22
We drove a long time in silence. She looked at me, at the road, back to me. She did this a lot. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find when we got where we were going. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were going. Our drive took us through Cordele, onto I-75 North, and into Atlanta, where we stopped at Das BBQ for lunch. Hands down, best barbecue I’ve ever eaten. We split a slab of brisket, a rack of ribs, and five separate side dishes.
On I-26 I continued my story. “When the war ended they kept me around for a year, intelligence mostly, moving between countries, but by then I’d had my fill. They brought me home, more war treatment program, more interviews, more intelligence, and finally at age twenty-three they discharged me and I flew home and entered what I call my Peeping Tom Period. I returned to the island, just trying to see clearly. Just smell the ocean. By then, you and Bobby were living behind a white picket fence. He was gone mostly, drinking or shooting up, and when you weren’t at the restaurant working, you would sit in your kitchen and watch The Carol Burnett Show. I’d stand outside your kitchen window at night and, because I had little to laugh about, I’d listen to you laugh. But then Bobby would come home and whatever hole in me your laughter had healed, his presence tore open, and ugly stuff poured out. So I forced myself to leave before I hurt him.”
“You really did that?”
“Lots of times.”
As this sank in, a look of shock spread across her face.
“With so much anger, and a lot of training in how to hurt other people, I started what I call my Fighting Period. I joined this underground bare knuckle thing. We moved from Mexico to South America. India. Some time back in Asia. Cash payouts, and they were big. We moved from destination to destination on private planes that sort of skipped the whole customs and immigration thing. Seeing an opportunity, I started running guns. Lots of guns. People came from all over to see the fights, which exposed me to a lot of not-very-reputable people who wanted stuff that I could get them. I got really good at it.
“So five years pass. Whenever I was home, I’d land in Miami and drive north, stopping on the Cape. I’d sit in the dunes and stare for days at your cottage with binoculars. My idiot brother was high on the next latest and greatest drug. I wanted to knock on your door, but I knew that as bad as your life was, it would be worse if I unleashed me on you. I guess I was just hoping that somehow I could get back to the me I used to be.
“Over the months, I watched your stomach get bigger and I was happy for you. But then came the delivery and I didn’t know what happened, but I knew Bobby wasn’t there and you had trouble and the baby didn’t make it.”
When I looked at Allie, tears were streaming off her face.
“So I stayed until you were stable and then paid for a funeral, and since you’d mortgaged the restaurant to pay for his rehab, I paid the hospital bills.”
Her eyes widened. “That was you?”
“I needed to do one good thing. I rented a room at the motel on the island by the week, and kept an eye on you while Bobby was in rehab.”
“I never knew you were there.”
I shrugged. “The military spent a good bit of money training me not to be seen. Then I had this fight. Pretty good payday. Miami. Got cut up. Stitches. Hospital. Same old stuff. But then I walked by a room and saw your name on the clipboard. Poked my head in and saw you were beat up. Face bloody. Eyes swollen. I sat through the night. If my brother showed I was going to kill him. And it wasn’t going to be fast. It’d be slow and he’d hurt and beg me to make it fast. Then early the next morning, I came out of the bathroom, and there was Bobby on his knees crying. Holding your hand. Begging forgiveness. I walked out. I knew I needed to get as far away from you two as possible.
“The years rolled by. Bobby was in and out of rehab. Your debt skyrocketed. He went to prison. He was running a lot of drugs and had run up a lot of debt on the restaurant that you didn’t know about. Finally you divorced him and ran the restaurant alone. I found you one night walking the beach, booze in one hand, Smith & Wesson in the other. You were way bad drunk. A rip tide pulled you out, I found you on a kayak, nursed you sober, took you home.”
“That was you?”
“I had made up my mind to come home. To finally talk with you rather than just spy on you. I was listed in a fight. Big payoff. The more I hurt him, the more I got paid. So I hurt the guy. I got arrested, and that started what I like to call my Prison Period.”
“You went to prison?”
“Five years. And while I didn’t like it, prison was where I saw what hatred does to guys. Which was good. Most of my life, I’d been a people watcher. Given my tendency not to trust others, I grew up that way. A personality trait that would help keep me alive in dangerous places. Prison forced me to sit back and evaluate what I’d learned from all the people watching. To not just sketch their faces, but read what the lines were telling me. When I got out, I started my Business and Womanizing Period—I was trying to replace your face with others, trying to forget you.”
“How’d that work out?”
“Not very well. When I was released from prison, my parole officer got me a job at the zoo. Literally walking behind the elephants, picking up what they dropped, and they could drop a lot. Maybe I’d taken too many blows to the head or been near too many bombs when they exploded, but that got me to thinking. It’s just poop. So I started a portable toilet company called the Poop Coop.”
Allie burst out laughing. “You can’t be serious.”
“Totally. Our tagline was You poop it, we scoop it.”
Her laughter grew. I continued, “I learned that the poop business was a profitable one, so business grew. Eight states. I was on the road a good bit, learned to drive semis. We supported big outdoor venues, a hundred or more units at a time. We would deliver, set up, wash, pump, clean, whatever. It didn’t bother me. It could never be as nasty as what I’d seen over there, so I started making money hand over fist. A cash cow. Years passed, I guess this was in my late thirties, and then a guy came along and offered me four times book. I said thank you very much, have a nice day, here’s the key. I sold it, banked the money along with a decade’s worth of residuals in which I made three times what he’d paid me for the company.
“So I turned forty. Alone. Found myself driving a Porsche ’cause that’s what rich, lonely, compensating, unmarried men do. And, if I’m being honest, I thought it would impress you. I’d swoop in and knock you off your feet. I’d been living in Miami, and by the time I got my courage up, I was on my way to the island. Had the flowers in the passenger seat. Driving up the toll road. A guy cut me off, shot me the bird, and I went total spider monkey on him. I ran him down and beat him senseless. The news the next day said he was on life support, and it took him three months to wake up. That’s when I had my first thought that maybe prison hadn’t cured me, and I knew I couldn’t bring that man home to you.
“So I climbed into a bottle, wrecked my Porsche, bought another one, wrecked it, and started my Boozing Period. One night, drunk out of my mind, I got my third Porsche up to about 160 and tried to kill myself. To make the bad man stop. I flipped the car ten or eleven times and walked away. By then I was having some pretty bad night terrors. Flashbacks. I’d wake up in strange places. One day I was coming down the elevator of a high-rise where a girl I was seeing lived. An Asian guy, slanted eyes, shorter than me, started speaking into his phone. When they sent me down into the tunnels, I had to go with no light, so I followed the sound of their voices. That guy started talking in the elevator and I was back in a dark tunnel. So . . . I came unhinged. When the elevator door opened, he lay in a puddle on the floor. Breathing, but barely. I climbed further into a bottle and stayed there for the better part of a decade.
“You, in the meantime, had poured yourself into the restaurant. You looked good, you were working out. Paying down debt. I would dress up like someone else, wig, glasses, hat, and come into the restaurant and order dinner. If I’m honest, I j
ust wanted to smell you. You have this beautiful thing about you that when you start to sweat and then it mixes with your Chanel—” I blushed.
“Jo-Jo, are you blushing?”
I laughed. “You would walk by and I’d close my eyes and just breathe. And when I got my nerve up to take off the wig, I’d look at my hands, at the cuts, the scars, and then I’d look inside and see all the scars there, and I knew there wasn’t enough water in that ocean to wash them clean. I kept quiet because I didn’t want you to know who I’d become.”
Her voice cracked. “Why?”
“Because if there was any part of you that still wished for me, I wanted you to wish for the guy that went away, not the guy that had come home. I was spending so much time around there that I rented an apartment. I knew your schedule. I knew when you went to dance lessons every week, and I knew if Seth the dance instructor put his hand on your butt one more time I was going to break it off.”
She laughed out loud. “Yeah, he kind of creeped me out. A little too touchy.” She rested her hand on my arm. Her touch was gentle. “You were watching over me?”
It was both a question and a statement.
“Then there were those group dance nights, when you’d get all gussied up and put on four times the normal amount of makeup, and I can honestly say I was both hoping you’d find one you liked and hoping you wouldn’t. That maybe if you could just wait a little longer I could get my collective stuff together long enough to be a man you could love and who could love you back.
“Then you started bringing in live entertainment. Bands on the Beach. Most were good and I enjoyed them, but then you brought in that screamer guy and I never could understand what attracted you to him.”
“I was trying to attract customers.”
“I’m not sure he did that.”
“In hindsight, neither am I.”
“Anyway, I didn’t like him from the first time I laid eyes on him. And given the fact that I’d been well trained to spy on people, I did. One night he slipped something in your drink. I wasn’t sure until I saw you stagger around closing time. You two were all alone. He made his move and so did I. A few minutes later I carried you to your bed, and maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever done is not climb in there with you. But I knew me, and I knew I loved you. I also knew I needed something to make me laugh. Take my mind off you. So I bought a carnival.”
“You bought a what?”
“A carnival. You know. Merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, bright lights, popcorn?”
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
23
We took I-85 out of Atlanta until it intersected I-26, where we turned northwest. Jake’s address, what I had come to believe was his primary place of residence, was north of Asheville—only a few miles off the interstate. If he actually drove a semi for a living, then it’d be a smart place to live, with easy access onto and off of several main roads. If he didn’t drive a semi for a living, it’d be a good place to not be found. Either way, I felt it was strategic.
My cabin sat about an hour from Jake’s address. Rather than drive north through Asheville, I exited at Tryon and ambled through the back roads of Rutherfordton, Union Mills, Marion, and Busick. They were prettier, and we could take our time, and with it getting dark I figured we’d just wait until tomorrow to spy on Jake. Winter was still hanging on and, unlike sunny Florida, there was snow on the ground here. Allie had not brought winter clothes. I doubted she owned many.
When we exited the interstate at Tryon, she said, “So did you really buy a carnival?”
“Sure. I quit drinking cold turkey and poured myself into making people laugh. I hadn’t done a lot of that throughout my life, so I thought it sounded like a good idea. I built it up. It thrived. While everything in my personal life was a mess, every business I ever touched turned to gold. Even my mistakes made money. I had my own booth too, just for fun. I was really good at guessing people’s weights. I was usually within two or three pounds. We really took off when I hired this group of four guys out of West Virginia with a motorcycle act inside a large cage that would make your head spin. Total absurdity, but it was fun, made people laugh. And just like the Poop Coop, it made money.
“The carnival was good for me. I was approaching fifty and thought maybe I’d laid my demons to rest. When I finally got my nerve up to come back, I walked into the restaurant, just me, no wig, and found you sitting at the bar talking to a guy with a cane and a friendly smile. Looked like he couldn’t hurt a flea. You were smiling. He had grease on his hat. And I thought, Finally a good guy, one without all the anger. I thought maybe our chances were just gone. So I backed up, got a room at the motel, and watched you laugh for three days with Jake. I figured I’d better not get in your way. I returned to my carnival . . . but truth be told, I wasn’t sleeping much at night. Bright lights and sudden noises weren’t the best therapy for a guy who didn’t like bright flashing lights and sudden noises.
“Then one night I was just minding my own business. Wasn’t angry about anything. Wasn’t really thinking about anything. I’d just gotten a kid some popcorn and helped a lady win a big stuffed animal, and this guy brought his kid in. One of my machines was broken. Took his money. He wanted a refund. He wasn’t real kind in how he asked, but he was just some hardworking guy with his name on his shirt and had probably worked hard all week to take his kid to the carnival for a good time and there was my machine stealing his money, and so he got a little uppity with me. An hour later, I found myself waiting for him in the parking lot. Gun, knife, baseball bat. I wasn’t going to just hurt him, I was going to erase his scent from the earth, in front of his son.”
Allie didn’t want to hear what happened next. “And?”
“His son laughed. Just about the moment I was gonna hurt him, the boy laughed, and it reminded me of you. Right there, I knew I needed to get away from everybody. I didn’t trust me in the world in which I was living. As hard as I’d tried, I knew that the evil in me was still there, still bubbling beneath the surface. And I couldn’t just kill myself and be done with it because I had this funny feeling that killing myself wouldn’t kill it. It’d just jump from me to someone else. I’d seen it happen. Evil doesn’t die with you. It just finds somebody else to latch onto. So I thought, If I just go away, take it with me, it can’t hurt anyone else. So I shut down the carnival, locked the gate, moved into the mountains, and started my Monastery Period.”
“You became a monk?”
I laughed. “No.”
She exhaled. “Thank goodness.”
I laughed. “You worried?”
She shook her head once. “There for a minute . . .”
“They let me live in a house alongside the mountain. I tended the garden. Pruned their grapes. They left me alone and I kept quiet. Somewhere in there I found Suzy True on the radio, and Rosco found me. One of the monks was a doctor. He helped me understand my blood sugar issues and got me set up on a monitor and taught me how to give myself shots in the stomach. Feeling healthier than I had in a long time, I built myself a cabin twenty or thirty miles away on a piece of property that shouldered Mount Mitchell. And there I have spent my days quietly, trying not to think about the life I left behind.
“Every six or eight months I’d drive down to check on you. You were mostly alone, and the restaurant looked old and needed a face-lift. I heard that Jake had convinced you to reverse mortgage the restaurant. Then he convinced you to let him give the money to an investor who promised big returns, although he failed to mention the high risk and lost it. Although, knowing what I know now, I have my questions about that money and whether or not it was really lost. At the time, I figured it was none of my business, and as bad as things were for you, you were still better off without me.
“So I returned to my cabin and turned sixty alone. I figured the best of my life had passed me by. Then came sixty-one. Sixty-two. Life was just clicking by, and I thought I’d die in some snowbank surrounded by bad memories. Then a
bout a week ago, I heard this kid scream in the distance. And when I did, I heard you screaming from your bedroom, and in my mind I saw your mom on the floor and . . . the next thing I knew I was running through the snow.”
AS I HAD NO food in my cabin, we stopped and bought groceries and dog food. Enough to last a day or two. Highway 221 passed under the Blue Ridge Parkway. Afternoon had given way to evening, and that beautiful purplish-blue light hung atop the mountains. The clouds had sunk down in the valleys. Stuffed like cotton balls in the cracks. Up here, on the ridgeline, the night air was cool and clear. I exited the paved road onto gravel and then dirt. We rolled slowly a few miles. When the road turned up, I shifted into four-wheel drive and began crawling toward the cabin. Allie watched the road with curiosity. When we leveled out onto the top of my mountain and rolled to a stop in front of my cabin, I finished my story. “Here we are.”
With the temperature in the thirties and Allie wearing a T-shirt, I grabbed her a fleece jacket, a down vest, and a wool scarf and beanie. I lit a fire in the cabin, bathing the inside walls with a warm light that had become a comfort to me over the years. Allie kicked me out of my kitchen and made us some soup and cheese toast. Rosco stretched out on his bear rug, and we ate in front of the fire, peeling off the fleece and down as the inside temperature of the cabin grew cozier.
It was the most at home I’d felt anywhere in a long, long time.
24
With Allie asleep, I tucked the blanket around her, but she never moved. Her sleep was peaceful and deep. At nine o’clock I tuned in Suzy, and I listened as the fire crackled and wind pulled on the evergreens outside.
In the early years of my calling Suzy, her producer would answer and then put me on hold like all the other guys. They’d make their way down the line and vet each of us, asking us what we wanted to talk about. What was “on our heart.” I never really knew how to answer that. For a year or two I’d wait an hour. Sometimes two or three. Somewhere in the third year, Suzy was vetting the callers and she said, “What’s on your heart, soldier?”
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