Vertical

by Rex Pickett

  Jack looked fixedly at me like I was about to blow it, utter something alienating, grow all nasty and snobbishly erudite about wine and prompt them to hightail it.

  “Where’s Paso Robles?” Laura asked, flashing her dark eyes at me and making my knees weak.

  “Eighty miles north of here. Gorgeous place. Beautiful winery.”

  Jack chimed in: “We’re heading to the International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, pressed his ruddy cheek next to mine and added for maximum effect, “Miles is the master of ceremonies.”

  “Wow,” exclaimed Laura. She was looking more beautiful with every sip of the startlingly delicious Pinot, helping me–God bless her!–to bury the harsh, if justly deserved, rejection by Maya. “What does a master of ceremonies do?”

  “I think he gives an opening speech,” I said, “then they strip off all his clothes and send him loose through the vineyards and the participants chase after him brandishing Dijon clone cuttings and he becomes like Cornell Wilde in The Naked Prey.”

  Laura erupted into knowing laughter.

  “You’ve seen that film, Laura?”

  “I’m getting my degree in cinema at the University of Barcelona.”

  “Really, no shit?” Now the needle on her attractiveness was climbing past ten! “Criticism? Writing? Production?”

  “Directing.”

  “Reeeeeaaaallly?” I said, the wine hyperbolizing my speech. “And you thought Shameless was pretty good, huh?”

  “I think, sorry for my English, it’s a minor masterpiece.”

  “Well, thank you, Laura.” I turned to Jack. “Jesus, this day’s getting off to an auspicious start.”

  Jack looked anxious as to where I was going with this. I think the arcane film reference had him a tad concerned. Laughter warred with worry.

  “Well, sounds like quite a trip,” Laura said, referring to something I had evidently said and already forgotten.

  “Would you two beautiful señoritas like something a little more exciting in your glasses?”

  They both thrust their wineglasses at me and chorused, “¡Sí, sí!” Loved it! Fuck, man. Maya, you are so yesterday!

  I ferried their glasses over to Susan and set them on the table. “Could I get a little more of the Sea Smoke, sweetheart?” Ever since the film had been released their tasting room business had gone through the roof. You couldn’t get into their wine club, even if you begged.

  “No prob, Miles,” Susan said. She set the glasses under the bar, discreetly filled them halfway up, and set them in front of me.

  “Thanks.”

  “And don’t write in your next book that I did this.”

  I laughed. “Maybe I’ll play god and have everyone take their clothes off and start having sex.”

  “No!” she exclaimed. “It’s already too crazy in here. I used to have a stress-free life.”

  “All right,” I said jauntily. “Back in a bit for another hit.”

  I carried the Pinot back to the girls and passed the glasses into their waiting hands. Jack went out to check on Joy and my mother. I leaned my head in to the two Spanish girls. “Single vineyard. Very sought after by Pinot vignerons. Highly allocated,” I murmured in a tone to let them know they had entered my inviolable world and were drinking something spectral. “Just don’t let it out.”

  We sipped Foxen’s Sea Smoke studiously.

  “Oh, wow,” said Laura, raising her eyebrows. “It’s very different from what we’ve been drinking.”

  “This is nice,” Carmen chimed in, a little too loudly.

  I tapped a forefinger to my lips. “Stick with me,” I said, winking conspiratorially.

  A few moments later, Jack reappeared at my side.

  “How’s my mom doing?” I asked.

  “Gal loves her wine.”

  “I know. Speaking of which. We need to be freshened up.”

  “Indeed we do,” Jack said. He slung his arm over my shoulder and rubbed his beard against my cheek and slobbered, “You are awesome, dude. Awesome!”

  I handed him my glass. “Tell Susan we want to try the Sanford & Benedict.”

  “Sanford & Benedict,” he echoed. “Aye, aye, captain.” Jack blustered his way through the crowd and bushwhacked his way to the bar.

  “We’re going up and up,” I said to the two Spanish girls, adding, “Until we touch the edge of the vinous empyrean.”

  They laughed at the silly trope, though who knows whether it translated? I made a quick mental note to go light on the polysyllabics, wine having the unfortunate effect on making me go supercilious.

  A stocky man in his thirties, red-faced, wobbling in place, picked up one of the spit buckets from the bar. Susan shouted at him, “Hey, hey, HEY!”

  But the guy, with Neanderthal forehead and manifesting all the physiognomic characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome, was on a mission. He staggered over to me, hoisted the dump bucket high over his head and shouted: “Shameless!” Then he threw back his head like a spooked horse and upended the contents of the bucket over his florid face. He wiped the spilled wine from his face with both hands like windshield wipers run amok, and grinned the grin of a farm-boy idiot. There was a brief, almost hushed, silence before the packed tasting room started hooting like a crowd of soccer hooligans.

  Susan, accustomed to puerile imitations of that scene in the movie, had already, via cell, summoned help. Minutes later, in the ruckus that followed, a burly young man hurried in; his heavy work boots thundered on the planked floor. It wasn’t hard to discern who the tasting room miscreant was–the guy’s yellow shirt now looked like some hippie tie-dyed rag–and the vintner aide went right up to him, wrestled him into a half nelson and spun him around. “All right, pal, you’ve had a little too much.”

  When the Spit Bucket Upender tried to break free of the hold, a scuffle ensued. Some of the other wine appreciators in the tight quarters were jostled and spilled their wine on their companions’ attire.

  Jack handed me the two glasses that Susan had refreshed and said, “Sanford & Benedict as ordered,” then hustled over to help the somewhat out-manned vintner aide. They arm-wrestled the Upender outside into the blazing sun and forced him to the hot dirt-and-gravel shoulder. The vintner aide gave him a stern upbraiding, and Jack, for good measure, booted him in the ass a few times. Upender’s equally inebriated girlfriend got upset and started flailing her tiny fists at Jack. Jack grabbed her by both wrists and practically lifted her up off the ground in his attempt to calm her down.

  “Rape! Rape!” the Upender’s girlfriend screamed. “Rape!”

  “You should get so lucky!” Jack shouted into her hysterical face.

  “Jack’s a man of action,” I explained to Laura and Carmen. “He doesn’t like violence.”

  Two more workers from the winery appeared to help roughhouse the obstreperous couple into their car. One of them reached into the Upender’s pocket and stripped him of his car keys. “I’ll call you a cab!”

  Jack lumbered back into the tasting room.

  Behind the bar, Susan resumed her duties. She wagged a finger at me. I shrugged, but she smiled to show she was kidding.

  I turned back to Laura and Carmen, shaking my head. “Jesus. What’s wrong with these people? Can’t they hold their mugs?”

  “This happen a lot?” Laura asked.

  I lifted my glass of Sanford & Benedict and said, “The power of words.”

  They laughed until their cheeks were rosy as uncooked saffron and their eyes watered.

  Jack extended his hand and I returned his glass. He looked at his forearm with an expression of disgust. “Fucking chick scratched me.”

  I examined his injuries. The arm was raked pretty good and fresh blood marked the wounds. “Not as bad as when Terra went after you.”

  “Let’s not go there, Homes,” Jack said, glancing over at Carmen to see if she was eavesdropping, the minor language barrier affording us some latitude.

  “Excuse
me, girls,” I said. I zigzagged over to the bar and whispered to Susan, “Can I have that bottle of the S&B? I’ll pay for it. I think I need to get out of here. For your sake and mine.”

  She produced the bottle, with alacrity, from below the counter. “On the house.”

  “Thanks, Susan. Sorry if I caused a stir here. Jack was the one who blew my cover.”

  “We’re always glad to see you, Miles.”

  I picked up the bottle, turned and caught Jack’s eye and motioned with my head to the outside deck.

  Jack said something I couldn’t catch to Laura and Carmen, and the two of them smilingly trailed him out to where I had indicated.

  I placated the circle of people who had surrounded us by signing a few last autographs, then canoed my way through the treacherous straits of the burgeoning mob and outside, to join Jack and the Spanish girls. The wind had freshened, the sun was blazing in the cloudless sky, and hawks and turkey vultures were now swooping in baleful circles homing in on otiose rodents. I set the bottle on the wooden balustrade and Jack instantly grabbed it by the neck and refilled the girls’ wineglasses. I stood behind Laura and, without thinking, splayed my fingers and combed them through her silky dark hair. She gave me a backward smiling glance, which I took as reassurance it was okay I had touched her.

  My hand resting on her bare shoulder, I asked Jack, “Hey, where’s my mom?”

  Jack gestured with his wineglass to a knoll overlooking one of Foxen’s splendiferous vineyards. I panned with his arm. Just over his extended wineglass, I could make out my mother sitting in her wheelchair, signature Gilligan’s Island hat on her head, a glass of Chard glinting in her hand, appearing positively at peace with the world. Scampering around her was Snapper whom, I could hear, she frequently admonished.

  “Where’s Joy?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said.

  “Excuse me a sec.” I set my S&B on the picnic table and traipsed up the hill to where my mother had been wheeled. About twenty feet short of her I paused. She was staring out over the vineyard, nodding her head up and down, unaware of my presence, swimming in her stroke-addled, hypnagogic netherworld. There was something sad about her sitting there all alone. Then, too, she was out of that mausoleum, Las Villas de Muerte, she had before her a gorgeous view, not to mention a cold glass of artisanal Chardonnay, while reposing under the soothing sun. All her peevishness had been replaced by a profound serenity, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since that moment she had gone out like a light on a dimmer switch and almost died…. She was going home.

  Not wanting to startle her, I made a gingerly approach. “How’re you doing, Mom?” I squatted to her eye level.

  She turned her arthritic neck as far as she could manage, and a sad smile creased her face. “Marvelous,” she said. She raised her wineglass as if saluting the abode of God, which was no doubt soon to reclaim her. Her face grew merry. “I’m flying with the angels. Whoo!”

  I laughed. “It’s a beautiful view you’ve got here.”

  “I know.”

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  She sipped her wine. “About how lucky I am to have you for a son.”

  I hooked an arm around her shoulders and said, “Well, I didn’t like seeing you so unhappy in that place.”

  “I was going to die there.”

  “I didn’t know what else to do, Mom.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you had a stroke and things are different, but I’m taking you home.”

  “That’s such good news.”

  “Do you miss Dad?”

  She lifted an arm at a forty-five degree angle and pointed a finger at the pristine blue sky. “Oh, yes. He’s up there somewhere.” She nodded to herself. “We had a pretty good marriage.”

  “Where’s Joy?” I asked, eager to get off the subject.

  “Oh,” she said in a trilling voice. “Off smoking her Mary Jane somewhere.” A look of sudden alarm clouded her face and she hunched forward, shouting, “Snapper! Snapper! Get back here.”

  Snapper had ventured down the hill in pursuit of a blue jay who was toying with him, dive-bombing and nipping at him, then elevating out of his reach. Several times he leapt up in the air, yipping excitedly, the cackling bird barely eluding his jaws. Hearing my mother’s admonitions, he jerked his small box-shaped head in her direction and mindfully sprinted back to her.

  “Okay, Mom, I’m going to go back down to the tasting room. You all right? You want to go?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “If you need a little more wine, just ask Joy, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “We’re on vacation,” I said magnanimously.

  “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed.

  I straightened up and started off. Halfway down the narrow road, I heard my mother cry out, “Joy! Joy!” I looked back and saw Joy materialize out of nowhere and minister to my mother. She took my mother’s empty glass and headed in my direction. I waited until she caught up with me.

  “Your mom wants more wine.”

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. One glass and the trapdoor springs.”

  “She said you said it was okay.”

  “You have to monitor it, Joy,” I said. “Okay?” But what I was really thinking was how I could keep my mother occupied while I figured out what to do with the Spanish girls.

  We started down the hill together. I walked deliberately slowly because her stride was only half that of mine. “Give her whatever she wants. Within reason. She’s had a hard life.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t drink wine, huh?”

  She shrugged.

  “You like pot, huh?”

  She smiled. “I drink wine some time.”

  “I can’t smoke pot. Makes me too self-conscious.”

  “I have a medical marijuana card,” she confided.

  “Oh, yeah, for what? Just to get pot?”

  “No,” she said in a chastising tone. “I had a bad accident. A car ran over my foot. I was in the hospital for three months. At first they wanted to amputate it.”

  “Really? That’s awful.”

  “I had like ten surgeries,” she amplified. “I couldn’t walk for six months. I stayed with my sister.”

  “So, are you still in pain?”

  “Not when I smoke,” she giggled.

  I didn’t know whether this was a positive or negative admission, but I was a little looped, so I squeezed her shoulder. “Well, you’re doing a great job, Joy. We’re going to hang out here another hour, then hit the road.” I bent my head down so that I was looking into her eyes, but she averted her gaze. “Everything going okay?”

  She grew a quizzical look and just nodded. When we reached the tasting room, I said to Joy, “Tell Susan you’re with me and you’d like a glass of the Viognier. Make sure you get an ample pour.”

  “Okay.”

  “My mom will sleep it off on the way to Paso Robles.” I patted her on the shoulder and sent her on her mission.

  I returned to the deck where Jack and the two Spanish girls were seated around the picnic table. The wine had gone to my head and I was in an uncharacteristically touchy-feely mood. I eased down next to Laura and bumped my shoulder affectionately against hers. “Hey, Laura.”

  “Hey, Miles.”

  Her womanly nearness made me feel warm and fuzzy all over. I lifted my glass and saluted Jack. A beaming Jack toasted me back. Carmen, it seemed, had wriggled closer to him on the opposite side of the picnic table. I sensed that a colloquy between her and the lovely Laura had been conducted, in the event we should prove to be amenable to additional festivities. By their laughter I concluded we pretty much could do as we pleased. But I needed more time, and more wine, to suss this one out. Marcie would have a hematoma if I canceled on the Paso event, but I’d bailed before–often last minute with a crucifying hangover and a pack of lame excuses–”Brother just went in for emergency triple bypass surgery” her current favorite.

  I sip
ped my wine. The noise from the tasting room was resounding. Cackling laughter would occasionally shear away from the thrum of inebriated voices. Twice I was interrupted by people demanding autographs. I was surprised by how many people had brought my book with them, reading passages as they traipsed from tasting room to tasting room. They wanted to know if I was going to be at the Hitching Post later so we could continue the party. The more I drank the more Laura’s face seemed to glow. This was my time, I thought, feeling my shoulder warming against Laura’s. Jack was right. Why hold back? I glanced up at the knoll where my mother was basking in the sun just as Joy reached her and handed her a glass of golden Viognier. My mother wouldn’t know it was Viognier, but she would know it tasted outrageously good. I suddenly found myself saying, “So, you girls came all the way over from Spain just to do the Shameless tour?”

  “We did,” Laura said.

  It flashed on me that I was repeating myself. I set my wineglass down and slid it a foot away. “And where are you staying?” I asked.

  They answered in unison, “The Windmill Inn.”

  “Oh, Christ,” I said. “You really are doing the tour, aren’t you?” I tried to sound jokingly sarcastic, but Jack wasn’t convinced. He frowned at me, gave me the stink eye, fearing I was about to alienate them with my irrepressible sardonic wit. To allay his fears I added, “It warms me to the cockles of my heart that my words could have such a salubrious effect on such lovely women from so far away.”

  Jack evidently had no idea what to make of salubrious, and my tone of voice may have come off a tad disingenuous, or a little too mocking, so he went on the mend. “What Miles means to say is that he couldn’t be more happier at this point in his life. Right, Miles?”

  “Exactly,” I said in a rising tone. “Could not be a scintilla more happier.” But Jack had nothing to worry about. The Spanish Laura was exactly my type. “So, Carmen, what do you do back in…?”

  “Barcelona,” Carmen said in her Catalan pronunciation so that it came out sounding like “Bur-celona.” “I work for an architecture firm doing their, how do you say, their gardens and plants…”

  “Landscaping?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s environmental. Good for the land.”