Billy Goat Hill

by Mark Stanleigh Morris

  New ground. “You mean my favorite of all time?”

  “No, only those made between 1960 and 1965. Of course, I mean of all time.”

  Her smile is a carbon copy of how I remembered Miss Cherry’s smile. I have been noticing how much she reminds me of Miss Cherry. Except for her hair color and skin tone, they could easily pass for mother and daughter.

  “No question about it, my favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz.”

  Her eyes shimmered with approval. “You’re kidding?”

  “Your favorite, too?”

  She nodded and smiled a little more invitingly than before. “I adore The Wizard of Oz.” My radar blipped in reaction to an alluring shift of her posture as she leaned across the table toward me.

  It turned out we were an incredible match on Oz trivia. Neither could stump the other as we dazzled back and forth, trading our knowledge of obscure details. We even agreed on the most controversial aspect of the movie. The shift from black and white to color was a stroke of genius.

  Inhibitions dissolved, we bartered over who should eat the last slice of pizza. “You win,” she said, after I negotiated successfully for a pepperoni-flavored kiss.

  Matched halves of a wondrous geode we have become, and lying here sharing Melissa’s moonlight, I am filled to repletion, aching memories distanced, supplanted by the calming intensity of her.

  Melissa sleeps, as I learned she always will, after we make love. Now, watching her slumber, her skin rippling in hues of gray with the breezy shifts of the curtain, I think only of the good things from my past. I smile at the ceiling. This is my paradise, her sleeping, me watching her sleep and feeling wonderful.

  Melissa guessed correctly—I identify with the Tin Man. I am the Tin Man. Jack Haley does a perfect rendition of me. With a heart like Dorothy’s, bigger than Kansas, Melissa takes me into hers and shows me that she has more than enough heart for both of us. I marvel over how she so skillfully presses me to reveal my feelings. While she busied herself with that last slice of pizza, I gobbled up the attention as any fool would—though I feared that I had made a real fool of myself.

  She loves the Tin Man, of course she does. She is the embodiment of Dorothy, and her Dorothy-like sweetness and empathy utterly overwhelm me. No woman has ever opened me up in this way…and soon she has me in tears. The Tin Man character is a metaphor of my life. Like the Tin Man, I am so emotionally rusted I cannot move. Then Melissa comes along with the oilcan.

  She shifts in her sleep and gradually awakens. “Can’t sleep?”

  I nod.

  “Want to tell me the story again?”

  I gaze appreciatively into her eyes, and I begin at the beginning, knowing she will listen with such faith that when I am done, I’ll once again see a beautiful sky in the middle of the storm.

  Again, I tell her everything.

  Again, she understands…everything.

  Matthew…

  Earl…

  Lucinda…

  The murder…

  The Sergeant…

  Miss Cherry…

  All of my misgivings, failings, guilt…all of it vents like molten lava, spewing from deep within my tormented core, flowing into my sea of ruin, churning and boiling an ocean of pain into steam.

  She holds me tight and takes it all off of my shoulders with eyes so comforting—windows of wisdom, pools of compassion, two-way mirrors that both absorb and reflect my deepest feelings. Her loving spirit envelops me, and I truly feel as though she were with me through all the bad years, sharing my losses, my pain, and my need.

  The only time she ever cries—and even so she does it with great strength—is when I completely break down and tell her, again, how Mac died.

  She drifts back to sleep under a blanket of moonlight, and her breathing plays upon my ears like a lullaby. She is beautiful, smart, incredibly honest, sensitive, and kind. But in my long-entrenched mode of self-punishment, I struggle not to think of her loving me as an undeserved gift. I lie here next to her, counting my blessings, thankful for having her, but I cannot pretend that everything is okay.

  I know full well that Melissa’s loving me does not mean I am healed. Even with Melissa and everything she represents as good in my life, I still find myself coveting the childhood I lost. As cancer is to tissue, so unshriven sin is to the soul, and not even the love of a great woman can absolve me of my sin.

  The radio sits next to me on the nightstand. I remember how I kept it on my pillow that April Fools’ night after Luke and I celebrated our good fortune—the Dodgers tickets. I treasure the radio most of the time as a symbol of the precious memories, the minority memories that are forever seeking to be heard over the clamor of guilt, resentment, and regret. But the radio is also capable of conjuring up painful images from the past, and I have come close to smashing it to bits more than once. An inanimate object made in Japan, well made in Japan the Sergeant had argued, whose mere existence is at times an act of complicity in the perpetual haunting of Wade Parker.

  A far more dependable friend is leaning in the corner of the room, a friend as faithful as Mac and always within arm’s reach—the bat Duke Snider gave to me. I can just make it out in the shadows. I smile as the images of that magnificent day at Dodger Stadium rewind and replay in my mind. The bat is a symbol, too. It stands for truth and virtue. It is my private treasure, my personal proof that some dreams can come true. What would Duke Snider say if he knew the bat had been used for more than just hitting baseballs? I smile at the ceiling again.

  I wonder about Miss Cherry and the Sergeant. I have never let go of them, and they rise up now as I toy with the little silver ball bearing. Not long ago, I drilled a hole through the ball bearing and turned it into a piece of jewelry. I wear it around my neck on a leather thong. Melissa likes the way it dances on her skin when I hover over her in the dark.

  She knows all about the ball bearing and isn’t afraid of it at all. “Superstition is born of ignorance,” she likes to say. “Someday, when you’re ready, you will get rid of that thing.”

  I take another swig of Red Mountain and glance over at the bat. I get a sudden rush of sorrow—Duke Snider hasn’t made it to the Hall of Fame. I wanted him to be elected in his first year of eligibility. You’ll get in Duke, one of these years… when those idiot sportswriters are ready to acknowledge your greatness. If they only knew what you did for me.

  Another big gulp of wine pushes me beyond the special zone. My pattern of self-punishment has become pathetically formulaic, and my drinking is steadily getting worse. Why am I so powerless to do anything about it?

  Luke is worried about me. “Don’t let the booze get you like it got Earl, Wade.” If I’ve heard him say it once, I’ve heard him say it a thousand times.

  “Don’t worry, I’m nothing like Earl, or Lucinda,” I tell him, but he sees right through me.

  “You drink like Earl, and you refuse to talk about it like Lucinda. How much more like them can you get?”

  He has no idea how deeply that truth hurts. “I love you too, Luke.”

  Watching Melissa sleep, I know it’s not for the lack of a good woman that I cannot heal my pillaged spirit—that much had been established way back when Miss Cherry was involved in my life. Yet if there is no cure for me, at least watching Melissa sleep is a temporary remedy. It treats my symptoms.

  She turns again, fussing like a snoozing feline trying to get comfortable lying on her stomach. The way she shifts around in her sleep makes me chuckle.

  Slowly she opens her eyes. “Still can’t sleep?”

  I smile and nod. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  For the first time since the tragedy of Three Ponds, I have someone I trust, someone who loves me despite knowing about my unspeakable secret. While men are walking on the moon, I thank God for my one special blessing. I think I can go on…as long as I don’t lose Melissa.

  Sometimes certain things you hear stick in your mind and won’t go away, ever—e
ven when you’re drunk. There was a guy I knew, a drinking acquaintance, who while sitting at the bar one night turned to me and said, “Alcohol is a strange poison. Short of causing you to run your car into an abutment or a tree, it kills you slowly, while being your very best friend.”

  Later that night, he flipped his car into a ditch and broke his neck. He left behind a loving wife and five wonderful kids. It sticks in my mind, what he said—I, too, have become a husband, and now a father. Melissa and I have a beautiful baby daughter, Kate. But—I keep drinking.

  The truth is, alcohol has become a ubiquitous force in my life. In a vicious partnership with the nightmares that never went away, it has seized control of me, and my existence is gradually filtering down to the dregs of saloon culture, one step above but only a short stagger away from the gutter.

  Carl, you were a better man than I. Earl, you’re still in third, but I’m slipping fast.

  Melissa continues to prove her love for me on a daily basis. She is a persistent soul, harmonizing with Luke to drive me up the wall with their constant urging that I get counseling.

  “We don’t want to lose you,” they say.

  “You both worry too much.”

  “I worry for Kate, honey. What if she lost her daddy? I know you don’t want that to happen.”

  “What about me, Wade? You’re the only brother I have.”

  A couple of guiltmongers. “I don’t want counseling.”

  My argument is steadfast and logical. I don’t believe in psychology. It’s nothing but unscientific mumbo jumbo, a so-called profession teeming with charlatans more twisted than I. Any treatment of what ails me—whether by a shrink, a priest, a gypsy, or an extraterrestrial being—will require my confessing that I have committed the heinous crime of murder.

  No. The atrocity at Three Ponds, as I have come to think of it, must remain my private sin. To me, it sounds like the title of a true crime novel—The Atrocity at Three Ponds! It sickens me to think that I could be the villain in one of those pitiful blood-and-gore tomes.

  So here I am, pestered by my wife and brother, while destined to run with the boys in the bottle—Beam, Walker, Grand-Dad, Turkey, and Parker, the den of fools—until something, somebody, somehow, someday rips my wings off and puts me inside the bottle like the guilty insect I have become. No question about it…I am the offspring of Earl and Lucinda Parker. Earl—the drunk, and Lucinda—the stubborn mute. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Wade—the drunk who refuses to talk about it.

  As accurate as Melissa and Luke are, I try not to think about turning out just like Earl. In the comparison I find a brutal shiv of truth, a razor sharp burr that cuts away at my heart and unravels my poorly knitted pride.

  On the outside I am, of course, the life of the party. Only Melissa—my sweet, beautiful, kind, loving Melissa—knows the depth of the guilt that holds the mortgage on my sanity and cruelly shuffles the index of my dreams. At times I feel even Duke Snider, along with the Sergeant and Miss Cherry, have abandoned me. I think of all of them often, especially at night as I prepare to battle against my dreams.

  Sometimes I imagine them as my guardians, my protectors. I make them into powerful scarecrows and station them around my field of slumber. They are supposed to ward off the incessant, airborne carnivores that feed on my mind and rob me of much needed rest, much like Luke’s mockingbirds of lore swarmed about his crimson crown. My rapacious oppressors are crowlike thieves, attracted to all things shiny—silverware, jewelry, buttons, and the omnipresent ball bearing, which now hangs around my neck on a sterling silver chain.

  One of the worst nightmares involves a hideous, foul-smelling vulture whose head is that of the dead man of Three Ponds. The vulture circles me for hours, days, tormenting me from the sky, its shadow looping around me, around and around, hypnotizing me until finally I can no longer stay awake. Then, in a dream inside the dream, the huge vulture lands on my chest, its talons pinning me to the ground, and rips the tendons out of my neck as it attempts to steal the shiny ball bearing. I wake up from the dream inside a dream screaming through a ragged gash in my throat, while the dead man-vulture laughs at me. If only I could remove that symbol of my crime and cast it into the sea. Would then I be free?

  Melissa has faith. “One day you’ll be able to let go of the past. I know you will. I’ll always love you, no matter what.” She tells me that more often than Luke repeats his warnings.

  The only thing “in the past” is the medicinal value of the alcohol. Now the booze acts as a turbocharger in my brain, a distilled catalyst inciting my nightmares to heightened levels of torture. Even during my waking hours I slip deeper and deeper into a semi-lucid, leper-like state of isolation. My internal psychologist, whom I despise, tells me I am teetering dangerously on the psychotic.

  Luke continues to warn, Melissa continues to urge counseling, and eventually they do get to me with the Kate-losing-her-daddy argument. Why I have to lie in order to deal with it I don’t know, but I end up concocting a story about having a close call with a telephone pole one blurry night. With my fingers crossed behind my back, I promise Melissa I won’t drink and drive anymore. A self-serving ulterior motive lurks within the false promise. It means she will have to come to the bar with me, something I have long been hoping for. Except for a sip or two of wine at home, Melissa doesn’t drink, which makes her an ideal chaperone for a fun-craving alcoholic.

  She takes the bait. “They can call me an enabler if they want to, but I’m going to do everything I can to keep a telephone pole from taking my daughter’s father away from her.”

  In actuality, our daughter, Kate, probably spends more time with Luke and his new bride, Trish, than she spends with us. They found out Luke was sterile after a year of trying, and Luke almost seemed relieved when he delivered the news. Always the philosopher, he laughed it off, proclaiming himself to be the last in the Parker line to suffer the curse of the mockingbirds. Uncle Luke adores Kate, and the free supply of baby-sitting gives Melissa complete freedom to baby-sit me. In the mirror I see something worse than a self-serving drunk; I see a shameless drunk. I see Earl.

  It would break Esther’s heart to know how much like Carl I’ve turned out to be, a happy drunk and usually harmless, except perhaps to myself. Putting aside the one infamous shooting-at-the-cosmonaut incident, Carl was a functional, punctual, reasonably responsible drinker. I, however, am known to occasionally end up in the sheriff substation drunk tank, especially when Melissa is not available to accompany me to the tavern. The only thing that saves me from being shipped out to the Los Angeles county jail downtown is a deputy sheriff by the name of Bob Serrano.

  Bob is a recovering alcoholic, who, for reasons only he and God know, goes out of his way to watch out for me. Bob always manages to intercede and make sure I’m kept in a substation cell to sleep it off. County jail is no place for a nice guy from Highland Park like me, according to Bob. Some might argue Bob does more to enable me than Melissa does.

  Booze is a strange poison, and its insidious, cumulative wear is taking a toll.

  They say a drunk has to hit bottom before he can start to climb back up. I slammed on the bottom one night at a place called Busters Bonanza Room, a classic neighborhood watering hole in San Dimas, California. It had not been a good day, beginning with a minor fender bender in the morning caused by another one of my “odd sightings.”

  Over the last several years and on as many as a dozen occasions, I believe I may have seen Miss Cherry. If it is her, and I no longer believe it is, she is usually just a blur of motion, a fleeting ghost skirting along the limits of my peripheral vision. Other times she is a vague but annoyingly familiar human form that I am convinced is purposefully watching me from a distance. I used to get excited and chase after the mirage, never to catch it. Everyone knows mirages always escape, and I no longer have the courage to tell Melissa when it happens.

  Another odd sighting this morning distracted me enough to cause me to lose the rhythm of stop-and-go
traffic. The guy I rear-ended was nice enough, and the mutual bumper scratches were not worth any lost time or paperwork hassles. He did ask if I had been drinking, and when I said, “Not in years,” it was plain he didn’t believe me.

  It was the pity I saw in his eyes that triggered the ruin of my day. The man saw me the way I used to see Carl. I white-knuckled it till mid-afternoon, then needed two quick belts to quell the shaking before I called Melissa from the pay phone at Buster’s. She showed up at five-thirty based on my telephonically sworn oath that we would play three games of pool, have dinner, and then go home.

  I am finishing drink number six when Melissa shows up at Buster’s. I’m just starting to feel normal. Three hours later, Buster himself is behind the bar swearing he will cut me off if Melissa goes home without me, which she has been threatening to do for the past hour. Buster’s disapproving frown only amuses me.

  With another refill in hand, I turn around and shout across the crowded bar to Melissa. “R-r-rack’m up, baby!”

  I have to steady myself to keep from falling down. My inebriated gyroscope is bumping strangely, and for a moment there is a Babel of confusion when something pops inside my head followed by the sound of bad static. After a brief blackout moment, I manage to get my coordinates and tack my way back to the pool table.

  “Come on, honey, maybe it’s about time we head for home,” Melissa urges for the umpteenth time.

  “Soon, baby, soon.”

  “It’s a full moon.” Her eyes twinkle solicitously.

  “Just one more game, beautiful.”

  She tries everything she can think of to gain my cooperation. But her best efforts are all in vain. I am too far over the edge, and on this night I cannot be charmed or reasoned with.

  In the larger context, deep down I feel I am too far gone to be saved. Worse, I don’t believe I deserve to be saved. Once in a while, I hear Rodney’s voice or Esther’s trying to break through. But I have fought all my life against the voices of dead people, and it’s too hard to pick and choose the good voices over the bad.