South of Bixby Bridge

by Ryan Winfield

  Chapters

  1 Afraid of What?

  2 Yes, I’ve Changed

  3 God Always Provides

  4 The Bridge

  5 The Fat Man

  6 Never Been Better

  7 My Best Plan

  8 It Is What It Is

  9 Excuse Me, Sir

  10 Second Chances

  11 Are You Sober?

  12 Soles for Sale

  13 Valombrosa and Me

  14 Ambitious Bird

  15 Valombrosa II

  16 Dancing with Strangers

  17 Trust Me

  18 Like What You See?

  19 Worth Overdoing

  20 Eureka!

  21 It’s Just Wine

  22 Christmas Ship Parade

  23 Merry Christmas

  24 A Forgotten Prayer

  25 Sorry, Ma’am—I’m Empty

  26 Measure of the Man

  27 Money’s No Problem

  28 The Plain of Oblivion!

  29 Wake Up, Shooter

  30 Intervention Tour

  31 The Virgin Athena!

  32 You Love Me?

  33 Elevator Surfing

  34 He Doesn’t Belong

  35 Just Like Paul

  36 Get Yourself Together

  37 She Closes the Door

  38 The Crash

  39 Do It Again

  40 For the Road

  41 Ferried Across

  42 Surrender

  43 You Win, Kid

  44 Look What You’ve Done

  45 Is Jared Around?

  46 Clean Inside

  47 He Ain’t Lost

  48 Just Human

  49 There’ll Be Tomorrow

  50 Stay, Son

  51 The Other Side

  SOUTH of

  BIXBY BRIDGE

  By Ryan Winfield

  South of Bixby Bridge

  By Ryan Winfield

  Copyright © 2011 Ryan Winfield

  All rights reserved.

  Please visit www.RyanWinfield.com

  Kindle Edition

  Cover image: Larysa Dodz / Vetta / Getty Images

  The Licensed Material is being used for illustrative purposes only; and any person depicted in the Licensed Material, if any, is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used here fictitiously. Any resemblance to any real persons or events is entirely coincidental.

  BIRCH PAPER PRESS

  Post Office Box 4252

  Seattle, Washington 98194

  For Bridget

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Stewart Stern is my best friend and mentor. He taught me everything I know about drama. This story was born on the Congress Avenue Bridge on the wings of a million Mexican free-tailed bats as Stewart and I watched the hot Austin sun slip behind Lady Bird Lake.

  Jack Remick, the fighting bishop of science, the novelist, the poet, and the teacher, invested countless hours instructing me on language, style, and rhythm. I owe him a great debt—a debt I can only pay by promising to pay it forward.

  Robert J. Ray taught me to discover the myths and rituals buried in my prose and his rewriting course moved me deeper into my story. His quiet laugh when I hit the mark was a balm that kept me writing.

  Joel Chafetz’s keen ear always heard what I was trying to write even when I didn’t. His feedback on my pages was invaluable.

  To the poets, painters, and polymaths who welcomed me into their third Sunday sanctuary, I thank you all—Don Harmon, Geri Gale, M. Anne Sweet, Gordon Wood, Jack Remick, and Priscilla Long.

  A special thanks to Geri Gale whose proofreading pen plucked my errors from the following pages.

  ‘‘Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.’’

  —Mother Teresa

  SOUTH of

  BIXBY BRIDGE

  1 Afraid of What?

  You gotta hit rock bottom to get sober. Some of the people in here must’ve bounced and hit twice. I hit 30 in March and no way can I picture the rest of my life without a drink. But they got a saying for that here too.

  It’s the day before Thanksgiving and I’m standing at the Brave Ascent treatment center window watching a man in a trench coat stumble up the street. He stops at the gate, fumbles the latch, climbs the steps, and slumps down in the doorway. Then he reaches into his coat—nothing looks more like booze than a bottle in a brown-paper bag. Poor bastard. Maybe he can have my bed.

  I only agreed to treatment because Stephanie left me.

  ~~~

  I remember the day, 28 days ago, when she walked in the door from a Halloween party and cut a beeline to the refrigerator. The refrigerator was gone, a blue Igloo ice chest on the floor in its empty nook. Stephanie winged into the living room wearing high heels and a halo, white panties, and a push-up bra. She stood in front of me, hooked her hands on her hips and said, What the fuck, Trevor?

  I just sat there on the couch, an empty pizza box on my lap, and three empty wine bottles on the coffee table. What? I said.

  Where’s the refrigerator?

  I started selling stuff when they fired me at Edward & Bliss where I was selling stocks. I told Stephanie they made a big mistake, said I had my broker by the balls, swore the regional boss would call when he got my message. Then I sat around drinking what was left of my wine collection. The recycle bins bulged with bottles, the neighbors whispered, and the only calls were from my mortgage servicer threatening me about payments past due.

  Where is it? Stephanie said again.

  I sold it.

  Stephanie dug her heels into the carpet and, with her halo shaking, stood there in her angel costume lingerie whipping me with a year’s worth of contempt. She said I was a lousy lover. She said I was a drunk. She said we were over. I walked out when she started whipping me for real with a wine bottle.

  Driving into the city that night, I washed down three caps of GHB with a six-pack of silver bullets. Alcohol made me feel. Alcohol and GHB together made me feel better.

  At Clift’s historic Redwood Room I met a beautiful Brazilian highballing on Johnnie Walker and sodas and then the GHB kicked in and I don’t know how she did it, but the Brazilian turned herself into a Russian or at least it sounded like Russian that chick was yelling when I came to, pissing on her cold apartment floor and she kicked me to the community bathroom in the flophouse hall, but I was creeped out so I cut out into the bright swirling afternoon street with no idea where to find my Porsche, the Porsche my mom gave me just before she died. I never used to drive it drunk.

  Laying shoe leather over half of San Francisco until sunset, I found the Porsche with three parking tickets under the wiper.

  I was still stoned when I pulled up to my dark house and I found a bright-red notice taped to the front door advertising the foreclosure sale to our entire neighborhood. Stephanie was gone and so were her things. I lost Stephanie. I lost my job. I lost my house.

  I found a half-dozen Vicodin and washed them down with the last of my GHB. Then I climbed into the backyard hot tub gazebo, pulled the privacy doors closed, and melted into the 106-degree water letting the drugs sponge up my second thoughts.

  When I woke, I was flat on a gurney parked in the crowded emergency room hallway and Stephanie was leaning over me crying. Her mother Barbara was there too. My throat was sore, my tongue swollen. Stephanie handed me a plane ticket to this Brave Ascent bed they were holding for me and Barbara drove me to the airport.

  From the air, the Central Valley spread beneath me, green and gold, and when the sun hit just right, I saw a thousand miles of rivers and sloughs crawling through it like silver veins until they met in the delta and bled into San Francisco
Bay. The flight south was short. I sobered up just enough to remember what I had agreed to when the city of Fresno rose out my window like an oil rig on a dead sea.

  ~~~

  That was 28 days ago. I missed an entire fucking month and I have a green graduation chip from yesterday’s bullshit Brave Ascent punch party in my pocket to prove it. But I’m getting out of this treatment center hell house, here—today—now.

  The yellow cab pulls up and honks. I sling my duffel over my shoulder and turn for the door. My roommate Jared rolls over in bed. His thick, mussed hair sticks up on one side and he rubs his eyes and blinks up at me even though he was pretending to sleep. He says,

  You afraid?

  Afraid of what? I ask.

  Afraid of leaving, bro. Before my mom left us, she asked me what I would do if I weren’t afraid.

  I’m not afraid of anything.

  Everybody’s afraid of something, he says.

  I sit next to him on his bed. He looks at me like a puppy in the pound. I never had a little brother, but Jared makes me wish I did.

  ~~~

  I remember when Jared showed up to Brave Ascent, a week after I did. He was coming down off crystal—the bathtub rocket-fuel meth that launches you into orbit, sleepless week after sleepless week of real nightmares—and he crouched in the corner snapping at the air trying to eat his own head. When he landed, he slept for a week. When he woke, he shambled into group and sat right next to Rooster.

  Rooster is an asshole. He’s here on a nudge from the judge because he had a bad trip, wandered away from a pool party and stumbled three blocks buck-ass naked into a sleeping family’s kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Turns out Rooster is an unlucky asshole because the father in the house just happened to want a sandwich too. The police followed the ambulance to the hospital.

  Rooster got his name because he corners new patients and makes them promise to give him a blowjob if he has a cock hanging below his knees. Then he hikes up his pant leg and shows them the rooster-in-a-noose tattoo on his calf. He laughs at his own joke and struts around crowing for an hour every time.

  When Jared slumped into the chair next to Rooster, we all knew what was coming. Jared had been chasing the white dragon under the knives of dealers in their icehouses for so long that he thought Rooster was serious and he dropped to his knees in Rooster’s lap to give him the blowjob he was asking for. Rooster freaked out. Floored Jared. Kicked him in the ribs. Called him a faggot. I yanked Rooster off Jared, walked him across the room, and put a hole in the Sheetrock with the back of his head. The main counselor Mr. Shaw limped in and broke up the fight before I could put the rest of Rooster through the wall.

  Mr. Shaw pointed his finger at Rooster. Sit down and shut up, he said. Addiction is a deadly disease. Save your grab-ass games and hateful name calling for civilian life.

  Rooster got defensive. Swelled up. Said he was going to sue. Accused Mr. Shaw of exaggerating the consequences of an occasional binge, a little recreational drug use. He said Mr. Shaw was part of the treatment business and that the treatment business is big business.

  That’s when Mr. Shaw unstrapped his prosthetic leg and hurled it into the middle of the room. His plastic skin-colored leg lay on the floor bent at the knee joint, his sock and rubber-sole wingtip shoe still attached. He stood there on one leg and waved his amputated stub at Rooster. That’s your exaggerated consequence, he said. Me? I passed out drunk in front of the TV—legs crossed for 13 hours—diabetes—no circulation—no leg. And you tell me I’m exaggerating, you asshole.

  It was a sad thing to see. I just stared at the leg and wondered who would carry it back to Mr. Shaw.

  ~~~

  With Rooster still here, I know Jared doesn’t want me to leave. I jab a finger in his ribs, tickling him. I say,

  You’re not afraid of old Rooster are ya?

  Jared laughs. No, he says. I’m not afraid of that jerk. I’ll punch and hunch him just like you showed me.

  Well, what are you afraid of?

  Leaving my dad all alone.

  And if you weren’t afraid, what would you do?

  Jared drops his head. I’d go be with my mom, he says.

  The cabbie lays on his horn. I rub Jared’s shaggy head. I say,

  I’m still not afraid of anything, pal.

  Well whatcha gonna do then?

  I guess just get my Porsche and drive south—get out of this damn valley.

  Can I come with?

  You mean fuck the treatment?

  No! Jared says, I graduate next week. How cool would that be, you and me taking the 13th step together?

  All right, Jared. Look me up when you get out.

  You promise?

  I don’t want to promise him. Everyone always says they’ll get together and do this and do that but they never do. Jared will never learn that. He’s too innocent to be an addict. But he is an addict.

  I reach in my duffel and grab my big blue sobriety book, the book Mr. Shaw gave to me yesterday at graduation. I open the cover and write Barbara’s number inside. I toss the book to Jared. I say,

  You can get me a message at the number inside.

  As I open the door to leave, Jared says,

  Hey, Trevor.

  I turn back. He lowers his eyes to the book. He says,

  I’ve only known you three weeks, but you’re the best friend that I ever had.

  2 Yes, I’ve Changed

  Across town, at the Santa Fe Railroad Depot, I slide two 20s beneath the scratched Plexiglas window and point to SACRAMENTO on the dingy sign. The sweaty attendant looks like a chicken in a battery cage. He pushes the ticket and 14 dollars out. You’ll hafta hustle, he says.

  Jogging to the waiting train, I pass an old woman tugging a pile of faded luggage on a roller with a broken wheel. She won’t make it in time. I turn back and scoop up her bags. We board just as the final whistle blows.

  After I stow her bags with mine in an overhead compartment, she points to the window seat. Would you mind taking the window? she says. I get claustrophobic. I never used to.

  The train is almost empty but her eyes plead for company so I squeeze past her into the seat and then she settles in beside me, fussing with everything, her white ball of permed hair waving the suffocating smell of Avon perfume and I’m about to move when the train jerks forward and she falls back into her seat and says,

  Oh, heh! Everybody’s always in such a rush nowadays.

  Then she smiles at me and I don’t mind her smell any longer.

  Well now, here we are then, she says. Thank you, dear. My name is Evelyn.

  Nice to meet you, Evelyn. I’m Trevor.

  Are you going home for Thanksgiving, Trevor?

  Yes—well, sort of I guess. My girlfriend is meeting the train in Sacramento. After that, it’s one minute at a time.

  Are you in Fresno for University?

  I laugh. Something like that.

  ~~~

  I don’t tell her about treatment, or that I graduated six years ago from Sac State with a BA in political science because my teachers said I would make a good attorney, but then I discovered alcohol and switched my real major to drinking. I never drank because of my dad. Nineteen years old and never even a drop but when I pledged the fraternity, they made me down a full 40 of Old English 800 High Gravity. I felt like I would puke. Then a strange thing happened—a key turned in a lock and chains that had tangled in my guts for 20 years slipped away. I felt invincible.

  I met Stephanie my senior year. I was three years ahead of her—she was a decade ahead of me. I reread the same paragraph about Pinochet and Chile’s legacy of torture for two hours before I found the courage to ask her name. What took you so long? she said.

  ~~~

  Evelyn is still talking. I haven’t been listening. I say,

  I’m sorry, come again.

  Your parents, she says. Are they in Sacramento also?

  No. They’re not.

  I’m sorry. I didn’t—

&nb
sp; It’s okay, I say. How about you? Where are you going?

  Oh, yes, she says, I’m just going as far as Stockton. My daughter and her husband live there. You look like their son, my grandson. In fact, you remind me of him—older, but I would bet my teeth you looked just like him as a boy. You have the same blue eyes. He’s 10. Here, I have a picture.

  Evelyn unsnaps her wallet and passes me a photo. Her grandson has a shaggy head of curly blond hair falling into his blue eyes like I did, but he doesn’t look like me at 10—he’s smiling.

  Evelyn taps her finger on the photo. I’ll bet you looked just like him at this age, she says.

  I don’t have any pictures of myself so I really wouldn’t know, I say, passing her back the photo. My eyes are wet. It just happens sometimes. I turn away and watch power poles pass out the window. The train doesn’t seem to be moving very fast unless you look right at the poles. My eyes range east looking for something to focus on before a memory can slip in—green tufts in the shallows of dry hills, I wonder if they’re ash trees—I think Fresno means ‘‘ash tree’’ in Spanish. My mind flies out farther into the haze, out to where the distant Sierra Nevada bites into the sky.

  The power poles rush by, the rocking rhythm of the rails keeps time, and fading in the background, Evelyn drones sweetly on—

  My daughter—her name’s Ginger—she wanted to pick me up—insisted on it—but I like to ride the train—she says I’m getting too old to travel alone—oh, heh!—everyone’s too old, or too young, to travel alone—

  My defenses droop with my eyes and the memory slips in.

  ~~~

  My grandfather had one dream—to drive the Autobahn in a new Porsche. When breast cancer killed my grandmother, he ordered a 1983 Porsche 911SC convertible with the life insurance. He flew to Stuttgart, met his Porsche at the factory and drove the Autobahn before shipping it home. Grandpa loved that Porsche. Four years later, he died on Christmas and left it to my mom.