Beyond Nostalgia (31 page)

Despite Frampton's opposition, on April 24th my vacation began and so did the book tour. Though I couldn't wait for this day to arrive, now that it was here and I stood in our driveway saying goodbye to Maddy Frances and the kids, I felt terrible. I had dreaded this moment. In all our years together, the only time Maddy and I had ever been apart was when the kids were born, when she had to spend a couple of nights in the hospital. Now, here we were, saying goodbye, not going to see each other for almost two full weeks, trying to act like it was a happy occasion. All four of us went through the motions, counterfeit motions, of a happy goodbye, kissing and hugging, feeling awkward, feeling like hell.  

When I finally got into the van and slowly pulled away from the house, I turned, waved and snapped one last mental picture of my family. All of them stood the same stance – hands on hips, thumbs forward. Trevor, already three cow-licks taller than Maddy, stood next to her protectively, though I could see the strain on his face. Dawn, the toughest of our offspring, showing a rare bit of emotion, actually looked like she was going to cry. But Maddy, good old dependable Maddy Frances, waved, smiled dutifully and tried to look strong. But her smile was incongruent with the sadness in her eyes. She was smiling through tears, trying her damndest to hide them. 

When I hung a left two houses up at the corner, I caught one last glimpse of Maddy Frances. Her back to me, she was stepping back inside the house. Her head was slung low, her shoulders hunched and lurching. Trevor had his arm around her. He was leaning over her, saying something, trying to console her. I turned my eyes to the road ahead then I broke down. I started bawling like a baby. 

I thought about how I didn't want to leave my family and the comfort of our small private world for twelve full days. I got a bad, bad feeling. For some reason I was positive I would never see them again. This fear shrouded me like a thick morbid fog. I wanted to turn around and go back, but knew I couldn't.

Chapter 27

Twelve days, fifteen book signings – Borders, Barnes and Noble, and a few large independents. My itinerary took me from Boca Raton, up Florida's east coast to West Palm, Stuart, Vero Beach, and Daytona. After Daytona I was to pick up Interstate 4 across the state, then deadheaded south to Sarasota. After that, I'd proceed north again, on I-75, to Saint Pete, Tampa and a few other sizeable towns along the way to Atlanta, where the tour was to terminate on May fifth, Cinco De Mayo, and, purely coincidentally, my 43rd birthday. On the following day, a Wednesday, I planned to head home. 

Olympus would be picking up all the expenses. Fran Danforth had reserved rooms for me all along my route, Holiday Inns and Ramadas. Sorry, Tom Bodett, don't bother 'leaving the light on' at the Motel 6 for me. I was stepping up a couple of notches this trip.

Since it had been late in the afternoon when I left that Friday, I decided to take the Florida Turnpike to my first stop in Boca. I-95 would be a mess and I'd get reimbursed for the tolls anyway. Cruising at sixty-five, I watched the western fringes of the so-called 'Gold Coast' blur by. New gated communities sprawled west, deeper into the Everglades while, to the east, older neighborhoods struggled unsuccessfully to maintain a semblance of dignity. Just north of Lauderdale, I passed one of Florida's few mountains, a man-made sod-covered mountain, a sanitary landfill so tall it appeared to rise smack into the gray storm clouds that were boiling just a few miles to the east over the Atlantic.

A short time later, I closed in on Boca Raton and my stomach began to tighten. For a month now, I'd played over and over in my mind a hundred different scenarios of how this trip would turn out. Usually I pictured myself sitting in an empty bookstore behind a folding table, looking pitifully foolish, with nobody approaching me. Still worse was when I pictured myself sitting like that in a crowded store. Either way, no matter how many eyes were or weren't there, they all carefully averted mine.

Man, I was really beating myself up again!

My only small consolation was that the previous Sunday's Fort Lauderdale News had noted in its Books section that, "Local author, Dean Cassidy, will be signing his new book, 'Look What They've Done to Our Dream', at Borders in Boca Raton on Friday, April 24th, at eight PM." Though the paper didn't bother to review my book, at least they'd mentioned my appearance. Maybe that would help a little. At first I thought if they'd given me a full review, it would have drawn more people to my signing. A plug like that certainly wouldn't have hurt. But in my mind's very next perception, I thought, on second thought, scratch that idea, maybe a review actually would hurt. 

As I rolled up to a tollbooth after exiting the turnpike, I thought,
Jesus, this is going to be embarrassing as hell.
Almost sick with dread, being so close to the first stop on my tour now, I continued to beat myself up.
What if my suspicions are right? What if nobody buys a single copy? I can just see the customers milling around, their faces. Their pitying eyes stealing glances at me sitting there like an idiot, thinking, 'Look at that poor bastard. Man … he must feel weak. Glad I'm not in his shoes!'
 

I also worried about how it might be in the parking lot at Borders – if somebody saw me in my old Dodge van. It would probably be around dusk, I figured, still light enough for anyone to see me get out of it. Quickly I became disgusted for allowing myself to fall victim to such a mindless concern. In my entire adult life, I'd never given a damn about what anybody thought, and here I was now, intimidated. Sure, the van had a hundred and sixty thousand miles on it, but I'd kept her in pretty good shape. Except for the small crease on the tailgate and the few dime-size spots I'd touched-up with slightly mismatched Discount Auto paint, it still looked fine. Well, it looked OK for its age anyway! 

Then I slipped again. Shit. Who am I kidding? If anybody sees me driving this thing to any of these signings, I'll die.

Another cerebral tug-of-war began to mount. I started to lean the other way again.            

You idiot! How the hell is anyone gonna' recognize you?  The goddamned book just came out a few weeks ago. It's not like you're Papa freaking Hemingway, you jerk!

It was crowding five when I checked in at the Holiday. After I let myself into the room, all I could do was pace. And think.
Christ, this is horrible
, I thought aloud. Then to myself,
Will this thing get any easier as it progresses, or will it become even more unbearable?
  After I exhausted that worry, I went to work on my clothes.
Am I dressed OK? I think I'm safe. Let's see, white jeans, my favorite belt with the embroidered school of bonefish swimming around it, powder-blue, button-down shirt, just the top two buttons open, too risky going with three tonight, and my Wal-Mart boat shoes. With socks!  Now that's a first! 

Reasonably satisfied, I stubbed out my tenth cigarette of the day in a plastic ashtray atop the dresser. Already I was two above my daily quota. Should I call Maddy?
Naw, I'll be calling her when it's over, no sense depressing her too. Man, could I use a few beers. Hmmm! It's Friday! There's a bar downstairs! Happy hour! I'd love to down about four, just enough to take the edge off. If I pick up some Lifesavers, nobody would ever know. I HAVE enough time!

I was actually considering hitting the bar when my conscience, that stern, unsympathetic voice, commanded me to,
FORGET IT!

That was pretty much how things went till it was time to leave, when at seven-twenty I stepped out of the room into the motel's hallway and closed the door behind me. I can still remember hanging onto that knob, just standing there a moment. I let my head droop, drew a deep breath, listened to it as I let it out, then trudged slowly down the carpeted hallway to the elevator. It was like walking 'the last mile'.

Ten minutes later, I was driving along one of Boca Raton's busiest thoroughfares when suddenly a whole new fear took a hold of me, a logical concern about the affluence of this town. There were Benz's, Beamers, Lexus's and Lincolns everywhere you turned. I even saw two Rolls Royce’s. That was on the boulevard. Alongside it, sitting back off the roadway in glitzy, manicured shopping plazas, were miles of chic, high-brow shops, extravagant stores and an inordinate number of (you guessed it) banks. There was a sprinkling of gated communities also, posh developments with armed guards and space-age, highest-tech security systems, bastions for the rich.         

Feeling like a beggar on a mule, I steered the van amongst all these expensive people in their luxury chariots. I felt like I'd just touched down on a tenth planet.
Shoot
, I thought as I looked all around,
these people right here, parading in the lanes all around me, epitomize the very ones I’d bad-mouthed in my book, women with their face pulls, all those ostentatious hats, extra-wide brimmed straw hats that you felt like ripping off their perfect heads and scaling into oblivion. Then there were the men, with their pretentious grins and designer costumes, and their gaudy, pinky rings (strategically riding the tops of steering wheels), in-your-face garish displays of excess.
These were the four percent of our population that owns three-fourths of America.
Man … I ought to go over real big in this town. REALLY BIG! 

True as every one of them was, I began ruminating over some of the aphorisms I had put in my protagonist, Billy Soles', mouth. One line in particular, when Billy says to his son, "Always remember that nobody, and I mean nobody, gets rich without in one way or another exploiting others along the way. Bankers, professional athletes, entertainers, doctors, business barons, they're all users." He then goes on to say, "Of course, son, if you really know your stuff and you could somehow corner them with factual accusations, they'd tell ya they don't see it that way. They'd vehemently deny that their being wealthy has anything to do with any working slob's losses … I often wonder what such people might say if you told them that, as a result of their increasing fortunes, one in five kids in this country, the richest country in the world, go to bed hungry every night." 

A few minutes later I was idling through Border's half-filled parking lot. Discreetly, I scoped out the situation before easing the van into a spot at the lot's remotest corner. After killing the engine, I checked all around one more time before getting out. It looked good, so I went for it. Feeling like a certifiable idiot, head down, I pushed myself across the asphalt toward the entrance. I felt at that moment just like I had that one day in the fourth grade at P.S. 20, back in Queens, when Ma made me wear to school, because it was all that was clean, one of my old, recently considered babyish Davy Crockett shirts. I wanted now, just like I had in that schoolyard, to turn around, run like hell, jump in the van, peel out of there and rush home to my family and the comfort of obscurity.

But, of course, I couldn't! I went inside, straight to the counter and asked for the manager. 

When the clerk said, "Sure, one moment, Mister Cassidy," and paged her, it shocked the pants off of me. Somehow this small gesture of recognition, of familiarity, helped settle me down some. It was kind of like when, after days of dreading a root-canal, you finally sign in at the dentist's office and take a seat. As I waited for the manager, I turned to check out the store. 

H-o-l-y M-o-b-l-y! I didn't see that when I came in!
 

Inside the entrance, facing it, but just to the left a bit, stood a marquis sign, done up real professional like, with MY picture on it, a big blowup of my book-jacket photo. Though, from where I stood, I could not make out all the smaller print alongside the picture, I could easily discern the bigger letters up top. My  name and 'Look What They've Done To Our Dream' jumped right off the poster board. There were two pretty college-aged girls standing next to it. One of them whispered something to the other, then they both smiled at me. I smiled back sheepishly, then looked away, and that's when I noticed the desk. A cherrywood Queen Anne job, set back maybe fifteen feet past the sign. There was what I thought to be two highly over-optimistic stacks of my books on it, one on either side.
Ohhh shittt!
I thought.
There's three people standing over there, each of 'em fingering through my book.
Then another lady drifted next to them and picked up a copy. Not knowing what to do with my hands, my palms gone all clammy, I balled them up and shoved them in my pockets. Then the manager came up to me. We introduced ourselves and talked a few minutes then she led me to my fate.

Well, let me tell you, those books that were stacked so high, every one of them, and more, went! Boy, did they sell! The store's employees had to replenish each of the towering stacks three times. I talked non-stop with customers for the entire ninety minutes. I also autographed their books. I couldn't believe it was happening. This event was one of my life's all-time greatest. Not the greatest, but it was up there. Except for the fact that I wanted so badly to tell Maddy about its success, I hated to see it end. But, like all good things, it eventually did. I thanked the manager and staff then hung out a few minutes talking with them. I felt more than a little self-conscious when a few of them, aspiring writers, asked me all kinds of questions about technique and what not. With great humility, I gladly took the time to answer them the best I could. But, after that, after I stepped outside into the warm night air, all I could think about was getting my tail back to the motel, getting a phone in my hand. As I wide-strided across that parking lot, I felt a wide smile stretch on my face, an ironic smile. Eyeballing my van, I realized I hadn't even given thought to whether or not anybody would see me getting into it. Still not looking around as I unlocked the door, I slowly shook my head, chuckled, and said, “Son of a bitch Dean, you did it!”