Vickie drained the last of her drink. “I’ll take it,” she said.
“You will?” Kasha said.
“It’s this one, or nothing,” Vickie said. “My brother will be here in a few minutes. Can you have it ready that fast?”
Kasha was momentarily caught off balance. It wasn’t every day a woman pulled up in a limo and selected the most expensive vehicle on the floor the way an adult might select an ice cream cone for a child.
“By the way,” Vickie said. “How fast is it?”
“That’s the Roadster,” Kasha said. “It’s got a V-12. It’ll blow away anything out there.”
“That’s good,” Vickie said.
“Don’t you want to hear the price?”
“No,” Vickie said.
“I feel I should tell you the price,” Kasha said. “It’s a little over a hundred and fifty thousand.”
“That’s fine,” Vickie said. “Have the car ready for my brother when he gets here. He’s a short, muscular blond guy named Dalk. He’ll probably have his new Sergeant’s badge clipped on his belt. He thinks he’s meeting me here. He doesn’t know about the car. I want it to be a surprise. Thanks for the drink.”
“Thank you,” Kasha said.
“There’s one other thing,” Vickie said.
“Name it,” Kasha said.
“When my brother gets here, I want you to confiscate that old heap he’s driving and burn it. Under no circumstances is he to be allowed to keep it.”
With that, she turned and left behind the world of leather and metal, intent on greater pursuits. “Take me back to the Valley,” she told her driver. “And drive slow. I’m going to lie back and take a little nap. When you get to Sepulveda and Vanowen, pull up to a bar--The Lamplighter. I’ll buy you a drink.”
The stretch pulled out onto Wilshire and she closed her eyes, drifting into a dreamless half-sleep, setting aside for the moment the arduous tasks of buying expensive presents and, of course, dying.
Chapter 15
A crisp, brisk breeze swept a few dry leaves across the parking lot, the energy of it quickening Vickie’s spirit as she stood on the sidewalk outside The Lamplighter. A black Ford Explorer pulled up and a middle-aged priest with a good head of hair stepped out.
“It’s been awhile, Father Larry,” she said, giving him a brief hug.
“What’s it been? A couple of years?”
“Time passes swiftly,” she said. Father Larry was right--it had been a couple of years since they’d seen each other--the last time being when the Father had celebrated her deceased husband Jack’s funeral mass.
“It’s a beautiful night,” he said.
“It is,” she said. “I’ve always felt a special magic in the air this time of year, you know, when everybody’s out picking their pumpkins and cleaning their chimneys.”
“I like the fact that we steal an hour when we set the clocks back,” he said. “At my age, being an hour younger has taken on a whole new meaning.”
“October always seems to promise everyone that perfect Saturday,” she said, “where you can spend a sunny afternoon planting bulbs and snacking on bright red apples.”
“Mulroney filled me in,” he said.
“Can you marry us?” she said.
“I can,” he said.
“Can I buy you a drink?” she said.
“That would be nice,” he said.
They went inside and hailed the bartender.
“Black coffee for me,” Father said.
“How about an espresso?”
“No thanks,” Father said. “The truth is, if I’m going to stay awake to perform your midnight wedding, I’ll need lots of caffeine, and contrary to popular belief, there’s more caffeine in a regular cup of coffee than there is in an espresso.”
“Make it two blacks,” Vickie said to the bartender. “But brew it up fresh and pre-heat the mugs before pouring. We want it to be nice and hot.” She guided Father Larry to a booth. The place was quiet--a couple of guys shooting pool in the back and a little Jeopardy on the overhead tube; the afternoon people having gone and the evening people being still at their suppers.
“I hear you’re going to die soon,” Father Larry said.
“You come right out with it, don’t you?” Vickie said.
“I’m a priest. Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s funny,” Vickie said. “Lately, I’ve been volunteering information about my condition to people around me, but it’s been awkward. You’re the first to simply sit me down and ask me if I want to talk.”
“Does it disturb you?”
“Oh no!” she said. “I’m glad. You’re the first person I’ve been around who isn’t upset by the whole thing. It makes it so much easier to be with you.”
The coffees arrived and each took an exploratory sip.
“Are you scared?” he said.
Vickie chuckled softly. Father smiled--the smile of a friend--devoid of the sympathetic saccharin most people offered.
“Death doesn’t freak you out, does it?” she said.
“Sure it does,” he said. “Death freaks everybody out. But you didn’t answer my question. Are you scared?”
Vickie chuckled some more and Father smiled some more. The chuckle expanded to a giggle. “Oh Father,” she said, struggling to get control of the giggles, “When you asked me if I was scared, I started to say I was scared to death! Do you get it? Scared to death!”
Her giggle flamed its way to her emotional powder keg and blew sky high, propelling her into full-bodied, convulsive laughter. The laughter excited a stabbing pain in her lower abdomen, a pain which grew sharper and more severe with each mirth-born heaving of her insides. “Oh!” she cried. “It hurts! I can’t stop laughing! Father! You’re watching somebody about to die of laughter right here at this table! Oh! It hurts! Oh!”
Vickie fell to the floor, doubled up and writhing, the convulsions of her laughter pushing her farther and farther into the pain until the pain pushed back with sufficient force to shut the laughter off. With the laugher gone, the pain subsided, leaving her body and soul suspended in an aftermath of great, deep, sweaty peace. Father Larry waived away the bartender and the two guys from the back room who’d rushed out to help, and by himself assisted her back into the booth, where she labored for some minutes to return to some semblance of normal.
“I’ve been running scared,” she said. “When I got the news about the tumor, I ran away from the doctor’s office. I refused to set another appointment to discuss treatment.”
“Is your marriage to Mulroney a part of that running away?” Father Larry asked.
“No,” Vickie said. “The marriage was something we’d both been secretly wanting for awhile. The bad news about my health pushed our love for each other out of hiding and into the open.”
They sat and sipped their coffees a moment.
“Father, will you hear my confession?”
“I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “It’s something I hoped to accomplish by my visit here before the wedding ceremony tonight.”
Vickie bowed her head and made the sign of the cross while Father intoned the ritual words of welcome from Holy Mother Church to its penitent daughter, inviting her to remission of sins and the recovery of lost graces.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” she said. “The truth is, ever since Jack died, for the past two years, I’ve avoided the Church--way deep down, I’ve been angry with God for taking Jack. For a long time, I’ve been walking through a dark tunnel of anguish and despair.”
“That’s understandable,” Father said. “What brought you out?”
“Mulroney,” Vickie said. “He walked with me through the tunnel and showed me the light once again. While we were walking through it, I guess we fell in love. I was about ready to give God another shot when I got the bad news from my doctor. It’s strange, though--the bad news seems to have provoked me somehow into wanting God again.”
“Illness is th
e big one for bringing people back to God,” Father said. “When we’re sick, we experience our limitations and our powerlessness which reminds us of our need for something greater than ourselves.”
“I’m sorry that I wasted the years after Jack’s death feeling sorry for myself,” Vickie said. “I was really into self-pity because I thought that I’d have to be alone for the rest of my life. I figured I’d have to grow old without a husband, and I couldn’t handle it--little did I know I’d be joining Jack myself in a short few years.”
“I can see you’re sorry for your sins,” Father said. “I’m assigning you a penance of two Hail Mary’s--one for each year you were away from the Church.” He spoke the words of absolution and her “Amen” concluded the sacramental procedure.
“There’s an interesting duality at work here in the lives of yourself and Mulroney,” Father said. “Through your marriage, you’re reaching out to God for the graces of your new life together, while at the same time, through your respective illnesses, you’re reaching out for the graces reserved for the dying.”
“I need to get off the fence,” Vickie said. “I promised Mulroney I’d seek the cure, but the truth is, I’m not sure I have the guts to face the procedures the doctors have got planned for me. This is going to sound awful, but deep inside me, I’d rather die than fight back. This may sound a little sick, but one of the reasons I want to marry Mulroney is so I’ll have somebody to take care of me when I’m dying--in a way, I’m sort of using him. I’ve wondered if I love him, or just need him.”
“Love and need are closely intertwined,” Father said. “Perhaps you’re being a little selfish--you’d do well to think more about his well-being than your own.”
“I encouraged him to go for surgery to save his life,” Vickie said.
“But you did it for your own selfish reasons,” Father said. “I’m not saying you don’t love him, but it looks like there’s room for improvement.”
“I’m dying,” Vickie said. “My body is eating me alive--there isn’t time for any more improvement.”
“There’s always time,” Father said. “We’re not going to solve all your problems tonight--I’m suggesting that you begin to seek out for yourself the true meaning of compassion.”
“You’re lecturing me, a dying woman, about my lacking compassion? Where’s your compassion for me?”
“It’s right here,” he said, pulling out a small vial of oil. “Hold out your hands.” He anointed her forehead and hands with the oil. “Through this holy anointing,” he said, “may the Lord in His love and mercy help you by the grace of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord who frees you from sin save you and raise you up.”
“Father?” she said. “The last rites? That sent a shiver right through me. After all, I’m not dead yet!”
“The Last Rites aren’t for the dead,” he said. “They’re a prayer for healing and recovery for the gravely ill. I’m doing the same for Mulroney tonight in light of his imminent surgery. But don’t get me wrong. I’m banking on the both of you gaining full recovery and living a long life together. When you do, you’re going to have to learn to stop thinking only of yourself and more about sacrificing yourself for others.”
“Duly noted, Father,” she said. “But at this point, I’ll need a miracle to recover.”
“It’s times like these,” he said, “when miracles are most likely to occur.”
“Father,” she said. “Now that I’ve confessed, is it possible for me to receive Jesus?”
He pulled out a silver disk, snapped it open and removed a flat, circular, white wafer, which he broke in half, carefully returning half to the disk. He held up the Bread of Angels before her eyes. “The Body of Christ,” he said.
“Amen,” Vickie said, taking the semi-circle onto her tongue. She chewed thoughtfully and with some vigor before swallowing.
“I’m taking the other half to Mulroney,” he said.
“Thank you, Father,” she said. “I’m as prepared for Heaven now as I’ll ever be--but I still wonder if I’m doing the right thing by running away from the medical treatments--am I guilty of murdering myself?”
Father drained his coffee cup. “It all depends,” he said. “Tell me why you’re refusing treatment for the cancer.”
“Pure fright,” Vickie said. “They’ll inject me with heavy cancer fighting drugs that’ll waste me--if the drugs fail, they might even go in and cut out my insides until there’s nothing left.”
“Avoiding suffering,” Father said, “or choosing a lesser suffering in the final stages of life isn’t necessarily wrong--it certainly isn’t self-murder. On the other hand, it isn’t the high road, either--it’s somewhat selfish. Again, we’re back to the compassion issue--you’re also lacking in compassion for yourself.”
“But am I wrong?” Vickie said. “What if there’s an outside chance they can stop the tumor?”
“You’re not wrong,” he said. “You’re not guilty of murdering yourself because either way, the outcome is unknown. It’s your choice to make. It’s your call. There’s no condemnation either way.”
“Thank you, Father,” she said. “I wanted to keep my dignity.”
“And so you shall, Vickie,” he said. “And so you shall.”
Chapter 16
“Vickie,” the voice said. “Vickie.” It was dark all around her. Inside the darkness, she was alone. She felt centered, secure, and peaceful. The sound of the voice calling her name contaminated the spaces of her darkness with a harsh energy. She discovered that, by nodding her head downward, she could sink deeper and deeper into the void and away from the energy of her name. She finally sank far enough to where she knew she’d be able to rest completely--a place where she had no name and no identity--a place where she was nothing--where the nothing was so complete that even nothing was nothing.
Something was wrong. There was a shaking in the nothing, and a sharp smell. The shaking and the smell flung her upward and outward into a universe of light and pain.
“Vickie,” Dalk’s voice said.
Her eyes snapped open. She was back in her booth, feeling the rough hand of Dalk grasping her neck from behind, the air she breathed still tingling from the smelling salts he was waving under her nose. A deep sigh escaped her as she looked around.
“You were out like a light,” Dalk said. “Welcome back.”
“You should have left me down there,” Vickie said.
The joint had filled up and the smell of bodies, booze and burgers frying draped her in a cape of nausea. The jukebox was hammering her ears with Dionne Warwick’s, Don’t Make Me Over, the singer’s tender buzz saw soprano cutting crudely through the ambient crowd noise. She rubbed her cheeks and her hands came away wet. She looked down.
“Aww,” she said. “I don’t even remember falling asleep. I’ve been lying here in a puddle of my own drool. How long was I out? What time is it? I think I’m going to be sick.”
“It’s a little after 9,” Dalk said. “I just got here. The bartender said you’ve been lying here face down for over two hours.”
“You mean everybody that’s come in here in the past two hours has had to walk past my sleeping body, and that bartender didn’t try to wake me?”
“I’m afraid so,” Dalk said.
“I want you to jump over the bar and do one of your nasty judo pinches on him,” Vickie said.
“That wouldn’t be too cool,” Dalk said. “It has a certain lack of compassion. Besides, you probably needed the rest. At least you’re safe when you’re passed out in here. None of the other cops would let anybody touch you or rip off your purse.”
“Don’t start in on me about compassion,” Vickie said. “I already got an earful from Father Larry. And don’t preach to me with your Zen-babble about how everything’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
“You need to eat something and pull yourself together,” Dalk said. “Your makeup’s all over your face--you look like a clown on LSD. I’ll get us a couple of burgers.”
/> “Not for me,” she said. “And you can’t either. Listen to me--I’m getting married in three hours.”
“Tonight?” Dalk said.
“In the UCLA Medical Center Chapel,” Vickie said. She extended her ring finger. “Check out the rock. That’s at least thirty-five-thousand-dollars’ worth.”
“May I ask whom you’re marrying, and why you’re doing it in a hospital?” Dalk said. “Would that be too much?”
“Mulroney proposed to me this morning,” she said. “But he’s going in for a bypass tomorrow morning, so we’re in kind of a hurry--we want to be married in case the doctors blow it--and we need you to be best man.”
Dalk rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “You’re putting out an awful lot of thermal energy,” he said. “I can almost feel the clouds of steam rising in every direction--dare I mention the car I found waiting for me at Simonson Mercedes earlier this evening? I’m now driving a rocket sled on wheels that undoubtedly costs more than most people’s homes. They even had two goons come out and forcibly remove my existing vehicle, saying something about taking it to the dump to be burned.”
“Do you like your new car?” she said.
“How can I put this,” Dalk said. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years pursuing the Zen ideal of simplicity. I had almost made it to the point where by next year, all I’d have to do is sit under a street lamp on Ventura Boulevard and meditate until I melted into the void. But this evening, a whole heap of materialism fell across my path, and now it looks as though I’ll be doing my meditating in a red-and-black leather car seat.”
“Dalk,” Vickie said. “Cut the Zen chatter and give it to me in a language this old Valley Girl can understand.”
“In a word,” Dalk said, “no--make it two words--the car is--totally awesome!”
“Like it?”
“Love it!”
“I knew you would. But that’s not all--I’ve got a few other surprises for you. In addition to your new ride, I’ve also found you a house and a wife!”
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh,” Dalk chuckled.
“Don’t laugh,” Vickie said. “I’m serious.”
A Small Matter Page 8
