“Excuse me.”
She looked put out. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to know, can we ask questions now?”
“What kinda questions?”
“About AA and the Big Book and all that.”
Her shoulders unclenched, and I realized she’d thought I was hitting on her.
“Sure,” she said, “but I’m not the one to ask about that kinda thing. I’m only here to check the place out, see if my boyfriend should come to these meetings, because if he doesn’t sober up he gets the boot.”
“And?”
She arched an eyebrow. “And what?”
“Should he come to these meetings?”
“’Course he should. You heard ’em. People’re getting sober here.”
Silly me.
“Look, I gotta go,” she said with some urgency.
Before she went she gave me a little smile and wished me good luck. I wished her the same and looked around for another source of information. Half the people had departed, while the rest were milling about or helping themselves to the coffee and cookies that had materialized on a wooden table at the back of the room. An older gentleman with a craggy face stood alone in a corner, sipping and munching. He seemed a loner, so my kinda guy. I grabbed a Styrofoam cup, poured myself some coffee from one of two urns and joined him.
“I’m new here,” I said. “Can I ask you a few questions?”
“You can, but I’d advise against it.”
I hesitated, then contrary to his advice asked, “Why not?”
“Just keep coming back, son. All your questions will be answered. You ask too many now, you’ll talk yourself out of the program.”
“But—”
“Look, trust me. Just keep coming back.”
Not my kinda guy after all. I thanked him, moved away and resumed my reconnaissance. In the opposite corner I caught sight of Merv huddling with The Pasha. No, not Baldy. Anyone but him. On the other hand, the schmuck must know something after ten years of meetings, and maybe he’d be more tolerable when he wasn’t speechifying. So I grabbed another coffee and waited for him and The Pasha to finish. About ten minutes later they were still yakking, which is when I said to hell with it, tossed my coffee in the trash and started to leave, resigned to living with the itch.
I’d taken a step or two toward the exit when a voice behind me said, “Hey.” I turned to see Merv standing there in all his Day-Glo glory. “You looked like you were waiting to see me,” he said. “Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
I didn’t like his tone any more than his dumb turtleneck or simonized head. “Never mind,” I said and started for the exit again.
“Hey.”
I stopped.
“Don’t be a goofball. What’d you want?”
Don’t be a goofball? Talk about projecting. Still, I went back. I was tempted to call him on his name-calling, but instead said, “I’m new here, so I have a few questions.”
He looked me over, as if deciding whether I was worth his time. With nothing better to do at the moment, I looked him over and decided that, judging by the lines etched around his eyes and the skin sagging under his chin, he was older than I thought.
“What’s your name?” Merv asked at last.
“Nate.”
I must have answered correctly because he nodded.
Emboldened, I asked what The Big Book and a sponsor were and, happily, he answered without posing any more questions of his own. The Big Book, it turned out, was the AA bible, formally titled Alcoholics Anonymous. It provided a history of the organization, told stories of early members and, not least of all, described the AA program in detail. A sponsor was a member with a few years’ sobriety who supported individual members in recovery by listening, advising, kicking ass, or all of the above. Merv told me he was an ass-kicker, like I gave a rat’s ass. But gentleman that I am, I thanked him and prepared to leave again.
“You coming back?” he asked.
I figured the truth might hurt his feelings, so I answered, “Maybe.”
“Uh-huh” was his response.
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you’ll return when you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
I hesitated to dignify this prophecy with a question but couldn’t resist. “And you know this how?”
“That’s when most of us come back. When we’re tired of feeling like shit. Besides, I know you. You’re me before I got serious about recovery.” Which is when I got serious about leaving again. But before I could depart he said, “I watched you while I was speaking. You were interested, but pretended not to be. You wanted to go, but were afraid to leave. And all the while you were thinking thinking thinking. Because that’s what you do. Think.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Not at all. It’s just not enough.”
I started to ask what that meant, but he turned to someone else awaiting his attention, and that was that. I drove away in a daze, and after arriving home couldn’t remember having driven there. Ironically, I often experienced that sort of thing—not knowing how I’d gotten somewhere—after a night of drinking.
This thought triggered another one: too bad I’d spent the night listening to drunks instead of getting drunk.
Chapter 77
I’d never struck another human being, though I recalled cocking my fist once in grade school after a classmate claimed my mother wore a mustache and my father a girdle. And of course I would never smack Rachel Solomon, for any number of reasons, not the least of which was she might hit me back. Still, I was pissed enough to imagine slapping her silly.
True to her word, she’d dumped all the boring schedules, listings and calendars on me, along with stories so lightweight they threatened to float away. But that’s not what irked me most about my new supervisor. It was her management style, which I can only describe as peevish. Maybe snappish. No, shrewish. Oh hell, just call her good old-fashioned bitchy.
I mean it. Hardly a moment went by when Rachel wasn’t on my case about something. The lead on my story, the mess on my desk, the clothes on my body—which didn’t match, she claimed, and this time she wasn’t joking. Her rationale for griping about my attire was that since I represented the paper, I was obliged to present myself in “an appropriate manner,” whatever the hell that meant.
Anyway, you can see why, after a couple months of such abuse, my fantasies switched from having sex with Rachel to having her for dinner. In fact, I was thinking of letting her have it, or at least having a little talk with her, when she changed course so abruptly I almost threw my back out.
And no, I’m not exaggerating.
Well, maybe a little.
#
I arrived at the office the last Tuesday in March only half-awake, having spent the night with Jack Daniel’s and the morning with Maxwell House. And before you say anything, just know that I got smashed in the privacy of my apartment. I still drank moderately in public, with very few exceptions.
But the point I’m getting at is that the sight of Rachel on this particular morning shocked me into full consciousness. She sat at her desk looking like I felt, and by that I mean everything about her drooped—eyes, mouth, shoulders, even her boobs. A relative must have died or contracted a terminal disease, or maybe something a little less tragic but nevertheless horrible had happened. I considered offering her a shoulder but then decided against and headed for my desk.
“Nate?”
The voice was pitiable but sounded vaguely like Rachel’s so I turned.
“Can we talk?”
Her timidity appealed to my generosity.
“Okay.”
She waved me toward the chair.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. “I know, I know, hard to believe considering my behavior of late, and that’s what I wanted to apologize for.”
I waited. So far I was enjoying this.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m
very upset with you. Wasting all that talent is inexcusable.”
Yeah, yeah, old recording. Let’s get back to contrition.
“But you don’t deserve the way I’ve treated you.”
Better.
“I haven’t been myself lately, with anyone, but especially not with you. Seems you moved in at exactly the wrong time, when certain things were, um, happening in my life.”
Signs of an imminent deluge appeared—watery eyes, quivering lips, trembling voice—but she managed to keep the clouds from bursting.
“I can’t go into detail because it’s personal,” she said, “but I can promise you that I won’t be as nasty in the future.” She smiled for the first time in I don’t know how long, then thrust out a hand. “Okay?”
I nodded and we shook, then on impulse more than anything, I said, “You know, despite what you said about us not being friends anymore, I’ve never stopped being yours”—well, that wasn’t a complete lie—“so if you ever want to talk—”
“No thanks,” Rachel said, returning to snappish. “I can’t, not about this … and not with you.”
Hmm. This last part seemed rife with meaning, but before I made any crazy assumptions I tried concentrating on who she might have talked to about “this.” The most likely candidate was two doors down, so I went back to my desk, let a respectable minute go by and then headed for Ellen Drury’s office.
#
Our religion editor liked to stand at the window and look out at the city, communing with God or Ra or traffic or whatever the woman communed with. Normally I liked to stand in the doorway and watch her commune, but today I was on a mission so I walked in and sat down uninvited. “What’s going on?” I asked.
Ellen turned and frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“As you may have noticed, Rachel’s been acting different lately. To be more exact, she’s been a bitch … pardon the expression. She even admitted as much, but wouldn’t reveal the cause of her bitchiness. I figure you must know.”
Ellen seated herself at her desk. “What makes think that?”
“You’re her best friend and she confides in you.”
“Is that so?”
I recognized a delaying tactic when I saw one, so I waited. When Ellen continued her silence I nudged. “Well?”
This loosened her lips but she continued stalling. “You’re aware that if I tell you, Rachel might accuse me of betraying a confidence.”
“She’ll never know. Besides, did she ask you not to tell me?”
“No, I guess not.”
“Then tell me.”
She glanced at the painting of Jesus on the opposite wall, as if asking his permission. “It’s pretty personal,” she said.
“I know. That much Rachel told me.”
Ellen continued to hesitate so I stated, somewhat truthfully, my reason for asking about my supervisor. “Look,” I said, “normally I don’t pry into other people’s business, but Rachel’s been a pain ever since I began reporting to her, and then today she apologized and said something had upset her, something she couldn’t tell me about.” I gave her my best supplicant’s look. “It would help me deal with her if I knew what was going on.”
This excuse for my lurid curiosity had its flaws, but I hoped Ellen would overlook them.
“All right,” she said, “but what I say to you stays in this room.”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Um … Rachel’s having problems at home. Aaron wants children and she doesn’t.”
“Hmmmm.”
I drew the word out to stress my interest. This must have worked because Ellen kept going.
“When they got married, Aaron agreed not to have kids, but now he not only wants them, he expects her to stay home and take care of them.”
What a dickhead. She should cut his balls off and cook them for dinner.
Meanwhile I wondered how I’d feel about having children with Rachel if we were married. I decided that, since she’d apologized for her recent behavior, I’d let her have as many as she wanted, including none.
“Personally,” Ellen said, “I want kids. And when the time comes I intend to quit my job and be a mother.” She let out a sizable sigh. “I’m aware that attitudes toward family and childbearing are changing, but there’s a reason for tradition, a good one that hippies don’t get.”
I had to laugh. “C’mon, Rachel’s no—”
“At heart she is. Most Democrats are. They think flouting a convention, such as having children, is laudable, maybe even noble.”
I couldn’t buy that theory. My Democrats-in-good-standing parents were so conventional they’d slit their wrists before flouting anything, including the speed limit. And obviously they were willing to bear children.
“Anyway,” Ellen said, “things have gotten so tense between Rachel and Aaron, she’s thinking of leaving him.”
I might have said I felt bad about that, but then my nose would have grown a foot. Instead I resolved to toast this tragedy after work.
Chapter 78
The week following her apology Rachel gave me a second shock that, if anything, surpassed the first one. It was Tuesday morning and I’d managed to survive a third cup of machine-brewed coffee when she pulled a chair over to my desk and sat, which in itself was unusual since Rachel seldom went to the mountain. I might also note she looked far better than she had the previous week. Not so droopy and slouchy. And her voice sounded perky, or at least not so pathetic.
“I’ve got a story for you,” she said, “and I wanted to give it to you directly rather than just add it to the assignment sheet. I thought I could do it myself, wanted to do it myself, but I can see now that won’t be possible, at least not without delaying the story even further, and it’s been about two weeks since … um … I’ll get to that in a minute. Anyway, my schedule is too jammed with other things for me to tackle this thing.”
Well if her goal was to pique my interest, she’d succeeded.
“I know you’ll do the story justice, because when you’re operating on all eight cylinders, as you have been lately, you’re a damn good reporter.”
She hesitated and flushed at the same time. “The other thing is, I don’t know, maybe this’ll help make up for all the dreck I’ve dumped on you.” I doubted that, but I’d wait to hear more before drawing any conclusions. “The piece is about a Negro woman who moved into Dearborn two weeks ago,” Rachel said.
And my balloon deflated almost immediately. A black woman had moved into Dearborn. Hold the presses! Or not. Some blacks had always lived in Dearborn, despite Herr Tubbin’s Gestapo tactics. Now another one lived there. Whoop-de-do.
I asked Rachel, as tactfully as I could, why this new resident was such a big deal.
Her reply: “She’s a member of Blacks for a Democratic Society.”
Somehow this did not re-inflate my balloon. Our new resident was a member of an activist group. Big fucking deal. Such groups were a dime—maybe even less—a dozen these days. If you had a grievance, you joined an activist group, and marched and demonstrated and issued pamphlets, usually poorly written and badly reproduced on a creaky mimeograph machine in someone’s clammy basement, or, if you were flush, in an air-conditioned office. Which is where BDS probably printed its propaganda, since it was far bigger and much better organized than most activist groups.
As you may have guessed, I was no fonder of activists and activist groups than I was of politicians. Most were as self-righteous as religious zealots and some were also hypocrites who, in the name of peace, brotherhood and understanding, resorted to robbery, kidnapping and blowing things up. True, BDS members seemed more inclined toward MLK’s nonviolent approach, but still. My attitude toward activists and activist groups aside, why did this woman’s membership in BDS make her so special?
I asked Rachel, but instead of answering she said. “Of course, in addition to our newest resident you’ll want to interview Samuel Dinny, head of BDS’s Detroit branch.”
I would?
Why? Instead of inquiring, I asked Rachel, “Anyone else?”
She picked up a pencil and “walked” it between her fingers, a skill that, along with blowing smoke rings, I’d been unable to master.
“Her neighbors, talk to them,” she said, then answered my next question before I asked it. “To get a feel for their attitudes.”
“About?”
She gave me a look, and I began to catch on.
“How about Mayor Tubbin?” I asked.
“By all means.”
And so in a few oblique strokes Rachel had sketched out a story unique in the annals of the Dearborn Gazette. But I needed to make sure I wasn’t jumping to conclusions.
“You know what you’re asking me to do, right?”
“Of course.” A smile teased at her lips but remained unformed.
“You’re assigning me a story on racism in Dearborn, using this new resident as a pretense.”
“I’d prefer the word springboard, but yes, essentially you’re correct.”
I waited for her to say ha ha ha, just kidding, but instead she waited for me to go on. I accommodated her by asking, “Have you discussed this with Doppler?”
“No.”
“Will you?”
“No.” Then, after a brief pause, “I don’t go over every story in advance with him. if I tell him about this one he’ll likely scotch it. But if he sees the actual piece he might go for it. Or I might talk him into it.”
“Or he might fire us both.”
“Yes, there’s that possibility.” Another pause. “Look, I know how risky this is. I’m giving you the assignment because not only are you a good reporter, you hate Tubbin’s policies as much as I do. But this is strictly voluntary. No hard feelings if you decline.” This time she did smile. “Though I hope you won’t.”
I half-smiled back. “I’m curious about the timing. You could have done a story like this anytime in the past. Why are we doing it now?”
Her shoulders drooped, though not as much as last week.
“I’ll be honest with you, Nate. I’m tired. Really, really tired. Mainly of all the bullshit, here in the office, out in the world”—slight hesitation—“in my own home. I want to do something that’s good and decent and … I don’t know … honest. You know what I’m saying?”
Nathan in Spite of Himself Page 40
