Billy Goat Hill

by Mark Stanleigh Morris

  “Well golly gee whiz, praise the Lord, Bob.”

  “Exactly, though let me tell you from personal experience, the Big Guy would rather you avoid the sarcasm.”

  “So? Who put up the bail money?”

  “A woman—she’s waiting outside for you.”

  “What woman?”

  “She’s a friend of mine. I know her from AA. She’s a recovering alcoholic. I’m thinking maybe she can do you some good.”

  “Geez.”

  Bob grins again. “Try saying Jesus.”

  “Jeee-susss. Happy now?”

  “It’s a start.”

  I stand up, and my stomach reminds me just how much poison is still in me. Wino shakes turn into nervous shakes as I try to focus my mind on Melissa. Out in the hallway, I spot myself in a polished metal mirror. I look like a badly trampled throwaway from some skid row alley.

  “Can I borrow your comb, Bob? I guess if some woman I don’t even know is bailing me out of jail, the least I can do is show a little respect and comb my hair.”

  Bob reaches into his back pocket and gives me his comb. “In case you were wondering, nobody hit you in the mouth. You banged your lip on the bench last night, after we put you in the tank.”

  “What? No police brutality?”

  I show him a real grin, and he shakes his head, implying I am hopeless. I hand the comb back to him and he nudges me toward the cell door. “Remember, AA, a meeting. I’ll take you anytime. You just say when.”

  “Thanks. I’ll give it some thought. I promise I’ll really give it some serious thought.”

  “I’m praying for you every day.”

  I hear echoes of Esther’s voice.

  I take a deep breath and walk out into the holding area. Another deputy hands me a manila envelope with my name printed on it, has me sign a receipt book, then gives me the pink copy of what I signed. Bob walks me to the rear door of the jail.

  I stop suddenly at the door, my heart kicking hard from a new jolt of panic. I turn back to Bob, my red eyes pleading, hoping. “Do you know what happened to my bat?”

  He shakes his head and gives me a look that strongly suggests I am beyond his ability to help. “I was hoping you’d forget about the bat.”

  “Never.”

  “It should be locked up in evidence, but I put it in the trunk of your car last night. It’s still parked in front of Buster’s. Your car keys are in the envelope.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can thank me by going to a meeting with me.”

  “I’ll tell you this much, I’ll do whatever it takes to get Melissa back.”

  Bob swats the back of my head and backs away, giving me my leave. I stand at the back door of the jail shaking enough to rattle the keys in the envelope.

  “She’s right outside the door, Wade. She’s been waiting for almost an hour. Go on, I think you’ll be quite surprised by how much she cares.”

  I push on the door. “Thanks again.”

  “God bless you, Wade,” Bob calls from the echoing innards of the jail.

  Why would a stranger shell out a thousand dollars to bail me out of jail?

  y breath catches in my throat. Not again.

  This time the mirage is no more than twenty feet from me. It turns toward me and smiles. I close my bloodshot eyes and open them again. The mirage is still there. “Miss Cherry?”

  “Hello, Wade.”

  This isn’t real… I have to quit drinking… Bob doesn’t know the half of it. I stare in disbelief. I reach out and run my hand through the image, expecting it to ripple away like vapor. She waves back and steps toward me. She is real!

  She looks much older, but still exquisite. I picture her as I saw her that first night on Billy Goat Hill, climbing off that big motorcycle and standing in the circle of headlights. She was a beautiful angel descending from paradise. I relive the rhapsody of her first words to me. “How old are you, honey?”

  So many years ago it was, and still the smell of her perfume stored away in a vial somewhere deep in my brain releases and flows over my memory. I breathe deep and recall the pleasure and the terror of that first encounter. The mix of emotion is the same at this very moment.

  I have longed to see her, as a lost toddler must long to be reunited with its mother, but I am so shocked by this unexpected revelation she may as well have thundered down on me in the darkness of my dreams on a motorcycle embroiled in a billowing cloud of dust. This is a miracle.

  “How?…What?…Uh, I never expected to see you again.”

  “It’s been a long, long time. How do I look?”

  Her voice is exactly as I remember it, so familiar to my ears that the years of separation seem hardly more than a week. I am speechless. My mushy brain can’t process what is happening fast enough. I walked out of the jail wanting to immediately find Melissa and beg for her forgiveness. But this development is such a shock my priorities are suddenly tangled and conflicted.

  I darn near say, “Real sharp, ma’am,” but somehow manage a coherent sentence. “As beautiful as in all of my dreams.”

  The compliment suits her, possibly makes her blush, though it could be the bloodshot filters I’m looking through. “I can’t say the same about you, young man. You’ve grown into a handsome prince. Except right now you look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

  “Maybe I have.”

  She hugs me and it is strange, not the way I remember her hugs. I am much taller than her now, the reverse of the last time she hugged me.

  “Thanks for bailing me out—I guess.”

  “I want to hear all about it.”

  “How much time do you have? It’s a very long story.”

  “For you, I have the rest of my life.”

  With less than a modicum of shame, I ask, “Would you like to go have a drink somewhere?”

  “I can see we have our work cut out for us, don’t we?”

  “I need to find my wife. I need a drink. I need to get my car. And I need to apologize to Buster, the owner of the bar I terrorized last night. Maybe not exactly in that order, though.” My mind is spinning.

  “Come on.” She takes my hand. “My car’s over there. You can show me the way to this Buster place. I guess we can accomplish three of those things in one stop.”

  “I really screwed up.”

  “I’ve been there.”

  “Do you remember the bat that Duke Snider gave to me?”

  “Ha! How could I forget it?”

  “They say I beaned my wife with the bat, but she’s supposedly okay. I must have completely lost it. I don’t remember a thing.”

  “I know all about what happened. Your wife already told me.”

  “You’ve talked to Melissa?”

  “Yes, at length, and she sounds like a wonderful lady.”

  “She is wonderful. But how did you know about this? I mean, you showing up here is amazing. It’s too good to be true.”

  “I’m an investigator, or was, anyway. Remember?”

  That angers me. “No way, ma’am—that’s not good enough. The Sergeant always used to put me off that way. I’m not a dumb, naive kid anymore. Well, I’m not a naive kid, anyway.”

  “I’ll tell you this much, Wade. You need help. And I think I can give you some, if you’re willing to accept it. Your wife asked me to bail you out, but she’s not coming back to you. Not just yet, anyway. She and your daughter are staying with your mother-in-law. She doesn’t want to talk to you right now, not until she’s convinced you are serious about cleaning up your act. So it looks like you’re stuck with me for the moment. Okay?”

  Feeling angry and powerless, I look away from her. “Yeah? Well, why should I trust you? Why should I believe anything you have to say? Where have you been all these years?”

  “Not far away.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Trying to keep my head on straight—staying sober.”

  “So it’s true then, you’re not a cop anymore?”

  “T
hat’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m sorry, Wade, but I can’t really talk about that.”

  I look back toward the jail door. At least I knew where I stood in jail. I feel like walking away from her, leaving her right here in the parking lot. She sounds way too much like Lucinda. No answers. But what am I going to do, run away from home? Get a job at a car wash? I turn and look at her again. “Can’t talk about it or won’t talk about it?”

  “Wouldn’t you rather focus your mind on how to bring your wife and daughter back home where they belong?”

  “What about the Sergeant, then? Do you happen to know anything about him—that you care to share with me, that is?”

  Now she looks away. “No. We split up long ago.”

  “I tried for years to find both of you. The way things happened, the way my mom made us move from Ruby Place and wouldn’t let us see you guys anymore, really hurt me. Now, after all these years, you find me a drunken jailbird and say you want to help me?”

  “We have all the time in the world to get to know each other again.” She takes my hand and tugs me toward her car. “Tell me how to get to this bar of yours.”

  Her hand is warm and soft, just as I remember it. It is not possible to stay angry with her.

  In the car the initial shock dissipates, and my emotions level back to somewhere this side of numb, normal enough to remind me I have a fat lip and a major hangover. “Your last name is Webster?”

  “Yes.”

  “I tried to find you once.”

  “I’m sorry for all that you’ve been through.”

  “I went to the Highland Park police station. They wouldn’t help me, but they did tell me it would be best to stay away from you, that you and the Sergeant got into some trouble. What was that all about?”

  “Maybe someday I’ll be able to talk about it, but I’ve been working hard to put that part of my life behind me. I have lots of regrets, lots of guilt, and some good memories, too.”

  “Did you and the Sergeant ever get married?”

  She shifts in her seat and looks at me. I see pain. “No, we never did.”

  “So, you never had any kids either?”

  “No.”

  “You would have been a good mother.”

  “Maybe.” She looks at me, her face red, eyes tearing. It might as well be Lucinda sitting there.

  “So, everything went wrong. I don’t understand any of it. I guess you knew about the break-in at our house and about Mac?”

  “Yes, I did. But Lyle and I, for administrative reasons, were not allowed to work the case.”

  “Administrative reasons?”

  “Because we knew you, your family. It’s standard procedure not to assign investigators who have a personal relationship with the victims.”

  “We were victimized alright. None of it has ever made any sense to me. The first half of my life was shrouded in mystery and the second half isn’t a heck of a lot better—so far.”

  She tries to smile. “There is the future.”

  “Yes. Depressing, isn’t it?” I need that drink.

  “It certainly is if you continue to drink yourself to death.”

  “I’ll be all right. I’m a survivor.”

  I look out the window and tears begin to flow. She pulls to the curb and parks the car. No more words. We both just sit there and cry for a few minutes.

  A guy from a glass company is up on a ladder, removing broken glass from the front window of Buster’s Bonanza Room when we drive into the parking lot. My car is parked at the far end of the lot. We enter through the back door. I don’t deserve to use the front door.

  Buster is none to happy to see me. “Are you here to pay for the damages?”

  “I’m here to apologize and to have a drink. This is Cherry Webster.”

  Buster looks at Cherry. “No offense to you ma’am, but…Wade, you’re no longer welcome here. The next time I see you, I expect it to be the last time, and you better have three hundred dollars in your hand when you come through the door.”

  “It’s your place.”

  “Yes it is, and your failure to respect that is the reason you are banned from my place for life.”

  “I’ve been banned my whole life, Buster. But for what it’s worth, I am sorry for what I did last night.”

  “Apology accepted. I hope your wife heals up fine.”

  Cherry opens her purse and lays three hundred dollars cash on the bar. “I would prefer he not come back here ever,” she says.

  She gives me a determined look, and her eyes say any protest by me will be a total waste of breath.

  Buster smiles and picks up the cash. “We’re good then.”

  We exit the bar and walk to my car. I pop the trunk to make sure the bat is there. It is. Thank you, Bob. I stand there feeling empty and lost, beyond the comfort of thoughts about my childhood hero, Duke Snider.

  And all at once the totality of my circumstance comes in a flash of sad clarity. I have been banned from my favorite watering hole, but more important I have hit a new bottom, a bottom lower than I ever thought possible. If I fall any lower I will be dead. I think of the two people who tried to help me in the past, Rodney and Esther, and the spiritual thread that links them as one in my mind. I see them both, hear their voices and their hearts crying out to me, and there, standing at the back of my car in the parking lot of a saloon I am no longer welcome in, with a woman who once meant more to me than my own mother, I realize just how powerless I am to save myself. I still may not be able to say it out loud, but inside myself I admit I am defeated.

  Miss Cherry is very quiet, her eyes are closed, and I’d say she is praying, if I weren’t so sure I thought I knew better. She leans against the car fender, and despite my woe I am again struck by how beautiful she still is. A question spills over my lips and startles me as much if not more than it does her. “What do you know about—God?”

  She opens her eyes, and I think possibly she was praying. “Well, through AA I’ve come to believe God is real, but I’m still working on understanding who He is. I believe God helped me admit I was powerless over alcohol and gave me back my sanity, yet I’m still defiant and haven’t completely turned my will over to His care.”

  “Do you pray?”

  She looks at me and warms my heart with a shy little smile. “Yes, but not often enough. Mostly I pray for wisdom to surrender and allow Him completely into my life.”

  “Do you really think you can help me?”

  “With God’s help, I promise I’ll do everything in my power to help you, but only you can decide when you are ready to be helped.”

  “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “I began by talking to God.”

  Geez. “I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.”

  She grins. “What are your options?”

  Part of me wants to grin back, but what’s left of my pride won’t let me. A ridiculous shrug and an equally intelligent, “I don’t know,” is all I can come up with.

  “Well, we both know life is an adventure, and my mother always used to say all great adventures must begin with a feast. How does the idea of putting something solid in your stomach sound?”

  “That would be a good thing, I guess.”

  A few minutes later we get situated in a back booth at a Denny’s. No cocktail lounge on the premises. “How is your mom these days?” Miss Cherry asks.

  “Okay, I guess. We didn’t speak for many years. I was very angry with her, still am. The way she refused to explain or give reasons for anything—well, I still blame her for a lot. I ran away when I was sixteen and never looked back. ”

  “Is her health up to code? Is she happy?”

  “She’s never been happy since our little brother died. As far as I know, she’s physically healthy.”

  “Do you see her?”

  “You still act like a cop.”

  “I’m just interested in you.”

  “Lucinda was invited to our wedding,
and she and Melissa hit it off pretty well. Melissa worked on me for several years and ended up mediating something of a truce. At first I did it only to appease Melissa and make her happy. Now I talk with my mom on the phone on occasion, and we’ve gotten together by ourselves a few times. I try to keep things superficial, or I end up getting frustrated and angry. She still refuses to talk about the past.”

  “I see. That’s better than nothing.”

  “Not much.”

  Our food arrives at the table. Miss Cherry seems as grateful for the break as I am. She says a short prayer of thanks over the food and continues the interrogation. “So—tell me about your daughter.”

  “Her name is Kate. She’s five and cute as can be. She looks so much like her mother it’s spooky. Kate has become a connecting point for my mom and me. My mom adores her only grandchild.”

  “That is way better than nothing, it’s wonderful!”

  “Yeah, my mom and I do spend some time talking about Kate. She says Kate’s personality reminds her of me when I was that age. A little schemer, she calls her. I will say this, Kate is very resourceful.”

  “That’s a good word to describe the way I used to think of you—resourceful.”

  “How so?”

  “For one thing, you had to be resourceful to slide down the Crippler in the dark.”

  I just about choke. “You know, I never did do that—in the dark, I mean.”

  “I won’t tell.” She laughs. “You were the champion cardboard slider though, and I’d say that is the accomplishment of an incredibly resourceful person.”

  “I’ll accept that.”

  I feel relaxed and I’m enjoying our lunch. She has managed to divert me around my most immediate crisis and get me to open up some.

  “Seriously though, you were an amazingly resourceful kid. You were the older brother who held up under the stress and strain of a collapsing family. What you did to keep it together for yourself and your brother is amazing.”

  “I’m not so sure I did as well as you suggest.”

  “You were fantastic, but you also paid a heavy price. I think perhaps we’re seeing the effects of your sacrifice now.”

  “I didn’t make any sacrifices—I didn’t have any choice.”