Benchley, Peter - Novel 07 (32 page)

 
          
 
"I don't know,"
Crosby
said. He was walking a few paces behind
them. "If you don't love nobody, you got nobody to lose. A fella can stand
just so much pain."

 
          
 
"Who've you got coming today,
Clarence?"
Preston
stepped to the side so
Crosby
could walk between him and Duke.

 
          
 
“Not sure. But I tell you one thing: That
bitch brings my little boy, I'm cutting her legs off and feeding them to the
alligators. He's six."

 
          
 
Duke said, "He wouldn't understand
anyway."

 
          
 
"A lot more'n you think. His memories of
me are sweet, playing ball in the backyard, taking my at-bats with fifty
thousand people hollering my name and going apeshit when I stroked one. He
thinks I'm great. No he's gonna know the truth."

 
          
 
The two rooms were across the hall from each
other. Larkin directed Duke and Crosby into the one on the right.
Preston
looked through the doorway and saw Butterball
and a bunch of people he didn't recognize. And Gwen.

 
          
 
Larkin must have seen him start, for he said,
"We shuffle up the counselors for Family Week, Scott. Get rid of all
assumptions and attachments."

 
          
 
"You'll get real attached to her,"
Preston
said to Duke. "She's a person who
attracts attachments."

 
          
 
"Yeah," Duke said. "Like a
leech."

 
          
 
Larkin looked at his watch and said, before
Preston
could turn into the other room, "Have
you seen Priscilla?"

 
          
 
"Still haven't found her?"

 
          
 
"She'll be along. I'm not worried."

 
          
 
Just Mel (as Duke insisted on calling him) was
waiting for them. He was wearing his black suit and white shirt and dark tie
and a pair of Corfam brogans, which made
Preston
assume that Just Mel's father had been a
policeman or a professional soldier, because nobody else ever wore Corfam.

 
          
 
The room was divided into two sections of
seats, families on the left, patients on the right. Confrontational.

 
          
 
There were three people in the seats on the
left: a pretty black woman in a sedate skirt and blouse (Twist's old lady), who
was knitting; a sallow-faced, red-haired woman in high heels, a short skirt and
a toreador jacket, holding a cigarette between talons as long as an eagle's
(playing the role of Hector's Corazon), and a short, slight, dark man in a gray
suit, whose hair was brushed straight back and pomaded in place (this had to be
Raffi).

 
          
 
As the four patients entered the room, like
medical specimens, Raffi stood up and intercepted Lupone, and the two of them
embraced ritualistically, bussing both cheeks, holding each other's shoulders,
looking into each other's eyes.

 
          
 
"Puffguts." Solemn.

 
          
 
'*Raffi." Forcing a smile.

 
          
 
"How's it goin'?" Concerned.

 
          
 
“Great, Raff! Couldn't be better." Like a
game-show host.

 
          
 
"Stop it!" Just Mel shouted.
"Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

 
          
 
Raffi turned his head slowly toward Just Mel.
"Fuck is this, Puff?"

 
          
 
"There's turkeys the world over,
Raff."

 
          
 
Like a referee breaking up a clinch. Just Mel
stepped between them and pushed them apart.

 
          
 
"I know what it's like, I really
do," Just Mel said as he escorted Raffi back to his seat. "Our
Significant Others are the dearest things in the world to us. We've been apart
for weeks. But we must have patience."

 
          
 
Raffi used two fingers to pluck Just Mel's
hand from his arm. "Touch me once more, pal, you'll be playin’ the harp
with fuckin' stumps."

 
          
 
"Now, now," said Just Mel, and he
shut the door and returned to the center of the room.

 
          
 
She's not coming. She changed her mind.
Preston
felt a split second of anger, followed by a
flood of relief. Let Kimberly grow up just a little bit more without having to
know about hit men and whores. He and Margaret would work things out when he
got home. Or they wouldn't. Whatever, Kimberly wouldn't have to witness a
community of abasement.

 
          
 
“Now, let's get to know each other." Just
Mel consulted a list and pointed around the room. "This is Hector and
Hector's Corazon. This is Khalil and his friend, Desiree. This is William and
his . . . his . . ."

 
          
 
"Brother," said Lupone.

 
          
 
". . .his brother, Raffi. This is Scott
and ... oh, I guess she isn't here yet."

 
          
 
She's not coming, Mel. Believe it.

 
          
 
Just Mel had another name on his list, and
Preston
heard him start to say "Where's
Cheryl?" but then eat the words.

 
          
 
Preston
said them. "Where's Cheryl?"

 
          
 
Just Mel turned pink as a flamingo. "I
made a mistake."

 
          
 
"Where is she?"

 
          
 
Just Mel murmured, "Deceased."

 
          
 
It was as if all the air had been sucked out
of the room.

 
          
 
"Say what?" Twist said after a
moment.

 
          
 
"You say 'dead'?" said Hector.

 
          
 
Just Mel nodded. "This morning."

 
          
 
Dead. Just like that. Where's Cheryl? Cheryl's
dead. Oh yeah ? Pass the salt.
Preston
felt dizzy.

 
          
 
"Let her not have died in vain,"
said Just Mel. "Let's take a lesson from her. Let's let her weakness be our
strength. Let's all say the Serenity Prayer in her memory."

 
          
 
He started to recite the prayer. Hector joined
in, sort of, and
Preston
mouthed the words.

 
          
 
The people on the left side of the room looked
uncomfortable. Desiree knitted faster, and the red-headed Corazon smoked
faster. Raffi pared his fingernails.

 
          
 
"There!" Just Mel said when he had
finished the prayer. "I don't know about you, but I feel better."

 
          
 
Glad to hear it. In his mind's eye, all
Preston
could see was an image of Cheryl, tiny and
frail and gray, lying on a metal table. Cold. So cold.

 
          
 
"Desiree," Just Mel said, and he
went and stood in front of her, "tell us what life was like with
Khalil."

 
          
 
"He took dope," Desiree said, and
kept on knitting.

 
          
 
"Yes, but what did he do?”

 
          
 
"Smiled a lot."

 
          
 
Just Mel sighed. "All right, then, what
didn't he do? He didn't go to work, did he, didn't help out around the
house?"

 
          
 
"He worked. If something was broke, he
fixed it."

 
          
 
"But how did it make you feel, him
spending all your money on dope?"

 
          
 
"Didn't spend my money. Spent his
own." She performed a fancy maneuver that made the knitting needles click
like a ratchet.

 
          
 
"But didn't you feel alone? Wasn't it
like living with a dead person?"

 
          
 
"Sometimes." Desiree's eyes never
left her knitting, but she smiled at some secret memory. "Not
always."

 
          
 
"Why didn't you leave him?"

 
          
 
" 'Cause sometimes with him is better
than always with most people."

 
          
 
"I see." Just Mel looked grim. He
couldn't open any wounds. She wasn't playing the game. He turned to Corazon.
"Is that how you felt about Hector, Corazon?"

 
          
 
She had been gazing fixedly at the ash of her
cigarette—lost, it seemed to
Preston
, in
some chemical reverie. It took a beat for the name to register. Then her head
snapped up and she said, "He was bad. That is one sick motherfucker."

 
          
 
"How so?" Just Mel sat back and
smiled.

 
          
 
Hector compressed his lips to suppress his own
smile, and squared himself to meet the challenge, ready to dissolve in grief or
explode in outrage, depending on what accusations had been mischievously
programmed into the doxy by his buddy the pimp.

 
          
 
"You ever heard of Wesson Oil?"

 
          
 
"Of course. What does—"

 
          
 
The door opened. Margaret's head peeked in.
She said, "Is this . . . ?" Then she saw
Preston
.

 
          
 
Shit!

 
          
 
As she stepped into the room, she said. ''I'm
Margaret Preston. Excuse me for interrupting. Please go ahead."

 
          
 
There was a man with her. He was middle-aged,
middle-weight, middling tall, a middle American, like the man on the television
commercial who gets heartburn after dinner and his wife brings him Maalox and
then he wants to go out for a banana split. He wore a brown jacket and beige
slacks and brown cordovans and an ivory shirt and a brown tie with subdued
yellow stripes in it. And a completely unnecessary collar pin.

 
          
 
Margaret found a seat and sat down and held
her head up and looked directly—defiantly—at
Preston
. And this guy sat down beside her and . . .

 
          
 
Jesus Christ! He's holding her hand!