“I don’t see why you say that. As nearly as I can see, Flournoy knows everything about you and your operation. He’s loyal.”
“Howard is loyal as long as it suits his purposes, Lloyd. But I’m getting old. I’m sick. One of these days, I’m going to die. And Howard is thinking ahead. So is Elton. And Teresa. And God knows who else. What we’ve got here, Lloyd, is an immensely profitable organization—and it’s all built around me. That’ll change, someday, and nobody knows it better than Howard. He’s an ambitious man, Lloyd. And evangelism is a big, big business. Oral Roberts has his university. Armstrong has his real estate, and his jets. The Southwest Christian Network has its own communications satellite, and they’re talking about putting another one up. That’s a lot of money—a lot of power. And that’s what Howard wants. Money, and power.”
“But—”
“Howard wants to call the shots. He’d like to have his man—or woman—up there in front of the cameras, Sunday morning. He’d like to see me retire. He wants an orderly transition of power, you might say—provided he comes out on top. And that’s the reason I’d just as soon he doesn’t know the whole story, where James is concerned.”
Mitchell frowned. “It might be hard, to keep him in the dark. It might be impossible.”
“Maybe. But we can try.”
“We might be able to go around him. James wants to talk to you, directly. If you’re willing to do that—” He let the question linger.
Reluctantly, Holloway shook his head, at the same time tapping his chest. “I can’t do it, Lloyd. I just can’t take the risk, with this heart of mine. I’d be afraid.”
For a long moment Mitchell sat silently, eyes somber, mouth thoughtfully set. Finally he said, Maybe you should retire. If you retired, the whole problem would vanish. Maybe it’s time.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Holloway answered softly. “But, right or wrong, I just can’t do it. Maybe it’s something to do with my past—my heritage. My Daddy died with his face in the sawdust. Maybe that’s the way I’m destined to go, too.”
In response, Mitchell was gravely nodding.
Yes, he understood.
Thirteen
DENISE PUT THE PLASTIC shopping basket on the counter, and looked at her list. Except for scallions, she’d gotten everything. Mr. Byrnes was out of scallions. She balled up the list and tossed it into a cardboard box behind the counter, that Mr. Byrnes used for trash. For as long as she’d lived in the neighborhood—more than two years—Mr. Byrnes had used the same “Old Grandad” box for his trash.
At the counter, a tall, unhealthy-looking teen-ager with sallow skin and an advanced case of acne was trying to persuade Mr. Byrnes that he needed a six-pack of beer for his mother. Flattening a crumpled note on the counter with a grimy palm, he complained: “But that’s my mother’s signature, Mr. Byrnes. You know it’s her signature.”
“On the contrary, Charlie,” Mr. Byrnes said, glancing briefly at the note. “The fact is, I know it’s not her signature.”
“But, Jesus, you haven’t even looked at the signature, for God’s sake.” The thin voice rose to a high, aggrieved note, cracked, and fell. The boy’s Adam’s apple bobbed indignantly.
“That’s correct, Charlie,” Mr. Byrnes answered equably, “I haven’t looked at it. The reason being, your mom already told me that she’s not writing any more notes for beer. Or, for that matter, for anything else. Now, if that’s all you wanted, then I’d better wait on Denise, here.”
“Shit.” The teen-ager snatched up the note, jammed it into his hip pocket, and stalked out of the small grocery store. Watching him go, Mr. Byrnes slowly, regretfully shook his head. “Charlie is a bad apple,” he said quietly. “I’ve known him since he was six years old, when his father took off with a secretary, for God’s sake. His mother works hard, to try and raise Charlie. She’s a good woman. But Charlie, he’s breaking her heart. And it’s going to get worse, not better. It’s obvious.”
“I agree with you.”
You know Charlie?
“No, but I believe you.”
“Yeah.” Mr. Byrnes gave a final shake of his head, then emptied her basket on the counter, and began ringing up her purchases on an old-fashioned cash register. At age sixty-three, he was a short, compactly made man, totally bald, with quick shrewd eyes and a paunch as round and solid as a medicine ball. He walked with a rolling, bandy-legged swagger, and talked with a brusque, salty directness, both the result of years spent on the docks, working as a stevedore. A year ago, when two knife-wielding heroin addicts tried to rob him, Mr. Byrnes used the cut-down baseball bat that he kept under the counter to break one of the hoodlum’s collar bones. The other hoodlum had run—with Mr. Byrnes in hot pursuit. Peter heard the shouts, and ran out into the street to join the chase. When Mr. Byrnes had been forced to stop running, winded, Peter had taken up the baseball bat, finally cornering the hoodlum in a parking lot, holding him at bay until the police arrived. Ever since, Mr. Byrnes and Peter had been friends. At least once a week, after the store was closed, the two men emptied a bottle of red wine in the storeroom, telling stories of the docks.
“You don’t have any scallions in the refrigerator, do you?” Denise asked.
“Sorry. I won’t have any until tomorrow. Anything else?”
“No, thanks.”
“Eleven forty-five, please.”
She put twelve dollars on the counter, and dropped the change into her coin purse. With her purchases bagged, Mr. Byrnes pushed the brown paper sack across the counter. “Where’s Peter, anyhow? It’s been a week, at least, since I’ve seen him.”
“He’s up in Mendocino. He’s taking some time off from work, to write.”
“Is that where he’s got his cabin? Mendocino?”
“Yes.”
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before he decided to ask: “How’s Peter doing, anyhow, with his writing?”
She shrugged. “It’s a tough business, Mr. Byrnes. Considering the time he’s been trying—really trying—I think he’s done as well as most. But—still—it’s tough.”
Mr. Byrnes nodded. “I can see that. I mean, if it was easy—just writing TV scripts, and sending them in, and getting paid—then everyone’d be doing it. Right?”
She smiled—wistfully, she knew. It had been eight days since Peter had left. She missed hearing him around the apartment—missed feeling him beside her in the night. She missed the touch of his hands, caressing her naked body.
“Peter’s smart, though,” Mr. Byrnes was saying. “He’s got class, you know? Not polish, especially—not sophistication, or anything like that. But he’s—” He waved a short, muscular arm. “He’s got things on his mind, you know? He’s a thinker. And people like that, they should do something with what they’re thinking and feeling. Otherwise, it’s a waste.”
Once more she smiled, pleased. “I agree with you, Mr. Byrnes. I agree completely.”
“You’ve got class, too,” he announced. He spoke matter-of-factly, almost reluctantly. As if to demonstrate that he was speaking seriously, not frivolously.
“Thank you.”
Reinforcing his serious intent, he nodded sternly. “You’re welcome.” He let a beat pass, then said, “Did I ever tell you that I knew Eric Hoffer, when I was working on the docks?”
“No. But Peter told me. Were you friends?”
“I can’t say we were ever friends. He kept pretty, much to himself. He was always thinking, you know? Just like Peter. But, on the other hand, I knew Eric as well as anyone, I guess.”
“Did he talk about his philosophy?”
Mr. Byrnes shook his head. “Not really. I mean, he didn’t talk philosophically-or anything like that. But, every once in a while, if you got him started, he’d talk about politics, and how people lived. And, mostly, how they should live. He’s got very strong opinions, I can tell you that. Very strong opinions.”
“Well—” She reached for the groceries. “I’d better be going.”
/> But, before she lifted the sack, he said, “That must be your mother, that was with you in the car yesterday.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“A fine-looking woman.” He smiled. “It runs in the family, Denise. There’s a resemblance. No fooling.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s—ah—staying with you when Peter’s away writing. Is that it?”
“Yes.” She lifted the sack. “Something like that.”
“Well, when Peter calls, say hello for me, will you?”
“I wish he could, Mr. Byrnes. But there isn’t any phone in the cabin. There isn’t even any electricity.”
“Oh. Well—” Once more, he smiled. “Well, then, we’ll both of us’ll have to wait, until he comes home.”
She returned the smile, nodded, and walked to the door. As she turned back to close the door, she saw Mr. Byrnes watching her. He was frowning, as if he were worried. Was it because Peter was gone, and Mr. Byrnes didn’t like to see her alone?
Or was it because of the bottle of gin she carried—her mother’s ration for the day?
“Tonight,” she said, “I’ll do the dishes. You go into the living room, Mother. Relax.”
Her mother put up a hand. “No. You relax, Denise. You did them last night. And, besides, it’s been years since I’ve done dishes. I like to do them. Really.” As she said it, she smiled—too brightly. Across the table, dressed in a Chinese silk housecoat, with pearls at her throat and red silk slippers on her feet, her mother could have been costumed for a Noel Coward play. Every hair was in place. Her makeup was flawless. As she lifted her coffee cup, diamond rings caught the light, flashing blue-white. The dialogue, too, could have come from a drawing room comedy: stilted and mannered. Communicating nothing. Saying nothing, really.
Mothers and daughters—eternal strangers, someone had said.
Sunk in one of his dark moods, Peter had once said that, at bottom, everyone was a stranger. Each man and each woman went through life alone, he’d said, sentenced to a lifetime of solitude. She’d protested the point. Sometimes, with Peter held close and precious, inside her—soaring far beyond herself in wordless ecstasy—she felt that, really, they were one. Yet, even as he held her, she hadn’t told him what she’d been thinking—thus proving his point. And then she’d …
“… doing any work,” her mother was saying.
She blinked her eyes back into focus, turning toward her mother. “I’m sorry, Mother. What’d you say?”
“You were wool gathering, weren’t you?” her mother said brightly. “You were always a wool gatherer, even when you were young. Always a daydreamer.” She nodded over the reminiscence, her meticulously painted lips curved in a fixed, false smile. Now she sipped her coffee, and placed her cup carefully in her saucer. At the beginning of the meal, she’d fumbled with her silverware, and slurred her speech. Now, though, her speech was clearer, her gestures more controlled. It was all part of an inexorable routine that had emerged during their eight days together. Her mother would sleep until ten, then spend the next two hours bathing, dressing, and applying her makeup. After a light lunch, her mother watched Days of Our Lives—her only indulgence, she always said. Apparently the TV program marked the end of her self-imposed period of daily abstinence. Because, immediately afterward, her mother began finding excuses to go into the kitchen, where the gin bottle was kept, in the cupboard. By that time, the bottle had been opened, but the contents remained untouched. It was Denise’s job to open the bottle. Each of them must play her assigned role in this daily farce—this exercise in an elaborate ritual of deceit. The bottle must always be open, perhaps because access implied acceptance. Or resignation. Or despair.
Throughout the afternoon, the gin would slowly disappear, as if consumed by some invisible visitor. As the hours between Days of Our Lives and dinner passed, her mother’s laughter trilled higher, her voice warbled more loudly, more fatuously. Her movements became steadily less precise, more pathetic—until dinnertime finally arrived, a reprieve for both of them. Her mother never drank during meals, not even wine. So the food helped, temporarily soaking up the gin. During dinner, they could manage polite conversation, both of them able to counterfeit an interest in what the other was saying—as she was doing now:
“What’d you say?” she repeated. “About work?”
“I was saying that I haven’t seen you doing any work, since I’ve been here. When do you take your pictures?”
“I’m taking the week off.”
“Now, Denise—” Her mother raised her hand, prettily shaking a manicured forefinger over the remains of her dinner. “Now, I absolutely forbid you to change your routine because I’m here. You’re a very busy person. I know that. I realize that. You’re a successful photographer. And I’m proud of you, for that. And your father is proud of you, too. Very, very proud.”
Looking at her mother’s face with its makeup applied in layers, like a mummer’s mask worn to conceal an abiding misery beneath, she let a long moment pass before she decided to say, “Is he?”
“Is he what?”
“Is he proud of me?”
“Why—” Her mother frowned, puzzled. “Why, yes. Of course. He’s always been proud of you. Ever since you were a little girl, he’s been proud of you.” A brief, reproachful pause followed. Then, solemnly: “You know that, Denise.”
Another moment of silence passed while she looked at her mother. Did she really believe it? Dressed in her make-believe party clothing, smiling her make-believe smile, did her mother really believe that they were one big, happy family? Was that the bogus boon gin conferred? Had years of living from one drink to the next made her mother believe that her father loved them?
Suddenly she must know.
She must find out the truth.
But slowly—slowly:
“Is Dad proud of Elton, too?”
“Why, yes.” Now her mother was fluttering her eyes: a Southern belle impersonation, lacking only the coyly simpering smile behind the fluttering fan. “Yes, of course he’s proud of Elton. Why, Elton is doing wonders, on The Hour. He’s the musical director, you know. He’s been musical director for almost two years.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that Dad’s proud of him, though. It could just mean that Elton’s thirty-two years old. He’s been a soloist since he was eight. That’s a long time, without a promotion.”
The simpering mask suddenly began to slip. The fake smile faltered, and finally faded, as if her makeup had softened, and might soon begin to dissolve, leaving her face naked, defenseless.
“If you don’t think your father’s proud of Elton, Denise, then you surely must not look at The Hour every Sunday. You must not see how he smiles at Elton, and compliments him, right on camera.”
“Mother, that’s—” She broke off, by force of will lowering her voice before she said quietly, “That’s make-believe, Mother. That’s show biz. It’s all done for the camera—for syndication. For money, for God’s sake. Sure, I watch The Hour. Lately, as a matter of fact, I’ve been watching it almost every Sunday, for reasons I don’t understand myself. But I don’t see pride, when Dad beams down on Elton, and Carrie, and the grandkids. I—Christ—I see dollar signs. He’s posing for the camera. That—that’s what he does. That’s his business.”
“Denise, you sound as if you hate your father. Really hate him.” Her mother spoke in a low, hushed voice, fearful of what she was saying.
“I don’t hate him, Mother. But I don’t respect him, either. How can I, when I see what he’s done to you?”
As she said it, she saw her mother wince. The false light faded from her eyes, replaced by a stricken shadow. In the silence that followed, she saw her mother’s eyes flee to the door, involuntarily seeking escape. It was the kitchen door, not the door to the hallway. Now her mother was losing control of her mouth. The brightly painted lips began to tremble.
She’d done it.
After eight days, she’d finally done it: stripped
her mother of all her elaborately constructed pretenses—all her weak, pitiful defenses.
Why?
Was it revenge for some half-remembered wrong? Simple sadism? Something else?
Her mother sat with her hands clasped before her on the table, fingers intertwined. Her eyes were downcast, fixed helplessly on her writhing hands. When she finally spoke, it was in a low, indistinct voice:
“You’ve always been hard, Denise. You’re strong—but you’re hard. You don’t understand weakness. Maybe you can’t forgive weakness.”
“Mother, I—”
“Elton’s weak. And, when he was younger, he could be mean. But he’s not hard. He doesn’t judge people.”
“Mother, I’m not judging you. I—if anything—I’m judging Dad.”
“You’re blaming your father for my—” She broke off, once more letting her furtive glance flick toward the kitchen door. Then: “You’re blaming him for my—problem. But that’s not fair, Denise. It’s not right.”
“My God, Mother, you’re more of a Christian than he is. Do you realize that? Because, for sure, he blames you for your problem.”
Your problem.
It was as close as either of them had gotten to admitting that, yes, her mother was an alcoholic.
This, then, was why Alcoholics Anonymous started their litany with the statement that, yes, they were alcoholics.
But what of her problem? Was she really unsympathetic, unable to understand weakness in others, and therefore unable to forgive them their faults?
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
As always, the Bible said it better—more concisely, with more flair, more punch, more style.
“Do you want me to go home, Denise? Is that what you want?” With her eyes still fastened helplessly on her twisting fingers, Katherine spoke in a voice hardly more than a whisper.
She sighed: a long, deep exhalation, infinitely regretful. Yes, she wanted her mother to go home. Desperately. Yes, she wanted Peter to come back from Mendocino, and take her to bed, and make love to her. Desperately.
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