by John McEvoy
Ingrid managed a “Good luck, Sam,” before she opened her door. She was bone-tired. Another taxing day dealing with, and sometimes talking to, a series of one-thousand pound clients. Working this veterinarian practice by herself following Eric’s departure had turned out to be much more than she’d bargained for. As soon as she had a chance, or time, she intended to advertise for a partner to join her in the growing practice. These days she never seemed to have the energy to do that at the end of her arduous days. Maybe after the Heartland Downs meeting ended….
She stripped off her work clothes and tossed them into the washing machine. Put a frozen chicken pot pie dinner in the oven. Ran a hot bath. Poured herself a glass of white wine, which she placed on the tub’s edge as she slid into the water and lay back, gratefully feeling tension and fatigue draining out of her.
At 8:11, the phone in her living room rang. She wasn’t about to leap out and answer it. Minutes later, her cell phone, which she had placed on top of her bedroom dresser, rang. Stopped. Rang again. “Got to be Eric,” she said.
Every few days in the recent weeks since the breakup of their relationship and business practice, Eric had been phoning her, usually at night, usually late. At first he had been his old charming self, jocular, persuasive, as he attempted to lure her back. Her refusals made him increasingly angry. Ingrid changed both her landline and cell phone numbers in order to avoid his calls. Somehow, he had managed to find the new numbers. And his messages, left on voice mail after she had told him she would never talk to him again, became more and more threatening.
One morning at Heartland Downs, she had talked to Jack Doyle about this situation. He said, “Maybe you should get a restraining order against this guy.”
“How would I do that?”
“Well, you’d need an attorney. I know one who could maybe help. Name is Art Engelhardt. I’ll get you his phone number.”
She called Engelhardt the next day. “Honey,” he said, “I’m a racetrack and personal injury lawyer. I represent jockeys and trainers who have been unjustly accused and maligned. I got out of that crappy civil stuff years ago. But I can give the number of a Chicago attorney who’s pretty good in that area. Frank Cohan. You want it?”
Ingrid had written down Cohan’s name and number, but hadn’t called him. Memories of her early days with Eric in Urbana, later when they first came to the Chicago track, when he was not drinking heavily and, she thought, were in love, created a barrier to that kind of legal action.
She ran some more hot water into the tub. Sipped her glass of wine. Lay back and recalled what Eric had spoken to her about his “affection for,” not his addiction to, alcohol.
“I stole my first drink from my father’s nearly empty Manhattan glass when I was about ten,” she remembered him saying. “My old man drank every night when he got home from his vet clinic. I loved the buzz I got off that taste and tried to do it again, couple of nights later. He caught me. Thumped the crap out of me. Grounded me for a week.
“My old man was not only a highly functioning alcoholic, but a bully. It wasn’t until I was sixteen and big enough to start pushing him around that he stopped his late night rampages against my mother, me, and Rudy. One night, he was screaming obscenities aimed at my mother. I jumped out of bed. Ran into the corridor and into him and pushed him down the stairs. He was hurt, but not bad. He got up and looked at me and I could see the hate in his eyes. That was the end of all that shit from him.
“In high school, I played football and hung with a bunch of guys who were big beer drinkers. One of them, Freddie Bongard, also had secret access to his old man’s liquor cabinet. His dad wasn’t much of a drinker. Not like mine. Freddie would sneak out a fifth, whiskey or scotch or rum, we’d polish it off, then fill the bottle back up with tea and put it back. Took almost a year for Freddie’s dad to get onto this hustle.”
Ingrid took another sip of wine. Placed her head back on the rim of the tub. Tried to think of something other than, first, the good times she and Eric had at the University of Illinois, then the hints of disaster to come. Eric rarely drank much during the week. He zoned in on his studies and gleaned top grades. But he binged almost every weekend. Suffered monumental hangovers that encouraged him to dry out for the next five days. Then, he would be back at it again. Trying to justify this regimen to Ingrid, Eric laughed off its implications. “I’m in control of this,” he insisted. He quoted a writer named Alexander Woolcott, who had famously remarked that he drank “in order to make other people interesting.”
“I know where Woolcott was coming from,” Eric said one evening. He reached out to hug her on the couch where they sat, watching the Urbana sunset through their condo’s west window. “But I don’t need booze to make you interesting, my dear.”
The memory of him holding her, stroking her and kissing her, his wide smile and laughing eyes, their many shared interests, lingered. Painfully. She missed him badly. The old him.
After nearly an hour, muscle soreness and fatigue erased, Ingrid stepped out of the tub. In the floor length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, she noticed a nasty looking bruise on her right thigh. She toweled off, even managing to smile at the memory of Ralph Tenuta’s newly arrived two-year-old filly, Betty the Blur, who had kicked her in the course of the examination Ingrid was providing. The blow had hurt for a few seconds, then been forgotten.
“They sometimes know not what they do,” she said to herself. “That’s why I’ve gotten some of them to listen more closely when I communicate with them.”
Ingrid walked into her darkened bedroom, pulled a long white tee-shirt from the dresser drawer. In the kitchen, she took her dinner out of the oven. Poured a half-glass of pinot grigio. Heard both her phones ring in sequence, land line first.
Had to be Eric, damn him. The phone ringings bounced back and forth as she refused to answer. She took the landline off its hook, picked up the overcooked pot pie and threw it down into the disposal. Furious, she answered her cell phone. “You asshole,” she shouted, “you’re pitiful. Leave me alone.” She banged the phone down on the counter. Felt tears forming. Picked up the phone, saying, “After all we had…that you completely blew off with your jealousy, your drinking…” She turned her head so he would not hear her sobs. “You need help I can’t give you.”
“Hey, dear Ingrid,” he slurred, “you think this is all over between us? Wrong, baby, wrong.”
She heard the rattling of ice cubes in whatever nearly glass was in Eric’s hand. The sound of the glass being slammed down. Then his voice, low and hard.
“It ain’t over,” he said and hung up.
***
Two nights later when Ingrid got home, there were several voice mail messages from clients. She held off listening to Eric’s until she’d finished with the others. She was surprised to hear him talking so calmly.
“For your information,” Eric said, “I’ve made an appointment with an alcohol addiction counselor. I’ll go there Thursday. I hate living like this without you,” he said softly. “Wish me luck.”
“Well,” she said to herself, “that’s at least somewhat encouraging.”
She made herself a sandwich before sitting down at her computer. Wiped out several generic emails before reading the one sent by her client, Buck Norman. “Ingrid, please come by the barn tomorrow or the next morning. I need you to try and ‘communicate’ with Myra, my old stable pony. For some reason, she’s soured on life in general. She’s only fifteen. That shouldn’t be happening.
“On a better note,” Norman continued, “if you haven’t seen it, check out the YouTube video about a former, no-good racehorse named Lucky Lucy. She was rescued by this woman trainer. Taught to do all kind of things. Pretty amazing.”
Intrigued, Ingrid located the video in question. A trainer named Sharon McCoy was shown running the formerly recalcitrant Lucky Lucy through an extensive routine that included nodding ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ Catching, fetching, kissing. bowing, staying and coming, counting up t
o five, and much more. Ingrid was entranced as she watched Lucky Lucy distinguish among three colors and, on command, rearing, pushing a barrel, performing a curtsy.
“Horses can do so much more than we ask them for,” she said to herself.
Ingrid turned off the computer. Thinking about Lucky Lucy, and Eric’s promise to seek counseling, she quickly went to sleep for the first time in many weeks. Hoping for the best.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Eric was on his way to a small office in a small office building just off Golf Road in Skokie. He parked in one of the spaces reserved for visitors. Laid his head on the steering wheel for a minute. Should he go through with this? Finally, he got out of his truck and went up the short walkway and hit the front door directory panel and was buzzed in. He looked at his watch. He was a few minutes late. He hurried down the carpeted corridor looking for number three. A door opened in front of him.
“Eric?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome. I’m Rita Doty. Please come in.”
She was a tall, attractive woman, in what Eric estimated to be her early forties. She wore a stylish black pantsuit over a white blouse. No lipstick or jewelry except for a sizeable wedding ring. Her hair was cut so short as to make her look on the verge of severe. A serious looking broad, he thought.
Her phone rang. Rita motioned him to the couch placed against the wall. As she engaged in a short conversation, Eric reviewed the diplomas and certificates on the walls. A University of Chicago undergraduate degree in psychology. Master’s degree from Northwestern in the same field. A document testifying that she had completed three renowned courses in the counseling of alcoholics.
She replaced the receiver on her desk and sat down in a chair across from the couch. “I’m glad you decided to come here this morning, Eric. Let me ask you a few questions.”
Rita made notes on her clipboard during the next twenty minutes when she elicited information about Eric’s family background, education, job experience. She made a check mark at the section where Eric described, without much evident emotion, his father.
He was jittery. Sat forward off his couch seat, feet moving up and down, fingers tapping on his thighs. It was 10:27 a.m. “Why in the fuck am I doing this?” he muttered.
This was a question he had asked himself as he drove to Skokie. His motivation had been Ingrid’s threat that if he didn’t make this effort, keep this appointment, she would be forever through with him. Motivating this final threat of hers was the stupid, drunken, abrasive phone call he’d made to her earlier in the week, a call of which he was ashamed. He knew she cared about him. And he cared for her. Maybe, he had to admit to himself, loved her.
With so little work to do at the racetrack, Eric had begun drinking more than usual. Starting early in the morning, lasting until late at night. Deep down he knew it was getting away from him. But he didn’t want to admit it to himself. He spent hours at his computer, betting horses and the stock market. Amazingly, he was doing quite well in the latter gambling game, not so well with the horses. He frequently woke up in the middle of the night. Tossed and turned. Got up to play some music and have a glass of brandy before, finally, sleep became possible. He had lost weight as well as energy. He knew he was going downhill. So he had decided to meet with Rita Doty.
Rita said, “Eric, I want to make something clear.” She paused and took off her glasses and laid them on the desk. “I am a recovering alcoholic. I can speak to you about alcoholism from experience. Mostly bitter experience. Some of my drinking I considered enjoyable, a form of escapism. But the large majority of it, though I was for years determined not to admit it, was by far very, very bitter. I began drinking in junior high school, eighth grade. Hung with a bunch of people who also drank. Continued in high school. Went on partying during college. I fought to not let it derail my scholastic progress.
“Finally, one late winter day, I admitted to myself that my life was out of control. I was now ignoring obligations and deadlines. And people I cared about who cared about me. Alcohol had taken control of me. I felt battered. Desperately unhappy. That is when I finally decided to enter a rehab program.” She paused to take a sip of tea. “That decision saved my life, Eric.”
Eric, uneasy, glanced restlessly around the room. “What has that got to do with me? Sure, I drink. Probably more than I should. But I don’t feel it’s ruining my life.”
Rita leaned back in her chair. Smiled. “Unfortunately, that’s what all alcoholics want to believe. ‘Not ruining my life,’ they tell themselves. How does an alcoholic’s drinking affect others? He, or she, ignores that question. I know this from experience.”
“How long has it been since you stopped drinking?”
“Twenty-two years and five months. When I did, I put my life on the right track. I married. My husband and I have two children. I’ve established a very useful practice helping people like the person I used to be to become a different, happier, better person, like I am now.”
He got up from the couch. “That’s quite a claim.” He walked over to the small room’s lone window. An Hispanic gardening crew was aiming loud blowers at piles of leaves and grass cuttings toward the parking lot curb. He stood with his arms crossed on his chest, right foot tapping the floor. Feeling an immense sense of threat to the way he now lived. To who he really was. There was a boiling feeling in his chest until he finally took a deep breath.
Seated back on the couch, under control, Eric said, “Look, I appreciate the fact that you have gone through what I’ve heard called the ‘tunnel of alcoholism” and come out the other side. I admire that. But I just don’t consider myself to be in that tunnel.”
Rita waited. Eric said, “Okay, what would be your advice for me?”
“First, commit yourself to embracing change. I run a program here I call ‘Life Retrieval.’ It aims to remove alcohol from its ability to barricade your true self from life. Sound corny?” she said, leaning back in her chair. “So be it.”
“Life Retrieval,” Eric said. “Please. Sounds like some kind of infomercial crap that’s on an obscure television channel late at night.”
Rita looked down at the notes on her clipboard. “Eric, have you considered joining Alcoholics Anonymous?”
“Oh, yeah. I went to one meeting a couple of months ago. Right at Heartland Downs. Run by the Racetrack Chaplaincy in their little building on the backstretch.”
“What did you think?”
“I was surprised at some of the people I saw there. A few guys my age, a couple of punk kids, many older guys, some of them horse owners, a couple of trainers, a few young women grooms.”
Rita said, “It sounds as if you were observing them pretty closely.”
“This meeting went on for more than two hours. People drinking bad coffee and smoking cigarettes. Getting up to make their public confessions of weakness. Yearning for appreciation for their candor. I thought it was embarrassing. A lot of crap.”
“There are hundreds of thousands of men and women all over the world who would disagree with your assessment.”
“That’s their business,” Eric snapped. He thought she was looking at him condescendingly. He could feel anger again churning inside of him. What he really needed right now was a stiff drink. He got up from the couch and walked to the office’s little water cooler and filled a small cup. Drank it down. Then another. The midmorning sun was coming through the dark window blinds. He took a deep breath as he looked out. Reviewed his situation with his brother Rudy, his dilemma with all the goddamned clients who had dropped him, led by Ralph Tenuta. Thought bitterly of Ingrid’s retreat from him.
He reached into his jacket pocket for his checkbook.
“What do I owe you?”
Startled at his abruptness, Rita got up, put her glasses on, shaking her head in frustration. “Seventy-five dollars, Eric. Although you didn’t use your fifty-minute hour.” She went behind her desk and moved some papers around.
He quickly wrote out the check and pla
ced it on her desk. He waited until she looked up at him.
“Nice try, Rita. But this kind of thing is just not for me. Nice meeting you.”
Rita went to the window and watched Eric walk across the parking lot, open his car door, get behind the wheel, and slam the door closed. He sat for a minute or so. Arms extended on the steering wheel, head between them. The gardeners motioned for him to move his car so they could collect the piles of leafy debris.
Eric jammed his car into reverse. Turned and gunned it toward the entrance leading to Golf Road.
Rita sat down behind her desk. She had nearly twenty minutes before her next client. It had been an unpromising meeting with Eric Allgauer. She hated results like this. But she knew there was nothing to do but accept them.
She booted up her Mac. Pulled up his name. An entry she had made the day before when she thought he might turn out to become a client.
Rita hit “delete.” She knew Eric would never be back.
Chapter Forty
Carrying a sack of takeout from the hamburger joint around the corner from his condo, Doyle was fumbling for his key to the front door when he heard a noise to his right. Pivoting, he dropped the food as he saw a ski-masked individual leaping toward him, swinging a piece of lead pipe at his head. Doyle’s boxer reflexes enabled him to evade the wide swing as he simultaneously unleashed a crushing right cross on the jaw of his attacker, who tumbled backwards into the bushes.
