Vertical

by Rex Pickett

  “I’d invite you, but if she woke and found us gone, she’d freak out.”

  Joy gave another nod, still looking peeved.

  “Plus, you can…”–I pressed my middle and index fingers together and tapped them against my lips. She looked down and giggled.

  Gary Farrell is nothing less than one of the finest New World vignerons. However, he had sold out to a corporate entity, so the jury was out on the recent vintages which didn’t bear his signature. The winery, constructed of stone and wood, is set in a grove of majestic redwoods. His tasting room is nonpareil: you enter through heavy wood doors with a triangle arch into a large room that is all wood and glass. There’s no bric-a-brac for sale: no T-shirts on display, no corkscrews with his logo, no superannuated tomes on wine. Just a long, lacquered, crescent of oak that serves as the bar, in an octagonal building perched atop a hill that reigns over Sonoma. The tasting room’s austerity, combined with its spectacular, sweeping views of the Russian River Valley, always makes me feel like I’m floating weightless in some rarefied realm.

  As if on cue, the lone tasting room manager, a middle-aged ash-blonde, drifted over, welcomed us to Gary Farrell and then asked, pro forma, which tasting we wanted to do: the Premiere or Limited release, which was $5.00 more. Naturally, we chose the latter.

  “I’m really interested in your Pinots,” I said to her.

  “Oh, you must have just seen that movie, Shameless.” She laughed. Her ruddy face looked like Mrs. Santa Claus.

  Jack rolled his eyes; he knew what was coming next.

  “Well, actually… I wrote the novel it was based on.” This was my problem. Get a little wine in me and I unleashed the beast. After ten years of hardship and rejection, and less than a year’s success, I still craved the attention.

  Her eyes widened and her head thrust forward slightly. “Really? You’re kidding, right?” she asked skeptically, as if I were lying in hopes of some free wine.

  I leaned my elbows on the bar and telescoped my face close to hers and said sotto voce, “Tell you what. Let’s play a little game. If I can prove in less than a minute, without making a phone call, that I wrote the novel, will you pour us through all of your Pinots? And then when I get home from my trip I’ll sign books for everyone here and ship them to you.”

  She ruminated a moment, contemplating breaking established tasting-room protocol, then decided, if I was for real, the new owner likely wouldn’t mind. “Okay, you’re on.”

  I rooted my wallet out of my back pocket and produced a piece of paper folded into quarters, unfolded it, and handed it to her. With both hands she held it up to her eyes. She was looking at my lifetime free certificate from the Hitching Post. In the lower left corner was hand printed: “Miles ‘Shameless’ Raymond–Thank you!”

  “So, if I go broke,” I joked, “I can park a trailer someplace near the Hitching Post and eat and drink gratis the rest of my life.”

  “You’re Miles Raymond?” she asked, incredulity mixed with the celebrity excitement factor.

  “Yep. I am,” I said, immodesty now rising–and not always flatteringly! “So, can we get started on those Pinots? My friend and I have a thirst that needs slaking.”

  “Well, I guess. After all, you won the bet. It’s such a pleasure to meet you.” I handed her a credit card. “Put whatever number you want on it, I don’t care.”

  She pushed my Amex back. “Our Pinot sales have gone through the roof since that movie came out. We owe you, too.”

  “Well, thank you for your generosity…?”

  “Debbie.”

  “Nice to meet you.” We shook, and she knelt down, reemerged with the first bottle, set it on the bar and uncorked it. She poured us liberal dollops.

  “I’ve got to go into the back to get some of our library wines.”

  “Do you want to see our library cards?” Jack, also pretty lit up, joked.

  Debbie laughed.

  “That would be nice. We’ll make sure no one in here throttles the bottles,” I tritely rhymed.

  She tittered, still giddy at having met a demi-celeb, and disappeared.

  I turned to look at Jack, laughing his head off. “Miles, you are something.”

  “You think Oprah ever pays for a dinner? Chick’s a billionaire and she never forks over. Get it while you can, right?”

  “Fucking A, brother,” Jack said, draining the first Pinot, a Carneros selection sourced from ten different blocks in the Ramal Vineyard. He moved the wine around in his mouth, puffing out his cheeks in the process. “Tasty.”

  “This guy just makes really fucking awesome Pinots,” I said. “Blackberry, raspberry, cedar, cigar, it’s just got it all,” I rhapsodized.

  Debbie returned with four bottles. She proceeded to uncork all four, then lined up an argosy of Riedel stemware and set to pouring. Next up was a Pinot from the Hallberg Vineyard, Russian River Valley. Another perfectly decent, if not stellar, wine. Didn’t appear the wines had suffered much in Gary’s absence. Or was I losing my palate?

  As Debbie went off to attend to her more pedestrian–God, I’ve become such a fucking snob!–customers, Jack and I resumed our conversation. Now and then I would catch a subtle gesture from Debbie, and customers’ heads turning to get a look at me. They probably fantasized I’d be some nerdy goateed drunk when, in fact, I was 6’1”, with a full head of hair, and in pretty decent shape, when I wasn’t on a jag.

  “So, what really happened with you and your mom back in Merced?” Jack asked, popping my balloon and bringing me back to reality with a thud.

  I told him about my mother’s leaving the family when I was eight, my dad’s attempts to take care of us, the fear the experience had engendered in me, and the cathartic relief when she returned. “There was never any real good explanation for it, so I finally asked her, and she got all bent out of shape.” I sipped my wine. “I’m sure she just wants to forget whatever painful period it was.”

  “How do you know it was painful?” He winked at me.

  “Oh, come on, man. She had a nervous breakdown. Probably from having three boisterous boys back-to-back.” I reflected for a moment. “I guess because we were never close growing up, and because this is probably the last time I’m going to spend any time with her I was just curious. Maybe it’ll shed new light on why I’m so fucked up, why I became a writer, I don’t know. It’s a chapter missing from my life, a lacuna with no explanation. But…” I threw up my hands. “If she doesn’t want to talk about it, that’s cool. I don’t want to be stuck in the car for another week with her hating me for bringing it up.”

  “Amen, brother. Amen.”

  I rooted my iPhone out of my pocket and said to Jack, “I’m going to call Laura.”

  “Miles’s in love,” Jack incanted like a kid on a school playground.

  “No, I’m not. I just like her.”

  He bumped his shoulder against mine. “You miss her.”

  Just as I was about to dial her, Jack grabbed the phone from me and cut the call. “Don’t D&D, man.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Hey.” Jack pointed a finger at me. “I don’t want you to say things you’re going to regret.”

  “Give me my phone back,” I said. Jack handed it to me but, taking his advice, I slipped it back into my pocket.

  “Smart, Homes.”

  “You’re right. I was feeling mawkish. This is where Victoria and I honeymooned.”

  “All the more reason, man. Your life is going great. Do–not–go–there.”

  Debbie drifted back over and asked how we liked the Hallberg. We told her–well, I told her–it was “splendiferous.” She noticed that the bottle was down to half, but didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she poured herself a taste, professionally sampled it and spat, and agreed, “Yeah, it’s holding up nicely.” She uncorked another bottle and poured us liberally again. “This is from the Rochioli Vineyard.”

  I perked up and said to Jack, “Incontestably one of the finest Pinot vineyards on all
of the Pacific Coast.”

  Jack and I sampled. He liked to smack his lips. I liked to work it around in my mouth before swallowing.

  “God, this is nice,” I said, reaching into my lexicological memory bank for something more expressive. “Velvety, satiny, not a hint of meretriciousness.”

  “I concur,” Jack said. “Without the purple prose.”

  I laughed, set my glass on the bar and slurred to Debbie: “I’d like to revisit this most marvelous libation.”

  She chuckled, pouring both Jack and me some more. “Would you mind signing some autographs?” Debbie asked.

  “No. Absolutely. Bring ’em over. Let’s have a Pinot blowout,” I said a little bombastically, heedless of my mother and Joy, waiting in the baking Rampvan.

  Debbie broke away from our cabal and went to the other customers, edging closer to Jack and me.

  “So,” I said to Jack, while savoring the Rochioli, “I think I’m really emotionally ready to meet someone, settle down. Not have kids or any of that baggage–no offense–but someone to hold onto in the middle of the night when the creepy crawlers rise portentously from the mire of the collective unconscious to assail me. That’s what I’m looking for.”

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Jack said.

  “Sure.”

  “Portentously, collective unconscious. No.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ve always been my own worst enemy. I just love words. There’s got to be a beautiful woman who loves words… and sex… and food. And, being adored by a devoted man who won’t run around on her.” I pointed my empty wineglass at him.

  “Hey, don’t go there, either,” he warned. “I’m sure Victoria would have a good laugh over that one.”

  “Touché. But, no, seriously, I wouldn’t do that again. Too much pain.”

  “Yeah,” Jack replied, suddenly downcast. “Tell me about it.”

  From the far end of the bar, Debbie parallel-walked with an elderly couple, leading them in our direction. As Debbie poured us yet another ineffable Pinot from the library selection, the senior-citizen couple, big grins plastered on their faces, came over to greet me, congratulate me, ask me questions I had fielded hundreds of times since the movie’s release. They importuned me to sign bottles with one of those permanent marker pens in inks that coruscated gold and silver. I was happy to oblige.

  As we continued drinking, more tipsy wine tasters ambled over, some of them Gary Farrell Winery employees. Soon, Jack and I were in the middle of a starstruck huddle of wine lovers. Answers to their questions made them laugh, often uproariously. More single-vineyard Farrells were poured. I was losing sense of time, but all the wine and adulation had me inured to its consequences. At one point I glanced at my watch and realized over an hour had passed. I poured myself a glass of water and drained it. Then another in an effort to whiplash back into a more sentient, and sensible, being.

  “We’ve got to go, Jack,” I whispered. “Or we’ll never get out of here.”

  We broke away from the now boisterous crowd and walked unsteadily out. The bright sunlight beat down on us at an angle through the towering redwoods. In tasting rooms I can never tell how tipsy I am. But once I’m outside, the awareness factor of my inebriation is greatly magnified. Everything looks and feels different. The surrounding flora seems to quiver. Colors are riotously iridescent. Sounds are louder; birds in the trees seem to mock you. All sense of reality is swamped. Anything out of the norm might happen!

  We traipsed down the path to the parking lot. When we got to the Rampvan we found my mom inside, but not Joy. Glancing around, I saw her sitting with her back up against the trunk of a tree, arms crossed against her chest. She didn’t look happy.

  “I’m sorry we took so long,” I apologized.

  She pursed her lips and pouted, her visage set in what one could characterize only as suppressed rage.

  “You okay?”

  She rose from the pine needles and climbed wordlessly back into the rear of the van. I turned to Jack and shrugged. “You all right to drive?” I asked.

  “I’m fine,” Jack said. “Unlike you, I know how to pace myself.”

  “Which is why I signed you up for this duty.”

  “I’m not your factotum, fucker. I’m your friend. Remember?”

  “Right.” Had I really become that pompous? That condescending? Jesus!

  Once we were underway, I glanced surreptitiously into the back. Joy was looking away from my mother and my mother was looking away from Joy. Something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Neither said a word. A shark-filled moat had been dug between them.

  I turned back and slid old Harry Belafonte into the CD player. He, if anyone could, would mollify my mother. What had gone down between them now? I wondered. Most likely my mother had disparaged Joy over something trivial and Joy had finally reached the boiling point.

  Jack steered back onto the main road and continued north toward Mendocino. It was a sinuous rural route, but Jack, a seasoned over-the-limit driver, negotiated the turns deftly. The passing landscape was gorgeous. I could have been in heaven with the wine buzz I had going on, but the tension in the back was malignant; it easily traversed my wine buzz semi-euphoria.

  Amid my ruminations, my mother shrieked, “I didn’t take your damn money.”

  I whipped my head around. Joy was frantically rooting around in her oversized purse, her small hands moving furiously inside.

  “You took it,” she accused my mother. “You took it.”

  “What?” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “My money’s gone,” Joy cried. “Your mother steal it!”

  “I didn’t take it,” my mother wailed.

  “Well, somebody took it,” Joy accused, her face cemented in a pout. “I didn’t lose it.”

  “You lost the envelope with the money and the plane ticket?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No,” she said. “I did not lose it. But it’s not here.” Like one cat fighting another, she rummaged through her purse again in a flurry of motion, before coming to an abrupt halt and announcing, “It’s gone.”

  I turned to Jack, and stared circumspectly at him.

  “Hey, don’t look at me, dude!”

  I wheeled around to face the raging conflagration. Joy wore an expression that was, if anything, even angrier. My mother stared away from her, out the window. “When did you last have it?” I asked Joy.

  “This morning,” she said without inflection. “Your mom took it.” She pounded her armrest. “This is the only place I leave my purse!”

  My mother flung her head in Joy’s direction like a sick horse and hurled the full force of her fury at her: “I did not take your money, you dirty Filipina. You’re probably trying to get more money from my son because he’s rich now!”

  Joy’s anger was barely contained within the small frame of her body and the tightness of her expression. She looked ready to explode, or self-defenestrate to exit the vehicle, but there was nowhere she could go. Even Snapper was agitated by the acrimony and was leaping up and down and barking.

  “Mom,” I said, “Jesus fucking Christ, apologize to her.”

  “They’re all dirty,” my puerile mother said. “I fought against them in the war!”

  “We fought the Japanese, Mom,” I shouted, “not the Filipinos! They were on our side! Where’s your sense of history, you old coot! What’s going on in that intracranial wonderland of yours, huh?” I calmed slightly. “Apologize to Joy.”

  “She wants more money,” my mother said. “She’s complained to me all the way.”

  Joy swiveled her head swiftly and said sharply to my mother, “I have not!”

  “You have, too,” my mother retorted.

  “You lie,” Joy said.

  “And you smoke too much Mary Jane! That’s how you lost your precious money!”

  Joy crossed her arms again and stared at a middle distance that must have looked like hell.

  “Stop it! St
op it!” I turned to Jack. “Pull over.”

  “What?”

  “Pull the fucking van over!”

  Jack steered the car onto the dirt shoulder and braked to a halt. He kept the engine on to keep the AC running. We needed a lot more than the factory air at this crucial juncture!

  Before I could clamber out, Joy had already slid open the side door and fled the incendiary atmosphere of our now poisoned Rampvan, purse in hand.

  I approached her. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “You’re positive it’s not in your purse?” I did my best to intone it as a question, not an accusation. She just brushed past me.

  A few yards away, me worried that she was contemplating–no, attempting!–escape, she whirled around and angrily jerked her purse open with both hands for me to inspect.

  “I trust you,” I said, not venturing a look.

  “I don’t complain about money!” she said, the pout still disorganizing her face.

  “And you’re sure you didn’t take it out at Domaine Carneros?”

  “No!” She crossed her arms once more in defiance.

  “Okay, okay,” I said in exasperation. “Let’s find it.” I climbed into the back of the van, starting to scour it for the envelope I had handed Joy back in San Diego. Vehicles whizzing past caused the van to shudder, making me realize just how close to the speeding traffic we were. As I scavenged around in the back my mother sat in a stoic silence. Just outside the door, Joy stood with her arms still wrapped around her tiny torso, the buffeting wind from the passing vehicles whipping her hair like a mop. Jack, still up front, didn’t come out. Right, let me sort it all out, while he chugged an ale and wished it all would go away.

  There was no sign of the envelope where they had been sitting so I climbed over into the back luggage compartment and rummaged around there. Why it would be back there I didn’t have a clue, but I wanted to make it look like I was getting to the bottom of the imbroglio. As I searched and searched I began to wonder about Joy’s version. I didn’t know her all that well. Was she putting on an act? Surely she knew by now that she had me by the short hairs. If she left I would be royally fucked. But what an actress she’d have to be! And was she capable of such mercenary monstrousness? But why would my mother take Joy’s money? She knew she was being totally taken care of, cash-wise, wine-wise. Something was screwy. And all the Pinot coursing through my now-raging bloodstream wasn’t helping me sort it out. I wanted to kill myself, but too many people depended on my not going down that dark, once familiar, road.