ODD NUMBERS

by M. Grace Bernardin

  “All right, you win,” said Frank to Allison. “But only for now.”

  “I’ll talk to her as soon as possible,” Allison assured everyone.

  “Good. Let’s all go back to bed. Meeting adjourned,” said Frank tapping his pen twice on the clipboard like an imaginary gavel. Allison craned her neck to get one last look at what Frank wrote on his legal pad page. He’d doodled in red ink a circle containing the initials V.D. with a hard red line cutting through the encircled letters.

  Barb, Frank, and Allison made their way upstairs in silence. Barb abruptly turned the corner at the top of the stairs and shuffled her way back to her corner apartment. Allison and Frank stood together at the top of the stairs, both hesitating to return to their respective apartments. Each one of them had something to say but was afraid to say it.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Allison breaking the silence between them.

  “You do, do you?”

  “You think I’ll be sorry. You think it’ll be no time before I come running to you begging to sign that stupid petition. You’re getting good and ready to gloat in my face, aren’t you?”

  “You think I’m a bastard, don’t you? You see, I can read your thoughts too.”

  Allison said nothing as she turned the knob to her apartment and stepped across the threshold back into her own private world. Even as she did so, she sensed Frank still standing by his door out in the hall with a sad look on his face. She thought she heard him say something about second chances as she closed her door behind her.

  Vicky

  Chapter 10

  February 2006

  Vicky and some of the other drunks were bussed to the AA meeting from the shelter. It was one of the conditions for staying there–all drunks had to stay dry and attend AA meetings. The lead speaker was a Vietnam vet. He talked about a three day blackout where he woke up in a hotel room in Oklahoma City, having no idea how he got there. That’s when he hit bottom.

  “I’d rather hit the bottle than the bottom.” Vicky mumbled in her not so discreet raspy whisper. “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy,” she said a little louder. Two of the other drunks from the shelter looked over at her. One chuckled, the other glared. In a restless attempt to get comfortable, Vicky shifted around in her chair which sat in the back row of the meeting room. All the dry drunks from the shelter sat in the back. She felt annoyed towards that grungy grey bearded sober drunk up there behind the podium witnessing away. “Is that what sobriety does to you? Hell, he looks worse than I do,” she said. The glaring drunk from the shelter shushed her. She halfway hoped she’d be heard closer toward the front, down where the big wheel sober drunks sat. Then maybe they’d throw her out of the meeting. Then she might just get thrown out of the shelter. Then she could go back under the expressway bridge where a buddy of hers lived during the winter. He’d share his booze with her.

  “Now that’s sharing. Like how they taught you in kindergarten,” Vicky mumbled aloud, imaging her crony under the bridge handing her his bottle to take a sip. Well, maybe he’d share with her, if he had enough. “All these sober drunks wanna share is their experience, strength, and hope. “Experience, strength, and hope. Experience, strength, and hope,” she said in a barely audible tone. She had too much experience. She guessed that’s why she now had very little strength and virtually no hope. One of the clean drunks–not one from the shelter, but one who’d obviously been sober a while, looked over at her from the right row of chairs and smiled. They were all so disgustingly nice here.

  Vicky pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of her hip pocket. She pulled the last cigarette out and lit it. She inhaled deeply and the smoke hit her lungs. It was the briefest moment of comfort in an otherwise agitated world. She popped her jaw and blew out three perfect smoke rings. “I can still do something right,” she said.

  “Ain’t nothing to do around here but smoke,” Vicky said aloud to the conscientious dry drunk sitting next to her. Again he glared at her like a kid at school who keeps talking in class. Vicky looked at the clock. The Vietnam vet had been speaking for over twenty minutes.

  Vicky coughed. And she coughed again.

  The speaker paused and people turned to look. The nice lady with the kindly clean drunk smile moved behind Vicky, carefully ducking and creeping as discreetly as a cat, so as not to disturb the meeting. The lady touched her on the shoulder and offered her a Styrofoam cup of water. Vicky accepted it. “Cheers,” she squeaked as she raised the cup to her lips. The water was very cold and made her front tooth ache. There was a hole where the other front tooth should’ve been. She touched her bare gum with her tongue. She couldn’t remember how she lost the tooth or when exactly she lost it. She may be a drunk but she was still self-conscious about the missing tooth. She’d learned how to speak without showing the tooth and she covered her mouth when she laughed. Smiling without showing her teeth was unnatural for her so she tried not to smile much, which actually wasn’t very hard since she didn’t have much to smile about these days. Despite her aching tooth she finished the water. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was.

  “Are you all right?” asked the nice lady.

  “Fine. Thanks,” said Vicky, clearing her throat and inhaling deeply.

  “Can I get you anything?” the nice lady asked.

  “Could I bum a smoke?” The nice lady pulled a half pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and handed them to her. Vicky fished one of the smokes out of the pack.

  “No, take the pack,” the smiling lady said. Her kindness made Vicky feel bad, like there was a price on those cigarettes. How nice could someone really be who gives cigarettes to a choking woman?

  “Got a light?” Vicky said nudging the drunk to her left. He struck a match and held it in front of her. She tried to suppress the ever increasing urge to cough as she leaned forward to light the cigarette. She took a drag and exhaled the smoke as she leaned back straight in her chair.

  Even as a dying drunk she was still careful to sit up straight. But she wasn’t drunk now. She hadn’t had a drink in about two and half weeks, not since the night the cops picked her up in the dumpster. When she left the hospital several days later after the hell of withdrawal, she went to the shelter where she’d been ever since. She knew she wouldn’t stay sober though. That was the price she could never pay.

  Vicky sat there smoking, becoming more quiet and thoughtful with each drag. She wasn’t listening to the speaker. She was studying the twelve steps which were posted on the wall behind the podium. She’d been to so many AA meetings over the years; she knew the whole spiel by heart. There were times she took it seriously, but even then she couldn’t stay sober. But it wasn’t the first step that hung her up anymore. She was a drunk and she knew it. That stubborn wall of denial was finally gone. It hadn’t collapsed all at once with one rush of revelation, but fell away brick by brick with every bitter failure–every job she got fired from until she could no longer get a job, every place she got thrown out of until she no longer had a place to go, every friend she ever lost until she no longer had anyone, and every stupid and regrettable thing she ever did for booze. She had no excuses, pretenses or defenses left. “I’m a drunk. I admit it.” She had proclaimed again and again to would be AA sponsors, doctors, and social workers along the way.

  She looked at step number two. “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This is what hung her up every time.

  Vicky closed her eyes. She finally gave full reign to the memory that kept clamoring for her attention since she sat down at the meeting that night. She was twelve years old and she was sitting at another meeting. The seats were lined up in rows on the left and on the right with an aisle down the middle, just like they were tonight in this meeting room, only she wasn’t sitting in the back row. She was sitting in the front row with her grandma.

  *****

  The floor was the Kentucky earth, and the ceiling and walls were the c
anvas of an old tent that reverberated with the Word of God. The heat was from the humid July air of Western Kentucky. And behind the pulpit was a clean and scrubbed preacher man in a white starched shirt holding up the bible. She remembered him preaching: “’God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believeth on him will not die but will have eternal life.’ And who is that only begotten son?”

  “Jesus,” the crowd in the tent called back.

  “I can’t hear you,” the preacher man said, cocking an ear toward the congregation.

  “Jesus,” the people called back a little louder.

  “Who’s that again?” The preacher man said pacing back and forth, working the crowd with each dramatic flail of his arms.

  “Jesus,” the people called back again, this time in a loud fevered pitch.

  “Yes. Jesus. The sweet sweet name of Jesus,” he said softly, closing his eyes and swooning ever so slightly.

  “Amen,” someone called out from the congregation. Some of the folks started speaking in tongues. It didn’t frighten Vicky like it might have some twelve year olds. She’d grown up hearing the strange babble of the Holy Spirit. She looked over at her grandma.

  Vicky’s grandma stood with arms outstretched, eyes closed, swaying back and forth, her lips moving, forming the words of some forgotten ancient language. Vicky knew the look. Grandma was filled with the Holy Spirit fire.

  The murmuring continued as the preacher man continued his sermon. “Je-sus,” he said with emphasis. “Give your life to Jesus. Come and be saved, poor sinners. Have the blessed assurance of eternal life. Oh, weary one, cast your burdens at the precious feet of Jesus.” Vicky looked up. The preacher man looked right at her–looked her right in the eye. “He knows that burden you bear.” And Vicky believed that preacher man was speaking directly to her. Sometimes it seemed when her Daddy was drunk and mean as a snake, hollering at her and whuppin’ her black and blue, that there was an invisible someone else in the room, crying for her, comforting her, distracting her Daddy just when things got so bad she thought she couldn’t take it anymore–right at that point when the tears were at the rims of her eyes and she couldn’t bite down any harder on the strip of leather Bobby gave her, something or someone would stop him.

  “Come and be saved,” the preacher man’s gaze turned from Vicky to the congregation at large. “It ain’t too late. Jesus is calling you. Come up right now and profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. Know peace. Know the promise of eternal life.”

  People began making their way up to the front. The first in line was a blond haired boy of about fifteen with long bangs hanging in his eyes. The preacher man put his hand on his head and said something to him. Vicky was scared. Her throat was dry and her heart started pounding. She didn’t want to go up, but she knew she was supposed to.

  “I got a word of wisdom from the Lord for you,” her grandma turned to her and said. “It’s time, Vicky Lee. He’s calling to you. Don’t you hear him knocking at the door of your heart?”

  Vicky’s grandma was spooky sometimes, the way she seemed to know what Vicky experienced in her deepest heart of hearts. Indeed she felt it–something prodding and compelling her out of her seat.

  “Go on up,” her grandma urged her.

  And so Vicky got up, careful to walk back to the end of the line. She kept her head down and prayed all the way up–prayed that lightning wouldn’t strike her. She did feel something like electric currents go through her when the preacher man placed his hands on her head and asked her to repeat the Jesus prayer. She opened her eyes. It wasn’t lightning. She wasn’t dead. She was alive. She didn’t fall to the floor in a Holy Spirit slaying, for which she was grateful. Everything was just as real to her as it was before, perhaps more so.

  She scooted over her grandma and back to her seat, though she found it very hard to sit still. She wanted to run, shout, tell the world that she had been chained and shackled but now she was set free. So this is what hope feels like, she thought. “For all eternity,” she said aloud. Her grandma hugged her. “Welcome to the family of God.”

  *****

  And so Vicky was saved, but from what she began to wonder. Things just got worse after that summer day at the tent revival when she accepted Jesus. Her Daddy got meaner and drunker. Her Mom got more quiet and worried, and her grandma got real nervous and teary-eyed all the time. It wasn’t fun to visit grandma anymore. She lost a lot of weight and took up smoking again. She’d walk around her house, wringing her hands and crying, all the while praying aloud–“Jesus help. Jesus help,” she’d pray. “My son, my son. What’s to become of him? Heal him. Oh, heal him, sweet Jesus.” And then she’d burst into tears and light another Pall Mall. She went through a box of Kleenex and two packs of cigarettes a day. She started burning supper or worse yet, feeding Vicky something out of a can. She didn’t know what was worse–staying with grandma or Momma and Daddy.

  She couldn’t stay with her maternal grandparents, the Miners side. Her grandmommy was too sick, and her granddaddy, well, he had the same problem her Daddy had. His drinking bouts kind of came and went, unlike her Daddy who was drunk all the time. That made it trickier though, because you never knew, you just never knew when he’d go off on one of his binges. Her Momma didn’t want Vicky around him, so she sent her off to live with her Grandma Dooley, her daddy’s momma. Now she was driving the thirteen year-old Vicky crazy with her endless pleas to Vicky to promise to stay in school and have nice Christian friends. She made her promise to get baptized and never to go down that road her Daddy took.

  Vicky started feeling crazy scared all the time–that same feeling she felt when she climbed a tree and couldn’t get back down. And angry! She was mad all the time. She knew if she ever unleashed that demon anger inside of her that someone would get hurt.

  Grandma’s prayers didn’t help and Vicky’s prayers certainly didn’t help. Those Holy Ghost goose bumps she got when the preacher man put his hands on her head and said that prayer was just a mirage–like Santa Claus and all the other fairy tales. Grandma said if she’d just get baptized and recommit her life to Jesus it would all go away. Just like magic.

  Prayers didn’t help, but Vicky found something that did. She tasted her first drink of alcohol in that thirteenth year of life. It was a Falls City beer in the basement of Chief Bobby’s house. That first sip made her gag when it hit the back of her tongue, but as it slid down her throat she felt the most enticing warmth float up to her head–better than the Holy Ghost goose bumps. By the time she finished that first beer the crazy scared feeling was completely gone. Not too long after she tried pot for the first time. Her teenage travails didn’t seem nearly so dark and serious when she was stoned. It made her laugh at her grandma’s hand wringing (as well as just about everything else), and even the burnt pork chops and canned carrots tasted good when she was high.

  Within a year she tried just about every drug she could get her hands on–uppers, downers, whatever. She enjoyed them all but none so much as booze. She never forgot that warmth that seemed to settle everything in her brain with that very first swallow in Chief Bobby’s basement. It was quickly replacing the comfort of her grandma’s big arms which were slimmer now, and hung with skin that didn’t know where to go since her weight loss. It was a whole other world with its own language, music, style of dress, and attitude. She and her companions brought their anger to this other world. There it was fueled through the loud strums of electric guitars and the voices of rebel poets screaming out their lyrics–all then sacrificed at the altar of oblivion. This was her secret underground world that no self-righteous adult could take away from her.

  Her grandma, being the wise woman she was, saw the change brewing within Vicky long before Vicky perceived it herself. Vicky began doing something she’d never done before. She started lying to her grandma. Of course, it was no good. Her grandma knew she was lying and Vicky knew she wasn’t fooling her any. She didn’t think it possible for her grandma to pro
duce any more tears from her reservoir, but she did and these new tears were for her. There was remorse in the beginning, but the more entrenched Vicky got in this secret world the more she convinced herself that it was all just harmless fun and that her grandma’s tears were ridiculous. There were only two paths left to her–one of even greater deceit and one that demanded she break off ties with her grandma. She chose the latter.

  Vicky moved back in with her parents shortly after her fifteenth birthday. All the fighting, screaming, and violence was a blur in Vicky’s mind. It hurt too bad to remember. Her Dad calling her a slut, her calling him a hypocrite, and her mother’s painful cough always echoing from the bedroom where she watched soap operas and slept. When they finally got Mama to go to the doctor it was too late. She was eaten up with the cancer. Less than five months later she was dead. Grandma hoped that this loss might bring Vicky and her son to their senses. She made Vicky promise to stay and take care of her Daddy. She’d broken so many promises to her grandma she felt she owed it to her to at least keep this one.

  But her mama’s death just made matters worse between Vicky and her Daddy. With Mama gone there was no longer any buffer between the two of them. The fighting became vicious and often violent. However, Vicky could protect herself from her Daddy now since she was stronger than him. She could blacken his eye easier than he could blacken hers. And she had a ticket to freedom now too–Chief Bobby’s used GTO. He gave her the car for free. He could afford a new car and then some from all the money he made selling drugs.

  Vicky remembered her last fight with her Daddy and the final culmination of all that anger. Every detail played out in her mind. She heard the screen door slam behind her. She heard the engine of her GTO fire up. She tried to stop the memory before it got too far. But try though she might she could still hear the sound of her own scream, the brakes screech, the impact of the collision, the sensation of being hurled forward, the terrible sound of the broken glass, the pain and shock. She touched her left cheek and felt the scar. A terrible burden for a girl of seventeen. That’s what everyone said.