I’d have to do the buying, because I hadn’t found one dollar in his clothes. Not even a few pennies of change. He was flat broke. Except for the return bus ticket, he’d had nothing on him of value. He must have spent his last few dollars on the Bijou ticket, the motel room, and the drinks he’d had at the Encantada’s bar. Maybe he’d spent all his money deliberately—squandering his cash before killing himself. But if that was the case, I didn’t understand why he’d kept the bus ticket, instead of turning it in at the terminal. Which suggested another possibility—that he’d been robbed. By the bikers he’d had the fight with. Or by someone at the motel. Judging from Claude Jenkins, I figured that the Encantada’s staff wasn’t above fleecing one of their guests—especially if he was out cold because of a drug overdose.
Speculating about Lonnie’s attempted suicide on the basis of a few shreds of circumstantial evidence made me feel too much like a detective and too little like a friend. And Lonnie apparently still regarded me as a friend. There was no other way to explain why he’d picked me out of the phone book. Even after eighteen years, there must have been a dozen other names he could have chosen—musicians, ex-girlfriends, other roommates. But he’d picked me. And before he tried to kill himself, he’d left me that little apology. Sorry, Harry. It was an unsettling thought—to imagine that I’d been on his mind before he’d swallowed the pills—because the truth was that up until about three that morning, I hadn’t thought of him in better than sixteen years.
That fact bore the truth in on me forcefully. And the truth was that, old friend or not, Lonnie was a stranger. And until I could talk to him or to someone who knew him, I wasn’t doing him any favors by reading a lifetime into his last few acts. What I should have been doing was trying to locate someone who could tell me who Lonnie Jackowski was now.
I glanced at the driver’s license again, picked up the phone, dialed the operator, and asked for University City, Missouri, information.
University City information didn’t have a listing for Lonnie Jackowski. But there was a listing for a Karen Jackowski at the address on the expired license. I wrote the number down on a piece of scrap and hung up. I stared at the number for a long time, before dialing it. It wasn’t just a question of breaking the news, if, indeed, there was someone to break the news to. Lonnie hadn’t come all this way without a reason. If he’d left someone behind, he’d left them for a reason too.
I made the call anyway. A child answered the phone—a little girl.
“Yes?” she said in a tiny, tentative voice.
“Honey, is your mom home?” I asked.
“I dunno,” she said flatly.
“Could you look and see?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. She dropped the phone with a thud. I could hear her shouting, “Mommy, Mommy.”
While she was off the line, I picked up the snapshot I’d found in Lonnie’s pants and stared at it curiously. It just hadn’t seemed possible that a guy like Lonnie—a guy so obviously at the end of his rope—could have had a pretty wife and two beautiful kids. I studied the room with the Christmas tree in it. There was a white sofa along one wall. A fleecy off-white rug. A mahogany coffee table with fluted legs. Plenty of gifts beneath the tree, including a new bike. It looked like a typical middle-class household at Christmastime. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of or disappointed in. Nothing to run away from—to a run-down afternoon-delight motel in Miamiville. As I was thinking about the picture, someone picked the phone up again.
“Yes?” a woman said warily. “Who is this?” She spoke with a husky lisp. Like Lizabeth Scott.
“Mrs. Jackowski?” I said.
“Yes,” the woman said. “I’m Karen Jackowski.”
“My name is Stoner, Mrs. Jackowski. Harry Stoner. I’m calling you from Cincinnati.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, with sudden warmth. “I remember your name. Lonnie’s mentioned you many times, Harry. You two used to room together in college, right?”
I took a breath. “Mrs. Jackowski—”
“Call me Karen, please,” she said.
“Karen. It’s about Lonnie,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” she said sharply.
I sighed into the phone. “He tried to kill himself last night, Mrs. Jackowski,” I said, getting it over with.
Karen Jackowski didn’t say anything for a moment. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded measured and cold. “Did he succeed?”
“No,” I said, trying to disguise the shock I felt over the way she’d taken the news. “He’s all right. At least, he’s not dead.”
“And what do you want me to do about it?” Karen Jackowski said with that same measured coldness.
“You’re his wife, aren’t you?” I said with some coldness of my own. “Don’t you care?”
“Harry, Lonnie and I have been separated for better than two years. Besides, there’s nothing new about Lonnie’s trying to kill himself. He’s been killing himself for as long as I’ve known him. It’s what he does, Harry. Kill himself and everyone else who cares for him.” Her voice broke.
I started to feel very bad. I shouldn’t have made the call. I should have handled it on my own. “I’m sorry,” I said to the woman. “I was trying to help. I didn’t know you two were...separated.”
“It’s all right,” she said, but her voice still sounded broken.
“Is there anyone else I should contact?” I said.
“No,” she said in a whisper. “His folks are dead. I’m the only one left.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I’d better come there.”
“No,” I said firmly, “I can take care of him.”
“Want to bet?” Karen Jackowski said bitterly. “You don’t know him, Harry. You really don’t.”
What could I say? I didn’t know him.
“I’ll have to find somebody to look after the kids,” Karen Jackowski said. “Thank God it’s a weekend. At least I won’t have to explain it at work.”
“Look,” I said, “you don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” she said, as if she felt an obligation. “He’s still my husband. It’s not fair to saddle you or anyone else with Lonnie Jack.”
I hadn’t heard anyone say that name in so long that I smiled, then felt foolish for having done so.
“Could you pick me up at the airport?” Karen Jackowski said.
“Sure,” I said. I gave her my phone number and told her to call me collect when she knew her flight number and arrival time.
5
KAREN JACKOWSKI called back around four-thirty to let me know that she’d be coming in at eleven. I tried again to talk her out of making the trip, but she was adamant. I arranged to meet her at the airport when she arrived.
After talking to her, I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up it was fully dark outside. The living room was quiet, except for the sound of the rain on the windows. I walked through the dark over to the desk, clicked on a lamp, then went back to the couch. As I sat down again, I realized that Lonnie was sitting there too—in my easy chair.
“Christ!” I said, startled. “Are you okay?”
He nodded, his lean, battered face coming into the light. “I didn’t know where I was,” he said. “It was dark. I thought maybe I’d died.”
He was sitting Indian style in the chair. Jay naked. A blanket wrapped around his shoulders. In the dim yellow lamplight, he looked like the kid I’d known in 1967. So much like him that I felt a chill run up my back.
“I guess I fucked up,” he said with a forced smile.
“Do you remember last night at all?”
Lonnie shook his head and winced. “God, my head hurts.” He coughed—a deep, hacking cough. “I caught a cold, too. My throat hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“You threw up a lot,” I said. “It’s probably pretty raw.”
He smiled at me. “You brought me here?”
“Had to do something with you, man,” I said, smiling back at him.
“You couldn’t just let me
die, huh?” He said it like a joke, but it didn’t come out funny.
I had the feeling he was going to make a lot of jokes that didn’t come out funny. I decided, on the spot, just to ignore them, until he was ready to talk seriously about the suicide attempt. “You want some coffee?” I asked.
He nodded. “Something warm would be nice.” He coughed again. “Is this where you live, man?”
“This is it,” I said, getting up from the couch and walking into the kitchenette.
“It’s like Lyon Street,” he said.
“Not much better.”
“You remember Lyon Street, Harry?” he called out hoarsely from the living room.
I doled some coffee into the machine. “Yeah. I remember it.”
“I stopped there yesterday. At least, I think I did. It hadn’t changed much.”
“The rest of Clifton has,” I said.
“Yeah, I could tell. All Styrofoam now. No more Black Dome. No more peace and love.”
The coffee machine started burbling. I poured two cups of coffee and brought them into the living room. Lonnie looked like he’d fallen asleep again—head back out of the light. When I walked over to him, I saw that his eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. I handed him the cup of coffee and he glanced at me.
“I’m sorry, Harry,” he said with real feeling in his voice.
“Forget it,” I said. “Drink your coffee.”
He took a sip of coffee, choked on it, but managed to gulp it down. “Tastes good.” He took another sip. “Remember the Toddle House restaurant on Clifton Avenue?”
I laughed. “Yeah. We drank a lot of coffee there.”
“And killed a lot of time.” He grinned. “Picked up a lot of chicks at chez Toddle.”
“You picked up a lot of chicks everywhere.”
“You did all right too,” he said, charitably. “What happened to that one—that Linda.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We lost touch.”
“Ou sont les Lindas of yesteryear, huh, Harry? I think about that a lot.”
“About what?”
“About how people go different ways. They spread out so far...you can’t call them back.” Lonnie dropped his eyes to the floor. “This talking over old times isn’t doing me much good,” he said heavily. He put the coffee cup on an end table and covered his face with his hands. “Oh, God. What the fuck have I done?”
He started to weep. Hoarsely. Uncontrollably. His hands and shoulders shaking as if he were being shaken. Pulling the blanket tightly around him, so it shielded his face, he cried to himself.
I got up from the couch and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Caught a glimpse of myself in the wall mirror and didn’t have the guts to look into my own eyes. I dug an old plaid lumberjack shirt and a pair of jeans out of a drawer, sat down on the bed, and waited until I could hear Lonnie’s sobbing die down. Then I walked back up the hall.
“Here,” I said, tossing him the clothes.
They fell at his feet. He wiped his red eyes with the corner of the blanket, reached down, and picked up the jeans.
“They’re going to be a little long,” he said hoarsely.
“Roll the legs,” I said.
He picked up the shirt, then glanced down at himself. “I could use a shower, I think.”
“Down the hall on your right.”
He rubbed his jaw. “You got a razor I could use, maybe?” I must have given him a startled look, because he said, “Don’t worry, Harry. I wouldn’t do that to you twice.”
“There’s shaving stuff in the medicine cabinet,” I said, trying to look unconcerned.
He folded up the shirt and pants, got up, and walked down the hall. When he got to the john door, he looked back at me. “You haven’t asked me,” he said.
“What?”
“Why I used your name.”
“Why did you?” I said.
“‘Cause if I croaked, I knew you’d look after me. And if I didn’t...” He waved his right arm. “Here I am.” Lonnie dropped his arm and said, “Nobody else I know would have come through for me like that.”
“How did you know that I would?”
“I knew,” he said softly as he stepped into the john.
6
WHEN LONNIE came out of the shower, he was singing, in a mellow baritone that brought back memories of Calhoun Street.
It was a Bob Seger song full of motorcycles, leather jackets, and beautiful women. Lonnie toweled off his wet hair. “You like Bob Seger?” he said, as he walked into the living room. He’d rolled the jeans up at the ankles, although they were still a size too large at the waist.
“Yeah, I like Seger,” I said.
“I used to do a lot of his stuff with my last band.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“The Hawks,” he said, dropping into the easy chair and crooking a leg over one of the arms. “We called ourselves the Hawks. Like the Band, when they backed Ronnie Hawkins. Christ, did you read about Richard Manuel?”
I nodded.
“That’s some sad shit there, buddy,” he said, wiping off his ears. “That’s a real loss. Not like some nobody who never was nothing, swallowing pills in a fleabag motel.”
I grunted and he smiled.
“It’s okay, Harry,” he said. “It’s gotta be talked about. No way to avoid it. Everything’s connected, after all.”
“How are you feeling?” I said.
“Don’t know yet,” he said. He started to cough again and pounded his chest, theatrically, with his fist. “Who knows? This cold might kill me.”
I leaned forward on the couch. “I need to talk to you about something. You feel up to it?”
Lonnie gave me a tentative smile. “Depends on what it is.”
I glanced at my watch. “It’s ten o’clock. I’m going to have to leave here for a while. I’ve got to pick someone up at the airport.”
“I could come along, maybe,” he said, as if he really didn’t want to be left alone.
“Sure,” I said. “You’re welcome to come.”
“Who you picking up?”
“That’s what we’ve got to talk about,” I said.
“This is making me a little nervous,” Lonnie said with a sick grin. “You aren’t going to spring any doctors or shit on me, are you, Harry? You haven’t been making a lot of calls, have you?”
I said, “No.”
“Good,” Lonnie said, looking relieved, “‘cause I’ve had my fill of doctors. And I’d just as soon nobody else heard about...last night.”
I could see a problem coming up. But there was no way around it, except to lie to him. And that would only create more problems. I decided to give it to him straight. “I did make one call, Lonnie. Earlier today I called University City, trying to track down someone who knew you. You know it has been eighteen years, old buddy.”
“Aw, fuck,” Lonnie said, with a bloodless, horrified look. “You called my old lady, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Aw, fuck!” he said again, loudly. He jumped up from the chair and began to pace the room. “God damn it, man! I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“I didn’t know, Lonnie,” I said, feeling bad for him.
“God damn it!” he said. “Is she the one you’re going to pick up at the airport?”
I nodded reluctantly.
“I don’t want to see her, man,” Lonnie almost shouted. “I don’t want her to see me.”
“She wanted to come,” I said, even though it wasn’t true.
“Sure,” he said contemptuously. “So she can see what a fuck-up I am.” He stopped pacing and glared at me angrily. “Just keep her away from me, man. I’m asking you. She took my kids, man. She broke my fucking heart.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll keep her away.”
“Send her back home.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
He sat back down heavily on the easy chair. “That bitch, Karen. She’s the whole re
ason why I’m here.”
I looked him over carefully, wondering if he was going to lose it again. “Are you going to be all right while I’m gone?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said angrily. “Sure. I’m not a kid, you know.”
“You’re not going to do anything stupid, right?”
“For chrissake, Harry,” Lonnie said. “I told you I wouldn’t do that to you twice. I’ll be all right. I’ll catch some z’s. Okay?”
I said okay. But I wasn’t sure.
7
ALL THE way out to the airport, I worried about leaving Lonnie alone. I even thought of turning back a couple of times, but managed to talk myself out of it. After all, I told myself, he was a grown man. And there was a limit to what anyone can do for anyone else. I couldn’t play big brother to him for the rest of his life, like it was 1968 again. Still, I worried.
By the time I made it through the snow and rain to Cincinnati International, it was well past eleven. I parked in the short-term lot and bulled my way through the wind to the Delta terminal, one of three huge hangar-shaped buildings flanking the runways.
The ground floor of the terminal had the eerie, untenanted look of a building under construction. The ticket counters, rent-a-car booths, and luggage carousels were unmanned and dimly lit. The only signs of life were the ubiquitous TV monitors, flashing their endless stream of flight information. I checked one of the screens, hoping that Karen Jackowski’s flight had been late. I was late; her plane had arrived on schedule.
I took the elevator up to the arrival and departure gates on the second floor. It was deserted too, except for a few groggy attendants behind the counters. I checked the coffee shop on my way to the arrival gates—in case Karen had gotten tired of waiting. Aside from a rent-a-cop hunched over a racing form and one lorn waitress sitting on a stool, the place was deserted.
I headed down the broad, fluorescent walkway that led to the gates. About halfway down the hall, I spotted Karen Jackowski, sitting alone in one of the arrival bays, a canvas duck travel bag at her feet. She spotted me, too, and waved a hand. It wasn’t until that moment that I asked myself what I was going to do with her. I knew what I wanted to do—put her and Lonnie together again and see if they couldn’t lend each other some support. But I didn’t think Lonnie would sit for that. And from the way she had sounded on the phone, I figured that Karen Jackowski wouldn’t either.
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