve been traveling,” he said, “kind of between jobs, you know.” He was offering his usual bullshit excuse in place of any real commitment and he could tell from Sonny’s look that he knew it, too.

  But Sonny didn’t call Cotton on it the way Anita would have. “Can I buy you a shot?” he asked.

  Cotton followed Bozeman’s glance toward Starbucks. He had no reason to refuse, but he did anyway.

  “Another time, then.” Sonny went down a step.

  Cotton went after him because he couldn’t face the idea of being alone after all. “What about you?” he asked “How long since your last drink?”

  “Four years, three months, six days and--” Sonny checked his watch-- “about three hours and nineteen minutes.” He grinned when Cotton’s brows shot up and said, “You tend to remember your last bender real good if at the end of it you wake up gut-shot and chained to a bed in the prison wing of a hospital.” Sonny pulled the cigarette from behind his ear, stuck it between his lips, took it out and resettled it behind his ear again. “I’m trying to quit,” he said shooting Cotton another wry grin. “Sometimes I think I’m never gonna get to the end of all my stinking compulsions.”

  Cotton smiled. He decided Sonny was older than him, but probably not as old as he looked, that it was the effects of Sonny’s life and not age that roughened his face. That put the deep shadows in his eyes and gave them a slightly ironic glint.

  “I did three years at Jester in Richmond, south of here. Armed robbery. Liquor store. Went bad. Or good. Depends on which day you ask.”

  Cotton asked what he meant.

  “Most of the time, I’m glad to be sober, but going to prison to quit drinking, it’s sorta like getting cancer to lose weight. I don’t recommend it.” Sonny shifted his gaze. “My wife divorced me before it was over. My parents have hung in though. My dad even quit drinking when he didn’t have a problem. No one in my family does, only me.”

  “I wish I knew how to help my mom.” Cotton sat down on the edge of the step, picked up a small stone, chucked it into the grass beyond the stair rail. “The other night when I left, I took a full bottle of her gin on my way out. I was sure I’d drink it, but I poured it out on her azaleas instead and the whole time I’m thinking what a dumbass.”

  Sonny sat down beside Cotton. “Sometimes helping some other fool makes you stronger, but sometimes they just pull you down with them. My wife loved me, you know?--she did everything she could to help me, but I was killing her, man. Killing her by inches, like slow-acting poison.”

  Cotton hooked his elbows around his knees and watched the traffic pass. Some of the cars had kids in the backseat, mom riding shotgun, dad at the wheel. It was near dinner time. Cotton figured dad was hauling the family out to a restaurant, saving mom having to cook on a hot summer afternoon. He didn’t remembe
r his family going out for meals much when he was a kid, even before his dad left. Delia was usually pretty wasted by evening and his dad, when he’d been around, had mostly spent his after-work time in the garage fixing stuff. Neighbors had brought him old lawnmowers, a broken toaster, the odd chair with a busted rung.

  Cotton remembered once before his dad got fed up and moved out, they were in the garage--Cotton thought the old man had been in the midst of building some kind of a cabinet for somebody--and his dad was standing behind him, using his hands like covers on top of Cotton’s own smaller hands, helping Cotton to guide a board through the table saw. The air had been ripe with the smell of new-cut wood. Cotton never smelled sawdust that it didn’t evoke, however subliminally, the sensation of his father’s hands, the big square knobs of his knuckles, the rough, but gentle, touch of his calloused palms.

  Sometimes if Cotton closed his eyes, he thought he remembered the scratch of his dad’s fingers tousling his hair. Cotton thought he remembered his dad’s rumbly laugh, too. But maybe not. Maybe those were tricks of memory. Because the bottom line was the old man had walked off and left him and Scott with Delia. It was only a matter of several months until he dropped dead, a few weeks shy of Cotton’s seventh birthday. When Scott told him their dad had passed, Cotton had bent over and the world had gone dark, like he’d been sucker punched. He remembered Scott shoving his head between his knees. He remembered having a sinking sense that they were done for.

  Doomed.

  There’d be no rescue; no one would come and save them. No one had either.

  Sonny said he guessed he should get going.

  Cotton said, “I need a sponsor. Would you be interested?”

  Sonny met his glance.

  “I have one in Seattle, a woman. I still talk to her, but she says I should have someone here.”

  “A woman, huh?”

  “Yeah, I heard AA likes you to stick with same sex sponsorship, but--”

  “Sometimes all the personal shit that goes down, it can get a little--”

  “It’s not like that. It sort of happened by default.” Cotton explained that Anita had been working late one night in the building where he’d had a job as a janitor and she’d come off the elevator and found him down on all fours. “I’d tripped over the damn mop bucket. Most people would have run like the wind, but she didn’t. She knew how it felt.”